“He might have been lying,” Harry said. “Or dreaming. Or perhaps someone else from the ranch picked her up after I left her, murdered her, and took her out into the hills. I don’t see any link to me. Wa-po-nah has a lot of wagons.”
Kilgore arose and began to comb his hair, pulling the comb through grease with a thoughtful expression. A pattern of hope was beginning to emerge, but incredible difficulties lay ahead.
“The girl was found with her mouth full of plaster,” he said. “You have any ideas about that, Harry?”
“Not one, except that maybe it’s some Indian custom and an Indian killed her. I don’t have the faintest notion what it could signify. And I don’t see how that can rightly be held as evidence against me.”
Kilgore paused. There was only one item left to discuss with Harry, but it was an explosive one. “When my assistant, Mr. Erskine, was in Santa Fe the other day, he learned from Laurie Morgan that you had given her daughter a diamond ring, an heirloom valued at some two thousand dollars. Is this true?”
Dan McCandless was on his feet and roaring, “What? You gave that trollop your mother’s ring?”
“Quiet!” Kilgore said commandingly, brushing the big man into his seat before he could do violence to his son. Harry had turned quite pale. His upper lip was trembling. For the first time since his arrest, he looked genuinely frightened.
Kilgore said again, “Is it true, Harry?”
“N-no. I didn’t give her any diamond rings. Only the fraternity pin, and that wasn’t worth much.”
“Laurie said you had,” Kilgore went on. Dan McCandless made a strangled sound as Kilgore added, “Laurie also said that you had subsequently taken the ring back. In fact, she had been threatening to start an action in replevin against you to recover the ring. Do you know anything about this?”
Harry shook his head. “Small wonder that Laurie would think up such an idea. She probably thought I was going to marry her little tart of a daughter. But I didn’t give her that diamond ring. It’s been in our family for generations, you know.”
Kilgore was silent. Harry was lying—either that, or Carlotta had lied when she corroborated Laurie’s accusations to Clem—which was unthinkable.
He said heavily, “Where is the ring now, Harry?”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” Harry said. “With all the other family valuables, I suppose.”
Kilgore glanced at McCandless. “McCandless, when you get back to the ranch, check and see that the ring is still where it ought to be. Let me know.” To Harry he said, “Very well. That’s all I have to say to you, Harry.”
“But not all I have to say,” McCandless burst out. He crossed the cell and Harry shrank back at the unexpected gesture of sorrow and anger. “It was bad enough that you brought that girl out to Wa-po-nah,” he cried. “I guess something in you has got to come out—but to give her your mother’s ring! The Lucero ring! Harry, why? Why? The Lucero blood goes back three hundred years in this land. Is this what it comes down to? This cell and the gallows out in the yard? Is this the end for the McCandless line? Oh, my God, my God!” He groaned and turned with fierce eyes of hatred to the lawyer. “Stop ’em, Kilgore! Stop ’em—or I will! If they touch one hair of the boy’s head, I’ll kill ’em! Joe Tilley, Pete Beaudoin, Mike Duer, the whole pack! There was blood once in the land. Blood will run again! I swear it, on my soul—on my hope for redemption!” His massive hands opened and closed in a convulsion of grief.
Kilgore took the big man’s arm. “The boy’s not going to the gallows, Dan,” he said quietly. “And you’ll have plenty of time to upbraid him after he’s acquitted. Let’s go now. Get back to Wa-po-nah and try to relax. Don’t let the boy’s mother see you like this.”
McCandless nodded. He did not speak to or look at his son. Bowing his head, he stalked out of the cell.
12.
THEY RETURNED to Kilgore’s office. The lawyer asked Sarah to fix up some hot compresses for his ear; now, instead of spasmodic needles of pain, he was starting to feel an almost constant throbbing ache.
Sarah did as she was asked, though not without muttering that Kilgore ought to get himself to a doctor instead of going through agonies to save Harry McCandless. Kilgore shrugged off her argument. His ear could wait, he said stubbornly. The case came first.
Clem said, “He was lying about the ring, wasn’t he?”
