by R. E. Klein
“And you, Mrs. Bash?”
“I was in my room, though I did go out on the porch for a few minutes to get some air.”
“Better. And you, Miss Alice?”
“I was in the kitchen working on breakfast. I didn’t go out at all.”
“Did anybody see you not go out?”
Alice turn back on him.
“Now you, Miss Wen. You are apparently the last one to see Mr. Lamprey alive.”
“Yes. As I told you, I met him in the woods. He asked me to get him something from his room.”
Harold’s eyes shrink to tiny dots. “You met him on the dock and killed him. We both know why.”
Wen get very upset.
“No!” she blurt out. “I found Marc dead. I saw my chance to get something from his room, something he threatened to send to my parents. I didn’t kill him!”
“Where were you before you went out?”
Wen turn puce; Uncle Fitz look like sheep who swallowed canary.
“Is that right, Mr. Heifitz?” Uncle Fitz silent.
“Oh, Barbara Wen, Barbara Wen”—Harold put hands to bullet head—“all a-flutter for the secrets of the locked room. Did you really not kill its occupant? Or you, Mr. Heifitz; you, too, were awfully keen to get into that room—did you kill him? Incidentally, Alice, might you not take vengeance on the man who murdered your father?”
Bombshell burst. Harold read confession. Alice cry some and sink into chair. When things quiet down, Harold point finger at old lady.
“And finally there is Mrs. Bash, who daily saw her ersatz son lose interest in her, in favor of a poetic vision. Jealousy is a potent motive for murder. And one of you, you know, is a murderer.”
Harold take out red bandanna and burnish head. Then he replace bandanna and sit on back of chair.
“Let us hoist up all our linen,” he say. “Our Lamprey was not only the murderer of Alice’s father; he was a blackmailer as well, if only on a small scale. Oh, now, Miss Wen, don’t look that way; lots of girls have been arrested before.” Here Uncle Fitz look squinty at her.
“It would kill my parents,” she say.
“Mr. Heifitz, your culpability was greater. Incidentally, when did Marc confront you with the will leaving this place to Alice?”
“What?” Alice scream.
Uncle Fitz look like spent whoopie-cushion.
“Not long after he arrived,” Fitz say softly. “In a moment of weakness I agreed to give him and that woman free lodging in exchange for his silence.”
“Uncle Fitz!” Alice shoot out of chair.
“Yes, Alice. I cheated you out of your inheritance. And ever since I’ve felt like an excremental heel!”
“But, Uncle Fitz”—Alice beside him now—“I never cared for this place—I stayed on only as a favor to you—you can have everything!”
“You don’t detest me?”
“The only one I ever detested was Marc Lamprey—oh, and Mr. Bahr, of course.”
Tender scene fill Punky Kim’s eyes with mucus, so I wipe them off with shirtsleeve. I still not know who murderer is—Heifitz or Wen or Bash or pretty Alice with blond legs.
“Let’s take it from the beginning,” Harold say. “Marc Lamprey is living in Crescent City. Too weak to work, indolent by temperament, he possesses a poet’s sensibility, if not a poet’s talent. One day in a museum he strikes up an acquaintanceship with a hotel owner who is on a business trip to borrow money. The two find they have much in common and meet a few times to talk. They also drink. The hotel owner tells Marc about Salmon Lake and invites him for a visit. Apparently, in a fit of drunken confidence, he even tells Marc about his daughter and the hiding place of the will restoring her inheritance.
“Now they are in the hotel owner’s room. The man shows Marc the money he borrowed—all in cash—as well as the gun he carries to protect it. Marc sees his opportunity, kills the man with his own gun, steals the money, and slips away.
“Back in his own quarters Marc is smitten by remorse, hagridden with fear. He lies low for a time, but is terrified to remain in Crescent City. But where will he go?
“Where else? One name echoes within Marc’s wormy little brain: Salmon Lake. Where else but Salmon Lake, where he had been invited by the man he murdered? His disordered poetic fancy probably sees it as fitting.
