1
The day it began was January 5th. I’d gone hunting
that morning, and it was a little after one P.M. When I
got to the office.
Clebourne’s the main street, and the central
business district is about seven blocks long. Warren
Realty is in the second block from the west end, with
J.C. Penney’s on one side and Fuller’s cafe on the
other, and, except that it’s mine, it could be any smalltown
real estate office anywhere—the plate glass
window with a few of the current listings posted in it,
a split-leaf philodendron here and there, two
salesmen’s desks forever cluttered with papers, and,
as a sort of focal point like the medulla oblongata of
the human nervous system, another desk with a
typewriter, several telephones, a Notary sign, and a
girl who knows where everything is buried, including
the bodies. The girl in this case is Barbara Ryan, if girl
is the correct term for a 30-year-old divorcee. She has
reddish mahogany-colored hair that always seems a
little tousled, a wide mouth in a rather slender face,
cool blue eyes, and an air of good-natured cynicism,
as though she were still fond of the human race in
spite of the fact she no longer expected a great deal of
it. When I came in she was alone in the office,
speaking into one of the telephones.
The Long Saturday Night — 2
“Just a moment, please. Here’s Mr. Warren now.”
Then she added, “It’s long distance.”
That was probably Frances now, calling to say she
was on her way home. I’d tried twice the night before
to call her, but she hadn’t come back to the hotel.
“Thanks,” I said. “I’ll take it inside.” I went back to my
office and closed the door, grabbing up the phone as I
dropped into the chair behind the desk. “Hello.”
It was Frances. “Really, John,” she said petulantly,
“do you have to bark? Didn’t the girl tell you it was
me?”
Here we go again, I thought. She should realize by
this time that the only way I can speak over a
telephone is abruptly; I’ve tried, but I can’t change it.
Also, she knew Barbara’s name as well as I did, and I
could see no reason for referring to her as “the girl.” I
brushed aside the annoyance. “Sorry, honey. I tried to
get you last night—”
“Yes. I know. But after the concert, the Dickinsons
wanted to do Bourbon Street, so it was after three
when I got back to the hotel, and it was too late to call
back then. I just woke up; in fact, I’m still lying here
in bed.”
I thought of the way she looked lying in bed, the
swirl of dark hair across the pillow, the blue-green
eyes in the beautifully made and sensuous face, the
long smooth legs, and began to feel more than ever
like an underprivileged husband. “What time are you
starting back? Are you all packed?”
“No-o, dear. That’s one reason I called; I’m thinking
of staying over till Sunday.”
“What?”
“The Dickinsons have invited me to dinner tonight.
And tomorrow there’s a cocktail party—”
“But, dammit, honey, you’ve been gone a week
now.”
“Well, really, John, it’s just two more days. And
you’ll probably be duck-hunting anyway.”
“No. I was out this morning—” I stopped; there was
no use arguing about it. Even if I got her to change
The Long Saturday Night — 3
her mind, it wouldn’t be any good. She’d arrive in a
bad mood and there’d be an argument, or several
days of sweet martyrdom, which was worse. Maybe I
was being selfish, anyway. “Okay, honey. But make it
Sunday, will you?”
“Of course, darling.” There was a slight pause, and
then she added, “Oh, by the way, I’ll probably have to
cash a check today.”
“Sure,” I said. “How much?”
“Do I hear five hundred?” she asked playfully. “I
have to do some shopping, and that’s a nice round
number.”
“Good God!”
“Was that another bark, dear, or more in the nature
of a growl?”
“It was a grunt,” I said. “I was getting up off the
floor. Look, honey, you’ve got every credit card known
to man, and charge accounts at most of the stores
down there.” I was about to add that she’d also had
six hundred in cash when she left here, but thought
better of it and didn’t.
“But I don’t have any account at this shop, dear,”
she explained patiently, “and they have the most
adorable suit, and the accessories. It’s a Balenciaga
copy, and I think I have the figure for it.”
She knew damned well she did. “As I seem to
remember it,” I said, “you do, though it’s been some
time since I’ve been able to check. Okay, sexy, but
when you get it dressed, will you for God’s sake bring
it home?”
