The Mountain Cat

Chapter 9

Kenneth Chambers, Sheriff of Silverside County, with only one eye on the spittoon eight feet away from his chair, squirted a beautiful stream of tobacco juice squarely into its middle.

“Yeah, I know,” he drawled, “I know all about that. But take it from me, Squint Hurley had a hand in it.”

Bill Tuttle, Sheriff of Park County, who was seated at his desk in his office, said in a voice made querulous by the heat, not to mention one or two other vexations, “You’ve got a grudge against Hurley, Ken.”

“What if I have?” the other demanded. “Who wouldn’t have? Didn’t he murder Charlie Brand right square in the center of my county and then go scot free just because a couple of wisenheimers said the bullet wasn’t from his gun? They call it science! Next thing they’ll measure my hind end and tell me where I sat down last!” He spat again and nearly missed. “As far as that goes, couldn’t he have faked up a catrich if he was a mind to? Couldn’t he have used another gun?”

Tuttle sighed. “Well, Ken, I followed that trial pretty close. And I’ll tell you. My candid opinion is that both you and that what’s-his-name, the prosecutor, were as dumb as a pair of hee-haws. You didn’t have a single damn thing on Hurley except that he was handy, still you went ahead and tried to bulldog him. If you’d found some of that money on him, or a place where he cached it, that would have been different.”

“He was as guilty as a bear in a bees’ nest.”

“Maybe he was and maybe he wasn’t, but you had no proof of it. And here you drive over here on a hot day just to add to my troubles as if I didn’t have enough already! Didn’t I tell you on the phone yesterday that Hurley had nothing to do with it except he went up there to ask Jackson for some money and found the girl right there with the gun in her hand?”

“I don’t care what you told me,” Chambers said obstinately. “I’m convinced Hurley was mixed up in it. How did he happen to be going to see Jackson at night? And how did he happen to be going to see Jackson at all? In the past year and a half, since that half-witted jury turned him loose, Jackson has refused to have anything to do with him and I understand he got a little nibble from Bert Doyle down at Laramie and since then he’s been eating bunch grass. Where is he? I suppose you’ve let him slide along?”

“Certainly not. He’ll be my star witness.”

“He will like hell. He’ll be one of the defendants.” The sheriff of Silverside County spat. “I’m going to light a fire under him.”

“Not in Park County you’re not.” Tuttle, from being querulous, became pugnacious. “Get my star witness sore just to nurse a grudge? Not on your life! There’s not a bit of evidence that Squint Hurley was in it at all and no reason to suppose he was. You’re all right for a neighbor, Ken, these counties being as big as they are, but I’m damned if you’re going to start hazing my stock inside my fences. My God, as if this case wasn’t bad enough already! Go on back home and flush a mutton-rustler or something! I’d like to trade places— Excuse me.”

The phone had buzzed, and he pulled it across and spoke into it. After a moment he said, “Send him on in,” and hung up.

Chambers, stirring, began, “I’ll mosey along—”

“No, you won’t. If you do I’ll have you tailed. This is just a parson calling. You stay here till we get this thing settled.”

The door opened and the Reverend Rufus Toale entered. His preposterous straw hat was in his hand, his black coat was buttoned up and a strand of his dark hair, pasted to his broad forehead by perspiration, curved to a point aimed at his left eyebrow. He came forward with his other hand outstretched, saying in his deep musical voice, “God bless you, Brother Tuttle. — Oh yes, yes indeed, I know Brother Chambers, or perhaps I should say I recognize him. I saw him, of course, during the trial of that poor man for the murder of Charles Brand. God rest his soul.”

Ken Chambers, muttering something, resumed his seat. Tuttle got heartiness into his voice: “Sit down, Doctor, sit down. Anything I can do?”

“Praise God, there is.” Rufus Toale, with his customary deliberation, hung the straw hat on the back of a chair and deposited himself on the seat, sitting straight, clasping his hands in front of him. “There is, Brother Tuttle. You can welcome the truth and let it serve you. God’s truth is His alone and it alone is everlasting, but there is also worldly truth which, alas, is often chosen for a guide.” His tone all at once became fierce and a fire gleamed in his eyes. “God’s truth will prevail!” The fire receded and his tone calmed. “I have been three times to see Delia Brand and she will not see me. She refuses to let me speak to her.”

