Ernie Allen bared all his heap of teeth and stepped forward. “Did you see Bones today?” he asked with the firm skill of repetition. The Judge nodded. “How many times and when?”
“Once. Er … shortly before noon. He crossed my yard, going east.”
The boys bent over the pad. Then Freddy’s lips opened hard. “How do you know the time, Judge Kittinger?”
“Well,” said the Judge, “hm … let me think. I was looking out the window for my company and just then he arrived.”
“Five minutes of one, sir,” Mike said.
Freddy flashed around. “What makes you sure?”
“I looked at my watch,” said Russell. “I was taught to be exactly five minutes early when I’m asked to a meal.” There was a nodding among the boys, and Miss Dana wrote on the pad.
“Then I was mistaken,” said the Judge thoughtfully. “It was shortly before one. Of course.”
Phil Bourchard took over. “Did you see anyone go into Matlin’s driveway or back lot?”
“I did not.”
“Were you out of doors or did you look up that way?”
“Yes, I … When we left the table. Mike?”
“At two-thirty, sir.”
“How do you know that time for sure?” asked Freddy Titus.
“Because I wondered if I could politely stay a little longer.” Russell’s eyes congratulated Miss Lillian Dana. She had made them a team, and on it, Freddy was the How-do-you-know-for-sure Department.
“Can you swear,” continued Phil to the Judge, “there was nobody at all around Matlin’s back lot then?”
“As far as my view goes,” answered the Judge cautiously.
Freddy said promptly, “He couldn’t see much. Too many trees. We can’t count that.”
They looked at Miss Dana and she marked on the pad. “Thank you. Now, you have a cook, sir? We must question her.”
“This way,” said the Judge, rising and bowing.
Russell looked after them and his eyes were velvet again. He met the Judge’s twinkle. Then he sat down and ran an eye quickly over some of the sheets of paper, passing each on to his host.
Startled, he looked up. Lillian Dana, standing in the door, was watching his face.
“Do you think, Mike …”
A paper drooped in the Judge’s hand.
“We can’t stop,” she challenged.
Russell nodded, and turned to the Judge. “May need some high brass, sir.” The Judge rose. “And tell me, sir, where Matlin plays golf. And the telephone number of the Salvage League. No, Miss Dana, we can’t stop. We’ll take it where it turns.”
“We must,” she said.
It was nearly ten when the neighbors began to come in. The Judge greeted them soberly. The Chief of Police arrived. Mrs. Somers, looking grim and uprooted in a crêpe dress, came. Mr. Matlin, Mrs. Page, Mr. and Mrs. Daugherty, a Mr. and Mrs. Baker, and Diane Bourchard who was sixteen. They looked curiously at the tight little group, the boys and their blond teacher.
Last of all to arrive was young Mr. Russell, who slipped in from the dark veranda, accepted the Judge’s nod, and called the meeting to order.
“We have been investigating the strange death of a dog,” he began. “Chief Anderson, while we know your department would have done so in good time, we also know you are busy, and some of us,” he glanced at the dark windowpane, “couldn’t wait. Will you help us now?”
The Chief said genially, “That’s why I’m here, I guess.” It was the Judge and his stature that gave this meeting any standing. Naïve, young, a little absurd it might have seemed had not the old man sat so quietly attentive among them.
“Thank you, sir. Now, all we want to know is what happened to the dog.” Russell looked about him. “First, let us demolish the tramp.” Mrs. Page’s feathers ruffled. Russell smiled at her. “Mrs. Page saw a man go down Matlin’s drive this morning. The Salvage League sent a truck to pick up rags and papers which at ten forty-two was parked in front of the Daughertys’. The man, who seemed poorly dressed in his working clothes, went to the tool room behind Matlin’s garage, as he had been instructed to. He picked up a bundle and returned to his truck. Mrs. Page,” purred Mike to her scarlet face, “the man was there. It was only your opinion about him that proves to have been, not a lie, but an error.”