“I imagine he was, Clem. Well, it’s sometimes necessary for a lawyer not to press his client too far. We’ll just have to hope that any testimony concerning the ring will be ruled out at my objection. Anyway,” he said, applying the hot compress to his ear and wincing at the not altogether unpleasant sensation of heat, “the rest of Harry’s story is a damned clever one. I feel encouraged for the first time since you came back this afternoon.”
“Why do you say it’s clever, Mr. Kilgore?”
“Because it makes no denials of Eli’s story. If it did, the jury could presuppose that Harry was lying, since he’s already demonstrated a tendency to lie when it suits him to. But Harry doesn’t contradict Eli’s story. He simply cuts the ground out from under it. He puts the fatal events into a convenient limbo of time and space.”
Clem nodded. “That’s what I told Duer and Beaudoin when they confronted me at Judge Hazledine’s. I told them then that Eli’s story wouldn’t give them a case. Of course,” he added with a grin, “I was bluffing, but it seems to have worked out.”
“And Harry now has backed it up properly. If Honey left Wa-po-nah alive and kicking, as Harry will declare under oath, then the prosecution will have no way of pinning the actual murder on him.” Kilgore removed the compress and rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. “What we need now, Clem, is a witness to the fact that Harry actually did leave the ranch at eleven and return two hours later. If we can demonstrate that he left with a living Honey at eleven, and was back without her by one, then it’ll put Harry in the clear, since he couldn’t possibly have assaulted and raped her and taken the body all the way out to the mountains in that short a time.”
“Suppose the jury doesn’t believe our witness?”
“We’ll face that when we come to it. The important thing, Clem, is to find the witness. Which will be your job. Tomorrow.”
“Me, sir? How?”
“You, sir. You’ll go up to Wa-po-nah without me and interview the house servants. Habla usted español?”
Clem smiled. “Solamente un poco.”
“How little?”
“Very little, Mr. Kilgore. Muy poco.”
“Well, Carlotta can translate for you. I’m sure you won’t mind being near her. Eh, Clem?”
The younger man blushed and grinned, but said nothing.
Kilgore grunted sourly and rolled a cigar. His assistant’s romantic turn of mind was no concern of his own, and at least he was big enough not to look ridiculous beside a tall girl like Carlotta McCandless. Now there was a thought! he reflected, grimly amused. Dan McCandless probably planned to marry his daughter off to some young member of the alleged Territorial aristocracy—if the term, outside the Spanish element, were not self-contradictory. More likely he had his goal set on the rich and powerful elements of Eastern and European families—or marrying into royalty, which seemed the fashion in New York and Philadelphia and Boston. A lot of ridiculous stories kept drifting back from the great metropolitan centers—and the mere thought of Clem Erskine, raw-boned, unlicked, penniless, not even yet a lawyer—aspiring to Carlotta McCandless would be enough to raise a head of steam and set McCandless screaming with rage.
Or so it would seem at any other time. Just now, the McCandless household lay in the shadow of tragedy. All this was pure daydreaming. Kilgore had another reason to send Clem alone to Wa-po-nah. It was a matter of finding, not creating witnesses. The day would come, Kilgore foresaw, when Pete Beaudoin would get a crack at some future witness for the defense. It was possible to foresee the stabbing forefinger, the voice of icy scorn, the howl of ridicule. “Aha! Mr. Witness! And what else did Mr. Kil
gore tell you to say?” No, it was milder strategy, and more effective, to send an emissary with smooth cheeks and an ingenuous manner.
Kilgore grunted. “Clem, I’m placing no obstacle in your way to the development of a romantic interest. But I want you to handle yourself with legal acumen. You can go at it in two ways. One way is to ask that pack of house servants what they know. Being dumb, they won’t know a thing. Or you can make a little preliminary speech. Present the pathetic circumstances of the young master of the household. Toss out the time element and the other significant factors. Stress what it might be advisable or useful for the defense to establish in court. Savvy?”
“Oh, yes!” said Clem.
Kilgore raised a finger of admonition. “However, Clem! Bear in mind a cardinal principle of this law firm. You will not put words in the witnesses’s mouth. Is that clearly understood?”
