No one guessed that a paper match would upset this plan.
Meanwhile, I had been watched because I was considered the dangerous fly in the pudding. No, Dunkles didn’t know who my shadow was or how it had been done. He only knew that my every move was known. He said he had picked up the impression that it had something to do with a girl, but he didn’t know.
When I went to Croyden, Ashley had recognized me from a photograph previously furnished him; it being a foregone conclusion I would visit him sometime soon. As soon as I had left he contacted Swisher and Swisher put a shadow on my tail. The shadow found me at Rothman’s office. No one knew, then, that I had seen Eleanor. They didn’t know that until the next day, after I was in the hospital.
But they suspected I was getting too close, in view of the fact that I had visited Ashley without disclosing my identity, and that I surely knew Leonore’s identity and her connection with Evans by that time.
The Judge had handled the mauling detail, too, from a distance. For some reason not understandable to him, I was taken off the train and to the farmhouse for a purpose. The purpose never materialized. He supposed I was to be bumped off; instead orders were given to muss me up and turn me loose, making sure that I was picked up and taken to the hospital.
“Why?” I demanded.
“I don’t know. I only follow orders.”
“Does only Swisher give the orders?”
“Yes. But he has to follow them, too. From the man he’s getting protection from.”
“Who is that man?”
He didn’t know.
After the phone call to the Judge in the Croyden apartment, the Judge confronted Eleanor with the facts. They then knew she had talked with me.
It was the end for Eleanor, she had betrayed them — unless — well, there was just one chance for Eleanor to redeem herself; did she want that chance? Frightened, she jumped at the chance. And so she had been shot in the shoulder and the elaborate double-cross rigged up. It was her responsibility to get me to the caretaker’s cottage or back to the apartment in Croyden. In either place, someone would be waiting for us.
Us. It would have been curtains for both Eleanor and me, real curtains this time. The “once over lightly” attitude was gone. Events had changed too fast, and for the worse, to tolerate me any longer. That didn’t make a lot of sense to Thompson, but it did to me. It wasn’t that things had become worse since that night at the farmhouse. Oh no, I became the real danger before that night. But they didn’t know how real until the following day or two.
Therefore, curtains, for keeps. Eleanor had never tumbled to the fact that she was slated for it, too.
Meanwhile, Thompson’s wire had been tapped. If he had discovered anything incriminating he had been careful not to mention it on the phone. They were marking time until he made a slip.
Thompson said, “Where’s Eleanor?”
“In there in the—” But she wasn’t. The chair was empty. A cold breeze swept through the front door and struck our faces. With the coldness came the words Eleanor had half-whispered to me a few minutes ago.
She had said, “So long, boy.”
Somebody was running across the porch. Trudy Thompson appeared in the open door, her face excited.
“Someone’s coming,” she gasped. “Coming from the barn.”
Over her words came the sound of Thompson’s car starting. The motor revved furiously.
“Where’s Eleanor?” Thompson shouted, running.
“In the car. She said you needed me here. She said—”
Whatever else she said I didn’t find out. Thompson’s wife was nearly bowled over in our concerted rush out the door. Eleanor saw us coming across the porch. The car was moving. She flicked on the lights and gave it a rich burst of gas. The back wheels spun, caught, and the car leaped forward.
Running up from the barn, a gun in his hand, was Swisher. The lights picked him up, reflected on the weapon.
I realized what was going to happen, and was powerless to stop it. I think we all realized it about the same time. Swisher did, too. He saw his own trap closing on him. He hesitated in the glare of lights, suddenly turned and ran.
The damned fool ran towards the lake.
Eleanor whipped the car around in a tight curve, the wheels skidding on the snow. The lights found Swisher again. He stopped running, turned around, raised an arm and threw a shot at the car. Glass tinkled and one headlight went out.
That shot cost him precious time, cost him his life. He might have made it to some kind of safety if he hadn’t stopped. It had been foolish to run towards the lake. There were no trees there to protect him.
Eleanor caught him. Hard.
His breaking body whipped back over the hood of the car, pinned there by the stunning force of the blow. His hands groped desperately for a hold, found none, and fell loosely over the hood as the life force drained from them. Eleanor was at the lake’s edge.
She kept right on going.
The car shot off the bank into the air two or three feet above the ice. It hung there for a tick, suspended in the sky. And then it dropped. Smashing down on the ice, the tires let go with four simultaneous, muffled explosions. The ice cracked and parted.
When we reached the bank only the top of Thompson’s car appeared above the swirling water and broken ice.
Trudy Thompson said numbly, “That girl’s in there.”
I looked down at the roof of the car and whispered, because I didn’t want to be overheard.
“Good-bye, Eleanor.”
Climbing wearily up the stairs to my office, I found a light behind the door marked ELIZABETH SAARI, M.D. I pushed in on her without knocking. Elizabeth Saari glanced up from the desk, saw me, and quickly hung up the telephone she was using. On the floor beside the desk were two stuffed suitcases.
I guess I wasn’t any too pretty to look at.
She demanded, “Where have you been?”
“Why?” I wanted to know.
“Do you know the police are looking for you?”
“The police — what the hell for?”
“The hospital called me when they discovered your absence. I called the police. And I’ve just talked with Mother Hubbard.”
“What has she got to do with it?”
“I wanted to know if you had returned home.”
“Say — how come you know Mother Hubbard?”
She grinned at me in open amusement. “I’ve found out a lot of things about you, Charles Home. Most of it from Mother Hubbard. You see, I’ve learned a few of the principles of detection, too.”
“You don’t have to tell me twice.”
“And now, where have you been? You look a sight.”
“To put it brutally, I’ve been helping to haul a car and a couple of bodies out of the lake.”
Her eyes widened. She waited a moment and then asked, “A couple of bodies?”
“A man named Swisher and a girl I know only as Eleanor. Do they mean anything to you?”
“Eleanor? You said Eleanor was—”
“Leonore’s sister,” I supplied. “Another Chinese doll.”
“Then... you’ve... caught up with them?”
I nodded. “Don Thompson, Doc Burbee and myself wound things up a few hours ago. All but the small fry who’ll be arrested whenever and wherever they turn up.” I paused. “And, of course, with the exception of the remaining silent partner.”
“And that will be...?”
“That will be the party who has never openly become involved in the case,” I said flatly. “The presumably unknown, silent partner who stayed behind the scenes, managed operations and issued the orders through either Swisher or Ashley, and most important, arranged for the protection with the right sources. Protection in exchange for guaranteed elections.”