Two Clues: 1. The Clue of the Runaway Blonde; 2. The Case of the Hungry Horse

1

It was 7:55 when Lew Turlock answered the phone and was advised that long distance was calling Miss Betty Turlock. Would he please put her on the phone?

“She isn’t here.”

The voice of the operator had that synthetic sweetness which showed Lew Turlock he was talking directly with the city. The Rockville operator would have spoken more naturally. Sometimes the local girls tried to imitate the voices of the metropolitan operators, but it never quite clicked, probably because they overdid it.

“When will she be in?” came drifting dulcetly over the party line.

Lew called over his shoulder to his wife, “Betty wasn’t coming home tonight, was she, Millie?”

“She’s spending the night with Rose Marie Mallard,” his wife called back. “Who wants her?”

“Long distance,” Turlock said to his wife and then into the phone, “she won’t be here tonight.”

“Is there another phone number where we can reach her?”

“Nope,” Turlock said, “no other number. The folks out where she’s staying don’t have a telephone.”

He hung up and went back to a perusal of the Rockville Gazette.

“Now who in the world do you suppose would be calling Betty from the city?” Mrs. Turlock asked.

Her husband merely grunted.

“Seems as though you could have found out who it was,” she said. “Betty wouldn’t sleep a wink if she knew someone was trying to get her from the city.”

Lew started to say something, then lowered his paper and cocked his head, listening.

“What is it?” his wife asked.

“Those horses over at Calhoun’s,” Turlock said, “they’re acting mighty queer. A lot of snorting and stamping.”

“Well,” Mrs. Turlock said tartly, “let Sid Rowan worry about that. We’ve got enough to do without worrying about the neighbors’ horses. Sid’s getting lazier every day. Anyhow, I don’t see how you can hear them. I can’t hear a thing.”

Turlock said shortly, “Just guess my ears are tuned to horse noises. That mare of Lorraine Calhoun’s is a package of dynamite. Sounds like she’s kicking the side of her stall.”

With the boom in land values, Lew’s next-door neighbor had sold out six months ago to Carl Carver Calhoun, a wealthy broker. It had been difficult for Turlock to adjust himself to this new situation. In the first place, Calhoun was only there on week-ends. He had hired Sid Rowan and his wife to look after the place, paying a salary that Turlock was firmly convinced was exactly twice as much as any couple were worth, four times as much as Rowan was worth.

Under the new owner, the adjoining property had undergone a steady transformation. The cattle and work horses had been sold, and high-spirited riding horses had taken their place. A couple of dairy cows had been retained and a half-dozen heads of beef cattle, but the rest had been sold. A tennis court had been built and a swimming pool was now in process of construction.

Calhoun was cordial enough. In fact, he went out of his way to be friendly. But, as Turlock had pointed out to his wife, you just couldn’t make a real neighbor out of a millionaire. “Go over to borrow a cup of rice,” he had pointed out, “and when you went to pay it back, like as not they’d smile and say, ‘Oh, that’s all right.’ ”

The telephone rang again.

This time the voice of the long-distance telephone operator announced that her party would speak with anyone who answered the phone. A second later, a girl’s voice, touched with impatience, asked, “Who is this talking, please?”

“Lew Turlock.”

“Oh, you’re Betty’s father, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Look, would you do something for me?”

“What is it?”

“You don’t know me. I’m Irma Jesup, a friend of Lorraine Calhoun and also of your daughter. Now listen, it’s very important that I talk with Betty. I have to reach her no matter where she is.”

“There isn’t a phone out where she’s staying.”

“I understand. But is it far from where you are?”

“Six or seven miles.”

“Look, could you get word to her? Or perhaps some neighbor who has a phone would call her? Couldn’t you get word to her some way?”

“Well, I suppose I could,” Turlock said reluctantly, “if it’s downright important.”

“Well, it is. Just tell her to call Irma Jesup at Trinidad 6273. And she’ll be using a neighbor’s telephone, won’t she?”

“Yes.”

“Then tell her to reverse the charges so there won’t be any trouble about that. Tell her I’ll be waiting right here at the telephone.”

“You want to give me that number again?”

The voice was impatient with the delay and Lew Turlock’s stupidity. “It’s a pay station, Trinidad 6273. Tell her that Irma Jesup wants her to call at once. I’ll be waiting by the telephone. She may call me collect. Now is that plain?”

Turlock sighed. “That’s plain,” he said. “Goodbye.”

“What is it?” Mrs. Turlock called from the living room as Turlock hung up the phone.

“Oh, some friend of the Calhouns — girl by the name of Irma Jesup — says she has to get Betty right away. It’s terribly important. I suppose it’s an invitation to a theater party or something. Don’t know why I didn’t make her tell me what it was all about.”

“You aren’t going out there, Lew?”

“I think Jim Thornton will run over and get her for me. It’s only a quarter of a mile from his place over there... Say, what do you suppose is the matter with those horses? Guess I’d better go take a look. Don’t see any lights over there, I s’pose Sid Rowan and his wife have gone to the movies again.”

“Oh, quit worrying about the horses,” Mrs. Turlock said. “You can’t do your work and Sid’s too.”

“You know Jim Thornton’s number?” Turlock called to his wife.

“Six seven four — ring three.”

“Okay.”

Turlock picked up the telephone. When he had Jim Thornton on the line, he said, “Jim, this is Lew Turlock. I hate to bother you, but Betty’s staying over with Rose Marie Mallard tonight. Long distance is trying to get her and says it’s important. Now, do you suppose you could...”

“Sure thing,” Thornton said. “I’ll get ’em over here right away.”

“It ain’t too much trouble?”

“Shucks, no. I have a signal with them. I put up an old automobile spotlight on the side of the house. It’s pointed right toward their windows and whenever someone wants one of them on the phone, I turn on that spotlight. It may take a few minutes for them to see it, but usually someone comes right over. Usually it’s Rose Marie. What with the shortage of equipment they haven’t been able to get a phone. I’ll switch on the light right away, Lew. How’s everything coming?”

“So-so.”

“Don’t want to sell that Jersey milk cow, do you? I know a man who’s trying to buy up some good cows, willing to pay a good price.”

“How much?”

Thornton’s voice became suddenly cautious, indicating his recognition of the fact that they were talking on a party line. “Remember my telling you what I got for that bay horse?”

“Uh huh.”

“Well, he’s offered five dollars less than that for the right sort of cows.”

“I’ll think it over. Probably be seeing you tomorrow.”

“Okay. Be seeing you.”

Turlock hung up. Within a matter of five minutes the phone was ringing again.

“That’ll be Betty now,” Mrs. Turlock said.

Lew Turlock put down his paper and walked patiently over to the telephone. When Betty was home, she always answered the telephone. When she was away, her father took over the job. Mrs. Turlock had a slight impediment of hearing which, as she expressed it, “Made the words sound all blurred over the telephone.” But there were those who claimed she could hear all right when it came to listening in on party-line conversations.

Lew Turlock picked up the receiver and said, “Hello.”

The voice which came rushing at him over the wire showed all of the nervous rapidity of a person who has an explanation to make and is very anxious to be certain the explanation is accepted.

“Oh, Mr. Turlock,” the voice pleaded. “This is Rose Marie. Betty isn’t here right now. She’s going to join me a little later. There was something came up. She is coming out almost... well, almost any time now. If you can leave the message, I’ll see that she gets it.”

Lew Turlock gripped the telephone receiver. He started to ask a question and then realized that there were other ears on the party line. This would make a choice morsel of gossip. Magnified, distorted, repeated, it would brand his daughter as a girl who resorted to the familiar expedient of saying she was spending a night with a girl friend who would give her an alibi and then...

Lew Turlock fought to keep his voice casual. “Tell her Irma Jesup called up and wants Betty to call back just as soon as she possibly can. She’s to put the call through collect. Trinidad 6273. That’s all. I’m sorry I bothered you but Irma Jesup said it was terribly important. I told her that I couldn’t reach Betty until later on in the evening.”

“Okay. I’ll... I’ll... tell her. You understand about...”

“Thanks,” Lew interrupted, keeping his voice casual, and rung up.

It took two or three seconds for him to compose himself sufficiently to walk back to the living room and face his wife. But Mrs. Turlock was engrossed in her book and barely looked up. She took it for granted Rose Marie had promised to drive back to her home and relay the message to Betty.

Lew stood, debating just what to do next. His mind was a turmoil of thought, but all the time he was fighting himself to keep his manner and speech completely casual.

Across on the Calhoun place a horse snorted and kicked. The wind was from the east, carrying the sound plainly. Lew Turlock welcomed it as a diversion. “I’m going across and take a look at those horses,” he said. “One of them may have a foot caught or something.”

“Sid Rowan certainly doesn’t believe in doing any more work than is necessary to get by,” Mrs. Turlock snorted. “I can’t say that I like the idea of having neighbors who go away and leave the place in the hands of someone like Sid Rowan. After all, the Calhouns aren’t there over five or six days a month. And when they are, there’s a continual screeching and shouting.”

“I know,” Lew said, and opened the table drawer to take out a flashlight. “I’ll be back in five or ten minutes.”

As Lew Turlock crossed the kitchen and opened the back door, his wife was saying something about Sid Rowan traipsing off to a movie three or four nights a week and delegating his responsibilities to the neighbors. Having warmed to this subject of conversation, she found it more interesting than her book.

Turlock quietly closed the door, shutting off his wife’s tirade.

2

The boundary line between the Turlock and Calhoun properties ran directly across the crest of a commanding knoll. For this reason, the houses were nearer together than would otherwise have been the case, each builder desiring to take advantage of the view and the cool breezes.

Using the beam of his flashlight to guide him, Lew Turlock crossed the narrow strip of lawn, opened the gate in the fence, and approached the Calhoun barn.

It had been raining earlier in the day, but now the clouds had broken up. The stars were gleaming brightly, interrupted only by an occasional blotch of drifting clouds. The air, washed clean of impurities by the rain, felt cool and crisp. The smell of damp earth was a delightful aroma in Turlock’s nostrils. It exerted a quieting influence, stilling somewhat the thoughts which raced around and around in his brain like a weary squirrel wheel of worry.

Lew Turlock knew he must make some excuse to get out to George Mallard’s place. Somehow, he must get Rose Marie off to one side and quiz her before she had had a chance to get in touch with Betty and fix up some story. That, Turlock decided, was the Calhoun influence. Lorraine Calhoun’s smilingly superior manners had started all of the girls putting on airs, trying to be sophisticated. Take Rosemary, for instance, who had ceased to be plain “Rosemary” but must now be called Rose Marie. Her parents had no business letting her get away with that stuff. If he’d been her father...

Lew, walking doggedly toward the barn, his mind occupied with his own problems, noticed that the beam of his flashlight was reflected back at him from the chrome finish on a convertible car, parked almost in front of the stable door.

He let the light play over the car. It was Lorraine Calhoun’s convertible. The top was down, showing the red leather of the interior — a car, Lew thought morosely, that cost more than a Diesel tractor — and used just as a plaything — to speed a rich man’s daughter around on her playtime engagements.

A horse snorted and kicked.

Lew Turlock opened the barn door. Somewhere at the back of the barn a horse gave a low snicker in appreciation of the human companionship.

Turlock, accustomed to sensing the moods of animals, detected the tension all up and down the long line of stalls. The horses were nervous, as though a thunderstorm had been approaching.

A horse snorted. Lew could hear the iron ring turn in its hasp as the horse lunged back on the rope. Then there was the sound of nervous hoofs on the wood floor of the stall and another long snort.

Lew found the light switch and clicked on the lights.

With the blaze of illumination the horses instantly became silent.

Lew’s eyes, running down the long line of stalls, caught sight of a girl’s leg and a high-heeled shoe, the toe pointed slightly upward. Beyond that, he could see part of a hand stretched out palm upward.

Even in that first moment of soul-numbing excitement, Turlock remembered about the horses. He mustn’t alarm them. He spoke to them automatically as he hurried down the line of stalls. “Whoa, boys, take it easy. Steady now. Whoa, boys.”

She was lying on her side, sprawled out grotesquely, in such a position that the mare had to stand at an angle to avoid trampling on the still body.

The cruel, disfiguring wound in the top of her head, with the sinister red pool seeping from it onto the stable floor, told its own story.

Lew gave a strangled cry, “Betty!”

He knelt by the girl, then noticed her clothes. They were not Betty’s clothes.

“Miss Calhoun — Lorraine,” he said.

The figure lay starkly still. Lew touched the arm.

It needed only that one touch of the lifeless flesh to tell Lew Turlock that nothing he could do would be of any use.

He left the body exactly as he had found it, but he carefully stepped over it, untied the mare and led her out.

The nervous mare drew back on the rope as she came to the sprawled figure, then reared and jumped, alighting with a pound of hoofs on the floor beyond.

Lew tied her up and then went to the extension telephone which Calhoun had had installed in his barn within the last two weeks.

3

Sheriff Bill Eldon received the call at his home.

He was, at the moment, suffering through one of the frequent visits of his wife’s sister Doris. Time did not dull the sharpness of her mind — or of her tongue.

The sheriff listened to Lew Turlock’s heavy voice stolidly giving him the details.

“You say she was kicked by the mare?”

“That’s what it looked like. She must have gone into the stall and the mare caught her right in the middle of the forehead.”

“You didn’t move her?”

“Well, I got her out of that stall.”

“You shouldn’t have done that, Lew. You should have left the body...”

“Not the body,” Lew said, “the mare. She was stomping around and all excited.”

“You didn’t move the body?”

“Shucks, no. The mare jumped over it slick as could be. I knew enough not to touch the body. So did the mare.”

“How about the Calhouns? Are they home?” the sheriff asked.

“No, no one’s home. Sid Rowan and his wife must have gone to the show.”

“Okay,” the sheriff said. “I’ll get the coroner and come out. I’ll call up the theater and tell them to put a message on the screen for Sid Rowan to get out there right away. See that no one touches anything. G’bye.”

Doris Nelson was sitting in the front parlor, straining her ears to listen. She waited only to hear the click of the receiver and then rasped out, “Who is it? Who’s killed? What happened?”

