Murder Is Served by Frances Lockridge Read Free Book Online Page A

diligence, of ingenuity, which André Maillaux was not ready, and for that matter able, to contribute to make that dream a reality.
    Cecily Breakwell watched M. Maillaux walk, like a Frenchman, down the length of the cloakroom and leave it by a far door. Cecily sat down again, but almost at once got up. The first of the little ones appeared; she helped him off with his overcoat, took his hat, smiling welcome with all of her small, pert face. You could never tell who might come to the Restaurant Maillaux, or what might be the effect of her charm, her youth, her piquancy, on some guest who was looking for just that, who had almost, perhaps, decided not to produce that delightful little play because nowhere, in no casting office, had he found just the girl, with just the charm, the piquancy, for the leading part. And here, where he would least expect it, he would come upon the girl, drudging with hats and coats as Cinderella drudged at whatever menial tasks Cinderella drudged at. (Cecily was not very precise on this.) And then, Cecily thought (sitting down again, since this did not seem to be the man), he finds out I am really a college girl, just filling in here—between parts, really—and—
    â€œPlease, miss,” a new patron, who also did not look like a theatrical producer, “I’d like to leave my coat, huh?”
    André Maillaux was in the office suite, by that time. The new suite, added to the restaurant during extensive alterations the summer before—the alterations which had expanded, and in so much changed, the Restaurant Maillaux.
    Enlargement of the main dining-room, conversion of the second-floor dining-rooms, had left no place for the offices, just when the offices, also, needed enlargement. That had been solved by renting the premises next door, in which a dress shop had just failed. The show windows had been painted over and the forepart of the space was used now for storage. In the rear, the offices of André Maillaux, Inc., had been partitioned off. Various passages connected the offices with the restaurant itself, all of them inconspicuous. The one through the coat-room led into the receptionist’s offices, which also could be reached from the street, through a passage beside the storeroom, without entering the restaurant itself. M. Maillaux emerged into the reception-room and said, “Good morning, my dear” to Gladdis Quinn, who said, “Good morning, mess-sere,” a form of address at which M. Maillaux no longer winced. Now he merely nodded toward one of the doors opening off the reception-room, and raised his eyebrows. Miss Gladdis Quinn nodded also, and smiled.
    André went, with quick, light steps, to the door, opened it without knocking and, as he opened it, spoke cheerfully, “Mon cher Tony,” he said. “I come to—”
    Then, abruptly, he broke off. Then, in a tone Gladdis Quinn had never heard him use, in a voice suddenly higher in pitch, strangely loud, M. Maillaux said, “My God!” Almost at once he said, in a voice nearer his own, “ Mon dieu!” Then he went through the door he had opened and Gladdis Quinn, without thinking about it, got up from her desk by the switchboard and hurried, almost ran, behind him. When she got to the door and looked into the room M. Maillaux had entered, she screamed.
    The man sitting at the desk was dead. He was very bloodily dead, collapsed forward on his desk. The top of the desk seemed to be almost covered with his blood. There was a knife sticking out of his neck on the left side, so that only the black wooden handle showed. She saw all this, looking past M. Maillaux, who was standing near the desk, a little to one side, and seemed to be swaying slowly. He looked around at her and his eyes were wide and seemed to be popping out.
    â€œIt is murder!” he said, and his voice was high and shrill. “Someone have killed my friend!”
    Pamela North hooked her leopard jacket