Talk of The Town by Charles Williams Read Free Book Online Page A

shock—I don’t know exactly what you’d call it. But I think she’s on the ragged edge of a nervous breakdown.”
    “Yes, I see. We’d better have a look at her,” he said politely, but with the quick impatience of all physicians for all lay diagnosis.
    I followed him inside.
    He spoke to her, and then frowned at the woodenness of her response. “We’d better get her into the bedroom,” he said. “If you’ll help—”
    “Just bring your bag,” I said.
    She tried to protest and stand, but I picked her up and followed Josie in through the curtained doorway behind the desk. It was a combined living- and dining-room. There were two doors opposite. The one on the right led into the bedroom. It was cool and quiet, with the curtains closed against the sun, and furnished with quiet good taste. The rug was pearl-gray, and there was a double bed covered with a dark blue corduroy spread. I placed her on it.
    “I’m all right now,” she said, trying to sit up. I pushed her gently back onto the pillow. Framed in the aureole of dark and tousled hair, her face was like white wax.
    Dr. Graham placed his bag on a chair and was taking out the stethoscope. He nodded for me to leave. “You stay,” he said to Josie.
    I went back through the outer room. It had a fireplace at one end, and there were a number of mounted fish on the walls and some enlarged photographs of boats. I thought absently that the fish were dolphin, but I paid little attention to them. I was in a hurry. I grabbed up the phone in the office and called the Sheriff.
    “He’s not here,” a man’s voice said. “This is Redfield. What can I do for you?”
    “I’m calling from the Magnolia Lodge-” I began.
    “Yes?” he interrupted. “What’s wrong out there now. The voice wasn’t harsh so much as abrupt and impatient and somehow annoyed.
    “Vandalism,” I said. “An acid job. Somebody’s wrecked one of the rooms.”
    “Acid? When did it happen?”
    “Sometime between two a.m. and daylight.”
    “He rented the room? Is that it?” In spite of the undertone of annoyance or whatever it was, this one obviously was more on the ball than that comedian I’d talked to yesterday. There was a tough professional competence in the way he snapped the questions.
    “That’s right,” I said. “How about shooting a man here?”
    “You got a license number? Description of the car?”
    “The car's a green Ford sedan,” I replied, and quickly repeated her description of the man. “The number was phony. The plates were stolen.”
    “Hold it a minute!” he cut in brusquely. “What do you mean, they’re stolen? How would you know?”
    “Because they were mine. My car's in the garage, being worked on. The big garage with a showroom—”
    “Not so fast. Just who are you, anyway?”
    I told him. Or started to. He interrupted me again. “Look, I don’t get you in this picture at all. Put Langston on.”
    “She’s collapsed,” I said. “The doctor’s with her. How about getting a man out here to look at that mess?”
    “We’ll send somebody,” he said. “And you stick around. We want to talk to you.”
    “I’m not going anywhere,” I said.
    He hung up.
    I stood for a moment, thinking swiftly. The chances were it was sulphuric. That was cheap, and common, easy to get. And if I could neutralize it soon enough I might save a little something from the wreckage. The woodwork and furniture could be refinished if the stuff didn’t eat in too far. But I had to be sure, first. Turning, I hurried back into the room behind the curtained doorway, and took the door on the left this time. It was the kitchen. I began yanking open the cupboards above the sink. In a moment I found what I was looking for, a small tin of bicarbonate of soda.
    Grabbing it, I went out and up to Room 5 at the double. I stood in the doorway and rubbed my handkerchief into the sodden ruin of the carpet until it was damp with the acid. Then I spread it on the concrete slab of the