by Max Brand
Perhaps he himself would be the fourth. A sort of superstitious horror possessed Sherry. Whatever he did, he would not keep that treasure in his possession. He took the box under his arm, settled his hat on his head, and, leaving by the back door, started straight down the hill.
Coming out of the garden to the street below, he encountered Dr. Eustace Layman, coming up with his usual brisk, light stride. He nodded cheerfully at Sherry.
“This hill is put here for our sins,” said the doctor.
“How is Miss Wilton?” asked Sherry.
“She? As well as can be expected, as they say. She knows, now.”
“That the case will go against her?”
“Yes.”
“After I’d testified. Of course it was what I said that turned the trick.”
“And what difference did it make?” asked Layman. “The sheriff already knew what you had to say. They could have had it out of him on the stand, if they’d wished. By Jove, you’ve cut your hand, Sherry.”
Sherry looked down and saw the crimson on his fingers. “My hand isn’t cut,” he said.
“And what in the world has happened, Sherry?”
“Lang has been murdered by Fennel . . . after he found the pearls.”
“Good heavens! Lang murdered! Fennel? Fennel, did you say? Do you mean that, Sherry?”
“I saw his cursed face,” said Sherry bitterly.
The doctor grew greatly excited. “I want to follow this clearly. Lang killed by Fennel. You saw the brute do it? Lang . . . after he’d found the pearls. And Fennel murdered him and stole the jewels and . . .”
“He didn’t steal them. They’re under my arm in this box, just now.”
“The pearls?”
“Yes.”
“My head spins, Sherry. Lang dead . . . Fennel . . . poor Lang. There was a brave, honest fellow. A little sour, but brave as they come. But do you see what this horrible affair means for Beatrice?”
“For her?” asked Sherry dully.
“It means that she’ll get off scot-free. Don’t you understand? It’s like a stroke of luck. This second murder practically proves that Fennel committed the first one. Isn’t that clear as day?”
“Ah,” sighed the big man. “I hadn’t thought of that.” And suddenly he lifted his fallen head. “The life of poor Pete to save her,” he groaned.
“But even if that weren’t the case, you have a fortune under your arm there, man!” cried Layman. “With a hundredth part of it, you can save her. You can bring in a great lawyer who will soon tangle up this affair so completely that the district attorney and that prejudiced judge won’t know where they’re standing.”
“Use part of this?” asked Sherry. “I couldn’t touch it. It goes to the sheriff, now. It’s nothing of mine.”
The doctor stepped a little back from him, angry and surprised. “I don’t understand,” he said with some bitterness. “I thought that you really wanted her to win out.”
“Did you?” murmured Sherry. “And am I to steal to do it? Lang has died for her. I think that’s enough. His blood against hers. I’m going on, Layman.”
He turned and strode past the doctor, and went hurrying down into the hot streets of the city. He went to the jail, and there he found the sheriff. He was not easily admitted. As he went in to interview Herbert Moon, two armed men stood in the doorway behind him. Sherry looked upon them with a vague smile.
“I’m not dangerous,” he said to the sheriff. “My teeth have been pulled for today, Moon. Will you send those fellows away?”
The sheriff, instead of answering, looked steadily at the stained hands of the giant.
“It’s the blood of Pete Lang,” said Sherry. “Fennel killed him today.”
The sheriff leaped from his chair. “Fennel again? He wouldn’t dare again!” exclaimed Herbert Moon.
“Fennel has killed Pete Lang. I saw him with my own eyes. And this is why Pete was shot in the first place.” He lifted the lid of the box of pearls.
The sheriff dipped his hand into them, and let a rain of them fall back. Then he waved the two guards from the doorway.
“I brought it in to you,” said Sherry, “because I think that this ought to be enough to free Beatrice Wilton.”
The sheriff opened a small safe that stood in a corner of the office and into it he thrust the box and its treasure.
“This goes a little beyond me,” he murmured. “I expected almost anything, but not quite this.” He was pale with emotion.
“And she’s cleared?” insisted Sherry.
“Beatrice Wilton?”
“Yes.”