He turned his head. “Now, we have tried to trace the dog’s day and we have done remarkably well, too.” As he traced it for them, some faces began to wear at least the ghost of a smile, seeing the little dog frisking through the neighborhood. “Just before one,” Mike went on, “Bones ran across the Judge’s yard to the Allens’ where the kids were playing ball. Up to this time no one saw Bones above Greenwood Lane or up Hannibal Street. But Miss Diane Bourchard, recovering from a sore throat, was not in school today. After lunch, she sat on her porch directly across from Mr. Matlin’s back lot. She was waiting for school to be out, when she expected her friends to come by.
“She saw, not Bones, but Corky, an animal belonging to Mr. Daugherty, playing in Matlin’s lot at about two o’clock. I want your opinion. If poisoned bait had been lying there at two, would Corky have found it?”
“Seems so,” said Daugherty. “Thank God, Corky didn’t.” He bit his tongue. “Corky’s a show dog,” he blundered.
“But Bones,” said Russell gently, “was more like a friend. That’s why we care, of course.”
“It’s a damned shame!” Daugherty looked around angrily.
“It is,” said Mrs. Baker. “He was a friend of mine, Bones was.”
“Go on,” growled Daugherty. “What else did you dig up?”
“Mr. Matlin left for his golf at eleven-thirty. Now, you see, it looks as if Matlin couldn’t have left poison behind him.”
“I must certainly did not,” snapped Matlin. “I have said so. I will not stand for this sort of innuendo. I am not a liar. You said it was a conference …”
Mike held the man’s eye. “We are simply trying to find out what happened to the dog,” he said. Matlin fell silent.
“Surely you realize,” purred Mike, “that, human frailty being what it is, there may have been other errors in what we were told this afternoon. There was at least one more.
“Mr. and Mrs. Baker,” he continued, “worked in their garden this afternoon. Bones abandoned the ball game to visit the Bakers’ dog Smitty. At three o’clock the Bakers, after discussing the time carefully lest it be too late in the day, decided to bathe Smitty. When they caught him for his ordeal Bones was still there.… So, you see, Miss May Matlin, who says she saw Bones lying by the sidewalk before three o’clock, was mistaken.”
Matlin twitched. Russell said sharply, “The testimony of the Bakers is extremely clear.” The Bakers, who looked alike, both brown outdoor people, nodded vigorously.
“The time at which Mr. Matlin returned is quite well established. Diane saw him. Mrs. Daugherty, next door, decided to take a nap, at five after three. She had a roast to put in at four-thirty. Therefore, she is sure of the time. She went upstairs and from an upper window, she, too, saw Mr. Matlin come home. Both witnesses say he drove his car into the garage at three-ten, got out, and went around the building to the right of it—on the weedy side.”
Mr. Matlin was sweating. His forehead was beaded. He did not speak.
Mike shifted papers. “Now, we know that the kids trooped up to Phil Bourchard’s kitchen at about a quarter of three. Whereas Bones, realizing that Smitty was in for it, and shying away from soap and water like any sane dog, went up Hannibal Street at three o’clock sharp. He may have known in some doggy way where Freddy was. Can we see Bones loping up Hannibal Street, going above Greenwood Lane?”
“We can,” said Daugherty. He was watching Matlin. “Besides, he was found above Greenwood Lane soon after.”
“No one,” said Mike slowly, “was seen in Matlin’s back lot except Matlin. Yet, almost immediately after Matlin was there, the little dog died.”
“Didn’t Diane …”
“Diane’s friends came at three-twelve. Their evidence is not reliable.” Diane blushed.
“This … this is intolerable!” croaked Matlin. “Why my back lot?”
Daugherty said, “There was no poison lying around my place, I’ll tell you that.”
“How do you know?” begged Matlin. And Freddy’s eyes, with the smudges under them, followed to Russell’s face. “Why not in the street? From some passing car?”
Mike said, “I’m afraid it’s not likely. You see, Mr. Otis Carnavon was stalled at the corner of Hannibal and Lee. Trying to flag a push. Anything thrown from a car on that block, he ought to have seen.”
“Was the poison quick?” demanded Daugherty. “What did he get?”
“It was quick. The dog could not go far after he got it. He got cyanide.”
Matlin’s shaking hand removed his glasses. They were wet.
“Some of you may be amateur photographers,” Mike said. “Mr. Matlin, is there cyanide in your cellar darkroom?”
