Ellery Queen’s Anthology. Volume 1, 1960

Thomas Walsh The Good Prospect

In which Thomas Walsh tells two stories at the same time: what happened to Joe Nolan, and what happened when Detective McCann investigated what happened to Joe Nolan. The intertwining, dovetailing, and meshing are beautifully executed in a tour de force of technique...

McCann should have passed the buck with this girl whose name was Elizabeth Nolan, who was thin and tired-looking and too worried to be pretty, who faced him across the table and spoke in a low voice, her dark eyes fixed on him, her breathing unsteady despite the way she fought to control it. McCann should have used his head; he should have told her that the precinct house was no place to come with her story. Missing Persons, downtown, handled those jobs. This one, this husband of hers who hadn’t come home last night — well, there wasn’t anything mysterious about him, or his reasons, or his absence. He’d married her, yes. And then he’d lost his job, and there was a baby on the way, and things got so tough this one just ducked out. That happened — oh, a hundred times a year — and there wasn’t a thing in the world McCann could do about it. Not a thing.

But McCann didn’t tell her those things, of course; he couldn’t, maybe, because she reminded him of his own Edie, and maybe because twenty years on the Force hadn’t hardened his heart.

She had a picture — a small snapshot — and as McCann looked at it she tried to supplement the photo haltingly. Joe Nolan was twenty-four, five feet ten, a hundred and forty-five pounds. He had dark hair and eyes, no distinguishing marks. He was, or three months before he had been, an accountant. Then he’d lost his job, and he hadn’t been able to find another, not in that line. He’d tried, of course, but in the end he had answered an ad in the paper. Jarrett & Sons wanted salesmen; it was May, and soon people would be buying electric refrigerators.

Joe Nolan didn’t believe everything in the ad, of course. He thought he might, with luck, sell two refrigerators a week. That didn’t seem very difficult at first, because everybody at Jarrett’s was very nice, and they even had a school to train men who had no experience. There was no salary; but every refrigerator he sold would give him a straight ten per cent commission. Two would mean something close to forty a week.

“And there’ll be more some weeks,” Elizabeth told him, very surely. “People like you, Joe. You get on well with them. I know you’re going to make out fine...”

Joe thought so too, before doors began to close against him, before people said, “No, no,” and slammed them without even listening to what he had to say: before little white cards, stuck up neatly over the bell, said salesmen or canvassers needn’t ring, before Joe knew what he was up against. There were eight men in Joe’s crew, and that first month there were only two refrigerators sold. Neither of them was credited to him.

But the beginning was, their crew manager insisted, the most difficult time. He was a short, jolly little man, named Russell, and he never lost heart.

That was fine until Joe came home, alone, at night. Elizabeth always came out to the landing after he rang, and leaned over the railing, so that he could see her face dimly against the high shadows that hovered in the stairwell above her. He knew what she came out for, although she never asked; after he’d climbed up the stairs and kissed her he’d be very cheerful about some new prospects, about people who were going to buy, next week, next month. Most of the time he had no prospects; and when he contacted the Cramers, when they got interested, he didn’t say a word about them, because it seemed almost too good to be true, and because he didn’t want Elizabeth to know a thing about it until he had the papers signed and the deposit in his pocket. It was, till then, to be a secret.

McCann turned in the information he had to the Missing Persons Bureau that morning; and then, since he didn’t have much to do, since the pinched face of Elizabeth Nolan, so like his oldest, his Edie, if she were worried and alone, plagued him, he stopped in at Jarrett’s, though he was sure it wasn’t going to do him any good. The crew had just returned from canvassing; they were in the basement, in the employees’ quarters, listening to a brisk and hearty little man named Russell, who was giving them what sounded to McCann like a pep talk. He wasn’t greatly concerned over Joe Nolan, for he knew fellows like that were drifters. They came and went. They never got anywhere. Eying the crew, Mr. Russell said he had a good idea why Joe Nolan hadn’t come to work that morning. Probably he just lay down and quit, like a yellow dog.

