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

We got to the side door and carried the dead man upstairs without running into any of the others. I took him into his own room and slung him face down on the bed. He sprawled there, arms and legs outflung, one hand dangling loosely over the edge of the bed. His face was turned toward the wall and we couldn’t see the noose marks on his neck, nor the things strangulation had done to his sensitive features and his complexion.

Lee Marlow was standing in the doorway when I turned around. I saw that she was holding her spinning rod and reel in one hand. She must have automatically picked it up and brought it back with her. Her face was very pale and pin-pointed with tiny globes of perspiration on the forehead above the nose and along the soft curve of her upper lip. Her eyes were a little starey and there was a frozen setness to her features. But otherwise she seemed to have herself in control.

I took the rod and reel from her hand and she looked down at it dumbly as though she hadn’t even realized she’d been carrying it. “Let’s go downstairs,” I said. “Let’s get this over with.” I hated to rush her but I wanted to go through with this while she was still emotionally numbed, before the complete realization that her father was dead really penetrated.

She would break when that happened. She wouldn’t be able to keep quiet and all the others would know that her father was dead, too, not just the murderer. We would really be out in the cold, then.

I held her arm, going down the center stairway. We came out into the big barroom of Loon Lodge and in broad daylight, it was now a dull and dreary place. The rest of the party were still sitting at the bar where we had left them.

Quimby, the police chief, had removed his hat. He was bald, except for tufts of hair above the ears and at the base of the skull. His moon face was red and he was gesturing and talking loudly. He had been taking advantage of Gus Berkaw’s generosity.

Walking toward them, I said, “When do the county police get here, Arnold?”

Quimby stopped his story in mid-sentence and turned around. “Any time, now,” he said. “I called him about fifteen minutes ago. Meanwhile, there’s nothing much I can do.”

Eric Fabian let his eyes move slowly over Lee Marlow. He ran his fingers, comb-like through his thick yellow hair. “And where have you two been all this time?”

“Did you find your father, honey?” Pete Saterlee said.

“Yeah,” I said. “We found him, all right.” I let it lie there for a moment and didn’t say any more. I let my gaze move over the faces turned toward us. They showed curiosity, nothing more. Nobody was giving anything away. I saw though, that Irma Wenzel was drowning her sorrow, if any. She was getting into bad shape again. Her eyes were taking on a glassy stare. Her mouth was too loose at the corners. There was the beginning of a twitch in her right cheek.

“After looking all around the grounds,” I said, “we came back here and went up to his room. He must have come back by himself. We found him sprawled out on the bed, sleeping it off.”

“Bring him down,” Quimby said. “Why don’t you bring him down? I want to talk to him. The county police will bring him to and hammer at him to find out what he knows about this, if anything, when they get here. You better try again.”

“We tried to get him up but couldn’t,” I said. “Maybe by the time the county boys get to him, he’ll be more ready to rouse up. Right now,” I said, holding my breath, “he’s like a dead person.”

“Like a dead person,” Irma Wenzel repeated. Her voice held a low throb. It rose as she went on. “You mean like Harry out there?” She flung her arm toward the back of the building. “You mean like Harry, flopped out there in the mud. You hear what I’m saying? Right now, he’s out there, dead, dead, dead, stiffening and we’re in here—”

Her voice broke and she stopped talking. She set her drink down on the bar, very carefully. She moved off of her stool and away from the bar, away from the rest of us. Her wide-spaced, lovely, catlike eyes, glittering, now, circled the whole group. They finally came to rest on me.

“Where did you say old Willis Marlow is? Where did you say you found him?”

I felt a hammering at the pulses in my wrists. I kept my voice level but I don’t know how.

“He’s upstairs, Irma. He’s upstairs in his own room, sleeping off a drunk. Why? What’s wrong with that?”

Gus Berkaw, the bartender, had slipped out from behind the bar. He came up behind Irma Wenzel, now. His hand cupped her elbow. His square, dark face was grim.

“Easy, Irma. You’re upset. This has been a tough deal for you. You don’t want to get all upset. Maybe you’d better get upstairs and rest.”

She tried to twist her elbow away from his hand but he hung on. He urged her away, toward the stairs. She said, “Up there? Are you crazy? Not if Willis Marlow is up there.” She stiffened. Her voice got tight and high. “Gus, they say Willis Marlow is upstairs. How did he get up there, Gus? Gus, how—”