He swung the telescope around as quickly as he could, gave the focusing screw a slight twist with a practiced hand, aimed.
As the distant scene leaped suddenly into view as though it were only a few yards away, the men were climbing into the car.
They looked tough. One had a long jagged white scar just above his collar. He had a long thin nose and little ratty eyes. The other man, who was getting in beside the driver, had a fat pudgy face. Through the telescope the little man could make out the baggy wrinkles under his eyes, could almost count the hairs in his toothbrush mustache.
He got ready to swing the telescope to follow the car. He wouldn't be able to catch the license plates until it had moved almost a block. But anyway he could identify all three of the men, anywhere, any time. They seemed almost close enough to reach out and touch.
He saw the man who used the telescope start the car. It seemed so close that he was surprised for an instant not to be able to hear the sound of the motor.
Then the driver turned, looked out over the park toward the lake, toward the telescope. The little man could see his lips moving in what seemed to be silent curses. The driver pointed toward the telescope and said something to the two other men.
Obviously, plans were changed. The car made a U-turn on the boulevard and headed toward the drive leading into the park.
It had to go a few blocks out of its way to get at him, but it was coming toward the man with the telescope.
For a moment he stood petrified. The car was roaring down the straight stretch toward him before he moved. Then he began to run blindly out across the grass, away from the drive.
Brakes screeched. A gun barked and a bullet buzzed past his left car like an angry hornet.
Two automatics were barking now--they did not dare take time to get out of the car and run after him, so they were firing from the drive. But the light was uncertain, and he had presence of mind enough to zigzag a bit.
And then another sound, a welcome sound, came to his ears--the shrill sirens of squad cars. They seemed to come from three directions, converging upon the park. Two of the cars came into sight on the boulevard and swung into two different driveways into the park.
As suddenly as they had started, the automatics ceased to bark. The big black car roared into motion again--but a squad car blocked its way, swinging around to block the drive, a revolver firing at the robbers' car.
The windshield shattered, and the car came to a stop with squealing brakes. A second squad car pulled up behind it. Two detectives from the third car were running toward it across the grass, one of them carrying a submachine gun.
A salvo from the big car made the man with the gun go flat on his belly, and he started firing from that position. The staccato of the gun drowned out the short sharp barks of the pistols. A row of holes six inches apart appeared in the side of the big car.
Only one automatic continued to bark. Then that one was thrown out to the drive, and its owner, trying to surrender, opened the door to climb out. But he fell out instead and sprawled gracelessly in a pool of blood on the asphalt.
In the silence that followed, the little man with the straggly gray hair walked over to the detective who had fired the submachine gun.
"I can identify them," he said.
Then he realized how silly it sounded when the detective looked at him in bewilderment and from him to the body on the drive and the car with its two silent occupants.
"So can I," said the detective, with a grin.
"I mean," said the little man, "that I saw the robbery happen." And he went on and told how his telescope had been used, and the whole story. "Is there," he asked, although he knew very well that there wasn't, "any chance of my getting a reward?"
"What for?" asked the detective, and then grinned. "You're lucky we don't run you in as an accessory, allowing your spyglass to be used by a lookout in a jewelry-house burglary."
The little man winced, and the detective reassured him.
"Naw." he added. "They set off an alarm as they were leaving. We'd have got 'em anyway, a little bit down the boulevard, even if they hadn't stopped to take a pot shot at you."
The police ambulance had driven up, and the three bodies were loaded into it. A cop got into the riddled car and found that it could be driven in under its own power.
The little man walked dispiritedly back to his telescope. A crowd had gathered--the shooting had drawn one of those tremendous mobs of the curious who always gather at the scene of an accident or crime in a city, whether it be noon or midnight. There were hundreds milling about. Excitement can always draw a throng.
The little man perked up. Crowds might mean business.
"The moon for a nickel," called the little man, standing beside his telescope. "See the moon for a nickel."
But nobody much wanted to see the moon. He took in one nickel in five minutes.
