Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol. 60, No. 1, July 4, 1931

Herb Garth considered himself smart enough to know when opportunity knocks — even opportunity for murder.

I

“Garth you’ve ruined me! You have squeezed me dry, you damned, dirty blackmailer!”

Sam Brayden, lined, middle-aged face as white as the unused blotter upon which his clenched fist rested, fairly spat the words in a voice choked with hate, despair and mental agony.

“Take a drink, Sam, and get a grip on yourself,” calmly advised the man upon whom he had poured his wrath and accusation. “Nobody knows Herb Garth like Herb Garth, let me remind you, so you can’t hope to tell me anything about myself that I don’t already know.”

Herbert T. Garth, financier, largely interested in bridge and dam construction in the Ozark Mountains, poured himself a moderate drink from a bottle on the desk, swallowed it neat, then leaned back in the swivel chair and calmly lit a cigar.

The situation was an odd one. Years before, Brayden, then using his real name of Dan Adams, had cheated a big dam, then under his charge, of the cement due it, pocketing the difference in money. The trick had been uncovered, and Adams had been kicked out of the profession to which he had proved a disgrace.

Later he had gained a footing in the Missouri Ozarks, and, under the name of Brayden, had prospered. He had gone straight, and was well thought of throughout the district. Then came the biggest job of his career — the White River dam at Big Rock.

The job had also proved his undoing.

Herbert Garth, interested in the dam and a member of the board of inspectors, had known the young Dan Adams — and he did not fail to recognize him in the now middle-aged Brayden. Garth, too, had a past. One he believed well covered up. He also loved easy money, and this was his chance to get some.

Brayden had pleaded in vain when Garth approached him and demanded money in large sums as a price of his silence. He had even threatened Garth’s life, all to no purpose.

“You should be very careful of my life, Dan — ah, Sam, I mean,” Garth had replied significantly when threatened. “There are a lot of things that would come out should I die suddenly — among them a complete report on Dan Adams, alias Sam Brayden. Better play cards with me than against me, Sam, because I’ve got every ace in the deck, and all the face cards as well.”

“God!” the miserable Brayden had groaned, face buried in his hands. “And I have been thinking that at last opportunity had knocked at my door! That my big chance had come!”

“Opportunity?” Garth commented tauntingly. “Why, Sam, you thought once before that opportunity had knocked at your door. That was when you cheated the big dam out in Utah. Your opportunity to feather your nest, it was. But, my dear chap, Old Man Opportunity has many impersonators, and one never knows, when he answers a knock, whether it is the old gentleman in person or just one of the fakes. So many fakes, Dan — er, Sam, I mean. So damned many fakes!”

Sam Brayden had yielded. What else could he do? It was play the game with Garth, or stand exposed as the former liar and cheat, Dan Adams. That would be complete ruin for him.

So, for the second time in his career, he yielded up his honor — and cheated a dam. Cheated in order to pay Garth’s demands.

Then came more trouble. Certain parts of the dam didn’t look so good, and an inspector who could not be bought had wired certain things to the St. Louis office that resulted in bringing the board of inspectors to Spring-field hot-foot. Brayden had met them in Springfield, and was on that first night closeted with Garth in his city office.

“You’ve got to get me by, Garth!” Brayden declared hollowly. “You’re on the inspecting board, and you have influence. This job must stand up. Why, man, if it is condemned, look what you stand to lose!”

“I lose?” Garth queried. “Why, my dear Adams — er, Brayden, I mean — I stand to lose but very little through the dam if it is condemned. You see, old chap, I had a chance to turn my stock several weeks ago at a nice profit. I did so. I have not yet announced the transaction to my fellow stockholders — and why should I? Now, Brayden, do you see things clearer?”

Brayden saw. He also saw a haze of reddish hue hovering between himself and Garth — a visualization of the blood lust that pulsed within him.

“If a mouse had the nerve and the ability to kill a cat,” Garth, fully aware of what was in Brayden’s mind, commented tauntingly, “it wouldn’t be a mouse.”

Brayden stared at him steadily for a long moment

“All right, Herb,” he said, his voice having steadied greatly, “if I’m shown up on the job when we inspect it tomorrow, then I’m confessing it all. I’m bringing you into it, damn your black heart — and I’m going to show you up for what you are! Taste that, Mr. Cat — and see if it’s cream!”

That possibility was exactly what had been causing Garth uneasiness.

