The Fortune Hunters

by J. T. Edson

  One of Joan’s hands struck against something as it fumbled on the floor. Without looking, she raised the hand and felt at the thing, recognising the touch of human flesh. Lifting her head with an effort, she looked along her arms which extended before her. Something glinted on one hand, but she felt too exhausted to look what it might be. It took all Joan’s will-power to keep her head up and examine the thing her hand rested on. Her eyes took in a shapely leg with a tattered stocking hanging below its knee and a garter making a slash of colour against the white flesh of the thigh. A second leg bent up in the air beyond the first, one which was bare and had a dull, rusty red streak running down its calf.

  ‘She must have collapsed as soon as she finished me off,’ Joan thought with relief. ‘That explains why she didn’t scratch my eyes out.’

  Slowly Joan’s eyes went along the legs to where they emerged from the torn black skirt. Passing the skirt, she looked along Marlene’s dirty, bruised torso, over the rich full breasts towards the throat, then jerked back towards the breasts again. Something rose from under the left breast—it took Joan only a moment to recognise that something for what it was.

  ‘Oh, my god!’ she gasped.

  Weakly she forced herself to her feet, never taking her eyes from the knife hilt which rose under Marlene’s left breast. Turning, Joan stumbled blindly across the room and to the door. After tugging at the knob for a few seconds, Joan remembered Marlene had locked them in on entering. Her fingers did not seem able to obey the dictates of her mind, but she managed to turn the key at last and open the door.

  The hall outside lay dark and still. Joan did not know which way to go or what to do. At first she thought of flight, leaving the house and fleeing before she could be blamed for the killing. Common sense came to her aid, she would not make half a mile in her present condition; half naked, bare footed and battered so badly.

  Turning, she made her way to the stairs and dragged herself up them. Only one man could save her, prove that she had not killed Marlene. Joan could barely stand, her lungs seemed ready to burst as she staggered to and opened the door of the Texans’ room.

  Always a light sleeper, the Kid woke as the door opened, reaching a hand to the lamp by the bed and turning up its wick to flood the room with light.

  ‘What the hell!’ he growled.

  The other three were awake by that time and every eye went to the shape at the door. There was no time to think of personal modesty, or the proprieties of allowing a woman to see them undressed. All four men swung from their beds, grabbing and donning their pants with speed.

  ‘It—it’s the Thack—Thackery dame—’ Joan gasped, stumbling forward. ‘We h-had a fight.’

  ‘Looks that way,’ replied the Kid, springing forward to catch her as she collapsed and easing her down on to his bed.

  ‘Go wake Aunt Mamie, Waco!’ Dusty ordered. ‘We’d best get downstairs and see how bad hurt Marlene is.’

  ‘If she’s roughed as bad as Joan, she’s in poor shape,’ Mark replied, pouring water from the jug on the washstand into its bowl. ‘It must have been one hell of a fight.’

  ‘Marlene’s been spoiling for it since they first met,’ the Kid answered.

  ‘Sure,’ agreed Mark. ‘You pair get downstairs. I’ll tend to Joan.’

  Knowing Mark had a considerable knowledge of treating fistfight injuries, Dusty gave his agreement and left the room followed by the Kid. They met Waco and Mamie at the stairhead, the old woman carrying a lamp.

  ‘We didn’t wake Frankie,’ she said. ‘What’s wrong?’

  Mamie Thackery had lived all her life in the West and ignored the state of dress shown by all three men, for she guessed something serious was afoot. She wore a robe over her nightdress and had a sleeping cap on her head, but none of the men even glanced at it.

  ‘There’s been some trouble,’ Dusty replied and led the way downstairs to the library door.

  Entering the room first, Dusty saw enough to tell him there had been bad trouble. Not only were the chairs turned over, the carpets rucked up and the table disarranged, swung at an angle to where it usually stood, but he could see Marlene’s body sprawled on the floor. Dusty saw more than just the body. Enough to make him thrust out an arm and stop the old woman entering the room.

  ‘Stay out there for a moment, Aunt Mamie,’ he ordered.

  ‘What is it, Dusty?’ she replied, but obeyed him.

  ‘Trouble. Lon, go get dressed, and you, boy.’

