Rex Stout - 1939 - The Mountain Cat Murders Read online

  As soon as Wynne Cowles had departed, he told his stenographer he would be back after lunch and drove to Vulcan Street to see Clara. He found her more depressed and wretched even than she had been the day before. She had visited Delia at eight o’clock, but had been permitted to stay with her only ten minutes. She had seen the Times-Star, but even after Dillon told her all the details he had got from Pellett, her eyes took on no light.

  “Do you think Pellett’s lying?” Dillon demanded.

  “I don’t know,” she said miserably. “Of course if he had to he would do worse than lie for Del’s sake. He’s crazy about her. He always has liked her better than me. But whether he’s lying or not, you say the sheriff thinks he is.”

  Dillon let that go and went on to the chief purpose of his call. “I’m hunting for a straw to grab at,” he declared, “and a thing Pellett said struck me. He thinks there may be some connection between the murder of Jackson and what happened to your father two years ago. That was just about the time I came to Cody and I don’t know much about it. Your father was Jackson’s partner in the grubstaking game, wasn’t he?”

  Clara nodded. “He was really Mr. Sammis’s partner, but Jackson was let in on it when he married Amy Sammis. Sammis furnished the money in the first place and Dad did most of the work. In those days nearly everybody in Wyoming who had any cash tried their luck at grubstaking and quite a few did it on a big scale, but Dad was more successful than anyone else because he really worked at it. He didn’t just pick up any loafer that came along, or sit and wait for the prospectors who were down and out to come to him; he went out and got the good ones. At one time they had nearly three hundred grubbers scattered all over the state. That meant an investment of over two hundred thousand dollars and Sammis furnished the money. They made big profits—it was one of their men that found the Sheephorn lode—but Dad didn’t know how to hang onto money. It always fascinated me from the time I was a little girl, the idea of finding gold and silver and zinc and copper buried in the rocks, and sometimes Dad let me go on trips with him. That was another way he was different from other grubstakers; he visited his men no matter where they were, and advised and encouraged them and maybe got them out of trouble.”

  “And it was on one of those trips that he was murdered?”

  She nodded again. “Down in the Silverside Hills. He was on a regular trip, but he had an unusually big sum of money with him—thirty-two thousand dollars—because he had got a tip that a wild duck had uncovered a big streak over east of Sheridan—”

  “What’s a wild duck?”

  “A prospector on his own, that hasn’t been staked. Dad was going to take a look at the streak and try to buy the claim if it looked good. He had several stops on the way and he hadn’t got there yet when he was found dead in that old cabin on the rim of Ghost Canyon.” Her lip quivered, and she stopped and got it firmed. “I had been to that old cabin with him just the year before. You couldn’t get to it by car. We had to take horses at Sugarbowl and ride ten or twelve miles.”

  “Then whoever killed him had a horse.”

  “Maybe not. He could have walked from Sugarbowl or anywhere along the road there, or he might have been out in the hills already.”

  “Were there many around?”

  “Almost no one. There are no sheep in those hills, nothing but sagebrush and greasewood and rocks, except a few piñon in a spot or two at the canyon. The only one known to be around was a prospector named Squint Hurley, one of Dad’s men who was using the old cabin for headquarters. Dad had gone there to wait for Hurley to show up. It was Hurley that found him. Hurley was arrested and tried, but the bullet that killed Dad was from a different kind of a gun than Hurley’s.”

  “And the money was gone.”

  “Yes.”

  “And none of it has ever turned up.”

  “Not that anybody knows of. Half of it was in tens and twenties, because that was the way Dad liked to have it for the men. Not even new bills. They don’t like it new.”

  “But one thing.” Dillon was frowning. “It must have been someone who knew he would be there and knew he would have all that money—shall I get that?”

  “Please do.”

  He went to answer the doorbell. He opened the door and found himself confronted by a large woman with sweat on her brow, wearing no hat. Dillon, thinking he had seen her before but unable to place her, said good morning.

