I had no time to speculate on what we might find—I was too busy steering a course; but I knew the moment we sighted the roadster and its attached trailer that it was what we hunted. It was parked by the roadside in a lonely spot that offered no apparent reason for stopping, a broad empty meadow stretching away on one side and a wooded hillside sloping sharply up from the road’s edge on the other.
“Queer place to stop,” I said, pulling off the road just ahead of the roadster and applying the brakes, “unless it’s a picnic or a breakdown.”
Merlini had our door open and was out and gone before we stopped rolling. I saw that the driver’s seat was empty, and I heard Merlini knock briskly on the trailer door as I cut the ignition and jumped after him. He waited a moment, knocked again, and then tried the door. It opened, and he stepped in.
He looked around and, as I entered, said, “Nobody home.”
The interior was similar to that of the Major’s trailer, but simpler and without the custom-built features. The table between the two facing seats at the rear had been folded away and the seats pulled out to form a bed. It had been slept in and was still unmade.
Quickly I jerked open one of the two wardrobe doors on my right.
“Looking for something?” Merlini asked.
I looked in the second cupboard. “Bodies,” I said. “Or maybe Joy Pattison. Wouldn’t surprise me.”
The cupboards contained nothing at all but a dozen or so wire coat hangers.
Doubtfully Merlini said, “It could be a breakdown. Suppose you investigate, Ross. Look at the gas gauge, and see if the engine is in running order.”
“That’s a job for you, isn’t it?” I asked. “I can’t pick the ignition lock, and the keys certainly won’t be—”
“They are, though,” he replied. “I saw them on the dashboard. Look for traces of another car alongside, too. We met no one on foot, and the next town’s ten miles on.”
I hurried out. Though lacking bodies, the layout was still promisingly odd. Trailer door unlocked, keys in the dashboard, and, as I discovered at once, an almost full tank of gas and an engine that perked as soon as I put my foot on the starter. I picked up a pair of dark sunglasses that lay on the floor of the car and then examined the roadside. If another car had stopped, it hadn’t left the roadway; the only marks in the soft shoulder that bordered the road were those made by the roadster, the trailer, and our own car.
I went back and found Merlini squatting on his heels contemplating the trailer floor just inside the door. I made my report and exhibited the sunglasses. He nodded in a preoccupied way.
“What do you make of that?” he asked. The linoleum-covered floor was somewhat worn except for a 2x3-foot rectangle that was perceptibly brighter and newer.
I took a closer look. “That’s easy,” I deduced. “A missing rug.” I pointed to several tack holes around the oblong’s edge. “Tacked down to keep it from sliding around en route. Owner leaves car keys but takes rug. Magic carpet maybe. And he flew away on it.”
“She, Ross, not he,” said Merlini. “I found a blond hairpin and some hair combings to match in the waste-basket. When I saw that the wardrobe cupboards were as bare as Mother Hubbard’s, I got nosy. Sinkful of dirty dishes. Orange juice, coffee, buttered toast are indicated. The alarm clock was set for six. There’s a good supply of groceries, a well-stocked refrigerator, plenty of pots, pans, silverware, dishes, bed and table linen. All normal enough. But those drawers beneath the mirror there, where I’d expect to find toilet articles, underwear, and the like, are all quite empty. There’s not a thing in the place that could be called a personal article.” Merlini paused briefly, took a final puff at his cigarette, and dropped it in an ash receiver that stood on the floor near by. “She did more than just step out to borrow a cup of flour. She packed for an extended stay.”
“It’s a Buick roadster,” I said. “A ’35 model. And a Roamer trailer, dark-green paint job. If it hadn’t been so blamed dark on the lot last night, we might know who—” I looked curiously around, wrinkling my nose. I was conscious of a faint disagreeable odor that grew stronger—the smell of burning rubber.
