Фредерик Браун. Night of the Jabberwock(енгл)
страница №7
...s hair mussed andlooking like he was in for the grandfather of all hangovers.
He sat down, too, while the match flared. "What's it about, Doc? Kates
and Ganzer were here looking for you. Waked me up a while ago, but they
didn't tell me much. Are you in a jam, Doc? Did you kill somebody?"
"No," I said. "Listen, you're Ralph Bonney's lawyer, aren't you? I mean
on everything, not just the divorce today."
"Yes."
"Who's his heir, now that he's divorced?"
"Doc, I'm afraid I can't tell you that. A lawyer isn't supposed to tell
his clients' business. You know that as well as I do."
"Didn't Kates tell you Ralph Bonney is dead, Carl? And Miles Harrison?
They were murdered on their way back from Neilsville with the payroll,
somewhere around midnight."
"My God," Carl said. "No, Kates didn't tell me."
I said, "I know you're still not supposed to tell his business until a
will is probated, if there is one. But listen, let me make a guess and you
can tell me if I'm wrong. If I guess right, you won't have to confirm it;
just keep your mouth shut."
"Go ahead, Doc."
"Bonney had an illegitimate son about twenty-three years ago. But he
supported the boy's mother all her life until she died recently; she worked,
too, as a milliner but he gave her enough extra so that she lived better
than she would have otherwise, and she sent the boy to college and gave him
every break."
I stopped there and waited and Carl didn't say anything.
I went on. "Bonney still gave the boy an allowance. That's how he
hell, let's call him by name that's how Al Grainger has been living
without working. And unless he knows he's in Bonney's will, he's got proof
of his parentage and can claim the bulk of the estate anyway. And it must be
half a million."
Carl said, "I'll talk. It'll run about three hundred thousand. And you
guessed right on Al Grainger, but how you guessed it, I don't know. Bonney's
relations to Mrs. Grainger and to Al have been the best-kept secret I've
ever known of. In fact, outside of the parties concerned, I was the only
person who ever knew or even suspected. How did you guess?"
"By what happened to me tonight and that's too complicated to explain
right now. But Al plays chess and has the type of mind to do things the
complicated way, and that's the way they happened. And he knows Lewis
Carroll and" I stopped because I was still after facts and didn't want to
start explaining.
The night was almost over. I saw a greenish gleam in the darkness that
reminded me Carl wore a wrist watch with a luminous dial. "What time is it?"
I asked him.
The gleam vanished as he turned the dial toward himself. "Almost five
o'clock. About ten minutes of. Listen, Doc, you've got so much you might as
well have the rest. Yes, Al has proof of his parentage. And, as an only
child, illegitimate or not, he can claim the entire estate now that Bonney
isn't married. He could have cut in for a fraction of it, of course, even
before the divorce."
"Didn't he leave a will?"
"Ralph didn't ever make a will. Superstitious about it. I've often
tried to talk him into making one, but he never would."
"And Al Grainger knew that?"
Carl said, "I imagine he would have."
"Is there any reason why Al would have been in such a hurry?" I asked.
"I mean, would there have been any change in status if he'd waited a while
instead of killing Bonney the night after the divorce?"
Carl thought a minute. "Bonney was planning to leave tomorrow for a
long vacation. Al would have had to wait several months, and maybe he
figured Bonney might remarry meet someone on the cruise he was going to
take. It happens that way, sometimes, on the rebound after a divorce. And
Bonney is was, only fifty-two."
I nodded to myself, since Carl couldn't see me in the darkness. That
last bit of information covered everything on the motive end.
I knew everything now, except the details and they didn't matter much.
I knew why Al had done everything that he had done; he had to make an
airtight frame on someone because once he claimed Bonney's estate, his own
motive would be obvious. I could even guess some of the reasons why he'd
picked me for the scapegoat.
He must have hated me, and kept it carefully under cover. I could see a
reason for it, now that I knew more about him. I've got a loose tongue and
often swear at people affectionately, if you know what I mean. How often,
when Al had beaten me in a game of chess had I grinned at him and said, "All
right, you bastard. But try to do it again."
