by Craig Rice
“In the Sunday supplement,” Handsome said. “There was a whole page about it. When this Chuck Engan was dying he told that the other two didn’t know where the money was hidden, and it was a good joke on them.”
Bingo sighed. “Don’t tell me it was in the same Sunday supplement as the article about turkey raising.”
“Uh-uh,” Handsome said gravely. “That was April 19th, 1942. This was July 17th, 1938, the day Corrigan flew across the Atlantic Ocean, and my cousin Vera’s little girl broke her arm falling off her bicycle. There was an article in it about King Solomon’s long-vanished seaport being found.”
“Too bad,” Bingo said. “About Vera’s little girl, I mean.” He wondered what would happen if he asked Handsome to list for him the contents of all the Sunday supplements from, say, 1930 on. No, he didn’t wonder, he knew what would happen. Handsome would tell him, and accurately.
The convertible came to a stop beside the road. Bingo leaned back, relaxed, and lit a cigarette. When Handsome remembered something, he had to tell it his own way, complete with all the details. Though now and then it was possible to nudge his memory a little.
“Was it on a right-hand page, or a left-hand page?” he asked very casually.
“A right-hand page,” Handsome said. “The picture of this guy was in the top left-hand corner. And there was a photograph of the bank and a little photograph of Chuck Engan, and in the center of the page was a drawing of a treasure chest spilling over with gold coins.” He paused. “It was two hundred and seventy-eight thousand, three hundred and fifty-five.”
“You fascinate me,” Bingo said. “What was the guy’s name?”
“Henry Siller,” Handsome said, “only, it turned out it was an alias. And he didn’t have a beard. He was the cashier in the bank. He went to work there with swell references and he got bonded and everything, and he turned out to know so much about banking he got to be promoted to be cashier, and he was going out with the daughter of the bank president. And then the bank got robbed by two guys. One of ’em was Chuck Engan and nobody knew who the other guy was, because he got away. Only, it was an inside job because this guy calling himself Henry Siller helped with the robbery and then he disappeared. And it turned out the references and everything were stolen from some other guy who’d died of appendicitis or something, and Chuck Engan got sent to jail, and I’m running out of breath.”
“Take your time,” Bingo said.
“That’s about all,” Handsome said apologetically. “Except there’s two hundred and seventy-eight thousand, three hundred and fifty-five dollars in gold buried somewhere out here in Iowa, and nobody knows where.”
Bingo whistled. He was silent for a long moment. “Handsome,” he began at last. “You know—these Sunday-supplement articles—that’s an awful lot of gold.”
“It’s true, though,” Handsome said. “It was about the time when everybody who had any gold money had to take it to the bank. I had to turn in a five-dollar gold piece my uncle Bert won in a crap game twenty years before. And this bank had a whole lot of gold just about ready to send to the government when it was robbed. And when they found this Chuck Engan and arrested him, they tried to make him tell where the loot was, only he wouldn’t. So everybody figured these other two guys had it.”
“Naturally,” Bingo mused. “Then, they—Henry and the other one—never did get arrested?”
“Uh-uh,” Handsome said. “Then Chuck Engan took sick and died while he was in jail, but just before he died he said he personally hid the money and never told nobody where it was, and wasn’t going to tell then. So it must still be around some place.”
“That’s a lot of money,” Bingo said dreamily.
“I remember it especially,” Handsome said, “because a couple of kid cousins of mine—Barney Slavens’ kids—tore the page out of my Sunday paper, and the story about King Solomon’s seaport was on the other side, and it made me sore. And they stole their uncle Fred’s pay envelope and were gonna go out to Iowa and start treasure-hunting, only Barney caught up with ’em before they got out of Jersey City.”
Bingo didn’t hear him. His eyes were half closed. “Handsome,” he said at last, “our house that we bought used to belong to this Chuck Engan. And Henry—whatever his real name was—got murdered there. He had a little black notebook and somebody had torn all the pages out of it. There was a bunch of criminals busted out of state’s prison this afternoon. That probably was the same prison Chuck Engan was in. Maybe before he died he told somebody at the prison where that money was hidden. See what I’m getting at?”
