The Long Saturday Night by Charles Williams 1962(page 6)

“Long distance?”
“Yes. El Paso is calling. For Miss Bentley.”
The Long Saturday Night — 78
‘This is Miss Bentley, but—”
“Go ahead, please.”
“Hello,” I said. “Hello, Doris?” I heard her gasp. “It
took me a long time to remember where I’d heard
your voice before.”
“Who are you?” she demanded. “And what are you
talking about?”
“You know who I am, so let’s get down to cases. And
don’t hang up on me, because if you do Scanlon’s
going to pick you up. I’ve still got a friend or two
there, and he might get a tip; you didn’t invent the
anonymous telephone call.”
“Just a moment, please,” she said sweetly. I heard
her put down the phone, and then the rattle of coins
from the change dispenser.
She came back. “You wouldn’t dare! I’d tell him
where you are.”
“Try me and see. After all, they’re going to catch me
sooner or later, so I haven’t got much to lose. But you
have, haven’t you?”

“What is it you want?”
“The name of the other man.”
“What other man?”
“Listen—when you called me, you said Roberts
wasn’t the only one. What’s his name?”
“I don’t know.”
“All right. You’re asking for it.”
“I tell you, I don’t know. All I know is there was one.
It was when I was still working for her, before she
married.”
“How do you know there was?”
“I just do,” she said sullenly.
“I said how?”
“I’ve got eyes, haven’t I? The stuck-up witch, she
didn’t fool me—”
“You really hated her, didn’t you?”
“So what if I did?”
“Why?”
The Long Saturday Night — 79
“That’s my business. And, anyway, she was the one
got Roberts killed, wasn’t she?”
“I don’t know. That’s what I’m trying to find out.”
“Now, there’s a hot one. That’s a real gas.”
“Did you ever tell Roberts about this man?”
“No.”
“Because he didn’t exist, isn’t that right?”
“All right, you have it your way. I still know what I
know.”
“Did Roberts ever ask you anything about her?”
“No. Except once, I think he did ask me what her
name was before she was married. And where she
came from.”
“Did he say why he asked?”
“No.”
“When was this?”
“It was way last summer.”
“Do you remember exactly?”
“Why are you asking all these stupid questions? I
think it was the first time we dated. In July, or June—I
don’t know. Stop bothering me. I don’t want to talk
about it any more.” The line went dead.
The intercom came on, and Barbara asked, “What
do you make of it?”
“Not much. Maybe she’s lying about the other man.”
“I’m not too sure; though she is bitter about
something. It might be Roberts’ death, of course. But
there’s still something odd about the way she held out
on that one point—I mean, how she knew there was
somebody else.”
“And still doesn’t know who he is. Or says she
doesn’t.”
“Or who he was. I just remembered something while
you were talking. Didn’t she used to date Junior
Delevan?”
I frowned. “Yes. Now I think of it, she did.”
The Long Saturday Night — 80
“I don’t know what that could have to do with this,
but she does have bad luck with her boy friends.” The
speaker went silent.
Delevan was a wild, good-looking kid with a
penchant for trouble; he’d been arrested several times
for car theft while still in high school, and later had
been convicted of burglary and given a suspended
sentence. Then just about two years ago they’d found
his body on the city dump one morning with the top of
his head broken in. The police never found out who’d
done it.
As I recalled now, it was just before Frances and I
were married, while she was still running the shop,
but she couldn’t have had anything to do with him.
She was twenty-five then, and he couldn’t have been
over nineteen. She probably didn’t even know him,
except she might have seen him with Doris a time or
two.
The intercom hummed. “Telegram,” she whispered.
I grabbed the phone just as she started to dial.
“Sheriff’s office, Mulholland.”
“Could I speak to Mr. Scanlon, please? This is Mrs.
Ryan.”
“I think it could be arranged, honey; but wouldn’t I
do?” You could see the smirk on the stupid bastard’s
face. I wondered how it would look with a boot
sticking out of it.
“If you don’t mind,” she said coolly, “I’d rather
speak to Mr. Scanlon.”
“Right you are, sweetie.”
