Six Feet Four Part 23

Old man King, red eyed with wrath, had gone out after the cattle rustlers in his own direct fashion, seeking to follow the trail of running steers through the mountain pa.s.ses, his eye hard, his rifle ready, his mind eager to suspect any man to whom that trail might lead.

But he found only confused tracks which ran toward the state border line and which vanished before even his sharp eyes, leading nowhere.

Young Bud King, his own anger little less than his father's, went forth on another trail, not after the running steers but after a man. And he went to the town of Dead Man's Alley. Mentally he had made his list of the men to whom one might look to for the commission of the crime which had driven the Bar X outfit to action. Being no man's fool, young King planned to go first to the source of the stream, as it were, and thence to travel downward seeking to see who had muddied the waters. And his "one chief bet" was that the source was in Hill's Corners.

The result of Bud King's investigations, so far as he was concerned, was little different from that of his father's and negligible. But his journey to the town of the bad name was of vast importance to others.

Winifred Waverly, upon the morning after the dance, came down late to her breakfast, and found that Pollard had waited for her. Although he was not in the habit of offering her this little courtesy, she thought nothing of it at first, having enough of other matters in her brain, perplexing her. But before the meal was over she knew why Henry Pollard had waited for her.

It was plain to her that he realized that some real importance might be attached to the matter of her having seen Buck Thornton last night, of having danced and talked with him. On the ride home he had not referred to the cattle man nor had she. Now, in great seeming carelessness but with his eyes keen upon her, he spoke lightly of the dance, mentioned that he had seen Thornton talking to one of the men at the schoolhouse door and wondered why he had gone so early.

She managed to look at him innocently and to say carelessly as he had spoken:

"I had a dance with him. He didn't say anything about leaving so soon."

She even achieved a little laugh which sounded quite natural, ending, "He seemed rather put out that I did not receive him like an old friend!"

"You did not accuse him of having robbed you?"

"Not in so many words," quietly. "But I was certainly not polite to him!

For a little I thought that he was going to return your money to me."

"Why?" Pollard asked sharply, and now she was sure of his readiness to suspect her of holding back something from him.

"He said," she went on, her interest seeming chiefly for her bacon and eggs, "that he was returning something to me I had left at the cabin at Harte's place. I couldn't think of anything but your money."

"What was it?"

"A spur rowel. It had been loose for several days, and dropped out in the cabin. He brought it back to me."

From this they pa.s.sed on to speak of other incidents of the dance and of other people, but the girl saw that her uncle's interest waned with the change of topic. Then, her heart fluttering in spite of her, but her voice steady enough, Winifred said lightly:

"I think I'll go for a little ride after breakfast. My horse needs the exercise, and," she added laughingly, "so do I."

"Good idea," he returned, nodding his approval. But then he asked which way she was riding, and finally volunteered to go with her, a.s.suring her smilingly that he had nothing of importance to do, and adding gravely, that he would feel safer if she were not out alone in this rough country.

So he rode with her and after an hour of swift galloping out toward the mountains, for the most part in silence, they came back to the town.

Pollard left her at his own gate and rode back through the street, "to see a man." But he returned almost immediately and for the rest of the day did not leave the house. It was a long day for the girl, filled with restlessness and a sense of being spied upon, of being watched almost every moment by her uncle. And before the day was done, there had come with the other emotions a little thrill of positive, personal fear.

It was midafternoon. The silence here at this far end of the street hung heavy and oppressive. She had gone up and down stairs half a dozen aimless times, eager for something to do. The long hours had been hers for reflection, and after weighing the hundred little incidents of these last few weeks, now there was no faintest shadow of a doubt that Henry Pollard was at least guilty of criminal complicity in a scheme to send an innocent man to the penitentiary if not to the gallows; she was more than half persuaded that Pollard was in some way seeking to shield himself by using Thornton as a scapegoat; she had got to the point where she began to wonder if Henry Pollard and Ben Broderick shared share and share alike both in the profits of these crimes and in their actual commission.

She came down stairs for a book, having at last finished the one in her room, resigned to inactivity for another day, perhaps for two or three days, until her uncle's watch upon her movements was less keen and suspicious. She reflected that if she read something she might coax her thoughts away from considerations which he could not understand in their entirety, and which terrified her when she thought that she did understand.