Grinning maliciously, the sheriff picked up the receiver again. His second call would give him a valid excuse to ignore the questions. He said to the operator, “Get me James Logan, the coroner, right away. It’s official and important.”

A few moments later the sheriff had notified the coroner, called the movie theater, and left instructions to have Sid Rowan called from the show. Then he had slipped out of the side door and got his car out of the driveway — all without answering Doris’s rapid-fire staccato of eager questions, in itself no small feat.

Logan, the coroner, and Lew Turlock both lived well to the south of town. The Turlock ranch was some five miles out, and the sheriff, taking it for granted that Logan would be there ahead of him, drove at conservative speed along the main street of Rockville, carefully regarding the rights of other cars that were on the road. Although he had switched on his official red spotlight, he refrained from using the siren. After all, there was nothing he could do. The girl was dead. The Calhouns were prominent people. There would be quite a bit of publicity over the thing. The city newspapers would probably telephone in for complete facts. The Calhoun girl was pretty as a picture. But she was a city girl, and she should have known better than to go prowling around a nervous mare at night.

Once south of town, the sheriff speeded up the car and rolled briskly along the pavement. As he turned off on the dirt road which led up to the hill where the two houses were situated, he noticed that there were several fresh car tracks just ahead of him and that one of the puddles left in the road was still churned with yellowish muddy water. This meant that the coroner would be there ahead of him.

The sheriff liked that. He was always nervous when he had to stand around waiting for the coroner. He turned up the driveway, which skirted the base of the hill and then climbed up to the knoll, and slid his car to a stop just behind that of the coroner.

Logan was already in the barn. The sheriff walked on in.

Logan said, “I’ve looked around, Bill. It’s evidently accidental. She went into the stall to get something and the mare kicked her. It must have happened right after the horses were fed. The mare got nervous with the body lying there and didn’t eat a bite. The chute is still filled with hay. That mare’s hot-blooded and nervous. Miss Calhoun probably didn’t know enough about horses to understand she had to speak to a horse when she entered the stall. She walked in without saying a word. The mare saw her out of the corner of her eye and let fly.”

“How long’s she been dead?” the sheriff asked.

“We can find out when Sid Rowan comes and tell us what time he fed the horses. Must’ve happened within five minutes of the time he put down the feed. This probably will be Sid now.”

A car drew up outside. A man and woman got out and entered the stable.

“What’s the trouble here?” Sid Rowan said, his voice showing irritation. “Can’t I get away to a movie without...”

He broke off as the sheriff stepped forward.

Rowan was in the middle fifties, a stringy, wiry man with steel-gray eyes, long of leg and arm but quick-moving despite an awkward shuffle about his walk. His wife was four or five years younger and inclined to be fleshy and slow-moving.

The sheriff told them what had happened.

“But she wasn’t here,” Rowan said. “There was no one here. No one was home. The family were coming down tomorrow. You know how it is. They used to come down every week-end, now they come down about two week-ends out of the month, the whole bunch of them — servants, family, friends. Three or four automobile-loads sometimes. Shucks, wait a minute, that’s her car parked out there now. She must have come down unexpected like.”

“You didn’t know she was here?”

“Why, no. I didn’t look for her until tomorrow. They’re all coming then.”

“You have no idea what time she got here?”

“No.”

“You must have fed the horses and then gone to the movies as soon as you had the hay down.”

“That’s right. I went up and put hay in the chutes and then the missus and I beat it for the first show. No sense in sticking around here all the time. You can’t make a man work both day and night.”

“You must have fed at about half past six if you made the first show?”

“I started about half past six. Guess I finished about twenty minutes of seven and then took right off.”

“It was dark in the barn by that time?”

“Sure.”

“And you switched on the lights?”

“Of course.”

“And then turned them off when you left?”

“That’s right.”

“Did she have a key to the house?”

“I suppose so. Sure. Calhoun had keys made for all members of the family.”

“Do you live in the house or...”

“No. There’s an apartment over the garage where the wife and I live.”

Logan said, “Well, we don’t know why she came to the stable, but it’s a cinch she came here, walked in, and the mare kicked her.”

Sid Rowan nodded.

“I’m not so sure,” Sheriff Eldon said.

They looked at him quizzically. “How else could it have happened, Bill?” the coroner asked.

Bill Eldon turned to Turlock.

“You heard the horses snorting?” the sheriff asked.

“That’s right. This mare was making quite a commotion. Snorting and stamping and occasionally kicking at the side of the stall. She wanted out.”

“She was tied up with a rope?”

“That’s right. A halter and a rope running through that iron ring.”

“How long had you been hearing that racket before you came over?”

“Must have been half an hour anyway. Maybe longer.”

“You called me at eight twenty-five,” the sheriff said. “I made a note of the time.”

“Well, I called you within five minutes of the time I got over here.”

“Now then, when you got here,” the sheriff said, “the stable was dark?”

“That’s right.”

“You had a flashlight and located the light switch and turned on the lights?”

“Yes.”

“And the body was lying here on the floor?”

“That’s right.”

The sheriff turned to Logan. “There you are.”

“I don’t get it,” Logan told him.

“Rowan left the place at twenty minutes to seven,” the sheriff said. “It was dark by that time. Outside there was some light but it was getting good and dark by that time. The sun sets right around six o’clock. Inside the barn it was dark as a pocket. You couldn’t see your way around without lights. Now then, if this young woman entered the barn, she naturally turned on the lights to see where she was going. Who turned off those lights?”

“Gosh, Bill, you’ve got something there,” the coroner said. “There must have been someone with her.”

“That’s right, someone who turned off the lights.”

Logan gave a low whistle.

“After this had happened,” the sheriff went on.

Logan looked at Rowan. “No chance she got in while you were feeding the horses and then when you went out...”

“Not a chance in the world,” Rowan interrupted half-angrily.

Logan motioned toward the horse’s manger. “The horse hasn’t hardly touched a bit of food... This is Lorraine Calhoun, Rowan?”

“Sure. She must have driven up right after I left. After I came down that ladder from the loft, I remember looking in at the mare. She’d just started to eat.”

The sheriff avoided the body by hugging the edge of the stall. He walked in to the manger, said, “The chute’s pretty well clogged up with hay. That mare didn’t even pull the hay away from the bottom of the chute so the rest of it could come down.”

The sheriff picked up half a dozen of the dried barley stalks and looked at the quality of hay with a professional eye. “Lots of grain on this hay,” he said. “It’s pretty good... Hello, what’s this?”

His flashlight exploring the far corner of the manger disclosed a small black leather-covered book, blending so perfectly with the shadows in the manger that it took the beam of the flashlight to disclose it.

Bill Eldon picked up the book, and turned his body so the light struck the pages. “Seems to be a diary,” he said. “Her name’s in front — Lorraine Calhoun. Logan, if you don’t mind, I think I’ll get Quinlan to take some photographs of the position of that body. Let’s try not to touch anything until he gets down here.”

The sheriff moved over directly under the light. Opening the diary, he said, “Gosh, I hate to pry into this thing. Guess we won’t read it, boys.”

He started to put it in his pocket and then said, “Well, we might take a look at the last entry in it. It may tell us something.”

The sheriff turned to the current date, opened the diary, and read, “I guess some people think I’m a fool. I’m going to have a showdown with Frank and that mealy-mouthed Betty tomorrow. Well, why wait? Why not catch...”

That ended the last entry in the diary.

The sheriff abruptly closed the book and put it in his pocket. He turned to Lew Turlock. “Where’s Betty tonight, Lew?” he asked casually.

Lew Turlock fidgeted uneasily. He glanced over toward his house, and then his eyes met the curious gaze of James Logan, Sid Rowan, and Sid Rowan’s wife.

“Sheriff,” he blurted, “could I speak with you alone — sort of private like?”

4

Over in the dark corner of the barn Lew Turlock told the sheriff the story of his daughter’s deception.

“Told you she was going out with the Mallard girl, did she?” the sheriff asked.

Turlock nodded miserably. “She and Rosemary — or Rose Marie she’s calling herself now — were supposed to be working on some stuff they’re doing in this benefit play for the Red Cross. She left right after supper.”

“What time?”

“Well, Millie had dinner early so Betty could get away. I guess Betty left the place about... well, about six. She helped her mother with the dishes. But she was all ready to go except for that. Soon as she dried the dishes she jumped in the car and drove away.”

“And Mallard hasn’t any telephone?”

“That’s right. I called up by getting Jim Thornton to signal him to come over to the phone. Betty’s a good girl. I don’t know what it’s all about. Probably some kid stuff. But if word gets around that Betty’s supposed to be there, but ain’t... well, you can look at Sid Rowan’s wife, standing over there with her ears stuck out a foot, just...”

“Come on,” the sheriff said. “Were going out to Mallard’s place right quick.”

He called back over his shoulder, “Lew Turlock and I are going out to see if his daughter saw Lorraine tonight. She’s visiting with friends who haven’t any phone. Jim, will you get in touch with George Quinlan and ask him to come down and take some pictures of that body and the stall? Make everyone keep back away from the body!”

The sheriff opened the door of the county car and Lew Turlock, miserably dejected, climbed in beside the sheriff. “Gosh, Bill,” he said, “you know how easy it is to get talk started around here. Particularly with someone like Sid Rowan’s wife. She’s all burned up with curiosity right now...”

“I know,” Bill Eldon said sympathetically.

“Matter of fact, I thought there for a minute it was Betty lying dead in the barn. The light’s down at the far end, and what with the shadows in the stall and the body lying sort of half face-down — you can imagine how I felt. Hang it, Bill, Betty is all right. I don’t know what the explanation is, but...”

“Sure, sure,” the sheriff soothed. “You’re getting yourself all worried, Lew. Betty’s all right, but if this Lorraine Calhoun was going to see her tonight, we’d sort of ought to talk with Betty. I haven’t ever met any of these Calhouns. Too bad a thing like this had to happen. Guess the country’s changing, Lew. Must have been fifty little ranches sold to city people. Some of the folks are going to farm, but most of ’em are just using ’em for sort of week-end residences.”

His manner casual, his voice drawling characteristically, the sheriff talked on, steering the conversation away from the gnawing worry that was eating away at Turlock’s mind.

They passed Jim Thornton’s house, rolled on down the dirt road another quarter of a mile and then turned into Mallard’s place.

George Mallard came out to meet them.

The sheriff did the talking, for which Lew Turlock was duly grateful. And the sheriff was diplomatic, asking about the crops, discussing the prospects of early rains, and then casually asking whether Rosemary was home.

“Rose Marie,” Mallard corrected him with a grin. “She’s gone a little highfalutin on us. No, she ain’t home. Someone telephoned to her about three quarters of an hour ago maybe, and she jumped in the car and went tearing out,”

The sheriff was elaborately casual. “Well, that’s all right,” he said. “She’s going to be in that Red Cross play next month, isn’t she?”

“That’s right.”

“She and Betty Turlock.”

“Uh huh.”

“Kind of want to see her about the play,” the sheriff said. “Haven’t any idea where she went, have you, George?”

“No, I haven’t. You know the way youngsters are these days. She came tearing in and grabbed her hat and coat, bounced into the car, and tore out of the driveway. These kids have more on their minds these days than the governor of the state.”

The sheriff started the motor on his car. “Well, I’ll be seeing you, George. I’m kinda busy right now. Tell your daughter just as soon as she comes in to call my house. No, wait a minute... You tell her to jump in the car and come to my office.”

Mallard looked curious. “What is it? Anything...”

The sheriff’s grin was reassuring. “This doggone Red Cross play is going to have us all humping until it comes off I guess. Bet your daughter looks good in it. Can’t tell what will happen one of these days with a good-looking girl like that. She might be on the stage in one of these little local plays and some scout might see her, and next thing you know, she’d be in Hollywood.”

“I don’t want Rose Marie in Hollywood,” George Mallard said positively.

“I know,” the sheriff grinned, “but you just can’t tell.”

He turned the car around and was fifty yards from the house when a car speeding along the paved road slowed so rapidly that the tires screamed a protest and turned into the driveway.

“Reckon this here is Rosemary now,” Bill Eldon said, “and she’s got Betty with her.”

Lew Turlock heaved a sigh of relief.

The sheriff drove slowly, found a place on the side of the dirt road where he could park, and blinked his lights to signal the oncoming car.

“Maybe you’d better do the first part of the talking,” Eldon said to Turlock.

Lew Turlock nodded. He got out of the car, crossed in front of the headlights, and was waiting by the side of the road when Rose Marie drew abreast.

Illumination from the instrument light in the dashboard showed that a beautiful blonde girl with deep blue eyes and smooth, fine-textured skin was at the wheel, alone in the car.

Lew Turlock stepped forward. “Hello,” he said somewhat inanely, his eyes going past Rose Marie to the empty seat beside her.

“Oh,” she said. “It’s... Mr. Turlock... How do you do, Mr. Turlock... Oh, I’m sorry. I hope you didn’t come out here just...”

“Where is Betty?” Turlock asked.

She shifted her position behind the steering wheel. She frowned for a moment, then smiled, and said, “Oh, she’ll be along. She’s right behind me.”

The sheriff slid out from behind the steering wheel. “Hello, Rose Marie,” he said. “Just where is Betty?”

Rose Marie Mallard looked from one man to the other. The deep-blue eyes showed sudden panic. The pathetic attempt at a smile was wiped off her face.

“Where is she?” the sheriff asked, and then added, “Right now. I want to see her.”

Rose Marie’s words were hardly audible above the purr of the idling motor.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I’ve been trying to find her.”

5

The sheriff walked over and put one foot on the running-board. “Now let’s be frank,” he said. “Suppose you tell me all you know about Betty Turlock and...”

“I don’t know a thing. She was to be here... a little later.”

“And spend the night with you?”

“Yes.”

“What time was she supposed to be here?”

“She... well... later.”

“How much later?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know as she did.”

The sheriff said, “There’s been an accident over at Calhoun’s. We’re sort of looking for Betty, and other people are going to be looking for Betty maybe. It’s going to be kind of too bad if no one seems to know right where she is. Particularly because Betty’s mother’s going to say she’s over here working on the Red Cross play.”

