Rex Stout - 1939 - The Mountain Cat Murders Read online

  “You said Jackson.”

  “Oh, no, that was just palaver. It’s the Reverend Rufus Toale.”

  She stared an instant, then sprang to her feet, and confronted him, rigid. “You …” she gasped. “You told … you told—”

  “Now take it easy. Sit down.”

  “You told Ty Dillon …” She gasped again.

  “I told you and nobody else. Our family troubles have been on the front page enough without me trying to put them there again.”

  “How did you know?”

  “That it was Toale?” Pellett lifted his rounded shoulders and let them drop. “Who else would it be? Didn’t I see what was going on the last two months of your mother’s life as well as you did? Maybe not as much as you, but I saw enough. I saw what was in your head, too, and I saw you put your foot down and refuse to let him preach the funeral sermon, and I knew you were working yourself into a fix. Though I had no idea you would go so far as to buy cartridges and so on. But when Dillon came here today and told me what you were up to, naturally I knew.”

  Delia was still rigid. “You didn’t tell him.”

  “No. All I said to him was that I would have a talk with you as soon as I could.”

  “Well, you’ve had it.” Delia took three quick paces, stooped and got her hat and bag, and set out for the door.

  Her uncle, without getting up, called after her in exasperated alarm, “Godamighty, Delia, now! Hey now, I only said—”

  But she was gone. For a full minute he sat looking at the door which she had closed behind her, slowly shaking his head, then he lifted his handkerchief to his face and began mopping again.

  Chapter 3

  The new Sammis Building, at 214 Mountain Street, was the imposing structure where Delia had gone that morning to call on Tyler Dillon. The old Sammis Building, bought by Lemuel Sammis many years before he had attained state-wide eminence both economically and politically, and much less imposing, was over on Halley Street. Its ground floor was occupied by The Haven, the biggest and most popular gambling room in the city. Walled off from The Haven, making a separate entrance, were the narrow hall and equally narrow stairs which led to the second floor, where an even narrower hall, so dark in the daytime that strangers almost had to grope, afforded only two doors. The one in the front bore on its glass panel an old dingy inscription: Evelina Mining Co.—left there as a matter of sentiment by old man Sammis because it had been named in the distant days after his wife Evelina, who had once been a beanslinger at a lunch counter in Cheyenne. The door at the rear had a much fresher label: Sammis & Jackson, with no designation of function. About midway of the hall stood an old wooden bin, half-filled with jagged chunks of ore, some smaller than an egg and some larger than a big man’s fist; and an ancient discolored card tacked to the bin conveyed the invitation: Solid silver—help yourself to a souvenir—Evelina Mining Co. It had been probably close to two decades since the invitation had been accepted by anyone.

  When Delia parked the car in the neighborhood of the old Sammis Building that afternoon, she chose a spot fifty yards away because she had a reason for not parking directly in front even if there had been a space. It still lacked twenty minutes till four o’clock when she arrived, and she didn’t want to be seen by her sister Clara as she left for her appointment at Atterson’s. Also she didn’t want to enter the building until she was sure Clara had gone, so she sat in the car with her eyes glued to the entrance. Ten minutes passed before she saw Clara emerge and strike off in the other direction, mingling with the sidewalk crowd. She waited a minute or two and then climbed out.

  She was at the head of the narrow stairs, in the dark upper hall, before she realized that she didn’t have her handbag. She stopped, frowning. She knew very well her wits were wandering. She concentrated. Yes, she had taken it with her from Uncle Quin’s place; she remembered it beside her in the car as she drove. Then she had left it on the seat. She turned to go back after it, then turned again. She was hot and the sun outside was hotter. She remembered distinctly now that the bag was at the end of the seat, against the door. No one could see it from the sidewalk, and no one was apt to snoop around that old car in search of valuables. She went to the door at the rear of the hall and stood there a moment before opening it, gazing at the inscription on the panel and thinking of the time when it had been Brand & Jackson instead of Sammis & Jackson. Then she became aware of voices within, a loud voice especially, raised in anger. So Jackson wasn’t alone. But she knew Clara wasn’t there, so she pushed the door open and entered.

