by Jerry eBooks
“That’s it exactly,” said Sin, jumping up and down with excitement. “We know where to start—Walking Skull. We heard Barselou say so! And we’ve got a third copy of the combination—me.” Sin pointed a proud forefinger at herself.
John Henry was disgusted. “Don’t be silly. You’ve said it once. Now it’s gone. Why should that list of numbers stick with you?”
“Because,” Sin explained, “they don’t make sense! Just to prove it, here’s the first two directions. R dash one. L dash three.” Her words tumbled over one another. “I know I can remember it, Johnny. It doesn’t have any order and I can remember it perfectly. I knew it at the ranch, but I didn’t want to tell you then for fear you’d want to go after the Queen by yourself. But now we’ve got help. And Johnny, honest—I can’t get the dam thing out of my head!”
“It’d be too dangerous for you, Sin.” She put her arms around him. “I don’t want to go to jail and I don’t want you to, either. This way we won’t have to, honey. Because Jones will be at the Queen”
John Henry felt the tempting excitement begin to bubble inside him again. “I wouldn’t mind running into the guy responsible for all this, at that.”
Triumphantly, Sin turned to the wizened agent in the sedan.
“How about it, Mr. Trim? What do you say?”
Trim opened the glove compartment and took out a heavy service automatic, checked the magazine. He shoved the gun at John Henry, butt foremost.
He said, “Stick close to your wife then, and come along. This may be the bag of the year or it may be a wild-goose chase. I guarantee it won’t be any picnic.”
IX
A TAN-SHIRTED cop pounded loudly on the door to Cottage fourteen. Then he opened the door and motioned Thelma Loomis into the room ahead of himself and his companion.
Every light in the cottage had been turned on and the air was hazy with cigarette smoke. The desk, the wastebasket and the area around the doorknobs had been dusted with a gray powder. Near the desk, the carpet bore the dark oval of dried blood.
“Wait here,” the policeman said, and went into the bedroom.
Miss Loomis was lighting a cigarette with a steady hand when Lieutenant Lay came in from the bedroom. In his horse face were tired lines. He needed a shave.
“Thelma Loomis?” he asked heavily.
She nodded. Lay motioned at a chair and sank into the one opposite. His eyes studied her keenly.
“That your real name?” Lay asked suddenly.
“It’s my real name.”
Lay nodded. He pulled a brown imitation-leather notebook from his inside coat pocket and flipped a couple of pages.
“You work for Fan Fare. Campbell Publications.
“That’s right.”
Lay shook his head. “That’s wrong. We checked with Campbell Publications. Want to see the wire we got back?”
Thelma Loomis grinned. “Never mind.”
“Okay, then. Suppose you tell me who and what you really are, Miss Loomis.”
She took another slow drag on the cigarette. “If you want to know what I really am, check the Castle-Scudder Detective Agency in L.A. They’ll tell you. So should this.”
He looked at the plastic-sealed card in her wallet and handed it back. “Private cop, huh? Let’s have the whole story.”
“It’s nothing you haven’t heard before. Errant-husband stuff.”
“Who’s the victim?”
“Sagmon Robottom. Myra’s not the gal to take that sort of thing lying down.”
“Jealous?”
“Sagmon’s quite a hand with the girls. Myra’s tired of it. Last week Sagmon dashed down here without explaining and Myra’s sure there’s another woman involved. If there’s to be a divorce it’s to be Myra who gets it. So here I am.”
“What have you got?”
“Nothing that’ll stand up in court—yet. But there’s a gal here at the hotel, name of Faye Jordan, that Glamour Boy thinks is hot stuff. She’s playing him on a line right now.”
“Women!” said Lieutenant Lay scathingly.
“I was looking for Robottom when your men put the arm on me. It’s my guess that he’s off somewhere with the Jordan dame. Now that I’ve shot square with you, Lieutenant, how about letting me go back to work?”
Lay smiled bitterly. “You’re about as square as a tennis ball—all you private cops. But go ahead, get back to your keyhole. And since you’re looking for Robottom—” He paused tantalizingly. “He grabbed a taxi this evening and said something about going out to the Bar C Ranch.”
