She smiled mirthlessly, brandishing her billet and reaching for Muldoon’s scruff. “I’m a-goin’ to whale that pup, deary,” she told Wint. “He’s been around here all morning.”
Wint hugged Muldoon closer. “Of course,” he said, “he knew I was here.”
She looked puzzled. “He ain’t your’n, is he?”
“Sure,” Wint told her. “He’s some dog, too.”
The woman’s anger vanished. “Well, say now, if I’d a knowed that....” She laughed, her desolately beautiful false teeth glistening between her wrinkled lips. “He’s drove my dog crazy. He come around here before day, and Jim heard him and tried to get out. Woke me up. I drove this one away; but he came back. Jim got out once, and they had it till I broke ’em up. And then a minute ago, Jim got out again, and when I went after ’em with this stove wood, that’n of your’n slipped by me and in and up th’ stairs.”
Wint rubbed Muldoon’s head proudly. “He must have tracked me, found me out somehow,” he explained. “I left him locked up. Hope he didn’t hurt your....”
“Oh, Jim c’n take care of hisself. If he can’t, he’ll have t’ look out.” She looked around the room curiously. “You had callers last night. D’ye remember?”
Wint nodded, bending over the dog. “Yes—I remember.”
The woman studied him. “Thought mebbe you was too far gone to know anythin’....” She waited for Wint to speak; but Wint volunteered nothing, so she remarked: “I see th’ lamp got broke.”
“I’ll pay for it,” Wint told her. She nodded.