Clem nodded. “I wouldn’t dream of it,” he said seriously. “It’s one thing to draw out the spontaneous narrative of the illiterate and barbarous witnesses we’ve got to use in the courts, Mr. Kilgore. It would be entirely another thing to coach a witness. I’m sure I’ve got that straight. The witness has got to find his own words.”
“Hum,” Kilgore said suspiciously. He could not be sure whether or not a smile lurked in the corner of his assistant’s mouth—and then a mighty belch shook his frame. “Time for dinner!” he announced. “Ipse dixit! The inner man is talking. Let’s attend to it. But I’ll tell you one thing that would make me easier in my mind . . .” he added.
“Yes, sir?”
Kilgore paused, shaking his head in thoughtful wonder. “Some show of natural remorse!” he murmured, his eyes on a distant scene in the icy hills. “Some feeling for that pretty little girl whose life was cut short. I’m defending Harry McCandless, but it would sit better if I could see some human feeling for that girl he once had.
“I guess he’s human,” Kilgore added gloomily, stretching his frame, “and I can’t think of a thing worse to say for him. Let’s see about that food.”
The following morning, after breakfast, Clem Erskine was picked up by a Wa-po-nah buggy and taken to the ranch. The cold had abated, slightly; the sun was strong and bright, the sky cloudless, the air so clear that the purple mountains far to the west jutted up, clearly visible, like discolored fangs stabbing the sky.
He found Dan McCandless and Carlotta waiting for him in the library room.
Dan McCandless did not seem to have slept all night. He and his suit both had a rumpled look. His hair was unkempt; cigar ashes flecked his vest; even at half past nine in the morning, he had a brandy smell. Nervous and jumpy as a cat, he paced back and forth in the big room.
Carlotta, too, was showing the effects of the family troubles; there were dark rings under her eyes, and her cheeks looked hollow and pale. She was dressed informally, in a plaid flannel shirt and a suede riding skirt which clung to the firm contours of her body.
“I’ll get the servants,” Carlotta said. “Do you want to speak to them all?”
“Please, yes,” Clem said. “Are there many?”
“About a dozen in the immediate household. Plus many more who live on the grounds.”
“How close to the main house?”
“Oh, anywhere from half a mile farther out.”
Clem shook his head. “I won’t bother with them. Let’s talk to the household servants. I’m told most of them don’t speak English.”
“Only a few,” Carlotta said. “But none of them really understands English. It would be better if you questioned them through me, in Spanish.”
She walked to the door and tinkled a bell. Julian DuVivier, who stood just outside, nodded and glided away. A few moments later, the first of the servants filed in.
Clem pointed to one, a man of about fifty. “Who’s he?”
“Hermano Perez. The groom,” Carlotta said.
“All right. Ask him if he gave any horses to anyone the night Honey Morgan was supposedly brought here.”
Carlotta looked at the groom. “¿Diste algunos caballos a cualquiera cuando la señorita Morgan fué traída aquí en la semana pasada?”
Perez answered briskly, and Carlotta translated. Yes, Perez remembered the night. Young Eli Weingarten had been here, and Perez had given him a horse. Weingarten had driven a buggy to town and had returned with the Morgan girl.
“How about later on that evening?” Clem asked. “Did he see Harry leave the ranch?”
No, Perez had seen nothing. He had gone to bed about ten o’clock that night. Harry had stabled the horse himself upon returning to Wa-po-nah.
“Try the next one,” Clem said.
“Juana Garcia, cook,” Carlotta said.
“Ask her what she remembers of that night.”
Juana Garcia remembered little. She had prepared food for the two boys and their guest, and Julian had brought it to them. She had gone to sleep early, too, about ten or ten thirty. She remembered hearing laughter before she fell asleep. She knew nothing else.
Clem called the next servant, and the next, and the next. None of them knew anything. Every single one of them claimed to have been asleep from ten or ten thirty on, the fatal night. Some of them remembered having seen Honey and Eli earlier in the evening, but none could offer any testimony about the hours between eleven and one.
Clem had deliberately questioned the lesser servants first, hoping to learn something unexpected. Now, only Julian DuVivier remained. Clem glanced at Carlotta and the brooding, despondent McCandless, then at the ageless Negro.
