"Beats me, Jimmy. You remember old Aunt Tress, used to know all about ancestors and such as that? She couldn't remember about Mr. Bram. She was kind of senile, I guess. She used to say he'd lived in that same old place out on the Concord road when she was a girl. Well, she died five years ago ... in her seventies. He still walks in town every Wednesday ... or he did up till yesterday anyway." "Oh?" Tremaine stubbed out his cigarette, lit another. "What happened then?" "You remember Soup Gaskin? He's got a boy, name of Hull. He's Soup all over again." "I remember Soup," Tremaine said. "He and his bunch used to come in the drug store where I worked and perch on the stools and kid around with me, and Mr. Hempleman would watch them from over back of the prescription counter and look nervous. They used to raise cain in the other drug store...." "Soup's been in the pen since then. His boy Hull's the same kind. Him and a bunch of his pals went out to Bram's place one night and set it on fire." "What was the idea of that?" "Dunno. Just meanness, I reckon. Not much damage done. A car was passing by and called it in. I had the whole caboodle locked up here for six hours. Then the sob sisters went to work: poor little tyke routine, high spirits, you know the line. All of 'em but Hull are back in the streets playin' with matches by now. I'm waiting for the day they'll make jail age." "Why Bram?" Tremaine persisted. "As far as I know, he never had any dealings to speak of with anybody here in town." "Oh hoh, you're a little young, Jimmy," Jess chuckled. "You never knew about Mr. Bram--the young Mr. Bram--and Linda Carroll." Tremaine shook his head. "Old Miss Carroll. School teacher here for years; guess she was retired by the time you were playing hookey. But her dad had money, and in her day she was a beauty. Too good for the fellers in these parts. I remember her ridin by in a high-wheeled shay, when I was just a nipper. Sitting up proud and tall, with that red hair piled up high. I used to think she was some kind of princess...." "What about her and Bram? A romance?" * * * * *