  “Good morning.” Her tone was businesslike. “I am Miss Effie Henckel, principal of the Pendleton School. I would like to see Miss Clara Brand.”

  Dillon did not know that the reason he stammered in replying was because of his subconscious memory of a similarly formidable principal in a school he had attended in San José. But he did stammer.

  “M-Miss—er—M-Miss Brand is not seeing anyone. That is, I mean even her close friends. I’m Tyler Dillon, an attorney and a friend of hers. If it is something I can take care of—”

  “I prefer to see Miss Clara Brand. It may be something very important.”

  “Of course. But under the circumstances—as I say, I’m an attorney. Won’t I do?”

  “You might do,” Miss Henckel conceded, fixing him with an authoritarian eye. “So might the sheriff do, or Harvey Anson, who I understand is Delia Brand’s lawyer. But I deal with men as little as possible because I much prefer to deal with women. I would like to see Miss Clara Brand.”

  Dillon acknowledged defeat without more ado, asked her to step inside and take a chair, and went to the kitchen and described to Clara the nature of the situation. With a weary sigh Clara arose and went to the front room, with him following her, greeted the caller, and sat. Miss Henckel, after an inspection of Clara’s features, apparently to make certain of the identity, spoke tersely:

  “I wish, Miss Brand, you would convey to your sister the sympathy and good wishes of myself and my staff at the Pendleton School. Tell her that even Miss Crocker joins us in that expression. Your sister and Miss Crocker don’t get on very well. But though I am glad of this opportunity to send your sister that message, that isn’t what I came for.”

  She opened her bag, a large hand-embroidered one, and took out something and handed it to Clara. Clara stared at it but took it. Dillon, leaning forward and perceiving what it was, looked startled and fastened his eyes on the principal, but kept his mouth shut.

  “That,” said Miss Henckel, in a tone that defied contradiction, “is a cartridge box and in it are thirty-five cartridges for a .38 revolver. This morning one of the patrons of my school, Mr. James Archer, came to my office with his son, James Junior, who is in the fourth grade, and told me that when he returned home from work yesterday he found that a structure had been erected in a corner of a shed adjoining his garage. The structure consisted of berry boxes held together with paper clips, tacks and rubber bands, and at intervals holes had been punched through the boxes with an ice pick or gimlet, and protruding from the holes on the outside were cartridges. He questioned his son and was told that the structure was a fort on the Yellow River in China. Then he dealt further with his son and learned that the cartridges had been stolen the day before, Tuesday afternoon, in the cloak vestibule of Room Nine in the Pendleton School, from Delia Brand’s handbag.”

  Without stopping for a by-your-leave, Dillon snatched the box from Clara’s fingers and pulled the lid off. He gazed at the contents in bitter disappointment. The box was no more than three-fourths full.

  “To be sure.” Miss Henckel lifted her brows at him and there was an edge of scornful condescension to her tone. “I said thirty-five cartridges, didn’t I? I realized that it might possibly be of vital significance if the box was full. Mr. Archer states that he doesn’t care to have loaded cartridges lying around his shed, and he searched with great thoroughness and is absolutely certain that he got every one. His son states that that is all there were. But I have been dealing with boys for nearly thirty years. I led him into details and, among them, he told of removing the wrapping paper from the box
after he had taken it from the bag. The fact that there was still wrapping paper on it permits the assumption that the box had not been opened. I told the boy that, nearly an hour ago, but he sticks to his statement. It is a remarkable case of stubbornness, really remarkable. At that point I decided you should be notified, Miss Brand, so that you could take whatever—”

  “Where’s the boy now?” Dillon demanded.

  “In my office with his father.”

  “I’ll handle him! Come on—”

  “I came here with information for Miss Brand. It is in her hands. If she thinks the police or Mr. Anson—”

  “Clara, damn it all! Let me go! If we find the rest of those cartridges—Listen, you come too! We’ll both go! All right, Miss Henckel?”

  “Whatever Miss Brand decides. Though I can tell you, you’re not going to choke it out of him. It will take finer handling than that.”

  “All right, Clara? Come on!”

