t me come up here. Don't wake up the whole God damned town." Hank looked back over his shoulder at me again. Then he called, "Did Doc give you a key?" "Yes. Why? What kind of a yarn is he feeding you?" "Bring down the key, Rance. Quick." He looked back over his shoulder again, started toward, me, and then hesitated. He compromised by staying where he was, but watching me. The window slammed down. I walked back around the car and I almost decided to light a match and look at those stains myself. And then I decided, what the hell. Hank came a few steps closer. He said, "Where you going, Doc?" I was at the curb by then. I said, "Nowhere," and sat down. To wait. CHAPTER TWELVE Then fill up the glasses as quick as you can, And sprinkle the table with buttons and bran: Put cats in the coffee, and mice in the tea­ And welcome Queen Alice with thirty-times three! The courthouse door opened and closed. Kates crossed the street. He looked at me and asked Hank, "What's wrong?" "Don't know, Rance. Looks like blood has dripped from the luggage compartment of Doc's car. It's locked. He says he gave you the key. I didn't want to ­ uh ­ leave him to come up and get it. So I yelled for you." Kates nodded. His face was toward me and Hank Ganzer couldn't see it. I could. It looked happy, very happy. His hand went inside his coat and came out with a pistol. He asked, "Did you frisk him, Hank?" "No." "Go ahead." Hank came around Kates and came up to me from the side. I stood up and held out my hands to make it easy for him. The bottle of whisky was in one of them. He found nothing more deadly than that. "Clean," Hank said. Kates didn't put his pistol away. He reached into a pocket with his free hand and took out the key I'd given him. He tossed it to Hank. "Open the compartment," he said. The key fitted. The handle turned. Hank lifted the door. I heard the sudden intake of his breath and I turned and looked. Two bodies; I could see that much. I couldn't tell who they were from where I stood. Hank leaned farther in, using his flashlight. He said, "Miles Harrison, Rance. And Ralph Bonney. Both dead." "How'd he kill 'em?" "Hit over the head with something. Hard. Must've been several blows apiece. There's lots of blood." "Weapon there?" "What looks like it. There's a revolver ­ an old one ­ with blood on the butt. Nickel-plated Iver-Johnson, rusty where the plating's off. Thirty-eight, I think." "The money there? The pay roll?" "There's what looks like a brief case under Miles." Hank turned around. His face was as pale as the starlight. "Do I got to ­ uh ­ move him, Rance?" Kates thought a minute. "Maybe we better not. Maybe we better take a photo first. Listen, Hank, you go upstairs and get that camera and flash-gun. And while you're there, phone Dr. Heil to get here right away. Uh ­ you're sure they're both dead?" "Christ, yes, Rance. Their heads are beaten in. Shall I call Dorberg, too?" Dorberg is the local mortician who gets whatever business the sheriff's office can throw his way; he's Kates' brother-in-law, which may have a bearing on the fact. Kates said, "Sure, tell him to bring the wagon. But tell him no hurry; we want the coroner to have a look before we move 'em. And we want the pix even before that." Hank started for the courthouse door and then turned again. "Uh ­ Rance, how about calling Miles' wife and Bonney's factory?" I sat down on the curb again. I wanted a drink more badly than before, and the bottle was in my hand. But it didn't seem right, just at that moment, to take one. Miles' wife, I thought, and Bonney's factory. What a hell of a difference that was. But Bonney had been divorced that very day; he had no children, no relatives at all ­ at least in Carmel City ­ that I knew of. But then I didn't have either. If I was murdered, who'd be notified? The Carmel City Clarion, and maybe Carl Trenholm, if whoever did the notifying knew that Trenholm was my closest friend. Yes, maybe on the whole it was better that I'd never married. I thought of Bonney's divorce and the facts behind it that Carl ­ through Smiley ­ had told me. And I thought of how Miles Harrison's wife would be feeling tonight as soon as she got the news. But that was different; I didn't know whether it was good or bad that nobody would feel that way about me if I died suddenly. Just the same I felt lonely as hell. Well, they'd arrest me now and that would mean I could call Carl as my attorney. I was going to be in a hell of a spot, but Carl would believe me ­ and believe that I was sane ­ if anybody would. Kates had been thinking. He said, "Not yet ­ either of them, Hank. Milly especially; she might rush down here and get here before we got the bodies to Dorberg's. And we might as well be able to tell the factory whether the pay roll's there when we phone them. Maybe Stoeger hid it