The hotel manager was aghast. That a guest in his establishment should violate the privacy, the property, of a fellow guest!
“Jerry,” snapped the manager, “phone the chief of police. No. Mr. Weerts, I can’t let this pass. Furthermore, the chief asked to be notified should this man get officious. You’ll not stir, sir!”
“Not an inch,” Bart agreed.
The police chief came. He eyed Bart with a dull cold look of gratified malice.
“Snooping, eh? Huh, I thought so.”
That put Bart on the defensive, and Weerts had maneuvered it. Keen and resourceful wits were against him, and he counted his own as nothing. He was slow and plodding. His way was method — details welded one by one until they were a ponderous machine, like a steam roller. One detail was the thick-set man. Weerts had not seen him yet. Bart pushed him into the light. Weerts was quick.
“Look here,” he said angrily to the thick-set man, “I thought I left you at the hospital.”
The man looked foolish. Weerts gave him no time to reply.
“So you weren’t hurt at all, eh? Just a trick of Barlow’s to get me to give you a lift to town.”
Bart spoke: “He was here guarding your car, Mr. Weerts.”
Weerts parried that, too. “The bum picks out my car to sleep in. What would he guard? My old clothes, maybe?”
“Oh,” said Bart, “are these your clothes?”
For a split second Weerts did not reply. Then he said:
“Of course. I wear them when I have to demonstrate tree planting for customers.”
“Two sweaters at a time, Mr. Weerts?”
“They’re not too many in cold weather.”
“You wouldn’t wear them both on a day like this then?”
“That’s a bonehead question. Certainly not.”
Bart turned to the chief of police.
“Mr. Weerts robbed our bank at Nopal this morning. I’m asking you to arrest him.”
“What?” The chief was disgusted. “Look here, we all know Mr. Weerts. Besides, the robber was deaf and dumb and club-footed and thick-set.”
“He wasn’t deaf,” and Bart explained why that was true.
“But he was club-footed, wasn’t he?”
“Wait,” said Bart. He went to his roadster and produced the roll of clothing that he had found under the culvert. He told briefly how he had found them and identified them as those worn by the robber. He held up the laced boots.
“There,” exclaimed the chief, pointing to the one with the raised sole, “that shows he had one leg shorter than the other.”
“It shows,” said Bart, “that one leg was made to look shorter than the other. He dipped down on his left foot, but this shoe with the raised sole is for the right foot.”
“Well, maybe so,” the chief growled, “but how does that prove anything on Mr. Weerts?”
Weerts smiled. “Yeah, on a slim feller like me, Bart?”
“Pad yourself with these sweaters and the knickerbockers and you wouldn’t look so slim, Mr. Weerts.”
Weerts sighed, shook his head pityingly.
“You’re a bigger dub than I am, Gunga Din.”
“Yes, and I’m going to take him along,” exploded the chief. “He’s daft. He might get dangerous.”
At once Weerts became serious. “No,” he said, “I want this thing cleared up. I can’t afford to have even a crazy man going around saying I robbed a bank. Besides, I’m sorry for him. I’ll do anything I can to help get this bug out of his head.”
In spite of himself, Bart was shaken. He had to steady himself, remembering the grain of sand — that grain of sand on which he had built so tremendous an edifice.
“Very well,” he said to Weerts, “take off your coat.”
“Sure, I’m perfectly willing to be searched.”
“Now your shirt. The undershirt, too.”
Weerts was puzzled. “You don’t think I’m hiding loot under this gauze undershirt, do you?”
“I want it off. And if there isn’t a scratch over your left shoulder blade, then I’m mistaken, and I’m probably all wrong.”
Weerts complied. It could be seen that he sincerely believed now that he was humoring a crazy man. He stood before them, stripped to the waist, and on his back, over the left shoulder blade, they saw the thin red line of a scratch that had broken the skin. It was so slight that Weerts himself evidently did not know that it was there. The chief gaped, oozing moisture. They all stared at Bart Stollard. They might have been convinced in witchcraft. Bart picked up the two heavy sweaters he had found in Weerts’s car and handed them to Weerts.
“Put them on.”
Weerts hesitated, and put them on.
“Now,” said Bart to the chief, “tell me if the snag in each of the sweaters corresponds to the scratch in his flesh.”
The chief prodded through the two holes with his fat forefinger, rubbing the tip of the finger along the skin.
“The scratch is right here,” he announced.
“Then,” said Bart, “he was a liar when he said he hadn’t worn them today.”
Weerts scarcely flinched.
“I remember now,” he said, “that I did have them on this afternoon. I had to get under my car and I didn’t want to ruin my clothes. I don’t remember getting the scratch. Maybe a sharp rock in the road did it.”
Bart nodded. He was Method, moving ponderously. From the roll of clothing he had found under the culvert, he shook out the faded chambray shirt. Weerts’s eyes grew steady and cold at sight of it.
“Put this on over the sweaters, Mr. Weerts.”
Weerts floored the chief of police with a blow of his fist and dashed for the street. Bart was expecting something of the kind. He drew his pistol and fired in the air. “Stop!” he shouted. Weerts swerved from his clear but long path to the door and darted behind a car. Bart went to where he was and brought him back.
“Now put it on,” he said.
The chief of police was up and sputtering. “Why all this fuss over putting on a shirt?”
Forcibly they put the robber’s faded shirt on Weerts. Bart pointed to a torn place in the shirt over the left shoulder blade. He put his finger through the hole and it went through the hole in each of the sweaters beneath. Drawing apart the edge of the three gaps, he bared the white skin. The fine red line of the scratch appeared before their eyes.
“For the love of fish!” breathed the chief. “But how did he get the scratch?”
Bart told him.
“On a nail. The nail was in a box. The box was in a truck under a load of sand. The robber was hiding in the box. He was crowded in there with his motorcycle. He pushed back against the side of the box, against a protruding nail.”
The chief’s expression grew shrewd and crafty.
“Gosh all rip, then that makes Mr. Weerts the robber.”
“Imbecile!” muttered Weerts.
“What are you doing now, Mr. Stollard?” asked the chief.
Bart was pouring Mr. Weerts’s alfalfa seed out upon the garage floor. Sack after sack from the coupe he emptied upon the floor. His haste was eager and desperate. What use to catch the thief if—
Then with the seed from one sack came an old brief case. The brief case was heavy and distended. Bart opened it, turned it upside down, and let the contents shower upon the floor. Packets of bills were the contents. He stooped and began counting them, slowly, methodically. He looked up, and he was smiling happily.
“Eleven thousand six hundred and eighty-five dollars,” he announced.
The Death Dread[1]
by Wyndham Martyn