Green Ace Read Online Free Page A

turned an irate face. “What was that crack, lady?”
    “Not you—me!” Miss Withers said hastily. “I forgot about the money !”
    Which naturally made the man leap to the conclusion that she was trying to get the charges put on the cuff. But the schoolteacher paid him off, adding a very modest tip, outside her little apartment on West 74th, and then rushed inside to divest herself of her borrowed plumage and to make peace with Talleyrand, her French poodle. Talley was a gregarious canine, He liked regular meals and more than food he liked companionship, both of which had been denied him all day long. He welcomed her as one returned from the dead, then rushed to open the closet door. It was one of his self-taught tricks, and he had to turn the knob very carefully with his teeth, but he came triumphantly galumphing back with his leash.
    “Very well,” said the schoolteacher. “But it will be a very short walk indeed, for I have work to do. The game is afoot.”
    They went once around the block, with Talleyrand pausing now and then to investigate a new smell or to grab up a scrap of secondhand chewing gum, but as they came back to the familiar steps of the brownstone his mistress paused, tapping her prominent front teeth with a fingernail. “On second thought, perhaps you may as well come with me after all,” she decided. “Any woman anchored to a big silly apricot-colored beast like you will be taken at sight for an eccentric of the first water. Which is the exact impression I wish to convey.”
    Talley vibrated what there was left of his tail, and showed an incredibly red tongue in a doggish laugh. He was a home-loving dog, but not very.
    So the retired schoolteacher and her gamboling Standard poodle set out on the quest. It was a search filled with ups and downs, and required the pulling of many strings and the taking of certain liberties with the truth, but she eventually discovered that the present owner of the house on Prospect Way was a Mrs. Emil Fogel. There was a very slim chance indeed that she would have any information about the previous owner, but it was worth a try. At ten o’clock next morning Miss Hildegarde Withers, still complete with dog, went out by appointment to see about buying a house.
    The shades were still drawn, the windows still unwashed, but this time the door opened at her first knock. There stood a shapely girl in slacks, whose sultry mouth and bright strawberry hair suggested that somewhere farther downtown, perhaps Times Square, would have been her more natural habitat,
    “You’re Mrs. Fogel?” demanded the schoolteacher.
    “She couldn’t make it,” the girl said. “I’m her secretary-companion.” She looked dubiously down at Talley, who was straining at the leash and curling a black lip to bare one gleaming fang. “Does it bite?” Miss Withers told her of course not. “But it looks as if he’s snarling.”
    “Nonsense, child, he’s only chewing leftover gum again. A terrible habit, but I’m thankful he hasn’t found out about tobacco. So Mrs. Fogel couldn’t keep the appointment, after all? I guess she isn’t very anxious to sell the property.”
    “Oh, but she is! I can give you all the details—”
    Miss Withers had already infiltrated the front hallway, furnished sparingly with a telephone table, a hard bench, and an ancient upright victrola, circa 1910. It was but a step past heavy draperies into the big living room, whose French doors would have looked out into the garden if the blinds had been opened. The girl touched a switch and a bowl-shaped chandelier glowed feebly overhead. It was a somber room, filled with ponderous overstuffed chairs and fumed-oak tables, and the gilt-framed portrait on one wall of a scowling man with a toothbrush moustache did not brighten it.
    “The asking price is $28,000-$30,000 if you take furniture and all.”
    “I see,” said Miss Withers, casually ruffling the poodle’s silky top-knot. “But isn’t that a little high?