She laughed. “I love it when you sound like Boyer.”
There was something in the background that
sounded like a trumpet. “Don’t tell me you’ve bought
an orchestra,” I said.
“It’s the radio,” she replied. “I’ll turn it off. But
never mind, I’d better start dressing. I’ll see you
Sunday, dear.”
After she’d hung up, I was still conscious of vague
dissatisfaction. Maybe it was the day; it was still and
oppressive, with that feeling of uneasiness that
The Long Saturday Night — 4
precedes a storm. We’d successfully skirted an
argument, but I wondered if I’d backed down too
easily. Some friends of hers in New Orleans had had
an extra ticket to the Sugar Bowl game; I hadn’t been
able to get away, even if another ticket had been
obtainable, so she’d gone alone. The original threeday
trip had stretched to a week, and now it was nine
days. I didn’t like it, but there didn’t seem to be a
great deal I could do about it. I thought wryly of the
surprise this pussyfooting attitude would cause among
a large part of Carthage’s population who considered
me an outspoken hothead who was always charging
headlong into something with at least one foot in his
mouth.
We’d been married less than two years. Was it the
town she was bored with, or me? She’d grown up in
Florida, mostly in Miami. Carthage, God knows, is no
hectic round of gaiety, but at the moment I wasn’t too
sure it was the town. I tried to take an objective look
at this fellow who called himself John Duquesne
Warren, but I suppose it’s impossible; the picture is
always clouded by the mood. Sometimes I was able to
see myself as quite a lad—sharp, aggressive,
successful, popular—but all that came through now
was yesterday’s second-string tackle with a receding
hairline, the small-town businessman with a fading
and beat-up dream or two, a beautiful but sometimes
puzzling wife, no children, and a few jokes his friends
were probably heartily sick of hearing—a nonentity
and a crashing bore. Nobody would ever name a
bridge after me, or a disease, or a gazelle.
Except for eight years away at school and one in
Korea, I’d lived here all my life. My mother, who died
when I was eight, had left me three pieces of
commercial property on Clebourne Street, one of
which I’d sold, using the proceeds to speculate in
Florida real estate. I’d made a fair minor-league
fortune out of it. I still owned the other two
properties, which brought in a comfortable income.
Warren Realty was in one, and the other was the old
Duquesne Building on the northeast corner of
Clebourne and Montrose, which contained Lackner
The Long Saturday Night — 5
Optical, the Sport Shop, and Allen’s Stationery store,
as well as the professional offices on the second floor.
My father, who was in the Citizens National Bank, had
died in 1952, while I was in Korea.
It was right here in the office that I’d first met
Frances. She came in one morning, two years ago this
week, and wanted to rent the vacant store space in
the Duquesne Building—the one now occupied by the
Sport Shop, with the living quarters in back—to open
a dress shop. My first impression was that no woman
that good-looking and that young—she was only 25—
could know anything about running a business, but it
developed she did. She and her husband had owned a
very successful dress shop in Miami until they’d split
up the year before. After the divorce she’d wanted to
get away from Miami and had started for the Coast in
her car, stopped overnight in Carthage, and became
interested in its possibilities. In the end I rented her
the space, and then in less than six months did myself
out of a tenant by persuading her to marry me. . . .
I tried to shrug off this mood of futility, and
attacked the accumulation of paper work on my desk.
Evans, one of the salesmen, came in to discuss an
offer he’d received on one of the listings. At three I
went next door to Fuller’s for a cup of coffee. The cold
front was going to be on us in less than an hour; angry
masses of clouds, dark and swollen with turbulence,
were beginning to pile up in the northwest. People
were rolling up the windows of parked cars and
keeping an eye on it as they hurried along the
sidewalks. I wished it had come through before
daybreak this morning, as originally forecast; I might
have got some ducks.
