“Did you bury it along the road somewhere? Did you bury it in a money bag? What kind of bag? What’d you carry it away from the bank in? Did you count it? Don’t you know the bank has a record of the serial numbers? You can’t spend it. Where did you hide it?”
“I didn’t bury anything.”
“Where did you buy that clock?”
“I never saw the clock before.”
“Did you go to Houston?”
“Yes.”
“What’s the name of the girl?”
“Kelvey.”
“I thought Kelvey was the man who owed you money.”
“That’s what I mean.”
“You just said the girl’s name was Kelvey. Who owed you money?”
“Kelvey.”
“There wasn’t any girl, was there? You went down there to buy a clock to make a fire-bomb. Where’d you buy that clock?”
“I didn’t.”
“You stood behind the door in the can and threw a blanket over him when he came in. Why didn’t you sap him?”
“I don’t know anything about it.”
“You knew he was an old man and you were afraid you’d kill him and you didn’t want a murder rap on your hands. Wasn’t that it?”
“I’ve told you a thousand times. I was at the fire.”
“I’m talking about before you got to the fire.”
“I got there within two or three minutes after the fire-truck.”
“What time was that?”
“How the hell do I know? Was there anybody at the fire who could tell you exactly what time it was?”
“Why didn’t somebody see you?”
“They did. Tate saw me.”
“Why didn’t he see you before the bank was robbed?”
“How do I know? Maybe he did.”
“He says he didn’t.”
“All right. Ask him to name all the other people he saw there, and the exact times he saw them.”
“You made a big show when you got there, didn’t you? Everybody could see you. But it was too late. That was after the bank was robbed.”
It went on. I was groggy. After a while I could see yellow light along the wall and thought my mind was becoming unstuck. It was sunlight, coming in through the bars on the window.
They fingerprinted me, took my belt and wallet, and led me upstairs to a cell. I sat down on the side of a bunk with my head in my hands while the whole place revolved slowly around me. I could still hear the questions. The voices wouldn’t stop.
Two trusties or turnkeys came down the corridor with breakfast. It consisted of a pile of grey oatmeal on a tin plate and a cup of greenish-black coffee with oil on it. I set the oatmeal on the floor and drank the coffee. It was awful. I had only two cigarettes left, so I tore one in two and smoked half of it.
There was another man in the cell, but I hadn’t paid much attention to him until now he came over holding out a cigarette. “If’n you don’t want the oatmeal, I’ll eat it,” he said. “I’ll trade you a cigarette for it.” He was a thin middle-aged man with sandy hair and a red, sunburned neck like a farmer.
I took it. “Thanks,” I said.
I lay down in the bunk and put an arm up over my face to shut out the light and tried to sleep. It wasn’t any good. Where did we go from here? I couldn’t prove I was at the fire all the time, and they couldn’t prove I wasn’t. The only thing they had to go on was the fact that that Sheriff knew I was the one who’d done it, knew it absolutely and without doubt—and without any proof at all that they could take into court. Nobody had seen me. They had my fingerprints, but I didn’t have a record, and I hadn’t left any prints in the bank because I’d used a handkerchief around my hand opening drawers and doors. What did they have on their side? Nothing—except that they could keep on asking questions until I went crazy.
They had to have a confession. And they had to make me show them where the money was so I couldn’t repudiate it in court. Could they do it? I didn’t know. There wasn’t any way to tell what you’d do after two or three days of that.
Sometime in the afternoon they came and got me again. The Sheriff was in the office, along with Buck and Tate, and another man I didn’t know. He could have been the prosecuting attorney or one of the detectives from Houston.
“We’re going to give you one more chance to come clean,” the Sheriff said.
“How much longer does this go on?” I asked.
“Till you tell us what you did with that money.”
“I don’t know anything about any money.”
It was the last session all over again, only worse. Sometimes three of them would be hammering at me at the same time, one in front and one on each side so I’d have to keep turning my head to answer. One would fire a question at me and before I could get my mouth open there’d be two more.
“Where’d you go the night before the fire?”
“How do I know? To the movies, I think.”
“Your landlady said she heard you come in around two a.m.”
“Where’d you go last night before they picked you up?”
“I told you—”
“Do a lot of running around at night, don’t you?”
“In a hell of a hurry to get to that fire, weren’t you? Gulick says you took off from there like a ruptured duck. But just why was it you never did even go near the first one?”
And then, after about an hour, there was an abrupt change in the attack. Buck left the room, and when he came back he had two more men with him. They were prisoners, because I remembered seeing them upstairs in the cells. He lined the three of us up about four feet apart in a row and then got in the line himself. Tate and the man I didn’t know sat in chairs along the other wall, not saying anything and just watching intently. I kept my eye on the Sheriff. He was up to something, and I’d seen enough of him by this time to know it would be dangerous.
“All right, not a word out of any of you,” he said, and went over and opened the door. I could feel the tension building up.
“We’re ready,” he said to somebody in the hall. He stepped outside. I watched the door, conscious of the sweat breaking out on my face. Then he came back, leading someone by the arm. It was the old blind Negro, Uncle Mort.
