Fredrick Brown - Night of the Jabberwock

Carl said, "I'll talk. It'll run about three hundred thousand. And you guessed right on Al Grainger, but how you guessed it, I don't know. Bonney's relations to Mrs. Grainger and to Al have been the best-kept secret I've ever known of. In fact, outside of the parties concerned, I was the only person who ever knew — or even suspected. How did you guess?"

"By what happened to me tonight — and that's too complicated to explain right now. But Al plays chess and has the type of mind to do things the complicated way, and that's the way they happened. And he knows Lewis Carroll and—" I stopped because I was still after facts and didn't want to start explaining.

The night was almost over. I saw a greenish gleam in the darkness that reminded me Carl wore a wrist watch with a luminous dial. "What time is it?" I asked him.

The gleam vanished as he turned the dial toward himself. "Almost five o'clock. About ten minutes of. Listen, Doc, you've got so much you might as well have the rest. Yes, Al has proof of his parentage. And, as an only child, illegitimate or not, he can claim the entire estate now that Bonney isn't married. He could have cut in for a fraction of it, of course, even before the divorce."

"Didn't he leave a will?"

"Ralph didn't ever make a will. Superstitious about it. I've often tried to talk him into making one, but he never would."

"And Al Grainger knew that?"

Carl said, "I imagine he would have."

"Is there any reason why Al would have been in such a hurry?" I asked. "I mean, would there have been any change in status if he'd waited a while instead of killing Bonney the night after the divorce?"

Carl thought a minute. "Bonney was planning to leave tomorrow for a long vacation. Al would have had to wait several months, and maybe he figured Bonney might remarry — meet someone on the cruise he was going to take. It happens that way, sometimes, on the rebound after a divorce. And Bonney is — was, only fifty-two."

I nodded — to myself, since Carl couldn't see me in the darkness. That last bit of information covered everything on the motive end.

I knew everything now, except the details and they didn't matter much. I knew why Al had done everything that he had done; he had to make an airtight frame on someone because once he claimed Bonney's estate, his own motive would be obvious. I could even guess some of the reasons why he'd picked me for the scapegoat.

He must have hated me, and kept it carefully under cover. I could see a reason for it, now that I knew more about him. I've got a loose tongue and often swear at people affectionately, if you know what I mean. How often, when Al had beaten me in a game of chess had I grinned at him and said, "All right, you bastard. But try to do it again."

Never dreaming, of course, that he was one, and knew it.

He must have hated me like hell. In some ways he could have picked an easier victim, someone more likely than I to have committed murder and robbery for money. Choosing me, his plan took more gobbledegook; he had to give me such a mad story to tell that nobody would believe a word of it and would think, instead, that I'd gone insane. Of course, too, he knew how much Kates hated me; he counted on that.

A sudden thought shook me; could Kates have been in on the deal with Al? That would account for his trying to kill me rather than lock me up. Maybe that was the deal — for a twenty or fifty thousand dollar cut of the estate, Kates had agreed to shoot me down under the pretense that I had attacked him or had tried to escape.

No, I decided on second thought, it hadn't been that way. I'd been alone with Kates in his office for almost half an hour while Hank Ganzer had been on his way back from Neilsville. It would have been too easy for Kates to have killed me then, planted a weapon on me and claimed that I'd come in and attacked him. And when the two bodies had been found in my car, the story would have been perfectly credible. It would even have pointed up the indication that I'd gone homicidally insane.

No, Kates' motive for wanting to kill me had been personal, sheer malice because of the things I'd written about him in editorials and the way I'd fought him in elections. He'd wanted to kill me and had seen a sudden opportunity when the bodies had been found in my car. He'd passed up a much better chance because, when I was alone with him for so long in his office, he hadn't known the bodies were there.

No, definitely this was a one-man job, except for Yehudi Smith. Al had hired Smith to keep me diverted, but when Smith's job was done, he was eliminated. Another pawn. Chess isn't a team game.

Carl said, "How are you mixed in this, Doc? What can I do?"

"Nothing," I said. It was my problem, not Carl's. I'd kept Smiley out of it; I'd keep Carl out of it, too. Except for the information and help he'd already given me. "Go up to bed, Carl. I've got a little more thinking to do."

"Hell with that. I can't sleep with you sitting down here thinking. But I'll sit here and shut up unless you talk to me. You can't tell whether I'm here or not anyway, if I shut up."

I said, "Shut up, then."

Proof, I thought. But what proof? Somewhere, but God knew where, was the dead body of the actor Al had hired to play the role of Yehudi. But this had been planned, and well planned. Suitable disposal of that body had been arranged for long before Al had taken it away from the Wentworth place. I wasn't going to turn up at random and one guess was as good as another as to where he'd hidden or buried it. He'd had hours to do it in and he'd known in advance every step he was going to take.

The car in which Yehudi Smith had driven me to the Wentworth house and which he'd switched for my own car after he'd used mine for the supposed holdup. No, I couldn't find that car as proof and it wouldn't mean anything if I did. It could have been — probably was — a stolen car, and now returned to wherever he'd stolen it from, never missed by its owner. And I didn't even remember what make or model it was. All I remembered was that it had an onyx gear shift knob and a push button radio. I didn't even know whether it was a Cadillac convertible, or a Ford business coupe.

Had Al arranged any kind of an alibi for himself?

Maybe, maybe not, but what did it matter unless I could find something against him besides motive? That, and my own certainty that he'd done it. I hadn't any alibi, none at all. I had an incredible story and two bodies and the stolen money in my car. And a sheriff and three deputies looking for me and ready to shoot on sight.

I had the murder weapon in my pocket. And another gun, too, a loaded one.

Could I go to Al Grainger and scare him into writing out and signing a confession?

He'd laugh at me. I'd laugh at myself for trying. A man with the warped brain that would work out something like Al's plan tonight wasn't going to tell me what time it was just because I pointed a gun at him.

A faint touch of light was showing at the windows. I could even make out Carl sitting there across the table from me.

"Carl," I said.

"Yes, Doc? Say, I was letting you think but I'm glad you spoke. Just had an idea."

"An idea's what I need," I told him. "What is it?"

"Want a drink?"

I asked, "Is that the idea?"

"That's the idea. Look, I'm hung over to hell and back and I can't have one with you, but I just realized what a lousy host I was. Do you want one?"

"Thanks," I said, "but I had a drink. Listen, Carl, talk to me about Al Grainger. Don't ask me what to say. Just talk."

"Anything, at random?"

"Anything, at random."

"Well, he's always impressed me as being a little off the beam. Brilliant, but — well, twisted, somehow. Maybe his knowledge of who and what he was contributed to that. Smiley always felt that, too; he's mentioned it to me. Not that Smiley knows who or what Al is, but he just felt something was wrong."