Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 5, No. 19, November 1944

Well, the dress was ready and buying the aspirins didn’t take a minute, but Annabell says, “Pete, why should we hurry back? The moment we get there the missus will think of more things for us to do and my back aches, so let’s take our time and tell her we had to wait.”

I said, “That sounds like a practical idea, Annabell, and there are some excellent parking places which I would like to show you.”

She said, “Parking places do not interest me in broad daylight because they are so public, and what else have you got?”

“There’s the Green Lantern where we could have a couple of beers.”

She said, “No, the missus would smell it on my breath.”

“I can’t think of anything else.”

“Think, Peter. Do we have to go back the same way we came?”

“No, there are side roads which go to the parking places.”

“But if we keep on going past the parking places?”

“Well, one of the side roads goes to Ore Hill.”

“Never heard of it.”

“Another one goes to Lime Rock.”

“Let it go. Say Pete, isn’t there a road that goes to Sludge Pond?”

“You mean Mudge Pond. Yes, another road goes to Mudge Pond and then it splits so you can go down either side of it.”

“That sounds very exciting. Let’s go there.”

So we did, stopping only once or twice because we knew Mrs. McRae would be in a hurry for her dress, and when we got to the beginning of Mudge Pond where you can see the cat-tails growing in the water we could hear a funny noise like “Whack! Whack!”

I says, “Annabell, that sounds like a gun to me.”

She says, “Nonsense. I deduct that is a redheaded woodpecker.”

“A redheaded woodpecker because you are one too?”

“No, because they make a noise like that.”

I says, “What’s the bet?” and when she says O.K., if I win she will let me show her some of the parking places on her first night off, I drive along the right bank of Mudge Pond with the “Whack! Whack!” getting louder every minute.

There are not any cottages there, only a couple of tumble down shanties with nobody living in them, and the “Whack! Whack!” so loud that I says, “Annabell, wouldn’t you like to call that bet off and compromise on fifteen minutes right now because I don’t know where we will get a car on your night off?” but she says, “Pete, I’m a good sport and when I lose I pay up.”

I says, “I will remind you of those words,” and then we drive past a clump of bushes, and there is a clearing, and we can see the slaughterhouse employee who is in his shirt sleeves and he has got a target pinned up on an old elm and he is plunking pistol bullets in the target which is a piece of paper just as fast as he can shoot.

Annabell says, “Oh my!” and the slaughterhouse employee sees us just as we see him.

He comes right up to the car, slouching, with that pistol in his hand, and he looks just as dangerous as a rattlesnake on legs until he sees who it is.

Annabell says, “Hello, mister. Shooting?”

That is a foolish question because anybody could see he wasn’t playing the violin with that pistol, but he only says, “Yep.”

“Are you good at it?”

He says, “Yep.”

“O.K. if we get out and watch you?”

He sticks his face right up near, so I can see that red groove under his jaw plainer than ever, but he says, “Yep.”

Well, he wasn’t kidding when he said he was good. He fixed up a new target by putting his thumb in his mouth and rubbing it in the middle of a piece of paper so there was a round black mark in the middle, and he loaded the pistol, and he slammed seven or eight shots in the black just as neat as you please. I says, “Gee, when you were a slaughterhouse employee they must have had you shoot the bull!”

That is meant to be humerus but he only says, “Yep.”

Annabell says, “Mister, I don’t know your name, but I’d like to see if Pete here can shoot as good as you. Pete is a trained detective like I told you.”

He says, “Yep.”

He puts up a new target, fixing it the same way which is easy because his hands are so dirty, and he puts just one cartridge in the gun because it is an automatic and they are tricky, and I point it at the tree and it goes off before I am ready.

Annabell jumps and says, “What do you think of that?”

He just says, “Yep,” because I hit the bull smack in the center, and I was so surprised I didn’t know what to say so I didn’t say anything.

“I’d like for him to shoot again.”

He says, “Yep,” and this time it is another bull’s eye, right where the dirt is blackest, and I guess I have been wasting my time driving cars for all these years if I can shoot like that which I did not know until this minute.