Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 36, No. 6, June 1991

Miss Evangeline and the Monster by Leo P. Kelley

Miss Evangeline Sabrina Withermane couldn’t believe her eyes as she looked out the window of her bedroom and saw the flying saucer circle, spin to the left a little, and then set down just as pretty as you please in the middle of her front lawn flowerbed with not so much as a by-your-leave.

“Well, I never!” she exclaimed aloud. “Right in the middle of my jack-in-the-pulpits. They’re ruined beyond repair, no doubt about it.”

She didn’t wait for the little green men to disembark. There simply wasn’t time. She would have to make a report to the police at once. It was urgent. Why, perhaps the whole town was being invaded — the entire planet maybe.

She scuttled downstairs, picked up the telephone in the hall, dialed the familiar number of the police station, and waited for the ringing to begin. When it didn’t after two agonizing minutes, she remembered. They had disconnected her; nonpayment of bills or some such nonsense. She had told the phone company that she was certain she had paid her bills, but they insisted she hadn’t — not for months. Being the lady that she was, she had refused to argue further and spent the rest of the day in a blue sulk.

She put down the phone with distaste. Actually, she had never really liked the machine to begin with, not since the very day her papa had had it installed all those lost years ago. She preferred face-to-face contact with people, preferably genteel.

She hurried out to the garage behind her ancient house, which was circa 1800, and got into the vintage Packard her papa had taught her to drive not long before he was unkind enough to die and leave her not only heartbroken but all alone. She rolled out the open doors of the garage like a Sherman tank and rumbled down the driveway.

The saucer, she noted, was still sitting insultingly on her lawn. Well, she’d see about that, oh, wouldn’t she just!

Later, as she parked in the central square of the small southern town, she noticed the letters lying on the seat beside her. She picked them up. One was from someplace called the City Tax Bureau. Another was from the water company. Would they never leave a lady in peace? She got out of the car and dropped them, unopened, into the trash can on the corner.

Past the statue of the Confederate soldier, past the tiny post office and all the little shops, went Miss Evangeline Sabrina Withermane. She marched up the steps of the police station and into its relatively cool interior. Flying saucers on a Monday! It was simply no way to begin a week.

“Afternoon, Miss Evangeline,” said Patrolman Carson, who was standing near the entrance reading the notices on the bulletin board. “Nice day.”

She gave him a polite nod and asked to see Sergeant MacReynolds.

“Something wrong, Miss Evangeline?” Carson inquired.

“Indeed there is. I want to register a complaint.”

“Something bothering you again?”

“Yes, officer. A flying saucer.”

Carson whistled softly through his teeth. “A flying saucer, is it? Last week, when we met over at the drugstore, you told me you wanted to report — what was it you wanted to report that day, Miss Evangeline?”

“The Mulberry Mall Monster,” she replied. “But I haven’t time to go into all that now. Where is Sergeant MacReynolds?”

“In his office.”

Miss Evangeline marched down the hall and into Sergeant MacReynolds’ office, trailing magnolia scent like an elegant feather boa behind her.

As she entered his office, MacReynolds glanced up from the papers on his desk and sighed at the sight of her. “Good afternoon, Miss Evangeline,” he said, and sat back in his chair.

“Good day to you, sergeant. I want to report a flying saucer.”

“Well, well.”

“It landed on my front lawn at exactly three oh-nine this afternoon. I looked at my watch as it landed — three oh-nine exactly. Will you send a squad car or whatever it is that should be sent — at once? It’s sitting right there in the middle of my jack-in-the-pulpits, which you know I prize most highly.”

“Is it from Mars?”

“However would I know? That’s for you to find out. I notice you’re not writing this down.”

MacReynolds sighed a second time before picking up a pencil and beginning to write on a blank piece of paper.

Miss Evangeline turned toward the door, but before leaving the office she glanced back at MacReynolds, who had stopped writing. “You do believe me, don’t you?” Her voice was plaintive. MacReynolds heard a lost little girl hidden in it.

“Now, Miss Evangeline,” he said. “I’ll send someone over to investigate. Don’t you fret.”

“Thank you ever so much, sergeant. You see, my jack-in-the-pulpits—”

“I’ll have Patrolman Carson investigate first thing. Goodbye, Miss Evangeline.”

