Chapter Sixteen

I suppose there were very few good things you could ever say about Irish Joe, but you could say this. Whether by accident or design, he missed the sore spot in my skull and hit somewhere else. And while it was no love-tap, it didn’t break anything.

I woke up. I didn’t know what time it was. Frankly, I didn’t much care; I had other things to think about.

I was lucky in one way. I didn’t have much of a headache. Maybe I was getting immune to sluggings. Or maybe Irish Joe was out of breath from catching me and hadn’t hit as hard as he meant. Anyhow, I felt pretty good. I still had enough alcohol in my blood-stream to ward off chill and keep me from thinking morose thoughts. I stretched my arms and yawned to open my eyes, and I sat up.

I fainted.

When I woke up again I was lying on my back. This time I behaved more cautiously. I put weight on my arms and eased myself to a sitting position.

I found if I moved my left leg, or did anything that resulted in it moving, the pain was intense enough to nauseate me. A spasm of pure pain would start from my leg, settle in the pit of my stomach, would gather itself together like a crouching cougar and try to broad-jump.

I got slowly erect on my good foot. I had some bad moments as the left leg was leaving the ground, but finally I was upright and it hung down beside my right. I hopped toward the Morris.

I took one hop, that is. The jar raised so much protest from the damaged leg, I blacked out for a moment on my feet. I don’t know how I stayed on them.

So no more hopping. So I inched the rest of the way to the Morris, more or less like a man trying to progress over rough, sanded ice on one skate. When I got to the car I found there was no hope of getting inside. I could reach the glove compartment, though. I grabbed a bottle. I have seldom done more damage to a Scotch bottle in one swig.

I wondered what was wrong with the Morris. The starting motor had worked, after the engine cut out, so the battery wasn’t dead. It couldn’t be out of gas because I’d filled it in the afternoon. Maybe a gas line had snapped when I hit the hole. To hell with it, it was an academic problem anyhow. If the thing was running, I couldn’t get in to drive it.

Slowly and with infinite care, supporting myself on the car, I worked around to the outer side of the auto. I braced myself and got an arm free to flag down a passerby.

In the space of half an hour only six cars went by. I guess it was early morning. They were all going fast, and for me they didn’t even slow up. Maybe they thought I was waving to wish them a happy journey.

The seventh car was a low-slung racy convertible, with the top down. It began to slow as soon as I started waving, and halted just abreast of the Morris. I saw then it was a Jaguar.

An unpleasantly familiar voice said, “Well, well. Hello, Teed.”

“Okay, on your way, Hanwood,” I told him. “I’ll flag down the next guy who passes.”

Elena was with him. She leaned out her side of the car. “Is anything wrong?”

“Not a thing. Go on, get going. You spoil my view.”

She saw the way I was holding my leg. And my clothes hadn’t improved any by rolling in the sod. She opened her door. “I’m going to see what’s wrong.”

“Elena, get back in here,” Paul Hanwood cracked.

“Just wait a minute, Paul.”

“No, I won’t wait. Get back in or I’ll leave you here. And if he’s having motor trouble, you’ll have a long walk home.”

She looked me up and down. I was having a little trouble hanging on to the car. She turned to face Paul. “All right, go along if you want to,” she said coldly.

“I’m warning you. Elena—”

“Aw, get out,” I snorted. “Or else come here where I can reach you, Paul.”

Hanwood began to get the idea he wasn’t wanted. He reached over, slammed the door Elena had left open, and left with a snarl of exhaust fumes.

“What’s wrong?”

“Well, to begin with, the car won’t work,” I said bitterly. “That I don’t mind too much, except it stopped working just in time to get me a broken leg.”

“Oh! What happened?”

“I was jumped. Or more precisely, I was jumped on. My leg happened to be lying across the curb.”

She paled. I thought she was going to faint. “Easy!” I snapped. “It didn’t hurt. I just want to get out of here.”

“What’s wrong with the car?” she asked, coming back strong.

I explained. She frowned. Then she went around the car, unhitched the hood latch, and lifted the hood.

“What do you know about those things?”

“Enough. I was friendly with a man who had one, in Rome.”

“Well, it’s nothing obvious that’s wrong. I’m not out of gas and the battery is okay.”

