Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 116, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 709 & 710, September/October 2000

Round Trip by Rail by Gwen Davenport

Kentucky resident Gwen Davenport has produced several appealingly offbeat short stories for EQMM over the past few years. It is our good fortune that she seems to be concentrating on short story writing these days, but she is, of course, the author of many novels for Doubleday, at least one of which was made into a Hollywood movie.

Hamilton Stone had been missing from home for two weeks before anyone I even noticed. He lived with his wife, Olive, in a mid-size city in a mid-South state, where he worked as a pharmacist in the largest hospital. They had a ranch-style house in a commonplace suburb and a male golden retriever on which, being childless, they both doted. He was forty-two when he disappeared and she thirty-nine. They had been married for fifteen years, during which they had developed a real hatred for one another — quite understandably, as each brought out the worst in the other: He was always punctual, she invariably late; he liked meals to be served on time and well cooked; she picked up takeout food and ate when she felt like it, which was throughout the day plus a midnight snack. Constant conflicts and quarrels served to intensify each spouse’s individual proclivities until, gradually, habits had become obsessions and airing of grievances had developed into temper tantrums. The little eccentricities and mannerisms that become endearing when the spouse is beloved were irritants that could start full-fledged fights. Since the Stones had no children and no immediate family except Olive’s mother, Mrs. Edna Treadle, Olive was overly attached to that lady, who had always spoiled her.

Ham Stone had sought solace in his hobby, which was model railroads. The elaborate scale model of a mountain railroad was his pride and joy. He had built it over the years on a platform which took up the whole basement, a space fifty by thirty feet. The three diesel locomotives and a log loader were bought complete; everything else he had either scratch-built or assembled from kits: depots, water towers, passenger coaches, freight cars, track-inspection sheds. On one end, on a spur at the entrance to a national park, he had opened a miniature railroad museum, displaying outdated narrow-gauge pieces like steam locomotives and refrigerator cars.

It was an expensive hobby, and a time-consuming one. Olive understandably resented the money and hours it required. Even Ham’s weekends and vacations had been given to the railroad as he attended model shows and conventions of model owners all over the country.

Sometimes while running his trains — through tunnels, across switches, over bridges, along riverbeds, into stations — Ham had imagined himself a passenger, traveling far from the basement room and from the sound of Olive’s voice into a world of his own, where he, Ham Stone, would disappear and become an eternal passenger, borne away on never-ending tracks. Alas, the tracks did not, in fact, end, but always returned to the starting point in the basement.

Nevertheless, Ham’s harmless dream of riding away for good on some future day enabled him to bear his present situation. Over the years he had carefully planned his imagined disappearance. A search through the hospital’s personnel records had rewarded him with a possible new identity: Frank Johnston, deceased, who had worked as a hospital security officer for fifteen years before his recent death at the age of forty-five. Frank’s whole life was there, laid out, every detail: date and place of birth, names of parents and grandparents, graduation from Central High, marriage date with name of bride. An identification badge was easy to come by, and Ham’s picture substituted on it in place of Frank Johnston’s.

Ham opened a savings account in the name of Frank Johnston and began making regular deposits, starting with the money he and Olive had been saving to pay off the mortgage on the house. Small but regular weekly deposits from his pay followed, until, over the years, he had accumulated about eleven thousand dollars. He was not a reckless or adventuresome person; he had no real intention of disappearing into the void of Frank Johnston’s identity, but the possibility of doing so, the knowledge that he had this tremendous secret from Olive, made life with her more nearly bearable.

The Stones’ last bitter altercation had been, in a way, about the railroad. It took place in the basement, where Olive seldom went because the steep, narrow stairs were difficult to negotiate because of her extreme obesity. She moved like a pitching ship at sea, as her weight was transferred from one foot to the other. It was a Friday afternoon in mid July, at the start of Ham’s two-week vacation. He wanted to spend it riding railroad trains in the Western mountains. Olive could not see train travel without a destination as being a vacation, particularly in their case. They had been arguing about it for some time, and whenever the subject came up, Ham would just go down to the basement and work on his railroad. With his vacation time already begun and the argument not settled, she was forced to take her case into his territory.