  The room she was in was small, with one window, and contained the desk with a typewriter where Clara would have been sitting. Now it was empty, but through the open door which led to the room beyond the words of the angry voice, a man’s, were audible: “… and I’ll run you right out of the State of Wyoming and see how you like that! If dirt won’t do it, and there’s plenty of dirt and you know it, I’ll try something that will!”

  “Now, Dan, be yourself—”

  “And drop the Dan stuff! My name’s Jackson! Mister Jackson to you! You keep your hands—”

  Delia sang out, “Excuse me, I can hear you!”

  “Who the hell are you?” the voice came, and the next instant a man appeared in the doorway. He was a bone-and-muscle man, tall, between forty and fifty, with a scar over his left eye that gave him a leer. “Oh, you,” he said, seeing Delia, his voice down. “What do you want?”

  “I’ll wait.”

  “Okay, go wait outside. Or sit there and wait, I don’t give a damn.”

  “She doesn’t need to wait.” A woman slipped past him, careless of brushing him, and was in the small room. It was Wynne Cowles, looking as surprisingly cool as her voice. “Oh, Miss Brand? How do you do? Have you changed your mind about the bridle?” She turned on Jackson. “That date I have tonight, I’m going to keep it. And I have never been run out of any place yet, except a hotel in Rome once, and that was done by setting the building on fire.”

  She moved, halted to give Delia a pat on the shoulder and to say, “Nice kid. I like you,” pulled the door open and went.

  Jackson stared at the door a second and then told it, “I’ll cut her up, by God, and feed her to the pelicans.”

  “Not if I was a pelican, you wouldn’t,” Delia declared.

  He transferred the stare to her. “She called you a nice kid. I guess you are. Come in and sit down.”

  He backed through the door and she followed. His room was larger and furnished with foresight, containing, besides a desk and half a dozen chairs and a row of shelves and files, a huge and massive safe and three spittoons. After they were seated, she across the desk from him, Delia looked him in the eye and said, “You’re not going to fire Clara.”

  He looked startled, then he grinned. “Hell, my child,” he protested, “I’ve already fired her.”

  “I know you have. Then you’re going to hire her again and keep her hired.”

  “Who says so?”

  “I do.”

  “Not enough. You’re not even old enough to vote.”

  “I’ll see Mr. Sammis about it.”

  He frowned. “I wouldn’t advise you to.”

  “I will.”

  “Go ahead. I’m running this office. Did Clara send you here?”

  “No.” Delia took off her hat and held it dangling. “I came myself. I came because I’m going to do something … something vital and I want to do this first. Clara will have a job here as long as she wants it. She ought to have a good deal more than a job. You and Mr. Sammis have made thousands and thousands of dollars, I guess millions, out of grubstaking, and it was her father and my father who did it all. He was murdered doing it. Everybody says you’re no good at all compared to him, you have no judgment and no head for it, and you can’t hold the prospectors the way he could. The ones you do hold Clara does it for you. It was her father’s job and she likes it and she’s going to have it, even if she doesn’t get paid half of what she earns.”
r />   “Well, by God!” Jackson’s voice matched the leer the scar gave him. “You are a nice kid! You certainly are. Who are some of the everybody that says I’m no good?”

  Delia brushed it aside. “I only mentioned that. But as far as that’s concerned, you never were any good. I often heard my father tell my mother so when they didn’t know I was listening.”

  “I don’t doubt it. But that’s not good testimony, you know. Not allowed. Your father’s dead.”

  Delia’s color went, and she gripped the brim of her sun hat until it was crushed. In a moment she said calmly, “I know he is. And maybe you ought to know this. Maybe you ought to know that on every list that mother made up of the people who might have killed him, and on every list that the detectives she hired made up, and on every list that I made up, there was your name.”

  “I don’t doubt it.”

  She still gripped the hat. “Well?”

