Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 27, No. 1, September 17, 1927

FROM OUT OF THE YEARS CAME ADMIRAL FARRAGUT’S FAMOUS WORDS, JUST AS HE HAD HEARD HIS FATHER QUOTE THEM: “DAMN THE TORPEDOES! GO AHEAD!”

I

Just as the courthouse clock in the cow town of Merida City finished tolling the hour of midnight, John Barrett, the new prosecuting attorney of Merida County, turned from his office window out of which he had been gazing silently for several minutes.

“I’ve made up my mind, judge,” he said to the lean and spectacled little old man who was the only other occupant of the room. “Give me a warrant for Bill.”

Little old Judge Oglesby peered over his steel-rimmed glasses at the worried but determined face of the young prosecutor. What he saw was a good face; it was not a handsome one, rather it was ruggedly homely; yet the rough-hewn features, lighted by honest, friendly eyes, were now so careworn that the judge, himself evidently no weakling, hesitated a moment before adding to his youthful friend’s perplexities.

After a pause he remonstrated: “Why begin your term by, being a persecutor instead of a prosecutor? What’s the use of my giving you a murder warrant for Bill Wacker because that worthless sheep man Pedro Alvarado, flown with insolence and moonshine, as the poet says, went on a rampage in Bill’s hotel and managed to get himself manslaughtered—”

“It wasn’t manslaughter, judge,” the troubled John Barrett objected patiently, “it was cold-blooded and deliberate murder. And just because Bill’s a political power in this county — of course, I’ll have to admit he was a cold-blooded and deliberate contributor to my campaign fund — is no reason he’s above the law. I’ll thank you for the warrant.”

The old judge, his face very grave, arose, went to the younger man, put an arm around his shoulders and, although they were alone, spoke to him in a whisper:

“John,” he said soberly, “I’m not thinking about politics, I’m thinking about you. Arrest Bill Wacker, and he’ll fight back with every weapon he can lay his hands on. You’re happily married, but Anne doesn’t know about Flossie Nicholas. Bill Wacker does — and he’ll tell.”

Young Barrett’s eyes were those of one who looks upon a ghost. “That all happened before I knew Anne,” he managed to say.

“It never should have happened at all.”

“I’m only human — we thought we loved each other.”

“Bill Wacker’s human, too. He’s so human he’ll no more be able to resist revenge than you and Flossie were able to resist what you thought was love. Think of Anne.”

This piece of advice was unneeded. The prosecuting attorney’s unhappy eyes were staring fixedly at a silver-framed portrait on his desk, the portrait of a cool, sweet girl in wedding finery.

After a long moment, the prosecuting attorney roused himself from his reverie, threw back his shoulders, drove his clenched right fist against his open left hand and said doggedly: “I’m going to arrest Bill Wacker and indict him and convict him. Please make out the warrant.”

Regret and admiration fought in the old judge’s face as he seated himself at the desk and drew toward him a sheaf of legal blanks. For a moment or so, the only sound in the room was the scratching of his pen.

Young Barrett, who had returned to the window where he stood looking into the night, broke the tense silence. As if speaking to himself more than to his companion, he muttered: “My father used to tell me that his idea of a man was Admiral Farragut. ‘Damn the torpedoes! Go ahead!’ ”

“Your father was right,” announced the judge, in the voice of one who is inwardly amused. “But I don’t remember that Farragut ever lashed himself to the rigging and led his fleet through Merida County. You’re starting something that’ll keep you busy damning torpedoes and going ahead. Here’s your warrant.”

The prosecuting attorney, with the document in his hand, searched the other’s face. “Between ourselves,” he asked, “you don’t think I’ll convict Bill Wacker?”

The old judge lighted a stogy before he replied. “Between ourselves,” said he, “I know Bill Wacker’ll get a fair trial in the court room. Which is more than you’ll get outside. If you’re going home. I’ll give you a lift.”

“I’m not going home just now,” Barrett told him. “I’m going down to the Bella Union Hotel and serve this warrant on Bill.”

His old eyes shining with pride, the judge bit hard into his stogy. “Damn the torpedoes!” he chuckled. “Go ahead!”

As the young prosecuting attorney walked slowly through the sleeping street toward the Bella Union Hotel — the only civic institution in Merida City, except the railroad station and the jail, that stayed open all night — he could not free his mind from the thought that he had invited himself into a game where the percentage was all against him.

More than a week had passed since the drunken and turbulent sheep man, Pedro Alvarado, had tried to drive a flock of thirty ewes into the office of Bill Wacker’s hotel, and had been killed for his pains. During that week, a coroner’s jury had decided that “said deceased had come to his death from a gunshot wound inflicted by a party or parties to this jury unknown.”

