Oh, Murderer Mine, Norbert Davis [best romance ebooks TXT] 📗

He’s the president of the whole university. He talks to rich people—face to face—and they often give him some of their money. That’s very vital. He wrote a letter. To me—personally. It said that the moron—I mean, the meteorologist—was to have an office in this building. I’ll find it. The letter. It’s right here. Isn’t it?” He burrowed busily among the papers on his desk.

“I don’t care about the letter,” Melissa told him. “Why did you have to give this seasonal swami my office?”

“He said he wanted it.”

“Oh, he did? And that was reason enough?”

“Yes,” Professor Sley-Mynick admitted. “I mean, he’s a very handsome young man, but I’m afraid he’s not very nice. He snarls. Doesn’t he?”

“Yes,” said Melissa, sighing. “All right, Professor. Have you given any thought to finding another office for me?”

“Indeed, yes!” said Sley-Mynick. “Number 5. All your files and notes are in there. I was very careful of them. You’ll like Number 5. It’s nice. Isn’t it?”

“It most certainly is not! It stinks!”

Melissa was speaking the literal truth. Number 5 occupied an unused corner of one of the chemical labs, and its partitions were porous. It is a moot question whether students like to make stinks because they take chemistry or whether they take chemistry because they like to make stinks. In any event, they invariably do.

“It’s not right,” said Melissa. “The whole thing is nothing but an injustice. You know that, don’t you?”

“Oh, dear,” said Professor Sley-Mynick.

“And do you know what I’m going to do one of these fine days?”

“What?” Professor Sley-Mynick asked.

“I’m going to spit right in one of his beautiful eyes!”

“Oh!” said Professor Sley-Mynick, deeply shocked.

Melissa slammed his door and started down the hall in the general direction of Number 5. She had gone about ten paces when something stirred sluggishly in the shadows. Melissa stopped with a startled gasp. It was too early yet for students to be lurking about, and anyway this couldn’t possibly be mistaken for one.

It was a dog. It was the most enormous dog Melissa had ever seen. It sat right down in the hall in front of her in a leisurely and self-possessed way and proceeded to look her over from head to foot in a manner that was not far from insulting.

Melissa caught her breath. “H-hello,” she said timidly. She snapped her fingers in a feeble attempt at friendliness.

The dog studied her fingers as though he had never seen any before and wouldn’t care if he never did again. He was a fawn-colored Great Dane.

“Hello,” said a voice.

Melissa jerked around. There was a man leaning against the wall, watching her. He hadn’t been there two seconds before. He was small and plump and pleasant-looking. He was wearing a double-breasted pin-striped blue suit with outsize lapels and a dark blue hat. He had a naively appealing smile and a smooth, roundly pink face. He moved his head to indicate the dog and said:

“I use him for a decoy. While people gape at him, I sneak up behind them and pinch them.”

“P-pinch them?” Melissa repeated, shying away.

“A slang expression,” the man explained. “I mean, I arrest them. I’m a detective. What are you?”

“An anthropologist.”

“Oh,” said the man. “You study apes and like that?”

“No! Certainly not! Anthropology is the study of mankind. We study apes only because you can learn a lot about men from them.”

“I’ll bet that’s the truth,” said the man. “My name is Doan. What’s your name?”

“Melissa Gregory.”

“Hello,” said Doan. “That’s Carstairs in front of you. He works with me—that is, when he’s not working against me or just not working.”

“He looks like a very good dog.”

“That’s what he looks like,” Doan agreed. “I’ve got a word of warning for you.”

“A what?” Melissa asked, staring at him.

“A word to the wise. Lay off the bird in your office. He’s not for sale or for rent.”

“What?” said Melissa.

“Eric Trent,” Doan explained. “Mustn’t touch.”

“What?” said Melissa.

Doan sighed. “You must not make passes at Eric Trent. That is verboten.”

Melissa’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t believe I like the idea you’re selling. Suppose you elaborate on it…”

“It’s simple,” Doan told her. “I keep females from making love to Eric Trent.”

“Well, why?”

“Because I’ve been hired to do it. And, believe me, it’s a full-time job. Women fall for him in squads. I mean, they would fall—over backwards—if I didn’t stop them.”

“I understand the words you’re saying,” Melissa said. “But they don’t seem to make sense. Are you seriously telling me that this—this person has a bodyguard to keep women from falling to love with him?”

“That’s right,” Doan agreed. “And I’m it.”

Melissa shook her head groggily. “Well, why? I mean, I’ll agree, just for the sake of argument, that there might be one or two women in the world hard up enough or dumb enough to want that insolent imbecile, but they’re the type who would deserve him if they got him. Why should either he or you worry about them?”

“We’re not,” said Doan. “But his wife is.”

“Oh. He’s married?”

“And how.”

“Hmmm,” said Melissa. “Now wait a minute. I’m just catching up with you. You have the barefaced insolence to warn me. I think I’ll slap your face.”

“Don’t,” Doan warned. “Carstairs will bite you if you do. Not that he cares anything about me, but he would feel it was a reflection on him.”

Melissa looked at Carstairs. He was lying down on the floor with his eyes shut.

“Don’t let him fool you,” said Doan. “He’s ready to go into instant action. He’s just pretending he’s not interested.”

“Hmmm,” said Melissa. “You know, this is all sort of fascinating in a repugnant way, and I know I’ve seen this Trent party before, but I can’t remember where. Have you any idea where I could have seen him?”

“Yes,” said Doan.

