Black Mask Magazine (Vol. 24, No. 9 — January, 1942)

It was the grisliest murder the town had ever seen and the sheriff’s own nephew had been labeled “killer” and was slated to do the dangle act at the informal lynching bee the neighbors had organized. It looked like rope’s end for fair till the Doc went to work and discovered how to bottle up the mob’s conscience, the killer’s and his own.

Chapter One Death in the Kitchen

Doc Rennie looked sour. “Women!” he snorted. His broad mouth curled in a sheepish grin as he sighted along a crutch at his bad ankle. Then his head fell back on the pillow and his blue eyes glinted in the moonlight.

Over Doc Rennie’s head Dave Tyson, my deputy, winked at me.

The Doc was low. In fact, he was horizontal. He’d driven up to Lake Inn to catch the last two days of the bass season with Dave and me. We were over at Whaleyton on a cattle case when he arrived, so to fill in the afternoon he’d let a blonde at the Inn lure him into a game of this battledore-shuttlecock foolishness called badminton.

Now he was laid out on an invalid chair he’d made the Inn people rig up on the lawn for him. Doc Rennie’s just short of six foot six, but stretched out that way the distance between his red head and the white sock over the plaster cast on his chipped ankle looked about eight foot.

Dave and I had come over to kill the evening with him and we’d been downing gin rickeys and yarning away and watching the lights of Essexville, half a mile down and across the elbow of the lake, wink out one by one.

“Women!” the Doc muttered again, waggling his head on the pillow. He was peevish, thinking of the bass he wouldn’t catch.

Bong!

The sound rolled across the water from the clock in the Methodist church tower, down in the village.

We listened. We all knew it was ten o’clock, but have you ever seen anybody who could keep from counting the strokes?

Bong!

That clock’s as deliberate as ice melting, I thought. Doc Rennie squirmed himself comfortable.

Bong!

I thought of a new story on Tiny Hinkle, our fire chief, that would amuse the Doc.

Bong!

And I’d forgotten to tell him that Hiawatha Quantrell Fillmore, editor of the Essexville Daily Farmer, was courting Julie Welch, one of the Welch twins.

Bong!

What was that sound right after the bell-stroke? Too high for a train whistle, too low for a bobcat or a...

Bong!

And there it was again, following the bell-stroke like an echo. I tensed myself against the next stroke and the sound that would come right after...

Bong!

Doc Rennie shot bolt upright in that invalid chair. There was that sound again! I stared across the water. Was it my imagination, or were lights really coming on in the outskirts of the village, up Maple Road way. I knew what the sound was now, only for the moment I was frozen to my chair.

Bong!

The tenth stroke. Quiet. Then, for the fifth time, a woman’s shriek trailed the bell note across the lake.

The next thing I knew, Dave and I were stumbling down the springy Inn lawn to my car. I yelled, “See you later, Doc,” over my shoulder.

Something hot — no, cold — burned my wrist. I found I was still holding the gin rickey glass and pouring ice up my sleeve as I ran. I flung the glass aside as I plunged ahead. It must have hit the only rock on the lawn, for I heard the crash and tinkle.

Way behind us, Doc Rennie was bellowing something, but I couldn’t understand him and didn’t stop to try.

Dave’s big, panting bulk was already at the car when I got there. I fumbled for my keys and my key case hooked itself into a loop of my belt. In my mind I could still hear those five shrieks, and this delay was like a nightmare.

My pants ripped as I tore the key case free and hopped into the car. I cursed my butterfingers as I groped for the dash light. Suddenly I began to do things right and the engine roared. I threw her into gear and—

“Wait!” It was Dave screeching this time, right in my ear. He reached over and nearly pulled the guts out of the emergency brake.

“Wait hell!” I hollered, as the car ground to a stop. “What the—”

“The Doc!” panted Dave, motioning with his thumb.

And there he was at the rear door on Dave’s side. Dave jerked open the door. Doc Rennie pitched his crutches in, stuck his bad ankle in after them, and finally muscled himself into the back seat, swearing at the pain while I swore under my breath at being held up. I loosed the emergency brake.

“You quite comfortable?” I asked Doc Rennie, sarcastic.

“Nice guests,” grated Doc Rennie, extra peevish now. “Run off and leave a fellow helpless at a hotel...”

We skittered down the gravel to the Lake Road.

“... at a hotel with a bunch of women, bored to death.”

I twirled us onto the greasy red clay of the Lake Road. “So you wanted to go for a little ride?” I said as I straightened her out and took off on the long swing around the lake.

“Why yes, Sheriff.” He had honey in his voice. He usually calls me “Ed,” so I felt something coming.

“Also,” he said, “I was afraid someone might sell you a bill of goods.”

Dave chuckled, the big dope. I rammed the gas pedal to the floor and gave them both a touch of high life. We burned through town and took the Maple Road hill like a towering partridge. I saw folks running now, so I knew we were heading the right way.

“Some’eres near the Thoroughgood place,” shouted Dave, who’d had his head out of the window.

But the people were running past the Thoroughgood place to the Welch place, where the Welch twins, Julie and Johanna, lived. My nephew from agricultural college, Dan Garner, was working for the Welch girls this summer.

I slammed on the brakes.

“There’s Ed McKay,” I heard somebody say as Dave and I piled out.

I’d forgotten all about Doc Rennie in the back seat. Something had happened here. You could smell it in the air; you could hear it in the low chatter of folks hustling up the long, flagstoned path to the big old frame house set well back among a grove of maples.

We ran up the path. The lights were on downstairs. A handful of folks on the steps drew apart to let Dave and me through, and those on the porch clustered up to watch us go in the door.

I heard a man say, “Howdy, Ed,” and I nodded without looking around. Another man said, “Here’s the sheriff now,” and a woman, probably Granny Watkins, cackled, “About time, too.” And just as I passed into the parlor, I caught another man’s voice: “Garner’s his nephew, you know.”

It had been foolish of me to slam the front door, because the parlor windows were open and at each one a dozen or more eyes were staring at the group around the sofa — and at what was on the sofa.

It was one of the Welch girls on the sofa, smears of blood bright red on a face as white as china. Her white dress was a mass of blood. Beside her knelt Dan Garner in blood-smeared dungarees, and old Ma Thoroughgood, chafing her wrists, fanning her. Crumpled in a chair beside them was Hi Fillmore, head in his hands, rocking from side to side, nerves all shot to hell.

I elbowed Dan Garner aside to get a look at the girl on the sofa, and felt Dave stretching his neck over my shoulder. I noticed that my nephew had blood on the knees of his dungarees and streaks of it along his thick brown arms and on the shoulder of his checked shirt.

Old Ma Thoroughgood turned her pointed nose up to me. “She’s all right, Ed — just fainted.” Her false teeth clicked as she spoke. “Go in the kitchen; that’s where you’re wanted.”

“Which one is it,” I asked, pointing at the girl on the sofa, “Julie or Johanna?”

“How should I know?” snapped Ma Thoroughgood. Hi Fillmore glanced up without recognizing me. I saw blood on his hands and on his white shirtfront.

Dave was peering about the room, eyes on the floor. Brown smudges everywhere.

Then there were footsteps through the dining-room and old Doc Frisbie, the coroner, ambled in. He was wiping his knobby hands on a red-and-white dish towel that had once been a white dish towel. Behind him rose Ben Thoroughgood’s parrot’s crest of white hair.

“Come back here, Ed.” Frisbie’s voice was hollow; his lips trembled. All of a sudden the horrors crept up my legs and across my shoulderblades and I dreaded going into that kitchen more than I dread fire.

“Come on, Dave,” I told my deputy gruffly.

Doc Frisbie went ahead. Ben Thoroughgood, face pasty gray and head shaking with palsy, stood aside to let us pass. We skirted the dining-room table — set for tomorrow’s breakfast — and stalked into the kitchen. In the doorway I stopped and had to swallow twice for air.

It was on the floor in front of the old kitchen fireplace. I knew it was the other Welch twin, because the white dress was identical in material and design with the one worn by the woman on the sofa, and because the two or three locks of hair that weren’t blood-drenched were the right color.

That was the only way I’d ever have guessed it, though.

Even now my heart pounds and I sweat a little when I think of it. The neck was almost hacked through, and the face was — well, I guess “destroyed” about covers it. Like the neck, the face had caught the sharp edge of something — many times.

I looked, numb, at Dave and Frisbie. Doc Frisbie read the question in my face and nodded toward the kitchen table. Under it I saw the weapon: the kindling hatchet from the woodbox just inside the door. It looked like one of those red-painted hatchets they used to give us kids on Washington’s Birthday.

Dave, his beefy face gone gray as Ben Thoroughgood’s, heavy shoulders rigid and hands balled into fists, didn’t take his eyes from the thing on the hearth. I knew what he was doing. He was making himself look. Blood frightens Dave, and it makes him mad to be afraid.

He said: “Which one is it, Doc?”

Frisbie used Ma Thoroughgood’s words: “How should I know?” He said it crossly.

My nerves made me want to laugh. It was just too damn silly. All of us had known the Welch girls well — and liked them. They’d lived in Essexville most of their lives. And now one was hacked to death and the other was out cold and we couldn’t tell which was which.

If the one on the sofa’d been up and moving about, there’d have been no doubt. People seeing them on the street never had any trouble telling them apart, even though they looked and dressed alike. Julie carried her head high; her eyes sparkled and she swung her hips and shoulders like she was proud of her figure and enjoyed being alive. It was Julie that the men looked at twice.

I said to Frisbie: “Aren’t there any scars or marks...?”

Then I remembered. Abner and Abigail Welch had had no use for doctors and made no secret of it. Why, once when Julie was a kid she’d taken a terrible spill out of a black-cherry tree behind the house and banged her head on a sawhorse, and folks had talked a lot because Abner wouldn’t send for Frisbie. Then Julie got well and Abner was awful cocky over it and more bitter about doctors than ever. When the girls grew up they were healthy as tigers and never needed Frisbie.

I was stumped. It was embarrassing as all hell, but until the one on the sofa came to...

“Didn’t I see Dr. Perkins on the porch?”

I woke up with a start. My cheeks got hot when I realized how I’d jumped.