TRIM turned off the car lights. Then they rolled slowly toward the Bar C Ranch. The low ranchhouse showed no lights.
“Looks like Faye’s still here,” Sin said, from the back seat. The Mercury stood before the house.
Trim coaxed the sedan to a quiet halt. “Still want to go through with it?” he inquired.
“Sure,” Sin said.
They got out. Trim led the way to the stable.
“Now,” he began, “if we can—” Something white fluttered in the gap between the sliding doors of the stable.
“Everybody just stand where they are,” Odell said, “and don’t make any sudden moves.”
He came plodding from the dark slot, the barrel of his .32 shiny over his fist.
“Imagine,” Odell said pleasantly. “Mr. and Mrs. Conover, back again. “Who’s this?” He swung the revolver toward the little man.
“My name is Trim.”
“Where’s Barselou?” John Henry asked. “There’s some questions—”
“Forget it. But let me tell you, Junior, I’m mighty happy you got back before he did.”
Odell gestured with the gun. “Okay, turn around and put your hands on the back of your head. Now start walking.”
The three began to walk slowly back across the moonlit yard. Nearly to the ranchhouse, Sin couldn’t hear any footsteps behind them. She wondered if she dared peek around. She lowered her hands cautiously, braced for a possible blow.
Nothing happened. Emboldened, she looked back. Then she whirled, grabbing at the two men.
“Look!” she cried. “There’s no one following us!”
“Where’d he go?” asked John Henry, astonished.
“Let’s get out of here before he comes back!”
Trim’s arm clutched her, held her back. “Don’t worry, Mrs. Conover. He’s not coming back.”
His finger pointed. Just outside the stable’s square shadow was a mound of dark and white. Something like a furled pennant stuck up from the furled figure.
John Henry ran toward it. Trim and Sin followed. Trim’s humpty-dumpty face was grave in the moonlight.
“Dead,” he said quietly.
“But how did it happen—no noise—” Sin gulped.
“He was hit in the neck by an arrow. Death must have been almost instantaneous.”
“Where—who could have shot the arrow?” Sin asked.
“There’s an archery range around at the other side of the house,” John Henry said.
“That’s where it came from, then,” Trim ruminated. “Want to take a look?”
“Let’s get away from here,” Sin quavered.
The three hurried back to the stables. Horses were quickly saddled. They swung silently onto their mounts and moved out into the moonlit yard, the erect little pirate leading. The crunch of hoofs on the sandy ground was the only sound. . . .
“This is Walking Skull,” said Trim. “And that’s the start of the Badlands.”
He gestured into the night. Walking Skull was a rough bowl-shaped depression in the desert, littered with huge boulders and dotted with a few stunted palms. Trim explained that a weathered skeleton had been found leaning against one of the rocks years before, looking as if it were still trying to take the few steps that separated it from the water-hole. The skull had never been discovered.
“The legend is that the skull still roams these parts at night searching for water.”
To the south and to t
he west, the smooth desert had been carved into a twisted labyrinth of narrow, deep canyons, writhing and losing themselves in the night shadows. A single canyon cracked the side of the rough bowl on the southwestern edge.
“I can see why you’d need a combination to find your shadow in a place like this,” John Henry observed.
“That one canyon that cuts into Walking Skull—that must be the starting point. From then on it’s up to your wife.”
“How about it, Sin? What’s the first move?”
“R dash one,” she announced triumphantly.
Trim nudged his horse forward and the Conovers followed. “We turn right at the first cross-canyon. You still agree?” Trim asked.
The Conovers agreed. The dark jagged walls rose higher and higher on both sides. They rode down an incline until the sky was a crooked slit of pale blue overhead, then the canyon floor leveled somewhat.
“Here we are,” Trim announced. “I’m turning right.”
The little man reined into the first side canyon. The floor was sand and smooth stones. At the sides leaned great sheets of shale that had evidently crashed down from above.
“Can you see Barselou’s tracks?” Sin called.
“I can’t see much of anything,” Trim replied cheerfully. “But three horses kick things around more than one.