“Yeah, I heard about that.” The sheriff looked embarrassed. “I’m sorry, but the warden didn’t see how he could—”

“I understand. Faith and grace cannot enter by force, and the servant of the Lord must wait for the door to open. That poor innocent child! God’s blessing on her!”

Tuttle frowned. “You say innocent?”

“I do. I think she is innocent. I do not think she killed. But even if she is guilty by man’s law, who are you to judge her? Only God can brand Cain. For my sins I answer not to man! By your insolent judgments and punishments you usurp His power and deny His mercy!”

“Of course,” Tuttle agreed, “that’s all right for preaching. But we’ve got to enforce the law. If they didn’t want ’em enforced, why did they make ’em?”

Rufus Toale sighed. “I know. Practically, it’s useless. That’s why I am here. I, even I, must render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s. So I came to tell you that the man whom Delia Brand desired to kill was myself.”

The end of the sentence unfortunately caught Ken Chambers in the very act of spitting and he missed the spittoon by nearly a foot. Tuttle’s mouth fell open and, staring, he neglected to close it. Then he demanded, “Huh?”

Rufus Toale nodded. “Let me explain. I was not aware that the poor child desired my death, though I knew that hatred for me had entered her heart. But when I read in the paper that when she bought the cartridges in the sporting goods store she declared her intention to shoot a man, I knew the man must be me. I am not at liberty to tell you what it was that caused her to conceive her hatred for me, but I assure you it existed. It is not an overstatement to say that she abhorred me. I have been trying to see her, it is true, to persuade her to trust in God’s wisdom and mercy in this sore trial, but I also wanted to gain her permission to tell you of her hatred for me and, as far as it might be necessary, of the reason for it. She will not see me. So I can tell you nothing of the reason, but I can say that I know she hated me and it was me she desired to kill.”

“Then she was a derned poor shot.”

That came from Ken Chambers. Tuttle turned a glare on him; Rufus Toale ignored him. Tuttle said, “Well, Doctor, of course I’m pretty surprised. It sounds remarkable. It sounds close to incredible.”

“It is true.”

“Maybe so. You’re not prepared to open up any about the reason?”

“I am not. The confidences of a shepherd with his flock are holy.”

“Sure, I suppose they are. Did she ever threaten you or tell you she felt like shooting you?”

“No. But I saw her soul.”

“Did she ever tell anybody that, that you know of?”

“No.”

“Then what — you understand I’m not necessarily doubting it a bit — but what has this got to do with the fact that she was found standing in front of Dan Jackson with the gun in her hand he had just been killed with?”

“It has to do with it, Brother Tuttle, that it convinces me there has been a mistake and the poor child is innocent.” Rufus Toale’s voice lifted and became more sonorous. “And I will add, and I warn you, sir, to give it heed, that there is another quite different reason, which I cannot divulge, why I am certain that she did not shoot Jackson. God rest his soul.”

“Certain’s a strong word, Doctor.”

“I am certain.”

“Well...” Tuttle twisted in his chair and his voice changed. “See here. I suppose you know that the law doesn’t recognize the right of any clergyman or even any priest to withhold knowledge of a serious crime, let alone murder. Now you spoke of confidences being holy and so on. That kind of talk won’t be allowed to justify—”

“God will justify!” The fire showed in Rufus Toale’s eyes again, a zealot’s fire, and he spoke with a zealot’s voice. “Do you imagine, Sheriff, that I respect your ordinances or bow to your compulsions through fear? God forbid! Do you suppose I would relinquish one small glance of favor from His blessed throne to earn any earthly justification you or anyone could bestow? A ghastly error not only in the sight of God, but in the sight of man!”

Tuttle gazed at him. He would sooner or later, presumably, have replied something or other, but the opportunity passed before he seized it. The phone buzzed. He took it and spoke into it, and gave instructions that someone was to be told to wait till he was free, but the instructions must have been either misunderstood or disregarded, for as he was shoving the phone back the door burst open and a man irrupted into the room. His momentum took him clear to the desk and he was talking when he got there.

“I said I was busy!” the sheriff yelled. “I said for you to wait!”

“I don’t care how busy you are,” Tyler Dillon declared. He was panting, more from emotion, it appeared, than from exertion. “Whatever it is, it can wait. I’ve got—”

“You can wait yourself! Who’s your client this time?”

