He was licking his thumb and flapping through the pages of his notebook fast, like they were red-hot. I was looking at Brigid. She looked straight at me, gave a long, slow wink with one eye, shook her head and shuddered.
If it had been a saucy wink, or even a cute wink I don’t know what I’d have done. It was not. The only thing I can say about that wink is, that if the kid had raised her finger and poked her eye out instead of shutting it I couldn’t have been much more horrified. It was a ghastly, awful, horrid, blood-freezing wink, I guess.
“Hold on, Adam,” I said. “She named Kent. He’s closer than New York. Most of these cases one person that they remember is as good as another. Phone down to Rosemary’s for him.”
Adam threw his notebook away like he was aiming it at something and picked up the telephone. I put myself between him and Brigid and stooped over her.
“Angel!” she whispered, warming my frozen blood a little. “Help me. I had to do this. Sorry, darling.
I must see Kent alone.”
“Yes, you bet. But——”
“Get Mayor Oakman away.”
Before she’d had time to say another word Adam had finished delivering his orders to Kent and was demanding, “Why is she whispering? What did she whisper? What did she say?”
“I can’t understand her,” I said. “See if you can.” He leaned over her. She kept on whispering. She’s nice that way.
“Something about Italy, I think,” he said, sighed despairingly, took out his watch and dropped it into his pocket again without opening it. “I telephoned hours ago,” he went on, “for the boys and the Doctor. Why aren’t they here? Why? Why should they take this time to dawdle?”
“You couldn’t possibly have telephoned hours ago,”
I said.
“I did telephone hours ago,” he said. “I cannot understand this propensity of yours for contradicting or denying every statement on any subject that I chance to make. I telephoned hours ago.”
I didn’t answer. I was wondering whether I should go to meet Kent and tip him off about Brigid, or whether he’d do better as long as Adam stuck around, without the tip.
Just as I’d decided that ignorance never helped anybody, I heard him coming in the kitchen door; so I went to meet him. Adam came, too, nearly stepping on my heels.
“Where have you been all this time since I phoned you?” Adam said, stopping in the doorway so that he could keep an eye on Brigid.
“Walking up here,” Kent said. “Acrasia had gone to the shelter, so I had to walk—”
“Get your mind off horses,” Adam said.
“What is the matter with Brigid?” Kent asked.
“Don’t talk so loud!” Adam said, and went on explaining in murmurs to Kent how she had had a bad shock and come out of it minus her memory, but that she had asked for him, so he must do the best he could; adding, in some detail, my experiences with similar cases during the Spanish-American War.
Kent cocked his ear and gave me kind of a funny look, but all he said was, “Yes; though what could have shocked or frightened Brigid to this extent? Rosemary says that nothing has happened here this morning. Except that she found this roll of bills on her table. I’ll return them to you now, Dad. She didn’t care to ride away on Acrasia, even with two thousand dollars. Sorry to disappoint you. Count them, please, if you don’t mind.”
Adam just stood there for a minute, looking sheepish and a little old and bent. Kent changed his tune.
“This isn’t like you, Dad. You are usually fair. I wish you’d be fair with Rosemary and believe her——”
“Damn it all,” Adam said, tossing the roll of bills on the table like it was turnips. “I do believe her. But if she’d had her share of common sense she’d have gone away when I gave her a chance to go. I couldn’t have done her a bigger favor, or you either.”
I tried changing the subject before Kent got sore again. “Brigid is looking out of the window now,” I said. “I’ll bet she’ll be fine before long.”
Somebody knocked kind of timidly on the back door. Kent opened it, and Doc Sprague came into the kitchen.
We all knew right away, I think, that something was all wrong. The Doc’s knock had been queer. The way he came in was queer. And he looked all broken up as he went over to Adam and put a hand on his arm.
“Old friend,” he said, in that nice grave voice of his, “I’m bringing you bad news. I wish I could soften the blow, but I don’t know how. Your daughter. The boys found her about a quarter of a mile away from here on the desert.”
