The American Gun Mystery (Death At the Rodeo)

4: The Threads

As he charged across the hard-packed dirt Ellery was able to assimilate in flashes something of the activity around him. Behind him stood a silent ring of men and women, aliens in a strange land, surrounding the dead man and the sobbing girl. In the frenzied tiers above people scurried about like demented ants; there were thin screams from women’s throats, and hoarse masculine voices, and the muffled thunder of shuffling feet. At the exits dotting the distant walls minute figures in blue with brass buttons catching vagrant spears of light, had sprung up — police summoned hastily from the recesses of the building to defend the bulwarks. They were pushing people back toward the seats, allowing no one to leave the amphitheatre; an excellent notion, to Ellery’s mind, and he smiled a little as he ran on.

He scrambled faster, and then came to a stop at the trestles of the high platform on which stood the small figures of Major Kirby — pale but unruffled, quietly directing his group of wild-eyed, crouching-over-camera men.

“Major!” cried Ellery, striving to make himself heard above the din.

Major Kirby peered over the edge of the platform. “Yes? Oh... yes, Mr. Queen?”

“Don’t leave that platform!”

The Major permitted himself to smile, briefly. “Don’t bother yourself about that. God, what a break! By the way, what the devil did happen over there? Did the old chap have a fainting spell?”

“The old chap,” said Ellery grimly, “had a bullet spell, that’s what he had. He was murdered, Major — through the heart.”

“Lord!”

Ellery stared gravely upward. “Come a little closer, Major.” The newsreel man stooped, his little black eyes snapping. “Were your cameras grinding through everything?”

Something sparkled in the black eyes. “Good Lord! Good Lord!” a slight flush tinted his slick cheeks. “What a miracle, Mr. Queen, what a miracle... yes, every second!”

Ellery said rapidly: “Pluperfect, Major, simply pluperfect. An exquisite gift from the god who watches over detectives. Now listen: keep grinding, get every shot you can — I want a complete photographic record of what happens from now on until I tell you to stop. Do you understand?”

“Oh, perfectly.” The Major paused, and then said: “But how long will I have—”

“You’re worried about the film?” Ellery smiled. “I don’t think you’ve need to, Major. Your company has a really exceptional opportunity to serve the police, and considering how motion picture companies throw their money around, I think the cost of the extra film is money well spent. Well spent.”

The Major looked reflective, then touched the end of his little mustache, nodded, rose, and spoke brusquely to his men. One camera kept focused on the group surrounding the body. Another swept its eye, like a mechanical Cyclops, in a steady circle of the audience-tiers. A third picked up details in other parts of the arena. The technicians in the sound booth were working madly.

Ellery fingered his bow-tie, flicked a speck of dust off his alabaster bosom, and sped back across the arena.

Inspector Queen, that admirable executive, was surrounded by the grim halo of Work. He was the only person in New York who might be called, without intent to malign, an Ultracrepidarian critic. It was of the very nature of his job to find fault with small and insignificant details. He was the scientist of trifles, a passionate devotee of minutiae. And yet his old nose was never so closely pressed to the ground that he could not keep in perspective the broadest view of the terrain... The present task was worthy of his mettle. A murder had been committed in an auditorium peopled with twenty thousand souls. Two hundred hundred persons, any one of whom might be the murderer of Buck Horne! His bird-like gray little head was cocked fiercely forward, his fingers dipped unceasingly into his old brown snuff-box, his mouth rattled very good orders indeed, and all the while his bright little eyes were wandering about the auditorium as if disembodied, keeping in sight every intricate movement of the forces he had disposed. It was fortunate, perhaps, that while he awaited reinforcements from Headquarters — members of his own squad — he nevertheless had a large army of officers to place strategically about the spacious premises. The ushers and special officers of the Colosseum had been pressed into service, and those of the police who had been within the building at the time of the murder. All exits were grimly guarded. It was already established from relayed reports that not even a pigmy had slipped through the cordon. It was his calm intention not to permit one of the twenty thousand persons in the building to escape until the most searching investigation had been made.

Detectives from the nearby precincts had already responded to the alarm; they ringed the arena, keeping it clear as a base of operations. Hundreds of staring heads popped over the box-tier rail. The group of horsemen and horsewomen had been segregated, sent in a group to the other side of the arena; they were dismounted, and their horses, serene now, were pawing the earth and snorting quite peacefully. Their coats shone with the heat of their bodies after the short but strenuous gallop. The two special officers who had been stationed at each of the two main gates in the arena — at east and west — were on duty still, backed up by detectives. All the arena exits were fast closed, and guarded. No one was permitted either to enter or leave the arena.

As Ellery ran up, he saw his father sternly eying a diminutive cowboy with bleared eyes and convex little legs.

“Grant tells me you generally take charge of the horses,” snapped the Inspector. “What’s your name?”

The little cowboy licked his dry lips. “Dan’l — Hank Boone. I don’t savvy this shootin’ a-tall, Inspector. Honest, I—”

“Do you or don’t you take charge of the horses?”