  “Well what?” He grimaced. “See here, Delia. You may be a nice kid, but you’re a funny one and you always have been. As for your mother, your father’s death put a kink in her that never did get straightened out. No man in this state admired Charlie Brand more than I did. He didn’t like me much, but I admired him and I even liked him. I had no more reason or desire to kill him than you did. When he was alive he bossed the grubstaking part of this business and that suited everybody, including me. But now I’m bossing it, with all my faults, and that’s that. Clara does not handle the prospectors. If she tells you she does, she lies. She’s only a stenographer and bookkeeper, and she and I don’t get along very well. When your father was here he pulled his share out every year, and if he squandered nearly all of it that’s not my fault; with all his virtues he had that weakness. I don’t owe Clara anything nor you either, and anyway she’s a clever girl and she can do just as well or better somewhere else after she makes a start. She leaves here Saturday noon.”

  Delia’s color was back. She demanded, “You mean you don’t even consider—”

  “Clara leaves Saturday,” said Jackson doggedly.

  “Then I must see Mr. Sammis. I have to get this done today.”

  “Go ahead.” Jackson frowned at her, and added, “But I wish you wouldn’t see Sammis.”

  “Of course you do. You’ll wish it still more when you hear from him. He’s my godfather and Clara’s, too.”

  “Oh, I have no fear of the consequences.” Jackson was still frowning. “He may be your godfather, but he’s my father-in-law. I was thinking more of the possible effect on Clara than anything else. What she needs and what she’s really fitted for—” He broke off abruptly, cocking an ear. “What the devil was that?”

  Delia heard it too, a noise from the hall as if a bag of potatoes had been rolled down the stairs.

  Jackson arose. “Excuse me, nice kid, I think I’ll take a look.”

  “I’m going anyway.” Delia got up too, put her hat on, and followed him, through the little room and the door to the hall. It was so dim there that they could see nothing for a moment. Jackson peered around, then went over to the head of the stair and stooped to pick up a small dark object from the floor. When Delia asked what it was he muttered, “Nothing. A piece of ore from that old bin. How the devil did it get there?”

  Keeping it in his hand, he started down the stairs. Halfway down Delia, at his heels, heard his sudden ejaculation but couldn’t see the cause of it, since he was obstructing her view. He quickened his step, and by the time she reached the bottom he was bending over the form of a man stretched on the floor of the lower hall. One of the man’s legs was curled under him and the other extended with a foot resting on the lowest step of the stair. Delia, halted on the third step up, clutching the rail and setting her teeth on her lip, watched Jackson squat to find a heartbeat with his fingers. Then, as Jackson moved, muttering, “He’s all right,” and she caught a glimpse of the prostrate man’s face with blood trickling around an ear, she gasped, “Uncle Quin!” and leaped over the extended leg and knelt on the dirty floor.

  Jackson repeated, “He’s all right. Get away and let me see.” He squatted beside her to examine the head and, in a moment, grunted, “Looks like he was hit with that piece of ore. Where the devil is it?” He looked around, saw where he had tossed it and reached for it.

  “All that blood! He’s not dead?”

  “Hell no. That’s only a couple of spoonfuls. He’s out, all right, but he’s far from dead. You wait here a minute, and don’t start shaking him in case he’s got a fracture.”

  He opened the street door and disappeared. Delia, still kneeling, took a handkerchief from a pocket of her dress, hesitated a moment, and then started dabbing at the blood. It was matting the dusty gray hair back of the temple. There seemed to be several places where the jagged edges of the ore had broken the skin.

  “Uncle Quin!” she said urgently. “Uncle! Uncle Quin!” Then she jerked her hand away as she saw his eyelids flutter. They closed again and then opened once more. He moved his head, moaned, moved his head again, and was staring at her.

  “What … what in the name … what you trying to do?”

  “You got hurt, Uncle Quin.” She put a hand on his shoulder. “You stay still.”

  “How’d I get hurt?”

  “I don’t know. Now keep still. Mr. Jackson will be back in a minute … here he is now—”

  The door opened. Jackson had a pitcher of water in his hand, and entering behind him was a well-fed short man with a deadpan for a face—a deadpan well known to the habitués of The Haven, since he was the assistant manager.

