by J. T. Edson
“Might be best if you didn’t, Colonel,” the youngster said gently. “Whoever killed him might still be around and that knife wasn’t aimed at me.”
“I don’t understand,” Liebenfrau declared, pausing instead of setting off as had been his intention.
“If they’d wanted me, I was stood there and giving them a clear throw for a spell afore you come out of the barn,” the youngster explained. “Which makes it look to me like this toad-sticker was thrown at you. Only I’m damned if I can make out how.”
While the conversation was taking place, Waco had extracted and rasped a match on the seat of his pants. In spite of its rough handling, the lantern responded when he applied the flame to the wick and he went to examine the knife. Its blade was an unusual shape, at least ten inches in length and resembling a butcher’s sharpening steel rather than a conventional weapon. As he was delivering his next to last pronouncement, he grasped the guard-less hilt and needed to apply considerable strength before he was able to draw the point from the side of the wagon.
“What do you mean, how?” Liebenfrau barked.
“It’s fifty yards at least to where the jasper who threw it was standing,” the youngster elaborated. “I’d say that not even Lon could send his bowie knife that far and have it sink in as deep as this toad-sticker did.”
“What is that you have in your belt, Waco,” the Lady inquired, she and her maid having followed the Bosgravnian.
“I don’t know,” the youngster replied. “It was lying close by your man, Colonel. At first I thought it might have been what killed him, but if it was, I don’t know how it was used either.”
“May I see it?” the Lady requested and, receiving a confirmatory nod, lifted the device from the gunbelt. Turning it in her hands, she studied it with particular attention to the almost flattened wood on the side of the bone hook. “It looks like the end of a walking-stick, or more likely an umbrella. Can I have the knife, please?”
“Why sure,” Waco assented, although Liebenfrau was moving restless and clearly wanted to go to the dead orderly. Glancing at the spike-like blade, he moved it closer to lantern and went on, “Hey though. Could be this thing’s been used not too long back. There’s what looks like dried blood on the point.”
“Be careful!” the Lady ejaculated. “That could be poison, not blood!”
On the point of demanding that Waco accompany him to the scene of the murder, the Personal Attendant refrained. Even before they had set sail from Europe, he had found the young Englishwoman to be remarkably intelligent and knowledgeable on more than one subject which was not normally regarded as being the province of her sex. During the voyage, he had seen further sufficient examples of her acumen to consider that whatever she might have to say could prove interesting. Certainly she had not made her request to examine the piece of wood out of idle curiosity. So he was willing to wait until he heard what she had to say before taking his departure.
Taking the knife by its blade gingerly, the Lady rested it on the flattened side of the stick and slipped the end of the hilt under the curve of the bone hook. Holding the weapon in position, she raised the device above her right shoulder.
“What does that tell you, ma’am?” Waco inquired, as the blonde lowered her hand.
“I’m only hazarding a guess, of course,” the Lady replied, holding forward the device with the weapon still in position. “But this could be the means by which the knife was thrown so far and with such force. It reminds me of a woomera I saw in the British Museum.”
“A what?” the youngster asked and heard Liebenfrau give a low hiss.
“It’s a device that the Australian aborigines—natives—use to help when throwing a spear,”4 the Lady elaborated, noticing how the Personal Attendant was nodding in understanding and agreement. “According to a friend who has been Down Under and seen one in use, it will send a seven-foot-long spear for about a hundred and fifty yards and can kill a man at more than half of that distance.”
“Whee-doggie!” Waco ejaculated. “I’ve never seen nor heard of any such thing, but I’m not saying it couldn’t be. I don’t reckon that anybody could throw a knife this far without something to help it along. And, happen that is poison on the point, you wouldn’t need to sink it in deep to kill. Just a nick could do that, happen the poison’s strong enough.”
“Come!” Liebenfrau barked, deciding that there had been enough discussion and wanting to go to his orderly.
