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  The stairway leading to the rear of the train probably was the better bet, she decided, because her sister would have sent the little girls in a Pullman, and asked the porter to look after them. So she stood nearer the stairway leading to the rear and looked down it and saw people beginning to come up.

  She could not see any little girls coming up the stairway, so she hurried to the other and looked down it. More people were coming up it, including what was evidently a large part of the army, and no little girls. “Damn the Pennsylvania Railroad,” Mrs. North said, and dashed back to the other staircase. Still no little girls. She took a place between the staircases and vibrated her head as rapidly as she could, making her neck hurt. Still no little girls. And now the stream of arriving passengers was reduced to a trickle—two trickles, specifically. Mrs. North began to be worried.

  And then there was a glad young voice behind her. It said:

  “Auntie Pam! Auntie Pam!”

  That was one of the girls. Margie or—or the one you mustn’t call Lizzie, but must remember always to call Beth. Somehow they had got around her.

  Mrs. North turned quickly, with a welcoming smile. There were no little girls. There were—

  One of the two young ladies confronting Pam North beamed and gamboled forward.

  “Auntie Pam!” she said. “Darling!”

  Mrs. North gasped. They were not little girls; they were almost grown up girls. And attached to each, with a kind of firm hopefulness, was a sailor. The sailors were looking at Mrs. North with anxious doubt, like uncertain puppies. They were very young sailors.

  “But not that young!” Mrs. North thought a little frantically, as she started foward. “Not nearly young enough!”

  “Children!” Mrs. North said. For the first time in my life, Mrs. North thought, I sound like a mother. “Margie! Lizzie!”

  “Beth,” said the foremost of the children, and she let her sailor slip away to meet, it was evident, this new and greater emergency. “Beth, Aunt Pam.” There was a kind of wail in her voice. “Not Lizzie!” She blushed furiously, then, and looked back at her sailor in evident anguish. The sailor, however, merely looked uneasily at Pam North.

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  About the Authors

  Frances and Richard Lockridge were some of the most popular names in mystery during the forties and fifties. Having written numerous novels and stories, the husband-and-wife team was most famous for their Mr. and Mrs. North Mysteries. What started in 1936 as a series of stories written for the New Yorker turned into twenty-six novels, including adaptions for Broadway, film, television, and radio. The Lockridges continued writing together until Frances’s death in 1963, after which Richard discontinued the Mr. and Mrs. North series and wrote other works until his own death in 1982.

  All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 1942 by Frances and Richard Lockridge

  Cover design by Andy Ross

  ISBN: 978-1-5040-3115-8

  This 2016 edition published by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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