The Mind Thing

The rain had stopped. He watched the cat through the glass of the door as it ran across the street and disappeared into an areaway.

Obviously it had a home somewhere. But, he thought, someday he’d have to get a cat of his own. It couldn’t cost him much to feed one, and it would be the first extravagance he’d allow himself, if and when the pressure on him ever eased off a little.

He never knew, never suspected, that he had just been judged and found wanting; that he had been spared an experience which would have led soon to an early death.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Doc Staunton had spent the morning making voluminous notes on the two human suicides and the phenomena which seemed to have accompanied them—at least in regard to time and place, if no other connection could be traced. But he wanted more than notes; while statements at the inquest and conversations, especially the ones at the Gross farm, were so fresh in his mind he wanted them down on paper, as nearly verbatim as he could get them down.

But getting everything down, he realized, was going to be one hell of a job, especially as he didn’t have a typewriter with him and was only a mediocre typist in any case. He spent half an hour writing in longhand and had only three pages, giving a detailed description of the manner of death of the dog and just a start into the inquest testimony of Charlotte Garner, when he began to get writer’s cramp. It was going to take him thirty to fifty pages, he realized, to get all the facts down in detail, let alone his deductions, his mental processes which refused to permit him to accept the allied phenomena—the apparently suicidal animal deaths and the missing soup stock and gravy from Mrs. Gross’s kitchen—as simply isolated and coincidental happenings having nothing to do with the human deaths. It would be almost as bad as writing a book in longhand.

But it had to be put down, somehow, while it was fresh in his mind. He considered going into Green Bay to try to rent a tape recorder, or to buy one if he couldn’t rent one. But he hated the things, mostly because he liked to be able to pace while he dictated. And in any case he’d have to hire someone to transcribe the tapes, so it would be better to find a stenographer who could take his dictation in shorthand and transcribe it.

Probably he’d have to find someone in Green Bay, but he’d try Bartlesville first on his way through it.

The editor of the Clarion, Bartlesville’s weekly newspaper, would be his best source of information. And Doc knew him because by now he’d played in two poker games with him. Yes, Ed Hollis would be the best person to ask. He might even know someone in Wilcox, which was a little bigger than Bartlesville and only about half as far as Green Bay.

Hollis was pounding an ancient Underwood when Doc walked in just before noon. He said, “Just a second, Doc,” and finished a sentence before he looked up. “What gives? And are you playing in the game tonight? Hans just phoned me that there’s one on—and there’s no way of reaching you by phone. Lucky you dropped in, if you want to take some more of our money.”

“I’ll try to make it, Ed. But I dropped in to ask you something. Is there anyone in town here who can take shorthand and do typing?”

“Sure. Miss Talley, Miss Amanda Talley.”

“Is she working now? Would I have to use her evenings?”

“She isn’t working now, except an occasional part-time job. She’s an English teacher at the high school. Summers—except for a short vacation, and she’s already taken one this year—she stays in town and takes any small jobs like that she can get. Bookkeeping too. When a merchant here gets his books in a mess she can straighten them out for him. Things like that.”

“She fast at taking shorthand?”

“She is,” Ed said. “I’ve used her a time or two myself when I’ve got behind on something. Used to teach shorthand, typing, bookkeeping at a business college before she got into high school teaching. That was a long time ago, but she’s kept up on it. She’s been trying to get the county board to let her teach commercial classes in the high school here, but she hasn’t got anywhere with them yet. Me, I’m for it, and I’ve run editorials saying so. Why make the kids here go to Green Bay or Milwaukee after high school and pay for a commercial course, if one can be given free here? Do ’em more good than a lot of other subjects they have to study.”

“Sounds ideal,” Doc said. “If she teaches English, she can probably even spell. But do you know if she’s free now?”

“I can find out.” Ed Hollis reached for the phone, but stopped before he picked it up. “How much of a job will it be? An hour or a week or what?”

Doc said, “I’d guess about four hours’ dictation, give or take an hour. And then a day or two to transcribe it on a typewriter.”

Hollis nodded and picked up the phone. He asked for a number and got it. “Miss Talley? Friend of mine here’s got a couple of days’ work, typing and shorthand. Can you do it for him?… Fine. Just a second.”

He held his hand over the mouthpiece and looked up at Doc. “Says she can start whenever you want her. But it’s practically noon now. Shall I tell her you’ll see her around one o’clock? I can tell you how to get there; it’s only a few blocks.”

“Excellent”

Hollis spoke into the phone again. “Right, Miss Talley. He’ll see you somewhere around one o’clock. His name’s Doc Staunton… Okay. ’Bye now.”

He looked up at Doc again. “She reminded me to tell you her rates.” He grinned. “Guess she thought they might scare you. Ten bucks a day. Or buck and a half an hour for shorter jobs.”

“Reasonable as hell. Have lunch with me, Ed, to help me kill time till one?”

“Wish I could, but I’ve got about an hour’s work and then I’m knocking off for the day. Rather get it over with first, and then go home. Just phoned the missus I’d be home between one and half past and to hold lunch.”

He gave Doc Miss Talley’s address and then walked to the door with him and showed him how to get to the place.

When Doc got there at one o’clock, he found it a neat, well-kept little cottage. Matching it in size was a little Volkswagen in the driveway beside it.

Miss Talley, when she answered his knock at the door, proved not to be equivalently small, at least vertically. She was almost a head taller than Doc, albeit so slender that their weight was probably just about the same. She could have been anywhere from fifty-five to sixty-five, and probably, Doc decided, was just about half way between. She wore steel-rimmed spectacles and was dressed neatly and conservatively in gray that just matched her hair, which she wore in a tight bun at the back of her neck.

Add a frumpy hat and an umbrella, Doc thought, and she’d exactly fit his mental picture of Stuart Palmer’s female detective character, Hildegarde Withers. But she looked competent and, after all, he wasn’t hiring her as a party girl.

“Dr. Saunders?” And when he nodded, she stepped back. “Won’t you come in?”

Doc said, “Thank you, Miss Talley,” and entered.

“If you’ll be seated, Doctor, I’ll get my notebook and—”

“Uh—Miss Talley. I suppose I can dictate here, but I think I’d be distracted and I could do a lot better at my own place. It’s about eight miles out of town, last house on what they call the Bascombe Road. If you could possibly work out there—for taking the dictation, that is; it will be perfectly all right if you do the typing back here. The only thing is that I’m staying there alone and—” He floundered.

Miss Talley smiled slightly. “We’re alone here, Doctor, so that shouldn’t matter. I assure you that I don’t feel the need of a chaperone. Or rather, I’m one myself. I chaperone most of the high school dances and socials. Of course the time involved in traveling—”

“Naturally,” Doc said. “We’re punching the time clock as of now, one p.m. If you’ll get your notebook and pencils—”

Outside, Miss Talley insisted that she wanted to take her own car, the Volkswagen, and follow him out instead of riding with him. She took as a polite lie (which it was) his statement that he had to come back to town anyway at the end of the afternoon so it would be no inconvenience for him to take her out and bring her back, but