Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 35, No. 10, October 1990

I could see that Polly had been crying, and I remembered that years ago she and George had walked out together. Polly never had said why they split up but I had suspected, well, it was rather more than a suspicion, that George had been in love with Nora. For Nora, it had been only a tentative attraction before she’d gone to care for Mrs. Fitzmaurice. After that there had been Charlie. Polly hadn’t been able to continue the association. Strong Polly is, with her own ideas of what’s right. They’d stayed good friends. I’d long felt that Polly should have made herself more available socially. She tends not to get noticed, so fine a person. She and some good man are missing out. I put up another prayer for Polly.

Earl and I sat upstairs with our tea. “As Polly says,” Earl murmured, a bit shakily, “three times it is.”

“George isn’t — Doc Entwistle says his vital signs are good, that he’ll come out of it. Who else would have held up as George has?”

“The way things are I can’t see—” Earl’s voice trailed off into a deep sigh. “You know, she could have gone up Meadow Lane, since it runs out of the hotel parking lot, while Harry and the horse went up Main Street. They’d have come face to face at the vacant lot. And if Nora did have the gun like Beamer says, well, from there she could have gone home with the horse and not a soul would see her. Hardman’s going to think that.”

The chief was talking to Polly when we went downstairs. I thought he seemed, well, different. I couldn’t have said why. For a bachelor he keeps himself looking neat.

“Just passing, Emma, Earl.” He made to leave. “Oh, my pipe tobacco, Polly.”

“Chiefs upset?” Earl asked, looking at Polly after the door had closed. “He say anything new?”

“He’s not on the murder case, you know.” Polly went back to the weighing of sugar into five pound bags. “Dropped in for his pipe tobacco like you saw. Upset, like the rest of us.”

I was relieved that Polly, no longer tearful, was her brisk self again. Worth her weight in gold; we would have had a hard time without her.

Inspector Hardman came to visit us that afternoon. A goodlooking man, in a cold sort of way. Not unpleasant, but his very direct questions demanded clear answers. The chief had briefed him, of course. We watched after he left the shop, saw him drive the short distance up Main Street and turn right onto North Road, going out to the Fitzmaurice farm. Our hearts were lead weighted. He’d not be long finding out the truth of whatever it was that Nora had done.

Rory O’Brien told of seeing the gun as late as Friday morning on its rack above the chest in the Fitzmaurice farmhouse living room. Now it had vanished. Rory recalled the days when he’d seen Charlie Fitzmaurice teaching Nora to use it. “With Harry,” Rory said, “it was different. He was scared of firearms. Only thing he’d have been likely to do with it was to sneak it off and sell it.”

As the days passed, Beamer’s story gained in credibility. A long week we endured, but finally arrived at Friday. And then a third bombshell hit. Inspector Hardman had come into the shop to verify with us some of the things that Nora had told him. He was about to leave when the shop doorbell tinkled and in breezed Bill Worseley. Every Friday Bill comes in for a mountain of groceries. The Worseleys are Reggie Crossland’s nearest neighbors in the Rocky Mountain area, even though they are miles apart. Annie, Bill’s wife, comes into town but once a year. She makes a day of it, visiting her cousin Maude a few streets to the north of us.

Bill, a boisterous sort of guy, but goodnatured for all that, can be heard all over any room without anybody even trying to listen. “I’ll leave you Annie’s list, Earl,” he bellowed. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours or so. I’ve to run out to the lumber mill for some two-by-fours. Some paint and wallpaper I’m to get as well. Annie’s telling me I have to do the upstairs rooms over. I never have seen anything like the work she can dredge up for me.”

“Seems to me you keep her mighty busy, too, Bill. All them kids you got,” Earl said.

Bill’s laughter stirred the dust on our top shelves. “I’m a lucky man,” he boomed. “My Annie’s the best there is. Mind you put in all that stuff she ordered or my name’ll be mud. Yours, too. Say, this is a hell of a business over Harry being shot. Who’d have thought that right at the very time I was driving past this here corner and out past the Fitzmaurice place last Friday night—”

“Bill.” Earl, seeing the inspector’s sudden interest, had hurriedly laid a hand on Bill’s arm. “Bill, I don’t believe you’ve met Inspector Hardman. He’s working on that job right now.”