When she had gone, MacReynolds looked down at the piece of paper on which he had written: Bats in the old girl’s belfry. “Carson!” he yelled.

Carson appeared instantly in the doorway. “She’s at it again, right, sergeant?”

MacReynolds frowned. “Don’t they teach you youngsters respect for your elders any more? Yes, she’s at it again. But why wouldn’t she be? She lives on a pittance from her father’s estate, which is doled out to her annually by a law firm up in New York, and what was good enough twenty years ago isn’t worth a damn today. You ever heard of inflation?”

“Sorry, sergeant.”

“I’m sorry, too. A lady like Miss Evangeline just isn’t properly equipped to deal with our nervous world. Sometimes I’m not so sure I am, either.” MacReynolds muttered something about the bomb.

Carson cleared his throat a moment later.

MacReynolds looked up and drifted back to the present and the matter at hand. “A flying saucer landed on Miss Evangeline’s lawn at three oh-nine this afternoon.” His expression warned Carson not to smile. “I want you to drive by — make sure she sees you — and do whatever a policeman is supposed to do when investigating a flying saucer.”

Carson promised that he would do just that. Right away.

Instead of going home to face the bizarre evidence of interplanetary invasion plopped on her front lawn, Miss Evangeline drove to Mulberry Mall, where she had made up her mind to spend the rest of the afternoon. She had no idea how long it would take Patrolman Carson to disperse the flock of flying saucers she imagined must be parked in the neighborhood by now, frightening people.

She parked outside Mulberry Mall, which got its name from the mulberry bushes planted along its north border, separating the mall itself from the mayor’s ornate mansion, which adjoined it. There were more bushes growing along the promenade that began beside the river and ambled along for nearly a mile and a half.

As Miss Evangeline entered the mall, she saw that the daily invasion of children had taken place. They possessed the mall totally. They were everywhere — on the swings and teeter-totters and sliding boards, burrowing in the sandboxes, and threatening to break their necks on the jungle gyms. The sight of them pleased her. She had, during recent years, come to feel much more comfortable with the children, far more comfortable than she was able to feel with their parents, who insisted upon discussing such confusing matters as stock options and floating (or was it sinking?) bond issues and Christian Dior. But the children — oh, they were quite something else! She often helped them build their forts or find four-leaf clovers or scale the heights of Xanadu.

She sat down on a bench in the shade of her favorite elm tree, her large knitting bag at her side, and looked around at what she had come to think of as her territory. Everything seemed to be in order, but she couldn’t be entirely sure, of course, because she had forgotten to bring her glasses and the effect without them was both disarming and disconcerting. Disarming because it gave a slight but pleasant haze to her surroundings, and disconcerting because she could not sort out the faces of the children according to the names that she knew belonged to them. Well, never mind, she advised herself. This afternoon she would simply sit and suffer the little children to come unto her — if only they would.

The first one did a few minutes later.

The little girl’s name was Mary and she had cut herself. She displayed her wound proudly to Miss Evangeline, who promptly rummaged through her knitting bag and brought out a bottle of antiseptic and daubed some of the red liquid on Mary’s bony knee.

“Do you ever slide?” Mary asked.

For a moment, Miss Evangeline didn’t quite understand the question. Then she said, “Oh, dear me, no. I haven’t been on a sliding board in ever so long.”

“Why not?” Mary wanted to know.

The answer that occurred to Miss Evangeline was absolutely unutterable, so she shooed the shockingly young child back to her playmates, simply refusing to reply.

Through the elms, she could see the mayor’s mansion. It gleamed whitely in the late afternoon sun. She had never seen the mayor in any one of the mansion’s many windows, but she was always expecting him to appear, if only briefly. She was a staunch supporter of his and of the party to which they both belonged. He didn’t know of her existence, of course, but she knew of his, and if things were a bit unbalanced in that regard, well, such was the way of the world.

She suddenly remembered that a mayoralty election was due — why, next week! She pulled a notebook and ballpoint pen from her knitting bag and made a note to remind herself to vote. After all, it was her civic duty.

She fed small biscuits to a boxer and a cocker spaniel who passed her bench during the next hour.

