The Case of the Backward Mule

Seventeen

The sweetish smell of jail disinfectant filled the air, permeated Terry Clane’s clothing, clung to his hands until it seemed a sticky, tangible something from which there was no escape. The corridors reeked with an aura of discouragement, of human oppression. Under the veneer of men’s enforced acquiescence in the will of their captors lay a vicious resentment that lurked in the corners of the jail as an intangible psychic force evaporating wherever one looked, only to form in a miasmic menace behind one’s back.

Terry Clane and Edward Harold occupied the cell together, a cell which contained two wooden stools, an unscreened toilet, a washbasin and two steel bunks, hinged to the wall and let down by a chain into a level position. Each had a thin straw mattress and one blanket.

Harold said to Clane. “They have no right to put you in here. They haven’t even put a charge against you yet.”

Clane said, “Right or not, I’m here.”

“Aren’t you going to do anything about it?”

“Perhaps.”

Harold, seated on the stool, his elbows resting on his spread knees, his back humped in an attitude of dejection, said, “I’d ten times rather be dead.”

Clane said nothing.

“I’d made up my mind to go out fighting. I don’t want to be cooped up like a rat watching the days trickle away until they drag me out of my cell and shove me into a gas chamber.”

Clane said, “On the contrary, this is the best thing that’s happened to you for a long time.”

Harold raised his eyebrows.

“Now,” Clane said, “we’re going to go ahead with your appeal. You would have been in a stronger position if you had surrendered to the police, but even as it is you have a chance. The Supreme Court is going to look over the case pretty carefully. It won’t have the emotional instability of a jury. The only thing that convicted you was lying about going back to Farnsworth’s house that second time. But that doesn’t necessarily mean you committed a murder. It merely means that you falsified your testimony.”

Harold’s head drooped down until his eyes were fixed in unwinking scrutiny on the floor of the cell.

There was a long period of silence, a period which would have been awkward under any other circumstances. But in the jail there was no criterion for the passing of time. Here human beings were frozen into a static existence which left them divorced from life itself. They had the semblance of free and independent agencies but there was no place for them to go, nothing to do. Time moved on, but time ceased to have any significance because time would lead to no change. It was as though some motion-picture machine had suddenly broken down, leaving the images of men projected upon a screen. The attitude was one of action. The external manifestation of the figures was that of animation, but that appearance was only an arbitrary illusion. The figures remained stationary on the screen. The figure that was walking kept his leg advanced, his foot upraised, but the step he was about to take never materialized.

Already the grip of the jail had impressed itself upon these men so that the long minutes of silence seemed to call for no attempt at alleviating the conversational inactivity. There in the jail cell, silence and inaction were normal. One could resist them with spasmodic bits of conversation, with an occasional physical motion, but those were gestures of futility. In the end, the silence and the inaction were destined to dominate the scene.

“You know,” Harold said at length, “for a while I thought... I thought you were sort of a god. Then, after I had started to worship you, I came to hate you.”

Clane sat silent.

Harold kept his head down, his chin on his chest. “Hell,” he said, “what’s the use? I’m finished. My race is run. I worshiped you and then I came to hate you because you were standing between Cynthia and me. You have done something to Cynthia that can never be undone. You have impressed your personality so indelibly upon her that you have made her a part of you. You can separate, you can even fight, but you can’t resist that peculiar blending. You’re welded together in some way.”

“In other words,” Clane said, “you’re jealous. And your jealousy has distorted your perspective.”

“Of course I’m jealous. I was jealous. I’ve nothing to be jealous of any more. A dead man can’t have a wife.”

“You’re not dead yet.”

“I’m legally dead.”

“Nonsense.”

Once more silence dominated the scene, a silence steeped in the sticky sweet smell of jail antiseptic. Night had fallen and this wing of the big jail was silent save for an occasional rumbling of noise which came from one of the tanks up near the front. A big incandescent blazed down from the ceiling. Soon it would be switched out and only a small night light would furnish dim illumination, the forces of darkness allying themselves with those of silence to finish their work of crushing the human initiative of the inmates.

“I suppose I did make a mistake,” Harold said. “I certainly got my defense all messed up. I lied to my lawyer and that’s always bad. After all, it was really you that did it.”

“I did?” Clane asked in surprise.

“You remember that figure you gave Cynthia, the figure of the man on the mule?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know how much of the real philosophy of that Cynthia ever got. She’s a spontaneous creature. You don’t associate her with philosophy. She’s an opportunist, an extravert.”

“I know,” Clane said.

“Lovable because she has no need for philosophy. She lives her philosophy. She’s keyed to the universe in some way. She is life. What I’m trying to say is that life manifests itself through her and life is immortal. Life is spontaneous. Life is perpetual youth. And Cynthia is a priestess of that... Oh, hell, I’m getting all balled up trying to tell you something that you can’t express in words.”

“I know what you mean,” Clane said.

