“Is he?”
“I don't sec ... did you kill him?”
“Oh, no.”
I held the candle over my head. In a corner of the room I saw a pile of bricks. There were twenty or thirty bricks, left over from building the temple. I went over and found one with blood on it.
“You lousy bitch,” I said.
“All right,” she said.
“You'll get us hung for this.”
“Don't be dumb.”'
“You may like hanging,” I said.
“Nobody's going to hang,” she said.
I was scared as hell. “We've got to get out of here.” I started for the outside door.
“Wait.” She grabbed my arm. “We can make it look like an accident.”
“Don't be a damn fool. The cops'll see through anything we can do.”
“There aren't going to be any cops.”
She began to talk fast, in a low voice that was almost a whisper: “You fool, the Vineyard will never call the cops. Not even if the Elders think it was murder. They don't like cops.”
I thought this over. “How are we going to make it look like an accident?”
She took the candle from me and held it high above her head. I saw the brick walls, with no plaster on them, and the unfinished ceiling. “See those bricks?”
“Yes.”
“Suppose some of them fell on him while he was sitting there?”
“They'd bust him good, all right.”
“Well...?”
I said: “But the bricks are still in the wall.”
“We have to make them fall.”
“It'll take a pick.”
“Come on.”
I knew I was a fool to follow her, but I was stuck. I was an accessory before the fact. That would carry a first-degree rap. I might as well be one after the fact, too. I couldn't do any worse.
She blew out the candle at the door. I felt surprised everything was so peaceful outside. The moonlight was still bright, and there was a breeze blowing from the east. We went from the shadow of the temple to a line of thick bushes. We went past a small pool with water lilies growing in it. The moon was like a smear of silver on the water and some of the lilies were open. They were white. I heard a mousy squeak and saw a couple of bats above the pool. The bats were feeding on night insects.
I followed the Princess up a hill and into a clump of trees. The grass was as soft and thick as a bathmat here, and it was dry. I guess the trees had kept it from the dew. It was very dark under the trees. I banged a toe against something hard and looked down and saw I'd hit a tombstone. We were walking in a graveyard! I saw other tombstones, and felt with my feet the raised sod over the graves. The Princess went to the left, to an open grave. It had been freshly dug, and the shovels and the picks of the gravediggers were still by the side. The Princess picked up one of the picks and gave it to me.
I took it, looking at the open grave. There was something funny about it. Suddenly I knew what it was. It already had a stone. That was strange. I never heard of them putting up the stone until afterwards. I bent over and read the inscription by the light of the moon. It said:
PENELOPE GRAYSON
(1917-1940)
Her Soul Rests With the Lord It was a little bit like seeing your own name on a tombstone. It was also a hell of a lot like a very bad nightmare. I blinked at the stone, and then I dropped the pick and grabbed the Princess's arm.
“Is she dead?”
“What do you care?”
“I asked you if she was dead?”
“Not so loud.”
“Answer me, or I'll break your goddam neck.”
She tried to get loose, and I shook her. She cried out with pain. I shook her again.
“She's not dead,” she said.
“Then what's this for?”
“Let me go.”
I shook her, my fingers digging into the muscles of her arm. She said: “It's for her after the Ceremony of the Bride.”
“They die?”
“Yes.” She slipped out of my hands and pointed at some graves by the open one. “Look.”
I looked at the stones. Anette Nordstrom (1911-1939); Grace Robins (1913-1938); Tabitha Peck (1920-1937), and Mary Jane Bronson (1910-1936). All young, and all dying in order: 1936, '37, '38, '39, and now '40. I looked again at Tabitha Peck. The poor kid was only seventeen. That was a funny name, Tabitha.
“Now you know all about it,” the Princess said. “Come on.
I got the pick. We went back to the temple. She lit the candle. He was lying just where we'd left him. I started to work on the wall, making as little noise as possible. The bricks came out easily.
I'd made quite a hole in the wall and the ceiling by the time my hands began to hurt. I rested for a minute. I was sweating hard. I wiped my face on the sleeve of my blouse. The Princess was standing by the vault door, holding the candle.
“Don't you think that's enough?” she asked. “We got to make a big pile,” I said.
I rested a while, and then I picked up the pick. It felt slippery in my hands. The Princess held up the candle. I saw something glitter in the corner. I went over and picked it up. It was some kind of a metal disk.
“What are you doing?”
“I thought I saw something.”
“What?”
“A coin or something.” I put the disk in my pocket. “It was just a piece of chipped brick.”