You could feel the whole room tighten up. The two prisoners were watching the Negro, not knowing what it was all about but scared. I watched him and the Sheriff, feeling all the eyes on me and trying to guess what was coming. The Sheriff led him down the line, stopping him in front of each man about three feet away and facing him.
It was the stillness that made it bad. Nobody said a word. They stood for maybe a minute in front of the first man, and then moved to the next one. It was completely fantastic. It was a police line-up for a blind man.
I was third in line, after the two prisoners. I watched the expressionless black face and the sightless eyes behind the glasses. What was he doing? Listening? Smelling? Or could he actually see? I remembered the way he had tracked me there in the bank. And then I began to get it. It was the silence which tipped me off. He was listening to the breathing of each man when the Sheriff stopped him.
He stopped in front of me. We were facing each other in exactly the same way we had in the bank, and from the same arm’s-length distance. It was insane. It would make you scream if you didn’t have good nerves. They were trying to prove I had held up the bank, and I was standing right there in the midst of them facing the very man who’d watched me do it—except that he couldn’t see. But was there something characteristic about my breathing that would identify me? My nose was broken; was that it? I waited, sweating. He moved on to Buck.
Then they were coming back to me again, and I could see it. They weren’t trying to identify my—they were trying to make me break. It was just psychology. A thing like that wouldn’t hold up in court, but if they could crack my nerve and make me confess, that would. There’d be any one of a hundred signals he could give the Negro to tip him when he was in front of the right man.
They stopped in front of me. The Negro’s face was blank as death. “Hit sound like him,” he said then.
“You sure, Uncle Mort?” the Sheriff asked.
“Suah sound like him. Got a kind of bleep, like a teakettle.”
“You’ve heard it before?”
“Heered it twice befoah. One day about three weeks back, befoah the bank got held up, an’ then the next time whilst I’m a-standin’ there an’ the man holdin’ up the bank right in front of me.”
“And that first time, there was a fire that day too, wasn’t there? And nobody in the bank except this man?”
“Yessuh. That right. I went in to ask Mist’ Julian wheahabouts the fiah, only he ain’t in theah. Jes’ this man. Suah sound like him.”
“All right, Uncle Mort. That’s all.” The Sheriff led him to the door and turned him over to someone in the hall. Buck went out with the two prisoners.
“Sit down, Madox.” The Sheriff nodded curtly towards the chair. When I was seated, he said, “All right. You ready to make a statement now? What did you do with the money?”
“So we’re back to that again?”
“Why don’t you get wise to yourself, Madox? You can see we’ve got the goods on you. You just trying to make it tougher on yourself?”
“No.”
“You heard that Negro. He picked you out of four men. And he can do it in court.”
“Not without you there to squeeze his arm.”
“I didn’t squeeze his arm. He recognized your breathing.”
“Bad sweat. What the hell is this, Alice in Wonderland?”
“Have a little trouble getting your breath, don’t you, with that broken nose? Ever have a doctor look at it?”
“No.”
“Probably don’t even notice it yourself, do you? That little whistle, I mean.”
“Cut it out, will you? So the man who robbed the bank was breathing.”
He stopped directly in front of me and pointed the cigar in my face. “Look, Madox. I’m not trying to find out who robbed that bank. I already know that. And you know that I know it. Don’t you? So I want to tell you something. You’re not going to get away with it. So help me God, I’m going to prove it if it’s the last thing I ever do in this world. We’ll start at the beginning again. Now tell me where you went when the fire broke out.”
I sighed. “Over to the fire, like everybody else in town.”
“I mean exactly where were you? In back of the building? In front? Out in the street along the side? Where?”
“In front,” I said. “Where the fire-truck was.”
“Well, how do you account for the fact that out of over a hundred people I’ve talked to who were jammed around that fire truck, not one of ’em saw you? I mean, until nearly thirty minutes later, when you made a big show of yourself? Were you hiding behind something?”
“There was a building burning down,” I said. “It’s just possible they were looking at that.”
“All right,” he said. “We’ll disregard that for the moment. What I want to do right now is clear up a little point that’s been bothering me from the first. You were there, you say. Right by the fire-engine all the time. And we know you’re a hero, just aching to get in there and help. Tate’s already testified to that—how you grabbed the hose and made a grandstand play in front of the whole crowd, after the bank was robbed. Now what I’d like to find out—and the thing that’s going to interest the jury—is why you were so bashful about offering to help during the first few minutes, when you really could have done something. You know what I mean, don’t you? But sure you do. You were there. You admit it yourself.”
He paused, with a little smile around his mouth again, looking like a cat getting ready to pounce. I couldn’t do anything but wait for it and pray I’d have the answer.
“Now we know you were there. And that you were dying to help. All right.” He swung around and pointed the cigar at me and lashed out, “So what was holding you back when that woman became hysterical and started screaming that her little boy was missing and wanted somebody to go in the building and look for him? Why didn’t you step up? Were you afraid to go in there? Or you just hadn’t made up your mind to be a hero yet? Like hell! I’ll tell you why—it was because you weren’t even there, and you know it. Don’t you?”
