The Richard Deming Mystery MEGAPACK™: 15 Classic Crime & Mystery Stories

Cheers

Originally published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, February 1968.

I stayed out until 11:00 p.m., hoping the landlady would be in bed by then, but she had waited up, and her door opened just after I had sneaked past it.

“Mr. Willard!”

I flinched, then turned around to face her. She stood in her doorway, fat arms folded across her ample bosom, her eyes blazing.

“Yes, Mrs. Emory?” I said meekly.

“It is the seventeenth!”

“Yes, ma’am, I know we promised the back rent today, but the fight we had scheduled was postponed—”

“Fight, schmight,” Mrs. Emory interrupted. “I don’t think you’re ever going to have another fight. You and Mr. Jones either pay up or get out. Tonight!”

“At this hour? Be reasonable, Mrs. Emory. I guarantee that by noon at the latest—”

I was interrupted again, this time by the front door opening with a bang. I recognized my roommate and manager by his lanky legs. That’s all you could see of him because the upper part of his body, and even his head, was hidden by the huge pile of packages he was carrying.

I moved forward to relieve him of part of the load. In one of the paper bags I took from him, bottles clinked in an interesting manner.

Ambrose Jones peered around the remainder of the packages. “Ah, Mrs. Emory,” he said with amiable formality, “you’re looking particularly revolting tonight.”

If the packages hadn’t already given it away, his greeting would have told me that Ambrose had fallen into money. He always insulted the landlady when he was flush. His formal tone also told me he was half-stoned.

Mrs. Emory knew the symptoms, too, and ignored the insult because she knew it meant our back rent was forthcoming. She used her pass key to open the door, and we both dumped our packages on the nearest twin bed. With a flourish Ambrose drew out a roll of bills.

“Here you are, my benevolent gargoyle,” he said, counting out four twenties into the landlady’s outstretched palm. “Two weeks back rent and two weeks rent in advance.”

Mrs. Emory sniffed and left the room. Ambrose locked the door behind her and fanned the roll to show me that the twenties had been its lowest denomination. Most of the bills were fifties.

“How soon can we expect cops to be beating on the door?” I asked.

“Now, Sam,” he said reproachfully, “this represents the advance on a business transaction. One thousand dollars, less what I spent for purchases and paid to Mrs. Emory. We have four thousand more coming at the conclusion of the deal.”

The only thing I could think of was that he must have matched me with the champ and guaranteed that I would take a dive. No, that couldn’t be it. Why would the champ need a guarantee? I hadn’t lasted a full round in two years and hadn’t even had a fight in six months.

While I was going through these mental convolutions, Ambrose was opening packages. There were clothes for both of us. There were cold cuts, cheese, rye bread, pickles, caviar and smoked oysters. There was champagne, Scotch, bourbon and various mixes.

Ambrose stacked the comestibles on the dresser.

While he sorted out the clothing, his and mine, I made myself a thick sandwich.

Then I asked. “Who do we have to kill?”

“A fellow named Everett Dobbs,” he said brightly, and poured champagne into two water glasses.

I said, “Kidding aside, Ambrose, what’s the deal?” He raised his eyebrows at me, and popped a couple of smoked oysters into his mouth which he swallowed before saying, “I told you. Our client is a Mrs. Cornelia Dobbs, a handsome but fading nymph of middle age who has tired of her husband. I met her in a bar. After buying me several drinks she broached the subject of murder. She seemed to be under the impression I was a criminal type because the place was Monty’s.”

That was understandable. Monty’s is a waterfront bar where a large percentage of the clientele are criminal types.

“So you conned her out of a grand,” I said.

“Conned her? I accepted an ethically binding advance. Are you accusing me of being dishonest?”

I found shot glasses in the top bureau drawer, opened a bottle of bourbon and poured. We had several more each, along with cold cuts, cheese, caviar, smoked oysters and pickles. As we reveled, Ambrose explained the arrangements he had made in more detail.

Everett Dobbs was a retired real-estate speculator with about half the money in the county. He and his would-be widow lived in one of the huge homes in the Glen Ridge area. Dobbs spent most of his time at the Glen Ridge Country Club, however, and that’s where Cornelia Dobbs wanted us to “take” him.