McCann didn’t like this Russell much; he didn’t tell him that Joe Nolan hadn’t been home either. “Keep your lip buttoned, mister,” he said, “or someday someone might button it for you.”

The hospitals and the morgue were out too, he discovered later that afternoon. Nobody resembling Joe Nolan had been in an accident, or taken to either place, and that, McCann thought, was all he could be expected to do for her. It was up to the Missing Persons Bureau now, and when he stopped in to see Elizabeth Nolan later that afternoon he meant it to be only for a moment.

The chances were, he said, that everything was going to be all right. But a little thing sometimes gave them a lead; and if she could think of anything unusual he’d done, any remark he’d made, it might help them. If they had money in the bank, and he’d taken that—

He hadn’t. She got the bankbook from the bureau drawer, and showed it to McCann, without seeming to understand what he meant by the remark. Their one room and kitchenette faced east; it was shadowed now and hot, its windows looking out over backyards and clothes-lines.

Across from him, on a couch that at night must be their bed, Elizabeth Nolan folded a letter over and over in her slim fingers. It had come that afternoon, addressed to Joe, from his old firm; and she had opened it because she was afraid, because she hoped it — Her lips quivered wordlessly.

Muttering something, McCann took it from her hand. Four or five typewritten lines were all it contained, and as he read them he cleared his throat, for he could see easily how this would make her feel — now, when Joe had not been home. Due, it said, to the improvement in business conditions, they were able to take on their old employees again. Mr. Nolan’s former job was waiting for him, at the same salary; he could report in Monday morning, at nine sharp.

McCann tried to change the look on her face by questioning her gently again. But she could recall nothing, save that once or twice he’d been — queer, teasing her about a secret that he couldn’t tell to anyone, not yet. In the quiet room, desperately, she forced herself to remember.

“The secret?” McCann asked.

Mr. Russell was a convincing man. He could make you see how the law of averages always worked out, how the whole thing was mathematical. He could tell the crew now that a hundred thousand electric refrigerators would be sold in the city that summer. All over, people would be looking at Jarrett’s newspaper display, and wishing they had one. There was the market; all the crew had to do was bring it into the open. If they rang enough doorbells—

Joe thought that perhaps he hadn’t been ringing enough doorbells. The crew canvassed in the morning, from nine to twelve, because the housewives had their husbands and kids out of the way then, and were nearly always at home, cleaning the house up. Mr. Russell, from his wide experience, knew it was the best time to get them to answer the door. Afternoons were no good. They were taking a nap, then, or out to the movies — they rarely answered rings. So afternoons the crew hung around the store, or followed up earlier prospects, or even called on friends, for Mr. Russell could show you that if they were good friends they’d be only too glad to help you. Some afternoons, if you were worried about your wife, and about a bankbook that had less than eighty dollars in it, you might have done the thing Joe Nolan did. You might have gone out and canvassed alone, to make sure that you’d ring enough doorbells.

The second afternoon Joe did that, he rang the Cramers’ doorbell. It was a porched brick house, one of a row of porched brick houses in a quiet suburban street. The first moment, after Mrs. Cramer opened the door, went like all the others — the countless others. Mrs. Cramer took the folder and the cards he held out, said curtly, “Not interested,” and started to close the door. Then for some reason, looking at his face, she stopped.

She was a tall woman, dark and thirty, with sullen black eyes and a narrow sullen mouth. There was something odd about the way she looked at him, as if she weren’t listening to his words, as if she were puzzled by something about him. But Joe was too busy talking to pay much attention to that — he scarcely noticed it, absorbed in the effort of remembering Mr. Russell’s words of advice, and how they should always harp on economy, economy, economy, when they spoke to women. He wasn’t quite sure that it was the right method to adopt with Mrs. Cramer; she didn’t seem to be listening to him at all. But Mr. Russell, after all, knew his business, because Mrs. Cramer admitted, when he’d finished, that she’d been thinking of buying a refrigerator; they needed one; if he came to talk to her husband some evening that week perhaps they could reach an agreement.