What’s the next turn, Mrs. Conover?”
“Left three . . .”
THELMA LOOMIS turned her spotlight upon the timber archway and read the twig letters.
Then she clicked off the spot and urged the car up the curved driveway. The Bar C Ranch house was dark, a somber bulk in silver moonlight. She braked the automobile in front of the door. On the parking lot were two cars—a convertible coupe and a gray sedan.
From her big purse she dug out a snub-nosed revolver. Expertly, she flipped the cylinder out and examined the shiny brass shells. Satisfied, she eased out of the car.
Ignoring the brass knocker, she punched the button beside the door and stood listening to the distant loneliness of chimes. When the last tone had died, she tried the latch. The heavy door swung away from her on oiled hinges. Her flashlight cut a round hole into the blackness beyond. Lightly, she stepped after it and closed the door behind her. . . .
John Henry squinted at the luminous dial of his wrist watch. It was nearly four hours since they’d left the Bar C Ranch. The moon was directly overhead now, melting the shadows at the bottom of the tortuous canyons.
Trim halted his horse and said, “No talking, please. If Barselou hears us—”
“You do think we must be nearly there, don’t you, Mr. Trim?” Sin asked anxiously.
The Federal agent was indefatigable. He sat erect and alert in the saddle, apparently as fresh as when they had ridden away from the ranchhouse. His narrow shoulders shrugged under the blue buccaneer coat.
“I hope you can answer that better than I can, Mrs. Conover. How many more numbers are there?”
Sin pushed her eyes shut. She felt wrung dry. “I don’t know,” she confessed finally. “Two or three, I guess. They just seem to come one at a time.” Trim grinned encouragement. “Didn’t mean to hound you. I keep worrying over what the office would say if they could see me now. What’s next?”
“Right one,” Sin replied automatically.
Trim began to move toward the next gap in the high stone corridor. The Conovers trailed after him.
Trim tilted his pug nose upward, sniffing. Sin whispered, “What is it?”
“We’re getting close,” Trim muttered. “I caught a whiff of smoke just then. Campfire.”
“Barselou
“Maybe. Or Mr. Jones.” The FBI man straightened in his saddle. “What’s the next one, Mrs. Conover?”
The number seemed to elude her. “Left—left—two,” she said doubtfully.
They passed the first gray mouth of a canyon on the left. Sin caught the scent of burning wood. Despite the danger, the familiar fragrance abated her nervousness. There was other human life in all this desolation.
She frowned suddenly. They had passed the second left-hand canyon. Sin called after the little pirate softly.
“You’ve made a mistake. We passed the second canyon just then.”
“Oh, that,” deprecated Trim. “You were the one who made the mistake. Your memory’s phenomenal, Mrs. Conover. But that last direction should be ‘left three,’ not ‘left two.’ ”
He opened his fist. Lying in the palm was a strip of oiled paper, a narrow curling strip of directions which began, R-1, L-3, R-2. . . .
Sin’s lips moved but no sound came out. John Henry’s mouth hung open loosely.
Trim plucked the wooden pistol from his belt. He let John Henry stare at the cork on a string that was stuck in the muzzle.
“Please be sensible, both of you. The cork is laughable but it comes out—followed by a very real bullet.”
John Henry croaked, “Mr. Jones, I presume?”
NOT a soul was in the house. Thelma Loomis was ready to stake her professional reputation on that.
But somewhere there had to be people. The evidence of the two cars pointed that way. Of course, Lieutenant Lay might have been wrong about Robottom. Or he was the kind of guy who’d think he was funny.
She opened the back door, let herself out into a little patio and headed for the higher boxlike building a hundred yards away. Suddenly, she stopped short, her hand fumbling for the revolver. Something dark huddled on the ground, something that might have been a man. A darker blob crouched beside it.
“Good God!” she ejaculated. The second shadow had moved. Thelma Loomis was staring at a huge cat, its ears erect, its eyes gleaming brightly at her. She tried to level the muzzle of her .32 at the giant animal.