“Dead?” Adam asked.
“Yes,” the old Doc answered, very sad.
Adam waited a minute, and then he didn’t sound like himself when he said, “Murdered?”
“Yes,” the Doc said.
Chapter XXIV
Kent went over and stood beside Adam. I guess he didn’t know anything else to do, or what to say. I didn’t.
“She is in my car, now,” Doc said. “I wanted to come in first.”
“Should we bring her in here?” Adam asked, very helpless-sounding. “Or—what, Son? What do you think?”
“We’ll bring her in, Dad,” Kent said. “You wait here.”
But Adam went along outside with Kent and the Doc. I walked in to where Brigid was on the sofa, still sitting up and looking out of the window. I knew she hadn’t heard, but that was all I did know.
“Brigid,” I said, and I had no just call for being cross to her, so I don’t know why I was, “get off that sofa. It’s the nicest one. Help me get it straightened around. They’ll want it for Betty-Jean.”
“Is Betty-Jean ill?” she asked, but absentmindedly, as she stood up. “Listen, Jeff, I must tell you——”
Set me down for a brute and a fool, both and worse, if there is worse, which there isn’t. “Wait,” I said. “I want to tell you something first. I guess you don’t know it. I hope to my soul you don’t. Betty-Jean is dead. She has been murdered.”
I had never believed, much, that people did those queer, jerking things with their hands and arms, or that their faces could change in a second into looking like crazy faces, until I saw Brigid right then. I had never heard anything half as terrible as that long hurt sound she made before she began, almost screaming, “Not Betty-Jean. No. No. Not Betty-Jean. No. No. No——”
She brought me to my senses fast. I took hold of her hands so she’d stop pounding them like that. “Brigid, honey,” I begged. “I’m sorry. I’m awful sorry. Please listen to me. They’re bringing Betty-Jean in here now. Adam’s all broken up. Everybody is. You can’t act like this. It will make everything worse. For the love of Heaven—— For the love of your papa who is so awful proud of you, always, quiet down before the folks come in.”
She nodded. I got her into a chair. She folded her arms over her face, crying but making hardly any noise.
I was glad that she kept her arms over her face when Adam came carrying Betty-Jean in like he would have carried a baby, she was such a little thing. He put her down on the sofa. The Doc had got a sheet from somewhere and he covered her up the minute Adam put her down.
Ernie and Mac had come in, too, and were standing hanging their heads and fiddling with their hats; but their shoes made a noise even standing still.
Adam looked over at Brigid, “Poor child,” he said. Kent eased him down into a chair. The Doc went to Brigid and I could hear him trying to soothe her in his nice grave way.
Maybe it wasn’t long, but it seemed long before Adam asked the boys, “Where did you find her?”
Ernie never was any hand for talking, so Mac had to answer. “In a gully, about a quarter of a mile or less from here. Riding down the mountain I saw something white over there. We’d been searching the deserts, you know, or I hardly think I’d have noticed it. I said to Ernie that we’d better take a look. I was thinking of the other folks who were missing from here.”
“Did you find a revolver over there? Did you look for one?” Adam asked.
�
�We looked,” Mac answered. “But we didn’t find anything.” He was so embarrassed that the old Doc helped him out.
“She wasn’t shot, Mayor Oakman,” he said.
“What killed her, then?” Adam asked. “I mean to say, how was she murdered?”
The Doc looked the other way for a minute and then back at Adam. “I think,” he said, “that we might go into that a little later, after you’ve rested—”
“Rested?” Adam said very quietly, but like he couldn’t believe his ears. “My daughter is dead. I want to know how she met her death, and when.”
“When,” the Doc said, still trying to put Adam off, “I don’t know. I haven’t any particular knowledge about that sort of thing. Within the past two or three hours, I should think. Perhaps Joe Laud could tell a little more definitely.”
Adam said, “Some one telephone for Joe,” and Kent went to the phone.
“Doctor Sprague,” Adam said next, “was my daughter a suicide? Is that it?”