somewhere else and we won't get it back tonight." Hank said, "That's right, about Milly. We wouldn't want her to see Miles ­ that way. Okay, so I'll call Heil and Dorberg and then come back with the camera." "Quit talking. Get going." Hank went on into the courthouse. It wasn't any use, but I had to say it. I said, "Listen, Kates, I didn't do that. I didn't kill them." Kates said, "You son of a bitch. Miles was a good guy." "He was. I didn't kill him." I thought, I wish Miles had let me buy him that drink early in the evening. I wish I'd known; I'd have insisted and talked him into it. But that was silly, of course; you can't know things in advance. If you could, you could stop them from happening. Except of course in the Looking-Glass country where people sometimes lived backwards, where the White Queen had screamed first and then later stuck the needle into her finger. But even then ­ except, of course, that the Alice books were merely delightful nonsense, ­ why hadn't she simply not picked up the needle she knew she was going to stick herself with? Delightful nonsense, that is, until tonight. Tonight somebody was making gibbering horror out of Lewis Carroll's most amusing episodes. "Drink Me" ­ and die suddenly and horribly. That key ­ it had been supposed to open a fifteen-inch-high door into a beautiful garden. What it had opened the door to ­ well, I didn't care to look. I sighed and thought, what the hell, it's over with now. I'm going to be arrested and Kates thinks I killed Miles and Bonney, but I can't blame him for thinking it. I've got to wait till Carl can get me out of this. Kates said, "Stand up, Stoeger." I didn't. Why should I? I'd just thought, why would Miles or Ralph mind if I took a drink out of this bottle in my hand? I started to unscrew the top. "Stand up, Stoeger. Or I'll shoot you right there." He meant it. I stood up. His face, as he stood then, was in the shadow, but I remembered that look of malevolence he'd given me in his office, the look that said, "I'd like to kill you." He was going to shoot me. Here and now. It was safe as houses for him to do so. He could claim ­ if I turned and ran and he shot me in the back ­ that he'd shot because I was trying to escape. And if from the front that I ­ a homicidal maniac who had already killed Miles and Bonney ­ was coming toward him to attack him. That was why he'd sent Hank away and given him two phone calls to make so he wouldn't be back for minutes. I said, "Kates, you're not serious. You wouldn't shoot a man down in cold blood." "A man who'd killed a deputy of mine, yes. If I don't, Stoeger, you might beat the rap. You might get certified as a looney and get away with it. I'll make sure." That wasn't all of it, of course, but it gave him an excuse to help his own conscience. I'd killed a deputy of his, he'd thought. But he'd hated me enough to want to kill me even before he'd thought that. Hatred and sadism ­ given a perfect excuse. What could I do? Yell? It wouldn't help. Probably nobody awake ­ it was well after three o'clock by now ­ would hear me in time to see what happened. Hank would be phoning in the back office; he wouldn't get to the window in time. And Kates would claim that I yelled as I jumped him; yelling would just trigger the gun. He stepped closer; if he shot me in the front there'd have to be powder marks to show that he'd shot while I was coming at him. The gun muzzle centered on my chest, barely a foot away. I could live seconds longer if I turned and ran; he'd probably wait until I was a dozen steps away in that case. His face was still in the shadow, but I could see that he was grinning. I couldn't see his eyes or most of the rest of his face, just that grin. A disembodied grin, like that of the Cheshire cat in Alice. But unlike the Cheshire cat, he wasn't going to fade away. I was. Unless something unexpected happened. Like maybe a witness coming along, over there on the opposite sidewalk. He wouldn't shoot me in cold blood before a witness. Carl Trenholm, Al Grainger, anybody. I looked over Kates' shoulder and called out, "Hi, Al!" Kates turned. He had to; he couldn't take a chance on the possibility that there was really someone coming. He turned his head just for a quick glance, to be sure. I swung the whisky bottle. Maybe I should say my hand swung it; I hadn't even remembered that I still held it. It hit Kates alongside the head and like as not the brim of his hat saved his life. I think I swung hard enough to have killed him if he'd been bare headed. Kates and the revolver he'd been holding hit the street, separately. The whisky bottle slid out of my hand and hit the paving; it broke. The paving must have been harder than Kates' head ­ or maybe it would have broken on Kates' head if it hadn't been for the brim of his hat. I didn't even stop