have known Gross by sight and possibly vice versa, but they wouldn’t really have known each other.”
Doc smiled and tamped his pipe to relight it. “What would you say, Miss Talley, to
Miss Talley’s eyes were wide, her face pale with—with what? Doc studied it and decided that it was excitement, not fear.
She said very quietly, “Dr. Staunton, if you’re not—if those things are true, you’d better start dictating before I explode with curiosity.” She picked up her pencil, opened the shorthand notebook.
Doc lighted his pipe again and started pacing and dictating. Not steadily, of course; sometimes there were minutes between sentences, since he wanted everything in sequence and in detail, coldly factual and without sensationalism or exaggeration. It took him an hour and a half, making the time a few minutes after three o’clock, to finish his description of the first three deaths and the negative rabies report from the laboratory in Green Bay.
He sat down across from Miss Talley and knocked out his pipe, which he’d refilled twice and relighted at least a score of times during his pacing. “Think we’d better rest a few minutes before I tackle the Gross case,” he said. “I must have walked a good two miles and you must be getting writer’s cramp.”
Miss Talley shook her head. “I’m not, but I suppose you do deserve a rest. We’re just getting to the really new part, for me. I knew everything about Tommy, up to the point where you ran over the dog. Almost everything about Mr. Gross will be new to me.”
“Give me ten minutes, Miss Talley. And meanwhile shall we have another glass of beer?”
Miss Talley demurred at first, but let him talk her into it. After their first sips, she asked, “How many copies of this will you want?”
“Three,” Doc said. “One for myself and two I’m going in send to friends of mine for their opinions. One is a top research physician; I’m going to ask him if there’s any possibility of the existence of a rare disease communicable, as is rabies, from animal to man and vice versa, which could lead to insanity and suicidal behavior. The other friend is an excellent mathematician; his speciality is symbolic logic, but he knows actuarial math too, and has cracked some pretty tough problems in it. I want him to quote me the odds on this series of events being coincidental as against interconnected. Later, probably not today, I’ll dictate a letter to each of them to go with his copy of the statement.”
“Would you mind if I make an extra copy for myself, Doctor?”
“Not at all, Miss Talley.”
She smiled. “Wonderful. I would have made myself a copy anyway, but it’s nicer to be able to do it with permission.”
Doc laughed. He was finding Miss Talley’s wide-open mind and curiosity very stimulating, after his failure to be able to convince the sheriff that his investigation, if one could call it that, wasn’t even scratching the surface of events. And he liked her honesty in admitting she’d have made herself a copy even without his permission. In fact, he liked Miss Talley.
He was even beginning to think of propositioning her. His department’s budget at M. I. T. had been increased for next year to include provision, for the first time, for a full-time secretary and record clerk. If he could get her in on his recommendation she’d be ideal for the job. It would pay at least as much as she could be making here and she was certainly wasted in teaching high school English in a small town. But he’d wait a while and be sure before mentioning the possibility to her. There was no hurry.
When their beer was finished Doc started pacing and dictating again. He finished the job at half past four, said, “That’s all, Miss Talley,” and sank into the chair. “Give me a few minutes to rest and I’ll drive you home.”
“You mean that’s all? Or that’s all for today? I thought you were going to go into your deductions from the facts.”
“I’ve changed my mind,” Doc said. “For one thing, I don’t know what my deductions are, not surely enough to put them down. Besides, for the purpose for which I intend this, it would be wrong for me to draw conclusions. The two friends I mentioned, the medico and the mathematician, should have just the facts and draw their own conclusions without being influenced by mine, such as they are. Miss Talley, I have only wild ideas—and I can’t believe any of them.”
“I see your point. But it shouldn’t take you long to dictate the two covering letters, should it? Why not get them out of the way today, so when I turn over the statements to you the letters will be with them, and you can mail them right away?”
“It makes sense, but I’m afraid I’m just not up to giving any more dictation today. Tell you what—when I drop around to your place to pick up the statements I’ll dictate the two letters. They won’t be long and you can type them while I’m reading over what I’ve just dictated, for any corrections. And if you’ll address envelopes too, I can mail them while I’m in town. Will that be all right?”
“That will be fine.” Miss Talley leafed back quickly through her notebook to see how many pages she had filled. “I think this is just about two full days’ typing. And today is Tuesday. I think I can promise to have this ready for you any time after noon on Thursday, if I work evenings too.”
“Do you usually work evenings?”
“Ordinarily I don’t. But this isn’t work—and I’m not going to take any pay for it, so that makes it different. Doctor, having the opportunity to do this is the most exciting and fascinating thing that’s ever happened to me. And I don’t need the money. So if you’re going to insist on paying me, you’ve wasted an afternoon. I’ll type myself a copy from these notes, but you’ll have to dictate them all over to someone else for your copies.”
Doc sighed. He realized that she meant what she said and that there was no use in arguing. His only recourse would be to send her a present from Boston after he was back there so she couldn’t refuse it. Unless, of course, she did want and could get the secretarial job he had in mind for her there; in that case he’d make it up to her some other way.
“Very well, Miss Talley. But that makes you my partner in this, and I may ask you to do even more.”
“I’ll be glad to. What did you have in mind?”
“You might keep your ear to the ground for a while, in town. I usually get in once a day—at least since I got interested the day of the Hoffman boy’s inquest—so if anything important happens I’ll hear about it without too much delay, as I heard about the Gross suicide a few days ago. But, short of another human death, something interesting might happen without my hearing of it, something not necessarily spectacular in itself but that just might fit in with whatever I—I mean we—are investigating. You know as much as I do now, so your judgment would be as good as mine as to what might be worth reporting.”
“I’ll be more than glad to do that. But how shall I get in touch with you if I learn anything? You don’t have a telephone this far out, do you?”
“No, I haven’t. And now I’m sorry for the first time. But the one place I invariably go in town is the post office, to pick up my mail, if any. If you leave a message with the postmaster for me to phone you I’ll be sure to get it. Well, everything’s settled then and I’ll see you early Thursday afternoon at your place. I’m rested now. Are you ready?”
She put notebook and pencil in her handbag and they left by the front door and went to the station wagon. Doc started the engine and threw the car into gear; he was just about to release the clutch when Miss Talley said, “Oh, I was going to ask you to introduce me to your cat, but I forgot. It doesn’t matter.”
Doc kept his foot on the clutch pedal and turned to her. “Cat?” he said. “Miss Talley, I don’t have a cat. Do you mean you saw one in the house?”
“I—why, I thought I did. I was sure at the time, but—”
Doc put the shift lever back in neutral and turned off the ignition. “Must be a stray cat that got in somehow,” he said. “If you don’t mind waiting, I’ll check. Might as well let it out so it can go home, if it’s got a home.”
He got out of the car and let himself back into the house, closing the door behind him. He made a quick round of the lower floor, seeing no cat. Nor any open window through which a cat could have come and left. Several windows were open an inch or two, but none wide enough for a cat larger than a small kitten to get through—and