“Yess’r, reckon I do!”

The Inspector measured him. “Were you one of that crazy yelling bunch riding behind Horne tonight?”

“Nos’ree!” cried Boone.

“Where were you when Horne fell off his horse?”

“Down yonder, behin’ that west chute gate,” mumbled Boone. “When I see ole Buck passin’ in his chips, I got ole Baldy — special at the gate — to pass me through.”

“Anybody else come through with you?”

“Nos’r. Baldy, he an’ me—”

“All right, Boone.” The Inspector jerked his head at a detective. “Take this man across the arena and let him get those horses together. We don’t want a stampede here.”

Boone grinned rather feebly, and trotted off toward the horses in company with a detective. There was a temporary row of watering-troughs set up in the dirt across the arena, and he became busy leading the horses to water. The cowboys and cowgirls near by watched him stonily.

Ellery stood quite still. This part of the job was his father’s.

He looked around. Kit Horne was a statue with dusty knees, as pale as the dying moon, staring without expression at the crumpled heap covered by the gaudy Indian blanket on the tanbark. To each side stood protection — poor protection, one would say, for Curly Grant was grotesquely like a man whose ears have been suddenly pierced and who finds himself in a frenzied soundless world; and his father, stocky marble, might be in the grip of a paralysis which had attacked him without warning and frozen him in an attitude of dazed pain where he stood. And both men, also, looked at the gaudy blanket.

Ellery, a not insensitive soul, looked at the blanket, too — anywhere but at those staring feminine eyeballs.

The Inspector was saying: “Here, you — precinct man? — take, a couple of the boys and collect every goldarned gun in the joint. Yes, every one! Rustle some cards or something and tag every weapon with its owner’s name. Or bearer’s name, if he doesn’t own it. And don’t just ask for ’em; I want every man-jack and woman on this floor searched. These people are accustomed to going heeled, remember.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And,” added the Inspector thoughtfully, turning his bright little eyes on the silent trio staring at the covered body, “you might start with these folks here. The old feller, the curly-headed lad — yes, and the lady too.”

Struck by a sudden thought, Ellery turned sharply and searched for someone. The man was not in this group about the body. The man with the single arm who had handled his horse so masterfully... He caught sight of the one-armed rider far across the arena, sitting stolidly on the floor and flipping a Bowie knife up and down, up and down... He turned back in time to see Wild Bill Grant raise his arms stiffly and submit to a search, his eyes still dead with pain. The holster he wore strapped about his thick waist was already empty; a detective was tagging the gun. Curly awakened suddenly, colored, and opened his mouth in anger. Then he shrugged and handed over his slim revolver. Neither Grant nor his son, it soon appeared, had a second weapon in his clothes. Then Kit Horne—

Ellery said: “No.”

The old man cocked an inquisitive eye at him. Ellery jerked his thumb slightly toward the girl and shook his head. The Inspector stared, then shrugged.

“Uh — you, don’t bother Miss Horne now. We’ll attend to her later.”

The two detectives nodded and marched off across the arena. Kit Horne did not move; she had not heard a word, but continued to study the zigzag design of the blanket in an expressionless absorption that was horrible.

The Inspector sighed and rubbed his hands together briskly. “Grant!” he said. The old showman turned his head with precision. “You and your son — get Miss Horne off to the side there, will you? This isn’t going to be pleasant.”

Grant drew a deep sobbing breath, his eyes fiery red, and touched Kit’s pale bare arm. “Kit,” he muttered. “Kit.”

She looked at him in surprise.

“Kit. Come off here a minute, Kit.”

She looked down again at the blanket.

Grant nudged his son. Curly rubbed his eyes for an instant, wearily, and then they lifted the girl bodily and swung her around. Terror gleamed there, the impulse to cry out; it drained swiftly away and she went limp. They half-carried her across the arena.

The Inspector sighed. “Takes it hard, doesn’t she? Well, El, let’s get to work. I want a long look-see at that body.”

He motioned to several detectives, and they came forward to form a solid wall of official flesh around the corpse. Ellery stood within the ring, and Inspector. Queen. The Inspector braced his spare little shoulders, took a last stimulative pinch of snuff, and then squatted on the tanbark. He removed the blanket with steady fingers.

There was something ironic in that dusty, bloody, once gorgeous costume. The dead man was dressed in black, a shiny romantic black. But the gloss of romance had been destroyed by Horne’s descent to mortal earth, and it was now the rusty black of death. On his twisted, queerly dispersed legs were high-heeled boots of black leather which came well up to his knees, adorned with fancy stitching. Silvery spurs protruded from the boot-heels of the quiet feet. His tucked-in trousers were of black corduroy. Although his bandana was black, his shirt was of pure white sateen — a startling contrast. The shirt-sleeves were drawn in above the elbows and gripped tightly by black garters, while on his wrists he wore a pair of exquisitely fashioned black leather cuffs, embroidered in white stitching and studded with small silver ornaments, the much-coveted conchas of the cowboy-on-parade. Around his waist there was a snug-fitting black trouser belt; and swathing his torso and hips an ornate pistol belt, quite wide and looped for the insertion of cartridges. There were two holsters of beautiful black leather, one resting on the thigh below each hip. And both were empty.

