“Booby-trapped,” Moody said.
Judd looked at him, baffled. “But how did you…”
Moody grinned. “I told you, I’m a bad sleeper. I got here around midnight. I paid the night man to go out and have some fun, an’ I just kinda waited in the shadows. The night-man’ll cost another twenty dollars,” he added. “I didn’t want you to look cheap.”
Judd felt a sudden wave of affection toward the little fat man. “Did you see who did it?”
“Nope. It was done before I got here. At six o’clock this mornin’ I figured no one was gonna show up any more, so I took a look.” He pointed to the dangling wires. “Your friends are real cute. They rigged a second booby trap so if you lifted the hood all the way, this wire would detonate the dynamite. The same thing would happen if you turned on your ignition. There’s enough stuff here to wipe out half the garage.”
Judd felt suddenly sick to his stomach. Moody looked at him sympathetically. “Cheer up,” he said. “Look at the progress we’ve made. We know two things. First of all, we know you’re not nuts. And secondly”—the smile left his face—”we know that somebody is God Almighty anxious to murder you, Dr. Stevens.”
Chapter Ten
THEY WERE SITTING in the living room of Judd’s apartment, talking, Moody’s enormous body spilling over the large couch. Moody had carefully put the pieces of the already defused bomb in the trunk of his own car.
“Shouldn’t you have left it there so the police could have examined it?” Judd asked.
“I always say that the most confusin’ thing in the world is too much information.”
“But it would have proved to Lieutenant McGreavy that I’ve been telling the truth.”
“Would it?”
Judd saw his point. As far as McGreavy was concerned, Judd could have placed it there himself. Still, it seemed odd to him that a private detective would withhold evidence from the police. He had a feeling that Moody was like an enormous iceberg. Most of the man was concealed under the surface, under that facade of gentle, small-town bumbler. But now, as he listened to Moody talking, he was filled with elation. He was not insane and the world had not suddenly become filled with wild coincidences. There was an assassin on the loose. A flesh-and-blood assassin. And for some reason he had chosen Judd as his target. My God, thought Judd, how easily our egos can be destroyed. A few minutes ago he had been ready to believe that he was paranoiac. He owed Moody an incalculable debt.
“…You’re the doctor,” Moody was saying. “I’m just an old gumshoe. I always say when you want honey, go to a beehive.”
Judd was beginning to understand Moody’s jargon. “You want my opinion about the kind of man, or men, we’re looking for.”
“That’s it,” beamed Moody. “Are we dealin’ with some homicidal maniac who broke out of a loony bin”—
Mental institution, Judd thought automatically.
—“or have we got somethin’ deeper goin’ here?”
“Something deeper,” said Judd instantly.
“What makes you think so, Doc?”
“First of all, two men broke into my office last night. I might swallow the theory of one lunatic, but two lunatics working together is too much.”
Moody nodded approvingly. “Gotcha. Go on.”
“Secondly, a deranged mind may have an obsession, but it works in a definite pattern. I don’t know why John Hanson and Carol Roberts were killed, but unless I’m wrong, I’m scheduled to be the third and last victim.”
“What makes you think you’re the last?” asked Moody curiously.
“Because,” replied Judd, “if there were going to be other murders, then the first time they failed to kill me, they would have gone on to get whoever else was on their list. But instead of that, they’ve been concentrating on trying to kill me.”
“You know,” said Moody approvingly, “you have the natural born makin’s of a detective.”
Judd was frowning. “There are several things that make no sense.”
“Such as?”
“First, the motive,” said Judd. “I don’t know anyone who—”
“We’ll come back to that. What else?”
“If someone really was that anxious to kill me, when the car knocked me down, all the driver had to do was to back up and run over me. I was unconscious.”