Dorothy said, bright-eyed, 'You see, we can't believe that, Johnny.'
'Then, please excuse me,' Johnny said tightly. He felt alone in the world. Let down. Ineffectual.
What had he not done? Where had he not looked yet
for the evidence? The proof, damn itl He had no proof and the law would want it. He must get proof for the law because the law could take Bartee away from Nan.
An hour later, he eased his old Plymouth into the crossroads settlement called Twomey.
It didn't take long to locate the Bartees' old yardman, whose name was Delevan. Johnny caught him in his backyard. 'I'm hunting up people to talk to,' said Johnny, 'about the McCauley murder, seventeen years ago.'
Delevan was about fifty, strong of limb, with a crooked nose on a pushed-in face. He leaned on his spade.
'I understand you were there. In a hammock, or so I heard.' Johnny liked this man at once and grinned at him companionably.
'That's right,' said Delevan. 'I was in the hanunock. So the old man fired me. That was a long time ago. I used to sleep up there more times than the old man heard of. Hadn't been for the cops—' Delevan leaned on the spade handle and took out cigarettes. 'Why do you want to talk about it?'
Johnny made his speech about Roderick Grimes.
'But you weren't called as a witness, I understand?' he finished.
'Nope. They didn't bother.' Delevan looked up at^the sunny skies. '^ nice night, that was. I was swinging and having a smoke . . .'
'When?'
'Around midnight. Around the time. Somebody killed a woman in the house and there J, was, swinging and smoking and thinking.'
'This haiimiock was among the trees at the front of the house?'
'Right.'
'Then you must have heard Clinton McCauley.'
'Heard him and saw him, too.'
'Start from the beginning.'
'Where does it begin?' Delevan grinned. 'I was swinging and thinking. I heard just what you hear in the night. Little crickets. Wind blowing. I hear cars.'
I'Cars?'
'Sure. Planes, too. You know what you hear in the night.'
'The boy, Dick Bartee, had some kind of car, didn't he?'
'Yup. Some kind of car.'
'Did you hear that car, that night?'
'Buddy, this was seventeen years ago,' said Delevan tolerantly. 'I tell you, I hear cars. On the roads.'
Johnny said, 'The Upper Road is the one that goes by in back of the Bartee house?'
'Right.'
'Could a car come in from that Upper Road and get to the back of the house?'
'Why not? Only I'd have heard a car come that close.'
'You couldn't have seen?''
'Couldn't see through the house.'
'He could have walked—You tell it.' Johnny subsided.
'O.K. So I'm swinging there. I heard the bus. You can tell a bus. They got a woosh to their doors. So I know who this is coming. CHnton McCauley.'
'You know him?'
'I knew everybody in the house. This McCauley's got no car. If anybody's getting off the bus in the night, why it's him.'
;;Well?'
'I douse my cigarette. He doesn't have to know I'm there. Takes a long time before I hear him on the road. So pretty soon I can see him weaving up the front steps. So he unlocks the door and he goes in.'
'Then what?'
'Nothing. For a while.''
'You couldn't see the side of the house?'
'Nope.'
'Where the study is? No lights?'
'Sure, I could see hghts.'
