Best of the best detective stories

25th anniversary collection

Introduction

In March of 1945 David C. Cooke came to John Tebbel, an editor at E. P. Dutton & Co., with a suggestion for a series of anthologies of short tales of crime and detection, the best that could be culled from the hundreds (indeed, in those early years, thousands) published chiefly in magazines during each calendar year. That eminently worthy suggestion was taken up, and for fifteen years, commencing in 1946, Mr. Cooke edited the annual volumes, followed in turn by Brett Halliday (two years), Anthony Boucher (six years) and myself (two years). Over the years tens of thousands of short stories have been examined with some diligence to sift out the finest (a checklist of the 334 stories so chosen may be found at the end of this volume). Thus the series of Best Detective Stories of the Year may reasonably lay some claim to being the most important permanent general repository for the modern crime story.

The present volume is conceived as a tribute to the first twenty-five years of Best Detective Stories of the Year, and it fell to my considerable pleasure — not unmixed with a little pain, as you shall shortly see — to be its editor. The ground rules were simple: to select from each of the volumes one premier tale, while not reusing any of the fourteen selections reprinted in a Best of the Best compilation published in 1960, nor any of the twenty-four in Boucher’s Choicest, published in 1969 to commemorate the late Anthony Boucher’s skillful and imaginative editorship.

Reading through that quarter century of short stories was at once an exhilarating and sobering experience. Exhilarating — because the stories were polished and gloriously varied in theme and treatment. Sobering — because of writers gone and, in their own special ways, irreplaceable; and because I seemed to sense with the unfolding of the years a certain loss of innocence (a subtle loss, for example, in the depiction of policemen).

As if to compensate, however, the generally humor-free substance of the earlier anthologies — Craig Rice’s sunny larks are the only notable exception — came to be leavened with a lively sense of the absurd, a development that was most evident in the years under Boucher’s editorship. You will find something both of lost innocence and of newfound humor in the pages that follow.

The pain I mentioned earlier was one of selection. In many cases I was faced with a choice between two or three superior candidates for a single year — and how could any of them be left out, as in fact they must? Read — if you can — the original twenty-five volumes in chronological order. But if you are not blessed with a full row on your shelves, read the tales which follow, and catch a glimpse of the sweeping tapestry of short crime fiction, of approaches gone and new freedoms realized, yet all confirming the old truth that a story well told exerts undying fascination.

~ ~ ~

This chilling story from the maiden volume in the Best Detective series has several surprises in store. It’s not often given unto a man to solve his own murder...

Bruno Fischer

The Man Who Lost His Head[1]

The woman looked at Jim Crane and screamed. She had come out of the tall brick house which he had just passed.

Crane stopped under the streetlamp and looked around. There was nobody else on that dark, empty street. The brick house stood off by itself, flanked by lots. He turned back to the woman.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

She cowered in the doorway. Her voice had stopped with that one shrill outcry, but her mouth continued to hang open. She pointed jerkily at him with a forefinger.

“You — your—” she gasped.

Fright had driven her into almost speechless hysteria. Could she be frightened of him? That was crazy. He was sure he had never before seen this dumpy, middle-aged woman.

“What’s wrong?” he said, going toward her.

She put out her hands as if to ward him off, and again she screamed.

Overhead a voice shouted: “Hey, you, keep away from her!”

A man in his undershirt was sticking his head out of a second-floor window. The woman was whimpering now.

“What the devil is going on?” Crane demanded.

“You beat it!” the man said. “You want me to call a cop?”

Both the woman and the man were mad, Crane told himself. If a cop arrived, it would be tough explaining that he hadn’t tried to harm the woman in any way. People always took a woman’s word against a man’s. Best to get away from here.

He sent his long legs down the street. When he had gone a short distance, he looked back. The woman had come all the way out on the sidewalk and was staring after him. Crane wanted none of her; she seemed capable of chasing after him with wild accusations.

He was hurrying around the corner house when he heard the woman say in a loud, cracked voice: “Did you see him, Mr. Prim?”

“Sure I saw him.” That was doubtless the man at the window replying. “Luckily I heard you and looked out and chased him off.”

“I don’t mean that. The poor man. He frightened me so.”

Crane had not stopped walking. He could still hear the voices on the other street, but no longer the words. She was nuts, all right. What had she said? “The poor man. He frightened me so.”That wasn’t sane talk. You met all kinds of people during a walk.

He stopped. A walk? He wasn’t out for a walk. He had left his house to call on Ellen Hoyt, but this wasn’t the way. This street and the other he had been on when the woman had screamed were unfamiliar.

He reached the farther intersection and looked up at the signpost. The motion of his head made his stomach churn, and he wondered why that should be. Then he forgot about his stomach when he saw that he was on the corner of Washington Avenue and Fourth Street.

Ellen Hoyt lived on Washington Avenue, but near Tenth Street. And he himself lived farther uptown. Ellen’s apartment was between his home and where he now was. How in the world had he gone six blocks past his destination?

He stood at the signpost trying to remember. He had come home from his office and showered and shaved and left to take Ellen out to dinner. On pleasant evenings like this he preferred walking. But he didn’t recall walking. He couldn’t recall anything after having left his house until the woman in the doorway had screamed.

So he had been dreaming while strolling along, probably thinking of next month when he and Ellen would be married. He had passed Ellen’s house without knowing it. Some time or other that happened to everybody. No use brooding about it.

Jim Crane crossed the street and headed toward Tenth Street. His stomach felt queasy. It had started, he remembered, when he had brought his head all the way back to look up at the signpost. His legs felt wobbly too. What was the matter with him? Had the woman’s screams upset him?

A neon sign ahead read: COFFEE. He decided that what was wrong with him was merely hunger. He had had a very light lunch at twelve, and now it was around seven-thirty. A cup of coffee would hold him until he and Ellen got to the restaurant.

The lunchroom was small and grimy and deserted except for a burly counterman reading a racing form. Crane slid onto a counter stool and reached for his cigarettes.

“Coffee,” he said.

The counterman looked up from his paper. He frowned. “You feel all right, mister?”

“I—” Crane was feeling a lot better now that he was sitting. “Of course I’m all right,” he said testily. “Why?”

“Well, you look sort of green.”

Crane chuckled. “That’s what comes of being an accountant. Too much indoor work. Mind rushing that coffee? I’m late.”

The counterman looked sharply at him and then turned to the coffee urn. Behind the counter there was a flyspecked mirror which had been blocked off by the counterman’s broad body. Now Crane saw himself in it, sitting hunched forward with his hat pulled low over his forehead and a cigarette dangling from his thin mouth. His long, angular face, he thought, looked like a death’s head. He had never cared for his face, but Ellen said she loved it. But now it was pinched more than usual, and his complexion, which had always been sallow, was actually green.

I hope I’m not coming down with any sickness, he thought, and glanced at the wall clock over the door. It said twenty to eleven.

“Your clock’s fast,” he told the counterman as the coffee was set down before him.

“Maybe a couple of minutes.”

“You mean three hours,” Crane said and looked at his wrist-watch. The hands read the same as those on the wall clock.

It couldn’t be. He had left at seven-fifteen to reach Ellen’s apartment at seven-thirty. He had gone out of his way, so maybe he was a few minutes late. But three hours? And without remembering a single minute of those hours?

In the mirror he saw fear spring into his eyes. “Listen,” he said tensely. “Is this Friday, October twenty-seventh?”

The counterman’s brows creased. “Sure it is, mister. Say, you’re as sick as you look if you ain’t even sure what day it is.”

Crane sighed. At least it wasn’t amnesia or anything like that. But three hours lost!

Then he thought he had the answer. For some reason he had read the clock hands wrong. Not twenty to eleven, but five to eight. He turned his head to again look at the wall clock. He had been right the first time; it was the hour hand which was almost on the eleven.

“Holy God!” the counterman cried. “What happened to you, mister?”

“Eh?”

Crane took his eyes from the clock. The counterman was racing around the counter. In bewilderment, Crane watched him.

“Your head!” The counterman stepped behind Crane, and his voice was shrill with horror. “Holy God!”

Crane put a hand to the back of his neck. He felt the short hairs at the nape matted as if stuck with glue.

“Blood?” he muttered incredulously.

“It’s all over the back of your jacket and—” The counterman’s eyes bulged. “Jeez, don’t you feel nothing, mister?”

“Why, no,” Crane said slowly. “I felt a little sick to my stomach a little while ago, but it’s gone away. It must be just a flesh wound.”

“A flesh wound!” The counterman’s manner suddenly became gentle and anxious. “Now don’t you move, mister. Stay right where you are. Just you sit there while I call an ambulance.”

“Oh, come,” Crane said in annoyance. “It can’t be much if I don’t feel it. I’ll wash up at my girl friend’s place.”

“You stay where you are.” The counterman dug a coin out of his apron and rushed to the phone booth. When he was inside, he stuck his head out. “Don’t get off that chair, mister. Don’t try walking. Take it easy.”

Crane scowled into his coffee. One thing was clear: the blow on his head was responsible for the three lost hours. But he couldn’t remember what had happened. Had he fallen? Had somebody socked him and taken his money?

He fished out his wallet. Twenty-eight dollars — check. He had had nothing else of value on his person. So it had to be a fall. But where and how?

In the phone booth the counterman was saying: “Yeah, on Washington, right off Fifth. And you better hurry.”

What was the guy getting so excited about? So he had lost a little blood. The wound couldn’t amount to much because he didn’t feel any after-effects. Again Crane put his hand up to the back of his neck. Nothing there except dried blood. His hand started to move up.

That was when the street door opened and a thick-set, swarthy man came in. He started to close the door behind him and then froze. He gaped at Crane; his thick lips began to tremble and sweat formed beads on his brow.

Crane swung on his stool so he could face the newcomer directly. He was sure he had never seen him before. Yet this man was as scared of him as the woman in the doorway had been.

“Do you know me?” Crane demanded, getting off the stool.

Crane felt himself shudder. Maybe the woman who had screamed had been frightened by the sight of blood, and the counterman thought he was hurt badly enough to need treatment — but the swarthy man hadn’t seen the back of his head. Crane had been turned partly toward him when he had entered.

What had happened during those three lost hours? Was the swarthy man in any way connected with the wound?

He moved to the door. Sidelong through the window he saw the swarthy man standing thirty feet beyond the store and looking back. He seemed to be hesitating over something.

Anger gripped Crane. he’d get to the bottom of this. he’d make the swarthy man tell him why he was afraid of him.

He flung the door open. The counterman came out of the booth and yelled: “Hey, mister, for God’s sake! The ambulance’s coming! Don’t—”

Crane kept going.

The moment the swarthy man saw Crane appear in the street, he started walking rapidly uptown. He did not quite run.

“Just a minute,” Crane called as he moved after him. “I only want to ask you—”

The swarthy man put his head down and dug his hands into his pockets and pumped his short legs. Crane’s longer legs cut down the distance between them.

Then the swarthy man was out of sight around the Sixth Street corner. And when Crane rounded the corner, the other was waiting for him, with his wide shoulders pressed against the wall and a big ugly revolver in his hand.

“Keep away from me!” the swarthy man panted.

Crane blinked down at the gun. He said: “Don’t be foolish. I only want to ask you how you happen to know me.”

There wasn’t much light, but Crane could see the other’s face strained in fear. It didn’t look like a face that frightened easily. It was a hard and cruel and ruthless face — or had been up to a minute ago.

“You’re dead!” the swarthy man whimpered. “Don’t touch me!”

Everybody he had met in the last few minutes was stark, raving mad, Crane told himself. Or maybe it was he himself who had lost his reason. He had to know. He decided to humor him.

“How do you know I’m dead?” Crane said. “If you never saw me before—”

The gun jerked up, and for the first time Crane realized the full menace of it. The damn idiot would actually shoot!

“You can’t trick me,” the swarthy man said hoarsely. “You want me to say right out how I know you’re dead. You want to make sure. Well, this time I’ll make sure.” And his hand contracted about the trigger of the gun.

There was a feeble click. Nothing else.

The swarthy man looked down at his gun. Then he looked up into Crane’s face. With a choked cry, he dashed past Crane and wildly up the street.

Crane remained rooted to the spot, watching the flight of that stocky shape until it was out of sight. He did not try to follow. He was afraid of a gun which unaccountably had not killed him. And he was afraid of more than a gun — of something he did not understand or even know, but that now was becoming a dim, nagging memory in back of his consciousness.

A siren sounded and then an ambulance swept past him. Looking around the corner, he saw it come to a stop in front of the lunchroom. The ambulance was for him.

He hurried in the opposite direction. The wound wasn’t important enough to delay him. Ellen was probably sore at him for not having shown up. Or worried. He had to get to her at once.

But Ellen was dead.

His breath came out in a sobbing gasp. He stopped walking and then resumed almost at once. What had made that absurd thought pop into his head? He had spoken to her on the phone at six o’clock this evening. He had had a date with her at seven-thirty, but he hadn’t reached her apartment because something had happened on the way.

Ellen was dead.

There it was again, a voice inside of him telling him with dreadful certainty.

“No!” he said aloud. “That blow made me sappy; it’s making me imagine things.”

Ellen lay face down in a pool of her own blood.

“Stop it!” he said fiercely. “She’s all right. She’s fine. She had a nasty experience this morning, but nothing happened to her and she spoke to you at six o’clock. It’s you who were bleeding. It’s you who were hurt.”

How badly hurt? He seemed to be having no bad physical effects, yet he was having a mental reaction that was giving him terrible thoughts. He felt the back of his head, the dried blood caked at the nape. There should be a cut higher up. His hand moved up almost to the hatband.

There was no skull. His fingers kept going in.

He staggered. His hand jerked away. I’m dead, he thought. That’s what scared those people. The top of my head is gone. The swarthy man knew I couldn’t be alive.

He recovered, telling himself that he must have lost sensation in his fingertips. A wound always felt worse than it was.

By the light of a streetlamp he could see his reflection in the window of a clothing store. The collar of his light tweed jacket was smeared with blood; a dried splotch of it trailed between his shoulders. But no matter how he turned, he could not get the back of his head into his line of vision.

He stepped into the store vestibule. The door glass was also like a mirror; it was at an angle with the store window so that he could see the back of his head. He removed his hat.

A section of his skull had sunk* into his head, and there was sight of shredded bone where the hair did not cover it. It wasn’t bleeding now and had probably not bled enough to have greatly weakened him. Had the blood clotted? Was the horribly pressed-in bone still a covering for the wound? He could not see well, but he had seen enough.

Yet he felt nothing but shock, and shock shook him for a long minute. Then carefully he placed his hat far back on his head, covering the visible bone. He fumbled a cigarette out of his pocket and used half a book of matches.

The screaming of the woman in the doorway now made sense. She had seen the back of his skull when he had passed under the light, and the horror of it had unnerved her. The counterman had retained only a little more self-control. But where did the swarthy man come in? He hadn’t seen the wound. Crane had always been facing him.

And Ellen was dead, lying in a pool of her own blood.

No! His mind had been affected by the blow. Desperately he tried to think. He had left his house, and then a woman had screamed. Between, in that period, Ellen lay dead. That was all there was, and it had to be a lie.

He found himself walking, and he was fighting the tremendous urge to rush to the nearest doctor, to the nearest hospital, for a chance to survive. But first he had to see Ellen.

He did not remember covering the few remaining blocks. Suddenly he was inside the apartment house, pressing the button for the automatic elevator. He rode up to the third floor, walked up the hall, turned the corner — and there was a uniformed policeman standing in front of Ellen’s door.

His knees started to buckle. The cop leaped forward, grabbed his arm.

“You’re hurt?” the cop asked, peering into his face. “You look sick. Say, who are you?”

Crane fought himself erect. “I’m all right. My name is James Crane, and I—”

“We been looking for you,” the cop broke in excitedly.

The cop pushed the door open. There were half a dozen men in Ellen’s compact one-room apartment. And Ellen was there.

She lay face down on the floor, with her long brown hair spread about her face like a halo. And there was blood in her hair and on the rug — blood which had run out of the hideous hole in her head.

It was like coming back to the scene of a tragedy, where he had been before. Three hours ago, he knew now, he had seen her just like this.

“Crane, eh?” A man with fiery eyes stood in front of him. “I’m Lieutenant Blanchard.”

Crane leaned weakly against the wall. “We were to be married next month,” he muttered.

A little of it was coming back to Crane. He remembered being inside this apartment three hours ago and staring down at Ellen lying dead in her own blood. He had heard a sound behind him and had started to turn, but he had never had a chance to complete that turn. And then blankness.

Crane said: “The murderer also struck me. Look.” He took off his hat and turned his back to the room.

A startled gasp went up from the men. The lieutenant said sharply: “Dr. Rowland!” A chubby-faced man, who was doubtless the coroner, gently took Crane’s arm and led him to the couch. Crane lay down and pressed his face to the cushion.

Fingers probed the back of his skull, but seemed to avoid the wound. Dr. Rowland said incredulously: “You mean to say you’ve been walking around like this?”

“I feel all right,” Crane muttered. “Except once when I threw back my head too quickly to look at a signpost. It made me sick to my stomach for a few minutes. Will I be all right?”

“We’ll have you fixed up in no time.”

Lieutenant Blanchard asked: “Could that wound have been self-inflicted?”

“Nonsense!” Dr. Rowland straightened up. “He was struck from behind.”

There was silence then. Even the murmuring of the other men in the room had ceased. Crane turned his face on the cushion and saw that Blanchard and Dr. Rowland had crossed to the other side of the room and were consulting in whispers. But the room was small and disjointed phrases reached him.

“... nothing I can do here,” Dr. Rowland was saying. “... hospital... even there... should have died instantly... bone pressing...”

His voice got too low. Then Blanchard was speaking and Crane strained to hear.

“... left here under his own power... came back... talks all right and...”

Dr. Rowland shook his head and his voice rose testily, so that Crane got full sentences.

“It’s one of these phenomena medical men can’t quite explain. I’ve come across it before in similar injuries. The person does not even suspect that he is fatally injured. He might feel and act normal for a considerable period, and then suddenly—” Dr. Rowland glanced at Crane and saw how intensely he was listening, and lowered his voice.

Crane buried his head in the cushion. He could finish the doctor’s sentence: and then suddenly drops dead. He had had a cousin who had received a head injury in an auto accident. His cousin had got up and walked home, acting outwardly normal, and a couple of hours later he had collapsed and died.

The swarthy man was right, Crane thought dully. I’m dead. But not yet dead enough for him.

“Lieutenant,” he said aloud, “I know who did it. It was the man who held Ellen up this morning.”

Blanchard returned to the side of the couch. “What do you know about the holdup?”

“Only what Ellen told me over the phone.”

Crane spoke with his eyes closed and the side of his face against the cushion. “Ellen worked for a paper mill, in the office. Among other things, she handled the payroll. It was lunch hour and she was the only one in the office. She was behind in getting the payroll out and planned to have lunch later. She was putting the money into the envelopes when two armed men with handkerchiefs tied over their faces came in. One stayed at the door to watch if anybody came from the plant. The other gathered up the money. As he was about to leave, the knot became untied in his handkerchief and it fell from his face. He shot at Ellen, but missed. She dropped behind a desk. By then there was an uproar outside and the man whose face Ellen had seen couldn’t take the time to go around the desk after her. He and the other man fled.

“Late this afternoon Ellen phoned me at my office. She was very upset. She had just come from police headquarters, where she had been shown photos, but she hadn’t seen the gunman’s. She could describe him only vaguely because he had no outstanding characteristics, but she was sure she would recognize him if she ever saw him again. I told her I’d be over right after work to take her out to dinner and help her get over her terrible experience. At six o’clock I phoned her again. She said she was feeling better. But when I got here at seven-thirty—” Crane’s voice broke.

“Go on,” Blanchard urged.

“Ellen didn’t answer the door when I rang. I found it unlocked. I walked in, and there was Ellen, just the way she is now. Then I heard somebody behind me, and that’s all I know.” Crane shivered. “I guess after a while I recovered consciousness and picked up my hat and went out, but I don’t remember.”

“And you didn’t see the guy?”

“Not then,” Crane said. “But later.” And he told about the swarthy man.

Lieutenant Blanchard frowned. “The man she described was tall and rather gaunt.”

“Then it was the other man who murdered us,” Crane said. One of the detectives in the room uttered an exclamation. Every pair of eyes stared at Crane. He realized what he had said. Us! The man had murdered us!

Well, wasn’t that the truth?

He wet his lips and went on: “The swarthy man must have been the gunman whose face Ellen didn’t see. In fact, he was mostly outside the door during the holdup, so she hadn’t even been able to describe his build. But he was the one who murdered her.”

Gravely Blanchard nodded. “It’s likely.”

Crane got up on one elbow and felt bitterness choke him. “Damn you, didn’t you know she’d be in danger? Wasn’t she entitled to police protection?”

Blanchard said quietly, “She didn’t identify anybody. We didn’t have the photo in our gallery. Why should anybody guess she wouldn’t be safe?”

“You cops let her die!” Crane cried. “The gunman must have had a police record elsewhere. He was afraid Ellen would be shown photos from other cities. Sooner or later she would have spotted him. He couldn’t let her live.”

Dr. Rowland placed a hand on his shoulder. “Take it easy, son... Lieutenant, I can’t allow this man to be excited.”

Blanchard shrugged. The gesture*said: He’s practically a dead man anyway, so what difference does it make?

An ambulance interne arrived with the driver, who carried a stretcher. The interne glanced down at Crane, whistled softly, and did nothing to treat or even bandage the wound. It was too dangerous, or there was no use. The fact remained that they were taking him to die away from here.

When they transferred him to the stretcher, Crane opened his mouth to protest that he could walk under his own power. But it was less effort to let them just carry him away. Nothing was important. Ellen was dead, and so he was not afraid of death.

But there was something to be done. He wasn’t sure just what it was, and lay thinking about it until cool air washed over him and he knew that he was in the street. Then he saw it.

“Wait a minute!” Crane said, lifting his head.

The stretcher stopped. The interne, holding the front end, turned his head to look down at him.

“There’s not a thing that can be done for me,” Crane said. “I know. I should by rights be dead. Ellen was struck no harder than I was. There must be a reason why I was kept alive. Twice I should have died and didn’t — the second time when the swarthy man shot at me and nothing happened. I’ve been thinking, and the only answer is that I’ve been given time to find Ellen’s murderer. That’s why the swarthy man was sent my way when I was in the lunchroom, but I didn’t know who he was at the time. Now I’ve got to find him again.”

The driver said: “He’s starting to rave. Doc.”

“No,” Crane insisted. “My brain has never been clearer. That’s another miracle, for the bits of bone are pressing into my brain. And why didn’t I bleed to death?”

“Lie still,” the interne told him. “You can never tell about those head injuries. No two act the same way.”

“Why bother kidding me?” Crane said wearily. “I’ve been lent time to find Ellen’s murderer. It can’t be any other way. So you’ve got to let me go.”

“We’ll fix you up fine in the hospital,” the interne said soothingly. “Then you can go anywhere you like. Let’s go, George.”

As the stretcher started to move again. Crane considered making a break for it. But they would have their hands on him before he could get off the stretcher, and a struggle might be too much for him. He had to stretch his borrowed time. Perhaps when they reached the hospital they would leave him alone in the ambulance long enough for him to slip away.

They slid the stretcher into the ambulance. The driver went around to the front. The interne was about to climb inside with Crane when he paused to slap his pockets.

“Got a cigarette, George?” he called.

“You know I don’t use ’em. There’s a drugstore still open at the corner.”

The interne sauntered off. Slowly, Crane sat up. Through the still open doors the street stretched out before him. He had told them that he wanted to escape, but they had put it down to the ravings of a badly injured man. And they were not guarding him now because they could not conceive of a man with a wound like that getting up and walking away.

Then he was standing outside the ambulance, glancing cautiously about the empty street for either the interne or the driver. He was alone.

Not quite alone. The tail of his eye caught movement in the dark doorway across the street. No more than that. No definite shape — only a stirring of deeper shadows. But he knew that it had to be the swarthy man, because he had been kept alive for only one reason. He started across the street.

The shadow moved out of the doorway and became the stocky figure of a man. He peered at Crane with his head far forward. He pulled his gun out.

Crane felt no fear. He kept going across the gutter. The swarthy man had been placed there for him by the same power that was keeping him. Crane, alive.

And the swarthy man did not shoot. With the revolver dangling forgotten from his swinging hand, he raced down the street.

Crane broke into a run. At once, nausea seized him. His head reeled; he almost fell. Careful, he told himself. That’s one thing you can’t do.

He walked as rapidly as he could. He followed the swarthy man around the corner, and when he saw him again, the distance between them had grown to a hundred feet. Crane ran two steps and brought himself up short before he keeled over. He could not run without jerking his head. A sob of helplessness tore from his throat. He kept walking, but the other was already out of sight.

After a while Crane leaned against the wall of a house to rest. He was sick now to the core of his being and his hat seemed to weigh a ton. Only he wasn’t wearing a hat; it had been left in Ellen’s apartment. He knew then that he hadn’t much more time.

Suddenly he laughed with a bitterness that shook him. If some sort of divine Providence was keeping him alive for a certain job, then why hadn’t Providence let him complete the job by catching the swarthy man? Now he had the whole city to hunt for him. That would baffle even the police, with limitless time and manpower.

But wait. There had to be a logical explanation why he had twice come across the swarthy man in the last hour. The second one was easy. The swarthy man had murdered Ellen; he had returned to the scene of the crime to learn if there were any developments which affected him.

And the first time? The swarthy man had been entering a lunchroom. He hadn’t known Crane would be there. He had been shocked nearly out of his wits at the sight of the man he thought he had killed. He had merely dropped into a neighborhood lunchroom for food.

Neighborhood! The swarthy man lived somewhere near the lunchroom.

Crane did not remember walking those five blocks. It was as if his brain had blacked out, and when he came out of it he was looking at a neon sign which said: COFFEE. The weight on his head was becoming unbearable. His legs were turning to water.

Well, here he was, and except for an occasional passing car, the city slept. He moved on, slowly now, fighting to keep his thoughts from clouding and his legs from folding.

Running feet broke the silence. He stood very still, concentrating on the receding sound. And then, far down on the other side of the street, he glimpsed a fleeting shadow. Abruptly it swung away from the curb and vanished through a doorway.

It did not occur to Crane that it might not be the swarthy man he had seen. This was the completion of a pattern which had gone beyond his own logical reasoning. He did not doubt that he had been deliberately brought here for the same reason that he was still alive.

There was a fire hydrant where the shape had left the street, so he was sure of the exact spot. The hydrant was in front of a box-like two-story building. The ground floor consisted of a grocery store, and lights were in the two windows above.

There was a door to be entered, a dimly lit staircase up which to pull himself with infinite weariness, and then a small hall and another door. Men were speaking beyond that door.

One voice Crane recognized as that of the swarthy man, even though now it was shrill with terror. “I tell you. Flick, he’s haunting me. Go on, laugh, but I killed that guy. I told you how he came in just when I got done with the girl, so I had to give him the business too.”

“How do you know he was dead?” a bantering voice asked.

“I know how to hit ’em. It’s nice and quiet and not messy. A sock on the head and they’re dead before they hit the floor. And I saw what I did to that guy. Hell, half his head was knocked in!”

“Did you make sure he was dead?”

“I wasn’t hanging around there longer than I had to,” the swarthy man replied hesitantly. “Well, all right, say I didn’t finish him. But what would he be doing hours later sitting in Steve’s lunchroom, drinking coffee as calm as you please? he’d be dead or in a hospital. And he knew me. Flick. He never seen me before. How the hell did he know me? And he went after me. My gun didn’t scare him none. And when I pulled the trigger, nothing happened.”

“You missed him?”

“The gun was right up against him. But no bullet came out. The gun didn’t shoot, and I’d just oiled and cleaned it for that payroll job.”

The man named Flick chuckled derisively. “You dope! Guns miss fire lots of times.”

“Maybe. So all right, the gun missed fire. So I went back to the house to see if the cops were there. They were there all right. I didn’t get it. Say this guy was hurt bad, would they let him go? Then an ambulance pulls up and they carry somebody out. It’s the guy, I think. Maybe I been dreaming I seen him. Then all of a sudden there he is, not in the ambulance. He’s coming across the street, straight to where I’m standing. He couldn’t see me. I tell you, he couldn’t. I was in a doorway. But he came straight at me. So I ran.”

“You’re a brave lad.”

“Yeah, it’s funny to you. Sure I was scared. He chased after me, but the funny thing is he didn’t run. He kept walking, like he knew I couldn’t get away from him. But I shook him off with no trouble. I cut through yards. I went out of my way. A bloodhound couldn’t have followed me.” His voice faded and then rose stridently: “Listen, Flick! I’m downstairs on this street and look back — and there he is. And he’s still walking, like nothing can stop him.”

“You damn fool! Did he see you come in here?”

“What’s the difference? He knows where we live. But how does he know? That’s what I’m asking. He’s supposed to be dead. I killed him.”

“Of all the saps!” Flick shouted. “Maybe he’s calling the cops. Go look for him.”

“He don’t need cops. Flick. He’ll come himself. He knew all along where we lived and he didn’t bring no cops.”

“Then go out and get him.”

“I’m scared.”

“You got a gun. Use it.”

There was a brief silence. Then the swarthy man said more quietly: “I get the dirty jobs. I kill the girl for you. I get sent out to kill a guy I killed once already.”

“Don’t be a damn fool. I’ll be with you as soon as I get my pants on.”

The door opened so suddenly that Crane had no time to retreat. In the dimness of the hall, he stood facing the swarthy man.

An insane moan trickled from the swarthy man’s lips. He said brokenly, “Flick!” and reached under his shoulder.

Crane had no plan of action. He simply moved in, and his body struck the swarthy man and the arm which was coming out with the gun. The arm and wrist and gun-muzzle were pressed against the swarthy man at the instant the fingers contracted the trigger.

Thunder shook the small hall. The swarthy man fell away from Crane and slumped against the wall. His eyes stared sightlessly. He was dead.

“All right, guy,” a voice said hoarsely. “Reach.”

Crane lifted his gaze. A tall, gaunt man wearing only underwear stood in the doorway, and a black automatic was in his hand. The face was the one Ellen had described. She had died because she had seen that face during the holdup.

“So you’re the lad who’s been haunting Carlos.” The gaunt man’s eyes flicked to the dead man and back to Crane. “How much do you know?”

Crane swayed. His knees quivered; his shoulders were bowed under the weight of his head. But he felt no fear. He felt only a little relief that he was so near the end. He said: “I know that he murdered Ellen and that you are her murderer too.”

The gaunt face tightened. “What I want to know is, do the cops know?”

“They don’t have to know,” Crane said. His voice sounded flat and unfamiliar in his ears. “I’m going to kill you.” And he moved forward.

The gun roared. Crane paused at the impact of the bullet and then resumed motion.

“Stay back!” the gaunt man gasped. “I hit you!” He retreated backward into his room. His face fell to pieces with terror.

Crane smiled. “You can’t kill a dead man,” he said, and lunged.

The gun spoke again as Crane’s hands closed over that skinny neck. He felt nothing. He was past physical sensation.

He fell with the gaunt man under him. Once more there was the sound of a gun, distant and unimportant. Inches from his own face. Crane saw another face that no longer looked quite human. The eyes bulged, the tongue protruded, the skin turned purple.

There was no warning. Between the drawing of a breath, Jim Crane ceased to be...

They had a great deal of trouble loosening the dead fingers from the skinny throat of the other dead man.

Dr. Rowland, the coroner, was puzzled. “The shooting was heard only twenty minutes ago. Rigor shouldn’t have set in so firmly.”

Lieutenant Blanchard turned from the hall where he had been looking down at the body of the swarthy man. “Crane must have continued to hang on while he was dying from the bullet wounds.”

Dr. Rowland frowned and said nothing. After a while he stood up. “Crane was hit three times, but none of the bullets could have been fatal. He was bound to drop dead any moment. The exertion of the struggle finished him.”

Blanchard drew smoke deep into his lungs. “But not until he had killed these two.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You remember what the ambulance interne told us,” Blanchard said. “Crane was raving about being kept alive by something so he could avenge his sweetheart’s murder. He lived just long enough to do it.”

Dr. Rowland sniffed. “Nonsense! Crane wasn’t the first man I’ve seen alive who by all laws of medical science should be dead. This is especially true where brain injuries are concerned.”

“Maybe.” Blanchard studied the cloud of smoke he expelled. “You’re the doctor, so why should I argue?”

~ ~ ~

A. A. Milne (1882–1956) is best known as the creator of Winnie-the-Pooh, but he is also fondly remembered as the author of The Red House Mystery (1922), at least a minor classic, and a handful of excellent short stories — like this wry and, I venture, unguessable account from the 1947 anthology.

A. A. Milne

The Wine Glass[2]

I am in a terrible predicament, as you will see directly. I don’t know what to do...

“One of the maxims which I have found most helpful in my career at Scotland Yard,” the superintendent was saying, “has been the simple one that appearances are not always deceptive. A crime may be committed exactly as it seems to have been committed and exactly as it was intended to be committed.” He helped himself and passed the bottle.

“I don’t think I follow you,” I said, hoping thus to lead him on.

I am a writer of detective stories. If you have never heard of me, it can only be because you don’t read detective stories. I wrote “Murder on the Back Stairs” and “The Mystery of the Twisted Eglantine,” to mention only two of my successes. It was this fact, I think, which first interested Superintendent Frederick Mortimer in me, and, of course, me in him. He is a big fellow with the face of a Roman Emperor; I am the small neat type. We gradually became friends and so got into the habit of dining together once a month. He liked talking about his cases, and naturally I liked listening. But this evening the wine seemed to be making itself felt.

“I don’t think I follow you,” I said again.

“I mean that the simple way of committing a murder is often the best way. This doesn’t mean that the murderer is a man of simple mind. On the contrary. He is subtle enough to know that the simple solution is too simple to be credible.”

This sounded anything but simple, so I said, “Give me an example.”

“Well, take the case of the bottle of wine which was sent to the Marquis of Hedingham on his birthday. Have I never told you about it?”

“Never,” I said, and I helped myself and passed the bottle.

He filled his glass and considered. “Give me a moment to get it clear,” he said. “It was a long time ago.” While he closed his eyes and let the past drift before him, I ordered up another bottle of the same.

“Yes,” said Mortimer, opening his eyes. “I’ve got it now.”

I leaned forward, listening eagerly. This is the story he told me.

The first we heard of it at the Yard (said Mortimer) was a brief announcement over the telephone that the Marquis of Hedingham’s butler had died suddenly at His Lordship’s town house in Brook Street, and that poison was suspected. This was at seven o’clock. We went around at once. Inspector Totman had been put in charge of the case; I was a young detective sergeant at the time, and I generally worked under Totman. He was a brisk, military sort of fellow, with a little prickly ginger mustache, good at his job in a showy, orthodox way, but he had no imagination, and he was thinking all the time of what Inspector Totman would get out of it. Quite frankly I didn’t like him. Outwardly we kept friendly, for it doesn’t do to quarrel with one’s superiors; indeed, he was vain enough to think that I had a great admiration for him; but I knew that he was just using me for his own advantage, and I had a shrewd suspicion that I should have been promoted before this, if he hadn’t wanted to keep me under him so that he could profit by my brains.

We found the butler in his pantry, stretched out on the floor. An open bottle of Tokay, a broken wine glass with the dregs of the liquid still in it, the medical evidence of poisoning, all helped to build up the story for us. The wine had arrived about an hour before, with the card of Sir William Kelso attached to it. On the card was a typewritten message, saying, “Bless you, Tommy, and here’s something to celebrate with.” I can’t remember the exact words, of course, but that was the idea. Apparently it was His Lordship’s birthday, and he was having a small family party of about six people for the occasion. Sir William Kelso, I should explain, was his oldest friend and a relation by marriage. Lord Hedingham having married his sister; in fact. Sir William was to have been one of the party present that evening. He was a bachelor, about fifty, and a devoted uncle to his nephew and nieces.

Well, the butler had brought up the bottle and the card to His Lordship — this was about six o’clock; and Lord Hedingham, as he told us, had taken the card, said something like, “Good old Bill. We’ll have that tonight, Perkins,” and Perkins had said, “Very good. My Lord,” and gone out again with the bottle. The card had been left lying on the table. Afterwards there could be little doubt what had happened. Perkins had opened the bottle with the intention of decanting it but had been unable to resist the temptation to sample it first. I suspect that in his time he had sampled most of His Lordship’s wine but had never before come across a Tokay of such richness. So he had poured himself out a full glass, drunk it, and died almost immediately.

“Good heavens!” I interrupted. “But how extremely providential — I mean, of course, for Lord Hedingham and the others.”

“Exactly,” said Mortimer, as he twirled his own wine glass. The contents of the bottle were analyzed (he went on) and found to contain a more-than-fatal dose of prussic acid. Of course we did all the routine things. With young Roberts, a nice young fellow who often worked with us, I went around to all the chemists’ shops in the neighborhood. Totman examined everybody from Sir William and Lord Hedingham downwards.

Roberts and I took the bottle round to all the wine merchants in the neighborhood. At the end of a week all we could say was this:

One: The murderer had a motive for murdering Lord Hedingham; or, possibly, somebody at his party; or, possibly, the whole party. In accordance with the usual custom. His Lordship would be the first to taste the wine. A sip would not be fatal, and in a wine of such richness the taste might not be noticeable; so that the whole party would then presumably drink His Lordship’s health. He would raise his glass to them, and in this way they would all take the poison, and be affected according to how deeply they drank. On the other hand, His Lordship might take a good deal more than a sip in the first place, and so be the only one to suffer. My deduction from this was that the motive was revenge rather than gain. The criminal would avenge himself on Lord Hedingham if His Lordship or any of his family were seriously poisoned; he could only profit if definite people were definitely killed. It took a little time to get Totman to see this, but he did eventually agree.

Two: The murderer had been able to obtain one of Sir William Kelso’s cards, and knew that John Richard Mervyn Plantaganet Carlow, tenth Marquis of Hedingham, was called “Tommy” by his intimates. Totman deduced from this that he was therefore one of the Hedingham-Kelso circle of relations and friends. I disputed this. I pointed out: (a) that it was to strangers rather than to intimate friends that cards were presented, except in the case of formal calls, when they were left in a bowl or tray in the hall, and anybody could steal one; (b) that the fact that Lord Hedingham was called Tommy must have appeared in society papers and be known to many people; and, most convincing of all, (c) that the murderer did not know that Sir William Kelso was to be in the party that night. For obviously some reference would have been made to the gift, either on his arrival or when the wine was served; whereupon he would have disclaimed any knowledge of it, and the bottle would immediately have been suspected. As it was, of course, Perkins had drunk from it before Sir William’s arrival. Now both Sir William and Lord Hedingham assured us that they always dined together on each other’s birthday, and they were convinced that any personal friend of theirs would have been aware of the fact. I made Totman question them about this, and he then came round to my opinion.

Three: There was nothing to prove that the wine in the bottle corresponded to the label; and wine experts were naturally reluctant to taste it for us. All they could say from the smell was that it was a Tokay of sorts. This, of course, made it more difficult for us. In fact I may say that neither from the purchase of the wine nor the nature of the poison did we get any clue.

We had, then, the following picture of the murderer. He had a cause of grievance, legitimate or fancied, against Lord Hedingham, and did not scruple to take the most terrible revenge. He knew that Sir William Kelso was a friend of His Lordship and called him Tommy, and that he might reasonably give him a bottle of wine on his birthday. He did not know that Sir William would be dining there that night; that is to say, even as late as six o’clock that evening, he did not know. He was not likely, therefore, to be anyone at present employed or living in Lord Hedingham’s house. Finally, he had had an opportunity to get hold of a card of Sir William’s.

As it happened, there was somebody who fitted completely into this picture. It was a fellow called — wait a bit — Merrivale, Medley — oh, well, it doesn’t matter. Merton, that was it. Merton. He had been His Lordship’s valet for six months, had been suspected of stealing and had been dismissed without a character reference. Just the man we wanted. So for a fortnight we searched for Merton. And then, when at last we got on to him, we discovered that he had the most complete alibi imaginable. (The superintendent held up his hand, and it came into my mind that he must have stopped the traffic as a young man with just that gesture.) Yes, I know what you’re going to say, what you detective-story writers always say — the better an alibi, the worse it is. Well, sometimes, I admit; but not in this case. For Merton was in jail, under another name, and he had been inside for the last two months. And what do you think he was suspected of, and was waiting trial for? Oh, well, of course you guess; I’ve as good as told you. He was on a charge of murder — and murder, mark you, by poison.

“Good heavens!” I interjected. I seized the opportunity to refill my friend’s glass. He said, “Exactly,” and took a long drink.

You can imagine (he went on) what a shock this was to us. You see, a certain sort of murder had been committed; we had deduced that it was done by a certain man, without knowing whether he was in the least capable of such a crime; and now, having proved to the hilt that he was capable of it, we had simultaneously proved that he didn’t do it.

I said to Totman, “Let’s take a couple of days off, and each of us think it out, then pool our ideas and start afresh.”

Totman frisked up his little mustache and laughed in his conceited way. “You don’t think I’m going to admit myself wrong, do you, when I’ve just proved I’m right?” (Totman saying “I,” when he had got everything from me!) “Merton’s my man. he’d got the bottle ready, and somebody else delivered it for him. That’s all. He had to wait for the birthday, you see, and when he found himself in prison, his wife or somebody—”

“—took round the bottle, all nicely labeled ‘Poison; not to be delivered till Christmas Day.’ ” I had to say it, I was so annoyed with him.

“Don’t be more of a damned fool than you can help,” he shouted, “and don’t be insolent, or you’ll get into trouble.”

I apologized humbly and told him how much I liked working with him. He forgave me, and we were friends again. He patted me on the shoulder.

“You take a day off,” he said kindly, “you’ve been working too hard. Take a bus into the country and make up a good story for me; the story of that bottle, and how it came from Merton’s lodging to Brook Street, and who took it and why. I admit I don’t see it at present, but that’s the bottle, you can bet your life. I’m going down to Leatherhead. Report here on Friday morning, and we’ll see what we’ve got. My birthday as it happens, and I feel I’m going to be lucky.” Leatherhead was where an old woman had been poisoned. That was the third time in a week he’d told me when his wretched birthday was.

I took a bus to Hampstead Heath. I walked round the Leg of Mutton Pond twenty times. And each time that I went round. Totman’s theory seemed sillier than the last time. And each time I felt more and more strongly that we were being forced into an entirely artificial interpretation of things. It sounds fantastic, I know, but I could almost feel the murderer behind us, pushing us along the way he wanted us to go.

I sat down on a seat and filled a pipe, and I said, “Right! The murderer’s a man who wanted me to believe all that I have believed. When I’ve told myself that the murderer intended to do so-and-so, he intended me to believe that, and therefore he didn’t do so-and-so. When I’ve told myself that the murderer wanted to mislead me, he wanted me to think he wanted to mislead me, which meant that the truth was exactly as it seemed to be. Now then, Fred, you’ll begin all over again, and you’ll take things as they are and won’t be too clever about them. Because the murderer expects you to be clever, and wants you to be clever, and from now on you aren’t going to take your orders from him.”

And of course, the first thing which leaped to my mind was that the murderer meant to murder the butler!

It seemed incredible now that we could ever have missed it. Didn’t every butler sample his master’s wines? Why, it was an absolute certainty that Perkins would be the first victim of a poisoned bottle of a very special vintage. What butler could resist pouring himself out a glass as he decanted it?

Wait, though. Mustn’t be in a hurry. Two objections. One: Perkins might be the one butler in a thousand who wasn’t a wine-sampler. Two: Even if he were like any other butler, he might be out of sorts on that particular evening and have put by a glass to drink later. Wouldn’t it be much too risky for a murderer who only wanted to destroy Perkins, and had no grudge against Lord Hedingham’s family, to depend so absolutely on the butler drinking first?

For a little while this held me up, but not for long. Suddenly I saw the complete solution.

It would not be risky if (a) the murderer had certain knowledge of the butler’s habits; and (b) could, if necessary, at the last moment, prevent the family from drinking. In other words, if he were an intimate of the family, were himself present at the party, and, without bringing suspicion on himself, could bring the wine under suspicion.

In other words, only if he were Sir William Kelso! For Sir William was the only man in the world who could say, “Don’t drink this wine. I’m supposed to have sent it to you, and I didn’t, so that proves it’s a fake.” The only man.

Why hadn’t we suspected him from the beginning? One reason, of course, was that we had supposed the intended victim to be one of the Hedingham family, and of Sir William’s devotion to his sister, brother-in-law, nephew and nieces, there was never any doubt. But the chief reason was our assumption that the last thing a murderer would do would be to give himself away by sending his own card round with the poisoned bottle. “The last thing a murderer would do” — and therefore the first thing a really clever murderer would do.

To make my case complete to myself, for I had little hope as yet of converting Totman, I had to establish motive. Why should Sir William want to murder Perkins? I gave myself the pleasure of having tea that afternoon with Lord Hedingham’s housekeeper. We had caught each other’s eye on other occasions when I had been at the house, and — well, I suppose I can say it now — I had a way with the women in those days. When I left, I knew two things. Perkins had been generally unpopular, not only downstairs, but upstairs. “It was a wonder how they put up with him.” And Her Ladyship had been “a different woman lately.”

“How different?” I asked.

“So much younger, if you know what I mean, Sergeant Mortimer. Almost like a girl again, bless her heart.”

I did know. And that was that. Blackmail.

What was I do to? What did my evidence amount to? Nothing. It was all corroborative evidence. If Kelso had done one suspicious thing, or left one real clue, then the story I had made up would have convinced any jury. As it was, in the eyes of a jury he had done one completely unsuspicious thing and had left one real clue to his innocence — his visiting card. Totman would just laugh at me.

I disliked the thought of being laughed at by Totman. I wondered how I could get the laugh on him. I took a bus to Baker Street, and walked into Regent’s Park, not minding where I was going, but just thinking. And then, as I got opposite Hanover Terrace, who should I see but young Roberts.

“Hallo, young fellow, what have you been up to?”

“Hallo, Sarge,” he grinned. “Been calling on my old school chum, Sir William Kelso — or rather, his valet. Tottie thought he might have known Merton. Speaking as one valet to another, so to speak.”

“Is Inspector Totman back?” I asked.

Roberts stood to attention, and said, “No Sergeant Mortimer, Inspector Totman is not expected to return from Leatherhead, Surrey, until a late hour tonight.”

You couldn’t be angry with the boy. At least I couldn’t. He had no respect for anybody, but he was a good lad. And he had an eye like a hawk. Saw everything and forgot none of it.

I said, “I didn’t know Sir William lived up this way.”

Roberts pointed across the road. “Observe the august mansion. Five minutes ago you’d have found me in the basement, talking to a housemaid who thought Merton was a town in Surrey. As it is, of course.”

I had a sudden crazy idea.

“Well, now you’re going back there,” I said. “I’m going to call on Sir William, and I want you handy. Would they let you in at the basement again, or are they sick of you?”

“Sarge, they just love me. When I went, they said, ‘Must you go?’ ”

We say at the Yard, “Once a murderer, always a murderer.” Perhaps that was why I had an absurd feeling that I should like young Roberts within call. Because I was going to tell Sir William Kelso what I’d been thinking about by the Leg of Mutton Pond. I’d only seen him once, but he gave me the idea of being the sort of man who wouldn’t mind killing, but didn’t like lying. I thought he would give himself away... and then — well, there might be a roughhouse, and Roberts would be useful.

As we walked in at the gate together, I looked in my pocket-book for a card. Luckily I had one left, though it wasn’t very clean. It was a bit ink-stained, in fact. Roberts, who never missed anything said, “Personally I always use blotting paper,” and went on whistling. If I hadn’t known him, I shouldn’t have known what he was talking about. I said, “Oh, do you?” and rang the bell. I gave the maid my card and asked if Sir William could see me, and at the same time Roberts gave her a wink and indicated the back door. She nodded to him, and asked me to come in. Roberts went down and waited for her in the basement. I felt safer.

Sir William was a big man, as big as I was. But of course a lot older. He said, “Well, Sergeant, what can I do for you?” twiddling my card in his fingers. He seemed quite friendly about it. “Sit down, won’t you?”

I said, “I think I’ll stand, Sir William. I want just to ask you one question, if I may?” Yes, I know I was crazy, but somehow I felt inspired.

“By all means,” he said, obviously not much interested.

“When did you first discover that Perkins was blackmailing Lady Hedingham?”

He was standing in front of his big desk, and I was opposite him. He stopped fiddling with my card and became absolutely still; and there was a silence so complete that I could feel it in every nerve of my body. I kept my eyes on his, you may be sure. We stood there, I don’t know how long.

“Is that the only question?” he asked. The thing that frightened me was that his voice was just the same as before. Ordinary.

“Well, just one more. Have you a typewriter in your house?” Just corroborative evidence again, that’s all. But it told him that I knew.

He gave a long sigh, tossed the card into the wastepaper basket and walked to the window. He stood there with his back to me, looking out but seeing nothing. Thinking. He must have stood there for a couple of minutes. Then he turned around, and to my amazement he had a friendly smile on his face. “I think we’d both better sit down,” he said. We did.

“There is a typewriter in the house which I sometimes use,” he began. “I daresay you use one too.”

“I do.”

“And so do thousands of other people — including, it may be, the murderer you are looking for.”

“Thousands of people, including the murderer,” I agreed.

He noticed the difference, and smiled. “People” I had said not “other people.” And I didn’t say I was looking for him. Because I had found him.

“And then,” I went on, “there was the actual wording of the typed message.”

“Was there anything remarkable about it?”

“No. Except that it was exactly right.”

“Oh, my dear fellow, anyone could have got it right. A simple birthday greeting.”

“Anyone in your own class, Sir William, who knew you both. But that’s all. It’s Inspector Totman’s birthday tomorrow.” I added to myself: As he keeps telling us, damn him!

“If I sent him a bottle of whiskey, young Roberts — that’s the constable who’s in on this case; you may have seen him about, he’s waiting for me now down below” — I thought this was rather a neat way of getting that in — “Roberts could make a guess at what I’d say, and so could anybody at the Yard who knows us both, and they wouldn’t be far wrong. But you couldn’t. Sir William.”

He looked at me. He couldn’t take his eyes off me. I wondered what he was thinking. At last he said, “You’d probably say, ‘A long life and all the best, with the admiring good wishes of—’ How’s that?”

It was devilish. First that he had really been thinking it out when he had so much else to think about, and then that he’d got it so right. That “admiring” which meant that he’d studied Totman just as he was studying me, and knew how I’d play up to him.

“You see,” he smiled, “it isn’t really difficult. And the fact that my card was used is in itself convincing evidence of my innocence, don’t you think?”

“To a jury perhaps,” I said, “but not to me.”

“I wish I could convince you,” he murmured to himself. “Well, what are you doing about it?”

“I shall, of course, put my reconstruction of the case in front of Inspector Totman tomorrow.”

“Ah! A nice birthday surprise for him. And, knowing your Totman, what do you think he will do?”

He had me there, and he knew it.

“I think you know him too. Sir,” I said.

“I do,” he smiled.

“And me, I daresay, and anybody else you meet. Quick as lightning. But even ordinary men like me have a sort of sudden understanding of people sometimes. As I’ve got of you. Sir. And I’ve a sort of feeling that, if ever we get you into a witness box, and you’ve taken the oath, you won’t find perjury so much to your liking as murder. Or what the law calls murder.”

“But you don’t?” he said quickly.

“I think,” I said, “that there are a lot of people who ought to be killed. But I’m a policeman, and what I think isn’t evidence. You killed Perkins, didn’t you?”

He nodded; and then said almost with a grin at me, “A nervous affection of the head, if you put it in evidence. I could get a specialist to swear to it.”

My God, he was a good sort of man. I was really sorry when they found him next day, after he’d put a bullet through his head. And yet what else could he do? He knew I should get him.

I was furious with Fred Mortimer. That was no way to end a story. Suddenly, like that, as if he were tired of it. I told him so.

“My dear little friend,” he said, “it isn’t the end. We’re just coming to the exciting part. This will make your hair curl.”

“Oh!” I said sarcastically. “Then I suppose all that you’ve told me so far is just introduction?”

“That’s right. Now you listen. On Friday morning, before we heard of Sir William’s death, I went in to report to Inspector Totman. He wasn’t there. Nobody knew where he was. They rang up his apartment house. Now hold tight to the leg of the table or something. When the porter got into his flat, he found Totman’s body. Poisoned.”

“Good heavens!” I ejaculated.

“You may say so. There he was, and on the table was a newly opened bottle of whiskey, and by the side of it a visiting card. And whose card do you think it was? Mine! And what do you think it said? ‘A long life and all the best, with the admiring good wishes of—’ me! Lucky for me I had had young Roberts with me. Lucky for me he had this genius for noticing and remembering. Lucky for me he could swear to the exact shape of the smudge of ink on that card. And I might add, lucky for me that they believed me when I told them word for word what had been said at my interview with Sir William, as I have just told you. I was reprimanded, of course, for exceeding my duty, as I most certainly had, but that was only official. Unofficially, they were very pleased with me. We couldn’t prove anything, naturally, and Sir William’s suicide was left unexplained. But a month later I was promoted to Inspector.”

Mortimer fixed his glass and drank, while I revolved his extraordinary story in my mind.

“The theory,” I said, polishing my glasses thoughtfully, “was, I suppose, that Sir William sent the poisoned whiskey, not so much to get rid of Totman, from whom he had little to fear, as to discredit you by bringing you under suspicion, and to discredit entirely your own theory of the other murder.”

“Exactly.”

“And then, at the last moment he realized that he couldn’t go on with it, or the weight of his crimes became suddenly too much for him, or—”

“Something of the sort. Nobody ever knew, of course.”

I looked across the table with sudden excitement; almost with awe.

“Do you remember what he said to you?” I asked, giving the words their full meaning as I slowly quoted them. “ ‘The fact that my card was used is in itself convincing evidence of my innocence...’ And you said, ‘Not to me.’ And he said, ‘I wish I could convince you.’ And that was how he did it! The fact that your card was used was convincing evidence of your innocence!”

“With the other things. The proof that he was in possession of the particular card of mine which was used, and the certainty that he had committed the other murder. Once a poisoner, always a poisoner.”

“True... yes... Well, thanks very much for the story, Fred. All the same, you know,” I said, shaking my head at him, “it doesn’t altogether prove what you set out to prove.”

“What was that?”

“That the simple explanation is generally the true one. In the case of Perkins, yes. But not in the case of Totman.”

“Sorry, I don’t follow.”

“My dear fellow,” I said, putting up a finger to emphasize my point, for he seemed a little hazy with the wine suddenly; “the simple explanation of Totman’s death — surely? — would have been that you had sent him the poisoned whiskey.”

Superintendent Mortimer looked a little surprised. “But I did,” he said.

So now you see my terrible predicament. I could hardly listen as he went on dreamily: “I never liked Totman, and he stood in my way; but I hadn’t seriously thought of getting rid of him until I got that card into my hands again. As I told you. Sir William dropped it into the basket and turned to the window, and I thought; Damn it, you can afford to chuck about visiting cards, but I can’t. It’s the only one I’ve got left, and if you don’t want it, I do. So I bent down very naturally to tie my shoelace and felt in the basket behind me, because, of course, it was rather an undignified thing to do, and I didn’t want to be seen; and just as I was putting it into my pocket I saw that ink smudge again, and I remembered that Roberts had seen it. And in a flash the whole plan came to me; simple; foolproof. And from that moment everything I said to him was in preparation for it. Of course we were quite alone, but you never knew who might be listening, and besides” — he twiddled the stem of his wine glass — “p’raps I’m like Sir William, rather tell the truth than not. And it was true, all of it — how Sir William came to know about Totman’s birthday, and knew that those were the very words I should have used.”

“Don’t think I wanted to put anything on to Sir William that wasn’t his. I liked him. But he as good as told me he wasn’t going to wait for what was coming to him, and he’d done one murder anyway. That was why I slipped down with a bottle that evening and left it outside Totman’s flat. Didn’t dare wait till the morning, in case Sir William closed his account that night.” He stood up and stretched himself. “Ah, well, it was a long time ago. Good-by, old man, I must be off. Thanks for a grand dinner. Don’t forget, you’re dining with me next Tuesday. I’ve got a new Burgundy for you. You’ll like it.”

He drained his wine glass and swaggered out, leaving me to my thoughts.

~ ~ ~

From the 1948 anthology...

The Checklist found at the end of this volume reveals that Ellery Queen is the author with the most selections, appearing in eleven of the twenty-five volumes. The same Checklist also records that more of the 334 stories came originally from Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine than from any other single source. This illustrates, however inadequately, the immense contributions made by Queen to the crime short story, both as writer and editor... The present exercise in the deductive skills of Queen the detective is without crime, but notable in its effective embrace of history and the neatness of its puzzle.

Ellery Queen

The Adventure of the President’s Half Disme[3]

Those few curious men who have chosen to turn off the humdrum highway to hunt for their pleasure along the back trails expect — indeed, they look confidently forward to — many strange encounters; and it is the dull stalk which does not turn up at least a hippograff. But it remained for Ellery Queen to experience the ultimate excitement. On one of his prowls he collided with a President of the United States.

This would have been joy enough if it had occurred as you might imagine; by chance, on a dark night, in some back street of Washington, D.C., with Secret Service men closing in on the delighted Mr. Queen to question his motives by way of his pockets while a large black bullet-proof limousine rushed up to spirit the President away. But mere imagination fails in this instance. What is required is the power of fancy, for the truth is fantastic. Ellery’s encounter with the President of the United States took place, not on a dark night, but in the unromantic light of several days (although the night played its role, too). Nor was it by chance: the meeting was arranged by a farmer’s daughter. And it was not in Washington, D.C., for this President presided over the affairs of the nation from a different city altogether. Not that the meeting took place in that city, either; it did not take place in a city at all, but on a farm some miles south of Philadelphia. Oddest of all, there was no limousine to spirit the Chief Executive away, for while the President was a man of great wealth, he was still too poor to possess an automobile and, what is more, not all the resources of his Government — indeed, not all the riches of the world — could have provided one for him.

There are even more curious facets to this jewel of paradox. This was an encounter in the purest sense, and yet, physically, it did not occur at all. The President in question was dead. And while there are those who would not blink at a nubbing of shoulders or a clasping of hands even though one of the parties was in his grave, and to such persons the thought might occur that the meeting took place on a psychic plane — alas, Ellery Queen is not of their company. He does not believe in ghosts, consequently he never encounters them. So he did not collide with the President’s shade, either.

And yet their meeting was as palpable as, say, the meeting between two chess masters, one in Moscow and the other in New York, who never leave their respective armchairs and still play a game to a decision. It is even more wonderful than that, for while the chess players merely annihilate space, Ellery and the father of his country annihilated time — a century and a half of it.

In fine, this is the story of how Ellery Queen matched wits with George Washington.

Those who are finicky about their fashions complain that the arms of coincidence are too long; but in this case the Designer might say that He cut to measure. Or, to put it another way, an event often brews its own mood. Whatever the cause — whether coincidental or incidental — the fact is The Adventure of the President’s Half Disme, which was to concern itself with the events surrounding President Washington’s fifty-ninth birthday, actually first engrossed Ellery on February the nineteenth and culminated three days later.

Ellery was in his study that morning of the nineteenth of February, wrestling with several reluctant victims of violence, none of them quite flesh and blood, since his novel was still in the planning stage. So he was annoyed when Nikki came in with a card.

“James Ezekiel Patch,” growled the great man; he was never in his best humor during the planning state. “I don’t know any James Ezekiel Patch, Nikki. Toss the fellow out and get back to transcribing those notes on Possible Motives—”

“Why, Ellery,” said Nikki. “This isn’t like you at all.”

“What isn’t like me?”

“To renege on an appointment.”

“Appointment? Does this Patch character claim—?”

“He doesn’t merely claim it. He proves it.”

“Someone’s balmy,” snarled Mr. Queen; and he strode into the living room to contend with James Ezekiel Patch. This, he perceived as soon as James Ezekiel Patch rose from the Queen fireside chair, was likely to be a heroic project. Mr. Patch, notwithstanding his mild, even studious, eyes, seemed to rise indefinitely; he was a large, a very large, man.

“Now what’s all this, what’s all this?” demanded Ellery fiercely; for after all Nikki was there.

“That’s what I’d like to know,” said the large man amiably. “What did you want with me, Mr. Queen?”

“What did I want with you! What did you want with me?”

“I find this very strange, Mr. Queen.”

“Now see here, Mr. Patch, I happen to be extremely busy this morning—”

“So am I.” Mr. Patch’s large thick neck was reddening and his tone was no longer amiable. Ellery took a cautious step backward as his visitor lumbered forward to thrust a slip of yellow paper under his nose. “Did you send me this wire, or didn’t you?”

Ellery considered it tactically expedient to take the telegram, although for strategic reasons he did so with a bellicose scowl.

IMPERATIVE YOU CALL AT MY HOME TOMORROW FEBRUARY NINETEEN PROMPTLY TEN A.M. SIGNED ELLERY QUEEN

“Well, sir?” thundered Mr. Patch. “Do you have something on Washington for me, or don’t you?”

“Washington?” said Ellery absently, studying the telegram.

“George Washington, Mr. Queen! I’m Patch the antiquarian. I collect Washington. I’m an authority on Washington. I have a large fortune and I spend it all on Washington! I’d never have wasted my time this morning if your name hadn’t been signed to this wire! This is my busiest week of the year. I have engagements to speak on Washington—”

“Desist, Mr. Patch,” said Ellery. “This is either a practical joke, or—”

“The Baroness Tchek,” announced Nikki clearly. “With another telegram.” And then she added: “And Professor John Cecil Shaw, ditto.”

The three telegrams were identical.

“Of course, I didn’t send them,” said Ellery thoughtfully, regarding his three visitors. Baroness Tchek was a short powerful woman, resembling a dumpling with gray hair; an angry dumpling. Professor Shaw was lank and long-jawed, wearing a sack suit which hung in some places and failed in its purpose by inches at the extremities. Along with Mr. Patch, they constituted as deliciously queer a trio as had ever congregated in the Queen apartment. Their host suddenly determined not to let go of them. “On the other hand, someone obviously did, using my name...”

“Then there’s nothing more to be said,” snapped the Baroness, snapping her bag for emphasis.

“I should think there’s a great deal more to be said,” began Professor Shaw in a troubled way. “Wasting people’s time this way—”

“It’s not going to waste any more of my time,” growled the large Mr. Patch. “Washington’s Birthday only three days off—!”

“Exactly,” smiled Ellery. “Won’t you all sit down? There’s more in this than meets the eye... Baroness Tchek, if I’m not mistaken, you’re the one who brought that fabulous collection of rare coins into the United States just before Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia? You’re in the rare-coin business in New York now?”

“Unfortunately,” said the Baroness coldly, “one must eat.”

“And you sir? I seem to know you.”

“Rare books,” said the Professor in the same troubled way.

“Of course. John Cecil Shaw, the rare-book collector. We’ve met at Mim’s and other places. I abandon my first theory. There’s a pattern here, distinctly unhumorous. An antiquarian, a coin dealer, and a collector of rare books — Nikki? Whom have you out there this time?”

“If this one collects anything,” muttered Nikki into her employer’s ear, “I’ll bet it’s things with two legs and hair on their chests. A darned pretty girl—”

“Named Martha Clarke,” said a cool voice; and Ellery turned to find himself regarding one of the most satisfying sights in the world.

“Ah. I take it. Miss Clarke, you also received one of these wires signed with my name?”

“Oh, no,” said the pretty girl. “I’m the one who sent them.”

There was something about the comely Miss Clarke which inspired, if not confidence, at least an openness of mind. Perhaps it was the self-possessed manner in which she sat all of them, including Ellery, down in Ellery’s living room while she waited on the hearth-rug, like a conductor on the podium, for them to settle in their chairs. And it was the measure of Miss Clarke’s assurance that none of them was indignant, only curious.

“I’ll make it snappy,” said Martha Clarke briskly. “I did what I did the way I did it because, first, I had to make sure I could see Mr. Patch, Baroness Tchek and Professor Shaw today. Second, because I may need a detective before I’m through... Third,” she added, almost absently, “because I’m pretty desperate.”

“My name is Martha Clarke. My father Tobias is a farmer. Our farm lies just south of Philadelphia, it was built by a Clarke in 1761, and it’s been in our family ever since. I won’t go gooey on you. We’re broke and there’s a mortgage. Unless papa and I can raise six thousand dollars in the next couple of weeks we lose the old homestead.”

Professor Shaw looked vague. But the Baroness said: “Deplorable, Miss Clarke. Now if I’m to run my auction this afternoon—”

And James Ezekiel Patch grumbled: “If it’s money you want, young woman—”

“Certainly it’s money I want. But I have something to sell.”

“Ah!” said the Baroness.

“Oh?” said the Professor.

“Hm,” said the antiquarian.

Mr. Queen said nothing, and Miss Porter jealously chewed the end of her pencil.

“The other day, while I was cleaning out the attic, I found an old book.”

“Well, now,” said Professor Shaw indulgently. “An old book, eh?”

“It’s called The Diary of Simeon Clarke. Simeon Clarke was papa’s great-great-great-something or other. His Diary was privately printed in 1792 in Philadelphia, Professor, by a second cousin of his, Jonathan, who was in the printing business there.”

“Jonathan Clarke. The Diary of Simeon Clarke,” mumbled the cadaverous book collector. “I don’t believe I know either. Miss Clarke. Have you...?”

Martha Clarke carefully unclasped a large manila envelope and drew forth a single yellowed sheet of badly printed paper.

“The title page was loose, so I brought it along.”

Professor Shaw silently examined Miss Clarke’s exhibit, and Ellery got up to squint at it. “Of course,” said the Professor after a long scrutiny, in which he held the sheet up to the light, peered apparently at individual characters, and performed other mysterious rites, “mere age doesn’t connote rarity, nor does rarity of itself constitute value. And while this page looks genuine for the purported period and is rare enough to be unknown to me, still...”

“Suppose I told you” said Miss Martha Clarke, “that the chief purpose of the Diary — which I have at home — is to tell the story of how George Washington visited Simeon Clarke’s farm in the winter of 1791—”

“Clarke’s farm? 1791?” exclaimed James Ezekiel Patch. “Preposterous. There’s no record of—”

“And of what George Washington buried there,” the farmer’s daughter concluded.

By executive order, the Queen telephone was taken off its hook, the door was bolted, the shades were drawn, and the long interrogation began. By the middle of the afternoon, the unknown chapter in the life of the Father of His Country was fairly sketched.

Early on an icy gray February morning in 1791, Farmer Clarke had looked up from the fence he was mending to observe a splendid cortege galloping down on him from the direction of the City of Philadelphia. Outriders thundered in the van, followed by a considerable company of gentlemen on horseback and several great coaches-and-six driven by liveried Negroes. To Simeon Clarke’s astonishment, the entire equipage stopped before his farmhouse. He began to run. He could hear the creak of springs and the snorting of sleek and sweating horses. Gentlemen and lackeys were leaping to the frozen ground and, by the time Simeon had reached the farmhouse, all were elbowing about the first coach, a magnificent affair bearing a coat of arms. Craning, the farmer saw within the coach a very large, great-nosed gentlemen clad in a black velvet suit and a black cloak faced with gold; there was a cocked hat on his wigged head and a great sword in a white leather scabbard at his side. This personage was on one knee, leaning with an expression of considerable anxiety over a chubby lady of middle age, swathed in furs, who was half-sitting, half-lying on the upholstered seat, her eyes closed and her cheeks waxen under the rouge. Another gentleman, soberly attired, was stooping over the lady, his fingers on one pale wrist.

“I fear,” he was saying with great gravity to the kneeling man, “that it would be imprudent to proceed another yard in this weather. Your Excellency. Lady Washington requires physicking and a warm bed immediately.”

Lady Washington! Then the large, richly dressed gentleman was the President! Simeon Clarke pushed excitedly through the throng.

“Your Mightiness! Sir!” he cried. “I am Simeon Clarke. This is my farm. We have warm beds, Sarah and I!”

The President considered Simeon briefly. “I thank you, Farmer Clarke. No, no. Dr. Craik. I shall assist Lady Washington myself.”

And George Washington carried Martha Washington into the little Pennsylvania farmhouse of Simeon and Sarah Clarke. An aide informed the Clarkes that President Washington had been on his way to Virginia to celebrate his fifty-ninth birthday in the privacy of Mount Vernon.

Instead, he passed his birthday on the Clarke farm, for the physician insisted that the President’s lady could not be moved even back to the nearby Capital, without risking complications. On His Excellency’s order, the entire incident was kept secret. “It would give needless alarm to the people,” he said. But he did not leave Martha’s bedside for three days and three nights.

Presumably during those seventy-two hours, while his lady recovered from her indisposition, the President devoted some thought to his hosts, for on the fourth morning he sent black Christopher, his body servant, to summon the Clarkes. They found George Washington by the kitchen fire, shaven and powdered and in immaculate dress, his stern features composed.

“I am told. Farmer Clarke, that you and your good wife refuse reimbursement for the live stock you have slaughtered in the accommodation of our large company.”

“You’re my President, Sir,” said Simeon. “I wouldn’t take money.”

“We — we wouldn’t take money. Your Worship,” stammered Sarah.

“Nonetheless, Lady Washington and I would acknowledge your hospitality in some kind. If you give me leave, I shall plant with my own hands a grove of oak saplings behind your house. And beneath one of the saplings I propose to bury two of my personal possessions.” Washington’s eyes twinkled ever so slightly. “It is my birthday — I feel a venturesome spirit. Come, Farmer Clarke and Mistress Clarke, would you like that?”

“What — what were they?” choked James Ezekiel Patch, the Washington collector. He was pale.

Martha Clarke replied: “The sword at Washington’s side, in its white leather scabbard, and a silver coin the President carried in a secret pocket.”

“Silver coin?” breathed Baroness Tchek, the rare-coin dealer. “What kind of coin. Miss Clarke?”

“The Diary calls it ‘a half disme,’ with an s,” replied Martha Clarke, frowning. “I guess that’s the way they spelled dime in those days. The book’s full of queer spellings.”

“A United States of America half disme?” asked the Baroness in a very odd way.

“That’s what it says. Baroness.”

“And this was in February, 1791?”

“Yes.”

The Baroness snorted, beginning to rise. “I thought your story was too impossibly romantic, young woman. The United States Mint didn’t begin to strike off half dismes until 1792!”

“Half dismes or any other U. S. coinage, I believe,” said Ellery. “How come. Miss Clarke?”

“It was an experimental coin,” said Miss Clarke coolly. “The Diary isn’t clear as to whether it was the Mint which struck it off, or some private agency — maybe Washington himself didn’t tell Simeon — but the President did say to Simeon that the half disme in his pocket had been coined from silver he himself had furnished and had been presented to him as a keepsake.”

“There’s a half disme with a story like that behind it in the possession of The American Numismatic Society,” muttered the Baroness, “but it’s definitely called one of the earliest coins struck off by the Mint. It’s possible, I suppose, that in 1791, the preceding year, some specimen coins may have been struck off—”

“Possible my foot,” said Miss Clarke. “It’s so. The Diary says so. I imagine President Washington was pretty interested in the coins to be issued by the new country he was head of.”

“Miss Clarke, I–I want that half disme. I mean — I’d like to buy it from you,” said the Baroness.

“And I,” said Mr. Patch carefully, “would like to ah... purchase Washington’s sword.”

“The Diary,” moaned Professor Shaw. “I’ll buy The Diary of Simeon Clarke from you. Miss Clarke!”

“I’ll be happy to sell it to you. Professor Shaw — as I said, I found it in the attic and I have it locked up in a highboy in the parlor at home. But as for the other two things...” Martha Clarke paused, and Ellery looked delighted. He thought he knew what was coming. “I’ll sell you the sword, Mr. Patch, and you the half disme, Baroness Tchek, providing—” and now Miss Clarke turned her clear eyes on Ellery “—providing you, Mr. Queen, will be kind enough to find them.”

And there was the farmhouse in the frosty Pennsylvania morning, set in the barren winter acres, and looking as bleak as only a little Revolutionary house with a mortgage on its head can look in the month of February.

“There’s an apple orchard over there,” said Nikki as they got out of Ellery’s car. “But where’s the grove of oaks? I don’t see any!” And then she added, sweetly: “Do you, Ellery?”

Ellery’s lips tightened. They tightened further when his solo on the front-door knocker brought no response.

“Let’s go around,” he said briefly; and Nikki preceded him with cheerful step.

Behind the house there was a barn; and beyond the barn there was comfort, at least for Ellery. For beyond the barn there were twelve ugly holes in the earth, and beside each hole lay either a freshly felled oak tree and its stump, or an ancient stump by itself, freshly uprooted. On one of the stumps sat an old man in earth-stained blue jeans, smoking a corncob pugnaciously.

“Tobias Clarke?” asked Ellery.

“Yump.”

“I’m Ellery Queen. This is Miss Porter. Your daughter visited me in New York yesterday—”

“Know all about it.”

“May I ask where Martha is?”

“Station. Meetin’ them there other folks.” Tobias Clarke spat and looked away — at the holes. “Don’t know what ye’re all comin’ down here for. Wasn’t nothin’ under them oaks. Dug ’em all up t’other day. Trees that were standin’ and the stumps of the ones that’d fallen years back. Look at them holes. Hired hand and me dug down most to China. Washin’ton’s Grove, always been called. Now look at it. Firewood — for someone else, I guess.” There was an iron bitterness in his tone. “We’re losin’ this farm. Mister, unless...” And Tobias Clarke stopped. “Well, maybe we won’t,” he said. “There’s always that there book Martha found.”

“Professor Shaw, the rare-book collector, offered your daughter two thousand dollars for it if he’s satisfied with it, Mr. Clarke,” said Nikki.

“So she told me last night when she got back from New York,” said Tobias Clarke. “Two thousand — and we need six.” He grinned, and he spat again.

“Well,” said Nikki sadly to Ellery, “that’s that.” She hoped Ellery would immediately get into the car and drive back to New York — immediately.

But Ellery showed no disposition to be sensible. “Perhaps, Mr. Clarke, some trees died in the course of time and just disappeared, stumps, roots, and all. Martha—” Martha! “— said the Diary doesn’t mention the exact number Washington planted here.”

“Look at them holes. Twelve of ’em, ain’t there? In a triangle. Man plants trees in a triangle, he plants trees in a triangle. Ye don’t see no place between holes big enough for another tree, do ye? Anyways, there was the same distance between all the trees. No, sir, Mister, twelve was all there was ever; and I looked under all twelve.”

“What’s the extra tree doing in the center of the triangle? You haven’t uprooted that one, Mr. Clarke.”

Tobias Clarke spat once more. “Don’t know much about trees, do ye? That’s a cherry saplin’ I set in myself six years ago. Ain’t got nothin’ to do with George Washin’ton.”

Nikki tittered.

“If you’d sift the earth in those holes—”

“I sifted it. Look, Mister, either somebody dug that stuff up a hundred years ago or the whole yarn’s a Saturday night whopper. Which it most likely is. There’s Martha now with them other folks.” And Tobias Clarke added, spitting for the fourth time: “Don’t let me be keepin’ ye.”

“It reveals Washington rather er... out of character,” said James Ezekiel Patch that evening. They were sitting about a fire in the parlor, as heavy with gloom as with Miss Clarke’s dinner; and that, at least in Miss Porter’s view, was heavy indeed. Baroness Tchek wore the expression of one who is trapped in a cave; there was no further train until morning, and she had not yet resigned herself to a night in a farmhouse bed. The better part of the day had been spent poring over The Diary of Simeon Clarke, searching for a clue to the buried Washingtonia. But there was no clue; the pertinent passage referred merely to “a Triangle of Oake Trees behinde the red Barn distant fifteen yards one from the other, which His Excellency the President did plant with his own Hands, as he had promised me, and then did burie his Sworde and the Half Disme for his Pleasure in a Case of copper beneathe one of the Oakes, the which, he said, (the Case) had been fashioned by Mr. Revere of Boston who is experimenting with this Mettle in his Furnasses.”

“How out of character, Mr. Patch?” asked Ellery. He had been staring into the fire for a long time, scarcely listening.

“Washington wasn’t given to romanticism,” said the large man dryly. “No folderol about him. I don’t know of anything in his life which prepares us for such a yarn as this. I’m beginning to think—”

“But Professor Shaw himself says the Diary is no forgery!” cried Martha Clarke.

“Oh, the book’s authentic enough.” Professor Shaw seemed unhappy. “But it may simply be a literary hoax, Miss Clarke. The woods are full of them. I’m afraid that unless the story is confirmed by the discovery of that copper case with its contents...”

“Oh, dear,” said Nikki impulsively; and for a moment she was sorry for Martha Clarke, she really was.

But Ellery said: “I believe it. Pennsylvania farmers in 1791 weren’t given to literary hoaxes. Professor Shaw. As for Washington, Mr. Patch — no man can be so rigidly consistent. And with his wife just recovering from an illness — on his own birthday...” And Ellery fell silent again.

Almost immediately he leaped from his chair. “Mr. Clarke!”

Tobias stirred from his dark corner. “What?”

“Did you ever hear your father, or grandfather — anyone in your family — talk of another barn behind the house?”

Martha stared at him. Then she cried: “Papa, that’s it! It was a different barn, in a different place, and the original Washington’s Grove was cut down, or died—”

“Nope,” said Tobias Clarke. “Never was but this one barn. Still got some of its original timbers. Ye can see the date burned into the crosstree 1761.”

Nikki was up early. A steady hack-hack-hack borne on frosty air woke her. She peered out of her back window, the coverlet up to her nose, to see Mr. Ellery Queen against the dawn, like a pioneer, wielding an ax powerfully.

Nikki dressed quickly, shivering, flung her mink-dyed muskrat over her shoulders, and ran downstairs, out of the house, and around it past the barn.

“Ellery! What do you think you’re doing? It’s practically the middle of the night!”

“Chopping,” said Ellery, chopping.

“There’s mountains of firewood stacked against the barn,” said Nikki. “Really, Ellery, I think this is carrying a flirtation too far.” Ellery did not reply. “And anyway, there’s something — something gruesome and indecent about chopping up trees George Washington planted. It’s vandalism.”

“Just a thought,” panted Ellery, pausing for a moment.

“A hundred and fifty-odd years is a long time, Nikki. Lots of queer things could happen, even to a tree, in that time. For instance—”

“The copper case,” breathed Nikki, visibly. “The roots grew around it. It’s in one of these stumps!”

“Now you’re functioning,” said Ellery, and he raised the ax again.