to find out if he was dead. I ran like hell. Afoot, of course. The ignition key of my car was still in my pocket, but driving off with two corpses was just about the last thing in the world I wanted to do. I ran a block and winded myself before I realized I hadn't the faintest idea where I was going. I slowed down and got off Oak Street. I cut back into the first alley. I fell over a garbage can and then sat down on it to get my wind back and to think out what I was going to do. But I had to move on because a dog started barking. I found myself behind the courthouse. I wanted, of course, to know who had killed Ralph Bonney and Miles Harrison and put their bodies in my car, but there was something that seemed of even more immediate interest; I wanted to know if I'd killed Rance Kates or seriously injured him. If I had, I was in a hell of a jam because ­ in addition to everything else against me ­ it would be my word against his that I'd done it in self-defense, to save my own life. My word against his, that is, if he were only injured. My word against nothing at all if I'd killed him. And my word wouldn't mean a damn thing to anybody until and unless I could account for two corpses in my car. The first window I tried was unlocked. I guess they're careless about locking windows of the courthouse because, for one reason, there's nothing kept there that any ordinary burglar would want to steal, and for another reason because the sheriff's office is in the building, and somebody's on duty there all night long. I slid the window up very slowly and it didn't make much noise, not enough, anyway, to have been heard in the sheriffs office, which is on the second floor and near the front. I pat it down again, just as quietly, so it wouldn't be an open giveaway if the search for me went through the alley. I groped in the dark till I found a chair and sat down to collect what wits I had left and figure what to do next. I was fairly safe for the moment. The room I'd entered was one of the small anterooms off the court room; nobody would look for me here, as long as I kept quiet. They'd found the sheriff, all right, or the sheriff had come around and found himself. There were footsteps on the front stairs, footsteps of more than one person. But back here I was too far away to hear what was being said, if any talking was going on. But that could wait for a minute or two. I wished to hell that I had a drink; I'd never wanted one worse in my life. I cussed myself for having dropped and broken that bottle ­ and after it had saved my life, at that. If I hadn't happened to have it in my hand, I'd have been dead. I don't know how long I sat there, but it probably wasn't over a few minutes because I was still breathing a little hard when I decided I'd better move. If I'd had a bottle to keep me company, I'd have gladly sat there the rest of the night, I think. But I had to find out what happened to Kates. If I'd killed him ­ or if he'd been taken to the hospital and was out of the picture ­ then I'd better give myself up and get it over with. If he was all right, and was still running things, that wouldn't be a very smart thing to do. If he'd wanted to kill me before I'd knocked him out with that bottle, he'd want to do it so badly now that he would do it, maybe without even bothering to find an excuse, right in front of Hank or any of the other deputies who were undoubtedly being waked up to join the manhunt, in front of the coroner or anybody else who happened to be around. I bent down and took my shoes off before I got up. I put one in each of the side pockets of my coat and then tiptoed out through the court room to the back stairs. I'd been in the building so many thousand times that I knew the layout almost as well as that of my own home or the Clarion office, and I didn't run into anything or fall over anything. I guided myself up the dark back staircase with a hand on the banister and avoiding the middle of the steps, where they'd be most likely to creak. Luckily there is an el in the upstairs hallway that runs from the front stairs to the back ones so there wasn't any danger of my being seen, when I'd reached the top of the stairs, by anyone entering or leaving the sheriff's office. And I had dim light now, from the light in the front hallway near the sheriff's office door. I tiptoed along almost to the turn of the hall and then tried the door of the county surveyor's office, which is next to the sheriff's office and with only an ordinary door with a ground glass pane between them. The door was unlocked. I got it open very quietly. It slipped out of my hand when I started to close it from the inside and almost slammed, but I caught it in time and eased it shut. I would have liked to lock it, but I didn't know whether the lock would click or not, so I didn't