Plot It Yourself

But I didn’t. I had plenty of time to try to, going to the garage to get the car, and then a ninety-minute drive, but I simply couldn’t see it. You probably have, and if not you will now if you spend three minutes looking for it, and of course you‘ll think I’m as dumb as they come, but you’ve had it all in one package while with me it had been dragging along for two weeks and a lot of things had been on my mind, including three murders. Anyhow, dumb or not, I didn’t hit on it until just as I was turning off of Route 301 onto the blacktop. Then, suddenly seeing it, I braked the car, steered it onto the grass shoulder, stopped, and sat looking it over. No wonder Wolfe had suspected his mind was going. It was perfectly obvious. I fed gas, eased back onto the road, and went on. We had her.

But I had to get her first. If X had got there ahead of me and stuck a knife in her, I would reverse my stand on boiled cucumbers; I would eat nothing but boiled cucumbers until we nailed him. I had intended to take it easy along the stretch of blacktop and see if I could spot the man in the car near the place Dol Bonner and Sally Corbett had used, but now I was in a hurry. Almost too much of a hurry; I wasn’t careful enough on the half-mile of narrow winding dirt road and scraped my bottom on a high centre. That’s no way to treat a Heron sedan. Slowing down, I turned into the lane through the gap and bumped along the ruts to the little blue house. It was ten minutes past eight, and the sun was just sinking behind the rim of a ridge.

I had seen her before I stopped the car. She was a couple of hundred yards off to the left, standing by a stone fence. The bicoloured mutt was there beside her, wagging his tail, and on the other side of the fence was the upper half of a man. Her raised voice came across the meadow. I got out and headed for them, and as I approached I could hear her words: “… and you can tell the sheriff I don’t need any protection and don’t want any! You get out of here and stay out! I’m not in any danger, and if I am I can handle it! I told that state trooper this morning that I don’t want-”

The man’s eyes left her to come to me, and she whirled around. “You here again?” she demanded.

I stopped at the fence and addressed the man on the other side. “Trespassing and loitering,” I said sternly. “Also disturbing the peace. A peeping Tom can get up to three years. Beat it.”

“You too,” Alice Porter said. “Both of you beat it.”