These were the routine items to be duly noted. The Queens looked at each other, and then returned their attention to the body in a search for more interesting details.

Horne’s outfit, so resplendent and brave, had been torn and dirtied by the steel-shod hooves of the horses. Rents in the white shirt revealed gashed hoof-wounds on the skin beneath. Neat, small, clean as a marker, there was a bullethole in the left side, a trench which obviously had ploughed trough the heart. It had bled remarkably little, that wound; the satin edges of the hole were merely stuck to the skin beneath by pasty gore. The graunt old face was taut in death; the white head seemed curiously sunken on one side, behind the ear; and they noted with a sudden repulsion that some horse’s wildly flying hoof had kicked the entire side of the man’s head in. But the features were quite unmarked, except for dust and splatters of blood. The body lay in an impossible position — impossible, that is to say, for a living creature; it was evident that bones had been broken by the crushing weight of the trampling beasts.

Ellery, a little pale, straightened up and looked around. He lit a cigaret with slightly trembling fingers.

“Good thorough job,” muttered the Inspector.

“I find it difficult,” murmured Ellery, “to be anything but religious at the present moment.”

“Hey? What’s that?”

“Oh, don’t mind me,” cried Ellery. “I’ve never become accustomed to these bloody exhibits... Dad, do you believe in miracles?”

“What the devil you talkin’ about?” said the old man. He began to unbuckle from Horne’s body the trouser belt, which was clasped snugly about the waist at the first hole; and then he struggled to detach the heavy pistol belt.

Ellery pointed to the dead face. “Miracle the first. His face wasn’t touched, although those terrible hooves pounded all about him.”

“What of it?”

“Oh, God!” groaned Ellery. “What of it? the man says. Nothing of it. That’s exactly the point! If there was anything of it, it wouldn’t be a miracle, would it?”

The Inspector disdained to reply to such obvious nonsense.

“Miracle the second.” And Ellery blew smoke jerkily. “Look at his right hand.”

The old man obediently, if somewhat wearily, complied. The right arm seemed to be broken in two places; but the right hand was healthily brown, and there was not a scratch on it. Gripped in the tight clutch of the fingers was the long-barreled revolver they had seen Horne flourish only a few moments before.

“Well?”

“That’s not even a miracle; it’s downright act of Providence. He fell, he was probably dead before he struck the ground, forty-one horses stepped all over him — and, by heaven, his hand doesn’t drop the gun!”

The Inspector nursed his lower lip. He looked bewildered. “Well, but what of it? You don’t think there’s something—”

“No, no,” said Ellery impatiently. “There can’t be anything human about the causes of these phenomena. There’s a surfeit of eye-witnesses for that. No, that’s why I call these things miracles; they were accomplished by no human agency. Hence divine. Hence something to get a headache over... Oh, hell, I’m going potty. Where’s his Stetson?”

He broke through the ring of men and looked around. Then he brightened and stepped briskly across the dirt to a spot some eight feet off, where a high broad-brimmed hat lay ignominiously in the dust. He stooped, picked it up, and returned to his father.

“That’s the hat, all right,” said the Inspector. “Knocked off his head when he fell and, I s’pose, kicked away by some horse.”

They examined it together. Its once noble crown was crushed in, like the head it had adorned; it was a black Stetson of smooth, marvelously soft felt with a very wide brim flaring at the edges. Around the crown there was a fine belt of braided black leather. Inside, in letters of gold, were stamped the initials B H.

Ellery laid the Stetson gently beside the crushed body.

The Inspector was peering intently at the dead man’s two belts; Ellery watched him with some amusement. The pistol belt with its attached holsters was enormously long and heavy, since it was designed to go twice about the body of its wearer. Like the rest of Horne’s showy gear it was elaborately adorned with silver conchas and gold nails, and its cartridge holders gleamed. A silver monogram bore a scrolled B H. Although the belt was soft and pliable and quite obviously kept perfect by loving fingers, it was quite obviously also of great age.

“Had this a long time, the poor coot,” muttered the Inspector.

“I suppose,” sighed Ellery, “it’s like taking care of your precious books when you’re a bibliophile. Have you the remotest notion how many hours I’ve put in oiling the calf bindings of my Falconers?”

They examined the trouser belt. It was in a perfect state of preservation, though very old; so old that the vertical creases — there were two, one crossing the second, the other the third buckle hole — had from long use worn the leather thin; so old, indeed, that the belt might have girdled the waist of a Pony Express rider. And as in the case of the pistol belt, this belt too displayed Horne’s initials in silver.

“The man,” murmured Ellery as he relinquished the belt to his father, “was an antiquarian of the Occident, by the beards of the Academie! Why, that’s a museum piece!”

