Blood on Lake Louisa

by Baynard H. Kendrick

  Tim felt certain, after a time, that he was being followed. He had seen another boat on Lake Louisa on one of his nocturnal visits. He even went so far as to search Bartlett’s house, but the operator had hidden his boat, and guns, too cleverly. The engraver’s suspicions of Bartlett turned to certainty on the night I was attacked in my room.

  It was Ed Brown who had knocked me over the head, and Tim was the man I heard downstairs in the hall. The Deputy had told Tim that the Miami Floridians were incriminating. They had to be recovered. He had made Tim meet him at my house, to keep watch while Ed searched my room. The whole plan nearly went wrong, for Bartlett followed the watchmaker into town. Tim, on the lookout, saw him outside of my house. In his haste to get upstairs to warn Ed he stumbled over the hall rug.

  “Did you know who killed Mr. Mitchell, and Red?” Crossley asked him.

  “I was almost certain. I tried to believe he hadn’t. He said he was going to fix the cistern so no more people would monkey around it. He put those snakes in it after Mitchell was killed. They always frightened me, but he wasn’t scared of them. He knew a small island in the Manasaw River that was lousy with rattlers—he got them there. He used my boat all the time. Had it the afternoon Red was killed. He got afraid of me finally. I knew too much. He was afraid I’d talk. I knew he would get me some—“ His voice trailed away.

  After a while Marvin asked him: “Those Miami papers, Tim? Salmon left those there, didn’t he?”

  “Yeah, that’s right. Salmon was paying graft to Ed for protection. They used to meet once a month in that old house. Ed was wild because those papers were left there. He was afraid of Salmon, though. The only thing he was ever afraid of at—“ He stopped again. His pulse grew weak. I gave him a stimulant, and he brightened visibly. “Did you get up the chimney when you were in the cistern?” he asked.

  “I was in it, but it was dark,” Marvin told him.

  “You can see into the back room of the house from there—if there is a light in the room. Ed fixed up an old shotgun trap he found in it. The gun could be fixed in the chimney so the muzzle stuck in a hole at the back of the fireplace. You could fire it from the room by kicking the baseboard at the right end of the mantelpiece. It only moved a quarter of an inch—but it was pretty deadly. When you kicked the board it released a snaphook, and dropped a sash weight. The weight was fastened on to the triggers with Ashing lines that ran through a pulley. I’ve tried it with the gun unloaded. It would fire both barrels every time. Ed wasn’t taking any chances with Salmon. He used to stand in the corner of the room by the window, and talk to Salmon while Salmon sat in the chair in front of the fireplace. If Red had made a move to reach for a gun—I guess that sawed-off twelve gauge would have sprayed up the place pretty thoroughly.

  “I’m getting a bit tired, Doctor. Ed let me walk into that raid last night. He’d have found a way to kill me if he’d been along with you—did anyhow for that matter. I’m glad Cass got him! I thought Bartlett was in jail— that was a lousy stunt to pull on me, Pete. I’d been looking for a chance to get my plates and bills out of there. He stuck too close to me. He’d never have found that place by himself. He told me this morning. He was scared, himself, when he heard you two hammering on that door.” Tim laughed weakly. “I’d have been scared, too, if I’d found you in there. You’d have probably shot me—I guess Ed figured on something like that when he shut you in— I’m pretty tired—“ I gave the nurse some instructions, and we left him. He died a few hours later.

  We walked to the Court House with Pete. When we had seated ourselves, the officer looked at the big safe. “He must have taken those papers from there right after I put them in.”

  “Undoubtedly.” Marvin lit a cigarette. “It wasn’t so clever. It connected him up with things by one more link. I was suspicious that Salmon was paying graft to somebody. I finally wormed it out of Cass. But he didn’t know who it was.”

  “Was that what he was figuring up on the Floridian?”

  “Sure.” Marvin consulted his notebook. “The first column was the amount he had sold in eight months, the second column his expenses, the last column his graft to Ed. He was getting sore over how little money he was making. It’s a good bet anyhow. Ed wanted the papers badly enough. He must have been wild when you had them, and he couldn’t ask for them without throwing suspicion on himself if they vanished. He evidently dusted for the jail after he had socked you on the head in your room, and arrived there just in time to have Pomeroy tell him about Celia’s phone call. With his usual gall he went back to talk to you himself.”

  “You actually suspected Ed then?” the Sheriff inquired rather unbelievingly.

  “Suspected him? I was sure of him a dozen times—but it would not tie up for me. I couldn’t dope out that shooting at Doc. But I was certain he was mixed up in this after he described so accurately to Doc how to get out to Salmon’s by boat.”