He was still at it two hours later, when Martha Clarke announced breakfast.

At 11:30 A.M. Nikki returned from driving the Professor, the Baroness, and James Ezekiel Patch to the railroad station. She found Mr. Queen seated before the fire in the kitchen in his undershirt, while Martha Clarke caressed his naked right arm.

“Oh!” said Nikki faintly. “I beg your pardon.”

“Where you going, Nikki?” said Ellery irritably. “Come in. Martha’s rubbing liniment into my biceps.”

“He’s not very accustomed to chopping wood, is he?” asked Martha Clarke in a cheerful voice.

“Reduced those foul ‘oakes’ to splinters,” groaned Ellery. “Martha, ouch!”

“I should think you’d be satisfied now,” said Nikki coldly. “I suggest we imitate Patch, Shaw, and the Baroness, Ellery — there’s a 3:05. We can’t impose on Miss Clarke’s hospitality forever.”

To Nikki’s horror, Martha Clarke chose this moment to burst into tears.

“Martha!”

Nikki felt like leaping upon her and shaking the cool look back into her perfidious eyes.

“Here — here, now, Martha.” That’s right, thought Nikki contemptuously. Embrace her in front of me! “It’s those three rats. Running out that way! Don’t worry — I’ll find that sword and half disme for you yet.”

“You’ll never find them,” sobbed Martha, wetting Ellery’s undershirt. “Because they’re not here. They never were here. When you s-stop to think of it... burying that coin, his sword... if the story were true, he’d have given them to Simeon and Sarah...”

“Not necessarily, not necessarily,” said Ellery with hateful haste. “The old boy had a sense of history, Martha. They all did in those days. They knew they were men of destiny and that the eyes of posterity were upon them. Burying ’em is just what Washington would have done!”

“Do you really th-think so?”

Oh... pfui.

“But even if he did bury them,” Martha sniffled, “it doesn’t stand to reason Simeon and Sarah would have let them stay buried. They’d have dug that copper box up like rabbits the minute G-George turned his back.”

“Two simple countryfolk?” cried Ellery. “Salt of the earth? The new American earth? Disregard the wishes of His Mightiness, George Washington, First President of the United States? Are you out of your mind? And anyway, what would Simeon do with a dress-sword?”

Beat it into a ploughshare, thought Nikki spitefully — tha’s what he’d do.

“And that half disme. How much could it have been worth in 1791? Martha, they’re here under your farm somewhere. You wait and see—”

“I wish I could b-believe it... Ellery.”

“Shucks, child. Now stop crying—”

From the door Miss Porter said stiffly: “You might put your shirt back on. Superman, before you catch pneumonia.”

Mr. Queen prowled about the Clarke acres for the remainder of that day, his nose at a low altitude. He spent some time in the barn. He devoted at least twenty minutes to each of the twelve holes in the earth. He reinspected the oaken wreckage of his ax-work, like a paleontologist examining an ancient petrifaction for the impression of a dinosaur foot. He measured off the distance between the holes; and, for a moment, a faint tremor of emotion shook him. George Washington had been a surveyor in his youth; here was evidence that his passion for exactitude had not wearied with the years. As far as Ellery could make out, the oaks had been set into the earth at exactly equal distances, in an equilateral triangle.

It was at this point that Ellery had seated himself upon the seat of a cultivator behind the barn, wondering at his suddenly accelerated circulation. Little memories were knocking at the door. And as he opened to admit them, it was as if he were admitting a personality. It was, of course, at this time that the sense of personal conflict first obtruded. He had merely to shut his eyes in order to materialize a tall, large-featured man carefully pacing off the distances between twelve points — pacing them off in a sort of objective challenge to the unborn future. George Washington...

The man Washington had from the beginning possessed an affinity for numbers. It had remained with him all his life. To count things, not so much for the sake of the things, perhaps, as for the counting, had been of the utmost importance to him. As a boy in Mr. Williams’s school in Westmoreland, he excelled in arithmetic. Long division, subtraction, weights and measures — to calculate cords of wood and pecks of peas, pints and gallons and avoirdupois — young George delighted in these as other boys delighted in horseplay. As a man, he merely directed his passion into the channel of his possessions. Through his possessions he apparently satisfied his curious need for enumeration. He was not content simply to keep accounts of the acreage he owned, its yield, his slaves, his pounds and pence. Ellery recalled the extraordinary case of Washington and the seed. He once calculated the number of seeds in a pound Troy weight of red clover. Not appeased by the statistics on red clover, Washington then went to work on a pound of timothy seed. His conclusions were: 71,000 and 298,000. His appetite unsatisfied, he thereupon fell upon the problem of New River grass. Here he tackled a calculation worthy of his prowess: his mathematical labors produced the great, pacifying figure of 844,800.

This man was so obsessed with numbers, Ellery thought, staring at the ruins of Washington’s Grove, that he counted the windows in each house of his Mount Vernon estate and the number of “Paynes” in each window of each house, and then triumphantly recorded the exact number of each in his own handwriting.

It was like a hunger, requiring periodic satiation. In 1747, as a boy of fifteen, George Washington drew “A Plan of Major Law: Washingtons Turnip Field as Survey’d by me.” In 1786, at the age of fifty-four. General Washington, the most famous man in the world, occupied himself with determining the exact elevation of his piazza above the Potomac’s high-water mark. No doubt he experienced a warmer satisfaction thereafter for knowing that when he sat upon his piazza looking down upon the river he was sitting exactly 124 feet 10½ inches above it.

And in 1791, as President of the United States, Ellery mused, he was striding about right here, setting saplings into the ground, “distant fifteen yards one from the other,” twelve of them in an equilateral triangle, and beneath one of them he buried a copper case containing his sword and the half disme coined from his own silver. Beneath one of them... But it was not beneath one of them. Or had it been? And had long ago been dug up by a Clarke? But the story had apparently died with Simeon and Sarah. On the other hand...

Ellery found himself irrationally reluctant to conclude the obvious. George Washington’s lifelong absorption with figures kept intruding. Twelve trees, equidistant, in an equilateral triangle.

“What is it?” he kept asking himself, almost angrily. “Why isn’t it satisfying me?”

And then, in the gathering dusk, a very odd explanation insinuated itself. Because it wouldn’t have satisfied him!

That’s silly, Ellery said to himself abruptly. It has all the earmarks of a satisfying experience. There is no more satisfying figure in all geometry than an equilateral triangle. It is closed, symmetrical, definite, a whole and balanced and finished thing.

But it wouldn’t have satisfied George Washington... for all its symmetry and perfection.

Then perhaps there is a symmetry and perfection beyond the cold beauty of figures?

At this point, Ellery began to question his own postulates... lost in the dark and to his time...

They found him at ten-thirty, crouched on the cultivator seat, numb and staring.

He permitted himself to be led into the house, he suffered Nikki to subject him to the indignity of having his shoes and socks stripped off and his frozen feet rubbed to life, he ate Martha Clarke’s dinner — all with a detachment and indifference which alarmed the girls and even made old Tobias look uneasy.

“If it’s going to have this effect on him,” began Martha, and then she said: “Ellery, give it up. Forget it.” But she had to shake him before he heard her.

He shook his head. “They’re there.”

“Where?”cried the girls simultaneously.

“In Washington’s Grove.”

“Ye found ’em?” croaked Tobias Clarke, half-rising.

“No.”

The Clarkes and Nikki exchanged glances.

“Then how can you be so certain they’re buried there, Ellery?” asked Nikki gently.

Ellery looked bewildered. “Darned if I know how I know,” he said, and he even laughed a little. “Maybe George Washington told me.” Then he stopped laughing and went into the firelit parlor and — pointedly — slid the doors shut.

At ten minutes past midnight Martha Clarke gave up the contest.

“Isn’t he ever going to come out of there?” she said, yawning.

“You never can tell what Ellery will do,” replied Nikki.

“Well, I can’t keep my eyes open another minute.”

“Funny,” said Nikki. “I’m not the least bit sleepy.”

“You city girls.”

“You country girls.”

They laughed. Then they stopped laughing, and for a moment there was no sound in the kitchen but the patient sentry walk of the grandfather clock and the snores of Tobias assaulting the ceiling from above.

“Well,” said Martha. Then she said: “I just can’t. Are you staying up, Nikki?”

“For a little while. You go to bed, Martha.”

“Yes. Well. Good night.”

“Good night, Martha.”

At the door Martha turned suddenly: “Did he say George Washington told him?”

“Yes.”

Martha went rather quickly up the stairs.

Nikki waited fifteen minutes. Then she tiptoed to the foot of the stairs and listened. She heard Tobias snuffling and snorting as he turned over in his bed, and an uneasy moan from the direction of Martha’s bedroom, as if she were dreaming an unwholesome dream. Nikki set her jaw grimly and went to the parlor doors and slid them open.

Ellery was on his knees before the fire. His elbows were resting on the floor. His face was propped in his hands. In this attitude his posterior was considerably higher than his head.

“Ellery!”

“Huh?”

“Ellery, what on earth—?”

“Nikki. I thought you’d gone to bed long ago.” In the firelight his face was haggard.

“But what have you been doing? You look exhausted!”

“I am. I’ve been wrestling with a man who could bend a horseshoe with his naked hands. A very strong man. In more ways than one.”

“What are you talking about? Who?”

“George Washington. Go to bed, Nikki,”

“George... Washington?”

“Go to bed,”

“... Wrestling with him?”

“Trying to break through his defenses. Get into his mind. It’s not an easy mind to get into. He’s been dead such a long time — that makes the difference. The dead are stubborn, Nikki. Aren’t you going to bed?”

Nikki backed out, shivering.

The house was icy.

It was even icier when an inhuman bellow accompanied by a thunder that shook the Revolutionary walls of her bedroom brought Nikki out of bed with a yelping leap.

But it was only Ellery.

He was somewhere up the hall, in the first glacial light of dawn, hammering on Martha’s Clarke’s door.

“Martha. Martha! Wake up, damn you, and tell me where I can find a book in this damned house! A biography of Washington — a history of the United States — an almanac... anything!”

The parlor fire had long since given up the ghost. Nikki and Martha in wrappers, and Tobias Clarke in an ancient bathrobe over his marbled long underwear, stood around shivering and bewildered as a disheveled, daemonic Ellery leafed eagerly through a 1921 edition of The Farmer’s Fact Book and Complete Compendium.

“Here it is!” The words shot out of his mouth like bullets, leaving puffs of smoke.

“What is it, Ellery?”

“What on earth are you looking for?”

“He’s loony, I tell ye!”

Ellery turned with a look of ineffable peace, closing the book.

“That’s it,” he said. “That’s it.”

“What’s it?”

“Vermont. The State of Vermont.”

“Vermont...?”

“Vermont?”

“Vermont. What in the crawlin’ creepers’s Vermont got to do with—?”

“Vermont,” said Ellery with a tired smile, “did not enter the Union until March fourth, 1791. So that proves it, don’t you see?”

“Proves what?” shrieked Nikki.

“Where George Washington buried his sword and half disme.”

“Because,” said Ellery in the rapidly lightening dawn behind the barn, “Vermont was the fourteenth State to do so. The fourteenth. Tobias would you get me an ax, please?”

“An ax,” mumbled Tobias. He shuffled away, shaking his head.

“Come on, Ellery, I’m d-dying of c-cold!” chattered Nikki, dancing up and down before the cultivator.

“Ellery,” said Martha Clarke piteously, “I don’t understand any of this.”

“It’s very simple, Martha — oh, thank you, Tobias — as simple,” said Ellery, “as simple arithmetic. Numbers, my dears — numbers tell this remarkable story. Numbers and their influence on our first President who was, above all things, a number-man. That was my key. I merely had to discover the lock to fit it into. Vermont was the lock. And the door’s open.”

Nikki seated herself on the cultivator. You had to give Ellery his head in a situation like this; you couldn’t drive him for beans. Well, she thought grudgingly, seeing how pale and how tired-looking he was after a night’s wrestling with George Washington, he’s earned it.

“The number was wrong,” said Ellery solemnly, leaning on Tobias’s ax. “Twelve trees. Washington apparently planted twelve trees — Simeon Clarke’s Diary never did mention the number twelve, but the evidence seemed unquestionable — there were twelve oaks in an equilateral triangle, each one fifteen yards from its neighbor.

“And yet... I felt that twelve oaks couldn’t be, perfect as the triangle was. Not if they were planted by George Washington. Not on February the twenty-second, New Style, in the year of our Lord 1791.

“Because on February the twenty-second, 1791 — in fact, until March the fourth, when Vermont entered the Union to swell its original number by one — there was another number in the United States so important, so revered, so much a part of the common speech and the common living — and dying — that it was more than a number; it was a solemn and sacred thing; almost not a number at all. It overshadowed other numbers like the still-unborn Paul Bunyan. It was memorialized on the new American flag in the number of its stars and the number of its stripes. It was a number of which George Washington was the standard-bearer! — the head and only recently the strong right arm of the new Republic which had been born out of the blood and muscle of its integers. It was a number which was in the hearts and minds and mouths of all Americans.

“No. If George Washington, who was not merely the living symbol of all this but carried with him that extraordinary compulsion toward numbers which characterized his whole temperament besides, had wished to plant a number of oak trees to commemorate a birthday visit in the year 1791... he would have, he could have, selected only one number out of all the mathematical trillions at his command — the number thirteen.”

The sun was looking over the edge of Pennsylvania at Washington’s Grove.

“George Washington planted thirteen trees here that day, and under one of them he buried Paul Revere’s copper case. Twelve of the trees he arranged in an equilateral triangle, and we know that the historic treasure was not under any of the twelve. Therefore he must have buried the case under the thirteenth — a thirteenth oak sapling which grew to oakhood and, some time during the past century and a half, withered and died and vanished, vanished so utterly that it left no trace, not even its roots.

“Where would Washington have planted that thirteenth oak? Because beneath the spot where it once stood — there lies the copper case containing his sword and the first coin to be struck off in the new United States.”

And Ellery glanced tenderly at the cherry sapling which Tobias Clarke had set into the earth in the middle of Washington’s Grove six years before.

“Washington the surveyor, the geometer, the man whose mind cried out for integral symmetries? Obviously, in only one place: In the center of the triangle. Any other place would be unthinkable.”

And Ellery hefted Tobias’s ax and strode toward the six-year-old tree. He raised the ax.

But suddenly he lowered it, and turned, and said in a rather startled way: “See here! isn’t today...?”

“Washington’s Birthday,” said Nikki.

Ellery grinned and began to chop down the cherry tree.

~ ~ ~

From the 1949 anthology...

Q. Patrick appeared quite frequently in the periodicals of the forties and fifties, most notably in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, and his generally excellent tales should be collected on their own. Lieutenant Timothy Trant was a favorite Patrick protagonist in those years, appearing in many of his novels and short stories, several of which have appeared in this series. “Murder In One Scene” turns on an idea not unknown elsewhere in crime fiction — a man accidentally learns of the impending violent death of a stranger — but rarely has it had such adroit handling as here.

Q. Patrick

Murder in One Scene[4]

Lieutenant Trant of the New York Homicide Bureau was dawdling over breakfast in his pleasant apartment. He buttered a piece of brioche and glanced at the three letters which had come in the mail.

They didn’t look interesting. One was from his mother in Newport. He opened it and read Mrs. Trant’s usual garrulous account of her social life with its usual undercurrent of pained surprise that her son should choose to be a New York policeman pursuing murderers when he might be escorting the toniest dowagers through the best drawing rooms of the Eastern seaboard.

The second letter came from a Princeton classmate who was starting a cultured magazine and thought Trant might like to sacrifice five hundred dollars on the altar of Art.

The third was even less promising. The long envelope bore his name and address in type and, on its left hand top corner, the printed words: Big Pal. Trant knew the organization. It was a worthy one which found sponsors for delinquent boys on parole. Lieutenant Trant, who preferred his criminals delinquent rather than rehabilitated, had no great desire to become a Big Pal. He slit the envelope, anticipating the printed plea beginning: Dear Friend...

But the envelope did not contain the usual form letter. Inside was a folded sheet of elegant blue stationery. Lieutenant Trant blinked. He unfolded the sheet and looked at what was written on it. He blinked again.

Beneath an embossed Park Avenue address had been written in a round feminine hand:

“Dear George:

“Since you insist, come at five tomorrow. But this is to warn you. I shall have Eddie there. I have also bought a gun. If you try what you tried last time, I will use it.

“Marna.”

Lieutenant Trant, whose passion for the unorthodox was unbridled, smiled happily. Offhand he could think of nothing less orthodox than the arrival of so personal and interesting a communication in the envelope of an impersonal and unexciting charitable organization.

He realized that a mistake must have been made with envelopes. Appeals are usually sent out by volunteer ladies who have been given a sucker list and envelopes and who salve their social consciences by typing addresses and providing stamps. This particular volunteer lady — this unknown Marna — must have been very absent-minded or very jittery.

Judging by the nature of the letter she had mailed in the wrong envelope, she had been very jittery.

Trant looked at the date. It had been written the day before. “Five tomorrow” therefore meant five o’clock that afternoon. He let his thoughts toy pleasingly with a picture of the jittery Marna with her gun and Eddie waiting at five for the mysterious George who might “try” again what he had “tried” last time.

It was, of course, his duty as an officer of the law to investigate what might prove to be a very antisocial encounter.

He put the envelope and the letter in his pocket.

He was humming as he left his apartment...

A few minutes before five Lieutenant Trant, in an elegantly inconspicuous gray suit, arrived at the house whose address appeared at the head of Mama’s letter. Although the house had a Park Avenue number, its door was on a side street. It was an old private residence which had been converted into apartments.

Since he did not know Mama’s name, he stepped into the small outside hall and studied the names above the door buzzers. There was no Marna anything. Most of the names were discouraging. But above the buzzer of the penthouse apartment were two printed cards. One said: Miss Joan Hyde. The other said: Mrs. George Hyde.

Marna could be Mrs. George Hyde. That would make her the wife of the potentially sinister George. Miss Joan Hyde might be her daughter. Lieutenant Trant was disappointed. Romantic about mystery and the possibly mysterious, he had imagined Marna blonde, beautiful — and young.

He was about to press the Hyde buzzer when a girl came in from the street behind him and, fumbling through her pocketbook, brought out a key and opened the door. She glanced at him questioningly and kept the door half open. He smiled and followed her into the house.

The girl had started through the neat mirrored hallway toward a self-service elevator, but she stopped and turned back to him a little suspiciously.

“Are you looking for someone?”

She was young and pretty with shining dark hair, cool eyes and a sort of lazy self-assurance which went with the silver fox coat she was wearing.

How nice, thought Lieutenant Trant, if Marna had looked like that.

He said: “As a matter of fact, I’m looking for Marna Hyde.”

“Oh.” She smiled. “How interesting.”

“Is it?”

“To me it is.” She moved to the elevator. “I’ll take you up.”

Lieutenant Trant got into the elevator, too. The girl’s perfume was pleasant. As she made the elevator ascend, she glanced at him sidewise.

“Don’t say Mama’s got herself a new beau.”

“Do I look like a beau?”

“Very. But I wouldn’t have thought Marna’d have the energy to take on a new man — what with George to get rid of and the faithful Eddie hovering.”

So far so good, thought Lieutenant Trant.

The elevator reached the top floor. They got out to face a single door. The girl started to fumble in her pocketbook again.

“So you live here, too,” said Trant.

“I moved in when George moved out. I’m a bodyguard. Hasn’t Marna mentioned me? I’m Joan.”

“George’s sister.”

“Yes.”

“And you’re not on George’s side?”

“About the divorce?” Joan Hyde turned. “Are you kidding?”

“I never kid,” said Lieutenant Trant. “I am a very sedate young man.”

Joan Hyde had found the key. “I don’t imagine Mama’s home yet but come in and have a drink.”

“I’d like to very much.”

She opened the door, chattering: “I’ve just been to that French movie with Barrault and Arletty. It’s quite wonderful, but at the beginning I never dreamed he wouldn’t get her at the end. Why are foreign movies always so gloomy?”

Trant followed her into a charmingly casual living room. His trained eye saw several very valuable pieces.

Joan Hyde said: “It’s nothing much. They wanted a hangout in New York and Marna brought up some of the junk from their Long Island attic. I’ll rustle up a drink. Sit down.”

As the girl disappeared into the kitchen, Trant moved to a small Chippendale breakfront desk, reflecting that anyone who had “junk” like this in a Long Island attic had no financial problems. On the desk he saw what he hoped he would see. Beside a portable typewriter, there was a pile of unused Big Pal envelopes; a pile of form letters; a mimeographed list of addresses; and a second neat pile of letters which had been addressed on the typewriter and stamped ready for mailing.

He glanced at the name on the top and saw that a Mr. and Mrs. LeRoy Jones of Seventy-eighth Street were about to be urged to take an interest in delinquent boys. He had just enough time to glance at the letter below which was for a Mrs. Samuel Katzenbach when he heard Joan returning and dropped into a chair.

“I’m afraid there’s only rye.” Joan Hyde appeared with a tray. “After having put up with George for so long, Marna and I are a little cautious about alcohol.” She put the tray down and glanced at him curiously. “I suppose you do know what I’m talking about? You’re not someone who’s come to look at the plumbing, are you?”

“I was never good with my hands,” said Lieutenant Trant.

Joan made drinks and chattered on. As Trant listened, the situation became increasingly clear. Marna had married George. George was a drunk. Marna had met Eddie. Marna had wanted a divorce. The drunken George had made terrible scenes; at one time he had drunkenly tried to kill Marna. Joan, entirely sympathetic with her sister-in-law, had moved in as protection.

“It’s dreary,” meditated Joan. “You can’t help feeling fond of your own brother, but George is quite frightening. And he still has a key. I’m always telling Marna she should get the lock changed. But she’s always putting it off. I...”

Trant was losing interest. In spite of the fascinating accident which had made him conscious of it, this was basically a trite situation. A wealthy alcoholic with a temper; probably a frivolous wife.

His thought train snapped because a noise had come from the room, presumably a bedroom, behind Joan. It was a very slight sound but enough to tell him someone was there.

He glanced at his watch. “Five-ten. Marna made a fuss about my being on time. You don’t suppose she’s in the bedroom? Maybe asleep?”

Joan put her drink down. “I strenuously doubt it. Want me to look?”

“Would you?”

A newspaper lay on the arm of Trant’s chair. To feign indifference he picked it up and glanced at it. It had been turned to a review of the opening of the circus. He looked down the columns.

Joan Hyde reached the bedroom door. She opened it. She gasped. “Marna!”

Instantly Trant ran to her side. Oblivious of him, Joan took a step into the room. Trant followed. A blonde girl in a black dress sat huddled on one of the twin beds. Her hair tumbled in disorder around her beautiful but stricken face. Fantastically she was wearing white suede gloves and over the knuckles of the right hand glove stretched a red damp stain.

Joan ran to her. “Marna, what’s the matter?”

Trant gazed as if hypnotized at the red stain. Marna turned to look at him from blank eyes.

“Joan, tell that man to go.”

“But, Marna, he has a date with you.”

“Tell him to go away.”

Trant took a step forward, his eyes darting about the room. He passed the foot of the bed. He moved toward the window.

Marna jumped up and screamed: “No, no.”

He came to the second bed. He looked down at the area of carpet between the bed and the window. Sprawled on his stomach was the body of a young man. A revolver lay on the floor close to him.

The back of his head had been shot away. He was dead. There was no doubt about that.

Joan came running to Trant’s side. “George!” she cried. “Oh, Marna, he tried to attack you again. He...”

Trant turned to Marna Hyde. She stood quite still. She was as lovely as he could have wanted her to be.

Rather sadly he said: “Since you bought the gun, Mrs. Hyde, I suppose you felt you should get your money’s worth.”

Both the girls were staring at him.

He added: “By the way, do you always wear gloves in the house?”

“She has a milk allergy.” It was Joan who spoke. “Her hands broke out again this afternoon. She always wears gloves when it’s bad. But — who are you? Why are you here?”

Trant shrugged. “I’m sorry to give you such good service. I’m from the Homicide Bureau.” He took Mama’s elbow. “Shall we move into the next room?”

Marna let him guide her into the living room. She dropped into a chair. Joan Hyde came after them.

“Homicide Bureau. I don’t understand.”

“You’re not meant to.” Trant was watching Marna. “You have been sending out appeals for the Big Pal people, haven’t you?”

The girl shivered. She did not seem to have heard the question. He repeated it. She whispered: “Yes.”

“You sent some off yesterday and did some more today?”

“Yes.”

Trant took from his pocket the letter he had received and handed it to her.

“You wrote this, Mrs. Hyde?”

“Yes, but how...?”

“It’s all fairly obvious, isn’t it? Your husband didn’t want the divorce. he’d been acting violently. He was coming at five. You were afraid of him so you bought a gun. He got violent again. You shot him.”

Marna Hyde did not say anything.

Trant went on: “There’s just one thing that seems to be missing. Eddie was supposed to be here. Where is he?”

Marna was looking at the blood stain on her glove. There was dead silence. The buzzer shrilled. Joan started for the door, but Trant outdistanced her to the hall. He opened the door onto a blond young man with broad shoulders and very blue eyes.

Trant said: “Hello, Eddie.”

The young man glared. “Who are you?”

“Just a stray policeman. You’re a little late for the murder.”

“Murder? Nothing’s — nothing’s happened to Marna?”

Roughly the young man pushed past Trant and ran into the living room. Trant followed. The young man hurried to Marna and dropped at her side, his face gaunt with anxiety.

“Marna, baby. Marna, are you all right?”

“It’s George, Eddie,” said Joan. “He’s dead.”

Marna turned so that she was looking straight at the young man. “Eddie, you didn’t...?” Slowly the expression of horror faded from her eyes. “No.” She got up and confronted Trant. She seemed almost calm.

“I haven’t any idea how you got here, but presumably you want to ask me questions. It’s all quite simple. I did buy the gun. I did write George that letter. But that’s all I did. I’ve been out this afternoon. I got back just before five. I went into the bedroom. I–I found George. I was still bending over him when I heard Joan come in with you. I heard a strange voice. It was all a terrible shock. I didn’t want a stranger involved. I decided to wait in the bedroom until you had gone.”

Lieutenant Trant lit a cigarette. He was thinking hard and he discovered that he was beginning to relish this situation which, whatever it turned out to be, was no longer trite.

He sat down on the arm of a chair. All three of them were watching him as if he were a time bomb.

He glanced at Marna. “So that’s your story. Your husband was dead when you came home?”

“It’s true.”

Trant smiled. “You would hardly admit that it was a lie, Mrs. Hyde. Of course, with those gloves, there’d be no fingerprints on the gun. You picked a lucky time for your disagreement with milk.”

“Mama’s milk allergy is on the level,” barked Eddie. “Show him your hands, Marna.”

Marna peeled off her right glove. There was no doubt about the allergy. Her thumb, the tips of her second and first fingers and the whole middle of her palm were sprinkled with little white blisters. She turned the hand over. Her knuckles were split. She put the glove on again.

Lieutenant Trant looked apologetic. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Hyde. I shouldn’t have doubted your word.” He eyed her almost with affection. “I might as well explain my presence. There’s no magic involved. I’m on the Big Pal sucker list. This morning I got what should have been the appeal. It wasn’t. I got George’s letter instead. I came to see what would happen here at five o’clock.”

The drinks were still on the tray. Eddie poured himself a shot of straight rye. Neither of the girls spoke.

“I thought,” continued Trant, “that I had received the letter by mistake. That, of course, was what I was supposed to think. Unhappily, I don’t think it any more.”

Marna said: “What do you think?”

Trant did not reply. “When you’re sending out appeals to people on an alphabetical list, the only way to do it without driving yourself crazy is to send them in alphabetical order.”

“That’s what I did.”

“Exactly. Yesterday you got up to the I’s. I took a look at your desk. Today you began with the J’s and K’s. My name’s Trant. Certainly you hadn’t got to the T’s yesterday. You couldn’t inadvertently have put George’s letter in an envelope for me by yesterday.”

Eddie asked: “Which means?”

“That the letter was sent to me by-mistake-on-purpose. Someone saw my name on the sucker list and knew my reputation as a sort of crackpot policeman. They knew if I received the letter I’d be intrigued enough to show up here at five.”

The two girls together asked: “But why?”

“Because they wanted me to come. The letter would have given me a preconceived idea of motive. I would have found George’s body and realized right away that he had attacked his wife and she had shot him in self-defense. I would have written George off as a victim of justifiable homicide. I might even have made a little speech to Mrs. Hyde about Valiant American Womanhood. Yes, it was a neat trap, a very neat trap.”

Eddie asked belligerently: “Are you suggesting that Marna...”

“I’m not suggesting that Mrs. Hyde did anything at all.” Trant looked at Eddie. “Do you have a key to this apartment?”

“Of course I don’t.”

“But you were hoping to marry Mrs. Hyde once she got the divorce?”

He flushed. “I was and I am.”

Trant turned to Marna. “I imagine your husband was quite rich.”

“He was very well off.”

“Seems to have been a kind of irresponsible character. Didn’t make the money himself, did he?”

“No. It’s a trust. When his parents died, they left it all to him in trust. He can’t touch the capital. Just the income.”

Lieutenant Trant was still watching Marna. “Lucky accident my arrival coincided with your sister-in-law’s, wasn’t it? If I’d come a minute earlier, you wouldn’t have let me in. If I’d arrived a minute later, you’d have told Joan about George and you would not have let anyone in either.”

Trant continued musingly: “I always rather suspect lucky accidents. They’re not always as accidental as they seem.”

He shifted his quiet attention to Joan Hyde. “You live here. Miss Hyde. Perhaps you saw Marna writing that letter to George yesterday. Perhaps you even offered to mail it.”

Joan Hyde looked back at him blankly.

“I suppose,” he went on in his soft, almost gentle voice, “you called George in Mama’s name and asked him to come a little before five. After you’d killed him, you went downstairs, saw Marna come home and waited for me. That was an ingenious device, assuming I was a beau of Mama’s. It gave you a chance to sell me once and for all on the manslaughter set-up. The violent George, the unchanged lock...”

Her dark eyes blazing, Joan snapped: “You’re mad.”

Lieutenant Trant looked disappointed. “Why do murderers always say: You’re mad? Do you suppose they pick it up in the movies?”

“You...”

“In any case, I’m afraid the movies have been your downfall. Miss Hyde. You got just a little too chatty about your French film. You told me you never dreamed at the beginning that Barrault wouldn’t get Arletty in the end. To be in doubt about the end of a movie at the beginning proves quite definitely that you saw the beginning first.”

He picked up the newspaper from the arm of the chair. “That French movie happens to be playing at only one Manhattan house. I notice here in the timetable that it begins at 1:20, 3:20 and 5:20. Since you saw the beginning before the end you could not possibly have seen the 3:20 show and arrived here just before five. If you went to the movie at all today, you went to the show which was over just before 3:20. That gave you plenty of time to eliminate George.” He paused. “That does horrid things to your alibi, doesn’t it?”

Joan Hyde seemed stunned. So did Eddie and Marna.

Eddie asked: “But why would Joan...?”

“Failing offspring, a trust fund reverts to the family.” Trant’s amiable gaze moved to Marna. “Am I right in assuming that Miss Hyde is the family?”

“Why, yes,” faltered Marna. “She’s the only other child. I suppose the trust goes to her.”

“Money.” Lieutenant Trant sighed. “Such an orthodox motive. Perhaps you’d give me the name of your husband’s lawyer. Just to check.”

He produced a pencil and a piece of paper. Marna took the pencil in her right hand and scribbled. Trant put the paper in his pocket. He was still watching Marna.

“When you discovered the corpse, you thought Eddie must have done it, didn’t you? Once you’d realized no court would convict you, you’d almost certainly have taken the rap for his sake. Yes, it was quite an expert little scheme for disposing of an alcoholic brother and living happily ever after on his trust fund.”

He moved to Joan Hyde. He always felt a slight pang when the time came to arrest an attractive and clever murderess.

She was still quite calm and her eyes were hard with anger. “You’ll never prove it. Never.”

Trant grinned. “You’ll be surprised at what I can prove when I put my mind to it. For example, we’ve hardly scratched that milk allergy, have we?”

He turned to Marna. “Would you take off your glove again?”

The girl obeyed. Trant drew Joan toward her sister-in-law.

“Your sister-in-law wrote down the lawyer’s name for me. See how the pressure of the pencil broke those little blisters? Blisters are very sensitive, Miss Hyde. I challenge even you to have fired a gun and kept your blisters intact.” He shrugged. “Mrs. Hyde couldn’t have fired the gun. Eddie, who didn’t have a key, couldn’t have got in. So... Like me to do some more proving?”

Eddie was gazing at Mama’s hand. He muttered: “For heaven’s sake, he’s proved it, Marna. It took him just ten minutes.”

Trant had a firm hold on Joan Hyde’s arm. He still liked her perfume.

“A good detective,” he said modestly, “would have solved it before it happened. It’s too bad, Miss Hyde. If I’d been a little brighter, we might be going to the theater tonight, instead of to the Tombs...”

~ ~ ~

In a notable stroke of genius R. Austin Freeman, in The Singing Bone (1912), created what has come to be known as the inverted detective story. The inverted form is particularly exacting in its demands on the writer: he must disclose the identity of the murderer at the outset and yet maintain suspense and reader interest through the ensuing detection of the crime. Though “The Million-to-One Chance,” from the 1950 anthology, is not inverted detection in this sense, hanging as it does upon the recognition of the significance of a single incident — it well approaches the form and, as with the classic inverted story, offers the challenge to the reader: by what flaw(s) in his scheme is the culprit tripped up?

Roy Vickers

The Million-to-One Chance[5]

“Acting on information received,” — the cliché which means that a copper’s nark, or other informer, has pulled Scotland Yard out of a difficulty — the police located the corpse of Arthur Crouch some six months after the murder. It was, from the police point of view, a nice, tidy murder, with no loose ends. Locate the corpse and you had located the murderer.

Oddly enough, it was not the murder but the cliché which caused the scandal, the questions in Parliament, the public hullabaloo. How had the information been received? The circumstances of the crime excluded the possibility of a witness at any stage. Something, it seemed, was being covered up.

Nobody suggested that Stretton might be innocent of the murder: his guilt was obvious. Nobody wanted to know the name and address of the informer. But nearly everybody wanted to be assured that, in this case, the cliché was true — that a person or persons existed who had told Scotland Yard where the body was to be found.

It was the Animal Lovers League that set the snowball rolling — due to the fact that Crouch happened to have a dog with him when he was murdered. And the dog happened to be a mastiff! The legendary dog of England, now as rare a spectacle as a horse-drawn carriage! A huge, fierce animal, looking even fiercer than it is — in appearance suggesting a bulldog the size of a Great Dane.

The breed of the dog swelled the publicity. The public was reminded that mastiffs used to board the Spanish galleons with Drake’s men — that Nelson was afraid of them, and banished them from the Navy.

And here, in 1937, was a mastiff turning up in a murder mystery — but in the strange role of informer. Indeed, the Animal Fans believed that this dog was able to reason that its master had been murdered: that it understood it must therefore communicate with the police: that it had persisted in its efforts for more than six months — only to be shot by Scotland Yard when it had nobly done its duty.

This sob-story of the Martyred Mastiff — with a near-human mentality — was even accepted by many who were not dog-minded, because it was the simplest way of dodging a dilemma.

Crouch, who lived in Hampstead, North London, came out of his house, leading the mastiff, in the late afternoon of July 23rd, his car being parked nearby. A schoolboy of fifteen, who stopped to gape at the mastiff, testified that Crouch shouted to a man who had just strolled past the house, apparently a friend. The boy’s interest was on the dog, so he had observed only that the other man was “big” and that Crouch was “little.”

On one essential point the boy was positive. Crouch, the victim, had persuaded the big man — presumed to be the murderer — to enter the car. “Be generous, and let’s use my car,” Crouch had said. The words had stuck in the boy’s memory because he had thought it a funny way to talk about giving a man a lift.

At dawn the car had been found in Central London. But the man and the dog — which was taller, on its hind legs, than the man, and substantially heavier — had disappeared, leaving no traces whatever. Nothing relevant was discovered in six months. Then — presto! — the whole case was cleaned up in a few hours.

The tall man who had been persuaded to enter the car was Dennis Stretton. He was an engineer, of some minor distinction, in his early forties. He and Crouch had been fellow students and close friends. Stretton had graduated with a First; Crouch, who had taken only a Fourth, subsequently specialized in the finance of engineering. Their friendship had never been formally broken, but they had not seen each other for seven years.

A news paragraph had misinformed Stretton that Crouch was away on holiday with his wife — his second wife — or Stretton would not have been loitering outside Crouch’s house in Hampstead.

He had come solely to indulge his own morbid melancholy. He wanted to gloat over the house in which Crouch lived — more precisely, the house in which Crouch had lived with the late Mrs. Crouch, who had died some eighteen months previously. The late Mrs. Crouch — a wistful, attractive Belgian — had been engaged to Stretton before she married Crouch seven years ago.

The car was parked some dozen yards up the road, so Stretton missed its significance. Crouch, coming out suddenly with the mastiff, had spotted him before he had gone three full paces.

“Dennis!” he called.

It would have been ridiculous to walk on as if he had not heard. Stretton turned round, startled into speechlessness as much by the bull-head of the mastiff, flush with Crouch’s hip, as by the awkwardness of the meeting.

“I say, Dennis, we don’t have to cut each other, do we?” Crouch added: “I’ve missed you like the devil!”

“It’s very civil of you to say that, Arthur.” He did not believe that Crouch had missed him. “The ‘Journal’ said you were in Sussex, or I—”

“Driving down this evening. I’m on my way to park poor old Oscar with the vet for ten days.” Pointless conversation, which showed that Crouch, too, felt the strain, though he could, Stretton reminded himself, talk his way out of anything. “Look here, Dennis, let’s be frank with each other, as we used to be. I know there’s a certain atmosphere which nothing I can say will dispel. All the same, I’m going to ask you a favor.”

“By all means!” When you felt as Stretton felt, no satisfaction could be obtained from mere discourtesy.

“I’m having a ghastly job with the Belgian Probate people to wind up poor Leonie’s estate. Red tape about identification — and I wonder if you would be good enough to help?”

“Me! How could I possibly help?”

“Leonie told me once that you never returned her passport.”

“Didn’t I?” Stretton was trying to remember.

Crouch went on: “As we were married in Belgium, we used mine — endorsed with her married name, of course. Her original passport is about the only means of convincing them that Leonie Crouch was once Leonie de Ripert.”

“If I still have it, I know where it must be. I’ll send it to you.”

This was not what Crouch wanted.

“Could I come with you and collect it now, Dennis? The thing is becoming a nightmare. Marion — my present wife — keeps worrying me to get it all settled.”

“But I’ve given up my flat. I’m living in a remote cottage in Essex — by the marshes. Open air life. Doctor’s orders. It’s fifteen miles the other side of London. With the traffic, it’ll take you more than an hour and a half to get there.”

“It doesn’t matter what time I turn up at my father-in-law’s place. I can have dinner on my way down.” He added: “Be generous, and let’s use my car.”

Crouch could put an infernal persuasiveness into his voice. Again and again in the past Stretton had let himself against his will be talked into agreement.

“Very well! But we may find that I haven’t got the passport.” He looked at the mastiff with misgiving. “D’you want to park the dog with the vet first?”

“No. Two sides of a triangle. Quicker to drop him after I leave you.”

He opened the rear door of the car. The mastiff ambled in and bestowed himself on the floor.

“Make for the other side of dockland — near Tillbury — and then I’ll pilot you,” said Stretton as he got in beside Crouch. “I’m right in the wilds on the north bank of the river.”

Crouch skirted North London, driving eastwards. Now and again they exchanged commonplace remarks — thrown, as it were, over the wall of hatred between them.

In a long traffic block, Crouch leaned over and patted the mastiff. The dog yawned. Crouch glanced from the huge jaws to Stretton’s throat. For it was Crouch, the victim, who had the psychology of a murderer — the kind of murderer who kills slowly; and without tangible weapons.

As students they had been normal young men of more than average promise, normal in their friendship, with a touch of honest, unconcealed jealousy on Crouch’s part.

In the 1914 war they were in the same Technical Company. On their way out the troopship had been torpedoed, when Crouch’s nerve had failed rather lamentably, and Stretton, at some risk of his own life, had saved him from drowning.

It may be doubted whether any man can feel unalloyed gratitude to another for saving his life. He is apt to regard his rescuer as a moral creditor who can never be paid off. In the special circumstances — notably the circumstance of Crouch’s panic — Stretton had incidentally committed the offense of revealing a definite superiority.

Thereafter their relationship had changed, but so subtly that Stretton had been unaware of it. Crouch persuaded himself that he detected patronage in the other’s manner. He hid his resentment, used it as fuel to the inner fire which burned steadily for the rest of his life.

For ten years following return to civil life, Stretton did not know that Crouch had become his enemy: once or twice he had his suspicions, but Crouch talked his way out. It was not until Crouch actually married Leonie that the truth flashed upon Stretton. Even then he did not understand why. Stretton had, almost literally, forgotten the life-saving episode.

The first outstanding incident occurred when Stretton was given a favorable opportunity to acquire a junior partnership. While he was completing arrangements with his bank manager, he was informed that the opportunity had been snapped up by another — who turned out to be Crouch. But Crouch had explained that away.

Later, Stretton leased patent rights in an invention of his own — a valuable adaptation of the steam turbine — to Harmoddle, Limited, who intended to put the engine into immediate production. A few weeks later Crouch became Chairman of Harmoddle’s. The patent rights were retained: the penalties for nonproduction were paid quarterly. But Stretton’s engine was kept off the market. Crouch explained that away, too.

In the course of professional visits to Brussels, Stretton met and eventually proposed marriage to Leonie. Owing to the strict religious views of her family they had decided to marry without religious ceremony in England. During some slight routine delay which he encountered in connection with her passport she wrote breaking off the engagement and begging him not to see her again.

Stretton did not grieve very much at the time. Her harsh and arbitrary rejection of him even inclined him to the view that he had had a lucky escape, notwithstanding her very considerable physical attractiveness.

Six months later Crouch, having converted himself to the religious views of her family, married her ceremonially in Belgium.

Instantly, the frustrations of the last ten years were floodlit. Stretton derided himself as a credulous fool who had let Crouch on his shoulders to steal or to spoil the prizes.

There was no showdown, no harsh words, nothing in the nature of a quarrel. It was as if their friendship had merely lapsed. Stretton settled down to the kind of passive, well-mannered hatred that rarely harms its object but acts as slow poison in the brain of the hater.

He stood well in his profession, but his career had its ups and downs: when the slow poison got to work he debited all the downs to Crouch. Leonie became the symbol of his blighted life. The memory of her physical beauty began to torture his imagination, shutting out the possibility of his seeking other women. In the background of this obsession was some kind of belief that she would one day come to him. When he learned of her death he had a nervous breakdown.

After some weeks in a nursing home he was advised to knock off work for a year and live a simple and muscular life in the open air. He bought the cottage in Essex, standing by itself on the fringe of the marsh, where he dug and re-dug the garden, occasionally shooting duck and occasionally sailing in the Thames estuary.

Within a year of Leonie’s death he learned from the personal column of an engineering journal that Crouch had married again. The same column misinformed him that Crouch had joined his wife for a short vacation at her father’s house in Sussex.

His physical health had been greatly improved, but the vision of Leonie persisted, finally driving him to look at the outside of the house in which another had enjoyed her charms.

Sunk in his own thoughts, Stretton forgot to function as pilot when they reached and passed Tillbury. Within half a mile of the cottage it dawned on him that Crouch had taken the correct route off the main road, through the lanes.

He had not given Crouch the name of the cottage. Even with that information a stranger would have to inquire, or to put in some close work with an ordnance map.

They were now in a very lonely spot. Linked with the realization of Crouch’s odd behavior was acute consciousness of the mastiff lying on the floor behind, separated only by the back of the bucket seat. Stretton felt a prickling in his spine. He would have concealed his feeling, but for a mischance of the road.

The whole incident was over in a few seconds. A shaggy, white-coated sheepdog burst through the hedge almost under the wheels of the car. Crouch braked hard. The mastiff sprang up with a whine. A sound like a muffled scream broke from Stretton.

“Sorry!” exclaimed Crouch. “Couldn’t help it.” From the other’s tone Stretton felt sure he had betrayed himself.

Ahead, the lane dipped into a stream some ten feet wide.

“Can I get through, Dennis?”

He knew he could get through, thought Stretton, because he had been here before. But he answered:

“You’ll be all right if you take it very slowly. It’s only a cattle-ford.”

To himself his voice had sounded wobbly. The mastiff was sitting on its haunches, looking through the windscreen, its head between those of the two men. Stretton was nauseated by the creature’s breath. He was still unsure of his voice, felt he must put it to the test.

“Don’t let your megatherium jump out of the window and eat that sheepdog,” he said, as Crouch slowed to walking pace for the ford, “or the farmers will smoke me out.”

“Oscar would never fight until I told him to,” laughed Crouch. “And then he’d fight anything.”

The laugh rasped Stretton’s nerve. No unarmed man would stand a chance against that animal. And Crouch was putting on an act, of some sort.

“They’re a fighting breed, you know,” prattled Crouch. “That is, they hold their bite until they can land on a vital spot. They’ve rather outlived their day — there are less than a dozen in the whole country.”

They cleared the ford and at the next bend came to the cottage.

“You’ll have to drive right in, or you’ll block the lane. Not that anybody ever comes out this way.”

He found himself wishing he had not made the last remark. Then common sense steadied him. If Crouch were to set the mastiff on him, it would be murder. Crouch might get away, but the police would know that a mastiff had been used; and as there were less than a dozen in the country they would soon pick him out, and Crouch would be hanged.

“You can park at the side of the cottage — then it will be easy to back and turn.”

As Crouch stepped out of the car, the mastiff put its head through the open window. With something between a slither and a leap it landed in the garden, stretched, sniffed the air.

“Oscar had better stay in the car,” said Crouch, and opened the rear door. “Oscar — guard!”

Instead of obeying the mastiff cringed and whined.

“Why, what’s the matter, old boy?” He patted the dog and talked nonsense to it. But when he again ordered it into the car it circled round him, fawning and whimpering in canine apology for disobeying an order.

“Something’s upsetting him.” Crouch was puzzled. “Dennis, d’you mind if I touch you? I want to show him we’re friends.” Crouch put his hands on Stretton’s shoulders. “There, there! Dear Dennis! Nice Dennis!” In his preposterous pantomine of affection Crouch stood on tiptoe and went through the motions of administering a kiss.

The mastiff ignored the whole performance. Only when Crouch bellowed at him did he slink back into the car.

Crouch slammed the door — but he did not, Stretton noticed, shut the window. The dog could come if Crouch were to call him.

“Those scientific tests of the dog’s intelligence are damned unscientific!” he exclaimed. “They’re tests for elementary human intelligence. Dogs haven’t got any. Take Oscar. He only understands seven words, and he thinks all policemen are sugar-daddies, because a constable petted him when he was a puppy. All the same, they understand the devil of a lot in their own way. I believe they have a thought-pattern which we can’t analyze.”

“Afraid I’ve never had any feeling for animals,” returned Stretton, his fear subsiding. “Shall we go in?”

It was a spacious little five-roomed cottage, incongruously furnished with items from Stretton’s London flat. The front window of the parlor looked over marshland to the Thames. From the side window, when Crouch’s car was not blocking the view, could be seen only a meagre wood, which screened the nearest neighbor half a mile away.

“Only fifteen miles from London and not a human habitation in sight!” Crouch, lounging in a very urban armchair, was making conversation. “You’re pretty snug here, Dennis. D’you do your own housework?”

Stretton had taken a deed box from what was once a cocktail cabinet. He had already produced whiskey. Quarrel with Crouch or treat him as an ordinary guest — there could be no middle course.

“A woman comes on a push-bike three days a week to clean up and cook me a joint.”

Stretton unlocked the deed box, untied the string of a small parcel marked with an initial. L for Leonie.

Crouch raised his glass.

“Whatever may be wrong with your health, old man, may it soon pass!”

“Thanks!” With his back to Crouch he opened the small parcel, and saw that Leonie had been right about the passport. It would be petty to pretend he had not found it.

“That’s what you want, Arthur.”

“I’m enormously obliged, Dennis!” If Crouch had put the passport in his pocket he would probably have departed unharmed. But he flourished it and talked about it.

“Thundering good likeness for a passport photo!” Crouch turned the pages. “Ah, this is what we want: ‘Leonie Therese de Ripert: Parents: Alphonse Marie de Ripert —’ ”

It was the fluttering of the pages that stirred the chord of memory. Stretton had supplied all those details, in triplicate, to British and to Belgian authorities. Obviously, a Belgian lawyer could settle the whole thing from the files.

“Arthur, why did you really want to come here?” Stretton’s voice was steady: so was his hand when he took up his whiskey. “The passport story is punk.”

“My dear fellow!”

“You’ve been around here before, in my absence.”

“How can you possibly suggest that?”

“You forgot to ask me the route.”

It would take him some time to talk that away, thought Stretton, but again he was wrong.

“You win, Dennis. I plead guilty to a pious fraud.” He drained his glass. “I told you I had missed you like the devil. I couldn’t approach you while Leonie was alive. After her death I heard you were ill — and I guessed what had pulled you down. I had to find out how things were with you.”

The same old technique — an explanation that could be neither proved nor disproved. In reality Crouch had probably come to gloat over his handiwork.

“And now that you have found out?”

“I want to know whether I can be of any help to you, Dennis — in any way whatever?”

“Thanks, Arthur, you can!” At the expression in the other’s eyes Stretton’s last doubt vanished. He laughed offensively. “It’s not going to be a request for a loan. It’s going to be a request for truth. It will help me to straighten things out in my own mind if you will tell me the truth about Leonie.”

Crouch shrugged as if with embarrassment. To lengthen the silence he poured himself another drink. So Leonie had hurt — perhaps could be made to hurt a little more! Even by telling the truth.

“The truth, I’m afraid, was well known to most of our acquaintances. There are no lurid details. We just bored each other beyond bearing. Unfortunately for us both, her religious principles put divorce out of reach.”

Stretton was aware of a thudding in his ears. The suppression of his invention — all the disappointments, real and imaginary, in which he had seen the hand of Crouch — were concentrated in the now tragic figure of Leonie.

“So you spoiled her life without even getting any pleasure yourself in doing so!”

“That’s very bitter, old man! And it’s exaggerated. It wasn’t all gloom. There was the honeymoon era—”

“Stop!”The word cracked like a whiplash. Crouch was beginning to be alarmed by the extent of his own success.

“I think I’d better go now, Dennis. We ought not have talked about her. But you demanded the truth.”

“I’m still demanding it, Arthur. What filthy lie about me did you tell her to make her throw me down as if I had been a moral leper?”

Crouch set down his glass unfinished and got up.

“I told no lies about you. I did not approach her until after she had jilted you.”

Stretton cut off his line to the door.

“What filthy lie did you tell her about me?”It was as if he had been repeating that question for seven years. “Answer that and you can get out of here and we need never see each other again.”

“I have already explained—”

“You dirty little rat, you’ll tell me if I have to choke it out of you!” He gripped Crouch by the throat, thrust him back into the armchair, and with his knees on the other’s thighs, bent his head back over the arm of the chair. “It must have been a filthy lie, or she would have asked for a showdown. You wanted her solely in order to take her away from me. Answer — d’you hear! — or I’ll choke you. Speak, you little fool! Speak!”

He had not choked Crouch but broken his neck.

Part of him was bewildered, still waiting for Crouch’s confession, wondering why he did not say something. But another part of him knew that he had intended to kill Crouch for saying that Leonie was a bore — except on the honeymoon.

He stood back, getting his breath, staring at the wreckage in the armchair.

“My God! I’ve forgotten his damned dog!”

No unarmed man would stand a chance against that animal. There came a different kind of thudding in his ears now, which might have been made by the pads of the mastiff in the hallway of the cottage. Had the front door been left open? He couldn’t remember.

“It will see Arthur through the window, then jump through the glass.”

He caught up a rug and flung it over what had been Crouch.

He looked through the front window — from one side, then from the other to widen his angle — and saw nothing. He crossed to the side window, stepping over the feet of the corpse.

“Maybe I can see into the car.”

The brute was not sitting, or it would have been visible. By standing on a couple of thick books he was able to see part of the floor of the car.

“It’s not there. Then it must be prowling round the cottage looking for its master. Or in the hall, waiting for him to come out of this room.”

The thudding in his ears produced the illusion of any sound that panic conjured up. Wherever he feared the dog might be, there he heard it. In the garden — scratching on the wall — padding about upstairs.

The gun, with which he occasionally shot wild duck, was upstairs in the bedroom.

He knelt and peered through the keyhole. Was the beast crouching to spring as soon as the door was opened?

“It can’t know what has happened, or it would bark, or something.” Also, he remembered, Crouch had had no chance to call it. “Have to risk it!”

He opened the door, found nothing in the hallway. But the front door was open. If he could get upstairs he would be safe. He shut the parlor door behind him, then rushed the stairs.

He slammed the bedroom door and stood, panting, for some seconds. There was a box of cartridges under the bed. When he had loaded, panic passed, leaving him free to face the fact that he had not killed Crouch in self-defense. Nor would anyone believe that it had been accidental.

He was cool now, even self-possessed. Crouch had been on his way to Sussex: had changed his plans after he came out of his house. Therefore no one knew where Crouch had gone.

“Better locate that dog and let him have both barrels.”

Holding the gun like an infantryman mopping-up, he skirted the cottage, then the garden, then looked again in the car to make sure.

“Where are you? Come out, you brute, and fight.”

With the gun in his hand he no longer feared the teeth of the mastiff. Yet in some way the animal was dominating him, mocking both his scientific training and his common sense. He was aware that his hands were sweating, while his spine was cold and prickling.

He was fighting the eerie feeling that the dog had gone to summon the police.

He forced a laugh, but the idea refused to seem as absurd as it ought to seem. Crouch had said something about a thought-pattern, different from human intelligence.

And something about this particular dog being specially fond of policemen.

In a quarter of an hour the scientific training and the common sense had prevailed, and he was able to make rational arrangements.

The marsh, he knew, would be useless as a hiding place for the body. A few hours of rain and the whole waste became a network of rivulets, all swirling into the highway of the Thames. It would have to be the garden, the potato bed. The earth there was deep and soft.

It was nearly seven when he started digging, the loaded shotgun within arm’s reach. The moon would rise at ten fifty-seven. He must fill the grave before then. Not that he feared observation. But he would prefer to bury Crouch with as little light as possible, for the sake of his own unsteady nerve.

In this he was successful. When he had finished digging there was just enough light for his purpose.

He returned to the cottage, gritted his teeth, and set about his task. In his preoccupation with the corpse he had forgotten the risk of the mastiff appearing and taking him by surprise.

The grave was some fifteen feet from the large shed that served him as a garage. On the return journey, with his burden, he had to pass near the tail of Crouch’s car, parked between the cottage and the garage. That reminded him that he had left the shotgun at the grave side.

For a moment he stood still, paralyzed by physical fear of the mastiff. Then, hampered as he was, he ran. An hysterical sob broke from him as he found the shotgun. He turned at bay, his finger round the trigger. As the minutes lengthened he recovered his breath.

“I lost my head then. If I lose it again, I won’t make the grade.”

The moon was rising as he finished filling in the grave. Panic was far behind. Even if the mastiff were to return, it would not know what had happened, and it would not attack him unprovoked. He carried the shotgun comfortably under his arm as he returned the spade to the shed.

Back in the cottage he shut the front door. In the kitchen he heated water on the oil stove, then stripped naked and washed in the zinc footbath. When he had dressed, he prepared supper. He poured a small whiskey, then put the bottle away. He would have to drive Crouch’s car into London and leave it in a side street.

He did not bother to wash Crouch’s glass. That kind of precaution was a waste of energy. His plan was based on the assumption that he could prevent suspicion from reaching him.

Shortly after midnight he was rested and ready to start. He took a light overcoat, knowing that he could not return until the day buses were running — even then he would have a four-mile walk.

Moonlight was bathing the marsh, glistening on the distant Thames, when he stepped out of the cottage. He shut the door behind him. There was no need to lock your doors in those parts.

At the same spot — by the tail of Crouch’s car — came the same panic. He had stolen an oblique glance to the left, where the grave lay.

This time he saw the mastiff.

It was by the grave, sitting motionless on its haunches, guarding it as if it were guarding the car. The moonlight caught its eyes, which gleamed green.

Ignorant of the ways of a dog, Stretton thought it was unaware of his presence. He backed slowly, holding his breath, out of the line of vision. Then he bolted into the cottage for the shotgun — and spare cartridges.

The sporting gun, he knew, would be useless except at a range of a few feet. He would have to walk right up to the brute — or hold his fire to the last half-second if it attacked him. He crept out, telling himself that in less than a minute it would be all over — one way or the other.

The mastiff was in the same position. The same green glint came from the eyes. Within ten feet of it Stretton stopped. The mastiff took no notice of him. The luminous eyes were not looking at him. They were looking in the direction of the lane, as if expectantly.

Stretton advanced. The mastiff gave a low, indifferent growl — a protest rather than a menace. And still it would not look at him. It was positively ignoring him. Following a thought-pattern of its own?

But the mastiff’s thought-pattern, if any, had never envisaged the nature of a gun...

The job of burying it would be even more laborious than that of burying its master. It would have to wait until he had rested. He managed to lever the carcass into a wheelbarrow and lurch with it into the garage. Then he had to go back to the cottage for another wash.

By half-past two he had dumped the car in Central London. He spent the rest of the night in a Turkish bath.

The next afternoon he buried the mastiff close to Crouch.

At midnight Mrs. Crouch, alarmed by the non-arrival of her husband at her father’s house in Sussex, began to telephone inquiries as to road accidents. After ringing the vet and her own servants in Hampstead, she made a full report to Scotland Yard.

In the next few days the mastiff received its first installment of publicity — but only on the reasonable ground that it intensified the mystery of Crouch’s disappearance.

No man, taking an illicit holiday with a fair companion, would burden himself with a mastiff. Nor could he lose his memory and disappear without being quickly identified by the presence of such a rare and noticeable animal. Any crook could shoot a mastiff: but to dispose of the carcass in a secret manner would be as difficult as to dispose of a corpse. The case became a murder mystery with, as it were, a double corpse.

For a week Stretton read the newspapers with anxiety. The schoolboy who had seen him getting into the car with Crouch had given a description which would fit tens of thousands. There were appeals to this unknown friend to communicate with the police. The lack of response created suspicion of the “big” man, but provided no clue to identity. No one east of London claimed to have seen a mastiff in a car. In a few days it became clear that there was nothing to lead the police to examine Stretton’s garden.

Yet there were periods of depression and uncertainty, and some moments in which his scientific training and his common sense would again fail him. He felt no moral guilt, never gave a thought to Crouch as a person. But now and again his imagination was haunted by the luminous eyes of the mastiff staring expectantly in the direction of the lane — the mastiff that had a special affection for the police. There was that thought-pattern nonsense! Of course, some of the social insects — bees, ants, and whatnot — could achieve a sort of collective thinking—

“If dogs do have a thought-pattern of their own, they obviously can’t communicate their conclusions to humanity — so what does it matter if they have!” Thus he would laugh it off: but he could never wholly forget it.

In a month of hard work the police failed to pick up any clue to the identity of the murderer or the whereabouts of the corpse, and the case was passed on to the Department of Dead Ends. Except when he lapsed into mysticism about the dog, Stretton lost the sense of peril.

The vision of Leonie’s beauty no longer tormented him, so his nervous health improved. It was as if he were starting his life afresh, the past expiated and forgotten. In a couple of months he began preparations for a professional comeback.

He decided that he would have to live on in the cottage for a while. The potato patch bulged over the two graves. He finicked with a spade, breaking the outline. The soil might take a year or more to subside, he supposed, but while he remained at the cottage he was safe. The woman who did his housework had an elementary, incurious mind.

The woman came about eleven on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. By January he was driving to London on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays to re-establish contacts in his practice as a consultant.

To put it in the absurd terms of Stretton’s own mysticism, the mastiff spoke from the grave in the first week of February — some six months after the murder.

It was a little after ten on the Thursday morning. Stretton was rising late after a heavy evening on theory, and had just finished dressing when he saw a car draw up in the lane. Behind it was another — then a third and a fourth. Leisurely a dozen or more men emerged from the cars, some in police uniform.

Stretton hurried downstairs and opened the front door.

“Good Lord, sir, there he is!” exclaimed Detective Inspector Rason. “Cor! He’ll ask us a lot of questions before we’ve dug up the answers. I thought he’d be in London by now.”

“Your show!” said Superintendent Karslake grimly. As usual, he was in grave doubt as to the legality of Rason’s position.

“Good morning, Mr. Stretton.” Rason introduced himself and Karslake. “We have received certain information — that is — well, to cut it short, we’d like to do a spot of digging in your garden. Any objection?”

Stretton knew, of course, that he was done for, though there might still be some faint chance of stalling.

“That’s a curious request,” he said evenly. “I think I’m entitled to ask what sort of information?”

He expected them to say that they were looking for the body of Arthur Crouch. If they had said it, he would have kept his head.

“The information, Mr. Stretton,” said Rason, “was furnished by a mastiff.”

“My God!” gasped Stretton. As before, his hands sweated with superstitious terror, while his spine felt cold.

“Do I make myself clear, Mr. Stretton, or don’t I?” chirped Rason. “I see that I do. Perhaps we can go inside and swap yarns while the men get busy. They won’t be long. I was here yesterday with one of those young scientific farmers — you know, B.Sc. and all that! He spotted a patch over there where the earth had been dug up, he said, to a depth of several feet some time during the last year.”

Stretton led them into the parlor. In half an hour, he supposed, the men would uncover the body. It would serve no purpose to pretend someone else had put it there. In those few steps all hope vanished. Dignity alone remained.

“I think you know already that your men will find the body of Arthur Crouch,” he said.

“Steady on!” said Rason. “I have to warn you—”

“Unnecessary, thanks!” Stretton was taking it very well; but he lost some composure as he went on: “You implied that Crouch’s mastiff is still alive. Either I’m partly mad, or your men will also dig up the carcass of that mastiff.”

Rason gave him a long, noncommittal look.

“Are you sure that was the end of Arthur Crouch’s mastiff, Mr. Stretton?”

Stretton’s nerve gave. He gaped at the detective, then collapsed into the armchair.

“Are you telling me it was someone else’s mastiff I killed?” The words came from the heart of a broken man.

“I’ve no statement to make, Mr. Stretton,” replied Rason. “I’m sorry, but you’ll have to work it out for yourself.”

“It must have a natural explanation!” cried Stretton. “I can work it out. The million-to-one chance turned up. A second mastiff strayed into the garden. On that particular night! The million-to-one chance turned up!”

“And double the odds for luck,” guffawed Rason.

“Even then, that thought-pattern rot turns out to be true!” Stretton’s voice was slipping out of control. “And how the hell could that animal bring you here? It traveled on the floor of the car — six months ago! It’s against reason, I tell you.”

“Yet we are here!” said Rason.

A couple of hours later Rason was alone in a police car with Superintendent Karslake, on their way back to the Yard. Stretton had been taken away an hour previously in charge of a sergeant. Both smoked in silence until they were running into East London.

“Your case, and a good job o’ work too, Rason!” Karslake’s tone was aggrieved. “You’ve produced your evidence, and you don’t have to tell me how you got it, if you don’t want to.”

Rason did not rise. Karslake continued: “Couldn’t follow what he meant by a ‘thought-pattern.’ But he was right about that second mastiff being a million-to-one chance. It’s the sort of thing that’s turned up in your favor before.”

“Yes, sir, only he was wrong,” said Rason. “The whole point is that there is only one mastiff in this case. Actually there are only nine of ’em now in the whole country. I’ve made it my business to find out that not one of the nine has ever set foot in the county of Essex. All the same, I was speaking the truth when I told him a mastiff had furnished the information—”

“Wait a minute!” interrupted Karslake. “You told me last night, all formal and correct, that you had entered his cottage in his absence and taken fingerprints which corresponded to one set of prints found in Crouch’s car. Also that you had taken along a soil expert, et cetera. But how did you find the cottage in the first place?”

“Oh, luck as usual!” Rason was inclined to be bitter on this point. But he relented at the other’s disappointment. “You see, sir, my niece likes to do a bit o’ shop-gazing—”

“Confound your niece!” exploded Karslake. “I’m sorry that slipped out, Rason. Nothing personal, of course! But it’s not the first time you’ve stalled me with a wonderful fairy tale about that young lady. Can’t we leave her out of it?”

“Okay!” grinned Rason. “To begin at the other end, have you ever seen a mastiff?”

“Y-yes. At a dog show some years ago. Awful looking brutes. Don’t tell me your niece breeds ’em.”

“No, she’d never seen one before.” Rason was following his own train of thought. “And she was so tickled by what she did see that she went in and made inquiries. We might just as well go along ourselves.” He leaned forward and spoke to the driver. “George, you can take us back via the Strand — and stop at No. 968.”

The car stopped outside a shop which, in large lettering, proclaimed itself to be The Dogs’ Club. The windows were partitioned into alcoves. In each alcove dogs were lounging.

Rason glanced at the windows.

“It’s gone!” he exclaimed ruefully. “Maybe it’s inside.”

In the shop Rason nodded to an assistant and pressed on to the proprietor’s office at the rear.

“Mr. Braddell, this is my senior, Superintendent Karslake. Could you show him what you showed my niece — and tell him what you told me?”

“Certainly. We’ve had an offer for the dog and he’ll probably be gone tomorrow — unless the Yard wants him?”

“No, thanks! He’s done his job for us.”

Mr. Braddell took them into a long room tiered with cages containing dogs of almost every known breed.

“There you are, Mr. Karslake!”

“Where?” asked Karslake. He was looking for a mastiff.

Rason pointed to a medium-sized dog with a white shaggy coat and a somewhat astonishing head.

“What is that animal?” asked Karslake.

“Pure cross-breed — sheepdog and mastiff,” answered Mr. Braddell.

“You see, sir?” cut in Rason. “Sheep dog — mastiff! Mastiff — sheepdog! That’s the thought-pattern you want!”

“The puppies,” said Mr. Braddell, “were brought to us by a small farmer in Essex, near the marshes. He didn’t know what they were. Nor did we — until the mastiff head began to develop.”

“My niece,” said Rason, “saw two of ’em in the window. Happened to mention it to me over tea.”

~ ~ ~

From the 1951 anthology...

Perhaps the most brilliant writer of crime short stories to emerge in this country since World War II is Stanley Ellin, who since the appearance of his prize-winning “The Specialty of the House” in 1945 has heaped success upon success. I wholeheartedly recommend tracking down Mr. Ellin’s two collections of short stories, Mystery Stories (1956) and The Blessington Method and Other Strange Tales (1964). In the meantime, have a chilling glimpse into...

Stanley Ellin

The Orderly World of Mr. Appleby[6]

Mr. Appleby was a small, prim man who wore rimless spectacles, parted his graying hair in the middle, and took sober pleasure in pointing out that there was no room in the properly organized life for the operations of Chance. Consequently, when he decided that the time had come to investigate the most efficient methods for disposing of his wife he knew where to look.

He found the book, a text on forensic medicine, on the shelf of a second-hand bookshop among several volumes of like topic, and since all but one were in a distressingly shabby and dog-eared state which offended him to his very core, he chose the only one in reasonably good condition. Most of the cases it presented, he discovered on closer examination, were horrid studies of the results (vividly illustrated) of madness and lust — enough to set any decent man wondering at the number of monsters inhabiting the earth. One case, however, seemed to be exactly what he was looking for, and this he made the object of his most intensive study.

It was the case of Mrs. X (the book was replete with Mrs. X’s, and Mr. Y’s, and Miss Z’s) who died after what was presumably an accidental fall on a scatter rug in her home. However, a lawyer representing the interests of the late lamented charged her husband with murder, and at a coroner’s investigation was attempting to prove his charge when the accused abruptly settled matters by dropping dead of a heart attack.

All this was of moderate interest to Mr. Appleby whose motive, a desire to come into the immediate possession of his wife’s estate, was strikingly similar to the alleged motive of Mrs. X’s husband. But more important were the actual details of the case. Mrs. X had been in the act of bringing him a glass of water, said her husband, when the scatter rug, as scatter rugs will, had suddenly slipped from under her feet.

In rebuttal the indefatigable lawyer had produced a medical authority who made clear through a number of charts (all of which were handsomely reproduced in the book) that in the act of receiving the glass of water it would have been child’s-play for the husband to lay one hand behind his wife’s shoulder, another hand along her jaw, and with a sudden thrust produce the same drastic results as the fall on the scatter rug, without leaving any clues as to the nature of his crime.

It should be made clear now that in studying these charts and explanations relentlessly Mr. Appleby was not acting the part of the greedy man going to any lengths to appease that greed. True, it was money he wanted, but it was money for the maintenance of what he regarded as a holy cause. And that was the Shop: Appleby, Antiques and Curios.

The Shop was the sun of Mr. Appleby’s universe. He had bought it twenty years before with the pittance left by his father, and at best it provided him with a poor living. At worst — and it was usually at worst — it had forced him to draw on his mother’s meagre store of good will and capital. Since his mother was not one to give up a penny lightly, the Shop brought about a series of pitched battles which, however, always saw it the victor — since in the last analysis the Shop was to Mr. Appleby what Mr. Appleby was to his mother.

This unhappy triangle was finally shattered by his mother’s death, at which time Mr. Appleby discovered that she had played a far greater role in maintaining his orderly little world than he had hitherto realized. This concerned not only the money she occasionally gave him, but also his personal habits.

He ate lightly and warily. His mother had been adept at toasting and boiling his meals to perfection. His nerves were violently shaken if anything in the house was out of place, and she had been a living assurance he would be spared this. Her death, therefore, left a vast and uncomfortable gap in his life, and in studying methods to fill it he was led to contemplate marriage, and then to the act itself.

His wife was a pale, thin-lipped woman so much like his mother in appearance and gesture that sometimes on her entrance into a room he was taken aback by the resemblance. In only one respect did she fail him: she could not understand the significance of the Shop, nor his feelings about it. That was disclosed the first time he broached the subject of a small loan that would enable him to meet some business expenses.

Mrs. Appleby had been well in the process of withering on the vine when her husband-to-be had proposed to her, but to give her full due she was not won by the mere prospect of finally making a marriage. Actually, though she would have blushed at such a blunt statement of her secret thought, it was the large mournful eyes behind his rimless spectacles that turned the trick, promising, as they did, hidden depths of emotion neatly garbed in utter respectability. When she learned very soon after her wedding that the hidden depths were evidently too well hidden ever to be explored by her, she shrugged the matter off and turned to boiling and toasting his meals with good enough grace. The knowledge that the impressive Appleby, Antiques and Curios was a hollow shell she took in a different spirit.

She made some brisk investigations and then announced her findings to Mr. Appleby with some heat.

“Antiques and curios!” she said shrilly. “Why, that whole collection of stuff is nothing but a pile of junk. Just a bunch of worthless dust-catchers, that’s all it is!”

What she did not understand was that these objects, which to the crass and commercial eye might seem worthless, were to Mr. Appleby the stuff of life itself. The Shop had grown directly from his childhood mania for collecting, assorting, labeling, and preserving anything he could lay his hands on. And the value of any item in the Shop increased proportionately with the length of time he possessed it; whether a cracked imitation of Sèvres, or clumsily faked Chippendale, or rusty sabre made no difference. Each piece had won a place for itself; a permanent, immutable place, as far as Mr. Appleby was concerned; and strangely enough it was the sincere agony he suffered in giving up a piece that led to the few sales he made. The customer who was uncertain of values had only to get a glimpse of this agony to be convinced that he was getting a rare bargain. Fortunately, no customer could have imagined for a moment that it was the thought of the empty space left by the object’s departure — the brief disorder which the emptiness made — and not a passion for the object itself that drew Mr. Appleby’s pinched features into a mask of pain.

So, not understanding, Mrs. Appleby took an unsympathetic tack. “You’ll get my mite when I’m dead and gone,” she said, “and only when I’m dead and gone.”

Thus unwittingly she tried herself, was found wanting, and it only remained for sentence to be executed. When the time came Mr. Appleby applied the lessons he had gleaned from his invaluable textbook and found them accurate in every detail. It was over quickly, quietly, and, outside of a splash of water on his trousers, neatly. The Medical Examiner growled something about those indescribable scatter rugs costing more lives than drunken motorists; the policeman in charge kindly offered to do whatever he could in the way of making funeral arrangements; and that was all there was to it.

It had been so easy — so undramatic, in fact — that it was not until a week later when a properly sympathetic lawyer was making him an accounting of his wife’s estate that Mr. Appleby suddenly understood the whole, magnificent new world that had been opened up to him.

Discretion must sometimes outweigh sentiment, and Mr. Appleby was, if anything, a discreet man. After his wife’s estate had been cleared, the Shop was moved to another location far from it’s original setting. It was moved again after the sudden demise of the second Mrs. Appleby, and by the time the sixth Mrs. Appleby had been disposed of, the removals were merely part of a fruitful pattern.

Because of their similarities — they were all pale, thin-featured women with pinched lips, adept at toasting and boiling, and adamant on the subjects of regularity and order — Mr. Appleby was inclined to remember his departed wives rather vaguely en masse. Only in one regard did he qualify them: the number of digits their bank accounts totaled up to. For that reason he thought of the first two Mrs. Applebys as Fours; the third as a Three (an unpleasant surprise); and the last three as Fives. The sum would have been a pretty penny by anyone else’s standards, but since each succeeding portion of it had been snapped up by the insatiable Appleby, Antiques and Curios — in much the way a fly is snapped up by a hungry lizard — Mr. Appleby found himself soon after the burial of the sixth Mrs. Appleby in deeper and warmer financial waters than ever. So desperate were his circumstances that although he dreamed of another Five he would have settled for a Four on the spot. It was at this opportune moment that Martha Sturgis entered his life, and after fifteen minutes conversation with her he brushed all thoughts of Fours and Fives from his mind.

Martha Sturgis, it seemed, was a Six.

It was not only in the extent of her fortune that she broke the pattern established by the women of Mr. Appleby’s previous experience. Unlike them, Martha Sturgis was a large, rather shapeless woman who in person, dress, and manner might almost be called (Mr. Appleby shuddered a little at the word) blowzy.

It was remotely possible that properly veneered, harnessed, coiffured, and appareled she might have been made into something presentable, but from all indications Martha Sturgis was a woman who went out of her way to defy such conventions. Her hair, dyed a shocking orange-red, was piled carelessly on her head; her blobby features were recklessly powdered and painted entirely to their disadvantage; her clothes, obviously worn for comfort, were, at the same time, painfully garish; and her shoes gave evidence of long and pleasurable wear without corresponding care being given their upkeep.

Of all this and its effect on the beholder Martha Sturgis seemed totally unaware. She strode through Appleby, Antiques and Curios with an energy that set movable objects dancing in their places; she smoked incessantly, lighting one cigarette from another, while Mr. Appleby fanned the air before his face and coughed suggestively; and she talked without pause, loudly and in a deep, hoarse voice that dinned strangely in a Shop so accustomed to the higher, thinner note.

In the first fourteen minutes of their acquaintance the one quality she displayed that led Mr. Appleby to modify some of his immediate revulsion even a trifle was the care with which she priced each article. She examined, evaluated, and cross-examined in detail before moving on with obvious disapproval, and he moved along with her with mounting assurance that he could get her out of the Shop before any damage was done to the stock or his patience. And then in the fifteenth minute she spoke the Word.

“I’ve got half a million dollars in the bank,” Martha Sturgis remarked with cheerful contempt, “but I never thought I’d get around to spending a nickel of it on this kind of stuff.”

Mr. Appleby had his hand before his face preparatory to waving aside some of the tobacco smoke that eddied about him. In the time it took the hand to drop nervelessly to his side his mind attacked an astonishing number of problems. One concerned the important finger on her left hand which was ringless; the others concerned certain mathematical problems largely dealing with short-term notes, long-term notes, and rates of interest. By the time the hand touched his side, the problems, as far as Mr. Appleby was concerned, were well on the way to solution.

And it may be noted there was an added fillip given the matter by the very nature of Martha Sturgis’s slovenly and strident being. Looking at her after she had spoken the Word, another man might perhaps have seen her through the sort of veil that a wise photographer casts over the lens of his camera in taking the picture of a prosperous, but unprepossessing, subject. Mr. Appleby, incapable of such self-deceit, girded himself instead with the example of the man who carried a heavy weight on his back for the pleasure it gave him in laying it down. Not only would the final act of a marriage to Martha Sturgis solve important mathematical problems, but it was an act he could play out with the gusto of a man ridding the world of an unpleasant object.

Therefore he turned his eyes, more melancholy and luminous than ever, on her and said, “It’s a great pity, Mrs...”

She told him her name, emphasizing the Miss before it, and Mr. Appleby smiled apologetically.

“Of course. As I was saying, it’s a great pity when someone of refinement and culture—” (the like yourself floated delicately unsaid on the air) “—should never have known the joy in possession of fine works of art. But, as we all learn, it is never too late to begin, is it?”

Martha Sturgis looked at him sharply and then laughed a hearty bellow of laughter that stabbed his eardrums painfully. For a moment Mr. Appleby, a man not much given to humor, wondered darkly if he had unwittingly uttered something so excruciatingly epigrammatic that it was bound to have this alarming effect.

“My dear man,” said Martha Sturgis, “if it is your idea that I am here to start cluttering up my life with your monstrosities, perish the thought. What I’m here for is to buy a gift for a friend, a thoroughly infuriating and loathesome person who happens to have the nature and disposition of a bar of stainless steel. I can’t think of a better way of showing my feelings toward her than by presenting her with almost anything displayed in your shop. If possible, I should also like delivery arranged so that I can be on the scene when she receives the package.”

Mr. Appleby staggered under this, then rallied valiantly. “In that case,” he said, and shook his head firmly, “it is out of the question. Completely out of the question.”

“Nonsense,” Martha Sturgis said. “I’ll arrange for delivery myself if you can’t handle it. Really, you ought to understand that there’s no point in doing this sort of thing unless you’re on hand to watch the results.”

Mr. Appleby kept tight rein on his temper. “I am not alluding to the matter of delivery,” he said. “What I am trying to make clear is that I cannot possibly permit anything in my Shop to be bought in such a spirit. Not for any price you could name.”

Martha Sturgis’s heavy jaw dropped. “What was that you said?” she asked blankly.

