The Collected Westerns of William MacLeod Raine: 21 Novels in One Volume

by Unknown

  "Then you know that Clay is accused of killing this man, and that the police are looking for you because you were with him."

  "Yes." His answer was a dry whisper.

  "Did you see this man Collins in the room?"

  "No. I shouldn't know him if I saw him."

  "But you heard shots. You're sure of that!" cried Beatrice.

  "Y-yes."

  The girl turned triumphantly to her father. "He saw the gun and he heard shots. That proves self-defense at the worst. They were shooting at Clay when he struck with the chair--if he did. Clarendon's testimony will show that."

  "My testimony!" screamed Bromfield. "My God, do you think I'm going to--to--go into court? They would claim I--I was--"

  She waited, but he did not finish. "Clay's life may depend upon it, and of course you'll tell the truth," she said quietly.

  "Maybe I didn't hear shots," he hedged. "Maybe it was furniture falling. There was a lot of noise of people stamping and fighting."

  "You--heard--shots."

  The eyes of the girl were deadly weapons. They glittered like unscabbarded steel. In them was a contained fire that awed him.

  He threw out his hand in a weak, impotent gesture of despair. "My God, how did I ever come to get into such a mix-up? It will ruin me."

  "How did you come to go?" she asked.

  "He wanted to see New York. I suppose I had some notion of taking him slumming."

  Beatrice went up to him and looked straight into his eyes. "Then testify to that in court. It won't hurt you any. Go down to the police and say you have read in the paper that they want you. Tell the whole truth. And Clary--don't weaken. Stick to your story about the shots." Her voice shook a little. "Clay's life is at stake. Remember that."

  "Do you think it would be safe to go to the police?" he asked doubtfully.

  Whitford spoke up. "That's the only square and safe thing to do, Bromfield. They'll find out who you are, of course. If you go straight to them you draw the sting from their charge that you were an accomplice of Clay. Don't lose your nerve. You'll go through with flying colors. When a man has done nothing wrong he needn't be afraid."

  "I dare say you're right," agreed Bromfield miserably.

  The trouble was that Whitford was arguing from false premises. He was assuming that Clarendon was an innocent man, whereas the clubman knew just how guilty he was. Back of the killing lay a conspiracy which might come to light during the investigation. He dared not face the police. His conscience was not clean enough.

  "Of course Dad's right. It's the only way to save your reputation," Beatrice cried. "I'm not going to leave you till you promise to go straight down there to headquarters. If you don't you'll be smirched for life--and you'd be doing something absolutely dishonorable."

  He came to time with a heart of heavy dread. "All right, Bee. I'll go," he promised. "It's an awful mess, but I've got to go through with it, I suppose."

  "Of course you have," she said with complete conviction. "You're not a quitter, and you can't hide here like a criminal."

  "We'll have to be moving, Bee," her father reminded her. "You know we have an appointment to meet the district attorney."

  Beatrice nodded. With a queer feeling of repulsion she patted her fiancé's cheek with her soft hand and whispered a word of comfort to him.

  "Buck up, old boy. It won't be half as bad as you think. Nobody is going to blame you."

  They were shown out by the valet.

  "You don't want to be hard on Bromfield, honey," Whitford told his daughter after they had reëntered their car. "He's a parlor man. That's the way he's been brought up. Never did a hard day's work in his life. Everything made easy for him. If he'd ever ridden out a blizzard like Clay or stuck it out in a mine for a week without food after a cave-in, he wouldn't balk on the job before him. But he's soft. And he's afraid of his reputation. That's natural, I suppose."

  Beatrice knew he was talking to save her feelings. "You don't need to make excuses for him, Dad," she answered gently, with a wry smile. "I've got to give up. I don't think I can go through with it."

  "You mean--marry him?"

  "Yes." She added, with a flare of passionate scorn of herself: "I deserve what I've got. I knew all the time I didn't love him. It was sheer selfishness in me to accept him. I wanted what he had to give me."

  Her father drew a deep breath of relief. "I'm glad you see that, Bee. I don't think he's good enough for you. But I don't know anybody that is, come to that."

  "That's just your partiality. I'm a mean little bounder or I never should have led him on," the girl answered in frank disgust.

  Both of them felt smirched. The behavior of Bromfield had been a reflection on them. They had picked him for a thoroughbred, and he had failed them at the first test.

  "Well, I haven't been proud of you in that affair," conceded Colin. "It didn't seem like my girl to--"

  He broke off in characteristic fashion to berate her environment. "It's this crazy town. The spirit of it gets into a person and he accepts its standards. Let's get away from here for a while, sweetheart."

  "After Clay is out of trouble, Dad, I'll go with you back to Denver or to Europe or anywhere you say."

  "That's a deal," he told her promptly. "We'll stay till after the annual election of the company and then go off on a honeymoon together, Bee."