“You nearly surprised me,” the cat purred. “Not quite. Nearly.”
Miss Loomis forced her legs to carry her up to the cat.
“Nice kitty,” she said unsteadily. The cat stood up and stretched.
Moonlight poured over the face of Faye Jordan and the blonde woman began to understand the cat disguise. She had forgotten that she, too, was in costume, the blue uniform of a policeman.
“You’re a policeman,” Faye Jordan remarked.
“That’s right.” Thelma Loomis felt her smile slackening as she scanned the unmoving shadow, with professional interest. “You certainly surprised me. Both of you.”
“It’s pretty fur, don’t you think?” Faye said and preened her costume contentedly. “It zips down the back so I can get out. But I don’t want to get out. I want to wear it all the time.”
The other woman kneeled on the sandy ground and looked at the man huddled there. He was short and plump and dead. From the back of his neck the feather-tipped shaft of a long arrow protruded. He had been dead for some time, she decided.
“Who’s this?” he asked.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Faye said. “I don’t think we’ve ever met.”
“Who killed him?”
“I did,” the girl said carelessly. Thelma Loomis got up slowly, the revolver ready. “I have claws. Not everyone has claws as sharp as mine.” The girl crooked her mittened hands and scratched languorously in the air.
The blonde inspected the too-bright eyes, the vacuous pretty face.
“Why?” she asked softly.
Faye Jordan looked reproachful. “I hope you’re not going to ask all those questions, too.”
“Who else asked you questions?”
The girl assumed a mysterious expression and prowled away toward the stable. Thelma Loomis followed her into the shadows, gun in hand.
Faye was swinging gaily on the wooden gate to one of the stalls. Miss Loomis lanced the gloom with her flashlight. On the straw of the stall lay a man with arms and legs limply extended. The dark hawk face was relaxed. The man’s head was lop-sided with swelling under one half of the mussed silver hair. By Sagmon Robottom’s ear rested a stirrup iron.
“What happened here?” the blonde asked gently. Robottom’s chest rose
and sank regularly and an eyelid twitched.
“He didn’t believe I was a cat.” Faye’s mouth contracted viciously. “I think he said I mustn’t use my claws. I don’t like people who order me around.”
“Would you like to go for a ride?” Thelma Loomis suggested soothingly. “Just the three of us. I know somebody you’d like to talk to, Faye. A man.”
“Oh, that’s a good idea,” Faye said excitedly. “I like to talk to men!”
MR. TRIM howled with laughter. But the sound was thin, not carrying far. Though his merriment was deep, neither his eyes nor his disguised pistol wavered from the Conovers.
“Shock can certainly produce a variety of comical expressions,” Trim said with a final chuckle. “And yours rank with the finest in my collection. First, however—” his voice turned sharper “—gently toss that forty-five back to me, Conover. Not that I trusted you with a loaded gun—but you might be tempted to club me with it.”
Carefully, John Henry lobbed the automatic to the other man. Trim pounded his wooden pistol down sharply on the saddle-horn. The painted shell shattered. He peeled the broken pieces from around a short black revolver.
“No need for masquerade any longer, is there?” he commented.
Sin finally found a tremulous voice. “Then you’re not a G-man; at all?” Trim shook his head. “Let’s say that I’m really—” he touched the cocked hat with a flourish of his weapon “—a pirate. That’s closer to the truth than my other personalities.”
“Just one thing I want to know,” said John Henry. “Then I’ll shut up.
Where did you have that combination? We searched you.”
Trim chuckled. “My dentures are false. No one thinks of that. Whoever heard of owning a set of false teeth that look worse than real ones? Everybody assumes that they must be natural—but they’re false.” He peered to see the Conovers’ chagrin. “Enjoy the joke,” he commanded. “Others among my foes have been fooled and appreciated it.”
“Mr. Trim,” said John Henry earnestly. “We are not your foes. From the beginning, we’ve only—”
“No,” said Sin.
“Nonsense. You’ve been a complication since Saturday night. It was an accident that Barselou learned we were in that game at all. But then to have you gullible innocents mistaken for us—I call that highly amusing.”