The Inspector, accustomed to his son’s flights of fancy, spoke softly to one of the detectives near by, and the man nodded and made off. The detective returned with Grant, who seemed to have pulled himself together. He carried himself with unnatural stiffness, as if braced to withstand another blow.

“Mr. Grant,” said the Inspector sharply, “I’m going to start this investigation the right way — details first; we’ll get to the big things later. This looks like a long job.”

Grant said hoarsely: “Anything ya say.”

The Inspector nodded in a curt way and knelt once more by the body. Lightly his fingers moved over the broken clay, and inside of three minutes he had collected a small heap of miscellaneous articles from the dead man’s clothes. There was a small wallet; it contained some thirty dollars in bills. The Inspector passed it to Grant.

“This Horne’s?”

Grant’s head jerked. “Yeah. Yeah. I — hell — I gave it to him for ’is last... birthday.”

“Yes, yes,” said the Inspector hastily, and retrieved the wallet, which had slipped from the rodeo owner’s fingers. A handkerchief; a single key with a wooden tag attached bearing the words “Hotel Barclay”; a packet of brown cigaret-papers and a little sack of cheap tobacco; a number of long matches; a checkbook...

Grant nodded dumbly at all the exhibits. The Inspector examined the check-book thoughtfully. “What was the name of his New York bank?”

“Seaboard. Seaboard National. He opened an account only a week’r so ago,” muttered Grant.

“How d’ye know?” said the Inspector quickly.

“He asked me to rec’mend one when he got to Noo Yawk. I sent ’im over to m’own bank.”

The old man replaced the check-book; its blank checks bore, plainly enough, the name of the Seaboard National Bank & Trust Company. According to its last stub-entry there was a balance of something over five hundred dollars.

“Find anything here,” demanded the Inspector, “that oughtn’t to be here, Mr. Grant?”

Grant’s bloodshot eyes swept over the pile of small possessions. “No.”

“Anything missing?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“Hmmm. How about his duds? These things what he always wears? Look all right to you?”

The stocky man’s hands clenched into fists. “Do I have to look at him again?” he shouted in a strangled voice. “Why the hell do ya torture me this way?”

The man’s grief seemed genuine enough. So the Inspector said in a gentle voice: “Pull yourself together, man. We’ve got to check over everything; there’s often a clue on the body. Don’t you want to help us find your friend’s murderer?”

“God, yes!”

Grant stepped forward and forced his eyes downward. And his eyes swept from the horizontal boots to the gruesome concavity of the poor mangled head. He was silent for a long time. Then he threw back his thick shoulders and said harshly: “All there; nothin’ missing. That’s his reg’lar movie outfit. Every shaver from here to ’Frisco knew this rig-out in the days he was makin’ pitchers.”

“Fine! All—”

“Interrogation,” said Ellery. “Mr. Grant, did I hear you say nothing is missing?”

Grant’s head screwed around with unnatural slowness; his eyes met Ellery’s boldly, but there was something puzzled and — yes, fearful — in their muddy depths. He drawled: “That’s what I said, Mr. Queen.”

“Well, sighed Ellery, as his father squinted at him with a sudden alertness, “I suppose it isn’t really your fault. You’re upset, and perhaps your faculty of observation isn’t functioning as well as it should. But the point is: there is something missing.”

Grant turned abruptly back to look the body over again. The Inspector seemed troubled. And Grant shook his head and shrugged with a weary bafflement.

“Well, well,” snapped the Inspector to his son, “what’s the mystery? What’s missing?”

But Ellery, with a glint in his eye, was already stooping over the body. Very carefully indeed he pried open the dead fingers of the corpse’s right hand, and stood up with Buck Horne’s revolver in his hand.

It was a beautiful weapon. To the Inspector, whose acquaintanceship with firearms was an intimate affair of a lifetime’s duration, the piece Ellery studied so attentively was a heavenly sample of the old-fashioned gunsmith’s art. He saw at once that it was not a modern arm. Not only the slightly antiquated design, but the softly rubbed-metal look of it, told of great age.

“Colt .45,” he muttered. “Single action. Look at that barrel!”

The barrel was eight inches long, a slim tube of death. It was delicately chased in a scroll design, as was the cylinder. Ellery hefted the weapon thoughtfully; it was very heavy.

Wild Bill Grant seemed to have some difficulty in speaking. He moistened his lips twice before he could find his voice. “Yeah, it’s a reg’lar cannon,” he rumbled. “But a beauty. Ole Buck — Buck was partic’lar about the hang of his guns.”

“The hang?” said Ellery with interrogative eyebrows.

“Liked ’em hefty an’ liked ’em true. The balance, I’m talkin’ about.”

“Oh, I see. Well, this relic must weigh well over two pounds. Lord, what a hole it must make!”

He broke open the weapon; there were cartridges in all the chambers except one.

“Blanks?” he asked his father.

The Inspector extracted one of the bullets and examined it. Then he removed the others. “Yep.”

Ellery carefully returned them to their chambers and snapped the cylinder back into place.