Doc Rennie was behind me, shoulders hunched up by the crutches. His lips were pale and there was no mockery in the question or in his hard blue eyes and freckled face.

“What the hell would a dentist—” I began. Then my cheeks got hotter. Of course. The Welch girls had been to Perkins.

Doc Rennie didn’t answer. He wasn’t trying to show me up before Frisbie — just helping to get things started.

I said to a cluster of heads at one of the kitchen windows, “Get Dr. Perkins, will you?” and heard the call go around the house.

Perkins popped in at the back door. He’s a round-bellied, thin-haired, pompous little guy who sings bass in the Congregational church. He stole one look at the mess on the hearth and then kept his eyes on me.

“Doc,” I said, “you’ve worked on these girls’ teeth. Now which one is...”

Perkins was getting whiter with every word.

Doc Rennie pushed me gently aside and cut in, smooth: “The sheriff wants you to examine the teeth of the young lady in the front room, Doctor, and tell us which one she is.”

Perkins almost fainted with relief. I could have booted myself out the door for being so dumb. I was so mad at myself that I nearly tipped Doc Rennie over as I stamped out through the diningroom. I saw a smile flicker across the corners of his mouth, but his face told me that his ankle was aching like fury. I made a mental note to apologize later.

Ma Thoroughgood moved aside to let Perkins get at the girl on the sofa.

The muttering of the crowd outside got quieter instead of louder. I didn’t like it. It wasn’t just gabble-gabble-gabble. The men were talking deeper than usual, and lower, and over it all was the hiss of whispering women. I learned something about crowds when the town got down on me about those arson cases. This gang knew something, or suspected something, and they were heating up.

Perkins was thumbing the girl’s mouth open now.

Through the windows I caught snatches... “Jumped off the porch and ran”... “No kiddin’?”... “Ma Thoroughgood says he”... “The most awful sight I ever saw in my life.”

Then one heavy voice chilled me.

“Well,” it said, and it was ugly, “if it’s Johanna Welch in that kitchen we’ll know who done it.”

And a lower voice said, real easy: “Yeah, and I think we’ll know what to do.”

Dave nudged me. He heard this, too. He tried to get Doc Rennie to sit down, but the Doc stayed beside me.

Perkins asked for my flashlight. Under cover of showing him how the switch worked, I whispered something. His eyebrows climbed. I scowled and he nodded.

Perkins handed the light to Ma Thoroughgood, standing over the sofa like a sharp-nosed old harpy. I showed her how it worked. The girl on the sofa moaned and twisted a little as Perkins forced her mouth open in the yellow light beam.

Doc Rennie’s shoulder brushed mine.

“Look at Garner and Fillmore.” He barely breathed the words. My glance slid from Fillmore, still in the chair, to my nephew.

If I live nine thousand years I’ll never forget those faces. Their eyes were on Perkins and what he was doing, and they looked — yes, they looked like two murderers when the foreman of the jury stands up to announce the verdict: Fillmore, smallish, nervous, tense as a violin string, his black eyes saucer-wide behind the thick lenses of his spectacles; my nephew’s handsome, dumb, brown face ridden with a fear that you could see came right up from his bowels.

Perkins got up, wiping his thumb on his trousers. Outside, the chatter stopped so suddenly that the silence was like a smack in the face. Fillmore bounced to his feet, shaking all over.

The heavy voice boomed in from the darkness: “Come on, Perkins, which one is it in the kitchen?”

So they’d understood why Perkins was doing what he had done. I’d hoped they wouldn’t.

Chapter Two Case History

The tubby little dentist bit his lip. Popularity’s an important thing in a town as small as Essexville.

I caught his glance and held it. I heard Doc Rennie, still beside me, draw a long breath. Doc Rennie’s a psychiatrist. He was a brain surgeon once, but he’s a psychiatrist now. He hadn’t missed one tick of the feeling in the folks outside. On the other side, Dave stepped up, fronting the windows with me.

The three of us must’ve loomed pretty solid there, and besides, I was the law. I drilled Perkins with a look hard as a diamond drill.

Perkins came to me, sweat pearls starting along his forehead. I bent my head. He whispered one word in my ear, repeated it to make sure I heard.

“Thanks,” I said, in a normal tone. “Now you and Mrs. Thoroughgood take” — here I was mean enough to hesitate a second, for the crowd’s benefit — “take Miss Welch upstairs and look after her. You go with ’em, Ben.” Old Ben Thoroughgood doddered up and lent a hand. Dave started to help, but changed his mind.

When the crowd saw the girl being carried out, the rustling and chatter began again and another voice came through the screen.

This one said: “Won’t do you no good to cover up for that nephew o’yourn, Ed McKay. We know about him and Johanna Welch.”

I recognized that voice. It was Sam Chronister, that mean little devil I’d had to stick in a cell during the arson cases. And I knew now who the heavy voice was: Tom Hogan, a loud-mouth sea-lawyer who worked in Fillmore’s press room. Chronister had always wanted my job, and I’d heard he’d promised Hogan the deputy’s badge if he ever got it.

A hand pulled my sleeve. Fillmore’s usually a fiery little guy, but tonight he was burnt out. I could hardly hear him. “For God’s sake, Ed, which one is it?” His eyes kept wavering toward Dan Garner.

Feet rumbled along the porch. They were getting ready to come in. Dave started for the door, thunderclouds in his face. Doc Rennie caught his arm.

Hi Fillmore said: “Julie Welch accepted me tonight. You’ve got to tell me which one—”

I made for the front hall. Tom Hogan had his foot inside the screen door. He drew it back when he saw the look on my face. They gave me room when I stepped out on the sill. In the light from the hall I could distinguish most of the faces. With a few exceptions they were substantial people like the Welches and Thoroughgoods.

I cooled off a little. I couldn’t really blame them for being sore and excited — not after they’d had a look in at that kitchen window. And I know my town well enough to know that every man, woman, and child of them had.

“Well, what about it?” blustered Hogan. “We’re taxpayers here. We got a right to know.”

For a burning second there were just the two of us there. Hogan felt it and took another step back.

A woman piped: “Get your big dirty foot off my white shoes, Tom Hogan.”

That saved it. A chuckle got away from Tiny Hinkle. Two or three kids giggled, and a man snickered. Hogan flushed. Sam Chronister pushed his way through to Hogan’s side, but I ignored them. I spoke to the solider element, which was mad, but not beyond reasoning with.

“Folks,” I said, “you’ll help me a lot — and speed matters up — if you’ll leave the house and grounds while we’re working on this case. You know — most of you do, anyway — that this stuff about me covering up for my nephew is a lie. I won’t go into that. And you’ll find out soon enough whether that girl in the kitchen is Julie or Johanna Welch. Now will you please go?”

I’d kept my voice calm and friendly. Chauncey Morgan and his wife and Dexter Bassett and Carl Woettel and Tiny Hinkle led the movement toward the gate. Tiny called back: “If you need any help, Ed, lemme know.” That took guts. I could’ve kissed his bald head.

But a dozen or so, all men, left the porch slowly. They hadn’t changed their minds. They were just giving me a little more time. Tom Hogan was the last. He went so slow that I walked over and tapped him on the shoulder. I didn’t lower my voice, either. The others turned.

“I asked the others to leave,” I said, “and they left. Now I’m telling you to beat it. D’you hear me? Beat it!”

He didn’t run. But he pretended he was hurrying to catch up with Sam Chronister.

Doc Rennie was waiting for me in the parlor doorway. All he said was, “My compliments, Ed,” and spread his broad mouth across that square, freckled face of his in a grin. But the tone was a pat on the back and the grin was a medal on my chest. He’d realized what Dave Tyson hadn’t: that the little matter of getting the crowd away without real trouble had been tight stuff.

“Doc,” I said, reddening, “about you getting in the car there, back at the Inn—”

He reddened, too. “Forget it,” he growled. “You’ve got plenty to do.” He made a great to-do about getting himself seated and arranging his cast on a second chair. “And the first thing I’d suggest,” he said, looking up, “is that—”

“Save your breath,” I told him.

Hi Fillmore hadn’t moved an inch since I’d gone out on the porch. I gave it to him straight.

“Your young lady’s upstairs, Hi,” I told him. “That’s Johanna out in the kitchen.”

Dan Garner groaned. Dave, who’s pretty agile in his hefty, loose-jointed way, caught Hi as he started to topple.

But was it relief that almost floored Hi, I wondered? I saw Doc Rennie’s eyes, sharp and hard on Hi, trying to answer the same question.

Hi had hold of himself in a second. He shook off Dave’s hand and spoke to me, but he was looking at Dan Garner.

“Ed,” he said, “if I were you, I’d get Dan to tell me what happened between him and Johanna tonight.”

I saw Dan’s jaw set itself just like my sister’s used to when mother told her to do something she didn’t want to do.

“And Dan,” — Fillmore’s voice had a bite in it now — “I think you’d better explain why you were on the porch spying through the parlor window tonight after I left. Yes, and why you jumped off the porch and ran around the house just a couple of minutes before Julie” — he caught his breath over the name — “began to scream.”

There was a moment’s silence before Dan said quietly: “That’s a goddamn lie.”

He didn’t run at Hi. He just exploded across the room, big brown arms reaching out. He’s a powerful youngster. I’m not exactly anemic myself, and Dave’s built like a grizzly bear, but it was all we could do to tear his hands from Fillmore’s throat.

Dan’s got my sister’s temper, all right. He was whimpering mad when we hauled him across the room and pushed him down on the sofa. Finally he ran the back of his hand across his nose and said to Hi, who was pulling his tie straight: “Why did you come back, Mr. Fillmore?”

Hi’s eyes blazed up behind the thick glasses, but before he could flare back at Dan, Doc Frisbie came in from the dining-room, bag in hand, dog-eared hat on his long head. He was anxious to go. He hates arguments and shouting.

“No sign of criminal assault,” he said to Doc Rennie. He likes Doc Rennie. He’d thought Doc Rennie was just a quack nut-doctor until that time they conducted the autopsy together on Wilhelm Borcker’s baby. “And no weapon used but the hatchet.”

“Strong hand on the hatchet, I suppose?” said Doc Rennie, frowning.

