Anderson Crow, Detective Part 37

"Ain't you going up to his room?" inquired Mrs. Bloomer.

"Not just now," replied Anderson, and closed the door quickly behind him.

Alf Reesling and his companions were waiting impatiently on the sidewalk. They were actively disappointed when the Marshal emerged empty-handed.

"Was he too much fer you?" was Alf's scathing inquiry.

"How many times have I got to tell you, Alf, that I'm able to deduce these cases without your a.s.sistance? Now, this is a big case, and you leave it to me to handle. When I get ready to act, you'll hear something that will make your hair stand on end. Hold on, Newt! Don't ask any questions. Don't----"

"I wasn't going to ask any questions," snapped Newt. "I was going to tell you something."

"You was, eh? Well, what was you going to tell me?"

"Mort Fryback went by here a couple of minutes ago an' he says for you to come into his store right away."

Anderson frowned. "I bet he's confessed."

"Who? Him? What's he got to confess?" demanded Alf.

"Never mind, never mind," said the Marshal quickly. "I'll step in and see him now."

Leaving his "reserves" standing in front of the Grand View, Mr. Crow hurried into Fryback's hardware store.

Mort was pacing--or, strictly speaking, stumping--back and forth behind the cutlery counter. His brow was corrugated with anxiety. The instant he saw the Marshal he uttered an exclamation that might have been construed as either relief, dismay or wrath. It was, as a matter of fact, inarticulate and therefore extremely difficult to cla.s.sify.

Anderson, however, deduced it as dismay. Mr. Fryback came out from behind the counter, stumped over to the stove, in which there was a crackling fire and, after opening the isingla.s.s door, squirted a mouthful of tobacco juice upon the coals. Whereupon it became possible for him to articulate.

"I been lookin' everywhere fer you," said he, somewhat breathlessly.

"Where you been?"

"'Tendin' to business," retorted Anderson. "What's the matter?"

Mr. Fryback took the precaution to ascertain that there were no listeners in the store. "Somebody--some woman, you c'n bet on that--told my wife last night that I poisoned old Mike."

"Well, you did, didn't you?"

"Of course I did. That is, I hired Charlie Brubaker to do it. But she says I did it with my own hands, and--my gosh, Anderson, I never went through such a night in my life as last night." He mopped his brow.

"You'd think I was a murderer. Course, I denied it. I swore he wasn't dead, and that I'd increase the reward to a hundred dollars just to show her. What I want you to do, right away, is to have a new set of bills printed, offerin' a hundred dollars reward for that dog, instead of three. It's the only chance I've got of ever being able to live in my own house again."

The Marshal eyed him reflectively. "If you could get her to agree to let you offer the reward for Mike, dead or alive--"

"She wants him alive, and no other way."

"Can't you buy her off?"

Mr. Fryback groaned. "I could--" he began dismally, and then fell to chewing with great vigour.

"What would it cost?" inquired Anderson, feelingly.

"An automobile," replied Mr. Fryback, after opening and closing the stove-door once more. "It would be cheaper, you see, to offer a hundred dollars for Mike," he explained, ingenuously.

"It certainly would," agreed the Marshal, "seein' as you wouldn't have to pay fer anything except the printin' of the notices. If you wanted to show how much you think of your wife, and how anxious you are to please her, you could go as high as a thousand dollars, Mort."

"Would you, reely, Anderson?"

"Sure. She could lord it over all these women--includin' my wife--who've been sayin' Mike wasn't worth fifty cents and didn't have a pedigree any longer than his tail. Why, if she wanted to go on lyin' about the value of that old dog, she could tell people she had been offered a thousand dollars for Marmyduke by a well-known dog collector in New York."

"That _might_ please her," reflected Mort. "Course, this thing has already cost me quite a lot of money, outside the printin'. I've had to give Bill Kepsal a receipt in full fer what he owes me, and that young Brubaker's been in twice to price base-burner stoves. He says if he c'n get a good one fer ten dollars he'll take it, and his heart seems to be set on that seventy-dollar Regal over yonder. I'm in an awful fix, Anderson."

"Well, you can't say I didn't advise you to let Mike die a natural death."

"I wish to goodness I had," lamented Mort.

The door opened at that juncture, and in walked a man and a woman. The former was carrying a square black "valise," inadequately described by Mrs. Bloomer as twice the natural size. As a matter of fact, it was more like a half-grown trunk, to quote no less an authority than the town marshal.

The proprietor of the hardware store was, at a glance, qualified to pa.s.s an opinion on the personal appearance of the two strangers. His companion's attention, however, was devoted so earnestly to the big black "valise," that he couldn't have told, for the life of him, whether the customers were young or old, black or white. His fascinated gaze was riveted upon the object the man deposited carefully on the floor near the door.

"You are a locksmith, I perceive," remarked the strange man, addressing Mort. "I'd like to have you see if you can open this box for me. We've lost or mislaid the key."

"What fer sort of a lock is it?" asked Mort, approaching.

"Hold on, Mort!" called out Mr. Crow. "Don't monkey with that trunk."

[Ill.u.s.tration: _"Hold on, Mort!" called out Mr. Crow. "Don't monkey with that trunk"_]

The two strangers turned on him.

"Well, who the deuce have we here?" said the man, with some acerbity.

"Oh, what a nice old policeman!" cried the lady, fixing the Marshal with a pair of intensely blue eyes. Mr. Crow looked at her in amazement.

Could any one as pretty, as dainty and as refined-looking as she be engaged in the awful business of charming snakes?

"Before we go any further, mister, I've got to know what's inside that box," said Anderson firmly.

"What's the matter with you?" demanded the other. "There's nothing in it that need excite the law, my good man."

"This is our town marshal, Anderson Crow," explained Mort Fryback.

"I might have known it," said the stranger. "I've heard a good deal about Mr. Crow. Well, what's the answer?"

"That's what I want to know," snapped Anderson. "What is the answer?

What kind are they? And how many have you got?"

The stranger was on the point of exploding with indignation when his fair companion intervened.

"Leave it to me, George dear. You always fly into such a temper. If you'd only let me attend to the small things, while you look out for the big ones, we'd get along so much better. Wouldn't we, Mr. Crow?"

She appealed to Mr. Crow so abruptly and so sweetly that he said he guessed so before he could check himself.