He had reached the old lady’s kitchen door a few minutes after being refused by “the other lady.” He had knocked, and the old lady had come to the door. He had asked for something to eat. The old lady had said she did not feed beggars, but that if he was willing to work for his food she would feed him well. He had said yes, he would do anything, he was not a beggar, he would work for his meal, what work did she have for him to do? She had said to him, you will find some logs behind the barn and an ax in the barn. Take the ax and split the logs in quarters for firewood, they are too heavy for an old woman as they are, and they will burn better in quarters. He had gone to the barn, found the ax, walked through the lean-to and around behind the barn, where the logs were lying, and he had set to work splitting them with the ax. He had split many logs in the past three years during his wanderings from farm to farm, and he was expert. It took him only a few minutes—
“How many logs did you split?” interrupted Johnny.
“Six log,” said the prisoner.
“You split each log into four pieces?”
“Four. Yes.”
“And this took you only a few minutes, you say?”
“Go quick when know how.”
“How many minutes, Kowalczyk?”
The prisoner shrugged. He was no man to count the minutes, he said. But very few. He remembered that just as he had finished splitting the last log, the rain began.
“Two o’clock,” murmured Judge Shinn.
He had hurriedly but neatly stacked the firewood in the empty lean-to, replaced the ax in the barn, and run back to the house. The old lady had made him wipe his feet on a mat before he could enter.
He had thought her a very queer old lady. First, she had refused him food unless he worked. Then, the work she had given him to do was to split firewood — in July! Then, when he had split the firewood, she had not only had ready for him on the kitchen table a plate piled high with boiled ham and potato salad and a big piece of berry pie and a pitcher of milk, but while he was eating she had taken down from the top shelf of a kitchen cabinet a jar stuffed with money and she had given him from it a fifty-cent piece. Then she had put the jar back and gone through the swinging door into another room, and he was left alone with the money.
He choked on the food, temptation had been so strong. It was no excuse, he said, but his pockets were empty, and this old woman seemed to have so much. If he was to get a job in the Cudbury leather factory at his old trade, he would need money to make himself look clean and prosperous, to rent decent lodgings as a working man of self-respect should, instead of bedding down on hay in a barn like a beast. It was no excuse, but temptation was too strong. He had bolted down only half the food on the plate, he had not touched the berry pie or the milk. He had got noiselessly out of the chair and tiptoed to her door and swung it open a little. The old lady was standing in the other room, her back to him, painting a picture. He had swung the door shut without sound, reached up to the jar, taken out all the paper money, and run out of the old lady’s house. And he had walked very fast up the road leading to Cudbury, clutching the money in his pocket. Only once had he stopped in the rain, to go behind some bushes, wrap the stolen money in his handkerchief, tie it to a length of rope he had in his satchel, and tie the rope around his waist beneath his clothing.
And that was all he knew about the old lady, said the prisoner. He had done wrong, he had stolen her money, for this he should be punished. But kill? No! He had left her alive, painting a picture in the room beyond her kitchen. He could not kill. He would not kill. He had seen too much killing in his life. Blood made him sick. He swore by the Holy Mother of God, crossing himself, that he had not touched so much as a hair of the old lady’s head. Only her money...
Judge Shinn was regarding Johnny quizzically, as if to ask, Now you’ve heard his story, how sure are you he killed Aunt Fanny?
The prisoner lay back on the cot again. He seemed indifferent. Evidently he had not expected to be believed, he had told his story only because it was required of him.
Kowalczyk closed his eyes.
Johnny stood over him, puzzled. In the course of his Intelligence and Criminal Investigation work in the Army, he had questioned many men, and long ago he had learned to detect the subtle aroma of falsehood. About this man he was not sure. By every physical and psychological sign, Josef Kowalczyk was telling the truth. But there were serious discrepancies.
Judge Shinn said nothing.
Johnny said, “Kowalczyk.”
The man opened his eyes.
“You say that the wood you split you stacked in the lean-to next to the barn. How long were the logs you split? How many feet?”
The prisoner held his hands apart.
“About three feet. They were all the same length?”
Kowalczyk nodded.
“Why do you lie, Kowalczyk?”
“I not lie!”