In her quest she pa.s.sed down the hall and to Pollard's office at the front of the house. The room was by no means private; she had gone into it many times before; sometimes it was used as a sitting room. She had thought that her uncle was in it, but when she came to the open door she saw that it was empty.

She went to the long table at which Pollard wrote his few letters. Upon one end of it, at the far end from the pen and ink, were some books and old magazines, piled carelessly. Yesterday she had seen here a fairly recent novel the t.i.tle of which promised her an interesting story. A glance showed her the book, lying open, where Pollard had evidently been reading it. And in the same careless glance she saw something else which sent the blood into her face and made her turn swiftly, apprehensively, toward the door.

There, beside Pollard's chair, was his waste paper basket, filled to overflowing with crumpled papers. And, thrusting upward through the papers, catching her eye because the papers were white and it was another colour, was a long, yellow envelope. An envelope exactly like the one in which Mr. Templeton had put the bank notes she was to carry to her uncle!

Obeying her swift impulse she stepped to the basket and drew the envelope out. It was not only like the one she knew, yellow and cloth lined, but it was the same one! She knew that beyond a hint of doubt.

For she remembered how, while sealing the thing for her, Mr. Templeton had laid it down on his table, upon his ink-wet pen, how he had carelessly blotted it. And here was the blot!

She came swiftly around the table. Her back was toward the open door.

And....

Henry Pollard was standing behind her, watching her! She did not see him, she could not be sure that she had heard his soft step on the hall carpet, but she knew that he was there. She seemed to sense his presence with the subtle sixth sense.

CHAPTER XXIII

WARNING

She felt her heart beating wildly ... if at that second he had spoken to her she could not have found immediate voice in answer were it to save her life. But further, she knew that if he gave her one second longer she could control herself. For the first time it came upon her in a flash that she had a personal interest in what these men did. They sought to play her for their dupe, their fool; they counted upon making her a sort of innocent accomplice, they dared to count upon her to help them. To make their own positions safe they were dragging her into the dirty mess that they had made.

Her anger steadied her. Her brain had gone hot with it; now it went cool, cold. She was holding the envelope in her hands when Pollard came to the door; now she tossed it back to the basket carelessly and still kept her back to the door. She was humming a little song softly when she picked up the book she had come for and turned with it in her hand as though to leave the room.

But in spite of her second of preparation she started when she saw Henry Pollard's face. She had known that it could look hard and cruel, that it could grow dark and threatening. But she saw now a look in the hard eyes, about the sinister mouth, which sent a spurt of terror up into her heart. Here was a man who could kill, would kill if he were driven to it. She read it in his eyes in that flash of a glance as she might have read it in big printed letters. If he came to believe that there was actual danger to him from her knowledge he would find a way to keep her silent.

"Well?" Pollard said steadily.

He came into the room and closed the door softly behind him. Now there was no tell-tale expression in his tone and all expression had gone out of his eyes.

Even then, though her heart beat quickly and the colour wavered in her cheeks, she managed to look at him steadily and to answer collectedly:

"It looks like I'd been playing Paul Pry, and that you'd caught me, doesn't it?"

She even laughed softly, and went on:

"I came down for a book. Then I noticed this." She picked up the envelope again, holding it out toward him. "You see I recognized it!"

"There are lots of yellow envelopes," he answered colourlessly, his eyes sharp points of light upon hers. "What about it?"

"I am not a lady detective," she smiled back, taking a sudden keen delight in the knowledge that she had taken the right tack, and that she was puzzling Pollard. "But it is quite obvious that you've got your money back! Why didn't you tell me?"

"There are lots of yellow envelopes," he repeated, speaking slowly, and she knew that his brain was as busy as her own. If the moment held danger for her, then it held danger no less for him. "They are common enough. What makes you think that this one..."

"Oh, but I know," she broke in lightly. "You see I remembered Mr.

Templeton getting this smudge of ink on it. He called my attention to it, the dear, precise old banker that he is, and wanted to give me a clean one. Did Mr. Thornton get frightened and bring your money back?"

For a moment he did not answer. She knew that he was measuring her with those shrewd eyes of his, looking for a false sign, just the twitch of a muscle to tell him that she was playing a part. And she gave no sign.

"No," he said at last. "Thornton did not bring it back. And even if you were a lady detective you might make a mistake now. I haven't seen a cent of the money."

She lifted her eyebrows in well simulated surprise.

"But the envelope?"