Black Mask (Vol. 33, No. 3 — September 1949)

Sneering at the warnings of bottle-happy Irma, Harry Wenzel pitted his cunning against the animal that hated his guts — and the man who loved his wife.

Chapter One Crazy Canine

The whole thing is crazy, sure, and a lot of people around here say it couldn’t have happened that way. But you’d have to know Harry Wenzel and the dog, Satan. And you’d have had to be there to believe it... It isn’t much of a place, Loon Lodge. A huge, rambling, rustic inn and roadhouse on a tar road, miles from anyplace. It has a sweep-around verandah and nestles in a grove of pines, mirrored from behind by a lovely lake.

The big, semi-circular bar was empty. There were never many people in the place, except during fishing season, when the lake was well worked.

Harry Wenzel, the owner, was behind the bar. We gabbed awhile and he told me about the dog somebody had just given him. He said I had to see it.

He’d built a big, chicken wire pen and the animal was pacing up and down the narrow confines, when we got there. He stopped still, when he saw us and I felt my skin go cold. I like dogs. But I didn’t like this one.

He was a Great Dane, powerful and sleek-muscled, even though he was only about nine months old. But there was something wrong with his eyes. They were set too closely together and they were mean and reddish like little live coals. A nasty, warning rumble rolled from his throat as we approached. His ears flattened and his flews curled back to give a hint of the shining white fangs beneath.

“Harry,” I said. “You’d better not keep him. You’d better get rid of him. That dog’s no dam’ good. Got a mean streak in him, heart-deep. He’ll cause you a lot of trouble.”

Harry Wenzel laughed. When Harry Wenzel laughed, he put everything into it. At quick glance, he didn’t seem such a big man, but when you looked real close, you saw the power and the beef. He was about five-ten and went one-eighty or one-ninety. He was in his fifties, gray-templed and with a high, bony forehead. In contrast to his powerful body, his face was almost wolf-gaunt and was always an unhealthy gray color.

He wore an old pair of baggy trousers, loosely belted at the waist and an ancient striped shirt, opened at the throat. His sleeves were rolled up and he had the veiniest, most muscular forearms I ever saw. Once, I’d seen those arms lift a man up and bodily hurl him ten feet through a window.

The laughter roared from him, mouth wide, showing the empty gums in back and the gold-capped front teeth glittering in the afternoon sun. He slapped me on the back and I almost fell on my face.

“Get rid of that mutt?” he roared. “You got stones in your skull? He’s worth three hundred dollars. Got more papers than you ever saw. He ain’t mean. Just got spunk, a lot of guts and fight to him. I like a mutt like that. He respects me. I’m his boss. Watch.”

I watched. Harry Wenzel went up to the chicken wire and grabbed it with his hands, grinning. “Here, Satan, you big, ugly scoundrel! Come over and see your master. Let’s be friends, boy. Come over here!”

The dog took three long bounding leaps and hit the wire with his full hundred pounds. I thought he was coming right on through it at Harry Wenzel’s throat. The wire stopped him, a snarling, flashing-toothed monster. The weight of him knocked Wenzel backward and some of the dog’s fangs got him across the back of the hand. Not badly. Just enough to break the skin and bring blood.

Harry Wenzel stood there, swearing and looking down at his hand. “The big stupid lug!” he said. “I’ll have to get that cauterized.” He smeared the blood on the back of his trousers. “I’ll fix him for that,” he roared. “I’ll show him who’s boss.”

“Harry, I told you to get rid of that dog,” I said.

He wheeled on me, savage-eyed, his thin mouth tight, the muscles in his lean, wolf-like jaw, showing all bunched. “Shut up!” he said. “You wait here. I’ll show you. Get rid of him, hell! I’ll break him if I have to kill him!”

He spun away toward the house. I didn’t want to wait but I had to. He came out of the lodge wearing a knee-length winter sport coat, leather on the outside and sheepskin-lined, thick and heavy. There were thick leather gauntlets over his hands and wrists and a baseball catcher’s mask on his face. He must have been expecting to have to do something like this.

He headed right to the door that opened into the pen, unhooked it and stepped inside. The dog backed away from him, at first, crouched, his back hair ruffled, growling and suspicious and just a little cautious. Harry Wenzel swore at him. “Come here, roughneck. You want to fight? I’ll fight you!” He made a threatening move and the dog came at him.

The animal was lightning fast. The only thing that saved Harry Wenzel was the baseball mask and the fact that he had his chin down and his head hunched into his neck so that the padded bottom of the mask protected his throat. I could hear the rasp of the dog’s fangs against the steel front of the mask. For a moment, they were a tangle, the dog kicking, twisting and letting unearthly growls from deep in his throat.

Then the growls cut off and I saw that Harry had gotten his leather-gloved hands around the animal’s throat. He straightened his powerful arms and held the beast at arm’s length. He held him there for a moment. Then he hurled him the length of the pen and against the wall of the building.

The dog fell, floundered and then got to his feet again, shaking himself. Harry Wenzel went toward him and the dog circled, snarling, crouching. “What’s the matter, Satan? You didn’t have enough? You want more?”

The Great Dane went for him again. This time, Harry Wenzel sidestepped and swung his gloved fist in a vicious hooking blow. The animal turned over once and fell on his back. He rolled over and lay there for a moment, dazed. Then he recovered and got up and tried it again, this time, going in low for Harry Wenzel’s legs. Harry booted him square in the face.

Then Harry whipped off the baseball mask and tossed it aside and stood there, glowering at the dog and waiting for him to attack again. But the animal was finished. He wasn’t having any more.

Harry backed out of the pen. The dog watched his every move, hatred in his close-set little red eyes. When he joined me outside, Harry was breathing hard and his face was shiny with sweat. He sleeved it off. “Okay, let’s go in and have a drink. You think that dog’ll ever bother me again?”

“Not if you never turn your back.”

He laughed and we went inside. Harry’s wife, Irma, was standing at the back door. She had a mocking grin on her face. She was Harry’s third wife, an almost too-thin and willowy woman, about half Harry’s age. She had a high-cheekboned, Oriental cast to her thin features that was fascinating. Her eyes were long and pulled up a little at the outer corners, long-lashed and sort of sneaky and cat-like and beautiful and they could make your spine crawl with a look.

“Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?” she said to Harry. “Picking on that poor dumb beast?”

Harry raised his wiry gray brows, turned to me. “How do you like that? Me, picking on Satan?”

“You’d better watch out for that animal,” she told him. “Some day he’s liable to kill you.”

He grabbed her around the waist. “What do you care, baby?” he demanded, roughly. “I got insurance. And you’d make a lovely widow.” He laughed uproariously and then he cut it short and kissed her. She turned her head, giggling. Over his shoulder, she looked at me. She looked bored and cynical and her green eyes gave me a look that could have melted me.

Harry Wenzel was funny. Sometimes he didn’t care what Irma did, nor how she acted. Sometimes he was jealous as a groom. Sometimes he flattened the guy Irma was flirting with and sometimes he took it out on her after the guy was gone.

I didn’t want any trouble. I had my drink and went out of there and didn’t think any more about it at the time. That was six months before Harry Wenzel was killed and that was when it started, I guess. That was the beginning.

It ended on a chill and rain-swept night in June. The fourteenth, to be exact, the night before opening day for the bass season. Every year, on this night, Harry Wenzel closed the place up against regular trade and held a special party, on the house, for a group of customers who were fishing fans.

There was nothing philanthropic about this on Harry’s part. He made a big night for these men, at the opening of the season, gave them rooms and provided an early breakfast so that they could get out shortly after sunrise and play for some of the bass in the lake behind the lodge.

It was a smart play. Later in the season, these men would come back here and spend their whole vacation at the place, fishing.

I’d been invited to the shindig, the past couple of years because I’d once done a feature story about Harry Wenzel’s early ring career. He’d never gotten over that quick flash of local fame. I was looking forward to the evening, as I drove up the long, winding driveway that led to the lodge. It had never been a brawl. We’d have only a few drinks, eat a lot of sandwiches and do a lot of lying and bragging about our prowess with rod and reel. It was always very pleasant.

I worked my battered coupe next to Pete Saterlee’s swank and shiny car. From inside I could hear some jazz piano that was the McCoy and somebody singing. The piano was fine and the singing was all right, though slightly whiskey-fuzzed at the edges. I was a little late and the party was evidently well under way. Then the grin froze on my face.