take a chance on that. I had plenty of light, comparatively, in the surveyor's office; the ground glass pane of the door to the sheriff's office was a bright yellow rectangle through which came enough light to let me see the office furniture clearly. I avoided it carefully and tiptoed my way toward that yellow rectangle. I could hear voices now and as I neared the door I could hear them even better, but I couldn't quite make out whose they were or what they were saying until I put my ear against the glass. I could hear perfectly well, then. Hank Ganzer was saying, "It still throws me, Rance. A gentle little old guy like Doc. Two murders and­" "Gentle, hell!" It was Kates' voice. "Maybe when he was sane he was, but he's crazier than a bedbug now. Ow! Go easy with that tape, will you?" Dr. Heil's voice was soft, harder to understand. He seemed to be urging that Kates should let himself be taken to the hospital to be sure there wasn't any concussion. "The hell with that," Kates said. "Not till we get Stoeger before he kills anybody else. Like he killed Miles and Bonney and damn near killed me. Hank, what's about the bodies?" "I made a quick preliminary examination." Heil's voice was clearer now. "Cause of death is pretty obviously repeated blows on their heads with what seems to have been that rusty pistol on your desk. And with the stains on the pistol butt, I don't think there's any reason to doubt it." "They still out front?" Hank said, "No, they're at Dorberg's ­ or on their way there. He and one of has boys came around with his meat wagon." "Doc." It was Kates' voice and it made me jump a little until I realized that he was talking to Dr. Heil and not to me. "You about through? With that God damn bandage, I mean. I got to get going on this. Hank, how many of the boys did you get on the phone? How many are coming down?" "Three, Rance. I got Watkins, Ehlers and Bill Dean. They're all on their way down. Be here in a few minutes. That'll make five of us." "Guess that fixes up things as well as I can here, Rance," Dr. Heil's voice said. "I still suggest you go around to the hospital for an X-ray and a check-up as soon as you can." "Sure, Doc. Soon as I catch Stoeger. And he can't get out of town with the state police watching the roads for us, even if he steals a car. You go on around to Dorberg's and take care of things there, huh?" Heil's voice, soft again, said something I couldn't hear, and there were footsteps toward the outer hall. I could hear other footsteps coming up the stairs. One or more of the day-shift deputies were arriving. Kates said, "Hi, Bill, Walt. Ehlers with you?" "Didn't see him. Probably be here in a minute." It sounded like Bill Dean's voice. "That's all right. We'll leave him here, anyway. You both got your guns? Good. Listen, you two are going together and Hank and I are going together. We'll work in pairs. Don't worry about the roads leading out; the state boys are watching them for us. And there's no train or bus out till late tomorrow morning. We just comb the town." "Divide it between us, Rance?" "No. You, Walt, and Bill cover the whole town. Drive through every street and alley. Hank and I will take places he might have holed in to hide. We'll search his house and the Clarion office, whether there are lights on or not, and we'll try any place else that's indoors where he might've holed in. He might pick an empty house, for instance. Anybody got any other suggestions where he might think of holing in?" Bill Dean's voice said, "He's pretty thick with Carl Trenholm. He might go to Carl." "Good idea, Bill. Anybody else?" Hank said, "He looked pretty drunk to me. And he broke that bottle he had. Might get into his head he wants another drink and break into a tavern. Probably Smiley's; that's where he hangs out, mostly." "Okay, Hank. We'll check ­ That must be Dick coming. Any more ideas, anybody, before we split up?" Ehlers was coming in now. Hank said, "Sometimes a guy doubles back where he figures nobody'll figure where he is. I mean, Rance, maybe he doubled back here and got in the back way or something, thinking the safest place to hide's right under our noses. Right here in the building." Kates said, "You heard that, Dick. And you're staying here to watch the office, so that's your job. Search the building here first before you settle down." "Right, Rance." Kates said, "One more thing. He's dangerous. He's probably armed by now. So don't take any chances. When you see him, start shooting." "At Doc Stoeger?" Someone's voice sounded surprised and a little shocked. I couldn't tell which of the deputies it was. "At Doc Stoeger," Kates said. "Maybe you think of him as a harmless little guy ­ but that's the kind that generally makes homicidal maniacs. He's killed two men tonight and tried to kill me, probably thought