The Silent Hour: A Mrs. Meade Mystery

By Elisabeth Grace Foley

Cover design by Historical Editorial

Silhouette artwork by Casey Koester

Formatting by Second Sentence Press

Photo credits

Wallpaper © Evdakovka | Vectorstock.com

Magnifying glass © mvp | Fotolia.com

This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Copyright © 2015 Elisabeth Grace Foley

Table of Contents

The Silent Hour

More Mrs. Meade

About the Author

The Silent Hour

Kill men i' the dark!—Where be these bloody thieves?—

How silent is this town!—Ho! murder! murder!

- William Shakespeare

Frances finished cleaning the blackboard and piled together the few books on her desk. She swept the floor in front of the blackboard and around the stove, then stood by the door and took a last look around the schoolhouse, now empty and clean, before donning her jacket and hat, gathering up her books and departing.

The Sour Springs schoolhouse stood at the end of a little side canyon two miles south of town, whose steep walls were clothed in rich green pine with a cloud of golden-orange aspens below. The aspen leaves were trembling on their stalks in the autumn breeze as Frances Ruskin stepped from the door of the schoolhouse, but they had not yet begun to fall. In fair weather Frances liked the walk of a mile or so down the road to the house where she boarded; only in the winter did it take a horse to plough up through the drifts of snow in the canyon. Today, however, she turned the opposite way, bound for a certain spot by the side of the road which she had come to know as a meeting-place.

Frances walked slowly, letting her arms swing free; her books in one hand and her head tilted back to breathe in the crisp, brilliant Colorado air. The ochre and dark-green of the trees, the vaulted walls of the canyon, made her heart swell with almost painfully keen appreciation of their beauty. Never before had autumn touched her so to the quick. There was a sameness about summer after all…its blues and greens unchanging, except near the end when the shades grew a little tarnished…autumn was a season of change, of finding new colors and unexpected new beauties every day in places that had seemed drab before. To Frances it seemed a metaphor of her own life—everything that had happened to her before this autumn felt vague, unimportant, all of it the same. She dated her existence from the day, exactly three weeks and two days ago, when love came into her life.

Frances was twenty-three, and had been teaching school in Sour Springs for two years. She was not beautiful, but she had clear, pleasant features, frank gray eyes and soft brown hair. She had been accustomed to working from an early age; to providing for others in her family; and later when left alone, to providing for herself. Reserved by nature, and with scarcely any opinion of her own talents and attractions, it had taken her a while to be slowly drawn into the social life of Sour Springs by a few livelier girls who befriended her. It was at their urging she had gone rather reluctantly to an early-autumn picnic of young people just over a year ago, not expecting very much. But she had enjoyed herself, far more than she had anticipated, and it was there that she had met Jim Cambert. Jim was nearly four years younger than her; intelligent, a good conversationalist, and talked to her freely without seeming to notice her slight hesitant reserve that soon melted away in his company. A friendship sprang up between them from then on—they got on well and never seemed short of things to talk about; and in the months that followed, their easy companionship became one of the bright spots in Frances’ life, seeming to broaden the horizons of her quiet, unremarkable existence.

It had come as a shock to both of them to discover, almost simultaneously, that their feelings for each other had gone deeper, for the very reason that the thought had never entered their minds since the beginning. But after the first moments or hours of standing open-mouthed before the revelation, nothing could have seemed more natural. The close bond between them had already been formed before they were aware of it.

Frances came to a quiet bend in the canyon road, and sat down on the shallow bank beside it. She sat there a little while, watching the first few gold leaves fall gently, until she heard the clip of approaching hooves, and Jim Cambert came around the bend on his tall black horse. He pulled up and dismounted at the side of the road and came over, looking down at her with eyes warm with happiness, and then he sat down beside her on the bank and kissed her. Frances’ fingers tightened on his coat sleeve and she closed her eyes, enjoying the little thrill, the more precious to her because it was something she had never thought she would have. She lingered close to him for a long moment.

After a little while Jim drew back and smiled at her again. He was tall and athletic and golden-haired, with a confident air about him, and it was only when you looked him closely in the eye that you realized with some surprise how young he was. His matter-of-fact maturity was the product of an unusual and colorful upbringing—orphaned as a child and taken in by his grandfather, an old career soldier, he had grown up in barracks and outposts and garrison towns across the country, most of his time spent among adults. His education had been unorthodox but broad—Major Cambert was a prolific reader who carried a ponderous library with him from post to post, swelled by volumes he forgot to return to their owners and thinned again by those he scattered among friends along the way. Eventually the Major retired and bought a small cattle ranch near Sour Springs, and when rheumatism began to bind him to his easy-chair, Jim at sixteen became his eyes and ears and feet on the ranch, and by now practically ran it himself, subject only to Major Cambert’s instructions and approval.

They sat for a while on the sunny bank, hands clasped simply in each other’s, and talked of their future. They had been too happy to think and speak in terms of earth much before.

“I don’t see why we can’t get married next week,” said Jim only half jokingly. “A month isn’t too short an engagement when we’ve known each other this long. It isn’t as if we have anything to do beforehand.”

“I’d love to,” said Frances, smiling, “but I do feel I should go on teaching to the end of this term. If I stay on to the Christmas holidays it’ll give the school board time to find another teacher.”

“Christmas,” said Jim with a rueful grin. “Well, I suppose you’re right. Have you told the board you’ll be leaving yet?”

“No, not yet. We hadn’t made any plans, so—I’ll give them my resignation tomorrow.” Frances hesitated just a second, and then said, “Have you—have you told your grandfather?”

“No, I haven’t. I guess I’ve hardly been able to believe it myself, enough to tell it to anyone else.”

“You should,” said Frances. “It wouldn’t be right to leave him not knowing till the last minute—and anyway, he really ought to be the first to know.”

Jim laughed. “All right. I’ll tell Grandfather tonight, and you can tell the board tomorrow.”

“What do you think he’ll say?” said Frances.

“Grandfather? He’ll be tickled to death. He’ll like having a woman in the house—it’ll make us a family instead of a barracks. And don’t think you’ll be burdened with taking care of him, Frances. Grandfather can’t get out of the house much, but he’s not a complete invalid; he can hobble around indoors with a little help from me.”

“I’m glad,” said Frances. “Glad that he’ll be pleased, I mean. And I wouldn’t mind taking care of him if I did need to. I—” She drew a soft little breath. “It’s all so wonderful I can hardly credit it either. I never really dreamed much about anything…I guess I always supposed I would go on teaching school forever, and nothing much would ever happen to me. And now…I’m so happy, Jim.”

Jim lifted both her hands, twining his fingers between hers, and looked down into her eyes. “I love you, Frances,” he said softly.

She looked up at him, her heart too full for speech. Jim drew her into his arms and kissed her again, and the autumn breeze slipped in a cool invisible swirl around them, whisking a golden leaf past on a beam of sunlight.

* * *

The fire burning steadily in the fireplace was a good one, but it looked almost small sitting back from the center of the broad stone hearth. The big fireplace with Major Cambert’s armchair beside it dominated the not overly large room, which also held a battered desk filled with papers, a small iron safe and a couple of comfortably overflowing bookcases. The room was dark except for the fire-glow, as was the Major’s custom in the evenings; the shifting gold light half illuminated the weather-lined face and gray moustache of the old soldier sitting back in his chair, an old red rug over his knees. Across from him Jim was sitting bent forward with his elbows on his knees, kneading his hands together, and every now and then glancing into the fire with a little half-hidden smile as he tried to think how you put together the words to explain about something so special.