There was the deep and throaty barking of a dog. I rattled the knob when I found the door was locked and then knocked on the glass of the door. The barks subsided into savage growls. It meant that Satan was behind the bar with Harry tonight and that Harry Wenzel was drunk. That was the only time he brought the Great Dane inside.

I’d heard about that but I hadn’t seen it. I didn’t want to see it. People who had witnessed it had been much impressed; it had made a lot of talk around that part of the country.

Harry Wenzel would bring Satan up behind the bar, leading him on a stout choke-chain around his neck. The dog would ignore anyone at the bar unless they spoke to him, then he would turn and growl and show his great white, savage teeth.

Then Harry Wenzel put on an act. He would invite comment about the brute strength and savagery of Satan. He would say the customers were crazy, why, Satan was gentle as a lamb if you knew how to handle him. He would put the dog through a series of simple tricks and end up by forcing open the animal’s powerful jaws and sticking his hand full between them, for a moment, then pulling it out, unharmed.

All the time, Satan would be looking at Harry with his close-set, red and shiny eyes full of animal hate. Anyone watching, could tell the dog hated Harry Wenzel’s guts and would love to sink his fangs into his master’s throat.

Just to make sure nobody missed the point, Harry had a strong metal ring sunk deep into the floor behind the bar. At the end of his act, he would securely fasten the other end of the choke chain to that ring. Then he’d back off just past the length of the chain, deliberately turn his back on Satan and wait. In a few moments, without so much as a warning growl, the Great Dane would hurl himself toward Harry’s back, only to be brought up short, half strangled by his own weight and the power of his leap.

That was the end of it. Harry would turn around and Satan would sprawl peacefully, for the moment, on his belly, and satisfy himself once again with merely looking his hatred at the man who had partially tamed him. Harry would serve drinks around and bask in the awe and praise of his customers and laugh at the ones who told him he was foolhardy to play games with a murderous beast like Satan.

Looking through the glass of the door, now, I saw several people at the bar. I saw Harry Wenzel coming toward the door. He was waving his big arms and saying, “Sorry! Closed for the night. Come back tomorrow. Closed. Closed!”

“Okay, Harry,” I said. “It’s me, Matty.”

Harry Wenzel’s ugly face pressed against the glass for a moment as he peered out. Then his hand flirted with the door lock and the door swung in and open. He made a mocking bow and ushered me inside.

“What’s the idea of locking me out?” I said, kidding. “You don’t want me at your party, all right. I’ll go.”

“Matty Hoyle!” he yowled delightedly. “Thought you’d forgotten about the clambake. How’s the best dam’ newspaperman in these parts?”

He wasn’t kidding. I work for the Wildivood Press, the sheet that passes for the local newspaper. But once, before I’d gotten fired, I’d worked for one of the big wire services and that made me top drawer as far as Harry Wenzel was concerned.

He grabbed me in a mock wrestling bear-hug and pulled back his head, preparatory to banging me gently against the skull with his own massive, rock-hard forehead. I twisted and lunged away from him. I wanted none of that, even in fun. I’d seen Harry Wenzel knock out a big-mouthed roisterer at the bar, one night, who’d been giving him a hard time all evening, by butting him with the forehead like that.

“I didn’t want to hurt the guy,” Harry had apologized as they threw water on the character. “But somebody had to quiet him. I didn’t want to hit him. I didn’t want to hurt him.”

That was Harry Wenzel, a gentle soul who loved his fellow man. That was what he sold, but not many people bought it. He was a fairly good guy when he was sober but there was a hoodlum streak that came out when he was drunk. Everybody was always very nice and very tender of Harry Wenzel when he was drinking.

He took my arm, his laughter subsiding and steered me toward the bar. He squeezed my arm gently and left all his fingermarks. “Door’s only locked to keep out the peasants. You know that, Matty.”

Harry had been born and raised right in this township but the local people were always peasants to him when he was crocked. He’d bummed around all over the world as a seaman on tramp steamers and he’d seen and done plenty. You wouldn’t call him a small-town guy, even though he’d been settled in these parts again for over ten years, now!

But Harry had one weakness. He liked the arts, or what he liked to think of as the arts. The real big-time to him was anybody who could write and get paid for it; anybody who was connected with the stage or professional music. Every hack writer who ever had a greeting card verse published was somebody to Harry Wenzel. Every broken down bum of an ex-vaudeville trouper was a great actor. Every gin-mill piano-banger was a virtuoso. Anybody else was a peasant and Harry Wenzel would tell them so, if he was drunk.

A lot of people hated him. A lot liked him for what there was in it for them. Somehow, he had some good connections in state and county politics. Hundreds had tried to have his place closed up, from time to time, to have him thrown out of the township. Nobody had ever succeeded in eliminating Harry Wenzel.

“You missed it, Matty,” he told me, moving toward the bar. “I just gave the folks a little entertainment with Satan. You ever see the act we put on?”

I shuddered. “No, thanks. I saw the original. Remember, Harry?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Listen, you know everybody here, Matty? You know all these tosspots?”

I looked along the bar. The four people at the bar all had that relaxed, smug and slightly giddy look that comes when you’re on the edge of being tight. I knew them all. I waved and made greeting sounds. I straddled a stool next to Pete Saterlee, the county road commissioner and a wealthy, retired contractor.

Saterlee was the big, hearty, man-of-distinction type. Florid, always expertly barbered complexion. Clipped military gray mustache. A handsome, middle-aged man in sport jacket and slacks, oozing success and well-being.

“Pete,” I said. “What’s new? I mean, I have to ask that. You know how we reporters are. Not that I ever expect to get anything but double-talk from you wily politicians.”

He rocked back on the stool. His fine gray brows raised. “New?” He made a sweeping gesture that included everybody at the bar. “You hear that, folks? This backwoods newsboy asks me what’s new! What do you think we’re stoking up so heavily for? This is a celebration, son. Tell him, Harry!”

Harry Wenzel had gone behind the bar. He was unchaining Satan from the ring in the floor. He grinned across the bar at me. “Yeah, Matty,” he said. “You bumped into a real party tonight. We’re celebrating. Pete Saterlee brought me news that I’m goin’ to be a rich man before long, kid. The county’s going to run a parkway through this section, right at the edge of my property. It’s going to hook up with Route Seventy. You know what that means, boy?”

While I was letting the news sink in, Harry ordered Gus Berkaw, his bartender, who had been sitting around at the front of the bar while Harry was putting on his exhibition with Satan, to take over and fix me a drink.

On the other side of Saterlee, Eric Fabian, leaned forward and looked around Saterlee, toward me. Eric was in his early forties but he still looked like a beach resort life guard. He had a thick mop of wavy, yellow-blond hair, and his features were cut in what was almost classic perfection.

He had made himself a small fortune as a juvenile star in the movies just before silent pictures went out. He was supposed to have invested most of it wisely and as far as anyone knew, he never did a lick of work and had no other source of income.

“I’ll tell you what it means, Matty,” Eric Fabian said. He had a harsh, gutteral quality to his voice that had ended his movie career when sound came in. “It means Loon Lodge is going to be worth a fortune, once that new highway is in. It won’t be just a backwoods gin-mill and occasional flop-place for fisherman. It’ll be right out front with a million cars going past its doors over weekends.

“With the right handling, a guy will be able to clean up. I got so enthusiastic about the idea, I offered Harry twenty-five grand cash, on the spot, for the place when I heard the news.”

I made a whistling noise through my teeth. I was impressed. Now I knew why they weren’t talking about fishing, why they were going heavy on the liquor. This wasn’t going to be any ordinary, pre-opening day get-together. It was going to be rough. I almost wished I hadn’t come.

The other side of Eric Fabian, Irma Wenzel was saying something about what a damned fool her husband was, not to grab Eric’s offer. After all, she said, a bird in the hand and all that and twenty-five thousand wasn’t horse chestnuts. Her low, furry voice sounded a bit thick and too high pitched. I figured she was maybe four or five drinks ahead of the crowd.

The piano player was going to work again. He was knocking out a low-key, throbbing blues and his fingers weren’t just educated, they had half a dozen degrees. From the back, he looked like a short, dumpy, round-shouldered little old man. But it wasn’t him I was really looking at. It was the girl, standing next to the piano, watching him play.

