Erie Stanley Gardner

Two Clues

Part One

The Clue of the Runaway Blonde

1

Cold afternoon sunlight made a carpet of long shadows back of the eucalyptus trees along the road as Sam Beckett opened the gate of the old Higbee place and drove his tractor into the eighty-acre field.

Things had been moving swiftly. Only the night before, the Higbee heirs had finally quit squabbling long enough to agree on a selling price. John Farnham, the realtor, had made a hurried trip to see Beckett the next morning. Within a few hours, Beckett had gone over the property again, and the heirs had signed on the dotted line, the money went into title escrow, and Sam turned his horses into the Higbee place to pasture. Now he was starting plowing. He’d work until midnight, or longer, if he didn’t get too sleepy.

Out in the center of the field the old homestead was hemmed in by big shade trees. The dirt road ran to it in a diagonal fine from the gate. But Beckett had no use for the big rambling house. It would cost more to fix it up than it was worth.

He lowered the plow and started up the tractor. As he plowed up roads and green-sod with utter impartiality, the rich black soil rolled out in smooth billowing streams. The welcome smell of moist, fertile earth filled his nostrils.

Low, sullen clouds drifted by overhead and to the east. Only in the west, where a wind from the ocean was temporarily pushing back the heavy clouds, was there a strip of blue sky. And the setting sun, glinting through under the clouds, turned the lower dragging wisps of moisture to a reddish purple which held a trace of orange, a color peculiar to wintry sunsets in Southern California.

The monotony of the tractor’s motor, the steady strain of watching the furrow, lulled Sam Beckett into a state of half-hypnotism where minutes marched by unnoticed.

The long shadows dissolved in dusk. Sam Beckett switched on the headlights and kept going. His eyes were fixed on the strip between grass and plowed earth, keeping it lined up just to the left of the right front wheel.

The chill night air flowed past his legs and stung his cheeks. His hands grasped the wheel until the knuckles felt numb, but his eyes remained automatically fixed on that slowly moving strip of ground, green on one side, black on the other.

The horses he had let out to pasture seemed unusually restless, because of the new environment, the green grass and the springy soil, perhaps. They galloped and snorted, chasing each other around the field. At times they plunged over into the heavy going of the plowed land.

Over at Beckett’s place a cow was pleading for the return of her calf, an intermittent, mournful bellowing repeated at regular intervals.

Sam Beckett paid no attention to these things. He kept himself absorbed with his plowing, grinding steadily around the field, turning neat, straight furrows.

Somewhere back of the clouds was a moon, a day or so past the full. After it came up, enough light filtered through the cloud-bank to disclose the weird outlines of objects in a colorless, ghostly world.

Something over there on the right looked like a sack of potatoes.

Sam Beckett jerked his head, rubbed his eyes, looked again. Then he pushed out the clutch and reduced the motor to idling speed. He climbed stiffly down from the seat and stumbled over the furrows toward the object, expecting it to disappear at any moment, an optical illusion of the night and the fatigue of too much work. But the object didn’t disappear. As Beckett approached, it seemed darker and more solid. Beckett saw a pair of high-heeled shoes, legs, a skirt, somewhat disarranged — and then he was kneeling by the side of the limp body of a young woman lying face down in the freshly plowed earth.

“Hey!” Beckett shouted, his ears dulled by the after-noise of the tractor engine. “What’s the matter?”

He touched her. She was warm to his touch, but there was a peculiar, inanimate lack of response, and Beckett suddenly withdrew his hand.

The hand felt sticky and seemed dark in the weak moonlight filtering through the cloud-bank.

Abruptly, Sam Beckett found himself running back toward the tractor. He climbed to the seat, raised the plow, and turned the tractor around. Opening the throttle, he started jolting and lurching over the freshly plowed furrows toward the gate, his mind trying to shake off the weariness of his physical fatigue, trying to adjust itself to this startling development.

Even then, it didn’t occur to him to notice the exact time.

Sheriff Bill Eldon finished the office work on his desk, rolled a cigarette, and settled back in the creaky swivel chair to glance through the paper before going home. Occasionally he worked nights at his office in the courthouse, and he always remained late if his wife’s sister, Doris, was a visitor at the house. Doris was there tonight.

The sheriff could get along all right with Doris because he made it a rule to get along all right with everyone. But he was careful to take her in small doses. Doris felt that her brother-in-law was far too “easygoing,” and she lost no chance to air her convictions. She had a suspicious nature, a hard, driving personality. Her shrewd, glittering little eyes were as impudently appraising as those of a blue-jay, and her tongue was constantly in motion.

The passing years had turned the sheriff’s hair white. They had accented his slow drawl and his whimsical sense of humor. These things were a constant source of irritation to his energetic sister-in-law, who thought a man should have some “git-up-an’-git” to him. Of late, she had been referring to him as “the old man” whenever she had occasion to mention him. This was on an average of a dozen times an hour.

The sheriff skimmed through the headlines of the Gazette. The Higbee heirs had worked out a partial compromise, he noticed, by which title could be conveyed to the old homestead. It was reported that a sale was in process of negotiation.

Bill Eldon knew that the purchaser must be Sam Beckett, who owned the eighty acres directly across from the Higbee place.

The sheriff browsed through the front page, turned to the inside page and read the “Personal Mention Column” with that detailed knowledge of the community which enabled him to get a great deal more news out of the column than was actually printed. He noticed that Elsie Farnham had gone to the city for a visit, and the sheriff’s brow puckered. That meant she and John had split up. Elsie’s visit would be duly announced as a separation after a few weeks. Ever since she...

The telephone rang.

Mechanically, Eldon reached for it, picked it up and said, “Hello,” before it dawned on him that in all probability this was his sister-in-law calling to tell him that it was high time for him to come home; that if the County expected him to work overtime, the County should pay him for it; that he was too easygoing anyway and people were always taking advantage of him; that...

“Hello! Sheriff!” The man’s voice was excited. “This is Sam Beckett. There’s a dead woman down at my place!”

“Who is she?”

“Don’t know.”

“How long she been dead?”

“I don’t know.”

“How did she die?”

“I think somebody stuck a knife into her. I just found her.”

The sheriff said, “Don’t touch anything. I’m coming right out.”

He left the office on the run, climbed in the County car and drove rapidly down Chestnut Street, which paralleled Main Street. He didn’t use the siren. To cronies, he sometimes explained that using sirens in a small city was mostly “showing off.” He said that you could make just as good time by taking the side streets and driving steadily and carefully as you could by hitting the main street and scaring everyone to death.

But the sheriff did switch on the official red spotlight, and, once outside of the city, sent the car lurching forward in a swift rush of gliding speed.

It was ten miles to Sam Beckett’s place, and the sheriff made it in ten minutes flat from the time he had started the motor on the County car.

Sam Beckett, looking shaken and bewildered, was waiting for him. Mrs. Beckett was standing beside him, making the fitful, useless motions of a frail, nervous woman under the influence of great excitement.

“You all alone, Sheriff?” she asked, apprehensively, almost incredulously.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Land sakes, you two hadn’t oughta go traipsing around there all alone! You can’t tell what’s over there.”

“What did you see, Sam?” Eldon asked.

“This girl lying face down, right in the fresh plowed ground. She’s sort of blonde like. Ain’t much more than twenty, I’d say. Nice clothes and — this hole in her back. Looks like she’d been stabbed.”

“You make any tracks around the place?”

“Just where I walked up to her.”

“Okay, let’s go see.”

Beckett said, nervously, “I was plowing and she was lying there right on the plowed ground, and no one had left any tracks. If somebody killed her, he must have...”

The sheriff climbed on the tractor and stood with his feet braced on the drawbar. “Let’s go over in this,” he said.

“Now you be careful!” Mrs. Beckett fired a shrill warning after them.

“We’ll be careful, ma’am.”

The sheriff felt of his belt.

“Got your gun?” Mrs. Beckett asked.

Eldon laughed. “Wasn’t looking for my gun. I was looking to see if my flashlight was hanging on my belt. It’s okay.”

The sheriff opened the gate when they crossed over to the old Higbee place. “Keep right in your same tracks, Sam,” he said, “just as well as you can.”

Beckett nodded and drove back across the plowed ground, keeping in the same tracks he had made before. By following those tracks, it was easy to return to the place where the headlights illuminated the huddled, inanimate object lying on the plowed field.

“Those footprints,” the sheriff said, “are they yours?”

“They’re mine.”

“There aren’t any other footprints at all, Sam?”

“That’s what I noticed,” Beckett said uneasily. “I was telling you there wasn’t any tracks.”

“She just didn’t float down here, Sam.”

“The way I figure it,” Sam said, “is that she must have been stabbed and then probably started running. She ran across the field, and the first furrow she came to, she pitched forward and fell on her face, and didn’t have strength enough to get up. She died right there. Then I came along with the plow and didn’t see her the first time around. After that it was easy to miss her.”

“How come you missed her the first time?”

“That was before the moon came up, and I was watching right where the front wheels were going, I kept looking down, way down.”

The sheriff climbed down from the tractor, being careful to step in the same tracks Beckett had made. He bent over the body. His flashlight sent its beam up and down the still figure. His fingers felt for a pulse, but he was careful not to move the body. Then he stepped back to the tractor and said, “Back up, Sam. Keep in your same tracks. When you get to hard ground, stop.”

On hard ground the sheriff once more left the tractor and, with his flashlight close to the ground, moved slowly along, giving each blade of grass a hawklike scrutiny.

“No blood,” he said.

“I could have plowed up the blood.”

“You could have. But if this girl had been running after she’d been stabbed, the blood would have dropped down on her skirt. The blood’s only on her coat.”

“By gosh, that’s so!” Beckett exclaimed. “I never thought of that.”

The sheriff went on, “Tell you what you do, Sam. Go back and telephone Undersheriff Quinlan. Tell him to get a photographer and to get in touch with the coroner. Looks to me as though we’re up against something mighty puzzling here. Me, I’ll stay here and kinda watch that things aren’t disturbed. Tell Quinlan I’ve got the County car. He’ll have to come out in his car.”

“Okay,” Beckett said, the relief in his voice indicating that he was only too glad to get away.

“Okay. After you phone George, better come back with your tractor. I want to have the photographer stand up on the tractor and take a shot looking down at the body just to show the way it’s lying, and that there aren’t any tracks.”

“Except mine,” Beckett said.

“Except yours,” the sheriff remarked tonelessly.

2

Beryl Quinlan, the nineteen-year-old daughter of the undersheriff, had been sitting within reaching distance of the telephone for more than an hour. Roy Jasper was scheduled to call from Fort Bixling. And it spoke volumes for Beryl’s feeling toward Roy that she would wait for an hour in any one place simply to talk with him over the telephone.

In the living room, Beryl’s father was having a mysterious low-voiced conference with three of the town’s leading citizens. They had no idea that Beryl was in the reception room waiting for her call. Seated in the big chair by the telephone, she was too completely engrossed to concern herself with the import of the occasional snatches of conversation which drifted out through the curtained doorway of the living room. But she did recognize the voice of the real-estate agent, John Farnham, generally known as a “crusader,” and, later, the voices of Edward Lyons and Bertram Glasco.

“I couldn’t do it,” Quinlan said in a low voice which somehow seemed to lack finality. “Bill Eldon is my superior officer.”

“Bill Eldon’s crowding seventy,” Glasco said from the smug complacency of his fifty-two years of well-fed prosperity. He was a political bigwig, caring only for power, and was reputed to be able to make or break any man in the county politically.

“Well, now,” Lyons interposed quickly, conscious of his own sixty-six years, “it isn’t his age that’s the matter with him. It’s the general way he does things. He’s old-fashioned. He’s too unchangeable — too dated. That’s it, he’s dated.”

Lyons beamed at the astuteness of his own diagnosis. Publisher of the Rockville Gazette, he was also a political opportunist whose entire influence had been built up by a shrewd ability to forecast the trends in local political opinion. He had a habit of being on the winning side. And after identifying himself with the winner, he managed to impress upon the uninitiated, and some few of the cognoscente as well, the vote-getting importance of the Gazette.

“Your duty,” Glasco suavely pointed out to Quinlan, “is to the County, its people. You’re drawing pay from them. Personally, I don’t think Bill should run again, and I don’t think he would if he were faced with a hot fight.”

“It might not be a hot fight,” Quinlan said.

Lyons cleared his throat. “The Gazette would make it hot.”

“See here, George,” Glasco hastily interposed, “if, in the next important case that breaks, you’d just ride along and not make any suggestions, Bill Eldon would dig a hole for himself and fall in it — flat on his face.”

“Is it your idea that I should lie down on the job?”

“No, no. Not at all,” Glasco protested hastily. “Just follow his instructions. Do whatever Sheriff Eldon tells you to, but don’t go out of your way to make suggestions.”

“I don’t think I’d like to do that,” Quinlan said somewhat dubiously.

“The point is,” Glasco hurriedly went on, “suppose old Bill does make a botch of some big case. Then he wouldn’t run again. Then the question is — would you run?”

“Oh sure — if Bill wasn’t running.”

“But suppose he became obstinate and did run. Would you be willing to resign a few months before election, and then give the voters a chance to say whether it hadn’t been because you were so efficient as an undersheriff that they’d been keeping Bill in the Sheriff’s Office?”

“I wouldn’t want to run against Bill.”

“It isn’t what you’d want to do. It’s what...”

At that moment the telephone rang, and Quinlan, pushing back his chair, showed he welcomed the interruption. Beryl Quinlan promptly lifted the receiver and said, “Hello,” in the dulcet voice she reserved for boy-friends and important company. The sound of her voice so close at hand froze the little group in the living room into surprised immobility.

The operator said, “I have a long-distance call for Miss Beryl Quinlan. Is she there?”

“Speaking,” Beryl said.

“Just a moment.”

Roy Jasper’s voice was eager. “Hello! Hello!”

“Roy!” Beryl exclaimed.

“Oh, darling, I thought...”

The crisp voice interrupted, “Drop twenty-five cents for three minutes, please.”

Then Beryl’s end of the line went dead, and she had to wait agonized seconds until once more she heard Roy’s eager voice. “Say, Beryl! Have I got news for you! I’m going to be able to make it! Yes, sir, your G.I.’s coming home!”

“Oh, Roy!”

“Going to be glad to see me?”

“Am I!”

“How’s everything?”

“Oh, fine — especially now.”

“You were there at the telephone, weren’t you?”

“Well... yes.”

“Honey, I think I’m breaking down their resistance... I may get a discharge.”

“Oh, Roy, you wouldn’t try to kid me would you?”

“No fooling.”

“When?”

“I can’t tell you when. Pretty soon, perhaps. But I’m getting off for a two-week furlough. I’ll see you tomorrow. You’ll save a date for me?”

“Am!”

“Dancing?”

“That will be lovely!”

“Know something?”

“What?”

“I’m crazy to see you.”

Beryl’s youthfully clear voice, held low in an effort to insure privacy, was, nevertheless, distinctly audible to the anxious group in the living room. She said, “It’ll be nice — seeing you.”

Glasco growled irritably, “She wasn’t out there all the time, was she?”

“I don’t think so,” George Quinlan said apologetically. He went to the door of the living room and stared moodily out at the telephone. Then in aggrieved gesture to emphasize his desire for privacy, he pulled the heavy curtains closer together. Beryl’s voice continued to penetrate through the curtains.

The four men sat uncomfortably silent while the cryptic conversation went on, until the operator’s businesslike tone advised the talkers that the three minutes were up.

Roy promptly said, “Bye, Honey,” and hung up the telephone. Beryl clung to the receiver for a moment or two after the connection was severed, as though loath to relinquish the channel over which Roy’s voice had come. Then she hung up.

Almost instantly the phone started ringing again. Beryl eagerly snatched up the receiver. “Hello! Hello!” she said. “Hello, Roy!”

A man’s heavy voice, sharp with excitement, said, “I want George Quinlan, the undersheriff, right away. It’s murder!”

“Just a minute,” Beryl said. “Father, oh, Father! Here’s a call. The man says it’s a murder.”

Quinlan jerked back the heavy curtains and strode to the telephone. He picked up the receiver, listened to Sam Beckett’s hurried, voice. The undersheriff asked a couple of routine questions and then said, “I’ll be right out.”

He hung up and walked back to the living room. His face was without expression but his eyes couldn’t keep from showing his relief. “Woman murdered out on the old Higbee place,” he said. “I’ve got to go. Bill Eldon’s out there. It’s an impossible case on the face of it. Sam Beckett found her lying face down on a freshly plowed field with no tracks. They want me to go out right away. I’ve got to get a photographer and notify the coroner.”

Lyon’s eyes sparkled. “I’ll be right along,” he said.

“Don’t let on you got the tip from me,” Quinlan warned. “Bill might not like it.”

“Bill never gives us a break,” Lyons observed testily.

Bertram Glasco rubbed his hands. “This may be it, George. A body lying face down on a freshly plowed field with no tracks. That sounds as though it might be something way beyond Bill Eldon’s range.”

Lyons said, “Let him show the voters what an old fogy he is. It’ll serve him right.”

Quinlan interposed, “If you boys will excuse me, I’ll have to rush for it.”

Farnham said, “I have every confidence in the ability of Sheriff Eldon to solve crimes. My objection is that he tolerates gambling. I wish you a good night, gentlemen. No, no, George, you have work to do. Don’t bother to show me out.”

He slipped out through the curtained doorway.

Quinlan said angrily, “It’d take an army to stop all the gambling in this county. And suppose you broke up the little poker games that run in the lodge rooms around the county...”

“Forget it, George,” Glasco said. “He’s just the front for our campaign.”

“You can’t ever satisfy him,” Quinlan grumbled.

“We know it,” Glasco soothed.

“I’ve got to go, boys,” Quinlan said. “Sorry, but you know how it is.”

Quinlan shot out the door. Lyons turned to Glasco. “Can’t depend on George,” he said. “I told you so.”

“He’ll come around all right,” Glasco said. “It might be a good thing to play this murder up big, Ed. And you might be able to work in a little stuff about how old Bill doesn’t have any knowledge of fingerprint classification, doesn’t know anything about the paraffin test for firearms. You can mention that he depends on George for all the modern stuff. Let it creep between the lines that Bill’s getting to be an old fogy. Then if he slips up on...”

Lyons interrupted testily, “Hell’s bells, I’m two paragraphs ahead of you. When it comes to politics, don’t ever forget that the Gazette has been in business a long time. Candidates the Gazette supports get elected. Well, I’m going to rush out there and cover this story right from the start.”

Glasco watched him out of the door, then said in a low voice, vibrant with feeling, “You mean you support the men who are going to get elected, you damned old buzzard.”

He heard the sound of a quick intake of breath, whirled and saw Beryl Quinlan sitting motionless by the telephone, lips slightly parted, watching him with wide, startled eyes.

Glasco hesitated for a moment, then walked past her, saying nothing, because there was nothing to say.

3

The little group examined the huddled figure in the light of a floodlight Sam Beckett had rigged on the tractor. They all agreed there were no footprints. The photographer took flashlight photographs from half a dozen different positions, placing his tripod on the light trailer which Sam Beckett had put on the back of the tractor in place of the plow which had been there.

“Well, Jim,” the sheriff said to James Logan, the coroner, “guess you can move her now. Poor kid, she can’t be over nineteen or twenty.”

“Stab wound in the back,” Logan said, crisply businesslike, “and the knife isn’t there. You got a murder case on your hands, Bill.”

“Uh huh.”

The coroner was plainly puzzled, slightly impatient. “You can’t murder a girl in a freshly plowed field with soil as soft as this and not leave some sort of tracks.”

“Uh huh,” the sheriff announced, and then, raising his voice, said, “I want everybody here to remember that when they go out, they’re to go out on Sam Beckett’s tractor. I don’t want any footprints in this plowed ground, no footprints at all. You understand?”

No one said anything.

The sheriff turned to Quinlan and drew him to one side. “What do you make of it, George?” he asked.

“Well, it looks to me...” Quinlan cleared his throat.

“Yeh, go ahead,” the sheriff invited.

“Well, it’s a murder all right,” Quinlan said somewhat lamely. “I’m just wondering... just wondering...”

“About what?”

“About Sam Beckett.”

“What about him?”

“That body couldn’t have got there the way he said.”

The sheriff fished a sack of tobacco from his vest pocket, skilfully curled a piece of rice paper around his left forefinger, shook grains of tobacco into the paper and caught the drawstring of the tobacco sack in his teeth to pull it shut. “Go ahead, George.”

“Well, Beckett must inadvertently have stepped right in the murderer’s tracks. That’s the only thing that could have happened. And then you came along and walked in Beckett’s tracks and... Well, that the only way it could have been. And that blots out the murderer’s tracks.”

The sheriff tilted back his sweat-stained sombrero to scratch the grizzled hair around the back of his head. “Well,” he said, “maybe we can look around a bit, come daylight.”

Quinlan moved away. The sheriff caught Sam Beckett and drew him to one side. “Sam, take everybody out of here on your tractor. Don’t let anybody walk out.” And then he added in a lower voice,

“Come back in about an hour and pick me up. Don’t tell anybody I’m staying. Make a couple of trips. Move the body out in the first trip.”

Beckett nodded and Bill Eldon moved away in the darkness, the tip of his cigarette glowing now and again, then dropping to the earth and being extinguished.

Sam Beckett’s tractor moved slowly across the plowed ground to the gate, following the ruts which had now been worn in the soft soil.

The sheriff sat squatting on his heels, cowboy fashion, watching the activity at the gate as parked automobiles roared into noise, headlights splashed on, and taillights glowed in sinister blood-red meteor-like trails.

Slowly the calm of silence descended, broken here and there by little night noises. The field became dark and silent as it had lain for many months while the heirs of old Marvin Higbee squabbled among themselves.

Somewhere behind the sheriff, a horse snorted.

Bill Eldon straightened. He turned toward the vague patch of blackness which marked the trees around the old Higbee homestead and walked slowly, the green springy grass muffling his steps. His legs moved with that peculiar high-kneed motion which characterizes the best hunters when they are stalking game. He carefully refrained from using his flashlight.

A few minutes later when the big gloomy house loomed just ahead of the sheriff, the officer loosened his six gun in a holster worn shiny with age. He catfooted along the shadow of the trees, found an advantageous place and once more squatted on his heels, waiting.

An owl hooted suddenly, puncturing the silence with its weird cry. A faint rustling sounded in the dead leaves on the ground over to his right. The sheriff cocked his head slightly to one side the better to listen to that rustling. Then as the sound became the unmistakable scurrying of some small animal, he turned back toward the house. For some twenty minutes he sat motionless, until the noises made by small nocturnal animals reassured him. Then he straightened to his feet and went forward.

The doors of the big house were closed. The windows had been boarded up. A “No Trespassing” sign had been nailed to the front of the house.

The sheriff cautiously switched on his flashlight as he inspected the front door and then moved around to the back door. Both doors were closed and locked.

A side door on the east caught the sheriff’s eye. There were spider webs on the side of that door which had been freshly broken.

The sheriff turned the knob.

The door creaked open, rusty hinges squawking at his intrusion.

Stale, musty air assailed Bill Eldon’s nostrils. His flashlight illuminated a small hallway thick with dust and hung with spider webs.

The sheriff pushed across the hallway and entered what had at one time been the living room. A rat, caught in the beam of his flashlight, gave a frightened squeak and scurried for shelter.

Old Marvin Higbee had died over a year ago. Since then, the heirs had been engaged in such bitter quarreling that none of them had ever lived in the house or tried to keep it up. Now the living room presented a weird sight. Rats were nesting in the upholstery of the davenport, while spiders were entrenched in webs spun from chandeliers. The floors were thick with dust, and the pictures on the walls hung at crazy angles.

During his lifetime, Higbee had been chairman of the board of one of the local banks and had amassed a comfortable fortune as a highly successful contractor. The Higbee place had been the scene of much hospitality. A widower, Marvin Higbee had no children. But he left a sister, Carlotta, and two brothers, Oscar and Robert, when he died after a brief illness. His will bequeathed ten thousand dollars to Oscar, ten thousand to Robert, and the balance of the estate to his sister, Carlotta Higbee Lane. When the will was offered for probate, however, Mrs. Kidder, who had been Higbee’s housekeeper, calmly advanced the claim that she was, in reality, Mrs. Marvin Higbee. There had been a common-law marriage, she said. Because she had not been provided for in the will, she maintained that she was entitled to the rights of a wife.

There had followed a period during which dirty linen had been aired in public. The two brothers, Oscar and Robert, contended not only that Mrs. Kidder was an adventuress and a liar, but also that Carlotta had exerted undue influence on Marvin at the time he made his will. The result had been a legal Donnybrook Fair in which the big country home had become a forgotten side issue.

The sheriff stooped to hold his flashlight near the floor. As he did so, the oblique illumination disclosed prints which had theretofore been invisible.

The officer studied the dust-covered carpet carefully. He could make out the prints of a woman’s shoes and those of at least one man. They had walked back and forth, intersecting each other’s paths. They had made a veritable crazy quilt of tracks, seemingly as purposeless as the tracks left by kangaroo rats dancing wildly about in the moonlight.

The old mansion could tell many a tale, the sheriff meditated. Higbee had been a deep one — with women, in politics, and in business. For a while, Farnham, the crusader, had been after Higbee’s scalp, claiming collusion on the big school-construction job. Glasco had been trying to get the Gazette to demand an inquiry, but suddenly the whole thing had been dropped. Higbee’s charm, fascinating to women, had seemed to be as effective with his political enemies. And Higbee, big, vital, breezy, had gone on his way until death had intervened. No amount of backslapping, the sheriff reflected, could make death change its mind.

Moving cautiously, the sheriff entered other rooms of the house. Everywhere, when he dropped his flashlight to a lower angle, he found the same pattern of zigzagging, intersecting, vague footprints in the dust.

Dust had been carefully cleaned from a table in the kitchen. On that table the sheriff found waxed paper, bread crumbs, a lipstick, and a hammered silver cigarette case. At one end of the table there was a charred streak some two inches long and bordered with gray ash, which had apparently been made by a burning cigarette.

The sheriff examined the linoleum floor. One burnt match was lying underneath the table, and also on the floor were two cigarette stubs, both of which had been pinched out. One held the tell-tale red of lipstick.

Eldon picked up the cigarette case and turned it over. He saw that a heart had been engraved on the side, an arrow intersecting the heart. There were two initials on the arrow, R at the feathered end and B over the point of the arrow.

After studying the cigarette case thoughtfully, the sheriff placed it back on the table just as he had found it. Then he turned around and, to the accompaniment of squeaking boards and scurrying rodents, left the house as he had entered it. He took care to close the creaking side door behind him.

It was nearly eleven when the Quinlan telephone rang stridently, insistently.

Beryl threw a robe around her shoulders and ran from her bedroom. “I’ll get it, Mother,” she called as she passed her mother’s door.

“Thank you, dear.”

Beryl fairly flew down the stairs. She raised the receiver and said breathlessly, “Yes, yes, hello. This is Beryl Quinlan.”

The drawling voice of the sheriff came over the wire. “Your father there, Beryl?”

“Why, no. Isn’t he with you? He hasn’t come back yet.”

“Hasn’t got back yet?” the sheriff asked.

“Why, no, he went out to investigate that murder.”

“I see.”

“Can I take a message?”

The sheriff said, “If you will, please. When he comes in, tell him I want to get in touch with him right away. Someone left a silver cigarette case out here at the Higbee place and I want him to look it over for fingerprints.”

“Very well. I’ll tell him.”

“Tell him to bring that fingerprint outfit of his and to be sure to bring his camera. It’s a silver cigarette case with a heart engraved on it and an arrow through the heart. There’s an R on one end of the arrow and a B on the other. You tell him, will you, Beryl?”

“I’ll... tell him... Goodbye.” The words came haltingly. And the hand that slowly lowered the receiver back into place seemed to have turned to ice.

The cigarette case she had given Roy for Christmas!

And then another thought, which for some time had been uneasily asking for attention, suddenly popped out to the front of her consciousness. Long Distance had told Roy to deposit twenty-five cents. If he had been at Fort Bixling the rate would have been eighty-five cents.

“Beryl,” her mother called from the head of the stairs, “what is it? Nothing’s happened to your father, has it. Your voice sounded...”

Beryl’s laugh was harsh. “Good Heavens, no, Mumsie! Go back to bed. I’ve... I’ve got to go find Father.”

“Find Father? Why, Beryl, what’s the matter? What’s happened? Tell me. Don’t try to keep it from me.”

“Don’t be a goose, Mumsie. It was the sheriff. He wanted Dad, that’s all, wants him to take some fingerprints right away.”