“Grandfather, I’ve got something to tell you,” he said at last.

“Eh? What is it?” said Major Cambert around the stem of his pipe, as he adjusted it in his mouth.

His complacency was too much for the happiness bubbling up inside Jim, who was obliged to get up and stir the fire before he could go on. He did a thorough job of it, returned the poker to its rack, and then turned around and stood on the hearth facing his grandfather, his thumbs hooked in his belt. “I’ve decided I want to get married.”

Major Cambert’s jaw dropped, and he stared at his grandson for a moment, and then slowly he began to shake with soundless laughter, which gave way to audible mirth. “You do, do you! And when did you reach that decision?”

“Well, it happened pretty suddenly,” said Jim with a shy smile.

“And now you’ve only to look about for the girl, I suppose,” said Major Cambert, trying to be grave.

“Oh, no, I’ve already found one. As a matter of fact,” said Jim, “well—I’m engaged.”

Major Cambert took his pipe out of his mouth altogether and looked at his grandson with something like a new respect. “Well…! Who is she, then?”

Jim plunged enthusiastically into speech. “Frances Ruskin. You know her, of course. I met her a year ago. You’ve met her once or twice when we were in town; I’m sure you remember her.”

A frown slowly overtook Major Cambert’s smile; the indulgent light faded from his eyes. “Miss—Ruskin—the schoolteacher?”

“Yes! You remember talking to her, at the Literary Society meeting back in the spring. She—”

“The schoolteacher?” said Major Cambert again. He gave his grandson a look that was certainly not one of approval, and then uttered a short dismissive sound, almost of contempt. “Why, she’s no girl! She must be twenty-six if she’s a day.”

“She’s only twenty-three,” said Jim, a little stiffly, “and I don’t see what difference that makes.”

“Difference!” said Major Cambert. “It makes a sight more difference than you’ve thought about, my boy. Why do you want to marry her?”

Jim said, with ominous articulation, “Because I love her, and she loves me. That’s what’s customary, isn’t it?”

The Major gave a short bark of a laugh. “Tell my old grandmother! Yes, I’ve seen the girl. She’s twenty-three, going on twenty-four more than likely, and you’re not twenty yet. Why would she want you when she could have a grown man? If she’s accepted you, it’s because she can’t get a man, I’ll wager. She knows what side her bread’s buttered on.”

“A man?” said Jim, his voice strangled. “I’ve been your right hand for the past four years—I’ve heard you say it to people time and again—and now you sit there and tell me I’m not a man?”

“Not when it comes to women you’re not,” said Major Cambert, scowling darkly, and moving from side to side in his chair as he always did when upset. “You don’t know the first thing, boy. You ought to take up with some flowery little chit of sixteen who doesn’t know any more than you do.”

“Well, that’s not what I want. Frances is worth ten girls like that, and she’s the one I love.”

Major Cambert’s voice was hard. “You’re fooling yourself if you think she’s marrying you for love, my boy. You’re infatuated with her, that’s plain, and you don’t see you’re being taken for everything you’ve got by a very practical, fortune-hunting—”

“Don’t say it!” Jim took a step forward, towering over his grandfather with eyes blazing.

There was a second’s silence, with the fire crackling innocuously in the background, their eyes locked angrily on each other. Then Jim turned away and walked the length of the long hearth and back, abruptly, trying to control himself. He spoke again. “Well, now I know what you think. But it doesn’t make any difference. I intend to marry Frances whether you like it or not!”

Major Cambert leaned forward, pushing himself up with the arm of the easy-chair till it creaked. “Not with my consent you won’t. You can’t marry as you please till you’re twenty-one, and I don’t need to remind you that you’re a ways off from that.”

“Your consent! You wouldn’t dare do that!”

“I would indeed. You might as well resign yourself, my boy.”

Jim ground the words out through his teeth. “After all your fine talk about relying on me and being proud of my judgement, you won’t let me choose for myself in the only thing I’ve ever wanted!”

“I don’t intend to see you ruin your life with a poor choice in marriage, and it matters little to me what means I have to use to keep you from it.”

Again Jim took an enraged step toward him, the shadows thrown in the dark room blackening all but his angry face. “Well, you won’t do it! I don’t care if I have to wait, or if I have to do something else, but you’re not going to stop me. You’re going to regret you ever tried.”

He was halfway across the room as he flung these last words over his shoulder, and turned and jerked the door open so sharply that the man standing outside had no time to draw back, though he made a half-motion as if to do so. He wore cowboy’s garb, and had coarse, unkempt black hair and a swarthy brown tint to his face, and he lifted his head and surveyed Jim with a curiously speculative look. He had clearly been standing there wanting to come in for reasons of his own, but unwilling to interrupt the argument he heard inside. “What are you doing here?” demanded Jim.

The cowboy opened his mouth, and then closed it again. Perhaps he saw the answer made no difference. Jim pushed roughly past him and disappeared.

* * *

Frances sat at her desk, a pencil still in her hand, and stared at the whitewashed wall opposite. She heard her own voice say, sounding as if it came from someone else, “Then he refused his consent—completely?”

Jim nodded, restlessly. “And he can do it, too,” he said, turning a jar of ink on the desk with one hand. “He’s my legal guardian. If he won’t give me his consent I can’t take out a marriage-license.”

Frances managed a small, wistful smile. “I don’t mind waiting, Jim,” she said, although something sharp and gripping inside her was crying out the opposite.

“But I do,” said Jim, swinging away from the desk and walking about the platform on which it sat. “I won’t be twenty-one for fourteen months. It’s ridiculous that we should have to wait more than a year. I’ll find some way out…I won’t stand for it.”

“But why did he object? Did he give you any reason?”

Jim’s face darkened as he looked down at the scuffed plank floor of the schoolhouse, and for a second he seemed about to say something that would give her the answer; but he thrust his hands deep into his coat pockets and shook his head a little. “He just didn’t behave at all the way I expected,” he said. “Nothing like I expected.”

It was the first time Frances had known that Jim was not telling her the whole truth, and what that meant about his quarrel with his grandfather she did not dare to consider. She had never seen Jim like this before. He looked pale, restless, aggravated, as if he had not slept well; his movements were abrupt and uneasy, and there was still some kind of anger lurking behind his eyes when they met hers for a second. He stood still a moment, and kicked at the corner of the desk.

She said, “Jim, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” said Jim. He turned to face her and put both hands flat on the desk. “Nothing. I—I’d just rather not talk about it any more. But I promise you, Frances, everything’s going to work out all right.” He leaned forward and kissed her rather quickly on the cheek, and straightened up.

“I’m riding over to Morris’s,” he said. “I want to take another look at that horse I’m trying to get Randall to sell me. I’ll see you again tomorrow, all right?”

“Yes,” said Frances. Jim managed a brief, almost painful smile, then turned quickly and strode out.

