Continental Op Stories · Arson Plus (3/3)

McClump and I held a conference on the fly, and then I got a machine from the nearest garage and headed for Tavender. We made time going out, and got there before the general store had closed for the night. The stuttering Philo separated himself from the two men with whom he had been talking Hiram Johnson, and followed me to the rear of the store.

“Do you keep an itemized list of the laundry you handle?”

“N-n-no; just the amounts.”

“Let’s look at Thornburgh’s.”

He produced a begrimed and rumpled account book and we picked out the weekly items I wanted: $2.60, $3.10, $2.25, and so on.

“Got the last batch of laundry here?”

“Y-yes,” he said. “It j-just c-c-came out from the city t-today.”

I tore open the bundle⁠—some sheets, pillowcases, tablecloths, towels, napkins; some feminine clothing; some shirts, collars, underwear, socks that were unmistakably Coons’s. I thanked Philo while running back to my machine.

Back in Sacramento again, McClump was waiting for me at the garage where I had hired the car.

“Registered at the hotel on June fifteenth, rented the office on the sixteenth. I think he’s in the hotel now,” he greeted me.

We hurried around the block to the Garden Hotel.

“Mr. Handerson went out a minute or two ago,” the night clerk told us. “He seemed to be in a hurry.”

“Know where he keeps his car?”

“In the hotel garage around the corner.”

We were within two pavements of the garage, when Handerson’s automobile shot out and turned up the street.

“Oh, Mr. Handerson!” I cried, trying to keep my voice level and smooth.

He stepped on the gas and streaked away from us.

“Want him?” McClump asked; and, at my nod, stopped a passing roadster by the simple expedient of stepping in front of it.

We climbed aboard, McClump flashed his star at the bewildered driver, and pointed out Handerson’s dwindling taillight. After he had persuaded himself that he wasn’t being boarded by a couple of bandits, the commandeered driver did his best, and we picked up Handerson’s taillight after two or three turnings, and closed in on him⁠—though his machine was going at a good clip.

By the time we reached the outskirts of the city, we had crawled up to within safe shooting distance, and I sent a bullet over the fleeing man’s head. Thus encouraged, he managed to get a little more speed out of his car; but we were definitely overhauling him now.

Just at the wrong minute Handerson decided to look over his shoulder at us⁠—an unevenness in the road twisted his wheels⁠—his machine swayed⁠—skidded⁠—went over on its side. Almost immediately, from the heart of the tangle, came a flash and a bullet moaned past my ear. Another. And then, while I was still hunting for something to shoot at in the pile of junk we were drawing down upon, McClump’s ancient and battered revolver roared in my other ear.

Handerson was dead when we got to him⁠—McClump’s bullet had taken him over one eye.

McClump spoke to me over the body.

“I ain’t an inquisitive sort of fellow, but I hope you don’t mind telling me why I shot this lad.”

“Because he was Thornburgh.”

He didn’t say anything for about five minutes. Then: “I reckon that’s right. How’d you guess it?”

We were sitting beside the wreckage now, waiting for the police that we had sent our commandeered chauffeur to phone for.

“He had to be,” I said, “when you think it all over. Funny we didn’t hit on it before! All that stuff we were told about Thornburgh had a fishy sound. Whiskers and an unknown profession, immaculate and working on a mysterious invention, very secretive and born in San Francisco⁠—where the fire wiped out all the old records⁠—just the sort of fake that could be cooked up easily.

“Then nobody but the Coonses, Evelyn Trowbridge and Handerson ever saw him except between the tenth of May and the middle of June, when he bought the house. The Coonses and the Trowbridge woman were tied up together in this affair somehow, we knew⁠—so that left only Handerson to consider. You had told me he came to Sacramento sometime early this summer⁠—and the dates you got tonight show that he didn’t come until after Thornburgh had bought his house. All right! Now compare Handerson with the descriptions we got of Thornburgh.

“Both are about the same size and age, and with the same color hair. The differences are all things that can be manufactured⁠—clothes, a little sunburn, and a month’s growth of beard, along with a little acting, would do the trick. Tonight I went out to Tavender and took a look at the last batch of laundry, and there wasn’t any that didn’t fit the Coonses⁠—and none of the bills all the way back were large enough for Thornburgh to have been as careful about his clothes as we were told he was.”

“It must be great to be a detective!” McClump grinned as the police ambulance came up and began disgorging policemen. “I reckon somebody must have tipped Handerson off that I was asking about him this evening.” And then, regretfully: “So we ain’t going to hang them folks for murder after all.”

“No, but we oughtn’t have any trouble convicting them of arson plus conspiracy to defraud, and anything else that the Prosecuting Attorney can think up.”