She looked out several times toward the river, but the Mulberry Mall Monster did not appear. She had seen it twice now. The first time, she had called out to the people nearby as she pointed at it, but they had missed seeing it. They had merely shaken their heads and smiled in the oddest way. The Monster was clever and had evidently been too quick for them. But she had seen it! She made another note: Tell Sergeant MacReynolds to bring depth charges.

The Mulberry Mall Monster’s days were numbered, she thought with grim satisfaction as she gazed serenely across the mall.

Now what was that man doing over there by the red maple? She squinted, damning her eyes for growing so old so soon.

Pinning a note to the maple tree, that’s what he was doing. She got up and hurried over to him, not caring that curiosity killed cats, or so people said.

“Oh, it’s you, Miss Evangeline,” the man said, turning at the sound of her approach.

“Hello, Mr. Michelson.” She squinted. “What’s that? A message for someone?”

“It’s a note offering a reward for the return of Mitzi, our poodle. She was stolen right here on the mall yesterday. I was here with my wife and little boy, and Mitzi was off the leash and running around and all of a sudden she was gone.”

“She ran away?”

“No. Mrs. Ralston was nearby, and she told me later that she saw a man pick Mitzi up and run off with her. I’m offering a two hundred and fifty dollar reward.”

“That’s a great deal of money,” Miss Evangeline said with surprise.

“My little boy cries all the time since we lost Mitzi. So the money doesn’t matter.”

“Not in terms of tears, no,” Miss Evangeline agreed sagely if a little vaguely. “I do hope you get poor Mitzi back.” She strolled back to her bench and watched the windows of the mayor’s mansion, but he didn’t appear, not even for a moment. So she shut her eyes to rest them.

When she opened her eyes again, the sun had gone out. There were stars in the sky. Why, she had been asleep! And there was Mr. Michelson at the red maple as if no time at all had passed. She watched him remove the note from the tree as she eased herself to her feet, cursing the stiffness that ached in her ankles and knees. She had almost reached the exit from the mall when Mr. Michelson came abreast of her.

“You were taking the note down,” she said. “You must have found Mitzi,” she added hopefully.

He shook his head, but there was a happy smile on his face. “No, not yet. But a man phoned and said he had her and would consider meeting me and turning her over to me if I asked no questions. I assured him I’d ask no questions. I just want Mitzi back. He might be the thief, but I don’t care about that. I’m on my way to meet him now.”

“You should have called Sergeant MacReynolds. Stealing dogs is a criminal matter.” Miss Evangeline fell silent for a moment. “No,” she mused, “it probably wouldn’t have helped all that much even if you had called him. I reported an earthquake under my house to him just last week, and he told me I was imagining things.”

“Goodbye, Miss Evangeline,” Mr. Michelson said. “Can you get home alone all right?”

“Most certainly. Good night, Mr. Michelson. Say hello to Mitzi for me.”

She walked to where she had parked the Packard and got in. She spent some time searching for the ignition key, but at last she found it in the bottom of her knitting bag. She started the motor. As she drove up the street, she passed Mr. Michelson standing in the shadowy entrance to the alley that ran behind the shops on Main Street. She drove on slowly because the darkness of the town and the dimness of her eyes urged caution on her. She glanced in the rear view mirror to be sure no one was close behind her before preparing for the turn that would lead her onto her own street.

She saw Mr. Michelson and another man standing on the deserted street beside the alley entrance. But where was Mitzi? She slowed down then, shocked, as she saw Mr. Michelson raise his arm but fail to shield himself from the blow the other man delivered. She stopped her car in the middle of the street as Mr. Michelson fell to the pavement and the other man knelt beside him and began to go through his pockets. She got out of the car and hurried breathlessly back to where Mr. Michelson lay groaning and holding his head. She helped him get to his feet and he told her that the man had stolen his wallet and the reward money he had brought with him.

“But what about Mitzi?”

Mr. Michelson grimaced and touched the base of his skull. “He laughed when I asked him where Mitzi was. He just laughed and then he hit me.”

“Call the police at once.”

Mr. Michelson said he didn’t want any trouble. If he called the police, their activities might scare the man away for good, and then perhaps he’d never get Mitzi back.

Miss Evangeline secretly decided she would personally report the incident to Sergeant MacReynolds, but when she arrived home later, after dropping Mr. Michelson off, she decided it wouldn’t do any good because the flying saucer still sat smack in the middle of her flowerbed, glowing greenly in the light of the moon. Patrolman Carson had failed to remove it.

