“Name the time,” I told him, “and we’ll drive up together.”
Cresswood is a typical small New England town located in the northeastern part of Connecticut. Parts of it are picturesque and of great interest to antiquarians such as Leffing and myself, but the very center of the town is marred by a hideous new shopping-center surrounded by blistering acres of blacktop parking lots.
After signing in at the local hotel, The Carriage Care, we walked the few blocks to the police station and asked for Chief Warwick.
Warwick was a lean individual with a lined, leathery-looking face which remained somehow expressionless in spite of its many wrinkles. I judged him to be of retirement age, or nearly so. His close-cropped profuse grey hair stood up straight like so many little spikes.
After shaking hands, he motioned us to chairs and sprawled back in his own, his long legs stretched out under a neat metal desk virtually bare of papers or other impedimenta.
“I know Mrs. Kelvin isn’t satisfied with our investigation of old Franklin’s death,” he admitted, “but we’ve been as thorough as we know how. We just can’t come up with a suspect or a motive. Everyone in town liked the old man. As far as money goes — pshaw! If Franklin had a quarter in his pocket, it burned a hole before the day was over!”
Leffing nodded sympathetically. “I must agree you appear to have precious little evidence to act upon. You don’t object to a few questions however?”
Chief Warwick shook his head. “Fire away! We’d be happy to have you solve the case. It was a savage murder and we don’t like the idea of some psycho wandering around here.”
Leffing thanked him and resumed. “I understand the autopsy indicated manual strangulation. Were there any other injuries?”
“No other injuries. So far as we can reconstruct the crime, the old man was suddenly seized from behind and throttled to death within minutes. Whoever strangled him had strong hands. Crushing pressure was applied. A little more and I think his spine would have snapped.”
“And you can suggest no motive whatever?”
“I can’t suggest any motive that begins to make sense. There was one odd circumstance which I’ll mention, though I’m convinced it’s without significance. A woman who lives about a mile from the orchard, a Mrs. Conliff, saw old Franklin trudging along the road in front of her house carrying a sack or bag of some sort. She assumed, correctly I’m sure, that he was going to gather apples in the old orchard. Yet when we found the body, the sack was missing.”
The Chief leaned forward in his chair. “Can you seriously entertain the notion that anybody would kill a helpless old man for a sack of apples? Especially when there were still plenty left on the trees?”
“Murders have been committed for less, Chief, but I find it difficult indeed to believe that was the true motive in this case. Another question. Who owned the apple orchard? Whose property was it located on?”
“Town property and the town didn’t give a hoot who took the apples. Whoever got there first. The trees hadn’t been pruned or sprayed in a decade or more and the apples got worse every year. Small and wormy. Most years they rotted on the ground.”
“Who discovered the body and under what cirbumstances?”
Chief Warwick shifted restlessly. “Old Franklin wandered about quite a bit. After he wasn’t seen for a couple of days, I had Sergeant Quinn check his shack and then inquire around. Quinn questioned Mrs. Conliff, among others, and that led him to the orchard where he found the body.”
“Nothing in the way of clues was found either in the orchard or in the old man’s shack?”
“The orchard didn’t give us so much as a single hair, footprint, button, thread — or whatever. Old Franklin’s shack contains nothing but the bare essentials; a cot, table, two chairs, a few dishes and pots. In one corner we found a few books, newspapers and advertising circulars, plus a four-year-old Sears and Roebuck mail-order catalogue.
“Nothing was broken and nothing appeared to have been disturbed. If anybody ransacked the shack, they even managed to replace the dust! Dust coated everything except the cot, one chair and part of the table-top.”
“There does not appear to be much to work with!”
Warwick nodded vigorously. “Exactly! We tried to explain the complete lack of clues to Franklin’s family, but they wouldn’t listen. They seem to think you can solve a murder by waving some kind of magic wand!”
Leffing got up. “That day may come, Chief, but I fear it is still some distance in the future!”
Warwick smiled for the first time. He arose and shook hands with us again, wished us luck and promised to alert us at once if there were any new developments. He also loaned us a key which opened a padlock which the police had placed on the door of the murdered man’s shack.
After lunch at The Carriage Care, we drove out to the apple orchard where Franklin Selk had been found strangled.
The orchard, screened by unknown meadow grass and straggling sumac bushes, was not visible from the road. After pushing through the fringe of brush, we saw before us some twenty neglected apple trees spread over about an acre of ground. Fallen apples, grubby and half rotted, littered the ground. Bunch grass, juniper bushes and a few stunted birch saplings grew here and there.
As we walked toward the trees, a grey squirrel which was busily burying an acorn or some similar treasure, scampered away, scolding us angrily.
Leffing prowled about restlessly, inspecting the ground and peering up into the trees. I sat in the shade of one of the larger trees and leaned back against the trunk.
About a half hour passed before my friend finished his tour of the orchard. It looked to me as if he had peered at every blade of grass and every bush.
He seemed disappointed as he sat down nearby. “I suppose,” he suggested, “we ought to have a look in the adjacent fields, but perhaps that can wait.”
The orchard was surrounded on three sides by the scattered remnant of an old stone wall, fast sinking into the earth. Small trees and brush grew along this vanishing stone boundry, obscuring the surrounding terrain.
“That might prove quite a strenuous expedition,” I commented. “I assume Chief Warwick’s men have combed the nearby areas.”
“Such assumptions,” Leffing observed acidly, “are not always warranted by the facts!” He did not press the matter, however, and presently we went back to the car. “Where to?” I inquired.
“Our next stop is Franklin Selk’s shack. Let us hope we have better luck!”
The shack was located about two miles from the orchard on a grass-grown dirt road which ran off the main highway. It was a small dilapidated structure, patched and plugged with tarpaper, strips of roofing tin and pieces of unpainted plywood.
We unlocked the padlock and entered. It was just as Chief Warwick had described it, scantily-furnished, dust-coated, and yet more or less orderly in appearance. A stack of books, pamphlets and newspapers was heaped in one corner.
Leffing looked at everything with his usual deliberation. I waited patiently, but when I saw that he apparently intended to inspect each item in the stack piled in the comer, I strolled outside and sat down on a stump. The air in the shack was too hot and dust-laden for comfort.
He emerged after what seemed an interminable time and padlocked the door.
“Any leads?” I asked.
“I’m beginning to see what our client, Mrs. Kelvin, had in mind when she mentioned that her unfortunate brother ‘got involved in all sorts of harebrained, speculative schemes.’ He owned books on vanished pirate treasure, the Lost Dutchman gold mine, hidden uranium sources just waiting to be discovered, and so forth. There are any number of books and leaflets on treasure-hunting projects, equipment and devices.”