It was a perilous moment, and Mr. Appleby knew it. His next words could set her off into another spasm of that awful laughter that would devastate him completely; or, worse, could send her right out of the Shop forever; or could decide the issue in his favor then and there. But it was a moment that had to be met, and, thought Mr. Appleby desperately, whatever else Martha Sturgis might be, she was a Woman.

He took a deep breath. “It is the policy of this Shop,” he said quietly, “never to sell anything unless the prospective purchaser shows full appreciation for the article to be bought and can assure it the care and devotion to which it is entitled. That has always been the policy, and always will be as long as I am here. Anything other than that I would regard as desecration.”

He watched Martha Sturgis with bated breath. There was a chair nearby, and she dropped into it heavily so that her skirts were drawn tight by her widespread thighs, and the obscene shoes were displayed mercilessly. She lit another cigarette, regarding him meanwhile with narrowed eyes through the flame of the match, and then fanned the air a little to dispel the cloud of smoke.

“You know,” she said, “this is very interesting. I’d like to hear more about it.”

To the inexperienced the problem of drawing information of the most personal nature from a total stranger would seem a perplexing one. To Mr. Appleby, whose interests had so often been dependent on such information, it was no problem at all. In very short time he had evidence that Martha Sturgis’s estimate of her fortune was quite accurate, that she was apparently alone in the world without relatives or intimate friends, and — that she was not averse to the idea of marriage.

This last he drew from her during her now regular visits to the Shop where she would spread herself comfortably on a chair and talk to him endlessly. Much of her talk was about her father to whom Mr. Appleby evidently bore a striking resemblance.

“He even dressed like you,” Martha Sturgis said reflectively. “Neat as a pin, and not only about himself either. He used to make an inspection of the house every day — march through and make sure everything was exactly where it had to be. And he kept it up right to the end. I remember an hour before he died how he went about straightening pictures on the wall.”

Mr. Appleby who had been peering with some irritation at a picture that hung slightly awry on the Shop wall turned his attentions reluctantly from it.

“And you were with him to the end?” he asked sympathetically.

“Indeed I was.”

“Well,” Mr. Appleby said brightly, “One does deserve some reward for such sacrifice, doesn’t one? Especially — and I hope this will not embarrass you, Miss Sturgis — when one considers that such a woman as yourself could undoubtedly have left the care of an aged father to enter matrimony almost at will. Isn’t that so?”

Martha Sturgis sighed. “Maybe it is, and maybe it isn’t,” she said, “and I won’t deny that I’ve had my dreams. But that’s all they are, and I suppose that’s all they ever will be.”

“Why?” asked Mr. Appleby encouragingly.

“Because,” said Martha Sturgis sombrely, “I have never yet met the man who could fit those dreams. I am not a simpering schoolgirl, Mr. Appleby; I don’t have to balance myself against my bank account to know why any man would devote himself to me, and frankly, his motives would be of no interest. But he must be a decent, respectable man who would spend every moment of his life worrying about me and caring for me; and he must be a man who would make the memory of my father a living thing.”

Mr. Appleby rested a hand lightly on her shoulder.

“Miss Sturgis,” he said gravely, “You may yet meet such a man.”

She looked at him with features that were made even more blobby and unattractive by her emotion.

“Do you mean that, Mr. Appleby?” she asked. “Do you really believe that?”

Faith glowed in Mr. Appleby’s eyes as he smiled down at her. “He may be closer than you dare realize,” he said warmly.

Experience had proved to Mr. Appleby that once the ice is broken the best thing to do is take a deep breath and plunge in. Accordingly, he let very few days elapse before he made his proposal.

“Miss Sturgis,” he said, “there comes a time to every lonely man when he can no longer bear his loneliness. If at such a time he is fortunate enough to meet the one woman to whom he could give unreservedly all his respect and tender feelings, he is a fortunate man indeed. Miss Sturgis — I am that man.”

“Why, Mr. Appleby!” said Martha Sturgis, coloring a trifle. “That’s really very good of you, but...”

At this note of indecision his heart sank. “Wait!” he interposed hastily. “If you have any doubts. Miss Sturgis, please speak them now so that I may answer them. Considering the state of my emotions, that would only be fair, wouldn’t it?”

“Well, I suppose so,” said Martha Sturgis. “You see, Mr. Appleby, I’d rather not get married at all than take the chance of getting someone who wasn’t prepared to give me exactly what I’m looking for in marriage: absolute, single-minded devotion all the rest of my days.”

“Miss Sturgis,” said Mr. Appleby solemnly, “I am prepared to give you no less.”

“Men say these things so easily,” she sighed. “But — I shall certainly think about it, Mr. Appleby.”

The dismal prospect of waiting an indefinite time for a woman of such careless habits to render a decision was not made any lighter by the sudden receipt a few days later of a note peremptorily requesting Mr. Appleby’s presence at the offices of Gainsborough, Gainsborough, and Golding, attorneys-at-law. With his creditors closing in like a wolf pack, Mr. Appleby could only surmise the worst, and he was pleasantly surprised upon his arrival at Gainsborough, Gainsborough, and Golding to find that they represented, not his creditors, but Martha Sturgis herself.

The elder Gainsborough, obviously very much the guiding spirit of the firm, was a short, immensely fat man with pendulous dewlaps that almost concealed his collar, and large fishy eyes that goggled at Mr. Appleby. The younger Gainsborough was a duplicate of his brother with jowls not quite so impressive, while Golding was an impassive young man with a hatchet face.

“This,” said the elder Gainsborough, his eyes fixed glassily on Mr. Appleby, “is a delicate matter. Miss Sturgis, an esteemed client—” the younger Gainsborough nodded at this “—has mentioned entering matrimony with you, sir.”

Mr. Appleby sitting primly on his chair was stirred by a pleased excitement. “Yes?” he said.

“And,” continued the elder Gainsborough, “while Miss Sturgis is perfectly willing to concede that her fortune may be the object of attraction in any suitor’s eyes—” he held up a pudgy hand to cut short Mr. Appleby’s shocked protest “—she is also willing to dismiss that issue—”

“To ignore it, set it aside,” said the younger Gainsborough sternly.

“—if the suitor is prepared to meet all other expectations in marriage.”

“I am,” said Mr. Appleby fervently.

“Mr. Appleby,” said the elder Gainsborough abruptly, “have you been married before?”

Mr. Appleby thought swiftly. Denial would make any chance word about his past a deadly trap; admission, on the other hand, was a safeguard against that, and a thoroughly respectable one.

“Yes,” he said.

“Divorced?”

“Good heavens, no!” said Mr. Appleby, genuinely shocked.

The Gainsboroughs looked at each other in approval. “Good,” said the elder; “very good. Perhaps, Mr. Appleby, the question seemed impertinent, but in these days of moral laxity...”

“I should like it known in that case,” said Mr. Appleby sturdily, “that I am as far from moral laxity as any human being can be. Tobacco, strong drink, and — ah—”

“Loose women,” said the younger Gainsborough briskly.

“Yes,” said Mr. Appleby reddening; “are unknown to me.”

The elder Gainsborough nodded. “Under any conditions,” he said, “Miss Sturgis will not make any precipitate decision. She should have her answer for you within a month, however, and during that time, if you don’t mind taking the advice of an old man, I suggest that you court her assiduously. She is a woman, Mr. Appleby, and I imagine that all women are much alike.”

“I imagine they are,” said Mr. Appleby.

“Devotion,” said the younger Gainsborough. “Constancy. That’s the ticket.”

What he was being asked to do, Mr. Appleby reflected in one of his solitary moments, was to put aside the Shop and the orderly world it represented and to set the unappealing figure of Martha Sturgis in its place. It was a temporary measure, of course; it was one that would prove richly rewarding when Martha Sturgis had been properly wed and sent the way of the preceding Mrs. Applebys; but it was not made any easier by enforced familiarity with the woman. It was inevitable that since Mr. Appleby viewed matters not only as a prospective bridegroom, but also as a prospective widower, so to speak, he found his teeth constantly set on edge by the unwitting irony which crept into so many of her tedious discussions on marriage.

“The way I see it,” Martha Sturgis once remarked, “is that a man who would divorce his wife would divorce any other woman he ever married. You take a look at all these broken marriages today, and I’ll bet that in practically every case you’ll find a man who’s always shopping around and never finding what he wants. Now, the man I marry,” she said pointedly, “must be willing to settle down and stay settled.”

“Of course,” said Mr. Appleby.

“I have heard,” Martha Sturgis told him on another, and particularly trying, occasion, “that a satisfactory marriage increases a woman’s span of years. That’s an excellent argument for marriage, don’t you think?”

“Of course,” said Mr. Appleby.

It seemed to him that during that month of trial most of his conversation was restricted to the single phrase “of course,” delivered with varying inflections; but the tactic must have been the proper one since at the end of the month he was able to change the formula to “I do,” in a wedding ceremony at which Gainsborough, Gainsborough, and Golding were the sole guests.

Immediately afterward, Mr. Appleby (to his discomfort) was borne off with his bride to a photographer’s shop where innumerable pictures were made under the supervision of the dour Golding, following which, Mr. Appleby (to his delight) exchanged documents with his wife which made them each other’s heirs to all properties, possessions, et cetera, whatsoever.

If Mr. Appleby had occasionally appeared rather abstracted during these festivities, it was only because his mind was neatly arranging the program of impending events. The rug (the very same one that had served so well in six previous episodes) had to be placed; and then there would come the moment when he would ask for a glass of water, when he would place one hand on her shoulder, and with the other... It could not be a moment that took place without due time passing; yet it could not be forestalled too long in view of the pressure exercised by the Shop’s voracious creditors. Watching the pen in his wife’s hand as she signed her will, he decided there would be time within a few weeks. With the will in his possession there would be no point in waiting longer than that.

Before the first of those weeks was up, however, Mr. Appleby knew that even this estimate would have to undergo drastic revision. There was no question about it: he was simply not equipped to cope with his marriage.

For one thing, her home (and now his), a brownstone cavern inherited from her mother, was a nightmare of disorder. On the principle, perhaps, that anything flung casually aside was not worth picking up since it would only be flung aside again, an amazing litter had accumulated in every room. The contents of brimming closets and drawers were recklessly exchanged, mislaid, or added to the general litter, and over all lay a thin film of dust. On Mr. Appleby’s quivering nervous system all this had the effect of a fingernail dragging along an endless blackboard.

The one task to which Mrs. Appleby devoted herself, as it happened, was the one which her husband prayerfully wished she would spare herself. She doted on cookery, and during mealtimes would trudge back and forth endlessly between kitchen and dining room laden with dishes outside any of Mr. Appleby’s experience.

At his first feeble protests his wife had taken pains to explain in precise terms that she was sensitive to any criticism of her cooking, even the implied criticism of a partly emptied plate; and, thereafter, Mr. Appleby, plunging hopelessly through rare meats, rich sauces, and heavy pastries, found added to his tribulations the incessant pangs of dyspepsia. Nor were his pains eased by his wife’s insistence that he prove himself a trencherman of her mettle. She would thrust plates heaped high with indigestibles under his quivering nose, and, bracing himself like a martyr facing the lions, Mr. Appleby would empty his portion into a digestive tract that cried for simple fare properly boiled or toasted.

It became one of his fondest waking dreams, that scene where he returned from his wife’s burial to dine on hot tea and toast and, perhaps, a medium-boiled egg. But even that dream and its sequel — where he proceeded to set the house in order — were not sufficient to buoy him up each day when he awoke and reflected on what lay ahead of him.

Each day found his wife more insistent in her demands for his attentions. And on that day when she openly reproved him for devoting more of those attentions to the Shop than to herself, Mr. Appleby knew the time had come to prepare for the final act. He brought home the rug that evening and carefully laid it in place between the living room and the hallway that led to the kitchen. Martha Appleby watched him without any great enthusiasm.

“That’s a shabby looking thing, all right,” she said. “What is it, Appie, an antique or something?”

She had taken to calling him by that atrocious name and seemed cheerfully oblivious to the way he winced under it. He winced now.

“It is not an antique,” Mr. Appleby admitted, “but I hold it dear for many reasons. It has a great deal of sentimental value to me.”

Mrs. Appleby smiled fondly at him. “And you brought it for me, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” said Mr. Appleby, “I did.”

“You’re a dear,” said Mrs. Appleby. “You really are.”

Watching her cross the rug on slip-shod feet to use the telephone, which stood on a small table the other side of the hallway, Mr. Appleby toyed with the idea that since she used the telephone at about the same time every evening he could schedule the accident for that time. The advantages were obvious: since those calls seemed to be the only routine she observed with any fidelity, she would cross the rug at a certain time, and he would be in a position to settle matters then and there.

However, thought Mr. Appleby as he polished his spectacles, that brought up the problem of how best to approach her under such circumstances. Clearly the tried and tested methods were best, but if the telephone call and the glass of water could be synchronized...

“A penny for your thoughts, Apple,” said Mrs. Appleby brightly. She had laid down the telephone and crossed the hallway so that she stood squarely on the rug. Mr. Appleby replaced his spectacles and peered at her through them.

“I wish,” he said querulously, “you would not address me by that horrid name. You know I detest it.”

“Nonsense,” his wife said briefly. “I think it’s cute.”

“I do not.”

“Well, I like it,” said Mrs. Appleby with the air of one who has settled a matter once and for all. “Anyhow,” she pouted, “That couldn’t have been what you were thinking about before I started talking to you, could it?”

It struck Mr. Appleby that when this stout, unkempt woman pouted, she resembled nothing so much as a wax doll badly worn by time and handling. He pushed away the thought to frame some suitable answer.

“As it happens,” he said, “my mind was on the disgraceful state of my clothes. Need I remind you again that there are buttons missing from practically every garment I own?”

Mrs. Appleby yawned broadly. “I’ll get to it sooner or later.”

“Tomorrow perhaps?”

“I doubt it,” said Mrs. Appleby. She turned toward the stairs. “Come to sleep, Apple. I’m dead tired.”

Mr. Appleby followed her thoughtfully. Tomorrow, he knew, he would have to get one of his suits to the tailor if he wanted to have anything fit to wear at the funeral.

He had brought home the suit and hung it neatly away; he had eaten his dinner; and he had sat in the living room listening to his wife’s hoarse voice go on for what seemed interminable hours, although the clock was not yet at nine.

Now with rising excitement he saw her lift herself slowly from her chair and cross the room to the hallway. As she reached for the telephone Mr. Appleby cleared his throat sharply. “If you don’t mind,” he said, “I’d like a glass of water.”

Mrs. Appleby turned to look at him. “A glass of water?”

“If you don’t mind,” said Mr. Appleby, and waited as she hesitated, then set down the telephone, and turned toward the kitchen. There was the sound of a glass being rinsed in the kitchen, and then Mrs. Appleby came up to him holding it out. He laid one hand appreciatively on her plump shoulder, and then lifted the other as if to brush back a strand of untidy hair at her cheek.

“Is that what happened to all the others?” said Mrs. Appleby quietly.

Mr. Appleby felt his hand freeze in mid-air and the chill from it run down into his marrow. “Others?” he managed to say. “What others?”

His wife smiled grimly at him, and he saw that the glass of water in her hand was perfectly steady. “Six others,” she said. “That is, six by my count. Why? Were there any more?”

“No,” he said, then caught wildly at himself. “I don’t understand what you’re talking about!”

“Dear Appie. Surely you couldn’t forget six wives just like that. Unless, of course, I’ve come to mean so much to you that you can’t bear to think of the others. That would be a lovely thing to happen, wouldn’t it?”

“I was married before,” Mr. Appleby said loudly. “I made that quite clear myself. But this talk about six wives!”

“Of course you were married before, Appie. And it was quite easy to find out to whom — and it was just as easy to find out about the one before that — and all the others. Or even about your mother, or where you went to school, or where you were born. You see, Apple, Mr. Gainsborough is really a very clever man.”

“Then it was Gainsborough who put you up to this!”

“Not at all, you foolish little man,” his wife said contemptuously. “All the time you were making your plans I was unmaking them. From the moment I laid eyes on you I knew you for what you are. Does that surprise you?”

Mr. Appleby struggled with the emotions of a man who had picked up a twig to find a viper in his hand. “How could you know?” he gasped.

“Because you were the image of my father. Because in everything — the way you dress, your insufferable neatness, your priggish arrogance, the little moral lectures you dote on — you are what he was. And all my life I hated him for what he was, and what it did to my mother. He married her for her money, made her every day a nightmare, and then killed her for what was left of her fortune.”

“Killed her?” said Mr. Appleby, stupefied.

“Oh, come,” his wife said sharply. “Do you think you’re the only man who was ever capable of that? Yes, he killed her — murdered her, if you prefer — by asking for a glass of water, and then breaking her neck when she offered it to him. A method strangely similar to yours, isn’t it?”

Mr. Appleby found the incredible answer rising to his mind, but refused to accept it. “What happened to him?” he demanded. “Tell me, what happened! Was he caught?”

“No, he was never caught. There were no witnesses to what he did, but Mr. Gainsborough had been my mother’s lawyer, a dear friend of hers. He had suspicions and demanded a hearing. He brought a doctor to the hearing who made it plain how my father could have killed her and made it look as if she had slipped on a rug, but before there was any decision my father died of a heart attack.”

“That was the case — the case I read!” Mr. Appleby groaned, and then was silent under his wife’s sardonic regard.

“When he was gone,” she went on inexorably, “I swore I would some day find a man exactly like that, and I would make that man live the life my father should have lived. I would know his every habit and every taste, and none of them should go satisfied. I would know he married me for my money, and he would never get a penny of it until I was dead and gone. And that would be a long, long time, because he would spend his life taking care that I should live out my life to the last possible breath.”

Mr. Appleby pulled his wits together, and saw that despite her emotion she had remained in the same position. “How can you make him do that?” he asked softly, and moved an inch closer.

“It does sound strange, doesn’t it, Apple?” she observed. “But hardly as strange as the fact that your six wives died by slipping on a rug — very much like this one — while bringing you a glass of water — very much like this one. So strange, that Mr. Gainsborough was led to remark that too many coincidences will certainly hang a man. Especially if there is reason to bring them to light in a trial for murder.”

Mr. Appleby suddenly found the constriction of his collar unbearable. “That doesn’t answer my question,” he said craftily. “How can you make sure that I would devote my life to prolonging yours?”

“A man whose wife is in a position to have him hanged should be able to see that clearly.”

“No,” said Mr. Appleby in a stifled voice, “I only see that such a man is forced to rid himself of his wife as quickly as possible.”

“Ah, but that’s where the arrangements come in.”

“Arrangements? What arrangements?” demanded Mr. Appleby.

“I’d like very much to explain them,” his wife said. “In fact, I see the time has come when it’s imperative to do so. But I do find it uncomfortable standing here like this.”

“Never mind that,” said Mr. Appleby impatiently, and his wife shrugged.

“Well, then,” she said coolly, “Mr. Gainsborough now has all the documents about your marriages — the way the previous deaths took place, the way you always happened to get the bequests at just the right moment to pay your shop’s debts.

“Besides this, he has a letter from me, explaining that in the event of my death an investigation be made immediately and all necessary action be taken. Mr. Gainsborough is really very efficient. The fingerprints and photographs...”

“Fingerprints and photographs!” cried Mr. Appleby.

“Of course. After my father’s death it was found that he had made all preparations for a quick trip abroad. Mr. Gainsborough has assured me that in case you had such ideas in mind you should get rid of them. No matter where you are, he said, it will be quite easy to bring you back again.”

“What do you want of me?” asked Mr. Appleby numbly. “Surely you don’t expect me to stay now, and—”

“Oh, yes, I do. And since we’ve come to this point I may as well tell you I expect you to give up your useless shop once and for all, and make it a point to be at home with me the entire day.”

“Give up the Shop!” he exclaimed.

“You must remember, Apple, that in my letter asking for a full investigation at my death, I did not specify death by any particular means. I look forward to a long and pleasant life with you always at my side, and perhaps — mind you, I only say perhaps — some day I shall turn over that letter and all the evidence to you. You can see how much it is to your interest, therefore, to watch over me very carefully.”

The telephone rang with abrupt violence, and Mrs. Appleby nodded toward it. “Almost as carefully,” she said softly, “as Mr. Gainsborough. Unless I call him every evening at nine to report I am well and happy, it seems he will jump to the most shocking conclusions.”

“Wait,” said Mr. Appleby. He lifted the telephone, and there was no mistaking the voice that spoke.

“Hello,” said the elder Gainsborough. “Hello, Mrs. Appleby?”

Mr. Appleby essayed a cunning move. “No,” he said, “I’m afraid she can’t speak to you now. What is it?”

The voice in his ear took on an unmistakable cold menace. “This is Gainsborough, Mr. Appleby, and I wish to speak to your wife immediately. I will give you ten seconds to have her at this telephone, Mr. Appleby. Do you understand?”

Mr. Appleby turned dully toward his wife and held out the telephone. “It’s for you,” he said, and then saw with a start of terror that as she turned to set down the glass of water the rug skidded slightly under her feet. Her arms flailed the air as she fought for balance, the glass smashed at his feet drenching his neat trousers, and her face twisted into a silent scream. Then her body struck the floor and lay inertly in the position with which he was so familiar.

Watching her, he was barely conscious of the voice emerging tinnily from the telephone in his hand.

“The ten seconds are up, Mr. Appleby,” it said shrilly. “Do you understand? Your time is up!”

~ ~ ~

Few of the stories in the Best Detective series are tales of terror, but “Total Recall” from the 1952 anthology will more than adequately represent those that are. The circumstances are almost archetypal: honeymooners alone on the desolate moors, threatened by a homicidal maniac. But so effectively is mood communicated, so starkly is the climax painted, that here is shattering reading indeed.

James Helvick

Total Recall[7]

On the kitchen floor of the moorland cottage, pushed in through the wide crack under the door, they found two letters. One was a threat of death. The other was an offer of help. Both letters must have been slid under the locked door during the five hours the Mansells had been out on the moor. The offer lay nearer to the door than the threat, as though it had been pushed there later.

Edward Mansell read the offer first, and his look of vague boredom became one of bewilderment. Then he read the threat. Joan Mansell, looking on irritably, saw him reach out and close the door without taking his eyes from the letter. When he started to read the first letter again, she snapped impatiently, “Oh, what is it? What is it then?”

This holiday on the moor was to have been a kind of second honeymoon after a year of marriage. And today they had spent five hours walking, picnicking, and wrangling about everything or nothing. They’d got on each other’s nerves all day; their relations seemed to be at the breaking point, and Edward chose this moment to stand there reading these letters as though she were not there.

He touched her shoulder gently. “What?” she said.

He said, “Well, this. You’d better have a look.” He gave her the letters, and she stood reading them in the same order that he had. The first said:

Dear Mr. Mansell: I hope you won’t consider this an impertinence from a total stranger, but in view of the news about the man Howard being at large somewhere in these parts, I thought, as your place is so very isolated, you might be glad of a little reinforcement. I don’t suppose he’ll come anywhere near you, but still, he is supposed to be a very dangerous maniac, and I took the liberty of suggesting to the police at Buckforth that they ought to post a man with you tonight. But they are so busy with their “Man hunts” and “Cordons” that it seems they just haven’t anybody to spare. So it occurred to me that, as I shall in any case be cycling to the “outer edge” of the parish late this afternoon, I might look in on you on the way back and, if you think it would be a good idea, I could help you do sentry go during the night. Probably quite unnecessary, as the police think Howard is over on the other side of the moor by now. But in any case, I should be very glad to make your acquaintance, and hope you will not, under the circumstances, think me intrusive.

It was signed: George Beale, with Curate at Buckforth (in case you didn’t know!) after the signature.

The other letter was written on expensive paper, in an elegant hand, covering four rather large pages. It opened with a detailed and obscenely worded threat to torture and murder the inhabitants of that cottage during the night. The rest of the letter was a series of reiterations and elaborations of the threat. It was signed “Barrington Howard.”

It took a long moment for the meaning of the letter to drive the irritated expression from Joan Mansell’s face, leaving it momentarily blank. Then she swung round to Edward, touching the tweed of his sleeve with her fingertips.

“But, Eddie — all this — it’s crazy, isn’t it?”

He frowned, taking the letters from her. “Well,” he said, “I suppose—” His eyes turned toward the low window of the kitchen, beyond which lay the moor. She noticed his glance and jerked round abruptly, staring toward the window, her hand to her mouth.

“You mean,” she gasped, “there’s really something — someone, I mean — out there?”

“Probably nowhere near here. Some maniac.” He took the letters from her, keeping his eyes on the window. “The parson seems to know all about him. Probably if we’d been getting the newspapers out here we’d know all about it too. Trouble is, we’re so isolated.”

“Isolated,” she repeated, and took a small step toward the window. “There’s no one else for miles.”

“Of course there’s this police cordon, and the parson chap.” He, too, had lowered his voice.

“And why us?” she asked in a strained whisper, looking quickly at the letter in his hand.

“He’s a maniac,” Edward repeated. “He may be threatening lots of people.” He gripped her suddenly by the shoulders. “Look, Joan darling. It’s no use our standing here whispering and peering out of that damn window. Let’s for God’s sake get a grip on ourselves. Best thing we can do is get out of here.”

“Out?” She was still peering at the emptiness of the moor in the late afternoon sunshine.

“It’s less than six miles into Buckforth.”

She said, as though she were talking to herself, “Over the moor.”

“Only the first part. Chances are we’ll run into one of the cops or the parson man on the way out, and this — what’s-his-name? — Howard, he’ll lie low till after dark, anyway.”

“You think so?” She was still staring out of the window.

“Of course.” His voice was loud and matter-of-fact. “His letter says tonight. I believe it’s true that maniacs never shift from their plan. Kind of idée fixe. And anyway — in broad daylight. Now’s when the going’s good.”

“All right.” Her expression, as she turned quickly from the window, was a mixture of fear and unbelief in what was happening. “But if we’re going, let’s be quick. Let’s go now!”

“Just a minute.” He was looking about, with an air almost of embarrassment — as though he, too, hardly believed in the reality of danger — for some kind of weapon. He found a couple of sharp, sturdy kitchen knives and held one out to her awkwardly. “Only for just in case,” he said. Her hand shook a little as she took it. She said, “I know. But it makes it all seem more horribly real.”

He took a thick stick too, and she slung her handbag over her shoulder. As he pulled the door open, she managed a wavering smile. “And we were bored with our dull little cottage,” she said.

“There might be tracks,” he said from the threshold. “I suppose the parson came on his bicycle. Now I come to think of it, that must have been him we saw way off across the moor this morning.”

“I couldn’t see that far,”

“I definitely saw someone off on the Buckforth road. Must have been him.”

“If only we’d been here.”

He was looking closely at the hard-earth path that led to the cottage door. “Too hard to hold tracks, I guess,” he said. “Anyway, let’s get going.”

The moorland path went slantwise up and along the side of the steep ridge behind the cottage. They walked in the soft, bulging shadows of the tussocky heather, and their own shadows hurried beside them. Joan looked westward at the sun, going down toward a pile of thunderclouds.

“It’s later than we thought,” she said.

“We’ll make it,” he said. But he too looked westward, and now he was setting a pace that kept her nearly trotting behind him on the narrow track.

He could see her shadow out of the corner of his eye, and once he called out sharply, telling her not to keep looking back. “You can’t get along that way,” he said. “Besides, there’s nothing there.”

Before they quite reached the point where the path went over the saddle of the ridge, the thundercloud had hidden the sun. Their shadows had left them. On level ground at the top, they paused briefly, looking back and forward.

Ahead, the path dipped sharply down the long, steep eastern side of the ridge, into a glen at the bottom of which grass and bushes and tall trees took over from the heather. The light and color had drained away from the glen into a vague, early dusk. One could see the shape of the valley and where the trees and bushes were, but if one started to look hard at anything in particular, the details were softly blurred. The gurgle of the stream along the valley bottom, and the stirring of a small evening breeze in the heather and the treetops, blurred, too, the details of any other small sounds there might be.

They strained their eyes and ears against the gurgling, rustling dusk. “There could be anything down there,” Joan said.

“Or nothing,” Edward said sharply. “We’d better get on if we’re going.”

“Just let’s listen for another second.”

They stood rigid, listening. He said, “Come on,” and stepped forward, and a paralyzing noise burst out of the valley and rushed up toward them. He jumped back as though something had hit him. For a split second the sound was everywhere. “It’s the birds,” Joan gasped. “They shot up all at once out of those trees down there.”

They could see now the innumerable dark shapes of rooks circling and beginning to spiral down, with subsiding cries, toward the tops of the trees. “God, how they frightened me!” she said. “Just rooks.”

But he was standing looking down intently. She looked at him and gripped his arm. “You mean something frightened them,” she whispered. He nodded, and as again they listened, both of them heard another sound, just audible through the scattered cawing of the rooks and the noise of the stream. Something was moving heavily in the undergrowth down there. Instinctively they both crouched in the heather. The noise stopped, then started again. It was impossible to tell whether it was a loud noise some way off, or a lesser noise in the nearest part of the valley bottom.

“Could be one of these moorland ponies,” he whispered.

“We can’t know.”

The sound came again, the sound of a creature moving carefully.

“Too late,” Joan breathed. “We can’t go on.” He nodded quickly. “The cottage is our best chance now.”

Walking in a half crouch, they got back to the ridgetop. Then where the path dipped slantwise down the western flank, they started to run. The jolting thud of their feet and hearts deafened them to all other sounds. Panting painfully, they staggered together down the last narrow lap of the path to the cottage door. Then they stopped for the first time to look and listen.

Nothing could be seen or heard coming down the path. “We had a good start,” Joan said.

Edward pushed her ahead of him into the house. “It may be only just enough,” he said. “You get this door and window fixed. I’ll do the front.”

The cottage was a square box — two rooms in front, divided by a front door, which they never used, and a little passage running back to the kitchen, which filled the whole back space of the house. The front door was a heavy affair with bolts and chains that probably had not been opened in years. One of the little rooms they used only as a storeroom; the other was their bedroom. Edward moved quickly from one to the other, securing the heavy, old-fashioned shutters which had iron bars that locked them on the inside. When he returned, he found Joan had the kitchen windows shuttered, too, and the door barred. That was also a strong door, though the floor had sunk a couple of inches, leaving a gap through which the letters had been pushed sometime that morning.

A little of the dim remains of daylight still seeped in through large cracks in the shutters and between the heavy panels of the door. Edward lighted the oil lamp, set it on the floor, and rigged a curtain of dish towels around it so that it illuminated the room only dimly and wouldn’t disclose them to a watcher outside.

“We’ll want to keep a good ear open for the parson man,” Edward said. “If he sees the place dark he may think we’ve gone.”

They sat in the half-dark listening, and at the same moment both of them heard the noise of something coming down the path from the hillside. Edward had time to get up and tiptoe over to the door, hefting in his hand the small hatchet he had brought from the storeroom. Then a loud, authoritative hail came from outside. “Police out here. Anyone home?” Through the largest of the door’s cracks, Edward caught a glimpse of the familiar uniform. He hurriedly unbarred and opened the door.

Edward interrupted the speech the policeman was beginning about having no wish to alarm them, but it was his duty to inform them that a maniac—

“We know a bit about that,” Edward said. “Look at this.” He handed the policeman the two letters.

“And what’s more...” Joan began to tell the story of their attempted flight and the thing that had moved in the valley. The policeman listened stolidly. “Well, now,” he said, “it might be as well to get that door shut, and if you’ll get the lamp lit, I’ll just take a look at all this.”

Edward barred the door again. “That wouldn’t have been anything but a moor pony,” the policeman said. “Don’t forget I’ve just come that way from Buckforth myself. Everything quiet. No birds whizzing about. For your information, the indications are that Howard’s moving away from here. There’ll be a police cordon between you and him by now,” he said. “With dogs and all.”

“But who is this Howard?” Joan asked.

“Barrington Howard?” he asked. “I thought everyone knew about that case.”

Seven years ago, Howard, ex-acrobat, small-time actor, with nothing worse in the way of a police record than a couple of parking offenses, had murdered, with obscene brutality, five people in a single night. The victims were the members of two different families, living within a mile or so of one another in the outer suburbs. Both sets of victims were complete strangers to Howard. Each household had received, on the day before the murder, a notification of Howard’s intention. “The same technique, you see,” said the policeman, seeming to find satisfaction in the fact, as though it were a proof of order in a shifting world.

“But didn’t the people he murdered — didn’t they take precautions?” Joan asked.

“Seemingly didn’t take enough,” the policeman said grimly. In one case the recipients of the threat had dismissed it as an obvious practical joke by some friend of the family given to practical jokes. The other household had applied for, and received, a measure of police protection. Clearly it had not been sufficient because by some means which the killer would not, and his victims could not, disclose, Howard had gained admittance to both houses and carried out his threats to the letter. Obviously insane, he had been sent for life to the criminal lunatic asylum. Four days ago he had escaped.

“Queer thing how they caught him that first time,” the policeman said. “It was psychological, kind of. He was very clever at disguising himself and he might have got clean away if it hadn’t been for this psychology.”

Psychiatry had broken through to Buckforth police station; the policeman knew the words. “Total recall” was the phrase he used to describe how Barrington Howard, despite his remarkably able disguise, had been picked up after those first and famous murders. Several people had known of him that he had what psychiatrists call “total recall” on one particular subject — Germany. It had been quite a joke in the suburban bar he used to frequent. If anyone brought up the subject of Germany, Howard had total recall — that is, he would get started talking about Germany, and go on recounting quite irrelevant and uninteresting facts about Germany, till, as the policeman said, the cows came home.

“Some people,” the policeman explained, “just can remember everything about something — something they read, say, or something they saw. Where it’s psychological is when they have to remember it. And they come out with it, too.”

“Compulsive total recall,” Edward said.

“The very words that were used,” said the policeman approvingly. “That’s the way they got him last time. Maybe that’s how they’ll get him this time. He’s a plausible sort of chap, but they’ll get him, all right. Don’t you worry.” He looked abruptly at his watch and fiddled with his hat.

Joan cried out, “But you’re not going to leave us — like this — with that outside?”

The policeman shifted his weight from foot to foot.

“I know how you feel,” he said, “but you see, the situation’s like this...” The police already had had a message that the elderly farmer and his wife who lived in the most desolate part of the moor five miles to the westward had also received some kind of threat. The policeman’s present assignment was to contact the officer in charge of the cordon, give him the message about the distant farm, and then go on ahead himself to guard duty there.

“Now,” he said, “If I go against orders, the lieutenant won’t get the message about the farm, and the old couple out there won’t get any quick protection. No one but you and me knows about the letter you got. Seems to me, the only thing to do is for me to get going quickly, give them that information, and have them detail a man to come back here.”

It made unanswerable good sense. Joan said, “You can’t leave those two old people alone out there. With the killer near, perhaps.” She gave a little shiver, and automatically her head turned toward the shuttered window.

“That’s right.” The policeman patted her arm. “Now look here, I can tell you one thing: it’s unlikely Howard’s got hold of a gun, and even if he has, it’s a hundred to one against his having more than a couple of rounds of ammo for it. And that means he can’t shoot his way in here, and by the look of these shutters and the door, he’d have a hell of a time breaking his way in, either. Now, the parson that’s written to you, he’s a good chap — chaplain in a commando raid, he was — and before it’s full dark he’ll be here. With a gun, too, I expect. That should see you right till one of our men gets back here.”

They listened to the policeman’s bicycle bumping away, and then to the silence. Joan turned to her husband and looked into his eyes. “Anyway,” she said, “We’re together again.” The wrangle of the morning seemed infinitely far away.

“Yes,” he said, taking her in his arms, “We’re together.”

Suddenly she leaned away from him. “Listen,” she said.

There was a sound on the path. Then there was a loud, repeated ringing of a bicycle bell, and a voice called out, “is that the Mansells? This is Beale. From Buckforth.”

Edward called out in response. The voice came a little nearer, and then said, “Look, you’ll probably want to take a look at me before you let me in. Do you want to open a shutter and shine a torch on me?”

“Okay.” Edward opened the shutter a chink, and in the light of a flashlight surveyed the clerical figure standing rather stifly beside the bicycle a few yards away. He wore a conventional clerical collar, but otherwise he might have been, from his appearance, a doctor or government inspector, or some other kind of civil servant whose work was in the countryside. He grinned pleasantly at Edward. “No good taking chances,” he said.

He was a biggish man, and when Edward, as he let him into the cottage and secured the door after him, commented that he looked like a useful reinforcement, he laughed and said that he had a bit more fighting experience than most chaplains.

They thanked him for his offer and prompt arrival.

“Well,” he said, “if Howard is lurking round this bit of the moor the three of us ought to be a match for him. I brought a gun, just in case.” He patted his pocket. “Now,” he said, “what about showing me the defense plan?”

They showed him what they’d done, and he approved.

“There’s nothing to do,” he said, “but await developments. Could you give me a sandwich, or something? I’ve been on the go all day and I’m pretty hungry.”

Hurrying, Joan got the food. They carved cold ham and ate a lot of it, and had a potato salad. Edward brought out bottled beer from the cupboard and they drank that. They talked low and listened often. But with their new ally there, an armed ex-commando, there was a kind of gaiety in the tension now. It was like the first night of a war. And then, since the visitor seemed an exceptionally agreeable, as well as a kind and thoughtful man, Edward brought out, too, a bottle of whiskey which they had been saving.

As he did so, he saw Joan frown, and he said, “After all, if this isn’t a special occasion, what is?” She smiled briefly. Their guest accepted a big shot of whiskey, and the men were soon deep in cheerful reminiscences about the war.

They kept refilling their glasses, even when Joan said, with a little extra emphasis, that she would not have any more because she thought everyone should have a clear head. She sat a little apart, frowning slightly in the gloom of the half-lighted kitchen. Edward accentuated his cheerfulness, as though to prove that he, at least, was a jolly good fellow who appreciated what another jolly good fellow was doing for them. And so he was still listening with a slightly fatuous smile for at least a quarter of a minute after Joan had stiffened suddenly in her chair.

“I entered Germany,” the visitor was saying, “on the Cologne Autobahn at three forty-five on the morning of May the twentieth, 1945. I remember it as if it were yesterday. It made, this first sight of Germany, a quite unforgettable impression on me. Of course, when one comes to think of Germany, and the fate of Germany, and so on, naturally one...” His voice went on and on talking about Germany.

Edward’s fatuous smile started to freeze on his face. Then, while the guest looked down into his glass, and talked about Germany, Edward got his smile back into position again and kept it there. At the first break in the stranger’s talk, he started to rise and muttered something about going outside for a moment. Only outdoor sanitation here, you know, old boy.”

The face above the clerical collar came up, alert and startled. “I really wouldn’t do that, you know. I wouldn’t take a chance on going out there alone. You don’t realize how dangerous Howard is. I’ll come along with you, though, if you like. I’ve got the gun, you see.” His hand went to his pocket.

Edward relaxed into his chair, “Oh, well,” he said, “later perhaps. We’ll have another drink first, anyway.” The other relaxed, too. “I’m not going to let you out of my sight,” he said, smiling.

Keeping it slow and casual, Edward leaned forward to take the bottle. “I’ll fill that up for you,” he said. The other looked at his glass, and as he did so, Edward got the neck of the bottle in his fist, jumped suddenly from his chair, and swung with what force he could at the side of the lowered head in front of him. The other rolled sideways and seemed to be trying to get out of his chair. His mouth came open, and his eyes stared up with the look of a man taken utterly by surprise. Before he could even make a move to handle his gun, Edward hit him again. With a deep, shuddering groan, the man toppled right out of the chair.

For a couple of seconds, Edward stood, staring down at him, incredulous at the success of his act. Then he began to claw at his own necktie, ripped it off, and started awkwardly binding the man’s hands behind him. Joan dashed to the cupboard and came back again with a length of clothesline. Silently, trembling with delayed terror, they trussed the big man’s arms and legs, twisting the rope around him in a frenzy of self-protection.

The bound man was breathing heavily. Edward felt the side of his head with his fingertips and decided there was no fracture. They tied a wet dishcloth over the small bleeding wound the bottle had made. They stood back, looking first at the helpless figure on the floor, then at each other. Relief flooded through them. For a minute or two they babbled at each other. “It was my fault,” Edward heard himself saying. “I took a couple too many drinks. He fooled me completely.”

“But, darling,” Joan was saying, “he’d have taken in anybody.”

Edward looked at her gratefully, and then out of the corner of his eye he saw a movement on the floor. The man’s leg had moved, gently, stealthily, and one of the knots they had tied loosened and slipped.

Edward’s voice came in a sharp whisper. “Look out,” he said. “He’s moving. He’s — you remember what the policeman said — he’s an acrobat. He may be a kind of Houdini.”

Fear came back into the room. The prisoner was motionless now, his eyes still closed, but his immobility had the suggestion of a sinister trick. They stared down at him and actually wished that he would make another movement, something that would give an indication of what he planned. But he did nothing. And they, watching him in fascination, began to have the sensation that quite suddenly, in a single second perhaps, he would simply leap out of the knots and the clothesline and go for them.

“My God,” said Joan. “I can’t stand this all night.”

There was no telephone at the cottage, and Edward said, “I’m afraid all night is what it’s going to be. We could take turns watching.”

“I wouldn’t dare be alone with — that.”

“We could drag him into the front room and lock him in.”

They were talking in whispers now.

“It might be just his chance,” Joan said. “While we were lifting him, he might get loose. They can get out of anything, people trained to do those tricks.”

It was as though the man on the floor had established some commanding position, as though they, and not he, were helpless.

“Maybe,” said Joan suddenly, “the real Mr. Beale, the real parson will turn up.”

Edward looked at his watch and saw to his surprise that even after all that had happened it was still early. Mr. Beale probably would keep his word and “look in” on his way back from what he had called the “outer edge” of the parish.

“I hope to God he comes,” Edward said.

For a half hour that seemed a lot longer, they sat, not daring to take their eyes off the figure on the floor. Once Edward thought he saw a new, stealthy movement of an arm, and went over and tried to tighten one of their knots, which now looked horribly amateurish. And then they heard the repeated ringing of a bicycle bell out in the dark, and a voice hailing them.

“It’s me, Beale,” shouted the voice. “Are you all right?” His voice had a note of urgent anxiety.

“Yes. We’re all right.” Edward’s voice was a little shaky. With an effort, as though he might be struck suddenly in the back, he went across to the door and started to unbolt it.

The man outside said, “I really ought to give you some kind of password.”

But Edward already had the door open and was explaining the situation.

The other stepped quickly across the room to look at the man on the floor.

“My goodness,” he said, “he really does look like a parson, doesn’t he? Though,” he added, “if you were entirely familiar with the behavior of parsons these days, you might have thought his getup a little, well, a little too parsonical.”

He himself wore a clerical collar, but was otherwise dressed in rather crumpled light-gray flannels.

He bent over the bound man, and fingered the knots.

“If you’d just give me a hand,” he said, “I think we could tighten up this job here and there. And what about the gun? Didn’t you say he had a gun?”

Edward gasped. He realized that in the excitement of knocking the man out and then tying him up, he had forgotten the gun.

The newcomer fumbled for it with slightly shaking hands and finally pulled it out of the man’s side pocket. “Well,” he said, “he seems safe enough now. There’s not much trouble he can cause now.”

Belatedly they offered him a drink.

“The thing I don’t understand,” Joan said, “is how this maniac knew that you were going to come here. I can understand his picking on us as his victims because of it being so lonely here. But how did he know he could get in right away by pretending to be you?”

“You see your note,” said Edward, “was pushed in after his. It was nearer the door and must have pushed his along the floor.”

The other looked at him with raised eyebrows.

“But I didn’t push mine under the door at all,” he said. “I pinned it to the door. Stupid thing to do, now I come to think of it. In fact, if I weren’t a parson, I’d call it a damn stupid thing to do. Howard must have found it, read it, resealed it, and pushed it under the door. That’s how he was able to make his plan. Didn’t you notice anything funny about the envelope?”

They remembered their bitter quarreling in the afternoon. They had not been in a noticing mood. “We didn’t notice anything,” Joan said sadly.

“And when did you notice anything?”

“When he had that ‘total recall’ thing about Germany,” Joan said. “The policeman had told us about his peculiarity. Edward said something about Germany, and suddenly there he was having ‘total recall.’ ”

“Talked about Germany, did he?” said the other interestedly. “Now I could tell you quite a lot about Germany. I will commence with essential statistics of the area of the country, principal exports and imports, industrial and agricultural production, outstanding historical events. Taking the production figures for 1939, and comparing them with those for 1948, 1949 and the first quarter of 1950, we get a statistical picture of Germany susceptible of comparison with the statistical picture of pre-Hitler Germany.”

Edward saw the man pick up the knife while he talked, and at the same time he heard Joan’s dreadful scream.

~ ~ ~

A good bit of crime fiction has explored the subject of the perfect crime — or, to be more precise, the crime which would have been perfect except for one little detail. The truly perfect crimes, in real life, are the ones we never hear about, and in fiction, unless handled very well indeed, they tend to upset our sense of justice, or our anticipations. But let’s take the perfect crime one step further — to its victim. What recourse has he? None in law, of course, by definition. But isn’t there a chance that somehow, sometimes, the scales might be balanced, as in this ingenious tale from the 1953 anthology?

Harry Muheim

The Dusty Drawer[8]

Norman Logan paid for his apple pie and coffee, then carried his tray toward the front of the cafeteria. From a distance, he recognized the back of William Tritt’s large head. The tables near Tritt were empty, and Logan had no desire to eat with him, but they had some unfinished business that Logan wanted to clear up. He stopped at Tritt’s table and asked, “Do you mind if I join you?”

Tritt looked up as he always looked up from inside his teller’s cage in the bank across the street. He acted like a servant — like a fat, precise butler that Logan used to see in movies — but behind the film of obsequiousness was an attitude of vast superiority that always set Logan on edge.

“Why, yes, Mr. Logan. Do sit down. Only please, I must ask you not to mention that two hundred dollars again.”

“Well, we’ll see about that,” said Logan, pulling out a chair and seating himself. “Rather late for lunch, isn’t it?”

“Oh, I’ve had lunch,” Tritt said. “This is just a snack.” He cut a large piece of roast beef from the slab in front of him and thrust it into his mouth. “I don’t believe I’ve seen you all summer,” he added, chewing the meat.

“I took a job upstate,” Logan said. “We were trying to stop some kind of blight in the apple orchards.”

“Is that so?” Tritt looked like a concerned bloodhound.

“I wanted to do some research out West,” Logan went on, “but I couldn’t get any money from the university.”

“You’ll be back for the new term, won’t you?”

“Oh, yes,” Logan said with a sigh, “we begin again tomorrow.” He thought for a moment of the freshman faces that would be looking up at him in the lecture room. A bunch of high-strung, mechanical New York City kids, pushed by their parents or by the Army into the university, and pushed by the university into his botany class. They were brick-bound people who had no interest in growing things, and Logan sometimes felt sad that in five years of teaching he had communicated to only a few of them his own delight with his subject.

“My, one certainly gets a long vacation in the teaching profession,” Tritt said. “June through September.”

“I suppose,” Logan said. “Only trouble is that you don’t make enough to do anything in all that spare time.”

Tritt laughed a little, controlled laugh and continued chewing. Logan began to eat the pie. It had the drab, neutral flavor of all cafeteria pies.

“Mr. Tritt,” he said, after a long silence.

“Yes?”

“When are you going to give me back my two hundred dollars?”

“Oh, come now, Mr. Logan. We had this all out ten months ago. We went over it with Mr. Pinkson and the bank examiners and everyone. I did not steal two hundred dollars from you.”

“You did, and you know it.”

“Frankly, I’d rather not hear any more about it.”

“Mr. Tritt, I had three hundred and twenty-four dollars in my hand that day. I’d just cashed some bonds. I know how much I had.”

“The matter has all been cleared up,” Tritt said coldly.

“Not for me, it hasn’t. When you entered the amount in my checking account, it was for one hundred and twenty-four, not three hundred twenty-four.”

Tritt put down his fork and carefully folded his hands. “I’ve heard you tell that story a thousand times, sir. My cash balanced when you came back and complained.”

“Sure it balanced,” Logan exploded. “You saw your mistake when Pinkson asked you to check the cash. So you took my two hundred out of the drawer. No wonder it balanced!”

Tritt laid a restraining hand on Logan’s arm. “Mr. Logan, I’m going a long, long way in the bank. I simply can’t afford to make mistakes.”

“You also can’t afford to admit it when you do make one.”

“Oh, come now,” said Tritt, as though he were speaking to a child. “Do you think I’d jeopardize my entire career for two hundred dollars?”

“You didn’t jeopardize your career,” Logan snapped. “You knew you could get away with it. And you took my money to cover your error.”

Tritt sat calmly and smiled a fat smile at Logan. “Well, that’s your version, Mr. Logan. But I do wish you’d quit annoying me with your fairy tale.” Leaving half his meat untouched, Tritt stood up and put on his hat. Then he came around the table and stood looming over Logan. “I will say, however, from a purely hypothetical point of view, that if I had stolen your money and then staked my reputation on the lie that I hadn’t, the worst thing I could possibly do would be to return the money to you. I think you’d agree with that.”

“I’ll get you, Tritt,” said Logan, sitting back in the chair. “I can’t stand to be had.”

“I know, I know. You’ve been saying that for ten months, too. Good-by, now.”

Tritt walked out of the cafeteria. Norman Logan sat there motionless, watching the big teller cross the street and enter the bank. He felt no rage — only an increased sense of futility. Slowly, he finished his coffee.

A few minutes later, Logan entered the bank. Down in the safe-deposit vaults, he raised the lid of his long metal box and took out three twenty-five dollar bonds. With a sigh, he began to fill them out for cashing. They would cover his government insurance premium for the year. In July, too, he’d taken three bonds from the box, when his father had over-spent his pension money. And earlier in the summer, Logan had cashed some more of them, after slamming into a truck and damaging his Plymouth. Almost every month there was some reason to cash bonds, and Logan reflected that he hadn’t bought one since his Navy days. There just wasn’t enough money in botany.

With the bonds in his hand, he climbed the narrow flight of stairs to the street floor, then walked past the long row of tellers’ cages to the rear of the bank. Here he opened an iron gate in a low marble fence and entered the green-carpeted area of the manager and assistant manager. The manager’s desk was right inside the gate, and Mr. Pinkson looked up as Logan came in. He smiled, looking over the top of the glasses pinched on his nose.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Logan.” Pinkson’s quick eyes went to the bonds and then, with the professional neutrality of a branch bank manager, right back up to Logan’s thin face. “If you’ll just sit down, I’ll buzz Mr. Tritt.”

“Mr. Tritt?” said Logan, surprised.

“Yes. He’s been moved up to the first cage now.”

Pinkson indicated a large, heavy table set far over against the side wall in back of his desk, and Logan sat in a chair next to it.

“Have a good summer?” The little man had revolved in his squeaky executive’s chair to face Logan.

“Not bad, thanks.”

“Did you get out of the city?”

“Yes, I had a job upstate. I always work during my vacations.”

Mr. Pinkson let out a controlled chuckle, a suitable reply when he wasn’t sure whether or not the customer was trying to be funny. Then he revolved again; his chubby cue-ball head bobbed down, and he was back at his figures.

Logan put the bonds on the clean desk blotter and looked over at Tritt’s cage. It was at the end of the row of cages, with a door opening directly into the manager’s area. Tritt was talking on the telephone inside, and for a long, unpleasant minute Logan watched the fat, self-assured face through the greenish glass. I’ll get him yet, Logan thought. But he didn’t see how. Tritt had been Standing firmly shielded behind his lie for nearly a year now, and Norman Logan didn’t seem to know enough about vengeance to get him.

Restive, Logan sat back and tipped the chair onto its hind legs. He picked ineffectually at a gravy stain on his coat; then his eye was attracted to a drawer, hidden under the overhang of the table-top. It was a difficult thing to see, for it had no handle, and its face was outlined by only a thin black crack in the dark-stained wood. Logan could see faintly the two putty-filled holes that marked the place where the handle had once been. Curious, he rocked forward a little and slipped his fingernails into the crack along the bottom of the drawer. He pulled gently, and the drawer slid smoothly and silently from the table.

The inside was a dirty, cluttered mess. Little mounds of grayish mold had formed on the furniture glue along the joints. A film of dust on the bottom covered the bits of faded yellow paper and rusted paper clips that were scattered about. Logan rocked the chair back farther, and the drawer came far out to reveal a delicate spider web. The spider was dead and flaky, resting on an old page from a desk calendar. The single calendar sheet read October 2, 1936. Logan pushed the drawer softly back into the table, wondering if it had actually remained closed since Alf Landon was running against Roosevelt.

The door of Tritt’s cage clicked open, and he came out, carrying a large yellow form. William Tritt moved smoothly across the carpet, holding his fat young body erect and making a clear effort to keep his stomach in.

“Why hello, Mr. Logan,” he said. “I’m sorry for the delay. The main office called me. I can’t hang up on them, you know.”

“I know,” Logan said.

The teller smiled as he lowered himself into the chair opposite Logan. Logan slid the bonds across the table.

“It’s nice to see you again,” Tritt said pleasantly as he opened his fountain pen. “Preparing for the new semester, I suppose?” There was no indication of their meeting across the street. Logan said nothing in reply, so Tritt went to work, referring rapidly to the form for the amount to be paid on each bond. “Well, that comes to sixty-seven dollars and twenty-five cents,” he said, finishing the addition quickly.

Logan filled out a deposit slip. “Will you put it in my checking account, please?” He handed his passbook across the table. “And will you please enter the right amount?”

“Certainly, Mr. Logan,” Tritt said, smiling indulgently. Logan watched carefully as Tritt made the entry. Then the teller walked rapidly back to his cage, while Logan, feeling somehow compelled to do so, took another glance into the dusty drawer. He kept thinking about the drawer as he got on a bus and rode up to the university. It had surprised him to stumble upon a dirty, forgotten place like that in a bank that was always so tidy.

Back in the biology department, Logan sat down at his desk, planning to prepare some roll sheets for his new classes. He stayed there for a long time without moving. The September sun went low behind the New Jersey Palisades, but he did not prepare the sheets, for the unused drawer stayed unaccountably in his mind.

Suddenly he sat forward in his chair. In a surprising flash of creative thought, he had seen how he could make use of the drawer. He wasn’t conscious of having tried to develop a plan. The entire plan simply burst upon him all at once, and with such clarity and precision that he hardly felt any responsibility for it. He would rob the bank and pin the robbery on Tritt. That would take care of Tritt...

In the weeks that followed, Norman Logan remained surprisingly calm about his plan. Each time he went step by step over the mechanics of the robbery, it seemed more gemlike and more workable. He made his first move the day he got his November pay check.

Down on Fifty-first Street, Logan went into a novelty-and-trick store and bought a cigarette case. It was made of a dark, steel-blue plastic, and it looked like a trim thirty-eight automatic. When the trigger was pressed, a section of the top of the gun flipped upon a hinge, revealing the cigarettes inside the handle.

With this in his pocket, Logan took a bus way down to the lower part of Second Avenue and entered a grimy little shop displaying pistols and rifles in the window. The small shopkeeper shuffled forward, and Logan asked to see a thirty-eight.

“Can’t sell you a thing until I see your permit,” the man said. “The Sullivan Law.”

“Oh, I don’t want to buy a weapon,” Logan explained. He took out his plastic gun. “I just want to see if the real thing looks like mine here.”

The little man laughed a cackle laugh and brought up a thirty-eight from beneath the counter, placing it next to Logan’s. “So you’ll just be fooling around, eh?”

“That’s right,” said Logan, looking at the guns. They were almost identical.

“Oh, they look enough alike,” said the man. “But lemme give you a little tip. Put some Scotch tape over that lid to keep it down. Friend of mine was using one of those things, mister. he’d just polished off a stick-up when he pulled the trigger and the lid flopped open. Well, he tried to offer the victim a cigarette, but the victim hauled off and beat the hell out of him.”

“Thanks,” Logan said with a smile. “I’ll remember that.”

“Here, you can put some Scotch tape on right now.”

Logan walked over to the Lexington Avenue line and rode uptown on the subway. It was five minutes to three when he got to the bank. The old, gray-uniformed guard touched his cap as Logan came through the door. The stand-up desks were crowded, so it was natural enough for Logan to go through the little iron gate and across to the table with the drawer. Mr. Pinkson and the new assistant manager had already left; their desks were clear. As Logan sat down, Tritt stuck his head out the door of his cage.

“More bonds, Mr. Logan?” he asked.

“No,” said Logan. “Just a deposit.”

Tritt closed the door and bent over his work. Logan took out his wallet, removed the pay check, then looked carefully the length of the bank. No one was looking in his direction. As he put the wallet back into his inside coat pocket, he withdrew the slim plastic gun and eased open the drawer. He dropped the gun in, shut the drawer, deposited the check, and went home to his apartment. In spite of the Sullivan Law, he was on his way.

Twice during November he used the table with the drawer. Each time he checked on the gun. It had not been moved. By the time he deposited his December check, Logan was completely certain that nobody ever looked in there. On the nineteenth of the month, he decided to take the big step.

Next morning, after his ten-o’clock class, Logan walked six blocks through the snow down the hill to the bank. He took four bonds out of his safe-deposit box and filled them out for cashing. The soothing sound of recorded Christmas carols floated down from the main floor.

Upstairs, he seated himself at the heavy table to wait for Tritt. Pinkson had nodded and returned to his figuring; the nervous assistant manager was not around. The carols were quite loud here, and Logan smiled at this unexpected advantage. He placed the bonds squarely on the blotter. Then he slipped open the drawer, took out the gun with his left hand, and held it below the table.

Tritt was coming toward him, carrying his bond chart. They said hello, and Tritt sat down and went to work. He totaled the sum twice and said carefully, still looking at the figures, “Well, Mr. Logan, that comes to eighty-three fifty.”

“I’ll want something in addition to the eighty-three fifty,” said Logan, leaning forward and speaking in an even voice.

“What’s that?” asked Tritt.

“Ten thousand dollars in twenty-dollar bills.”

Tritt’s pink face smiled. He started to look up into Logan’s face, but his eyes froze on the muzzle of the gun poking over the edge of the table. He did not notice that Scotch tape.

“Now just go to your cage and get the money,” Logan said. It was William Tritt’s first experience with anything like this. “Mr. Logan. Come now, Mr. Logan...” He swallowed and tried to start again, but his self-assurance had deserted him. He turned toward Pinkson’s back.

“Look at me,” snapped Logan.

Tritt turned back. “Mr. Logan, you don’t know what you’re doing.”

“Keep still.”

“Couldn’t we give you a loan or perhaps a—”

“Listen to me, Tritt.” Logan’s voice was just strong enough to carry above The First Noel. He was amazed at how authoritative he sounded. “Bring the money in a bag. Place it on the table here.”

Tritt started to object, but Logan raised the gun slightly, and the last resistance drained from Tritt’s fat body.

“All right, all right. I’ll get it.” As Tritt moved erratically toward his cage, Logan dropped the gun back into the drawer and closed it. Tritt shut the door of the cage, and his head disappeared below the frosted part of the glass. Immediately, Mr. Pinkson’s telephone buzzed, and he picked it up. Logan watched his back, and after a few seconds, Pinkson’s body stiffened. Logan sighed, knowing then that he would not get the money on this try.

Nothing happened for several seconds; then suddenly the little old guard came rushing around the corner of the cages, his big pistol drawn and wobbling as he tried to hold it on Logan.

“Okay. Okay. Stay there! Put your hands up, now!”

Logan raised his hands, and the guard turned to Pinkson with a half-surprised face. “Okay; Mr. Pinkson. Okay, I’ve got him covered now.”

Pinkson got up as Tritt came out of the cage. Behind the one gun, the three men came slowly toward Logan.

“Careful, Louie, he’s armed,” Tritt warned the guard.

“May I ask what this is all about?” Logan said, his hands held high.

“Mr. Logan,” said Pinkson, “I’m sorry about this, but Mr. Tritt here tells me that — that—”

“That you tried to rob me of ten thousand dollars,” said Tritt, his voice choppy.

“I–I what?”

“You just attempted an armed robbery of this bank,” Tritt said slowly. “Don’t try to deny it.”

Logan’s face became the face of a man so completely incredulous that he cannot speak. He remembered not to overplay it, though. First he simply laughed at Tritt. Then he lowered his hands, regardless of the guard’s gun, and stood up, the calm, indignant faculty member.

“All I can say, Mr. Tritt, is that I do deny it.”

“Goodness,” said Pinkson.

“Better take his gun, Louie,” Tritt ordered the guard.

The guard stepped gingerly forward to Logan and frisked him, movie style. “Hasn’t got a gun, Mr. Tritt,” he said.

“Of course he’s got a gun,” snapped Tritt. He pushed the guard aside. “It’s right in his coat.” Tritt jammed his thick hand into Logan’s left coat pocket and flailed it about. “It’s not in that pocket,” he said after a moment.

“It’s not in any pocket,” Logan said. “I don’t have one.”

“You do. You do have a gun. I saw it,” Tritt answered, beginning to sound like a child in an argument. He spun Logan around and pulled the coat off him with a jerk. The sleeves turned inside out. Eagerly, the teller pulled the side pockets out, checked the inside pocket and the breast pocket, then ran his hands over the entire garment, crumpling it. “The — the gun’s not in his coat,” he said finally.

“It’s not in his pants,” the guard added.

Tritt stepped over to the table quickly. “It’s around here somewhere,” he said. “We were sitting right here.” He stood directly in front of the closed drawer, and his hands began to move meaninglessly over the tabletop. He picked up the neat stack of deposit slips, put them down again, then looked under the desk blotter, as though it could have concealed a gun.

Logan knew he had to stop this. “Is there any place I can remove the rest of my clothes?” he asked loudly, slipping the suspenders from his shoulders. Several depositors had gathered on the other side of the marble fence to watch, and Mr. Pinkson had had enough.

“Oh, no, no,” he said, almost shouting. “That won’t be necessary, Mr. Logan. Louie said you were unarmed. Now, Louie, put your gun away, and for goodness’ sake, request the customers to please move on.”

“But Mr. Pinkson, you must believe me,” Tritt said, coming over to the manager. “This man held a gun on me and—”

“It’s hard to know what to believe,” said Pinkson. “But no money was stolen, and I don’t see how we can embarrass Mr. Logan further with this matter. Please, Mr. Logan, do pull up your suspenders.”

It was a shattering moment for the teller — the first time his word had ever been doubted at the bank.

“But sir, I insist that this man—”

“I must ask you to return to your cage now, Mr. Tritt,” Pinkson said, badly agitated. Tritt obeyed.

The manager helped Logan put on his coat, then steered him over to his desk. “This is all a terrible mistake, Mr. Logan. Please do sit down now, please.” The friendly little man was breathing heavily. “Now, I just want you to know that if you should press this complaint, it — it would go awfully bad for us down in the main office downtown, and I—”

“Please don’t get excited, Mr. Pinkson,” Logan said with a smile. “I’m not going to make any complaint.” Logan passed the whole thing off casually. Mr. Tritt imagined he saw a gun, that’s all. It was simply one of those aberrations that perfectly normal people get occasionally. Now, could Mr. Pinkson finish cashing his bonds? The manager paid him the eighty-three fifty, continuing to apologize.

Logan left the bank and walked through the soft snowfall, whistling a Christmas carol. he’d handled himself perfectly.

In the weeks that followed, Logan continued to do business with Tritt, just as though nothing had happened. The teller tried to remain aloof and calm, but he added sums incorrectly, and his hands shook. One day late in January, Tritt stood up halfway through a transaction, his great body trembling, “Excuse me, Mr. Logan,” he murmured, and rushed off into the corridor behind the cages. Pinkson followed him, and Logan took advantage of the moment to check on the gun. It lay untouched in the drawer. Then Pinkson came back alone. “I’m awfully sorry to delay you again, sir,” he said. “Mr. Tritt doesn’t feel too well.”

“Did he imagine he saw another gun?” Logan asked quietly.

“No. He just upsets easily now. Ever since that incident with you last month, he’s been like a cat on a hot stove.”

“I’ve noticed he’s changed.”

“He’s lost that old, calm banking touch, Mr. Logan. And of course, he’s in constant fear of a new hallucination.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Logan said, looking genuinely concerned. “It’s very sad when a person loses his grip.”

“It’s particularly disappointing to me,” the manager said sadly. “I brought Tritt into the bank myself, you see. Had him earmarked for a big spot downtown someday. Fine man. Intelligent, steady, accurate — why, he’s been right down the line on everything. But now — now he’s — well, I do hope he gets over this.”

“I can understand how you feel,” Logan said sympathetically. He smiled inside at the precision of his planning. Fat William Tritt had been undermined just enough — not only in Pinkson’s mind, but in his own.

On the tenth of March, Norman Logan acted again. When Tritt was seated across the table from him, Logan said, “Well, here we go again, Mr. Tritt.” Tritt’s head came up, and once more he was looking into the barrel of the toy automatic. He did not try to speak. “Now go get the ten thousand,” ordered Logan. “And this time, do it.”

Without objecting, the teller moved quickly to his cage. Logan slipped the gun back into the drawer; then he took his brief case from the door and stood it on the edge of the table. Pinkson’s telephone didn’t buzz, and the guard remained out of sight. After a few moments, Tritt came out of the cage, carrying a small cloth bag.

“All right, continue with the bonds,” Logan said. “The bag goes on the table between us.” Logan shifted forward and opened the bag, keeping the money out of sight behind the brief case. The clean new bills were wrapped in thousand-dollar units, each package bound with a bright yellow strip of paper. Logan counted through one package, and, with Tritt looking right at him, he placed the package of money carefully in the brief case.

“There,” he said. “Now finish with the bonds.” Tritt finished filling out the form and got Logan’s signature. He was not as flustered as Logan had thought he’d be. “Now listen, Tritt,” Logan went on, “my getaway is all set, of course, but if you give any signal before I’m out of the bank, I’ll put a bullet into you — right here.” Logan pointed to the bridge of his own nose. “Please don’t think I’d hesitate to do it. Now get back to your cage.”

Tritt returned to the cage. While his back was turned, Logan slipped the bag of money from his brief case and dropped it into the drawer, next to the gun. He eased the drawer into the table, took the brief case, and walked out of the bank.

Outside, he stood directly in front of the entrance, as though he were waiting for a bus. After just a few seconds, the burglar alarm went off with a tremendous electrical shriek, and the old guard came running out of the door after him.

He was followed immediately by Pinkson, the assistant manager, and Tritt.

“Well, gentlemen,” said Logan, his hands raised again in front of the guard’s gun, “here we are again, eh?”

A crowd was gathering, and Pinkson sent the assistant to turn off the alarm. “Come, let’s all go inside,” he said. “I don’t want any fuss out here.”

It was the same kind of scene that they’d played before, only now Logan — the twice-wronged citizen — was irate, and now ten thousand dollars was missing from William Tritt’s cage. Tritt was calm, though.

“I was ready for him this time,” he said proudly to Pinkson. “I marked ten thousand worth of twenties. My initial is on the band. The money’s in his brief case.”

“Oh, for Heaven’s sake, Tritt,” Logan shouted suddenly, “who ever heard of making a getaway by waiting for a bus. I don’t know what your game is, but—”

“Never mind my game,” said Tritt. “Let’s just take a look in your briefcase.”

He wrenched it from Logan’s hand, clicked the lock, and turned the brief case upside down. A group of corrected examination books fell out. That was all.

“See?” said Logan. “Not a cent.” The guard put away his gun as Pinkson began to pick up the scattered books.

Tritt wheeled, threw the brief case against the wall, and grabbed Logan by the lapels. “But I gave you the money. I did. I did!” His face was a pasty gray, and his voice high. “You put it in the brief case. I saw you. I saw you do it!” He began to shake Logan in a kind of final attempt to shake the ten thousand dollars out of him.

Pinkson straightened up with the exam books and said, “For goodness’ sake, Mr. Tritt. Stop it. Stop it.”

Tritt stopped shaking Logan, then turned wildly to Pinkson. “You don’t believe me!” he shouted. “You don’t believe me!” he shouted. “You don’t believe me!”

“It’s not a question of—”

“I’ll find that money. I’ll show you who’s lying.” He rushed over to the big table and swept it completely clear with one wave of his heavy arm. The slips fluttered to the floor, and the inkwell broke, splattering black ink over the carpet. Tritt pulled the table in a wild, crashing arc across the green carpet, smashing it into Pinkson’s desk. Logan saw the dusty drawer come open about a half-inch.

The big man dropped clumsily to his knees and began to pound on the carpet with his flattened hands as he kept muttering, “It’s around here someplace — a cloth bag.” He grabbed a corner of the carpet and flipped it back with a grunt. It made a puff of dust and revealed only a large triangle of empty, dirty floor. A dozen people had gathered outside the marble fence by now, and all the tellers were peering through the glass panes of the cages at Tritt.

“I’ll find it! I’ll find it!” he shouted. A film of sweat was on his forehead as he stood up, turned, and advanced again toward the table. The slightly opened drawer was in plain sight in front of him, but everyone’s eyes were fixed on Tritt, and Tritt did not see the drawer under the overhang of the table.

Logan turned quickly to Pinkson and whispered, “He may be dangerous, Mr. Pinkson. You’ve got to calm him.” He grabbed Pinkson by the arm and pushed him backward several feet, so that the manager came to rest on the edge of the table, directly over the drawer. The exam books were still in his hand.

“Mr. Tritt, you must stop this!” Mr. Pinkson said.

“Get out of my way, Pinkson,” said Tritt, coming right at him, breathing like a bull. “You believe him, but I’ll show you. I’ll find it!” He placed his hands on Pinkson’s shoulders. “Now get away, you fool.”

“I won’t take that from anyone,” snapped Pinkson. He slapped Tritt’s face with a loud, stinging blow. The teller stopped, stunned, and suddenly began to cry.

“Mr. Pinkson. Mr. Pinkson, you’ve got to trust me.”

Pinkson was immediately ashamed of what he had done. “I’m sorry, my boy. I shouldn’t have done that.”

“I tell you he held a gun on me again. A real gun — it’s not my imagination.”

“But why didn’t you call Louie?” Pinkson said. “That’s the rule, you know.”

“I wanted to catch him myself. He — he made such a fool of me last month.”

“But that business last month was hallucination,” said Pinkson, looking over at Logan. Logan nodded.

“It’s no hallucination when ten thousand dollars is missing,” Tritt shouted.

“That’s precisely where the confusion arises in my mind,” Mr. Pinkson said slowly. “We’ll get it straight, but in the meantime, I must order your arrest, Mr. Tritt.”

Logan came and stood next to Pinkson, and they both looked sympathetically at the teller as he walked slowly, still sobbing, back to the cage.

“I’m just sick about it,” Pinkson said.

“I think you’ll find he’s not legally competent,” said Logan, putting a comforting thought into Pinkson’s head.

“Perhaps not.”

Logan showed his concern by helping to clean up the mess that Tritt had made. He and the assistant manager placed the table back into its position against the far wall, Logan shoving the dusty drawer firmly closed with his fingertips as they lifted it.

Norman Logan returned to the bank late the next day. He sat at the table to make a deposit, and he felt a pleasantly victorious sensation surge through him as he slipped the gun and the ten thousand dollars out of the drawer and into his overcoat pocket. As he walked out the front door past the guard, he met Mr. Pinkson, who was rushing in.

“Terrible, Terrible,” the little man said, without even pausing to say hello.

“What’s that?” Logan asked calmly.

“I’ve just been talking to the doctors at Bellevue about Tritt,” Pinkson said. “He seems all right, and they’ve released him. Unfortunately, he can answer every question except ‘Where’s the money?’ ” Logan held firmly to the money in his pocket and continued to extend his sympathies.

Back at his apartment, Logan borrowed a portable typewriter from the man upstairs. Then he sat down and wrote a note:

Dear Mr. Pinkson:

I’m returning the money. I’m so sorry. I guess I didn’t know what I was doing. I guess I haven’t known for some time.

After looking up Tritt’s initials on an old deposit slip, he forged a small tidy W. T. to the note.

Logan wiped his fingerprints from the bills and wrapped them, along with the note, in a neat package. For one delicious moment he considered how nice it would be to hang on to the money. He could resign from the university, go out West, and continue his research on his own. But that wasn’t part of the plan, and the plan was working too well to tamper with it now. Logan drove to the post office nearest Tritt’s apartment and mailed the money to Pinkson at the bank.

In the morning, Mr. Pinkson telephoned Logan at the university. “Well, it’s all cleared up,” he said, relieved but sad. “Tritt returned the money, so the bank is not going to press the charges. Needless to say, we’re dropping Tritt. He not only denies having taken the money, he also denies having returned it.”

“I guess he just doesn’t know what he’s doing,” Logan said.

“Yes. That’s what he said in the note. Anyway, Mr. Logan, I–I just wanted to call and apologize for the trouble we’ve caused you.”

“Oh, it was no trouble for me,” Logan replied, smiling.

“And you’ve been very helpful, too,” Pinkson added.

“I was glad to be of help,” Logan said quietly. “Delighted, in fact.”

They said good-by then, and Logan walked across the hall to begin his ten-o’clock botany lecture.

~ ~ ~

The straightforward murder, committed for gain or revenge or some other comprehensible motive, may have its own kind of horror; but what of those bestialities — inexplicable and unforeseeable — that may rise from the murky depths of the human mind, as in...

Morton Wolson

The Attacker[9]

Caught in the focus of spotlights from three patrol cars, the blonde stood defiant, resisting an intern, Sergeant Murphy, and hysteria. In that order.

This was evident as Patrolman Jaffe braked my sedan on the footpath alongside the ambulance. The blonde screamed alternately at the intern and Murphy, who respectively wheeled and shouted back at her.

No onlookers. At 3 in the morning, following a slight shower, deep in Riverside Park, any onlooker would have been booked on suspicion automatically.

My stomach tightened as Plainclothesman Carson drifted to my window. “I found her unconscious, Captain.”

“Where?”

He pointed to a KEEP OFF THE GRASS sign. “Alongside that. She came to just before the ambulance got here. Her story’s different. So’s she.”

“Why doesn’t she get in the ambulance?”

“Afraid of publicity. She wants us to forget it. Don’t want medical attention, to make a complaint, or anything. Just we should take her to a friend’s house where she’ll wash and borrow a dress and then tell hubby she got lost in the subway or somethin’.”

Mud smeared her from platinum coiffure to eggshell blue pumps. Her dress had been eggshell blue. No way to tell, through the grime, whether she was pretty. Probably she was. The others had been.

I listened to Sergeant Murphy damn her husband and then say: “The guy, honey — concentrate on the guy! All the time you’re stallin’ he’s runnin’!”

“I didn’t see him!” she screamed back. “Can’t you get that through your thick head?”

Murphy switched to patient logic — at the top of his lungs. “This guy calls you to his car parked on upper Broadway. He asks you how to reach the Bronx. You step over to tell him. He shows you a gun. When you’re in, he clobbers you unconscious. You mean to say you can’t tell us he’s tall, short, fat, thin, young, old, light, dark — anything?”

She fainted.

The intern and a patrolman caught her. They got her into the ambulance. It drove off.

Murphy launched all hands on a flashlight search of the area. I asked Carson, “What’s different about her, aside from her story?”

His small eyes glistened. He was a large, redheaded man with a good record on the force. I disliked him.

“You seen her,” his tone snickered. “You ever see a dame stacked like that off a burlesque runway, Cap’n?”

Instead of replying I grabbed my flashlight, stepped to the grass, and motioned him to follow.

The pattern was all wrong. She couldn’t have picked up mud smears near that KEEP OFF THE GRASS sign. And he didn’t take his victims to parks. He found them there. In company.

We descended the damp, grassy slope until my flash beam found a wide patch of drying mud. Across one side of it was a series of impressions that could have been made by high heels. Following an imaginary line from the prints, we descended to a thick clump of bushes about which the mud had been roiled as by a struggle.

At one point something wide and heavy had been dragged toward the shrubbery. My flash beam followed the broad trail into the bushes. A boy’s face sprang into view.

And the pattern became right.

He crouched on his side, wedged among the gnarled branches. A boy of about twenty, possibly younger. His tongue and eyes protruded. Purple welts spotted his bare throat.

“That’s what she’s scared of,” Carson breathed, kneeling at my side to peer at the boy. “She’s been two-timing her old man. It’s like the others after all. We crawl in, Cap’n?”

“Homicide crawls in,” I told him, rising.

I left him there to guard the body, sent Sergeant Murphy to launch the homicide machinery, then had Patrolman Jaffe drive me back to my West End apartment.

It took fifteen minutes on my phone before I could contact Williams, a rookie I had borrowed from Brooklyn.

“I muffed it. Captain,” he reported unhappily.

“How?”

“I stayed with Carson until 2:30. He was around the Socony Yacht Basin. You know, on—”

“I know,” I cut in. “What happened?”

“He hung around there a while smokin’ and lookin’ out at the boats. Then he chucked the smoke in the water and started north fast. I had to keep pretty far back because the walk along the river is wide open there. When he turned into the underpass I started runnin’, but he was out of sight when I got through it—”

“Think he spotted you?”

“I don’t see how, Captain.”

“We’ll get three more fellows over from Brooklyn tomorrow and keep him boxed. Good night, Williams.”

I broke the connection and tried to pick up my interrupted thread of sleep, but thought of Plainclothesman Carson and the case instead.

In four weeks Carson had emerged as my only suspect. Out of eight attacks he had been the first man on the scene five times. In three parks. The odds against such a coincidence were fantastic.

I thought of his preoccupation with sex, the snicker in his voice when he mentioned women, his locker at headquarters lined with nude pin-ups. All blondes.

Like the eight attack victims. All blondes.

A circumstantial basis for suspicion. But all I had.

Newspapers were getting hold of it and the Commissioner was raging. My park details had been doubled, then tripled. Parks were closed at midnight. Officers patrolled the paths. Radio cars inched along behind probing searchlights. Mounted police explored the off-trail areas.

But neckers scaled fences and avoided paths and ducked low when spotlights floated by, and grew silent when footsteps or horse hooves sounded near.

And where neckers went, the attacker followed. Seeking pretty blondes. On cloudy nights. Only when clouds darkened the night sky. In the past four weeks there had been eight such nights. Eight attacks. Seven boy friends beaten into unconsciousness. And now — a corpse.

“Get him! Get him! Get him!” the Commissioner had roared, pounding his desk.

I had gone to Dr. Rosen, the Bellevue psychiatrist, who told me, “The pattern indicates a compulsive rapist. A man who has been, or fancies he’s been, deeply injured by a blonde, probably on a cloudy night. His victims are proxies. He exacts vengeance on her through them.”

I had told him, “We have a fellow on a park detail who seems to qualify.”

“Married?”