When Scanlon came on the line, she said, “This is
Barbara Ryan again. I’ve just received another
telegram—”
“From Warren?” he broke in.
“No. It’s from Houston, Texas, and it is addressed to
Mr. Warren. The text reads as follows: DAN ROBERTS
BORN HOUSTON 1933, ORPHANED AT AGE
TWELVE, RAISED BY OLDER BROTHER CLINTON
ROBERTS OWNER DOWNTOWN SPORTING GOODS
STORE STOP JOINED HOUSTON POLICE FORCE
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1954 BECAME DETECTIVE VICE SQUAD 1957
SUSPENDED AND INDICTED FOR EXTORTION 1958
STOP DREW SUSPENDED SENTENCE STOP APRIL
LAST YEAR BROTHER ADVANCED MONEY
ESTABLISH HIMSELF IN BUSINESS ELSEWHERE
GET NEW START AWAY FROM ASSOCIATIONS
HERE STOP HAS NEVER BEEN IN FLORIDA
UNLESS SINCE LAST APRIL STOP NO DANGEROUS
ENEMIES BUT WITH KIND OF FRIENDS HE HAD HE
DIDN’T NEED ANY SIGNED CATES.”
“What do you suppose it means?” Barbara asked
then.
“I don’t know,” Scanlon replied wearily. “But I’m
getting afraid to open my desk drawer for a cigar; a
couple of Warren’s detectives might jump out in my
face. We just heard from New Orleans.”
“About Denman?”
“Yes. He says he was hired by a man from here by
the name of Joseph Randall.”
“Randall? I don’t think I know anybody—”
“Exactly.”
“But didn’t he meet this Randall? Or doesn’t he have
an address, or phone number?”
“No. Randall called him by long distance and hired
him to follow Mrs. Warren. Said he’d send him the
retainer, which he did—in cash, through the mail.
That was Monday. He called Denman Tuesday night
and then again Wednesday night, for his report. We’re
having the phone company check out the calls now,
but they’ll turn out to be from a pay phone. It’s so
damn characteristic of paranoia—you’ve got to be sly,
and fool ‘em; everybody’s plotting against you.”
“But it could have been somebody else. Naturally,
he’d want to keep his identity secret—”
He sighed. “Mrs. Ryan, did you ever hear of
anybody hiring a detective to watch another man’s
wife?”
“Then why would Denman take the assignment
under those circumstances?”
The Long Saturday Night — 82
“He has the reputation of not being too fussy about
who hires him as long as he gets paid.”
The last lead was gone now. I slumped over the
desk with my head in my hands. I’d have been better
off if I’d given myself up in the first place. Heels
tapped in the passage, and the door opened softly.
Barbara had her purse under her arm.
She smiled. “A girl’s entitled to rebuild her face
before the coffee break.” Seating herself by the desk,
she slid a yellow envelope from the purse. “This just
came, and I don’t think I’ve got the nerve to read him
another one this soon.”
“Thanks.” I dropped in the chair behind the desk
and tore it open.
JOHN D. WARREN WARREN REALTY
CARTHAGE ALABAMA:
NO SUCH PERSON AS FRANCES KINNAN
STOP HAVE CHECKED VITAL STATISTICS
ORLANDO AND DADE COUNTY NO BIRTH
NO MARRIAGE NO DIVORCE STOP
UNHEARD OF AT UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI
AND BURDINES STOP NO RECORD OF A
LEON DUPRE NOR SHOP ANYWHERE
MIAMI AREA NAMED LEONS STOP
ADVISE FURTHER ACTION DESIRED
CROSBY INVESTIGATIONS
I read it, and silently passed it to her.
The Long Saturday Night — 83
8
She read it.
“Any ideas?” she asked at last.
“One,” I said. “Quit, while I still know who I am.”
“Maybe it’s not quite as hopeless as that,” she
replied. “It seems to me you’ve pretty well established
what was at the bottom of it. You have a man with a
previous record of extortion, and a woman—” She
hesitated, embarrassed.
“It’s all right,” I said. “We’ve got no time to search
for euphemisms; let’s call ‘em as they fall. A woman
with something to hide, possibly a criminal record.
