Footprints by Kay Cleaver Strahan

I

Lynn MacDonald's reaching fingertips touched smooth wood. She glanced at the page in her hand. After all, it was the ending; fiction could scarcely have improved upon it. What was it that Lucy had said in one of her letters-something about life permitting where literature refused? She returned the page in her hand to its fraying creases and its envelope. "Poor loving brother Neal," she murmured, and shook her head, and for a relaxing second drooped with a sigh.

She straightened, stood, jerking impatiently at stiffness, walked across the room to her bookshelves, and stooped to the row of fat encyclopedias. "Har to Hur," she pulled from the shelf, and added "Sai to Shu" to it.

A knock, demand nicely moderated by deference, tapped on her door.

"Shall I have your car brought around, Miss MacDonald, or shall I order your breakfast?"

"Sai to Shu" sprawled on the floor. Miss MacDonald said: "Heavens on earth! What time is it?"

"It is seven o'clock, Miss MacDonald. I came early this morning."

"But, but," stuttered the crime analyst, "the charwoman hasn't been in. She didn't come in, last night. I was going home whenever she came. How stupid!"

"I am sorry, Miss MacDonald. I met her as I was leaving last evening, and warned her not to disturb you."

Miss Kingsbury, surely an intentionally impudent fanfare of warm water, sudsy with soap and bath salts, of pinking cold showers, of vigorous Turkish towels, of stiff toothbrushes pungent with creamy paste, of tingling scalps, of the benison of eye cups, of the rewards of rest, sanity, and intelligent living, rescued "Sai to Shu" from the floor.

"May I find something for you in this, Miss MacDonald?"

"Put it in its place, if you will. I have finished with it."

"Har to Hur" stopped a gap in the shelves.

"And now, please, do telephone to the garage for my car."

Fingers, brisk with weariness, folded letters and slipped them into tired old envelopes. Grapefruit, coffee, bacon and eggs. Naughty Uncle Phineas; Olympe with a lifted chin. A bath-first of all, a bath. Lovely Aunt Gracia. Handsome Gibson man, Chris. Coffee, and a crunching roll, and coffee. Your loving brother, Neal. Poor supersentimentalist, fighting mere homely sentiment-poor, loving brother Neal. Blue-eyed, blonde and fuzzy Stanlaws lady. Love, and Lucy. Pansy-faced children of Reginald Birch. A very warm bath, and green bath salts. Grandfather. Pan --

"They are sending your car at once. May I help you with these, Miss MacDonald?"

"Thank you. And lock them in the safe, if you will."

A list of the notes she had begun to make in case, toward the end, things should go astray.

1. Accident / Neal blamed. / 2. Richard _offers_ to exchange rooms with Irene. / After accident. / 3. Baptism. / 4. Murder committed after missionaries and Chinaman had / left the ranch. / 5. Dying words. / Red mask. / 6. Locked doors. Unlocked doors. / Keys under lamp. / 7. Rope. / Bed moved. / 8. Olympe's revolver, .32 Colt's. / 9. Revolver used for murder, .38 Colt's.

Absurd, all of it. She tore the paper into bits and tossed them into her wastebasket.