Ham had a habit, when concentrating on his work, of emitting a tuneless humming of which he was himself unaware but which got on Olive’s nerves like a dentist’s drill. She heard this continuous, monotonous sound during her journey down the basement stairs, and when she reached the bottom, out of breath from the exertion, she wheezed, “Stop that!”

He stopped working on a signal that was stuck at a siding and the humming automatically stopped also.

“I’d like to go to Miami Beach,” she said.

“No one with any sense would go to Florida in July,” said he.

“No one with any sense spends half his life playing with toy trains.”

“Don’t you call it a toy! It’s a railroad, and there’s no finer model railroad in the country!”

“I’d like to smash it to pieces!” cried Olive.

“Just you try and we’ll see who gets smashed to pieces!”

“You care more about that contraption than you do about me!” she shouted.

“You bet I do!” he shouted back.

The golden retriever, which had been lying on the floor in a corner, came forward, twitching his tail, upset by the sound of the raised voices. Olive, now trembling with rage, laid hands on a water tower alongside the railroad track where a car was waiting to take on water. Ham seized both her hands and pulled her away roughly. She fell. He stood over her, fists clenched, glaring down. The dog pushed between them, separating them, not taking sides. There was an awful moment when neither husband nor wife moved, each fearing she might have broken a hip or an ankle, despite the padding of fat, but she managed to get to her feet laboriously, without help.

“I’m leaving this house,” she declared, short of breath. “I’m going to go to Mom’s and stay there till you come to your senses.” She climbed the stairs with difficulty, stopping on each one to catch her breath. At the top she turned back and called the dog. “And I’m taking Rex,” she said. “You needn’t drive us over, Mom will come for us.” (Olive had never learned to drive a car.)

Ham heard her telephone to her mother and then move about overhead, presumably packing a suitcase. After a while, the front door was opened and closed, followed by the faint sound of an automobile being driven away.

He sat down to think and let his wrath subside. His present anger, brought on by present grievances — about the train, the vacation, the dog, the leaving for Mom’s — began growing bigger like a snowball, gathering to itself other grievances of long standing: Olive’s laziness, her unpunctuahty, bad housekeeping, childlessness, until he was consumed by an anger greater than he had yet known.

He would go away for his two weeks’ vacation and ride trains through the Rockies and Sierras, even the Copper Canyon in Mexico. It would be wonderful to do it all alone, as he could strike up acquaintance with all sorts of people in coach cars, dining cars, club cars, bars, restaurants, hotel lobbies. It would be a glorious two weeks. But then — after it was over, he would have to come back here, Olive would return from her mother’s, all would be again as it was now. And it was intolerable.

He decided to go away for good. He knew he had two weeks before he would be reported missing, and by that time Hamilton Stone would be gone, disappeared, vanished without a trace; he would have ceased to exist.

Fortunately, the Savings and Loan was open until late on Fridays, so he was able to withdraw all the money from Frank Johnston’s account. He ate his supper in the kitchen, where he found in the refrigerator a big bowl of spaghetti and meatballs, a loaf of Honey Krust bread, two pies — a custard and a lemon meringue — a gallon container of chocolate-chip ice cream, and a carton that had held a dozen Hershey bars, with almonds, of which three remained. When he had eaten sparingly — a few bites of everything — he turned off the refrigerator and speculated happily about what the contents would be like after two weeks.

He packed with care, taking nothing that could be identified as belonging to him. He left behind all heavy winter clothing and all strictly summer things, so there could be no speculation about whether he had gone north or south. They would not look for him in Florida, since no one with any sense would go there in July. The only thing he regretted leaving, besides Rex the dog, was his wonderful, unique railroad. It was not yet complete: He had only started to collect the small figures of the people who would give it life — engineers, conductors, maintenance workers, passengers riding in the coaches and waiting on the platforms. Olive, he supposed, would smash it all as she had threatened to do.

Early on Saturday morning, Frank Johnston put his suitcase in Hamilton Stone’s car and drove to the airport, where he parked in the long-term lot in the farthest corner, locked the car, and threw the keys into a trash bin, along with Stone’s driver’s license and the parking ticket. Then, carrying his one suitcase, he took a taxi back into town to the bus station. He boarded the first bus that left; it happened to be bound for Dallas.