The next afternoon, Miss Evangeline sat close to the mulberry bushes on the mall, looking as inconspicuous as just another berry. She had planned it that way. The Monster might appear at any minute and she didn’t want it to spot her before she had a chance to sound an alarm.

She had remembered to bring her glasses with her this time, so she clearly recognized Patrolman Carson while he was still some distance away from her.

As he came up to her, he said, “Hello, Miss Evangeline. I’d planned to give your flying saucer a ticket for illegal parking yesterday, but when I got to your place it had gone. I did notice, though, that your jack-in-the-pulpits weren’t a bit crushed.”

She eyed him suspiciously. It was true that her flowers, this morning, had stood as straight and brightly staunch as if no saucer had ever landed on them, but that would undoubtedly have something to do with the invaders’ advanced aerodynamics. Carson was lying to her because the saucer had still been there when she arrived home last night. She was about to accuse him of lying when a new thought occurred to her. Perhaps the saucer had taken off during the day and then returned later. That would explain why Carson hadn’t seen it. Perhaps he wasn’t lying after all. She began to feel more kindly toward him. She searched in her knitting bag and brought out a candy bar which she handed to him with a conciliatory smile. He took it, touched his cap, and was off down one of the paths, whistling a tune by the Beatles.

Miss Evangeline surveyed her domain with a certain uneasiness. She was thinking about Mitzi and poor Mr. Michelson and his sad little boy. The theft was a shameful thing to have happen right under the nose, so to speak, of the mayor. If the opposition party ever found out about it, it might mean political disaster for the incumbent — a lost election. She tried not to think about it any more, vowing that she would not tell tales out of school, and Mr. Michelson, she recalled, had said he wouldn’t report the matter to the police. So perhaps all would still be well for the mayor. She concentrated on the others who shared the mall with her, counting them, categorizing them.

An old man over there feeding pigeons from a brown paper bag — that would be Joe Carlotto, who was on Social Security; two ladies, almost as old as herself, strolling along the river promenade; the inevitable children — everywhere, the nannies with their prams.

But who in the world was that one in the white uniform and the bleached hair? She looked like a fugitive from the chorus line of some cheap nightclub. Miss Evangeline didn’t mean to be unkind; it was simply that she was a keen and usually correct observer of people and their characters.

The girl — she couldn’t have been more than twenty-five — sat down on a nearby bench, the pram she had been wheeling parked beside her. She unrolled the glossy magazine she had been carrying tucked under one arm. Miss Evangeline pushed her glasses up on her nose and stared at the cover: Screen Dreams.

A boy and girl, arm in arm and oblivious to Miss Evangeline, the mall, and all the rest of the world, strolled by. Miss Evangeline knew she had nothing in her knitting bag that they might want or could possibly use. They were young and had each other. She sighed and closed her eyes and dozed in the spattering of warm sunlight that spilled through the leaves and landed on her thin shoulders.

When she woke up again, something was wrong. She could feel it! The children were all right. All the dogs were walking safely on their leashes. The mayor’s mansion was still there. Then what?

It was the man sitting beside the girl with the copy of Screen Dreams in her lap. The two of them were talking earnestly — whispering. The girl didn’t seem to mind the man’s thin mustache or the evil in his eyes; but Miss Evangeline minded. She looked about for Patrolman Carson, but he had vanished. She tried to think calmly. What should she do?

She wouldn’t scream. Ladies did not scream. Before she could arrive at a decision, events began to unfold before her. The man got up and walked away, but not far. He loitered near the ice cream vendor’s truck. The girl promptly put down her magazine, winked at him, closed her eyes, and immediately began to snore. The man sauntered back toward her, but instead of waking her, as Miss Evangeline had thought he was going to do, he began to push the perambulator down the path. Within seconds, he had disappeared from sight.

Miss Evangeline sat stunned, her mouth frozen in an unuttered cry, her hands clenched in her lap.

The girl pretended to awaken, and then she screamed. Her scream was twice as loud as the town’s fire siren. All activity in the park came to a standstill. Everyone stared and then came running to the girl’s side — even the children.

“The baby!” the girl screamed at the top of her shrill voice. “Someone’s stolen the ba-by! Help! Police!”