“An accident, Sheriff?”

“Lorraine Calhoun’s been killed.”

“Lorraine! Oh, but Betty couldn’t have done anything like that!”

“Like what?”

“Why, killing... You said it was an accident?”

“A horse kicked her, yes.”

Rose Marie’s exclamation was an “Oh!” which indicated great relief.

“Now after you got that telephone call from Lew here,” the sheriff said, “you jumped in your car and went out to try and find Betty, didn’t you?”

There was a moment’s hesitancy, then a reluctant nod.

“Now then,” the sheriff said, “let’s not get into any more trouble, Rose Marie. Where did you go?”

“Out... out along the river road.”

“You were looking for her parked in an automobile?”

“Yes.”

“Whose automobile?”

“Hers... that is, Mr. Turlock’s.”

“And who did you expect would be with her?”

“Why... I was just looking for her.”

There was a note of impatience in the sheriff’s voice. “You tell us the facts,” he said, “and let us do the thinking. We’re all friends of Betty’s and we don’t any one of us want to see a lot of talk get started. Now, you don’t need to try to cover up things from us. You tell us the truth, only tell it to us fast.”

She said, “She was to meet Frank Garwin tonight.”

“Who’s Garwin?” the sheriff asked.

It was Lew Turlock who answered the question. “Friend of the Calhouns,” he said.

The sheriff studied Lew Turlock’s face for a moment and then turned back to Rose Marie Mallard. “You tell us,” he said.

Her voice was thin with fright, but she said readily enough, “When the Calhouns bought the place and moved in, Lorraine was spending the summer up in Maine with friends. She only got back here about three weeks ago. Frank Garwin is a friend of... well, a friend of the family. He... they all sort of like him and... He wanted to be a lawyer and he and Lorraine were going together steady and then... Well, he didn’t have the money for an education and Lorraine loaned him enough to get himself through college and...”

“How about the army? Was he...”

“No, he had a bad heart. He stayed on and studied and... well, he got to seeing something of Betty... It’s a mix-up. I don’t know too much about it. I know they’re miserable.”

“Who’s miserable?”

“Both of them.”

“Lorraine?”

Rose Marie lashed out bitterly at that name. “Not Lorraine,” she said. “She was playing around in Maine and that’s why she didn’t want to come back to California when her folks bought this place. If you ask me, I think she came back to give Frank Garwin the gate. And then she saw how things were and she just decided to play dog in the manger. Not that she cares a thing in the world about Frank, but it’s her own pride, her own selfishness, her own deceit. She couldn’t stand the idea of having some other girl take a boyfriend away from her, the great Lorraine Calhoun — sophisticated, polished, traveled, patronizing, snobbish little...”

“She’s dead,” the sheriff reminded her.

“I’m sorry. I forgot. I... well, I’m sorry.”

Suddenly a light blazed into brilliance ahead.

“That’s Mr. Thornton,” Rose Marie said desperately. “He does that whenever someone wants us on the phone. I... we... That’s probably Betty now.”

They waited while she turned her car and then followed her to Thornton’s house. But it wasn’t Betty Turlock on the phone. It was long distance again, Irma Jesup calling. It seemed she had once more called Turlock’s residence and Mrs. Turlock, innocently enough, had told the operator Betty could be reached through the Thornton residence.

Sheriff Eldon stepped to the telephone. “Hello,” he said.

The woman’s voice at the other end of the line said impatiently, “I didn’t want to talk with you again, I wanted...”

“Now listen to me a minute,” Eldon said. “This is the sheriff talking. There’s been an accident over at the Calhoun place and...”

He ceased talking as he heard the receiver at the other end of the line dropped on the hook. The line went abruptly dead.

6

Bill Eldon sat in the sheriff’s office in the courthouse, a reading light flooding the battered desk where he had spread out the diary of Lorraine Calhoun.

The door opened and George Quinlan came breezing in,

“You get those pictures?” the sheriff asked.

“Pictures of the whole business,” Quinlan said. “We’ve turned the body over to the doctor. I got C. C. Calhoun himself on the phone. He should be here any time now. He’s all broken up. He didn’t know his daughter was here. They were all intending to come down tomorrow. She’d gone out for the evening.”

Steps ascending the uncarpeted wooden stairs of the courthouse sounded abnormally loud against the background of night-time silence.

“This may be Calhoun now,” Quinlan said.

“Sounds like there are two of them,” the sheriff said.

The door was pushed open, and a tall, distinguished man strode into the room. “My name’s Calhoun,” he said. “I want to see the sheriff.”

Calhoun’s wavy hair was touched with gray. His regular features, carefully groomed appearance, and well-modulated voice invested him with an air of quiet authority. He was wearing a pearl-gray double-breasted suit with a light topcoat of about the same color.

Bill Eldon got up from behind his desk and held out his hand. “I’m Eldon, the sheriff,” he said. “Mighty sorry to have to meet you under circumstances like this, Mr. Calhoun.”

Calhoun surveyed him with large dark eyes and shook hands. Then he stood slightly to one side and indicated another man standing just behind him in the doorway.

“Mr. Parnell,” he said, “one of my business associates. He’s going to take charge of... of details.”

Parnell, square-jawed and coldly direct of eye, was a few years younger than Calhoun. He had put on weight which the careful tailoring of an expensive double-breasted suit could soften, but not entirely hide.

Once more the sheriff shook hands and introduced Quinlan, the undersheriff. The four men sat down.

“Suppose you tell us about it,” Calhoun said, after a few preliminaries.

The sheriff briefly outlined what had happened.

Calhoun shook his head. “I simply can’t believe it.”

The sheriff’s voice showed his sympathy. “Her trip down here seems to have been sorta unexpected.”

“It must have been. We were all intending to come tomorrow. But then Lorraine had her own car and was free to do as she pleased.”

“Twenty-one?” the sheriff asked.

“Going on twenty-two.”

The sheriff said, “Just as a matter of routine, I’m going to have to ask you to go down and identify the body and... well, you know how it is. There’s a lot of formality to be gone through.”

Parnell broke into the thread of the conversation. “That’s why I’m along. Times like this, things are pretty tough on a father. I’m prepared to make what ever arrangements are necessary.”

Parnell had a rapid-fire diction, frequently accompanied by swift explanatory gestures of his volatile hands. He was exactly the type of man to take charge of details for a bereaved friend and make a good job of it.

“Would you like to go see your daughter now?” the sheriff asked Calhoun.

“Naturally,” Calhoun said shortly and started putting on his gloves.

“Let’s get started and get it over with,” Parnell said brusquely. “It’s a disagreeable duty, but after that’s over with, Mr. Calhoun can rest.”

“Has the mare been shot?” Calhoun asked.

“Why, no,” the sheriff said in some surprise.

“Don’t you shoot vicious animals?”

“Well, now...” The sheriff hesitated and then went on, “Of course, being as how you were coming down here right away, I wanted to wait and get an authorization from you. After all, the mare...”

“You have my authorization,” Calhoun said. “I never want to see that mare again. Shoot her at once, please.”

“Well, now, we’d better wait until morning because...”

“I want her shot tonight Calhoun said with cold, implacable hatred behind each word.”

The sheriff nodded to Quinlan. “Guess you can keep the office for a while, George. We’ll go on down and go through the necessary formalities.”

Calhoun remained wordless during the trip to the undertaking parlors. And when Bill Eldon introduced him to the coroner and mortician, he merely bowed.

As they approached the body, the others held back so as not to intrude upon the grief of the bereaved father.

Carl Carver Calhoun, his face drawn into hard lines of sorrow, bent over the still figure lying on the marble slab. Suddenly he straightened and turned.

“What’s the idea?” he asked coldly. “Where’s the other one?”

“The other what?”

“The other body — that of my daughter.”

He read his answer in the expression of consternation on the faces of those about him.

“You mean to say this is the body you found in my barn?” he asked.

“Isn’t that your daughter?” Logan asked.

“Definitely not.”

“Do you know who it is?” Bill Eldon asked.

“I not only don’t know who it is, but I certainly don’t appreciate having been advised that my daughter was dead. I can’t, of course, expect urban efficiency here in a rural community, but after all...” Calhoun controlled himself with an effort, moved his shoulders in an expressive gesture, and turned to his friend, Parnell. “Let’s get out of here,” he said.

“Just a moment,” the sheriff intervened. “Let’s get this thing straight. You’re sure this isn’t your daughter?”

“I guess I should know my own daughter, Sheriff.”

The sheriff turned to Parnell in silent question.

Parnell shook his head. “That’s definitely not Lorraine, if that’s what you want to know, Sheriff.”

“And neither one of you knows who she is?”

“I’ve never seen her before,” Calhoun said.

“Nor I,” Parnell added.

The sheriff moved closer to look down at the body of the young woman.

“How did you happen to make such a ghastly mistake?” Calhoun asked.

“Well of course,” the sheriff explained, “the way the lights were there in the stable, the face was pretty much in shadow and she was lying more or less face down. And that kick in her forehead and the blood hadn’t helped any; but Sid Rowan identified her as Lorraine Calhoun and so did Lew Turlock.”

Logan added hastily, “Of course, when you come right down to it, Bill, Lew Turlock just took a quick look and saw there was a body and ran to notify you on the phone. He never did get a really good look at the face. You remember he thought at first it was his daughter, Betty. And then when Sid Rowan came in, I noticed particularly that he just... well, he wanted to keep away from the place. He really didn’t take a good look. He just went over and gave a quick glance and said it was Lorraine. I s’pose it was the fact that Miss Calhoun’s car was parked out in front of the stable that did it.”

The sheriff said almost musingly, “That sort of ties in all along the line. Two people must have gone into that barn. This young woman and someone else.”

“Meaning my daughter Lorraine?” Calhoun asked.

“Not meaning anyone yet,” the sheriff said. “Just a person. You see, Mr. Calhoun, the lights weren’t on in the barn so whoever entered must have turned them on.”

“Go ahead. Let’s hear the rest of it,” Calhoun said.

“And another thing,” the sheriff went on, “in the manger of the mare’s stall, we found your daughter’s diary with her name in the front of it. And I guess that sort of helped people to believe that the girl was your daughter. You see, things were pretty messy there in the stable. She’s been cleaned up now and... well, I can understand how the mistake happened to be made.”

“I can’t,” Calhoun said, shortly.

“And,” the sheriff went on, “when Lew Turlock found the body, there weren’t any lights on in the barn. The horses had been stamping around for a while and Turlock had looked out of his window a couple of times in the half-hour before he went over to investigate. There weren’t any lights on.”

“I certainly don’t see what you’re getting at,” Calhoun said.

“It isn’t hardly reasonable to suppose that this woman was wandering around there in the stable in the dark,” the sheriff went on. “She must have turned on the lights when she went in. And she certainly didn’t turn them off — after this happened. So I sort of figure someone must have been with her and...”

Calhoun interrupted, “Are you trying to insinuate that Lorraine took this girl into the stable and then after an accident of this sort would have calmly turned around, walked out, turned the lights off, not notified the authorities, not called the doctor, not... Bah! You make me sick!”

“Now just take it easy,” the sheriff said. “I’m talking about somebody. I haven’t mentioned your daughter’s name a’tall. I’m just talking about someone that went into the stable with this woman.”

“Well, your insinuation is plain enough,” Calhoun said. “Now let’s get this straight, sheriff. I’m relatively a newcomer in this county but I’m certainly not going to be pushed around. I don’t like your insinuations. The body of this young woman happens to have been found in my stable. I suppose in view of that fact and my prominence in the city, there will be some newspaper comment about this. But let me warn you of one thing. In the event your bungling methods tend to add to that publicity, or make it sensational, or in the event the name of any one of my family is dragged into this thing, you will regret it as long as you live! As a matter of fact, I presume to have an action against you right now if I care to press it. Your slipshod methods have caused me to believe my daughter was dead. I left an important meeting and drove here at breakneck speed only to find myself the victim of a bucolic inefficiency which would have been ludicrous if it weren’t so tragic. I advise you to think that over. Good night, sir.”

Calhoun nodded to Parnell. The two men started from the undertaking parlor.

After a few steps, however, Parnell turned back. “Let’s not have any misunderstanding, boys,” he pleaded. “I’ve known Carl Calhoun for only a relatively short time, but it’s been my privilege to know him well. Put yourself in his place. A young woman blunders into his stable and gets kicked by a horse. So far you’ve bungled things pretty much. From here on, let’s get it right. The city newspapers will just give this a couple of paragraphs if you boys use your heads. If you fellows keep messing it up, you’ll stir up trouble. Once some newspaper gets the idea there’s any mystery about it, or that Lorraine Calhoun was mixed up in it... well, you see what will happen then. You can’t push Calhoun around and he’s nuts about his daughter — so take it easy.”

“Where’s Lorraine now?” the sheriff asked.

Parnell’s face lost its conciliatory smile and showed irritation. “How the hell should I know? Be your age — or perhaps you’d better try not to be... Damn it all, sheriff, have a heart. Lorraine Calhoun would no more have left an injured girl in case there’d been an accident... Good Heavens, man, use your brains!” He started to say something else, but changed his mind. Turning away, he hurried after Calhoun.

Logan and the sheriff exchanged glances.

“Well,” Logan said, as the steps down the hallway receded, “it looks as though we got a bear by the tail, Bill.”

The sheriff nodded.

“Of course, he’s got us there on that identification business,” Logan went on. “When you come right down to it, I’m the one that’s responsible for that. You found that diary and there was something in it about Betty Turlock, so then you and Lew went chasing off to find her. I’m the one that’s supposed to make the identification I guess; but what with Lew Turlock and Sid Rowan... and that diary of Lorraine’s and her car sitting out in front... well, it’s a mistake anybody would have made.”

“How about Sid’s wife? Didn’t she take a look?” the sheriff asked.

“No, she didn’t. After you left, Bill, I kept thinking about George Quinlan coming down and taking pictures, so naturally I was anxious to keep things just the way they were. I kept everyone away from the body. But Mrs. Rowan didn’t seem to want to go near the body. I remember noticing it at the time because she’s rather a nosy busybody and likes to know everything that’s going on. They say she’s quite a gossip.”