  Clara got up and started for the door.

  Jimmie Archer said for the hundredth time, with tears in his eyes, “I tell you I’m not a squealer, doggone it! I tell you I’m not a rat! I tell you I won’t squeal!”

  They were beginning to believe him. Instead of showing signs of weakening in the last half hour, since they had tricked him into the admission that he had had a confederate in the robbery, the obduracy in his eyes, in spite of the tears, had grown more and more intense, and his jaw had stopped quivering entirely. He had confessed that there had been a division of the spoils and that he had kept thirty-five cartridges for himself, but there seemed to be no conceivable technique that would compel or entice him into the pronouncement of a name.

  His father said, “No use licking him. I’ve tried that before. It tightens him up like a rusty nut. I used to pull his ears, I guess that’s one reason they stick out, but I quit. It’s no use.”

  Miss Henckel said, “We could check up on all the boys who were supposed to go to Miss Brand’s class that day, but that would be an endless job. There was no roll call.”

  They were in Miss Henckel’s outside office for a council of war, having left Dillon and Clara in the inner room with Jimmie. As the principal had said, it was a remarkable case of stubbornness, intensified to fanaticism when the issue had got down to the name of the accomplice. Clara’s entreaties, Miss Henckel’s appeal to reason, the father’s threats, warnings and bribes, and Dillon’s cross-examination, were all repulsed.

  Dillon emerged from the inner room, closing the door behind him, and joined the council. “Look here,” he said, “we’re wasting our breath. He gets worse instead of better. There’s not a chance in the world of our getting that name out of him. Are you sure his mother couldn’t do it? It seems as though his mother—”

  “Nothing doing.” Mr. Archer was positive. “Usually him and the missis hit it off fine—the way she does it, she never goes against the grain. When he once gets that look in his eyes—of course, if she had two or three days for it—”

  “She hasn’t got two or three days! If you don’t think she can do it, I’ve got an idea. It’s complicated, but it will only take an hour or maybe less, and it may work. First I’ll go in and tell him—”

  Five minutes later Dillon left them there and returned alone to the inner room, where Clara sat gazing in hopeless exasperation at the criminal’s obstinate tear-stained face.

  “Look here, Jimmie,” Dillon said sternly, “I’ll give you one more chance to tell me the name of your pal who has the rest of those cartridges. This is your last chance.”

  The boy shook his head, sullenly and inflexibly.

  “Tell me.” Dillon waited five seconds. “You won’t? All right, then it’s up to the law. We’ll see if you can beat the law. You’re in for it, Jimmie, I’m telling you straight. You can’t fight the law by sitting there shaking your head. You will have to get a lawyer, and a mighty good one, and you’d better get him quick. Have you got a good lawyer?”

  “I don’t—” The boy’s lip quivered. “I never really had a lawyer.”

  “Well, you’d better get one in a hurry. I’ve told your father what I’m going to do, and he’s pretty scared about it, and I suppose he’ll recommend a good lawyer to you if you care to consult him about it. That’s all I have to say. It’s up to the law now. I’ll send your father in. Come on, Clara.”

  “But, Ty, we can’t—”

  “Come on!”

  They left him there alone. In the outer room Dillon said to Mr. Archer, “All right. Let it soak into him for five minutes and then go in and try it. For heaven’s sake be careful and do it right if you can. Don’t take him over there until you hear from me.”

  He departed with Clara and drove as fast as the traffic would permit to Mountain Street, and in the new Sammis Building ascended to the offices of Escott, Brody & Dillon. There he had a stroke of luck. He had expected to have to haul his senior partner away from his lunch somewhere, but at the adjournment of court Escott had stopped in at his office and was there when the conspirators arrived. Dillon first telephoned the Pendleton School and then went to Escott’s room and opened up on him. The veteran lawyer was at first annoyed because it bordered on interference in another firm’s case; then he was amused and interested; and finally he agreed.

