“Don’t get yer dander up for nothing,” the sailor said.
“Where’s my suitcase?” Mrs. Gneiss asked.
“Back there. You think I’m gonna cart that around all day you’re nuts,” he said.
Mrs. Gneiss told the sailor she was in a big rush. She had to get the suitcases into the locker and go right back home (she almost said “to the hideout”).
When they reached the lockers at the other end the porter held his mouth open in astonishment. “’At’s funny,” he finally said. “I coulda sworn I left the thing right here. .”
Mrs. Gneiss wrinkled up her nose. She did not think it was a great loss. The body that was in the suitcase was not only dismembered — it was dead as well. She was, after all, trying to get rid of it. “Someone must have filched it,” she said simply.
The sailor suddenly let loose a wild hoot. He seized the shrugging porter by the shirt and began beating him with his free hand. “Now look what you’ve gone and done!” he puffed. He shoved the porter up against the lockers with a clang and screamed, “Look what you’re making me do!”
Mrs. Gneiss stood quietly and watched. She knew that the sailor would soon get it out of his system. A policeman came by and asked what was going on.
The sailor stopped beating the porter. He was out of breath and could not speak. He shook the porter in the policeman’s face.
Mrs. Gneiss explained what had happened. She finished by saying, “I don’t see what all the fuss is about. There was nothing very valuable in it.”
“Valuable or not,” the policeman said, “we don’t like this sort of thing happening in Mount Holly. Now you just sit tight and I’ll round up that suitcase of yours in a jiffy. The culprit couldn’t be far away.” He asked for a description of the suitcase and its contents.
Mrs. Gneiss said that it was old, brownish-greenish, and had some personal effects locked in it.
The policeman deputized the sailor and the porter. The three ran out the back door of the bus terminal in search of the suitcase.
Mrs. Gneiss quietly placed the small suitcase (Juan) in a dime-locker and went into the bus terminal Koffee Shoppe and swilled down a huge hot-fudge sundae.
Less than ten minutes later the policeman was back with a rat-faced little bum in one hand and the suitcase (Harold Potts, Jr) in the other. The policeman handcuffed the bum to a post and joined Mrs. Gneiss in another sundae. Afterward, he insisted on having his picture taken with Mrs. Gneiss: he presenting the lost suitcase to her, she thanking him. It took an hour for the press photographer to arrive, but finally Mrs. Gneiss got the second suitcase into the locker. The policeman did the heaving and pushing. He remarked as he was doing it that the suitcase felt as if it were filled with burglar tools.
The sailor and the porter were nowhere to be seen. They were, presumably, still looking for the thief.
“I think I’ll just toddle off,” Mrs. Gneiss said.
The policeman wouldn’t hear of it. He said he’d give her a lift in the squad car. His pal didn’t mind. They were both tired of passing out parking tickets. “The jig’s up,” Mr. Gibbon said, when he saw the police squad car arrive with Mrs. Gneiss in the backseat.
“Gosh, the police!” Miss Ball said. She skipped into the kitchen and slammed the door.
Mr. Gibbon pulled out his pistol and flattened himself against the wall behind the front door.
“. . But just for a sec,” the policeman said as he entered. “Gotta get back to the station house.”
Mr. Gibbon had carefully unloaded his pistol. Now, as the policeman shuffled in and closed the door, he raised the pistol and brought it down on the top part of the policeman’s cap where the bulge of his head showed through. Mr. Gibbon had expected a bone-flaking crunch. There was not a sound like that. Instead there was a soft splok and the policeman slumped to the floor.
“Charlie!” Mrs. Gneiss said.
“Rope!” Mr. Gibbon hissed.
Mrs. Gneiss looked at the policeman lying spread-eagled on the floor grinning up at her. “You killed the cop, Charlie, and for no good reason at all, you know that?”
“Get some rope, Mrs. Gneiss, and stop sassing me!”
Mrs. Gneiss rummaged through her knitting basket looking for rope. She sighed and mumbled, “I thought it was a bank we were after. .”
Mr. Gibbon peeked out the little window at the top of the door and spied another policeman in the car. He yelled for Miss Ball.
The kitchen door opened a crack. “Is it okay to come out?”
“Sure, sure,” Mr. Gibbon said.
Miss Ball clapped her hand to her mouth when she saw the policeman on the floor. Her eyes popped over the top of her hand. Mr. Gibbon leaped in back of her and started to tickle her. On the left side he tickled and held her fast; on the right — where most of the tickling was done — he used his pistol. He slipped the ice-cold gun barrel under her blouse and scrubbed her kidneys with it.
“Stoooooop! Paaaalllleeeeeeeeze! Stoooooop it! You’re awful, Charlie Gibbon! Stooooo. .”
Her glee found its way through the door and down the walk, past the nasturtiums and into the front seat of the squad car where another policeman sat reading a magazine.
The policeman blew and whistled, fumbled with the magazine, glanced toward the door, shifted in his seat, and then got out of the car, adjusted his tie in the side-window and hurried up the walk.
During the night another policeman came and asked Mrs. Gneiss if she had seen the two policemen. He described them and gave her the license number of the squad car.
Mrs. Gneiss said yes, indeed, she had seen those nice policemen — they had given her a lift home. But they couldn’t stay, they said. They drove off in the direction of Holly Junction to give parking tickets.
When the inquiring policeman returned to his car his partner asked him what he had found out.
“Nothing,” was the answer, “just a nice old lady that doesn’t know a thing.”
Mr. Gibbon saw the car leave as he sat upstairs in the darkness and looked through a slit in the curtains. He waited a half-hour and tiptoed out of the house to check the squad car that he had driven around back and covered with lilac branches and heavy canvas.
As he sneaked through the nasturtiums he heard, “Hey, you!” Mr. Gibbon froze. He did not move a muscle, did not even brush at a fly that was strafing his wedge-shaped head. He had forgotten his pistol.
A uniformed man came up to him and tapped him on the shoulder.
Mr. Gibbon thought of kneeing the uniformed man and making a run for it. But he knew he didn’t have a chance. He started to say something when the man spoke.
“Lady by the name of Gneiss live here?”
“Who wants to know?” asked Mr. Gibbon, finding his tongue.
“Western Union. Got a telegram for her.”
It might be a trick, thought Mr. Gibbon. “I’ll take it. She’s inside.”
“Okay, okay. As long as she lives here. Just sign the book.”
Mr. Gibbon made every effort to write illegibly in the book. He took the envelope and stayed in the nasturtiums while the Western Union man walked away, glancing back at intervals until he was out of sight.
The car had not been touched. Mr. Gibbon put some more branches on it and then went in the house and gave the telegram to Mrs. Gneiss.
Mrs. Gneiss opened it and read it. When she was through reading it she reached across the table, took a handful of cream-filled chocolates and put them in her mouth. Her mouth bulged and juice ran from the corners of her mouth.
She chewed and did not stop chewing until the whole box of cream-filled chocolates was empty. And when it was, and she looked worried, she handed the telegram to Mr. Gibbon.