The Four Johns by Ellery Queen Page B

four bedraggled children with dirt-colored hair and fox faces; they too stared at Mervyn until the pickup dwindled to nothing behind a cloud of dust.
    Mervyn went back to the front seat and finished exploring the suitcase; it contained only the usual feminine clutter. He took it back to the trunk, unlocked the trunk again, stowed the suitcase away.… He frowned. Wasn’t something missing? Her purse! Suitcase but no purse.… He lifted the body, looked underneath. No purse.
    Mervyn shut the trunk. His hands tingled. He went to the side of the road, scooped up another handful of the hot, dry sand from between a pair of small tumbleweeds. He rubbed his palms with it nervously. Then he climbed into the car and turned it around and drove back to the crossroads and presently onto the Freeway.
    The sun was dropping low over the flatlands. Through the haze in the west the golden hills of the Coast Range loomed serenely above it all. Mervyn strove to capture some of their aloofness. He could not afford to handle his problems, he kept telling himself, on an emotional level.… Automatically checking his gas gauge, he was reminded that when he had reclaimed the car at the Madera garage the gauge had stood at the quarter mark. Significant fact? One that deserved thinking about? The week before, John Boce had borrowed the convertible and made much of the fact that he had returned it with a full tank. Mervyn had not used the car since. Three-quarters of sixteen gallons—the capacity of the tank—was twelve. At highway speeds the old convertible usually made about fifteen miles to the gallon. Approximately 180 miles, then 190 perhaps, for the gauge was a bit below the one-quarter mark. Madera was something over 150 miles from Berkeley. Which left thirty-five, maybe forty miles to be accounted for.
    All this was very strange. And he still had to decide what to do with Mary.…
    He looked to the left, toward the mountains. After a few miles the farms thinned out as the barren foothills began. He knew places where no one came, not even to graze cattle.
    Mervyn grimaced. He’d have to make sure there were no witnesses.… Wheels within wheels. A single certainty: someone wanted him tagged for the murder of Mary.
    He reverted to Mary’s handbag. Why was it missing? Accident? Or design? The possibilities were alarming.
    He began to drive faster. Sixty-five, seventy, seventy-five. The rush of the wind recalled him to his senses, and he decelerated; thereafter he drove cautiously, well below the speed limit. It would not do to be arrested. Or, even worse, to become involved in an accident and have the trunk fly open.
    At Merced he gassed up. He discovered that he was famished; he had eaten nothing since breakfast. He considered. The time was now six o’clock. If he drove straight through he would arrive in Berkeley about eight, or half past. For a reason which he could not identify, this seemed too early. So he turned into a drive-in.
    But now he found that, hungry or not, he could not eat with Mary Hazelwood curled up dead in the trunk. It seemed monstrously unfitting. Committed, he ordered a milk shake, drank it without tasting it. Then he called for black coffee and sat brooding.… If only he could dump the entire business—anonymously—into the hands of the police! Why should he be in this miserable position? To have to choose between disposing of a murder victim and destroying his career! Or even having to take the rap for the whole thing.…
    Suddenly nervous, Mervyn paid up and started north once more. And again that niggling disinclination to get back too early. He chewed at it and finally identified the cause. Night was what he was after. He did not want to be seen . He was feeling guilty!
    The thought enraged him; he drove faster. But then he slowed again. After all, he did have something to slink about—he was carrying a corpse in the trunk of his car, and he was planning to