Once the bus was on the road, Frank Johnston began to enjoy himself. He felt no remorse, no apprehension, no fear of being followed — only a soaring of the spirits, a sense of high adventure, of freedom. The bus had reached St. Louis before the euphoria subsided, leaving Frank cold sober, as it were, and facing reality. What now, Frank Johnston?

Olive had stubbornly stayed at her mother’s house waiting for Frank to call her to make up. No one missed him until the Monday morning following his vacation, when the hospital began calling his home telephone number to find out why he had not returned to work. There was no answer. After several days, they sent a security guard to Ham’s address; he reported no one there. It required more time to track down his wife at her mother’s house. Olive had no idea where he might be. She called the police and notified the Bureau of Missing Persons. The missing person was a forty-two-year-old man of medium build with thin, sandy hair and a receding hairline, hazel eyes, and a pale complexion because he spent all his off-duty time in the basement. No distinguishing marks, except a habit of biting his nails on the right hand only. The police advised hiring a private investigator.

It was a month before Ham’s car was found abandoned at the airport. Then several days went by while the police determined that Hamilton Stone had not been on the passenger list of any flight leaving at the time he disappeared, which time they were able to fix approximately by the condition of the refrigerator’s contents.

Olive’s anger was boundless. Her first impulse was to smash the train, but she was restrained by her mother, who pointed out that it was the only thing of value Hamilton had left behind. Olive decided she would have to sell it. Again it was Mrs. Treadle who advised against doing that. “It’s the thing he’ll come back for,” she said, “that and the dog. He’ll find he can’t live without them two things and he’ll come back.”

Meanwhile, it was necessary that Olive find employment. She had never worked and was without the simplest skills. Her mother moved in with her to help with expenses, including payments on the mortgage, and Olive found a job with a cleaning service that paid the minimum hourly wage. It wasn’t too bad; since she moved at the speed of a glacier, she could collect a day’s pay for about two hours’ actual effort.

Rex died eight years and six months after Hamilton Stone had disappeared. Cause of death was not a broken heart, as Olive believed, but old age; the dog was thirteen.

“Well, it looks like he ain’t coming back,” Olive’s mother said, referring not to Rex but to her son-in-law. “We might’s well sell the train and get shut of it.”

Back issues of a magazine, the Small-scale Railroader, were stacked on a shelf in the basement. They were full of advertisements from buyers and sellers of model trains and all their parts, including the prices. Looking through them, the two women found that Ham’s train was valuable; it might bring enough to pay off the mortgage and enable Olive to quit working, which activity — although requiring minimum effort — was becoming ever more distasteful. They entered into correspondence with the magazine, describing the railroad in detail, enclosing a spread from a local paper that had once published a piece about it. The correspondence resulted in a contract being entered into and Mrs. Treadle paying for a quarter-page advertisement. Prospective purchasers were asked to offer a reasonable price and given a box number to which inquiries were to be addressed.

Ten days after publication of the advertisement, a big Manila envelope arrived from Small-scale Railroader. It contained a dozen letters inquiring about purchasing Ham’s railroad. Olive and Mrs. Treadle sat down to read them all, spreading them out on the kitchen table after Olive had finished eating two jumbo cheeseburgers and half a coconut layer cake. (Regular work had increased her appetite.)

One of the letters offered more money than any of the rest. It was postmarked Bradenton, Florida, and the letterhead read, Dr. Frank Johnston. His address was 5020 Gulf Boulevard.

“This one seems to know more about trains,” said Olive, passing the letter across the table. “That’s about what Ham said it cost him to build the train. Quite a coincidence, the price he offers.”

Mrs. Treadle studied the letter. Struck by the sum mentioned, she said thoughtfully, “Maybe it’s not coincidence.” She gave her daughter a meaningful look.

Olive’s facial expression remained unchanged, a mask of fat through which no emotion showed. The mother regarded her child fondly, loving her for being so totally dependent. She did not see in Olive a fat person with a thin one inside trying to get out; she saw a helpless baby girl almost concealed in a feather bed, as it were, from the depths of which peered two small black eyes.

“The handwriting,” Mrs. Treadle said. “Look at the signature.”

It was true that the s-t-o-n at the end of Frank Johnston’s signature was very much like the s-t-o-n-e that was Hamilton Stone’s.

“Olive, I think we have found Ham,” said her mother. “Handwriting is something that can’t be changed. I think Ham has come back for his train at last.”

