Appointment With Yesterday

Originally published in the May 24, 1941 issue of Detective Fiction Weekly

Appointment with yesterday By Hugh B. Cave Through the treacherous mire of his past, where one false step meant destruction, lay the road to Jim Colter's future. ____________________________________________________________________________________ COLTER closed the door behind him and stared at the girl as a starving man looks at food. "All ready?" he muttered. She handed him a small suitcase. Colter took it, a prayer in his heart that she would never regret the thing she was now doing. The house was deathly still as the girl turned for a last look at the shadowed staircase. Her grandfather was up there, Colter knew, asleep. This would break his heart. No one accosted them. He put her in the car, locked her suitcase in the trunk, then sent the machine roaring into the night. In half an hour the city lay behind and a broad concrete highway stretched ahead into a thing called Future. Colter put a hand out to touch the girl beside him. "It's been so long, Anne. So terribly long." She moved closer, the warmth of her slim young body a comforting barrier between him and the pursuing shadows of the past. "Tell me about it, Jim." "There's not much to tell. I couldn't stay in that place. Eighteen years— God! I nearly died in the first eight months. Then some of the men approached me, said they were engineering an escape and did I want to join them. "We went over the wall. You must know about it— the details, I mean. It was in all the papers. Some of their friends on the outside had prepared a hideout for us. We went there. I stayed three weeks, moved out, drifted across the country." It sounded so simple, Colter thought bitterly, living again in his mind the days of tramping, the heat, the dirt, the long lonely nights filled with terror. "I got a job, finally, in a little New Hampshire town called Linwood. I struck up a friendship there with a man named McAndrews who runs a little sporting goods place, makes fishing rods, tackle, that sort of stuff. Now I'm his partner." "In this short time?" "He liked me, believed in me." "Does he know the truth about you, Jim?"

"He knows everything. It was through him that I finally worked up courage to write to you." The car had settled down to an even forty miles an hour and Colter's voice had steadied, too. "He even helped me to find the house we're going to live in, darling. A little place with a garden, a drystone wall covered with flowers." "And," she whispered, holding his arm tight, "I'll be Mrs. Colter." "Not Colter. Carter. " "It doesn't matter. Nothing does, except us." Colter was strangely content. The miles slid by rapidly. They would reach Linwood by noon tomorrow, he estimated. The Justice of the Peace was waiting, and old McAndrews would be there to give his blessing. There was just one thing wrong. Anne's grandfather, a retired Commissioner of Police, and her brother Philip, an FBI agent, would hate him until the day he died. "Has Phil been home lately?" "He's been home for a week, Jim, on vacation." "He wasn't at the house tonight." "No— he wasn't." She glanced at him and frowned. "I'm worried, Jim. There was a telephone call for Phil this afternoon and I overheard part of what he said. Jim— who are the Benson brothers?" "Kidnappers," Colter said briefly. "Murderers." "Do you know them?" COLTER shifted his gaze from the road long enough to send a quick searching glance at her face. "No," he lied. "Why?" "I heard Phil say, 'The Benson brothers' hideout? Good!' Then after hanging up he turned to me and said: 'It's taken us four years, Sis, but now by God we've found it!' about half an hour later a car stopped at the house and he rushed out to it. But he came back and kissed me, Jim.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________ "Appointment With Yesterday" Copyright © 1941 by Frank A. Munsey Co. For Detective Fiction Weekly. Reprinted by arrangement with the author.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________ Hugh B. Cave APPOINTMENT WITH YESTERDAY May 24, 1941 _______________________________________________________________________________________________

