"You got in a gunfight without a gun?"

"I wasn't in a fight. I was shot at twice and I ran. Not that I'm really stupid enough to need two to start me, but I was flat on my back."

"Who was this man?"

"I told you. I never did see anything of him except one leg and a hand. I think he was wearing overalls, faded ones. And it was a pretty big hand. The shotgun was a double barrel, and it was probably an expensive one. Doubles with the type of ejectors I heard don't come in cereal boxes."

"Did you kill him? Where's the body?"

"No, I didn't kill him. I would have tried, if I'd had a gun."

"Describe this place again." I described it again.

They looked at each other and nodded. "The old Will n.o.ble place," Magruder said. "There's a hundred spare miles out there you could hide a body in."

"I think that had occurred to him," I said. I lit a cigarette. The big redhead leaned down casually and slapped it out of my mouth.

"Step on it," he said.

I stepped on it. I wondered where Redfield was. Not that he would be in any sweeter frame of mind than they were, but if you had to sit there endlessly answering questions while your head hurt and the man who'd tried to murder you went home and went to bed, at least it helped if they were intelligent questions.

"Where's the car?" Magruder demanded.

"Out at the motel," I said.

Magruder nodded to the redhead. "Take a run out there and shake it down. Gun, bloodstains-"

"If you'll look carefully you may find a bloodstain in the front seat," I said. "I drove it nine miles with my scalp and one arm sliced open."

"You haven't got any on your clothes."

"I changed them. You'll find the others in the bathtub. Or would, except that of course you wouldn't dream of searching a room without a warrant. They're b.l.o.o.d.y for the same reason."

"So you say."

"There's enough of it to type. Or would that be the easy way?"

"I could get enough of this guy," the redhead said.

"Where have you been?" Magruder asked him.

I was feeling worse all the time, and didn't much care what they did. "What's the penalty in this state," I asked, "for being shot at with a rifle? I might change my plea."

They ignored me. "While you're out there," Magruder said to the other one, "run on out to that old barn and look it over."

The redhead left. I forgot the house rides and stuck another cigarette in my mouth and lit it. Magruder slapped it out. It was a change, anyway. He stepped on it.

"Thanks," I said.

He sat down at the desk and stared coldly at me. I stared longingly at the cigarette. "Am I under arrest?" I asked. "And if so, what's the charge? Target illegally in motion?"

"Let's just say you're being held for questioning till he gets back."

"About how long do you think it'll take him to search that hundred square miles? Half an hour, maybe? I've got a date at five."

"With your lady friend? I thought she was c.r.a.pped out with the jim-jams."

"She's in bed from complete nervous and physical collapse," I said politely. "That might be what you meant." It didn't dent him, but it was probably just as well. I was in a very poor position to be trying to provoke him. I'd just get my ears tenderized with a gun barrel, and thirty days in jail.

I heard footsteps as someone came down the hall. It was Redfield. He had his hat on and had apparently just come in. He looked hot and bad-tempered. Leaning in the doorway, he stared bleakly at me for nearly thirty seconds before he said anything at all.

"All right. Who did you kill?"

"n.o.body," I said. "I haven't been in a gunfight, and I don't-"

"Shut up," he said tonelessly. "We'll get to that in a minute. I thought you might be interested to know, Chatham, that I just got an answer from San Francisco."

"Yes?" I replied.

"Unofficer like conduct. Has a nice sound, doesn't it?"

Magruder perked up his ears, and I realized it was news to him that Redfield had even sent a wire. "What's that?" he asked quickly. "Was this monkey kicked off the force back there?"

Redfield nodded. "He's a real bully boy; he beats 'em up. Probably gets his kicks that way. So when San Francisco can't hold him any more, he comes over here to give us the benefit of his talents."

"Well, what do you know?" Magruder asked, his eyes bright. "You suppose he can catch, as well as pitch?"

Redfield ignored him. "Well, Chatham, you have anything to say?"

"No," I said.

"Oh, come now," he said. He was smiling faintly, but his eyes were bitter.

"If they sent you a telegram," I said, "they told you the whole thing, not half of it. So if you want to ignore the rest of it when they tell you, why should I bother?"

"Oh, sure," he said contemptuously, "they said you resigned. Don't they always?"

"I did," I said. "And voluntarily. I drew a thirty-day suspension, but before it was up I decided to get out altogether." Then I wondered why I bothered to explain; I seldom did to anybody. It was odd, but in spite of everything he was the kind of cop you instinctively liked and respected.

"Of course. And you weren't guilty of the charge, anyway."

"Yes," I said. "I was guilty."

He looked at me strangely, but remained silent for a moment. Then he went on, hard-faced, "So now you're a free-lance muscle boy. A professional trouble-maker. What's your connection with Mrs. Langston?"

"There is none. Except that I like her. And I'm beginning to have a great deal of admiration for her. I like people with her kind of poise under pressure."

"c.r.a.p. What's she paying you for?"

"I told you, Redfield, she's not paying me for anything."

"Then why are you still hanging around?"

"I could tell you it's simply because my car's not ready yet. You can check that with the garage."

"But that's not it."

"That's right. It's not. I could give you several reasons. One is that I don't like being pushed. Another is that the motel itself interests me, but that's business, and none of yours. But the princ.i.p.al one is that that acid job there was partly my fault. I started sticking my nose into something that didn't concern me-as you told me yourself- and it was a little hint that I was just going to do her more harm than good by meddling. So now, after buying it for her, am I supposed to go off and leave her to enjoy it all by herself?"

"You got a license in this state to operate as a private detective?"

"No."

"All right. Just stick your nose in one more thing around here and I'm going to shove it in your ear and pull it out the other side."