he did kill me, or he'd stayed and finished the job. And don't forget who one of the men he did kill was. Miles." Somebody muttered something. Bill Dean ­ I think it was Bill Dean ­ said, "I don't get it, though. A guy like Doc. He isn't broke; he's got a paper that makes money and he's not a crook. Why'd he suddenly want to kill two men for a couple of thousand lousy bucks?" Kates swore. He said, "He's nuts, went off the beam. The money probably didn't have much to do with it, although he took it all right. It was in that brief case under Miles' body. Now listen, this is the last time I tell you; he's a homicidal maniac and you better remember Miles the minute you spot him and shoot quick. He's crazy as a bedbug. Came in here with a cock and bull story about a guy being croaked out at the Wentworth place ­ a guy named Yehudi Smith, of all names. And Doc had a card to prove it, only he printed the card himself. Crazy enough to put his own bug number ­ union label number ­ on it. Gives me a key that he says opens a fifteen-inch-high door to a beautiful garden. Well, that was the key to the luggage compartment of his own car, see? With Miles' and Bonney's bodies, and the pay roll money, in it. Parked right in front. He'd driven it here. Comes up and gives me the key. And tries to get me to go to a haunted house with him." "Did anybody look there?" Dean asked. Hank said, "Sure, Bill. On my way back from Neilsville. Went through the whole dump. Nothing. And listen, Rance is right about him being crazy. I heard some of the I stuff he said, myself. And if you don't think he's dangerous, look at Rance. I'm sorry about it, I liked Doc. But damn it, I'm with Rance on shooting first and catching him afterwards." Somebody: "God damn it, if he killed Miles­" "If he's that crazy­" I think it was Dick Ehlers. "­we'd be doing him a favor, the way I figure it. If I ever go that far off the beam, homicidal, damn if I wouldn't rather be shot than spend the rest of my life in a padded cell. But what made him go off that way? All of a sudden, I mean?" "Alcohol. Softens the brain, and then all of a sudden, whang." "Doc didn't drink that much. He'd get drunk, a little, a night or two a week, but he wasn't an alcoholic. And he was such a nice­" A fist hit a desk. It would have been Kates' fist and Kates' desk. It was Kates' swivel chair that squealed and his voice said, "What the hell are we having a sewing circle for. Come on, let's go out and get him. And about shooting first, that's orders. I've lost one deputy tonight already. Come on." Footsteps, lots of them, toward the door. Kates' voice calling back from it. "And don't forget to search this building, Dick. Cellar to roof, before you settle down here." "Right, Rance." Footsteps, lots of heavy footsteps, going down the steps. And one set of them turning back along the hallway. Toward the County Surveyor's office. Toward me. CHAPTER THIRTEEN And he was very proud and stiff; He said "I'd go and wake them, if­" I took a corkscrew from the shelf; I went to wake them up myself. I hoped he'd take Rance Kates' orders literally and search the place from cellar to attic, in that order. If he did, I could get out either the front or back way while he was in the basement. But he might start on this floor, with this room. So I tiptoed to the door, pulling one of my shoes out of my pocket as I went. I stood flat against the wall by the door, gripping the shoe, ready to swing the heel of it if Ehlers' head came in. It didn't. The footsteps went on past and started down the back staircase. I breathed again. I opened the door and stepped out into the hall as soon as the footsteps were at the bottom of the back steps. Out there in the hall, in the quiet of the night, I could hear him moving about down there. He didn't go to the basement; he was taking the main floor first. That wasn't good. With him on the first floor I couldn't risk either the front or the back stairs; I was stuck up here. Outside I heard first one car start and then another. At least the front entrance was clear if I had to try to leave that way, if Ehlers started upstairs by the back staircase. I took a spot in the middle of the hallway, equidistant from both flights of steps. I could still hear him walking around down on the floor below, but it was difficult to tell just where he was. I had to be ready to make a break in either direction. I swore to myself at the thoroughness of Kates' plans for finding me. My house, my office, Carl's place, Smiley's or another tavern ­ every place I'd actually be likely to go. Even here, the courthouse, where I really was. But luckily, instead of all of them pitching in for a quick once-over here, he'd left only one man to do the job, and as long as I could hear him and he couldn't hear me ­ and probably didn't believe I