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courthouse. As soon as I was comparatively safe in the friendly darkness, I
sat down on the alley curbstone and put my shoes back on, and put the gun
into my pocket. I hadn't meant to bring it along at all, but as long as I
had I couldn't throw it away now.
Anyway, it was going to get Dick Ehlers in trouble with Kates. When
Kates looked for that gun and found it was missing, he'd know that I'd been
in the courthouse and that Ehlers had missed me. He'd know that I'd been
right in his own office while he'd been out searching for me.
And so there I was in the dark, in safety for a few minutes until a car
full of deputies decided to cruise down that particular alley looking for
me. And I had a gun in my pocket that might or might not shoot ґ I hadn't
checked that ґ and I had my shoes on and my hands were shaking again.
I didn't even have to ask myself, Little man, what now. The little man
not only wanted a drink; he really needed one.
And Kates had already been to Smiley's looking for me and had found
that I wasn't there.
So I started down the alley toward Smiley's.
Funny, but I was getting over being scared. A little, anyway. You can
get only just so scared, and then something happens to your adrenal glands
or something. I can't remember offhand whether your adrenals make you
frightened or whether they get going and operate against it, but mine were
getting either into or out of action, as the case might be. I'd been scared
so much that night that I ґ or my glands ґ was getting tired of it.
I was getting brave, almost. And it wasn't Dutch courage, either; it
had been so long since I'd had a drink that I'd forgotten what one tasted
like. I was cold damn sober. About three times during the course of the long
evening and the long night I'd been on the borderline of intoxication, but
always something had happened to keep me from drinking for a while and then
something had sobered me up. Some foolish little thing like being taken for
a ride by gangsters or watching a man die suddenly or horribly by quaffing a
bottle labeled "Drink Me" or finding murdered men in the back of my own car
or discovering that a sheriff intended to shoot me down in cold grue. Little
things like that.
So I kept going down the alley toward Smiley's. The dog that had barked
at me before barked again. But I didn't waste time barking back. I kept on
going down the alley toward Smiley's.
There was the street to cross. I took a quick look both ways but didn't
worry about it beyond that. If the sheriff's car or the deputies' car
suddenly turned the corner and started spraying me with headlights and then
bullets, well, then that was that. You can only get so worried; then you
quit worrying. When things can't get any worse, outside of your getting
killed, then either you get killed or things start getting better.
Things started to get better; the window into the back room of Smiley's
was open. I didn't bother taking off my shoes this time. Smiley would be
asleep upstairs, but alone, and Smiley's so sound a sleeper that a bazooka
shell exploding in the next room wouldn't wake him. I remember times I'd
dropped into the tavern on a dull afternoon and found him asleep; it was
almost hopeless to try to wake him, and I'd generally help myself and leave
the money on the ledge of the register. And he dropped asleep so quickly and
easily that even if Kates and Hank had wakened him when they'd looked for me
here, he'd be asleep again by now.
In fact ґ yes, I could hear a faint rumbling sound overhead, like very
distant thunder. Smiley snoring.
I groped my way through the dark back room and opened the door to the
tavern. There was a dim light in there that burned all night long, and the
shades were left up. But Kates had already been here and the chances of
anyone else happening to pass and look in at half past three of a Friday
morning were negligible.
I took a bottle of the best bonded Bourbon Smiley had from the back bar
and because it looked as though there were still at least a fair chance that
this might be the last drink I ever had, I took a bottle of seltzer from the
case under the bar. I took them to the table around the el, the one that's
out of sight of the windows, the table at which Bat and George had sat early
this evening.
Bat and George seemed, now, to have sat there along time ago, years
maybe, and seemed not a tenth as frightening as they'd been at the time.
Almost, they seemed a little funny, somehow.
I left the two bottles on the table and went back for a glass, a
swizzle stick, and some ice cubes from the refrigerator. This drink I'd
waited a long time for, and it was going to be a good one.
I'd even pay a good price for it, I decided, especially after I looked
in my wallet and found I had several tens but nothing smaller. I put a ten
dollar bill on the ledge of the register, and I wondered if I'd ever get my
change out of it.
I went back to the table and made myself a drink, a good one.
I lighted up a cigar, too. That was a bit risky because if Kates came
by here again for another check, he might see cigar smoke in the dim light,
even though I was out of his range of vision. But I decided the risk was
worth it. You can, I was finding, get into such a Godawful jam that a little
more risk doesn't seem to matter at all.
I took a good long swig of the drink and then a deep drag from the
cigar, and I felt pretty good. I held out my hands and they weren't shaking.
Very silly of them not to be, but they weren't.
Now, I thought, is my first chance to think for a long time. My first
real chance since Yehudi Smith had died.
Little man, what now?
The pattern. Could I make any sense out of the pattern?
Yehudi Smith ґ only that undoubtedly wasn't his real name, else the
card he gave me wouldn't have been printed in my own shop ґ had called to
see me and had told meґ
Skip what he told you, I told myself. That was gobbledegook, just the
kind of gobbledegook that would entice you to go to such a crazy place at
such a crazy time. He knew you ґ that is, I corrected myself ґ he knew a lot
about you. Your hobby and your weakness and what you were and what would
interest you.
His coming there was planned. Planned well in advance; the card proved
that.
According to a plan, then, he called on you at a time when no one else
would be there. Probably, sitting in his car, he'd watched you come home,
knowing Mrs. Carr was there ґ in all probability he or someone had been
watching the house all evening ґ and waiting until she'd left to present
himself.
No one had seen him, no one besides yourself.
He'd led you on a wild-goose chase. There weren't any Vorpal Blades;
that was gobbledegook, too.
Connect that with the fact that Miles Harrison and Ralph Bonney had
been killed while Yehudi Smith was keeping you entertained and busy, and
that their bodies had been put in the back compartment of your car.
Easy. Smith was an accomplice of the murderer, hired to keep you away
from anybody else who might alibi you while the crime was going on. Also to
give you such an incredible story to account for where you really were that
your own mother, if she were still alive, would have a hard time believing
it.
But connect that with the fact that Smith had been killed, too. And
with the fact that the pay roll money had been left in your car along with
the bodies.
It added up to gibberish.
I took another sip of my drink and it tasted weak. I looked at it and
saw I'd been sitting there so long between sips that most of the ice had
melted. I put more of the bonded Bourbon in it and it tasted all right
again.
I remembered about the gun I'd grabbed up from Kates' desk, the rusty
one with which the two murders had been committed. I took it out of my
pocket and looked at it. I handled it so I wouldn't have to touch those
dried stains on the butt.