It might be so. But how could they be sure? It could be coincidence: The two things together — the price offered for the railroad and the similar handwriting — were not proof that Dr. Johnston was once Hamilton Stone.

“We must get a private eye,” Mrs. Treadle declared.

Olive protested. “Mom, you know we can’t afford it. They charge by the hour, they always do in the movies, much more than I make, and it would take hours and hours to go to Bradenton, Florida, even if he flew, and then there’d be the round-trip air fare.”

“We still have the train,” her mother reminded her. “We can offer the investigator the train.”

“But if it is Ham, the train belongs to him, not to us.”

“If Hamilton is Dr. Johnston, he must be rich. He was ready to buy the train, wasn’t he?”

“Anyway,” said Olive, “we don’t know any private eyes.”

“I’ll get the phone book,” said Mrs. Treadle, “look in the Yellow Pages.”

They found Eagle Eye Investigations, Inc., specialists in Divorce, Child Custody, Marital Affairs, Background Checks, and Missing Persons. An appointment was made for a Mr. Fred Eagle to come to the house the next morning.

That night, Mrs. Edna Treadle lay awake worrying about whether she and Olive were acting most advantageously to themselves. If Hamilton were to be exposed, what good would it do other than give them sweet revenge? How could they get any of the money belonging to a prosperous Dr. Frank Johnston? Indeed, how could Dr. Johnston have any money if he was not a real person? Suppose Ham had remarried? What money he had would certainly go to Mrs. Frank Johnston, not to Hamilton Stone’s wife Olive.

After several hours of insomnia, Mrs. Treadle got up, went over to Olive’s room, and waked her. It was difficult to distinguish between Olive sleeping and Olive awake, but after shaking and punching the huge bulk the mother thought she had her daughter’s attention.

“We don’t want him back here, do we?” she asked.

“No!” said Olive. “I can’t stand to have him around, him and his dumb train. Besides, he’d never get the job back at the hospital, we’d have to support him.”

“I have an idea,” Mrs. Treadle said. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, and here’s what we’ll tell Mr. Eagle. Give Ham back his train — if it is him — and tell him that in exchange for a nice monthly income paid to us we won’t tell on him. He can go right on being Dr. Frank Johnston in Bradenton, Florida, and we’ll be comfortable being right here — you won’t have to work no more, we can hire a cleaning lady, we can even travel and see things. You always wanted to go to Miami Beach.”

“Suits me,” said Olive, turning her huge bulk over, “you make the arrangements.”

“What you are proposing is blackmail,” said Mr. Fred Eagle. “It is a crime.”

“And I suppose what he done is not?” said Mrs. Treadle sarcastically.

“No, ma’am, it’s not. There’s no victim. Now, it’s possible he’s suffering from amnesia and won’t remember anything about his previous life.”

Mr. Fred Eagle was in appearance nothing like Humphrey Bogart or Tom Selleck. He was quite ordinary, he would be able to fit in anywhere unnoticed, unremembered. He had listened to the story about the Missing Person as told by the Person’s shrewish mother-in-law and fat, whining wife, and immediately sympathized with the Missing Person, poor bastard. No wonder he had disappeared; too bad he hadn’t done so without leaving a trace.

“If he don’t remember about his previous life, how would he have recognized the train?” demanded Mrs. Treadle belligerently.

“We can’t be sure about that, ma’am. There are millions of model-railroad buffs in the U.S. of A. Supposing this Dr. Johnston is not your son-in-law, it will be very expensive for you. My charge is sixty dollars an hour, plus expenses.”

“You can have the train, whether it’s his or not. And if we get two thousand a month from him to keep quiet, we can pay you anything we owe you over the value of the train.”

“Such payment demanded from him would be extortion,” said Fred Eagle. “It is a crime, like blackmail. I can’t enter into any such arrangement. All I can do is positively determine that Dr. Johnston is or is not the Missing Person. First of all, I must get a handwriting expert to say the handwriting fits, and that will be the first of my expenses. I’ll need all the photographs you have of him, and all his vital statistics: age, height, weight, measurements — like sleeve length and trouser inseam. Collar and waist are useless, they change with age. Medical records. Dental X-rays. Everything you can get. And — I’m sure you understand, ma’am — I must ask that we three enter into a written agreement.”