“But your father’s with the sheriff.”

“No, he left.”

“Well, the only thing you can do then is wait for him to come in and...”

“Oh, I think I can find him,” Beryl said casually, dashing upstairs. “He’ll probably be at the Gazette office.”

“Then why don’t you telephone?”

Beryl’s cold fingers were frantically divesting herself of her pajamas, picking up lingerie. “He might not be there, Mumsie. He might be some other place where I could just run onto him. I’ll drive up and down the main drag, and see if the car’s parked somewhere. Remember, he took his own car. I can spot it as far as I can see it.”

“I wish you’d telephone, dear.”

“Nonsense. I’ll jump in my little whoopee and have Dad located in no time. You be a good girl, Mumsie, and don’t worry. And if Dad should come home — tell him I have a message for him.”

“Can’t you tell me what the message is, and I...”

“I’ll tell him,” Beryl said. “Tell him to wait for me,” and she went streaking down the stairs.

4

It was nearly midnight when the sheriff drifted into the coroner’s office.

“George here?” he asked.

“Yeah, he’s in back with the doctor.”

“What did the doctor find?”

“Stab wound in the back — left side. Think it went straight in.”

The sheriff said, “I’ve been trying to get hold of him. I... Here he comes now.”

George Quinlan stepped out of the back room. “There isn’t a drop of blood on the skirt, Bill,” he said. “It was a stab wound. Missed the heart, but severed one of the big blood vessels. Death was almost instantaneous. She might have lived for a matter of seconds. It’s hard to tell.”

The sheriff nodded. Then he beckoned the undersheriff out to one side. “Been lookin’ for you, George. Did you see your daughter?”

“She got me on the phone a few seconds ago, said she’d been driving around looking for me. Said you had some fingerprints. I was just starting for the office to pick up the fingerprint outfit.”

“I told her to try and get in touch with you,” the sheriff said. “There’s been a couple of people in the old Higbee house, walking back and forth across the floors, sort of zigzagging like, and out in the kitchen I found where some sandwiches had been eaten, and there’s a girl’s lipstick and a cigarette case. I thought there might be some prints and...”

“You didn’t touch those things?” Quinlan asked.

“Well, just sort of picked them up and looked them over,” the sheriff admitted.

“Let’s hope you didn’t smudge any fingerprints. Gosh, Bill, I’ve told you a dozen times that you’ve got to be careful handling things that...”

“I know, I know,” the sheriff said, “but I thought it was pretty important to see the other side of that case. Had to turn it over, you know.”

“How about the lipstick?”

“I didn’t touch that.”

Quinlan said, “Let’s go. I’ll stop by the office and get my fingerprint outfit.”

“You got your car here?”

“Uh huh.”

“I’ll meet you out there,” the sheriff said.

“You want to take a look at the body?”

“Oh, I don’t think so. Not right now. Get prints of her fingers?”

“Yes.”

“What do you make of her?”

“Natural blonde, blue eyes, smooth skin, a beautiful girl, somewhere between nineteen and twenty.”

“Too bad,” the sheriff said, and then added after a moment, “I’ll be seeing you out there.”

There was little traffic on Main Street at this hour, so the sheriff swung out close to the center of the street. He opened up the County car, but didn’t use the siren. This time it took him nearly fifteen minutes to get to the Higbee gate.

The sheriff got out of the car and opened the gate. Then he paused as his headlights disclosed tire tracks which had been superimposed on the tracks left by the tractor.

Quinlan drove up to find the sheriff down on hands and knees studying those tracks with the aid of his spotlight.

“What’s the idea?” the undersheriff asked, jumping out to stand beside the sheriff. “You found something?”

“A car’s been in here,” the sheriff said.

“You mean since the tractor came out?”

“Yes.”

“It didn’t get stuck?”

“No. The tractor had packed down the earth hard enough so a car could drive in all right.”

“Well, now, that’s something,” Quinlan said. “Wonder who it could have been. Probably some of the newspaper people snooping around. It wouldn’t have done any harm to have put a lock on that gate.”

“Or left somebody here,” the sheriff said.

Quinlan’s silence showed that he felt very definitely someone should have been left in charge but that that had been a matter for the sheriff.

“Tell anything by the tracks?” Quinlan asked.

“Not much. Tires worn pretty smooth and only occasionally you can get a bit of the pattern on the sides. And if you’ll look over here on the left you can see where the front wheels swung just a little bit out of the ruts. Now, that must have been when the car was going out, because they’re the last tracks that were made. So this’ll be the right front wheel on the car. And you notice that little nick out of the tire, on the side? Better remember that, George. We may run onto a car like that again if we keep our eyes open.”

Quinlan said, “Hadn’t I better get the photographer and have a picture taken of these tracks?”

“Can’t you do it?”

“No. I’ve got a fingerprint camera and that’s all. Anyway, that’s a little beyond my technique.”

“Well, just make some measurements of that gouged-out place in the tire and sort of sketch the pattern you can see on the side,” the sheriff said, “and we’ll get going. I want to do some more work in that house.”

Quinlan said, “If that should turn out to be important evidence...” and stopped.

“Well,” the sheriff said, “I guess you and I can remember those tracks well enough to identify the automobile, can’t we?”

“Yes, but...”

“Go on.”

“Nothing.”

“All right,” Bill Eldon said at length. “Tell you what you do, George. Take a page from your notebook and just tear off a bit here and there until we get it so it just fits that place out of the right front tire.”

Quinlan nodded. He took a page from his notebook and bent over the tracks in the moist earth, carefully tearing off little bits of paper until he had the pattern to suit him. “It’s an exact fit, Bill.”

“All right,” the sheriff said. “You keep it. Now let’s drive on to the house. I want you to take a look at that cigarette case.”

“We’ll obliterate these tracks,” Quinlan objected.

“But we’ll know the car if we ever run across it on account of that tire,” the sheriff drawled. “Come on, George.”

Quinlan started to say something and then checked himself.

They drove through the plowed strip of ground to the level field where the car jolted along over the weed-encrusted road, through the big shade trees, to the Higbee house.

The sheriff led the way to the creaking side door which he opened.

The scurrying of rats and mice for shelter was distinctly audible as a composite sound of pattering tiny feet beating a tattoo of panic on the floor.

The sheriff paused long enough to lower the angle of the flashlight. “At least one woman, and at least one man,” he pointed out. “Sort of zigzagging around.”

Quinlan’s half-articulate comment was little more than a grunt.

Bill Eldon shifted the beam of his flashlight. “This way to the kitchen, George.”

They entered the kitchen. The beam of the flashlight showed the table with its waxed paper, the lipstick, the cigarette stubs, and the charred groove in the table. The beam of the flashlight illuminated the silver cigarette case, glanced from it in a splash of reflected light on the cobweb-encrusted ceiling.

Quinlan opened the fingerprint outfit he was carrying, carefully gripped the corners of the cigarette case with rubber-tipped tongs and dusted powder over the silver.

“Hump! That’s funny.”

“What’s the matter?”

“There isn’t a print on it.”

“Maybe the person who handled it was wearing gloves,” the sheriff said. “How about the lipstick?”

Quinlan managed to get two prints from the lipstick that were legible enough to give results.

The sheriff seemed unimpressed to the point of disinterest. His flashlight was exploring around on the floor. “One burnt match,” he said. “That’s significant.”

“I don’t get it.”

“If you were lighting three cigarettes how many matches would you use?”

Quinlan grinned. “If a good-looking girl was sitting across the table from me I’d use one — wait a minute, I’d use two.”

“That’s right. But there’s only one.”

“Then something must have happened to one of the burnt matches. Perhaps a pack rat carried it away.”

“Nope,” the sheriff drawled. “It ain’t that. The way I figure it, the man was a chainsmoker. He and the girl sat down here at the table. They had some sandwiches, then they settled down for a smoke. He lit her cigarette, and lit his own. After they’d smoked their cigarettes, he lit his second one from the stub of the first. The girl only smoked one cigarette. When she’d finished it, she took out her lipstick and started to fix up her mouth — and it was then something happened, right at that particular moment.”

“How do you fix it as being at that time?”

“Because they jumped up and they were startled. The man put his cigarette down on the table, and never had a chance to get back to pick it up. It lay there and burnt that groove. The woman dropped her lipstick.”

“And then?” Quinlan asked.

“And some time after that,” the sheriff said, “the girl was found stabbed in a plowed field with no tracks going in either direction, not even her own.”

“How long after that?” Quinlan asked.

“That, son,” the sheriff said, “is something we’ve got to find out. By puttin’ two and two together, you get an answer, and it don’t seem to be the right one.”

It began to rain about three in the morning, a fine, misty cold rain. By daylight the tangled grass and weeds of the field were glistening with moisture, and the dark lumps on the ridges of the plowed ground reflected the sullen daylight which filtered through the low bank of clouds.

The bent figures of the sheriff and George Quinlan moved slowly along over the boundary between the grassy field and the freshly plowed earth. With the thoroughgoing patience of veteran trackers, they inched their way along, covering every foot of ground.

Daylight was well advanced and the drizzle had stopped when they returned to their point of beginning.

“Well,” Quinlan said, “that settles it. No one left this piece of ground after the murder was committed, so the body must have come in from the outside — unless it was dropped from an airplane.”

The sheriff straightened. He rolled and lit a cigarette. “I noticed one thing back there in the house, George. You remember where those drapes hang over the door? There’s a long braided silk doodad with tassels on it — but there’s only one. Shouldn’t there be two?”

Quinlan laughed. “Shucks, Bill, the way this place has been left it’s lucky there’s even one. But there should be two. I’ve got the same sort of drapes at home.”

The sheriff thought for a while. “What do you s’pose frightened those people after they’d just eaten?”

“I’m darned if I know,” Quinlan said. “I’m an officer, not a mind reader. It must have been shortly before the murder, and that must have been after dark. Seems strange they’d have been eating sandwiches then. They must have planned to stay all night searching. And speaking of eating, I’m going home, change my wet clothes, and have some breakfast.”

“Well, now,” the sheriff drawled, “guess I’ll drop in at a restaurant and...”

“A restaurant!”

“Uh huh. My sister-in-law’s stayin’ up at my house.”

Quinlan laughed. “Come on up with me — no, hang it, if you don’t change your wet clothes you’ll catch cold. Get up to your house and get into some dry clothes.”

The sheriff looked down at his wet trousers, sighed wearily and said, “Well, I s’pose I’ve got to.”

5

It was a few minutes before nine when Beryl Quinlan saw Boy Jasper turn the corner and come walking toward the house.

Beryl ran to the door, whipped it open, and dashed down the stairs.

Roy saw her coming and flung up his arm in a gesture of greeting.

They met at the edge of the sidewalk.

“Roy!”

“Hi, Beryl!”

She gave him her lips in a swift eager kiss, then pulled away.

“Hey,” he said, “what’s the idea of such a nervous little peck?”

“We may have an audience. Come on, I want to talk to you. When did you leave the fort?”

“Last night — late.”

“Been up all night?”

“Just about. Couldn’t get a bus until after midnight. Travel sure is heavy these days.”

“Where were you when you telephoned me, at the fort?”

“Just outside of the fort, a row of telephone booths there. Why?”

“Oh, just wondering. Let’s not go in for a minute. Dad’s been out pretty much all night on a case and came home soaking wet, took a hot bath, changed his clothes, and has to go to the office in a minute. The family will engulf you if you go inside. Let’s sit out on the porch.”

“Suits me,” Roy said. “This isn’t front-porch weather, though. Been raining here?”

“Just a drizzle. It quit about an hour and a half ago. Let’s sit here. How about a cigarette?”

“How about a kiss, Baby? We don’t have an audience here.” She gave him her lips.

“That’s better. What’s the matter, Honey?”

“Just getting a good look at you. How about the discharge?”

“Don’t know yet. Think I may get it.”

“And how about my cigarette?”

Roy casually produced a silver cigarette case, snapped the catch with his thumb, opened it and extended it to Beryl.

“Roy!” she exclaimed.

He glanced up quizzically at the sound of her voice.

“That’s the case I gave you for Christmas.”

“Sure. What’s funny about that?”

“I... I thought perhaps you’d lost it.”

His forehead puckered into a puzzled frown. “Now what gave you that idea? And do you really want a cigarette?”

“Of course,” she said, taking a cigarette.

He took one and lit her cigarette, then his own. He dropped the case back into his pocket, regarding her thoughtfully. “What’s the big idea?” he asked.

“I... Oh, nothing... Roy, how much did you pay for that telephone call last night?”

He threw back his head and laughed. “I really got even with the telephone company that time,” he said. “I let one of the other boys come in and place a call to a nearby town while I was waiting. The rate there is only twenty-five cents. I guess the operator got the calls mixed. Anyway she told me mine was twenty-five cents and that’s all I paid, twenty-five cents.”

“What happened to the other boy?”

“Don’t worry about him,” Roy said. “He wouldn’t have paid any more than twenty-five cents on his call, and they couldn’t make him. I got to feeling a little cheap about it afterwards. I hope they don’t take it out of the telephone girl’s salary, but, honey, you know how it is. I’ve been stuck so many times when I’d stay in a hotel, and put in a call...”

“That’s wasn’t the fault of the telephone company. That was the fault of the girl at the hotel switchboard. She didn’t clear the line right away and naturally the telephone company had to charge you for all that extra time.”

“Well,” he admitted, “I felt cheap about it afterwards, but there was nothing I could do. You see, honey, you were on the line and I didn’t want to take time then telling her she’d made a mistake in my favor and having her wait and look up the call. I...”

The door opened. George Quinlan took two or three steps before he caught sight of the couple from the corner of his eye. He whirled almost apprehensively, then laughed nervously and said, “I didn’t know you two were out here. Hello, Roy. When did you get in?”

“Just now.”

Quinlan came across and shook hands. “Been up all night,” he said, “and I’m a little jumpy. Had breakfast?”

“Yes, thanks, had it more than an hour ago.”

“There’s some coffee on the table. Mrs. Quinlan will be glad to see you.”

“We’ll be in a minute,” Beryl said, and then smiling at her father said, “tell Mother, will you?”

That gave the undersheriff his cue. He said, “I will. See you later, Roy,” and went back into the house.

“What’s the big case?” Roy asked.

“A murder down at the old Higbee place. I understand she’s a girl around my age, blonde, stabbed in the back.”

“The old Higbee place?” Jasper asked, frowning.

“Yes. A man named Beckett bought the place and had started to plow. He found the body.”

“Beckett?” Roy repeated the name after her as though trying to refresh his recollection. “Oh, yes, Sam Beckett. I know him. What in the world was this girl doing in the old Higbee place?”

“No one knows. They don’t seem to have any clue as yet to her identity.”

Jasper finished his cigarette. Almost mechanically he opened the cigarette case, took out another, and lit the second cigarette from the end of the first. “Guess that’s going to keep your father busy,” he said. “How about going in and getting some of that coffee, Beryl?”

6

Sheriff Bill Eldon propped the Rockville Morning Register in front of his coffee cup.

The Register had gone to press about two o’clock in the morning, and had relied on large headlines and bold-faced type to obscure the fact that the paper had but few facts concerning the murder.

The editorial attitude of the paper was hostile to the entire County administration and Sheriff Eldon expected no quarter from it. On the other hand, it did a pretty good job of news coverage, although it occasionally slipped some editorial barb into its factual reporting.

Bill Eldon read the account carefully and then slowly reread it in order to give himself that semblance of preoccupation which would curb the conversation of his sister-in-law.

Finally Doris could stand it no longer. She said, “Well, if you ask me, somebody’s making an awful fool out of you officers.”

The sheriff’s silence was a courteous suggestion that no one was asking her.

“Or,” Doris went on, “perhaps you’re making fools of yourselves.”

“Could be,” the sheriff admitted laconically.

“Will you kindly tell me, Bill Eldon, how in the name of sense any person can walk over moist, freshly plowed, loamy soil and not leave any footprints?”

“I didn’t say it could be done.”

“The newspaper says it has been done.”

“Well, I’m not responsible for what the newspapers say.”

“The way they talk about you makes you sound like an old fossil.”

“The Register is on the opposite side of the political fence.”

“Well, the Gazette doesn’t seem to be putting you up on any pedestal.”

“It won’t be out until tonight.”

“I’m not talking about this case. I’m talking about the way they’ve been writing you up lately.”

“They’re friendly.”

“Well, you’d better watch out for friends like that.”

The sheriff was silent.

“It does seem to me,” Doris went on exasperatedly, “that if you had more git-up-an’-git you’d command more respect.”

The sheriff grinned. “You don’t get respect from the opposite political party — not publicly and in print, anyway. If you move along slow and easy, you’re an old fossil. If you have git-up-an’-git you’re trying to cover your incompetence behind a smoke-screen of hysterical activity.”

There was a moment of welcome silence while Doris thought this over. “Well,” she demanded at length, “who is this girl?”

“We don’t know.”

“What are you doing to find out?”

“We’ve got a couple of clues we’re working on.”

“What clues?”

“Cleaning marks on her jacket and skirt, the name of a score sewed to the inside of the jacket.”

“A local store?”

“No, one in San Rodolpho.”

The sheriff’s wife interposed to say quietly, “Bill, you want me to send that suit out to be cleaned and pressed?”

“Please.”

“How soon do you want it back?”

“Soon as I can get it!”

“You going to get some sleep today?”

“Afraid I’ll have to keep going today. I...”

The telephone rang.

The sheriff went to the phone. He heard a woman’s voice say, “Long-distance call from San Rodolpho,” and then the voice of Everett Gilmer, the chief of police in San Rodolpho. “Hello, Bill. Think I’ve got your party located. The Acme Cleaners has a record of cleaning the jacket. The girl’s name is Elizabeth Dow. Does that mean anything to you?”

“Not a thing. She live there?”

“Apparently so. We have an address in an apartment house. She’s moved from there, but we’re tracing her. The description fits. Want to come down?”

The sheriff hesitated a moment, then said, “Okay, I’ll be down. See what you can find out and have it ready for me by the time I get there. I’ll stop by the courthouse and pick up some photographs.”

The sheriff hung up the telephone and glanced over at the table. Seeing the alert angle at which the head of his sister-in-law was cocked, he said suddenly, “I’ve got to rush out. I’ll be back this evening.”

“Where are you going?” Doris demanded so eagerly that the words all ran together into one continuous rattle of sound.

“Out,” the sheriff said.

Everett K. Gilmer, chief of police of San Rodolpho, was a big bluff man whose twinkling eyes radiated cordiality to brother officers, but could assume an ominous hardness when scrutinizing prisoners. He said to Bill Eldon, “Well, Sheriff, I’ve got a line on her. If you’ve got some photos we might just check with someone who can make an identification.”

“Who you got?”

“Woman who runs the apartment house where she had an apartment for a while. She moved after that and left a forwarding address. But I thought we’d better check up first with someone who can make an absolute identification. If she’s the one, I’ve got quite a lot on her. And I think she’s the one.”

“Let’s go,” the sheriff agreed.

They drove to a frame house that had at one time been an example of three-storied prosperity, but with the encroachment of paved streets and the spread of the business area, had now been turned into an apartment house.

The heavy-set woman who ran the place promptly identified the photographs which Sheriff Eldon produced.

“That’s the girl. That’s Elizabeth, all right. What’s happened to her?”

“She was killed.”

“How?”

“Stabbed.”

“Good Heavens! And such a nice girl, too!”

“Any idea who might have done it? Enemies or anything of that sort?”

“No. While she was here she was just as quiet and well-behaved as anyone could ask.”

“Know anything about her friends or relatives?”

“No, I don’t. I took over the place just before she moved out and...”

“We got some more recent stuff lined up, Bill,” Gilmer interposed. “Just wanted to make sure that was the party before I started following the other trails.”

“Her mother had died just before she moved out,” the apartment manager volunteered, “somewhere in — now, let me see. I think it was somewhere in Colorado. I remember she got a wire saying her mother was very low and she flew out, and then wrote me that her mother had passed away and that she’d stay for the funeral and move to another apartment when she got back, and she sent me two weeks’ rent and asked if that would be all right.”

“Know where that letter is?”

“I burnt it.”

“About when was this?”

“About five or six months ago. I can look up the date when she left if you want.”

“I already have that,” Gilmer said to the sheriff. “It was in August.”

“That’s right,” the woman said. “I think it was around August.”

Bill Eldon nodded to Gilmer. “Let’s go, Everett.”

They went to the telegraph office and wired the Denver police to consult statistical records and rush any information concerning a party by the name of Dow who had died in Colorado within the last few months.

Thereafter Chief Gilmer and Bill Eldon spent a couple of hours plodding along in the dull monotony of routine leg-work, tracing Elizabeth Dow from one lodging house to another, finding where she had been employed and locating friends who had known her.

From this scattered pattern of information the sheriff and Gilmer pieced together a mosaic showing a clear picture of a young woman, vivacious, intelligent, alert, a steady, dependable worker, a loyal friend filled with the joy of life, yet respecting herself and commanding the respect of her friends. There had been one or two boy friends, but for the most part she had preferred a group of intimates to the less social but more intimate companionship of a tete-a-tete. She had been employed as cashier in a cafeteria. Her nimble fingers, quick eyes, and winning personality had made for adept efficiency as well as for popularity with customers.

The day before had been her day off, and about ten o’clock she had been seen with a young man who was strange to the girl’s set, although he had been seen with her off and on during the past week. The couple had sat for half an hour talking earnestly at a table in the cafeteria. And then Elizabeth Dow had secured a cardboard container and put up a lunch, roast beef sandwiches, deviled eggs, crisp lettuce, and pie. Then she and the young man, a tall, dark chap in Army uniform, had left the cafeteria. That had been around eleven. Neither one had been seen since.

At this point in the investigation, a wire came in from the Denver police:

ELVIRA DOW AGED FIFTY-SIX DIED CORONARY THROMBOSIS AUGUST 23RD, BURIED HERE, FUNERAL ARRANGEMENTS MADE BY DAUGHTER ELIZABETH WHO REGISTERED HOTEL GIVING ADDRESS YOUR CITY.

“Well,” Gilmer said, “that’s all there is to it. Find the man who was with her and we’ve got the murderer. You say there was waxed paper on the table there in that old house?”

“That’s right.”

“Find this chap in uniform. That’ll be all there is to it.”

The sheriff reached for his battered sombrero and put it on. He started for the door, and then paused to regard the chief of police with thought-puckered eyes. “You know, Everett,” he said, “it may not be that simple. When you’ve been in office as long as I have you get so you pay more attention to people and less to clues.”

7

Rush Medford, the district attorney, stepped out from his private office to the entrance room to receive George Quinlan.

“Hello, George. I asked you to come up here because I wanted to talk with you — confidentially.”

Quinlan glanced significantly at the unlocked door of the reception office, then at the closed door of Medford’s private office. Medford, towering his voice, went on hastily, “I have a man waiting in there, George. I want you to meet him. I want you to give him every bit of help you can. His name’s Walworth — Martin Walworth. Ever hear of him?”

Quinlan shook his head.

“Famous all over the state as a criminologist. He...”

“Oh, yes! I’ve heard of him. I place him now.”

The district attorney said confidentially, “I’m calling him in, George, at the suggestion of some very, very influential citizens. They feel that there’s a soft spot in the County administration. You know, old Bill prides himself on paying more attention to people’s reactions than to material evidence. Some whimsical eccentricity on his part that’s going to get us all into trouble one of these days. You know how it is when word gets around that the crowd in the courthouse has been in office too long. There’s always a tendency to make a clean sweep. And that takes in all of us.”

“What do you expect Walworth to do?” Quinlan asked.

The district attorney smiled. “I expect him to solve this mystery very quickly and very competently, demonstrating to the voters of this county the fact that the old hit-or-miss methods of investigating a crime are as obsolete as the horse and buggy. The modern criminologist uses scientific equipment and streamlined efficiency.”

“You mean you’re going to use him to show the sheriff up?”

“I mean I’m going to use him to solve the mystery.”

“The sheriff won’t like that,” Quinlan said.

“Of course he won’t like it. But there’s a murder to be solved, and the county has some rights I certainly trust that you have no objections.”

“No,” Quinlan said, “I haven’t any objections.”

“Come on in,” Medford invited and opened the door of his private office.

Martin Walworth was a short-bodied, heavy-featured man with bushy eyebrows and huge spectacles. His round black pupils were pin-points of perpetual scrutiny in the center of pale, steady eyes. He didn’t get up or shake hands when the district attorney performed the introduction.

“No weapon was found?” Walworth asked after a few preliminaries.

“No weapon,” Quinlan admitted.

“The autopsy seems to have been handled in rather a careless manner,” Walworth said. “However, I’m hopeful of getting a fairly good description of the murder weapon by an investigation which I shall make personally. There were no fingerprints whatever on the cigarette case?”

“None whatever.”

The criminologist’s eyes were stern with accusation. “Do I understand that the sheriff picked it up?”

“He said he picked it up.”

“But there were no fingerprints?”

“None.”

“Not latents that were smudged, but...”

“No. There were none.”

Walworth grunted. “Then someone wiped it,” he said, “wiped it clean — after the sheriff picked it up.”

“Looked as though it might have been wiped with something like a chamois skin, polished as smooth and slick as a whistle,” Quinlan admitted.

“After the sheriff picked it up.”

Quinlan nodded. “I guess it has to be that way.”

“But you didn’t say so,” the district attorney accused, “not until after Walworth pointed it out.”

“I didn’t volunteer any suggestions. The fact speaks for itself,” Quinlan said.

Walworth grunted. “And there were no tracks in the soft soil?”

“No tracks.”

“That, manifestly, is impossible.”

“You can see the photographs and...”

“Photographs, bah! They are taken with a synchronized flash. That makes the picture flat as a pancake. The lighting should have been scientifically controlled.”

Quinlan said nothing.

“Obviously,” Walworth went on, “the fact in itself is impossible. Therefore someone is lying. It may be this Beckett.”

“It may be,” Quinlan admitted.

The district attorney interposed hastily, “Here in the country where a good many people know each other and... well, you have to be a little careful, you know, Mr. Walworth... Political considerations as well as a person’s integrity...”

“I understand,” Walworth said. “Is there any other evidence?”

Quinlan told him about the car which had driven into the field after the tractor had made its last trip out.

Walworth digested that information with the profound expression of a deep thinker. “This piece that was gouged out of the right front tire,” he said, “you said you used a piece of paper to get the outline of that?”

“Yes.”

“Where is that paper?”

Almost involuntarily, Quinlan’s hand dropped to his pocket. Then he remembered. The triangular piece of paper had been in the pocket of the wet suit he had taken off to have sent to the cleaner. Because the paper had no weight, no bulk, he had overlooked it. To confess his negligence in this was unthinkable. He tried to keep his voice casual.

“I have it at home.”

Walworth’s comment was short and to the point.

“Get it,” he said, and then added disgustedly, “what a slipshod way of identifying a tire!”

Quinlan parked his car in front of his house and, because he intended to start back for the courthouse almost at once, left the door open.

He walked across the sidewalk, turned to the right on the smaller walk which skirted the house and went around to the back porch.

He entered quietly and climbed the stairs to his room. He wondered if his wife had made a careful search of his pockets in preparing the wet suit for the cleaners. If she hadn’t, could he get hold of the suit before the bit of paper had been ruined?

Quinlan’s pulse gave an involuntary reaction to the relief he felt as he looked at the place on the top of his dresser which was reserved for his personal trinkets. Every minute since his talk with the criminologist had been a thought-tortured nightmare of apprehension that the piece of paper might have been irrevocably lost. But there it was, lying on the dresser, a mud-soiled triangular slip of paper, silent tribute to the thorough-going loyalty of a steadfast helpmeet.

Quinlan picked up the paper, turned and walked quietly back down the stairs.

From the living room, he heard Beryl’s clear voice, remarkable for its low-pitched carrying power, saying into the telephone, “Rate Clerk, will you please give me the long distance rate to San Rodolpho — after seven o’clock at night, please?... Thank you very much.”

Quinlan left the house by the back door. He noticed that his daughter’s car was parked in front of the garage, a ramshackle, juvenile thing she had picked up herself a couple of years or so ago.

She should sell that car, the undersheriff thought speculatively, looking at it without quite seeing it, a whoopee that was getting on its last legs, a jalopy that would start going to pieces pretty fast but which was worth money now. When new cars came...

Then a sudden discovery jarred George Quinlan’s mind into a new line of activity. He stood regarding a triangular nick in the right front tire, his eyes locked in a stare of incredulous dismay.

