He Done Her Wrong: A Toby Peters Mystery (Book Eight) (Toby Peters Mysteries) Read Online Free Page A

gently on the mattress on the floor. The mattress was there to give added support to my back, which first went out in 1938 when I was given a bear hug by a massive Negro who was annoyed because I tried to keep him from getting to Mickey Rooney at a premiere.
    I thanked Jeremy, convinced him to leave me, and looked around the room to be sure it was there and I was still alive. The sofa with Mrs. Plaut’s white doilies was within reach, and I could see the table with three chairs, the hot plate, sink, small refrigerator, rug, the purple blanket I was lying on with God Bless Us Every One stitched in pink, and the Beech-Nut gum clock I got once as payment for returning a runaway grandma to a guy who owned a pawnshop on Main.
    The other boarders were probably at work. I woke to hear the patter of small feet outside my door. The door had no lock. Mrs. Plaut didn’t like them.
    “Toby?” came a slightly high voice with a distinct accent.
    “Come in Gunther,” I said, not trying to sit up.
    Gunther came in. He is a little more than three feet tall, Swiss, and speaks a dozen or so languages. Always nattily attired, Gunther sits in his room translating foreign books into English for clients ranging from the government to publishing houses.
    “You are injured again,” he observed, standing over me.
    “I am injured, Gunther,” I agreed. “Beaten in a swimming pool by a guy dressed like Mae West.”
    “I see,” he said. Gunther had no sense of humor. Some of our best conversations concerned my attempts to explain the humor of something he was trying to translate.
    “I’ll make some coffee.”
    While he bustled and put away the few groceries I had picked up, I tested my body. He took out the box of Shred-dies, a bowl, and the last of a bottle of milk. I love cereal. Picked it up from my old man who’d get up in the middle of the night for a bowl. Last time we got together before he died back in 1932, the old man and I talked over a bowl of Little Colonels. We talked about the supermarkets that had driven his small Glendale grocery out of business. We talked about my brother and about how I hadn’t become a lawyer.
    “Ready,” announced Gunther. I got up slowly and walked with some strength to the table. I was wearing a pair of boxer shorts and no shirt. Gunther did a reasonably good job of hiding his disapproval, but not good enough. I tested my legs again, made it to the closet, put on a white shirt with only slightly frayed cuffs, and struggled into a pair of cotton pants.
    “Gunther,” I said, walking to the table where I dropped three large spoons of sugar on my cereal. “The madman I met last night was talking nonsense or giving me a clue. He said something.”
    Gunther nodded and carefully sipped his coffee without leaning over.
    “Something,” he repeated.
    “Said he was an engineer’s thumb.”
    “Yes,” said Gunther, putting down his cup.
    “Yes, what?” I asked, pouring the milk and digging in with a spoon. The milk was threatening to turn sour.
    “I have translated a story of this name,” he said. “Into Polish for a publisher. It is a Sherlock Holmes story.”
    “O.K. So how can someone be an engineer’s thumb?”
    He touched his small lower lip and thought seriously while I finished off my cereal and coffee and had another round of both.
    “I shall make some inquiry and attempt to answer that question,” he said, dabbing his unstained mouth with a paper napkin. He excused himself with dignity, indicating that he would be back to clean up for me.
    I did the cleaning up while he was gone, though I knew he preferred to do it himself.
    By the time I had dragged myself to the community bathroom down the hall, allowed fifteen minutes for the water to trickle in, bathed, and made it back to my room, Gunther was waiting for me. He was rewashing the dishes.
    “Ah, Toby,” he said, turning the water off and facing me. “I have discovered your mystery. The Engineer’s Thumb is a Sherlock Holmes