"Make mine coffee, too, Sam," I said. "But be sure it's got whiskers on it.
Let's get back to Banker Remmel, Mac. Now, I don't mean that he is a complete louse, even if he is a--I don't mean he is a complete louse at all. He's got a soft side, too. He loves music, for one thing; plays piano at the Sunday school. And once a week regular, for thirty years, he and Dave Peters get together and jam it up."
"Jam what up?"
"I got a daughter in high school," I explained. "That's the kind of English they teach them there. It means they play together. Dave plays a squeak-pipe."
"A what?"
"I didn't learn that from my daughter," I told him. "It came natural, because I hate flutes. They smell to high heaven, and especially when Dave wheezes a high note on his. Golly!"
"Who is Dave?"
"Dave Peters, the clerk at the bank. He and Old Man Remmel are friends from kidhood. Guess Dave couldn't hold a job any-where else; he's a little light in the head. Guess anybody has to be to take up playing the flute for a hobb--Say, Mac, you don't by any chance play the flute, do you?"
He put back his head and laughed heartily. He said, "Sheriff, you're a wow. May I see those letters?"
I nodded and handed them over. There were three of them, and they were the perfectly ordinary type of threatening note. One of them read:
Remmeclass="underline" Get out of politics or get out of Crogan County.
Another one:
Remmeclass="underline" Resign from the county board or be measured for a wooden kimono.
The third one was about like the other two; I forget the exact wording.
"You checked them for prints, I suppose?" McGuire asked.
"Sure. Even us hicks know that much these days. Nope, no prints, Mac. But did you notice anything about the spelling?"
"Hm-m-m. Not especially. What do you mean?"
I nodded wisely, glad of a chance to show him that even out in Springdale we are able to give a whirl or two to the old deduc-tive angles. "It's the spelling of a fairly well-educated person," I pointed out. "Makes no attempt to sound illiterate, you see. He spells words like 'resign' and 'politics' all right. But he misses an easy one, and that little slip wouldn't have been faked. When we find a guy who spells
'kimona' with an 'o' on the end, we really got a suspect. See?"
He looked surprised. "You sure, sheriff? I've always thought it was spelled with an 'o.' " He opened his brief case, which he's put on the stool beside him, and pulls out a little pocket dictionary and--well, when we'd looked it up, he had to admit that my deduction would have been a good one if I'd only not known how to misspell kimono myself.
Sam brought our coffee and I put three spoonfuls of sugar in mine before I realized what I was doing, being kind of con-fused. And then, rather than make a worse fool of myself by admitting it, I had to pretend I'd done it on purpose and drink the sickly stuff. There's a bottom limit to what a sheriff wants a famous detective to think of him, and I felt two degrees below that already, even if Mac was too nice to show that he thought it.
He drank his coffee black and unsweetened, and he asked. "Do you think these threats are from some roadhouse owner who'll be ruined if that bill of Remmel's goes through?"
1 shrugged. "Could be. There's plenty of owners that will be ruined, and some of those boys might play for keeps if they saw their livings being yanked out from under them. There are a few that--well, they stay within the law now because under the law they can still make a fair profit, but--"
He said, "Put yourself in the place of one of these roadhouse proprietors, sheriff, and try to imagine you don't give a hang about the law. Now, if the situation were what it was, would you figure it would be best to try to scare Remmel with notes like these, or would you figure it safer in the long run just to eliminate him quietly, without threats?"
"Hm-m-m,' I said. "I see your point." Well, I did see it, even if I couldn't see where it would get us. "If I really intended to go so far as killing him, I don't think I'd send notes first that would give away my motive and make me one of a limited number of suspects."
"Fine," Mac said, "but you wouldn't send the notes, either, unless you thought there was a chance of them working. Would you?"
I downed the last of my super-sugared coffee while I thought that one over.
"Guess I wouldn't," I said. "But they might work, at that. Remmel doesn't show it, but I think he's really scared. Oh, he says he's going ahead with his campaign with redoubled energy, but I think he's weakening. He'd like some sort of an excuse, I think, to back out without looking like he was yellow."
"And since you'd rather not commit murder unless you had to, for purely selfish reasons, if no others, how would you go about giving him that excuse to back out?"
"Darned if I know," I admitted, after I'd scratched where my hair used to be.
"How would you?"
"I don't know either, sheriff. I'd like to meet one of these road-house owners of yours, though, just for a sample."
"Under your right name?" I asked him. "Or undercoverlike, with me introducing you as a textile man from Texas, or something?"
He smiled. "Since I'm being introduced by the law, I may as well go under my true colors. I'll be freer to ask questions without making excuses."
"O.K., Mac," I told him. I turned around and yelled, "Hey, Sam." Sam Frey came waddling over to us again, and I said, "Sam, meet Mr. McGuire. The McGuire, the guy you've read about."
Sam said, "Glad to meet you." I told Mac: "Sam, here, owns a roadhouse, besides this tavern. It's out on the Kerry pike, near where we're going. He works there nights and here days and evenings, like now. He never sleeps."
Sam grinned. "Oh, I catch a few hours now and then. Few more years and I'll retire, and then I'll sleep twenty hours a day for a while and catch up. I'll be able to afford it then."
"Unless this new law goes through," said McGuire.
Sam's face sobered. "Yeah," he said.
I looked at the clock on the wall over the bar. "It's eight o'clock, Sam. Want to turn your place here over to Johnny for the rest of the evening and go over to Remmel's with us?"
I caught the surprised look on McGuire's face. "Sam's a deputy of mine," I explained. "He knows all about the notes. And he's a good guy to have along."
"Here I thought you were introducing me to a suspect," pro-tested McGuire.
"Or are all the suspects deputies of yours?"
Sam chuckled. "Nope," he answered for me. "I'm the only one fits both ways.
Sure it ain't too early to go there, sheriff? This is his evening for Dave Peters to be there. And you've told me how Remmel won't let anything at all interrupt those doo-ets of his."
"Remmel's expecting us," I told him. "Said he'd have Dave come early tonight so they'd be through by the time we got there. Go get your coat, Sam, if you're coming."
Sam went to the back, and McGuire wanted to know, "Why are you taking him? Not that I mind, but I'm curious."
"Two reasons. First, Sam knows every roadhouse proprietor who'll be affected by that law. After you've talked to Remmel, Sam can give you enough leads to keep us going all night. Second, Sam's been wanting to get a chance to see Remmel, to have a talk with him about that law. He says he thinks maybe he can make him see how unfair it is."
"Oh," said McGuire. Suddenly I saw what he was thinking. He'd just asked me how the sender of the notes could go about giving the banker a chance to back down without looking yellow.
"Sam never sent those notes," I said suddenly. "Sam's an honest guy, a swell guy. He wouldn't kill a fly."
McGuire said quietly, "I agree with you. But the sender of those notes hasn't harmed a fly yet, has he? And maybe he has no intentions of harming Remmel."