Fredric Brown - The Shaggy Dog and Other Murders

"So three days ago, this threatening letter comes in the mail, and he showed it to us and wanted protection. Well, I told him we'd work on finding out who sent the letter, but that the county couldn't afford to assign anybody to permanent protection duty at his place and if he wanted that, he'd have to hire it done. So he went to the city and hired two men from an agency."

"A reputable one?"

"Yeah, the International. They sent Krauss and Roberts, two of their best men."

The sheriffs hand, resting on the keyboard, struck what he probably intended as a chord. It wasn't. Mr. Smith winced slightly.

"Last night," the sheriff went on, "as it happened, no-body was in or around the place here except the boss--I mean, Carlos Perry--and the two International ops. Walter was staying overnight in the city, went to see a show and stayed at a hotel, he says. We've checked. He went to the hotel all right, but we can't prove he stayed in his room, or that he didn't. Checked in about midnight, and left a call for eight. He could've made it here and back, easy.

"And the servants--well, I'd told you the housekeeper had quit and not been replaced yet. Just coincidence the other three all happened to be away. The cook's mother's critically sick; she's still away. It was the gardener's night off; he spent it with his sister and her husband in Dartown, like he always does. The other guy, the horse trainer or groom or whatever the devil you'd call him, went to town to see a doctor about an infected foot he'd got from step-ping on a nail. Drove in in Perry's truck and the truck broke down. He phoned and Perry told him to have it fixed at an all-night garage, sleep in town, and bring it back in the morning. So, outside of horses and a couple cats, the only people around last night were Perry and the two private ops."

Mr. Smith nodded gravely. "And the coroner says the murder happened around two o'clock?"

"He says that's fairly close, and he's got something to go by, too. Perry turned in about midnight, and just before he went to his room, he ate a snack out of the refrigerator. One of the ops, Roberts, was in the kitchen with him and can verify what he ate and when. So--you know how a coroner can figure time of death, I guess--how far diges-tion has proceeded. And--"

"Yes, of course," said Mr. Smith.

"Let's go up on the roof," suggested the sheriff. "I'll show you the rest of it, easier'n I can tell you."

He got up from the piano bench and went toward the stairs, Mr. Smith following him like a very small tail on a very large comet. The sheriff talked back over his shoulder:

"So at midnight Perry turns in. The two ops search the place thoroughly, inside and out. There ain't nobody around then. They'll swear to that, and like I said, they're good men."

"And," said Mr. Smith cheerfully, "if someone was al-ready hiding on the premises at midnight, it couldn't have been Walter Perry. You verified that he checked in at a hotel at midnight."

"Yeah," the sheriff rumbled. "Only, there wasn't no-body around. Roberts and Krauss say they'll turn in their licenses if there was. So they went up, this way, to the roof, because it was a moonlight night and that's the best place to watch from. Up here."

They had climbed the ladder from the back second-floor hallway through the open skylight and now stood on the flat roof. Mr. Smith walked over to the parapet.

Sheriff Osburne waved a huge hand. "Lookit," he said, "you can see all directions for almost a quarter of a mile, farther than that most ways. There was moonlight, not bright enough to read by, maybe, because the moon was low in the sky, but both the International men were on this roof from around midnight to half past two. And they swear nobody crossed any of those fields or came along the road."

"They were both watching all that time?"

"Yeah," the sheriff answered. "They were gonna take turns, and it was Krauss's turn off first, but it was so nice up there on the roof, and he wasn't sleepy, that he stuck around talking to Roberts instead of turning in. And while they weren't watching all directions every second--well, it'd take anybody time to cross the area where they could've seen him. They say it couldn't have been done."

"And at two-thirty?"

The sheriff frowned. "At two-thirty Krauss decided to go downstairs and take a nap. He was just going through the skylight there when the bell started to ring--the tele-phone bell, I mean. The phone's downstairs, but there's an extension upstairs and it rings both places.

"Krauss didn't know whether to answer it or not. He knew out in the country here, there are different rings for different phones and he didn't know whether it was Perry's ring or not. He went back up on the roof to ask Roberts if he knew, and Roberts did know, and it was Perry's ring on the phone, so Krauss went down and answered it.

"It wasn't anything important; it was just a misunder-standing. Merkle, the horse guy, had told the all-night garage he'd phone to find out if the truck was ready; he meant when he woke up in the morning. But the garage-man misunderstood and thought he was to call when he'd finished working on the truck. And he didn't know Merkle was staying in the village. He phoned out to the house to tell 'em the truck was ready. He's a kind of dumb guy, the one that works nights in the garage, I mean."

Sheriff Osburne tilted his hat back still farther and then grabbed at it as a vagrant breeze almost removed it entirely. He said, "Then Krauss got to wondering how come the phone hadn't waked Perry, because it was right outside his bedroom door and he knew Perry was a light sleeper; Perry'd told him so. So he investigated and found Perry was dead."

Mr. Smith nodded. He said, "Then, I suppose, they searched the place again?"

"Nope. They were smarter'n that. Good men, I told you. Krauss went back up and told Roberts, and Roberts stayed on the roof, watching, figuring maybe the killer was still around and he could see him leaving, see? Krauss went downstairs, phoned me, and while I was getting around here with a couple of the boys, he searched the place again, Roberts watching all the time. He searched the house and the barns and everywhere, and then when we got here, we helped him and went all over it again. There wasn't nobody here. See?"

Mr. Smith nodded again, gravely. He took off his gold-rimmed glasses and polished them, then walked around the low parapet, studying the landscape.

The sheriff followed him. He said, "Look, the moon was low in the northwest. That meant this house threw a shadow across to the barns. A guy could get that far, easy, but to and from the barns, he'd have to cross that big field as far as the clump of trees way down there at the edge of the road. He'd stick out like a sore thumb crossing that field.

"And outside of the barns, that there chunk of woods is the nearest possible cover he could've come from. It'd take him ten minutes to cross that field, and he couldn'ta done it."

"I doubt," observed Mr. Smith, "that any man would have been so foolish as to try. The moonlight works both ways. I mean, he could have seen the men on the roof, easily, unless they were hiding down behind the parapet. Were they?"

"Nope. They weren't trying to trap anybody. They were just watching, most of the time sitting on the parapet, one facing each way, while they talked. Like you say, he could've seen them just as easy as they could've seen him."

"Um-m-m," said Mr. Smith. "But you haven't told me why you're holding Walter Perry. I

presume he inherits-- that would give him a motive. But, according to what you tell me about the ethics of Whistler and Company, a lot of other people could have motives."

The sheriff nodded glumly. "Several dozen of 'em. Es-pecially if we could believe that threatening letter."

"And can't you?'