“Not the least possibility of such a thing,” the Doc said, and gave up despairingly. “The cause of her death was primary cerebral hemorrhage, induced by a severe blow on the head. An instantaneous, merciful death, old friend.”
“You’d tell me that, I know,” Adam said, and went right on as if he was trying to reason things out. “But why was she there? What was she doing out on the desert a quarter of a mile away from camp?”
Nobody answered. After quite a while Mac spoke up, very nice and polite. “Pardon me, but I was wondering if somebody might have told her there was something out there for her to see, or get, or something, and lured her over there?”
“‘Lured?’” Adam said, puzzled, like he’d never heard the word before in his life.
“The old Judge,” I said, kind of thinking out loud and meaning that if someone had told Betty-Jean that the old Judge was out there, either living or dead, she’d have gone to see, as I knew she would.
“No,” Adam said. I don’t know what he thought I’d meant. “But this explains Brigid’s fright and shock, the poor child——”
“Brigid,” I begged, putting my very heart and soul into it, “can’t you please remember what happened to give you a shock?”
She shook her head but didn’t raise it from her arms. I didn’t know what to think of her. I knew she aimed to be a good girl and usually was. I didn’t think anything. I wouldn’t let myself think. I listened to Adam.
“It is possible,” he said, “that she was killed right here on the place and carried out there afterward.”
Mac said, “We figured it that way. Her white shoes weren’t scuffed up for walking that far over the rocks. She’s as light as a feather.”
“Yes,” Adam answered. “And she wouldn’t have been walking out on the desert. It must have been done here on the place. Brigid must have seen it. God send that the poor child may be able to help us later. In the meantime, Jeff, please find Rosemary and bring her here. Mac and Ernie, I want you to look around for Reggie Duefife and bring him here.”
We all started for the door on our tiptoes. Kent came along with us. Adam said, “Son, I’d like to have you stay here with me.”
I’d have thought better of the boy if he had minded at a time like that; but, “I’m sorry, Dad,” he said. “I have to tell Rosemary. Jeff can stay with you. I’ll hurry.”
“Very well,” Adam answered. “If you will, Doctor, you had better go with Kent. Another shock for the girl, you know.”
They all went then, and Adam and Brigid and I were alone except for Betty-Jean there. Adam pulled himself up and went over and turned back the sheet that was covering her. I went to Brigid. She had stopped crying and was sitting there stooped over with her face still hidden in her arms, catching her breath once in a while.
After a minute Adam said, “Don’t bother her, Jeff. Tears are good for women.”
I hadn’t been bothering her. I’d just been smoothing her hair down a little; but I didn’t say anything. She took one of my hands—she’s nice that way.
Doc Sprague and Kent must have used one of the cars, for they were back in faster than walking time. Brigid dropped my hand and waved me off a little when she heard them coming. I found myself a chair. Adam had put the sheet in place and was sitting down again. He didn’t move when they came in.
Rosemary stepped away from Kent and walked straight to Adam. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I am so sorry, Uncle Adam.”
He pointed at a chair, meaning for her to sit down there and she did.
“Kent tells me,” he said, “that you say nothing out of the ordinary happened here at camp after we left this morning.”
“I didn’t know that anything had happened,” she answered.
Just then the boys came walking in with Reggie—just walking, nothing official about it. Reggie was crying a little, taking the tears out of his eyes with one finger and one at a time like the girls do in the moving pictures.
“He was asleep out here between the houses,” Mac said.
“Reggie,” Adam began, before Reggie had had time to offer a word, “when I came in this afternoon you told me that Betty-Jean was all right. Now——”
“She was all right,” Reggie broke in. “The last time I saw her she was all right.”
“But when was that?” Adam asked.
“Oh, dear me,” Reggie said. “I don’t know exactly. It was quite a while after breakfast and long before lunch. I didn’t look at my watch. I never even thought of looking. Maybe it was about eleven o’clock.”
“Reggie,” Adam said, sounding only very tired, “do you mean to admit that you reassured me about my daughter when you hadn’t seen her after this shooting that you say you heard?”
