But he wasn’t fool enough to believe that. The stink was one a man carried with him; if he ran it would run with him.
He put his elbows on the desk and dropped his face into his hands. For a while he felt as, if he had almost stopped breathing. After a long time he looked up and his gaze wandered aimlessly around the room. He saw the big Seth Thomas clock on the wall and it occurred to him that something was wrong; finally he realized that the room was silent. The clock was not ticking. Only then did he notice that the hands pointed to ten minutes past four. The clock had stopped—nobody had wound it. He got up and went over to the clock, opened its glass face, found the key and wound it. Then he set it by his pocketwatch. Eight fifteen. Was that all it was? It felt as though hours, even days, had passed since he set foot in the Mainwaring house. Yet it had been less than an hour ago.
He went back to the desk and sat. He forced himself to think carefully. Earle’s father was rich and powerful. Destiny, on the other hand, was a stranger in Spanish Flat, without friends or power. Could anyone prove he had been in the house with Earle at the time of Earle’s death? He tried to remember. No one had seen him arrive or leave, no one that he knew of at any rate. He had left nothing behind, except the gun, and that had been Earle’s gun. He looked down, reminded by that thought. His torn shirt somehow seemed evidence of his guilt; underneath, the scratch on his flat chest had formed a sticky scab where the gun hammer had cut him.
It had been an accident, of course; but who would believe that? Garrett Mainwaring, if he found out Destiny had been with Earle at the time of the death, would believe instantly that Destiny had gone to the house to arrest Earle, that they had fought, and that Destiny had thrown Earle over the banister and killed him. What else could they believe? It was the nature of any town to take the native’s side against the stranger. Maybe they couldn’t prove anything, not enough to hang Destiny surely, but it was hard to say what could happen with tempers hot in the wake of two violent deaths.
He scraped a palm across his mouth—and froze. Someone was at the door. Destiny watched, with a feeling of helplessness, as the door opened and a stranger’s shape filled the opening. The stranger spent a moment accustoming his eyes to the dimness of the room; saw Destiny and said, “You the new deputy?”
Not trusting his voice, Destiny only nodded his head.
“There’s been a murder out at the Mainwaring house. You’d better come out there.”
“Yeah,” Destiny croaked. He tugged his hat down and stood. up and crossed the room. As he went through the door he suddenly realized that the man had said murder. Not accident, but murder.
What evidence had he left behind that would lead anyone to think it was murder?
Bleakly, his face shut in a dark mask, Destiny got on his horse and said, “You’d better lead the way,” and tried to find some hint of suspicion in the stranger’s face. The stranger mounted up, nodded briskly, and galloped away. Destiny picked up his reins and followed.
Five
The ride seemed to clear his head a little. By the time they reached the house, he was ready to bluff it out all the way. There didn’t seem to be any choice.
Garrett Mainwaring was stocky, his hair going gray, his face taut and pale with grief. He still wore the broadcloth suit he had traveled in. His lips were pinched white and thin. He had an air of a man who was determined not to let grief get in his way, determined to be businesslike. He stood at the foot of the stairs, facing the open front door, not looking at the body of his son.
Lisa Mainwaring, dark and beautiful, stood at her father’s arm. She seemed composed; yet as Destiny walked toward them, he thought her eyes seemed slightly out of focus.
Garrett Mainwaring had a clipped, abrupt way of talking. “You’re the deputy. Have your look, ask your questions, and get out.”
Destiny nodded quickly and went past the man to kneel by the corpse. Half a dozen men stood around the room in awkward postures, talking not at all or in muted whispers. They looked like the same mine bosses who had accompanied Lisa to the house. The man who had summoned Destiny had been one of them; that man had entered the house with him and now stood with the elder Mainwaring, talking softly.
Destiny spoke without turning his head. “You said there’d been a murder. Looks to me like he must have fallen over the rail up there—grabbed this rung when he fell. It must’ve broken off in his hand. What makes it look like murder to you?”
Garrett Mainwaring said in a savage tone, “A man doesn’t just fall over a banister, Deputy. He was pushed.”
