Rainbow's End by James M. Cain Page A

about—and Knight is naturally reluctant to face that judge when I move to have you released on bail. But why let it come to that? I can settle the whole thing now, I’m pretty sure, in one very simple way. Now look me in the eye—all three of you—and give me a straight answer. Is there any reason, any reason at all, why this place shouldn’t be searched? And that other place, too, wherever it is?”
    â€œNo reason I know of,” I told him.
    â€œOf course there’s not any reason!” exclaimed Mom. “What reason could there be? Do you think I’m a thief, too?”
    â€œWell, I certainly know of no reason,” Jill told him.
    He stood up at once and called over to Knight: “Marion, the officers, I suspect, still have their minds on that money—and think Howell held up his call so his mother, Miss Kreeger, or he himself, could hide it. That being the case, they want the place searched, this house and the other one, now. They’ll waive a warrant.”
    â€œWell?” said Knight, looking first at Edgren, then at Mantle. “That does it, I think.”
    â€œOK?” asked Bledsoe.
    â€œAll right, let’s go.”
    So the two officers searched. I’d heard that a search turned your place upside down, but that’s not how it was that day. Both officers knew their stuff and went through the place fast, leaving things just as they found them, first downstairs, then up on the second floor. That surprised them plenty, because nothing was up there except for linen in the two bathroom closets. I showed them the stairway to the attic. “There’s nothing up there,” I assured them, “at least, as I think. To tell the truth, I only looked once.”
    They made it quick, then we got in their car to drive to the other house—down the lane, maybe a quarter mile, to route 60, then a quarter mile south, in the direction of Marietta, then up the other lane and to the other house. I unlocked it and they shivered at how cold it was. The front rooms were empty, but I pointed to the light I kept burning, then led them through to the back rooms which were full of sacks of seed corn, seed lettuce, seed radish, and fertilizer, where another light was burning. I unlocked one of the back doors and took them out through the yard to the kitchen, where I’d had the door cut bigger to let in the big farm machinery. In one corner were gardening tools—shovels, hoes, pick, rake, and so on—which Mantle grabbed up to look at, for fresh dirt, I suspected, in case we’d buried the money somewhere. But Edgren stood in the door looking around. Suddenly he turned to me, saying: “Your father built it, you say. Where was your father from?”
    â€œTexas,” I told him.
    â€œThat’s right, this is a Texas ranchhouse. The dining room’s in the house, and they cooked here in this kitchen. But in the old days, the slave boy that carried in the food had to whistle as he came—so he couldn’t lick the gravy off the meat. If he didn’t whistle, he was in real trouble.”
    â€œMy father mentioned that.”
    Edgren seemed satisfied. If Mantle was, I couldn’t be sure.
    We drove back to the other house, where they were all getting quite sociable, Mom telling Knight and Bledsoe “how messy his brains looked, scattered all over the ground,” the nurse sitting with Jill, and York in the hall talking on the phone. “Nothing.” Edgren reported to Knight. “So far, anyway,” Mantle said, slightly amending the report. But it was York who took charge of the conversation when he came out, first dropping a bill in Mom’s lap and thanking her for letting him use the phone.
    â€œThat was Mr. Morgan I was talking to,” he explained. “Russ Morgan, I mean, president of Trans-U.S.&C. He’s cleared it all up, I think, in regard to the money—as far as Jill is concerned. He’s given