Jean Backus - Ellery Queen. The Best of Suspense

“Just like a danged bloodhound,” Olney said admiringly.

“That’s right,” Bill Eldon admitted. “Just like a bloodhound. Don’t see anything else there, do you, son?”

“How much else do you want?” Keating flared impatiently “And let’s try and retain something of the dignity of our positions, sheriff. Now, if you’ve no objection, we’ll go to the telephone and see what we can discover.”

“No objection at all,” Eldon said. “I’m here to do everything I can.”

Information was waiting for them at the Forest Service telephone office.

The operator said, “Your office left a message to be forwarded to you, sheriff. A private charter plane took a man by the name of George Bay, who answers the description you gave over the telephone, into forest landing field number thirty-six, landing about ten o’clock yesterday morning. The man had a pack and took off into the woods. He said he was on a hiking trip and wanted to get some pictures. He told a couple of stories which didn’t exactly hang together and the pilot finally became suspicious. He thought his passenger was a fugitive and threatened to turn the plane around and fly to the nearest city to report to the police. When George Bay realized the pilot meant business, he told him he was a detective employed to trace some very valuable jewels which had been stolen by a member of the military forces while he was in Japan. He showed the pilot his credentials as a detective and said he was on a hot lead, that the jewels had been hidden for over a year, but the detective felt he was going to find them. He warned the aviator to say nothing to anyone.”

Bill Eldon thanked the operator, relayed the information to the others.

“Well,” Keating said, “I guess that does it.”

“Does what?” the sheriff asked.

“Gives us our murderer,” Keating said. “It has to be someone who was in the Army during the war, someone who was in Japan. How about this man Ames? Isn’t he a veteran?”

“That’s right. I think he was a prisoner in Japan.”

“Well, we’ll go talk with him,” Keating said. “He’s our man.”

“Of course,” Eldon pointed out, “if this dead man was really a detective, it ain’t hardly likely he’d tell the airplane pilot what he was after. If he said he was after Japanese gems, he’s like as not looking for stolen nylons.”

“You forget that the pilot was calling for a showdown,” Keating said. “He forced this man’s hand.”

“Maybe. It’d take more force than that to get me to show my hand on a case.”

“Well, I’m going to act on the assumption this report is true until it’s proven otherwise,” Keating said.

Sheriff Bill Eldon said, “Okay, that’s up to you. Now my idea of the way to really solve this murder is to sort of take it easy and...”

“And my idea of the way to solve it,” Keating interrupted impatiently, “is to lose no more time getting evidence and lose no time at all getting the murderer. It’s the responsibility of your office to get the murderer; the responsibility of my office to prosecute him. Therefore,” he added significantly, “I think it will pay you to let me take the initiative from this point on. I think we should work together, sir!”

“Well, we’re together,” Bill Eldon observed cheerfully. “Let’s work.”

Roberta Coe surveyed the little cabin, the grassy meadow, the graveled bar in the winding stream, the long finger of pine trees which stretched down the slope.

“So this is where you live?”

Frank Ames nodded.

“Don’t you get terribly lonely?”

“I did at first.”

“You don’t now?”

“No.”

He felt at a loss for words and even recognized an adolescent desire to kick at the soil in order to furnish some outlet for his nervous tension.

“I should think you’d be lonesome all the time.”

“At first,” he said, “I didn’t have any choice in the matter. I wasn’t physically able to meet people or talk with them. They exhausted me. I came up here and lived alone because I had to come up here and live alone. And then I found that I enjoyed it. Gradually I came to learn something about the woods, about the deer, the trout, the birds, the weather. I studied the different types of clouds, habits of game. I had some books and some old magazines sent me and I started to read, and enjoyed the reading. The days began to pass rapidly and then a tranquil peace came to my mind.” He stopped, surprised at his own eloquence.

He saw her eyes light with interest. “Could you tell me more about that, and aren’t you going to invite me in?”

He seemed embarrassed. “Well, it’s just a bachelor’s cabin, and, of course, I’m alone here and—”

She raised her eyebrows. Her eyes were mocking. “The conventions?”

He would have given much to have been able to meet the challenge of her light, bantering mood, but to his own ears the words seemed to fairly blurt from his mouth as he said, “People up here are different. They wouldn’t understand, in case anyone should—”

“I don’t care whether they understand or not,” she said. “You were talking about mental tranquillity. I could use quite an order of that.”

He said nothing.

“I suppose you have visitors about once a month?”

“Oh, once every so often. Mr. Olney, the ranger, rides by.”

She said, “And I presume you feel that your cabin is a mess because you’ve been living here by yourself and that, as a woman, I’d look around disapprovingly and sniff. Come on, let’s go in. I want to talk with you and I’m not going to stand out here.”

Silently he opened the door.

“You don’t even keep it locked?”

He shook his head. “Out here I never think of it. If Olney, for instance, found himself near this cabin and a shower was coming up, he’d go in, make himself at home, cook up a pot of tea, help himself to anything he wanted to eat, and neither of us would think anything of it. The only rule is that a man’s supposed to leave enough dry wood to start a fire.”

“What a cute little place! How snug and cozy!”

“You think so?” he asked, his face showing surprised relief.

“Heavens, yes. It’s just as neat and spick-and-span as — as a yacht.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know much about yachts.”

“Well, what I meant was that — well, you know, everything shipshape. You have a radio?”

“Yes, a battery set.”

“And a gasoline reading lamp and a cute little stove and bookshelves. How wonderful!”

He suddenly found himself thoroughly at ease.

Abruptly she said, “Tell me more about this mental tranquillity. I want some of that.”

“You can’t saw it off in chunks, wrap it up in packages and sell it by the pound.”

“So I gathered. But would you mind telling me how one goes about finding it? Do you find it at outcroppings and dig it up, or do you sink shafts, or...?”

“I guess it’s something that’s within you all the time. All you do is relax and let it come to the surface. The trouble is,” he said, suddenly earnest, “that it’s hard to understand it because it’s all around you. It’s a part of man’s heritage, but he ignores it, shuts it out.

“Look at the view through the window. There’s the mountain framed against the blue sky. The sunlight is casting silver reflections on the ripples in the water where it runs over the rapids by the gravel bar. There’s a trout jumping in the pool just below the bar. The bird perched on the little pine with that air of impudent expectancy is a Clark jay, sometimes called a camp robber. I love him for his alert impudence, his fearless assurance. Everything’s tranquil and restful and there’s no reason for inner turmoil.”