Result: blackmail. But it still makes no sense.” I
showed her the figures from the bank statements. “I’ll
admit the pattern matches what Doris Bentley said—
that Roberts first asked about her along in the
summer. For the sake of argument we’ll assume he
had some reason to suspect she wasn’t who she’d said
she was. Then maybe he started checking, and found
out what she was trying to cover up. So far, so good—
it was in August the checks she wrote for cash
suddenly took a jump. But look at the picayune
amounts: $200 a month at most. And all the time she
had $6000 of her own she didn’t touch—until this
week when she threw it away on a bunch of gluefooted
horses. That doesn’t sound very desperate to
The Long Saturday Night — 84
me. And, finally, she didn’t kill Roberts, anyway; she
wasn’t even in the same state.”
“No,” she said. “But aren’t you overlooking the
possibility two people could have been paying
blackmail? If Doris is right, she had a boy friend.”
I looked at her thoughtfully. “Maybe you’ve got it!
And that would account for Roberts’ income that
Ernie couldn’t figure out. There’s no telling how much
he was tapping this other party for.”
“It’s about the only thing that fits the facts we have
now,” she said.
I lit a cigarette, and one for her. “There’s one more
thing that puzzles me at the moment,” I said. “How
did you ever work for me for a full year without my
finding out you had more sense than I have?”
She gave me that cynical, lopsided grin. “Hiding
that from the boss is the first thing any secretary
learns.” She went on, “Seriously, though—”
“Seriously, though,” I interrupted her, “I’m
beginning to think the only smart thing I’ve done in
years was hire you, when you left George.
Incidentally, why did you quit him? I don’t think you
ever told me.”
She shrugged. “I just didn’t like legal work, I guess.
It’s too fussy—ten copies of everything, and no
erasures. But let’s get back to the brainstorming. The
next question telegraphs itself.”
“Right,” I said. “What was the boy friend so afraid of
that he’d pay off to Roberts? Scandal? Divorce?”
She shook her head. “It must have been more than
that. He not only paid off, he finally killed him. And
her, too.”
I nodded. “I still think Doris Bentley knows more
about it than she’ll admit. Do you suppose it could
have had something to do with Junior Delevan? She
was still working for Frances then.”
She nibbled at her lower lip. “Yes, I think she was.
I’ve been trying to remember exactly when it
happened. In May, wasn’t it, two years ago? It was
Sunday morning when they found his body, and the
The Long Saturday Night — 85
medical examiner estimated he’d been killed around
midnight the night before.”
“Sure, I remember now. I was in Tampa on business
and didn’t hear about it until I got back, the following
Tuesday, I think—” I paused, trying to recall
something. “Wait a minute! I’ve got it now. I had a
date with Frances that Saturday night, to take her to
a country club dance at Rutherford, but had to break
it at the last minute and drive to Mobile to catch a
plane. And now that I think about it, she was acting a
little strangely when I came back, as if something
were bothering her. I just thought it was because of
the broken date.”
“Well, she couldn’t have killed Junior—not without
an elephant gun. Or carried his body out there to the
dump. He was a pretty big boy—around 200 pounds.”
A wild idea was beginning to nudge the edge of my
mind. It was a forlorn hope, but all I had now. “I’ve
got to talk to Doris. If she knows anything, I’ll scare it
out of her.”
She stared at me. “You can’t leave here.”
“I can’t stay here forever, either. None of this has
got me anywhere; I started out trying to find out
who’d killed Frances, and now I don’t even know who
she was. I’m just going backward.”
“Somebody’ll see you. Or she’ll call the police.”
“I’ll have to risk it. Do you know where she lives?”
She still looked scared. “No. But if you insist, I can
find out. And I’ll drive you.”
“No. Absolutely not.”
She stood up. “I’ve got to get back out front. I’ll talk
to you later.”
She called Scanlon and read him the telegram from
Crosby.
“What do you think now?” she asked.
“That I must be crazy myself. I asked for this job.”
“Don’t you consider that this information changes
the picture a little?”
The Long Saturday Night — 86
“Nothing can change the facts, Mrs. Ryan. Warren
killed her, no matter who she was.”
“I thought you weren’t trying the case, Mr.
Scanlon.”