He's never done that before. It seemed so strange, so— Jim! What's the matter?" Colter's teeth were sunk in his lip. His foot came off the accelerator and the car slowed to a stop. "What time did he leave the house?" "About eight-thirty. Why?" He stared straight ahead, his face a ghastly shade of gray. "Nothing!" he said then, and sent the car growling on again. "But Jim, what's the matter?" "Nothing, I tell you! Nothing!" Colter's voice was savage. "If the G-men are going after the Bensons, good! It's about time!" He looked at his watch. Eleven-thirty. There was nothing he could do, he told himself bitterly. He owed them nothing. His past was behind him. To hell with it. But the thing was eating at a vital part of him. He looked at his watch again, found himself doing mental arithmetic. The road forked. To the left lay a thing called Future; to the right lay Colter's past, a treacherous mire where one false step meant destruction. Colter's lips formed words. "God help me!" He swung right. A single yellow eye leaped from a side road behind and gave chase. Colter groaned. He knew what his car would do. Seventy, no more. The motorcycle crept up on him, pulled alongside. Colter applied the brakes. The cop was middle-aged, his face deceptively expressionless around a pair of shrewd eyes. He glanced at the girl, looked Colter over. "License and registration!" "Why, sure," Colter said. This was taking time and every minute lessened his chances. "Just thought I'd see how fast she'd go, officer. Open road, you know. No traffic." He opened the door and got out. "Crazy of me, I guess, but you know how it is...." He handed over his license, registration, and the cop's gaze bent to examine them. Colter's fist swept from his hip and exploded in the cop's face. He waded in, throwing rights and lefts with the controlled but devastating power which had made him collegiate heavyweight champion. With every blow he was shattering a letter of that all too short word FUTURE, but he kept swinging until the cop went down unconscious.

Colter pulled the uniformed heap off the road, shoved the cycle into the ditch and leaped back into his car. Anne's lips moved; no words came. Colter himself supplied the words. "Had to do it. Can't risk an arrest— not with my fingerprints on file at FBI and every cop in the East hunting me. " Her brother, he remembered moodily, was an FBI agent. It was a macabre situation, this into which he had plunged himself. He looked at his watch. The cop back there would not be out long. Soon the wolf-pack would be prowling the roads. The miles flowed by in silence. Three hours. God, if there were only some way to take time by the throat. Three short hours and miles of highway still to be traveled, and no other way but to travel them. No way of phoning ahead— "Radio! They'll have a radio! Listen, Anne. When we get to the next town I'm going to stop, make a phone call. You're to stay in the car and keep your eyes open for cops. Understand?" "But Jim, why all this? What's happened to us?" "You'll learn soon enough," Colter muttered. The town was a small one, a few scattered street lamps dismally yellowing the main street. Colter drew up in front of a drugstore, went inside. It was crowded with youngsters of High School age, apparently winding up the evening after a dance. "You have a phone?" "In back." The clerk pointed. Colter strode the length of the store. There was one booth, one phone, and it was in use. The girl using it had a shrill voice that reached Colter through the glass door. "You don't know what you missed, darling. The orchestra was just divine and...." COLTER'S hands opened and closed, slick with sweat. He sent a fearful glance around, aware that he could be trapped in a place like this all too easily. The crowd at the fountain deafened him with small-talk; the counterman rattled dishes; the girl in the booth giggled on. Colter curled his lips and reached for the booth door to yank it open. A voice stopped him. Anne was beside him, clutching his arm. "Jim! There's a policeman across the street staring at the car! He took out a notebook. He— "

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_______________________________________________________________________________________________ Hugh B. Cave APPOINTMENT WITH YESTERDAY May 24, 1941 _______________________________________________________________________________________________

Colter turned abruptly and it was too late. The cop was crossing the street. A glance showed him a side door beyond the phone booth and he pulled Anne toward it. "Come on!" She stumbled and he caught her; then they were outside in a dim street, the car hidden by a corner of the building. "A cab," Colter thought desperately. "If they have one in this town.... " He caught a breath and peered at the dimmed headlights of a car parked just ahead. "Steady, Anne. Walk slowly. We're taking this car . . . " The boy behind the wheel was just a youngster. Colter and Anne walked past. Colter stopped, turned back. "Sa-a-ay, sonny, got a rip in your gas tank. Stuff's spilling all over the gutter." The boy straightened, sleepily scowling. "Huh?" "Can't you smell it?" The boy opened the door and got out. Colter thrust a foot in front of him, shoved him over it, and he went sprawling. Colter sprawled, too, in throwing himself behind the wheel, but recovered to drag Anne in after him. He turned the key and found the starter just as the car's owner began yelling. He swung the machine into the main street and sent it roaring past his own parked car. The cop was just entering the drugstore, and the din sucked him around. He gaped, shouted something. The car streaked past the last dim street lamp and the town was gone. "They'll be after us now," Colter said. His laugh was just nervous reaction. Anne got her breath back. "Jim— darling— where are you taking me?" "Linwood, I told you." "Don't lie to me, Jim." Her fingers tremblingly touched his arm. "I saw the name of that town on the Post Office. We're in New York State, not New Hampshire." Colter's reply was almost a snarl. "All right, we're in New York!" "Why, Jim?" "Because I've got a date here. An appointment." The miles poured by in silence. One hour more, Colter thought blackly. One hour of life. A red light swung in the darkness ahead and he saw