Harold was silent again, then after a minute or two went on as though there had been no break in the conversation. “She told me something about the philosophy of that figure on the mule. You’d told her about it and she’d remembered just enough of it to make it impress itself on my mind. I kept thinking over what she’d told me, adding to it. Perhaps building up something of my own ideas in connection with it until it seemed... well, it seemed something of a philosophy of life that was completely satisfying, a soul food which contained all the vitamins. Damned if I know why I’m talking to you this way, but you’re probably the last man I will ever see who will have the ability to understand what I’m trying to say. Despite the fact that I hate your guts.”

“You don’t need to hate me,” Clane said.

“I do, and don’t come back with any of that sop about having no hatred for me, only pity. You’ve stepped in and succeeded where I’ve failed. I thought I had Cynthia’s love before I learned that she didn’t have any love left to give. Her heart was yours. She thought she had taken it back from you, but she hadn’t. She couldn’t.”

Clane said, “As to that, I’m quite sure you’re wrong.”

“And I’m sure I’m right.”

“I know Cynthia pretty well.”

“You knew her pretty well. How much have you seen of her in the last three years?”

“Nothing.”

“There you are,” Harold said. “You planted a seed. It germinated and grew — just as a man could stick a seed in a flower pot and walk away and say, ‘See, there’s nothing but barren soil in that flower pot.’ But three months later he’d come back and find that it had sprouted a rose bush which had come into blossom. I tell you I’ve been with Cynthia. I studied her. I’ve seen her and I know.”

Clane sat silent and the other seemed to have no feeling of resentment for that silence, to consider it as purely normal.

“You can believe it or not,” Harold went on, “but I liked Farnsworth. Farnsworth was an interesting chap. He had a lot on the ball. And he had a lot of thoughts that many people don’t have. The day Farnsworth was killed I went to see him, and there was something on Horace Farnsworth’s mind. He tried to talk to me and couldn’t. He bogged down. It was something that had him on the ropes. I asked him if it was about Cynthia’s dough, asked him if he’d lost it. He said, no, that her money was all right. And then he told me that he’d got himself in a jam where there was no way out. He said he was licked. I couldn’t get out of him what it was. But I did learn that he was right on the ragged edge. He was... hell, Clane, the guy was getting ready to commit suicide.”

“So what did you do?” Clane asked.

“I told him to wait right there, that I was going to be back, and I went out to Cynthia’s and got that figure of the man on the mule. I wanted to go back and talk to Horace Farnsworth about it. That philosophy has steadied me down in many a tight spot. The figure got to mean a lot to me. The old guy was a friend of mine, an adviser, a father-confessor. I was hoping that I could talk to Horace Farnsworth and make him understand something of what I saw in the figure.”

Harold ceased talking, and the silence of the cell enveloped them.

Clane shifted his position on the stool. Harold sat with his elbows on his knees, motionless, brooding, dreaming of the past and of the strange whim of fate which had trapped him in the meshes of a first-degree murder charge, left him an outcast among his fellows, a man condemned to death.

“Funny thing,” Harold said, musingly, after a while, “the way Fate has tricked things around. There I was wanting to go to Farnsworth to give him some sort of a philosophical fife, and as a result I have to die.”

“You’re not at the end of your rope yet,” Clane said.

Harold might not have heard him. “It’s not that I am afraid to die. I want to live, but that doesn’t mean I’m afraid to die... only to the extent that man fears the unknown. After all, what is death?”

“A name,” Clane said.

“How’s that?”

“I said death was nothing but a name, a label. When man encounters something he can’t understand and doesn’t know how to study, he puts a label on it and then dismisses it. Just so a thing has a tag...”

“How could you study death?” Harold interrupted.

“By studying life.”

“Death is different from life.”

“Who said so?”

Harold thought that over, then laughed, a short, nervous laugh. “Well, of course, it’s always taken for granted that it has to be different from life. It’s the absence of life. It’s the antithesis of life.”

“How about birth?” Clane asked.

“That’s life.”

Clane said, “What we call life is merely a segment. It’s a narrow band stretching from birth to death. Granted the phenomenon of birth, we necessarily have the corollary of death. It’s all a part of life. The trouble is that we don’t have enough confidence in the Divine Architect. We think of Him as being able to plan the universe and control the heavens, but we’re not entirely certain. He knows what he’s doing when it comes to our lives. We’re just a bit uneasy that the divine scheme of things may be unjust, unpleasant, and inefficient. Therefore, we regard death as something which may have intruded upon the scheme of things when the Divine Architect had his back turned. We should realize that It’s part of life because it has to be, and that if the Divine Architect planned it, it should be beneficent... However, as you were saying, you intended to go back and see Farnsworth. I presume you took the image along?”

Harold nodded. “I went to Cynthia’s, got the image, took it over to show Horace Farnsworth. I thought the story of that man on the mule him. Somehow I didn’t feel his trouble was as big as he thought it was.”

Harold ceased talking again; then after a moment said, “I suppose that when a man really faces death he becomes somewhat detached from life. I can see things now more as a bystander.”

Clane waited. Harold remained silent.

“You were talking about going back to Farnsworth’s,” Clane prompted.

“That’s right. I wanted him to see that figure. I thought it might help him to get a grip on himself.”

“Did it?” Clane asked.