  Crossing the room, Dusty bent by the woman’s body. He had no eye for her shapely breasts as such for he knew they belonged to a corpse. Dropping a hand, Dusty touched the cold flesh, then he rose and walked across the room, through the door, closing it behind him.

  ‘Lon!’ he called. ‘Saddle up and head for Thackery City. Get the sheriff out here as fast as you can.’

  Not for the first time Dusty felt grateful for having friends who would obey orders without asking any questions. The Kid gave a wave and carried on up the stairs out of sight, Waco on his heels.

  ‘What’s happened, Dustine?’ Mamie asked.

  ‘There’s been a fight. Not just a yelling fight, but cat-clawing. Marlene’s dead,’ Dusty answered, then put out his hand to catch and steady the old woman. ‘Easy there, Aunt Mamie. There’s nothing we can do and I want that room leaving just as it is until the law comes. Where’s the key?’

  Gently he eased Mamie down into a chair and for a moment she made no reply to his question. With an effort Dusty could almost see the old woman take a hold of herself and looked up at him.

  ‘Marlene asked me for it shortly before the party broke up. She said she wanted to sleep downstairs to teach Claude a lesson and didn’t want him coming to her until morning.’

  Turning, Dusty opened the door, he found the key in the lock, removed it and closed the door to lock it from the outside. Then he turned to the old woman and laid a hand gently on her shoulder.

  ‘Did—did Joan kill her?’ Mamie asked.

  ‘It looks that way,’ Dusty replied.

  ‘Why? For the money?’

  ‘They’d been fighting, a hell of a fight, not just a slap, hair-yank and run away crying brawl. Maybe Joan struck out in self-defence, she was a lot lighter than Marlene.’

  ‘I liked Joan. She was so friendly—’

  ‘Sure,’ Dusty answered. ‘Do you reckon we’d best wake Claude?’

  ‘I don’t think we could, not with the amount he drank during the evening.’

  Before either could say more, the Kid and Waco came clattering down the stairs, both fully dressed and armed, Waco carrying Dusty’s shirt, socks and boots.

  ‘Tell Lon how to find Thackery City, Aunt Mamie,’ Dusty ordered, taking the shirt and drawing it on.

  ‘Just follow the trail to the east, Lon,’ she explained. ‘Sheriff Topham lives in a white frame house on the edge of town as you go in.’

  ‘Yo!’ replied the Kid and left the house.

  ‘Mark sent this down, Dusty,’ Waco said and dropped a ring into the small Texan’s palm.

  ‘It’s the one Marlene bought in Mulrooney,’ Dusty snapped. ‘Where did you get it, boy?’

  ‘Mark took it from Joan’s finger just now.’

  CHAPTER NINE

  DEATH IN A LOCKED ROOM—TWICE

  ‘IT looks like an open and shut case to me,’ Sheriff Brendan Topham announced judicially as he followed Dusty Fog from the library to face Mamie and Dusty’s three amigos.

  The time was half past four in the morning and Topham had just completed examining Marlene Thackery’s body and the library. Topham was a tall, thin, miserable looking man, poorly dressed and not too bright. However, he came cheap and this had been the main reason for the county commissioners hiring him; Elmo Thackery ran the county commissioners with his usual tight-fisted regard for money.

  ‘Does, huh?’ grunted the Ysabel Kid.

  Always a great one for first impressions, the Kid did not possess a high regard for the sheriff on their first
meeting and nothing seen so far caused him to revise his opinion.

  ‘Sure, that dancehall gal knifed Mrs. Thackery—’

  ‘Who said Joan was a dancehall girl?’ Dusty put in.

  ‘I heard Elmo tell about her when he come back from that trail drive. Reckon I’ll go upstairs and haul her off to jail.’

  ‘Just like that?’ Mark growled.

  ‘How’d you mean, young feller?’ Topham answered. ‘She killed Mrs. Th—’

  ‘And you stood by and let her?’

  Eyeing Mark for a long moment while he thought over the meaning of the big Texan’s words, Topham finally gave it up.

  ‘How’d mean? I wasn’t there to stop it.’

  ‘Then how’d you know Joan did it?’ Mark asked. ‘I always heard that folks were considered innocent until proven guilty.’

  ‘What’s wrong down there?’ asked Jennie from the head of the stairs.

  ‘Nothing you can help with,’ Dusty replied. ‘Go back to bed.’

