by Mike Ashley
The sheriff was adamant. Marvin was there; no one else was. So Marvin did it. The sheriff was quite positive in his accusation, and determined to keep Marvin in jail till he rotted. And he probably would have done so, had not a group of the sheriff’s constituents – irritated because their horses were losing shoes like mad, and wagon spokes were falling out, and fenders needed undenting – insisted that Marvin be released to his blacksmith duties. The sheriff gave in, albeit grudgingly, but made Marvin promise to return to the jail at nightfall, which promise was given with alacrity.
The townsfolk were shocked that afternoon to learn that Marvin, on the pretext of going to Anchorville for supplies of some sort, had instead boarded a westbound express for San Francismo, undoubtedly never to return.
The sheriff was about to put out a national alarm for the fugitive when a panicky farmer dashed into the sheriff’s office to announce the second horror.
Abel Stanley, the town’s leading hog-raiser, had been found dead in his pigpen, his noble heart for ever stilled, his terrified blue eyes staring sightlessly into a trough of swill. And stuck into the brim of his hat was a shiny, blue-black feather.
And even as the sheriff was running toward Grogan’s saloon for deputies, Tom the Barkeep came running out to meet him with news of horror number three.
Edward Forbes – who, while not the town drunkard, was next in line for the office – had been discovered under the bar at Grogan’s, his open mouth beneath the spigot of an emptied whisky keg, with a shiny black feather in his buttonhole, completely deceased. But this time the barkeep – under the clear-sighted direction of the sheriff (from the far end of the bar) – found a mark on the body; a strange-hued star-shaped discolouration beneath the left armpit. But on the coroner’s report that this was a birthmark, the town threw up its hands in despair.
The panic began to spread through the heretofore placid village. Thelma Bracy’s significant remarks about the Turk began to take their toll of credible people. Mothers in the town, hoping to discourage the apparently passionately neat killer, began to belt, whip and otherwise mar their children, as a safety measure. “Bruise ’em or lose ’em!” became the battle cry.
The Turk – and not strangely at all, since he was not on speaking terms with any of the villagers – had not yet, on this the third day after Harriet’s demise, heard a thing about the horrors. So it was not strange that he dared to show his face in the town square, striding along mightily toward Gulby’s Drugstore. He thought it unusual that the town children, whose wont it was to dog his patient footsteps while chanting some abominably rhymed ballad about cranberry sauce and people from Turkey, did not do so this day. Indeed, they all vanished into houses, up trees, and around corners as soon as the measured clump of his heavy boots announced his imminent arrival at the town square.
As he ducked his prodigious torso enough to permit passing his head through the door of the store, all the customers turned and stared at him, white-faced and speechless.
Gulby the Druggist, who was the excitable type, blurted out, “It’s him!! The fiend!” and made his short speech memorable by collapsing upon the toothpaste stand, his paunchy frame carrying the hapless display to the floor, where the weight of his body pressed resolutely downward, causing him to sag amid a spreading wiggle of fluoridated dental cream.
“Evil eye!” screamed the villagers in the store, and, covering their eyes with one hand, outstretched the other like stiff-arming football players and rushed pell-mell from the drugstore.
Now the sheriff was really on the spot. An angry body of citizens came to his office and demanded that he arrest the monster (for who could it be but the Turk?) at once, or they’d put their democratic powers of recall into immediate effect and elect a new sheriff.
That settled him. Bolstering up his courage for an hour at Grogan’s Saloon, he proceeded to Mrs Balsam’s boarding house, up the stairs, called out the Turk (who came along amiably enough), and ensconced him in the cell so recently vacated by Marvin Sply. When the sheriff became sober enough to realize the enormity of what he’d done, he headed for Grogan’s at once, to try and blot out the memory.
Well, the fat was in the fire.
With the arrest made, there had to be a trial.
