IN THE MORNING I caught a street-car into town. The motor-A man stared at me, but he didn't say anything. It was nine o clock and the sun was high in a blue sky. I got off at the square and walked to the Arkady. I had the blouse and pants I'd used during the night wrapped in paper, and in the clothes was the dough.
I went up to my room and dumped the money out on the bed. It made quite a heap. Twenty-seven grand! That was more dough than I'd ever seen at one time in my life. I got my knife and made a slit in the under side of the mattress on the spare bed. It was a lousy hiding-place, but it would do for a while. I stuffed twenty thousand dollars through the slit and smoothed out the bed. The rest I put in my pants for pin money.
I pulled the disk I'd found in the temple out of my pocket. It was an American Legion identification tag. It said Post 23, St Louis. Below that was a number, 8,834. I wrote out a wire to Legion headquarters in St Louis, asking for the name and address of the Legionnaire with that number. I gave the wire to Charles, the Negro, to send. He rolled his eyes when I told him to keep the change from a ten-dollar bill. Jesus! I felt rich.
At the same time I was plenty scared. I sat on the bed and thought what a jam I was in. It was bad from every angle. I stood at the head of the line for a murder rap, to say nothing of grand larceny, and housebreaking. There were a few other things, too. A very tough gangster was trying to make up his mind whether or not to kill me. My partner had been murdered and I wasn't doing anything about it. I had taken six grand from a client without a chance in hell of doing what I had told him I would do.
I did have to get that girl out of the Vineyard. Even if it was only long enough for her to miss the ceremony that was due in two nights now. I thought; it all must be phony. It was a human sacrifice; the kind of thing you read about happening in Africa and didn't believe. And here it was in a dopey town almost in the centre of the United States. Things like that didn't happen! Like hell, they didn't! I thought of the Halls-Mills case, the Wyncoop case in Chicago, the case of the two women tourists murdered on the Arizona desert. They happened.
I wondered how the Brides were killed, and who killed them. I wondered if they were slaughtered on Solomon's casket. One of them had been named Tabitha. That was a funny name. The poor kid! Only seventeen!
I looked at my watch. It was ten o'clock. I had a lot to do, only I was pooped. I lay back on the bed and pushed off my shoes. I thought I would nap for an hour.
At one o'clock the phone rang. It was Carmel's brother. He said she was going to be buried at eleven o'clock the next morning at Temple. He seemed to take it for granted I would be there.
“Ginger said she'd come, too.”
“Fine,” I said. “Have you got a minister?”
“Not yet.”
“Get one. I'll pay for him.”
“Thanks, Mr. Craven.”
I hung up, and then I called down for Charles. I wrapped the bracelet in a newspaper and gave it to him. I told him to take it to Ginger.
“Ask her if she'd like to drive me to a funeral tomorrow.”
He thought that was a joke.
“No,” I said. “Ask her.”
It didn't seem like I'd slept at all, so I lay back on the bed again.
The phone rang at three-fifteen. “Western Union,” a man said. “For Karl Craven.”
“Okay, Western Union.”
“Legionnaire 8,834, is Oscar K. Johnson, 4582 Waverly Street, St Louis. Do you want me to repeat it?”
“No, I got it.”
When the phone rang again it was six o'clock. McGee's nasal voice came over the wire. “I want to see you, Craven.”
“I'm in bed.”
“You'll have to get up. It's very important.”
“All right. Are you at your office?”
“Yes. I'll wait for you.”
There was a click at the other end. I wondered what had happened. I went to the bathroom and washed my face, and then I got dressed. The phone rang again.
The Princess said: “Hello, honey.”
“Hello,” I said.
“Dear, I can't see you tonight.”
“No?”
“Are you terribly disappointed?”
“Of course.”
“I have to go to the Festival.”
I was scared. “My God, is this the night they...?”
“No. Tomorrow night.”
“Oh.”
