Murder Is My Business

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Behind the wheel of the police department automobile, it took Shayne a few minutes less than two hours to reach Van Horn. He pulled up at a filling station to inquire about the distance to Marfa and the road leading to Jefferson Towne’s Lone Star silver mine.

The attendant told him it was about seventy miles to Marfa, and that the mine lay about fifty miles south of the main highway, with a road branching off to it a few miles out of Van Horn. There was another road direct to the mine from Marfa, he told the detective, making the two sides of the triangle only about a hundred miles if he wished to go to Marfa first and return via the mine.

Shayne thanked him and pulled out on the seventymile stretch through the greasewood and tabosa grass flats lying north of the mountainous Big Bend. It was a desolate road, with long tangents and sweeping curves, and Shayne settled back to make it as fast as he could. He had an idea it was going to prove a wasted effort, but there was no use passing up any bets while he was so close to the army camp. It would have been difficult for him to explain exactly why he was making this long trip. It was more a hunch than anything else. A hunch that wouldn’t let him alone.

Somehow, mining and the Big Bend and soldiers kept popping up in the case — or cases. There was the young soldier who had been a miner in Mexico and who was induced to enter the army under an alias by some unknown person in El Paso, and there was a second corpse stripped of his clothing in a manner to indicate he might have worn a uniform before the killing occurred. There was Josiah Riley who had been fired and blackballed from the mining business by Jefferson Towne ten years ago, and there was young Jack Barton, an unsuccessful mining engineer who had been “changed,” his father said, after a prospecting trip into the Big Bend. After another brief disappearance from home he had returned with some information about Towne worth ten thousand to the mining magnate.

Somehow, they all tied together. Along with, Shayne told himself morosely, Lance Bayliss, who had been a Nazi sympathizer; a racketeer and former smuggler named Manny Holden; a Mexican girl who had a yen for American soldiers on the wrong side of the Rio Grande, and was also the daughter of Towne’s Mexican paramour; and an Austrian refugee named Larimer, who ran a secondhand clothing store; plus Neil Cochrane, who had once loved Carmela Towne and now hated both her and her father and, presumably, Lance Bayliss, who had won her love while Neil was courting her.

It all added up into a hell of a tangle. That was the only thing he was positive about. But there had to be a connecting link somewhere. There were soldiers in the Big Bend, and there was a silver mine. The soldiers were stationed there to protect American property from the depredations of bandits from across the border.

Shayne didn’t know whether that was important or not. He had a hazy idea that it might be.

He was glad when the little sun-baked cowtown of Marfa showed against the horizon ahead. The army post was in plain view on the flats south of town. Shayne turned off before reaching the business district, drove through the Mexican section out to the post.

A bored sentry stopped him at the entrance. Shayne showed his credentials and explained that he was cooperating with the El Paso police in clearing up the murder of an army man, and asked to speak to the commanding officer.

The sentry waved him on toward post headquarters and advised him to ask for Colonel Howard. Shayne parked in front of a one-story concrete building and went in. An orderly directed him along a corridor to the open door of a large, plainly furnished office. An erect, military figure sat behind a flat desk. He was broadshouldered and middle-aged, with brown eyes and a clipped mustache.

He looked up from some papers and nodded pleasantly enough when Shayne walked in. The detective introduced himself and explained that he represented the civilian authorities in El Paso, who were investigating the death of one soldier and the possible death of another.

“A second body was found in the Rio Grande last night, stripped to the skin,” Shayne explained. “He was murdered at approximately the same time the other soldier was killed, and in a somewhat similar manner. We think he may have been stripped to hide the fact that he was wearing a uniform and to deter identification.”

Colonel Howard was interested. He knew of Michael Shayne by reputation, and had read press reports of the Private Brown case. He asked why Shayne had come to see him.

“To learn whether any of your men have been missing since last Tuesday — or before that.”

The colonel shook his head and said he didn’t think so, but he would have the matter checked. He called in a corporal and issued instructions. The corporal promised to have the report in a few minutes and disappeared into an inner office. “But why come to Marfa, Mr. Shayne?” Colonel Howard asked interestedly. “There are many larger army posts nearer El Paso.”

“I happened to be in this vicinity,” Shayne explained, “and didn’t want to pass up any bets.” He paused to light a cigarette. “Do you still maintain any sort of border patrol? Have any squads or troops on detached duty along the Rio Grande?”

“Not as a regular thing. The old posts up and down the river at Candelaria, Ruidosa, Presidio, and so forth have been abandoned for many years. We send out patrols only in case of a raid or some unusual disturbance.”