He sighed. “I’m not. But Warren was there in the
house alone when she drove the car into the garage,
and when he left the house she was dead. There’s no
way anybody can climb out of that. It’s sealed, it’s
final. But never mind that. Just remember, when he
calls, all you have to do is keep him talking as long as
possible. The telephone company and the El Paso
Police will do the rest. And he should call any time
now.”
“All right,” she said, her tone edged with bitterness.
“But if it develops there’s a reward for the job, don’t
forget to send it to me in silver.”
“Stop beating yourself over the head. Do you want
him to kill somebody else before we can catch him?”
She went out after awhile for coffee, and when she
came back there was somebody with her. I could hear
a man’s voice I thought was Turner’s; apparently he’d
decided to come in for something. The typewriter
clattered. At five-thirty I heard them preparing to
leave. Her heels clicked down the passage as she
went to the washroom, and a folded sheet of paper
slid under the door. I picked up the typed message.
“Doris Bentley lives in that apartment house at the
corner of Taylor and Westbury. Apartment 2C. This is
Saturday, so she’ll probably have a date after she gets
off work. I’ll find out and let you know. Since you
can’t answer the phone unless you’re sure it’s me, let
it ring at least ten times.
“Questions, pertinent and impertinent: If F. were
hiding from something or somebody, why did she
choose Carthage? Just at random? Was that
apartment at the rear of the store furnished as living
quarters at the time she rented it? And was that space
the best available in town at the time for a dress
shop? Assuming Doris is right about the boy friend,
how did the two of them get by with it in a town this
size without anybody but Doris ever suspecting?”
The Long Saturday Night — 87
Smart girl, I thought; you’re priceless. I lit a
cigarette and sat frowning at the sheet of paper. The
implication was clear, and along the same line as the
thought I’d already had—that it was improbable that
two people would come to a town where they knew no
one at all and open businesses. My idea, of course,
had been that she and Roberts had known each other
somewhere before; on the information I had now, that
seemed very unlikely. And after all, she’d come here
over a year before Roberts had. So maybe she knew
somebody else, who was already here. Who’d brought
her here. And was it because of the apartment? Or
rather, its location? I tried to remember the places
available at the time. There’d been a vacant store in
this block, I was pretty sure, which would have been a
better location for that type shop. Of course, I’d given
her a good sales talk, but she hadn’t been hard to
convince.
It wasn’t much of an apartment, just a small
pullman kitchen, bathroom, and combined living room
and bedroom, but it was already completely furnished.
There were two entrances, one through the front of
the store, and the other on the alley—or rather, into
the vestibule at the foot of the rear stairs coming
down from the second floor.
I began to feel the proddings of excitement.
Naturally, a man going in and out the front door of a
main street dress shop, open or closed, day or night,
would be as conspicuous as a broken leg in a chorus
line, and the rear entrance wasn’t a great deal better.
But suppose he was already in the building, a tenant
of one of the offices on the second floor? Then the
excitement drained away as I named them over in my
mind: Dr. Martin; George Clement; Dr. Atlee; Dr.
Sawyer, the dentist. Sawyer and Martin were both at
least 65, Dr. Atlee was a woman, and George—it was
ridiculous.
But the idea refused to die altogether. George and
Dr. Martin were both members of the Duck Club. And
pillars of the community had been caught off base
before, plenty of times. Then I grunted, and ground
out the cigarette. The whole thing was pure
The Long Saturday Night — 88
speculation, and where was there any motive for
murder, anyway? The man I was looking for had killed
two people; he’d been afraid of something worse than
a divorce and a little scandal.
The room began to grow dark, but I didn’t dare turn
on a light. I wondered if I could stand another six or
seven hours alone with my thoughts without going
mad. I wished Barbara would call. At last I could
stand it no longer, and called her, holding the
cigarette lighter so I could see to dial. Her line was
busy. I waited five minutes and was about to try again
when the phone began to ring. I let it ring ten times
and picked it up.
“Hello,” she said softly. “I’ve just been talking to
Paul Denman in New Orleans.”
“Did you learn anything?”