“I have not said, Sam, that I would not try and get you by,” Garth told him, considering the glowing end of his cigar wisely. “I shall, in fact, try my best to cover up your dirty work. But if I can’t... well, just what can you prove against me?”

Brayden considered the cold face of his tormentor for a moment, then did what no sane man would have done. He showed his ace-in-the-hole.

“I’ve done some digging into your past lately,” he said with pardonable venom. “Had good luck from the start. Struck pay-dirt right off the reel — Mr. Horace K. Bootan!”

At the mention of that name Herb Garth started violently. By a mighty effort he regained control of himself, at least to a degree. Presently, looking across the desk at the man he had fully intended to ruin the very next day, he spoke in a voice he could not quite control.

II

“The old Bootan Mining Corporation matter, eh?”

“Exactly.”

“That would look a bit ugly — if you can prove anything. Suppose you can, huh? Not just bluffing?”

“I’m not bluffing. Either you get me across to-morrow, or I’ll lay information before certain persons connected with the United States Commissioner’s office in Springfield that will land you behind bars — slick though you think you are!”

Garth nodded his head slowly. “You could, of course, do just that — provided you’ve got proof of my former identity as Bootan. Using the mails to defraud — well, aside from the fact that I don’t care for the climate either at Leavenworth or Atlanta, I should be shown up rather completely and my usefulness in this mundane sphere utterly destroyed. I suppose, er, you have documentary evidence that would convict, eh, Sam?”

“You bet I have!”

Garth fixed his half-lidded gaze intently upon Brayden’s face. Brayden never had been a very convincing liar. His glance wavered, dropped, and Garth breathed a bit easier.

“Liar,” he was thinking. “He’s got certain information that would perhaps result badly for me, if followed up. Yes, I should say, damned badly. But nothing of a documentary character. Guess here is where you help a victim out of a hole, Herb, old chap — else get down into the hole with him. That’s hell, my boy — but the doctor says take it!”

He laughed, reached for the bottle and filled two glasses to the brim. Shoving one of the glasses toward Brayden, he exclaimed genially.

“Sam, old chap, you surely didn’t think I’d let you down on that inspection to-morrow! Surely not! Just leave it to me, and everything will go through exactly as we desire it to. Er, by the way,” he went on as an afterthought, raising his glass from the table, “you haven’t been fool enough to keep any records, or notes, on our transactions, have you?”

“And if I have?” Brayden queried, bucked up a bit by the change of attitude Garth exhibited, and the rich liquor he had swallowed.

“Well, in case things are too bad and I can’t cover for you,” Garth told him, “there might be a seizure of your books and records at once. Now, Sam, if you should have to stand a trial — it would be heavily expensive, you know — on a criminal charge, wouldn’t it be better to have me free to work in your behalf? I could aid you as Herbert T. Garth, respected financier, but couldn’t be anything but a curse to you as Bootan, the — well, the mining-syndicate swindler. Think that over, old timer.”

“I have thought it over,” Brayden assured him, his voice now calm. “And, take it as final, Garth, if I go down to-morrow you go with me. That’s all there is to that!”

Garth arose, his manner betraying nothing of the uneasiness he felt. It would never do to let Brayden suspect that he had him on the run, so to speak. It was not on record, that Garth knew of, that a mouse had ever bitten a cat — but this particular mouse had at least gone to the length of showing its teeth. No, Brayden must be dealt with in other ways than Garth had employed with any former victim, although the methods he must use were not at all clear just then. They would be, no doubt, by morning.

“Think things over, Sam,” he advised coolly, taking up hat and stick. “I’ll see you in the morning. Good night.”

“Go to hell!” snapped Brayden, reaching for the bottle.

Garth smiled his cold smile, and closed the door gently. “At that,” he reflected, sitting in his expensive hotel bedroom a bit later, “Sam would only have to tip off the Feds that I am Bootan — and all the fat would be in the fire. They’d uncover my trail clear back to the old days in Utah, careful though I have been to hide it. Yeah, I’m washed up if I’m fool enough to let Sam do it.”

As for the dam, Garth knew very well that those eagle-eyed men who were with him on the board would spot its defects, detect the paucity of cement in the structure, now that they had been pointed in that direction. There was no hope of covering up Sam Brayden’s crookedness — and if Sam’s crookedness came to light, Sam would talk.

When Garth eventually fell asleep, there was a troubled expression on his face, and he groaned at intervals throughout a restless night.

