The Glass Village by Ellery Queen Page A

in silence. He was about to follow when the truck shot backward; he was almost hurled under the wheels. He clung to the tailboard chain, dragging; if not for the helping hands of the Judge and Ferriss Adams he would have been torn loose. The others looked on curiously, not stirring.
    His head ached abominably.
    All the way back to Shinn Corners the Cudbury lawyer complained about his sunken car, trying to get a salvage price out of Peter Berry. The rain dripped off his nose bitterly. The storekeeper kept shaking his head and saying in his boomy-smily voice that he couldn’t set a price beforehand, didn’t know how long the job would take, it was a question if his old wrecker had the power to pull a car out that was almost completely buried in bog, though of course he’d be glad to give it a try. Likely need a dredger, too. Might be a mite expensive. If Mr. Adams wanted him to tackle it on a contingency basis … “’Course, you could always get ’Lias Wurley from over Cudbury to come way out here, Mr. Adams, but Wurley’s a high-priced garage …”
    In the end Adams threw up his hands. “Couldn’t possibly be worth it,” he said disgustedly. “Anyway, I got a new car on order from Marty Zilliber and all the robber’d allow me on a trade-in was a hundred twenty-five. Hundred twenty-five! I said sure it’s gone a hundred and thirty-two thousand miles, Marty, but I only had a ring job and complete overhaul done at the hundred thousand mark, the rubber’s in good condition, seems to me it’s worth more than a hundred twenty-five, book or no book. But that’s all he’d give me on the trade. So I guess the hell with it. Let the insurance company worry about it. If they want to spend a couple hundred dollars for a dredge and wrecker …”
    He had apparently forgotten all about his aunt.
    Johnny lay down flat on his stomach with his head over the tailboard and was sick all over the road. The Judge held onto his legs, looking away.
    The rain stopped and the late afternoon sun came out just as they passed old man Lemmon’s hovel on Holy Hill.
    Hubert Hemus’s car was parked just beyond the Adams house, before the church. The prisoner, Burney Hackett, the three Hemus men were nowhere to be seen.
    â€œWhere is he?” demanded Judge Shinn, pushing through the crowd of women and children at the church gate. “What did they do with him?”
    â€œDon’t you worry, Judge, he’s safe,” said Millie Pangman. The sun flashed off her gold eyeglasses. “They’re fixin’ up the coalbin in the church cellar as a jail. He won’t get away!”
    â€œToo good for him, I say,” bellowed Rebecca Hemus. “Too good for him!”
    â€œAnd that Elizabeth Sheare runnin’ to make him a cup of tea,” said Emily Berry venomously. “Tea! Poison’s what I’d give him. And gettin’ him dry clothes, like the church was a hotel. Peter Berry, you get on home and take those wet things off!”
    â€œWouldn’t it be better if you all went home?” asked the Judge evenly. “This is no place for women and children.”
    â€œWhat did he say?” shouted old Selina Hackett. “Who went home? At a time like this!”
    â€œWe have as much right here as you men, Judge,” said Prue Plummer sharply. “Nobody’s going to budge till that murdering foreigner gets what’s coming to him. Do you realize it was only by the grace of God and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost that I wasn’t the one he murdered? How many times I told Aunt Fanny, ‘Don’t take in every dirty stranger who comes scraping at your kitchen door,’ I told her. ‘Some day,’ I said, ‘some day, Aunt Fanny, you’ll let in the wrong one.’ The poor dear wouldn’t ever listen. And now look at her!”
    Mathilda Scott said in a low voice, “I’d like to get my