“Very little, and nothing that’s any help. He doesn’t
remember much about this Randall’s voice except that
it was in the low baritone range and the man sounded
as if he were reasonably well educated. Could be any
one of a dozen men here in town—including you. He
says it might be possible he’d recognize the voice if he
heard it again, but he’d never be able to pick it out of
a number of others in the same register, and as far as
evidence is concerned it would be useless in court.
The money Randall sent him was in a plain white
envelope you can buy in any dime store. Typewriter
addressed. No message with it.”
“Looks like a dead end there,” I said. “But thanks a
million for trying.”
“I’m going out now to see what Doris Bentley does
when she gets off work, and I’ll call you later.”
I waited. I began thinking about Frances, and
seeing the ruin of her face before me in the dark, and
knew I had to stop it or I’d go crazy. I tried to force
my thoughts back into some logical approach to the
solution of the thing, but my mind was numb. I’d been
struggling with it too long. Then I found myself
thinking of Barbara, and of the old cliché that you
never know who your friends are until you’re in
trouble.
The Long Saturday Night — 89
She was originally from Rutherford, and had had
the misfortune to fall in love with and marry a kid
whose life was all behind him by the time he could
vote. Johnnie Ryan at 18 was like Alexander at 32 or
whatever it was. Rutherford is a town that’s as
football-crazy as Texas, to begin with, and Ryan was
the greatest halfback the high school had ever
produced. Most kids take it in stride, but apparently
those autumn afternoons of jampacked stands all
screaming, “Oh, Johnnie, oh, Johnnie, how you can
run!”—with probably too many of the girls having
good reason to remember the original words of the
song—had done something to him from which he
could never recover. He’d gone off to Ole Miss on an
athletic scholarship, but he was up against tougher
competition there and never quite made it back to the
pinnacle. He tried out with the Chicago Bears the
autumn he and Barbara were married, but discovered
that high school clippings didn’t buy you anything in a
pro outfit where they played football for keeps, and
he’d come home after a month.
She’d never talked about it, but I guess it was pretty
rough being married to an ex-hero. He’d done all right
for a while, selling cars in Rutherford, and then in
New Orleans, and Mobile, and Oxford, Mississippi,
and finally here in Carthage, working for Jim
MacBride, but the commissions were growing smaller
as the drunks got bigger and longer and the extramarital
affairs more numerous. Maybe it was simply a
matter of needing new and adoring faces and the haze
of alcohol to bring back the old feeling of greatness,
because there was nothing mean or vicious about him
and he was generally well-liked. But in the end there
were just too many girls, apparently. When he’d
moved on—to Florida, I think—Barbara had stayed.
Six years of it was enough. She already had a job as a
stenographer at the Southland Title Company and a
Notary’s commission. George handled the divorce for
her, and had offered her a job in his office at more
money, so she’d gone to work for him in the fall of
1958. But after less than a year she’d resigned and
The Long Saturday Night — 90
had come to work for me. That was a year ago last
September.
The hours dragged by. It was eleven-thirty.
Midnight. I began to tense up. It was going to be
dangerous, but anything was better than staying here.
The phone rang shortly after one A.M.
“Doris has a date, all right. With Mulholland.”
I came instantly alert. “What do you suppose that
means?”
“Could be anything. Or nothing except that he’s 25
and single, she’s pretty, and it’s Saturday night. It’s
pretty hard to stamp out that sort of thing.”
“Well, you’re having a fine Saturday-night,” I said
regretfully. “Did you break a date to do all this?”
“No, I didn’t have one. I seem to be at an awkward
age; too old for football rallies and too young for
bingo. They’re out at the Neon Castle, dancing.”
The Neon Castle—the real name of it was
Castleman’s Inn—was a roadside restaurant and night
club about ten miles east of town. “I followed them
out there,” she said, “to be sure that was where they
were headed. Even if they only stay a couple of hours,
they’ll have to park somewhere afterward for the
Machine Age fertility ritual, so it’ll probably be three
or later before she gets home. In the meantime I’ve
been busy with my do-it-yourself detective kit, and
I’ve got a couple of ideas I want to talk over with you.
