Hell Hath No Fury by Charles Williams 1953(5)

“I had no idea it was so late,” she said. “We’ll have
to go. I promised I’d stay with Gloria Two while they
went to Bible Class.”
We gathered up the painting equipment and the
lunch box and stowed them in the car, and it wasn’t
until we were almost ready to get in ourselves that
we realized Spunky was missing. Neither of us could
recall seeing him since he’d gone past chasing the
rabbit.
We began calling him, but he didn’t come. I
walked up-river a few hundred yards, and then
down, calling and whistling, but there was no sign of
him. When I got back to the car it was growing dark,
and I could see she was worried and a little
frightened. I could have kicked myself for what I’d
said about the wild hogs.


“Harry, do you suppose something has happened
to him?” she asked anxiously.
“He’ll show up,” I said. “He’s all right.”
“But it’s getting dark. I’m scared for him.”
“He can follow his own backtrail. I’m not
concerned about that. But I’ve got to take you home.
Your family’ll be worried about you.”
“But we can’t just go off and leave poor Spunky
down here alone—“
“I’ll find him,” I said. “You just get in the car. And
then give me your shoes.”
She looked at me wonderingly. “My shoes? But
why?”
I grinned. “I want something you’re wearing, and I
Hell Hath No Fury — 83
can’t think of anything else you can spare without
starting a riot.”
“Oh,” she said. She sat down on the seat and
slipped off the wedgies. They had grass straps, and
it suddenly occurred to me they were the same as
the ones Dolores Harshaw wore. I took them back
and put them down on the sand where we’d eaten
lunch, and then got in the car.
“We’re just going to leave them there?” she asked,
puzzled.
“Yes. And when I get back, Spunky should be
asleep with his head on them. It’s an old trick. When
you lose a dog, leave something he knows is yours at
the last place he saw you. When he comes back he’ll
wait by it.”
I wasn’t nearly as optimistic about it as I
pretended, but there was nothing else we could do
at the moment. My experience when I was a boy had
been with hunting dogs— bird dogs and hounds—
and as far as I knew these house-bred fluffballs like
Spunky might be as helpless in the woods as bubbledancers.
She was very quiet as we drove back to town. They
were waiting on the front porch and you could see
they had been worried about her. There was a great
deal of excited talk while she tried to explain the
shoe trick and why she was barefoot, and then
Gloria Two began to cry when she realized Spunky
was lost. Robinson wanted to go with me to help
look for him when I went back, but I told him it
wasn’t necessary.. For some reason I wanted to do it
alone.
It was slow going, driving back over that road at
night, and it was nearly nine o’clock before I got to
the bridge. As I made the last turn I expected to see
Spunky come bounding into the headlights,
overjoyed at seeing somebody again, but the river
bank was deserted and silent as it had been when
we left. I got out and walked down to where I’d left
her shoes. He wasn’t there. I began to be worried
about it then. There was no telling what had
Hell Hath No Fury — 84

happened to him. There were thousands and
thousands of acres of wild river bottom down here
and if he didn’t have any sense of direction or a good
nose he might never find his way back.
I picked the shoes up and took them back to the
car, suddenly conscious of the presence of Gloria
Harper in everything connected with this place and
with the whole happy afternoon which had slipped
past us so quickly. She was everywhere. I wanted to
see her now—but how could I go back and face her
without the dog? She would be desolate because
Gloria Two was heartbroken and…
For God’s sake, I thought angrily, how silly can
you get? I had a sudden, sharp, and contemptuous
picture of Harry Madox at the age of thirty
struggling to keep from drowning in all this sea of
blonde heartbreak over a paddle-footed mop of a
dog.
I didn’t leave, though. I called myself eighteen
different kinds of a fool, but I stayed and began
calling and whistling. I cut the light after a while to
keep from running the battery down, and sat there
in the dark smoking cigarettes in the intervals when
I wasn’t yelling. It was ten o’clock, and then tenthirty.