He happened to look back toward the building across the boulevard. He saw the looted shop brightly lighted up. He focused the telescope on the windows. As though looking through from the very window sill, he could see the policemen, the detectives, going over the place. Back at one wall he could see a damaged safe. A man came in who looked liked a jeweler, probably the proprietor.
The little man had a big idea.
"See the scene of the crime!" he called. "Half a dollar to see the scene of the crime through a telescope!"
Some one shoved a half dollar into his hand and looked through the telescope. Another. A knot gathered about the telescope. The little man beamed, and began to get heavy about the pockets. He hadn't known that there were that many half dollars. It was hours later before he finally went home, and sixty-one dollars jingled in his pockets.
SUITE FOR FLUTE & TOMMY-GUN
I waited till the train had pulled out, and still nobody had got off it. Nobody, that is, except the funny-looking little guy with the shell-rimmed glasses and the hat that looked like a country preacher's.
But the great McGuire wasn't on it. I was glad, in a way, because I--well, I might as well admit that I resented Old Man Remmel having thought I wasn't good enough for the job and having sent for the biggest-shot private detective in the country. Just on a matter of some threatening letters, too. Didn't even want me to call in a postal inspector; said he'd have the best detective in the country or none.
Well, I decided, he'd been stood up. I grinned and turned to head back home, figuring maybe this guy McGuire had phoned Remmel he'd be delayed and Remmel had phoned me and I wasn't there. But this funny-looking little guy I mentioned steps up to me and sticks out his hand. "Sheriff Clark?" he asked. And when I admitted it, he said, "My name is--"
Yeah, you guessed it.
I gawped at him. "Not the--"
He grinned at me. "Thanks for the compliment, sheriff, if it was meant for one. If I disappoint you, I'm sorry, but--"
I'd recovered enough by then to take his hand and to stammer out something that was probably worse than if I'd kept my big mouth shut and let it go at that. But honesty, not subtlety, has always been my long suit, and the people here have elected me ten terms running, in spite of it. I don't mean in spite of the honesty; I mean in spite of my being not much of a diplomat.
"Well," I said, "I'm glad you're here anyway." I saw too late that the "anyway" was putting my foot in it farther, but a word's like a bullet in that once you've shot it you can't get it back into the gun and pretend you didn't. A guy really ought to be as careful about shooting off his yap as about shooting off his gun, come to think of it. There'd be fewer murders either way.
"I'm sorry, Mr. McGuire," I told him sheepishly. "But, gosh, you sure don't look like--"
He laughed. "Never mind the mister, sheriff. Just call me Mac. And I'm not sensitive about my looks; they're an asset. Now about those letters. Got them with you?"
I took his arm. "Sure," I said. "I'll show 'em to you over a drink before we drive out to see Remmel. I'll give you the picture first, since we'll be working together. Anyway
, I can say some things better if it isn't in front of him."
"You mean he isn't on the level?"
"Nix," I said. "I don't mean that at all. If anything, he's too much on the level. He's not only interested in his own morals, but in everybody else's, see? He's a reformer, and he's a damn teetotaler. You know these smug teetotalers. Pains in the neck, all of them."
I jerked my thumb toward the building we were passing on the other side of our main street. "That's his bank," I said, "and if he'd stick to banking, he wouldn't have got those letters. But he had to stick his nose into politics and get himself elected to the county board. And with his ideas--" I shook my head.
"Such as--" McGuire prompted.
I steered him into Sam Frey's place that we'd just come to, before I answered. If I was going out with him to see Remmel--and I had an appointment with Remmel to do just that--we'd be in for a long, dry conversation. A bit of prelubrication would come in handy.
I answered his question as we headed for the bar. "Such as tavern keepers and roadhouses, mostly. I know we're not too tight on the roadhouses down this way, but that's mostly because the people want it that way, and it brings a lot of business and money into the county. We keep 'em closely enough supervised that there's no rough stuff, you know, or anything really much wrong, but--"
"But what?"
