The detective was just finishing a pungent, savory breakfast of chicken pie and eggs in the bare matting-floored hotel dining-room when Calhoun-not-Calvin Bradley materialized at his table. The puffy proprietor dragged out a chair and sat down. “You may be the owner of this flea-trap,” McGavock said darkly into his coffee. “But the law books will tell you that I have a tenant’s lease on this table. Scram!”
“I did. In spite of that broken-down bed—”
“It’s that bed,” Bradley said smugly, “that I wanted to speak to you about. When you check out of here, you will notice an added debit of $6.80 on your bill. That is for mutilating my best bed — clipping the spring, suh, and twisting it through the key! I’m shocked—”
McGavock asked bleakly: “How do you know?”
“I saw it, suh. With my own eyes.” The hotel man rolled his eyeballs reprovingly. “Shortly after you left the desk last night — to hibernate — I was under the impression that I heard you call me. I knocked on your door. No response. I rattled the panel. All was quiet. I became frantic. I’ve had guests with heart seizures. I raced around to the alley. With the aid of a ladder I reached your room from the outside. You were gone. I must say I was grieved to observe that you had—”
“Go ’way!” McGavock ordered. “You’re constricting my digestive juices.”
Bradley settled himself comfortably. “You’re a deep one, full of dodges. It seemed a bit eccentric at the moment but this morning I think I understand. Toujours l’amour.” He squeezed a lewd wink from the corner of his eyelid. “Someone was telling me that they happened to notice you on the old swamp road with Laurel Bennett last night.” He left the sentence up in the air, on a note of inquiry.
“You’d better take a reef in that limber tongue of yours,” McGavock said quietly. “Or it will bring on an Act of God. You don’t kid me a bit — I’ve been pumped by experts. You, and the whole population, know all about me by now. Who I am and what I’m here for. When the cat gets out of the bag in a village like this one — it divides and scatters. I met Mrs. Bennett by appointment — that was business. I went out along the swamp road and manhandled your friend Chunky — that was pleasure. I’m a detective and I’m here to find out who killed Lester Hodges.”
Bradley tittered. “Who do you favor?”
“I favor you.”
The hotel proprietor asked mockingly: “How do you make that out?”
McGavock folded his napkin in a neat cornucopia, got up. “The man that killed Wainwright killed Hodges. Lester Hodges’ murder was bred in the homicide of that absconder back at Fern Springs thirty years ago.”
Bradley said innocently: “Wainwright? I never heard of him.” He went through a grotesque facial contortion, pretended to remember. “Oh. You mean the man that fell into the quicksand? I recall what you’re speaking of now. A tragic incident. I was clerk at the time. I’d almost forgotten. Wainwright wasn’t murdered.” He lowered his voice confidentially. “The affair was very strange. I’ve thought about it a great deal. What became of the money? No one has ever answered that. Would you like to hear my personal hypothesis?”
“I would, indeed.”
“It’s this,” Bradley announced brightly. “Wainwright didn’t commit suicide. He just used Fern Springs as a blind to throw pursuers off his tracks. He signed up at the resort, paid weeks in advance, learned about Devil’s Elbow — probably from the servants. That gave him an idea. He sneaked out of the back of the building, placed his hat and wallet on the edge of quicksands and left the neighborhood that very night. You see, he had a small cowhide satchel with him. It disappeared when he did. That proves my point. He hightailed and took his seventy thousand with him. Right today he’s doubtless a pillar of society in some place like Johannesburg or Rio.”
There was logic in the hotel man’s statement — and McGavock had to admit it. “If that’s your story,” he rasped, “stick with it. It strikes me you’re mighty clear on the details — considering it happened three decades ago.”
Bradley simpered. “That’s my story. And will remain my story — until a better one comes along.”
Laurel Bennett, herself, was standing in the sunny foyer of the lobby waiting for McGavock. She was wearing jodhpurs and a baggy pearl-colored brushed wool sweater. A short, braided quirt was tucked into her armpit. The bright morning light was harsh, unkind to her. There were tiny crow’s-feet at her temples, her lips were drawn, fagged. “I thought you’d never get up,” she said. “I’ve been watching for you from across the street. Let’s go somewhere and talk, someplace where we’ll be alone. I’ll meet you at the cemetery in ten minutes.”
McGavock was ugly. “We’ll do nothing of the kind. No clandestine conferences for me! If you have anything to unload, let’s have it here and now.”
“But this is too public—”
He prepared to brush past her. “O.K.”
She clutched him desperately by the sleeve. “It’s about the hammer! You have to listen. I’ve found the hammer!”
“I’ve lost no hammer.”
“Don’t taunt me. You know what I’m talking about. Gil came home with your compass last night and told us why you had given it to him. This morning, before anyone was up, I took it out in the toolhouse and found the hammer. It was in a big wooden chest with the rest of the tools. Its head was magnetized. It pulled the compass needle. I tried it out; it picked up nails.”