Never dreaming, of course, that he was one, and knew it.
He must have hated me like hell. In some ways he could have picked an
easier victim, someone more likely than I to have committed murder and
robbery for money. Choosing me, his plan took more gobbledegook; he had to
give me such a mad story to tell that nobody would believe a word of it and
would think, instead, that I'd gone insane. Of course, too, he knew how much
Kates hated me; he counted on that.
A sudden thought shook me; could Kates have been in on the deal with
Al? That would account for his trying to kill me rather than lock me up.
Maybe that was the deal for a twenty or fifty thousand dollar cut of the
estate, Kates had agreed to shoot me down under the pretense that I had
attacked him or had tried to escape.
No, I decided on second thought, it hadn't been that way. I'd been
alone with Kates in his office for almost half an hour while Hank Ganzer had
been on his way back from Neilsville. It would have been too easy for Kates
to have killed me then, planted a weapon on me and claimed that I'd come in
and attacked him. And when the two bodies had been found in my car, the
story would have been perfectly credible. It would even have pointed up the
indication that I'd gone homicidally insane.
No, Kates' motive for wanting to kill me had been personal, sheer
malice because of the things I'd written about him in editorials and the way
I'd fought him in elections. He'd wanted to kill me and had seen a sudden
opportunity when the bodies had been found in my car. He'd passed up a much
better chance because, when I was alone with him for so long in his office,
he hadn't known the bodies were there.
No, definitely this was a one-man job, except for Yehudi Smith. Al had
hired Smith to keep me diverted, but when Smith's job was done, he was
eliminated. Another pawn. Chess isn't a team game.
Carl said, "How are you mixed in this, Doc? What can I do?"
"Nothing," I said. It was my problem, not Carl's. I'd kept Smiley out
of it; I'd keep Carl out of it, too. Except for the information and help
he'd already given me. "Go up to bed, Carl. I've got a little more thinking
to do."
"Hell with that. I can't sleep with you sitting down here thinking. But
I'll sit here and shut up unless you talk to me. You can't tell whether I'm
here or not anyway, if I shut up."
I said, "Shut up, then."
Proof, I thought. But what proof? Somewhere, but God knew where, was
the dead body of the actor Al had hired to play the role of Yehudi. But this
had been planned, and well planned. Suitable disposal of that body had been
arranged for long before Al had taken it away from the Wentworth place. I
wasn't going to turn up at random and one guess was as good as another as to
where he'd hidden or buried it. He'd had hours to do it in and he'd known in
advance every step he was going to take.
The car in which Yehudi Smith had driven me to the Wentworth house and
which he'd switched for my own car after he'd used mine for the supposed
holdup. No, I couldn't find that car as proof and it wouldn't mean anything
if I did. It could have been probably was a stolen car, and now returned
to wherever he'd stolen it from, never missed by its owner. And I didn't
even remember what make or model it was. All I remembered was that it had an
onyx gear shift knob and a push button radio. I didn't even know whether it
was a Cadillac convertible, or a Ford business coupe.
Had Al arranged any kind of an alibi for himself?
Maybe, maybe not, but what did it matter unless I could find something
against him besides motive? That, and my own certainty that he'd done it. I
hadn't any alibi, none at all. I had an incredible story and two bodies and
the stolen money in my car. And a sheriff and three deputies looking for me
and ready to shoot on sight.
I had the murder weapon in my pocket. And another gun, too, a loaded
one.
Could I go to Al Grainger and scare him into writing out and signing a
confession?
He'd laugh at me. I'd laugh at myself for trying. A man with the warped
brain that would work out something like Al's plan tonight wasn't going to
tell me what time it was just because I pointed a gun at him.
A faint touch of light was showing at the windows. I could even make
out Carl sitting there across the table from me.
"Carl," I said.
"Yes, Doc? Say, I was letting you think but I'm glad you spoke. Just
had an idea."
"An idea's what I need," I told him. "What is it?"