“Well,” Handsome said slowly, “yes. Only, Bingo, where are Mr. Halvorsen’s turkeys?”
“Forget those turkeys,” Bingo said. “Handsome, that money must be somewhere.”
A car roared past. It had a siren. For just a moment the convertible’s headlights struck it.
“Get going,” Bingo said quickly. “Hurry.”
Handsome obeyed, automatically. The convertible was moving down the road before the other car’s taillight was out of sight.
“That’s the sheriff’s car,” Bingo said. “Something must have happened, somewhere. Maybe he got a clue or something. Don’t lose sight of him.”
“I won’t,” Handsome said. “Do you s’pose he’ll mind us following him?”
“Naturally not,” Bingo said sternly. “We promised to help him, didn’t we?”
The sheriff’s car was going fast, but the convertible kept within a hundred yards of it. For a mile or two it stayed on the concrete road, then turned off, slackening speed, on a narrower gravel road marked County Highway 6. Another mile, and it turned onto a still narrower dirt road.
Suddenly the car ahead slowed down, almost to a stop. Handsome slowed down the convertible. In the next instant the car ahead speeded up, and Handsome stepped on the gas.
“Bingo,” Handsome said, “they know we’re following.”
Bingo said, “What of it? I’ll explain it all to Sheriff Judson.”
“Yes,” Handsome said anxiously, “but how do they know who we are? Maybe we won’t have a chance to explain.”
Bingo hadn’t thought of that. Before he could put his mind to the problem, the car ahead unexpectedly veered and came to a stop squarely across the road. Handsome slammed on the brakes and came to a screaming sideways stop. Sheriff Judson and Herb jumped out of their car, guns in hand.
These small-town law officers might not be up on the latest things in fingerprints, Bingo reflected, but they certainly could move fast!
“Hey, it’s us,” he called, hoping his voice sounded steadier than it felt.
They moved into the range of the headlights. Sheriff Judson and Herb looked at each other, a little bewildered, and put down their guns.
“Where d’you guys think you’re going?” Herb demanded.
Sheriff Judson said mildly, “Now, Herb!”
“We saw your car go by,” Bingo said. “We thought maybe you had a clue or something, so we tagged along.”
The sheriff took out a handkerchief and mopped his forehead. “Glad you did,” he said. “Maybe you can lend a hand. You ain’t residents, so I don’t know’s I can deputize you, but Herb ’n’ me could use a coupla guys with us. Earl’s gotta watch the phone, account of Ollie’s gone off some place, and there’s trouble out to Halvorsen’s. Operator reports somebody hollered, ‘Help!’ and the receiver’s off the hook. Hop in your car and get going.”
It took the sheriff and Herb about fifteen seconds to get into their car, turn it around, and be moving. It took Handsome about twenty seconds to follow.
“That’s where that blond babe lives,” Handsome said.
“Don’t call her ‘that blond babe,’” Bingo said stiffly. “She’s a charming young lady with a great future ahead of her, and her old man has fifty or sixty thousand dollars. And if this is all the faster this car will go, I’m going to take it back to the dealer.”
The sheriff’s car turned suddenly into a driveway. Hand
some slowed down and followed. In the darkness they could make out a fairly large farmhouse, a collection of outbuildings, and an enormous barn. The house was completely dark. Handsome pulled up alongside the sheriff’s car and stopped.
“If this is that Christine’s idea of a joke!” the sheriff grumbled. His face looked worried, though. Bingo saw that Herb had a flashlight in one hand and a gun in the other.
They went in through the back porch to a big, old-fashioned kitchen, gloomy and shadowed in the glow of Herb’s flashlight. Even in the dim light. Bingo could see something on the floor, something which certainly didn’t belong on a kitchen floor, and which didn’t move. He turned cold all over. He forgot that Christine was a charming young lady with a great future, and an heiress to boot. She was a girl, a helpless girl. And if anything had happened to her—
Sheriff Judson turned on the kitchen lights. The something on the floor was Christine, all right, but she was very much alive, judging by the way she struggled against the bindings around her legs and arms. A strip of cloth was tied on for a blindfold. Herb pulled it off, and her round blue eyes glared with rage. Bingo grabbed a knife off the table and cut through the dish towels that bound her wrists. Handsome untied her ankles, and Sheriff Judson pulled the gag away from her mouth.
