“We can guess when,” the Chief said. “In the last half hour.” His eyes were on the two men now. “But why—” He left that unsaid, his manner bluntly stating it was none of their business.
“That’s rotten,” Myra said. She strode across the room and went to the bar. “The poor kid; what did she ever do to anybody?”
“Saw too much,” Mark said quietly.
Myra’s fingers, he noticed, shook a little as she splashed whiskey into a glass and then shot in seltzer. Her face was away from him; he wished he could see it, and wondered whether it would show him anything.
“Mix me one, Myra,” Farman requested a little thickly.
The Chief turned on his heel. “I’d like to see you upstairs later, Miss Cartwright, huh?”
“Surely,” she said. “Any time. Is there anything I can do now?”
“Not a thing,” Mark assured her. He followed the Chief’s lumbering figure up the stairs. At the head, the Chief turned down the hall toward the library.
He said, “I questioned Grant and the Taylor dame this afternoon.”
“Get much?”
The Chief grunted. “What do you think?” He pushed into the library without knocking.
Frank Manders was there, seated behind the Major’s desk, working on some papers spread before him. He raised his eyes when they came in. “What’s up now?” he asked coolly. He might have been expecting them.
The Chief lowered himself lugubriously into an easy chair. “We got to ask some more questions, Mr. Manders,” he said. “This here business is getting out of hand.”
“Yes?” Frank Manders was all polite interest, but Mark saw the tightening around his mouth and the tension on his craggy features. Manders brushed a hand through his silver-white hair and took a cigar from his outer coat pocket.
“Look,” the Chief said, “Catrina was killed a half hour ago.”
Frank Manders sucked in his breath very slowly. His fingers holding the cigar were steady. Mark saw no change of expression on his face. “That’s a shame,” he said. “What for?”
“She knew too much,” the Chief told him, taking a leaf from Mark’s book. “Now look, Mr. Manders, you might know too much, too, huh? Maybe if you’d help us, we might save a few lives instead of losing them.”
Frank Manders looked faintly amused. “I don’t think I’m in any danger.”
“Maybe not,” the Chief said. “But I think different. And there are others that ain’t out of danger. I got this thing sort of half figured out and—” He shrugged. “I guess the only thing to do then is take young Farman down and book him on suspicion.”
“That boy?” Frank Manders looked frankly surprised. “Why, in God’s name?”
“He’s got motive and he’s got opportunity,” the Chief said. “And he was dressed and his hair wet when Bayless rounded ‘em up this morning. You figure it out, Mr. Manders. I can’t sit around and let everybody get bumped off.”
“And if the boy is innocent, then what?”
“Then I’m wrong and I got to work fast. But I don’t get much help,” he complained.
The lawyer rolled a thick pencil in the fingers of one hand. His cigar lay forgotten in an ashtray. “Jealousy isn’t a strong motive. Not with a boy like Chunk, Chief. He’s hot-headed, but he doesn’t plan bizarre crimes.”
“And what is a bizarre crime?” the Chief said. “Catrina’s murder, huh?”
“I know nothing of that,” Manders said with a faintly reproving smile. “I was speaking of Link’s death. Poisoning and then putting him in a swimming pool.”
“He’s the most logical,” the Chief said.
“You’re making an ass of yourself,” Manders told him pointedly. “As executor of the Farman estate as well as my brother’s, I feel that I should protect him. I’ll do all in my power to see he isn’t harmed by publicity such as a false arrest will give him.”
The Chief took a cigar from his pocket and bit off the end. He munched it a while before speaking. “I’m checking on this Link to see what he was tied in with. You know some things, I expect, since he’s a friend of your nephew. How much did Grant owe him and all that. Them sort of things.”
Frank Manders shrugged. “Grant’s debt I know nothing about. He simply told me he owed it and that is all. You questioned him.”
“Yeah, and he said it wasn’t much. He wouldn’t tell me how much. I don’t know why.”