Bill Eldon nodded, then stepped over and looked down at the silent body on the slab.

“Dirty shame a girl like this has to die,” he said. “She evidently was mighty good looking, had everything to live for. Nice trim looking girl. Just a nice looking girl. Good figure. We’ve got to find out who she is, how she happened to be in that stable, and who entered there with her.”

“You still think someone went in there with her, Bill?”

The sheriff didn’t answer for a moment. He was looking at the U-shaped mark left by the horseshoe, almost in the center of the girl’s forehead.

“See anything strange about that, Jim?” he asked.

“About what?”

“About that horseshoe mark.”

Logan shook his head.

“That’s awful high for a mare to kick,” the sheriff said. “And notice that most of the force seems to have been at the upper part of the shoe. Now a horse would have to kick awful high to get a girl on the forehead if she was standing up. And then the force would be on the lower part of the shoe.”

“By George, you’ve got something there!” Logan exclaimed. “That means the girl must have been down on her hands and knees when she was kicked.”

“And another thing,” the sheriff said. “You got a tape measure handy, Jim?”

“I can get one.”

“Get it,” the sheriff said.

Logan started down the long passageway toward the front of the building, but after he had taken half a dozen steps, he suddenly turned and came back to the sheriff. “Bill,” he said, “let’s be careful what we do. We’re already in a mess. Rush Medford, the district attorney, doesn’t like you. And more than that, he’s always catering to people who have money and influence. He’s got his eye on a political plum, maybe getting an appointment to one of the upper courts. A man like Calhoun can twist him around his finger.”

Bill Eldon, looking down at the dead girl, said nothing. His eyes were half closed in thoughtful concentration.

“Bill Eldon,” Logan said irritably, “you listen to me! You ain’t as young as you used to be and there’s been a lot of talk around about cleaning out the courthouse ring, beginning with you. And you watch Rush Medford. He’s a back-stabber if I ever saw one. Back of all that smooth palaver of his, he’s laying for a chance to throw the hooks into you. Now, we’ve kind of led with our chins on this one and, the way I see it, the only thing to do is to back up and back up fast. We’ll lose a little skin off our noses doing it, but it’s better to do that than to lose our heads.”

The sheriff abruptly turned away from the corpse. “Jim,” he said, “I don’t ever aim to back up from anything that I think is right. Let’s go get that tape measure.”

He walked with Logan to the front office where the coroner opened a desk drawer, handed the sheriff a small steel tape graduated to sixteenths of an inch. “This all right?” he asked.

The sheriff looked at the tape, nodded, and turned back toward the room in the rear of the establishment.

“Now you look here, Bill,” Logan persisted. “Calhoun’s on the warpath. Calhouns got influence. And you just can’t go bargin’ around...”

The sheriff walked away while Logan was talking. It wasn’t, Logan realized, any intentional discourtesy — merely that the sheriff had his mind completely centered on something else.

Logan started to follow him, then changed his mind, walked back to the desk and sat down.

Logan himself held an elective office. Being coroner and public administrator made all the difference between carrying on his business at a good profit and just being able to eke out a living.

Logan knew what was going to happen in this case. If Bill Eldon didn’t back up and back up fast, Calhoun would be after the sheriff’s scalp — might be anyway. Edward Lyons, publisher of the Rockville Gazette, had within the last two years turned against Bill Eldon. The first time Lyons had tried to throw the weight of his paper against the sheriff, Bill Eldon had outfoxed him and neatly turned the tables. Since that time Lyons had been lying low, waiting for his political wounds to heal. But no one who knew Lyons thought for a moment he was finished. He was merely biding his time.

If Jim Logan stayed with the sheriff on this thing, it would be a question of sink or swim. The time for Logan to bail out was right now. That was the sensible thing to do. All he had to do was to pick up the telephone and call Ed Lyons at the Rockville Gazette.

Logan heard the sound of the sheriff’s steps in the corridor. The sheriff tossed the steel tape measure on Logan’s desk. “That mark of the horseshoe is four and fifteen-sixteenths inches at the widest part, Jim. I want you to verify that yourself. I’m goin’ out.”

“Where?”

“Lookin’ for a couple who might be doing a little necking. Any suggestions where they might be?”

“The river road,” Logan said, his manner preoccupied.

“They ain’t there.”

“Only other place I know of is the ball park. They go there sometimes.”

“Thanks,” Eldon said. “I’ll try the ball park. Night, Logan.”

“Good night, Bill,” the coroner said without looking up.

The sheriff left him sitting there at the desk, moody, dejected, his eyes on the telephone, indecision in his manner.

7

The wide gate to the auto entrance of the hall park was propped open and the sheriff drove in to what seemed a deserted enclosure. But as he swung his car in a wide searching circle, so that the headlights illuminated all parts of the field, he suddenly flushed quarry when an automobile which had been standing in dark silence by the bleachers blazed into brilliance and started for the exit.

The sheriff moved to head it off. The other car gathered speed. The sheriff switched on his red spotlight.

The car, bathed in the blood red brilliance of the official spotlight, took to headlong flight. It tore past the gate posts, screamed into a turn and started on the road toward town.

The sheriff gave it the siren.

The other car kept on. The sheriff poured gas into the motor of the County car and really settled down to dangerous driving. If the car ahead wanted to play rough, Bill Eldon was willing to do his part.

But the driver of the car ahead was only fairly good at that sort of thing, and it took less than half the distance to town for the sheriff to work alongside and crowd the other car over to the ditch.

“What’s the matter?” the sheriff asked, rolling down the window of his car. “Can’t you folks hear the siren?”

Betty Turlock at the wheel was white-faced with apprehension. She tried to say something but her quivering lips failed, for the moment, to clothe the words with sound.

The sheriff raised his five-cell flashlight. The searching beam stabbed into the interior of the car. He saw that the back seat was empty and then let the light dwell searchingly on the features of the young man who sat at Betty Turlock’s side.

The sheriff shut off the motor of his car, opened the door and got out. “You shouldn’t have done that, Betty.”

“I... I thought the officers were making a roundup of petting parties. I didn’t want to be caught.”

The sheriff pushed his hat back on his head. “You know, Betty, this is a small community and things have a way of getting around. You’re supposed to be out with Rose Marie Mallard working on that Red Cross business. And if I was you, I’d get out there just as fast as I could. I’ll take this young man with me. What’s his name?”

“Frank Garwin,” the man said.

“Oh, yes, pleased to meet you, Frank. You don’t live here, do you?”

“No.”

“Come down once in a while to visit the Calhouns, don’t you?”

“That’s right.”

“Friend of Lorraine?”

“Yes.”

“Know a girl named Irma Jesup?”

“Yes.”

“Who is she?”

“A friend of Lorraine’s.”

“And of yours?”

“Yes — I’ve known her for — a long time.”

“You know her, Betty?”

“I’ve never met her. I’ve heard Frank speak of her.”

“She’s been trying to get you long-distance telephone. Seems like there’s been an accident out at Calhoun’s. A horse kicked a young woman.”

“Good Heavens!” Betty Turlock said.

Garwin said nothing, but the sheriff noticed he moved his head over toward the open window on Betty’s side of the car, and as he did so, his hand rested for a moment on Betty’s.

“Was she hurt badly?” Betty asked.

“Killed,” the sheriff said. “We’re sort of looking around. Your dad’s been looking for you and you’d better get out to Mallard’s right away. You can come with me, Frank.”

Garwin came around to the sheriff’s car and climbed in beside him.

“Get going,” the sheriff said to Betty Turlock.

She sent the Turlock car lurching forward in a way that would have been a shock to Lew Turlock could he have seen the tire-spinning take-off.

Turning to Frank Garwin, the sheriff said, “Just sit in here a minute, son. I want to ask you a couple of questions.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You been out there with Betty long?”

“Not very long.”

“Live in the city?”

“Yes.”

“You don’t have a car?”

“No.”

“How’d you come to town?”

“On the seven o’clock bus.”

“And had a date with Betty?”

“That’s right.”

“She picked you up?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Where?”

“Out at the high school.”

“How’d you get from the bus station to the high school?”

“I walked.”

“Betty’s been gone from her house some little time.”

Garwin said, “I... I was late.”

“What made you late, Frank?”

He merely shook his head.

The sheriff’s voice was kindly. “When this accident happened out at Calhoun’s, I naturally looked around a bit. In the manger I found what seems to be Lorraine Calhoun’s diary. Because it’s evidence, I’ve been reading it here and there, sort of hitting the high spots. I guess you’re the Frank she mentions in there, aren’t you?”

“I suppose so. What did she say about me?”

“I’m asking the questions right now,” the sheriff said, his voice kindly but authoritative. “Now, Lorraine seemed to think you belonged to her and that Betty had been doing a little cutting in.”

Garwin hesitated. He was, for a moment, stiff with that hot-blooded defiance which is frequently encountered in young people who have not yet learned that pride is likely to be a treacherous guide.

“Better start talkin’,” the sheriff said. The authority in the sheriff’s voice brought forth a sudden rush of words.

“I suppose I’m a first-class heel. My folks were cleaned out in the depression. Both of them died within three years of the failure of the bank in which they had their life savings. I’d been a basketball player in prep school and I overdid things. I have an athlete’s heart. They say I can probably get over it if I take care of myself. But I can’t do any heavy work for a while. I wanted to go to college. I had always wanted to fit myself for a career and the way things were, it just seemed impossible.

“Lorraine and I were... well, I guess we were in love. I thought I was, anyway. She offered to finance me through college out of her allowance. I took her up on it. And then afterwards, well, I met Betty and... Gosh, I felt like a heel. I couldn’t turn around and give Lorraine a double cross and... I tried to let her see that perhaps we’d changed. But... well, she just couldn’t see things that way.”

“So you started seein’ Betty on the sly?” the sheriff asked.

“Certainly not,” Garwin flared up. “I told Betty that... well, as soon as I realized how things were drifting, I told her I couldn’t see her any more.”

“And so you took the bus and came down here for her to meet you?”

“That was her idea. She said that she just couldn’t give me up without seeing me once more and talking things over. She... well, it’s hard for her to understand.”

“Yes, I can see how she might feel,” the sheriff said. “Now, you haven’t told me what made you late.”

“I was to meet her at the high school. It was the last time I was ever to see her alone. I felt that if Lorraine wanted me to go ahead with it... and announce our engagement... Well, that was the way it had to be. And I wasn’t even going to come down any more on week-ends. I couldn’t bear to be visiting next door to Betty and see her just as a casual acquaintance. It meant too much to me. All right, I got off the bus and went to the high school grounds. Betty drove up shortly afterwards. And then I just couldn’t face it. I felt certain that if I saw Betty and held her in my arms once more I couldn’t ever give her up. On the other hand, I couldn’t go to Lorraine and tell her that we were finished — not after the things she’d done for me. You don’t understand how these things look to Lorraine. She thinks that Betty deliberately cut in and that I’d been heel enough to... Oh, I just can’t tell you the whole mess, sheriff. It’s all mixed up and...”

“I know, son,” the sheriff said sympathetically. “So you waited there in the high-school grounds and decided you were going to wait right there out of sight until Betty drove away?”

“That’s right.”

“And then what happened?”

“Then I... well, I heard her crying when she thought I wasn’t going to meet her and... Gosh, I just seemed to have got everything all balled up. I’ve had the knack of doing everything wrong. I couldn’t let her think I’d stood her up on that last meeting.”

“As you get older,” the sheriff said, “you’ll find the best way to play things is straight from the shoulder. Now let’s get this all straight. How long were you there?”

“I can’t tell you exactly how long it was before I spoke to her. I got in on the seven o’clock bus. I was at the high school by seven-fifteen. Betty drove up about ten minutes later. I stood there in the shadows, watching her. She shut off her lights and the motor and waited. After ten or fifteen minutes, she got the idea I wasn’t going to show up. I was standing so close to her I could hear her sobbing. After a while I couldn’t stand it any longer. I joined her.”

The sheriff switched on the ignition and started his car. “We’ve got Betty’s reputation to consider,” he said. “I’ll drive you over to San Rodolpho, son, and you can pick up a bus there that will take you back to the city without anyone knowing you were here. We’ll all pretend she was with Rose Marie all the time. If you’ve fallen out of love with Lorraine, you won’t be doing her any favor to marry her while you’re loving someone else. However, you work out your own problem. You’ll like it better that way.”

8

When the sheriff returned to his office in the courthouse, he found George Quinlan talking to an exceedingly difficult young woman who quite evidently had backed the undersheriff into a corner.

Quinlan’s face lit up with relief. “Here’s the sheriff now,” he said.

She turned to Bill Eldon, a chestnut-haired girl who had the sculptured appearance which comes only to women who have both the time and the egotism to cultivate it. The sheriff noticed a strong superficial resemblance to the dead girl. Nor did he need Quinlan’s introduction to realize the identity of his caller.

“Miss Lorraine Calhoun,” Quinlan said, and his manner indicated that he was retiring from the field of battle just as definitely as though he had added, “And you can count me out from here on.”

The young woman was nervously lighting one cigarette from the stub of another.

“Will you kindly explain to me what this is all about?” Lorraine asked the sheriff.

“Well, now, ma’am,” the sheriff said, “you might just as well sit down. We’ve got some talking to do. The way it looks to me, you’re going to be the one that explains to me what it’s all about.”

There was no antagonism in the sheriff’s voice, merely a quiet, calm persistence. Lorraine was shrewd enough to note the dogged power back of that good-natured drawl. Abruptly she changed her tactics.

Her smile was meant as a dazzling reward for a man who would come to heel without too much difficulty.

“My diary is private. I want it back.”

“So I gather,” the sheriff said. “When did you have it last, Miss Calhoun?”

“That’s none of your business.”

The sheriff said, “If someone stole that diary, it’s my duty to recover it. If you left it in the manger there in the barn, then naturally the coroner will want to know whether the dead girl was there when you left it and what time it was.”

She thought that over while she regarded him with thoughtful eyes, Once more she changed her tactics. “I’m glad you’ve explained it to me. I can see now that you’re absolutely right.”

“That’s fine. Now when was the last time you had this particular diary?” the sheriff asked.

