Free The Philadelphia Murder Story by Leslie Ford

telephone.”
    There’s nothing military about Colonel Primrose’s slightly rotund figure; he leaves all that to his sergeant. Except for the bullet wound in his neck that makes him cock his head down and around when he looks sideways, and his black eyes that contract like an old parrot’s, the Army doesn’t seem to have left many traces on him. I’m so accustomed to his polite urbanity and to the affable and slightly amused attitude of a man who’s lived a full and exciting life and reserves judgment on it that I’m never quite sure whether he’s more or less deceptive than he appears.
    “I came up because Mrs. Whitney asked me to,” I answered casually. “And of course Washington isn’t the same when you’re away.”
    He cocked his head down then and shot me an amused and quite unbelieving glance.
    “And what are you doing up here?” I asked.
    “I’m trailing some income-tax figures.” He chuckled a little. “A rather well-known New Yorker. He had a fire, rather fortunately, and all his records were burned. Unfortunately, he didn’t know all the banks he uses have had a microfilm recording system for the last fifteen years, so all his checks have had their pictures taken. That’s what I was doing at the Quaker Trust. Odd you should have remembered Toplady’s name. He’s in charge of their records.”
    A bright and lovely fight began to dawn in my mind. “Is it Myron’s income tax, by any chance?” I asked. “Myron Kane’s?”
    He looked around at me again. “Good Lord, no! It’s somebody you’ve met in Washington. He has no connection with Myron. Why?”
    And I suppose I should add that he really hadn’t, and that the job Colonel Primrose was on, furthermore, had nothing whatever to do with any of the Whitneys.
    “I just wondered,” I said. “When I said I was coming up, you seemed awfully interested in Myron.”
    “I am. Because of that profile of Whitney he’s doing. The daughter and son-in-law are up in arms. I happened to see Ben Hibbs after they’d been in. Then I saw Myron. That was about a week ago. He certainly looked like Mark Twain’s calmly confident Christian with four aces. I’ve been wondering.”
    “Do you know Judge Whitney well?” I asked.
    We’d got to the Warwick Room. It was already crowded, as Philadelphians eat lunch earlier than any other people in the world.
    He nodded. “And I’d hate to see Myron do one of his more malicious jobs on him. Most newspapermen have a sort of ethics, but Myron’s haven’t ever been visible to me.”
    It was a meatless day, but when the omelets came, they were very good.
    “Myron’s always seemed to me to have a chip on his shoulder, for some reason,” Colonel Primrose said. “Inferiority complex is a more hackneyed way of saying it. I don’t see why he has it. The Press Who’s Who says he was born in Virginia and educated by tutors and in private schools abroad. Universities, London and the Sorbonne. His father was a judge and his mother a Randolph of Virginia. With that background, he oughtn’t to be such a damned snob. He’s made a lot of money and he knows the best people, and yet he delights in sideswiping everybody with any social standing. I wonder what he’s doing to the Whitneys. Do you know?”
    I shook my head and went on with my lunch. When I glanced up, he was looking at me with a politely amused smile on his face.
    “You know what you remind me of?”
    “No,” I said. “And I’d just as soon not.”
    “Did you ever see a sooty grouse fluttering around, pretending to have a broken wing, when you get too near her covey?” he asked. “Myron hasn’t been appealing to your better nature, has he? Or is it Mrs. Whitney?” He looked at me then in that oddly appraising way of his. “Who broke into Ben Hibbs’ place last night, Mrs. Latham?” he asked deliberately.
    I could feel my cheeks flush warmly. There’s something very irritating about being an open book.
    “I haven’t the faintest idea,”