I opened my mouth. And then I stopped. I could smell it. It was a trap. He’d left the door open too invitingly. But, I thought in an agony of indecision, what if I was wrong? If I said the wrong thing he had me nailed right to the cross. But I had to say something. I took a deep breath and plunged.
“Look,” I said. “I was there the whole time, and I didn’t even hear any hysterical woman.”
I could see it on his face before he wiped it off. I’d guessed it right. But how about the next one, and the one after that, and the one two days from now?
He’d just started to tear into me again when the telephone rang. He walked over and picked it up.
The room was very quiet. “Yes?” he said. “Speaking”—“Where?”—“Oh, sure. Sure”—“You’re certain of it?” He was staring at me, frowning. “You’re positive of that? And the time?”—”Yes—three blocks, it wouldn’t take any longer than that. No, in that case, there couldn’t be any doubt of it. All right. Thanks.” He hung up.
Suddenly, he looked tired. I waited, almost afraid to breathe. Who was it? What had he said? I wanted to jump up and shake it out of him. He looked at Tate and shook his head wearily, a baffled expression in his eyes.
“That was George Harshaw,” he said. “Calling from Galveston. He read about it in the papers. And he says Madox was definitely at the fire the whole time.”
Tate was puzzled, too. “Harshaw? I don’t remember seeing him there. I think I saw her—”
“That’s right. It wasn’t George that saw him. It was Mrs. Harshaw. She saw him drive up and get out of his car just as she got there. And it was less than five minutes after the fire broke out.”
12
THAT WAS ALL THERE WAS to it. They had to let me go. I saw his face as he told Tate to give me a lift back to Lander and it had the expression of a mathematician who’d just seen it proved that two times three is five, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it. If Dolores Harshaw had seen me there at the beginning he had no case, and he knew it.
“I’m sorry, Madox,” he said stiffly. “There wasn’t anything personal about it. I’d have picked up my own brother on the same evidence.”
“What the hell,” I said. “It’s a job, like selling cars. I’ll tell you one thing, though. If I ever go into the bank-robbing business, I’ll move out of your county.”
He stared at me thoughtfully. “Yeah. Do that, will you.”
Tate was silent as we drove back to Lander, and I didn’t feel like talking either. My mind was too numb to handle anything except the fact that I was free. It was dark by the time we got to town and Tate dropped me off at the rooming house.
I got out. “Thanks,” I said. “So long.”
“I’ll see you.” He lifted his hand and drove off.
I wanted to see Gloria Harper. I’d take a shower and change clothes, and then I’d call her. I’d take her to dinner at the restaurant. We’d go riding somewhere. I didn’t do any of it. When I got in the shower and the warm water hit me I began to dissolve like a cake of yeast. I hadn’t known how bad the pressure really was or how tight I’d been until it started to let go. The reaction unloaded on me, and I just made it into bed before I quit operating.
I awoke sometime before dawn and sat straight up in bed, staring. Who was free? Supposing for a minute that that Sheriff was naïve enough to buy something that easily, which he wasn’t—just what was Dolores Harshaw selling?
I was still his Number One boy as far as he was concerned, and if I dug up the money and tried to leave the country I’d be picked up before I got out of the state. Maybe he’d just pretended to believe her so I’d try it.
And that still
left her. What did she want?
After a while I dressed and went downtown. Only a few people were on the street. The waitress did a double take when I came into the restaurant, and I knew a lot of people were going to be surprised to see me around here again. I ordered some breakfast, and stared at the Houston paper without seeing it.
Why had she done it? She’d said she had seen me there at the fire a few minutes after it broke out when she knew damned well she hadn’t; she also knew something else none of the rest of them did—that I’d been inside that building and knew what a firetrap it was. Maybe she had some ideas of her own. I gave it up and went out into the street. There was no use knocking myself out worrying about it; I had a hunch I’d be seeing her soon enough.
Gulick was opening the office. He seemed glad to see me.
“Did they find out who did it?” he asked awkwardly.
I went in and sat down on a desk where I could watch the loan office across the street. “No,” I said. “I don’t think so. They had some kind of pipe dream I was the one until we finally got it straightened out that I was at the fire.”
He fidgeted, looking down at his shoes. “I know,” he said unhappily. “They were here Saturday, asking about you. I told ’em just what happened as well as I could remember. I hope you don’t think I had any idea like that—”
“Of course not,” I said. “How was business?”
He looked a little more cheerful. “Good. The paper came out yesterday, with the ad. A lot of people have been in.”
“Excuse me,” I broke in. “I’ll be back in a minute.” She was coming along the sidewalk on the other side of the street, very fresh and lovely in the early morning sunlight. When she saw me crossing towards her she stopped, shyness and confusion and a very warm sort of happiness all mixed up in her face.
I came up and took her arm. She was still looking up at me. “Hello,” I said.
“Are you all right, Harry?” she asked eagerly. “I mean, is everything all right? I’ve been half crazy. Nobody knew anything, and I couldn’t find out anything.”
“It’s all right now,” I said. “It was just a mistake. We got it straightened out.” Somehow, the lies didn’t seem to matter. I wasn’t really lying, not about anything between the two of us. I was just protecting her from something she had no connection with and which would hurt her if she knew the truth.
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