This verdict seemed to have met with the general approbation of the community; and nobody knew better than the native-born prosecuting attorney that public sentiment would be dead against his attempt to go back of the verdict.

Yet he, working alone, had discovered concerning the killing of the unpopular sheep man certain facts about which the public knew nothing; and it was his discovery of those facts which had made him say to himself: “The trail leads straight to Bill Wacker’s door. It’s my duty to follow it.”

To no one, not even to the wise and honest old Judge Oglesby, had he said anything about the new evidence he had unearthed; to no one, except his wife and Judge Oglesby, had he said anything about his decision to proceed against the popular politician.

And neither of the only two persons who knew he had taken the trail against the man, with whom he had been upon friendly terms since the days when he was punching cattle and studying law at the same time, had received the knowledge with much enthusiasm.

“Don’t be a persecutor,” had been the old judge’s first advice. “Don’t be a fool,” had been the young wife’s first and last; “I just know if you fight Mr. Wacker you’ll never be elected Congressman, or Governor, or anything. So, don’t be a fool.”

Curiously enough, it was neither his ambitious wife, nor his conservative friend, nor even the influential Bill Wacker, that now was in the front of the mind of the slow-walking prosecuting attorney, whose obstinacy was more or less hinted at in the nickname by which he formerly was known among his fellow cow-punchers.

When Knot-Headed Barrett was within a few yards of the stronghold of Bill Wacker, what was in the front of his mind was the image of his sweetheart of other days — the Flossie Nicholas, who had been called, among other things, generous, and loyal — but never ambitious or influential or conservative. The image of this raven-haired, sultry-eyed dance hall girl — her own intrepid little self long gone no one knew whither — persisted even after the hand she had held so often had closed round the china knob on Bill Wacker’s door.

“Well,” the prosecuting attorney of Merida County said to himself, a far-away look in his eyes, “I’m happily married, just like Judge Oglesby says, and I love my wife. But Floss was a square-shooter, and, wherever she is, I wish her luck. Only I hope she don’t need it quite as much as I need all the luck I can get right now.”

He turned the china knob of the door that never had known a key, and walked into the office of an all-night establishment which was going full blast.

On his right, as he entered, was the double doorway leading into the big combination barroom and gambling hall whence came loud talk and laughter, the rattle of glasses and of poker chips, the hum of the roulette wheel and the tinny music of a mechanical piano.

He started toward that doorway, but halted when he heard his name called from behind the desk in the smoke-filled office.

“Hello, Jack!” boomed a friendly voice, and from behind the desk, where at first he had not seen him, there lounged out a big, breezy, hearty man in shirt sleeves, his broad, tanned face, even his bald, pink head, seeming to shine with welcome.

“Hello, Bill!” answered the prosecuting attorney, as Bill Wacker advanced with outstretched hand to greet him. “But before we shake hands, I’ve got to tell you you’re under arrest.”

“I’m what?” demanded the big man in amazement, staying his hand.

“You’re under arrest for the murder of Pedro Alvarado,” said the other quietly. “Here’s the warrant.”

But not so quietly did big Bill Wacker receive it. As soon as his angry, gray eyes had swiftly scanned the document, he let out a roar of rage that stifled all the talk and laughter in the adjoing room, and brought round him and Knot-Headed Barrett a circle of interested, silent faces.

“You damn fool!” he clamored. “You think you’re goin’ to arrest me because a drunk comes in my hotel an’ gets killed in a fight? An’ me not even here till it’s all over? Well, you ain’t! Here’s what I think of you an’ your warrant! Now, get out of here an’ don’t come back!”

While he had been speaking he had been tearing the warrant to bits. As he spat out his final words he threw these torn pieces of paper into the prosecuting attorney’s face.

II

With lightning swiftness two forty-fives jumped from nowhere into the prosecuting attorney’s hands.

“Come out of here with me or I’ll drop you where you stand,” said he who held the guns.

Big Bill Wacker’s eyes, suddenly sick, kept staring at the blue steel barrels. But if it was his desperate hope that some of his friends would intervene, that hope was doomed to death. For his friends, knowing as well as he did, that Knot-Headed Barrett was as sure of aim as he was quick of draw, remained silent, interested, and motionless.

