“Listen!” she said. “Isn’t that—yes, the phone’s ringing indoors—you run in and answer, Asey. I’m sure it’s for you—oh, and shall I bring in that bottle of medicine that’s on the seat here, that Mrs. Gill gave you?”
“If you want,” Asey said with a chuckle as he got out of the roadster. “Never can tell when it might come in handy—”
Jennie paused curiously by the phone when she came in a moment later.
“How’s that?” Asey was saying. “What? What’s nutria.} Say, what in time are you callin’ to ask me a fool thing—oh. Oh, I see. Well, by the merest chance, sir, I do happen to know the answer. Coypus!”
Jennie’s gasp of surprise nearly deafened him.
“What? Can I recite the rest of what old rhyme—just a minute, please! Jennie,” he said in an undertone, “unwrap that bottle of medicine, an’ take a swallow! Now, sir, the rest of what rhyme? What?”
“It’s the Doubler!” Jennie’s voice was an octave above normal. “It’s the Question that doubles everything you get!”
‘Punch, conductor, punch with care,
Punch in the presence of the passen-jaire.
A blue trip-slip for an eight-cent fare,
A buff trip-slip for a six-cent fare,
A pink trip-slip for a five-cent fare,
Punch in the presence of the passen-jaire!
Punch, brothers, punch with care!
Punch in the presence of the passen-jaire!’ ”
Jennie screamed.
“What’s that, sir?” Asey said. “Oh. Send all the loot to Jennie Mayo, thank you. Our reaction? Owin’ to the handy presence of some faintin’ medicine, we averted casualties. But what with one thing an’ another, I think you could sum us up as—punch-drunk! Good night!”
Phoebe Atwood Taylor, born in 1909 in Boston, Massachusetts, was the first member of her family to have been born off Cape Cod in more than 300 years. Upon graduating from Manhattan’s Barnard College, she moved to Weston, Massachusetts, to pen her first work, The Cape Cod Mystery (1931), which was published when she was 22. The book was written while Taylor was caring for her invalid aunt, Alice Tilton (the source of one of her two publishing pseudonyms, the other being Freeman Dana). Taylor was one of the first mystery writers to give a regional and rural rather than urban focus during the time known as the “golden age” of mystery writing (1918-39). Gone With the Wind’s author, Margaret Mitchell, was a great fan of the Asey Mayo series, and encouraged Taylor to pack the books with Cape Cod detail. In all, she authored 33 books. She died in 1976 at age 67.
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