“Then — patrolling the border to prevent smuggling or illegal entry isn’t part of your routine?” Shayne persisted.

The colonel told him it wasn’t. “There are Customs men at the Ports of Entry, of course, and Texas keeps a few rangers stationed in the Big Bend. But there hasn’t been any serious trouble here for years.”

Shayne’s blunt fingertips drummed impatiently on the colonel’s desk. “Any spy scares in this vicinity, or even a hint of subversive influences?”

The colonel laughed gently. “We’re a small unit, completely isolated here, Mr. Shayne. I’m afraid a spy wouldn’t learn much of value in Marfa.”

The corporal returned to report that their records showed no men A.W.O.L.

Shayne thanked the colonel and started to get up. He asked casually, “Has Jefferson Towne ever requested troops to guard his mine ore shipments?”

“The Lone Star mine near the border? I haven’t heard of any trouble there.”

“Are any of your troops stationed near there — or is it on a main road traveled by your patrols?”

“No,” the colonel answered. “The mine is located in a rough and isolated section of the mountains. So far as I know, none of my men have been near the mine.”

Shayne thanked him for his help. He went out and drove back to Marfa, and headed southward into the mountains on a rough dirt road. The road became winding and dangerous as it climbed upward into the low mountains, and it was mid-afternoon when he came to a railroad crossing paralleled by a wider and smoother road. Two pointed pine boards were nailed to a tree. One pointed to the left and read LONE STAR MINE. The other pointed to the right and read VAN HORN 50 MI.

Turning to the left, he climbed steeply for a little more than a mile, stopping in front of high steel gates padlocked together with a heavy chain. When opened, the double gates were wide enough to accommodate both railroad track and the automobile driveway. A twelve-foot woven-wire fence led away from the gates in both directions, surmounted by three strands of barbed wire leaning outward at a forty-five degree angle.

A sign on one of the gates read KEEP OUT.

Shayne cut off his motor and sat with his big red hands gripping the steering wheel. Through the steel gates he could see an unpainted shed about fifty feet beyond the gate. Farther up the slope were several low buildings that appeared to be bunkhouses and tool sheds. On the left was a huge loading bin on high stilts with the rails leading beneath in order that gondolas could be spotted there to receive their load of ore fed to the bin from the mine entrance by a gravity chute down the hillside.

The whole place was unaccountably deserted. He listened intently for some sound of miners at work, then realized that production was probably at a lower level and any sounds of activity would be muffled.

He got out of the car after a moment and sauntered toward the padlocked gates. A man came out of the nearby shed and looked at him. He wore a greasy black Stetson and corduroy pants, and the wide cartridge belt around his waist sagged with the weight of a bolstered six-shooter on his right hip. He took cigarette papers and a sack of Bull Durham from his shirt pocket and began to roll a cigarette. Shayne stopped in front of the gates and shouted, “Hey!” The guard licked his brown-paper cigarette and stuck it between his lips. He lit it and hooked his thumbs in his gun belt and strolled forward. “Whatcha want?”

“Unlock this damned gate so I can drive in.”

“Gotta permit?”

“A what?” Shayne asked incredulously.

“A permit.” The guard stopped on the other side of the gates, peering at him suspiciously.

Shayne said, “For God’s sake! I’m not going to steal any of your damned silver ore.”

“Ain’t got no permit, huh?” The man shook his head disapprovingly.

“What kind of a permit?” Shayne demanded.

“One that’s signed by Mr. Towne. That’s what kind.” The guard tugged the brim of his hat lower over his eyes and started to turn away.

“Wait a minute,” Shayne said. “I’m a friend of Mr. Towne’s. He sent me out here to look over some machinery.”

“What machinery?”

“The hoisting engine,” Shayne hazarded. “It’s getting old and needs some repairs.”

The man shook his head and spat contemptuously. “That won’t work, Mister. Not without you gotta permit signed with Mr. Towne’s name.”

“What in the name of God is all the secrecy about?”

The man shrugged. “Guv’ment orders,” he said vaguely. “Silver’s a mighty important war material an’ we’re clost to the border here. Them’re my orders, anyhow, an’ no amount of fast talkin’ won’t get you in.”

Shayne said, “Mr. Towne will fire you when he hears about this.”

The man spat again and then walked back toward his shack. Shayne stared after him impotently. The man went inside, and that seemed to be an end to it.

Shayne went back and wheeled his coupe around and sped back toward El Paso.