"Want a drink?"
I asked, "Is that the idea?"
"That's the idea. Look, I'm hung over to hell and back and I can't have
one with you, but I just realized what a lousy host I was. Do you want one?"
"Thanks," I said, "but I had a drink. Listen, Carl, talk to me about Al
Grainger. Don't ask me what to say. Just talk."
"Anything, at random?"
"Anything, at random."
"Well, he's always impressed me as being a little off the beam.
Brilliant, but well, twisted, somehow. Maybe his knowledge of who and what
he was contributed to that. Smiley always felt that, too; he's mentioned it
to me. Not that Smiley knows who or what Al is, but he just felt something
was wrong."
I said, "My opinion of Smiley has changed a lot tonight. He's smarter,
and a better guy, than both of us put together, Carl. But go on about Al."
"Touch of Oedipus, complicated by bastardry. Probably, in some obscure
way, managed to blame Bonney for his mother's death. Not a real paranoiac,
but near enough to do something like that. Sadism most of us have a touch
of it, but Al a little more than most."
I said, "Most of us have a touch of everything. Go on."
"Pyrophobia. But you know about that. Not that we haven't all got
phobias. Your acrophobia and my being afraid of cats. But Al's is pretty
bad. So afraid of fire that he doesn't smoke and I've noticed him wince when
I've lighted a cig"
"Shut up, Carl," I said.
I should have thought of it myself, sooner. A lot sooner.
I said, "I'll have that drink, Carl. Just one, but a good one."
I didn't need it physically, but I needed it mentally this time. I was
scared stiff at the very thought of what I was going to do.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.
The windows were faint gray rectangles; now, with my eyes accustomed to
the decreasing darkness, I could see Carl almost clearly as he went to the
cupboard and groped until he had the bottle he was looking for.
He said, "Doc, you sound happy enough that I'll have one with you. Hair
of the dog, for me. Kill or cure."
He got two glasses, too, from over the sink, breaking only one glass by
knocking it into the sink in the process. He said a nasty word and then
brought the glasses to the table. I struck a match and held it while he
poured whisky into them.
He said, "Damn you, Doc, if you're going to do this often. I'm going to
get some luminous paint. I could paint bands around the glasses and the
bottles. And say, know what else I could do? I could paint a chessboard and
a set of chessmen with luminous paint, too. Then we could sit here and play
chess in the dark."
"I'm playing, Carl, right now. I just reached the seventh square. Maybe
somebody'll crown me on the next move, when I reach the king-row. Have you
got any cleaning fluid?"
He'd started to reach for his glass, but he pulled his hand back and
looked at me instead.
"Cleaning fluid? Isn't whisky good enough for you?"
"I don't want it to drink," I explained. "I want it not to burn."
He shook his head a trifle. "Again and slowly."
"I want some of the kind that isn't inflammable. You know what I mean."
"Wife's got some kind of cleaning fluid around. Whether it's that kind
or not, I don't know. I'll look."
He looked, using my matches and examining the labels of a row of
bottles in the compartment under the sink. He came up with one and looked at
it closely. "Hope. This is marked `Danger' in big letters and `Keep away
from fire.' Guess we haven't got the non-inflammable kind."
I sighed. It would have been simple if Carl had had the right brand. I
had some myself, at home, but I didn't want to go there. It meant a trip to
the supermarket.
And I didn't ask Carl for a candle. I could get that at the
supermarket, too, and I neither wanted Carl to think I was crazy or to have
to explain to him what I was going to do.
We had our drink. Carl shuddered at his, but got it down. He said,
"Doc, listen, isn't there anything I can do?"
I turned back at the door. "You've done plenty," I told him. "But if
you want to do more, you might get dressed and ready. I might be phoning you
soon if everything goes all right. I might need you then."
"Doc, wait. I'll get dressed now, and"
"You'd be in the way, Carl," I told him.
And got out quickly before he could press me any farther. If he'd even
guessed how bad a jam I was in or what a damn fool thing I was going to do,
he'd have knocked me down and tied me up before he'd have let me out of
there.
