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I bent over him and felt his head where the trickle of blood showed on his scalp above the left ear. There was no fracture. He groaned and stirred his legs. I picked up the knife and tossed it back on the shelf under the counter. Straightening up, I pulled the slide of the gun back to arm it. A cartridge flew out. I looked down at him and shook my head. He was a rough type. It took guts to charge a gun you knew was ready to shoot.

“He have any more guns around here?” I asked.

She sat up. Her face was pale and very still. I supposed as a way to break up house-keeping in the old urbane manner this could stand a little polishing. I’d had enough of it myself; I’d never cared much for these muscle routines.

“Two,” she said. “A rifle and a shotgun.”

“Maybe you’d better bring ’em out.”

They were a 30.30 and a Model 12 shotgun. I went down and threw them in the lake off the end of the float. It was a shame to treat good guns like that, but this thing was sour now for fair. They’d probably have been able to kiss it off with nothing but a double order of frozen silence all around if she’d been alone; but after that humiliation he’d kill either or both of us if he could.

I went back. She was coming out the screen door with her overnight bag. When I looked inside he was moving. He had his head and shoulders against the wall and was trying to inch his way up. A bright thread of blood ran down the corded neck and into his T-shirt. He looked at me, but said nothing. I turned and went out. She was putting her bag in the car. I looked back at him before I let the screen door slam, and he was on his feet, weakly clutching the end of the counter and vomiting.

I was getting behind the wheel when I heard the door slam again. He walked unsteadily toward us as I reached for the starter, and stopped about ten feet away, staring at both of us.

It didn’t seem to be a situation that called for a great deal in the way of conversation. I pressed the starter and we drove on out of the bottom.

Fifteen

I stopped once and threw the .45 out into the timber at the side of the road.

“Thanks,” I said. “I’m sorry it had to be that messy.”

“It’s all right,” she said. She was looking a little better now, but she didn’t want to talk about it. Neither did I.

I thought swiftly as I gunned the car back toward Hampstead and the highway. It has to be done just right now, and in as natural a way as possible. If we were running away together, we wouldn’t flaunt the fact all over town. We’d meet somewhere and simply go, knowing it would be a matter of public knowledge within hours, anyway. And I could not let her talk to anybody, anybody at all under any circumstances, until we were away from here. The only thing to do was take her home and leave her there while I cashed the check and made the last trip to the shop.

She didn’t have to be seen going in. The three houses along that street were old ones that went in for privacy. They were on big lots, heavily planted, with a fenced alley at the rear. I could take her in that way. No, I thought. Why be silly about it? Overdoing the cloak-and-dagger would be carrying it too far in the other direction. We’d merely drive right into the garage and go out through the side door and into the kitchen. It was only four or five steps, and could be seen only from the house directly across the street. If Mrs. Macklin happened to be looking out the window at just that moment, who cared? We were merely being clandestine, not furtive. It’d give her a chance to sound “Boots and Saddles” after we were gone, and harry on the pack.

I made the turn on to the highway. Jewel put a hand on mine on the steering wheel and moved a little closer. She glanced up and smiled faintly. “It won’t take long, will it, Barney? I mean, before we can start?”

”No,” I said. “An hour or two, at the most. You won’t mind waiting for me at the house, will you?”

She shook her head. “That will be all right.”

I swung off the main drag in the outskirts of town and circled to get on Minden at the outer end. The house was the second from the corner on Underhill, a short side street that intersected it. I made the turn into Underhill, and then swung into the driveway. The garage door was open. I went on in.

Patting her on the hand, I said, “Sit tight for just a minute.”

I pulled down the garage door and let myself in at the front of the house. Going on through, I unlocked the kitchen door and stepped out to the garage again. She had already got out and was standing there with her bag. I took it and followed her in.

The curtains were drawn in the kitchen and the Venetian blinds closed in the dining- and living-rooms. We went on through to the living-room and I put down her bag.

She dropped her purse on the coffee table and turned. I caught her to me and kissed the upraised lips and closed eyes and then whispered rapturously against her ear, “Darling, darling; it won t be long,” at the same time reminding myself she probably wouldn’t want to get very sweaty about it here, under the circumstances, and that there was a lot to be done.

She surrendered to it for an instant, and then began pushing me away, breathless and confused but radiantly happy. “No, Barney. No. Let’s hurry and get started.”

“All right, sweet,” I said. “Make yourself comfortable.”

She sat down on the sofa near the phonograph and took a cigarette from her bag. I lit it for her. She smiled and said, “It’s so wonderful it’s like a dream.”

I turned toward the stairs, and then stopped, struck by an odd thought.

“Look,” I asked, “how did you know she was gone?”

She smilingly shook her head at me. “It was in the paper, silly. Don’t you ever look at it?”

“Oh,” I said. I went on up the stairs. Well, there was that to be said for having a rich wife; you could always read the paper and find out what she was doing. I grabbed two of my suitcases from the hall closet, took them into the bedroom, and began throwing clothes into them. It required less than a minute to see I was never going to get more than a quarter of my personal gear into them. And I needed the other bag for the money; it was the only one to which I hadn’t lost the key.

Well, why not ship the trunk? I could put the money in that other bag, throw away most of the useless rubbish that was stored in it now, and pack it with things I wanted to take. I could leave it on the kitchen porch and phone to have it picked up and forwarded collect care Railway Express in Miami. Right. That was it.

I picked up the other bag from the closet and hurried down the stairs. She was still on the sofa. I made the circle sign with the thumb and forefinger of my right hand and said, “I’m gaining on it,” as I hurried on toward the kitchen. She looked up and smiled, but remained where she was.

Down in the den, I pulled the trunk away from the wall and unlocked it. Just as I was about to throw the first of the stuff out, I looked at my watch. I whistled. It was two twenty. The bank closed in ten minutes. And I had to cash that check. Sure, I had over a hundred thousand dollars right here under my hand; but how would it look to the F.B.I., in case they investigated, if I ran off like this without bothering to withdraw any of the over fifteen hundred I had in my personal current account? I couldn’t speak for them, but I knew it would look damned suspicious to me.

I slammed the trunk shut and hurried back up the stairs. “Have to get to the bank before it closes,” I called out to her from the door of the dining-room. “I’ll be back as soon as I can, sweet.”

She smiled and waved. “Please hurry, darling.”

I went out the kitchen door and backed the car out of the garage. Luck was with me and I found a parking place right across the street from the bank.