Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol. 36, No. 4, October 20, 1928

At the same time he managed to become acquainted with every boarder in the house within forty-eight hours. In brief, he was a country cousin who knew his proper place and stayed in it. A refreshing novelty.

Nobody disliked him, and several of the elderly ladies were quite charmed by his naive shyness. The very morning he arrived he won the sympathy of Miss Edwina Gilchrist. Mrs. Yeager had scarcely installed him in his room, giving him — during this process — the names of his immediate neighbors, the rates of the various rooms, the history of the chiffonier in his chamber, and a brief biographical sketch of herself, and had toddled away on her round of duties when he knocked timidly on Miss Gilchrist’s door.

Miss Edwina was not the thin-nosed, close-mouthed type of New Englander. Instead, while her eyes and her tongue and her accent were sharp enough, she was a fleshy woman — as many victims of heart trouble are — with a countenance and mind pleasingly broad. She was small in stature, and a dainty lady despite her weight. She was possibly sixty years of age, and her unwrinkled cheeks were as soft as swan’s-down.

She opened the door, her tatting still in one hand, and looked in surprise at the young man who clung, panting and gasping, to the casing.

“For pity’s sake!” she exclaimed in her gentle voice. “What’s the matter?”

“I... I am the new lodger in the next room, ma’am,” murmured Mr. Burke weakly. “I suffer with occasional heart spells. Will you be so good as to — to call a doctor for me?”

“You poor boy! Of course!”

She would have helped him to a chair, but he shook his head in polite refusal, clutched at his breast, and staggered back into his own chamber.

Thus it was that Dr. Fordyce added a second patient with angina pectoris to his list at Mrs. Yeager’s establishment. Right speedily he relieved the suffering Mr. Burke of his attack without suspecting the depressant that gentleman had cautiously administered to himself just prior to the heart attack.

During this first and only visit, with the quiet Mr. Burke’s adroit help, Dr. Fordyce also revealed the fact that Miss Edwina Gilchrist was his regular patient, that he was treating her for this same affliction, and that she had been coming along nicely of late — in fact, had not had an attack of any nature for more than two weeks.

For all of which Mr. Burke thanked him, paid his fee, dutifully promised to have the two prescriptions filled and to report to the doctor within the week, and promptly dismissed the worthy physician from his mind except as a possible witness on the stand.

With the exception of this sudden illness Mr. Burke created no disturbance whatever about the place. He slipped quietly into the life of the house like a pair of old carpet slippers. His heart attack won him instant sympathy and served as an admirable reason why he remained closely at home for the ensuing few days.

In fact, he stayed so close and saw so little of the city that it came as a complete surprise to Mrs. Yeager when he hesitantly informed her that he was expecting company Sunday and could he have dinner for three served in his room if he paid extra for it.

“Why, certainly, Mr. Burke. But, land, I didn’t s’pose you knew anybody in Chicago outside of the house.”

“It’s my cousin Bert who lives in Chicago,” he explained shyly. “He’s bringing over a friend to meet me. It ’ll... it ’ll be all right if we have a game of dominoes in my room, won’t it? We won’t be noisy.”

Mrs. Yeager could not refrain from giving him a gentle pat on the shoulder as she assured him he could do what he pleased as long as he did not annoy the other roomers.

Hence, Sunday morning, while the devout were at church, two gentlemen callers to see Mr. Hiram Burke were admitted to the house. There were no sharp eyes, if we except Lizzie the parlor maid and old man Saxle, the shoe salesman, who dozed over the papers in his favorite chair, to recognize the visitors as police officers pretending to be surface car conductors off duty.

It was all in the day’s work to Mr. Grady, and he took things calmly as he asked for his cousin from Boone Corners. Sergeant Brill, however, felt as comfortable in this elegant old boarding house as a fish on ice. Nevertheless, orders were orders, and he waded into this business as stoically as he would have gone on duty at the Robey Street station. However, it proved to be less boring than they had anticipated.

Chief MacCray had said this was to be a social visit; evidently Burke had received instructions to make it so.

He greeted them cordially at the head of the stairs and ushered them into his private chamber immediately.