"But this Remmel has a bill up before the county board--the gosh-awfulest bill you ever heard of. It would shut up all taverns and roadhouses at ten o'clock in the evening. Not midnight or one o'clock, mind you, but ten, when their trade is just starting. Naturally, the boys are sore. It's just the same thing, practically, as closing them up entirely."
I crooked a finger at Sam, and he came ambling down toward us behind the bar.
"And the worst of it is," I went on, "that there's a chance of it going through, with Remmel swinging all his influence back of it. Now, reform's a darn good thing where it's needed, but it isn't needed here, and it's going to play hell with things. That's the trouble with these damn intemperate teetotalers--
"--Derryaire for mine, Sam, short beer for a wash. Yours, Mr. McG--I mean, Mac?"
His eyes twinkled at me from behind those shell-rimmed cheaters. He said, "I'll have coffee, if Sam has some hot. Sorry, sheriff, but I'm a damn teetotaler."
That was my third boner since the train had pulled in at seven p.m., which was ten minutes ago. There wasn't anything to do but to laugh it off or else get down on my hands and knees and crawl for the back door. But the corners of McGuire's mouth showed me I could laugh it off all right, and I did.
"Make mine coffee, too, Sam," I said. "But be sure it's got whiskers on it. Let's get back to Banker Remmel, Mac. Now, I don't mean that he is a complete louse, even if he is a--I don't mean he is a complete louse at all. He's got a soft side, too. He loves music, for one thing; plays piano at the Sunday school. And once a week regular, for thirty years, he and Dave Peters get together and jam it up."
"Jam what up?"
"I got a daughter in high school," I explained. "That's the kind of English they teach them there. It means they play together. Dave plays a squeak-pipe."
"A what?"
"I didn't learn that from my daughter," I told him. "It came natural, because I hate flutes. They smell to high heaven, and especially when Dave wheezes a high note on his. Golly!"
"Who is Dave?"
"Dave Peters, the clerk at the bank. He and Old Man Remmel are friends from kidhood. Guess Dave couldn't hold a job anywhere else; he's a little light in the head. Guess anybody has to be to take up playing the flute for a hobb--Say, Mac, you don't by any chance play the flute, do you?"
He put back his head and laughed heartily. He said, "Sheriff, you're a wow. May I see those letters?"
I nodded and handed them over. There were three of them, and they were the perfectly ordinary type of threatening note.
One of them read:
Remmel: Get out of politics or get out of Crogan County.
Another one:
Remmel: Resign from the county board or be measured for a wooden kimono.
The third one was about like the other two; I forget the exact wording.
"You checked them for prints, I suppose?" McGuire asked.
"Sure. Even us hicks know that much these days. Nope, no prints, Mac. But did you notice anything about the spelling?"
"Hm-m-m. Not especially. What do you mean?"
I nodded wisely, glad of a chance to show him that even out in Springdale we are able to give a whirl or two to the old deductive angles. "It's the spelling of a fairly well-educated person," I pointed out. "Makes no attempt to sound illiterate, you see. He spells words like 'resign' and 'politics' all right. But he misses an easy one, and that little slip wouldn't have been faked. When we find a guy who spells 'kimona' with an 'o' on the end, we really got a suspect. See?"
He looked surprised. "You sure, sheriff? I've always thought it was spelled with an 'o.' " He opened his brief case, which he's put on the stool beside him, and pulls out a little pocket dictionary and--well, when we'd looked it up, he had to admit that my deduction would have been a good one if I'd only not known how to misspell kimono myself.
Sam brought our coffee and I put three spoonfuls of sugar in mine before I realized what I was doing, being kind of confused. And then, rather than make a worse fool of myself by admitting it, I had to pretend I'd done it on purpose and drink the sickly stuff. There's a bottom limit to what a sheriff wants a famous detective to think of him, and I felt two degrees below that already, even if Mac was too nice to show that he thought it.