“I did hear shooting,” Reggie said. “I heard shooting. But when you came in carrying Brigid and yelling at me about Betty-Jean I just naturally wanted to calm you down. I thought she was all right. Oh, my, of course I thought she was all right. Who in the world could think of anyone’s shooting Betty-Jean? She was so pretty, and good, and——”
“If you please, Reggie,” Adam stopped him. “About this shooting that you say you heard here before twelve——”
“All over the place,” Reggie said. “Exactly five minutes before twelve noon.”
“And you, Rosemary, didn’t hear anything of the sort?” Adam asked.
“I wasn’t here at noon,” Rosemary answered. “I went for a ride on Acrasia. I left shortly after ten o’clock. I didn’t return until one.”
Right then Kent made a big mistake by speaking without thinking. “But, Rosemary,” he said, sounding surprised, “you didn’t tell me that you’d been away from camp almost all morning. You said that nothing had happened here.”
I knew he didn’t mean to make trouble, or contradict or bother her, but it hadn’t sounded just right. I was so embarrassed I didn’t know where to look. I happened to look at Brigid. I wished I hadn’t.
She had her nose stuck up so high that the crown of her head was in line with the back of her chair, and the expression on her face, I thought, boded evil. It was far from a wholesome expression. It was very superior, as if she wouldn’t turn the whole kit and caboodle of us over with the toe of her shoe. Also, there was something do-or-die about it, with quite a pinch of malice.
Chapter XXV
“I’m sorry,” Rosemary answered, “but you didn’t ask me, Kent. When you came in you were frightened because Brigid had said that I was in danger. I told you that she must be mistaken, because nothing had happened at all. You didn’t tell me that Reggie had heard shooting here at noon.”
“I didn’t know it,” Kent said.
“Neither did I,” she answered. “And so I didn’t think of mentioning, when you first came, that I had been riding. It seemed unimportant. We were talking of other things, you know. And then Uncle Adam telephoned for you.”
“Just a minute,” Adam said. “Your story, as we have it now, is that you went for a ride at ten o’clock and didn’t return u
ntil one. And yet you knew that Jeff was coming to take you all to Hay Patch.”
“I left word with Reggie,” she said, “to tell Jeff that my bag was in my cottage. I was going to ride to Hay Patch on Acrasia. She hates being led.”
“I see. And where did you go on this three-hour ride of yours?”
“Out across the deserts, where I always go.”
Reggie took his face out of his handkerchief and said, “The last I saw of her she was riding, hard, bare-back, too, straight out toward the White Cracker Mountains.”
Adam’s next question to Rosemary was a little nicer-sounding. “You rode out across the deserts and returned at one o’clock. Then what did you do?”
“I went straight to my cottage. The camp seemed deserted, so I supposed that Jeff had come for the others. My bag was in my sitting room, but I thought that Reggie had forgotten to mention it to Jeff.”
“That would be probable, wouldn’t it?” Reggie piped out.
“Very probable,” Adam said, and went on talking to Rosemary. “Did you close the gate, after you came in?”
“Yes, I did. But it was so warm that I remounted Acrasia and rode to my back door.”
“The gate was wide open when I drove in,” Adam said, and thought a second. “Brigid may have left it open. She couldn’t have walked that four miles from the mountain and got into camp until after one o’clock.” Leaving gates open wasn’t like Brigid. I hoped she’d say she hadn’t, that she had opened it again when she heard the car coming; but she didn’t say a word. I kind of glanced at her and then I thought I’d as well not say anything either.
“Yes,” Rosemary was answering Adam’s question that I’d missed in part. “I was hot and dusty and rather tired, so I thought I’d rest an hour or so before riding on to Hay Patch. Acrasia needed a rest, too. I took a shower, ate some bread and milk and lay down on the bed in my bedroom.”
“Have a good nap?” Adam asked, getting meaner again all of a sudden, I don’t know why.
The Desert Lake Mystery Page 15