“No. But at home he’s dominated by an overblown blonde mother and two blonde sisters. The mother tried to get his pay mailed to her. On two occasions neighbors phoned the local precinct when he got into loud altercations with his sisters.”

“Healthy reactions, Captain.” Dr. Rosen shrugged. “He fights back. Your rapist doesn’t know how. Under normal circumstances he may be the antithesis of your man, avoiding open retaliation against the object of his hatred. Unless you have other evidence, what you told me is hardly a basis for suspicion.”

My “other evidence” boiled down to Carson having been first on the scene five out of eight times. I couldn’t get that damning statistic out of my mind.

I couldn’t get the case out of my mind.

At that, living with it was better than thinking of Martha. Martha’s picture was still on my bureau, a blob of dimly reflected night light across from the bed.

I tried to visualize my reactions were Martha to be attacked. Couldn’t. For five weeks my feelings about her had been frozen. Even when she phoned me from Reno two nights earlier, and I heard mockery in her huskily whispered, “Miss me. Bob?”

I couldn’t say, because I didn’t know.

I had asked, “What do you want?” noting that my voice was dry and incurious. To her it was a fuse.

“Not you!”

I had broken the connection, only for the long distance operator to ring a few moments later, bringing me Martha’s apologetic: “I’m sorry. Bob. I guess I’m still raw inside. What I want—”

Her tan riding habit. I had sent it the following morning and promptly forgot her again. But now, weighing my attitude, I seemed to be neither glad nor sorry she was getting the divorce. It even took effort to think of her now.

I finally drifted into a troubled sleep...

“Same pattern.” Inspector Quinn, of Homicide, shrugged. “He caught ’em neckin’ on a bench near the bushes where you found the kid. She finally admitted that much. Her talk of being abducted on upper Broadway was baloney. He must have sneaked up on ’em from behind. She knows nothin’ except ‘a black thing’ hit her head and knocked her cold.”

“A black thing?”

“Her words.” Quinn smiled wryly. A leather-faced, old-school cop, he did not smile often. “We picked a fleck of black enamel from her hair. The lab says it’s off metal.”

“How about the boy?”

“Strangled from behind by big, strong hands. Broke the kid’s neck.”

“Anything else?”

“That shower spoiled any other traces.” Quinn scowled, which more became him. “Think that’s why he picks cloudy nights?”

“Dr. Rosen thinks it’s a fetish because the pattern is always the same. The rapist is exacting a vicarious vengeance against a blonde he associates with a cloudy night. A lover spurned by a blonde, or a two-timed husband, or the son of a dominating blonde mother. His victims are proxies.”

“And doxies.” Quinn allowed himself a second tight smile, establishing a sort of record. “This one’s a blonde wildcat. You want her?”

“Yes.”

“Seen her husband?”

I had; a graying man with a big belly. She had been his secretary in a textile converting firm. The dead boy had been a shipping clerk there. The husband intended to get a New York divorce on the grounds of adultery.

“I saw him,” I nodded.

“Old enough to have known better,” Quinn growled, rising. “If he divorces her she says she’ll sue the department. I’ll have her sent in.”

Carson had been right in one respect. She entered my office as if it were a burlesque runway, with a slow, hip-swaying stride. Sans dirt and freshly groomed, she was not pretty but beautiful, as a cat can be beautiful. Her violet eyes were large and tilted. Her cheeks tapered below high bones to lips that were full and soft, as if poised to kiss. She had platinum hair, piled high.

“Please be seated, Mrs. Jackson. I’m Captain Ryan.”

She occupied the chair warily, her eyes and shoulders tense. She wore an aquatone dress of woolen material. Her only jewelry was a heart-shaped locket suspended by a slender golden chain from her neck. Her proportions, as Carson had observed, were startling, but not so startling as the fury in her eyes when mine finally got back to them.

“And they hand out parking tickets!” she stormed in a low, intense voice. I was puzzled.

“Ma’am?”

“For what’s on your mind, you ought to get ten years!”

I shuffled reports on my desk stupidly. When I looked up again her fury had given way to curiosity.

“I never thought I’d live to see a blushing cop!”

“Sorry,” I murmured.

“A gentleman, too. Didn’t I see you last night?”

“In the park, Mrs. Jackson. Now I’m concerned with the possibility that this attacker didn’t happen on you accidentally; that he had seen you before and followed you. Possibly where you live, or worked, or shop, or wherever you spend your time. A stranger you may have noticed watching you the past few days. Or someone you know. For instance, a man, whose advances you may have repulsed.”

A smile chased the last sign of wariness from her face. “You talk like a book.”

“My cross, Mrs. Jackson. Now, if you will think—”

“Riffle a phone book,” she drawled, a disturbingly familiar expression in her eyes, “and make with a pin.”

“Ma’am?”

She shrugged. “Something about me. It brings you running.”

“Me?”

“Men. I have to keep brushing you off. Not you, personally. You’re not a wolf. Maybe you don’t have to be with those shoulders. But you asked me who I might have — repulsed?”

“Yes, Mrs. Jackson.”

“That’s it. In restaurants, theaters, night clubs, on the street — anywhere I go I keep brushing them off like flies. All the time. All over town. That’s why I said if you want a list of repulses, riffle a phone book and make with a pin.”

She took a cigarette from her aquatone bag. I flicked my lighter and leaned across the desk. She tried to reach my face with a smoke streamer. It hovered between us.

“How about men you know?” I asked tiredly. My headache was returning.

“Jimmy was all.” Her tone softened. “The poor kid.”

I let the obituary hang, fingered reports, then asked my next question without looking up.

“I’m grasping for straws, Mrs. Jackson. I know you were knocked unconscious before you could see the man. But there are degrees of unconsciousness, even a twilight zone where impressions are recalled later, much like memories of a dream—”

She remained silent. I stared at the reports, waiting. Her silence continued. I raised my eyes, knowing she was waiting for that. In hers was that same disturbing glint. I recognized it now. Like Martha’s eyes in the hospital. Almost mockery. But her voice was thoughtful:

“Yes. Something I remembered when I got up this morning. Like you said. I wasn’t sure I’d dreamed it or what. A man whispering the same thing over and over again.”

“What thing?”

She kept her eyes on mine and repeated a gutter epithet half a dozen times, concluding, “Like that. You’re the blushingest man I ever saw.”

“Could you recognize that whisper if you heard it again?”

“Maybe.”

“We rounded up eight suspects this morning. There’s no point your confronting them, since you didn’t see your assailant. But we could bring them behind you one at a time and have them whisper — what he whispered.”

She squashed her cigarette in my desk tray, leaving the crimson-smeared tip erect. “Tomorrow?” She frowned. “I’m too jumpy now. What with old Jackson screaming for a divorce — and what happened last night. It left me sort of—” She shrugged, keeping her gaze intent on mine. “What comes between ‘Captain’ and ‘Ryan’?”

“Robert.”

“I’ll call you Bob. Skip the Mrs. Jackson. When his shysters finish, I’ll be Miss Holden again. Sally. I keep a little two-room apartment at 483 West 84th Street under that name. Sally Holden. Apartment 3A. It’s all the home I’ve got now. If I remember anything else about last night — well, you might drop in. If you get any redder, your face will explode.”

I couldn’t have driven a word through my lips with a mallet.

She came to her feet and smoothed her dress with a slow caress, her eyes intent on mine. Her voice was almost a whisper.

“Be seeing you. Bob?”

I could no more have moved or spoken as she left my office had I been bound to my chair and gagged.

Even less, after the remainder of that office day had blurred past, could I keep my feet from their appointed round.

“That’s all of it!” Sally wailed from across the room. “I don’t remember anything else until that plainclothes cop shook me awake. Bob, is this why you came up here?”

I sat on the divan in the living room-kitchenette of her small apartment feeling my face flame. She eyed me in half-amused exasperation, then came over to sit by my side and put her hand gently on mine.

“Look, Bob. I’m glad you came because I’d have flipped without anyone to talk to. But can’t we skip the third degree and talk about something else for a while? Us, for instance?”

“I’m too much of a cop,” I began, but I found her lips poised an inch from mine. She eliminated the inch. I became less of a cop. She drew back, smiling.

“That didn’t hurt, did it?”

I grinned and fingered her golden locket. I flicked it open. Inside: Sally and Myron forever.

“Who’s Myron?”

“Was. The kid next door. We were going to elope. He eloped with a mortar shell in Korea instead. So I married old Lardbelly. Then Jimmy came along, looking so much like Myron it hurt. That’s my true confession. What’s yours?”

“My wife’s been in Reno five weeks.”

“Who’d she catch you with?”

“A truck caught her. A night she was supposed to be in Mt. Vernon with her mother. She was on the front seat of a Ford sedan parked on a Bronx side street when the truck skidded into it. They had to cut her out of the wreck with torches. She was unconscious. The driver was dead.”

“Your best friend, natch.”

“A stranger.”

“And you let her go to Reno?”

“It’s cleaner that way.”

“She’ll sock you for alimony. That’s what Lardbelly’s scared of, why he wants a New York divorce.”

“No alimony. She signed an agreement.”

“What’s she like?”

“A long-legged blonde like you. We met at a church dance.”

“She nice?”

“No.”

“Because she played around?”

“Yes.”

“Am I nice?”

“Yes.”

“Make sense.”

“You’re honest. She pretended to a virtue she didn’t have.”

The inch between our lips disappeared again, spurting my blood pressure, unhardening my arteries, turning the hair at my temples from gray to black again.

She drew back with a breathless laugh. “Just thought of something funny. I’m practically attacking the cop who’s chasing the animal who attacked me. Like a merry-go-round—”

My headache returned like the blow of a fist. I got to my feet and strode to the window and stared down blindly at 84th Street.

“What is it, Bob?” she whispered, coming up behind me. “I put my foot in my mouth?”

I shook my head at her dim reflection in the glass. “My fault, Sally. I just hadn’t thought of it like that. I wanted your company so desperately—”

“Wanted?”

“Still do.” I forced a smile through my frown in the glass. “We’ll pick it up tomorrow, or the day after. I’m too much of a cop; I take my job too seriously, they tell me. I used to work myself sick on Homicide. This is more of the same. As if it’s a contest to the death between the man who attacked you and myself. The mere thought of him sickens me.”

She came between me and the window, standing so close I could smell her blondeness, like the scent of an open field.

“Good-bye, Bob?”

“Of course not! Just good night.”

Her long scarlet-tipped fingers smoothed the graying hair at my temples.

“You’re a funny guy, Bob. You’re built like a dock walloper, got the face of a priest. And inside you’re like a high school kid on his first date. I’m nuts about you.”

“I’m a funny guy.”

“You better see me again.”

“Yes.”

“You don’t, I’ll come down to Centre Street and pick up from here right in your own office. You hear me, you big baboon?”

The phone awakened me at one in the morning. For a few moments I lay in bed, confused. The night sky outside my window was flecked with stars. In four weeks these had been my first hours of freedom from nightmares about the case. I owed that to Sally.

But a starlit sky made the pattern wrong. I groped for the phone, heard a long-distance operator, and felt myself freeze.

Martha came on with her little girl’s voice: “Bob, I’m broke.”

“I gave you $4,000. All I had. You’ve only been there five weeks.”

“I know, Bob. I’ve been bad. I was winning at first. I’d planned to send you back the $4,000. But then the system went kaput.”

I could hear music and voices in the background. And an urgent whisper. As if someone was prompting her.

My headache returned. I asked, “What system?”

“Well, this cowboy I met told me—”

Percentage — the god of every ex-gambling Bowery stiff. A law-of-averages system. As if each deck of cards and each roulette wheel had built into it the parabolic law of chance.

“It worked for five weeks, Bob. But then—”

The law of averages was repealed until she went broke.

“I’ll scrape up $500 in the morning, Martha. That should see you through. If it doesn’t, and you fail to go through with the divorce, I’ll file for one here in New York.”

I broke the connection before she could reply. My headache was raging. I couldn’t return to sleep. I lit a reading lamp, got into my big chair with duplicates of the case reports, and tried to fathom a new lead from the Whisperer’s pattern of attack.

But my thoughts kept drifting back to the Saturday night Sergeant Murphy had phoned me about Martha.

She had been extricated from the wreck by the time I got there. I stood in the drizzle looking through the jagged hole in the Ford’s jammed door at the corpse of the man still inside. The steering shaft had impaled him. A blond man in a gray suit. A stranger. A total stranger.

It was with her little girl’s voice that she had spoken to me from her hospital bed. “Can’t I make it up to you some way, Bob?”

“Yes,” I had told her, surprised that I felt no emotion looking down at her, no emotion at all. “Get a Reno divorce. No alimony. I’ll send your things. You’re not to set foot in my apartment again.”

And then mockery had filled her eyes and voice. “Why, you prissy old maid! Do you think he was the first? You think any red-blooded woman would stay satisfied, married to a dull, inhibited—”

The rest followed me down the long corridor in hoarse screams.

I walked into the night. And kept walking through endless drizzle. Until I found myself awakening in my own bed, trembling.

Plainclothesman Carson relished the assignment. I had him stand in the interrogation room’s doorway and several times whisper the gutter epithet, ostensibly to show the suspects how.

Eight of them. Netted around Riverside Drive between the time of Sally’s attack and dawn. Three park-bench sleepers, four strollers who claimed to be insomniacs, and a huge dock worker whose frenzied incoherence earmarked him for observation in Bellevue when the experiment was over.

Sally’s back was to the doorway as the eight men, following Carson’s example, appeared behind her and whispered the epithet. When it was over, Sally could only shift a wry smile from Inspector Quinn to me and say, “I couldn’t even tell one from another. It’s impossible.”

“It is,” Quinn agreed. “Sorry to have taken up your time, Mrs. Jackson.”

Her eyes questioned mine as Carson began to escort her out. I watched the tremor in his big, freckled hand reaching for her arm, then turned to find Inspector Quinn regarding me with amusement. When the door closed behind them, he murmured, “What you got on Carson?”

“Carson?”

Quinn snorted. “He could have briefed ’em downstairs. You had her test his voice along with the others. Why?”

“He was first on the scene five times.”

“What else?”

“He’s powerful, over six feet, and sex-obsessed.”

“I thought this fiend hates women.”

“One woman. Others, only when they remind him of her. And only during spells. Assuming he’s schizophrenic.”

“What else?”

“Carson is smothered under women at home. His mother and two sisters are all big, loud, domineering blondes.”

“What else?”

“I keep going back to his being first on the scene five times. In three different parks. We switch assignments nightly so prowlers won’t get used to our men. The odds against one officer running into five out of eight victims under such conditions are fantastic.”

“Been tailin’ him?”

“We lost him just before Sally — Mrs. Jackson — was attacked. Yesterday I borrowed three more rookies from Brooklyn, making four in all. They’re to lie in wait wherever his patrol will be the next cloudy night.”

“Tonight,” Quinn grunted. “Accordin’ to the papers.”

“Tonight, then. And every cloudy night from now on. Until we’re sure one way or the other.”

We spent the rest of the afternoon checking my dragnet.

My men had rounded up all former sex offenders, checked psycho discharges from hospitals, prisons, the armed services. No lead had been found.

I had used maps in an effort to find a geographical pattern. But the Whisperer struck at random. His victims and their boy friends came from widely separated parts of the city. The only pattern we had was that he struck from behind on cloudy or drizzly nights — and concentrated on blondes.

We checked my decoy set-up: blonde policewomen paired with plainclothesmen and sent into the parks on cloudy nights. And my pattern of patrols varied from night to night, men and routes being shifted nightly.

We reread the eight attack reports and, in the end, could do little more than stare at each other.

“One thing,” Quinn finally growled. “It’s almost as if this guy anticipates you. He always attacks when the nearest patrol is moving away from the scene.”

“I keep thinking of Carson.”

“Or dumb luck.” Quinn shrugged. “Ten times this many patrols couldn’t locate all the neckers in all the parks on any one night.”

We left it at that.

The moisture-weighted atmosphere, when I finally left my office, depressed me. I walked out of an upper Broadway restaurant unable to recall what I had eaten. Too unsettled to return home, I entered a movie house — and emerged fifteen minutes later with a headache and no idea of what the picture was supposed to be about.

Back in the apartment the phone was ringing.

Sally.

“You looked so grim down at headquarters, darling.”

“It’s a grim place.”

She laughed. “Well, I’ve got the cure for that. Scotch, rye, and bourbon. And if that doesn’t wear down your resistance, I’ll use a blackjack. Coming soon?”

“Not this evening, Sally. A cloudy sky is forecast.”

“Oh?... oh?” A pause for reflection. Then: “Kit wants to date me. Shall I?”

“Who?”

“Carson. He says all his friends call him Kit. Didn’t you know that?”

“I know him as Martin Henry Carson. Tonight?”

“With Stoneface keeping him up all day to breathe nasty language down my neck?” Her laughter was low and delicious. “I shouldn’t rat on him, but Stoneface is what they call you, darling. Anyhow, he has to be at work midnight, doesn’t he?”

“Yes. Will you date him?”

“I’m asking you.”

“I can’t decide, Sally. On the one hand I’d like your reactions to the man when his guard is down; on the other, you may run into trouble.”

“What could happen that didn’t?”

“The same would be terrible enough. I’d have men covering you. But a cornered man may act desperately. The decision must be yours.”

“All right. He’s off tomorrow. He asked me to go dancing. I will.”

“Good.”

“Good? Aren’t you jealous?”

I didn’t know. Probably not. Sally as an instrument for trapping Carson seemed more desirable at the moment than Sally as a substitute for Martha.

The sense of these musings must have reached her, because I heard her try to slam the connection, miss, mutter “Damn!”and try again. This time she succeeded.

My phone rang immediately. Long distance. Martha. Screaming: “Bob? I’ve been haunting the telegraph office all day! They must think I’m crazy. You promised—”

I had forgotten about the $500.

“I’m sorry Martha. Tomorrow morning—”

“What will I do now? You go and wire it immediately! Bob? Bob, do you hear me—?”

They could hear her in Canarsie. I couldn’t get hold of $500 at this hour. In the morning I would negotiate a bank loan. I didn’t tell her that. I told her nothing. My head throbbed. I broke the connection and went to the bathroom for aspirins.

When the pain subsided I took her photo off the bureau and studied her pale blonde, aristocratic face. I thought of her well-bred manner, her charm, her tenderness.

A year and a half of that. No violent passions had disturbed our marriage. It had seemed to burn along with a quiet, small flame.

Too quiet, too small, apparently, for her.

So a truck skidded out of control on wet pavement and they dragged her from the embrace of a corpse...

I flung her picture at the radiator and watched its frame spring open. Splinters of glass flew. I wrenched my gaze from her delicate smile on the floor up to the window. Low, black clouds were beginning to swarm into the night sky.

My phone was ringing. I had been dozing in the big chair. Lieutenant Gold was on the line.

“An attack, Captain. Fifteen-year-old girl on East River Drive.”

My watch said 11:30. The pattern was all wrong. Lieutenant Gold’s voice went on:

“We got three of ’em.”

“Three?”

“Teen-agers. Call themselves the Arrows. Nine in all. Want our men to round up the other six?”

Outside my window the night was almost pitch-black.

“No, Lieutenant. Let the local precinct handle it. Keep all our men in the parks.”

“Yessir.”

I stood at my living-room window looking down on West End Avenue. Some pedestrians carried umbrellas under their arms. It wasn’t raining, just threatening.

I thought of sleep, decided I couldn’t. And thought of Sally. I kept thinking of Sally. Her boldness had both stimulated and repelled me. But the gentleness below her brassy surface had affected me deeply. I dialed her number, then listened to her bell ring on and off a full minute, unanswered.

Carson?

Sergeant Murphy’s voice was hoarse in the receiver. He had just checked in. Morning hoarseness fifteen minutes to midnight. He said, “I’ll see. Captain.” I listened to headquarters noises, then: “Carson didn’t check in yet.”

“Let me know when he does.”

“Right.”

It took a few minutes to locate Carson’s home number. Before I could dial it, mine rang again. Sergeant Murphy again:

“Carson just checked in. Want to talk to him?”

“No, Sergeant.”

My hand left a wet trace on the receiver. So she wasn’t with Carson. Out somewhere. Possibly at a movie, or a friend’s house, or with another man. My fault. She had invited me. I found my image grinning ruefully back at me from the bathroom mirror as I swallowed another pair of aspirins.

My headache eased a little and I crawled into bed and tried to sleep, and did.

And found Sally.

In my doorway. She wore a transparent raincoat over her aqua-tone dress, a transparent hood over her platinum halo. She was smiling.

Not at me. At someone behind me.

Turning, I saw only my living room.

Turning back, the doorway was empty. I stepped through it and saw Sally moving down the corridor slowly, her skirt swishing from side to side in languorous counterpoint to the click of her high heels.

I ran down the corridor, trying to call her back. But something had happened to my voice. I ran into the elevator after her.

As it descended she tilted her lips to me, her eyes sparkling. I couldn’t respond. I wanted to. My lips approached hers eagerly. At the point of contact hers vanished.

Sally vanished.

I seemed enmeshed in fog. I groped through it and emerged into a cloud-darkened night scene. Vaguely familiar. Before me curved an ascending sidewalk flanked by a low stone fence to my left and empty benches to the right. About a hundred yards ahead, walking slowly away from me, was Sally.

Occasional headlights, coming and going, swam past to my right.

Riverside Drive.

I must have awakened partially then, because I recall becoming aware of my heart hammering against my ribs like a fist. I remember trying to open my eyes, being unable to, struggling desperately to open them — and finally succeeding. I glimpsed a kaleidoscope of shadows. Then back to the scene on Riverside Drive.

Sally was gone. I stared around at the rows of benches, the motionless trees, the empty sidewalk. I ran to the low wall and peered over it. In the shadows below I saw Sally picking herself off the grass.

I vaulted the wall and floated gently down. Too gently. Too slowly. By the time I landed Sally was moving away again, keeping to tree shadows, avoiding lawns and park walks where occasional lamps blurred the darkness.

Fear gripped me as I recognized the direction she was taking. But my feet had become rooted. I stared about wildly, seeking help, and saw nothing but empty benches along the paths, empty lawns spreading away into the night. I tried to remember which patrol I had assigned to this area. I couldn’t remember.

Dreaming. I knew I was dreaming. I had a vague impulse to force myself awake, use my phone, get help. I couldn’t. I just couldn’t.

And then I faced Sally again. Near the keep off the grass sign. She was smiling, unbuckling her raincoat. Deliberately she bunched it up, then flared it like a curtain between us. When it descended she was gone.

The boy was there! Tongue and eyes protruding. Purple welts on his neck. The same boy — Jimmy. Standing. Facing me with bulging, dead eyes. The same boy! The same boy!

My head was one roaring scream. I seized it. I pounded it with my fists. I rolled with the agony, sobbed in relief when it began to pass.

My eyes opened and I stared at Sally. Not the boy. Sally was standing there. I stared at her golden locket. Sally and Myron forever.

I stared at Sally. She stared back as if I were a stranger. Her lips were moving but I heard no words. Her eyes were widening. They were widening, widening.

Blotted by shadow.

I could hear her through it. Screaming. She was screaming.

I could stand no more. I heard myself moan, and opened my eyes.

I was in my own bed, bathed in sweat from head to toe. The phone was ringing steadily on my night table. My head ached, my tongue felt thick and fuzzy. The phone shrilled with the same urgent regularity of Sally’s screams. My hand trembled reaching for it.

Sergeant Murphy, his voice unsteady:

“It’s the worst yet, Captain. I’m sending Jaffe around with the car.”

My stomach was a knot. I felt cold; covered with sweat, but cold. I could barely croak into the instrument: “Where?”

“Same place. Can you beat it!”

“Where?”

“Riverside Park. The exact same place. Not only that. Captain, but—”

Every nerve in my body jumped. “Dammit, Sergeant! But what?”

“The same girl!”

I sat staring at the dead instrument in my hand. It was fantastic, frightening. How, in my dream, had I known it was Sally? How had I known it was the same place? If, when I got there, I learned she had actually worn a transparent raincoat, how could that be explained? My head throbbed with unanswerable questions.

My body ached with fatigue. As if I had not been asleep from midnight to dawn, but had actually been out in the night running after Sally.

Even my damp clothes on the floor added to the illusion. Drizzle blowing in through my open window, of course.

I began to dress, thinking of Martha. Later I would borrow the $500 and wire it to her and that would finish it.

I was getting into my raincoat when Patrolman Jaffe rang the downstairs bell.

This time Sally was not defiant. No need for an intern to wheedle her into an ambulance. She did not scream at Sergeant Murphy or concoct a false story of being abducted on upper Broadway.

I stopped the moving litter, then raised an edge of the canvas and looked at the blood splotch that had been Sally’s forehead, but not seeing it; seeing, instead, the edge of the transparent raincoat they had folded over her.

The litter moved on and into the waiting morgue van. I turned. Inspector Quinn was gripping my arm. His face was ashen in the dawn light.

“Filthy, isn’t it. Bob? The same girl. The same place—”

“The same man?”

Incredulity distorted his face. “If it was, she knew him. She knew him but wasn’t afraid of him. She knew him, but not that he was the guy who’d attacked her before. At least that narrows the field.”

I beckoned to Sergeant Murphy. Quinn waved him back.

“Carson?”

I nodded.

“No dice. You had him in Morningside Park all night. I checked him first thing. Carson was under observation every minute of his tour. He still is. You got to know her, Bob. Who might have been able to get that close to her?”

“Husband?”

“Checked him also.”

“She said, ‘Riffle a phone book and make with a pin.’ ”

“Oh, great!”

“I was planning to bait her with Carson.”

“She get under your skin?”

“Deep.”

Deeper than I had suspected. I could hear her whispering: You’re a funny guy, Bob. You’re built like a dock walloper, got the face of a priest. And inside you’re like a high school kid on his first date. I’m nuts about you.

But she went to the park with a two-legged beast. She sought romance. New thrills. New sensations. Like getting her forehead smashed.

“Bob,” Inspector Quinn shook my arm, “you’re dead on your feet. Have Jaffe take you home. I’ll cover for you downtown. Tomorrow we’ll go over the whole picture once more.”

I did not realize I had submitted to his suggestion until my apartment door closed behind me. In the foyer I slowly got out of my raincoat. It slipped to the floor. As I picked it up, my flash rolled from a pocket — and something else.

I frowned down at it a long while before stooping and raising it by a broken end of slender golden chain. Sally’s locket. Sally and Myron forever. Dirt-caked. I couldn’t remember picking it up at the scene, but I must have. How else could it have got into my pocket? I would turn it in tomorrow.

My flash must have dropped from my pocket at the scene also. It was caked with drying reddish grime. I couldn’t recall dropping it, couldn’t remember how bits of its enamel had come to be chipped off.

I spent most of the day at my desk writing this record of everything that has happened since I first laid eyes on Sally. I have included so many personal details — including my nightmare — because seemingly unrelated memories are often linked.

And something seems to have emerged. I sense it.

But my brain is dull. I cannot find it. Something, I feel, having to do with the attacker’s pattern.

Not Carson. That much is certain now. Happening on the scene five out of eight times was a coincidence.

All I know of the man I’m looking for is that he is big, powerful; that he was injured by some blonde on a cloudy night; and that, either by luck or plan, he attacks when the nearest patrol is moving away.

And something else. I sense that important knowledge of him and his pattern is hidden somewhere in this account. But the words blur. My brain is dull, fogged. I am very tired now. Almost tired enough to sleep.

I will show this to Inspector Quinn in the morning. Maybe he can discover what I can only sense. Something that may lead us to the attacker.

I hope so, I fervently hope so.

~ ~ ~

From the 1955 anthology...

You may have wondered what can turn a once exemplary man into something far less, or what can become of the pure and unbending standards of an aspiring politician. On occasion you may yourself have found — which of us has not? — that the wisdom of the moment dictated that compromise should rescue you in a ticklish spot. You may, like me, find Richard Deming’s tale more than a little sobering in its wider implications.

Richard Deming

The Choice[10]

The thing I want to get across is that I’m an honest man. In all my years of public service I’ve never accepted a dishonest cent.

In most other respects too I think I’m what society calls a “good citizen.” I’m a kind father and a good husband. I’m active in church and community affairs. And even beyond that, I’ve devoted my whole life to public service.

At the moment I serve as district attorney of St. Michael County.

In case my stressing of my respectability gives you the idea I am building up to confessing some crime, I’d better explain that I’m not. I don’t want to create a false impression. I merely have a choice to make.

No matter how I choose I’ll remain a solid and respected citizen. If I choose one way, I can look forward to spending the rest of my life pleasantly but unexcitingly in private law practice, probably at a better income than my salary as district attorney. If I choose the other way, almost certainly I will be my state’s next governor and possibly, though I admit improbably, even end my political career in the White House.

The only way I can explain my position is to say I drifted into it. Each compromise with my moral precepts seemed so small at the time, and the consequences of not compromising seemed so drastic, even now when I look back I can’t honestly blame myself.

I can’t really blame the System either, for that would merely be blaming all humanity.

My first contact with what I have come to think of as the “System” was over the Max Bloom case, when I was a green young assistant district attorney. I was twenty-six at the time, and the junior of eight assistants.

Max Bloom was a bookie, and there was nothing exceptional about the case. Two officers had raided his bookshop, caught Max in the act of accepting bets and placed him under arrest. Since there seemed to be no possible defense, I contemplated a single appearance in court, where the defendant undoubtedly would plead guilty and accept the usual fine.

Instead, Big Joey Martin dropped in to see me.

I knew who Big Joey was, though I had never before met him. He was political boss of the Sixth and Seventh Wards, and also reputed to have some sort of connection with organized gambling. He was a huge man, at least six feet four and weighing probably two hundred and seventy pounds. Some of this was muscle, but a good deal of it was plain fat.

He came into my cubbyhole office without knocking, carefully lowered himself into a chair, squirmed until he was comfortable and began fanning himself with his hat.

“You George Kenneday?” he asked when these preliminaries were over.

I nodded.

“I guess you know who I am.”

I nodded again. “Joey Martin.”

For a moment or two the fat man merely fanned himself with his hat. Then he said, “They tell me you got the prosecution against Maxie Bloom.”

I nodded for the third time.

“Somebody slipped up. It ain’t Maxie’s turn for two more months, and he’s sorer than hell about losing two weeks’ business. I tried to tell him I’d get his next tumble postponed two months overtime, but I can’t talk no sense into his head. He’s kind of a psycho, you know. I’m afraid he’ll blow his lid in court and start yammering to the judge about getting his protection money back. So I think we better work out a dismissal or something.”

I looked at the man with my mouth open. “Are you asking me to drop charges against a lawbreaker?”

“A lawbreaker?” Joey Martin repeated in a surprised tone. “Maxie’s a bookie, not no criminal.” He eyed me narrowly, then said, “I ain’t asking you nothing if you’re going to get horsey about it. I guess I just took it for granted you knew the setup. Forget I bothered you.”

Heaving himself to his feet, he nodded indifferently and ambled out of my office. And I was so flabbergasted by the whole performance, I just sat there open-mouthed and watched him go.

Fifteen minutes later I was called into the office of First Assistant District Attorney Clark Gleason.

“How are you, George?” Gleason said in a friendly voice, waving me to a chair. “Beginning to get the feel of things?”

I told him I was getting along fine.

“Reason I called you in, George, I’m taking over the Max Bloom case myself. Mind dropping the folder next time you pass my office?”

Carefully I folded my hands in my lap. “Has Joey Martin been to see you, Mr. Gleason?”

“Well, yes. As a matter of fact, he just left.”

“I see. Mr. Gleason, only a few minutes ago Joey Martin practically ordered me to get Bloom’s charge dismissed. He said something about protection money and that Bloom’s arrest had been a mistake in timing on the part of the police. When I started to jump him, he seemed more surprised than alarmed, and walked out. Now I learn he’s been to see you, and you’re taking over Bloom’s case. I think I’m entitled to an explanation.”

Gleason examined me thoughtfully for a long time before answering. Eventually he asked, “Why do you think I’m taking over the case?”

I said with a mixture of caution and belligerence, “I must be mistaken, Mr. Gleason, but on the surface it looks as though this office takes orders from a two-bit racketeer.”

Gleason’s smile was rueful, but it didn’t contain any anger. “This office doesn’t take orders from anyone, George. But sometimes we have to do political favors. Do you know who Joey Martin is?”

“Sure. A professional gambler.”

“A little more than that George. Joey is the boy who delivers the votes down in the Sixth and Seventh Wards. All the votes. Election after election he turns out a solid majority for the party. In return he occasionally asks a small favor. Never much of a favor and never very often. It’s just practical politics to go along when he asks.”

“Even if you have to violate your oath of office?”

“Oh, for cripes sake, George,” Gleason said impatiently. “Max Bloom isn’t a murderer or bank robber. Everybody knows bookshops are tolerated in St. Michael and what raids are made are only token raids. Two weeks after his trial Max would be back in business in the same spot even if we got a conviction.”

I said, “What you’re saying in effect is that this office knows the police deliberately protect illegal bookshops. Even that they accept protection money for it. Yet we condone it because it wouldn’t be practical politics to crack down. Why doesn’t the D.A. swear out warrants for everybody concerned, including a few crooked cops?”

“Because next election there would be a new district attorney. If you intend to follow a political career, George, now is as good a time as any to learn the hard facts of political life. We’re aware that the police to some extent connive with Joey and his kind, and we don’t approve of it. But attempting to stop it would be tilting at windmills. No one in this office has any direct connection with men like Joey and no one receives any payoff. But as a matter of practical politics we sometimes have to rub the backs of such men, because it’s the votes controlled by ward leaders like Joey Martin that keep our party in power. Call it a violation of public trust if you want, but what’s the alternative? Kicking Joey out of the office and having two wards refuse to back John Doud for D.A. in the next primary?”

“Your job and mine aren’t elective,” I said. “We’re appointed.”

“By the D.A.,” Gleason agreed. “Whose job is elective. And you’re only kidding yourself if you think your appointment was entirely on merit. Weren’t you sponsored by someone?”

Reluctantly I admitted, “My Uncle Crosby is an alderman.”

When I left Gleason’s office there was no question in my mind that the whole system was wrong in spite of the first assistant D.A.’s glib argument about practical politics. But I couldn’t think of anywhere to go with a complaint. It would have been silly to go to the police, who seemed to be a party to the arrangement. And just as silly to expect action from the D.A. or any other elected official who owed allegiance to the System.

In the end I did nothing, justifying myself by deciding I would have taken some kind of action if I had been asked to get Max Bloom a dismissal myself. But since the case had been taken out of my hands, there really wasn’t any action I could take.

Looking back, I still can’t see anything I could have done. I have come to regard the Max Bloom case as the first compromise with my principles, but in a way it wasn’t a compromise at all. At least not in an active sense. All I actually did was accept a situation about which I could do nothing. How many sincerely honest men in the same position would have done anything else?

Would you have?

It was nearly four years before I was called upon to make the next big compromise, though in the meantime I found myself making more and more small ones. Even now I can’t put my finger on any one point of my career and say, “Here is where I should have resisted,” because it was a gradual process. The mere mental act of accepting the System as a necessary evil of politics opened the way for greater and greater departures from what I knew to be right.

Yet if I had the chance to live this period over, I know my reactions would be the same. There was no fighting the System. Either you conformed, or you retired to private life. And since the party had begun to regard me as a bright young man with a political future, I conformed.

My growing influence in local party affairs was largely the result of the reputation I was gaining as a prosecutor. Actually this reputation was based almost entirely on a single murder case which the papers seemed to think I handled with some brilliance, but the party didn’t care about that. What counted was that I had the public’s confidence. As a result when Clark Gleason resigned to accept a job in the State’s Attorney’s office, I was appointed first assistant district attorney in his place.

During this four years I learned a lot about how the System operated. For the most part what Clark Gleason had told me was quite true. Most elected officials were honest men who had no direct connection with the underworld-controlled political machine which maintained them in office. Yet the influence of ward leaders such as Joey Martin was tremendous. In return for the votes necessary to elect them, officials usually found it expedient to wink at the illegal side activities of Joey and his kind, and occasionally grant favors which came close to criminal conspiracy.

At the time I was appointed first assistant district attorney I hadn’t held, or even run for, any elective office, but I was aware of hints within the party that I might make a good district attorney when old John Doud finally decided to retire. I kept these hints alive by actively engaging in party affairs, which brought me in frequent contact with local political bosses.

With an eye on my future, I deliberately cultivated friendly relations with these men, with the result that I was asked for a lot of minor favors. For example, Willie Tamm, president of the Dock Workers’ Local and also party leader of the three wards in the dock area, routinely mailed me his traffic tickets to have fixed.

Many similar minor favors were asked of me, but the one big favor I performed was done tacitly without being mentioned by anyone. This was a passive favor. It was simply closing my eyes to the rackets going on in the districts run by the men who controlled the votes.

That is, this was my one big favor prior to the evening Timothy Grange called at my house.

Tim Grange ranked higher both politically and in the underworld than Big Joey Martin. He owned the wire service which brought horse race results into town from all over the country, and his business was leasing this service to individual bookies. He also controlled the party organization for the entire East Side, including the two wards run by Joey Martin.

Grange was one of the men whose friendship I had been deliberately cultivating, but aside from passing time with him at a number of political rallies, we hadn’t had much contact prior to the Friday evening he unexpectedly showed up at my house.

He was a tall, slim man in his late forties with iron-gray hair. He arrived about nine o’clock, after both the children were in bed. When he rather nervously refused Mary’s offer of a drink with a Statement that he had urgent business with me, she went into another room and left us alone in the front room. Grange stated his business at once.

“My kid’s in a jam, George. Tim Junior. He’s killed a man.”

The abruptness of it startled me. “My God!” I said. “Murder?”

He shook his head in nervous impatience. “A traffic accident. He ran over a pedestrian at Fourth and Locust about an hour ago. An old man named Abraham Swartz. I just checked with City Hospital, and the man’s dead.”

“Oh,” I said, partially relieved that it wasn’t as serious as I first thought. “Was it Tim’s fault?”

Grange paced up and down a moment before answering. Then he said, “He says he wasn’t speeding. At least not much. He claims he was going about thirty-five in a thirty-mile zone when this Swartz suddenly stepped from the curb right in front of him.”

“I see. Then what are you upset about? It’s unfortunate, but those things...”

“He didn’t stop,” George interrupted. “He raced home and hid the car in the garage. Fortunately I happened to be going out just as he came in, and when I saw how upset he was, I forced the story out of him.” He paused, then added in a flat voice, “He was drunk.”

For a moment I just looked at him. Then I walked over to stare angrily out the window. When I turned again, I said, “At the risk of hurting your feelings, Grange, young Tim is a damned fool.”

“I knew that before I came, George. The kid panicked. What’s he up against?”

“Manslaughter, probably,” I said bluntly. “The combination of hit-and-run and drunken driving almost automatically means a manslaughter charge, no matter whose fault the accident was.”

“He’s not drunk now. I threw him in a cold shower, and when I left I had my wife pouring black coffee in him.”

I said, “The police make a blood test for alcohol content. It’s routine in hit-and-run cases. Even if you have him walking straight and talking coherently, they’ll be able to judge how drunk he was at the time of the accident.”

“Suppose they didn’t find him till tomorrow?”

I looked at him. “He can’t wait till tomorrow. He’ll have to turn himself in at once. If he turns in voluntarily, he may just possibly scrape out of the manslaughter charge. But it’s already too late for him to get out of the hit-and-run. The law requires any driver involved in an accident to stop immediately and identify himself either to the other party involved or to the police. The law allows the alternate procedure of reporting directly to the nearest police station, but young Tim didn’t do that either. The kid is in a jam, and the longer he waits before turning in, the worse the jam is going to get.”

“Suppose he reported to the station closest to Fourth and Locust now, George? It was only a little over an hour ago.”

“It might as well be a year. The law says immediately.”

“Couldn’t the report be... set back a little?”

I said, “Are you asking me to get the police to falsify a report? This isn’t like fixing a parking ticket. Manslaughter is a felony.”

“But it’s only technically manslaughter,” Grange said in a reasonable tone. “If he’d stopped, he wouldn’t be in any particular trouble. Manslaughter’s kind of a tough rap just for getting panicky.”

“Death is kind of a tough rap just for stepping off a curb.”

“I’m not excusing the kid, George. But he is my kid. I know you’re hounded for favors by every ward heeler in town, but I’ve never asked you for one before. I’ll put it right on the line. Get my kid out of this and I’m your friend for life.”

He didn’t put it into words, but his tone meant I would have the solid backing of the entire East Side any time I wanted to run for any office at all. It also meant I could count on its solid opposition if I failed to help his son.

I think I would have thrown him out of the house if he had offered me money. Even if he had come right out in the open and used his political influence as a weapon, I think I might have turned him down. But he offered me nothing but his friendship, and let the rest dangle there by inference.

There wasn’t any middle course I could take. I couldn’t, like Pilate, wash my hands of the whole affair. For if I refused to help young Tim out of his jam, I was going to have to prosecute him.

I thought about the talk within the party about my replacing old John Doud when he finally got around to retiring, and realized that with Tim Grange behind me, I wouldn’t have to wait for his retirement. I could have the job at the next election.

But not if I refused Timothy Grange. If I insisted on trying his son for manslaughter, from the moment of that decision I could forget all political ambition.

Going to the phone, I dialed the Fourth Street Precinct House, got hold of the night captain, who happened to owe me a favor, and arranged for the log book to show that Timothy Grange Jr. had reported there five minutes after the accident at Fourth and Locust and that he’d been checked and found cold sober.

Conspiracy to compound a felony? Of course it was. But you tell me what else I could have done.

In the nearly eight years that I have been district attorney of St. Michael County I’ve thought back on this incident often. From the standpoint of abstract justice I admit there is no defense for my action. I was pledged to uphold the law impartially, and in my own mind I know that if Tim Grange Jr. hadn’t been the son of an influential politician, I would have prosecuted him for manslaughter.

Yet I can’t blame myself for deciding as I did. Kicking the elder Grange out of my house would have accomplished nothing but ending my political career. It wouldn’t have brought the dead man back to life.

I can’t blame Timothy Grange Sr. for bringing pressure to save his son. What normal father wouldn’t? I’ve decided that if anything is to blame, it’s the bad luck which created an impossible situation.

Nevertheless I recognize my action as the first great compromise with my principles. I also recognize that once having made this major step, future compromises became easier and easier.

This was just as well for my peace of mind, for from the moment I was elected district attorney I found it necessary to make more and more compromises. But I was no longer under constant pressure to perform minor favors. This nuisance now fell to my new first assistant, a young man named Edmund Rowe, who as chief prosecutor for the county was in closer contact with both the police and those on the other side of the law than I was.

This was because the district attorney of a county including as large a metropolitan area as St. Michael is a policy maker rather than a courtroom lawyer. He has too many administrative duties to handle prosecutions personally. His concern is crime in a general sense. Specific crimes are the business of his assistants, and I had eight to relieve me of this responsibility. Even important cases were tried by Edmund Rowe.

The compromises I was now forced to make came from my policy-making power. And this power was considerable.

At any time after I assumed office I could have eliminated any racket I chose from St. Michael simply by issuing an order to the police. The police wouldn’t have liked it, but even though they were to some extent in partnership with the racketeers, they wouldn’t have dared to refuse cooperation. The constant dread of any crooked cop is a shake-up in the police department, and the moment a crusading district attorney turns on the heat, every cop, even on a crooked force, becomes a crusader too.

I was aware of my power before I ever assumed office, and I gave a lot of thought to just how I was going to use it. If I wanted to conduct a crusade, I had four years to do it and nothing but the next election could put me out of office. Undoubtedly I could clean up the city and keep it clean during that four years.

But just as undoubtedly I would never again be my party’s candidate for any office whatever.

The alternative to fighting crime as I was sworn to do was no longer as simple as it had been when I was merely first assistant district attorney. Then I had been forced to close my eyes to many of the things going on around me, but my cooperation with the underworld had been merely passive. My role had been that of chief public prosecutor, and I lacked the policy-making power of the district attorney.

But now my cooperation had to become active if I was going to cooperate at all. As D.A. it was not enough merely to ignore the rackets controlled by local political bosses. I was now in a spot where I either had to fight racketeering or help cover it up.

For example I often met with volunteer citizens’ groups formed to combat organized crime. Sporadically such groups rise in every metropolitan community, and since they usually represent segments of the independent group, they can’t just be brushed aside. It’s only practical politics to avoid arousing unnecessary resentment in representatives of the Chamber of Commerce, Rotary International and other business groups out of which citizens’ committees arise.

Consequently it was necessary to go through the motions of running cleanup drives against gambling, vice and other rackets whenever such a group offered its services. I had a standard procedure for handling such groups.

First I would make a public declaration of war against racketeers. Next my office and the police jointly would release to the papers that citywide raids had taken place and large numbers of arrests had been made. Actually probably a half dozen bookies and an equal number of house madams, all thoughtfully tipped off in advance of the raids, would be dragged in and booked. But since about six cases in addition to the routine parade of drunks and traffic violators was all police court could handle in one day, this was enough to keep a steady stream going before the judge for at least two days. Any of the citizens’ groups interested enough to follow up as far as the courtroom usually tired after one day of watching and went away satisfied that justice was being done.

The newspapers, too, occasionally ran editorial campaigns against organized crime in St. Michael, and again it would be necessary to simulate ruthless war against racketeers. In either event, I became so adept, I actually began to gain something of a reputation as a crusading district attorney.

Never once did Timothy Grange or any other racketeer openly ask for this sort of protection. And never once during my entire political career was I ever on the payroll of any racketeer. I cooperated solely to weld a solid voting force behind me.

I succeeded too. When I was elected for my second term as district attorney, I got the most overwhelming majority in the history of St. Michael politics. And that thumping majority put me in line for at least consideration as the party’s gubernatorial candidate in the following election.

My hope was only for consideration up to the time Tony Manetti and Arnold Price got interested in me. It is one thing to have the solid political support of a single county, and a different proposition to get an entire state behind you. But after Tim Grange brought Manetti and Price to see me, I began to think of my nomination for governor as almost a certainty. Which, in our one-party state, is the same as election.

This meeting, like my previous one with Grange, took place at my home instead of at my office. Both men were from out of state, Tony Manetti from New York and Arnold Price from Chicago, but they both represented the same organization.

Their organization was the national crime syndicate.

Tony Manetti was a squat, swarthy man with heavy features and kinky, close-cropped hair which fitted his head like a skullcap. Arnold Price was tall and lean and slow moving, with gaunt features and the homespun manner of a backwoods farmer.

After the four of us were settled with drinks in the front room and Mary had gone off to another part of the house, Grange opened the conversation.

“I guess you know who Mr. Manetti and Mr. Price are, George,” he said. “I been telling them about you, and they thought maybe we ought to have a little political conference.” He laughed genially. “You know. Smoke-filled rooms and all that stuff.”

Neither man smiled at the joke. Noncommitally I said, “I see.”

“As you probably know,” Grange went on, “the boys here have been quietly building a political organization throughout the state. Now they’re looking around for a candidate to back for governor.”

I felt my heart skip a beat. Here, possibly, was the one big break of my career. The backing of a new, but rapidly growing, statewide political machine.

I wasn’t for a moment under the impression that syndicate interference in state politics would be a good thing for our state. But neither was I starry-eyed enough to believe anything I did could stop the syndicate’s growth. I knew all about what was going on in the state politically, and had accepted it as an undesirable but inevitable development.

Before the arrival of Tony Manetti and Arnold Price in our midst, state politics had been far from clean, but there was little centralization. The two big-city machines, St. Michael’s and Tailor City’s across the state, were powerful but autonomous units. Numerous smaller but equally autonomous machines ran things in the lesser communities and the rural areas. Though they were all the same party, no one unit was strong enough to dictate statewide policy. State conventions were matters of give and take, with the small rural machines often forming combines strong enough to force through platforms and slates of candidates opposed by both big-city machines.

The syndicate was attempting to weld these divergent groups into a solid, statewide organization whose policy could be controlled from the top. It was common knowledge to the politically informed that Manetti and Price had been spreading huge sums in the form of campaign contributions in the rural areas. It was not so well known that Tailor City had joined forces with the rising new machine, but I happened to be one of those who knew it. And now the appearance at my home of the two men with one of St. Michael’s strongest political bosses could only mean that the local machine was falling in line with the rest.

It also meant the syndicate undoubtedly would be powerful enough by the time of the next state convention to put into the governor’s mansion the candidate of its choice.

All these thoughts skipped through my mind while Grange was talking. And while they were passing through my mind, I dispassionately considered just what the syndicate was.

It is, as anyone who followed the televised congressional investigation of crime knows, a nationwide federation of professional gamblers, procurers, dope peddlers and racketeers. No decent citizen could feel anything but abhorrence for all that Manetti and Price stood for.

On the other hand my refusal to deal with the syndicate would merely transfer its interest to some other candidate who was willing to accept its backing. And if it was inevitable that a syndicate-backed governor was going to administer our state, I might as well be it.

I asked, “What does this backing involve?”

Tony Manetti spoke in a slurred voice which still contained a trace of Sicilian accent. “We’re willing to drop two hundred grand into the campaign kitty.”

The amount startled me, for the dark man mouthed it as casually as I would mention a dime.

I said, “How did you happen to pick me?”

“I sold them,” Grange said. “You’re a natural. Who else in the state can pull in the independent vote and at the same time draw machine backing? With the rubes you have a reputation as a crusader. To the smart boys you have a reputation for... cooperation. How could we lose?”

I asked, “What sort of cooperation would be expected of me?”

Arnold Price drawled, “Nothing much, Kenneday. We might ask for a few appointments. The police commissioners of St. Michael and Tailor City, for instance.”

“I see,” I said dryly.

I toyed with the thought of refusing point blank, as my ability to compromise didn’t extend to turning the state over to a gang of murderers. But I only toyed with it. The next instant I thought of a number of justifications for accepting syndicate backing.

The first was the argument that if I refused, some other candidate was bound to accept and the state would be no better off than if I accepted. The second was that any promises I made to a gang of killers I was not morally bound to keep. I told myself I could never get into the governor’s mansion without syndicate backing, but once there I could stop being a politician and start being a statesman. I decided I would administer the state government to the best of my ability if I managed to get elected, even if it meant being kicked out of office after four years.

I said, “I would appreciate your backing for the governorship very much, gentlemen. And you won’t find me ungrateful.”

After the three men left I felt rather proud of myself. It pleased me to think Manetti and Price would go to great trouble and expense to put me in office, only to discover after election that they had made the mistake of backing an honest man. Somehow the situation seemed to counterbalance all the moral compromises I had made in the past in order to gain votes.

But I might have known syndicate representatives wouldn’t be naive enough to be satisfied with mere verbal assurance that I’d cooperate after election. I should have been prepared for the next move. My only excuse for being caught by surprise is that I underestimated Manetti and Price.

In the month since my meeting with Tim Grange and the two syndicate men, political forces have been whipped into line, and it’s now a practical certainty my nomination for governor will pass on the first ballot at the state convention. Meantime, I still have my job as district attorney to perform.

I wish I could resign tomorrow, for finally I am confronted with a decision for which I can find no self-justification by calling it practical politics.

I’ve known all along, of course, that the syndicate’s political maneuvering is merely a means to an end, and the end is opening wide the whole state to gambling, vice, narcotics and every other illegal racket into which it can get its fingers. Some local opposition by racketeers who preferred to remain independent was inevitable, and the syndicate’s solution to such opposition is murder.

There’s already been one gang killing in St. Michael County. My old friend, Big Joey Martin, who was my first contact with the System. The underworld rumor is that Big Joey refused to throw in with the syndicate, and his death was a warning to others who might be slow about falling in line.

It’s only a rumor though. There is no evidence pointing at anyone, which might be expected in a murder arranged by so efficient an organization. We have a body, three .45 calibre slugs from a gun which is probably at the bottom of the river, and nothing else but the rumor.

But even though I haven’t enough evidence to justify an arrest, I know why Big Joey died. It’s been bad enough to carry that knowledge in my mind, but my present situation is impossible.

An hour ago I got a phone call from Tony Manetti, who asked a small favor. The publicity over Big Joey Martin’s killing was a bad thing only six months before election, he said, and it would be smart to avoid any such future publicity. He wanted to know how well I knew the coroner.

When I told him Howard Jordan was a personal friend of mine, he said arrangements had been made with Jordan to find accident the cause of death in the case of Willie Tamm, president of the Dock Workers’ Local. There was the matter of paying the coroner a small fee for his trouble, however, Manetti went on, and he wondered if I would be willing to relay this fee on if he had it dropped by my office.

The meaning behind his words was unmistakable. The syndicate is not satisfied with my verbal promise to cooperate. It wants me involved beyond backing out in the compounding of a murder.

For you see, Willie Tamm is not yet dead.

Manetti gave me one hour to think things over and call him back. But, in the face of the horror of the situation, I can hardly think.

The insidiousness of the thing is appalling. If I refuse, I’m certain Willie Tamm will not die, for Manetti could hardly afford to go ahead with a murder he’d discussed with an uncooperative district attorney. At the same time, he hasn’t run any risk, since I can hardly charge him with a crime which remains uncommitted.

But if I refuse to cooperate, I know my hope for the governorship is gone forever. Without putting it into actual words, Manetti has served notice that I’ll become governor on the syndicate’s terms, or not at all. Almost certainly, arrangements have been made with Coroner Jordan for some kind of deposition confessing I paid him to cover up a murder. A deposition which they’ll keep as a secret weapon to force my future cooperation.

I wonder how huge a sum the syndicate had to pay Jordan to get him to risk his own neck.

The thing which makes it impossible is that I’m an honest man. My moral precepts are probably as high as those of any other member who attends my church. Never in my life have I accepted a penny of dishonest money. My worst sin has been accepting the compromises any practical politician must make if he expects to stay in public life.

How could I possibly have drifted into such an untenable position? Obviously I can’t be party to a deliberate murder.

On the other hand, until an hour ago the governorship was right within my grasp.

How can I turn it loose now?

~ ~ ~

In the Introduction I referred to a loss of innocence reflected in the short stories of this twenty-five-year series. Something of that innocence can be found in this story from the 1956 anthology. No thought here that the policeman is a repressive force: he is portrayed with warmth and understanding; he is shown to have compassion and to be deeply troubled by the requirements of his job. His conscience jabs him and he has a well-developed sense of right and wrong. This story appeared originally in The Saturday Evening Post. Am I wrong in thinking that the magazine or another like it would not publish this story today?

William Fay

The Conscience of the Cop[11]

The man who had attempted to hold up the liquor store had fallen forward when Heidig shot him and he was dead on the sidewalk in the sweet summer evening. He wore a lightweight suit, cream-toned and attractive, with the crease still fresh at the back of the pants. Cars were stopping along Eighth Avenue.

“You did it real nice and quick,” the other detective said to George Heidig. “You made no mistakes.”

“Thank you, Morris.”

“You’re two-thirds of a sergeant already,” Morris said, not in envy, but in professional appraisal. It was the way the thing had happened. Morris, as the driver of the car, had of necessity taken ten or fifteen seconds longer getting to the scene. “You were very good, George.”

“I was tremendous,” Heidig said.

He was still taking deep breaths, looking down at the man he had shot. About my own age, Heidig thought; thirty years old — thirty-one? He didn’t look like a thief or a punk. His leghorn hat, with a gay red ribbon around it, had rolled as far as the curb. He had reddish-brown hair that made him look Irish. The lights from the liquor store kept the pavement so bright you could count the dead man’s freckles. Heidig could not see his victim’s face, but neither could he forget the one brief glimpse of it that had been stenciled in his mind. He could hear the sirens of two patrol cars, loud and insistent, almost here.

“His name was Harrigan,” Morris Lerner said. “Gerald F. Harrigan, accordin’ to a light-and-gas bill that he should have paid three months ago. Three twenty — the other number’s smudged here — Columbus Avenue. That would be uptown. You all right?”

“I’m all right, Morris,” Heidig said. “I hope I’m all right. I never killed a man before.”

Now the crowd was very big, encircling the body that lay in the vivid light. The uniformed cops from the patrol cars established a circle of privacy. Morris Lerner had picked up the small automatic and marked it, as routine required. There was nothing to do but wait for the specialists from Homicide. The bright, gay hat of the dead man had been trampled.

“You want a cigarette?” Morris asked.

“Thanks,” Heidig said.

He was steady enough. He hadn’t been too scared through the whole episode. There was just this feeling that kept growing and getting bigger inside of him. It was half past eleven then.

Heidig got home at ten minutes after one. A big breeze swept the apartment, raising the curtains like summer skirts, as though you were sailing up the Hudson on an excursion boat. It was a new apartment in a downtown municipal project. The space was right and the price was right: four and a half rooms, $77.50. You could look south to the Brooklyn Bridge or north beyond the United National. Sheila had left a light on in the living room so he wouldn’t slide on the rattan rug. The three kids were asleep, lightly covered, in the larger of the bedrooms, one window closed, because the breeze from the north could get so muscular, even in July. Heidig heard the refrigerator click, then begin to hum in its easy way. I’d like a beer, he thought.

“George?” Sheila called.

He walked in, carrying his can of beer and an opener. She had snapped on the lamp at her side of the bed and she was sitting up, resting on one arm, watching him, squinting and looking pretty, her hair in curlers. They hadn’t had a real live argument in many weeks. Things were good with them. Heidig sat down on the bed, holding the beer can and the opener in one hand, putting his face into the warm, soft groove of her neck and shoulder.

“Hello, Dutchman,” Sheila said. “You and your beer.” She held him close.

“Hello,” Heidig said, very softly, his face still against her, but he didn’t say “Hello, Irish,” in the usual way. There was a difference tonight. The word projected too easily the man on the sidewalk and his reddish hair and the clear Celtic freckles. Heidig used the opener on the beer can, forcing a small triangular hole in the tin. He passed the beer to Sheila, who took one determined swallow. It was a kind of ritual they had. She said she never minded him smelling of go-to-bed beer if she had a little bit of it herself. He sat watching her.

“You very tired?” she said.

“Not so tired.”

“What then?”

“We had a little action tonight — Morris and I.”

She put her hands behind her head, straightening some of the pins he had disarranged, her full lips pale from a lack of rouge on them, her eyes very watchful.

“Yes, George?”

“I killed a man,” he said. “A stick-up on Eighth Avenue.”

“Sweet, merciful Saviour,” Sheila said. All the color was gone from her face. She moved instinctively closer. “It might have been you.”

“It wasn’t me. It was him. He looked like your brother Frank.”

She watched him carefully, knowing the trouble was real. He had never come home like this before. “You want to talk about it, don’t you, George?”

“I think so,” Heidig said.

She got out of bed, and she looked very good in her nylon nightgown. Heidig thought, I’ll be dead when I don’t notice that. She put three cups of water in a small percolator; then she walked with it to the stove and turned on a burner.

“Excuse me,” Sheila said, then went in and looked at the children, as though it were a necessary thing to do. She came back. “Go ahead and talk,” she told him softly.

“This fellow was coming out of the liquor store,” Heidig said. “He had some money in one hand — twelve lousy dollars, it turned out — and an automatic pistol in the other. I was very close to him when I shot him.”

Sheila put three measured tablespoons of coffee in the top of the percolator. “You’re a policeman,” she said. “This man had a gun. Why is it complicated, George?”

“I can’t exactly say,” he told her. “Or if I do know how to say it, I don’t want to — yet.” Did I give him enough of a chance? Heidig wondered. Would he have shot me if I hadn’t got him?

“Please George.”

“It’s trying to remember things as they really were that has me all mixed up. Something happened in one second and I don’t know yet if I was right or wrong. All I know is — and this is the strange part — I liked him.”

Sheila stared at him. “But that’s insane, isn’t it? How can you like or dislike a man in one second?”

“You get an impression,” Heidig said. “A guy is dead and you remember. I’m stuck with that. His name was Harrigan. He had a wife and two kids.”

“That’s laying it on,” Sheila said. “Anyone can have two kids. Did he love them the way you love ours? Would he go out with a gun in his hand if he was what he should have been?”

“He had no criminal record, far as we know. I learned that much. He was a very tidy dresser; he’d make Morris or me look like a bum. And all he had on him was a light-and-gas bill, three months overdue. He had a silly grin on his face, like Frank sometimes, when Mable finds out he’s been drinkin’.”

“Did you see his wife and children, George?”

“Oh, no! Somebody else checks that; then calls it in. That much is routine. The liquor-store clerk was no help. He was old and too scared. There’s just the one thing has its teeth in my conscience.”

“Say what you want to say, George.”

“I keep thinking he wouldn’t have shot me,” Heidig said slowly, almost recitatively. “That he’d have dropped the gun and the stinkin’, petty-larceny twelve dollars on the sidewalk, if I’d waited. I keep thinking that perhaps I murdered him, and I’d feel like I stuck a knife in you and the kids and spat on God, if that was true.”

“Stop it!” Sheila screamed.

So he stopped. She fell against him, and they held together swaying, slowly rocking in intimate expression of things they felt but could not speak. Her eyes were wet against his face, and Heidig, who had never before been weak, was grateful to have it this way.

“I’ve got tomorrow off,” he said. “I’ll look around. I’ll find out things.”

“You’re tormenting yourself, that’s all; and you’re imagining.”

“I’ve got to know,” he said.

“But you couldn’t have done anything too wrong. Not you, George.”

“I wonder,” Heidig said.

It was almost noon and the sun had climbed like a hot balloon. There wasn’t a breeze worth a sick man’s sneeze on Columbus Avenue. The Harrigans lived in one of a group of flats above a vegetable market, a shoe-repair shop and a corner bar and grill. The smell of bananas was richer than perfume in the heat. Heidig pushed a downstairs buzzer under a mail slot labeled Harrigan. There was no response. The downstairs door was open. Heidig walked up a flight and knocked on Apartment C. He waited. He tried the next apartment — B. No answer. Only A responded.

“Yes, sir?”

“Do you know the Harrigans?”

“I know them.” She was a thin, tired woman in a house dress. There was captive sweat in the lines of her neck. She pushed her hair back, watching him. “Well?”

“I’m a policeman.”

“I can’t help you. What was their business isn’t mine.”

She closed the door. Heidig was going to obstruct this action with his foot, but he did not. The time he was spending on his day off was his own. He didn’t want a lot of shouting in the hall. The information he had on the Harrigans was preliminary and brief. The widow had been notified at this address. She had two children and was employed in some capacity at a place called The Copper Door, on Sixty-third Street. Heidig had a feeling a man’s biography could best be rendered by neighbors who wanted to talk. And there were always enough of these.

He walked downstairs to the soiled street and the griddle heat of the day. The woman who had refused to speak with him was at her window, watching. I’m an enemy already, Heidig thought. The vegetable man sat half asleep under a patched green awning. Heidig walked away from the strong smell of bananas, deciding to try the bar and grill. It said McBride’s on the window.

“I’ll have a glass of beer, please,” Heidig said.

“Well, it’s about the right weather for it.” The bartender filled an eight-ounce goblet. “There now.”

It was a real nice glass of beer in nice surroundings, Heidig thought. McBride’s, like a thousand saloons in modest neighborhoods, had the restful substantiality not otherwise available to a majority of its clients. It wasn’t air-conditioned, but the fans turned effectively, almost silently under the spotless, corrugated, white-painted tin of the ceiling. There were a half-dozen men at the bar, two of them reading the morning papers. Most of them looked at Heidig without special interest, yet he knew that talk had been suspended. The bartender came back, carrying empty glasses. He was a man in his thirties, tall, proficient, cool-looking.

“Fill it again, sir?”

“I wouldn’t mind,” said Heidig, watching him. “You know a family next door — name of Harrigan?”

“Jerry.”

There were intimacy and feeling in the way the one word had been spoken. It controlled the moment. The total attention of each man present was involved. They all looked at Heidig. The bartender stared at his own hands, flat on the bar — studiously, as though he had never seen them before.

“Are you a cop?”

“That’s right,” Heidig said. “It’s why I asked the question. I figured you might have known him.”

“Know Jerry?” The bartender’s smile was wistful. He turned to the others present. “Did we know the sweetest guy uptown?”

“Lay off the corn and the sirup,” Heidig demanded. But the weight of despair was with him. It was like a gamble taken and lost. You couldn’t alter what might be true by screaming aloud that it was barroom sentimentality. You couldn’t whine like a child for a change of rules when you found what you feared you might find.

“You asked about a friend of mine,” the bartender said. “I didn’t ask you.” He took Heidig’s fifty-cent piece and rang up two beers on the register. “We’re supposed to be happy because a cop shot Jerry dead?”

“I didn’t say that.” Easy now, he warned himself. “How long did you know Harrigan?”

“Six, seven months. He was from Massachusetts. He came down lookin’ for a break. A helluva break he got — him with his talent.”

“What do you mean ‘talent’?”

“He was a streamlined Jackie Gleason,” the bartender said. “Ask them. Ask anybody here that knew the guy. Laugh?... How about that, Phil?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” said the man named Phil. “Not to the cops. Not to anybody. What’s personal is personal. You mind?”

“That’s up to you,” Heidig said.

“Exactly, officer. It’s up to me.”

The man named Phil was bulbously large. He swamped the bar stool that supported him. His thighs made his capacious pair of khaki pants look tighter than bologna skins. The sweat worked through the weave of his T shirt. His heavy hands were eloquent. For a man who didn’t wish to talk, he managed to say a lot.

“Do you play the piano, officer?”

“No,” Heidig said.

“Or sing?” Phil said.

“Look, I’m not being questioned here.”

“You asked us if Jerry Harrigan had talent, didn’t you?”

Heidig’s silence conceded that. He took another swallow of beer. It tasted less good than before. The heat of the day was rising. Heidig’s head began to ache. The man named Phil controlled the stage.

“Jerry’d sit there at the piano — any night. You’d think his fingers were part of the keyboard. Name it, he would play it — sweet, hot, boogie, the Eyetalian mambo. Sing like his mother was a nightingale or a bird. Tell stories? Even a cop’d laugh, fall down in a stitch when Harrigan cut loose. It’s just he never got a break. Know what I mean? Three months ago he came in second on a teevee talent contest. Everybody in this bar here saw the show. Jerry was robbed o’ first prize. Good times or bad, he’d wear that grin like it was painted on his face. Good times or—”

“All right, hold it,” Heidig said.

“You don’t like the way I tell it?”

“I get the idea. He was the sweetest kid since Little Boy Blue, but he carried a gun last night. He held up a liquor store. Why? Did he work for a living?”

“Show business. That’s what we told you,” Phil said. “Happy-go-lucky an’ quick with the buck. Is that a crime?”

“Who supported his kids?”

“Ask his ghost,” said Phil, with a great sense of theater. He was a gifted, dangerous cornball, Phil, and Heidig suddenly hated him — almost as much as he was learning to hate himself. “Ask the cop who shot him dead.”

It hurt very much, and Heidig thought, They’re ahead of me. He turned to the bartender then, hoping to change the trend of the evidence. “Did you know Harrigan’s wife?”

“I’d see her around,” the bartender said, “but she never came in here. A big straw blonde, she could knock down a wall. Jerry never talked about her. He never laid his troubles on the bar.”

“She was no help to his career,” Phil said.

Heidig didn’t want to talk to him. He turned again to the bartender. “There’s nobody at the apartment. Where would I find her? Where would I find the kids?”

“Try the old lady,” he was advised.

“Whose old lady?”

“Jerry’s mother-in-law. The name’s Delaney. Around the corner. The first house, with the tailor in the basement.”

Heidig walked out into the thumping glare. The sun was high enough to fry the streets and shrink the shade. A truck, half stacked with kegs of beer, had parked outside McBride’s place in a bus-stop area. The driver, awash with sweat, walked around to the side of the truck. Heidig knew him from other neighborhoods.

“I’ll only be a few minutes, George.”

“It’s all right,” Heidig said.

He pushed the downstairs button where it said Delaney. The stairs were steep in the converted brownstone house. It was cool and dark and damp within the narrow stairwell.

“Mrs. Delaney?”

“Who is it?”

“I’m a policeman, Mrs. Delaney.”

She stood in the open doorway, and you couldn’t say that she was fat, because there wasn’t enough of her. She was round, small-boned, erect. Her eyes were a blue that Heidig had never seen before, and they were very beautiful.

“Can I help you?”

He stepped inside. The inevitable summer dust danced in slanted sunlight that the shades could not exclude. There were two kids standing near the window — small boys, anywhere from four to six. They wore nothing but shorts and sneakers in the heat, but they looked healthy, like boys at a summer camp. They kept watching him with such alert and friendly interest that Heidig was obliged to look away. There was a small oak table in the center of the room, polished and clean. There was a worn rug on the floor and on the walls he could see the treasures of the respectable Irish poor, a “God Bless Our Home” in lacy lettering, a picture of the Sacred Heart.

“Won’t you sit down, officer?”

“The Sixteenth Precinct — West Forty-seventh Street,” he said, avoiding any disclosure of his name. He sat down. “About last night,” he said.

“Let’s remember the children and not say what it wouldn’t be right to say,” Mrs. Delaney reminded him. She sat at the table.

“Yes, ma’am,” Heidig said. “The fact is I’d like to talk with the children’s mother — if that’s possible.”

Mrs. Delaney placed one hand on the table. “My daughter isn’t here.” She looked cautiously at the children, then leaned forward. “A stranger might think — he might image Mary didn’t care much, not to be here at a time like this.”

“He might, at that,” said Heidig. “Anyone might.” He took out a large, sodden handkerchief and wiped his face. “You mind if the children stepped into another room, Mrs. Delaney?”

“But there’s only this room. This and the kitchen there.”

“M’m’m’m,” he said. “Well, could they step outside?”

She looked at him appealingly. “Into the street? With all the talk that’s going on about what happened? With them not prepared yet for the things they’d hear?”

“Well, I see what you mean,” he conceded. “Where is your daughter, Mrs. Delaney?”

“She went to her place of business.” Mrs. Delaney, sitting amid her variety of pious pictures, did not seem comfortable with this subject. “She has a temporary position — sort of.”

“Do you mean she’s working at The Copper Door?”

“I think that’s the name.”

“Is it a saloon?” he asked.

“I’ve never been there,” she said. “Only please don’t get the wrong impression — about Mary, I mean.”

The older of the children had approached the round oak table carefully, and now stood next to his grandmother. “My father got hurt,” the boy announced. “My father can sing and he can fight. He was on television once.”

“Please, Jerry,” Mrs. Delaney said.

It was too much for Heidig, who got up and walked to the door. The woman walked with him, making no comment. Heidig turned to her then and desperately asked, “What kind of a person was your son-in-law, Mrs. Delaney?”

Her pale face told him nothing, but her lips began to tremble. “Must you do this? Must you do it now?”

Heidig walked slowly down the stairs to the street. The same big truck, with a diminished load of beer kegs, was leaving the bus-stop area. The significance of this had not yet registered with him. He went into McBride’s to look up the number of The Copper Door in the Manhattan directory. Every man in the place was watching him. He stared from face to accusing face, then understood; they had learned his identity. The man named Phil, with his affinity for the role, was impatiently ready to be spokesman for the group.

“You never told us you were here to take a bow,” Phil said. He raised a morning tabloid in his hand. “The same cop with his name in the paper.”

“What about it?”

“The man o’ the week,” Phil said with deliberate scorn. “The people’s friend.” The hammy stagecraft of the man was maddening. “It won’t bring Jerry back to us, will it, officer?”

“Lay off it!” Heidig warned him.

The enormous man stepped closer. “You don’t like it and we don’t like it.” Phil gestured grandly with his arms. “These were Jerry’s friends. We don’t none of us like it. We’ve seen trigger-happy cops before.”

Heidig hit him then. He did it automatically, with reckless rage, in response to the soaring need within himself. He hit him cleanly, so that the big man staggered, falling back before he came at Heidig, roaring obscenely, his vast arms raised. Heidig hit him a second time with measured impact, dropping the barroom champion to the barroom floor. No one challenged this action. They were motionless at the bar. The man named Phil looked up at Heidig from where he was sprawled. He remained there, with the stamp of defeat upon him.

God help me now if ever You’re going to help me, Heidig prayed.

He didn’t go directly to The Copper Door. He stood for a long while at the counter of a white-tiled orangeade and hot-dog dispensary on a crowded corner of Sixty-third. The diluted, ten-cent fruit drink had grown lukewarm from the heat of his hand. He was reflecting how, as a first-grade detective, he had displayed, in slugging Phil, the smooth, imperturbable intelligence of a graduate maniac. But the problem receded from his thoughts, yielding always to the greater one: What kind of a man did I kill last night? Would Harrigan have fired at me?

From where Heidig stood he had been able to watch the luncheon guests depart from The Copper Door. It was half past two. Heidig crossed the street. There was, logically enough, a copper door set handsomely into a remodeled, clapboard Cape Cod kind of facade — something new for Sixty-third Street. Heidig opened the door and stepped inside. It was air-conditioned, as advertised.

“May I check your hat, sir?”

“I’m not exactly a customer,” Heidig said.

The slight girl stepped aside. There was a bar to the left and a dining area to the right. You descended three steps from the entranceway. There were hooked rugs on a dark-stained floor, a lot of copper pots hung high, a spread of candlelight. It looked tea-roomish and respectable. A big girl, blond as the straw around a bottle of wine, stood at the single table still occupied, and she was totaling a check. She walked to the cashier’s desk and then returned with change to the table. Her customers got up to leave. Heidig walked toward her.

“Mrs. Harrigan?”

She had been watching him. Her gaze was level and appraising. Her hands rested only tentatively on the dishes and glasses she had gathered to one side. The words of McBride’s bartender, “she could knock down a wall,” were sustained by her size, but not by the tiredness Heidig saw in her face. Her eyes were soft, and they were so inexpressibly sad he dared not look directly into them.

“I didn’t want to break in while you were still working,” Heidig said.

“You’re the law, huh?” She began to pick up the things she had set aside. “Well, it’s not your fault, and I don’t disgrace too easily. They know me here.” She cleared the table. “I’ll be back.”

Mrs. Harrigan walked well — her high hips rhythmic, but by no means on deliberate display. She returned in a moment, her hands behind her back, untying the doily-sized, frilly apron. She indicated a table near the door to the kitchen. There was a glass urn of coffee on the heater.

“Might as well sit here. A cup of coffee?”

“No thanks,” Heidig said; then he was sorry. His mouth was so dry he wanted to correct himself and say he would have the coffee, or anything else, and be grateful for it. “About your husband,” he began, “I’m sorry.”

“That’s official, huh? From the department?”

“I said I was sorry, that’s all. There’s nothing wrong with someone saying he is sorry.”

“Here, have the coffee, anyhow,” she said. “You look like you need it. Are you new on the job or something?”

“No,” he said, “I’m not new on the job.” In his distress, he tightened his fists and chewed his lips. He raised his eyes to meet her level glance. “I was on Eighth Avenue last night,” he said. “Outside the liquor store.”

It was as much as he could say. Mrs. Harrigan poured the coffee. She had a calm, easy way of doing things. She pressed the sugar toward him encouragingly. He looked at her now and his expression begged her understanding.

“You were the one?” she said. “Is that what you’re trying to say?”

Slowly, miserably, Heidig nodded.

“You poor, poor slob.” She spoke almost tenderly.

“Then you don’t hate me?”

“Why should I hate you? What’s the percentage? Is that why you came here — just to tell me you were the one?”

“That and other things,” he said. “That and how I keep remembering the way your husband looked. It’s like I tried to tell my wife last night. She thought I was crazy, but I told her I liked his face.”

“He was a good-lookin’ guy,” Mrs. Harrigan said. “I’ll swear to anyone he was good-lookin’.” She stirred the cup of black coffee in front of her, raised it, drained it and put it down. “He had a nice smile, huh?”

Heidig stared at the top of the table. “I guess you know what I mean.”

“I guess I do.”

“I was in McBride’s place today. You know — uptown? Next to where you live? They told me there what they thought of him. The bartender and a man named Phil. I kept trying to sell myself the proposition that they were laying it on, about the talents he had, and what a guy he was. I had to come here.”

“He had a smile like a light switch, Jerry had,” Mary Harrigan said softly. “Turn it off and turn it on, whenever it was handy, an’ especially when he was scared. He made friends like a dog, wherever he went, and the only hand he bit was mine, when I stopped giving him money — when I threw him out!”

Heidig waited, hoping. There was no one else in the dining section. It was very still. The hat-check girl was gone. You could barely hear the voices in the bar.

“The talents he had? Sure he could play a piano. He could sing a song. He must have been a sensation in McBride’s. He used to tell the kids what a fighter he was; then later, when they were asleep, he’d prove it by lickin’ me, as big as I am. He had a talent for everything except finding a job that might spoil his beautiful clothes.” Suddenly she raised her hands to her face, her shoulders shook. “God forgive me,” she said, “I’m almost glad he’s dead!”

He remained still. There was nothing he could say. The girl sobbed softly. Morris Lerner had come into the place and he was standing near the hat-check booth. The clock on the wall said it was ten minutes after three.

“You think I’m awful, don’t you?” Mrs. Harrigan said. “A nice guy like you, a clean guy like you — to hear a woman say these things? Me, with two decent kids to raise? Do you think I’d want it to be true?”

“No, ma’am,” he said.

“Then wish me luck.”

He wished her luck and stood up. There seemed nothing more to say. He longed for his pockets to be fat with money, but that just didn’t happen to honest cops. He pressed her hands and said, “You’ll do all right. Your kids’ll do all right.” And then he hurried out.

He walked with Morris in the heavy heat along the shaded side of Broadway. They were silent for a while, but then he said, “How did you discover The Copper Door?”

“Well, frankly, George,” said Morris, “you were as hard to find as the City Hall. I went up to that address on Columbus Avenue because Sheila phoned and said she was worried. You punched a guy in a place called McBride’s and they told me there you’d been to see a Mrs. Delaney. You can’t beat the department’s scientific methods, George. What did you learn about this Harrigan?”

“He was a bum — I think.”

“That makes you feel better?”

Heidig stopped on the sidewalk. “Morris, look; don’t rub it in. Whether the guy was a bum or he was a saint, the thing I didn’t mention to you last night was this: Did I fire too soon? Could I have given him more time?”

“Yeah, I suppose so,” Morris said, looking at him strangely. “You could have given him time to take that automatic apart and reload it.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that Harrigan’s gun jammed, George. I turned it in last night and I phoned for a report from Homicide this afternoon. You didn’t fire too soon at all. You’re lucky to be alive.”

They walked slowly together in the summer afternoon. A little breeze came up from the south. It was a miserable breeze that hardly stirred the lazy dust of the day.

“I feel like I’m sailing up the Hudson,” said Heidig expansively. “Come home and I’ll open some beer.”