Almost mechanically, Quinlan moved the few steps necessary to hold the triangular tom bit of paper over the gouged-out place in the tire.

The mud-stained triangle of paper his wife had carefully saved for him was a perfect pattern, just fitting the hole in the tire.

Quinlan straightened, holding the paper between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand. The hand seemed strange to him.

Once, when he had been arresting a man charged with some minor crime, the prisoner had unexpectedly whirled and delivered a smashing punch to the side of Quinlan’s head. The blow had lashed out so fast and hard that not only had Quinlan failed to see it coming, but the smashing impact had, for the moment, robbed him of all memory. And as his senses had begun to struggle for orientation, he had fancied himself in the midst of a strange world wherein surroundings that should have been familiar failed to have any significance whatever.

Now, in the same way, Quinlan’s mind was reeling from the impact of his discovery. It seemed only last week that Beryl had been a baby, getting her first tooth... The worry over whooping cough — the starting of school — blossoming into a young woman — and now this.

Gradually Quinlan’s mind reasserted itself. There was Martin Walworth waiting at the courthouse with the district attorney for this triangular piece of paper. Walworth would make a life-size photograph. The Rockville Gazette would publish it. Everyone in the community from service-station attendants on down would be looking for an automobile with this triangular gouge on the side of the tread on the right front tire.

His first instinctive desire being to protect Beryl, Quinlan thought of changing the tire and putting on the spare. Then he took a deep breath and let his faith in his daughter assert itself. Surely Beryl could have had no part in a murder! It was simply that there were things that needed explaining, and George Quinlan, man of action, had never been one to postpone that which needed doing. Slowly he turned and walked back to the house.

Beryl was crossing the kitchen as the undersheriff opened the back door. She glanced up and smiled casually. Then she caught his eyes and stopped in her tracks.

“Where’s your mother?”

“Upstairs. She... she’s coming down now. Why, Dad?”

“Come to the front room. I want to talk with you. I don’t want her to hear.”

Silently Beryl followed her father into the living room. George Quinlan indicated a chair, but Beryl didn’t sit down. Instead, she remained standing, very trim, very erect, and very white.

“Your car,” Quinlan said with a gesture of weariness. “Last night, after the murder, did you go to the Higbee place?”

For a long moment she hesitated, and in that moment Quinlan knew the most awful suspense he had ever experienced. If she should lie to him now, it would rip his soul to tattered shreds.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I was... The sheriff telephoned. He asked me to look for you.”

George Quinlan ceased to be the father. He was now only a representative of the law, his eyes keeping a steady, insistent pressure upon his daughter’s mind, his questions probing her thoughts. “What did the sheriff tell you?”

“Told me he’d found a cigarette case. He wanted you to take fingerprints.”

“Did he ask you to look for me?”

“He asked me where you were — asked me to try and find you.”

“And you went to the Higbee place?”

“Yes.”

“Looking for me?”

There was a pause, a pause long enough for George Quinlan to be conscious of his perspiring hands, of the hammering of his heart, but his eyes didn’t waver.

“No.”

“Why did you go there?”

“I went... Oh, Dad!” Her lips quivered at the edges, and tears swam into her eyes. Then the mouth became firm. She brushed aside the refuge of tears and met her father eye to eye. “I went there because I thought it was Roy’s cigarette case.”

“Was it?”

“I... I thought so.”

“Was it?”

“Apparently not.”

“What did you do?”

“I took a chamois skin from the car and wiped every single fingerprint off of it.”

“Why?”

“Because... because it was Roy’s cigarette case and he had called me... well, he said it was from Fort Bixling, but I think now it was from San Rodolpho, and I... Dad, I don’t know why I did it. Don’t ask me why. I can’t tell you. All I know is that I thought I had a chance to protect Roy, and all of a sudden it seemed more important to me to do that than anything else on earth. I didn’t care if they killed me, I was going to protect him.”

A vast weariness settled on George Quinlan. This was the end of the trail so far as he was concerned. He was discredited, finished. “You say it wasn’t Roy’s cigarette case after all?”

“Dad, I don’t know. I can’t understand it. Roy was here this morning. He... I asked him for a cigarette... He acted just as naturally as could be, reached into his pocket, took out the silver cigarette case and... and afterwards, after he’d gone, I suddenly realized that I hadn’t seen the engraving on it. He’d acted so completely offhand about the whole thing that it had put me off my guard. I...”

“Where’s Roy now?”

“At the hotel, I guess. He wanted to clean up and get a short sleep. He wants to come out here a little later. He...”

“Say nothing about this to him,” Quinlan said. “Say nothing about it to anyone.”

“Dad... I... I’m sorry.”

Quinlan looked at her as though she were some stranger in the house.

“Will it make... make much difference?” she asked.

For almost twenty years George Quinlan had been trying to stand between Beryl and life, trying to protect her, to ward off the blows that Fate might deal, telling little white lies when he thought those might be necessary to reassure her. Now, looking at her, he suddenly realized that the time for this had passed. She was a woman, not a child, and she had become a woman by reason of her own act.

“Will it, Dad? Will it make much difference, you know, a good deal?”

“Yes,” Quinlan said and walked out, letting it go at that.

8

As he walked past Beryl’s automobile, the thought occurred to Quinlan once more to change the tire on her car. He shook it off and walked out to where he had left his car. The door swinging open was a grim reminder of the extent of the gap which existed between his life of only a few minutes ago and the maelstrom of events into which he had been swept.

“George, oh, George!”

His wife was calling from the upstairs window.

Quinlan turned. “Yes, dear?”

“You’ll be home for dinner tonight?”

It needed only that homely touch to bring him back to realities. His answer was mechanical. “I don’t know, dear — yet. I’ll telephone.”

“Okay, let me know,” she called cheerily.

Quinlan got in the car. A new worry had entered his mind, the thought of what this would mean to Martha. A man might have enough resilience and dogged determination to slug his way through to a come-back, but Martha couldn’t take it. As the wife of the undersheriff she enjoyed a certain position in the social life of the community. People liked her for herself, but in addition to that liking extended a recognition of the importance of her husband’s position.

Quinlan carefully placed the damning triangle of paper in between the leaves of his notebook. It would hold flat there. It...

It was at that moment that a thought struck him.

Changing the tire on Beryl’s automobile might or might not stave off discovery, but there was one absolutely certain way by which George Quinlan could give his daughter complete immunity from what she had done.

Hardly realizing the full significance of what he was doing, Quinlan tore another sheet of paper from the notebook. Seemingly without orders from Quinlan’s mind, but working mechanically and with some volition of their own, his fingers shaped a new triangle, a triangle not quite so broad at the base, a little more pointed. He had only to walk into the district attorney’s office, hand that triangle to Martin Walworth and walk out, and Beryl’s connection with the murder at the Higbee homestead need never be known.

He started the car and drove directly to the courthouse.

The district attorney’s secretary was at her desk. “You may go in. They are expecting you,” she said.

Quinlan entered the private office. Martin Walworth had moved over to occupy the district attorney’s swivel chair. Edward Lyons, publisher of the Rockville Gazette, was seated at the other side of the desk, his 6B pencil sprawling huge notes on folded newsprint that Quinlan could read over Lyons’ shoulder.

Printed on top of one of the sheets of newsprint, apparently to be used as headlines, were the words, SHERIFF’S SLIPSHOD METHODS MAY RESULT IN MURDERER’S ESCAPE, DECLARES CRIMINOLOGIST.

Rush Medford, his face suffused with smiles, was standing behind Walworth, and Bertram Glasco, puffing contentedly on a cigar, was nodding his head as though not only agreeing with something the criminologist had said, but also signifying his continuing agreement with anything the man might be going to say.

John Farnham, sitting very erect in a chair to the right of the criminologist, was watching Walworth with fixed intensity. Leave it to Farnham not to approve entirely of anything or anyone, Quinlan thought. Farnham was a typical dour-faced crusader who would never be happy, never satisfied. A one-time cowboy, he still did a little horse-trading in addition to his real-estate business, and Quinlan couldn’t help thinking that while he was sanctimoniously honest in his real-estate transactions, his reputation as a horse-trader was such that the initiated seldom dealt with him. There had been a bay saddle-horse Farnham had sold Beckett a couple of months ago. Quinlan had seen it in the Higbee place. Farnham had said the horse was twelve, but Quinlan would bet a month’s salary it was at least...

“Do you have that piece of paper, George?” Medford asked.

Quinlan opened the notebook. There was, he noticed, just the slightest tremor as his fingers took out the triangular piece of paper which he handed to the district attorney, who in turn passed it across to Walworth.

“That the triangle?” Walworth asked Quinlan, and it seemed to Quinlan that the man’s eyes were unnecessarily intense in their boring scrutiny.

Quinlan nodded.

Walworth picked up the piece of paper. He turned it over to look at the other side and then said to Lyons, “Now, this is an excellent example of what I’ve been talking about. This piece of paper represents the outline of a piece of rubber that has been gouged out of a tire. There are no identification marks on the paper — none whatever. In the first place, the tire pattern should have been preserved with a plaster mold. But unsatisfactory as this paper method is, it’s rendered doubly so by the fact that there are no identifying marks on it. That triangle of paper should have been initialed by the sheriff and the undersheriff right on the ground so that there wouldn’t have been any possible chance of a mistake or... or of substitution. As it is, it’s quite possible the defense attorney will rip the case wide open by claiming anyone could have substituted another piece of paper in place of the original, and that this piece is one that was substituted.”

Glasco said hastily, “That’s all right, Walworth. The sheriff is slipping, but Quinlan here is all right. He’s going to be the next sheriff. We don’t want to have any criticism of him. Ain’t that right, Ed?”

Edward Lyons, scribbling rapidly with his pencil, nodded emphatically.

Walworth almost contemptuously jerked Rush Medford’s desk pen out of its well, handed it to Quinlan and said, “Write your name on the back of this piece of paper so you can identify it in court.”

Quinlan leaned over the desk. The tension of his nerves was such that the signature which came jerking from the point of the pen was an angular travesty on his usual handwriting

“Now then,” Walworth said, “we’ll print thousands of perfect facsimiles of this slip of paper and put a copy in the hands of every service station in the county. The original, Mr. Medford, will be carefully preserved where it can’t be tampered with.”

Quinlan said, “You won’t want me any more?”

“Better stick around, George,” Glasco told him amiably. “This is really good. Mr. Walworth is analyzing the crime, pointing out just where Bill slipped up on...”

“I’ve got to see a man,” Quinlan apologized. “I’d like to stay, but this visit I’ve got to make is important.”

“Go ahead,” Medford said somewhat impatiently. “But just don’t talk to anybody about the case, and — don’t say anything about this.”

Quinlan paused only briefly at the desk of the Palace Hotel. “You have a Roy Jasper here,” he said. “What room’s he in?”

“Two-o-five. But he’s out. He checked in, cleaned up and went right out again.”

“You knew him?” Quinlan asked.

“Sure. Talked with him. He’d been up all night, needed a bath and shave. Said he tried to sleep for a couple of hours, but he couldn’t make it — had too much on his mind.”

Quinlan phoned his house from the lobby. “Beryl,” he said when she answered the telephone, “I want to get in touch with Roy.”

“Yes, Dad, I know.”

“He isn’t there?”

“No, Dad.”

“If you hear from him, find out where he is and let me know. If he comes there, get a call through to me right away.”

Beryl said with dignity, “If he telephones or if I see him, Dad, I’ll tell him that you want to get in touch with him right away, and for him to call you.”

“That isn’t what I said,” Quinlan said angrily.

“Father, you can’t doubt Roy. You simply can’t do it. If I tell him to call you, I know he will.”

There was something in his daughter’s voice that left Quinlan feeling strangely helpless. He just didn’t know how to cope with this grown-up daughter, and he couldn’t bring himself to threaten her as he would have threatened any other recalcitrant citizen.

He heard Beryl hang up at the other end of the line, and he slowly dropped his own receiver into place.

9

The Rockville Gazette created a sensation when it hit the streets at five o’clock that evening. Headlines screamed across the top of the page: CONSULTING CRIMINOLOGIST CALLED IN BY DISTRICT ATTORNEY MEDFORD TO SOLVE BAFFLING CASE.

Quinlan noticed that Lyons had toned down his headlines on the interview he had had with Walworth so that now they read: SLIPSHOD METHODS OF LAW-ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS GIVE CRIMINALS GREATEST BREAK, SAYS WALWORTH.

Over the left was a silhouette, a photograph in actual size of the torn triangular piece of paper Quinlan had given to Walworth. Accompanying the photograph in bold letters was the caption: CAN THIS BE CUT IN TIRE OF KILLER’S CAR? A boxed-in notice in boldfaced type suggested that each reader of the paper cut out this triangle and watch for a car whose right front tire held a gouged-out place in the side of the tread corresponding with the shape of this piece of paper.

Quinlan glanced through the paper and the vague accusation of the article, the unfair tone of the entire account of the crime itself, added to his worries.

For the fifth time within an hour he called his house.

The promptness with which Beryl answered the phone showed that she was once more sitting by the telephone, waiting.

“Anything from Roy?” the undersheriff asked.

“No, Dad.”

“Let me know if he calls.”

“I’ll tell him you want to hear from him,” she said.

Quinlan hung up. That interchange of comments between father and daughter had not varied substantially since he had begun calling her at frequent intervals asking for a report.

Sheriff Bill Eldon opened the door to find Quinlan nervously pacing the office, chewing a cigar into shreds.

“Hello, George. Anything new at this end?”

“You’ve seen the paper.”

The sheriff nodded. “Sort of a smear, isn’t it?”

“They’re really going to town.”

“You met Walworth?”

“Yes.”

“What sort?”

“I imagine he’s very able.”

“Cordial?”

Quinlan glanced in the direction of the paper.

The sheriff smiled. “To you, I mean.”

Quinlan paced the floor for a few turns, then abruptly whirled to face the sheriff. “Bill,” he said, “I’ve got to tell you something.”

“Take it easy,” Eldon said.

“Bill, I’ve put you in a spot. I want to...”

“Nothing to apologize for.”

“But I want to tell you about this.”

“Won’t it keep?”

“No.”

“We’ve got that murder case to work on now, George.”

“Well, this is... this has something to do with it, only it’s personal.”

“If it’s personal, it’ll keep.”

Quinlan frowned in exasperation.

“I’ve got some information,” the sheriff went on, talking quickly, his characteristic drawl scarcely noticeable now. “Found out quite a bit about the girl. Got her located and identified. She’s an Elizabeth Dow from San Rodolpho, working as cashier in a cafeteria there, and her mother was Elvira Dow. That name mean anything to you, George?”

Quinlan shook his head.

“Didn’t to me, either,” the sheriff said, “until I got to thinking. Seems to me I remember that name of Dow. It’s an unusual name. Thought I’d come back to the office and dig through the files of the local papers. You take the Register, George, and I’ll take the Gazette, and we’ll see what we can find. Look through the personal mention columns — just sort of give them a once-over.”

“That’ll be almost an endless job,” Quinlan protested.

“Oh, it won’t take us over two or three hours.”

“Two or three hours!” Quinlan stormed. “Here you have a red-hot murder case on your hands, with the district attorney bringing in a consulting criminologist, the cards all stacked against you, the Gazette just fairly itching to lift your political scalp, and you talk about looking through the personal columns for two or three hours. Good Heavens! If it’s that important, why don’t you hire some girl to run through them instead of wasting your time...”

“Take it easy, George. Take it easy!” the sheriff drawled. “You know the County doesn’t give us the money to hire a girl. It expects us to...”

“Bill, there’s something I want to tell you.”

“Sure, sure,” the sheriff said soothingly, “but let’s chase down this name first. I seem to remember it, somebody outside — sort of a Red Cross business. No, that ain’t it, either. It’s a nurse. That’s it! Say, George, ring up the hospital. Ask them if they know anything about a nurse by the name of Dow.”

Quinlan reluctantly called the hospital and after a few minutes relayed the information to the sheriff. “They don’t know of anyone.”

“Well, now,” the sheriff said, “that’s too bad. I had a pretty strong hunch that name of Dow was connected with a nurse. Well, I guess we’ve got to dig through these columns of personal mention. Don’t see what else there is to be done.”

“We...”

Abruptly the door opened. A delegation came trooping into the office, Rush Medford in the lead, Martin Walworth, the criminologist, following behind, then John Farnham, his face a mask of austere self-righteousness, with Bertram Glasco bringing up the rear.

“Sheriff,” the district attorney said, “I want you to meet Martin Walworth,” and then he added reproachfully, “We’ve been trying to get in touch with you all afternoon.”

“I was out of town,” the sheriff said to the district attorney, and put out his hand to the criminologist. “How de do, how are you?”

Walworth’s handshake was perfunctory.

The district attorney, in the voice of a lawyer making a prepared speech, said, “Sheriff, this murder at the Higbee place is an important case. This county can’t afford to let the murderer get away by slipshod methods. At the behest of influential citizens, my office has, therefore, called in Martin Walworth, the famous consulting criminologist.”

The sheriff said, “That’s fine. Who’s he consulting with?”

Medford flushed. “That’s his title. He’s a consulting criminologist.”

“Then he doesn’t consult with anyone?”

“He solves crimes. He advises officers how to catch criminals.”

“That’s fine. I’m always willing to take advice from anyone — or is he supposed to give me advice?”

“He’s supposed to solve the crime,” Medford said.

“You mean he isn’t going to give advice? He’s going to just go ahead and solve it all by himself?”

“He’s working with me,” Medford said.

“To solve the case,” Walworth announced calmly, “and I think I am well on the way to having it solved.”

“Yes?” the sheriff asked, and then added quite casually, “Sit down, boys.”

“I take it,” Walworth said, disregarding the invitation, “no attempt was ever made to trace that cigarette case which you found.”

“What do you mean, to trace it?”

“To find out who owns it.”

“Well, now, I don’t know just what you mean by tracing it, or just how you’d go about...”

“Exactly,” Walworth interrupted. “However, a moment’s thought should have convinced you that the distinctive part of that case was the engraving. It was obviously done by some jeweler who had sold the case. It took only a few minutes to call the local jewelers and find out that none of them had done it. Then I got in touch with the Los Angeles police and asked them to cover the better class jewelry stores and inquire from the engravers there. It took less than two hours for that to yield results.”

“Well, now,” the sheriff said, his tone indicating his pleased surprise. “What did you find out?”

“The case was sold by Weed Sisson and Company to a young woman who paid cash for it. She’s about nineteen years of age, rather tall, slender, dark hair, very dark eyes and has an unusual speaking voice, a clear flute-like quality that is definitely noticeable. She weighs about a hundred and fifteen, and wears a pale pink tourmaline ring on the finger of her left hand.”

Quinlan cleared his throat.

“Anything else?” the sheriff asked quickly.

“And we’ve located the car that left that track, the one that drove out of the Higbee place after you had gone away and left the place without any guard and without making a search to see if an automobile was parked anywhere in the field.”

“Now wait a minute, son,” the sheriff said. “You mean the car that drove in and then turned around and drove out?”

“I mean the car that drove out,” Walworth said. “At least that’s all we know. You saw the tracks going out, and that’s all you could and did see. If there were tracks going in, the tracks made by the car going out obliterated them.”

“Well, now,” the sheriff said with something of a drawl, “we can talk about that later. I saw tracks going in and out. But you said you’d located the car.”

“Well, we’ve located the license number of the car, and we’ve wired to find out the owner of the car. The report will come in here.”

“Well, well, you might as well sit down, boys,” the sheriff said.

They hesitated a moment, then to the tune of scraping chairs seated themselves into an inquisitorial half circle.

“How did you locate the car?” Quinlan asked, and his voice sounded dry and husky.

“The Gazette hadn’t been on the street more than twenty minutes,” Lyons announced triumphantly, “until a service-station man rang up. He had sold gas to a car and happened to notice that there was a gouge in the right front tire. He spoke to the young woman who was driving it, a brunette about nineteen with a very sweet clear voice. She said she didn’t want to do anything about it, but the owner of the service station thought he might write her a follow-up, and see if he couldn’t get a repair job out of it, so he jotted down her license number. It...”

The telephone rang sharply.

Walworth said, “That will be the call, I guess,” and reached for the telephone.

Bill Eldon’s shoulder managed to get in the way. “I’m taking my phone calls,” he said, and scooped up the telephone. “Sheriff’s office,” he announced.

But the voice of Central said, “I have a person-to-person call for Mr. Martin Walworth. Is he there?”

So the sheriff surrendered the telephone with what grace he could and watched the criminologist’s face as he heard the metallic sounds which emanated from the receiver.

“You’re certain?” Walworth asked into the telephone, and then snapped, “spell it.”

After that he hung up and turned to face the others.

“You folks know a Beryl Quinlan of 1792 Walnut Drive?” he asked, collectively. But his eyes, hard and accusing, were boring into those of George Quinlan.

It was impossible to miss the collective gasp which emanated from the others.

Martin Walworth swung around to George Quinlan, “Is she a relative of yours?”

John Farnham answered the question. “A daughter,” he said.

The brief period of tense silence which followed that statement was again broken by the strident ringing of the telephone.

Sheriff Eldon picked up the receiver, said, “Sheriff’s office, Bill Eldon speaking.” Then he said, “Wait a minute... Huh?... What’s that?... Oh, I see... All right... Uh huh... Wait for about fifteen or twenty minutes, will you?... Okay, goodbye.”

The sheriff hung up the telephone, saying nothing to any of the others.

Walworth’s manner was that of a teacher who is demonstrating some problem which to him is entirely simple, but which is puzzling a roomful of pupils. “May I ask,” he inquired sarcastically, “whether this Beryl Quinlan is around nineteen, a rather tall dark girl with dark eyes and an unusually clear voice?”

He needed no answer other than the glances which these men gave each other.

“That, gentlemen,” Walworth said, “probably disposes of your murder case. It will account for the ‘B’ on the cigarette case.”

Rush Medford took charge at that point. “I think,” he announced, “that, under the circumstances, it would be better if the district attorney’s office handled this by itself from this point on,” and with that he strode toward the door, jerked it open and stood to one side, waiting for the others to precede him.

They made a self-righteous little procession as they stalked through the door, but Bertram Glasco couldn’t help stopping for one final dig at the discomfited undersheriff. “This,” he said, “probably accounts for something that puzzled me in our conversation last night.”

And with that he marched out into the corridor. Rush Medford closed the door with a mild slam, and Bill Eldon and George Quinlan were left alone in the sheriff’s office.

“Well,” Quinlan said, “I guess that does it.”

“Does what?”

“Wipes me out,” Quinlan said gloomily. “And I guess I’ve dragged you down along with me, Bill.”

“What did Glasco mean when he said something about last night?” Eldon asked.

“They wanted me to run against you.”

“What did you tell them?”

“I told them I wouldn’t do it as long as you wanted to run.”

“Then what?”

“Then they suggested that the next big case that came along I sort of keep in the background and let you run the thing all by yourself and see if you wouldn’t bungle on fingerprints or something of that sort.”

Eldon nodded. “I thought something like that might be in the wind. And that’s why Rush Medford called Martin Walworth in as a special investigator.”

Quinlan only nodded. He felt so utterly dejected that he didn’t want to talk. They’d go and get Beryl. Rush Medford would take her to his office, go through the old rigmarole of advising her she didn’t need to talk, call in a court reporter to take down every word she said, and...

The sheriff calmly lifted the telephone, dialed a number. Quinlan slumped in his chair, chin on his chest, heard the sheriff’s fatherly voice say, “Hello, Beryl? That you?... Where’s your car?... Go down and get in it quick and go out to the Stanwood Auto Camp, rent a cabin under your own name. Be sure you use your own name and give the correct license of your car. Then look around. You’ll find a friend of yours there. Your father and I will be out in a few minutes, but get started now.”

The sheriff hung up the telephone.

“You can’t do that, Bill,” Quinlan said.

“Why not?”

“That’s compounding a felony. You know the district attorney is on his way out there to question her concerning what happened, and...”

“Well?” the sheriff interrupted.

“You can’t advise her to avoid him.”

The sheriff grinned. “I’m asking her to go where I can question her.”

“But the district attorney wants to take a statement from her.”

“And I want to take a statement from her. Rush Medford wants to solve this murder case, and I want to solve it. Buck up, George. We’re going places. Know who telephoned just a minute ago?”

“No,” Quinlan said dispiritedly.

“Roy Jasper. He’s out at the Stanwood camp. I told him to wait there.”

“I don’t see where we can do any good,” Quinlan said.

Bill Eldon put a sympathetic hand on the undersheriff’s shoulder. “Now, don’t get down in the dumps, George. You can’t blame Beryl for what she did. My gosh! I didn’t even bother to stop her.”

“You didn’t bother to do what?” Quinlan ejaculated.

“To stop her.”

“You mean you knew...”

“Of course I did,” the sheriff said. “I picked up the cigarette case and recognized it right away.”

“You recognized it? How?”

The sheriff said, “On your mantelpiece there’s a picture of Roy Jasper. He’s in uniform, and if you’ll remember he’s holding this cigarette case out in front of him half open just as though he was offering someone a cigarette. You can see the engraving on the side clearly.”

“Why, yes,” Quinlan said. “I do remember now. How did you happen to notice that, Bill?”

“Oh, I just notice lots of things,” the sheriff said. “It’s a habit a man gets when he’s been fooling around with crime as long as I have. You see, George, I never had a chance to study up on all this fingerprint business, and things of that sort, and because I don’t do so good on those things I have to keep up on other stuff. I always felt that you have to know and understand people in order to make a good officer. It’s easier to understand people than it is to understand all this scientific stuff about whorls and loops. Now, Beryl isn’t going to be mixed up in any murder, and you know it.”

“She’s mixed up in one now,” Quinlan said dejectedly.

Bill Eldon shook his head. “I thought that was Roy’s cigarette case,” he said, “so I went to a telephone and in place of telephoning the coroner’s office or the Gazette and locating you myself, I telephoned Beryl and told her about wanting to get hold of you, and about finding this cigarette case down there, and that we wanted you to fingerprint it. So then I went back where I could watch, and waited to see what happened.”

“What was the object in doing that?”

“I wanted to see whether Beryl knew where the cigarette case was. I was very careful to tell her that I found it in the Higbee place and describe it to her, but I didn’t tell her where in the Higbee place I’d found it.”

“And what did she do?”

“Did just what I thought she’d do,” the sheriff said. “Drove down there.”

“And then what did you do?”

“Watched her.”

“You didn’t stop her?”

“No. I saw Beryl drive down, stop her car, open the gate, get in, drive up to the old Higbee place and then she had to do quite a bit of looking around before she found what she wanted.

“Then I watched her drive out and close the gate behind her. I really thought she’d taken the cigarette case with her, but she was too smart for that. She’d just wiped the fingerprints off of it and left it.”

“She had no right to do that,” Quinlan said.

“She didn’t, for a fact,” the sheriff admitted cheerfully, “but I thought it was best to let her play it that way.”

“Why?”

“Because then she’d go to Roy Jasper and get him to tell her just exactly what had happened, and he’d tell her where he wouldn’t tell either you or me. All I had to be certain of was that Beryl hadn’t been in the house when the cigarette case had been dropped. She proved that to me when she had to fumble around looking for it. If she’d gone right to the kitchen where the cigarette case had been left, I’d have had to stop her when she drove out and ask her questions. I’d have hated to do it, too, because Beryl’s such a nice girl.”

Quinlan was having difficulty in adjusting himself to these new developments. “Then you knew before I got there what car it was that had the triangular piece out of the right front tire?”

“Sure.”

“Then why did you have me go through all that business of tearing out a piece of paper and all that?”

“Well, George,” the sheriff said, “I sort of wanted to see what you’d do. That’s why I gave you that triangular piece of paper to keep. I thought perhaps...”

“Don’t think for a minute I wasn’t tempted,” Quinlan interrupted bitterly. “I even went so far as to tear out a substitute piece of paper. But when it came to a showdown I couldn’t use it.”

“I know,” the sheriff said soothingly. “Well, let’s go out to the auto camp and see what’s happening. I’ll call my house first.” Sheriff Eldon called his house. Then, when the answer came, his face winced with displeasure. “Hello, Doris,” he said. “Where’s Merna? Is she there?... I see... Well, take a message for her, will you? Tell her that I want her to start looking through the personal mention in the back issues of the papers beginning about six or seven months ago and see if she can find some mention of an Elvira Dow. I think she...”

The sheriff was interrupted by a burst of high-pitched staccato noises which came rattling over the wire with the insistent stridency of static on a radio.