  James Archer, Senior, must have encountered some resistance, for it was getting close to one o’clock when he entered with his son. There was no one in the anteroom but a young woman at a desk. Senior pushed Junior forward, and Junior looked at the young woman with glum eyes and mumbled at her, “I wanna see Mr. Escott.”

  “Name, please?”

  “Jimmie Archer. Junior.”

  She went out. In a moment she came back, let him through the gate, led him down the hall and ushered him into a room. Old Phil Escott arose to shake hands with him, got him into a chair and, after the door had closed behind the young woman, addressed him man to man.

  “Well, Jimmie Archer, what can I do for you? Something about the law?”

  The boy sat with his shoulders hunched. “Yes, sir.”

  “What’s the trouble? A lawsuit or something?”

  “No, sir. They want me to squeal and I won’t do it. I’ll take the rap, but I won’t squeal!”

  “That’s fine. I admire that. Shake!” Jimmie suspiciously and reluctantly stuck out his hand, and they shook again. “Who wants you to squeal?”

  “Aw, it’s a whole gang after me. There’s my father, and Miss Henckel the principal, and a woman they call Clara that’s got a sister in a jam, and a guy named Dillon, he’s nothing but a big bully—”

  “Ha! Dillon! I know that man Dillon. He’s no good. What do they want you to squeal about?”

  “About my pal that helped me take the catriches from Miss Brand’s bag. I’m not a rat.”

  “Of course you’re not. I can see that by looking at you. When did you take the cart—catriches?” As the boy was silent, Escott leaned back and pressed the tips of his fingers together. “Of course you realize, Jimmie, that if I am your lawyer I’ll have to have all the details. Do you know what it means for me to be your lawyer?”

  “Sure I do. It means you’re my mouthpiece.”

  “That’s right. That’s it exactly.” Escott’s lip twitched a little, but he mastered it. “When did you and your pal take the catriches?”

  “Aw, it was day before yesterday. At Rhythmic Movement. Him and me sneaked in the cloakroom because it makes us sick, and Miss Brand’s bag was there, and we just thought we’d try and see if it would come open—”

  “Wait a minute! And the catriches were in her bag!”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And they were in a box, wrapped up, and you took the whole thing!”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Jimmie’s brows were drawing together with renewed suspicion, but Escott swept on: “Why, my goodness, I know all about that case! In fact, I’ve been engaged by the man who sold the catriches to get them back! I’m his mouthpiece too! I’ll be doggoned!” Escott opene
d a drawer of his desk and took out a cardboard box, and from it dumped onto the desk a pile of silver dollars. He stacked them, and fingered them like poker chips. “Look at that!”

  “What’s that for?”

  “Why, that’s the reward the man offered for whoever returned the catriches! Ten dollars! It’s a mighty lucky thing you happened to come to me, Jimmie! I know that man Dillon; he was trying to get all the catriches so he could claim the reward! He’s a slick one.”

  The suspicion on Jimmie’s face disappeared to make room for another emotion which seemed likely to tap the tear ducts again. “But l-l-look here!” he faltered. “I ain’t got the catriches any more! My father took ’em and now that c-c-crook Dillon’s got ’em!”

  “Oh, that’s all right. Don’t worry about that, Jimmie. You’ll get the reward all right, because I’ll pay it to you myself. Half will go to you and half to your pal. Of course the businesslike way to do it, to clean it all up at once, will be to get him here, and I’ll give you five dollars and him five dollars—”

  “Hey!” Jimmie’s voice rang out and his face had changed again. “That ain’t fair!”

  “What ain’t fair?”

  “To give him half and me half! It ought to be the way we divvied up the catriches! I had thirty-five and he’s only got fifteen!”

  Escott, for a second, was speechless. He regarded James Archer, Junior, this time without affection or reservation, as man to man. “Well,” he said finally, “that will have to be a matter for mutual agreement. He’ll have to be here with you and me, and we’ll have to settle it.”

  Jimmie had slid off the chair to his feet. “I’ll settle it,” he said grimly. “I’ll go get him.”

  “It will be better if we send someone after him and you stay here. It’ll be quicker that way. What’s his name?”