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Read Ebook: Fish Fry by Marmor Arnold
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Ebook has 93 lines and 4474 words, and 2 pages
"I have a cook and a housekeeper. But they won't bother you. You'll stay in the tub in my bathroom while I go fetch somebody. But who do I go fetch?"
"Anyone with responsibility. I want to get this over with."
"Yes, yes, I know. Your mission." I docked the launch, soaked towels, wrapped them around Hrodes, carried him--or she--to my car, and in fifteen minutes I was home.
I left Hrodes in the tub and went back to the car. Miami was too far off. There was a small town called Chesterville a few miles away. It seemed the only place to go.
"No, no, nothing like that. Look, there must be a school or some kind of place for learning here."
"Shore thing. We gotta school."
"Isn't there a professor teaching there, maybe?"
"Nope. But we got old Mrs. Henshaw. Husband died about six years ago. Old bag. I think she's been running around lately with some tourist from Iowa. Now if you're just lookin' for any old professor, then--"
"That's right," I said, grasping at a straw. "Any old professor. Is there one in town?"
"Professor Klugelmeyer. Used to teach at some eastern college. Kind of dopey, though, I think. Funny old gaffer. Believes in flyin' saucers. Can you imagine?"
"Where do I reach him?"
"He's stayin' at Mrs. Kirpatrick's roomin' house. Poor Mrs. Kirpatrick. Got a bad case of food poisoning. She ate--"
I ran out of the building and inquired for the rooming house. I found it and Professor Klugelmeyer.
"What? What? Hard to believe--Hard to believe. Once heard the same story from Professor Dickson. The poor fellow was put away. You must be mistaken, old man. You must be. Take my advice. Give up drinking. Bad for the liver, too, you know."
"That old deputy told me you believe in flying saucers," I said.
"I do. I really do. From Mars, probably. But they certainly won't turn out to be fish. Fish talking? Come now."
"I didn't believe it at first myself. Listen, Professor, come with me. See and hear for yourself."
"Well, I don't know."
It took me an hour before I had him half convinced. I almost dragged him to my car.
"This had better not turn out to be a practical joke," he said. The professor was somewhere between sixty and seventy. He was kind of thin and he sported a long white mustache.
It was getting toward evening when we got to the lodge.
I ushered him in to my room. "There," I said, flinging open the bathroom door.
"Where?" he said.
"There."
"Where?"
I looked. I blinked. I looked again. The tub was empty.
I raced through the house.
In the front room I saw Mrs. O'Brien, my housekeeper.
"Where's Hrodes?" I asked her.
"Who?"
"He was in the tub. I left him there."
"You mean that big fish?"
"Yes, yes. Where is he?"
"He's in the kitchen. We're having him for dinner."
"What!"
"Sure. Yat has it in the oven now."
"You murderer!"
"What are you talking about? It's only a fish. Didn't you catch him so we'd have fish for dinner?"
"No. Didn't he tell you who he was?"
"Are you crazy? He didn't tell me nothin'. Besides, I didn't see it till Sun Yat had it all cut up and laid out for cookin'."
Sun Yat, my Chinese cook. Hrodes had met someone who couldn't understand his plight or be scared out of his wits. Sun Yat was a deaf mute!
The professor was clucking sadly at me as he stomped out of the house.
Me? There was nothing to do but eat my dinner....
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