Black Mask Magazine (Vol. 24, No. 9 — January, 1942)
- Автор: Reeves Robert, Champion D. L.
- Год: 1942
- Язык: английский
- Год: Fictioneers
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Black Mask Magazine (Vol. 24, No. 9 — January, 1942)». Краткое содержание книги:
“Folks,” I said, “you’ll help me a lot — and speed matters up — if you’ll leave the house and grounds while we’re working on this case. You know — most of you do, anyway — that this stuff about me covering up for my nephew is a lie. I won’t go into that. And you’ll find out soon enough whether that girl in the kitchen is Julie or Johanna Welch. Now will you please go?”
I’d kept my voice calm and friendly. Chauncey Morgan and his wife and Dexter Bassett and Carl Woettel and Tiny Hinkle led the movement toward the gate. Tiny called back: “If you need any help, Ed, lemme know.” That took guts. I could’ve kissed his bald head.
But a dozen or so, all men, left the porch slowly. They hadn’t changed their minds. They were just giving me a little more time. Tom Hogan was the last. He went so slow that I walked over and tapped him on the shoulder. I didn’t lower my voice, either. The others turned.
“I asked the others to leave,” I said, “and they left. Now I’m telling you to beat it. D’you hear me? Beat it!”
He didn’t run. But he pretended he was hurrying to catch up with Sam Chronister.
Doc Rennie was waiting for me in the parlor doorway. All he said was, “My compliments, Ed,” and spread his broad mouth across that square, freckled face of his in a grin. But the tone was a pat on the back and the grin was a medal on my chest. He’d realized what Dave Tyson hadn’t: that the little matter of getting the crowd away without real trouble had been tight stuff.
“Doc,” I said, reddening, “about you getting in the car there, back at the Inn—”
He reddened, too. “Forget it,” he growled. “You’ve got plenty to do.” He made a great to-do about getting himself seated and arranging his cast on a second chair. “And the first thing I’d suggest,” he said, looking up, “is that—”
“Save your breath,” I told him.
Hi Fillmore hadn’t moved an inch since I’d gone out on the porch. I gave it to him straight.
“Your young lady’s upstairs, Hi,” I told him. “That’s Johanna out in the kitchen.”
Dan Garner groaned. Dave, who’s pretty agile in his hefty, loose-jointed way, caught Hi as he started to topple.
But was it relief that almost floored Hi, I wondered? I saw Doc Rennie’s eyes, sharp and hard on Hi, trying to answer the same question.
Hi had hold of himself in a second. He shook off Dave’s hand and spoke to me, but he was looking at Dan Garner.
“Ed,” he said, “if I were you, I’d get Dan to tell me what happened between him and Johanna tonight.”
I saw Dan’s jaw set itself just like my sister’s used to when mother told her to do something she didn’t want to do.
“And Dan,” — Fillmore’s voice had a bite in it now — “I think you’d better explain why you were on the porch spying through the parlor window tonight after I left. Yes, and why you jumped off the porch and ran around the house just a couple of minutes before Julie” — he caught his breath over the name — “began to scream.”
There was a moment’s silence before Dan said quietly: “That’s a goddamn lie.”
He didn’t run at Hi. He just exploded across the room, big brown arms reaching out. He’s a powerful youngster. I’m not exactly anemic myself, and Dave’s built like a grizzly bear, but it was all we could do to tear his hands from Fillmore’s throat.
Dan’s got my sister’s temper, all right. He was whimpering mad when we hauled him across the room and pushed him down on the sofa. Finally he ran the back of his hand across his nose and said to Hi, who was pulling his tie straight: “Why did you come back, Mr. Fillmore?”
Hi’s eyes blazed up behind the thick glasses, but before he could flare back at Dan, Doc Frisbie came in from the dining-room, bag in hand, dog-eared hat on his long head. He was anxious to go. He hates arguments and shouting.
“No sign of criminal assault,” he said to Doc Rennie. He likes Doc Rennie. He’d thought Doc Rennie was just a quack nut-doctor until that time they conducted the autopsy together on Wilhelm Borcker’s baby. “And no weapon used but the hatchet.”
“Strong hand on the hatchet, I suppose?” said Doc Rennie, frowning.
“Yep. Well, good-night, Ed. I’ll be home if you want me.”
“Now we can get going,” I said grimly. This business was beginning to knot me up inside. “Dan, suppose you tell me everything you did tonight from—”
Doc Rennie planted his crutches and levered himself into a more comfortable position. “Ouch!” he said, as the ankle got him. He swore.
The knot inside me grew tighter, harder, because I know Doc Rennie’s style well enough to know that this was a deliberate interruption.
I started again. “Dan, where—”
“Tell me something about these young ladies — their family and background,” said Doc Rennie, rubbing a hand across his forehead in a tired way.
“Hell!” I yelped, and flopped down beside Dan like a sullen kid. Dan drew away, like he was afraid to touch me.
Doc Rennie ignored me, which didn’t cool me off any. He looked at Dave.
Dave looked vague and said: “Ma Thoroughgood knows more about ’em than anyone else in town. I’ll get her down.” He stepped out quick and ran up the stairs before I could stop him.
The lump inside me was so big now that it hurt. I jumped up. “I know all I need to know about ’em,” I told Doc Rennie. “Ma Thoroughgood’ll take all night. And we ain’t got all night.” I thought of the last dozen or so men that had left the porch. Doc Rennie didn’t seem to realize those boys weren’t kidding. I repeated: “I know all I need to know, Doc.”
Doc Rennie stuck one of those black-tobacco cigarettes of his into his face and cupped his lean hands around a match.
“Maybe there’s something you’ve forgotten,” he said, lazy. I caught the tone. It was a flat attempt to make me blow up and ease the tension. So I held onto myself — and stewed inside.
Dave came back with Ma Thoroughgood. Ma’s washed-out eyes were shining. Talk is her racket. Those thin lips don’t ever tire. One question from Doc Rennie hit the jackpot.
First we had the life history of Abner and Abigail Welch: how tight Abner was with his money, what a goose Abigail Welch had been about this faith-healing foolishness. Next we got the birthscene of the twins: no doctor, and Ma Thoroughgood pressed into service as midwife. (“Never so much as gave me an apple from his trees, Abner Welch didn’t.”)
Then came the girlhood of Julie and Johanna. Johanna’s measles, and how Ben Thoroughgood told Abner Welch he oughta call a doctor, and the argument they had. Then Julie’s fall from the black-cherry tree and Abner’s refusal to call Frisbie, and what Ben Thoroughgood said this time. (“And she laid unconscious two days, poor little mite.”)
Then Abigail Welch’s death from diabetes. (Abner wouldn’t call a doctor until her people forced him to, and then it was too late.) And Abner’s death (when the girls were fifteen) from an infection following a torn toenail. (Wouldn’t call a doctor, and it served him right.)
Ma Thoroughgood kind of ran down at this point, for after the death of Abner the twins had gone to live with an uncle in Indiana and she’d lost touch with them for eight years. Then the uncle had died and left them some money and they’d come back to Essexville and bought the old Welch home back again and lived here ever since. Kept the place up themselves; never had a maid and just hired a man in the summer to help with the kitchen garden. They were thirty now.