“In what way?” asked the sheriff, frowning.
“I’m not an expert in these affairs. But when the jury knows that Fennel has been seen to commit another murder, won’t they be apt to put the burden of the first one on him?”
“Do you think so?”
“I do.”
“You’re wrong,” answered the sheriff. “After today in the courtroom, I don’t think there’s a chance to defend her. Perhaps I haven’t a right to say that, but I’ve always wanted to be frank with you, Sherry.”
Sherry flushed darkly. “You know law,” he admitted, “but I have an idea that we don’t pay and get nothing in the world. Lang died for that girl, Moon. And, by George, you’ll see that he didn’t die in vain for her.”
“Do you know the story of these pearls?” asked the sheriff suddenly.
“I’ve heard it. You’ll hear it yourself, before very long.”
“From whom?”
“Two sailors . . .”
“The ones who asked to see Fennel’s outfit?”
“That’s right.”
“The coroner again,” said the sheriff to himself. “The third time in the same house. Both the Wiltons. Now this cowpuncher. Sherry, will you ride up the hill with me? If I can’t bring justice home in this case, I’ve reached the end of my rope and I’ll leave my office. I’m an old man, Sherry, and my brain is weakening.”
“You?” exclaimed Sherry. “There’s no other man in the world who thinks so.”
“Bah!” snarled Herbert Moon savagely. “Do you hear me? If I’d acted quicker, done as I felt I should have done long ago, your friend Pete Lang would be alive at this moment.” He went to the wall, picked his hat from a peg, and jammed it down upon his head.
Sherry was still staring after this last statement. “What did you know? What should you have done?” he asked earnestly.
The sheriff hesitated. “You’ve seen this case from the beginning!” he said at last.
“I didn’t see the death of Everett Wilton,” said Sherry.
“That’s true, that’s true. But even without that, haven’t you been able to guess?”
“That Beatrice Wilton is the cause of all this?”
“The cause? I never called her the cause. A tool is not a cause, man. An instrument is not a cause of a murder.” He took Sherry suddenly by the arm.
“Let’s get away from this building. I hate walls. I loathe brick and stone set up in courses. Sometimes I think that what we speak inside a room remains there like a thought floating in the air, and the next person who comes in will be able to read it. Heaven forgive if my thought should be read. It would be ruin to a great cause, young man.”
It occurred to Sherry that, after all, there might be something in what the sheriff had said about advancing years. Certainly he had been talking in a very odd manner.
They went out onto the street together.
“You have friends in Clayrock,” said the sheriff.
“I? Not a one.”
“Ah, but you have. You have more friends here than you think. They admire Lew Sherry. They admire his size and his strength, and his straight shooting. They admire the man who broke down Fannie Slade, at the last. You have plenty of friends, though they hold off for a time, while you’re mixed up in this murder mystery. But today or tomorrow you might meet some friendly spirits here in Clayrock, Sherry. Do you understa
nd what I mean?”
“I don’t,” he admitted frankly. “What you’ve been saying to me sounds a little bit queerer than anything any man ever has said to me before.”
“I suppose it does,” said Moon. “But I’ll be franker. I want to tell you that, if a syllable of what I’ve said to you in the last few moments gets abroad, it will undo a great work for me.”
“The conviction of Beatrice Wilton,” scowled Sherry.
The sheriff turned upon him impatiently. “I give you my word that she’s not even in my mind at this moment. I’m thinking of bigger quarry.”
“And what do you want me to do?”
“Give me a solemn promise that you’ll keep your mouth shut about what I’ve said to you.”
“I will,” said Sherry, “because I don’t understand a word that you’ve spoken.”
XXXV
The trial lasted four days. The case went to the jury at noon of that day, and thirty minutes later the jury filed back into the box to give its verdict.
All of Clayrock was there, or as much of Clayrock as could be squeezed into the room. Every window was blocked with heads. The door was beset by a solidly wedged mob of at least a hundred persons, and in the midst of a tense silence, the foreman pronounced—“Guilty!”—and a long, shuddering sigh went through the audience.