More resourceful than his friends was Bill Wacker himself. With a return of his old hearty friendliness — or, at least, with very good imitation of it — he said to the grim-faced young man who was covering him with the Colts:

“Jack, I’m sorry I blew up like that. It was the damn injustice of th’ thing that made me. Down in your heart you must know I didn’t kill Alvarado any more than you did. Somebody’s been imposin’ on you. If you’ll let me show you right now how the thing happened, I’ll bet you anything you want to bet you’ll see I didn’ have nuthin’ to do with it.”

There was a pause before the prosecuting attorney replied: “It is my duty to warn you that anything you may say can be used against you.” Those words were formal, but in the tone in which they were spoken there was a hint that the speaker was willing, even if not especially anxious, to listen to what his prisoner had to say.

As a matter of fact, he was more than willing he was anxious. And for this concealed eagerness of his there were two reasons. One was his curiosity to learn, in the presence of witnesses, how Bill Wacker intended to describe the crime, at the commission of which, or, so he had maintained only a moment before, he had not been present.

The other reason was that in the group of men, now surrounding Bill Wacker and himself, was the red-faced, blue-eyed Duke Emmett, who not only was Bill Wacker’s faro-dealer, but also was the prosecuting attorney’s best witness against Bill Wacker.

No sign of recognition had passed between the prosecuting attorney and the professional gambler, and none passed between them now while they stood eye-to-eye and heard Bill Wacker, with a large gesture, say: “Now, Jack, if you’ll take your guns off me. I’ll show you just how it all happened.”

“Not carrying any iron yourself, are you?” insinuated the unsmiling prosecutor.

Bill Wacker, whose sense of the dramatic — to which much of his political success was due — never deserted him, and whose composure had wholly returned, raised both hands above his head.

“Search me,” he said simply, “every man, woman, an’ child in Merida County knows I never carry a gun.”

“Your word’s good enough for me,” Barrett told him, slipping the two forty-fives back under his coat.

“No reason why these gentlemen shouldn’t go back to their pastimes?” hinted the bluff, hearty owner of the Bella Union Hotel, barroom and gambling hall inclusive.

Barrett had a very good reason why at least one of the gentlemen should stay with him and Bill Wacker, but he dared not state it; he could not tell Bill Wacker he wanted Duke Emmett, the faro-dealer, to linger, so that later a double first-hand check could be made on Bill Wacker’s version.

“What do I care?” he replied, his voice unconsciously edged with the irritation he felt at being balked in his first hope that all of these possible witnesses would hear Bill Wacker’s recital.

No sooner had he snapped out the words than he realized he had made a mistake.

The adroit Bill Wacker was quick to take advantage of it. “New brooms always sweep clean, boys,” he beamed upon the crowd. “I ain’t th’ boss here, right now. If I was, I’d choke off that pianner.”

Barrett was further chagrined by the chuckles of amusement and the looks of sympathy for Bill Wacker which this smiling rebuke evoked. For, at that moment, the tinny mechanical “pianner” was giving forth the familiar strains of “Dear Old Pal.”

Not a man in the room but knew of the long friendship between the genial politician and the stern young prosecutor; not a man but knew that without Wacker’s influence Jack Barrett would not be in office; not a man but knew that on the range and in cow towns the blackest of sins is ingratitude.

Sensing the deepening hostility to himself, Jack Barrett stiffened. His hands sliding to his holsters, he said to the complacent prisoner: “I reckon I better take you down to the jail, pronto.”

“Men, you see this young feller won’t gimme a chance to tell him th’ truth,” Bill Wacker pointed out.

The response made the beset prosecuting attorney tighten his grip on his guns. It was the low, sullen growl of a crowd preparing to go into action. Through it cut the resolute voice of some unseen henchman in the rear.

“We’ll make him, Bill,” said the voice. “We’ll see you get fair play.”

The young prosecuting attorney caught his breath in a sigh of relief. The crowd would hear Bill Wacker’s cooked-up story, after all.

Successfully hiding whatever disappointment he may have felt because thirty or forty good customers were to prolong their absence from his bar and his gambling tables, Bill Wacker, his bearing now that of a long-suffering apostle of righteousness whose patience has almost reached the breaking point, led the way into the big room adjoining the office.

At his right was the anxiously alert young prosecuting attorney; at his left the impassive faro dealer, the prosecutor’s undercover eyewitness of the crime. Close upon the heels of the three followed the crowd.

“It was three o’clock las’ Friday afternoon, slowest hour in th’ day,” began Bill Wacker, stopping at the end of the long golden-oak bar, “that’s when I come in through the back way. I’d been out visitin’ a feller’s that’s sick.

