I heard the blasting of the gun, saw the flashes of it at the corner of the barn. I threw myself flat, digging my own gun from my shoulder rig.
I knew what had happened. Whoever had been in back of Delanard’s house had heard me at the front, seen me come around the house, watched me go toward the barn.
Two more shots crashed from the far corner of the barn, and dry dust jumped in my face. His marksmanship was an unhealthy thing for the person on the receiving end.
I rolled toward the barn, snapped a quick shot at the corner that sheltered the murderous party. That one didn’t do so much good, so I took better aim, squeezed the trigger again. I’d have bet splinters jumped off the barn planking in his eyes that time.
I heard the quick shuffle of feet, fading, running. I was at the comer of the barn in nothing flat. There I paused. I didn’t want to go chasing around the side of the barn and have a slug play a tune on my ribs.
Then I heard the grind of a car starter. Its sound was familiar. I’d left the keys in the coupé.
I ran across the yard behind Delanard’s house, heard the car skittering up the driveway. The tail-lights of the coupé were a hundred yards up the road by the time I reached the mouth of the drive.
I jammed my gun back in its holster, thought of all the dirty words I’d like to say. It was a long hike back to Maceton where I hoped I could get a cab to take me to the Mace house.
Lights were still burning here and there in the white-washed colonial mansion where old Theron Mace had lived and died. I paid off the driver of the cab, mounted the broad steps to the veranda. The Mace home had looked elegant when I’d first come here late this afternoon. Now, close to midnight, it sent a crawling sensation down my spine. I went down the vaulted hallway to tell the pinch-faced maid to fix that guest room.
I didn’t know whether I’d do any sleeping or not. I thought about the way I’d come here to do a perfectly plausible piece of work and how the affair was now dragging me along with it. I knew I’d have to stick around until I’d found that coupé. I didn’t know how much old Jeddrath might have bled in the luggage compartment and I didn’t know what kind of ideas the local law would have if the killer contrived to plant the coupé where they could take a look in the compartment.
I found the maid back in the sprawling, scrubbed kitchen. I gave her instructions about the room for me. She set aside her coffee cup, said she’d catch some sleep herself if she ever quit thinking about old Theron’s death. Then she tossed her head. “But I’m not the only one. That Dupree woman must have something on her conscience. She’s been sitting out there in the back yard for the past five minutes.”
I looked out the back window. Small and lovely in the moonlight, Jeannie Dupree was sitting on a stone bench near the rock garden.
I opened the door, went out. The maid snorted.
Jean started a little when she heard my step. “Oh... Mr. Martin.”
“Couldn’t sleep?”
“I... was thinking about poor old Theron... dying.”
I sat down beside her on the cold stone of the bench. “I want to apologize for the thoughts I had about you when I left New Orleans. I mean... I hadn’t met you then, didn’t know...”
“...Yes?” Her smile was nice.
“Well, you know how it is.” Her nearness made me giddy.
She touched my hand. “You don’t need to apologize, Allan Martin.”
“Yes,” I said. “Because I’m going to show you something — and I want you to know that I’m on your side. I don’t believe you did it. If you had, you’d have got rid of that fingernail file when it was done, and I can’t fancy you stalking me around a barn and shooting that well.”
“Why, what are you trying to tell me?”
“Come on,” I said, “and I’ll show you.”
We crossed the yard, entered the garage. We walked down the passage between a sleek car and the wall. I struck a match. Just ahead of us was the tarpaulin I’d thrown over old Jeddrath Sloan’s corpse.
“Take a deep breath,” I told Jean. I jerked the tarpaulin back. She said, “What is all this. Allan? Whatever is it you’ve been talking about — why don’t you show it to me?” I couldn’t show it to her or anybody else. Old Jeddrath Sloan’s corpse was gone.
IV.
I let the heavy canvas fall. “Let’s get out of here!”
She hurried after me, caught my arm, shook it. “Allan, you’ve got to tell me what was supposed to be there in the garage.”
But I didn’t. Headlights had swept into the driveway, coming up toward the house. “Later,” I said. “This must be Ansel Mace in a cab, coming from the bus station.”
I let Jean go on in the house, the question still in her eyes. I met Ansel Mace on the front veranda. He said, “I got here as quick as I could. Martin. How is the old man?”
“He’s dead,” I said. “But lie made a new will, favoring you.”
Ansel Mace was silent a moment, his frame gaunt, his face lined. “I’m sorry. We didn’t get along. But I’m sorry. I... think I’ll go to bed. The bus made a rough trip of it.”
I watched him up the stairs, heard him slam a door. The house was still. And quietly I went back outside.
I wanted to see where old Jeddrath Sloan had got to.
In the garage, I struck matches, finally found two parallel marks on the floor — made by a pair of heels attached to a body that had been dragged.
I followed the markings of Jed’s heels across the back yard. On the far side of the yard was a horseshoe court. Old Jed had likely been the type to go in for pitching quoits — but not the way I found him now.
Whoever had dragged him from the garage had dropped him on one of those iron stakes, so that the stake pierced the wound already in his throat. The long nail file was gone. It was a very neat attempt to make Jed’s death look like an accident, as if he’d been walking, tripped, fallen, his own weight impaling his throat when he’d struck the stake.
I shuddered and turned to creep back in the house. It had taken me some little time to find and trace those markings of Jed’s heel. The house was still as a tomb now, apparently wrapped in sleep. I tiptoed, groping to avoid objects in the dark, until I was in the huge downstairs hall, where someone had turned off the lights, the maid likely.
Then I heard the stealthy, morbid click of metal against metal in the library. The library door was cracked enough so that I could slip inside without noise. A human shadow stood at the far wall, a match flickering out in his hand. His back to me, I hadn’t seen him well enough to identify him; the wall safe was open. The clicking I’d heard had been his taking a metal tray from the safe.
I was in here with him — the murderer.
And he knew it, too. Even the sound of his breathing suddenly stopped as my shoe sighed in the nap of the carpet at my next step.
We stood like statues in the dense blackness of the library for seconds that dragged. At least I stood, and I thought he had. But he hadn’t. He was close to me. I sensed the movement of his arm, heard the rustle of cloth. I lunged to one side. The movement caused the gun or whatever heavy object he had in his hand to miss the crown of my head.
I caught it in the temple.
For a bursting moment I thought he’d killed me. I wavered, fell to my knees. I heard him running from the library, his feet padding in the carpet I clung to consciousness, knew he was taking the stairs, heard the faint closing of a door in the upper hall.
I pushed to my feet. I got out of the library. In the hallway I staggered into the old-fashioned hall tree, spilling it over with a crash. Well, let him hear me. I couldn’t help that. It was all I could do to stay on my feet.
I went up the broad stairway like a drunk, stood in the upstairs hall. I thought of the doors lining the hall, the dark rooms beyond them. He’d gone into one of them. Which?