Sherry had been expecting the blow with such perfect certainty that he had armed himself against the shock, and now he turned his gloomy gaze upon his companions in the court. He noted, particularly, the gleaming eyes that the women fixed upon Beatrice Wilton, and the proud head of Beatrice herself, sustaining this burden that had been dropped upon her spirit. He saw familiar heads, here and there—the bartender from the hotel, agape, his brutal face vaguely smiling as he drank in the sensation, the sheriff on one of the front benches, at the side, strangely, of Dr. Eustace Layman.
And, above all, he noted that one of the young lawyers who had fought out the case for Beatrice, now turned and murmured something to his associate, and they both chuckled together. A piece of callousness that made the blood of Sherry run cold.
Voices mumbled. He saw Beatrice Wilton led out and standing before the judge, a man guarding her upon either side. He heard the judge demanding if she had anything to say why sentence should not be pronounced upon her, and then there began a sharp scuffling at the rear of the courtroom, and voices clamoring in high tones. The judge rapped angrily for order. His most solemn moment in many years of law was being spoiled.
Then one of Beatrice Wilton’s lawyers—Craven was his name—started a little forward from his chair.
“Your Honor,” he said, “there is nothing that my client can say except that she is innocent. We have been waiting for several days, however, in the hope of something more. That hope is now fulfilled. Your Honor, the disturbance from the back of the room comes from two witnesses who have just arrived from a long journey. Their testimony will prove that Beatrice Wilton is totally innocent, and it will place the whole burden of the crime definitely upon the shoulders of Fennel, the slayer of Peter Lang. Will you reopen the case and let me put them on the stand?”
Had the judge been the most formal official in the world, he could not have resisted the vast stir of excitement that troubled the courtroom.
Way was made. Up the courtroom aisle came two swaggering individuals, walking as though to the sway of a deck—one tall and one short—Bud Arthur and his bunkie, Jerry.
Sherry looked upon them with a vague hope of he knew not what. They were brought to the witness bench. Bud Arthur was sworn in. The jury sat tense in its jury box. The judge himself was tingling with excitement, and ghostly whispers passed through the crowd.
Young Craven, like a skipper who loves a storm wind, stood in the court and smiled from side to side. “Your Honor,” he said, “we intend to liberate Miss Wilton. In her place we shall put the real criminal. He is now in this courtroom.”
Even the spectacular entrance of Jerry and Bud was as nothing compared with the sensation that followed at this point.
“We have had one member of this pair ready since last night,” went on the lawyer. “But we have been waiting for the arrival of the second man, who . . .”
Here the district attorney sprang up with an impassioned objection. The judge, like one tired of the formalities of the law, simply raised his hand.
“Sit down, Charlie,” he said. “We’ve had a good many days condemning this young woman . . . and now if there’s anything to be said in her defense, I’m going to hear it, no matter how it’s put before us.”
At this, the crowd roared with applause. The jury grinned and grunted with agreement. The suspicion and dislike that had surrounded Beatrice Wilton these many days was dissolved at a stroke.
“Mister Arthur,” said the young Mr. Craven, “what is your employment?”
“Sailor.”
“And what brought you to Clayrock?”
“To get what was coming to me.”
“From what? Coming to you from what?”
“My share of the pearls that Captain Oliver Wilton had swiped down in the Sulus.”
The shock of this statement fairly stunned the crowd. Beatrice Wilton looked keenly across at her lawyer, and he nodded to her. As much as to say that he was sorry that he had had to keep her so long in the dark, but soon he would make all things clear.
“We will follow you after that. You came to Clayrock to see Mister Wilton?”
“Yes.”
“Did you see him?”
“Not quite. He was dead.”
“What did you do?”
“Hung around the pawn shops. We figgered that if Wilton was dead, somebody else would have the stuff. They’d likely pawn some of it for ready money. That’s what happened. Lew Sherry, he pawned a pearl.”
There was a deep rumbling at this. People next to Sherry shrank away from him. Someone called out loudly: “If Sherry’s the murderer, he ought to be taken in hand. That man’s dangerous!”