Slowly the look of annoyance on his face faded to a whimsical smile. “All right, Doris,” he said, “I guess it’s a good thing to have a gossip in the family after all.”

He hung up and grinned at Quinlan. “Looks as though we’re getting somewhere, George. That was the old Human Encyclopedia, my sister-in-law, who sticks that long nose of hers into more different business of more different people than you’d ever suspect. She was visiting here when old Higbee died, and she eagerly devoured all the scandal about his common-law marriage to his housekeeper, and all the stink that was raised. Elvira Dow was the nurse who lived at the house for about ten days after Marvin Higbee had his stroke. She was with him up until the time of his death.”

“Then this girl who was murdered was...”

“Elvira Dow’s daughter. Put that together with the fact that people were zigzagging back and forth around the house looking for something, and we begin to get an answer. We...”

The telephone rang sharply. Eldon answered it, listened to the harsh tones of a rasping voice, and said, “So what?” After an interval he slammed the receiver back into place.

Quinlan looked at him questioningly.

“Rush Medford,” the sheriff said. “He’s down at your place. Your wife told him Beryl got a call a few minutes ago and then jumped in her whoopee and went tearing out.”

Quinlan groaned. “And I suppose he suspects me!”

Eldon grinned. “Come on, son. Kinda looks as though we gotta move fast.”

10

The little group in the cabin at the Stanwood Auto Court talked in low voices.

“All right, Roy,” the sheriff said, “I think it’s your move.”

Roy Jasper shifted his position uneasily. “I didn’t want Beryl to know about this,” he said. “I suppose I was foolish. After all, there was no reason why... Oh well, it would have meant explaining and...”

“Go ahead,” the sheriff said.

“It began last week,” Roy said, “when I was in San Rodolpho on official business. I ate in a cafeteria and... well, the cashier was a good-looking blonde, and I got to passing the time of day with her. I told her I was from Rockville and that I certainly hated to be so close to home without going on up to see my friends, and she laughed and wanted to know whether it was friends, plural, or a friend, singular, and we got to chatting.”

“Then what?”

“Well, then she asked me about whether I knew Marvin Higbee, and I told her he was dead, and she asked a few questions about the place, and I told her something about the lawsuit. Well...” Roy hesitated.

“Go ahead,” the sheriff said.

“Well, I could see this girl kept wanting to talk about Higbee, and finally she told me the story. Her mother nursed Higbee during his last illness, and then in Colorado her mother became critically ill and sent for the daughter. The daughter was there for a couple of days before the mother died, and the mother told her that Higbee had said to her in effect, ‘If anything happens and I shouldn’t pull through, you’ve got to do something for me. He’ll pay you for it and pay you well — make him pay. I told him he’d have to pay,’ but he wouldn’t tell her any more than that, just that she’d be paid well for what she was to do. He’d had a stroke and it had paralyzed one side. Then the day before he died, he had another stroke and knew he wasn’t going to make it. The nurse could see that he wanted to tell her something very badly, but there was always someone else in the room. No one trusted anyone else, people were waiting, watching. The housekeeper kept flitting around, and the doctor was there, in and out, and Carlotta, the man’s favorite sister, was there almost constantly, and business associates kept standing around.

“Finally, she thought in desperation, Higbee said to her, talking apparently with great effort, ‘Remember, I said you’d have to do something,’ and she nodded, and just then Carlotta came and stood by the bed, and Higbee frowned and said with the effort that talking costs a man who has had a stroke, ‘The joke is behind the joker,’ and that was all.

“Carlotta kept asking, ‘What was that? What about a joker?’ But he closed his eyes and pretended he couldn’t hear her. But the nurse felt certain that it was a message for her, but she never was able to figure it out. Higbee died the next day, and there was, of course, no further necessity for a nurse. Well, Elizabeth kept thinking over what her mother had told her, and after her mother’s death she began to wonder if it hadn’t been related to something in the house, so she started pumping me about the Higbee place, and I told her all I knew. Elizabeth wanted me to go with her and see if we couldn’t find something in the house, but of course, she swore me to absolute secrecy.

“Well, it was an adventure, and I was there in San Rodolpho on official business. I got off once to come up and see Beryl, but the rest of the time they held me there so I couldn’t go anywhere. Then I went back to Fort Bixling, and then I got this furlough and... well, I’d promised Elizabeth that I’d get in touch with her the first chance I had. So I did, and she insisted that I mustn’t call anyone, or let anyone know about what we were going to do. She said she’d drive me up in her car, and that after I’d helped her locate what she wanted I could get in touch with my friends up here. I think she was just a little bit hurt that I was so eager to... Well, you know.”

Beryl nodded.

“So when I left Camp Bixling yesterday morning, I took the bus up to San Rodolpho. I’d telephoned her that I was coming. She met me in the cafeteria. We talked for a while, and then we went over and had some lunch put up, got in her car and drove up to the old Higbee place. It certainly was a mess. I found that a passkey I’d picked up in a hardware store would work the lock on the side door, and we went in and prowled all around the place.”

“Find anything?” the sheriff asked.

Roy said, “At the time, I didn’t think that we had, but now-well, now I don’t know.”

The sheriff raised his eyebrows, asking a silent question.

“You see,” Roy said, “we had made pretty much of a search around the place, and were sitting down eating lunch, in fact we’d finished lunch and I’d had a cigarette, and I think she had, when all of a sudden we heard a car drive up. Well, you know, there’d been so much trouble among the heirs, and, after all, we’d really broken into the place — I’d used a passkey — so we jumped up and ran to the window. It was all covered with cobwebs, but I could vaguely see a car and people coming to the house. So I grabbed her hand and we ran away from the window and dashed for the side door. We played hide and seek around there for a while until the people walked around the other side of the house, then we ran out and jumped in her car and drove away.”

“You saw those people?”

“Yes, after we’d got out of the house. It was Sam Beckett and John Farnham. They didn’t see us. Farnham was evidently selling the place to Beckett. Anyway, I let Elizabeth drive me back to San Rodolpho, and I waited until evening and then telephoned Beryl. I didn’t want to tell Beryl that I was in San Rodolpho so I told her I was just leaving Fort Bixling, and... well, that’s all there was to it. I stuck around there, took the night bus and came up here. Now, Elizabeth must have uncovered some clue to something she didn’t want me to know about. After she took me back to San Rodolpho she must have turned right around and driven right back up here. She told me she had a bad headache and was going up to her room and go to bed. And by that time — I was thinking of Beryl. Elizabeth had been all right to kill a little time with when I was down where I couldn’t see Beryl, but once I could get up here I was kicking myself for the time I’d wasted out of my furlough. When a soldier’s in a strange town and is lonely, he’ll do anything just to talk with some friendly girl. Well, that was it. I’d promised her I’d go up to the Higbee place with her and look it over, and I went, and that’s all there was to it as far as I know.”

“And you left your cigarette case there?” Beryl asked.

“Yes.”

“But you had one the next morning when you showed up that...”

Roy said, “I felt miserable about that. You see, Beryl, you sent me the cigarette case for Christmas, but I already had one cigarette case, so I used it for a spare. Then after I lost your... well, I intended to go back to the Higbee place and pick up the one with the engraving on it, but the one that I showed you this morning was the spare. It was silver, about the same type as the one you gave me except for the engraving, and I held it so you couldn’t see that the engraving wasn’t on it. I was afraid that I couldn’t explain to you about Elizabeth without you getting sore.”

“You mustn’t feel that way, Roy — ever.”

“I know,” he said, “now. But I wasn’t sure. I...”

A car drew up outside. The sound of excited voices mingled with hurried steps. A perfunctory knock on the door was followed by a turning of the knob and the influx of an excited group.

“There they are!” Lyons proclaimed dramatically.

District Attorney Rush Medford demanded angrily, “What’s the idea?”

“Idea of what?” the sheriff drawled innocently.

“Spiriting these people away.”

The sheriff’s eyebrows went up. “We didn’t spirit them anywhere. We’re questioning them.”

“I’m putting this young man under arrest for the murder of Elizabeth Dow.”

“Got any evidence?” the sheriff asked.

“All the evidence in the world. That is, we will have as soon as we check some fingerprints. Beryl Quinlan thought she was wiping all the fingerprints off that cigarette case and she did — off the outside. But what everyone overlooked was the fact that at some time when the case had been empty and the owner was filling it with fresh cigarettes, he had left his fingerprints on the inside, back of the cigarettes.

“Mr. Walworth very shrewdly deduced he’d find fingerprints there and carefully removed the cigarettes, then dusted the interior of the case, and we got some very fine latents. In my official capacity as district attorney of this county, Sheriff, I order you to take this man into custody.”

“Suit yourself, but I’m not going to be the one to swear out the complaint,” Bill Eldon drawled.

“I will swear out the complaint,” Martin Walworth said, but then added hastily, “in the event it appears that this young man’s fingerprints check with the latents I found on the inside of the cigarette case.”

“We’ll determine that in short order,” the district attorney said.

They drove to the courthouse. Walworth made prints of Roy Jasper’s fingertips. There was no concealing his anxiety as he focused a magnifying glass on the latent prints and then compared them with the prints he had taken from Jasper’s fingers.

Suddenly his face broke into a smile. He nodded triumphantly to the district attorney. “I think congratulations are in order,” he said. “We have the right man!” He snapped the cigarette case shut with something of a flourish.

11

The night had turned clear and calm. Wintry stars blazed down with steady splendor. The pulsing throb of the motor on Sam Beckett’s tractor punctuated the cold silence. The tractor headlights cast twin rows of illumination down the field which surrounded the old Higbee place.

The murder of Elizabeth Dow had been a dramatic chapter in Sam Beckett’s farming operations. But, murder or no murder, the plowing had to be done, and Sam Beckett on the tractor was slowly rolling the soil into furrows which streamed out behind the tractor-driven plow.

Sheriff Eldon parked the County car at the gate and said to George Quinlan, “Looks as though were going to have to walk, George. We can’t drive this car through that freshly plowed ground.”

Quinlan nodded.

Together the two men trudged along the plowed furrows, sinking to their ankles in the soft soil. They reached the strip of hard ground where the plows had not yet bitten into the soil, and walked more rapidly along the old abandoned roadway to where the Higbee house loomed as a massive shadow against the stars.

“Think there’s something we’ve overlooked?” Quinlan asked anxiously.

“Gosh, yes,” the sheriff admitted, “lots and lots of things we’ve overlooked. The human mind just ain’t thorough enough to look for all the things it should see, or even to see the things that are yelling for attention. But that message now, George. Higbee said, ‘The joke is behind the joker.’ Now that must mean something.”

“But what?” Quinlan asked.

“Well, now,” the sheriff said, “the old-time kings used to have ’em — the little fellows with bells that danced around and made jokes.”

“Well?”

“I noticed that one of the pictures there was of a court scene with people talking, and this here court jester or joker with his cap and bells was out in the front part of the picture doing a little dance. Now you know that just might be what old Higbee had reference to.”

“Could be,” Quinlan agreed without enthusiasm. “By gosh, Bill, I hope you’re right.”

The sheriff said, “We gotta be right, George. They’ve got us in a vise and they’re beginning to screw it up pretty tight.”

They entered the house, and the sheriff, using his flashlight, led the way into the big front room where a rat, perched defiantly on the back of what had once been an overstuffed chair, regarded them with glittering, malevolent eyes. The beam of the sheriff’s flashlight fastened on the picture entitled “Court Scene in the Middle Ages.”

There were the monarchs, the court beauties resplendent with dresses cut low in front, billowing out behind. There were statesmen gathered in a serious little group, and down in the foreground was the court jester waving his fool’s sceptre, dancing and grinning, the bells on his cap jiggled into wild motion by his gyrations.

Quinlan approached the picture and tilted it out from the wall. His face, illuminated by reflections from the beam of the sheriff’s spotlight, showed bitter disappointment.

“Wait a minute,” the sheriff told him reassuringly. “You can’t expect a man as smart as Higbee to have just pushed something up behind a picture where an accidental jar would have knocked it to the floor. When he said behind the joker, he really meant what he said. It must be behind the joker.”

The sheriff took the picture down, placed it on a table, took a heavy-bladed pocket knife from his trousers and began prying at the brads which held the back of the picture in place. The brads came out easily, and the sheriff lifted out the cardboard section which backed the picture. He gave a low whistle.

Age had discolored the back of the picture, but that discoloration was slightly less pronounced over an oblong space some two and a half inches wide by six inches long.

“Gone!” Quinlan exclaimed.

The sheriff scratched the grizzled hair along the back of his head.

For some seconds they regarded the dismantled picture. Then the sheriff said, “Notice this was exactly behind the jester in the picture.”

Quinlan’s nod was perfunctory. “Knowing where it was isn’t going to help us to tell where it is,” he said.

Bill Eldon rehung the picture, and was meticulously careful to see that it was hanging straight.

“Now, clues,” the sheriff said, when the picture had been hung to suit him, “are peculiar things. They’re combinations of a little bit of everything. Lots of clues get thrown out the window, just lots of them. Now, take that girl for instance, lying face down and stabbed. Notice something about her, George?”

“What?”

“No purse.”

“You mean she... Say! That’s right! She didn’t have any purse.”

“No purse,” the sheriff said. “That wouldn’t mean so much by itself, because she might have been running and somebody was chasing her and caught up with her and stabbed her, and her purse might have been left at the place where she started to run, or she may have left it somewhere here in the house. But we don’t find it here in the house...”

“Go on,” Quinlan said eagerly.

“Simple as can be,” the sheriff observed. “This Dow girl was pretty smart. You have to be quick-thinking to be a cashier in a cafeteria. That’s not the sort of job you can go to sleep on. Well, she got Roy Jasper to come up here to the house with her, show her around, and take the responsibility of getting the door open. Then she started searching, and the probabilities are she hadn’t searched very long before she stumbled onto this picture and that gave her an idea she was on the right track.

“So what does she do? Does she tell Roy what she’s discovered and then let him dismantle the picture with her? She does not. She stalls along and pretends she hasn’t noticed anything, gets rid of Roy, and then later on comes back by herself. It’s late afternoon. She doesn’t drive her car inside the gate. She leaves it down the road a ways and walks in. And just as she’s congratulating herself on being smart, the gate opens and Sam Beckett comes through with a tractor and starts plowing.

“The girl can’t walk out in broad daylight and stumble across that plowed ground where Sam Beckett will ask her what she’s been up to and who she is. So she waits for darkness to make her getaway.

“So she sits still, and by and by it begins to get dark all right, and she hears all the little night noises — and then she hears a new noise. Someone else has been hiding in the house, someone else who was waiting for it to get dark. She hears cautious steps, a board creaks, all the night noises stop — all except this steady, stealthy approach of someone who’s been hiding in the house — waiting.

“She fights back panic, clutches her purse, gropes her way to the side door and starts running. And the thing behind her, the thing that’s been waiting for darkness to make its stealthy approach, starts running, too.”

“Gosh, Bill,” Quinlan said, “you’re building up quite a scene from just a few clues — from the absence of a few clues, in fact.”

“But that’s the way it had to be,” the sheriff said with cold logic. “If she’d come in after Beckett started plowing, her tracks would be in the plowed ground, and by counting the furrows where these tracks quit, you could tell just how far Beckett had got with his plowing before she walked in. But there aren’t any tracks. So both the girl and the person who killed her must have come in before the plowing started.”

“Guess you’re right, Bill.”

“Well, she broke and ran. What did she run for?”

“Her automobile.”

“No, George, I don’t think so. You have to put yourself in her shoes. She ran for the closest protection she could find.”

“The tractor!” Quinlan exclaimed.

“Now you’re gettin’ it, Son. She’d been hiding from the man on the tractor, but now, all of a sudden, she wanted to be near him mighty bad. She was running for the tractor — and something made her swerve.”

“How do you know she swerved? Maybe she just didn’t get there.”

“Nope. The body was found on the plowed ground. That means she got to the furrow the tractor was plowing, and swerved. Now what would make her detour away from safety like that just when she was getting close?”

Quinlan shook his head. Then after a moment he said, “The trouble with all this is it leaves the murderer in here. How could he have got out if there were no tracks?”

“He left tracks, George.”

“He couldn’t have, Bill. He didn’t.”

“Oh bosh!” the sheriff said. “Sure he left tracks. He left the sort of tracks that nobody bothered to look at. That’s the angle I’m working on now, the way the fellow got out of here.”

“You mean he went out on Sam Beckett’s tractor? You mean that...?”

The sheriff suddenly slid from the end of the table. “Come on, son,” he said to Quinlan. “We’ve got a job to do — and we’ve got to do it fast.”

Lights blazed in the office of Rush Medford. Edward Lyons sat near the telephone where he could rush in reports to his newspaper. Martin Walworth, his bushy eyebrows drawn to ominous lines, gave Roy Jasper and Beryl Quinlan the benefit of his accusing gaze. The court reporter, his pen moving smoothly over a shorthand notebook, took down the questions and answers.

Rush Medford looked up as Bill Eldon and the undersheriff entered the room. There was exasperation on his face. For more than an hour and a half now they had been grilling the suspects and they knew just as much as they had known before, no more, no less.

Sheriff Eldon’s slow drawl came as a sharp change from the staccato bark of questions which had been fired by the criminologist. The sheriff pulled off his big sombrero, grinned at the district attorney, turned to Walworth and said, “Well, I guess I have to admit some of these rule-of-thumb methods aren’t as good as these modern scientific methods.”

Walworth said angrily, “If these two would consent to a lie-detector test I’d very soon tell you what’s...”

“You mean they won’t?” the sheriff interrupted.

Beryl Quinlan said, “As long as you are antagonistic to my father we aren’t going to cooperate. We’ll answer questions, and that’s all.”

“Come, come,” the sheriff said soothingly. “Why don’t you take a lie-detector test, Beryl? It might help things along.”

“We will if you say so.”

Walworth heaved an audible sigh of relief. “I’d want them to step in this room one at a time,” he said.

“Sure, sure,” the sheriff announced. “Go ahead, Beryl.”

The district attorney glanced suspiciously at the sheriff, but his suspicions seemed allayed by the guileless expression on the veteran’s grizzled countenance.

Walworth had his apparatus all set up and it took him only a few minutes to take Beryl Quinlan into another office where he spent some twelve minutes with her on the lie-detector. Then he called for Roy Jasper, strapped the electrodes and controls to him, and again propounded his questions.

At the end of that time, Walworth rejoined the others.

“They’re telling the truth,” he announced glumly.

“I thought so,” the sheriff said. “You know, I don’t know much about these new-fangled things, so us old timers have to rely on human nature and character, and figuring what a person would do under certain circumstances and...”

“That,” Walworth announced harshly, “is all bosh. The man doesn’t live who can judge guilt or innocence by physiognomy or by trusting to the perceptions of his auditory nerves. It’s merely a means by which the old-fashioned officer gave free rein to his prejudices. It’s no more reliable than locating a well by a forked willow stick.”

“Well, well, well,” the sheriff said, “now I’d always put a lot of store by all that, and I’ve seen some mighty good wells...”

Medford interrupted to ask pointedly, “Did you have any reason for this visit, Sheriff?”

“Sure,” the sheriff said. “I just come to ask Walworth a question. I’ve been reading somewhere about the identification of hairs. Seems to me like I read you can identify hair — not only what kind of a hair it is, but you can tell a lot about the age and condition of the person or animal it came from.”

“Yes,” Walworth said shortly. He was definitely not encouraging this cordiality on the part of the sheriff.

“Well, now,” the sheriff went on, “that’s fine, because it occurs to me that you might be able to help me solve this case.”

“I’ll solve it myself,” Walworth said.

“Now, now,” the sheriff cautioned. “No need to get on your high horse like that. I just thought we might sort of work together, since you’re here.”

“I’ve been retained by the district attorney to solve this case,” Walworth said.

“Well, now, that’s fine,” the sheriff beamed, “because I’m employed by the County to do the same thing, so we might as well sort of work along together.”

“I have my methods, and you have yours.”

“Sure, sure. Now take your methods, for instance. How do you think the murderer got out of that Higbee place without leaving tracks on the plowed ground?”

“I think tracks were there, but they were obliterated by slipshod methods. I think that Sam Beckett must have walked in the tracks of the murderer, and when you subsequently walked in the tracks of Sam Beckett you managed to obliterate the murderer’s tracks. That’s the only logical explanation.”

The sheriff grinned. “And suppose his tracks were obliterated — the tracks he made going up to the body? Then what? How’d he get out of the place? He was in the middle of a field and soft plowed ground was all around him — just like a man who’s painted himself into the middle of a floor by beginning at the outer edge of the room.”

The sheriff ceased speaking and grinned at Walworth’s evident discomfiture.

“Well, now,” the sheriff went on, at length, “suppose this girl had found a paper that was sort of incriminating to some people, and someone wanted to get that paper, someone that was snooping around the house watching her. She started to run. Well, she was young and trim, and maybe this man felt he couldn’t catch her, running after her, but just suppose he’d already arranged for a means of quick escape — something that required the use of a silk rope with tassels on it — the twisted silk rope that held the drapes over that door, for instance.”

Walworth looked at the sheriff as though doubting the officer’s sanity. “What in the world are you talking about?”

“A horse,” the sheriff said. “That cord was about eight feet long, long enough to tie around a horse’s neck, make a half hitch over his nose — and when the girl ran out of the house with whatever it was the man wanted, he ran out and got on his horse.

“It was dark and he couldn’t see her, but he knew she’d run for the tractor, so he galloped his horse straight for the tractor. The girl could see him ’cause she was looking up, and a man on a horse shows up against the sky, even when it’s cloudy, while a man on a horse, looking down, has a hard time seeing something on the ground at night. But by galloping toward the tractor, the man made the girl think he could see her, and she swerved and screamed, and then the man on the horse did see her.”

“And all this time the man on the tractor didn’t see or hear anything?” Walworth asked skeptically.

The sheriff grinned. “Guess you’ve never plowed on a tractor at night,” he said. “What with the roar of the motor, and having to watch the furrows, you don’t see or hear much.”

“Go ahead,” Walworth said curtly.

“Well,” the sheriff went on, “this man caught up with the girl and jumped off. By that time, the girl had been running a long way and the man was fresh. He caught her just as she stumbled and fell, right on the edge of the plowed ground. The purse was what he wanted. After he stabbed her, he got the purse. And the horse, being a trained cattle horse, stood there stock still as long as the rope was dragging on the ground. The man finished his murder, got back on the horse and rode in a series of aimless circles around the plowed ground so it wouldn’t look as though a horse was being directed by a rider in a straight line to the fence. But the man got to the fence all right after making a few turns. He rode the horse alongside the fence, slid off on the other side of the fence, untied the silk rope, and turned the horse loose. The horse wandered back around the plowed ground. Because we were all looking for the tracks of a murderer and because a whole field full of horses were galloping around and cutting didoes, nobody paid any attention to the horse tracks in the plowed ground. The man that was doing the plowing came on around, and because he was watching the edge of the plowed ground pretty sharp, plowed right past the figure on the ground without seeing it. In fact, he didn’t see it until he’d made a couple more turns and the moon had come up.”

Sheriff Eldon’s audience was listening with rapt attention.

“So I sort of thought,” the sheriff said, “that if you’d take that microscope and examine the pants of this here murderer, you might find where some of the horse’s hairs were worked into the man’s pants, and then if you could prove that they were the same hairs from the old bay saddle-horse that John Farnham sold Sam Beckett a while ago, you just might find someone to put that lie-detector on,”

Walworth looked at the sheriff blankly.

“You see,” the sheriff went on, “the murderer would have to be somebody that knew how to ride pretty well, and who knew which one of the horses in that field was saddle-broke.”

Farnham got to his feet. “What in hell are you talking about?” he demanded.

“Just thought it might be a good plan to take a look at those pants of yours,” the sheriff said, “and then I thought maybe you’d like to take a lie-detector test, seeing we’re going in for some of this new-fangled business.”

“You’re crazy!” Farnham said. “But look at my pants all you damn please.”

“Not those pants,” the sheriff said. “You probably went home and took your pants off and left them to be sent to the cleaner, but you see, John, I read in the paper that your wife had gone away for a long visit, and it occurred to me that if you’re sort of batching around the place, there wouldn’t be anybody to send stuff out to the cleaners, so the pants may still be in your house. You know, it’s a great thing in these country towns to read the newspapers and keep up with...”

Farnham lost his head, rushed the sheriff.

The neat agility with which the sheriff swung to one side was matched only by the smoothly timed precision with which his left hand blocked Farnham’s blow. His right came up in a smashing impact to the jaw.

“Well, now,” the sheriff said, tugging handcuffs from his belt, “I thought maybe he’d lose his head.”

12

To the little group gathered in the front room of John Farnham’s house, Martin Walworth displayed his findings.

“These trousers,” he said, “have numerous hairs from a bay horse worked into the cloth. It’s very evident that this horse was being ridden bareback. I’ll want real tests, but I would say from the texture of the hairs that it was a horse from fifteen to twenty years old.”

“Tut, tut,” the sheriff said reproachfully. “He told Beckett it was twelve.”

“And,” Walworth went on, “on the coat of the same suit there are not only hairs from the same horse, but on the right coat sleeve near the cuff are unmistakable stains of human blood. An examination will show whether this blood is of the same type as that of the young woman who was killed. The subject refuses to take a lie-detector test.”

“Well, now,” the sheriff said in his slow drawl, “having gone that far, I guess we might as well go a little farther and sort of look around and see if we can’t find the purse that he took from that girl. He probably wanted to get rid of it somewhere, and — well, you know, I wouldn’t be too surprised if he might have buried it out in the backyard. Just suppose we sort of take a look around there.”

The search of the backyard proved fruitless. But the sheriff worked with painstaking patience. He went over every inch of the ground and then searched the house.

Eventually they found what they wanted in a closet in the basement. Back of some preserves was a purse containing the driving license of Elizabeth Dow, whose address was San Rodolpho. And in that purse was a folded paper. On that paper were two photographs and ten fingerprints. One of the photographs was of John Farnham’s profile; one was full-face. The sheriff read the paper and grinned. “Now, Higbee was a smooth one,” he said. “When John Farnham came to this county and started in being a real-estate agent, a professional reformer and a political crusader, the rest of us just took him as a pain in the neck, but old Marvin Higbee evidently got some detectives and spent a little money finding out where Farnham came from. Maybe he got some fingerprints from letting Farnham’s hand get pressed against a glass window some time. But you see what he got — this little dodger says: ‘Wanted fob Embezzlement.’ No wonder Farnham quit agitating for an investigation of that school-construction job. Higbee had this and he let Farnham know he had it. You can consider how Farnham felt when Higbee died, the fruitless searches he must have made — and then the feeling of security — until he knew someone else was searching. Well, there’s your motive, men.”

The district attorney stretched out his hand. “I’ll take charge of that,” he said.

“Well, now,” the sheriff drawled, “it seems to me that I’m still the sheriff of this here county. I uncovered the evidence and if you don’t mind, boys, I think the sheriff’s office is going to take charge of it. And if anybody else thinks different, why, the line forms on the right, and you can put your coats on that old chair over there until we get done with the argument. I’m kinda old, but I’m still spry.”

No one said anything.

The sheriff took the purse and paper into his custody. “And now,” he said to Martin Walworth, “you’ve really educated me, sir. You have, for a fact. It seems that evidence should be fixed up so it can’t be substituted, and since you’ve been called in as a criminologist by the district attorney to help clean up this crime, and since the bill is going to be passed on to the taxpayers, whom I happen to represent, you might just as well sign your name on the margin of this here piece of paper so there won’t be any chance of its being substituted or any smart lawyers raising any question as to whether or not it’s the same piece of paper we found hidden in the house here. Thank you, sir. Thank you kindly.”

Old Bill Eldon seemed tired as he settled down in his favorite easy chair.

“You’re home early,” his wife said.

“Yep. Got all finished up down at the courthouse.”

“Thought you were working on that murder case,” Doris said.

“I was.”

Her eyes snapped with interest. “You mean you’ve got it solved?”

“That’s right.”

“Who did it?”

“John Farnham.”

“John Farnham!” Doris almost screamed. “How’d you know it was John Farnham?”

“It almost had to be John,” the sheriff said wearily.

“What clues pointed to him?”

“No clues,” the sheriff said, “just human nature.”

His wife asked, “What was it, Bill? Are you too tired to tell us?”

“No,” the sheriff said, “I’m not too tired. But I just got sort of sick of the case. You see, Elizabeth Dow was murdered when she got to snooping around and found an old paper Marvin Higbee had left in the house. Well, that old paper had been there for a long time and nobody had bothered about it, but the minute the Dow girl started looking, somebody sat up and took notice.

