Their eyes remained locked together. Shayne realized the big man was dangerous; ruthless and dictatorial, and no man’s fool. His dominant position in the smalltown life of Central City had given him a tremendous ego.
He demanded, “Are you accusing me?”
“I’m suggesting you’d better fix yourself up with an alibi for the time of Pete’s death,” Shayne answered curtly. He turned to Sheriff Fleming. “What’s this man doing in here? This is a murder investigation, not a Rotary luncheon.”
The sheriff essayed a placating smile. “Well, now, Jasper’s one of our most important citizens. He—”
“If you’re ringing in a citizen’s committee, I’m getting out.” Shayne started for the door.
Fleming detained Shayne with a hand on his shoulder. He said mildly, “Be better, maybe, for you to go outside, Jasper.”
Windrow remained solidly planted on his big feet. “I’ve got a right to protect my own interests. If there’s any searching of this cabin done, I mean to be in on it. I’ve got a right to know whether Pete left a will.”
The sheriff echoed, “A will? Now, what made you think of that?”
“I’ve got reason to think of it. There’s talk around town that one of the actresses claims Screwloose was her long-lost father—after he was dead and couldn’t speak up to call her a liar.”
“That,” said Shayne, “is a lie. And a damned nasty one.” His eyes were murky with anger.
Windrow disregarded him. He continued steadily, “Looks like a swindle to me. I don’t believe Pete ever had any daughter or any family. I aim to be right here and see that no fake evidence is put over on anybody. If there’s proof, all right. If there isn’t, I’ll take it to court.”
Shayne’s breathing was heavy. He moved around to confront Windrow. “You seem to be intimating that I’m in the swindle with her.”
“I don’t know about that. I notice you’re sticking your oar in for no good reason. They say you were running around with that Carson girl pretending to hunt Pete just after he’d been killed.”
Shayne’s big hands balled into fists. He said, “I’ll always wonder why I didn’t attend to this this afternoon.” The sheriff hastily pushed between them, throwing a worried look at the patrolman.
Shayne shoved the sheriff aside, saying thickly, “So help me God, I’m going to knock his teeth down his throat—” but Fleming had hold of his right arm, and the patrolman was efficiently shouldering Windrow back.
The sheriff clung to his arm, panting, “Don’t get het up now. Jas don’t mean that.”
Shayne laughed shortly and his tight muscles relaxed. Over the sheriff’s head he said, “The third time we tangle it’s going to be for keeps. But right now—I presume you’re worried about your share in the mine Pete and Strenk located?”
Windrow nodded stolidly. “Naturally, I’m interested in that property. I’ve been grubstaking both men for years without getting a cent back.”
“And it’s your thought,” Shayne pursued, “that if it can be shown Pete died without heirs, a larger share of the mine will come to you?”
Again, Windrow nodded. “Are you going to say it won’t?”
Fleming wiped sweat from his bronzed face. He warned, “Be sort of careful what you say, Jasper. Mr. Shayne’s digging around to find a reason for Pete getting his head smashed.”
Windrow snorted his disdain of Shayne’s detective methods. “Let him dig. I won’t deny I’m going to protect my rights. But I warn any man in hearing distance I won’t have it said I’m a murder suspect.”
Shayne had regained complete control of himself. There was something about Windrow that roughed his temper every time they met. He lounged back to the table and settled his rangy body on it, swinging one foot casually. He said to Fleming:
“Turn a collar up around Windrow’s face and it’d be difficult at a distance to tell whether he wore whiskers or not. The rest of him coincides perfectly with our description of Pete’s murderer.”
Windrow took a step forward. Fleming and the patrolman nervously edged between them. Windrow said, “I’m warning you.”
Shayne lit a cigarette and flipped the match toward him. “I’m not accusing you—yet. But,” his voice crackled, “if I find that you left some unpaid markers behind at Two-Deck Bryant’s place the last time you visited New York, I’m going to start fitting a noose for you.”
“Two-Deck Bryant? Unpaid markers? What kind of talk is that?”
