An old man’s voice pleaded:
“Don’t do that, partner. You don’t have to do that.”
I said: “Make a light.”
A match spluttered on the floor, kindled, and put flickering yellow light on a battered face. It was an old face of the useless, characterless sort that goes well with park benches. He was sitting on the floor, his stringy legs sprawled far apart. He didn’t seem hurt anywhere. A table-leg lay beside him.
“Get up and make a light,” I ordered, “and keep matches burning until you’ve done it.”
He struck another match, sheltered it carefully with his hands as he got up, crossed the room, and lit a candle on a three-legged table.
I followed him, keeping close. My left arm was numb or I would have taken hold of him for safety.
“What are you doing here?” I asked when the candle was burning.
I didn’t need his answer. One end of the room was filled with wooden cases piled six high, branded “Perfection Maple Syrup.”
While the old man explained that as God was his keeper he didn’t know nothing about it, that all he knew was that a man named Yates had two days ago hired him as night watchman, and if anything was wrong he was as innocent as innocent, I pulled part of the top off one case.
The bottles inside had Canadian Club labels that looked as if they had been printed with a rubber stamp.
I left the cases and, driving the old man in front of me with the candle, searched the building. As I expected, I found nothing to indicate that