According to Cornelia, her husband left the club promptly at eleven every night, almost invariably alone, and drove home. She had furnished Ambrose with a description of the man’s car and its license number. We were to wait in the parking lot, waylay him, and drive him off in his own car. One of us would drive Dobbs’ car, the other would follow in the jalopy Ambrose and I jointly owned. We would arrange some kind of fatal accident. Cornelia, of course, would have arranged an unbreakable alibi.

I didn’t doubt he was completely serious at this particular moment, and I was quite sure there actually was a Mrs. Cornelia Dobbs and that Ambrose had agreed to kill her husband for five thousand dollars, but Ambrose tended to lose his sense of perspective when he was drinking. I figured that when he groped through the red haze of next morning’s hangover, he would be appalled at himself.

In fact, I thought I might have a problem convincing him to keep the thousand-dollar advance. Cornelia could hardly demand it back without risking considerable trouble for herself, but my manager had a peculiar code of ethics. He was capable of arranging a fixed fight, but he always stood by his word.

I was still turning over in my mind arguments in favor of keeping the advance and telling Cornelia to get lost when Ambrose passed out.

Ambrose awoke with the hangover I had predicted. When he could open his eyes all the way without bleeding to death, he gave me a weak smile and elbowed up.

“Smoked oysters don’t mix very well with champagne, I guess.”

“No,” I agreed. “I’m sure it was the oysters.”

He got up, wrapped a robe around his lanky frame and went up the hall to shower and shave. When he came back, I made the same trip.

Ambrose has remarkable powers of recuperation. He was dressed and clear-eyed by the time I got back. We had no conversation until I finished dressing.

Then I said, “You won’t have to return the money. She couldn’t possibly do anything about it.”

“Return it? Why should I return it?”

“I mean she can’t go to the police.”

He frowned at me. “Why should she go to the police?”

“For fraud. When we don’t kill her husband.”

He examined me as though searching for the hole in my head.

I said patiently, “You’re certainly not serious about becoming a professional killer.”

“For five thousand dollars? Of course, I am. I explained it all last night.”

“You were drunk last night. We’re not killers.”

“We’re not anything,” he said. “You’re not a fighter. You’re an ex-fighter, which makes me not anything either. I’m an ex-fight manager.”

There must have been a lost look on my face, because he said in a more kindly tone, “This is our chance, Sam. With a stake we could find another fighter. I’ll manage and you can train him.”

“But murder, Ambrose!”

“Aw, come off it, Sam. You killed a man in the ring once.”

“An accident,” I said. “It’s not the same. They put you in the gas chamber for murder.”

“Only if they catch you. Do you know why most murderers get caught?”

“Sure. Because they’re not as smart as cops.”

“Most aren’t,” Ambrose agreed. “Statistically, eighty percent of the murders in this country are committed by friends or relatives of the victims. The cops have it easy with these cases. They simply check back on all the victim’s associates, and eventually they have to come to the one who pulled the trigger or swung the axe or dropped the poison in the coffee.”

“So eventually they’ll get to us.”

Ambrose gave his head a slow shake. “How? We’ve never even seen him and he’s never seen us. There’s no point of contact for the cops to check back on.”

That made sense, but it takes a while to adjust to the idea of murder. I said, “They always suspect the wife. Suppose she breaks down and fingers us?”

“She won’t break down. She’ll have a perfect alibi, and besides, it’s going to look like an accident.”

I fingered one of my cauliflower ears while I thought this over. Finally I said, “Suppose he doesn’t come out of the club alone?”

“Then we wait until the next night and Cornelia rigs another alibi.”

I had only one last question. “How do we collect the other four thousand?”

“She’s to bring it to Monty’s tomorrow night.”

“I’m still not convinced,” I said. “Let’s go get some breakfast, and maybe you can convince me while we’re eating.”

He did.

We spent the day in plans and preparations. We drove out to Glen Ridge Country Club and looked over the parking lot. Then we drove over the route Everett Dobbs would take home and found a beautiful spot for an accident.

The road wound over Glen Ridge, a small mountain with a hairpin turn right at the crest, protected only by a wooden guard rail. Below the guard rail the mountainside sloped down at a sixty-degree angle to another section of the winding road nearly fifty feet below.

“They’ll think he cracked up on the way home,” Ambrose said. “Cornelia says he drinks a lot, so it’ll just look like another drunk who missed a curve.”