“Maybe you don’t know.” Shayne’s voice was hard, disinterested. “But Bryant seemed to know a lot about you today. And whoever is dodging Bryant is mighty damned anxious to get hold of some cash in a hurry—anxious enough to commit murder for it. Personally, Windrow, I think you make a hell of a good candidate.” He turned to the patrolman. “If you’ve got a flash I’d like to take a look around outside.”
“You bet.” The young officer whipped out a powerful focusing flashlight and started for the door.
As Shayne followed him, he said to the sheriff, “I advise you to stay here while Windrow’s around. If Pete left a will, I think it’d be safer if you took charge of it.”
Visibly nervous, Fleming agreed. “All right. I reckon it won’t do any harm for me to look around—just to satisfy Mr. Windrow that everything’s aboveboard.”
“By all means,” said Shayne, “satisfy Mr. Windrow.”
Half a dozen men were grouped outside the cabin. Cal Strenk stepped forward from among them. “What’s happenin’ inside? You found out who fired that shot?”
“Looks like you might have been right. We’ve about agreed that a ghost did it—then dissolved up the chimney.” Shayne dropped his bantering tone. “Come on with us. I want to look for footprints down toward the creek where you said a man might have crossed.”
Strenk said, “There’s a path back this way. We usta carry water up from the crik. Hard to tell about footprints on these rocks, though.”
In the circle of light cast by the patrolman’s flashlight, Shayne saw nothing that looked like a path, but Strenk led the way downward confidently.
The roar of rushing creek waters increased as they neared the bottom of the gulch. Strenk stopped on the edge of a narrow turbulent stream and pointed to some flat rocks partially covered with foaming water.
“There’s where we usta dip our pails in. Comes floodin’ down like this every time it rains heavy in the hills.”
“Is it too deep to be waded now?”
Strenk squinted at the tumbling stream and calculated aloud, “Just over the top of them rocks now, an’ it’s goin’ down fast. Reckon it ain’t more’n two feet deep in the middle. A man could wade ’er if he could stand up against the current.”
“Throw your light up and down the bank,” Shayne told the patrolman. “If anyone left the cabin in a hurry, he might easily have missed this thing Strenk calls a path.”
The officer’s light flickered along the edge of the water downstream. The bank was steep and rocky, and showed no trace of footprints.
He turned his light upstream, manipulating the focusing mechanism to make the beam smaller and brighter as the distance grew greater.
He stiffened and made a low, jerky exclamation when the bright beam touched what appeared to be a bundle of discarded clothing not more than thirty feet away.
Shayne swore softly and grabbed the light from the officer’s hand. He had seen that pinkish color before.
It wasn’t pink. It was orchid.
He stumbled forward, holding the flashlight extended before him. The bundle of discarded clothing took shape—the shape of a slender young girl.
Shayne slowed to a walk. It was far too late for hurrying now. Nora Carson was quite dead.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE TOP OF THE ACTRESS’S HEAD was smashed in, the edges of the gaping wound showing clean and unbloody under the light of the flash. She lay curled about the base of an old tree stump as though she embraced it in dying. Her shoulders and arms were bare, creamy-smo
oth in the bright light; the orchid evening gown was twined tightly about her body from the knees upward.
Cal Strenk and the patrolman came up behind Shayne quietly. The miner’s breath made a faint slobbering noise in the stillness. None of them said anything.
Shayne bent and touched one of Nora Carson’s bright blond curls and her gown. Both were soggy. A few inches from her feet the creek water swirled and foamed over small boulders. The rocky bank surrounding her was clean-washed, with no sign of blood anywhere.
Shayne sent the beam of the flashlight up the steep slope, muttering, “She wasn’t killed here. Might have rolled down from above and lodged against this stump.” The light reached upward to the path leading to the cabin without revealing anything to indicate where the murder had occurred.
“Might of,” Cal Strenk agreed in a curiously choked voice. “But looks like her purty dress would of got torn on the rocks if she rolled down. With her bein’ so wet, looks like she was doused in the crik.”
Shayne played the light up and down the slope above the present water-line. “I don’t see any high-water marks. Do you think the water’s been above this stump tonight?”
