The Marshal of Whitburg

by E. R. Slade

  The rug was easily moved. Another match showed him a handle in the floor. He took hold and up came a trapdoor. The match showed him steps going down into a narrow space and in it a very substantial safe, the door closed.

  He heard voices—Vern and Everson going around back. He blew out the match, closed the trapdoor, pulled the rug back in place and tried the front door, which was, of course, locked. He took a chance and lit another match, and there hung a key. The voices were at the rear.

  Lon used the key in darkness, got the door open, went out, locked it from outside and then realized he had no way to replace the key.

  There was nothing to be done about it. He went a couple of doors down and circled around to his horse and quietly led him away. Vern and Everson were inside now with a lamp lit. He could hear Everson swearing vehemently, though a few minutes later as he led Blacky into the livery he was still pondering what it was about Everson’s tone that struck him as odd. He couldn’t place it.

  After seeing to Blacky he went to his hotel room, exchanging pleasantries with Warner on the way. Alone in the room, he lit the little chamber lamp and sat on the edge of the bed staring into the shadows the lamp threw, still thinking about Everson’s swearing. It had sounded fake somehow. But why would that be? Especially if the safe was full of loot and Everson hadn’t yet found out if it had been emptied by the burglars? Must be his imagination.

  He fingered the key, wondering what he should do with it. Presumably Everson would assume it had been taken by the thieves, with an eye to being able to continue their search. Could there really be any doubt what the break-in was about? Which pointed to Bud Ames’ friends, didn’t it? So what would Everson do about them now?

  Of course, if he was wrong about Everson—actually, even if he wasn’t—the break-in could be about something else. Whatever it was about, that safe sure was an uncommon thing for a small-time town marshal to keep hidden under his living room floor.

  Still, suspicions were one thing. Proof was another.

  Lon cast about the room for a place to hide the key, saw nowhere he liked and pocketed it while he went out to have supper. It was probably better in his pocket anyway.

  He had a leisurely supper, turning everything over in his mind, seeing more and more connections and clues he thought he should have seen earlier. But he was still in doubt about the best way to proceed. Somehow he needed to come by solid proof, of one thing or the other.

  When he stepped into the lobby brooding on this, there was Egbert Wescott standing beside the desk. Warner gave Lon a questioning glance.

  “Mr. Wescott here has been waiting to see you,” Warner said.

  Wescott stepped toward him with a disdainful look. “You and I have something to talk about,” he said.

  “We do, do we,” Lon said. “Then you’d better come with me.”

  Warner watched them out of sight. Maybe he thought Lon was getting ready to nail somebody for something. Lon was aware he sure felt like doing that.

  Lon opened his room door, motioned Wescott in and closed it after them, then lit the lamp.

  “Go ahead and talk,” he said mildly to Wescott.

  “You are not to bother Zinnia again,” he said, down the length of his nose, as usual.

  “As far as I know, you have no authority over Zinnia. You certainly have none over me.” Lon was feeling too much on edge to have any patience with this effete, supercilious rich boy.

  “Zinnia is my fiancée and I won’t have you causing her any inconvenience. I tell you to stay away from her and I mean it.”

  “That’s not the story she told me. She said you are a snob. I think she’s right. An arrogant snob with a big idea of what you’re worth to the world. And to Zinnia. As for inconveniencing her, I think I’ll let her tell me when she feels I’m doing that. Now, if that’s all you have to say, get out.”

  Wescott’s brows had lowered and lightning was beginning to flash from under them. The effete snob actually looked a little like a man—more so than before, at any rate. A man it might not be smart to cross unless you meant business.

  But it wouldn’t be smart to cross Lon Pike just now, either.

  “I’m here to exact a promise from you to leave her alone,” Wescott was saying. “and I’ll have that promise or know the reason why.”

  “You’ll get no such promise from me, Eggy. That is what they call you, isn’t it?”

