Curiosity Didn't Kill the Cat by M. K. Wren Page A

mnemonic device. But as he approached the house, he slowed his pace and pulled the hood of his jacket up—not against the rain, but to shadow his face against possible recognition. And he found himself smiling; a tight, ironic smile that had no humor in it.
    A telephone company truck was parked outside his house. His home phones were also being “checked.” Mr. Evans was no doubt accepted as unquestioningly by his housekeeper as he had been by Miss Dobie.
    But at least that invasion of his privacy, even though it brought a flush of anger to his cheeks, wasn’t so inexplicable now, and for the moment he put it out of his mind.
    He stopped across the street from the access, bracing himself against the intermittent assaults of wind. The rain was letting up, but it still found its way under the hood and ran in chilling rivulets down his chin and neck.
    He was standing at the juncture where Harold Jeffries would have walked out onto the beach last night, according to the official version of his death.
    He turned and looked north along Front Street, which paralleled the shore behind a row of beachfront houses. Front began here, making an L with Day Street, and continued several blocks straight north, then wound its way up onto Hollis Heights, finally dead-ending a few doors north of the Jeffries’ house high on the wooded headland.
    He turned his gaze westward, out to the roaring breakers, but he wasn’t seeing them. He was thinking of Harold Jeffries’ uncharacteristic nocturnal walk, and wondering what his intended destination might have been.
    Jeffries had walked straight down Front Street from his house, but if Nel judged her husband well, the beach access wasn’t his destination. Yet, according to Alma Crane, he’d stayed on Front past the corner of Beach Street, and that was only a block to the north.
    But there were still a number of possibilities. He could have stopped at one of the houses on the way, or even if he stayed on Front until he reached this point…
    Conan turned abruptly, staring up at the tiered slabs of silver-shingled walls and the banks of rain-washed windows of his own house, and his pulse quickened.
    If Jeffries had come this far, he could have turned right to the beach—an impossibility, according to Nel—or left up Day Street to the highway. Or he could have continued straight ahead to Conan’s front door.
    He stood perfectly still for the space of a minute, unaware of the chill rain wetting his face. The idea had definite possibilities.
    But guessing at the Captain’s intended destination was an exercise in futility now. All his guesswork and conjecturing were an exercise in futility. Muddling. Still, he knew it would be equally futile to attempt to turn his mind from that muddling.
    He took a last look at the telephone company truck, his eyes assuming the cold sheen of obsidian, then he thrust his hands into his pockets and set off northward along Front Street, the wind gusting fitfully at his back.
    His feet led him on, a kind of automatic homing instinct guiding his steps. He was too preoccupied to be aware of his surroundings or destination. He turned east at the next corner, toward the highway, still lost in concentration, wrapped in the rain-born solitude of the empty street.
    When he reached the highway, he quickened his pace. The air had a cutting chill now as he turned south by the grocery store, walking straight into the wind. He was only a few steps from the bookshop entrance, when he finally looked up, toward the highway.
    Perhaps his eye was drawn by the flash of blue. He didn’t break step, or turn his head, but he watched the blue Chevrolet closely as it passed.
    Major James Mills was at the wheel.
    Conan’s jaw was aching with tension as he opened the door of the shop. Sooner or later, he’d find it necessary to talk to the Major, and he could only hope he wouldn’t have to force the meeting. That could be potentially dangerous for Mills if he was working under a cover