“This revolver was Horne’s, I suppose,” he asked Grant, “and not your property? I mean, it isn’t one of the rodeo weapons?”

“Buck’s,” growled Grant. “Prime fav’rite with him. Had it — an’ the pistol belt — fer twenty-odd years.”

“Hmmm,” said Ellery absently; he was absorbed in a study of the barrel. That the gun had been used a great deal was evident; it barrel was rubbed smooth at the tip, as was the peak of the sight. He transferred his attention to the butt. It was the most curious feature of the weapon. Both sides were inlaid with ivory — single pieces which had been carved in a steer’s-head design, the center of which in each case was an oval, elaborately monogrammed H. The ivory inlays were worn and yellow with age, except for a narrow portion on the right sight of the butt; as Ellery held the revolver in his left hand, this patch of lighter ivory came between the tips of his curled fingers and the heel of his hand. He stared long and hard at it. Then he twirled the revolver thoughtfully and handed the gun to his father.

“You might include this piece of artillery with the other suspected weapons, dad,” he said. “Just as a matter of precaution. You can never tell what these ballistic johnnies will dig up.”

The Inspector grunted, took the revolver, gazed at it gloomily for a moment, and then turned it over to a detective with a nod. It was at this moment that there was movement at the eastern gate, and the detectives now on guard opened the big doors to admit a number of men.

Heading the little procession was a gigantic individual in plainclothes, with a face that seemed composed of overlapping plates of steel, and a thunderous step that outraged the tanbark. This Goliath was Sergeant Velie, Inspector Queen’s favorite assistant; a man of few words and mighty, if mentally uninspired, deeds.

He bestowed a professional glance at the corpse, eyed the vast amphitheatre above his head with its thousands of buzzing, weary occupants, and rubbed his mastadonic jaw.

“Hot stuff, Chief.” His voice was the voice of a bull-fiddle. “Exits?”

“Ah, Thomas,” said the Inspector with a relieved smile. “Another one of these rush-hour murders. Relieve the police at the exits and station our own men. Send the officers back to their regular posts or duties.”

“Nobody out?”

“Not a living soul ’til I give the word.”

Sergeant Velie barged awesomely away.

“Hagstrom. Flint. Ritter. Johnson, Piggott. Stand by.”

Five men of his own squad, who had accompanied Velie, nodded. There was professional joy in their eyes as they saw the magnitude of the task before them.

“Where’s that rodeo doctor?” said the Inspector crisply.

The shabby rugged old man with the earnest eyes stepped forward. “I’m the rodeo medic,” he said slowly. “Hancock is my name.”

“Good! Come here, Doc.”

The physician moved nearer the body.

“Now tell me all you know about this business.”

“All I know?” Dr. Hancock seemed slightly alarmed.

“I mean — you examined him a few seconds after he fell, didn’t you? What’s the verdict?”

Dr. Hancock stared soberly at the crumpled figure on the floor. “There’s not much to tell. When I ran over here, he was already dead... Dead! Only today I examined him and found him in perfectly good condition.”

“Died instantly?”

“I should say so.”

“Dead before he hit the ground, hey?”

“Why... yes, I believe so.”

“Then he didn’t feel those horses steppin’ all over him,” said the Inspector, groping for his snuff-box. “That’s a consolation! How many bullet wounds?”

Dr. Hancock blinked. “You must remember that mine was a cursory examination... One wound. Directly through the heart in a leftward direction.”

“Hmm. You familiar with gunshot wounds?”

“Ought to be,” said the rodeo doctor grimly. “I’m an old Western myself.”

“Well, what’s the calibre of the bullet in his pumper, Doc?”

Dr. Hancock did not reply for a moment. He looked directly into the Inspector’s eyes. “Now, that’s a curious thing, sir. Very curious. I haven’t probed — I know you’ll want your Medical Examiner’s physician to do that — but I’d swear from the size of the hole that he was shot with a .22 or .25 calibre!”

“A .22—” began Wild Bill Grant harshly, and stopped.

The Inspector’s bright little eyes swept from physician to showman. “Well,” he said suspiciously. “And what’s so remarkable about that?”

“The .22 and .25, Inspector,” replied Dr. Hancock with a little quiver of his lips, “are not Western weapons. Surely you know that?”

“Really?” said Ellery unexpectedly.

Grant’s eyes were glowing with a joyful light. “I tell you,” he cried, “there ain’t a pea-shooter in my armory, Inspector! An’ not a boy or girl in my show totes one!”

“Pea-shooters, hey?” said the Inspector genially.

“That’s what they are — pea-shooters!”

“But,” continued the Inspector in a dry voice, “because your people don’t carry .22’s, Mr. Grant, as a usual thing, doesn’t say that one of ’em didn’t carry a .22 tonight. Wasn’t usual at all, tonight’s business. No, sir. Besides, you know as well as I do that there are a number of big models that use .22 ammunition.” He shook his head sadly. “And then the Lord knows how easy it is to buy a rod these days. No, Mr. Grant, I’m afraid we can’t clear the slate of your bunch just on that account... That’s all, Dr. Hancock?”