was really here at all ­ I had an edge. Only, damn it, why didn't Ehlers hurry? I wanted a drink, and if I could get out of here, I could get one somewhere, somehow. I was shaking like a leaf, and my thoughts were, too. Even one drink would steady me enough to think straight. Maybe Kates kept a bottle in the bottom drawer of his desk. The way I felt just then, it was worth trying. I listened hard to the sounds below me and decided Ehlers was probably at the back of the building and I tiptoed to the front and into Kates' office. I went back to his desk and pulled the drawer open very quietly and slowly. There was a whisky bottle there. It was empty. I cussed Kates under my breath. It wasn't bad enough that he'd tried to kill me; on top of that, he'd had to finish off that bottle without leaving a single drink in it. And it had been a good brand, too. I closed the drawer again as carefully as I'd opened it, so there'd be no sign of my having been there. Lying on the blotter on Kates' desk was a revolver. I looked at it, wondering whether I should take it along with me. For a second the fact that it was rusty didn't register and then I remembered Hank's description of the gun that had been used as a bludgeon to kill Miles and Bonney, and I bent closer. Yes, it was an Iver-Johnson, nickel-plated where the plating wasn't worn or knocked off. This was the death weapon, then. Exhibit A. I reached out to pick it up, and then jerked my hand back. Hadn't I been framed well enough without helping the framer by putting my fingerprints on that gun? That was all I needed, to have my fingerprints on the weapon that had done the killing. Or were they there already? Considering everything else, I wouldn't have been too surprised if they were. Then I almost went through the ceiling. The phone rang. I could hear, in the silence between the first ring and the second, Ehlers' footsteps starting upstairs. But back here in the office, I couldn't tell whether he was coming up the front way or the back, and I might not have time to make it anyway, even if I knew. I looked around frantically and saw a closet, the door ajar. I grabbed up the Iver-Johnson and ducked into the closet, behind the door. And I stood there, trying not to breathe, while Ehlers came in and picked up the phone. He said, "Sheriff's office," and then, "Oh, you Rance," and then he listened a while. "You're phoning from the Clarion? Not at Smiley's or there, huh?... No, no calls have come in... Yeah, I'm almost through looking around here. Searched the first floor and the basement. Just got to go over this floor yet." I swore at myself. He'd been down in the basement, then, and I could have got away. But the building had been so quiet that his walking around down there had sounded to me as though it had been on the main floor. "Don't worry, I'm not taking any chances, Rance. Gun in one hand and a flashlight in the other." There was a gun in my hand too, and suddenly I realized what a damned foolish thing I'd done to pick it up off Kates' desk. Ehlers must have known it was there. If he missed it, if he happened to glance down at the desk while he was talking on the phone­ God must have loved me. He didn't. He said, "Okay, Rance," and then he put the phone down and walked out. I heard him go back along the hallway and around the el and start opening doors back there. I had to get out quick, down the front steps, before he worked his way back here. As a matter of routine, he'd probably open this closet door too when he'd searched his way back to the office he'd started from. I let myself out and tiptoed down the steps. Out into the night again, onto Oak Street. And I had to get off it quick, because either of the two cars looking for me might cruise by at any moment. Carmel City isn't large; a car can cruise all of its streets and alleys in pretty short order. Besides I still had my shoes in my pockets and ­ I realized now ­ I still had a gun in my hand. Hoping Ehlers wouldn't happen to be looking out of any of the windows, I ran around the corner and into the mouth of the alley behind the courthouse. As soon as I was comparatively safe in the friendly darkness, I sat down on the alley curbstone and put my shoes back on, and put the gun into my pocket. I hadn't meant to bring it along at all, but as long as I had I couldn't throw it away now. Anyway, it was going to get Dick Ehlers in trouble with Kates. When Kates looked for that gun and found it was missing, he'd know that I'd been in the courthouse and that Ehlers had missed me. He'd know that I'd been right in his own office while he'd been out searching for me. And so there I was in the dark, in safety for a few minutes until a car full of deputies decided to cruise down that particular alley looking for me. And I had a gun in my pocket that might