At breakfast next morning with the four other members of the board, Garth’s haggard face caused comment.

“They must have given you a corn-shuck mattress last night, Herb,” one member joked. “Or maybe the witches rode you?”

“A tooth that’s got to come out,” Garth explained, smiling, bringing his will to bear upon his overwrought nerves. “You know how it is. A chap will put off a trip to his dentist just as long as he can.”

The trouble with Garth was that the morning had brought him no nearer a solution of his difficulty than he had been the night before. Something had to be done to prevent Brayden from talking, as there was not the least hope that the inspection would fail to reveal the real condition of the dam. Brayden would be ruined before the day was at its close, and he’d ruin Garth as well.

“If there was just some way I could get him off in a quiet spot and fill his hide with lead,” Garth gritted to himself as the party took the road to Big Rock, forty miles distant, in two fast touring cars. “But there’s no chance for that, damn the luck!”

III

Arrived at the village of Big Rock, the two cars pulled up on the north bank of the river where the construction company’s offices stood. It was a Sunday, the inspection trip being purposely set for that day, when no work would be going on at the dam. Sam Brayden, attired in his service-worn corduroys, stood in the door of his office, absent-mindedly polishing a nickeled badge with his handkerchief.

Greetings over, Brayden ceased polishing the badge and pinned it to his jacket. It shone like a new mirror when the sun’s rays struck it. On a big job, such as the dam, heads of the various departments wore badges which indicated their particular office. Brayden’s was lettered:

Months before, he had been proud of that badge and what it stood for. Now... well, it was just another fake. When first he had pinned it to his coat it had been a badge of honor, honestly won. Now it was just a glittering lie. It should have read: Chief of Destruction — for that was precisely his status on the job. He had cheated the dam, knowing well that it might, when the waters came to flood tide in the river and great pressure was brought against it, spread ruin over the country below it.

Garth, uneasy though he was, smiled cheerfully when he and Brayden shook hands.

“Well, Brayden,” he said jovially, “you won’t have us pests bothering you for long. Just a matter of routine, you know, and we will run it off in time to return to Springfield to-night. When you are ready, we will proceed.”

Brayden was, Garth thought — and was puzzled thereat — strangely calm and dignified. The crisp, active, efficient engineer in his every word and movement. His brow was serene, manner composed. What the deuce could that mean?

“Resigned to the inevitable,” he concluded, eying the engineer narrowly. “Relieved, perhaps, that the showdown is at hand. Glad, too, that he will be able to strike at me. Yes, that’s what’s in his mind. Well, maybe — and, again, maybe not!”

They moved in a body to the north end of the dam. That end, as well as the south wing, had been completed, leaving only the central portion to finish.

The central portion stood at about half the required height, just a mass of rough concrete encompassed by wooden forms. The flow of the White, now rather low, had been carried through the race at the power house on the dam’s south end.

With Berry, the local inspector who had brought about the present activity, in the lead, they moved out on the broad top of the concrete structure in single file, Garth and Brayden bringing up the rear. When they had progressed halfway across the north wing, stopping frequently to observe certain aspects of the work which the young local man pointed out, it had become plain to Garth that his fellow inspectors were looking grave — ugly, even. He turned to Brayden and nodded for him to lag behind. Presently the two stood alone at quite a distance from the others, Garth pointing down toward something at the base of the dam, which, at that point, rose two hundred feet above the ground.

“You’re in for it,” he said to Brayden in undertones. “No hope, Sam. What you going to do?”

“Take it on the button — damn you!” Brayden snapped. “I’ve got it coming, and I’m going to take it. In fact, the mouse feels better this morning than it has since you crossed its path nearly a year ago — Mr. Cat.”

“That’s interesting,” Garth sneered.

“Very satisfactory to me,” Brayden said with a grim smile. “Do you know, I somehow feel like the mouse is going to manage to cheat the cat today, Bootan... er, Garth, I mean. Don’t know just how — but I have that feeling.”

“You damned nut!” Garth snarled. “Listen to reason! Take the fall alone, and I’ll swear to leave no stone unturned to get you safely off. There’s a cool hundred grand in it for you besides. You may get a short term in prison for falsifying your reports, cheating the dam, but you’ll be well heeled when you come out!”

“Still trying to skim off the cream for yourself, eh, Mr. Cat?” Brayden laughed, and there was actually merriment in his voice. “Well, if you manage to get it skimmed off into your little bowl, you’ll do it without my aid, Bootan. Pardon me,” he grinned ironically, “I mean Garth.”

