by Craig Rice
“No, thank you.” She smiled at him, her great dark eyes two blank curtains. “I’d like it very much, but”—she consulted her wrist watch—“it’s quarter of three now, and I’m meeting my husband down in the Loop at four.” She nodded to him graciously and went down the street.
Jake lit a cigarette and stood looking after her.
“I’m Jake Justus,” he said again, out loud this time. “How do you feel?” He drew a long breath and answered, “I feel fine.” It didn’t sound convincing.
“I’m looking for my husband’s grave.” “I’m meeting my husband down in the Loop at four.”
The grave had been there, and Editha Venning appeared sane, more sane than Jake felt at the moment.
He wondered if he ought to go back and tell Andy Ahearn about it. This was in his jurisdiction. But that wouldn’t do any good. There was no law against digging a hole in the ground, even if that hole was in the shape of a grave.
Perhaps the person to tell would be Michael Venning himself. Still, it would be a rather delicate subject to broach. “Look here, old man, did you know your grave had been dug?” Anyway, what good would that do? Unless Venning might want to go out and shovel the dirt back again. True, the man ought to be warned, but of what, and how? For a mad moment Jake considered sending an anonymous note, signed “Your Friend,” or “Well-wisher.” Something like: “Dear Mr. Venning. Your grave is waiting for you—” Venning would undoubtedly think it was a crank letter. And no wonder, Jake decided. Men as wealthy as Venning were always getting warning notes.
Jake decided to do nothing until he had talked it over with Malone.
Before he left Maple Park, however, there was one thing he wanted to do. He wanted to take one more look at those footprints in the woods.
Jake dropped his cigarette in the snow, again walked around the old Venning house, and crossed the lawn leading to the woods. A cold wind had come up from the lake, and a few drops of rain were beginning to fall. For a moment he considered giving it up and turning back. Oh well, it wouldn’t take long to find out where those footprints led.
He followed the path to the point where the footprints first appeared. From this point on, they led to the open grave that was hidden in the bushes. They had been made since the snowfall, but they had been there several days at least, and through several of the intermittent rains.
He bent down and examined them. They were a man’s prints, large ones, made by some kind of heavy shoe, probably a sports shoe. A bloodhound could make a lot more out of them than he could, Jake thought, but he looked at them closely. They were deep prints, evidently a heavy man. Tall, too, if the size of his feet were any indication.
Now, to find out where they led. He stood up, brushing the snow from his knees, anl looked around him. This would be a hell of a time to get lost in the woods. There was the path, leading back toward the lawn, and there were the footprints, plus Editha Venning’s and his own, leading toward the open grave. From this point on the mysterious footprints had traveled on another path, leading along the wall that separated this from the McClane estate.
Jake asked himself crossly just what the devil he expected to find out from those footprints anyway. Probably they led to the main road, or to a gate, or to some other place that wouldn’t tell him a thing. If they did lead to a house, or a garage, or some spot where a car had been parked, he would still be in the dark. Besides, his shoes were uncomfortably full of snow, and he was getting damnably cold. He was sick of playing games by himself.
No, he’d come this far, he might as well go on. He hated to quit on such an inconclusive note.
This path was narrower than the other had been and not so well cleared. Clumps of weed and bramble, half buried in the snow, caught at his ankles; wet branches brushed against his face. One particularly obnoxious branch, evidently taking a personal dislike to him, snatched the hat from his head, and Jake picked it out of the snow, swearing indignantly. Whoever the guy was who had made those footprints, Jake didn’t like him.
Perhaps he’d lose sight of the footprints and get lost in the woods. People did, sometimes. The woods on the Venning estate were only about a half-mile square, but that would be enough, neglected and tangled as they were. He might get somewhere in the center of them and begin going around in a circle. It would get dark after a while, and colder. He’d wander around for hours, trying to find his way out, and at last he’d lie down in the snow to go to sleep, and freeze there. He wondered if the robins would come and cover him over with leaves. No, it was the wrong season for robins. They’d find him in the spring, right where he’d gone to sleep.
He wondered if Helene would be sorry. She’d make a beautiful widow, though. Ex-widow, he thought sadly.
The path followed the wall for a long way. As long as he kept sight of that wall, Jake told himself, he was all right. Then another cluster of bushes barred his way, and when he had pushed it aside he found that the path had led him to a little opening in the wall.
He stepped through it and found that he was back on the McClane grounds again. There were more woods on this side of the wall, the opening was right at the edge of them. On one hand, what were probably the kitchen gardens stretched up toward the high iron fence that bordered the McClane estate; beyond them he could see the house itself. On the other side, the woods stretched away in the direction of the lake, better tended than those on the other side of the wall, but still dark and thick and mysterious. The footprints led into them.
Jake stood a moment, deciding what to do next. He could see the gate that led to the street up there beyond the kitchen gardens; right now it looked wonderfully inviting. But those footprints might lead to almost anything, even an explanation of the unoccupied grave.
Without warning, while he stood there, the sound of a shot rang out; he heard the soft plop of a bullet in the snow near him. Instinctively he threw himself on his face and looked cautiously around.