Chapter Two Poker for Blood

A little better than average height she was wearing jodhpurs and a black, turtle neck sweater. Her hair hung long and shimmering blonde and ended up around her shoulder blades in loosely rolled scrolls of gold. She had her back to me and I couldn’t see her face and something had to be done about that.

The piano player looked up and I recognized him, then. It was Willis Marlow, who had recently opened up a record and music shop in Wildwood. I’d seen him around town and heard about him, but I had never met him. Word had gotten around that up until recently, he’d played piano with just about every name band in the country.

The girl turned, then and I had never seen her before. I wondered who she was and where she’d been hiding. If somebody had kept her under lock and key, I wouldn’t have been surprised. She was treasure enough to do that. She wasn’t just pretty. The nose and the mouth were a trifle on the large side and her forehead was too high and broad but on her those faults looked good. It gave a certain character to her features that mere prettiness couldn’t touch.

It was the eyes that really got me, though. They were wide-set and hazel brown, deep and soft. The lashes were like the long, spiked, sticky jobs that chorus girls affect. Only these were real and they hadn’t been doctored up. She gave me a wisp of a smile and took a sip of a very weak looking highball.

Marlow lifted his fingers from the keys and glanced up at me. “Hi,” I said. “Don’t let me interrupt. That was swell stuff. You don’t know me but my name’s Hoyle. Matty Hoyle. I work for the Wildwood Press.”

He stuck out a soft white hand with long, agile looking fingers. “Pleasure,” he said. “I’m Willis Marlow. Run the new music shop. Been meaning to run over to your place to see about some advertising.”

“Didn’t Sam Walterman get around to see you, yet? He’s our huckster. Must be slipping.”

“No.” Marlow reached for a shot glass of whiskey set on top of the piano next to a chaser of water. He put it down neat and didn’t bother with the water. I saw his eyes, then and they were a squinty, watery blue. They were red veined. There was a slight tic to one corner of his mouth.

He weaved momentarily on the piano stool and caught himself, rigidly. He was quite drunk but in the quiet way that a life-time drinker, an alcoholic, often gets. He gestured toward the girl.

“Matty, meet my daughter, Lee. Fine girl. Been away to school. Reason we’re here, Harry Wenzel stopped in the shop last week for some recordings. Got to chinning and he found out I’m a fishing bug and so’s Lee. He invited us up.”

I saw some fishing gear on top of the piano and ducked my head toward it. “Who owns the spinning outfit?” I said.

Lee Marlow said, “I do.” She made an impatient gesture. “I wish I’d brought my regular casting rod and reel along, though. I can’t get used to that one. I’ll probably make a fool of myself, tomorrow. So you’re Matty Hoyle. I’ve heard that you’re the fishing champ around here.”

I shrugged and shifted my feet awkwardly. Her smile was making me feel like a schoolboy. “I keep my line wet and try hard and sometimes I have some luck.”

“Like landing the biggest bass and pickerel to come out of Loon Lake, on the same day. That isn’t luck. That’s genius.”

I felt the blush rising from my collar and wondered what was the matter with me. I reached to the top of the piano and took hold of the whip-like spinning rod and reel. “This thing shouldn’t bother you too much,” I told her. “You’ll get used to it after the first dozen casts tomorrow. I like these outfits. Got one myself.”

“How about a demonstration?” she said. “Show me what can be done with one of those things by an expert.”

“Here?” I said. “Tomorrow, I’ll show you, maybe. Not here.”

“Please,” she said, softly and if she’d asked me to flap my arms and fly, I’d have done it.

I folded up a matchbook cover and tied it on the end. It was a little light and with a regular casting rod it would have been tough going, but I thought I could handle it with this outfit. An impulse to show off, like a kid riding a bicycle no-hands past his girl’s house, came over me and I’m not apologizing. That’s just the way it was. That’s the way Lee Marlow was hitting me. I took a round, cardboard beer glass coaster from the top of the piano and scaled it across the room. It rolled near the far wall, about twenty-five feet away.

“Okay,” I said. “Here goes.”

I whipped an easy side-arm cast and the nylon line unfurled from the spinning reel silently and smoothly. The matchbook cover at the end of it, dropped an inch away from the coaster on the floor.

“Wonderful!” she said. “Will I ever learn to do that? If that coaster was a bass, you’d have hit him right on the nose with the plug. You—”

She was looking past me toward the bar and a worried frown darkened her lovely eyes and made vertical lines above her short, straight nose. I turned and followed her gaze. At the bar, her father was tossing off another drink. He turned and headed back toward us.

“He sneaked away on me, while we were busy with our fishing talk,” Lee said. “I’m sorry,” she said, “but I’ve got to watch him. He doesn’t know when to stop.”

At the same time I saw that Harry Wenzel had come back in. There was a lot of laughter and loud talk from the bar, now. Pete Saterlee was getting a little boisterous. He’d moved around beside Irma Wenzel and had his arm around her waist. I hoped Harry wouldn’t see that, or that if he did, he wouldn’t be in one of his jealous moods.

Irma was laughing up into Pete’s face as he talked. Eric Fabian was on the other side of her, looking bored, working his highball glass around in his fingers, making circled figures on the bar. Harry was down at the other end, talking with Gus Berkaw, the bartender.

Willis Marlow came back to the piano and I heard his daughter say, “Pops, you promised to take it easy, remember?”

“Of course,” old Marlow said, with tight-voiced dignity. He pulled at the flesh of his throat. “Tonsils got a little dry, is all. And that last blues number was a little muddy going. Want to get in the spirit for something gay. This is a party, you know.”

I turned away from them for a moment, embarrassed for Lee and I was just in time to see what happened at the bar. What had led up to it, wasn’t too hard to guess after I’d seen Pete Saterlee cozying up to Irma Wenzel.

Harry Wenzel had Pete Saterlee backed up against the bar, holding him there with his fist screwed up into the front of Pete’s jacket. Saterlee said, “Get your damned dirty paws off of me, Wenzel,” and put the flat of his hand into Harry’s face, shoved him away. Then Harry Wenzel swung. It was a powerful, chopping right. Saterlee managed to get a hand up fast enough to partially block and deflect the blow so that it caught him just above the ear instead of flush on the jaw. Still, he went down. He rolled over, got up onto his hands and knees and shook his head.

Irma Wenzel let out a little belated scream and was leaning against Eric Fabian, hiding her face in his shoulder. Gus Berkaw came over the bar in a vaulting leap and grabbed Harry Wenzel from behind, held his arms pinioned at his sides.

“Cut it out, Harry,” Gus said. “What’s the matter with you? The guy didn’t mean anything. Cut it out.”

Harry Wenzel shook himself loose and wheeled on the bartender. For a minute I thought he was going to go after Gus, too. Then he shook himself all over, wiped a big hand down over his face. “Sorry, Gus,” he said. “Thanks for straightening me out.”

That didn’t surprise me any. Gus Berkaw was the only man that I knew of for whom Harry Wenzel held any real respect. Gus had worked for Harry for six years, now. He lived upstairs in the inn and was quiet and a little on the moody side, but a good barkeep. He was a stocky, powerful shouldered man, about three inches shorter than Harry Wenzel.

There was a story that once, when Gus had first gone to work for Harry Wenzel, they’d had an argument. After the place had closed up, they had gone at it with their fists. Harry Wenzel had beaten the daylights out of Gus, but he hadn’t been able to knock him out or make him quit. And Gus had floored Harry Wenzel. It was supposed to be the first and only time Harry had ever been floored. Finally, they’d both gotten so exhausted they’d had to quit fighting.

Ever since that night, the story went, Gus Berkaw had been Harry and Irma Wenzel’s personal friend as well as an employee. Folks said that he could do anything with Harry and that the Wenzels would do anything for him.

Pete Saterlee got up onto his feet and brushed himself off. Harry Wenzel went over to help him and I watched them shake hands. “I’m sorry, Pete. Guess I just lost my temper. Maybe it was just a friendly kiss, I dunno. But, Irma, damn her, sometimes she—” He broke off, obviously fighting to control his temper.

He put his arm about Saterlee’s shoulder. “Aw, forget it. Let’s all have a drink and forget it.”

