Murder on Wheels Read Online Free Page A

will be the morning rags, which will be on the street in about two hours. No, we’re first with the tidings, all right.”
    He pressed his gloved thumb against the button. From somewhere in the recesses of the house came the muffled peal of a bell.
    There was a long delay, and then at last a shadow appeared on the door. It swung open, disclosing the well-rounded figure of a little maid who quite evidently had remained ignorant of the recent exodus of short skirts from the fashion pages. Her knees, the Inspector couldn’t help noticing, were all that they should have been, beneath the insignificant little lace apron. There was a quantity of mussed blondish hair.
    Miss Withers thought that the girl didn’t look overly bright.
    “Is Mr. Stait at home?”
    The girl made a valiant effort to slam the door in their faces, but the Inspector’s heavy brogan interposed just in time.
    “You mean Mr. Lew Stait?” asked the maid, when she saw that these visitors were determined.
    The Inspector hesitated. “I’m not sure who I want to see,” he said. “It’s about Mr. Lew.” He showed his badge, cupped in the palm of his hand.
    The vacant blue eyes widened, and then grew suddenly hard and brittle as turquoise, and much the same shade.
    “I don’t care who you are,” she said defiantly. “I’ve instructions that Mr. Lew isn’t at home to anybody!”
    “All right, my girl. Now don’t get hysterical, but I have some bad news and I have to break it to some member of the family.”
    “Tell me!” The girl’s voice was rasping and hoarse. “What about Mr. Lew? You’ve got to tell me!” She had forgotten for a moment that she was a maid.
    “Be a good calm girl and don’t scream,” said Inspector Piper smoothly. “Mr. Lew Stait won’t be home at all. You see, he was murdered about an hour ago.”
    There was a moment’s silence. Miss Withers thought to herself that it was just like a man to break it that way.
    The girl screamed. But they were screams of laughter. She flung the door wide open, and pointed her finger at the figure of a young man who sat on the davenport in the first floor living room, clearly visible through the dingy portieres. He was a tall young man in a dark blue suit, a very handsome young man. Miss Withers noticed that he was reading a magazine upside-down, and had just finished combing his hair.
    His soft collar was open, which struck Miss Withers with a ghastly significance. For on the last occasion when she had seen that fair-haired young man, he had worn the red stigma of a noose around his throat!
    “That’s him right there! That’s Mister Lew!” proclaimed the girl in ringing soprano tones. “I ask you, does he look like a dead one?”
    Her position forgotten, the girl stood with her back against the wall, her head turned toward the young man. He had risen from his chair and was coming, with an expression of polite distaste, toward the hall. He stopped in the doorway.
    “I am Lewis Stait,” he said calmly. “Is there something I can do for you?”
    Piper’s teeth met in his cigar with a dull click.
    Miss Withers advanced a step. “Inspector, hadn’t you better tell the young man that the newspapers are already printing his obituary?”

III
The Gray Goose
    Y OU’D BETTER COME IN ,” said Lew Stait. “Gretchen, that will do. If I need you, I’ll ring.” His voice held no touch of softness or romance.
    This young man was pale, but otherwise seemed to be in pretty good control. With a flounce of her diminutive skirt, the little maid turned her back on him and started down the hall toward the servants’ quarters.
    “Don’t leave the house,” warned Inspector Piper. “I’ll want to ask you some questions in a little while.”
    Then he went into the living room after their host, and Miss Withers followed. It was a high, long room, with an obsolete gas chandelier in the center of the ceiling and old-fashioned hot air registers in the floor. Bookcases ran around the walls,