Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Vol. 60, No. 1. Whole No. 344, July 1972

Mr. Strang Finds a Car by William Brittain{© 1972 by William Brittain.}

Rub someone out right in the high-school parking lot? With teachers present? With nearly 2000 students as possible eyewitnesses? Preposterous! At least, that’s what the principal thought; and Detective Sergeant Roberts and his partner David Bell were more than inclined to agree.

But Mr. Strang did not agree. The gnomelike little science teacher of Aldershot High School believed the evidence of his eyes — observation — and backed it up with the evidence of his brain — logical analysis...

For nine blocks the nondescript, gray four-door sedan had been following the yellow school bus with ALDERSHOT CENTRAL SCHOOL DISTRICT painted on its side. When the bus turned into the long curving driveway behind Aldershot High School, the gray car continued to follow. Louis Markham, the driver of the bus, found nothing odd in this; many parents drove their kids to school on the way to work.

On reaching the rear comer of the building, the car stopped in a position which commanded a view of both the teachers’ parking lot and the fenced athletic field where almost 2000 students were milling about, waiting for the entrance bell.

The driver of the gray car kept his eyes riveted on the bus — Number 81 — as it pulled up to a gate in the fence. He took little notice of the slight gray-haired teacher who stood near one of the doors of the building, waving to the students as they climbed out of the bus, chattering like magpies, and walked to the gate.

And then the last student, a boy, got off. A tall, lanky, studious type, the boy wore thick glasses mounted on his beak of a nose. His sweat shirt, on which there was a picture of the dog Snoopy dancing with joy, seemed to accentuate the boy’s rounded shoulders and skinny arms. The boy stood for a moment, checking through the thick bundle of books under his arm.

And in that moment the driver of the gray car slammed it into gear. There was the roar of an engine racing, then two tracks of scorched rubber were plastered on the smoking asphalt as the rear wheels fought for traction. Rocketing forward, the car bore down on the boy at a rapidly increasing speed.

He looked up wide-eyed at the noise, saw the deadly grillework of the car’s radiator headed directly at him, and froze in panic.

A massive hand reached out from the door of the bus and yanked at the neck of the sweat shirt. Stumbling backward, the boy collapsed into a sitting position on the bus’s step as the gray car shot by, only inches from his knees. But before he could stutter his thanks to Louis Markham, the gray car skidded to a halt and went into reverse. The boy quickly hauled his legs into the bus.

The gray car screeched to a stop next to the doorway of the bus. For a fraction of a second Markham and the driver of the gray car regarded each other. Markham’s face was a study in shocked surprise. It was difficult to see the expression of the other man; he wore a wide-brimmed hat and dark sunglasses, and in spite of the heat had his jacket collar turned up. With a clash of meshing gears the gray car roared forward again, down the exit driveway, and out into the street. Markham attempted to get the license number but the plates had been liberally smeared with mud.

It was several minutes before Mr. Leonard Strang, at his position by the school’s rear door, could calm his queasy stomach. It had all happened so fast. But for the quick thinking of Louis Markham, the boy Richie Hatch would now be lying dead on the asphalt pavement. On rubbery legs Mr. Strang approached the bus and asked Richie and Markham to accompany him to the principal’s office to report the incident.

“Be reasonable, Mr. Strang. You, too, Louis. Why would anybody want to run down a student, especially right here in the school parking lot?” Marvin W. Guthrey, principal of Aldershot High School, looked incredulously at the two men and the boy seated on the opposite side of his desk. “Look, maybe the accelerator jammed — it’s happened to me.”

“Hey, wait a minute, Mr. Guthrey!” Markham banged an angry hand on the arm of his chair. “We were out there, remember? I tell you this guy deliberately tried to run Richie down.”

“Not only that,” added Mr. Strang, still trembling slightly, “but when he failed the first time — due to Louis’s quick thinking — he came back for a second chance. Fortunately, Richie was inside the bus by then.”

“Whoever it was probably just returned to see if Richie was all right,” replied Guthrey.

“Why didn’t he stop then?” growled the bus driver. “At least he could have given us some kind of apology or something. No sir, Mr. Guthrey. I got a good look at that character. He wasn’t sorry for what he done — unless it was because he missed Richie.”

“I thought you said his face was almost completely covered?” asked the principal.

