Edison Effect, The: A Professor Bradshaw Mystery (The Edison Effect) by Bernadette Pajer Read Free Book Online

you change your mind.’ Then Mr. Doyle muttered some unrepeatable words and I told him the Bon Marché didn’t condone such language, and he gave me a nasty look, but held his tongue. I get that a lot because of my age. No respect, even when I’m right.”
    “What time did you leave the store last evening?”
    “About midnight, maybe a little after.”
    “You started at six in morning? Eighteen hours, Billy? And back again at six today?”
    “Like I said, I enjoy my job. During the holidays, there’s a lot to do and it’s easier when the store isn’t packed with customers. I came home at noon yesterday for a few hours then went back.”
    “You say Mr. Doyle was liked well enough. Do you know if he had particular friends among his coworkers? Anyone whom you feel it would be helpful for me to speak with?”
    Billy blushed a bit, and spooled out a foot of tape. “I wouldn’t want Mrs. Doyle to learn this, Professor, but I’m fairly certain there was something between Mr. Doyle and Mrs. Adkins. She’s one of the store’s seamstresses.”
    “Anything you tell me in confidence won’t get back to Mrs. Doyle unless absolutely necessary.”
    “It’s not a matter of knowing but seeing, seeing them together, I mean. At the store, he’d corner her somewhere while she was working, hemming a skirt on a mannequin or something, and I could tell he was flirting with her, and she was mad about it. I don’t think she wanted anyone to know about them.”
    “Perhaps that’s all it was, he flirted and she rebuffed him.”
    “Except I saw them together at the Washington Hotel. They stayed in the same room President Roosevelt stayed in last May.”
    Bradshaw lifted his brow.
    “Silly to take a room like that and then not be able to tell your friends you slept in the president’s bed.”
    “How do you know this?”
    “I followed them. Followed him, actually.”
    “Because?”
    “Because I overheard him tell one of the runners to stop by his house and tell his wife he had to work late, only I knew he didn’t. When he left the store, I followed him to see what he was up to. I know it wasn’t a very nice thing to do, but neither was it nice for him to lie to his wife or tease Mrs. Adkins. I followed him to the Washington. Did you hear they might put a tunnel underneath the hotel? Right through Denny Hill, instead of taking the hill down. Makes more sense to me.”
    The leveling of Seattle’s streets was a sore subject with Bradshaw and one he didn’t care to discuss with Billy, but he did agree a tunnel made more sense than tearing down a hill.
    “You said you followed Doyle to the Washington?”
    “That I did, and I saw Mrs. Adkins there, too.”
    “Why are you so sure they were together?”
    “If they weren’t, it seems awful strange they both went into the President’s Suite.”
    “Did they see you?”
    He shook his head. “When you work at a department store, you learn how to follow people without being noticed.”
    The boy had the makings of a detective, but Bradshaw refrained from saying so. He didn’t want to encourage the boy’s spying on coworkers simply to satisfy his own curiosity.
    “It’s best you don’t share what you learned with anyone, other than the police if they ask.”
    “Oh, I wouldn’t! I haven’t told anyone but you.”
    Bradshaw highly doubted that. Would a boy of eighteen withhold such gossip from his friends? And why go to all the bother of tailing Doyle if not to somehow make use of what he learned?
    “Describe for me, please, exactly how you found Mr. Doyle this morning.”
    “Like I said, I got to the Men’s window late. I knew I didn’t need to make any changes. I just needed to give it a quick look to see that all was as it should be.”
    “Were the window lights on when you entered?”
    “Mr. Andrews turns them on at seven and it was half past.”
    “What did you notice?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “As you approached the window, did anything seem wrong? Anything