Going Going Gone

by Phoebe Atwood Taylor

  “I s’pose,” Asey said, “you always wash your hands in ponds?”

  “It’s true, Mr. Mayo, that I could have used the kitchen sink. Going to the pond,” Gardner said, “was a sentimental gesture. I thought I should like to go there once more and wash, as I did when I was a small boy. I do not expect that I shall ever visit this town again, you see. And now, unless you can think of any other points you care to discuss, I think I will leave you. D’you feel, by the way, that it will be quite proper for me to leave tomorrow morning?”

  Asey couldn’t tell how much irony was in the man’s tone. He was perfectly free to leave, and he knew it.

  “P’raps,” he said, “you’ll leave me your address, an’ phone numbers where you can be reached – lend me your pen, doc, will you? Oh, haven’t you,” he added as Cummings passed it to him, “anything but that old drippy one?”

  “That’s a grateful patient—”

  “I know!” Asey cut off his protest in mid-air. “An’ it drips. You got anything I can write on, Mr. Alden? I dragged the doc away without even so much as a prescription blank in his pocket.” His foot again bore down on Cummings’ instep. “Say, p’raps you got a letter-head, Mr. Alden, somewheres in your brief case? That’d save gettin’ ink all over us.”

  “Why, yes.” Gardner opened the brief case, holding it carefully so that its contents wouldn’t spill over. “I think I have one – yes, I—”

  “Oh, the pen!” Asey said suddenly, and kicked Cummings’ ankle.

  A spot appeared on Gardner’s seersucker jacket as a thin trickle of ink shot out of the pen in Asey’s hand.

  “Look out, Asey, you’ve pressed that release!” Cummings reached out for the pen, Asey dropped it, both grabbed – and the brief case went out of Gardner’s hands, its contents pouring all over the front walk and the lower porch step of the Inn.

  “Golly!” Asey said. “I’m awful sorry, Mr. Alden – Doc, get that envelope before it blows away!”

  He and Cummings zealously helped pick up the papers, the tube of toothpaste, the toothbrush, soap, shaving things, the clean shirt, the silk pyjamas.

  “An’ here,” Asey gave it to him gravely, “is your flashlight. I see you come prepared for our coast rules, too, Mr. Alden. Blue hood an’ everything! I’m awful sorry I was so clumsy, but I’m sure we didn’t miss anything. You been very thoughtful an’ considerate, answerin’ all our questions. I appreciate it, sir. Goodnight!”

  To Asey’s intense relief, Cummings waited until they rounded the corner before he exploded.

  “Asey Mayo, are you going to let that man get away with that? You know he never was in the movies all that time! He went in, skipped out, and came back again – that flashlight! You saw that flashlight with the blue hood! He was the man over at Solatia’s who biffed you and Riley’s man! You know he was! You’re not going to let him get away with it, are you?”

  “The night,” Asey said, “is yet young. It’s not even midnight. Why trouble his dreams? We can always get him if we want him. Huh, you’ll certainly have to admit he is very thoughtful an’ considerate man, doc! If that yarn about his dear old grandmother an’ the pink sea shells wouldn’t wring a heart of stone, his violent consideration for Solatia Spry would! Think of his larrupin’ all the way over my lane in that milk truck, just to ask my advice on her behalf!”

  “If Solatia was so mad with him that she refused to talk with him, why in blazes didn’t he have Quin Sharp phone her for him?” Cummings asked. “I wanted to slap that one right between his bushy eyebrows! Asey, he must think we’re damn fools if he thinks we swallowed all that whole!”

  “On the contrariwise,” Asey said, “he don’t think we’re fools at all, doc. He explained every last little point – most of ‘em, if you noticed, he explained before we asked him, even. Then he bounced everything off into the lap of an antique faker who’ll roar with laughter an’ deny it all, because there ain’t a shred of evidence against him. You can’t hold anyone for talkin’ in a whisper in a bus, an’ that’s just about what that part amounted to.”

  “You think he thinks we believe him?”