I’d waste another half hour, and then I’d go
back.
I had made a last series of whistles and was about
to give up when I heard him. He was barking a short
distance downriver. I walked back away from the car
and yelled, “Here, Spunky! Here, boy!” and then I
saw the shadowy movement across the sand as he
ran towards me. He was scared stiff and whining
and trying to climb all over me. I picked him up and
opened the car door to turn on the ceiling light, and
looked him over to see if he’d been snake bitten. He
was all right, or appeared to be, except that he was
covered with mud.
I shoved him in the back and climbed in myself. He
leaned up on the back of the seat and began licking
me on the ear while I tried to light a cigarette. I
swore at him, but it didn’t do any good, and I finally
Hell Hath No Fury — 85
gave up. I was glad too. Now I wouldn’t have to go
back and tell her I couldn’t find him.
The house was dark when I pulled up in front. I
knew they’d have returned from Bible Class by this
time, so I supposed they were all in bed. They were
—all except one. I had just climbed out of the car
when she came out the gate, a blur in the darkness
in some kind of long, pale housecoat. I knew she had
been sitting up waiting for me on the porch.
“Here’s your friend,” I said, pitching my voice
down so I wouldn’t wake them up. I scooped him out
of the back of the car and dropped him over the
fence. When I turned back she was standing beside
me and quite near, and my eyes were becoming
accustomed to the darkness so I could see her face.
Her eyes were very big and they looked black in the
starlight, and her hair was a rumpled mop of
blondeness.
“It was wonderful of you,” she whispered.
“Not at all.”
“I was worried; you were gone so long.”
“We were whispering like a boy and girl in a
doorway. “He wasn’t there. I had to keep calling
him. But he’s all right; he was just lost.”
“I was afraid you were lost.”
“You were?”
“Yes,” she said quietly. “Thank you for everything.
It was a lovely day, wasn’t it?”
“Is it midnight yet?”
“Not quite.”
“Well, happy birthday, Junior.” I took her face in
my hands and kissed her. And then they dynamited
the dam.
She wasn’t Junior any more and nobody was
kidding and the light touch was gone somewhere
downriver in the night. Her arms were around my
neck and I was holding her so tightly she could
hardly breathe. It was crazy and very wonderful. We
didn’t say anything. After a long time I let go of her
Hell Hath No Fury — 86
and took her face in my hands again and tilted it up
a little, and she put her hands up over mine. I could
see the starshine in her eyes as if they were wet.
“It was a wonderful day, wasn’t it?” she asked
softly.
“And getting better,” I said.
“I’ve got to go in, Harry.”
“I can’t let you go.”

“I’ll see you in the morning.” Suddenly she pulled
my head down and kissed me and slipped away
inside the gate. “Good night, Harry,” she said. I
watched until she was up on the front porch and
then when I heard the screen door open and close I
got in the car and drove off.
I don’t know how long I drove around, or where I
went. Everything was mixed up and I couldn’t sort it
out. Once I remembered standing beside the car
somewhere on a dark country road smoking and
grinding a cigarette butt under my foot and thinking:
I’m thirty years old and she’s just a kid—just a bigeyed,
beautiful kid who never says much. That’s all
she is. And kissing her is like driving into a nitro
truck.
It must have been after two when I got back to the
rooming house. I was still in the dream, and only
half noticed the strange car parked at the curb on
the other side of the street. I cut my lights and got
out, and then the spot hit me right in the eyes.
“Madox?” The voice came from the wall of
darkness somewhere on my right.
“It’s him.” That one was on the left.
I couldn’t see anything but the light, and cold was
running up my back like a stream of ice water. But
somehow I got my mind back in time from the rosy
cloud it was in, and I had sense enough not to try to
run. I froze up tight and waited.
“Yeah,” I said, trying to make my voice sound
natural. “I’m Madox. What is it?”
