The Glass Village by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Published: 2012-01-15T12:11:49+00:00

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An altercation outdoors about nine o’clock that night brought them on the run. They found Burney Hackett and Orville Pangman at the intersection being tough with the ancient driver of an ancient Cadillac.

It was ex-Judge Andrew Webster of Cudbury, complete with sleepy eyes, gaunt little fine-boned face, and the trembling movements of a centenarian. Johnny had to help him out of his car.

“It’s the bones,” he said to Johnny as Judge Shinn explained his identity and status to the constable and the farmer. “Get drier and stiffer by the year. Bones and skin. I’m beginning to look like something dug out of an Egyptian tomb. Seems to me medical science could find a cure for old age. It’s the curse of mankind . . . . Well, well, Lewis, what have you got yourself into? Armed men! Insurrection! I can hardly wait to hear the silly details.”

Johnny drove Judge Webster’s car around to the Shinn garage. When he went into the house carrying Andy Webster’s bag, the two jurists had their heads together in the study. Johnny took the suitcase upstairs to one of the guest rooms, opened the windows, rummaged until he located the linen closet, made*, the bed, laid out towels. He reflected that Millie Pangman could hardly have done better.

He went back downstairs to find Ferriss Adams with Judge Shinn and Webster, looking harassed.

“Just got back from Cudbury,” Adams complained—”Had to hire Peter Berry’s car, darn him. There’s a man who would try to make a profit selling tickets to his wife’s labor pains. Had to get some fresh clothes and leave a sign on my office door—my girl’s on her vacation, of course, just when I need her most!” He had been busy all afternoon between his personal affairs in Cudbury and the more immediate matters relating to his grandaunt. He had had to ask Orville Pangman to take charge of her cow; the Jersey was now with the Pangman herd. He had also locked up the old lady’s paintings for safekeeping, pending the appointment of an executor by the county judge of probate. She had left no will despite his frequent urgings, Adams explained in answer to Judge Shinn’s question, and the settling of her estate was bound to be a long-drawn-out process.

As a further safeguard, he had assumed the responsibility of authorizing Burney Hackett to write the comprehensive policy on the paintings which had led Hackett to Fanny Adams’s kitchen and the discovery of her body.

He himself was going to stay at the Adams house until the emergency was over, a precaution the older lawyers approved.

They sat around for an hour discussing the conspiracy. The object, they agreed, was to go through the motions of a murder trial, giving it a sufficient appearance of legality to satisfy the Shinn Corners insurgents and wean them step by step away from their rebellious mood.

“Consequently you must prosecute with vigor, Ferriss,” said Judge Shinn, “and Andy, you must defend in kind. We’re in the position of a referee and two prizefighters getting together to cook up a fixed fight.

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