Oh, Murderer Mine | Page 5

have a strong enough stomach to aim
drool like that at an actual person and do it in public. Is this really a
picture of Heloise of Hollywood, too?"
"Oh, yes," said Doan.
A second portrait, three times the size of Eric Trent's, filled up the
lower right of the ad. This was a woman. It was taken in profile, and
she had her head tilted back to show the long, smooth line of her throat.
She had blond hair, and a cold, smooth, ice-frosted beauty. She looked
as artificial, but just as well-designed, as a wax orchid. There was a
message beside her picture, too, but this one was in printing, not in
handwriting.
"...Heloise of Hollywood, fifty-four years young, at the supreme
pinnacle of gracious, mature beauty--poised, assured, alluring --waits
with calm confidence for the return of her own young hero-husband.
Heloise of Hollywood has the glamour that is the rightful and easily
obtained heritage of the Woman-Over-Forty. Heloise of Hollywood
Beauty Prescriptions, compounded exclusively for the mature woman,
are on sale at all the really discriminating shops from coast to coast..."

Melissa tilted her head judicially. "Fifty-four? And she looks like this?"
"Well, pretty near," Doan said.
"And she hired you to watch her husband?"
"Yes," Doan agreed.
"I still want to know why. It doesn't sound reasonable. It isn't the sort of
thing a normal person would do."
Doan shrugged. "I'm just a hired hand, myself."
Melissa watched him curiously. "Well, what is Trent doing here? That
nauseating junk Heloise of Hollywood peddles is piled neck-deep in
every department store in the country, and it's expensive. She must
make millions, and I've got a good idea what Trent's salary is. Did she
throw him out?"
"No," said Doan.
"Oh-ho!" said Melissa suddenly. "Now I get it? He walked out on her,
didn't he?"
"No," said Doan flatly.
"He did, too! That explains everything." Melissa tapped the magazine.
"She has run hundreds of these ads in all the big women's magazines in
the last couple of years. Every one of them had a picture of and some
sort of a sticky message to Handsome Lover Boy. She must have spent
millions of dollars promoting that angle."
"I wouldn't know," said Doan.
"Oh, yes you would. The whole point of that campaign was and is that
if you're anywhere under ninety years old and use her stuff, you'll make
yourself irresistible to men--just like she is! Yes, and you can catch
yourself a handsome young husband, just like she did!"

"You're probably wrong," said Doan.
"I am not. And now he's walked out on her in spite of all her mature
allure. Oh-ho! And now her pretty pretty advertising campaign is about
to backfire right in her face! No wonder she hired you to keep women
away from him. If he falls for some twenty-year-old twirp and starts a
divorce action in all the headlines, she wouldn't be able to sell that stuff
of hers for axle grease."
"Have you ever heard of something called slander?" Doan inquired.
"Hmmph," said Melissa. "That doesn't prevent me from laughing at him
and at her, too. And that's just what I'm doing. Ha-ha-ha-ha! I'm just
practicing now, waiting for the next time I see that gloomy gigolo
upstairs."
"What's the joke?" a voice asked. Its owner was a woman. She had
sleek, carefully groomed gray hair, cut short, and she wore a tailored
blue suit. Her face slanted from above and from below, culminating in
a beak of a nose that made her look like an intelligent and slightly
sinister eagle in search of a free meal.
"Oh, hello," said Melissa. "This is Mr. Doan. This is Beulah Porter
Cowys, Mr. Doan."
"Hello," said Beulah Porter Cowys to Doan. "What do you do? You
look too stupid to be a student, if you'll pardon me for mentioning it."
"Quite all right," said Doan. "You're being deceived by my detecting
expression. I put it on to fool desperate criminals. I'm actually very
clever, indeed. In fact, many people, including me, think I'm the
smartest detective in the world."
"A detective," said Beulah Porter Cowys. "Now I've seen--What on
earth is that?"
"A dog," Doan told her.

"Is he dead?"
"No. Just bored."
"His name is Carstairs," Melissa volunteered.
"Gaaah," said Beulah Porter Cowys. "It would be. I hate dogs."
"That's all right," said Doan. "He hates people."
"Was he what you were laughing at?" Beulah Porter Cowys asked
Melissa.
"No," said Melissa. "Look, Beulah. See this picture? Handsome Lover
Boy? He's upstairs."
"What?"
"It's a fact," Melissa told her. "Really. He actually exists, and he's really
married to this Heloise. He's a meteorologist, or so he claims. Isn't it
horrible?"
"Isn't what horrible?"
"Why, she must be almost twice his age."
"Just twice," Doan said.