Free The Four Johns by Ellery Queen Page A

the mingled San Joaquin and Sacramento Rivers. The country turned quieter, more rural; vineyards and orchards closed in along the road.
    Then the country changed again. The land became flat, the air smelled of swamp: willow trees, rushes, damp peat. The road, now narrow and potholed, twisted to the right and swung up steeply.
    He was now driving along a levee, water glinting on his left.
    The air was still and bland; not far away, six lonesome lights marked a harbor for pleasure craft and fishing boats. He crossed a timber-and-plank bridge. He drove for miles along the levee, and now there were no lights. When he came to another bridge, also of timber and plank, he stopped the car. The only sounds were the tick of his engine, the hissing of crickets, the occasional burp of a frog.
    He got out and walked slowly across the bridge; the moon, now riding the zenith, laid oily cusps and crescents on the water. He climbed down the bank, brought up a thirty-pound chunk of riprap.
    Now came the worst part of the job. The terrible part.
    Mervyn drove to the middle of the bridge, got out, unlocked the trunk. Below, the dark water waited in puddles of moonlight. He braced himself, pulled the body out. In spite of his efforts, it dropped to the planking with a thud. Wincing, he made a bundle of the purse and the rock, wrapping them in the mat from the floor of the trunk and tying the whole thing securely with the plastic clothesline. Then he ran a short length of the line from the bundle to the neck of the dead girl.…
    Now.
    But he hesitated. How undignified, how graceless an end for one so sweet and vital! Mervyn’s eyes filled with tears. He looked up at the moon, down at the water. It can’t be helped, he whispered. Forgive me, Mary.
    He rolled the whole thing off the bridge. It made a huge, helpless splash. Ripples circled swiftly out, exciting sparks of moonlight. They quieted. They disappeared.
    And the river ran darkly again.
    He walked slowly back to the car. The thing was done. The car seemed empty. He felt empty, too. Mechanically, with a flashlight, he explored the trunk compartment. He found nothing.
    The thing was done. He climbed into the car. The water flowed black as ink, and Mervyn said aloud, “Goodbye, Mary.”
    He started the car, pulled off the bridge, swung around and drove back the way he had come, west, toward the black mountains, toward the glow of the cities circling the bay. Who or what was waiting for him, malignantly, over the hill?
    It would be harder now, he thought. The evidence linking him to Mary was gone.… But something gnawed at the back of his mind. He could not identify it. What had he overlooked? The car trunk? He’d give that a good cleaning in the morning. Something else? He jerked his head in irritated failure.
    Mervyn got home at two in the morning. He parked the convertible in the garage, went quietly by the back way into the court. All the apartments were dark. Mervyn looked up at Apartment 12 for a moment. Susie must be feeling so lonely.…
    He had the wild impulse to wake her up, soothe her, let her soothe him. Impossible, of course. Harriet Brill, that human sonar, would hear him as he passed; and then, Susie was likely to be tart and sarcastic rather than soothed or soothing. He wondered how it would be to have Susie for a wife, and wondered at himself for wondering.
    When he stole into his apartment and flicked on the light, he searched the rooms. He was only half convinced that nothing was wrong.
    He stood uncertainly in his living room, swaying with fatigue. But he knew he could not sleep. So he went into the kitchen and opened the liquor cabinet. John Boce had lifted the fifth of bourbon, but there was still some Scotch, and he made himself a Scotch and soda, took it back into the living room and slumped down on the couch.
    He sipped, brooding.
    Something was missing. Something he had neglected.
    He reviewed the entire affair, from Friday night to the