Restlin obeyed. He bent and fitted a cold key into a cold lock and twisted. He pushed the door open into a short narrow hall to the kitchen. It took another key to unlock the kitchen door and the vaporous breath of the three men swirled in the small area.
They went in, Restlin first, and he nearly tripped over two woman’s suitcases standing just inside. Then he let out an anguished shriek and hurried to the sink beside the stove. “The furnace is out! The pipes! The water!” No water came from the faucet, and Restlin ran to the cellar door beside the kitchen entrance and clattered down the stairs. Fellows and Wilks watched him go, and the chief shook his head. “I’ll bet that man’s got an ulcer.” He paused and sniffed the air like a hound dog getting a scent. “What’s that smell?”
It was a faint and slightly unpleasant, but unidentifiable odor, and one that, if he detected it at all, didn’t interest Sergeant Wilks. “I don’t know,” he said, dismissing it in favor of the suitcases. “It doesn’t look like they left here for good.” He lifted each to determine that they were packed and set them down again. They were relatively new, of different sizes, made of pale green lacquered plastic with the initials J.S. stamped in gold under the handles. “J.S.,” he said, “doesn’t stand for Campbell.” He tested the clasps and found them locked.
Fellows sniffed the air again and said, “Well, we’re here. Let’s take a look around.” He stepped through an open door on the left and found himself in a tiny hall with three other doors. The one on the left revealed a small darkened back bedroom which he looked into and shut off again. The one in front was to the bathroom and the one on the right opened into a still smaller bedroom with a dining room beyond. It was a gray day, and the rooms were cramped, dim, cold, and dingy.
Fellows wandered through into the dining room, less interested in the rooms than in following the scent. Wilks followed, his eyes roving. An open door on the right led into the living room, and Fellows stopped again. “It smells stronger here,” he said to Wilks. “What does it remind you of?”
Wilks tried the air himself and shrugged. “Remember the time the guy wanted to sue the exterminator? The rats ate the poison and died in the walls and stank up the place?”
“It’s not like that, though.”
“Not as strong, maybe.”
“Not quite the same kind of smell.”
“Well, don’t worry about it.”
“I want to know what it is.”
The house was poorly designed as well as poorly constructed. The dining room and kitchen were at opposite corners, connected through the small bedroom on one side and through an L-shaped living room on the other. The front door of the house opened directly into the living room. The coat closet and dining room doors were to its right, the chimney section and door to the attic stairs directly ahead, while the living room itself extended to the left and around the comer. The fireplace was unfortunately placed, being adjacent to the kitchen, and the furnishings, Restlin’s own, did nothing to help matters. A couch was against the windows, facing the fireplace. There was an easy chair beside the kitchen door, an end table and lamp by one arm of the couch, and a small rug on the floor. The front section of the room was almost barren. A small telephone table stood by the attic door, a larger table and lamp was in the center of the area with another easy chair beside. There was a straight chair in the comer and another insufficient rug on the floor. A bare radiator stretched halfway across the two front windows.
Fellows walked slowly through the room and then got down in front of the fireplace. “Something they burned?” he suggested. The ashes were old and gray with some charred bits in them. There was a blackened stub of a small log, but nearly everything else had been completely consumed.
Restlin pulled open the kitchen door suddenly and leaned over the arm of the chair to get to the kneeling chief. “The pipes’ve burst,” he said as if he wanted to cry. “They let the fire go out and they didn’t turn off the water. This is one of my houses! It’s Watly’s fault!”
Fellows didn’t look up. “You got water in the cellar?”
“No. It’s frozen in the pipes. I shut it off. You got to make them pay for this.”
“That’s right, Mr. Restlin,” the chief said without paying attention. He reached up for a poker that hung from a knob projecting from the bricks and said to Wilks, “This doesn’t look like wood ashes to me, Sid. Not all of it.” He poked the remains.
Restlin said, “You gotta find him, Chief. Come on. Let’s go.”
“Go where, Mr. Restlin?” The poker pushed up a blackened piece of metal, and Fellows, pulling off a glove, reached in for it Restlin edged closer around the chair. “What’s that?”
“A knife, wouldn’t you say?” The chief lifted it out by its point “A carving knife with the handle burned off.” He handed it to Wilks and poked again and pulled out a hacksaw, also with the handle burned away. The steel of both items was blackened by heat, but like the ashes and the house itself, they were long cold.
Fellows poked some more, but produced nothing else. He hung up the poker, got to his feet, and slid his hand back into his glove. “Well, Sid. You might have something about those rats.”
Restlin said, “That’s all very good, but it isn’t going to help find them, you know.”
Wilks said, “What does burnt flesh smell like, Fred?”
“Don’t know. My wife’s too good a cook.”
“I was thinking—”
“I know what you’re thinking, Sid.”
Restlin said, “Why don’t you two speak English? What’s got into you? They’ve gone and every minute you waste