Miss Evangeline, icily calm and thoroughly determined, got up from her bench and walked toward the girl. She heard the comments from the gathered crowd as she approached.

“He wore sunglasses and a fedora. I saw him just as plain!” That was Mrs. Ralston.

Joe Carlotto patted the girl in what Miss Evangeline considered to be a most indiscreet place and manner, and said, “Don’t you worry none, hon. They’ll catch whoever it was.”

“It was a woman,” someone volunteered. “Tall, she was.”

Miss Evangeline pursed her lips and thought that none of them would be able to identify a fly in amber even after they’d seen it twenty times. She plowed through the crowd.

“There, there,” she said soothingly to the girl. To Carlotto, she said, “Call the police at the box on the corner.” To Mrs. Ralston, she said, “Get some water from the drinking fountain.” To the girl, she repeated, “There, there.” And then, “I’ll take you to — where does the baby live?”

The girl sobbed and said, “His name’s Sonny Emory. He lives... he lived...” She began to cry, muddying her eyes with mascara.

When Mrs. Ralston returned with the water in a paper cup, Miss Evangeline and the girl were gone.

In the Emory living room, Mrs. Emory was having hysterics. Miss Evangeline had phoned for a doctor, who came and promptly gave Mrs. Emory an injection. The girl sat sobbing on a stiff chair in the middle of the room. Patrolman Carson arrived as a result of Miss Evangeline’s urgent summons.

“We checked,” he said, “and found the baby carriage down on the promenade. It was empty.”

Mrs. Emory shrieked for her husband. The doctor had already phoned Mr. Emory’s office and asked him to come home at once.

Miss Evangeline listened to the answers the girl gave to Patrolman Carson’s questions.

Her name was Polly Loring. Yes, she had references.

Had Mrs. Emory checked them before she was hired?

No, Mrs. Emory had not, being anxious to hire someone to help her with Sonny.

Mrs. Emory moaned.

Carson wanted to know if the Emorys had any enemies.

None, according to Mrs. Emory.

Had they received any threats lately — of any kind?

Mrs. Emory shook her head.

Mr. Emory arrived half an hour later, and Carson questioned him. The distraught Mr. Emory could supply no information of value.

No one asked Miss Evangeline anything, so she left.

Twenty minutes later, she followed Carson’s patrol car at a discreet distance, and when he escorted Polly Loring into the police station for what Miss Evangeline assumed would be the third degree, she parked across the street to wait. She opened her knitting bag and took out a leatherbound copy of Browning, but she couldn’t concentrate on the words, lovely as they were.

The girl came out half an hour later. She walked jauntily up the street and turned the corner.

Miss Evangeline drove after her, keeping out of sight.

The girl entered the Queen’s Arms Hotel. Miss Evangeline knew all about what went on there. Everyone in town did. She parked her car and strode stiffly into the lobby. Polly Loring was nowhere in sight.

Miss Evangeline went up to the desk and rapped on it impatiently until the tieless room clerk appeared. “Mr. Evanston, I’m Miss Evangeline Sabrina—”

“Howdy, Miss Withermane. What brings you here?”

“There was a kidnapping on Mulberry Mall this afternoon and—”

“Hooeee!” Mr. Evanston exclaimed. “Everybody in town’s talking about it already. Biggest thing that’s happened around here since Joe Carlotto tried to blow up the Social Security office last year.”

“The nursemaid involved — Miss Polly Loring — is staying here, I believe.”

“Yes, indeed. Room 190.”

Miss Evangeline went to the elevator and up to Room 190. She knocked firmly on the door, her mouth grim; but she remembered to smile sweetly as the door opened a crack.

“Who’re you?” Polly Loring asked, peering out into the dimly lighted hall.

“My dear, I was on the mall this afternoon when the Emory baby was kidnapped. Don’t you remember me? I helped you—”

“Oh, sure. Yeah, I remember you now. But listen, I got a splitting headache, you know?”

“I saw the man who took the boy.”

Polly flung open the door she had been closing in Miss Evangeline’s face. “You saw him?”

Miss Evangeline drew an index finger across her upper lip. “He had a rather sickly-looking mustache. He wore tan slacks and a checkered sweater. He looked like vanilla ice cream, his face, I mean, so pale.”