“Well, naturally, you’d sort of figure that it was because Elizabeth Dow went there that the murderer became alarmed and felt he had to do something, so the question was, who knew she went there? Well, it seems that Roy Jasper knew it, but he didn’t tell anyone, and it seems her automobile was parked out in front when Sam Beckett and John Farnham drove up. Sam Beckett was only interested in buying the place, but John Farnham was in the real-estate business and he was trying to get Beckett to buy it. Well, that’s all there was to it. As soon as I heard that, I knew what must have happened.”

“What?” his wife asked curiously.

“Why,” the sheriff said, “anybody that knows anything about real-estate people knows that when a place is for sale and a realtor who has it listed comes up and finds a car parked and somebody apparently looking over the place, he does just one thing — takes the license number of the car and looks it up to see who was interested. It’s a habit that real-estate people have. So when John Farnham looked up the license number and found the name Elizabeth Dow, he immediately put two and two together, because he knew that Elvira Dow had nursed Higbee in his last illness. So Farnham closed the deal with Sam Beckett and then beat it down to San Rodolpho to see Elizabeth Dow. But he met her coming back — only, of course, she didn’t recognize him.

“So John tagged along behind her car to see where she was going. When it turned out to be the Higbee place again, John followed her in, got a carving knife out of the drawer in the sideboard, and... Oh, shucks! There wasn’t anything to it soon as you got to figuring Farnham would naturally note the license number of any car parked at the place.”

“And that’s the way you solved the case?” Doris asked.

“That’s about it.”

Doris sniffed, “And to think the taxpayers hand you money for that! Why, everyone knows how real-estate people jot down car numbers!”

The sheriff chuckled. “This here consulting criminologist didn’t know it. If he did he didn’t think of it — not until after I pointed it out to him.”

Part Two

The Case of the Hungry Horse

1

It was 7:55 when Lew Turlock answered the phone and was advised that long distance was calling Miss Betty Turlock. Would he please put her on the phone?

“She isn’t here.”

The voice of the operator had that synthetic sweetness which showed Lew Turlock he was talking directly with the city. The Rockville operator would have spoken more naturally. Sometimes the local girls tried to imitate the voices of the metropolitan operators, but it never quite clicked, probably because they overdid it.

“When will she be in?” came drifting dulcetly over the party line.

Lew called over his shoulder to his wife, “Betty wasn’t coming home tonight, was she, Millie?”

“She’s spending the night with Rose Marie Mallard,” his wife called back. “Who wants her?”

“Long distance,” Turlock said to his wife and then into the phone, “she won’t be here tonight.”

“Is there another phone number where we can reach her?”

“Nope,” Turlock said, “no other number. The folks out where she’s staying don’t have a telephone.”

He hung up and went back to a perusal of the Rockville Gazette.

“Now who in the world do you suppose would be calling Betty from the city?” Mrs. Turlock asked.

Her husband merely grunted.

“Seems as though you could have found out who it was,” she said. “Betty wouldn’t sleep a wink if she knew someone was trying to get her from the city.”

Lew started to say something, then lowered his paper and cocked his head, listening.

“What is it?” his wife asked.

“Those horses over at Calhoun’s,” Turlock said, “they’re acting mighty queer. A lot of snorting and stamping.”

“Well,” Mrs. Turlock said tartly, “let Sid Rowan worry about that. We’ve got enough to do without worrying about the neighbors’ horses. Sid’s getting lazier every day. Anyhow, I don’t see how you can hear them. I can’t hear a thing.”

Turlock said shortly, “Just guess my ears are tuned to horse noises. That mare of Lorraine Calhoun’s is a package of dynamite. Sounds like she’s kicking the side of her stall.”

With the boom in land values, Lew’s next-door neighbor had sold out six months ago to Carl Carver Calhoun, a wealthy broker. It had been difficult for Turlock to adjust himself to this new situation. In the first place, Calhoun was only there on week-ends. He had hired Sid Rowan and his wife to look after the place, paying a salary that Turlock was firmly convinced was exactly twice as much as any couple were worth, four times as much as Rowan was worth.

Under the new owner, the adjoining property had undergone a steady transformation. The cattle and work horses had been sold, and high-spirited riding horses had taken their place. A couple of dairy cows had been retained and a half-dozen heads of beef cattle, but the rest had been sold. A tennis court had been built and a swimming pool was now in process of construction.

Calhoun was cordial enough. In fact, he went out of his way to be friendly. But, as Turlock had pointed out to his wife, you just couldn’t make a real neighbor out of a millionaire. “Go over to borrow a cup of rice,” he had pointed out, “and when you went to pay it back, like as not they’d smile and say, ‘Oh, that’s all right.’ ”

The telephone rang again.

This time the voice of the long-distance telephone operator announced that her party would speak with anyone who answered the phone. A second later, a girl’s voice, touched with impatience, asked, “Who is this talking, please?”

“Lew Turlock.”

“Oh, you’re Betty’s father, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Look, would you do something for me?”

“What is it?”

“You don’t know me. I’m Irma Jesup, a friend of Lorraine Calhoun and also of your daughter. Now listen, it’s very important that I talk with Betty. I have to reach her no matter where she is.”

“There isn’t a phone out where she’s staying.”

“I understand. But is it far from where you are?”

“Six or seven miles.”

“Look, could you get word to her? Or perhaps some neighbor who has a phone would call her? Couldn’t you get word to her some way?”

“Well, I suppose I could,” Turlock said reluctantly, “if it’s downright important.”

“Well, it is. Just tell her to call Irma Jesup at Trinidad 6273. And she’ll be using a neighbor’s telephone, won’t she?”

“Yes.”

“Then tell her to reverse the charges so there won’t be any trouble about that. Tell her I’ll be waiting right here at the telephone.”

“You want to give me that number again?”

The voice was impatient with the delay and Lew Turlock’s stupidity. “It’s a pay station, Trinidad 6273. Tell her that Irma Jesup wants her to call at once. I’ll be waiting by the telephone. She may call me collect. Now is that plain?”

Turlock sighed. “That’s plain,” he said. “Goodbye.”

“What is it?” Mrs. Turlock called from the living room as Turlock hung up the phone.

“Oh, some friend of the Calhouns — girl by the name of Irma Jesup — says she has to get Betty right away. It’s terribly important. I suppose it’s an invitation to a theater party or something. Don’t know why I didn’t make her tell me what it was all about.”

“You aren’t going out there, Lew?”

“I think Jim Thornton will run over and get her for me. It’s only a quarter of a mile from his place over there... Say, what do you suppose is the matter with those horses? Guess I’d better go take a look. Don’t see any lights over there, I s’pose Sid Rowan and his wife have gone to the movies again.”

“Oh, quit worrying about the horses,” Mrs. Turlock said. “You can’t do your work and Sid’s too.”

“You know Jim Thornton’s number?” Turlock called to his wife.

“Six seven four — ring three.”

“Okay.”

Turlock picked up the telephone. When he had Jim Thornton on the line, he said, “Jim, this is Lew Turlock. I hate to bother you, but Betty’s staying over with Rose Marie Mallard tonight. Long distance is trying to get her and says it’s important. Now, do you suppose you could...”

“Sure thing,” Thornton said. “I’ll get ’em over here right away.”

“It ain’t too much trouble?”

“Shucks, no. I have a signal with them. I put up an old automobile spotlight on the side of the house. It’s pointed right toward their windows and whenever someone wants one of them on the phone, I turn on that spotlight. It may take a few minutes for them to see it, but usually someone comes right over. Usually it’s Rose Marie. What with the shortage of equipment they haven’t been able to get a phone. I’ll switch on the light right away, Lew. How’s everything coming?”

“So-so.”

“Don’t want to sell that Jersey milk cow, do you? I know a man who’s trying to buy up some good cows, willing to pay a good price.”

“How much?”

Thornton’s voice became suddenly cautious, indicating his recognition of the fact that they were talking on a party line. “Remember my telling you what I got for that bay horse?”

“Uh huh.”

“Well, he’s offered five dollars less than that for the right sort of cows.”

“I’ll think it over. Probably be seeing you tomorrow.”

“Okay. Be seeing you.”

Turlock hung up. Within a matter of five minutes the phone was ringing again.

“That’ll be Betty now,” Mrs. Turlock said.

Lew Turlock put down his paper and walked patiently over to the telephone. When Betty was home, she always answered the telephone. When she was away, her father took over the job. Mrs. Turlock had a slight impediment of hearing which, as she expressed it, “Made the words sound all blurred over the telephone.” But there were those who claimed she could hear all right when it came to listening in on party-line conversations.

Lew Turlock picked up the receiver and said, “Hello.”

The voice which came rushing at him over the wire showed all of the nervous rapidity of a person who has an explanation to make and is very anxious to be certain the explanation is accepted.

“Oh, Mr. Turlock,” the voice pleaded. “This is Rose Marie. Betty isn’t here right now. She’s going to join me a little later. There was something came up. She is coming out almost... well, almost any time now. If you can leave the message, I’ll see that she gets it.”

Lew Turlock gripped the telephone receiver. He started to ask a question and then realized that there were other ears on the party line. This would make a choice morsel of gossip. Magnified, distorted, repeated, it would brand his daughter as a girl who resorted to the familiar expedient of saying she was spending a night with a girl friend who would give her an alibi and then...

Lew Turlock fought to keep his voice casual. “Tell her Irma Jesup called up and wants Betty to call back just as soon as she possibly can. She’s to put the call through collect. Trinidad 6273. That’s all. I’m sorry I bothered you but Irma Jesup said it was terribly important. I told her that I couldn’t reach Betty until later on in the evening.”

“Okay. I’ll... I’ll... tell her. You understand about...”

“Thanks,” Lew interrupted, keeping his voice casual, and rung up.

It took two or three seconds for him to compose himself sufficiently to walk back to the living room and face his wife. But Mrs. Turlock was engrossed in her book and barely looked up. She took it for granted Rose Marie had promised to drive back to her home and relay the message to Betty.

Lew stood, debating just what to do next. His mind was a turmoil of thought, but all the time he was fighting himself to keep his manner and speech completely casual.

Across on the Calhoun place a horse snorted and kicked. The wind was from the east, carrying the sound plainly. Lew Turlock welcomed it as a diversion. “I’m going across and take a look at those horses,” he said. “One of them may have a foot caught or something.”

“Sid Rowan certainly doesn’t believe in doing any more work than is necessary to get by,” Mrs. Turlock snorted. “I can’t say that I like the idea of having neighbors who go away and leave the place in the hands of someone like Sid Rowan. After all, the Calhouns aren’t there over five or six days a month. And when they are, there’s a continual screeching and shouting.”

“I know,” Lew said, and opened the table drawer to take out a flashlight. “I’ll be back in five or ten minutes.”

As Lew Turlock crossed the kitchen and opened the back door, his wife was saying something about Sid Rowan traipsing off to a movie three or four nights a week and delegating his responsibilities to the neighbors. Having warmed to this subject of conversation, she found it more interesting than her book.

Turlock quietly closed the door, shutting off his wife’s tirade.

2

The boundary line between the Turlock and Calhoun properties ran directly across the crest of a commanding knoll. For this reason, the houses were nearer together than would otherwise have been the case, each builder desiring to take advantage of the view and the cool breezes.

Using the beam of his flashlight to guide him, Lew Turlock crossed the narrow strip of lawn, opened the gate in the fence, and approached the Calhoun barn.

It had been raining earlier in the day, but now the clouds had broken up. The stars were gleaming brightly, interrupted only by an occasional blotch of drifting clouds. The air, washed clean of impurities by the rain, felt cool and crisp. The smell of damp earth was a delightful aroma in Turlock’s nostrils. It exerted a quieting influence, stilling somewhat the thoughts which raced around and around in his brain like a weary squirrel wheel of worry.

Lew Turlock knew he must make some excuse to get out to George Mallard’s place. Somehow, he must get Rose Marie off to one side and quiz her before she had had a chance to get in touch with Betty and fix up some story. That, Turlock decided, was the Calhoun influence. Lorraine Calhoun’s smilingly superior manners had started all of the girls putting on airs, trying to be sophisticated. Take Rosemary, for instance, who had ceased to be plain “Rosemary” but must now be called Rose Marie. Her parents had no business letting her get away with that stuff. If he’d been her father...

Lew, walking doggedly toward the barn, his mind occupied with his own problems, noticed that the beam of his flashlight was reflected back at him from the chrome finish on a convertible car, parked almost in front of the stable door.

He let the light play over the car. It was Lorraine Calhoun’s convertible. The top was down, showing the red leather of the interior — a car, Lew thought morosely, that cost more than a Diesel tractor — and used just as a plaything — to speed a rich man’s daughter around on her playtime engagements.

A horse snorted and kicked.

Lew Turlock opened the barn door. Somewhere at the back of the barn a horse gave a low snicker in appreciation of the human companionship.

Turlock, accustomed to sensing the moods of animals, detected the tension all up and down the long line of stalls. The horses were nervous, as though a thunderstorm had been approaching.

A horse snorted. Lew could hear the iron ring turn in its hasp as the horse lunged back on the rope. Then there was the sound of nervous hoofs on the wood floor of the stall and another long snort.

Lew found the light switch and clicked on the lights.

With the blaze of illumination the horses instantly became silent.

Lew’s eyes, running down the long line of stalls, caught sight of a girl’s leg and a high-heeled shoe, the toe pointed slightly upward. Beyond that, he could see part of a hand stretched out palm upward.

Even in that first moment of soul-numbing excitement, Turlock remembered about the horses. He mustn’t alarm them. He spoke to them automatically as he hurried down the line of stalls. “Whoa, boys, take it easy. Steady now. Whoa, boys.”

She was lying on her side, sprawled out grotesquely, in such a position that the mare had to stand at an angle to avoid trampling on the still body.

The cruel, disfiguring wound in the top of her head, with the sinister red pool seeping from it onto the stable floor, told its own story.

Lew gave a strangled cry, “Betty!”

He knelt by the girl, then noticed her clothes. They were not Betty’s clothes.

“Miss Calhoun — Lorraine,” he said.

The figure lay starkly still. Lew touched the arm.

It needed only that one touch of the lifeless flesh to tell Lew Turlock that nothing he could do would be of any use.

He left the body exactly as he had found it, but he carefully stepped over it, untied the mare and led her out.

The nervous mare drew back on the rope as she came to the sprawled figure, then reared and jumped, alighting with a pound of hoofs on the floor beyond.

Lew tied her up and then went to the extension telephone which Calhoun had had installed in his barn within the last two weeks.

3

Sheriff Bill Eldon received the call at his home.

He was, at the moment, suffering through one of the frequent visits of his wife’s sister Doris. Time did not dull the sharpness of her mind — or of her tongue.

The sheriff listened to Lew Turlock’s heavy voice stolidly giving him the details.

“You say she was kicked by the mare?”

“That’s what it looked like. She must have gone into the stall and the mare caught her right in the middle of the forehead.”

“You didn’t move her?”

“Well, I got her out of that stall.”

“You shouldn’t have done that, Lew. You should have left the body...”

“Not the body,” Lew said, “the mare. She was stomping around and all excited.”

“You didn’t move the body?”

“Shucks, no. The mare jumped over it slick as could be. I knew enough not to touch the body. So did the mare.”

“How about the Calhouns? Are they home?” the sheriff asked.

“No, no one’s home. Sid Rowan and his wife must have gone to the show.”

“Okay,” the sheriff said. “I’ll get the coroner and come out. I’ll call up the theater and tell them to put a message on the screen for Sid Rowan to get out there right away. See that no one touches anything. G’bye.”

Doris Nelson was sitting in the front parlor, straining her ears to listen. She waited only to hear the click of the receiver and then rasped out, “Who is it? Who’s killed? What happened?”

Grinning maliciously, the sheriff picked up the receiver again. His second call would give him a valid excuse to ignore the questions. He said to the operator, “Get me James Logan, the coroner, right away. It’s official and important.”

A few moments later the sheriff had notified the coroner, called the movie theater, and left instructions to have Sid Rowan called from the show. Then he had slipped out of the side door and got his car out of the driveway — all without answering Doris’s rapid-fire staccato of eager questions, in itself no small feat.

Logan, the coroner, and Lew Turlock both lived well to the south of town. The Turlock ranch was some five miles out, and the sheriff, taking it for granted that Logan would be there ahead of him, drove at conservative speed along the main street of Rockville, carefully regarding the rights of other cars that were on the road. Although he had switched on his official red spotlight, he refrained from using the siren. After all, there was nothing he could do. The girl was dead. The Calhouns were prominent people. There would be quite a bit of publicity over the thing. The city newspapers would probably telephone in for complete facts. The Calhoun girl was pretty as a picture. But she was a city girl, and she should have known better than to go prowling around a nervous mare at night.

Once south of town, the sheriff speeded up the car and rolled briskly along the pavement. As he turned off on the dirt road which led up to the hill where the two houses were situated, he noticed that there were several fresh car tracks just ahead of him and that one of the puddles left in the road was still churned with yellowish muddy water. This meant that the coroner would be there ahead of him.

The sheriff liked that. He was always nervous when he had to stand around waiting for the coroner. He turned up the driveway, which skirted the base of the hill and then climbed up to the knoll, and slid his car to a stop just behind that of the coroner.

Logan was already in the barn. The sheriff walked on in.

Logan said, “I’ve looked around, Bill. It’s evidently accidental. She went into the stall to get something and the mare kicked her. It must have happened right after the horses were fed. The mare got nervous with the body lying there and didn’t eat a bite. The chute is still filled with hay. That mare’s hot-blooded and nervous. Miss Calhoun probably didn’t know enough about horses to understand she had to speak to a horse when she entered the stall. She walked in without saying a word. The mare saw her out of the corner of her eye and let fly.”

“How long’s she been dead?” the sheriff asked.

“We can find out when Sid Rowan comes and tell us what time he fed the horses. Must’ve happened within five minutes of the time he put down the feed. This probably will be Sid now.”

A car drew up outside. A man and woman got out and entered the stable.

“What’s the trouble here?” Sid Rowan said, his voice showing irritation. “Can’t I get away to a movie without...”

He broke off as the sheriff stepped forward.

Rowan was in the middle fifties, a stringy, wiry man with steel-gray eyes, long of leg and arm but quick-moving despite an awkward shuffle about his walk. His wife was four or five years younger and inclined to be fleshy and slow-moving.

The sheriff told them what had happened.

“But she wasn’t here,” Rowan said. “There was no one here. No one was home. The family were coming down tomorrow. You know how it is. They used to come down every week-end, now they come down about two week-ends out of the month, the whole bunch of them — servants, family, friends. Three or four automobile-loads sometimes. Shucks, wait a minute, that’s her car parked out there now. She must have come down unexpected like.”

“You didn’t know she was here?”

“Why, no. I didn’t look for her until tomorrow. They’re all coming then.”

“You have no idea what time she got here?”

“No.”

“You must have fed the horses and then gone to the movies as soon as you had the hay down.”

“That’s right. I went up and put hay in the chutes and then the missus and I beat it for the first show. No sense in sticking around here all the time. You can’t make a man work both day and night.”

“You must have fed at about half past six if you made the first show?”

“I started about half past six. Guess I finished about twenty minutes of seven and then took right off.”

“It was dark in the barn by that time?”

“Sure.”

“And you switched on the lights?”

“Of course.”

“And then turned them off when you left?”

“That’s right.”

“Did she have a key to the house?”

“I suppose so. Sure. Calhoun had keys made for all members of the family.”

“Do you live in the house or...”

“No. There’s an apartment over the garage where the wife and I live.”

Logan said, “Well, we don’t know why she came to the stable, but it’s a cinch she came here, walked in, and the mare kicked her.”

Sid Rowan nodded.

“I’m not so sure,” Sheriff Eldon said.

They looked at him quizzically. “How else could it have happened, Bill?” the coroner asked.

Bill Eldon turned to Turlock.

“You heard the horses snorting?” the sheriff asked.

“That’s right. This mare was making quite a commotion. Snorting and stamping and occasionally kicking at the side of the stall. She wanted out.”

“She was tied up with a rope?”

“That’s right. A halter and a rope running through that iron ring.”

“How long had you been hearing that racket before you came over?”

“Must have been half an hour anyway. Maybe longer.”

“You called me at eight twenty-five,” the sheriff said. “I made a note of the time.”

“Well, I called you within five minutes of the time I got over here.”

“Now then, when you got here,” the sheriff said, “the stable was dark?”

“That’s right.”

“You had a flashlight and located the light switch and turned on the lights?”

“Yes.”

“And the body was lying here on the floor?”

“That’s right.”

The sheriff turned to Logan. “There you are.”

“I don’t get it,” Logan told him.

“Rowan left the place at twenty minutes to seven,” the sheriff said. “It was dark by that time. Outside there was some light but it was getting good and dark by that time. The sun sets right around six o’clock. Inside the barn it was dark as a pocket. You couldn’t see your way around without lights. Now then, if this young woman entered the barn, she naturally turned on the lights to see where she was going. Who turned off those lights?”

“Gosh, Bill, you’ve got something there,” the coroner said. “There must have been someone with her.”

“That’s right, someone who turned off the lights.”

Logan gave a low whistle.

“After this had happened,” the sheriff went on.

Logan looked at Rowan. “No chance she got in while you were feeding the horses and then when you went out...”

“Not a chance in the world,” Rowan interrupted half-angrily.

Logan motioned toward the horse’s manger. “The horse hasn’t hardly touched a bit of food... This is Lorraine Calhoun, Rowan?”

“Sure. She must have driven up right after I left. After I came down that ladder from the loft, I remember looking in at the mare. She’d just started to eat.”

The sheriff avoided the body by hugging the edge of the stall. He walked in to the manger, said, “The chute’s pretty well clogged up with hay. That mare didn’t even pull the hay away from the bottom of the chute so the rest of it could come down.”

The sheriff picked up half a dozen of the dried barley stalks and looked at the quality of hay with a professional eye. “Lots of grain on this hay,” he said. “It’s pretty good... Hello, what’s this?”

His flashlight exploring the far corner of the manger disclosed a small black leather-covered book, blending so perfectly with the shadows in the manger that it took the beam of the flashlight to disclose it.

Bill Eldon picked up the book, and turned his body so the light struck the pages. “Seems to be a diary,” he said. “Her name’s in front — Lorraine Calhoun. Logan, if you don’t mind, I think I’ll get Quinlan to take some photographs of the position of that body. Let’s try not to touch anything until he gets down here.”

The sheriff moved over directly under the light. Opening the diary, he said, “Gosh, I hate to pry into this thing. Guess we won’t read it, boys.”

He started to put it in his pocket and then said, “Well, we might take a look at the last entry in it. It may tell us something.”

The sheriff turned to the current date, opened the diary, and read, “I guess some people think I’m a fool. I’m going to have a showdown with Frank and that mealy-mouthed Betty tomorrow. Well, why wait? Why not catch...”

That ended the last entry in the diary.

The sheriff abruptly closed the book and put it in his pocket. He turned to Lew Turlock. “Where’s Betty tonight, Lew?” he asked casually.

Lew Turlock fidgeted uneasily. He glanced over toward his house, and then his eyes met the curious gaze of James Logan, Sid Rowan, and Sid Rowan’s wife.

“Sheriff,” he blurted, “could I speak with you alone — sort of private like?”

4

Over in the dark corner of the barn Lew Turlock told the sheriff the story of his daughter’s deception.

“Told you she was going out with the Mallard girl, did she?” the sheriff asked.

Turlock nodded miserably. “She and Rosemary — or Rose Marie she’s calling herself now — were supposed to be working on some stuff they’re doing in this benefit play for the Red Cross. She left right after supper.”

“What time?”

“Well, Millie had dinner early so Betty could get away. I guess Betty left the place about... well, about six. She helped her mother with the dishes. But she was all ready to go except for that. Soon as she dried the dishes she jumped in the car and drove away.”

“And Mallard hasn’t any telephone?”

“That’s right. I called up by getting Jim Thornton to signal him to come over to the phone. Betty’s a good girl. I don’t know what it’s all about. Probably some kid stuff. But if word gets around that Betty’s supposed to be there, but ain’t... well, you can look at Sid Rowan’s wife, standing over there with her ears stuck out a foot, just...”

“Come on,” the sheriff said. “Were going out to Mallard’s place right quick.”

He called back over his shoulder, “Lew Turlock and I are going out to see if his daughter saw Lorraine tonight. She’s visiting with friends who haven’t any phone. Jim, will you get in touch with George Quinlan and ask him to come down and take some pictures of that body and the stall? Make everyone keep back away from the body!”

The sheriff opened the door of the county car and Lew Turlock, miserably dejected, climbed in beside the sheriff. “Gosh, Bill,” he said, “you know how easy it is to get talk started around here. Particularly with someone like Sid Rowan’s wife. She’s all burned up with curiosity right now...”

“I know,” Bill Eldon said sympathetically.

“Matter of fact, I thought there for a minute it was Betty lying dead in the barn. The light’s down at the far end, and what with the shadows in the stall and the body lying sort of half face-down — you can imagine how I felt. Hang it, Bill, Betty is all right. I don’t know what the explanation is, but...”

“Sure, sure,” the sheriff soothed. “You’re getting yourself all worried, Lew. Betty’s all right, but if this Lorraine Calhoun was going to see her tonight, we’d sort of ought to talk with Betty. I haven’t ever met any of these Calhouns. Too bad a thing like this had to happen. Guess the country’s changing, Lew. Must have been fifty little ranches sold to city people. Some of the folks are going to farm, but most of ’em are just using ’em for sort of week-end residences.”

His manner casual, his voice drawling characteristically, the sheriff talked on, steering the conversation away from the gnawing worry that was eating away at Turlock’s mind.

They passed Jim Thornton’s house, rolled on down the dirt road another quarter of a mile and then turned into Mallard’s place.

George Mallard came out to meet them.

The sheriff did the talking, for which Lew Turlock was duly grateful. And the sheriff was diplomatic, asking about the crops, discussing the prospects of early rains, and then casually asking whether Rosemary was home.

“Rose Marie,” Mallard corrected him with a grin. “She’s gone a little highfalutin on us. No, she ain’t home. Someone telephoned to her about three quarters of an hour ago maybe, and she jumped in the car and went tearing out,”

The sheriff was elaborately casual. “Well, that’s all right,” he said. “She’s going to be in that Red Cross play next month, isn’t she?”

“That’s right.”

“She and Betty Turlock.”

“Uh huh.”

“Kind of want to see her about the play,” the sheriff said. “Haven’t any idea where she went, have you, George?”

“No, I haven’t. You know the way youngsters are these days. She came tearing in and grabbed her hat and coat, bounced into the car, and tore out of the driveway. These kids have more on their minds these days than the governor of the state.”

The sheriff started the motor on his car. “Well, I’ll be seeing you, George. I’m kinda busy right now. Tell your daughter just as soon as she comes in to call my house. No, wait a minute... You tell her to jump in the car and come to my office.”

Mallard looked curious. “What is it? Anything...”

The sheriff’s grin was reassuring. “This doggone Red Cross play is going to have us all humping until it comes off I guess. Bet your daughter looks good in it. Can’t tell what will happen one of these days with a good-looking girl like that. She might be on the stage in one of these little local plays and some scout might see her, and next thing you know, she’d be in Hollywood.”

“I don’t want Rose Marie in Hollywood,” George Mallard said positively.

“I know,” the sheriff grinned, “but you just can’t tell.”

He turned the car around and was fifty yards from the house when a car speeding along the paved road slowed so rapidly that the tires screamed a protest and turned into the driveway.

“Reckon this here is Rosemary now,” Bill Eldon said, “and she’s got Betty with her.”

Lew Turlock heaved a sigh of relief.

The sheriff drove slowly, found a place on the side of the dirt road where he could park, and blinked his lights to signal the oncoming car.

“Maybe you’d better do the first part of the talking,” Eldon said to Turlock.

Lew Turlock nodded. He got out of the car, crossed in front of the headlights, and was waiting by the side of the road when Rose Marie drew abreast.

Illumination from the instrument light in the dashboard showed that a beautiful blonde girl with deep blue eyes and smooth, fine-textured skin was at the wheel, alone in the car.

Lew Turlock stepped forward. “Hello,” he said somewhat inanely, his eyes going past Rose Marie to the empty seat beside her.

“Oh,” she said. “It’s... Mr. Turlock... How do you do, Mr. Turlock... Oh, I’m sorry. I hope you didn’t come out here just...”

“Where is Betty?” Turlock asked.