  “You mean when we were rowing home from the Simmons house?” I put in.

  “Yes. He told you in detail the exact distance to the place on Tiger Creek, the distance it was below the shack, and how long it took to go upstream and down. It was plain as day to me—he’d been there! He told you that on Tuesday morning. Salmon was killed Sunday afternoon, and we didn’t get back to town until Monday noon. And don’t forget this—“ He pointed a finger for emphasis. “The Sheriff’s office didn’t even know where Salmon was on Sunday evening—for Pete and Luke Pomeroy had to follow us out to find him. Right, Pete?”

  “Absolutely! I can confirm it further, too. Ed was on duty in the jail Monday while Luke was away—”

  “But what was all your raving about the missing buckshot?” I asked.

  “You gave me the real tip-off on that, Doc. Coming home night before last, right after we had seen those two Government men in the rowboat, you made a remark about the shot vanishing into thin air. It kept running through my mind. People don’t use muzzle loaders today. I was certain there were twenty-four pellets in those two loads. I had found only nineteen holes. The others weren’t in the room. They weren’t in the hall. I decided the shot must have vanished into thin air—through the front door that Ed left open when he followed you into the back room! It had to be right. From then on I knew. Nobody had shot at you through the window in the corner. It was absolutely impossible! Guns don’t have rubber barrels that can fire shot at right angles. The shots must have come from some place directly opposite the entrance to the hall. A sawed-off shotgun throws a wide fan of shot. Nineteen struck the wall and left holes. The other five would have hit the front door if it was closed.”

  “So he just rolled me over in that corner, kicked the panel with his foot, and fired the gun concealed in the fireplace to make an alibi for himself. Then nobody was watching me at all.”

  “Certainly. Ed was watching you himself, through the hole in the fireplace. He wasn’t six feet from you when you picked up the papers the first time. He probably debated whether or not it would be the best plan to dispose of you then and there—”

  “You make it sound very cheery, and make me feel like an awful fool. Imagine my falling for that stuff about the man running away through the grove—”

  “We fell for it as much as you. Anybody in the world would have done the same, Doc.” Pete assured me. “What about me, with the son-of-a-gun right under my nose all the time.”

  Marvin rose. “He made several errors. First: planting Mitchell’s watch in Salmon’s shack. It threw too much of a spotlight on the jewelry store. Second: Putting that wood on the fire when he was out there. It eliminated too many people. Third: Talking too much, and trying to throw suspicion on a man with my brains. He would have gotten away last night if I hadn’t told Cass not to let him out of his sight. He nearly gave Cass the slip by finding that canvas boat as it was. We will now go over to the Southern Hotel where the Sheriff’s office can buy me a lunch.”

  The only two men who could have told us about Mitchell’s death were dead. Marvin believes that Bess d
iscovered the cistern while Ed was in it, and that the Deputy had shot the dog first. The enraged owner was then killed in an altercation. Pete thinks, and I am inclined to agree with him, that the banker was killed, coldly and deliberately, rather than have the plant revealed to the authorities. We all agree that Mitchell was shot close to the entrance, and carried away from the trapdoor down to the edge of the lake.

  Ed’s agent in Miami was arrested by the Secret Service shortly afterward. He revealed that the Deputy had three bank accounts in Miami under different names. A safe deposit box was also uncovered. It contained three thousand dollars in good money.

  It really was Bartlett with whom Mitchell had talked on the train. The banker had gone to Jacksonville with specimens of bills received at the bank. He had reported the matter to Gordon, the U.S. Marshal. Bartlett happened to be in the city at the time, and took over the assignment. He had ridden down with Mitchell to Orange Crest to get all the details, and gone on through to Tampa himself. The long trail had led him to the race tracks at Miami, and back up to our town where the case was closed.

  Nothing much has happened since I started to write my story. Celia’s wedding to Marvin has gone in a blaze of orange blossoms. They have settled down to the happy life of Orange Crest. The fishing is still good in Lake Louisa. The hard roads have not found it yet. I hope they never will.

  It was a long time before I could get Buddy to row for me again. Sometimes, when he is paddling quietly down the shore in the moonlight, a tear rolls down his black cheek. I look out at the center of the lake expecting to see a phantom boat running crazily in a circle. I strain my ears to hear the single crack of a rifle, and the long drawn cry of the hoot owl. There is nothing there, of course, except peace and quiet, and the sharp clean smell of the pine trees.

  THE END

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