We got out to the country club at nine that night, just in case Everett Dobbs left early. Ambrose parked the jalopy and we got out to look for Dobbs’ car. Cornelia had described it to Ambrose and had given him its license number, so we had no difficulty finding it even though it was quite dark by then and there were some fifty other cars on the lot.

As soon as we located it, Ambrose drove the jalopy into a vacant slot right behind it, and we settled back to wait.

Ambrose had brought along a fifth of Scotch for himself and a quart of bourbon for me in order to relieve the tedium. We also needed it to quiet our nerves.

“Maybe we’d better slow down on the hootch,” I suggested.

Ambrose frowned at me in the darkness and took another swig of Scotch. “I’m as sober as a sphinx,” he said.

At 10:00 p.m. a lone figure came from the direction of the clubhouse and weaved in our direction. He was a tall, lean man in a dark suit, and his gait indicated he was cock-eyed out of his skull.

“If that’s Dobbs, he’s an hour early,” Ambrose said. “From the looks of him, the barkeep probably cut him off. He wouldn’t have lasted until eleven.”

The man put a key into the door lock of the car we were watching.

“Guess this is it,” I said. “I can handle this joker alone. You just follow.”

I got out of the car and was surprised when I staggered slightly. Straightening, I went over to where the tall man was still fumbling with the lock.

“Having trouble?” I asked.

“The keyhole keeps moving, old man,” he said. “Would you mind seeing if you can hit it?”

He handed me the keys. The keyhole was moving, I noticed, but I managed to slip the key into it on the second try.

“Bravo!” the tall man said when I pulled the door open. “May I buy you a drink for your trouble?”

I decided getting him to go along willingly would be simpler than slugging him. “Sure,” I said, “but not here. I know a better place.”

“Fine,” he said with enthusiasm. “Any place good enough for my friends is good enough for me.” He thrust out his hand. “My name is Dobbs, old buddy.”

I shook the hand. “Willard,” I said. “Sam Willard, pal o’ mine.”

“Delighted, old man. And now the keys, please.”

“Maybe I’d better drive,” I said. “I know where this place is, and you don’t.”

“Be my guest,” he said, offering a little bow and losing his balance.

Preventing him from falling on his face by catching him, I helped him into the car, then slid behind the wheel.

The engine purred beautifully. As I pulled off the lot, the jalopy chugged along behind us. Dobbs promptly went to sleep. We reached the hairpin turn at the top of Glen Ridge without incident. It was just beyond the crest, so that there was a slight downgrade to it. I parked on the very crest and Ambrose parked behind me. There wasn’t another car in sight.

Dobbs was still sleeping, and I was afraid he would wake up if I pulled him over under the wheel. I figured nobody would be able to tell he hadn’t been behind the wheel anyway, after a drop of fifty feet.

Ambrose came up, weaving slightly, as I climbed from the car. Leaving the door open, I shifted into drive, released the emergency brake and reached in to press the accelerator with my hand. I pressed it gently, just enough to start the car rolling. Then I shifted into neutral, pulled out my head and slammed the door.

It was about forty feet to the guard rail. The car picked up speed nicely and crashed through the wooden barrier as though it were cardboard. The sound of vegetation being torn out by the roots ended in a tremendous crash from below.

We raced back to the jalopy, Ambrose backed and turned, and we headed back the way we had come.

“Maybe we should have kept going the other way,” he said worriedly as we reached the next turn. “We have to drive right past where it landed, and maybe it’s blocked the road.”

“It probably just bounced and kept going,” I said. “There’s another small drop on the other side.”

We rounded another curve, and now were right below the hairpin turn. A fender, a wheel and a lot of broken glass littered the road. Presumably the rest of the car had continued on across the road, over the next bank and down into the underbrush below us. We couldn’t see down there because it was too dark.

Ambrose slowed to five miles an hour in order to edge past the debris. A tall figure slid on the seat of his pants from the undergrowth sloping upward to our right. Ambrose braked to a dead halt.

The man picked himself up, brushed off his pants and staggered over to the window on my side of the car. His clothing was pretty well torn up, but otherwise he seemed unharmed.

Leaning his head into the car, he said, “I say, gentlemen, I seem to have had a bit of an accident. Must have gone to sleep.”

He was looking straight at me with no sign of recognition. Apparently he was one of those drunks who blank out, because he obviously had no recollection of our previous encounter.

