by Jack Iams
“You are an intruder,” said Squareless. “You might as Well feel like one.”
He lifted a brass tray containing coffee things from a taboret and carried it to the door. “Julia,” he called. “Some fresh coffee.” He handed the tray through the door, then crossed the room and sat down behind the desk. “Don’t stand there,” he said. “It makes me nervous.”
Sybil smiled and sank into the easy chair, stretching her feet on the hassock. “A bit of all right, this,” she remarked. “It’s a wonderful room.”
“I like it.”
“My father would have liked it. He loved to travel and collect faraway things.”
“The late Earl?”
Sybil glanced up in surprise. “Yes,” she said. “How did you know?”
“The War Bride people mentioned it. Added inducement, I suppose.”
“No doubt,” said Sybil. She realized, then, why the fat red volume on the desk in front of him was familiar: Burke’s Peerage. Oh ho, she thought, the old boy’s been checking up.
Squareless saw the direction of her gaze and, rather abruptly, changed the subject. “You know,” he said, “you’re the first woman to have entered this room in a great many years.”
“Except for your housekeeper, surely.”
“Naturally.”
“Julia,” said Sybil musingly. “I once had a nanny named Julia.”
“Indeed? How remarkable.”
“It’s remarkable that I should remember it,” said Sybil, flushing slightly at his sarcastic tone. “Because I don’t remember anything else about her.”
The housekeeper entered the room at that moment with the tray, from which fragrant vapor arose. “Where shall I put it?” she asked.
“Where you usually put it,” said Squareless.
She placed the tray on the little round table and asked, “Shall I pour?”
“Don’t bother. Our guest is able-bodied.”
The housekeeper looked at Sybil as if she would have liked to say something reassuring. Then her stern features hardened again and she left the room.
“Pour the coffee while it’s hot,” said Squareless. “None for me, thanks. Had three cups already.”
He watched her while she poured, his thick fingers drumming on the desk. Behind him, the rain slanted against the leaded windowpanes. “Well,” he said presently, “to what do I owe this honor?”
“To an emergency,” said Sybil. “None of our water closets work.”
“Oh,” said Squareless. “Upstairs, second door on your left.”
“The emergency isn’t so great as all that,” said Sybil. “But I would like to get hold of Mr. Whittlebait as soon as possible. I thought perhaps you could tell me how’ one goes about finding these Pinies, as you call them.”
“I can tell you how one goes about it, but I can’t guarantee results. One goes to the general store back in the woods, and if one’s lucky, one finds whom one’s looking for. Otherwise, there’s usually someone who’ll fetch him.”
“I see,” said Sybil. “And how does one find the general store?”
“It’s on the other side of the marshes, where the high ground begins in the cedar swamps. Take the first road to the west and stick with it. You’ll think it’s disappearing under you, but it’ll take you there.”
“Thank you,” said Sybil. She sipped her coffee, then asked, “If I do run Mr. Whittlebait to earth, could I interest you in another bridge session?”
For the first time that morning, Squareless’s expression relaxed. He actually chuckled. “You know,” he said, “gruesome though it was, I rather enjoyed it.”
“So did I,” said Sybil, “in a masochistic way. Why don’t you drop by after lunch?”
“I might.”
In spite of his brusqueness, she got the impression, as Tim had earlier, that he wanted very much to come but, for some reason, was hesitant. “I do hope you will,” she said. She finished her coffee and stood up.
“Wait a minute,” said Squareless. “There’s something I want to show you.” He also arose, pushing his chair back. “Have you noticed the view from these windows?” His voice was amiable enough but the question, somehow, wasn’t. So a conversational hangman might have asked, Have you ever seen a knot like this?
“Why, no,” said Sybil. “Not particularly.”
“‘Fake a look,” said Squareless.
She walked around the desk, hiding her uneasiness with a look of polite interest, and stood beside him in the embrasure.
