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

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m not going to do anything about it. I’ve thought it out and I don’t want to get involved.”

There was a blast of cold air as the door opened to let in two truck drivers in overalls. Golightly looked down at the table and spoke in a low voice. “What d’you mean, involved?”

“I mean you’ve been telling me a pack of lies. Come along now, admit it.” Donald cocked one leg over the other, admired the sheen on his shoes.

“How d’ you make that out, old man?”

“I’ll tell you, old man. You say you’re a commercial traveler and you’ve got an important appointment tomorrow morning. Now, I’ve met one or two commercial travelers, and I’ve never known one who let himself be parted from his sample case. Natural enough, because without it they’ve got nothing to show. But you not only leave it in your car — so you say — but you don’t even bother to have the garage that’s collecting the car drop the bag in here.”

“I shan’t need the samples tomorrow.” Golightly spoke without conviction.

“And then you don’t really sound like a traveler. All that knight-of-the-road and girl-in-every-port stuff, it’s out of date. You sound like an actor, not a very good one, pretending to be a commercial traveler. I don’t believe you’ve got a car, let alone a sample case. What’s your car number?”

“AKT 113 H”

“Make?”

“Triumph Herald.”

“Firm?”

“Universal Woollens.”

“Prove it.” Donald uncrossed his legs. “Show me your business card.”

Slowly Golightly’s hand went into his jacket. He kept his eyes on Donald, those slightly crossed eyes, until he had drawn out a wallet. He looked through the contents, wiped his brow with his sleeve, then said, “No business card.”

“No card! Why, without a card a commercial traveler doesn’t exist.”

“All right, I haven’t told the exact truth, but I still want to get to Folkestone. I still need a lift.”

It was the moment at which Donald had planned to walk out, but something about Golightly’s manner made him abruptly change his mind. “Come on then.”

His reward was the other man’s startled look. “You’re taking me?”

“That’s what it looks like, doesn’t it.”

Golightly said nothing more. He paid the bill and they walked to the car in silence, with Donald a couple of steps behind. The ruddiness had drained from Golightly’s face, leaving it pale. Donald, as he drove away, said, “There’s more to come.”

“How do you mean?”

“About you. Who you are, what you’ve been doing. I want an explanation.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Your shoes. The mud on them. That hasn’t come from walking up a lane. More like walking, or maybe running, across fields.”

“It was a muddy lane.”

Donald took his right hand from the wheel, felt in his jacket pocket, then took it out again. “I pick you up near Oastley where that old Mrs. Ford was murdered. You tell me this cock-and-bull story about being a commercial traveler and you talk about murder in a very queer way. How did you know about the murder?”

“Read it in the paper.”

“No. I borrowed the last edition in the café and there was nothing in it. How could there be, when it didn’t happen till seven o’clock. I heard it on the ten o’clock news, on my car radio. But how about you?”

“Must have heard it the same way. On my car radio.”

“That won’t wash. I picked you up a couple of minutes after I heard it. And I’ll tell you something else. On the radio they didn’t say anything about her being killed in the hall.”

Silence. The lights showed Ashford ahead, the Folkestone bypass to the left. They took the left turn to the dual highway. Donald thought triumphantly: that’s shown him, that’s shaken him up, now perhaps I’ll get the truth. And sure enough, it was in a tone much less boisterous than usual, in a tone almost meek, that Golightly said, “I made a mistake there, didn’t I?”

“You certainly did.” Donald began to whistle sweetly, melodiously. And then — he could hardly believe it — Golightly’s voice took on a jeering tone.

“You think I was the one who did for her, so why not tell the police then?”

Donald was so shaken that he could not reply.

“All right, I did it. I killed the old girl,” Golightly said.

“You—”

“Let’s say I did. So why not ring the police from Joe’s, when you’ve got it worked out so nice and logical?”

“I’ll tell you why,” Donald said. His voice shook with the emotion he had been suppressing. “I hate England — everything about this smug country, the filthy weather, places like that disgusting café, people like you. If I call the police it means I’ll have to make a statement give evidence. I shan’t be able to leave for — oh, perhaps not for days, weeks. So I don’t care, I just don’t care what you’ve done.”

“Very decent of you, old man.” Still that jeering tone. “We haven’t been introduced, have we? I mean, you know my name, you haven’t told me yours. But I think I know it.”

“What is it?”

“Donald Grant, right?”

With anger that was half assumed and half real Donald said, “You’ve been looking at my logbook.”

“I haven’t, you know.” Somewhere in the far distance there was furious hooting, then it stopped. “I’ll tell you a bit of a story, shall I? About an old lady named Mrs. Ford. Quite a nice old lady, but a bit close with her money. No sons, no daughters, so what did it matter, who cared? Nobody, you might think.”

Donald pressed his foot on the accelerator. He did not usually drive fast, but it was as if pushing up the needle from 70 to 80 and nearly to 90 helped him to get away from the voice, although of course in fact it didn’t; the voice was like a needle digging into his skin.

“One person did care, though. That was her nephew. I expect the sort of thing she said was, ‘You’ll get every thing when I’m gone, dear, now here’s a five-pound note to be going on with.’ Very annoying to a young man, especially one without much money. He was a sort of free-lance writer, though people don’t seem to think he made much of a living at it. Not enough to keep up the nice little pad he shared with his boy friend.

“So one fine evening — a wet evening, as a matter of fact — Mrs. Ford is murdered. Quite a nasty murder — everything turned upside down to try and make it look like a hurried job. Wasn’t, though.” With a sound like a sigh he added, “I don’t have to tell you the name of the nephew.”

Donald’s mind was empty of thought, except that of the need for action. Golightly went on talking.

“We found out quite a bit about you when we rang your flat, and the young man you share it with — Charles is his name? He said you’d decided to take off quite suddenly on a holiday abroad. Seemed peeved you didn’t take him along, too — quite a row you had, according to him. So we’ve been looking for you. You’d have done better to stay put. Didn’t know which road you’d take, so there was poor Golly, Detective Sergeant Golightly as you’ll have guessed by this time, getting wet. Could have taken you in for questioning, but I thought you might have a gun. Have you, by the way?”

Behind were the lights of a car, flashing on, off, on again. Donald’s fingers moved over the hard curves of the metal in his pocket, and he kept one comforting hand there while he said in a distressed falsetto: “Why shouldn’t I go abroad? It’s not a crime.”

“No, but you made one or two mistakes. Not deliberate ones like mine. You said Mrs. Ford was killed around seven o’clock. So she was, but it didn’t say so on the radio.”