“But not alone. Never alone. Marc is a mamma’s boy raised to be dependent. He will take with him his cleaning woman, Mrs. Bash, a person willing to mother him.
“So he and Mrs. Bash establish themselves as paying guests at Salmon Lake. But the payment is made with Marc’s own money because he is afraid to touch any of the stolen cash for fear it may be traced to him. Incidentally, I found it. It is upstairs in Marc’s room inside a little tin box.
“To get back to Marc, he is desperately fearful for his safety. He must keep abreast of the progress of the murder investigation, so he subscribes to the Crescent City News. But he feels this might look suspicious, so as a smoke screen he orders a dozen other small-town papers.
“After a while Marc’s money is nearly exhausted; but he has a plan. Had Alice’s father not told him about the will and its hiding place? Marc retrieves it, tempts Mr. Heifitz, and Mr. Heifitz falls.
“But good things fly in tandem. No sooner has Marc established himself as a ‘handyman,’ with free room and board for himself and his companion—than another windfall fills his basket.
“In a Kansas City Globe, one of his ‘smoke screen’ newspapers, he finds an incriminating item about a—dancer.” Here he nod to Barbara.
“Once again his demands are modest—everyone’s demands are modest in this case—and she agrees to pay up. It looks like Marc has arrived. He has a place to live, food to eat, money in his pocket, and a quiet and apparently safe existence.
“Then, suddenly, everything falls to pieces. True to his poetic nature, he falls for Alice, the daughter of the man he murdered, the person he has helped to cheat out of her inheritance. It doesn’t occur to his bloated ego that the girl might not have him.
“In the throes of his infatuation, everything dishonorable in him cries out for expiation. He tries to suppress it. But it ferments in him, finally taking the form of some indifferent verses which accidentally get published. Mr. Kim and I are not the only ones to read that poem. One closer at hand ponders those lines, and wonders.
“Marc’s behavior becomes increasingly peculiar. He takes to his room and broods, till it becomes obvious—at least to one—that Marc’s secrets are no longer safe. For he is on the verge of confessing everything he knows, regardless of consequences.
“‘Fear not the sharks that bear thee to thy doom,’ his little poem runs,
“‘They can but bite the flesh and crack the bone.’
“The sharks are the police, the courts, the cost of his crimes.
“‘After a while,’ the poem concludes, ‘thou wilt be free.’
“The ‘freedom’ I take to mean his clear conscience after he has confessed and made himself worthy of Alice.
“Well, it is obvious to someone that it is only a matter of time before Marc explodes with that confession, just as it was obvious to me when I first heard the poem that the writer was about to explode into something—I didn’t know what, though I fancied at the time that it was either murder or suicide. Here was my problem. The explosion was inevitable, but it might be weeks or even months away. I came here to stir things up.
“I had no sooner arrived when it became apparent—by conversations Mr. Kim had with Mrs. Bash, and I had with Alice—that Alice was the center of the whole problem. And I reasoned that if I could put pressure on her, she might in some way influence Marc to release all that fermenting energy while I was on hand to absorb or deflect it. Well, I applied the pressure, and one of you killed him.”
It is Punky Kim who get excited now.
“Which one kill him?” I demand to know. “Is it Barbara Wen who is demented murderer? Is it Uncle Fitz? Or is it two together?”
“Of course, Mr. Heifitz did not kill him. Of course Barbara Wen did not kill him.”
“How you know this?”
“Because he was blackmailing them.”
“Blackmail!” I scream. “You not know that blackmail victim have perfect motive for killing blackmailer? Who you think kill Marc Lamprey?”
“I know who killed him. It was Mrs. Bash.”
“Why?”
“Because she was blackmailing him.”
“What?”
“Listen. Marc killed Mr. Thyne, had a seizure of remorse, and wrote out that suicide note. Well, he changed his mind about killing himself but kept the note nonetheless. Some writers save everything.
