The Just and the Unjust Part 10

"Shocking!" snapped the colonel.

"He took big chances," commented the gambler, "living the way he did."

He spoke of the dead man.

"Poor old man!" said the colonel pityingly.

What had it all amounted to, those chances for the sake of gain, which Gilmore had in mind.

"He can't have been dead very long," said Gilmore. "Did _you_ find him, Colonel?" he asked as he stood erect.

"No, Shrimplin found him."

Again the two men looked about them. On the floor by the counter at their right was a heavy sledge. Gilmore called Harbison's attention to this.

"I guess the job was done with that," he said.

"Possibly," agreed Harbison.

Gilmore picked up the sledge and examined it narrowly.

"Yes, you can see, there is blood on it." He handed it to Harbison, who stepped under the nearest lamp with the clumsy weapon in his hand.

"You are right, Andy!" and he glanced at the rude instrument of death with a look of repugnance on his keen sensitive face, then he carefully, placed it under the wooden counter. "Horrible!" he muttered to himself.

"It was no joke for him!" said the gambler, catching the last word. "But some one was bound to try this dodge sooner or later. Why, as far back as I can remember, people said he kept his money hidden away at the bottom of nail kegs and under heaps of sc.r.a.p-iron." He took a cigar from his pocket, bit off the end, and struck a match. "Well, I wouldn't want to be the other fellow, Colonel; I'd be in all kinds of a panic; it takes nerve for a job like this."

"It's a shocking circ.u.mstance," said the colonel.

"I wonder if it paid!" speculated the gambler. "And I wonder who'll get what he leaves. Has he any family or relatives?"

"No, not so far as any one knows. He came here many years ago, a close-mouthed Scotchman, who never had any intimates, never married, and never spoke of his private affairs."

There was a slight commotion at the door. They could hear Shrimplin's agitated voice, and a moment later two men, chance pa.s.sers-by with whom he had been speaking, shook themselves free of the little lamplighter and entered the room. The new-comers nodded to the colonel and Gilmore as they paused to stare mutely at the body on the floor.

"He bled like a stuck pig!" said one of the men at last. He was a ragged slouching creature with a splotched and bloated face half hidden by a bristling red beard. He glanced at Gilmore for an uncertain instant out of a pair of small shifty eyes. "It's murder, ain't it, boss?" he added.

"No doubt about that, Joe!" rejoined the gambler.

"I suppose it was robbery?" said the other man, who had not spoken before.

"Very likely," answered the colonel. "We have not examined the place, however; we shall wait for the proper officials."

"Who do you want, Colonel?"

"Coroner Taylor, and I suppose the sheriff," replied Harbison.

The man nodded.

"All right, I'll bring them; and say, what about the prosecuting attorney?" as he turned to leave.

"Yes, bring Moxlow, too, if you can find him."

The man hurried from the room. Gilmore leaned against the counter and smoked imperturbably. Joe Montgomery, with his great slouching shoulders arched, and his grimy hands buried deep in his trousers pockets, stared at the dead man in stolid wonder. Colonel Harbison's glance sought the same object but with a sensitive shrinking as from an ugly brutal thing.

A clock ticked loudly in the office; there was the occasional fall of cinders from the grate of the rusted stove that heated the place; these were sounds that neither Gilmore nor the colonel had heard before.

Presently a lean black cat stole from the office and sprang upon the counter; it purred softly.

"h.e.l.lo, puss!" said the gambler, putting out a hand. The cat stole closer. "I guess I'll have to take you home with me, eh? This ain't a place for unprotected females!" The cat crept back and forth under his caressing touch.

At the street-door Shrimplin appeared and disappeared, now his head was thrust into the room, and now his nose was flattened against the dingy show-windows; from neither point could he quite command the view he desired nor could he bring himself to enter the building; then he vanished entirely, but after a brief interval they heard his voice. He was evidently speaking with some one in the street. A little crowd was rapidly gathering about him, but it disintegrated almost immediately, his listeners abandoning him to hurry into the store.