~ ~ ~

There is also something of the innocence of which I spoke in the Introduction in this tale from the Twelfth volume. Moreover, in both life and literature, it is a seductive and insidious oversimplification to think of or to present people or circumstances as either black or white (in a nonracial sense). Think of a pair of young hoods, cheap punks — already the words have blackened them, made them creatures unworthy of sympathy. No crime story I can recall makes clearer the error in such superficial prejudgment.

Evan Hunter

The Last Spin[12]

The boy sitting opposite him was his enemy.

The boy sitting opposite him was called Tigo, and he wore a green silk jacket with an orange stripe on each sleeve. The jacket told Danny that Tigo was his enemy. The jacket shrieked, “Enemy, enemy!”

“This is a good piece,” Tigo said, indicating the gun on the table. “This runs you close to forty-five bucks, you try to buy it in a store. That’s a lot of money.”

The gun on the table was a Smith & Wesson .38 Police Special.

It rested exactly in the center of the table, its sawed-off, two-inch barrel abruptly terminating the otherwise lethal grace of the weapon. There was a checked walnut stock on the gun, and the gun was finished in a flat blue. Alongside the gun were three .38 Special cartridges.

Danny looked at the gun disinterestedly. He was nervous and apprehensive, but he kept tight control of his face. He could not show Tigo what he was feeling. Tigo was the enemy, and so he presented a mask to the enemy, cocking one eyebrow and saying, “I seen pieces before. There’s nothing special about this one.”

“Except what we got to do with it,” Tigo said. Tigo was studying him with large brown eyes. The eyes were moist-looking. He was not a bad-looking kid, Tigo, with thick black hair and maybe a nose that was too long, but his mouth and chin were good. You could usually tell a cat by his mouth and his chin. Tigo would not turkey out of this particular rumble. Of that, Danny was sure.

“Why don’t we start?” Danny asked. He wet his lips and looked across at Tigo.

“You understand,” Tigo said, “I got no bad blood for you.”

“I understand.”

“This is what the club said. This is how the club said we should settle it. Without a big street diddlebop, you dig? But I want you to know I don’t know you from a hole in the wall — except you wear a blue and gold jacket.”

“And you wear a green and orange one,” Danny said, “and that’s enough for me.”

“Sure, but what I was trying to say...”

“We going to sit and talk all night, or we going to get this thing rolling?” Danny asked.

“What I’m tryin to say,” Tigo went on, “is that I just happened to be picked for this, you know? Like to settle this thing that’s between the two clubs. I mean, you got to admit your boys shouldn’t have come in our territory last night.”

“I got to admit nothing,” Danny said flatly.

“Well, anyway, they shot at the candy store. That wasn’t right. There’s supposed to be a truce on.”

“Okay, okay,” Danny said.

“So like... like this is the way we agreed to settle it. I mean, one of us and... and one of you. Fair and square. Without any street boppin’, and without any law trouble.”

“Let’s get on with it,” Danny said.

“I’m trying to say, I never even seen you on the street before this. So this ain’t nothin’ personal with me. Whichever way it turns out, like...”

“I never seen you neither,” Danny said.

Tigo stared at him for a long time. “That’s cause you’re new around here. Where you from originally?”

“My people come down from the Bronx.”

“You got a big family?”

“A sister and two brothers, that’s all.”

“Yeah, I only got a sister.” Tigo shrugged. “Well.” He sighed. “So.” He sighed again. “Let’s make it, huh?”

“I’m waitin’,” Danny said.

Tigo picked up the gun, and then he took one of the cartridges from the table top. He broke open the gun, slid the cartridge into the cylinder, and then snapped the gun shut and twirled the cylinder. “Round and round she goes,” he said, “and where she stops, nobody knows. There’s six chambers in the cylinder and only one cartridge. That makes the odds five-to-one that the cartridge’ll be in firing position when the cylinder stops whirling. You dig?”

“I dig.”

“I’ll go first,” Tigo said.

Danny looked at him suspiciously. “Why?”

“You want to go first?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’m giving you a break.” Tigo grinned. “I may blow my head off first time out.”

“Why you giving me a break?” Danny asked.

Tigo shrugged. “What the hell’s the difference?” He gave the cylinder a fast twirl.

“The Russians invented this, huh?” Danny asked.

“Yeah.”

“I always said they was crazy bastards.”

“Yeah, I always...” Tigo stopped talking. The cylinder was stopped now. He took a deep breath, put the barrel of the .38 to his temple, and then squeezed the trigger.

The firing pin clicked on an empty chamber.

“Well, that was easy, wasn’t it?” he asked. He shoved the gun across the table. “Your turn, Danny.”

Danny reached for the gun. It was cold in the basement room, but he was sweating now. He pulled the gun toward him, then left it on the table while he dried his palms on his trousers. He picked up the gun then and stared at it.

“It’s a nifty piece,” Tigo said. “I like a good piece.”

“Yeah, I do too,” Danny said. “You can tell a good piece just by the way it feels in your hand.”

Tigo looked surprised. “I mentioned that to one of the guys yesterday, and he thought I was nuts.”

“Lots of guys don’t know about pieces,” Danny said, shrugging.

“I was thinking,” Tigo, said, “when I get old enough, I’ll join the Army, you know? I’d like to work around pieces.”

“I thought of that, too. I’d join now only my old lady won’t give me permission. She’s got to sign if I join now.”

“Yeah, they’re all the same,” Tigo said, smiling. “Your old lady born here or the old country?”

“The old country,” Danny said.

“Yeah, well, you know they got these old-fashioned ideas.”

“I better spin,” Danny said.

“Yeah,” Tigo agreed.

Danny slapped the cylinder with his left hand. The cylinder whirled, whirled, and then stopped. Slowly, Danny put the gun to his head. He wanted to close his eyes, but he didn’t dare. Tigo, the enemy, was watching him. He returned Tigo’s stare, and then he squeezed the trigger.

His heart skipped a beat, and then over the roar of his blood he heard the empty click. Hastily, he put the gun down on the table.

“Makes you sweat, don’t it?” Tigo said.

Danny nodded, saying nothing. He watched Tigo. Tigo was looking at the gun.

“Me now, huh?” Tigo said. He took a deep breath, then picked up the .38. He twirled the cylinder, waited for it to stop, and then put the gun to his head.

“Bang!” Tigo said, and then he squeezed the trigger. Again the firing pin clicked on an empty chamber. Tigo let out his breath and put the gun down.

“I thought I was dead that time,” he said.

“I could hear the harps,” Danny said.

“This is a good way to lose weight, you know that?” Tigo laughed nervously, and then his laugh became honest when he saw Danny was laughing with him. “Ain’t it the truth? You could lose ten pounds this way.”

“My old lady’s like a house,” Danny said, laughing. “She ought to try this kind of a diet.” He laughed at his own humor, pleased when Tigo joined him.

“That’s the trouble,” Tigo said. “You see a nice deb in the Street, you think it’s crazy, you know? Then they get to be our people’s age, and they turn to fat.” He shook his head.

“You got a chick?” Danny asked.

“Yeah, I got one.”

“What’s her name?”

“Aw, you don’t know her.”

“Maybe I do,” Danny said.

“Her name is Juana.” Tigo watched him. “She’s about five-two, got these brown eyes...”

“I think I know her,” Danny said. He nodded. “Yeah, I think I know her.”

“She’s nice, ain’t she?” Tigo asked. He leaned forward, as if Danny’s answer was of great importance to him.

“Yeah, she’s nice,” Danny said.

“The guys rib me about her. You know, all they’re after... well, you know... they don’t understanding something like Juana.”

“I got a chick, too,” Danny said.

“Yeah. Hey maybe sometime we could...” Tigo cut himself short. He looked down at the gun, and his sudden enthusiasm seemed to ebb completely. “It’s your turn,” he said.

“Here goes nothing,” Danny said. He twirled the cylinder, sucked in his breath, and then fired.

The empty click was loud in the stillness of the room.

“Man!” Danny said.

“We’re pretty lucky, you know?” Tigo said.

“So far.”

“We better lower the odds. The boys won’t like it if we...” He stopped himself again, and then reached for one of the cartridges on the table. He broke open the gun again, and slipped the second cartridge into the cylinder. “Now we got two cartridges in here,” he said. “Two cartridges, six chambers. That’s four-to-two. Divide it, and you get two-to-two.” He paused. “You game?”

“That’s... that’s what we’re here for, ain’t it?”

“Sure.”

“Okay then.”

“Gone,” Tigo said, nodding his head. “You got courage, Danny.”

“You’re the one needs the courage,” Danny said gently. “It’s your spin.”

Tigo lifted the gun. Idly, he began spinning the cylinder.

“You live on the next block, don’t you?” Danny asked.

“Yeah.” Tigo kept slapping the cylinder. It spun with a gently whirring sound.

“That’s how come we never crossed paths, I guess. Also, I’m new on the scene.”

“Yeah, well you know, you get hooked up with one club, that’s the way it is.”

“You like the guys on your club?” Danny asked, wondering why he was asking such a stupid question, listening to the whirring of the cylinder at the same time.

“They’re okay.” Tigo shrugged. “None of them really send me, but that’s the club on my block, so what’re you gonna do, huh?” His hand left the cylinder. It stopped spinning. He put the gun to his head.

“Wait!” Danny said.

Tigo looked puzzled. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing. I just wanted to say... I mean...” Danny frowned. “I don’t dig too many of the guys on my club, either.”

Tigo nodded. For a moment, their eyes locked. Then Tigo shrugged, and fired.

The empty click filled the basement room.

“Phew,” Tigo said.

“Man, you can say that again.”

Tigo slid the gun across the table.

Danny hesitated an instant. He did not want to pick up the gun. He felt sure that this time the firing pin would strike the percussion cap of one of the cartridges. He was sure that this time he would shoot himself.

“Sometimes I think I’m turkey,” he said to Tigo, surprised that his thoughts had found voice.

“I feel that way sometimes, too,” Tigo said.

“I never told that to nobody,” Danny said. “The guys on my club would laugh at me, I ever told them that.”

“Some things you got to keep to yourself. There ain’t nobody you can trust in this world.”

“There should be somebody you can trust,” Danny said. “Hell, you can’t tell nothing to your people. They don’t understand.”

Tigo laughed. “That’s an old story. But that’s the way things are. What’re you gonna do?”

“Yeah. Still, sometimes I think I’m turkey.”

“Sure, sure,” Tigo said. “It ain’t only that, though. Like sometimes... well, don’t you wonder what you’re doing stomping some guy in the street? Like... you know what I mean? Like... who’s the guy to you? What you got to beat him up for? ’Cause he messed with somebody else’s girl?” Tigo shook his head. “It gets complicated sometimes.”

“Yeah, but...” Danny frowned again. “You got to stick with the club. Don’t you?”

“Sure, sure... hell yes.” Again, their eyes locked.

“Well, here goes.” Danny said. He lifted the gun. “It’s just...” He shook his head, and then twirled the cylinder. The cylinder spun, and then stopped. He studied the gun, wondering if one of the cartridges would roar from the barrel when he squeezed the trigger.

Then he fired.

Click.

“I didn’t think you was going through with it,” Tigo said.

“I didn’t neither.”

“You got heart, Danny,” Tigo said. He looked at the gun. He picked it up and broke it open.

“What you doing?” Danny asked.

“Another cartridge,” Tigo said. “Six chambers, three cartridges. That makes it even money. You game?”

“You?”

“The boys said...” Tigo stopped talking. “Yeah, I’m game,” he added, his voice curiously low.

“It’s your turn, you know.”

“I know,”

Danny watched as Tigo picked up the gun.

“You ever been rowboating on the lake?”

Tigo looked across the table at Danny, his eyes wide. “Once,” he said. “I went with Juana.”

“Is it... is it any kicks?”

“Yeah. Yeah, its grand kicks. You mean you never been?”

“No,” Danny said.

“Hey, you got to try it, man,” Tigo said excitedly. “You’ll like it. Hey, you try it.”

“Yeah, I was thinking maybe this Sunday I’d...” He did not complete the sentence.

“My spin,” Tigo said wearily. He twirled the cylinder. “Here goes a good man,” he said, and he put the revolver to his head and squeezed the trigger.

Click.

Danny smiled nervously. “No rest for the weary,” he said. “But Jesus you’ve got heart. I don’t know if I can go through with it.”

“Sure, you can,” Tigo assured him. “Listen, what’s there to be afraid of?” He slid the gun across the table.

“We keep this up all night?” Danny asked.

“They said... you know...”

“Well, it ain’t so bad. I mean, hell, we didn’t have this operation, we wouldn’ta got a chance to talk, huh?” He grinned feebly.

“Yeah,” Tigo said, his face splitting in a wide grin. “It ain’t been so bad, huh?”

“No, it’s been... well, you know, these guys on the club, who can talk to them?”

He picked up the gun.

“We could...” Tigo started.

“What?”

“We could say... well... like we kept shootin’ an’ nothing happened, so...” Tigo shrugged. “What the hell! We can’t do this all night, can we?”

“I don’t know.”

“Let’s make this the last spin. Listen, they don’t like it, they can take a flying leap, you know?”

“I don’t think they’ll like it. We’re supposed to settle this for the clubs.”

“Screw the clubs!” Tigo said. “Can’t we pick our own...” The word was hard coming. When it came, his eyes did not leave Danny’s face. “... friends?”

“Sure we can,” Danny said vehemently. “Sure we can! Why not?”

“The last spin,” Tigo said. “Come on, the last spin.”

“Gone,” Danny said. “Hey you know, I’m glad they got this idea. You know that? I’m actually glad!” He twirled the cylinder. “Look, you want to go on the lake this Sunday? I mean with your girl and mine? We could get two boats. Or even one if you want.”

“Yeah, one boat,” Tigo said. “Hey, your girl’ll like Juana, I mean it. She’s a swell chick.”

The cylinder stopped. Danny put the gun to his head quickly.

“Here’s to Sunday,” he said. He grinned at Tigo, and Tigo grinned back, and then Danny fired.

The explosion rocked the small basement room, ripping away half of Danny’s head, shattering his face. A small cry escaped Tigo’s throat, and a look of incredulous shock knifed his eyes.

Then he put his head on the table and began weeping.

~ ~ ~

From the 13th anthology...

Here’s a scene of routine domesticity — the boss coming home to dinner — a scene enacted so commonly in real life and so milked of every comic element by fiction and television that it has become trite — except that Charles Mergendahl has seasoned it with such mind-clutching horror that I wager you will long remember...

Charles Mergendahl

Secret Recipe[13]

“You’re sure?” Simon said into the phone. “Nothing you want me to pick up on the way home?”

“No, everything’s fine, dear. Polly’s gone off with little Susie Steele, and I’ve planned a very exotic dinner — just like you suggested.”

“Well, it is important,” Simon said.

“Of course it is, dear.” Sheila’s voice sounded calm, almost too calm, and for a moment there he felt serious doubts.

He shook them off. “Well,” he said, “We’ll be there in a few minutes.”

“I’ll be waiting.”

“And Mr. Brevoort likes his martinis very dry.”

“I’ll place the vermouth bottle quite near the gin, then snatch if right away again.” She laughed, almost gaily.

He said good-bye and hung up, then sat there a moment, still hearing the gay laughter. “Not tonight,” he prayed. “Please, God, not tonight!”

His secretary appeared in the office doorway. Her liquid eyes looked at his nervous hands, his teeth biting down on a lower lip. “It’s five o’clock, Simon.”

“Oh... Thanks, Ida.”

“Mrs. Brevoort arrived just a minute ago. I told Mr. Brevoort you’d pick them both up on your way out.”

“Yes, that’s fine.”

Ida hesitated, then moved into the office and closed the door behind her. “Simon?”

“Yes?”

“You think it’s wise?”

“What else can I do?” He waved his hands helplessly. “The promotion comes up next Tuesday, and you know Brevoort — he likes to visit a man’s home before making any real decision about him. So I’ve got to have them to dinner, and there’s just no way out at all.”

“Poor Simon.” Ida sat on the edge of the desk and caressed the little brown hairs at the back of his neck. “I keep remembering,” she said softly, “those six months when your wife was away.”

“Yeah.” He laughed ironically. “Away.”

“She might go away again,” said Ida.

“She will,” he said.

Silence for a moment, while Ida’s fingers stroked his neck. Then suddenly she bent and kissed him, her familiar lips moving roughly against his own. “Poor Simon,” and then matter-of-factly, “well, it’s five after five.” She slipped off the desk and straightened her blouse. She said, “Don’t worry, it’ll work out,” and left the office.

“It’ll work out,” Simon said. He rose, wiped off Ida’s lipstick, and began clearing his desk. Beyond the door one of the stenographers giggled, and he sat again and put his hands over his ears. “Not tonight. Please, Sheila, don’t do anything wrong tonight.” He pulled upright and straightened his tie. He took a deep breath, put on his hat, smiled reassuringly at Ida as he passed her, and strode down the hallway toward the office of Mr. Walter Brevoort, President.

The October leaves fell like huge brown snowflakes as he drove through the early evening streets toward his home in Brentwood. Behind him in the rear seat, the Brevoorts sat apart from each other, staring out opposite windows. Mr. Brevoort was squat and bald with a fringe of white hair above his ears. His wife was plump and jolly.

Mrs. Brevoort said, “You have a daughter, don’t you, Simon?”

“Yes. Polly, twelve, and she’s quite a beautiful child.” He laughed, apologizing for his own pride. But Polly was beautiful all the same. Blonde and slender and he loved her terribly. In a domineering way, perhaps; possessively, perhaps. “She’s beautiful,” he said again.

“Must get it from her mother.” Mr. Brevoort chuckled at his own joke, and Simon said that yes. Sheila was attractive, too, and remembered that he had actually thought so once — before she’d been sent away to the sanitarium and returned with her “odd” ways that he’d tried to tolerate and now despised. “She might go away again,” Ida had said, and “She will,” he had said. And she would, too, because that was the way he had planned it. Push her and push her. Exaggerate her idiosyncracies to Doctor Birnam. Turn Polly against her. Drive her to the breaking point. Make her into a blabbering idiot. But not tonight. “Not tonight,” he said aloud.

“What’s that Simon?” Mr. Brevoort asked.

“Nothing. Nothing.” And he drove on through the dropping leaves, to the neat white house on the corner beneath the trees.

“Lovely,” said Mrs. Brevoort as he helped her out.

He said, “We love our little house,” and practically held his breath all the way up the walk, and did not breathe easily again until Sheila opened the door to greet them, and he saw that everything was going to be all right. She was dressed smartly in black, her dark brown hair done up neatly, her words slow and gracious, so that nothing gave her away at all — except perhaps the unusual brightness in her dark eyes, the twisted little smile on her lips when she raised them for his greeting kiss.

Mrs. Brevoort said, “What a liveable room!” and Mr. Brevoort slumped his squat body into an upholstered chair and said, “Tell a lot about a man from his home life. A man’s life gets upset at home, it’s bound to show up in his work.”

“Yes, sir,” Simon said.

“Bound to.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Like to meet your daughter, Simon.”

“Later,” Simon said. “She’s off with some friends just now.” He looked at Sheila, who was serving the cocktails. “Where’d Polly go, dear?”

“The early movie,” Sheila said. “She’ll be back by seven.”

“Then we can meet her,” said Mrs. Brevoort.

“She’s her father’s daughter,” said Sheila, and went into the kitchen.

Simon looked after her, frowning.

“Charming,” said Mrs. Brevoort.

“Lovely wife,” said her husband. “Don’t know how you lived without her all those months she was visiting her family.”

Simon mumbled something about its having been a difficult time for everyone, downed his own martini, murmured an apology, and went into the kitchen, letting the door swing shut behind him.

Sheila was bent over the stove, stirring the casserole before slipping it into the oven. “Everything all right?” he asked carefully.

“Perfect. Except you’re planning to send me back to the sanitarium and take Polly away from me and keep carrying on with that Ida girl.”

“Sheila...”

“Otherwise everything’s fine.”

“Not tonight, Sheila.”

“Last night and last week and last month. But not tonight.”

“If you’d try to understand—”

“Oh, I do, Simon. I understand perfectly. I’m to play a little game that will help you get rid of me and keep Polly for yourself.”

“Look, Sheila—”

“And maybe you will get rid of me, but you won’t get Polly.”

“All right,” he said. “Not now. Not now!”

She turned and smiled a little. Her eyes had become very bright, he thought, like that night months ago, just before the men had come in their white coats. He felt suddenly cold and said, “Anything I can do?”

“Take out the garbage if you like.”

“After dinner.”

“Now, before it smells up the kitchen.”

He stepped on the pedal and drew the pail from the white container. The disposal bag was full, sealed tight.

“Don’t open it,” she said. “It’ll make you sick.”

He shrugged, carried the pail out the back door, dumped the bag into the garbage can, then returned to the kitchen.

“Anything else?” he said.

“Just remember what I told you.”

“I’m warning you. Sheila—” But he stopped then. He could not threaten her now. He should not have threatened her last night either. She was insanely jealous, and he had to handle her very delicately until after the Brevoorts had gone.

He went back to the living room and poured everyone a second martini. The phone rang. It was Mrs. Steele. She wanted to know if Susie were visiting Polly, and if so, to send her right home to dinner. He told her that Polly and Susie had gone to the five o’clock movie, and Mrs. Steele said that was funny because Susie hadn’t come home to ask her permission.

“Just a minute.” He put down the receiver and called to Sheila. “You’re sure Polly went to the movies?”

“Of course I’m sure.” Sheila came out of the kitchen and stood there watching him.

“But Mrs. Steele said that was funny—”

“It isn’t funny. I don’t see what’s funny about it.” Her eyes were peculiarly bright again. He mumbled something to Mrs. Steele, then hung up and rejoined the Brevoorts. They were talking about a new television series that was a perfect howl, and he agreed, but could not seem to concentrate. He looked out the window and saw that dark had come rather suddenly tonight. He thought that Polly should not be out in the dark. He looked at Sheila, who was talking animatedly to Mrs. Brevoort. He thought her eyes should not be quite so bright, her lips not quite so moist and red. She should not be laughing quite so much.

“Simon.”

He started.

“Phil Silvers—”

“Yes, a riot.”

“You’re not paying attention,” Sheila chided.

“I’m sorry. I was thinking about what Mrs. Steele said. I was wondering where Polly’s really gone.”

“I told you Simon, I know where she’s gone.”

Her laughter again, as from another room, another world, before she rose and announced that dinner was ready.

Simon sat at the head of the rectangular table with Mrs. Brevoort on his left and Mr. Brevoort on his right. Sheila lit the candles, then went into the kitchen and brought out the casserole in a large copper chafing dish. She lit the little burner in the wrought-iron frame and set the chafing dish over it. “It won’t really cook this way,” she explained, “but it looks nice, and it does keep it hot.”

Simon looked out the window again. Dry leaves brushed against the glass. He clenched his hand under the table. He thought Sheila was talking too much. It was deep dark outside. He heard Mrs. Brevoort give a little exclamation of delight as her plate was served. He heard Mr. Brevoort say, “Curry... Anything curried... Love it, love it...” Then his own plate was set before him and he looked down at it, steaming there in the candlelight.

Mrs. Brevoort had taken a tentative taste. She said, “Mmm,” and “Delicious, but what in the world is it?”

“A secret recipe,” Sheila said, “though I have to admit I’ve never tried it before.”

“A triumph,” said Mr. Brevoort.

“Simon?” Sheila said.

“Oh, yes... Yes.” He tasted the casserole. It was heavily seasoned, disguising another odd flavor he could not distinguish. “Not bad,” he said. He glanced up and noticed that Sheila’s plate was empty. “Aren’t you having any?”

“I’m not hungry.”

“But you never miss dinner.”

“I know. But tonight I’m just not hungry.”

That laughter again, the red moist lips, the bright gleaming eyes. Outside a slight wind began rustling the trees, and a child shrieked something in the darkness. He felt cold again. He wished Polly were home. He wished tonight were over and the promotion were all set so that he did not have to pretend with Sheila any longer. He could get her committed — for good — and he could sell this house he hated and take Polly with him and go to Ida.

“You’re not eating, Simon.”

“Yes, it’s good. Very good.” But he was not hungry. He had never liked strange foods, and had only insisted on this exotic dish because of the Brevoorts. He took another tentative mouthful, noticed a long blonde hair on his fork, and drew it off surreptitiously, thinking idly that it was one of Polly’s, of course, because Sheila’s hair was a darkish brown. He was vaguely aware of the trees shaking in the rising wind. Mr. Brevoort said, “Yes, I will have seconds, please,” and Mrs. Brevoort said, “You’ve simply got to give me the recipe. Onions and mushrooms and peppers and curry... And I presume the meat was sauteéd, but what is it?” Sheila laughed secretly and he took another bite, and it was then that he found the fingernail. It was small and sharp and curved. It had caught between his teeth, and when he first examined it under the flickering light of the candle, he was not quite sure what it was. Then, when he did understand, it was only with a strange sense of detachment, until he looked up again and found Sheila smiling at him.

“Something the matter, dear?”

“No. Just something I—”

“Don’t worry, dear. I know where Polly is.”

“I know... I know.” He placed the fingernail carefully on the side of his plate. He stared at it vacantly. “You will not get Polly,” Sheila had said. “I know where she is... It’s a secret recipe... And take out the garbage, but don’t open the bag or you’ll be sick...” Her eyes were too bright. She laughed too much, and deep down she’d always disliked his affection for Polly, and she’d never refused to eat dinner before. She had brown hair and her fingernails were long and red, and had not been cut for days. The wind sighed through the trees. And it was funny, Mrs. Steele had said. And why didn’t Polly come home, and why had he been so terribly cold all evening, and why was he dizzy now, his hand trembling beyond control, his body beginning to shake, too, in a horrible spasm that would not stop?

“Chicken?” said Mrs. Brevoort.

“No, not chicken.”

“Veal?” said Mr. Brevoort.

“No.”

“Lamb?”

“No.”

“Pork?”

“No.” Sheila was still smiling. “Do you want to guess, Simon? Or did you peek? I bet you peeked when you were taking out the garbage. Simon... Simon?”

Simon screamed. He rose and screamed again and then again. He rushed to the door and screamed into the windy night “Polly!... Polly!” He ran back through the house and out the kitchen door, down the steps to the garbage can. He raised the lid, put out a hand, then snatched it back again and let the lid drop with a clatter. He was violently ill, leaning shuddering against the porch while the leaves whirled up around him. “Oh, God,” he sobbed, “Oh, my God, my God!” He staggered back up the steps and into the living room. The Brevoorts were leaving, hurriedly, talking of getting a taxi. He hardly saw them. He was still screaming. The door closed and Sheila turned to him and said, “Now see what you’ve done, Simon? They don’t think we have a happy home at all.”

He kept on screaming. “You’re crazy... Really crazy... And this time you’re going away for good,” and “Oh, my God, oh, my God,” as he stumbled to the phone and dialed Doctor Birnam with trembling hands. His words were nearly incoherent. “I never realized... Something terrible... Bring the ambulance... Bring a strait jacket... Oh, my God!” while he laid his head against the receiver and shuddered and sobbed hysterically and could not stop.

“Terrible,” Doctor Birnam said, after the white-coated men had taken the protesting figure through the doorway. “Simply terrible.”

“But why?” sobbing uncontrollably. “Why... Why?”

The doctor shrugged. “These things are hard to explain. If you’d only seen it coming — but you couldn’t possibly have guessed.”

“And tonight, too — of all times — of all times when tonight was so important.”

“I just don’t — know.” The doctor put out a reassuring hand, then moved slowly toward the door. “Of course, we’ll do everything we can. A strait jacket for awhile, and then treatment — I just don’t know.” He opened the front door and said, “Well now, how’s my favorite little girl?”

“I’m fine,” Polly said as she stepped inside. The doctor left and Polly said, “Susie’s going to get the dickens for going to the movies without telling her mother.” She looked around and said “Where’s Daddy?”

“Gone away.”

“For a long time?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“He said you were going away. But I’m glad it’s him instead of you.”

“Are you, darling?” She dried her tears. “Are you?”

Polly nodded, and said, “I’m famished.”

“So am I.”

They sat at the table and she served them both a large portion of the casserole, still hot over the little burner.

“It’s good,” Polly said. “What is it?”

“Guess.”

“Chicken?”

“No, not chicken.”

“Veal?”

“No.”

“Then what?”

“A secret recipe,” she said, and smiled fondly, faintly at her daughter.

~ ~ ~

From the 14th anthology...

The appeal of this story, one of my personal favorites among the twenty-four here collected, may lie at first glance in the puzzle element — a variant on the locked room which might be called a “locked road.” Intriguing as this is, I like the tale much more for its revelation of character. Read the story once for the pleasure of the narrative, then read it again for the volumes it reveals about the human reaction to tragedy — inexplicable tragedy at that.

Hugh Pentecost

The Day the Children Vanished[14]

On a bright, clear winter’s afternoon the nine children in the town of Clayton who traveled each day to the Regional School in Lake-view disappeared from the face of the earth, along with the bus in which they traveled and its driver, as completely as if they had been sucked up into outer space by some monstrous interplanetary vacuum cleaner.

Actually, in the time of hysteria which followed the disappearance, this theory was put forward by some distraught citizen of Clayton, and not a few people, completely stumped for an explanation, gave consideration to it.

There was, of course, nothing interplanetary or supernatural about the disappearance of nine children, one adult, and a special-bodied station wagon which was used as a school bus. It was the result of callous human villainy. But, because there was no possible explanation for it, it assumed all the aspects of black magic in the minds of tortured parents and a bewildered citizenry.

Clayton is seven miles from Lakeview. Clayton is a rapidly growing quarry town. Lakeview, considerably larger and with a long history of planning for growth, recently built a new school. It was agreed between the boards of education of the two towns that nine children living at the east end of Clayton should be sent to the Lakeview School where there was adequate space and teaching staff. It was to be just a temporary expedient.

Since there were only nine children, they did not send one of the big, forty-eight passenger school buses to get them. A nine-passenger station wagon was acquired, properly painted and marked as a school bus, and Jerry Mahoney, a mechanic in the East Clayton Garage, was hired to make the two trips each day with the children.

Jerry Mahoney was well liked and respected. He had been a mechanic in the Air Force during his tour of duty in the armed services. He was a wizard with engines. He was engaged to be married to Elizabeth Deering, who worked in the Clayton Bank and was one of Clayton’s choice picks. They were both nice people, responsible people.

The disappearance of the station wagon, the nine children and Jerry Mahoney took place on a two-mile stretch of road where disappearance was impossible. It was called the “dugway,” and it wound along the side of the lake. Heavy wire guard rails protected the road from the lake for the full two miles. There was not a gap in it anywhere.

The ground on the other side of the road rose abruptly upward into thousands of acres of mountain woodlands, so thickly grown that not even a tractor could have made its way up any part of it except for a few yards of deserted road that led to an abandoned quarry. Even over this old road nothing could have passed without leaving a trail of torn brush and broken saplings.

At the Lakeview end of the dugway was a filling station owned by old Jake Nugent. On the afternoon of the disappearance the bus, with Jerry Mahoney at the wheel and his carload of kids laughing and shouting at each other, stopped at old man Nugent’s. Jerry Mahoney had brought the old man a special delivery letter from the post office, thus saving the RFD driver from making a special trip. Jerry and old Jake exchanged greetings, the old man signed the receipt for his letter — which was from his son in Chicago asking for a loan of fifty dollars — and Jerry drove off into the dugway with his cargo of kids.

At the Clayton end of the dugway was Joe Gorman’s Diner, and one of the children in Jerry’s bus was Peter Gorman, Joe’s son. The diner was Jerry’s first stop coming out of the dugway with his cargo of kids.

It was four-thirty in the afternoon when Joe Gorman realized that the bus was nearly three-quarters of an hour late. Worried, he called the school in Lakeview and was told by Miss Bromfield, the principal, that the bus had left on schedule.

“He may have had a flat, or something,” Miss Bromfield suggested.

This was one of seven calls Miss Bromfield was to get in the next half hour, all inquiring about the bus. Nine children; seven families.

Joe Gorman was the first to do anything about it seriously. He called Jake Nugent’s filling station to ask about the bus, and Old Jake told him it had gone through from his place on schedule. So something had happened to Jerry and his busload of kids in the dugway. Joe got out his jeep and headed through the dugway toward Lakeview. He got all the way to Jake Nugent’s without seeing the bus or passing anyone coming the other way.

Jake Nugent was a shrewd old gent, in complete possession of all his faculties. He didn’t drink. When he said he had seen the bus — that it had stopped to deliver him his letter — and that he had watched it drive off into the dugway, you had to believe it. Cold sweat broke out on Joe Gorman’s face as he listened. The dugway had a tendency to be icy. He had noticed coming over that it hadn’t been sanded. Joe hadn’t been looking for a major tragedy. But if the bus had skidded, gone through the guard rail...

He used Jake’s phone to call the Dicklers in Clayton. The Dicklers’ two children, Dorothy and Donald, were part of Jerry’s load and they were the next stop after Joe’s Diner. The Dicklers were already alarmed because their children hadn’t appeared.

Joe didn’t offer any theories. He was scared, though. He called the trooper barracks in Lakeview and told them about the missing bus. They didn’t take it too seriously, but said they’d send a man out.

Joe headed back for Clayton. This time his heart was a lump in his throat. He drove slowly, staring at every inch of the wire guard rails. There was not a break anywhere, not a broken or bent post. The bus simply couldn’t have skidded over the embankment into the lake without smashing through the wire guard rail.

Joe Gorman felt better when he came out at his diner at the Clayton end. He felt better, but he felt dizzy. Five minutes later Trooper Teliski came whizzing through from Lakeview and stopped his car.

“What’s the gag?” he asked Joe.

Joe tried to light a cigarette and his hands were shaking so badly he couldn’t make it. Teliski snapped on his lighter and held it out. Joe dragged smoke deep into his lungs.

“Look,” he said. “The bus started through the dugway at the regular time.” He told about Jerry’s stop at Nugent’s. “It never came out this end.”

A nerve twitched in Teliski’s cheek. “The lake,” he said.

Joe shook his head. “I–I thought of that, right off. I just came through ahead of you — looking. Not a break in the guard rail anywhere. Not a scratch. Not a bent post. The bus didn’t go into the lake. I’ll stake my life on that.”

“Then what else?” Teliski asked. “It couldn’t go up the mountain.”

“I know,” Joe said, and the two men stared at each other.

“It’s some kind of a joke,” Teliski said.

“What kind of a joke? It’s no joke to me — or the Dicklers. I talked to them.”

“Maybe they had permission to go to a special movie or something,” Teliski said.

“Without notifying the parents? Miss Bromfield would have told me, anyway. I talked to her. Listen, Teliski. The bus went into the dugway and it didn’t come out. It’s not in the dugway now, and it didn’t go into the lake.”

Teliski was silent for a moment, and then he spoke with a solid attempt at common sense. “It didn’t come out this end,” he said, “We’ll check back on that guard rail, but let’s say you’re right. It didn’t skid into the lake. It couldn’t go up the mountain. So where does that leave us?”

“Going nuts!” Joe said.

“It leaves us with only one answer. The station wagon never went into the dugway.”

Joe Gorman nodded. “That’s logic,” he said. “But why would Jake Nugent lie? Jerry’s an hour and three-quarters late now. If he didn’t go in the dugway, where is he? Where could he go? Why hasn’t he telephoned if everything is okay?”

A car drove up and stopped. A man got out and came running toward them. It was Karl Dickler, father of two of the missing children. “Thank God you’re here, Teliski. What’s happened?”

“Some kind of a gag,” Teliski said. “We can’t figure it out. The bus never came through the dugway.”

“But it did!” Karl Dickler said.

“It never came out this end,” Joe Gorman said. “I was watching for Pete, naturally.”

“But it did come through!” Dickler said. “I passed them myself on the way to Lakeview. They were about half a mile this way from Jake Nugent’s. I saw them! I waved at my own kids!”

The three men stared at each other.

“It never came out this end,” Joe Gorman said, in a choked voice.

Dickler swayed and reached out to the trooper to steady himself. “The lake!” he whispered.

But they were not in the lake. Joe Gorman’s survey proved accurate; no broken wire, no bent post, not even a scratch...

It was nearly dark when the real search began. Troopers, the families of the children, the selectmen, the sheriff and twenty-five or thirty volunteer deputies, a hundred or more school friends of the missing children.

The lake was definitely out. Not only was the guard rail intact, but the lake was frozen over with about an inch of ice. There wasn’t a break in the smooth surface of the ice anywhere along the two miles of shore bordering the dugway.

Men and women and children swarmed through the woods on the other side of the road, knowing all the time it was useless. The road was called the “dugway” because it had been dug out of the side of the mountain. There was a gravel bank about seven feet high running almost unbrokenly along that side of the road. There was the one old abandoned trail leading to the quarry. It was clear, after walking the first ten yards of it, that no car had come that way. It couldn’t.

A hundred phone calls were made to surrounding towns and villages. No one had seen the station wagon, the children or Jerry Mahoney. The impossible had to be faced.

The bus had gone into the dugway and it hadn’t come out. It hadn’t skidded into the lake and it hadn’t climbed the impenetrable brush of the mountain. It was just gone! Vanished into thin air!...

Everyone was deeply concerned for and sympathetic with the Dicklers, and Joe Gorman, and the Williams, the Trents, the Ishams, the Nortons, and the Jennings, parents of the missing children. Nobody thought much about Jerry Mahoney’s family, or his girl.

It wasn’t reasonable, but as the evening wore on and not one speck of evidence was found or one reasonable theory advanced, people began to talk about Jerry Mahoney. He was the driver. The bus had to have been driven somewhere. It couldn’t navigate without Jerry Mahoney at the wheel. Jerry was the only adult involved. However it had been worked — this disappearance — Jerry must have had a hand in it.

It didn’t matter that, until an hour ago, Jerry had been respected, trusted, liked. Their children were gone and Jerry had taken them somewhere. Why? Ransom. They would all get ransom letters in the morning, they said. A mass kidnapping. Jerry had the kids somewhere. There weren’t any rich kids in Clayton so he was going to demand ransom from all seven families.

So Jerry Mahoney became a villain because there was no one else to suspect. Nobody stopped to think that Jerry’s father and Jerry’s girl might be as anxious about his absence as the others were about the missing children.

At nine-thirty Sergeant Mason and Trooper Teliski of the State Police, George Peabody, the sheriff, and a dozen men of the community including Joe Gorman and Karl Dickler stormed into the living room of Jerry Mahoney’s house where an old man with silvery white hair sat in an overstuffed armchair with Elizabeth Deering, Jerry’s fiancée, huddled on the floor beside him, her face buried on his knees, weeping.

The old man wore a rather sharply cut gray flannel suit, a bright scarlet vest with brass buttons and a green necktie that must have been designed for a Saint Patrick’s Day parade. As he stroked the girl’s blond hair, the light from the lamp reflected glittering shafts from a square-cut diamond in a heavy gold setting he wore on his little finger. He looked up at Sergeant Mason and his small army of followers, and his blue eyes stopped twinkling as he saw the stern look on the Sergeant’s face.

“All right, Pat,” Sergeant Mason said. “What’s Jerry done with those kids?” Pat Mahoney’s pale blue eyes met the Sergeant’s stare steadily. Then crinkles of mirth appeared at the corners of his eyes and mouth.

“I’d like to ask you something before I try to answer that,” Pat Mahoney said.

“Well?”

“Have you stopped beating your wife, Sergeant?” Pat Mahoney asked. His cackle of laughter was the only sound in the room...

There are those who are old enough to remember the days when Mahoney and Faye were listed about fourth on a bill of eight star acts all around the Keith-Orpheum vaudeville circuit. Pat Mahoney was an Irish comic with dancing feet, and Nora Faye — Mrs. Mahoney to you — could match him at dancing and had the soprano voice of an angel.

Like so many people in show business, Pat was a blusterer, a boaster, a name dropper, but with it all a solid professional who would practice for hours a day to perfect a new routine, never missed an entrance in forty years, and up to the day young Jerry was born in a cheap hotel in Grand Rapids, Michigan, had given away half what he earned to deadbeats and hopeless failures.

The diamond ring he wore today had been in and out of a hundred hock shops. It had been the basis of his and Nora’s security for more years than he liked to remember.

If you were left alone with Pat for more than five minutes, he went back to the old days — to the people he had idolized, like Sophie Tucker, and Smith and Dale, and Williams and Wolfus, and Joe Jackson. he’d known them all, played on the same bills with them all. “But,” he would tell you, and a strange radiance would come into the pale blue eyes, “the greatest of them all was Nora Faye — Mrs. Mahoney to you.”

Once he was started on his Nora, there was no way of stopping Pat Mahoney. He told of her talents as a singer and dancer, but in the end it was a saga of endless patience, of kindness and understanding, of love for a fat-headed, vain little Irish comic, of tenderness as a mother, and finally of clear-eyed courage in the face of stark tragedy.

Mahoney and Faye had never played the Palace, the Broadway goal of all vaudevillians. Pat had worked on a dozen acts that would crack the ice and finally he’d made it.

“We’d come out in cowboy suits, all covered with jewels, and jeweled guns, and jeweled boots, and we’d do a little soft shoe routine, and then suddenly all the lights would go out and only the jewels would show — they were made special for that — and we’d go into a fast routine, pulling the guns, and twirling and juggling them, and the roof would fall in! Oh, we tried it out of town, and our agent finally got us the booking at the Palace we’d always dreamed of.”

There’d be a long silence then, and Pat would take a gaudy handkerchief from his hip pocket and blow his nose with a kind of angry violence. “I can show you the costumes still. They’re packed away in a trunk in the attic. Just the way we wore them — me and Nora — the last time we ever played. Atlantic City it was. And she came off after the act with the cheers still ringing in our ears, and down she went on the floor of the dressing room, writhing in pain.

“Then she told me. It had been getting worse for months. She didn’t want me to know. The doctor had told her straight out. She’d only a few months she could count on. She’d never said a word to me — working toward the Palace — knowing I’d dreamed of it. And only three weeks after that — she left us. Me and Jerry — she left us. We were standing by her bed when she left — and the last words she spoke were to Jerry. ‘Take care of Pat,’ she says to him. ‘He’ll be helpless without someone to take care of him.’ And then she smiled at me, and all the years were in that smile.”

And then, wherever he happened to be when he told the story, Pat Mahoney would wipe the back of his hand across his eyes and say: “If you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll be going home...”

Nobody laughed when Pat pulled the old courtroom wheeze about “have you stopped beating your wife” on Sergeant Mason. Pat looked past the Sergeant at Trooper Teliski, and Joe Gorman, and Karl Dickler, and Mr. and Mrs. Jennings, whose two daughters were in the missing bus, and George Peabody, the fat, wheezing sheriff.

“The question I asked you, Sergeant,” he said, “makes just as much sense as the one you asked me. You asked me what Nora’s boy had done with those kids. There’s no answer to that question. Do I hear you saying, ‘I know what you must be feeling, Pat Mahoney, and you, Elizabeth Deering? And is there anything we can do for you in this hour of your terrible anxiety?’ I don’t hear you saying that. Sergeant.”

“I’m sorry, Pat,” Mason said. “Those kids are missing. Jerry had to take them somewhere.”

“No!” Liz Deering cried. “You all know Jerry better than that!”

They didn’t, it seemed, but they could be forgiven. You can’t confront people with the inexplicable without frightening them and throwing them off balance. You can’t endanger their children and expect a sane reaction. They muttered angrily, and old Pat saw the tortured faces of Joe Gorman and Karl Dickler and the swollen red eyes of Mrs. Jennings.

“Has he talked in any way queerly to you, Pat?” Mason asked. “Has he acted normal of late?”

“Nora’s boy is the most normal boy you ever met,” Pat Mahoney said, “You know that, Sergeant. Why, you’ve known him since he was a child.”

Mrs. Jennings screamed out: “he’d protect his son. Naturally he’d protect his son. But he’s stolen our children!”

“The Pied Piper rides again,” Pat Mahoney said.

“Make him talk!” Mrs. Jennings cried, and the crowd around her muttered louder.

“When did you last see Jerry, Pat?”

“Breakfast,” Pat said. “He has his lunch at Joe Gorman’s Diner.” The corner of his mouth twitched. “He should have been home for dinner long ago.”

“Did he have a need for money?” Mason asked.

“Money? He was a man respected — until now — wasn’t he? He was a man with a fine girl in love with him, wasn’t he? What need would he have for money?”

“Make him answer sensibly!” Mrs. Jennings pleaded in a despairing voice.

Joe Gorman stepped forward. “Pat, maybe Jerry got sick all of a sudden. It’s happened to men who saw action overseas. Maybe you saw signs of something and wouldn’t want to tell of it. But my Pete was on that bus, and Karl’s two, and Mrs. Jennings’ two. We’re nowhere. Pat — so if you can tell us anything! Our kids were on that bus!”

Pat Mahoney’s eyes, as he listened to Joe Gorman, filled with pain. “My kid is on that bus, too, Joe,” he said.

They all stared at him, some with hatred. And then, in the distance, they heard the wail of a siren. The troopers’ car was coming from Lakeview, hell-bent.

“Maybe it’s news!” someone shouted.

“News!”

And they all went stumbling out of the house to meet the approaching car — all but Elizabeth Deering, who stayed behind, clinging to the old man.

“I don’t understand it,” she said, her voice shaken. “They think he’s harmed their children, Pat! Why? Why would they think he’d do such a thing? Why?”

Old Pat’s eyes had a faraway look in them. “Did I ever tell you about The Great Thurston?” he asked. “Greatest magic act I ever saw.”

“Pat!” Elizabeth said, her eyes widening in horror.

“First time I ever caught his act was in Sioux City,” Pat said. “He came out in a flowing cape, and a silk hat, and he...”

Dear God, he’s losing his reason, Elizabeth Deering told herself. Let the news be good! Let them be found safe!

Outside the siren drew close.

The police car with its wailing siren carried news, but it was not the sort the people of Clayton were hoping to hear.

It was reassuring to know that within a few hours of the tragedy the entire area was alerted, that the moment daylight came a fleet of army helicopters would cover the area for hundreds of miles around, that a five-state alarm was out for the missing station wagon and its passengers, and that the Attorney General had sent the best man on his staff to direct and coordinate the search.

Top officials, viewing the case coldly and untouched by the hysteria of personal involvement, had a theory. Of course there had to be a rational explanation of the disappearance of the bus, and Clyde Haviland, tall, stoop-shouldered, scholarly looking investigator from the Attorney General’s office, was ordered to produce that explanation as soon as possible upon his arrival in Clayton. But beyond that, officials had no doubt as to the reason for the disappearance: this was a mass kidnaping; something novel in the annals of crime.

Since none of the families involved had means, Haviland and his superiors were convinced the next move in this strange charade would be a demand on the whole community to pay ransom for the children. The FBI was alerted to be ready to act the moment there was any indication of involvement across state lines.

While mothers wept and the menfolk grumbled angrily that Jerry Mahoney, the driver, was at the bottom of this, officialdom worked calmly and efficiently. The Air Force turned over its complete data on Technical Sergeant Jerry Mahoney to the FBI. Men who had known Jerry in the service were waked from their sleep or pulled out of restaurants or theaters to be questioned. Had he ever said anything that would indicate he might move into a world of violence? Did his medical history contain any record of mental illness?

Sitting at a desk in town hall, Clyde Haviland reported on some of this to George Peabody, the Sheriff, the town’s three selectmen. Sergeant Mason and a couple of other troopers. Haviland, carefully polishing his shell-rimmed glasses, was a quiet, reassuring sort of man. He had a fine reputation in the state. He was not an unfamiliar figure to people in Clayton because he had solved a particularly brutal murder in the neighboring town of Johnsville, and his investigation had brought him in and out of Clayton for several weeks.

“So far,” he said, with a faint smile, “the report on Jerry Mahoney is quite extraordinary.”

“In what way?” Sergeant Mason asked, eager for the scent of blood.

“Model citizen,” Haviland said. “No one has a bad word for him. No bad temper. Never held grudges. Never chiseled. Saves his money. His savings account in the Clayton bank would surprise some of you. On the face of it, this is the last person in the world to suspect.”

“There has to be a first time for everything,” Karl Dickler said. He was a selectman as well as one of the bereaved parents.

“It’s going down toward zero tonight,” George Peabody, the sheriff, said glumly. “If those kids are out anywhere—”

“They’re one hell of a long way from here by now, if you ask me,” Sergeant Mason said.

Haviland looked at him, his eyes unblinking behind the lenses of his glasses. “Except that they never came out of the dug-way.”

“Nobody saw them,” Mason said. “But they’re not there so they did come out.”

“They didn’t come out,” Joe Gorman said. “I was watching for them from the window of my diner at this end.”

“That was the three seconds you were getting something out of the icebox in your pantry,” Mason said.

“And I suppose everyone else along Main Street had his head in a closet at just that time!” Joe Gorman said.

“Or someone reached down out of the heavens and snatched that station wagon up into space,” Haviland said. He was looking at Peabody’s pudgy face as he spoke, and something he saw there made him add quickly: “I’m kidding, of course.”

Peabody laughed nervously. “It’s the only good explanation we’ve had so far.”

Karl Dickler put his hand up to his cheek. There was a nerve there that had started to twitch, regularly as the tick of a clock. “I like Jerry. I’d give the same kind of report on him you’ve been getting, Mr. Haviland. But you can’t pass up the facts. I’d have said he’d defend those kids with his life. But did he? And the old man — his father. He won’t answer questions directly. There’s something queer about him. Damn it, Mr. Haviland, my kids are — out there, somewhere!” He waved toward the frost-coated window panes.

“Every highway within two hundred miles of here is being patrolled, Mr. Dickler,” Haviland said. “If they’d driven straight away from here in daylight — granting Mason is right and everybody was in a closet when the station wagon went through town — they’d have been seen a hundred times after they left Clayton. There isn’t one report of anyone having seen the station wagon with the school-bus markings.” Haviland paused to light a cigarette. His tapering fingers were nicotine stained.

“If you’d ever investigated a crime, Mr. Dickler, you’d know we usually are swamped with calls from people who think they’ve seen the wanted man. A bus — a busload of kids. Somebody had to see it! But there isn’t even a crackpot report. If there was some place he could have stayed under cover — and don’t tell me, I know there isn’t — and started moving after dark, he might get some distance. But alarms are out everywhere. He couldn’t travel five miles now without being trapped.”

“We’ve told ourselves all these things for hours!” Dickler said, pinching savagely at his twitching cheek. “What are you going to do, Haviland?”

“Unless we’re all wrong,” Haviland said, “we’re going to hear from the kidnappers soon. Tonight — or maybe in the morning — by mail, or phone or in some unexpected way. But we’ll hear. They’ll demand money. What other purpose can there be? Once we hear, we’ll have to start to play it by ear. That’s the way those cases are.”

“Meanwhile you just sit here and wait!” Dickler said, a kind of despair rising in his voice. “What am I going to say to my wife?”

“I think all the parents of the children should go home. You may be the one the kidnappers contact. It may be your child they put on the phone to convince you the kids are safe,” Haviland said. “As soon as it’s daylight—”

“You think the kids are safe?” Dickler cried out.

Haviland stared at the distraught father for a minute. Then he spoke, gently. “What kind of assurance could I give you, Mr. Dickler? Even if I tried, you wouldn’t believe me. People who play this kind of game are without feelings, not rational. When you fight them, you have to walk quietly. If you scare them, God knows what to expect. That’s why I urge you all to go home and wait.” He dropped his cigarette on the floor and heeled it out. “And pray,” he said...

Elizabeth Deering, Jerry Mahoney’s girl, was sick with anxiety. Jerry was foremost in her mind; Jerry, missing with the children; Jerry, worse than that, suspected by his friends. But on top of that was old Pat Mahoney.

He hadn’t made the slightest sense since the angry crowd had left his house. He had talked on endlessly about the old days in vaudeville. He seemed obsessed with the memory of the first time he had seen The Great Thurston in Sioux City. He remembered card tricks, and sawing the lady in half, and his wife Nora’s childish delight in being completely bewildered. He seemed to remember everything he had seen the great man do.

Elizabeth tried, but she could not bring Pat back to the present. The tragedy seemed to have tipped him right out of the world of reason. She was partly relieved when she heard firm steps on the front porch. The other part of her, when she saw Sergeant Mason and the tall stranger, was the fear that they had news — bad news about Jerry.

Mason was less aggressive than he had been on his first visit. He introduced Haviland and said they wanted to talk to Pat. Elizabeth took them back into the living room where old Pat still sat in the overstuffed armchair.

Mason introduced Haviland. “Mr. Haviland is a special investigator from the Attorney General’s office, Pat.”

Pat’s eyes brightened. “Say, you’re the fellow that solved that murder over in Johnsville, aren’t you?” he said. “Smart piece of work.”

“Thanks,” Haviland said. He looked at Pat, astonished at his gaudy vest and tie and the glittering diamond on his finger. He had been prepared for Pat, but not adequately.

“Sit down,” Pat said. “Maybe Liz would make us some coffee if we asked her pretty.”

Mason nodded to Liz, who went out into the kitchen. He followed her to tell her there was no news. Haviland sat down on the couch next to Pat, stretched out his long legs and offered Pat a cigarette.

“Don’t smoke,” Pat said. “Never really liked anything but cigars. Nora hated the smell of ’em. So what was I to do? You go to vaudeville in the old days, Mr. Haviland?”

“When I was a kid,” Haviland said, lighting a cigarette. “I never had the pleasure of seeing you, though, Mr. Mahoney.”

“Call me Pat,” Pat said. “Everyone does. I was nothing, Mr. Haviland. Just a third-rate song-and-dance man. But Nora — well, if you ever saw my Nora...”

Haviland waited for him to go on, but Pat seemed lost in his precious memories.

“You must be very worried about your son, Pat,” he said.

For a fractional moment the mask of pleasant incompetence seemed to be stripped from Pat’s face. “Wouldn’t you be?” he asked harshly. Then, almost instantly, the mask was fitted back into place, and old Pat gave his cackling laugh. “You got theories, Mr. Haviland? How’re you going to handle this case?”

“I think,” Haviland said, conversationally, “the children and your son have been kidnapped. I think we’ll hear from the kidnappers soon. I think, in all probability, the whole town will be asked to get up a large ransom.”

Pat nodded. “I’ll chip in this diamond ring,” he said. “It’s got Jerry out of trouble more than once.”

Haviland’s eyes narrowed. “He’s been in trouble before?”

“His main trouble was his Pop,” Pat said. “Sometimes there wasn’t enough to eat. But we could always raise eating money on this ring.” He turned his bright, laughing eyes directly on Haviland. “You figured out how the bus disappeared?”

“No,” Haviland said.

“Of course it doesn’t really matter, does it?” Pat said.

“Well, if we knew—” Haviland said.

“It wouldn’t really matter,” Pat said. “It’s what’s going to happen now that matters.”

“You mean the demand for money?”

“If that’s what’s going to happen,” Pat said. The cackling laugh suddenly grated on Haviland’s nerves. The old joker did know something!

“You have a different theory, Pat?” Haviland asked, keeping his exasperation out of his voice.

“You ever see The Great Thurston on the Keith-Orpheum circuit?” Pat asked.

“I’m afraid not,” Haviland said.

“Greatest magic act I ever saw,” Pat said. “Better than Houdini. Better than anyone. I first saw him in Sioux City—”

“About the case here, Pat,” Haviland interrupted. “You have a theory?”

“I got no theory,” Pat said. “But I know what’s going to happen.”

Haviland leaned forward. “What’s going to happen?”

“One of two things,” Pat said. “Everybody in this town is going to be looking for that station wagon in the lake, where they know it isn’t, and they’re going to be looking for it in the woods, where they know it isn’t. That’s one thing that may happen. The other thing is, they buy this theory of yours, Mr. Haviland — and it’s a good theory, mind you — and they all stay home and wait to hear something. There’s one same result from both things, isn’t there?”

“Same result?”

“Sure. Nobody in Clayton goes to work. The quarries don’t operate. The small businesses will shut down. People will be looking and people will be waiting...”

“So?”

“So what good will that do anyone?” Pat asked.

Haviland ground out his cigarette in an ash tray. “It won’t do anyone any good. The quarry owners will lose some money. The small businesses will lose some money.”

“Not much point in it, is there?” Pat said, grinning.

Haviland rose. he’d had about enough. Mason and Elizabeth were coming back from the kitchen with coffee. “There isn’t much point to anything you’re saying, Mr. Mahoney.”

Pat’s eyes twinkled. “You said you never saw The Great Thurston, didn’t you?”

“I never saw him,” Haviland said.

“Well, we’ll see. If they’re supposed to stay home and wait, they’ll stay home and wait. If they’re supposed to be out searching, they’ll be out searching. Ah, coffee! Smells real good. Pull up a chair. Sergeant. By the way, Mr. Haviland, I’ll make you a bet,” Pat said.

“I’m not a betting man,” Haviland said.

“Oh, just a manner-of-speaking bet,” Pat said. “I’ll make you a bet that tomorrow morning they’ll be out searching. I’ll make you a bet that even if you order them to stay home and wait, they’ll be out searching.”

“Look here, Pat, if you know something...”

A dreamy look came into Pat’s eyes. “Nora was so taken with The Great Thurston that time in Sioux City I went around to see him afterwards. I thought maybe he’d show me how to do a few simple tricks. I pretended it was for Nora, but really I thought we might use ’em in our act. He wouldn’t tell me anything — that is, not about any of his tricks. But he told me the whole principle of his business.”

“Sugar?” Elizabeth asked Haviland. Poor old man, she thought.

“The principle is,” Pat said, “to make your audience think only what you want them to think, and see only what you want them to see.” Pat’s eyes brightened. “Which reminds me, there’s something I’d like to have you see, Mr. Haviland.”

Haviland gulped his coffee. Somehow he felt mesmerized by the old man. Pat was at the foot of the stairs, beckoning. Haviland followed.

Elizabeth looked at Mason and there were tears in her eyes. “It’s thrown him completely off base,” she said. “You know what he’s going to show Mr. Haviland?” Sergeant Mason shook his head.

“A cowboy suit!” Elizabeth said, and dropped down on the couch, crying softly. “He’s going to show him a cowboy suit.”

And she was right. Haviland found himself in the attic, his head bowed to keep from bumping into the sloping beams. Old Pat had opened a wardrobe trunk and, with the gesture of a waiter taking the silver lid off a tomato surprise, revealed two cowboy suits, one hanging neatly on each side of the trunk — Nora’s and his. Chaps, shirt, vest, boots. Stetsons, and gun belts — all studded with stage jewelry.

“... and when the lights went out,” Pat was saying, “all you could see was these jew jaws, sparkling. And we’d take out the guns...” And suddenly Pat had the two jeweled six-shooters in his hands, twirling and spinning them. “In the old days I could draw these guns and twirl ’em into position faster than Jesse James!”

The spell was broken for Haviland. The old guy was cuckoo. “I enjoyed seeing them, Mr. Mahoney,” he said. “But now, I’m afraid I’ve got to get back...”

As soon as dawn broke, Haviland had Sergeant Mason and Sheriff George Peabody take him out to the scene of the disappearance. Everyone else was at home, waiting to hear from the kidnappers. It had been a terrible night for the whole town, a night filled with forebodings and dark imaginings. Haviland covered every inch of the two-mile stretch of the dugway. You couldn’t get away from the facts. There was no way for it to have happened — but it had happened.

About eight-thirty he was back in Clayton in Joe’s Diner, stamping his feet to warm them and waiting eagerly for eggs and toast to go with his steaming cup of black coffee. All the parents had been checked. There’d been no phone calls, no notes slipped under doors, nothing in the early-morning mail.

Haviland never got his breakfast. Trooper Teliski came charging into the diner just as Joe Gorman was taking the eggs off the grill. Teliski, a healthy young man, was white as parchment and the words came out of him in a kind of choking sob. “We’ve found ’em,” he said. “Or at least we know where they are. Helicopters spotted ’em. I just finished passing the word in town.”

Joe Gorman dropped the plate of eggs on the floor behind the counter. Haviland spun around on his counter stool. Just looking at Teliski made the hair rise on the back of his neck.

“The old quarry off the dugway,” Teliski said, and gulped for air. “No sign of the bus. It didn’t drive up there. But the kids.” Teliski steadied himself on the counter. “Schoolbooks,” he said. “A couple of coats — lying on the edge of the quarry. And in the quarry — more of the same. A red beret belonging to one of the kids—”

“Peter!” Joe Gorman cried out.

Haviland headed for the door. The main street of Clayton was frightening to see. People ran out of houses, screaming at each other, heading crazily toward the dugway. Those who went for their cars scattered the people in front of them. There was no order — only blind panic.

Haviland stood on the curb outside the diner, ice in his veins. He looked down the street to where old Pat Mahoney lived, just in time to see a wildly weeping woman pick up a stone and throw it through the front window of Pat’s home.

“Come on — what’s the matter with you?” Teliski shouted from behind the wheel of the State Police car.

Haviland stood where he was, frozen, staring at the broken window of Pat Mahoney’s house. The abandoned quarry, he knew, was sixty feet deep, full to within six feet of the top with icy water fed in by constantly bubbling springs.

A fire engine roared past. They were going to try to pump out the quarry. It would be like bailing out the Atlantic Ocean with a tea cup.

“Haviland!” Teliski called desperately.

Haviland still stared at Pat Mahoney’s house. A cackling old voice rang in his ears. “I’ll make you a bet, Mr. Haviland. I’ll make you a bet that even if you order them to stay at home and wait, they’ll be out searching.”

Rage such as he had never known flooded the ice out of Haviland’s veins. So Pat had known! The old codger had known last night!

Haviland had never witnessed anything like the scene at the quarry.

The old road, long since overgrown, which ran about two hundred yards in from the dugway to the quarry, had been trampled down as if by a herd of buffalo.

Within three-quarters of an hour of the news reaching town, it seemed as if everyone from Clayton and half the population of Lakeview had arrived at the quarry’s edge.

One of the very first army helicopters which had taken to the air at dawn had spotted the clothes and books at the edge of the abandoned stone pit.

The pilot had dropped down close enough to identify the strange objects and radioed immediately to State Police. The stampede had followed.

Haviland was trained to be objective in the face of tragedy, but he found himself torn to pieces by what he saw. Women crowded forward, screaming, trying to examine the articles of clothing and the books. Maybe not all the children were in this icy grave. It was only the hope of desperation. No one really believed it. It seemed, as Trooper Teliski had said, to be the work of a maniac.

Haviland collected as many facts about the quarry as he could from a shaken Sheriff Peabody.

“Marble’s always been Clayton’s business,” Peabody said. “Half the big buildings in New York have got their marble out of Clayton quarries. This was one of the first quarries opened up by Clayton Marble Company nearly six years ago. When they started up new ones, this one was abandoned.”

In spite of the cold, Peabody was sweating. He wiped the sleeve of his plaid hunting shirt across his face. “Sixty feet down, and sheer walls,” he said. “They took the blocks out at ten-foot levels, so there is a little ledge about every ten feet going down. A kid couldn’t climb out of it if it was empty.”

Haviland glanced over at the fire engine which had started to pump water from the quarry. “Not much use in that,” he said.

“The springs are feeding it faster than they can pump it out,” Peabody said. “There’s no use telling them. They got to feel they’re doing something.” The fat sheriff’s mouth set in a grim slit. “Why would Jerry Mahoney do a thing like this? Why? I guess you can only say the old man is a little crazy, and the son has gone off his rocker too.”

“There are some things that don’t fit,” Haviland said. He noticed his own hands weren’t steady as he lit a cigarette. The hysterical shrieking of one of the women near the edge of the quarry grated on his nerves. “Where is the station wagon?”

“He must have driven up here and — and done what he did to the kids,” Peabody said. “Then waited till after dark to make a getaway.”

“But you searched this part of the woods before dark last night,” Haviland said.

“We missed it somehow, that’s all,” Peabody said, stubbornly.

“A nine-passenger station wagon is pretty hard to miss,” Haviland said.

“So we missed it,” Peabody said. “God knows how, but we missed it.” He shook his head. “I suppose the only thing that’ll work here is grappling hooks. They’re sending a crane over from one of the active quarries. Take an hour or more to get it here. Nobody’ll leave here till the hooks have scraped the bottom of that place and they’ve brought up the kids.”

Unless, Haviland thought to himself, the lynching spirit gets into them. He was thinking of an old man in a red vest and a green necktie and a diamond twinkling on his little finger. He was thinking of a broken window pane — and of the way he’d seen mobs act before in his time.

Someone gripped the sleeve of Haviland’s coat and he looked down into the horror-struck face of Elizabeth Deering, Jerry Mahoney’s girl.

“It’s true then,” she whispered. She swayed on her feet, holding tight to Haviland for support.

“It’s true they found some things belonging to the kids,” he said. “That’s all that’s true at the moment, Miss Deering.” He was a little astonished by his own words. He realized that, instinctively, he was not believing everything that he saw in front of him. “This whole area was searched last night before dark,” he said. “No one found any schoolbooks or coats or berets then. No one saw the station wagon.”

“What’s the use of talking that way?” Peabody said. His eyes were narrowed, staring at Liz Deering. “I don’t want to believe what I see either, Mr. Haviland. But I got to.” The next words came out of the fat man with a bitterness that stung like a whiplash. “Maybe you’re the only one in Clayton that’s lucky, Liz. You found out he was a homicidal maniac in time — before you got married to him.”

“Please, George!” the girl cried. “How can you believe—”

“What can anyone believe but that?” Peabody said, and turned away.

Liz Deering clung to Haviland, sobbing. The tall man stared over her head at the hundreds of people grouped around the quarry’s edge. He was reminded of a mine disaster he had seen once in Pennsylvania; a whole town waiting at the head of the mine shaft for the dead to be brought to the surface.

“Let’s get out of here,” he said to Liz Deering, with sudden energy...

Clayton was a dead town. Stores were closed. Joe’s Diner was closed. The railroad station agent was on the job, handling dozens of telegrams that were coming in from friends and relatives of the parents of the missing children. The two girls in the telephone office, across the street from the bank, were at their posts.

Old Mr. Granger, a teller in the bank, and one of the stenographers were all of the bank staff that had stayed on the job. Old Mr. Granger was preparing the payroll for the Clayton Marble Company. He didn’t know whether the truck from the company’s offices with the two guards would show up for the money or not.

Nothing else was working on schedule today. Even the hotel down the street had shut up shop. One or two salesmen had driven into town, heard the news, and gone off down the dugway toward the scene of the tragedy. A few very old people tottered in and out the front doors of houses, looking anxiously down Main Street toward the dugway. Even the clinic was closed. The town’s doctors and nurses had all gone to the scene of the disaster.

Down the street a piece of newspaper had been taped over the hole in Pat Mahoney’s front window. Pat Mahoney sat in the big overstuffed armchair in his living room. He rocked slowly back and forth, staring at an open scrapbook spread across his knees. A big black headline from a show-business paper was pasted across the top.

MAHONEY AND FAYE

BOFFO BUFFALO

Under it were pictures of Pat and Nora in their jeweled cowboy suits, their six-shooters drawn, pointing straight at the camera. There was a description of the act, the dance in the dark with only the jewels showing and the six-shooters spouting flame. “Most original number of its kind seen in years,” a Buffalo critic had written. “The ever popular Mahoney and Faye have added something to their familiar routines that should please theater audiences from coast to coast. We are not surprised to hear that they have been booked into the Palace.”

Pat closed the scrapbook and put it down on the floor beside him. From the inside pocket of his jacket he took a wallet. It bulged with papers and cards. He was an honorary Elk, honorary police chief of Wichita in 1927, a Friar, a Lamb.

Carefully protected by an isinglass guard were some snapshots. They were faded now, but anyone could see they were pictures of Nora with little Jerry at various stages of his growth. There was Jerry at six months, Jerry at a year, Jerry at four years. And Nora, smiling gently at her son. The love seemed to shine right out of the pictures, Pat thought.

Pat replaced the pictures and put the wallet back in his pocket. He got up from his chair and moved toward the stairway. People who knew him would have been surprised. No one had ever seen Pat when movements weren’t brisk and youthful. He could still go into a tap routine at the drop of a hat, and he always gave the impression that he was on the verge of doing so. Now he moved slowly, almost painfully — a tired old man, with no need to hide it from anyone. There was no one to hide it from; Jerry was missing, Liz was gone.

He climbed to the second floor and turned to the attic door. He opened it, switched on the lights, and climbed up to the area under the eaves. There he opened the wardrobe trunk he’d shown to Haviland. From the left side he took out the cowboy outfit — the chaps, the boots, the vest and shirt and Stetson hat, and the gun belt with the two jeweled six-shooters. Slowly he carried them down to his bedroom on the second floor. There Pat Mahoney proceeded to get into costume.

He stood, at last, in front of the full-length mirror on the back of the bathroom door. The high-heeled boots made him a couple of inches taller than usual. The Stetson was set on his head at a rakish angle. The jeweled chaps and vest glittered in the sunlight from the window. Suddenly old Pat jumped into a flat-footed stance, and the guns were out of the holsters, spinning dizzily and then pointed straight at the mirror.

“Get ’em up, you lily-livered rats!” old Pat shouted. A bejeweled gunman stared back at him fiercely from the mirror.

Then, slowly, he turned away to a silver picture frame on his bureau. Nora, a very young girl, looked at him with her gentle smile.

“It’ll be all right, honey,” Pat said. “You’ll see. It’ll be another boffo, honey. Don’t you worry about your boy. Don’t you ever worry about him while I’m around. You’ll see...”

It was a terrible day for Clayton, but Gertrude Naylor, the chief operator in the telephone office, said afterward that perhaps the worst moment for her was when she spotted old Pat Mahoney walking down the main street — right in the middle of the street — dressed in that crazy cowboy outfit. He walked slowly, looking from right to left, staying right on the white line that divided the street.

“I’d seen it a hundred times before in the movies,” Gertrude Naylor said, afterward. “A cowboy, walking down the street of a deserted town, waiting for his enemy to appear — waiting for the moment to draw his guns. Old Pat’s hands floated just above the crazy guns in his holster, and he kept rubbing the tips of his fingers against his thumb. I showed him to Millie, and we started to laugh, and then, somehow, it seemed about the most awful thing of all. Jerry Mahoney had murdered those kids and here was his old man, gone nutty as a fruitcake.”

Old Mr. Granger, in the bank, had much the same reaction when the aged, bejeweled gun toter walked up to the teller’s window.

“Good morning, Mr. Granger,” Pat said, cheerfully.

Mr. Granger moistened his pale lips. “Good morning, Pat.”

“You’re not too busy this morning, I see,” Pat said.

“N-no,” Mr. Granger said. The killer’s father — dressed up like a kid for the circus. He’s ready for a padded cell, Mr. Granger thought.

“Since you’re not so busy,” Pat said, “I’d like to have a look at the detailed statement of my account for the last three months.” As he spoke, he turned and leaned against the counter, staring out through the plate-glass bank window at the street. His hands stayed near the guns, and he kept rubbing his fingertips against the ball of his thumb.

“You get a statement each month, Pat,” Mr. Granger said.

“Just the same, I’d like to see the detailed statement for the last three months,” Pat said.

“I had to humor him, I thought,” Mr. Granger said later, “So I went back to the vault to get his records out of the files. Well, I was just inside the vault door when he spoke again, in the most natural way.”

“If I were you, Mr. Granger,” he said, “I’d close that vault door, and I’d stay inside, and I’d set off all the alarms I could lay my hands on. You’re about to be stuck up, Mr. Granger.”

“Well, I thought it was part of his craziness,” Mr. Granger said, later. “I thought he meant he was going to stick up the bank. I thought that was why he’d got all dressed up in that cowboy outfit. Gone back to his childhood, I thought. I was scared, because I figured he was crazy. So I did close the vault door. And I did set off the alarm, only it didn’t work. I didn’t know then all the electric wires into the bank had been cut.”

Gertrude and Millie, the telephone operators, had a box seat for the rest of it. They saw the black sedan draw up in front of the bank and they saw the four men in dark suits and hats get out of it and start up the steps of the bank. Two of them were carrying small suitcases and two of them were carrying guns.

Then suddenly the bank doors burst open and an ancient cowboy appeared, hands poised over his guns. He did a curious little jig step that brought him out in a solid square stance. The four men were so astonished at the sight of him they seemed to freeze.

“Stick ’em up, you lily-livered rats!” old Pat shouted. The guns were out of the holsters, twirling. Suddenly they belched flame, straight at the bandits.

The four men dived for safety, like men plunging off the deck of a sinking ship. One of them made the corner of the bank building. Two of them got to the safe side of the car. The fourth, trying to scramble back into the car, was caught in the line of fire.

“I shot over your heads that first time!” Pat shouted. “Move another inch and I’ll blow you all to hell!” The guns twirled again and then suddenly aimed steadily at the exposed bandit. “All right, come forward and throw your guns down,” Pat ordered.

The man in the direct line of fire obeyed at once. His gun bounced on the pavement a few feet from Pat and he raised his arms slowly. Pat inched his way toward the discarded gun.

The other men didn’t move. And then Gertrude and Millie saw the one who had gotten around the corner of the bank slowly raise his gun and take deliberate aim at Pat. She and Millie both screamed, and it made old Pat jerk his head around. In that instant there was a roar of gunfire.

Old Pat went down, clutching at his shoulder. But so did the bandit who’d shot him and so did one of the men behind the car. Then Gertrude and Millie saw the tall figure of Mr. Haviland come around the corner of the hotel next door, a smoking gun in his hand. He must have spoken very quietly because Gertrude and Millie couldn’t hear him, but whatever he said made the other bandits give up. Then they saw Liz Deering running across the street to where old Pat lay, blood dripping through the fingers that clutched at his shoulder.,

Trooper Teliski’s car went racing through the dugway at breakneck speed, siren shrieking. As he came to the turn-in to the old quarry, his tires screamed and he skidded in and up the rugged path, car bounding over stones, ripping through brush. Suddenly just ahead of him on the path loomed the crane from the new quarry, inching up the road on a caterpillar tractor. Trooper Teliski sprang out of his car and ran past the crane, shouting at the tractor driver as he ran.

“To hell with that!” Teliski shouted. Stumbling and gasping for breath, he raced out into the clearing where hundreds of people waited in a grief-stricken silence for the grappling for bodies to begin.

“Everybody!” Teliski shouted. “Everybody! Listen!” He was half laughing, half strangling for breath. “Your kids aren’t there! They’re safe. They’re all safe — the kids, Jerry Mahoney, everyone! They aren’t there. They’ll be home before you will! Your kids—” And then he fell forward on his face, sucking in the damp, loam-scented air.

Twenty minutes later Clayton was a madhouse. People running, people driving, people hanging onto the running boards of cars and clinging to bumpers. And in the middle of the town, right opposite the bank, was a station wagon with a yellow school bus sign on its roof, and children were spilling out of it, waving and shouting at their parents, who laughed and wept. And a handsome young Irishman with bright blue eyes was locked in a tight embrace with Elizabeth Deering...

Haviland’s fingers shook slightly as he lit a cigarette. Not yet noon and he was on his third pack.

“You can’t see him yet,” he said to Jerry Mahoney. “The doctor’s with him. In a few minutes.”

“I still don’t get it,” Jerry said. “People thought I had harmed those kids?”

“You don’t know what it’s been like here,” Liz Deering said, clinging tightly to his arm.

Jerry Mahoney turned and saw the newspaper taped over the broken front window, and his face hardened. “Try and tell me, plain and simple, about Pop,” he said.

Haviland shook his head, smiling like a man still dazed. “Your Pop is an amazing man, Mr. Mahoney,” he said. “His mind works in its own peculiar ways... The disappearance of the bus affected him differently from some others. He saw it as a magic trick, and he thought of it as a magic trick — or, rather, as part of a magic trick. He said it to me and I wouldn’t listen. He said it is a magician’s job to get you to think what he wants you to think and see what he wants you to see. The disappearance of the children, the ghastly faking of their death in the quarry — it meant one thing to your Pop, Mr. Mahoney. Someone wanted all the people in Clayton to be out of town. Why?

“There was only one good reason that remarkable Pop of yours could think of. The quarry payroll. Nearly a hundred thousand dollars in cash, and not a soul in town to protect it. Everyone would be looking for the children, and all the bandits had to do was walk in the bank and take the money. No cops, no nothing to interfere with them.”

“But why didn’t Pop tell you his idea?” Jerry asked.

“You still don’t know what it was like here, Mr. Mahoney.” Haviland said. “People thought you had done something to those kids; they imagined your Pop knew something about it. If he’d told his story, even to me, I think I’d have thought he was either touched in the head or covering up. So he kept still — although he did throw me a couple of hints. And suddenly, he was, to all intents and purposes, alone in the town. So he went upstairs, got dressed in those cowboy clothes and went, calm as you please, to the bank to meet the bandits he knew must be coming. And they came.”

“But why the cowboy suit?” Liz Deering asked.

“A strange and wonderful mind,” Haviland said. “He thought the sight of him would be screwy enough to throw the bandits a little off balance. He thought if he started blasting away with his guns they might panic. They almost did.”

“What I don’t understand,” Liz said, “is how, when he fired straight at them, he never hit anybody!”

“Those were stage guns — prop guns,” Jerry said. “They only fire blanks.”

Haviland nodded. “He thought he could get them to drop their own guns and then he’d have a real weapon and have the drop on them. It almost worked. But the one man who’d ducked around the corner of the building got in a clean shot at him. Fortunately, I arrived at exactly the same minute, and I had them all from behind.”

“But how did you happen to turn up?” Jerry asked.

“I couldn’t get your father out of my mind,” Haviland said. “He seemed to know what was going to happen. He said they’d be searching for the kids, whether I told them to wait at home or not. Suddenly I had to know why he’d said that.”

“Thank God,” Jerry said. “I gather you got them to tell you where we were?”

Haviland nodded. “I’m still not dead clear how it worked, Jerry.”

“It was as simple as pie a la mode,” Jerry said. “I was about a half mile into the dugway on the home trip with the kids. We’d just passed Karl Dickler headed the other way when a big trailer truck loomed up ahead of me on the road. It was stopped, and a couple of guys were standing around the tail end of it.

“Broken down, I thought. I pulled up. All of a sudden guns were pointed at me and the kids. They didn’t talk much. They just said to do as I was told. They opened the back of the big truck and rolled out a ramp. Then I was ordered to drive the station wagon right up into the body of the truck. I might have tried to make a break for it except for the kids. I drove up into the truck, they closed up the rear end, and that was that. They drove off with us — right through the main street of town here!”

Haviland shook his head. “An old trick used hundreds of times back in the bootleg days. And I never thought of it!”

“Not ten minutes later,” Jerry went on, “they pulled into that big deserted barn on the Haskell place. We’ve been shut up there ever since. They were real decent to the kids — hot dogs, ice cream cones, soda.