  “I don’t know what he thinks,” Asey said, “but I’m willin’ to bet that feller can prove everything he claimed. I bet he did show someone how to change a typewriter ribbon. I bet his old grandmother did keep pink sea shells in that chest. An’ his description of that milk truck was a gem. I bet if I’d asked him, he’d have known just how many empties an’ haw many cream bottles there was. ‘Course, the fact remains that he had plenty of time before he went dashin’ off in the truck to have gone to Solatia’s an’ sabotaged her tyres an’ phone. Yup, I hand it to him, on the whole. Tossin’ suspicion at Mr. Bald Harmsworth – why, even the name sounds villainous! I think he only made one real error that I’d call bad.”

  “What’s that?”

  Asey chuckled. “He never asked me when or if we could send him his dear old grandmother’s treasure chest that he paid three thousand dollars for, an’ practically couldn’t bear livin’ without. He plumb forgot it. Otherwise, he was good.”

  “I didn’t notice that,” Cummings said. “He had me so convinced of his feeling for that chest – you know, in spots he was pretty convincing, Asey!”

  “You might recall,” Asey said, “that he’s made a lifework of convincin’ judges an’ juries, an’ if he wasn’t reasonably successful at it, he probably wouldn’t be the head of Somebody, Fiddle-de-dee, What’s his name, an’ so on. Don’t yawn so vigorous, doc, you’ll get me started, an’ I still got to get back an’ get my tyres pumped up. I wonder if Eddie’s still open.”

  “If you refer to Eddie at the garage, you’re living in the past,” Cummings said. “Eddie’s on a submarine, or was, the last I heard.”

  “Who runs the place for him?” Asey inquired. “His kid sister, or his aunt?”

  “Both of ‘em,” Cummings returned, “and they run it better than he did.”

  “Wa-el, if the girls have a tyre pump kickin’ around,” Asey said philosophically, “I guess I can manage from there. I’ll call you if anything turns up.”

  “Okay. Oh, Asey!”

  “Uh-huh?” Asey turned back.

  “Oh, what’s the use!” Cummings said. “I’ve warned you before, and you always do just as you damn please! But if I had that lump on my head, I’d go to bed. In fact, I’m going to bed without one. But if you do any more prowling around, you might bear in mind that there is more than one sharp fish knife on Cape Cod, and that they’re occasionally employed as a lethal weapon. I’ll even go a step farther and point out that had that lead pipe been a fish knife, you would not now be worrying about four flat tyres, my fine Codfish Sherlock! You’d have no more worries than Solatia Spry. Consider that gruesome thought at regular intervals, please!”

  He marched off down the road toward his house, and Asey turned back to Main Street.

  The street lights flickered out as he paused on the corner. The quickest way to the garage was across lots, he knew. But the back yards of Main Street were now a maze of Victory Gardens, and he had no desire to tread on anyone’s Victory Radishes, or to become entwined in anyone’s Victory Pole Beans.

  Perhaps the long way around the block was better after all, he decided, and started off along the still, elm-shaded street.

  He was nearly abreast of the Inn when he heard the sharp metallic slap of a bicycle stand being kicked up.

  A second later, a bicycle shot out on to the street from a patch of darkness beyond the Inn, and whizzed away in the opposite direction.

  Asey turned and stared after the bicycle. Gardner Alden’s light seersucker coat, he thought, was almost as good for identification purposes as a glowing neon sign.

  “A thoughtful an’ considerate man,” he murmured. “You relieve our worries about your bein’ much of a hiker, but you wouldn’t for worlds upset us any by mentionin’ how snappy you ride a bike. Huh! Well, there’s nothin’ I can do about you now!”

  Doubtless, he thou
ght as he hurried on toward the garage, doubtless Gardner Alden had thought of some other sentimental gesture in connection with his dear old grandmother, or his far-off-boyhood days. Perhaps he’d remembered where he could locate one of those pink sea shells. Perhaps he was going to look for the last time at her initials burned in the bark of a tree!

  At the garage, he found Eddie’s aunt, a tall angular woman with glasses, fighting a tyre which wouldn’t come off its rim. She looked up at him a little belligerently.

  “Go on, say it! But it’s not in the book!”

  “I know,” Asey said. “It’s the one they don’t tell you about, with the hump, an’ you use brute force. Gimme that iron, an’ you hold the other one here. See?”

  Between them, they conquered the rim.

  “Now,” Asey said, “my cryin’ need is a tyre pump. If you could spare the gas an’ the time to drive me back of the woods by Solatia Spry’s—”

  “Say, what’s going on in those woods, anyway? I went there about half an hour ago – was it you who called me in such a rush, Asey?”