“Around six o’clock, shortly before I left the city.”

“And what did you do?”

She said, “I made an entry in the diary. Then I put it in the glove compartment of my automobile.”

“And locked it up?”

“I don’t know. The glove compartment was unlocked when I returned to my car.”

“I notice there’s one page torn out of your diary, the date of April 17th.”

Her eyes and voice showed surprise. “A page missing!”

“Yes, torn out.”

“I can’t believe it.”

“Where were you on April 17th?”

“Let’s see. I was... yes, I was in Kansas City visiting a friend, stopping over on my way to New York.”

“Now you drove down from the city, drove directly to your house and parked your car in front of the stables?”

“Yes.”

“And the stable was dark?”

“That’s right.”

“The horses had been fed?”

“I don’t know.”

“But Sid Rowan wasn’t there?”

“No. There was no one home. I was upset and I... I took a long walk.”

“Where to?”

“Heavens, I don’t know. I just walked for miles along the country road.”

“Your diary indicates that you might be a little jealous of Betty Turlock.”

She threw back her head and laughed throatily. “Jealous of little Betty Turlock? Don’t be silly!”

“But your diary mentions a man who is evidently a friend of yours and then mentions Betty and...”

“If you have to inquire into my private affairs,” she said, “Frank is a very close and a very dear friend of mine. Betty Turlock was out to get him the minute she met him. I know farmers’ daughters are supposed to be fascinating, but I didn’t want to see Frank throwing himself away on that sort of girl. I wouldn’t marry Frank if he were the last man on earth, but he’s a friend. There’s also a matter of some thirty-five hundred dollars that I have invested in Frank Garwin’s career. I paid it out of my allowance. Naturally, I want to see him succeed. He can’t do it with a girl like Betty Turlock draped around his neck.”

The confused pound of hurried steps sounded on the stairs from the lower floor of the courthouse.

The sheriff turned toward the door.

Rush Medford, the district attorney, pushed open the door. Behind him, Calhoun, Parnell, and another man who was a stranger to the sheriff grouped themselves into a supporting semicircle.

“Sheriff,” Medford said, “what’s this I hear about you holding a diary of Miss Calhoun’s?”

“That’s right,” the sheriff said.

“Give it back to her,” Medford commanded.

“It may be evidence,” the sheriff said.

“Evidence of what?”

“Well, that’s what I’m investigating.”

Medford raised his voice angrily. “As district attorney, it’s my duty to advise you as to the course of conduct you should follow. I now advise you to give that diary back.”

One of the men behind the district attorney moved impressively forward. He was, the sheriff noticed, a well-fed, prosperous man in the forties. The carefully tailored curve of the vest, the knifelike crease of his trousers, the expensive, unwrinkled appearance of his coat shed an aura of affluence which harmonized with the measured, judicial tones of the man’s voice.

“Permit me, Sheriff,” he said. “I am Oscar Delano, of the firm of Delano, Swift, Madison and Charles. We handle Mr. Calhoun’s legal work. I don’t want to seem abrupt, but unless we get that diary back, I am instructed by my client to start suit against you and your bondsmen for the damages caused to my client by your negligence in falsely announcing to him that his daughter had been killed.”

The sheriff walked across the office, slammed the door of his safe shut, and spun the dial of the combination.

“Start suit,” he said.

“You fool!” Medford exclaimed.

The sheriff settled back in his creaky swivel chair.

“You haven’t got a leg to stand on,” the city lawyer said.

“Well, now,” the sheriff drawled, “maybe I haven’t. But when you can explain how a mare, wearing a number-ought shoe which measures four and three-sixteenths inches at the widest part can kick a person in the head and leave a mark four and fifteen-sixteenths inches wide, which means a number-two shoe... well, then I’ll give you the diary.”

“What do you mean?” Calhoun asked.

The sheriff said, “However that girl was killed, that mare didn’t do it. Now then, go start your lawsuit.”

9

Next morning the Rockville Gazette was on the streets with an extra.

The article which followed showed Edward Lyons, the publisher and managing editor, at his sarcastic best.

“When the body of an unidentified young woman was found in the stable of Carl Carver Calhoun, wealthy broker who has established a country home at Rockville, Sheriff Bill Eldon, with a nose for publicity at least as sharp as his nose for clues, promptly announced that the victim was Lorraine Calhoun, daughter of the broker. The woman had evidently been kicked by a mare.

“Only after Calhoun and a business associate had driven at breakneck speed to Rockville, and announced that the victim was not only no relation to Mr. Calhoun but a perfect stranger, did the sheriff reluctantly shift his position. Then, with the aid of a tape measure and some of his ‘brilliant’ deductive reasoning, he arrived at the conclusion that he was dealing with a murder.

“Because of a half-inch discrepancy between the size of the shoe on the mare and the imprint of the shoe on the forehead of the victim. Sheriff Eldon lost no time announcing his theory of foul play.

“Regardless of the motive which prompted this action on his part, the result has been all that any publicity-crazed politician could ask for. When word reached the newsrooms of the city papers that an unidentified girl had been murdered in the stable of the wealthy broker, reporters and photographers descended upon Rockville in a flood.

“Rush Medford, the district attorney, brands the sheriff’s charge as ‘premature to say the least. It is,’ Medford asserts, ‘the result of synthetic clues which have been conjured up in the imagination of a man who received some publicity in the metropolitan papers a year or so ago and found the experience pleasant.’

“The district attorney apparently was referring to the murder committed on the old Higbee place last year, a crime in which luck played into Sheriff Eldon’s hands, but which netted him some very flattering publicity.

“Doubtless District Attorney Medford is correct in stating that Bill Eldon would like to see a repetition of that publicity, just as a kid would like to see Christmas come once a week.

“So far as the death of the young woman is concerned, Rush Medford seems to have kept his head and delivered about the best summary to date.

“ ‘We don’t know who this young woman is,’ Medford said ‘We don’t know her motive in prowling around the barn of Carl Calhoun. But we do know she had no business being there. She received a kick from a horse which unfortunately proved fatal. Because Sheriff Eldon noted the discrepancy of some half-inch between the imprint of the shoe on the forehead of the victim and the size of shoe worn by the mare, he has at least implied that there has been foul play. While he has not, as yet, claimed the death as a murder in so many words, he has insinuated as much. He had an opportunity to plant the seeds of sensationalism in ground where he knew they would promptly sprout. The temptation was too strong. I, personally,’ Medford went on, ‘abhor using public office as a means of securing publicity. Because of the prominence of Carl Carver Calhoun, who has done Rockville the honor of picking it as the place for his country residence, a duty was placed upon every official of the county to proceed cautiously and do everything possible to see that innocent parties were spared the embarrassment of that blatant publicity which always follows in the wake of sensationalism.’

“Carl Carver Calhoun was even more outspoken than the district attorney. ‘So far as the sheriff is concerned,’ he said, ‘he is an old man and therefore I suppose I should be charitable. But it is hard to be charitable to a man whose every action seems actuated solely by a desire for personal aggrandizement. I warned him that because of my position and metropolitan connections the news value of anything connected with my name would be greatly magnified. I therefore asked him particularly to be cautious in his actions and not to jump at conclusions. This warning occurred after he had made an erroneous identification of the body in my stable as that of my daughter.

“ ‘Instead of heeding that warning, he went plunging on, confiscating private documents belonging to my daughter, which he doubtless hopes to release to the press at some future date.

“ ‘I am pleased to find that your district attorney, Rush Medford, is a young man of broad mental caliber, the sort of timber from which we should select our appellate judges. I only wish the sheriff had one-half his passion for accuracy, one-tenth of his intrinsic integrity.’

“So far, the body has not been identified, but the finding of a Kansas City label on the jacket and the imprint of a Kansas City shoestore in the almost-new shoes worn by the unfortunate victim have given authorities grounds to hope an identification may soon be made.”

The sheriff read the Rockville Gazette on the early morning bus on his way to see Irma Jesup.

He found her just finishing breakfast in her apartment and getting ready to leave for the trust company where she was employed in the escrow department.

Irma Jesup listened to the sheriff, and then elevated delicately arched eyebrows. Her call to Betty Turlock? Just a minor matter. Purely personal. Important enough so far as Betty was concerned but not important to anyone else. Yes, she had called several times. She had told Mr. Turlock that it was quite important. Then she had called another number which Mr. Turlock had given her.

She laughed when faced with the fact that she had hung up the telephone upon being advised that the sheriff was on the other end of the line.

“Good Heavens,” she exclaimed. “I wondered what I’d stirred up. I just didn’t know what to say, and so I hung up.”

“You’ve read the papers?” the sheriff asked.

“No, what about them?”

“A young woman was kicked by a horse in Calhoun’s barn. Killed her.”

Irma Jesup expressed consternation and sympathy.

“Any idea who she might have been?” the sheriff asked.

“No, of course not.”

“Well, now, I don’t want to pry into things,” Eldon said, “but I’m afraid I’ve got to know what it was you were calling up Betty Turlock about.”

She was ready enough to talk now. “Betty is a nice, wholesome girl. But... well, she isn’t exactly Lorraine’s type. Frank Garwin had been very much in love with Lorraine. I think Lorraine was in love with him. She put up money to get him through college. He’d had some bad luck. I’ve known Frank ever since we were children. In fact, Frank’s folks and my folks were pretty close and there was some sort of business association between them. It was all part of the same transaction when my folks got wiped out. Mr. Calhoun had been in the same company but he was smart enough to pull out before things went bad. I remember he wanted my dad to pull out and I think he wanted Mr. Garwin to. Well, anyway, that will give you the background.”

The sheriff merely nodded.

She said, “I know Frank pretty well. Frank was in love with Lorraine and then... well, he was out of love with her. And I think Lorraine was out of love with him. There had been sort of a drifting apart. Lorraine was in Maine, spending the summer, and — I don’t know, Frank thought her letters were a little cool. He talked to me about it.”

“And he was down at Rockville some of the time visiting the family?”

“That’s right.”

“And got to seeing Betty down there?”

“Yes.”

“All right. Now tell us about the telephone call.”

She said, “Frank took the bus and went to Rockville to see Betty. He didn’t want anybody to know that he had gone there, but Lorraine found it out.”

“How?”

“I don’t know.”

“How do you know that she knew it?”

“She called me and asked if Frank were here. She said she had to see him at once. I knew from the tone of her voice what was in the wind. I felt certain she was going to drive down to Rockville.”

“And you were telephoning to tell Betty that Lorraine was on her way down?”

“That’s right.”

The sheriff quite evidently was disappointed. “You don’t know anything from some young woman from Kansas City about twenty-two years old, weighing about a hundred and twelve pounds, five feet four and a half inches, neat little figure, dark auburn hair, brown eyes?”

“No.”

“Know of any girl of that description that might be a friend of Lorraine’s?”

“No.”

The sheriff took a photograph from his pocket. “Making allowances for the closed eyes, and that wound on the forehead, does she look like anyone you know?”

“Definitely no. I’ve never seen her in my life — not to remember.”

The sheriff thanked her and marked his early morning trip on the debit side of the ledger.

10

It was almost noon when the sheriff climbed the stairs to his office. George Quinlan said, “Gosh, Bill, I’ve been trying all over to locate you.”

“What’s the trouble?”

“They’ve identified the body.”

“Who is it?”

“Estelle Nichols of Kansas City. She had a charge account at the store where she bought the shoes and one of the clerks happened to remember her.”

“Any connection with Calhoun?” the sheriff asked, and couldn’t keep the anxiety from his voice.

Quinlan shook his head. “Looks as though we’re licked.”

The sheriff duly noted and appreciated the loyalty of the inclusive pronoun.

“The district attorney,” Quinlan went on, “has dug up a witness from somewhere, a girl who says this Estelle Nichols was crossing the country to join her; that she planned on hitchhiking. She’d got a letter from this girl that Medford is giving to the press. It says that she was planning on sleeping in barns as she went through the country.

“She saw the Calhoun place all dark early in the evening. Evidently it was right after Sid Rowan had finishing feeding the horses and had started for the show. And that explains why she would have walked in the door without switching on the lights. She was groping around trying to find the ladder which led up to the hayloft when she ran into this horse.”

“Which horse?” the sheriff asked.

“Well,” Quinlan said, “—well, a horse.”

“A horse wearing a number-two shoe,” the sheriff said. “And if she was kicked by a horse wearing a number-two shoe, she didn’t fall down where the body was found. Because right there a mare was stabled that was wearing a number-ought shoe.”

Quinlan said, “The forehead was flattened under the impact. Hawley says that would distort the impression made by the shoe.” Bill Eldon thought that over. “Maybe some,” he admitted, “but not that much.”

Quinlan’s dispirited voice showed how he felt. “How you going to prove how much? Once they show this girl was a stranger to the Calhouns and went into a dark barn to find a place to sleep... well, we’re licked, Bill. That’s all there is to it.”

“That letter,” the sheriff said. “Who’s got it?”

“Rush Medford has the letter, but I rushed through a copy photograph. Here it is. It’s a life-sized copy.”

The sheriff took the photographic reproduction of the letter which Quinlan handed him. It read:

The letter was signed “Yours always, Estelle.”

“Who’s the girl that got this letter?” the sheriff asked.

“Someone name of Mae Adrian.”

“And where is she now?”

“Out at Calhoun’s.”

“Let’s go,” the sheriff said.

Quinlan’s manner showed some embarrassment. “Rush Medford’s out there,” he said, “and this lawyer of Calhoun’s. They’ve got Ed Lyons out there, and I guess they’re... well, I thought perhaps you’d like to wait until later.”

Eldon grinned. “They’re preparing a massacre. Is that right.”

“Well, you can put yourself in Ed Lyons’ shoes,” Quinlan said miserably.

Eldon placed his hand on his deputy’s shoulder. “George,” he said, “I learned a long time ago that the only way to handle anything that has to be faced sooner or later is to wade right out in the middle and see how deep it is. Come on, let’s go.”