Polly sputtered something Miss Evangeline didn’t quite catch. “May I come in, dear? I’d like to talk to you a moment, if I may.”

Polly reluctantly stepped aside as Miss Evangeline pushed open the door and stepped into the shabby room. She promptly sat down and told Polly she was frightened nearly out of her wits. She told her about the flying saucer and about the Mulberry Mall Monster. “Now this,” she said. “I’m afraid for my life savings,” she added significantly.

“Your life savings,” Polly repeated.

“All fifty thousand dollars,” Miss Evangeline said, shocked at the enormity of the lie she had uttered. “Perhaps I really should put it in a bank—”

“You keep it at home?”

“Don’t trust banks. Never did.”

Polly’s eyes grew wider.

“Well, the reason I came,” Miss Evangeline said, getting down to business, “was that I wanted to ask you if perchance you had recognized the man who kidnapped Sonny, as a result of my description of him. If you have any idea who he is, it would make matters so much simpler for the police. I’m afraid they would never listen to me, but if you went to them and identified the—”

“No,” Polly said, shaking her head. “I got no idea who he is.”

“Well,” said Miss Evangeline, “that is a pity. I’d best be going, then.”

She was almost out in the hall when she heard the dog bark from inside Polly’s room. Polly was trying to shut the door, but Miss Evangeline held her ground. “Your... your poodle?” she prompted, opening the trap.

Polly nodded. “Yeah, I keep her shut in the bathroom. She’s messy. She was a gift from a guy I know.”

“Well, you take care of yourself, dear. You’ve had a terrible shock. Here.” Miss Evangeline extracted a bottle of aspirin from her knitting bag. “Take two of these and draw the shades and lie down with a cool cloth on your head. I’m so sorry to have disturbed you.”

She went out into the hall and, satisfied with her performance, walked to the elevator. Well, she guessed she knew where Mitzi was now. But where was Sonny Emory? In the bathroom, too? She had no time to speculate further. She had to hurry home. She was expecting guests later in the evening.

At eleven o’clock that night, Miss Evangeline darkened her house, put a wool shawl over her shoulders, and stepped out onto the porch. She shut the door, locked it, walked to her Packard, got in, and drove off into the night.

She parked the Packard just a block away and walked back behind the hedges growing on the lawns of the houses across from her own. The night was cool, but she found her shawl sufficient for it.

At eleven thirty, the guests she had been expecting arrived. They slid like shadows up the lawn and onto the porch, where they tried the front door and found it locked. The man opened a window. The girl climbed inside, and he followed her.

Miss Evangeline quickly crossed the street, and went around to the side of her house. She pulled up the slanting cellar doors and descended the steps into the furnace room. She could hear them moving noisily about upstairs. Inept, she thought. She hoped their ineptness would not cause harm to the Emory baby — or to Mitzi. Well, she would simply do what she had to do, pray a little, and hope for the very best.

She quietly mounted the steps that led to her kitchen and opened the door cautiously. They were still in the living room. She could see the beams of their flashlights flitting along the floors and up the walls.

“I looked upstairs,” Polly whispered. “She’s not in the house. Look, Jack. There it is!”

He swore softly, staring at the wall safe. “We’ll have to tear down the wall to get at the loot.”

Miss Evangeline stifled a gasp. She hoped they wouldn’t do that. The repair bill would be staggering. She’d never be able to afford it. She listened, peeping uneasily around the corner of the kitchen cabinets.

Polly was shining the beam of her flashlight on the wall safe. The man was fumbling hopelessly with the dial.

“Jack, look out!” Polly screeched in sudden alarm. “The wall’s caving in!”

Miss Evangeline clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle the giggle that almost escaped her lips.

“Well, will you look at that,” Jack exclaimed. “A secret room. I just touched the corner of the mirror there, and the fireplace swung out. Shine your flashlight in there.”

Polly did as she was told, and they both spotted the piles of money stacked in a far corner.

“Come on!” Jack whooped, stooping to enter the room, Polly right behind him.

Miss Evangeline scurried mouselike out into the dark living room, expertly dodging furniture. “It’s no good!” she shouted gleefully. “It’s Confederate money!” Then she slammed the fireplace back into position, flush with the rest of the wall.

The muffled shouts and the pounding from behind the wall gave her a keen sense of satisfaction. She switched on the lights and picked up the phone to call Sergeant MacReynolds.