  He shook his head.

  “Well, someone did. I had a call to fix some flats, quick, and I went whooping over there, but I couldn’t find any car anywhere near Solatia’s.”

  “Who’d they say was callin’?” Asey asked. “Was it a man or a woman?”

  “Man. I had an engine running, and I couldn’t hear any too well – the name might’ve been Smith or Pumpernickel, I wouldn’t’ve known. I wouldn’t’ve gone,” she added, “if I hadn’t thought it might be you, or someone else doing something about this business of Solatia Spry. She was a nice woman, Asey. Before I took over here for Eddie, I used to drive her around a lot, to auctions and sales and such. Driving tired her – you get in,” she nodded toward the wrecker, “and I’ll take you over to your roadster. Yes, there was a time when I’d seen so much Sandwich glass and old mahogany and old china and such, I was something of an antique expert myself.”

  She backed the wrecker out, juggling it between two parked cars, two school buses, and the gas pumps.

  “Nice work – how’d you pick up the garage business?” Asey asked. “Didn’t you work at the library, Ellen?”

  “Mm. But this is lots more fun, and ten times the money. I was always handy – father used to be a watchmaker, you know, and I used to help him. Then I took a course last winter. Sometimes I get stumped, but I’ve got by. Asey, Old Baker from the Inn stopped for gas, and he said you’d been there hunting Gardner Alden. Probably everyone’s told you, but I can tell you again – and I know – that Solatia always mistrusted him. She never liked him a bit.”

  “Huh! “Asey said. “Is that right?”

  “Of course, John Alden never had any use for him either,” Ellen went on. “John didn’t like any of his family except Al Dorking, anyway. He said they all had too much ambition for their own good. He and Solatia used to have a lot of fun with poor Gardner!” she added with a laugh. “Gardner thinks he knows so much about antiques, but I tell you, Solatia’s fooled him more than once – and didn’t it make John laugh! She stuck him with some tankards not very long ago. She told me all about it while I was doing her valve job.”

  “I’m beginnin’ to be glad,” Asey said, “that Eddie’s on that submarine. Tell me, Ellen, while you was drivin’ Solatia around, did you ever run into a man named Harmsworth?”

  “Paul Harmsworth, the bald-headed man? Oh, sure! He makes those reproductions of old furniture, and Solatia used to say they were more beautiful than the originals. He’s a lot of fun, he is. He hired a car from me this morning to go visit Solatia, just after he and his helper came on the bus. He always goes to visit Solatia if he’s within fifty miles of here.”

  “Would you call him a faker?” Asey asked thoughtfully. “Did Solatia call him that?”

  “No, never,” Ellen said. “A faker’s someone who sells fakes for the real things. Harmsworth doesn’t. He reproduces old things and sells ‘em for reproductions. Everyone I ever met up with in the antique business always seemed to have a lot of respect for him, Asey. He’s real jolly and friendly. Once I remember his lending Solatia money when she ran short at a sale in Boston. And he’d like as not phone her from Chicago or somewhere, if he’d happen to’ve run into someone who was after something that he knew she had for sale.”

  “You know,” Asey said, “your picture of Harmsworth an’ Gardner Alden’s picture of Harmsworth are so different, you’d hardly guess it was the same man except for the name.”

  “From what I’ve seen and heard of Gardner, I guess he and I’d be inclined to paint different pictures of the same person. For example,” she said shrewdly, “I don’t think he and I’d describe you in the same way, either!”

  Asey chuckled. “The roadster’s on the back lane,” he said. “The old carriage road. I forgot to ask, but you did bring a tyre pump, didn’t you?”

  “Suspicious of lady mechanics, like all the rest,” Ellen said. “Well, I didn’t bring a pump. But I’ve got a gadget that hitches to the exhaust that’ll blow you up in two shakes.”

  Five minutes later, Asey gravely informed her that Cummings was right.

  “You’re better than Eddie. How much do I owe you?”

  “I’ll trade you the air for the rim you helped me with, and charge the trip up to good will. Who killed her, Asey, do you know?”

  “I don’t even know,” Asey said with a sigh, “who let the air out of my tyres!”