They made time out to Calhoun’s country residence. A half-dozen cars were grouped around the stable. The sheriff found a parking space, nodded to Parnell who was just coming through the gate from the Turlock place and entered the stable. He found Oscar Delano, Calhoun’s attorney, virtually in charge of proceedings, with Rush Medford, the district attorney, standing by and giving the benefit of his silent approval. A group of interested spectators was watching the city lawyer. There were, in addition, reporters and photographers from the city papers.

“Well, you can see the situation,” Delano was saying to Ed Lyons, publisher of the Gazette. “This woman was a hitchhiker, who, according to her own statement, was sleeping in stables. Someone took that button and sewed a vest on it. However, it’s not for me, a rank outsider, to make any criticisms as to the efficiency of one of your county officials.”

“Well,” Medford said, “I’m the one to criticize. I... here he is now.”

The sheriff stepped forward. “Okay, Medford, I’m here.”

Delano cleared his throat significantly, then became silent.

Ed Lyons said, “Well, Bill, you got right in the spotlight to fall flat on your face,” and he laughed sarcastically.

Rush Medford said, “We have now identified this young woman. She was a hitchhiker who made a practice of sleeping in stables.”

“Mae Adrian here?” the sheriff asked calmly.

A trim young woman with dark hair and large dark eyes stepped forward and said in a thin, somewhat frightened voice, “I’m Mae Adrian.”

“You knew this dead girl?”

She nodded.

“You’ve seen the body?”

“Yes,” she said in almost a whisper.

“Positively identified it,” Ed Lyons announced triumphantly.

“And this letter that you received from her, when did you get that?”

“I... the postmark shows... It was a week ago.”

“And what caused you to come forward?”

“I saw her pictures in the papers. I felt certain it was my friend, Estelle Nichols; so I got in touch with the district attorney and he showed me the body. I identified it.”

“And you don’t know any of these people?” the sheriff asked.

“No one.”

“What’s this in the letter about you being hypnotized?”

She laughed. “Estelle had had an unfortunate experience in a love affair and she thought perhaps I was planning to do something she didn’t approve of.”

Oscar Delano said impatiently, “Well, there you are. The picture is complete. A young woman hitchhiking across the country picks my client’s stable as a place to sleep and gets kicked by a horse. Some hick sheriff sees a chance for notoriety and starts throwing his weight around.”

The photographer for one of the metropolitan newspapers dropped to one knee, focused his camera and set off a flash, catching Delano standing there in the stable, his attitude that of righteous indignation.

“And which horse do you figure kicked her?” the sheriff drawled.

Delano whirled to face him. “Sheriff,” he said, “I’m going to let you in on a big secret. The horse that kicked her,” and here Delano lowered his voice impressively as though about to impart a very confidential secret, “was a quadruped that wore iron shoes. I can’t tell you the color of his eyes. I leave that to you.”

The roar of laughter that followed furnished inspiration for the news photographer to expose another film, one that showed the old sheriff standing in the middle of the semicircle of hilarious spectators.

11

Lew Turlock and his daughter Betty walked across the strip of lawn from the Calhoun’s barn, through the gate, and over toward Turlock’s garage.

“I think it’s a shame,” Betty said. “All those people laughing at the sheriff that way.”

“Well, I guess he had his neck stuck out pretty far,” Turlock said, and then added, “It’s a darn good thing for you.”

“Why?”

“Well, if it had been a murder and the thing had got to the point where they started a detailed investigation, and people found you were supposed to have been with Rose Marie and...”

“I know, Dad, let’s skip it please.”

Turlock stopped abruptly. “That left rear tire’s down,” he said, indicating the family car. “Got to put some air in it.”

He walked over to the car, took the ignition key from the lock, inserted it into the trunk and raised the lid. “You get out the pump, Betty,” he said, “and I’ll...”

He broke off, staring at what he saw lying on the floor of the trunk, a bar with a prong in the form of a huge “Y.” To this prong had been welded a horseshoe.

Betty said, “What in the world...”

Her father bent forward to examine the iron bar. The sinister stain on the horseshoe, with some hairs stuck to the reddish brown patches, bore mute evidence of the murderous purpose for which the weapon had been used.

“How in the world did that get there?” Betty asked, and reached toward it.

Her father grabbed her wrist. “Don’t touch it! Leave a fingerprint on that and...” He didn’t need to finish the sentence. Betty’s hand jerked away from the weapon and from her father’s grip.

Lew Turlock banged down the lid of the trunk and locked it.

“Betty, how did that get in there?”

“Dad, I don’t know. I never saw it before.”

“This man you were out with,” Lew said. “What about him?”

“Frank?”

“Yes.”

“What in the world are you insinuating?”

“Nothing. I’m asking questions.”

“Why, Frank wouldn’t have... Why he wouldn’t hurt a fly. He...”

“Can you get him on the phone?” Lew Turlock asked, his face grim as granite.

“Why... Yes, I suppose so.”

“Come on in,” her father said.

He stood at her side as she placed the long distance call. Then when she had Frank Garwin on the line, Lew Turlock stepped to the telephone. “This is Betty’s dad. I have a couple of pretty important questions to ask. Did you ever know an Estelle Nichols of Kansas City?”

There was a moment of hesitation. Then Garwin said, “Yes. I met her a year or so ago. She was working in a bank. Why?”

Turlock said, “That was the girl that was killed over in Calhoun’s barn.”

“Estelle Nichols killed in Calhoun’s barn?” Garwin repeated incredulously.

“That’s right. Didn’t you see her pictures in the morning paper?”

“Yes. But I never thought it could have been... Wait a minute. Hold the phone until I get the paper and take another look.”

Turlock held the phone. A moment later Garwin’s voice came over the wire, a voice that was now filled with apprehension. “That could be Estelle,” he said.

“Come out here,” Turlock ordered, “and keep quiet until you get here. Make it just as quick as you can. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“All right, get started,” Turlock said and hung up the telephone.

Turlock turned to his daughter. “They’ve got that killing tagged as an accident now. If we can keep quiet, the thing will just naturally be hushed up.”

“Father!”

She had never seen quite that expression in her father’s face before.

“Blood is thicker than water,” he said and then suddenly turned away so that his daughter couldn’t see his eyes.

12

Sheriff Eldon pushed his way through the gate between the Calhoun and Turlock properties and said to Lew Turlock, “Hope you don’t mind if we look around a minute, Lew?”

Turlock, plainly nervous, said too effusively, “Certainly not. Sure. Go ahead. Help yourself. Anything I can do? Anything at all?”

The sheriff said, “I don’t know, Lew. Things just don’t seem to check out in this case. Now, take that dead girl. Here’s a girl hitchhiking across country. She comes into Calhoun’s stable wearing a light dress, a skimpy little coat, and shoes with thin soles. And as for luggage, why, she didn’t have so much as a toothbrush with her. What I want to know is, if that girl went in the stable and got kicked, what happened to her stuff?”

“Yes,” Turlock said nervously, “I see your point.”

“Another thing,” the sheriff said. “According to Lorraine’s story, she came tearing down here in her automobile and then proceeded to go out and walk for miles and miles along the country roads. Now that ain’t right.”

“Don’t seem so,” Turlock admitted.

“You gettin’ a soft tire on that car?” the sheriff said. “Better pump her up before she goes completely flat.”

Turlock moved apprehensively away from the automobile. “I’ll get at it. What you want to look around for, Bill?”

“I noticed that Calhoun girl smokes pretty much when she’s nervous and I thought maybe she parked her car and kept an eye on your house. Lorraine was jealous of Betty. Of course, she won’t admit it now.”

“Betty didn’t even lift a finger,” Turlock said.

“I know, Lew, but if Lorraine was jealous and had picked a place where she could watch your house and at the same time keep an eye on her car, seein’ her car was parked right in front of the stable, it stands to reason she must have seen this Estelle Nichols go into the stable.”

“It was dark,” Turlock pointed out.

“I know, but somebody must have opened the door of Lorraine’s car and got into her glove compartment and got out the diary. I don’t think you’d do that in the dark unless you knew what you were looking for and this Estelle Nichols apparently didn’t know Lorraine Calhoun. Sort of a mix-up.”

“Bill,” Turlock blurted, “don’t you think you’d be better off if you quit right now and let this thing just run its course?”

“I’m licked now,” Eldon said. “When that photographer got a picture of all those folks laughing at me over there, it put me in a spot. I can’t get no worse off than I am right now. Come along election time, you can imagine what’ll happen. Ed Lyons’ll have that picture running in his paper and put under it something like, ‘How about getting a sheriff folks don’t laugh at.’ Say, that tire’s got a leaky valve. You can hear the air hissing out of it if you listen right sharp. Reverse the valve cap and tighten up the valve. What say we save what little air is left in there?”

Turlock started to interpose himself between the sheriff and the tire, then restrained himself. The sheriff unscrewed the cap from the valve, reversed the end and twisted with his thumb and forefinger. “Shucks,” he said, “that valve stem is loose in there. Now she’s tight. Haven’t got a pump in the trunk there, have you, Lew?”

“It’s all right. I’ll fix it,” Turlock said. “Don’t worry about my car, Bill. You’ve got lots of things on your mind. Go ahead and look around. Out there back of the pepper tree there’s a swing. She might have sat in that.”

“From there she could only see the back of the house,” the sheriff said. “Now over here by this hedge would be a good place where a person could... I think I’ll look along there.”

“Come on,” Turlock said anxiously, leading the sheriff away from the car. “Let’s look.”

They moved along the hedge. “Look here,” the sheriff said, excitedly. “There’s a newspaper spread out. Someone could have been sitting down there and spread the paper out to keep the grass from staining a dress and... sure enough. There’s a dozen cigarette stubs. Now just a minute, Lew. I’d just as soon you didn’t get around here. Let’s kind of look for tracks and... that’s right. A person sitting right there and with her back to the hedge could see the front door of your house, and...”

The sheriff’s voice trailed away into disappointed silence.

“And that’s all she could see,” Turlock said. “She couldn’t see anything that happened over at Calhoun’s place. Couldn’t see the house, couldn’t see the entrance to the stable, couldn’t even see where the car was parked.”

The sheriff pursed his lips, then squatted to a sitting position, his hips resting on his heels, cowboy fashion.

“Well,” he said, in a voice that was suddenly tired, “that’s the way things go in life, Lew. You get something worked out and think you’re doing all right and then something smacks you down. Of course, Lorraine is lying about getting out and walking up and down country roads. She sat down here where she could watch your house, just the way I figured she did. But I guess it ain’t exactly a crime to watch your rival’s door to see if your boy friend is taking her out. Anyway, that city lawyer over there would sure claim it wasn’t.”

The sheriff started back along the hedge toward the fence and the gate.

Betty Turlock, opening the back door of the house, stepped out to the porch and saw the sheriff and her father approaching. Abruptly and self-consciously she jerked back into the house and pulled the door shut.

Lew Turlock said hastily, “Betty’s all upset. Just don’t want to talk to anybody.”

“Uh huh. I know how she feels,” Eldon said.

They were approaching the gate when they heard voices.

A group moved through the gate to confront the sheriff and Lew Turlock.

Parnell included in a gesture Carl Calhoun, his daughter Lorraine, Mae Adrian, and Oscar Delano.

“Look here, Eldon, I’m a businessman,” Parnell said. “Now there’s no sense having a lot of friction here. Mr. Calhoun’s my friend and associate. He’s bought this place here in the country and he’s got to live here. I want him to enjoy it.”

“Ain’t no reason why he shouldn’t,” the sheriff said.

“Yes, there is too. This is a relatively small community. Mr. Calhoun has instructed his attorney to file suit against your bondsmen on that mistaken identification business. And now that this other thing has been all cleared up, I think the whole thing should be dropped.”

The sheriff said, “That’s just up to Mr. Calhoun.”

“We’ll just wipe the whole slate clean,” Parnell said. “We won’t file suit. You’ll quit trying to... trying to...”

“Trying to what?” the sheriff asked.

Parnell was uncomfortably silent.

It was Calhoun who answered the question. “Trying to make capital out of an accidental death which unfortunately took place in my stables.”

The sheriff turned to Lorraine. “I want to ask Miss Calhoun here if she’s absolutely certain after she parked her car she just went out and walked along the country roads the way she told me when I first talked with her.”

Lorraine took a deep drag at the cigarette she was smoking, then said, “Father, isn’t there any way you can put a muzzle on this...”

“Because,” the sheriff went on, “right over here on the edge of this hedge you can see where she spread out a newspaper to sit on. You can see the tracks of her high-heeled shoes there in the soft soil along the edge of the hedge and you can see a dozen or so cigarette stubs of the particular brand she smokes. And if you want any proof on the time and date, why, the edition of the newspaper gives it to you. It’s a late edition of the afternoon paper that comes out to bring results of horse races, and she must have picked it up just before she left the city yesterday.”

Lorraine said calmly, “That’s absurd.”

“Well, now, ma’am, maybe it’s absurd and maybe it isn’t. There’s some pretty good footprints there and I notice you wear a distinctive type of shoe.”

“Great Heavens,” she said indignantly, “do I have to account for every step I take? How do I know whether I left a print there or not? I live here and I walk around. If you have any prints made by my shoes, they may be a week old.”

“Nope, they aren’t a week old,” the sheriff said. “They were made sometime yesterday — sometime after the rain had softened up the ground. And that newspaper shows they were made sometime after five o’clock at night. Now, if you’ll be frank and tell me...”

“Come, come,” Delano interposed in his smooth, suave voice. “Mr. Parnell was extending an olive branch, Sheriff. Now if we’re going to wipe the slate clean, we’ll wipe it clean. After all, my client isn’t particularly interested in sticking your bondsmen for damages, but he has a perfect case. Now, if he’s willing to drop it, we’ll expect you to meet us halfway.”

“Facts are facts,” the sheriff said. “I just want to get them sort of straightened out. And there’s one other question I wanted to ask Miss Adrian here. This dead girl said something in her letter about trying to get an address of some man that she’d met. Who is that man?”

Mae Adrian said, “A young law student. She’d met him when he was on vacation a year ago.”

“What’s that fellow’s name?” the sheriff asked Mae Adrian.

“Good Lord,” Calhoun groaned. “Don’t you ever have enough? Must you always lead with your chin?”