Dim gray light of early morning now, and I no longer had to grope my
way. I'd forgotten to ask Carl the time again but it must be about a quarter
after five.
I was under greater risk, now, of being seen if Kates and the deputies
were still cruising around looking for me, but I had a hunch that they'd
have given up by now, convinced that I'd holed in somewhere. Probably now
they were concentrating on the roads so I couldn't get out of town. And
getting out of town was the farthest thing from my mind.
I stayed in the alleys, just the same. Back the way I'd come and ready
to dive between garages or behind a garbage can at the first sound of a car.
But there weren't any cars; five-fifteen is early even in Carmel City.
The supermarket wasn't open yet. I wrapped my handkerchief around the
butt of one of my two revolvers Two-Gun Stoeger, they call me and broke
a pane in one of the back windows. It made a hell of a racket, but there
aren't any residences in that block and nobody heard me, or at least nobody
did anything about it.
I let myself in and started my shopping.
Cleaning fluid. Two kinds; I needed some of the non- inflammable kind
and, now that I thought of it, a bottle of the kind that was marked "Danger.
Keep away from fire."
I opened both of them and they smelled about alike. I poured the
inflammable kind down the drain of the sink at the back and replaced it with
the kind that doesn't burn.
I even made sure that it wouldn't burn; I poured some on a rag and
tried to light the rag. Maybe it would have been in keeping with everything
else that had been happening if that rag had burned and I hadn't been able
to put it out, if I'd burned the supermarket down and added arson to my
other accomplishments of the night. But the rag wouldn't burn any more than
if I'd soaked it with water instead of the gasoline-smelling cleaning fluid.
I thought out carefully what other items I'd need, and shopped for
them; some rolls of one-inch adhesive tape, a candle, and a cake of soap.
I'd heard that a cake of soap, inside a sock, made a good blackjack; the
soap is just soft enough to stun without killing. I took off one of my socks
and made myself a blackjack.
My pockets were pretty well laden by the time I left the supermarket
by the same window through which I'd entered. I was pretty far gone in crime
by then; it never occurred to me to leave money for my purchases.
It was almost daylight. A clear gray dawn that looked like the herald
of a good day for someone; whether for me or not I'd know soon.
I stuck to the alleys, back the way I'd come and three blocks on past
Carl's house.
Al Grainger's. A one-story, three-room house, about the size of mine.
It was almost six o'clock by then. He was asleep by now, if he was ever
going to sleep. And somehow I thought he would be asleep by now. He'd have
been through with everything he had to do by two o'clock, four hours ago.
What he'd done might have kept him awake for a while, but not into the next
day.
I cased the joint, and sighed with relief at one problem solved when I
saw that the bedroom window wasn't closed. It opened onto the back porch and
I could step into it easily.
I bent and stepped through it. I didn't make much noise and Al
Grainger, sleeping soundly in the bed, didn't awaken. I had my gun the
loaded one in my right hand and ready to use in case he did.
But I kept my right hand and the loaded gun out of sight. I got the
rusty, unloaded Iver-Johnson, the gun that had been used as a bludgeon to
kill Miles and Bonney, into my left hand. I had a test in mind which, if it
worked, would be absolute proof to me that Al was guilty. If it didn't work,
it wouldn't disprove it and I'd go ahead just the same, but it didn't cost
anything to try.
It was still dim in the room and I reached out with my left hand and
turned on the lamp that stood beside the bed. I wanted him to see that gun.
He moved restlessly as the light went on, but he didn't awaken.
"Al," I said.
He wakened then, all right. He sat up in bed and stared at me. I said,
"Put up your hands, Al," and held the gun in my left hand pointed at him,
standing far enough back that he couldn't grab at me but near enough that he
could see the gun clearly in the pale glow of the lamp I'd lighted.
He looked from my face to the gun and back again. He threw back the
sheet to get out of bed. He said, "Don't be a fool, Doc. That gun isn't
loaded and it wouldn't shoot if it was."
If I'd needed any more proof, I had it.
