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liners in the bottom. I tore the bed apart and examined
the mattress, searched the pockets of the suits hanging
in the closet and felt the linings of the jackets. The
knowledge that what I sought had actually been here was
maddening. Well, they might still be here; there was still
a chance he hadn t found them either. I went through the
two suitcases in the closet and poked at the linings, tore
the papers off the shelves, looked in the sweatbands of
the two hats I found, lifted the dresser and the desk away
from the wall and searched behind them, tore up the rug,
turned over the chairs and checked their cushions,
examined the wallpaper, looked in the water tank of the
toilet in the bathroom, and under the old-fashioned tub. I
peered through the barrels of two shotguns, and felt
inside rubber boots. I couldn t turn on a light in the
kitchen without blanking off the window, but I d found a
flashlight that would be safe enough, so I started out
there, tearing papers out of cupboards, looking in cereal
boxes and in the stove and refrigerator, even in the
icecube trays, and minutely examining the linoleum for
traces of its having been disturbed. I found nothing. If
he d kept the chppings here, George had already got
them.
I went back into the other room, closed the kitchen
door, and slumped wearily on the bed. It was four-tirirty;
it had taken almost an hour. A car went past on
Montrose, its tires squealing as it made the turn into
Clebourne. In my mind I could see them criss-crossing
the town, flashing their lights into doorways and
shrubbery, blocking the exits. Take no chances; he s
insane, and he may be armed.
The Long Saturday Night  103
I craned my neck and stared up at the ceiling. George s
offices were directly over my head. Reaching over on the
desk for the phone, I looked up the number in the
directory dialed it, and sat smiling bitterly as I listened to
it ring. I shrugged, and let the receiver drop back on the
cradle.
I d better call Barbara and remind her. She should be
back at her apartment by now. She answered on the first
ring.  Hello?
 Duke 
 Oh, thank Heaven! I ve been scared blue. Where are
you?
 In Roberts apartment. Look they re going to find my
suitcase in the office. Remember, stick to your story and
there s nothing they can do; there was no way you could
have known I was back there 
She cut me off.  Never mind that. What did you find out
from Doris?
I told her.  She won t admit it, but she knows Junior
broke in here that night to burglarize the place. She
wasn t able to get hold of him to tell him I d had to break
the date with Frances, so he thought he was going to
have the place to himself and could find where she kept
the Saturday receipts from the shop. But of course he
walked in on two people, and I don t think there s any
doubt now the other one was George. I just checked, and
you can hear the phone in his office from down here. For
having a girl friend on the side, in a small town, you d
never find a cozier arrangement. I suppose he worked a
lot at night.
 Yes, and usually alone. I used to see the windows
lighted at night when I d be coming home from a date or
from a movie. He never asked for any stenographic help,
so I just assumed he was reading law on cases he was
working on.
 It was a beautiful set-up, all right. If anybody
Fleurelle, for instance tried to call him, all he had to do
was go out through the,kitchen, up the stairs, and answer
it. But when Junior walked in on them that night, he must
have lost his head. I doubt he intended to kill him he
was just taken by surprise and hit him too hard with
something. They probably didn t have any trouble getting
the body out of here, since they could bring the car into
The Long Saturday Night  104
the alley right to the back door, but from then on there
was a lot more at stake than a scandal and divorce.
 Then on top of that, she pulled out of the arrangement
and married you.
 Right. So all George had for his trouble was a
potential murder charge hanging over his head 
She broke in,  And Roberts probably didn t even know
about that part of it at all.
I grinned coldly. It was hard to imagine sympathizing
with a blackmailer, but you could almost feel sorry for
poor Roberts. He had a nice safe racket going, extorting
money from a girl standing in front of him, and all the
time he was inadvertently threatening to expose a
homicide committed by a very dangerous man standing
behind him.  It s a miracle he lasted as long as he did.
That s actually what got him killed the fact he didn t
know George had any connection with her at all. But if he
exposed her, the whole thing might come out. What he
was gouging her for, God only knows, except that it must
have been something that happened before she ever
came here.
 But how do you suppose Roberts could have found out
about that?
I told her about the letter from the girl in Los Angeles
and its reference to clippings.  I ve searched every inch
of the apartment and there are no clippings here, so
Roberts either kept them somewhere else or George beat
me to  em. It still doesn t make much sense, anyway; the
news stories could only verify something Roberts already
suspected, but she came here from Florida, he was from
Texas, and the clippings must have been from a
California paper. Naturally, I was hoping that one of
those detectives in Miami or Houston would turn up [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]