“Archie will never forgive us,” April whispered. “We should have waked him up and brought him along.”
“He’s got to go to school tomorrow,” Dinah whispered sternly. “Anyway, he never could have gotten out of the house without being heard.”
They paused, listening. There wasn’t one sound anywhere. The bushes hedging in the moonlit lawn were motionless. They crept quietly along the side of the house.
“If it is the murderer,” April murmured, “what do we do?”
“You hold him,” Dinah answered, “while I get Mother. Then she can call the police, and she’ll get all the credit.”
Still there wasn’t a sound. They stood for a minute in the shadow of the wall, holding hands, tight. The light from the kitchen window made a big golden rectangle on the lawn. Then, suddenly, there was a sound. A familiar one, that became more frightening because it was familiar. The creaking hinge of the back-porch door. Soft, slow, as though whoever had moved the door was being quiet and cautious about it. Two creaks, almost inaudible, that made a minor third, one as the door was opened, one as it closed again, held back from slamming by a careful hand.
April and Dinah thought, secretly and simultaneously, “I mustn’t let her know I’m scared.”
It might have been a shadow that moved quietly down the back-porch steps. Except that the quart bottle of milk it carried gleamed brightly in the moonlight for an instant, and a shadow couldn’t carry a quart bottle of milk. There was a quick shadowy motion across the corner of the lawn, a soft rustling in the bushes, and then silence.
The two girls moved quietly along the side of the house and through the secret path they’d made through the bushes when they were playing Commandos with Archie.
“If we have to,” Dinah breathed reassuringly, “we can always yell for help.”
“I’m not scared,” April lied.
They snaked up the last few feet of the path to behind the hydrangea bush. Then April grabbed at Dinah’s hand. “It’s o-kuk-a-yum,” she whispered. “It’s him.”
The man hidden behind the hydrangea bush was gulping the milk as though he were starving. April and Dinah sneaked quickly along the last few feet of the path. He looked up, his eyes terrible with fear.
“Don’t be afraid,” Dinah whispered soothingly, “we aren’t going to give you away.”
He clutched at the milk bottle and shrank away from them.
April murmured, “Why, Mr. Sanford! And with milk at fourteen cents a quart, too! I ought to call the police!”
Wallie Sanford stared at them for a moment. Then he released his grip on the milk bottle. Finally he half smiled.
“Finish your milk,” Dinah whispered. “You need it. It’s good for you.”
Instinctively they realized that he was on the wire-thin edge of hysteria. Just as instinctively, they knew what to do about it.
“Shall we turn him in to the cops?” Dinah said to April.
“Let’s not,” April said to Dinah. “We like him. He’s a good guy.”
“He’s got a kind face,” Dinah said. “No murderer has a kind face.”
“Unless it’s a deceptively kind face,” April said. “Look at him. He couldn’t deceive a worm.”
“I am looking at him,” Dinah said. “He looks hungry.” She scowled at the bewildered man and said sternly, “Drink that milk!”
“We can feed him all right,” April said, “but where the hash-e-lo-squared can we hide him?”
Wallie Sanford put down the empty milk bottle with a shaky hand. “I did not murder my wife,” he said.
“Of course not,” Dinah said. “We know that. We’re just trying to prove that you didn’t.”
He stared at them. “I picked up a newspaper this morning. It must have been you kids who told the police the shots were heard at half-past four. But it wasn’t half-past four. Because I got off the train at four forty-seven. And I heard the shots, too.”
“Don’t tell the police that you did,” Dinah whispered. “Or they’ll ask us a lot of embarrassing questions.”
“But why did you tell the police it was four-thirty?” Wallie Sanford asked.
“Because,” April said, “we didn’t think you murdered your wife. You’re not the type.”
He groaned, and buried his face in his hands. “Lord only knows,” he muttered, “I wanted to.”
Dinah and April were tactfully silent for a moment. Then April said, “Look, chum, why are you sticking around here? Why don’t you take it on the lam?”
“I’ve got to be here. I’ve got to get into that house.” He clenched his left fist, and bit at the second knuckle of his left forefinger. “It was her house, you know. Not mine. She bought it.”
He seemed to have forgotten that his companions were the two little girls who lived next door. Dinah and April sensed it. April nudged Dinah and said, “Now, I suppose, you’ll marry Polly Walker.”
“Marry!” he said. “Her! Please. It was like this. I didn’t—”
Dinah poked April and whispered, “The dam’s busted.” April nodded. It was an expression they both knew well. There were times when Archie had something to confess and couldn’t get past the first few words, until suddenly the confession came out in a rush.