A year…more than a year…the months which yesterday had looked so golden were suddenly bleak to Frances. She could wait…she knew how to wait. But did Jim? He was wildly impatient now, whipped up in a turmoil of affection for her and anger at his grandfather; but could he stand up to tedious months of waiting? Or would a lapse of calmer time make him see things differently…realize he had been rash. Would he, weeks or months from now, come to her and say in his friendly, honest way, “Frances, maybe we made a mistake after all…we’ve always been the best of friends, but I don’t know what I was thinking when I asked you to marry me…it must have been just an impulse…”

Jim had left the door open. The crisp breeze drifted in, making the bright sunlight that fell through the doorway seem false and hollow. The four cold whitewashed walls of the schoolhouse seemed to Frances to be shutting her in—into the rote, quiet life of loneliness that for three brilliant weeks she thought she had escaped forever. The shadow of a leaf blown past the door flicked across her desk like a presentiment, and the autumn air enveloped her with a subtle, dreading chill.

* * *

The milkman usually tapped at Mrs. Henney’s kitchen window and left his wares on the doorstep. He only rapped at the door and waited for her to answer it when he had some remarkable piece of news to share. So when they heard his knock, all of the ladies (and sometimes even the gentleman) who boarded upstairs opened their doors a few inches and put their heads out, and a few bolder or more hard of hearing even ventured out into the hall and listened over the banisters of the back stairs. Boarding-house etiquette dictated that when the milkman had finished his recital and departed, they all retired to their respective rooms and gave a very good imitation of having heard nothing at all, until they gathered to discuss it at the breakfast table later. But today, as soon as the first brief fragments of conversation drifted up the staircase, Mrs. Meade opened her door wide and went directly down the stairs and into the kitchen. The word that had caught her attention was “murder.”

“Found him dead right on his own hearth,” the milkman was saying as she entered, with the particular relish of the news-bringer. “That’s where he liked to sit at night, they said. He’d fell out of his chair and was lying there, shot right through the heart.”

“Dreadful! How dreadful!” shuddered Mrs. Henney, clasping her hands with a handful of apron in them.

“Who?” asked Mrs. Meade.

“Major Cambert. One of the punchers from his ranch come tearing into town round one o’clock this morning and said the old man had been shot. Sheriff went out to take a look.”

“And have they no idea who shot him?” said Mrs. Meade.

The glibness of the milkman’s recital hinted at how many times he had already retailed the information at houses on his rounds. “Guess there was nobody around when it happened. The puncher who rode in for the sheriff, fellow named Gennaro, he was the one that found him. He’s been talking some in town—he didn’t ride back with the sheriff—and they say things don’t look too good for the old man’s grandson.”

Mrs. Henney’s eyes widened as she let her hands and the apron drop. “My heavens, not young Jim Cambert?”

“Only grandson he’s got,” said the milkman, permitting himself a ponderous joke. “Had, more like. Anyway, the punchers say he and Major Cambert had a most awful quarrel the other night—something about a young lady. It was that fellow Gennaro overheard some of it.”

“Mr. Gennaro seems quite a busy man,” observed Mrs. Meade.

“It was terribly impolite of him to have listened,” said Mrs. Henney, shaking her head solemnly. “Didn’t he say if he heard anything more?”

“Dunno. Whatever it was about, seeing the way things have turned out, it’s got to make the sheriff give young Jim a look.”

“I daresay it will,” said Mrs. Meade slowly. She was mentally running over a list of the young ladies of Sour Springs, seeing if there were any bits and ends of gossip she had heard that might fit together—Jim Cambert—had his name been linked with any particular girl? It might not make any difference, of course, if he wasn’t the one who had shot Major Cambert after all, but such things were always interesting.

Mrs. Henney was still shaking her head. “I declare, Sour Springs’ crime is getting to be something dreadful! A kidnapping not a year and a half ago, and now a murder. Why, it’s becoming just like living in the great cities.”

“Hardly as bad as that yet, ma’am,” said the milkman. “My horse ain’t got nearly so far to walk yet. Well, good morning.”

“Yes—yes indeed,” said Mrs. Henney faintly, as if there was little hope of that.

The door closed upon the milkman and Mrs. Henney turned to Mrs. Meade. “Mercy, Mrs. Meade, what next?”

“Breakfast, I think,” said Mrs. Meade, whose interest in the more dramatic workings of human nature never made her lose sight of the practical. “And after that—no, perhaps I had better not go out this morning after all.”

She mounted the stairs, her approach heralded by a muted closing of doors all along the upstairs hall. Mrs. Meade’s curiosity never led her into excesses of rushing about trying to discover things faster than everyone else. She knew that if an occurrence was really interesting, the details would come—or else they would remain strangely absent, which usually signified something even more interesting. She knew now, for instance, that there were three possible ways things would fall out with Major Cambert’s death: either it was suicide, and the presence of a revolver beside (or perhaps beneath) the body on the hearth was the one detail the milkman had not been made master of; or he had been shot by someone whose guilt was obvious and the sheriff would have them arrested by midday; or—he had been shot by a person and for a reason not immediately apparent. In which case—

Mrs. Meade went back into her room and resumed the morning tidying-up which had been interrupted by the milkman’s arrival. She folded her nightdress and put it away, straightened the pillows on the bed, and returned to the bureau looking-glass to put the last touches on her neat coiffure of soft brown hair shaded over with gray—overtones of gray that had not been so prominent in that prior year when Mrs. Henney’s boarding-house had been shaken to its foundations by the disappearance of one of its tenants. Mrs. Meade smiled at her reflection, as one smiles at a friend whose foibles one knows well and is patient with. She knew better than to attribute the gray hairs to the upheaval of the kidnapping case, in the solution of which she had played an unexpected role.

She had been acquainted with Major Cambert, to a degree, though she had seen less of him since his rheumatism had kept him at the ranch. Perhaps it had been better for their acquaintance that way. The Major was an interesting man, with a good deal of stimulating conversation, but there was a slight harsh edge even to his humor that left one feeling rather raw after hours in his company. A cynical man, Mrs. Meade thought as she did her hair—she wondered why. The early deaths of his wife, son and daughter-in-law, perhaps; years of military life with rank enough to be involved in Army politics (politics, Mrs. Meade maintained, would make a cynic out of anyone). Yet how could he have kept up this attitude into old age, with a splendid boy like Jim at his side to demonstrate all the best of what might be found in life?

Mrs. Meade went to breakfast, and said comparatively little while her fellow-boarders examined the milkman’s story from every which way without forming a single original conclusion. Afterwards, she did not sally forth upon errands as she had intended to do that morning, but went to the parlor and wrote some letters she had meant for her afternoon’s employment, and then occupied herself with her knitting. If you had asked her what she was doing, she might have replied that she was waiting for the details to arrive.

She was rewarded in the early afternoon, about an hour after dinner, when Sheriff Andrew Royal pushed open the creaking little picket gate and came up the walk through the late asters and trimmed-down autumn-dried stalks of Mrs. Henney’s garden. In spite of his gray hair and stooped shoulders, Sheriff Royal was an energetic man who never let the grass grow under his feet. He would have accomplished a great deal already this morning, Mrs. Meade reflected as she laid aside her knitting and rose to meet him; and his appearance here, which she had only gambled upon as a slight chance, confirmed her suspicion that this was no ordinary case.

It was not; for instead of crafting some elaborate throat-clearing excuse for having come to see her, Sheriff Royal merely replied to her good-afternoon and sat down on the sofa, which was a good deal too low for him, and sat there a minute dangling his hat from his hands. He looked down at it, and let it fall experimentally on the carpet, as if curious to see which way it would land, and then picked it up and looked over at Mrs. Meade, who had seated herself in an adjacent chair. “I suppose you’ve heard about this Cambert thing,” he said.

“I expect nearly everyone in Sour Springs has heard by this time,” said Mrs. Meade.

