Lombard slumped down on the edge of the bunk. Henderson, being the “host,” let him have it, got up and stood leaning the curve of his back against the wall opposite.
The only sound in the cell for a while after that was the rustle of cellophane, as Henderson kept continuously folding over the edge of an emptied cigarette package back on itself, until he’d wound it up tight, then undoing it again pleat by pleat until he had it open once more. Over and over, endlessly, apparently just to give his fingers something to do.
No one could have stood it for long in that atmosphere. Lombard said finally, “Don’t, will you? It’s making me go nuts.”
Henderson looked down at his own hands in surprise, as though unaware until then what they’d been up to. “That’s my old habit,” he said sheepishly. “I never was able to break myself of it, even in good times. You remember, don’t you? Any time I ever rode a train, the time table would end up like that. Any time I had to sit and wait in a doctor’s or a dentist’s office, the magazines would end up like that. Any time I ever sat in a theater, the program—” He stopped short, looked dreamily across at the wall, just over Lombard’s head. “That night at the show with her, I can remember doing it that night too— It’s funny how a little thing like that should come back to me now, this late, when all the more important things it might have helped me to remember all along— What’s the matter, what are you looking at me like that for? I’ve quit doing it.” He threw the tormented wrapper aside, to show him.
“But you threw it away, of course? That night with her. You left it behind you, on the seat or on the floor, as people usually do?”
“No, she kept both programs, I can remember that. It’s funny, but I can. She asked me to let her have them. She made some remark to the effect of wanting to glory in her impulsiveness. I can’t recall just what it was. But I know she kept them, I distinctly saw her put them in her bag.”
Lombard had risen to his feet. “There’s a little something there, if we only knew how to get at it.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s the only thing we know for sure she has in her possession.”
“We don’t know for sure she still has it in her possession, do we?” Henderson corrected.
“If she kept it to begin with, then it’s likely she still has it. People either do or don’t keep such things as theater programs. Either they throw them away at once, or they keep them indefinitely, for years after. If there was only some way we could make this thing the bait. What I mean is, it’s the only common denominator linking her to you — because it will have its upper right-hand corners neatly winged back from cover to cover, without missing a page. If we could only get her to come forward with it, without guessing — she will stand revealed to us automatically.”
“By advertising, you mean?”
“Something along those lines. People collect all sorts of things; stamps, seashells, pieces of furniture full of worm-holes. Often they’ll pay any price for things that to them are treasures but to others are trash. They lose all sense of proportion, once the collector’s lust gets hold of them.”
“Well?”
“I’m a collector of theater programs, say. A freak, an eccentric, a millionaire throwing my money away right and left. It is more than a hobby, it is an obsession with me. I must have complete sets of programs for every play produced at every theater in town, all the way back, season by season. I suddenly appear from nowhere, I open a little clearing depot, I advertise. Word spreads around. I’m a nut, I’m giving away something for nothing. There’s a free for all to get in on it while it lasts. The papers’ll probably puff it up, with pictures; one of those screwball incidents that pop up every now and then.”
“Your whole premise is full of flaws. No matter how phenomenal the prices you offer, why should that attract her? Suppose she’s well off?”
“Suppose she no longer is well off?”
“I still don’t see how she can fail to smell a rat.”
“To us the program is ‘hot.’ To her it isn’t. Why should it be? She may never even notice those tell-tale little folds up at the corner, or if she does, never dream that they’ll tell us what we want to know. You didn’t remember about it yourself, until just a few minutes ago. Why should she? She’s not a mind reader; how is she going to know that you and I are here together in this cell talking about it right now?”
“The whole thing is too flimsy.”
“Of course it’s flimsy,” Lombard agreed. “It’s a thousand to one shot. But we have to take it. Beggars can’t be choosers. I’m going to try it, Hendy. I have a strange feeling that... that this’ll work, where everything else has failed.”
He turned away, went over to the bars to be let out.
“Well, so long—” Henderson suggested tentatively.
“I’ll be seeing you,” Lombard called back.
As he heard his tread recede outside behind the guard’s, Henderson thought: He doesn’t believe that. And neither do I.
Boxed Advertisement, All Morning and Evening Papers:
Wealthy collector, in town for short visit, will pay over-generous amounts for items needed to complete his sets. Life-long hobby. Bring them in, no matter how old, no matter how new! Specially wanted: music-hall and revue numbers, last few seasons, missing because of my absence abroad. Alhambra, Belvedere, Casino, Coliseum. No job-lots nor second-hand dealers. J. L. 15 Franklin Square. Premises open until ten Friday night, only. After that I leave town.
21
The Day of the Execution
At nine-thirty, for almost the first time all day, the line had dwindled to vanishing point, a straggler or two had been disposed of, and there was a breathing spell, with nobody in the shop but Lombard and his young assistant.
Lombard slumped limply in his chair, thrust out his lower lip, and blew breath exhaustedly up across his face, so that it stirred the disarranged hair overhanging his forehead. He was in his vest, shirt collar open. He dragged a handkerchief out from the pocket he was sitting on and popped it at his face here and there. It came away gray. They didn’t bother dusting them off before they dumped them in front of him. They seemed to think the thicker the dust, the more highly they would be valued. He wiped his hands on the handkerchief, threw it away.
He turned his head, said to somebody hidden from view behind him by towering, slantwise stacks of programs, “You can go now, Jerry. Time’s about up, I’m closing in another half hour. The rush seems to be over.”
A skinny youth of nineteen or so straightened up in a sort of trench left between two parapets of the accumulation, came out, put on his coat.
Lombard took out some money. “Here’s the fifteen dollars for the three days, Jerry.”
The boy looked disappointed. “Won’t you be needing me any more tomorrow, mister?”
“No, I won’t be here tomorrow,” Lombard said broodingly. “Tell you what you can do, though. You can have these to sell for waste paper; some rag-picker might give you a few jits for them.”
The boy looked at him pop-eyed. “Gee, mister, you mean you been buying ’em up for three days straight just to get rid of them?”
“I’m funny that way,” Lombard assented. “Keep it under your hat until then, though.”
The boy went out giving him awed backward glances all the way to the sidewalk. He thought he was crazy, Lombard knew. He didn’t blame him. He thought he was crazy himself. For ever thinking that this would work, that she’d fall for it, show up. The whole idea had been harebrained to start with.