The whole village perked up at the news. Ladies all went out and bought new dresses, new bonnets, new shoes, and new coats, and men all went over to Grogan’s to discuss the facts of the case.
The sheriff was there, as usual, and as the men talked, and the conversation became more uncertain and faltering, the horrible truth came out that no one at all knew anything about the case.
Immediate action had to be taken.
The sheriff’s brother, who was also Assistant District Attorney, was the editor of the town paper. A quick phone call from the sheriff, and the Contest came out in the next issue of the East Anchorville News. The good word spread throughout Massachusetts.
Entries, mostly from women, started pouring in.
BE A WITNESSS! proclaimed the paper. ENTER NOW!
Testimonies were chosen on the basis of thought, creative imagery, and knowledge of the English language. Thelma Bracy’s was by far the best – due, she admitted freely, to a correspondence course she’d once taken in Novel Writing – and the town knew it had a star witness in Thelma
Excitement was at its zenith. It was like the good old days of witch-hunting all over again.
The sun rose and set and rose again, and it was the day of the trial.
Everyone in town was packed into the narrow courthouse. People from neighbouring townships had driven all night to get there for the gala event. Popcorn, cotton candy and cold beer – to the annoyance of the local clergy – were sold on the steps of the courthouse, and the judge, who owned the local brewery, was out there pushing the sales along until almost time for the trial to begin.
The widows of the deceased men – Gulby had passed away during his sensational tumble into the toothpaste, leaving the bereaved widow with her memories and thirty thousand dollars’ Life Insurance – sat well up in front, waiting to see justice done. To ensure a fast pyrotechnic trial and a verdict of “guilty”, they’d been careful to have the DA (the town’s sharpest lawyer, and the brother-in-law of the local editor) send off to Anchorville for three of the greenest lawyers that could be found, fresh from Anchorville U. Law School, and from the three the widows had picked what they hoped was the dullest one.
Thomas Bit, their choice, now sat with the silent Turk, fingering his collar nervously and sharpening his pencil every five minutes. The eyes of the eastern seaboard were upon the courthouse that day, and he’d be an overnight success if he could bring in a verdict of “not guilty”.
He wished that the town had been a little larger, for it had been impossible to get anyone on the jury who didn’t seem to be either a relative of one of the dead men or a good friend of Harriet Cord. As far as that went, all the people seemed to have known Harriet Cord. Had she been the only victim, and had he been able to select a jury of the local women . . . Thomas Bit sighed.
His Honour, wiping a bit of foam off his chin, hurried up the aisle toward his chambers, vanished within them, then the court clerk called everyone to order, and the judge appeared in his solemn black robes, lurched up the steps to the bench, and sat with a loud thud, his eyes somewhat glazed and lips smiling inanely.
Thomas Bit noted this and groaned in his soul.
His Honour rapped sharply for order, dropped the gavel accidentally upon the bald pate of the court scribe, had it recovered and handed back to him, rapped again, and the trial was on!
Ervin Burns, the DA, approached the nervous Mrs Balsam, his grey eyes steely and stern, and manner impeccably modelled after a movie he’d once seen of an infamous trial. Mrs Balsam, no bantamweight by any stretch of the imagination, still managed to shrink to a more compact size as he loomed over her, pince-nez held between right forefinger and thumb.
“You are Nettie Balsam?”
“I am
Nettie Balsam,” she answered, after a thoughtful pause.
“You run the boarding house where the murderer lived?”
“Objection!” yelled Thomas Bit, springing to his feet. “The guilt of this man is what we are here to prove!”
The laughter in the courtroom was deafening until His Honour raised a tolerant hand and waved it to a chuckling murmur. “Please, Mister Bit, you must not interrupt Mister Burns at his work, if you wish the same consideration when she is your witness. Then you will have your chance.”
Abashed, Thomas Bit sank shakily into his chair. “It looks pretty hopeless,” he whispered to the Turk. The Turk merely shrugged his great shoulders and remained stolidly silent.