Saterlee mumbled an indignant reply but it was obvious that he was going to let himself be coaxed into accepting the apology and forgetting the incident. I turned back to the Marlows to see how they’d taken the scene. Lee Marlow looked pale and nervous. “I don’t like this, Pops. There’s liable to be more trouble. They’re all drinking too much. There won’t be much fishing done in the morning, anyhow. Let’s get out of here. Let’s leave, Pops.”

I knew how she felt. I thought maybe I could help her out. I said, “I know what you mean. It’s a good idea and if you don’t mind, I’ll go with you. You have a car?”

“No,” she said. “We rode out with Eric Fabian. But I can call a cab from Wildwood. I—”

“Nonsense,” I told her. “You can ride with me. If you don’t mind a jalopy with a broken spring. I’ll go tell Harry we’re leaving, while you’re getting your coats on.”

I turned away before she could refuse. I went over to the bar and said something about a headache and I had to go. I’d see Harry on the lake tomorrow. I told him that the Marlows were going to check out too, were going to ride with me. He let out a roar like a buffalo.

“That’s a hell of a thing, Matty,” he said. His yellowish brown eyes showed flecks of temper. His mouth pulled into a thin, ugly line. “Running out on us just when the party’s gettin’ good. What’s the matter, you too good for us or something?”

“It’s not that, Harry,” I said. “It’s just—”

“Nuts!” he cut me off. “Well, you don’t have to drag Will Marlow and his gal with you. I’ll see that they’re taken care of. We got to have some more of that piano of Will’s. He’s staying.”

Willis Marlow and Lee joined us, then. They’d heard what Harry Wenzel had said. I looked at Willis Marlow. He drew his small, plump figure up with dignity. “I’m sorry, Mr. Wenzel. We said we’re leaving and we are. You can’t bully us around like... like—”

Lee Marlow put a hand on her father’s arm and stopped him. “Please, Pops,” she said. “Maybe we’ll stay a little longer. Play another couple of songs for Mr. Wenzel, anyhow.” There was fear in her voice. She hadn’t gotten over the scene of violence that she’d witnessed a couple of minutes ago. She was afraid of Harry Wenzel’s deep bullying voice and his temper.

But Harry Wenzel looked at the stooped little old piano player with raised brows and an amused, surprised look. “Of course,” he boomed. “Don’t be silly. Stick around, kid and play us some more tunes. The evening’s young. Here.” He reached to the bar and brought a brimming shot glass over from it. He held it toward Marlow.

The old man stared glassily at the whiskey and licked his dry lips. He hesitated. Harry Wenzel said, “Go ahead, Will. There’s plenty more where that came from. We’ll all join you. We’ll all have another round.”

That did it. Old Willis Marlow took the drink and gulped it and smacked his lips. He turned to his daughter. “Perhaps for just a little longer,” he said, apologetically, not looking at her.

“All right, Pops,” she said. She looked at me. “Thanks, anyhow, Matty. Are you going to stay?”

There was something in her voice that seemed to be asking me to do that. Maybe I imagined it. Anyhow, I stayed. Finally, everybody gathered around the piano and Will Marlow thumped out all the old fashioned standby songs in a rollicking imitation of an old time player piano and everybody pitched in and sang. For awhile it was fun.

Lee Marlow stood next to me and she had a clear, strong contralto. She pretended not to notice when Harry Wenzel kept bringing drinks to the piano for her old man but she didn’t like it. When he got the hiccoughs and broke out into song, himself, in a cracked voice, she turned and looked at me as if to say, well, it was too late now; he was over the hill and there was nothing more she could do.

The community sing finally broke up and Irma Wenzel began to look a little green around the gills and said she was going to turn in. She left the barroom and went upstairs. Eric Fabian started to leave, too, but Harry Wenzel stopped him. He went behind the bar and came out with a pack of cards.

“It’s too damned early to hit the sack. Anybody here feel like a little poker?”

Willis Marlow ended his piano playing on a thumping discord and stood up, swaying slightly. Between hiccoughs, he managed: “There’s nothing I’d like better than a little gentlemanly game.”

Lee bit at her lip and tried to catch her father’s eye, but he studiously avoided her gaze. Harry Wenzel put his arm around Marlow’s shoulder, “Okay, we got a good start. How about it, Eric — Pete — Matty?”

Reluctantly, Eric Fabian and Pete Saterlee agreed to sit in. I said, “I’ll try a couple of hands, Harry, but if the going gets too rich for my blood, I’m dropping out.”

Marry Wenzel went over to a table, snapped on a wall lamp and ripped off a checkered table cloth. As I started to join him and the others, someone touched my arm, lightly. I turned toward Lee Marlow. Her hazel eyes were intent and pleading on mine. She said, “Could I ask you a favor? I don’t want to hang around and kibitz — the only female. I’m going to go upstairs and go to bed. Would you keep an eye on Pops? Sometimes, when he’s drinking, he doesn’t use very good judgement. If he gets to losing too heavily, maybe you could cajole him into calling it quits?”

I took her hand and squeezed it hard, “I’ll try,” I said. “I’ll do what I can.”

They started off conservatively enough and I lasted five hands, losing each one and it cost me twelve dollars, so I quit. I took a little ragging, but not bad because everybody had an idea what the Wildwood Press paid its help. I stood around and watched awhile and slowly but surely, Willis Marlow became the heavy winner. His luck was almost incredible.

With every hand that he won, he ordered a drink around for the players. He held it well, but I could tell by the sagging of his facial muscles and the way he occasionally rocked in his chair that he was getting progressively drunker. But it didn’t seem to affect his judgement. He played a good tight game. Eric Fabian dropped out after losing about a hundred and fifty dollars.

Gus Berkaw, the barkeep, who had come over to watch the game, sat in his place. Eric yawned a few times and went off upstairs to bed. I followed him a few minutes later. I wasn’t too worried about Willis Marlow. He was so far ahead, I didn’t see how he could possibly wind up losing. Lee Marlow didn’t have to worry about her Pops on that score.

The second floor of Loon Lodge was reached by a center stairwell. At the top, on a bulletin board, was tacked a slip of paper with a listing of tonight’s guests and the numbers of the rooms to which they’d been assigned. There was a long hall, dimly lit by an overhead light at each end. There were doors opening off of each side of the hall. The old fashioned gas jets had never been removed but only sealed up. At one end of the hall was a door leading to the apartment where Harry and Irma Wenzel lived.

I went into my room and it was a big, high-ceilinged affair. It was furnished simply but comfortably, and was more like a bedroom in a private home than an inn room.

I put on pajamas and flopped on the bed for a nightcap smoke. I started thinking about Lee Marlow and all the people who were at Loon Lodge, tonight, but mostly about Lee. The cigarette burned my finger and I found that I had drowsed off. Irritiably, I punched the burning butt out in the bedside tray and that was the last thing I remember...

The screaming awakened me. I came to, sitting bolt upright on the bed. The screaming was not high-pitched but it was tight and terror-filled and sent sharp pains through my ears. It cut off, then suddenly, yet the sound seemed to hang in the air for seconds afterward.

Then I heard the dog and realized that that sound had been there, all the time, too, under the screaming. The dog sound was a savage, frenzied snarling that kept up for awhile and then gradually diminished. Then there was a heavy, leaden silence that hung like a smothering cloak over everything.

I forced my still sleep-drugged body up off the bed and moved toward the window. From the hall and from the rooms along it, I heard the sounds of other people moving around. The window of my room faced onto the back of the Lodge. I flung it wide and leaned out. The rain had stopped and gray fog hung among the trees and wisped in from the lake.

I looked toward Satan’s pen but I couldn’t see anything because of the fog. But there were sounds from down there. The back door of the lodge flung open and light washed out into the mist. Someone went out into the yard. A flashlight came on. The bright beam fought its way through the smoky fog, moved about the yard as the person wielding it, walked toward the dog’s pen.

The flash beam hit the pen. At the same instant an unearthly howl rose into the air, prolonged, anguished.

The flash light found Satan in his pen. He was standing with his front paws upon something huddled on the ground. His great, handsome head was back, the ears flat and the howling poured from his deep throat. The short, light brown hairs of his neck and head were dark and shiny with blood. It glistened on his long white fangs. The person wielding the flashlight spoke and I recognized the hoarse, gutteral tones of Eric Fabian. He swore. “That damned beast has killed Harry. He finally got Harry.”