Julian said coolly. “I will be glad to answer your questions, Mr. Erskine. I may tell you that I have a fair idea of what Mr. Harry told Mr. Kilgore and Mr. McCandless in the lockup.
A flicker of intelligence passed between McCandless and his servant, and this was interrupted by Carlotta and Clem Erskine. The young lawyer felt a measure of relief. If there were a problem in the legal ethics of coaching witnesses, it had solved itself.
“Suppose you tell me what you know, Julian,” he said quietly. “And pretend this is a courtroom and you’re testifying before a jury.”
Julian nodded. “Yes. That evening Eli Weingarten was here for dinner. Afterward Mr. Harry sent Eli into town to get the Morgan girl. She arrived here about nine o’clock, I would say. I served drinks to them. If Miss Carlotta will forgive me, I must tell you that the Morgan girl was quite naked at one time when I entered the room, but displayed no embarrassment. It was rather disgraceful, and I told Harry so, but he commanded me to mind my own business, which I did.”
“Was that the first time you ever saw the girl in that condition?”
“Yes, sir.”
Carlotta had reddened slightly. McCandless’ scowl of gloom deepened. Clem said, “Go on, Julian.”
“During the latter part of the evening there was the sound of a struggle. I went to the room and was told by Mr. Harry that the girl was drunk and unmanageable. Mr. Weingarten had gone to sleep, he told me, and he was going to drive the girl back to town. I helped Mr. Harry take her down to the wagon, since the rest of the staff was asleep. I watched Mr. Harry drive off. Then I returned to my room.”
“What time did he leave?” Clem asked.
“Just about eleven, I’d say.”
“And then what?”
Julian shrugged. “About two hours later, I heard the sound of a buggy approaching. I glanced out my window and saw that Mr. Harry had returned. I helped him stable the horse. He had come back alone.”
“How come you were up so late?”
“I sleep only a few hours a night,” Julian said softly. “I rarely close my eyes before two in the morning.”
Clem hesitated. “Will you tell the same story to the court that you’ve told me?”
“Of course, sir.”
“All right, then. Keep out of town and if Mike Duer comes to question you, don’t give him any concrete information. For instance, if he asks you whether you—”
“I don’t think Julian needs a
ny further advice,” Carlotta interrupted. “I’m sure he knows how to talk to the sheriff.”
Clem paused. “Very well, Julian. Mr. Kilgore would like to see you at your earliest convenience. At the office, if you don’t mind.”
“Not at all,” said Julian, and disappeared into the kitchen.
“Oh, my God, my God!” said McCandless despondently. “That the boy’s life should depend on things like that—”
“Dad!” said Carlotta warningly.
There was a moment of constraint, and then Clem asked for leave to telephone. Kilgore took the news without surprise and suggested that his assistant might spend the rest of the day at Wa-po-nah if invited. It was important to get the feel of the place—the concrete sense of the land and its people. That painstaking attention to atmosphere and detail, he advised, was the difference between the legal hack and the artist. Abruptly he rang off.
When Clem returned, McCandless was nowhere to be seen. “He’ll be up in his study,” said Carlotta, clutching her throat with an expression of distress. “Since this case began, he does nothing but wander around the house. I think he’s blaming himself—”
With an effort, she composed her face and invited Clem to remain. “We’d be very happy to have you stay the morning with us, Clem. And to stay for lunch. I’d like to show you the grounds. Can you mount a horse?”
Clem was pleased to accept the invitation. Carlotta was abstracted and troubled, but polite, and after coffee showed her guest through the big house. For the first time, Clem appreciated the vast scale of building—the princely magnificence with which McCandless had expanded the original hacienda of the Lucero family that he had acquired at the time of his marriage to Isabella. Wa-po-nah was a showplace of the West, and the exploration of its resources covered the bulk of the morning and magically came to a halt with all its areas yet unvisited.
“Perhaps we can see the rest some other time,” Carlotta said. “My mother’s rooms have some interesting furnishings. Castilian. That’s her wing, over there.”
“She keeps to herself a lot, doesn’t she?” Clem asked.
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