The Breaking Point

by Mary Roberts Rinehart

  XIX

  Louis Bassett, when he started to the old Livingstone ranch, nowthe Wasson place, was carefully turning over in his mind David'sparticipation in the escape of Judson Clark. Certain phases of it werequite clear, provided one accepted the fact that, following a heavysnowfall, an Easterner and a tenderfoot had gone into the mountainsalone, under conditions which had caused the posse after Judson Clark toturn back and give him up for dead.

  Had Donaldson sent him there, knowing he was a medical man? If he had,would Maggie Donaldson not have said so? She had said "a man outsidethat she had at first thought was a member of the searching party."Evidently, then, Donaldson had not prepared her to expect medicalassistance.

  Take the other angle. Say David Livingstone had not been sent for. Sayhe knew nothing of the cabin or its occupants until he stumbled on them.He had sold the ranch, distributed his brother's books, and apparentlythe townspeople at Dry River believed that he had gone back home.Then what had taken him, clearly alone and having certainly given theimpression of a departure for the East, into the mountains? To hunt? Tohunt what, that he went about it secretly and alone?

  Bassett was inclined to the Donaldson theory, finally. John Donaldsonwould have been wanting a doctor, and not wanting one from Norada. Hemight have heard of this Eastern medical man at Dry River, have gone tohim with his story, even have taken him part of the way. The situationwas one that would have a certain appeal. It was possible, anyhow:

  But instead of clarifying the situation Bassett's visit at theWasson place brought forward new elements which fitted neither of thehypotheses in his mind.

  To Wasson himself, whom he met on horseback on the road into the ranch,he gave the same explanation he had given to the store-keeper's wife.Wasson was a tall man in chaps and a Stetson, and he was courteouslyinterested.

  "Bill and Jake are still here," he said. "They're probably in for dinnernow, and I'll see you get a chance to talk to them. I took them overwith the ranch. Property, you say? Well, I hope it's better land than hehad here."

  He turned his horse and rode beside the car to the house.

  "Comes a little late to do Henry Livingstone much good," he said. "He'sbeen lying in the Dry River graveyard for about ten years. Not muchmourned either. He was about as close-mouthed and uncompanionable asthey make them."

  The description Wasson had applied to Henry Livingstone, Bassett himselfapplied to the two ranch hands later on, during their interview. Itcould hardly have been called an interview at all, indeed, and after atime Bassett realized that behind their taciturnity was suspicion. Theywere watching him, undoubtedly; he rather thought, when he looked away,that once or twice they exchanged glances. He was certain, too, thatWasson himself was puzzled.

  "Speak up, Jake," he said once, irritably. "This gentleman has come along way. It's a matter of some property."

  "What sort of property?" Jake demanded. Jake was the spokesman of thetwo.

  "That's not important," Bassett observed, easily. "What we want to knowis if Henry Livingstone had any family."

  "He had a brother."

  "No one else?"

  "Then it's up to me to trail the brother," Bassett observed. "Either ofyou remember where he lived?"

  "Somewhere in the East."

  Bassett laughed.

  "That's a trifle vague," he commented good-humoredly. "Didn't you boysever mail any letters for him?"

  He was certain again that they exchanged glances, but they continuedto present an unbroken front of ignorance. Wasson was divided betweenirritation and amusement.

  "What'd I tell you?" he asked. "Like master like man. I've been here tenyears, and I've never got a word about the Livingstones out of either ofthem."

  "I'm a patient man." Bassett grinned. "I suppose you'll admit that oneof you drove David Livingstone to the train, and that you had a fairidea then of where he was going?"

  He looked directly at Jake, but Jake's face was a solid mask. He made noreply whatever.

  From that moment on Bassett was certain that David had not been drivenaway from the ranch at all. What he did not know, and was in no way tofind out, was whether the two ranch hands knew that he had gone into themountains, or why. He surmised back of their taciturnity a small mysteryof their own, and perhaps a fear. Possibly David's going was as much apuzzle to them as to him. Conceivably, during the hours together on therange, or during the winter snows, for ten years they had wrangled andargued over a disappearance as mysterious in its way as Judson Clark's.