“That’s all,” replied the physician in a small voice.

“Thanks. My own man, Doc Prouty, will be here soon. I don’t think we’ll need you any more, Dr. Hancock. Suppose you join that crew of... of... Geronimo, is this New York or isn’t it? — of cowboys over there!”

Dr. Hancock humbly retreated, clutching his little bag, the earnest light still in his eyes.

The body, being cold and rapidly stiffening clay, was left where it was, to the mercy of twenty thousand pairs of resentful eyes. Of Tony Mars, standing by in utter quietude, masticating a cigar so shredded and pulpy that little bits of it stuck brownly and wetly to his thin lips, the Inspector demanded information.

“Where the devil can we go for a heart-to-heart talk, Tony? Time’s come to ask some questions, and I don’t feel like doing it in front of half the population of Brooklyn and Manhattan. Where’s the nearest cubbyhole?”

“I’ll show you,” said Mars tightly, and began to march off.

“Just a minute. Thomas! Where’s Thomas?”

Sergeant Velie, who had the uncanny faculty of seeming to be in two places at the same time, materialized at the Inspector’s side.

“Come along, Thomas. You guerrillas,” snapped the Inspector to his five stalwarts, “you stick around here. Mr. Grant, you join us. Piggott, get that angel-haired cowboy — Curly Grant — and Miss Horne from among that gang over there.”

Mars led the way to one of the small exits on the south wall of the oval; the Inspector clucked something, and the detective on duty opened the door. They emerged into a vast underground chamber with tiny rooms branching off, and it was to one of these that Mars went, the group at his heels. It proved to be a minor office, perhaps of a watchman or a time-keeper.

“Ellery, shut that door,” growled the Inspector. “Thomas, no one’s to get in here.” He appropriated one of the two chairs in the room, sat down, inhaled snuff, smoothed his neat gray trousers, and waved his hand at Kit Horne, who was clutching the back of a chair. She was not dazed now; some emetic Curly Grant had applied to her shock had brought it out of her; but she was extremely quiet and, it seemed to Ellery, watchful. “Sit down, sit down, Miss Horne,” said the Inspector in a kindly tone. “You must be tired.” She sat down. “Now, Mr. Grant, let’s get together,” went on the old man more crisply. “We’re alone, we’re all friends here, and you can speak your mind. Any suggestions?”

“No savvy,” said Grant tonelessly.

“Any idea who might have killed your friend?”

“No. Buck—” his voice trembled, “Buck was just a big kid, Inspect’r. Best-natured critter you ever saw. Didn’t have an enemy in the world, I’ll swear. Ev’ry-body knew him liked him — loved him.”

“How about Woody?” said Kit Horne in a low, dangerous tone. Her eyes remained unwaveringly on Grant’s florid face.

Something troubled came into the showman’s eyes. “Oh, Woody,” he said. “He—”

“Who’s Woody?” demanded the Inspector.

“My reg’lar top-rider. Star of the show until — until Buck joined the outfit, Inspect’r.”

“Jealousy, eh?” said the Inspector with a sparkle in his eye, as he glanced slyly at Kit. “Sorehead, I’ll bet. Well, what’s the story? Must be a story, or Miss Horne wouldn’t have said what she did.”

“Woody,” said Ellery thoughtfully. “That isn’t by an odd chance the chap with one arm?”

“Yeah,” said Grant. “Why?”

“No reason,” murmured Ellery. “I just didn’t know.”

“Well, there’s no story,” replied Grant wearily. “As you say, there might ’a’ been some peeve on Woody’s part, Inspect’r. Maybe some bad feelin’ between him an’ Buck... Woody’s got only one arm, so he’s made capital of it. Doesn’t hinder him none from ridin’ an’ shootin’, an’ he’s sort o’ proud of himself. When Buck came along... I tole Woody this was only temp’rary, this business of Buck’s bein’ with the show. Yeah, maybe he resented Buck’s buttin’ in, Inspect’r, but I’d swear he wouldn’t do nothin’ so damn foolish as murder.”

“That remains to be seen. Anybody else got a suggestion? You — the curly lad.”

Curly said in a sort of despair: “Inspector, I wish to God I — we could help you. But this is just — hell, it ain’t human! None of the people in our wickiup could possibly’ve—”

“Hope not, son,” said the Inspector gloomily, in the tone of one who quaffs hope merely to quench despair. “You, Miss Horne?”

“Except for Woody,” she replied stonily, “I don’t know of a living soul who might have desired Buck’s death.”

“That’s hard lines on Woody, Kit,” began old Grant with a frown.

“It will be hard lines on whoever did it, Bill,” said Kit in a conversational tone. They all looked at her quickly; but her eyes stared at the floor. There was an uncomfortable pause.

“S’pose,” said the Inspector, clearing his throat, “s’pose you tell us how Buck Horne came to be with your show, Mr. Grant. We’ve got to start somewhere. What was he doin’ with a circus outfit?”