“So we just waited there, not knowing why, but nobody hurt, and the kids not as scared as you might think,” Jerry laughed. “Oh, we came out of the dugway all right — and right by everybody in town. But nobody saw us.”

The doctor appeared in the doorway. “You can see him for a minute now, Jerry,” he said. “I had to give him a pretty strong sedative. Dug the bullet out of his shoulder and it hurt a bit. He’s pretty sleepy — but he’ll do better if he sees you, I think. Don’t stay too long, though.”

Jerry bounded up the stairs and into the bedroom where Pat Mahoney lay, his face very pale, his eyes half closed. Jerry knelt by the bed.

“Pop,” he whispered, “You crazy old galoot!”

Pat opened his eyes. “You okay, Jerry?”

“Okay, Pop.”

“And the kids?”

“Fine. Not a hair on their heads touched.” Jerry reached out and covered Pat’s hand with his. “Now look here. Two-Gun Mahoney...”

Pat grinned at him. “It was a boffo, Jerry. A real boffo.”

“It sure was,” Jerry said. He started to speak, but he saw that Pat was looking past him at the silver picture frame on the dresser.

“I told you it’d be all right, honey,” Pat whispered. “I told you not to worry about your boy while I was around to take care of him.” Then he grinned at Jerry, and his eyes closed and he was asleep.

Jerry tiptoed out of the room to find his own girl.

~ ~ ~

The fifteenth year of this series was celebrated with the first Best of the Best Detective Stories, which contained one selection from each of the preceding fourteen volumes. In consequence, my next selection comes from the sixteenth anthology...

This is not, despite the title, precisely a tale of murder, but it is a tale of sudden death — an uncommon and haunting death, springing at once from shining heights and dark depths of human emotion.

Talmage Powell

Murder Method[15]

We killed her, Ralph Corson and I, as surely as if we had used a knife or gun, and it is the manner of the killing that haunts and torments me.

I met Peri in Miami. She was the wife of as good a friend as I ever had.

It was right after I lost my shirt in an orange deal. I’d bought a bunch of futures in oranges, and a freeze had killed the crop. I was sitting in a small waterfront tavern, making wet rings on the bar with a beer glass and wondering what to do next, when a man walked up behind me and laid his hand on my shoulder.

“Tom Danton,” he said in a quiet voice. “It’s good to see you after such a long time.”

I turned on the bar stool and felt better right away. Marty Janus had always affected me that way, even in our college days.

A subtle change came over any room Marty entered. He was a dark, good-looking, slender, energetic man, but it wasn’t his looks that did it. It was the Marty Janus dwelling deep in the flesh and bones, the Marty who believed in the beauties and joys of life, the worth of life, the worth, decency, and integrity of his fellow man.

But by no stretch of the imagination was Marty a dreamy starry-eyed fool. He was smart, tough, courageous. The occasional individual who tried to take advantage of him because of his outlook, social position, and wealth failed to sour Marty.

He accepted them as part of the world and time into which he had been born and felt sorry for them.

In short, Marty was a rare man. I suspect that if and when Marty’s kind become the majority, most of the world’s ills will vanish along with fear and hatred.

“Sit down,” I said. “I’m buying.”

“Thanks. You’re looking fit, Tom.” A smile crinkled the deeply tanned flesh at the corners of his eyes. “Fifteen years out of college, and I’ll bet you could still do a broken field run that would make the other team dizzy.”

“If I had Marty Janus with me as a blocking back,” I said.

“Hell,” he laughed, “you’re just saying it because it’s true. I heard you were in Miami, Tom. Wanted very much to see you. What you been doing for yourself?”

“I dropped my roll on some oranges.”

“That’s too bad. Married yet?”

“Nope.”

“Business deal lined up?”

“Not so far.”

“No strings on you — okay, so we’ll go fishing. We’ll get the kinks out of our systems, the cobwebs out of the old brains, and figure out an assault on the future.”

“Thanks, Marty, but I...”

“I’m planning a trip. A real jaunt. You enjoy fishing?”

Tropical water, a brilliant sun, the roll of a boat, the big ones hitting... “Are you kidding, Marty?”

“Then it’s settled.”

“No,” I said, “I meant it when I said I dropped my roll. I couldn’t make a down payment on the bait.”

“The heat’s got him,” Marty said to no one, “so how can I consider it an insult?” He turned and looked at me. “All right, you’re broke. Think of the advantage in that. You can face the future, enter the next round of the scrap with everything to gain, not a thing to lose. Check?”

“I suppose.” He wasn’t simply a wealthy man talking from a lofty position of security. Marty would never have to worry about money; but he’d made it honestly, because he’d been smart enough to know the time and place for his subdivisions and because people couldn’t be in the state a week without knowing you’d get your money’s worth if you bought a home in a Janus development.

As a kid he’d lived on a Florida farm with sneakers as his Sunday shoes. he’d waited on tables, studied like a Socrates, and played football to get himself through college. he’d worked on construction jobs in South American jungles and mountains and lived on beans for two years to get his first tiny capital together.

“ ‘I suppose,’ ” he echoed. “Tomas, muchacho, that proves it. You need open sky and fresh air to put some vigor in your outlook. I got a boat docked no more than a couple of blocks from here. I was on my way to the marine supply house when I glanced in here, did a double-take, and realized it was really you. The gear can wait. I want you to see the new boat, the Peri. It’s named after my wife.”

If you knew Marty really well, you could catch the faint inflection when he said “my wife.” He said it with a vast and deep contentment, as if life, after this, could only be perfect, never topping itself.

Water sparkled in the slips and lapped gently against the pilings. The masts of the yachts made a forest of clean, slender spears against the deep blue of the sky. Marty and I paused at a slip. He looked at me with a grin.

The Peri crouched at her moorings. She gleamed, mahogany and brass, all forty feet of her. She was sloop rigged, her cabins low, her bridge straining toward the open sea, her engine housings built for diesel auxiliaries.

I shared Marty’s grin. “She makes you feel like a Viking.”

“That she does,” Marty said.

We went down the short gangway onto the deck. A girl came from aft, out of the cabin. Marty went forward to meet her, taking her hand in his.

A magazine illustrator couldn’t have done the portrait better. She was lithe and graceful in white shorts and halter, carrying the vigorous animalism of her sex appeal quite unconsciously.

She was gold, while Marty was dark-tanned leather. His coloring made her hair more golden, her eyes bluer, and her hair and eyes possibly made her lips seem redder than they really were. The top of her head came just above Marty’s shoulder, and she leaned against him slightly in an automatic little gesture of affection.

“Peri,” Marty said, “this is Tom Danton. Tom, my wife,”

She offered her hand. Her fingers were slim, cool, strong. “I’m very pleased to know you, Tom. Marty has told me a great deal about you.”

I said something or other and let go of her hand.

Marty told her I was joining the trip, and she remarked that it was nice.

“Bring your stuff on board this afternoon, Tom,” Marty said. “We’ll get underway with the tide tomorrow morning.”

The rubber soles of white canvas shoes squeaked softly behind me on the hot planking of the deck.

I looked over my shoulder. A man had come aboard. Wearing a T-shirt, ducks, and an old yachting cap, he was long, heavy, big-chested in the body and short in the legs. His face was square, his features blunt. His eyes were black and small, or perhaps they only looked that way because of his black, jutting, heavy brows.

He stood spread-legged, as if the deck of a boat were home to him. He took off the cap, with the inverted V crimped in the cracked bill, and wiped the sweat band. “You get to the marine supplier, Mr. Janus?”

“Not yet, Ralph. We’ll go over there now,” Marty said. “I ran into a friend. He’s going with us. Tom Danton, Ralph Corson.”

The stocky man looked me up and down, offered his hard, calloused hand for a brief shake. “Glad to have you, Mr. Danton.” There was neither welcome nor disrespect in his tone. “You know anything about sailing?”

“A little.”

“He’ll pull his share,” Marty said.

“Then we won’t need another hired hand?”

“I think not, Ralph.”

The stocky man shrugged and went aft.

“He’s not the friendliest man alive,” Marty said, so that Ralph Corson wouldn’t hear, “but he’s a competent seaman.”

I soon found out that Marty had told the truth about Corson. We fished our way down the Keys. Corson knew his business, and I didn’t mind taking his orders and instructions. But in less than a week, I’d begun to hate the man.

I couldn’t single out a reason for this feeling. It wasn’t in anything he actually said or did. His orders were peremptory, even to Marty. That was all right, as it should be. Out here, Corson was captain of the boat.

Nor was the reason particularly in Corson’s attitude toward me. He treated me as something of a cluck, a habit of sea-wise men toward the landlubber. To him, I was no more than a shadow aboard. Still, this was not enough to arouse the feeling I felt for him.

Then late one afternoon, I knew suddenly why I felt as I did. The Atlantic was as smooth as a tub of oil. Sea and sky were hushed, and I had the feeling that we were in a vacuum. We were making for port in Key West under the power of the auxiliaries because of the expected light blow. Corson was on the bridge, at the helm.

Everything aboard the Peri was secured. Marty’s wife had made sandwiches for dinner, and there was nothing to be done, aside from Corson’s task.

Peri and Marty were forward, sitting very close together in deck chairs. They were talking to each other, but their tones were low and intimate and could not be heard above the steady whisper of the diesels.

They made a fine picture, sea and sky for a backdrop, she like an enticing golden thing that had come out of the sea and Marty like the hero from some book who’d captured her, mind, body, and soul. Marty said something to her, and they looked at each other. And Corson stood looking at their profiles, and a bestial thing came to his face.

He didn’t know I was watching. I’d been at the stern. He hadn’t heard me come forward. I’d been on the point of speaking to him when that change had come to his face. His eyes glittered, his lips pulled back tight to show his teeth. Dark blood suffused the heavy planes of his cheeks and jaws.

His lips twisted as he spoke noiseless words to himself. I could guess that it was a speech of raw animal desire and hatred. Lust for the woman and hatred, arising from envy, of the man who could own her, and this boat, and the services of other people.

I turned and went quietly sternward. I went to the galley and mixed a drink for something to do. There was a suffocating feeling in my chest and a band of steel tightening about my temples.

I shook with my hatred for Corson.

Because I wanted the woman as badly as he did.

The revelation was not sudden, though it seemed so at the moment. It filled me with a quick and deep shame.

Marty was my friend — and she was a part of Marty. Not for a moment was there any doubt of that. She didn’t worship or idolize him. She simply belonged to him, completely, without reservation. She wanted nothing more. She would never ask nor seek for anything more. She had found the ultimate purpose of womanhood, a personality into which her own being could fuse until the two became a single entity.

Her life had a single mainstream and anything else — Corson and I, for example — were just objects on the distant shores of that stream.

She was blameless. And yet she was wholly to blame, for in her, Marty had found the thing that every man seeks, the realization of the idealistic wish every man has felt to some degree when he was very young.

Corson and I had discovered there really was a woman like this in the world. It stirred the senses and fanned a fire, because there was the emptiness of the sea and sky, the smallness of the boat, the endless langorous days and nights — and the sight of her continually dangled before Corson and me.

I wanted to leave them in Key West. Instead, I told myself I couldn’t do it gracefully.

Although the season was late and there were reports of squally weather, Marty aimed the Peri at the Gulf, where he heard a few tarpon were still running.

“Those running this late,” he decided, “will be monsters. We might even set a record!”

The weather reports weren’t exaggerated, and the fifth day out, Corson asked Marty to make for Fort Myers.

“There’s even rougher weather ahead,” Corson said, “and this craft ain’t as seaworthy as she looks. She’s been built for looks, Mr. Janus — to...”

“Yes, Corson?”

“All right,” Corson said, rubbing his palms on his ducks, “I’ll say it. The Peri’s a tub. I suspected it from the second I looked at her. Now I know it. She was built to grab a rich landlubber’s dollars. There’s too much of her topside. I don’t like the way she handles. I don’t like the roll of her. As a fancy toy, she’s fine, but it’d take a lot better craft than the Peri to weather the blow moving up from Dry Tortugas.”

“Well,” Marty said, “I guess I’m not the first man to get stuck.” He grinned wryly. “Nor the last. We’ll put in at Fort Myers.”

We failed to reach the port. The heavy blow caught us off the unexplored wilderness shown on the charts of Ten Thousand Islands.

The darkness and wind and rain came quickly. The tropical hush was filled with a roar. The sky disappeared, and the seas came over the Peri’s deck.

Just before the blow hit, Corson had seen the smudge of an island on our portside horizon. He swung the Peri wide, making for the island.

When the leaden sky came down to meet the angry sea, the island disappeared. Corson put the nose of the craft into the teeth of the wind and tried to hold her there. She kept sheering off, rolling heavily, like a creature alive and wanting to flee in panic.

The rain was icy after the heat of the day. One moment the diesels labored so hard it seemed they would quit; the next, they tried to tear themselves out of their mountings as the prow of the Peri wallowed heavily and the screws screamed free.

It was up to Corson now. We stayed topside, Peri at Marty’s side, keeping her fear under tight control.

The Peri shuddered as she crested, the wind tearing at her. She fell like a toboggan, her stern free, her prow slicing to the depths of the watery trough. She met the wall of water with a booming crash. Her stability was gone, and the water swept her decks clean, pouring into her depths.

I heard Peri scream Marty’s name. Then panic blanked everything else from my mind as the world turned to angry black water.

I felt Corson’s weight slam into me. His arms grabbed for me. I slugged at him and clawed my way toward the surface.

Something hard slammed against my shoulder. I grabbed it, locked my arms about it. We’d all had on life preservers, of course, but they wouldn’t keep a man from drowning in this weather. The short length of broken mast helped.

I was under the surface more often than not as the water roiled over me. But I was alive, and I clung to the mast and gagged out water — and heard her cry out Marty’s name once again. It was a very feeble cry, but I knew she must be close. The human voice was no competition for the angry bellow of the wind.

I glimpsed her face, a few feet away. I worked the mast toward her. I felt the dizzying pitching and knew another mass of water was coiled over us. I grabbed her arm. As we went under, she was almost torn away. The water parted, and she put her arms across the mast, gagging and coughing.

She never stopped saying his name for long. Only when there was no breath in her did she refrain from calling for Marty.

I felt the warm sand of a beach beneath my back, and opened my eyes. The sky was blue, bland, capriciously innocent. There was a stillness, broken only by the light surf breaking with faint, rasping sounds.

I sat up, remembering the blow, the touch of solid bottom beneath my feet. Remembering that I had dragged her with me until I’d collapsed.

My wild, swinging gaze jerked to a halt. She lay near me. I could almost reach out and touch her. She was a carven, golden image there on the quiet beach.

As I stood up, she stirred. She looked at me blankly. Then her eyes darkened, deepened. She sat up and looked toward the sea.

“We made it to the island,” I said.

“Marty...” she said.

“Maybe he made it too.”

She didn’t look at me. “No,” she said. “He didn’t.”

I kneeled beside her and touched her shoulder. “Don’t borrow trouble. Let’s not decide about Marty until we know for sure.”

She sat looking at the sea, not feeling my touch.

A voice from down the beach called, “Hallo, there!”

The sea still held her attention, for it was Ralph Corson’s voice she heard.

He came walking up the beach, his clothing stiff with salt and sand. He stood breathing heavily. “I’ve been looking for you. I was beginning to think I was the only one who made it.”

“There’s no sign of Marty,” she said.

“No,” Corson said.

She made no move, sitting as if nothing could surprise or hurt her.

“We’re on the island,” Corson said. “It appears to be a sizable strip of land. I reckon we’re somewhere southwest by south of Ten Thousand Islands. I think we can manage, until somebody picks us up.”

He looked down at her. “We’ve got some immediate problems to think about.”

“I’ll be all right,” she said dully. “Just give me a little while.”

Corson jerked his head. I followed him as he moved away. We walked toward the interior of the island. It was heavily grown with palms, palmetto, low brush. As we moved into the jungle, I said, “Something’s on your mind.”

“We may have to call this place home for quite a while,” Corson said, “We’re off the shipping and air lanes.”

“The Coast Guard will search.”

“Maybe. But where do they start? Where do they look? Ten Thousand Islands may be a part of the United States, but even that area has never been explored. From this point, civilization might as well be a million miles away.”

I was sweating heavily; from the dense heat, and from his words.

“Somebody will find us,” I said doggedly.

“Or what’s left of the Peri,” Corson said. A wolfish grin came to his face. “At least, we won’t starve — as long as you and the woman follow my orders.”

“You fancy yourself king of this island, Corson?”

“Damn right I do. I’ve lived in swamp country. I know how to live off the land. Without me, you and her wouldn’t last a week.”

I sensed the unleashed arrogance in Corson. I thought that if anything happened to me she’d be here alone with him.

It seemed we had to accept a king, for a little time, anyway.

Corson hadn’t been boasting when he said he knew how to live off the land.

Our first problem was water. In a small, sandy clearing near the center of the island, Corson and I dug with sticks. We scooped out a shallow pan, four feet across, nearly three feet deep. There was dampness, and from the dampness came the seepage of water.

“It’ll be brackish,” Corson said, wiping sweat from his face with his forearm. “It’ll have the taste of the sea, but it’ll sustain life.”

The next three days ran together in an endless moment of heat, toil, hunger, with only the meaty buds of the wild cabbage palm to stave off starvation.

Corson spared himself no more than he spared Peri and me. Under his direction we gathered the wild thistle that Seminole tribes once used to mix with water and make a form of bread. We dug coontie root, scrounged bird and turtle eggs. We explored every inch of the island, until we knew where snakes might be had for emergency rations.

Wild life was plentiful, hares, field mice, swarms of birds. We set snares and deadfalls. We fashioned crude, basket-like crab traps from strips of palm frond, baiting them with putrid meat after our traps began operating. We had vines and plaited palm fibers for cordage, and when we hauled in the first of the crabs, I looked at the size and numbers of them, and I shuddered, thinking of Marty.

There were wild bananas on the island. As for vegetables, Corson assured us that a human being could eat practically anything growing out of the earth so long as it did not run milky sap when broken.

We gathered the largest shells on the beach for cooking and eating utensils.

One of Corson’s very first achievements was fire. He took the crystal from Peri’s useless diamond-studded wrist watch. It was convex, to magnify the delicate numbers on the watch face. Corson piled a bit of tender dried grass near the edge of the jungle. He crushed more of the grass to make a volatile powder and added it to the pile. Then for a solid hour he crouched in the merciless heat, concentrating the power of the sun through the tiny watch crystal. Finally, the grass began to smoke around the pinpoint of sun fire that Corson held so steadily on a single spot. We lighted sticks and carried our fire to our campsite beside the spring Corson and I had made.

And then it seemed that quite suddenly our time of exhaustion, of drugged sleep alternating with periods of violent activity, was over.

We possessed thatched huts. We ate well, even salting our foods with the residue left after evaporating sea water in shallow shells. We refreshed our pile of greasy, green vegetation near the camp-fire. This would be thrown on the fire to send up a column of smoke, a signal, if the empty sky or brassy hot horizon ever showed a sign of life.

Until we were a going concern, there was little chance to think or feel the things that plague civilized people. Peri had to work shoulder to shoulder with us, until we were all ready to drop in our tracks. During those first days, our individuality and the things that had made us what we were aboard the Peri were pushed into the background.

Then we had a little leisure again — and I saw the grossness of Corson, because Peri was once more a woman, a very special woman, the only one of her kind in all the earth.

Corson knew what I was feeling, and his thoughts were as plain to me as if he had spoken them aloud. Outwardly, neither made a move, not yet, but the men inside the cloaks of sun-blackened skin crouched and watched with mounting wariness and hatred.

Peri seemed to sense nothing of it at first. She had worked like a robot, as tireless as Corson or me. Now she walked the beach just as tirelessly, trying to find something to interest her, but never able for long to keep her gaze from seaward, from the place far out where Marty had died.

She still pulled her own share of the load. She still said little, living in those days before crashing waves had washed across the Peri.

I loved her with a tenderness I didn’t know was in me. At night, when she sat silent, bathed in the flickering light of the campfire, so beautiful she was a creature beyond belief, I wanted to tell her. I wanted to help her accept the fact that Marty was gone forever. I wanted to say things I’d never said to another woman.

I said nothing.

Because there was Corson. Corson would never believe the way I felt. he’d never understand. I couldn’t explain to him and so long as Corson was in the way, I could say nothing to her.

I began sleeping badly. Even in sleep, I was aware of her near me at one hand, Ralph Corson at the other.

Then one night he went to her.

It was a night brilliant with moonlight, the skies blue and clear, a faint breeze curling off the Gulf over the island.

I woke and lay perfectly still, seeing the bulk of him standing near her shelter. He was crouching a little, looking in at her as she lay spangled with moonlight.

I heard a shuddering breath come out of him. I saw his hand pass over his face. I witnessed the final struggle of the man with himself.

There was cunning on his face as he looked toward the thatched lean-to where I slept. And I knew then that he had made his decision, finally. He had decided that the three of us could live no longer on this island. It might come to me tomorrow, or next week. He might use a club, or report to her that I’d drowned accidentally.

Or he might not wait at all.

He was looking around. Cat-like, he moved toward the fire. From the old edges of the fire he picked up a stick. It was thicker than my wrist. Its end had been burned to a fire-hardened point.

With a sound that I didn’t recognize as coming from my own throat, I threw myself out of the lean-to as he came toward me with the spear upraised.

He cursed, changed his mind, swung the stick as a club.

I stumbled and fell. I rolled away. He was in a momentary fury, beyond all reason, goaded with the knowledge that he had actually put dark thought to action and could not turn back now.

I grabbed a club, larger than Corson’s, from the wood pile. I met him snarling. The clubs crashed together. We both fell back, circled. Panting, sweat rolling down our faces and naked chests, we went at each other savagely.

This was the picture of us that Peri received. She had wakened, and she stood looking at us.

As I fell back from Corson’s heavy blows, I glimpsed her face.

For a brief instant I could visualize what she was seeing. I saw the change hit her face as a horrible understanding came to her.

Corson’s swing brought his club against mine. The weapon almost left my hands. I continued to fall back. She was out of range of my vision now. All I could see was Corson’s face, the exultation in it as he sensed triumph.

He was less cautious, and I was filled with a sudden cunning. He was stronger, but I was faster. I invited a blow by appearing to be off balance. When he swung, I slipped to one side, and I had him.

I laid the stick along the side of his head. He fell, legs twisting.

He went scrabbling away like a killer crab. He seized his club, tried to rise, and I knocked the weapon out of his hands.

He fell back and lay gasping, looking up at me.

“Corson,” I said, “you’re not king any longer.”

“You’re the boss, Danton. All the way the boss,” he panted. “Danton! She’s gone!”

I thought at first it was a trick. I stepped back, still watching him. Then I glanced over my shoulder.

He hadn’t been lying.

“Peri!”

There was no answer from her, and I forgot Corson for the moment.

I couldn’t see her around the edges of the clearing. I moved down the pathway we’d worn toward the beach.

I didn’t see her there, either.

Not at first.

I was in water to my waist when Corson grabbed me from behind.

“You fool,” he said, “You’d never catch her.”

Together we stumbled backward to the beach. I hated him as I’d never hated before, and I knew the feeling was mutual. I knew too that we’d live in uneasy truce until the day in the indeterminate future when someone else fished these waters and saw our smoke column and came to investigate. There was no reason for blood letting and neither Corson nor I wanted to face the future alone on the island.

We stood and watched, and as the golden head crested the low, murmuring waves, we called to her.

I shouted, the sound an agony in the bright night, until I had no voice left.

She was out of sight then, and she would keep going. Until she reached that spot far, far out where the part of her known as Marty Janus had gone down.

Finally, Corson and I stood under the vast sky in silence, not looking at each other, thinking of the way we had killed her, and of the weapon we’d used...

~ ~ ~

From the 17th anthology...

Jack Ritchie ranks second in frequency of appearance in the Best Detective series with ten stories, all in the past ten years. The present tale launches a gambit of such universal fascination and broad possibilities that a television series of several years’ duration (Run For Your Life) has turned on it: how might a man who knows of his unavoidable death at some established future date spend his last months? There is humor — and considerably more — in Mr. Ritchie’s answer.

Jack Ritchie

For All the Rude People[16]

“How old are you?” I asked.

His eyes were on the revolver I was holding. “Look, mister, there’s not much in the cash register, but take it all. I won’t make no trouble.”

“I am not interested in your filthy money. How old are you?”

He was puzzled. “Forty-two.”

I clucked my tongue. “What a pity. From your point of view, at least. You might have lived another twenty or thirty years if you had just taken the very slight pains to be polite.”

He didn’t understand.

“I am going to kill you,” I said, “Because of the four-cent stamp and because of the cherry candy.”

He did not know what I meant by the cherry candy, but he did know about the stamp.

Panic raced into his face. “You must be crazy. You can’t kill me just because of that.”

“But I can.”

And I did.

When Dr. Briller told me that I had but four months to live, I was, of course, perturbed. “Are you positive you haven’t mixed up the x-rays? I’ve heard of such things.”

“I’m afraid not, Mr. Turner.”

I gave it more earnest thought. “The laboratory reports. Perhaps my name was accidentally attached to the wrong...”

He shook his head slowly. “I double-checked. I always do that in cases like these. Sound medical practice, you know.”

It was late afternoon and the time when the sun is tired. I rather hoped that when my time came to actually die, it might be in the morning. Certainly more cheerful.

“In cases like this,” Dr. Briller said, “a doctor is faced with a dilemma. Shall he or shall he not tell his patient? I always tell mine. That enables them to settle their affairs and to have a fling, so to speak.” He pulled a pad of paper toward him. “Also I’m writing a book. What do you intend doing with your remaining time?”

“I really don’t know. I’ve just been thinking about it for a minute or two, you know.”

“Of course,” Briller said. “No immediate rush. But when you do decide, you will let me know, won’t you? My book concerns the things that people do with their remaining time when they know just when they’re going to die.”

He pushed aside the pad. “See me every two or three weeks. That way we’ll be able to measure the progress of your decline.”

Briller saw me to the door. “I already have written up twenty-two cases like yours.” He seemed to gaze into the future. “Could be a best seller, you know.”

I have always lived a bland life. Not an unintelligent one, but bland.

I have contributed nothing to the world — and in that I have much in common with almost every soul on earth — but on the other hand I have not taken away anything either. I have, in short, asked merely to be left alone. Life is difficult enough without undue association with people.

What can one do with the remaining four months of a bland life?

I have no idea how long I walked and thought on that subject, but eventually I found myself on the long curving bridge that sweeps down to join the lake drive. The sounds of mechanical music intruded themselves upon my mind and I looked down.

A circus, or very large carnival, lay below.

It was the world of shabby magic, where the gold is gilt, where the top-hatted ringmaster is as much a gentleman as the medals on his chest are authentic, and where the pink ladies on horseback are hard-faced and narrow-eyed. It was the domain of the harsh-voiced vendors and the short-change.

I have always felt that the demise of the big circus may be counted as one of the cultural advances of the twentieth century, yet I found myself descending the footbridge and in a few moments I was on the midway between the rows of stands where human mutations are exploited and exhibited for the entertainment of all children.

Eventually, I reached the big top and idly watched the bored ticket-taker in his elevated box at one side of the main entrance.

A pleasant-faced man leading two little girls approached him and presented several cardboard rectangles which appeared to be passes.

The ticket-taker ran his finger down a printed list at his side. His eyes hardened and he scowled down at the man and the children for a moment. Then slowly and deliberately he tore the passes to bits and let the fragments drift to the ground. “These are no damn good,” he said.

The man below him flushed. “I don’t understand.”

“You didn’t leave the posters up,” the ticket-taker snapped. “Beat it, crumb!”

The children looked up at their father, their faces puzzled. Would he do something about this?

He stood there and the white of anger appeared on his face. He seemed about to say something, but then he looked down at the children. He closed his eyes for a moment as though to control his anger, and then he said, “Come on, kids. Let’s go home.”

He led them away, down the midway, and the children looked back, bewildered, but saying nothing.

I approached the ticket-taker. “Why did you do that?”

He glanced down. “What’s it to you?”

“Perhaps a great deal.”

He studied me irritably. “Because he didn’t leave up the posters.”

“I heard that before. Now explain it.”

He exhaled as though it cost him money. “Our advance man goes through a town two weeks before we get there. He leaves posters advertising the show any place he can — grocery stores, shoe shops, meat markets — any place that will paste them in the window and keep them there until the show comes to town. He hands out two or three passes for that. But what some of these jokers don’t know is that we check up. If the posters aren’t still up when we hit town, the passes are no good.”

“I see,” I said dryly. “And so you tear up the passes in their faces and in front of their children. Evidently that man removed the posters from the window of his little shop too soon. Or perhaps he had those passes given to him by a man who removed the posters from his window.”

“What’s the difference? The passes are no good.”

“Perhaps there is no difference in that respect. But do you realize what you have done?”

His eyes were narrow, trying to estimate me and any power I might have.

“You have committed one of the most cruel of human acts,” I said stiffly. “You have humiliated a man before his children. You have inflicted a scar that will remain with him and them as long as they live. He will take those children home and it will be a long, long way. And what can he say to them?”

“Are you a cop?”

“I am not a cop. Children of that age regard their father as the finest man in the world. The kindest, the bravest. And now they will remember that a man had been bad to their father — and he had been unable to do anything about it.”

“So I tore up his passes. Why didn’t he buy tickets? Are you a city inspector?”

“I am not a city inspector. Did you expect him to buy tickets after that humiliation? You left the man with no recourse whatsoever. He could not buy tickets and he could not create a well-justified scene because the children were with him. He could do nothing. Nothing at all, but retreat with two children who wanted to see your miserable circus and now they cannot.”

I looked down at the foot of his stand. There were fragments of many more dreams — the debris of other men who had committed the capital crime of not leaving their posters up long enough. “You could at least have said, ‘I’m sorry, sir. But your passes are not valid.’ And then you could have explained politely and quietly why.”

“I’m not paid to be polite.” He showed yellow teeth. “And, mister, I like tearing up passes. It gives me a kick.”

And there it was. He was a little man who had been given a little power and he used it like a Caesar.

He half rose. “Now get the hell out of here, mister, before I come down there and chase you all over the lot.”

Yes. He was a man of cruelty, a two-dimensional animal born without feeling and sensitivity and fated to do harm as long as he existed. He was a creature who should be eliminated from the face of the earth.

If only I had the power to...

I stared up at the twisted face for a moment more and then turned on my heel and left. At the top of the bridge I got a bus and rode to the sports shop at Thirty-seventh.

I purchased a .32 caliber revolver and a box of cartridges.

Why do we not murder? Is it because we do not feel the moral justification for such a final act? Or is it more because we fear the consequences if we are caught — the cost to us, to our families, to our children?

And so we suffer wrongs with meekness, we endure them because to eliminate them might cause us even more pain than we already have.

But I had no family, no close friends. And four months to live.

The sun had set and the carnival lights were bright when I got off the bus at the bridge. I looked down at the midway and he was still in his box.

How should I do it? I wondered. Just march up to him and shoot him as he sat on his little throne?

The problem was solved for me. I saw him replaced by another man — apparently his relief. He lit a cigarette and strolled off the midway toward the dark lake front.

I caught up with him around a bend concealed by bushes. It was a lonely place, but close enough to the carnival so that its sounds could still reach me.

He heard my footsteps and turned. A tight smile came to his lips and he rubbed the knuckles of one hand. “You’re asking for it, mister.”

His eyes widened when he saw my revolver.

“How old are you?” I asked.

“Look, mister,” he said swiftly. “I only got a couple of tens in my pocket.”

“How old are you?” I repeated.

His eyes flicked nervously. “Thirty-two.”

I shook my head sadly. “You could have lived into your seventies. Perhaps forty more years of life, if only you had taken the simple trouble to act like a human being.”

His face whitened. “Are you off your rocker, or something?”

“A possibility.”

I pulled the trigger.

The sound of the shot was not as loud as I had expected, or perhaps it was lost against the background of the carnival noises.

He staggered and dropped to the edge of the path and he was quite dead.

I sat down on a nearby park bench and waited.

Five minutes. Ten. Had no one heard the shot?

I became suddenly conscious of hunger. I hadn’t eaten since noon. The thought of being taken to a police station and being questioned for any length of time seemed unbearable. And I had a headache, too.

I tore a page from my pocket notebook and began writing.

A careless word may be forgiven. But a lifetime of cruel rudeness cannot. This man deserves to die.

I was about to sign my name, but then I decided that my initials would be sufficient for the time being. I did not want to be apprehended before I had a good meal and some aspirins.

I folded the page and put it into the dead ticket-taker’s breast pocket.

I met no one as I returned up the path and ascended the footbridge. I walked to Weschler’s, probably the finest restaurant in the city. The prices are, under normal circumstances, beyond me, but I thought that this time I could indulge myself.

After dinner, I decided an evening bus ride might be in order. I rather enjoyed that form of city excursion and, after all, my freedom of movement would soon become restricted.

The driver of the bus was an impatient man and clearly his passengers were his enemies. However, it was a beautiful night and the bus was not crowded.

At Sixty-eighth Street, a fragile white-haired woman with cameo features waited at the curb. The driver grudgingly brought his vehicle to a stop and opened the door.

She smiled and nodded to the passengers as she put her foot on the first step, and one could see that her life was one of gentle happiness and very few bus rides.

“Well!” the driver snapped. “Is it going to take you all day to get in?”

She flushed and stammered. “I’m sorry.” She presented him with a five-dollar bill.

He glared. “Don’t you have any change?”

The flush deepened. “I don’t think so. But I’ll look.”

The driver was evidently ahead on his schedule and he waited.

And one other thing was clear. He was enjoying this.

She found a quarter and held it up timorously.

“In the box!” he snapped.

She dropped it into the box.

The driver moved his vehicle forward jerkily and she almost fell. Just in time, she managed to catch hold of a strap.

Her eyes went to the passengers, as though to apologize for herself — for not having moved faster, for not having immediate change, for almost falling. The smile trembled and she sat down.

At Eighty-second, she pulled the buzzer cord, rose, and made her way forward.

The driver scowled over his shoulder as he came to a stop.

“Use the rear door. Don’t you people ever learn to use the rear door?”

I am all in favor of using the rear door. Especially when a bus is crowded. But there were only half a dozen passengers on this bus and they read their newspapers with frightened neutrality.

She turned, her face pale, and left by the rear door.

The evening she had had, or the evening she was going to have, had now been ruined. Perhaps many more evenings with the thought of it.

I rode the bus to the end of the line.

I was the only passenger when the driver turned it around and parked.

It was a deserted, dimly lit corner, and there were no waiting passengers at the small shelter at the curb. The driver glanced at his watch, lit a cigarette, and then noticed me. “If you’re taking the ride back, mister, put another quarter in the box. No free riders here.”

I rose from my seat and walked slowly to the front of the bus. “How old are you?”

His eyes narrowed. “That’s none of your business.”

“About thirty-five, I’d imagine,” I said. “You’d have had another thirty years or more ahead of you.” I produced the revolver.

He dropped the cigarette. “Take the money,” he said.

“I’m not interested in money. I’m thinking about a gentle lady and perhaps the hundreds of other gentle ladies and the kind, harmless men and the smiling children. You are a criminal. There is no justification for what you do to them. There is no justification for your existence.”

And I killed him.

I sat down and waited.

After ten minutes, I was still alone with the corpse.

I realized that I was sleepy. Incredibly sleepy. It might be better if I turned myself in to the police after a good night’s sleep.

I wrote my justification for the driver’s demise on a sheet of note paper, added my initials, and put the page in his pocket.

I walked four blocks before I found a taxi and took it to my apartment building.

I slept soundly and perhaps I dreamed. But if I did, my dreams were pleasant and innocuous, and it was almost nine before I woke.

After a shower and a leisurely breakfast, I selected my best suit. I remembered I had not yet paid that month’s telephone bill. I made out a check and addressed an envelope. I discovered that I was out of stamps. But no matter, I would get one on the way to the police station.

I was almost there when I remembered the stamp. I stopped in at a corner drugstore. It was a place I had never entered before.

The proprietor, in a semi-medical jacket, sat behind the soda fountain reading a newspaper and a salesman was making notations in a large order book.

The proprietor did not look up when I entered and he spoke to the salesman. “They’ve got his fingerprints on the notes, they’ve got his handwriting, and they’ve got his initials. What’s wrong with the police?”

The salesman shrugged. “What good are fingerprints if the murderer doesn’t have his in the police files? The same goes for the handwriting if you got nothing to compare it with. And how many thousand people in the city got the initials L. T.?” He closed his book. “I’ll be back next week.”

When he was gone, the druggist continued reading the newspaper.

I cleared my throat.

He finished reading a long paragraph and then looked up. “Well?”

“I’d like a four-cent stamp, please.”

It appeared almost as though I had struck him. He stared at me for fifteen seconds and then he left his stool and slowly made his way to the rear of the store toward a small barred window.

I was about to follow him, but a display of pipes at my elbow caught my attention.

After a while I felt eyes upon me and looked up.

The druggist stood at the far end of the store, and one hand on his hip and the other disdainfully holding the single stamp. “Do you expect me to bring it to you?”

And now I remembered a small boy of six who had had five pennies. Not just one this time, but five, and this was in the days of penny candies.

He had been entranced at the display in the showcase — the fifty varieties of sweet things, and his mind had revolved in a pleasant indecision. The red whips? The licorice? The grab bags? But not the candy cherries. He didn’t like those.

And then he had become conscious of the druggist standing beside the display case — tapping one foot. The druggist’s eyes had smouldered with irritation — no, more than that — with anger. “Are you going to take all day for your lousy nickel?”

He had been a sensitive boy and he had felt as though he had received a blow. His precious five pennies were now nothing. This man despised them. And this man despised him.

He pointed numbly and blindly. “Five cents of that.”

When he left the store he had found that he had the candy cherries.

But that didn’t really matter. Whatever it had been, he couldn’t have eaten it.

Now I stared at the druggist and the four-cent stamp and the narrow hatred for anyone who did not contribute directly to his profits. I had no doubt that he would fawn if I purchased one of his pipes.

But I thought of the four-cent stamp and the bag of cherry candy I had thrown away so many years ago.

I moved toward the rear of the store and took the revolver out of my pocket. “How old are you?”

When he was dead, I did not wait longer than necessary to write a note. I had killed for myself this time and I felt the need of a drink.

I went several doors down the street and entered a small bar. I ordered a brandy and water.

After ten minutes, I heard the siren of a squad car.

The bartender went to the window. “It’s just down the street.” He took off his jacket. “Got to see what this is all about. If anybody comes in, tell them I’ll be right back.” He put the bottle of brandy on the bar. “Help yourself, but tell me how many.”

I sipped the brandy slowly and watched the additional squad cars and finally the ambulance appear.

The bartender returned after ten minutes and a customer followed at his heels. “A short beer, Joe.”

“This is my second brandy,” I said.

Joe collected my change. “The druggist down the street got himself murdered. Looks like it was by the man who kills people because they’re not polite.”

The customer watched him draw a beer. “How do you figure that? Could have been just a hold-up.”

Joe shook his head. “No. Fred Masters — he’s got the TV shop across the street — found the body and he read the note.”

The customer put a dime on the bar. “I’m not going to cry about it. I always took my business someplace else. He acted as though he was doing you a favor every time he waited on you.”

Joe nodded. “I don’t think anybody in the neighborhood’s going to miss him. He always made a lot of trouble.”

I had been about to leave and return to the drug store to give myself up, but now I ordered another brandy and took out my notebook. I began making a list of names.

It was surprising how one followed another. They were bitter memories, some large, some small, some I had experienced and many more that I had witnessed — and perhaps felt more than the victims.

Names. And that warehouseman. I didn’t know his name, but I must include him.

I remembered the day and Miss Newman. We were her sixth graders and she had taken us on another one of her excursions — this time to the warehouses along the river, where she was going to show us “how industry works.”

She always planned her tours and she always asked permission of the places we visited, but this time she strayed or became lost and we arrived at the warehouse — she and the thirty children who adored her.

And the warehouseman had ordered her out. He had used language which we did not understand, but sensed its intent, and he directed it against us and Miss Newman.

She was small and she had been frightened and we retreated. And Miss Newman did not report to school the next day or any day after that and we learned that she had asked for a transfer.

And I who loved her, too, knew why. She could not face us after that.

Was he still alive? He had been in his twenties then, I imagined.

When I left the bar a half an hour later, I realized I had a great deal of work to do.

The succeeding days were busy ones and, among others, I found the warehouseman. I told him why he was dying because he did not even remember.

And when that was done, I dropped into a restaurant not far away.

The waitress eventually broke off her conversation with the cashier and strode to my table. “What do you want?”

I ordered a steak and tomatoes.

The steak proved to be just about what one could expect in such a neighborhood. As I reached for my coffee spoon, I accidentally dropped it to the floor. I picked it up. “Waitress, would you mind bringing me another spoon, please?”

She stalked angrily to my table and snatched the spoon from my hand. “You got the shakes, or something?”

She returned in a few moments and was about to deposit a spoon, with considerable emphasis, upon my table.

But then a sudden thought altered the harsh expression of her face. The descent of the arm diminuendoed, and when the spoon touched the tablecloth, it touched gently. Very gently.

She laughed nervously. “I’m sorry if I was sharp, mister.”

It was an apology, and so I said, “That’s quite all right.”

“I mean that you can drop a spoon any time you want to. I’ll be glad to get you another.”

“Thank you.” I turned to my coffee.

“You’re not offended, are you, mister?” she asked eagerly.

“No. Not at all.”

She snatched a newspaper from an empty neighboring table. “Here, sir, you can read this while you eat. I mean it’s on the house. Free.”

When she left me, the wide-eyed cashier stared at her. “What’s with all that, Mable?”

Mable glanced back at me with a trace of uneasiness. “You can never tell who he might be. You better be polite these days.”

As I ate I read, and an item caught my eye. A grown man had heated pennies in a frying pan and tossed them out to some children who were making trick-or-treat rounds before Halloween. He had been fined a miserable twenty dollars.

I made a note of his name and address.

Dr. Driller finished his examination. “You can get dressed now, Mr. Turner.”

I picked up my shirt. “I don’t suppose some new miracle drug has been developed since I was here last?”

He laughed with self-enjoyed good nature. “No, I’m afraid not.” He watched me button the shirt. “By the way, have you decided what you’re going to do with your remaining time?”

I had, but I thought I’d say, “Not yet.”

He was faintly perturbed. “You really should, you know. Only about three months left. And be sure to let me know when you do.”

While I finished dressing, he sat down at his desk and glanced at the newspaper lying there. “The killer seems to be rather busy, doesn’t he?”

He turned the page. “But really the most surprising thing about the crimes seems to be the public’s reaction. Have you read the Letters From the People column recently?”

“No.”

“These murders appear to be meeting with almost universal approval. Some of the letter writers even hint that they might be able to supply the murderer with a few choice names themselves.”

I would have to get a paper.

“Not only that,” Dr. Briller said, “but a wave of politeness has struck the city.”

I put on my coat. “Shall I come back in two weeks?”

He put aside the paper. “Yes, and try to look at this whole thing as cheerfully as possible. We all have to go someday.”

But his day was indeterminate and presumably in the distant future.

My appointment with Dr. Briller had been in the evening, and it was nearly ten by the time I left my bus and began the short walk to my apartment building.

As I approached the last corner, I heard a shot, I turned into Milding Lane and found a little man with a revolver standing over a newly-dead body on the quiet and deserted sidewalk.

I looked down at the corpse. “Goodness, a policeman.”

The little man nodded. “Yes, what I’ve done does seem a little extreme, but you see he was using a variety of language that was entirely unnecessary.”

“Ah,” I said.

The little man nodded. “I’d parked my car in front of this fire hydrant. Entirely inadvertently, I assure you. And this policeman was waiting when I returned to my car. And also he discovered that I’d forgotten my driver’s license. I would not have acted as I did if he had simply written out a ticket — for I was guilty, sir, and I readily admit it — but he was not content with that. He made embarrassing observations concerning my intelligence, my eyesight, the possibility that I’d stolen the car, and finally on the legitimacy of my birth.” He blinked at a fond memory. “And my mother was an angel, sir. An angel.”

I remembered a time when I’d been apprehended while absentmindedly jaywalking. I would contritely have accepted the customary warning, or even a ticket, but the officer insisted upon a profane lecture before a grinning assemblage of interested pedestrians. Most humiliating.

The little man looked at the gun in his hand. “I bought this just today and actually I’d intended to use it on the superintendent of my apartment building. A bully.”

I agreed. “Surly fellows.”

He sighed. “But now I suppose I’ll have to turn myself over to the police?”

I gave it thought. He watched me.

He cleared his throat. “Or perhaps I should just leave a note? You see I’ve been reading in the newspapers about...”

I lent him my notebook.

He wrote a few lines, signed his initials, and deposited the slip of paper between two buttons of the dead officer’s jacket.

He handed the notebook to me. “I must remember to get one of these.”

He opened the door of his car. “Can I drop you off anywhere?”

“No, thank you,” I said. “It’s a nice evening. I’d rather walk.”

Pleasant fellow, I reflected, as I left him.

Too bad there weren’t more like him.

~ ~ ~

I am perhaps unwise in calling attention to the fact that this story, from the eighteenth anthology, is one of only two by women in the present compilation. I could defend myself — the sombre and disturbing story needs no defense, surely — by observing that over the twenty-five years of these anthologies less than ten percent of the tales came from the distaff side (a statistic whose significance I’ll leave for others to ponder, if only for the tranquility of my own household).

De Forbes

My Sister Annabelle[17]

The gray man was sitting, all hunched up, all alone on the park bench when they first saw him.

It was Annabelle who saw him first. She stopped short on the path ahead of Glen and he, knowing the signal, stopped just behind her. She said, “Oh, Glen, look at the gray man. He’s a scary man. I can tell.”

“Pooh.” This was the pattern, the way that it went. “What’s so scary about that old man?” When they found one, one of the scary ones. Glen would pretend for them, make believe for both of them that the scary people were not scary, that nothing would happen.

Now they hid among the trees... the trees whose leaves, in this early autumn, were turning red and yellow, were not quite ready to fall. Annabelle peered out from beneath the branches. Glen couldn’t see her eyes. But he knew they were sparkling with excitement. Annabelle loved the excitement. They both loved the excitement.

“You’re silly.” He said what he was supposed to say. It wasn’t any fun if he didn’t pretend that* he didn’t believe. “Come on if we’re going to the zoo.”

“I’m not silly.” She had moved away from him, moved out of sight beneath the branches but he could tell she was getting angry. As she was meant to — as she always did. “I guess I know a mean, scary man when I see one.”

Glen looked out, across the curving brick sidewalk to the green bench. Against the background of boulders that kept the park from the city, the man was just sitting there. He wasn’t reading or feeding the pigeons or enjoying the sun or anything. He was just sitting there. His suit was gray — not dark, not light, just gray like a dull morning. His hair was gray, too, brownish-gray, and his face was gray like his suit. Not quite as gray, of course, but gray. And suddenly Glen felt it, he saw the man as Annabelle saw him, as though somewhere inside he had shifted gears, shifted his mind, his eyes to Annabelle and Annabelle’s to him. The gray man was scary. Glen could see it now.

He took a step backward, went on with the way of it. “Come on, I’ll race you to the monkey house.”

“You’re afraid,” said Annabelle. “You’re afraid of the gray man. You’re afraid to go talk to him.”

There it was — the prickling. The funny feeling that he was covered with hair inside and out and that every one of those hairs was standing on end. The prickling hurt when it happened, but it was wonderful too, because it was only then that every part of him, every single inch of him was alive and colors never looked brighter and sounds were never clearer, the sky was never so blue. “Of course I’m not scared. I’ll say anything to him you like.”

She was somewhere there in the mass of golds and scarlets, a leaf fairy like the ones in picture books... He couldn’t see her and he didn’t really want to see her. Her eyes — he had seen them before when she was like this and they were so big, so wide, so shiny, so strange... “Tell him I love him,” she whispered and her voice was like a little breeze in the tree. “Tell him I love him and want him to come.”

Glen caught the edge of his lip between his teeth. It tasted like meat, like soft, tough meat without flavor. “I don’t want to tell him that.”

She laughed. “You’re scared.” Her voice was fading away as though she were going, too.

“Wait,” he called after her without raising his voice. “I’ll tell him. I’m not scared. I’ll tell him.”

“Go on, then.” She sounded as though she were right at his elbow, behind him. He didn’t look around, just moved forward, through the low branches and into the sun, onto the path. From here on, there was no set pattern. From here on. Glen was messenger, was scout. How far it went depended on the gray man.

He thought that the gray man would look at him, would see him coming and look up and look away — at least look at him.

Maybe he is blind, Glen thought, and a cold feeling passed along his back, passed and went away.

Glen was quite near the bench now, legs moving, bringing him closer, eyes searching the gray face. The man didn’t look blind... he had no cane, nor a dog, but — somehow — the eyes were not seeing him.

Shy, suddenly, because to the man he was not there at all, Glen passed him by and sat on the far end of the bench. He felt small, very small and young as he sat there.

The gray man breathed. Glen could hear him breathe. A raspy kind of sound. Maybe he had a cold — maybe that was why he sat in the sunshine and saw nothing, said nothing.

Pigeons were walking on the walk, walking closer, bobbing like corks on the water. They were near the gray man now and Glen watched as one, the boldest pigeon, landed with a whirring of wings on the gray man’s scuffed black shoe.

He pushed it off with his other foot. Roughly. The pigeons flew — all of them — away. And Glen thought, it is strange. Here in this city. In this park, there are no noises. Only faint ones — from a long way off. This was the city’s quiet place. All he could hear was the pigeons’ coo and the sound of their wings and the sound of the gray man breathing.

The gray man coughed. Coughed long and hard, doubled up with a rumpled handkerchief to his face. When he had finished. Glen said, “You sick. Mister?”

The gray head came up. The gray eyes focused, saw him, looked at him. Glen smiled and moved closer. “You sound sick. Mister. Can I do something for you?”

“No. No, thanks.” The voice was weak, the words a little slurred.

Glen kept his face interested, his eyes on the man. He moved a little closer.

The man had looked away but he looked back now to see if Glen was there and when he found him, he looked away again.

“I’ve been sick,” he said, “But I’m better now. I’m sitting out here in the sun getting better now.” The gray man tried to make his tone cheerful, but Glen could tell how hard it was for him to talk like that.

“The sun is very good for you,” said Glen pleasantly. “It’s full of vitamin C.” The gray man needed a shave, he noticed. Little bits of whiskers darkened his gray chin. And his hands — not very clean hands, the fingernails were dirty — shook ever so slightly holding the handkerchief. He lowered his head now, closed his eyes, and Glen could feel him thinking, could feel the very words of his thoughts. “Go away, kid.”

“I have a friend,” said Glen moving yet a little closer. “She sent me to see you. She sent a message.”

The head turned, the body moved, too, so that the gray back was turned toward Glen. The hands stuffed the handkerchief into a pocket, searched other pockets for cigarettes. “They’re in your left side jacket pocket,” said Glen.

The soiled hands found a crumpled cigarette package, fumbled with matches. “Could I light it for you. Mister? Could I, please? I like to light matches.”

The match, lit suddenly, sharply, by the gray man, flared. He turned roughly, smoke curling from his mouth, his nose. “Now look, kid. I ain’t feeling good. I got a headache and I feel punk. So get outa here and let me alone, will ya?” His eyes were more than one color. Glen saw — gray-centered with yellowy-white edges and little lines of red running through the white. Like an aggie Glen had once had. He stood up and looked at the man and let tears fall from his own eyes. He wondered if Annabelle were close enough to see. She was forever fascinated by the way he could cry, without effort, without sound, just liquid squeezing from beneath his lashes. A little at first and then — a sea of tears.

The gray man looked surprised. He moved his head around to see if anyone watched. “Now look, kid,” he mumbled, “you don’t need to cry. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, but — like I told you...”

“My father won’t talk to me either,” said Glen. “He’s always away. He’s an engineer and he’s always away — in South America or somewhere. Right now he’s in Arabia.” He let his lip quiver and the tears, stopping now, rolled slowly down his cheeks.

The gray man looked again to see if anyone was watching. Glen took a quick look, too, to see if Annabelle was near. He didn’t see her, but the crimson bush beyond the path shivered and he knew that she stood hidden in its branches.

The gray man put his hand in his pants pocket and pulled out some coins. He picked one out and offered it to Glen. “I’m sorry kid,” he rasped. “Go out and buy yourself a candy or something.”

Glen shook his head. “Thank you, but I have plenty of money. That’s another thing my father does. He gives me money to make up for the times he won’t talk to me.” He took a clean white handkerchief from his hip pocket and blew his nose, folded the handkerchief neatly and put it back. The gray man watched his hands perform the task. He was trying to think of what to say next. Glen knew.

It happened every time. At some point they picked up the pattern and went on with it. It happened now.

“What’s your name, kid?”

“Glen. My name is Glen. What’s yours?” Glen sat down on the bench by the gray man and swung his feet. His shoes were not new, but well polished. They were brown and were tied with yellow shoelaces. He had picked out the yellow laces himself.

“Joe. My name is Joe, kid.” The gray man threw his cigarette into the path, tried to sit straighter. “Do you go to school. Glen? What grade are you in?”

Glen had his answer ready. This was the next question they always asked. “Oh — sure. I go to private school. I’m in the ninth, I’m twelve.”

“Yeah? Kinda small for your age, ain’t you?”

“That’s a rude question,” said Glen. “Suppose I said: you didn’t shave this morning, did you, Joe? Would you think that was rude?”

He watched a flush come to the gray man’s face. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess I would. But you see, I wasn’t feeling too good this morning, Glen, so I just didn’t get around to it.” He fingered his stub-bled chin.

“You mean — you had a hangover?” Glen rubbed the toe of his shoe along the ground. He thought he heard Annabelle giggle.

“Well, yeah — as a matter of fact, I did. It happens sometimes. When you grow up, you know.”

Glen nodded. “I know. My mother has them all the time.”

The gray man took the last cigarette out of the pack, crumpled the pack and threw it away. “Your mother?” he asked when he had lit the match.

“Yes. She is an alcoholic. My father sends her away every so often. To a sanitarium. Till she gets over it. She’s there now.”

For the first time the gray man really looked at him. “Jeez, kid,” he said, “that’s rough.”

“I don’t mind except that she’s very beautiful. She has long golden hair and violet eyes. She looks like a movie star. Everybody says so.”

“ ’Zat so? Say, didn’t you say something about a friend of yours when you came up here? Had a message for me?”

Glen sent a glance toward the red bush. “That was a joke really. I meant my sister, Annabelle. She likes to play jokes.”

“Your sister, Annabelle.” The gray man looked a little better. Glen thought. He was not quite so gray now. “How old is your sister?”

“Twenty-one,” he said glibly. “Next month. People say she looks just like mother.”

The gray man squinted against the sun. “Yeah? And you say she likes to play jokes? What kinda joke was she going to play?”

Glen shrugged. “She sends me up to guys sometimes to tell them to meet her. When they do, she kisses them and snuggles up — you know, girl stuff.”

The gray man took a deep breath. “You don’t say. And she told you to ask me to meet her somewhere?”

“Yes, but I decided I wouldn’t tell you. You’re too nice. Let her find somebody else. You can stay and sit in the sun and feel better and talk to me.”

The gray man stood up abruptly. “I feel much better, Glen. Much better — yes, I do. And it ain’t — isn’t exactly polite to keep a young lady waiting, now is it. Glen?”

Glen kept his eyes on the ground. “You wouldn’t like her,” he said.

“Oh, but I would.” The gray man bent over him. “If your sister is anything like you, I know I would. You’re a nice looking boy yourself, Glen, and if your sister looks anything like you...”

Glen stuck his lower lip out. “She doesn’t,” he said. “She doesn’t look like me at all. Everybody says Annabelle’s got all the looks of the family. That’s what everybody says.” Glen crossed his feet quickly, watched the yellow laces flop.

A heavy hand descended on his shoulder. “Now, listen, Glen — you been handing me this screwy story for ten minutes. I don’t know what kind of nutcake family you came from and I don’t care. I got off a ship, see, been on it for a long time. And I fancy a little feminine companionship, you understand? So if your sister wants to see me, let’s go see her. If I don’t like her, I can always tell her bye-bye.” The hand yanked him to his feet.

Glen glanced up through his lashes. “A ship?” he asked. “You don’t look like a sailor. Sailors are sun color.”

The gray man’s eyes shifted and his mouth grew hard. He is scary, Annabelle, he is, thought Glen.

“I told you — I’ve been sick. It’s none of your business anyway where I’ve been. Just leave it that I’ve been out of circulation for a while. Now, where’s your sister?”

The red bush was empty. There was no sign, but Glen could tell. Annabelle had gone to the meeting place. She would be waiting — but maybe he’d better give her a few more minutes. He said, “Don’t be mad at me. Mister. I like you ’cause you talk to me. Please don’t be mad — ’cause if you’re mad I’ll never tell you where Annabelle is.”

The hand on his shoulder tightened, then suddenly released him. “I ain’t mad. Glen. Honest.” The gray man hesitated, then took a well-worn billfold from inside his coat. “I know you don’t need money, but I’d like to buy you something, ’cause I like you, too.” He thrust some bills into Glen’s hand. “Take it from me. As friend to friend. Will ya?”

Glen looked at the two single dollar bills, “OK,” he said and smiled. He put the money into his watch pocket, folding it carefully. “Now,” he said, “I’ll take you to Annabelle.”

He ran lightly ahead of the gray man, up the rocky path that led to the promontory. He was a mountain goat, leaping easily from rock to rock. He was an astronaut on the moon, weightless and agile. He was a kangaroo in Australia, jumping twenty feet at a bound...

He could hear the gray man breathing hard behind him. “Where the devil is your sister?” he asked. “Where are you taking me?”

Glen stopped, went back to him and pointed, “You see, up there at the top of the hill?” The gray man peered up through the radiant foliage.

“Up there?”

“There’s a lovely glade — all hidden by trees and bushes, looking down on the lake. It’s quite beautiful and quite secret. It’s Annabelle’s favorite meeting place.”

The gray man breathed hard for a minute. Then he said, “OK. After you, Glen. I can make it.”

This time Glen was an Indian stalking the wagon train. How quickly, how quietly an Indian moved up the trail...

“Now,” panted the gray man at the summit. “Where is she?”

“Over there,” said Glen. “She’s right over there. Behind the crabapple tree.” The gray man stumbled across the rocky ledge and the Indian went behind him, close behind him, flitting from bush to bush. The gray man hesitated as he neared the crabapple tree, then took off his hat and stepped tentatively around the tree. Captain Kidd came behind him, Thor, the god, came behind him. King Kong, Frankenstein’s monster, power and force came behind him. And then the gray man became a bird, a calling bird, flying, flying...

Glen and Annabelle knelt on their knees at the edge of the rocky cliff that rimmed the lake. Far below them there was something in the water, struggling, sinking down.

Glen looked at Annabelle. Her eyes were sparkling. “Do you suppose he could swim?” asked Glen.

She shrugged. “Anyway,” she turned and smiled, “didn’t I tell you he was a scary man?”

It was growing dark as Glen started home. He whistled as he walked the city sidewalks. Now he heard sounds. The swish of tires, the rhythm of feet on pavement, the grind of brakes, the blare of horns. There was something about the city, he thought, that you wouldn’t find in any stupid old country. I know you, city, his mind sang, and you know me.

He turned into his apartment building and rode the elevator to his floor. He let himself quietly into the apartment.

“Glen? Is that you?” His mother’s voice came from the living room. She and his father were there, having their pre-dinner cocktail. Bessie was cooking something good in the kitchen. He could smell it and it made him hungry.

He went through the living room archway, stopped. The Cornwells were there, too. A short man and a tall woman. He greeted them and bent over to let his parents kiss his cheek. “I’m sorry I’m late.” he said. He spoke quickly, ran his words together. “Annabelle and I went to the zoo.”

“That’s nice,” said his mother. She smoothed her dark, dark hair into place, took a sip of her drink. “You’ll just have time to wash up before dinner.”

They never really listened, he thought, and it was just as well. But once in a while he liked to test them. He passed through the room, down the hall. He could hear their voices behind him, talking low and pleasantly as they always did. He could see his father’s workroom as he passed by, the room where he wrote his articles, the pencils, the papers, the typewriter waiting for his father’s hand.

He paused at his own room, his hand on the knob. He listened.

He heard Mrs. Cornwell say to his father, “Glen is such a polite young man, and he looks so healthy. Wasn’t he ill for a while?”

He heard his father’s answer. “Yes. A few years back. He’s fine now, fine.”

Mr. Cornwell said, “In this day of difficult children, you should get a medal for that boy, Harley.”

And then Mrs. Cornwell said it. “Who is this little friend he mentioned? What was her name? Annabelle?”

He waited for his mother’s answer. “Annabelle? Oh, surely he didn’t say Annabelle.” Her voice sounded funny, all of a sudden. Choked up.

“I imagine he said Andy,” said his father smoothly, quickly. “Glen has a lot of friends at school.”

“Oh, no. I’m certain he said Annabelle,” Mrs. Cornwell insisted. She giggled, an odd sound from so large and old a woman. “Maybe Glen has a girl friend.”

“I read your last article, Harley,” said Mr. Cornwell loudly. “Very interesting. Very interesting, indeed.”

“He’s just about the age for it, I should think,” Mrs. Cornwell went on. “Although some boys get girl fever later than others. I think you should check on this Annabelle, Grace.” She giggled again.

“Martha!” Mr. Cornwell sounded cross. “Could I speak to you a moment? In private?”

Glen heard the silence, the loud silence, then the tread of their footsteps as they neared the hall. He slipped into his room and closed the door to a crack.

“What is the matter with you?” whispered Mrs. Cornwell.

“You’ve got as much tact as an elephant,” hissed Mr. Cornwell. “Annabelle was their daughter. You must remember — she drowned up at their country place when Glen was a toddler.”

Mrs. Cornwell let out her breath. “Oh, my God,” she said. “Some half-wit caretaker attacked her and — I remember. I’d completely forgotten the child’s name.” She sounded ready to cry. Strange to think of a tall woman crying.

“If you had any sensitivity at all, you would have guessed there was something wrong. But no, I had to make us look like a couple of fools by calling you out here. Now for God’s sake shut up and change the subject. You just heard the boy wrong, that’s all.”

“But I didn’t,” said Mrs. Cornwell. Her whisper grew hoarser, louder. “I heard the child very clearly. Couldn’t there be another Annabelle? It isn’t a common name — but couldn’t there be a coincidence?”

Mr. Cornwell growled. “You’re like a dog with a bone. Either forget it or we’ll go home. You’ve already spoiled the evening.” He started back.

Mrs. Cornwell spoke half to herself. “Fleetwood School. I’ll just ask, casually, if there’s a child called Annabelle. After all, I’m not feeble-minded.” And she followed after her husband, saying, and making the words sound like a lie, “Husbands. They’re the limit, Grace. he’d loosened a button in a place I can’t mention and if I don’t pull the buttons off and save them...”

Glen shut his door silently.

“Annabelle,” he said, “did it ever occur to you that Mrs. Cornwell is a mean, scary woman?”

~ ~ ~

From the nineteenth anthology...

In the broadest interpretation, detection and detectives have existed in human culture since one man first followed the trail — with clues of bent grass, broken twigs, footprints — of another in the wilderness. This has not gone unrecognized in literature, bringing us the tales of Leatherstocking, of November Joe, Detective of the Woods, and, in a fully modern vein, of...

Borden Deal

The Cattywampus[18]

I knew they would come to me long before they actually did and I didn’t even have to decide what my answer would be. The first word I heard about the strange animal, I felt a tightening in my stomach, because I knew that sooner or later they would think about me, remember, and it wouldn’t be long after that before they would decide that it was my responsibility.

You can count on about one strange-animal story every ten years or so. Somebody sees an animal, maybe in the headlights of his car or prowling around his barn in the beam of a flashlight, and he takes a shot at it. Because he’s nervous and because he’s not a very good shot anyway, he misses, and the animal disappears.

Then the stories start. It’s not like any animal ever seen by man. It’s a cattywampus, like the old folks used to tell about; it’s been hibernating in a cave for thousands of years, an animal whose species has disappeared from the earth. It can get so bad that people are afraid to go out at night and the children begin to have nightmares. Gradually, the stories die out into legend and another strange animal has been added to the myths of the mountains.

Men have always told tales of strange beasts. It seems to fill a need inside them that’s as old as the fear of the darkness pressing around the campfires of the human race. I’m sure that when we go out to the strange planets, there’ll be new tales of fabulous animals to whet the adrenal glands with fear and wonder.

Our country lends itself to such tellings. After all, the mountains rise high and green around us and no man can know all the cliffs and gorges where the mountain laurel grows, not even a man like me who was raised with a gun in his hand and who has killed just about every kind of game there is on this earth, even elephants in Africa and tigers in India. There are ridges and coves in our mountains where no man has set foot since Indian days. I’ve found some of those places myself, walking where no man has walked in so long that one might as well be back in primeval times, so that the hackles rise on your neck just from the pressing silence, the very absence of mankind.

They came to me, five of them, early one morning before breakfast. They stood in the yard looking up at me on the porch because I hadn’t asked them to have a chair and a cup of coffee like I should have. I didn’t want to make them comfortable; I wanted them to go away as quickly as possible.

“It was seen again last night,” Jim Varner said, “It broke into Bill Wallace’s corn crib. He heard it ripping and tearing at the door and he stuck a gun out the window and shot at it. There it was, tearing up the moonlight, taller than a man and twice as fearsome.”

“A bear.” I said.

Bill Wallace shook his head solemnly. He was long and lean and solemn, anyway. “It wasn’t any bear,” he said, “I’ve never seen a bear looked like that in my life.”

“There haven’t been any bears in this valley for thirty years,” Jim Varner said.

“He came down out of the mountains,” I said. “He’s out of his territory. They’ll do that sometimes.”

“I know what a bear paw looks like, Sam,” Bill Wallace said. “I have seen a bear print. This didn’t look like anything I’ve seen in my life.”

“You know how these things get started,” I said. “Maybe it was a man robbing your corn crib.”

Bill Wallace shook his head stubbornly. Then they fell silent, waiting for me to speak, to volunteer. I didn’t say anything. I just stood there waiting for them to go away.

“You’re probably right about one thing,” Jim Varner said. “Whatever it is, it came down out of those mountains. I, got a theory about it. You remember that big forest fire that went on up there for two weeks or more about six months ago, early last fall? I figure it got run out by that big fire. Something that’s lived and bred back there beyond the sight of man for no telling how many hundreds of years.”

“Not very likely,” I said. “It’s folks’ imaginations running away with them, and nothing more. You know how tales of strange beasts have always been told.”

“You’re darned right I know,” Jim Varner said vigorously. “Where there’s telling, there’s bound to be a little truth. When things are being repeated over and over again, you know that somewhere back there, something real and true happened. There’s always been strange beasts that lived not in the memory of man. And there are still, in spite of the country getting too civilized. Plenty of places where they can hide.”

“Every soul in the valley is afraid to put their heads out of doors after dark,” another man said.

“Will you hunt it?” John Platt said. “You’re the mightiest hunter ever in these parts. Will you kill it for us, Sam?”

I looked at him. He was the man, some years ago, who had come to me, when he’d heard that I was cleaning all the animal heads out of my house, and asked for them. I gave them to him because I didn’t care about destroying them. I just didn’t want to look at them any more. About a year later, he put up a motel on the highway for the tourist trade, along with a small zoo to attract the youngsters. He hung those heads of mine in the lobby as part of his attraction, and not long after, he’d started telling little stories about how he, himself, had killed this one and that one. He didn’t ever tell them to anybody but the tourists, but I heard about it.

“No,” I said. “I don’t hunt any more.”

“This is not hunting,” Jim Varner said. “This is something else again. If anybody could track that strange beast and kill it, you can. There’s nobody else.”

“No,” I said. And then, because they didn’t move, because they kept on waiting, I said, “I’m sorry, men. But my breakfast is setting on the table.”

They went away then, reluctantly, moving slowly in a clump and looking back at me, one looking and then looking away quickly, then another one turning his head. I watched them down the road, then I went back inside the house and sat down at the table.

Ruth filled my coffee cup again.

I looked up at her, knowing she would want to know. “They wanted me to go after their cattywampus,” I said.

She sat down across from me at the table, “It’s your duty,” she said. “You ought to do it.”

I looked at her. “You, too?”

“The women are afraid,” she said quietly. “For the children. And not only that. They’re afraid the men will try to hunt it down themselves.”

“Let them,” I said. “It’s all imagination. I’ve heard tales of strange animals all my life. But the only animals I’ve ever seen are the ones that mankind has always known about. There are no strange animals.”

She kept on watching me. “Why don’t you like people?” she said at last.

I did not look up at her. I began eating to keep from having to talk.

She got up from the table and moved restlessly toward the kitchen stove. The house was quiet around us.

“You won’t ever have anything to do with people,” she said. “You just want to stay up here in this cove by ourselves. You don’t care if you never see a soul from week to week.”

“I think people ought to mind their own business,” I said. “Most of the trouble in this world comes from people minding other people’s business.”

She turned toward me. “But this is your business.”

I looked up at her. We had been married ten years now. She went back into the hunting days, when I’d be gone a week at a time, when I’d even made a two-month trip into the Canadian Rockies, leaving her behind. We had never had any children. But we didn’t need children to hold us together. We were steady and true to each other.

“It’ll die down,” I said. “They’ll quit seeing it. They’ll tell tales about it. But they’ll quit being afraid. Because the strange animal doesn’t exist and you can go on being afraid just so long of something that doesn’t exist.”

“Sam,” she said in her quietest voice. “What is it with you? Why is it that you quit the hunting?”

I shook my head gently. I couldn’t talk about it. I never would be able to talk about it. Because it wasn’t anything sharp and definite that happened one particular day. I’d just killed so many deer and so many bear and so many mountain goats until all the killing was used up out of me. At first, I began missing the shots, because I was too slow getting the gun to my shoulder, too slow pulling the trigger, as though something were holding my hand back, when I had the animal in my sights or centered in the cross hairs of the scope. Later, I hadn’t been able to go out to hunt at all. I had just burned out, that was all.

I was the greatest hunter ever known in our mountains. I was raised there, just as all our neighbors had been. But one day, when I was just a boy, I’d been hunting with a beat-up .22 that I’d swapped away from another boy. I was stalking a deer when he startled away out of sight and I looked up to see a man watching me.

He was Major Tom Walker. He was a rich man who had built a hunting lodge near us some years before, bringing his friends down out of the north to hunt for deer and bear and wild turkey and wild boars. He was a big man, with iron-gray hair and a straight back and a stern face.

“You couldn’t have killed that deer,” he said. “You could only have hurt him.”

The tone of his voice made me ashamed. “I didn’t think,” I said.

He regarded me for a moment. Then he said, “Come on.” He turned and walked away, with me following him. We went up the slope a mile or more to his hunting lodge. I looked around with wonder as he led me inside. I’d heard about it; but I’d never been there before.

He went to a rack of guns and stood before it, considering. Then he took one down, hefted it in his hand, and said, “Here. This is yours.”

That was the beginning. From then on, I was with Major Tom nearly every day that he was at the lodge. I went on just about every hunting trip that was made. I was half guide, half companion, by the time I was sixteen years old, because not one of them, not even Major Tom, could match my hunting. I learned to let the guests get the first shot, then to take the animal after they’d missed or wounded it.

But the best times of all were when Major Tom and I went with no one else along. And there were those times when I was nineteen and when I was twenty that he took me to Africa and India for big-game hunting. On the second trip, I killed the third largest tiger that had ever been shot. It was when we were on our way to Africa on our third trip, when I was twenty-two, that Major Tom died, in his cabin aboard ship, of a heart attack, one day before we arrived. I flew his body home, taking him back to the three married daughters, all that was left of his family, for he had never had a son. I was moved and astonished when I found that he had left me the hunting lodge and an annuity that would yield just enough money so I wouldn’t have to worry for the rest of my life.

I didn’t go back home. I didn’t even think about the hunting lodge. I joined the Army because the Korean War was starting about then. I wanted the infantry; I wanted to be a sniper. I should have been a killer-sniper because I was a crack shot and I hunted animals all my life. The Army made me a company clerk, and during the sixteen months I spent in Korea, I fired a gun only at a target on the range. And finally, I came home.

I opened the hunting lodge on a commercial basis and met Ruth and married her, and after a few years, I couldn’t hurt any more, so we lived in the lodge, and I wrote the articles for the sporting magazines from time to time that gave me a sense of usefulness.

So there was no definite reason why I had quit, nothing I could put my finger on and say, “This is it.” I took the great heads out of our house to give to John Platt, and after a while he hung them in his motel and soon he began telling his little stories about how he’d hunted this one and that one.

I went on into my office and did some work so I wouldn’t have to talk to Ruth. But they were back the next morning, standing before the porch while I looked down on them.

“Two little girls were on their way to church last night, just about dusky-dark,” Jim Varner told me. “There was going to be a church pageant and they were in it. They were wearing white dresses and they had angel wings, folded carefully over their arms. The strange animal rose up in the road before them. They screamed and ran. One of them is still screaming. Every time she wakes up from the stuff the doctor gave her, she starts screaming again.”

“That’s what telling old tales will do,” I said. “You’ve frightened the children into seeing things.”

“Then you’re not going?”

“No,” I said.

“All right,” he said, turning away. “We will have to, then.”

I looked at them standing there with their old shotguns. The best any of them would have would be an old buckshot shell that might fire and might not. The others would be loaded with bird shot. One of them even had an old hogleg forty-five. I wanted to laugh.

“You get to stamping around over the mountains and somebody’ll get hurt,” I said. “You’ll be shooting at each other.”

“We’ve got to try,” Varner said. “That’s all any man can do.”

Ruth came out on the porch behind me. “He’ll do it,” she told the men. “He will go. Today.”

I looked at her. There was an expression on her face that I had never seen before. I looked back at the men and nodded my head slowly.

“I’ll be along in a little while,” I said. “I’ve got to get ready first. Don’t let anybody mess up the tracks. If there are any.”

They went on away. Ruth stood waiting for me to look at her.

“Why do you want me to do it?” I asked her.

“Because I want you to recognize your duty when it comes along,” she said. “You’re part of the human race, Sam. The human race didn’t die out when Major Tom died. There’s still a lot of us around. This is something that nobody else can do, and when that kind of a job comes along, a man must recognize it.”

“All right,” I said. “I’m going. I’ll prove there’s nothing there. Will that satisfy you?”

“No,” she said. “You must go for the right reason. Because the people need you to go.”

“I can’t go for that reason,” I said.

She turned away from me, starting back into the house. “If you can’t go for the right reason, there’s no use in going.”

I saw the tears in her eyes as she turned away from me.

“I’ll do it for you,” I said. She came back to me then. I put my arms around her, holding her. “Is that enough?”

She looked up into my face. “I don’t know. It’s enough for me. I don’t know whether or not it’s enough for you.”

“It’s the best I can do,” I said.

“Then go,” she said, putting her arms around me, too. I couldn’t understand why she had to cry about it.

I went inside the house and opened the locker where the one gun I had kept was stored. I had killed the great tiger with this one. I picked it up, feeling it heavy and familiar in my hand. I took the old hunting clothes and boots out of the locker and put them on. They were worn and familiar on my body. By the time I was dressed, Ruth had brought me a canteen of water and a supply of food. I kissed her and left the house, walking slowly down to the crossroads store.

The men were waiting for me in front of the store. We did not speak as they led me to the place where the children had taken fright. Traffic had moved over the road since, of course, so I went into the bushes on each side, searching.

I stopped, looking down. There was a track, all right, I squatted, and my spine tingled. I had never seen a track like this before. It tried to look familiar but it deformed itself out of recognition. I followed on to the next one. It didn’t move like any animal I had ever seen, either, but with an irregular pattern that jarred at my sense of fitness.

I stood up, looking toward the men without really seeing them. “All right,” I said. “Don’t anybody follow me. I’ll be back when I know something.”

The tracks were a night old but they were easy to follow across the valley. The beast had moved along steadily, without any attempt at concealment. Near the edge of the valley, it had circled a barn and I saw where it had tried to break through a boarded-over window. I examined the marks made in the old wood but I could not recognize them. The puzzlement was eating deep into me by now, along with a stirring of ancient fear that the unknown always brings into a man.

I circled the barn and picked up the tracks again. A man and his six children were standing on the porch of the house by now, watching me.

“That cattywampus was here last night, all right,” he called to me. “I heard him at the barn.”

“What did you do?” I asked.

He grinned. “I got under the bed,” he said. “I took the wife and young’uns and crawled under and stayed till daylight.”

I went on. The tracks cut toward the mountains then, and in half an hour I was climbing. I began to sweat with the sun. Two hours later, I found where he had bedded for the night.

I was steadied down into the tracking by now. I searched the bed for body hair so I could tell what it was I was following. I could find nothing. I stood up, looking toward the mountains. I took a deep breath. I realized that I was afraid. Those tracks had put the fear into me. They kept trying to look like something that I could recognize, but they hovered always beyond the edge of recollection. There was a clublike, clawless look to them. Maybe, I thought, there is such a thing as a cattywampus. Maybe that forest fire did drive one down from the mountains.

I went on, following the fresher trail. It didn’t seem to make much difference to the beast whether it moved by day or by night, and that wasn’t characteristic either. He had slept for a while and then gone on, just as though he had a destination.

The day wore on. I climbed higher and higher into the mountains. I saw a deer and half-lifted the rifle in a reflex action. Then I stopped. I was not hunting. I did not intend ever to hunt again. This was only a civic duty I was performing, against my will.

But I couldn’t help slipping into the old patterns. It even seemed as though Major Tom were out there with me, moving along in his quiet way, without talking. I had not felt his good companionship for so many years. When he had died, he had left me empty of everything.

I stopped in the thinking. Then Ruth had been right. I had died when Major Tom had died, and all the time since had been a mourning time. Just as mankind needs old tales and legends to fill a place inside its own imagination, I had needed a father and Major Tom had filled that place. I knew now why Ruth had been crying.

It was late in the afternoon when I caught the first glimpse of the quarry. I had just topped a ridge when I saw it moving up the opposite slope. I lifted the gun even though it was too far for a shot. I wanted to get a look. I sighted through the scope sight, seeing the beast spring out of the magnification into my eyes.

I lowered the gun and stood there trembling. I had gotten one quick look before he had moved out of sight. My mind did not believe what my eyes had seen.

