Michael Malone - Weebly

party felt guilty. But how could any of those who knew
Joy thread such a maze, when there was no Ariadne
and when the door to the secret, as close to them as the
marshlands north of their own hometown, was unknown
not only to them but to those whom they trusted to
protect Dingley Falls for them? The town doctor had
not probed fast or far enough into deaths beyond his
analysis. The town editor had not pursued the
disconnected highway beyond a pro forma squawk of
liberal outrage. The town police chief, while he had
plunged into the labyrinthine caverns, had never raised
his searchlight beyond his own outmaneuvered shadow.
And the man selected by heritage and birth, by
appearance, wealth, and congenial authority, to be the
preeminent watchman over the town? The man whose
flattering provinciality kept him home in Dingley Falls,
for he modestly declined all suggestions that he seek
public office?
Was it likely that Mr. and Mrs. Strummer would
charge Ernest Ransom with unpremeditated homicide?
The banker might fault himself as careless with his pool,
but careless with his country? No.