Barbara came in to take some letters. She was
sitting in the chair near the corner of the desk with
her legs crossed, the shorthand notebook on her
thigh, and as I dictated I found my train of thought
being interrupted from time to time. It would be
asinine to say she had worked for me for over a year
without my ever having noticed that she was a very
attractive girl, but this was apparently the first time
I’d ever consciously thought of it. Leaning forward as
The Long Saturday Night — 6
she was, a strand of reddish-brown hair had swung
down alongside her face, framing the line of her
cheek. She was wearing a blouse with long full
sleeves gathered closely at the wrists, and I found my
eyes returning time after time to the slender, fineboned
hands below them with their delicate tracery of
blue veins and the tapering fingers moving so
gracefully at their work. I stumbled in mid-sentence.
Without looking up she read back, “—not presently
included within the corporate limits of the city of
Carthage comma nor expected to be so included
within—” One corner of her mouth twitched
humorously. “Not ‘foreseeable future’, I hope?”
I grinned. “No. I’ve often wondered what that
meant, myself. How about ‘near future’?”
I went on, but I was still having difficulty
concentrating on the letter. I was disgusted with
myself and wondered if that was what I was going to
become, a middle-aged ogler of secretaries. It wasn’t
difficult to imagine the contempt she’d feel if she
were aware of this scrutiny; she’d already had one
experience with a philandering husband—her own.
Just then, before I could stumble again, the telephone
rang. She answered it, and passed it to me. “It’s the
Sheriff.”
“Sheriff?” I repeated stupidly, wondering what
Scanlon would be calling here for. “Hello.”
“Warren? Listen, did you go hunting this morning?
Out at Crossman Slough?”
“Yes,” I said. “Why?”
“What time?”
“I got there a little before daylight, and left—I think
it was about a quarter of ten.”
“You didn’t see anything of Dan Roberts out there?”
I frowned. “No. I saw his car, though. What’s this all
about?”
“He killed himself. I’m trying to get some idea of
what time.”
“Killed himself!”
The Long Saturday Night — 7
“Yes. Dr. Martin and Jimmie MacBride found him
about a half hour ago, and called in from Vernon’s
store. Doc said he’d blown most of the side of his head
off, and apparently it happened sometime early this
morning. He was in that blind around to the right
from the end of the road, the number 2, I think you
fellows call it. Where were you?”
“Number 1. Straight down from the end of the road.
But, good God, how’d he do it?”
“I don’t know. Mulholland’s out there now, with the
ambulance. Doc said the gun must have been
practically in his face when it went off, so I guess he
was picking it up by the barrel. Was he still doing any
shooting over there when you left?”
“No,” I said. “There was nothing to shoot at. I never
saw a duck the whole morning. The only shots I heard
were just about daybreak.”
“That would have been before legal opening hour.”
“I know,” I said. “I remember being a little burned
about it and wondering who it was. We’re pretty strict
about that.”
“It’d have to be Roberts, because you two were the
only ones out there. I’ve talked to everybody else. But
did you say shots?”
“That’s right. Two.”
“How close together?”
I thought about it. “It’s hard to say, but probably
less than a minute apart.”
“Not like a man trying for a double on a flight of
ducks?”
“No. Too far apart for that. They’d have been out of
range before he got off the second one. It was more as
if he’d knocked down a cripple that started to get up
so he had to shoot it again. That’s what I thought it
was, actually. A single.”
“Nothing came over you?”
“No. As I said, I didn’t see a duck the whole
morning. The chances are they would have flared out
over that number 1 blind where I was, because it’s on
The Long Saturday Night — 8
that point between the two arms of the slough, and
even if they’d gone behind me I’d have heard the
wings.”
“It’s damn funny, all right. And you never heard
anything at all after that?”
“Not a sound.”
“I see. Oh, there’s one more thing. You don’t know
anything about his next of kin?”
“No,” I said. “I’m sorry. My understanding is he
came from Texas, but I’m not sure where.”
“Well, we’ll try the store, and his personal gear.
Thanks.”
Barbara was watching wide-eyed as I hung up. I told
her about it. “Oh, no!” she exclaimed. “How awful.”