“Ugly kind of a thing,” said Royal. “There’s been shootings enough here in my time, but when somebody walks into a man’s house at night and shoots him sitting in his chair—you don’t like it.”

From Andrew Royal, who seldom expressed himself on a personal level, this was a strong statement. Mrs. Meade looked at him more attentively. He coughed and said ironically, trying to keep a twitch of a smile under cover of his large moustache, “I suppose you’ve already settled for yourself who done it?”

“No,” said Mrs. Meade, “so far I have only concluded one thing, and that is that Major Cambert did not shoot himself.”

Andrew Royal cracked a laugh. “Score one for you. He didn’t. No gun there, no powder burns on him or his clothes. Hadn’t told anybody that, though, till I got back to town a little while ago.”

“I see,” said Mrs. Meade. “No, I had only decided that he was not of the temperament to take his own life. I don’t believe anything could torment Major Cambert to the point where he could not stand it; he was the kind of man who would sit and let it rattle off his hard shell.”

“Didn’t know you knew him that well.”

“I didn’t. Only well enough to presume, but if the facts bear me out—”

“They do,” said Royal grimly. “And it doesn’t make it any easier for me. Complicated—that’s what it is. Too doggone complicated.”

Mrs. Meade had an inkling of what this meant, and she ventured to test it. “The love-affair that is said to be mixed up with it, you mean?”

“It beats me,” said Royal explosively, trying to get up in order to pace the room, but failing to launch from his low seat—“how any serious case, you scratch it and find some sentimental nonsense mucking it up. Makes people behave in ways they wouldn’t on an average day. Without a love-affair to turn his head, a boy like Jim Cambert wouldn’t ordinarily shoot his grandfather.”

“Did he?” inquired Mrs. Meade.

Andrew Royal shrugged. “He’s got the loudest-crying motive, anyhow. Had a fight with his grandfather four days ago because he wanted to get married and the old man refused his consent. Boy’s not of age. Last night he left the place to ride out to one of their line camps. All the men are out on fall roundup except two who stayed on in the bunkhouse to do the chores. Doc Dunton says the Major was killed between ten and eleven, likely closer to eleven. Jim Cambert swears he left the place before ten—but the man at the line shack says he didn’t get there till past midnight, and it properly ought to take him only three-quarters of an hour. Nobody saw him leave the house, nobody heard him, only his word on it.”

Mrs. Meade tilted her head slightly. “The two men in the bunkhouse,” she said. “Was one of them—Gennaro?”

Sheriff Royal ran a hand over his head and rumpled up his rough gray hair. “Here’s where it gets even better,” he growled. “This Gennaro never had any love lost for the Major either. Cambert was tough with his crew; he’d docked Gennaro’s pay for every time he got drunk, and Gennaro let on that he didn’t like it. He claims he was asleep in the bunkhouse from before Jim Cambert left. Didn’t wake up, didn’t hear a shot, nothing. Only his word on it.”

“I begin to see,” said Mrs. Meade. “And the other man—?”

“Whole outfit swears he sleeps like the dead,” said Royal grumpily. “Didn’t hear nobody come in or out, no shot—nothing. Dumbest ox I ever had to question. I’d go bail he’s telling the truth just because he’s not smart enough to lie.”

“Yet Gennaro was the one to discover the body—or so I have been informed. How does he account for that?”

“His story is, he woke up after midnight, stepped outside for a smoke, and saw light in the house window. The fire was usually banked down when Major Cambert went to bed, so he walked up to the house to see if everything was all right, went in and found him dead.”

“He was the one to overhear the quarrel as well,” said Mrs. Meade, “or so I’ve been informed…Yes; well, there is the possibility he could have seized upon the chance to kill the Major in its aftermath, knowing Jim would be implicated. Making sure to spread his account of the quarrel far and wide, of course.”

Royal shook his head. “Seems he’d have made it easy on himself and swore he saw Jim leaving the place after eleven, or that he heard the shot.”

“He may be too shrewd for that,” said Mrs. Meade. “Shrewd enough to know that if his story was found false later, he would have implicated himself. Suppose Jim Cambert had arrived at the line camp at a reasonable time? He had no way of knowing Jim would not.”

Royal considered it, and grunted in half approval. “He’s a hard one to figure,” he said. “Gennaro, I mean. Doesn’t say much, and doesn’t let on what he’s thinking. Always watching people like he’s waiting to catch ’em out in something.”

There was a pause, and then Mrs. Meade put the question she had been wanting to ask from the first, yet been rather reluctant to hear the sad answer. “Jim knows by now, of course? How did he take the news of his grandfather’s death?”

Sheriff Royal got himself up off the low sofa and stalked the room with his hands behind him, looking rather big and uncouth for the little parlor with its crocheted tablecloths and china knick-knacks. He spoke in the gruff, abrupt tone he always used to distance himself from such subjects. “Sure he knows. Sent a man out to the line camp after him soon as I got there. Seemed pretty stunned at first—then he got mad. Went after me like he thought I was keeping something from him—wanted to know who did it.”

“Then he didn’t seem to—suspect anybody.”

Royal shook his head again. He caught a glimpse of himself reflected in the glass of a picture-frame on the wall, scowled, and surreptitiously tried to smooth his hair down.

Mrs. Meade got up, and turned to the window, her arms folded at her waist. Perhaps she did not mean to let her face betray anything she was thinking. “I know this is a highly indelicate question, but—does anyone seem to know the name of the girl who occasioned Jim Cambert’s quarrel with his grandfather?”

Royal turned away from the picture-frame. “Don’t suppose I forgot that, do you? Had to go and see her. Frances Ruskin, the schoolteacher.”

“Frances?” said Mrs. Meade softly, half to herself. “Frances…and Jim Cambert…dear me.”

She thought for a moment, looking out the window at the crisp dried garden, and then turned to the sheriff. “You saw her this morning? What did she say?”

“Seemed struck into a clean daze. Stared at me like I wasn’t really there. Had to ask her three times before I could make her understand a question. She was alone last night too—the folks she boards with were out to dinner and she stayed home with a headache.”

“Then you view her as a suspect, too,” said Mrs. Meade, coming a few steps forward from the window.

Royal lifted his hands. “She’s got the same motive as Jim Cambert. She has a horse she uses for getting to school and she’s used to saddling him herself. She seems sensible enough to handle a gun. She could have rode over to Cambert’s herself and done it.”

Mrs. Meade struck quickly with her next question. “Why did Major Cambert object to the marriage?”

Sheriff Royal coughed. Mrs. Meade gave a knowing smile. “Mr. Gennaro was very thorough, I see.”

“Seems Major Cambert had a bee in his bonnet about her being older than Jim. Said she was only marrying him because it was her only chance—because she knew which side her bread was buttered on, and so forth. And I don’t deny it gives her a lot more reason to be in a hurry.”

“Oh, Andrew,” said Mrs. Meade reproachfully. “I needn’t expect you to be sympathetic, but you might be more generous.”

“She’s no fool,” said Andrew Royal skeptically. He thumped himself down again on the low sofa. “She wouldn’t want to wait till he comes of age. Maybe it’s all right now, but by then she’ll be halfway to thirty and he’ll still be a boy. He mightn’t be so eager anymore.”

