Rex Stout - 1939 - The Mountain Cat Murders Read online

  The Reverend Rufus Toale unobtrusively left his seat and went to stand by the wall. James Archer, Senior, chased the boys off of their chairs. But the newcomers appeared to be seeking not ease, but action. They stayed on their feet. Lem Sammis was saying to Ed Baker, “See how you like this one. So Quin Pellett’s a liar, huh? When you go out of my gate, Ed, it shuts behind you!” Phelan was telling the sheriff he had better get some of the crowd out of there. But Harvey Anson had elbowed through to the county attorney and his thin voice, sparing of breath, took the attention:

  “Uh, Baker. I can go up to Judge Hamilton. But maybe you’d like it better informally. As a favor to you. We have a witness you ought to hear.”

  Baker’s lower lip was upthrust. “A witness to what? Who is he?”

  Anson pointed a thumb at the young man with wavy blond hair. “Ask him. He’ll tell you about it.”

  Baker’s sharp glance took in the witness from head to foot. “We can take him upstairs to my office.”

  “Oh, no, that won’t be necessary. He’ll enjoy the audience. We all will.”

  The audience, for its part, was already engrossed. In the silence, the impact was plainly audible when the sheriff of Silverside County spat. One of the cops nudged the young man forward.

  Baker faced him. “You’ve got something to say?”

  “I have.” The young man’s voice was a little squeaky, but not with timidity or uncertainty. “Shall I go on and say it?”

  “Just a minute. What’s your name and who are you?”

  “My name is Clement Ardyce Cooper and I’m a student at the university. I live at Comstock Hall.”

  Baker grunted. “Shoot.”

  “Tuesday afternoon about four o’clock I was standing at the curb on Halley Street, not far from The Haven, studying types—”

  “Types of what?”

  “People. Do you want me to explain everything carefully as I go along?”

  “I want you to say what you were brought here to say.”

  “Then please don’t interrupt me. I was standing at the curb and I saw a man pass by, among many others, and decided he was an extrovert, unstable, philotype B. He walked close to the curb and looked into several parked cars in a peculiar manner, taking precautions against observation, but I am accustomed to observing people without making them aware of it. I am a psychologist. I saw him open the door of a car and take something out—a leather handbag. He was about thirty feet from me. A moment later another man approached and accosted him. The first man said something in reply, thrust the handbag into the other man’s hands and walked away. The other man stared after him a few seconds, then he walked off too, in the opposite direction, carrying the handbag. His name was Quinby Pellett.”

  “You mean you knew him?”

  “Oh, no, not then. I had never seen him before. But this morning I saw his picture on the front page of the newspaper, in an advertisement. I read the advertisement and at two o’clock, after my classes were over, I went to the police station to reply to it. They sent for Quinby Pellett and when he came naturally I recognized him.”

  “Naturally. From his picture in the paper.”

  “Oh, no. From having seen him on Tuesday.” The young man looked amused. “You’re so transparent, really. Almost infantile. I’d love to give you a test.”

  “Much obliged. If there’s any testing, I’ll do it myself.” Baker was gazing at him resentfully, but the resentment was not for him. It was like Harvey Anson to spring a thing like that, informally he called it, before a bunch of rubbernecks, without any warning.…

  “Anything else?” the psychologist inquired.

  “Yes,” Baker snapped. “Plenty. First about the man who took the bag from the car. Has he been described to you?”

  “Described? By whom?”

  “By anyone. Anyone who is now in this room, or out of it either. Or have you been shown a photograph of him?”

  “Oh, I get you.” The young man looked more amused than ever. “I’ll tell you about that. I know I’m a little skinny, but I’m all right. I’m the second best in tennis up at the campus. If you’ll have this room cleared, or if you’ll come out in the alley with me, I’ll beat some of that out of you.”

  Baker looked a little startled. “There’s no occasion—”

  “There’s plenty of occasion.” The student’s voice got more of a squeak in it, but otherwise he maintained his calm. “I come here to tell you something I saw because I saw it and right away you start trying cheap insulting tricks. If you want to ask me if I’m lying and give me a chance to say no, I’m not, that’s all right, but instead of that you start making cowardly insinuations. What’s wrong with you is a fundamental lack of intelligence, to suppose that if I undertook, or had been persuaded, to invent a story, I wouldn’t have sense enough to defend it against any attack you could possibly be capable of. I’m not surprised you’re a lawyer. You probably couldn’t make a living at much of anything else.”