“I haven’t got a client. I’ve got evidence that will clear Delia Brand!”

“The hell you have. Why don’t you take it to her counsel?”

“Because there’s no use delaying it. It’s conclusive. Get a stenographer in here. I’ve got some witnesses. I want a record — get a stenographer—”

“Keep your shirt on.” Tuttle reached for the phone. “You’re not going to give me a ride on any more of your legal privileges.” He told the phone, “Ask Ed Baker if he’ll please step down here right away. — Hey, where are you going?”

“I’m going to bring in my witnesses.”

“You are not. You stay right here and tell it to the county attorney.”

“I can have—”

“You can have a chair, or a square foot to stand on, until he gets here.”

Tuttle leaned back and glared, first at his brother sheriff, then at the Reverend Rufus Toale and, finally, at the young lawyer in search of a client. In a long experience he had never seen so much ruckus about one bullet in one man, from so many different quarters; and besides the ruckus, there were the correlative perils personal to himself and his job, which constituted, from his standpoint, by no means the least important feature of the case. He was around sixty and he was kind of tired, and he hadn’t saved up much money. He was about deciding that he had better shoo the clergyman and the brother sheriff out of the room when the door opened to admit Ed Baker. He approached the desk, demanding, “Well, Bill, what is it?”

“This Dillon here again. Says he’s got evidence.”

Baker wheeled. “Oh, you. What kind of evidence?”

Ty Dillon faced him. “Evidence that will clear Delia Brand.”

“Where’s her attorney?”

“I don’t know and I don’t care. I’m taking it for granted that you have no ill will for Delia Brand and if you are given facts that create a strong presumption of her innocence, you’ll turn her loose. I know you didn’t believe Pellett’s story about her bag, but you only had his word for it and he’s her uncle. This is different. It’s evidence.”

“What is it?”

“Get a stenographer.”

“Go on and tell me.”

“Just as you say, I won’t forget it. I’ve got witnesses, but I’ll sketch it first. As you know, Delia bought a box of cartridges at MacGregor’s Tuesday morning. The clerk who sold them to her took the gun she had and looked at it and it wasn’t loaded; he said so in the interview he gave the Times-Star. Tuesday afternoon at the Pendleton School Delia left her handbag with her hat on a shelf in the cloakroom which is partitioned off from Room Nine. Two boys sneaked into the cloakroom and, while she was teaching the class, they stole the box of cartridges from her bag. That’s all they took. They saw the gun there. They took the cartridges home with them and I’ve got them. Right here in my pocket. Fifty of them. All of them. Then where did she get a cartridge to shoot Jackson with? And the ones in the gun?”

Baker, eyeing him, grunted. “Somebody got a cartridge to shoot Jackson with.”

“She didn’t. Where?”

“Who says the cartridges you’ve got are the ones she bought?”

“Don’t worry about that. That’s sewed up. The boys are in the anteroom.”

“She hasn’t said anything about the cartridges being stolen. She says bag and all were stolen.”

“That was later, from her car. She hadn’t missed the cartridges. This thing is watertight. It’s so tight that I didn’t even have her sister see her before I came to you, to warn her not to say that she noticed the cartridges in her bag after she left the school. She couldn’t say that, because they weren’t there. This is open and shut.”

The county attorney, still eyeing him, chewed at his lip. Finally he turned to the sheriff. “Get the boys in here, Bill.”

In response to the sheriff’s message, the population of the office was increased not by two, but by four. In front was Clara, her face a weary composite of hope and anxiety; next came Jimmie and Eric; in the rear was James Archer, Senior, carrying his coat over his arm. The young man from the anteroom stayed to help get chairs collected and occupied and then withdrew.

Names were supplied by Dillon to the county attorney, who opened up on Jimmie. “Were you at the Pendleton School Tuesday afternoon?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What were you doing?”

“Doing my dooty.”

“What were you doing while Delia Brand was teaching her class?”

“I was finding something because somebody had offered a reward.”

“Oh, a reward? Did you get the reward?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Who gave it to you?”

“Mr. Escott. My lawyer.”

“I see. When he gave you the reward did he tell you what to say when you were brought here?”

“No, sir.”

“Did anybody tell you want to say?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What did they tell you to say?”

“The truth.”

