Robert Alter - 101 Mystery Stories

“But Milt Potter didn’t see it that way; he stuck to his guns. He claimed he had taken the money because he thought he could get away with it, then realized he wasn’t cut out to be a hunted criminal. He couldn’t stand the idea of being hounded for the rest of his life — he just wasn’t the running type. So he had given himself up. But what did he do with the money? That was a different story. He didn’t care a hoot what we did to him — just so long as he didn’t have to return the loot. That’s the way he wanted it, and that’s the way it turned out.

“The trial was short and sweet. He pleaded guilty, and got a fifteen-year sentence.

“I knew what he was up to, of course, and so did everybody else. He was making an investment — an investment of his time and his freedom in exchange for riches when he got out of prison. I guess he was a type that didn’t mind prison life too much. He had spent five years in the army during the war, and the regimentation suited his personality to a T. He liked being told where to go and what to do; I tried to convince him that prison wasn’t the same thing, but he didn’t seem to care.

“That was back in ’46, like I said. Potter was a model prisoner from the day he walked through the gates. He worked in the library most of the time, and did a lot of reading — travel books, mainly. He got three years clipped off his sentence for good behavior. Well, now he’s got two days head start, but it won’t matter.”

Captain Fisher crushed out his third cigarette, and Hogan said:

“What happens now, Captain? Does he get away with the dough?”

Fisher shook his head sadly. “That’s the tough part. He wouldn’t believe me when I told him twelve years ago, but he’s not going to profit from his investment. That two hundred grand doesn’t belong to him, even if he thinks he earned it by a stretch in prison. I’m going to pay him a visit and tell him the facts of life.”

“You mean you’re going to see him today?”

“Sure,” Fisher said. “I’ve had this appointment for a long time.”

The address Captain Fisher obtained from the parole officials was a boarding house in the twenties, not far from Milt Potter’s old neighborhood.

Potter was in his shirt sleeves when he answered the Captain’s knock, and Fisher wondered if the dozen years had had so little effect on himself as it had on the ex-convict. He was still a short, owlish man with sad brown eyes, and the only marked inroads of time were a few light lines on his face and a patch of thinning hair on his head. He looked puzzled when he saw the Captain, and then distraught when recognition lit up his eyes.

“I’m Captain Ernest Fisher — you remember me, Mr. Potter?”

“Of course,” Potter said nervously. “Come on in.”

“Thanks. I was Lieutenant Fisher when we met the last time, Mr. Potter.” He took a chair near the window and looked around the room casually. There was a closed suitcase on the wrought-iron bed.

“What was it you wanted, Captain?”

“Just to talk. It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?”

“Yes, it has.”

“I understood you did pretty well in prison — nobody has any complaints about your conduct that I know about. Pays, doesn’t it? Getting out sooner, I mean.”

“Yes,” Potter said, not looking at him. He went to the wash basin and rinsed his hands in cold water.

“I won’t beat around the bush, Mr. Potter. I’m here for a reason, and I think you know what it is. There’s still a matter of two hundred thousand dollars, and neither the police nor the insurance company are going to forget it. The fact that you served your sentence doesn’t entitle you to the money, no matter what you think.”

Potter didn’t answer. He dried his hands on a thin towel and gazed out of the window towards the skyline. In the distance a ship blew its horn twice.

“There’s no use being coy about it, Mr. Potter. It was obvious to everybody what your plan was. You thought you could earn that money with your time, but that’s not the way these things are done. And I just wanted you to know that I’m making it my personal duty to see that you don’t carry out your plan.”

Fisher waited for Potter to say something. Finally, the parolee turned and answered, almost in a whisper.

“You have things all wrong, Captain.”

“Really?”

“You have it all wrong about me. I know that’s what everybody thinks, but they’re wrong. I took that money because I wanted it, wanted it very much. I’ve always dreamed of traveling round the world, ever since I was a little boy, and I couldn’t resist the temptation to take the money when it was so easily available. But after I took it, I realized that I wasn’t the criminal type — not in the least.”

He came over and sat in the chair opposite.

“I couldn’t bear the idea of being hunted, living in fear all the time. Always jumping at shadows, always looking over my shoulder. Oh, maybe I had some wild idea about serving out my sentence and then running off with the money when I got out. But that would be exactly the same thing — running, afraid to live in the open, unable to enjoy any of the pleasures the money would bring me. I’m just not made that way, Captain.”

Fisher stared at him.

“I thought prison wouldn’t be hard to take, and in some ways it wasn’t. But I had time to think everything out, and now I know what I have to do. So if you want the money, Captain, I’m ready to give it back.”

“You’re what? ”

“All I want is to be let alone, Captain. All I want is to live in peace. Don’t you understand?”

“Then where’s the money?”

Potter swallowed.

“Right here — right here in this room.”

He got up, went to the suitcase on the bed, and opened it. It was crammed with money.

The travel agent beamed when the short, owlish man walked into the office and said:

“I’m interested in a round-the-world cruise.”

“Yes, sir!”

“But I want the best, understand? I don’t care about the cost.”

“I understand perfectly,” the travel agent said.

Milt Potter sat down, gratefully. The last three days had been fatiguing. It had been an effort, visiting twenty city banks, signing twenty different names to twenty withdrawal slips. But the task was over, and he had his money. It wasn’t a fortune, but it was more than he could have saved or even earned in the last twelve, tax-free, all expense-paid years. $84,000 interest, compounded over a dozen years on his capital investment.

The title of Ellery’s lecture being The Misadventures of Ellery Queen, it was inevitable that one of the talks should be crowned by the greatest misadventure of all. It came to pass just after his stint at Bethesda University, in the neighborhood of Washington, D.C., where misadventures of all sorts are commonplace.

Ellery had scribbled the last autograph across the last coed’s Humanities I notebook when the nearly empty auditorium resounded with a shot, almost a scream.

“Mr. Queen, wait! Don’t go yet!”

The chancellors of great universities do not ordinarily charge down center aisles with blooded cheeks, uttering whoops; and Ellery felt the prickle of one of his infamous premonitions.

“Something wrong, Dr. Dunwoody?”

“Yes! I mean probably! I mean I don’t know!” the head of Bethesda U. panted. “The President... Pentagon... General Carter... Dr. Agon doesn’t— Oh, hell, Mr. Queen, come with me!”

Hurrying across the campus in the mild Maryland evening by Dr. Dunwoody’s heaving side, Ellery managed to untangle the chancellorial verbiage. General Amos Carter, an old friend of Ellery’s, had enlisted the services of Dr. Herbert Agon of Bethesda University, one of the world’s leading physicists, in a top-secret experimental project for the Pentagon. The President of the United States himself received nightly reports from Dr. Agon by direct wire between the White House and the physicists’s working quarters at the top of The Tower, Bethesda U.’s science citadel.