She shifted her position behind the steering wheel. She frowned for a moment, then smiled, and said, “Oh, she’ll be along. She’s right behind me.”

The sheriff slid out from behind the steering wheel. “Hello, Rose Marie,” he said. “Just where is Betty?”

Rose Marie Mallard looked from one man to the other. The deep-blue eyes showed sudden panic. The pathetic attempt at a smile was wiped off her face.

“Where is she?” the sheriff asked, and then added, “Right now. I want to see her.”

Rose Marie’s words were hardly audible above the purr of the idling motor.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I’ve been trying to find her.”

5

The sheriff walked over and put one foot on the running-board. “Now let’s be frank,” he said. “Suppose you tell me all you know about Betty Turlock and...”

“I don’t know a thing. She was to be here... a little later.”

“And spend the night with you?”

“Yes.”

“What time was she supposed to be here?”

“She... well... later.”

“How much later?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know as she did.”

The sheriff said, “There’s been an accident over at Calhoun’s. We’re sort of looking for Betty, and other people are going to be looking for Betty maybe. It’s going to be kind of too bad if no one seems to know right where she is. Particularly because Betty’s mother’s going to say she’s over here working on the Red Cross play.”

“An accident, Sheriff?”

“Lorraine Calhoun’s been killed.”

“Lorraine! Oh, but Betty couldn’t have done anything like that!”

“Like what?”

“Why, killing... You said it was an accident?”

“A horse kicked her, yes.”

Rose Marie’s exclamation was an “Oh!” which indicated great relief.

“Now after you got that telephone call from Lew here,” the sheriff said, “you jumped in your car and went out to try and find Betty, didn’t you?”

There was a moment’s hesitancy, then a reluctant nod.

“Now then,” the sheriff said, “let’s not get into any more trouble, Rose Marie. Where did you go?”

“Out... out along the river road.”

“You were looking for her parked in an automobile?”

“Yes.”

“Whose automobile?”

“Hers... that is, Mr. Turlock’s.”

“And who did you expect would be with her?”

“Why... I was just looking for her.”

There was a note of impatience in the sheriff’s voice. “You tell us the facts,” he said, “and let us do the thinking. We’re all friends of Betty’s and we don’t any one of us want to see a lot of talk get started. Now, you don’t need to try to cover up things from us. You tell us the truth, only tell it to us fast.”

She said, “She was to meet Frank Garwin tonight.”

“Who’s Garwin?” the sheriff asked.

It was Lew Turlock who answered the question. “Friend of the Calhouns,” he said.

The sheriff studied Lew Turlock’s face for a moment and then turned back to Rose Marie Mallard. “You tell us,” he said.

Her voice was thin with fright, but she said readily enough, “When the Calhouns bought the place and moved in, Lorraine was spending the summer up in Maine with friends. She only got back here about three weeks ago. Frank Garwin is a friend of... well, a friend of the family. He... they all sort of like him and... He wanted to be a lawyer and he and Lorraine were going together steady and then... Well, he didn’t have the money for an education and Lorraine loaned him enough to get himself through college and...”

“How about the army? Was he...”

“No, he had a bad heart. He stayed on and studied and... well, he got to seeing something of Betty... It’s a mix-up. I don’t know too much about it. I know they’re miserable.”

“Who’s miserable?”

“Both of them.”

“Lorraine?”

Rose Marie lashed out bitterly at that name. “Not Lorraine,” she said. “She was playing around in Maine and that’s why she didn’t want to come back to California when her folks bought this place. If you ask me, I think she came back to give Frank Garwin the gate. And then she saw how things were and she just decided to play dog in the manger. Not that she cares a thing in the world about Frank, but it’s her own pride, her own selfishness, her own deceit. She couldn’t stand the idea of having some other girl take a boyfriend away from her, the great Lorraine Calhoun — sophisticated, polished, traveled, patronizing, snobbish little...”

“She’s dead,” the sheriff reminded her.

“I’m sorry. I forgot. I... well, I’m sorry.”

Suddenly a light blazed into brilliance ahead.

“That’s Mr. Thornton,” Rose Marie said desperately. “He does that whenever someone wants us on the phone. I... we... That’s probably Betty now.”

They waited while she turned her car and then followed her to Thornton’s house. But it wasn’t Betty Turlock on the phone. It was long distance again, Irma Jesup calling. It seemed she had once more called Turlock’s residence and Mrs. Turlock, innocently enough, had told the operator Betty could be reached through the Thornton residence.

Sheriff Eldon stepped to the telephone. “Hello,” he said.

The woman’s voice at the other end of the line said impatiently, “I didn’t want to talk with you again, I wanted...”

“Now listen to me a minute,” Eldon said. “This is the sheriff talking. There’s been an accident over at the Calhoun place and...”

He ceased talking as he heard the receiver at the other end of the line dropped on the hook. The line went abruptly dead.

6

Bill Eldon sat in the sheriff’s office in the courthouse, a reading light flooding the battered desk where he had spread out the diary of Lorraine Calhoun.

The door opened and George Quinlan came breezing in,

“You get those pictures?” the sheriff asked.

“Pictures of the whole business,” Quinlan said. “We’ve turned the body over to the doctor. I got C. C. Calhoun himself on the phone. He should be here any time now. He’s all broken up. He didn’t know his daughter was here. They were all intending to come down tomorrow. She’d gone out for the evening.”

Steps ascending the uncarpeted wooden stairs of the courthouse sounded abnormally loud against the background of night-time silence.

“This may be Calhoun now,” Quinlan said.

“Sounds like there are two of them,” the sheriff said.

The door was pushed open, and a tall, distinguished man strode into the room. “My name’s Calhoun,” he said. “I want to see the sheriff.”

Calhoun’s wavy hair was touched with gray. His regular features, carefully groomed appearance, and well-modulated voice invested him with an air of quiet authority. He was wearing a pearl-gray double-breasted suit with a light topcoat of about the same color.

Bill Eldon got up from behind his desk and held out his hand. “I’m Eldon, the sheriff,” he said. “Mighty sorry to have to meet you under circumstances like this, Mr. Calhoun.”

Calhoun surveyed him with large dark eyes and shook hands. Then he stood slightly to one side and indicated another man standing just behind him in the doorway.

“Mr. Parnell,” he said, “one of my business associates. He’s going to take charge of... of details.”

Parnell, square-jawed and coldly direct of eye, was a few years younger than Calhoun. He had put on weight which the careful tailoring of an expensive double-breasted suit could soften, but not entirely hide.

Once more the sheriff shook hands and introduced Quinlan, the undersheriff. The four men sat down.

“Suppose you tell us about it,” Calhoun said, after a few preliminaries.

The sheriff briefly outlined what had happened.

Calhoun shook his head. “I simply can’t believe it.”

The sheriff’s voice showed his sympathy. “Her trip down here seems to have been sorta unexpected.”

“It must have been. We were all intending to come tomorrow. But then Lorraine had her own car and was free to do as she pleased.”

“Twenty-one?” the sheriff asked.

“Going on twenty-two.”

The sheriff said, “Just as a matter of routine, I’m going to have to ask you to go down and identify the body and... well, you know how it is. There’s a lot of formality to be gone through.”

Parnell broke into the thread of the conversation. “That’s why I’m along. Times like this, things are pretty tough on a father. I’m prepared to make what ever arrangements are necessary.”

Parnell had a rapid-fire diction, frequently accompanied by swift explanatory gestures of his volatile hands. He was exactly the type of man to take charge of details for a bereaved friend and make a good job of it.

“Would you like to go see your daughter now?” the sheriff asked Calhoun.

“Naturally,” Calhoun said shortly and started putting on his gloves.

“Let’s get started and get it over with,” Parnell said brusquely. “It’s a disagreeable duty, but after that’s over with, Mr. Calhoun can rest.”

“Has the mare been shot?” Calhoun asked.

“Why, no,” the sheriff said in some surprise.

“Don’t you shoot vicious animals?”

“Well, now...” The sheriff hesitated and then went on, “Of course, being as how you were coming down here right away, I wanted to wait and get an authorization from you. After all, the mare...”

“You have my authorization,” Calhoun said. “I never want to see that mare again. Shoot her at once, please.”

“Well, now, we’d better wait until morning because...”

“I want her shot tonight Calhoun said with cold, implacable hatred behind each word.”

The sheriff nodded to Quinlan. “Guess you can keep the office for a while, George. We’ll go on down and go through the necessary formalities.”

Calhoun remained wordless during the trip to the undertaking parlors. And when Bill Eldon introduced him to the coroner and mortician, he merely bowed.

As they approached the body, the others held back so as not to intrude upon the grief of the bereaved father.

Carl Carver Calhoun, his face drawn into hard lines of sorrow, bent over the still figure lying on the marble slab. Suddenly he straightened and turned.

“What’s the idea?” he asked coldly. “Where’s the other one?”

“The other what?”

“The other body — that of my daughter.”

He read his answer in the expression of consternation on the faces of those about him.

“You mean to say this is the body you found in my barn?” he asked.

“Isn’t that your daughter?” Logan asked.

“Definitely not.”

“Do you know who it is?” Bill Eldon asked.

“I not only don’t know who it is, but I certainly don’t appreciate having been advised that my daughter was dead. I can’t, of course, expect urban efficiency here in a rural community, but after all...” Calhoun controlled himself with an effort, moved his shoulders in an expressive gesture, and turned to his friend, Parnell. “Let’s get out of here,” he said.

“Just a moment,” the sheriff intervened. “Let’s get this thing straight. You’re sure this isn’t your daughter?”

“I guess I should know my own daughter, Sheriff.”

The sheriff turned to Parnell in silent question.

Parnell shook his head. “That’s definitely not Lorraine, if that’s what you want to know, Sheriff.”

“And neither one of you knows who she is?”

“I’ve never seen her before,” Calhoun said.

“Nor I,” Parnell added.

The sheriff moved closer to look down at the body of the young woman.

“How did you happen to make such a ghastly mistake?” Calhoun asked.

“Well of course,” the sheriff explained, “the way the lights were there in the stable, the face was pretty much in shadow and she was lying more or less face down. And that kick in her forehead and the blood hadn’t helped any; but Sid Rowan identified her as Lorraine Calhoun and so did Lew Turlock.”

Logan added hastily, “Of course, when you come right down to it, Bill, Lew Turlock just took a quick look and saw there was a body and ran to notify you on the phone. He never did get a really good look at the face. You remember he thought at first it was his daughter, Betty. And then when Sid Rowan came in, I noticed particularly that he just... well, he wanted to keep away from the place. He really didn’t take a good look. He just went over and gave a quick glance and said it was Lorraine. I s’pose it was the fact that Miss Calhoun’s car was parked out in front of the stable that did it.”

The sheriff said almost musingly, “That sort of ties in all along the line. Two people must have gone into that barn. This young woman and someone else.”

“Meaning my daughter Lorraine?” Calhoun asked.

“Not meaning anyone yet,” the sheriff said. “Just a person. You see, Mr. Calhoun, the lights weren’t on in the barn so whoever entered must have turned them on.”

“Go ahead. Let’s hear the rest of it,” Calhoun said.

“And another thing,” the sheriff went on, “in the manger of the mare’s stall, we found your daughter’s diary with her name in the front of it. And I guess that sort of helped people to believe that the girl was your daughter. You see, things were pretty messy there in the stable. She’s been cleaned up now and... well, I can understand how the mistake happened to be made.”

“I can’t,” Calhoun said, shortly.

“And,” the sheriff went on, “when Lew Turlock found the body, there weren’t any lights on in the barn. The horses had been stamping around for a while and Turlock had looked out of his window a couple of times in the half-hour before he went over to investigate. There weren’t any lights on.”

“I certainly don’t see what you’re getting at,” Calhoun said.

“It isn’t hardly reasonable to suppose that this woman was wandering around there in the stable in the dark,” the sheriff went on. “She must have turned on the lights when she went in. And she certainly didn’t turn them off — after this happened. So I sort of figure someone must have been with her and...”

Calhoun interrupted, “Are you trying to insinuate that Lorraine took this girl into the stable and then after an accident of this sort would have calmly turned around, walked out, turned the lights off, not notified the authorities, not called the doctor, not... Bah! You make me sick!”

“Now just take it easy,” the sheriff said. “I’m talking about somebody. I haven’t mentioned your daughter’s name a’tall. I’m just talking about someone that went into the stable with this woman.”

“Well, your insinuation is plain enough,” Calhoun said. “Now let’s get this straight, sheriff. I’m relatively a newcomer in this county but I’m certainly not going to be pushed around. I don’t like your insinuations. The body of this young woman happens to have been found in my stable. I suppose in view of that fact and my prominence in the city, there will be some newspaper comment about this. But let me warn you of one thing. In the event your bungling methods tend to add to that publicity, or make it sensational, or in the event the name of any one of my family is dragged into this thing, you will regret it as long as you live! As a matter of fact, I presume to have an action against you right now if I care to press it. Your slipshod methods have caused me to believe my daughter was dead. I left an important meeting and drove here at breakneck speed only to find myself the victim of a bucolic inefficiency which would have been ludicrous if it weren’t so tragic. I advise you to think that over. Good night, sir.”

Calhoun nodded to Parnell. The two men started from the undertaking parlor.

After a few steps, however, Parnell turned back. “Let’s not have any misunderstanding, boys,” he pleaded. “I’ve known Carl Calhoun for only a relatively short time, but it’s been my privilege to know him well. Put yourself in his place. A young woman blunders into his stable and gets kicked by a horse. So far you’ve bungled things pretty much. From here on, let’s get it right. The city newspapers will just give this a couple of paragraphs if you boys use your heads. If you fellows keep messing it up, you’ll stir up trouble. Once some newspaper gets the idea there’s any mystery about it, or that Lorraine Calhoun was mixed up in it... well, you see what will happen then. You can’t push Calhoun around and he’s nuts about his daughter — so take it easy.”

“Where’s Lorraine now?” the sheriff asked.

Parnell’s face lost its conciliatory smile and showed irritation. “How the hell should I know? Be your age — or perhaps you’d better try not to be... Damn it all, sheriff, have a heart. Lorraine Calhoun would no more have left an injured girl in case there’d been an accident... Good Heavens, man, use your brains!” He started to say something else, but changed his mind. Turning away, he hurried after Calhoun.

Logan and the sheriff exchanged glances.

“Well,” Logan said, as the steps down the hallway receded, “it looks as though we got a bear by the tail, Bill.”

The sheriff nodded.

“Of course, he’s got us there on that identification business,” Logan went on. “When you come right down to it, I’m the one that’s responsible for that. You found that diary and there was something in it about Betty Turlock, so then you and Lew went chasing off to find her. I’m the one that’s supposed to make the identification I guess; but what with Lew Turlock and Sid Rowan... and that diary of Lorraine’s and her car sitting out in front... well, it’s a mistake anybody would have made.”

“How about Sid’s wife? Didn’t she take a look?” the sheriff asked.

“No, she didn’t. After you left, Bill, I kept thinking about George Quinlan coming down and taking pictures, so naturally I was anxious to keep things just the way they were. I kept everyone away from the body. But Mrs. Rowan didn’t seem to want to go near the body. I remember noticing it at the time because she’s rather a nosy busybody and likes to know everything that’s going on. They say she’s quite a gossip.”

Bill Eldon nodded, then stepped over and looked down at the silent body on the slab.

“Dirty shame a girl like this has to die,” he said. “She evidently was mighty good looking, had everything to live for. Nice trim looking girl. Just a nice looking girl. Good figure. We’ve got to find out who she is, how she happened to be in that stable, and who entered there with her.”

“You still think someone went in there with her, Bill?”

The sheriff didn’t answer for a moment. He was looking at the U-shaped mark left by the horseshoe, almost in the center of the girl’s forehead.

“See anything strange about that, Jim?” he asked.

“About what?”

“About that horseshoe mark.”

Logan shook his head.

“That’s awful high for a mare to kick,” the sheriff said. “And notice that most of the force seems to have been at the upper part of the shoe. Now a horse would have to kick awful high to get a girl on the forehead if she was standing up. And then the force would be on the lower part of the shoe.”

“By George, you’ve got something there!” Logan exclaimed. “That means the girl must have been down on her hands and knees when she was kicked.”

“And another thing,” the sheriff said. “You got a tape measure handy, Jim?”

“I can get one.”

“Get it,” the sheriff said.

Logan started down the long passageway toward the front of the building, but after he had taken half a dozen steps, he suddenly turned and came back to the sheriff. “Bill,” he said, “let’s be careful what we do. We’re already in a mess. Rush Medford, the district attorney, doesn’t like you. And more than that, he’s always catering to people who have money and influence. He’s got his eye on a political plum, maybe getting an appointment to one of the upper courts. A man like Calhoun can twist him around his finger.”

Bill Eldon, looking down at the dead girl, said nothing. His eyes were half closed in thoughtful concentration.

“Bill Eldon,” Logan said irritably, “you listen to me! You ain’t as young as you used to be and there’s been a lot of talk around about cleaning out the courthouse ring, beginning with you. And you watch Rush Medford. He’s a back-stabber if I ever saw one. Back of all that smooth palaver of his, he’s laying for a chance to throw the hooks into you. Now, we’ve kind of led with our chins on this one and, the way I see it, the only thing to do is to back up and back up fast. We’ll lose a little skin off our noses doing it, but it’s better to do that than to lose our heads.”

The sheriff abruptly turned away from the corpse. “Jim,” he said, “I don’t ever aim to back up from anything that I think is right. Let’s go get that tape measure.”

He walked with Logan to the front office where the coroner opened a desk drawer, handed the sheriff a small steel tape graduated to sixteenths of an inch. “This all right?” he asked.

The sheriff looked at the tape, nodded, and turned back toward the room in the rear of the establishment.

“Now you look here, Bill,” Logan persisted. “Calhoun’s on the warpath. Calhouns got influence. And you just can’t go bargin’ around...”

The sheriff walked away while Logan was talking. It wasn’t, Logan realized, any intentional discourtesy — merely that the sheriff had his mind completely centered on something else.

Logan started to follow him, then changed his mind, walked back to the desk and sat down.

Logan himself held an elective office. Being coroner and public administrator made all the difference between carrying on his business at a good profit and just being able to eke out a living.

Logan knew what was going to happen in this case. If Bill Eldon didn’t back up and back up fast, Calhoun would be after the sheriff’s scalp — might be anyway. Edward Lyons, publisher of the Rockville Gazette, had within the last two years turned against Bill Eldon. The first time Lyons had tried to throw the weight of his paper against the sheriff, Bill Eldon had outfoxed him and neatly turned the tables. Since that time Lyons had been lying low, waiting for his political wounds to heal. But no one who knew Lyons thought for a moment he was finished. He was merely biding his time.

If Jim Logan stayed with the sheriff on this thing, it would be a question of sink or swim. The time for Logan to bail out was right now. That was the sensible thing to do. All he had to do was to pick up the telephone and call Ed Lyons at the Rockville Gazette.

Logan heard the sound of the sheriff’s steps in the corridor. The sheriff tossed the steel tape measure on Logan’s desk. “That mark of the horseshoe is four and fifteen-sixteenths inches at the widest part, Jim. I want you to verify that yourself. I’m goin’ out.”

“Where?”

“Lookin’ for a couple who might be doing a little necking. Any suggestions where they might be?”

“The river road,” Logan said, his manner preoccupied.

“They ain’t there.”

“Only other place I know of is the ball park. They go there sometimes.”

“Thanks,” Eldon said. “I’ll try the ball park. Night, Logan.”

“Good night, Bill,” the coroner said without looking up.

The sheriff left him sitting there at the desk, moody, dejected, his eyes on the telephone, indecision in his manner.

7

The wide gate to the auto entrance of the hall park was propped open and the sheriff drove in to what seemed a deserted enclosure. But as he swung his car in a wide searching circle, so that the headlights illuminated all parts of the field, he suddenly flushed quarry when an automobile which had been standing in dark silence by the bleachers blazed into brilliance and started for the exit.

The sheriff moved to head it off. The other car gathered speed. The sheriff switched on his red spotlight.

The car, bathed in the blood red brilliance of the official spotlight, took to headlong flight. It tore past the gate posts, screamed into a turn and started on the road toward town.

The sheriff gave it the siren.

The other car kept on. The sheriff poured gas into the motor of the County car and really settled down to dangerous driving. If the car ahead wanted to play rough, Bill Eldon was willing to do his part.

But the driver of the car ahead was only fairly good at that sort of thing, and it took less than half the distance to town for the sheriff to work alongside and crowd the other car over to the ditch.

“What’s the matter?” the sheriff asked, rolling down the window of his car. “Can’t you folks hear the siren?”

Betty Turlock at the wheel was white-faced with apprehension. She tried to say something but her quivering lips failed, for the moment, to clothe the words with sound.

The sheriff raised his five-cell flashlight. The searching beam stabbed into the interior of the car. He saw that the back seat was empty and then let the light dwell searchingly on the features of the young man who sat at Betty Turlock’s side.

The sheriff shut off the motor of his car, opened the door and got out. “You shouldn’t have done that, Betty.”

“I... I thought the officers were making a roundup of petting parties. I didn’t want to be caught.”

The sheriff pushed his hat back on his head. “You know, Betty, this is a small community and things have a way of getting around. You’re supposed to be out with Rose Marie Mallard working on that Red Cross business. And if I was you, I’d get out there just as fast as I could. I’ll take this young man with me. What’s his name?”

“Frank Garwin,” the man said.

“Oh, yes, pleased to meet you, Frank. You don’t live here, do you?”

“No.”

“Come down once in a while to visit the Calhouns, don’t you?”

“That’s right.”

“Friend of Lorraine?”

“Yes.”

“Know a girl named Irma Jesup?”

“Yes.”

“Who is she?”

“A friend of Lorraine’s.”

“And of yours?”

“Yes — I’ve known her for — a long time.”

“You know her, Betty?”

“I’ve never met her. I’ve heard Frank speak of her.”

“She’s been trying to get you long-distance telephone. Seems like there’s been an accident out at Calhoun’s. A horse kicked a young woman.”

“Good Heavens!” Betty Turlock said.

Garwin said nothing, but the sheriff noticed he moved his head over toward the open window on Betty’s side of the car, and as he did so, his hand rested for a moment on Betty’s.

“Was she hurt badly?” Betty asked.

“Killed,” the sheriff said. “We’re sort of looking around. Your dad’s been looking for you and you’d better get out to Mallard’s right away. You can come with me, Frank.”

Garwin came around to the sheriff’s car and climbed in beside him.

“Get going,” the sheriff said to Betty Turlock.

She sent the Turlock car lurching forward in a way that would have been a shock to Lew Turlock could he have seen the tire-spinning take-off.

Turning to Frank Garwin, the sheriff said, “Just sit in here a minute, son. I want to ask you a couple of questions.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You been out there with Betty long?”

“Not very long.”

“Live in the city?”

“Yes.”

“You don’t have a car?”

“No.”

“How’d you come to town?”

“On the seven o’clock bus.”

“And had a date with Betty?”

“That’s right.”

“She picked you up?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Where?”

“Out at the high school.”

“How’d you get from the bus station to the high school?”

“I walked.”

“Betty’s been gone from her house some little time.”

Garwin said, “I... I was late.”

“What made you late, Frank?”

He merely shook his head.

The sheriff’s voice was kindly. “When this accident happened out at Calhoun’s, I naturally looked around a bit. In the manger I found what seems to be Lorraine Calhoun’s diary. Because it’s evidence, I’ve been reading it here and there, sort of hitting the high spots. I guess you’re the Frank she mentions in there, aren’t you?”

“I suppose so. What did she say about me?”

“I’m asking the questions right now,” the sheriff said, his voice kindly but authoritative. “Now, Lorraine seemed to think you belonged to her and that Betty had been doing a little cutting in.”

Garwin hesitated. He was, for a moment, stiff with that hot-blooded defiance which is frequently encountered in young people who have not yet learned that pride is likely to be a treacherous guide.

“Better start talkin’,” the sheriff said. The authority in the sheriff’s voice brought forth a sudden rush of words.

“I suppose I’m a first-class heel. My folks were cleaned out in the depression. Both of them died within three years of the failure of the bank in which they had their life savings. I’d been a basketball player in prep school and I overdid things. I have an athlete’s heart. They say I can probably get over it if I take care of myself. But I can’t do any heavy work for a while. I wanted to go to college. I had always wanted to fit myself for a career and the way things were, it just seemed impossible.

“Lorraine and I were... well, I guess we were in love. I thought I was, anyway. She offered to finance me through college out of her allowance. I took her up on it. And then afterwards, well, I met Betty and... Gosh, I felt like a heel. I couldn’t turn around and give Lorraine a double cross and... I tried to let her see that perhaps we’d changed. But... well, she just couldn’t see things that way.”

“So you started seein’ Betty on the sly?” the sheriff asked.

“Certainly not,” Garwin flared up. “I told Betty that... well, as soon as I realized how things were drifting, I told her I couldn’t see her any more.”

“And so you took the bus and came down here for her to meet you?”

“That was her idea. She said that she just couldn’t give me up without seeing me once more and talking things over. She... well, it’s hard for her to understand.”

“Yes, I can see how she might feel,” the sheriff said. “Now, you haven’t told me what made you late.”

“I was to meet her at the high school. It was the last time I was ever to see her alone. I felt that if Lorraine wanted me to go ahead with it... and announce our engagement... Well, that was the way it had to be. And I wasn’t even going to come down any more on week-ends. I couldn’t bear to be visiting next door to Betty and see her just as a casual acquaintance. It meant too much to me. All right, I got off the bus and went to the high school grounds. Betty drove up shortly afterwards. And then I just couldn’t face it. I felt certain that if I saw Betty and held her in my arms once more I couldn’t ever give her up. On the other hand, I couldn’t go to Lorraine and tell her that we were finished — not after the things she’d done for me. You don’t understand how these things look to Lorraine. She thinks that Betty deliberately cut in and that I’d been heel enough to... Oh, I just can’t tell you the whole mess, sheriff. It’s all mixed up and...”

“I know, son,” the sheriff said sympathetically. “So you waited there in the high-school grounds and decided you were going to wait right there out of sight until Betty drove away?”

“That’s right.”

“And then what happened?”

“Then I... well, I heard her crying when she thought I wasn’t going to meet her and... Gosh, I just seemed to have got everything all balled up. I’ve had the knack of doing everything wrong. I couldn’t let her think I’d stood her up on that last meeting.”

“As you get older,” the sheriff said, “you’ll find the best way to play things is straight from the shoulder. Now let’s get this all straight. How long were you there?”

“I can’t tell you exactly how long it was before I spoke to her. I got in on the seven o’clock bus. I was at the high school by seven-fifteen. Betty drove up about ten minutes later. I stood there in the shadows, watching her. She shut off her lights and the motor and waited. After ten or fifteen minutes, she got the idea I wasn’t going to show up. I was standing so close to her I could hear her sobbing. After a while I couldn’t stand it any longer. I joined her.”

The sheriff switched on the ignition and started his car. “We’ve got Betty’s reputation to consider,” he said. “I’ll drive you over to San Rodolpho, son, and you can pick up a bus there that will take you back to the city without anyone knowing you were here. We’ll all pretend she was with Rose Marie all the time. If you’ve fallen out of love with Lorraine, you won’t be doing her any favor to marry her while you’re loving someone else. However, you work out your own problem. You’ll like it better that way.”

8

When the sheriff returned to his office in the courthouse, he found George Quinlan talking to an exceedingly difficult young woman who quite evidently had backed the undersheriff into a corner.

Quinlan’s face lit up with relief. “Here’s the sheriff now,” he said.

She turned to Bill Eldon, a chestnut-haired girl who had the sculptured appearance which comes only to women who have both the time and the egotism to cultivate it. The sheriff noticed a strong superficial resemblance to the dead girl. Nor did he need Quinlan’s introduction to realize the identity of his caller.

“Miss Lorraine Calhoun,” Quinlan said, and his manner indicated that he was retiring from the field of battle just as definitely as though he had added, “And you can count me out from here on.”

The young woman was nervously lighting one cigarette from the stub of another.

“Will you kindly explain to me what this is all about?” Lorraine asked the sheriff.

“Well, now, ma’am,” the sheriff said, “you might just as well sit down. We’ve got some talking to do. The way it looks to me, you’re going to be the one that explains to me what it’s all about.”

There was no antagonism in the sheriff’s voice, merely a quiet, calm persistence. Lorraine was shrewd enough to note the dogged power back of that good-natured drawl. Abruptly she changed her tactics.

Her smile was meant as a dazzling reward for a man who would come to heel without too much difficulty.

“My diary is private. I want it back.”

