«We waste time,» the blond girl said. «See if he has a gun.» Gertrude put her suitcase down and felt me over. She found the gun and I let her take it, big-hearted. She stood there looking at it with a pale, worried expression. The blond girl said: «Put the gun down outside and put the suitcase in the car. Start the engine of the car and wait for me.»
Gertrude picked her suitcase up again and started around me to the door.
«That won’t get you anywhere,» I said. «They’ll telephone ahead and block you on the road. There are only two roads out of here, both easy to block.»
The blond girl raised her fine, tawny eyebrows a little. «Why should anyone wish to stop us?»
«Yeah, why are you holding that gun?»
«I did not know who you were,» the blond girl said. «I do not know even now. Go on, Gertrude.»
Gertrude opened the door, then looked back at me and moved her lips one over the other. «Take a tip, shamus, and beat it out of this place while you’re able,» she said quietly.
«Which of you saw the hunting knife?»
They glanced at each other quickly, then back at me. Gertrude had a fixed stare, but it didn’t look like a guilty kind of stare. «I pass,» she said. «You’re over my head.»
«Okay,» I said. «I know you didn’t put it where it was. One more question: How long were you getting that cup of coffee for Mr. Weber the morning you took the shoes out?»
«You are wasting time, Gertrude,» the blond girl said impatiently, or as impatiently as she would ever say anything. She didn’t seem an impatient type.
Gertrude didn’t pay any attention to her. Her eyes held a tight speculation. «Long enough to get him a cup of coffee.»
«They have that right in the dining room.»
«It was stale in the dining room. I went out to the kitchen for it. I got him some toast, also.»
«Five minutes?»
She nodded. «About that.»
«Who else was in the dining room besides Weber?» She stared at me very steadily. «At that time I don’t think anybody. I’m not sure. Maybe someone was having a late breakfast.»
«Thanks very much,» I said. «Put the gun down carefully on the porch and don’t drop it. You can empty it if you like. I don’t plan to shoot anyone.»
She smiled a very small smile and opened the door with the hand holding the gun and went out. I heard her go down the steps and then heard the boot of the car slammed shut. I heard the starter, then the motor caught and purred quietly.
The blond girl moved around to the door and took the key from the inside and put it on the outside. «I would not care to shoot anybody,» she said. «But I could do it if I had to. Please do not make me.»
She shut the door and the key turned in the lock. Her steps went down off the porch. The car door slammed and the motor took hold. The tires made a soft whisper going down between the cabins. Then the noise of the portable radios swallowed that sound.
I stood there looking around the cabin, then walked through it. There was nothing in it that didn’t belong there. There was some garbage in a can, coffee cups not washed, a saucepan full of grounds. There were no papers, and nobody had left the story of his life written on a paper match.
The back door was locked, too. This was on the side away from the camp, against the dark wilderness of the trees. I shook the door and bent down to look at the lock. A straight bolt lock. I opened a window. A screen was nailed over it against the wall outside. I went back to the door and gave it the shoulder. It held without any trouble at all. It also started my head blazing again. I felt in my pockets and was disgusted. I didn’t even have a five-cent skeleton key.
I got the can opener out of the kitchen drawer and worked a corner of the screen loose and bent it back. Then I got up on the sink and reached down to the outside knob of the door and groped around. The key was in the lock. I turned it and drew my hand in again and went out of the door. Then I went back and put the lights out. My gun was lying on the front porch behind a post of the little railing. I tucked it under my arm and walked downhill to the place where I had left my car.
SIX
There was a wooden counter leading back from beside the door and a potbellied stove in the corner, and a large blueprint map of the district and some curled-up calendars on the wall. On the counter were piles of dusty-looking folders, a rusty pen, a bottle of ink, and somebody’s sweat-darkened Stetson.
Behind the counter there was an old golden-oak roll-top desk, and at the desk sat a man, with a tall corroded brass spittoon leaning against his leg. He was a heavy, calm man, and he sat tilted back in his chair with large, hairless hands clasped on his stomach. He wore scuffed brown army shoes, white socks, brown wash pants held up by faded suspenders, a khaki shirt buttoned to the neck. His hair was mousy-brown except at the temples, where it was the color of dirty snow. On his left breast there was a star. He sat a little more on his left hip than on his right, because there was a brown leather hip holster inside his right hip pocket, and about a foot of .45 gun in the holster.
He had large ears, and friendly eyes, and he looked about as dangerous as a squirrel, but much less nervous. I leaned on the counter and looked at him, and he nodded at me and loosed a half-pint of brown juice into the spittoon. I lit a cigarette and looked around for some place to throw the match.
«Try the floor,» he said. «What can I do for you, son?»
I dropped the match on the floor and pointed with my chin at the map on the wall. «I was looking for a map of the district. Sometimes chambers of commerce have them to give away. But I guess you wouldn’t be the chamber of commerce.»
«We ain’t got no maps,» the man said. «We had a mess of them a couple of years back, but we run out. I was hearing that Sid Young had some down at the camera store by the post office. He’s the justice of the peace here, besides running the camera store, and he gives them out to show them whereat they can smoke and where not. We got a bad fire hazard up here. Got a good map of the district up there on the wall. Be glad to direct you any place you’d care to go. We aim to make the summer visitors to home.»
He took a slow breath and dropped another load of juice.
«What was the name?» he asked.
«Evans. Are you the law around here?»
«Yep. I’m Puma Point constable and San Berdoo deppity sheriff. What law we gotta have, me and Sid Young is it, Barron is the name. I come from L.A. Eighteen years in the fire department. I come up here quite a while back. Nice and quiet up here. You up on business?»
I didn’t think he could do it again so soon, but he did. That spittoon took an awful beating.
«Business?» I asked.
The big man took one hand off his stomach and hooked a finger inside his collar and tried to loosen it. «Business,» he said calmly. «Meaning, you got a permit for that gun, I guess?»
«Hell, does it stick out that much?»
«Depends what a man’s lookin’ for,» he said, and put his feet on the floor. «Maybe you’n’ me better get straightened out.»
He got to his feet and came over to the counter and I put my wallet on it, opened out so that he could see the photostat of the licence behind the celluloid window. I drew out the L.A. sheriff’s gun permit and laid it beside the license.
He looked them over. «I better kind of check the number,» he said.
I pulled the gun out and laid it on the counter beside his hand. He picked it up and compared the numbers. «I see you got three of them. Don’t wear them all to onst, I hope. Nice gun, son. Can’t shoot like mine, though.» He pulled his cannon off his hip and laid it on the counter. A Frontier Colt that would weigh as much as a suitcase. He balanced it, tossed it into the air and caught it spinning, then put it back on his hip. He pushed my.38 back across the counter.