“It’s a bit blurred at the moment,” said Squareless, “but you can easily imagine what a vista it would be on a clear day. A day like yesterday, for example.”
“Quite,” said Sybil. He was standing close to her, smelling cleanly of soap and shaving-lotion and tobacco. His shoulder, in the velvet jacket, almost touched hers as he leaned toward her to point toward the opposite bluff.
“You can just make out the end of the pier there,” he said. “But yesterday it was as distinct as my own lawn. I could see everything that moved there, and one thing that didn’t move.”
Sybil was silent, waiting.
“I saw a young woman alone on the pier. Alone except for the thing that didn’t move. She seemed strangely interested in that thing. Why?”
He looked straight at her, his rugged features like granite, and yet it seemed to her that his eyes were troubled.
She turned away from his gaze. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Did you recognize him?”
“I still don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes, you do.” His voice was harsh, but harsh with an effort, as if it pained him. “Yon know exactly what I’m talking about.”
He put his hand on her arm and she drew it quickly away. “Please,” she said.
“You’ve got to confide in someone,” he said. “Why won’t you confide in me?”
Sybil lifted her chin and faced him. “I have no need to confide in anyone,” she said. Their eyes met, hers defiant, his grimly regretful. “I must go,” she added. “Will Goethe let me pass?”
“I’ll come with you,” said Squareless.
They passed through the empty hall and across the ragged, wet lawn in silence. Goethe appeared from the tangled rosebushes and trotted beside them to the gate.
Chapter Fifteen
Babes In The Pine Woods
Tim was at work in the library when she returned. He hadn’t heard her come in, evidently, and for a moment she watched him through the French doors. His elbows rested on the desk, one hand holding a cigarette, the other running back and forth through his rumpled hair. He looked at once boyish and scholarly, absorbed in the litter of papers in front of him.
A tender and rather sad little smile touched Sybil’s lips as she watched him. Then she crossed the living-room, tapped on the glass door, and opened it. “Nose to grindstone,” she said. “That’s what I like to see.”
He grinned up at her. “I went down in the cellar to look at the plumbing,” he said, “and a Ph.D. thesis seemed so simple by comparison that I started right in.”
“I’ll leave you to it, then,” said Sybil. “Mr. Squareless told me how to find Mr. Whittlebait.”
“How?”
“One goes to some sort of store back in the woods and whistles.”
“I’d better come with you.”
“You needn’t. Unless you want to.”
“I want to, all right. I’m bogging down in notes I can’t read any more.”
They found the road to the west without any difficulty, but it was a good thing Squareless had mentioned its tendency to disappear or they might have abandoned it. Once outside of the town, it became little more than a couple of sandy ruts running through the brown marsh grass toward the thick gloom of the cedar swa
mps. The gray light deepened as they drove through the cedars, rising from pools half hidden in the underbrush. Then the needle-carpeted pine woods began.
Almost immediately they came to a circular clearing on one side of which sat, unmistakably, the general store. It was a small ramshackle building with a corrugated tin roof and smoke coming out of a rusted metal chimney. Its two front windows were plastered with signs that announced everything from last year’s county fair to next year’s Miss Rheingold. Cases of empty beer and pop bottles were slacked against one end of it.
Across the way was a sagging frame house with a fence of sporadic pickets around it. Chickens pecked aimlessly about the bare yard and a couple of smeary children sat huddled in the door. Through the dark green trees other houses were visible here and there, shacks really, some of corrugated tin, some of wood and tarpaper and, possibly, string and safety pins.
“This, I take it, is the native village,” said Tim. “Looks hostile,” said Sybil. “We should have brought some glass beads.”
Tim parked the car beside the store and they approached the front door in which cardboard substituted for glass. “Do we knock?” asked Sybil.
“Don’t see why,” said Tim. “It’s public.”