They didn’t, not that first night. William Frederick, Mr. Cramer, was a dark man just his own size, only two or more years older. He had a clipped mustache, and horn-rimmed glasses, with an expression in the eyes behind them that Joe couldn’t place. Fright, he might have said, if that hadn’t been absurd. Once, indeed, turning suddenly with his big leather salesbook, he saw them staring at each other silently, with a touch of amazement. But Joe put that down to his nerves; he was shaky all the time he was talking. The rich, telling phrases of Mr. Russell, so effective and subtly eloquent in imaginary interviews, creaked now, and seemed to sprawl out flatly before him.

But Mr. Cramer soon became friendly; he made Joe a highball, and asked him about his work. He supposed that the salesmen turned in their list of prospects at the store, so that their manager could check them every so often, and find out how they followed up their openings. Wasn’t that the way they worked? He didn’t know until Joe told him what some stores did — waited until a fellow had supplied them with a lot of leads, and then fired him before he could make the sale. With the names and addresses in the file, the manager got the credit, and the sale; the store saved the commission. Mr. Cramer nodded. His name, then, wouldn’t be turned in by Joe?

Joe grinned slightly.

“Not until I make the sale — if I do.”

Mr. Cramer assured him that he would make it. In a week or so they’d be ready to buy, and no one but Joe would get their order. At nine, when Joe left, he walked out with him to the porch and talked a moment there. Fenner & Lisle’s employed him — the wholesale grocers. Sometime, he thought, they’d need an accountant, and he would keep his ears open for Joe. That is, if he’d like a salaried job again.

Looking up at him, Joe could only stutter. If something like that — William Frederick Cramer pulled away from him, his face gleaming in the shadow. It wasn’t, he muttered, at all certain; he shouldn’t bank on it, or excite his wife about something that might never come to pass. He shouldn’t tell her a word about it — not until it was definite. Women built their hopes so high that they were crushed if something went wrong.

Joe could see that too, plainly enough to be sure that he’d never tell her a word of this. He hadn’t even told her about the sale; and he wouldn’t, until it was put through.

Fine, Mr. Cramer said, shaking hands — fine. Just for a moment, after his good night, Joe was struck with something very familiar about Mr. Cramer, an angle, a facet of his expression brought out by the light from the hallway tailing across his features as he turned. But on the walk home the faint impression faded from his mind; he could think only of the job.

“Take your time now,” McCann said. “Don’t get excited. Just think back, Mrs. Nolan; try to remember anything unusual that happened. A little thing — maybe something he said, or something he did — might help us a lot. He wouldn’t have gone out with some friends last night, and drank maybe a bit too much?”

The light, tremulous quiver that answered him moved and vanished across Elizabeth Nolan’s pale cheeks. Joe wouldn’t do that; he would never stay away all night, all day, without a word. And she couldn’t think of anything unusual; unless the dentist—

McCann prodded his plate with a faint scowl. He didn’t like to talk or even think of dentists. But what was out of the way about this one?

Elizabeth Nolan wasn’t sure. It had happened three or four days ago, and at the time it didn’t seem important; it was just a bad tooth that was bothering Joe. This Tuesday, when he came home, the tooth was out. He told her that he’d gone to a city clinic; but this morning, in his coat, she had found a card.

It was on the dresser now, and in a moment McCann had it propped across his blunt fingers. It all sounded funny. Why would this Joe lie about a city clinic? Dr. August Rapp, by his address, wasn’t doing any free work, not in that section. McCann knew it well; he knew it took a good practice, high fees, to stay there. The point was odd; it defied logic. Why would the boy lie? Getting up, he thanked the girl, and told her not to worry, trying to sound reassuring when he said it. On the street, after a brief period of fretful thought, he caught a cab and gave the driver Dr. August Rapp’s address.

It was then about three o’clock, Friday afternoon.

The second time Joe visited the Cramers a back tooth ached dully against his jaw. Mr. Cramer was, apparently, off that afternoon, for he opened the door for Joe, and was sympathetic when he heard about the tooth. It should, he thought, come right out, for something like that, if it was neglected—

He stopped there for a moment, thoughtfully, with a slight frown and then lit a cigarette.

