William Temple, of whom I had no memory to be refreshed. I moved around, with my eyes and sometimes my hands on museum pieces, but my mind was on people, specifically Morley Haight and Ed Welch. I was not admiring them. If a sheriff and his top deputy are so strong on law and order that they stay on the job Saturday night, they could find better things to do than try to trip up a pair of worthy citizens who had been authorized by the county attorney to investigate a crime in their territory. They needed to have their noses pushed in, and I considered three or four possible ways of taking a stab at it when I got back, but none of them was good enough.
It was close to midnight when Wolfe finished the beer, closed the book, switched the lamp off, picked up the other two books, went to return them to their places on the shelves, and asked me, 'The glass and bottles?'
At home, at that time of night, he would have taken them to the kitchen himself, but this was far away and called for allowances, and I made them and obliged. When I returned from the kitchen he was in another chair, bending over to turn a corner of a rug up for inspection. He knew a lot about rugs and I could guess what he was thinking, but he didn't even grunt. He put the corner down and got up, and I went and opened the back door, which had a Murdock lock, and he came. He asked if we should turn the lights out and I said no, I would when I returned.
Outside, a little light from the draped windows helped some for the first twenty yards, but when we turned the corner of the deepest wing of Vawter's it was good and dark, with no moon and most of the stars behind clouds.
We took it easy on the rough ground. No other car had joined the station wagon there in back of the building. I had taken the ignition key but hadn't locked the doors, and, leading the way, and regarding it as common courtesy, not pampering, to open the door for Wolfe on his side, I did so. That gave us light, the ceiling light, and the light gave us news. Bad news. We both saw it through the closed window. On the rear seat. Rather, partly on the seat. His torso was on the seat, but his head was hanging over the edge and so was most of his legs.
Wolfe looked at me and took a step so I could open the door. I didn't want to touch the damn door or anything else, but it was possible that he was breathing, even in that position, so I pressed the latch and pulled it open and leaned in. The best quick test is to lay something light and fluffy on the nostrils, but nothing that would do was handy and I reached for a wrist. No perceptible pulse, but that proved only that if the blood was moving it was dawdling. The wrist was warm, but of course it would be since I had seen him on the dance floor only an hour ago. The only blood in sight was some blobs on his bruised ear, and I stretched across to get fingertips on his skull and felt a deep dent. I backed out and stood and said, 'It's barely possible he's alive. I stay here and you go in. You'll have to tell that sheriff sonofabitch, and that's a lousy break too. Tell him to bring a doctor, there are at least two there.' I reached in the front to the dash and got the flashlight, switched it on, and focused it on the entrance to the passage between the buildings. 'That's the shortest way. Here.' I offered him the flashlight but he didn't take it. He spoke.
'Wouldn't it be possible to-'
'You know damn well it wouldn't. There's one chance in a million he's alive, and if so he may talk again. You don't have to tell him it's Sam Peacock, just say a man. Here.'
He took the flashlight and went.
Chapter 10
The human mind is a jumbo joke, at least mine is. There were a dozen or more urgent questions it could have been considering as Wolfe disappeared in the passage, but what it was asking was, how will Lily get home? I had that answered, fairly satisfactorily, and was deciding what to work on next when I heard footsteps in the passage. It was Haight, with a flashlight, presumably Lily's. He came, looked in at the news, turned to me, and asked, 'Is this your car?'
He couldn't have asked a dumber question if he had tried all night. How could it be my car if I didn't have one and he knew it? 'You'll find the registration card,' I said, 'in the dash compartment. Is a doctor coming?'
'Get in the front seat,' he said, 'and stay there.' He transferred the flashlight to his left hand and aimed it at my eyes and put his right hand on the butt of the gun at his belt.
'I prefer,' I said, 'not to touch any part of the car. If I wanted to blow I probably wouldn't have waited here for you. I'm pretty sharp in an emergency. Is a doctor coming?'
'I ordered you to get in the front seat.' He pulled the gun out.
'Go climb a mountain, with all respect.'
It was a relevant question, was he actually dumb enough to think I might scoot or jump him, or was he just being J. Edgar Hoover? I haven't answered it definitely, even yet, because it got complicated by the sound of stumbling feet in the passage, and Haight pointed the flashlight that way as a baldheaded man in a loud plaid sports jacket came into view. It was Frank Milhaus, M.D., whom I knew by sight but had not met. He stopped at the rear end of the station wagon and looked around, and Haight said, 'In the car, Frank,' and he came and looked in. He turned to Haight and asked, 'What happened to him?'
'You tell me,' Haight said.
By stooping and putting his right foot in and his left knee on the seat, Milhaus got his eyes and hands where they could see and feel. In three minutes he came back out and said, 'His head was hit hard at least three times. I think he's gone, but I can't be sure until-here he comes.'
It was Ed Welch, with a flashlight in one hand and something black in the other. He came and looked at the object in the station wagon and said, 'That's Sam Peacock.' For the lowdown on anything, you couldn't beat the law officers of Monroe County. Milhaus took the black thing, a doctor's kit case, put it on the front seat, opened it, took out a stethoscope, and again maneuvered in to what had now been officially identified as Sam Peacock. In a couple of minutes he came out again, said, 'He's dead,' and started folding the stethoscope tubes.