“At this point Mrs. Bash enters. She is his cleaning lady and is probably not above a bit of petty pilfering or at least snooping. My guess is that she found the note, confronted him with it, and offered her silence in exchange for his protection. Well, they went to Salmon Lake. But he was too timid to use any of the money for which he had committed murder. So instead, Marc paid his blackmailer with what he could get by blackmailing others—Barbara Wen and Mr. Heifitz.
“I suppose it worked for a few months, till suddenly catastrophe struck. Marc fell in love, had a poetic seizure and a change of heart. He wrote that poem, then took to his room to brood upon his crimes. Mrs. Bash read the poem and brooded, too.
“Mark was about to explode. Would the explosion implicate her? Proclaim her a blackmailer as well as accessory after the fact to a murder? If so, she must act. Yet she dared not act hastily. Marc was, after all, her golden goose. Perhaps this latest craze would pass, defused for lack of a detonator.
“Alice was the detonator. I made sure of that. Alice, did you treat Mr. Lamprey differently after I insulted you?”
“You made me so mad that I was merciless to his moonfaced whining.”
“That did the trick. He was crazy now to confess what he was once desperate to conceal. And Mrs. Bash at last made up her mind. She made an assignation with him to meet her at the dock.
“Here. Just let me borrow this, Mrs. Bash. This cane (notice the brass handle slips off—like this) is hollow inside. The scroll of the confession (observe) fits perfectly.
“Having lured him to the dock, she planted the document on him, tripped him into the mud, and caught him by the back of the neck with the tripodal end of her cane and held him down. Isn’t that so, Mrs. Bash?”
“I did not trip him, Mr. Bahr. I threw him into the mud.”
“Hmm. Just so. How did you get him to the dock?”
“He told me he was going to confess. I suggested I turn over to him the old confession to show the police. I said it was in a secret place at the end of the dock.”
“I suppose you removed it from your cane when he was not looking?” She nod head.
“He was not dutiful, not dutiful at all.”
“Mr. Heifitz and company, I ask you to amuse Mrs. Bash while Mr. Kim and I drive for the police.”
Alice see us to car. Then she do terrible thing.
“I was wrong about you, Mr. Bahr,” she say. She kiss him hard on his disgusting, nasty cheek.
“Why,” I ask, as car turn down winding road, “why you so positive sure it Mrs. Bash who kill Lamprey? Lamprey murder Alice’s father; Lamprey cheat Alice out of property. Alice have more better motive for killing Lamprey. Why you think it Bash?”
“Consider,” Harold say as he polish head. “Why would anyone, even an orker like Lamprey, trot about such a disagreeable old woman, if he were not compelled to?”
“Just so,” I muse. “But on face of it, Alice still have better motive.”
“Oh, I never suspected her, Punky.”
I feel eyes getting mean.
“Why you not suspect her?”
“Why, she’s blond, Punky. Blond girls never kill anybody.”
“What?”
“And besides—”
“Yes?”
“Did you notice her legs?
“She’s a willow sapling, a billowy cat;
Twigs and whiskers, fancy that!
A birch for you, a Manx for me,
And sudda-budda-budda bee!”
We drive into sunset.
The Verms
D on’t think too much,” George said. “It slows down your killing. Talk instead. Talk all the time you do it.”
Steve looked after the departing cruiser, now a tiny speck in the white sky.
“Do I have to kill them all?” he asked. “Even the infants?”
George scratched the stubble on his tanned cheek.
“I saw a man attacked by infant verms. There wasn’t much left of him. You’re a sharpshooter. They chose you for your ability to kill.”
“I never even shot a rabbit,” Steve said moodily. He continued to scan the sky. The cruiser was gone now; they were alone in the desert. “All I ever fired at was targets. The only reason they sent me out here was that I was good shooting at targets.” He looked about him. Bunches of dry grasses spotted the soft, gray dust as far as the horizon. A dark cluster of stones loomed nearby.
Now it was George who looked into the sky. “The nights come fast here,” he said. “We’d better get started.” They inspected the power packs on their Lancer Specials; each had enough firepower for a thousand rounds.