He was starting to move his feet toward the edge of the bed when I
brought my right hand, holding the other gun, around into sight. I said,
"This one is loaded, and works."
He stopped moving his feet. I dropped the rusty gun into my coat
pocket. I said, "Turn around, Al."
He hesitated and I cocked the revolver. It was aimed at him from about
five feet, too close to miss him if I pulled the trigger and just too far
for him to risk grabbing at, especially from an awkward sitting-up-in-bed
position. I could see him considering the odds, coldly, impartially.
He decided they weren't good. And he decided, probably, that if he let
me take him, it wouldn't matter to his plans anyway. If I turned him over to
the police along with my story, it wouldn't strengthen my story in the
least.
"Turn around, Al," I repeated.
He still stared at me calculatingly. I could see what he was thinking;
if he turned, I was probably going to slug him with the butt of the revolver
and whatever my intentions, I might hit too hard. And if I killed him, even
accidentally, it wouldn't help him any to know that they'd get me for one
extra murder. I repeated, "Turn around, and put your hands out in back of
you."
I could see some of the tenseness go out of him at that. If I was only
going to tie him up
He turned around. I quickly switched the revolver to my left hand and
pulled out the improvised blackjack I'd made of a sock and a cake of soap. I
made a silent prayer that I'd guessed right on the swing and not hit too
hard or not hard enough, and I swung.
The thud scared me. I thought I'd killed him, and I knew that he wasn't
shamming when he dropped back flat on the bed because his head hit the head
of the bed with a second thud that was almost as loud as the first.
And if he had been shamming he could have taken me easily, because I
was so scared that I put the revolver down. I couldn't even put it in my
pocket because it was cocked and I didn't know how to uncock it without
shooting it off. So I put it on the night stand beside the bed and bent over
him to feel his heart. It was still beating.
I got the rolls of adhesive tape out of my pocket and started to work.
I taped around his mouth so he couldn't yell, and I taped his legs together
at the ankles and at the knees. I taped his left wrist to his left thigh,
and I used a whole roll of adhesive to tape his right arm against his side
above the elbow. His right hand had to be free.
I found some clothesline in the kitchen and tied him to the bed,
managing as I did so to pull him up into an almost sitting position against
the head of the bed.
I got a pad of paper, foolscap, from his desk and I put it and my
ball-point pen within reach of his right hand.
There wasn't anything I could do but sit down and wait, then.
Ten minutes, maybe fifteen, and it was getting pretty light outside. I
began to get impatient. Probably there wasn't any hurry; Al Grainger always
slept late so no one would miss him for a long time yet but the waiting was
horrible.
I decided that I could take a drink again and that I needed one. I went
out into his kitchen and hunted till I found a bottle. It was gin instead of
whisky, but it would serve the purpose. It tasted horrible.
When I got back to the bedroom he was awake. So wide awake that I felt
pretty sure that he'd been playing possum for a while, stalling for time. He
was trying desperately with his free right hand to peel off the tape that
held his left wrist to his thigh.
But with his right arm held tight against his side at the elbow he
wasn't making much headway. When I picked up the gun off the night stand he
stopped trying. He glared at me.
I said, "Hi, Al. We're in the seventh square."
I wasn't in any hurry now, none at all. I sat down comfortably before I
went on.
"Listen, Al," I told him, "I left your right hand free so you can use
that paper and the pin. I want you to do a little writing for me. I'll hold
the pad for you so you can see what you're writing. Or don't you feel in the
mood to write, Al?"
He merely lay back quietly and closed his eyes.
I said, "All I want you to write is that you killed Ralph Bonney and
Miles Harrison last night. That you took my car out and intercepted them on
the way back from Neilsville, probably on foot with my car out of sight.
They knew you and would stop for you and let you in the car. So you got in
the back seat and before Miles, who'd be driving, could start the car again
you slugged him over the head and then slugged Bonney. Then you put their
bodies in my car and left theirs somewhere off the road. And then you drove
to the Wentworth place and left my car instead of whatever car I'd been
driven there in. Or am I wrong on any little details, Al?"