“You... you contemptible rat!” Garth raged, his face congested, eyes glassy with fear and hatred.

“No, no, my dear Bootan!” Brayden corrected. “Mouse! Just a mouse that has found a way to torture the cat — even if it can’t whip it. Now, on with the show, Bootan — the others will miss us.”

Garth turned about, but flung back over a shoulder:

“Two hundred grand, Sam — and my word to get you off light!”

Brayden laughed. “Your word isn’t worth a damn to me, Bootan!” he said. “And that’s final.”

The rest of the party had begun to descend the ladder from the completed wing onto the central portion, a matter of seventy-five feet below the finished top. Garth followed them down, and was in turn followed by Brayden. Then, walking over the rough surface of the lately poured concrete, the forms reaching them about knee high, the party proceeded toward the southern wing.

The finish was not far off, both Brayden and Garth now knew. The grim, hard faces of the inspectors, who were likewise stockholders, left them in no doubt about that. The cheating had been laid bare.

It was nearing the noon hour when the leaders of the group finished their inspection of the uncompleted part of the work and began climbing to the top of the south wing. Garth and Brayden still lagged somewhat in the rear.

“Three hundred grand!” Garth hissed at Brayden, his eyes indeed resembling those of a cat as he paused with one foot on the lower rung of the ladder.

“Who is the cat now?” Brayden queried, a lilt in his voice. “And how does it feel to be a mouse?”

Garth, without another word, started climbing up the ladder, Brayden following. When Garth reached the top of the finished work he found the others grouped with their heads together, backs to him. He paused there, thinking intently. Presently Brayden finished the climb and stood upon the wing. Garth flashed a glance toward the others who were still grouped with their backs toward him. Nowhere within range of his vision was there another person to be seen — and Garth, seeing his opportunity, grasped it and acted.

“Listen, Sam,” he said, a pleading note in his voice, stepping toward the engineer. “Let’s get together on this—”

With a sudden thrust of his left hand Garth, at that instant, gave Sam Brayden a slight push — just enough to send him over the edge of the dam.

IV

A hoarse cry broke from Bray-den’s lips as his body, sprawled in the air, hands clawing wildly, shot down toward the rocks two hundred feet below. Garth by then had moved almost up to the rest of the group, and all turned together and rushed to the dam’s edge just as Bray-den’s body struck.

“God!” Garth cried, his face ashen. “How did it happen? Did anybody see him fall?”

The white-faced group of men, limp and dizzy in the presence of such tragedy, denied, one and all, having seen Brayden until after they heard him cry out.

Then he was halfway down the side of the dam.

“He must have been overcome with dizziness—” one began, only to be cut short by another member.

“In view of what he was up against — what this board has found wrong with the dam — I can think of another plausible reason for his plunge. The easiest way out, gentlemen. Suicide.”

Several others nodded agreement.

Garth, trembling in every fiber of his body, dizzy with the thought of the desperate chance he had taken, was peering down at the sprawled body of Brayden on the rocks. Light glinted on a bit of polished metal on the dead man’s coat — the shield of which he had once been proud. A ray of sunlight, reflected as though from a highly polished mirror, flashed upward squarely into Garth’s eyes. He clamped a hand over them, and staggered back from the edge of the dam.

“God!” he cried, his voice hoarse and strained. “Poor Brayden — what a terrible end!”

What Garth had in mind was something different. He was not superstitious, but the light flashing up from the polished surface of the shield squarely into the eyes of the wearer’s murderer—

Was it an omen?

“Hell!” Garth snarled, getting a grip on his nerves. “I don’t believe in omens! My opportunity came, and I took advantage of it. Sam Brayden, in like circumstances, would have done the same!”

By the time the sheriff and coroner reached the scene and the body had been removed to the village, Herb Garth had fully recovered his nerve. Was, in fact, almost in an exultant mood. Had he not saved the day for himself, and put the one man he had feared, of all those with whom he had had nefarious contact, beyond the power of speech?

Furthermore, he had convinced himself, by artful questioning, that not one of the others on the dam had the least idea that he had been anywhere near Brayden when lie went down to his death.

The other members of the party confessed to a state of confusion. The thing had been so sudden, so startling and tragic, that nobody could say for certain where he or any of the others were exactly when the body of the engineer went over the edge.

