Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 4, No. 1. Whole No. 8, January 1943
- Автор: Bentley E. C., Бучер Энтони
- Год: 1943
- Язык: английский
- Год: The American Mercury
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 4, No. 1. Whole No. 8, January 1943». Краткое содержание книги:
By the time they had settled on an hour and a half the sun was down. They made camp. Duncan proved himself more adept than Morgan at building fires. When he had a pile of brushwood blazing he went in search of certain edible roots on which he had largely subsisted for the last few days. He brought some of these back and shared them with the detective.
The gobbling of wild turkeys awoke them at dawn, and they crept to a clump of palmettos at the foot of a dead cypress. As the sky lightened behind the gibbet-like branches, a row of birds appeared in silhouette. Morgan rested his arm against a palmetto trunk, aimed, and brought one of the birds down.
Duncan patted him on the back.
“You would have made a fortune conducting a shooting gallery, Morgan.”
“Yeh. And if I live to tell about that shot up north, I’ll feel like a liar and everybody’ll know I’m one.”
The turkey solved the food problem for the present, and, as long as the sun shone, they knew their chances for speedy escape were good. But the clouds turned black again in the afternoon, and a dismal downpour commenced.
“Doesn’t it do anything but rain in this hole?” Morgan grieved.
“We are below the snow line,” Duncan explained. “I suggest camping here before we start walking in circles.”
They made a fire and by the last daylight gathered a heap of wood.
Duncan regretted their lack of a pack of cards to pass the time. This gave Morgan a thought.
“You don’t happen by any crazy chance to play chess, Duncan?”
“I know something more than the moves.”
“Three cheers,” Morgan cried.
He felt in his pocket and brought forth a small pocket chess board.
“When I’m traveling alone I often irritate myself working problems on this. I was using it on the train only a thousand years or so ago.”
They moved closer to the fire, tossed for sides, arranged the markers, and in a few minutes their minds were far away from the swamp and their plight. They were well matched. Morgan, who had the white pieces, opened with a brilliant, puzzling attack on the king’s side; but Duncan, with confidence and forethought, combined his forces in a flawless defense. As they recognized each other’s ability they took more time for their moves. Morgan would lean forward, pursing his lips, studious lines showing on his forehead, while Duncan, eyes intent on the board, would roll a couple of cigarettes, pass one to his opponent, reach out his hand to the fire, and offer a burning brand for a light. It was very exciting. Perhaps they saw in the game a symbol of their relations — detective against criminal, and both most excellent players. It was very late when Morgan unmasked his rooks and trapped Duncan’s knight on the king’s line.
Duncan leaned back.
“You play a strong game, Morgan.”
The detective was pleased by his victory.
“You’re pretty good practice for me, Beau,” he conceded. “But you ought to have left that pawn of mine alone. It was a gold brick. Oh! Excuse me for talking shop. Hello! It’s still raining.”
The storm ceased the next day for only a few minutes. They did not travel far, because Morgan complained of what he called his growing pains.
That night they played chess again. Duncan won.
“A game apiece,” Morgan said. “To-morrow night’ll be the rubber. Waterloo won’t be jack stones to what I’ll do to you.”
But Morgan was in no condition to walk the next day. He lay by the smouldering fire, inclined to complain.
“Another twenty-four hours and you’ll be all right,” Duncan said cheerily.
“I’ll never be all right again,” Morgan lamented.
Duncan dried enough sticks and moss at the fire to make a crude bed. He lifted Morgan from the wet ground, then prepared a soup of turkey bones and roots in the detective’s drinking cup. Morgan drank it with relish, but his ailments occupied his mind to the exclusion of chess. So Duncan sat at his side, watching the fire and trying to keep up his spirits.
The last clouds sailed away in the morning. The cold, wet weather was routed. But Morgan’s vocabulary was not sufficiently large to let him walk far at a time. After several attempts he gave up and lay down, groaning.
“Poor old Morgan,” Duncan said, leaning sympathetically over him.
“Go to the corner and send in an ambulance call,” Morgan answered with a grimace. “Then bid me farewell before it begins to pour again. If you hang around for me we’ll both die of water on the brain.”
Duncan patted his shoulder.
“For Heaven’s sake, don’t get delirious — Bob.”
For some time Morgan frowned at the fire.
“Beau,” he said at last, “I mean it. I haven’t got the build for a millstone. Besides, I can’t be under obligations. I can’t let pleasure interfere with business. If you get out do me just two favours. Send a posse in for me and wire the office to get another man after you as quick as lightning.”
“My position is very simple,” Duncan answered. “I wouldn’t leave you if you offered me title to all the real estate in this swamp.”
Morgan grinned.
“Since you’re talking shop, Beau, you may be a Southern cavalier and me a Yankee born, but I never took fifty per cent, and I see ten suckers in my business any day where you see one.”
“No use trying to get me mad, Bobbie. I’m too selfish to leave you and face this cheerless world alone.”
“Well, just remember, Beau, I’ll get you. As sure as the whole world’s gone to grass and water, I’ll get you.”
“I admire ambition,” Duncan said. “I regret that I can not encourage it. But the problem need not trouble us at present. Let me make you comfortable, then I’ll roll you another cigarette.”
He carried Morgan to a sunny spot, and gave his limbs a thorough, hard massage. Afterward the detective struggled up and began to walk in a crouching position. Duncan cut a stout stick for him. He took his arm and helped him all he could.
“You’re sure full of sand, Bob,” he said.
Without answering, Morgan walked on. Now and then he would pause, but always, after a few minutes’ rest, he would start forward again. By and by his figure crouched less and his steps grew longer.
He was exhausted when they made camp, but the worst of his pains had left him, and it was he who proposed after supper that they play the rubber game.
“I’m an awful object to think about,” he explained. “Men have gone nutty over less. I’ve got to get my mind off myself. Besides, I’d like to know who’s the better man. If I hadn’t lost sight of one thing last time there wouldn’t have been anything to it.”
The game was slow. Each was determined to win, so each took as long as he pleased for his moves. Morgan, when he could scarcely keep his eyes open, suggested that they postpone the finish until the next evening.
“I guess I’m trained a little fine,” he said. “I don’t want to make a slip.”
“It looks like a draw to me,” Duncan answered.
“It looked as though I’d get out of this swamp the day I came in, but did I? Study the board. I can see more than one way to slip over a knock-out.”
Duncan laughed.
“I’m afraid you’ll never win this game.”
“I’ve got to and I will,” Morgan said. “I’ll bet you three pine trees and a case of swamp water — magnums!”
He folded the board, returned it to his pocket, lay down, and was fast asleep in a twinkling.
They were off by the time the sun had slipped its first long shadows through the swamp. Morgan was convalescent. He walked steadily onward, resting one hand on Duncan’s shoulder. They talked of the unfinished game which had assumed colossal proportions in their dwarfed minds. But that rubber was destined never to be finished. It was a little after noon when Morgan said in a hushed voice:
“Beau, wait a minute.”