‘You’ve got to do your best, Ben. People may begin to believe you. Some will help, if you show them the truth of what you say. And when dark comes again, much of
He looked each of them in the face. What he saw there must have satisfied him, because he turned his attention wholly to Mark again.
‘You know what the most important job is, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ Mark said. ‘Barlow has to be killed.
Matt smiled a trifle thinly. ‘That’s putting the cart before the horse, I’m afraid. First we have to find him.’ He looked closely at Mark. ‘Did you see anything tonight, hear anything, smell anything, touch anything, that might help us locate him? Think carefully before you answer! You know better than any of us how important it is!’
Mark thought. Ben had never seen anyone take a command quite so literally. He lowered his chin into the palm of his hand and shut his eyes. He seemed to be quite deliberately going over every nuance of the night’s encounter.
At last he opened his eyes, looked around at them briefly, and shook his head. ‘Nothing.’
Matt’s face fell, but he did not give up. ‘A leaf clinging to his coat, maybe? A cattail in his pants cuff? Dirt on his shoes? Any loose thread that he has allowed to dangle?’ He smote the bed helplessly. ‘Jesus Christ Almighty, is he seamless like an egg?’
Mark’s eyes suddenly widened.
‘What?’ Matt said. He grasped the boy’s elbow. ‘What is it? What have you thought of?’
‘Blue chalk,’ Mark said. ‘He had one arm hooked around my neck, like this, and I could see his hand. He had long white fingers and there were smears of blue chalk on two of them. Just little ones.’
‘Blue chalk,’ Matt said thoughtfully.
‘A school,’ Ben said. ‘It must be.’
‘Not the high school,’ Matt said. ‘All our supplies come from Dennison and Company in Portland. They supply only white and yellow. I’ve had it under my fingernails and on my coats for years.’
‘Art classes?’ Ben asked.
‘No, only graphic arts at the high school. They use inks, not chalk. Mark, are you sure it was-’
‘Chalk,’ he said, nodding.
‘I believe some of the science teachers use colored chalk, but where is there to hide at the high school? You saw it all on one level, all enclosed in glass. People are in and out of the supply closets all day. That is also true of the furnace room.’
‘Backstage?’
Matt shrugged. ‘It’s dark enough. But if Mrs Rodin takes over the class play for me-the students call her Mrs Rodan after a quaint Japanese science fiction film-that area would be used a great deal. It would be a horrible risk for him.’
‘What about the grammar schools?’ Jimmy asked. ‘They must teach drawing in the lower grades. And I’d bet a hundred dollars that colored chalk is one of the things they keep on hand.’
Matt said, ‘The Stanley Street Elementary School was built with the same bond money as the high school. It is also modernistic, filled to capacity, and built on one level. Many glass windows to let in the sun. Not the kind of building our target would want to frequent at all. They like old buildings, full of tradition, dark, dingy, like-’
‘Like the Brock Street School,’ Mark said.
‘Yes.’ Matt looked at Ben. ‘The Brock Street School is a wooden frame building, three stories and a basement, built at about the same time as the Marsten House. There was much talk in the town when the school bond issue was up for a vote that the school was a fire hazard. It was one reason our bond issue passed. There had been a schoolhouse fire in New Hampshire two or three years before-’
‘I remember,’ Jimmy murmured. ‘In Cobbs’ Ferry, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes. Three children were burned to death
‘Is the Brock Street School still used?’ Ben asked.
‘Only the first floor. Grades one through four. The entire building is due to be phased out in two years, when they put the addition on the Stanley Street School.’
‘Is there a place for Barlow to hide?’
‘I suppose so,’ Matt said, but he sounded reluctant. ‘The second and third floors are full of empty classrooms. The windows have been boarded over because so many children threw stones through them.’
‘That’s it, then,’ Ben said. ‘It must be.’
‘It sounds good,’ Matt admitted, and he looked very tired indeed now. ‘But it seems too simple. Too transparent.’
‘Blue chalk,’ Jimmy murmured. His eyes were far away.
‘I don’t know,’ Matt said, sounding distracted. ‘I just don’t know.’
Jimmy opened his black bag and brought out a small bottle of pills. ‘Two of these with water,’ he said. ‘Right now.’
‘No. There’s too much to go over. There’s too much-’
