The Case of the Haunted Husband

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Stephane Olger gripped the counter over which hats were checked by the patrons of Zander’s Tropical Shack. She could feel the skin drawn tight across her knuckles, could feel blood pounding in her cheeks as she watched the departing back of the manager.

Back of her, Emily Carr, a poker-faced brunette with swiftly competent fingers and thin lips, went quietly about the job of straightening coats on the hangers.

“Well,” Stephane said, without taking her eyes from the manager’s back, “that was crude.”

“He isn’t noted for finesse,” Emily Carr observed, smoothing a flap over a pocket, “Funny how much a man will try to get in one overcoat pocket — no, pardon me all to hell — how much he will get into an overcoat pocket... What are you going to do?”

“Walk out — under my own power,” Stephane Olger said.

Emily Carr turned away from the rack of coats to survey Stephane’s blonde beauty. “It won’t work, Stephane. He is plenty smart. You have been high-hat with him. He isn’t accustomed to that and he doesn’t like it. So what? He gets a couple of patrons to put marked dollar bills in the tips. You check out the coin. The tips aren’t there. Where does that leave you?”

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