the parked car beyond it, the gleam of polished buttons on a State Trooper's uniform. Suddenly he realized that he was dragging the girl with him into danger, but a halt was impossible. "Get down," Colter muttered. "We're going through." The headlights of the stolen car bore down on the trooper at seventy miles an hour and the car ate its heart out to give Colter satisfaction. The trooper leaped for safety just as Colter veered to miss him. Then car, trooper and light were part of an exploding, receding darkness split by spurts of flame. A bullet smashed the rear window and something stung Colter's neck. He wiped it off, his hand red and wet. This time the girl said nothing. Lower lip caught between her teeth, she stared at the road. Headlights of a pursuing car winked in the mirror. Colter's foot sledged to the floor. Half an hour the chase lasted, while Colter marveled at the stolen car's amazing speed. The pursuing lights faded. A slumbering town swept past, and another. Now with bloodshot eyes he watched every turn of the road. A sign along here would say: NATHAN'S FARM, PRIVATE ROAD. To Jim Colter it would say more than that. To him it would say— OBLIVION. He looked at his watch for the last time. Four-twenty. "On time," he muttered, "unless they licked the schedule." All at once he fought the car to a stop, turned and took Anne in his arms. He kissed her. Kissed her hair, her eyes, her mouth, hurting her. Releasing her, he said quickly: "Drive on to the next town. It's four miles. Go straight to the cops and tell them what happened. Tell them to come out here, Nathan's Farm." His eyes soaked up a last look at her; then with a half-sobbed, "So long, darling!" he threw open the door and was gone. COLTER kept clear of the dirt road that led in to Nathan's Farm. His clothing torn by briars, he emerged at last in the shelter of a tumbledown building that had been a barn. The house loomed a hundred yards distant and there was no light anywhere, no sound except the vibrant noises common to country places at night.

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_______________________________________________________________________________________________ Hugh B. Cave APPOINTMENT WITH YESTERDAY May 24, 1941 _______________________________________________________________________________________________

He was on time, but still he could not rest, for when it happened it would happen without warning. How innocent the old farmhouse looked! But Colter had lived in it, slept in it, knew its secrets. Now he prowled across the yard toward a certain cellar window and fumbled a jackknife from his pocket. That was a stubborn window. While he worked on it, his gaze licked at other windows that might more easily be opened. But this one, he knew, was the only aperture not a death trap. This was the Achilles heel of an intricate alarm system— defective unless repaired since his sojourn here. He lowered himself into the depths of the cellar, straightened, heard no sound in the house above. Warily he struck a match. Weird shapes loomed into prominence and weirdest of all was the row of cupboards lining the front wall— cupboards apparently choked with tools and assorted junk, but concealing, Colter knew, a battery of machine-guns, electrically controlled from upstairs, that could sweep the yard and road with a murderous rain of death. Colter's shoes whispered on the concrete floor, carrying him toward a discarded radio. It was no real radio. Inside it lay the heart of the Bensons' defense system, an electrical labyrinth controlling not only the machine-guns but a network of land mines. He had thought it fantastic once, but a few days of living in the presence of Ma Benson had taught him the reason for such an elaborate hideout. To this isolated farmhouse came the most hunted men in the nation, names from the headlines, names high on the list of the country's public enemies. Here, when the heat was on, they hid from the law. Here they came to recuperate when sick. Here they came to whisper their plans to Ma Benson, that she might ferret out the flaws and offer advice. Ma Benson— mother of crime! With the knife clutched in his hand, Colter bent over the thing that looked like a radio. He had reached the Benson hideaway in time! A few swift stabs of the knife, wrecking this infernal mechanism, and he could vanish again, secure in the knowledge that Anne's brother would not be walking into a death trap. He— A light stabbed the cellar's darkness and Colter froze in his tracks. A deadly, purring voice

