Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Vol. 60, No. 1. Whole No. 344, July 1972

“Just a few miles away, place called Oastley. Old woman had her head bashed in, nasty business from the sound of it. They’ll get the chap though. I wouldn’t mind betting somebody saw him leaving the house, and then we shall get ‘Police are anxious to interview Joe Doakes,’ and we all know what that means.” Donald said absently, “You seem to know a lot about it.”

“Only what I’ve heard. But I’m interested. I’ll tell you why. Murder is easy.” He gave that mechanical laugh, then said in a different tone, almost of alarm, “What are you stopping for?”

“You should keep your eyes open.” Donald could not keep a tinge of malice out of his tone. “There was a sign that said single lane traffic. Part of the road’s under construction.”

“Oh, is that all. Well, as I say, murder’s easy. I mean, look at the two of us. You give me a lift, you don’t know me from Adam. Nobody sees me get in. I put a gun in your ribs, tell you to pull over and stop. I shoot you, toss you out of the car, drive off, leave the car somewhere, take two or three train and bus rides to get rid of the fuss, and I’m away. With whatever’s in your wallet, of course. Don’t worry, old man.” His loud bark sounded like the rattling of keys. “But it’s been done, you know. Think of that A.6 job.”

“Hanratty, you mean? They caught him.”

“If he was the one who did it.” The laugh again, but this time it was only a chuckle. Then Donald felt a pressure on his arm from which he jerked away. “Sorry. Am I putting you off your stroke?”

“Every murderer makes a mistake. Fingerprints, footprints.”

“I ought to have put my gloves on.” The laugh now was like a donkey’s bray. “You’ve got to forgive me, it’s just my sense of humor. That café’s round the next bend if I remember right, on the left, stands back a bit. But murder is fascinating, don’t you agree?”

Donald did not reply. I want to get the night ferry, he told himself; whatever he says I must avoid becoming involved. He found himself whistling the song in an attempt to drown the other man’s words.

“I mean, the psychology of it,” his passenger said. “A chap goes in a house, bashes up an old woman in the hall, gets her money, fifty or a hundred quid. Do you reckon it’s going to worry him, what he did? I don’t.”

Along the road to the left, lights shone. It had stopped raining. There was no sound when he switched off the wipers, except the engine’s throb and the suck of the tires. Donald cut off the tune in mid-whistle.

“A case like that,” the other man went on, “it could be the good old tramp at the door who leaves his dirty paw marks or footprints over everything. Or it could be the real artist, the kind of thing that interests me. But as I say, this one doesn’t impress me that way. I reckon it was just run-of-the-mill and we’ll be reading that the police want to talk to a one-eyed farm laborer from Rutland.” He broke off and said in a tone of some anxiety, “Hey, here it is, here’s Joe’s.”

Donald took the car into the open space in front of the café. He sat with his hands on the wheel uncertain what to do.

“Thought you’d missed it.” His companion stepped out. “Coming?”

Donald decided there were things wrong with the man’s story. He would have to do something about it. Reluctantly, he got out. The night air was fresh, cool. As he followed the other man into Joe’s he could not help noticing his shoes. They were thickly caked with mud. Had that come just from walking up a lane?

Plastic-topped tables with sauce bottles on them, a few truck drivers sitting on tubular chairs, a smell of frying food — Joe’s was not the sort of place to which Donald was accustomed. His companion, however, seemed quite at home.

“Two cups of tea, nice and strong. And can you do us sausages and chips?”

The man behind the counter had a squashed nose and a cauliflower ear. “Right away.”

As his passenger turned, red-faced and smiling, Donald felt angry. “Nothing to eat, thank you.”

“We’ll both feel better with something hot inside us.” Sitting down at a corner table, smiling across it, his face was revealed as round and ingenuous. It was given a slightly sinister look by a cast in the left eye.

“I told you,” Donald said, “I don’t want anything to eat. And anyway, I never eat sausages.” He was dismayed to hear his own voice come out as shrill, pettish.

“Right, old man, don’t fret. Just one order of bangers and chips, not two,” he shouted across the room. The ex-boxer raised a hand like a veined slab of beef in acknowledgement. “The name’s Golightly, by the way. Bill before it, but friends call me Golly.”

That is a familiarity to which I should never aspire, Donald thought. The phrase pleased him. He said rather less aciduously, “I thought you came in here to telephone.”

“That’s right.” Golightly got up, but seemed reluctant to leave the table. “I’ll just make that call, ask Joe there if he knows a garage.” He went over and spoke to Joe, nodded, and crossed to a telephone in a comer. Was he really intending to make a call? Would it be a good thing just to walk out and leave him, or would that be too barbarously uncivilized? Donald liked to think of himself as above all a civilized man, and as Joe brought over the sausages and chips, with two cups of tea in thick mugs, he remembered something Golightly had said that jarred on him.

“Do you have an evening paper, by any chance?” Donald asked the café owner.

“Yeah, a driver brought one in. Late edition you want, is it, got the racing results?” Donald said that was what he wanted. Joe waddled across the room, came back with the paper, leaned over the table, and said confidentially, “Had Rolling Home for the second leg of a double. Third at a hundred to eight. Still, you can’t beat the bookies all the time, can you? Know what I took off ’em last week? Forty nicker.”

“Oh. Congratulations. You said this is the last edition?”

“That’s what I said, mate.”

He really did not know how to talk to people like Joe. He looked through the paper carefully, then folded it, still not knowing quite what to do. Was Golightly — if that was his ridiculous name — telephoning or just standing there pretending to do so? Donald pursed his mouth in thought, stopped himself from whistling, sipped his strong tea. Golightly came over, rubbing his hands and smiling.

“Bangers and chips, I love you.” He poured purplish sauce around and over them, began to ply knife and fork, spoke between mouthfuls. “Tried a couple of garages — the second one’s going to tow my old bus away and look after it for the night. I’ll go on to Folkestone with you, since you were kind enough to offer. I mean, it’s going on for eleven now, and I don’t want to get stranded.”

“What are you going to do, stay at a hotel?”

“Not exactly. I’ve got a friend there.”

“Like your relatives in Littlehampton?”

“No, no.” Golightly did not seem to appreciate that this was sarcasm. He closed the eye with the cast in it. “This is a lady friend. A commercial traveler’s a bit like a sailor, you know, a girl in every port. As a matter of fact, that’s the real reason I want to get to Folkestone tonight, and can you blame me? Why should you single men have all the fun? I suppose you’ve got a little bit o’ fluff waiting for you across the Channel? Or perhaps you’re not that way inclined.”

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing. No offense meant and none taken, I hope. Talking too much. I always do. Shan’t be a couple of minutes now.” There was sweat on Golightly’s forehead.

“I’m not taking you,” Donald said flatly.

“Not taking me!” The knife and fork clattered on the table. The hand that held the cup shook slightly. Donald felt calm, in complete control of the situation.