“You run the boarding house where the alleged murderer lived?” asked the DA.
Thomas Bit sighed, softly, and chewed his nails.
“I do,” said Mrs Balsam. “I run a respectable place!” she added.
There were a few cheers from the front row, where some of her other boarders sat. Mister Balsam hadn’t come that morning. He was at home, asleep.
“And did you ever note anything . . . mysterious . . . about this man?”
“Yes,” said Mrs Balsam severely. “He never ate any of my cooking.”
“Nothing mysterious about that!” came a sotto voce comment from the rear.
The DA cleared his throat, and stared the impertinent one into red-faced silence. Then he smiled at Mrs Balsam.
“And why is that odd?”
“Because the meals’re included in the room rates. Seems funny a man’d spend money for something and then not use it.”
The DA smiled and nodded wisely. “Very funny, indeed. What, in your opinion is the reason for this?”
“Objection!” Thomas Bit was on his feet. “We’re here to get facts, not opinions!”
The judge gave him a baleful stare. “Oh, come now!”
Thomas Bit sank into his chair, completely defeated. “This is awful,” he said to the Turk.
The Turk shrugged again and scratched the back of his head.
“In my opinion,” she said, shuddering, “he didn’t eat or drink anything because he lived on human blood! . . . Or worse!” she added, darkly.
Thomas Bit hid his face in his hands and manfully resisted bursting into tears.
“That will be all,” smiled the DA. “Your witness.”
Thomas Bit composed himself as best he could and approached the witness stand. Mrs Balsam looked at him warily, like a duck watching a woman stitching up a new pillowcase.
“Mrs Balsam . . .” he began.
“Objection!” thundered the DA.
“Sustained!” said the judge.
In the rear row, the editor of the paper smiled happily and wrote furiously in a small pad on his knee. Things were going indeed well, and it was an election year, too.
“Er . . .” Thomas Bit faltered, then tried again. “You are Nettie Balsam?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Has the accused ever given you any trouble as a boarder?”
“Well, no . . . but—”
“Has he ever done anything positively unusual?”
“He didn’t eat my cooking!”
“Then why—” Thomas Bit leaned forward, narrowing his eyes, “did you charge him for it?”
Nettie Balsam faltered. This was a side-issue the DA hadn’t covered in rehearsals. “Because—Because with the extra money, I could buy more food for the other boarders!”
“Then,” said Thomas Bit, pressing his point home, “you never did cook any meals for the Turk. I’ll bet if I were to subpoena your boarders, it would turn out you never even set a place at the table for him! Is that correct?”
Nettie Balsam burst into tears. “Well, I did at first, for the first week he st-stayed at my place, b-but when I saw he wasn’t going to eat, I j-just used the extra money.” She broke into uncontrolled sobbing at this point and couldn’t go on.
Thomas Bit paused until the flood had abated somewhat, then said in a more kindly tone: “Then the loss of this man as a boarder – if he is convicted – is taking money out of your pocket?”
Nettie’s tear-blurred eyes widened at this insidious aspect of the thing, heretofore unconsidered. “Why . . . you’re right!”
Thomas Bit took a step back and indicated the Turk, sitting unperturbed at the table before the bench. “Then do you think this man had anything to do with the horrors?”
Before the shaken DA could object, Nettie Balsam shouted, “No! A thousand times no! He’s innocent as a babe, and, when this is over, he’ll have his own little room waiting for him same as always . . .” She hesitated. “At the same rates, of course.”
“Of course,” said Thomas Bit. “You may step down.”
Nettie Balsam did so, quite contented with herself. In the back row, the editor gnashed his teeth in impotent fury. And the three widows were frozen in stony hatred. Who did this young upstart think he was? The first good murder case in years and he’s making out that the killer is innocent! One of them even wished, momentarily, that her husband were still alive.