“Yep. Well, good-night, Ed. I’ll be home if you want me.”

“Now we can get going,” I said grimly. This business was beginning to knot me up inside. “Dan, suppose you tell me everything you did tonight from—”

Doc Rennie planted his crutches and levered himself into a more comfortable position. “Ouch!” he said, as the ankle got him. He swore.

The knot inside me grew tighter, harder, because I know Doc Rennie’s style well enough to know that this was a deliberate interruption.

I started again. “Dan, where—”

“Tell me something about these young ladies — their family and background,” said Doc Rennie, rubbing a hand across his forehead in a tired way.

“Hell!” I yelped, and flopped down beside Dan like a sullen kid. Dan drew away, like he was afraid to touch me.

Doc Rennie ignored me, which didn’t cool me off any. He looked at Dave.

Dave looked vague and said: “Ma Thoroughgood knows more about ’em than anyone else in town. I’ll get her down.” He stepped out quick and ran up the stairs before I could stop him.

The lump inside me was so big now that it hurt. I jumped up. “I know all I need to know about ’em,” I told Doc Rennie. “Ma Thoroughgood’ll take all night. And we ain’t got all night.” I thought of the last dozen or so men that had left the porch. Doc Rennie didn’t seem to realize those boys weren’t kidding. I repeated: “I know all I need to know, Doc.”

Doc Rennie stuck one of those black-tobacco cigarettes of his into his face and cupped his lean hands around a match.

“Maybe there’s something you’ve forgotten,” he said, lazy. I caught the tone. It was a flat attempt to make me blow up and ease the tension. So I held onto myself — and stewed inside.

Dave came back with Ma Thoroughgood. Ma’s washed-out eyes were shining. Talk is her racket. Those thin lips don’t ever tire. One question from Doc Rennie hit the jackpot.

First we had the life history of Abner and Abigail Welch: how tight Abner was with his money, what a goose Abigail Welch had been about this faith-healing foolishness. Next we got the birthscene of the twins: no doctor, and Ma Thoroughgood pressed into service as midwife. (“Never so much as gave me an apple from his trees, Abner Welch didn’t.”)

Then came the girlhood of Julie and Johanna. Johanna’s measles, and how Ben Thoroughgood told Abner Welch he oughta call a doctor, and the argument they had. Then Julie’s fall from the black-cherry tree and Abner’s refusal to call Frisbie, and what Ben Thoroughgood said this time. (“And she laid unconscious two days, poor little mite.”)

Then Abigail Welch’s death from diabetes. (Abner wouldn’t call a doctor until her people forced him to, and then it was too late.) And Abner’s death (when the girls were fifteen) from an infection following a torn toenail. (Wouldn’t call a doctor, and it served him right.)

Ma Thoroughgood kind of ran down at this point, for after the death of Abner the twins had gone to live with an uncle in Indiana and she’d lost touch with them for eight years. Then the uncle had died and left them some money and they’d come back to Essexville and bought the old Welch home back again and lived here ever since. Kept the place up themselves; never had a maid and just hired a man in the summer to help with the kitchen garden. They were thirty now.

The last five minutes were about how dee-voted the twins were to each other. Always dressed alike. Not that they were alike, you understand—

At this point Doc Rennie leaned back and stared at the ceiling, and I knew he was getting extra interested.

“Julie’s always been the lively one,” said Ma Thoroughgood, store teeth clicking like knitting needles. “Johanna’s always been — always was, that is,” — she sniffed and dabbed at her eyes.

“Oh, you knew that was Julie you were helping upstairs?” asked Doc Rennie quickly, coming to life.

“Not till I heard Ed McKay tell Hi Fillmore that it was Johanna in the kitchen, poor lamb,” snapped Ma Thoroughgood. So the old harpy had been listening at the top of the stairs.

“Johanna always was the one that did the looking-after,” she went on, her face triumphant. “Julie, she just worshipped Johanna, and Johanna laid herself out to spare Julie everything. Johanna was quiet — yes. But wait till something bothered Julie and you’d see Johanna rise up and take over quick enough. She’d’ve died rather than let anything upset Julie. Why, I remember once when Julie got in an argument with the Widow Mitchell at the Notion Shoppe over a slip she’d bought that wouldn’t fit. Julie was never used to trouble, and she began to tremble, and Johanna just sailed in and—”

“Fine! Fine!” cut in Doc Rennie. “An excellent account, Mrs. Thoroughgood.”

Ma Thoroughgood looked part pleased and part miffed. She wasn’t through. Not by a darn sight.

“And now I think Sheriff McKay would like to ask you what you saw and heard tonight,” went on Doc Rennie, with a nod to me.

I stopped pacing and sulking.

Ma Thoroughgood went for this part in a big way — the present, I suppose, being more exciting than the past.

“Well, Ben was on the porch, it being hot, and when I come out after doin’ the supper dishes he said, ‘Welch girls got quite a lot o’ company — at least Julie has.’ And I said, ‘Who, Ben?’ And he said, ‘Hi Fillmore and Gerald O’Moore.’ ”

Chapter Three A Lynching Bee

Gerald O’Moore! I’d forgotten he was said to be sweet on Julie Welch! Dave whistled under his breath. Doc Rennie sat up, and this time he didn’t bother to say “Ouch!” although I could tell by the way he winced that his ankle was giving him a fit.

“Who’s Gerald O’Moore?” he demanded.

Ma Thoroughgood swelled up at getting such a rise out of us. “Why, he’s—” she said. But I took it away from her.

“He’s Dexter Bassett, the hardware man’s nephew,” I said. “Lived with his mother over in Suffern. One of these big, plump bachelors who always talks about his mother and never goes out with girls. That is, not till his mother died about six months ago and he moved over here with Dexter. Works in Dexter’s office. I’d heard he was real sweet on Julie, but I’d forgotten it...”

I kind of trailed this part off, for bait. But Dave, the big goop, bit first. “Ed,” he said, eyes shining, “tell Doc Rennie about O’Moore.”

So I had to come out with it.

“The folks here don’t know about it,” I said slowly, letting Doc Rennie’s mouth water, “but Dexter told Dave and me. O’Moore’s been away three times to sanitariums with mental breakdowns.”

“Oh,” said Doc Rennie. “Go on, Mrs. Thoroughgood.” He yawned. Once upon a time that would have made me mad, like he intended. Now I’ve learned some of this psychology stuff myself.

Ma Thoroughgood speeded up. The old girl was busting to get out and spread the news about Gerald O’Moore.

“A little later,” she said, “Ben and I took a walk out back, to look at the garden, and we couldn’t help overhearing Dan Garner and Johanna on the back porch.”

I felt sorry for Dan. Plain misery was written all over his face. His eyes were deep and hot.

“We heard Dan asking Johanna to marry him. She was putting him off. She said, ‘Why, Dan, you’re only twenty-two and I’m thirty.’ And he said, ‘I’ll finish my course next February and I’ve got a good job promised me over at the Suffern Nurseries.’ And he began telling her about how he loved her, and how she was—” The old lady was enjoying herself — too much.

“Skip that part,” said Doc Rennie, sharp, and I was glad.

Ma Thoroughgood tossed her needle-nose in the air. “Very well,” she snapped. “But it’s my bounden duty to tell you the end. Because Dan Garner” — she aimed her bony forefinger at Dan, and if looks could kill his eyes would have cut her throat then and there — “got up and said, real passionate, ‘You’re the only woman I’ve ever loved, Johanna, and nobody else is going to have you as long as I’m alive.’ And she said, ‘Dan, if you’re going to talk like that I’ll have to ask you to stop working here.’ And he grumbled, ‘I won’t leave,’ and stamped off to that lean-to behind the barn where his room is. And now I’ll leave you gentlemen.” And Ma Thoroughgood stamped off, too, and went upstairs.

“That right?” I shot at Dan.

He looked me in the eye. “That’s right,” he said. He was defiant now, and suspicious.

Hi Fillmore held out his hand to Doc Rennie, who gave him one of those stinking cigarettes. Hi dropped it, picked it up again. His hand shook so that the match nearly went out.

“What happened then?” I asked Dan.

“I was in my room by the barn, trying to study,” said Dan, “when I heard the screams. I ran right to the house and into the kitchen” — he swallowed, and one hand went to his throat — “and there was Johanna — just like she is out there now. And Julie had flopped down over her and was screaming... and then... I don’t remember exactly... but Mr. Fillmore ran in from the diningroom and we got Julie up and got her out in the parlor here. I didn’t even know, then, which one...”

His head went to his knees and the sobs shook him all over. I had to remind myself that I was sheriff and he was a front-rank suspect in the ugliest murder case...

I wheeled on Fillmore. “Take it from there, Hi,” I ordered.

Hi said: “O’Moore was here when I called on Julie tonight.” His eyes kept going from Doc Rennie to me as he talked. “I suppose you’d call Gerald my rival, but — well, I think it would have taken him a couple of years to work himself up to popping the question. He’s a bit of a dreamer, Gerald is, and it was plain that he idolized Julie. He still had that mother fixation, I think, although he’s my age. Still, there’s something kiddish about him...”

Doc Rennie nodded understandingly. I didn’t get it, but this wasn’t the part I was interested in. In the pause it came to me with a shock that Hi Fillmore must be over forty now. God, it seemed only yesterday that he was fresh from college and starting the Daily Farmer and beating around the county selling ads and button-holing folks for news items.

Forty! They say that when a man over forty falls in love for the first time it’s a pretty violent proposition. And did Hi Fillmore know that Johanna didn’t want Julie to marry him? Or was that a lie of Dan Garner’s?

“He had a little suitcase with him,” went on Fillmore, “and he left about nine. Said he was going downtown and catch the nine thirty bus for Suffern — going over to Suffern on business for Dexter. He kept looking at me. I think he knew what was on my mind. Finally he tore himself away. And a little later,” said Hi, and there was a new note in his voice, “I asked Julie if she’d marry me and she said she would.”

Here Doc Rennie whispered something to Dave and Dave drifted out, avoiding my eye.

Hi Fillmore took off his glasses and wiped the thick lenses with a handkerchief. Without the glasses he looked younger, like a different man.

