Free Puzzle of the Happy Hooligan by Stuart Palmer

Stafford were sort of hilarious over the gag they’d played on Mr Josef the night before when they scared him. They were always calling each other up and leaving funny messages.”
    “I can imagine,” said Miss Withers. “And when Dobie left to go back to the set you are willing to swear that Stafford was alive and well?”
    Gertrude nodded, then: “Except for a headache. He said he had one of his roaring headaches and please leave him alone.”
    “I think I feel one coming on, myself,” Miss Withers observed.
    The girl was sympathetic. “Why don’t you take the rest of the day off, Miss Withers? I don’t think anybody would know. Your boss is up at Arrowhead, they say. So he won’t be calling you.”
    “It’s an idea,” mused the schoolteacher. “It really is. I could slip away now and look for a place to live. The hotel isn’t too conveniently located for me.”
    Gertrude, always helpful, said that it was possible to lease a house in Brentwood or Westwood for two hundred dollars a month. “Without a pool, of course.” She hesitated. “I could get in touch with a real-estate agent that I happen to know, and—”
    “Perhaps a house would be a bit more than I need,” Miss Withers said. “Do you know of any furnished apartments that can be rented by the week?”
    Slightly disappointed, Gertrude said that the town was full of them. “But the Laguna Plaza and the Pelham are close to the studio. There are three or four others on that street too.”
    Miss Withers made a careful note of it. “I think I will run along,” she said. Gertrude wrote “3:15—Miss Withers out” on the pad. “By the way,” added the schoolteacher, “if a Mr Derek Laval calls—”
    Gertrude’s head snapped around. “What?”
    Afire with secret triumph, Miss Withers said casually, “Oh, do you know him?”
    “Yes. I mean, not exactly. Is he a friend of yours?”
    The schoolteacher shook her head. “I’ve never met him,” she said. “But I’ve heard of him. What is he like?”
    Gertrude looked at the switchboard. “Oh, just a Hollywood playboy, I guess. I’ve seen his name in gossip columns for getting into a fight at the Trocadero bar, and things like that. And—and one of my sister’s girl friends picked him up at the Palomar one night last summer. That’s where the kids go to jitterbug, you know. She said he was a good dancer but not so good on the way home. Just another wolf, I guess. The kid had to walk from Vermont Avenue to La Brea.”
    “The more I hear of Mr Laval the less I care for him,” Miss Withers decided. Suddenly her voice trailed away. She was staring over Gertrude’s shoulder through the window out into the hall. Across that window was moving something furry—something zoologically horrible, for there was a yellow feather growing out of the fur.
    “Good gracious!” said the schoolteacher, pointing.
    Gertrude looked. Then she leaped from her chair and rushed out into the hall where she came upon a small, brisk woman who moved awkwardly yet swiftly along on hands and knees.
    “Mame!” Gertrude ordered. “None of that!”
    The lady in the furry headpiece stood up, still clutching a heavy suitcase. She smiled a breezy smile. “Darn this hat,” said Mame. “I’d have got past you if it weren’t for this confounded feather.”
    “Outside!” Gertrude ordered. “I’ve had enough complaints from my writers about you bursting in without being announced.”
    “Business is business,” said Mame. Then she caught sight of Miss Withers and instantly set upon her as a potential victim. The case snapped open, disclosing vast skeins of varicolored neckties.
    “They’ve got Charvet and Sulka lashed to the mast, and only six dollars!” She whipped out a particularly striking number in brown and blue. “Want to get your boy friend something exquisite in French ties? Or, if you haven’t got a boy friend, lure one with—”
    “Outside!” Gertrude repeated. “And I mean it!”
    Unabashed,