Halfway House Read Free Page B

away. No answer. I’ve sent a wire telling her to come, that Joe’d had an… accident. The wire will get there before she will. We—there’s no sense in not facing facts. Is there?”
    “Certainly not, Bill.”
    Bill took his hands out of his pockets and looked at them. Then he raised his head to the black sky. It was the night of the new moon, and only the stars were visible, small and brilliant after their wash in the rain. “Let’s go,” he said grimly, and they climbed into the Pontiac. He turned his car around and retraced its trail south.
    “Slowly,” said Ellery after a moment. His eyes were on the shimmering cones of the headlights. “Tell me all you know.”
    Bill told him. At mention of the woman in the Cadillac roadster, Ellery glanced at his companion’s face. It was dark and dangerous.
    “Veiled woman,” murmured Ellery. “That was fortunate, Bill; I mean poor Wilson’s living long enough to tell you. Was this woman wearing a veil?”
    “I don’t know. It wasn’t over her face when she passed me. But she might have slipped it up over her hat. I don’t know… When Joe—when he died I went out to the car, backed it out of the side-lane into the road, and drove to the Terminal. Then I called you. That’s all.”
    The shack loomed ahead. Bill began wearily to turn the wheel. “No!” said Ellery sharply. “Stop here. Have you a flashlight?”
    “In the door-pocket.”
    Ellery got out of the Pontiac and nosed the flash about. In a few sweeps of the beam he fixed the scene indelibly in his mind; the silent shack, the muddy lane leading to the side, the semicircular drive before the front door, the weed-grown segments of ground bordering the drives. He turned the light on the mud of the side-lane, crouching a little. So far as he could see there were no man-made marks in the soggy earth except tire tracks, of which there seemed to be several sets. He scrutinized these closely for a moment and then returned to the Pontiac. “Bill! We’ll walk from here.”
    “Yes.”
    “Or better still, turn your car about to block the road. We don’t want anyone running cars up these drives. I don’t see any footprints in the mud here, and that may be important. The tire marks which already exist should naturally be preserved. The rain this afternoon was an act of God… Bill! Are you listening?”
    “Yes. Yes, of course.”
    Ellery said gently, “Then do as I say.” He ran forward to the point where the semicircular drive began. He stopped at the edge of Lamberton Road, careful not to set foot on the driveway. There were ruts in the mushy earth in which were clearly stamped the treads of tires. He eyed them for a moment and strode back.
    “I was right. Bill, perhaps you had better remain out here and guard the drives. Warn the police when they come. Don’t let anyone walk on either driveway; they can reach the house by skirting them and walking on those weedy borders… Bill!”
    “I’m all right, Ellery,” muttered Bill. He was fumbling with a cigaret and shivering. “I understand.”
    As he stood in the middle of the main road leaning against his car, there was something in his eyes that made Ellery turn away. Then, on impulse, he turned back. Bill smiled; a ghastly smile. Ellery patted his shoulder rather helplessly and, raising his flashlight, hurried back to the dirt lane. He vaulted over to the weeds on the river side, played the flash, and made his way cautiously toward the side door of the shack.
    Fifteen feet from the porch, he stopped; the weeds ended there, and between the last clump and the porch was bare earth. He gave the old Packard to the side only a passing glance; it was ground around and beyond it that held his attention. For some time he swept the flash about and with a vaguely sensed satisfaction convinced himself that no human foot had trodden anywhere within range. Then he set his own feet down in the muck.
    The wooden porch was tiny, a square platform of rotting boards