“Who else have gun permits? Besides mine? And skip the night watchmen, I know them.”
“Not many. Two or three maybe.”
“Name them.”
“Well, there’s that gas station fellah out on the highway who’s always getting jacked; and a truck driver for Ackerman’s fur store; lessee — yeah, and a dentist. Yours makes four.”
“A dentist? Who? And why?”
“The guv’s name is Sehnert. He’s got an office in the little bank building. Held up once and some gold stuff taken. Personally I think he’s a blamed fool. He’ll get shot as sure as hell if he tries to use a gun the next time it happens. So long Horne. I mean it this time.” And he did.
I was already on the stairs leading to the street.
The girl in the real estate office grinned at me and said yak, yak, how’s the heat now big boy?
I answered yak, yak, it’s getting warmer toots and loan me your city directory. She did, and I looked up the dentist.
He had one line, same as everyone else. Sehnert, Forrest, DDS., had two kids and a wife named Myrtle. A fine guy to be toting a gun. A little bell symbol indicated they had a phone and a small
The office girl was watching me.
“What do you know about a dentist named Sehnert, Forrest?” I asked her.
She grimaced. “He’s high, big boy.”
“Good looking?”
She repeated the grimace. “Fat and forty. His tummy pushes against you when he leans over to yank a tooth. He should wear a girdle.”
So Sehnert, Forrest, wasn’t the man in the tuxedo.
“Did you see the accident yesterday?”
“I sure did, big boy. Gruesome, wasn’t it?”
“Oh well, women are bumping guys off all the time. They’re old hands at the game.”
“Sometimes they have good reason!” she snapped.
“Yeah, sometimes. Maybe this one was worried about the price of eggs and couldn’t bother to stop.”
“Oh, they’ll find her,” little talkie declared. “Them snappy cars ain’t so thick in Boone.”
“They’ve already found the car, ditched. It was from Croyden. Did you get a good look at the driver?”
“Sure. Saw her as plain as day. She didn’t look like so much; not good enough to rate a car like that one.”
“The sedan belonged to the man she ran down.”
“You don’t say!” She paused and chewed on it. “Jilted huh?”
“I don’t know, I haven’t asked her yet.”
“Funny boy. The coppers said I was smart.”
“They would. They don’t know you like I do. When did they say so?”
“When they asked me to describe her — but you know, I’m not so sure she had red hair after all. I told them it was kinda auburn. But it seems to me now she was a brownette.”
“You’re a good girl. I’m sure you helped them.” And I beat it back upstairs to the office.
My next phone call was to the public library. I asked the librarian if she kept files of the papers published by the amateur journalism society.
She said they did not — but which society in particular did I have reference to? She thought perhaps she could find some information on it. I admitted that I didn’t know there was more than one. She said, oh my yes, there were at least three to her knowledge: three large national and international organizations, and there were probably other, smaller societies.
I then asked her if anybody in town had papers published in them. She replied no one did to her knowledge, but she was sure there were members in both Chicago and St. Louis. So I asked her if she could give me a line on the general slant of these amateur magazines — what did they write about and so forth.
She was very patient and informative, that librarian. For the better part of twenty minutes she explained to me in some detail how the amateurs, men and women and kids, put out the papers just for the sheer hell of publishing them. Some of them, she said, were little pamphlets and mimeographed pages stapled together; while others were large professional-appearing magazines. There was one common denominator: the owners loved to write, type, edit and print the things by hand and give them away free for the privilege of receiving still other papers.
I asked if any of them were concerned with table-top photography. She replied no. although they sometimes included photographs in the contents. She said the two largest organizations were almost solely concerned with producing beautiful typography and formats, vying with each other in bringing out the best-looking magazines and papers. The third outfit, the smallest of the three but the only one having international membership, specialized in fantasy and weird books.
“That’s it!” I yelled over the wire. She must have jumped. I apologized. “I’m sorry. That’s the outfit I’ve been searching for. Can you put me in touch with any of the members?”
She asked me to call her back in half an hour. She believed that
Librarians are wonderful people. They should be in the detective business.