  “I should have warned you, Baker.” A cackle came from Harvey Anson’s lips, which was a rare occurrence. “He’s pretty hot. That’s about the identical thing he said to me. Why don’t you look into his connections? To see how we might have suborned him.”

  “Thanks, I will.” Baker glared at the witness. “What does your father do?”

  “He’s a geodesist.”

  “A what?”

  The youth smiled tolerantly. “A sectional director of the United States Geodetic Survey.”

  “Is he a friend of the chief of police? Or of Quinby Pellett or the Brand family? Or of Mr. Anson or Mr. Sammis?”

  “No.”

  “Are you?”

  “No. I wouldn’t be. I have nothing but contempt for lawyers, financiers and politicians.”

  Another cackle came from Anson. Baker disregarded it. “Would you recognize that man if you saw him again? The one who took the bag from the car?”

  “Certainly. Didn’t I say I studied him?”

  Frank Phelan broke in, “Why don’t you try him on it, Ed? I’d like to see it myself. We can line Rowley up with a dozen or so—”

  “Yeah, sure, I’ll bet you’d like it, Frank.” The county attorney appeared to be talking through his teeth. He eyed the psychologist. “You say the second man was Pellett and he walked off carrying the bag. What did he do with it?”

  “I don’t know. He went on down the sidewalk. A young woman came along, Mongoloid, with a typical—”

  Quinby Pellett blurted, “I’ve told you what I did! First I went to the corner and had a beer—”

  “I wasn’t asking you. I know what you told me.” To the witness: “Did anybody see you on Halley Street Tuesday afternoon? Did you see or speak to anyone you know?”

  “Certainly. I spoke, intermittently, with my companion, Miss Griselda Ames, the daughter of a professor in the School of Mines.”

  Baker gawked. “You mean she was with you all the time?”

  “She was.”

  “And she saw everything you saw?”

  “She did.”

  Baker flung up his hands. “In the name of God, why didn’t you say so?”

  “I have said so.” The witness was unperturbed. “As a matter of fact, it was only at Miss Ames’s insistence that I replied to the advertisement. It seemed to me a bit quixotic. If you would like verification of my story, though it appears to me quite unnecessary, she would be glad to furnish it. Not that I regret having come.” His head slowly pivoted for an interested survey of the throng. “The faces of excited people, under a strain of one sort or another, are unusually revealing.”

  Harvey Anson cackled again. The county attorney whirled on him and demanded, “Well?”

  Anson shrugged. “Well, Baker, it looks as if the only question is whether you want me to go to the trouble of entering a writ. Fact is, I’ve got one in my pocket. I was going to argue it on the basis of Quin Pellett’s testimony and then this came along.”

  “Yeah. And instead of letting me have this
with decent professional courtesy, you have to grandstand it in front of a mass meeting!”

  “That’s right. Lem Sammis and I didn’t much care for certain tendencies you seemed to be displaying. Shall I go on up to Judge Hamilton with the writ?”

  “No,” Baker snapped. He turned to the sheriff. “Bill, go and get Delia Brand and bring her in here. I’m going upstairs and move to dismiss and get an order. Keep her here till I get back; it’ll only take a few minutes—you coming along, Anson?”

  He strode out of the room, with Anson at his heels, and the sheriff bestirred himself and left by another door. Ken Chambers spat. A little involuntary cry came from Clara Brand’s lips, and Ty Dillon moved to pat her on the shoulder. “Ty!” she said, “they’re going to set her free! She’s free!” He growled, “You’re damn right she is,” and left her to walk to the psychologist and grab his hand. The student politely tolerated it. The Reverend Rufus Toale left his spot by the wall to approach Clara Brand, beam down at her and exhort: “Praise God, my child! Praise Him for this timely and blessed interposition of His divine will!” Without awaiting, or apparently expecting, acquiescence, he moved back to the wall. Quinby Pellett came to replace him in front of Clara, bending to squeeze her elbow and demanding, “How’s that for luck, Clara? Wonderful luck? That that fellow saw me getting the bag, that kind of a fellow, and the girl with him? How was that for luck?” With her eyes on the door instead of him, she agreed, “Wonderful, Uncle Quin, simply wonderful!” The door opened and her sister entered. The sheriff was right behind her.