“It’s a rotten shame.” He was probably still in his
twenties. But at least he didn’t have a wife and
children to break the news to, as far as I knew. In
spite of the fact he was a tenant of mine, I didn’t know
a great deal about him other than the fact he was a
deadly shot at skeet and drove a high-powered sports
car. He was a lean, dark, Indian-looking type who was
pleasant enough but never talked much about himself.
He’d come to Carthage about ten months ago and
opened the Sports Shop in the Duquesne Building, in
the same space where Frances had had her dress
shop, and lived in the small apartment behind it. Just
before hunting season he’d joined the Duck Club,
buying Art Russell’s membership when Art moved to
Florida. We kept it limited to eight members.
But how had he done it? While I’d never hunted
with him, I had shot skeet with him a couple of times
at the Rutherford Trap and Skeet Club, and he was a
natural with a gun. He followed the safety rules in
that automatic way of men who’ve been handling guns
all their lives. But then hunting accidents were nearly
always inexplicable. I tried to push it out of my mind
and go on with the letters, but the feeling of
depression persisted.
The storm struck a few minutes after five. I went
out front and stared through the window at the rain-
The Long Saturday Night — 9
lashed street where the ropes of tinsel still up from
Christmas whipped and billowed in the wind. Evans
and Turner had already gone. Barbara was covering
the typewriter and taking her purse from a drawer.
“I’ll run you home,” I said.
She smiled, but shook her head. “Thanks. I brought
my car today.”
Just as she was going out the door the telephone
rang. I motioned for her to go ahead, and picked it up
myself. It was Scanlon again. “Warren? Can you get
over to the courthouse right away?”
“Sure,” I said. “What is it?”
“It’s about Roberts.”
“Have you been able to figure out how it
happened?”
“We’re not sure. I’ll tell you about it when you get
here.”
I locked the front door and made a run for the car.
It was only three blocks over to the courthouse on
Stanley, the second street north of Clebourne. It was
perceptibly colder now, and already growing dark
under the downpour. I found a parking place near the
entrance and dashed up the steps.
The sheriff’s office was on the lower floor left. It
was a big room, separated from the doorway by a
chest-high counter and a railing with a gate. On the
far wall was a large-scale map of the county and a
glass-fronted case containing several .30-30 carbines
and a couple of tear-gas guns, while most of the space
on the right was taken up by a battery of filing
cabinets. There were four desks with green-shaded
droplights above them. Mulholland, the chief deputy,
was standing at the end of one of the desks near the
left side of the room, intent on several objects atop it
under the hot cone of light. One was a Browning
double-barreled shotgun with the breech open, while
the others appeared to be a shotgun shell, an
envelope, and some photographs. Just as I
approached, Scanlon emerged from his private office
at the left beyond the desk. He was a big man, still
The Long Saturday Night — 10
slender and flat-bellied in middle age, and was
coatless, the collar of his shirt unbuttoned and the tie
pulled open. The graying hair was rumpled and he
looked tired, but the hawk-beaked face and gray eyes
were expressionless.
Without a word he handed me one of the big 8-by-10
photographs. I looked at it and felt my stomach start
to come up into my throat. It had apparently been
taken in the entrance to the duck blind. Roberts had
fallen back into the small boat in which he’d been
sitting, most of the side of his head blown away above
the right eyebrow and the eye itself exploded out of
the socket by some freak of hydrostatic pressure. I
shuddered and put it down on the table, and when I
looked up Scanlon’s eyes were on my face.
“Did you shoot him?” he asked.
I was still shaken, and it didn’t penetrate at first.
“What?”
“I said, did you shoot him?”
“Are you crazy? Of course I didn’t—”
He cut me off. “Look, Warren, better men than you
have shot someone accidentally, and panicked. If you
did, say so now, while you can.”
“I’ve told you already,” I said hotly. “I didn’t even
see him. And I don’t appreciate—”
“Keep your hair on.” He took a cigar from his shirt
pocket and bit the end off it. “I just asked you.”
“I thought you said he shot himself.”