The DA, fairly recovered from the near-mortal blow dealt him, called Thelma Bracy to the stand. A hush fell over the room as she waddled proudly up to the small railed-in witness seat. After all, she was something of a celebrity, the star witness whose picture was all over the front page of the local paper, looking knowing and wise.
She immediately crossed one knee over the other. Her knees were not visible, due to the wide slats of the railing, but she crossed them anyhow.
“Your name?” the DA was unctuously charming.
“Thelma. Thelma Bracy.” She looked out to where reporters from neighbouring towns were clustered, pencils poised over notebooks. “T-h-e-l-m-a B-r-a . . .”
“Miss Bracy—” the DA interrupted swiftly, “will you please tell the court where you live?”
“I live at 115 West Pike – P-i-k-e – right next door to the house where the murderer lived!”
All eyes in the room turned instantly to Thomas Bit, who now had his chance to louse things up. He sighed, shrugged, and shook his head. A murmur of relief went up, and one of the widows even smiled a little. Things were looking up.
“Would you please tell us,” continued the DA, “exactly what you saw on the night of the late lamented Harriet Cord’s demise?”
A profound hush settled over the room, and all eyes riveted on Thelma, who cleared her throat carefully and began her tale.
“It was hard upon the hour of midnight,” she said, almost in a whisper. Even Thomas Bit was magnetized by her tone. “Chill was the night, but fain did I long for a current of air to relieve the unwonted stuffiness of my bedchamber. Went I then toward my casement, to ope my room to the night air . . .” She paused, and added, less studiedly, “My window’s right across from the side of Nettie’s boarding house . . .”
The hush grew more profound.
“The window of that man’s room!” She stabbed a finger dramatically and accusingly at the Turk. “It was closed, but lo! there was a flickering light inside. I, of course, do not make it a practice to look into the windows of men with whom I am hardly acquainted, so I was about to turn back to my bed, when suddenly—” Her face went blank. “When suddenly—” she repeated miserably, looking at the DA, who had closed his eyes in exasperation.
Thelma drew back a pace in her monolgue, and tried taking a running start to get over the hump. “I-was-about-to-turn-back-to-my-bed-when-suddenly . . .” She brightened. “When suddenly, the window flew open, banging the sash quite loudly, and that man—” some of the folks in the Turk’s vicinity edged away from him furtively “—peered out in a very suspicious fashion, then stepped he back from the window. Frozen to the spot by nameless apprehensions, waited I there, and then—Something big and black and horrible flopped onto his windowsill from within his room.”
The DA – albeit having heard the tale at rehearsals – had still to moisten dry lips before speaking. “
What was it?” he asked, his voice shaky.
“A giant blackbird!” said Thelma.
(Careful research on her part into Arabian customs and history had unearthed the fact that the raven was considered an almost sacred harbinger of dire things by the Arabs and Turks, and she’d changed the name of the bird into a species conforming to her listeners’ experience.)
“It flapped its great black wings, rose into the air, and then, as though sensing something, it flew away.”
“Which way—” the DA made the question assume great importance by his tone, “—Which way did it fly?”
Thelma paused dramatically, then looked upon the Turk with the eye of a basilisk, rose to her feet and said, “Straight east!”
A furore broke out in the room. The body of Harriet Cord had been found almost due east of the Town; in the minds of the townsfolk, the guilt of the Turk was as good as written on the court record.
Thomas Bit shook his head. There was nothing to do but sit tight and wait for his turn at Thelma.
She hadn’t finished. “Something made me stay there, watching, for almost a quarter of an hour. Finally, it had grown too cold to stand by the window, so I closed it. And just as I did, the blackbird flew back, and it heard the window closing, because it turned and looked at me. And suddenly I was terribly afraid, and I ran back to my bed and did throw myself under the blankets!”
“And then?” asked the DA.
“. . . I fell asleep,” she finished lamely.
“Your witness,” said the DA to Thomas Bit.