Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 27, No. 1, September 17, 1927

Secure against his intrusion, young Barrett traversed the darkened store till he reached the cubby-hole of an office whose brown-painted window was all that the window of an observation post should be.

Because, it was so sketchily painted that, when the watcher sat down in the leather-seated swivel chair, he could plainly see much of what was in progress in the front rooms of the Bella Union and nobody in those lighted rooms could see him.

He had taken a shorter way from his cottage than that over which Duke Emmett still was coming, and, as he sat looking across the street into the hotel, he wondered why he had not advised the faro-dealer to take a way that was even shorter.

There was such a way — a short-cut across lots — which, had Emmett taken it, would have brought him to the Bella Union several minutes before he himself could have arrived at the feed store. That he had not remembered it in time meant that Duke Emmett was losing precious minutes.

For, from his vantage point, Barrett could see that the poker game in room No. 8, a second-floor room whose lighted, uncurtained window was staring down on him like an unseeing eye, was breaking up.

Of the five players who were cashing in, Barrett recognized the faces of only two — one was the door-opening and jackpot-opening town marshal’s moonlike countenance, the other was the ferretlike face of the weedy little bartender who had disappeared from Merida City and turned around and come right back again. The three other, faces were those of hard-bitten strangers Barrett never had seen before.

“They look tough enough to be from Tucgoles,” said the prosecuting attorney to himself, “I wish Emmett would show up before that little bartender they’re so chummy with gets a chance to do another disappearing act.”

He had his wish. For, a moment or two later, he saw the jaunty faro-dealer come swinging down Pine Street, enter the office of the Bella Union and head for the stairway. Expecting to see him appear in room No. 8, he again centered his gaze on that room’s lighted window. He did not see Duke Emmett. What he did see was one of the strangers step to the window and pull down the shade.

An instant later, he saw the beefy town marshal come out of the front door of the Bella Union, and lumber across the street directly toward his hiding place. He saw his big shadow pass the painted window, then heard him tramp into the dark hallway, and stop. But he did not hear him try the door.

“That’s queer,” thought Barrett; “what’s he hiding there for?”

On the heels of the unspoken question came an answer. It was the crash of a pistol shot, closely followed by wild cries of “Help! Help! Police!”

Barrett’s eyes, darting over the front of the Bella Union, were caught and held by a shadow suddenly cast upon the window shade of room No. 8 — the silhouette of a group of men engaged in furious combat.

The next instant, Barrett was out of the front door, and racing for the hotel.

But the town marshal got there first.

By the time Barrett had shouldered his way through a hostile crowd on the stairway, and another hostile crowd in the second floor corridor, and had plunged into room No. 8, Bill Whacker’s man Friday had clamped handcuffs on the wrists of the prosecution’s star witness, Duke Emmett. The star witness’s face and clothing showed he had been handled none too gently.

“What’s this mean?” demanded the prosecutor.

“It means he’s arrested for attempted robbery,” wheezed the beefy town marshal. “These citizens he was playin’ poker with allege he pulled a gun, an’ told ’em to stick ’em up. I got four witnesses to that effect. I—”

“You got ’em in a hell of a hurry!” flamed Barrett. “You haven’t been in this room more than ten seconds. Where are your four complainants?”

“These three gents from Tucgoles,” announced the town marshal, with a triumphant wave of his hand, “an’ Bill’s old bartender. He was here a minute ago.”

But he was there no longer. Bill’s old bartender, for reasons best known to himself, had done another of his disappearing acts.

“He’ll show up later,” declared the town marshal. “Anyway, I got three.”

Under the searching glance with which Barrett swept the three hard-boiled strangers from Tucgoles was hidden real concern. For he realized that this was a frame-up whose only object was to destroy the usefulness of the faro-dealer as a witness before the next day’s grand jury.

He turned to the handcuffed prisoner. “Mr. Emmett,” he said crisply, “I wouldn’t go to jail alone if I were you. I would prefer charges against these men. Let me suggest some possible charges. Assault and battery, assault with a deadly weapon, assault with intent to kill—”

“Wait a minute!” broke in one of the three, his voice and his race reflecting sudden and sincere alarm. “We wasn’t figgerin’ on goin’ to no jail-house.”

“It’s never too late to begin,” rejoined Barrett. “I’d advise you and your friend, the marshal, here, to talk this over among yourselves before you go any farther.”