I broke it to see if any shots had been fired from it and found there
weren't any cartridges in it, empty or otherwise. I clicked it back into
position and tried the trigger. It was rusted shut. It hadn't, then, been
used as a gun at all. Just as a hammer to bash out the brains of two men.
And I'd certainly made a fool of myself by bringing it along. I played
right into the killer's hands by doing that. I put it back into my pocket.
I wished that I had someone to talk to. I felt that I might figure out
things aloud better than I could this way. I wished that Smiley was awake,
and for a moment I was tempted to go upstairs to get him. No, I decided,
once already tonight I'd put Smiley into danger ґ danger out of which he'd
got both of us and without any help from me whatsoever.
And this was my problem. It wouldn't be fair to Smiley to tangle him in
it.
Besides, this wasn't a matter for Smiley's brawn and guts. This was
like playing chess, and Smiley didn't play chess. Carl might possibly be
able to help me figure it out, but Smiley ґ never. And I didn't want to
tangle Carl in this either.
But I wanted to talk to somebody.
All right, maybe I was a little crazy ґ not drunk, definitely not drunk
ґ but a little crazy. I wanted to talk to somebody, so I did.
The little man who wasn't there.
I imagined him sitting across the table from me, sitting there with an
imaginary drink in his hand. Gladly, right gladly, would I have poured him a
real one if he'd been really there. He was looking at me strangely.
"Smitty," I said.
"Yes, Doc?"
"What's your real name, Smitty? I know it isn't Yehudi Smith. That was
part of the gag. The card you gave me proves that."
It wasn't the right question to ask. He wavered a little, as though he
was going to disappear on me. I shouldn't have asked him a question that I
myself couldn't answer, because he was there only because my mind was
putting him there. He couldn't tell me anything I didn't know myself or
couldn't figure out.
He wavered a little, but he rallied. He said, "Doc, I can't tell you
that. Any more than I can tell you whom I was working for. You know that."
Get it; he said "whom I was working for" not "who I was working for." I
felt proud of him and of myself.
I said, "Sure, Smitty. I shouldn't have asked. And listen, I'm sorry ґ
I'm sorry as hell that you died."
"That's all right, Doc. We all die sometime. And ґ well, it was a nice
evening up to then."
"I'm glad I fed you," I said. "I'm glad I gave you all you wanted to
drink. And listen, Smitty, I'm sorry I laughed out loud when I saw that
bottle and key on the glass-topped table. I just couldn't help it. It was
funny."
"Sure, Doc. But I had to play it straight. It was part of the act. But
it was corny; I don't blame you for acting amused. And Doc, I'm sorry I did
it. I didn't know the whole score ґ you've got proof of that. If I had, I
wouldn't have drunk what was in that bottle. I didn't look like a man who
wanted to die, did I, Doc?"
I shook my head slowly, looking at the laughter-lines around his eyes
and his mouth. He didn't look like a man who wanted to die.
But he had died, suddenly and horribly.
"I'm sorry, Smitty," I told him. "I'm sorry as hell. I'd give a hell of
a lot to bring you back, to have you really sitting there."
He chuckled. "Don't get maudlin, Doc. It'll spoil your thinking. You're
trying to think, you know."
"I know," I said. "But I had to get it out of my system. All right,
Smitty. You're dead and I can't do anything about it. You're the little man
who isn't there. And I can't ask you any questions I can't answer myself, so
really you can't help me."
"Are you sure, Doc? Even if you ask the right questions?"
"What do you mean? That my subconscious mind might know the answers
even if I don't?"
He laughed. "Let's not get Freudian. Let's stick to Lewis Carroll. I
really was a Carroll enthusiast, you know. I was a fast study, but not that
fast. I couldn't have memorized all that about him just for one occasion."
The phrase struck me, "a fast study." I repeated it and went on where
it led me, "You were an actor, Smitty? Hell, don't answer it. You must have
been. I should have guessed that. An actor hired to play a part."
He grinned a bit wryly. "Not too good an actor, then, or you wouldn't
have guessed it. And pretty much of a sucker, Doc, to have accepted the
role. I should have guessed that there was more in it than what he told me."
He shrugged. "Well, I played you a dirty trick, but I played a worse one on
myself. Didn't I?"
"I'm sorry you're dead, Smitty. God damn it, I liked you."
"I'm glad, Doc. I haven't liked myself too well these last few years.
You've figured it out by now so I can tell you ґ I was pretty down and out
to take a booking like that, and at the price he offered me for it. And damn
him, he didn't pay me in advance except my expenses, so what did I gain by
it? I got killed. Wait, don't get maudlin about that again. Let's drink to
it."
We drank to it. There are worse things than getting killed. And there
are worse ways of dying than suddenly when you aren't expecting it, when
you're slightly tight andґ
But that subject wasn't getting us anywhere.
"You were a character actor," I said.
"Doc, you disappoint me by belaboring the obvious. And that doesn't
help you to figure out who Anybody is."
"Anybody?"
"That's what you were calling him to yourself when you were thinking
things out, in a half-witted sort of way, not so long ago. Remember thinking
that Anybody could have got into your printing shop and Anybody could have
set up one line of type and figured out how to print one good card on that
little hand press, but why would Anybodyґ"
"Unfair," I said. "You can get inside my mind, because ґ because, hell,
that's where you are. But I can't get into yours. You know who Anybody is.
But I don't."
"Even I, Doc, might not know his real name. In case something went
wrong, he wouldn't have told me that. Something like ґ well, suppose you'd
grabbed that `Drink Me' bottle when you first found the table and tossed it
off before I could tell you that it was my prerogative to do so. Yes, there
were a lot of things that could have gone wrong in so complicated a deal as
that one was."
I nodded. "Yes, suppose Al Grainger had come around for that game of
chess and we'd taken him along. Suppose ґ suppose I hadn't lived to get home
at all. I had a narrow squeak earlier in the evening, you know."
"In that case, Doc, it never would have happened. You ought to be able
to figure that out without my telling you.. If you'd been killed, you and
Smiley, earlier in the evening, then ґ at least if Anybody had learned about
it, as he probably would have ґ Ralph Bonney and Miles Harrison wouldn't
have been killed later. At least not tonight. A wheel would have come off
the plans and I'd have gone back to ґ wherever I came from. And everything
would have been off."
I said, "But suppose I'd stayed at the office far into the night
working on one of those big stories I thought I had ґ and was so happy
about. How would Anybody have known?"
"Can't tell you that, Doc. But you might guess. Suppose I had orders to
keep Anybody posted on your movements, if they went off schedule. When you
left the house, saying you'd be back shortly, I'd have used your phone and
told him that. And when you phoned that you were on your way back I'd have
let him know, while you were walking home, wouldn't I?"
