“Whatever you call it,” growled Mr. Koss, “it ain’t up our alley. It ain’t got no dignity. Con-work is good enough for me.”
Mr. Longworth puffed blissfully for a moment. His pale blue eyes, dreamy with thought, rested on the broad shoulders of Huckins, the chauffeur.
“We,” he murmured, “would do no actual digging, Mr. Koss. Huckins would do that.”
Otis Koss shook his narrow head. He was about thirty-five, brown-skinned, hard-eyed.
“Naw, Jay — let’s not get mixed up with any stiffs. I knew a guy oncet that was in that business. Know what happened to him?”
“Since I wasn’t acquainted with the gentleman, Mr. Koss, how could I know?”
“He got haunted,” said Otis Koss darkly.
Jay Rutherford Longworth’s gold teeth glinted. “You don’t mean to tell me you believe in ghosts?”
“Well—”
“I didn’t think it of you. Besides, the business I have in mind would be no ordinary job of exhuming and selling a cadaver. That, I agree, is for persons with low mental voltage. For muscle-men like Huckins. My thought in this matter is to dig not for a body — but for what is buried with the body.”
“I don’t get it, Jay. I wish you’d talk American for a change instead of that high-toned gab.”
Jay Rutherford Longworth picked up the folded newspaper that he had been reading, before he launched into conversation. Indicating a news story with a pudgy forefinger, he handed the paper to his companion. The item had evidently been written by the small-town correspondent of the metropolitan paper:
Sioux Creek, Oct. 19. — Love of a banker for his dead wife is responsible for a modern version of a buried treasure story in this rural community.
Jasper Davis, president of the First National Bank of Sioux Creek, ordered that a string of pearls be buried yesterday in his wife’s coffin.
The pearls, which cost $10,000, were given to Mrs. Davis by her husband twenty years ago.
When interviewed by a Beacon correspondent, Mr. Davis verified the rumor that the gems were to be buried with her.
“Nancy was so fond of those pearls.” he said, “that I feel it is only proper that they should be buried with her.”
When asked if this were not an unusual proceeding, Mr. Davis said:
“Well, after all, the Indians used to bury with a warrior his favorite weapon and his trinkets. And I loved Nancy more than any squaw ever loved her brave.”
Otis Koss tossed aside the newspaper. “I don’t,” he declared, “like the idea of messing around graveyards.”
“Ten grand,” said Jay Rutherford Longworth, “is a lot of money for an hour’s work. There’ll be a full moon tonight.”
“Well, where is this Sioux Creek?” Otis Koss said after a moment.
Jay Rutherford took a map from the pocket of the car.
“I thought so,” he murmured. “It’s directly on our route to Omaha. We should reach Sioux Creek in another hour.”
“Yeah, Jay, but we get there, and what do we do?”
“We dig. I mean, Huckins digs.”
“I know, but how we going to know which is the right grave?”
“Graveyards have sextons. You know — a caretaker. A fellow who cuts grass and digs graves. He should be able to tell us.”
“Maybe he won’t.”
Jay Rutherford patted the bulge that an automatic made in his coat pocket.
“And maybe he will.”
“But look, Jay. We’re likely to get caught. Somebody’s sure to catch us—”
“Mr. Koss,” purred Jay Rutherford, “you forget one thing.”
“Yeah?”
“You forget human nature.”
“What’s human nature got to do with it?”
“Most people — and you’re a good example of this — more or less believe in ghosts. They laugh at the idea in the daylight — but when night comes they stay away from cemeteries. It’ll be dusk in an hour... I think we can work without interruption.”
“It’s bad luck to dig open a grave.”
“Ten grand,” Jay Rutherford smiled, “is a lot of money.”
Some people said that old Ira Slater was crazy.
“He’s a little cracked,” they would say. And then they always added, “But who wouldn’t be — with a job like that.”
On that October day, red sunset was surrendering to red moonrise when old Ira heard a car humming up the lonely hill. From the door of the toolshed he squinted at the yew-lined road. A sedan turned into the cemetery, and he hobbled out to meet it.
The chauffeur, a morose chap with an underslung jaw, switched off the motor, and the car listed as a bulky man stepped to the running board from the back seat.
He grabbed Ira Slater’s dangling right paw and shook it vigorously.
“Mighty glad to know you!” he boomed. “My name’s Jay Rutherford Longworth.”
“Howdy do,” Ira intoned in his cracked old voice. He rubbed his fingers. “My name’s Ira Slater.”
“And this,” Jay Rutherford said, “is Mr. Koss. Mr. Otis Koss.”
“Howdy do,” Ira repeated. “What kin I do for you?”
The fat man smiled and roared heartily, “It’s not a question, Mr. Slater, of what you can do for us. It’s what we’re going to do for you. Isn’t that so, Mr. Koss?”
“Truer words than them was never spoke,” Mr. Koss asserted.
Ira cocked his bony head, clamped together his nutcracker mouth and squinted at the strangers.
“I dunno,” he cackled at last. “Folks that say they’re goin’ to do something for you usually turn around an’ do something to you.”
“Come, come, Mr. Slater,” Jay Rutherford boomed. “Life in a peaceful place like this shouldn’t make you so cynical.”
And he gave Ira Slater’s skinny back a friendly slap between the protruding shoulder blades.
“Don’t do that!” Ira exclaimed. “You keep poundin’ my back an’ you’ll be startin’ my neuralgia!”
Jay Rutherford heavily cleared his throat. “Uh — I take it you’re the sexton here, Mr. Slater.”
“Well,” Ira snapped, “I dunno what I’d be hangin’ round here at this hour for if I wasn’t. I been sexton here for thirty years.”
“You dig the graves, then?”
“There ain’t a remains been put in this ground for more’n a quarter century, that I ain’t dug the grave.”
“Uh — you had a funeral here yesterday, didn’t you?”
Ira stroked his white mustache. “One yesterday and one today. Beats all how folks do die. Yes sir, we buried old Wild Jack Perkins today. He was nigh onto a hundred, an’ as a young feller he came out on these prairies an’ fit the Indians... An’ yesterday — yesterday we buried Nancy Davis. Mrs. Jasper Davis, she was. Banker’s wife... Me an’ her was the same age — sixty-seven...”
Jay Rutherford licked his chops and purred in a rich, confidential voice:
“Mr. Slater. We’ve... uh... got a proposition to make to you.”
“That so?”
“Mr. Slater, how would you like to make fifty dollars?”
“Cash money?”
“Cash money.”
“Never knew a feller to pass up a chance to make a big amount like that. What would I have to do?”
“All you’ll have to do is say three words.”
“Three—?”
Jay Rutherford nodded. “Yes sir, Mr. Slater — all you’ll have to do is to say, ‘There it is’.”
“Dern it!” old Ira exclaimed. “Why don’t you come to the point! There what is?”
The fat man turned and beckoned the chauffeur.
“This,” he said, “is Huckins. Huckins will do the digging.”