The bullet had come from the direction of the woods into which those footprints led.
Jake lay there in the snow for a minute, thinking it over. Someone shooting at birds, or squirrels, or rabbits, or whatever kind of fauna might inhabit Maple Park. Mona McClane’s caretaker, most likely.
He began to get up very slowly and cautiously.
He was halfway to his feet when he heard another shot. This time the bullet made an unpleasant singing noise as it passed his ear. Jake had a vague notion that he had probably overtaken and passed the bullet as he ran for the opening in the wall.
Rabbits, hell!
Someone was shooting at him, and someone who was a damned good shot. To scare him away, of course. No, not to scare him away! There was another shot as he dived through the opening in the wall and raced back along the path.
Jake had never had any idea a human being could get through a patch of woodland so fast. At the dividing point of the path he caught his breath. He had an uncomfortable premonition that whoever had fired at him had taken up the trail. In that case, that broad expanse of pure white lawn beyond the woods would make him a perfect target for even a poor shot.
He continued his flight, following the path in the direction of the open grave. What he would do when he got to the end of it would be decided on later. He was concerned now only with getting far away from the source of those shots as fast as possible.
He raced on through the woods, shoving twigs and branches aside as he passed. As he reached the ring of bushes surrounding the open grave, he dived into the opening, realizing only when he was halfway through that someone was in the clearing.
Breathless and panting, he gathered all his strength for a flying tackle at the figure in the clearing, with a blind hope of bringing it to earth before another shot could be fired. In one flash it had occurred to him that his mysterious enemy had reached the clearing by another route.
There was a brief, frantic struggle in the snow. Suddenly Jake felt himself falling. Blindly he clutched his assailant as he fell, rolling, tumbling, crashing,
down into the depths of the empty grave.
For a moment both were still. Then Jake reached to brush the snow from his eyes and said loudly, “If you move, I’ll strangle you.”
“I won’t move,” said a small voice.
Jake sat bolt upright in Michael Venning’s grave, forgetting that someone out there in the woods might still be shooting at him, and stared incredulously into the wide blue eyes of Helene Brand Justus.
Chapter Sixteen
“Thank God!” Jake said soulfully, blowing the snow out of his mouth. “You know the neighborhood,” he added unromantically. “Is there any way to get out of this place without going back the way I came?” He began climbing cautiously up to ground level.
“Yes. Straight ahead through the woods. Forest Avenue is on the other side of the wall. But why—”
“Come on, then. What the hell are you waiting for?”
He hauled her out of the excavation, grabbed her arm, and started through the woods.
“But Jake—”
“This is no time to be Professor Quiz,” he told her grimly.
The path beyond the empty grave had not been used for a long time. Now, covered with snow, it was little more than a space between the trees. Jake followed it as best he could, helping Helene over roots and branches, swearing at unfriendly stones that tried to trip him. Halfway to the wall he paused, listening.
“Jake—why—”
“Shut up!” he said in a fierce whisper. “Do you hear anything?”
From somewhere in the distance they could hear the faint sounds of someone pushing through bushes.
“We’re getting out of here!”
He half dragged her the remaining distance to the wall. There, with the help of a few rocks and a convenient tree, he scrambled to the top, pulled her up beside him, jumped down on the other side, and helped her to the sidewalk. For a moment he stood leaning against the wall, catching his breath. There was something wonderfully reassuring about the sight of paved streets and lampposts, sidewalks and distant houses, after those haunted woods.
Heavy snow was beginning to fall, in great, soft, feathery flakes. It looked as though it might go on falling for a long time.
“Damn it,” Jake said bitterly, “that snow is going to cover everything. It’s covering up the footprints and it’s probably going to fill in the grave. Now we’ll never be able to find out where those footprints led or where that guy was.”
“You’re feeling all right, aren’t you?” Helene asked, in a soothing voice.
“No. I feel terrible. And I wasn’t mistaken for a rabbit, either. It was me. He was shooting at me. Because of Michael Venning’s grave.”
“You’ve been drinking,” Helene said.
“Not yet,” Jake said wildly, “but I’m sure as hell starting in as soon as I can find a bar.” He glared at her as though it were all her fault. “It made me sore when that bastard started shooting at me. I don’t like it.”
“Who was shooting at you?”
“I don’t know,” Jake roared, “and now that it’s started snowing again, I probably never will know. But whoever the—”
He broke off suddenly and stared at her, seeing her for the first time.
“And what the hell are you doing here?”
“I followed Editha Venning. She—”
“That’s not what I mean. You’re supposed to be in Havana.”
“You’re supposed to be in Bermuda.”
“Well, I’m not. I came back here to win that bet with Mona McClane.”
“So did I.”
Jake stared at her, speechless. She seemed pale and very tired. A small, close-fitting cap of some clipped dark-brown fur that matched her loose, big-pocketed coat, framed her small, delicate face.
“Look here,” he said suddenly, “this is no time to talk. When does the next North Shore train start back to civilization?”
She consulted a schedule taken from her purse. “Three-forty-seven.”
