Murder on the Blackboard by Stuart Palmer Read Free Book Online

that—and then this….”
    With a click the magazine slid out of the gun. It was fully loaded—but Miss Withers frowned in perplexity. The shell in the chamber, and all but one in the magazine, were blanks!
    One solitary cartridge was complete, with a wicked looking copper sheath over its leaden slug.
    It was the third in succession, allowing for the shell already in the chamber. In other words, this little gun would have to be fired twice before it would do anything but make noise.
    Miss Withers squinted down the barrel. The gun looked as bright and clean as a new penny. There was no soot in the barrel, and no odor of powder.
    “Never been fired, I’ll be bound,” Miss Withers decided. All the same, it might play some part in this mystery of mysteries.
    “If I leave it here, it will only get Janey Davis into trouble,” she decided. “Besides, I may need it myself before this night is over.” Acting on the thought, she replaced the magazine, and tucked it away in her dress.
    Then she picked up the address file, skimming rapidly through the colored cards it contained.
    There was supposed to be, Miss Withers realized, a card here bearing the home address and telephone number of every teacher and every employee of Jefferson School. Anderson, the janitor, led off the list with an address far down on East Fourteenth Street. Natalie Pearson was listed as a resident of the Martha Washington. Mr. Macfarland himself was here, with a number on Central Park West, and the assistant principal, Mr. A. Robert Stevenson, gave an address which Miss Withers recognized as one of the quieter sections of the Village, and Betty Curran, the half-time domestic science teacher, was listed as residing at a well-known Brooklyn boarding house.
    Then she came at last to the card for which she had been searching. “Anise Halloran, phone Morningside 2-2333, apartment 3C, 441 West 74th St.”
    Miss Withers added this to her notes, and then skimmed on rapidly through the list until she reached her own name, the end. Then she frowned.
    Janey Davis’ own address was not listed here. She went back to make sure.
    That was strange. There must be a record somewhere … suddenly Miss Withers thought of the letter that she had seen in the top drawer. That might have it. It did.
    The envelope was of the glassine window type, and she drew forth its contents.
    The letter was the usual formal greeting from the Metropolitan Gas and Coke Company, congratulating Miss Davis on becoming a new customer of the company and assuring her that the Metropolitan Gas and Coke Company wished to be known, not as a business institution, but as a personal friend of hers—“please ask our meter readers to show their credentials, thank you….”
    It was addressed to Miss Jane Davis, apartment 3C, 441 West 74th Street, and dated two weeks before. Miss Withers had it copied on her list before she realized that the address and apartment number were identical with what she had written just above!
    Then Janey Davis and Anise Halloran were roommates—or had been, until today! Not that there was anything so strange about it. Most of the teachers at Jefferson School shared apartments with someone.
    Miss Withers carefully put the address file where she had found it, and straightened the desk. Then she bustled out into the hall, confidently hoping that the bulky gun next her body was not too evident.
    She drew back into the office doorway again to let pass a canvas-covered stretcher, with two burly morgue attendants grasping the poles. Sergeant Taylor was close behind, in the company of a thin, yellow-faced little man in a blue serge suit.
    “Hello, there,” greeted the Sergeant. “You know Dr. Levin, don’t you?”
    Miss Withers admitted that she had had the pleasure. “And what do you find, Doctor?”
    The Assistant Medical Examiner shrugged his narrow shoulders. “So what should I find? How can I tell? Even a full autopsy can’t give us much information when the body has