“Yeah, but—” With a helpless shrug the bus driver turned to Mr. Strang. “You tell him, will you?” he pleaded. “Mr. Guthrey’s not about to listen to me.”

Slowly Mr. Strang pulled a pipe from his pocket, ramming tobacco into the bowl as he tried to collect his thoughts. “Richie was almost run down in the school parking lot just a few minutes ago,” he said finally. “Let’s take that as a starting point, Mr. Guthrey. You say it was an accident, while we maintain it was deliberate. Right so far?”

The principal nodded.

“Now I ask you to consider the following two things.” The teacher began ticking them off on his fingers. “First, we were on the scene when it happened; you were not. I ask you who would make the more reliable witnesses.”

The principal tried to interrupt, but Mr. Strang went on implacably. “Second, even though it’s quite warm this morning the man wore a hat, dark sunglasses, and had his collar turned up. Wouldn’t this suggest a disguise of sorts? And remember those muddy license plates, Mr. Guthrey. All the accouterments of a deliberate hit-and-run attempt.”

“And on the basis of what you tell me I’m supposed to do — what?” asked the principal nervously.

“Why, call the police, of course,” replied the teacher. “Get somebody down here who can look into this.”

“But nobody was actually hurt,” said Guthrey. “What am I supposed to tell them? I can’t be having police in this building every time somebody makes a little mistake.”

“And what if it’s not just a ‘little mistake’?” asked the teacher, puffing out a thick cloud of acrid smoke.

“What do you mean?”

“Let’s assume, in spite of what we’ve told you, that the chances are, say, a hundred to one against its having been deliberate. Even then, would you want to take the gamble, Mr. Guthrey?”

“What gamble?”

“He means if it was deliberate, the guy might try again!” Markham shouted. “For some reason somebody wants Richie out of the way. Are you going to let them have another crack at him?”

Reluctantly Guthrey picked up the phone on his desk.

In the small conference room Richie Hatch, Mr. Strang, and Louis Markham sat in straight-backed chairs, flanked by Detective Sergeant Paul Roberts and Detective David Bell. “It’s crazy, Mr. Roberts,” Bell was saying. “Just crazy.”

“What’s crazy, Bell?” asked Roberts.

“Our being here,” replied the younger detective. “We’re assigned to four breakings-and-enterings, one possible kidnaping, and that sex molester who’s supposed to be prowling the neighborhood. In addition there’s that APB on the armored truck that was hijacked over in Wolverton, plans for guarding the mayor during the parade tomorrow, plus whatever else the lieutenant can dig up for us. And with a case load like that we’re expected to waste time here listening to all this malarkey just because somebody’s car went out of control.”

“Nobody twisted your arm to get you out of uniform and into detectives,” growled Roberts. But he couldn’t help agreeing with Bell. The whole thing seemed such a trivial incident. If it had been anyone but Mr. Strang—

Roberts had gained a considerable respect for the teacher since that day, several years ago, when Mr. Strang had kept him from making a fool of himself in connection with a stolen car. Since then the wizened little science teacher had assisted Roberts unofficially on several cases, and the detective had a growing respect for Mr. Strang’s abilities of observation and logical analysis. And even if there wasn’t any real problem in this instance — well, Roberts guessed he owed the old boy at least a hearing.

“All right, Richie,” said Bell. “Just tell me one thing. Why in hell would anybody want to run you down?”

“Uh, I don’t know, sir,” answered the boy.

“You see, that’s the hangup — no motive. Think about it, Richie. What could a school kid possibly be doing that would make somebody want to kill him? Tell me, what do you do after school? What crowd do you hang around with? Have you any enemies?”

“I don’t hang around with anybody too much,” replied the boy. “Usually I go right home after school and do my homework. Then I mow the lawn or do anything else my mother wants. We have supper at about seven — that’s when my dad comes home — and after that, I either watch TV or work on my insect collection.”

“Richie’s quite an entomologist,” added Mr. Strang proudly. “His insect collection won second prize at the County Science Fair.”

“Yeah, great,” muttered Bell. “Maybe that car was driven by a mad tse-tse fly.”

“Lay off, Bell,” snapped Roberts. He turned to Mr. Strang, tearing a sheet from the yellow lined pad in front of him. “I guess that’s it,” he continued softly. “Here’s a preliminary report on what you’ve told us. I’d like the three of you to read it over. If you have no additions or corrections I’ll see what I can do about locating that gray sedan. But I can’t guarantee any results. You haven’t given us much to go on.”