“I had to stop by my office a minute,” went on Hi, “and I went down to get it over with, so I could come back. I got back a little before ten.

“I was standing on the sidewalk, leaning on the gate and looking at the house — I still couldn’t believe my good luck — when I thought I saw a figure on the front porch peeking in at one of the windows. I opened the gate real easy, and just as I did, the guy jumped off the porch and tore around the house in the direction of the barn.”

“Was it Dan? Can you swear to that?”

He thought a minute, then shook his head. “Couldn’t swear it. But the guy was about Dan’s size and build, and who else could it have been?”

“Then you shot off your mouth too quick when you said it was Dan,” I suggested. “Go on.”

“So I waited — oh, about four or five minutes. Finally, through the front window, I saw one of the girls — I know now it was Julie — walk through the parlor and head through the dining-room in the direction of the kitchen. Just as I started up the walk, the screams began. I ran like hell, and when I got to the kitchen, there was Dan trying to pull Julie off — off Johanna’s body. So I helped him get her to the parlor. Then the Thoroughgoods ran in — and when I found she wasn’t hurt — and I began wondering which one—”

Dave came back, downcast over something.

“Hi,” I said, “did you kill Johanna?”

He puffed out like a pouter pigeon. “Are you crazy?” he yelled.

“He asked you if you killed Johanna Welch?” asked Doc Rennie. Something in his voice made me glance around. He was hunched forward, and his eyes were all you noticed in that square, plain face under the wiry red hair. You can have your mechanical lie detectors. I’d rather go up against one of them any day than those ice-blue eyes of Doc Rennie’s when they drill you deep.

“Of course not.” Hi fumbled the cigarette and jumped up, smacking sparks from his white linen pants.

“Did you, Dan?”

Dan faced me, red circles around his eyes. “You know I didn’t, Uncle.”

In spite of everything I found myself believing him — Dan, I mean. I turned to Doc Rennie.

“We’ll check up on O’Moore before we go any further,” I said, trying to sound brisk and like I had a firm grasp on the case. “Dave,” I said, “you and Doc Rennie take a good look around that kitchen while I go phone the bus terminal, and then I’ll give you a hand and—”

“No use,” said Dave, shaking his big head.

“Whadda you mean, no use?” I yelled. “Goddamn it, Dave, get going and do like I—”

“I just called the bus terminal,” said Dave simply. “They said O’Moore was on the bus when it pulled out for Suffern.”

So that’s what Doc Rennie had whispered to Dave to do. All my worries came to a head. I know now it was just my vanity, but for the moment I was so mad I couldn’t speak. When I could, I said: “Since you’re taking command here, Doc, suppose you tell me what we do next. I must’ve been mistaken when I thought I was runnin’ things.”

Dave screwed up his face. It always embarrasses him when I blow off.

Doc Rennie’s voice was honey — with plenty of vinegar stirred in. “I’ll be glad to assist you in any way I can, Ed. Just let me know—”

Feet on the front steps! Somebody panting. The screen door slammed. Tiny Hinkle stumbled in, his big, bald melon of a head bright red, his one eye wild.

“For God’s sake, Tiny!” Dave jumped across the room and grabbed a fat arm. Tiny was about three gasps from apoplexy. I thought he’d keel over where he stood. Dan slid off the sofa and Dave steered Tiny to it. He tried to speak, then gave up. It was a full three minutes before he got back enough wind to make sense. I suspected what was on his mind, and I think Doc Rennie did, too. My knees began to tremble and my wrists went all watery, like when you have a fever.

“They know it’s Johanna got killed!” Tiny wiped his mouth with a bandanna and gulped in more air. “It’s all over town. And they know what Dan told her — how he threatened her. And about Hi here seein’ him jump off the porch...”

Frisbie, of course! I’d forgotten to warn him not to talk!

“And there’s a story goin’ around that Dan raped—”

“Oh my God!” Hi Fillmore went green and sick.

Dan just stood there, staring at Tiny.

Tiny hesitated.

“Let’s have it,” I snapped. “Where are they gathering?”

“Down in the old stable back of Granberry’s Feed Store,” panted Tiny. “There’s about forty of ’em. Ed, you better call the state police and—”

“Listen,” I said, and they listened. “You and you” — I pointed at Hi and Dan — “are under arrest. Dave, they’re in your custody. Keep ’em right in this room.” “Doc,” — Doc Rennie shot out a hand and I hauled him and his crutches up from the chair — “you get upstairs with Julie. See if you can bring her around — if there’s anything at all she can tell you.”

“O.K., Ed.”

“I’ll see you boys later.” I tried to make it sound matter-of-fact.

Dave went into the hall with me.

“You’re goin’ down to that stable,” he said, “and I’m goin’ with you.”

“You are not,” I said.

“The hell I’m not. You think I’m gonna let you go up against that gang by—”

“Dave, come in here a minute.” Doc Rennie’s voice, from the parlor, was sharp-edged. I saw Dave waver.

“Doc’ll explain why it’s best for me to go alone,” I said quickly. I beat it out of the house and down the walk while Dave was trying to make up his mind. As I started the car, I took one last look at the house. Through the window I saw Doc Rennie and Dave in an argument, Doc waving one arm, Dave waving two. Doc Rennie seemed to be winning.

I rocketed down the hill into town, trying my best not to make up a speech in advance. I had a feeling I’d do better on the spur of the moment.

I parked the car a block from the old stable, and the last thing I did before I left it was to take out my gun and stick it under the seat. I was in my shirtsleeves, and no man could say afterward, no matter what happened, that I’d tried to run a gun-bluff on him.

The alley beside Granberry’s Feed Store was black as tar, which was why the man on guard at the stable didn’t recognize me until I was right on him. I guess he figured that the law, if it came at all, would come in quantity.

“Who’s that?” he asked from behind his mask, when I was five or six feet away.

“Me,” I said, low, closing in on him.

“Who?”

He was jumpy. I saw his white-sleeved arm reach for the door.

My hand snaked out and I curled four fingers and a thumb around a skinny wrist and reeled him in. I knew him, mask and all. It was Simp Bradley, an ornery little cuss, sly as a fox, who’d been doing odd jobs around town since he got heaved off the W.P.A.

I shifted my grip to his stringy throat and listened. The livery stable hummed like a beehive. That was encouraging. They hadn’t got to the shouting stage yet, but they would soon. If I knew my town — and I did — there were bottles in there, and the boys were priming themselves.

Simp was very still under my hand — too still. Suddenly he drew breath.

My eyes were used to the dark now, so my free fist had no trouble finding the point of his undershot chin. There was a half-turn of my shoulder and body behind the blow. Fist, arm, and Simp went numb at the same time. I dragged him, limp as spaghetti, over to the rain-barrel and propped him against it. He sagged over when I loosed his throat and I heard the thud of his head against a cobblestone.

There was only the faintest “click” as I raised the old latch, and the creak of the door drowned in the buzz of talk inside. I stepped over the high board sill and found myself in the rear rank of a circle of masked men drawn up around an up-ended feedbox with a couple of lanterns on it.

For a second the reek of the place — moldy feed, manure, strong tobacco smoke, whiskey, and sweat — filled my throat and stung my eyes. I won’t pretend my legs weren’t behaving in a cowardly manner, because they were. They were straining to take me out of there, and I had a tough time making them stay.

A heavy man with black hair was climbing on the feedbox. It was Tom Hogan. He stood up and swept the circle, eyes gleaming behind his white cloth mask. Sweat plastered his black hair down on his forehead and his dirty white shirt was damp in great patches. He’d been drinking.

I took a look around the circle myself, and what I saw I didn’t care for. A good two-thirds of this mob was farmers, I guessed from their clothes; the rest, village riff-raff. I could have blown that riff-raff — yes, Tom Hogan included — back into its hole with one good, loud “Boo!” But farmers are kind of inevitable. They don’t bluff easy, and they’re slow to start, but when they start they’re hell to stop.

Tom began, very impressive: “I suppose you men seen what was on the floor of that there kitchen at the Welch place tonight.”

The few that hadn’t seen it had heard about it from somebody else, and in a village, like in the city, a story don’t lose anything in the telling. The buzz of talk dropped to a deep growl.

“We don’t wanta take any chances on losin’ the guy that done that thing to Johanna Welch,” went on Tom. The growl died away. They were listening close now.

Tom shook his fist in the air. “Ackerman Smith tried to bum down this here town,” he bellowed. “Ed McKay caught him. And what happened? Between Ed and that fancy-pants, highbrow doctor friend o’ his Ackerman got in the state hospital, where he’s livin’ easy, instead o’ bein’ on the rock pile where he belongs.

“I seen that doctor friend o’ Ed’s at the Welch place tonight. I suppose if Ed finds he can’t get outa jailin’ that big nephew o’ his, him and that doctor’ll dope out some hocus-pocus. Why d’you suppose Ed thrown us off the place tonight, unless he was fixin’ to pull somethin’ phoney?”

His fist smacked into his palm and it touched off a louder growl. Hogan’s got just enough animal cunning to make him dangerous. I figured the time was getting near. If this thing went much further, nothing I could do would stop it.

“You seen Johanna Welch’s awful, bleedin’ body,” roared Tom. “The guy that done it oughta hang. Any fool in this town — except maybe Ed McKay and Dave Tyson — knows dam’ well Dan Garner done it. Essexville wants justice” — it was a regular Fourth of July oration now, and it was getting them — “and we ain’t gonna get justice for Johanna Welch until we string that Dan Garner.” He pointed up to the rafters and drew breath.

“Aw, shut up, Tom,” I said, loud. “You make me sick.”

Every head in that half-dark, stinking stable turned my way. Tom’s jowls dropped. I pushed through to the open space by the feedbox. The talk started with a rush: “It’s Ed McKay!”... “McKay’s been here spyin’ on us!”... “Sheriff’s here, all alone.”

“Get down off that soapbox,” I told Tom, still loud enough for everybody to hear.

He pushed his chin out. “Make me.”

My knees weren’t shaking any more. Something hot was pounding in my veins now, something hotter than the hot, stale air of that stable. “Hold on,” I told myself. “You’re taking it too fast.”

“Make me,” said Tom again, when he saw I didn’t move. “You ain’t God around here, Ed McKay.” He laughed.