“That was what we were supposed to think,”
Mulholland put in with a supercilious smile. He was a
big, flashy ex-athlete who always walked as if he were
watching himself in a mirror. I’d never liked him.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“He wasn’t killed with his own gun.”
“How do you know?”
He shrugged, and looked at Scanlon. “You want me
to tell him?”
Scanlon was lighting his cigar. He waved a hand.
“Go ahead.”
The Long Saturday Night — 11
Mulholland pointed to the shotgun. “Both barrels
were loaded, but only one had been fired. Here’s the
empty shell.” He touched the empty with his finger,
rolled it over so the printing was uppermost. “See?
Number 6 shot, it says.”
“Yes. So?”
He moved his hand to the white envelope, tilted it,
and six or eight shot pellets rolled out onto the
surface of the desk. “So these are some of the shot we
took out of his head, and they’re number 4’s.”
The Long Saturday Night — 12
2
I stared from one to the other. “Are you sure?” I asked
at last.
“Positive,” Scanlon said bluntly. “We’ve compared
them with 4’s and 6’s from new shells, and miked ‘em
—the ones that’re still round—and weighed ‘em at the
physics lab out at the high school. These shot are
number 4’s. And the fired shell was loaded with 6’s.”
“Well, wait—maybe it was a reload. I’ll admit it
would be silly for him to reload his own shells when
he could buy ‘em wholesale.”
Scanlon shook his head. “It was no reload. It was a
new shell, right from the factory. The same as the unfired
one in the gun, and the other 23 in his hunting
coat, out of a new box of 25. Somebody killed him,
and then fired his gun to make it look like an accident.
That’s the reason you heard two shots from over
there.”
“If he did,” Mulholland said.
I turned and looked at him. “How was that again?”
“I said, if you did hear two shots—from that other
blind.”
“If you want to ask me any questions,” I told
Scanlon, “you’d better send your boy home, or tell
The Long Saturday Night — 13
him to keep his remarks to himself. We’re not going to
get anywhere this way.”
“Shut up, both of you!” he snapped. He turned to
me. “Now, you say you got out there before daylight.
Was there any other car parked at the end of the road
besides Roberts’?”
“There was no car at all when I got there.”
“I thought you said you saw his car.”
“When I was leaving,” I explained. “I was already in
the blind when the other car got there. I didn’t know
whose it was then, of course; I just saw headlights
flashing through the trees. When I started home,
somewhere around ten o’clock, it was still there, and I
saw it was Roberts’ Porsche.”
“And you never did see any other car?”
“No.”
“Could there have been one without your seeing it?”
“It’s not likely, unless he drove in with his lights off,
which would be a little hard to do on a road through
heavy timber, or unless he arrived after daylight.”
“But at the time you heard those two shots from the
other blind it was still too dark to drive without
lights?”
“Yes.”
“That blind you were in is the nearest one to the end
of the road. Did Roberts try to come out to it?”
“No,” I said. “When he saw my car there, he’d have
been pretty sure it was occupied. It’s the best location
of the four, and always taken on a first-come firstserved
basis.”
“Was the gate out there at the highway locked when
you went in?”
“Yes,” I said. “And locked when I came out.”
He nodded. “Still, Roberts could have forgotten to
lock it after him when he came in, and whoever killed
him could have followed him almost to the parking
area before he left his car. Going out, he wouldn’t
need a key to close a padlock. On the other hand, of
The Long Saturday Night — 14
course, he could have walked in all the way. It’s less
than three miles from the highway.”
“You mean you actually believe somebody went out
there deliberately to murder him?”
Scanlon nodded, his eyes bleak. “What else is there?
He went hunting alone. You were the only other
person out there. He didn’t shoot himself. So
somebody shot him in cold blood. And then tried to set
up this phony accident. He might have got away with
it, too, if he’d thought to check the size shot Roberts
was shooting.”
“But why?” I asked blankly. “Who’d have any reason
to kill him?”
“If we knew that, he’d be down here now. You can’t
think of anybody he’s ever had trouble with?”
“No,” I said.
“How did you get along with him?”