“I reckon it’d be better if you stayed here while I go and scout around a mite, Colonel,” Waco suggested. “Whoever killed your man could be waiting out there to have a second chance at you-all.”
“I’m not afraid!” Liebenfrau growled.
“Being afraid don’t come into it,” the youngster stated. “Seems like good sense not to take chances unless you have to.”
“My mind is made up,” the Personal Attendant declared. “Two pairs of eyes are better than one, it doubles the chance of seeing something.”
“I’m not gainsaying it,” Waco drawled, knowing he could not change the older man’s mind. “All right, let’s go. Do me a lil favor, though.”
“What is it?” Liebenfrau asked.
“Stay out of the light,” the youngster requested. “I don’t want to have to face Mark and Lon, much less Dusty, should you-all get killed.”
“I will do as you ask,” the Personal Attendant promised, after giving a snort which the Lady suspected was registering a mixture of surprise and amusement at the reason offered by the Texan for the concern over his well-being. “Now come!”
“Take these and wait for us in the barn, Florence,” the blonde instructed, holding out the objects which she had been examining.
“That shotgun the Colonel was using on the birds while we were coming here is in the wagon,” the maid replied, showing no apprehension over being left behind or taking the knife and throwing device. “So I’ll do the waiting in there, if that’s all right with you, Miss Amel—Lady Winifred, I mean!”
“Do as you wish,” the Lady authorized, after glancing to find out whether the two men had heard what was being said and deciding, as they continued to walk away without looking around, that they had not. There was a faintly chiding note in her voice, discernible to one who knew her as well as the maid, when she went on, “But, considering that there’s already something puzzling those young men about me and how intelligent they’ve shown themselves to be, don’t make a mistake like that again.”
Chapter 9
HE MIGHT NOT BE DEAD
“A GENTLEMAN ASKED ME TO GIVE YOU THIS, SIR,” the desk clerk of the Portside Hotel told Dusty Fog, holding out a sealed envelope as well as the room key he had come to collect.
“Would it be anybody I know?” the small Texan inquired, accepting both items.
“I haven’t seen him before,” the clerk answered. “But he looked like an officer from a merchant ship of some kind.”
“Thickset hombre between your height and mine, with a beard?” Dusty suggested and, receiving a nod of confirmation, went on, “Sounds like it was good old Mr. Gotz.”
“He didn’t say his name,” the clerk stated, sounding aggrieved by the omission.”
“Must have been him then,” Dusty declared, unable to resist the temptation to tease the well-padded and pompous man on the other side of the desk. “He’s sort of shy and retiring. Gracias anyways. I’ve been waiting for this.”
“Very good—sir,” the clerk replied, with ill-concealed disapproval and turned away.
“Damn it if I’m not starting to act like Waco,” the small Texan mused, tearing open the flap of the envelope and walking from the desk. “I’m going to have to change such blasted ways.”
Ascending the stairs to the first floor, Dusty extracted and read the sheet of paper from the envelope. He found that he was invited to call at an address in the waterfront district to discuss his terms at eleven o’clock that night.
In spite of a sense of satisfaction over the way i
n which the anarchist faction had responded to his bait, Dusty did not allow it to command his entire attention. He was aware that constant alertness was a vital necessity when engaged upon the kind of mission which had brought him to Corpus Christie. Nor did knowing that he had killed Beguinage make him think he could relax his vigilance. Even if it had, one of his precautions had been put into effect before he set out for the Edgehurst Warehouse.
Every time Dusty had left his room at the hotel, he had employed a ruse learned from the Rebel Spy by fastening a piece of black thread from the top of the door to its jamb. Nobody could enter without breaking it, but it would not offer sufficient resistance for its presence to be detected.