  Ignoring Dusty’s words, the girl came downstairs and looked at the library door. Then she turned her pallid face to Dusty.

  ‘There’s something happened. In that room. I knew there would be trouble when they locked the door after them.’

  ‘Who?’ Dusty asked.

  ‘Aunt Marlene and Miss Shandley. They went into the library after the party ended. Aunt Marlene sent Francine and I to bed. I heard the lock click as I went upstairs. What’s happened, Dustine?’

  A triumphant leer came to Topham’s face as he heard Jennie’s words and read the meaning behind them. One of the first things he did when entering the library was to check that all the windows remained fastened on the inside.

  ‘It looks like we got an open and shut case again,’ he said.

  ‘Dustine!’ Jennie’s voice raised a trifle. ‘What has happened?’

  ‘You’d best tell her, Aunt Mamie,’ Dusty answered, then turned to Topham. ‘Let’s go hear what Joan has to say before you toss her in jail.’

  Although he would have preferred to question Joan privately, Topham found the four Texans on his heels as he entered her room, where Mark had carried her after cleaning her wounds. Joan woke as the Kid lit the lamp, and stared around her. Seeing the sheriff’s badge, cold fear hit her and she wanted to scream her innocence even though he, from his appearance, would not believe her.

  ‘I’m taking you in for murder,’ Topham announced with relish.

  There had never been a murder while he held office and this one looked like it ought to attract attention even in the East. Topham had heard that Eastern newspapermen sometimes bought stories from Western lawmen and he could always use money, for the county did not pay him very well.

  ‘She’s not being moved,’ Mark put in quietly.

  ‘Now look here, young feller—’ Topham began.

  ‘Suppose we hear Joan’s story first,’ Dusty interrupted.

  ‘Knowed a sheriff once, he had him what looked like a certain suspect to a crime. Was so sure about it he arrested the man and sent him for trial. Only trouble then was that the man proved his innocence and sued the county for false arrest. He won his case and the county got itself a new sheriff.’

  Apparently Topham had enough sense to work out the moral of Dusty’s story. While he might understand it, Topham did not like it. Scowling at the four Texans, he hoped to send them from the room while the girl said her piece.

  Speaking slowly and weakly, Joan told the sheriff and cowhands—who had not taken Topham’s hint—of the fight and what led up to it. She felt scared, for she knew no small town jury would believe her story and would find her guilty. A saloongirl would have no chance at all in a place like Thackery City.

  ‘You say you thought you’d knocked her cold?’ Dusty asked at the end of Joan’s story. ‘You were kneeling astride her, banging her head on the floor. Then she hit you over the head and when you recovered she had the knife in her.’

  ‘It’s the truth, Dusty!’ Joan gasped. ‘May I never move from here if it’s not. I didn’t kill her.’

  ‘Open and shut case,’ grunted Topham. ‘That door was locked on the inside. Only the two of ‘em in the room. She had to be the one who done it.’

  ‘Did she?’

  Once more Topham looked hard at Mark as the blond giant asked a question.

  ‘Who else could have?’

  ‘You’ve a real good point there, sheriff,’ drawled Mark. ‘Only Joan couldn’t have done it. You take a look on the top of her head. There’s a helluva lump on it. Happen she caught a crack hard enough to raise that she wouldn’t be doing anything for a fair time.’

  ‘Mrs. Thackery hit her!’ Topham answered.

  ‘You saw that wound,’ Dusty put in. ‘Straight to the heart. Are you telling me that Marlene Thackery picked up that chair leg that was beside her, hit Joan with it, after she was knifed?’

  ‘How many men have you killed with a knife, sheriff?’ asked the Kid.

  ‘What—how many—none!’

  ‘I have, a few, and I’ll tell you one thing for sure. Whoever used that knife’d get splashed with blood. On the hand holding the knife for certain, maybe on the chest. Blood’d spurt out of the wound, even with the knife in it.’

  ‘And there was no blood on Joan’s hands or body, not enough for that,’ Mark went on. ‘But you’ll have to take my word for that. I cleaned her up.’

  ‘Why’d you do that?’ snapped Topham suspiciously.

  ‘Because I didn’t know there’d been a killing when I started to clean her. By the time I heard it was too late. Just take a look at the lump on Joan’s head.’