“My dear friends,” said the lawyer, addressing the crowd with a total lack of court etiquette, “Lew Sherry had nothing whatever to do with the murders, as you’ll shortly understand. But there is another man in this courtroom who is now trembling in his boots, though he puts a brave face upon it. Mister Arthur, you saw a pearl pawned?”
“Yes, I seen Sherry pawn it. I was watching that shop for three days. I trailed him. I’d heard about him before. Me and my partner, Jerry, come up to the Wilton garden, and there we cornered Pete Lang all alone. We figured that, if Sherry knew where the stuff was, Lang would know. We cornered Lang. We had him with his hands up, when Sherry took us from behind and turned the tables complete. He got us helpless. A pair of guns in Sherry’s hands is dog-gone discouragin’.”
At this the crowd laughed, and the judge himself did not call for silence. Even the clerk, writing swiftly, paused to chuckle. Vast good humor possessed everyone. They were about to witness a kill, and they were content to see the race from the beginning.
“Sherry put us right,” said Bud Arthur. He stood up in his place. “Do I get you in wrong if I tell everything, Sherry?” he asked.
And the deeply booming voice of Sherry made answer: “Tell everything from the beginning, and tell it straight.”
There was another gasp of delight from the throng.
“Sherry let us know that when Wilton was found dead, Lang had got out of his pocket a handful of jewels and a piece of paper. That paper was a letter from Fennel, askin’ to see Wilton and asking for his split of the loot. Lang and Sherry had held back that stuff, because the idea was that it showed that Fennel had gone to ask for pearls, and Wilton had taken out the share of Fennel to give to him. Lang and Sherry, they were plumb anxious not to get Miss Wilton into any trouble.”
This naïve statement brought a cheer from everyone except the judge, who beat upon his desk, but smiled even as he tried to frown.
“Sherry told me,” went on Arthur, “that he had pawned one of those pearls, n
ot for the sake of makin’ money to blow, but to have enough funds to keep him and Lang goin’ on the job, because he still hoped that he could do somethin’ for the girl. He showed us the rest of the pearls that they had, and he offered to split them with me and Jerry if we could help in the work. I didn’t know how we could help, but Sherry said we should look over the stuff that Fennel had left behind him. We went down and done that.”
“And what did you learn?” coached Craven, the lawyer.
“We seen that it come out of Cap Wendell’s shop in San Pedro. It was just poor enough to suit him. It didn’t look like a sailor’s outfit, either. It was just faked up. There was two sizes of socks, for instance. One size would’ve fitted Miss Wilton. The other was big enough for Lew Sherry.”
“Will you keep your witness to the point?” asked the judge good-naturedly, waving the district attorney back into his chair as that gentleman leaped up to make another legal assault.
“I’ll do my best.” Craven smiled. “And then what happened, Mister Arthur?”
“We seen Sherry. He says . . . ‘Go out to San Pedro and find out if Wendell remembers anythin’ about the gent that bought the layout.’
“We done that as fast as the train would snake us along. We got to San Pedro and we walked into Cap Wendell’s shop. ‘’Mornin’, boys,’ says he. ‘A bit of a blow they have been havin’ off the coast, ain’t they?’”
“Answer the questions that I put to you.” commanded Craven.
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, then, you asked Wendell about the buyer of the sea chest and its contents. You were able to identify them?”
“Sure,” said Bud Arthur. “It ain’t often that a seaman wants to buy a whole new outfit. Mostly he’s just fillin’ in holes, here and there, where the swabs have cleaned him out on board ship. Wendell remembered this gent pretty well. He’d come in in ragged-lookin’ clothes. He had a broad-brimmed hat pulled down over his face. Looked like he’d seen better days.”
“What was his face like?”
“Wendell, he couldn’t see it very clear at first. He got the gent to take off his hat, after a while though. Then he seen that he had a sizable, fine big bump of a forehead that made the rest of his face look small. And he had a kind of a bald head . . . balder than it should’ve been for his age, and his face was pretty pale and thin. And this here gent was pretty tall, and made sort of light and active, like he’d make a good hand for goin’ aloft.”