BooksBarbecue
Back The Darling Dahlias and the Naked Ladies Save as PDF
Chapters (30)
  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright Page
  3. Dedication
  4. ONE - The Naked Ladies
  5. TWO - Lizzy’s Key
  6. THREE - Verna Is Rebuffed
  7. FOUR - Saturday Night in Darling, or Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries
  8. FIVE - The Roof Falls In
  9. SIX - The Dahlias in Full Bloom
  10. SEVEN - The Skeleton in Bessie Bloodworth’s Closet
  11. EIGHT - Verna Has a Visitor
  12. NINE - Beulah’s New Customer
  13. TEN - Bessie Bloodworth Learns a Thing or Two
  14. ELEVEN - Lizzy Goes to Work
  15. TWELVE - Verna Makes a Phone Call
  16. THIRTEEN - Verna Works the Switchboard
  17. FOURTEEN - Buddy Norris Collars a Crook
  18. FIFTEEN - Lizzy Faces the Lion in His Den
  19. SIXTEEN - “The Game Is Afoot!”
  20. SEVENTEEN - THE GARDEN GATE
  21. EIGHTEEN - Bessie Bloodworth Pays a Call
  22. NINETEEN - Lizzy Lays Down the Law
  23. TWENTY - The Dahlias Score
  24. TWENTY-ONE - Mr. Moseley Clears Up a Mystery
  25. TWENTY-TWO - Bessie Solves a Mystery, Myra May’s Car Breaks Down, and Violet ...
  26. TWENTY-THREE - Showtime!
  27. The Dahlias’ “Dirty Dozen” Housecleaning Tips
  28. Glossary
  29. Recipes
  30. Reading List

Troubled, Verna pressed her lips together. This part of her plan had unexpectedly given her almost all the information she needed, and she was sorry now (verra sorry, as Mrs. O’Malley would say) that she had set the other part into motion. When the baldheaded man—Frankie Diamond, that is—followed the instruction contained in the telegram and telephoned Mr. Capone, he would learn that nobody there knew anything about the telegram, and figure out that it had to have come from someone in Darling. He would be on his guard. And then it would be more difficult to—

Abruptly, Verna pushed the chair back and stood up from the desk. More difficult to what? Now that she knew who Frankie Diamond was and why he was here in Darling, she ought to be getting ready to move to Phase Two of her plan. She should be shifting from speculation, investigation, and analysis to operation. To action.

But what kind of action? To tell the truth, Verna didn’t have a clue.

She sighed and looked down at her wristwatch. It was eleven, time for her shift at the Darling Telephone Exchange. And only an hour before Frankie Diamond telephoned Mr. Capone and learned that the telegram he had received was a hoax.

THIRTEEN - Verna Works the Switchboard

THIRTEEN

Verna Works the Switchboard

014The evening before, Myra May had pretended that she would be doing Verna a great favor to let her work the switchboard during the noontime dinner rush at the diner. But Verna knew differently.

And when she went into the diner just after eleven that Monday morning and saw the situation—five customers seated at the counter, three more at tables, the switchboard buzzing, and Myra May looking gaunt and frazzled—Verna resolved, right then and there, that she would give up her dinner hour every day until Violet came home, in order to give Myra May a break. What’s more, she would talk to the Dahlias and see if she couldn’t recruit a few people to help Myra May behind the counter. It wasn’t right, her working this hard when others could lend a hand.

The switchboard in the Darling Exchange hadn’t changed a bit since Mrs. Hooper had taught Verna to manage it some years before, and she rather enjoyed getting reacquainted with the plugs and cords and switches. The board worked according to a simple system, and all you had to do was keep your mind on what you were doing.