“So I gather,” the sheriff said. “When did you have it last, Miss Calhoun?”

“That’s none of your business.”

The sheriff said, “If someone stole that diary, it’s my duty to recover it. If you left it in the manger there in the barn, then naturally the coroner will want to know whether the dead girl was there when you left it and what time it was.”

She thought that over while she regarded him with thoughtful eyes, Once more she changed her tactics. “I’m glad you’ve explained it to me. I can see now that you’re absolutely right.”

“That’s fine. Now when was the last time you had this particular diary?” the sheriff asked.

“Around six o’clock, shortly before I left the city.”

“And what did you do?”

She said, “I made an entry in the diary. Then I put it in the glove compartment of my automobile.”

“And locked it up?”

“I don’t know. The glove compartment was unlocked when I returned to my car.”

“I notice there’s one page torn out of your diary, the date of April 17th.”

Her eyes and voice showed surprise. “A page missing!”

“Yes, torn out.”

“I can’t believe it.”

“Where were you on April 17th?”

“Let’s see. I was... yes, I was in Kansas City visiting a friend, stopping over on my way to New York.”

“Now you drove down from the city, drove directly to your house and parked your car in front of the stables?”

“Yes.”

“And the stable was dark?”

“That’s right.”

“The horses had been fed?”

“I don’t know.”

“But Sid Rowan wasn’t there?”

“No. There was no one home. I was upset and I... I took a long walk.”

“Where to?”

“Heavens, I don’t know. I just walked for miles along the country road.”

“Your diary indicates that you might be a little jealous of Betty Turlock.”

She threw back her head and laughed throatily. “Jealous of little Betty Turlock? Don’t be silly!”

“But your diary mentions a man who is evidently a friend of yours and then mentions Betty and...”

“If you have to inquire into my private affairs,” she said, “Frank is a very close and a very dear friend of mine. Betty Turlock was out to get him the minute she met him. I know farmers’ daughters are supposed to be fascinating, but I didn’t want to see Frank throwing himself away on that sort of girl. I wouldn’t marry Frank if he were the last man on earth, but he’s a friend. There’s also a matter of some thirty-five hundred dollars that I have invested in Frank Garwin’s career. I paid it out of my allowance. Naturally, I want to see him succeed. He can’t do it with a girl like Betty Turlock draped around his neck.”

The confused pound of hurried steps sounded on the stairs from the lower floor of the courthouse.

The sheriff turned toward the door.

Rush Medford, the district attorney, pushed open the door. Behind him, Calhoun, Parnell, and another man who was a stranger to the sheriff grouped themselves into a supporting semicircle.

“Sheriff,” Medford said, “what’s this I hear about you holding a diary of Miss Calhoun’s?”

“That’s right,” the sheriff said.

“Give it back to her,” Medford commanded.

“It may be evidence,” the sheriff said.

“Evidence of what?”

“Well, that’s what I’m investigating.”

Medford raised his voice angrily. “As district attorney, it’s my duty to advise you as to the course of conduct you should follow. I now advise you to give that diary back.”

One of the men behind the district attorney moved impressively forward. He was, the sheriff noticed, a well-fed, prosperous man in the forties. The carefully tailored curve of the vest, the knifelike crease of his trousers, the expensive, unwrinkled appearance of his coat shed an aura of affluence which harmonized with the measured, judicial tones of the man’s voice.

“Permit me, Sheriff,” he said. “I am Oscar Delano, of the firm of Delano, Swift, Madison and Charles. We handle Mr. Calhoun’s legal work. I don’t want to seem abrupt, but unless we get that diary back, I am instructed by my client to start suit against you and your bondsmen for the damages caused to my client by your negligence in falsely announcing to him that his daughter had been killed.”

The sheriff walked across the office, slammed the door of his safe shut, and spun the dial of the combination.

“Start suit,” he said.

“You fool!” Medford exclaimed.

The sheriff settled back in his creaky swivel chair.

“You haven’t got a leg to stand on,” the city lawyer said.

“Well, now,” the sheriff drawled, “maybe I haven’t. But when you can explain how a mare, wearing a number-ought shoe which measures four and three-sixteenths inches at the widest part can kick a person in the head and leave a mark four and fifteen-sixteenths inches wide, which means a number-two shoe... well, then I’ll give you the diary.”

“What do you mean?” Calhoun asked.

The sheriff said, “However that girl was killed, that mare didn’t do it. Now then, go start your lawsuit.”

9

Next morning the Rockville Gazette was on the streets with an extra.

“MURDER,” SCREAMS THE SHERIFF

“PUBLICITY,” SNAPS D.A.

“POPPYCOCK,” SNORTS CALHOUN

The article which followed showed Edward Lyons, the publisher and managing editor, at his sarcastic best.

“When the body of an unidentified young woman was found in the stable of Carl Carver Calhoun, wealthy broker who has established a country home at Rockville, Sheriff Bill Eldon, with a nose for publicity at least as sharp as his nose for clues, promptly announced that the victim was Lorraine Calhoun, daughter of the broker. The woman had evidently been kicked by a mare.

“Only after Calhoun and a business associate had driven at breakneck speed to Rockville, and announced that the victim was not only no relation to Mr. Calhoun but a perfect stranger, did the sheriff reluctantly shift his position. Then, with the aid of a tape measure and some of his ‘brilliant’ deductive reasoning, he arrived at the conclusion that he was dealing with a murder.

“Because of a half-inch discrepancy between the size of the shoe on the mare and the imprint of the shoe on the forehead of the victim. Sheriff Eldon lost no time announcing his theory of foul play.

“Regardless of the motive which prompted this action on his part, the result has been all that any publicity-crazed politician could ask for. When word reached the newsrooms of the city papers that an unidentified girl had been murdered in the stable of the wealthy broker, reporters and photographers descended upon Rockville in a flood.

“Rush Medford, the district attorney, brands the sheriff’s charge as ‘premature to say the least. It is,’ Medford asserts, ‘the result of synthetic clues which have been conjured up in the imagination of a man who received some publicity in the metropolitan papers a year or so ago and found the experience pleasant.’

“The district attorney apparently was referring to the murder committed on the old Higbee place last year, a crime in which luck played into Sheriff Eldon’s hands, but which netted him some very flattering publicity.

“Doubtless District Attorney Medford is correct in stating that Bill Eldon would like to see a repetition of that publicity, just as a kid would like to see Christmas come once a week.

“So far as the death of the young woman is concerned, Rush Medford seems to have kept his head and delivered about the best summary to date.

“ ‘We don’t know who this young woman is,’ Medford said ‘We don’t know her motive in prowling around the barn of Carl Calhoun. But we do know she had no business being there. She received a kick from a horse which unfortunately proved fatal. Because Sheriff Eldon noted the discrepancy of some half-inch between the imprint of the shoe on the forehead of the victim and the size of shoe worn by the mare, he has at least implied that there has been foul play. While he has not, as yet, claimed the death as a murder in so many words, he has insinuated as much. He had an opportunity to plant the seeds of sensationalism in ground where he knew they would promptly sprout. The temptation was too strong. I, personally,’ Medford went on, ‘abhor using public office as a means of securing publicity. Because of the prominence of Carl Carver Calhoun, who has done Rockville the honor of picking it as the place for his country residence, a duty was placed upon every official of the county to proceed cautiously and do everything possible to see that innocent parties were spared the embarrassment of that blatant publicity which always follows in the wake of sensationalism.’

“Carl Carver Calhoun was even more outspoken than the district attorney. ‘So far as the sheriff is concerned,’ he said, ‘he is an old man and therefore I suppose I should be charitable. But it is hard to be charitable to a man whose every action seems actuated solely by a desire for personal aggrandizement. I warned him that because of my position and metropolitan connections the news value of anything connected with my name would be greatly magnified. I therefore asked him particularly to be cautious in his actions and not to jump at conclusions. This warning occurred after he had made an erroneous identification of the body in my stable as that of my daughter.

“ ‘Instead of heeding that warning, he went plunging on, confiscating private documents belonging to my daughter, which he doubtless hopes to release to the press at some future date.

“ ‘I am pleased to find that your district attorney, Rush Medford, is a young man of broad mental caliber, the sort of timber from which we should select our appellate judges. I only wish the sheriff had one-half his passion for accuracy, one-tenth of his intrinsic integrity.’

“So far, the body has not been identified, but the finding of a Kansas City label on the jacket and the imprint of a Kansas City shoestore in the almost-new shoes worn by the unfortunate victim have given authorities grounds to hope an identification may soon be made.”

The sheriff read the Rockville Gazette on the early morning bus on his way to see Irma Jesup.

He found her just finishing breakfast in her apartment and getting ready to leave for the trust company where she was employed in the escrow department.

Irma Jesup listened to the sheriff, and then elevated delicately arched eyebrows. Her call to Betty Turlock? Just a minor matter. Purely personal. Important enough so far as Betty was concerned but not important to anyone else. Yes, she had called several times. She had told Mr. Turlock that it was quite important. Then she had called another number which Mr. Turlock had given her.

She laughed when faced with the fact that she had hung up the telephone upon being advised that the sheriff was on the other end of the line.

“Good Heavens,” she exclaimed. “I wondered what I’d stirred up. I just didn’t know what to say, and so I hung up.”

“You’ve read the papers?” the sheriff asked.

“No, what about them?”

“A young woman was kicked by a horse in Calhoun’s barn. Killed her.”

Irma Jesup expressed consternation and sympathy.

“Any idea who she might have been?” the sheriff asked.

“No, of course not.”

“Well, now, I don’t want to pry into things,” Eldon said, “but I’m afraid I’ve got to know what it was you were calling up Betty Turlock about.”

She was ready enough to talk now. “Betty is a nice, wholesome girl. But... well, she isn’t exactly Lorraine’s type. Frank Garwin had been very much in love with Lorraine. I think Lorraine was in love with him. She put up money to get him through college. He’d had some bad luck. I’ve known Frank ever since we were children. In fact, Frank’s folks and my folks were pretty close and there was some sort of business association between them. It was all part of the same transaction when my folks got wiped out. Mr. Calhoun had been in the same company but he was smart enough to pull out before things went bad. I remember he wanted my dad to pull out and I think he wanted Mr. Garwin to. Well, anyway, that will give you the background.”

The sheriff merely nodded.

She said, “I know Frank pretty well. Frank was in love with Lorraine and then... well, he was out of love with her. And I think Lorraine was out of love with him. There had been sort of a drifting apart. Lorraine was in Maine, spending the summer, and — I don’t know, Frank thought her letters were a little cool. He talked to me about it.”

“And he was down at Rockville some of the time visiting the family?”

“That’s right.”

“And got to seeing Betty down there?”

“Yes.”

“All right. Now tell us about the telephone call.”

She said, “Frank took the bus and went to Rockville to see Betty. He didn’t want anybody to know that he had gone there, but Lorraine found it out.”

“How?”

“I don’t know.”

“How do you know that she knew it?”

“She called me and asked if Frank were here. She said she had to see him at once. I knew from the tone of her voice what was in the wind. I felt certain she was going to drive down to Rockville.”

“And you were telephoning to tell Betty that Lorraine was on her way down?”

“That’s right.”

The sheriff quite evidently was disappointed. “You don’t know anything from some young woman from Kansas City about twenty-two years old, weighing about a hundred and twelve pounds, five feet four and a half inches, neat little figure, dark auburn hair, brown eyes?”

“No.”

“Know of any girl of that description that might be a friend of Lorraine’s?”

“No.”

The sheriff took a photograph from his pocket. “Making allowances for the closed eyes, and that wound on the forehead, does she look like anyone you know?”

“Definitely no. I’ve never seen her in my life — not to remember.”

The sheriff thanked her and marked his early morning trip on the debit side of the ledger.

10

It was almost noon when the sheriff climbed the stairs to his office. George Quinlan said, “Gosh, Bill, I’ve been trying all over to locate you.”

“What’s the trouble?”

“They’ve identified the body.”

“Who is it?”

“Estelle Nichols of Kansas City. She had a charge account at the store where she bought the shoes and one of the clerks happened to remember her.”

“Any connection with Calhoun?” the sheriff asked, and couldn’t keep the anxiety from his voice.

Quinlan shook his head. “Looks as though we’re licked.”

The sheriff duly noted and appreciated the loyalty of the inclusive pronoun.

“The district attorney,” Quinlan went on, “has dug up a witness from somewhere, a girl who says this Estelle Nichols was crossing the country to join her; that she planned on hitchhiking. She’d got a letter from this girl that Medford is giving to the press. It says that she was planning on sleeping in barns as she went through the country.

“She saw the Calhoun place all dark early in the evening. Evidently it was right after Sid Rowan had finishing feeding the horses and had started for the show. And that explains why she would have walked in the door without switching on the lights. She was groping around trying to find the ladder which led up to the hayloft when she ran into this horse.”

“Which horse?” the sheriff asked.

“Well,” Quinlan said, “—well, a horse.”

“A horse wearing a number-two shoe,” the sheriff said. “And if she was kicked by a horse wearing a number-two shoe, she didn’t fall down where the body was found. Because right there a mare was stabled that was wearing a number-ought shoe.”

Quinlan said, “The forehead was flattened under the impact. Hawley says that would distort the impression made by the shoe.” Bill Eldon thought that over. “Maybe some,” he admitted, “but not that much.”

Quinlan’s dispirited voice showed how he felt. “How you going to prove how much? Once they show this girl was a stranger to the Calhouns and went into a dark barn to find a place to sleep... well, we’re licked, Bill. That’s all there is to it.”

“That letter,” the sheriff said. “Who’s got it?”

“Rush Medford has the letter, but I rushed through a copy photograph. Here it is. It’s a life-sized copy.”

The sheriff took the photographic reproduction of the letter which Quinlan handed him. It read:

Dear Mae:

It won’t be very long after you receive this letter that you’ll see me. I’m going to make it even if I have to hitchhike my way and sleep in stables.

I feel certain that you’ll listen to me, even if you have been hypnotized. There are some things I can tell you that will open your eyes.

And, Mae, darling, will you see if you can locate the address of that man I was writing you about? I’ve lost track of him and I’d like to get in touch with him again.

The letter was signed “Yours always, Estelle.”

“Who’s the girl that got this letter?” the sheriff asked.

“Someone name of Mae Adrian.”

“And where is she now?”

“Out at Calhoun’s.”

“Let’s go,” the sheriff said.

Quinlan’s manner showed some embarrassment. “Rush Medford’s out there,” he said, “and this lawyer of Calhoun’s. They’ve got Ed Lyons out there, and I guess they’re... well, I thought perhaps you’d like to wait until later.”

Eldon grinned. “They’re preparing a massacre. Is that right.”

“Well, you can put yourself in Ed Lyons’ shoes,” Quinlan said miserably.

Eldon placed his hand on his deputy’s shoulder. “George,” he said, “I learned a long time ago that the only way to handle anything that has to be faced sooner or later is to wade right out in the middle and see how deep it is. Come on, let’s go.”

They made time out to Calhoun’s country residence. A half-dozen cars were grouped around the stable. The sheriff found a parking space, nodded to Parnell who was just coming through the gate from the Turlock place and entered the stable. He found Oscar Delano, Calhoun’s attorney, virtually in charge of proceedings, with Rush Medford, the district attorney, standing by and giving the benefit of his silent approval. A group of interested spectators was watching the city lawyer. There were, in addition, reporters and photographers from the city papers.

“Well, you can see the situation,” Delano was saying to Ed Lyons, publisher of the Gazette. “This woman was a hitchhiker, who, according to her own statement, was sleeping in stables. Someone took that button and sewed a vest on it. However, it’s not for me, a rank outsider, to make any criticisms as to the efficiency of one of your county officials.”

“Well,” Medford said, “I’m the one to criticize. I... here he is now.”

The sheriff stepped forward. “Okay, Medford, I’m here.”

Delano cleared his throat significantly, then became silent.

Ed Lyons said, “Well, Bill, you got right in the spotlight to fall flat on your face,” and he laughed sarcastically.

Rush Medford said, “We have now identified this young woman. She was a hitchhiker who made a practice of sleeping in stables.”

“Mae Adrian here?” the sheriff asked calmly.

A trim young woman with dark hair and large dark eyes stepped forward and said in a thin, somewhat frightened voice, “I’m Mae Adrian.”

“You knew this dead girl?”

She nodded.

“You’ve seen the body?”

“Yes,” she said in almost a whisper.

“Positively identified it,” Ed Lyons announced triumphantly.

“And this letter that you received from her, when did you get that?”

“I... the postmark shows... It was a week ago.”

“And what caused you to come forward?”

“I saw her pictures in the papers. I felt certain it was my friend, Estelle Nichols; so I got in touch with the district attorney and he showed me the body. I identified it.”

“And you don’t know any of these people?” the sheriff asked.

“No one.”

“What’s this in the letter about you being hypnotized?”

She laughed. “Estelle had had an unfortunate experience in a love affair and she thought perhaps I was planning to do something she didn’t approve of.”

Oscar Delano said impatiently, “Well, there you are. The picture is complete. A young woman hitchhiking across the country picks my client’s stable as a place to sleep and gets kicked by a horse. Some hick sheriff sees a chance for notoriety and starts throwing his weight around.”

The photographer for one of the metropolitan newspapers dropped to one knee, focused his camera and set off a flash, catching Delano standing there in the stable, his attitude that of righteous indignation.

“And which horse do you figure kicked her?” the sheriff drawled.

Delano whirled to face him. “Sheriff,” he said, “I’m going to let you in on a big secret. The horse that kicked her,” and here Delano lowered his voice impressively as though about to impart a very confidential secret, “was a quadruped that wore iron shoes. I can’t tell you the color of his eyes. I leave that to you.”

The roar of laughter that followed furnished inspiration for the news photographer to expose another film, one that showed the old sheriff standing in the middle of the semicircle of hilarious spectators.

11

Lew Turlock and his daughter Betty walked across the strip of lawn from the Calhoun’s barn, through the gate, and over toward Turlock’s garage.

“I think it’s a shame,” Betty said. “All those people laughing at the sheriff that way.”

“Well, I guess he had his neck stuck out pretty far,” Turlock said, and then added, “It’s a darn good thing for you.”

“Why?”

“Well, if it had been a murder and the thing had got to the point where they started a detailed investigation, and people found you were supposed to have been with Rose Marie and...”

“I know, Dad, let’s skip it please.”

Turlock stopped abruptly. “That left rear tire’s down,” he said, indicating the family car. “Got to put some air in it.”

He walked over to the car, took the ignition key from the lock, inserted it into the trunk and raised the lid. “You get out the pump, Betty,” he said, “and I’ll...”

He broke off, staring at what he saw lying on the floor of the trunk, a bar with a prong in the form of a huge “Y.” To this prong had been welded a horseshoe.

Betty said, “What in the world...”

Her father bent forward to examine the iron bar. The sinister stain on the horseshoe, with some hairs stuck to the reddish brown patches, bore mute evidence of the murderous purpose for which the weapon had been used.

“How in the world did that get there?” Betty asked, and reached toward it.

Her father grabbed her wrist. “Don’t touch it! Leave a fingerprint on that and...” He didn’t need to finish the sentence. Betty’s hand jerked away from the weapon and from her father’s grip.

Lew Turlock banged down the lid of the trunk and locked it.

“Betty, how did that get in there?”

“Dad, I don’t know. I never saw it before.”

“This man you were out with,” Lew said. “What about him?”

“Frank?”

“Yes.”

“What in the world are you insinuating?”

“Nothing. I’m asking questions.”

“Why, Frank wouldn’t have... Why he wouldn’t hurt a fly. He...”

“Can you get him on the phone?” Lew Turlock asked, his face grim as granite.

“Why... Yes, I suppose so.”

“Come on in,” her father said.

He stood at her side as she placed the long distance call. Then when she had Frank Garwin on the line, Lew Turlock stepped to the telephone. “This is Betty’s dad. I have a couple of pretty important questions to ask. Did you ever know an Estelle Nichols of Kansas City?”

There was a moment of hesitation. Then Garwin said, “Yes. I met her a year or so ago. She was working in a bank. Why?”

Turlock said, “That was the girl that was killed over in Calhoun’s barn.”

“Estelle Nichols killed in Calhoun’s barn?” Garwin repeated incredulously.

“That’s right. Didn’t you see her pictures in the morning paper?”

“Yes. But I never thought it could have been... Wait a minute. Hold the phone until I get the paper and take another look.”

Turlock held the phone. A moment later Garwin’s voice came over the wire, a voice that was now filled with apprehension. “That could be Estelle,” he said.

“Come out here,” Turlock ordered, “and keep quiet until you get here. Make it just as quick as you can. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“All right, get started,” Turlock said and hung up the telephone.

Turlock turned to his daughter. “They’ve got that killing tagged as an accident now. If we can keep quiet, the thing will just naturally be hushed up.”

“Father!”

She had never seen quite that expression in her father’s face before.

“Blood is thicker than water,” he said and then suddenly turned away so that his daughter couldn’t see his eyes.

12

Sheriff Eldon pushed his way through the gate between the Calhoun and Turlock properties and said to Lew Turlock, “Hope you don’t mind if we look around a minute, Lew?”

Turlock, plainly nervous, said too effusively, “Certainly not. Sure. Go ahead. Help yourself. Anything I can do? Anything at all?”

The sheriff said, “I don’t know, Lew. Things just don’t seem to check out in this case. Now, take that dead girl. Here’s a girl hitchhiking across country. She comes into Calhoun’s stable wearing a light dress, a skimpy little coat, and shoes with thin soles. And as for luggage, why, she didn’t have so much as a toothbrush with her. What I want to know is, if that girl went in the stable and got kicked, what happened to her stuff?”

“Yes,” Turlock said nervously, “I see your point.”

“Another thing,” the sheriff said. “According to Lorraine’s story, she came tearing down here in her automobile and then proceeded to go out and walk for miles and miles along the country roads. Now that ain’t right.”

“Don’t seem so,” Turlock admitted.

“You gettin’ a soft tire on that car?” the sheriff said. “Better pump her up before she goes completely flat.”

Turlock moved apprehensively away from the automobile. “I’ll get at it. What you want to look around for, Bill?”

“I noticed that Calhoun girl smokes pretty much when she’s nervous and I thought maybe she parked her car and kept an eye on your house. Lorraine was jealous of Betty. Of course, she won’t admit it now.”

“Betty didn’t even lift a finger,” Turlock said.

“I know, Lew, but if Lorraine was jealous and had picked a place where she could watch your house and at the same time keep an eye on her car, seein’ her car was parked right in front of the stable, it stands to reason she must have seen this Estelle Nichols go into the stable.”

“It was dark,” Turlock pointed out.

“I know, but somebody must have opened the door of Lorraine’s car and got into her glove compartment and got out the diary. I don’t think you’d do that in the dark unless you knew what you were looking for and this Estelle Nichols apparently didn’t know Lorraine Calhoun. Sort of a mix-up.”

“Bill,” Turlock blurted, “don’t you think you’d be better off if you quit right now and let this thing just run its course?”

“I’m licked now,” Eldon said. “When that photographer got a picture of all those folks laughing at me over there, it put me in a spot. I can’t get no worse off than I am right now. Come along election time, you can imagine what’ll happen. Ed Lyons’ll have that picture running in his paper and put under it something like, ‘How about getting a sheriff folks don’t laugh at.’ Say, that tire’s got a leaky valve. You can hear the air hissing out of it if you listen right sharp. Reverse the valve cap and tighten up the valve. What say we save what little air is left in there?”

Turlock started to interpose himself between the sheriff and the tire, then restrained himself. The sheriff unscrewed the cap from the valve, reversed the end and twisted with his thumb and forefinger. “Shucks,” he said, “that valve stem is loose in there. Now she’s tight. Haven’t got a pump in the trunk there, have you, Lew?”

“It’s all right. I’ll fix it,” Turlock said. “Don’t worry about my car, Bill. You’ve got lots of things on your mind. Go ahead and look around. Out there back of the pepper tree there’s a swing. She might have sat in that.”

“From there she could only see the back of the house,” the sheriff said. “Now over here by this hedge would be a good place where a person could... I think I’ll look along there.”

“Come on,” Turlock said anxiously, leading the sheriff away from the car. “Let’s look.”

They moved along the hedge. “Look here,” the sheriff said, excitedly. “There’s a newspaper spread out. Someone could have been sitting down there and spread the paper out to keep the grass from staining a dress and... sure enough. There’s a dozen cigarette stubs. Now just a minute, Lew. I’d just as soon you didn’t get around here. Let’s kind of look for tracks and... that’s right. A person sitting right there and with her back to the hedge could see the front door of your house, and...”

The sheriff’s voice trailed away into disappointed silence.

“And that’s all she could see,” Turlock said. “She couldn’t see anything that happened over at Calhoun’s place. Couldn’t see the house, couldn’t see the entrance to the stable, couldn’t even see where the car was parked.”

The sheriff pursed his lips, then squatted to a sitting position, his hips resting on his heels, cowboy fashion.

“Well,” he said, in a voice that was suddenly tired, “that’s the way things go in life, Lew. You get something worked out and think you’re doing all right and then something smacks you down. Of course, Lorraine is lying about getting out and walking up and down country roads. She sat down here where she could watch your house, just the way I figured she did. But I guess it ain’t exactly a crime to watch your rival’s door to see if your boy friend is taking her out. Anyway, that city lawyer over there would sure claim it wasn’t.”

The sheriff started back along the hedge toward the fence and the gate.

Betty Turlock, opening the back door of the house, stepped out to the porch and saw the sheriff and her father approaching. Abruptly and self-consciously she jerked back into the house and pulled the door shut.

Lew Turlock said hastily, “Betty’s all upset. Just don’t want to talk to anybody.”

“Uh huh. I know how she feels,” Eldon said.

They were approaching the gate when they heard voices.

A group moved through the gate to confront the sheriff and Lew Turlock.

Parnell included in a gesture Carl Calhoun, his daughter Lorraine, Mae Adrian, and Oscar Delano.

“Look here, Eldon, I’m a businessman,” Parnell said. “Now there’s no sense having a lot of friction here. Mr. Calhoun’s my friend and associate. He’s bought this place here in the country and he’s got to live here. I want him to enjoy it.”

“Ain’t no reason why he shouldn’t,” the sheriff said.

“Yes, there is too. This is a relatively small community. Mr. Calhoun has instructed his attorney to file suit against your bondsmen on that mistaken identification business. And now that this other thing has been all cleared up, I think the whole thing should be dropped.”

The sheriff said, “That’s just up to Mr. Calhoun.”

“We’ll just wipe the whole slate clean,” Parnell said. “We won’t file suit. You’ll quit trying to... trying to...”

“Trying to what?” the sheriff asked.

Parnell was uncomfortably silent.

It was Calhoun who answered the question. “Trying to make capital out of an accidental death which unfortunately took place in my stables.”

The sheriff turned to Lorraine. “I want to ask Miss Calhoun here if she’s absolutely certain after she parked her car she just went out and walked along the country roads the way she told me when I first talked with her.”

Lorraine took a deep drag at the cigarette she was smoking, then said, “Father, isn’t there any way you can put a muzzle on this...”

“Because,” the sheriff went on, “right over here on the edge of this hedge you can see where she spread out a newspaper to sit on. You can see the tracks of her high-heeled shoes there in the soft soil along the edge of the hedge and you can see a dozen or so cigarette stubs of the particular brand she smokes. And if you want any proof on the time and date, why, the edition of the newspaper gives it to you. It’s a late edition of the afternoon paper that comes out to bring results of horse races, and she must have picked it up just before she left the city yesterday.”

Lorraine said calmly, “That’s absurd.”

“Well, now, ma’am, maybe it’s absurd and maybe it isn’t. There’s some pretty good footprints there and I notice you wear a distinctive type of shoe.”

“Great Heavens,” she said indignantly, “do I have to account for every step I take? How do I know whether I left a print there or not? I live here and I walk around. If you have any prints made by my shoes, they may be a week old.”

“Nope, they aren’t a week old,” the sheriff said. “They were made sometime yesterday — sometime after the rain had softened up the ground. And that newspaper shows they were made sometime after five o’clock at night. Now, if you’ll be frank and tell me...”

“Come, come,” Delano interposed in his smooth, suave voice. “Mr. Parnell was extending an olive branch, Sheriff. Now if we’re going to wipe the slate clean, we’ll wipe it clean. After all, my client isn’t particularly interested in sticking your bondsmen for damages, but he has a perfect case. Now, if he’s willing to drop it, we’ll expect you to meet us halfway.”

