The Collected Westerns of William MacLeod Raine: 21 Novels in One Volume

by Unknown

  "Mind if I keep these?" Curly asked.

  "Take 'em along."

  Flandrau walked out to the grandstand at the fair grounds and sat down by himself there to think out what connection, if any, these singular warnings might have with the vanishing of Cullison or the robbery of the W. & S. He wasted three precious hours without any result. Dusk was falling before he returned.

  "Guess I'll take them to my little partner and give her a whack at the puzzle," he decided.

  Curly strolled back to town along El Molino street and down Main. He had just crossed the old Spanish plaza when his absorbed gaze fell on a sign that brought him up short. In front of a cigar store stretched across the sidewalk a painted picture of a jack of hearts. The same name was on the window.

  Fifty yards behind him was the Silver Dollar saloon, where Luck Cullison had last been seen on his way to the Del Mar one hundred and fifty yards in front of him. Somewhere within that distance of two hundred yards the owner of the Circle C had vanished from the sight of men. The evidence showed he had not reached the hotel, for a cattle buyer had been waiting there to talk with him. His testimony, as well as that of the hotel clerk, was positive.

  Could this little store, the Jack of Hearts, be the central point of the mystery? In his search for information Curly had already been in it, had bought a cigar, and had stopped to talk with Mrs. Wylie, the proprietor. She was a washed-out little woman who had once been pretty. Habitually she wore a depressed, hopeless look, the air of pathetic timidity that comes to some women who have found life too hard for them. It had been easy to alarm her. His first question had evidently set her heart a-flutter, but Flandrau had reassured her cheerfully. She had protested with absurd earnestness that she had seen nothing of Mr. Cullison. A single glance had been enough to dismiss her from any possible suspicion.

  Now Curly stepped in a second time. The frightened gaze of Mrs. Wylie fastened upon him instantly. He observed that her hand moved instinctively to her heart. Beyond question she was in fear. A flash of light clarified his mind. She was a conspirator, but an unwilling one. Possibly she might be the author of the anonymous warnings sent Bolt.

  The young vaquero subscribed for a magazine and paid her the money. Tremblingly she filled out the receipt. He glanced at the slip and handed it back.

  "Just write below the signature 'of the Jack of Hearts,' so that I'll remember where I paid the money if the magazine doesn't come," he suggested.

  She did so, and Curly put the receipt in his pocket carelessly. He sauntered leisurely to the hotel, but as soon as he could get into a telephone booth his listlessness vanished. Maloney had returned to town and he telephoned him to get Mackenzie at once and watch the Jack of Hearts in front and rear. Before he left the booth Curly had compared the writing of Mrs. Wylie with that on the sheet that had come by special delivery. The loop of the J's, the shape of the K's, the formation of the capital H in both cases were alike. So too was the general lack of character common to both, the peculiar hesitating drag of the letters. Beyond question the same person had written both.

  Certainly Mrs. Wylie was not warning the sheriff against herself. Then against whom? He must know her antecedents, and at once. There was no time for him to mole them out himself. Calling up a local detective agency, he asked the manager to let him know within an hour or two all that could be found out about the woman without alarming her.

  "Wait a moment I think we have her on file. Hold the 'phone." The detective presently returned. "Yes. We can give you the facts. Will you come to the office for them?"

  Fifteen minutes later Curly knew that Mrs. Wylie was the divorced wife of Lute Blackwell. She had come to Saguache from the mountains several years before. Soon after there had been an inconspicuous notice in the Sentinel to the effect that Cora Blackwell was suing for divorce from Lute Blackwell, then a prisoner in the penitentiary at Yuma. Another news item followed a week later stating that the divorce had been granted together with the right to use her maiden name. Unobtrusively she had started her little store. Her former husband, paroled from the penitentiary a few months before the rustling episode, had at intervals made of her shop a loafing place since that time.

  Curly returned to the Del Mar and sent his name up to Miss Cullison. With Kate and Bob there was also in the room Alec Flandrau.

  The girl came forward lightly to meet him with the lance-straight poise that always seemed to him to express a brave spirit ardent and unafraid.

  "Have you heard something?" she asked quickly.

  "Yes. Tell me, when did your father last meet Lute Blackwell so far as you know?"

  "I don't know. Not for years, I think. Why?"

  The owner of the Map of Texas answered the question of his nephew. "He met him the other day. Let's see. It was right after the big poker game. We met him downstairs here. Luck had to straighten out some notions he had got."

  "How?"

  Flandrau, Senior, told the story of what had occurred in the hotel lobby.

  "And you say he swore to get even?"

  "That's what he said. And he looked like he meant it too."

  "What is it? What have you found out?" Kate implored.

  The young man told about the letters and Mrs. Wylie.

  "We've got to get a move on us," he concluded. "For if Lute Blackwell did this thing to your father it's mighty serious for him."