“Your arithmetic is acceptable, Andrew, but your logic is flawed,” said Mrs. Meade, seating herself rather primly in her chair. “How can you presume to say what either of them feels? I think it very probable that Frances is quite fond of Jim. But a sensible girl, such as you’ve described her to be, would hardly agree to marry if she thought his affection would not last.”

“Women do strange things out of pity sometimes,” said the sheriff sagely.

“Yes—but when their whole future life and happiness, and someone else’s, depend upon it? And I will tell you, that never in the course of my existence have I heard of someone committing a murder to indulge a sense of pity.”

“All I know is,” said Royal firmly, “Jim Cambert says he was riding to the line camp and can’t prove it; Gennaro says he was asleep in the bunkhouse and can’t prove it; and Frances Ruskin says she was home with a headache and can’t prove it. And it wasn’t robbery. Major Cambert had a safe in the same room he was murdered in with every cent he had in it, and it wasn’t touched. I made Jim open it and we counted the money—there wasn’t a dollar missing.” He slapped his hat discontentedly against his knee. “And nobody else in this town I know of who might have had a grudge against the old man.”

“Except perhaps Old Ted,” suggested Mrs. Meade.

Old Ted was one of the seedy characters of Sour Springs, a broken-down ex-soldier who cleaned out stalls at the livery stable. He had once been in Major Cambert’s command, and when their paths crossed again in Sour Springs, Old Ted made a great show of being the Major’s friend, hailing him on the street with grating civilian familiarity whenever they met. Major Cambert would give him a dollar for beer to get rid of him, and about once a month Old Ted used the accumulated proceeds to get soundly drunk, and spent several hours railing about former friends and superiors who had mistreated him—Major Cambert among them. The real extent of their acquaintance had been the Major’s putting Old Ted in the guardhouse several times for petty thievery, and complaining that he was the worst groom ever to look after his horse.

“True—I’d forgotten about him,” said Sheriff Royal, his bushy eyebrows working a little at the thought. “Measly sort of grudge, if he’s even got one—but he could have got drunk and shot him, I suppose. I’ll see where he was last night.”

He added vindictively, “I’d like it to be Old Ted, just so all this rot we’ve been talking would be a mess I don’t have to untangle.”

He got up, as Mrs. Meade concealed a rather rueful smile. “Well, I’ve got to go. Have to go and see Tom Hall about all this still, and then I guess I’ll dig up Old Ted.”

“Tom Hall? Why?”

“Executor. Cambert left a will—found it in the safe. Everything goes to Jim, of course, but Hall’s got to handle it till he comes of age.”

Mrs. Meade nodded. Tom Hall was president of the First National Bank, one of Major Cambert’s oldest friends in Sour Springs; that he should be named executor was to be expected.

“I’m afraid I haven’t been much help to you so far,” she said to Royal, as she rose to see him out.

Royal snorted—whether in ridicule at the idea that he had wanted help, or in rough consolation to Mrs. Meade, one could not say. “Couldn’t expect you to. I sure didn’t bring you much to make sense out of.”

“No, that’s not entirely true,” said Mrs. Meade, thoughtfully; “you’ve brought…some very interesting things indeed.”

* * *

Frances did not see Jim until the second day after the murder. He came to see her at the house where she boarded, after she had got home from school; and they sat together in the parlor, uncomfortably conscious of the fact that the lady of the house, who had withdrawn rather obviously to the kitchen, would very much like to have listened to what they said. Jim told Frances all the facts he knew, in a controlled, quiet voice, with Frances interposing a brief question now and then.

“And that’s about all,” he finished, after a short pause. “I haven’t—spoken to the sheriff since yesterday morning.”

Neither had acknowledged in words what they both knew—that suspicion of the crime rested heavily on Jim. None of her friends had discussed it directly with her, but Frances knew, more by their omissions than anything else, that the whole quarrel and her own role in it were by now public property in Sour Springs.

She had been sitting thinking silently of this for a moment when Jim’s next words pulled her from her reverie. “Frances, do you really think it’s necessary to wait till Christmas holidays? I’m sure the board can find a substitute teacher in a week or so. Why can’t you give them your notice now and we’ll get married this week.”

“Oh, Jim, no,” said Frances. “It wouldn’t do…and besides, I—I can’t marry you just yet, not after all that’s happened. People would think—they’d say that—”

“That I shot my grandfather so I could marry you? They already think that.”

He stood up and crossed the room. The tinge of sharp almost-sarcasm in his voice roused an unreasonable feeling of antipathy in Frances. “It would be almost proof of it.”

Jim stood opposite and looked down at her for a minute. He said quietly, “Are you backing out now because you believe I did?”

“Oh, no!” Frances rose and took hold of his arm, looking up into his half-averted face. “Never. I just don’t think it’s wise—and I don’t think it would show much respect for your grandfather, either, if we were to marry in such a hurry after—well, afterwards.”

“I’d have married you just as quickly with him alive if I could. And if you want the truth, I don’t feel much respect for him just now anyway.” He pulled away from her and walked restlessly about the room.

“Jim, you can’t mean that,” protested Frances softly. “He was your grandfather—he raised you all those years. Can you really say you don’t feel any kind of grief for him at all?”

Jim was facing away from her, but she saw him draw an unsteady breath. He moved over to the hard little sofa and sat down on it, putting his head down in his hands and running his fingers through his thick golden hair.

“No, I can’t say that—I didn’t say it,” he said, his voice coming with a choked sound from behind his hands. Frances sat down beside him and quietly laid her arm around his bowed shoulders. “I did love him. He was all the family I had—we were pretty much everything to each other. But I can’t forgive what he said about you.”

In the moment’s silence that followed, Frances felt that he had not intended to say that much. Jim seemed to have mastered his emotion, but he did not look up.

“What was it that he said?” she asked.

Jim shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. It’s not even worth repeating.”

“I wish you’d tell me. I just want to know.”

He looked away from her earnest eyes, but knew he had gone too far to hold out much longer. He made a vague, impatient gesture, trying to dismiss the words as nothing. “Grandfather was set against it because of you being older than me. He said I was only a boy, and a woman wouldn’t see anything in me. That—that you couldn’t have accepted me for love.”

There was a short silence, and then Frances said, “Did you believe him?”

“Frances!” Jim turned to face her with an indignant scowl.

He took both her hands, his face softening a little. “Whose idea was all this, anyway? I asked you to marry me, didn’t I?”

Frances said, trying faintly to be humorous, “Yes, but you are young—and innocent of women’s wiles—”

“Frances, don’t try to be funny about this!” Jim got up abruptly, and crossed the room again.

He came to a stop and faced her, and tried an entreating tone again. “Frances, just tell me once and for all: won’t you marry me now? Mr. Hall won’t put up any objection; he’s only my guardian in name really. I can get the license by Friday and we’ll go to Cornet next week for our honeymoon, just quietly for a couple of days. Will you?”

The silence lengthened out—the muffled sound of something being dropped in the kitchen seemed to increase the strain, and the grotesqueness of the situation.

No one who saw Frances’ quiet face as she sat making her decision could have known the struggle inside her. How terribly she wanted to say yes. But the spectres of the murder, the gossip, the plausible motive attributed to Jim, all rose up against her—and Major Cambert’s harsh words, pried up from the grave at her own insistence, let in a chill to her heart as the autumn breeze had done that day in the schoolhouse.

“No,” she said. “I can’t.”