"But that was pretty late."
"Not too late for him to have intercepted Miles Harrison and Ralph
Bonney on their way back from Neilsville ґ under certain circumstances ґ if
his plans had been held in abeyance until he was sure you'd be home and out
of circulation before midnight."
I said, "Under certain circumstances," and wondered just what I meant
by it.
Yehudi Smith smiled. He lifted his glass and looked at me mockingly
over the rim of it before he drank. He said, "Go on, Doc. You're only in the
second square, but your next move will be a good one. You go to the fourth
square by train, you know."
"And the smoke alone is worth a thousand pounds a puff."
"And that's the answer, Doc," he said, quietly.
I stared at him. A prickle went down my back.
Outside, in the night, a clock struck four times.
"What do you mean, Smitty?" I asked him, slowly.
The little man who wasn't there poured more whisky from an imaginary
bottle into his imaginary glass. He said, "Doc, you've been letting the
glass-topped table and the bottle and the key fool you. They're from Alice
in Wonderland. Originally, of course, called Alice's Adventures Underground.
Wonderful book. But you're in the second."
"The second square? You just said that."
"The second book. Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found
There. And, Doc, you know as well as I what Alice found there."
I poured myself another drink, a short one this time, to match his. I
didn't bother with ice or seltzer.
He raised his glass. "You've got it now, Doc," he said. "Not all of it,
but enough to start on. You might still see the dawn come up."
"Don't be so God damn dramatic," I said; "certainly I'm going to see
the dawn come up."
"Even if Kates comes here again looking for you? Don't forget when he
misses that rusty gun in your pocket, he'll know you were at the courthouse
when he was looking for you here. He might recheck all his previous stops.
And you're awfully damned careless in filling the place with cigar smoke,
you know."
"You mean it's worth a thousand pounds a puff?"
He put back his head and laughed and then he quit laughing and he
wasn't there any more, even in my imagination, because a sudden slight sound
made me look toward the door that led upstairs, to Smiley's rooms. The door
opened and Smiley was standing there.
In a nightshirt. I hadn't known anybody wore nightshirts any more, but
Smiley wore one. His eyes looked sleepy and his hair ґ what was left of it ґ
was tousled and he was barefoot. He had a gun in his hand, the little
short-barreled thirty-eight Banker's Special I'd given him some hours ago.
In his huge hand it looked tiny, a toy. It didn't look like something that
had knocked a Buick off the road, killing one man and badly injuring
another, that very evening.
There wasn't any expression on his face, none at all.
I wonder what mine looked like. But through a looking- glass or not, I
didn't have one to look into.
Had I been talking to myself aloud? Or had my conversation with Yehudi
Smith been imaginary, within my own mind? I honestly didn't know.
If I'd really been talking to myself, it was going to be a hell of a
thing to have to explain. Especially if Kates had, on his stop here,
awakened Smiley and told him that I was crazy.
In any case, what the hell could I possibly say right now but "Hello,
Smiley?"
I opened my mouth to say "Hello, Smiley," but I didn't.
Someone was pounding on the glass of the front door. Someone who
yelled, "Hey, open up here!" in the voice of Sheriff Rance Kates.
I did the only reasonable thing to do. I poured myself another drink.
"You are old," said the youth, "one would hardly suppose
That your eye was as steady as ever;
Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your noseґ
What made you so awfully clever?"
Kates hammered again and tried the knob.
Smiley stared at me and I stared back at him. I couldn't say anything ґ
even if I could have thought of anything to say ґ to him at that distance
without the probability of Kates hearing my voice.
Kates hammered again. I heard him say something to Hank about breaking
in the glass. Smiley bent down and placed the gun on the step behind him and
then came out of the door into the tavern. Without looking at me he walked
toward the front door and, at sight of him, Kates stopped the racket there.
Smiley didn't walk quite straight toward the door; he made a slight
curve that took him past my table. As he passed, he reached out and jerked
the cigar out of my hand. He stuck it in his mouth and then went to the door
and opened it.
I couldn't see in that direction, of course, and I didn't stick my head
around the corner of the el. I sat there and sweated.
"What you want? Why such a hell of a racket?" I heard Smiley demand.
Kates' voice: "Thought Stoeger was here. That smokeґ"
"Left my cigar down here," Smiley said. "Remembered it when I got back
up and came down to get it. Why all the racket?"
"It was damn near half an hour ago when I was here," Kates said
belligerently. "Cigar doesn't burn that long."
Smiley said patiently, "I couldn't sleep after you were here. I came
down and got myself a drink five minutes ago. I left my cigar down here."
His voice got soft, very soft. "Now get the hell out of here. You've spoiled
my night already. Didn't get to sleep till two and you wake me at half past
three and come around again at four. What's the big idea, Kates?"
"You're sure Stoeger isn'tґ"
"I told you I'd call you if I saw him. Now, you bastard, get out of
here."
I could imagine Kates turning purple. I could imagine him looking at
Smiley and realizing that Smiley was half again as strong as he was.
The door slammed so hard it must have come very near to breaking the
glass.
Smiley came back. Without looking back at me he said quietly, "Don't
move, Doc. He might look back in a minute or two." He went on around behind
the bar, got himself a glass and poured a drink. He sat down on the stool he
keeps for himself back there, facing slightly to the back so his lip
movement wouldn't show to anyone looking in the front window. He took a sip
of the drink and a puff of my cigar.
I kept my voice as low as he'd kept his. I said, "Smiley, you ought to
have your mouth washed out with soap. You told a lie."
He grinned. "Not that I know of, Doc. I told him I'd call him if I saw
you. I did call him. Didn't you hear what I called him?"
"Smiley," I said, "this is the screwiest night I've ever been through
but the screwiest thing about it is that you're developing a sense of humor.
I didn't think you had it in you."
"How bad trouble are you in, Doc? What can I do?"
I said, "Nothing. Except what you just did do, and thanks to hell and
back for that. It's something I've got to think out; and work out for
myself, Smiley. Nobody can help me."
"Kates said, when he was here the first time, you were a ho ґ homi ґ
what the hell was it?"
"Homicidal maniac," I said. "He thinks I killed two men tonight. Miles
Harrison and Ralph Bonney."
"Yeah. Don't bother telling me you didn't."
I said, "Thanks, Smiley." And then it occurred to me that "Don't bother
telling me you didn't" could be taken either one of two ways. And I wondered
again if I had been talking to myself aloud or only in my imagination while
Smiley had been walking down those stairs and opening the door. I asked him,
"Smiley, do you think I'm crazy?"
"I've always thought you were crazy, Doc. But crazy in a nice way."
