“Sit down, Madox.” The Sheriff nodded curtly towards the chair. When I was seated, he said, “All right. You ready to make a statement now? What did you do with the money?”
“So we’re back to that again?”
“Why don’t you get wise to yourself, Madox? You can see we’ve got the goods on you. You just trying to make it tougher on yourself?”
“No.”
“You heard that Negro. He picked you out of four men. And he can do it in court.”
“Not without you there to squeeze his arm.”
“I didn’t squeeze his arm. He recognized your breathing.”
“Bad sweat. What the hell is this, Alice in Wonderland?”
“Have a little trouble getting your breath, don’t you, with that broken nose? Ever have a doctor look at it?”
“No.”
“Probably don’t even notice it yourself, do you? That little whistle, I mean.”
“Cut it out, will you? So the man who robbed the bank was breathing.”
He stopped directly in front of me and pointed the cigar in my face. “Look, Madox. I’m not trying to find out who robbed that bank. I already know that. And you know that I know it. Don’t you? So I want to tell you something. You’re not going to get away with it. So help me God, I’m going to prove it if it’s the last thing I ever do in this world. We’ll start at the beginning again. Now tell me where you went when the fire broke out.”
I sighed. “Over to the fire, like everybody else in town.”
“I mean exactly where were you? In back of the building? In front? Out in the street along the side? Where?”
“In front,” I said. “Where the fire-truck was.”
“Well, how do you account for the fact that out of over a hundred people I’ve talked to who were jammed around that fire truck, not one of ‘em saw you? I mean, until nearly thirty minutes later, when you made a big show of yourself? Were you hiding behind something?”
“There was a building burning down,” I Said. “It’s just possible they were looking at that.”
“All right,” he said. “We’ll disregard that for the moment. What I want to do right now is clear up a little point that’s been bothering me from the first. You were there, you say. Right by the fire-engine all the time. And we know you’re a hero, just aching to get in there and help. Tate’s already testified to that—how you grabbed the hose and made a grandstand play in front of the whole crowd, after the bank was robbed. Now what I’d like to find out— and the thing that’s going to interest the jury—is why you were so bashful about offering to help during the first few minutes, when you really could have done something. You know what I mean, don’t you? But sure you do. You were there. You admit it yourself.”
He paused, with a little smile around his mouth again, looking like a cat getting ready to pounce. I couldn’t do anything but wait for it and pray I’d have the answer.
“Now we know you were there. And that you were dying to help. All right.” He swung around and” pointed the cigar at me and lashed out, “So what was holding you back when that woman became hysterical and started screaming that her little boy was missing and wanted somebody to go in the building and look for him? Why didn’t you step up? Were you afraid to go in there? Or you just hadn’t made up your mind to be a hero yet? Like hell! I’ll tell you why—it was because you weren’t even there, and you know it. Don’t you?”
I opened my mouth. And then I stopped. I could smell it. It was a trap. He’d left the door open too invitingly. But, I thought in an agony of indecision, what if I was wrong? If I said the wrong thing he had me nailed right to the cross. But I had to say something. I took a deep breath and plunged.
“Look,” I said. “I was there the whole time, and I didn’t even hear any hysterical woman.”
I could see it on his face before he wiped it off. I’d guessed it right. But how about the next one, and the one after that, and the one two days from now?
He’d just started to tear into me again when the telephone rang. He walked over and picked it up.
The room was very quiet. “Yes?” he said. “Speaking”— “Where?”—”Oh, sure. Sure”—”You’re certain of it?” He was staring at me, frowning. “You’re positive of that? And the time?”—”Yes—three blocks, it wouldn’t take any longer than that. No, in that case, there couldn’t be any doubt of it. All right. Thanks.” He hung up.
Suddenly, he looked tired. I waited, almost afraid to breathe. Who was it? What had he said? I wanted to jump up and shake it out of him. He looked at Tate and shook his head wearily, a baffled expression in his eyes.
“That was George Harshaw,” he said. “Calling from Galveston. He read about it in the papers. And he says Madox was definitely at the fire the whole time.”
Tate was puzzled, too. “Harshaw? I don’t remember seeing him there. I think I saw her—“
“That’s right. It wasn’t George that saw him. It was Mrs. Harshaw. She saw him drive up and get out of his car just as she got there. And it was less than five minutes after the fire broke out.”
12
That was all there was to it. They had to let me go. I saw his face as he told Tate to give me a lift back to Lander and it had the expression of a mathematician who’d just seen it proved that two times three is five, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it. If Dolores Harshaw had seen me there at the beginning he had no case, and he knew it.
“I’m sorry, Madox,” he said stiffly. “There wasn’t anything personal about it. I’d have picked up my own brother on the same evidence.”
“What the hell,” I said. “It’s a job, like selling cars. I’ll tell you one thing, though. If I ever go into the bank-robbing business, I’ll move out of your county.”
He stared at me thoughtfully. “Yeah. Do that, will you.”
Tate was silent as we drove back to Lander, and I didn’t feel like talking either. My mind was too numb to handle anything except the fact that I was free. It was dark by the time we got to town and Tate dropped me off at the rooming house.
I got out. “Thanks,” I said. “So long.”
“I’ll see you.” He lifted his hand and drove off.
I wanted to see Gloria Harper. I’d take a shower and change clothes, and then I’d call her. I’d take her to dinner at the restaurant. We’d go riding somewhere. I didn’t do any of it. When I got in the shower and the warm water hit me I began to dissolve like a cake of yeast. I hadn’t known how bad the pressure really was or how tight I’d been until it started to let go. The reaction unloaded on me, and I just made it into bed before I quit operating.
I awoke sometime before dawn and sat straight up in bed, staring. Who was free? Supposing for a minute that that Sheriff was naive enough to buy something that easily, which he wasn’t—just what was Dolores Harshaw selling?
I was still his Number One boy as far as he was concerned, and if I dug up the money and tried to leave the country I’d be picked up before I got out of the state. Maybe he’d just pretended to believe her so I’d try it.
And that still left her. What did she want?
After a while I dressed and went downtown. Only a few people were on the street. The waitress did a double take when I came into the restaurant, and I knew a lot of people were going to be surprised to see me around here again. I ordered some breakfast, and stared at the Houston paper without seeing it.
Why had she done it? She’d said she had seen me there at the fire a few minutes after it broke out when she knew damned well she hadn’t; she also knew something else none of the rest of them did—that I’d been inside that building and knew what a firetrap it was. Maybe she had some ideas of her own. I gave it up and went out into the street. There was no use knocking myself out worrying about it; I had a hunch I’d be seeing her soon enough.