'Well,' Gabby said, and for a long moment I didn't think he was going to say anything else. Then he started to talk.
'They had me in a bind, Thax, and I didn't have enough guts to get up off the ground and make like a man. About four years back me and May worked for the same outfit up north. There was a beef one night on the lot and a mark got killed. I sapped too hard. A few of the carnys knew who did it but they figured the rube had it coming so they clammed up. May was one of 'em.'
He grunted with disgust.
'I should have known better. Should have known May better. I came here a couple of years back and got a job with Cochrane. I didn't know that May was his wife or that she was even on the lot. Then one day she walks by my gallery and looks at me. That's all, just looks. No sign, no word. But I knew then she was going to make me pay somehow, sometime. Every day for two years I've waited for the ax to fall. And it finally did-a couple a three days back.
'Mike Ransome came to see me. He gave me this toy. He knew that you and me had become buddy-buddy and he had an idea that before very long you'd be looking around for a gun. He figured you'd come to me and said I was to give you this Roscoe. Said it was all a part of a joke he was going to pull on you and that I'd better help with my end of it unless I wanted the law to take another healthy look at that four year old murder. So…'
He raised his head and for the first time since I had known him a look of urgent appeal came into his sallow face.
'But at least I tried to head you off, didn't I, Thax? I told you not to take the damn thing-to cut and run instead.'
'That's right, Gabby,' I said. 'You tried.'
I felt empty, disillusioned. I had thought of Gabby as one of those self-contained characters who would always stand up and spit in the world's mean face. Now I saw he had never been anything but a frightened little man.
'Let's forget it,' I said. 'It doesn't matter now.'
But I knew that neither of us could forget it and that nothing would ever be the same again. Gabby knew it too. He didn't say a word when I turned and went up the steps.
I knew I'd be in for a long hard day once Ferris got his hooks in me and started scrubbing me over the washboard, and I didn't want to go into all that without a little sleep under my belt. It was after four by then and I was out on my feet. But I couldn't go back to the tree house because Ferris would send his storm troopers there first thing.
Then I remembered the unused room up in Dracula's Castle. I went up there and closed the door and threw myself on the bed. The last thing I heard was the wailing police sirens coming from a long long way off.
20
Well, and where are they now? -Silver was saying. _Pew was that sort and he died a beggarman. Flint was and he died of rum at Savannah. Ah, there was a sweet crew, they was, only where are they Thax. Thax wake up Thax…
Someone was pulling me out of my dream by my shoulder. I opened my eyes and day was smiling through the archer's cross and Billie was standing over me not smiling.
Her eyes were very wide and dark and her face looked pallid. She was wearing a little V of worry between her plucked brows.
'Thax, I've been looking everywhere for you! And so have the police. How long have you been up here?'
I sat up and reached for a cigarette but changed my mind when I remembered that they had had a bath in that ducky lake.
'What time is it?'
'It's nearly nine. Thax, there's policemen all over the place.' I said, 'Where were you last night, or early this morning? I tried to phone you.'
'I was right here. I never went home. When you didn't meet me at the gate I went over to the tree house to see what had happened to you. I saw your shirts and things on the floor so I stayed there to wait for you. Then I guess I fell asleep. Some policeman woke me up over an hour ago. He was looking for you.'
'Do you have a cigarette?'
She sat down on the edge of the bed and gave me one from her purse. She said, 'Thax-they're saying that Mike Ransome was killed last night.'
'That's right. He had an accident and fell on one of May's knives.'
'May Cochrane? What happened to her?'
I looked at her. 'Nothing that I know of. The last I saw of her she was sitting in the
Billie made a little impatient shake with her head.
'I don't understand, honey. What-'
'Mike and May killed old man Cochrane,' I said. 'Mike did the dirty work. But right off the bat they discovered there had been a witness-when blackmail reared its ugly head. And that's when things started to get messy.'
'Blackmail?' Billie said. 'You mean there's been a blackmailer in on this murder all along? Who? Bill Duff?'
I really wanted a toothbrush more than a cigarette. It tasted like a freshly printed newspaper. I got up and pitched it out the window.
'Duff,' I said, 'had an idea what it was all about, and he certainly had blackmail on the brain. But he couldn't get off the ground with it because he lacked a vital part. He didn't have a witness.'
'A witness? You mean the blackmailer had a witness to Rob Cochrane's murder?'
I turned and looked at her.
'That's right, Billie. You did have one for a while, didn't you?'
She sat rigidly composed with her legs together and her hands folded in her lap. Her eyes were still very wide, very dark.
'That really isn't very funny, Thax,' she said.
'No,' I agreed, 'it isn't. I stopped laughing some time back.'
I reached in my pocket and drew out the envelope I had taken from Lloyd Franks' safe. The dip in the lake had given it a puffy look and the ink had smeared some but it was still legible. I handed it to Billie.
She looked at the envelope, at the words written across the face, of it: _To be opened only in the event of my death-Billie Peeler_. It had been sealed originally but I had opened it after I lifted it and so Billie knew that I knew that the page of paper inside was blank. She put the envelope in her purse and looked at me.
'Terry Orme,' I said, 'was a bitter, lonely little guy who hated people, normal people. I think in his bent little way he thought he was getting even with them by spying on their personal lives-gave him a superior feeling. I'm just guessing about this, but I figure he knew about May and Mike shacking up, and the night he saw Mike dump Cochrane in the Swamp Ride he was dever enough to put two and two together.
'It meant money to him, you see? Big money. And May could afford it. But the rub was he was afraid to approach them personally. Can you picture a gutless midget walking up to a tail murderer and saying, I'm going to blackmail you, buster? So he needed a go between. Someone who had the courage and intelligence to tackle blackmail and get away with it.'
I put my hands in my pockets and started to make like Ferris, pacing from window to door and back again. Billie followed me with her eyes.
'You were one of the very few people the sad little bastard liked,' I told her. 'You used to work together in Kansas City and he probably knew you were a shrewd cooky who would stop at nothing to grab a bundle. So he told you about Mike and May-dumped the whole package in your lap and probably asked for fifty-fifty. Or did you get him down?'
Billie said nothing. She watched me.