“I’m not exactly sure where I am,” he said in a tone of apology. “Do you happen to know?”

“Glen Ridge,” I said.

“Oh, yes.” He glanced around vaguely. “I recognize it now. I say, do you suppose that’s part of my car?” He was looking at the smashed green fender.

“Uh-huh,” I said. “No point in looking for the rest. I doubt that it will run.” I got out of the car. “Get in.”

“Why that’s very nice of you gentlemen,” he said, climbing into the middle. “May I buy you gentlemen a drink?”

“We have one,” I said, handing him the bourbon bottle.

He took a grateful swig as Ambrose started the car. When he handed the bottle back, I took a swig, too. Ambrose lifted his Scotch bottle from the floor and had a drink.

“What now?” I asked Ambrose.

“I’m thinking,” he said.

“I think I must have been heading for the country club,” Dobbs said, “but I can’t go in these clothes. Would you gentlemen mind dropping me at my boat?”

“What boat?” Ambrose asked.

“I keep it at the Lakeshore Yacht Club.” Suddenly his face brightened with inspiration. “Do you gentlemen enjoy night fishing?”

Even as dark as it was I could see the interest in Ambrose’s face. “What kind of boat do you have?”

“Just a small one. A twenty-five-footer.”

Ambrose and I exchanged glances, both thinking the same thing.

“You mean you’d like to go fishing tonight?” Ambrose asked.

“If you gentlemen have the time to be my guests.”

“We’ll take the time,” Ambrose said.

The pier of the Lakeshore Yacht Club was well lighted, and we could see about fifty boats, ranging from skills with outboard motors to cabin cruisers, docked in individual slips. None of the other owners seemed to share Dobbs’ enthusiasm for night fishing, because there wasn’t a single car in the parking area facing the pier.

Our host directed us to park in front of slip number twelve. The boat was a graceful little cabin cruiser with an enclosed bridge. A registration number and the name Bountiful was painted on the bow.

Ambrose carried the Scotch bottle as we clambered aboard. Dobbs and I had finished the bourbon en route. By now he was so snockered, we had to help him aboard.

Dobbs showed us below by opening the hatch and falling down the ladder. I was the next down, but I held onto an iron handrail and made it erect. I lit my lighter, spotted a wall switch and flicked on an overhead light. By the time Ambrose had joined us, I had helped Dobbs to his feet.

“Thanks, old man,” he said. “I’ll have to get those steps fixed.”

There were four bunks and a couple of cupboards in the cabin. Dobbs opened one of the cupboards and took out a couple of fishing rods. “Bait’s topside,” he said, dropping the rods and staggering to hands and knees.

I helped him to his feet again as Ambrose collected the rods. Ambrose carried them tops while I assisted Dobbs up the ladder. Dobbs collapsed in a canvas chair on the stern deck and immediately went to sleep.

“You know how to run this thing?” Ambrose asked.

“I’ve handled boats,” I said. “Not on fresh water, but it shouldn’t be any different than salt water. I’ll take a look.”

I climbed up to the wheelhouse and, with the aid of my lighter, found the control-panel lights. It took my eyes a time to focus, but eventually I figured out the purpose of the various controls. I started the engine, let it idle and switched on the running lights.

Ambrose climbed up into the wheelhouse. “You familiar with the harbor?” he asked.

“I told you I’d never been out on the lake before.”

“No, you didn’t. You just said you’d never handled a boat on fresh water.”

“All right,” I said. “No, I’m not familiar with the harbor, but the channel will be marked with buoys.”

Ambrose peered aft. “That looks like a seawall out there. Don’t run into it.”

I looked that way and dimly saw a long concrete breakwater across the mouth of the harbor. A pair of blinking red lights about fifty feet apart bobbed in the water at the near end of it.

“I know how to navigate,” I growled. “Go cast off.” He started down the ladder frontward, then changed his mind and backed down, holding onto the iron handrail with his free hand.

After some fumbling with the line he finally cast off. A moment later I backed from the slip, swung the boat around and headed at low speed for the lighted buoys marking the harbor entrance.

“Go out a couple of miles,” Ambrose said.

My navigation must have been a little rusty, because I scraped one of the lighted buoys as we went by. I missed the other by a good fifty feet, however.

Then we were beyond the seawall, in open water. There was only a slight roll, but it brought a groan from Ambrose. I opened the throttle and headed straight out from shore.

