Dead as a Dinosaur by Frances Lockridge Read Free Book Online Page A

already, the captain in charge of the precinct detective detail would have informed him. The captain had anyway, if needlessly. As soon as Anstey finished his coffee—which he then did—he was going up to the Times to see what he could find out. He’d start with the main desk in Times Square, but he was not sanguine. The chances were a hundred to one that the advertisement had been telephoned in or, if not that, mailed in.
    â€œEven crackpots have that much sense,” Anstey said, and slid off the stool.
    Acting Captain William Weigand of Homicide West walked with Detective Vern Anstey to the door. Anstey said, “Well, thanks for listening, lieu—captain.”
    Bill Weigand said, “O.K., Vern” and started to leave the other policeman, and then hesitated. He turned back.
    â€œI’m going uptown anyway,” he said. “I’ll drop you off.”
    It was swell of him, and he was told so. He had been going north anyway, Bill repeated, and then realized why he had used that word to indicate direction—and, at the same time, why he had offered to drop Anstey. It was a funny thing about the Norths, Bill thought, walking with Anstey toward his parked Buick. They did get into the damnedest things. (As Sergeant Mullins said, the screwiest things.) It would be like them to be involved with a mammalogist and old bones—and midgets and bushelmen, if you came to that.
    So, in the end, Bill Weigand did not actually drop Anstey. He went with him to the main want-ad desk of the New York Times , and listened while Anstey identified himself and produced the clipping; waited while the source was checked from filled-out blanks of the night before; was as astonished as Anstey when the blank was turned up, the appeal for midgets typed on it. It had been handed across the counter; the receiving clerk had initialed it. The receiving clerk could be identified, and was. Her name was Alice—Alice Farbmann. She was not on duty; her address, on the upper West Side, was available. Anstey took the blank and the address. Bill Weigand took Anstey, north again, in the Buick.
    Their luck held. Alice Farbmann was at home; she was also an alert young woman; she also remembered the advertisement.
    â€œOf course,” she said. “I asked him, were they for kites?”
    Bill Weigand blinked. Anstey, however, remembered. The summer before, some press agent had made an attempt to fly midgets from kites in Central Park, an attempt the police had rendered abortive. The press agent (whose purposes remained obscure throughout) had had no permit to fly midgets from kites in Central Park. He had tried Prospect Park in Brooklyn, where it was found that the flying of midgets would create a disturbance.
    â€œHe said, ‘Of course not,’” Miss Farbmann told Anstey, while Bill Weigand listened. “He said, ‘This is entirely legitimate, young woman.’”
    â€œHe?” Anstey repeated. “Do you happen to remember what he looked like?”
    â€œSure,” Miss Farbmann said. “A little man. Red faced. Sort of jumpy. He wore glasses. Funny-looking glasses. He had a muffler up around his chin but I could see most of his face.”
    â€œOh,” Anstey said. He produced a photograph of Dr. Preson. “This man?” he asked.
    She looked; then she nodded. “That’s him,” she said. “He had this muffler over his chin, but that’s him, all right.” She nodded. “Preson,” she said. “That was his name. It’s on the blank. It had to be. That’s Mr. Preson.”
    â€œYes,” Anstey said, “I guess it is, all right. Well—thanks, Miss Farbmann. Probably nothing’ll come of it.”
    â€œLook,” Miss Farbmann said, “did something happen to the midgets?”
    Anstey reassured her. Nothing had happened to the midgets.
    â€œJust checking up on something,” he told Miss Farbmann, and she was