The light focused on Satan and the thing huddled on the dirt floor of the pen. The dog stopped howling, stared into the light, and backed away from it, growling, his reddish eyes glittering. I got a good look at the thing on the ground, then. It was Harry Wenzel or it had been. He was curled on one side and his head was twisted on his neck as though it had been broken.

The sharp clap of a pistol shot bit through the fog-muffled silence. I saw Satan jump clean off the ground and when he came down his legs didn’t hold him. He lay still for a fraction of a second and I thought the bullet had gotten him.

But then he began to crawl along the ground toward Harry Wenzel, whimpering. He reached the dead man and, whining, began to lick Harry’s hand. There was a second pistol shot and the great beast jerked spasmodically, twisted over onto his side and lay still.

Eric Fabian entered the pen and squatted down beside the dead man and the dog. He peered closely at Harry and then he looked up toward the windows that faced down on the back yard. With the fog, he couldn’t see anybody, but I guess he knew we were there, looking out, watching this. He said, “He got Harry, all right. He really got him.”

I turned from the window and yanked trousers and a sweater over my pajamas and went out into the hall. I almost bumped into Pete Saterlee, running toward the stairs. He shouted something incoherent. I saw Lee Marlow pop out of her room.

“What happened?” she demanded.

“You’d better stay in your room,” I told her. “Something’s happened to Harry Wenzel. It’s pretty messy. You’d better stay up here for awhile.”

She turned from me and darted across the hall to the opened door of another room. She reached in and flicked on the light switch, peered inside. She turned back to me. “Where’s Pops?” she said. “He’s not in his room. The bed hasn’t been slept in.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “If I run into him downstairs, I’ll send him up.”

“No,” she said. “Maybe something’s happened to him, too. I’m going down.”

Chapter Three I.O.U. Death

The lights were on in the big bar-room and Gus Berkaw was just going out the back door in his shirt sleeves. We followed him outside, and almost bumped into him, where he had stopped to talk to Eric Fabian. Eric was still holding the nickle-plated .32. He looked quickly at Lee Marlow and stuck out his hand in a warning gesture. “He’s a mess. You’d better take her back inside, Hoyle.”

“It is Mr. Wenzel, isn’t it?” she said, tightly. “It... it’s not my father?”

“Your father?” Eric said. “Of course not, child. It’s Harry. That damned dog finally got him. I shot the dog, afterward. You’d better go back inside. It’s not something you’d want to see.” Suddenly, he clapped his hand to his forehead. “Irma!” he said. “We can’t let her come out here and see him. Somebody’s got to take care of her.”

I reached and took the flashlight from his hand. “You go on inside and take care of Irma. Take Miss Marlow with you. I want to take a look. I’ll be in a minute.”

He and Berkaw started back up the steps and I told Lee, “Go ahead, please. Go on back in with them. Maybe you can help take care of Mrs. Wenzel.”

“All right,” she said. “If you see Pops, tell him to come in, please. I’m worried about him. Please, Matty!”

“Sure,” I said. I watched her leave and then swung toward the dog pen. I found Pete Saterlee standing in the doorway of the pen, looking over the flame of his cigarette lighter at what was left of Harry Wenzel and his pet. I shot the light of the flash over them, quickly and then ran it around the pen.

“The poor fool!” Saterlee said. “He wasn’t a bad guy — rough as hell — but all right. He was an idiot to mess with that dog, though.”

“Yeah,” I said. I remembered, dazedly, the first day I’d seen Satan and the way Harry Wenzel had whipped the animal into submission. I remembered that Irma Wenzel had made a prophecy: “Some day that dog will kill you, Harry!”

I said, “What in the world did he come out here to the dog for at this time of night?” I glanced at my wrist watch. It was after 4 o’clock. “And in the dark and fog on top of that. He must have been crazy.”

“Or drunk as a coot,” Pete Saterlee said.

The flash beam, at that moment, spotted something caught on the barbed wire that topped the pen. I walked toward it and looked at it closely. It was a piece of cloth about an inch square, blue material of some kind. I switched the light back to the corpse of Harry Wenzel, lying beside the dead dog. I saw that he was wearing a blue workshirt and that it was ripped and torn. The piece caught on that barbed wire might have come from Harry’s shirt and it might not. I left it where it was.

Pete Saterlee and I walked back to the door and went into the lodge. Eric Fabian, Lee Marlow and Irma Wenzel were sitting at the bar. Gus Berkaw was behind it, fixing the others drinks. As Pete and I walked in, he set shot glasses on the bar for us, too. I sat down and gulped the double shot that Gus poured. I needed it. The shock of this thing had fogged my mind. I couldn’t seem to think.

In the back bar mirror, I watched the others. Both women had a thinly covered expression of fright in their eyes and finely etched tight lines about their mouths. Eric Fabian was poker-faced, but his hands gave him away. When he raised a drink to his mouth, he had to pause and steady his hand for a moment. Gus Berkaw kept polishing the same glass over and over.

“I can’t understand what happened to Pops,” Lee Marlow said, breaking a short silence. “Where could he be?”

“That’s a good question,” Gus Berkaw told her. “If he’d come back, maybe we could find out what made Harry go out to Satan’s pen at this time of night.”

“Why should old man Marlow know that?” Eric Fabian said.

“Because he was the last one to be with Harry, tonight,” Gus told him. “When you quit the game, Eric, Harry and Willis Marlow and I kept playing. Then I quit and Harry and Marlow continued by themselves, bumping heads over big pots.”

“Was Pops losing?” Lee asked.

“He was way ahead for awhile,” Gus told her. “Then he hit a bad streak. He was going behind when I quit. Maybe he came out of it with a lucky Tun of cards again or maybe he didn’t. Either way, neither of them could have lasted long the way the betting was going by that time.”

I said, “Did anybody have sense enough to call the police? They’ll want to know about this.”

“I called them,” Eric Fabian said. “The whole police department will be over soon.”

“You mean Quimby?” Irma Wenzel said. “Quimby’s the chief.”

“He is the police department,” Fabian told her with feigned dignity.

“Why is it necessary to call the police in on this?” Lee Marlow wondered.

“For a routine investigation,” I said. “After all, there’s always the possibility that what looks like an accidental death isn’t that at all. They always check up on all the facts to make sure. Maybe Harry was forced into the dog’s pen, made to turn his back. Maybe he was unconscious and thrown in there. Of course—”

“Don’t be a jerk, Matty,” Pete Saterlee stopped me. “What the hell’s the idea of starting a rumor like that? Who’d want to kill Harry Wenzel and why? That’s ridiculous.”

There was silence for a few moments and then Irma Wenzel, holding the rim of a cocktail glass close to her lips and talking over the top of it, said, “Maybe Matty’s got something there. The theory is not as ridiculous as it sounds. If somebody did have murder in mind, it would be an ideal way to commit it. Harry, himself, has set the stage perfectly for it ever since he first acquired that murderous beast.”

Gus Berkaw moved over in front of Irma, leaned across the bar toward her. “Easy, kid,” he said. “You’re still suffering from shock. You don’t want to get yourself all upset. You don’t want to go saying things you’ll be sorry for, later.” Gus, himself, looked more strained and upset than Irma did at that moment. His heavy-featured, handsome dark face was taut and too intense. His deeply sunken brown eyes were too bright and restless. Irma, on the other hand, seemed calm and in full control of her emotions, now.

“I know what I’m saying. I’m saying that it strikes me as a little odd that Harry would go out into Satan’s pen at this time of night, in the dark and the fog. Did he even have a flashlight? Did anybody see a flashlight out there?”

Nobody answered. Nobody said anything. “Okay,” Irma went on. “So he didn’t have a flashlight. Don’t tell me, no matter how drunk Harry might have been, that he’d be fool enough to go out into that pen without a light of any kind. As for who would want to kill Harry — the answer is almost anyone.

“I have a reason. He was loaded with insurance. Eric Fabian, there, might do it. Eric wanted to buy the place when he heard about the new road coming through, but Harry wouldn’t sell. Eric knew I would. So he eliminates Harry and—”

Eric Fabian knocked over the whiskey glass in front of him. He spun around on his stool. “Now, wait a minute, Irma,” he snarled. “Are you accusing me of murder?”

She laughed brittley. “I’m not accusing anyone. I’m just saying what could be. Pete Saterlee might even have wanted revenge on Harry for slugging him, last night. People have killed for lesser, sillier motives.”