The sheriff asked many questions, and then the coroner had his innings. A hastily summoned jury was asked to consider the evidence, and it was a foregone conclusion that the verdict would be that Brayden had met an accidental death or else had committed suicide.

Then a tall, bronzed young man in khaki and boots, a sub-engineer oh the dam, walked into the room where the inquiry was being held, and desired himself sworn as a witness. He was duly sworn.

“My name is John Talbot, employed on the Big Rock dam construction,” he stated in a quiet voice. “To-day being Sunday, I went down the river on a fishing trip. Some time near noon I saw, in looking up the stream toward the dam, a party of men, some seven or eight, walking across the work. I knew, of course, that they were the inspectors slated to arrive to-day. They were so far away they looked like children from my point of vantage.

“The party crossed the central portion of the dam, and when I looked again all were on top of the south wing. At that distance it was not possible for me to identify any one of them, but something occurred that indicated the identity of the last man of the group, one who lagged behind, with another map somewhat ahead of him. It was a gleam of light which flashed from the breast of the lagging man — and I knew the gleam came from Mr. Brayden’s badge. Who the man next above him was I could not tell, even if I might have known him intimately by sight.

“Then, gentlemen,” the engineer went on, his voice grave, “I saw something which makes it impossible for anybody to entertain the theory that Sam Brayden either fell from the dam accidentally or leaped with suicidal intent. While I was idly observing the men on the south wing a man appeared to detach himself from the group and walk toward Brayden. Then, as I stared horrified, the man’s arm flashed out — and Sam Brayden was thrust over the edge of the dam. I saw that happen, and make my oath to it here and now.”

The crowded room was as silent as though it had been empty when the engineer made his amazing disclosure. Then voices buzzed, and the coroner rapped for silence. He looked toward the sheriff, and the sheriff gave him a dazed look in return.

“You ask what questions you sees fit to, Brooks,” the sheriff said, evading the issue himself. “It’s up to you.”

But no amount of questioning could shed any light upon who the man might have been that detached himself from the main group and shoved Brayden over the edge.

Herbert T. Garth scouted the engineer’s testimony. It was all a fancy of his own creation. He and all the other members of the board had been conferring in a bunch when Sam fell or leaped over, and he could and would swear that not a member of the party was anywhere near Brayden. At least, near enough to have touched him.

All the others of the party were of like opinion. None would admit being near Brayden, and it was the belief of all that he had lingered behind, respecting the evident desire of the inspectors to confer in private.

“Wuz all of you inspectin’ gents together when you heered Sam yell out?” the sheriff asked.

“All of us,” Berry declared. “I am very certain we were all in a group, and Brayden was alone about fifteen feet away. Perhaps twenty feet away.”

That was a good break for which Garth silently thanked the engineer. Unquestionably, his lagging behind with Brayden had not been noticed by any other member of the party. He was safe — let the damned sub-engineer testify himself black in the face, if he would, that somebody had pushed his chief over. He, Herb Garth, was safe!

V

“Well adjourn this here inquiry,” the coroner stated finally, “an’ re-convene in Springfield day after to-morrer. Thar’s got to be some investigatin’ done, an’ that’ll take time. All of us knows John Talbot, him bein’ raised hereabouts, an’ we knows he’s reliable. In th’ meantime, all of you gents bein’ well knowed to me, I’ll release you on your own words to hold yoreselves ready in Springfield for th’ investigation. This here session stands adjourned.”

On the day the coroner’s inquiry was slated to be held, the Springfield newspapers greatly pleased Herb Garth by coming out in a full expose of the cheating at the dam, and of the financial bankruptcy of Sam Brayden, who had done the cheating.

Suicide. Everybody agreed that Brayden, to escape the consequences of his crookedness, had leaped to his death on purpose.

“Things couldn’t have worked out better!” Garth exulted. “Nothing like being wise enough and quick enough to grab your opportunity when it presents itself, Herb, my lad! Sam, the poor rat, was always getting fooled by one of the impersonators — but not me! I know Old Man Opportunity by sight. No fake could impose on me!”

Garth was feeling very proud of himself, very safe and happy, when into the offices of the Big Rock Dam Company, in the late afternoon of the day for the coroner’s jury to decide its case, walked a small, unimportant looking man in middle life. He introduced himself to the assembled members of the inspection board, who at the time were whiling away the time playing poker, wondering why they had not yet been called to attend the coroner’s investigation.

“Inspector Radway, attached to the United States Commissioner’s office, Springfield,” he told them shortly. “I have with me a finger-print expert and I wish to take the prints of all of you gentlemen. Please get ready.”