“Men fall. It happens. Have you got any evidence? I don’t mean to dispute you, Mr. Mainwaring. I know you’re grieving for your son. You don’t want to believe a thing like this could just happen without a reason. But men die from accidents every day.”
“Not my son,” Mainwaring snapped.
The girl’s soft tones came from beyond him; it was the first time Destiny had heard her voice. It was quiet, musical, beautiful even in sorrow. She said, “My brother had his faults, Mr. Destiny, but he was one of the best coordinated men I’ve ever known. I never once saw him trip or stumble.”
“Nothing upstairs for a man to trip over, anyway,” said Mainwaring gruffly.
“How do you know?” Destiny asked mildly. “Have you looked?”
When no one answered, he got up and walked past the Mainwarings to the stairs. He went up to the top and made a pretense of examining the landing. There was nothing on the floor or banister; they had left no sign of the struggle. He let air out of his chest. “I don’t see anything to suggest there was anybody else up here. Maybe he came out here half-asleep and took a wrong turn because he wasn’t awake yet.”
Lisa said, “He came downstairs and drank a cup of coffee. He couldn’t have been still half-asleep.”
“How do you know that?”
“I found the cup half-full in the kitchen, and there wasn’t anyone else in the house until my father came home.”
“Yes there was,” Mainwaring said grimly. “The man who killed him. The evidence is right in front of you. He’s got a bruise on his face which he couldn’t have got from falling on his back, and furthermore—”
Destiny said, “Your son was in a fight last night in Cat Town. That’s where he got the bruise.”
Mainwaring wheeled and stared up at him. “A fight? With who? That could be the man who killed him.”
“The man was Amos Krausmeier, and he couldn’t have killed your son, Mr. Mainwaring, because Krausmeier’s been dead since three o’clock this morning.”
“Amos? Dead?”
Lisa said softly, “We didn’t have time to tell you, Dad.”
“Good God,” Mainwaring mumbled. He looked up again and said with savage bitterness, “I suppose he died by accident too?”
“He was shot,” Destiny said. “I realize it’s a weird coincidence, but you can’t—”
“I can,” Mainwaring said flatly. “I hadn’t finished when you interrupted me. The bruise wasn’t the only evidence my son was murdered. There are two others things. First, as I was coming in the back of the house, I heard the front door slam. I couldn’t have mistaken it. Somebody was in this house, heard me coming, and ran for it. Second, upstairs in my son’s bedroom you’ll find his gun on the floor. It’s empty. The cartridges are scattered all over the room. One of them’s an empty shell case. And there are two or three drops of blood on the bed and the floor. Go on back there and look for yourself, Deputy. There’s only one way to figure that out, and I’ll tell you what it is. Somebody came here and had an argument with my son. Maybe Earle picked up the gun and took a shot at the man, which explains the blood. Then they struggled over the gun. The other man got it away from Earle, unloaded it and dropped it. Then they fought some more, which is how the gun and cartridges got scattered all over the place. The fight moved out to the landing, and the man pushed my son over the rail. Maybe he didn’t even mean to do it, but it was done, and it’s plain as the nose on your face Earle didn�
��t fall over that railing all by himself. Now quit telling me it was a goddamned accident or by God I’ll have your useless head in a basket!”
To cover his sudden fear, Destiny turned back from the landing and went into the hall, as if to confirm what Mainwaring had told him, by investigating Earle’s room. He went as far as the bedroom door and stood there staring sightlessly in. He had to think fast. He had forgotten the gun, and the cartridges which must have flown from his grasp when Earle had thrown the empty gun at him. And the cut on his chest had dropped blood on the sheets and floor. He looked down at himself. The torn shirt exposed the cut on his chest.
He shut his eyes tight and shook his head violently, pressed his palms to his temples and tried to think. Finally he turned and went back to the landing, and down the stairs. He had made up his mind.
It was too late to admit the truth—far too late. Somehow it seemed as if everything always came too late for Jim Destiny. He reached the foot of the stairs and said, “You’re right about the blood and cartridges. I suppose there could be a lot of explanations, but it does leave room for suspicion. I’m going to have to talk this over with the marshal. Then I’ll want to question some of you folks. I’ve got a feeling about what may have happened.”