“Soon’s as I come in, that fly-by-night bartender I had workin’ for me — the coke fiend that left th’ country that same night after robbin’ th’ till — rushes up, an’ says: ‘Oh, Mr. Wacker, Mr. Wacker, you’re jus’ in time to help ketch ’em.’ ‘Ketch who?’ I says. ‘Ketch them two drunken cowboys who done this,’ he says, an’ he pulled me from behin’ th’ bar an’ showed me poor Alvarado lyin’ right here where I’m standin’ — dead, an’ blood all over him frum th’ bullet that killed him.

“Mebbe, I suppose, I should have chased right out after ’em, but they was nobody here but th’ bartender an’ me, an’ he was all hopped up, an’ excited, an’ useless, an’ I wasn’t sure then this poor feller was dead, so I got some water an’ a towel an’ worked over him, but couldn’t do nuthin’.

“Soon’s as I foun’ out for sure he was dead, I give th’ alarm an’ some o’ th’ boys took out after them cow-punchers, like you all know about, but they’d got too much start.

“An’ why I should be drug into this is sure more than I see.”

A murmur of sympathy for the teller of this straightforward tale ran through his hearers, but in this murmur young Barrett did not join.

The red-faced, blue-eyed faro dealer, Duke Emmett, did, though he, as well as Barrett, had heard Bill Wacker instinctively shy away from the one word in the entire narrative upon which Barrett depended to send Bill Wacker to the gallows.

That one word was towel. To Barrett and the faro dealer, there was a world of significance in the fact that Bill Wacker had said: “I got some water an’ a towel, I got some water,” because only they knew that it was of a towel that, if justice were done in this case, would be fashioned a halter.

To the bluff, hearty Wacker’s other hearers, the word meant nothing. They wanted to know about the sheep. Some of them said so. Wacker, glowing with self-confidence because his story had been so well received, told them.

“Sure, Alvarado had been drinkin’,” he said in conclusion. “I suppose that’s why he tried to drive his flock o’ ewes into th’ office out there, an’ got them drunken punchers sore, an’ one of ’em shot him. All you fellers know what that big husky, Alvarado, was like when he was lickered up.” He paused a moment, reflectively.

“I suppose,” he went on, “if he hadn’ been such a big husky, he wouldn’t have busted his skull, droppin’ to th’ floor, that-away, after bein’ shot.”

During the brief space of silence which followed the triumphant Bill Wacker’s statement of his theory regarding Alvarado’s fractured skull, a theory which he had been public-spirited enough to suggest to the coroner’s jury and with which that learned body had agreed, a small wiry man thrust himself through the crowd.

When he spoke, his voice, identified as the lover of fair play who, a few minutes before, had assured Bill Wacker that the prosecuting attorney would be made to listen to his vindication.

Facing the prosecuting attorney, what he now said was: “What I’d do is offer a reward for them two cow-punchers.”

“Would you?” inquired young Barrett evenly, and turned his back on him to confront the self-satisfied proprietor of the Bella Union. “Well, what I’m going to do, Mr. Wacker, is to take you to jail.”

“Boys—” burst out Mr. Wacker, but went no farther. He had been stopped by the muzzle of a Colt’s forty-five jammed against his stomach.

Said young Barrett in a voice of ice: “I can’t kill ’em all. But I can kill you. If one of ’em makes a move, I’ll do it.”

Half an hour later, Bill Wacker, being safely, and profanely, in jail, a thoughtful young prosecuting attorney again walked through the sleeping streets, alone.

As he drew near the cottage where slumbered the cool and sweet wife whose dreams that he was to go to Congress, or to be Governor, his night’s work may have wrecked, he was saying to himself: “There’ll be plenty of torpedoes, all right. But, damn the torpedoes, and go ahead.”

Yet, he was feeling very lonely.

III

During the first ten days that Bill Wacker was in jail, awaiting the meeting of the grand jury, Prosecuting Attorney Barrett resisted every one of the direct and indirect attempts which were made to get him to do what Bill Wacker’s intercessors — some of them accredited go-betweens, others volunteers — called “listen to reason.”

But, on the night of the tenth day, something happened that shook the foundations of the case he had built up against the prisoner. The stroke came out of a clear sky, for the tenth night was a cloudless night of stars — a night of such magical beauty that, under its spell of peace and loveliness, the much-tried and much-tempted and very tired young John Barrett relaxed, and, for the first time since he had begun to build the case, found comfort and encouragement in discussing it with his wife.

After she had washed the supper dishes and he had dried them and put them away, they sat down, side by side, on the upper step of the little front porch of their cottage. At first they sat in silence, the stilly evening, spangled with stars and fragrant with the perfumes of spring, seeming to lay invisible fingers on their lips.