  CHAPTER XXXI

  INTO THE HANDS OF HIS ENEMY

  Durand waited alone for word to be flashed him that the debt he owed Clay Lindsay had been settled in full. A telephone lay on the desk close at hand and beside it was a watch. The second-hand ticked its way jerkily round and round the circle. Except for that the stillness weighed on him unbearably. He paced up and down the room chewing nervously the end of an unlit cigar. For the good tidings which he was anxious to hear was news of the death of the strong young enemy who had beaten him at every turn.

  Why didn't Collins get to the telephone? Was it possible that there had been a slip-up, that Lindsay had again broken through the trap set for him? Had "Slim's" nerve failed him? Or had Bromfield been unable to bring the victim to the slaughter?

  His mind went over the details again. The thing had been well planned even to the unguarded door through which Collins was to escape. In the darkness "Slim" could do the job, make his getaway along with Dave, and be safe from any chance of identification. Bromfield, to save his own hide, would keep still. If he didn't, Durand was prepared to shift the murder upon his shoulders.

  The minute-hand of the watch passed down from the quarter to the half and from the half to the three quarters. Still the telephone bell did not ring. The gang leader began to sweat blood. Had some one bungled after all the care with which he had laid his plans?

  A door slammed below. Hurried footsteps sounded on the stair treads. Into the room burst a man.

  "'Slim' 's been croaked," he blurted.

  "What!" Durand's eyes dilated.

  "At Maddock's."

  "Who did it?"

  "De guy he was to gun."

  "Lindsay."

  "Dat's de fellow."

  "Did the bulls get Lindsay?"

  "Pinched him right on de spot."

  "Gun 'Slim,' did he?"

  "Nope. Knocked him cold wit' a chair. Cracked his skull."

  "Is he dead?"

  "He'll never be deader. Dave grabbed this sucker Lindsay and yelled that he done it. The bulls pinched him like I said right there."

  "Did it happen in the dark?"

  "Sure as you're a foot high. My job was dousin' the glims, and I done it right."

  "What about 'Slim'? Was he shooting when he got it?"

  The other man shook his head. "This Lindsay man claims he was. I talked wit' a bull afterward. Dey didn't find no gun on 'Slim.' The bull says there was no gun-play."

  "What became of 'Slim's' gun?"

  "Search me."

  Durand slammed a big fist exultantly down on the desk. "Better than the way I planned it. If the gun's gone, I'll frame Lind
say for the chair. It's Salt Creek for his."

  He lost no time in getting into touch with Gorilla Dave, who was under arrest at the station house. From him he learned the story of the killing of Collins. One whispered detail of it filled him with malicious glee.

  "The boob! He'll go to the death chair sure if I can frame him. We're lucky Bromfield ran back into the little room. Up in front a dozen guys might have seen the whole play even in the dark."

  Durand spent the night strengthening the web he had spun to destroy his enemy. He passed to and fro among those who had been arrested in the raid and he arranged the testimony of some of them to suit his case. More than one of the men caught in the dragnet of the police was willing to see the affray from the proper angle in exchange for protection from prosecution.

  After breakfast Durand went to the Tombs, where Clay had been transferred at daybreak.

  "You needn't bring the fellow here," he told the warden. "I'll go right to his cage and see him. I wantta have a talk with him."

  CHAPTER XXXII

  MR. LINDSAY RECEIVES

  Between two guards Clay climbed the iron steps to an upper tier of cages at the Tombs. He was put into a cell which held two beds, one above the other, as in the cabin of an ocean liner. By the side of the bunks was a narrow space just long enough for a man to take two steps in the same direction.

  An unshaven head was lifted in the lower bunk to see why the sleep of its owner was being disturbed.

  "I've brought you a cell mate, Shiny," explained one of the guards. "You want to be civil to him. He's just croaked a friend of yours."

  "For de love o' Gawd. Who did he croak?"

  "'Slim' Jim Collins. Cracked him one on the bean and that was a-plenty. Hope you'll enjoy each other's society, gents." The guard closed the door and departed.

  "Is that right? Did youse do up 'Slim,' or was he kiddin' me?"

  "I don't reckon we'll discuss that subject," said Clay blandly, but with a note of finality in his voice.

  "No offense, boss. It's an honor to have so distinguished a gent for a cell pal. For that matter I ain't no cheap rat myself. Dey pinched me for shovin' de queer. I'd ought to get fifteen years," he said proudly.

  This drew a grin from Lindsay, though not exactly a merry one. "If you're anxious for a long term you can have some of mine," he told the counterfeiter.

  "Maybe youse'll go up Salt Creek," said Shiny hopefully.

  Afraid the allusion might not be understood, he thoughtfully explained that this was the underworld term for the electric chair.

  Clay made no further comment. He found the theme a gruesome one.

  "Anyhow, I'm glad dey didn't put no hoister nor damper-getter wit' me. I'm partickler who I meet. De whole profesh is gettin' run down at de heel. I'm dead sick of rats who can't do nothin' but lift pokes," concluded the occupant of the lower berth with disgust.

