The Four Johns by Ellery Queen Read Free Book Online Page B

Madera, at Fourth and Willow. Bring identification and proof of ownership, and she’s yours. There’ll be a day or two storage charges.”
    â€œNo indication who took it?”
    â€œWe make a routine check for fingerprints. Chances are there won’t be any. Your insurance should cover retrieval expenses.”
    â€œI only carry public liability.”
    â€œThat’s too bad. You’ve got the address?”
    â€œYes. Sterling Garage. Fourth and Willow, Madera.”
    â€œRight.”
    â€œThank you very much.”
    â€œGlad to be of help.”
    Mervyn poured a cup of coffee, but made no move to drink it. He looked out across the court, testing, rejecting a variety of disturbing ideas. Madera. Mervyn knew Madera very well. He had been brought up there, and his mother still lived there; she was vice-principal of the Madera Junior High School. (Mervyn’s mother, a forthright woman, had given him the Volkswagen after an unnerving near-accident.) So his car had been taken to Madera.… Coincidence?
    He shoved his chair back suddenly, dressed, phoned to check on the bus schedule, then called a cab. At the depot he immediately boarded a bus, and ten minutes later he was en route south—along the Eastshore Freeway, past Livermore, over the tawny hills of the Diablo Range, down into the Central Valley; through Tracy and Manteca and out on old Highway 99.
    The towns of the valley fell behind, with their intervening orchards, vineyards and grazing land. Modesto, Turlock, Merced, Chowchilla: to the casual eye all exactly alike. Service stations, hamburger stands, packing sheds for fruit and grapes, motels along the highway, the more sedate and substantial central districts three or four blocks inland. The air-conditioned bus was cool; outside, heat and an aroma of earth and eucalyptus resin and sunburned paint, a fume less palpable than dust.
    The Giant Orange stands were crowded with men in shirt sleeves and women in cotton dresses: mostly Middle Westerners, assimilated Okies. These were sights and sounds and odors common to all the valley towns, and if Mervyn had not been otherwise preoccupied he might have felt homesick. But his attention was turned inward. Someone he knew had stolen his car and taken it to Madera to abandon it. Why?
    The bus turned into Madera, a town like other towns. At the bus depot Mervyn got out and walked over to Fourth and Willow.
    The Sterling Garage was a barn of a building, with walls of corrugated steel. In the dim interior, he at once spotted his car. He went over and circled it. The exterior was undamaged. He gingerly opened the door and looked inside. Nothing wrong that he could see.
    He went into the office of the service manager, a fresh-faced young man with “Tim” embroidered above the breast pocket of his white jacket. Mervyn felt a faint stirring; he must have known Tim, probably in high school. Tim failed to recognize him. He was not surprised; he was a far cry from the withdrawn, rather sickly boy who had left Madera. Not even the name on his driver’s license, which he produced for the service manager’s inspection, struck a spark in the man. Mervyn was not surprised at that, either. Very few of his schoolmates in Madera had known his Christian name; to them, from middle grade school, he had been “Booksie”—Booksie Gray.
    Mervyn signed a receipt and paid the storage charges. The service manager went back with him to the Chevy. “I didn’t look her over, but she looks like she’s O.K.”
    Mervyn climbed in and reached under the dashboard to snap on the ignition switch installed by the previous owner. He pressed the starter button; the engine caught without hesitation. The service manager leaned through the window. “They leave you any gas?”
    Mervyn glanced at the gauge. “A bit less than a quarter of a tank.”
    â€œHow’s the oil pressure?”
    Mervyn looked, his mind working at a