The Blonde Died Dancing Read Online Free Page A

taking dancing lessons.”
    “We were in a rut,” Steve said.
    “I wish you still were,” Bolling said. “Barton, don’t you know better than to take lessons from a teacher who’s going to get herself murdered?”
    “How,” I asked, “did you know that? I mean… we read in the paper that the register had been stolen.”
    “Yeah, the killer stole the register all right. But the bookkeeping department had all the students’ names. And we boiled the list down to Anita Farrell’s pupils by having the other teachers eliminate theirs.”
    Steve said, “You’ve been busy, haven’t you?”
    “We got right to work.”
    He took a sheet of paper from his pocket, spread it out on the coffee table. It was Anita Farrell’s teaching schedule. It was blocked off into neat squares. The vertical columns were labelled Monday through Saturday. The horizontal columns were marked with the hours from 2 p.m. through Anita’s final lesson from 9 till 10 p.m. A half dozen of the blocks were already filled in with students’ names. At one side of the schedule were three other names.
    “You see,” Bolling said, “we’re getting in touch with each of Miss Farrell’s students. We find out what time he took his lesson. Now the killer is certainly going to lie about his time. He isn’t going to admit he took the seven o’clock lesson tonight, Wednesday. He’s going to say his lesson was at some other time. Therefore, we will get two guys both claiming the same time. One of them is the murderer. It won’t be hard to figure out which is.”
    “This,” I said, “is going to be an easy case to solve, isn’t it?”
    “You sound a little disappointed, Mrs. Barton.”
    Steve said quickly, “What are these names on the side here?”
    “Tolley, Grant, Culligan. They were out when I tried to reach them. I’ll get them in the morning. Now, Barton, tell me. Where shall I put your name? When did you take your…”
    I interrupted the Lieutenant. Somehow I was going to keep Steve from answering that question. I wasn’t going to let him be one of the two guys who claimed the same time. I said, “Steve, had you actually started taking lessons? I mean, had you been assigned a time?”
    “Sure he had,” Bolling said. He was looking at me as though I were a dumb blonde. “He’s paid for nine lessons already. How come you didn’t know that, Mrs. Barton?”
    “Easily. I didn’t even know Steve was taking dancing lessons.”
    “I was learning to dance to surprise her,” Steve said.
    “If you learned to dance you’d surprise me, too,” Bolling said. “Now, Barton, what time… ”
    “How about a glass of beer?” Steve said. “Cool, sparkling beer.”
    “Sure, I’ll have a beer.”
    Steve hurried into the kitchen.
    Bolling looked at his watch. He said, “Hankins and Lewine should be calling soon. They’re out checking the lesson times of Miss Farrell’s other students. With any luck we might clear this up by morning. Thank God the killer was stupid enough to steal the register.”
    “Maybe he wasn’t stupid,” I said. “Maybe he just lost his head.”
    “Well, it was a break for us. It means the killer has to be her last student… the fellow learning to waltz. Nobody else would steal the register.”
    Bolling’s voice trailed off and he was looking at me closely, curiously. I pressed my hands together to still their shaking. I tried to smile casually. I answered the question in Bolling’s eyes with one of my own.
    “Yes, Mr. Bolling?”
    “I was just wondering…” Steve came into the room with three glasses of beer on a tray. “Barton,” Bolling said, “what’s your opinion? You like her better as a blonde or a brunette?”
    “Blonde or brunette,” Steve said, “she’s my wife. Three o’clock Saturday.”
    “What’s that, Barton?”
    “I take my lesson at three o’clock Saturday.”
    “Oh, thanks.”
    Bolling wrote the name Barton into the right block. Then he leaned back with his glass of beer.