“And I also want to assume that the locale of the walk is here.”
“You mean here in Fairfield?”
“Not necessarily. I mean in this general section of the country.”
“Fair enough.”
“Then, if you grant those assumptions, you’ll have to accept my last inference that the speaker is no athlete or outdoorsman.”
“Well all right. Go on.”
“Then my next inference is that the walk was taken very late at night or very early in the morning — say, between midnight and five or six in the morning.”
“How do you figure that one?” I asked.
“Consider the distance — nine miles. We’re in a fairly well populated section. Take any road and you’ll find a community of some sort in less than nine miles. Hadley is five miles away, Hadley Falls is seven and a half, Goreton is eleven, but East Goreton is only eight, and you strike East Goreton before you come to Goreton. There is local train service along the Goreton road and bus service along the others. All the highways are pretty well traveled. Would anyone have to walk nine miles in a rain unless it were late at night when no buses or trains were running and when the few automobiles that were out would hesitate to pick up a stranger on the highway?”
“He might not have wanted to be seen,” I suggested.
Nicky smiled pityingly. “You think he would be less noticeable trudging along the highway than he would be riding in a public conveyance where everyone is usually absorbed in his newspaper?”
“Well, I won’t press the point,” I said brusquely.
“Then try this one: He was walking toward a town rather than away from one.”
I nodded. “It is more likely, I suppose. If he were in a town, he could probably arrange for some sort of transportation. Is that the basis for your inference?”
“Partly that,” said Nicky, “but there is also an inference to be drawn from the distance. Remember, it’s a nine-mile walk and nine is one of the exact numbers.”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
That exasperated schoolteacher look appeared on Nicky’s face again. “Suppose you say, ‘I took a ten-mile walk’ or ‘a hundred-mile drive’; I would assume that you actually walked anywhere from eight to a dozen miles, or that you rode between ninety and a hundred and ten miles. In other words, ten and hundred are round numbers. You might have walked exactly ten miles, or just as likely you might have walked approximately ten miles. But when you speak of walking nine miles, I have a right to assume that you have named an exact figure. Now, we are far more likely to know the distance of the city from a given point than we are to know the distance of a given point from the city. That is, ask anyone in the city how far out Farmer Brown lives, and if he knows him, he will say, ‘Three or four miles.’ But ask Farmer Brown how far he lives from the city and he will tell you, ‘Three and six-tenths miles — measured it on my speedometer many a time.’”
“It’s weak, Nicky,” I said.
“But in conjunction with your own suggestion that he could have arranged transportation if he had been in a city —”
“Yes, that would do it,” I said. “I’ll pass it. Any more?”
“I’ve just begun to hit my stride,” he boasted. “My next inference is that he was going to a definite destination and that he had to be there at a particular time. It was not a case of going off to get help because his car broke down or his wife was going to have a baby or somebody was trying to break into his house.”
“Oh, come now,” I said, “the car breaking down is really the most likely situation. He could have known the exact distance from having checked the mileage just as he was leaving town.”
Nicky shook his head. “Rather than walk nine miles in the rain, he would have curled up on the backseat and gone to sleep, or at least stayed by his car and tried to flag another motorist. Remember, it’s nine miles. What would be the least it would take him to hike it?”
“Four hours,” I offered.
He nodded. “Certainly no less, considering the rain. We’ve agreed that it happened very late at night or very early in the morning. Suppose he had his breakdown at one o’clock in the morning. It would be five o’clock before he would arrive. That’s daybreak. You begin to see a lot of cars on the road. The buses start just a little later. In fact, the first buses hit Fairfield around five-thirty. Besides, if he were going for help, he would not have to go all the way to town — only as far as the nearest telephone. No, he had a definite appointment, and it was in a town, and it was for some time before five-thirty.”
“Then why couldn’t he have got there earlier and waited?” I asked. “He could have taken the last bus, arrived around one o’clock, and waited until his appointment. He walks nine miles in the rain instead, and you said he was no athlete.”
We had arrived at the Municipal Building, where my office is. Normally any arguments begun at the Blue Moon ended at the entrance to the Municipal Building. But I was interested in Nicky’s demonstration, and I suggested that he come up for a few minutes.
When we were seated I said, “How about it, Nicky, why couldn’t he have arrived early and waited?”
“He could have,” Nicky retorted. “But since he did not, we must assume that he was either detained until after the last bus left, or that he had to wait where he was for a signal of some sort, perhaps a telephone call.”
“Then, according to you, he had an appointment sometime between midnight and five-thirty —”
“We can draw it much finer than that. Remember, it takes him four hours to walk the distance. The last bus stops at twelve-thirty A.M. If he doesn’t take that, but starts at the same time, he won’t arrive at his destination until four-thirty. On the other hand, if he takes the first bus in the morning, he will arrive around five-thirty. That would mean that his appointment was for sometime between four-thirty and five-thirty.”
“You mean that if his appointment were earlier than four-thirty, he would have taken the last night bus, and if it were later than five-thirty, he would have taken the first morning bus?”
“Precisely. And another thing: If he were waiting for a signal or a phone call, it must have come not much later than one o’clock.”