“All right. He was a good tenant, paid his rent on
time, no beefs.”
“You usually use number 4 shot for ducks, don’t
you?” Mulholland asked.
“That’s right,” I said. “I always do. And I was
shooting 4’s today. Why?”
He gave me a cold smile. “I just wanted to be sure.”
“Good. Then your mind’s at rest. Go put some more
hair tonic on it.”
Scanlon cursed us, and broke it up. We were an
intelligent pair, I thought sourly, grown men acting
like children. It was a legitimate question, under the
circumstances, but I didn’t like the dirty way he put it.
He always rubbed me the wrong way.
“Weren’t there any fingerprints on the gun?” I
asked.
“No,” Scanlon said. “Not even Roberts’.”
“Somebody wiped ‘em off,” Mulholland said.
“Clever, huh?”
I ignored him this time, and spoke to Scanlon. “Is
that all?”
The Long Saturday Night — 15
He was staring moodily at the shotgun. “Oh? Yeah,
that’s all. Thanks for coming down.”
I went back to the car. It was too early for dinner
and I couldn’t face the thought of a whole evening in
that empty house, so I went back to the office and
worked on a rough draft of my income tax until after
eight before going into Fuller’s. Everybody was
talking about Roberts, and I had to repeat what I
knew about it a half-dozen times. It was around ten
when I drove home. The house is only six blocks from
downtown, a rambling cream-colored brick I’d built
when Frances and I were married, replacing the old
Warren house which had burned down in 1955. An
extension of the circular drive goes back along the
side of it to the two-car garage, which adjoins the
kitchen. The house is roughly U-shaped, with the
kitchen and dining room in the short wing, the long
35-foot living room and my den across the front with
the entrance hall between them, while a continuation
of the hall runs back through the other wing past the
guest rooms to the master bedroom with its fireplace,
dressing room, and bath taking up the far end.
Rain, wind-driven, beat against the house. I mixed a
drink and tried to settle down in the living room with
a book, but it was no good. I kept thinking of Roberts.
It was fantastic. Why would somebody have wanted to
kill him? And why out there—aside from the futile
attempt to make it appear an accident? Only eight of
us had keys to that gate. Besides Roberts and myself,
there were Dr. Martin; Jim MacBride, the Ford dealer;
George Clement, the town’s leading attorney; Clint
Henry, cashier of the Citizens National Bank; and Bill
Sorensen and Wally Albers, who were away at the
moment, on a cruise to Jamaica with their wives. They
were all good friends of mine. Of course, as Scanlon
said, Roberts might have left the gate open when he
came in, or the man could have walked in, but even so
he’d have to be familiar with the terrain and the
location of the blinds to get there, three miles from
the highway, in the dark. The turnoff was fifteen miles
east of town.
The Long Saturday Night — 16
I went out and mixed another drink. The telephone
rang. There’s an extension in the kitchen; I sat down
at the table in the breakfast nook and reached for it.
“Is this Duke Warren?” It was a girl’s voice.
“Yes,” I said. “Who’s this?”
“Never mind. I just thought I’d tell you—you won’t
get away with it.”
I frowned. “Get away with what?”
“I suppose you think because you own most of the
town they won’t do anything. Well, I’ve got news for
you.”
Somebody on a telephone jag, I thought, though she
didn’t sound drunk. “I’ll tell you, why don’t you call
me in the morning?”
“Don’t try to brush me off. You know what I’m
talking about. Dan Roberts.”
I’d started to hang up, but caught myself just in
time when I heard the name. “Roberts?” I snapped.
“What about him?”
“If you had to kill somebody, why not her? You don’t
think he was the only one, do you?”
I slammed the receiver down on the cradle and
stood up, shaking with rage. When I tried to light a
cigarette, I fumbled and dropped it in my drink. In a
few minutes I began to get it under control, realizing
it was childish to let a thing like that get under my
skin. Nobody paid any attention to psychos and
creeps. They crawled out of the woodwork every time
something happened, spewed up their anonymous
telephone calls, and went back. I washed out the glass
and rebuilt the drink, tried the cigarette again, and
got one alight this time, regretting now that I’d hung
up on her. I should have made some effort to find out
who she was. The telephone rang again. I went over
and picked it up, very coldly this time. But it was
probably somebody else; she wouldn’t have the guts
to call back.