The laugh did it. I jerked him off that feedbox in a hurry. The men on the inside of the ring surged forward a foot or two, but they weren’t quite ready to jump the law yet. But that throbbing inside me had knocked loose my self-control, and the shame of the whole business had me dizzy.

“It’s a fine crew,” I said, “that can’t get movin’ without a stump speech to make it move. It’s a fine bunch that can’t find anything better to lead it than Tom Hogan. And it’s a black shame on this town—”

“What about what happened to Johanna Welch?” This was a long, deep drawl from the back rank. “What’s blacker shame than that?”

Like an idiot I tried to argue. “We’re making the most thorough investigation possible,” I called.

“Investigation hell,” came the drawl. “We don’t want no more investigatin’. We want justice, and we want it quick.”

“You’ll get jus—” I began.

Tom Hogan caught his cue. He jumped back on the feedbox.

“What are we waitin’ for?” he screeched. “Ed McKay’s just stallin’ us till he gets that murderin’ nephew o’ his outa the county.”

And I went for him, a red blur in my eyes. We crashed down on the far side of the feedbox. His heels drummed on my ribs as we went over, and for a black minute the whole stable and the crowd spun away from me. Sick at the stomach from the pain, I felt a dozen hands fasten on me.

“Get some o’ them harness straps,” Tom was yelling as my brain cleared. I struggled. I wanted only one thing now: to smash my fist into that sweating face.

“Easy, Sheriff — we don’t wanta have to hurt you.” It was one of the gang that had pulled me off Tom. I heard the jingle of harness buckles, and a dusty tangle of cinch straps was handed over to the men holding me. Two of them turned loose and went to unsnarling the straps.

Through the clatter came that long drawl from near the door: “Better git some more straps, boys. Here’s two more of ’em.” Then another voice: “Lay off the Doc — he’s crippled up anyhow.” Then, rocking the old stable, Dave’s roar: “Where’s Ed McKay?” And then: “Take your dirty hands off me!”

It flabbergasted them for a second. I saw men falling back as Dave put his bull shoulders through the crowd. For an instant, at the far end of the little alley Dave was making, I caught a glimpse of Doc Rennie, pale as a ghost by the door. And in that instant he saw me and raised his hand, and hope came back.

“You guys crazy?” demanded Dave. He crossed the puddles of lamplight. “Come on, Ed, the Doc and I got something hot.”

It wasn’t acting, either. That was what made it convincing. The men holding me let go.

Tom Hogan started. “Come on, boys, get—”

From the group that had just let me go I recognized the voice of Bill Dorset, one of the older farmers. He said: “Shut up, Tom. Let’s hear what Dave’s got on his mind.”

“We know who the man that jumped off the porch was,” blurted Dave.

Chapter Four Death of a Suspect

“We know him too!” came that drawling voice from the back, and things tightened up again.

“Like hell you do,” shouted Dave, glaring into the dark. “It wasn’t Dan Garner.”

“You able to prove that, Dave?” asked old Dorset. The place was still as death.

Dave hesitated. Instinctively I glanced at Tom Hogan. Under the edge of the mask I saw the spread of an evil grin. He waited just long enough for Dave’s silence to sink in, then started to say something.

From the back of the room a cool voice cut him off. “With the sheriff’s assistance it can be proved very quickly.”

I picked up Doc Rennie’s lead. “That’s what I was trying to tell the lot of you when you—”

Tom Hogan pleaded: “Can’t you see he’s just—”

Old Bill Dorset poked Tom in the chest with a forefinger like an oak knot. “I think we had about enough o’ you, Tom,” he said.

The crowd at the edge of the lamplight let Doc Rennie through. He stood there, long frame swinging easy from the crutches, but I could see from the twist of his mouth that what he needed was to be in bed — yes, and with a shot of something to make him sleep.

Bill Dorset spoke to the Doc and me. “What proof we got,” he asked, “that you ain’t gettin’ ready to ring in a bunch of state cops and take over the town the minute we let you go?” His hand rasped over the stubble on his chin, and I knew that behind the mask his eyes were like gray granite.

Doc Rennie said: “I don’t quite understand.”

Dorset looked up at him. “I’d do a good deal for kin o’ mine in trouble,” he said softly, weighing each word. “How do we know Ed McKay wouldn’t too, even bein’ sheriff. And let me tell you, mister, this is one case where there ain’t goin’ to be any hole-and-corner stuff. I knew Johanna Welch’s father. I seen her body in that kitchen tonight. I got girls o’ my own. Now d’you understand?”

Doc Rennie kept his eyes on Dorset. I don’t think a man in the place breathed. Dorset had stated the crowd’s case in black and white. Now it was our move. I couldn’t think of a thing to say. My stomach was still heaving from Tom Hogan’s heels, and a burning feeling down my right side made me suspect a brace of ribs had parted.

Doc Rennie, still looking at Dorset, said: “I suggest a compromise.”

There was a movement beside me. Dorset spun around. “For the last time, Tom Hogan,” he said, “I’m warnin’ you to stay outa this.” He turned to Doc Rennie. “Go on,” he said.

“I suggest,” said Doc Rennie, raising his voice, each word clear as a bell, “that this gathering name one or two men to accompany the sheriff on the investigation. These men can report back to this group. I suggest further that since both the sheriff and Dave Tyson will be busy with the case, that this gathering name two more men to remain with Hi Fillmore and Dan Garner at the Welch place — where they are now, by the way — pending the outcome of the investigation.”

He paused. Something else was needed — some immediate proof of good faith on our part.

Doc Rennie looked at me. He wanted me to have the last word. For a muddled second I couldn’t think. Then it came to me.

“I could have brought a dozen state police to this meeting,” I said. “The reason I didn’t is that this is our town, and we don’t need outside help, one way or the other. I’ve been figuring I could get all the help I need from my own people. Now what do you say?”

The long drawl again. “Bill Dorset can speak for me,” it said. They picked it up all over the stable... “And me”... “And me,”... “Me too.”

Bill Dorset looked around the crowd. Then he pulled out a silver turnip near as big as an alarm clock and stared at it. Everybody started to fidget.

“Sid Deevers,” called Dorset.

The long drawl said, “Here, Bill.”

“You and Charlie Kinsey go up to the Welch place and keep an eye on Garner and Hi Fillmore.”

Two voices, the drawl and another, answered, “O.K., Bill.”

“Me and Tom Hogan’ll go with you,” said Dorset to Doc Rennie and me. “Listen, men,” he raised his voice.

All movement stopped.

“This is just for the time bein’, you understand? It’s quarter to midnight now. If Dave and this feller with the crutches are bluffin’, I’ll find it out. So you all better be back at the stable here around two. If I ain’t here, come look for me.”

He pursed his lips under the mask edge, and a jet of tobacco juice banged the side of the feedbox.

“We’re wastin’ time,” he said. “Let’s git ahead with it.” Men began stripping off their masks, stuffing them in hip pockets.

Dave kept looking back at me as we made our way up the alley to my car. He was busting with something, but he didn’t dare spill it while the crowd was straggling up the alley behind us. We piled into my car, Doc Rennie and Dorset and Hogan in the back. I trod on the starter and let the motor idle. I didn’t have to wait long.

“Ed” — Dave’s voice was taut with excitement — “I took a look around, after you left, and look what I found under a bush right where Hi said he saw the feller jump off the porch.”

He held it under the dash light. Dorset and Hogan leaned forward to look. I could smell the whiskey on Hogan.

My spirits hit bottom. “Is that all?”

It was a fountain pen, one of those fancy brands with silver chasing all over it. On a shield-shaped nameplate was engraved, “G. O’M.”

Dorset spoke up, putting my own thought into words. “I heard about O’Moore courtin’ Julie. He could ha’ dropped that thing there any time.”

“Like hell he could,” said Dave, bumptious. “He dropped it there tonight.”

“How do you know?” I was trying to sound interested, but it was all so thin. I’d thought from the way Dave had talked in the stable...

“Doc Rennie,” answered Dave. “He got me to call the guy who works next to O’Moore in the office. The guy said that O’Moore was using that pen this afternoon.”

I was too tired and sick to pretend before Dorset and Hogan. “What good is that,” I asked, “when we know O’Moore left town on the nine thirty bus?”

“Doc Rennie again,” crowed Dave. “He got me to call the bus terminal at Suffern. I got hold of the driver of that nine thirty bus, and what do you suppose he said?”

I just sighed.

“He said O’Moore got off the bus at Edmonds Corner — half mile outa town,” said Dave. “Said he seemed nervous. Forgot to take his bag with him.”

“He got off the bus?” Way down in me a spark lit up. A man could cut across from Edmonds Corner to the Welch place in twenty minutes easy. I shot the car into gear.

From the back, Doc Rennie said, “Ed—”

“I got you, Doc: Dexter Bassett’s.”

The sickness was most gone now, and the burning pain in my side hurt only half as much. Two minutes later we pulled up in front of Dexter Bassett’s fine old house.

On Doc Rennie’s advice I went alone to the door. Dexter came down in his pajamas.

I lied to Dexter. I said we thought O’Moore might have seen or heard something at the Welch place that upset him, and told Bassett about him getting off the bus. I made out like I thought he might be going into one of his spells.

I must’ve laid it on too thick, for the longer I talked, the paler Dexter Bassett got. He shook his head when I asked him if O’Moore had showed up at home.

Finally he said: “Ed, you know that mountain land of mine up beyond the ridge?”

I knew it well. Doc Rennie and Dave and I had shot birds over it a dozen times. We used to stop in at the—

“The shack!” I said.

Bassett looked very old as he nodded. “He’s been going up there a lot this summer — whenever he feels one of those nervous spells coming on. If he’s really upset, that’s where you’ll find him.”

He passed a hand across his eyes. I felt awful sorry for him. He’d never had a son, and he’d been fond of Gerald. Matter of fact, everybody in town liked Gerald, although he didn’t exactly fit in.

But I had to ask him. “Dexter,” I said, “those mental spells of Gerald’s — did he ever” — I finally got it out — “ever attack or hurt anybody?”

