62
G-A -L-A-V-A-N-T-I
It took us fifteen minutes through heavy fog to get to the scene of the crime, and a familiar
scene it was. Harry Raines had been shot down in the center of the Quadrangle, no more than
a hundred yards from Charlie Seaborn?s bank.
It looked like every police car in Dunetown was there. Red and blue lights flashed eerily
through the thick fog, like silent fireworks. A small crowd had wandered up from the
riverfront clubs and restaurants to see what all the fuss was about.
It took a couple of minutes to locate Dutch in the mist. He was standing with a couple of
plainclothesmen, studying a chalk form drawn on the cobblestone walk. Yellow police-scene
ribbons had been suspended around the area. Dutch informed us that the ambulance had come
and gone already.
“He?s still alive!” I said.
“Yeah, but not by enough to matter much. One shot, right here.” He tapped his forehead an
inch above the right eyelid. “Bullet?s still in there.”
“My God,” a hoarse voice whispered, and it was a second or two before I realized it was
mine.
“We got a couple of ear witnesses,” Dutch said, leading us away from the chalk-marked form
on the walkway.
“Ear witnesses?” the Stick said.
Their names were Harriet and Alexander, although, for reasons that elude me, Alexander
preferred to be called Chip. They were in their mid-twenties and two weeks away from their
wedding day and she had lost his engagement present to her. The girl was as fancy as a plain
girl can make herself. The boyfriend, short and stubby, with a badly trimmed moustache,
seemed far more concerned over the missing necklace than the shooting.
“We stopped off here on the way to dinner because, see, this is where we met,” he babbled,
probably for the fifth or sixth time. “But it was so foggy, we went on down to the Porthole to
meet our friends for dinner.
“You couldn?t see your hand in front of your face,” Harriet said, nodding vigorously.
I was getting edgy, listening to their routine.
“Like it is now,” Chip said. “This wasn?t half an hour ago.”
“Yes,” I said. “I got that—go on!”
Harriet continued her extravagant nod. “Like it is now,” she repeated.
