Someone to watch over me

for?“
    “Any mention of a Dr. Oggleton in 1926.”
    “That’s pretty specific. I’ll take a look when I next have a little free time.“
    “My sister’s offered to help me, too.“
    “Miss Lily? She’s on her second round of reading through all our mystery books. She’s a lovely girl.“
    “Sometimes she is,“ Robert said with a smile. “Sometimes not. I’ll see if I can drag her down here to help me tomorrow.”
    He went to find Howard Walker next. Howard wasn’t very interested in Robert’s mummy, but Robert wanted to tell him what information he’d discovered.
    Howard had news, too. “The guy in Albany has finally gone over the satchel. He says it was empty. Covered, of course, with Ralph Summer’s greasy fingerprints and smeared prints from where he held it against his shirt.“
    “Did someone wipe off even Donald Anderson’s prints?“
    “No. Ralph just messed up any underlying prints there might have been. But the lining had some tiny shreds of good paper. Probably a résumé of his work that he carried around. Also a lot of vegetative material. Tiny bits of potato skin and some carrot and celery foliage.“
    “That’s not surprising,“ Robert said. “Mrs. Anderson, I hear from Lily, went on and on about raising the best carrots in town when they were discussing this shopping truck idea. She probably sent vegetables along with him to eat while he was looking for jobs.“
    “Shopping truck?”
    Robert put a hand up. “Don’t ask. It’s a harebrained idea that Mrs. White is forcing on the Ladies League. You get scrip for what you bring in and can trade the scrip for other stuff. No money changes hands.“
    “Doesn’t sound harebrained to me. It could be a good idea,“ Howard said. “Maybe I could unload my box of cheap peanut butter.“
    “Don’t let anyone know you like the idea, or you’ll put yourself in danger of Mrs. White’s coercing you to drive the truck around the countryside. Did the guy in Albany have anything else to say about the satchel?“
    “All sorts of things that don’t matter. Where and when it was probably made. He thinks it was five years old. Described the leather and hardware it was made of in excruciating detail. Measured every part of it in hundredths of an inch. Useless information.“
    “May I tell you what I think I’ve learned about the mummy?“
    “Have you really found out anything?“
    “Not for sure, but I’m trying to find out more about a Dr. Oggleton. Jack was told at the Bonus March that he wasn’t there because he disappeared one day. Just got on a southbound train and was never seen again. Or maybe, according to Mr. Buchanan, didn’t get on the train at all. He was supposed to be a very snappy dresser. Good suits. And he did his supposed bolt, Mr. Buchanan says, on October seventeenth, 1926.“
    “Buchanan remembered this exact date?
    Why?“
    “Dr. Oggleton bolted two days after delivering Buchanan’s last child.“
    “What else do you know about this Oggleton?“
    “Not much. His wife had died a year or so before. He was deeply saddened by her death. I tried to look through the local newspapers for 1926, but they’re a mess. Miss Exley and Lily are going to help me sort them out and see if I can learn anything else about him.“
    “Let me know if you find out something useful,“ Howard said. He didn’t sound the least bit hopeful that this would happen.

    Lily, meanwhile, was walking through a shortcut in the woods to the Anderson house. This was the third time she’d called on Roxanne, but Roxanne was always too busy to sit down for a chat or even to eat much of the food that neighbors were still bringing. Her husband’s body had been released for burial the next morning, and Lily was taking her a black straw hat with a dark veil in case she needed it.
    As Lily approached the house, she heard a muffled scream and started running. When she got to the house, Roxanne was sitting at the bottom of the rock face that edged her front garden, nursing her knee.
    Her brother was frantic. “I’ll go to a neighbor and call an ambulance to get you to the hospital!“
    “No, you won’t. I was more surprised than hurt when I backed off the edge. I’ll be okay.“
    “No, your knee is bleeding,“ Eugene insisted.
    “What’s a little blood?“ Roxanne stood up and tried out the knee by lifting it up. “Nothing’s broken, Eugene, now stop your fretting.“
    “You could get an infection. You should go to a