The Luck Runs Out by Charlotte MacLeod Read Free Book Online

van.
    Where, by the way, was that vehicle? This, at least, was something Fred Ottermole might reasonably be expected to know. Shandy asked him.
    “Ottermole, where have they taken the van?”
    “What van?”
    “Her van, drat it! The traveling smithy with ‘Flackley the Farrier’ plastered all over the sides. Great balls of fire, man, you’ve seen it often enough. Where is it?”
    “How the hell should I know?”
    “Then ask, can’t you? If the state police haven’t driven it off, that means the murderer must have.”
    “Hey, yeah!” Ottermole perked up. “Say, maybe you’ve got something there. But why would anybody do a dumb thing like that? Cripes, it’s got her name plastered all over it, like you said.”
    “Possibly the person was only interested in a—er—short-term loan. I’m wondering whether the purpose of attacking Miss Flackley might have been simply to get hold of the van.”
    “What for?”
    “It’s a big van. Belinda’s a big pig.”
    Ottermole went over and spoke to the state police lieutenant in charge. A moment later they both came over to Shandy.
    “What’s this Ottermole’s been telling me about a van, Professor?”
    “Miss Flackley, the lady you just—er—fished out of that corncrib, was, as you doubtless know, a farrier,” Shandy began.
    “You mean she ran a boat or something?”
    “No, sir. Farriers are persons who shoe horses and sometimes attend to other physical needs of farm animals, as distinguished from blacksmiths, who actually forge horseshoes and do other iron work. A farrier, of course, may be a blacksmith, but I have the impression that Miss Flackley’s practice consisted exclusively of farriery.”
    “Are you putting me on?” the lieutenant demanded.
    “No, sir, I am not Flackleys have always been farriers.”
    “And why shouldn’t they be?” said a nearby sergeant who happened to be of the same sex as the body she had helped to carry. “What’s wrong with a woman being a farrier?”
    “Nothing, nothing,” Shandy assured her. “Miss Hackley was an extremely competent one, an ornament to her profession. She shared Professor Stott’s concern for Belinda’s welfare, and was, I believe, able to give him valuable advice on more than one occasion.”
    “Belinda?” said the lieutenant. “That’s the pig that got stolen, right? Was it sick?”
    “Not at all, so far as I know. At last report, Belinda was in the pink of condition. She is, however, in an—er—advanced state of pregnancy.”
    “To kidnap a sow in her state,” added Professor Stott, who had finally lumbered up to the group, “was a reckless, cruel, and utterly despicable thing to do. I cannot imagine any student of Balaclava Agricultural College stooping to such infamy. I cannot imagine anybody —”
    “Sure, we get the picture,” interrupted the lieutenant. “You’re Professor Stott, right? So you were the last person to see Miss Flackley alive?”
    The professor cogitated. At last he shook his majestic head.
    “I cannot subscribe to that assumption. The logical inference would then be that I was also the person who killed her. That, I am able to assure you, was not the case.”
    “How are you able to assure me? You walked her to her van, right?”
    “That is correct.”
    “The van was parked where?”
    “Beside the Home Arts Auditorium, facing Prospect Street.”
    “What happened then?”
    “I assisted her into the cab. She started the motor, switched on the lights, and drove off.”
    “In what direction?”
    “I cannot say. I was fatigued. The hour was advanced. Having performed what I conceived to be my duty as an escort, I did not stay to watch her out of sight, but turned and began walking back up the hill toward my own house.”
    “Where do you live?”
    “On Valhalla.”
    “Come again?”
    “Valhalla is a name facetiously given to the hill up behind the campus where President Svenson, myself, and a number of other faculty members have our homes.”
    “You