Mr. Strang read the report quickly, then passed it on to Richie, who flipped his thick glasses up onto his forehad and peered at the writing. “You believe us, don’t you, Paul?” asked the teacher.

“Oh, I believe a car came close to hitting Richie. But as for its being deliberate — well, I dunno, Mr. Strang. You make quite a thing of the guy’s not stopping. But maybe it was just embarrassment. After all, he’d almost killed somebody. He backed up to see that nobody was hurt, and when he found out Richie was okay, he just got out of there before anyone could tell him what kind of a numskull he was.”

“Oh — ctenophora!” snapped the teacher. “Somebody tried to kill Richie. I don’t know the reason. But there’s got to be an answer somewhere.”

As the detectives were about to leave, Bell turned to Mr. Strang. “Maybe you just aren’t asking the right questions,” he drawled.

“But shouldn’t the boy be given some kind of protection?” Mr. Strang asked Roberts, ignoring Bell’s remark.

Roberts shook his head. “This is too far-fetched,” he said. “The lieutenant wouldn’t authorize it.” Seeing Mr. Strang’s hands quiver, the detective went on in a softer voice. “Tell you what I’ll do. I’ll pick Richie up after school and drive him home myself. He ought to be safe in his own house. That’s the best I can do.”

That afternoon Richie Hatch left the front door of the school accompanied by both Paul Roberts and Mr. Strang. As they headed toward the detective’s car, none of the three noticed the heavily muscled man in the green sports shirt lounging against the telephone booth down the block. On spotting Richie, the man entered the booth dialed a number, and began speaking into the mouthpiece. Roberts’ car passed within a dozen feet of the booth.

Ten minutes later the detective pulled onto Waverly Crescent. That road, nearly a quarter of a mile long, formed a huge semicircle. The densely wooded area on the outskirts of Aldershot had once been a favorite area for Mr. Strang’s biology-class nature walks; now, however, four houses were spaced along the length of the crescent, and the builder had informed the school authorities there would be more to come. Richie Hatch’s house, a shingled split-level, was at the very end of the road.

“Mom must be out somewhere,” said Richie as Roberts pulled into the driveway. “Her car’s not here. Thanks for the lift. I’ll be seeing you tomorrow, Mr. Strang.”

From the rear seat Mr. Strang waved vaguely. “The right questions,” he whispered to himself as Richie padded across the lawn toward the front door.

“What’s that, Mr. Strang?”

“Nothing, Paul. I was just thinking about what your partner, Mr. Bell, said today. ‘Maybe you just aren’t asking the right questions.’ But if— Richie, stop!”

Startled, Roberts turned around in his seat. “Did the kid forget something?”

“No, I did.” The teacher got out of the car and beckoned to the boy, who was in the act of unlocking the front door. Richie returned to the car.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

“Council of war.” Mr. Strang motioned the boy back into the car, got in himself, and tapped Roberts on the shoulder. “Mr. Bell is smarter than I thought,” he murmured, smiling. “The right question — I should have thought of it myself.”

“What are you getting at, Mr. Strang?” asked Roberts.

The gnomelike little science teacher rubbed his hands together. “Let’s assume for a moment that whoever was driving that car this morning deliberately tried to kill Richie. When we talked about it earlier, we were questioning motive. Why, you asked then, would anybody want to do such a thing? But that’s the wrong question. Try this one: why would anyone want to do it on the high-school parking lot?”

Roberts shook his head in confusion. “I don’t get you.”

“If someone wanted to kill Richie, wouldn’t the high-school parking lot be the last place they’d choose? Teachers on duty, and about two thousand potential witnesses among the students alone. It was only dumb luck that Richie was the last student to get off the bus and that he was alone when the car tried to hit him.”

“Not really,” said the boy. “You see, I’m the first one on in the morning, Mr. Strang. The bus has to come way out here just for me, and I always take the rear seat. And even then, the bus doesn’t come all the way to the end of the crescent. I cut across the lots to where Waverly Crescent meets the main road and get picked up there.”

