Fear is the Key

I don't quite know what I had expected the man behind the raised polished mahogany desk to look like. Subconsciously, I suppose, I'd looked for him to match up with those misconceptions formed by reading and film-going — in the far-off days when I had had time for such things — that had been as extensive as they had been hopelessly unselective. The only permissible variation in the appearances of county court judges in the south-eastern United States, I had come to believe, was in weight — some were dried-up, lean and stringy, others triple-jowled and built to match — but beyond that any departure from the norm was unthinkable. The judge was invariably an elderly man: his uniform was a crumpled white suit, off-white shirt, bootlace necktie and, on the back of his head, a panama with coloured band: the face was usually red, the nose purplish, the drooping tips of the silver-white Mark Twain moustache stained with bourbon or mint juleps or whatever it was they drank in those parts; the expression was usually aloof, the bearing aristocratic, the moral principles high and the intelligence only moderate.

Judge Mollison was a big disappointment. He didn't match up with any of the specifications except perhaps the moral principles, and those weren't visible. He was young, clean-shaven, impeccably dressed in a well-cut light grey tropical worsted suit and ultra-conservative tie and, as for the mint-juleps, I doubt if he'd ever as much as looked at a bar except to wonder how he might close it. He looked benign, and wasn't: he looked intelligent, and was. He was highly intelligent, and sharp as a needle. And he'd pinned me now with this sharp needle of his intelligence and was watching me wriggle with a disinterested expression that I didn't much care for.

"Come, come," he murmured gently. "We are waiting for an answer, Mr. — ah — Chrysler." He didn't actually say that he didn't believe that my name was Chrysler, but if any of the spectators on the benches missed his meaning they should have stayed at home. Certainly the bunch of round-eyed schoolgirls, courageously collecting credit marks for their civics course by venturing into this atmosphere of sin and vice and iniquity, didn't miss it: neither did the sad-eyed dark-blonde girl sitting quietly on the front bench and even the big black ape-like character sitting three benches behind her seemed to get it. At least the broken nose beneath the negligible clearance between eyebrows and hairline seemed to twitch. Maybe it was just the flies. The court-room was full of them. I thought sourly that if appearances were in any way a reflection of character he ought to be in the box while I was below watching him. I turned back to the judge.

"That's the third time you've had trouble in remembering my name, Judge," I said reproachfully. "By and by some of the more intelligent citizens listening here are going to catch on. You want to be more careful, my friend."

"I am not your friend." Judge Mollison's voice was precise and legal and he sounded as if he meant it. "And this is not a trial. There are no jurors to influence. This is only a hearing, Mr. — ah — Chrysler."

"Chrysler. Not ah-Chrysler. But you're going to make damned certain that there will be a trial, won't you, Judge?"

"You would be advised to mind both your language and your manners," the judge said sharply. "Don't forget I have the power to remand you in gaol — indefinitely. Once again, your passport. Where is it?"

"I don't know. Lost, I suppose."

"Where?"

"If I knew that it wouldn't be lost."

"We are aware of that," the judge said dryly. "But if we could localise the area we could notify the appropriate police stations where it might have been handed in. When did you first notice you no longer had your passport and where were you at the time?"

"Three days ago — and you know as well as I do where I was at the time. Sitting in the dining-room of the La Contessa Motel, eating my dinner and minding my own business when Wild Bill Hickok here and his posse jumped me." I gestured at the diminutive alpaca-coated sheriff sitting in a cane-bottomed chair in front of the judge's bench and thought that there could be no height barriers for the law enforcement officers of Marble Springs: the sheriff and his elevator shoes together couldn't have topped five feet four. Like the judge, the sheriff was a big disappointment to me. While I had hardly expected a Wild West lawman complete with Frontier Colt I had looked for something like either badge or gun. But no badge, no gun. None that I could see. The only gun in sight in the court-house was a short-barrelled Colt revolver stuck in the holster of the police officer who stood behind and a couple of feet to the right of me.