“I’m not going to the hotel, Mrs. Hodder—and you’re not going without your breakfast. I will——”
“You can’t cook!”
“I can cook enough to keep us from starving. Now, lie still and I’ll——”
“You don’t know where a thing is——”
“I can find out.”
A groan issued from the hidden bed. “I never knew a man that could. Listen here, Mr. Black. Now the coffee’s in the closet up above the kitchen table, the third door from the right. It’s in the same can it comes in, but it ain’t ground, and the grinder’s in the pantry, fastened to the wall. There may be some basins piled in front of it—I don’t remember—likely they is. The cream’s in the ice-chest—and don’t skim the first pan you come to, because that’s night’s milk. You want to skim yesterday morning’s pan, and that’s pushed back farther. Now the bread-box——”
“I know where that is——”
“The oatmeal’s in the double-boiler—all you have to do is to set it front of the stove, and make sure the water ain’t all boiled away. Lucky I always cook that the night before. I suppose you don’t know how to light the gas in the broiler, so you can toast your bread. It’s the third knob to the left——”
Black got away at last, further instructions following him by the air line, in spite of his shouted assurance that he could find everything and do everything, and that his housekeeper should rest comfortably and stop worrying. It must be confessed, however, that he was worrying a bit himself, for his first thought that he would make a breakfast of oatmeal—since that was already cooked—and let it go at that, was instantly followed by the recollection that Mrs. Hodder didn’t eat oatmeal herself, but relied principally upon the toast and coffee and boiled egg he himself was accustomed to take with her. Unquestionably she must have these, and it was up to him to prepare them.
He removed his coat, rolled up his shirt-sleeves, and went at it. He lighted the gas and moved the double-boiler forward, thus assuring himself of one staple article upon the breakfast schedule. He then began a search for the coffee, congratulating himself upon remembering that the filtered beverage with which he was accustomed to be served took time to make. Thus began the tragic hour which followed....