Merlini too sniffed, then pulled open a door beneath the sink and extracted a crumpled square of brown wrapping paper from the built-in trash container on the door’s back. He spread it quickly on the floor, picked up the ash receiver, and started to empty the contents of its neck onto the paper. The still-lighted cigarette butt he had discarded a moment earlier dropped out, but nothing else, although there was a metallic rattle within the ash tray’s base. Merlini turned it right side up again, reached in with two long fingers, and removed the obstruction—a rubber glove.
He reached in again and found another. He upended the ash receiver once more, and this time the contents descended amid a dusty cloud of ash. The receiver was a treasure chest of clues. The metallic object that had rattled proved to be a cheap dime-store glass cutter.
Merlini poked at the remaining debris and collected several torn bits of white paper. One of these he passed across to me. “Clues by the gross,” he said. “No. 1, Extra Fancy, hand-sorted and government inspected. Nothing but the best.”
The scrap of paper was the torn corner of an envelope, and it bore part of a printed return address—The Magic Sh— and below that 1479 Broadw—. It was Merlini’s own business stationery, apparently the envelope in which last night he had placed the fragments of glass that he had found on the floor of the Major’s trailer.
“When that was stolen last night,” I said slowly, “only two women could have known the importance of the evidence it held. Pauline was hors de combat, and Joy—”
From outside, through the open door, came a sound that jolted us both into instant action. I got through the doorway first, just in time to see the stone that had rolled down the hillside come to a stop a dozen feet away.
From above, near the hill’s crest, we could hear the retreating sound of someone running through the brush.
Chapter Ten
Vanishing Lady
I HOTFOOTED IT UP the hill, but by the time I reached its top all sounds of flight had ceased. In his headlong rush my quarry had doubtless left a trail that looked to any self-respecting woodsman like a four-lane highway. But since my natural habitat is Broadway, I made no attempt to locate and follow it, not wanting to put the local Boy Scouts to the trouble of a search for me.
Merlini, slightly more confident, nosed around for 15 or 20 minutes and finally located the tree behind which the hidden watcher had concealed himself. There was one footprint, an impression small enough to have been a woman’s, though it had the appearance of having been made by a male shoe.
“Why the Daniel Boone act?” I asked. “Don’t you think it’s high time we got a little official assistance on this case? We passed a State Trooper’s barracks just outside of Waterboro.”
Merlini shook his head. “Not just yet. But soon. We catch that circus first; there are one or two items I want to check on.”
He returned to the trailer and got the torn envelope, the glass cutter, and the rubber gloves.
Then he said, “Think you can turn this car and trailer here? We’ll take it with us. First town down the line that has a Western Union, I’m stopping off for a minute. You keep going; I’ll catch you.”
We had 70 miles to go; and, though I pushed along as fast as possible, the trailer slowed us so that it was nearly two o’clock when we reached Norwalk.
Merlini pulled in before a garage. “Just to make sure no one tampers with the evidence this time, we’ll park the trailer here.” Then, seeing a hungry look in my eye, he added, “You can eat at the grease joint on the lot.”
“I still think we should send the cops an SOS,” I said as we started for the show grounds. “Joy and Keith will be three states away by the time you get the mounties after them. Aren’t you afraid that, when you do report, the authorities are going to be somewhat annoyed at your procrastination?”
“I expect they will,�
� he said. “But you must remember that we still have no concrete evidence to prove that either the Major’s or Pauline’s accident was anything else. The fact that last night’s evidence was stolen is proof of a sort—but it was stolen. Did you say Joy and Keith?”
“Joy was your candidate last night, wasn’t she? Since she ditched her car and trailer in a spot like that, she must have been met by a car. Keith’s. You said I shouldn’t cross him off just because he started the investigation.”
“Joy, then,” Merlini summed up, “killed the Major, discovered the will she had counted on was either missing or nonexistent, tried to kill Pauline so as to inherit the show, failed, got cold feet this morning and took a powder. That it?”