  Kate was white to the lips, but in no danger of breaking down. "Yes, if this man is in it he would not stop at less than murder. But I don't believe it. I know Father is alive. Cass Fendrick is the man we want. I'm sure of it."

  Curly had before seen women hard as nails, gaunt strong mountaineers as tough as hickory withes. But he had never before seen that quality dwelling in a slim girlish figure of long soft curves, never seen it in a face of dewy freshness that could melt to the tenderest pity. She was like flint, and yet she could give herself with a passionate tenderness to those she loved. He had seen animals guard their young with that same alert eager abandon. His conviction was that she would gladly die for her father if it were necessary. As he looked at her with hard unchanging eyes, his blood quickened to a fierce joy in her it had known for no other woman.

  "First thing is to search the Jack of Hearts and see what's there. Are you with me, Uncle Alec?"

  "I sure am, Curly;" and he reached for his hat.

  Bob too was on his feet. "I'm going. You needn't any of you say I ain't, for I am."

  Curly nodded. "If you'll do as you're told, Bob."

  "I will. Cross my heart."

  "May I come too?" Kate pleaded.

  She was a strongwilled impulsive young woman, and her deference to Curly flattered him; but he shook his head none the less.

  "No. You may wait in the parlor downstairs and I'll send Bob to you with any news. There's just a chance this may be a man's job and we want to go to it unhampered." He turned at the door with his warm smile. "By the way, I've got some news I forgot. I know where your father got the money to pay his poker debts. Mr. Jordan of the Cattlemen's National made him a personal loan. He figured it would not hurt the bank because the three men Luck paid it to would deposit it with the bank again."

  "By George, that's what we did, too, every last one of us," his uncle admitted.

  "Every little helps," Kate said; and her little double nod thanked Curly.

  The young man stopped a moment after the others had gone. "I'm not going to let Bob get into danger," he promised.

  "I knew you wouldn't," was her confident answer.

  At the corner of the plaza Curly gave Bob instructions.

  "You stay here and keep an eye on everyone that passes. Don't try to stop anybody. Just size them up."

  "Ain't I to go with you? I got a gun."

  "You're to do as I say. What kind of a soldier would you make if you can't obey orders? I'm running this. If you don't like it trot along home."

  "Oh, I'll stay," agreed the crestfallen youth.

  Maloney met them in front of the Ja
ck of Hearts.

  "Dick, you go with me inside. Uncle Alec, will you keep guard outside?"

  "No, bub, I won't. I knew Luck before you were walking bowlegged," the old cattleman answered brusquely.

  Curly grinned. "All right. Don't blame me if you get shot up."

  Mrs. Wylie's startled eyes told tales when she saw the three men. Her face was ashen.

  "I'm here to play trumps, Mrs. Wylie. What secret has the Jack of Hearts got hidden from us?" young Flandrau demanded, his hard eyes fastened to her timorous ones.

  "I--I--I don't know what you mean."

  "No use. We're here for business. Dick, you stay with her. Don't let her leave or shout a warning."

  He passed into the back room, which was a kind of combination living room, kitchen and bedroom. A door led from the rear into a back yard littered with empty packing cases, garbage cans and waste paper. After taking a look around the yard he locked the back door noiselessly. There was no other apparent exit from the kitchen-bedroom except the one by which he and his uncle had entered from the shop. But he knew the place must have a cellar, and his inspection of the yard had showed no entrance there. He drew back the Navajo rug that covered the floor and found one of the old-fashioned trap doors some cheap houses have. Into this was fitted an iron ring with which to lift it.

  From the darkness below came no sound, but Curly's imagination conceived the place as full of shining eyes glaring up at him. Any bad men down there already had the drop on them. Therefore neither Curly nor his uncle made the mistake of drawing a weapon.

  "I'm coming down, boys," young Flandrau announced in a quiet confident voice. "The place is surrounded by our friends and it won't do you a whole lot of good to shoot me up. I'd advise you not to be too impulsive"

  He descended the steps, his face like a stone wall for all the emotion it recorded. At his heels came the older man. Curly struck a match, found an electric bulb above his head, and turned the button. Instantly the darkness was driven from the cellar.

  The two Flandraus were quite alone in the room. For furniture there was a table, a cot which had been slept in and not made up, and a couple of rough chairs. The place had no windows, no means of ventilation except through the trap door. Yet there were evidences to show that it had recently been inhabited. Half smoked cigars littered the floor. A pack of cards lay in disorder on the table. The Sentinel with date line of that day lay tossed in a corner.

  The room told Curly this at least: There had been a prisoner here with a guard or guards. Judging by the newspaper they had been here within a few hours. The time of sending the special delivery letter made this the more probable. He had missed the men he wanted by a very little time. If he had had the gumption to understand the hints given by the letters Cullison might now be eating supper with his family at the hotel.

  "Make anything out of it?" the older Flandrau asked.

