The American Gun Mystery (Death At the Rodeo)

6: The Fact Remains

The cold corpse was lifted by horny silent hands and carried to one of the innumerable small rooms beneath the amphitheatre. The Queens, Kit Horne, and the Grants retired once more to the timekeeper’s office.

“While we’re waiting for Doc Prouty,” growled the Inspector, “—and as usual he’s late! — suppose we dig a little deeper into what happened today.”

The stiff mask which for an hour had settled over Kit Horne’s features cracked and broke. “It’s high time!” she cried passionately. “Let’s have action, Inspector, for God’s sake!”

“My dear,” said the old man gently, “you’ve got to have patience. You don’t realize what we’re up against. You all assure me that Horne had no enemies — there’s no lead there — and we’ve got twenty thousand suspects on our hands. Nobody’s running away. I want you to tell me—”

“Anything, Inspector, I’ll tell anything. This horrible—”

“Yes, yes, my dear, I know. I’m sure you will. How was your father acting today? Did he seem worried or disturbed about anything?”

She made a brave effort; with lowered lids, in a steady voice, she related the scene she had broken up between Woody and Horne.

“He seemed all right, Inspector. I was nervous for him, asked him if the doctor had examined him—”

“Oh, yes, I believe you said he’d been ill for some time,” murmured Ellery.

“Yes. He’s been — well, out of sorts physically for a couple of years now,” explained Kit dully. “The doctors said it was just age. He was sixty-five.” Her voice broke. “He’s led a very strenuous life, and at his age there was bound to be a let-down. I didn’t want him to go back to work at all. But he insisted it would do him good, tone him up. Today I asked him if the rodeo doctor had examined him, and he said yes, this morning, and everything was all right.”

“But he didn’t seem worried about anything?” asked the Inspector.

“No. I mean... I don’t really know. He wasn’t upset, although there did seem to be something on his mind.”

“You’ve no idea what it was, I suppose?”

Her eyes met his fiercely. “I wish I did!”

The Inspector turned to the showman. “How about you, Mr. Grant? Any idea what Horne might have had on his mind?”

“Hell, no. Nothin’ important ’less he smelled a rat on that movie business. Kit, you must be imaginin’ things—”

“Well, well,” said the Inspector hastily, “let’s not quarrel about it. Miss Horne, what happened today?”

“I... I was out late last night and didn’t wake up until mid-morning. Buck and I — we’ve — we’d adjoining rooms at the Barclay, on West Forty-fourth Street. That’s where the rest of the troupe are stopping, too. I knocked on Buck’s door; he opened it and kissed me good morning. He was quite cheerful. Said he’d been up for hours — he was used to getting up with the sun, of course; he said he’d had a walk in Central Park, had had breakfast... I had a snack sent up and Buck joined me in a cup of coffee. At about two o’clock we walked over to the Colosseum for the rehearsal.”

“Oh, so you had a dress rehearsal, eh, Mr. Grant?”

“Yeah. Fancy duds an’ all. ’Ceptin’ Buck — didn’t want to bother gettin’ rigged out. We went through the routine a last time to get everything straight.”

“I watched for a while,” said Kit, “and then wandered off—”

“Pardon,” said Ellery with a frown. “Mr. Grant, did you attend the rehearsal?”

“Shore.”

“Everything go off strictly as scheduled?”

Grant stared. “Shore! Buck was kind o’ nervous seemed to me. Tole me he was tickled pink at the prospect of performin’ before an audience again.”

Ellery sucked his lip. “What was the routine?”

“Nothin’ much. Gallop around the arena — what you saw tonight when it happened, then Buck was to do a few simple ridin’ tricks all by himself — flashy, but easy; then an exhibition of shootin’. Afterwards a little ropin’—”

“Nothing strenuous? He wasn’t required to rope steers and throw them, for example, or ride a bucking horse?”