“Facts are facts,” the sheriff said. “I just want to get them sort of straightened out. And there’s one other question I wanted to ask Miss Adrian here. This dead girl said something in her letter about trying to get an address of some man that she’d met. Who is that man?”

Mae Adrian said, “A young law student. She’d met him when he was on vacation a year ago.”

“What’s that fellow’s name?” the sheriff asked Mae Adrian.

“Good Lord,” Calhoun groaned. “Don’t you ever have enough? Must you always lead with your chin?”

“What’s his name?” the sheriff repeated.

Mae Adrian said, “No one whom you ever heard of before, sheriff. He’s a law student whose folks lived in Kansas City for a while and were in business there. A young man by the name of Frank Garwin.”

13

“Frank Garwin!” Lorraine exclaimed. “Why, I know him! He’s a very close friend.”

“A friend of the family,” Carl Calhoun hastened to add.

“I’ve known him for some years myself,” Parnell said. “What about him?”

Mae Adrian was as nonplussed at the bombshell she had dropped as a sportsman whose “unloaded” gun roars into an accidental discharge. “Why... I... I was going to try and find his address for Estelle. I didn’t know... Of course, Estelle had just met him there the one time but I guess she had a crush on him. He’s a young lawyer, I believe, and Estelle had some legal problem.”

Oscar Delano said authoritatively, “Now look here, sheriff, I’ll grant you there’s an element of coincidence here, but I don’t want you trying to torture anything else into it.”

Parnell turned to Lew Turlock. “Well, I still don’t see it changes the situation any. By the way, Mr. Turlock, I’m in need of a car. Perhaps you’d like to drive us to the city. I’ll pay you well. I promised Miss Adrian I’d take her back with me. There’ll just be the two of us.”

“Maybe Miss Adrian ain’t quite ready to go home yet,” the sheriff said, “the way things are shaping up now.”

“Well, she’ll be ready in a minute,” Parnell said irritably. “How about it, Turlock?”

Turlock seemed undecided for a moment, then abruptly caught Bill Eldon’s eye and motioned to him. “Bill,” he said, “could I talk with you a minute, private like?”

“How about taking us to the city?” Parnell asked impatiently.

Turlock said, “I’ll tell you when I get back.”

The sheriff moved over a few yards from the little group. “What is it, Lew?”

Turlock said, “Bill, that wasn’t any accident — the woman that got kicked in the barn.”

“I didn’t think it was,” the sheriff said.

“She was hit with a horseshoe put on a club.”

The sheriff let his eyes bore steadily into those of Turlock. “All right, Lew,” he said quietly. “Let’s have it.”

Turlock said, “A few minutes ago I opened up the trunk on my automobile and... well, Bill, there’s a club in there.”

“What sort of a club?”

“An iron bar with a prong welded to it and a horseshoe welded to the prong. The thing’s about two feet long. And... well, Bill, I guess it’s the one that was used in the murder.”

“Did you touch it?” the sheriff asked. “That weapon?”

“No.”

“Did Betty?”

“No.”

The sheriff said, “Don’t say anything to anyone. Tell Parnell he can’t use your car because after talking with me you found there’s something you have to do uptown. Drive to the back of the courthouse and wait for Quinlan. Don’t open up that trunk for anyone until Quinlan can take fingerprints. What does it look like, about a number-two horseshoe?”

“It’s about a number two,” Turlock said, “and it has some caked blood on it. It’s what killed her, all right.”

The sheriff and Lew Turlock rejoined the little group. Turlock said, “I’m sorry, Parnell, I’ve got to go to town. I guess you’ll have to get some other car.”

Parnell said, “The district attorney’s going into the city and he’s taking Miss Adrian in with him. I’ll go with him.”

Rush Medford was perfectly willing to amplify that statement. “I’m going in to interview Frank Garwin,” he said. “I have just talked with him over the long-distance telephone, using Lew Turlock’s phone and a number given me by Miss Calhoun.”

Medford’s manner indicated that he had an important announcement to make and he waited until he had the attention of every person there before making it.

“Mr. Garwin has admitted to me over the telephone,” he said, “that not only was he here yesterday night, but that a friend drove him over to San Rodolpho and put him on a bus at that point so he could get back to the city without anyone knowing he was here. The name of that friend was Bill Eldon, sheriff of the county. Under the circumstances, I think an investigation is in order.” He waited a dramatic moment, then turned to the newspaper reporter, “And you may quote me on that.”

14

At the sheriff’s office in the courthouse, George Quinlan finished dusting the grim murder weapon with a white metallic powder especially prepared to bring out latent fingerprints.

“Find anything?” Eldon asked.

“Not a thing,” Quinlan said. “It’s been wiped and polished with something that’s removed every single print that was on it. It might have been a piece of soft leather.”

Bill Eldon fished a cloth tobacco sack from his pocket, held a grooved paper in his left hand, and rolled a cigarette with a few deft motions.

“Well,” he said, “when you run up against something like that, you just have to read trail, that’s all.”

“Only we haven’t any trail,” Quinlan said.

“Oh, yes, we have. We’ve got lots of trail.”

“Such as what?”

“Well, to begin with, we’ve got the time element.”

“Yes, that’s right,” Quinlan said. “Immediately after Sid Rowan left for the movies.”

Eldon shook his head.

“But it has to be that time, Bill. Rowan had just fed the horses before he left. He put down hay for this mare. The body lying there disturbed her so she couldn’t eat. The chute coming down from the loft was chock full of hay.”

“What kind of hay?” Eldon asked.

“What kind of hay?” Quinlan repeated. “Why, uh, hay.”

“Barley hay,” the sheriff said. “Calhoun’s feeding his horses oat hay. He got some barley hay for the cattle, feeds them some alfalfa hay and some barley. The oat hay is for the horses. It’s been pretty hard to get.”

Quinlan thought that over.

“What’s more,” the sheriff went on, “the minute you run across a weapon like this, you know you’re figuring on plain, cold-blooded, deliberate murder — murder that was thought out quite some time in advance. The idea was the murder would look like an accident in case no one asked any questions. It’d just be some unfortunate girl that blundered into a stable and got kicked by a horse. Then at the last minute something happened that made the murderer change his plans.”

Quinlan said, “For my money, Garwin is the guilty party. He was getting along all right with Betty Turlock and then this girl that he’d known in Kansas City was coming out. He’d probably left her under circumstances that he didn’t want disclosed to the girl he was going to ask to marry him.”

The sheriff scraped a match into flame and applied it to the end of his hand-rolled cigarette. “Well, now, George,” he drawled, “let’s look at that thing from all angles.”

“I am.”

“No, you’re not. If Garwin killed her, he must have known she was going to come to that stable.”

“Known she was going to come there!” Quinlan exclaimed. “He took her there. He deliberately manipulated things so she went to the stable. That’s why he was late keeping his date with Betty down there at the high-school grounds.”

“Could be, of course,” the sheriff said.

“And if it is,” Quinlan said, “we’re worse off than we were before.”

“How come?”

“You took Garwin over to San Rodolpho so he could get a bus and all that.”

“I suppose so,” the sheriff admitted, “but somehow I don’t size Frank Garwin up for that sort of a boy. He’s a pretty nice young chap, sort of shy and sensitive. He wouldn’t want to hurt a woman’s feelings and would do almost anything to feel he was being a gentleman.”

“That type fools you,” Quinlan pointed out. “They get in a position from where there seems to be no escape. So then they try to get the obstacles to their happiness out of the way. You take a two-fisted hard-boiled chap and he’d go to his girl friend and say, ‘Look, Sister, you were a swell babe when I was in Kansas City but there’s been a lot of water under the bridge since then and now I have met somebody I like a lot better.’ ”

The sheriff nodded thoughtfully, his head wrapped in a cloud of blue cigarette smoke. “You got something there,” he admitted after a moment, and then added after a few thoughtful seconds, “I’d like to play this so we could keep Betty out of it as much as possible. Lots of folks would think that Betty was sort of two-timing her folks, saying she was going out to spend the night with Rose Marie Mallard and then ducking out to meet this man Garwin.”

“You can’t help that,” Quinlan said. “Every once in a while someone does something like that just when a murder turns on the spotlight...”

“I know, I know,” the sheriff interrupted, “but you take a nice kid like Betty Turlock. Sort of seems as though we could protect her a little.”

“We’ve got our hands full protecting ourselves,” Quinlan said. “By the time Ed Lyons gets done with a writeup about how there was only one person who knew Estelle Nichols and that person was mysteriously spirited out of town by none other than the sheriff...”

Bill Eldon nodded. “Oh, sure,” he said philosophically, “Ed Lyons is a dirty fighter. You can’t expect anything else.”

The sheriff smoked in silence for a few minutes. Then, as he came to the end of his cigarette, he pinched out the stub with all the care of a man who has been much in the forest. Abruptly he said, “You know, we’ve got one other clue, George, we’re sort of overlooking.”

“What’s that?”

“Suppose you wanted to kill someone,” the sheriff said, “and get away with it? Would it ever occur to you to take them into a stable at night and hit them over the head with a horseshoe club so it’d look as though a horse had kicked them?”

“No,” Quinlan said.

“Wouldn’t to me either,” the sheriff said.

“But if you were going to kill someone with a horseshoe, you’d naturally want to do it in a stable,” Quinlan pointed out.

“You said it, Brother, only you put it backwards.”

“What do you mean?”

The sheriff grinned, “If you were going to kill somebody in a stable, you’d maybe get the idea of killing them with a horseshoe. I think now we’re beginning to get some place.”

15

The Grand Jury, hastily called in special session by the district attorney, sat grim-faced. These men were farmers and small businessmen with uncompromising standards of individual integrity. They would be just but stern, and the rumor that the sheriff had got himself involved by smuggling a witness out of the county was due for a thorough investigation.

Out in the anteroom were the witnesses whom Rush Medford had summoned. And waiting with his lips curled in a smile of anticipatory triumph was Ed Lyons, publisher of the Rockville Gazette, ready to drive the final nail in Bill Eldon’s political coffin.

The district attorney briefly outlined his position to the members of the Grand Jury. “The object of this investigation,” he said, “is to find out just what’s going on here. I think you folks are familiar with what’s happened. A woman got into the stable of one of Carl Carver Calhoun. She was kicked by a horse and died. There are some mysterious circumstances surrounding her death.

“For one thing, the diary of Lorraine Calhoun was found in the manger of the stall in front of which the body was lying. One page had been torn out. It’s pretty apparent now that this woman’s trip to that stable was not accidental. It was made with some definite purpose and it was probably made with a companion. Apparently there is only one person whom this woman knew and who also knew the Calhouns and the setup of the Calhoun stable. That person is Frank Garwin. I want you gentlemen to hear his story. I want you to hear how he left this county. I want you to hear who picked him up and drove him to San Rodolpho. I am not going to make any comments as to the motive back of all this. It’s the duty of this body to investigate this whole thing. Now then, gentlemen, I want Frank Garwin called as a witness. And I want his testimony taken down in shorthand.”

One or two of the jurors looked over to where Bill Eldon was sitting, tight-lipped. Here and there were glances of sympathy. But the foreman of the Grand Jury voiced the sentiments of all of its members when he said to Medford, “You’re the district attorney. Go ahead with your witnesses. If there’s anything wrong with the way any of the offices in this county are being run, we aim to do something about it.”

Frank Garwin was brought in and interrogated by the district attorney. He told the same story he had told the sheriff, admitting, however, that he knew Estelle Nichols, the dead girl, but denying he had known that she was anywhere in the state. He had, he said, lost track of her something over a year ago. They had, he admitted, been friendly, but since then he had had what he referred to as “other interests.”

Medford passed by, for the moment, the “other interests,” in order to get to the point which was of most interest to him.

“Now, Frank,” he said, “last night you were here in Rockville?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And where did you go after you left the Calhoun barn?”

“I didn’t go to the Calhoun barn.”

“Well, we’ll pass that for the moment. Did you see the sheriff of this county last night?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Where?”

“Well, he picked me up down at the ball park.”

“And what did he do?”

“He... well, he gave me a lift to where I wanted to catch the bus for the city.”

Rush Medford said, “Now think carefully, young man. Let’s not have any misunderstanding about this. Did he take you to where you wanted to go and get the bus, or did he suggest that he should take you to a certain place to get the bus?”

“Well, he suggested it.”

“Why?”

“He thought that it might be just as well if my friends didn’t see me around here.”

“I see,” Medford said sarcastically. “Spirited you out of town, and he did that in a County car, I believe, using the County tires and the County gasoline.”

Garwin was silent.

“Come, come, young man,” the district attorney said. “Let’s at least answer questions. That’s a fact, isn’t it?”

“I guess it was the County car. It had a red spotlight on it.”

“That’s all,” Medford said.

The foreman of the Grand Jury turned to the sheriff. “You want to ask this boy any questions to try and clear this thing up, Bill?” he asked.

The sheriff merely shook his head.

The grand jurymen exchanged glances. There was sympathy in those glances, but there was also a certain underlying significance.

The foreman said to Garwin, “That’s all, young man. You can go back to the room with the other witnesses. You’re not supposed to tell them anything about what questions were asked you and you’re not supposed to tell anybody what testimony you gave.”

When Garwin had gone, the foreman said, “The way I size things up, Bill, the boys sort of think that calls for an explanation of some sort.”

Heads nodded gravely about the Grand Jury room.

“Well,” the sheriff said, “the way I look at this case, gentlemen, it was a murder case. A plain, cold-blooded, deliberate murder.”

Medford said, “That’s fantastic and absurd on the face of it. But the mere fact that you think that it’s a murder case makes your conduct in spiriting one of the principals in the case out of the county doubly culpable. Now, as I see it, gentlemen, it’s pretty clear that this man, Garwin, must have gone to the barn with this young woman. He must have been there when she got kicked, and he must have tried to keep himself from being involved in the subsquent notoriety by simply sneaking out and getting this Turlock girl to give him an alibi. Now I propose to call this Turlock girl and prove that she doesn’t know where Garwin was at the time this woman was killed, that she had an appointment with him and Garwin stood her up and kept her waiting for something like an hour, simply because he was in Calhoun’s barn with this Estelle Nichols. May I now call Betty Turlock?”

The sheriff said, “I just want to point out that I was makin’ an explanation when the district attorney interrupted me.”

The foreman nodded. “You go ahead and explain, Bill.”

“When you have a murder case,” the sheriff said, “lots of little things become important. But every little thing isn’t important. The way I see it, there’s no use taking a nice girl like Betty Turlock and putting her up here in front of this Grand Jury simply to show the man she’s in love with was a little bit late in keeping his appointment.”

“Oh, certainly,” Medford said sarcastically. “The things that you don’t want brought out are the unimportant little things. But when you get a half-inch or so discrepancy in the measurement of a horseshoe...”

“Now that will be about all out of you for a minute, Rush Medford,” the sheriff said. “I’m making my explanation to the Grand Jury. You can talk afterwards.”

“That’s right, Rush,” the foreman said. “Let’s give Bill a chance to explain.”

“Now then,” Bill Eldon went on, “when I say that was coldblooded, deliberate murder, I know what I’m talking about. The mare wears an ought shoe. The wound was made with a number-two shoe. The mare wouldn’t hardly have struck up high enough with a kick to have kicked the girl on the forehead if she’d been standing back of the manger. Of course, she could have done it, but that’s pretty high for a kick where she wasn’t kicking deliberately but just lashing out at something that startled her. And you’ll notice from the wound, the main force was on the upper part of the horseshoe. Now if the mare had kicked up, she’d be puttin’ the power on the bottom part of the shoe.”

Medford sneered, “The trouble is with that argument, it proves too much. You’re proving that no horse could have kicked the girl.”

“That’s right, Medford,” the sheriff said. “You’re gradually getting the idea. And if you want to see what killed the girl, here it is.”

The sheriff nodded to Quinlan. Quinlan brought forward the iron club with the horseshoe welded onto it.

The Grand Jurors left their seats and crowded around the lethal weapon.

“Where did you get this?” Medford asked.

“Now, never mind,” the sheriff said. “I’m making an explanation right now. Now, you gentlemen hadn’t better touch this yet because there’s some blood and hairs on the horseshoe that we may need for evidence. There aren’t any fingerprints on the thing because we’ve tested it carefully. Someone rubbed it with a piece of chamois skin or something and got all the fingerprints off. Now, if you boys will just go back and sit down, I’ll tell you what happened.”

The Grand Jurors resumed their seats. The district attorney moved over to regard the welded horseshoe in frowning anger.

“To kill a girl with a horseshoe so it would look like an accidental kick by a horse,” the sheriff went on, “you’d want to be sure everyone knew she’d gone into a barn. Now, I’ve got a theory that when this Estelle Nichols wrote her friend that she’d sleep in barns if she had to, she signed her death warrant right there. I think someone who knew about that letter got Estelle Nichols in the barn, and then, when he had her in the right position, clubbed her over the head. You see, he had to make just one blow do the job in order to make it look right. He had this diary with him and he needed both hands to swing this club around with the force he needed. He’d torn one page out of the diary, which was the only reason he was after it in the first place. And not having any more use for the diary, he just tossed it into the manger when he swung around to strike that blow. He intended to go pick up that diary later on, but he’d figured without the mare. The mare was so nervous that he was afraid to go into the stall. As far as he was concerned, there wasn’t any particular need to get that diary because he’d already torn out the one page that he’d wanted destroyed.”

“You say this was a man?” the foreman asked the sheriff.

“Sure it was a man,” the sheriff said. “For one thing, look at the welding job. You don’t go into some blacksmith shop and ask to have a club welded on a horseshoe when you’re intending to go out and murder someone with it. You do the job yourself. Since the war there are some women that know a lot about welding, but to me it looks like a man’s job. And there are two or three other things that make it look like a man that’s been around the country a little bit but not quite enough. A man who doesn’t realize there’s a difference in the size of shoes on horses. A man who doesn’t know the difference between barley and oat hay. Remember what Estelle Nichols wrote this Adrian girl in a letter. You’ve got a photograph of it there. Somethin’ about in spite of the fact she was hypnotized she hoped Mae would listen when Estelle told her the things that you just couldn’t put on paper. Figure that out and that means a man.”

Heads nodded in unison around the Grand Jury room.

“Now then,” the sheriff said, “if it’s a man, it means that Mae Adrian is protecting him, because, according to my theory, the man must have seen that letter from Estelle saying she was going to come out here and sleep in stables if she had to. Right away he made up his mind that he was going to see she was killed in a stable so it would look like an accidental death.

“You can figure it out for yourselves. If this Estelle Nichols really had been sleeping in stables, she wouldn’t have slept in one this close to the end of her journey. She could have hitchhiked her way into the city within a couple of hours, joined her friend and had a bath and a good bed. What’s more, no one’s ever found anything belonging to this young woman except the clothes she was wearing. Now, if she’d been hitchhiking, she certainly must have had a few things with her. Therefore, the way I figure it, she had already been in to see Mae Adrian. And the man that killed her picked her up and brought her back to the Calhoun barn. Then he probably went back to Mae Adrian and said to her, ‘Look, Mae, the most awful thing happened. Estelle and I were in a barn and a horse kicked her. I don’t want anybody to know that I was in there with her because it would ruin my business. And seeing it was an accident, you just keep quiet and it will all blow over.’

“Remember that this club shows the murder had been deliberately planned. The man who did it hoped he could make an ‘accident’ out of it; but in case he couldn’t, he had a second string to his bow. He was going to frame it on Frank Garwin. Why? Because he knew for one tiling young Garwin was going to be in Rockville that night. For another, he knew about Estelle asking for Frank’s address in that letter.

“That gives us another clue. The man not only knew Mae Adrian real well, but he also knew Frank Garwin, and he also must have known Sid Rowan and his wife were planning on a movie show. And he also knew Garwin would have an alibi for the last part of the evening. So, if he had to make it murder and pin it on somebody, he wanted the time-element mixed up so it would seem the mare hadn’t been able to eat her hay because of the body being there. So after the killing he put more hay down the feed chute — but he gave himself away by putting in barley hay instead of oat hay. He tried to show the mare wasn’t hungry, and in doing that left the best clue of all, because the mare had been hungry and had eaten her hay — the oat hay Sid Rowan had put down for her. But later on the murderer had tried to show the mare wouldn’t eat by putting down more hay — and because he couldn’t tell the difference between oat hay and barley hay, he proved the fact we were dealing with cold-blooded murder.

“But this murderer was feeling pretty well satisfied with himself. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, the death would have been considered just an accident and passed off as such. But if something went wrong, he had only to plant the murder weapon in a car which Frank Garwin had been in the night of the killing — and then be sure the weapon was found at just the right time. That was the most important thing of all.

“To fix that up, he did a simple thing. He unscrewed the valve seat in one of the rear tires on Turlock’s car just enough to make some of the air leak out. Now if you gentlemen are interested in all this, let’s get Mae Adrian in and ask her a couple of questions.”

There was a chorus of quick, eager assents.

Rush Medford started to say something, then, at the expressions he saw on the faces about him, changed his mind and remained silent.

Mae Adrian came in and was sworn.

The foreman said to the sheriff, “Suppose you ask her the questions, Bill.”

The sheriff smiled at the nervous young woman. “Mae,” he said in his kindly, drawling voice, “you might as well answer a few questions for us here. We don’t like to pry into your private affairs, but we’ve got to clean this thing up.”

She nodded.

“Now then,” the sheriff said, “when you said that you were about to do something Estelle didn’t approve of, did that mean you were going to get married?”

“Well, not exactly, I was going with someone, and I was going to let him invest some money I had inherited.”

“Pretty handy with tools, isn’t he? Makes you little gadgets out of steel and things?”

Her face lit up. “Yes indeed, he does. He makes me hammered-brass trays and he welds tubing into ornamental candlesticks and...”

“And what’s his name?” the sheriff asked.

“He doesn’t want me to tell who he is and I’m not going to.”

“Did he know Estelle Nichols?”

“I... I guess so... Yes.”

“She’d known him pretty well, hadn’t she?”

“Well... yes.”

“And you showed this man this letter from Estelle and told him she was coming out, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

The sheriff said in a kindly voice, “Now come, Miss Adrian, let’s be frank. That man is Henry Parnell, isn’t he?”

She clamped her lips together.

“Come, come,” the sheriff said. “You might just as well come clean as get in trouble with the Grand Jury for not answering questions. He and Estelle Nichols went to call on Calhoun and a horse kicked Estelle and killed her and then he didn’t want Calhoun to know he’d been with this girl in his barn. So you agreed to help him hush it up since it was an accident anyway, and nothing you could do would bring your friend back to life.”

She started to cry.

“And then after it began to look as though things were getting pretty hot, Parnell told you it would be better for you to identify the body and give that letter to the authorities, saying that she intended to sleep in barns, so it would look as though she had gone into Calhoun’s barn to sleep. Now that’s right, isn’t it, Mae?”

She sobbingly nodded.

“That’s a good girl,” the sheriff said. “Now you just go in that other room and wait a minute and we’ll talk things over later on after you’ve got to feeling better.”

Once she had left the room, the sheriff turned to the Grand Jury. “Well, gentlemen,” he said, “there we are. I suppose we may as well talk with Parnell. Think we got a pretty good case against him, no matter what he says or doesn’t say.”

“What I don’t get,” the foreman said, “is how you knew it was Parnell?”

“Well,” the sheriff said, “first rattle out of the box, the murderer had tried to make it look like an accident. When he saw he wasn’t going to be able to get away with that, he tried to blame the murder on Frank Garwin. Parnell was pretty anxious for me to find that murder weapon there in Lew Turlock’s car. The way the air was going out of that tire, the valve hadn’t been unscrewed very long. I tried to think back, of who left the gathering there in the barn to go over to Turlock’s place, and it was Parnell. When I drove up he was coming in through Turlock’s gate. He’d gone over and unscrewed the core in the valve stem. And then, of course, when he wanted to rent the car, I knew he must be the one, because his idea was to get the car, then call attention to the flat tire, and get Lew to open the trunk where the murder weapon had been planted.

“There are two or three other things. That page missing from the diary showed that the murderer must have had some contact with Lorraine Calhoun back in April. It must have been something that Lorraine wouldn’t remember particularly unless she got to reading her diary. Probably when she was in Kansas City her friends had told her something about a slicker named Parnell. She’d put something about this friend in her diary and then forgotten about it. But one of Parnell’s Kansas City friends knew it was there and must have written him... Made it awkward for Parnell when he was just about to interest Calhoun in a business deal. The thing probably came through Frank Garwin ’cause you remember Parnell blurted out he’d known Frank for years, but he hadn’t known Calhoun near that long. So Parnell must have known Frank in Kansas City. And that’s another thing to remember. Whoever did the thing knew Lorraine’s car with her diary in the glove compartment was going to be parked there at the stable, knew Garwin was going to be seeing Betty Turlock secretly, knew Sid Rowan was going to a movie, knew his way around the Calhoun barn, but didn’t know what sort of hay Calhoun was feeding the horses. Shucks, it’s a cinch, gentlemen — just a plain, straight trail pointing to one man and to one man alone, a man who had double-crossed a girl in Kansas City and was now trying to rig another deal here with a friend of hers and getting ready to fleece a rich man. Put that all together and you can make a pretty good guess as to who it was.”

“Well,” the foreman said, “let’s get Parnell in here and see if we can get anything out of him. Probably we can’t, but we can try.”

Parnell came in and took the stand, his manner that of being courteous and helpful.

The sheriff said, “Mr. Parnell, you sure you never knew this Estelle Nichols?”

“Absolutely.”

“You know Mae Adrian, don’t you?”

“Why, I saw her there today, yes.”

“But you knew her before that?”

“I... ah... May I ask what is the object of this questioning?”

“Just tryin’ to get at the facts,” the sheriff said.

“Well, I think I’m entitled to a little something more than that.”

“The question,” the sheriff said, “is do you or don’t you know Mae Adrian?”

Parnell looked around at the circle of grim, purposeful faces.

“I don’t think I care to answer that question.”

“Why not?”

“Frankly, I don’t think it’s any of your business and I don’t like the attitude of the men here.”

The sheriff abruptly produced the murder weapon.

“I now show you a number-two horseshoe welded to an iron bar. Ever seen that before?”

“No, I suppose that’s some sort of a branding iron; but it’s a new one on me, I’ve never seen it before.”

“You will admit, won’t you, that you told Mae Adrian you’d gone to the barn with Estelle Nichols and that there’d been an accident? That a horse had kicked her and that you wanted your name kept out of it?”

Parnell wet his lips. “I refuse to answer that question.”

“On what ground?” the sheriff asked.

Parnell took a deep breath, then said desperately, “On the ground that the answer might incriminate me.”

“You’re darn right it would,” the sheriff said. “We don’t even need an answer. We’ve got Mae Adrian’s testimony and we’re going out and take a look at that little hobby workshop of yours and see if we can’t find some left-over materials that’ll analyze just about the same as the stuff in this murder weapon. And as far as you’re concerned, Mr. Parnell, you’re going to stay right here in the county jail until we’ve worked up a murder case against you.”

16

The sheriff unlocked the front door of his house. It was nearing midnight and he was dog-tired. He had had a strenuous period of activity and now that the excitement and strain were over, there was a terriffic let down. No use kidding himself, he wasn’t as young as he had been at one time. Very quietly the sheriff tiptoed across the hall. His sister-in-law would be demanding all the latest news if he saw her.

He had almost reached his bedroom when he saw his sister-in-law attired in pajamas and slippers, sitting by a floor lamp in the living room. Across her lap was the evening edition of the Rockville Gazette with its big headlines: “CROWD GIVES SHERIFF THE HORSELAUGH.”

The sheriff tiptoed over and stood silently looking down at Doris’s face. She had removed both upper and lower plates, which gave her face a peculiarly collapsed appearance, but even in sleep and with her teeth out there was a sharp, ferret-like expression in the whole contour of her features. She had carefully drawn her chair to a place where she could command a view of the entrance to the garage through the parlor window and where no one could enter by the front door without her seeing him.

Bill Eldon leaned gently over the sleeping figure, picked up the paper and crossed out the word “sheriff” in the headlines, inserting the word “publisher” so that the headlines read: “CROWD GIVES PUBLISHER HORSELAUGH.”

Gently the sheriff tiptoed into his bedroom.

From the pillow his wife’s voice arose sleepily, “Did you see Doris out there?”

The sheriff chuckled. “I saw her,” he said. And then, a few seconds later, as he was slipping out of his outer garments, added “first.”

Content

Erie Stanley Gardner
Two Clues

Part One The Clue of the Runaway Blonde

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Part Two The Case of the Hungry Horse

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