“All right, all right,” said the teacher impatiently. “But that doesn’t change the fact that you live in a comparatively deserted area. And if somebody wanted to kill you, the obvious place would be here, certainly not a crowded school yard. Why, then, did the attempted crime take place where it did?”

“If there was a crime, Mr. Strang,” said the detective. “What you’ve just said is a pretty good indication there wasn’t.”

“Wait, Paul. If the attempt was deliberate, why in such a public place?”

“Okay, I’ll bite,” said Roberts. “Why, Mr. Strang?”

“There’s only one reason I can come up with that makes any sense,” said the teacher. “Paul, something must have happened early this morning before Richie got on the school bus. He either saw or heard something — something the driver of that gray car felt would be dangerous to him. Before Richie could be stopped out here, he’d reached the school bus and was picked up. Our mysterious Mr. X felt that Richie had to be stopped at any cost before he’d communicated whatever he’d seen or heard. So he followed the bus to school and made a desperate attempt to kill Richie just as he stepped off.”

Mr. Strang turned to the boy. “Come on, Richie,” he said. “What was it? What did you see this morning? What did. you hear?”

There was a long pause as Richie pushed his glasses up onto his forehead and gazed at the teacher. “I don’t know, Mr. Strang,” he said finally. “I don’t remember seeing or hearing anything.”

Both Mr. Strang’s face and spirits drooped. “Nothing?” he asked with a plaintive sigh. Richie shook his head.

“Okay, that’s enough.” Roberts turned the ignition key and the starter whirred. “Let me take you home, huh?”

“Just a minute.” Mr. Strang waved his hand impatiently. “Richie,” he said slowly, “maybe you don’t realise that what you saw or heard was important. Please, would you tell us everything that happened to you this morning from the time you got up until you got on the bus — everything, no matter how trivial it may seem to you.”

“Let’s see.” Richie considered the question for a moment. “Well, first I got dressed. Brushed my teeth. Then I went down and Mom gave me my breakfast. It was oatmeal.”

“Then what? After you left the house?”

“I cut through the woods in back on my way to the bus stop. Did you know there’s a bee tree out there, Mr. Strang? They were buzzing like crazy this morning.”

“Never mind Mother Nature,” groaned Roberts. “Get on with your story.”

“I walked through the Killian’s back yard and put out food for their spaniel. They’re away for the month and they asked me to feed and water the dog. I saw a praying mantis on the window sill of the garage. It was busy eating a beetle, and I got real close to it. Mr. Roberts, do you know that mantises kill all sorts of harmful—”

“Spare me the bugs, Richie. Please. Just finish your story so Mr. Strang and me can get out of here.”

“All right. Back in the woods I found a place where some kids must have been digging. There was a deep hole near the stream that goes through there.”

“A hole,” mused the teacher. “Anything in it?”

“Nothing but a broken robin’s egg. I spotted three gray squirrels just before I came out of the woods and I could have sworn I heard the chirping of a—”

Paul Roberts thought he would go mad.

A car rolled slowly by them and pulled up into the driveway. “Mom’s home,” said Richie. “Would you like to meet her?”

“Some other time,” said Roberts in a tired voice. “And, Richie. When you tell her about what happened today, don’t make it too dramatic. A car went out of control and you came close to being hit — that’s all. But this other stuff — well, sometimes Mr. Strang lets his imagination run away with him.”

The teacher folded his arms and stared ahead in stony silence.

In the woods behind the Hatch house a large woman wearing a dark green coat which blended with the foliage ducked back behind the trunk of a huge willow tree and lowered a pair of high-power binoculars. Kneeling next to her was a stocky young man in blue jeans and a T-shirt under which his muscles bulged. The man looked up at his partner.

“What do you think, Doris? What did you see out there?”

“The kid’s with two men,” she answered, “just the way Larry told us on the phone. The little scrawny one with the gray hair wouldn’t be too hard to handle, but the big one’s got cop written all over him. We’d better lay low, at least until Larry gets back.”

“A cop,” muttered the man. “Hell’s bells, Doris, if that kid told the cops what he seen—”

“Take it easy. I don’t think he realizes yet that he saw anything important. Otherwise this whole area would be swarming with police. Probably he just told the cop about Larry’s almost running him down this morning.”

