Beyond This Point Are Monsters by Margaret Millar Page A

finally the money belt he wore even when sleeping. Find­ing everything intact he returned to his cot. The voices continued.
    â€œDid you recognize any of them?” Ford asked.
    After a moment’s hesitation Lum Wing shook his head.
    â€œDid you hear what they were saying?”
    â€œThey talked too fast. Also I didn’t listen.”
    â€œDo you understand Spanish, Mr. Wing?”
    â€œFour, five words.”
    â€œI gather that you didn’t overhear any of those four or five words spoken on that occasion?”
    â€œI’m an old man. I mind my own business. I don’t listen, I don’t hear, I don’t get in trouble.”
    â€œThere was a great deal of trouble that night, Mr. Wing. You must have heard some of it whether you listened or not. You appear to have normal hearing for a man your age.”
    â€œI fix it so it’s not so normal.” He showed the court how he made earplugs out of little pieces of paper. “Beside the plugs, there was the wine. It made me sleepy. Also I was tired. I work hard, up before five every morning, doing this, doing that.”
    â€œAll right, Mr. Wing, I believe you . . . You’ve been employed at the Osborne ranch quite a few times, haven’t you?”
    â€œSix, seven.”
    â€œDid Robert Osborne speak Spanish?”
    â€œNot to me.” Lum Wing stared blandly up at the ceil­ing.
    â€œWell, did you ever hear him speak to the men in Span­ish?”
    â€œMaybe two, three times.”
    â€œAnd maybe oftener? A lot oftener?”
    â€œMaybe.”
    â€œIt would, in fact, have been quite possible for you to recognize Mr. Osborne’s voice even if he was talking in a foreign language?”
    â€œI wouldn’t like to say that. I don’t want to make trou­ble.”
    â€œThe trouble is made, Mr. Wing.”
    â€œIt could be worse.”
    â€œNot for Robert Osborne.”
    â€œThere were others,” the old man said, blinking. “Other people. Mr. Osborne wasn’t talking to himself. Why would he talk to himself in Spanish?”
    â€œThen you did recognize Mr. Osborne’s voice that night?”
    â€œMaybe. I’m not swearing to it.”
    â€œMr. Wing, we have reason to believe that a fight which ended in a murder took place in the same room in which you claim to have been sleeping. Do you realize that?”
    â€œI didn’t commit a murder, I didn’t commit a fight. I was sleeping innocent as a baby with my earplugs in until Mr. Estivar woke me up by shaking my arm and shining a flashlight in my face. I said what happened? And he said what happened, Mr. Osborne is missing and there’s blood all over the floor and the cops are on their way.”
    â€œWhat did you do then, Mr. Wing?”
    â€œPut on my pants.”
    â€œYou got dressed.”
    â€œSame thing.”
    â€œI take it that your earplugs had been removed by this time.”
    â€œYes, sir.”
    â€œAnd you could hear perfectly well?”
    â€œYes, sir.”
    â€œWhat did you hear, Mr. Wing?”
    â€œNothing. I thought funny thing how quiet, where is everybody, and I look out my window. I see lights on all over the ranch, the main house, Estivar’s place, the garage where they keep the heavy machinery, the bunkhouse, even in some of the tamarisk trees around the reservoir. I think again what’s the matter, all those lights and no noise. Then I see the big truck is gone, the one the men came in, and the bunkhouse is empty.”
    â€œWhat time was that, Mr. Wing?”
    â€œI don’t know.”
    â€œYou mentioned previously that you had a pocket watch.”
    â€œI never thought to look at it. I was scared, I wanted to get out of that place.”
    â€œAnd did you?”
    â€œI opened my door—there are two doors to the build­ing, the front one the men use and the back one that’s mine. I stepped outside. Estivar’s oldest son, Cruz, was