“That’s not news. Look here—” I dug around in my wallet and produced a long pink and gray slip of paper. There were some pictures on it, scenes of soldiers riding horses into battle. Wiedenbeck stared down at it.
I continued, “This is a Confederate ten-dollar bill. I’ll bet you this ten bucks some sheriff’s office around the state will find that car. Ten bucks against your signature on my renewal. Some sheriff will find that Studebaker in a ditch somewhere, maybe wrecked, and somebody else will pop in and claim it was stolen in Croyden or someplace.”
The red-haired policeman searched my face.
“How did you know that?” he demanded suspiciously.
“Know what?” But I felt another kick in the teeth coming my way.
“About that sedan being stolen in Croyden. It was ditched just inside our county line. Sheriff’s deputy found it an hour or so ago. How’d you know?”
I stared at him in disgust. That wasn’t what I was waiting for: the belly-blow was coming in low and fast. Finally I asked him, “Who did it belong to?”
“Some big shot over there by the name of — hell.”
This was it.
He frowned, pushed aside some sketches and ran a bony finger down the page of his record book. Then he looked up at me, or rather at a spot in space some feet over my head.
“Can you imagine that?” he asked me, awed. “Maybe I’d better phone the sergeant.”
“Damn you, give it!” I yelled at him.
“The sedan belonged to the bumpee — you know, this guy Harry Evans. Imagine being run down and knocked off with your own car! I think I had better phone the sergeant.”
I whirled and walked to the door. Before reaching it I paused long enough to say over my shoulder, “Don’t forget I was in here before midnight about that license.”
He was still contemplating the ceiling with an open mouth. I hoped something would fall in it.
The wind hit me when I reached the bottom of the steps. I grabbed my flopping overcoat and buttoned it. There was something missing, something that should have pressured me but didn’t.
I had left my gun and holster at the barn.
The office is cold, the heat in the building is turned off early in the evening. I wanted to get this off to you before going home to bed, Louise. I’ve discovered that if I mail a letter in the post office slot by one A.M. it is put on the southbound train a couple of hours later and will reach you in the first mail delivery the same morning. Some seven or eight hours from now.
A good many surprising things have happened since I wrote you about Evans’ death yesterday afternoon, but the most surprising is the discovery of myself.
I’ve just realized what a damned fool I am.
Boone, Ill.
Wednesday, P.M.
Hello, Darling:
It’s another day and another dollar, so some fool once said before he joined the union. For me it’s the very nice sum of five hundred Washington rubles.
I awoke bright and early this morning and thought of me without gun or license. Otherwise the day was brilliant — in the beginning. Mother Hubbard had frozen strawberries for breakfast. Every now and then she makes it a point to ask about you and me; I think she’s as impatient as I am. Sometimes I let her read these letters, or those from you.
It had stopped snowing. The sky was clear, a brisk and delightful blue with summer-looking clouds. The early morning sun was so bright on the snow I had to shut my eyes against the glare, walking downtown. The weather remained so cold that snow crunched underfoot with every step. People in overcoats and mufflers were scooping it off the walks.
When I reached the office I had the fun of discovering the money — or rediscovering it, rather — that Evans had given me as a retainer. It was still lying in the upper drawer of the desk where I had left it yesterday. The sight of it did give me a little jolt. I thought I had put it away. My seven piles of manuscript were still on the floor, the top pages slipping off the stacks. The janitor still hadn’t swept.
The only piece of mail was a postcard teaser from a Chicago insurance company. Insure yourself and all your loved ones (yes, the old folks too!) for a dollar a month — no medical examinations. A very-small-type and restricted clause company. Die somewhere, any old where, and you’ll discover the insurance isn’t collectable because you didn’t die between clean sheets with a hot water bottle at each foot and a featherless pillow under your head. So sorry.
These insurance policies are straight sounding but tricky if you didn’t bother to read them. Take that accidental death stuff. Face value will be doubled if the policy holder dies an accidental death. Few people know what an accidental death is. Harry Evans’ death wasn’t. Premeditated or not, the driver of that sedan saw him and ran him down. Evans’ wife will never collect double on his policy.
First thing off the bat I went downstairs again and paid the girl in the real estate office a month’s rent on the cubbyhole I occupy. The sign on the window read:
