All of which was interesting no end to a scientist and a newspaper editor. I was looking for poetry, and said as much. He removed the binders from my lap, leafed through one without success and was perhaps three-quarters through the second one when he found it. He passed the binder to me.
Louise: you probably remember the time you had occasion to state your opinions concerning my taste and judgment of poetry. I’ve grown no better with the years. Unless it’s something simple like “Hiawatha,” it leaves me cold. In spite of my disinterest in the stuff, I found myself liking what I was reading.
Kennedy later told me it was good poetry. I could quite believe him.
Harry Evans had called it: “For Leonore — A China Doll.” It was sentimental, and that’s an understatement.
I turned to Kennedy. “I thought you said Evans had a daughter named Eleanor?”
“I did. I’ve never met her of course, but he spoke of an Eleanor in one or two letters, and I assumed it was his daughter.” He looked over my shoulder. “That is Leonore.”
“Take the
He smiled. “Do all detectives suspect every thing they see?”
I didn’t answer him. I was remembering a china doll. Not so very many hours ago I had looked into her eyes and dreamed of them across a breakfast table. And later I had looked into the same eyes, now glassy, on an undertaker’s table.
I wound up later by modestly mentioning a subject very close to my heart.
“I’m writing a book on Lost Atlantis.” And for the first time that night I was properly thankful for his slight touch of eccentricity. He displayed keen interest.
“You are!”
“Well — I only have seven chapters done. I expect to finish it someday.”
“Will you do me a favor?”
“Gladly. If I can. You’ve done me a big one.”
“Will you let me read the seven chapters?”
“Now you’re pulling my leg.”
“I’m not. I want to read it. If it is worthwhile I’d like to publish it. I’m running some work on ancient Egypt now, written by a young Egyptotogist in Los Angeles. I’d like very much to publish your book. A chapter at a time.”
“Well, I sort of wanted it in book form.”
“Oh, my publishing it in serial form won’t prevent that. You are protected by common law right, you know. Our organization has limited membership. None of our magazines are sold. Your material is absolutely your own until it is distributed through commercial or non-organizational channels. Then, of course, a regular copyright protects it. Will you do me that favor?”
I have an ego. I gave in with very little coaxing. I promised to send him the chapters in a day or so.
Kennedy walked with me to the 63rd Street car line. Our friend the robot had knocked off for the night and the drugstore was dark.
The amateur publisher asked if I were returning to Boone that night and I said I was. I mentioned that a train left the Twelfth Street station at around 2:20. He first extracted a promise from me that I keep him up to date on any developments in Evans’ death, and then gave me the fastest route to the station. I stood on the rear platform of the streetcar and watched him wave me out of sight.
Kennedy is a pretty good egg.
I had been hanging around the station for about ten minutes when a couple of slick gents closed up on each side of me. They gave me a turn until I recognized the professional touch.
One of them said, “Got a good reason for carrying that rod mister?” In the rush of packing and getting to the station I had forgotten to take off the gun. They were plainclothes men.
We all had a laugh over it — that is, after I showed them my badge but not the outdated license. The guy who had tackled me bought a round of coffee and we shot the breeze until my train time. I spent most of the trip sleeping.
There were early editions of some of the Chicago papers in the car, and one of the papers carried an AP story on the body found in the lake. The caption writer had suggested suicide because the girl “was believed to be pregnant.”
Boone hadn’t changed much in the twelve hours I had been gone.
The wind was sharper, or maybe it was just the magnified memory of the Chicago winds. Snow had piled up deeply in those places where it was necessary to walk. Only a few dim street lights and a couple of outside station lights were lit; the town goes to bed well before midnight, just after the last popular radio show has left the air, and anyone found roaming the streets after that hour is a rounder or a suspicious character.
Up near the front of the train a mail truck had backed up to the open door of the mail and baggage car and the dirty gray sacks were flying. Someone in coveralls wielding a long-snouted oilcan was fussing around the locomotive. The station agent had already darkened the interior of the station and was preparing to lock up.
I saw a blacked-out coupe sitting at the far end of the parking lot but there were no cabs waiting. It was roughly a mile across town to the rooming house; my feet were tired.
