“I’ll never go to one of those places again!” she asserted, as she said good-by to her friend. “It’s too creepy!”
A great fog bank was rolling in majestically from the west, blotting out the sun and dripping a fine drizzle on the pavements. Drawing her coat collar closer about her neck, Mrs. Buhler plunged into the enveloping dampness and started to climb the long hill that led to her rooming-house.
Her husband’s distended eyes and pale face warned her of bad news.
“Dave Scannon’s dead!” he whispered hoarsely.
Dave Scannon! So that was “Dave!”
“He’s been dead two or three days,” continued Mr. Buhler. “I was beating a rug in the back yard a while ago when I noticed a swarm of big blue flies buzzing about his window. It flashed over me right away that I hadn’t seen him for several days. I couldn’t unlock his door, because his key was on the inside, so I called the coroner and a policeman, and we broke it in. He was lying between the bed and the dresser, and the bowl and pitcher lay broken on the floor, where he had knocked it over when he fell. They’re taking him out now.”
Mrs. Buhler hurried to the back stairway and descended to the lower hall. Two men were carrying a long wicker basket up the little flight of steps between the back entrance and the yard. She remained straining over the banister until the basket had disappeared.
The coroner had found nothing in his room but clothing, about five dollars in change, and a faded picture in a tarnished silver frame of an anemic looking woman who might have been a mother, wife or sister.
Mrs. Buhler answered his questions nervously. Yes, the dead man had been with them about two years. They knew little of him, for he was very peculiar and never talked, and wouldn’t even allow the maid to come in and clean up his room. He had said though that he had no family and that his home was in Catawissa, Pennsylvania. She remembered the town because it had such an odd name.
The coroner wrote to authorities in Catawissa, who replied that they could find no traces of anyone by the name of Scannon. No more mail ever came for the man except the occasional hay-fever cure circulars.