He drank his coffee black and unsweetened, and he asked. "Do you think these threats are from some roadhouse owner who'll be ruined if that bill of Remmel's goes through?"
1 shrugged. "Could be. There's plenty of owners that will be ruined, and some of those boys might play for keeps if they saw their livings being yanked out from under them. There are a few that--well, they stay within the law now because under the law they can still make a fair profit, but--"
He said, "Put yourself in the place of one of these roadhouse proprietors, sheriff, and try to imagine you don't give a hang about the law. Now, if the situation were what it was, would you figure it would be best to try to scare Remmel with notes like these, or would you figure it safer in the long run just to eliminate him quietly, without threats?"
"Hm-m-m,' I said. "I see your point." Well, I did see it, even if I couldn't see where it would get us. "If I really intended to go so far as killing him, I don't think I'd send notes first that would give away my motive and make me one of a limited number of suspects."
"Fine," Mac said, "but you wouldn't send the notes, either, unless you thought there was a chance of them working. Would you?"
I downed the last of my super-sugared coffee while I thought that one over. "Guess I wouldn't," I said. "But they might work, at that. Remmel doesn't show it, but I think he's really scared. Oh, he says he's going ahead with his campaign with redoubled energy, but I think he's weakening. He'd like some sort of an excuse, I think, to back out without looking like he was yellow."
"And since you'd rather not commit murder unless you had to, for purely selfish reasons, if no others, how would you go about giving him that excuse to back out?"
"Darned if I know," I admitted, after I'd scratched where my hair used to be. "How would you?"
"I don't know either, sheriff. I'd like to meet one of these road-house owners of yours, though, just for a sample."
"Under your right name?" I asked him. "Or undercoverlike, with me introducing you as a textile man from Texas, or something?"
He smiled. "Since I'm being introduced by the law, I may as well go under my true colors. I'll be freer to ask questions without making excuses."
"O.K., Mac," I told him. I turned around and yelled, "Hey, Sam." Sam Frey came waddling over to us again, and I said, "Sam, meet Mr. McGuire. The McGuire, the guy you've read about."
Sam said, "Glad to meet you." I told
Mac: "Sam, here, owns a roadhouse, besides this tavern. It's out on the Kerry pike, near where we're going. He works there nights and here days and evenings, like now. He never sleeps."
Sam grinned. "Oh, I catch a few hours now and then. Few more years and I'll retire, and then I'll sleep twenty hours a day for a while and catch up. I'll be able to afford it then."
"Unless this new law goes through," said McGuire.
Sam's face sobered. "Yeah," he said.
I looked at the clock on the wall over the bar. "It's eight o'clock, Sam. Want to turn your place here over to Johnny for the rest of the evening and go over to Remmel's with us?"
I caught the surprised look on McGuire's face. "Sam's a deputy of mine," I explained. "He knows all about the notes. And he's a good guy to have along."
"Here I thought you were introducing me to a suspect," protested McGuire. "Or are all the suspects deputies of yours?"
Sam chuckled. "Nope," he answered for me. "I'm the only one fits both ways. Sure it ain't too early to go there, sheriff? This is his evening for Dave Peters to be there. And you've told me how Remmel won't let anything at all interrupt those doo-ets of his."
"Remmel's expecting us," I told him. "Said he'd have Dave come early tonight so they'd be through by the time we got there. Go get your coat, Sam, if you're coming."
Sam went to the back, and McGuire wanted to know, "Why are you taking him? Not that I mind, but I'm curious."
"Two reasons. First, Sam knows every roadhouse proprietor who'll be affected by that law. After you've talked to Remmel, Sam can give you enough leads to keep us going all night. Second, Sam's been wanting to get a chance to see Remmel, to have a talk with him about that law. He says he thinks maybe he can make him see how unfair it is."
"Oh," said McGuire. Suddenly I saw what he was thinking. He'd just asked me how the sender of the notes could go about giving the banker a chance to back down without looking yellow.
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