Free Murder on the Blackboard by Stuart Palmer Page B

apartment hotels, beneath sign after sign with their pitiful notices, “Vacancy—fourteen rooms, eight baths—at revised rates,” until she came at last to the barren reaches above Eighty-first Street where some of the old brownstones still hold grimly on like a breakwater before the dark tide of Harlem to the north.
    She climbed the steps of 444 and rang the bell, which jingled dismally somewhere in the dark interior. She had no long wait this time, in fact the door sprang away from her. There was Waldo Emerson Macfarland, in his shirt-sleeves. He spun his glasses wildly on their wide black cord, and his gray hair was a rumpled halo above his usually placid countenance.
    “I answered the door myself, because I think Rosabelle is asleep,” he confided. This was a standing cliche in the Macfarland greeting. It was true enough, Miss Withers knew. The slatternly sepian lady who “did for” the Macfarlands was quite certainly sound asleep far away on Lenox Avenue, since it was a matter of years since the place had afforded a full-time servant.
    She followed the Principal through a combination foyer-reception room, past the foot of the really magnificent staircase, and into a book-lined study in the rear. Macfarland dropped instantly into the leather chair behind the battered oak desk, and rapped busily on his fore-teeth with his fingernails. Miss Withers hesitated for a moment, and then sat down.
    “I have received a telephone call from Sergeant Taylor of the Police,” the Principal began. “He wishes me to call at Headquarters first thing in the morning. I have also received telephone calls from several odd persons representing the newspapers. I am informed that a regrettable accident, a very regrettable accident, has befallen a young woman we both know. In short—”
    “In short, Anise Halloran was killed this afternoon, and there was no accident about it,” Miss Withers aided him. “For heaven’s sake, come to the point. You didn’t bring me out into the rain to tell me what I knew hours ago.”
    “Of course, of course.” The man was swinging his eyeglasses so vigorously that Miss Withers feared he was about to let them go flying, discus fashion. “Supposing for the sake of argument—supposing that this unfortunate happening does prove to be—to be murder”—he tasted the word carefully—“I was wondering if you would be willing, in the light of your previous experience in such matters …”
    “Willing to what?” Miss Withers’ nerves had stood about all they intended to stand, for one day.
    “I was wondering, as I was saying, if you, in the light of your previous experience in such matters, would be willing to act in my behalf and in the behalf of the Board of Trustees, who are very upset over the matter, as a sort of—as a sort of—”
    “You mean, you want me to play detective?”
    “Exactly!” Mr. Macfarland was not a beaming person, but he was very close to beaming now. “You would, of course, be relieved of your duties for the length of time necessary to clear up the unpleasantness. A substitute would be provided, and any expenses—any really necessary expenses …” He sneezed in his cupped hand.
    Miss Withers was both pleased and puzzled. “I suppose this is an honor,” she said. “But I’m not a detective. I was mixed up in one murder case because I happened to be at the Aquarium when a dead body appeared in the penguin tank upside down, and in another because I was having tea with the Inspector when he heard the alarm. But—”
    “I should consider it the greatest of favors,” said Waldo Emerson Macfarland. “In fact, if this matter could be settled expeditiously and quietly, I should be willing to consider making a change in the staff of the faculty at Jefferson School. It has always been the custom to have a man as Assistant Principal, but I am not sure that a woman might not serve the purpose most admirably. Mr. Stevenson has not been everything that I could wish, I