The Inspector regarded his son with a mildly disturbed air. But Ellery seemed to be wading through a mass of clogging and contradictory thoughts; as usual when he was excited, or in the throes of intangible composition, he took his shining pince-nez glasses from his nose and with absent energy began to polish the lenses.

“No,” said Grant. “Nothin’ like that — I wouldn’t let ’im. Yeah, he did a couple of loops on a longhorn in rehearsal, but no real bulldoggin’, nothin’ dangerous.”

“He wanted to, though?” persisted Ellery.

“Buck always wanted to do everythin’,” replied Grant wearily. “Couldn’t get it through his thick head that he was an ole man. An’, by thunder, he could do it, too! I almost had to rassle him when we were makin’ up the routine.”

“Hmm,” said Ellery, He replaced his glasses on his nose. “How very interesting.” Kit and Curly stared at him in astonishment; in Kit’s eyes there was a dawning glimmer of hope, and a flush came to her brown cheeks while her breath quickened. “You say, Mr. Grant, that Horne was scheduled to give an exhibition of marksmanship?”

“Yeah, an’ he did, too, at rehearsal. He was a real sharpshooter, Buck was,” replied Grant in a tight voice. “There’s an old sayin’ out West — a cowboy is a man with guts an’ a horse. It don’t take into account his ability to throw lead. Nowadays the boys are just punchers; in the ole days...” He shook himself savagely. “Many a time I’ve seen Buck, with one of his ole long-barreled Colts, put six slugs into the heart of a two-inch target at a hundred feet! An’ on split-second notice, too. Wasn’t anything he couldn’t do with a gun. Why, the show he was goin’ to put on tonight was real fancy, Mr. Queen! Riddle targets plumb center while at full gallop on that starfaced roan stallion o’ Kit’s, clip coins thrown in the air—”

“I’m convinced,” said Ellery with a smile. “I take it Buck Horne was something special in marksmen. Very well. Now, did anything unusual happen at today’s rehearsal? Anything go wrong? Any little thing?” Grant shook his head. “Went off like clockwork.”

“Were all your riders present?”

“Every one.”

Ellery shook his head impatiently — as if in anger with himself. He murmured: “Thank you,” and stepped back, considering the tip of his cigaret with absent and lambent eyes.

“How about after rehearsal?” demanded the Inspector.

“Well,” said Kit, “I told you about how I found Buck and Woody arguing in the stables. I didn’t see him again — after I left his dressing-room, I mean — until just before I quit the building. Then I stopped into Mr. Grant’s office. It was just after I’d left — Curly.” There was a pained something in his voice, and Curly blushed to the roots of his hair and began to kick at the floor. He stopped when the Inspector looked at him casually. “I found Buck there, with Bill — with Mr. Grant.”

“That right?” asked the Inspector, cocking an expressionless eye at the showman.

“That’s right, Inspector.”

“Go on, Miss Horne.”

She shrugged helplessly. “But there’s nothing more to tell. Buck was making out a check. I said hello and left the Colosseum—”

“Time,” said Ellery pleasantly; he was interested again. “What was the purpose of this check, Mr. Grant?”

“Nothin’ special. Buck asked me if I could cash a twenty-five dollar check fer him, an’ I said yes. So he made it out an’ I gave him the money.”

“Indeed,” said Ellery without inflection. “And what did you do with this check? Have you got it on you, Mr. Grant?”

“Why, no,” drawled Grant. “I stepped out a minute m’self a little later an’ stopped in at my bank — the Seaboard National. So I deposited it.”

“Innocent enough,” agreed Ellery, and retired.

The Inspector gave him a sharp look, then turned back to Grant. “Was that the last you saw of him?”

“No. I was comin’ back from the bank, just in the entrance to the buildin’ here, when I bumped into Buck again. Had his hat an’ coat on. ‘Where ya bound?’ I asked ’im. ‘Hotel,’ he says. ‘Want to rest up fer t’night.’ An’ that’s all. Never had another word with ’im. He come in late tonight, kind of excited, I thought, waved ’is hand at me as he rushed fer his dressin’ room. There was hardly enough time fer him to change ’is duds an’ get into the arena.”