or might not shoot ­ I hadn't checked that ­ and I had my shoes on and my hands were shaking again. I didn't even have to ask myself, Little man, what now. The little man not only wanted a drink; he really needed one. And Kates had already been to Smiley's looking for me and had found that I wasn't there. So I started down the alley toward Smiley's. Funny, but I was getting over being scared. A little, anyway. You can get only just so scared, and then something happens to your adrenal glands or something. I can't remember offhand whether your adrenals make you frightened or whether they get going and operate against it, but mine were getting either into or out of action, as the case might be. I'd been scared so much that night that I ­ or my glands ­ was getting tired of it. I was getting brave, almost. And it wasn't Dutch courage, either; it had been so long since I'd had a drink that I'd forgotten what one tasted like. I was cold damn sober. About three times during the course of the long evening and the long night I'd been on the borderline of intoxication, but always something had happened to keep me from drinking for a while and then something had sobered me up. Some foolish little thing like being taken for a ride by gangsters or watching a man die suddenly or horribly by quaffing a bottle labeled "Drink Me" or finding murdered men in the back of my own car or discovering that a sheriff intended to shoot me down in cold grue. Little things like that. So I kept going down the alley toward Smiley's. The dog that had barked at me before barked again. But I didn't waste time barking back. I kept on going down the alley toward Smiley's. There was the street to cross. I took a quick look both ways but didn't worry about it beyond that. If the sheriff's car or the deputies' car suddenly turned the corner and started spraying me with headlights and then bullets, well, then that was that. You can only get so worried; then you quit worrying. When things can't get any worse, outside of your getting killed, then either you get killed or things start getting better. Things started to get better; the window into the back room of Smiley's was open. I didn't bother taking off my shoes this time. Smiley would be asleep upstairs, but alone, and Smiley's so sound a sleeper that a bazooka shell exploding in the next room wouldn't wake him. I remember times I'd dropped into the tavern on a dull afternoon and found him asleep; it was almost hopeless to try to wake him, and I'd generally help myself and leave the money on the ledge of the register. And he dropped asleep so quickly and easily that even if Kates and Hank had wakened him when they'd looked for me here, he'd be asleep again by now. In fact ­ yes, I could hear a faint rumbling sound overhead, like very distant thunder. Smiley snoring. I groped my way through the dark back room and opened the door to the tavern. There was a dim light in there that burned all night long, and the shades were left up. But Kates had already been here and the chances of anyone else happening to pass and look in at half past three of a Friday morning were negligible. I took a bottle of the best bonded Bourbon Smiley had from the back bar and because it looked as though there were still at least a fair chance that this might be the last drink I ever had, I took a bottle of seltzer from the case under the bar. I took them to the table around the el, the one that's out of sight of the windows, the table at which Bat and George had sat early this evening. Bat and George seemed, now, to have sat there along time ago, years maybe, and seemed not a tenth as frightening as they'd been at the time. Almost, they seemed a little funny, somehow. I left the two bottles on the table and went back for a glass, a swizzle stick, and some ice cubes from the refrigerator. This drink I'd waited a long time for, and it was going to be a good one. I'd even pay a good price for it, I decided, especially after I looked in my wallet and found I had several tens but nothing smaller. I put a ten dollar bill on the ledge of the register, and I wondered if I'd ever get my change out of it. I went back to the table and made myself a drink, a good one. I lighted up a cigar, too. That was a bit risky because if Kates came by here again for another check, he might see cigar smoke in the dim light, even though I was out of his range of vision. But I decided the risk was worth it. You can, I was finding, get into such a Godawful jam that a little more risk doesn't seem to matter at all. I took a good long swig of the drink and then a deep drag from the cigar, and I felt pretty good. I held out my hands and they weren't shaking. Very silly of them not to be, but they weren't. Now, I thought, is my first chance to think for a long time. My first real chance