“Flashlight?”

“You might find it over there on the grass. Just ahead there, where the sod is chewed up.”

She retrieved it and came back to duck her head over the engine. “Hah!” she said triumphantly. “Pliers?”

“Here in the luggage compartment.”

She hauled out the pliers and was busy for a minute. I hooked one arm over the side of the Morris, reached with the other, and just managed to get the Scotch bottle again. I lowered its level another inch and put it on the back seat.

Elena switched out the flashlight and slammed down the hood. “It should run,” she said. “It is a fault of some of these cars. Their wiring system is not robust enough for the rough Canadian roads.”

She got in the Morris and tried the motor. After whining for a minute, it started. “The lead to the fuel pump had loosened,” she told me.

“What do you mean? The fuel pump runs off the manifold.”

“Not in these cars. It is electric.”

I shrugged. I had thought up several items in favor of Elena, but I hadn’t expected her to be mechanically useful. I felt a little deflated. Any man would. Even without a broken leg, I’d be going to get a tow truck, not finding out what was wrong.

Then I stopped blaming myself and blamed the car. It had let me down when I needed it most. It would be a long time before I’d trust that particular Morris again. I wanted Riley back.

“Well—shall we go? Get in,” Elena said.

“Get in, she says,” I muttered.

“Can you—?”

“No. I can’t.”

She opened the door from inside the car and hauled me in by brute strength. I was surprised how strong she was. I concentrated on holding my leg with both hands so it wouldn’t be jarred. I got in, or mostly in. We couldn’t close the door on my side, but none of me was dragging on the ground.

“Not that I’m a back-seat driver,” I said, “but go very, very slow. And if you see any bumps, stop, so I can get out and hop past them. I’d sooner.”

“We should put a splint on that leg. I am afraid you will compound the fracture.”

“I’m holding it like a vise. Keep going, unless you notice I’ve fainted.”

We drove—very, very slowly—to the nearest set of lights, which proved to be a service station. I gave Elena Danny Moore’s number, and she went in to call him.

She was back in a minute. “What did he say?” I asked.

“He told me what time it is. It is four o’clock. When I explained our problem he said he would meet us at the hospital.”

“Why not his office?”

“He wants you x-rayed, and he must have facilities to put on a cast.”

“Oh, all right. Let’s go. Slowly.”

“He wondered if we had anaesthetic. I said yes, you were only halfway through the bottle.”

She started the car smoothly and we inched out into the traffic lane and easily down the road.

“Aw, hell!” I snapped.

Her foot lifted from the gas. “You have pain?”

“I have more than pain. I’ve got a rotten feeling of disgust about this whole case. This case is three stinking problems that tied themselves up into one, and I haven’t the answer to any part of it. Tonight I almost got my car back, almost caught Crawfie Foster, located Irish Joe—and then muffed the whole thing by being a damn fool. I ought to give up investigating and go to work for a living.”

“What is the case? I don’t understand.”

“It began with a killing on Mount Royal—”

“Oh, yes, Paul told me about that. The day he introduced us. He thought you would investigate it.”

“I didn’t mean to, but I got involved. The two lugs who probably killed Chesterley on Mount Royal came to see me the next night and worked on me. Then a young girl got shot, and it developed that it was connected with the same case. But last night—that was the puzzler.”

“The killing—outside Paul’s door?”

“Yeah. It’s tied in too. But how? And why was the guy killed? I don’t know.”

“How is Paul involved in this?”

“I’ll bite. How?”

“Do you not think he is involved?”

“I didn’t say he was.”

“The murder took place just outside his door. Besides— you and your friend were in his apartment. You went in there to look for something.”

“We went in there to look for somebody else. We didn’t have any idea Paul lived there. One thing’s sure: he didn’t kill Wales. I was looking right at him when Wales was shot.”

“Then—”

“The killing was in front of Paul’s door, but it was also in front of the door of an apartment used as a gambling club. That’s the tie-in.”

“I see.”

“Do you care if Paul is mixed up in the business?”

She drew a deep breath and looked very stern. “I don’t care what he’s mixed up in,” she said. “I don’t intend to see him again. Not ever.”