Grange nodded. “That’s right.”
“Well,” the man said, “You ask me, the guy who done that is the guy who owns this here house. But I don’t know. Maybe it’s just because I don’t like the old boy. He’s tried to get me into trouble with my job more than once. And I don’t forget it.”
“How?” Grange asked.
“Keeps claiming I read his meter wrong. Raises hell with the company. Tries to get out of paying the bill. Well — maybe that don’t mean he’d kill somebody, even if he is a tight, old skinflint. But maybe it does. Good luck, Inspector.”
The meter man recoded figures in his book, then returned to his car and started forward in the direction of town. As he did, another car — a long black sedan — appeared on the narrow road. The meter man stopped. And the black sedan kept approaching, horn blasting angrily. The meter man backed then, allowing the black car to come to a rest above the cabin. He then came forward again, skirted around it, and moved out of sight.
Grange watched a flashing-eyed John Shrewer step out of the black car. Once again that familiar, unescapable hatred rose up inside Grange — he couldn’t help repicturing the confused, sorrowful look on the face of Noel Berry’s mother, on the face of the young girl he was to have married.
Shrewer came down the stone steps dressed in an old suit the color of his car, glaring at Grange, rasping, “Haven’t you and the rest poked around her enough? I’m going to see my lawyer about this!”
Grange started to reply, then did not. His throat had constricted with anger; he tried to fight it because he was trying very hard to retain his neutrality.
“Why don’t you get out of here?” Shrewer snapped. “And get that dog off my property!” He extended a large key into a heavy lock on the door of the cabin. The door was sturdy-looking, and Grange had decided that the lock had been specially installed to increase its strength. Shrewer, he’d learned, trusted no one.
“Do you mind if I come in?” Grange asked.
“Certainly I mind! You’ve got no right.”
“You’re still a suspect,” Grange said, controlling his temper, “and don’t forget it. But I’ll make this a polite call, unless you force me to make it something else.”
Shrewer grumbled angrily, but then threw the door open and stomped inside. Grange followed.
Inside, Shrewer turned. “Why don’t you quit, Grange? You have no proof, nothing. And you know it.”
Grange’s eyes examined the room — barely illuminated from the open doorway — taking in the heavy beamed ceiling, the thick oak furniture, the stone fireplace with its hearth cold and black. He’d seen the room endless times by now, but still…
“One thing I don’t have to put with,” Shrewer snapped, “is that dog in this house. Either get him out or—!”
The beagle had followed them inside and had half-circled the room; now it went to the fireplace, raised up on its hind legs, and sniffed at the stones.
As Grange watched the actions of the dog carefully, Shrewer picked up a fire poker.
“I’m telling you,” Shrewer cried, “remove that dog, or I’ll fix him!”
“All right,” Grange said shortly. “Come on, Biscuit.”
As he left the house with the dog trotting beside him, he heard Shrewer bang the door shut behind him. He walked up the stone steps slowly, feeling weary and defeated.
The sun had disappeared now and darkness was approaching rapidly. Grange turned and surveyed the house once more, watching slivers of light appear between the cracks of the metal window coverings as Shrewer lighted the room. Grange’s forehead suddenly furrowed into a frown, his mind spinning. Then his eyes switched to gaze at the fuse box on the side of the house where the meter man had stood taking his reading.
Softly, excitedly, Grange said, “Come on, Biscuit!”
Forty-five minutes later, Grange — alone now reappared along the path, moving rapidly. He walked straight down the stone steps and rapped on the door.
“Who is it?” Shrewer rasped.
“Grange. Open up.”
“I don’t have to!”
“I think you’d better, and quickly.”
A moment later Shrewer grudgingly opened the door, eyes blazing at Grange. “I tell you, I will call my lawyer!”
“Better do it then,” Grange said, coming inside. “You’re going to need him.”
“What’s that?”
“Get your hat, Shrewer. I’m taking you in.”
Shrewer finally smiled, a hard, mean, humorless smile, and shook his head. “You are a fool, Grange.”
“Maybe I was for a time, not thinking any better than I did,” Grange said. “But that doesn’t matter now. Because I can prove you were up here when Berry died.”
“You’re crazy,” Shrewer said, his smile disappearing.
“No, I’m not,” Grange said. “Your meter was read this afternoon. Because you don’t have the electricity cut off while you’re gone, do you? Just in the event that you might come up here at any time?”
Shrewer frowned, eyes seeming to become smaller.
“I’ve just checked,” Grange said. “The electric-company records show that electricity was used in this house between August first and September first — during the period that Berry was murdered.”
Shrewer’s eyes widened, then seemed to become smaller again. “That doesn’t prove anything.”
“You claimed that you hadn’t been up here for two months. You were lying about that, Shrewer.”
Shrewer’s head shook back and forth, his mouth paling. “It could have been anybody using this place. The murderer—”
“This cabin’s a very tough place to break into,” Grange said. “And if it had been broken into, you’d have known it the minute you stepped into it afterward. You didn’t report it, did you? Besides, and more important, you paid the last electric-company’s billing. And you’ve got a reputation, Shrewer.
“You’d never have paid that bill for electricity you hadn’t used. An error on your part. And a big one, as it turns out. But at the time you thought the body would never be found, didn’t you? Is that why you wanted to kill the dog with the poker earlier? Because it found the body?”
“Nonsense!” Shrewer shouted. “Everything you’re saying. You can’t prove a thing. You simply can’t—!”
“It’s what we need,” Grange said. “All we need for now. Because it opens it again — the possibility. And now we’ll start over and crack your alibi apart inch by inch. You’re through, Shrewer.”
Shrewer kept shaking his head, turning away from Grange toward the fireplace, hands trembling. “I’m an old man,” he said quiveringly. “Old. Not well…”
Then, suddenly, he had knocked a stone from the edge of the fireplace. He was reaching inside, into an exposed hole, clutching.
Grange stepped forward, pistol out, the barrel whipping at Shrewer’s wrist. Shrewer cried out in pain as the revolver he’d drawn from the hole bounced harmlessly to the floor.
“Step back now,” Grange said, motioning with his gun. The old man backed, eyes blazing again.
Grange glanced once at the hole Shrewer had exposed by knocking away the stone. He saw a folded white envelope. He took it out.
It was addressed to the board of directors of Shrewer’s real-estate firm; Grange knew from past investigation that it was the murdered youth’s hand that had addressed it.
Grange pulled out the letter. He glanced only at the beginning of what Noel Berry had written:
“Dear Sirs:
I am hereby, of honest necessity, compelled to report the following discrepancies found in the accounts of this corporation…”