“You certainly make it sound cold-blooded enough,” I said, not liking the theory at all, but unable to offer any other that would fit as many facts. “I’m only trying to be analytical in the best Merlini manner. Joy and Keith are both without alibis for the Major’s death, and either of them might have swiped the evidence. Whereas Pauline and Mac, the only other two who knew that any evidence had been found, both have alibis as big as a house—damn!”
“Something wrong?”
“Yes. It’s taken me until now to figure out why you said last night that everyone else on the lot has an alibi in the matter of the missing evidence. None of them knew we’d found it.”
Merlini nodded. “You’ve stated it very neatly. Joy and Keith are the only possibilities, with Joy a good length in the lead. If this were fiction, I’d eliminate her immediately as being too suspicious—but it isn’t. What I want to know now is what happened to the pieces of glass that were in that envelope? And to the hat and the photo. They aren’t in the trailer. If they’ve been destroyed, why not do the same with the envelope, the glass cutter, and the gloves? Those things, found together, show that the person who burgled the Major’s trailer and the person who made away with the evidence are one and the same. They also indicate that both the Major’s and Pauline’s accident were caused by the same murderer. Why were they left there? And why, of all places, were they hidden in the ash receiver?”
“What do you mean, ‘of all places’? I thought the ash receiver wasn’t a half-bad hiding spot. You searched with your customary thoroughness and missed them. We found them only by accident.”
“I wonder,” he said. “Would you hide rubber gloves in such a place? I don’t think I would.”
We pulled onto the lot before I had time to give that the thought it deserved. We parked behind the side-show top near several other cars. A gang of half a dozen Negroes moved with unhurried deliberation from stake to stake around the tent tightening up the guy ropes. Their lazy rhythm was timed to the old guying-out chant: “Hit it. Hee—Hoooooo! Heave it… Heavy! Stake it! Break it! Down Stake!”
The big-top band, mellow and resonant because of the intervening canvas, was working on the concert selections that preceded the spec (opening spectacle). As we got out of the car, a spirited black horse galloped toward us from the direction of the back yard. Its rider wore a medieval riding costume of ultramarine blue that was just the proper contrast for the golden hair beneath the tall pointed cap.
“There would seem to be a minor error in your calculations, Ross,” Merlini said. “This looks like Joy.”
“Yes,” I admitted, making some rapid mental readjustments. Then excitedly I said, “It’s Pauline that’s missing! The murderer sidetracked her trailer and this time he—”
“Look before you leap, Ross,” Merlini advised. “The hair samples I found were blond. Pauline’s brunette.”
Joy’s horse reared before us and halted. “I saw you drive in,” she said. “Keith and I have been wondering where you were.”
“We were delayed a bit,” Merlini replied. “Where’s Pauline? Did she go to the hospital?”
“No. She’s here. She exploded when the doctor suggested she do that this morning. She said it would take more than a cut face, a sprained back, and a knock on the head to put her off the lot. Tex drove her over. He wouldn’t let anyone else drive. They just got in.”
“What time did they leave?”
“Six-thirty, when I did. But Tex drove slowly.”
“Are we the last arrivals?” Merlini asked. “Or has anyone else failed to—”
The side wall of the side-show top lifted, and Gus stepped out. “Was that you just pulled in?” he asked.
“Yes,” Merlini answered.
“See anything of a Buick roadster and a green trailer on the way?”
Merlini evaded a direct answer. “Why?” he asked. “Did you mislay one?”
My reputation for prophecy, if I ever had one, was thoroughly discredited; but I knew now before Gus answered what he would say.
“The Headless Lady hasn’t shown up yet. She should have been here a couple of hours ago. Lee Daniels, the side-show manager, is fit to be tied.”
Merlini’s expression was one of polite interest, nothing more. “What time did she leave the Waterboro lot?”
“I dunno.” Gus shook his head. “She was still there when Stella and I pulled out, but—”
“She must have blowed the chalk, Gus,” Joy put in. “I stopped for gas just outside of Waterboro, and she passed me. But I didn’t see her on the road any place. Better have Lee report it to Mac. If she doesn’t show up soon, he can send out a rescue party.”