The Queens looked at each other. “That might be important,” muttered the Inspector. “Got in late, did he? What time was it when he said he was going to the Barclay?”

“Round about four o’clock.”

“Hmm. Did you see Buck again after you left the building, Miss Horne?”

“Yes. When I left I went straight back to the hotel. Buck came in about a half-hour or so later, and said he was going to take a nap. I changed my things and — and went downstairs. And—”

Curly Grant spoke for the first time. “From that time on,” he said belligerently, “Miss Horne was with me. I met her in the lobby, and we went out for the rest o’ the afternoon.”

“Yes,” said Kit in a whisper.

“And when you got back?” asked the Inspector.

“Buck was already gone; he’d left a note for me on my night-table. So I changed into “my evening things and taxied to the Colosseum. I didn’t see him again until,” her voice quavered, “until he rode into the arena.”

“Oh, so you were late, too?” said the Inspector slowly.

“What do you mean?”

The old man smiled and waved a deprecating hand. “Nothing at all, my dear, nothing at all!” He took a pinch of snuff and sneezed with violence. “Only — Mr. Grant (k’choo!) Mr. Grant said your father was late, so that means you must have been later still. You see? Very simple!”

Curly took a step forward. “Look here,” he growled, “I don’t cotton to that remark a-tall. I tell you Miss Horne was with me—”

“Ah, so you were late, too, young man?”

Grant looked from Kit to his son, with quick stony eyes. Curly set his jaw. “No, I wasn’t. I left Kit when we passed the Colosseum; she said I’d better not take her to the hotel—”

The Inspector rose. “I understand. All right, Miss Horne. You, too, Mr. Grant—”

There was a reverberating knock on the door.

“Well?” snapped Inspector Queen. The door was kicked open; a cadaverous Machiavelli scowled in at them. His jowls were black and he wore an iron derby; between his teeth there was a foul-smelling sample of some misguided cigar-maker’s art He carried a black kit.

“Here I am,” he announced. “Where’s the stiff?”

“Uh — that’s all, Miss Horne, Mr. Grant. Thank you,” said the Inspector hastily, and bundled the Grants and the girl out of the room. Sergeant Velie detached himself from a shadow of the wall outside and joined them quietly. “Back to the arena, Thomas!” shouted the Inspector, and Velie nodded.

“Now, you lazy son of an African witch-doctor,” snarled the old man to the black-jowled newcomer, “what in time d’ye mean by holding us up two hours on a homicide? By the—”

“And so on,” said Machiavelli with a sour grin. “The old song-and-dance. Well, where’s the stiff, you old pirate?”

“All right, Sam, all right. He’s next door, gettin’ stiffer.”

“Just a moment, Dr. Prouty,” said Ellery, as the newcomer turned to go. The deus ex machina who presided over the post-mortems of half New York City’s murdered population stopped. Ellery put his arm on Dr. Prouty’s shoulder and said something very earnestly. The police physician nodded, gripped his fulminating cigar more firmly, and hastened out.

The Queens were left alone.

Father and son regarded each other gloomily.

“Well?” said the Inspector.

“A very deep well, I must say,” sighed Ellery. “We return to criminal investigation in the best Queen manner — nothing less than suspects by the carload. You remember that damned Field case? A theatre full of potential murderers![1] The French murder? A department store jammed with shoppers.[2] Old lady Doorn’s queer demise? Just a hospital packed with doctors, nurses, patients, and neurotics.[3] And now a sports arena. Our next murderer,” he said dreamily, “will undoubtedly choose the Yankee Stadium as the scene of his crime, and then we’ll have to call out the Jersey reserves to help us sift a crowd of 70,000!”

“Stop babbling,” said the Inspector irritably. “That’s what’s got me worried, blast it all. We can’t keep twenty thousand people under wraps forever. Lucky the Commissioner’s out of town, or I’d have him on my neck for bottling up half of New York this way. I’m sort of glad Henry Sampson’s away, too.”