I thought how wonderful it is to have friends. Even if I was crazy,
there were two people in Carmel City that I could count on to go to bat for,
me. There was Smiley and there was Carl.
But, damn it, friendship should work both ways. This was my danger and
my problem and I had no business dragging Smiley into it any farther than
he'd already stuck his neck. If I told Smiley that Kates had tried to kill
me and still intended to, then Smiley ґ who hates Kates' guts already ґ
would go out looking for Kates and like as not kill him with his bare hands,
or get shot trying it. I couldn't do that to Smiley.
I said, "Smiley, finish your drink and go up to bed again. I've got to
think."
"Sure there's no way I can help you, Doc?"
"Positive."
He tossed off the rest of his drink and tamped out the cigar in an ash
tray. He said, "Okay, Doc, I know you're smarter than I am, and if it's
brains you need for help, I'm just in the way. Good luck to you."
He walked back to the door of the staircase. He looked carefully at the
front windows to be sure nobody was looking in and then he reached inside
and picked up the revolver from the step on which he'd placed it.
He came walking over to my table. He said, "Doe, if you are a ho ґ homi
ґ what you said, you might want to kill somebody else tonight. That's
loaded. I even replaced the two bullets I shot out of it, earlier."
He put it down on the table in front of me, turned his back to me and
went back to the stairs. I watched him go, marveling. I'd never yet seen a
man in a nightshirt who hadn't looked ridiculous. Until then. What more can
a man do to prove he doesn't think you're insane than give you a loaded gun
and then turn his back and walk away. And when I thought of all the times
I'd razzed Smiley and ridden him, all the cracks I'd made at him, I wantedґ
Well, I couldn't answer when he said "Goodnight, Doc," just before he
closed the door behind him. Something felt a little wrong with my throat,
and if I'd tried to say anything, I might have bawled.
My hand shook a little as I poured myself another drink, a short one. I
was beginning to feel them and this had better be my last one, I knew.
I had to think more clearly than I'd ever thought before. I couldn't
get drunk, I didn't dare.
I tried to get my mind back to what I'd been thinking about ґ what I'd
been talking about to the little man who wasn't there ґ before Smiley's
coming downstairs and Kates' knocking had interrupted me.
I looked across the table where Yehudi Smith, in my mind, had been
sitting. But he wasn't there. I couldn't bring him back. He was dead, and he
wouldn't come back. The quiet room in the quiet night. The dim light of the
single twenty-watt bulb over the cash register. The creaking of my thoughts
as I tried to turn them back into the groove. Connect facts.
Lewis Carroll and bloody murder.
Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There.
What had Alice found there?
Chessmen, and a game of chess. And Alice herself had been a pawn. That
was why, of course, she'd crossed the third square by railroad. With the
smoke alone worth a thousand pounds a puff ґ almost as expensive as the
smoke from my cigar might have been had not Smiley taken it out of my hand
and claimed it as his own.
Chessmen, and a game of chess.
But who was the player?
And suddenly I knew. Illogically, because he didn't have a shadow of a
motive. The Why I did not see, but Yehudi Smith had told me the How, and now
I saw the Who.
The pattern. Whoever had arranged tonight's little chess problem played
chess all right, and played it well. Looking- glass chess and real chess,
both. And he knew me well ґ which meant I knew him, too. He knew my
weaknesses, the things I'd fall for. He knew I'd go with Yehudi Smith on the
strength of that mad, weird story Smith had told me.
But why? What had he to gain? He'd killed Miles Harrison, Ralph Bonney
and Yehudi Smith. And he'd left the money Miles and Ralph had been carrying
in that brief case and put it in the back of my car, with the two bodies.
Then money hadn't been the motive. Either that, or the motive had been
money in such large quantity that the couple of thousand dollars Bonney had
been carrying didn't matter.
But wasn't a man concerned who was one of the richest men in Carmel
City? Ralph Bonney. His fireworks factory, his other investments, his real
estate must have added up to ґ well, maybe half a million dollars. A man
shooting for half a million dollars can well abandon the proceeds of a two
thousand dollar holdup and leave them with the bodies of the men he has
killed, to help pin the crime on the pawn he has selected to divert
suspicion from himself.
Connect facts.
Ralph Bonney was divorced today. He was murdered tonight.
Then Miles Harrison's death was incidental. Yehudi Smith had been
another pawn.
A warped mind, but a brilliant mind. A cold, cruel mind. And yet,
paradoxically, a mind that loved fantasy, as I did, that loved Lewis
Carroll, as I did.
I started to pour myself another drink and then remembered that I still
had only part of the answer, and that even if I had it all, I hadn't the
slightest idea what I could do with it, without a shred of evidence, or an
iota of proof.
Without even an idea, in my own mind, of the reason, the motive. But
there must be one; the rest of it was too well planned, too logical.
There was one possibility that I could see.
I sat there listening a while to be sure there was no car approaching;
the night was so quiet that, I could have heard one at least a block away.
I looked at the gun Smiley had given me back, hesitated, and finally
put it in my pocket. Then I went into the back room and let myself out of
the window into the dark alley.
Carl Trenholm's house was three blocks away. Luckily, it was on the
street next to Oak Street and parallel to it. I could make all of the
distance through the alley except for the streets I'd have to cross.
I heard a car coming as I approached the second street and I ducked
down and hid behind a garbage can until it had gone by. It was going slowly
and it was probably either Hank and the sheriff or the two deputies. I
didn't look out to see for fear they might flash a spotlight down the alley.
I waited until the sound of it died away completely before I crossed
the street.
I let myself in the back gate of Carl's place. With his wife away, I
wasn't positive which bedroom he'd be sleeping in, but I found pebbles and
tossed them at the most likely window and it was the right one.
It went up and Carl's head came out. I stepped close to the house so I
wouldn't have to yell. I said, "It's Doc, Carl. Don't light a light anywhere
in the house. But come down to the back door."
"Coming, Doc." He closed the window. I went up on the back porch and
waited until the door opened and I went in. I closed the door behind me and
the kitchen was as black as the inside of a tomb.
Carl said, "Damned if I know where a flashlight is, Doc. Can't we put
on a light? I feel like hell."
"No, leave it off," I told him. I struck a match, though, to find my
way to a chair and it showed me Carl in rumpled pajamas, his hair mussed and
looking 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 ґ
hell, let's call him by name ґ 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 ґ or even suspected. How did you guess?"
"By what happened to me tonight ґ 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 andґ" 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 ґ meet someone on the cruise he was going to
take. It happens that way, sometimes, on the rebound after a divorce. And
Bonney is ґ was, only fifty-two."
I nodded ґ 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 ґ 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 ґ probably was ґ 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 ґ 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 ґ 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 cigґ"
"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.