“Drat!” she exclaimed in annoyance when she remembered that the instrument had been disconnected. She left the house and her helpless prisoners locked in the secret room and walked to where she had earlier parked the Packard. Conscientiously observing the speed limit, she drove to the police station.

The next day she sat in her rocker on the front porch and waited for them to come for her. It had all been so exciting. She didn’t sleep a wink the whole night through, after the police had come back to her house with her and had released Polly and Jack from the secret room behind the fireplace that had once served to hide runaway slaves when the house, which had been in Miss Evangeline’s family for years, had been a station on the underground railroad.

Sergeant MacReynolds had come back later and congratulated her, after taking Polly and Jack to the jail in the courthouse. She told him she had just been doing her duty. After all, she couldn’t tolerate such goings-on right under the nose of the mayor. It could ruin his career, and she wanted to see him elected for another term.

Ah, there they were, just pulling up in front of the house in their squad car. She got up and went down the drive to meet them.

Sergeant MacReynolds got out, and she took his arm and sat beside him in the back seat while Patrolman Carson drove them to Mulberry Mall and through the wrought-iron gates that led to the mayor’s mansion.

The mayor took Miss Evangeline’s hand and kissed it, precisely as she had known a gentleman of his stature would do under the circumstances.

“I wanted very much to meet you, Miss Evangeline,” he said, “after Sergeant MacReynolds told me all about you. He told me you were a staunch supporter of mine. He told me, too, how you caught the kidnappers—”

“They were dognappers, too,” Miss Evangeline interjected.

“Yes, that too. Well, thanks to your presence of mind and, if I may say so, your daring, Sonny Emory is back safe and sound with his parents once again. They found him, as you know, sound asleep in that terrible man’s room at the Queen’s Arms Hotel.”

“And Mr. Michelson and his little boy have Mitzi back.”

“Yes, Mitzi, too. You are a remarkable woman, Miss Evangeline.”

“A woman, yes,” Miss Evangeline said softly. “But remarkable? Oh, dear me, no.”

“Tush,” said the mayor. “You’re far too modest.”

Later, over tea served in the Robert E. Lee Room, the mayor informed Miss Evangeline that her antebellum home had been, at his direction, designated a city landmark. “I had no idea that your lovely house had a secret room or that the room had served as a station on the underground railroad. Now that just might raise a few eyebrows in this town, still—”

Miss Evangeline said, “If the legends are true, Mr. Mayor, it also provided a hiding place for retreating Confederate soldiers on more than one occasion.”

“We’ll emphasize that fact in our press release about the house.” He went on to explain to Miss Evangeline that her property would be tax-exempt from now on as a result of the executive order he had issued. He explained that her telephone would be reconnected and paid for, of course, by the city, as befitted her home’s newly-declared status. He told her that she would be appointed official caretaker of the newly-created city landmark and that she would be paid a modest but, he hoped, a satisfactory monthly salary, quite in keeping with the latest cost-of-living index issued by the federal government.

He was so kind and the room was so pleasant and MacReynolds and Carson were so full of smiles Miss Evangeline simply could not resist making the most of her opportunity. She leaned over and whispered something to the mayor.

His eyes widened, then narrowed. He started to smile and then thought better of it. “MacReynolds!” he said in his mayor’s voice. “Miss Evangeline has just given me a report on what she calls the Mulberry Mall Monster. It seems that it is some sort of... of—”

“Sea serpent,” Miss Evangeline supplied helpfully. “I’ve seen it twice in our river next to the mall. Most unsightly, especially considering the neighborhood.”

“A sea serpent!” Carson spluttered. “She couldn’t have seen a sea serpent! Not in our river!”

MacReynolds silenced him with a fierce glance.

“Patrolman Carson,” said the mayor solemnly, “Miss Evangeline’s keen perceptions are what led to the capture of the kidnappers of Sonny Emory—”

“And the dognappers of Mitzi,” Miss Evangeline reminded him gently.

“Yes. Of course. So under the circumstances, an investigation of the Mulberry Mall Monster would seem to be definitely in order.”

“Definitely,” said MacReynolds.

“I’ll expect a full report,” the mayor said.

MacReynolds and Carson left the room.

Miss Evangeline sipped her tea and found it sweet.