He looked at his watch. “It’s three-forty-three right now. I hope to heaven it isn’t far.”
“A couple of blocks. Right down Forest Avenue and—”
He grabbed her hand. “Don’t stand there talking about it. Come on.”
They raced down Forest Avenue through the gently falling snow, wheeled left for the last block to the North Shore station, and covered it in a final sprint.
Just as Jake piloted her down the cindered path leading to the track crossing and over to the other side, they could hear bells clanging as the pedestrian gates began to swing shut. In the distance the rattling two-car suburban limited hurled itself at the station, trying to look as much as possible like a crack streamliner.
As Jake started for the edge of the platform, Helene caught at his arm and pulled him back behind the shelter of the little group of suburbanites waiting to take the train.
“Jake! Look there!”
He saw a tallish, heavy-set woman in a navy-blue reefer coat, a small, flowered felt sailor set slightly awry on her head. Her broad face was set in grim, determined lines, her small eyes seemed to be trying to peer everywhere at once. In spite of the hat, there was nothing even remotely comic about her.
“I see her, but who is she?”
“Editha Venning’s companion—Louella White. Don’t let her see us.”
Louella White. He remembered Malone’s description of her, and peered over the sealskin shoulder of a Maple Park matron for a second look. It didn’t make him like her any better than the first one had.
Helene said breathlessly, “This morning at Mona’s I was trying to watch everybody at once. I had an idea Editha Venning was trying to get off somewhere on her own, and kept my eye on her, but I had a dirty feeling everybody else was keeping an eye on her too.”
“What were you doing at Mona McClane’s?”
“Never mind. Anyway, Editha got away downtown, saying she was going to the oculist. I made some excuse and went after her, and I have a hunch this marble-map companion did, too. But I know she lost the companion before we got down to the Loop. She headed right for the North Shore station at Adams Street, and so did I, but I got snagged up in traffic and when my cab dumped me at the door, she had already bought a ticket and was halfway up the stairs. I got up to the platform just in time to see her grab a train, but not in time to catch the same one. I knew she must be coming out here, so I waited thirty minutes for the next train and came on out myself.”
“But why did—” Jake began.
He was interrupted by the noisy arrival of the Shoreline special, halting abruptly before the platform with all the self-importance of a midget coming onstage in a silk bat. In the ensuing confusion of passengers getting on and off, Jake managed to keep an eye on Louella White, and saw that she got onto the second car. He carefully steered Helene in the direction of the first one and led her up to the smoking compartment in the very front.
“I don’t think she saw us.”
The train started with a jerk and began hurtling down the track. The smoking compartment was deserted save for an elderly drunk sleeping in one corner and a uniformed young man deep in a movie magazine.
Jake took off his hat, brushed the snow from the brim, mopped his brow, and put it on again. He took out a cigarette, lit it very leisurely and deliberately, and took a long, slow drag on it. Then he settled back in his seat and fixed his eyes on Helene.
“Darling,” he said, “are you an unidentified corpse?”
Helene said sadly, “Do I look that bad?”
“You look wonderful. Only Malone sent me out to Blake County hunting a corpse, and look what I found.”
“I’m sorry to disappoint you.” Helene’s voice was wistful. “Now what are you going to do?”
“Two things,” Jake said firmly. “First I’m going to shock the pants off the rest of the passengers here, and don’t ask me how. Second, I’m going to find Malone and knock his block off.”
Helene smiled. “Malone can wait. And it looks to me as tho
ugh these passengers would love to be shocked.”
Chapter Seventeen
Malone stirred uncomfortably, opened one eye in the direction of the window, shut it quickly, muttered something incoherent about someone named Macbeth and the murder of sleep, and dozed off again.
A few minutes later he opened both eyes, groaned, saw that the light in his room was a deep, melancholy gray, and reached for the watch on the table beside him.
Just a little past four o’clock.
A hell of a time to wake up.
He buried his face in his arm and pretended that if he kept his eyes closed long enough, he would automatically drop off again, and when he opened them once more it would be hours and hours later.
It didn’t work.
At last he gave it up, sat up, and scratched his face meditatively. He wondered why he had gone to sleep with all his clothes on. For that matter, he wondered why he had gone to sleep in the chair.
Besides, who was sleeping in his bed? Some guy—
Ross McLaurin.
It wasn’t four in the morning, it was four in the afternoon.
That light from the window was darkened by falling snow, not by the shadows of dawn.
He moved experimentally. One arm and part of one leg were paralyzed, probably for life. Outside of that, he felt fine, except that apparently while he slept some practical joker had come in and glued his tongue to the roof of his mouth.
Maybe with a little patience he could go back to sleep again, or better yet, just die peacefully.
Five minutes later he decided to give it up.
Where was Helene? Where was Jake? Something should have happened since morning. He reached for the telephone and called the McClane number. The maid told him that Helene had not been heard from since she left the house after breakfast. He called Jake’s apartment hotel and was told that Mr. Justus had not come in. There were no messages for him at the desk downstairs.
He rose slowly and uncomfortably from his chair and examined Ross McLaurin. The young man still slept, peacefully and contentedly as a child.