“I reckon it has, all right. Turn your light down here again.” Strenk bent over the stump and nodded. “Yep. It’s soakin’ wet, too. She might of been washed downstream hour or so ago.”
“Or else placed here while the water was high in a position to indicate she’d been washed downstream. But hell!” Shayne rubbed his chin irritably. “Could the creek have fallen this far since eight-thirty? It doesn’t seem possible.”
“It’s not only possible, but it’s quite probable.” The young patrolman spoke for the first time since his light had touched the girl’s body. “Easterners don’t understand our mountain cloudbursts. I’ve seen a twenty-foot wall of water roll down a dry creek bed—and in thirty minutes it would all be past.”
“That’s right,” Strenk corroborated. “Depends on how much it rains up in the mountains.”
Shayne grunted sourly and circled the body and stump, holding his light on it. He decided, “Her body was either placed there carefully, or it was washed down the creek during high water and lodged against the stump. In either case, it was done while the water was high, else there would be some indications of blood on the rocks. That leaves us a nice wide-open question as to where the murder was actually committed. She might have been dumped into the creek any goddamned place above here while the water was high and roaring down.”
“Is it necessarily murder?” the state officer asked respectfully. “Couldn’t she have fallen in the creek—struck her head against a rock?”
Shayne laughed shortly. “Could have, but I’m betting a thousand-to-one it’s murder. Such things follow each other, you know.” He dropped on his knees beside the girl, made a close and careful examination of the head wound.
“I was thinking of that previous murder—wondering if we might not be jumping to conclusions. There isn’t necessarily any connection, is there?”
Shayne rocked back on his haunches and demanded, “Do you know who this girl is?”
“One of ’em from the opry house, ain’t she?” asked Cal Strenk when the patrolman shook his head.
Shayne stood up and with apparent carelessness flashed his light into the miner’s face. “Her name is Nora Carson. She identified Screwloose Pete as her father a few minutes before he was murdered tonight.”
The old man clawed at his whiskers and blinked into the bright light. “Do tell? I’d look for a jackass to pappy a thoroughbred colt quicker’n I’d expect ol’ Screwloose to beget a purty actress daughter.”
“That’s your connection,” Shayne told the officer. “One of the reasons why it’s a cinch for murder. And this blow on the top of her head wasn’t accidental. It’s too much like the wound that killed her father.” He turned the light back on Strenk and demanded:
“Are you backing Jasper Windrow in his attempt to prove she lied about Pete being her father?”
“Is that what he’s up to?” The miner sounded properly indignant. “Might know he’d wanta grab Pete’s share, too. After puttin’ up not more’n five-six hundred dollars all told, he ain’t satisfied with a third share of a million-dollar mine. No, sirree. I ain’t throwin’ in with Windrow. Not ’less he splits with me, I don’t. Pete allus said if he died fust he wanted for me to have all his share in our claims.”
“He never mentioned having any heirs to you?”
“Nope. Never said nothin’ about none.”
“He didn’t put that in writing, did he? That you should have what he left?” Shayne’s voice was hard, biting.
“Nope. I don’t reckon Pete could write much. He could make out to read a mite.”
Abruptly, Shayne said, “To hell with dividing up an estate before the bodies are buried.” He handed the patrolman his flashlight. “Wish you’d stay here with the body while I go up and tell Sheriff Fleming his grief has just begun. While you’re waiting, you might look around for a coat Nora Carson was wearing when she left the hotel.”
It was a steep rough climb up the rocky slope. Strenk followed Shayne in silence. The cabin door was open and they went in.
Two-Deck Bryant leaned negligently against the wall near the stove. He gave Shayne a cold, tight-lipped stare. Neither of his torpedoes was present.
Shayne stopped in the doorway and asked, “What are you doing here?”
The gambler’s smile was insolent. “I’ve always wanted to watch a gumshoe at work when he wasn’t trying to pin something on me. Go right ahead. I want to see you detect something.”
Shayne said, “Don’t be too sure you’re in the clear.” He glanced at Fleming and Windrow. The sheriff looked mildly curious at this interchange, but Windrow’s rugged face was enigmatic. He might have been backing four aces or bluffing with a busted straight.