said: "So it's the college boy who slipped out on us. Get away from that radio!" Something died in Colter's heart as he turned. He knew the voice. He was not shocked when the back-glow of the flashlight showed him a frail, white-haired old lady. Ma Benson personified the sweet old lady of the sob songs. But her face was twisted now, and there was a bony, claw-like menace in the hand that gripped a gun. In a voice barely audible she said: "What brought you back, Colter?" "I— I needed money. You've got money hidden here." She laughed grimly. "You don't lie convincingly, Colter. Come upstairs." He went past her to the stairs, a doomed man walking to his execution. With Ma Benson close behind him he groped up them. IT was a big house. She prodded him through some of its rooms to the kitchen, forced him to sit, then shouted from the doorway: "Wendell! Harold! Come down here!" Her son Wendell appeared first, in black silk pajamas too large for him. A thin, swarthy man, he resembled his mother only remotely. Recognizing Colter, he sneered: "Well, well, the sheep returns to the fold!" Harold came into the kitchen a moment later, a big man with small, alert eyes. Some of Ma Benson's shrewdness, her brains, were Harold's also. He favored Colter with only a glance. "What's up?" "This rat has sold us out. I caught him downstairs, about to wreck the radio." The "radio" was her pet name, Colter knew, for the deadly mechanism that was not a radio. Harold's gaze fastened smolderingly on Colter. He slid his feet over the floor in a slow, ominous, terrifying advance, his hands curling at his sides. "Never mind that!" Ma Benson shrilled. "Get Curly up. Wake the others." She whipped her head around. "You, Wendell, tie this rat up. We'll show him." Colter had no chance to resist. Her gun guarded him every moment. Other men appeared. Colter did not know them. They glanced at him curiously, without compassion, and waited for Ma Benson to speak.

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_______________________________________________________________________________________________ Hugh B. Cave APPOINTMENT WITH YESTERDAY May 24, 1941 _______________________________________________________________________________________________

"Curly, you and Mack load up the two cars. You know what to take. Work fast." "What the hell, Ma," Wendell protested. "We ain't quittin' this place, are we?" "We are. I knew this was coming, you fools! I knew it when I first laid eyes on this Colter. We should have kept him here, permanently. But you"— she turned on Wendell with a fury that sent him stumbling backward— "you let him slip away." The old woman's anger was cyclonic, yet as she issued orders she wasted not a word or gesture. This moment had been planned in advance, Colter knew. Every man knew his job. There were two fast cars concealed in the barn, awaiting this very emergency, and in not more than ten minutes the house would be stripped of its valuables, its cached loot, its arsenal. What remained would be blown up with the empty shell of the house itself. Numbed by his knowledge of the fate in store for him, Colter sat watching the rush of activity. Events of his life paraded before him in a mist of mental agony: his graduation from college, the meeting with Anne, easy money in pro football— and a dangerously easy contact with shady confidence men, gamblers, racketeers. Then the one huge mistake of his life, that day in Albany when he found himself sucked into a gambling coup that turned sour and sent him to prison. The mist thickened. It was the ghost of a small white cottage, the kindly face of old McAndrews, telling him: "Any honest man can outlive his past, Jim. Sure he can. You write to that girl of yours and make plans for the future." The future! A bitter smile twisted Colter's lips. And Ma Benson was standing over him, her evil eyes icily studying him. "Say your prayers, Colter." Colter squared his shoulders. "I've said my prayers. Do your damndest." She laughed. A vulture with human voice might have laughed that way. "You know what happens, Colter. You stay here. We go. Up the road a little way we stop at the watch-post to pick up Petraca." Colter knew what and where the watch-post was. Located near the entrance to the private road it looked like an abandoned shanty; but in it, day and night, a man stood ready to phone to the