He pushed the door open and they walked inside. A strong smell of kerosene, of tobacco in its less lovely forms, and of damp clothing met them with a steamy rush. A counter ran the length of the room, which was lit by a bare and dangling bulb, and there were glass cases at each end with candy bars and chewing-gum in them. Behind it, with his hat on, the middle-aged storekeeper, wearing a soiled apron over a blue turtle neck sweater, was figuring out the purchases of a woman dressed in a man’s mackinaw.
Beside the pot-bellied stove in the middle of the room sat half a dozen men playing cards. Two of them sat on kitchen chairs and the rest on upturned boxes. A flat piece of beaverboard, resting on two boxes, served as a table. The men were dressed much as Mr. Whittlebait and, for that matter, the corpse on the pier had been dressed. They all had either hats or caps on.
Everybody looked up as Tim and Sybil entered, suspicious eyes landing on the strangers with an impact almost physical. Then quickly the various pairs of eyes were lowered or turned away, no one looking directly at them, but all watchful, studying.
The storekeeper slowly put his stub of a pencil behind his ear. “How do,” he said. He sounded wary, but ready to be cordial if it seemed advisable.
“How do,” said Tim pleasantly. “We’re looking for Mr. Whittlebait.”
“Ah, Mr. Whittlebait,” said the storekeeper. “Then you’d be Mr. and Mrs. Ludlow.”
“That’s right,” said Tim.
“Well, I tell you,” said the storekeeper thoughtfully, “Mr. Whittlebait lives back in the woods a ways, but there’s no sense you trompin’ through the rain just to find him. He’ll be along here any minute, so why don’t you just make yourselves comfortable and wait for him?”
“Okay,” said Tim.
“Thank you,” said Sybil. She strolled to the counter and idly examined a pyramid of canned goods next to one of the glass cases. Tim lit a cigarette and watched the card game. Apparently it was pinochle, which he didn’t understand.
The storekeeper finished his calculations on the back of a paper bag and the woman paid him out of a worn purse and started to go. Her arms were full of bundles and she had trouble reaching for the doorknob. Tim opened it for her and felt the disapproval of the card players turned on him. The woman looked surprised and didn’t say anything.
Tim walked back to the counter beside Sybil, and the storekeeper edged toward them. “Hear you folks found a cadaver on the pier,” he said respectfully. “Kind of a shock, I guess. Especially for the lady.”
“The lady was in London all through the blitz,” said Tim, “and it takes a good deal to shock her.”
“That so?” said the storekeeper. He looked at Sybil admiringly. Sybil concentrated modestly on a can of beans.
The storekeeper turned back to Tim. “Seems to have been a case of suicide,” he went on. “Terrible thing. Can’t understand it. He was such a nice, quiet sort of fellow.”
There was a sharp thud as Sybil dropped the can of beans. The faces around the card table looked up quickly. Sybil managed a feeble laugh and said, “Butterfingers.” Then she picked up the can and put it back on the pyramid with care.
“You knew him, did you?” asked Tim, trying hard to keep his own voice casual.
“Well, I did and I didn’t,” said the storekeeper. “He was a man kept pretty much to himself. Fact is, I don’t even know his name. All I know is he lived somewhere in the woods and come here for his vittles. One of these old-timers, I guess; outlived his folks and didn’t see much sense makin’ new friends at his time of life. Folks get like that in the woods.”
“I see,” said Tim. “Had he lived around here long?” Before the storekeeper could answer, the door opened and Elias Whittlebait walked in.
It was obvious that Mr. Whittlebait cut something of a swathe in his own bailiwick. He didn’t put doeskin gloves into a Homburg and hand them to anybody, but it was that kind of an entrance. There was a commotion among the card players as they moved around to make room for him and everybody said; “Mornin’, Elias,” and “What say, Elias?” and similar greetings of a respectful nature.
“Mornin’, everybody,” said Mr. Whittlebait, bowing in all directions. Then he saw Tim and Sybil and his manner grew subtly deferential, at the same time making it plain that they were aliens. “Well,” he said, “what brings you folks back country?”