“Yes, but I keep it … most meticulously …” Matlin began to cough.
When the noise of his spasm died, Mike said, “The poison was embedded in ground meat which analyzed, roughly, half-beef and the rest pork and veal, half and half.” Matlin encircled his throat with his fingers. “I’ve checked with four neighborhood butchers and the dickens of a time I had,” said Mike. No one smiled. Only Freddy looked up at him with solemn sympathy. “Ground meat was delivered to at least five houses in the vicinity. Meat that was one-half beef, one-quarter pork, one-quarter veal, was delivered at ten this morning to Matlin’s house.”
A stir like an angry wind blew over the room. The Chief of Police made some shift of his weight so that his chair creaked.
“It begins to look …” growled Daugherty.
“Now,” said Russell sharply, “we must be very careful. One more thing. The meat had been seasoned.”
“Seasoned!”
“With salt. And with … thyme.”
“Thyme,” groaned Matlin.
Freddy looked up at Miss Dana with bewildered eyes. She put her arm around him.
“As far as motives are concerned,” said Mike quietly, “I can’t discuss them. It is inconceivable to me that any man would poison a dog.” Nobody spoke. “However, where are we?” Mike’s voice seemed to catch Matlin just in time to keep him from falling off the chair. “We don’t know yet what happened to the dog.” Mike’s voice rang. “Mr. Matlin, will you help us to the answer?”
Matlin said thickly, “Better get those kids out of here.”
Miss Dana moved, but Russell said, “No. They have worked hard for the truth. They have earned it. And if it is to be had, they shall have it.”
“You know?” whimpered Matlin.
Mike said, “I called your golf club. I’ve looked into your trash incinerator. Yes, I know. But I want you to tell us.”
Daugherty said, “Well? Well?” And Matlin covered his face.
Mike said gently, “I think there was an error. Mr. Matlin, I’m afraid, did poison the dog. But he never meant to, and he didn’t know he had done it.”
Matlin said, “I’m sorry … It’s … I can’t … She means to do her best. But she’s a terrible cook. Somebody gave her those … those herbs. Thyme … thyme in everything. She fixed me a lunch box. I … couldn’t stomach it. I bought my lunch at the club.”
Mike nodded.
Matlin went on, his voice cracking. “I never … You see, I didn’t even know it was meat the dog got. She said … she told me the dog was already dead.”
“And of course,” said Mike, “in your righteous wrath, you never paused to say to yourself, ‘Wait, what did happen to the dog?’”
“Mr. Russell, I didn’t lie. How could I know there was thyme in it? When I got home, I had to get rid of the hamburger she’d fixed for me—I didn’t want to hurt her feelings. She tries … tries so hard …” He sat up suddenly. “But what she tried to do today,” he said, with his eyes almost out of his head, “was to poison me!” His bulging eyes roved. They came to Freddy. He gasped. He said, “Your dog saved my life!”
“Yes,” said Mike quickly, “Freddy’s dog saved your life. You see, your stepdaughter would have kept trying.”
People drew in their breaths. “The buns are in your incinerator,” Mike said. “She guessed what happened to the dog, went for the buns, and hid them. She was late, you remember, getting to the disturbance. And she did lie.”
Chief Anderson rose.
“Her mother …” said Matlin frantically, “her mother …”
Mike Russell put his hand on the plump shoulder. “Her mother’s been in torment, tortured by the rivalry between you. Don’t you think her mother senses something wrong?”
Miss Lillian Dana wrapped Freddy in her arms. “Oh, what a wonderful dog Bones was!” She covered the sound of the other voices. “Even when he died, he saved a man’s life. Oh, Freddy, he was a wonderful dog.”
And Freddy, not quite taking everything in yet, was released to simple sorrow and wept quietly against his friend.…
When they went to fetch May Matlin, she was not in the house. They found her in the Titus’s back shed. She seemed to be looking for something.
Next day, when Mr. and Mrs. Titus came home, they found that although the little dog had died, their Freddy was all right. The Judge, Russell, and Miss Dana told them all about it.
Mrs. Titus wept. Mr. Titus swore. He wrung Russell’s hand. “… for stealing the gun …” he babbled.
