Hobart glanced at his watch. Six-eight. They’d just get there in time for the funeral. One band left the wheel, came idly to rest on the door latch next to him, in readiness for his own imminent bolt.
Lindquist had gone on chattering blithely about the Harding collection. “I bet if it were appraised it would come to a cool half million. Why, his early British colonials alone—”
He bit the sentence off short. Left it hanging in mid-air as though it had been cut by a knife. Hobart stiffened and the bristles on the back of his neck stood up. He’d seen the collection, this man next to him! Not the fact that he had admitted knowledge of the British colonials (for in the guise of stamp dealer he could have supplied them to Harding and therefore known they were in the collection), but the way he had guiltily stopped short in mid-sentence, choked on what he was saying, gave him away. He had already seen the collection, and yet he had said in the office this afternoon that he hadn’t. That could only mean one thing. He was no stamp expert. At least not the innocent, casual looker-in at Hobart’s office that he pretended to be. He was a decoy, a police spy, a stool-pigeon! He had been employed by Foster to get the goods on him, Hobart. That meant he was already under suspicion, they had their eyes on him.
That changed everything. He mustn’t die. He mustn’t die! Why he. Hobart, was under surveillance right now, must have been every step of the way. The whole thing was a set-up. If he went through with his plan now, they’d have him dead to rights for murder! He’d take the grand larceny rap, he’d even risk being accused of the Harding murder — anything, anything. But he mustn’t go through with this. It would be delivering himself up to them tied hand and foot.
The red light glowed ahead of them like a malignant planet. He braked violently, maniacally, nearly standing erect in his seat to bring down the last ounce of pressure. They bucked, teetered, lurched, half skidded, half ploughed, to a sickening stop, inches away from the outside line of rails of the quadruple trackbed.
The lathe-like barriers that had attempted to descend to guard the right of way were unable to meet, formed a pointed arch over the car. One of the rear tires went shudderingly out with a plaintive whine, overstrained by the skidding.
“My, you did that on short notice!” remonstrated Lindquist mildly.
There was a roaring like a high wind, a blinding beam of light shot along the track, reared abruptly into the air, snuffed out, and the long sleek Flyer went racketing by, car after streamlined car of it. The reflection of the long rows of lighted windows streamed across their faces like a rippling golden pennant. Hobart’s was glistening with sweat. Lord that had been a close shave! If the revelation had come a minute later. A minute? Ten seconds!
He pushed the door on his side open, got out on trembling legs. “Got to have a look at that back tire,” he panted to Lindquist — probably unheard in the din of the passing train.
He went to the back of the car, supporting himself with one arm against it as he did so. He had to, to stand up straight, he was so shaken.
He squatted down like a frog by the left rear wheel. Sure, flat as a— He got vertigo or something, couldn’t focus his eyes straight. The spokes seemed to revolve inside the rim. The wheel was starting to draw away from him, slowly, then faster.
He straightened with a shriek. He saw at once what had happened. Lindquist was wedged under the wheel-stem in the attempt to get out after him, facing backward, waving his arms helplessly around over his head like pinwheels. He’d done something, accidentally stepped on the accelerator, taken off the brake. There was a short pronounced grade down to the depressed trackbed, enough to pull the car into motion.
He yelled, “The brake! Put on the brake!”
But evidently Lindquist couldn’t. He was wedged there, floundering inextricably. But it was all right, it would be all right. The long Flyer, not yet completely past, was running the second track over, and here came the observation car. It would be past by the time the machine nosed that far out.
They seemed to miss each other by inches, while Hobart stood there paralyzed, incapable of moving. Pfft! and the aluminum observation-car had streaked by, the right of way was clear.
The car rolled on across the just-vacated second pair of tracks, came to a halt athwart the third, the center of the depression.
Lindquist was still semaphoring. He had one leg out over the side but he couldn’t seem to extricate his other hip. Hobart could see him too plainly. There was something the matter! He was all blue up and down one side, as if a flashlight picture were being taken of him. There was an inhuman screech overhead, like a bird of prey — and a freight came tearing out from behind the Flyer, racing in the other direction, with the unexpectedness of a blacksnake. There was a crack like a sheet of tin being torn off a roof, and a lot of little things came falling down all over.
“Get me a drink, quick — and, and pack my bag!” blurted Hobart as his servant opened the door for him a few minutes later. No time had been lost. He had to burn that damn stamp first of all. He was in for it now. But it was an accident. They couldn’t make it anything else! True, at first he’d intended — but he’d changed his mind. It was an accident!
The servant poured him a jiggerful of brandy and he gulped it down. “Accident,” he gasped. “Car smashed up — man I was bringing home to dinner—”
“Better take another.” But the servant’s eyes were hard. It wasn’t said solicitously.
Hobart wanted another drink but he had to go in there and get rid of that stamp before he did anything else. He threw the door of his den open — and the lights were already on, and Foster was sitting there waiting for him.
“A little too unexpected for you?”
He smiled at Hobart’s spasmodic heave, but not like he’d smiled a week ago, not grateful or respectful or admiring. Perhaps the dick was no longer accepting his pay under false pretenses. Perhaps he never had.
He said, “You know why I’m here.” And he got up and came over to Hobart. He took Hobart by the cuff and twisted that around into an inextricable knot that acted like a manacle.
Hobart didn’t pretend he didn’t know. The game had gone past that stage now.
“You think l killed I larding. I didn’t. All right. I’ll make a clean breast of it. I did substitute a fake for the triangular. But that was two nights after, when I went up there to help you. I didn’t kill him.”
He turned beseechingly to the servant standing impassively behind him. “Tell him, Graves — tell him! You were spying on me through the key hole, I know. Tell him, tell him what night it was you saw me come home and put a stamp into my book late at night.”
“I have already, sir,” said the servant respectfully. “He asked me that the first thing, and I told him. It was nine nights ago tonight. Tonight’s Thursday. It was Tuesday of last week.”
“The night Aaron Harding met his death,” murmured Foster.
“No!” Hobart’s voice rose to a wail of anguish. “He’s lying! He’s got a better memory than that! He hates me! He knows it was a week ago tonight — last Thursday night.”
“I have got a good memory,” said the servant imperturbably. “You’ve often told me so yourself. That’s why I know I’m not mistaken. It was Tuesday of last week.” And he just looked levelly, inscrutably, at his employer.
Hobart appealed frantically to the detective. “Don’t you remember the first night you phoned me to come out? I went to the wrong address first. Doesn’t that prove I’d never been to Harding’s house before?”