  “You’ll call me Mr. Wescott, Pike.” Wescott’s fury was barely contained now. Lon didn’t give a damn if it came uncontained.

  “Guess I’ll call you what I please, Eggy. Now, Eggy, you’re going to leave. Or I’ll put you out. By force, if necessary.”

  “You lay one hand on me, Pike, and it will be your last act.”

  “If I have to lay a hand on you, neither Zinnia nor I nor anybody else will ever be troubled with you again.” Lon was distantly aware that he was getting close to losing control of his temper and that he’d better keep that control or all kinds of problems were likely to follow.

  Wescott was wearing his perfectly blacked and shined pistol belt, as he revealed by swinging back the tail of his coat with his gun hand. Lon wondered what Everson would do if his deputy said he’d had to kill the son of one of the town’s prominent citizens.

  If Everson tried to do it, there was going to be a gun battle and only one of them left alive.

  Get a hold, Pike, get a hold. If you kill Wescott and shoot Everson, everything you’re trying to make happen will be impossible.

  Maybe it would be okay to adjust the features of Eggy’s face? Just a little?

  “I’m a deputy in this town,” Lon said as professionally as he could manage. “I could arrest you for threatening an officer of the law.”

  Wescott’s mouth formed a disdainful sneer.

  “You, a deputy,” he said. “It’s a disgrace.”

  At that moment there came a pounding on the door.

  “Pike?” It was Everson’s voice, sounding determined. “You in there?”

  “I am,” Lon said. He drew a long breath to calm himself down, then said, “Come on in.”

  The door opened and in strode Everson, squint-eyed. He was momentarily taken aback at Wescott’s presence, but then he ignored him. Behind in the open doorway stood a pale-faced Vern. His eyes were a bit big so something was up.

  “Pike,” Everson said. “Where have you been today?”

  “You mean after the little ride with Vern? A young lady and myself had a picnic on a knoll past the church west of town. Vern must have told you that, I expect. Then I went for another ride until after dark. I’m sure Vern has already told you everything there is to know about that, also, but I’ll confirm it anyway. I rode up to look around some more at the spot where Billy died. Didn’t find much, but I was hoping.”

  “Disobeying orders again, then,” Everson said warmly. Wescott was plainly starting to enjoy the conversation.

  “It was on my own time. If I’d found anything useful I would have come to tell you about it, but nothing turned up.”

  “Never mind all that now. What’d you do when you came back?”

  “Had supper. Nothing much. Why? What’s happened?”

  “My house was broken into, is what’s happened.”

  Lon hoped his look of surprise was more convincing than when Everson had tried it. “Again?” he said. “Anything stolen?”

  “Yes, something was,” Everson said. “And I caught up with the man who broke in.”

  “Really?—and recovered what was stolen? Who was it?”

  “Glen Bednor, but you already knew that.”

  “How would I know who it was?”

  “Because you put him up to it and paid him for what he stole.”

  This time Lon had no need to feign surprise. Wescott was smiling and smiling in his supercilious way. He was going to do that one time too many.

  “What sort of story is that?” Lon said. “You have Bednor locked up, I hope?”

  “I do.”

>   “Then let’s go straighten this out.” He made little attempt to conceal his anger.

  “Not so fast. He said he brought them to you here and saw you put them under the bed. We’re going to look for them right now.”

  “Them? What are we looking for?”

  “Dueling pistols. Family heirlooms passed down from my grandfather. Kept them in a box in a closet upstairs. Vern, have a look under the bed, will you?”

  “Dueling pistols?” Lon was having trouble figuring out what dueling pistols had to do with anything.

  Vern felt around, then slid out a polished mahogany box inlaid with a very ornate “E” on the lid.

  “Give them here,” Everson said briskly and opened the box. Inside were indeed a pair of silver-hilted, old-fashioned dueling pistols, also engraved with an “E”.

