Jane Carter Investigates: Episode Fifty-Three
My
father sat propped up with pillows,
reading a day-old edition of the
Greenville Examiner.
“Morning, Dad,” I said. “How is our
invalid today?”
“I’m no more an invalid than you
are. If that old quack, Doctor Edwards, doesn’t let me out of bed today—”
“You’ll simply explode, won’t
you, Dad? Here, drink your coffee, and you’ll feel less like a stick of
dynamite.”
Dad tossed the newspaper aside
and made a place on his knees for the breakfast tray.
“Did I hear an argument between
you and Mrs. Timms?” he asked.
“No argument, Dad. I just wanted
to ride up in style on the lift. Mrs. Timms thought it wasn’t a civilized way
to travel.”
“I should think not.” The corners
of my father’s mouth twitched slightly as he poured coffee from the silver pot.
“That lift was built to carry breakfast trays, but not in combination with
athletic young ladies.”
“What a bore, this business of
adulthood,” I said. “One can’t be natural at all.”
“You manage rather well with all
the restrictions. What happened to the paperboy this morning?” Dad asked
between bites of buttered toast.
“It isn’t time for him yet, Dad,”
I said. “You always expect him at least an hour early.”
“First edition’s been off the
press a good half hour. When I get back to the Examiner office, I’ll see that deliveries are speeded up. Just
wait until I talk with Rigsby!”
“Haven’t you been doing a pretty
strenuous job of running the paper right from your bed?” I inquired as I
refilled Dad’s coffee cup. “Sometimes, when you talk to that poor circulation
manager, I think the telephone wires will burn off.”
“So I’m a tyrant, am I?”
“Oh, everyone knows your bark is
worse than your bite, Dad. But you’ve certainly not been at your best the last
few days.”
Dad’s eyes roved about his
luxuriously furnished bedroom. The tinted walls, chintz draperies, and genuine
Turkish rug were all completely lost on him.
“This place is a prison,” he
grumbled.
For nearly a week, our household
had been thrown completely out of its usual routine by my father’s attack of
influenza. Dr. Edwards had sent him to bed, there to remain until he should be
released by the doctor’s order. With a telephone at his elbow, Dad had kept in
close touch with the staff of the Greenville Examiner, but he
fretted at his confinement.
“I can’t half look after things,”
he complained. “And now Miss Holmes, the society editor, is sick. I don’t know
how we’ll get a good story on the Furstenberg wedding.”
“Miss Holmes is ill?”
“Yes, DeWitt, the city editor,
telephoned me a few minutes ago. She wasn’t able to show up for work this
morning.”
“I don’t see why DeWitt should
bother you about that, Dad. Can’t Miss Holmes’ assistant take over the duties?”
“The routine work, yes, but I
don’t care to trust her with the Furstenberg story.”
“Is it something extra special,
Dad?”
“Surely, you’ve heard of Mrs.
Clarence Furstenberg?”
“The name is familiar, but I can’t recall—”
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