“Nevertheless, despite commissioners and district attorneys,” said Ellery inflexibly, “it must be done.”

“What did you say to Prouty?”

“I told your estimable Examiner’s physician to dig the bullet out of Horne’s body.”

“Ginger, that can wait! That rodeo medic — what’s ’s-name — said it was a .22 or .25, didn’t he?”

“Let’s be a little more scientific, Inspector dear. I’m very curious about that little messenger of death. Until we find out the story of that bullet, you mustn’t permit a single member of the audience — or anyone else, for that matter — to get out of the building.”

“Don’t intend to,” said the Inspector shortly, and after that they were silent.

Ellery began to hum a sad little tune.

“El what do you think?”

The tune stopped. “I’m thinking of poor Djuna, sitting in that box with the horrible lady from Hollywood, and Tommy Black.”

“Cripes!” cried the Inspector. “I clean forgot about Djuna!”

“Don’t fret,” said Ellery dryly, “he’s having the time of his life. His gods are smiling broadly tonight. The point is: what were you saying?”

“What d’ye make of this case?”

Ellery puffed thoughtfully at the low white ceiling.

“Strangely enough, a good deal.”

The Inspector’s mouth popped open; but a wordy catastrophe was averted by the opening of the door and the reappearance of Dr. Prouty, sans coat and hat, his shirt-sleeves rolled up to his elbows and his right hand displaying with something like gloomy triumph a very bloody little object wrapped in gauze.

The Inspector snatched it from Dr. Prouty’s hand without ceremony, heedless of the red smear it communicated to his fingers. Ellery came forward quickly.

“Ha!” said the old man, examining the object intently. “A .25 — automatic, all right. That rodeo doctor was right, Pretty good condition, eh, son?”

The conical slug exhibited an almost virgin shape. It was a tiny thing, remarkably harmless in appearance, and the blood coating seemed nothing more sinister than red paint.

“Went in pretty clean,” growled Dr. Prouty, chewing his cigar with energy. “Smack through the pumper. Nice hole, too. Didn’t even crack a rib on the way in; just glanced off.”

Ellery turned the bullet over his fingers, his eyes far away.

“Anything else of interest?” demanded the Inspector glumly.

“Nothing much. Four snapped ribs, sternum smashed, arms and legs broken in several places, skull kicked in — you saw all that, I suppose — nothing that wouldn’t be accounted for by the trampling of the horses that Sergeant of yours was telling me about on my way in.”

“No other wound of any kind — I mean knife or gun?”

“Nope.”

“Death instantaneous?”

“He was deader’n an iced mackerel when he hit the ground.”

“You say,” said Ellery slowly, “that the bullet left a clean hole, Doctor. Clean enough to give evidence of the angle of entry?”

“I was coming to that,” mumbled Dr. Prouty. “You betcha. That piece of lead entered his body from the right — that is, going toward the left — on a downward line, making an angle of thirty degrees with the floor.”

“Downward line!” cried the Inspector; he stared, and then began to hop up and down on one leg. “Fine. Fine! Sam, you’re a honey, a life-saver — best old scoundrel that ever played poker. Downward line, hey? Thirty degrees, hey? By God, El, now we have got an excuse for holding that mob up there! The lowest tier is at least ten feet from the floor of the arena, where Horne was when he was shot. And even in a sitting or crouching position the murderer would be three-four feet higher than that... Thirteen-fourteen feet. Audience, hey? Oh, this is great!”

Dr. Prouty, unruffled by this professional admiration, sat down, scrawled some hieroglyphics on a printed slip, and handed it to the Inspector. “For the Public Welfare gang. They’ll be here any minute now to cart the stiff away. Want an autopsy?”

“Think it’s necessary?”

“No.”

“Then hold one,” said the Inspector grimly. “I’m taking no chances.”