Dillon put in savagely, “Oh, cut it out, Baker. That’s tommyrot. There’s any amount of corroboration — the fathers and mothers and the school principal—”

“I’ll handle it, thanks.” Baker went on with Jimmie: “What was it you found?”

“A box of catriches.”

“Where did you find it?”

“In Miss Brand’s bag. I was there in the cloakroom with Eric, and I whispered to him, I said...”

Jimmie was off. It took over an hour. Ed Baker, first with one boy and then the other, exhausted every detail of the entire episode from beginning to end, and then started over again and repeated the performance. He questioned James Archer, Senior, with equal thoroughness and then went after Jimmie once more, regarding his visit to the offices of Escott, Brody & Dillon and his surrender to the bait of the silver dollars. He was working on that, and Dillon was pacing up and down in impatience, when he was interrupted by the sheriff, who had been speaking briefly on the phone.

“It’s Frank Phelan,” said the sheriff, covering the transmitter. “He says he’s got something and he’s bringing it over right away, and he wants you to be here.”

“Well, I’m here!” Baker told him testily. “Tell him to bring it along!” He resumed with Jimmie. Five minutes later he had all he seemed likely to get. The questions stopped. He surveyed the boy a moment, then turned to face Dillon. “All right,” he said grudgingly. “You said you have evidence. You have. Congratulations. But it seems to me you should have taken it to the defense attorney in the first place. You’d better take it there now.”

Dillon stared. “Take it — why? What more do you want? Do you mean you’ve got the nerve to hold—” His voice was on the way, crescendo, to a shriek of indignation.

“Cool off, Dillon. Use your head a little. What’s my nerve got to do with it? I admit you’ve dug up evidence, enough of it so that when Harvey Anson gets it he’ll probably take a crack at a habeas corpus writ and then I’ll have to decide whether to fight it or not. I’ve got to think it over. There’s still a preponderance against her and if you were in my place you’d know it as well as I do.”

“But damn you, what more do you want? This proves that she couldn’t—”

“This proves only one thing, that if she shot Jackson she didn’t do it with one of the cartridges she bought from MacGregor’s clerk Tuesday morning. I admit that’s something. I admit that it puts it up to me — now what?”

He wheeled. The door had been flung open and feet were tramping in. Everybody gazed at the new influx, which seemed to threaten, as it continued, to jam the office. First was Lem Sammis, followed by Quinby Pellett. Next in order, entered a uniformed policeman, a tall skinny young man in a polo shirt and seersucker slacks, with wavy blond hair, Chief of Police Phelan and another cop in uniform. At the tail end, as usual, progressing with a minimum of exertion, was Harvey Anson.

The Reverend Rufus Toale unobtrusively left his seat and went to stand by the wall. James Archer, Senior, chased the boys off of their chairs. But the newcomers appeared to be seeking not ease, but action. They stayed on their feet. Lem Sammis was saying to Ed Baker, “See how you like this one. So Quin Pellett’s a liar, huh? When you go out of my gate, Ed, it shuts behind you!” Phelan was telling the sheriff he had better get some of the crowd out of there. But Harvey Anson had elbowed through to the county attorney and his thin voice, sparing of breath, took the attention:

“Uh, Baker. I can go up to Judge Hamilton. But maybe you’d like it better informally. As a favor to you. We have a witness you ought to hear.”

Baker’s lower lip was upthrust. “A witness to what? Who is he?”

Anson pointed a thumb at the young man with wavy blond hair. “Ask him. He’ll tell you about it.”

Baker’s sharp glance took in the witness from head to foot. “We can take him upstairs to my office.”

“Oh, no, that won’t be necessary. He’ll enjoy the audience. We all will.”

The audience, for its part, was already engrossed. In the silence, the impact was plainly audible when the sheriff of Silverside County spat. One of the cops nudged the young man forward.

Baker faced him. “You’ve got something to say?”

“I have.” The young man’s voice was a little squeaky, but not with timidity or uncertainty. “Shall I go on and say it?”

“Just a minute. What’s your name and who are you?”

“My name is Clement Ardyce Cooper and I’m a student at the university. I live at Comstock Hall.”

Baker grunted. “Shoot.”

“Tuesday afternoon about four o’clock I was standing at the curb on Halley Street, not far from The Haven, studying types—”

“Types of what?”

“People. Do you want me to explain everything carefully as I go along?”

“I want you to say what you were brought here to say.”