Glancing upward instinctively as he was tucking the letter into his pants’ right hip pocket, the small Texan found that the thread had been snapped. He knew what the sight portended. Somebody had entered his room since he had taken his departure. Whoever it was had had no right to be there. Since one of their number had nearly fallen a victim to Beguinage’s snake-in-a-box trap, the hotel’s maids always made a habit of arriving to perform their duties while Dusty was present. He had been only too pleased that it should be so. In fact, he had handed out gratuities to ensure that they were finished and did not need to return when he was absent.
All of which suggested there had been, or still was, an intruder in the room!
Walking by the door, Dusty halted at the left instead of in front of it. Standing with his back to the wall, he listened for a moment without hearing anything to suggest that his unauthorized visitor was still in the room. He was disinclined to accept that whoever had entered was no longer there, and therefore he decided what action he would take. Before putting his plan into operation, he glanced in each direction to make sure that he had the passage to himself.
If anybody had been near by, they would have witnessed an exhibition of the ambidextrous prowess Dusty had developed during his early years. In part, it had been a means to distract attention from his small size and it had continued to serve him well all through his life. Simultaneously, with his left hand reaching around to insert the key into the lock, the right crossed to slip the Colt from the near-side holster. Then he timed the cocking of the hammer with the turning of the key so that the two sets of clicking sounded together.
Having unlocked the door, Dusty twisted at its knob and shoved hard. With its hinges creaking slightly, it began to swing open. He went across the threshold in a fast dive and found that taking the precaution with the piece of thread had been worthwhile. However, in spite of its warning, he was anything but out of danger.
The room was occupied!
But there were two intruders, not one!
Opposite the door, an armed man was sitting on the sill of the open window. He held a sawed-off shotgun with its twin barrels aligned at what would have been chest height on a person of average size who was entering the room. Also clad in worn range clothes, the second intruder was to the right. Apparently he had been examining the contents of the wardrobe, but had started to turn on hearing that somebody was entering.
For all the man at the window’s position of readiness, he appeared to be surprised to see who was coming in. Instead of trying to correct his point of aim immediately, he stared at the small Texan and his face began to register amazement. Right hand dipping toward the butt of a bolstered Army Colt, his companion duplicated his reaction.
Such hesitation was fatal when dealing with a gun-fighter of Dusty Fog’s caliber.
Landing on the floor, the small Texan was already slanting his weapon in the direction of the more immediately dangerous intruder. Nor had he the slightest doubt over how he must deal with the situation. Sighting as he alighted, he squeezed off a shot. The .45 bullet flew to its intended mark and took the man with the shotgun between the eyes. As an aid to escape in the event of a fire, the two sections of the hotel’s upstairs windows opened outward instead of sliding up or down. So there was nothing to prevent him from being tumbled backward under the impact. Taking his weapon with him as he fell, it went off to send its charge of buckshot harmlessly into the night sky.
Even as the shotgun was bellowing outside the room, Dusty was preparing to defend himself against his second adversary. Rolling on to his left side, he swung the Colt in the appropriate direction. Despite the suggestion that the man had been taken aback, either by the sight of him or by the way in which he had entered the room, he knew there would be no time to make even a rapid aim. Already the other was throwing off his shock sufficiently to have resumed bringing the revolver from its holster.
So, instead of trying to align the sights, Dusty kept the barrel of the Colt moving. While his right forefinger held the trigger depressed, he used the heel of his left hand to pull on the spur of the hammer and operate the single action mechanism. Five times in less than three seconds he repeated the motion, directing the bullets that were being propelled from the muzzle along sightly different routes. Three missed, but by an ever decreasing margin. Nor were they entirely wasted, for they produced the effect he had hoped they might.
Seeing the flame and smoke erupting from the Colt held by a man he believed to be a deadly efficient professional killer, the second assailant fumbled his draw. He was not given another opportunity to recover his wits. The fourth and fifth bullets entered his chest about three inches apart. Letting his own weapon slip from his grasp, he reeled and sprawled to the floor.