  Grudgingly, Topham bent forward and Joan lowered her head. Even through the tangled hair, the lump showed plainly. From its appearance, Joan had taken a hard enough knock to render her unconscious for some time. Yet Topham still sought for excuses, not wanting to let a promising case slip through his fingers, nor have it become so complicated that he would never solve it.

  ‘Maybe she fell d—’ he began.

  ‘How’d she do that?’ Waco asked. ‘Stand on the table and dive head first?’

  ‘Or put her head down and charge at the wall like a big-horn ram fighting for a lil gal sheep?’ drawled the Kid mildly, which in his case sounded more sarcastic than if he had sneered the words out.

  From the position on her head, Joan would have been unable to deliver such a blow as needed to raise that bump. Topham saw this, after it had been pointed out forcibly to him.

  ‘She has to be the one—’ he groaned.

  ‘Happen you feel that way,’ Dusty said. ‘I’ll go wake Frank Gaunt and ask him to act for Miss Shandley.’

  The mention of Gaunt’s name brought a sudden change in Topham’s attitude. All too well the sheriff knew Gaunt’s legal reputation, and he had no wish to endanger his case against Joan by making trouble for her lawyer.

  ‘Naw, I’ll leave it lie until morning,’ he started. ‘Don’t go disturbing Mr. Gaunt’s sleep.’

  ‘Then let’s get out of here and let Miss Joan get some sleep,’ Dusty suggested. ‘She won’t try to escape.’

  It never occurred to Mark, the Kid and Waco to disobey any order—for order and not suggestion it had been—Dusty gave. They left the room and the sheriff went along with them.

  ‘Whyn’t you mention the ring, Dusty?’ Mark asked as they followed the other men to the stairhead.

  ‘Then he’d be sure Joan killed Marlene.’

  ‘He’s sure now.’

  ‘Yep. But that’d give him a stronger motive. We know Joan, Mark. She might get into a fight with Marlene, if Marlene pushed her and I reckon, she did. But she wouldn’t kill and she wouldn’t steal the ring. Even if she stole it, Joan’d be a damned sight too smart to wear it.’

  ‘You’re the boss,’ Mark drawled. ‘I’ll go along with you about Joan not stealing it. Only how the hell did all this happen? I mean, if Joan didn’t kill Marlene, who did?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  On their
way down to the ground floor, the men met Mamie and Jennie who were on their way to bed. Dusty stopped the women, seeing that Jennie did not appear to be unduly worried by her aunt’s death.

  ‘Will you come down with us, Aunt Mamie?’ he asked. ‘We’d like to look around the room. I’ve had M—the body covered with a sheet.’

  ‘I’ll come,’ Mamie replied.

  ‘So will I,’ Jennie went on. ‘Don’t worry, Dustine. I can face it. I know I may seem callous, but I didn’t know Aunt Marlene very well and doubt if we would ever have become friends.’

  ‘Sure,’ Dusty answered, watching the girl’s face. ‘You know the house better than anybody other than Aunt Mamie, so you may be able to help us.’

  In the room, Dusty set his pards searching, checking that the windows’ fastenings did their work properly. He asked Jennie if she was sure about hearing the lock click and she stated firmly that she had heard it.

  ‘Nothing, Dusty,’ Mark said at last. ‘Every window’s held firm from inside.’

  ‘Say,’ the Kid put in. ‘This here’s an old Spanish place, isn’t it?’

  ‘Built by the Conquistodores,’ Jennie replied, a note of pride in her voice.

  ‘Remember Casa Almonte, Dusty?’ asked the Kid.

  ‘Sure— You mean that secret passage behind the walls?’

  ‘Yep, that’s just what I mean.’

  ‘How about it, Aunt Mamie?’ Dusty asked. ‘Do you know of any secret passages in the house?’

  ‘I’ve never seen or heard of any, Dusty. Of course, Elmo had been living here for almost a year before he brought me in as housekeeper. Do you know of any, Jennie?’

  If anybody in the house knew about secret passages Jennie would be that person. Although he treated his sister Mamie little better than a hired housekeeper and told her nothing of his business, Thackery had doted on Jennie and never held anything back from her.

  ‘No, Aunt Mamie,’ the girl replied, her face impassive and uninterested. ‘There are none.’

  ‘Are you sure, Jennie?’ Dusty asked.