“That’s fine talk,” Pete said, “with a newspaper reporter sitting right here, listening. How is all this going to sound on the front page of the Wildwood Press?”

Before anybody had a chance to answer, the sound of a car moving into the parking space outside, was heard. It’s headlights flashed through the windows and then were turned off. We all sat there silently, listening to the car door slam. Footsteps came up onto the verandah outside and then the door burst open and a man in uniform came in.

Chief of Police Arnold Quimby was a proud and portly figure in a resplendant uniform with razor-creased trousers and plenty of gold braid on his sleeves. His badge and brass buttons were brightly polished as pushcart apples. He walked toward the bar with a brisk, military step and whipped off expensive, soft leather gloves. Chief Quimby’s moon face was heavy-joweled and florid and was puffed with an expression of smug importance.

“Where’s Harry?” he said. “Let’s have a look at him.”

Nobody said anything but Gus Berkaw moved around from behind the bar and gestured with his hand for Quimby to follow him. I trailed them outside. Dawn was just beginning to break and the fog had lifted somewhat. You could see things close to the ground quite clearly but I still had the flashlight, so I flicked it on. As we entered the dog pen, Quimby asked for the light and I passed it to him. He flashed it on the twisted figures of the dead dog and man and squatted down beside them.

“Dead all right. Who shot the dog?”

“Eric Fabian,” I said. “He was the first one down here.”

“What’s the story on this?” Quimby turned to me.

I gave it to him quickly, neatly. When I’d finished, he pulled at his full lower lip, put on a wise and authoritative expression. “Seems clean cut enough,” he said. “I’ve heard about that damned dog and the way Harry was always showing off with him, taking chances. I—”

He broke off, leaned forward and pulled forth a little slip of white paper that was partly protruding from the breast pocket of Harry Wenzel’s shirt. He unfolded it and held the flashlight on it. Over his shoulder, in a fine but wobbly and uneven script, I read: I owe you $3,300.00. Willis Marlowe.

Quimby made a whistling sound. “Brother!” he said. “What’s that for?”

“They were playing poker.” Gus Berkaw told him. “It looks to me like Harry cleaned out old Marlow and then ran him along on credit. The I.O.U. was the final payoff, I imagine. Say, maybe this gives some credence to Inna’s theory that Harry might have been murdered.”

Chief Quimby puffed up importantly. “Murdered? How could he have been murdered? The dog killed him, didn’t he?”

“Sure,” Berkaw said, quietly. “But somebody could have set up the thing. Irma — Harry’s wife — has an idea that somebody might have heaved Harry, dead drunk, into the pen, here, and let the mutt do the rest.”

“Where is this guy, Marlow?” Quimby demanded. “If anything like that happened, this I.O.U. of his makes him a likely suspect.”

I said, “He’s not around right now. Nobody knows where he is.”

“You mean he’s disappeared?” Quimby blurted. “Well, that makes it look bad for him. Maybe he’s run away. Maybe he got cold feet after pulling the crime and—”

“Take it easy,” I stopped him. “In the first place it hasn’t been established that a crime really did take place. In the second, I doubt that old Marlow’s taken a powder. He was pretty well liquored up. I figure maybe he took a hike to try and walk it off or maybe he’s curled up in some dark corner, sleeping it through. I imagine he’ll turn up, one way or the other, pretty soon. Let’s get back inside. There’s nothing else out here.”

As we left the pen I remembered the piece of cloth I’d seen caught onto the piece of barbed wire. I directed Quimby’s attention to it. He studied it, closely and then hustled back into the pen and looked at the torn and bloody shirt Harry Wenzel was wearing.

“Looks like a piece of Harry’s shirt to me,” Quimby said. “How the hell would it get caught in that top strand of barbed wire, so far from the gate, unless it got caught when Harry was being heaved over the top of the fencer?”

I didn’t say anything. I didn’t like the looks of the way this thing was shaping up. By this time I was pretty well convinced that somebody had tried to work out a perfect murder by letting Satan do the dirty work for him. And in spite of my protests, before, it did look bad for old man Marlow.

He’d been pretty drunk and the I.O.U. showed that he’d wound up a heavy poker loser to Harry Wenzel. He was the last person to be seen with Harry. If he was in bad financial shape, a debt of that size might make him go to any extreme to wipe it out.

I followed the others back inside the inn. Quimby and Berkaw went to the bar and joined Irma Wenzel and Pete Saterlee and Eric Fabian, there. I found Lee Marlow over by the piano.

“My spinning outfit is gone, Matty. Maybe Pops went down to the lake to try it out.”

“Getting a head start on the rest of us, eh?” I said. “Could be.” If that was so, it meant that he didn’t even know about Harry Wenzel’s death. A man wouldn’t calmly go off to fish in the face of a tragedy like that.

“We’d better get him, bring him back,” Lee said.

“Maybe you’re right.” I didn’t say anything about the I.O.U. that had been found or the fact that her father might be a suspect, if police officials finally decided on the verdict that Harry Wenzel’s death was not accidental.

We got out of there without the others noticing. They were too busy arguing different ways the piece of cloth might have gotten caught onto the barbed wire fence and if it meant anything. We hurried along the little path that led through a thick grove of pines, downhill toward the lake.

Loon Lake was really nothing more than a large sized, artificial pond, about fifty square acres and kidney-shaped, with a lot of little coves and inlets and a small island in the middle. The shores were thick with shrubbery and shaded by clumps of huge trees.

Even though it was daylight, now, mist still hung in shaggy wraithes over the water and in wisps along the shore. We could feel its cold, dank touch on our faces as we made our way along the shore fishing path. Every once in awhile, Lee Marlow would shout: “Hey, Pops!” But there was no answer.

Everything was still and the mist and that deadly quiet gave the whole scene a heavy, gloomy quality. Beside me, Lee Marlow held my hand tightly and I knew that she felt the same way.

We came around a turn in the path and I kicked something that was lying under a clump of shrubbery. It was Lee Marlow’s rod and reel, her new spinning outfit. Part of the line had become unspun and was tangled around in the twigs and thick grass. I straightened it out and found that a bass plug had been tied on the end of the line. It was a wicked looking little lure with a realistic wriggle on a slow retrieve and the off-set hooking made it hard for the fish to get a purchase on the plug and shake it off.

“Your Pops meant business, working with one of these things,” I said. I was just making conversation, trying to think what finding the rod and reel like this might mean.

Lee Marlow had hold of my arm very hard and I could feel the bite of her fingers. “Something’s happened to him, Matty. He... he wouldn’t just go off and leave his gear in the bushes like this. Matty! Matty, I’m scared.”

“Come on. Let’s walk a little farther. We’ll find him. There’s probably a logical explanation for this. Try to take it easy, Lee.”

Kind words. Very helpful. Matty Hoyle, the old comforter and advisor. The things I’d said didn’t do either of us any good as we moved around another turn in the path and stopped cold. We found Lee’s father.

Chapter Four Sinister Key

Lee stood there, staring and screaming, a blood-thinning sound that seemed to go on and on until you didn’t think you could stand it anymore and then, miraculously, it stopped. But the sudden, smothering silence that followed, seemed worse.

I caught her as she started to fall and looked over her head at the thing, swinging ever so slightly on the end of a length of rope from a tree limb just ahead of us on the path.

That it was Willis Marlow, was obvious even from the back. The plump, round-shouldered figure in the rumpled tweed suit, the unkempt, straggly gray hair at the collar in the back, saw to that. An old box-crate had been kicked over from under his feet.

I scooped Lee Marlow up into my arms and pushed off the path, through the shrubbery until I came to a small patch of grass. I set her down and began to chafe her wrists between my hands. She came around in a few moments, her eyes at first dazed and confused and then as memory returned, once again bleak and stark. She couldn’t even speak at first, just stared up at me, dumbly, while I tried to calm her.

“Lee, you’ll have to get control. I know it’s going to be hard but you’ve got to do it. I’ve got something to tell you about your father.”

The crying came then and she buried her face against my shoulder and it was bad for a few moments but it got rid of some of the tension. When she was finished, she dabbed her eyes dry and turned toward me. “I’m all right now, I think, Matty. For awhile, anyhow. But we’ve got to do something. We just can’t let him hang there like — like that. We—”

“Easy, Lee,” I said. Her voice was starting to rise. I watched her fight for control and make it and then I said, “You’ll hear it from the others, anyhow, Lee, so I might as well break it to you here. Maybe it’ll be easier.”