I’ll pick you up in my car—”
“No,” I said. “I won’t let you take the chance—”
She cut me off. “Don’t argue, Duke. You’d never get
to her apartment afoot; there are still a few people on
the streets. In five minutes I’ll be parked at the mouth
of the alley. When you come out the back door, stay
against the wall and watch me. If the street’s clear,
I’ll signal. Get in back and crouch down.”
I opened my mouth to protest, but she’d hung up.
I checked my watch with the aid of the cigarette
lighter, groped around for the topcoat, and put it on.
When five minutes had passed, I slipped out into the
passage, and pushed open the back door. The alley
The Long Saturday Night — 91
was in deep shadow, and silent except for the
humming of Fuller’s exhaust fan. Her Ford pulled up
and stopped at the curb just beyond the mouth of it,
and I could see her rather dimly in the light from the
street lamp at the intersection of Clebourne. She
motioned, and opened the rear door. I crossed the
sidewalk on the run, dived in, and knelt on the floor
between the seats.
“All clear,” she whispered. “There was nobody in
sight.” The car was in motion then, and turned right,
east along Clebourne. I kept my head down, but could
see the blinking amber light as we passed the first
street intersection. She turned left at the next one.
We were going north on Montrose, I heard a car pass,
going the other way. In a few minutes we turned left
again, and appeared to be climbing, and I heard
gravel under the tires. We made another sharp left
turn, went on a few yards very slowly, and stopped.
She cut the engine and I heard the click as she
switched off the headlights. “Okay, Duke,” she said
softly.
I sat up. The car was parked on the brow of the hill
just back of the city limits on the north side of town.
Behind us and on the left were dark lines of trees, but
it was open in front, where the hill started to drop
away, and I could see the lighted artery of Clebourne
stretching away below us from right to left, from one
end of town to the other. We were completely alone
up here. The wind had stopped, but there was the
sharp bite of frost in the air, and when I opened the
door and got out the sky was aflame with the cold
glitter of stars. I stood for a moment beside the car,
looking out over the town where I was born and
where I’d lived most of my life, but all I could think of
was the back room of the Carthage Funeral Home
where the two of them lay with their shattered and
unrecognizable faces on individual white enamel
tabletops, and the fact that somewhere in that cluster
of lights was the man who had killed them. Asleep,
maybe? Or could he sleep? And what was it like just at
the moment of waking? I tried to shake off these
morbid reflections and get back to a more practical
The Long Saturday Night — 92
view of the matter; there was more than that down
there. There were men who were going to arrest me
for murder if they could get their hands on me. I
opened the front door and slid in on the seat beside
Barbara. She moved over some parcels to make room
for me.
“Here,” she said, picking up one of the things lying
on the seat. It was a pint bottle of whiskey.
“You’re an angel,” I said.
“No, a St. Bernard, but I get tired of that little cask
around my neck. When you’ve had a drink of that,
there’s some food.”
I took a big drink—straight out of the bottle when
she said she didn’t want any—felt it unfold inside me,
and opened the cardboard box. It contained a steak
sandwich, wrapped in three or four big paper napkins
and still warm. I tore into it, suddenly realizing I
hadn’t had anything to eat except a couple of those
plywood sandwiches in over 48 hours. When I’d
finished it, she uncapped a pint thermos bottle of
coffee and poured me a cup.
“Where are the dancing girls, and my Turkish water
pipe?” I asked. She grinned, the slender face just
visible in the starlight, and dug cigarettes out of her
purse. I held the lighter for her, and then lit my own.
She was wearing a rough tweed skirt and a sweater,
and a cloth coat with the collar turned up under the
cascade of reddish brown hair.
“Now,” she said, “as they say on Madison Avenue,
let’s kick this thing around and see what we stub our
toe on.”
“Right. But first let me say that if I ever get out of
this mess, the first thing I’m going to do is petition the
court to have you adopt me.” I repeated the whole
story of night before last, beginning with the
anonymous telephone call.
When I’d finished, she nodded, and said, “Maybe
you could use a guardian, with that hot-headed
approach to everything. But let’s break it down. First,
Mulholland could have known she was home. If he
saw the gloves, he should have realized that was her
The Long Saturday Night — 93
suitcase. And he left the courthouse while you were
still there?”