Paul Theroux - Murder in Mount Holly

“It kind of makes you stop and think, doesn’t it?” said Mrs. Gneiss.

They all stopped, sniffed at the smell that had now penetrated right down into the dining room, and agreed. It was as if Herbie was in the next room.

But what to do with those suitcases? Miss Ball suggested burying them. Mr. Gibbon suggested that they should put them, for practical reasons, into lockers at the bus terminal. Why? Because after the robbery, as they were carried on the shoulders of a screaming mob of grateful patriots, they would ask to be taken to the bus terminal. In full view of the mob and nationwide television they would produce the key and throw the locker open, expose its un-American contents to the mayor; they would exchange the locker key for the key to the city of Mount Holly.

Miss Ball called a taxi. The taxi driver was a bit under the weather.

“Nice to see some people get a chance to go away,” he muttered.

“Oh, we’re not going any where!” Miss Ball chirped.

Mrs. Gneiss was given the task of depositing the suitcases into the lockers. Mr. Gibbon had carefully estimated how much it would cost. He gave Mrs. Gneiss two warm dimes when they arrived at the bus terminal, and called a porter to help. “Give the little woman a hand,” he said. “I’ll be right back.” He winked at Miss Ball.

They should not be seen together in public, it was decided. There was no telling who might be spying on them. Mr. Gibbon said that it was a favorite trick of spies to let you go on with your activities and then nab you at the least likely moment, red-handed, with the goods.

“Well, you just leave the goods to me,” Mrs. Gneiss said. Mr. Gibbon and Miss Ball went their separate ways after whispering that they would meet back at the “hideout,” as Miss Ball’s white-frame house, ringed by nasturtiums, came to be called.

Mrs. Gneiss carried one suitcase, the porter carried the other, heavier one. The porter remarked that it felt as if it were filled with burglar tools.

The moment Mrs. Gneiss lifted the suitcase she knew she had Juan. She felt her nice porous skin turn to gooseflesh as she hurried toward the steel lockers.

“They’ll fit right fine in this one,” the porter said as he groaned and heaved his big suitcase before a row of big lockers.

Mrs. Gneiss looked at the sign and sighed. deposit one quarter only, read a sign over a chromium tongue with a quarter-sized circle punched into it. The tongue seemed to be sticking right at Mrs. Gneiss. She examined the two dimes in her palm and said to the porter, “You got anything more reasonable?”

The porter said that at the other end of the terminal there were some cheaper ones, a little cheesier than these.

“Let’s have a look,” Mrs. Gneiss said.

They hefted the suitcases once again. Halfway across the floor, near the benches for the waiting passengers, Mrs. Gneiss heard someone say, “What’s a lady like you lugging a big suitcase like that all by your lonesome?”

The porter ignored the voice and went on ahead.

Mrs. Gneiss turned. A sailor stood before her. He was wearing a seaman’s uniform: the white inverted sand-pail hat, wide trousers, and a tight shirt. He had tattoos on his hairy forearms. He should have been young. It was the sort of uniform young sailors wear. But he wasn’t young. He was about fifty, and his potbelly pressed against his sailor shirt. He looked jolly. He lifted Mrs. Gneiss’s meaty hand off the handle and hoisted the suitcase. He asked Mrs. Gneiss if she had burglar tools in it.

He alone laughed at his joke. He asked Mrs. Gneiss where she was going. He said that he was going to Minneapolis. Mrs. Gneiss said that she was going to the lockers at the other end of the terminal. This sent the old salt into gales of laughter.

“I hope you don’t mind doing this,” Mrs. Gneiss said, trying to get an impish smile on her fat face. “My Herbie’s in the army.”

“Don’t say?” the sailor said, interested. “Is he stateside?”

“I don’t think so. He’s in the front lines as far as I know.”

The sailor whistled. “What’s he wanna do a thing like that fer? Get hissel’ hurt that way if he doesn’ watch it.”

“Not my Herbie,” said Mrs. Gneiss. It hadn’t dawned on her that Herbie would get hurt. Now, as she said Not my Herbie, it occurred to her that Herbie might get his little brain blown off. She blotted out the thought and grinned at the sailor.

The porter had walked all the way to the end of the terminal and now was walking back to where Mrs. Gneiss stood with the sailor. He looked peeved. “I been waiting for you for about an hour,” he said.

“Don’t get yer dander up for nothing,” the sailor said.

“Where’s my suitcase?” Mrs. Gneiss asked.

“Back there. You think I’m gonna cart that around all day you’re nuts,” he said.

Mrs. Gneiss told the sailor she was in a big rush. She had to get the suitcases into the locker and go right back home (she almost said “to the hideout”).

When they reached the lockers at the other end the porter held his mouth open in astonishment. “’At’s funny,” he finally said. “I coulda sworn I left the thing right here. .”

Mrs. Gneiss wrinkled up her nose. She did not think it was a great loss. The body that was in the suitcase was not only dismembered — it was dead as well. She was, after all, trying to get rid of it. “Someone must have filched it,” she said simply.

The sailor suddenly let loose a wild hoot. He seized the shrugging porter by the shirt and began beating him with his free hand. “Now look what you’ve gone and done!” he puffed. He shoved the porter up against the lockers with a clang and screamed, “Look what you’re making me do!”

Mrs. Gneiss stood quietly and watched. She knew that the sailor would soon get it out of his system. A policeman came by and asked what was going on.

The sailor stopped beating the porter. He was out of breath and could not speak. He shook the porter in the policeman’s face.

Mrs. Gneiss explained what had happened. She finished by saying, “I don’t see what all the fuss is about. There was nothing very valuable in it.”

“Valuable or not,” the policeman said, “we don’t like this sort of thing happening in Mount Holly. Now you just sit tight and I’ll round up that suitcase of yours in a jiffy. The culprit couldn’t be far away.” He asked for a description of the suitcase and its contents.

Mrs. Gneiss said that it was old, brownish-greenish, and had some personal effects locked in it.

The policeman deputized the sailor and the porter. The three ran out the back door of the bus terminal in search of the suitcase.

Mrs. Gneiss quietly placed the small suitcase (Juan) in a dime-locker and went into the bus terminal Koffee Shoppe and swilled down a huge hot-fudge sundae.

Less than ten minutes later the policeman was back with a rat-faced little bum in one hand and the suitcase (Harold Potts, Jr) in the other. The policeman handcuffed the bum to a post and joined Mrs. Gneiss in another sundae. Afterward, he insisted on having his picture taken with Mrs. Gneiss: he presenting the lost suitcase to her, she thanking him. It took an hour for the press photographer to arrive, but finally Mrs. Gneiss got the second suitcase into the locker. The policeman did the heaving and pushing. He remarked as he was doing it that the suitcase felt as if it were filled with burglar tools.

The sailor and the porter were nowhere to be seen. They were, presumably, still looking for the thief.

“I think I’ll just toddle off,” Mrs. Gneiss said.

The policeman wouldn’t hear of it. He said he’d give her a lift in the squad car. His pal didn’t mind. They were both tired of passing out parking tickets. “The jig’s up,” Mr. Gibbon said, when he saw the police squad car arrive with Mrs. Gneiss in the backseat.