“Then please don’t interrupt me. I was standing at the curb and I saw a man pass by, among many others, and decided he was an extrovert, unstable, philotype B. He walked close to the curb and looked into several parked cars in a peculiar manner, taking precautions against observation, but I am accustomed to observing people without making them aware of it. I am a psychologist. I saw him open the door of a car and take something out — a leather handbag. He was about thirty feet from me. A moment later another man approached and accosted him. The first man said something in reply, thrust the handbag into the other man’s hands and walked away. The other man stared after him a few seconds, then he walked off too, in the opposite direction, carrying the handbag. His name was Quinby Pellett.”

“You mean you knew him?”

“Oh, no, not then. I had never seen him before. But this morning I saw his picture on the front page of the newspaper, in an advertisement. I read the advertisement and at two o’clock, after my classes were over, I went to the police station to reply to it. They sent for Quinby Pellett and when he came naturally I recognized him.”

“Naturally. From his picture in the paper.”

“Oh, no. From having seen him on Tuesday.” The young man looked amused. “You’re so transparent, really. Almost infantile. I’d love to give you a test.”

“Much obliged. If there’s any testing, I’ll do it myself.” Baker was gazing at him resentfully, but the resentment was not for him. It was like Harvey Anson to spring a thing like that, informally he called it, before a bunch of rubbernecks, without any warning...

“Anything else?” the psychologist inquired.

“Yes,” Baker snapped. “Plenty. First about the man who took the bag from the car. Has he been described to you?”

“Described? By whom?”

“By anyone. Anyone who is now in this room, or out of it either. Or have you been shown a photograph of him?”

“Oh, I get you.” The young man looked more amused than ever. “I’ll tell you about that. I know I’m a little skinny, but I’m all right. I’m the second best in tennis up at the campus. If you’ll have this room cleared, or if you’ll come out in the alley with me, I’ll beat some of that out of you.”

Baker looked a little startled. “There’s no occasion—”

“There’s plenty of occasion.” The student’s voice got more of a squeak in it, but otherwise he maintained his calm. “I come here to tell you something I saw because I saw it and right away you start trying cheap insulting tricks. If you want to ask me if I’m lying and give me a chance to say no, I’m not, that’s all right, but instead of that you start making cowardly insinuations. What’s wrong with you is a fundamental lack of intelligence, to suppose that if I undertook, or had been persuaded, to invent a story, I wouldn’t have sense enough to defend it against any attack you could possibly be capable of. I’m not surprised you’re a lawyer. You probably couldn’t make a living at much of anything else.”

“I should have warned you, Baker.” A cackle came from Harvey Anson’s lips, which was a rare occurrence. “He’s pretty hot. That’s about the identical thing he said to me. Why don’t you look into his connections? To see how we might have suborned him.”

“Thanks, I will.” Baker glared at the witness. “What does your father do?”

“He’s a geodesist.”

“A what?”

The youth smiled tolerantly. “A sectional director of the United States Geodetic Survey.”

“Is he a friend of the chief of police? Or of Quinby Pellett or the Brand family? Or of Mr. Anson or Mr. Sammis?”

“No.”

“Are you?”

“No. I wouldn’t be. I have nothing but contempt for lawyers, financiers and politicians.”

Another cackle came from Anson. Baker disregarded it. “Would you recognize that man if you saw him again? The one who took the bag from the car?”

“Certainly. Didn’t I say I studied him?”

Frank Phelan broke in, “Why don’t you try him on it, Ed? I’d like to see it myself. We can line Rowley up with a dozen or so—”

“Yeah, sure, I’ll bet you’d like it, Frank.” The county attorney appeared to be talking through his teeth. He eyed the psychologist. “You say the second man was Pellett and he walked off carrying the bag. What did he do with it?”

“I don’t know. He went on down the sidewalk. A young woman came along, Mongoloid, with a typical—”

Quinby Pellett blurted, “I’ve told you what I did! First I went to the corner and had a beer—”

“I wasn’t asking you. I know what you told me.” To the witness: “Did anybody see you on Halley Street Tuesday afternoon? Did you see or speak to anyone you know?”

“Certainly. I spoke, intermittently, with my companion, Miss Griselda Ames, the daughter of a professor in the School of Mines.”

Baker gawked. “You mean she was with you all the time?”

“She was.”

“And she saw everything you saw?”

“She did.”

