Mystery

heard across the water.

Lights came on in the upper windows of the lodges in the compound. A light switched on in the second floor of the Spence lodge. Birds called to each other, and a frog splashed in the reeds at the narrow end of the lake.

A car started up behind the compound, then another. The beams of headlights swept across the track between the compound and the club, and then shone upon the trees on the club’s far side. A long black car came around the clubhouse, its headlights angled down the narrow road. It circled the top of the lake, and as it swung to go up the hill, Tom saw two heads side by side on the front seat, one dark, one blond. Another long car followed, this, too, with a dark and a blond head in the front seat.

The lights in the club dining room went out, and long blocks of yellow vanished from the surface of the lake. Tom walked the long way back to his lodge.

He cut across Roddy Deepdale’s lawn and came up to his dock along the shoreline. He sat on the wood and swung his legs up, then took off his shoes. The shoes in his hand, he moved up to the deck, knelt in the darkness before the back door, found the lock with his fingertips, and slid in the key. He turned the knob and opened the door as softly as possible. Inside, he closed the door and turned the lock. Cold moonlight lay across the desk and washed the colors from the hooked rug.

Tom moved to the open door into the sitting room, and crouched over. Holding his breath, he slid into the big room, and stood, crouched and motionless, listening for any movement. The sitting room was dark as an underground cave. Tom waited until he was sure he was alone, and then he straightened up and took another step into the room.

The beam of a flashlight struck his eyes and blinded him.

“If I were you, I’d be careful too,” a man said. “Just stay there.”

The flashlight went off, and Tom instantly went into a crouch and began to rush into the office. A floor lamp snapped on. “Not too bad,” the man said.

Tom slowly straightened up and turned around to face him. All the breath left his body at once. His hand still on the chain of the floor lamp, wearing a dark blue suit and gloves that matched his grey double-breasted vest, Lamont von Heilitz smiled at him from a couch.

“You’re here!” Tom said.

The Shadow pulled the lamp chain, and the room went dark again. “It’s time we had another talk,” he said.

Tom groped forward. He bumped against the back of a chair, felt his way around it, and sat down. His own breathing sounded as loud as Fritz Redwing’s on the telephone that afternoon. “When did you get here? How did you get in?” As Tom’s eyes adjusted to the darkness, the long slender shape of von Heilitz’s body took form against the paler couch. The detective’s head stood out against the curtains behind him like a silhouette.

“I got in about an hour ago, by slipping the lock. You didn’t go to dinner at the club, I suppose?”

“No. I went to your dock and looked through the windows into the dining room. I didn’t want Jerry Hasek to find me here, and I wanted to know what was going on—I’m really glad you’re here. If I could see you, I’d say that it was great to see you.”

“I’m relieved to see you too, at least as well as I can. But I owe you an apology. I should have come for you long before this—I wanted you to find out whatever you could, but I underestimated the danger you’d be in. I never thought they’d shoot at you through windows.”

“So you got my letters.”

“Every one of them. They were excellent. You’ve done very good work, Tom, but it’s time to get back to Mill Walk. We’re flying back at four in the morning.”

“Four in the morning!”

“Our pilot has to file his flight plan and get everything ready, or we’d leave earlier than that. We can’t take the risk of staying another night.”

“You don’t think a hunter shot a stray bullet through the window.”

“No,” von Heilitz said. “That was a deliberate attempt on your life. And you upped the ante by looking into that machine shop. So I want to take you to a safe place now, and make sure you stay alive until we get on that plane.”

“How do you know about the machine shop? I haven’t even mailed that letter yet.”

Von Heilitz said nothing.

“How long have you been here? You didn’t just get to Eagle Lake an hour ago, did you?”

“Did you think I’d send you into this lion’s den alone?”

“You’ve been here the whole time? How did you get my letters?”

“Sometimes I went to the post office and picked them up, sometimes Joe Truehart brought them to me.”

Tom nearly jumped off his chair. “That was you I followed—that was you carrying the flashlight.”

“You almost caught me too. I went to my lodge to pick up some things, and I don’t see as well at night as I used to. Let’s go, shall we? We ought to get back, and I do want to see more of you than that glimpse I had when you came creeping in. We have a lot to talk about.”

“Where are we going?”

Von Heilitz stood up. “You’ll see.”

Tom watched the dark blur of the older man move toward him. His white hair shone in the moonlight. “That house in the clearing,” Tom said. “Mrs. Truehart’s cabin.”

The tall shape before him tilted forward, and the white hair gleamed. Von Heilitz grasped his shoulders. “She probably wants to apologize to you too. She doesn’t normally scare away visitors with a rifle, but I didn’t want you to know I was there.” He squeezed Tom’s shoulders and straightened up.

Tom followed him into the study, and in the moonlight, von Heilitz turned and took him in, smiling. “I can’t get over it,” Tom said.

“You’re what I can’t get over,” von Heilitz said. “You’ve done everything I hoped you would, and more. I didn’t expect you to solve any burglaries while you were up here.”

“I had a good teacher,” Tom said, feeling his face get hot.

“More than that,” the old man said. “Now open that door, will you?”

Tom unlocked the back door, and von Heilitz moved outside. Tom followed after him, and knelt to lock the door with the key again.

Von Heilitz placed his hand on Tom’s shoulder, and left it there as Tom stood up. He did not remove it even when Tom turned to face him at last, and the two of them stood in the moonlight for a second, looking into each other’s faces. Tom still felt the shock of pleasure and relief of seeing von Heilitz, and blurted, “I don’t think Anton Goetz killed Jeanine Thielman.”

Von Heilitz nodded, smiled, and patted Tom’s shoulder before he lowered his hand. “I know.”

“I thought—I guess I thought you might be angry or something. It was one of your most important cases—I know what it meant to you.”

“It was my single biggest mistake. And that’s what it means to me. Now you and I are going to put things right—after all this time. Let’s go to Mrs. Truehart’s, so we can talk about it.”

Von Heilitz jumped neatly off the dock and began moving toward the shoreline. At Roddy Deepdale’s, he led Tom across the grass toward the track. They cast identical long shadows in the moonlight. Neither of them spoke until they came to the opening of the path into the woods behind the Thielman lodge. Von Heilitz switched on his flashlight and said, “Tim Truehart arrested your friend Nappy, by the way,” and plunged into the woods.

“He did?” Tom followed. “I didn’t think Spychalla would give him the message.”

“He might not have if Chet Hamilton hadn’t been curious about why you were asking directions to Summers Street. He drove out there not long after you did, and got close enough to see Nappy stacking boxes outside the shop. He just turned his car around and went to the nearest phone. Spychalla couldn’t ignore two calls.”

“But what about Jerry?”