Ambrose had said to go out a couple of miles, but I couldn’t seem to focus my eyes on the compass, and I was afraid if I got too far out to see the harbor lights, I might get turned around. About a half mile out I shifted into neutral, let the boat drift and went down on deck. I figured nobody as drunk as Dobbs would be able to swim a half mile.

Dobbs was still asleep. Ambrose was hanging onto the stern rail and breathing deeply. His face was pale.

“Feel better?” I asked.

“I’m all right. How far out are we?”

“Far enough,” I said, and lifted Dobbs from his chair. He nestled his head against my shoulder like a baby.

I heaved him over the stern. There was a splash, a sound of floundering, then a sputtering noise.

“Man overboard!” came a strangled shout from the darkness.

The shout came from several yards away, because the boat was drifting rapidly. I went tops, engaged the clutch and swung back toward the harbor. Ambrose came up to stand beside me.

As we neared the blinking red lights of the buoys, I thought of something. I said, “Aren’t the cops going to wonder how Dobbs got so far out if we leave his boat docked?”

Ambrose patted my shoulder. “Luckily you have a manager to do your thinking for you, my sinewed but brainless friend. After we land, we’ll aim the boat back out to open water. Eventually it’ll run out of gas and be found drifting. When Dobbs’ body is washed up and the autopsy shows he was full of alcohol, it’ll be obvious he fell overboard in a drunken stupor.”

I wasn’t so brainless that I couldn’t see a big hole in this plan. We were almost to the marked channel now. I cut the throttle way down, swung in a circle and began to back toward the end of the seawall.

“What are you doing?” Ambrose asked.

“You can’t aim a pilotless boat like you do a gun,” I said. “There isn’t a chance in a thousand I could hit the channel if I started it out from shore. It’d crash right into the inner side of the seawall and give the cops something to wonder about. So we’ll land on the seawall, aim it outward from here, then walk along the wall to shore.”

I was making sternway at too sharp an angle. I shifted to ahead, pulled forward several yards and tried again. I had to maneuver several times before I got it just right, but I finally managed to slide the boat gently against the end of the cement wall with its bow pointed outward.

About a dozen seagulls roosting on the wall flapped away when the hull scraped the cement.

Ambrose jumped onto the wall and held the boat there by the rail. I could hear the cement grinding a little paint off, but it wasn’t doing any serious damage.

I set the rudder so the boat would go straight out from shore, spiked the wheel, engaged the clutch, and gave it just enough gas for headway. Then I scrambled down the ladder. Ambrose had been unable to hold the boat against the thrust of the propeller, and there was already a three-foot gap of water between me and the wall when I mounted the rail.

I made a mighty leap, landed on the wall and crashed into Ambrose, knocked him down. Another flock of seagulls a little farther on flapped into the air.

Ambrose climbed to his feet, examined his hands, then tried to peer around at the seat of his pants. He took out a handkerchief and wiped his hands.

“This wall’s just been painted,” he said.

“That’s not paint,” I told him. “It’s seagull manure.”

A revolted expression formed on his face. He wiped at the seat of his pants with the handkerchief, then tossed it into the water. I led the way along the seawall to where the harbor shore curved around to meet its far end. Roosting seagulls rose at our approach and settled again on other parts of the wall. As we neared the wall’s end, I spotted a pair of blinking red lights and came to an abrupt halt.

“What’s the matter?” Ambrose asked.

“I hope not what I think. We’ll know in a minute.”

We went on and discovered that what I had hoped against was true. The blinking red lights I had seen were on buoys marking another channel. There was seventy-five feet of water between us and shore.

Ambrose said bitterly, “I should never let you think.”

“So we’ll get wet. We’ll just have to swim for it.”

“I can’t swim,” Ambrose announced.

After some unfriendly discussion, we finally solved that problem. Ambrose held onto my belt while I breast-stroked across the seventy-five-foot channel. We climbed out on what seemed to be the public dock. A few fishing tugs were tied up to it, but nobody was around.

“At least I got my pants clean,” Ambrose said, craning around in an attempt to see his seat.

It was about three-quarters of a mile along the curving shore back to where our jalopy was parked. We sloshed along without conversation. Although it was a fairly warm night, we were chilly in our wet clothes. Occasionally I could hear Ambrose’s teeth chattering.

