Fredrick Brown - Night of the Jabberwock

I lighted the candle, and sat down again.

"An inch of candle, Al," I said. "Maybe ten minutes if you stay as still as that. Sooner if you get reckless and wriggle a toe or finger. That candle isn't too stable standing there on a soft mattress."

His eyes were open again, staring at that candle burning down toward the soaked sheet, staring in utter horror. I hated myself for what I was doing to him, but I kept on doing it just the same. I thought of three men murdered tonight and steeled myself. And after all, Al's only danger was in his mind. That wet spot on the sheet was stuff that would keep the sheet itself from burning.

"Ready to write, Al?"

His horror-filled eyes shifted from the candle to my face, but he didn't nod. I thought for a moment that he was calling my bluff, and then I realized that the reason he didn't nod was because he was afraid to make even that slight a muscular movement for fear of knocking over the short candle.

I said, "All right, Al, I'll see if you're ready. If you aren't, I'll put the candle back where it was, and I'll let it keep burning meanwhile so you won't have gained any time." I picked up the candle gently and put it down on the night stand.

I held the pad. He started to write and then stopped, and I reached for the candle. The pen started moving again.

After a while I said, "That's enough. Just sign it."

I sighed with relief and went to the telephone. Carl Trenholm must have been sitting beside his own phone; he answered almost before it had finished ringing the first time.

"Dressed and ready?" I asked him.

"Right, Doc. What do I do?"

"I've got Al Grainger's confession. I want it turned over to the law to clear me, but it's not safe for me to do it direct. Kates would shoot before he'd read and some of the deputies might. You'll have to do it for me, Carl."

"Where are you? At Al's?"

"Yes."

"I'll be around. And I'll bring Ganzer to get Al. It's all right; Hank won't shoot. I've been talking reason to him and he admits somebody else could have put those bodies in your car. And when I tell him there's a confession from Grainger, he'll listen."

"How about Kates, though? And how come you were talking to Hank Ganzer?"

"He called up here, looking for Kates. Kates left him to go back to the office an hour or two ago and never got to the office and they don't know where he is. But don't worry. Kates won't take any shots at you if you're with Ganzer and me both. I'll be right around."

I phoned Pete and told him that all hell had been popping and that now we had a story we could use, one even bigger than the ones that had got away. He said he'd get right down to the shop and get the fire going under the Linotype's metal pot. "I was just leaving anyway, Doc," he said. "It's half past seven."

It was. I looked out the window and saw that it was broad daylight. I sat down and jittered until Carl and Hank got there.

It was eight o'clock exactly when I got to the office. Once Hank had seen that confession he'd let Carl and me talk him into letting Grainger do any explaining that remained so I could get the paper out in time. It was going to take me a good two hours to get that story written and we'd probably go to press a little later than usual anyway.

Pete got to work dismantling page one to make room for it — and plenty of room. I phoned the restaurant and talked them into sending up a big thermos jug of hot black coffee and started pounding my typewriter.

The phone rang and I picked it up. "Doc Stoeger?" it said. "`This is Dr. Buchan at the asylum. You were so kind last night about not running the story about Mrs. Griswald's escape and recapture that I decided it was only fair to tell you that you can run it after all, if there's still time."

"There's still time," I said. "We're going to be late going to press anyway. And thanks. But what came up? I thought Mrs. G. didn't want to worry her daughter in Springfield."

"Her daughter knows anyway. A friend of hers here — one whom we went to see while we were hunting our patient — phoned her to tell her about it. And she telephoned the asylum to be sure her mother was all right. So she already knows and you might as well have the story after all."

I said, "Fine, Dr. Buchan. Thanks a lot for calling."

Back to the typewriter. The black coffee came and I drank almost a full cup of it the first gulp and damn near scalded myself.

The asylum story was quick and easy to get out of the way so I wrote it up first. I'd just finished when the phone rang again.

"Mr. Stoeger?" it asked me. "This is Ward Howard, superintendent of the fireworks factory. We had a slight accident in the plant yesterday that I'd like you to run a short story on, if it's not too late."

"It's not too late," I said, "provided the accident was in the Roman candle department. Was it?"

"Oh, so you already knew. Do you have the details or shall I give them to you?"

I let him give them and took notes and then I asked him how come they wanted the story printed.

"Change of policy, Mr. Stoeger. You see there have been rumors going around town about accidents here that don't happen — but are supposed to have happened and to have been kept out of the paper. I'm afraid my grammar's a bit involved there. I mean that we've decided that if the truth is printed about accidents that really do happen, it will help prevent false rumors and wild stories."

I told him I understood and thanked him.

I drank more black coffee and worked a while on the Bonney-Harrison-Smith murder story and then sandwiched in the Roman candle department story and then went back to the big story.

All I needed now was—

Captain Evans of the state police came in. I glared up at him and he grinned down at me..

I said, "Don't tell me. You've come to tell me that I can, after all, run the story of Smiley's and my little ride with the two gangsters and how Smiley captured one and killed one. It's just what I need. I can spare a stick of type back in the want ads."

He grinned again and pulled up a chair. He sat down in it,. but I paid no further attention; I went on typing.

Then he pushed his hat back on his head and said quietly, "That's right, Doc."

I made four typing errors in a three letter word and then turned around and looked at him. "Huh?" I said. "I was kidding. Wasn't I?"

"Maybe you were, but I'm not. You can run the story, Doc. They got Gene Kelley in Chicago two hours ago."

I groaned happily. Then I glared at him again. I said, "Then get the hell out of here. I've got work to do."

"Don't you want the rest of the story?"

"What rest of it? I don't need details of how they got Kelley, just so they got him. That's, from my point of view, a footnote of the local angle, and the local angle is what happened here in the county to George and Bat — and to Smiley and me. Now scram."

I typed another sentence. He said, "Doc," and the way he said it made me take my hands away from the typewriter and look at him.

He said, "Doc, relax. It is local. There was one thing I didn't tell you last night because it was too local and too hot. One other thing we got out of Bat Masters. They weren't heading for Chicago or Gary Tight away. They were going to hole up overnight at a hideout for crooks — it's a farm run by a man named George Dixon, up in the hills. An isolated place. We knew Dixon as an ex-crook but never guessed he was running a rest home for boys who were hiding out from the law. We raided it last night. We got four criminals wanted in Chicago who were staying there. And we found, among other things, some letters and papers that told us where Gene Kelley was staying. We phoned Chicago quick and they got him, so you can run the whole story — the other members of the gang won't keep that hotel date anyway. But we'll settle for having Kelley in the bag — and the rest of our haul at the Dixon farm. That's local, Doc. Want names and such?"