Look at the Birdie (22 page)

They both fell into red-faced silence as Borgorov navigated the last hundred yards. “Come now,” said Borgorov, rounding the corner of the toolshed, “our samples couldn’t have been as disappointing as all that.”

“It’s just that we’re tired,” said Josef, giving his ingratiating grin. “The fossils are so sensational we’re stunned.”

Peter gently laid the chip with the murdered ant and its attackers embedded in it on the last pile. “We have the most
significant samples from each layer arranged in these piles,” he said, pointing to the row of rock mounds. He was curious to see what Borgorov’s reaction might be. Over Josef’s objections, he explained about two kinds of ants evolving within the species, showed him the houses and books and pictures in the lower levels, the crowded gatherings in the upper ones. Then, without offering the slightest interpretation, he gave Borgorov his magnifying glass, and stepped back.

Borgorov strolled up and down the row several times, picking up samples and clucking his tongue. “It couldn’t be more graphic, could it?” he said at last.

Peter and Josef shook their heads.

“Obviously,” said Borgorov, “what happened was this.” He picked up the chip that showed the bas-relief of the pincerless ant’s death struggle with countless warriors. “There were these lawless ants, such as the one in the center, capitalists who attacked and exploited the workers—ruthlessly killing, as we can see here, scores at a time.” He set down the melancholy exhibit, and picked up the house into which the pincerless ants were crammed. “And here we have a conspiratorial meeting of the lawless ants, plotting against the workers. Fortunately”—and he pointed to the soldier ants outside the door—“their plot was overheard by vigilant workers.

“So,” he continued brightly, holding up samples from the next layer, a meeting of the pincered ants and the home of a solitary ant, “the workers held democratic indignation meetings, and drove their oppressors out of their community. The capitalists, overthrown, but with their lives spared by the merciful common people, were soft and spoiled, unable to survive without the masses to slave for them. They could
only dillydally with the arts. Hence, put on their own mettle, they soon became extinct.” He folded his arms with an air of finality and satisfaction.

“But the order was just the reverse,” objected Peter. “The ant civilization was wrecked when some of the ants started growing pincers and going around in mobs. You can’t argue with geology.”

“Then an inversion has taken place in the limestone layer—some kind of upheaval turned it upside down. Obviously.” Borzorov sounded like sheathed ice. “We have the most conclusive evidence of all—the evidence of logic. The sequence could only have been as I described it. Hence, there
was
an inversion. Isn’t that so?” he said, looking pointedly at Josef.

“Exactly, an inversion,” said Josef.

“Isn’t that so?” Borgorov wheeled to face Peter.

Peter exhaled explosively, slouched in an attitude of utter resignation. “Obviously, Comrade.” Then he smiled, apologetically. “Obviously, Comrade,” he repeated …

“Good Lord, but it’s cold!” said Peter, letting go of his end of the saw and turning his back to the Siberian wind.

“To work! To work!” shouted a guard, so muffled against the cold as to look like a bundle of laundry with a submachine gun sticking out of it.

“Oh, it could be worse, much worse,” said Josef, holding the other end of the saw. He rubbed his frosted eyebrows against his sleeve.

“I’m sorry you’re here, too, Josef,” said Peter sadly. “I’m
the one who raised his voice to Borgorov.” He blew on his hands. “I guess that’s why we’re here.”

“Oh, that’s all right,” sighed Josef. “One stops thinking about such things. One stops thinking. It’s the only way. If we didn’t belong here, we wouldn’t be here.”

Peter fingered a limestone chip in his pocket. Embedded in it was the last of the pincerless ants, ringed by his murderers. It was the only fossil from Borgorov’s hole that remained above the surface of the earth. Borgorov had made the brothers write a report on the ants as he saw them, had had every last fossil shoveled back into the bottomless cavity, and had shipped Josef and Peter to Siberia. It was a thorough piece of work, not likely to be criticized.

Josef had pushed aside a pile of brush, and was now staring with fascination at the bared patch of earth. An ant emerged furtively from a hole, carrying an egg. It ran around in crazy circles, then scurried back into the darkness of the tiny earth womb. “A marvelous adjustment ants have made, isn’t it, Peter?” said Josef enviously. “The good life—efficient, uncomplicated. Instinct makes all the decisions.” He sneezed. “When I die, I think I’d like to be reincarnated as an ant. A modern ant, not a capitalist ant,” he added quickly.

