Charles Williams - Hell Hath No Fury

“Yes. Several times.”

He grunted. “Good. That’s what I wanted to know. Now tell me something I’m curious about.” He paused a moment, watching me and letting me wait. “On these other times, did you always make it a point to stop in at the restaurant on your way back with your hair plastered down like a wet rat, and kid the waitress about it?”

I was groggy for a minute. How could I have known I’d run into a mind like this? I’d done it deliberately, for an alibi, but he could smell it. It was overdone for him. It was phony; it stuck out. I rolled with it, trying to keep my face from showing I was being hurt.

“Look,” I said, “how the hell do I know where I went every time I came back from swimming? I don’t keep a diary. God, you just go swimming. And then you go home. Or you want a cup of coffee. Or a Coke. Or you go to the movies. Or to the can. Who’s going to keep track of all that?”

“I was just curious about it. We’ll call it another coincidence. Let’s go back to the first time you were ever in that bank. You opened an account, remember? And here’s the funniest coincidence of all. There was a fire that day too, wasn’t there?”

“Yes,” I said. “I think there was, now that I recall it.”

“And when you went in, there wasn’t anybody in the place, as far as you could see?”

“Yes. That’s right.”

“But of course you didn’t think anything about it? I mean, it happens every day—a bank with money lying around everywhere and nobody in sight looking after it. You didn’t think about it again, did you?”

“Yes, I did. As a matter of fact, I thought they were goofier than bedbugs.”

“But you went right ahead and put your money in it, didn’t you?”

“I had to, if I was going to put it anywhere. It was the only bank in town.”

He shifted his attack then. That was the trouble with him; you could never tell where he was going to hit you next. “You’re a pretty big man, Madox. How much do you weigh?”

“Around two-fifteen. Why?”

“And just from looking at you I’d say not much of it’s fat. There’s a lot of power there. What I’m getting at is a long talk I had with Julian Ward. I spent about two hours with him, trying to find something to start with. He didn’t see the man who tied him up; all he saw was a blanket. But there was one thing he was certain about—and that was whoever did the job was a big man and a powerful one. He said he’d never felt such absolute helplessness in his life.”

“Nuts,” I said. “I know Ward. He’s the man who opened the account for me. He’s sixty if he’s a day, and he wouldn’t weigh 140 in a wet overcoat. A high-school kid could manhandle him.”

“Sure. But the thing that stuck in his mind wasn’t that it was done, but the way it was done. No effort. So much reserve power the man didn’t even hurt him, just picked him up and set him down the way you would a baby.”

“All right,” I said. “So it was a big man. Am I the only one in the state?”

“You’re the only one so far that fits exactly in the whole picture.”

“Well, look,” I said angrily. “Let’s get down to some facts. You say the bank was robbed while that building was burned down, that whoever cleaned it out set the building afire so he wouldn’t be bothered by kibitzers looking over his shoulder. Well, I was at the fire. So how in hell could I have been in two places at once?” . He stopped and sat down on the edge of the desk again, with what looked like a little smile around the corners of his mouth. “I wondered when you’d get around to that,” he said. “Can you prove you were at the fire?”

I had sense enough to lead into it gradually. This white-haired bloodhound could smell a pat alibi a mile. “Well, damn,” I said, “somebody must have seen me. After all, there were more than a thousand people milling around“

“But anybody in particular?” he asked.

“Well, I didn’t go around shaking hands and taking down the names and addresses of witnesses, if that’s what you mean. But let me think. There’s bound to be somebody who remembers me. I talked to some of them—“

“Why not go ahead and say it?” he asked softly. “One of the men you talked to is sitting right there looking at you. He remembers you. He remembers how you made a big splash handling hose and helping shove the crowd back—twenty-five minutes after the fire started, and after the bank was already robbed.”

11

That started it, and it went on and on until time meant nothing any more. They had Gulick’s statement that I’d left the car lot when the fire engine went by, and they said nobody had seen me again until a full twenty-five minutes had gone by. I said I’d been at the fire the whole time. They said I hadn’t. I began to feel dazed, and hypnotized, too tired to lift my hands or light a cigarette or think. The world became nothing but heat and white light and an endless rain of questions beating against me. They took turns. Tate went out for coffee and when he came back the Sheriff went out. It made no difference. The questions and the accusations were the same and after a while I couldn’t tell the voices apart.

“Where did you go that Friday?”

“I went to Houston.”

“Where did you go that night?”

“Swimming. I told you. I went swimming.”

“You went somewhere to get rid of that money. Where’d you hide it?”

“I went swimming.”

“Did you bury it?”

“I went swimming.”

“Where did you bury it?”

“I didn’t bury anything.”

“How did you mark the place?”

“I went swimming.”

“Was it near the river?”

“It was in the river.”

“You buried the money in the river?”

“I didn’t bury any money. I didn’t have any money. I don’t know anything about any money.”

“Did you bury it along the road somewhere? Did you bury it in a money bag? What kind of bag? What’d you carry it away from the bank in? Did you count it? Don’t you know the bank has a record of the serial numbers? You can’t spend it. Where did you hide it?” “I didn’t bury anything.”

“Where did you buy that clock?”

“I never saw the clock before.”

“Did you go to Houston?”

“Yes.”

“What’s the name of the girl?”

“Kelvey.”

“I thought Kelvey was the man who owed you money.”

“That’s what I mean.”

“You just said the girl’s name was Kelvey. Who owed you money?”

“Kelvey.”

“There wasn’t any girl, was there? You went down there to buy a clock to make a fire-bomb. Where’d you buy that clock?”

“I didn’t.”

“You stood behind the door in the can and threw a blanket over him when he came in. Why didn’t you sap him?”

“I don’t know anything about it.”

“You knew he was an old man and you were afraid you’d kill him and you didn’t want a murder rap on your hands. Wasn’t that it?”

“I’ve told you a thousand times. I was at the fire.” “I’m talking about before you got to the fire.”

“I got there within two or three minutes after the fire-truck.”

“What time was that?”

“How the hell do I know? Was there anybody at the fire who could tell you exactly what time it was?”

“Why didn’t somebody see you?”

“They did. Tate saw me.”

“Why didn’t he see you before the bank was robbed?”

“How do I know? Maybe he did.”

“He says he didn’t.”

“All right. Ask him to name all the other people he saw there, and the exact times he saw them.”

“You made a big show when you got there, didn’t you? Everybody could see you. But it was too late. That was after the bank was robbed.”