Gus went back into the side-show tent.
“But I don’t get it,” I said. “The Headless Lady has an alibi.”
“Alibi?” Merlini asked. “For what?”
“Why, for last night, for Pauline’s fall—”
“You mean, she was working?”
“Yes.”
“And what doing? Being headless. How many of the people who saw the act can swear who it was? For that matter”—he turned to Joy—“who is the Headless Lady, anyway?”
“Who?” Joy asked. “Her name’s Mildred Christine. That’s about all I know. She’s only just joined.”
“Yes. I’ve heard that. But I’ve a feeling she may be important. Can’t you tell me anything more than that?”
“That’s all anyone seems to know. She’s damned upstage for a kid-show attraction. She hasn’t eaten in the cookhouse once yet. She cooks all her own meals in her trailer. I don’t think she’s been in the show business long. I never heard of her before.”
“Description? What’s she look like from the neck up?”
“Blond. And without the dark sunglasses she always wears, I think she’d be a looker. I’m afraid that’s not much of a description, but I’ve just barely glimpsed her. As I say, she keeps to herself.”
“Sunglasses that she always wears?”
Joy nodded. “Rain or shine. I think she sleeps in them. There’s the spec music. I’ll have to dash.”
Joy wheeled her horse and cantered off.
“The more we discover, the more interesting it becomes, Ross,” Merlini said.
“You mean, the more we don’t discover, the more— There’s Keith,”
“Where’ve you two been all morning?” he hailed. “Hell’s been popping hereabouts.”
“Hell?” Merlini asked in a startled voice. “What sort?”
“Shakedown,” Keith said. “The local cops were waiting at the city limits this morning. They got difficult about little details like driver’s licenses, noisy mufflers, and the like. They picked up nearly every other driver as fast as they came in, and I raced along just in time to get nabbed for speeding. A dozen of us spent about an hour in the jug until Mac arrived and paid off the Chief of Police. The one in this burg is poison, and I can see where Mac is going to put up an awful beef if we threaten to give him this murder dope.”
“Mac late getting in this morning?”
“Late?” Keith asked. “No, not particularly. He comes over with the ticket wagon, Calamity driving. Why?”
“What made you so late? I thought you were making the jump last night?”
“I intended to, but when I
started to leave, I discovered my jalopy was missing on half its cylinders, so I left the car at a garage overnight. Figured that anyway it was a pretty long jump, and I could make better time by daylight. I didn’t get away as soon as I should have because the desk clerk didn’t call me and I had to wake myself.”
“Did you know that the side show has a very special attraction this afternoon? Something never before seen on land or sea? Might be good for a press release.”
“No. What?”
“A Headless and Bodiless Lady. Her head’s invisible, and now the rest of her is missing. Ross and I found her empty trailer. It would appear that she has lammed. I don’t suppose you know who she is either?”
Keith shook his head, frowning. “No. And I don’t know who does. I asked Mac about her when she joined, but he said he hadn’t the slightest idea. You might try Pauline.”
“I hear she’s able to talk this morning.”
“Yes. What do we do now? Tackle her?”
“I think so. And in the meantime I’ve a job for you. I want to know if anyone besides the Headless Lady is missing this morning. Someone with a car. Would you find out and then hotfoot it around to Pauline’s trailer? We’ll be there.”
Keith asked, “Someone else missing? What, does that mean?”
“Yours not to reason why,” Merlini evaded. “Yours but to get me an answer.”
Keith clicked his heels and saluted. “Aye aye, sir!” He was trying hard to be nonchalant, but it didn’t quite ring true. Beneath it he was worried.
Merlini started off toward the back yard. The spec had just finished, and we stood aside for a few minutes out of the way of the performers as they issued from the big top and scattered to their trailers to make wardrobe changes. The clowns had their props set up against the side wall near the entrance, and were making their changes in the open. One of them was inserting himself into a prop horse, donning the costume in such a way that the horse appeared to be walking on his forefeet, his rump high in the air.
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