“What makes you so sure you aren’t one?” said Peter.

Josef shrugged off the jibe. “Men could learn a lot from ants, Peter, my boy.”

“They have, Josef, they have,” said Peter wearily. “More than they know.”

Charley Howes was the police chief in a Cape Cod village. He was in command of four patrolmen in the summer and one in the winter. It was late winter now. The one patrolman was down with the flu, and Charley didn’t feel too good himself. On top of that, there’d been a murder. Somebody had given Estelle Fulmer, the Jezebel waitress over at the Blue Dolphin, a beating that had killed her.

They found her in a cranberry bog on Saturday. The medical examiner said she’d been killed Wednesday night.

Charley Howes guessed he knew who’d done it. He guessed Earl Hedlund had done it. Earl was mean enough, and Earl had reason. Estelle had told Earl to go to hell one night at the Blue Dolphin, told him off the way he’d never been told off before. Nobody had ever told Earl off that way before because everybody knew Earl would kill anybody who did.

Charley’s wife was bundling up Charley now so he could go up to Earl’s house and question him. “If I’d known there was going to be a murder,” said Charley, “I never would have taken the job of police chief.”

“Now, you watch out for that big dog,” said his wife, wrapping a muffler around his neck.

“He’s all bark and no bite,” said Charley.

“That’s what they said about Earl Hedlund, too,” said his wife.

The dog they were talking about was Satan. Satan was a crossbreed between a Great Dane and an Irish wolfhound. He was as big as a small horse. Satan didn’t belong to Earl Hedlund, but he spent most of his time in Earl’s woods, scaring people off the property. Earl fed him off and on, getting a cheap watchdog that way. And the dog and Earl liked each other fine besides. They both liked to make a lot of noise and act like man-eaters.

When Charley drove the patrol car up the long hill to Earl’s house, way off in the woods, he expected to find Earl home. It was Saturday afternoon, but Charley would have expected to find Earl home any day of the week. Earl didn’t work for a living. He’d inherited just enough money so he didn’t have to work—if he was good and stingy, and kept a sharp eye on the stock market. The busiest Earl ever got was when the newspaper came. He’d turn to the financial page and make graphs of what all the stocks were doing.

When Charley got up to the house, he could hear Satan barking from a long way off. And Earl wasn’t around, either. The house was locked up tight, and the newspapers had piled up on the front porch.

The newspapers were under a brick, so they couldn’t blow away. Charley counted the papers. There were four. Friday’s was the top one. Saturday’s hadn’t come yet. It began to look as though Earl hadn’t killed Estelle after all, much as he would have liked to. It looked as though Earl hadn’t been around to do the job.

Charley looked at the dates on the untouched papers, and
he discovered something interesting. The Wednesday paper was missing.

The noise of the dog was coming closer now, coming closer fast. Charley figured the dog had got wind of him. Charley had to keep a grip on himself to keep from being scared. Charley had the same feeling about Satan everybody else in the village had. The dog was crazy. Satan hadn’t bitten anybody yet—but if he ever did, he’d bite to kill.

Then Charley saw what Satan was barking at. Satan was cantering alongside of a boy on a bicycle, showing teeth like butcher knives. He was swinging his head from side to side, barking, and slashing air with those awful teeth.

The boy looked straight ahead, pretending the dog wasn’t there. He was the bravest human being Charley had ever seen. The hero was Mark Crosby, the ten-year-old newsboy.

“Mark—” said Charley. The dog came after Charley now, did his best to turn Charley’s thinning hair white with those butcher-knife teeth. If the boy hadn’t set such high standards for bravery, Charley might have made a dive for the safety of the patrol car. “You seen anything of Mr. Hedlund, Mark?” said Charley.

“Nosir,” said Mark, giving Charley’s uniform the respect it deserved. He put the Saturday paper on top of the pile on the doorstep, put it under the brick. “He’s been gone all week, sir.”

Satan finally got bored with these two unscarable human beings. He lay down on the porch with a tremendous thump, and snarled lazily from time to time.

“Where’d he go? You know?” said Charley.

“Nosir,” said Mark. “He didn’t say he was going—didn’t stop his paper.”

“Did you deliver a paper Wednesday?” said Charley.