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, andґ"
"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
sat down on the alley curbstone and put my shoes back on, and put the gun
into my pocket. I hadn't meant to bring it along at all, but as long as I
had I couldn't throw it away now.
Anyway, it was going to get Dick Ehlers in trouble with Kates. When
Kates looked for that gun and found it was missing, he'd know that I'd been
in the courthouse and that Ehlers had missed me. He'd know that I'd been
right in his own office while he'd been out searching for me.
And so there I was in the dark, in safety for a few minutes until a car
full of deputies decided to cruise down that particular alley looking for
me. And I had a gun in my pocket that might or might not shoot ґ I hadn't
checked that ґ and I had my shoes on and my hands were shaking again.
I didn't even have to ask myself, Little man, what now. The little man
not only wanted a drink; he really needed one.
And Kates had already been to Smiley's looking for me and had found
that I wasn't there.
So I started down the alley toward Smiley's.
Funny, but I was getting over being scared. A little, anyway. You can
get only just so scared, and then something happens to your adrenal glands
or something. I can't remember offhand whether your adrenals make you
frightened or whether they get going and operate against it, but mine were
getting either into or out of action, as the case might be. I'd been scared
so much that night that I ґ or my glands ґ was getting tired of it.
I was getting brave, almost. And it wasn't Dutch courage, either; it
had been so long since I'd had a drink that I'd forgotten what one tasted
like. I was cold damn sober. About three times during the course of the long
evening and the long night I'd been on the borderline of intoxication, but
always something had happened to keep me from drinking for a while and then
something had sobered me up. Some foolish little thing like being taken for
a ride by gangsters or watching a man die suddenly or horribly by quaffing a
bottle labeled "Drink Me" or finding murdered men in the back of my own car
or discovering that a sheriff intended to shoot me down in cold grue. Little
things like that.
So I kept going down the alley toward Smiley's. The dog that had barked
at me before barked again. But I didn't waste time barking back. I kept on
going down the alley toward Smiley's.
There was the street to cross. I took a quick look both ways but didn't
worry about it beyond that. If the sheriff's car or the deputies' car
suddenly turned the corner and started spraying me with headlights and then
bullets, well, then that was that. You can only get so worried; then you
quit worrying. When things can't get any worse, outside of your getting
killed, then either you get killed or things start getting better.
Things started to get better; the window into the back room of Smiley's
was open. I didn't bother taking off my shoes this time. Smiley would be
asleep upstairs, but alone, and Smiley's so sound a sleeper that a bazooka
shell exploding in the next room wouldn't wake him. I remember times I'd
dropped into the tavern on a dull afternoon and found him asleep; it was
almost hopeless to try to wake him, and I'd generally help myself and leave
the money on the ledge of the register. And he dropped asleep so quickly and
easily that even if Kates and Hank had wakened him when they'd looked for me
here, he'd be asleep again by now.
In fact ґ yes, I could hear a faint rumbling sound overhead, like very
distant thunder. Smiley snoring.
I groped my way through the dark back room and opened the door to the
tavern. There was a dim light in there that burned all night long, and the
shades were left up. But Kates had already been here and the chances of
anyone else happening to pass and look in at half past three of a Friday
morning were negligible.
I took a bottle of the best bonded Bourbon Smiley had from the back bar
and because it looked as though there were still at least a fair chance that
this might be the last drink I ever had, I took a bottle of seltzer from the
case under the bar. I took them to the table around the el, the one that's
out of sight of the windows, the table at which Bat and George had sat early
this evening.
Bat and George seemed, now, to have sat there along time ago, years
maybe, and seemed not a tenth as frightening as they'd been at the time.
Almost, they seemed a little funny, somehow.
I left the two bottles on the table and went back for a glass, a
swizzle stick, and some ice cubes from the refrigerator. This drink I'd
waited a long time for, and it was going to be a good one.
I'd even pay a good price for it, I decided, especially after I looked
in my wallet and found I had several tens but nothing smaller. I put a ten
dollar bill on the ledge of the register, and I wondered if I'd ever get my
change out of it.
I went back to the table and made myself a drink, a good one.
I lighted up a cigar, too. That was a bit risky because if Kates came
by here again for another check, he might see cigar smoke in the dim light,
even though I was out of his range of vision. But I decided the risk was
worth it. You can, I was finding, get into such a Godawful jam that a little
more risk doesn't seem to matter at all.
I took a good long swig of the drink and then a deep drag from the
cigar, and I felt pretty good. I held out my hands and they weren't shaking.
Very silly of them not to be, but they weren't.
Now, I thought, is my first chance to think for a long time. My first
real chance since Yehudi Smith had died.
Little man, what now?
The pattern. Could I make any sense out of the pattern?
Yehudi Smith ґ only that undoubtedly wasn't his real name, else the
card he gave me wouldn't have been printed in my own shop ґ had called to
see me and had told meґ
Skip what he told you, I told myself. That was gobbledegook, just the
kind of gobbledegook that would entice you to go to such a crazy place at
such a crazy time. He knew you ґ that is, I corrected myself ґ he knew a lot
about you. Your hobby and your weakness and what you were and what would
interest you.
His coming there was planned. Planned well in advance; the card proved
that.
According to a plan, then, he called on you at a time when no one else
would be there. Probably, sitting in his car, he'd watched you come home,
knowing Mrs. Carr was there ґ in all probability he or someone had been
watching the house all evening ґ and waiting until she'd left to present
himself.
No one had seen him, no one besides yourself.
He'd led you on a wild-goose chase. There weren't any Vorpal Blades;
that was gobbledegook, too.
Connect that with the fact that Miles Harrison and Ralph Bonney had
been killed while Yehudi Smith was keeping you entertained and busy, and
that their bodies had been put in the back compartment of your car.
Easy. Smith was an accomplice of the murderer, hired to keep you away
from anybody else who might alibi you while the crime was going on. Also to
give you such an incredible story to account for where you really were that
your own mother, if she were still alive, would have a hard time believing
it.
But connect that with the fact that Smith had been killed, too. And
with the fact that the pay roll money had been left in your car along with
the bodies.
It added up to gibberish.
I took another sip of my drink and it tasted weak. I looked at it and
saw I'd been sitting there so long between sips that most of the ice had
melted. I put more of the bonded Bourbon in it and it tasted all right
again.
I remembered about the gun I'd grabbed up from Kates' desk, the rusty
one with which the two murders had been committed. I took it out of my
pocket and looked at it. I handled it so I wouldn't have to touch those
dried stains on the butt.