“Here,” he said slowly. “I can fix that up. You’re worried about the money, of course. Isn’t that it?”

It seemed that Fenner & Lisle’s had a company dentist, who took care of the employees. And William Frederick Cramer had good teeth; he had never been to see this dentist himself. His point was simple; all Joe had to do was to see this dentist, and to say he was William Frederick Cramer. Mr. Cramer himself would make the appointment, the next morning, and Joe could call his wife in the afternoon, so that she could give him the dentist’s name, and the time for his appointment. The whole thing wouldn’t cost him a nickel.

At first Joe protested, because it didn’t seem right, and because somehow or other Mr. Cramer might get into trouble with the company. But that, Mr. Cramer said, was impossible, as long as he told no one, not even his wife. For women — well, he knew how Myra spread things around, sometimes without thinking about it at all. If Joe would promise to keep it entirely to himself, who could find out? The dentist had never seen him; he would of course accept him without question as William Frederick Cramer. If he kept it to himself, there was no chance to slip up.

And it was all right, even absurdly easy, though Joe all the time felt a little ashamed. Dr. Rapp didn’t ask him any questions; after Joe had given his name to the nurse as Mr. Cramer, he was ushered into the inner office, where the doctor pulled his tooth, and marked some others out on a chart he had. There was an upper molar that he thought should be looked after. Next Tuesday, at four, Mr. Cramer could have another appointment.

Joe said he’d phone if he could make it, since there was no sense pushing the thing too far, or taking advantage of Mr. Cramer’s kindness. Dr. Rapp merely nodded, and from the desk picked up a card with his name and phone number on it, under his address. It didn’t strike Joe at the time as an odd thing for a company dentist to do; when it was in his pocket he forgot all about it. He knew he wouldn’t be coming back.

Dr. Rapp was pretty positive at first that he’d never had a patient named Nolan. It wasn’t until McCann showed him the photo Elizabeth Nolan had given him that his eyes changed and showed interest. This was Cramer, he said — he’d seen him Tuesday. In the morning his wife had come in, to make the appointment, and to pay for the extraction — a fact which Dr. Rapp had thought at the time to be a bit strange, since most men preferred to pay their own bills. McCann nodded absently, thanking him; later he came back from the corridor to find if this Cramer had left his address. He hadn’t; but in the phone book there was only one William Frederick Cramer listed.

It was twenty minutes past four.

Thursday night when he went to close the sale with Mr. Cramer, so many things happened that the actual events were rather hazy in Joe’s mind. Mr. Cramer was waiting in the living room for him, dressed and shaved, with a suitcase at his feet. He was leaving that night for Albany, since he had to be there in the morning, on business; but the startling news he had for Joe was that he wanted him to go with him. There was an opening in the Albany office which he had just got wind of that day; and he knew Old Higgins very well. If Joe came with him now, so that he could be there in the morning to present himself when the office opened, Mr. Cramer was pretty sure he could land the job.

Joe thought, the first thing, of Elizabeth; it was the only detail that made him hesitate. But Mrs. Cramer said she’d be glad to take the trolley over and tell her what had happened, and after that there was no reason to stop. In half an hour they were out on the road, in Mr. Cramer’s small coupe, doing forty through a quiet countryside.

They didn’t talk very much until they were clear of the city; Mr. Cramer seemed a little worried now about the dentist. He said if they ever found out about that at Fenner & Lisle’s they’d fire him, and he wanted to know if Joe had told anyone, even his wife. Three or four times he brought that up; and every time Joe assured him that he hadn’t mentioned it to anyone.

But something else was really occupying his mind. Mr. Cramer had shaved off his mustache — tired of fooling with the darn’ thing he said — and now more than ever his features troubled Joe with an elusive sense of familiarity. This time, however, it worried him only briefly before it was clear, so astonishingly clear, that it seemed incredible he had never been able to place it before. The mustache helped to reveal it now, of course; but even then—

In his excitement he grasped Mr. Cramer’s arm, with an uncertain laugh.

