Free Rex Stout by Red Threads

you. I don’t want to see any of them; tell them I’ve gone home. Then bring—”
    “But good lord! If I tell them, it will be everywhere by morning! I
can’t
tell them!”
    “You certainly can. Whoever did it, that’s what he was counting on, that you would do everything in your power to keep it quiet. I’m offering a compromise with you, and you’d better accept it. My head hurts and I want to go home—and by the way, I’ll have to beg something to wear. The truth is, Mrs. Barth, I feel utterly nasty. My head hurts, and I’m madder than I’ve ever been in my life, and I have special reasons for special feelings that wouldn’t interest you. So unless you do what I ask immediately, before any one gets away, I’ll trot downstairs in this costume and phone the police myself. The phone there on the bedstand isn’t connected.”
    Mrs. Barth gasped. “You tried it?”
    “I did. I tell you, I’m a mean customer. And did I say you are to bring the signed papers to me at once? Then I’ll go. You understand, no one is to be left out—not even your husband, for instance. Also, if it isn’t done just as I’ve said, I’m sure to hear of it—two or three good friends of mine are down there—”
    “Really, Miss Farris, you have no right—”
    “I know I haven’t, and neither have your guests got a right to bounce a club on my head and steal my clothes. So I say it anyway, and I mean it.”
    Mrs. Barth got up. “Everything considered,” she said stiffly, “I regard it as unfortunate that I invited you to dinner.”
    “We agree on that perfectly. Will you go?”
    As the door closed behind her hostess, Jean slowly and carefully lowered her brow to her palms again.
    Some time between eleven and midnight, towards the end of a long level stretch on the Post Road, a stern and handsome motor-cycle cop leaned his vehicle against the highway railing and strode to the running board of the roadster which had pulled up at the curb in the rear, and directed his gaze at the tired-looking young woman behind the steering wheel.
    “Let me see your licence.”
    She produced it from her handbag, from which she had first to remove a thick fold of sheets of paper which had been crammed into it. He took it and examined it.
    “Would you mind telling me why you’re in such a hurry to get somewhere?”
    She started to shake her head, then stopped with a grimace that appeared to register pain. She tried to smile at him: “I’m sorry, I can’t. I promised not to notify the police.”
    “Oh, good at gags? You’re clever?”
    “I am not.” She sounded weary, but emphatic. “It would be impossible to conceive of any one as dumb as I am. You could search the world over, and in the end you would come back to me. I was probably going too fast, and I apologise. If you write out a summons, I’ll take it. If you don’t write out a summons, I’ll dream about you.”
    The cop grunted. He opened his mouth, but apparently the comeback he had in mind wasn’t good enough, for he abandoned it, and after another grunt turned without a word. He was just straddling his saddle when the roadster whirred by in second.

Chapter 5
    I n the room which represented chaos, but not, as she had decided, disorder, Eileen Delaney stood at noon on Friday and, with exasperation tempered by concern, regarded her partner Jean Farris, who was removing her hat with leisurely and unprecedented gentleness. When the hat had been disposed of, on top of a pile of material which was itself piled on a box of yarn, Jean turned to say:
    “I know, Eileen. I’m sorry. You’re nice to be nice about it. I couldn’t drag myself out of bed. I have a headache.”
    “What! You never have a headache.”
    “I know. I’m out for a record. You’d better phone Muir & Beebe and tell them a week from Monday.”
    “I suppose I’ll have to.” Miss Delaney started off, then turned back. “Did Cora tell you about your caller?”
    “No, I hurried through. Who was