Fredric Brown - The Shaggy Dog and Other Murders

He walked through the trees until, near the edge of the copse, he could see the house itself across the open field. The sheriff was still, or again, on the roof.

Mr. Smith walked out into the open, and the sheriff saw him almost at once. Mr. Smith waved and the sheriff waved back. Mr. Smith walked on across the field to the barn, which stood between the field and the house itself.

The tall, thin man whom he had seen exercising the horse was now engaged in currying a horse.

"Mr. Merkle?" asked Mr. Smith, and the man nodded. "My name is Smith, Henry Smith. I am ... ah ... attempt-ing to help the sheriff. A beautiful stallion, that gray. Would I be wrong in guessing that it is a cross between an Arabian and a Kentucky walking horse?"

The thin man's face lighted up. "Right, mister. I see you know horses. I been having fun with those city dicks all week, kidding 'em. They think, because I told 'em, that this is a Clyde, and that chestnut Arab mare is a Percheron. Found out yet who killed Mr. Perry?"

Mr. Smith stared at him. "It is just possible that we have, Mr. Merkle. It is just barely possible that you have told me how it was done, and if we know that--"

"Huh?" said the trainer. "I told you?"

"Yes," returned Mr. Smith. "Thank you."

He walked on around the barn and joined the sheriff on the roof.

Sheriff Osburne grunted a welcome. He said, "I saw you the minute you came out into the open. Dammit, nobody could have crossed that field last night without being noticed."

"You said the moonlight was rather dim, did you not?" "Yeah, the moon was low, kind of, and--let's see, was it a half moon?"

"Third quarter," said Mr. Smith. "And the men who crossed that field didn't have to come closer than a hundred yards or more until they were lost in the shadow of the barn."

The sheriff took off his hat and swabbed at his forehead with a handkerchief He said, "Sure, I ain't saying you could recognize anybody that far, but you could see-- Hey, why'd you say the men who crossed that field? You mean, you think--"

"Exactly," cut in Mr. Smith, just a bit smugly. "One man could not have crossed that field last night without being noticed, but two men could. It seems quite absurd, I will admit, but by process of elimination, it must have been what happened."

Sheriff Osburne stared blankly.

"The two men," said Mr. Smith, "are named Wade and Wheeler. They live in the city, and you'll have no difficulty finding them because Walter Perry knows where they live. I think you'll have no difficulty proving that they did it, once you know the facts. For one thing, I think you'll find that they probably rented the ... ah ... where-withal. I doubt if they have their own left, after all these years off the stage."

"Wheeler and Wade? I believe Walter mentioned those names, but--"

"Exactly," said Mr. Smith. "They knew the setup here. And they knew that if Walter inherited Whistler and Company, they'd get the money they had coming, and so they came here last night and killed Mr. Carlos Perry. They crossed that field last night right under the eyes of your city detectives."

"I'm crazy, or you are," declared Sheriff Osburne.

"How?"

Mr. Smith smiled gently.

He said, "On my way up through the house just now, I verified a wild guess. I phoned a friend of mine who has been a theatrical agent for a great many years. He re-membered Wade and Wheeler quite well. And it's the only answer. Possibly because of dim moonlight, distance, and the ignorance of city-bred men who would think nothing of seeing a horse in a field at night when the horse should be in the barn. Who wouldn't, in fact, even see a horse, to remember it."

"You mean Wade and Wheeler--"

"Exactly," said Mr. Smith, this time with definite smug-ness in his voice. "Wade and Wheeler, in vaudeville, were the front and back ends, respectively, of a comedy horse."

Maybe you know how it is, when a man seeks solitude to do some creative work. As soon as he gets solitude, he finds it gives him the willies to be alone. Back in the middle of everything, he thought, "If I could only get away from everybody I know, I could get something done." But let him get away-and see what happens.

I know; I'd had solitude for almost a week, and it was giving me the screaming meamies. I'd written hardly a note of the piano concerto I intended composing. I had the opening few bars, but they sounded suspiciously like Gershwin.

Here I was in a cottage out at the edge of town, and that cottage had seemed like what the doctor ordered when I rented it. I'd given my address to none of my pals, and so there were no parties, no jam sessions, no distractions.

That is, no distractions except loneliness. I was finding that loneliness is worse than all other distractions com-bined.

All I did was sit there at the piano with a pencil stuck behind my ear, wishing the doorbell would ring. Anybody. Anything. I wished I'd had a telephone put in and had given my friends the number. I wished the cottage would turn out to be haunted. Even that would be better.

The doorbell rang.

I jumped up from the piano and practically ran to an-swer it.

And there wasn't anybody there. I could see that without opening the door, because the door is mostly glass. Unless someone had rung the bell and then run like hell to get out of sight.

I opened the door and saw the cat. I didn't pay any particular attention to it though. Instead, I stuck my head out and looked both ways. There wasn't anybody in sight except the man across the street mowing his lawn.

I turned to go back to the piano, and the doorbell rang again.

This time I wasn't more than a yard from the door. I swung around, opened it wide, and stepped outside.

There wasn't anybody there, and the nearest hiding place--around the corner of the house--was too far away for anybody to have got there without my seeing him. Unless the cat.

I looked down for the cat and at first I thought it, too, had disappeared. But then I saw it again, walking with graceful dignity along the hallway, inside the house, to-ward the living room. It was paying no more attention to me than I had paid to it the first time I'd looked out the door.

I turned around again and looked up and down the street, and at the trees on my lawn, at the house next door on the north, and at the house next door on the south. Each of those houses was a good fifty yards from mine and no one could conceivably have rung my bell and run to either of them.

Even leaving out the question of why anyone should have done such a childish stunt, nobody could have.

I went back in the house, and there was the cat curled up sound asleep in the Morris chair in the living room. He was a big, black cat, a cat with character. Somehow, even asleep, he seemed to have a rakish look about him.

I said, "Hey," and he opened big yellowish-green eyes and looked at me. There wasn't any surprise or fear in those handsome eyes; only a touch of injured dignity. I said, "Who rang that doorbell?" Naturally, he didn't answer.

So I said, "Want something to eat, maybe?" And don't ask me why he answered that one when he wouldn't answer the others. My tone of voice, perhaps. He said, "Miaourr ..." and stood up in the chair.

I said, "All right, come on," and went out into the kitchen to explore the refrigerator. There was most of a bottle of milk, but somehow my guest didn't look like a cat who drank much milk. But luckily there was plenty of ground meat, because hamburgers are my favorite food when I do my own cooking.

I put some hamburger in a bowl and some water in another bowl and put them both on the floor under the sink. He was busily working on the hamburger when I went back into the front hallway to look at the doorbell.