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

Everybody sat around for about a half hour, looking sober, with now and then somebody saying something in a low tone. Some of the boys from the shop came in and shook Bert’s hand and finally the coroner got there.

He, Dr. Manifew, was a skinny, yellow-haired man with a drooping mouth and eyes cold like ice in the moonlight. Dr. Ferris had gone a little while before, so the coroner took charge all by himself. First he called blind old Mrs. Rafferty in and asked her a lot of questions.

She told him how she had heard me throw the Argus-Enterprise up on the porch and had carried it in and turned it over to Missus Huffy, who was sitting by the lamp, over to one side of the stove. She said she heard her unfold the paper and settle back in her chair, with a long sigh, like she always does.

The evening paper, you see, was about the only thing that happened to break the monotony for her all day. Missus Rafferty went on to tell how she had gone out to the kitchen to set the table and how, after she’d been out there about five minutes, all at once she heard Missus Huffy give a funny little gagging cry and fall out of her chair.

She ran out of the kitchen as fast as she could, which was pretty slow, she being old and blind in the bargain, and tried to help Missus Huffy up. The old woman wasn’t quite dead when she reached her and screamed something about, “My Gretchen!” before she died.

“Wait a minute please,” the coroner interrupted her. “Who is this Gretchen?”

Huffy answered, him. “She’s my wife’s daughter by her first marriage. She lives in Texas.”

“Let’s see that evening paper,” said Dr. Manifew. “There must be something in it that will explain things.”

Nobody moved or said anything for a minute, then old Missus Rafferty called, “Bert, you git it. You was lookin’ at it last.”

Bert dug the paper out from under the stand-table, looked at the date, and passed it over. I noticed when he did it that the creases from my folding were still sharp, and wondered how that happened.

The coroner looked through the front page, column at a time, then did the same for every other page, running his long nose up and down like a rabbit dog. Directly he put the paper down and frowned.

“There isn’t a thing here about anybody by that name,” he growled, “and as far as I can see there’s not a statement in the whole sheet that is exciting enough to give a woman a shock. It may be that your wife misread a line or else dreamed she saw something about her daughter. At any rate, I can’t see that I’m concerned in the matter particularly.” And after a few more questions about Missus Huffy’s age, health before death, and so on, he filled out some form papers and left.

I’d found the whole business pretty interesting — although it was sad, of course — and stuck around till after Dr. Manifew was gone. Then I remembered my work down at the shop and told mother that I was going right on down town from the house. Bert overheard me and got up out of his chair.

“I guess I’ll walk down with you,” he said. “I’ve got to do something to pull myself together. Besides, I’ll have to send some telegrams to her folks.” He was putting on his coat and hat while he talked and, while I didn’t much relish the idea of taking him with me, he beat me out of the door.

He turned around to pull the door shut in a certain way, so that it would latch in spite of the felt packing around it and I went on down the steps. As I stepped off the last one I felt something under my shoe that didn’t feel like snow or cement. I stooped over to have a look, but when I saw what it was I straightened up quick before Bert saw me. The sight of the thing gave me an awful jolt. It was a folded copy of the evening paper, the one I had thrown up there two hours before!

Somehow I felt in my bones that the best thing to do was to say nothing about the matter to Bert. I’d begun to have funny ideas about him. So when he came down off the porch I made some fool remark about having a ton of work to do before midnight and hurried on down to the road.

When we came out of the gate Bert turned to me and put his hand on my shoulder, sort of pally like. I pulled away from him, but he went on talking.

“Kid,” he said, making his voice sound off-hand and casual, “You had a hard day to-day. Go on home and get a good night’s sleep. I’ll run on down and unlock the forms and wash ’em up and run the pigs. I couldn’t sleep even if I went to bed tonight.”

I honestly thought it was pretty considerate of him to offer to do all that and was about to say I’d accept with thanks, when there popped into my mind that queer business about the evening paper, and something just told me to keep a stiff upper lip and saw wood. So I made an excuse about being afraid the boss would fire me if he found I was letting somebody else do my night work, and said I’d just go ahead and fix things up myself. Bert said all right, he’d give me a lift anyhow.