But, when she had glimpsed a falling star, and having lightly kissed him, nestled her blond head against his shoulder, they began to talk in little, broken phrases about their future.

Insensibly, the talk came round to the Wacker case, and nothing since the first day of his investigation so soothed him as to hear her whisper: “You’re making a brave fight, my man, and I hope you win it.”

“Honey,” he found himself saying, “I can’t thank you enough for that. I get kind of tired sometimes. It’s just fine to know you’re with me.”

“I wasn’t, at first,” she told him, capturing his hand. “I was piggy enough to want you to let well enough alone. But now I’m glad you went ahead. With most of the whole county down on you, I’d be a great wife, wouldn’t I, if I didn’t stick?”

A flash of Knot-Headed Barrett’s fighting spirit was in his voice as he answered: “Most of the whole county will quit being down on me when I prove Bill Wacker’s guilty. Every one thinks he’s innocent. The people he’s been sending to me every day all insist he’s innocent. I know better.

“I know he planned that murder for more than a month — ever since Alvarado almost choked him to death while they were fighting over at Tucgoles. That was during the State Fair.

“The fight was over some girl. They’d had business troubles before, but this scrap over the girl was what made Wacker decide to get Alvarado out of the way for good. It seems the girl loved Alvarado.”

“And how do you know all this?” his wife asked. “And who is the girl?”

“Duke Emmett told me about the fight. Alvarado told him. They were great friends, even though Duke was turning the faro box for Bill Wacker. He doesn’t know who the girl is, but he does know he saw Bill Wacker kill him.

“Wacker doesn’t think anybody except that bartender he paid hush money to, and sent away the night of the murder, saw him do it. But Duke Emmett saw him. Duke’s my surprise witness. Wait till most of the county hear him—”

“Look, Jack, look!” she cut in, breathlessly. “Isn’t that a man standing in the shadow of the pepper tree over there?”

On his feet in a flash, revolver in hand, he placed himself in front of her.

“You, over there under the tree!” he challenged. “Come here — and come with your hands up!”

A figure disengaged itself from the shadow cast by a pepper tree, between the sidewalk and the street, and advanced toward them, hands in the air.

“Duke Emmet!” exclaimed the relieved prosecutor. “What in the world—”

“I didn’t see any light. I didn’t know you were home. I was going to wait till you came,” interrupted his star witness, the faro dealer, with what, for him, was unusual agitation of voice and manner. “You’d like to get your hands on that bartender Wacker shipped out of town, wouldn’t you?”

“Would I?” cried Barrett.

“Then come with me. He’s back. Right now, he’s sitting in a five-handed poker game in room No. 8 at the Bella Union.”

“And the grand jury meets to-morrow.” said Barrett, thinking aloud. “If I can get him to tell the truth to that jury they’ll simply have to vote a true bill. Without him, Wacker’s friends on the jury might say they preferred to believe Wacker’s story instead of yours. But, if he corroborates you, the jury’ll just have to indict.”

Impulsively, protectively, his wife slipped her arm around him. “But, but, can’t you send for him?” she queried. “Is it necessary for you to go to the Bella Union?”

The prosecuting attorney’s murmured reply was unintelligible, but not so the observation Duke Emmett volunteered. “No, it isn’t,” said he firmly. “To-night the Bella Union’s no Y. M. C. A. There’s a lot of hard drinking and a lot of hard talking going on down there, and some of those tough friends of Wacker’s from Tucgoles are used to shooting without waiting for the hat to drop.

“If any of them thought I was helping your husband, I’d have got mine before this. But they all think I’m body and soul with Wacker. This being my night off, they’ve been inviting me to sit in at their poker games. Wacker’s Man Friday, the town marshal, is in one of them now.

“Suppose we do this? Suppose I go back and sit into the game the cokey bartender’s in, Mr. Barrett, spread him out of it later and bring him here where you can talk to him?”

The wife breathed her relief, but her husband hesitated. “Let me make a suggestion,” he said finally. “Anything may happen down there to-night, and I can’t have you taking all the chances.

“It isn’t fair. I’ll go down with you, stake myself out near-by, say, in Wallie Sanders’s feed store, where we’ve met, so far, without any of the Wacker crowd finding it out, and, if there is any trouble, I’ll be close enough to lend you a hand. What time is it now?”

He started to pull out his watch, but the faro dealer had his out first and struck a match by which he might see the dial. The prosecuting attorney turned to his wife, when the faro dealer told him it was nine-thirty, and said: “You mustn’t worry, dear, I’ll be home early.”

