Black Curtain (20 page)

On his feet again, he looked around. The Diedrich house was in the background, with interlocking circles like big white poker chips backed up against it by the reflector lights. An occasional whiff of pungent smoke drifted over from it on the breeze. There were people and apparatus standing around on the lawn. Life-giving apparatus and smoke-fighting apparatus. Cars galore, all run off the driveway and parked on the sod at various angles. There was an ominous-looking chassis with its back standing open. A small crowd around were watching something on a slab being pushed into it. Something covered up, with two peaks at one end that suggested uptilted shoes. A helmeted head appeared at one of the upper windows and threw something out on the ground below. The place was alive with activity.

They started to walk him, Ames on one side of him, a deputy of some kind on the other, giving him a hand with his footwork.

Townsend asked the question that he'd been thinking since his awakening. "What happened to the girl?" he said. He tried hard to keep his voice calm.

Ames gave his expressionless face a slight shake.

"He got her, didn't he? I heard the shot through the smoke."

Ames gave his face a dip this time.

Townsend savagely mouthed a short paternoster of damnation.

The face beside him said with characteristic taciturnity, "Save your breath. He's been fumigated, the way rats should be."

Townsend said, "She was a great kid. Without her--" His voice trailed off, and the three men said nothing more.

A group just ahead shifted aside to admit them as they came up. He could see another of those flat, covered-up things on the ground at their feet. The same chassis that had swallowed the first slab was backing up to pick up this one.

"Who's this--Ruth?" he faltered.

"No, we've got her down in the village already. This is the guy that saved your life."

"I don't get it. Who's that?"

Ames squatted down, tipped back the edge of the tarpaulin. "The guy that gave up his, for yours."

"The old man!" Townsend said contritely. "I forgot him for a minute! So he went too."

The rigid straitjacket of his disability had been obliterated by death. He looked like any other man in death. They'd closed the eyes, and the face looked placid, satisfied, yes almost triumphant.

Townsend looked down in silence. What was there to say?

"Did you know he'd retained a slight use of one hand, the right?" Ames said.

"Yes, I caught on to that. But only by accident, a couple of days ago, when she had him over at the shack with me. It wasn't much, he didn't have the full use of it by any means. He could turn back a couple of the fingers a little, and pivot slightly from the elbow, that was all."

"That was enough. Enough for him to get hold of a weapon."

"A weapon?" Townsend turned and looked at the detective.

"That's what it amounted to. The only kind of weapon -he- could handle. An ordinary, everyday, sulphur-tipped kitchen match. What d'you suppose all that smoke was, spontaneous combustion? There must have been a box of them within reach somewhere, on the edge of the range maybe, like in most kitchens. I guess he was wheeled in there at times and his chair accidentally left standing close to it. And each time he stole one or two of those matches. God knows what he thought he'd do with them."

Townsend said, "He had good ideas."

Ames shrugged and said, "He clawed a little rent in the mattress under him. It must have taken him a hell of a time. We found it stuffed with charred matchsticks when we carried it out into the open just now. It tells the story. He faced that death, not the easiest kind there is, to try to attract attention from the highway in time to save you. It wasn't much of a chance but it was the only one he had, and he was willing to take it."

"He did save me," Townsend said. "Even my own message would have gotten you here too late. Diedrich would have still had time to put a shot into me. It was the smoke, and not you fellows, that dropped him. As a matter of fact, he did hold out long enough to snap one at me, but he was too far gone by that time to aim straight. I think it went into the back of the chair."

"Was it you sent in that tip that if we wanted the killer of Harry Diedrich to close in here no later than quarter to ten tonight?"

"That was me," Townsend said dryly. "And if you've got any doubts, I asked to speak to you yourself, and you tripped over something getting to the phone. I heard it over the open wire. The foot of a chair or a desk, something like that."

"It was you," Ames conceded.

"I couldn't time it any closer than I did. If I'd gotten you here too soon, they would have pulled their punches, it would have been your hands I'd have been walking into, not theirs. They would have been just innocent third parties to the arrest of a wanted murderer in their house. If I timed it too late--bingo, you saw what nearly happened. It was a gamble, and I took it, and I lost. Only he called off my bet and gave it to me back."

"How'd you know they'd play into your hands, at just such and such a time tonight?"

"I got a decoy note from them, supposed to come from the girl. They'd caught on a few days ago I was hiding out around here. They didn't want me turned in alive--because they knew damn well I hadn't killed Harry Diedrich; they had. So they tied up the girl and then laid a trap for me. I caught right onto it, and I walked right into it of my own accord--with just the slight variation of tipping you people off about coming out here."

"Well, you sure played hob with the dame's timing," Ames admitted. "We were already on our way out here when she started in to get us. We met her a little below the Struthers house. For a person in search of help, she didn't seem too happy about meeting us. She went into her spiel anyway and she took a hell of a time telling us. She was so damn explicit, that was the trouble. Too damn explicit. We were going to find you both dead. She was sure of it. He'd had to, in self-defense. She even gave us the sound track on it. 'Are you all right, Bill?' 'I've killed them, Alma. Look, I've killed them both. They're both dead here on the floor. You better go out and get the police.'

Townsend said, "I saw them planning it."

"The only trouble was, there was a slight discrepancy when we got here. She seemed to have gotten the cart before the horse." He came pretty close to smiling, which wasn't close. "Some people from a passing car had broken the windows and gotten you out by the time we got here. You were certainly not dead, even if the girl was. The give away was that you were both still trussed up hand and foot. They'd had to carry you out, chair and all, to save time. Self-defense can be stretched out pretty far at times. But tying two people up first and -then- shooting them to protect yourself is stretching it too far. And then, when we'd gotten the smoke out and looked around, a couple of other little things turned up. F'rinstance, this. Above all, this."