Baker flung up his hands. “In the name of God, why didn’t you say so?”

“I have said so.” The witness was unperturbed. “As a matter of fact, it was only at Miss Ames’s insistence that I replied to the advertisement. It seemed to me a bit quixotic. If you would like verification of my story, though it appears to me quite unnecessary, she would be glad to furnish it. Not that I regret having come.” His head slowly pivoted for an interested survey of the throng. “The faces of excited people, under a strain of one sort or another, are unusually revealing.”

Harvey Anson cackled again. The county attorney whirled on him and demanded, “Well?”

Anson shrugged. “Well, Baker, it looks as if the only question is whether you want me to go to the trouble of entering a writ. Fact is, I’ve got one in my pocket. I was going to argue it on the basis of Quin Pellett’s testimony and then this came along.”

“Yeah. And instead of letting me have this with decent professional courtesy, you have to grandstand it in front of a mass meeting!”

“That’s right. Lem Sammis and I didn’t much care for certain tendencies you seemed to be displaying. Shall I go on up to Judge Hamilton with the writ?”

“No,” Baker snapped. He turned to the sheriff. “Bill, go and get Delia Brand and bring her in here. I’m going upstairs and move to dismiss and get an order. Keep her here till I get back; it’ll only take a few minutes — you coming along, Anson?”

He strode out of the room, with Anson at his heels, and the sheriff bestirred himself and left by another door. Ken Chambers spat. A little involuntary cry came from Clara Brand’s lips, and Ty Dillon moved to pat her on the shoulder. “Ty!” she said, “they’re going to set her free! She’s free!” He growled, “You’re damn right she is,” and left her to walk to the psychologist and grab his hand. The student politely tolerated it. The Reverend Rufus Toale left his spot by the wall to approach Clara Brand, beam down at her and exhort: “Praise God, my child! Praise Him for this timely and blessed interposition of His divine will!” Without awaiting, or apparently expecting, acquiescence, he moved back to the wall. Quinby Pellett came to replace him in front of Clara, bending to squeeze her elbow and demanding, “How’s that for luck, Clara? Wonderful luck? That that fellow saw me getting the bag, that kind of a fellow, and the girl with him? How was that for luck?” With her eyes on the door instead of him, she agreed, “Wonderful, Uncle Quin, simply wonderful!” The door opened and her sister entered. The sheriff was right behind her.

Ty Dillon ran toward her three steps and then checked himself, looking foolish. Delia’s face was composed and was certainly not pallid or haggard; indeed, if the psychologist wanted to study strained countenances, she was about his least likely prospect in the room. She took in the crowd with a glance, spotted Clara, trotted across to her and threw her arms around her and kissed her. “Sis!” she cried, “what’s happened? Am I really — is it really all over?” They hugged each other. “What’s happened? It is? — And Ty, you here? All right, kiss me on the cheek. Go ahead! Look at you, you’re trembling all over— All right, Mr. Sammis, then you kiss me — you too, Uncle Quin, though I know you’re not very demonstrative—”

They were all around her and all talking at once, having for spectators Frank Phelan and the two cops wearing broad grins, the psychologist smiling tolerantly, Mr. Archer and the two boys staring sympathetically, Ken Chambers pretending it was none of his business, and the Reverend Rufus Toale moving his lips as if in silent prayer. That was still the scene when the door from the anteroom opened to admit Harvey Anson and Ed Baker.

Baker went across to the sheriff, handed him a paper and said, “There’s the order, Bill, give it to the warden.” Then he turned and called sharply, “Miss Delia Brand! Please!”

They all faced him. He was crisp. “Miss Brand, you are released from custody. I am sorry if you have been temporarily charged with a crime you didn’t commit; I offer no apology, because the charge was made in good faith, under the weight of circumstances which seemed all but conclusive. Your being released now does not prohibit a future renewal of the charge in case new evidence warrants it, though I admit that seems unlikely; I merely want to make your position clear to you.” His eyes moved to include them all. “There have been intimations that in holding Miss Brand I have been moved by considerations other than a desire to enforce the law. That is not true. If Miss Brand is innocent and I now believe she is, no one is happier than I am to see her free. But let me tell you this: I am more than ever determined to investigate fully the murder of Dan Jackson and find the guilty man and punish him. Or woman! I congratulate you, Mr. Anson, on obtaining the freedom of your client, but I remind you and everyone that the question still remains and I’m going to find the answer to it: who killed Dan Jackson?”

