“Little trouble with those what’s-their-names,” Fellows said, standing until the woman took a seat in a high-backed rocker so placed that she could look through the window curtains up the road. He sat then, near the window.
“The Campbells?” She rocked contentedly. “I’m not surprised.”
“Know anything about them?”
“Not much,” Mrs. Banks said primly. “Not very sociable, and I mind my own business.”
“Ever seen them, Mrs. Banks?”
“Oh, yes indeed. Mr. Banks and I went to call on them a couple of Sundays back. Not very welcoming, I will say. She dresses fancy, but there was dust in the comers. She gave us tea. Tried to offer us liquor. That kind of woman.” She rocked a little more vigorously in disapproval.
“What’d she look like?”
“Brunette. Wore lipstick. That kind of woman.”
“There’re quite a few women of that kind, Mrs. Banks. That doesn’t exactly identify her.”
“Well, I suppose there are those who would call her pretty.”
“About how old was she?”
“Youngish, but old enough to know better. Not very well brought up, I will say.”
“You called on her just once?”
“Mr. Banks and me. We wanted to be neighborly. It’s the decent thing to do, Inspector. Can’t say it was a pleasure. She wasn’t very welcoming and she never returned the call. Had her hair in curlers when we arrived. Sunday afternoon, too. She had a blue and white bandana around her head and a house dress, light blue with tiny white figures. But she had her lipstick on. We dressed up. Mr. Banks and I wouldn’t go around like that on a Sunday, especially when neighbors drop in, but she didn’t seem to care. Not that one. She could have put her hands on the liquor soon enough, but she had trouble finding tea.”
“What was Mr. Campbell like?”
“He wara’t there. He was off on a business trip, so she said. Never did see the man.”
“You see Mrs. Campbell any other time?”
“Saw her just about any time she left the house, but it wasn’t much. She’d come out once in a while to hang up some clothes in her back yard. You can see the yard from here except for those cars in the drive. I guess her husband must’ve done the shopping; well, she called him her husband, but I noticed she didn’t wear any wedding ring. ’Tany rate, she didn’t have a car and there’s no place you can go around here without a car. I know because I don’t drive. That’s why we women along this road are right neighborly and I was being generous because it can be pretty lonesome out here if you don’t have any neighbors to kind of chin with on the phone or walk over to visit, but she was the lonesome kind, I guess. Leastwise, she didn’t make no effort to be friendly.”
Fellows rubbed his chin and was about to ask more questions about the mysterious Mr. Campbell when Mrs. Banks got half out of her chair. “Say, now, what’s that?”
Fellows, nearer the window, turned his chair and pulled aside the curtain. The two ambulance men were coming into view from behind the cars, carrying the sheet-wrapped torso on a stretcher. It looked like a lump of bedding riding in the middle of the taut canvas. Seen anywhere else, it would never suggest a body and even on a stretcher one wouldn’t suspect it was the body of an adult.
Mrs. Banks hurried to the window to watch the procession, the stretcher followed by Dr. MacFarlane and two policemen. “Why,” she cried. “It’s a child. They’ve killed a child. Why that’s an ambulance. I thought it was the police wagon.”
“There’s been an accident,” Fellows said, rising in courtesy. “They’re kidnappers, aren’t they?” she said, her eyes glued to the window.
“We’re not sure what they are, Mrs. Banks.” The chief shifted his feet. He knew further questioning would be fruitless while there was something to watch, so he waited patiently until the doors of the ambulance were closed and it backed around in the road, turned left at the comer, and disappeared from sight.
“Well, I never,” Mrs. Banks said, coming away. “Well, I never.” She went back to her seat, and the chief took his own again. “We were talking about Mr. Campbell.”
“Yes, well he had the car and he was away all day. He must have left real early in the morning and he was never around weekends. He’d get home around half past five most of the time, but then he’d drive right off again. Then he’d come back around eight and he’d be there for a couple of hours and then sometimes he’d go off again, ’long about half past ten and once, when we were in bed, he drove out about eleven. When he came back after that, or if he came back at all, I never knew, but I do know his car was never around when we got up in the morning.”
“Which is what time?”
“Half past six.”
“And he was away every weekend?”
“Never saw hide nor hair of him weekends. Business trip his wife said. Monkey business, I say.”
“I don’t suppose you’d know what kind of a car it was?”
“No. He always got home after dark. He was never around when it was light.” She hesitated. “Wait a minute. There was one afternoon when he came home. That was a strange one.”
“What happened, Mrs. Banks?”
“It was about three o’clock in the afternoon. I was cleaning around upstairs when I saw this car pull up. Ford car, it was, tan, pretty new. Well, Inspector, out gets Mr. Campbell, big as life, and he’s got a vacuum cleaner in his hand, you know, one of those long round things on