“We’re from the Sheriff’s office. You better come
along with us.”
Hell Hath No Fury — 87
10
It was tough, with that light in my face. I couldn’t let
anything show. Just hang on, I thought desperately.
Play it dumb. Play it a line at a time till you find out.
“I don’t get it,” I said, as naturally as I could. “You
want to see me? You must have the wrong party.”
“We don’t think so.” They came out of the light
then, one on each side of me. I recognized them.
They were the two deputies who had been talking to
Gulick Saturday afternoon. “Let’s take a ride.”
“Well, sure,” I said. “But how’s for telling me what
this is all about?”
“Bank robbery—and arson,” the short one said.
“Bank robbery?” I said. “Aren’t you guys reaching
for it a little? Look, I’m a car salesman. I work for
George Harshaw—“
“We know all about that,” he said, cutting me off.
“But we want to have a little talk with you. I’d advise
you to come along without any argument; you’re just
making it tough on yourself.”
“Sure. If I can help you any way, I’ll be glad to.” I
shrugged.
He came over behind me and felt me under the
arms and down the sides. “He’s clean, Buck,” he said
Hell Hath No Fury — 88
to the other one, and then to me, “All right, Madox.
Get in the car.”
“O.K.,” I said. “But wait’ll I lock mine.”
“We’ll do it. You got your keys?”
“Yeah.”
“Let me have ‘em.”
I gave him the keys, which were still in my hand.
He tossed them to the tall deputy, the one called
Buck, who went around in back of the car and
opened the trunk. He switched on a long-barrelled
flashlight and looked over every inch of it. Then he
went inside the car and began lifting up the seats
and pawing through the junk in the glove
compartment.

“Where you been?” the short one asked me while
Buck was shaking down the car. “Two-thirty’s a little
late for this town.”
“Just riding around,” I said. “It’s too hot to sleep.”
“Things on your mind, maybe?” He managed to get
a lot of suggestion into it. “Just where you been
riding around?”
“Hell, I don’t know,” I said, suddenly realizing I
had no idea where I’d been. “Just around. Up the
highway and back.”
“Maybe you’d better try to remember. You don’t
look too good, right now.”
Just then Buck slammed the door and came over to
us. “What you doing with a pair of girl’s shoes in
your car?” he asked.
I stared at him. Shoes? Then I remembered; I
hadn’t given them to her. “Oh,” I said. “They belong
to a friend of mine.”
“She always leave her shoes in the car?” Buck
asked, “I’ve heard of ‘em leaving their pants around
here and there—“
“Take it easy, Mac,” I said. I told them about losing
the dog and going back to find him. They motioned
me towards the police car while I was talking and we
got in, all three of us in the back seat. There was
Hell Hath No Fury — 89
another man in front, at the wheel.

“And what girl was this?” the short one asked.
“Her name’s Gloria Harper.”
“She live here in town?”
“It’s all right,” the man in front said. I knew who
he was then. He was the deputy who’d been at the
fire, the one who lived here. “I know her. She’s a
nice kid. If this guy’s mixed up in something I doubt
if she is.”
We went on through town and north on the
highway. It was about twenty miles to the county
seat. I was still flying blind, but I was beginning to
have a hunch they were too. Maybe they didn’t have
a thing to go on except the fact that I was a stranger
in town.
I began to breathe a little easier. So far I hadn’t
made a false move or spilled anything, in spite of the
suddenness of it, and now that I was on guard all I
had to do was play it as it turned up and stick to my
story. I even had my alibi there in the front seat, the
deputy who’d seen me at the fire. The only thing I
had to remember was not to spring it too soon in the
game. Let it come out naturally—that was the thing.
When we got into town we drove right to the jail.