Mark was offended that his friend the policeman should ask. “Of course,” he said. “It’s the rule. If the papers pile up and nobody’s said to stop, you keep on delivering for six days.” He nodded. “It’s the
rule
, Mr. Howes.”

The serious way Mark talked about the rule reminded Charley what a marvelous age ten was. And Charley thought it was a pity that everybody couldn’t stay ten for the rest of their lives. If everybody were ten, Charley thought, maybe rules and common decency and horse sense would have a Chinaman’s chance.

“You—you sure you didn’t maybe miss Wednesday, Mark?” said Charley. “Nobody’d blame you—sleet coming down, the papers piling up, the long hill to climb, the big dog to get past.”

Mark held up his right hand. “My word of honor,” he said, “a paper was delivered here Wednesday.”

That was good enough for Charley. That certainly settled it once and for all.

Just about the time that was settled, up the road came Earl Hedlund’s old coupe. Earl got out grinning, and Satan whimpered and got up and licked Earl’s hand. Earl was the village bully of thirty-five years ago—gone to fat and baldness. His grin was still the bully-boy’s grin, daring anybody not to love him. He’d never been able to bluff Charley, and he hated Charley for that.

His grin got wider when Charley, as a precaution, reached into his car and took out the ignition key. “You see a cop do that on television, Charley?” said Earl.

“Matter of fact, I did,” said Charley. It was true.

“I’m not running off to nowheres,” said Earl. “I read in the Providence papers about poor Estelle, and I figured you’d be wanting to see me, so I came back. Thought I could save you from wasting time—thinking it was me that killed her.”

“Thanks,” said Charley.

“I been at my brother’s place in Providence all week,” said Earl. “My brother’ll swear to that. Every minute’s accounted for.” He winked. “O.K., Charley?”

Charley knew Earl’s brother. Earl’s brother had a mean streak, too—but he was too little to beat up on women, so he specialized in lying. All the same, his word might stand up in court.

Earl sat down on his doorstep, took the top paper off the pile, turned to the financial page. Then he remembered it was Saturday. There weren’t any market quotations on Saturday. It was easy to see he hated Saturday for that.

“You have many visitors up here, Earl?” said Charley.

“Visitors?” said Earl scornfully. He was reading what little financial news there was. “What I want with visitors?”

“Repairmen? Strangers out for a walk? Kids?” said Charley. “Hunters maybe?”

Earl puffed himself up for his answer. He really enjoyed the idea that everybody was too scared to come near his place. “Anything needs repairing, I repair myself,” he said. “And strangers and kids and hunters and anybody else finds out pretty quick from the dog that we don’t want no visitors up this way.”

“Then who picked up the paper Wednesday night?” said Charley.

Earl let his paper sag for just a second, then he straightened it out again, pretended to read something a lot more
important than anything Charley was saying. “What’s this bushwah about a Wednesday paper?” he grumbled.

Charley told him what the bushwah was—told him that it might prove that Earl had been back on Cape Cod the night Estelle was murdered. “If you did come back on Wednesday,” said Charley, “I can’t see you passing up the chance to look in the paper to see what the market was doing.”

Earl put down the paper, and he looked straight at Mark. “There wasn’t any Wednesday paper on account of the kid was too lazy to bring one,” he said.

“He gave his word of honor he brought one,” said Charley.

Earl started reading again. “The kid’s not only lazy,” he said, “he’s a liar besides.”

Charley was glad he hadn’t brought his gun along. If he had, he might have shot Earl Hedlund. Charley forgot all about the murder. Here, for Charley’s money, was a crime that was just as bad as murder—and there wasn’t any name for it and there wasn’t any law against it.

Poor Mark was ruined. The most priceless thing he’d built up for himself in this vale of tears was his word of honor. Earl had spit on it.

“He gave his word of honor!” Charley yelled at Earl.

Earl said a dirty word, didn’t look up from his paper.

“Mr. Howes—” said Mark.

“Yes, Mark?” said Charley.

“I—I got something even better than my word of honor,” said Mark.

Charley couldn’t imagine what that would be. Earl was
curious, too. Even Satan the dog seemed to want to know what could top a ten-year-old’s word of honor.

Mark glowed, he was so sure he could prove, even to Earl’s satisfaction, that the Wednesday paper had been delivered. “I was sick Wednesday,” he said, “so my father delivered the papers.” As far as Mark was concerned, he might as well have said God had done the route.