He saw a picket fence, dilapidated, weed- grown, a rickety gate standing ajar. He drove on and stopped when he saw Mary's car parked in the level-way.
He cut his headlights and killed the motor.
He was still sitting in the car a few seconds later when a door opened and a man came from the house. He was short, churn- legged, and carried a lantern. A moment he paused after closing the door, then stubbed off the porch. Halfway to the car he stopped, held up the lantern and peered around it. Heath saw his face, slack-mouthed, beady-eyed, chinless. The man spoke one word, his voice a rough squeak:
“Okay.”
Heath kept still. The fellow seemed undecided as to his next move. He took a backward step, swung the lantern around quickly as if to look behind him, cleared his throat loudly and came on. Heath guessed Mary had sent this fellow out to order him away. Well, he wasn't going, not even if John McCulloch did the ordering. He didn't think this stubby-legged individual was McCulloch. He opened a door. As the man came up, Heath said, “If you're here to tell me to get out, save your breath. Miss McCulloch's got everything wrong. No matter what she told you—”
The man grunted, snatched a gun from his coat. Heath grabbed his wrist just in time, wrung it until the gun dropped from his fist, then jerked him up close. “What you mean pulling a gun on me?” Heath said angrily.
The man cleared his throat, his flabby face sheeted with fear. “Put the lantern down,” Heath commanded. The man obeyed, flinching at sight of the automatic in the county detective's hand. “You—you was in the tower awhile ago!” the man gasped. “You tried to kill Trappett!”
“You're crazy,” Heath said, shaking him. “I just now drove up. Who are you? Where's Miss McCulloch?”
“I'm Lee Bascome. I work here.” Sullenness began supplanting the fear in Bascome's face. “Miss McCulloch's inside.”
“Did she send you out?”
Bascome shook his head. “I ain't seen her since she came. She went right to her room.
“Where's Miss McCulloch's father?”
“You ought to know,” said Bascome, ogling Heath with resentment. “He left here right after sundown, with Lorney and Weblick in the car.”
“When do you expect him back?”
“Why ask me?” Bascome shrugged. “Don't you know?”
“You're not being smart,” said the county detective. “You're playing it dumb as hell. Tell me, who's inside except Miss McCulloch?”
“Ira Trappett. He's hurt, as you know. You—a guy almost killed him in the tower, after he lost his little book.”
“We're going inside,” Heath said. “Take it slow. You try anything tricky and—”
Bascome crashed the lantern with his foot, then whirled and swung a haymaker at Heath's head. For the second, time that night Heath was lucky with a punch. His right caught Bascome squarely on the point of the jaw. A moment later when Heath leaned over him, Bascome was out cold. He found Bascome's gun, pocketed it, then turned toward the house.
His sole intention just then was to find Mary, make her believe him, tell her of seeing the face in the brush clump above the highway. The door wasn't locked. He pushed it open and found himself looking into the twin yawn of a double-barreled shotgun.
THE man holding the gun was sunken- faced, badly jaundiced. Heath guessed he was Trappett. There was the couch with mussed pillow and blanket where the fellow had been resting. The county detective recalled what the antique dealer had said about a man with a yellow face.
Trappett's face was certainly yellow. His skin was golden, splotched with bright saffron. His large dark eyes glowed dully from beneath heavy black brows, fixing an intent stare on Heath's face. He seemed an animal at bay that, through lucky circumstance, had gained an advantage it couldn't hope to hold.
“I saw you pummelling Bascome,” he said in a gentle baritone. “Did you kill him?”
“Of course not,” said Heath hotly.
Trappett clucked his tongue. “A pity.” He stood hunched forward as if to ease a strain on his right side. Had it not been for the jaundice and a look of ill health he would have been handsome. He was perhaps in his early fifties.
“I'll say—” he began, stopped as the earth shuddered, the house rattled, sighed, the flame in the oil burner lamp danced weirdly.
“The blast,” he said. “I've been waiting for it.” Something akin to defeat wavered in his eyes. “They must have got back, even without a car—or they may have left Weblick behind.”
“You seem a reasonable man,” said Heath. “Why don't you use some sense and put up your gun. I'm here for no harm. You should realize that.”
“Reasonable?” said Trappett, seeming surprised. “I?” He laughed, a rustling sound. “Who are you?”
Heath almost decided to forego the tale he and Mary had made up to tell her father. He wasn't forgetting the corpse in the car, the way Bascome had pulled a gun on him. Still . . . He'd wait until he met McCulloch before telling anyone he was from the county prosecutor's office “Name's Heath,” he said. “I—”
At that moment Mary McCulloch stepped into the room, the music box tucked beneath her arm. She'd been crying, seemed in a daze, near hysteria.
“Tell this fellow about me, Mary,” Heath said.
Trappett said, “This man just drove up out front. Bascome went out, thinking it was your father. He knocked Bascome down, beat him up.”