Bassett shook his head again. “Never. And Ed, he worshipped Julie Welch. He told me so not long ago. All his affection for his mother seemed to be transferred to her. But he was always afraid to ask her to marry him — afraid of those spells coming back.”

There was something else on Bassett’s mind, so I waited, although I was wild to get started to the shack. At last it came.

“Ed,” he said, “when you find Gerald, please remember that whatever — that if he’s done anything — that he didn’t know what he was doing.”

“Sure,” I told him, and he knew I meant it. He closed the door slowly, like he was shutting something out of his life. I jumped down the steps and into the car.

“Bassett says O’Moore’s been using that old shack a lot this summer,” I told them. “You remember, the one up beyond Forty-Rod Fields.”

Doc Rennie’s voice sounded a mile away. “Just a minute, Ed. Let me get this blankety-blank ankle of mine fixed.”

I said: “Doc, I’ll drop you off at the Inn. We’re goin’ up that way anyhow.”

“The hell you will,” said Doc Rennie, even more faintly.

Bill Dorset spoke up. “Leg hurtin’, mister?”

“A little,” admitted Doc Rennie, and you could just hear him.

I turned just in time to see Dorset handing Doc Rennie a pint bottle. “Good brandy,” he said. “Made it m’self.”

The bottle was half full when Doc Rennie turned it up. Bill Dorset whistled. Doc Rennie finally took it down, coughed once, and even in that dark car I could see his grin. It was a pale grin, but a grin. He handed the empty bottle to Bill. The grin faded.

“Ed,” said Doc Rennie, “if I were you, I’d drive like the very devil.” And he braced himself with his crutches.

It’s seven miles over mountain roads to Forty-Rod Fields. Nine minutes later we were helping Doc Rennie out of the car, and I’ll lay even money I wasn’t the only one who was glad that ride was over.

Dave said: “There’s a light in the shack.”

I fished my gun out from under the seat and we worked our way up the path and across a rocky meadow toward that single line of yellow light-on the hillside. It was Bill Dorset who was helping Doc Rennie now. The Doc cussed once or twice and that was all. That brandy of Dorset’s will pretty near raise the dead.

At the rock fence that marks Bassett’s land I made them stop, and Dave and I went on alone. I’d turned off my flashlight and the going, through brambles and over lichened rocks, was dead slow. We’d covered perhaps fifty yards of the hundred-odd to the shack when we heard the shot.

The shot had come from the shack, but there was no gunflash. Before I breathed again, the echo had come back across the shallow valley to our right.

Neither of us said a word; just kept going. Twenty yards from the shack I pulled Dave into the lee of a big rock. I laid my gun on the rock and cupped my hands.

“O’Moore!” I called. “Gerald O’Moore, can you hear me?”

I waited. No answer but the echo.

“O’Moore!” I called again. “Open the door and stand in the light with your hands up. This is Sheriff McKay.” Still no answer.

“Your last chance,” I called. “We’re coming for you.”

And we left the cover of the rock and started up. Dave wormed his way off to one side so he could come in from behind. I headed for that window. The shade was down, all but four or five inches.

When I heard Dave’s whistle from the rear I ran along the side of the shack to the window and smashed out the glass with my gun-barrel.

I heard Dave yelling, “Are you all right, Ed?” Then, when I didn’t answer, I heard him racing and stumbling around the shack. He pulled up beside me, panting.

I said, “Look.”

Then I turned and shouted down into the dark. “It’s all right, boys, come on up.”

Three minutes later we were gathered around the table with the oil lamp on it. Gerald O’Moore had shot himself through the head with an old .22 target pistol. He was seated in a chair, head forward on the table, gun still in His dead hand. The blond hair over the little red holes in either side of his head was almost white in the lamplight. There was almost no blood.

I guess he hadn’t figured on writing anything when he came to the shack, so that’s why he’d had to use a pencil stub and the back of a sheet torn from a five-year-old calendar. The sheet lay right under the lamp. On it he’d scrawled:

“How can I go on living with this thing on my mind? O Julie, I loved you so.” And there it trailed off.

So he thought it was Julie Welch he’d killed!

Bill Dorset turned his seamed face to Doc Rennie.

“Mister,” he said, and there was double horror in his eyes, “you and Ed McKay kept us from...” He shuddered and bogged down. Then he glared suddenly at Tom Hogan, who stood there dumb, jowls slack and eyes staring straight ahead.

“Tom Hogan,” growled Dorset, fierce as an old bear, “if you ever open your trap around this town again I’ll kick your teeth down your throat.”

Hogan never said a word — just stared at O’Moore’s body.

“Dave,” I said, “suppose you take Bill Dorset and Hogan back to town. There’s a few folks they want to see. Doc Rennie and I will wait here till you come back for us. Bring Chronister’s dead-wagon.”

I figured the Doc could use a rest. I’d never seen him take anything like he was taking O’Moore’s suicide; just staring, like Hogan, but he looked like a man who was being dragged by his neck through the lower reaches of hell.

Dave said: “Let’s go, boys.”

When they’d gone I put a hand on Doc Rennie’s arm. “At least it’s settled,” I said briskly, trying to cheer him up a little.

He had me worried. It was his eyes that bothered me.

He reached out a long arm and took hold of the back of O’Moore’s coat collar. He pulled the body upright in the chair. The gun clattered on the floor. The head hung down, chin on breastbone.

Doc Rennie looked at me. The lamplight flickered and he seemed to grow taller.

I looked at O’Moore, and a chill like I’d never felt before settled right around my heart, and the sweat was cold along my wrists and forehead.

“Oh my God, Doc!” I flopped down on the edge of a pine bed. “What do we do now?”

“I wish I knew, Ed.” Doc Rennie said it like he was trying to soothe a scared child.

O’Moore hadn’t killed Johanna Welch. Even I could see that. Whoever killed Johanna Welch had blood on them, plenty of it. There wasn’t a speck of blood anywhere on O’Moore, outside of the little around the holes in his head. And he’d had no time to change his clothes between leaving the Welch house and scrambling on foot all the way up to the shack.

I tried to talk to Doc Rennie about it, but he waved me silent. He was thinking. He stretched himself out on the cot and smoked those oily cigarettes until I had to open the door.

“Let things stand as they are,” was all I could get out of him that night. He said this when Dave and I left him at his room at the Inn. He was terribly earnest about it, and we swore we wouldn’t scotch the story that Dorset and Hogan were spreading. As we left him, he was muttering something to himself about whether Messick or Tilling would be the best man.

Who Messick and Tilling were, I had no idea.

Chapter Five Awakening of Julie

At four A. M. I was no nearer sleep than I’d been at three A.M. My mind was a movie screen, and all it would run were close-ups of Johanna Welch’s face — or rather, what had been Johanna Welch’s face. Sitting on the edge of the bed in undershirt and shorts, I quinched my eyes tight together and gritted my teeth and forced myself to see her as she was when she was alive.

The next thing I knew I was up and pacing the floor almost at a trot, and my wife was bolt upright in bed, staring at me, scared. I’d seen Johanna Welch’s face a/ it was in life, all right: very dark brown hair with a glint of red here and there; creamy skin; big, calm brown eyes; full lips. A lovely face.

It was a lovely face, beautiful, in a quiet way. That was the Godawful part of it. How could even a crazy man drive a hatchet-edge into that face, over and over again? Gerald O’Moore had gone off his head. But Gerald hadn’t killed Johanna. He couldn’t have...

My wife read my own face. She knows I’m inclined to take things hard.

“Why don’t you take a little ride up to Lake Inn and talk to Dr. Rennie?” she asked.

That was what I’d been aching to do. “He’s asleep,” I snapped.

“From what you told me when you got home, I should think he might be awake,” she said, pounding her pillow.

“I’ll wait till morning,” I said. Morning? Then I knew she was right, as usual. If I stayed in the bedroom seeing Johanna Welch’s face I’d go screwier than Gerald O’Moore. I climbed into my pants in a hurry.

It was cloudy gray dawn outside, just the color of the taste in my mouth, but the cooler air felt good.

Before I knew it, the car was taking the hill road to the Welch place. I pulled up there and lit a cigarette. There was a man on the porch, feet on the railing. He got up and came down the walk.

It was Hi Fillmore. He looked all of fifty now. I remembered he’d been in the last war, overseas. Hi’s square-built; not a bad-looking guy, even with those thick glasses on. But all I could see was a suspect. I wondered if he’d been shell-shocked in France.

Hi put a foot on the running board.

“I heard about O’Moore,” he said. “Ed, when I think he thought it was Julie... God, suppose it had been Julie!” His eyes told me he’d been having the same kind of horrors that I had. “I’m going to marry Julie right after the funeral and take her away from here for a long while,” he said suddenly.

He’d got all the blood off his hands and clothes, I noticed.

“Can Julie talk yet?” I asked.

“Good Lord, no!” The mere idea seemed to excite him. “She passed right from that faint into sleep; been asleep ever since. Ma Thoroughgood’s here, you know.” He put a white hand on my shoulder. “Ed, you mustn’t think of worrying Julie. After all, O’Moore’s dead and it’s all over.”

“I’ll be around later, then,” I said, starting the engine. He stepped back, wondering at my tone. I couldn’t tell, myself, why I’d been short with him.

I took the Lake Road, just in case.

My wife had been right. There was a light in Doc Rennie’s room.

The night clerk at the Inn, Timmons, knows me well. He said: “Glad to hear you got that Welch thing settled up, Ed.”

He looked surprised when I snorted at him. I said: “Doc Rennie all right?”

He rallied and grinned. “Busy as a bird dog.”

“Busy?”

“On the phone. Trailing some guy named Tilling — Dr. Tilling — all over everywhere. Ran him down at some vacation place in Vermont about an hour ago. And when he got him, boy did they talk! About thirty-eight dollars’ worth. Wait’ll Doc gets the bill for—”

But I was racing up the stairs. Maybe Doc Rennie had something, although what he could get on a case in Essexville by calling a Dr. Tilling in Vermont I couldn’t see.

Doc Rennie’s door opened as I reached for the knob.

“Thought that might be you, Ed.” From his face, his night had been a thousand times worse than mine. Not just from his ankle, either. He’d been seeing things, too, and from the look behind those blue eyes, he’d seen something worse than I had, something that had nearly taken him to pieces inside.