“You, Mr. Whittlebait,” said Sybil.
“Bet I know what it’s about, too,” said Mr. Whittlebait, chuckling roguishly. “It’s about that there”—he stepped toward them and lowered his voice—“that there commode.”
“Them there commodes,” corrected Sybil. “They’re all on the blink, now.”
“Do tell,” said Mr. Whittlebait. “Still, it don’t surprise me.” So might a Secretary of State have resignedly learned that his peace policy had failed in a wicked world.
“What you folks need,” he went on, “is a plumber. A genuine plumber. Don’t worry about hurtin’ my feelings. It’s like I was your family doctor and something happened you needed a specialist. Same thing exactly.”
“Can you recommend a specialist?” asked Tim.
Mr. Whittlebait considered. “For a job like this one,” he said thoughtfully, “I reckon Timkins is your best man. If it was an outside job, I’d say Bassett, but for this particular one, give me Timkins. That’s Timkins over to Bankville.”
“Could we phone him from here?” asked Sybil.
“’Fraid not, ma’am,” said Mr. Whittlebait.
From a back room came a whirring ring. Sybil raised her eyebrows and the storekeeper said, “There goes that dratted alarm clock again.” He went into the back room.
“We might as well drive over to Bankville,” said Tim.
“I suppose so,” said Sybil. “Thank you, Mr. Whittlebait. And if you’d like another go at bridge, drop around this afternoon.”
Mr. Whittlebait glanced with embarrassment at the card players but he also looked flattered. “Well, now,” he murmured, “I might at that. Like you say, it’s a social asset.”
“Good,” said Sybil. “We’ll be looking for you.”
They walked back to the car in silence. Tim was waiting for Sybil to comment but she only puffed absently on a cigarette as they drove back through the cedar swamp. It was not until they had emerged from the woods into the marshland, hazy with the fine rain, that she spoke. “Well,” she said lightly, “it looks as if we were mistaken, doesn’t it?”
“I’d like to think so,” said Tim. “I don’t, though.”
“What other explanation is there?”
“That Magruder had a hideaway somewhere around here.”
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p; “But why?”
“Because somebody was after him. Somebody who finally got him.”
“Somehow,” said Sybil pensively, “I can’t think of Sam Magruder as running away to the woods to hide from anybody. It doesn’t sound like him.”
“It’s nothing against him,” said Tim. “Lots of good people have done it. Seems to me there was an English king who actually hid in a tree.”
“Possibly,” said Sybil. “It still doesn’t sound like Sam Magruder.”
Tim felt irritation crawling over him again. He shrugged and let the subject drop.
Bankville, in spite of the drizzle, looked comparatively cheerful after the desolation of Merry Point and the pine woods. People in raincoats or carrying umbrellas scurried along the pavements, and the stores, soda fountains, and eating-places looked cozy behind their rain-blurred windows.
As they drove along Main Street, they heard a police whistle and both turned to see their friend the Chief waving at them. Tim stopped the car and he came toward them at a dog-trot, or, more accurately, a panda-trot. He rested his elbows on the window frame beside Tim, puffing and beaming under a black rubber hood.
“Wondered how I was going to get in touch with you folks,” he panted. “Wanted to let you know the inquest’s all set for tomorrow. Two o’clock. Hope you don’t mind.”
“Not at all,” said Sybil, smiling at him. “Have there been any developments?”
“Routine developments, that’s all. Doc Medford’s report shows it must have been suicide, all right.”
“Must have been?” repeated Tim.
The Chief looked faintly annoyed. “Well, it didn’t show any reason to think it wasn’t,” he said. “That’s good enough for me.”
“And that makes it good enough for us,” said Sybil.
“Thank you, ma’am,” said the Chief. “We got him identified, too. More or less, anyhow.”
“Who was the poor chap?” asked Sybil.
“Like I figured, one of these Pinies. Two or three of ’em knew him by sight. Lived back there all by himself, apparently.”