As we reached the Yacht Club pier, I spotted the running lights of a boat just entering the harbor by means of the channel we had used. The lights moved in our direction.

We both halted in front of slip twelve and watched the Bountiful slide smoothly into its slot. The running lights went out and a tall, lean figure descended to the deck and tied up. Then he saw us standing there.

“Hello, fellows,” Dobbs said cordially, examining our wet clothes with interest. “You get a ducking too?”

“Uh-huh,” Ambrose said morosely.

“Lose your boat?”

He had blanked out again. He didn’t even remember us.

I said, “Yeah.”

“Too bad,” Dobbs said with sympathy. “I was luckier.” He indicated his own sopping clothing. “I’m not sure just what happened, because I was drinking a little. First I knew, I was in the water and separated from the boat. You can bet that sobered me up. I swam around for a devil of a long time before it swung back right by me at a speed slow enough for me to climb aboard.”

“You’re a lucky guy,” Ambrose said sourly, his mouth drooping.

In an apologetic tone Dobbs said, “I’d offer you a change of clothes, but I only have one on board. You live far from here?”

“Clear downtown,” Ambrose said.

“Well, if you wait until I change, I have a place near here where you can dry out. It’s not my home, but it has a dryer in it, and something to drink.”

We decided to wait.

Dobbs disappeared below. Ten minutes later he reappeared wearing sneakers, white ducks and a turtle-neck sweater. When he stepped onto the pier he staggered slightly, but instantly righted himself. I realized that while his cold bath had sobered him considerably, he was still about half-stoned.

He glanced around the parking area and looked puzzled when he saw no car but ours.

“How the devil did I get here?” he asked. “I just remembered my car’s in the repair shop.”

He must have a vague recollection of the accident, I thought. Neither of us told him his car wasn’t in a garage, but was spread over a considerable area at Glen Ridge.

“Must have taken a taxi,” he decided. He thrust out his hand to me. “My name’s Dobbs.”

“Willard,” I said.

When he offered his hand to Ambrose, Ambrose said, “Jones.”

“Delighted,” Dobbs said. “How’d you lose your boat?”

“Capsized,” Ambrose said briefly. “It was only a skiff and we were inside the seawall.”

We let Dobbs sit in the back of the jalopy so that we wouldn’t get him wet. He directed Ambrose to drive three blocks south to Main Street, then two blocks west.

“Pull in that driveway,” he said, pointing.

The entrance to the drive was between stone pillars. On one of the pillars was a sign: Dobbs Funeral Home.

Dobbs had Ambrose park by a side entrance and we all got out.

As our host fiddled with a key, I whispered to Ambrose, “I thought this guy was in real estate.”

“Retired,” Ambrose whispered back. “Guess he’s gone into another business.”

Dobbs got the door open and led us into a small foyer. An open door off the left side revealed a business office. Dobbs opened a door to the right, flicked on a light switch and led us down a flight of stairs to the basement.

We passed through a room full of empty caskets into another room where there was a sink, a couple of metal tables on wheels and a counter along one wall containing implements of various kinds. I guessed this was the embalming room.

From a cupboard Dobbs took two folded white cloths which looked like small sheets, except that the material was heavier. He handed one to me and one to Ambrose.

“Sorry I haven’t robes to loan you while your clothing dries,” he said, “but you can wrap yourselves in these.”

We emptied our pockets on one of the embalming tables, stripped off our clothes and wrapped the sheet-like cloths around us like togas. Dobbs carried our clothing, including our shoes, into what seemed to be a service hall off the embalming room. A moment later we heard a laundry dryer start to rotate.

When Dobbs came back, Ambrose asked, “What are these things we’re wearing?”

“Shrouds,” Dobbs said.

I didn’t exactly shudder, but I hoped he had set the dryer on high.

Dobbs went over to a cabinet, took out three water glasses and a bottle of Scotch. I noted that there were several other bottles in the cabinet. He set the glasses on one of the embalming tables, poured a stiff jolt into each glass and held onto the bottle.

“Let’s go in here where it’s more comfortable,” he said, and led us into a comfortable little den. Dobbs set the bottle on a desk and took an easy chair, Ambrose took another and I sat on the sofa.

“Cheers,” Dobbs said, raising his glass.

We raised ours in salute. Dobbs tossed off his whole drink. Ambrose and I each took only about half of ours.

