Black Mask (Vol. 7, No. 5 — April 1950), British Edition

“Eric Fabian,” I said. “He was the first one down here.”

“What’s the story on this?” Quimby turned to me.

I gave it to him quickly, neatly. When I’d finished, he pulled at his full lower lip, put on a wise and authoritative expression. “Seems clean cut enough,” he said. “I’ve heard about that damned dog and the way Harry was always showing off with him, taking chances. I—”

He broke off, leaned forward and pulled forth a little slip of white paper that was partly protruding from the breast pocket of Harry Wenzel’s shirt. He unfolded it and held the flashlight on it. Over his shoulder, in a fine but wobbly and uneven script, I read: I owe you $3,300.00. Willis Marlowe.

Quimby made a whistling sound. “Brother!” he said. “What’s that for?”

“They were playing poker.” Gus Berkaw told him. “It looks to me like Harry cleaned out old Marlow and then ran him along on credit. The I.O.U. was the final payoff, I imagine. Say, maybe this gives some credence to Inna’s theory that Harry might have been murdered.”

Chief Quimby puffed up importantly. “Murdered? How could he have been murdered? The dog killed him, didn’t he?”

“Sure,” Berkaw said, quietly. “But somebody could have set up the thing. Irma — Harry’s wife — has an idea that somebody might have heaved Harry, dead drunk, into the pen, here, and let the mutt do the rest.”

“Where is this guy, Marlow?” Quimby demanded. “If anything like that happened, this I.O.U. of his makes him a likely suspect.”

I said, “He’s not around right now. Nobody knows where he is.”

“You mean he’s disappeared?” Quimby blurted. “Well, that makes it look bad for him. Maybe he’s run away. Maybe he got cold feet after pulling the crime and—”

“Take it easy,” I stopped him. “In the first place it hasn’t been established that a crime really did take place. In the second, I doubt that old Marlow’s taken a powder. He was pretty well liquored up. I figure maybe he took a hike to try and walk it off or maybe he’s curled up in some dark corner, sleeping it through. I imagine he’ll turn up, one way or the other, pretty soon. Let’s get back inside. There’s nothing else out here.”

As we left the pen I remembered the piece of cloth I’d seen caught onto the piece of barbed wire. I directed Quimby’s attention to it. He studied it, closely and then hustled back into the pen and looked at the torn and bloody shirt Harry Wenzel was wearing.

“Looks like a piece of Harry’s shirt to me,” Quimby said. “How the hell would it get caught in that top strand of barbed wire, so far from the gate, unless it got caught when Harry was being heaved over the top of the fencer?”

I didn’t say anything. I didn’t like the looks of the way this thing was shaping up. By this time I was pretty well convinced that somebody had tried to work out a perfect murder by letting Satan do the dirty work for him. And in spite of my protests, before, it did look bad for old man Marlow.

He’d been pretty drunk and the I.O.U. showed that he’d wound up a heavy poker loser to Harry Wenzel. He was the last person to be seen with Harry. If he was in bad financial shape, a debt of that size might make him go to any extreme to wipe it out.

I followed the others back inside the inn. Quimby and Berkaw went to the bar and joined Irma Wenzel and Pete Saterlee and Eric Fabian, there. I found Lee Marlow over by the piano.

“My spinning outfit is gone, Matty. Maybe Pops went down to the lake to try it out.”

“Getting a head start on the rest of us, eh?” I said. “Could be.” If that was so, it meant that he didn’t even know about Harry Wenzel’s death. A man wouldn’t calmly go off to fish in the face of a tragedy like that.

“We’d better get him, bring him back,” Lee said.

“Maybe you’re right.” I didn’t say anything about the I.O.U. that had been found or the fact that her father might be a suspect, if police officials finally decided on the verdict that Harry Wenzel’s death was not accidental.

We got out of there without the others noticing. They were too busy arguing different ways the piece of cloth might have gotten caught onto the barbed wire fence and if it meant anything. We hurried along the little path that led through a thick grove of pines, downhill toward the lake.

Loon Lake was really nothing more than a large sized, artificial pond, about fifty square acres and kidney-shaped, with a lot of little coves and inlets and a small island in the middle. The shores were thick with shrubbery and shaded by clumps of huge trees.

Even though it was daylight, now, mist still hung in shaggy wraithes over the water and in wisps along the shore. We could feel its cold, dank touch on our faces as we made our way along the shore fishing path. Every once in awhile, Lee Marlow would shout: “Hey, Pops!” But there was no answer.

Everything was still and the mist and that deadly quiet gave the whole scene a heavy, gloomy quality. Beside me, Lee Marlow held my hand tightly and I knew that she felt the same way.