“What’s his name?” the sheriff repeated.

Mae Adrian said, “No one whom you ever heard of before, sheriff. He’s a law student whose folks lived in Kansas City for a while and were in business there. A young man by the name of Frank Garwin.”

13

“Frank Garwin!” Lorraine exclaimed. “Why, I know him! He’s a very close friend.”

“A friend of the family,” Carl Calhoun hastened to add.

“I’ve known him for some years myself,” Parnell said. “What about him?”

Mae Adrian was as nonplussed at the bombshell she had dropped as a sportsman whose “unloaded” gun roars into an accidental discharge. “Why... I... I was going to try and find his address for Estelle. I didn’t know... Of course, Estelle had just met him there the one time but I guess she had a crush on him. He’s a young lawyer, I believe, and Estelle had some legal problem.”

Oscar Delano said authoritatively, “Now look here, sheriff, I’ll grant you there’s an element of coincidence here, but I don’t want you trying to torture anything else into it.”

Parnell turned to Lew Turlock. “Well, I still don’t see it changes the situation any. By the way, Mr. Turlock, I’m in need of a car. Perhaps you’d like to drive us to the city. I’ll pay you well. I promised Miss Adrian I’d take her back with me. There’ll just be the two of us.”

“Maybe Miss Adrian ain’t quite ready to go home yet,” the sheriff said, “the way things are shaping up now.”

“Well, she’ll be ready in a minute,” Parnell said irritably. “How about it, Turlock?”

Turlock seemed undecided for a moment, then abruptly caught Bill Eldon’s eye and motioned to him. “Bill,” he said, “could I talk with you a minute, private like?”

“How about taking us to the city?” Parnell asked impatiently.

Turlock said, “I’ll tell you when I get back.”

The sheriff moved over a few yards from the little group. “What is it, Lew?”

Turlock said, “Bill, that wasn’t any accident — the woman that got kicked in the barn.”

“I didn’t think it was,” the sheriff said.

“She was hit with a horseshoe put on a club.”

The sheriff let his eyes bore steadily into those of Turlock. “All right, Lew,” he said quietly. “Let’s have it.”

Turlock said, “A few minutes ago I opened up the trunk on my automobile and... well, Bill, there’s a club in there.”

“What sort of a club?”

“An iron bar with a prong welded to it and a horseshoe welded to the prong. The thing’s about two feet long. And... well, Bill, I guess it’s the one that was used in the murder.”

“Did you touch it?” the sheriff asked. “That weapon?”

“No.”

“Did Betty?”

“No.”

The sheriff said, “Don’t say anything to anyone. Tell Parnell he can’t use your car because after talking with me you found there’s something you have to do uptown. Drive to the back of the courthouse and wait for Quinlan. Don’t open up that trunk for anyone until Quinlan can take fingerprints. What does it look like, about a number-two horseshoe?”

“It’s about a number two,” Turlock said, “and it has some caked blood on it. It’s what killed her, all right.”

The sheriff and Lew Turlock rejoined the little group. Turlock said, “I’m sorry, Parnell, I’ve got to go to town. I guess you’ll have to get some other car.”

Parnell said, “The district attorney’s going into the city and he’s taking Miss Adrian in with him. I’ll go with him.”

Rush Medford was perfectly willing to amplify that statement. “I’m going in to interview Frank Garwin,” he said. “I have just talked with him over the long-distance telephone, using Lew Turlock’s phone and a number given me by Miss Calhoun.”

Medford’s manner indicated that he had an important announcement to make and he waited until he had the attention of every person there before making it.

“Mr. Garwin has admitted to me over the telephone,” he said, “that not only was he here yesterday night, but that a friend drove him over to San Rodolpho and put him on a bus at that point so he could get back to the city without anyone knowing he was here. The name of that friend was Bill Eldon, sheriff of the county. Under the circumstances, I think an investigation is in order.” He waited a dramatic moment, then turned to the newspaper reporter, “And you may quote me on that.”

14

At the sheriff’s office in the courthouse, George Quinlan finished dusting the grim murder weapon with a white metallic powder especially prepared to bring out latent fingerprints.

“Find anything?” Eldon asked.

“Not a thing,” Quinlan said. “It’s been wiped and polished with something that’s removed every single print that was on it. It might have been a piece of soft leather.”

Bill Eldon fished a cloth tobacco sack from his pocket, held a grooved paper in his left hand, and rolled a cigarette with a few deft motions.

“Well,” he said, “when you run up against something like that, you just have to read trail, that’s all.”

“Only we haven’t any trail,” Quinlan said.

“Oh, yes, we have. We’ve got lots of trail.”

“Such as what?”

“Well, to begin with, we’ve got the time element.”

“Yes, that’s right,” Quinlan said. “Immediately after Sid Rowan left for the movies.”

Eldon shook his head.

“But it has to be that time, Bill. Rowan had just fed the horses before he left. He put down hay for this mare. The body lying there disturbed her so she couldn’t eat. The chute coming down from the loft was chock full of hay.”

“What kind of hay?” Eldon asked.

“What kind of hay?” Quinlan repeated. “Why, uh, hay.”

“Barley hay,” the sheriff said. “Calhoun’s feeding his horses oat hay. He got some barley hay for the cattle, feeds them some alfalfa hay and some barley. The oat hay is for the horses. It’s been pretty hard to get.”

Quinlan thought that over.

“What’s more,” the sheriff went on, “the minute you run across a weapon like this, you know you’re figuring on plain, cold-blooded, deliberate murder — murder that was thought out quite some time in advance. The idea was the murder would look like an accident in case no one asked any questions. It’d just be some unfortunate girl that blundered into a stable and got kicked by a horse. Then at the last minute something happened that made the murderer change his plans.”

Quinlan said, “For my money, Garwin is the guilty party. He was getting along all right with Betty Turlock and then this girl that he’d known in Kansas City was coming out. He’d probably left her under circumstances that he didn’t want disclosed to the girl he was going to ask to marry him.”

The sheriff scraped a match into flame and applied it to the end of his hand-rolled cigarette. “Well, now, George,” he drawled, “let’s look at that thing from all angles.”

“I am.”

“No, you’re not. If Garwin killed her, he must have known she was going to come to that stable.”

“Known she was going to come there!” Quinlan exclaimed. “He took her there. He deliberately manipulated things so she went to the stable. That’s why he was late keeping his date with Betty down there at the high-school grounds.”

“Could be, of course,” the sheriff said.

“And if it is,” Quinlan said, “we’re worse off than we were before.”

“How come?”

“You took Garwin over to San Rodolpho so he could get a bus and all that.”

“I suppose so,” the sheriff admitted, “but somehow I don’t size Frank Garwin up for that sort of a boy. He’s a pretty nice young chap, sort of shy and sensitive. He wouldn’t want to hurt a woman’s feelings and would do almost anything to feel he was being a gentleman.”

“That type fools you,” Quinlan pointed out. “They get in a position from where there seems to be no escape. So then they try to get the obstacles to their happiness out of the way. You take a two-fisted hard-boiled chap and he’d go to his girl friend and say, ‘Look, Sister, you were a swell babe when I was in Kansas City but there’s been a lot of water under the bridge since then and now I have met somebody I like a lot better.’ ”

The sheriff nodded thoughtfully, his head wrapped in a cloud of blue cigarette smoke. “You got something there,” he admitted after a moment, and then added after a few thoughtful seconds, “I’d like to play this so we could keep Betty out of it as much as possible. Lots of folks would think that Betty was sort of two-timing her folks, saying she was going out to spend the night with Rose Marie Mallard and then ducking out to meet this man Garwin.”

“You can’t help that,” Quinlan said. “Every once in a while someone does something like that just when a murder turns on the spotlight...”

“I know, I know,” the sheriff interrupted, “but you take a nice kid like Betty Turlock. Sort of seems as though we could protect her a little.”

“We’ve got our hands full protecting ourselves,” Quinlan said. “By the time Ed Lyons gets done with a writeup about how there was only one person who knew Estelle Nichols and that person was mysteriously spirited out of town by none other than the sheriff...”

Bill Eldon nodded. “Oh, sure,” he said philosophically, “Ed Lyons is a dirty fighter. You can’t expect anything else.”

The sheriff smoked in silence for a few minutes. Then, as he came to the end of his cigarette, he pinched out the stub with all the care of a man who has been much in the forest. Abruptly he said, “You know, we’ve got one other clue, George, we’re sort of overlooking.”

“What’s that?”

“Suppose you wanted to kill someone,” the sheriff said, “and get away with it? Would it ever occur to you to take them into a stable at night and hit them over the head with a horseshoe club so it’d look as though a horse had kicked them?”

“No,” Quinlan said.

“Wouldn’t to me either,” the sheriff said.

“But if you were going to kill someone with a horseshoe, you’d naturally want to do it in a stable,” Quinlan pointed out.

“You said it, Brother, only you put it backwards.”

“What do you mean?”

The sheriff grinned, “If you were going to kill somebody in a stable, you’d maybe get the idea of killing them with a horseshoe. I think now we’re beginning to get some place.”

15

The Grand Jury, hastily called in special session by the district attorney, sat grim-faced. These men were farmers and small businessmen with uncompromising standards of individual integrity. They would be just but stern, and the rumor that the sheriff had got himself involved by smuggling a witness out of the county was due for a thorough investigation.

Out in the anteroom were the witnesses whom Rush Medford had summoned. And waiting with his lips curled in a smile of anticipatory triumph was Ed Lyons, publisher of the Rockville Gazette, ready to drive the final nail in Bill Eldon’s political coffin.

The district attorney briefly outlined his position to the members of the Grand Jury. “The object of this investigation,” he said, “is to find out just what’s going on here. I think you folks are familiar with what’s happened. A woman got into the stable of one of Carl Carver Calhoun. She was kicked by a horse and died. There are some mysterious circumstances surrounding her death.

“For one thing, the diary of Lorraine Calhoun was found in the manger of the stall in front of which the body was lying. One page had been torn out. It’s pretty apparent now that this woman’s trip to that stable was not accidental. It was made with some definite purpose and it was probably made with a companion. Apparently there is only one person whom this woman knew and who also knew the Calhouns and the setup of the Calhoun stable. That person is Frank Garwin. I want you gentlemen to hear his story. I want you to hear how he left this county. I want you to hear who picked him up and drove him to San Rodolpho. I am not going to make any comments as to the motive back of all this. It’s the duty of this body to investigate this whole thing. Now then, gentlemen, I want Frank Garwin called as a witness. And I want his testimony taken down in shorthand.”

One or two of the jurors looked over to where Bill Eldon was sitting, tight-lipped. Here and there were glances of sympathy. But the foreman of the Grand Jury voiced the sentiments of all of its members when he said to Medford, “You’re the district attorney. Go ahead with your witnesses. If there’s anything wrong with the way any of the offices in this county are being run, we aim to do something about it.”

Frank Garwin was brought in and interrogated by the district attorney. He told the same story he had told the sheriff, admitting, however, that he knew Estelle Nichols, the dead girl, but denying he had known that she was anywhere in the state. He had, he said, lost track of her something over a year ago. They had, he admitted, been friendly, but since then he had had what he referred to as “other interests.”

Medford passed by, for the moment, the “other interests,” in order to get to the point which was of most interest to him.

“Now, Frank,” he said, “last night you were here in Rockville?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And where did you go after you left the Calhoun barn?”

“I didn’t go to the Calhoun barn.”

“Well, we’ll pass that for the moment. Did you see the sheriff of this county last night?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Where?”

“Well, he picked me up down at the ball park.”

“And what did he do?”

“He... well, he gave me a lift to where I wanted to catch the bus for the city.”

Rush Medford said, “Now think carefully, young man. Let’s not have any misunderstanding about this. Did he take you to where you wanted to go and get the bus, or did he suggest that he should take you to a certain place to get the bus?”

“Well, he suggested it.”

“Why?”

“He thought that it might be just as well if my friends didn’t see me around here.”

“I see,” Medford said sarcastically. “Spirited you out of town, and he did that in a County car, I believe, using the County tires and the County gasoline.”

Garwin was silent.

“Come, come, young man,” the district attorney said. “Let’s at least answer questions. That’s a fact, isn’t it?”

“I guess it was the County car. It had a red spotlight on it.”

“That’s all,” Medford said.

The foreman of the Grand Jury turned to the sheriff. “You want to ask this boy any questions to try and clear this thing up, Bill?” he asked.

The sheriff merely shook his head.

The grand jurymen exchanged glances. There was sympathy in those glances, but there was also a certain underlying significance.

The foreman said to Garwin, “That’s all, young man. You can go back to the room with the other witnesses. You’re not supposed to tell them anything about what questions were asked you and you’re not supposed to tell anybody what testimony you gave.”

When Garwin had gone, the foreman said, “The way I size things up, Bill, the boys sort of think that calls for an explanation of some sort.”

Heads nodded gravely about the Grand Jury room.

“Well,” the sheriff said, “the way I look at this case, gentlemen, it was a murder case. A plain, cold-blooded, deliberate murder.”

Medford said, “That’s fantastic and absurd on the face of it. But the mere fact that you think that it’s a murder case makes your conduct in spiriting one of the principals in the case out of the county doubly culpable. Now, as I see it, gentlemen, it’s pretty clear that this man, Garwin, must have gone to the barn with this young woman. He must have been there when she got kicked, and he must have tried to keep himself from being involved in the subsquent notoriety by simply sneaking out and getting this Turlock girl to give him an alibi. Now I propose to call this Turlock girl and prove that she doesn’t know where Garwin was at the time this woman was killed, that she had an appointment with him and Garwin stood her up and kept her waiting for something like an hour, simply because he was in Calhoun’s barn with this Estelle Nichols. May I now call Betty Turlock?”

The sheriff said, “I just want to point out that I was makin’ an explanation when the district attorney interrupted me.”

The foreman nodded. “You go ahead and explain, Bill.”

“When you have a murder case,” the sheriff said, “lots of little things become important. But every little thing isn’t important. The way I see it, there’s no use taking a nice girl like Betty Turlock and putting her up here in front of this Grand Jury simply to show the man she’s in love with was a little bit late in keeping his appointment.”