I broke it to see if any shots had been fired from it and found there
weren't any cartridges in it, empty or otherwise. I clicked it back into
position and tried the trigger. It was rusted shut. It hadn't, then, been
used as a gun at all. Just as a hammer to bash out the brains of two men.
And I'd certainly made a fool of myself by bringing it along. I played
right into the killer's hands by doing that. I put it back into my pocket.
I wished that I had someone to talk to. I felt that I might figure out
things aloud better than I could this way. I wished that Smiley was awake,
and for a moment I was tempted to go upstairs to get him. No, I decided,
once already tonight I'd put Smiley into danger ґ danger out of which he'd
got both of us and without any help from me whatsoever.
And this was my problem. It wouldn't be fair to Smiley to tangle him in
it.
Besides, this wasn't a matter for Smiley's brawn and guts. This was
like playing chess, and Smiley didn't play chess. Carl might possibly be
able to help me figure it out, but Smiley ґ never. And I didn't want to
tangle Carl in this either.
But I wanted to talk to somebody.
All right, maybe I was a little crazy ґ not drunk, definitely not drunk
ґ but a little crazy. I wanted to talk to somebody, so I did.
The little man who wasn't there.
I imagined him sitting across the table from me, sitting there with an
imaginary drink in his hand. Gladly, right gladly, would I have poured him a
real one if he'd been really there. He was looking at me strangely.
"Smitty," I said.
"Yes, Doc?"
"What's your real name, Smitty? I know it isn't Yehudi Smith. That was
part of the gag. The card you gave me proves that."
It wasn't the right question to ask. He wavered a little, as though he
was going to disappear on me. I shouldn't have asked him a question that I
myself couldn't answer, because he was there only because my mind was
putting him there. He couldn't tell me anything I didn't know myself or
couldn't figure out.
He wavered a little, but he rallied. He said, "Doc, I can't tell you
that. Any more than I can tell you whom I was working for. You know that."
Get it; he said "whom I was working for" not "who I was working for." I
felt proud of him and of myself.
I said, "Sure, Smitty. I shouldn't have asked. And listen, I'm sorry ґ
I'm sorry as hell that you died."
"That's all right, Doc. We all die sometime. And ґ well, it was a nice
evening up to then."
"I'm glad I fed you," I said. "I'm glad I gave you all you wanted to
drink. And listen, Smitty, I'm sorry I laughed out loud when I saw that
bottle and key on the glass-topped table. I just couldn't help it. It was
funny."
"Sure, Doc. But I had to play it straight. It was part of the act. But
it was corny; I don't blame you for acting amused. And Doc, I'm sorry I did
it. I didn't know the whole score ґ you've got proof of that. If I had, I
wouldn't have drunk what was in that bottle. I didn't look like a man who
wanted to die, did I, Doc?"
I shook my head slowly, looking at the laughter-lines around his eyes
and his mouth. He didn't look like a man who wanted to die.
But he had died, suddenly and horribly.
"I'm sorry, Smitty," I told him. "I'm sorry as hell. I'd give a hell of
a lot to bring you back, to have you really sitting there."
He chuckled. "Don't get maudlin, Doc. It'll spoil your thinking. You're
trying to think, you know."
"I know," I said. "But I had to get it out of my system. All right,
Smitty. You're dead and I can't do anything about it. You're the little man
who isn't there. And I can't ask you any questions I can't answer myself, so
really you can't help me."
"Are you sure, Doc? Even if you ask the right questions?"
"What do you mean? That my subconscious mind might know the answers
even if I don't?"
He laughed. "Let's not get Freudian. Let's stick to Lewis Carroll. I
really was a Carroll enthusiast, you know. I was a fast study, but not that
fast. I couldn't have memorized all that about him just for one occasion."
The phrase struck me, "a fast study." I repeated it and went on where
it led me, "You were an actor, Smitty? Hell, don't answer it. You must have
been. I should have guessed that. An actor hired to play a part."
He grinned a bit wryly. "Not too good an actor, then, or you wouldn't
have guessed it. And pretty much of a sucker, Doc, to have accepted the
role. I should have guessed that there was more in it than what he told me."
He shrugged. "Well, I played you a dirty trick, but I played a worse one on
myself. Didn't I?"
"I'm sorry you're dead, Smitty. God damn it, I liked you."
"I'm glad, Doc. I haven't liked myself too well these last few years.
You've figured it out by now so I can tell you ґ I was pretty down and out
to take a booking like that, and at the price he offered me for it. And damn
him, he didn't pay me in advance except my expenses, so what did I gain by
it? I got killed. Wait, don't get maudlin about that again. Let's drink to
it."
We drank to it. There are worse things than getting killed. And there
are worse ways of dying than suddenly when you aren't expecting it, when
you're slightly tight andґ
But that subject wasn't getting us anywhere.
"You were a character actor," I said.
"Doc, you disappoint me by belaboring the obvious. And that doesn't
help you to figure out who Anybody is."
"Anybody?"
"That's what you were calling him to yourself when you were thinking
things out, in a half-witted sort of way, not so long ago. Remember thinking
that Anybody could have got into your printing shop and Anybody could have
set up one line of type and figured out how to print one good card on that
little hand press, but why would Anybodyґ"
"Unfair," I said. "You can get inside my mind, because ґ because, hell,
that's where you are. But I can't get into yours. You know who Anybody is.
But I don't."
"Even I, Doc, might not know his real name. In case something went
wrong, he wouldn't have told me that. Something like ґ well, suppose you'd
grabbed that `Drink Me' bottle when you first found the table and tossed it
off before I could tell you that it was my prerogative to do so. Yes, there
were a lot of things that could have gone wrong in so complicated a deal as
that one was."
I nodded. "Yes, suppose Al Grainger had come around for that game of
chess and we'd taken him along. Suppose ґ suppose I hadn't lived to get home
at all. I had a narrow squeak earlier in the evening, you know."
"In that case, Doc, it never would have happened. You ought to be able
to figure that out without my telling you.. If you'd been killed, you and
Smiley, earlier in the evening, then ґ at least if Anybody had learned about
it, as he probably would have ґ Ralph Bonney and Miles Harrison wouldn't
have been killed later. At least not tonight. A wheel would have come off
the plans and I'd have gone back to ґ wherever I came from. And everything
would have been off."
I said, "But suppose I'd stayed at the office far into the night
working on one of those big stories I thought I had ґ and was so happy
about. How would Anybody have known?"
"Can't tell you that, Doc. But you might guess. Suppose I had orders to
keep Anybody posted on your movements, if they went off schedule. When you
left the house, saying you'd be back shortly, I'd have used your phone and
told him that. And when you phoned that you were on your way back I'd have
let him know, while you were walking home, wouldn't I?"
"But that was pretty late."