But the mother cried, “… for showing him, for teaching him.… Oh, Miss Dana, oh, my dear!”
The Judge waved from his veranda as the dark head and the blond drove away.
“I think Miss Dana likes him,” said Ernie Allen.
“How do you know for sure?” said Freddy Titus.
4.
Miss Murphy
Miss Murphy often made reasons to be in the corridor when the four of them were due to come by. She knew their schedules. She could anticipate. She was to be found, looking vague, with papers in her hand, just turning into Mr. Madden’s office, or perhaps just leaving her own, and she would hesitate and frown and pretend to be preoccupied, but her pale green eyes under dust-colored lashes would secretly watch them. After they had gone by, she would go about her business, concealing the depth of her pleasure.
As assistant vice-principal (read clerk) of the high school she ought to have been, without exception, on the side of society and the group. But when the four of them went by in their inevitable formation, something lively and stubborn and sly, something that contradicted everything she lived by, lifted up a voice to say inside her, “Nevertheless, this is magnificent!”
Miss Murphy was a little woman who had looked about the same age for the last fifteen years, ever since she had lost the bloom of being very young. She was a pale redhead with pale freckled skin, and the flesh of her face did not cling cleanly to the bones but was rather doughy and lumpy as if the sculptor had thrown the clay upon the framework in careless preliminary and then never had got around to any refinement of his work. Miss Murphy was everything law-abiding, anxious and reliable. She was destined to be “good old Miss Murphy” and she knew this and was even rather pleased about it. What, in her, responded? What clapped impious applause in her heart—to see the four of them go by?
Miss Murphy was not, of course, the only one who watched them in their habit of march … that strange phenomena … and pretended not to see it. New students were sometimes impelled to jeer in astonishment, but they soon learned that it was better not to notice.
The faculty, the principal’s office staff, the adults, deplored but could not forbid this ritual. Four seniors walked by. That was all. In their passage they did nothing illegal. But they did something. And they did it down the long corridors of the school between classes, whenever all four were able to travel together in the same direction. And on the campus … sometimes as they arrived in the morning, having made some unseen rendez
vous, and every day as they departed … the four of them … the girl, and the boys.
On a spring Tuesday, just before the end of fourth period, Miss Murphy found herself compulsively gathering up a packet of record cards. In a moment the bell would ring, the individual cells of the orderly hive would erupt, the periodical roar of voices and thump of feet and rush of bodies exchanging positions, would happen. Miss Murphy knew she was deliberately waiting out the necessary minutes before the four of them would be going past her door. She rested her wrists upon the edge of her desk, the record cards loose but ready in her hands, and her quiet waiting was like meditation before a dubious god.
When the clock had moved enough, she rose, she opened her door. She did not step out into the humming traffic. She stood still and began to slip and sort the cards.
They were coming, because the hum lessened. The four of them traveled in a shell of lesser noise.
It was always exactly the same. First by a step came the girl, Ivy Voll. She was tall. She had a small head held high on a neck that was disproportionately thick. Her forehead was rounded and high and her dark hair went straight back from this bold brow to hang in a limp mass between her shoulder blades. She walked proudly on small feet that almost crossed over each other to follow a straight line and create a swagger in her narrow hips. Ivy Voll looked dead ahead with eyes like a sleepwalker’s. This was the strange, the subtly evil thing. She walked as if, although she led the pack, she was also its prisoner.
A step behind her and a step to the left loomed Stan Fuller, constituting himself a wall at her back, taller than she, a fierce burly boy. His dark frown went over her left shoulder to warn any interfering thing from their immediate path.
Ranging on the flanks were Ross and Tentor. Greyhounds both, they mooched loosely along, their heads held forward, restless, turning, fending, guarding. Ross, with his long straight slicked blond hair, his long predatory nose, his narrow eyes, walked on the left, his feet even with Stan’s but the forward bend of his torso and neck guarding the girl. Tentor, a less blond version with a nose less sharp, and eyes that were always puffed and sleepy (as if he never slept at night but engaged instead in some nameless dissipation)—Tentor ranged on the right flank and, in the pattern, walked on the halfway line … a bit ahead of the boys, and half a step behind the girl.
I See You Page 4