“Maybe I’m a little dizzy about the job and all,” he said. “I thought you looked kind of familiar, though I could never just place it. The mustache being off has made it easier, I guess. You look an awful lot like me, Mr. Cramer. I bet if I had your glasses on I could fool your wife.” Mr. Cramer smiled. “Nonsense,” he said.

“It isn’t,” Joe went on earnestly. “If I had your glasses on—”

Something tense came up under Mr. Cramer s smile; a thin cord tightened along his jaw. Somewhat sharply he said he’d never noticed it. It was absurd.

When Mrs. Cramer opened the door for him, perhaps a minute after his ring, McCann had rid himself of his cigar. He looked a middle-aged, guileless fat man, who could murmur something about reading a meter without being questioned.

Mrs. Cramer was neither nervous nor friendly. It was pleasant and quiet, sunnily peaceful; in a way, McCann felt ashamed of himself. He thought he had a bad mind — a suspicious mind.

Nevertheless, he went out, after visiting the cellar, through the living room, as if he didn’t remember what door he’d used coming in. That was a pleasant room, too. But the thing that caught McCann’s eyes like a glaze of lightning was a framed picture on the upright piano. For an amazed moment McCann stared at it; and in the street, after he had rounded a corner, he took the snapshot of young Nolan out of his pocket to stare at it in turn. Without the mustache, without the glasses, the two pictures might have been those of twins.

At first McCann figured that was screwy. This Nolan, he thought, might be married to both of them. He’d read of things like that, of men having two families in the same town, a couple of miles apart. Only there was a catch so that, since young Nolan had been married to Elizabeth over a year now, and he’d never been away from home before — not for one night. If this Cramer had vanished a year ago, about the time young Nolan had married Elizabeth—

The newsman could check that. Every night, he said, Mr. Cramer came down for a late copy of the paper — every night but last night. McCann, prodding his plate thoughtfully, asked about the mustache. Cramer had one of those?

The newsman looked at him curiously. “Until two or three days ago. I was kidding him when he came down without it, he looked so young. What you want to know for?”

McCann grunted: “I’m writing a book.” His trolley came then and he ran for it, but all the time he stayed aboard he kept worrying about this thing. It didn’t seem to have any edges that would help fit it into place. The mustache placed William Frederick Cramer and it placed young Nolan. They were different men. Two or three days ago, perhaps the very day Joe Nolan went to the dentist, this Cramer shaved it off. Why? Why the dentist?

He was the solving piece, McCann thought — fit him in and the rest would follow. Teeth were as good identification, almost, as fingerprints.

McCann got off the street-car then, slowly, looking very pale, and telling himself he was crazy. Something like that — Still, from a booth he called headquarters, and then his home, to tell Molly he wouldn’t be there for supper.

At seven he called headquarters again. In a moment he hung up, something heavy and cold pressing around his heart. The last thing of all fitted in — the fact that in the American Eagle Mutual Company, William Frederick Cramer was insured for fifteen thousand dollars...

They were going so fast that it was chilly in the car; the wind rushed at them from the darkness with a drowsy snarl. Joe was just beginning to drowse when Mr. Cramer stopped.

“Carburetor trouble — always have it. I better look at it. You sit here.”

He got out, closing the door behind him, and raised the motor hood. Then he bent forward, his figure dark cut against the fanned-out yellow streams of the headlights laned before them, his head turned slightly toward Joe, as if he weren’t looking at the motor at all.

Joe couldn’t tell what had changed. He thought it was the stillness — the immense woods’ stillness — that made him jumpy. Then he saw the car parked ahead, and the sight of it brought a relief so great that his heart pumped inside him in one great bound.

“Maybe,” he said, “you better dim your headlights. It looks like there are some petters ahead of us.”

Mr. Cramer almost jumped. He glanced back across his shoulder to stare a moment at the dim reddish glow of tail reflectors showing faintly in the deep shadow of a clump of trees. Then he muttered something and leaned down below the hood, his right hand coming out of his pocket empty.

In a moment or two he got back into the car. “It’ll hold,” he said. “Now we better push on.”