"Not too late for him to have intercepted Miles Harrison and Ralph
Bonney on their way back from Neilsville ґ under certain circumstances ґ if
his plans had been held in abeyance until he was sure you'd be home and out
of circulation before midnight."
I said, "Under certain circumstances," and wondered just what I meant
by it.
Yehudi Smith smiled. He lifted his glass and looked at me mockingly
over the rim of it before he drank. He said, "Go on, Doc. You're only in the
second square, but your next move will be a good one. You go to the fourth
square by train, you know."
"And the smoke alone is worth a thousand pounds a puff."
"And that's the answer, Doc," he said, quietly.
I stared at him. A prickle went down my back.
Outside, in the night, a clock struck four times.
"What do you mean, Smitty?" I asked him, slowly.
The little man who wasn't there poured more whisky from an imaginary
bottle into his imaginary glass. He said, "Doc, you've been letting the
glass-topped table and the bottle and the key fool you. They're from Alice
in Wonderland. Originally, of course, called Alice's Adventures Underground.
Wonderful book. But you're in the second."
"The second square? You just said that."
"The second book. Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found
There. And, Doc, you know as well as I what Alice found there."
I poured myself another drink, a short one this time, to match his. I
didn't bother with ice or seltzer.
He raised his glass. "You've got it now, Doc," he said. "Not all of it,
but enough to start on. You might still see the dawn come up."
"Don't be so God damn dramatic," I said; "certainly I'm going to see
the dawn come up."
"Even if Kates comes here again looking for you? Don't forget when he
misses that rusty gun in your pocket, he'll know you were at the courthouse
when he was looking for you here. He might recheck all his previous stops.
And you're awfully damned careless in filling the place with cigar smoke,
you know."
"You mean it's worth a thousand pounds a puff?"
He put back his head and laughed and then he quit laughing and he
wasn't there any more, even in my imagination, because a sudden slight sound
made me look toward the door that led upstairs, to Smiley's rooms. The door
opened and Smiley was standing there.
In a nightshirt. I hadn't known anybody wore nightshirts any more, but
Smiley wore one. His eyes looked sleepy and his hair ґ what was left of it ґ
was tousled and he was barefoot. He had a gun in his hand, the little
short-barreled thirty-eight Banker's Special I'd given him some hours ago.
In his huge hand it looked tiny, a toy. It didn't look like something that
had knocked a Buick off the road, killing one man and badly injuring
another, that very evening.
There wasn't any expression on his face, none at all.
I wonder what mine looked like. But through a looking- glass or not, I
didn't have one to look into.
Had I been talking to myself aloud? Or had my conversation with Yehudi
Smith been imaginary, within my own mind? I honestly didn't know.
If I'd really been talking to myself, it was going to be a hell of a
thing to have to explain. Especially if Kates had, on his stop here,
awakened Smiley and told him that I was crazy.
In any case, what the hell could I possibly say right now but "Hello,
Smiley?"
I opened my mouth to say "Hello, Smiley," but I didn't.
Someone was pounding on the glass of the front door. Someone who
yelled, "Hey, open up here!" in the voice of Sheriff Rance Kates.
I did the only reasonable thing to do. I poured myself another drink.
"You are old," said the youth, "one would hardly suppose
That your eye was as steady as ever;
Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your noseґ
What made you so awfully clever?"
Kates hammered again and tried the knob.
Smiley stared at me and I stared back at him. I couldn't say anything ґ
even if I could have thought of anything to say ґ to him at that distance
without the probability of Kates hearing my voice.
Kates hammered again. I heard him say something to Hank about breaking
in the glass. Smiley bent down and placed the gun on the step behind him and
then came out of the door into the tavern. Without looking at me he walked
toward the front door and, at sight of him, Kates stopped the racket there.
Smiley didn't walk quite straight toward the door; he made a slight
curve that took him past my table. As he passed, he reached out and jerked
the cigar out of my hand. He stuck it in his mouth and then went to the door
and opened it.
I couldn't see in that direction, of course, and I didn't stick my head
around the corner of the el. I sat there and sweated.
"What you want? Why such a hell of a racket?" I heard Smiley demand.
Kates' voice: "Thought Stoeger was here. That smokeґ"
"Left my cigar down here," Smiley said. "Remembered it when I got back
up and came down to get it. Why all the racket?"
"It was damn near half an hour ago when I was here," Kates said
belligerently. "Cigar doesn't burn that long."
Smiley said patiently, "I couldn't sleep after you were here. I came
down and got myself a drink five minutes ago. I left my cigar down here."
His voice got soft, very soft. "Now get the hell out of here. You've spoiled
my night already. Didn't get to sleep till two and you wake me at half past
three and come around again at four. What's the big idea, Kates?"
"You're sure Stoeger isn'tґ"
"I told you I'd call you if I saw him. Now, you bastard, get out of
here."
I could imagine Kates turning purple. I could imagine him looking at
Smiley and realizing that Smiley was half again as strong as he was.
The door slammed so hard it must have come very near to breaking the
glass.
Smiley came back. Without looking back at me he said quietly, "Don't
move, Doc. He might look back in a minute or two." He went on around behind
the bar, got himself a glass and poured a drink. He sat down on the stool he
keeps for himself back there, facing slightly to the back so his lip
movement wouldn't show to anyone looking in the front window. He took a sip
of the drink and a puff of my cigar.
I kept my voice as low as he'd kept his. I said, "Smiley, you ought to
have your mouth washed out with soap. You told a lie."
He grinned. "Not that I know of, Doc. I told him I'd call him if I saw
you. I did call him. Didn't you hear what I called him?"
"Smiley," I said, "this is the screwiest night I've ever been through
but the screwiest thing about it is that you're developing a sense of humor.
I didn't think you had it in you."
"How bad trouble are you in, Doc? What can I do?"
I said, "Nothing. Except what you just did do, and thanks to hell and
back for that. It's something I've got to think out; and work out for
myself, Smiley. Nobody can help me."
"Kates said, when he was here the first time, you were a ho ґ homi ґ
what the hell was it?"
"Homicidal maniac," I said. "He thinks I killed two men tonight. Miles
Harrison and Ralph Bonney."
"Yeah. Don't bother telling me you didn't."
I said, "Thanks, Smiley." And then it occurred to me that "Don't bother
telling me you didn't" could be taken either one of two ways. And I wondered
again if I had been talking to myself aloud or only in my imagination while
Smiley had been walking down those stairs and opening the door. I asked him,
"Smiley, do you think I'm crazy?"
"I've always thought you were crazy, Doc. But crazy in a nice way."
I thought how wonderful it is to have friends. Even if I was crazy,
there were two people in Carmel City that I could count on to go to bat for,
me. There was Smiley and there was Carl.