Rising swiftly, Dusty drew and cocked his second Colt while returning the empty revolver to its holster. As he walked forward, keeping the weakly moving man under observation and ready to take any further action that might prove necessary, he found himself pondering on what had just happened.
On discovering that somebody had entered his room and realizing that whoever it was could still be there, Dusty had expected it was almost certainly someone who had the intention of trying to kill him. When he had first seen the men, he had been sure that his summation was correct. They had been pointed out to him at the Binnacle tavern as low-quality hard cases and frequent companions of the trio hired—by Beguinage he suspected, although he was unable to obtain evidence to support the assumption—to ambush him on the street one night. However, considering the way in which the men had behaved on seeing him, he was starting to wonder if he had drawn the wrong conclusion.
There had been nothing to suggest either of the pair was involved in the abortive ambush. Nor did what little the small Texan had seen and heard of them lead him to believe they were the kind who would seek him out with the intention of avenging the two men he had been compelled to kill. In his opinion, they would require a much stronger motive than revenge before they tangled with “Rapido Clint.”
While the pair would not have any scruples where committing crimes was concerned, Dusty doubted whether they had entered his room merely to rob it. For one thing, wearing such cheap and shoddy clothing would make gaining admittance to the upper floors of a place like the Portside Hotel almost impossible. Of course, they could have had an accomplice on the premises to let them in, and the selection of his room might have been no more than a coincidence. That would explain why they were so surprised when they saw who was bursting in on them.
Voices and footsteps approaching rapidly along the passage diverted Dusty from his train of thought, but he did not turn to find out who was coming. The wounded man was staring up at him with pain-glazed eyes and he knew that the end was near. Kicking the revolver aside, he bolstered his Colt and bent forward.
“Why’d you come here?” Dusty inquired quietly.
“Sh-Sh—” the man gasped. “She s-said thi-this—her hus-husband’s room.”
“Who did?” the small Texan asked, still gently yet urgently.
A convulsive shudder racked the man and blood burst from his mouth. Then his head hinged forward and his body went limp. Dusty straightened up, knowing there would be no reply to his question.
“Wh-What happened?” asked a familiar voice, trying to make the words s
ound like a demand for information rather than a quavering request.
Looking over his shoulder, Dusty saw the desk clerk entering with two well-dressed men close behind. They were staring from him to the lifeless intruder, and they came to a halt as he turned toward them.
“I found this hombre and another here when I came in,” Dusty answered, truthfully if not expansively.
“Another!” the clerk yelped, taking a step backward and looking around with an even greater display of alarm. “Wh-Where is he?”
“You’ll find him lying outside,” the small Texan explained. “He fell out of the window when I shot him.”
“You shot him too?” the clerk almost gobbled.
“It seemed like a reasonable thing to do,” Dusty replied. “Seeing that he was pointing a sawed-off scattergun at me.”
“Why were they waiting for you?” the taller of the well-dressed men put in, stepping by the clerk.
“One thing’s for sure,” Dusty drawled, continuing to act as “Rapido Clint” might under similar circumstances. “It wasn’t because I’d asked them up to take coffee with me.” Then swinging his gaze to the hotel’s employee, his voice took on a rasp of exasperation. “God damn it all, what kind of place is this? I near on got killed by a son-of-a-bitching copperhead somebody’d left in my room just after I got here. And now this.”
“I—I assure you that nothing like it has ever happened here before,” the clerk protested, loyalty to the hotel overriding the alarm he was experiencing over being the object of what he assumed to be indignation from a man rumor claimed was a notorious professional gun-fighter. “We are a most respect—”
“It looks like you’re a man who’s got more than his fair share of enemies, Mr.—Stormont,” the taller of the residents commented, stepping forward.
“Meaning?” Dusty asked and, in keeping with the character he was playing, his attitude had taken on more than a hint of a challenge.
“From what I’ve heard,” the man replied, showing no sign of being perturbed by the threatening tone and posture. “This isn’t the first time you’ve killed men in Corpus Christie.”