She kissed him. “I won’t worry a single speck,” she promised, and kissed him again. “Not a single speck.” But her chin quivered as she said it.

“Come on, Emmett,” said the prosecuting attorney. “I’ll go down Cherry Street, you can take Pine. To-night of all nights, it won’t do for us to be seen together.”

“I’ll play that bet straight, place, and show,” returned the gambler, as they walked toward the gate. There he added, more gravely: “Of course, it’s about a thousand to one that they haven’t! but, if the Wacker crowd has got anybody tailing me, I was a sucker to strike that match.”

“It’s a million to one they haven’t,” Knot-Headed Barrett assured him, yet in a voice as grave and low-pitched as his own. “And remember, I’ll be in the feed store — with two guns.”

“I’m packing one, myself,” remarked the gambler, and they parted.

IV

There were two entrances to the feed store of Wallie Sanders, the closemouthed friend of Prosecuting Attorney Barrett — the front door, which opened on Pine Street directly opposite the front door of Bill Wacker’s Bella Union Hotel, and the back door, which opened on an alley. Barrett had a key to each door.

To-night, he let himself in from the alley, locking the door behind him. For it was a part of the official duty of Bill Wacker’s vote-getting Man Friday, the town marshal, to go about trying doors, and it was the custom of that Wacker-worshiping official to attend strictly to his duty during what periods he could spare from his pleasant and profitable pastime of draw-poker.

Secure against his intrusion, young Barrett traversed the darkened store till he reached the cubby-hole of an office whose brown-painted window was all that the window of an observation post should be.

Because, it was so sketchily painted that, when the watcher sat down in the leather-seated swivel chair, he could plainly see much of what was in progress in the front rooms of the Bella Union and nobody in those lighted rooms could see him.

He had taken a shorter way from his cottage than that over which Duke Emmett still was coming, and, as he sat looking across the street into the hotel, he wondered why he had not advised the faro-dealer to take a way that was even shorter.

There was such a way — a short-cut across lots — which, had Emmett taken it, would have brought him to the Bella Union several minutes before he himself could have arrived at the feed store. That he had not remembered it in time meant that Duke Emmett was losing precious minutes.

For, from his vantage point, Barrett could see that the poker game in room No. 8, a second-floor room whose lighted, uncurtained window was staring down on him like an unseeing eye, was breaking up.

Of the five players who were cashing in, Barrett recognized the faces of only two — one was the door-opening and jackpot-opening town marshal’s moonlike countenance, the other was the ferretlike face of the weedy little bartender who had disappeared from Merida City and turned around and come right back again. The three other, faces were those of hard-bitten strangers Barrett never had seen before.

“They look tough enough to be from Tucgoles,” said the prosecuting attorney to himself, “I wish Emmett would show up before that little bartender they’re so chummy with gets a chance to do another disappearing act.”

He had his wish. For, a moment or two later, he saw the jaunty faro-dealer come swinging down Pine Street, enter the office of the Bella Union and head for the stairway. Expecting to see him appear in room No. 8, he again centered his gaze on that room’s lighted window. He did not see Duke Emmett. What he did see was one of the strangers step to the window and pull down the shade.

An instant later, he saw the beefy town marshal come out of the front door of the Bella Union, and lumber across the street directly toward his hiding place. He saw his big shadow pass the painted window, then heard him tramp into the dark hallway, and stop. But he did not hear him try the door.

“That’s queer,” thought Barrett; “what’s he hiding there for?”

On the heels of the unspoken question came an answer. It was the crash of a pistol shot, closely followed by wild cries of “Help! Help! Police!”

Barrett’s eyes, darting over the front of the Bella Union, were caught and held by a shadow suddenly cast upon the window shade of room No. 8 — the silhouette of a group of men engaged in furious combat.

The next instant, Barrett was out of the front door, and racing for the hotel.

But the town marshal got there first.

By the time Barrett had shouldered his way through a hostile crowd on the stairway, and another hostile crowd in the second floor corridor, and had plunged into room No. 8, Bill Whacker’s man Friday had clamped handcuffs on the wrists of the prosecution’s star witness, Duke Emmett. The star witness’s face and clothing showed he had been handled none too gently.

“What’s this mean?” demanded the prosecutor.

“It means he’s arrested for attempted robbery,” wheezed the beefy town marshal. “These citizens he was playin’ poker with allege he pulled a gun, an’ told ’em to stick ’em up. I got four witnesses to that effect. I—”

“You got ’em in a hell of a hurry!” flamed Barrett. “You haven’t been in this room more than ten seconds. Where are your four complainants?”