She got to her feet. For a second she looked as though she were going to swear and couldn’t find the right words to use first. Then she recognized Bingo and Handsome, tottered gracefully, and breathed, “I feel faint.”
It was Herb who grabbed her before she fell and carried her to a couch in the parlor. By the time Sheriff Judson had turned on the parlor lights and Bingo and Handsome had followed into the room, Herb was kneeling beside her, rubbing her hands and imploring, “Baby. Baby doll. Are you all right? Tell me you’re all right. Tell me you’re all right, baby doll.”
She gave him a look of such repressed fury that he stood up and said unhappily, “Maybe you’d better phone for a doctor, Henry.”
Henry Judson was in the act of hanging up the receiver on the wall telephone. “Want a doctor, Christine?” he called.
Christine shook her head weakly. “I’m—all right.” She gazed up at Bingo and breathed, “Did you—save my life?”
“I—” Bingo was trying to think how he could say “Yes,” without actually saying yes, when Sheriff Judson said, “Nobody saved your life, account of you weren’t in no danger when we walked in. Where’s your pa and ma, and what happened here?”
“Sure you feel able to talk?” Bingo asked solicitously.
“I’ll—try.” She managed a brave little smile and sat up. “Pa’s out trying to trace his turkeys. I came home and there was a note from Ma. I guess it’s still on the kitchen table. Mrs. Zerkle was taken sick and she’d gone over to sit with her. I went to phone up Ma and see if she wanted me to come over there, and I heard a noise at the back door. I started to turn around and see who it was when someone said to get away from the phone and then someone else grabbed me. I’d already rung Central, so I just yelled, ‘Help.’ Then they tied me up so I couldn’t see or talk or move, and dumped me on the kitchen floor.”
Herb had been writing it down in a ten-cent store notebook. He looked up and said hoarsely, “Chrissie, did they hurt you?”
“My name is Christine,” she said snippily, “and they didn’t hurt me.”
“Just the same,” Bingo said admiringly, “you’re a good, brave little girl.”
She smiled at him gratefully.
“They sure left the house in a mess,” Handsome said.
For the first time, Bingo glanced around. The room looked as though a cyclone had passed through it in a terrible hurry to get somewhere else.
Sheriff Judson said, “Did your pa have much money in the house, Christine?”
“Just the milk check,” she said. “It’s in his desk drawer. I know it’s there because I looked tonight to see how much it was.”
“You go see if it’s still there, Herb,” the sheriff said. “And look around the house and see if anything valuable’s been took. You’d know, you were out here enough when you were courting Christine.”
Herb turned pink and left the room.
“How you talk,” Christine said coyly. “Herb never courted me.”
“I suppose he came out here every night for months to talk county politics with your pa,” Sheriff Judson said. “But it’s none of my business. Did you get even one good look at ’em?”
She shook her head.
“Know how many there were?”
“Two or three—four or five—I don’t know. I couldn’t tell.”
“Could you tell what they were doing?”
“I heard a lot of walking around and stuff being moved. It looks now like they were searching the house. But I didn’t know then what it was.”
Sheriff Judson sighed. “Too bad they blindfolded you. Or you coulda identified ’em if you ever saw ’em again. Did you hear ’em talking any time?”
She nodded. “The one that said to get away from the phone. And then when they left, another one said, ‘Leave her there, she’ll be all right.’”
“Could you recognize those voices if you heard them again?”
“I guess so,” she said dubiously.
“Anybody you know?”
“No. Nobody from around here.”
“Could it have been those two fellers?” The sheriff waved at Bingo and Handsome.
Handsome jumped. Bingo said, “Hey!”
“Well,” the sheriff said, “we gotta be sure. You’re strangers in these parts, and there’d have been time after you left my office for you to get out here and tie up Christine and search the house. Mind you, I’m not saying you did, I’m just asking Christine if it was your voices she heard.”
“It wasn’t,” Christine said indignantly. “Nothing like their voices.”