“All right, all right, you old fuss-budget,” said Dr. Prouty indifferently.

“And,” said Ellery, “pay particular attention to the contents of his stomach, Doctor.”

“Stomach?” echoed the Inspector blankly.

“Stomach,” said Ellery.

“Right,” growled Dr. Prouty, and strolled out.

The Inspector turned to Ellery, and saw that Ellery was still gazing with rapt and ardent eyes at the bloody bullet.

“Well, what’s the matter now?” demanded the old man.

Ellery regarded his father sadly. “When was the last time you visited the movies, you incorrigible old realist?”

The Inspector started. “What’s that got to do with it?”

“You remember a few months ago we went to that neighborhood theatre at Djuna’s solicitation and saw what the management so ingeniously called a ‘double-feature’?”

“Well?”

“What was the — ah — lesser of the two attractions, so to speak?”

“Some Western trash — Sa-a-ay! Kit Horne was in that picture, El!”

“Indeed she was.” Ellery gazed intently at the bullet in his hand. “And do you remember the scene in that great cinema epic in which the beauteous heroine, galumphing down the hillside on — yes, it was Rawhide, by thunder the same horse! plucked her six-shooter from her holster and—”

“And shot the strands of the rope through, the rope the villain was hanging the hero with?” cried the Inspector excitedly.

“And did that very thing.”

The Inspector grew glum. “That must have been a movie trick. Easy enough to fake it. They do all sorts of things out there.”

“Perhaps. But you’ll recall that the camera snapped the scene from behind Miss Horne; she was distinctly visible all the time, as were the revolver in her hand and the rope she was shooting at. Nevertheless, I grant the possibility of a trick—”

“Darned decent of you. What of it, anyway?”

“I wonder, now... Kit Horne was brought up — from childhood, mind — on a ranch in those great interstices — I beg your pardon, open spaces. Her guardian, the redoubtable Buck, was an expert marksman. Impossible to believe, under the circumstances, that Buck wouldn’t have schooled her in marksmanship as well as those other desperate accomplishments of hers. Hmm... And that young Lochinvar of ours — Curly, who comes out of the West all shiny and curly and heroic. Did you notice the facility with which he popped little glass balls out of existence by means of his trusty cannon? Yes, yes! And as for his sire, the great impresario of horse spectacles — where did I hear that he’d been one of the most famous United States Marshals of the last century, fighting desperadoes and redskins in the Indian Territory?”

“What the dickens you driving at?” groaned the Inspector, and then his eyes grew very round. “By ginger, El! Come to think of it — the box where we sat, Mars’s box — must have been pretty well in the line of fire! Downward angle of thirty degrees, Sam makes it... Cripes, yes! That would just about place it in the audience somewhere, rotten as I am in arithmetic. Shot through the left side into the heart as his horse rounded the turn — tightens it, son, tightens it!” He stopped suddenly, and grew very thoughtful.

Ellery surveyed his father through narrowed lids, juggling the little painted bullet carelessly. “What a beautiful crime this is,” he murmured. “What finesse, what daring, what superb coolness in the execution...”

“What I can’t see, though,” muttered the Inspector, unheeding, as he began to chew a strand of his mustache, “is how anyone could have shot so close. We didn’t hear—”

“What is required? One death. What is utilized? One bullet. Short, precise, mechanical — very sweet, altogether. Eh?” Ellery smiled dryly as his father began to exhibit unmistakable signs of interest. “Ah, but there’s a complication. The target is a living, swaying figure on the back of a galloping horse. Never still for an instant. Ever think how difficult it must be to hit a fast-moving target? Nevertheless, our murderer disdains to fire more than once. His single shot does the trick very thoroughly. Very thoroughly indeed.” He rose and began to prowl up and down. “The fact remains, Herr Inspektor, and this is what my rambling remarks have been circuitously leading up to — the fact remains that whoever killed Buck Horne either was possessed of the luck of the devil, or else... was a quite extraordinary marksman!”