"You'd better start checking things with your District Attorney, Redfield. As long as she's not paying me, I'm not acting as a private detective. I'm a private citizen and that's something else entirely."

His face was bleak. "There are ways, Chatham. You ought to know."

"I do. I've seen some of them used."

"And you just keep going and you'll see some of them used again. Now what's this c.r.a.p somebody took a shot at you, this note from Dr. Morley?"

I told him the whole thing, from the woman's first call. It was easy and took only a few minutes with n.o.body barking irrelevant questions and leaning on the back of my neck. He sat on the edge of the desk, smoking a cigarette and listening with no expression at all. When I had finished, he glanced around at Magruder. "Any of this been checked yet?"

Magruder nodded. "Mitch is out there now."

"Right." He swung back to me, and snapped, "Let me see if I've got this fairy tale straight. The woman, whoever she was, set you up out there so the man in the loft, whoever he he was, could kill you." was, could kill you."

"Yes."

"That makes it premeditated, of course, so it would be first-degree murder. You're still with me?"

"Sure."

He leaned forward a little, jabbing a forefinger at me. "So, look-am I supposed to believe that this stupid pipe dream makes sense, even to you? Two people are so worried about you they're going to kill you, commit first-degree murder with a chance of winding up in the death house, and for what? for what? Simply because they're afraid you're going to find out they were the ones who threw the overalls in Mrs. Murphy's chowder." He sighed and shook his head. "Chatham, do you have any idea what they'd probably get for that acid job? Simply because they're afraid you're going to find out they were the ones who threw the overalls in Mrs. Murphy's chowder." He sighed and shook his head. "Chatham, do you have any idea what they'd probably get for that acid job? If If they were ever convicted?" they were ever convicted?"

"A year. Six months. Maybe less."

"But still I'm supposed to believe-"

"Cut it out. You know the answer as well as I do."

"Do I?"

"They're jumpy as h.e.l.l about something, but it's not I some two-bit rap for vandalism or malicious mischief."

"Well, don't keep us all a-twitter. Tell us what it is."

"Try murder," I said. "What would they have to lose after the first one?"

He went on watching me, his face very still now. "Has somebody been murdered?"

"Langston," I said.

"I thought so. But isn't there a hole in your argument somewhere? We've been investigating it for seven months and n.o.body's tried to kill us."

I didn't like the way it was going, but there wasn't much I could do about it. He was backing me right into the corner while I watched him do it.

"Well?" he prodded. "Or, wait; maybe I see what you mean. They're not worried about us, because we're so stupid we'd never stumble onto 'em anyway."

"I didn't say that."

"And of course, there's always the other possibility," he went on. The tone was conversational, but I was tuned in on the savagery-still under control-that was behind it. I hoped it stayed under control. Magruder looked at him inquiringly. He didn't even know what was going on. "I mean, from your point of view, we could have been bought off. All we'd need is a patsy like Mrs. Langston, and even if we couldn't frame up enough evidence to convict her she'd take the heat off the others. Everything's rosy, n.o.body's hurt, and you don't have to pay taxes on it. It makes perfect sense when you look at it that way. Doesn't it? . . . Well, come on; speak up. Say something, you goon son of a b.i.t.c.h-"

He slid off the desk, caught the front of my shirt, and hauled. I had to come with it or have it torn off me. He slapped me backhanded across the mouth, and I felt the lip split against a tooth. He swung again, his face pale with suddenly uncontrollable rage and his eyes tormented and crazy-looking as if he were in pain. I jerked back, stumbled over the chair, and fell. I slid back and got up warily, expecting to have my head torn off, but he turned away abruptly, grinding a hand across his face.

He took two deep breaths, and you could see the battle going on inside him. "Get out of here," he said raggedly, "before I use a gun barrel on you."

"Wait a minute, Kelly," Magruder protested. "We can't let him go till we hear from Mitch-"

Redfield turned savagely and cut him off. "We know where to find him if we want him! Get the son of a b.i.t.c.h out of here!"

Magruder looked at me. "You heard the man."

"Yes," I said. I picked my hat up from the floor and dabbed a handkerchief at the blood in the corner of my mouth. "I heard him." I went out and walked over to Springer to find a cab, not even particularly angry at him. Or not nearly as angry as I knew he was at himself. He was too good a pro to give way to rage that way, with so little provocation. Somewhere inside Redfield a bunch of mice were eating the insulation off his nerves. But what mice? And where had they come from?

Well, when it came to being jumpy, he had company-plenty of it. If there was ever a place that was wired, this was it. It'd be a poor location, I thought, for the type of practical joker who liked to slip up behind people and say "Boo!" He wouldn't last till the coffee break.

It was ten minutes to five when I paid off the cab in front of the office. One of the Sheriff's cars was parked in the area and the door of my room was standing open. I walked over and looked in. The big redheaded Deputy was pawing through one of the chest drawers. He looked up at me without interest, a cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth, and pushed the drawer shut.

"Looks like you just haven't got a gun," he said.

"Where's your warrant?" I asked.

"I forgot to pick it up. Want me to go back for it and search you again?"

"No," I said.

"I'd be glad to," he said helpfully. "No trouble at all." "Don't bother," I said. "I wouldn't want to monopolize you."

"You got a great sense of humor," he said. He looked around for the ashtray, saw it was on the table between the beds, and shrugged. He ground out the cigarette on the gla.s.s top of the chest. "Yes, sir, a great sense of humor."

"How did you get in?" I asked.

"Maid. I told her you wouldn't mind a bit. h.e.l.l, I told her, a man with a sense of humor like that?"

I said nothing. He gave the room another indifferent glance and came out past me. "I guess you're doing right, friend. You're from out of town, and that seems to be all it takes."