Mark watched Frank Manders’ face carefully. He remembered something Myra had said when he had taken her home before. “It was enough so that he wanted to sell this place,” he said quietly.
Frank Manders jerked his head toward him, but his face retained its poker mask. “Who told you that?”
“I overheard an argument,” Mark said casually. He felt elated. That shot had struck home.
“I’m sure I don’t know,” Frank Manders said. He retreated into his shell again.
“You know anything about this Link?” the Chief demanded.
“Nothing but that his father was quite wealthy off and on. He was a plunger in the market. From rags to riches and back to rags,” Frank Manders said.
“That’s it!” Mark cried. “I remember now. I thought I had seen Link somewhere before.”
The Chief turned to him. “Yeah?” His face was deceptively mild, his eyes alive with interest.
“Remember when Bull Link was killed? That was about six years ago, in New York,” Mark said. “He was taken for a ride.”
“Sounds more like a gambler than a guy playing the stock market,” the Chief observed.
“He was.” Mark’s memory was opening now, and spewing out those little details which eight years as a reporter had filled it with. “He owned two or three clubs and was in racing. There was a small scandal when it all came out. He played the market as a sideline. But it wasn’t his game.”
“We would have got all that sooner or later,” the Chief said. “We’ll get it by tomorrow from New York, huh?”
“Is that all?” Frank Manders asked. His manner implied he was quite busy, too busy to discuss this further.
“Not quite,” the Chief said. “I want to know who was the dame the Major committed suicide over.”
“I don’t think,” Frank Manders said coldly, “that the Major’s death has anything to do with this. As I said before, there is no point in raking up a scandal, Chief.”
“I think so,” the Chief said. “Now, look, we either get the answer out of you or we break the Queen down. She knows, too.” He regarded the cold face before him. “Does there got to be a half dozen more killings before you get wise to yourself?” he bellowed.
Frank Manders shrugged. “The letter was stolen from me by Link,” he said. “So you assume that he was in some way connected with the Major.” He twiddled the pencil slowly. “Link was simply a fool. He thought he could blackmail me, I suppose.” He looked squarely at the Chief. “Besides, have you considered those men who shot at Idell? Can’t you put them in this, perhaps? After all, they seemed connected with Link—assuming they suspected him of being the driver of the car.”
“Yeah, I thought of them,” the Chief said. “I got the car and I’m getting a line on ‘em. But don’t tell me a bunch of hoodlums are going to sneak in here and shoot dates full of cyanide.” He looked really angry now, Mark thought. All of his cow-like placidity was gone, and almost wrathfully he rose from the chair and glared at Frank Manders. “That letter wasn’t with Link’s stuff. His room had been tore up. Somebody was looking for it. Why? Huh? Look, this ain’t no game, Mr. Manders. This is murder, and it’s serious business. Link wanted that letter to blackmail you, you say. Why? Just so you’d keep your brother’s name out of the paper? Hooey. This is deeper than that. And I want to know who the dame was. And I will know if I got to take you and all your law and stuff it down your throat.”
Frank Manders’ rugged features were reddening under the Chief’s lashing tongue. He threw the pencil savagely onto the desk top and half rose from his seat. “H
er name is Myra Cartwright,” he said.
Chapter XVII
“NOW, Miss Cartwright, there’s a lot of things I got to know,” the Chief said. They were seated in a far corner of the living room; Mark and the Chief on a divan, Myra in a chair opposite them. She seemed quite composed, her features steady in their sharpness. Mark watched her hands. The nails were long and unpainted, and she was plucking at a little knot in the hem of her loose slack shirt.
“Such as what was I doing walking on the railroad tracks at four-thirty this morning?” she smiled.
“Yeah, that too,” the Chief said.
“I was simply taking a walk,” she said. “As I told Mark—” she inclined her head toward him with a smile—”I have a financial problem and I was trying to puzzle it out.”
“You come up here?”
“Not within a few hundred yards. I was that close to the west edge of the grove,” she said.
“Can you prove that?”