“Why aren’t you in bed?” was all I could think of to say. He had all his clothes on, even his topcoat. I glanced past him around the room. Every ashtray was full.

He pulled his old felt fishing hat down over his red hair and slipped a black leather case into his topcoat pocket.

“Come on,” he said. “Now’s as good a time as any. We may as well get this thing over with.”

“But what in—” I began.

“Ed,” he said, “you wouldn’t believe me if I told you. I won’t believe it myself until I see it. If I told you what I think you’d swear I was sicker than my sickest patient. Now come on.”

I hardly thought he’d try to mystify me just for effect at a time like this, but I couldn’t help feeling a little sore at being left out in the cold. After all, the case was my job, not his.

“Better get Fillmore and take him over to the Welch place with us,” he said, after he had tucked his bad ankle into the front seat. The morning air had brought a little of the color back to his face, but the hollows were still deep around the eyes and his hands were anything but steady.

“He’s over there already,” I said shortly, and we tooled off. This time I drove slow, on account of his ankle.

He spoke only once on the way over, and that was when we were in sight of the house. “Those two girls — what they’ve been through,” he said, and there was thick pity in his voice. “Ed, if we can save anything at all from this wreck we’ll be putting stars in our crown.”

So tired he’s addled, I thought. But when I stopped the car, and he got out, I could see him getting a grip on himself. His square chin came up and his eyes narrowed as Fillmore hurried down the walk a second time. His voice, as he spoke to Fillmore, was crisp and firm.

Hi Fillmore glanced at the watch on his wrist. The day was orange now, and in another fifteen minutes yellow sunlight would be flooding Maple Road.

“We’re going up to talk to Miss Julie,” said Doc Rennie. “You’d better come along.”

Hi’s jaw dropped. “You can’t possibly do that,” he said. Then, angrily, “Why, the poor kid’s asleep, and after what she went through last night—”

“We’ll be the judges of that.” Doc Rennie’s tone was sharp and irritable. His face gave me the answer. He’d nerved himself to do something he didn’t want to do, and he knew that the longer he put it off the harder it’d be to do. He started up the path, crutches thumping the flagstones, swinging the casted ankle wide. Hi’s mouth was tight with anger.

Ma Thoroughgood had heard us. She was at the top of the second-floor stairs, gray hair straggling, nose quivering, teeth out. She came down when Doc Rennie crooked his forefinger. She was mad at being waked up and started to give us a blast of the temper that’s made Ben Thoroughgood’s life hell, but Doc Rennie shut her up quick.

“Mrs. Thoroughgood.” he said, “the sheriff wants you to go upstairs and awaken Miss Welch at once. Get her into a dressing gown or something. Then come to the top of the stairs and nod.”

“I’ll do no such-a thing,” spluttered Ma Thoroughgood, indignant as all hell, for which I couldn’t blame her. She looked at me.

“Do what he says. Ma,” I told her. She raged off up the stairs. She must’ve had some trouble waking Julie, because it was a good five minutes before she came out and nodded down to us like a thundercloud.

When Doc Rennie started up the stairs, Hi Fillmore tapped my arm.

“You bully Julie,” he said evenly, “and the Daily Farmer’ll run you out of this county, Ed McKay — for good.” Doc Rennie turned and beckoned. He meant both of us. I was so furious at Doc for taking such a high hand — and with no real excuse for it, since eight o’clock or ten o’clock would have done just as well — that I took it out on Hi. The fat was in the fire anyhow. My hand closed around his wrist.

“You’ll come up and do like I say,” I said into his ear, “or you won’t get out any paper tomorrow. You’ll be in jail.”

Doc Rennie faced Ma Thoroughgood’s pouting face. “Which room?” he asked.

It’s a wonder her eyes didn’t sear him. She pointed to a door.

Doc Rennie eased the door open a handsbreadth. Julie Welch, dark hair tumbling down over her shoulders, was sitting on the edge of the bed, hands rubbing her cheeks slowly. We couldn’t see her from that angle — just her reflection in the mirror.

Doc Rennie turned to the three of us. We could hardly hear him. “If one of you so much as whispers,” he said, and his look was bitter cold, “you’ll regret it as long as you live.”

And with that he opened the door a little more and stuck his game ankle inside and went in after it. And there we stood, looking through the crack at the mirror. We saw his lank, square-shouldered figure appear, in the mirror, at the foot of the bed.

Julie Welch looked up at him. Oh, but she was a beautiful woman! We heard her little cry of surprise. My hand shut down like a vise on Fillmore’s wrist as I felt him move.

“I am Dr. Rennie,” we heard. “I’m a friend of Sheriff McKay. I’ve come to talk to you about your sister.”

“My sister!” In the mirror her eyes opened wide, her hands went to her mouth. She glanced around the room. “Where’s Johanna?” Her voice hit a high, almost hysterical note. “Where is she?” She was swaying.

“Where is she?” repeated Julie. Her hands were massaging her cheeks now, passing up over her temples, in a strange frantic sort of way. “Has something happened to Johanna?”

A prickling sensation crawled up the back of my neck. The hysterical note was gone from Julie’s voice and the last words were delivered in sort of a flat hush, like you get before a storm.

Doc Rennie just stood there, looking at her. I could see his profile in the mirror: no expression at all. Just watching her.

Julie’s hands came down. “You said something about my sister?” The hysterical note was creeping back.

I stole a look at Hi Fillmore’s face. Fishbelly white it was, and his eyes seemed to fill the thick lenses of his spectacles. The wrist I held was limp.

“You are in love with Mr. Fillmore, are you not?” Doc Rennie asked the question in an ominous voice that I spotted for acting.

What with being up all night and not eating, I was getting kind of sick at my stomach. Doc Rennie was deliberately torturing this girl.

“Your sister,” he went on, shifting his attack like a boxer, “has been murdered. You will never see her again. Never again, as long as you live. She has been murdered, do you understand?”

Julie disappeared from the mirror. I could see by the half turn of Doc Rennie’s body that she had gone toward the dressing table near the head of the bed. There was a sound like running feet. I pushed Hi Fillmore aside and peered around the door.

Julie Welch was running around in little circles in front of the dressing table in a kind of horrible dogtrot, and she was making soft moaning noises. Her hands were outstretched, groping blindly.

Doc Rennie raised his voice. “You’ll never see your lover again, either.” Then, even louder, “We’re taking your lover away from you. You’ll never see him again.”

I couldn’t stand it any longer. Doc Rennie was inhuman. I dropped Fillmore’s wrist and stepped into the room, knees nearly buckling under me, but determined to stop this awful business even if I had to throttle Doc Rennie.

It was just as well I stepped in when I did, for at that moment Julie Welch, face contorted, snatched a big, silver-mounted hand mirror from the dressing table and flung herself at Doc Rennie in a crazy rage.

Up went Doc Rennie’s long arms to cover his face. The crutches fell. He took three or four smashing blows from the mirror on his forearms before his bad ankle gave way and he went down with a crash. In another second I had come to life and caught Julie from behind.

She paid no attention to me. She was trying to fling herself on Doc Rennie as he lay sprawled on the floor.

Julie Welch’s strength was that of a crazy person, and all the while she was slashing the air over Doc Rennie with that mirror. Even as I braced myself my mind registered, in all that welter of emotion and shock, that she was swinging that big hand mirror exactly like a...

I went dead inside. It was all over.

Exactly like a hatchet! Exactly as she must have swung that hatchet at her sister’s face...

Then Hi Fillmore came to his senses and ran in to help. Together we managed to fling her to the bed and hold her down, which took some doing. Gradually her struggles died down. Finally she relaxed like a tired child and closed her eyes. Her breathing slowed down to the heavy breathing of sleep.

I couldn’t make myself look directly at Fillmore. He was standing by the head of the bed. Out of the corner of my eye I could tell that his whole chunky frame had drawn into itself.

At my shoulder I heard Doc Rennie’s breathing. I could look at him, and I did. He was watching Julie Welch again and his expression, in spite of his sunken eyes and gray cheeks, was professional, strictly professional.

Chapter Six Escape Into Life

I thought I’d had my fill of horrors for one day, but there was one more to come.

There was a click behind me as Doc Rennie took something from the black leather case he’d put into his pocket at the Inn. His long frame bent over Julie Welch, and his long fingers drew up a curve of the fine white skin of her arm.

Her eyes opened as Doc Rennie, with that underhand motion doctors use, jabbed the hypodermic needle into the white skin and drove his thumb against the plunger.

Julie’s glance fell on Hi Fillmore. Her smile was puzzled.

“Hi, darling,” she began, “what in the world...?”

Doc Rennie twitched the needle out and turned away quickly. I did the same. A rustle and thump told us that Fillmore had dropped to his knees.

“Don’t be afraid,” he said. “You mustn’t be afraid.”

“Afraid?” Julie Welch’s voice, her chuckle, were sane as her eyes had been when they opened. “Afraid?” She chuckled again. “With you here?”

At this point she must have seen us. “What’s happened, Hi?” She was more curious than alarmed. “Did I faint? How silly of me! Where’s Johanna?”

A ghastly silence.

“My,” — long, drawn out — “my, but I’m sleepy.”

There were no more questions, thank heaven. I think we barely breathed until Julie Welch was asleep, which was a minute later.

Hi Fillmore heaved himself to his feet and came over to us. Twice he opened his mouth to speak, and twice something stopped the words in his throat. But I could read the question in his mind a full five seconds before it came out.

“They can’t do anything to her, can they? She was crazy when she killed Johanna — stark, staring crazy.”

That was when I realized for the first time that it was my duty to arrest Julie Welch for the brutal hatchet murder of her twin sister.

Doc Rennie’s voice jarred us both.

“Get out of here,” he told us.

I stared at him, amazed. He tottered over to a chintz-covered rocker. He just made it. Automatically I shoved a straight chair forward for his bad ankle. The sunlight, striking in through the open window, picked out the hollows in his cheeks and around his weary eyes.

Doc Rennie was cracking up. One lean, freckled hand shot up to shade his eyes. But he wasn’t through.