since Yehudi Smith had died. Little man, what now? The pattern. Could I make any sense out of the pattern? Yehudi Smith ­ only that undoubtedly wasn't his real name, else the card he gave me wouldn't have been printed in my own shop ­ had called to see me and had told me­ Skip what he told you, I told myself. That was gobbledegook, just the kind of gobbledegook that would entice you to go to such a crazy place at such a crazy time. He knew you ­ that is, I corrected myself ­ he knew a lot about you. Your hobby and your weakness and what you were and what would interest you. His coming there was planned. Planned well in advance; the card proved that. According to a plan, then, he called on you at a time when no one else would be there. Probably, sitting in his car, he'd watched you come home, knowing Mrs. Carr was there ­ in all probability he or someone had been watching the house all evening ­ and waiting until she'd left to present himself. No one had seen him, no one besides yourself. He'd led you on a wild-goose chase. There weren't any Vorpal Blades; that was gobbledegook, too. Connect that with the fact that Miles Harrison and Ralph Bonney had been killed while Yehudi Smith was keeping you entertained and busy, and that their bodies had been put in the back compartment of your car. Easy. Smith was an accomplice of the murderer, hired to keep you away from anybody else who might alibi you while the crime was going on. Also to give you such an incredible story to account for where you really were that your own mother, if she were still alive, would have a hard time believing it. But connect that with the fact that Smith had been killed, too. And with the fact that the pay roll money had been left in your car along with the bodies. It added up to gibberish. I took another sip of my drink and it tasted weak. I looked at it and saw I'd been sitting there so long between sips that most of the ice had melted. I put more of the bonded Bourbon in it and it tasted all right again. I remembered about the gun I'd grabbed up from Kates' desk, the rusty one with which the two murders had been committed. I took it out of my pocket and looked at it. I handled it so I wouldn't have to touch those dried stains on the butt. I broke it to see if any shots had been fired from it and found there weren't any cartridges in it, empty or otherwise. I clicked it back into position and tried the trigger. It was rusted shut. It hadn't, then, been used as a gun at all. Just as a hammer to bash out the brains of two men. And I'd certainly made a fool of myself by bringing it along. I played right into the killer's hands by doing that. I put it back into my pocket. I wished that I had someone to talk to. I felt that I might figure out things aloud better than I could this way. I wished that Smiley was awake, and for a moment I was tempted to go upstairs to get him. No, I decided, once already tonight I'd put Smiley into danger ­ danger out of which he'd got both of us and without any help from me whatsoever. And this was my problem. It wouldn't be fair to Smiley to tangle him in it. Besides, this wasn't a matter for Smiley's brawn and guts. This was like playing chess, and Smiley didn't play chess. Carl might possibly be able to help me figure it out, but Smiley ­ never. And I didn't want to tangle Carl in this either. But I wanted to talk to somebody. All right, maybe I was a little crazy ­ not drunk, definitely not drunk ­ but a little crazy. I wanted to talk to somebody, so I did. The little man who wasn't there. I imagined him sitting across the table from me, sitting there with an imaginary drink in his hand. Gladly, right gladly, would I have poured him a real one if he'd been really there. He was looking at me strangely. "Smitty," I said. "Yes, Doc?" "What's your real name, Smitty? I know it isn't Yehudi Smith. That was part of the gag. The card you gave me proves that." It wasn't the right question to ask. He wavered a little, as though he was going to disappear on me. I shouldn't have asked him a question that I myself couldn't answer, because he was there only because my mind was putting him there. He couldn't tell me anything I didn't know myself or couldn't figure out. He wavered a little, but he rallied. He said, "Doc, I can't tell you that. Any more than I can tell you whom I was working for. You know that." Get it; he said "whom I was working for" not "who I was working for." I felt proud of him and of myself. I said, "Sure, Smitty. I shouldn't have asked. And listen, I'm sorry ­ I'm sorry as hell that you died." "That's all right, Doc. We all die sometime. And ­ well, it was a nice evening up to then." "I'm glad I fed you," I said. "I'm glad I gave you all you wanted to drink. And listen, Smitty, I'm sorry I laughed out loud when I saw that bottle and key