It went that way for the next half-hour. For every ounce of Scotch Ambrose and I drank, Dobbs put away two. At the end of the half-hour the bottle was empty. Dobbs tried to get out of his chair and found that he couldn’t.

“I say, old man,” he said to Ambrose, “would you mind getting us a fresh bottle?”

The swim had considerably sobered me, but I was beginning to feel a little fuzzy again. Ambrose seemed perfectly sober, though, when he rose, clutched his toga around him and went into the embalming room. I noticed he carried the empty Scotch bottle with him.

“How long does that dryer take?” I asked Dobbs.

“Dryer?”

“You put our clothes in the dryer, remember?” I said. “How long does it take?”

“Oh, your clothes. Yes, of course. They’re out in the dryer, old man.”

“How long does it take?” I asked patiently.

“The dryer? About forty-five minutes. Wasn’t there another gentleman with us a moment ago?”

“He went after more Scotch,” I informed him.

“He did? That was unnecessary. There’s plenty in the embalming room.” He attempted to focus his eyes on a wristwatch, gave up and asked, “What time is it, old friend?”

My watch said eleven-thirty, which surprised me. Then I realized it was stopped. It wasn’t waterproof.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I’d guess about twelve-thirty.”

Ambrose came back carrying two bottles. He handed one to Dobbs, poured drinks for me and himself from the other. Dobbs poured his tumbler nearly full. We all drank, Dobbs, as usual, pouring it all down in one gulp. He looked surprised.

“Was that Scotch?” he asked in a squeaky voice.

He picked up his private bottle and looked at the label. His eyes wouldn’t focus on it, so I went over and looked at it.

“Scotch,” I verified.

Dobbs gave a relieved nod and poured himself another glassful. I went back to the sofa, sat down and looked at Ambrose. He was looking at Dobbs.

Ambrose raised his glass and said, “Cheers.”

Dobbs drained his glass and looked surprised again. “Odd,” he said, staring at the glass.

Ambrose got up, wrapped his toga about him and went over to pour the man a third drink. Dobbs merely continued to stare down at it thoughtfully.

We sat there in silence for about ten minutes. Ambrose and I finished our drinks and Ambrose poured two more. Dobbs hadn’t sampled his third one.

“Cheers,” Ambrose said, raising his glass.

Dobbs raised his very slowly. It took him a couple of minutes to let it trickle down his throat, but he managed to put it all away. His arm came down with equal slowness, resting the glass on the arm of his chair.

Ambrose asked, “How long does that dryer take?”

Our host didn’t answer. I said, “Forty-five minutes.”

“Then our clothes should be done,” Ambrose said.

The dryer had stopped. Our clothes were bone dry, but our suits were wrinkled and the shoes were stiff.

When we had dressed, Ambrose carefully refolded the shrouds and replaced them in the cupboard. We picked our pocket items from the embalming table and stowed them away.

“What about him?” I asked, jerking my thumb toward the den.

“He should be done, too.”

A trifle unsteadily he walked into the den. I trailed along. Dobbs sat in his chair with a fixed smile on his face. Ambrose went over and shook him. There was no response.

Ambrose tried to lift the glass from his hand, but couldn’t. He tried to pry the man’s fingers loose, but they were gripping the glass too tightly.

“What’s the matter with him?” I asked.

“He drank about a fifth of embalming fluid.”

I gave the man in the chair a startled look. “You mean he’s finally dead?”

“Cold as a carp. We’d better get him out of here.”

“Why?” I asked.

Ambrose thought this over, weaving slightly. Presently he said, “I think we’d better collect on this tonight and then blow town, instead of waiting until tomorrow night. And what better proof of accomplishment can we show than this corpse?”

It was my turn to think matters over. Somehow his suggestion didn’t strike me as very wise. If we left Dobbs where he was, it seemed to me the cops would assume he got too stoned to know the difference between Scotch and embalming fluid, which was more or less what had actually happened. Driving around with a corpse in the car seemed asking for trouble, but as Ambrose had pointed out, what better proof could there be than the corpse?

Ambrose said, “Take that glass out of his hand.”

I tried, but I couldn’t bend his fingers.

“The hell with it,” Ambrose said. “Just carry him out to the car.”

He was stiff as a frozen steak. When I heaved him into my arms, he remained in his seated position, his right arm thrust out in front of him and the glass still clutched in his hand.