The Sheriff was there waiting for us in a hot, bleak
office full of harsh light and steel filing cabinets. It
was the first time I’d seen him up close, and I didn’t
much like what I saw. There wasn’t any of the potbellied
court-house stooge here; he was a policeman
doing police work. The hair must have been
prematurely white because the face was that of a
man in his forties, a face with all the flabby
indecision of the front side of an ax.
“What took you so long?” he asked Buck.
“He was out ridin’ around,” Buck said.
“Where?”
It was the short deputy who answered. “He says he
don’t know.” He grinned.
I turned and looked at him. He wasn’t over five
feet five, with a deformed left hand and a nasty pair
Hell Hath No Fury — 90
of eyes, and you could see he liked going around
with the badge and gun as much as he didn’t like
men bigger than he was. The other two—Buck and
the one who’d been at the fire—looked harmless
enough, just lanky, serious-minded country boys
drawing a county paycheck.
“All right, all right,” the Sheriff said. “You and
Buck can go home.” They went out and he jerked his
head towards a folding chair over against the wall.
“Sit down, Madox,” he said, taking a cigar out of a
box.
I sat down. The big unshaded bulb hanging in the
middle of the room made it even hotter than it was
inside. I fished out a cigarette and lighted it,
throwing the match into a dirty spittoon. Sweat ran
down my chest inside the shirt. How much did they
know?
“What’s this all about, Sheriff?” I asked.
He bit the end off the cigar and looked over at the
deputy, ignoring me. “What about the car, Tate?”
“It was clean. Wasn’t nothing in it but a pair of
girl’s shoes and the junk in the glove locker. The
usual stuff.”
“And his room?”
Tate shook his head. “Nothing there but his
clothes.” He sat astride the chair with his arms
propped on the back, watching me while he smoked
a cigarette.
The Sheriff jerked his head around suddenly, and
the cold, incisive eyes bored into me. “All right,
Madox; where’d you hide it?”
“Hide what?” I asked.
“That money.”
“Look, Sheriff,” I said. “I could ask you what
money, and waste some more of your time and mine,
but I understand that I’m supposed to have robbed a
bank. Is that right?”
“That’s right.”
“Well, let’s get down to cases. I didn’t rob a bank. I
Hell Hath No Fury — 91
happen to be a car salesman, and I haven’t got any
sidelines. But if you think there’s any way I can help
you, let’s get on with it and quit horsing around so I
can get back and get some sleep. I’ve got to work
tomorrow.”
“O.K.,” he said. He leaned backwards across the
desk and flipped open one of the drawers. His hand
came out holding a cardboard box. He lifted the lid
off, then walked over and handed it to me. I looked
at it and had to fight to keep my face still. It was the
alarm clock.
“Where’d you buy it, Madox?”
“I didn’t.”
“You know what it is, don’t you?” He didn’t raise
his voice or threaten. He didn’t have to. He just
looked at you.
“Sure,” I said. “It looks like what’s left of a clock.”
It was black, and the glass was melted.
“That’s right. It’s an alarm clock. Take a good look
at it. See anything funny about it?”
“Nothing except that it’s been on fire. But what’s it
got to do with me? I thought you said I robbed a
bank. You mean when I got rich I burned my alarm
clock?”
“Not exactly. Notice something else funny about
it? It hasn’t got a bell.”
“All right,” I said. “I’ll bite. So it hasn’t got a bell.”
“Not much use as an alarm clock, is it?”
“I shouldn’t think so. But I still don’t get it. Why
tell me?”
“Why? Just in case you ever wanted to hold up a
bank sometime, and needed a diversion. It’s an old
Indian-fighter’s trick. You’d use a clock like this to
start a fire somewhere at exactly the time you
wanted it started. That’d take the pressure off,
because everybody in town’d go to the fire. You
notice those little drops of metal on top of the
clapper? They’re solder. The insurance investigator
who dug it out of the ashes told me about them.
There was a match-holder of some kind fastened on
Hell Hath No Fury — 92
there and it melted off with the heat, but it didn’t
quite all melt off. But it’s still a damned smart trick.”