Mr. Cramer stopped only once more, for gas; at eight o’clock they were in Albany. There he thought it might be better if he saw Mr. Higgins first, alone. Joe could take the car and store it at a parking lot, and then meet him at five, after his own business was done, outside Fenner & Lisle’s. That would, he thought, be best. The personal interview mightn’t be necessary.

At five Joe was waiting with the car before Fenner & Lisle’s warehouse.

Mr. Cramer appeared about six, long after the other men had gone home. And he didn’t come from the main building, but rounded the corner from, he said, the private offices. He looked very tired, very pale, as if he hadn’t slept at all; and his exhaustion made him irritable, despite the great news he bore. The job was Joe’s; it was all set now; he had the papers. Next Monday Joe was to report at the New York branch.

At seven they were clear of Albany, speeding southward in the gathering spring dusk, a few minutes after McCann had had his call from headquarters, and just as he was facing Mrs. Cramer once more on the porch.

“What I don’t know,” McCann was saying, “I can guess.” His fat face wasn’t kind or guileless any more; it was drawn down tightly around his mouth. “I guess you needed money — maybe your husband was out of work — and so you picked young Nolan because you saw right away how much he looked like your husband. Then you gave him some song and dance about going to this dentist and using your husband’s name, so that if anything ever came up Rapp could identify him as William Frederick Cramer.

“The very day young Nolan went to the dentist your husband shaved off his mustache, so that would fit. Probably a lot of people told him it made him look younger; it usually does. Whatever kind of accident you planned to rig up on Nolan, he’d be dead, and he’d look a hell of a lot like your husband, and anyone who saw him would just say how young he looked. They’d put down any difference to the mustache and the glasses. You both thought there wouldn’t be any trouble collecting insurance; someway or other you’d talked this Nolan into not telling anyone about you, even his wife. That made it perfect. Nobody knew he was coming here; when he was found he’d have your husband’s glasses on, and his license in his pocket. There wouldn’t be any identification question; he’d be brought here, and buried as soon as possible. In another town, where no one knew you, you could join up again, with fifteen thousand dollars in your pocket. Neither of you ever figured on a leak.”

She listened to him silently, looking out to the street, with her hands in her lap. It was hard to say just how McCann knew he had her, how he knew that any minute now she was going to crack.

“You got one chance,” he said. “Maybe not much of a one. If young Nolan’s dead I can’t help you; even if he isn’t I can’t promise anything. But if we stop it before it’s done, the charge won’t be murder. That’s worth thinking about. Where’d your husband take him?”

She watched McCann for a moment with queer, glazed dark eyes, and then she began to cry. The license number and the make of William Frederick Cramer’s car she whispered dully, clutching his arm, swearing between his questions that she knew nothing. Nothing! If anything had happened—

McCann had all he wanted when a dark coupe pulled up before the house and two men got out. They greeted him and sat stolidly on the porch, on either side of Mrs. Cramer, while he went inside and used the telephone.

“Shoot it to the state cops,” he said. “Have them cover every road out of Albany. His idea is to knock off the kid and leave him in the car, so that it will look like a hitchhiker did it. Maybe it’s over already; he could have pulled the job last night. Only if he did, someone would have found the body by this time. I think we’ve still got a chance. He’ll dawdle along and do the job pretty late, on a side road — that’s the safest way. Somewhere near a railroad too, so he can get away easy. It’s fifty-fifty we can get him first. Step on it, Larry.”

Then McCann hung up, wiping his face with a hand that shook slightly. There was nothing more he could do now — nothing but sit out there and wait, and hope that when he saw Elizabeth Nolan, very soon now, he could tell her everything was fine, there was nothing to worry about, her Joe would be home okay. Monday morning he’d be back to work at his old job, at a salary.

Mr. Cramer had evidently been drinking that afternoon. His breathing was heavy and sour, his face flushed; every time a car passed he glanced at it quickly out of the corners of his eyes.

Once they stopped for gas, and behind the car Mr. Cramer spoke in a low tone to the attendant. He seemed to be asking something about the railroad, though Joe didn’t pay much attention. He felt angry, both at himself and at Mr. Cramer; he wondered why he was jumpy again, and what was biting Cramer to make him act this way. Tiredness, maybe.