He took out the chart of fire angles and death positions Diedrich had tacked onto the desk front. "Guys that shoot in self-defense don't usually have time to draw pictures of it ahead of time."

Townsend said: "I suppose you still think I killed Harry Diedrich?"

"As a matter of fact, I don't, after what happened out here tonight. But," the detective let him know, "what I personally think or don't think has got nothing to do with it. There are charges outstanding against you, there's a warrant out for you, and if you didn't---have you any proof you didn't?- That's what you're gonna need. I'm just the arresting officer in the case."

"Yes. I've got proof. Solid. Twofold. I've got an eyewitness account."

"An eyewitness! You were alone in the house with him--"

"Oh, no I wasn't! Aren't you forgetting--?" He nodded down toward the still form at their feet.

"-Him?-" The detective gave a start. "Now wait a minute--"

"His eyes were all right, weren't they? His chair was in that side sitting room the whole time that afternoon, wasn't it? He couldn't see in a straight line into the sun parlor, because, for one thing, the doors were closed. But he could hear everything. And he could see whoever went in there and came out, couldn't he?"

"Suppose he could--and did? He's dead now. And even if he weren't, he couldn't speak a word, his tongue was paralyzed along with the rest of him. How'd you get it out of him?"

"Go back to that shack where Ruth hid me out. Count back six. floor boards from the door sill. Pull the sixth one up, it's loosened. In the trough under it you'll find a pad and a wad of loose scratch paper. That's his testimony, taken down by me at first hand."

"How?" said the detective skeptically. "By mental telepathy?"

"Through the eyes. In ordinary Morse Code, the way they tap out messages in every telegraph office in the country. A short blink was a dot, a long blink was a dash."

Ames said, "Well I'll be--! Why the hell didn't he try a little of that on me when I was out here working on the thing at the time?"

"You mean why the hell didn't you keep watching him long enough to figure it out for yourself. He practically broke his heart winking at you every time you came near him, he says so himself in his account, and you wouldn't stand still in one place long enough to dope it out. You probably just took it for part of his sickness."

"Yeah," Ames admitted, lowering his head thoughtfully, "something like that. And what's the second proof you said you've got?"

"I'll show you that. I'll let you see it for yourself. I'll show you that around midday tomorrow, weather permitting."

Two men came forward to pick up the inanimate form lying there on the ground under the tarpaulin, put it in the back of the death wagon.

"Wait a minute," Townsend intervened, "let me say good-by to him first." He motioned to them. "We had a special way of talking together. It isn't usually heard at a time like this, it might shock you, but I want to sign off in the way he'd want."

Ames hitched his head and they wandered off a short distance, stood there looking over at him.

The man that had been Dan Nearing gazed down at the still face on the ground before him. Ames could hear his voice in a steady murmur. Only the last sentence was loud enough for words to be distinguished. "This is your friend Danny, saying thanks--and so long."

23

The weather permitted. It was bright and hot and still.

The place, drowsing in the sun, already had a deceptively somnolent air about it, as though all that had happened there had long been forgotten.

A cop posted at the door to keep away curiosity mongers was the only incongruous note. He rose from a rocker he'd dragged outside and settled himself again as the official car came into sight.

Townsend walked in first, Ames beside him, the others behind them.

They opened the doors of the sun porch, went in. It was full of dust motes dancing in the air.

Townsend said, "This is where Harry Diedrich was killed. I'll show you just how it was done, by Bill and Alma Diedrich, his brother and his wife, while they were miles from the house.

Ames folded his arms, tapped his fingers on his biceps, with an air of saying, "Go ahead, that's what I'm here for."

"It's just the way it was that day. Wicker settee, low tiled-top stand opposite it they used to stand plants on when this was used as a conservatory. I'd like to have something to mark the place of Harry Diedrich on this settee. It isn't really necessary, but it might help to have the whole picture."

"All right, one of the fellows here will--" Ames started to say.

"I think it better be something inanimate, unless you want to be minus a member of your force."

One of them brought in a medium-sized, glassdomed table lamp, stood it upright against the back of the settee. The greater part of the dome topped this, showed above it.

"That'll be about the right height," Townsend said.

"He came in here every day immediately after lunch and napped for about an hour. All right, that's him there. He's in here for his nap now, legs comfortably spread out along the settee, head showing above it in that corner. He slept with those dark-blue shades all drawn full length, to keep the light out of his eyes."

"D'you want 'em down?" Ames grunted.

Townsend smiled a little. "We want the whole picture."

One of the men got busy.

Townsend said, "I want you to keep your eyes on this tile-topped stand as the place darkens up."

It went down the chromatic scale, as shade after shade was drawn. Brilliant yellow white to yellow green, to greenish blue, to indigo. On the table, with every eye drawn to it, a diamond-shaped scar of livid light had leaped to life, cast by a matching rent in the shade above.

It wasn't the only one of its kind. The shades were frayed and threadbare in places, they'd been up a long time. All over the inward gloom they cast, on floor and table and wicker furniture, was a vague pattern of streaks and dabs and curlicues of reflected faults, like a sort of arrested rain of light. But the diamond-shaped scar was the most distinct, the largest. It was the only one of that particular clean-cut shape. So clean cut it might almost have been scissored out.

Townsend said, "He's in here napping and the shades are down now. He's in a deeper sleep than usual that day. The old man figured he'd been doped, just enough to make him sleep sound.