Through the wall to the room next door, they could distinctly hear a startled curse.
Grinning, Dan moved the bed back in place while the girl regarded him open-mouthed. “Just mark it up that I’m crazy,” he said. “Got a car?”
She shook her head.
“Then we’ll rent one. It’s twenty miles to the state prison, and I want to visit Gene Robinson.”
Crossing to the phone, he called the state capitol and arranged for permission to visit the prisoner in death row. The assistant state’s attorney said he would phone the warden immediately, so that Dan and Adele would be expected when they arrived.
The red tape disposed of, they walked three blocks to the nearest car rental, where Dan managed to obtain a 1948 Buick that seemed to be in excellent condition.
As they pulled away from the garage, Dan said casually, “Don’t look around, but we’re being followed.”
Adele caught her breath. In spite of the warning, she half turned, but settled front again when the big man frowned at her.
“Big Jim?” she asked.
“Not personally. Probably a stooge. A short, heavy-set man in a plaid suit. Bald-headed. Looks like a salesman. I thought I noticed him watching us when we crossed the hotel lobby. He rented a Lincoln and pulled out right behind us.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Nothing,” Dan said. “Let him follow.”
During the twenty mile trip to the state prison, Dan made no attempt to shake the Lincoln, but kept his car at an even fifty-five most of the way, and dropping to forty over the short stretch of mountain road marking the halfway point. In the rearview mirror he could see the other car maintained an even hundred yard interval. But when they stopped before the prison gates, the Lincoln rolled on past without slackening speed. Seconds later a battered sedan driven by a little man in a worn seersucker suit flashed by in the wake of the Lincoln.
As the assistant state’s attorney had promised, the warden was expecting them. Greeting them courteously, he turned them over to the assistant warden, who in turn left them with the chief guard in that section of the prison containing the death house. Here Dan was relieved of his gun before he and Adele were led hack to the somber death row.
The long corridor leading to the execution chamber contained four cells, but only one was occupied. Gene Robinson lay on a hunk reading the Saturday Review of Literature, while immediately outside his cell a yawning suicide guard sat on a straight-backed chair trying to keep awake.
Robinson was a slim, graceful man with even, almost pretty features and a pencilline mustache. He had the longest eyelashes Dan Fancy had ever seen on a man.
When he saw Adele, he smiled a dazzling white smile, rose from his bunk and said, “Hello, dear. It was good of you to come.”
Like welcoming her to a tea, Fancy thought. He waited while Adele offered a dutiful kiss through the bars, and frowned slightly when the condemned man accepted the offer with a reserved reluctance indicating he considered it not quite in good taste to demonstrate affection in front of strangers.
Gene Robinson was a curious man. He seemed not in the slightest degree worried, and his manners were impeccably correct.
“My name is Dan Fancy,” the big man rumbled. “I’m a private investigator, and I’ve been engaged to get you out of this spot.”
Robinson raised one eyebrow. “By whom, please?”
“Your father.”
The young man’s teeth continued to glitter, but the welcome was gone from his smile. “I don’t accept help from my father, Mr. Fancy. I’m afraid I can’t use you.”
Dan moved one big hand impatiently. “Your old man told me all about that. He doesn’t expect any thanks.”
“Then he didn’t tell you enough. I’m sorry you’ve been troubled, Mr. Fancy, but you’re wasting your time.”
Turning his attention back to Adele, Robinson ignored the big man. For a moment Dan watched him broodingly.
“Your old man told me enough,” he said finally. “You’ve been a poet by profession, and before that you were an artist, and before that a musical composer. Only you never made a dime at any of those professions, so you took up hairdressing as a sort of substitute art. You like to associate with people who work with their minds.
“You never had any respect for your old man because the money he educated you in Europe on was made in the disgusting business of manufacturing steel. You never let him forget he started out as a day laborer. He was a peasant and you were an aristocrat. Finally when your snobbery got too far under his skin, he kicked you out. When he got over his mad, he asked you back again, with you writing the ticket. But aristocrats don’t accept largess from peasants.”
The big man paused, then went on huskily, “You’re living in a dream world, kid. Aristocrats are mortal, just like people. In seventeen days they’ll strap you in the electric chair. You’ve got your old man crazy enough now with your martyr act. Come awake and start cooperating. I want some questions answered.”
“I’m afraid I don’t like you, Mr. Fancy,” Robinson said frigidly. “Please inform my father I’m quite capable of taking care of myself.”
“Sure you are. Want to bet when they strap you in the chair, you won’t break wide open and start screaming for your father? But then it’ll be too late.”
“Guard!” the condemned man said crisply. “Please take Mr. Fancy away. I don’t wish to talk to him.”
Without waiting for the guard’s reaction, Dan turned and strode toward the barred and locked door of the cell block. As he walked away, he heard Adele say, “Please, Gene. Don’t make things so difficult. All that Mr. Fancy is trying to do is help.”
During the first mile of the ride back the girl was so quiet, Dan realized she was making an effort not to cry.
Finally he said irritably, “The guy is a psycho, you know.”
Startled, she glanced sidewise at him.
“Delusions of grandeur,” Dan said. “Nothing can touch him. A miracle will happen to get him out of his jam at the last minute, and then he won’t owe his dad a thing.” He glowered at the road ahead. “He doesn’t know it, but the miracle is that his old man even bothered to try to help him. I’d let him fry.”
“Don’t say that!” Adele said passionately. “Gene is a fine man. He’s just too proud and stubborn for his own good.”
Dan glanced at her curiously. “How’d he happen to condescend to become engaged to you? You read all the correct books?”
A slow blush diffused her face. “I thought you were so particular about taking advantage of a man in death row.”
“Sorry,” he said tersely, and lapsed into silence.
A mile farther on he remarked, “Our shadow is with us again.”
The girl tensed, but did not look around. “The same man?”
Dan nodded. “Don’t worry about it. Apparently all he wants is to see where we go.”
But when they reached the short stretch of mountain road Dan began to wonder if the Lincoln was solely interested in tailing them, for in the rear-view mirror he could see the gap between the two cars was slowly being closed. When it had decreased from a hundred yards to a hundred feet, he glanced reflectively at the guard rails flashing by at their right, thin wooden rails which in places edged a sheer hundred foot drop.
The next curve, Dan remembered, formed a narrow horseshoe and the bank fell away nearly vertically over a deep chasm. His lips thinned as the Lincoln edged nearer and suddenly started to pass just short of the curve.
Aside from his tightened mouth the big man gave no indication that he even noticed the other car until it came fully abreast. Then suddenly he slammed on the brakes.