Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 27, No. 1, September 17, 1927
- Автор: Valentine, Corley H. W.
- Год: 1927
- Язык: английский
- Год: The Red Star News Company
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 27, No. 1, September 17, 1927». Краткое содержание книги:
“And you say those deductions narrows your field?” Lundsford queried.
“Absolutely.”
“How? Don’t every native in the Sunken Lands own axes? And don’t they grind ’em like this killer’s ax is ground?”
“Yes, to the first question. No, to the second,” Cal replied. “Nearly all the native axes are double-bitted, it’s true, but when did you ever see a native swamper sawing up a tree trunk and splitting it into wood? He almost invariably chops down a few poles, drags them up to his cabin, and chops them into the desired length.
“A native, as you probably know, never travels any distance at all without two things — his rifle and his ax. Go down to the boats at anchor, Lundsford, and examine the axes you’ll find there. I’ll wager there will not be a splitting edge among them.”
“Well,” the sheriff pondered aloud, “that is the same as saying that the killer is not a native. You mean that?”
“Not at all,” was the reply. “He probably is a native.”
“Damn it all!” Lundsford exploded wrath fully. “You make out to lead a feller in a straight line, when all you do is to take him around in a circle! First you prove, by an ax, that no native done the killing; then, by hokey, you say a native did do it! You go ahead in your own way, Calhoun, and I’ll go mine. I’m betting I get my man — and I won’t need to read no solution on the helve of no ax!”
The angry sheriff stalked off, leaving Calhoun smiling to himself.
V
Calhoun stood on the door log and watched Lundsford going about among the natives, interrogating them in his habitual bullying manner. At intervals other swampers dropped in, having heard the news, and each fresh arrival was a fish for the sheriff’s net.
Presently, tiring of watching, Cal strolled down to the creek where the boats lay at anchor. At the expiration of an hour he had accurately appraised the contents of each craft there. Then he returned to the cabin.
Lundsford was sitting on the door log, a complacent grin on his heavy countenance.
“Well, what luck, Mr. Sheriff?” Cal queried, pausing near him.
“I got my man all but pinned to the wall,” Lundsford exulted. “Going to wait awhile before nabbing him, though. Won’t do to be too hasty. My men are watching him, so he can’t get away. After the coroner has come and held his inquest, I’ll have him in irons. Aim to bring out the evidence against him at the hearing — and I won’t leave him a leg to stand on.”
“Fine!” Cal exclaimed. “As you say, it doesn’t pay to be too hasty. That bringing out the evidence at the inquest is a good idea. Stick to it, and you probably will be glad you did.”
Lundsford shot a suspicious glance toward Cal, but found him serious of face. The twinkle far back in his eyes went unobserved.
“What you going to do, eh?” the sheriff asked.
“Going to take a trip up Little Caney,” was the reply. “Murdock can handle our end of things here, and I’ve a little matter to see after up the creek. Might as well do it now, while we wait for the coroner, and save myself a trip later. So long.”
After giving certain instructions to Murdock, Calhoun took to the creek in his dug-out and made speed toward the east. He had a five hour journey ahead of him, and wished to return to the cabin in the early hours of the following morning. The inquest would probably be held then, and he meant to be there.
At eight o’clock the following morning he returned to the clearing before Hughes’s cabin, and paused at the outer edge of a crowd which had gathered before the door. It looked as though every native within a radius of twenty miles had appeared for the inquest. Lundsford was speaking in loud and confident tones.
“Billings,” he interrogated, “you say you came down Little Caney from your place above, on the morning of Monday, four days ago?”
“I shorely did,” Nate Billings answered.
“And you did not see Splinter Hughes?”
“Never seed hide ner hair of him.”
“You didn’t stop off at his cabin?”
“I done told you-all that I never seed Splinter,” was the hot reply. “Whut makes you go on an’ ax me them questions?”
“You answer ’em!” snarled the sheriff, shaking his fist at Nate. “You answer, or I’ll take you in right now! I’m giving you a chance to avoid trouble, and you’d better make the most of it!”
“Go ahead an’ ax,” Billings said, his tones denoting uneasiness. “I’ll answer as best I kin.”
“Billings!” Lundsford suddenly shouted. “Don’t you know that I know you are a liar? Ain’t you lying?” he advanced toward the shrinking native, stiff forefinger leveled under his nose. “Didn’t you come down here last Monday night, kill Splinter Hughes with an ax, rob him, and then go on to Marked Tree? Didn’t you? Of course you won’t own up! I don’t expect you to! But you did just that, and I know you did!
“I’m going to arrest you for the murder of Splinter Hughes — and you’re going to swing for it! How did you get that hole in the right leg of your pants?”
Billings fumbled the hole with trembling fingers. “I... I don’t rightly remember,” he stammered. “I jist got it thar, somehow or ernother—”
“You got it when Hughes’s hound attacked you in the cabin, after you had struck down his master!” Lundsford shouted. “That’s how you got it—”
“No sich a dang thing!”
The interruption came clear and emphatic, startling the group and causing Lundsford to wheel toward the speaker, astonished, his manner threatening.
It was “Coonskin” Barnes, a grizzled swamper, who spoke. He gave Lundsford look for look, advancing until he stood well within the circle formed about the sheriff.
“Shut up, you!” Lundsford bawled. “When I want anything out of you, I’ll let you know!”
“Reckon you’d better do a little shuttin’ up yoreself, Lundsford,” the old trapper retorted, calm and unimpressed. “You aim to fasten thishere crime on Nate Billings, as squar’ a man as ever run a trap-line or drawed a net.
“You-all ain’t keerin’ much, one way or ernother, whether he air th’ guilty one or not. All you-all wants is somebody to put your dang handcuffs on and throw in th’ calaboose. Well, mark me, you ain’t goin’ to take Nate Billings outten this swamp for somethin’ he didn’t do!”
Lundsford, almost speechless, finally recovered sufficiently to speak after a fashion. “What... what do you know about this matter?” he demanded, his voice thick.
“I knows how Nate cum by that hole in his pants leg,” the old man replied. “I remembers, even if he don’t. He got it frum snaggin’ it on a limb when him an’ me cut a bee-tree, a month ago. Scratched his hide a little, too. Tore out a piece of th’ cloth. Anybody but a dang nincompoop could tell that’s an old tear, an’ not one made a few days ago.”
“You tell him, Coonskin!” a native called.
“L’arn him how to be a sheriff!”
“We-all air with you, Coonskin!”
Clearly, Coonskin had many backers. Lundsford and his deputies began to show distinct signs of uneasiness.
“Fuddermo’,” Coonskin went on, “Nate couldn’t of kilt Splinter, an’ fur this reason: He went down to Marked Tree on Monday mornin’, as a dozen men here will swear. They seed him thar, an’ whilst he war on his way.”
“Shore did!”
“I seed him! Went down frum th’ mouth of Caney with him!”
“I knows he war thar!”
Many testified thus. Lundsford was not now nearly so confident as he had been. His deputies began to draw closer to him, as though expecting trouble — as well they might, should the sheriff persist in his former tactics.