"Neither did anybody else. But for that matter Boothy was a tight-lipped
man who told his business to no one. After the neighbors reported him
missing we searched the house. Found a will and a note written the day
before the quarrel outside the post office. The note said if anything
happened to him----. See that, Doctor? He was afraid that something would
happen."
"He wrote that note the day before Jud threatened to kill him," the blind
man said slowly.
Joe thought that Captain Tucker had the look of a man stumbling over a
rock he had not seen. "Well----." The captain coughed awkwardly. "Why
couldn't Jud have gone to the house several times before that meeting
outside the post office? Certainly he didn't come here planning to loiter
in the streets until Boothy appeared. Anyway, the note said if anything
happened to him to notify his brother, Otis Wilkes, at once."
"Any witnesses to the will?"
"No. Oh, it's in his handwriting. We proved that."
"Who gets his property?"
"This brother, Otis Wilkes."
Dr. Stone said, "I'd like to meet Otis." Joe, sitting taut on the rear
seat, had the feeling that his uncle had touched something hidden in the
dark. The car halted outside the village lock-up.
"I won't go down with you," Captain Tucker grunted. "He wouldn't talk if
I were there."
"I'll want Joe with me," Dr. Stone said, and a turnkey led man, boy and
dog down a damp staircase. It was the first time Joe had ever seen this
forbiddingly bleak corridor of cells, and his heart grew heavy with a
sick chill. A key rasped in a lock, and the jail attendant threw open an
iron-barred door.
"Somebody to see you, Cory."
"I don't want to see nobody," a voice answered harshly.
The blind man said, "Lady, left," and followed the dog into the cell. Joe
saw a disheveled youth who sat scowling upon a cot. At sight of them he
arose with an air of bravado. The cell door closed.
"What's the idea?" the harsh voice demanded. "Trying to scare me with a
dog?"
"Nobody's trying to scare you, Jud. Don't you remember me? I'm Dr.
Stone."
"Another cop?"
"No," the blind man said gently; "your friend. And here's another
friend--Joe Morrow. You ought to remember Joe. He was only a little tyke
then, and always followed you when you brought the cows in from pasture."
Joe saw the hard eyes waver. At that moment Jud Cory looked, not the
murderous gangster, but a frightened, bewildered, sick-souled boy.
"He always brought me a cake with raisins in it," Jud said huskily. And
then, like some wild animal touched by danger, the youth had sprung back
against the wall of the cell. "Hey! Trying to pull soft stuff on me?
Nothing doing, I don't talk."
"You've had your share of bitter days, haven't you?" Dr. Stone asked
quietly.
The hard eyes wavered.
"I knew your father, Jud. It doesn't seem possible that his son could
butcher a man for a few dollars."
"It wasn't a few dollars," the lad cried thickly. "It----"
Joe shivered. Then this had really been a murder for a lot of dollars.
The youth had choked off the sentence and stood against the stone wall
shaken by the appalling significance of what he had said.
"Jud," the blind man said, "don't try to fool me and don't try to fool
yourself. You're just a poor, miserable kid who's caught in a squeeze
that's too tight for him. Don't you think you ought to tell me."
The chin wasn't a hard chin now. It quivered, tried to steady itself; and
suddenly, like a tree that snaps in a storm, Jud Cory broke. One moment
he stood against the wall, still suspicious, still afraid; the next he
was on the side of his cot, his head in his hands, sobbing.
"You don't know what it's been like in here, Doctor. Everybody telling me
I was a murderer and asking what I did with the body. When I said I'd
kill him I was mad. I didn't mean it. I tell you, Doctor, I didn't mean
it."
The blind man groped across the cell, and sat upon the cot, and one hand
reached out and rested on the boy's shoulder.
The sobbing had stopped. "We--we lived in the city," came from between
the lad's hands, "my pop and me, and pop got sick and they said he should
go to the country. I don't know how it happened, but we came to Boothy
Wilkes'. I liked it there. Then pop died, and that changed everything. I
was nine then, nine nearly ten, and Wilkes made me do all the
chores--said I had to earn my keep. Telling me every day I was a pauper
and threatening to send me away to the pauper farm. Then he began to
shout and yell that I ate too much. That was when I lit out.
"I went to Philadelphia and sold newspapers. They told me to keep out of
the way of the cops or they'd slap me in a home because I ought to be in
school. It wasn't so bad in the summer, but in the winter it was tough.
Snowy days I wouldn't sell many papers, and maybe I'd have to sleep in a
hallway that night."
"How old were you then, Jud?"
"About fourteen."
Joe shot a glance at his uncle. The unruffled tranquillity was gone. The
blind man's face was dark with a bitter wrath.
"I figured I'd go some place where there wouldn't be so much cold, so I
beat it to California. There I got jobs doing this and that, and got
along. One day, when I was out of work and feeling pretty low, a man
stopped me and asked wasn't I Jud Cory. He said I looked as though I was
on my uppers, and I said I was. He said I must have gone through the
money pretty fast, and I asked him what money, and he said he had been
cashier for the bank here and that just a few days before my father died
he was sent for, and went to Wilkes' house, and that my father put nine
thousand dollars in Wilkes' account for me. It seemed pop didn't want any
dealings with lawyers and courts and thought Wilkes was honest. Maybe
this man was telling me straight and maybe he wasn't. I got thinking it
over, and it seemed maybe Wilkes had laid it on me heavy so I'd light out
and he'd have the money to himself. So I came back here, and the first
time I spoke to Wilkes I knew it was true."
"How?" Dr. Stone asked.
"By his face."
"What was the name of this man, Jud?"
"I--I don't know. I got so excited I forgot to ask, and when I went
looking for him afterwards I couldn't find him. Does that make any
difference?"
"I'm afraid so."
Jud Cory's hands went out in a hopeless gesture. "I don't suppose
anybody'll believe me." He was up from the cot, frantic, terror-stricken.
"But I didn't kill him. I didn't."
"I know you didn't," Dr. Stone said quietly. "I've known that for the
past ten minutes."
Serenity had come back upon the blind man. Holding the handle-grip of
Lady's harness he followed the dog up the damp stairway to the
headquarters room. There he told Captain Tucker Jud Cory's story.
"A fairy tale," the police captain scoffed. "He got it out of a book or
the movies. Anyway, it doesn't explain the riddle. Where's Boothy Wilkes'
body?"
"Let's go to the bank," the doctor suggested.
Again they rode in the police car, and again Lady cautiously conducted
her master through the snow. Bryan Smith, president of the bank, admitted
them to his private office and closed the door.
"The Wilkes case, gentlemen?"