  Ty Dillon ran toward her three steps and then checked himself, looking foolish. Delia’s face was composed and was certainly not pallid or haggard; indeed, if the psychologist wanted to study strained countenances, she was about his least likely prospect in the room. She took in the crowd with a glance, spotted Clara, trotted across to her and threw her arms around her and kissed her. “Sis!” she cried, “what’s happened? Am I really—is it really all over?” They hugged each other. “What’s happened? It is?—And Ty, you here? All right, kiss me on the cheek. Go ahead! Look at you, you’re trembling all over—All right, Mr. Sammis, then you kiss me—you too, Uncle Quin, though I know you’re not very demonstrative—”

  They were all around her and all talking at once, having for spectators Frank Phelan and the two cops wearing broad grins, the psychologist smiling tolerantly, Mr. Archer and the two boys staring sympathetically, Ken Chambers pretending it was none of his business, and the Reverend Rufus Toale moving his lips as if in silent prayer. That was still the scene when the door from the anteroom opened to admit Harvey Anson and Ed Baker.

  Baker went across to the sheriff, handed him a paper and said, “There’s the order, Bill, give it to the warden.” Then he turned and called sharply, “Miss Delia Brand! Please!”

  They all faced him. He was crisp. “Miss Brand, you are released from custody. I am sorry if you have been temporarily charged with a crime you didn’t commit; I offer no apology, because the charge was made in good faith, under the weight of circumstances which seemed all but conclusive. Your being released now does not prohibit a future renewal of the charge in case new evidence warrants it, though I admit that seems unlikely; I merely want to make your position clear to you.” His eyes moved to include them all. “There have been intimations that in holding Miss Brand I have been moved by considerations other than a desire to enforce the law. That is not true. If Miss Brand is innocent and I now believe she is, no one is happier than I am to see her free. But let me tell you this: I am more than ever determined to investigate fully the murder of Dan Jackson and find the guilty man and punish him. Or woman! I congratulate you, Mr. Anson, on obtaining the freedom of your client, but I remind you and everyone that the question still remains and I’m going to find the answer to it: who killed Dan Jackson?”

  “Go to it, Ed.” It was Lem Sammis. “Go right ahead.”

  “I’m going to, Lem. I’m going to follow this investigation wherever it leads. I’m just letting you know. And the first thing I want to do is ask some questions of Delia Brand.—Now wait a minute, please. You are aware, Anson, that I’ve had very little information from Miss Brand. From the time you got hold of her Tuesday night she has said nothing. But she was found in that office with Jackson shortly after he was killed and he was killed with a gun that had been in her possession, and that certainly makes her a material witness if there ever was one. It was perfectly proper for you to keep her sealed up as long as she was charged with murder, but not now. I want to ask her some things and I’m going to, and if I don’t get answers I’ll detain her as a material witness. I’m aware that I can’t force answers, but I can expect them and I do expect them.”

  Anson said mildly, “You might let her have a night’s sleep in her own bed first.”

  “No. I will if she insists on it, but I want to start this investigation now and with her. What about it, Miss Brand?”

  Eyes turned to Delia. She hesitated. “Will I have to answer everything you ask me?”

  “You won’t have to answer anything. But you will, if you’re a law-abiding citizen—anything that has a bearing on the crime.”

  Anson said, “I want to be present. She is still my client.”

  “No,” said Delia, “I am not.”

  “What’s that? You’re not?”

  “No.” She leveled unfriendly eyes at him. “You thought I was … you thought I had killed Jackson. Not only that, you thought I killed him because …” She flushed. “You know what you thought. So I don’t want to be your client and I’m not.”

  “How about me?” Tyler Dillon demanded. He was flushing too, but he was eagerly seizing a chance. “You ought to have a lawyer, Del, and if you don’t want Mr. Anson—”

  “No. I don’t want a lawyer.” She sounded as if she meant it. “You’re all right, Ty, but I don’t think I’ll ever do anything or say anything that will make me need a lawyer. I realized a lot of things up there in that cell, lying on that cot … when I opened my eyes I could see, through the bars, Mrs. Welch sitting out there, for no reason at all except to be human. I thought about things I never thought about before, and I—what I really mean is, I never thought at all before. At first I was scared and nothing else, but then I began to think. For the first time in my life I realized how silly it is, and it’s even dangerous, for people to go along day after day taking it for granted that they’re not fools. I’m never going to take that for granted again. And no one is in a position to say whether you’re a fool or not except you yourself, because no one else knows enough about it.” She looked at Ed Baker. “You can question me without my having a lawyer, can’t you?”

