Fellows turned to him. “Mr. Restlin, I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t keep trying to tell us our business. We want to look around this place and we’d like to have it quiet. Sid, you’d better leave those things here and we’ll see what we can find.”
The chief retraced his steps, but this time he was paying attention. He paused to look in the closet by the front door, then re-entered the dining room for a quick look around. It was a neat and tidy room containing a buffet, six chairs around a table, and two more chairs in corners, and gave the impression of little use. He paused only briefly there before returning to the small adjacent bedroom. It was a cramped place with barely room for a double bed and a bureau in the comers against the windows, but it showed signs of usage. The bed was hastily made and wrinkled, the way a man makes a bed, and Fellows started his hunt there. A closet under the attic stairs was bare of everything but half a dozen coat hangers, and the chief moved on to the bureau drawers. They too were empty and looked unused. He pulled back the coverlet from two pillows which showed faint indentations. He peered closely and sniffed, then took off his glove and picked up a long black hair. He laid it carefully on top of its pillow and recovered it with the spread. “What’s the name of these people again, Mr. Restlin?”
“Campbell,” Restlin said with ill-concealed annoyance at the leisurely manner of the chief.
“Mrs. Campbell a brunette?”
“I don’t know. I never saw her. I never saw him for that matter.” Fellows gave him an expression of mild surprise. “You rented the place to him sight unseen?”
“Watly rented it. Watly knows him.”
“I see.” Fellows went out the opposite door and looked into the bathroom. The bottom of the tub was stained and scummy-looking as if it had been washed out but not scrubbed. He went on to the back bedroom, darkened by drawn shades. The room was barren and gloomy. There was a vacant bureau, a straight chair, two night tables and lamps and a double bed stripped to the mattress with the uncovered pillows lying awry at the top.
Fellows left the others at the door and crossed the room to raise the shade by the bureau. He opened the drawers one by one and found nothing but a white button lying on the paper lining of the middle drawer. He left it there, noted that there were no closets, and came out again. “I don’t know, Sid,” he said. “It looks pretty clean. If it weren’t for those suitcases in the kitchen, I’d think they just packed up and left.”
Restlin was edgy now. “What do you think’s happened?”
“I can’t tell you, Mr. Restlin. I’m not sure at all.”
“What’s that smell supposed to be? It’s all over the house.” Fellows shrugged. “I don’t know that either. It might be something they burned in the fireplace, it might be because the house has been shut up tight a couple of days. Did you notice it down cellar?”
Restlin said, “I didn’t notice anything down cellar. I was looking at the pipes. They busted those pipes on me. They let the fire go out and they didn’t shut off the water valve. I gotta replace all those pipes.”
They went into the kitchen, where the chief stared thoughtfully at the suitcases. Restlin said, “I can’t get those pipes fixed right away, and here I got a man wants to rent this place starting the first of March. He wants a year’s lease. I’m getting gyppecl”
“I can’t help you on that, Mr. Restlin. I’m not a plumber.” Fellows opened the cellar door and went down the steps sniffing his way into the dimness below with Wilks and Restlin following.
There were coalbins at the front and a preserve closet and a woodbin, well-stocked with logs. An old washing machine was near the stairs, the furnace was in the center of the floor, and the rest of the area was vacant except along one side back of the woodbin. An accumulation of items was there, some old and broken furniture, a trunk under a dusty sheet, with rusty ceiling fixtures on top, a stack of bushel baskets, a lawn mower, snow shovel, and gardening tools.
“I don’t smell anything down here,” Wilks said. “It must be something they burned.”
“That’s my guess,” Fellows said, but he wasn’t disposed to let the matter alone. He looked into the bin compartments and preserve closet and came back to the dead furnace. Wilks said, “What’re you looking for now? They’ve moved out.”
“They moved out several days ago, but they left two suitcases.” The chief opened the furnace door and peered in at the dead ashes, started to close it again, but stopped for another look. “Sid, come here.”
Wilks bent over the chiefs shoulder for a view. “I see ashes.”
“Coal ashes?”
“Those aren’t coal ashes. Not on top. I don’t know what they are.”
Fellows closed the grate door gently. “Mr. Restlin, you rent this place furnished?”
“Yes, yes, of course. Watly turned it over to the guy for a month, complete with everything, linen, silver, coal, electricity, local phone service, everything.”
“All this stuff along the wall is yours?”
“Certainly. Of course.”
“That trunk?”
Restlin wasn’t sure. “If it isn’t mine, I’m going to keep it anyway to pay for the pipes. The suitcases and the trunk and everything in them.”
Fellows pulled up the comer of the dusty sheet. Then he removed the fixtures and uncovered the trunk. It was a solidly constructed metal affair painted green and decorated with two initials in faded yellow. The initials were the same as on the suitcases, J.S.
“The only thing missing are the people,” Fellows said. He tested the lock and it didn’t open. He tried to move the trunk, and it didn’t budge. He bent close and sniffed at the edges of the lid, then took off his glove