Suddenly he stopped his pacing back and forth and
snapped at me like a popping whip. “Madox, where’d
you buy that clock?”
“I told you,” I said. “I never saw it before.”
He went back and sat down on the edge of the
desk. “A man smart enough to pull off a job like
that’d be too smart to buy the stuff he needed for it
there in town. He’d go somewhere else and get it.”
He leaned forward a little with the cigar in his
mouth. “Now, let’s have the truth for once. Where’d
you go the Friday before the fire?”
I stared at him a little blankly. “Go? I don’t
remember going anywhere—No, wait a minute. I did,
too. I don’t remember whether it was Friday or not,
but about a week before the fire I went down to
Houston.”
“That’s more like it. And what’d you go down there
for? Not to buy a clock, by any chance?”
“No. I went down there to try to collect some
money a man owed me.”
“What man?”
“His name’s Kelvey. Tom Kelvey.” I was in the
clear on that. Kelvey’d owed me two hundred dollars
for over a year.
“What’s his address?”
I told him.
“And you saw him? And got the money?”
“No,” I said. “I didn’t see him.”
“Well, that’s too bad. You drove all the way down
there to put the bite on him and then you didn’t even
see him. I’ll bet he was out of town, wasn’t he?
Funny how those things happen.”
I could see that one coming. They’d probably
check Kelvey, so I had to do better than that. “No,” I
said. “I don’t know whether he was home or not. I
didn’t even look him up.”
“I see. You suddenly decided you didn’t want the
Hell Hath No Fury — 93
money after all.”
“No. I got side-tracked.”
“By what?”
“I ran into an old girl friend.”
“And that was more important?”
“Well,” I said, “you know how it is. It’s always
more important than anything, at the time.”
“All right. Who was the girl?”
“End of the line,” I said. “She’s an old girl friend,
like I said. But she’s also married.”
“Then you did go down there to buy a clock.”
“Think anything you want. I’ve told you how it
happened.”
“But you won’t say who the girl was?”
“Of course not. You think I want her to get in
trouble?”
“Well, you’ve got yourself in trouble.”
“I don’t think so. You say you think I robbed a
bank. That’s not trouble, unless I’d actually done it.
What’d you do, pick my name out of a hat?”
“No. This is Monday morning, and six of us have
been working on this since Friday evening. It doesn’t
take that long to pull a name out of a hat. Madox,
you might as well face it. You stick out in this thing
like a cootch dancer at a funeral.”
“Why?” I asked. I wiped the sweat off my face.
“For God’s sake, why? Because I was there in town?”
“I’m coming to that. Why were you?”
“I told you. I work there. I sell cars.”
“I know. And in less than three weeks after you
show up, the bank is robbed. Where’d you work
last?”
“In Houston.”
“So you leave a city the size of Houston and just
happen to wind up in a one-horse burg of less than
three thousand. To sell cars, you say. Why?”
“Cars are sold everywhere.”
Hell Hath No Fury — 94
“Did somebody recommend the place? Did
Harshaw advertise for a salesman in the Houston
papers?”
“No,” I said. “I—“
“I see. Just a coincidence.”
“If you’ll give me a chance, I’ll tell you. After I quit
my job in Houston, I decided I’d go to Oklahoma
City. I stopped in Lander to get some lunch, and
while I was eating Harshaw came in for coffee. We
got to talking about something that was in the paper
there on the counter, and struck up kind of a general
conversation. When he found out I was a salesman,
he offered me a job. You can ask him about it if you
don’t believe me.”
“So you took a job? Just like that?”
“Why not? A job was what I was looking for.”
“And then in less than three weeks somebody
sticks up a bank that hasn’t been robbed in the fortythree
years it’s been there. A week before it happens
you go off somewhere for a whole day and night and
you can’t explain. And the same day it happens, a
little after dark, you sneak out of town again for two
or three hours. Where’d you go that time?”