It moved in a peculiar, rolling, hitching gait, on all fours. The fur was so thin it was indistinguishable. It was taller than a man if it could have stood erect. I had never seen anything like it.

I was shaking. I wanted to turn and go back. I did not want to trail this strange thing to the end when I would have to face it.

After a few minutes, I steadied down. I had promised; and I was a hunter, I had stood in the path of the charging tiger and taken him. I was a brave man; I knew I was brave. But the animals I had faced were known, while this beast was not.

I moved on slowly, with the thinking. I knew where he was headed now. There was a system of limestone caves about two miles ahead of us, a dozen or more of them boring out of the earth along the face of a clay bluff. He must den up there.

I cut away from the trail, moving fast, in a straight line, for the cave. I broke into a half-trot, my blood began to sing and I was once again absorbed into the bone-remembered patterns of hunting.

I reached the caves in good time. I went up the bluff and lay down over them, looking into the across slope. He was not yet in sight. The slope was bare and I would have a good look, a good shot.

I lay and waited, watching the slope beyond the small creek. It was less than an hour before he showed, moving down the slope in that peculiar, rolling motion pattern. I put the scope on him but he was still half-hidden in the spring undergrowth.

At last he came out on the shale edge of the creek. He stopped to drink. I was watching him through the scope, puzzlement and fear fighting inside of me so that I wanted to scuttle back from the edge of the bluff. Then I saw him flick a fish out of the water with an incredibly quick movement of his paw. He took the wriggling fish between both paws and stood up on his hind legs.

The familiar pattern of movements told me. I knew the full terrible thing that he was and I felt a breathtaking relief surging through me. He was a bear. He was known, familiar, even though there had not been a bear near the settlement for nearly thirty years.

But what a bear! I thought of last fall’s forest fire. He must have been caught in it, barely escaping with his life. His body hair was scanty, showing great swatches of burned and scarred flesh which would never again grow hair. His head was hideous with great welts and burns. I remembered peculiar tracks; he must have had to travel over burning ground so that his feet were crippled and deformed. I could feel myself flinching from the terrible pain this bear must have known. No wonder those who had caught a glimpse of him had been terrified.

He had come down out of the mountains because of hunger. So crippled and deformed, feeding had become almost impossible, even though a bear finds food plentiful most of the time, they will eat anything. Here it was spring, when he should have been fattening and fattening himself, and he was so lean that one could see the rib cage.

I lay there, watching him trying to eat the fish. There were no claws on his paws, so that the fish escaped him time and again. At last it got away, struggling back into the edge of the water, and was gone.

I had already decided not to kill the bear. There was no need. But I changed my mind. The greater compassion would be the quick death of a bullet, not the lingering death, the utter agony, that he must know now.

I had to do it. Not for myself. Not even for the people who were my neighbors. For the terrible animal himself. He started across the creek. I waited until he struggled to the other side with that horrible crippled gait. It made me sick to watch him move. I lifted the gun as he stood again and the first bullet smacked onto his back. I fired again as he twisted over, thrashing — and then, he was dead.

I stood up, breathing hard, I had pulled the trigger with un-thought ease, not with the slow stuttering of the finger I had come to know when I was abandoning the hunting that had meant so much to me and to Major Tom. I knew why. There was again a compassion within me, the pity that is peculiarly human; the kind of humanity that I had grown away from.

A strange animal had died here. But not the crippled bear sprawled down there on the slope of shale. The strange animal inside me that was not man, but only grief and anger and selfishness.

I went back and around the edge of the bluff, approaching the bear cautiously until I was sure he was dead. I examined him closely, feeling my stomach move with revulsion at the close sight of the great burned scars on his body.

Then I knew the other thing I had to do. I took the thin nylon rope out of the knapsack. I hitched it to his hind leg and drew the bear up the slope to the first cave. Then I moved stones, working in the coming dark, until the cave mouth was hidden.

No one would ever know. I would go back into the valley and I would tell them, in order to remove the fear, that I had killed the strange animal. But I would also tell them that his body had gone into the river and I had not been able to identify it. For I knew now. Mankind needs its strange animals, its myths and legends and old tales, in order to objectify man’s fears outside of himself where he can fight them with man’s courage and man’s hope.

For man is the strangest animal of all.

I was finished. I picked up my rifle and moved through the darkness toward my home. Where Ruth, my wife, and the people of the valley were waiting to hear the tale I would have to tell.

~ ~ ~

In introducing this story in the twentieth anthology, Anthony Boucher wondered if the author might have pioneered a new type of crime story, which Ellery Queen had called “a mystery of the absurd.” Although no flood of writers followed into this new ground (but see the selection from the twenty-second anthology), we can be content with specimens like this one which opens a world of possibilities to the stimulated imagination.

Robert Twohy

Routine Investigation[19]

At seven fifty-five on a pleasant April morning, Officer Homer Crump pulled the police car up in front of a neat little one-story frame house that stood by itself between two weed-infested vacant lots in a suburban part of the city.

His solid policeman’s stride took him up the gravel path to the door, which opened as he reached for the bell.

A billowy woman of about fifty, with fluffy white hair that stood up around her head in little peaks, like meringue, was standing there. A man’s bathrobe, navy blue, was draped loosely around her.

He said, “Mrs. Park?”

“Please come in. Can I pour you some bourbon?”

“Bourbon?”

“Perhaps you prefer gin.”

“Nothing, thanks.” He shook his head slightly. He felt a little bewildered. He wasn’t used to being plied with offers of liquor when he went out to investigate a death — certainly not at eight in the morning.

He said briskly, “You reported on the phone that your husband, um, died during the night?”

“Yes.”

“If you’d please show me the body...”

Mrs. Park picked up a glass from a table. The liquid in the glass was the color of rich oak.

“He’s in the bedroom.”

She turned to lead him, and he saw, across the back of the bathrobe, in large white letters, S.S. Silver Queen.

Officer Crump had a sudden feeling that this might develop into something more than a routine investigation.

Mrs. Park allowed him to step past her into the bedroom, waved the glass toward the bed, and announced, “My husband.”

Crump, who was fairly young and a decent, ordinary man, stood there and looked at what lay on the bed.

Mrs. Park took a sip of her drink. “His name,” she said, “was Lloyd.”

Crump finally said, “This is a joke, isn’t it?”

“A joke? Oh, no, he’s not pretending. I shook him and shook him.”

Crump said in a slow, careful voice, “What are you trying to do, Mrs. Park?”

“Oh, dear. Have I done something wrong? I thought the police were supposed to be notified when there was a sudden death.”

Crump took his eyes away from what lay on the bed. He turned and went back into the living room.

She followed him. “Are you sure you won’t have some bourbon? Or gin?”

He shook his head.

She reached into a cupboard next to the fireplace and brought out a bottle. She poured four inches into the glass. After replacing the bottle, she cradled the glass in both hands and smiled at it. She said, “Lloyd loved his bourbon so.”

“Did he?” said Crump.

“Yes. He had a wonderful relationship with bourbon.”

“A wonderful relationship?”

“Yes. He was a very sensitive man — capable of deep attachments. He loved Rimski-Korsakov too.”

“Rimski-Korsakov and bourbon.”

“Yes, his life was a full one. And then there was the Silver Queen.” She shook her head gently and smiled. “How he loved that beautiful boat of ours!”

Crump watched her as she sipped the bourbon. He couldn’t think, for the moment, of anything to say.

She nodded toward a leather chair in a corner of the room. “He would sit there, with Rimski-Korsakov going on the record player, his glass in his hand and the bottle between his feet, and talk by the hour about our boat... How he would talk!”

“Rimski-Korsakov, bourbon, and the Silver Queen.” Crump nodded. He gave a small smile. “Well, Mrs. Park, it’s a good routine. I guess you’re an old vaudevillian or something... I mean, it’s very good. But now we’ve had our little joke, and let’s not beat it to death, all right?”

She smiled vaguely, and said, “I don’t really understand.”

“What I mean is, you’ve got a skeleton dressed in green silk pajamas on that bed in there, and it’s quite a hair-raiser. But what’s the point? Do you mind letting me in on the point?”

“I don’t really understand. I mean, I telephoned... shouldn’t I have telephoned? I thought you would know what to do.”

“Not when it’s a skeleton,” Crump said. “Not when it’s a skeleton in green pajamas.”

“Lloyd was thin,” said Mrs. Park. “He had this wonderful thing with bourbon, you know, and he felt that he really couldn’t afford to spend money on food. He always tried to be practical about money matters. And, of course, we were saving to buy the Silver Queen.”

“To buy it? I thought you said you owned it.”

“Oh, no. We didn’t own it. But one day we were going to own it and just sail away, sail around the world, and never come into port, never come into port at all.” She smiled into the glass she held in her hands. “He loved that boat, he really did.” Her voice was soft. “He said it was the most beautiful boat in the world.”

Crump took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. He said, “Who owns the boat?”

“The Silver Queen? I really don’t know. But one day we were going to buy it, if there really was such a boat, and if we could find it.”

Crump had a sudden feeling that if he went into the bedroom door and peeked in, the skeleton would be gone. And everything would be all right. And then he could proceed in officer-like fashion, knowing what routine to follow, dealing with a woman who drank too much and wasn’t quite right in the head.

So he went to the bedroom door. And peeked in. And the hollow eyes stared at him, and the teeth grinned at him like tiny tombstones.

He turned back and wiped his hand over his face. He said, “It’s quite a routine. Tell me, Mrs. Park, is that a real skeleton, or is it some kind of plastic job from a novelty store?”

She was looking into her glass. She said tenderly, “I do hope they have bourbon for him... on the other side.”

The doorbell rang suddenly. Mrs. Park said, “Oh, that must be Marble. I phoned her.”

“Marble?” said Crump.

A girl about eighteen, with glasses, a pale small face, and straight black hair, entered.

Mrs. Park said, “Marble, this nice young man is an official from the police. And this is my niece. Marble.”

“How do you do,” said Crump.

“Marble is a student of science at the university.” Mrs. Park smiled at the girl. “She’s getting along famously. Aren’t you. Marble?”

“Yes. Straight A’s. Excuse me, I’ll go look at Uncle Lloyd.”

Crump waited, taking deep breaths. In a few moments the girl came back. She said, “It’s too bad. Aunt. But he does look as if he went peacefully.”

She started for the door. Crump said in a hoarse voice, “Young lady.”

“Her name is Marble,” said Mrs. Park.

“I know it is. Listen — do you know what’s on that bed?”

She stared at him. Behind the thick glasses her eyes swam like pale yellow fish.

“Of course. Uncle Lloyd.”

“There’s a skeleton in that bed, young lady!”

“Her name is Marble,” said Mrs. Park.

“Damn it, all right! Marble!”

Marble said sharply, “Please don’t swear. My aunt is not accustomed to vulgar language.”

“It’s all right dear.” Mrs. Park smiled at Crump. “The young man is only trying to do his duty.”

“Doing his duty doesn’t have to include vulgar language, Aunt.”

“They teach them such a lot of things at the university,” said Mrs. Park. She smiled at Crump.

Crump passed his hand over his face, from hairline to chin. “I,” he said, “am going to...” He stopped, because he didn’t really know what he was going to do.

Marble said, staring at him. “What’s the matter?”

“I don’t think he’s used to the sight of death,” said Mrs. Park. “Have you seen death before, young man?”

“I have. I’ve seen people with bullet holes, knife wounds. I’ve seen them pulled out of smashed cars, burned-down buildings, sewers, lakes, machinery, but there’s one thing I’ve never seen, no. I’ve never seen a skeleton dressed in green silk pajamas. Where’d you get that thing in there, Mrs. Park?”

Marble said, “I don’t understand you. I don’t understand you at all.”

Crump said, “Young lady...” He stopped, turned, and took a few steps, breathing deeply. Then he turned back. “You’re a student of science, you say? All right, answer me this — where did the skin go?”

“The skin?”

“I don’t know what I’m saying.” Crump rubbed his temples hard. “What am I arguing for? You two are way ahead of me. Way ahead. I’d never catch up. All right, I surrender. What’s the gag? Is there really a Lloyd? I mean, do you really have a husband, Mrs. Park?”

Marble said, “Are you feeling all right, officer?”

“I think he needs a drink,” said Mrs. Park. “Wouldn’t you let me pour you some bourbon? Or gin?”

“She doesn’t have a husband,” Marble said. She spoke very clearly and distinctly. “She had a husband. Her husband is lying in there.”

“Perhaps he wonders if I had another husband before Lloyd,” said Mrs. Park. “No, there was only Lloyd. We had twenty-eight wonderful years together.”

“Did he eat at all?” asked Crump. “Did he go all the twenty-eight years without eating at all?”

“No, he used to eat. Until he realized how much money he was throwing away. Just on food. And then came the wonderful dream of the Silver Queen...”

“By that time he had developed his beautiful relationship with bourbon?” Crump asked warily.

“Yes.” She stared at the glass in her hand, with a loving smile.

Crump said, “I’m going. I can’t arrest you because I don’t know what you’ve done — except make a mockery of the law, which I can’t prove until I get some people from the Department down here. Maybe you really believe in that skeleton in there. Maybe it is somebody who used to be called Lloyd. Maybe you carry him around with you in a trunk. Maybe he’s been dead for years. Maybe he was murdered a long time ago. Maybe I’m in the middle of something by Tennessee Williams. I don’t know. But I’ll tell you this: I’m going to find out.”

Mrs. Park said, “Do you know, it’s peculiar you should mention that.”

“What? What did I mention?”

“Mr. Williams. Actually, Lloyd did come originally from the South, though I’m sure they never met.”

Crump said hoarsely, “I am going to come back. And don’t try any hanky-panky with that — that thing in there. Don’t try to hide it. If you do, I’ll tear this place apart. Just remember.”

“I wish,” Marble said crisply, “that you would not speak of Uncle Lloyd as a thing. He’s gone now, but he was a human being, just like yourself.”

Mrs. Park said, with a smile at Crump, “They teach them so much at the university.”

Crump said, “I’ll be back in twenty minutes. With other people. And maybe with a couple of strait jackets.”

He walked to the door. His hand was on the knob and he was just about to turn it when he heard a hollow cough behind him. It sounded oddly echoing — as if it had come from a cave.

He heard two sharp cries — one from Mrs. Park, the other from Marble.

“Lloyd!”

“Uncle Lloyd!”

The cough sounded again. Somehow there seemed to be, under its hollow tones, a strain of the old South... if there could be such a thing as a cough with a southern accent.

Marble’s voice said, “But we thought you were dead!”

He heard Mrs. Park’s voice say, “Dear, you frightened us so... Marble, dear, get him his glass. I was positive... How could you sleep so deeply? I prodded you and prodded you...”

Crump stood there, very still, his hand on the doorknob. He said to himself, I don’t have to turn around. I can walk out and go back to the station and make a routine report, closing the case, and that will be the end of it. And gradually it will all fuzz together, the way a dream does, and I won’t be sure after a while that any of it really happened at all. Mrs. Park and Lloyd and Marble and the Silver Queen...

He shook his head vigorously. The thing was they were two madwomen — mad as hatters. And a hollow cough could be imagined. And all he had to do was turn around — to prove beyond doubt they were mad.

But if he didn’t turn around, it would mean that their madness had infected him.

So he turned around.

And wished he hadn’t.

~ ~ ~

The device of the Locked Room has been with us since before the turn of the century, and over the many years has been intriguing and challenging reader and writer alike. One might think the possibilities had been exhausted, but as recently as the twenty-first anthology Stephen Barr brilliantly instructs us otherwise.

Stephen Barr

The Locked House[20]

The Regent’s is possibly the smallest club in London, but it is undoubtedly the most argumentative. Any statement made in the Regent’s, no matter how uncontroversial, will instantly be challenged. It is a bad place to be dogmatic. I was talking to two other members one evening, one of them a logician and the other a novelist, and the subject of detective stories came up.

“There are really only two kinds of mystery,” the novelist said, rather recklessly.

“Nonsense,” said the logician. “What are they?”

“Why, the whodunit,” replied the novelist, “and the locked-room problem. The whodunit is—”

“I know what it is,” interrupted the logician crossly, “but nine times out of ten it’s unfair. The author omits to give all the pertinent facts. And if it does happen to be written fairly, the reader will be able to solve the mystery as quickly as the detective. As for the locked-room problem, it isn’t a mystery at all: it’s a self-contradiction.”

“I don’t see why—”

“Of course you don’t,” said the logician. “What the author asks the reader to believe is that a man is found murdered in a place from which the murderer could not have escaped, and yet the murderer is not there. Writers have various ways of circumventing this. For example, the victim committed suicide in such a way as to resemble murder. Or the victim was dealt the fatal blow before he locked himself in: let’s say, he was shot through the head, and contrary to popular belief, he did not die for some time. Or the murderer locked the door on the inside while he was still on the outside. Or he was still concealed in the room. Or he contrived the murder from the outside.

“The shoddiest solution of all is that he did, in fact, get out, and his escape appears impossible only because of the author’s incomplete and therefore unfair description of the circumstances. None of these faces squarely up to the real dilemma — that the murderer got out when he could not. That, by definition, is absurd.”

“Rubbish,” said a gentle voice behind the logician, who quickly turned around. I saw that it came from Dr. Sylvan Moore, our oldest member, and his usually calm face was determined. “You are making the same mistake that I did once,” he went on as we formed a circle to include him. “You are treating this as a problem in topology, and humans as entities — like atoms.”

“What the devil have atoms got to do with it?” said the logician, cross again.

“Nothing. That’s my point. Did you ever hear of Petrus Dander, the explorer?”

“Certainly not,” said the logician. “Why should I?”

If you read the newspapers (Dr. Moore said), you would have seen his obituary some years ago; but what was not told was that he was murdered, and almost certainly by his own son.

The circumstances were somewhat baroque, but because of a confidential mission he’d been on for Whitehall it was hushed up. The son’s disappearance was also glossed over; they merely said he’d gone abroad.

Petrus Dander was one of the most charming men I ever met — and one of the most satanic. He inherited a fortune and a town house in Manchester Square from his father, and proceeded to marry Lily Maynard. It is on my conscience that I had introduced them to each other.

Their only child, Jonathan, was born during World War I while his father was with Allenby in the Near East. Dander made a brilliant war record but he never came home on any of his leaves, preferring each time to volunteer for extra duty that gave him in the end a reputation second only to that of Lawrence of Arabia. Lily was bewildered and crushed, but she pretended to believe it was patriotism rather than callousness. Dander arrived in Manchester Square during May of 1919 as though he had just come back from a stroll, and succeeded in fascinating his wife all over again. But this time it was more like the fascination of a serpent for a bird.

I don’t think there was ever any physical violence; his bullying was far more subtle. Lily seemed to grow more and more transparent and less alive, so that those of us who knew her learned of her death without surprise — almost without shock. That was in 1931, and Dander was in the Gobi Desert. It very nearly finished off Jonathan then and there — I almost wish it had. He and his mother had become too close — much too close; and Jonathan was convinced that his father had caused Lily’s death, in which he was right. The antipathy was returned — Dander despised his son as a milksop and a mother’s boy.

My wife and I had Jonathan down to our place in Sussex after Lily’s funeral to see if we could straighten him out a bit — but he was like a lost soul. Then Dander came home, and I had my first taste of his temper, if it can be called that. He turned up unannounced one morning, and with a charming smile he proceeded to lay down the law.

“Hello, Mrs. Moore. Now look here, Sylvan—” he ignored Jonathan — “what the devil d’you mean by bringing my son here?” We were too nonplused to answer him. “If you think you can use the pretext of old acquaintance to interfere in my private affairs you’re mistaken. Pack your gear, Jonathan.”

My wife recovered herself first.

“But Jonathan needs to get away from London. He was all alone—”

“He’s not alone now, and I’ll decide his needs.”

“Look here. Dander,” I began, but he interrupted me.

“Jonathan’s my son, more’s the pity, and I’ll not have him subjected to your second-rate middle-class sentimentality.” He turned to Jonathan for the first time. “Didn’t you hear what I said? Get your gear. You’re going with me, and then you’re going to a tutor’s and then to Sandhurst.”

“But Father, I don’t want to go into the Army!”

“Shut your mouth, you young swine! You’ll do as I tell you.”

I looked at Jonathan and for the first time I saw a resemblance to his father, but his father looking out from behind bars, murderous yet helpless. They left a few minutes later.

Some time later I heard a rumor that Jonathan, after some sort of tussle with his father, had gone on a protracted hunger strike, but was sent to the tutor in spite of it. I heard nothing more of either of them for some years, and the Manchester Square house remained closed because Dander had gone abroad. Then Jonathan was sacked from Sandhurst under rather peculiar circumstances, and his father came back. I saw him in this room for a few minutes just before he was to meet Jonathan, and judging from the look in his eye I didn’t envy the boy.

Dander acted toward me as though nothing had ever happened between us, and in some mysterious way he made me accept it.

“Tell me, old man,” he said to me, “can you recommend a really sound psychiatrist? I’m worried about Jonathan.”

I am a psychiatrist, as he well knew, and as there were two members within earshot I was not exactly pleased. I believe I mentioned Gideon, the worst faker on Harley Street, and Dander left me with a flashing smile.

The first I heard of his death was a very solemn call from Blake-Smith of the Foreign Office. “Would you come up? Petrus Dander is dead, and you were his closest friend.”

“Closest friend!” I said. “I hated the man. How did he die?”

“Well, at any rate you knew him better than anyone else, or at all events longer. Something’s come up, but I can’t discuss it on the telephone.”

When I got to Whitehall I found three other men with Blake-Smith: Paul Gavin the criminologist, ex-Inspector Dowd, and, to my astonishment, the Foreign Secretary, Viscount Maturin. Everything was hedged about with protocol and hush-hush, but it was only that they were all at sea, and no wonder. When one of your most distinguished foreign agents is found murdered in his own house under circumstances that absolutely defy logic, you keep it quiet — that is, you do if you are the British Government.

“You knew him and his family, and you are a psychiatrist,” said Viscount Maturin heavily. “That is why we have asked you to come here. We would like you to tell us about the son.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because he couldn’t possibly have done it.”

The facts as they were explained to me (Dr. Moore continued) were as follows: Dander had arrived on a P. & O. liner at the beginning of March and went to the Wanderers Club, where he spent the night. The next day was the day I saw him here, during which he arranged to have the Manchester Square house opened, and called up Sandhurst to get the details of Jonathan’s escapade.

The headmaster had little to say: to him the outré was un-English and therefore unspeakable. It appeared that during class Jonathan had unexpectedly gone mad. The history master had mentioned Dander Senior’s fine war record, as a possible incentive to improve study on the part of the son, and Jonathan had rushed at him.

That in itself was bad enough, particularly as the history master’s beard was nearly torn out by the roots. But worse was to follow.

Jonathan escaped from some kind of impoundment later, only to be discovered fingering a Winchester in the rifle room. Dander went and got him, that evening.

The way in which the house in Manchester Square was opened up is important. Dander had cabled his lawyers from Aden to hire cleaners and so on to make the house ready for him, and then to clear out. This is not so remarkable as it might seem when I tell you that he had had the place renovated — at least, on the inside, to the most complete modernism. I don’t mean the decor, but everything from central heating to heat-resistant windows, from a water-cooled roof to an incinerator in the cellar. Dander had what he called a machine for living. Also he had put in metal-sash windows and foolproof locks.

A young woman was engaged to come in the mornings to wash things and make the beds, but nothing else. She turned up the first morning and left immediately, terrified by the “dreadful shouting from the two gentlemen upstairs.” She never returned.

The next thing we heard was that Dander cut every appointment he had made — at his club, at his lawyer’s, and, what was more important, at the Foreign Office. Then the milk bottles began to arrange themselves in sour ranks in the areaway, and the postman could no longer stuff anything into the overfilled mailbox on the front door. The London policeman is not too eager to break into the house of a rich man, and the lawyers had had a taste of his fury at any interference. But this case was different.

The search of the premises was instigated by Whitehall. To break in, they smashed a basement window — the doors were metal-lined, and you will have to take my word for it that nothing was overlooked, and that every precaution was taken. Every possible exit that a man could use was locked on the inside; all front and basement doors were barred on the inside, and in such a way that it could not have been done from the outside. No one got out after the investigators entered, and no one was found in the house except Petrus Dander.

They found him face down on his bed upstairs, in two portions as it were. On the pillow his head, and a little farther away, the rest of him. The house was searched, and no clue turned up except the heavy Crusader’s ax which had cut off Dander’s head, and the ax was found in the cellar, stained brown and flecked with his iron-gray hair. Perhaps I should mention the empty bottle of sleeping pills, but that was something Dander had taken for years. Still, it was a possible clue — but to what? What was needed wasn’t clues but logic — and there was none.

Now you may wonder why the authorities made such a careful entrance. It was fear — fear of repercussions on the part of the Police, and fear of entanglements on the part of the Foreign Office. They had not expected to be faced with the impossible — and yet a man was dead in a place from which his murderer could not have left, and yet the murderer was no longer there.

I have a little hobby, which is topology, and I had recently published an article on the Jordan curve theorem in the magazine Situs. Thinking to liven up my piece, I made the analogy of a man in a maze with no openings; but here was a case that seemed to make nonsense of what I wrote. Suicide was out of the question, and decapitation had been the sole cause of death.

So I wrote a letter to Situs saying I had somehow made a mistake, although I did not yet understand precisely what it was. And yet implicit in my mistake was the solution.

Rid your mind of any idea that the searching party made any slips: let me just assure you that when I was taken to the Manchester Square house I convinced myself that the facts were exactly as I have told them to you; and subsequent findings have proved them to be true — absolutely true.

When I wrote my recantation to Situs they managed to get it into the next issue, which was on sale by the next Monday morning. The result was electrifying. Viscount Maturin was waiting for me at his office, to which I had been summoned in the early afternoon, and there was a cabinet minister with him.

“We asked you not to speak of it,” Maturin said coldly. “Why did you write that letter in Situs?”

“But I said nothing to connect it with the case!” I said. “Besides, who reads the magazine?”

“The War Office reads it, and the connection was obvious. The point is that to the Power that engineered the murder—”

“If I may interrupt,” interrupted the cabinet minister, “we do not actually know whether it was done by a Foreign Power.”

“My dear Charles,” Maturin said, “what we know is neither here nor there. But we must have some reasonable public excuse for believing that the son did it. Otherwise there’ll be a bloody mess.”

They both looked at me accusingly and expectantly.

“I don’t see why,” I said finally, “it should be any easier for a nation than for an individual to do the impossible.”

“Look at the Pyramids,” said the cabinet minister.

I said, “Anyway, what has to be done is to revise our concept of the impossible.”

“Is that all you have to offer?” said Maturin.

“Well, somewhere in my subconscious is the recognition of a design, and that design includes the son.”

“I trust. Doctor, that you will be able to bring it out into the conscious.”

“I must have the answers to some questions,” I said, “and then I will have to go over the Manchester Square house again — with you, and preferably at once.”

To get the answers to my questions we had to go through a lot of records, but I learned nothing that I did not already know. At Dander’s house the three of us started at the top, and my examination of the attic ceiling astonished Maturin. “This has been gone over a thousand times, my dear Moore! No one could possibly have got out, so what are you looking for?”

I shrugged — the truth is, I didn’t know. In Dander’s bedroom I stood staring at the ceiling again. “There’s no sign of anything having hung there,” I said, half to myself.

“If you mean the ax,” Maturin said, “if you’re thinking of some kind of booby trap, how did the ax get to the cellar? That’s where it was found.”

“I don’t know,” I said lamely. “Let’s take another look at it.”

In the cellar the ax had been pushed to one side, but its original position was marked in chalk on the cement floor. I looked at the childishly drawn outline — a possible scrawl on a pavement came to my mind, Jonathan hates Petrus... My eyes began to go over the floor.

“If you’re thinking about tunnels,” said Maturin, “we have already—”

“I am not thinking about tunnels,” I said. “I usually look at the floor when I’m thinking. I did it as a child whenever—” I stopped, and realized suddenly that I knew the answer.

“It was suicide,” I said.

Maturin looked at me as though I had gone mad, and sat down on the cellar stairs. “How can a man behead himself and then—” He stopped.

“There’s only one possible place for it,” I said, and went to the incinerator and opened it.

“Place for what?” Maturin snapped, and then came over with a flashlight, which he shone into the dark interior. “All the doors and windows were locked or barred on the inside, so it makes no difference what Jonathan burned up!”

“That’s what I thought,” I said, “before I wrote the letter to Situs.”

There was a long silence while I pieced together my thoughts. Then I told them this:

“There was a man who could not bear to be thought small and of no account. He knew he was exceptional, but eventually he found that another was standing in his way, and the woman he loved was more drawn to this other, and by links she did not know nor would have liked to recognize. He pretended rage to himself at this, but underneath this rage was guilt — for the hate he felt made him guilty. Guilt drives a man to a lower hell than hate.

“He had tried to conquer this, but he was fighting the invincible, and he made, over and over again, the futile gesture of running away — of removing himself from this impossible triangle. Then the woman died, and although the triangle no longer existed, he was still trapped — and he must kill his adversary to escape. I do not think he consciously planned what he did, but in the depths of his mind it must have been there all the time.

“He was brought here to this house, by a bullying overbearance which made things worse than ever. They reviled each other all night, and he followed his father up to the bedroom. I am talking of Jonathan, of course — in love with his mother, murderously hating his hateful father, and crawling with a guilt so strong that he had attempted suicide, as we know, at least twice. Once by hunger strike and then, after his attack on the bearded history master by rifle — for the history master was to him a symbol of his father’s authority.

“Petrus Dander lay face down on the bed, exhausted by argument and alcohol, but before lying down he took his usual dose of the sleeping pills. Knowing him, I can imagine one last and unbearable taunt coming muffled by the pillow — a taunt perhaps referring to Jonathan and his mother. And Jonathan looked at him... You cannot move a black mark on paper, but you can erase a black mark.

“Jonathan went down to the library and picked out the most suitable of its military relics — one that may have looked to him like an executioner’s ax. No doubt he felt very noble until the spasmodic contraction of the body separated it from the head. Then he saw the bottle of sleeping pills, and took them all — like a little boy taking medicine as a punishment. And then he realized that only one of his adversaries had been removed, that the nasty medicine was not enough.

“Jonathan cast away the empty bottle, and trailing the ax came down here to the cellar, as the sleeping pills began to cut off, bit by bit, his sensory system.

“Later, when you searched, you all looked for the murderer — a man. And you say he could not have got out of the house. That was your mistake — not realizing that you were absolutely right.”

Maturin stared at me. “You say we were right?”

“Yes,” I said. “Right in saying he could not have got out — but wrong in thinking that because a man was no longer in a place he must have got out.”

I reached into the incinerator. Then I turned, and held out a handful of ashes, which Maturin and the cabinet minister looked at uncomprehendingly.

“Jonathan timed it precisely. Just before he succumbed to the sleeping pills, he turned on this very up-to-date incinerator, and climbed into it. He was totally unconscious before it began to heat up, and dead long before it consumed his body and turned itself off.

“You see, you were looking for a man — not for his ashes.”

~ ~ ~

From the twenty-second anthology, a different sort of light on the “mystery of the absurd” — shed with wit and incisive malice aforethought, and reflecting considerable insight into both elements.

Gene Williams

The Yellow Brick Road[21]

“Set ’em up, Joe, and put another nickel in the machine,” Brad says.

The bartender stays at the beerpulls talking with a friend who wears the green uniform of the Sanitation Department. Neither has recognized Brad yet, because his Tyrolean hat is pulled low over his dark glasses.

“We’re drinking, my friends, to the end of a brief episode,” Brad says, more loudly. “So make it one for my baby and one more for the road.”

The bartender looks annoyed. “Finish that one for yourself. Jack, and go home like a good guy.”

“But I’ve got a little story before I must go.”

“I don’t want to hear it,” the bartender says.

“I don’t, either,” Sanitation says.

“It was this way,” Brad says...

What chance did I have with Naomi? I was a mailboy and she was an executive secretary. “Good morning,” I’d say, meaning “I love you.” “Bring me some interoffice envelopes on your next trip,” she’d say, meaning “Bring me some interoffice envelopes on your next trip.” It wasn’t just the difference in our loot that hung us up. There was the status thing. Being an executive secretary wasn’t a job to her, it was a way of life. (Once, at the Christmas party, another executive secretary did a flamenco dance, using staple removers as castanets. “She can really go, can’t she?” I asked, and Naomi answered, “She should — right back to the typing pool where she belongs.”) Pushing a metal cart and making prompt pickups and deliveries can’t get you a girl like that. Having your name in lights can.

The bartender pries Brad’s fingers loose from the bar, and Sanitation tries to lift him. Failing, he says, “Let go the stool with your legs.”

Dwayne, my buddy in the mailroom, handed back the magazine. The Famous Stars School ad was just an ad to him, and that’s why he’d be a mailboy all his life. “I don’t blame you for being ape for her,” he said. “Just watching Naomi set her margins wipes me out, but this is nuts! No correspondence school can really make you a famous star.”

I pointed to the ad. “Tell that to this beet farmer who’s got his own television series.”

“And you honest to God think the same thing will happen to you?”

“I hope not — Naomi doesn’t respect television. I’m going into the School’s Broadway Division, if I can pass the aptitude test. They don’t take just anybody, you know.”

“Don’t worry, good buddy, they’ll take you.”

He was right. Four days after I sent in the aptitude test, I got their answer. “You show great aptitude for being a famous star (Broadway Division) and we are eager to have you as a student at the Famous Stars School,” the letter read. “However, let us warn you at the beginning that there is much discouragement and pain on the road between Westport and stardom.” They weren’t kidding. Learning stage presence, voice projection, and how-to-be-a-moss-covered-rock by mail was rough, especially with Dwayne going out of his way to discourage me.

“That was a pretty good rock,” he said. “But the moss was nothing.”

“Let me try it again. I wasn’t in the part that time.”

“But this is my coffee break.”

“OK, forget the rock. I’m going to do a sense memory of an ice-cream cone. You tell me what flavor.”

“No, damn it. I’ve had it with the ice cream and the mossy rocks and getting my uncle to give you a good price on capping your teeth. We used to have great times — remember the staple-gun fights? Now I look forward to working.”

“Will you ask for my autograph?”

Sanitation has Brad’s feet under one arm, which leaves him a hand free to push open the door.

Dwayne couldn’t discourage me, nothing could. When the lessons got too rough, or the School knocked a speech-exercise record or the snapshots of an improv (both done in a Broadway arcade), I looked at Naomi. Her face made me hang steady, and that’s the key. There are plumbers and waiters and bank clerks who are still plumbers and waiters and bank clerks because being a famous star is just their hobby. They do an occasional Animal Exercise or Vegetable Interpretation, but I was an avocado or penguin every minute. It paid off. My grades went from “great” to “great-great,” and finally, instead of a grade, I got a telephone call. It was from Siggie Keel, the household word. Famous Stars had forwarded my test to him at the Famous Producers School and, being a pretty good judge of greatness, he offered me the lead in his new production. Never Trust a Munchkin. I accepted. It was time to turn in my jacket; toasts of Broadway don’t wear alpaca.

Saying good-bye to Naomi (au revoir really, because we’d meet again) was rough. She was typing a letter, and if I caused her to make an error she’d never forgive me, even if I laid Broadway at her feet. So it was look and leave.

Brad brushes the snow from his coat and goes back inside. Sanitation and the bartender start for him, but he takes off his dark glasses and tips back his hat. “My God,” Sanitation says. “You’re Bradley Cymont, who became the overnight sensation of Broadway and is now being hunted by the police of six states for—”

Hell is Boston, New Haven and Philadelphia — rehearse daytimes, perform at night, and then go back to the hotel to learn rewrites of rewrites, while the producer zings the director, the director zings the stage manager, and the stage manager zings everybody. There’s no people like show people, and that’s for the best.

Sanitation edges cautiously toward the phone, looking almost as afraid as the bartender, who stands ready to defend himself with a bottle.

Finally, opening night. After the producer said, “Go get ’em tiger!” the director said, “Go get ’em tiger! I don’t want you to go out there and be good, I want you to go out there and be great!” And I went onstage, leaving them to sweat into their white-on-white handkerchiefs. It was a routine Broadway script — the story of a kid who lived a life of sex, drugs and idealism until he learned the true meaning of life from his father, a Westchester dentist. There was only one thing special about the play — a thing that got three show stops, eleven curtain calls and rave reviews on the front page of the Times and the Wall Street Journal. That thing was me. The twenty-two-minute ovation meant status and loot, and status and loot meant Naomi.

In the Land of Oz, the yellow brick road leads to the Emerald City. In the metropolitan area, it leads down remembered hallways to a remembered desk and a kick in the caps. “Can I have your autograph?” the new secretary asked, after giving me Naomi’s new name and address.

Sanitation is at the phone but is afraid to dial. The bartender holds two bottles now — the one for defense and the other to refill Brad’s glass again and again. And again.

Naomi seemed very glad to see me, which made everything worse. She gave me coffee and admiration in her apartment — their apartment — telling me how wonderful it was to have somebody in lights in her living room, I almost broke down and begged her to get a divorce. A Famous Star doesn’t beg, though — especially with a knife in his back. He smiles and drinks his coffee and smiles until it’s time to pick up her husband at St. Jude’s Hospital.

The nurse at the reception desk told us he was still on duty, and Naomi led me into the waiting room. Settling down on a couch, she sighed, “This is so typical, I can’t tell you. All an intern’s wife does is wait, wait, wait. Boring? I can’t tell you.” She was silent for a moment and then laughed, mostly with one eyebrow. “You know, I honestly can’t get over your remembering me — you, the Toast of Broadway and everything.”

“The bigger we are, the nicer we are,” I said bitterly. “A Famous Star never forgets the people who—”

“Neither does a Famous Doctor,” a man in white interrupted, following his outstretched hand into the room. “Long way from the mailroom, aren’t we, good buddy?”

Dwayne looked in great shape. *At the office, he’d been mostly pimpled scrawniness, but his complexion had cleared up and he’d put on weight. Treachery agrees with some people. We shook hands and then he gave Naomi a possessive little hug. “Sorry to keep you two waiting, but Emergency is a nut ward,” he said. “It’s just one damn tracheotomy after another.”

I had my hand in my coat pocket and was almost ready to take it out again. Not to shake with. As he chirped on about how the mailroom was taking over the world, Naomi smiled at him proudly until I couldn’t take it any more. “Yeah, we’ve come a long way, Dwayne,” I said. “But you surprised me. I figured you for a different school — like Famous Sneaky Bastards.”

Naomi’s smile disappeared and she had a blinking fit, but Dwayne’s smile, though faded, stayed in sight. He had to hunt for his voice, though. “I had — uh — hoped there wouldn’t be any hard feelings. Brad. You know, Better Man Won, That’s the Way the Ball Bounces—”

“Better man!”

“I’ll have to ask you to keep it down,” he said, stepping behind Naomi as I moved toward him. “After all, this is a hospital.”

“Shut up, you sneaky treacherous bastard!”

“I’d rather you didn’t call my husband names,” Naomi said in the superior voice she’d used to ask for interoffice envelopes. “Dwayne’s in the Famous Surgeons Division, and surgeons deserve respect. Which is more than I can say for actors.”

I took my hand from my pocket. Dwayne saw it first and turned pale. His mouth worked but no words came out. Actors never have that trouble, I said, “Just like the old days, right, good buddy?”

They turned and started for the door as a team, but a Famous Star doesn’t take Modern Dance for nothing. I was too quick for them. I got her between the shoulder blades and him in the neck and her in the arm, and chased them down the hall, alternating first one, then the other, and in passing I let a nurse have it in the elbow. She and Naomi screamed, but that was their problem. Mine was that the damn thing jammed on me, and I had to go click-click before it worked again. Click-click. Click-click...

Sanitation hangs up the phone and goes back to the bar. He and the bartender look at Brad, who is slumped forward, cheek resting in the bowl of potato chips. The only sound is the faint hum of the Schlitz clock. Then Sanitation asks, “What’s the latest on them?”

“They’re in fair condition, considering how badly they were stapled.”

Sanitation nods and takes a potato chip from beside Brad’s forehead. The bartender says, “If you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking, don’t. The whole faculty of the School couldn’t get him acquitted. This is open and shut.”

“I’ll take the case and we’ll see,” Sanitation says, quietly. “Remember what the Famous Lawyers School taught us. ‘There are no open-and-shut cases, just open-and-shut lawyers.’ ”

“But this is our first case and we’ll lose it all over the front pages, and then no client will —”

“Objection — that’s opinion.”

The bartender pours himself a drink, finishes it, and studies the bottom of the glass gloomily. “All right, sustained. It’s your firm, do what you want. I’m just a junior partner.”

“Ipse dixit,” Sanitation says.

Outside, a police siren wails and comes closer. Without lifting his head from the potato chips. Brad mutters, “You get it next, Famous Cops.”

~ ~ ~

From the twenty-third anthology...

As Anthony Boucher inquired in an Introduction to his 1965 volume in this series, “Where are the spy stories?” The floodtide of espionage and intrigue which descended upon the readers of crime novels during the early and middle 1960’s curiously did not extend to the shorter form, and the anthologist of this or any recent period would be hard put to assemble a compilation solely of superior spy tales. However, prominent in any such anthology, without doubt, would be the name of Michael Gilbert, who here offers a story introducing the quiet and deadly team of Behrens and Calder, and wherein we learn how long is the arm of secret justice...

Michael Gilbert

The Road to Damascus[22]

Everyone in Lamperdown knew that Mr. Behrens, who lived with his aunt at the Old Rectory and kept bees, and Mr. Calder, who lived in a cottage on the hilltop outside the village and was the owner of a deerhound called Rasselas, were the closest of close friends. They knew, too, that there was something out of the ordinary about both of them.

Both had a habit of disappearing. When Mr. Calder went he left the great dog in charge of the cottage; and Mr. Behrens would plod up the hill once a day to talk to the dog and see to his requirements. If both men happened to be away at the same time, Rasselas would be brought down to the Old Rectory where, according to Flossie, who did for the Behrenses, he would sit for hour after hour in one red plush armchair, staring silently at Mr. Behrens’ aunt in the other.

There were other things. There was known to be a buried telephone line connecting the Old Rectory and the cottage; both houses had an elaborate system of burglar alarms; and Mr. Calder’s cottage, according to Ken who had helped to build it, had steel plates inside the window shutters.

The villagers knew all this and, being countrymen, talked very little about it, except occasionally among themselves toward closing time. To strangers, of course, they said nothing.

That fine autumn morning Rasselas was lying, chin on ground, watching Mr. Calder creosote the sharp end of a wooden spile. He sat up suddenly and rumbled out a warning.

“It’s only Arthur,” said Mr. Calder. “We know him.”

The dog subsided with a windy sigh.

Arthur was Mr. Calder’s nearest neighbor. He lived in a converted railway carriage in the company of a cat and two owls, and worked in the woods which cap the North Downs from Wrotham Hill to the Medway — Brimstone Wood, Molehill Wood, Long Gorse Shaw, Whitehorse Wood, Tom Lofts Wood and Leg of Mutton Wood. It was a very old part of the country and, like all old things, it was full of ghosts. Mr. Calder could not see them, but he knew they were there. Sometimes when he was walking with Rasselas in the woods, the dog would stop, cock his head on one side and rumble deep in his throat, his yellow eyes speculative as he followed some shape flitting down the ride ahead of them.

“Good morning, Arthur,” said Mr. Calder.

“Working, I see,” said Arthur. He was a small, thick man, of great strength, said to have an irresistible attraction for women.

“The old fence is on its last legs. I’m putting this in until I can get it done properly.”

Arthur examined the spile with an expert eye and said, “Chestnut. That should hold her for a season. Oak’d be better. You working too hard to come and look at something I found?”

“Never too busy for that,” said Mr. Calder.

“Let’s go in your car, it’ll be quicker,” said Arthur. “Bring a torch, too.”

Half a mile along a rutted track they left the car, climbed a gate and walked down a broad ride, forking off it onto a smaller one. After a few minutes the trees thinned, and Mr. Calder saw that they were coming to a clearing where wooding had been going on. The trunks had been dragged away and the slope was a litter of scattered cordwood.

“These big contractors,” said Arthur. “They’ve got no idea. They come and cut down the trees, and lug ’em off, and they think they’ve finished the job. Then I have to clear it up. Stack the cord-wood, pull out the stumps where they’re an obstruction to traffic.”

What traffic had passed, or would ever pass again through the heart of this secret place, Mr. Calder could hardly imagine. But he saw that the workmen had cleared a rough path which followed the contour of the hill and disappeared down the other side, presumably joining the track they had come by somewhere down the valley. At that moment the ground was a mess of tractor marks and turned earth. In a year the raw places would be skimmed over with grass and nettles and bluebells and kingcups and wild garlic. In five years there would be no trace of the intruders.

“In the old days,” said Arthur, “we done it with horses. Now we do it with machinery. I’m not saying it isn’t quicker and handier, but it don’t seem altogether right.” He nodded at his bulldozer, askew on the side of a hummock. Rasselas went over and sneered at it, disapproving of the oily smell.

“I was shifting this stump,” said Arthur, “when the old cow slipped and came down sideways. She hit t’other tree a proper dunt. I thought I bitched up the works, but all I done was shift the tree a piece. See?”

Mr. Calder walked across to look. The tree which Arthur had hit was no more than a hollow ring of elm, very old and less than three feet high. His first thought was that it was curious that a heavy bulldozer crashing down onto it from above should not have shattered its frail shell altogether.

“Ah! You have a look inside,” said Arthur.

The interior of the stump was solid concrete.

“Why on earth,” said Mr. Calder, “would anyone bother—?”

“Just have a look at this.”

The stump was at a curious angle, half uprooted so that one side lay much higher than the other.

“When I hit it,” said Arthur, “I felt something give. Truth to tell, I thought I’d cracked her shaft. Then I took another look. See?”

Mr. Calder looked. And he saw.

The whole block — wooden ring, cement center and all — had been pierced by an iron bar. The end of it was visible, thick with rust, sticking out of the broken earth. He scraped away the soil with his fingers and presently found the U-shaped socket he was looking for. He sat back on his heels and stared at Arthur, who stared back, solemn as one of his own owls.

“Someone,” said Mr. Calder slowly, “—God knows why — took the trouble to cut out this tree stump and stick a damned great iron bar right through the middle of it, fixed to open on a pivot.”

“It would have been Dan Owtram who fixed the bar for ’em, I don’t doubt,” said Arthur. “He’s been dead ten years now.”

“Who’d Dan fix it for?”

“Why, for the military.”

“I see,” said Mr. Calder. It was beginning to make a little more sense.

“You’ll see when you get inside.”

“Is there something inside?”

“Surely,” said Arthur. “I wouldn’t bring you out all this way just to look at an old tree stump, now would I? Come around here.”

Mr. Calder moved round to the far side and saw, for the first time, that when the stump had shifted it had left a gap on the underside. It was not much bigger than a badger’s hole.

“Are you suggesting I go down that?”

“It’s not so bad, once you’re in,” said Arthur.

The entrance sloped down at about forty-five degrees and was only really narrow at the start, where the earth had caved in. After a short slide Mr. Calder’s feet touched the top of a ladder. It was a long ladder. He counted twenty rungs before his feet were on firm ground. He got out his torch and switched it on.

He was in a fair-sized chamber, cut out of the chalk. He saw two recesses, each containing a spring bed on a wooden frame; two or three empty packing cases, upended as table and seats; a wooden cupboard, several racks, and a heap of disintegrating blankets. The place smelled of lime and dampness and, very faintly, of something else.

A scrabbling noise announced the arrival of Arthur.

“Like something outer one of them last-war films,” he said.

“Journey’s End!” said Mr. Calder. “All it needs is a candle in an empty beer bottle and a couple of gas masks hanging upon the wall,”

“It was journey’s end for him all right.” Arthur jerked his head toward the far corner, and Mr. Calder swung his torch round.

The first thing he saw was a pair of boots, then the mildewy remains of a pair of flannel trousers, through gaps in which the leg bones showed white. The man was lying on his back. He could hardly have fallen like that; it was not a natural position. Someone had taken the trouble to straighten the legs and fold the arms over the chest after death.

The light from Mr. Calder’s torch moved upward to the head, where it stayed for a long minute. Then he straightened up. “I don’t think you’d better say much about this. Not for the moment.”

“That hole in his forehead,” said Arthur. “It’s a bullet hole, ennit?”

“Yes. The bullet went through the middle of his forehead and out the back. There’s a second hole there.”

“I guessed it was more up your street than mine,” said Arthur. “What’ll we do? Tell the police?”

“We’ll have to tell them sometime. Just for the moment, do you think you could cover the hole up? Put some sticks and turf across?”

“I could do that all right. ’Twont really be necessary, though. Now the wooding’s finished you won’t get anyone else through here. It’s all preserved. The people who do the shooting, they stay on the outside of the covers.”

“One of them didn’t,” said Mr. Calder, looking down at the floor and showing his teeth in a grin.

Mr. Behrens edged his way through the crowd in the drawing room of Colonel Mark Bessendine’s Chatham quarters. He wanted to look at one of the photographs on the mantelpiece.

“That’s the Otrango,” said a girl near his left elbow. “It was Grandfather’s ship. He proposed to Granny in the Red Sea. On the deck-tennis court, actually. Romantic, don’t you think?”

Mr. Behrens removed his gaze from the photograph to study his informant. She had brown hair and a friendly face and was just leaving the puppy-fat stage. Fifteen or sixteen he guessed. “You must be Julia Bessendine,” he said.

“And you’re Mr. Behrens. Daddy says you’re doing something very clever in our workshops. Of course, he wouldn’t say what.”

“That was his natural discretion,” said Mr. Behrens. “As a matter of fact, it isn’t hush-hush at all. I’m writing a paper for the Molecular Society on Underwater Torque Reactions and the Navy offered to lend me its big test tank.”

“Gracious!” said Julia.

Colonel Bessendine surged across.

“Julia, you’re in dereliction of your duties. I can see that Mr. Behrens’s glass is empty.”

“Excellent sherry,” said Mr. Behrens.

“Tradition,” said Colonel Bessendine, “associates the Navy with rum. In fact, the two drinks that it really understands are gin and sherry. I hope our technical people are looking after you?”

“The Navy have been helpfulness personified. It’s been particularly convenient for me, being allowed to do this work at Chatham. Only twenty minutes’ run from Lamperdown, you see.”

Colonel Bessendine said. “My last station was Devonport. A ghastly place. When I was posted back here I felt I was coming home. The whole of my youth is tied up with this part of the country. I was born and bred not far from Tilbury and I went to school at Rochester.”

His face, thought Mr. Behrens, was like a waxwork. A clever waxwork, but one which you could never quite mistake for human flesh. Only the eyes were truly alive.

“I sometimes spent a holiday down here when I was a boy,” said Mr. Behrens. “My aunt and uncle — he’s dead now — bought the Old Rectory at Lamperdown after the First World War. Thank you, my dear, that was very nicely managed.” This was to Julia, who had fought her way back to him with most of the sherry still in the glass. “In those days your school,” he said to the girl, “was a private house. One of the great houses of the country.”

“It must have been totally impractical,” said Julia Bessendine severely. “Fancy trying to live in it. What sort of staff did it need to keep it up?”

“They scraped along with twenty or thirty indoor servants, a few dozen gardeners and gamekeepers, and a cricket pro.”

“Daddy told me that when he was a boy he used to walk out from school, on half holidays, and watch cricket on their private cricket ground. That’s right, isn’t it, Daddy?”

“That’s right, my dear. I think, Julia—”

“He used to crawl up alongside the hedge from the railway and squeeze through a gap in the iron railings at the top and lie in the bushes. And once the old lord walked across and found him, and instead of booting him out, he gave him money to buy sweets with.”

“Major Furlong looks as if he could do with another drink,” said Colonel Bessendine.

“Colonel Bessendine’s father,” said Mr. Behrens to Mr. Calder later that evening, “came from New Zealand. He ran away to sea at the age of thirteen, and got himself a job with the Anzac Shipping Line. He rose to be head purser on their biggest ship, the Otrango. Then he married. An Irish colleen, I believe. Her father was a landowner from Cork. That part of the story’s a bit obscure, because her family promptly disowned her. They didn’t approve of the marriage at all. They were poor but proud. Old Bessendine had the drawback of being twice as rich as they were.”

“Rich? A purser?”

“He was a shrewd old boy. He bought up land in Tilbury and Grays and leased it to builders. When he died, his estate was declared for probate at 85,000 pounds. I expect it was really worth a lot more. His three sons were all well educated and well behaved. It was the sort of home where the boys called their father, “sir,” and got up when he came into the room.”

“We could do with more homes like that,” said Mr. Calder. “Gone much too far the other way. What happened to the other two sons?”

“Both dead. The eldest went into the Army: he was killed at Dunkirk. The second boy was a flight lieutenant. He was shot down over Germany, picked up and put into a prison camp. He was involved in some sort of trouble there. Shot, trying to escape.”

“Bad luck,” said Mr. Calder. He was working something out with paper and pencil. “Go away.” This was to Rasselas, who had his paws on the table and was trying to help him. “What happened to young Mark?”

“Mark was in the Marines. He was blown sky high in the autumn of 1940 — the first heavy raid on Gravesend and Tilbury.”

“But I gather he came down in one piece.”

“Just about. He was in hospital for six months. The plastic surgeons did a wonderful job on his face. The only thing they couldn’t put back was the animation.”

“Since you’ve dug up such a lot of his family history, do I gather that he’s in some sort of a spot?”

“He’s in a spot all right,” said Mr. Behrens. “He’s been spying for the Russians for a long time and we’ve just tumbled on to it.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m afraid there’s no doubt about it at all. Fortescue has had him under observation for the last three months.”

“Why hasn’t he been put away?”

“The stuff he’s passing out is important, but it’s not vital. Bessendine isn’t a scientist. He’s held security and administrative jobs in different naval stations, so he’s been able to give details of the progress and success of various jobs — where a project has run smoothly, or where it got behind time, or flopped. There’s nothing the other side likes more than a flop.”

“How does he get the information out?”

“That’s exactly what I’m trying to find out. It’s some sort of post-office system, no doubt. When we’ve sorted that out, we’ll pull him in.”

“Has he got any family?”

“A standard pattern Army-type wife. And a rather nice daughter.”

“It’s the family who suffer in these cases,” said Mr. Calder. He scratched Rasselas’s tufted head, and the big dog yawned. “By the way, we had rather an interesting day, too. We found a body.”

He told Mr. Behrens about this, and Mr. Behrens said, “What are you going to do about it?”

“I’ve telephoned Fortescue. He was quite interested. He’s put me on to a Colonel Cawston, who was in charge of Irregular Forces in this area in 1940. He thinks he might be able to help us.”

Colonel Cawston’s room was littered with catalogs, feeding charts, invoices, paid bills and unpaid bills, seed samples, gift calendars, local newspapers, boxes of cartridges, and buff forms from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food.

Mr. Calder said, “It’s really very good of you to spare the time to talk to me. Colonel. You’re a pretty busy man, I can see that.”

“We shall get on famously,” said the old man, “if you’ll remember two things. The first is that I’m deaf in my left ear. The second, that I’m no longer a colonel. I stopped being that in 1945.”

“Both points shall be borne in mind,” said Mr. Calder, easing himself round onto his host’s right-hand side.

“Fortescue told me you were coming. If that old bandit’s involved, I suppose it’s Security stuff?”

“I’m not at all sure,” said Mr. Calder. “I’d better tell you about it...”

“Interesting,” said the old man, when he had done so. “Fascinating, in fact.”

He went across to a big corner cupboard, dug into its cluttered interior and surfaced with two faded khaki-colored canvas folders, which he laid on the table. From one of them he turned out a thick wad of papers, from the other a set of quarter- and one-inch military maps.

“I kept all this stuff,” he said. “At one time, I was thinking of writing a history of Special Operations during the first two years of the war. I never got round to it, though. Too much like hard work.” He unfolded the maps, and smoothed out the papers with his bent and arthritic fingers.

“Fortescue told me,” said Mr. Calder, “that you were in charge of what he called ‘Stay-put Parties.’ ”

“It was really a very sound idea,” said the old man. His frosty blue eyes sparkled for a moment, with the light of unfought battles. “They did the same thing in Burma. When you knew that you might have to retreat, you dug in small resistance groups, with arms and food and wireless sets. They’d let themselves be overrun, you see, and operate behind the enemy lines. We had a couple of dozen posts like that in Kent and Sussex. The one you found would have been — Whitehorse Wood you said? — here it is. Post Six. That was a very good one. They converted an existing dene-hole — you know what a dene-hole is?”

“As far as I can gather,” said Mr. Calder, “the original inhabitants of this part of the country dug them to hide in when they were overrun by the Angles and Saxons and such. A sort of pre-Aryan Stay-put Party.”

“Never thought of it that way.” The old man chuckled. “You’re quite right, of course. That’s exactly what it was. Now then, Post Six. We had three men in each — an officer and two NCOs.” He ran his gnarled finger up the paper in front of him. “Sergeant Brewer. A fine chap that. Killed in North Africa. Corporal Stubbs. He’s dead too. Killed in a motor crash, a week after VE Day. So your unknown corpse couldn’t be either of them.”

There was a splendid inevitability about it all, thought Mr. Calder. It was like the unfolding of a Greek tragedy, or the final chord of a well-built symphony. You waited for it. You knew it was coming. But you were still surprised when it did.

“Bessendine,” said the old man. “Lieutenant Mark Bessendine. Perhaps the most tragic of the lot, really. He was a natural choice for our work. Spoke Spanish, French and German. Young and fit. Front-line experience with the Reds in Spain.”

“What exactly happened to him?”

“It was the first week in November 1940. Our masters in Whitehall had concluded that the invasion wasn’t on. I was told to seal up all my posts and send the men back to their units. I remember sending Mark out that afternoon to Post Six — it hadn’t been occupied for some weeks — told him to bring back any loose stores. That was the last time I saw him — in the flesh, as you might say. You heard what happened?”

“He got caught in the German blitz on Tilbury and Gravesend.”

“That’s right. Must have been actually on his way back to our HQ. The explosion picked him up and pushed him through a plate-glass window. He was damned lucky to be alive at all. Next time I saw him he was swaddled up like a mummy. Couldn’t talk or move.”

“Did you see him again?”

“I was posted abroad in the spring. Spent the rest of the war in Africa and Italy... Now you happen to mention it, though, I thought I did bump into him once, at the big reception center at Calais. I went through there on my way home in 1945.”

“Did he recognize you?”

“It was a long time ago. I can’t really remember.” The old man looked up sharply. “Is it important?”

“It might be,” said Mr. Calder.

“If you’re selling anything,” said the old lady to Mr. Behrens, “you’re out of luck.”

“I am neither selling nor buying,” said Mr. Behrens.

“And if you’re the new curate, I’d better warn you that I’m a Baptist.”

“I’m a practicing agnostic.”

The old lady looked at him curiously, and then said, “Whatever it is you want to talk about, we shall be more comfortable inside, shan’t we?”

She led the way across the hall, narrow and bare as a coffin, into a surprisingly bright and cheerful sitting room.

“You don’t look to me,” she said, “like the sort of man who knocks old ladies on the head and grabs their life’s savings. I keep mine in the bank, such as they are.”

“I must confess to you,” said Mr. Behrens, “that I’m probably wasting your time. I’m in Tilbury on a sentimental errand. I spent a year of the war in an Air Force prison camp in Germany. One of my greatest friends there was Jeremy Bessendine. He was a lot younger than I was, of course, but we had a common interest in bees.”

“I don’t know what you were doing up in an airplane, at your time of life. I expect you dyed your hair. People used to do that in the 1914 war. I’m sorry, I interrupted you. Mr...?”

“Behrens.”

“My name is Galloway. You said Jeremy Bessendine.”

“Yes. Did you know him?”

“I knew all the Bessendines. Father and mother, and all three sons. The mother was the sweetest thing, from the bogs of Ireland. The father, well, let’s be charitable and say he was old-fashioned. Their house was on the other side of the road to mine. There’s nothing left of it now. Can you see? Not a stick nor a stone,”

Mr. Behrens looked out of the window. The opposite side of the road was an open space containing one row of prefabricated huts.

“Terrible things,” said Mrs. Galloway. “They put them up after the war as a temporary measure. Temporary!”

“So that’s where the Bessendines’ house was,” said Mr. Behrens, sadly. “Jeremy often described it to me. He was so looking forward to living in it again when the war was over.”

“Jeremy was my favorite,” said Mrs. Galloway. “I’ll admit I cried when I heard he’d been killed. Trying to escape, they said.”

She looked back twenty-five years, and sighed at what she saw. “If we’re going to be sentimental,” she said, “we shall do it better over a cup of tea. The kettle’s on the boil.” She went out into the kitchen but left the door open, so that she could continue to talk.

“John, the eldest, I never knew well. He went straight into the Army. He was killed early on. The youngest was Mark. He was a wild character, if you like.”

“Wild? In what way?” said Mr. Behrens.

Mrs. Galloway arranged the teapot, cups and milk jug on a tray and collected her thoughts. Then she said, “He was a rebel. Strong or weak?”

“Just as it comes,” said Mr. Behrens.

“First two brothers, they accepted the discipline at home. Mark didn’t. Jeremy told me that when Mark ran away from school — the second time — and his father tried to send him back, they had a real set-to, the father shouting, the boy screaming. That was when he went off to Spain to fight for the Reds. Milk and sugar?”

“Both,” said Mr. Behrens. He thought of Mark Bessendine as he had seen him two days before. An ultracorrect, poker-backed, poker-faced regular soldier. How deep had the rebel been buried?

“He’s quite a different sort of person now,” he said.

“Of course, he would be,” said Mrs. Galloway. “You can’t be blown to bits and put together again and still be the same person, can you?”

“Why, no,” said Mr. Behrens. “I suppose you can’t.”

“I felt very strange myself for a week or so, after it happened. And I was only blown across the kitchen and cracked my head on the stove.”

“You remember that raid, then?”

“I most certainly do. It must have been about five o’clock. Just getting dark, and a bit misty. They came in low, and the next moment — crump, bump — we were right in the middle of it. It was the first raid we’d had — and the worst. You could hear the bombs coming closer and closer. I thought, I wish I’d stayed in Saffron Walden — where I’d been evacuated, you see — I’m for it now, I thought. And it’s all my own fault for coming back like the posters told me not to. And the next moment I was lying on the floor, with my head against the stove, and a lot of warm red stuff running over my face. It was tomato soup.”

“And that was the bomb that destroyed the Bessendines’ house — and killed old Mr. and Mrs. Bessendine?”

“That’s right. And it was the same raid that nearly killed Mark. My goodness!”

The last exclamation was nothing to do with what had gone before. Mrs. Galloway was staring at Mr. Behrens. Her face had gone pale. She said, “Jeremy! I’ve just remembered! When it happened they sent him home, on compassionate leave. He knew his house had been blown up. Why would he tell you he was looking forward to living in it after the war — when he must have known it wasn’t there?”

Mr. Behrens could think of nothing to say.

“You’ve been lying, haven’t you? Who are you? What’s it all about?”

Mr. Behrens put down his teacup, and said, gently, “I’m sorry I had to tell you a lot of lies, Mrs. Galloway. Please don’t worry about it too much. I promise you that nothing you told me is going to hurt anyone.”

The old lady gulped down her own tea. The color came back slowly to her cheeks. She said, “Whatever it is, I don’t want to know about it.” She stared out of the window at the place where a big house had once stood, inhabited by a bullying father and a sweet Irish mother, and three boys. She said, “It’s all dead and done with, anyway.”

As Mr. Behrens drove home in the dusk, his tires on the road hummed the words back at him. Dead and done with.

Mr. Fortescue, who was the manager of the Westminster branch of the London and Home Counties Bank, and a number of other things besides, glared across his broad mahogany desk at Mr. Calder and Mr. Behrens and said, “I have never encountered such an irritating and frustrating case.”

He made it sound as if they, and not the facts, were the cause of his irritation.

Mr. Behrens said, “I don’t think people quite realize how heavily the scales are weighted in favor of a spy who’s learned his job and keeps his head. All the stuff that Colonel Bessendine is passing out is stuff he’s officially entitled to know. Progress of existing work, projects for new work, personnel to be employed, security arrangements. It all comes into his field. Suppose he does keep notes of it. Suppose we searched his house, found those notes in his safe. Would it prove anything?”

“Of course it wouldn’t,” said Mr. Fortescue, sourly. “That’s why you’ve got to catch him actually handing it over. I’ve had three men — apart from you — watching him for months. He behaves normally — goes up to town once or twice a week, goes to the cinema with his family, goes to local drink parties, has his friends in to dinner. All absolutely above suspicion.”

“Quite so,” said Mr. Behrens. “He goes up to London in the morning rush hour. He gets into a crowded Underground train. Your man can’t get too close to him. Bessendine’s wedged up against another man who happens to be carrying a briefcase identical with his own...”

“Do you think that’s how it’s done?”

“I’ve no idea,” said Mr. Behrens. “But I wager I could invent half a dozen other methods just as simple and just as impossible to detect.”

Mr. Calder said, “When exactly did Mark Bessendine start betraying his country’s secrets to the Russians?”

“We can’t be absolutely certain. But it’s been going on for a very long time. Back to the Cold War which nearly turned into a hot war — 1947, perhaps.”

“Not before that?”

“Perhaps you had forgotten,” said Mr. Fortescue, “that until 1945 the Russians were on our side.”

“I wondered,” said Mr. Calder, “if before that he might have been spying for the Germans. Have you looked at the ‘Hessel’ file lately?”

Both Mr. Fortescue and Mr. Behrens stared at Mr. Calder, who looked blandly back at them.

Mr. Behrens said, “We never found out who Hessel was, did we? He was just a code name to us.”

“But the Russians found out,” said Mr. Calder. “The first thing they did when they got to Berlin was to grab all Admiral Canaris’s records. If they found the Hessel dossier there — if they found out that he had been posing successfully for more than four years as an officer in the Royal Marines—”

“Posing?” said Mr. Fortescue, sharply.

“It occurred to me as a possibility.”

“If Hessel is posing as Bessendine, where’s Bessendine?” said Mr. Fortescue.

“At the bottom of a pre-Aryan chalk pit in Whitehorse Wood, above Lamperdown,” said Mr. Calder, “with a bullet through his head.”

Mr. Fortescue looked at Mr. Behrens, who said, “Yes, it’s possible. I had thought of that.”

“Lieutenant Mark Bessendine,” said Mr. Calder, slowly, as if he was seeing it all as he spoke, “set off alone one November afternoon, with orders to close down and seal up Post Six. he’d have been in battle dress and carrying his Army pay book and identity papers with him, because in 1940 everyone did that. As he was climbing out of the post, he heard, or saw, a strange figure. A civilian, lurking in the woods, where no civilian should have been. He challenged him. And the answer was a bullet, from Hessel’s gun. Hessel had landed that day, or the day before, on the South Coast, from a submarine. Most of the spies who were landed that autumn lasted less than a week. Right?”

“They were a poor bunch,” said Mr. Fortescue. “Badly equipped and with the feeblest cover stories. I sometimes wondered if they were people Canaris wanted to get rid of.”

“Exactly,” said Mr. Calder. “But Hessel was a tougher proposition. He spoke excellent English — his mother was English, and he’d been to an English public school. And here was a God-sent chance to improve his equipment and cover. Bessendine was the same size and build. All he had to do was to change clothes and instead of being a phony civilian, liable to be questioned by the first constable he met, he was a properly dressed, fully documented Army officer. Provided he kept on the move, he could go anywhere in England. No one would question him. It wasn’t the sort of cover that would last forever. But that didn’t matter. His pickup was probably fixed for four weeks ahead — in the next no-moon period. So he put on Bessendine’s uniform, and started out for Gravesend. Not, I need hardly say, with any intention of going back to Headquarters. All he wanted to do was to catch a train to London.”

“But the Luftwaffe caught him.”

“They did indeed,” said Mr. Calder. “They caught him — and they set him free. Free of all possible suspicion. When he came out of that hospital six months later, he had a new face. More. He was a new man. If anyone asked him anything about his past, all he had to say was, ‘Oh, that was before I got blown up. I don’t remember very much about that.’ ”

“But surely,” said Mr. Fortescue, “it wasn’t quite as easy as that. Bessendine’s family—” He stopped.

“You’ve seen it too, haven’t you?” said Mr. Calder. “He had no family. No one at all. One brother was dead, the other was in a prison camp in Germany. I wonder if it was a pure coincidence that he should later have been shot when trying to escape. Or did Himmler send a secret instruction to the camp authorities? Maybe it was just another bit of luck. Like Mark’s parents being killed in the same raid. His mother’s family lived in Ireland — and had disowned her. His father’s family — if it existed — was in New Zealand. Mark Bessendine was completely and absolutely alone.”

“The first Hessel messages went out to Germany at the end of 1941,” said Mr. Fortescue. “How did he manage to send them?”

“No difficulty there,” said Mr. Calder. “The German shortwave transmitters were very efficient. You only had to renew the batteries. he’d have buried his in the wood. He only had to dig it up again. He had all the call signals and codes.”

Mr. Behrens had listened to this in silence, with a half-smile on his face.

Now he cleared his throat and said, “If this — um — ingenious theory is true, it does — um — suggest a way of drawing out the gentleman concerned, does it not?”

“I was very interested when you told me about this dene-hole,” said Colonel Bessendine to Mr. Behrens. “I had heard about them as a boy, of course, but I’ve never actually seen one.”

“I hope we shan’t be too late,” said Mr. Behrens. “It’ll be dark in an hour. You’d better park your car here. We’ll have to do the rest of the trip on foot.”

“I’m sorry I was late,” said Colonel Bessendine. “I had a job I had to finish before I go off tomorrow.”

“Off?”

“A short holiday. I’m taking my wife and daughter to France.”

“I envy you,” said Mr. Behrens. “Over the stile here and straight up the hill. I hope I can find it from this side. When I came here before I approached it from the other side. Fork right here, I think.”

They moved up through the silent woods, each occupied with his own, very different, thoughts.

Mr. Behrens said, “I’m sure this was the clearing. Look. You can see the marks of the workmen’s tractors. And this — I think — was the stump.”

He stopped, and kicked at the* foot of the elm hole. The loose covering pieces of turf on sticks, laid there by Arthur, collapsed, showing the dark entrance.

“Good Lord!” said Colonel Bessendine. He was standing, hands in raincoat pockets, shoulders hunched. “Don’t tell me that people used to live in a place like that?”

“It’s quite snug inside.”

“Inside? You mean you’ve actually been inside it?” He shifted his weight so that it rested on his left foot and his right hand came out of his pocket and hung loose.

“Oh, certainly,” said Mr. Behrens. “I found the body, too.”

There was a long silence. That’s the advantage of having a false face, thought Mr. Behrens. It’s unfair. You can do your thinking behind it, and no one can watch you actually doing it.

The lips cracked into a smile.

“You’re an odd card,” said Colonel Bessendine. “Did you bring me all the way here to tell me that?”

“I brought you here,” said Mr. Behrens, “so that you could explain one or two things that have been puzzling me.” He had seated himself on the thick side of the stump. “For instance, you must have known about this hideout, since you and Sergeant Brewer and Corporal Stubbs built it in 1940. Why didn’t you tell me that when I started describing it to you?”

“I wasn’t quite sure then,” said Colonel Bessendine. “I wanted to make sure.”

As he spoke his right hand moved with a smooth unhurried gesture into the open front of his coat and out again. It was now holding a flat blue-black weapon which Mr. Behrens, who was a connoisseur in such matters, recognized as a Zyanidpistole or cyanide gun.

“Where did they teach you that draw?” he said. “In the Marineamt?”

For the first time he thought that the colonel was genuinely surprised. His face still revealed nothing, but there was a note of curiosity in his voice.

“I learned in Spain to carry a gun under my arm and draw it quickly,” he said. “There were quite a few occasions on which you had to shoot people before they shot you. Your own side, sometimes. It was rather a confused war in some ways.”

“I imagine so,” said Mr. Behrens. He was sitting like a Buddha in the third attitude of repose, his feet crossed, the palms of his hands pressed flat, one on each knee. “I only mentioned it because some of my colleagues had a theory that you were a German agent called Hessel.”

In the colonel’s eyes a glint of genuine amusement appeared for a moment, like a face at the window, and ducked out of sight again.

“I gather that you were not convinced by this theory?”

“As a matter of fact, I wasn’t.”

“Oh. Why?”

“I remember what your daughter told me. That you used to crawl up alongside a hedge running from the railway line to the private cricket ground at the big house. I went along and had a look. You couldn’t crawl up along the hedge now. It’s too overgrown. But there is a place at the top — it’s hidden by the hedge, and I scratched myself damnably getting into it — where two bars are bent apart. A boy could have got through them easily.”

“You’re very thorough,” said the colonel. “Is there anything you haven’t found out about me?”

“I would be interested to know exactly when you started betraying your country. And why. Did you mean to do it all along and falling in with Hessel and killing him gave you an opportunity — the wireless and the codes and the call signs—?”

“I can clearly see,” said the colonel, “that you have never been blown up. Really blown to pieces, I mean. If you had been, you’d know that it’s quite impossible to predict what sort of man will come down again. You can be turned inside out, or upside down. You can be born again. Things you didn’t know were inside you can be shaken to the top.”

“Saul becoming Paul, on the road to Damascus.”

“You are an intelligent man,” said the colonel. “It’s a pleasure to talk to you. The analogy had not occurred to me, but it is perfectly apt. My father was a great man for disciplining youth, for regimentation, and the New Order. Because he was my father, I rebelled against it. That’s natural enough. Because I rebelled against it, I fought for the Russians against the Germans in Spain. I saw how those young Nazis behaved. It was simply a rehearsal for them, you know. A rehearsal for the struggle they had dedicated their lives to. A knightly vigil, if you like. I saw them fight, and I saw them die. Any that were captured were usually tortured. I tortured them myself. If you torture a man and fail to break him, it becomes like a love affair. Did you know that?”

“I, too, have read the works of the Marquis de Sade,” said Mr. Behrens. “Go on.”

“When I lay in hospital in the darkness with my eyes bandaged, my hands strapped to my sides, coming slowly back to life, I had the strangest feeling. I was Hessel, I was the man I had left lying in the darkness at the bottom of the pit. I had closed his eyes and folded his hands, and now I was him. His work was my work. Where he had left it off, I would take it up. My father had been right and Hitler had been right and I had been wrong. And now I had been shown a way to repair the mistakes and follies of my former life. Does that sound mad to you?”

“Quite mad,” said Mr. Behrens. “But I find it easier to believe than the rival theory — that the accident of having a new face enabled you to fool everyone for twenty-five years. You may have had no family, but there were school friends and Army friends and neighbors. But I interrupt you. When you got out of the hospital and decided to carry on Hessel’s work, I suppose you used his wireless set and his codes?”

“Until the end of the war, yes. Then I destroyed them. When I was forced to work for the Russians I began to use other methods. I’m afraid I can’t discuss them, even with you. They involve too many other people.”

In spite of the peril of his position, Mr. Behrens could not suppress a feeling of deep satisfaction. Not many of his plans had worked out so exactly. Colonel Bessendine was not a man given to confidences. A mixture of carefully devised forces was now driving him to talk. The time and the place; the fact that Mr. Behrens had established a certain intellectual supremacy over him; the fact that he must have been unable, for so many years, to speak freely to anyone; the fact that silence was no longer important, since he had made up his mind to liquidate his audience. On this last point Mr. Behrens was under no illusions. Colonel Bessendine was on his way out. France was only the first station on a line which led to Eastern Germany and Moscow.

“One thing puzzles me,” said the colonel, breaking into his thoughts. “During all the time we have been talking here — and I cannot tell you how much I have enjoyed our conversation — I couldn’t help noticing that you have hardly moved. Your hands, for instance, have been lying cupped, one on each knee. When a fly annoyed you just now, instead of raising your hand to brush it off you shook your head violently.”

Mr. Behrens said, raising his voice a little, “If I were to lift my right hand a very well-trained dog, who has been approaching you quietly from the rear while we were talking, would have jumped for your throat.”

The colonel smiled. “Your imagination does you credit. What happens if you lift your left hand? Does a genie appear from a bottle and carry me off?”

“If I raise my left hand,” said Mr. Behrens, “You will be shot dead.”

And so saying, he raised it.

The two men and the big dog stared down at the crumpled body. Rasselas sniffed at it, once, and turned away. It was carrion and no longer interesting.

“I’d have liked to try to pull him down alive,” said Mr. Behrens. “But with that foul weapon in his hand I dared not chance it.”

“It will solve a lot of Mr. Fortescue’s problems,” said Mr. Calder. He was unscrewing the telescopic sight from the rifle he was carrying.

“We’ll put him down beside Hessel. I’ve brought two crowbars along with me. We ought to be able to shift the stump back into its original position. With any luck they’ll lie there, undisturbed, for a very long time.”

Side by side in the dark earth, thought Mr. Behrens. Until the Day of Judgment, when all hearts are opened and all thoughts known.

“We’d better hurry, too,” said Mr. Calder. “It’s getting dark and I want to get back in time for tea.”

~ ~ ~

These last two stories, from the anthologies under my editorship, illustrate the breadth of the contemporary mystery story. This one is short, searing, casting an uneasy eye on the possible future of this populous planet...

Elaine Slater

The Sooey Pill[23]

It was the pill society. There was the morning-after pill, of course, which the government had made obligatory after the first child. Yet even so, the population growth was alarming, and overcrowding was becoming desperate. Then there were the multitudes of tranquilizer pills in almost every color, size, and shape that helped one to cope with the tensions caused by the almost total lack of privacy, by the constant noise, polluted air, continual abrasive physical contact with crowds, and by the harsh and ugly sights of a superindustrialization devoid of trees or greenery of any kind.

Then there were the food pills. One took them three times a day. The endless wheatfields, pastures, grazing lands, and vegetable farms of former days had become ancient history. Even the Grand Canyon was now filled to overflowing with sweating humanity, jostling endlessly for living space. The food pills were processed in huge floating factories, and consisted of compressed algae and seaweed, and plankton. They had a sort of unpleasant fishy taste, but could be swallowed whole with a glass of desalinated water, and they provided all the nutriments necessary to go on living.

But the most important pill of all was affectionately called the Sooey pill. It was the only one that came in a lavender color with a stamp on it resembling a clenched fist. Every person was issued one of these on his or her twenty-first birthday. If one lost the Sooey, another would be issued — but only after much red tape; and, of course, one’s name was permanently placed on a “Suspects List,” to be consulted every time someone was murdered by misuse of the Sooey. These suspects automatically came under police surveillance and were questioned at great length, and one knew oneself to be at best a possible unwitting accessory to murder. For this reason, and others, people took great care not to lose their Sooeys.