  “That’s it then,” Everson said. “You’re through, Pike. I’d love to arrest you for theft, but you know how the town fathers feel about unnecessary expense. So instead of jailing you I’m going to give you until sunup to clear out of town. I lay eyes on you again after that, I will arrest you. That clear?”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Egbert Wescott looked as if Christmas had arrived unexpectedly. He left jauntily, assuming all his problems were solved.

  “Let’s have your badge,” Everson said.

  “No use keeping up the pretense,” Lon said as he picked the badge off the dressing table and handed it to Everson. “There’s nobody else left here to fool.”

  “Pretense?” Everson said, as though he didn’t know what the word meant. “You want to find out how much pretense this is, just stay around for sunup.”

  “Never mind,” Lon said, setting his jaw against saying more. He looked at Vern, who seemed to be regarding Lon with disappointment. Maybe he wasn’t in on it. Come to think of it, how much sense would it make for Everson to let anyone know what he was up to? Vern might be loyal but he wasn’t bright enough to be trusted not to get tangled up trying to maintain a lie that important.

  “Out before sunup,” Everson said again. “Understand?”

  With a supreme effort, Lon refrained from the retort that might well have led to a gun battle on the spot. It wasn’t what was needed. Proof of Everson’s guilt was what was needed.

  After Everson and Vern had gone, he went to the window, which looked out onto a narrow alley, and opened the sash. As before, when he’d been looking for a quiet way out, the window slid up and counterweights held it there. He leaned out with lamp in hand and tried to see what the ground looked like under the window. Seemed as though it was dry and dusty. Also looked like it had been recently swept. Who’d sweep an alley? He couldn’t see what would have prevented Everson from coming in this way, but he decided to ask Scott Warner what he knew in any case.

  Warner seemed as interested to talk to him as he was to ask Warner a few things. His brow was furrowed with concern.

  “Things starting to happen?” he asked.

  “And then some. I’ve just lost my job, been framed for theft, and been given until sunup to leave town.”

  Warner yanked out his well-worn unlit cigarette and stared. Then he put it back in to speak. “Did that Wescott kid have anything to do with it?”

  “I don’t think so. He came to see me about something else. Everson looked surprised to see him there, but didn’t seem to care much about him. You see that box Everson was carrying?”

  “What was it?”

  “His grandpappy’s dueling pistols, so he says. He had Vern pull them from under my bed, said it was proof I’d stolen them. You have any idea how they got under my bed?”

  “Nobody’s been past me that is likely to have done that,” he said. “But maybe the window?”

  “That’s what I think, too. You know, it occurs to me that maybe I’d better hurry and check something, although I may already be too late. Be back soon, I hope.”

  “You watch yourself,” Warner said. “Keep your back to walls and look over your shoulder about once a minute. This doesn’t look good.”

  “Appreciate the advice.”

  “There’s a back way out of here, you know. I’d take it, if I were you.”

  Warner showed him a narrow passage that lay beyond a door in his tiny inner office and Lon found it came out at the rear of the building in a shed—the same shed he’d climbed down from the roof of to talk to Betty Logan. He stopped to listen carefully before he went off into the night.

  He circled to the alley the jail was on, found it empty, the door standing open. Was Bednor dead now, too? Or hadn’t he been involved at all? Maybe Everson had invaded his own house and the Bednor story was pure lie. On thinking about it, it appeared to him that this last was the more likely way of it. Why would he have had to involve Bednor at all? What sense would it make?

  He debated about the best way to spend his time, and thought trying to track down Bednor and the Folsom brothers could wait until after he’d done something else.

  Tuft’s front door had a lamp lit on either side of it. Lon wished he had some way of putting them out before exposing himself there; but Everson probably wouldn’t take the risk of shooting him on Tuft’s doorstep when he’d know he’d get a less public chance soon enough.

  It took what seemed a long time for there to come footfalls inside. His spirits lifted dramatically as he recognized the brisk step. When she opened the door and saw him she broke out in a huge smile which lifted his spirits even further.

  “Lon!” she said. “How nice to see you!”