Myra laughed, a metallic laugh. “Can you prove otherwise?”
The Chief spread his hands. “Okay, if that’s the way you’re going to be.”
“But it isn’t,” she said. Her smile softened her features. “Really, I can’t prove it. I saw no one.”
“A Mexican saw you.”
“I don’t remember him,” she said. “I was engrossed in my thoughts.”
“Okay. Now, Miss Cartwright, this ain’t going no farther if it don’t mean anything to this case. But I got to know. How familiar were you with the Major?”
Myra Cartwright’s eyes widened a little, but she certainly showed no undue surprise beyond that.
“I don’t see where there is any connection,” she said. “The Major and I were close friends. Two lonesome people, Chief.”
“You didn’t advertise it.”
“Certainly not. The Major wouldn’t have desired it—neither would I.”
The Chief leaned forward. “How close, Miss Cartwright?”
Myra flushed and straightened herself. Her features became almost pointed in her anger. “I resent the insinuation,” she said.
Mark asked idly, “Does your husband know about that, Myra?”
She flashed him a look of almost intense hatred. “My husband and I have little in common with one another,” she said stiffly.
The Chief sounded surprised when he spoke, as if he hadn’t known Myra was married. Perhaps he hadn’t, Mark thought. Few people seemed to. “Where is your husband, Miss Cartwright—or Mrs.—huh?”
“In the East,” she said with almost callous disinterest.
“Yeah? What’s his name?”
“Mr. Cartwright.” Her voice was heavy with sarcasm. “I use Miss for business purposes.”
“Okay, what’s his business?”
“I don’t see—He’s a bond broker, if you must know.” Myra was frigid now. Looking at her, Mark could scarcely believe that she was the yielding, seductive woman of a few hours before. How long ago, how far away that all seemed now! “He supports you, huh?”
“He has helped me in the past,” she corrected. “However, our estrangement has reached the point—well, that’s why I was worrying over finances.” It sounded a little like a chant, as if she had committed it to memory, Mark thought.
“Okay.” The Chief leaned forward and stared closely into her sharp face. “Just what did you do to the Major that made him kill himself?”
That, Mark thought, was a bombshell. Myra’s face blanched beneath its light make-up and fear traced a trembling line across her lips. Her long, uncolored nails made a wad of her shirt hem. After a moment she recovered and relaxed a trifle. But she spoke warily. “What made you think a thing like that?”
“I heard.”
“Who told you? That cat, Leona? Or the Major’s dear brother?” Her voice was suddenly spiteful.
“Why should Leona Taylor know?” the Chief countered.
“She seems to know everything,” Myra said.
“Yeah? Well, I still want an answer.”
Myra had evidently recovered herself fully. She laughed lightly without a false note Mark could detect. “It’s absurd,” she said. “The Major and I were simply friends. That is all.” Her eyes watched both men closely. “And I understand he died quite naturally.”
“Yeah, so did a lot of people.” The Chief suddenly switched tactics, as if the whole affair bored him. “When you were walking around this morning, you didn’t see anything, huh?”
“I did not.”
“Last night maybe you got some ideas who might have killed Link.”
Myra smiled. “That isn’t very fair. Any observant person could see he was quite well hated here.”
“By who, huh?”
“By Chunk Farman,” she said. “But I doubt if he would have killed Link purely out of jealousy. Grant certainly had no love for the man. Nor any of the others. You’ll have to ask them why.” She took a package of cigarets from her shirt pocket and lit one. She was quite cool now.
“Did this Jeffers hate him too?”
“Why do you ask that?” Her voice was brittle.
“You was with him as his date, I been told. I thought maybe he said something.”
She laughed. “He did. Clint doesn’t like him. He never has. Grant, I understand, used to bring Link to the fraternity house. There was something about gambling. They all lost a bit of money. Clint claims Link was a cheater. He hates a cheater.”