* * *

It was dark and rainy outside the day Jim Cambert came to the boarding-house. Mrs. Henney opened the door, and greeted him with a little gasp and an application of her hand to her plump cheek that did nothing to improve his spirits. Jim had come with a brief question to ask, but felt now that he could not ask it and see the reaction from round-eyed, uneasily fluttering Mrs. Henney. So he said, “Is Mrs. Meade at home?”

“Why, yes,” said Mrs. Henney, torn between the ideas of whether one should be sympathetic, or stern, or afraid in the presence of someone suspected of murder. “She is—I shall—if you’ll just wait—”

Mrs. Henney tore herself away and scurried into the parlor, fortified by a double handful of apron. In a few seconds Mrs. Meade emerged, the hum and chatter of ladies’ voices in the snug, warmly lit room rising a little with quickened interest in her wake. “Jim—good afternoon,” she said simply, holding out her hand. And then, as his hand was still in hers, she added, looking straight in his eyes, “I want you to know how very sorry I was to hear about your grandfather.”

Jim looked down, and murmured his thanks almost inaudibly. Then he straightened, trying to lift his chin a little. “Mrs. Meade, is Frances here? Nan Cooper told me she was supposed to be here with you this afternoon.”

“No, she isn’t,” said Mrs. Meade. “She and Bessie Cooper were going to come over after school today to help work on the decorations for the church supper, but Bessie only stopped to say Frances had a headache and had gone home, so we put it off to another afternoon.”

They were both keenly aware of the buzz in the parlor; Jim glanced toward the doorway, trying not to see the craning necks and the edge of Mrs. Henney’s gray coiffure visible round the edge of the half-open door. Mrs. Meade, with the perceptiveness of long-honed instinct, sensed that behind his uneasiness was a desire to say something more, to find someone to whom he could unfold the bafflement and trouble she saw in his eyes.

“Would you like to come in here for a moment?” she asked, motioning toward the empty dining-room across the hall.

Jim nodded. Without speaking again, Mrs. Meade turned to lead the way. Jim tried to brush some of the rain from his coat onto the doormat, and then followed her.

The dining-room was quiet and gray, with rain dribbling down the windowpanes, and tall shadows in the corners beyond the sideboard and china-cupboard. Jim walked partway toward the windows, then turned around and put his hands on the back of a chair. “I haven’t seen Frances in days,” he said. “I’ve tried, but it seems every time, she’s not at home or she’s lying down with a headache.”

“Do you know the reason she is avoiding you?” said Mrs. Meade. At such times as this—in a charged quiet, with only melancholy raindrops for witness—any pretense at polite reserve or lack of knowledge falls away.

Jim thudded the heel of his hand slowly on the back of the chair. “My grandfather,” he said. He looked straight at her. “It’s what he did, Mrs. Meade. He’s come between us worse dead than he ever could have alive. Frances thinks I believed him.”

There was a short pause, in which Mrs. Meade was thinking over what to say, but Jim mistook her silence. “If you’re thinking what he did, Mrs. Meade, you’re wrong. Frances isn’t like that. It wasn’t until I told her what Grandfather said that she changed—she was every bit as happy as I was before.”

Mrs. Meade smiled a little. “She is very fortunate,” she said, “to know that you have such a warm opinion of her, and firm belief in her.”

“But she doesn’t know it,” said Jim despairingly. “She refuses to. And she won’t even let me explain why. You see, Mrs. Meade, I knew my grandfather. He was cynical right down to the roots. He was suspicious of everyone’s motives—suspicious of everyone he met in life except me, and that’s only because I’d been close by him so long, he knew me well enough. Grandfather could have a splendid time visiting and laughing with someone, and then as soon as they were gone he’d be speculating on all the different things they could have been lying about, and what they might want to get out of him. That’s why I didn’t give a dime’s weight to anything he said about Frances. He’d likely have taken a while to warm to any girl I chose, but—money was one of the things he was sharpest about. You’ve probably heard some of the things about him.” Jim flung a questioning glance at her.

Mrs. Meade inclined her head; she was remembering some of them. “Grandfather would never trust any of his money to a bank, even though Tom Hall who runs the First National was one of his best friends. He had to have everything in writing and double-stitched legal terms. He had it fixed in his mind that there were certain kinds of people who were only out for money, and he—he’d have it that Frances was one of them, just because he couldn’t see any reason why she’d want to marry me…to marry someone younger than her.”

“And yet Frances still doubts you.”

“I’ve tried. I’ve tried everything to make her see. I’ve begged her to marry me right away, and she won’t.”

“Perhaps she thinks you protest too much.”

“Protest—! What am I supposed to do, stay away from her and neglect her, and let her think I don’t care?”

“I don’t mean only that; I mean—in your anger toward your grandfather.”

Jim paused, brought up short for a moment. Then he spoke, carefully, in short-clipped phrases, as though trying not to let the emotion roiling under the surface escape. “When the person who’s been your whole family, father and grandfather both, tells you you’ve got nothing to offer a woman—and insults the one you love better than…He insulted her! Of course I was angry! But I know better than to believe a word he said even though I was mad enough to have mur—”

He caught Mrs. Meade’s bright eye, and broke off in confusion.

She let him wait, for a moment, in that mortified pause, and moved deliberately to the dining-room table and seated herself beside it. Silences were interesting things, made all the more rare because it was seldom you found a person who could resist breaking them.

“Do you think Frances suspects you of having killed your grandfather?” she asked at last, looking up at Jim.

“She said ‘Never’—and I believed her, Mrs. Meade,” said Jim, with a little break in his voice. “At least I’ve got that.”

“As to the rest,” said Mrs. Meade, spreading out her fingers slowly to smooth the tablecloth, “all I can advise you is—be patient, Jim. It’s a horrible sort of a thing that has happened, to disturb any courtship, and with all the talk and sensation going about, Frances no doubt feels in a dreadful turmoil, not in any condition to know what she thinks or feels. But if, when all this has died down, you are still waiting faithfully for her—surely she must listen to you then.”

Jim took a deep breath. He walked over to the window, and stood for a moment staring out at the rain. “If I’m still here,” he said, “when all this is over, Mrs. Meade.”

* * *

Sour Springs was beginning to wonder when the blow would fall. It had been seven days since the murder of Major Cambert, and no arrest had been made. But it was clearly only a matter of time. All Sheriff Royal would say in public, usually frowning as he said it, was that things were coming along; and only the few people who knew him best knew how profoundly he disliked what evidence he had gathered in.

Old Ted, cornered in the livery stable the day after the murder, with squinted, bloodshot eyes and enough of an air of sickliness to support the sheriff’s theory of drunkenness at least, nevertheless angrily disclaimed the murder. The interrogation resembled a belligerent hound-dog drawing screeches of protest from a very moth-eaten cat at bay. Old Ted had been drunk the previous night; enough witnesses were unearthed from one of Sour Springs’ more disreputable saloons to substantiate that—but he claimed he had reeled back to the livery stable before ten o’clock and gone to sleep in the hayloft, and remained there till morning. He had been seen to leave the saloon before ten, but no one had seen him enter the darkened stable or come out of it at any time that night, and therefore no one could say whether he had really been in the loft as he declared.

Off the record, after the sheriff had departed, Old Ted told a group of listeners (who must have had nothing better to do) that he’d always thought, back in his Army days, that that high-and-mighty Major Cambert would get himself shot one day, and not by Indians neither. But of course he, Old Ted, hadn’t done it.