She didn’t say anything. She waited for me to go on. I took a deep, ragged breath and pitched into it.

“Your father killed himself, Lee, but it’s probably for the best. He — I guess he was going to have to face a murder rap, anyhow. It was beginning to show up that Harry Wenzel was killed deliberately — that somebody tossed him into Satan’s pen while he was either drunk or unconscious.

“There was an I.O.U. in Harry’s pocket, signed by your father, for over three thousand dollars that I imagine he lost in the poker game, last night. It looks as though your father killed Harry to get out of that debt. Then, in a fit of remorse, he came down here and took his own life.”

Lee’s small, firm chin hardened. A glint of anger came into her eyes. “No, Matty. No. That’s all off. The whole thing is wrong. It couldn’t be like that.”

“I know it’s hard to accept, but it’s the only logical way to figure it. Why else would he kill himself?”

“He didn’t, Matty. That’s just the point. Pops didn’t hang himself. I know it!” She shook her head, desperately. I felt sorry for her. She was a sweet, loyal little kid and she was trying hard, but denying the facts didn’t change them.

“In the first place,” she went on, “if Pops killed Harry Wenzel to get that I.O.U., why did he leave it in Harry’s pocket?”

I couldn’t think of any answer for that.

“And how could a little old man like Pops, hoist a big lummox like Harry Wenzel up over that high fence? You’ve got it all wrong, Matty. Maybe somebody did try to frame Pops, to make it look as though he murdered Harry and then took his own life, but it couldn’t have been that way. Pops didn’t kill himself.”

“What makes you so sure of that?”

“When Pops was a kid, he worked for awhile on a newspaper. He was a reporter like you. One time he was assigned to write up a penitentiary execution. They died by hanging in that state and Pops had to watch it. It got him. He was sick for a week afterward. It was so bad, that was the end of his newspaper career.

“He’s told me about it many times. It gave him sort of a phobia about ropes, even. He hated to even touch a piece of rope. Once, he got up and walked out of a movie when they showed preparations for a hanging. If he was going to — to get rid of himself, that’s the one way he wouldn’t do it, Matty. Can you understand that?”

“Maybe,” I said. “But you’re going to have a tough time selling that to the police.”

I helped her to her feet. She was dizzy for a moment and clung to me. Somewhere out over the mist on the lake a catbird shrieked. Stray puffs of mist swirled around us. I thought about the things Lee Marlow had said and they began to make sense. But if she was right, then there’d been a double murder.

Chances were, the same person had killed old man Marlow. But, why? They were safe enough as it was, without doing that. If Harry’s death got by as an accident, they were okay. If murder was suspected, the I.O.U. practically put it into Willis Marlow’s lap. Why go to the trouble of killing him, too?

It hit me, then. “Maybe your father saw them. Maybe he saw who it was that heaved Harry Wenzel into the dog pen. They killed him to shut him up about that.”

Her eyes grew very wide. “Yes,” she breathed. “When he’d been drinking, Pops never went right to bed. He had a fear of lying down when he was drunk. He didn’t like the way everything spun around and it sometimes made him sick. He liked to get out and get a lot of air and sometimes walk a lot. Maybe he was out back there, somewhere, when the murderer thought everybody had gone to bed and like you say, Pops saw the thing done.”

“The fishing rod?” I said. “Would he have that?”

“He might,” she said. “Maybe he decided to try a little night fishing. He was very anxious to try that spinning outfit, anyhow.”

“But would he go through with his plans, calmly, go down to the lake to go fishing after witnessing what was obviously a murder?”

“No,” she said. “But he could have become afraid. Maybe the murderer saw him, knew that he’d been a witness. Maybe Pops ran down here, trying to get away.”

We pushed it around some more and the more we talked, the more convinced I was that we had the correct answer.

“If we’re right, the killer is very clever. It’s going to be hard to prove anything against him. But I’ve got an idea how we might root him out into the open, if you’re game for it.”

Her lovely mouth thinned and a vein stood out along her young white throat. “I’ll do anything,” she said. “Anything to prove Pops was innocent, that he didn’t hang himself.”

“Maybe it won’t work,” I said. “And I might get into a lot of trouble but I’m willing to take a chance on it.”

I told her this crazy idea, then. I was going to cut down Willis Marlow’s corpse, carry it back to the lodge, slung over my shoulder. There was a side entrance that led upstairs. If we could get Willis Marlow up to his own room without anybody seeing us, there was a chance we could put this over.

“We’ll go back to the others, then,” I told Lee. “We’ll tell them that we found your father, passed out and sleeping it off and that we helped him back up to his room. Only the murderer will know that we’re lying. He’ll worry and think maybe that we might even suspect him. He’ll get nervous and jumpy and maybe make a slip of some kind that will tip us off. That’s about all we can hope for.”

“Maybe,” she said. “You keep saying ‘he’, Matty. What about Irma Wenzel?”

“I don’t think so. It would take somebody much bigger and stronger to heave Harry over that fence.”

Lee was dubious about the possible success of the idea and so was I. But there didn’t seem any other alternative. We went back down onto the path. She kept her back turned to the corpse gently swinging from the tree limb.

“I... I’m afraid I can’t be much help, Matty. I can’t watch even. I couldn’t take it. I feel sick, as it is.”

My own stomach felt as though a lot of cold, creeping things were slithering around inside of it. I went over and stopped and wrapped my right arm around Willis Marlow’s legs. With my left hand, I reached up and sawed through the clothesline rope with my pocket knife until I felt Marlow’s dead weight fall full over my shoulder. I hefted him into a more comfortable carrying position and joined Lee. She didn’t look at me. She kept a few steps ahead as we moved along the path.

We got to the side door and carried the dead man upstairs without running into any of the others. I took him into his own room and slung him face down on the bed. He sprawled there, arms and legs outflung, one hand dangling loosely over the edge of the bed. His face was turned toward the wall and we couldn’t see the noose marks on his neck, nor the things strangulation had done to his sensitive features and his complexion.

Lee Marlow was standing in the doorway when I turned around. I saw that she was holding her spinning rod and reel in one hand. She must have automatically picked it up and brought it back with her. Her face was very pale and pin-pointed with tiny globes of perspiration on the forehead above the nose and along the soft curve of her upper lip. Her eyes were a little starey and there was a frozen setness to her features. But otherwise she seemed to have herself in control.

I took the rod and reel from her hand and she looked down at it dumbly as though she hadn’t even realized she’d been carrying it. “Let’s go downstairs,” I said. “Let’s get this over with.” I hated to rush her but I wanted to go through with this while she was still emotionally numbed, before the complete realization that her father was dead really penetrated.

She would break when that happened. She wouldn’t be able to keep quiet and all the others would know that her father was dead, too, not just the murderer. We would really be out in the cold, then.

I held her arm, going down the center stairway. We came out into the big barroom of Loon Lodge and in broad daylight, it was now a dull and dreary place. The rest of the party were still sitting at the bar where we had left them.

Quimby, the police chief, had removed his hat. He was bald, except for tufts of hair above the ears and at the base of the skull. His moon face was red and he was gesturing and talking loudly. He had been taking advantage of Gus Berkaw’s generosity.

Walking toward them, I said, “When do the county police get here, Arnold?”

Quimby stopped his story in mid-sentence and turned around. “Any time, now,” he said. “I called him about fifteen minutes ago. Meanwhile, there’s nothing much I can do.”

Eric Fabian let his eyes move slowly over Lee Marlow. He ran his fingers, comb-like through his thick yellow hair. “And where have you two been all this time?”

“Did you find your father, honey?” Pete Saterlee said.

“Yeah,” I said. “We found him, all right.” I let it lie there for a moment and didn’t say any more. I let my gaze move over the faces turned toward us. They showed curiosity, nothing more. Nobody was giving anything away. I saw though, that Irma Wenzel was drowning her sorrow, if any. She was getting into bad shape again. Her eyes were taking on a glassy stare. Her mouth was too loose at the corners. There was the beginning of a twitch in her right cheek.

“After looking all around the grounds,” I said, “we came back here and went up to his room. He must have come back by himself. We found him sprawled out on the bed, sleeping it off.”