“We’ll have to sell the train before we can pay you,” said Mrs. Treadle.

“Just don’t sell it to the fellow in Bradenton,” said Mr. Eagle in an attempt to be jocular. He rose to signal an end to the discussion, then added, “By the way, one more thing: Did Mr. Stone carry any life insurance? If he did, you might consider having him declared legally dead and try to collect it. The insurance people might pay my expenses in trying to find him, they don’t like paying off for a dead person if there’s no dead body, no death certificate.”

“He didn’t have no insurance,” Mrs. Treadle declared. “He wasn’t worth nothing alive or dead. His insurance was all in the train.”

Before leaving for Florida, Mr. Fred Eagle went to the hospital and asked to visit the pharmacy where the Missing Person had been employed. He identified himself as a private investigator who had been hired to find Hamilton Stone. There were two pharmacists on duty, one of whom, a James Scholl, had worked with Hamilton Stone and had known him well.

“Have you any idea where Mr. Stone might be?” asked Mr. Eagle. “Did he ever mention any woman friend? When a married man disappears it’s usually because of a woman.”

“No, he never said anything about any woman,” Mr. Scholl said, “not even his wife. We knew he was married, but we never met her. He was always quiet about his personal life. I wish he’d been as quiet about everything. He hummed incessantly while he was working, nearly drove me crazy. But Ham was a good pharmacist, good at his job, he didn’t realize he had this habit of humming when he was concentrating. I’m sorry I can’t be of help to you, I wish you luck, I hope you find him.”

On arriving at the Tampa airport next day, Fred Eagle picked up a rental car and drove the short distance to Bradenton, where he found all the hotels booked full at the height of the season. The only room he could find was a penthouse suite, and that for three nights only, while the regular lessee was away on a cruise. He checked into the luxurious accommodations and wasted no time going about his business. It was already three o’clock in the afternoon. He decided to call at 5020 Gulf Boulevard on some pretext (life insurance salesman, poll taker, job seeker) to see if Frank Johnston positively could not be Hamilton Stone: too tall, too short, too dark, blind, or deaf — that is, distinctive in any way that could not be disguised.

Gulf Boulevard proved to be in a neighborhood of large, expensive estates right on the waterfront. Number 5020 was one of the most imposing, with gateposts at a driveway that wound back between two rows of royal palms to a Mediterranean-style house.

Fred parked the car in the street and approached the house on foot. At a turn where the driveway led to the front door was a small drive going to a smaller house with a sign pointing to it:

No cars were parked at the pharmacy, nor in front of the big house. Fred walked around the grounds, which adjoined those of the house next door with no fence or hedge between. Behind this neighbors’ house was a large swimming pool beside which two persons, a man and a woman, were reclining on deck chairs, reading.

Fred approached them. “Pardon me, sir, pardon me, madam—”

The couple looked up. They were both elderly, obviously in their seventies.

“Perhaps you can help me,” said Fred. “I’m looking for Dr. Frank Johnston, but it seems there’s no one at home next door.”

“This time of day they’re both at the Shuffleboard Club,” said the woman. “You’ll find them there.”

“I’m just passing through town,” Fred said, “on my way down the coast to Naples. Thing is, I was at med school with a Frank Johnston twenty-five years ago now, and I heard he’d moved to Florida, so I just thought I’d drop by and see if this Frank Johnston is my old Mend. It’s a fairly common name, might not be him.”

“I don’t think Doc went to medical school,” said the man. “He’s a registered pharmacist, not an M.D. Everyone calls him Doc.”

“My Mend Frank Johnston didn’t finish med school,” said Fred. “It might be him. Fellow about five eight, nine, slight build, he’d be about fifty years of age now.”

“Well, this Dr. Frank isn’t him,” the woman said. “Doc’s sixty if he’s a day, heavyset, hair almost white.”

“Oh — then I’m on a wild-goose chase,” Fred said.

“No trouble,” the man and woman said simultaneously.

“Has he been here long?” Fred asked. “I mean your neighbor. Reason I ask, it’s unusual to have a business like a pharmacy in a residential neighborhood. Wouldn’t be allowed in Naples. We have zoning laws.”

