Jean Backus - Ellery Queen. The Best of Suspense

“We always do... what’ll come of it all?”

“What, game playing? Well, in the end you stop breathing, however you’ve lived — so why not have some fun while you still see the colors and hear the music?”

“Why not indeed?” she said softly. Then, briskly, “All right, Scarlet Pimpernel — what’s the scenario, when I get back?”

“You go to the D.A. and do your damnedest to convince him that you’re not dead and buried somewhere, and spring me. Then we sue Affiliated Finance for four hundred and eighty million dollars, for false arrest, slander, and general terpsichore... Oh, sweetheart, you know something? You won’t believe it!”

“I know I won’t. Tell me anyway.”

“You know that little creep we’ve seen at the track a couple of times — long-nosed, ghoulish-eyed, sneaky-looking? Picks up the used tickets and looks them over?”

“The Stooper?”

“Yeah. Well, he’s Affiliated Finance’s lawyer.”

“No!”

“You’re right — not really. But I think I’ve got Mr. Dooney thinking he might be.”

“That’s terrible.”

“I know. But I didn’t play favorites. I tried to plant the idea in the lawyer’s head that Mr. Dooney has a kept woman on the side — Fifi LaTorche.”

“You ought to be ashamed of yourself!”

“I know. Why aren’t I?”

“Goodbye, Jack. I love you.”

“I love you too. Stay out of drafts and don’t let Aunt Mehitabel push you off a cliff.”

“I’ll be home Wednesday.”

“I’ll be looking forward. Pick me up at the jailhouse.”

He hung up, then snapped his fingers. A new thought had come to him.

He’d better hurry — the cops should be here in a few minutes. He went to her bedroom, grabbed a bra and a pair of stockings from the bureau; slid the rear glass door open, ran in the back door of the garage; got his shovel, ran to the patch of earth, dug quickly, shoved the bra and stockings into the hole, and covered them up. He ran back to the garage with the shovel. Then he sauntered into the kitchen, washed his hands, and hummed in a satisfied way.

They would dig up the items, and their interment wouldn’t make any sense, but that was all right; the men wouldn’t want to have wasted their time in fruitless digging, so they would attach some kind of sinister significance to what they had uncovered. Bras and stockings always convey a message, and are nice to come upon unexpectedly. So everybody would have a good time. And wasn’t that what life was all about?

The door chime rang. He ran to open the door. Standing outside were Dooney, Mr. Hector, and two other men; one of the two was a uniformed policeman, the other looked like a plainclothesman.

Dooney looked firm but a little apprehensive. Mr. Hector looked righteous and retributive. The other two looked like men on a job.

Moorman cried heartily, “Hey! You came back!” He swung a jovial hand, to hammer Mr. Hector’s shoulder affectionately; Mr. Hector twisted away. “Hey, all right! How are you, Chief?” He was beaming at the policeman. “Y’all come in, heah? I got plenty of salami — no wine left, though. Stoop, do us a favor, will you?” He thrust bills at Mr. Hector, who drew back. “Run down to the store and pick us up a couple jugs of wine... No? Okay, we’ll have to do without. Come in, guys... Lisa,” he called, “some guys have stopped by... No, I forgot. She’s asleep.”

Mr. Hector glanced at the plainclothesman. He and the policeman were gazing fixedly at Moorman.

Mr. Hector said, “You told us she was visiting some relatives.”

“What? Yeah, sure. Of course I did. I forgot for a moment. Yeah, that’s where she is. She’s away. Visiting some relatives.”

His face seemed suddenly ashen. They were all looking at him.

His eyes slid away from them and looked out the window.

Their gaze followed his. They all stared out the window, at the patch of fresh-spaded earth at the end of the lawn.

Frank Ames surveyed the tumbling mountain torrent and selected the rock he wanted with great care.

It was on the edge of the deep water, a third of the way across the stream, about sixty feet below the little waterfall and the big eddy. Picking his way over halfsubmerged stepping stones, then across the fallen log to the rounded rock, he made a few whipping motions with his fishing rod to get plenty of free line. He knew only too well how much that first cast counted.

Up here in the high mountains the sky was black behind the deep blue of interstellar space. The big granite rocks reflected light with dazzling brilliance, while the shadows seemed deep and impenetrable. Standing down near the stream, the roar of the water kept Frank Ames’ cars from accurately appraising other sounds, distorting them out of all semblance to reality.

The raucous abuse of a mountain jay sounded remarkably like the noise made by a buzz saw ripping through a pine board, and some peculiar vagary of the stream noises made Frank Ames feel he could hear a woman screaming.

Ames made his cast. The line twisted through the air, straightened at just the right distance above the water and settled. The Royal Coachman came to rest gently, seductively, on the far edge of the little whirlpool just below the waterfall.

For a moment the fly reposed on the water with calm tranquillity, drifting with the current. Then there was a shadowy dark streak of submerged motion. A big trout raised his head and part of his body up out of the water.

The noise made by the fish as it came down hard on the fly was a soul-gratifying “ chooonk.” It seemed the fish had pushed its shoulders into a downward strike as it started back to the dark depths of the clear stream, the Royal Coachman in its mouth.

Ames set the hook and firmed his feet on the rock. The reel sounded like an angry rattlesnake. The line suddenly stretched taut. Even above the sound of the mountain stream, the hissing of the wire-tight line as it cut through the water was plainly audible.

The sound of a woman’s scream again mingled with the stream noises. This time the scream was louder and nearer.

The sound knifed through to Frank Ames’ consciousness. It was as annoying, as much out of place, as the ringing of a telephone bell at four o’clock in the morning. Frank desperately wanted that trout. It was a fine, big trout with a dark back, beautiful red sides, firm-fleshed from ice-cold, swift waters, and it was putting up a terrific fight.

That first time there had been some doubt as to the sound Ames had heard. It might have been the stream-distorted echo of a hawk crying out as it circled high in the heavens. But as to this second noise there could be no doubt. It was the scream of a woman, and it sounded from the trail along the east bank of the stream.

Ames turned to look over his shoulder, a hurried glance of apprehensive annoyance.

That one moment’s advantage was all the trout needed. With the vigilance of the fisherman relaxed for the flicker of an eyelash, the trout made a swift rush for the tangled limbs of the submerged tree trunk on the far end of the pool, timing his maneuver as though he had known the exact instant the fisherman had turned.

Almost automatically Ames tightened on the rod and started reeling in, but he was too late. He felt the sudden cessation of the surging tugs which come up the line through the wrist and into the arm in a series of impulses too rapid to count, but which are the very breath of life to the skilled fisherman. Instead, the tension of the line was firm, steady and dead.

Knowing that his leader was wrapped around a submerged branch. Ames pointed the rod directly at the taut line, applied sufficient pressure to break the slender leader, and then reeled in the line.