Talmage Powell
Murder Isn’t Timid
The cream of wheat was even more tasteless than usual; or maybe it was because he had spent three sleepless, terror-ridden nights, shivering in bed while he heard the ghostly noises downstairs.
Across the breakfast table from him, Maggie, his wife, a corpulent woman with a mannish face and a voice like a cracking whip, rustled the morning paper. “All through, Sylvester?”
He raised red-rimmed, tired eyes. “Yes, dear.” He wished she wouldn’t come to the breakfast table with her hair kinked up on stringy rags.
She said, “Well, you’d better be getting ready. Mr. Allenby will be by in a moment.”
He got up from the table. His head felt thick, his mouth fuzzy. He hoped there would be no noises tonight and he could get some sleep. He got his hat and coat from his bedroom, came back downstairs, and told Maggie “Bye, dear.” She submitted to his kiss on her cheek without-looking up from the paper.
She said, “Here’s something else about Todd Bassett, Sylvester. It’s been in the paper before, but they’re stressing the point now.”
“What is it?”
“His left foot. It says here that his left foot tilts outward sharply. Seems as if his left leg was broken once and... My goodness! What’s the matter?”
Sylvester Sneed sank weakly into his chair, his eyes popping a little, his thin face tinged with green.
“Sylvester!” Maggie sat up straight, alarmed. “What’s the mat...”
“The noises,” he croaked. “The noises we’ve been hearing downstairs for the last three nights. I... this morning... the furnace.” He pulped, groped with his hand, and steadied himself against the table. “This morning when I went to look at the furnace, dear, I found footprints.”
“Footprints?”
He nodded miserably. “The print of the left foot tilled outward, Maggie. It...”
Maggie squealed, went white, and swayed in her chair. “That’s who! Todd Bassett has been in this house! Maybe hiding here! We started hearing the noises the night after he escaped from prison. And now you find his footprint...” She got up quickly, the paper coming apart and spilling to the floor.
“Where are you going, dear?”
“To someplace I can feel protected.” Her voice was the cracking whip now. “For three nights you’ve listened to those sounds and have been afraid to get out of bed and chase the prowler out. If it’s Todd Bassett...” She shuddered, her plump body quivering all over. “I’m going home!”
“But, dear...” The slam of the door behind Maggie cut him off. He stood and looked helplessly. He pondered going after her, but a horn honked outside, and he knew he couldn’t keep Mr. Allenby waiting. Sylvester Sneed miserably left the room.
The morning outside was gray and a chill bit into Sylvester’s lungs each time he drew a breath; and to make it worse, Herbert Allenby was his usual bubbling self.
He looked very well fed and sure of himself, a cigar in his mouth, as he opened the door of his maroon coupe for Sylvester to climb in.
“Well, well, how’s Sneedie this morning?”
For a moment, he was too tired to stay in character. He said, “I feel lousy and I’d like to get drunk!”
Mr. Allenby almost swallowed his cigar. “Huh? Oh... yeah, sure.” He gave Sylvester a crooked glance. “What’s troubling you, old man?”
“Well, it’s this way. Four days ago I was a happily married man. Maggie sort of likes to have her way, but I’m accustomed to it. That morning — four days ago — we read in the paper — you remember the big, black headlines — that Todd Bassett had escaped from prison.
“Lots of folks here in Middleton remember Todd, and we wish he’d never been born here. He robbed a bank, killed a railroad man, then he kidnapped a child and neither the child nor the ransom was recovered. After that he tried to hold up a night club in Chicago and killed the manager. Smart lawyers got him off with a life sentence.”
He suddenly realized how much he had talked, and he looked at Herbert Allenby in embarrassment.
“Go on,” Herbert said.
“Well, this sounds silly, but Todd Bassett is ruining my marriage!”
Allenby’s forehead wrinkled. “Your marriage?” he echoed.
Sylvester nodded. “For three nights my life has been in mortal danger.” He swallowed hard. “I’m half dead from it already. Been hearing noises downstairs. And this morning, by a footprint, I knew Todd Bassett had been hiding in my house. I guess he figured the police would never dream of looking there. Not when he learned who had bought the old house and fixed it up. So Maggie’s leaving, until they catch Todd or I... I do something.”
“Why haven’t you called the police?”
“I thought of it. But... but wouldn’t there be shooting?”
“I suppose so. You really should sell the old place to me. Well, here’s your stop.”
Mr. Allenby pulled over in front of the two-story, aged brick building that housed Collins Hide and Metal Corp. Sylvester thanked him for the ride and got out.
Even on the sidewalk, the rank odor of old hides and new hides with the fur yet to be removed from them hit and splashed in Sylvester’s stomach. Of course, the smell wasn’t so bad in the office where he worked, but it was an unusual day indeed when he could eat a hearty lunch. He had been on the point of quilting the Collins Corp., had stood it as many years as he thought he possibly could, when Pearl Harbor happened. And Collins, with its metal and leather, had suddenly become very important. Because he knew the business, every tangent of it, Sylvester Sneed had stuck to his guns, working long hours and swallowing his stomach when the odor got too bad.
Herbert Allenby pulled away, zooming into traffic, and Sylvester stood a moment thinking that Allenby had told him, when he’d moved in the hotel four blocks up the street from Sylvester, of a nice, air-conditioned office where he, Allenby worked. Sylvester sighed, and the brick building swallowed him.
The day was an eternity, every moment filled with “Sneed do this” or “Sneed, look to that.” He worried about Maggie, and he wondered if he should call the police or trust to Bassett to leave him alone in the future. He’d never been in a position like this, and he was bewildered.
His nerves made him feel as if he were jerking all over and there were dark circles under his eyes when he came out of the brick building at six o’clock.
He stood on the sidewalk waiting for a break in traffic. He took off his glasses, was wiping the lenses with a handkerchief, when the dark sedan pulled over to the curb.
“Hello there, Sneed.”
“Eh?” He peered at the car, saw the vague shape of a smiling face.
“Want a lift?”
“Oh, I can catch a bus.”
“No need of that. Get in. This is Joe Clayton.”
Sylvester thought very hard, putting his glasses on slowly.
“Don’t you remember me?”
“Er... oh, sure.” He tried to think that he did.
“Well, come around the car and get in. I want you to drive for me as far as your house. Hurt my finger with ray cigarette lighter a moment ago.”
A car behind the sedan began honking its horn viciously.
“Get in, Sneed!”
Something about the voice made Sylvester jump, and without quite realizing it, thinking that he was making the driver behind very angry by holding up Joe Clayton, he went around the sedan.
His mind full of Todd Bassett, Sylvester looked into the car. The man scooted over. He was a blonde, and Bassett, Sneed remembered, had been a brunette, with slick hair. His breath whistled out in relief. The horn behind him blared again and he jerked the door open.
“Sure appreciate this, Mr. Clayton,” he said, scooting under the wheel. “Buses awful crowded these days. Is your finger bad?”