“A car’s been in here,” the sheriff said.
“You mean since the tractor came out?”
“Yes.”
“It didn’t get stuck?”
“No. The tractor had packed down the earth hard enough so a car could drive in all right.”
“Well, now, that’s something,” Quinlan said. “Wonder who it could have been. Probably some of the newspaper people snooping around. It wouldn’t have done any harm to have put a lock on that gate.”
“Or left somebody here,” the sheriff said.
Quinlan’s silence showed that he felt very definitely someone should have been left in charge but that that had been a matter for the sheriff.
“Tell anything by the tracks?” Quinlan asked.
“Not much. Tires worn pretty smooth and only occasionally you can get a bit of the pattern on the sides. And if you’ll look over here on the left you can see where the front wheels swung just a little bit out of the ruts. Now, that must have been when the car was going out, because they’re the last tracks that were made. So this’ll be the right front wheel on the car. And you notice that little nick out of the tire, on the side? Better remember that, George. We may run onto a car like that again if we keep our eyes open.”
Quinlan said, “Hadn’t I better get the photographer and have a picture taken of these tracks?”
“Can’t you do it?”
“No. I’ve got a fingerprint camera and that’s all. Anyway, that’s a little beyond my technique.”
“Well, just make some measurements of that gouged-out place in the tire and sort of sketch the pattern you can see on the side,” the sheriff said, “and we’ll get going. I want to do some more work in that house.”
Quinlan said, “If that should turn out to be important evidence...” and stopped.
“Well,” the sheriff said, “I guess you and I can remember those tracks well enough to identify the automobile, can’t we?”
“Yes, but...”
“Go on.”
“Nothing.”
“All right,” Bill Eldon said at length. “Tell you what you do, George. Take a page from your notebook and just tear off a bit here and there until we get it so it just fits that place out of the right front tire.”
Quinlan nodded. He took a page from his notebook and bent over the tracks in the moist earth, carefully tearing off little bits of paper until he had the pattern to suit him. “It’s an exact fit, Bill.”
“All right,” the sheriff said. “You keep it. Now let’s drive on to the house. I want you to take a look at that cigarette case.”
“We’ll obliterate these tracks,” Quinlan objected.
“But we’ll know the car if we ever run across it on account of that tire,” the sheriff drawled. “Come on, George.”
Quinlan started to say something and then checked himself.
They drove through the plowed strip of ground to the level field where the car jolted along over the weed-encrusted road, through the big shade trees, to the Higbee house.
The sheriff led the way to the creaking side door which he opened.
The scurrying of rats and mice for shelter was distinctly audible as a composite sound of pattering tiny feet beating a tattoo of panic on the floor.
The sheriff paused long enough to lower the angle of the flashlight. “At least one woman, and at least one man,” he pointed out. “Sort of zigzagging around.”
Quinlan’s half-articulate comment was little more than a grunt.
Bill Eldon shifted the beam of his flashlight. “This way to the kitchen, George.”
They entered the kitchen. The beam of the flashlight showed the table with its waxed paper, the lipstick, the cigarette stubs, and the charred groove in the table. The beam of the flashlight illuminated the silver cigarette case, glanced from it in a splash of reflected light on the cobweb-encrusted ceiling.
Quinlan opened the fingerprint outfit he was carrying, carefully gripped the corners of the cigarette case with rubber-tipped tongs and dusted powder over the silver.
“Hump! That’s funny.”
“What’s the matter?”
“There isn’t a print on it.”
“Maybe the person who handled it was wearing gloves,” the sheriff said. “How about the lipstick?”
Quinlan managed to get two prints from the lipstick that were legible enough to give results.
The sheriff seemed unimpressed to the point of disinterest. His flashlight was exploring around on the floor. “One burnt match,” he said. “That’s significant.”
“I don’t get it.”
“If you were lighting three cigarettes how many matches would you use?”
Quinlan grinned. “If a good-looking girl was sitting across the table from me I’d use one — wait a minute, I’d use two.”
“That’s right. But there’s only one.”
“Then something must have happened to one of the burnt matches. Perhaps a pack rat carried it away.”
“Nope,” the sheriff drawled. “It ain’t that. The way I figure it, the man was a chainsmoker. He and the girl sat down here at the table. They had some sandwiches, then they settled down for a smoke. He lit her cigarette, and lit his own. After they’d smoked their cigarettes, he lit his second one from the stub of the first. The girl only smoked one cigarette. When she’d finished it, she took out her lipstick and started to fix up her mouth — and it was then something happened, right at that particular moment.”
“How do you fix it as being at that time?”
“Because they jumped up and they were startled. The man put his cigarette down on the table, and never had a chance to get back to pick it up. It lay there and burnt that groove. The woman dropped her lipstick.”
“And then?” Quinlan asked.
“And some time after that,” the sheriff said, “the girl was found stabbed in a plowed field with no tracks going in either direction, not even her own.”
“How long after that?” Quinlan asked.
“That, son,” the sheriff said, “is something we’ve got to find out. By puttin’ two and two together, you get an answer, and it don’t seem to be the right one.”
It began to rain about three in the morning, a fine, misty cold rain. By daylight the tangled grass and weeds of the field were glistening with moisture, and the dark lumps on the ridges of the plowed ground reflected the sullen daylight which filtered through the low bank of clouds.
The bent figures of the sheriff and George Quinlan moved slowly along over the boundary between the grassy field and the freshly plowed earth. With the thoroughgoing patience of veteran trackers, they inched their way along, covering every foot of ground.
Daylight was well advanced and the drizzle had stopped when they returned to their point of beginning.
“Well,” Quinlan said, “that settles it. No one left this piece of ground after the murder was committed, so the body must have come in from the outside — unless it was dropped from an airplane.”
The sheriff straightened. He rolled and lit a cigarette. “I noticed one thing back there in the house, George. You remember where those drapes hang over the door? There’s a long braided silk doodad with tassels on it — but there’s only one. Shouldn’t there be two?”
Quinlan laughed. “Shucks, Bill, the way this place has been left it’s lucky there’s even one. But there should be two. I’ve got the same sort of drapes at home.”
The sheriff thought for a while. “What do you s’pose frightened those people after they’d just eaten?”
“I’m darned if I know,” Quinlan said. “I’m an officer, not a mind reader. It must have been shortly before the murder, and that must have been after dark. Seems strange they’d have been eating sandwiches then. They must have planned to stay all night searching. And speaking of eating, I’m going home, change my wet clothes, and have some breakfast.”