“Yeah? Okay, Miss Cartwright. Thanks.” The Chief sighed lugubriously as Myra got up and walked toward the door at the far end. Idell had gracefully retired there and was evidently absorbed in a fashion magazine. “Could I speak to you, Miss Manders?”
Idell laid down her magazine and rose. “Shall I bring you a drink?”
She had been drinking a great deal these past two days, Mark realized. He accepted with a nod. The Chief said, “Beer if you got it.”
“Dad Curtis brought it back,” she said. When she reached them, she added, “The Queen is taking care of him. He’s pretty well broken up.”
“I guess he is,” the Chief agreed. “Are my men still out there?”
Idell said, “They took her away while you were downstairs. I suppose they’re about through by now.” She looked suddenly small and pathetic, and Mark had a strong desire to take her in his arms and soothe her as he would a small and worried child. “When is it all going to end?” she whispered. “There is something horrible about this place.” She shuddered. “Something so different from the way it used to be. It was all gay and happy before. Now it’s—well, it just isn’t home any more.”
Mark reached out and touched her hand where it lay on the white-clad knee of her slacks. “I hope it will be soon,” he said.
The Chief bobbed his head. “Yeah, but it won’t be any sooner’n we get things figured out. Look, Miss Manders, maybe you can help us. All this hiding things ain’t going to do no good. We can find out other ways—if we got to.”
Idell’s white face told Mark she was well aware of what the Chief was driving at. She said in a low, hoarse voice, “All right.”
“Now why was you going to marry the guy? You didn’t like him, huh?”
“I didn’t like him,” she said. “I hated him!”
“But you was going to marry him?”
“Yes.” She leaned forward, but she was seeing Mark more than the Chief. Her eyes, large and incredibly dark and beautiful, were pleading for understanding. “This is my home. This is the only real home I’ve ever known. I’ve always loved it here. I want to see our land stretching green and fertile as far as it goes. Do you understand that? I love this land like—like I love nothing else in the world.
“When I was a little girl I knew what I wanted out of life.” Her bosom was rising and falling swiftly with her emotion. “I wanted to make this ranch great. And all through school I studied the things that would make it possible. I planned and dreamed. And I’ve had to scheme!”
“And Link could stop you?” Mark asked quietl
y.
“He could have,” she said. Her lips twisted in a tight, bitter little smile. “He could have taken everything away from me.”
“And you were going to marry him to prevent that?” Mark asked; his voice sounded as if he were thinking of little Nell and the mortgage.
She evidently sensed his thoughts, for she colored. “It wasn’t that,” she said. “Not that at all. Link never said a word; I don’t think he even considered it, really. He wanted his money …” She clapped a hand to her mouth and stared at them, wide-eyed.
“I think we can guess that,” Mark said. “Go on.”
“But,” she said a little shakily, “he never spoke to me. It was Grant who told me about his debt. I couldn’t believe it at first. It was so—so huge. Why, it would have taken this from us. Taken everything but our trust funds. And even then it wouldn’t have been paid.”
“How was this debt made?” the Chief demanded.
She shook her head. “Grant never told me fully.” She tried to smile, but it was a poor effort. “I suppose this is putting both of us in an awful spot. But I want to get it over with. I want everything to be cleared up—so I can have our ranch again in peace.”
“Go on,” Mark urged gently. He was leaning toward her now, and their fingertips were touching. She smiled her appreciation.
“When Grant told me, I couldn’t think of any way out. He wanted to sell. Link couldn’t force him, of course. My share is independent of Grant’s. It’s joint ownership but he can’t sell without my consent. There was something, though, he said, Link could do in a court to get an injunction against the property.
“So,” she said, breathing more easily now, “I decided there was only one thing to do. If I could make Link part of the family, it didn’t really matter then. I would always have the ranch. I don’t think Link ever knew Grant told me of the debt. I—well, he fell for me, and I played up to him. I let him think he made me fall for him, and three months ago I promised to marry him. That’s all there is to that.”
“It makes an awfully strong motive against you and your brother, Miss Manders. Especially after that happening early in the morning.”
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