  “You better keep the air gadget, then,” Ellen told him, “till you get done. I liked Solatia. Anything I can do, you let me know. Like gasoline. I could maybe siphon some out of the lawn mower for you, or something.”

  “I’ll bear that in mind,” Asey said. “There’s one thing you might tell me. You get to see people – who’s a girl in town, around twenty, brown hair, who wears a pompadour?”

  “Oh, who’s a girl around town, around twenty, brown hair, who doesn’t?” Ellen retorted. “I counted nine at the auction. That’s why I’m working late to-night, you see. I sneaked off to the auction. But then Eddie used to sneak off for the ball games!”

  She turned the wrecker skilfully on the narrow lane, and departed.

  Asey sat quietly in the car for a moment.

  Then he shook his head impatiently and pressed the starter button.

  Perhaps it was because he’d been biffed with a piece of pipe, or a brick wall, or the side of a tank, perhaps it was because he was tired and his head still throbbed at intervals, perhaps it was because he was just dumb. But his thoughts kept reminding him of the soap operas, the radio serials Jennie kept blaring in the kitchen all day long.

  “Did Gardner kill Solatia?” he murmured. “Did he sabotage her car an’ phone? Did he put her into his dear old grandmother’s chest? Did Gardner really sit through Two-gun an’ the Slapstick Boys? Was it his blue-hooded flashlight Mayo seen glowin’ so eerie-like? Was it the wicked Gardner who biffed him an’ Riley’s man?”

  It was so easy just to ask the questions! No wonder – they rolled so easily off announcer’s tongues!

  “I could do it all night, myself! What is Gardner up to on that bike? What evil does he have in store? Does Quinton Sharp, the honest auctioneer, know more than we suspect? Is the bald Paul Harmsworth a nice dealer or a nasty horrid faker? And who was the girl with the pompadour?” Asey sighed as he started the roadster sliding down the lane. “Kiddies, Old Man Mayo wishes he knew, too. An’ let me whisper this one to you, kiddies! Uncle Asey won’t even let them books enter his mind, so if you been thinkin’ about ‘em, you stop it, quick!”

  He hesitated when he came to the main road, and then he turned and drove back along it toward Solatia’s house.

  “Let’s be fair,” he said to himself, “an’ not call him Gardner, in spite of his blue flashlight. Let’s call him the biffer. Now, the biffer skipped when Cummings yelled out my name, an’ he skipped before he got to touch anything at Solatia’s. Why shouldn’t he return? After all, he wanted whatever
he was after badly enough to lay two of us out cold!”

  And if by some rare chance the biffer’s name was Gardner Alden, where would he be calling at this time of night, and on whom would he be calling?

  “Huh! He hardly bothered noticin’ his sister even when she had hysterics, an’ he didn’t pay as much attention to his nephew, an’ it’d have been easier for Sharp to call on him at the Inn. An’ if he was on callin’ terms with anyone else in town, the doc or Jennie would’ve told me so. Yup, let’s be fair as can be, but let’s guess maybe perhaps Gardner come back!”

  He stopped the roadster some distance from the house, and approached it on foot.

  Although the shades had been drawn, the place was alight from the front parlour to the woodshed. At least, this trip, no one was creeping around with a flashlight. And if a car or two had been parked in the yard, he’d suspect that Hanson and his police had finally arrived. Only there weren’t any cars.

  But there was a bicycle, parked by the bushes at the corner of the house. He’d have missed seeing it entirely if a streak of light at the side of the shade curtain hadn’t happened to fall on the chrome handle bars.

  Asey grinned as he walked up to the machine, unscrewed the valve caps of the tyres, and let out the air.

  As he got to his feet, he became aware of something else in the shadow of the bushes.

  Riley’s man was there, neatly bound and gagged and blindfolded.

  And Riley’s man was still there, five minutes later, when Asey himself, also neatly bound and gagged, was placed beside him.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  IT was one of those things, Asey thought, that you did with a rope.

  He knew all about it. During the past months, the Porter Tank Plant workers had been regaled during their lunch hours with any number of demonstrations of what lethal work you could accomplish with a rope – providing, of course, that you happened to have a rope handy, that you had it poised and ready, and providing that your intended victim was as much of a credulous, unsuspecting and generally gullible dupe as he himself had proved to be.