He didn't answer, not that I'd expected him to.
I said, "There'll be quite a bit of writing, because I, want you also
to explain how you hired an actor to use the name Yehudi Smith and give me
such an incredible story to tell that no one would ever believe me. I want
you to tell how you had him entice me to the Wentworth place and about that
bottle you left there and what was in it. And that you'd instructed him that
he was to drink it. And what his right name was and what you did with his
body."
I said, "I guess that'll be enough for you to write, Al. You needn't
write what the motive was; that'll be obvious after your relationship to
Ralph Bonney comes to light, as it will. And you needn't write all the
little details about how or when you let the air out of my tires so I
wouldn't be using my car nor how or when you used my shop to print that card
with the name Yehudi Smith and my union label number. And you needn't write
why you picked me to take the blame for the murders. In fact, I'm not proud
of that part of it at all. It makes me a little ashamed of the thing I'm
going to have to do in order to persuade you to do the writing I've been
talking about."
I was a little ashamed, but not enough so to keep me from doing it.
I took the bottle of non-inflammable cleaning fluid that smelled like
gasoline and opened it.
Al Grainger's eyes opened, too, as I began to sprinkle it over the
sheets and his pajamas. I managed to hold the bottle so he could read the
"Danger" warning and, if his eyes were good enough for the smaller type, the
"Keep away from fire" part.
I emptied the whole bottle, ending up with quite a big wet spot of it
at a point at one side of his knees where he could see it clearly. The room
reeked with the gasoline-like odor.
I got out the candle and my knife and cut a piece an inch long off the
top of the candle. I smoothed out the wet spot on the sheet and put the
candle top down carefully.
"I'm going to light this, Al, and you'd better not move much or you'll
knock it over. And I'm sure a pyrophobiac wouldn't like what would happen to
him then. And you're a pyrophobiac, Al."
His eyes were wide with horror as I lighted the match. If his mouth
hadn't been taped, he'd have screamed in terror. Every muscle of his body
was rigid.
He tried to play possum on me again, probably figuring I wouldn't go
through with it if he was unconscious, if I thought he'd fainted. He could
do it with his eyes, but the muscles of the rest of his body gave him away.
He couldn't relax them if it would have saved his life.
I lighted the candle, and sat down again.
"An inch of candle, Al," I said. "Maybe ten minutes if you stay as
still as that. Sooner if you get reckless and wriggle a toe or finger. That
candle isn't too stable standing there on a soft mattress."
His eyes were open again, staring at that candle burning down toward
the soaked sheet, staring in utter horror. I hated myself for what I was
doing to him, but I kept on doing it just the same. I thought of three men
murdered tonight and steeled myself. And after all, Al's only danger was in
his mind. That wet spot on the sheet was stuff that would keep the sheet
itself from burning.
"Ready to write, Al?"
His horror-filled eyes shifted from the candle to my face, but he
didn't nod. I thought for a moment that he was calling my bluff, and then I
realized that the reason he didn't nod was because he was afraid to make
even that slight a muscular movement for fear of knocking over the short
candle.
I said, "All right, Al, I'll see if you're ready. If you aren't, I'll
put the candle back where it was, and I'll let it keep burning meanwhile so
you won't have gained any time." I picked up the candle gently and put it
down on the night stand.
I held the pad. He started to write and then stopped, and I reached for
the candle. The pen started moving again.
After a while I said, "That's enough. Just sign it."
I sighed with relief and went to the telephone. Carl Trenholm must have
been sitting beside his own phone; he answered almost before it had finished
ringing the first time.
"Dressed and ready?" I asked him.
"Right, Doc. What do I do?"
"I've got Al Grainger's confession. I want it turned over to the law to
clear me, but it's not safe for me to do it direct. Kates would shoot before
he'd read and some of the deputies might. You'll have to do it for me,
Carl."
"Where are you? At Al's?"
"Yes."