“Get some sleep,” he ordered. “And listen: don’t either of you leave this house, or tell anyone what happened in this room this morning. And don’t let that old crone in the hall get out or telephone anyone. You understand?” His hand came down and he squinted at us. “Now beat it.”

We almost fell over Ma Thoroughgood in the hall. Apparently she’d fainted early in the excitement.

I almost laughed out loud as we picked up her skinny old body and put her on a bed in the next room — and locked the door. But something warned me that if I started laughing I might not be able to stop, and I had no intention of making a holy show of my nerves before Fillmore.

The rest of that morning is still vague to me. The thought of arresting Julie Welch for something she obviously had no memory of was like a steel brace drawn tight around my chest. Of course, she was insane when she wielded the hatchet.

But that meant years of hell in an asylum — that fine girl, with her life, in every sense, just beginning. A homicidal mania is incurable — that much I knew.

I glanced across the room at Hi Fillmore. The reaction had set in. He was asleep. If I was a true friend to him, I thought, I’d step over and put a bullet through his head while he slept. What was there for him when he woke up? Gerald O’Moore, I thought with a shudder, was the lucky one.

I must have dozed off at this point. It was Doc Rennie who woke me. While I was still stretching the cramps out, he was over shaking Hi Fillmore. Hi came to with a start, wondering where he was. Then everything came back to him and he buried his face in his hands.

Doc Rennie sat down. He was about to say something that, from the set of his face and the wrinkles across his brow, was pretty important. My mind flew to Julie Welch and what I had to do, and I wondered what else there was in the world that could be important at this time.

“Let’s go over this case from the beginning,” he said.

Hi Fillmore looked up quickly, all the strain of the past twelve hours evident in the droop of his shoulders and the miserable down-curve of his mouth. I spoke for him.

“Forget it, Doc,” I said wearily. “I don’t think I can stand any masterminding just now — even from you.”

Doc Rennie’s eyes snapped at me. “Just omit the tragedy, will you, Ed?” His tone left me raw. “It’s just barely possible, you know, that certain phases of this situation have escaped you.”

I didn’t mean to bicker about it, but neither could I let him stuff Hi Fillmore with any false hope.

“What’s the use?” I flared. “If the jury decides Julie’s insane, she goes to the asylum. If she’s sane, she—” I didn’t bother to finish.

“Now that you’ve had the final word,” said Doc Rennie, too politely, “may I be permitted to talk a little?”

I gave up. “Hell,” I told him, “talk your head off.”

“Let’s dispose of Gerald O’Moore first,” said Doc Rennie, like he hadn’t heard me. “O’Moore’s case is painfully simple. A neurotic with a mother fixation. He idolizes, worships his mother. She dies — a terrible blow. He transfers all the inner violence of his affection for her to Julie Welch. He senses last night that he is about to lose Julie to Fillmore. He grows desperate. He gets off the bus, deciding to beg Julie to give him at least a chance. He cuts across country from Edmonds Corner to the Welch house and hesitates on the porch, afraid to go in and face Julie’s answer to his plea.

“Through the parlor window he can see into the kitchen. What does he see? He sees Julie Welch, in what appears to him to be a fit of temper, snatch up the hatchet and make that incredible attack on Johanna.

“He had been building his life around the thought of Julie. Now that dream is shattered forever. He goes to pieces, makes for his refuge — the shack. He would rather be dead than face the future with that horrible scene forever in his mind. So he starts that note, and then puts himself away with the bullet. In the light of suspicion, that note was a confession. In the light of fact we see it for what it is—

“Now,” — here everything in me cringed — “for Julie and Johanna Welch.”

Doc Rennie’s voice was very grave. Poor Hi — I could see him nerving himself to listen. But my mind and body had taken all they could take.

“Doc,” I said, “answer me one question and then we can let this drop. Was Julia Welch insane when she attacked Johanna? Of course she was. Then why go on with it?”

I couldn’t believe my eyes. He was shaking his head.

“No,” he said. The room was perfectly still. “No,” he repeated, “not in the sense you mean.”

I was disgusted. “If you’re going to split hairs—”

But Hi Fillmore was sitting up straight now, hands balled into fists, chunky body so taut he was shaking all over,

“She wasn’t insane,” said Doc Rennie. “But — and this is the horrid part — Johanna believed she was. And Julie knew there was something wrong with herself, and those two girls arranged their lives so as to hide Julie’s occasional ‘insanity.’ You see, they had never had confidence in doctors, so when Julie’s spells of extreme excitability began, all they could do was cover them up for fear Julie might be committed to an asylum.

“Johanna most certainly noticed that Julie had these spells only when subjected to some physical or emotional strain. Thus things were easier when they moved back to Essexville.

“In Essexville,” continued Doc Rennie calmly, “life is generally peaceful. Contacts are few. Johanna devoted herself entirely to protecting Julie from situations which might bring on her trouble. But the trouble was always just around the corner, as Mrs. Thoroughgood indicated with the incident in the Notion Shoppe.

“Then Gerald O’Moore and Fillmore began courting Julie. Johanna was worried, for Julie was plainly falling in love with you, Fillmore. There was no telling when the trouble might start up again.

“And now,” said Doc Rennie, “we come to tonight. I know what happened. It can never be proved, for Julie remembers nothing and Johanna is dead. But it is the only thing that could have happened.

“O’Moore was here and left. Fillmore proposed, was accepted. Julie was in love for the first time. When Fillmore left, Julie ran into the kitchen to tell Johanna.

“Johanna must have reminded Julie that marriage, for Julie, was out of the question, all the time believing, as Julie did, that Julie’s ‘insanity’ was incurable. She tried to make Julie promise to give up the idea of marriage.

“If an incident in a shop could upset Julie, imagine what this conversation did to her. One moment in the clouds, elated, feeling perhaps that with the happiness of marriage the spells might go away and not return. Her sister is forced to tear this rosy picture to pieces — a terrible shock to Julie. So terrible that Julie’s state of mind culminates in such a frenzy as she had never experienced before. She goes blind to everything, picks up the hatchet, and attacks the only human being present — her sister.

“The fit passes. Dazed, she throws the hatchet aside, wanders out of the kitchen through the house. All memory of the attack is gone.”

Doc Rennie shook his head.

“O’Moore, poor devil, has witnessed the attack without knowing the cause. He runs. Fillmore returns. He sees Julie wandering through the parlor and dining room into the kitchen. In the kitchen Julie comes upon her sister’s mutilated body. She flings herself hysterically upon it.

“Those screams we heard were pure hysterics. Their timing with the clock was, of course, pure coincidence. Garner runs in, Fillmore runs in. They pull her off. She has fainted — a normal faint. The faint passes into normal, exhausted sleep, as it sometimes does. While she sleeps, we hunt the murderer.”

Doc Rennie looked from Fillmore to me.

“O’Moore was such an obvious suspect,” he went on, “that he blinded me to certain medical indications in the case. Once he was eliminated, the picture of Julie as the hatchet-wielder appeared. I couldn’t be even partly positive, however, until I had talked with Tilling. I told him every detail and he agreed with me.”

Doc Rennie drew breath.

“Julie Welch is an epileptic,” he said.

“Epileptic!” I shouted. “But—”

Doc Rennie’s long hand went up. “You think all epileptics grow rigid and foam at the mouth and fall down during an attack,” he said. “That’s where you’re wrong, Ed. Thousands of them never do. Their seizures manifest themselves only in frantic or apparently insane acts. Sometimes they try to climb walls, sometimes they babble irrationally, and some, during violent seizures, lose all consciousness of their surroundings and attack the nearest person.

“Tilling agreed that, since we had no real knowledge of what took place last night, a test was necessary. Accordingly, this morning you heard me deliberately excite and enrage Julie Welch. And you saw the results: proof positive of her condition.”

I felt kind of dizzy, for a big, black problem was swelling in my mind. After all, Julie Welch had killed her sister, and I was sheriff and sworn to...

Doc Rennie and Fillmore were both looking at me.

“Doc,” I said finally, desperate, “you’re sure this Tilling fellow knows what he’s talking about?”

Doc Rennie smiled. “Well,” he said, “he’s been able to cure — completely — many people like Julie who twenty years ago would have gone to insane asylums or the electric chair.”

“Cure!” Fillmore shouted it.

“Tilling told me over the phone,” said Doc Rennie, “that Julie Welch’s case sounded like a brain lesion — remember that fall from the cherry tree — or possibly a glandular disturbance.”

Hi Fillmore said: “What are you going to do, Ed?”

I thought a long while. When I decided, it was like snapping those steel bands which seemed to have been binding my chest for hours and hours.

“Nothing,” I said. I looked at them. “You two are going to do it all.”

I won’t say I didn’t enjoy the start Doc Rennie gave.

“Doc,” I said, “you’re going to take Julie to this Tilling guy as soon as possible. Hi,” — he was on his feet now and I pretended not to notice what was happening to his eyes behind those thick lenses — “you’re going to stay here and run your paper and pray that Julie gets well soon so you won’t have to wait long before you get married.”

“And what are you going to do, Ed?” asked Doc Rennie, and his eyes were glistening like Hi Fillmore’s.

I yawned. “Going home to bed,” I said. “When I wake up, I’ll have forgotten every word said in this room this morning — like you two will. Come on, Doc. Hi, you take charge and give it out that Julie’s had a breakdown because of her sister’s death and that Doc and you are taking her away for a long rest.”

Hi couldn’t speak but he shook my hand. I could still feel the pressure when I was helping Doc Rennie into the car.

I said, “Doc—”

He said quickly: “You’re worrying about letting people think O’Moore killed Johanna Welch.”

“Yep,” I said. “That’s it.”

“Look at it this way,” he said. “By allowing people to believe a lie, you turn O’Moore’s suicide from a life thrown away to no profit into a sacrifice that will purchase happiness for two very decent people. After all, your townspeople believe O’Moore was insane, so they won’t think too harshly of him.”

So I put it out of my mind. Once in a while I think, “Here I’ve helped cover up a murder by letting people lay it at the door of an innocent man.”

But then I see how happy Hi Fillmore and Julie are — she’s cured now and they’ve been married some time — and it reminds me of what Doc Rennie said. And, funny thing, the old conscience doesn’t bother me a bit.