“Head for the rocks,” George said. They began to tread the soft gray soil.
“How long you been here, George?” Steve asked, as they walked along.
“Nearly three years now—since we started this project. Three years to clean up this one sector—and we still haven’t done it. I guess you know it’s not all desert like you see here; farther on there are streams and meadows and other good places to raise our children when we finally finish the job. Did you know that of the hundred two-man teams we send out each week, several never make it back?”
“Why’s that, George? The verms aren’t armed, are they?”
“Armed? What did they teach you at training school? No. They’re not armed; we are. That’s how we can kill them.”
“Then what happens?”
“People get careless.”
“Back at Fort Hayes they didn’t show any pictures or tell us anything about the verms. They said we’d learn better from you fellas that were here before.”
“I don’t think your commanding officer wanted you to know too much about them.”
“Can we rest a spell?”
“Sure. The atmosphere here is thinner than ours. It’s harder to breathe. We’ll stop for a few minutes.”
They unslung their carry-alls and sat in the soft, dry dust.
Steve looked at the rocks ahead. “It’s hard to believe that just a little while ago we were sitting in the cruiser with a lot of other fellas.”
“Cheer up. They’ll be back in three days to pick us up. Then it’s three days of R&R, and then three more days in the desert. Life goes on in a succession of threes. It’s not a bad life.”
“We learned at the academy that the verms came to this planet a long time ago and took over.”
“Yes, they exterminated what was evidently a peaceful and benign race. Still feel uncomfortable about killing them?”
“The major back on Earth said it wasn’t like killing; he said it was more like swatting insects. That right?”
“You can judge for yourself. Let’s go.”
They shouldered their packs and moved on toward the rocks.
“It’s safest to hunt them in daylight,” George said. “The verms are strongest at night, and the nights are awfully dark here. We’ll get as many as we can, then bed down.”
“Like I said,” Steve said, gasping in the thin air, “all I know is target shooting; I never killed anything—especially anything as never did me harm. These verms—they supposed to be big?”
“Ordinarily they crawl on their bellies and don’t reach your knees. When they get rile
d they stand up on their bottom legs; they’re taller than we are then. Stop, we’re close enough.”
“I don’t see anything; you sure they’re here?”
“I know they are. Look.”
“What is that coming out of all those holes? Gawd! There must be fifty of them.”
“Put down the Lancer. Wait until they’re good and close. Steady. Now face the target, but stand at an angle—like this—with your shoulder against mine. This way we’re protected. When I tell you, shoot everything that moves.”
“They’re getting close.”
“Not yet. Wait until we have more targets. Steady. Steady. Now.”
Their Lancers made a tinkling sound as they spewed out an almost constant stream of light. Dozens of dark bodies leaped high in the glare to crumple like burned locusts in the soft desert dust.
“It’s not so bad,” Steve shouted. “It’s not bad at all. I go for this. I can do it all night.”
“You may have to,” George yelled back. “Don’t turn your head. Keep doing what you’re doing.”
“What? Why?”
“More of them are pouring out of a big crack off to my right. I never saw so many at one time.”
“Good, let them come. Know what they look like to me? Bugs! Big, ugly, black bugs!”
“Can you smell them, Steve?”
“I sure as hell can. Gah!”
“They tell you at the academy that they smell?”
“No, and they didn’t mention any bugs, either. I didn’t know what they’d look like.”
“Maybe you wouldn’t have come if they showed you a few pictures.”
They continued to fire.
“Tell you one thing; I sure as hell don’t mind exterminating a mess of bugs. But why don’t they use poison, instead of fellas with Lancers?”
“And maybe poison the whole planet? Not likely.”
“George, when are they going to stop?”
“They don’t stop. They haven’t got the sense. Keep firing.”
“There’s too many of them.”
“Keep firing. Keep talking.”
“What happens if one of them catches you?”
“They hold you face-to-face with them with their big claws, while they rake you over with all their little legs. Then they stick a long hollow tube down your throat and suck out your juices. Keep firing.”