“Circus outfit?” repeated Grant. “I — Oh. Buck’s been out of the public eye fer nine-ten years. ’Ceptin’ fer a spell maybe three-four years back, when he made one pitcher in a come-back try. Pitcher flopped, an’ he took it passable hard. Went back to ’is ranch in Wyoming.”

“Took it hard?”

Grant cracked his big knuckles. “I tell ya he was heartbroken! He was gettin’ along in years, but he was a stubborn cuss an’ wouldn’t admit he was licked. Then the talkies came in an’ he perked up again. Tole me on one o’ my stopovers at the ranch that he was good as ever — wanted another crack at the movies. I tried to talk ’im out of it, but he says: ‘Bill,’ he says, ‘I’m goin’ loco out here, all alone. Kit, she’s busy in Hollywood...’ Well, I says: ‘Right, Buck. I’ll pitch in, help much as I can.’ So I helped — helped kill ’im,” said Grant bitterly.

“And this stunt here, at the rodeo, was a build-up?”

“I had to do somethin’.”

“You mean there wasn’t much chance?”

Grant cracked his knuckles again. “At first I thought he didn’t stand a show. But this last week — I dunno. He caught on. Papers took ’im up — Grand Ole Man o’ the Movies business; that kind o’ bunk...”

“I beg your pardon,” said Ellery, “for interrupting, but was this scheme for Horne’s re-entry into motion pictures based on an actual connection with a producer?”

“You mean was it more’n a pipe-dream?” muttered Grant. “Well — No producer — they wouldn’t touch him with a ten-foot pole. But — well, I was goin’ to help put up the ante. We’d form our own comp’ny...”

“You alone?” demanded the Inspector.

Tony Mars said quietly: “I was considering it, too. And Hunter — Julian Hunter.”

“Oho!” said the Inspector. “Hunter, the night-club bird — this Gay woman’s husband we met tonight. Well, well.” His little eyes twinkled frostily. “And now will somebody please tell me how it happens that Horne’s best friend, and you, Tony, and Hunter were willing to put up the jack for Horne — and yet his own daughter didn’t put up a cent?”

Grant swallowed hard, and his face settled into dusty bench lines. Curly made an impatient little gesture, and instantly relaxed. Kit sat very straight had been sitting very straight for long minutes. There were tears in her eyes — not weak tears, but tears of pure rage and chagrin.

“Bill Grant,” she choked, “do you mean to stand there and say there wasn’t a producer? Why, you yourself told me—”

The Queens said nothing; the Inspector, having some experience in this business of letting unexpected little dramas play themselves out, watched with bright inquisitiveness.

Grant mumbled: “Kit, Kit, I’m awful sorry. But it wasn’t my fault; it was Buck himself made me say that. He didn’t want yore money risked; said to tell you there was a producer so you wouldn’t insist on puttin’ up the cash. Business proposition, it was to him; plain business. Said if he couldn’t int’rest hard-headed business men in his come-back he’d duck out altogether.”

“You might add, pop,” said Curly suddenly, “that Buck didn’t know yore mazuma was in it, either!”

“Here, here,” murmured the Inspector. “Regular fairytale, this is. We’re getting more tangled up every minute. What is this?”

Grant shot a hard look at his son. “You, Curly, keep yore damn mouth shut when yo’re not asked.” Curly blushed and muttered: “Yes, pop.” Grant waved his beefy right hand. “He’s spilled it. All right, Buck didn’t know my dough was in it. Wouldn’t hear of it. Just wanted me to be his manager. We even signed a contract. That’s why I had to go out an’ bluff — make a stab at gettin’ Mars here to come in with us. But on the sly I tole Mars I’d stand the whole business. That’s what I was meanin’ to do from the start, anyway.”

“Do you think Horne suspected your real intention?”

Grant muttered: “Hard to say. He’s always been a hard hombre to fool. These last couple o’ days, he’s acted kind o’ funny. Mebbe he caught on. All his life he shied away from anything that — well, smacked o’ charity, ’specially from his friends.”

Kit rose suddenly and went up to Grant, standing very close. They looked into each other’s eyes, and Kit said simply: “I’m sorry, Bill,” and returned to her chair. Nobody said anything for some time.

“All of which goes to prove,” said Ellery cheerfully in the silence, “that murder is the most effective cathartic for vocal indigestion. Miss Horne, whom will it be necessary to notify of your foster-father’s death?”

She murmured: “No one.”

Ellery’s head shot round, his eyes fastening on Grant. But Grant only nodded, heavily.

“You mean except for yourself he had no family?”

“Not a single living relative, Mr. Queen.”

Ellery frowned. “Well, perhaps you don’t know, Miss Horne. But you must know, Mr. Grant. Is that true?”

“Right as rain. Except fer Kit, Buck was alone in the world. Left an orphan at six — brought up by an uncle who owned the ranch next to my father’s in Wyoming. My ole man an’ Buck’s uncle used the same range fer their stock.” Grant’s voice was agony. “I... I never thought ole Buck’s cashin’ in his checks would get me this way. But hell... His uncle kicked in, an’ that was the end. Buck was the last of the Homes — one o’ the oldest families in the Northwest.”