“Too damn bad he missed,” the man grumbled. “That kid might remember any time. Hey, look! The car’s leavin’. Now’s my chance to get over there an’—”

“Calm down,” said Doris. “The kid’s inside the house now with his old lady. What happens if you try to break in there and one of ’em manages to get to a telephone? The kid’s forgotten all about it, I tell you. And we’ll be out of here in another few hours.”

“When? What time?”

“We can’t even start unloading until after ten. About midnight, I guess.”

“What about the kid? Shouldn’t he still be wasted?”

“Maybe. Let’s see what Larry says when he gets back.”

When Paul Roberts dropped him off at his boardinghouse Mr. Strang was still furious. “Let my imagination run away with me, do I?” he grumbled to himself. “I’ll show him that—”

But the teacher wasn’t really prepared to show the detective anything. What could Richie have seen? A bee’s nest, a praying mantis, a hole, a robin’s egg, some squirrels; they seemed innocent enough.

“Platyhelminthes!” He spat out the word — Phylum VI in the classification of animals — in a tone that would have brought a blush to the face of a mule skinner. Then, feeling somewhat better, he sat down with the newspaper to await supper.

A short while later a mouth-watering smell from the kitchen brought the teacher to his feet. Pot roast. Quietly he tiptoed to the kitchen door. A large kettle was bubbling on the stove. He lifted the lid and a cloud of steam rose upward.

Tiny droplets of water settled onto Mr. Strang’s glasses and for a moment he was blind. Replacing the lid he removed the glasses to polish them on his tie. But then he stopped. Holding the glasses in front of him he glanced first at the lenses and then at the wall behind the stove. There was something else Bell had said this morning, something about—

And then he remembered.

Hoping against hope that he wasn’t already too late, the teacher scuttled back into the living room, picked up the telephone, and dialed Paul Roberts’ number.

It was after nine o’clock, and darkness had fallen when Roberts, accompanied by Mr. Strang, again reached Waverly Crescent. The detective pulled the car to the curb, turned off the ignition, and killed the lights. “We’ll walk from here,” he whispered to the teacher. “It’s a good thing there aren’t any street lights this far out.”

“There’s, a full moon though,” replied Mr. Strang. “We’ll still have to be careful.”

“I hope you’re right about all this,” said Roberts.

They passed two houses, keeping to the darkness on the opposite side of the street.

The Killian house was completely dark. “That figures,” breathed Roberts. “Richie said they were away.” The two men crept closer, keeping trees between themselves and the dark house.

Finally they reached the garage. “There’s a border of rocks along here,” Roberts told the teacher. “Be careful you don’t trip. I’m going to use my flashlight. I’ll try to keep it masked as much as possible, but — what’s that?”

There was a rustling sound from the far side of the garage, followed by an odd moaning. The teacher snapped to attention, then relaxed. “The dog,” he whispered. “He’s behind the house in the kennel.”

“Oh.” Roberts brushed a film of dirt from the garage window with the sleeve of his jacket. Then, from a pocket, he removed a small flashlight. Cupping one hand carefully around it he pressed the switch and held the light against the windowpane.

Mr. Strang peered through the glass. The car inside would have been close enough to touch had the window been open. “Gray four-door sedan,” breathed the teacher softly. “I’ll give you odds that’s the car that almost ran down Richie this morning.”

“Yeah, sure,” replied the detective impatiently. “Only — holy Moses on a bicycle! Look!”

As he moved the light, Mr. Strang could see the huge thing that reared up on the other side of the two-car garage. It was constructed of thick plates of steel, held together with numerous rivets, the heads of which spotted the brown surface like warts on the back of some prehistoric monster.

“There’s lettering on one plate,” said Roberts. “B-I–L-L–I — Billikin!” He breathed the word in an awed voice. “The Billikin Armored Car Service. One of their trucks was hijacked near Wolverton two days ago — with over a hundred and fifty grand in silver bars inside.”

The teacher nodded. “I remembered that your partner mentioned it this morning,” he said.

“You were right, Mr. Strang, when you said there was something important in this garage. Come on. I’ve got to get word back to headquarters. If we’re lucky, maybe the silver’s still inside there.”

“It is. But your luck’s about run out.”

At the sound of the voice behind them, Roberts and Strang whirled about. As the teacher’s eyes adjusted to the darkness he could just make out in the moonlight the figure of a woman — a mountainous figure in a dark coat. And as Roberts pointed the flashlight in her direction the teacher saw the glitter of a pistol in her hand.

