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“With dead leaves all over the yard and all over the body — but none underneath? We rolled him over and the ground was bare. With the ground bare underneath his body, that means he was killed before the wind came up — but not so long before but what the blood was still wet enough to stain one of the leaves. No, he was not killed by Muller — Muller couldn’t have got there in time. He was still on the hill, because he saw you at the gate and the hill’s the only place you can see around that bend in the driveway. There was a chance somebody hid in the house till you were gone, the only one Muller might have seen and not reported. His wife would do a lot to save that good home and have security for their boy.”

“Not Kate Muller. It just couldn’t have been.”

“It wasn’t, because right then she was delivering eggs to a neighbor. I talked to the woman who bought them. That leaves only one person. Doc,” said the sheriff dejectedly, “why did you do it? Because of Nancy?”

For a moment the doctor sat very still. Then, unsmiling, he lifted his glass in salute.

“I underrated you, Walsh.” He emptied the glass and rolled it between his hands. “Yes, Nancy. I lied about it being puppy love. It was real. Funny how the real thing sticks long after you think you’ve forgotten. You plug away at work you like, you marry a woman who makes you comfortable and sees that you meet the right people, you get ahead. Damn it, you’re even happy. Then one day you read of the death of a farm girl you haven’t seen for fourteen years, and suddenly nothing else matters.”

He went to the bar, poured himself a stiff shot, drank it, then replenished the glass.

“I saw her in the coffin. Not my Nancy, but a thin, worn-out old woman. Old — at thirty-three. I went to Kershaw’s to find out why. I tried the house first, and when nobody answered the door I pushed it open and called out... I found him in the barn. A vile brute. Nancy had been a bad bargain to him — he admitted it, and he bragged that now he could get someone younger and stronger. I don’t remember going back for the gun, just that all at once I had it. I herded him against the barn and told him why he had to die. He... he was frightened. Ed didn’t hear the shot — a plane flew over just then. Telephoning was as much an alibi for Ed as for me. I wouldn’t want poor Ed to have trouble,”

“Is this a confession?”

“You’ve no witness. I’m safe enough — if that’s what I want. I don’t know — I wiped the gun. I was at home with guests from six o’clock on. Ed and your farm woman will swear that it was Matt who telephoned.”

“The leaves say different.”

“You say there were none under the body. I can say there were. You’ve made mistakes, Walsh. You let Ed go home before we turned the body, and you forgot about technicians, so there are no photographs. It can be your word against mine.”

“I was pretty dumb,” admitted the sheriff. “But I caught on later. We’ve got molds of the footprints and pictures of the ground where he’d bled, and we have a piece of the ground dug up ready for the D.A. Oak leaves are waterproof, Doc. Blood could spill over them and leak through cracks — but it’d be spotty, not in one big patch like this. Your word won’t stand against all that.”

“I see,” said the doctor. “I didn’t know that about oak leaves.” He gulped his drink and rose to lean against the mantel.

He said at last, “Matt was a skunk. Who cares if somebody shoots a skunk?”

“You do, Doc. When a temperate man tries to drink himself blind he cares a lot.”

Yow care because you’re no true murderer, just a decent kindly man who lost his head, Ton care because you’re a doctor, and your job is to save lives, not take them. With the real bad boys, the toughies, the only worry would be not to get caught. For a sensitive man like you it would be something deeper. Drinking wouldn’t help much, you’d still have to live with it. In prison or out, it would always be with you. That would be the real punishment — not bars but the fact that it would always be with you.

The sheriff wanted to tell Doc that he understood, but he couldn’t find the right words.

He cleared his throat.

“Okay,” he said. “Doc, get your hat and let’s go.”

Dashiell Hammett

The Barber and His Wife

An early and “unknown” Hammett story in which the characters are a foreshadowing of the great ones who came later in THE MALTESE FALCON and THE GLASS KEY.

* * *

Each morning at seven thirty the alarm clock on the table beside their bed awakened the Stemlers to perform their daily comedy — a comedy that varied from week to week in degree only.

Louis Stemler, disregarding the still-ringing clock, leaped out of bed and went to the open window, where he stood inhaling and exhaling with a great show of enjoyment — throwing out his chest and stretching his arms voluptuously. He enjoyed this most in the winter, and would prolong his stay before the open window until his body was icy under his pajamas. In the coast city where the Stemlers lived the morning breezes were chill enough, whatever the season, to make his display of ruggedness sufficiently irritating to Pearl.

Meanwhile, Pearl had turned off the alarm and closed her eyes again in semblance of sleep. Louis was reasonably confident that his wife was still awake; but he could not be certain. So when he ran into the bathroom to turn on the water in the tub, he was none too quiet.

He then re-entered the bedroom to go through an elaborate and complicated set of exercises, after which he returned to the bathroom, got into the tub and splashed merrily — long enough to assure any listener that to him a cold bath was a thing of pleasure. Rubbing himself with a coarse towel, he began whistling; and always it was a tune reminiscent of the First World War. Just now Keep the Home Fires Burning was his choice. This was his favorite, rivaled only by ’Till We Meet Again, though occasionally he rendered Katy, What Are You Going to Do to Help the Boys, or How’re You Going to Keep Them Down on the Farm. He whistled low and flatly, keeping time with the brisk movements of the towel. At this point Pearl would usually give way to her irritation to the extent of turning over in bed, and the rustling of the sheets would come pleasantly from the bedroom to her husband’s ears. This morning as she turned she sighed faintly, and Louis, his eager ears catching the sound, felt a glow of satisfaction.

Dry and ruddy, he came back to the bedroom and began dressing, whistling under his breath and paying as little apparent attention to Pearl as she to him, though each was on the alert for any chance opening through which the other might be vexed. Long practice in this sort of warfare had schooled them to such a degree, however, that an opening seldom presented itself. Pearl was at a decided disadvantage in these morning encounters, inasmuch as she was on the defensive, and her only weapon was a pretense of sleep in the face of her husband’s posturing. Louis, even aside from his wife’s vexation, enjoyed every bit of his part in the silent wrangle; the possibility that perhaps after all she was really asleep and not witnessing his display of manliness was the only damper on his enjoyment.

When Louis had one foot in his trousers, Pearl got out of bed and into her kimono and slippers, dabbed a little warm water on her face, and went into the kitchen to prepare breakfast. In the ensuing race she forgot her slight headache. It was a point of honor with her never to rise until her husband had his trousers in his hand, and then to have his breakfast on the table in the kitchen — where they ate it — by the time he was dressed. Thanks to the care with which he knotted his necktie, she usually succeeded. Louis’s aim, of course, was to arrive in the kitchen fully dressed and with the morning paper in his hand before the meal was ready, and to be extremely affable over the delay. This morning, as a concession to a new shirt — a white silk one with broad cerise stripes — he went in to breakfast without his coat and vest, surprising Pearl in the act of pouring the coffee.