During this exposition Mr. Ellery Queen’s features might have been observed changing expression with the lightning facility of a chameleon changing color; why Grant’s explanation should have disturbed him was obscure. But disturbed he was, although after a moment he made an effort and erased all emotion from his face. The Inspector studied him with a faint puzzlement; the old man kept quite still now, content to see what esoteric idea might be buzzing about in his son’s brain, if indeed there was anything to be seen. But Ellery’s shoulders twitched, and a small grin lit on his lips.

“How many riders did you announce as following Horne on that last sad processional of his, Mr. Grant?” he murmured.

The showman started out of a reverie. “Hey? Riders? Forty.”

“But there were forty-one, you know.”

“Forty. I ought to know. I pay ’em.”

At this Inspector Queen’s eyes narrowed. “When you said forty in the arena a while ago,” he snapped, “you were speaking in round numbers, weren’t you?”

Grant flushed darkly. “Round numbers nothin’. What is this? I said forty, an’ I meant forty — not forty-one or thirty-nine or a hundred an’ sixty!”

The Queens regarded each other with sparkling eyes. Then the old man scowled. “You — uh — you couldn’t have made a mistake in counting, could you, son?”

“I was really an excellent mathematician in school,” said Ellery, “and I don’t think the problem of counting to forty-one would have taxed my numerative ability. On the other had, est giebt Menschen die gar nicht inert) weil sie sich nichts Vemünftiges vorsetzen, or words to that effect. However, since I’ve always posed as a rational animal... Suppose we put this little problem to the test.”

He strode toward the door.

“Where you going?” demanded the Inspector, as the others stared.

“Like all martyrs — into the arena.”

“But what the dickens for?”

“To count the noses of the survivors.”

They trooped back, through the little door by which they had entered the subterranean chamber, into the full glare of the Colosseum’s tabernacle. There was a distinct quality of weariness in the mass noises now; detectives yawned all about; and the group of cowboys and cowgirls in the arena itself sprawled on the tanbark in varying attitudes of dejection and indifference.

“Now then,” said Ellery briskly as they trotted toward the group, “suppose you count ’em yourself, Mr. Grant. Perhaps I’m crazy.”

Grant growled something under his breath and, glaring at his costumed employees, strode about among them counting audibly. Most of them were sitting, heads sunken on their breasts; the old showman walked through a mushroom forest of large soft hats.

Then he came back, and all the amazement and bewilderment and pain which had struggled for mastery in his features since Buck Horne had crashed dead to the floor of the arena had vanished. His formidable jaw waved below grim lips like a banner. “I’ll be a double-distilled son of a horse-whippin’ so-an’-so if there ain’t forty-one, the way Mr. Queen said!” he bellowed to the Inspector.

“You count that ugly little runt, Boone?” asked the old man quickly.

“Dan’l? No. He wasn’t among ’em. There’s forty-one without Dan’l.” Brown faces had lifted now; they were staring at him curiously. He whirled about, and somehow without theatricalism his right arm perched on his right hip, holding his coat back and displaying his empty holster; he seemed himself to realize that the holster was empty, for he dropped his arm on the instant, scowling. Then he roared: “You mangy waddies! The gals too! Up on yer hin’ legs an’ let me get a good look at yore ugly maps!”

There was a moment of stunned silence, and then Ellery’s grin faded. It really seemed for a moment that Mr. Wild Bill Grant of Wyoming and environs would have a small-sized revolution on his hands. One immense cowboy — Mr. Shorty Downs, an ordinarily jovial gentleman — took a long step forward and growled: “Would ya mind sayin’ that again, Mr. Grant? I don’t think I heard jest right the first time.” And he doubled a fist like a bludgeon.

Grant glared into his eyes. “Shorty, you close yore trap an’ pay attention! The rest o’ you — stand up! There’s one too many among ya, an’ I’m on the warpath till I find the dirty murderer!”

They fell silent at that, the growls dying away; very quickly they got to their feet, men and women, and looked casually around at each other. Grant plunged into their midst, muttering to himself: “Hawes. Halliwell. Jones. Ramsey. Miller. Bluege. Annie. Stryker. Mendoza. Lu... Ah!”

In the thick of the group he came to rest for an instant, after a single explosive sight. And then his cruel arm shot out and clamped powerfully about the shoulder of a man in cowboy costume.

He came swiftly out, dragging his captive as he might have dragged a trussed calf. The man was pale and drawn, with thin features shadowed in the purples and browns of dissipation — not at all a specimen of the Great Outdoors. He was wincing with the agony of Grant’s grip, but there was something scornful in his very intelligent little eyes.

Wild Bill dumped him without ceremony into the dirt before Inspector Queen, and stood spread-legged over him, spitting and grumbling like a grizzly bear.

“This here one!” he roared when he had at last found his voice. “Inspect’r, this maverick’s not a member of my show!”