"I'll be around. And I'll bring Ganzer to get Al. It's all right; Hank
won't shoot. I've been talking reason to him and he admits somebody else
could have put those bodies in your car. And when I tell him there's a
confession from Grainger, he'll listen."
"How about Kates, though? And how come you were talking to Hank
Ganzer?"
"He called up here, looking for Kates. Kates left him to go back to the
office an hour or two ago and never got to the office and they don't know
where he is. But don't worry. Kates won't take any shots at you if you're
with Ganzer and me both. I'll be right around."
I phoned Pete and told him that all hell had been popping and that now
we had a story we could use, one even bigger than the ones that had got
away. He said he'd get right down to the shop and get the fire going under
the Linotype's metal pot. "I was just leaving anyway, Doc," he said. "It's
half past seven."
It was. I looked out the window and saw that it was broad daylight. I
sat down and jittered until Carl and Hank got there.
It was eight o'clock exactly when I got to the office. Once Hank had
seen that confession he'd let Carl and me talk him into letting Grainger do
any explaining that remained so I could get the paper out in time. It was
going to take me a good two hours to get that story written and we'd
probably go to press a little later than usual anyway.
Pete got to work dismantling page one to make room for it and plenty
of room. I phoned the restaurant and talked them into sending up a big
thermos jug of hot black coffee and started pounding my typewriter.
The phone rang and I picked it up. "Doc Stoeger?" it said. "`This is
Dr. Buchan at the asylum. You were so kind last night about not running the
story about Mrs. Griswald's escape and recapture that I decided it was only
fair to tell you that you can run it after all, if there's still time."
"There's still time," I said. "We're going to be late going to press
anyway. And thanks. But what came up? I thought Mrs. G. didn't want to worry
her daughter in Springfield."
"Her daughter knows anyway. A friend of hers here one whom we went to
see while we were hunting our patient phoned her to tell her about it. And
she telephoned the asylum to be sure her mother was all right. So she
already knows and you might as well have the story after all."
I said, "Fine, Dr. Buchan. Thanks a lot for calling."
Back to the typewriter. The black coffee came and I drank almost a full
cup of it the first gulp and damn near scalded myself.
The asylum story was quick and easy to get out of the way so I wrote it
up first. I'd just finished when the phone rang again.
"Mr. Stoeger?" it asked me. "This is Ward Howard, superintendent of the
fireworks factory. We had a slight accident in the plant yesterday that I'd
like you to run a short story on, if it's not too late."
"It's not too late," I said, "provided the accident was in the Roman
candle department. Was it?"
"Oh, so you already knew. Do you have the details or shall I give them
to you?"
I let him give them and took notes and then I asked him how come they
wanted the story printed.
"Change of policy, Mr. Stoeger. You see there have been rumors going
around town about accidents here that don't happen but are supposed to
have happened and to have been kept out of the paper. I'm afraid my
grammar's a bit involved there. I mean that we've decided that if the truth
is printed about accidents that really do happen, it will help prevent false
rumors and wild stories."
I told him I understood and thanked him.
I drank more black coffee and worked a while on the
Bonney-Harrison-Smith murder story and then sandwiched in the Roman candle
department story and then went back to the big story.
All I needed now was
Captain Evans of the state police came in. I glared up at him and he
grinned down at me..
I said, "Don't tell me. You've come to tell me that I can, after all,
run the story of Smiley's and my little ride with the two gangsters and how
Smiley captured one and killed one. It's just what I need. I can spare a
stick of type back in the want ads."
He grinned again and pulled up a chair. He sat down in it,. but I paid
no further attention; I went on typing.
Then he pushed his hat back on his head and said quietly, "That's
right, Doc."
I made four typing errors in a three letter word and then turned around
and looked at him. "Huh?" I said. "I was kidding. Wasn't I?"
"Maybe you were, but I'm not. You can run the story, Doc. They got Gene
Kelley in Chicago two hours ago."
I groaned happily. Then I glared at him again. I said, "Then get the
hell out of here. I've got work to do."
"Don't you want the rest of the story?"