He had touched on a grievance. Both the elderly man and the woman sat up straight and became interested. It seemed Doc had moved in next door only a couple of years ago when he married Marie. It was Marie’s house; she had been their neighbor for ten years or so. She was a widow, very well fixed — her first husband had made a fortune in the liquor business, imported Mexican tequila. Dr. Frank had been her pharmacist. Marie had very poor health. Doc had prescribed miracle drugs for her, made her exercise, keep fit. Everyone was surprised when she married Doc, she had to be a good fifteen years older. Anyway, she had set him up in his geriatric pharmaceutical practice in her guesthouse. They got away with it because it was open only sixteen hours a week. The neighbors didn’t like it, but there wasn’t anything they could do about it.

Fred went back to his hotel and asked at the desk for directions to the nearest bookstore. He walked there and bought the latest copy of the magazine Small-scale Railroader, which contained Olive’s advertisement. Then he walked around awhile, sightseeing, and ate dinner at the best restaurant in town, putting the tab on his expense account.

Shortly before two o’clock next afternoon, Fred again parked his rental car on Gulf Boulevard and walked down the driveway of 5020. There were two cars in front of Dr. Frank’s Pharmacy, one of which was just backing out; its driver was a white-haired man. Fred went up the steps to the pharmacy door, opened it, and walked in.

There was a counter that held two large pharmacist’s jars of colored water in front of an alcove lined with shelves holding bottles and boxes of all sorts. A man in a white jacket was talking to an elderly woman seated in a kind of waiting area near the door. On the wall behind her hung a framed diploma. Frank Johnston was a registered pharmacist in the state of Florida.

“Be with you in a minute, sir,” the pharmacist said. He went behind the counter and began measuring out a prescription. Bent over a tray of small yellow tablets, he counted some of them carefully into a depression that ran along the side of the tray. As he did so, he began a tuneless humming in accompaniment to his work. When he had finished counting, he moved the tablets in the depression to a small prescription bottle and put the cap on. The humming stopped. He came forward from behind the counter and gave the prescription to the old lady. “Now, Mrs. Meade,” he said, “be sure to follow the instructions exactly. No more than one tablet every twenty-four hours, on rising.”

The old lady got up, took the prescription, and handed over a fifty-dollar bill. The pharmacist went back, put the bill in a drawer under the counter and handed over a five-dollar bill in change. “Thank you so much, Doc Frank,” she said. “I don’t know what I’d do without you, these sure do hit the spot, make me feel so much better.”

“Glad to help, Mrs. Meade. Say hello to your good man for me.”

“Oh, I will,” Mrs. Meade said, turning to leave. “He’s feeling like a new man with his new prescription. Goodbye now.”

Fred Eagle had been studying the man in the white coat. He was overweight for his medium height, with a double chin and the beginnings of a pot belly. His face had a fringe of white whisker that matched what was obviously a hairpiece; no hairline was visible and the parting looked as if it had stitching.

“Dr. Johnston?” asked Fred cordially. “My name is Sam Caldwell. I’m the promotion and advertising editor of Small-scale Railroader.” He laid the magazine on the counter between them. “You answered an ad in the current issue and we noticed you wrote from Bradenton. I’ve come to ask for your advice and help. We’ve never sponsored a convention of model railroaders in this part of the country and I wanted to talk to you about the possibility of doing so. Are there enough model buffs around here to hold a convention? If so, is there a suitable auditorium? What about the best time of the year — hotel accommodations, climate, entertainment after closing hours?”

Doc waved both hands in the air, palms out in a negative gesture, while shaking his head. “It’s not me wants the train,” he said. “I don’t know anything about them. It’s for my wife, she’s the one needs a hobby, and she thought the railroad would be good, it would fit into this place after I retire and close the pharmacy. It was her suggestion, looking in Small-scale Railroader magazine, so I bought one at the store in town. We don’t subscribe.”

“Why would you subscribe?” Fred asked.

“No reason, no reason,” Doc said hastily. “We subscribe to the magazines my wife is interested in, like Vogue and W — things like that.”

“Well, I’m sorry to have bothered you,” Fred Eagle said, picking up his copy of Small-scale Railroader. “Thank you for your time.” He extended his right hand across the counter and Dr. Johnston covered it with his own in a reciprocal gesture. The nails were bitten down to the quick.