“I met her,” he gasped. “I liked her. Maybe I flattered her a little. We had lunch together a lot of times. I shouldn’t have done it. But I made her think I knew—important people. I don’t, of course. If it weren’t for Flora—if it hadn’t been for Flora—I’d just have been another real-estate salesman. Now, I’m an estate manager. There’s a difference. I suppose now I’ll manage Flora’s estate, too. Unless they hang me. Oh, no, they don’t hang people in this state. But they can’t convict me. Because I’m innocent. I didn’t murder her. I wanted to—and who didn’t want to! But I didn’t. Only I’ll never be able to prove it. And Polly. She never should have gotten caught up in this—awful thing. She didn’t murder Flora either. I’m sure of it. I’m sure.”
“Take it easy, bub,” Dinah said.
“Believe me,” Wallie Sanford said, “you must believe me. I found out that Polly was coming out to the house. I knew why. I was afraid. Look, it happened this way. I left the office early and took the train. It got me here at four-forty-seven. I took a short cut up through the vacant lots. I wanted to head her off—I knew why she wanted to see Polly. I didn’t want—” He paused, caught his breath, and said, “I was close to the house. I heard shots. Two shots. Then a car went down the driveway. Then, another car. I ran in the house. She was there, on the floor. Murdered.” He jerked up his head and murmured, “I wasn’t sorry. She was evil—you couldn’t dream how evil.”
April and Dinah held hands again.
“I ran away,” Wallie Sanford whispered. “I knew I’d be the first person they’d look for. Now, they are looking for me. I’ve been hiding. But I’m tired. Oh, I’m so tired.” He buried his haggard face in his hands. “Stealing milk and food and newspapers. Maybe I ought to give myself up. But they’d—I mean, I couldn’t prove—”
“Calm down,” Dinah said, softly and warmly. “What you need is a good night’s sleep.”
“A good night’s sleep,” April repeated, “and the wide-open spaces. Wide-open spaces as far away from here as you can get to in a hurry. There are trains, you know, and busses. Or maybe you could hitchhike.” She looked at Wallie Sanford’s white face and added hastily, “If I’ve said the wrong thing, kick me in the teeth.”
“Honest,” Dinah said. “Maybe you ought to get a long way away from here. You’d be safe.”
“Safe,” he muttered. “Safe. I could be. But I can’t run away, you know. I’ve got to stick it out. Because I’ve got to get in that house. She hid the evidence there. If I don’t find it, the police will.”
“Tell us where it is,” April said. “We’ll find it.”
He stared at her. “If I knew,” he said. “If I’d ever known where Flora had hidden it. If I could have found it, and destroyed it, do you think I’d have married her?”
“Didn’t you marry her for her fatal charm?” April said.
Dinah kicked April and said, “Shut up!”
“And then there’s Polly,” the stricken man said. “I thought I was helping her, and I got her into this. If I should run away, they’d arrest her for Flora’s murder. And”—he rubbed his hands nervously over his face—“she didn’t murder Flora. I know it. I’m sure of it.” He drew in his breath and whispered, “I’m so sleepy!”
They stood, watching him, his head resting on his arms, his face hidden in the curve of an elbow. He didn’t move.
“He is sleepy,” Dinah said softly. “And that’s no place for him to sleep. Not on that damp grass.”
“Maybe we ought to call Mother,” April said, “and let her find him. After all, he’s the one the police are looking for. She’d get all the credit.”
“Are you crazy?” Dinah demanded.
April glanced at the pale, half-asleep face of Wallie Sanford and said, “Only slightly. All right. But where will we hide him?”
That became a serious problem. It would be difficult to hide anyone—particularly a mildly hysterical person accused of murder—in the house without Mother finding out. The basement was no good, because Magnolia was coming tomorrow to do the washing. Archie’s tadpole tank made the garage a little too odorous for comfort.
“There isn’t any place,” Dinah said at last. “He’ll just have to stay here. And I’m afraid he’ll catch cold.”
There was a sudden rustling in the bushes. April and Dinah stiffened. Wallie Sanford looked up, white-faced.
“How ’bout my playhouse?” a small voice said. “Which has got a bunk in it and also a secret tunnel, where the whole fifth grade hid out on ditch-day last year, and the truant ossifer couldn’t—”
“Archie!” Dinah said. “You’re asleep!”
“I ain’t neither,” Archie said. A small, pajama-clad figure came out from behind the shrubbery. “I’m awake and I heard everything you been talking about. And the playhouse does have a roof on it, and it does have a bunk bed, and it does have a secret tunnel which Wildcat and me dug and in which a person could conceal himself if a person had to conceal himself. It’s a big tunnel, because we had to hide the whole fifth grade in it.”
“Only the guys in the fifth grade,” April said scornfully. “And that’s about fifteen. And it isn’t a tunnel you and Wildcat dug. It’s the foundation of a house that was made and then nobody ever built a house on it, and you just built the playhouse right next to it and then kicked a hole through. Secret tunnel. Yah!”
“Well,” Archie said, “if it was big enough to hide the fifth grade, it’s big enough to hide him.”