house a report of any suspicious car that entered the Bensons' private domain. And the shack contained something else. It contained an electrical switch by means of which the Benson stronghold could be blown to bits. MA BENSON leered at him and knew that he knew. She said very softly, "So long, Colter," and turned to leave. And all at once she stopped because a tall, slim man stood in the kitchen doorway, gun in hand, to block her exit. Colter's eyes widened. He caught a breath that burned his lungs. Ma Benson turned white, slowly raised her hands as though lifting a ten ton weight. Colter said hoarsely, "Phil! How in God's name— " "Easy," Anne's brother said. "Take it easy, Colter." He removed Ma Benson's gun from the pocket into which she had dropped it, then forced her back against a chair; and made her sit. "And you, too, Mrs. Benson," he said grimly. "Just take it easy. Your two fine sons and the rest of your mob are all under control outside.'' Colter stared, unable to believe. It didn't make sense. With a man on guard at the watch-house, how had they arrived unseen without warning? Another Federal man strode into the kitchen, took in the situation and moved to Colter's side to release him. Two others appeared, herding Ma Benson's tribe ahead of them, lining the crestfallen prisoners against the kitchen walls. All wore handcuffs. Ma Benson wet her lips, looked around, said acidly: "Well, coppers, how did you do it?" "Never mind that, Mrs. Benson. Just keep quiet." "Why should I keep quiet?" she shrilled. "Any time a flock of stupid cops put something over on me, I want to know how it's done!" "We came through the woods, Mrs. Benson," said one of the Federals, grimly smiling. "Now we'll just use your telephone to call the local police." "No." Jim Colter said sharply. Phil Summers glanced at him curiously. "Why not?"

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_______________________________________________________________________________________________ Hugh B. Cave APPOINTMENT WITH YESTERDAY May 24, 1941 _______________________________________________________________________________________________

"Every call made on this phone goes through the watch-house. That's so Ma Benson can keep a close check on her boarders." "I see," Phil said. "Well, we'll do without the locals. Let's go." He looked at Colter again. "You're on your bond, Jim, not to try to escape." Colter nodded. Ma Benson's bitterness dropped from her like discarded robe. She said brokenly: "Wait— wait, please." She stood up, her eyes brimming with tears. "Before we go, there's one thing— one thing I'd like to have." "Well, Mrs. Benson?" Ma Benson was just a frail, broken old woman, pitifully begging a favor. "It's— in the living room— a picture of my boys before they got into all this. If you'll take me in there, please.... " "Careful, Phil," warned one of the Federals. Phil Summers nodded, put a hand on the old woman's arm and steered her into the living room. Colter followed, not knowing why. Halting just inside the door, he watched with narrowed eyes while the sobbing Ma Benson pulled a tapestry from the wall and reached up to manipulate the dial of a small safe. Phil Summers watched, too, but was too close to see what Colter saw when the door of the safe swung wide. Colter flung himself across the room and smashed headfirst into the old woman's legs, hurling her against the wall. Her groping fingers missed their goal, left untouched the tiny switch concealed in the safe. Colter crashed into the wall and slid to his knees, swaying. "She meant to blow the place up. Always said she'd never be taken— alive— " A mist formed before his eyes. The little white cottage was in it and a girl's face, smiling. Then with a throaty sigh he collapsed. The same girl's face was there when he opened his eyes hours but this time there was no mist. A glowing smile touched Anne's lips and her fingers tightened on Colter's arm when she saw he was awake. He lay in a hospital bed. Across the room Phil Summers was saying intensely but softly, "I tell you, Sis, it would have been death for the lot of us, except that we reached that road just a moment or two before you and Jim did. We were parked there without lights, figuring out a plan of attack. Then we saw Jim get out of the car. We

trailed him and got to the house by following his lead." He ground out his cigarette. "When I looked the place over after the roundup, I realized what a hellish fortress it was— and what would have happened to us, if we'd driven in by the road as we planned to. " Anne turned her head, said through tight lips: "What's going to happen to Jim now, Phil? Must he go back to prison?" "Perhaps. But if Uncle Sam's agents have any pull— and I think they have, Sis— it won't be for long." "Thanks, " Colter said. "Oh. You're awake." Phil stood up, moved toward the bed. "I shouldn't be hanging around, feller, but I wanted to shake hands." He thrust out a hand and Jim Colter took it. When the door had closed behind her brother, Anne leaned closer and put her face against his and said gently: "It won't be for long, Jim. Prison, I mean. I'll be waiting." Colter smiled. Old McAndrews would be waiting too, and the Justice of the Peace. And the white cottage. The mist was back in Colter's eyes.

THE END

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_______________________________________________________________________________________________ Hugh B. Cave APPOINTMENT WITH YESTERDAY May 24, 1941 _______________________________________________________________________________________________

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