I began to be afraid of him then. He was like a
bulldog; every time he shifted his grip he got a little
more of your throat.
“Well?” The relentless eyes wouldn’t leave my
face. “Another married woman you can’t tell us
about?”

“No,” I said. “I remember what you’re talking
about. I went swimming.”
“Everybody else in town is in an uproar about a
fire and bank robbery, but you go swimming. All
right, where’d you go?”
I told him.
“Did you ever go swimming out there at night
before?”
“Yes. Several times.”
He grunted. “Good. That’s what I wanted to know.
Hell Hath No Fury — 95
Now tell me something I’m curious about.” He
paused a moment, watching me and letting me wait.
“On these other times, did you always make it a
point to stop in at the restaurant on your way back
with your hair plastered down like a wet rat, and kid
the waitress about it?”
I was groggy for a minute. How could I have
known I’d run into a mind like this? I’d done it
deliberately, for an alibi, but he could smell it. It was
overdone for him. It was phony; it stuck out. I rolled
with it, trying to keep my face from showing I was
being hurt.
“Look,” I said, “how the hell do I know where I
went every time I came back from swimming? I don’t
keep a diary. God, you just go swimming. And then
you go home. Or you want a cup of coffee. Or a
Coke. Or you go to the movies. Or to the can. Who’s
going to keep track of all that?”
“I was just curious about it. We’ll call it another
coincidence. Let’s go back to the first time you were
ever in that bank. You opened an account,
remember? And here’s the funniest coincidence of
all. There was a fire that day too, wasn’t there?”
“Yes,” I said. “I think there was, now that I recall
it.”
“And when you went in, there wasn’t anybody in
the place, as far as you could see?”
“Yes. That’s right.”
“But of course you didn’t think anything about it? I
mean, it happens every day—a bank with money
lying around everywhere and nobody in sight looking
after it. You didn’t think about it again, did you?”
“Yes, I did. As a matter of fact, I thought they were
goofier than bedbugs.”
“But you went right ahead and put your money in
it, didn’t you?”
“I had to, if I was going to put it anywhere. It was
the only bank in town.”
He shifted his attack then. That was the trouble
with him; you could never tell where he was going to
Hell Hath No Fury — 96
hit you next. “You’re a pretty big man, Madox. How
much do you weigh?”
“Around two-fifteen. Why?”
“And just from looking at you I’d say not much of
it’s fat. There’s a lot of power there. What I’m
getting at is a long talk I had with Julian Ward. I
spent about two hours with him, trying to find
something to start with. He didn’t see the man who
tied him up; all he saw was a blanket. But there was
one thing he was certain about—and that was
whoever did the job was a big man and a powerful
one. He said he’d never felt such absolute
helplessness in his life.”
“Nuts,” I said. “I know Ward. He’s the man who
opened the account for me. He’s sixty if he’s a day,
and he wouldn’t weigh 140 in a wet overcoat. A
high-school kid could manhandle him.”
“Sure. But the thing that stuck in his mind wasn’t
that it was done, but the way it was done. No effort.
So much reserve power the man didn’t even hurt
him, just picked him up and set him down the way
you would a baby.”
“All right,” I said. “So it was a big man. Am I the
only one in the state?”
“You’re the only one so far that fits exactly in the
whole picture.”
“Well, look,” I said angrily. “Let’s get down to
some facts. You say the bank was robbed while that
building was burned down, that whoever cleaned it
out set the building afire so he wouldn’t be bothered
by kibitzers looking over his shoulder. Well, I was at
the fire. So how in hell could I have been in two
places at once?” . He stopped and sat down on the
edge of the desk again, with what looked like a little
smile around the corners of his mouth. “I wondered
when you’d get around to that,” he said. “Can you
prove you were at the fire?”
