Hildegarde Withers Makes the Scene by Stuart Palmer Page B

The roots are fat and filled with fluid. When cut, they bleed. Any knowledgeable person could easily collect enough of the fluid to poison half of San Francisco. You may be sure that it was used to kill Captain Westering, who was, I fear, no Socrates.”
    “Come off, Miss Withers. Are you trying to tell me that some kook who knew about the Socrates scene, the corruption bit and all, actually executed this Captain Westering for the same reason?”
    “No. It’s an intriguing hypothesis, and I don’t doubt that the good captain was guilty of his own brand of corruption, but it isn’t, unfortunately, tenable. Captain Westering was killed by accident. The intended victim, I’m convinced, was Lenore.”
    This was news to Al. To judge from his expression, news of the most disturbing sort. Naked in his distress, so to speak, he now looked openly at Lenore with alarm and fierce protectiveness laid bare in his homely face among the freckles. Miss Withers, no stranger to the vicarious experience of romance, could almost hear the simmering of vital juices.
    “What makes you think so?” Al said.
    “I have good reason. Lenore will tell you later, perhaps, if she wishes to do so. Meanwhile, if I’m right, there may be a second attempt. We must take every possible precaution to guard against it.”
    The other people in the room had gone on all this while with their own conversations—the dancer with the folk singer, the ex-policeman with the waitress, the Prophet with himself or his groovy gods. The quiet huddle in the corner had drawn no special attention, the three subdued voices no attuned ear. The sporadic attention of the Prophet Onofre, accompanied by frenzied mutterings, was restricted to Miss Withers alone and was prompted by pure, irrational animus that was innocent of curiosity. Al, Miss Withers’ grim warning still thundering silently in his brain, was plucking his nether lip, his brow furrowed by the giant effort of extraordinary cerebral action.
    “I wonder who it was that left this tub while I was waiting on the dock?” he said.
    “What!” Miss Withers’ voice was soft but sharp. “You saw someone leave?”
    “That’s right. I just said so.”
    “Why didn’t you intercept him?”
    “Why should I? I didn’t know then that a murder had been committed aboard.”
    “Of course. You had no way of knowing. Did you get a good look at this person, whoever he was?”
    “Well, how good a look can you get in the fog at night? Besides, he was moving pretty fast. All I got was a kind of general impression when he walked under a light on the dock. He wasn’t too tall. About average, I guess. He was wearing a jacket, I think, and a pair of white sneakers. His hair was long, like a hippie’s, and I’m pretty sure he was wearing a pair of dark glasses. That’s about all.”
    “It’s something, at least. I don’t suppose you could find more than a few thousand around Haight-Ashbury or Berkeley or Sausalito who would fit the same general description. What time was it when you saw him?”
    “Right after you went aboard. As a matter of fact, I thought at the time you must have seen him on deck.”
    “I didn’t. Which suggests that he took care that I didn’t. If he was below in the captain’s cabin, he must have come up from the passage just seconds before I went down. Moreover, if he was there, it had to be during the time when Lenore was away looking for her friend. Captain Kelso should have this information. Drat the man! What could he be doing in there all this time?”
    Which was, of course, merely an expression of Miss Withers’ annoyance and frustration. Veteran herself of more than one murder investigation, confidante and companion of Inspector Oscar Piper, Homicide, NYPD, she knew perfectly well what Captain Kelso was doing. He was doing a great deal, and doing it thoroughly, and he was seeing that a great deal more was done and done thoroughly by others. And it all took time. Suspects, meanwhile,