Outside the village they hit a dirt road, leading right. Mr. Cramer stopped just inside it.

“Take the wheel,” he said. “I’m sick of driving. Go straight up this road.”

It didn’t look like a short cut, but Joe didn’t argue.

“I should have relieved you before,” he said. “I guess you’re tired. You look bad, Mr. Cramer.”

“Do I?” the other man asked harshly. “Well, I’m fine. I’m all right.”

Joe tightened his own mouth. This Cramer, he thought, seemed to be getting screwy. Why would a remark like that make him so sore? They went up the road and came out over a low hill, above a railroad, with a dark field on their left, and a white farmhouse ghostly against it, one window framed in dim yellow. Cramer cursed when he saw it. They went on, bumping over ruts. They went past the house, a mile into woods. Cramer took his hand out of his pocket and held it down against his leg.

“All right,” he said. “All right. Stop the car.”

He was half swung around in his seat to face Joe; his words were as thick as his breathing. His expression was so queer Joe thought he was sick.

“I’ll help you out,” he said.

Cramer only shook his head. He got out by himself, leaving the door open, so that Joe could see his hand, and the gun in it.

“What is it?” he asked. “What’s the matter?”

The feeling of last night — the disturbed emotion of quiet and loneliness that stretched endlessly around them — thickened his lips as if they were held away from his gums with pods of cotton. This Cramer, he thought — Behind them a car whined for the hill and Cramer looked back toward it, his face as pale as modeled wax.

“I am sick,” he said, wetting his lips. “I’m sick, Joe. I carry this gun for Fenner & Lisle’s, but I haven’t got a license for it. I came in here to get rid of it, Joe. I’m going to throw it in the field. Just let this car get by.”

The headlights got painfully bright on the mirror; in another moment, going very slowly, the car slipped by. It was a light coupé, dark-colored, very like the one that had passed them going the other way, before they turned off the state road. Joe thought that as he saw it, but he felt he was wrong. Why would it have turned to follow them? He had a sudden, crazy impulse to shout out at it, to ask it to stop. He didn’t. It went by.

“You can do it now,” he said.

The panic that had almost made him yell out deepened when he saw Cramer’s face. It didn’t help at all to tell himself that he was crazy, that Cramer was all right, a swell guy. He was thinking that no one in the world, not Jarrett’s nor Mr. Russell nor even Elizabeth knew he had ever met the Cramers.

Cramer didn’t throw away the gun. After the other car had gone over the hill beyond them, he raised it and pointed it at Joe. His face was covered with perspiration, and his eyes looked frenzied.

“Okay,” he said, with a chatter in his words. “Don’t move.”

“Wait a minute,” Joe said. “Wait a minute. Don’t point that thing—”

He was feeling with his left hand for the catch on the door behind him, but he couldn’t find it.

“Look out,” Joe said. “Don’t—”

Then he knew it wasn’t any use to talk any more. He knew that Cramer was going to kill him. There wasn’t time to think of Elizabeth, there wasn’t time to be frightened.

“Hey,” he said, and tried to grab the gun, as he saw by the crazy twitch of Cramer’s lips that he was going to fire. Plunging at him from behind the wheel, he saw the flash, he heard the report; slivers of glass from the windshield bit deep into his cheek. Then he was on Cramer, fighting, and Cramer was suddenly very big, and very strong, and he had turned into two men, confused and struggling in a shaky mass on the running board.

In a moment the second man, the big man, had Cramer flat against the hood, and was twisting the gun out of his hand. When he had it clear, he tossed it across the car and straightened Cramer up with a hand at his collar. This second man was in the uniform of a state trooper, and as he saw him clearly Joe remembered how slowly the other car, the coupé, had been going — slow enough for a man to swing off, behind them, where he wouldn’t be picked off by the headlights.

It must have been the coupé, for it was coming back to them now over the brow of the hill, while William Frederick Cramer sat on the running board, his head in his hands, and a little spot of blood on a knuckle of his right one, where the trooper had crushed it against the car, just before he fired.