“Point that light the other way,” rumbled the woman. “Right at your own face. I like to have my targets well lighted. You’re the two who were at the kid’s house earlier, aren’t you?”

There was the slamming of a door and a second figure, a man, walked over next to the woman. “What have you got here, Doris?” he asked. “A couple of snoopers?”

“Yeah, Larry. I guess the kid finally remembered.”

“Mr. Strang here was smart enough to figure it out,” said Roberts. Keep them talking, keep them talking. Get the woman’s mind off that gun. Maybe there’d be a chance to grab it. “You might as well tell ’em about it,” he said to the teacher gruffly. Come on, Mr. Strang, start talking. Stall for time.

Mr. Strang picked up the cue. “You saw Richie this morning, didn’t you?” he asked

“The kid? Sure,” said the woman. “He had his nose less than a foot from the garage window. I looked out from the kitchen and there he was.”

“He was only looking at a praying mantis — an insect — on the window sill.”

“Okay, but he couldn’t help seeing the armored car in there.”

“As a matter of fact,” said the teacher, “it really was impossible for him to see the armored car.”

“Yeah, so you say,” rumbled the man. “How come?”

“Richie’s near-sighted,” explained the teacher. He crouched as if terrified by the menace of the gun pointed at Roberts. “He needs glasses, but only for seeing at a distance. For close observation he has to take the glasses off. Or else moves them up to his forehead. I spotted this habit twice today but only realized its importance later when I was forced to remove my own glasses. So you see, if Richie was watching the mantis at close range, he wouldn’t have been wearing his glasses.” Mr. Strang crouched still lower, seeming to cower before the pistol.

“Yeah, that’s right,” said the woman. “He had ’em on his forehead like a flier’s goggles.” Roberts, still had the light turned on himself. Bending forward from his crouched position, the teacher felt his hands make contact with one of the large rocks that formed a border beside the garage. Lifting it slightly, he estimated its weight at about 15 pounds.

“And the armored car was at the opposite side of the garage from him,” the teacher continued. “It would have been nothing but a blur to him. Besides which, the garage was dark and the glass was dirty. No, your secret was safe. Until you tried to run the boy down, that is.”

The woman turned to the man beside her. “See, idiot!” she barked. “I told you it would be all right. But no, you had to go after him. You had to try a hit-and-run right at the school. Of all the stupid—”

Mr. Strang took a deep breath, then heaved the rock, his joints cracking at the unaccustomed effort. The rock arched silently through the air.

“Hey!” The woman had time to utter only the single syllable before the rock struck her full in the stomach. The teacher could hardly have missed so large a target at such short range.

“Doris, what—”

“Hold it, both of you!” Keeping the flashlight steady on the man and the woman, Roberts pulled out his own pistol. “Mr. Strang, get their gun. And make sure you don’t get between me and them.”

Mr. Strang made sure. Roberts had just finished handcuffing the two when he heard the rear door of the house slam. Quickly he moved the light in that direction.

The man in the doorway shook his head groggily, rubbing his eyes with huge fists. “Doris,” he mumbled in a voice heavy with sleep. “Turn ’at thing off. You were the one said no lights aroun’ here. An’ keep the chatter down. How’s a guy expected to sleep when—” He was still not fully awake when Roberts jammed the pistol into his ribs and forced him to lean against the wall to be searched.

The three prisoners were marched down Waverly Crescent. When they reached Roberts’ car, the detective put in a call on the two-way radio. A few minutes later two patrol cars arrived to take the three criminals away.

Gingerly the old teacher handed Roberts the pistol he had been holding. “Do you suppose the Killians were in on it?” he asked.

“We’ll check it out,” replied Roberts, “but I doubt it. It wouldn’t be hard for those three to spot an isolated house where the owners were away on vacation. The society pages of the papers are full of information like that.”

He got into the car and slammed the door. “C’mon,” he said. “I’ve got to get back to Richie’s house.”

“Why, Paul?” asked the teacher. “You don’t, think he’s still in danger?”

“No. But in a few minutes this street will be crawling with police, men from the District Attorney’s office, and newspaper reporters. And before they all get here and begin listening to what I have to say, I’ve got some high-powered apologizing to do for not believing Richie and you in the first place.”