“We could sneak some blankets out of the storeroom,” Dinah said thoughtfully. “And there’s some food in the icebox. And we can bring some coffee out before we go to school in the morning.” She scowled at Archie. “Only, what are you doing out of bed, small potatoes?”
“Well, my gosh,” Archie said indignantly, “do you think I’d let my own sisters go outdoors at night without me to pertect’em?”
It took a little doing, because the storeroom was locked and Archie had to crawl through the window to get the blankets, because the remains of yesterday’s dinner were in the hardest part of the icebox to reach quietly, and because Wallie Sanford was asleep on his feet. But between the three of them, they managed. Fifteen minutes later Wallie Sanford had wolfed down the last of the leftover ham, been shown the entrance to the secret tunnel, and gone dead to sleep in the bunk bed, buried under the blankets.
Now, only the problem of getting back into the house, unseen and unheard, remained. Archie solved it easily for himself. He shinnied up five feet of drainpipe, scrambled up the vine trellis, scampered, barefoot and silent, across the sun-porch roof, and dived in his window. Dinah grabbed April before she could follow him. “Not at your age,” she whispered, “and not in those new rayon slacks.” April didn’t protest. She crept into the house right behind Dinah, not making a sound.
The two girls paused for a moment on the staircase. The typewriter wasn’t purring in Mother’s room. But the light was still on in the kitchen. And there were voices. Laughing voices.
“I tell you, it’s He came downhill, going—”
“Downgrade,” Mother’s voice said.
“Oh, all right. He came downgrade, going ninety miles an hour—”
“Sixty,” Mother’s voice said.
“I wouldn’t argue with you for the world,” Bill Smith said. “You know, Mrs. Carstairs—”
And then April had to go and sneeze.
It wasn’t just a sneeze; it was a minor cataclysm. She sneezed, lost her balance on the stair, grabbed at the curtains, which came crashing down, and knocked over the copper bowl on the landing, which bounced to the floor below with a horrendous noise.
“Children,” Mother called from the kitchen. “Chil-dren!” Dinah moved fast. She was up the stairs in two leaps; she threw April’s bathrobe and slippers over the railing. April moved just as fast. She pulled off her shoes and stockings, dived into the bathrobe and slippers, and mussed up her hair.
“Child-ren,” Mother called.
April wrapped the bathrobe around her and ran through the dining room. She burst in through the kitchen door, pink-faced and sleepy-eyed. Mother and Bill Smith were sitting across from each other at the kitchen table. The turkey was a shambles, and the maple cake was practically gone.
“Baby!” Mother said, jumping up, “what’s the matter?”
“Bad dream,” April whimpered.
Mother sat down again, and April climbed into her lap, trying to look about six years old.
“Poor little girl,” Bill Smith said. He came around by Mother’s chair and began feeding April the remains of the maple frosting. She managed to sneak most of it into her pocket, to share with Dinah later. “She’s a very nervous child,” Bill Smith said to Mother. April whimpered again, faintly, and Bill Smith said soothingly, “There, there.”
“She is not nervous,” Mother said indignantly, “and she is not a child.” She glanced down and spotted April’s blouse showing under the bathrobe. “And what’s more—”
The front doorbell rang just in time. Mother shoved April off her lap, said “Excuse me,” and went to answer it. Police Lieutenant Bill Smith followed. April took advantage of the diversion to race halfway up the stairs and pause to listen.
“I must apologize for this intrusion,” a pleasant masculine voice said. “But I am very anxious to get in touch with the police officer in charge of the case next door. I was informed that I might find him here.”
“Why, yes,” Mother’s voice said. “Won’t you come in?”
Then, “I’m Bill Smith. And you—?”
April peeked through the stair rail. She saw a handsome young man, tall and tanned, with smiling blue eyes and curly brown hair. “I’ve just seen the newspapers,” the young man said, “and I understand you’ve been looking for me.”
“Yes?” Bill Smith said.
The young man said, “I’m Rupert van Deusen. I’m quite willing to admit that Mrs. Sanford—the late Mrs. Sanford—was blackmailing me for the possession of certain foolishly written letters. Also I admit that the interview with her took place exactly as reported in the newspapers by some—reliable witness. However, at the time of her death I was having a haircut in a barbershop at least twenty miles from here, and a half-dozen people can testify to that effect.”
Bill Smith stared at him for a moment. Then he said, “Would you mind coming down to headquarters with me, so that we can verify your alibi?”
“Delighted to,” the young man said. “Glad to do anything that will help.”
“Will you excuse us?” Bill Smith said. “And thank you for the supper, Mrs. Carstairs.”
“You’re quite welcome, I’m sure,” Mother said.
The two men went out. April fled up the rest of the stairs, ran into her room, and shut the door, fast.
“For Pete’s sake,” Dinah said, looking up from her dairy. “You look as if you’d seen a ghost!”
“I have,” April said, shivering. “I’ve seen a man who doesn’t exist!”