“Oh, certainly,” Medford said sarcastically. “The things that you don’t want brought out are the unimportant little things. But when you get a half-inch or so discrepancy in the measurement of a horseshoe...”

“Now that will be about all out of you for a minute, Rush Medford,” the sheriff said. “I’m making my explanation to the Grand Jury. You can talk afterwards.”

“That’s right, Rush,” the foreman said. “Let’s give Bill a chance to explain.”

“Now then,” Bill Eldon went on, “when I say that was coldblooded, deliberate murder, I know what I’m talking about. The mare wears an ought shoe. The wound was made with a number-two shoe. The mare wouldn’t hardly have struck up high enough with a kick to have kicked the girl on the forehead if she’d been standing back of the manger. Of course, she could have done it, but that’s pretty high for a kick where she wasn’t kicking deliberately but just lashing out at something that startled her. And you’ll notice from the wound, the main force was on the upper part of the horseshoe. Now if the mare had kicked up, she’d be puttin’ the power on the bottom part of the shoe.”

Medford sneered, “The trouble is with that argument, it proves too much. You’re proving that no horse could have kicked the girl.”

“That’s right, Medford,” the sheriff said. “You’re gradually getting the idea. And if you want to see what killed the girl, here it is.”

The sheriff nodded to Quinlan. Quinlan brought forward the iron club with the horseshoe welded onto it.

The Grand Jurors left their seats and crowded around the lethal weapon.

“Where did you get this?” Medford asked.

“Now, never mind,” the sheriff said. “I’m making an explanation right now. Now, you gentlemen hadn’t better touch this yet because there’s some blood and hairs on the horseshoe that we may need for evidence. There aren’t any fingerprints on the thing because we’ve tested it carefully. Someone rubbed it with a piece of chamois skin or something and got all the fingerprints off. Now, if you boys will just go back and sit down, I’ll tell you what happened.”

The Grand Jurors resumed their seats. The district attorney moved over to regard the welded horseshoe in frowning anger.

“To kill a girl with a horseshoe so it would look like an accidental kick by a horse,” the sheriff went on, “you’d want to be sure everyone knew she’d gone into a barn. Now, I’ve got a theory that when this Estelle Nichols wrote her friend that she’d sleep in barns if she had to, she signed her death warrant right there. I think someone who knew about that letter got Estelle Nichols in the barn, and then, when he had her in the right position, clubbed her over the head. You see, he had to make just one blow do the job in order to make it look right. He had this diary with him and he needed both hands to swing this club around with the force he needed. He’d torn one page out of the diary, which was the only reason he was after it in the first place. And not having any more use for the diary, he just tossed it into the manger when he swung around to strike that blow. He intended to go pick up that diary later on, but he’d figured without the mare. The mare was so nervous that he was afraid to go into the stall. As far as he was concerned, there wasn’t any particular need to get that diary because he’d already torn out the one page that he’d wanted destroyed.”

“You say this was a man?” the foreman asked the sheriff.

“Sure it was a man,” the sheriff said. “For one thing, look at the welding job. You don’t go into some blacksmith shop and ask to have a club welded on a horseshoe when you’re intending to go out and murder someone with it. You do the job yourself. Since the war there are some women that know a lot about welding, but to me it looks like a man’s job. And there are two or three other things that make it look like a man that’s been around the country a little bit but not quite enough. A man who doesn’t realize there’s a difference in the size of shoes on horses. A man who doesn’t know the difference between barley and oat hay. Remember what Estelle Nichols wrote this Adrian girl in a letter. You’ve got a photograph of it there. Somethin’ about in spite of the fact she was hypnotized she hoped Mae would listen when Estelle told her the things that you just couldn’t put on paper. Figure that out and that means a man.”

Heads nodded in unison around the Grand Jury room.

“Now then,” the sheriff said, “if it’s a man, it means that Mae Adrian is protecting him, because, according to my theory, the man must have seen that letter from Estelle saying she was going to come out here and sleep in stables if she had to. Right away he made up his mind that he was going to see she was killed in a stable so it would look like an accidental death.

“You can figure it out for yourselves. If this Estelle Nichols really had been sleeping in stables, she wouldn’t have slept in one this close to the end of her journey. She could have hitchhiked her way into the city within a couple of hours, joined her friend and had a bath and a good bed. What’s more, no one’s ever found anything belonging to this young woman except the clothes she was wearing. Now, if she’d been hitchhiking, she certainly must have had a few things with her. Therefore, the way I figure it, she had already been in to see Mae Adrian. And the man that killed her picked her up and brought her back to the Calhoun barn. Then he probably went back to Mae Adrian and said to her, ‘Look, Mae, the most awful thing happened. Estelle and I were in a barn and a horse kicked her. I don’t want anybody to know that I was in there with her because it would ruin my business. And seeing it was an accident, you just keep quiet and it will all blow over.’

“Remember that this club shows the murder had been deliberately planned. The man who did it hoped he could make an ‘accident’ out of it; but in case he couldn’t, he had a second string to his bow. He was going to frame it on Frank Garwin. Why? Because he knew for one tiling young Garwin was going to be in Rockville that night. For another, he knew about Estelle asking for Frank’s address in that letter.

“That gives us another clue. The man not only knew Mae Adrian real well, but he also knew Frank Garwin, and he also must have known Sid Rowan and his wife were planning on a movie show. And he also knew Garwin would have an alibi for the last part of the evening. So, if he had to make it murder and pin it on somebody, he wanted the time-element mixed up so it would seem the mare hadn’t been able to eat her hay because of the body being there. So after the killing he put more hay down the feed chute — but he gave himself away by putting in barley hay instead of oat hay. He tried to show the mare wasn’t hungry, and in doing that left the best clue of all, because the mare had been hungry and had eaten her hay — the oat hay Sid Rowan had put down for her. But later on the murderer had tried to show the mare wouldn’t eat by putting down more hay — and because he couldn’t tell the difference between oat hay and barley hay, he proved the fact we were dealing with cold-blooded murder.

“But this murderer was feeling pretty well satisfied with himself. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, the death would have been considered just an accident and passed off as such. But if something went wrong, he had only to plant the murder weapon in a car which Frank Garwin had been in the night of the killing — and then be sure the weapon was found at just the right time. That was the most important thing of all.

“To fix that up, he did a simple thing. He unscrewed the valve seat in one of the rear tires on Turlock’s car just enough to make some of the air leak out. Now if you gentlemen are interested in all this, let’s get Mae Adrian in and ask her a couple of questions.”

There was a chorus of quick, eager assents.

Rush Medford started to say something, then, at the expressions he saw on the faces about him, changed his mind and remained silent.

Mae Adrian came in and was sworn.

The foreman said to the sheriff, “Suppose you ask her the questions, Bill.”

The sheriff smiled at the nervous young woman. “Mae,” he said in his kindly, drawling voice, “you might as well answer a few questions for us here. We don’t like to pry into your private affairs, but we’ve got to clean this thing up.”

She nodded.

“Now then,” the sheriff said, “when you said that you were about to do something Estelle didn’t approve of, did that mean you were going to get married?”

“Well, not exactly, I was going with someone, and I was going to let him invest some money I had inherited.”

“Pretty handy with tools, isn’t he? Makes you little gadgets out of steel and things?”

Her face lit up. “Yes indeed, he does. He makes me hammered-brass trays and he welds tubing into ornamental candlesticks and...”

“And what’s his name?” the sheriff asked.

“He doesn’t want me to tell who he is and I’m not going to.”

“Did he know Estelle Nichols?”

“I... I guess so... Yes.”

“She’d known him pretty well, hadn’t she?”

“Well... yes.”

“And you showed this man this letter from Estelle and told him she was coming out, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

The sheriff said in a kindly voice, “Now come, Miss Adrian, let’s be frank. That man is Henry Parnell, isn’t he?”

She clamped her lips together.

“Come, come,” the sheriff said. “You might just as well come clean as get in trouble with the Grand Jury for not answering questions. He and Estelle Nichols went to call on Calhoun and a horse kicked Estelle and killed her and then he didn’t want Calhoun to know he’d been with this girl in his barn. So you agreed to help him hush it up since it was an accident anyway, and nothing you could do would bring your friend back to life.”

She started to cry.

“And then after it began to look as though things were getting pretty hot, Parnell told you it would be better for you to identify the body and give that letter to the authorities, saying that she intended to sleep in barns, so it would look as though she had gone into Calhoun’s barn to sleep. Now that’s right, isn’t it, Mae?”

She sobbingly nodded.

“That’s a good girl,” the sheriff said. “Now you just go in that other room and wait a minute and we’ll talk things over later on after you’ve got to feeling better.”

Once she had left the room, the sheriff turned to the Grand Jury. “Well, gentlemen,” he said, “there we are. I suppose we may as well talk with Parnell. Think we got a pretty good case against him, no matter what he says or doesn’t say.”

“What I don’t get,” the foreman said, “is how you knew it was Parnell?”

“Well,” the sheriff said, “first rattle out of the box, the murderer had tried to make it look like an accident. When he saw he wasn’t going to be able to get away with that, he tried to blame the murder on Frank Garwin. Parnell was pretty anxious for me to find that murder weapon there in Lew Turlock’s car. The way the air was going out of that tire, the valve hadn’t been unscrewed very long. I tried to think back, of who left the gathering there in the barn to go over to Turlock’s place, and it was Parnell. When I drove up he was coming in through Turlock’s gate. He’d gone over and unscrewed the core in the valve stem. And then, of course, when he wanted to rent the car, I knew he must be the one, because his idea was to get the car, then call attention to the flat tire, and get Lew to open the trunk where the murder weapon had been planted.

“There are two or three other things. That page missing from the diary showed that the murderer must have had some contact with Lorraine Calhoun back in April. It must have been something that Lorraine wouldn’t remember particularly unless she got to reading her diary. Probably when she was in Kansas City her friends had told her something about a slicker named Parnell. She’d put something about this friend in her diary and then forgotten about it. But one of Parnell’s Kansas City friends knew it was there and must have written him... Made it awkward for Parnell when he was just about to interest Calhoun in a business deal. The thing probably came through Frank Garwin ’cause you remember Parnell blurted out he’d known Frank for years, but he hadn’t known Calhoun near that long. So Parnell must have known Frank in Kansas City. And that’s another thing to remember. Whoever did the thing knew Lorraine’s car with her diary in the glove compartment was going to be parked there at the stable, knew Garwin was going to be seeing Betty Turlock secretly, knew Sid Rowan was going to a movie, knew his way around the Calhoun barn, but didn’t know what sort of hay Calhoun was feeding the horses. Shucks, it’s a cinch, gentlemen — just a plain, straight trail pointing to one man and to one man alone, a man who had double-crossed a girl in Kansas City and was now trying to rig another deal here with a friend of hers and getting ready to fleece a rich man. Put that all together and you can make a pretty good guess as to who it was.”

“Well,” the foreman said, “let’s get Parnell in here and see if we can get anything out of him. Probably we can’t, but we can try.”

Parnell came in and took the stand, his manner that of being courteous and helpful.

The sheriff said, “Mr. Parnell, you sure you never knew this Estelle Nichols?”

“Absolutely.”

“You know Mae Adrian, don’t you?”

“Why, I saw her there today, yes.”

“But you knew her before that?”

“I... ah... May I ask what is the object of this questioning?”

“Just tryin’ to get at the facts,” the sheriff said.

“Well, I think I’m entitled to a little something more than that.”

“The question,” the sheriff said, “is do you or don’t you know Mae Adrian?”

Parnell looked around at the circle of grim, purposeful faces.

“I don’t think I care to answer that question.”

“Why not?”

“Frankly, I don’t think it’s any of your business and I don’t like the attitude of the men here.”

The sheriff abruptly produced the murder weapon.

“I now show you a number-two horseshoe welded to an iron bar. Ever seen that before?”

“No, I suppose that’s some sort of a branding iron; but it’s a new one on me, I’ve never seen it before.”

“You will admit, won’t you, that you told Mae Adrian you’d gone to the barn with Estelle Nichols and that there’d been an accident? That a horse had kicked her and that you wanted your name kept out of it?”

Parnell wet his lips. “I refuse to answer that question.”

“On what ground?” the sheriff asked.

Parnell took a deep breath, then said desperately, “On the ground that the answer might incriminate me.”

“You’re darn right it would,” the sheriff said. “We don’t even need an answer. We’ve got Mae Adrian’s testimony and we’re going out and take a look at that little hobby workshop of yours and see if we can’t find some left-over materials that’ll analyze just about the same as the stuff in this murder weapon. And as far as you’re concerned, Mr. Parnell, you’re going to stay right here in the county jail until we’ve worked up a murder case against you.”

16

The sheriff unlocked the front door of his house. It was nearing midnight and he was dog-tired. He had had a strenuous period of activity and now that the excitement and strain were over, there was a terriffic let down. No use kidding himself, he wasn’t as young as he had been at one time. Very quietly the sheriff tiptoed across the hall. His sister-in-law would be demanding all the latest news if he saw her.

He had almost reached his bedroom when he saw his sister-in-law attired in pajamas and slippers, sitting by a floor lamp in the living room. Across her lap was the evening edition of the Rockville Gazette with its big headlines: “CROWD GIVES SHERIFF THE HORSELAUGH.”

The sheriff tiptoed over and stood silently looking down at Doris’s face. She had removed both upper and lower plates, which gave her face a peculiarly collapsed appearance, but even in sleep and with her teeth out there was a sharp, ferret-like expression in the whole contour of her features. She had carefully drawn her chair to a place where she could command a view of the entrance to the garage through the parlor window and where no one could enter by the front door without her seeing him.

Bill Eldon leaned gently over the sleeping figure, picked up the paper and crossed out the word “sheriff” in the headlines, inserting the word “publisher” so that the headlines read: “CROWD GIVES PUBLISHER HORSELAUGH.”

Gently the sheriff tiptoed into his bedroom.

From the pillow his wife’s voice arose sleepily, “Did you see Doris out there?”

The sheriff chuckled. “I saw her,” he said. And then, a few seconds later, as he was slipping out of his outer garments, added “first.”