"Now you will forget I put a helmet on you. You will only remember the real incident as I have just told you and feel the compulsion to confess in writing. When I snap my fingers, you will awake."
She took the helmet off, turned it off and put it in the shopping bag.
Bang-Bang slid into the room, making motions.
The Countess Krak snapped her fingers.
Graves opened his eyes and looked around with some anxiety.
Bang-Bang whispered to the Countess Krak. "That doctor said I couldn't be cured. But he's making his evening rounds. We better split!"
Footsteps sounded. Bang-Bang looked anxiously at the window, apparently to see if it could be dived out of.
More footsteps.
Dr. Price walked in!
He looked very severely at Bang-Bang. "I thought you had left. Maybe I should reexamine you for some other symptom such as snooping. Aha, and what is this young lady doing here?"
"We couldn't find the exit!" wailed Bang-Bang.
Dr. Price went around to the other side of the bed. He gave his black coat a professional twitch. He swept his blond hair out of his eyes. He bent over and took hold of Dr. Graves's wrist. "If you've been disturbing this patient..."
The door opened.
Stonewall Biggs walked in!
"What is this?" said Dr. Price. "A camp meeting?"
"Biggs!" cried Dr. Graves, sitting up and freeing his wrist. "Biggs! 'Fore God, get me a pen and some paper! This arthritis is killing me!"
Biggs looked startled. Then he looked at the Countess Krak. "You must be th' young lady..."
"Here," said the Countess Krak, pushing a pad and a pen into Biggs's hand.
"I can't allow this patient to be disturbed!" said Dr. Price.
"Give me that paper!" wailed Graves.
Biggs promptly did so. The Countess Krak pushed a bed table into place. Graves bent over it and furiously began to write.
Biggs looked at the first words that Graves put down and then he rushed from the room. A moment later he came back, dragging two of the hospital nurses.
"What is this?" cried Dr. Price, tearing at his blond hair.
"Shut up," said Stonewall Biggs. "It do seem that ol' Tremor heah is busy on a confession. And all of you watch because you'ns is goin' to be signin' it as due, prop-ah an' authentic, done by his own free will an' accord an' without no threat of duress!"
"You can't invade his privacy!" cried Dr. Price.
"He's invadin' it hisself," said Stonewall Biggs. "Confession is awful good fo' th' soul. An' as county clerk, ah c'n invade anythin' ah please. So jus' stan' theah an' watch."
Dr. Graves was writing at a mad rate.
Suddenly I realized that Heller was unaccounted for. His viewer was tipped a bit away from me and I had been too engrossed to watch it for his fate, which, after all, I considered sealed. The view was of the silly French car, the Karin, seen from a distance in the gloom and I supposed they had intercepted him on the road and now had him standing somewhere securely cuffed. I did not have time to play back the strips. I could enjoy that later.
Right now the question was, would the Countess Krak get away with this flagrant violation of all legal rules of evidence? Surely men as clever as Price and Biggs, themselves, would see through this: the eagerness
of that racing pen would look strange to them. Graves was practically quivering!
And then I realized something else: the chance Torpedo now had. The Countess Krak was standing across the room from that window. Dr. Price, on the other side of the bed, had his back to it but was not blocking it. All Torpedo had to do was shoot past Dr. Price and he would nail the Countess Krak! No thin windowpane could even deflect a.375 Magnum Holland and Holland elephant slug! Come on, Torpedo!
Dr. Graves was finished. He signed the confession with a huge signature and then sank back. A beautiful smile suffused his aged face. "Oh," he said, "what a relief! No pain!"
Biggs was reading the confession. The Countess Krak was looking over his shoulder. "So!" said Biggs. "Theah were two lahk he said!"
The nurses were also trying to get a glimpse of what Graves had written. "No, no," said Biggs. "Th' rest of you don' have t'read it. You'ah jus' heah t'witness that he writ it. So you sign, heah at th' bottom, each one of you."
Dr. Price and the two nurses signed as Biggs thrust it under their noses.
"Now, Tremor," said Biggs, "raise yo' raht ban'. Do you solemnly sweah that this is th' truth, th' whole truth and nothin' but th' truth, so he'p you God?"
"Oh, yes," said Dr. Graves. "It's the only decent thing I ever did in my whole life."
"Good," said Biggs. "Now by th' powah invested in me as Notary Public of th' Sovereign State of Virginia, Justice of th' Peace an' County Clerk of Hamden County, ah do pronounce this document valid an' bindin' on all pahties, so he'p me God, Amen!" He got out a stamp
and put a notary form at the document end. He signed it and dated it. He got out a pocket embossing seal and crunched it over the signatures. He took out a little book and recorded the date and number of the paper and then had everybody sign his little book.
"Now that," said Biggs, handing it to Krak, "is th' mostes' legal document this county evah see!"
"Thank you, Miss," said Dr. Graves. "I feel so comfortable, now I can die in peace!"
CRASH!
The window shattered!
The boom of a rifle!
Everything went into a blur.
Something hit the Countess Krak!
She was down on the floor!
Bang-Bang let go of her.
He hit another set of legs. "Down! Down!" Bang-Bang was shouting. "Hit the dirt, you rookies!"
A fusillade of other shots!
More glass flying through the room!
I thought that Torpedo must be firing the dead motorcycle cop's gun now.
The shots stopped.
"Anybody hit?" shrilled Bang-Bang.
"I'm not hit," said Dr. Price, crawling further under the bed. "It just went through my coat."
One of the nurses raised up. She screamed!
The other nurse got on her knees and looked. She cried, "Dr. Graves is hit!"
A flick of movement on Heller's viewer caught my eye. He had glanced up. A hospital window! He was outside! He was creeping through the brush!
I raged! The dirty sneak had not been caught! He
must have decided to be cautious and had remained outside letting Biggs go in!
A nurse on her knees at the edge of the bed said, "Dr. Graves is dead!"
Biggs on the floor muttered, "Ah hope Junior is all raht."
The Countess Krak-eyes level with the planks-looked at Biggs. "Junior? You mean my darling is out there?"
"He saw some kin' of a French cah in th' bushes an' thought Hahvey Lee maht have come heah," said Biggs. "He sent me in."
The Countess Krak got up to her knees and started toward the door.
Bang-Bang grabbed her, pushed her down. "No you don't, Miss Joy. The terrain out there must be swarming with gooks and you ain't got no helmet."
"Holy smokes," wailed Stonewall Biggs, "aftah all this, ah hope they don' kill Junior! Ah ain't got mah new cohthouse yet!"
Out of the night, through the shattered window, the blast of a bullhorn blared. "Come out of there with your hands up!"
"Good God," said Stonewall Biggs. "Chief Fawg!" He raised his voice to an outraged shout. "You God (bleeped) fool! Quit shootin'!"
The bullhorn roared, "The place is surrounded.
Throw your guns out the window and come out quietly with your hands up!"
Biggs howled, "(Bleep) it, Fawg! This is Biggs! Theah ain't nobody in heah! You jus' killed Doctah Graves!"
A nurse screamed, "He's right!" I got Heller's viewer turned so I could see it better. He was in the brush. He was looking at the backs of three cops and Harvey Lee! Beyond them was the hospital. Heller had that big, fancy Llama.45 automatic pistol in his hand and it was trained right between the shoulder blades of Chief Fawg!