Then I snorted. Precise chemical analysis by the Godwin laboratories. Millions of compounds were water soluble, and the minute dried crystals of practically any substance could be dispersed and spread with water. I was chasing moonbeams, and when I caught a sackful I’d build an arc light.
Cliffords was absurd. This entire thing was absurd. It almost had to be Haig, or Haig’s ill-gotten swag, that they were seeking, because he was the biggest crime story, and the most baffling one, of the past decade, and because they had shown me his picture. So where was the connection between that coldly violent killer and this harmless old pixie getting his kicks out of space ships and Peter Rabbit? Why, of course, I thought sarcastically; you could see the tie-in almost immediately. Cliffords had at one time been an employee of the Southern Pacific Railroad, and Haig was born in California. Fool-proof, wasn’t it? And to narrow it down even further, they each had one left hand. Or at least, I supposed they did, or had.
Look at it, I thought. Cliffords was already living up here alone in this isolated backwater before Haig had even begun his fantastic career. I’d established that. Haig would be twenty-eight now; Cliffords was forty-five, or around there. There could be no family relationship, or even nodding acquaintance, between the two; anybody Haig had even borrowed a match from in the past ten years had been run down and checked out by the F.B.I.
So what did you have? You had nothing.
No-o. Not quite. No matter how fantastic it was, you still had the almost dead certainty that this derailed leprechaun was spending Haig’s money.
I cranked the motor.
Around each bend the next reach lay glaring and empty under the sun, as devoid of any signs of life or human habitation as the last. After about thirty minutes I began watching the right-hand shore for the end of the road. I spotted it shortly, an opening in the trees where the bank had been cut down into a sloping ramp for launching boats off trailers. There were the remains of several old campfires, but no cars were visible. I slowed a little and began keeping a lookout for the cabin or a boat landing. A little over a mile ahead as I came around a bend the channel spread out to some two hundred yards in width and ran straight for almost a mile with an extensive bed of pads along the left side. About half-way up it I saw what I was looking for. A skiff was pulled up on a shelving bit of beach in a small cove on the right. The motor was tilted up on the stern. Cliffords wasn’t in sight, but as I went past I had a glimpse of weather-beaten gray back among the trees. That would be the cabin.
I went on without slowing. He would probably hear me, but there would be nothing strange about an occasional fisherman going by. I cleared the next bend and continued another mile or two before I cut the motor and set up the fly-rod again. An hour went by as I fished with indifferent success, merely going through the motions. I refilled the motor from the fuel can and started back. The skiff was still in the cove. I didn’t see Cliffords anywhere. He probably took a nap this time of the afternoon, or caught up on his reading.
I wound on down the channel until I was sure he could no longer hear the motor. The new models are a lot quieter than the old ones used to be. Just before rounding the last bend approaching the camp-site and launching ramp at the end of the road I cut the motor and swung into the bank where the limbs of a large tree overhung the water. Working the boat back under the screen of foliage, I made it fast, and stepped out.
There was no trail. I kept open water in view from time to time as I slipped through the underbrush and timber. It was intensely still and very hot now, and my shirt became soaked with perspiration. An outraged blue jay called me a Sunday driver and expressed his doubts as to my legitimacy, and once I flushed out a wild sow with a litter of pigs. About twenty minutes later I swung to the left again and eased back out to the lake shore. Not far enough; I was still south of the last bend. I went on for another two hundred yards and tried once more. This was fine. I was just past the bend and I could see most of the long reach spread out ahead of me and to the right. The cove where his boat was beached was on this side, of course, and hidden because of the angle, but it didn’t matter. If he came out, I’d see him. I sat down in the shade with my back against the trunk of a tree, and lit a cigarette. It was ten minutes past three.
There was no guarantee, of course, that he would go out. With 365 days a year in which to fish if he wanted, he probably took a day off now and then. Well, if he didn’t leave the place, there was nothing I could do about it; I’d just have to try again tomorrow.
An hour dragged by. Mosquitoes buzzed around my face. I smoked more cigarettes, being careful to throw the butts in the water. This was an occupation for a grown man, I thought with disgust; why didn’t I go on up there and join him and we could take turns being Dick Tracy? Of all the stupid. . . .
I heard his motor start. He came out of the cove and headed this way. I stepped back a little further from the bank. He cut his motor and came to rest almost opposite me, near the beds of pads along the other shore. He set up a casting outfit and began fishing, kicking the boat along with the oars now and then. Good.
I faded back and turned, hurrying now. In a few minutes I came up in back of the clearing. I stopped short, studying it intently as I remained motionless in the edge of the timber. Nothing moved anywhere. The two unpainted old buildings slumped dejectedly in an attitude of timeless and perpetually arrested collapse, lying partly in shadow now as the late afternoon sun slanted across the trees on my right. The far one, and the larger of the two, was the cabin itself, roofed with split oak shakes and sitting on round foundation blocks sawn from logs. A section of rusting stovepipe extended above the roof here at the rear and was guyed with baling wire. The one small window I could see was open. There was no door in back. The other building, a small shed about the size of a one-car garage, was nearer and to my right. Weeds were grown up around the rear of it. I could see no window, but presumably the door would be around in front. I went carefully back over the ground again, searching for a dog or for any evidence of one. There was none. Of course, he might be in the cabin.
I slipped noiselessly up to the rear window and peeped in. There was only one room, and it was empty. Opposite me was the door, which stood open. I could catch glimpses of water beyond, through the trees. Hurrying around the corner, I cased the terrain in front. The cove, where he kept his boat, was about fifty yards away. I could see only patches of the lake beyond, in the direction where he was fishing, but it was all right. He should be good for an hour or two, and I’d hear his motor if he started back. I stepped inside.
It was not very large, perhaps fifteen by twenty feet, with small windows on three sides and the one door here in front. In the rear there was a wood-burning cookstove, a woodbox, a pine table, two chairs, and a large wooden case covered with oilcloth which presumably served as a cooking table and sink because it was littered with dirty dishes. Some shelves along the wall held a supply of staple groceries and some dishes and cooking utensils. A frying-pan and two large pots hung from nails driven into the wall above the stove. At the right in the front part of the room was an unmade bed, while on the left was an old chest of drawers whose veneer was peeling, a table, and a trunk. A pump shotgun and a .22 rifle stood in the corner next to the trunk.