  “I’m sorry to disturb you all this late,” he began, and she interrupted—

  “Why it’s not late at all,” she said. “Come right in!”

  He breathed a private sigh of relief once the heavy door was shut.

  “Here,” she said, “let me take your hat, and unless you think we might harbor bandits in the living room, maybe you’d like to leave your gun?—or are you on duty now and can’t take it off?”

  “This hat,” he said, removing it and looking it over. “Do you know how embarrassed I was about this hat when I was here before? I still am, too.”

  “It’s an honest, working man’s hat,” she said, trying gamely to be supportive.

  “A man that can’t afford a better hat than that maybe isn’t worth too much.”

  “Oh, Lon, don’t say such things.”

  He hung up the hat, still uncertain in his mind what to do about the gun belt.

  “You remember what you said about having a bad feeling about Everson?”

  “Yes,” she said, responding to the seriousness of his tone with an expression of sudden concern.

  “I think you were right. And because of some things that have happened I need to talk to your father, if he’s here.”

  Her eyes got large. “You’re here to change your mind about the marshal’s job?” she asked.

  “I hadn’t thought that far,” he admitted. “I don’t know what he’ll want to do but there are some things he should know.”

  “What’s happened?” Now she was beginning to look frightened and he wished he hadn’t told her so much. Just because he now felt at ease enough with her that he could tell her anything didn’t mean it was the right thing to do so.

  “A number of things,” he said. “Is he in the living room?”

  “What’s happened?” she asked again, urgently, putting a hand on his arm.

  “Zinnia ...”

  “Oh, I see,” she said, with asperity, “things for men only to talk about.” She drew back from him.

  He must have looked hurt because she immediately softened down and said, laying her hand on his arm again, lightly, “I’m sorry. You’re just trying to protect me, aren’t you?”

  “Yes,” he admitted.

  “Lon, I’m not a china doll. Please remember that, won’t you?”

  She led the way into the living room and he followed, full of jumbled feelings for her. The strongest of them was a determination to straighten things out in this town for her
sake.

  “Lon’s here to talk to you about something,” she said to her father as he looked up from his reading. He sat in his easy chair by the fire. She gave Lon a sidelong glance full of many complex meanings and then left them.

  Tuft didn’t bother to get up. He was clearly not eager or pleased particularly to see Lon. He waved at a chair across from him. “Have a seat, Deputy Pike,” he said.

  “Mr. Tuft,” Lon said, sitting, “I believe Everson doesn’t catch the holdup artists because he’s getting a cut, though I can’t prove it, yet.”

  Tuft’s eyebrows went up, then down to a position lower than where they had started. “What makes you believe that?”

  “It’s kind of a long story, but I can go into detail if you’d like.”

  “Pike, you know I don’t like Everson. I never have. But I can’t believe Everson’s crooked. He just isn’t competent enough or ambitious enough. He’s timid and petty. As I hear you found out, he won’t even jail men who get into fights or destroy property. He doesn’t want to make anybody mad enough at him they’d give him serious trouble.”

  “I didn’t really believe he was any worse than incompetent, either, when I decided to take the deputy job, or I’d never have done so. But there were things I wasn’t at all sure about then that I’m a lot surer of now.”

  “Well, maybe we’ll find out something tomorrow,” Tuft said. “I’ve hired my own guards to accompany valuables being sent out on the stage. They have my orders to shoot any road agents on sight.”

  Lon suddenly recalled seeing a couple of hard-looking characters lounging around in front of the bank since the last stage had come in. They hadn’t gotten drunk though, and had not started any fights so he hadn’t concerned himself much about them.

  “I’m glad you’ve hired your own guards and aren’t counting on Everson,” Lon said. “But he’s smarter than you’d think. Also more deadly. Yesterday he shot an unarmed man in the back, a prisoner with his hands up about to step into the jail.”

  Tuft’s eyebrows went back up again, hovered there as he studied Lon. “You were there?”