  Though Clay's nerves were of the best he did very little sleeping that night. He was in a grave situation. Even if he had a fair field his plight would be serious enough. But he guessed that during the long hours of darkness Durand was busy weaving a net of false evidence from which he could scarcely disentangle himself. Unless Bromfield came forward at once as a witness for him, his case would be hopeless--and Clay suspected that the clubman would prove only a broken reed as a support. The fellow was selfish to the core. He had not, in the telling Western phrase, the guts to go through. He would take the line of least resistance.

  Beatrice was in his thoughts a great deal. What would she think of him when the news came that he was a murderer, caught by the police in a den of vice where he had no business to be? Some deep instinct of his soul told him that she would brush through the evidence to the essential truth. She had failed him once. She would never do it again. He felt sure of that.

  The gray morning broke, and brought with it the steaming smell of prison cooking, the sounds of the caged underworld, the sense of life all around him dwarfed and warped to twisted moral purposes. A warden came with breakfast--a lukewarm, muddy liquid he called coffee and a stew in which potatoes and bits of fat beef bobbed like life buoys--and Clay ate heartily while his cell mate favored him, between gulps, with a monologue on ethics, politics, and the state of society, as these related especially to Shiny the Shover. Lindsay was given to understand that the whole world was "on de spud," but the big crooks had fixed the laws so that they could wear diamonds instead of stripes.

  Presently a guard climbed the iron stairway with a visitor and led the way along the deck outside the tier of cells where Clay had been put.

  "He's in seventy-four, Mr. Durand," the man said as he approached. "I'll have to beat it. Come back to the office when you're ready."

  The ex-pugilist had come to gloat over him. Clay knew it at once. His pupils narrowed.

  He was lying on the bed, his supple body stretched at graceful ease. Not by the lift of an eyelid did he recognize the presence of his enemy.

  Durand stood in front of the cell, hands in pockets, the inevitable unlit black cigar in his mouth. On his face was a sneer of malevolent derision.

  Shiny the Shover bustled forward, all complaisance.

  "Pleased to meet youse, Mr. Durand."

  The gang politician's insolent eyes went up and down him. "I didn't come to see you."

  "'S all right. Glad to see youse, anyhow," the counterfeit passer went on obsequiously. "Some day, when you've got time I'd like to talk wit' youse about gettin' some fall money."

  "Nothin' doin', Shiny. I'm not backin' you," said Jerry coldly. "You've got to go up the river."

  "Youse promised--"

  "Aw, what the hell's eatin' you?"

  Shiny's low voice carried a plaintive whine. "If you'd speak to de judge--"

  "Forget it." Durand brushed the plea away with a motion of his hand. "It's your cell pal I've come to take a look at--the one who's goin' to the chair."

  With one lithe movement Clay swung down to the floor. He sauntered forward to the grating, his level gaze full on the ward boss.

  "Shiny, this fellow's rotten," he said evenly and impersonally. "He's not only a crook, but he's a crooked crook. He'd throw down his own brother if it paid him."

  Durand's cruel lips laughed. "Your pal's a little worried this mornin', Shiny. He ain't slept much. You see the bulls got him right. It's the death chair for him and no lifeboat in sight."

  Clay leaned against the bars negligently. He spoke with a touch of lazy scorn. "See those scars on his face, Shiny--the one on the cheek bone and the other above the eye. Ask him where he got 'em and how."

  Jerry cursed. He broke into a storm of threats, anger sweeping over him in furious gusts. He had come to make sport of his victim and Lindsay somehow took the upper hand at once. He had this fellow where he wanted him at last. Yet the man's soft voice still carried the note of easy contempt. If the Arizonan was afraid, he gave no least sign of it.

  "You'll sing another tune before I'm through with you," the prize-fighter prophesied savagely.

  The Westerner turned away and swung back to his upper berth. He knew, what he had before suspected, that Durand was going to "frame" him if he could. That information gained, the man no longer interested him.

  Sullenly Jerry left. There was no profit in jeering at Lindsay. He was too entirely master of every situation that confronted him.

  Within the hour Clay was wakened from sleep by another guard with word that he was wanted at the office of the warden. He found waiting him there Beatrice and her father. The girl bloomed in that dingy room like a cactus in the desert.

  She came toward him with hands extended, in her eyes gifts of friendship and faith.

  "Oh, Clay!" she cried.

  "Much obliged, little pardner." Her voice went to his heart like water to the thirsty roots of prickly pears. A warm glow beat through his veins. The doubts that had weighed on him during the night were gone. Beatrice believed in him. All was well with the world.

  He shook hands with Whitford. "Bla
med good of you to come, sir."

  "Why wouldn't we come?" demanded the mining man bluntly. "We're here to do what we can for you."

  Little wells of tears brimmed over Beatrice's lids. "I've been so worried."

  "Don't you. It'll be all right." Strangely enough he felt now that it would. Her coming had brought rippling sunshine into a drab world.

  "I won't now. I'm going to get evidence for you. Tell us all about it."