Basically the entire society was built around the Sooey pill. It was not only the individual’s escape hatch, but society depended on it as a regulator in a world where nature’s own regulators seemed to have fused out, or gone haywire. There had been much talk — and the Radical Demopubs had actually tried to force through a bill to issue the Sooey pill at age thirteen or younger — of issuing the pill before childbearing age. It was a desperate measure, attempting to deal with a desperate situation. But the Demopubs were overruled by the conservative wing of their own party, who joined with the opposition in saying that it was an inhuman solution, and that the situation was not yet that desperate — an indication, some people muttered, in itself, of things to come.

But perhaps it would not become necessary ever to pass that bill, as living conditions were indeed fast becoming so intolerable that the Sooey, or suicide pill, was being used with ever-increasing frequency. People rarely reached forty before using it, and then desisted only because of an excessive love for their child and a desire, more sentimental than reasoned, to help the child reach adulthood. Parents who felt less responsible or loving were using the Sooey in greater and greater numbers — in their thirties, when the child was likely to be a teenager, or even younger. This was a great help to the government despite the large number of orphans.

But the government did not of course sanction murder as a solution, as this would have opened the gates to total chaos and anarchy. Therefore, when thirteen-year-old Billy Overton was found dead of Sooey poisoning, the police went to work as they always did — to seek the perpetrator of this heinous deed. The boy had been a happy, healthy, loving child, and his parents were beside themselves with grief.

The “Suspects List” was immediately consulted and the computers were put to work. It came up with only three names — all people who had lost their Sooey, of course, and who, in addition, had somehow been near the scene of the crime or had known the murdered boy. All three seemed most unlikely suspects, but the police were determined to track down every clue.

One was a taxi driver, who had lost his Sooey some eight weeks ago, and whose only connection with Billy was that he had dropped off a passenger three blocks from the Overtons’ apartment an hour or so before the crime was committed. As it would have taken him about that long to drive to the Overtons’, he became a prime suspect. But the fact remained that he insisted he had never laid eyes on Billy Overton, and all objective evidence seemed to bear out his contention. And what possible motive could he have?

The second suspect turned up by the computer was a woman who lived within walking distance of the Overtons, had lost her Sooey pill three months before, and was just about to have a new one reissued. She knew the Overtons vaguely, but never remembered having met Billy, although she may have passed him many times on the busy, frantically crowded street; and surely, she said, she had no wish to kill the young boy. She was married but as yet had no child of her own. And what possible motive could she have? She was known to be a quiet almost apathetic type.

The third suspect seemed even more remote than the other two. The computer turned up the name of Bobby’s first grade teacher who had lost her Sooey three days previous to the murder; but she now lived three hundred miles away, and since any type of transport had to be reserved months in advance, she couldn’t possibly have been at the scene of the murder even in the highly unlikely situation that she had somehow conceived a hatred for Billy in first grade and, harboring this dislike, had resolved seven years later to kill him! It was utter nonsense and the police knew it. But Billy was dead and someone had killed him.

Inspector Fenner was nearing forty-two and only his deep attachment to his sixteen-year-old daughter kept him from using his own Sooey. His wife had used hers the year before, after writing him a heartbreaking farewell note begging forgiveness for leaving him to bring up their Hannah; but she could bear the stifling tension no longer. Inspector Fenner had held her in his arms as she gratefully breathed her last, so he knew the suffering of the bereaved.

He now regarded the Overtons with great compassion. Billy’s father, while obviously grief-stricken, was trying to console his wife, but she was beyond consolation. Her eyes were red-rimmed, swollen, with dark black circles underneath. She sobbed continually in great gasping tearless sobs.

“Billy is better off, my darling,” her husband told her. “You know that. How often have we spoken of the horrors of this world, of the horrors that awaited him, that more and more were enveloping our Billy as he grew older and came to realize what the world is like. You, who never wanted him to stop smiling. You, who protected him and built an imaginary world around him — you must know and be grateful that he is released now from the ghastly, gray, grim unrelieved life that we live.”

Inspector Fenner could bear no more. He left. But the call to duty was too strong, too deeply ingrained in him. He returned the next day and in the gentlest of voices asked the Overtons to show him their Sooey pills.

“What!” said Billy’s father, in anger. He was afraid the police officer wanted to take them away. Reassured, he brought forth his precious little lavender pill with the clenched fist stamped on it. Mrs. Overton just stood staring at the Inspector.

Three months later, after the trial of Mrs. Overton, the Inspector leaned over his sleeping Hannah, sleeping among hundreds of others in the unmarried-women’s dormitory of their apartment complex, and kissed her good-bye. That night he gratefully used his own Sooey pill, unable to bear the reverberating screams that kept resounding in his ears — screams that he had heard that afternoon — screams of Mrs. Overton after the sentencing.

Until his last breath he heard her shrieking dementedly to the Court, “Have mercy! Have mercy! I did it to save him. I loved him so dearly! Don’t make me live! For God’s sake, don’t make me live!”

But the Court refused to reissue her Sooey.

~ ~ ~

... whereas this last yarn is long, a pageant of history, hoodlums and humor; a cornucopia of cabbages and kings; a wondrous weave of wit and whatnot; a... but I intrude. Read on!

Avram Davidson

The Lord of Central Park[24]

This all took place a while back...

It was a crisp evening in middle April.

Cornelius Goodeycoonce. the river pirate, headed his plunder-laden boat straight at an apparently solid wall of pilings, steering with the calm of a ferryboat captain nearing a slip, and cut his motor.

Up in Central Park, where he was kipped out in a secluded cave, Arthur Marmaduke Roderick Lodowicke William Rufus de Powisse-Plunkert. 11th Marquess of Grue and Groole in the Peerage of England. 22nd Baron Bogle in the Peerage of Scotland, 6th Earl of Ballypatcoogen in the Peerage of Ireland, Viscount Pen-hokey in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. Laird of Muckle Greet. Master of Snee. and Hereditary Lord High Keeper of the Queen’s Bears, heard a familiar beat of wings in the night and held out a slice of bread just in time to catch a medium-rare charcoal-broiled steak.

Not a mile away the Grand Master of the Mafia. Don Alexander Borjia, admired for the ten-thousandth time the eternally enigmatic smile on the lips of the original Mona Lisa, which hung, as it had for 50 years, on the wall of the Chamber of the order’s Grand Council.

A certain foreign visitor, who called himself Tosci, came down the gangway ladder on the side of the yacht which in daylight flew the flag of the landlocked nation whose citizenship he claimed, and got gingerly into the launch which was to bear him to shore.

Daisy Smith, in her trim and tiny bachelor-girl apartment, prepared herself a tunafish sandwich without enthusiasm, and reflected how much more — how very much more — she would rather be preparing, say, roast beef and potatoes for a young man, if only she knew a young man she considered worth preparing roast beef and potatoes for.

And across the North River, on the Jersey shore, a thin line of green still hugged the outline of the cliffs; and over that, a thin line of blue. And then the night rolled all the way down, and the lines of light were lost...

The momentum of Cornelius’s boat carried it swiftly toward the bulkhead. A crash seemed inevitable. Then Cornelius picked up an oar and prodded one certain timber well below the waterline. Instantly a section of the pilings swung open, just wide enough and just high enough for the boat to pass through; then it swung shut once more.

The boat proceeded onward in gathering darkness as the light from the river dimmed behind it. Gauging the precise instant when the momentum would cease to propel his boat against the mild current of Coenties Kill — walled in and walled over these 150 years — the man lowered his oar and began to pole. The eyes of an alligator flashed briefly, then submerged.

Presently a light showed itself some distance off, then vanished, reappeared, vanished once more in the windings of the sluggish creek, and finally revealed itself, hissing whitely, as a Coleman lamp. It sat on a stone lip of what had been a fairly well frequented landing in the days when De Witt Clinton was Mayor and Jacob Hays was High Constable of the City of New York. Cheap as labor had been in those days — and fill even cheaper — it had been less expensive to vault up rather than bury the Kill when the needs of the growing metropolis demanded the space. Experience had proved that to be the case when other Manhattan “kills” or streams, refusing meekly to submit to burial, had flooded cellars and streets.

The Goodeycoonce-the-river-pirate of that time had noted, marked, mapped, and made the private excavations. They were an old, old family, loath to change what was even then an old family trade.

“Well, now, let’s see—” said the present-day Cornelius. He tied up. He unloaded his cargo onto a pushcart, placed the lamp in a bracket, and slowly trundled the cart over the stone paving of the narrow street, which had echoed to no other traffic since it lost the light of the sun so long ago.

At the head of the incline the path passed under an archway of later construction. The Goodeycoonce-of-that-time, trusting no alien hand, had learned the mason’s trade himself, breaking in onto a lovely, dry, smooth tunnel made and abandoned forever by others — the first, last, and short-lived horse-car subway. The wheels of the pushcart fitted perfectly into the tracks, and the grade was level.

Granny Goodeycoonce was reading her old Dutch family Bible in the snug apartment behind her second-hand store. That is, not exactly reading it; it had been generations since any member of the family could actually read Dutch; she was looking at the pictures. Her attention was diverted from a copperplate engraving of the she-bear devouring the striplings who had so uncouthly mocked the Prophet Elisha with the words. Go up baldhead (“Served them right!” she declared. “Bunch of juvenile delinquents!”), by a thumping from below.

She closed the Book and descended to the cellar, where her only grandchild was hauling his plunder up through the trap door.

“Put out that lamp, Neely!” she said sharply. “Gasoline costs money!”

“Yes, Granny,” the river pirate said obediently.

Denny the Dip stared in stupefaction at the sudden appearance of a steak sandwich’s most important ingredient. Then he stared at the winged visitor which had appeared a second after the steak. The winged visitor stared back — or, perhaps “glared” would be the mot juste — out of burning yellow eyes. “Cheest!” said Denny the Dip.

There had been a time when, so skillful was The Dip, that he had picked the pocket of a Police Commissioner while the latter was in the very act of greeting a Queen. (He had returned the wallet later, of course, via the mails, out of courtesy, and, of course, minus the money.) But Time with her winged Flight, and all that — age and its concomitant infirmities, much aggravated by a devotion to whatever Celtic demigod presides over the demijohn — had long rendered The Dip unfit for such professional gestures.

For some years now he had been the bane of the Mendicant Squad. His method was to approach lone ladies with the pitch that he was a leper, that they were not to come any nearer, but were to drop some money on the sidewalk for him. This, with squeaks of dismay, they usually did. But on one particular evening — this one, in fact — the lone lady he had approached turned out to be a retired medical missionary; she delivered a lecture on the relative merits of chaulmoogra oil and the sulfonamides in the treatment of Hansen’s Disease (“—not contagious in New York, and never was—”), expressed her doubts that The Dip suffered from anything worse than, say, ichthyosis; and the paper she gave him was neither Silver Certificate nor Federal Reserve Note, but the address of a dermatologist.

Her speech had lasted a good quarter of an hour, and was followed by some remarks on Justification Through Faith, the whole experience leaving Denny weak and shaken. He had just managed to totter to one of those benches which a benevolent municipality disposes at intervals along Central Park West, and sink down, when he was espied by the 22nd Baron and 11th Marquess aforesaid, Arthur Marmaduke et cetera, who was walking his dog, Guido.

The dog gave Denny a perfunctory sniff, and growled condescendingly. Denny, semisubliminally, identified it as a whippet, reidentified it as an Italian greyhound, looked up suddenly and whimpered, “Lord Grey and Gore?”

“Grue and Groole,” the dog’s master corrected him. “Who the juice are you?” The dog was small and whipcord-thin and marked with many scars. So was his master. The latter was wearing a threadbare but neat bush jacket, jodhpurs, veldt-schoen, a monocle, and a quasi-caracul cap of the sort which are sold three-for-two-rupees in the Thieves’ Bazaar at Peshawar. He scowled, peered through his monocled eye, which was keen and narrow, the other being wide and glassy.

“Cor flog the flaming crows!” he exclaimed. “Dennis! Haven’t seen you since I fingered that fat fool for you aboard the Leviathan in ’26. Or was it ’27? Demned parvenu must have had at least a thousand quid in his wallet, which you were supposed to divide with me fifty-fifty, but didn’t; eh?”

“Sixty-forty in my favor was the agreement,” Denny said feebly. “Have you got the price of a meal or a drink on yez, perchance?”

“Never spend money on food or drink,” said the Marquess primly. “Against my principles. Come along, come along,” he said, prodding The Dip with his swagger stick, “and I’ll supply you with scoff and wallop, you miserable swine.”

The Dip, noting the direction they were taking, expressed his doubt that he could make it through the Park.

“I don’t live through the Park, I live in the Park, mind your fat head, you bloody fool!” They had left the path and were proceeding — master and hound as smoothly as snakes, Denny rather less so — behind trees, up rocks, between bushes, under low-hanging boughs. And so came at last to the cave. “Liberty Hall!” said the Marquess. “After you, you miserable bog-oaf.”

A charcoal fire glowed in a tiny stove made from stones, mud, and three automobile license plates. A kettle hummed on it, a teapot sat beside it, in one corner was a bed of evergreen sprigs covered with a rather good Tientsin rug woven in the archaic two blues and a buff, and a Tibetan butter-lamp burned on a ledge. There was something else in the cave, something which lunged at Denny and made fierce noises.

“Cheest!” he cried. “A baby eagle!” And fell back.

“Don’t be a damned fool,” his host exclaimed pettishly. “It’s a fully grown falcon, by name Sauncepeur... There, my precious, there, my lovely. A comfit for you.” And he drew from one of his pockets what was either a large mouse or a small rat and offered it to the falcon. Sauncepeur swallowed it whole, “Just enough to whet your appetite, not enough to spoil the hunt. Come, my dearie. Come up, sweetheart, come up.”

The Marquess had donned a leather gauntlet and unleashed the bird from the perch. Sauncepeur mounted his wrist. Together they withdrew from the cave; the man muttered, the bird muttered back, a wrist was thrown up and out, there was a beating of wings, and the falconer returned alone, stripping off his gauntlet.

“Now for some whiskey... Hot water? Cold? Pity I’ve no melted yak butter to go with — one grew rather used to it after a bit in Tibet; cow butter is no good — got no body. What, straight? As you please.”

Over the drink the 11th Marquess of Grue and Groole filled in his visitor on his career since ’25 — or was it ’26? “Poached rhino in Kenya, but that’s all over now, y’know. What with the Blacks, the Arabs, and the East Injians, white man hasn’t got a prayer in that show — poaching, I mean. Ran the biggest fantan game in Macao for a while, but with the price opium’s got to, hardly worthwhile.

“Signed a contract to go find the Abominable Snowman, demned Sherpas deserted only thirty days out, said the air was too thin for their lungs that high up, if you please, la-de-da — left me short on supplies, so that when I finally found the blasted yeti, I had to eat it. No good without curry, you know, no good atall.

“Lost m’right eye about that time, or shortly after. Altercation with a Sikh in Amritsar. Got a glass one. Lid won’t close, muscle wonky, y’know. Natives in Portuguese East used to call me Bwan-a-Who-Sleeps-With-One-Eye-Waking; wouldn’t come within a hundred yards after I’d kipped down for the night.”

He paused to thrust a Sobranie black-and-gold into a malachite cigarette holder and lit it at the fire. With the dull red glow reflected in his monocle and glass eye, smoke suddenly jutting forth from both nostrils, and the (presumably) monkey skull he held in one hand for an ashtray as he sat cross-legged in the cave, the wicked Marquess looked very devilish indeed to the poor Dip, who shivered a bit, and surreptitiously took another peg of whiskey from the flask.

“No, no,” the Marquess went on, “to anyone used to concealing himself in Mau Mau, Pathan, and EOKA country, avoiding the attention of the police in Central Park is child’s play. Pity about the poor old Fakir of Ipi, but then, his heart always was a bit dicky. Still, they’ve let Jomo out of jail. As for Colonel Dighenes—”

And it was brought to the attention of the bewildered Dip that the Marquess had fought for, and not against, the Mau Maus, Pathans, EOKAs, et cetera. The nearest he came to explaining this was, “Always admired your Simon Girty chap, y’know. Pity people don’t scalp any more — here, give over that flask, you pig, before you drink it all. It’s a point of honor with me never to steal more than one day’s rations at a time.

“Travel light, live off the country. I was one of only two white men in my graduating class at Ah Chu’s College of Thieves in Canton. Took my graduate work at Kaffir All’s, Cairo. I suppose you little reck, miserable fellow that you are, that I was the last man to be tried by a jury of his peers before the House of Lords! True, I did take the Dowager’s Daimler, and, true, I sold it — lost the money at baccarat — never trust an Azerbaijanian at cards, but—”

He stopped, harkened to some sound in the outer darkness. “I fancy I hear my saucy Sauncepeur returning. ‘What gat ye for supper. Lord Randall, my son?’ — eh? Chops, steak, Cornish rock hen, what? Curious custom you Americans have — charcoal grills on your balconies. Though, mind, I’m not complaining. Bread ready? Ahhh, my pretty!”

The steak was just fine, as far as Denny the Dip was concerned, though Lord Grue and Groole complained there was a shade too much garlic. “Mustn’t grumble, however — the taste of the Middle Classes is constantly improving.”

The man who called himself Tosci rose to his feet.

“Don Alexander Borgia, I presume?” he inquired.

“No, no, excuse me — Borjia — with a ‘j’,” the Grand Master corrected him. The Grand Master was a tall, dark, handsome man, with a head of silvery gray hair. “The Grand Council is waiting,” he said, “to hear your proposition. This way.”

“I had no idea,” Tosci murmured, impressed, “that the headquarters of the Mafia were quite so — quite so—” He waved his hand, indicating an inability to find the mot juste to fit the high-toned luxury and exquisite good taste of the surroundings.

“This is merely the Chamber of the Grand Council,” said Don Alexander. “The actual headquarters, which we are required by our charter to maintain, is in back of a candy store on Mulberry Street. The dead weight of tradition, huh? Well, pretty soon that time will come of which the political philosophers have predicted, when the State shall wither away. ‘No more Tradition’s chains will bind us,’ yeah? After you.” Don Alexander took his seat at the head of the table and gestured the visitor to begin.

The latter gazed at the assembled Masters of the Mafia, who gazed back, unwinking, unblinking, but not — he was quite sure — unthinking.

After a moment he began, “Signori—” and paused; “then, Fratelli—”

— and was interrupted by Grand Master Borjia.

“Excuse me. Hare Tosci, or Monsoon Tosci, or however you may in your country, but evidently you have fallen victim to the false delusion that the Mafia is a strictly Eyetalian organization, which I have no hesitation in saying it is an erroneous concept and a misinformation disseminated by the misinformed press, see? I would like it clearly understood that you should get it through your head we of the sorely misconstrued and much maligned Mafia do not discriminate in any way, shape, or form, against race, creed, color, national origin, or, uh, what the hell is the other thing which we don’t discriminate against in any way, shape, or form, somebody?”

“Previous kahn-dition of soivitood,” said a stocky Grand Councilor, wearing a Brooks Brothers suit, two cauliflower ears, and an eyepatch.

“Yeah. Thanks very much, Don Lefty McGonigle.”

“Nat a-tall,” said Don Lefty, with a slight blush, as he bent his slightly broken nose toward the orchid in his buttonhole — one of three flown up for him daily from Bahia. “ ‘Rank is but d’guinea stamp, an’ a man’s a man for all dat,’ ” he added. “A quotation from d’ poet Boyns; no offensive ettnic connotations intended.”

“Exactly,” said the Grand Master, a slight scowl vanishing from his distinguished features. “Our Grand Council is a veritable microcosm of American opportunity, as witness, besides myself, Don Lefty McGonigle, Don Shazzam X — formerly Rastus Washington — Don Gesú-Maria Gomez, Don Leverret Lowell Cabot, Don Swede Swanson, Don Tex Thompson, Don Morris Caplan, and Don Wong Hua-Fu, which he’s the Temporary Member of the Permanent Representation of the Honorable Ten Tongs — in a word, a confraternity of American business and professional men devoted to the study of the Confucian classics, the Buddhist Scriptures, and the art of horticulture as it might be exemplified by the peaceful cultivation of the ah-peen poppy.”

He paused and drew breath. “The Mafia,” he continued, “despite the innumerous slanders and aspersions cast upon it by scoffers, cynics, and the ever-present envious, is no more than a group of humble citizens of the world, determined to provide, besides certain commercial services, a forum wherein or whereby to arbitrate those differences which the Jack of communication — alas, all too prevalent in our society — might otherwise terminate untowardly; as to its supposed origins in romantic Sicily, who, indeed, can say? What’s on your mind, Tosci?” he concluded abruptly.

Mr. (or Herr, or Monsieur, or whatever way they say in his country) Tosci blinked. Then he smiled a small noncommittal smile, appropriate to the citizen of a neutral nation.

“As you are aware, my country is landlocked,” he began. “Despite, or perhaps because of this situation, the question of providing a merchant marine of our own arises from time to time. It has arisen lately. My company, the Societé Anonyme de la Banque de la Commerce et de I’Industrie et pour les Droites des Oeuvriers et des Paysans, known popularly and for convenience as Paybanque, is currently interested in the possibilities of such a project.

“It is those ‘certain commercial services’ of the Mafia, of which you spoke, that we propose to engage. Our merchant marine headquarters in the New World would naturally be located in the New York City port area. Although at the present time the North River, or such New Jersey areas as Hoboken or Bayonne are most heavily favored by shipping, it was not always so. It is our opinion that excellent possibilities exist along the East River side of Manhattan, particularly the lower East River.

“It is our desire therefore that you provide us with a land, sea, and air survey, largely but not exclusively photographic in nature, engaging for the duration of the survey more or less centrally located quarters on the waterfront area in this locale. Something in the neighborhood of the Williamsburg Bridge would be ideal. Our representatives would participate with you, though the home office, so to speak, would remain aboard my yacht.

“This portfolio,” he went on, placing it on the table and opening it, “contains a more detailed description of our proposal, as well as the eleven million dollars in United States Treasury Notes which your Northern European contact informed us would be your fee for considering the proposal. If you are agreeable to undertake the work, we can discuss further terms.”

He ceased to speak. After a moment the Grand Master said, “Okay. We will leave you know.” After Tosci had departed, Don Alexander asked, “Well, what do you think?”

“An Albanian Trotskyite posing as a Swiss Stalinist. If you ask me, I think he wants to blow up the Brooklyn Navy Yard,” Don Morris Caplan said.

“Of course he wants to blow up the Brooklyn Navy Yard,” Borjia snapped. “That was obvious right from the beginning — I can spot them Albanian deviationists a mile away. Now the point is: Do we want the Brooklyn Navy Yard blown up? It is to this question, my esteemed fellow colleagues, which we must now divert our attention.”

Events went their traditional way in the Goodeycoonce household. Granny had dressed herself up as though for a masquerade, the principal articles of costume consisting of a tasseled cap, a linen blouse with wide sleeves, a pair of even wider breeches, and wooden shoes; all these articles were very, very old. She next picked up a pipe of equally antique design, with a long cherrywood stem and a hand-painted porcelain bowl, and this she proceeded to charge with genuine Indian Leaf tobacco which she had shredded herself in her chopping bowl. The tobacco was purchased at regular intervals from the last of the Manahatta Indians — that is, he was one-eighth Last-of-the-Manahatta-Indians, on his mother’s side — who operated the New Orleans Candle and Incense Shop on Lexington Avenue. (“I don’t know what them crazy White folks want with that stuff,” he often said; “they could buy grass for the same price.”) Granny struck a kitchen match, held it flat across the top of the pipe bowl, and began to puff.

Neely seated himself and took up a spiral notebook and a ballpoint pen. A scowl, or rather a pout, settled on his usually good-natured countenance.

First Granny coughed. Then she gagged. Then she inhaled with a harsh, gasping breath. Then she turned white, then green, then a bright red which might have startled and even alarmed Neely, had he not seen it all happen so often before. Presently she removed the pipe. Her face had taken on an almost masculine appearance. She rolled up one hand into a somewhat loose fist, then the other, then she placed one in alignment with the other and lifted them to her eyes and peered through her simulated telescope.

Neely, in a tone of voice obviously intended as mockery, or at least mimicry, said, “ ‘To arms, to arms! Blow der drums and beat der trumpet! De dumdam Engels ships ben gesailing up de River!’ ”

The eye which was not looking through the “telescope” now looked at him, and there was something cold and cruel in it. Neely’s own eyes fell. After a moment he mumbled, “Sorry, Oude Piet, I mean Oom Piet. I mean, darn it, Heer — um — Governor — ah — Your Highness.”

The eye glared at him, then the “telescope” shifted. After a while a heavily accented and guttural voice, quite unlike his grandmother’s usual tones, came from her throat and announced, in a businesslike drone, “Shloop by der vharf in Communipaw. Beaver pelts—”

Neely clicked his tongue in annoyance. “You’re in the wrong century, darn it, now!” he cried. Again, the cold old eye glared at him. But he stood his ground. “Come on, now,” he said. “A promise is a promise. What would the Company say?”

The “telescope” shifted again. The drone recommenced. “Pier Dvendy-Zeven — Durkish Zigarettes — Zipahi brand — watchman gedding dronk—”

Neely’s ballpoint scribbled rapidly. “That’s the ticket!” he declared.

Daisy Smith finished the tunafish sandwich (no mayonnaise — a girl has to watch those calories every single minute) and washed the dish. For dessert she had half a pear. Then the question could no longer be postponed — what was she going to do that evening. It had all seemed so simple, back in Piney Woods, New Jersey: she would take her own savings, all $80 plus the $500 or so, most of it in old-fashioned long bills, but including the $100 Liberty Bond, which had been found in the much-mended worsted stocking under Uncle Dynus’ mattress after his funeral (the note found with it — thise is four Dasi — seemed to make traffic with the Surrogate’s Court unnecessary), and come to New York. There she would find, in the order named, an apartment, a job, and Some-one-To-Go-Out-With.

She had found the first two without much trouble, but the third, which she had thought would proceed from the second, did not materialize. Her employer, Mr. Katachatourian, was the nicest old man in the world, but, though a widower, he was old; somehow the importing of St. John’s bread — his business — didn’t seem to attract young men. And if, from time to time, with trepidation, he took a flyer on a consignment of sesame seeds, or pistachio nuts, it helped Daisy’s prospects not at all. The jobbing of sesame seeds, or pistachio nuts, attracted exactly the same sort of gentlemen as did the jobbing of St. John’s bread — either middle-aged and married, or elderly.

Once, to be sure, and once only, Daisy had made a social contact from her job. Mr. Imamoglu, one of the largest exporters of St. John’s bread on the eastern Aegean littoral, had come to New York on business, had dropped in to see his good customer. The Katachatourian Trading Company, and had immediately fallen in love with Daisy. With true Oriental opulence he took her out every night for a week. He took her to the opera, to the St. Regis, to the Horse Show at Madison Square Garden, to Jack Dempsey’s restaurant, to a Near Eastern night club on Ninth Avenue, to Hamburger Heaven, to a performance of Phèdre in the original French, to the Bowery Follies, and to a triple-feature movie house on 42nd Street which specialized in technicolor Westerns, of which Mr. Imamoglu was inordinately fond.

Then he proposed marriage.

Well, the prospect of living in a strawberry-ice-cream-pink villa in the fashionable suburb of Karsiyaka across the picturesque Bay from the romantic port of Izmir, where she would be waited on, hand and foot, by multitudes of servants, did appeal to Daisy. But although Mr. Imamoglu assured her that both polygamy and the harem were things of the past in Turkey, that, in fact, neither veil nor yashmak could be procured for love or money in all his country, still, you know, after all. And furthermore, Mr. Imamoglu was somewhat on in years; he must have been in his thirties.

And besides, she didn’t love him.

So Daisy said No.

The departure of the semidisconsolate exporter left Daisy’s evenings emptier than before. Go to church? Why, bless you, of course she went to church, every single Sunday, sometimes twice, and met a number of young men who played the organ or were in the choir or conducted a Sunday-school class. Most of them lived in the YMCA and were careful to explain to Daisy that it would be many, many years before they could even begin to think of marriage; and their ideas of a social evening were quite different from Mr. Imamoglu’s; they would arrange to meet her somewhere after supper and then go to a free illustrated lecture on the Greenland missions; followed by a cup of coffee or a coke, followed by a chaste farewell at the subway kiosk.

Sometimes a girl thought she might just as well be back in Piney Woods, New Jersey.

What, then, to do tonight? Wash her hair? Watch TV? Catch up on her letters? Mending? Solo visit to a movie? She decided to take a walk.

A few blocks from her apartment she saw a familiar trio leaning in familiar stances against a wall. They nudged one another as they saw Daisy coming, as they had the first time and as they did every time. By now she knew there would be no wolf whistles, no rude proposals.

“Good evening, miss.”

“G’ evening, miss.”

“Evening, miss.”

“Good evening,” Daisy said, pausing. “Oh, look at your new hats!” she exclaimed. “White fedoras. My goodness. Aren’t they nice.”

The three men beamed and smirked, and readjusted their brims. “All the big fellows wear white fedoras,” said the leader of the trio, whose name was Forrance.

“The big fellows?”

“Sure. Like on that, now, TV show. The Unthinkables. Al — Lucky — Baby Face — you know.”

As Forrance mentioned these people his two associates pursed lips and nodded soberly. One was quite small and suffered from nosebleeds. (“Must be a low pressure area comin’ down from Canada,” he would mumble; “I c’n alwees tell: Omma reggella human brommeter.”) He was known, quite simply, as Blood.

His companion, as if in compensation, was obese in the extreme. (“A glanjalla condition,” was his explanation; he indignantly denied gluttony. Taxed with overeating, he pleaded a tapeworm. “It’s not f’ me,” was his indignant cry, over a third helping of breaded pork chops and French fries; “it’s f’ the woim!”) Not unexpectedly he was called Guts. Now and then he pretended that it was an acknowledgement of personal courage.

“Al?” Daisy repeated. “Lucky? Baby Face? White fedoras? The Unthinkables? But you’re not gangsters?” she burst out. “Are you?” For, as often as she had seen them, she had never thought to ask their trade.

Forrance drew himself up. Blood slouched. Guts loomed. A look of pleased importance underlay the grim look they assumed at the question. “Listen,” Forrance began, out of the side of his mouth, an effect instantly spoiled by his adding, “miss.”

“Listen, miss, you ever hear of—” he paused, glanced around, drew nearer — “the Nafia?” He thrust his right hand into his coat pocket. So did his two lieutenants. Daisy said. No, she never did; and at once the three were cast down. Was it, she asked helpfully, anything like the Mafia? Forrance brightened, Blood brightened. Guts brightened.

“Sumpthing like the Mafia,” said Forrance. “Om really very surprised you never — but you’re from outatown, aintcha?”

“But what do you do?” Daisy demanded, mildly thrilled, but somehow not in the least frightened.

“We control,” said Forrance impressively, “all the gumboil and Indian nut machines south of Vesey Street!”

“My goodness,” said Daisy. “Uh — are there many?”

“We are now awaiting delivery of the first of our new fleet of trucks,” said Forrance formally.

“Well,” said Daisy, “Lots of luck. I’ve got to go now. Good night.”

“Good night, miss.”

“G’ night, miss.”

“Night, miss.”

The crisp air was so stimulating that Daisy walked a considerable distance past her usual turning-around point, and then decided to come home by a different route, window shopping on the way. And in one window she noted many good buys in linoleum and tarpaulins, ships’ chandlery, bar-and-grill supplies, and various other commodities; but somehow nothing she really needed just at the moment.

Then the flowered organdy caught her eye, but the bolt of blue rayon next to it was just as adorable. She looked up at the sign. THE ALMOST ANYTHING SECOND-HAND GOODS AND OUTLET STORE, it said. Wondering slightly, Daisy opened the door and went in. A bell tinkled. After a moment another door opened and a tall vigorous-looking woman, whose brown hair was turning gray, came in from the back. She smiled politely on seeing Daisy.

“I thought I might get some of that organdy in the window, the one with the flowers, enough for a dress.”

“Yes, isn’t it lovely? I’ll get it for you right away. Was there anything else in the window you liked, while I’m there? Leather goods, outboard motors, canned crabmeat?”

“No, just—”

“Seasoned mahogany, yerba maté, manila hemp? Turkish cigarettes — Sipahi brand?”

“No, just the organdy, and, oh, maybe that blue rayon?”

“That’s lovely, too. You have very good taste.”

While the lady was reaching into the window, the door at the back opened again and a voice said, “Granny,” and then stopped. Daisy turned around. She saw a well-made young man with a healthy open countenance and light brown hair which needed combing. He wore a peacoat, corduroy trousers, and a woolen cap. He stared at Daisy. Then he smiled. Then he blushed. Then he took off his cap.

Daisy instantly decided to buy, not just enough material for a dress, but both entire bolts, plus so large an amount of leather goods, outboard motors, canned crabmeat, seasoned Honduras mahogany, yerba mate, manila hemp, and Turkish Sipahi cigarettes as would leave the proprietor no choice but to say, “Well, you can never carry all that by yourself; my grandson will help you take it home,” — or words to that effect.

What actually happened was quite different. The lady emerged from the window with the bolts of cloth and said, “I really don’t know which is the lovelier,” then noticed the young man and said, “Yes, Neely?”

“I finished the, uh, you-know,” said the young man. He continued smiling at Daisy, who was now smiling back.

“Then start stacking the Polish hams,” his grandmother directed crisply. “Smash up all those old crates, pile the raw rubber up against the north wall, but not too near the Turkish cigarettes because of the smell. Go on, now.”

“Uh—” said Neely, still looking at the new young customer.

“And when you’re finished with that,” his grandmother said, “I want all the cork fenders cleaned, and the copper cable unwound from the big reel onto the little ones.”

“Uh—”

“Now, never mind. Uh — you go and do as I say, or we’ll be up all night... Neely!”

For a moment the young man hesitated. Then his eyes left Daisy and caught his grandmother’s glance. He looked down, swallowed, scraped his boots. “Well?” Neely threw Daisy a single quick glance of helplessness, wistfulness, and embarrassment. He said, “Yes, Granny,” turned and went out the door.

Daisy, her purchase under her arm, walked home full of indignation. “There are no young men any more!” she told herself vexedly. “If they’re men, they’re not young, and if they’re young, they’re just not men. ‘Yes, Granny!’ How do you like that? Oh, I’d ‘Yes, Granny’ him!” she declared. “I’d show him who was boss!” she thought, somewhat inconsistently.

“Milksop!” she concluded. She was surprised to realize that, in her annoyance, she had bought only the flowered organdy. There was really no help for it; much as she despised the grandmother and grandson, if she wanted that blue rayon she would have to revisit THE ALMOST ANYTHING SECOND-HAND GOODS AND OUTLET STORE a second time. Too bad, but it wasn’t really her fault, was it?

The man called Tosci stepped from the yacht’s launch onto the gangway ladder and was steadied by a stubble-faced man in dungarees. “Thank you, boatswain,” he said.

“Did you enjoy your visit ashore, M. Tosci?” the bosun asked.

“Ah, New York is such a stimulating city,” said Tosci, going up the ladder. “One simply cannot absorb it on a single visit.”

He handed his hat to the man, who followed him to his cabin, where he tossed the hat aside, and turned on a device which not only blanked out the sound of their actual conversation against any electronic eavesdropping, but supplied a taped innocuous conversation to be picked up by such devices instead.

“Well?” the “boatswain” demanded.

Tosci shrugged. “Well, Comrade Project Supervisor,” he said, “they took the Treasury Notes and said they would let us know. One really could not expect more at the moment.”

“I suppose not,” the Project Supervisor said gloomily. “Do you think they will ‘take the contract,’ as I believe the phrase goes?”

“Why should they not, Comrade Project Supervisor? How could they resist the temptation? We are, after all, prepared to go as high as a hundred and eleven million dollars. It would take them a long time to collect a hundred and eleven million dollars from their, how do they call it, ‘numbers racket’.”

“About a week and a half; not more. Well, well, we shall see. Meanwhile, I am hungry. You took your time coming back.”

“I am sorry, Comrade Project Supervisor, but—”

“No excuses. Bring me my supper now. And see that the cabbage in the borscht is not soggy as it was last night, and that there are no flies in the yogurt. Do you hear?”

“Yes, Comrade Project Supervisor,” said Tosci.

Don Sylvester Fitzpatrick, Second Vice-President of the Mafia (Lower Manhattan Branch) and son-in-law of Don Lefty McGonigle, sat brooding in his tiny office in the wholesale foodstuffs district. Despite his title he was a mere petty don in the hierarchy; well did he know that it was rumored he owed even this to nepotism, and these circumstances rankled (as he put it) in his bosom. “A man of my attainments, which they should put him in the front ranks of enterprise,” he muttered, “and what am I doing? I’m in charge of the artichoke rake-off at the Washington Market!” Don Sylvester laughed bitterly; Don Sylvester sulked.

Meanwhile, in the Grand Chamber Council, discussion among the senior dons went on apace.

“Blowing up the Brooklyn Navy Yard,” said Don Tex Thompson reflectively, “might be just the thing the national economy is in need of. Unemployment among skilled laborers went up seven-point-oh-nine percent in the last fortnightly period, and among unskilled laborers the figure scores an even higher percentile. The Mafia,” he said, “cannot remain indifferent to the plight of the workingman.”

“Not if it is to retain that position of esteem and preeminence to which it is rightly entitled,” said Don Morris Caplan.

“To say nothing of the excellent effect upon our National Defenses of clearing out all that obsolete equipment and replacing it with the newest devices obtainable through modern science,” Don Shazzam X (formerly Rastus Washington) declared. “The Congress could scarcely refuse appropriations in such circumstances.”

Don Wong Hua-Fu pursed his thin lips and put the tips of his six-inch fingernails together in church-steeple fashion. “The Honorable Ten Tongs do include sound common stocks in the various heavy-metals industries in their portfolio. Still,” he said, “we must consider the great burdens already borne by the widows and orphans who constitute the majority of American taxpayers.”

And Don Leverret Lowell Cabot pointed out another possible objection. “We cannot neglect our own heavy commitments in the Brooklyn Navy Yard area,” he said. “As part of our responsibility to the men who man our country’s ships we have, need I remind the Grand Council, leading interests in the bars, restaurants, night clubs, strip-joints, clip-joints, and gambling hells of the area — to say nothing of the hotels used for both permanent and temporary residence by the many charming ladies who lighten the burdens of the sea-weary sailors.”

“It’s a problem, believe me,” sighed Don Gesú-Maria Gomez. “Little does the public know of our problems.”

“Decisions, decisions, decisions!” Don Swede Swanson echoed the sigh.

“Gen-tle-men, gen-tle-men,” said Don Lefty McGonigle, a note of mild protest in his hoarse voice. “Aren’t we being a lit-tul pre-ma-chua? We are not being asked to blow up duh Brooklyn Navy Yahd dis minute. We are not even being asked to decide if it should be blown up dis minute. All we are being asked to do, gen-tle-men, is to decide if we are going to make a soyvey of de Iowa East Trivva estuary from d’ point of view of its amen-i-ties as a pos-si-ble headquarters faw moychant marine offices. I yap-peal to you. Grand Master, am I creckt?”

Don Alexander Borjia tore his eyes away from the Mona Lisa on the wall. The lineaments of La Gioconda never ceased to entrance him, and there was the added fillip to his pleasure that the rest of the world naively thought the original still hung in the Louvre, little realizing that this last was a mere copy, painted, true, by Leonardo, but by Leonardo in his ancient age. The switcheroo had been arranged by Don Alexander’s father, the late Grand Master Don Cesar Borjia, before the First World War. Copies of master-works of art, stolen at various times from museums and private collectors around the world, adorned the other walls. But Don Alexander Borjia’s favorite remained the Mona Lisa.

“Don Lefty McGonigle is correct,” he said. “Take the contract for the survey, charge them eighty-seven million dollars for it, and when it comes time for a decision on the big question, so we’ll leave them know further. All in favor say Aye. Opposed, Nay. The Ayes got it.”

There was a silence.

“A foyda question,” said Don Lefty finally. He fingered the cabochon emerald which nestled in his watered-silk four-in-hand, and fiddled with his eyepatch.

“Speak.”

“Whom is to be ap-poin-ted to take over d’ soyvey?”

“Whom did you have in mind?”

“A young man which he oughta be given more responsibility than he’s being given, to wit, my son-in-law, the Second Vice-President of the Mafia, Lower Manhattan Branch. Woddaya say, gen-tle-men?”

The pause which followed this suggestion seemed faintly embarrassed. Then Don Swede Swanson was heard to express the opinion that Don Sylvester FitzPatrick couldn’t find the seat of his pants in the dark with both hands.

Don Lefty turned to him and pressed both his hands to his chest. “You wound me!” he exclaimed, his voice deep with suppressed emotion. “Night afta night I come home an’ my liddle Philomena is eating huh haht out. ‘Daddy, Daddy, Daddy,’ she asks, weeping, ‘what has everybody got against poor Sylvester? Din’t he soyve his apprenticeship the same as everybody else? Is-int he loyal? Trustwoythy? Coyteous? Kind? So why, afta twelve years, is he still only in chahge of ahtichokes at Wahshington Mahket?’

“An’ ya know what? I don’t know what to say ta huh! If fit was a matta of money, so I’d buy him a sand-and-gravel company, or a broory. But it’s a matta of tra-di-tion, gen-tle-men! All of youse got sons. I ain’t got no son! All I got is my liddle Philomena. A bee-uty in thuh Hollywood sense a thuh woid she may not be, but she yiz the yimage of huh sainted mother, rest her soul, an’ huh husband is like a son ta me, so when ya spit on him, gen-tle-men, it’s like ya spitting on me!”

Throats were cleared, eyes wiped, noses blown. Don Alexander essayed to speak, but was prevented by emotion. At last the silence was broken by Don Swede Swanson. “So let it be Sylvester,” he said huskily. There was a chorus of nods.

“Of course, there is one hazard of the chase involved in my sweet Sauncepeur’s snaffling hot broils off these outdoor grills,” Lord Grue and Groole observed. “It — shall I sweeten the air in here a bit? I’ve a packet of frankincense that my friend, Osman Ali the Somali, sent me not long ago; I wouldn’t buy incense, of course,” he said, sprinkling the pale yellow grains on the glowing embers. A pungent order filled the cave.

Denny the Dip coughed. The Marquess donned his gauntlet and examined the falcon’s talons, particularly about the pads. “It makes the poor creature’s petti-toes sore. I’ve experimented with various nostra and it’s my considered opinion that Pinaud’s Moustache Wax is above all things the best. Is there anything more left in the flask? Shall we kill it, as you say over here? Ah, good show.”

With a gesture he motioned to Denny to take the bed; he himself reclined on a tiger skin which was stored during the day in a dry niche. Thus settled, he grew expansive. “Ah, it’s not what I’ve been accustomed to, me that used to have my own shooting lodge in the grouse season, waited on, hand and foot, by a dozen Baloochi servants; well, and now here I am, like a bloody eremite, living on me wits and the $5.60 I get from home each week.”

Denny lifted his head. “You’re a remittance man?” he inquired.

“Sort of remittance man, you might say, yes. Me nevew, Piers Plunkert, pays me two quid a week, not so much to stay away as to stay alive. ‘Avoid alcohol, Uncle,’ he writes, ‘and mind you wear your wooly muffler when the north wind blows.’ It’s not filial piety, mind, or avuncular piety, or anything like it. You see, if I pop off, he becomes the twelfth Marquess of Grue and Groole, and all the rest of that clobber — the mere thought of it makes his blood run cold. No, he’s not a Labour M.P.; his fix is worse than that. He’s one of the Angry Young Men!

“Struth! Lives in a filthy little room in South Stepeny, and composes very bad, very blank verse damning The Establishment, under the pseudonym of ‘Alf Huggins.’ Well, now, I ask you — would you pay any attention to an Angry Young Man named Lord Grue and Groole? No, of course you wouldn’t. And neither would anyone else.

“Once a year I threaten suicide. ‘It doesn’t matter about me, my boy,’ I write. ‘You will carry on the name and title.’ My word, what a flap that puts him in! Always good for ten quid pronto via cablegram.”

A sound, so dim and distant that it failed to reach the ear of Denny the Dip, caused the peerless peer to break off discourse and raise his head. “Bogey,” he announced. “Policeman, to you. Weighs about a hundred and sixty and has trouble with his left arch. Neglects his tum, too — hear it rumble!”

Denny strained, could hear nothing but the traffic passing through the park, its sound rising and falling with the wind, like surf. He murmured, “What a talent you got, Grooley! What a team we’d make!”

“A team we certainly will not make!” the peer snorted. “But, as to your playing squire to my knight, hmm, well, we’ll consider it. I plan to take a brisk walk in the morning, down to the Battery and vicinage. We’ll see if you can stand the pace — no sinecure being gunbearer, as it were, to the man who outwalked The Man-Eater of Mysore. And another thing—” He thwacked The Dip across the feet with his swagger stick. “No more of this ‘Grooley!’ Call me Sahib, Bwana, Kyrios, or M’lord.”

“Hmm,” murmured Lord Grue and Groole, pausing and looking in the shop window. “I find that curious. Don’t you find that curious, Denny?”

Denny, panting and aching from the long trek down from Central Park, was finding nothing curious but his inability to break away and sink to rest. “Wuzzat, Gr — I mean Bwana?” he moaned. He was bearing, in lieu of gun, the Marquess’ swagger stick.

“Use your eyes, man! There, in the window. What do you see?”

The Dip wiped the sweat out of his eyes. “Leather goods?” he inquired. “Outboard motors? Canned crabmeat?” The Marquess clicked his tongue, and swore rapidly in Swahili (Up-Country dialect). “Seasoned Honduras mahogany?” The Dip continued hastily. “Flowered organdy? Blue rayon? Manila hemp?”

“Ahah! Just so, a great lovely coil of Manila hempen rope. Notice anything odd about it? No? You were pulling the wrong mendicant dodge, you should’ve used a tin cup. You really don’t see that scarlet thread running through it, so cleverly and closely intertwined that it cannot be picked out without spoiling the rope? You do see it; good. No use to ask if you know what it means; you don’t, so I’ll tell you. It means that rope was made by and for the Royal Navy. It is never sold, so it must have been stolen. No one would dare fence it in Blighty, so they’ve shipped it over here. Clever, I call that. Must look into this.”

He entered the shop, followed by Denny, who sank at once into a chair. The dog Guido, looking as cool and fresh as his master, stood motionless. Mrs. Goodeycoonce emerged from the back.

“Afternoon, ma’am,” said Lord Grue and Groole, touching the brim of his quasi-caracul cap, and giving her no chance to speak. “My name is Arthur Powisse, of the Powisse Exterminating Company. Allow me to offer you my card — dear me, I seem to have given the last one away; ah, well, it doesn’t signify. This is my chief assistant, Mr. Dennis, and the animal is one of our pack of trained Tyrolean Rat Hounds. We have just finished a rush job at one of the neighborhood warehouses, and, happening to pass by and being entranced by your very attractive window display, thought we would drop in and offer you an estimate on deratting your premises.”

Mrs. Goodeycoonce opened her mouth, but the Marquess swept on. “I anticipate your next comment, ma’am. You are about to say, ‘But I keep a clean house’ — and so you do, so you obviously do. But do your neighbors? Aye, there’s the rub; they don’t, alas. Around the corner is an establishment of the type known as, if you will pardon the expression, a common flophouse — the sort of place where they throw fishbones in the corner and never sweep up. Three doors down is the manufactory of Gorman’s Glossy Glue Cakes, a purely animal product, on which ratus ratus thrives, ma’am, simply thrives!”

Something flickered in Granny Goodeycoonce’s eyes which seemed to indicate she had long been aware of the proximity of Gorman’s Glossy Glue Cakes, particularly on very warm days, and found in it no refreshment of soul whatsoever.

“How often at night,” Lord Grue and Croole waxed almost lyrical, “when all should be quiet, must you not have heard Noises, eh? — and attributed them to the settling of the timbers, the expansion and contraction of the joists and beams. Not a bit of it! Rats!” His voice sank to a whisper. “Oh, the horror of it! First one gray shadow, then another—”

He took a step forward, she took one backward, he advanced, she retreated. “Then great grisly waves of them, first in the foundations, then in the cellar, then — does this door lead to the cellar? I had better examine it.”

Later that evening found the Marquess and his bearer deep in the shadowy doorway of an empty warehouse. “It was the advent of that offensively wholesome-looking young chap, her grandson, that broke the spell,” the Marquess mused. “Said she’d consider it. No matter. I saw the cellar. Those crates and crates of Polish hams! Those bales of raw rubber! Turkish Sipahi Cigarettes! That infinite variety of portable, sea-borne merchandise!

“It can only mean one thing: the people are pukka river pirates. I know the signs — seen them on the Thames, the Nile, Hoogli, Brahmapootra, Whampoa, Pei-Ho — eheu fugaces. Nice setup she’s got there — snug shop, tidy house, fine figger, and a widow woman, I’m sure — no sign of a husband and anyone can see she’s not the divorcing type. Hmm, well Question is: How does the lad get the stuff there? How do river pirates usually get the stuff there? Just so.”

And they had walked along the waterfront, the Marquess examining the water as intently as one of the inhabitants of the Sundra Straits peering for bêche-de-mer. The Dip plodding along to the rear of Guido, as sunken beneath the weight of the swagger stick as if it had been an elephant gun. He reflected on the day he might have spent, conning old ladies out of coins, and on a certain bat-cave he knew of, where an ounce and a quarter of Old Cordwainer retailed for the ridiculous sum of 21 cents. But there was that about the Marquess which said Hither to me, caitiff, and therein fail not, at your peril; therefore Denny plodded meekly.

“Ho,” said His Lordship, stopping, and pointing at the filthy waters of the East River, which, in a happier time, lined with forests and grassy meads, were thick with salmon, shad, cod, ale-wives, herring, sturgeon, and all fruits of the sea; now the waters were merely thick. “Observe,” said His Lordship. “You see how — there — the oil slick, orange peel, bad bananas, and other rubbish floats down with the tide. Whereas the flotsam rides more or less straight out from under us and joins the current at a right angle. The main current, that is. Let’s have a dekko,” he declared, and shinnied down the side of the wharf timbers almost to the water’s edge.

His enthusiasm, as he clambered up, almost communicated itself to The Dip. “Whuddaya see, Sahib?” he asked, craning.

“Enough. Tonight, when the eyes of the Blessed Houris in Paradise, yclept ‘stars’ in our rude Saxon Tongue, shine as clearly as this filthy air will allow them to, we shall follow young Mr. Goodeycoonce. Here are rupees, or whatever the juice they call them — ‘quarters’? Just so. Go thou and eat, and return within the hour. As for me, a strip of biltong will do, and fortunately I took care to refill the flask. They make good whiskey in Belfast, I must say, cursed Orangemen though they be.” He raised his drink and waved it across a trickle in the gutter. “To the King over the water” — and drank. His glass eye glittered defiance to all the House of Hanover.

All was quiet in the kitchen behind THE ALMOST ANYTHING SECOND-HAND GOODS AND OUTLET STORE. Granny Goodeycoonce was pasting in her scrapbook the latest letter she had received in reply to a message of congratulations sent on the birthday of one of the Princesses of the Netherlands. It read, as did all the others in the scrapbook: The Queen has read your letter with interest and directs me to thank you for your good wishes. And it was signed, as nearly as could be made out, Squiggle Van Squiggle, Secretary.

“Gee,” said Neely, looking up from a trade journal he was reading, “here’s a bait business for sale on Long Island, on the North Shore.” There was no answer. He tried again. “And a boat basin in Connecticut. ‘Must be sold at once,’ the ad says, ‘to settle estate.’ Gee.”

His grandmother capped the tube of library paste. “I suppose Princess Beatrix will be getting engaged pretty soon,” she observed. “I wonder who to. How old is the Crown Prince of Greece? No, that wouldn’t do, I suppose; he’ll be King of Greece some day, and she’ll be Queen of Holland. Hmm.” She knit her brows, deep in the problems of dynasty.

“They could be combined,” Neely suggested.

Granny Goodeycoonce looked up, amazed. “What, Greece and Holland?”

“No, I mean a bait business and a boatyard. People,” he explained enthusiastically, “would buy bait to fish with from their boats. And—”

She clicked her tongue. “The idea! A Goodeycoonce becoming a fishmonger!”

“Better than being a river pirate,” he mumbled.

“Never let me hear you use that word again!” she snapped. “The very idea! Have you no respect for the traditions of the family? Why, it makes my blood boil! And don’t you forget for one minute, young man, that I am a Goodeycoonce by descent as well as by marriage; don’t you forget that!”

“Fat chance,” Neely muttered.

His grandmother opened her mouth to release a thunderbolt, but at that moment there came a thud from the cellar, followed by a clatter.

“Oh, my land,” Granny whispered, a hand at her throat. “Rats! I should’ve listened to that Limey. Is the door to the cellar locked?”

Answer was superfluous, for at that moment the door swung open and in stepped the Limey himself, more properly described as Arthur Marmaduke Roderick Lodowicke William Rufus de Powisse-Plunkert, Baron Bogle, Earl of Ballypatcoogen, Viscount Penhokey, Laird of Muckle Greet, Master of Snee, 11th Marquess of Grue and Groole in the Peerage of England, and Hereditary Lord High Keeper of the Queen’s Bears. “Good evening, all,” he said.

Neely went pale. “I knew it!” he cried, “I knew we couldn’t go on getting away with it forever, not after almost three hundred years! That exterminator story was just a dodge — he must be from the Harbor Patrol, or the Coast Guard!”

The Marquess took his swagger stick from the quivering Denny (who had made the underground voyage with his head under his coat, for fear of bats), and smacked it gently into the palm of his hand. “You know, I resent that very much,” he said, a touch of petulance in his voice. “I will have you know that I am no copper’s nark, common informer, or fink. I—”

“You get out of my house,” said Granny Goodeycoonce, “or I’ll—”

“Call the police? Oh, I doubt that, my good woman; I doubt that entirely. How would you explain all those cork fenders in the cellar? The copper cable, raw rubber, Turkish Sipahi cigarettes, Polish hams? To say nothing of enough sailcloth to supply a regatta, a ton of tinned caviar, five hundred oka of Syrian arrack, twenty canisters of ambergris, several score pods of prime Nepauli musk, and, oh, simply ever so many more goodies — all of which, I have no hesitation in declaring, are the fruits of, I say not ‘theft,’ but of, shall I say, impermissive acquisition. Eh?”

Granny Goodeycoonce, during the partial inventory, had recovered her aplomb. “Well, you simply couldn’t be more wrong,” she said, a smile of haughty amusement on her lips. “ ‘Impermissive’? Poo. We have the best permission anyone could ever want. Neely, show this foreign person our permission.”

Still pale, and muttering phrases like I’ll be an old man when I get out, Neely unlocked an antique cabinet in one corner of the room and removed a flat steel case, which he handed to his grandmother. She opened it with a key of her own, and reverently extracted a parchment document festooned with seals, which she displayed to the Marquess with the words: “Look, but don’t touch.”

He fixed his monocle firmly in his good eye and bent over. After a while he straightened up. “Mph. Well, I must confess that my knowledge of Seventeenth Century Dutch orthography is rather limited. But I can make out the name of Van Goedikoentse, as well as that of Petrus Stuyvesant. Perhaps you would be good enough to explain?”

Nothing could have pleased Granny more. “This,” she said in tones both hushed and haughty, “is a Patent from the Dutch West India Company, granting to my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather, Nicolaes Jacobus Van Goedikoentse, and ‘to his heirs forever,’ the right of collecting customs in the harbor port of Nieuw Amsterdam. It was granted in return for Myn Heer Van Goedikoentse’s valient help in resisting the insolent British demand for surrender in 1662. Governor Stuyvesant promised he would never forget.”

For a moment no word broke the reverent silence. Then, slowly, Lord Grue and Groole removed his cap. “And naturally,” he said, “your family has never recognized that surrender. Madam, as an unreconstructed Jacobite, I honor them for it, in your person.” He gravely bowed. Equally gravely, Mrs. Goodeycoonce made a slight curtsy. “Under no circumstances,” he went on, “would I dream of betraying your confidence. As a small effort to amend for the sins of my country’s past I offer you my collaboration — my very, very experienced collaboration, if I do say so.”

Three hundred years (almost) of going it alone struggled in Mrs. Goodeycoonce’s bosom to say No. At the same time she was plainly impressed with Lord Grue and Groole’s offer — to say nothing of his manner. It took her a while to reply. “Well,” she said finally, “we’ll see.”

Don Sylvester FitzPatrick, Second Vice-President of the Mafia (Lower Manhattan Branch), was nervous. The survey was almost finished, and the Grand Council still hadn’t made up its mind about blowing up the Brooklyn Navy Yard. In fact, it was even now debating the project in their Chamber, at the window of the anteroom to which Don Sylvester now sat. Elation at being at long last removed from the artichoke detail had gradually given way to uneasiness. Suppose they did decide to blow it up? Would the United States Government take the same broad view of this as the Dons did? Visions of being hanged from the yardarm of, say, the USS Missouri, danced like sugar plums in Sylvester’s head.

A flutter from the crates at his foot distracted his attention. In one was a black pigeon, in one was a white. Very soon the mysterious Mr. Tosci would appear with $87,000,000 in plain, sealed wrappers, and be told the Grand Council’s decision. Even now the Mafiosi bomb squads were standing by at the ready in Brooklyn. Informed only that morning that police had put the traditional, semiannual wire tap on the Mafiosi phones, the Mafiosi had brought out the traditional, semiannual pigeon post.

“Now, remember,” Don Lefty McGonigle had instructed his son-in-law, “d’ black boid has d’ message Bombs Away awready in d’ cap-sool fastened to its foot. And d’ white boid’s got d’ message Everyt’ing Off inscribed on d’ paper in d’ cap-sool on its foot. Ya got dat?”

“Yeah, Papa,” said Don Sylvester, wiping his face.

“So when ya get d’ woid, Yes, ya leddout d’ black pigeon. But if ya get d’woid, No, den ya leddout d’ white pigeon. An’ nats all dere’s to it. Okay?”

“Okay, Papa.”

“Om depending on you. Philomena is depending on you. So don’t chew be noivous.”

“No, Papa,” said Don Sylvester.

When Forrance told Daisy that the “Nafia” was awaiting delivery of the first of its new fleet of trucks he was speaking optimistically. The new truck was “new” only in the sense that it was newer than the one it replaced, a 1924 Star, which had to be thawed out with boiling water in cold weather and cranked by hand before it would start, in all weather. The Nafia treasury had suffered a terrible blow when the Cherry Street Mob, in the mid-fifties, took over the distribution of birch beer south of Vesey Street — during the course of which epic struggle Guts had his ears boxed and Blood suffered a sympathetic nasal hemorrhage; as a result, the treasury could only afford to have the single word NAFIA painted on the side panels. Still it was something.

“Rides like a dream, don’t it,” Forrance said, as they headed along South Street one bright afternoon.

“No, it don’t,” said Blood. “It liss.”

“Whaddaya mean, ‘it liss’?”

“I mean, like it liss ta one side. Look—”

Guts said, “He’s right, boss. It does liss. Them new gumball machines ain’t equally distribitted. They all slide to one side.”

Forrance halted the truck with a grinding of gears. “All right,” he said resignedly; “then let’s take’m all out and put’m back in again, but evenly this time.”

So the smallest criminal organization in New York got out of its fleet of trucks to unload and reload its gumball machines.

Tosci paused on the deck of the yacht to receive his superior’s final instructions. “I have counted the money,” he said, “Eighty-six million in negotiable bearer bonds, and one million in cash.”

“Very well. Perhaps they will have time to spend it all before we Take Over; perhaps not. I have instructed the Chief Engineer to test the engines in order that we can leave as soon as the decision is made. They say the bombs are set for four hours, but who knows if we can believe them?”

As if to comfirm his fears, the Chief Engineer at this moment rushed on deck, grease and dismay, in equal parts, showing on his face.

“The engines won’t start!” he cried.

“They must start!” snapped the Project Supervisor. “Go below and see to it!” The Chief, with a shrug, obeyed. The Project Supervisor scowled. “An odd coincidence — if it is a coincidence,” he said. “Personally, I have never trusted sailors since the Kronstadt Mutiny.” To conceal his nervousness he lifted his binoculars to his eyes, ordering Tosci not to leave the ship for the time being. Scarcely had he looked through the glasses when an exclamation broke through his clenched lips.

“There is a truck on the waterfront,” he cried, “with the Mafia’s name on it! And three men are lifting something from it. Here—” he thrust the glasses at Tosci — “see what you can make of it.”

Tosci gazed in bewilderment. “Those machines,” he said. “I’ve never seen anything like them. I don’t understand — why should the Mafia be unloading such strange devices so near our ship?”

Suspicion, never far below the surface of the Project Supervisor’s mind, and usually right on top of it, burst into flames. “They must be electronic devices to keep our engines from functioning!” he cried. “They think to leave us stuck here in the direct path of the explosions, thus destroying alien witnesses! Clever, even admirable — but we cannot allow it. Come—” he seized Tosci by the arm holding the portfolio in which the bonds and money were — to the launch! “We must see about this!” Together they rushed down the gangway ladder into the boat.

“White pigeon if it’s No,” Don Sylvester mumbled. “Black pigeon if it’s Yes. White, No. Black, Yes. I got it.” But he was still nervous. Suppose he fumbled his responsibilities at the crucial moment — suppose he bungled the job? For the hundredth time his fingers examined the catches on the cage, lifted one up a fraction of an inch, closed it, then lifted the other — and there was a sudden sound from the cage.

Don Sylvester’s startled fingers flew to his mouth. The catch snapped up. The black pigeon hopped out, fluttered to the window sill, cooed again, and — as Sylvester made a frantic lunge for it — spread its wings and flew out. It soared up, up, up, circled once, circled twice, then flew off toward Brooklyn.

Sylvester stared at the air in wordless horror. Then he stared at the door of the Grand Council Chamber. Any moment now, it might open. He tiptoed over and listened.

“I say no!” a voice declared.

“And I say yes!” declared a second voice.

Helplessly, his eyes roamed the anteroom, fell at length on the telephone. Regardless of possible wiretaps, he quickly and fear-fully dialed a number. “Hello?” he whispered hoarsely. “Hello, Philomena? Listen, Philomena—”

The black pigeon flapped its way toward Brooklyn with leisurely strokes, thinking deep pigeonic thoughts. Now and then it caught an updraft and coasted effortlessly. It was in no hurry. But, of course, it really was not very far to Brooklyn, as a pigeon flies...

“Easy does it — watch my toes, ya dope — down, down.”

“Good afternoon, boys,” said Daisy. “I just came out to mail a letter to Turkey. Did you know that airmail is ten cents cheaper to the west bank of the Hellespont, because it’s in Europe? Oooh — gumballs! Let me see if I have a penny—”

“No, let me see if I got one, Miss — no, lemme see, Forry — aa, c’mon, I gotta have one—”

While the three Nafiosi were plunging in their pockets, the yacht’s launch drew up to the pier. Out of it came Tosci, the Project Supervisor, and three crewmen. “What are you up to?” Tosci shouted.

“What’s it to you?” Forrance countered.

“I order you to remove those machines from this area at once!”

Instantly truculent, Forrance thrust out his jaw. “Nobody orders the Nafia what to do with its machines,” he said. “Anyways, not south of Vesey Street,” he amended.

“Put them on the truck and see that they are driven away,” Tosci instructed a crewman, who began to obey, but was prevented by Blood. The crewman swung, Blood’s nose, ever sensitive, began, and Daisy, aroused, cried, “You let him alone!” and wielded her pocketbook with a will. The crewman staggered. Guts, gauging his distance to a nicety, swung his ponderous belly around and knocked them down.

“Take the girl,” shouted the Project Supervisor, in his own language. “She is undoubtedly their moll. We will keep her aboard as a hostage.” And while he, Tosci, and one of their men engaged the tiny syndicate in combat, the other two sailors hustled Daisy into the launch, muffling her cries for help.

Mrs. Goodeycoonce, Neely, Denny, Guido, and Lord Grue and Groole were out for a walk. No decision had yet been made on the noble lord’s proposal, but nevertheless everyone seemed to be growing somewhat closer. The Marquess was telling about the time that he rescued the Dowager Begum of Oont from the horrid captivity in which she had been placed by her dissolute nephew, the Oonti Ghook. All listened in fascination, except the dog Guido, who had heard the story before.

So taken up in his account was the Marquess that he absentmindedly abstracted from his pocket a particularly foul pipe (which respect for the lady had normally prevented his smoking in her presence), and proceeded to charge it with the notoriously rank tobacco swept up for sale to the inhabitants of the lower-income quarters of Quetta; and struck a match to it. At the first unconsidered whiff Mrs. Goodeycoonce coughed. Then she gagged, then she inhaled with a harsh, gasping breath. And next she turned white, green, and bright red.

Neely was the first to notice. “Granny!” he said. “Granny?” Then, “It must be your pipe—”

The Marquess was overcome with confusion and remorse. “Terribly sorry,” he declared. “I’d knock the dottle out, except that’s all it is, you know — dottle, I mean. I say, Mrs. Goodeycoonce — oh, I say.”

But Mrs. Goodeycoonce’s face had taken on an almost masculine appearance. She rolled up first one fist, loosely, and then the other, placed them in alignment, lifted them to her eyes, and peered out upon the River. And in a gutturally accented and heavy voice quite unlike her usual tones she declared, “Zound der alarm! Beat to qvarters! Zo, zo, wat den duyvel!”

The Marquess’ eagle-keen eyes followed her glance and immediately observed something very much amiss upon the waters.

“Stap my vitals, if I don’t believe a gel is being forced aboard that vessel over there,” he said. “Bad show, that. What?”

Instantly the possessing spirit of Peter Stuyvesant vanished and was replaced by that of Mrs. Goodeycoonce. She uttered a cry. “White slavery, that’s what it must be! And in broad daylight, too. Oh, the brazen things! What should we do?”

Neely hauled an old-fashioned but quite authentic and brass-bound telescope from his pocket and swung it around. As he focused in and recognized Daisy, struggling desperately while being taken up the gangway, he uttered a hoarse shout of rage.

“ ‘Do’?” he yelled. “We’ve got to save her! Come on! My boat! Let’s go!”

The black pigeon passed over City Hall, dallied for a few moments in the currents around the Woolworth Building, and then pressed on in the general direction of Sand Street...

As Neely’s boat zoomed under the bow of the yacht, the Marquess kicked off his shoes, seized the anchor chain, and swarmed up like a monkey. Neely and Denny were met at the foot of the gangway ladder by two crewmen, who shouted, gesticulated, and menaced them with boathooks. But in a moment the boatmen’s attention was diverted by a tumult from above. Part of this was caused by Lord Grue and Groole who, darting from one place of concealment to another, called out (in different voices) battle cries in Pathan, Kikuyu, and Demotic Greek; and part of it was caused by the alarm of the crew at being boarded — so they thought — by a host of foes.

While their opponents’ attention was thus distracted, Denny and Neely gained the deck where Neely at once knocked down the first sailor he saw. Denny’s contribution was more circumspect. Noting an oily rag in a corner he took out a match. In a moment clouds of black smoke arose.

“Fire!” cried the Dip. “Fire! Fire!”

Part of the crew promptly swarmed down the ladder into Neely’s boat and cast off. The rest jumped over the side and commenced swimming briskly toward the nearer shore.

“Hello!” Neely shouted, stumbling along the passageways, opening doors. “Hello, hello! Where are you?”

A muffled voice called, he burst in, and there was Daisy, gagged and bound, struggling in a chair. Neely cut her loose, removed the gag, and — after only a very slight hesitation, perhaps natural in a shy young man of good family — kissed her repeatedly.

“Well,” said Daisy tremulously, as he paused for breath, and then to herself, “I guess he’s not such a milksop after all.”

On deck Denny the Dip and the Marquess stomped out the smoldering rag, though not, however, in time to avoid having attracted two police boats, a Coast Guard cutter, the Governor’s Island ferry, a Hudson River Dayliner, and the New York City Fireboat, Zophar Mills, all of which converged on the yacht.

“Thank you, thank you,” called out the Marquess, between cupped hands. “We don’t require any assistance, the fire is out. You will observe, however, that officers and crew have abandoned the ship, which means that she is now, under maritime law, by right of salvage, the property of myself and my associates, both in personam and in rem.”

The failure of the engines to start, it was ascertained after a careful scrutiny, was owing to the intrusion of a large waterbug into one of the oil lines; this was soon set right. An attempt of a floating delegate of the Masters, Mates, and Pilots Union to question the Marquess’ right to take the helm of the salvaged vessel was quickly terminated by the revelation that he possessed a first-class navigation certificate in the Siamese Merchant Marine. The delegate addressed him henceforth as “Captain,” and on departing, offered him the use of all the amenities of the Union Hall.

It was while seeing this personage off that Lord Grue and Groole observed a familiar shadow on the deck of the yacht, and, taking off his quasi-caracul and waving it, lured Sauncepeur down from what the poet Pope once so prettily described as “the azure realms of Air.”

“She has clutched a quarry,” he observed. “Well-footed, my pretty, well-trussed. Let me have pelt, dearie — nay, don’t mantle it — there. Good. You shall have new bewits, with bells, and silver varvels to your jesses, with my crest upon them. Hel-lo, hel-lo, what have you done, you demned vulture? You’ve taken a carrier pigeon!” He opened the message capsule. “Bombs Away,” he read. “Rum, very rum. Doubtless the name of a horse, and some poor booby of a bookmaker has taken this means of evading the puritanical Yankee laws dealing with the dissemination of racing intelligence. Hmm, well, not my pidjin. Haw, haw!” he chuckled at the pun. “Denny!” he called.

“Yes, M’Lord?”

The Marquess tossed him the bird. “A pigeon for the pot. See that Sauncepeur gets the head and the humbles; afterwards she’s to have a nice little piece of beefsteak, and a bone to break.”

That, in a way, concludes the story. The epilogue is brief. Don Lefty McGonigle, though heartborken at the abrupt and (to him mysterious) disappearance of his son-in-law and daughter, takes some comfort in the frequent picture postcards that Philomena sends him from such places as Tahiti, Puntas Arenas, Bulawayo, and other locales where the Mafia’s writ (fearsomely hard on deserts) runneth not. The Nafia (originally organized in 1880 under the full name of the National Federal of Independent Artisans, a “Wide Awake” or Chowder and Marching Society as part of the presidential campaign of General Winfield Scott Hancock, whose famous declaration that “the tariff is a local issue” insured his defeat by General J. Abram Garfield) — the Nafia still controls all the gumball and Indian nut machines south of Vesey Street; and revels in the publicity resultant from its members’ brief incarceration, along with Tosci, the Project Supervisor, and the three crewmen. The Cherry Street Mob would not dream of muscling in on a syndicate whose pictures were in all the papers in connection with a portfolio containing $87,000,000; it is the Mob’s belief that the fight was caused by the Nafia’s attempting to hijack this sum.

Cornelius (“Neely”) and Daisy Goodeycoonce have purchased, out of their share of the salvage money, one of the most up-and-coming bait-and-boatyard businesses on Long Island Sound. Granny Goodeycoonce at first was reluctant, but on learning that Daisy’s mother was a Van Dyne, of the (originally) Bergen-op-Zoom, Holland, Van Dynes, she extended her blessings. It remains her view, however, that the family profession of noctural customs collecting is merely in abeyance, and will be kept in trust, as it were, for the children.

Granny is, in fact, for the first time in her life, no longer a Goodeycoonce, but Mistress of Snee, Lady of Muckle Greet, Baroness Bogle, Countess Ballypatcoogen, Viscountess Penhokey, Marchioness of Grue and Groole — and, presumably, Lord High Keeperess of the Queen’s Bears — although on this last point Debrett’s is inclined to be dubious. The fact that the older couple has chosen to go on a prolonged honeymoon with their yacht to the general vicinage of the Sulu Sea where, those in the know report, the opportunities for untaxed commerce (coarsely called “smuggling” by some) between the Philippines, Indonesia, and British North Borneo are simply splendid, is doubtless purely coincidental.

One thread (or at most two) in the gorgeous tapestry we have woven for the instruction of our readers remains yet untied. This is the question of what happened to Tosci and his Project Supervisor after the release from brief confinement on unpressed charges of assault.

It is unquestionably true that their pictures were in all the papers. It is equally true, and equally unquestionable, that the Mafia frowns on publicity for those connected with its far-flung operations. Rumors that the two men were fitted for concrete space-shoes and subsequently invited to participate in skindiving operations south of Ambrose Light, no matter how persistent, cannot be confirmed.

Mr. Alexander Borjia, businessman and art connoisseur, questioned by a Congressional investigating committee, said (or at any rate, read from a prepared statement): “My only information about the so-called Mafia comes from having heard that it is sometimes mentioned in the Sunday supplements of sensation-seeking newspapers. I do not read these myself, being unable to approve of the desecration of the Lord’s Day which their publication and distribution necessarily involve. Nor can I subscribe to the emphasis such journals place upon crime and similar sordid subjects, which cannot but have an unfortunate effect upon our basically clean-living American youth.”

It was at or about this point that Senator S. Robert E. Lee (“Sourbelly Sam”) Sorby (D., Old Catawba), chose to light up his famous double-bowl corncob pipe, of which it has been said that the voters of his native state sent him to Washington because they could not stand the smell of it at home. Mr. Borjia (evidently as unimpressed as the Old Catawba voters by Senator Sorby’s statement that the mixture was made according to a formula invented by the Indians after whom the State was named) — Mr. Borjia coughed, gagged, gasped, turned white, green, red; and after leveling an imaginary telescope consisting of his own loosely rolled fists, proceeded (in a strange, guttural, and heavily accented voice quite unlike his own) to describe what was even then going on in the secret chambers of the Mafia in such wealth of detail as to make it abundantly clear to the Executive, the Judicial, and the Legislative branches of the Goverment (as well as to himself, when with bulging eyes he subsequently read the transcripts of his own “confession”) that he must never be allowed outside any of the Federal caravanserais in which he has subsequently and successively been entertained.

And there let us leave him.

A quarter century of the best:

A Checklist

of the Best Detective Stories of the Year, 1946-1971

Примечания

1

Copyright 1945 by Street and Smith Publications, Inc.; reprinted by permission of the author and his agents, Lenniger Literary Agency, Inc., 437 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10016.

2

Copyright by Hearst Magazines, Inc. Reprinted by permission of the Estate of A. A. Milne.

3

Copyright 1947 by the American Mercury, Inc. Reprinted by permission of the author and the author’s agents, Scott Meredith Literary Agency, Inc.

4

Copyright 1948 by the United Newspapers Magazine Corp. Reprinted by permission of the authors.

5

Copyright 1949 by The American Mercury, Inc. Reprinted by permission of the author and Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine.

6

Copyright 1950 by Stanley Ellin. Reprinted by permission of Curtis Brown, Ltd.

7

Copyright 1951 by Crowell-Collier Publishing Co. Reprinted by permission of the author.

8

Copyright 1952 by the Crowell-Collier Publishing Co. Reprinted by permission of the author.

9

Copyright 1953 by Mercury Publications, Inc. Reprinted by permission of the author and Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine.

10

Copyright 1954 by Flying Eagle Publications. Reprinted by permission of the author and the author’s agent, Scott Meredith Literary Agency, Inc.

11

Copyright® 1955 by The Curtis Publishing Co. Reprinted by permission of the author.

12

Copyright© 1956 by Flying Eagle Publications, Inc. Reprinted by permission of the author and the author’s agents, Scott Meredith Literary Agency, Inc.

13

Copyright© 1958 by Charles Mergendahl, reprinted by permission of the Harold Matson Company, Inc.

14

First published in This Week Magazine. Copyright © 1958 by Hugh Pentecost. Reprinted by permission of Brandt & Brandt.

15

Copyright © I960 by Talmage Powell. Reprinted by permission of the author and the author’s agents, Scott Meredith Literary Agency, Inc.

16

Copyright© 1961 by H. S. D. Publications, Inc. Reprinted by permission of the author and the author’s agents. Larry Sternig and Scott Meredith Literary Agency, Inc.

17

Copyright © 1961 by Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Reprinted by permission of the author.

18

Copyright © 1963 by Popular Publications, Inc. Reprinted by permission of The Borden Deal Family Trust (Borden Deal, Trustee).

19

Copyright© 1964 by Robert Twohy. First published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Reprinted by permission of the author.

20

Copyright © 1965 by Davis Publications, Inc. First published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Reprinted by permission of the author.

21

Copyright© 1966 by The New Yorker Magazine, Inc. Reprinted by permission of the author.

22

Copyright © 1966 by Michael Gilbert. First published in the U.S. in the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. Reprinted by permission of John Cushman Associates, Inc.

23

Copyright © 1969 by Elaine Slater. First published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Reprinted by permission of the author.

24

Copyright © 1970 by Avram Davidson; first published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine under the title “Manhattan Nights’ Entertainment.” Reprinted by permission of the author and Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine and the author’s agent. Virginia Kidd.

Content

Best of the best detective stories
25th anniversary collection

Introduction

~ ~ ~

Bruno Fischer The Man Who Lost His Head

~ ~ ~

A. A. Milne The Wine Glass

~ ~ ~

Ellery Queen The Adventure of the President’s Half Disme

~ ~ ~

Q. Patrick Murder in One Scene

~ ~ ~

Roy Vickers The Million-to-One Chance

~ ~ ~

Stanley Ellin The Orderly World of Mr. Appleby

~ ~ ~

James Helvick Total Recall

~ ~ ~

Harry Muheim The Dusty Drawer

~ ~ ~

Morton Wolson The Attacker

~ ~ ~

Richard Deming The Choice

~ ~ ~

William Fay The Conscience of the Cop

~ ~ ~

Evan Hunter The Last Spin

~ ~ ~

Charles Mergendahl Secret Recipe

~ ~ ~

Hugh Pentecost The Day the Children Vanished

~ ~ ~

Talmage Powell Murder Method

~ ~ ~

Jack Ritchie For All the Rude People

~ ~ ~

De Forbes My Sister Annabelle

~ ~ ~

Borden Deal The Cattywampus

~ ~ ~

Robert Twohy Routine Investigation

~ ~ ~

Stephen Barr The Locked House

~ ~ ~

Gene Williams The Yellow Brick Road

~ ~ ~

Michael Gilbert The Road to Damascus

~ ~ ~

Elaine Slater The Sooey Pill

~ ~ ~

Avram Davidson The Lord of Central Park

A quarter century of the best: A Checklist of the Best Detective Stories of the Year, 1946-1971

Примечания