“These three gents from Tucgoles,” announced the town marshal, with a triumphant wave of his hand, “an’ Bill’s old bartender. He was here a minute ago.”

But he was there no longer. Bill’s old bartender, for reasons best known to himself, had done another of his disappearing acts.

“He’ll show up later,” declared the town marshal. “Anyway, I got three.”

Under the searching glance with which Barrett swept the three hard-boiled strangers from Tucgoles was hidden real concern. For he realized that this was a frame-up whose only object was to destroy the usefulness of the faro-dealer as a witness before the next day’s grand jury.

He turned to the handcuffed prisoner. “Mr. Emmett,” he said crisply, “I wouldn’t go to jail alone if I were you. I would prefer charges against these men. Let me suggest some possible charges. Assault and battery, assault with a deadly weapon, assault with intent to kill—”

“Wait a minute!” broke in one of the three, his voice and his race reflecting sudden and sincere alarm. “We wasn’t figgerin’ on goin’ to no jail-house.”

“It’s never too late to begin,” rejoined Barrett. “I’d advise you and your friend, the marshal, here, to talk this over among yourselves before you go any farther.”

They waited for no second invitation, and when the four came back from a low-voiced conversation at the window, the action of the town marshal spoke louder than any words could have spoken.

Because, what he did was to remove the handcuffs from the wrists of Duke Emmett.

The meaning of this symbol was not lost upon Bill Wacker’s other friends in the smoke-filled room. They began to slink away — all except a small wiry man who bristled up to the prosecuting attorney.

“What I’d do,” he began, with the same officiousness which had marked his conduct on the night of Bill Wacker’s arrest, “would be to find out who fired that shot—”

“Would you?” inquired the prosecuting attorney, turning from him blandly to face Duke Emmett. “Mr. Emmett,” he went on, just as blandly, “would you mind letting me see your gun?”

“With pleasure,” responded the faro-dealer, and handed it over.

Breaking the forty-five, Barrett scanned the cylinder. “I thought so,” he muttered grimly, “it’s fully loaded, and you wouldn’t have had time to slip in a new one.”

His head still bent over the weapon, he continued: “I thought I could tell the difference between the sound of a forty-five and the sound of a thirty-eight. Marshal, did you really think you heard a forty-five?”

But when, after what seemed to be an unnecessarily prolonged pause, he raised his head, the marshal was not there to reply. He and the small wiry man had sheepishly faded away.

“Want ’em?” asked Duke Emmett in a whisper, as Barrett handed back the forty-five.

“Not just now,” the prosecutor answered, a new glint in his eyes. “I let them get away so I could tell you before it’s too late that the man we’ve got to find is that bartender that fired his signal with his thirty-eight. Let’s go.”

As, shoulder to shoulder, they moved toward the door, Duke Emmett whispered: “He shot into the ceiling. I didn’t even pull my gun.”

“I’m glad you didn’t,” the prosecutor whispered back, “I’m glad you didn’t have to kill the only other man who saw Bill Wacker murder Pedro Alvarado.”

V

At ten o’clock, the following morning, while in his court room old Judge Oglesby was administering the oath to the twenty-four good men and true that constituted the grand jury, three men that had not had their clothes off, the night before, sat in the office of Prosecuting Attorney Knot-Headed Barrett, their tired eyes centered on a tin pail in which was a chunk of ice and a towel.

Fidgeting in his chair, the most nervous of the three — a weedy, furtive man — spoke up, his voice thin and jumpy: “Mr. Barrett, Mr. Emmett,” said he, forcing himself to look from one to the other of his two companions, “I know you’re telling me the truth when you say it’ll work. And you ought to know I’m telling you the truth when I say I wish I was somewhere else. There’s healthier jobs than testifying against Mr. Wacker.”

The whine in his voice awoke no sympathy in the prosecuting attorney. “You’re lucky to be alive,” said young Barrett. “Either Emmett or I might have killed you at daybreak this morning after we’d tracked you to that cabin, and you started to put up a fight.”

With a shrug of distaste he turned from his unwilling witness, and began to read aloud the affidavit that witness had signed and sworn to. When he had finished, he said to the red-faced, blue-eyed faro-dealer, who had been listening to the reading with satisfaction he made no effort to conceal:

“Emmett, this cinches it. And it’s too late for our friend here to back out. The fact that he swears, as you do, that he’d heard Wacker threaten to kill Alvarado, that he knows that, on the afternoon of the murder, those drunken cow-punchers Wacker’s talked so much about, simply weren’t present, and that he, like you, saw Wacker shoot Alvarado after Alvarado was dead, means Bill Wacker’s indictment. We all know if he’s indicted he’ll be convicted.”