“Say, what is all this?” Garth demanded arrogantly. “Are we thugs and murderers, to be subjected to humiliation like this—”

“That will be all from you, please,” Inspector Radway broke in, and he seemed to somehow have lost his look of insignificance. His eyes held a hard glare, and his voice was brittle. “Those of you who do not comply of your own volition will be arrested and forced to do so. Choose.”

Needless to say the finger-print man had no further trouble. After he had gone into an adjoining room with his sets of prints, Inspector Radway seated himself at a window, lit a cigar, and paid no further attention to the others in the room. Half an hour passed thus, and the inspector was called into the room with the finger-print man. When he returned he was briskly ready for business.

“On last Sunday night, at about the hour of midnight, Miss Gayle Crawford, secretary to Sam Brayden, came to my house and placed two letters in my hands. One was sealed, addressed to me. The other was unsealed, addressed to Miss Crawford. I shall read the latter letter first, as it is very explanatory.”

He took the letter from his pocket and read it aloud.

It ran:

The inspector paused briefly, then returned to the subject.

“Miss Crawford did not hear from Sam Brayden directly, but she had the news of his death late that night. She came and gave me the letter addressed to me. I shall read it.”

He took a second letter from his pocket, reading it aloud also.

Garth, rigid as sculptured stone, stared straight before him, across the desk and into the pale eyes of the inspector. He felt that the eyes of every other person in the room were upon him. Presently he relaxed, smiled, and took out a cigar.

“And, Mr. Inspector, were you foolish enough to swallow all that?” he asked lightly.

“Quit stalling, Bootan!” Radway snapped. “Your finger-prints, just taken, check with those on the bottle and glass, and they, in their turn, check with those of Horace K. Bootan — probably the rottenest swindler of recent times. You’re Bootan — and you can’t get away from it!”

Garth smiled. “Well, if the fingerprints say so, far be it from my intention to dispute with science,” he said, lighting a cigar. “What of it? A couple of years at Atlanta — then the free air again. Not so bad, eh, inspector?”

He was thinking of the million and more he had salted away, and of what life could still give him after his term should end. Well, they had him dead to rights as Bootan — but, and here he chuckled inwardly, he had them dead to rights in the murder of Sam Brayden. Let them pin that on him if they could!

“I am thinking, Bootan,” Radway said icily, “that the Federal prison at Atlanta will not be contaminated by having you as a guest this trip — or any other. The commissioner has decided to let you go to the State.”

The door of an adjoining office opened, and Sheriff Joe Storey, of Taney County, walked in. He said nothing, but placed a tissue-wrapped article on the desk in front of Radway. Then he seated himself beside the door into the corridor, his hard eyes fixed unwaveringly upon Garth’s puzzled face.

Radway unwrapped the article and exposed a nickeled badge to the eager eyes of those around the desk. The lettering on the badge read:

“This is the badge that Sam Brayden wore when he plunged to his death off the top of the dam last Sunday,” Radway’s cold voice announced. “When I got that letter of Sam’s I set my men to work at this end, and then hustled down to Big Rock and viewed the body, taking our fingerprint man with me to see what we could find.”

He paused, glanced sharply at Garth’s now pasty, puzzled face, then went on.

“Cook, our expert, noticed some smudges on the shining surface of Brayden’s badge,” he explained. “He got a good set of prints from it at once. The sheriff had already informed us that Sam had busily polished the badge just before starting on the trip which was to prove fatal to him. Sam, it seems, had a habit of absent-mindedly polishing the badge.”

He paused, leaned across the desk, and said in slow, even tones, a stiffly pointing finger just beneath Garth’s nose:

“The prints on the badge checked with yours, Bootan. The first, second and third fingers are shown. How did they get there?”

Garth came slowly to his feet, his mouth sagging open, staring eyes fixed upon the shiny surface of the badge. He essayed to speak, but succeeded in bringing forth only a croak.

“I’ll tell you how they got there!” Inspector Radway suddenly thundered. “They got there when you thrust Sam Brayden over the edge of the dam — to his death! John Talbot saw the act — and those finger-prints prove who the actor was! The first three fingers of your left hand came in contact with the Radge when you sent Brayden to his end. Take him, Sheriff Storey — before he faints!”

Six months later they hanged Herb Garth — the man who had boasted to himself that he could pick out Old Man Opportunity in a world filled with so many fakes!