“Ain’t no doctor in this town,” he told me. “Now state your business, fella.”
I stated it, but loud. He perked up his ears a little when I told him about Petroff, but he didn’t take his feet off the desk until I flashed my press badge. That did it.
“No sense trying to find a doctor – nearest one’s back in LA,” he decided. “I’m pretty handy at first aid. I’ll get the car and we’ll go out and pick him up.”
Sheriff Shea banged the office door behind him, and I grabbed a phone. I got hold of Calloway right away and he promised to send the ambulance out to Centerville. Somehow, after having had a good look at Petroff, I didn’t have much confidence in Sheriff Shea’s “first aid”.
Then I put through a call to the paper.
Lenehan growled at me, and I barked right back.
“Somebody bit his throat? Say, Kirby – you drunk?”
I breathed into the phone. “Smell that,” I said. “I’m cold sober. I found him lying on the floor with two holes in his neck. I’m still not sure he wasn’t dead.”
“Well, find out. Keep on this story and give me all you’ve got. We can hold three hours for the morning edition. Looks like murder, you say?”
“I didn’t say a blamed thing about murder!” I yelled.
“Come on, quit stalling!” Lenehan yelled back. “What’s your angle on this?”
I lowered my voice to a whisper. “Confidentially,” I said, “my theory is that old Petroff bit himself in the throat just for the publicity.”
Lenehan apparently didn’t believe me, because he launched off into a discussion of my ancestry that was cut short when Sheriff Shea appeared in the doorway. He wore a rancher’s black Stetson and a shoulder holster. On him it didn’t look good.
“Come on, fella,” he said, and I hung up.
His rattletrap Chevvy didn’t deserve a C card, but we made time down Centerville’s single street and chugged out along the highway.
“From the LA papers, huh?” he grunted. “Whatcha doing up at Petroff’s?”
“My editor gave me an assignment to write a feature story about the art treasures of the Irene Colby Petroff estate. Do you know anything about them?”
“Don’t know nothing, fella. When old man Colby was alive, he and the missus would come into town and do a little trading once in a while. Then he died and she married this foreign gigolo, Petroff, and that’s the last we seen of them in town. Then she died, and since then the place has gone to pot. This business don’t surprise me none. Hear some mighty funny gossip about what goes on out at Petroff’s place. All fenced off and locked up tighter’n a drum. Ask me, he’s hiding something.”
“I got in without any trouble.”
“What about the guards? What about the dogs? What about the locks on the gate?” I sat up. “No guards, no dogs, no locks,” I told him. “Just Petroff. Petroff lying there on the floor with the holes in his throat.”
We rounded a bend in the highway and approached the walls of the Petroff estate. The setting sun gleamed on the jagged spikes surmounting the walls. And it gleamed on something else.
“Who’s that?” I yelled, grabbing Sheriff Shea’s arm.
“Don’t do that!” he grunted. “Nearly made me go off the road.”
“Look!” I shouted. “There’s a man climbing up the wall.”
Sheriff Shea glanced across the road and saw the figure at the top of the wall. The car ground to a halt and we went into action. Shea tugged at his shoulder holster.
“Stop or I’ll shoot!” he bawled.
The man on the wall considered the proposition and rejected it. He turned and jumped. It was a ten-foot drop but he landed catlike and was scuttling across the road by the time we reached the base of the wall.
“After him!” Shea grunted.
The man ran along the other side of the road, making for a clump of trees ahead. I dashed along behind. The fugitive reached the grove a few steps ahead of me and I decided on a little football practice.
It was a rather ragged flying tackle, but it brought him down. We rolled over and over, and on the second roll he got on top. He didn’t waste time. I felt powerful fingers dig into my throat. I tore at his wrists. He growled and twisted his neck. I felt his mouth graze my cheek. He was trying to bite me.
I got his hands loose and aimed a punch at his chin, but he ducked and pressed his thumbs in my eyes. That hurt. I aimed another punch, but that wasn’t good either. By this time he had those hands around my neck again, and things began to turn red. The red turned black. I heard him growling and snarling deep in his throat, and his fingers squeezed and squeezed.
This was no time for Queensbury rules. I kicked him in the tummy. With a grunt of appreciation he slumped back, clutching his solar plexus.
2. They Fly by Night
Sheriff Shea arrived, wheezing, and together we collared our prisoner and dragged him to his feet.
He was not pretty. He wore one of those one-piece overall outfits, and between the spikes on the wall and the tussle, he’d managed to destroy its integrity. Patches of his skin showed through, advertising the need of a bath. His yellow hair was matted and hung down over his eyes, which was just as well. They were as blue as a baby-doll’s – and just as vacant. His lips hung slackly, and he was drooling. A prominent goitre completed the ensemble.
“Why, it’s Tommy!” said the Sheriff. “He’s a little touched,” he whispered, “but harmless.”
He didn’t have to tell me the kid was touched. That I could easily believe. But the “harmless” part I doubted. I rubbed my aching eyes and neck while Shea patted Tommy on the back.
“What were you doing on the wall, Tommy?” he asked.
Tommy lifted a sullen face. “I was looking at the bats.”
“What bats?”
“The bats that fly at twilight. They fly out of the windows and you can hear them squeaking at each other.”
I glanced at Sheriff Shea. He shrugged.
“Ain’t no bats around here except the ones in Tommy’s belfry.”
I took over. “What else were you looking at, Tommy?” I inquired.
He turned away. “I don’t like you. You tried to hurt me. Maybe you’re one of them! One of the bad people.”
“Bad people?”
“Yes. They come here at night. Sometimes they come as men, wearing black cloaks. Sometimes they fly – that’s when they’re bats. They only come at night, because they sleep in the daytime.”
Tommy was in full cry, now. I didn’t try to stop him.
“I know all about it,” he whispered. “They don’t suspect me, and they’d kill me if they thought I knew. Well, I do know. I know why Petroff doesn’t have any mirrors on the walls. I heard Charlie Owens, the butcher, tell about the liver he sends out every day – the raw liver, pounds of it. I know what flies by night.”
“That’s enough,” said Sheriff Shea. “Whatever you know, you can tell us inside.”
“Inside? You aren’t going in there, are you? You can’t take me in there! I won’t let you! You want to give me to him. You’ll let him kill me!”
Again, Shea cut him off. Grasping his arm, he guided the halfwit across the road. I followed. We made straight for the gate.
Shea halted. “Push it open,” I said.
“It’s locked.”
I looked. A shiny new padlock hung from the rusty handle.
“It was open half an hour ago,” I said.
“He always keeps it locked,” Shea told me. “Usually has a man out here, too – a guard. And dogs in the kennels back of the house.” He eyed me suspiciously. “You sure you were up here, Mr Kirby?”
“Listen,” I advised him. “I was up here a little over half an hour ago. The gate was open. I went in and found Petroff on the floor. He had two holes in his throat and I’m not sure whether he was still breathing or not. I’ll give you every explanation you want later, but let’s go inside, quick. He may be dead.”