“Oh.”
I went to work on the wall again.
From the door I looked back at him. I'd brought down so much stuff he was hardly visible. All I could see was a shoe. He was lying on the wrecked chair, just as if he'd been sitting there when the wall fell. There were bricks and plaster all over him, and all over that side of the cellar. It looked as though there'd been an earthquake. It wouldn't fool anyone with any sense, I thought, but it might fool the Brothers. Particularly if they wanted to be fooled. I thought they would be, since the door of the treasure vault was still closed, apparently just as it had always been.
The Princess was standing by the body, holding the candle for me to get to the door. The light made her hair look like spun gold, as they say. I lit a match and she put out the candle and threw it by the body, like we agreed. She walked towards me, coming straight for the burning match. I smelled her when she got to the door, and I began to feel excited. We went outside.
I took the pick back to the hill with the graves, wiped the handle with my blouse, and dropped it by one of the shovels. The open grave looked black and mysterious. The moonlight was coming at such an angle the light didn't reach the bottom. It could have been twenty feet deep. The Princess waited for me at the corner of the temple. We walked back to the women's building, keeping in the shadows.
The moonlight was still pouring into her bedroom, making the bed look big and white. I washed my hands and found the bottle of brandy and had a long drink. It was funny, but I could hardly feel the stuff. I waited a minute, and then I had another drink. My throat felt numb.
She had taken off her robe and got in bed. I sat in a chair and had another drink. I felt her watching me. I had been sweating, and I kept on sweating. I wasn't used to working with a pick. I sat for a long time, drinking and sweating. I took off my blouse. The air felt good on my bare skin.
“Honey,” she whispered; “what's the matter?”
“Nothing.”
“Come over here with me.”
“No.”
I had another drink. Then she said: “I'm sorry I killed him.”
“This is a hell of a time to be sorry.”
“I got frightened, thinking what would happen when he told the Elders. They'd have caught us sure.”
“Maybe.”
“Oh, yes. We're really better off with him dead.”
Her voice was throaty like she had a cold. It made me feel queer. I could see her body under the silk sheet. She hadn't put anything on. I saw the mound her breasts made under the silk, and her hair on the pillow, yellow
even in the moonlight.
She whispered: “Honey.”
“What?”
“Are you afraid of me?”
“No.”
“Then come over. You have to sleep.”
I went over, but we didn't sleep.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
IN THE MORNING I caught a street-car into town. The motor-A man stared at me, but he didn't say anything. It was nine o clock and the sun was high in a blue sky. I got off at the square and walked to the Arkady. I had the blouse and pants I'd used during the night wrapped in paper, and in the clothes was the dough.
I went up to my room and dumped the money out on the bed. It made quite a heap. Twenty-seven grand! That was more dough than I'd ever seen at one time in my life. I got my knife and made a slit in the under side of the mattress on the spare bed. It was a lousy hiding-place, but it would do for a while. I stuffed twenty thousand dollars through the slit and smoothed out the bed. The rest I put in my pants for pin money.
I pulled the disk I'd found in the temple out of my pocket. It was an American Legion identification tag. It said Post 23, St Louis. Below that was a number, 8,834. I wrote out a wire to Legion headquarters in St Louis, asking for the name and address of the Legionnaire with that number. I gave the wire to Charles, the Negro, to send. He rolled his eyes when I told him to keep the change from a ten-dollar bill. Jesus! I felt rich.
At the same time I was plenty scared. I sat on the bed and thought what a jam I was in. It was bad from every angle. I stood at the head of the line for a murder rap, to say nothing of grand larceny, and housebreaking. There were a few other things, too. A very tough gangster was trying to make up his mind whether or not to kill me. My partner had been murdered and I wasn't doing anything about it. I had taken six grand from a client without a chance in hell of doing what I had told him I would do.
I did have to get that girl out of the Vineyard. Even if it was only long enough for her to miss the ceremony that was due in two nights now. I thought; it all must be phony. It was a human sacrifice; the kind of thing you read about happening in Africa and didn't believe. And here it was in a dopey town almost in the centre of the United States. Things like that didn't happen! Like hell, they didn't! I thought of the Halls-Mills case, the Wyncoop case in Chicago, the case of the two women tourists murdered on the Arizona desert. They happened.
I wondered how the Brides were killed, and who killed them. I wondered if they were slaughtered on Solomon's casket. One of them had been named Tabitha. That was a funny name. The poor kid! Only seventeen!