“Bring him down,” Quimby said. “Why don’t you bring him down? I want to talk to him. The county police will bring him to and hammer at him to find out what he knows about this, if anything, when they get here. You better try again.”

“We tried to get him up but couldn’t,” I said. “Maybe by the time the county boys get to him, he’ll be more ready to rouse up. Right now,” I said, holding my breath, “he’s like a dead person.”

“Like a dead person,” Irma Wenzel repeated. Her voice held a low throb. It rose as she went on. “You mean like Harry out there?” She flung her arm toward the back of the building. “You mean like Harry, flopped out there in the mud. You hear what I’m saying? Right now, he’s out there, dead, dead, dead, stiffening and we’re in here—”

Her voice broke and she stopped talking. She set her drink down on the bar, very carefully. She moved off of her stool and away from the bar, away from the rest of us. Her wide-spaced, lovely, catlike eyes, glittering, now, circled the whole group. They finally came to rest on me.

“Where did you say old Willis Marlow is? Where did you say you found him?”

I felt a hammering at the pulses in my wrists. I kept my voice level but I don’t know how.

“He’s upstairs, Irma. He’s upstairs in his own room, sleeping off a drunk. Why? What’s wrong with that?”

Gus Berkaw, the bartender, had slipped out from behind the bar. He came up behind Irma Wenzel, now. His hand cupped her elbow. His square, dark face was grim.

“Easy, Irma. You’re upset. This has been a tough deal for you. You don’t want to get all upset. Maybe you’d better get upstairs and rest.”

She tried to twist her elbow away from his hand but he hung on. He urged her away, toward the stairs. She said, “Up there? Are you crazy? Not if Willis Marlow is up there.” She stiffened. Her voice got tight and high. “Gus, they say Willis Marlow is upstairs. How did he get up there, Gus? Gus, how—”

“Come on, Irma,” he stopped her. He was almost pushing her toward the stairs, now.

Suddenly, she whipped away from him. She staggered and half fell against the wall. She stood there, her hands at her side, pressing flat against the wall as though trying to force it back out of her way. “Take your dirty hands off me, Gus! You go upstairs. I’m staying—”

“Do as I say!” His words came out tough and clipped and his face was tense, white around the heavy jaw muscles. A vein stood out, throbbing, in his neck.

All this time, ideas were chasing themselves around in my brain like scared rabbits. They stopped one by one and began to form a pattern. I was thinking of Gus Berkaw, who stayed here at the inn with Harry and Irma Wenzel, who was with them all the time. I was thinking of Irma — of Harry, a good twenty years her senior. It didn’t make a pretty picture, but it was a picture just the same.

For a moment, Irma Wenzel seemed to wilt, as though her will was broken. It looked like she was going to meekly turn and go upstairs as Gus Berkaw had ordered. But, suddenly, she wheeled back. She turned toward me. Her eyes were wide and wild, now. She began to realize they were caught.

“Matty,” she said. “You said old Marlow is upstairs in his room. Is... is he all right, Matty? I mean you sure he... he’s only drunk?”

I suddenly decided to ride everything on this hand. I shot the works. It was now or never.

“No, Irma, he’s not all right. Willis Marlow is dead. He was murdered, just as your husband was murdered, Irma. And by the same person.”

She looked scared and bewildered, both. Her eyes cast from side to side, like a trapped and frightened little animal’s.

“But how... how did he get up there, Matty? He couldn’t. He was down by the lake. He was hanged there. Gus told me. Gus said Marlow was—” She broke off, staring at Gus.

“Stop it!” Gus Berkaw cut in on her. He suddenly walked over to Chief of Police Arnold Quimby who was standing at the bar, still, looking on, goggle-eyed, befuddled. Berkaw said, “Arnold, you’ve got to do something with her. She’s blowing her roof. The shock of her husband dying and all has been too much for her.”

He got up close to Arnold Quimby. The police chief wore a Sam Brown belt and a fine, hand-tooled leather holster. Gus Berkaw had no trouble slipping the gleaming black .38 from Quimby’s holster. He did it fast and neatly and stepped back and away while Quimby stared, dumbfounded at his own gun in Berkaw’s hands as though he was wondering how it got there and what it was doing there.

Gus Berkaw held the gun on all of us, while he stood clear. He spoke to Irma Wenzel and his eyes stayed with all of us, watching our every move, yet somehow he seemed to be looking straight at her.

“Are you crazy, Irma? What’s the matter with you, you drunken little fool? If you hadn’t broke, if you hadn’t let it get you, they couldn’t have proved anything. That damned busy-body reporter didn’t know a thing; he was just guessing. Now you’ve thrown it right in his lap.”

She kept looking at Gus Berkaw, at the revolver in his hand. She stood there, drunk and swaying and the tears ran on her face and left mascara streaks down her cheeks. She said, tiredly, “It’s no good, Gus. You talked it to me so much. You talked me into it. But after it was done, it was no good. It wasn’t what I wanted.”

“No good!” he repeated. He spat out the words. “I did it for you. You were in love with me, you said. You always said, if it wasn’t for Harry— Well, you’re in it, damn you. You’re right in it with me. You were my accomplice. We were going to be in clover.

“There wasn’t only the insurance. There was the big dough this place was suddenly worth with the new highway coming through. It was when I heard about that, that I knew it had to be tonight. Well, now you’ve lost all that for us, Irma. But you’re not going to cheat me altogether. You’re going with me. Come over here, Irma. Don’t make any more mistakes.”

“Don’t be crazy, Gus!” she told him. “I... I don’t love you. I couldn’t — not a cold-blooded killer. When I started to realize — to really understand that Harry was gone, I knew I’d made a mistake. He was worth ten of you, Gus Berkaw. He was a man. He—”

Berkaw took a step toward her and his face was twisted like a mask. He jabbed the .38 toward her. “Get over here!” he said. “You’re going with me, Irma!”

“No, Gus!” she said. She put up both hands, palms out.

He took another step toward her. “I said, come here. I—”

I didn’t hear the rest of it. I was scared and all tight like a spring inside of me. There was a buzzing in my ears. Gus Berkaw wasn’t seeing anybody but Irma at that moment. I still had Lee Marlow’s spinning outfit in my hands. That viciously hooked Flatfish plug was still on the end of the line. It was worth a try.

I wasn’t trying to be any hero. It was just sort of something I had to do. I whipped the light rod back and then forward. I watched the plug flash across the room toward Gus Berkaw and I saw it hit his hand in a perfect cast. I pulled back on the pole as though to hook a striking fish.

Gus Berkaw screamed and the gun fell from his hand. I held the line taut, his hand, hooked solidly, pulled out the full length of his huge, beefy arm toward me.

“Don’t try to move. Stand still, Gus, or that plug will rip out half of your hand.”

He did that, his face all twisted with the pain of the hook barbs sunk deeply into his flesh. The rest of the crowd closed in around him. Gus Berkaw’s legs gave way with him, then and he sunk down onto the floor, holding his wounded hand with the plug still in it. He kept mouthing curses, incoherantly and tears wormed down his dark, meaty cheeks.

Then, before anybody could stop her, Irma Wenzel stepped toward the gun that had been flung from Gus’ hand. She bent and scooped it up, her eyes flashing hatred.

“Get out of the way!” she said harshly.

Pete Saterlee and Eric Fabian stepped swiftly out of her path. Chief Quimby yelled something at her but she didn’t seem to hear. Holding the revolver in both hands, her face as stiff and drawn as though it had been bathed in alum, she walked close to Gus Berkaw. She shot him in the head at close range. Before the echo of the gun shot faded from the room, she turned the smoking barrel toward herself. That second shot was muffled, somewhat.

I turned and caught Lee Marlow as she fainted.

There was no trial, of course. There was no one to try. All the principals involved were dead. The whole affair had the township of Boone buzzing for a long time and there was a lot of talk that the thing had been twisted around and some angles covered up because a couple of rich and influential men like Pete Saterlee and Eric Fabian were involved. But that wasn’t so. It was just like I’ve told it. What did they want; how much worse could it possibly have been?

It took a long time for Lee Marlow to get over the whole thing. But I waited. She was worth waiting for. And we never talk about it at all. Mrs. Hoyle and I.

We don’t go out fishing very much, either. If we do, it’s with an old bamboo pole and worms. We don’t have a dog, either. Not that we don’t like dogs, but there are some things that are hard to forget.