“I don’t believe it,” Meekins said flatly. “Even Blinky wouldn’t be low enough to publish a paper. He was a high-class liar. What would he go clear out there and do it for, anyway?”
“That reminds me,” said Dodd. He found a telephone directory in the drawer of the desk and thumbed through it rapidly. He found the number he wanted and dialed it.
“Greater Pacific Railroad,” a voice answered.
“Have you got a complaint department?” Dodd asked. “I’ve got a beef with your railroad.”
“One moment, please. I’ll connect you with our Mr. Carter. He’s in charge of complaints.”
The line snapped, and then a smoothly polite voice said: “Yes? Carter speaking.”
“My name is Dodd — William Dodd. Day before yesterday you delivered a body to me. I mean, a corpse. I want to make a complaint on that.”
“Wait a second, Mr. Dodd, and I’ll look up our records on the matter. Hold the line.”
Dodd waited, and Carter finally came back on the phone again: “Yes, Mr. Dodd. I have the record here now. The body was consigned from Sparkling Falls, South Dakota, to you here in Bay City. Is there some trouble about it?”
“Trouble!” Dodd echoed. “Hah! You shipped the wrong body, and I’m not going to pay for it. I want my money back.”
“What?” said Carter blankly.
“You shipped me the wrong body. I’m not going to pay the fare for just any old corpse.”
Carter said frigidly: “Now just a minute. It happens to be the law that if a body is shipped in interstate commerce, the coffin in which it is shipped must be sealed and it cannot be opened at its destination. That coffin consigned to you was sealed before it left Sparkling Falls. Did you open it?”
“No,” said Dodd.
“Then how do you know the proper body isn’t inside?”
“The guy is writing me letters!” Dodd snarled. “You don’t claim he’s doing that inside a sealed coffin, do you?”
“If this is a joke, Mr. Dodd, it is in very poor taste.”
“It’s no joke! Not unless you can laugh off seven hundred and fifty odd dollars. If you don’t refund that fare to me I’m going to sue you.”
“Now look here, Mr. Dodd. You have no claim whatsoever against this railroad. We accepted the body at Sparkling Falls and delivered it to you as per our instructions and obligations as a common carrier and bailee. We didn’t guarantee the identity of the corpse. Both tickets have been validated and receipted, and we certainly are not going to return you your money.”
“What did you say about both tickets?” Dodd demanded. “Were there two?”
“Of course. It is a rule of railroads everywhere that if we accept a body for shipment, you must buy an extra regular passenger fare. And that’s what you did.”
“This is the first I’ve heard about it. Who used that extra ticket?”
“A woman who signed herself as Blanche Trilby.”
“I don’t know any Blanche Trilby!” Dodd said. “I’ve never even heard of her!”
“That’s quite possible, Mr. Dodd. If the deceased has no relatives who wish to accompany the body, then it is customary to make arrangements with some local person who will do so. It’s often just a formality.”
“A very peculiar one,” Dodd commented. “I have to pay for a funeral for a guy who isn’t dead and the fare for a corpse I don’t want, and on top of that I get nicked for another ticket for somebody I don’t even know!”
“You have no claim against this railroad, Mr. Dodd. If you think you have, I would suggest you take the matter up in court. We have an extensive legal staff. Good-bye.”
Dodd slammed the telephone back on its stand.
“Say,” said Meekins. “I just happened to think — why didn’t you take the railroad fare out of the five hundred bucks and give Blinky a cheaper funeral?”
“Because,” said Dodd bitterly, “there are a lot of guys like you, who are so dumb they don’t know you can’t ship a corpse by parcel post. They’d have all thought — when I showed them the funeral receipt — that I was cheating on a dead guy who trusted me.”
“I guess maybe so,” Meekins admitted. “There’s something wrong about all this, Dodd. It don’t look a bit good to me.”
Dodd turned his head slowly. “Say, what the hell do you mean by sitting around here and drinking yourself dumb? Get over to the police station and get to work!”
“Sure, sure,” Meekins soothed. “I’m going in a minute. Don’t get in an uproar. What are you going to do yourself?”
“Send telegrams to a horse doctor,” Dodd said.
Dodd walked past the long, glistening plate glass window and went through the door into the telegraph office. It was a narrow, deep room with a waist-high counter running across it about twenty feet back from the front.
Dodd found a pad of blanks and composed a message to Doctor Herman Ramsey and then tapped on the high counter with the pencil. A mousy little girl with dark, smooth hair and thick-lensed spectacles came forward. She accepted the blank and counted the words.
“Can you read it?” Dodd asked.
She quoted mechanically: “ ‘To Doctor Herman Ramsey Milesville South Dakota if Harold Stacy is there have him telegraph me collect a telephone number at which I can get in touch with him at once matter is urgent signed William Dodd.’ ”
“That’s right,” said Dodd. “How long will it take to get there?”
“The message will reach Milesville in about a half-hour. How soon it reaches your party after that will depend on the delivery service there.”
Dodd sighed. “All right. I’ll wait. Is there a bar near here anywhere?”
The girl looked up. “A what?”
“A bar. A grog-shop. A saloon.”
“There’s a place called Coon’s Cafe down the street a block and to your right on Sixth,” the girl said disapprovingly.
“I’ll be back in a little while,” Dodd promised.
Coon’s Cafe was down six steps from the street level. It was a dim, shadowy little place acrid with the sharp smell of ammonia from beer coils, and dust motes danced lazily in front of the horizontal slits that served as windows.
When Dodd came in, it was deserted except for a wizened little man with a long, drooping yellow mustache who was standing behind the bar.
“Hello,” he said in a discouraged voice. “You don’t look very good.”
“Well, thanks,” Dodd answered. “I don’t feel very good, either.”
“What you need,” said the bartender, “is a sherry flip. There’s nothing like a sherry flip to put you right. It’s tasty and nutritious and—”
“Bourbon,” Dodd said. “Straight. Leave the bottle.”
The bartender produced a bottle and a glass. “I’m telling you this for your own good. Whiskey is very bad for you when you have the megrims.”
Dodd ignored him. He poured a drink and swallowed it and shuddered.
“You see?” said the bartender, nodding gravely.
Dodd poured another drink, propped his elbows on the bar, and stared down at it gloomily.
“You sure you wouldn’t like a sherry flip?” the bartender asked.
“No!” Dodd said violently.
There was silence for about ten minutes, and then the telephone rang stridently.
“That’ll be me,” said Dodd.
The telephone was in a booth at the back of the room, and Dodd crowded inside and lifted the receiver.
“How did you know where to find me?” he asked.
“Hah!” said Meekins. “Deduction, that’s what. I just remembered what a sourpuss you had on you, and I started looking in the directory for the bar that was nearest the telegraph office and—”