Snod Smooty carried him over his shoulder down the stairs and out of the side entrance. Upon the curb stone he stood him against a parked automobile and then socked him under the jaw. As he fell, Snod opened the automobile door and laid him out upon the back seat to sleep it off.
Snod’s colorless face was tender and old. He wanted a cigarette. Worst scene he had ever witnessed and he’d seen some hellbenders in his day. But Lil was as hysterical as any of them.
He shrugged his shoulders and re-entered the building. That was the trouble with women. They made good detectives, where men were to be caught, but with women...!
It was Mrs. Witherspoon’s second and blood freezing scream that made Dr. Mattus close his mind to his own bad heart and forget to button his fly.
The piercing horror of her high agonized wail hung over the corridor like poison gas. He tore through it and the effort made his knees tremble.
What was it? What terror had entered her soul?
When he reached her, she was sitting bolt upright, her weak eyes ablaze, and gazing with fixed horror at a large bunch of American Beauty roses which lay upon the foot of her bed.
»VIII«
The Control
Matthew Higgins laid down The Morning Call and smiled vaguely. It had been a long time since he was in the Middle West, and you got out of the way of remembering it. He finished his coffee, motioned for his check, paid it, leaned over the bar and said:
“That’s the best coffee roll I ever had outside of Paul’s.”