  “I can. I would prefer it that way.”

  Lem Sammis put in, “Maybe you’re a fool now, Dellie. Anson got you out of jail, didn’t he? What’s the difference whether he thought this or that? It only shows he was a fool too.”

  But one result, apparently, of her mental exercises as she lay on the cot in the cell, was that she was through, at least temporarily, with lawyers. She was firm, and in spite of the protests of Anson and Lem Sammis and Clara and Ty and Uncle Quin, she went out with the county attorney, headed for his office upstairs.

  Five minutes later the room was deserted, except for the two sheriffs. They sat in silence. Finally Tuttle sighed.

  “Well,” Ken Chambers demanded, “and how do you like it now? What did I tell you?” He flourished a packet of fine cut. “No, you said, don’t go monkeying with Squint Hurley, because the Brand girl did it and he’s my star witness. No, you said, speaking to me, you’ll sit right here and if you try leaving before we get this thing settled I’ll have you tailed—”

  “Shut up,” Tuttle told him bitterly. “Not that I didn’t have all the sympathy in the world for Delia Brand, but look at it now! Did you hear what Ed Baker said? Follow the investigation wherever it leads. It’s apt to lead him and me straight out of a job before it’s over. You say it was Squint Hurley that did it. Maybe.
What if it turned out to be Lem Sammis himself?”

  The phone buzzed. Tuttle reached for it, spoke into it briefly, mostly with grunts, shoved it back and got to his feet. “You seem to have company,” he observed. “Anyhow, that was Ed Baker, and he wants me to haul in Squint Hurley and have him ready for a talk as soon as he gets through with the Brand girl.”

  The Sheriff of Silverside County stowed away the packet of fine cut, arose and stretched. “I guess I’ll go along.”

  “If you do you’ll keep your mouth shut.”

  They went out together.

  Chapter 10

  Wynne Cowles, with a heavy automatic pistol in her hand, sat on a rock, peering intently around the edge of an enormous boulder which was perched on the rim of a narrow canyon. The pistol, rock, boulder and canyon were all her property, all being within the confines of Broken Circle Ranch which she owned. It had been a dude ranch at the time of her first arrival at Cody two years ago and, taking a fancy to it, she had bought it. The energy, acumen, time and money Wynne Cowles had expended on whims might have built a railroad.

  Impatience stirred within her. Leaving her ambush behind the boulder, she crept to the edge of the precipice to see if the sheep’s carcass was in fact there; and saw it, unmistakably, a grayish blur at the bottom of the canyon. The bait was all right; why didn’t they come? She returned to the ambush and resumed her vigil, glancing at her wrist watch and noting that it was nearly five o’clock. She would give them thirty minutes more. But not half that allowance had gone when her keen eyes detected a group of black dots moving far up against the blue sky. She watched them, releasing the safety on the pistol and hugging the boulder. The black dots descended moving in wide graceful circles, then narrowing into spirals of shorter radius, becoming not dots but things with wings—wings that did not flap but only banked and steered. They came lower, centering on a point in the canyon directly beneath her, and now they were huge and she could see the nakedness of their necks and almost the greediness of their sharp glittering eyes. Her own eyes gleamed with distaste; she disliked vultures because they disgusted her. She waited until they got almost to her level, circling into the canyon’s mouth, then drew a deep breath, leveled the pistol with nerveless aim and fired. Nothing stopped the bullet. She fired again and one of the vultures, at least a hundred yards away, keeled over, seemed to hang suspended for an instant and then fluttered into the canyon like an enormous black leaf. The wings of the six or eight others were flapping now and they were moving off. She fired four more shots, but the distance was so great that only luck could have guided the pistol bullet to its moving mark. She stepped to the edge of the canyon and saw that one down there, not twenty feet from the carrion, flopping on the rocks like a decapitated chicken.