“Well, where?”

“His wife is Heloise of Hollywood.”

“Heloise,” Melissa repeated. “Of Hollywood. Oh!”

“Oh,” Doan agreed.

“Now wait,” said Melissa. “Now wait a minute…I know! He’s Handsome Lover Boy!”

“Yup,” said Doan.

“Stay right here!” Melissa ordered. “I’ll be right, back?”

She ran down the hall and through the malodorous gloom of the chem lab. The door of Number 5 was open, and her notes were arranged in well-ordered confusion all over the floor and the swaybacked desk. Melissa dug through them, spewing lecture fragments in all directions, until she found the current issue of a large and slick and all too popular woman’s magazine. She trotted back to the hall, thumbing eagerly through the back pages of the magazine.

“Wait, now,” she said. “I know I saw one… Here!” It was a full-page ad. In the upper left-hand corner there was a portrait photograph of a very handsome young man in a naval officer’s dress whites. The very handsome young man was Eric Trent. Under it there was a message in artistically slanted and swirly facsimile handwriting.

“…_ and I can hardly bear the thought of the endless, weary days that must somehow pass before I can find safe haven once more in the dear circle of your strong arms… but I too know my duty, dear one… and I shall keep alive the beauty that charmed you… keep it alive and glowing until your return, my own handsome lover boy…“_

“Doesn’t that make you feel like you just picked up a dead fish?” Melissa asked.

“Sort of,” Doan agreed.

“I thought it was just an advertising gag,” Melissa said. “I had no idea that anyone in the world would have a strong enough stomach to aim drool like that at an actual person and do it in public. Is this really a picture of Heloise of Hollywood, too?”

“Oh, yes,” said Doan.

A second portrait, three times the size of Eric Trent’s, filled up the lower right of the ad. This was a woman. It was taken in profile, and she had her head tilted back to show the long, smooth line of her throat. She had blond hair, and a cold, smooth, ice-frosted beauty. She looked as artificial, but just as well-designed, as a wax orchid. There was a message beside her picture, too, but this one was in printing, not in handwriting.

“…_Heloise of Hollywood, fifty-four years young, at the supreme pinnacle of gracious, mature beauty_—_poised, assured, alluring_ —_waits with calm confidence for the return of her own young hero-husband. Heloise of Hollywood has the glamour that is the rightful and easily obtained heritage of the Woman-Over-Forty. Heloise of Hollywood Beauty Prescriptions, compounded exclusively for the mature woman, are on sale at all the really discriminating shops from coast to coast…“_

Melissa tilted her head judicially. “Fifty-four? And she looks like this?”

“Well, pretty near,” Doan said.

“And she hired you to watch her husband?”

“Yes,” Doan agreed.

“I still want to know why. It doesn’t sound reasonable. It isn’t the sort of thing a normal person would do.”

Doan shrugged. “I’m just a hired hand, myself.”

Melissa watched him curiously. “Well, what is Trent doing here? That nauseating junk Heloise of Hollywood peddles is piled neck-deep in every department store in the country, and it’s expensive. She must make millions, and I’ve got a good idea what Trent’s salary is. Did she throw him out?”

“No,” said Doan.

“Oh-ho!” said Melissa suddenly. “Now I get it? He walked out on her, didn’t he?”

“No,” said Doan flatly.

“He did, too! That explains everything.” Melissa tapped the magazine. “She has run hundreds of these ads in all the big women’s magazines in the last couple of years. Every one of them had a picture of and some sort of a sticky message to Handsome Lover Boy. She must have spent millions of dollars promoting that angle.”

“I wouldn’t know,” said Doan.

“Oh, yes you would. The whole point of that campaign was and is that if you’re anywhere under ninety years old and use her stuff, you’ll make yourself irresistible to men—just like_ she_ is! Yes, and you can catch yourself a handsome young husband, just like_ she_ did!”

“You’re probably wrong,” said Doan.

“I am not. And now he’s walked out on her in spite of all her mature allure._ Oh-ho!_ And now her pretty pretty advertising campaign is about to backfire right in her face! No wonder she hired you to keep women away from him. If he falls for some twenty-year-old twirp and starts a divorce action in all the headlines, she wouldn’t be able to sell that stuff of hers for axle grease.”

“Have you ever heard of something called slander?” Doan inquired.

“Hmmph,” said Melissa. “That doesn’t prevent me from laughing at him and at her, too. And that’s just what I’m doing. Ha-ha-ha-ha! I’m just practicing now, waiting for the next time I see that gloomy gigolo upstairs.”

“What’s the joke?” a voice asked. Its owner was a woman. She had sleek, carefully groomed gray hair, cut short, and she wore a tailored blue suit. Her face slanted from above and from below, culminating in a beak of a nose that made her look like an intelligent and slightly sinister eagle in search of a free meal.

“Oh, hello,” said Melissa. “This is Mr. Doan. This is Beulah Porter Cowys, Mr. Doan.”

“Hello,” said Beulah Porter Cowys to Doan. “What do you do? You look too stupid to be a student, if you’ll pardon me for mentioning it.”

“Quite all right,” said Doan. “You’re being deceived by my detecting expression. I put it on to fool desperate criminals. I’m actually very clever, indeed. In fact, many people, including me, think I’m the smartest detective in the world.”

“A detective,” said Beulah Porter Cowys. “Now I’ve seen—What on earth is that?”

“A dog,” Doan told her.

“Is he dead?”

“No. Just bored.”

“His name