At first Joe protested, because it didn’t seem right, and because somehow or other Mr. Cramer might get into trouble with the company. But that, Mr. Cramer said, was impossible, as long as he told no one, not even his wife. For women — well, he knew how Myra spread things around, sometimes without thinking about it at all. If Joe would promise to keep it entirely to himself, who could find out? The dentist had never seen him; he would of course accept him without question as William Frederick Cramer. If he kept it to himself, there was no chance to slip up.
And it was all right, even absurdly easy, though Joe all the time felt a little ashamed. Dr. Rapp didn’t ask him any questions; after Joe had given his name to the nurse as Mr. Cramer, he was ushered into the inner office, where the doctor pulled his tooth, and marked some others out on a chart he had. There was an upper molar that he thought should be looked after. Next Tuesday, at four, Mr. Cramer could have another appointment.
Joe said he’d phone if he could make it, since there was no sense pushing the thing too far, or taking advantage of Mr. Cramer’s kindness. Dr. Rapp merely nodded, and from the desk picked up a card with his name and phone number on it, under his address. It didn’t strike Joe at the time as an odd thing for a company dentist to do; when it was in his pocket he forgot all about it. He knew he wouldn’t be coming back.
Dr. Rapp was pretty positive at first that he’d never had a patient named Nolan. It wasn’t until McCann showed him the photo Elizabeth Nolan had given him that his eyes changed and showed interest. This was Cramer, he said — he’d seen him Tuesday. In the morning his wife had come in, to make the appointment, and to pay for the extraction — a fact which Dr. Rapp had thought at the time to be a bit strange, since most men preferred to pay their own bills. McCann nodded absently, thanking him; later he came back from the corridor to find if this Cramer had left his address. He hadn’t; but in the phone book there was only one William Frederick Cramer listed.
It was twenty minutes past four.
Thursday night when he went to close the sale with Mr. Cramer, so many things happened that the actual events were rather hazy in Joe’s mind. Mr. Cramer was waiting in the living room for him, dressed and shaved, with a suitcase at his feet. He was leaving that night for Albany, since he had to be there in the morning, on business; but the startling news he had for Joe was that he wanted him to go with him. There was an opening in the Albany office which he had just got wind of that day; and he knew Old Higgins very well. If Joe came with him now, so that he could be there in the morning to present himself when the office opened, Mr. Cramer was pretty sure he could land the job.
Joe thought, the first thing, of Elizabeth; it was the only detail that made him hesitate. But Mrs. Cramer said she’d be glad to take the trolley over and tell her what had happened, and after that there was no reason to stop. In half an hour they were out on the road, in Mr. Cramer’s small coupe, doing forty through a quiet countryside.
They didn’t talk very much until they were clear of the city; Mr. Cramer seemed a little worried now about the dentist. He said if they ever found out about that at Fenner & Lisle’s they’d fire him, and he wanted to know if Joe had told anyone, even his wife. Three or four times he brought that up; and every time Joe assured him that he hadn’t mentioned it to anyone.
But something else was really occupying his mind. Mr. Cramer had shaved off his mustache — tired of fooling with the darn’ thing he said — and now more than ever his features troubled Joe with an elusive sense of familiarity. This time, however, it worried him only briefly before it was clear, so astonishingly clear, that it seemed incredible he had never been able to place it before. The mustache helped to reveal it now, of course; but even then—
In his excitement he grasped Mr. Cramer’s arm, with an uncertain laugh.
“Maybe I’m a little dizzy about the job and all,” he said. “I thought you looked kind of familiar, though I could never just place it. The mustache being off has made it easier, I guess. You look an awful lot like me, Mr. Cramer. I bet if I had your glasses on I could fool your wife.” Mr. Cramer smiled. “Nonsense,” he said.
“It isn’t,” Joe went on earnestly. “If I had your glasses on—”
Something tense came up under Mr. Cramer s smile; a thin cord tightened along his jaw. Somewhat sharply he said he’d never noticed it. It was absurd.
When Mrs. Cramer opened the door for him, perhaps a minute after his ring, McCann had rid himself of his cigar. He looked a middle-aged, guileless fat man, who could murmur something about reading a meter without being questioned.
Mrs. Cramer was neither nervous nor friendly. It was pleasant and quiet, sunnily peaceful; in a way, McCann felt ashamed of himself. He thought he had a bad mind — a suspicious mind.
Nevertheless, he went out, after visiting the cellar, through the living room, as if he didn’t remember what door he’d used coming in. That was a pleasant room, too. But the thing that caught McCann’s eyes like a glaze of lightning was a framed picture on the upright piano. For an amazed moment McCann stared at it; and in the street, after he had rounded a corner, he took the snapshot of young Nolan out of his pocket to stare at it in turn. Without the mustache, without the glasses, the two pictures might have been those of twins.
At first McCann figured that was screwy. This Nolan, he thought, might be married to both of them. He’d read of things like that, of men having two families in the same town, a couple of miles apart. Only there was a catch so that, since young Nolan had been married to Elizabeth over a year now, and he’d never been away from home before — not for one night. If this Cramer had vanished a year ago, about the time young Nolan had married Elizabeth—
The newsman could check that. Every night, he said, Mr. Cramer came down for a late copy of the paper — every night but last night. McCann, prodding his plate thoughtfully, asked about the mustache. Cramer had one of those?
The newsman looked at him curiously. “Until two or three days ago. I was kidding him when he came down without it, he looked so young. What you want to know for?”
McCann grunted: “I’m writing a book.” His trolley came then and he ran for it, but all the time he stayed aboard he kept worrying about this thing. It didn’t seem to have any edges that would help fit it into place. The mustache placed William Frederick Cramer and it placed young Nolan. They were different men. Two or three days ago, perhaps the very day Joe Nolan went to the dentist, this Cramer shaved it off. Why? Why the dentist?
He was the solving piece, McCann thought — fit him in and the rest would follow. Teeth were as good identification, almost, as fingerprints.
McCann got off the street-car then, slowly, looking very pale, and telling himself he was crazy. Something like that — Still, from a booth he called headquarters, and then his home, to tell Molly he wouldn’t be there for supper.
At seven he called headquarters again. In a moment he hung up, something heavy and cold pressing around his heart. The last thing of all fitted in — the fact that in the American Eagle Mutual Company, William Frederick Cramer was insured for fifteen thousand dollars...
They were going so fast that it was chilly in the car; the wind rushed at them from the darkness with a drowsy snarl. Joe was just beginning to drowse when Mr. Cramer stopped.
“Carburetor trouble — always have it. I better look at it. You sit here.”
He got out, closing the door behind him, and raised the motor hood. Then he bent forward, his figure dark cut against the fanned-out yellow streams of the headlights laned before them, his head turned slightly toward Joe, as if he weren’t looking at the motor at all.