When these remarks were duly relayed to Andrew Royal, the sheriff tore his hair, figuratively. Far from simplifying his case, Old Ted had saddled him with yet another suspect who possessed a grudge against Major Cambert and no alibi.

The streets were muddy on the afternoon following Jim Cambert’s visit to the boarding-house, and Mrs. Meade, seeking the narrowest distance between boardwalks, crossed gingerly with the skirt of her walking-dress held up out of the mud. The day was overcast, the sky walled with clouds of anxious medium gray. Mrs. Meade, having ascended the wooden steps to the boardwalk, looked to see what damage her shoes had sustained, philosophically accepted it and walked on.

A tall man standing with his back to her a little ways ahead on the boardwalk arrested her attention, and her steps slowed for a moment. Then she advanced briskly. Truth be told, the Cambert case had been on her mind almost as much as it had been on Sheriff Royal’s, and Mrs. Meade was never one to refuse an opportunity put in her way.

The man heard her approaching footsteps and turned to make way for her to pass, but Mrs. Meade instead stopped at his elbow, smiling pleasantly up at him. “Good afternoon, Mr. Hall. I hope you are well?”

“Mrs. Meade, good afternoon,” said Tom Hall, doffing his hat with a smile. “Very well, thanks. And you?”

“Oh, yes, never better. And how is Mrs. Hall? I don’t believe I’ve seen either of you very much lately.”

“No, matter of fact she’s been in Denver the past couple weeks, visiting a friend there. I had a letter from her just this morning.” Hall touched the breast of his coat, indicating a letter in his pocket. There was an aspect of the range and the outdoors in his appearance, even after a decade of settled town and business life; his marked and tanned face made him look older than his fifty years, though there was no gray in his brown hair; and his well-made suits always seemed a little wrong on him in spite of their tailoring.

Mrs. Meade expressed her pleasure at Mrs. Hall’s well-being, and then, after a moment’s consideration, she put the following inquiry:

“How are things for young Jim Cambert, Mr. Hall? I expect you are intimately concerned with this affair, as his guardian now.”

“I haven’t seen much of Jim, to be honest with you,” said Hall, some additional lines settling into his forehead. “I had a talk with him once, after the funeral, but that’s all. He’s been out at the ranch most of the time, working pretty furiously, so I’m told. Of course I’ll be here to stand by him when the time comes, but for now—maybe that’s best for him.”

“You speak as if it were a foregone conclusion that he will need someone to stand by him,” said Mrs. Meade.

Tom Hall glanced out at the muddy street, at a wagon passing and the few people on foot sloshing through the mud, out of the range of hearing. Then he gave a slight shrug as if to say it did not much matter who heard anyway. He looked at Mrs. Meade. “Between you and me, Mrs. Meade, it’s only a matter of time before Jim’s arrested. There’s plenty of people who can’t account for their whereabouts that night, but Jim has the strongest motive and the weakest story. Seems more natural for someone to say they were asleep in bed than for them to turn up somewhere late without a good reason why.”

“Riding slowly only becomes suspect when a murder happens to occur on the same night,” observed Mrs. Meade.

“Yes,” said Tom Hall, giving her a little glance, as if he had not fully appreciated Mrs. Meade’s acuity till this moment. “It does happen that way. When murder makes it a big question, everybody’s ordinary ways of spending a night sound pretty vague.”

Mrs. Meade said thoughtfully, “Alibis are more difficult to provide than one might imagine—especially for people who are unattached, and have no family. Late in the evening, on any average day, one is apt to be alone.” Mrs. Meade’s eyes clouded for just a fraction of a second, and then she went on with an amused twist about her mouth. “Even myself, for instance—well, we established once upon a time just how easy it is to get in and out of Mrs. Henney’s house unseen after dark.”

Tom Hall laughed, the first really hearty note in the conversation. “I don’t think Sheriff Royal would appreciate you adding yourself to the list of suspects, though, Mrs. Meade.”

“Nor I!” said Mrs. Meade. “For it’s a bad enough case already, when an arrest is going to be made based upon which worthless alibi is more worthless than the others.”

“I don’t think it’s a very strong case, though. I’m no lawyer, but a good one should be able to get him off by hammering home how precious little evidence there really is.”

“And yet,” said Mrs. Meade, with a note of sadness shadowing her voice, “if he is acquitted only for lack of evidence, suspicion will always hang over him in people’s minds.”

“Well, that’s the way the world goes,” said Hall. “We can’t do anything about that. But our first concern is saving his life, don’t you think, Mrs. Meade?”

“Yes—if he is innocent,” said Mrs. Meade, seeming to wake from a slight reverie and fixing bright observant eyes upon him.

Hall raised his eyebrows and smiled a little. “I guess I was taking it for granted you thought he was. I haven’t any doubt about it myself.”

“I cannot blame you for that,” said Mrs. Meade. “And perhaps it’s just as well. For Jim to have someone taking his part, that is, who does not question his innocence—amid all this uncertainty.”

Tom Hall gave her a questioning look. For half a second he looked almost curious enough to ask a question, but thought better of it. Mrs. Meade smiled again; a pleasant smile, but one that revealed nothing; and said “Good afternoon, Mr. Hall,” and walked on.

* * *

The blow fell that same afternoon. It had begun to rain again, a few desultory drops. Sheriff Royal stood in the doorway of his office, under the shelter of the overhanging eaves, and grimly surveyed the wet street. He had a good view of the livery stable across the way, so when Jim Cambert rode down the street and turned in at the stable door, the sheriff’s expression darkened a little and his thick gray eyebrows settled down more heavily over his eyes.

Old Ted, who had been keeping indoors out of sight since an occasion earlier when he had encountered the sheriff’s glare from the doorway, emerged just enough to take Jim’s horse into custody, and Jim walked off up the street with his hands in his coat pockets and his head bent a little so the brim of his hat kept off the rain. Royal rubbed under the end of his nose with a bony knuckle, and watched him go. Time enough to let him do whatever he had come into town to do; he would be back before long.

When Jim came back to the livery just before dusk, Royal got up from his chair, from whence he had been keeping a watch through the open door, went out and followed him across the street. Jim was preparing to saddle his horse when the sheriff entered the stable. Old Ted, in the act of picking up a pitchfork, became an uncouth statue, his eyes darting from Royal to Jim under his thatch of unkempt grizzled hair. Jim, becoming aware of the sheriff’s presence, turned to face him and their eyes met for a minute.

Andrew Royal came over and laid a hand on his shoulder—the hand of officialdom. “Jim, I’ve got to ask you to come across the street.”

Jim put the saddle he had been lifting back over the stall partition. His face was pale, but showed little emotion. “No more than I’ve been expecting,” he said. “Can I post bail?”

Royal nodded. “Expect so.”

Jim turned to Old Ted, who had crept up to hover at their elbows with nose-twitching curiosity. “Will you go and find Tom Hall? Tell him I’ve been arrested and ask him if he’ll come around to the sheriff’s office and post bail for me.”

“Sure,” said Old Ted, edging an inch or two toward the door, “sure thing.”

He paused, and cleared his throat wheezily and insinuatingly, rubbing together fingers that just protruded from the ragged cuffs of his too-large castoff coat. “Oh,” said Jim dully. He dug into his own pocket and found a silver dollar, and handed it over to Old Ted. Old Ted gave a satisfied, rattling chuckle, and slid away.