“Name it,” Mainwaring said bluntly.
“Not until I’m sure of what I’m talking about. But I can say this much. If your son’s death wasn’t an accident, then it’s likely it was tied in with Krausmeier’s death last night.”
“A minute ago you denied that,” Mainwaring said.
“A minute ago I hadn’t seen that bedroom,” Destiny lied. “Look, Mr. Mainwaring, I’m on your side.”
“Then tell me what you’ve got in mind.”
Destiny considered it. What harm would it do? Some of it would be the truth, some of it conjecture, the rest a harmless lie that would only throw suspicion away from himself and onto a man who richly deserved whatever vengeance could come to him.
“All right,” Destiny said. “Last night your son and Amos Krausmeier played cards at Sid Stratton’s saloon. Stratton claims Krausmeier lost a lot of money and killed himself over it. I think Stratton’s a liar. I think Krausmeier won a lot of money, more than Stratton could afford to let him win, and I think Stratton killed him and took the money back.”
“Where does Earle fit into that?”
“He was the only player in the game who didn’t work for Stratton,” Destiny said softly, and watched the sense of it spread through Mainwaring’s awareness. He went on, “Stratton couldn’t let Earle tell the truth, that Krausmeier had won, not lost, before he was killed. So Stratton must have sent somebody out here this morning. Maybe he sent the man to kill Earle, maybe he sent the man just to threaten him, warn him to keep his mouth shut. Either way, there was a fight. Earle could have been running away when he fell over the railing. Then again, he could have been pushed. We won’t know that until we find the man.”
“Then find him,” Mainwaring snapped. “Quit standing around here jawing.”
Destiny took a deep breath and said quietly, “Don’t tell me how to do my job, mister.”
It made Mainwaring lift his eyebrows. Obviously he wasn’t used to backtalk. He said abruptly, “I won’t waste my time arguing with you. Just get out of my house.”
“When I’m done,” Destiny said. He walked over to where Earle’s body lay and knelt by it, searching, not for clues, but for what to do next. Crouching by the corpse gave him time to think.
Fred Maye, the mine boss who had ridden out with him from town, came over and stood above Destiny and said in a soft voice meant to reach no farther than Destiny’s ears, “Take it easy on Garret. This has hit him pretty damned hard.”
“I know. I won’t ride him.”
“We’d be obliged,” Maye said. He was a heavy man in riding breeches and engineer boots. Suddenly he bent over, hands on knees, to peer closely at the body. “What’s that?”
“What’s what?”
“That.” Maye pointed to the dead youth’s fist, half concealed under the twisted body.
Clutched inside the circle of the loose-closed fist was an object. Destiny hadn’t noticed it before; he hadn’t been looking for anything like that. Knowing what had happened, he hadn’t sought “clues”—it would have seemed ridiculous. But now, his attention forced on it by Fred Maye’s discovery, he noticed it for the first time. It was a cigar, still in its paper wrapping.
Fred Maye reached past him and took the cigar out of the dead man’s hand. He stood up, frowning. “It’s crushed a little, as if he must have gripped it pretty tight. Like as if maybe he made a grab for the killer as he was going over the rail, and only got his hand on a cigar in the killer’s shirt pocket.
Maye wheeled toward the others, who had watched with growing curiosity. “Anybody know if any of Stratton’s men smoke cigars like this?” He held the wrapped cigar up for everyone to see.
Garrett Mainwaring stepped forward and said, without blinking, “It wouldn’t be any of Stratton’s boys. That cigar came from San Francisco.”
“How do you know that?” Destiny said.
“Because I’ve got six of them right here in my own pocket,” Mainwaring said, and looked down at his breast pocket, where the blunt tips of a handful of cigars were arrayed like a row of torpedoes.
“Six of them?” Fred Maye asked, and took one pace closer to Mainwaring. “You’ve only got five there now, Garrett.” And his eyes lifted slowly to lock against Mainwaring’s.
Mainwaring spread his hands. “I bent over him. One of the cigars must’ve fallen out of my pocket.”
