“I haven’t got anything but guesses,” Stubb said, “but I’ll let you have them—I’ve given them to Madame S. here already.” He took off his glasses, inspected their lenses and put them on again. “Ever since I talked to him, I’ve been wondering what the High Country might mean, because if I knew that, I’d have a pretty good idea what kind of a ticket it would take to get you there. Madame S. has her own ideas, but I’ll lay off them—she can tell you herself if she wants to. In the first place, the High Country could really be another country—Switzerland, maybe, or someplace else that’s got a lot of high ground; maybe the highlands of Scotland. In that case, the ticket’s probably his passport. Anybody buy that?”
He looked at Barnes and Candy, but there was no reply.
“Me neither. Here’s another guess. Free could be a hillbilly—he talked like one. Maybe he was from someplace in the Smokies. Anybody like it?”
Candy said, “Jim, I think he talked different depending on who he was with.”
“You sure of that?”
“No. I can’t really put my finger on it. Maybe it was something I just imagined. Only that’s the way it seemed to me. I don’t have a hell of a lot of education, Jim. I dropped out of high school. And I don’t think you do either. So I think maybe when he was around us he talked a little simple, so we’d relax.”
“Fine. That’s a good point, and I want to come back to it in a minute. For now, let’s hold it and clear the decks a little. Anybody go for the hillbilly idea?”
“No,” Barnes said. “Go on.”
“Then where are we?” Stubb paused and looked at each of them in turn. A televised war crashed to a close, and an announcer began to speak earnestly about soft drinks. “If he wasn’t from someplace that’s really high up— here or in some other country—what’s left?”
“Craziness,” Candy said.
Barnes swiveled to look at her.
She said, “You ever talk to those old bag ladies in the street? I have, when I’ve had a fifty or hundred-dollar trick and three or four shots afterwards. I’ll be floating along, and I’ll sit down beside one someplace, or one will sit by me. One I met was a princess. One was the bastard of some President. All of them have some crazy story, and if I ever hear one that makes the bag lady not so important as she looks instead of the other way, I’ll give her a five if I’ve got one. But I don’t think I’ll ever need to.”
“You really think Free was crazy?”
Candy thrust her chins forward as she considered. “I’ll have to think it over. But right now, yes, I think maybe he was. He let us into his house, didn’t he?”
The witch said, “And described us to his neighbor long before he did so, or so it sounded when she spoke of it. Was it only I who heard her? Whatever else may be true, Free was not mad.”
Stubb nodded. “I don’t think so either. Of course, Candy, what you think is up to you. For me, as far as I can see, if the guy wasn’t really from the mountains someplace, and he wasn’t nuts, there’s only one thing left. He told me he came from the High Country, and he came for adventure, and other people did the same thing, and he had his ticket—that was what he called it—hidden away, but it was too late for him to use it.”
Barnes said, “Then we look for it. It’s probably in the house someplace.”
“We will. Or rather, I will, tomorrow when it’s light; and if it’s in the house, I’ll probably find it. But suppose I don’t? Suppose it isn’t in the house at all? He told me one time that everything valuable had been stolen from his bedroom one time when he was away. It would be a lot easier to find the ticket if we could find Free.”
Candy put in, “You said there was only one thing left, Jim. Lay it on us.”
Stubb smiled and leaned back. “He called it the High Country. Maybe we’d call it high finance, high society, or the high life. I think Free, and that name’s a ringer if I ever heard one, came from a wealthy old family, that kind that’s been playing ambassador and governor and maybe even President for so long they’ve forgotten who great granddaddy stole the money from in the first place. I think when he got out of Harvard, or maybe even before he got out, he went to the Good Will store and bought some old clothes and went on the bum. A lot of them do. Just for an adventure, like he said. And I think that whatever the reason was, he stayed a whole lot longer than most of them do. Maybe he got mixed up with some woman. Maybe he was dodging something up there where he came from; maybe he didn’t want to spend his life running Amalgamated Copper or whatever it was. Then they decided he was dead, and he was ashamed to go home.”
He took off his glasses and polished them on his sleeve; when he looked up for a moment, his eyes seemed grotesquely small. “But before he started his little adventure, I think he left himself an out—something that would bring him back to Harvard and Newport and all that if he ever wanted to go. Something that would make him rich, really rich, no matter what his family did while he was gone. Even if he was declared legally dead, for example.
“I’m not going to ask if anybody buys that idea. Somebody does—me. I’ve talked it over a little with Madame S. here, and although she doesn’t see it my way, she agrees that Free wasn’t nuts, and he really did have something very valuable salted away.” The thick lenses back in place, Stubb looked toward the witch. “Right?”
Her nod was guarded, but unmistakably a nod.
“So I talked to her. I said, listen here, whatever it was, I’m going after it and you’re going after it too. You’ve got your way of operating and I’ve got mine, and it’s even money we’ll just screw each other up so somebody else gets it or nobody gets it at all. I’ve never doublecrossed a client, and I never will. Let’s join and split it down the middle. She’s a smart lady; she agreed. Now we’re making the same offer to you two. You lived with him just like we did. It’s likely one of you—maybe both of you—heard something we didn’t, something that might be important. Throw in with us, and you’re each in for ten percent of whatever we find. But it’s got to be now, and you’ve got to be willing to work for the partnership as well as talk. Do you want in?”
“We get ten percent,” Barnes said.
“Right.”
“You said you were giving us the same deal you made with Madame Serpentina, and you said the two of you were going to divide it equally.”
