“It’s mine, all mine,” he said wonderingly. “She gave it to me.”
“Among other things,” Wiedenbeck reminded him softly. “Among many other wonderful things.”
Horne ignored the irony in his words. “I wonder if the new supervisor will let me pad the expense account?” he asked musingly. “Everetts never let me get away with it. Can you imagine that! The tight old sonofa—” he broke off, glanced at the doctor, and tried to finish lamely, “Well, he wouldn’t, and all the time he was milking ’em dry.”
“Narrow minds operate in that way,” Dr. Saari answered. “They’ve been doing it since the world was young and will continue doing it until the last man has left the earth. The big frog in the little puddle can do no wrong; he makes his own rules of conduct for himself but expects his inferiors to remain in their proper places.”
“But they usually get caught,” Wiedenbeck pointed out. “Not all of them — some of the little ones and some of the big ones hole up somewhere across the world and die natural deaths. But mostly we catch up with them, somehow, somewhere. They forget the rest of the world isn’t living by their rules of right and wrong, and they stumble.”
Dr. Saari steered the car around a broad curve and the outskirts of Capitol City loomed in the near distance.
“The redhead gave her old man away,” Horne put in. “Accidentally betrayed him several times. She once told me, after giving me a letter I had mailed to Everetts, that he ‘didn’t need it now,’ or words to that effect. Which meant that he already knew what was in it, or that she would tell him what had happened and my letter would be redundant. When I saw the newspaper piece about ‘Robinson’ being found in the hotel, and Betty told me her father was unaccountably missing, and I recalled how I had been unable to reach Everetts by phone in Chicago, I began working by guesswork. Channy made regular trips to Chicago for money — got it from Everetts. Everetts had only to okay beneficiary checks from his company and keep them — or mail them to Betty, or Deebie Bridges, or whatever. Betty gave away that scheme, too.”
“I thought you were talking through your hat,” the sergeant admitted, “until I checked with the insurance company and found that Everetts had been transferred from Sacramento to Chicago within a year after the Bridges woman opened that hospital here.” He frowned at the buildings springing up around them. “The judge issued orders for the exhumation of Ackerley’s body, this morning. About that poison business.”
“I sometimes think,” Horne said wearily, “that I’ll give up all this prying into crime and find me a good, stodgy job somewhere else. A job where the nearest I can come to murder is to read about it in the papers. And then I’ll have time to finish my book.”
Elizabeth Saari grinned lightly. The police sergeant said, “What book? Risky poetry?”
“Of course not!” Horne countered. “Em writing a book on Lost Atlantis. Em going to be an authority on the subject.”
“At the moment,” Wiedenbeck said, “let’s hope you haven’t lost that key. I want to know what’s in that safety deposit box.”
In something less than forty-five minutes the sergeant found out. The Capitol City police had the court order awaiting them, and in company with a fidgeting bank official, plus members of the local police, Horne inserted the flat key in the box, twisted it, and pulled out the long, thin drawer.
When he had it in his hands he grinned at Wiedenbeck and asked, “Were you wondering if it would blow up, too?”
“Hell, no, it never entered my head!”
“It entered mine. But I didn’t think it likely. Look.”
In spite of himself Wiedenbeck jumped. The drawer contained three small red cylinders, harmless looking packages about the size of a roll of quarters and a few inches long. There was also a white envelope, addressed simply, “Darling.”
Being a woman, Dr. Saari saw that first and shot Horne a questioning glance. He shrugged his shoulders and grinned.
“What,” asked the perplexed bank official, “are those red packages?”
Wiedenbeck picked them up carefully. “Nitrochloride,” he answered quietly. “Enough to push a good-sized hole right up through the roof.” The bank official turned and ran.
“What the devil’s the matter with him?” Horne demanded. “The stuff is safe until it’s heated up.”
“Are you,” Wiedenbeck cut in, the words escaping between his teeth, “going to open that envelope or am I going to choke you?”
“Okay, okay.” Horne held it up to the light, glanced at the sergeant oddly, and ripped open one end. Another key fell out into his upturned palm. “Satisfied now?”
“Damn it to hell!” the exasperated sergeant roared, “what’s that one for?”
“This one,” Horne said, weighing it in his palm, “unlocks the one door in the girl’s house I couldn’t get into. It unlocks the room where I thought the bombs were kept.”
“Chuck,” Elizabeth Saari cut in quickly, noting the gathering storm on the sergeant’s face, “we may as well find out the quickest way. Let’s go.”
“Chuck,” she said again, thoughtfully, as she turned the car off the highway into the lane leading to the house, “does there exist the slightest possibility that this key will set off an explosion?”
“There is always a possibility,” he returned, looking out the car window for the dog. “There is always the possibility of anything and everything. But I don’t think so, this time. When she gave me that key she—” he broke off, turned his face to her, turned it away again and went on “—well, let’s say I was her mad pash of the moment. At the time she fancied herself in love with me. I don’t think the key will trip an explosion. Do you see a dog around anywhere?”
“No. I was looking for him, too.”
“You were?”
“Certainly.” She turned to the sergeant. “Recognize the place, sergeant?”
He had his chin in his hand. “Don’t remind me of it,” he growled.
“Say, what goes on here?” Horne demanded.
“I’ll tell you sometime.” She stopped the car. “Get out, and get this over with.”
The three of them walked into the house.
“Where did you sleep?” Elizabeth Saari asked without expression.
“I was expecting that,” Horne chuckled.
“Where?” she repeated.
“In there,” he said, waving his hand at the living room. The fingers of his other hand fished in a pocket for the key. “The dog and I slept in there. I slept on the floor.”
She walked to the open bedroom door and looked in. Behind her back Wiedenbeck caught Horne’s glance and raised an expressive eyebrow in mute questioning. Horne winked at him. Wiedenbeck jerked his thumb at the lock in exasperation.
Horne inserted the key in the lock, twisted it, felt it give, and pushed. The regular lock below the doorknob still held. Impatiently, Sergeant Wiedenbeck jerked a ring of keys from his pocket, fitted a skeleton key into the second lock and turned it. Horne turned the knob and shoved the door inward.
Behind him, Dr. Saari burst out laughing.
“What,” Wiedenbeck wanted to know, “means that?” He pointed into the room. The room was bare of furniture and drapery. There was only a faded green rug and piled on the rug in a huge mass of metal were thousands upon thousands of silver dollars. It looked as if it had been dumped there by a wheelbarrow.
Round-eyed, Horne explained. “She didn’t trust the government. Betty didn’t trust anyone, much. Paper dollars can become valueless. Silver dollars always have value.” He paused to consider something. “Look, it’s mine, all mine. I wonder how many are there?”
Wiedenbeck advanced into the room and waded into the pile of money. He kicked, flung his legs about, enjoying the sight of the dollars flying about the room.