  He gave up at last, having learned certain unimportant facts: that therecluse had led a lonely life; that he had never tried to make the placemore than carry itself; that he was a student, and that he had no otherpeculiarities.

  "Did he ever say anything that would lead you to believe that he had anyfamily, outside of his brother and sister? That is, any direct heir?"Bassett asked.

  "He never talked about himself," said Jake. "If that's all, Mr. Wasson,I've got a steer bogged down in the north pasture and I'll be going."

  On the Wassons' invitation he remained to lunch, and when the ranchowner excused himself and rode away after the meal he sat for sometime on the verandah, with Mrs. Wasson sewing and his own eyes fixedspeculatively on the mountain range, close, bleak and mysterious.

  "Strange thing," he commented. "Here's a man, a book-lover and student,who comes out here, not to make living and be a useful member of thecommunity, but apparently to bury himself alive. I wonder, why."

  "A great many come out here to get away from something, Mr. Bassett."

  "Yes, to start again. But this man never started again. He apparentlyjust quit."

  Mrs. Wasson put down her sewing and looked at him thoughtfully.

  "Did the boys tell you anything about the young man who visited HenryLivingstone now and then?"

  "No. They were not very communicative."

  "I suppose they wouldn't tell. Yet I don't see, unless--" She stopped,lost in some field of speculation where he could not follow her. "Youknow, we haven't much excitement here, and when this boy was first seenaround the place--he was here mostly in the summer--we decided that hewas a relative. I don't know why we considered him mysterious, unlessit was because he was hardly ever seen. I don't even know that that wasdeliberate. For that matter Mr. Livingstone wasn't much more than a nameto us."

  "You mean, a son?"

  "Nobody knew. He was here only now and then."

  Bassett moved in his chair and looked at her.

  "How old do you suppose this boy was?" he asked.

  "He was here at different times. When Mr. Livingstone died I suppose hewas in his twenties. The thing that makes it seem odd to me is that themen didn't mention him to you."

  "I didn't ask about him, of course."

  She went on with her sewing, apparently intending to drop the matter;but the reporter felt that now and then she was subjecting him to asharp scrutiny, and that, in some shrewd woman-fashion, she was tryingto place him.

  "You said it was a matter of some property?"

  "Yes."

  "But it's rather late, isn't it? Ten years?"

  "That's what makes it difficult."

  There was another silence, during which she evidently made her decision.

  "I have never said this before, except to Mr. Wasson. But I believe hewas here when Henry Livingstone died."

  Her tone was mysterious, and Bassett stared at her.

  "You don't think Livingstone was murdered!"

  "No. He died of heart failure. There was an autopsy. But he had a badcut on his head. Of course, he may have fallen--Bill and Jake were away.They'd driven some cattle out on the range. It was two days before hewas found, and it would have been longer if Mr. Wasson hadn't ridden outto talk to him about buying. He found him dead in his bed, but there wasblood on the floor in the next room. I washed it up myself."

  "Of course," she added, when Bassett maintained a puzzled silence, "Imay be all wrong. He might have fallen in the next room and draggedhimself
to bed. But he was very neatly covered up."

  "It's your idea, then, that this boy put him into the bed?"

  "I don't know. He wasn't seen about the place. He's never been heresince. But the posse found a horse with the Livingstone brand, saddled,dead in Dry River Canyon when it was looking for Judson Clark. Ofcourse, that was a month later. The men here, Bill and Jake, claimed ithad wandered off, but I've often wondered."

  After a time Bassett got up and took his leave. He was confused andirritated. Here, whether creditably or not, was Dick Livingstoneaccounted for. There was a story there, probably, but not the story hewas after. This unknown had been at the ranch when Henry Livingstonedied, had perhaps been indirectly responsible for his death. He had,witness the horse, fled after the thing happened. Later on, then, DavidLivingstone had taken him into his family. That was all.

  Except for that identification of Gregory's, and for the photograph ofJudson Clark.... For a moment he wondered if the two, Jud Clark and theunknown, could be the same. But Dry River would have known Clark. Thatcouldn't be.

  He almost ditched the car on his way back to Norada, so deeply was heengrossed in thought.