Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 25, No. 2, August 13, 1927

On the afternoon of the day she died I had finished my work and was sacking up a bunch of papers to deliver on my way home. You see, I had a paper route for four years before I got a regular job around the shop and it was still part of my day’s work to deliver to a batch of houses out in the west end around the Hollow. It was a hard part of town to get to and it was right on my way home, so I was glad to do it. But after Mrs. Huffy died I wished a hundred times that I’d had a different evening job.

Well, anyhow, on that particular afternoon while I was folding the papers Huffy came into the carriers’ room. The other boys had all left and the circulation manager was down in the front office, so I was all alone.

Huffy looked around sort of queer like and asked me if I wouldn’t like for him to deliver the papers in his neighborhood that evening. He said it was so snowy that the road around the Hollow would be hard to get through and that he could put the five or six papers out before supper as easy as not.

I was pretty much tempted to let him do it, but I got to thinking about all the mean tricks he’d pulled and it struck me that this was more than likely something new to cause me grief. So I told him that I’d manage somehow, thank you.

Then he did another thing that was mighty funny — for him. He gave me a quarter and told me to run down to Switzer’s cigar store and buy him a plug of chewing tobacco. He said for me to be sure to go clear over on Market Street to Switzer’s to get it on account of their stock being fresher, and for me to take the change and buy myself some candy or an ice cream sundae.

I didn’t see any point in my going, but rather than have a row I tore out, leaving my papers behind. When I got back, about twenty or twenty-five minutes later Huffy was nowhere in sight.

I asked the colored janitor downstairs about him and he said that he had heard some one leave through the back door about five minutes before I got back from my errand. I didn’t know what to do with the tobacco, so I stuck it in the drawer of a type-case, so mother wouldn’t find it on me, and took my bag of papers and started home.

When I passed the Huffy place it was dark as pitch. I whistled and threw the folded paper at the house, being careful to get it on the porch without banging it against the door. You see, I remembered Missus Huffy’s crankiness.

I listened to see if I’d got it clear up on the porch and was pretty much surprised when I heard it thump against the house. I hadn’t realized that I put so much whip behind it. I sort of hung around for a minute to see if blind old Missus Rafferty came out to feel around for it like she always does when I hit the house or whistle.

Sure enough, in a minute she opened the door and I saw her on her knees reaching around on the cement floor for the folded paper. She found it close to the threshold and straightened up, unfolding it. I figured that there wouldn’t be any kick to-night and went on to the other houses, getting home about supper time.

I remember that we ate as soon as I got the chores done because I had to hurry back down to the shop extra early to melt up a batch of type metal. You probably know that the metal used in making slugs — lines of type — is all remelted after it’s used and run out into molds to make little blocks called “pigs,” just the size to go into the pot of a linotype machine.

It was my part of the job to melt the old metal down every Saturday night, but there was a lot of stuff standing on the stone, a bunch of catalogues, the by-laws of the Odd Fellows lodge, and stuff like that, and that used up so much metal that I had to melt twice a week. Herb had ordered me to run a big batch through that night and I was anxious to get it done as early as I could.

We were about half through eating when Mr. Scoggins, who lives next door to the Huffy’s, came running up to the kitchen door and called mother out. “Missus Huffy just dropped dead,” he told her. “Come right over will you?”

II

I grabbed my hat and mother threw a shawl around her shoulders and we followed him back to Bert’s house.

Dr. Ferris was there when we arrived and as we came in he was just saying that somebody ’d better send for the coroner, because he didn’t feel that it was exactly his place to sign the statement. There were several neighbors in the little sitting room, all talking in whispers.

They had carried her into the front bedroom downstairs and you could hear Missus Rafferty in there carrying on. I don’t know whether she was honestly sorry Missus Huffy was dead or just upset by the suddenness of it all.

Bert Huffy was sitting over behind the stove, all hunched over, with his face in his hands. He didn’t say a word unless somebody spoke to him and then he only answered by nodding or shaking his head. He acted like a man who had had a terrible shock.