Murder in a Hurry Read Online Free

the pen. “Where is he, Electra?” he said, in a quite matter-of-fact voice. “Where’s the old man? Sleeping it off?”
    The little cat looked up at him, opened her pink mouth widely, made a very small sound. The cockers in the next pen began to clamor loudly. The little man listened, moved in front of their pen, and looked at them.
    â€œYou’ve got no water,” the man said. He spoke almost accusingly, as if it were a fault of the cockers. They spoke together, in a frenzy of assent.
    The little man turned sharply to Liza O’Brien.
    â€œSomething’s the matter,” he said. “They haven’t got water.”
    He turned again and began to walk rapidly down the room toward a door at the end. He walked so rapidly it was almost as if he trotted.
    The room in which Mr. Halder lived was empty. The bed had been made up, rather sketchily, since it was last slept in. The little old man went to shelves by a refrigerator and looked at the dishes on them. The dishes shone.
    Liza had gone to the door, had stood in it watching the little old man. Now, as he turned and started toward her, she moved aside to let him pass. All the wrinkles on the little face seemed even deeper than before; she saw that he was very disturbed, perhaps even frightened.
    â€œJ. K.!” he called into the shop, in a high, ancient voice. “J. K.!”
    There was no answer. It took them only a few minutes to find out why. Mr. Halder, dressed in black and white, folded so that his knees were against his chest, lying on his side, was in one of the pens. A young boxer in the next pen was as far from him as she could get; she was curled up and she was shivering.
    Even as, involuntarily, Liza O’Brien shrank back from the pen in which Mr. J. K. Halder was so grotesquely folded, she heard the little old man beside her suddenly begin to cry. He cried gaspingly, like a child.
    And Liza turned to him, involuntarily, as she would have turned to a child. She was shocked, and frightened, to see how the little wrinkled face had changed; how, between one moment and the next, life seemed to have gone out of it. The blue eyes which had been so sharp were now strangely vacant, seemed almost like blind eyes, as if the tears forming in them had washed away sight. The wrinkled cheeks, where color had been bright under the thin, aged skin, were now a kind of yellowish white. The little old man groped around him, uncertainly, as if he were indeed blind, and she reached out to steady him, but he made uncertain gestures which seemed to ward her off. Then, on the other side of the room, she saw a wooden chair and moved quickly and put it within his reach. He sat on it, still uncertainly and then turned in it, resting his arms on the back of the chair and his head on his arm.
    â€œAre you all right?” she said, her voice hurried, carrying the message of her shock and fear. Why , she thought, he’s going to die right there, sitting there! Something terrible is happening to him! And she felt, hopelessly, that there was something to do, some aid to give, and that she, in her terrible youth, her utter lack of knowledge, was uselessly letting him slip into death. She looked around the room in a kind of desperation, trying to see in it some means of helping the little man but not, in that first shocked uncertainty, knowing what she sought. Then it came to her—a stimulant, brandy, perhaps. She remembered the room in the rear and said, “Wait! I’ll get something!” and thought the old head, still resting on the arm, moved in agreement. She went quickly into the room in which Mr. Halder had lived.
    She found a glass quickly, in one of the cupboards, but it took her much longer, opening doors, pulling out drawers, in a desperate conviction of the need to hurry, to find the bottle she sought. Then it was whisky, not brandy, but she almost ran as she carried the bottle and the glass back toward the room in which it