Ambrose picked up the Scotch bottle we had partly emptied, plus the one containing the embalming fluid. He switched off the den light and carried the two bottles into the embalming room.

He set down the Scotch bottle and dumped the embalming fluid in the other one down the sink. I stood with the rigid body of Dobbs in my arms as he rinsed out the bottle and dropped it into a waste can. Then he picked up the Scotch bottle and preceded me into the casket room, switching off the embalming room light as he went through the door.

At the top of the stairs he flicked the light switch to turn off the light in the casket room. When I had carried Dobbs into the foyer, he closed the door behind me. The foyer light had been on when we entered, so we left it that way. Ambrose set the spring lock on the side door before pulling it closed behind us.

I set Dobbs in the rear of the jalopy, where he sat erect, smiling frozenly and thrusting his glass out before him. I climbed in front and Ambrose backed out of the driveway.

It was a long drive to the home of Everett and Cornelia Dobbs. When we passed the place where the car had crashed, someone had pulled the wheel and fender off onto the shoulder, but the road was still littered with glass.

It must have been 2:00 a.m. when we finally arrived. A curving drive led past a swimming pool which had underwater lights. Since no one was in the pool, I assumed the lights were left on all night as a safety precaution so no one would fall into it in the dark.

The house was a two-story brick. Ambrose parked right in front of the porch and we both went up to the door. Through a window we could see a night light on in the front room. Ambrose rang the bell.

“Suppose she’s not alone?” I said.

“She will be. She outlined her plans to me in detail. She was having some women in for bridge to establish her alibi. She estimated they would leave about midnight, and she was going to ask the woman who had driven the others here to call her when she got home so she’d know everybody got home safely. That would cover her until about twelve-thirty, then she planned to go to bed until the police awakened her to report the accident.”

Several minutes passed and Ambrose had rung the bell again before it finally opened. A bleached blonde of about thirty-five in a housecoat peered out.

“Ah, Mrs. Dobbs,” Ambrose said with a formal bow which nearly threw him off balance before he managed to right himself. “This is my partner, Sam Willard.”

She barely glanced at me. “What in heaven’s name are you doing here?”

“Reporting mission accomplished. We have the evidence in the car.”

She came out on the porch and looked from me to Ambrose. “That’s impossible.”

“Look in the back of our car,” Ambrose said, making a grand gesture in that direction.

“What are you talking about?” she asked crossly. “Everett phoned me from the club. He loaned his car to Herman and stayed there all night.”

She went down the steps and peered into the back seat. Her eyes grew saucer size.

“Herman!” she said. “What’s the matter with him?” We had followed her down the steps.

Ambrose said, “Herman?”

She swung on him. “That’s Everett’s younger brother, you fool! The man I intend to marry. What have you done to him?”

One thing about Ambrose: even snookered to the eyebrows he could always think on his feet. He said soothingly, “He’s merely drunk, madam. We’ll see that he gets home safely. Sorry we erred. He was getting into your husband’s car and he said his name was Dobbs, so naturally we assumed he was your husband.”

“Why did you bring him here anyway?” she snapped.

Ambrose was still thinking on his feet. He said, “We meant to undress him, put on his swim trunks and drown him in the pool.”

“Shut up!” she hissed. “Herman doesn’t know anything about my plans! Or at least he didn’t.”

“He can’t hear you,” Ambrose assured her. “He’s passed out.”

He gave her another formal bow, rounded the car and slid under the wheel. I scrambled in next to him. Ambrose backed the car, turned and drove back down the driveway. Gazing back, I saw Cornelia Dobbs still glaring after us.

Ambrose pulled over to the curb as soon as we hit the street, cut the engine and lights.

“What now, genius?” I asked.

“We wait until her lights go out again.”

All but the night light went out a few minutes later. “Okay,” Ambrose said. “Lift him out.”

I got out, reached in back and lifted the stiff body into my arms. Ambrose led the way up the driveway and over to the swimming pool. There were a couple of canvas lawn chairs next to it. Ambrose had me set Herman Dobbs in one.

He had brought along the Scotch bottle. He stood contemplating Herman Dobbs’ frozen smile for a moment, then poured the outstretched glass half-full.

“Cheers,” he said gloomily. “Now let’s get the hell out of here, pack our stuff and head south.”