I looked at my watch. It was ten o'clock. I had a lot to do, only I was pooped. I lay back on the bed and pushed off my shoes. I thought I would nap for an hour.
At one o'clock the phone rang. It was Carmel's brother. He said she was going to be buried at eleven o'clock the next morning at Temple. He seemed to take it for granted I would be there.
“Ginger said she'd come, too.”
“Fine,” I said. “Have you got a minister?”
“Not yet.”
“Get one. I'll pay for him.”
“Thanks, Mr. Craven.”
I hung up, and then I called down for Charles. I wrapped the bracelet in a newspaper and gave it to him. I told him to take it to Ginger.
“Ask her if she'd like to drive me to a funeral tomorrow.”
He thought that was a joke.
“No,” I said. “Ask her.”
It didn't seem like I'd slept at all, so I lay back on the bed again.
The phone rang at three-fifteen. “Western Union,” a man said. “For Karl Craven.”
“Okay, Western Union.”
“Legionnaire 8,834, is Oscar K. Johnson, 4582 Waverly Street, St Louis. Do you want me to repeat it?”
“No, I got it.”
When the phone rang again it was six o'clock. McGee's nasal voice came over the wire. “I want to see you, Craven.”
“I'm in bed.”
“You'll have to get up. It's very important.”
“All right. Are you at your office?”
“Yes. I'll wait for you.”
There was a click at the other end. I wondered what had happened. I went to the bathroom and washed my face, and then I got dressed. The phone rang again.
The Princess said: “Hello, honey.”
“Hello,” I said.
“Dear, I can't see you tonight.”
“No?”
“Are you terribly disappointed?”
“Of course.”
“I have to go to the Festival.”
I was scared. “My God, is this the night they...?”
“No. Tomorrow night.”
“Oh.”
“You're not still thinking of getting her out, are you, honey?”
“No,” I lied.
“That's a good boy.” There was a pause. “What have you done with what we got?”
“It's in a safe place.”
“I think it'll be safer together.”
“I don't know.”
“Yes. Bring it out tomorrow afternoon.”
This was a command. “Okay,” I said.
“Don't forget, honey; around two tomorrow afternoon.”
“I won't.”
I hung up. She'd probably decided I was getting too big a cut. I found the bottle of rye and poured myself half a tumblerful. I got my hat and went down the hall to the elevator. When the elevator came I heard a door open up the hall towards my room.
It was hot out on the street. I walked towards town. Near the big movie theatre I stopped in a lunch-counter joint and had three hamburgers, a whole dill pickle and two bottles of beer. Then I had some fresh peach pie. Strange Cargo was playing at the movie. A sign said: cool inside. About a block further down the street I got an idea a man was following me. I looked back and saw a big man in a black suit. I went by McGee's office building and around the block. The man tagged along. I went into the office building. McGee was sitting at the desk in his private office. He made washing motions with his hands when he saw me. “You seem to be in trouble, Craven,” he said.
“What kind of trouble?”
His eyes watched me out the triangles of flesh. “There has been a robbery at the Vineyard.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes. A man was killed and it is believed a sum of money was taken.”
“I didn't know they kept any money out there,” I said. “How much?”
“The exact sum is not known.” He leaned over the desk. “But the point is: they suspect you of having taken it.”
“Me?”
“One of the Brothers reported you struck him the other day.”
“I did,” I said. “But that was so I could talk with the Grayson gal.”
He nodded. “I know.” He washed his hands again. “But there are other things. You were seen at the Vineyard with me.”
I shrugged my shoulders and looked at him. He went on:
“And most important, you were seen leaving the Vineyard early this morning.”
“Who saw me?”
“The same Brother.”
I wished I had hit his head a little harder, so it had split. “That doesn't look so good,” I admitted.
He tapped his fingers on the desk. “Did you take the money?”
“Hell, no.”
“You did not kill the guard?”
“I don't know anything about it.”
“You're-ah-quite sure?”
“Christ, yes!” I said. “I ought to know who I kill, hadn't I?”
“What were you doing out there last night?”
“Early this morning's more like it,” I said. “I wanted to take a look around. I've been thinking I might have to kidnap the Grayson girl, after all.”
My story didn't get over so good. “I thought,” he said “we agreed that we wouldn't do that?”
“Well, nothing else seemed to do any good.”
“That's true. Quite true.” He looked down at his hands “It is too bad.”
“I don't believe you follow me, Craven. It is too bad it will be necessary for you to leave town.”
Solomon's Vineyard Page 14