She did. “Don’t hang up when I’m talking to you.
You’re in no position to.”
The Long Saturday Night — 17
“No?” I asked. “Why not?” I knew practically
everybody in town; maybe if she kept talking I could
identify her. The voice was vaguely familiar.
“Maybe you think Scanlon’s a fool? Or afraid of
you?”
She didn’t sound particularly bright; nobody who’d
known Scanlon as long as an hour could have any
illusions as to his being a fool, or that he’d ever been
afraid of anything. “Get to the point,” I said. “What
about Scanlon?”
“I think he’ll be interested to learn that she’s been
going to Dan’s apartment. Of course, she used to live
there, so maybe she just forgets she’s moved.”
“You bet he’ll be interested,” I said. “So I’ll tell you
what you do. Go down to the sheriff’s office right now
and tell him about it. I’ll meet you there, and when
you get through I’ll file charges against you for
slander and defamation of character.”
“Don’t bet on it. I just might have proof.”
“Well, don’t forget to bring it when you come out
from under your rock, because you’re sure as hell
going to need it.”
“I’m talking about a cigarette lighter. Or didn’t you
know that’s where she lost it?”
“I don’t know why it’s any of your business,” I said,
“but she hasn’t lost it.”
“Are you sure, now? A thin gold lighter with a
couple of fancy initials that look like F.W.? It’s a—
hummm—Dunhill. Sweet dreams, Mr. Warren.” This
time she hung up.
I sat there for a moment, feeling vaguely uneasy;
that was Frances’ lighter she’d described. And now
that I thought of it, she had said something about it,
two or three weeks ago. Then I remembered. It had
needed repairs, a new spark wheel or something, so
she’d sent it back to the store in New York where I’d
bought it for her. As a matter of fact, it was probably
here now. I jumped up and went out to the living
room; unless I was mistaken, a small parcel had come
for her since she’d been in New Orleans. I yanked
The Long Saturday Night — 18
open the drawer of the table where I’d put her mail,
and was conscious of relief and, at the same time, a
faint twinge of guilt that I’d even felt it necessary to
check. It was a small, flat package, insured parcel
post, and it was from Dunhill’s in New York.
As I dropped it back in the drawer, I noticed the
letter under it was from her brokerage firm in New
Orleans, and wondered idly if she’d been switching
stocks without asking my advice. Not that it mattered
particularly; it was only a small account, around six
thousand dollars, and hers personally, the money
she’d received from the stock and fixtures of the dress
shop when we were married.
I sat down with my drink, still trying to clean the
telephone call out of my mind. Who was the girl, and
what was her object in a thing like that? Some nut
with a grudge against the whole human race, or did
she have some specific reason to hate Frances, or me?
She must have known Roberts pretty well; once she’d
referred to him by his first name. The voice had been
tantalizingly familiar, but I still couldn’t place her.
And how had she described the lighter so well? Of
course, she could have seen Frances using it
somewhere, but why the odd phrasing? It’s a—hmmm
—Dunhill. If that was deliberate, it was damned
clever; it gave the impression she was holding it in
her hand as she spoke.
She wasn’t that clever, I thought, beginning to feel
a chill between my shoulder blades. Cursing, I strode
back to the table, and yanked open the drawer again.
Tearing off the wrappings, I flipped up the lid of the
velvet-covered box. It was the same gold-plated
lighter, with the same ornate monogram, but it was a
brand-new one.
For what must have been a full minute I stood
looking stupidly down at it, and then around the room,
trying to re-orient myself the way you do after being
hit hard at football. There must be some mistake.
Maybe they’d given her this one to replace the old
one, on a guarantee, or something. No, the receipted
sales slip was under it, with a refund voucher for
overpayment. She’d sent a check. I turned and
The Long Saturday Night — 19
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