“I see.” The sheriff drummed his fingers and then looked up. “What about that statement regarding money?”
“Well,” the sergeant said slowly, frowning, “the money was Mrs. Crompton’s — is hers, I mean. Everybody in town knew that, but if every man who marries a dollar or two killed his wife for it, we’d be in real trouble. And as far as Charley Crompton telling that busybody neighbor of his that his wife was out shopping, or visiting a sister that doesn’t exist, I don’t see where he had a duty to tell her anything. If it had been me, I’d have told her my wife was off to Timbuktu, and let her make something of it.”
“That’s just what she’s been doing,” the sheriff pointed out. “Still, a man replanting a tree in the middle of the night — well, it seems rather—”
“I know,” the sergeant said unhappily, and sighed. “We’ll have to look into it a lot deeper, I know.”
The man who opened the door of the large old-fashioned house was a nondescript person with thin brown hair pasted against his head and large brown eyes swimming behind thick lenses. He was dressed in slacks and a sweater, neither impressive, and carried a hatchet in a hand one finger of which was heavily bandaged. A honing stone had been tucked under his arm to allow him a free hand with the latch. He took the honing stone from the pit of his arm and allowed the two implements to dangle; they seemed to weigh down his thin arms.
“Hello, Sergeant. What can I do for you?”
“Hello Charley. Actually, it was your wife I’d hoped to see.”
“Well, you can’t,” Crompton said apologetically. “She isn’t here. She’s gone away.”
“Oh? To visit her sister?”
The smaller man turned his head to stare reproachfully at the house across the road, and down a bit from his. His eyes came back to the patient face of the sergeant.
“Her brother. She has no sister.”
“And his name and address?” The sergeant produced a pad and pencil.
“Brown. John Brown.” No muscle moved in Crompton’s thin face, nor did his hesitant voice reveal anything. He sounded as if he were repeating something by rote. “I don’t have his street address or telephone. Chicago is all I know.”
“John Brown, Chicago,” the sergeant repeated genially, and wrote it down, not at all perturbed. He looked up from his pad. “I say, Charley, would you mind a lot if we went inside to talk. I mean, standing here in the doorway...”
“Do you have a warrant to enter these premises?”
The young sergeant was surprised. He managed to turn his expression into one of slight hurt. “A warrant? To visit an old friend for a few moments? Although,” he added, considering it, “I suppose one could be arranged, but it seems a bit foolish.”
Crompton’s thin lips compressed. He hesitated a moment and then, with a shrug, led the way inside, laying the hatchet and hone on a shelf in the entranceway and continuing into the living room. The sergeant picked the hatchet from its resting place and followed. He lowered his bulk into a chair and studied the instrument in his hand, touching the edge gingerly.
“Quite sharp,” he observed.
“I like my tools in order,” Crompton said evenly, and continued to watch the other man through his thick glasses.
“Oh? It’s a shame it’s so stained, then. Other than the honed edge, of course.” The sergeant peered more closely. “These brown blotches, for example...”
“They’re blood, if you want to know,” Crompton said abruptly. “I cut my finger yesterday while I was honing it.”
“Fingers do bleed like the devil,” the sergeant admitted, and placed the hatchet on the floor beside his chair. He looked about the sunlit room and nodded. “A nice place you have here, Charley. I envy you. My wife was saying just the other day how small our house was getting, with two kids here and another on the way. But it’s so hard to find a house near enough to the station house not to spend a week’s pay on gas, or one that’s a decent size any more. A house for sale, that is.” A sudden thought struck him. “I don’t suppose — well, I don’t suppose you have any idea of selling, do you?”
There were several moments of silence as Charley Crompton appeared to gauge the man seated across from him. A mantel clock above the fireplace filled the quiet with a loud and steady ticking.
“I might,” Charley Crompton said at last.
“You’re sure your wife wouldn’t object?”
“No.” It was a flat statement, expressionless. Crompton seemed to feel that the discussion had taken enough of his time. He came to his feet. “Well, sergeant, I’m rather occupied, and if that’s all the business you had in mind...”
The sergeant rose dutifully and smiled.
“If there’s any possibility of the house being up for sale in the near future,” he said, “I don’t imagine you’d mind greatly if I looked it over? We’re really interested, you know.” He turned and walked into the kitchen with Crompton on his heels. “Say! This is a nice-sized kitchen. My wife puts a good deal of store by the kitchen. Me, I’m more fussy about the cellar and the yard, the places I spend most of my free time.” He opened a door, saw brooms, and closed it. He opened another door. “Stairs to the basement, eh? Do you mind?” He flicked a light switch without awaiting permission, and descended with the smaller man right behind him. He stood and shook his head forlornly. “What a damned shame! What happened to your nice concrete floor?”
“Line under it burst,” Crompton said in a rather constricted voice. He cleared his throat. “Line from the sinks over to the septic tank. Had to dig it all up and replace an elbow.”
“Tough luck,” the sergeant said sympathetically. “Guess contractors weren’t much better in those days than they are today. But, other than that, it’s a nice dry cellar. Gas heat, too, I see. Well, let’s take a look at the back yard, while I’m here. I’m sure you won’t mind.”
They climbed the steps and walked through the kitchen to the back porch and the enclosed yard. One of the peach trees did, indeed, list slightly, and the fresh earth packed about its base was cleared of grass, reddish-brown in color, like a bad bruise. But the sergeant had been expecting that. What he had not been expecting was to see a second peach tree lying on its side beside a deep excavation, its root ball wrapped in canvas, or a third with a hole begun at its edge and a shovel thrust into the soil there. He glanced at his host.
“Trouble with your peach trees?”
“Tree roots need air,” Crompton said. His voice was unnatural, as if he, too, needed air. “My own idea, but it’s a valid one. I dig up trees and replant them quite frequently. I—” He paused a moment, eyeing the sergeant as if pleading for belief, and then continued, “It’s the truth! They really do, you know. Need fresh air, I mean. They’re living creatures; they can’t stand not having air. The branches and the leaves get their share, but that’s not enough.” He shook his head, and behind his thick glasses, his eyes were impossible to interpret. “It’s the roots, you see. That’s the important part! They need air. It’s the truth.”
He leaned back, balancing himself on his heels, a trifle breathless, staring at the excavated peach tree and the dark hole it had left behind in the earth.
“A few more hours,” he said as if to himself, “and the roots will be fine. Ready to bury again.”
The large young sergeant sighed and turned toward the gate leading to the street and his parked patrol car.
“I’ll probably be back again,” he said conversationally. “I’m sure you won’t mind. I’m really quite interested in this house.”
“Are you trying to tell me Charley Crompton is a nut?” the sheriff asked. “The last thing from a nut! He’s pulling our leg. A policeman shows up at his house and asks where his wife is, and he doesn’t even ask why! And that mound in the basement, and that hatchet bit! Cut himself honing the thing the day; before, and he’s still walking around with the hone the day after!”