“Go to it, Ed.” It was Lem Sammis. “Go right ahead.”

“I’m going to, Lem. I’m going to follow this investigation wherever it leads. I’m just letting you know. And the first thing I want to do is ask some questions of Delia Brand. — Now wait a minute, please. You are aware, Anson, that I’ve had very little information from Miss Brand. From the time you got hold of her Tuesday night she has said nothing. But she was found in that office with Jackson shortly after he was killed and he was killed with a gun that had been in her possession, and that certainly makes her a material witness if there ever was one. It was perfectly proper for you to keep her sealed up as long as she was charged with murder, but not now. I want to ask her some things and I’m going to, and if I don’t get answers I’ll detain her as a material witness. I’m aware that I can’t force answers, but I can expect them and I do expect them.”

Anson said mildly, “You might let her have a night’s sleep in her own bed first.”

“No. I will if she insists on it, but I want to start this investigation now and with her. What about it, Miss Brand?”

Eyes turned to Delia. She hesitated. “Will I have to answer everything you ask me?”

“You won’t have to answer anything. But you will, if you’re a law-abiding citizen — anything that has a bearing on the crime.”

Anson said, “I want to be present. She is still my client.”

“No,” said Delia, “I am not.”

“What’s that? You’re not?”

“No.” She leveled unfriendly eyes at him. “You thought I was... you thought I had killed Jackson. Not only that, you thought I killed him because...” She flushed. “You know what you thought. So I don’t want to be your client and I’m not.”

“How about me?” Tyler Dillon demanded. He was flushing too, but he was eagerly seizing a chance. “You ought to have a lawyer, Del, and if you don’t want Mr. Anson—”

“No. I don’t want a lawyer.” She sounded as if she meant it. “You’re all right, Ty, but I don’t think I’ll ever do anything or say anything that will make me need a lawyer. I realized a lot of things up there in that cell, lying on that cot... when I opened my eyes I could see, through the bars, Mrs. Welch sitting out there, for no reason at all except to be human. I thought about things I never thought about before, and I — what I really mean is, I never thought at all before. At first I was scared and nothing else, but then I began to think. For the first time in my life I realized how silly it is, and it’s even dangerous, for people to go along day after day taking it for granted that they’re not fools. I’m never going to take that for granted again. And no one is in a position to say whether you’re a fool or not except you yourself, because no one else knows enough about it.” She looked at Ed Baker. “You can question me without my having a lawyer, can’t you?”

“I can. I would prefer it that way.”

Lem Sammis put in, “Maybe you’re a fool now, Dellie. Anson got you out of jail, didn’t he? What’s the difference whether he thought this or that? It only shows he was a fool too.”

But one result, apparently, of her mental exercises as she lay on the cot in the cell, was that she was through, at least temporarily, with lawyers. She was firm, and in spite of the protests of Anson and Lem Sammis and Clara and Ty and Uncle Quin, she went out with the county attorney, headed for his office upstairs.

Five minutes later the room was deserted, except for the two sheriffs. They sat in silence. Finally Tuttle sighed.

“Well,” Ken Chambers demanded, “and how do you like it now? What did I tell you?” He flourished a packet of fine cut. “No, you said, don’t go monkeying with Squint Hurley, because the Brand girl did it and he’s my star witness. No, you said, speaking to me, you’ll sit right here and if you try leaving before we get this thing settled I’ll have you tailed—”

“Shut up,” Tuttle told him bitterly. “Not that I didn’t have all the sympathy in the world for Delia Brand, but look at it now! Did you hear what Ed Baker said? Follow the investigation wherever it leads. It’s apt to lead him and me straight out of a job before it’s over. You say it was Squint Hurley that did it. Maybe. What if it turned out to be Lem Sammis himself?”

The phone buzzed. Tuttle reached for it, spoke into it briefly, mostly with grunts, shoved it back and got to his feet. “You seem to have company,” he observed. “Anyhow, that was Ed Baker, and he wants me to haul in Squint Hurley and have him ready for a talk as soon as he gets through with the Brand girl.”

The Sheriff of Silverside County stowed away the packet of fine cut, arose and stretched. “I guess I’ll go along.”

“If you do you’ll keep your mouth shut.”

They went out together.