Meecham said wearily, “He dug a hole in the back yard and buried it.”
“I figure he gave it to someone, either the party he wanted it for in the first place, or a go-between.”
“Me?”
“You.”
“Whom am I going between, or between whom am I going? Oh, hell. You know I never saw Loftus until today.”
“That’s your story.”
“His, too.”
“It would be, of course, if the two of you are working in collusion.”
Meecham lit a cigarette. There was no ash tray in the room that he could see, so he put the burnt match in his pocket. “So now you’ve dreamed up a place for the money you’ve dreamed up. Want to see my wallet? Check books? Or maybe I’m wearing a money belt. Why don’t you check?”
“Don’t worry, I will. When the time comes.”
“You can waste a lot of time chasing little bright butterflies, Cordwink.”
“I like the exercise.”
Meecham raised his head. He saw that the Sheriff was looking rather pleased with himself, and he wondered whether Cordwink really believed in his own theory or whether he was merely needling him. Cordwink hated all lawyers, but his hatred wasn’t a personal one. It was a matter of principle: he hated lawyers because he believed their sole objective was to circumvent the law.
Cordwink began to circle the room, his eyes moving from object to object with alert precision.
The room was fairly large, and fitted out for light housekeeping. In one corner, half-hidden by a painted cardboard screen, was a small sink and a two-burner gas plate and a table. The bed was a studio couch neatly covered with a blue and yellow chenille spread, and above it, high on the wall, a trio of college pennants was nailed:
Illinois. Arbana. Yale.
The pennants were very old and very dusty. They probably didn’t belong to Loftus, Meecham thought. They had been on the wall when he moved in and he left them there because they were too high to reach. Anyway, there they were, emphasizing the transient feeling of the room, symbols of college boys who were no longer boys, football teams that were forgotten, textbooks left to mildew, with silverfish camping, sleek and comfortable, between the pages.
A room for transients, with Loftus the last, the most transient of them all. It was as if Loftus had known this and had taken pains to obliterate his traces. The whole room, except for the pennants, was scrupulously clean. There were no clothes or shoes lying around, the top of the bureau held only an alarm clock with a glass bowl inverted over it, and the wastebasket beside the desk was empty. Whatever had been in the wastebasket — letters, bills, check stubs, pages from a diary? — they were all gone now. There was no clue to Loftus’ mind and personality in the room except for the books that filled the high narrow bookcase.
The books were oddly assorted: a few novels, two anthologies of poetry, How to Win at Canasta, a biography of Pasteur and a Bible — but most of them concerned psychology and medicine. Cecil’s Textbook of Medicine, Cancer and Its Causes, The Neurotic Personality of Our Time, Peace of Mind, Release from Fear, Alcoholism and Its Causes, The Alcoholic and Allergy, A New View of Alcoholism, How to Treat the Alcoholic, Drinking Problems, Glandular Deficiency in Alcoholism.
Cordwink, too, was staring at the books. “He doesn’t look like a lush,” he said finally.
“No.”
“You can’t always tell, though. One of the worst lushes I ever knew used to take up collection in the Methodist church. No one even knew he took a drink until one night he started hopping around the house trying to get out of the way of the fish. He thought there were little fish flopping all over the floor. Bats and snakes and beetles I’d heard of, but never little fish. It was creepy, made the bottom of my feet kind of ticklish. Funny, eh?”
“What happened to him?”
“He hit the real skids after that. Landed in jail four or five times that year for non-support, disturbing, petty theft. He always had a whale of an excuse. Drunks are the wildest liars in the world.”
“Loftus isn’t a drunk.”
“Maybe not.”
There was no closet in the room, but between the studio couch and the screen that hid the gas plate, a seven-foot walnut wardrobe stood against the wall. It was a massive piece of furniture, with a big old-fashioned plain lock. There was no key to fit it on the key-ring Loftus had given him, so Cordwink forced the lock with the small blade of his jacknife. When the door opened, the pungent smell of moth crystals filled the room. Cordwink sneezed, and sneezed again.
There was hardly enough clothing inside the wardrobe to justify the lavish use of moth crystals: two suits, well-worn but cleaned and pressed, a sweater, shoes, a pair of galoshes, a khaki baseball cap, some pajamas; and on the floor, three suitcases. Two of them were empty. The third Cordwink took out and placed on the studio couch.
Pasted across the top of the suitcase was a faded Railway Express consignment slip: From Mrs. Charles E. Loftus, 231 Oak Street, Kincaid, Michigan, to Mr. Earl Duane Loftus, 611 Division Street, Arbana, Michigan. Value of contents, $50.00
“His mother,” Cordwink said. “Or maybe his sister-in- law. Or maybe it doesn’t even matter.”
The value of the original contents might have been fifty dollars. The present contents had little monetary value: an old trench coat, a blue serge suit, and a pair of brown oxfords, all of them stained with blood.
Cordwink pressed down the lid of the suitcase. “I’d like to talk to the woman who runs this place. Loftus said she’s a Mrs. Hearst. Go and get her, will you?”
“Why don’t you? You have the authority.”
“This stuff is evidence. I wouldn’t trust you alone with it.”
Meecham colored. “What the hell do you think I’d do, grab it and take off for South America?”
“I don’t know and I’m not going to find out. Be a good boy now, Meecham, and co-operate, and some day you may be District Attorney, then you can kick me in the teeth if I’ve got any teeth left by that time.”
“Who are you kidding? You haven’t got any left now.”
Cordwink’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t make any reply. He crossed the room to the door that led into the hallway of the house, unlocked it, and motioned Meecham out with a curt nod.
Meecham went out, quite meekly. He felt a little ashamed of himself for making the crack about Cordwink’s teeth. Nearly everyone in town knew that Cordwink had had his front teeth knocked out in a fight with two berserk sailors who were equipped with brass knuckles. The sailors went to a military prison, Cordwink went to the dentist, and the brass knuckles went into his pile of impounded weapons that included everything from sawed-off shotguns to paring knives.
Meecham followed the hall past an immense high-ceilinged dining room into the kitchen. It was a big old-fashioned kitchen, designed not merely for cooking and eating, but for all kinds of family living. There was a card table with a plastic canasta set, a rocking chair, a record player, a bookcase and a couch with a blanket neatly folded at the foot. A woman stood at the sink, wiping dishes and humming to herself.
Her voice and figure were youthful, and her light hair was cut girlishly short and curled close to her head. But when she turned, hearing Meecham approach, he saw that she was about forty. Her hair was gray, not blonde as it appeared at first, and the skin around her sharp blue eyes was creased and dry, like crepe paper.
She smiled at Meecham as she rolled down the sleeves of her dress and buttoned them at the wrists. Her smile was not artificial exactly, but facile, as if she was accustomed to smiling in all kinds of situations and at all kinds of people. “Were you looking for someone?”
“Yes, the owner of the house.”