“That’s a sure bet,” said the gambler succinctly, rising to peer into the tin pail which held the ice and the towel.

“Another sure one is, if he ain’t, I’ll be killed for coughing up about him paying me to beat it, and then coming back with that Tucgoles gang to get some more dough,” quavered the bartender, his eyes on the door as though he were thinking of using it. “That’s a sure one, too.”

Reading the unspoken thought, young Barrett stepped to the door, locked it and slipped the key into his pocket. “The Tucgoles gang has gone back home, but we can’t take any chances of having you following them — not just yet,” he said.

The bartender’s eyes shifted from the locked door to the open window.

“Might as well close that, too,” sighed young Barrett, walking to the window. But he did not close it.

Instead, he stood motionless, his gaze fastened on a dark-haired young woman, who was walking up the courthouse steps, his heart beating a bit faster as he muttered to himself: “Flossie Nicholas!”

Not until she was lost to sight inside the courthouse door did he so far recover his composure as to close the window, and face the other men, neither of whom had seen what he had seen.

“Emmett,” he said to the faro-dealer, in a voice which sounded strangely in his own ears, “I’m going out for a minute. Lock the door after me. Keep your gun on this fellow while I’m gone.”

With only one thought beating in his mind — to reach the girl before she could talk to anybody else — he drew his keyring from his pocket, and strode to the door.

He opened the door. There stood Flossie Nicholas.

Even as his long, inquiring gaze gave back her own, he realized that her spell over him was broken. Waiting for her to speak, he hoped she had come upon some errand other than that of trying to revive the past they had shared together. She had.

Briefly and curtly, she said: “Mr. Prosecuting Attorney, I know who killed Pedro Alvarado, and I know how Pedro Alvarado was killed.”

From the ferret-faced bartender, who was covered by the faro-dealer’s gun, burst two words: “Wait! Wait!”

“Shut up!” she said to him, and came farther into the room. The prosecuting attorney closed the door behind her. “Listen,” she went on, her voice even and colorless, her words addressed only to young Barrett, “I’m from Tucgoles. Never mind what I call myself over there. But I was Pedro Alvarado’s girl.”

With an absence of emotion which surprised himself, young Barrett heard this disclosure, but in what she, who once had been his sweetheart, said next he was keenly interested. “And Pedro told me,” she continued, almost lifelessly, “that Bill Wacker had threatened to murder him in such a way that the guilt would never be discovered—”

“How?” he broke in eagerly.

“With that!” she exclaimed, pointing a dramatic directing finger at the pail in which was the towel and the chunk of ice. “Pedro knew! Back when they were friends, Wacker had told him. Let a towel lie long enough in ice water and it’s the deadliest weapon of them all. It’s worse than a blackjack. Because it kills and leaves no mark — unless, of course, it happens to fracture the skull.”

Under his breath, the prosecuting attorney said: “His skull was fractured.”

Out of the ferret-faced bartender burst another protective cry. “He fell on the floor,” he said.

“Liar!” the woman spat at him.

“Liar!” repeated Duke Emmett. “I saw Wacker slug him to death with an iced towel. I saw Wacker shoot him after he was dead — with his own gun. And you saw it, too.”

The conscience-stricken fashion in which the bartender cowered away from them would have convinced even Bill Wacker himself that Flossie Nicholas was telling the truth.

But Bill Wacker was past convincing. For, at that moment, the door opened, and into the office came old Judge Oglesby, his hand uplifted for silence.

“No witnesses, no exhibits are necessary,” said he, his eyes studiously avoiding Flossie Nicholas, “Wacker has just committed suicide—”

“Without confessing?” she broke in, her voice edged with disappointment.

“My child,” answered the old judge slowly, his gaze meeting hers for the first time, “suicide is confession. Daniel Webster said that, and it is true.”

Her gaze unflinchingly meeting his, she moved to the door. “Somebody else said something that’s true,” she told him. “Let the dead past bury its dead.”

Before any of the men could utter a word, she was gone.

Old Judge Oglesby, ignoring Duke Emmett and the gaping bartender, went over to Prosecuting Attorney Barrett and put his hand on his shoulder.

“Jack, my boy,” said he gently, “I think I know what was in Bill Wacker’s mind just before he hanged himself to the bars of his cell. I think he must have told himself: ‘Nobody can beat a case when he’s up against a prosecutor who damns the torpedoes and goes ahead.’ ”