It was a few minutes before two o’clock on a Thursday three weeks after Doc’s visit from the editor of Small-scale Railroader. Doc had locked the pharmacy for the weekend and had walked over to the big house when he saw a car turn off the main driveway towards the pharmacy. He was of two minds whether to go back and open up for the latecomer, so he waited to see who his tardy customer was. The time was now exactly two o’clock. The car was an old Chevrolet with an out-of-state license plate. The driver parked it in front of the pharmacy and both front doors were opened simultaneously. Doc watched in growing horror as the unmistakable figure of Mrs. Edna Treadle emerged from behind the wheel, followed after an interval by the enormous bulk of Ham Stone’s wife Olive getting out of the passenger side. The two women went up the steps of the pharmacy and tried the door.

Doc had not thought of Olive or her mother for eight years. So thoroughly had Hamilton Stone become Frank Johnston that they were two separate persons. Now Ham Stone’s past had intruded into Doc Johnston’s present. Doc recognized Olive and Mrs. Treadle from that other life when he was Ham Stone and he was momentarily petrified from shock. What are they doing here? he thought.

Then he remembered the visit of the man who said he was from Small-scale Railroader magazine and he realized with sinking heart that it was his own railroad he had inquired about buying. He turned away from the awful sight of the two women in front of his pharmacy and ran into the big house, where he closed the front door behind him and stood leaning against it as if to hold out intruders. When he heard the doors of the Chevrolet banged shut one after the other, he waited a few minutes before opening the door a crack. The back of the Chevrolet was disappearing on the driveway in the direction of Gulf Boulevard. He knew it would return on Monday when the pharmacy opened.

On the following Monday morning at ten o’clock the Chevrolet was again parked in front of Dr. Frank’s pharmacy. The building was closed and its door locked.

“Not here yet,” said Mrs. Treadle. “Get back in the car,” she ordered, “so he don’t see us when he comes.”

By ten-thirty she began to realize he was not coming. It occurred to her that the P.I. Fred Eagle had let them down. He had submitted a very large bill for services and expenses, which she had paid after selling Ham’s railroad. Mr. Eagle had failed to say that the pharmacy hours were so unusual. Was it open during those hours only by appointment?

At eleven o’clock, Olive announced she was hungry and needed to go to the bathroom.

“We’ll have to ask at the house,” Mrs. Treadle decided. “We’ll say we need a prescription filled.”

Leaving the car parked where it was, the mother and daughter walked over to the main house. The big, fancy automobile they had noticed parked in front of it on their fruitless first visit was not there. Curtains were drawn over all the windows; it looked as if there was nobody at home.

“Let’s look around,” Mrs. Treadle said to Olive.

They walked to the side of the house. There was no sign of life at the back of 5020, but a dog began to bark on the dock at the waterfront, where a houseboat was moored. By the swimming pool of the house next door a man and woman were reclining on deck chairs, reading. Mrs. Treadle and Olive approached them across the grass.

“Pardon me, lady,” Mrs. Treadle began.

The woman looked up from the newspaper she was holding. “Yes?”

“I wonder if you can help us,” said Mrs. Treadle. “We’re looking for Dr. Johnston, the one with the pharmacy.”

She had the instant attention of both the man and the woman. “Do you know anything about him?” the man asked, getting up to face the two strangers.

The dog on the dock had stopped barking and was now bounding across the lawn between the houses. It was a handsome golden retriever. It made for Olive and began to jump all over her.

“Down, Rex!” the man ordered, taking the retriever by the collar to pull him off. “He’s just being friendly,” he explained. “He’s Doc’s dog. He doesn’t understand what’s happened. Do you know anything?”

“Why, no — we was just looking to have a prescription filled, that’s all, and he don’t seem to be in his shop.”

“He’s been missing since last Thursday,” said the man. “Marie — that’s his wife — is beside herself with worry. He just disappeared, took nothing with him. The police suspect foul play. They found the Lincoln parked at the airport, but Doc wasn’t on any flight leaving last Thursday or any flight since.”

Olive uttered a kind of howl, tottered forward a step or two, and looked as if she might faint. Her mother quickly moved to prop her up. “It’s all right, baby, it’s the heat — we’re not used to the heat, all this sun. We’ll find someone else to give us the medicine — come along—” And she led her sobbing daughter away, back to the shade of the towering palm trees and the car parked in front of the abandoned pharmacy.