I had sense enough to lead into it gradually. This
white-haired bloodhound could smell a pat alibi a
mile. “Well, damn,” I said, “somebody must have
seen me. After all, there were more than a thousand
Hell Hath No Fury — 97
people milling around “
“But anybody in particular?” he asked.
“Well, I didn’t go around shaking hands and taking
down the names and addresses of witnesses, if that’s
what you mean. But let me think. There’s bound to
be somebody who remembers me. I talked to some
of them—“
“Why not go ahead and say it?” he asked softly.
“One of the men you talked to is sitting right there
looking at you. He remembers you. He remembers
how you made a big splash handling hose and
helping shove the crowd back—twenty-five minutes
after the fire started, and after the bank was already
robbed.”
Hell Hath No Fury — 98
11
That started it, and it went on and on until time
meant nothing any more. They had Gulick’s
statement that I’d left the car lot when the fire
engine went by, and they said nobody had seen me
again until a full twenty-five minutes had gone by. I
said I’d been at the fire the whole time. They said I
hadn’t. I began to feel dazed, and hypnotized, too
tired to lift my hands or light a cigarette or think.
The world became nothing but heat and white light
and an endless rain of questions beating against me.
They took turns. Tate went out for coffee and when
he came back the Sheriff went out. It made no
difference. The questions and the accusations were
the same and after a while I couldn’t tell the voices
apart.
“Where did you go that Friday?”
“I went to Houston.”
“Where did you go that night?”
“Swimming. I told you. I went swimming.”
“You went somewhere to get rid of that money.
Where’d you hide it?”
“I went swimming.”
“Did you bury it?”
Hell Hath No Fury — 99
“I went swimming.”
“Where did you bury it?”
“I didn’t bury anything.”
“How did you mark the place?”
“I went swimming.”
“Was it near the river?”
“It was in the river.”
“You buried the money in the river?”
“I didn’t bury any money. I didn’t have any money.
I don’t know anything about any money.”
“Did you bury it along the road somewhere? Did
you bury it in a money bag? What kind of bag?
What’d you carry it away from the bank in? Did you
count it? Don’t you know the bank has a record of
the serial numbers? You can’t spend it. Where did
you hide it?” “I didn’t bury anything.”
“Where did you buy that clock?”
“I never saw the clock before.”
“Did you go to Houston?”
“Yes.”
“What’s the name of the girl?”
“Kelvey.”
“I thought Kelvey was the man who owed you
money.”

“That’s what I mean.”
“You just said the girl’s name was Kelvey. Who
owed you money?”
“Kelvey.”
“There wasn’t any girl, was there? You went down
there to buy a clock to make a fire-bomb. Where’d
you buy that clock?”
“I didn’t.”
“You stood behind the door in the can and threw a
blanket over him when he came in. Why didn’t you
sap him?”
“I don’t know anything about it.”
“You knew he was an old man and you were afraid
Hell Hath No Fury — 100
you’d kill him and you didn’t want a murder rap on
your hands. Wasn’t that it?”
“I’ve told you a thousand times. I was at the fire.”
“I’m talking about before you got to the fire.”
“I got there within two or three minutes after the
fire-truck.”
“What time was that?”
“How the hell do I know? Was there anybody at
the fire who could tell you exactly what time it was?”
“Why didn’t somebody see you?”
“They did. Tate saw me.”
“Why didn’t he see you before the bank was
robbed?”
“How do I know? Maybe he did.”
“He says he didn’t.”
“All right. Ask him to name all the other people he
saw there, and the exact times he saw them.”
“You made a big show when you got there, didn’t
you? Everybody could see you. But it was too late.
That was after the bank was robbed.”
It went on. I was groggy. After a while I could see
yellow light along the wall and thought my mind was
becoming unstuck. It was sunlight, coming in
through the bars on the window.
They fingerprinted me, took my belt and wallet,
and led me upstairs to a cell. I sat down on the side
of a bunk with my head in my hands while the whole
place revolved slowly around me. I could still hear
the questions. The voices wouldn’t stop.