“It was too late. I went up to the front door and rang the bell. There was no answer. I pounded on the door, still no answer. I was worried. When I left him, I had an idea he was ready to do something desperate. So I walked around the house. When I came to the back door, I tried it. It was unlocked. I opened it and went in.

“The house was quiet. I called out Farnsworth’s name. There was no answer. I went on through the kitchen, into the study. He was there — dead.

“He was in his chair, his head over on the desk. There was a bullet wound in the head and blood was dripping down to the floor. I thought at the time that he’d killed himself. I ran over and took hold of his shoulders, trying to straighten him up. When I did that, the body slumped down to the floor, overturning the swivel chair in which he was sitting.

“Well, of course, I intended to notify the authorities. But before I did so, I looked around for the gun with which he’d killed himself and... well, there wasn’t any gun. It took a minute or two for it to dawn on me what that meant. And then I realized I was in a spot. I’d gone around the house and got in the back door. That would take a lot of explaining... I had an overpowering desire to get away. It was a blind urge to run. I grabbed up the image and got out of there. Of course, I was foolish, which is bad; and I was also unlucky, which is worse. People saw me leaving... there was blood on my trousers. I’ve been thinking afterwards that there may have been a spatter of blood on the image... I returned it to Cynthia later and was too rattled to look and see. You just can’t explain the things I did so they sound logical. Anyway, I took the easy way out and that was that.”

“Do you have any idea who murdered him?”

“Of course not. If I had, I’d have done something about it.”

“Any enemies?”

“I don’t know of any. He was a good egg.”

“Look here, when you went into the kitchen, what did you find?”

“What do you mean?”

“You went in through the back door?”

“That second trip I made, yes.”

“And when you entered the kitchen, did you notice a pot of water on the stove?”

Harold thought for a moment. “I remember that at the trial there was evidence of a teakettle boiling on the stove. My best recollection is that the teakettle was on the stove but was not boiling when I entered the kitchen.”

“You’re certain the teakettle was on the stove?”

“Yes. And I suppose the wrist watch must have been in the oven. Of course I didn’t look to see. I just walked on in through the kitchen. I’ve tried a hundred times to figure out why Farnsworth would have put on that water and put his wrist watch in the oven to dry out. The only explanation for the water, of course, is that Farnsworth wanted to steam open the flap of an envelope. As soon as I left, he went out to fill the kettle and was so nervous he must have got his wrist under the faucet. That got water in his watch, so he turned on the oven to dry it out while he was waiting for the water to heat.”

Clane nodded thoughtfully. “No idea of what that envelope could have contained — the one he wanted to steam open?”

“No,” Harold said, curtly.

Clane waited but Harold relapsed once more into silence.

Abruptly Clane broke the silence. “What happened down there at the warehouse?” he asked.

“Why should I tell you?”

“Is there any reason why you shouldn’t?”

“Yes.”

“What?”

“I can’t betray the person who helped me.”

“Don’t mention that person. Just tell me what happened.”

“I was being given sanctuary there in that warehouse. There was every reason to believe that it was a safe place, that no one would come there. I had been assured that things would... well, that they’d be arranged so that I’d have the place all to myself.

“Then out of a clear sky something happened. I heard an automobile drive up, a key in the door, and someone was coming in. I couldn’t get out through the door. I ran to the window and jumped out and ran. The lights came on just as I was climbing out of the window. I looked back and saw Gloster standing there in the doorway. He was flabbergasted. I think he saw and recognized me. I don’t know.”

“And he walked over to telephone?”

“I don’t know what he did. I didn’t stop to find out. I got out of there.”

“What time was this?”

“A little after ten, about ten minutes after ten I think it was.”

“And you went directly to that restaurant and telephoned?”

“Yes.”

“To whom did you telephone?”

“That is something I’m not going to answer.”

“Someone came and got you?”

“Yes.”

“Who was it?”

“Try and find out.”

“The police know.”

“Then you’d better ask the police. They can tell you; I can’t.”

“You mean you won’t.”

“All right, it’s the same thing.”

“Gloster wasn’t one of the persons who helped you escape when you were taken from the automobile?”

“Don’t be silly.”

“Was Bill Hendrum one of the...”

“Damn it, Clane, don’t go flinging names around that way. Leave Bill out of this.”

Clane said, “You had quite a stock of groceries there. Who bought those for you? The same person who established you in the warehouse in the first place?”

“What do you think?”

“I’m trying to find out what to think.”

“Find out some place else then.”

Clane was starting to say something when he heard the sound of echoing steps in the corridor. A key rattled in the lock. A burly, thicknecked man said, “Which one is Terry Clane?”

“I am,” Clane said, stepping forward.

“Out,” the man said.

“I knew they’d spring you,” Harold said. “You haven’t any hard luck.”

Clane extended his hand. “Good luck,” he said. “I’m probably merely being transferred. But here’s luck.”

After a moment Edward Harold reached out and took Clane’s hand. Clane noticed that the fingers which circled his hand, the palm which pressed against his, were wet with perspiration.

“If you see God’s blue sky again,” Edward Harold said, “tell it hello for me,” and then deliberately turned his back on Clane and the turnkey.