"What rest of it? I don't need details of how they got Kelley, just so
they got him. That's, from my point of view, a footnote of the local angle,
and the local angle is what happened here in the county to George and Bat
and to Smiley and me. Now scram."
I typed another sentence. He said, "Doc," and the way he said it made
me take my hands away from the typewriter and look at him.
He said, "Doc, relax. It is local. There was one thing I didn't tell
you last night because it was too local and too hot. One other thing we got
out of Bat Masters. They weren't heading for Chicago or Gary Tight away.
They were going to hole up overnight at a hideout for crooks it's a farm
run by a man named George Dixon, up in the hills. An isolated place. We knew
Dixon as an ex-crook but never guessed he was running a rest home for boys
who were hiding out from the law. We raided it last night. We got four
criminals wanted in Chicago who were staying there. And we found, among
other things, some letters and papers that told us where Gene Kelley was
staying. We phoned Chicago quick and they got him, so you can run the whole
story the other members of the gang won't keep that hotel date anyway. But
we'll settle for having Kelley in the bag and the rest of our haul at the
Dixon farm. That's local, Doc. Want names and such?"
I wanted names and such. I grabbed a pencil. Where I was going to put
the story, I didn't know. Evans talked a while and I took notes until I had
all I wanted and then I said again, "Now please don't give me any more. I'm
going nuts already."
He laughed and got up. He said, "Okay, Doc." He strolled to the door
and then turned around after he was halfway through it. "Then you don't want
to know about Sheriff Kates' being under arrest."
He went on through and was halfway down the stairs before I caught him
and dragged him back.
Dixon, who ran the crook-hideout, had been paying protection to Kates
and had proof of it. When he'd been raided he'd thought Kates had
double-crossed him, and he'd talked. The state police had headed for Kates'
office and had picked him up as he was entering the courthouse at six
o'clock.
I sent out for more black coffee.
There was only one more interruption and it came just before we were
finally closing the forms at half past eleven.
Clyde Andrews. He said, "Doc, I want to thank you again for what you
did last night. And to tell you that the boy and I have had a long talk and
everything is going to be all right."
"That's wonderful, Clyde."
"Another thing, Doc, and I hope this isn't bad news for you. I mean, I
hope you were deciding not to sell the paper, because I got a telegram from
my brother in Ohio; he's definitely taking that offer from out West, so the
deal on the paper is off. I'm sorry if you were going to decide to sell."
I said, "That's wonderful, Clyde. But hold the line a second. I'm going
to put an ad in the paper to sell it instead."
I yelled across the room to Pete. "Hey, Pete, kill something somewhere
and set up an ad in sixty-point type. `FOR SALE, THE CARMEL CITY CLARION.
PRICE, ONE MILLION DOLLARS.' "
Back into the phone, "Hear that, Clyde?"
He chuckled. "I'm glad you feel that way about it, Doc. Listen, there's
one more thing. Mr. Rogers just called me. He says that we've discovered
that the Scouts are going to use the church gym next Tuesday instead of this
Tuesday. So we're going to have the rummage sale after all. If you haven't
gone to press and if you haven't got enough news to fill out"
I nearly choked, but I managed to tell him we'd run the story.
I got to Smiley's at half past twelve with the first paper off the
press in my hands. Held carefully.
I put it proudly on the bar. "Read," I told Smiley. "But first the
bottle and a glass. I'm half dead and I haven't had a drink for almost six
hours. I'm too keyed up to sleep. And I need three quick ones."
I had three quick ones while Smiley read the headlines.
The room began to waver a little and I realized I'd better get to bed
and quickly. I said, "Good night, Smiley. 'Sbeen wonnerful knowing you. I
gotta"
I started for the door.
Smiley said, "Doc. Let me drive you home." His voice came from miles
and miles away. I saw him start around the end of the bar.
"Doc," he was saying, "sit down and hang on till I get there before you
fall down flat on your face."
But the nearest stool was miles away through the brillig, and slithy
toves were gimbling at me from the wabe. Smiley's warning had been at least
half a second too late.