Shayne stepped aside and motioned for Cal Strenk to come in. He asked the miner, “Do you see one of the three men you were telling me about in the barroom?”
Strenk pointed to Bryant. “Yep. That’s one of ’em. The other two—”
Shayne said, “I know all about the other two.” In a flat tone, he advised Bryant, “That gives you a pretty definite stake in my gumshoeing, so you’d better stick around.” He turned to the sheriff. “I’ve got another murder for you, Fleming.”
“Another one? God ’lmighty, Mr. Shayne. We’ve never had anything like—”
“I thought you said it was suicide,” Windrow interrupted.
Shayne’s brooding gaze went slowly to Jasper Windrow’s face. “You’re jumping to a lot of conclusions. In the first place I haven’t said Joe Meade tried to commit suicide. I don’t know. In the second place, this one is a girl. Down on the bank of the creek. Her name is Nora Carson.”
Not a flicker of emotion showed on Windrow’s face. He nodded almost imperceptibly, pleasurably, perhaps. “The actress who tried to claim Pete as her father.”
“The girl,” Shayne corrected, “who positively identified Pete as her father. I’ll swear to that in court.”
Sheriff Fleming interceded hastily. “No matter about that now. Down by the creek, you say? Right here at Old Pete’s cabin?”
Shayne nodded. “We found her when we were looking for footprints across the creek. The state cop is waiting down there with his flashlight.”
The sheriff said, “I guess I better go see.” He went heavily across the cabin and out the door.
Bryant approached Shayne, asking in an even, menacing tone, “What’s the idea of having this old gink put the finger on me? How do you figure that pulls me into the picture?”
Shayne dropped one hip onto the center table again and lit a cigarette. “I’m wondering what prompted your interest in Screwloose Pete this past week.”
A mocking grin twitched the gambler’s saturnine features. “I’ve been thinking about taking a little flyer in the mining game. Looks to me like a chance to hit a real jackpot without laying too much sugar
on the line.”
Shayne shook his head. “You know an easier way of making money, Bryant—with all the percentages in your favor. Casey tells me that clip-joint of yours on the Parkway is wired so heavy that the only play you get nowadays is from out-of-town suckers who don’t know the ropes. Storekeepers in town on buying trips from jerkwater towns like this.”
Again, he failed to get a rise out of Jasper Windrow. If the barbed shaft struck home, the man wasn’t giving out. He interrupted impatiently, “I’ve still got a bone to pick with you, Shayne. Your championship of the Carson girl’s claim against Pete’s estate isn’t going to mean very much. The sheriff and I failed to find a single thing among his effects to indicate he was her father.”
Shayne glanced sardonically around the orderly cabin.
“And I suppose you ripped everything to pieces trying to find some such evidence?”
Windrow reiterated, “We found nothing. Perhaps you’d like to look for yourself—while I’m here to see you don’t plant something to support her contention.”
That, Shayne agreed, would be a hell of a good idea. “I’ll at least try, which is more than I think you’ve done.” He turned to Cal Strenk. “You batched here with Pete. Any idea where to start looking for private papers?”
“I don’t reckon Pete never had no papers. Never showed me none.”
Shayne slid off the table and went to cupboards behind the stove. He rattled pots and pans to reach back behind them, then began a slow circuit of the four mud-chinked walls of peeled logs, feeling into crevices in the corners and studying the bare wooden floor for signs of a cache as he moved about.
Bryant stood spread-legged on the brick hearth in front of the fireplace when Shayne finished his search without finding anything. The gambler laughed softly. “Looks like you forgot your magnifying glass, Sherlock. Oughtn’t you to pick up samples of the dirt and cigarette ashes from the floor to test in your laboratory?”
Shayne frowned and tugged at the lobe of his ear, refusing to let himself be disturbed by Bryant’s taunts. As he stared slowly around the room, Bryant stepped forward, opening his lips to speak again. A hearth brick creaked under his foot as he lifted his weight from it. He glanced swiftly downward, then stepped back and began speaking rapidly:
In a Deadly Vein Page 8
