The Blonde Died Dancing Read Online Free Page B

He could afford to relax, even though he didn’t know it. In a few minutes Hankins and Lewine would be calling. One of them would have found the dancing man who actually had his lesson at three o’clock on Saturday. Bolling would know which one was lying… I found myself wondering if Steve would go quietly.
    “Barton,” Bolling was saying, “how well did you get to know this Anita Farrell?”
    “You know that,” Steve said. “I spent exactly nine hours with her.”
    “You must have talked a lot to her.”
    “I guess so. Mostly I said, ‘Excuse me, pardon me, was that the same foot again?’ Things like that.”
    “She must have been a hell of a good looking girl.”
    “She was.”
    “More than that, wasn’t she? Sexy?”
    “Well,” Steve said.
    I said, “Shall I step outside a minute?”
    “No,” Bolling said amiably. “Stick around.”
    He looked at his watch. I could have told him what he wanted to know. Hankins and Lewine would be calling in about four minutes or less. He took a long, happy pull on his beer.
    He said, “This is what I’m getting at, Barton. A girl like this Farrell girl… she could drive a man a little bit crazy. If one of her students… well, if she kept saying no to him, that might upset him to the point where he might put a bullet in her.”
    “That sort of thing happens,” Steve said.
    “Almost every day, including Sunday,” Bolling said. “It’s alarming. She never talked to you about any of her students, Barton? Never complained about one maybe who bothered her especially?”
    “No, she never impressed me as a girl who would complain about anything like that.”
    “Oh. Would you say she was on the make? A tease, maybe? I want your opinion, Barton.”
    I said, “What does motive matter? In a few minutes you’ll know which of two men killed her…”
    The phone rang.
    Bolling took his chart to the phone. He talked to Hankins through the precinct switchboard, then he talked to Lewine. He kept mumbling days, hours, names. He kept filling in his little squares. At last he hung up. He sat there then, endlessly, studying his chart. Abruptly he stood up. He was annoyed. “Damn,” he said. “We haven’t got it yet. No two have claimed the same time.”
    “Tough,” Steve said.
    I wasn’t able to speak at all.
    Bolling snatched up his hat. “See you soon,” he growled.
    He was gone.
    “Steve,” I breathed, “you lucky, lucky boy!”
    “What do you mean lucky?”
    “You happened to pick the lesson time of someone they haven’t got in touch with yet.”
    “It wasn’t luck. I knew they couldn’t locate guys named Tolley, Grant and Culligan. Out in the kitchen I looked up Tolley in the register. I took his time… Saturday at three o’clock.”
    “You darling, you!”
    “Now don’t get happy. This Tolley may pop up at any minute.”
    “Steve, we’ve got to find him before Bolling does!”
    “If we could, what would we do with him?”
    “Keep him quiet!”
    “How?”
    “I don’t know. There are ways, aren’t there?”
    “Connie…”
    “All right! Then you’ve just got to solve this case before they do locate Tolley!”
    “Just like that, huh? All of a sudden, I can solve murder cases.”
    “Well, you’d better learn. Because that’s the only way to keep a murder rap away from you… you, personally, Steve. Do I make myself clear, darling?”
    I fled into the bedroom. I didn’t want Steve to think I was the hysterical type blonde that was always crying all over men’s shoulders.

4
    The next morning I awoke before Steve. He was still sleeping heavily, and the ashtrays in the living room told me why. It must have taken him until almost daybreak to smoke that many cigarettes. My husband was a very worried man.
    He was trapped; there was nothing that he could do to help himself. The taking-off place for the solution to this murder was the Crescent School of Dancing, and Steve couldn’t show his face there. He would at least be recognized as a