But, damn it, friendship should work both ways. This was my danger and
my problem and I had no business dragging Smiley into it any farther than
he'd already stuck his neck. If I told Smiley that Kates had tried to kill
me and still intended to, then Smiley ґ who hates Kates' guts already ґ
would go out looking for Kates and like as not kill him with his bare hands,
or get shot trying it. I couldn't do that to Smiley.
I said, "Smiley, finish your drink and go up to bed again. I've got to
think."
"Sure there's no way I can help you, Doc?"
"Positive."
He tossed off the rest of his drink and tamped out the cigar in an ash
tray. He said, "Okay, Doc, I know you're smarter than I am, and if it's
brains you need for help, I'm just in the way. Good luck to you."
He walked back to the door of the staircase. He looked carefully at the
front windows to be sure nobody was looking in and then he reached inside
and picked up the revolver from the step on which he'd placed it.
He came walking over to my table. He said, "Doe, if you are a ho ґ homi
ґ what you said, you might want to kill somebody else tonight. That's
loaded. I even replaced the two bullets I shot out of it, earlier."
He put it down on the table in front of me, turned his back to me and
went back to the stairs. I watched him go, marveling. I'd never yet seen a
man in a nightshirt who hadn't looked ridiculous. Until then. What more can
a man do to prove he doesn't think you're insane than give you a loaded gun
and then turn his back and walk away. And when I thought of all the times
I'd razzed Smiley and ridden him, all the cracks I'd made at him, I wantedґ
Well, I couldn't answer when he said "Goodnight, Doc," just before he
closed the door behind him. Something felt a little wrong with my throat,
and if I'd tried to say anything, I might have bawled.
My hand shook a little as I poured myself another drink, a short one. I
was beginning to feel them and this had better be my last one, I knew.
I had to think more clearly than I'd ever thought before. I couldn't
get drunk, I didn't dare.
I tried to get my mind back to what I'd been thinking about ґ what I'd
been talking about to the little man who wasn't there ґ before Smiley's
coming downstairs and Kates' knocking had interrupted me.
I looked across the table where Yehudi Smith, in my mind, had been
sitting. But he wasn't there. I couldn't bring him back. He was dead, and he
wouldn't come back. The quiet room in the quiet night. The dim light of the
single twenty-watt bulb over the cash register. The creaking of my thoughts
as I tried to turn them back into the groove. Connect facts.
Lewis Carroll and bloody murder.
Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There.
What had Alice found there?
Chessmen, and a game of chess. And Alice herself had been a pawn. That
was why, of course, she'd crossed the third square by railroad. With the
smoke alone worth a thousand pounds a puff ґ almost as expensive as the
smoke from my cigar might have been had not Smiley taken it out of my hand
and claimed it as his own.
Chessmen, and a game of chess.
But who was the player?
And suddenly I knew. Illogically, because he didn't have a shadow of a
motive. The Why I did not see, but Yehudi Smith had told me the How, and now
I saw the Who.
The pattern. Whoever had arranged tonight's little chess problem played
chess all right, and played it well. Looking- glass chess and real chess,
both. And he knew me well ґ which meant I knew him, too. He knew my
weaknesses, the things I'd fall for. He knew I'd go with Yehudi Smith on the
strength of that mad, weird story Smith had told me.
But why? What had he to gain? He'd killed Miles Harrison, Ralph Bonney
and Yehudi Smith. And he'd left the money Miles and Ralph had been carrying
in that brief case and put it in the back of my car, with the two bodies.
Then money hadn't been the motive. Either that, or the motive had been
money in such large quantity that the couple of thousand dollars Bonney had
been carrying didn't matter.
But wasn't a man concerned who was one of the richest men in Carmel
City? Ralph Bonney. His fireworks factory, his other investments, his real
estate must have added up to ґ well, maybe half a million dollars. A man
shooting for half a million dollars can well abandon the proceeds of a two
thousand dollar holdup and leave them with the bodies of the men he has
killed, to help pin the crime on the pawn he has selected to divert
suspicion from himself.
Connect facts.
Ralph Bonney was divorced today. He was murdered tonight.
Then Miles Harrison's death was incidental. Yehudi Smith had been
another pawn.
A warped mind, but a brilliant mind. A cold, cruel mind. And yet,
paradoxically, a mind that loved fantasy, as I did, that loved Lewis
Carroll, as I did.
I started to pour myself another drink and then remembered that I still
had only part of the answer, and that even if I had it all, I hadn't the
slightest idea what I could do with it, without a shred of evidence, or an
iota of proof.
Without even an idea, in my own mind, of the reason, the motive. But
there must be one; the rest of it was too well planned, too logical.
There was one possibility that I could see.
I sat there listening a while to be sure there was no car approaching;
the night was so quiet that, I could have heard one at least a block away.
I looked at the gun Smiley had given me back, hesitated, and finally
put it in my pocket. Then I went into the back room and let myself out of
the window into the dark alley.
Carl Trenholm's house was three blocks away. Luckily, it was on the
street next to Oak Street and parallel to it. I could make all of the
distance through the alley except for the streets I'd have to cross.
I heard a car coming as I approached the second street and I ducked
down and hid behind a garbage can until it had gone by. It was going slowly
and it was probably either Hank and the sheriff or the two deputies. I
didn't look out to see for fear they might flash a spotlight down the alley.
I waited until the sound of it died away completely before I crossed
the street.
I let myself in the back gate of Carl's place. With his wife away, I
wasn't positive which bedroom he'd be sleeping in, but I found pebbles and
tossed them at the most likely window and it was the right one.
It went up and Carl's head came out. I stepped close to the house so I
wouldn't have to yell. I said, "It's Doc, Carl. Don't light a light anywhere
in the house. But come down to the back door."
"Coming, Doc." He closed the window. I went up on the back porch and
waited until the door opened and I went in. I closed the door behind me and
the kitchen was as black as the inside of a tomb.
Carl said, "Damned if I know where a flashlight is, Doc. Can't we put
on a light? I feel like hell."
"No, leave it off," I told him. I struck a match, though, to find my
way to a chair and it showed me Carl in rumpled pajamas, his hair mussed and
looking 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 ґ
hell, let's call him by name ґ 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 ґ or even suspected. How did you guess?"
"By what happened to me tonight ґ 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 andґ" 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 ґ meet someone on the cruise he was going to
take. It happens that way, sometimes, on the rebound after a divorce. And
Bonney is ґ was, only fifty-two."
I nodded ґ 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 ґ 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 ґ probably was ґ 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 ґ 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 ґ 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 cigґ"
"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.
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, andґ"
"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