No one spoke. There was a motionless tableau until Lisa broke it by moving to stand by her father, wrapping her hand around his arm. The mine bosses shuffled and looked away; only Fred Maye continued to stare at Mainwaring with an expression of growing shock and slow, reluctant belief. Mainwaring’s eyes widened as he realized what they all were thinking. He took an involuntary step backward. “For God’s sake, Fred, you can’t honestly think I—Sweet, sweet Jesus! My own son?”
Something had made a hard, cold knot like a chunk of ice that wouldn’t go up and wouldn’t go down in Jim Destiny’s chest. He swallowed hard, straightened to his feet and took a braced stance, boots two feet apart. He spoke in a cool, flat voice.
“All right, all right. Let’s nobody jump to conclusions. I’d suggest you gents get your horses and ride on home, and leave these folks to do their grieving in peace.”
Fred Maye said, “Yes, but what about—”
“Mr. Maye, just you let me handle the law business. That’s what I’m hired for. You folks go on home. I’ll talk this over with the marshal and we’ll have to decide what happens next, but whatever it is, it won’t do any good for you gents to go blabbing your suspicions around town, whatever they may be. So I’d appreciate it if you’d keep your feelings to yourselves until we get more evidence to go on.”
Destiny moved out to the center of the parlor, glanced at the mine bosses and the Mainwarings, and went on to the front door. He held it open and said, “Go on, all of you.”
Slowly, avoiding Garrett Mainwaring’s glance, the mine bosses walked out of the house. Fred Maye, the last of them, stopped in the door and looked back. He didn’t say anything. He looked at the Mainwarings and then he looked at Destiny, and then he left.
The sound of horseshoes scratched the gravel of the drive. Destiny stood in the doorway. Garrett Mainwaring said, “Thank you. You’re a fairer man than I thought.”
“Maybe,” said Jim Destiny. “Mr. Mainwaring, I want you to stay in town until we get to the bottom of this. No trips back to San Francisco.”
“That would amount to an admission of guilt, wouldn’t it? I’ll stay put, don’t worry.” Mainwaring looked over his shoulder at the body on the floor and added in a quiet tone, “I’ve got to bury my son, Mr. Destiny.”
Destiny turned to leave; Lisa’s voice caught him as if by the arm and turned him back to face her. He said, “
Ma’am?”
“Thank you,” she said in her soft musical voice.
He nodded and touched a finger to his hat brim, held her grave glance for quite some time, and finally went outside to his horse. He climbed up, his face an inscrutable mask, and put the horse down the drive toward the road.
Down below, at the mailbox, a rider was waiting—Fred Maye. “You going to talk to the marshal?”
“Yes,” Destiny said.
“Then I think I’ll just ride along with you. There are some pieces of this thing you probably don’t know about. Jeremy Six ought to know them.”
“Suit yourself,” Destiny said. Together, the two of them headed for Jeremy Six’s house.
Six was sitting up in a stuffed chair, covered by a lap robe. He banged a loose fist softly on the arm of the chair. “It’s damned hard to get a picture when you haven’t seen it yourself.”
Destiny said, “The kid either fell or was pushed off the top landing of the staircase. He grabbed a rung of the banister but it wouldn’t hold; it broke off and he fell down maybe fifteen feet. Landed on the back of his head and broke his neck. Now, if he fell, then that’s that. If he was pushed, then the question is, who pushed him.”
Fred Maye said, “Garrett’s a friend of mine, Jeremy, you know that. But I can’t just—”
“He’s also your biggest business competitor,” Six pointed out. “You own the second biggest string of mines and reduction mills on the Mogul.”
“That’s farfetched,” Maye said. “In the first place, there’s damned little competition. We all get the same price for our goods. In the second place, Garrett and I are partners in several ventures, so if I were out to cut his throat, I’d be cutting my own in the bargain. I understand you’ve got to ask these questions to find out what my motives are. But just let me say what I came to say, and then I’ll be on my way. This is something I don’t think you knew. It may have a bearing on this bloody damned murder.”
“All right, Fred. Let’s hear it, then.”
Marshal Jeremy Six #7 Page 7