"You must stand back, all of you!" said the colonel. "Unless you are very careful you may destroy important evidence!"

The crowd a.s.sembled itself silently for the most part; here and there a man removed his hat, or made some whispered comment, or asked some eager low-voiced question of Gilmore or the colonel. Men stood on boxes, on nail kegs, and on counters. Except for the little circle left about the dead man on the floor, every vantage point of observation was soon occupied. It was scarcely half an hour since Shrimplin had fallen speechless into Colonel Harbison's arms, yet fully two hundred men had gathered in that long room or were struggling about the door to gain admittance to it.

At a suggestion from Harbison, the gambler, followed by Joe, elbowed his way to the front door, which in spite of the protest of those outside, he closed and locked. A moment later, however, he opened it to admit Doctor Taylor, the coroner, and Conklin, the sheriff. The latter instantly set about clearing the room.

Gilmore and the colonel remained with the officials and during the succeeding ten minutes the gambler, who had kept his post at the door, opened, it to Moxlow, young Watt Harbison and two policemen.

As the coroner finished his examination of the body, the sound of wheels was heard in the Square and an undertaker's wagon drew up to the door.

The murdered man was placed on a stretcher and covered with a black cloth, then four men raised the stretcher and for the last time the old merchant pa.s.sed out under his creaking sign into the night.

"I've agreed to watch at the house, Andy," said Colonel Harbison. "I want you and Watt to come with me."

The gambler lighted a fresh cigar and the three men left the store.

On the Square groups of men discussed the murder. Though none was permitted to enter the store, the windows afforded occasional glimpses of the little group of officials within, until a policeman closed and fastened the heavy wooden shutters. Then the crowd slowly and reluctantly dispersed.

Meanwhile the town marshal, under cover of the excitement, had descended on the gas house where tramps congregated of winter nights for warmth and shelter. Here he found shivering over a can of beer, two homeless wretches, whom he arrested as suspicious characters. After this, official activity languished, for the official mind could think of nothing more to do.

With the scattering of the crowd on the Square, Shrimplin climbed into his cart and drove off home. The smother of wind-driven snow still enveloped the, town, the very air seemed charged with mystery and horror, and before the little lamplighter's eyes was ever the haunting vision of the murdered man.

He drove into the alley back of his house, unhitched Bill and led him into the barn. His torch made the gloom of the place more terrifying than utter darkness would have been. Suppose the murderer should be hiding there! Mr. Shrimplin's mind fastened on the hay-mow as the most likely place of concealment, and the cold sweat ran from him in icy streams; he could, almost see the murderer's evil eyes fixed upon him from the blackness above. But at last Bill was stripped of his harness, and the little lamplighter, escaping from the barn with its fancied terrors, hurried across his small back yard to his kitchen door.

"Well!" said Mrs. Shrimplin, as he entered the room. "I was beginning to wonder if you'd ever think it worth your while to come home!"

"What's the bell been ringing for?" asked Custer. Mrs. Shrimplin was seated by the table, which was littered with her sewing; Custer occupied his usual chair by the stove, and it was evident that they knew nothing of the tragedy in which Mr. Shrimplin had played so important, and as he now felt, so worthy a part.

"I suppose I've been out quite a time, and I may say I've seen times, too! I guess there ain't no one in the town fitter to say they seen times than just me!"

The light and comfort of his own pleasant kitchen had quite restored Mr.

Shrimplin.

"I may say I seen times!" he repeated significantly. "There's something doing in this here old town after all! I take back a heap of the hard things I've said about it; a feller can scare up a little excitement if he knows where to look for it. I ain't bragging none, but I guess you'll hear my name mentioned--I guess you'll even see it in print in the newspapers!" He warmed his cold hands over the stove. "Throw in a little more coal, sonny; I'm half froze, but I guess that's the worst any one can say of me!"

"You make much of it, whatever it is," said Mrs. Shrimplin.

"Maybe I do and maybe I don't," equivocated Mr. Shrimplin genially.