The Glass Village

“So will the call from his office to Aunt Fanny’s at one-twenty,” said the Judge grimly. “And the firewood business?”

Johnny struck a match and held it to a fresh cigaret. “That’s where friend Adams began to get clever. He decided to make the case against the tramp look even blacker. He’d noticed the freshly split firewood stacked in the lean-to. Obviously his aunt at ninety-one hadn’t been splitting wood; therefore, he reasoned, it must have been the tramp’s work, payment for the half-eaten meal on the kitchen table. Adams went outdoors, threw the twenty-four sticks into his coupé trunk, removed the evidences of Kowalczyk’s axwork behind the barn. That would make the tramp out a liar... Adams still thinks it was an inspiration.”

“Then he noticed the painting on the easel,” said Judge Shinn. “I see, I see. She’d already sketched the firewood into the picture—”

“Yes, and he realized that he either had to replace the wood or get rid of the painting. To put the wood back in the lean-to meant wasting time and running the further risk of being seen. And he couldn’t bring himself to destroy the painting — even intestate, her estate came to him and her paintings constituted the valuable part of it. So he began rummaging in the closet for a possible substitute picture which showed the lean-to empty. He found September Corn in the Rain. He put that one on the easel and stowed the unfinished picture away in the cabinet. He figured that by the time it was dug out again the paint would be dry and it would simply be dismissed as a picture she’d once started and never completed. The seasonal differences between the two canvases just never occurred to him, Adams says.

“And then all he had to do,” Johnny yawned, “was drive up the hill and off the road, and park. He waited in the woods till he judged he could safely make his appearance as Horrified Nephew, and then he did just that.”

“Lucky,” muttered the Judge. “Lucky throughout. Not being seen. The heavy rains. Kowalczyk’s pushing his car into the bog—”

“And there he snafued himself,” Johnny said, grinning. “He’d completely forgotten the wood in the trunk of his coupé — just went clean out of his mind, he says, otherwise he’d have dumped the twenty-four sticks in the woods somewhere before going back. When he saw his car sinking into the muck late that afternoon it all came back to him with a thud. Of course he pretended to be riled, but you’ll recall he also gave us some cogent reasons on the trip back to the village after Kowalczyk’s capture why he wasn’t going to ‘bother’ salvaging the car. He simply can’t explain why he forgot about the firewood till it was too late for him to do anything about it.”

“Mr. Sheare could probably explain it,” remarked Judge Shinn, “citing chapter and verse to boot. There goes the light in the parsonage. I imagine Josef Kowalczyk will sleep soundly tonight.”

“More likely have nightmares.” Johnny stared over at the little dark house of the Sheares. “By the way, what happens to Kowalczyk?”

“Well, I called Talbot Tucker in Cudbury last night — he owns the tanning factory. Talbot said to send Kowalczyk to him, and that’s where Kowalczyk’s headed tomorrow morning. With a visit first to Father Girard of the Catholic church. I talked to Father about Kowalczyk, and he’s finding him a place to live, get him settled, and so on.”

“I didn’t mean that. He still has a theft rap hanging over his head.”

“Oh, that.” Judge Shinn dropped his cigar neatly over the porch railing, and rose. “Who’s going to press the charge — Ferriss Adams?”

Samuel Sheare held open the door of the parsonage. Josef Kowalczyk stepped into the early sunlight, blinking.

Most of Shinn Corners was gathered on the parsonage lawn, the men in their sweaty work clothes, the women in their house dresses, the children in dusty jeans and shorts.

They faced him silently.

Kowalczyk’s eyes rolled toward the minister. He took a jerky backward step, his gray skin darkening.

His trousers and tweed jacket looked almost spruce this morning. He wore a tie and shirt of Mr. Sheare’s, and he carried an old black felt hat from the same source. A tin lunch box was clutched to his ribs.

He had not shaved, and his hair was still long. “He was anxious,” Mr. Sheare explained later, “to get away.” His beard was very thick now, its ends beginning to curl. A blond beard with gray in it. It gave him a curiously dignified appearance.

Mr. Sheare put a hand on his arm and murmured.

Josef Kowalczyk let his breath go; he even smiled. But the smile was nervous and perfunctory, a polite flickering of the muscles about his mouth.

His eyes remained wary.

Now Hubert Hemus stepped out of the crowd, one hand out of sight behind his back. He was almost as gray-skinned this morning as Kowalczyk; his eyes were inflamed, as if he had not slept.

He wet his lips several times.

“Mr. Kowalczyk,” he began.

Kowalczyk’s eyes widened.