Bingo repressed an impulse to say, “So there!” Instead, he said, “I quite understand, Sheriff. You have to explore every possibility.”
“Darned right,” Sheriff Judson said amiably.
Herb came back into the room and said, “Nothing’s been took, far’s I know. The milk check’s O. K. and there’s about forty dollars in cash in a box on Miz Halvorsen’s dresser.”
Sheriff Judson shook his head. “Beats me. Wonder what those fellers were looking for. You ’n’ your ma are gonna have a busy day cleaning up tomorrow, Christine.”
There was a sound at the back door. Everyone sat up straight. Sheriff Judson walked to the kitchen door and said, “H’ya, Chris.” Everyone relaxed again.
Chris Halvorsen walked into the parlor, tired, dusty, and cross. He stared around in bewilderment.
“You had company, Chris,” Sheriff Judson said. He told, briefly but completely, what had happened.
Bingo had expected the big farmer to bellow with rage at this invasion of his home and fireside. Instead, Chris Halvorsen turned dead-white. Herb grabbed his arm on one side and Bingo on the other and they eased him into a chair. Incoherent, half-strangled sounds came from his throat.
“Get some water, Christine,” the sheriff said calmly. “Your pa may be gonna have a stroke.”
She fled into the kitchen, came back with a pitcher. The sheriff dumped it unceremoniously over the farmer’s head.
Chris Halvorsen looked up. “Quit it,” he said. “I ain’t gonna have no stroke.” His eyes were dazed and frightened.
“Any idea what those fellers were looking for?” the sheriff said gently.
The farmer shook his head. His face was gray.
“Anything valuable in the house?”
“The milk check. Maybe that’s what they wanted.”
Herb said, “The milk check was in plain sight in your desk, where they wouldn’t have to tear the house apart to find it, and you know it was.”
“Now, Herb,” the sheriff said reprovingly.
Chris Halvorsen sat bolt upright, his big freckled hands gripping the arms of his chair, his wide mouth moving nervously. “H
enry, I want you should have a deputy stay out here. Just a coupla days. Maybe them fellers’ll come back. Suppose Maybelle er Chrissie were here alone. Er suppose we were all asleep. You gotta have somebody out here.”
“Why, Chris!” the sheriff said in surprise.
“You gotta,” Chris Halvorsen said. There was a note of terrible desperation in his voice.
“Well, if you feel like that about it,” Sheriff Judson said. He was silent a moment, thinking. “Can’t spare Herb. But Earl can come out. Cost you four dollars a day, though. Special protection.”
“I’ll pay it,” Chris Halvorsen said.
“Four dollars and board,” the sheriff reminded him. “Well, I guess we can fix it. Herb, you—” He paused, scowled, and said, “I gotta go over t’ Zerkle’s and talk t’ Mrs. Halvorsen, and find out if Mrs. Zerkle was really sick or not. And we only got one car.” He turned to Bingo. “Oh, sure. You drive Herb into town. He can make a report and explain things to Earl, and Earl can come out in his own car.”
Chris Halvorsen said, “You aren’t going to leave me—leave this place—unguarded till Earl gets here!”
“Why, Chris,” the sheriff said, “if you feel that way about it, no. I’ll stay here till Earl gets back. I guess Christine and I can keep any bandits away from the place meanwhile. Is there any root beer in the cooler?”
Bingo, Handsome, and Herb went out to the convertible. The door had been slammed and Handsome had started the motor when Christine darted out the kitchen door and ran across the back yard. She hopped up on the running board, a frail, lovely little figure, her yellow hair pale gold in the darkness.
“I just want to tell you,” she breathed, “thanks. Thanks for everything. I hope you don’t think I’m a terrible baby.” She stepped gracefully off the running board and started slowly toward the house.
“I think—” Bingo began. He’d been going to say, “I think you’re wonderful,” but Handsome stepped suddenly on the accelerator and the convertible roared down the driveway.
“Handsome,” Bingo said severely, “that was very rude.”
“Listen, you guys,” Herb said. “You lay off Christine, see? I ain’t kiddin’. I’m a deputy sheriff, and if I was to claim I shot while you was resisting arrest, nobody’d ask me no questions.”