6

A WANTED MURDERER

"And that's the butcher's," Alice said, pointing to a shop with ducks, chickens, and pigs hanging in the window. She turned around to face Marie-Grace. "That's about all in Cairo, Illinois."

Marie-Grace hadn't heard much of what Alice had told her. Her cousin had talked on and on about the people who lived in each shop, who their families were, and where they lived, nonstop.

But Marie-Grace had noted each shop and store they had passed just as Alice told her the name of it.

Marie-Grace was mostly silent as she continued staring intently through the butcher's open shopwindow. She gazed at the large tin bowl in which the butcher—a large man who wore a soiled, white apron, with dark hair and a mustache—was busily placing pieces of cut meat.

Marie-Grace wondered why she was looking into the tin of the metal bowl. It sat feet away from her in the butcher's shop on a long counter. Her nose met with the smell of fresh meat.

Then she realized that she had recognized something in the bowl—a moving something. Someone. It was Mr. Stevens, the boat Liberty's pilot. She saw his reflection in the metal clearly; then Marie-Grace shifted on her feet a bit, squinting, and the sun's rays hit the bowl, blinding her a for moment.

Marie-Grace winced, then whirled around, determined to say hello to Mr. Stevens, as she hadn't been able to do so when she'd seen him at the bank earlier—but there was a large crowd of people milling about. Mr. Stevens was already lost in it.

Marie-Grace was about to mention it to her cousin when Alice suddenly gasped and said, "Look at this!"

Marie-Grace went toward her cousin, who was staring at a sheet of paper nailed to a post, with a frightened look on her face.

A man's portrait was drawn on the paper. Marie-Grace thought he looked scary, with tiny, beady-black eyes, and thin, light-brown hair on top of his head. To top it all off he wore a scraggly beard.

"Read it!" Alice urged.

Marie-Grace read aloud, " 'Wanted Murderer' . . ." and she faltered.

Alice continued reading about the wanted criminal: Marie Grace learned he was wanted in several different states, for thievery and murder. His name was Clancy Bond, and he was thirty-five years old. He was last seen, armed, in a town not far from Cairo, and citizens were warned to stay away from him and report him if he was sighted.

Marie-Grace shivered and whispered to Alice, "What if he's in Cairo now?"

"Why, that's nonsense, of course," a voice behind Marie-Grace answered briskly.

The girls turned and saw Mr. Rupert Anon standing behind them, staring intently at the poster.

"How do you know it's nonsense, mister?" Alice demanded. "He could be staying right in the Cairo hotel!"

"Of course not," Mr. Anon scoffed.

"And why not?" Alice argued loudly, not at all intimidated by the man.

"Because," Mr. Anon scowled, "the police would surely know if there was a criminal in Cairo—and Clancy Bond, of all people!"

Mr. Anon acted as though Clancy Bond was a famous musician or author. He even seemed a bit excited about the possibility of him in Cairo.

"Alice, this is Mr. Rupert Anon," Marie-Grace introduced them. "Mr. Anon, this is my cousin."

"Ah, Pierre's daughter?" Mr. Anon asked in his heavy accent.

Alice stepped back from Mr. Anon and leaned against the wood post, her back pressing against the wanted poster. "Yes," she answered uncertainly. She looked at Marie-Grace. "Do you know this man?"

"He is an old friend of my father's," Marie-Grace explained. "He met me and Papa on the boat when we arrived at Cairo. He told us he would be staying in Cairo's at the hotel, for a while." She looked at Mr. Anon, then back to Alice, and said quietly to her cousin, "I hadn't seen him on the boat before, so I think he boarded at the last stop, before Cairo."

"That I did," Mr. Anon told her briskly. He looked back to the wanted poster and peered closer. "But I am sure this Mr. Bond fellow isn't in Cairo."

"You can never be sure," Alice argued.

"Why, yes, in fact, I am sure, young lady," Mr. Anon replied hotly, wagging a finger at her.

"How do you know?" Alice demanded, putting her hands on her hips. "Did you ask Clancy Bond himself?"

Mr. Anon seemed flustered at the question, then shouted something at Alice in French so quickly and angrily that Marie-Grace couldn't make it out—then just as quickly, he stomped away, kicking up dust with his polished black leather boots.

"What did he say?" Marie-Grace whispered, leaning close to Alice.

Alice looked at Marie-Grace, surprised. "You didn't hear? I thought you could speak French."

"I don't speak it very well," Marie-Grace admitted.

"He called me a rude, disrespectful, impossible girl."

Marie-Grace thought the insults were horrifying, but Alice giggled. "He thought I was impossible!" She grinned. "I bet Mr. Anon has never met a more stubborn girl than me." Marie-Grace was even more horrified when she thought she could detect a hint of pride in her cousin's voice.

"You are quite stubborn," Marie-Grace admitted. She added, thinking, And argumentative.

"Papa is stubborn, too," Alice told Marie-Grace. "I suppose I get it from him." She sighed. "But I think we should be heading home now." She trudged forward, slowly, kicking up dust in the streets with her shoes.

Marie-Grace caught up with her cousin. "Are you all right?" Maybe Mr. Anon's insults had affected Alice, after all.

"I was thinking about this morning," Alice said. "When the boys fell through the ice at the pond."

"Oh," Marie-Grace said. "Well, I'm glad they're not hurt. And your uncle didn't punish them."

"But we won't be able to ice skate now!" Alice protested. "I had been hoping to lend you my old ice skates, and we would have had so much fun!"

Marie-Grace was quiet. She hadn't thought of the fact that they wouldn't be able to skate now, but secretly she was relieved. She had always been a little afraid of ice skating, ever since she had skated when she was younger, and hurt her knee.

"When I visit again, if it's winter, you can show me how to skate then," Marie-Grace comforted her cousin.

Alice ginned. "You'll be visiting us again?"

"Of course!" Marie-Grace told her.

She thought more about the wanted poster for the murderer as they walked home. Clancy Bond had seemed very frightening. Marie-Grace knew she would rather skate on the pond any day than meet—or even catch sight of—the criminal.

But what if Clancy Bond was in Cairo? Would he try to steal something? Or . . .

Marie-Grace gasped.

"What is it?" Alice asked, turning to her in alarmed.

"Alice," Marie-Grace said slowly, "remember Mrs. White was found dead, and the police weren't sure if she had just died peacefully in her sleep, because her jewelry was been stolen? The police thought maybe someone had poisoned her so they could steal her jewels."

"Oh . . ." Alice said, catching on, her face turning pale. "You think that—?"

"Yes," Marie-Grace interrupted grimly. "Maybe the murderer, Clancy Bond, killed her."