Two trusties or turnkeys came down the corridor
with breakfast. It consisted of a pile of gray oatmeal
on a tin plate and a cup of greenish-black coffee with
oil on it. I set the oatmeal on the floor and drank the
coffee. It was awful. I had only two cigarettes left, so
I tore one in two and smoked half of it.
There was another man in the cell, but I hadn’t
paid much attention to him until now he came over
holding out a cigarette. “If’n you don’t want the
oatmeal, I’ll eat it,” he said. “I’ll trade you a
Hell Hath No Fury — 101
cigarette for it.” He was a thin middle-aged man
with sandy hair and a red, sunburned neck like a
farmer.
I took it. “Thanks,” I said.
I lay down in the bunk and put an arm up over my
face to shut out the light and tried to sleep. It wasn’t
any good. Where did we go from here? I couldn’t
prove I was at the fire all the time, and they couldn’t
prove I wasn’t. The only thing they had to go on was
the fact that that Sheriff knew I was the one who’d
done it, knew it absolutely and without doubt—and
without any proof at all that they could take into
court. Nobody had seen me. They had my
fingerprints, but I didn’t have a record, and I hadn’t
left any prints in the bank because I’d used a
handkerchief around my hand opening drawers and
doors. What did they have on their side? Nothing—
except that they could keep on asking questions
until I went crazy.
They had to have a confession. And they had to
make me show them where the money was so I
couldn’t repudiate it in court. Could they do it? I
didn’t know. There wasn’t any way to tell what you’d
do after two or three days of that.
Sometime in the afternoon they came and got me
again. The Sheriff was in the office, along with Buck
and Tate, and another man I didn’t know. He could
have been the prosecuting attorney or one of the
detectives from Houston.
“We’re going to give you one more chance to come
clean,” the Sheriff said.
“How much longer does this go on?” I asked.
“Till you tell us what you did with that money.”
“I don’t know anything about any money.”
It was the last session all over again, only worse.
Sometimes three of them would be hammering at me
at the same time, one in front and one on each side
so I’d have to keep turning my head to answer. One
would fire a question at me and before I could get
my mouth open there’d be two more.
Hell Hath No Fury — 102
“Where’d you go the night before the fire?”
“How do I know? To the movies, I think.”
“Your landlady said she heard you come in around
two a.m.
“Where’d you go last night before they picked you
up?”
“I told you—“
“Do a lot of running; around at night, don’t you?”
“In a hell of a hurry to get to that fire, weren’t
you? Gulick says you took off from there like a
ruptured duck. But just why was it you never did
even go near the first one?”
And then, after about an hour, there was an abrupt
change in the attack. Buck left the room, and when
he came back he had two more men with him. They
were prisoners, because I remembered seeing them
upstairs in the cells. He lined the three of us up
about four feet apart in a row and then got in the
line himself. Tate and the man I didn’t know sat in
chairs along the other wall, not saying anything and
just watching intently. I kept my eye on the Sheriff.
He was up to something, and I’d seen enough of him
by this time to know it would be dangerous.
“All right, not a word out of any of you,” he said,
and went over and opened the door. I could feel the
tension building up.
“We’re ready,” he said to somebody in the hall. He
stepped outside. I watched the door, conscious of
the sweat breaking out on my face. Then he came
back, leading someone by the arm. It was the old
blind Negro, Uncle Mort.
You could feel the whole room tighten up. The two
prisoners were watching the Negro, not knowing
what it was all about but scared. I watched him and
the Sheriff, feeling all the eyes on me and trying to
guess what was coming. The Sheriff led him down
the line, stopping him in front of each man about
three feet away and facing him.
It was the stillness that made it bad. Nobody said a
word. They stood for maybe a minute in front of the
Hell Hath No Fury — 103
first man, and then moved to the next one. It was
completely fantastic. It was a police line-up for a
blind man.