  "He's been here, but they've taken him away. Will you cover the telephoning? Have all the ranches notified that Luck is being taken into the hills so they can picket the trails."

  "How do you know he is being taken there?"

  "I don't know. I guess. Blackwell is in it. He knows every nook of the hills. The party left here not two hours since, looks like."

  Curly put the newspaper in his pocket and led the Way back to the store.

  "The birds have flown, Dick, Made their getaway through the alley late this afternoon, probably just after it got dark." He turned to the woman. "Mrs. Wylie, murder is going to be done, I shouldn't wonder. And you're liable to be held guilty of it unless you tell us all you know."

  She began to weep, helplessly, but with a sort of stubbornness too. Frightened she certainly was, but some greater fear held her silent as to the secret. "I don't know anything about it," she repeated over and over.

  "Won't do. You've got to speak. A man's life hangs on it."

  But his resolution could not break hers, incomparably stronger than she though he was. Her conscience had driven her to send veiled warnings to the sheriff. But for very fear of her life she dared not commit herself openly.

  Maloney had an inspiration. He spoke in a low voice to Curly. "Let's take her to the hotel. Miss Kate will know how to get it out of her better than we can."

  Mrs. Wylie went with them quietly enough. She was shaken with fears but still resolute not to speak. They might send her to prison. She would tell them nothing--nothing at all. For someone who had made terror the habit of her life had put the fear of death into her soul.

  CHAPTER VIII

  A MESSAGE IN CIPHER

  While Kate listened to what Curly had to tell her the dark eyes of the girl were fastened upon the trembling little woman standing near the door.

  "Do you mean that she is going to let my father be killed rather than tell what she knows?" Her voice was sharply incredulous, touched with a horror scarcely realized.

  "So she says."

  Mrs. Wylie wrung her hands in agitation. Her lined face was a mirror of distress.

  "But that's impossible. She must tell. What has Father ever done to hurt her?"

  "I--I don't know anything about it," the harassed woman iterated.

  "What's the use of saying that when we know you do? And you'll not get out of it by sobbing. You've got to talk."

  Kate had not moved. None the less her force, the upblaze of feminine energy in her, crowded the little storekeeper to the wall. "You've got to tell--you've just got to," she insisted.

  The little woman shrank before the energy of a passion so vital. No strength was in her to fight. But she could and did offer the passive resistance of obstinate silence.

  Curly had drawn from his pocket the newspaper found in the cellar. His eyes had searched for the date line to use as cumulative evidence, but they had remained fastened to one story. Now he spoke imperatively.

  "Come here, Miss Kate."

  She was beside him in an instant. "What is it?"

  "I'm not sure yet, but---- Look here. I believe this is a message to us."

  "A message?"

  "From your father perhaps."

  "How could it be?"

  "I found the paper in the cellar where he was. See how some of these words are scored. Done with a finger nail, looks like."

  "But how could he know we would see the paper, and if we did see it would understand?"

  "He couldn't. It would be one chance in a million, but all his life he's been taking chances. This couldn't do any harm."

  Her dark head bent beside his fair one with the crisp sun-reddened curls.

  "I don't see any message. Where is it?"

  "I don't see it myself--not much of it. Gimme time."

  This was the paragraph upon which his gaze had fastened, and the words and letters were scored sharply as shown below, though in the case of single letters the mark ran through them instead of underneath, evidently that no mistake might be made as to which was meant.

  J. P. Kelley of the ranger force reports

  over the telephone that by unexpected good

  luck he has succeeded in taking prisoner ---- -------- the notorious Jack Foster of Hermosilla ---- -- -- - and the Rincons notoriety and is now - - - --- bringing him to Saguache where he will be -------- locked up pending a disposition of his case. ------------------------------------------- Kelley succeeded in surprising him while --------------------------- he was eating dinner at a Mexican road-house

  just this side of the border.

  "Do you make it out?" Maloney asked, looking over their shoulders.

  Curly took a pencil and an envelope from his pocket. On the latter he jotted down some words and handed the paper to his friend. This was what Maloney read:

  ........................................ .......................................... luck............................prisoner the notorious Jack Foster of Hermosilla ..............Jack........of.He.......a ........R.........t............s.now ................Saguache................. locked up pending a disposition of his case. .
......succeeded in surprising him...... ............................................ .............................

  "Read that right ahead."

  Dick did not quite get the idea, but Kate, tense with excitement, took the envelope and read aloud.

  "Luck----prisoner----Jack of Hearts----now Saguache----locked up pending a disposition of his case----succeeded in surprising him." She looked up with shining eyes. "He tells us everything but the names of the people who did it. Perhaps somewhere else in the paper he may tell that too."

  But though they went over it word for word they found no more. Either he had been interrupted, or he had been afraid that his casual thumb nail pressures might arouse the suspicion of his guards if persisted in too long.