  Quinby Pellett, struggling to sit up with one hand against the wall, demanded, “What is this? What the hell happened?”

  “Oh, you woke up.” Jackson looked at him sharply. “You’d better take it easy, Quin, you may have a cracked skull. I’ve sent for a doctor and a cop. They’re phoning next door.”

  “Cop? Hey, what …” Pellett put his hand to his head, took it away, and looked at the blood on his fingers. “How bad am I hurt?”

  “I don’t know, but I don’t think bad. You got conked and you fell downstairs.”

  “Who conked me, you?”

  “No. I was in my office with Delia when it happened. What would I want to conk you for, practice?”

  “I don’t know.” Pellett slowly moved his head and eyes. “Oh, Delia. You here. Didn’t you say you were coming here? Sure you did.”

  “You should keep quiet till the doctor gets here, Uncle.”

  “Sure you did. So did I.” He turned his head again. “Wasn’t I coming to see you?”

  Jackson nodded. “I guess you were. You were supposed to. How far did you get, the head of the stairs?”

  “Yes. I did. I was going upstairs and I got nearly to the top—hey!”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “That’s where I got hit, at the top of the stairs!”

  “So I suspected. Who hit you?”

  “How the hell do I know?”

  “Didn’t you see anyone or hear anything?”

  “He ought to be quiet until the doctor comes,” Delia put in firmly.

  The door popped open and a man in the uniform of a police sergeant entered, briskly. He nodded to Delia and the others and looked down at the man sitting on the floor with a grin.

  “What’s the matter, Quin?” he demanded. “Doing a little research on the law of gravity?”

  Twenty minutes later, upstairs in Jackson’s office, the police sergeant finished asking Delia a few questions, getting corroboration of Jackson’s story. The doctor had disfigured her uncle’s head with a bandage and stated that apparently there was no serious damage, and her uncle had insisted that he felt well enough to remain there for the business he had come to see Jackson about, so Delia departed.

  She got into the car and made her way through the traffic, heading south and continuing beyond the city limits into the valley. The attack on her uncle and the sight of him lying on the floor unconscious with blood on his head had st
arted her nerves quivering and upset the order of her thoughts, so she was into the country before she remembered to look for her bag. She glanced at the seat beside her. The bag wasn’t there.

  The car swerved and nearly slid into the ditch. She jerked it back into the road, then slowed down, steered to a wide spot in the roadside and stopped. A search behind the seat, under it, between the seat and the door, on the floor, yielded nothing. The bag was gone!

  She sat behind the steering wheel, with her teeth clenched, concentrating. She was absolutely sure that she had left the bag there when she parked the car to go to Jackson’s office. Some passerby had snitched it. She was an incompetent little fool and always had been and always would be.

  That gun was her father’s. She had meant, had utterly and with all her heart meant, to use that gun for the retaliation of the Brand family to the evil malignity which had murdered her father and driven her mother to suicide. She had so intended. Her teeth clenched harder. She had, she had!

  What Ty Dillon had said. What Uncle Quin had said. About her getting a cramp in her trigger finger. They were dead wrong.

  But she had left that bag, with that gun in it, on the seat of the car parked in the street and hadn’t gone back after it. Wasn’t anyone who would do that either a brainless fool or a cheap fraud?

  And now what? Her father’s gun, her chosen weapon, was gone. Now what? It was to have been tonight. That had been irrevocably decided. Now what? Her jaw, aching from the clenching of her teeth, began to quiver. Now what? Her head fell forward to the steering wheel, her face against her crossed forearms, and she began to cry. She hadn’t cried since her mother’s death. She cried quietly, not convulsively, but every minute or so her shoulders heaved as her indignant lungs issued the ultimatum, oxygen or death. She might, in the despair and dolor of that moment there at the roadside, while passing cars decelerated for the prolongation of curious glances, have preferred death, but nature requires something stronger than a mere passing preference to enforce that decision.

  When finally she straightened up, her face and forearms were wet. She disregarded them. She had not answered the question, now what, as to the ultimate retaliation she had designed, but she was going on, at least, with the immediate job. She released the brake and shifted the gear and the car shot forward.