Even Bill Drager, one of my best friends, was wondering about me now.
"Bill," I said, "for God's sake, you don't think--"
"Of course not, Jerry."
But the fact that he knew what I meant before I had finished the sentence, proved I had been right about what he had been thinking.
There was something else in his voice, too, although he had tried to keep it out. Fear. He was alone with me in a dark alley, and I realized now why he had stepped back out of the light so quickly. Bill Drager was a little afraid of me.
But this was no time or place to talk about it. The atmosphere was wrong.
Anything I could say would make things worse.
So I merely said, "Well, so long, Bill," as I turned and walked toward the street.
Half a block up the street on the other side was an all-night restaurant, and I headed for it. Not to eat, for I felt as though I would never want to eat again. The very thought of food was sickening. But a cup of coffee might take away some of the numb-ness in my mind.
Hank Perry was on duty behind the counter, and he was alone.
"Hi, Jerry," he said, as I sat down on a stool at the counter. "Off early tonight?"
I nodded and let it go at that.
"Just a cup of black coffee, Hank," I told him, and forestalled any salestalk by adding, "I'm not hungry. Just ate."
Silly thing to say, I realized the minute I had said it. Suppose someone asked Hank later what I had said when I came in. They all knew, back there, that I had not brought a lunch to work and hadn't eaten. Would I, from now on, have to watch every word I said to avoid slips like that?
But whatever significance Hank or others might read into my words later, there was nothing odd about them now, as long as Hank didn't know what had happened at the morgue.
He brought my coffee. I stirred in sugar and waited for it to cool enough to drink.
"Nice night out," Hank said.
I hadn't noticed, but I said, "Yeah."
To me it was one terrible night out, but I couldn't tell him that without spilling the rest of the story.
"How was business tonight, Hank?" I asked.
"Pretty slow."
"How many customers," I asked, "did you have between mid-night and two o'clock?"
"Hardly any. Why?"
"Hank," I said, "something happened then. Look, I can't tell you about it now, honestly. I don't know whether or not it's going to be given out to the newspapers. If it isn't, it would lose me my job even to mention it. But will you think hard if you saw anybody or anything out of the ordinary between twelve and two?"
"Um," said Hank, leaning against the counter thoughtfully. "That's a couple of hours ago. Must have had several customers in here during that time. But all I can remember are regulars. People on night shifts that come in regularly."
"When you're standing at that grill in the window frying something, you can see out across the street," I said. "You ought to be able to see down as far as the alley, because this is a pretty wide street."
"Yeah, I can."
"Did you see anyone walk or drive in there?"
"Golly," said Hank. "Yeah, I did. I think it was around one o'clock. I happened to notice the guy on account of what he was carrying."
I felt my heart hammering with sudden excitement.
"What was he carrying? And what did he look like?"
"I didn't notice what he looked like," said Hank. "He was in shadow most of the time. But he was carrying a bowling ball."
"A bowling ball?"
Hank nodded. "That's what made me notice him. There aren't any alleys --I mean bowling alleys--right around here. I bowl myself so I wondered where this guy had been rolling."
"You mean he was carrying a bowling ball under his arm?"
I was still incredulous, even though Hank's voice showed me he was not kidding.
He looked at me contemptuously.
"No. Bowlers never carry 'em like that on the street. There's a sort of bag that's made for the purpose. A little bigger than the ball, some of them, so a guy can put in his bowling shoes and stuff."
I closed my eyes a moment to try to make sense out of it. Of all the things on this mad night; it seemed the maddest that a bowling ball had been carried into the alley by the morgue--or something the shape of a bowling ball. At just the right time, too. One o'clock.
It would be a devil of a coincidence if the man Hank had seen hadn't been the one.
"You're sure it was a bowling ball case?"
"Positive. I got one like it myself. And the way he carried it, it was just heavy enough to have the ball in it." He looked at me curiously. "Say, Jerry, I never thought of it before, but a case like that would be a handy thing to carry a bomb in. Did someone try to plant a bomb at the morgue?"
"No."
"Then if it wasn't a bowling ball --and you act like you think it wasn't--what would it have been?"
"I wish I knew," I told him. "I wish to high heaven I knew."
I downed the rest of my coffee and stood up.
"Thanks a lot, Hank," I said. "Listen, you think it over and see if you can remember anything else about that case or the man who carried it. I'll see you later."
Horror in a Bowling Ball
What I needed was some fresh air, so I started walking. I didn't pay any attention to where I was going; I just walked.
My feet didn't take me in circles, but my mind did. A bowling ball! Why would a bowling ball, or something shaped like it, be carried into the alley back of the morgue? A bowling ball would fit into that ventilator hole, all right, and a dropped bowling ball would have broken the glass of the case.
But a bowling ball wouldn't have done--the rest of it.
I vaguely remembered some mention of bowling earlier in the evening and thought back to what it was. Oh yes. Dr. Skibbine and Mr. Paton had been going to bowl a game instead of playing a second game of chess. But neither of them had bowling balls along. Anyway, if Dr. Skibbine had told the truth, they had both been home by midnight.
If not a bowling ball, then what? A ghoul? A spherical ghoul?
The thought was so incongruously horrible that I wanted to stop, right there in the middle of the sidewalk and laugh like a maniac. Maybe I was near hysteria.
I thought of going back to the morgue and telling them about it, and laughing.
Watching Quenlin's face and Wilson's when I told them that our guest had been a rnan-eating bowling ball. A spherical--
Then I stopped walking, because all of a sudden I knew what the bowling ball had been, and I had the most important part of the answer.
Somewhere a clock was striking half-past three, and I looked around to see where I was. Oak Street, only a few doors from Grant Parkway. That meant I had come fifteen or sixteen blocks from the morgue and that I was only a block and a half from the zoo. At the zoo, I could find out if I was right.
So I started walking again. A block and a half later I was across the street from the zoo right in front of Mr. Paton's house. Strangely, there was a light in one of the downstairs rooms.
I went up onto the porch and rang the bell. Mr. Paton came to answer it. He was wearing a dressing gown, but I could see shoes and the bottoms of his trouser legs under it.
He didn't look surprised at all when he opened the door.
"Yes, Jerry?" he said, almost as though he had been expecting me.
"I'm glad you're still up, Mr. Paton," I said. "Could you walk across with me and get me past the guard at the gate? I'd like to look at one of the cages and verify--something."
"You guessed then, Jerry?"
"Yes, Mr. Paton," I told him. Then I had a sudden thought that scared me a little. "You were seen going into the alley," I added quickly, "and the man who saw you knows I came here. He saw you carrying--"