Arthur said, no, he didn't think so. "Unless it was attached to the other side of the horse, of course. I only saw one side of the horse. But if the gun was as big as me, I don't see how I could have missed it."
"All right, Arthur, thank you. Tomorrow we'll go back to bridge and watch the horse jump the fence. You can go along now with your mother."
"Detestable child," said Chief Flower, watching Arthur waddle across the street with his large amiable mother. "Pompous little pain in the neck. I suppose we've got to be nice to him."
"We can be damn glad the boy was there," said Homer. "The horseman seems to have escaped observation by anybody else all. Silverson was the one who followed his trail along river? Can I see his report? Yes, here's where he went—right along the river and across lots until he got to the hard dirt road that runs down by the barns and sheds at the Hand place. And that's where they lost him, but they think he must have gone back to the Gosses' barn somewhere in there. I see they didn't turn up any gun, either. You think they were thorough?"
"They sure were. Got some state troopers to help 'em. Turned those barns and sheds upside down." Jimmy pulled Homer's sleeve. "Look, what are we going to do with Charley? He's confessed, but his confession is as full of holes as a sponge. Ordinarily with a confession you'd keep him in custody until the next court session on Monday. I'm darned if I know what to do."
"Let him go," said Homer. "All we can have now is a medical examiner's inquest. I'm sure the D.A. would go along with that. It's just as you said—the boy only saw the man's back. About the only limits you can set are that it had to be somebody taller than a shrimp like you and shorter than me, and neither a fat man nor a walking skeleton, and probably somewhat less than ninety-five years old. There are at least two prime suspects without alibis, maybe more. How do we know there wasn't a third person present? He might have hidden under the bridge, then got away by water. Let them both go. They'll be around when we need them. And see to it that Charley gets himself a lawyer."
Homer put on his coat and his fur hat. It had occurred to him that somebody ought to go talk to the Hands again. It was mighty queer that nobody in that big family had seen that horseman. Besides, it was a good excuse to see that heavenly girl again.
"No, I didn't see anybody, did you, Tom?" said Gwen.
"No, I didn't either," said Tom. "Did you, Mother?"
"No, I didn't. Did you, Mary?"
"No. Did you, Annie?"
"No, did you, John?"
"No, did you, Freddy?"
"Horsie!" said Freddy, who was too young to count. So that had gotten him nowhere.
*24*
Such is the daily news ... a parasitic growth ... .1 would not run around a corner to see the world blow up .... The morning and the evening were full of news to you. —Henry Thoreau
The newspapers called it "The Minuteman Murder," and they celebrated it swiftly. There were so many charming things about it. For one thing it had happened on Patriot's Day at the Birthplace of American Liberty, and for another it had apparently been committed by a reincarnation of Paul Revere (this universal error brought joy to the heart of the Governor of the Commonwealth). How much juicier could a story get? the A.P. man wanted to know.
"Well, the victim could have been a shapely blonde draped in the American flag," said the reporter from the Globe.
For a week or so the story stayed on page one in the Boston papers. The inquest in the District Court helped it along.
INQUEST FINDS MURDER
Widow Insane With Grief
"Ernest Goss met his death at the hands of a person or persons unknown." This was the finding of Judge Harlow Murphy this morning in Concord's District Court. His decision was based on the report of District Medical Examiner Walter Allen and on an autopsy performed by Dr. Warren Betty of Harvard's School of Legal Medicine.
The nature of the wound, Dr. Betty said, was such that it could only have been inflicted from a distance of approximately six to ten feet. The angle of passage of the fatal ball through the body indicated that the weapon from which it was fired was held at a height. It could have been fired, said Dr. Betty, either from horseback or from the rise of ground below the obelisk in front of the bridge. Dr. Allen declared the time of death, one p.m., compatible with a shot fired about five minutes earlier, i.e. about the time Boy Scout Arthur Furry heard such a shot.
Mrs. Elizabeth Goss, widow of the murdered man and mother of Charles Goss, has been pronounced incapable of participation in the investigation, said Psychiatrist David Marks of the Massachusetts General Hospital. On the advice of Dr. Marks, Mrs. Goss, who is said to have lost her reason as a result of the tragedy, will be removed from her luxurious Concord home to McLean Hospital in Waverly.
That was the Herald. The Every Morning went in more for sex and sentiment. Chief Jimmy Flower looked at the picture on the front page with distaste. There was Arthur Furry, almost life size, upholstered in merit badges, looking prim and fat. SCOUT CONFRONTS SUSPECT. The account was highly colored. Jimmy read it aloud to Bernard Shrubsole, and got mad.
...and the brave lad paused. "Perhaps if he would just make his horse jump the fence," he said. The lip of Concord Police Chief James Flower tightened. "All right, lad, anything you say..."
("I—did—not! I've never called anybody 'lad' in my whole entire life!")
He gave the order for Charles Goss, dressed as Paul Revere, to jump his horse over the fence to the rear of the Minuteman. "It's him!" cried the Honor Scout, as the great beast leaped the fence.
Questioned by Lieutenant-Detective Homer Kelly, Arthur admitted that he could not rule out the possibility that Philip Goss, brother of Charles, might have been the original horseman. "I'm sure as anything it was one of them," said the boy.
Philip Goss was not present during the re-enactment. Homer Kelly asserted that Philip was acting within his legal rights in refusing to take part.
Kelly also pointed out that Charles Goss had taken his horse over the fence with a fine display of horsemanship, whereas the escaping murderer had fallen off, demonstrating clumsiness.
On the editorial page of this newspaper a columnist gave the District Attorney of Middlesex County a hard time, remarking with thinly veiled candor that his pursuit of criminals had been lackadaisical to say the least.
"Oh, bah," said Jimmy Flower. He rolled up the newspaper and bounded around his office with it, swatting nonexistent flies.
*25*
I like to deal with you, for I believe you do not lie or steal, and these are very rare virtues. —Henry Thoreau, in a letter to Lidian Emerson
The telephone rang in Mary's library office. The thin hearty voice of Jimmy Flower was on the line. "That you, Mary? Look, sweetheart, one of these days I'll get around to proposing to you in style, but right now I've got another kind of proposition. You know Lieutenant-Detective Homer Kelly? Good. Well, he was up to my house last night, and he was saying he wished he had some kind of advisor on this case who knew Concord, and all its history and literature and so on, you know, and the people involved in the Goss case, and somebody who was smart, too, and my wife Isabelle suggested Mary Morgan, and I said, say, that's a good idea, but she's already got a job in the library there with Alice Herpitude, and she said to me (Isabelle) that maybe Alice would give you time off, like every Tuesday and Thursday and Saturday, and I said I'd ask Alice. Well, the upshot is, I just spoke to Alice and she says that's okay with her. How about it?"