Andrew Royal and Jim Cambert walked back across the street, the sheriff a little in the rear, and went into the sheriff’s office. Royal lit the lamp on the wall in the cramped back section of the jail, and with a raspy jangling of the two keys on the ring, opened up one of the cells and motioned Jim to step inside. The door clanged shut; the sheriff locked it and returned to his desk to sit down and fill out the necessary papers. Jim sat down on the narrow bunk. He gave a deep, weary sigh, and leaned his head back into the corner of the cell.

When Royal glanced his way a few minutes later, he saw that Jim had closed his eyes, slumped down in the corner still huddled in his wet overcoat. He looked very young and limp and hopeless—as if he had given up all idea of resistance. Sharp creases multiplied around the corners of the sheriff’s eyes as he speculated on why this might be. Because he could see no way out—or because he knew there was no way out?

Half an hour passed, in which neither broke the silence, and Tom Hall had not yet appeared. Rain tapped on the roof of the jail, and when a little blew in onto the floor, Royal got up and closed the door. He spent a minute over the stove, muttering and shoving at the feeble, refractory spark left in the coals. Then he stumped back to the cells. Jim had his eyes open now, staring up at the low-burning lamp outside the bars. Royal thumped the heel of his boot against the bottom of one of the bars as if in routine test of its security. It rattled more than he expected and he frowned at it.

“Matter of form, Jim,” he said, looking at the floor.

“Sure, I know,” said Jim distantly. He gave a faint smile. “Don’t worry…I’ll be out of your hair soon enough.”

Sheriff Royal uttered a rather ogreish laugh down in his throat, and stalked back to the desk. He sat down, straightened out a half-crushed newspaper and started to read. He glanced at the clock. Not long now before Hall would be here, the matter of bail taken care of, and he could put out the lights, extinguish the fire in the stove, shut up the jail for the night and go home.

But time went on and no Tom Hall came.

* * *

Mrs. Meade sat reading by the lamp in her room. At this hour the house was quiet; with the curtains drawn against the dark and the storm the small room was a snug, warmly-lit refuge. Thunder rumbled outside—a high, distant thunder passing over the valley; it was only a swift-moving rainstorm that would be gone by morning. And then, in the murmuring lull that followed the thunder, a knock came at the door.

Mrs. Meade laid aside her book and rose, a touch of puzzlement in her face over who it might be. Most of her fellow-boarders retired early. She opened the door. Frances Ruskin stood there, her long coat streaked with rain, a damp shawl that had slid partly back off her hair twisted around her shoulders, and a look of gripping, clutching misery in her white face.

“Jim has been arrested,” she said.

“Oh, my dear,” said Mrs. Meade, not knowing what else to say.

Frances came past her into the room, and as Mrs. Meade shut the door she sat down stiffly on the edge of the bed, as if it was pain even to move. She looked up at Mrs. Meade with a strange intensity in her eyes. “Mrs. Meade, what if I confessed? What if I told them I did it?”

Mrs. Meade looked shocked. “Oh, my dear, no. Why, they might believe you.”

Frances broke down with a suddenness and completeness that startled Mrs. Meade, into shuddering half-hysterical tears. She turned and wilted across the bed, her face buried in the quilt, weeping deep, choking sobs that shook her whole body. Mrs. Meade took a step closer and stared down at the girl, her mind circling with new thoughts. She had greatly underestimated—had not realized what she now saw to be the truth: that Frances Ruskin was deeply, passionately in love with Jim Cambert, perhaps more than she had let even him see.

Mrs. Meade moved quietly but decisively, and sat down beside Frances on the bed. She leaned over, putting her arms comfortingly around the girl, and stroked the damp tangled strands of hair back from her forehead. She hushed and soothed her until the girl’s sobs gradually quieted, and she lay still with her cheek against the tear-stained quilt.

“If they hang him,” Frances moaned, “I’m so afraid. No one will listen…I don’t believe Jim shot him. But who else could have? If he’s innocent, and they hang him—Oh, I think I’m going mad.” She pressed trembling fingertips against her hot temples.

“Hush,” said Mrs. Meade, helping her to sit up, and unwinding the wet shawl. “You mustn’t go and make yourself ill like this, or then where would we be? Now, then.”

She drew the raincoat from Frances’ shoulders and coaxed her arms out of the sleeves; and then gathered the girl into her arms, pillowing Frances’ head against her shoulder. “Now,” said Mrs. Meade, “Mr. Hall told me that the case against Jim was not a very strong one, so very likely you have no cause to worry.”

“But they can’t simply let it go—a murder like this,” said Frances, the words struggling through fresh tears. “And Jim will go mad not knowing the truth about who shot his grandfather. How could we ever live like that?”

“My dear girl, you mustn’t go borrowing trouble,” said Mrs. Meade with almost a laugh. “When Jim’s name has been cleared, and you have him safe again, you’ll feel much better. I can almost guarantee that.”

Frances drew a trembling sigh, and then sniffed. There was silence for a moment, a comforting silence, with Mrs. Meade’s motherly arms around her. “You don’t know how good this feels,” said Frances, her voice muffled, “to be able to come to you this way—just to have a good cry out. I’ve been so used to being the—the sensible one—the one who everyone else leaned on—for so long. Always the one who kept her head…and never cried…and listened to everyone else’s confidences.” She gave a very faint shaky laugh. “But so many times I’ve wanted a mother to put her arms around me…and a shoulder of my own to cry on…”

Mrs. Meade’s arms tightened instinctively about her. She looked away across the top of Frances’ rumpled brown head, at the lamplight on the closed curtains. Perhaps she did know…perhaps she had heard enough confidences, and provided a shoulder for enough bewildered heads, watched enough joys and perplexities unfold from her own peculiar vantage-point, and come back enough times to a snug, quiet, solitary room at night, to know what Frances spoke of.

She said, “Is that the way you feel about Jim?”

Frances lifted her head. “What way?”

“That you were the one to be leaned on—that your role was one of ‘mothering’ and guiding him.”

Frances sat up, slowly, her hand on the quilt, and wiped the traces of tears from her face with her other hand as she reflected. “No,” she said. “I—I’ve never felt that way. With Jim I never felt I had to be anything but myself. I didn’t have to pretend anything. He was the first person who really made me feel that way.”

She looked at Mrs. Meade. “All I knew was that I was going to be happy. I never even thought of the difference in age between us until—”

“Until Major Cambert suggested it.”

Frances nodded.

“But now you worry,” Mrs. Meade went on, in a voice that was soft, but had an inexorable something in it that drew out the truth. “You worry that the Major was right—that Jim wasn’t old enough to know his own mind; that his love would not last. You might have made him happy if you had married straightaway, but after a year of waiting…?”

Frances drew a breath, and covered her face with her hands.

“He was so upset,” she said, in a voice that shook. “So impatient…I thought if he really loved me he would have been willing to wait.”

“But my dear, if all that you fear had been true from the first,” said Mrs. Meade, laying a hand on her arm, “would you still have wanted to marry him, and tried to hold onto his love—or always be worrying that you were losing it? Would that have made you truly happy?”

Frances’ hands fell from her face—her eyes wet, with a look that seemed to mix disbelief and indignation. “You sound as if you thought I murdered Major Cambert!”

Mrs. Meade said gravely, “Did the thought never cross your mind?”

A strange flicker of expression, the returning of an instinctive reserve, crossed Frances’ face. She drew her shoulders together as if she were cold. She said, her voice hardly above a whisper, “After I knew how long we had to wait—when I felt more despairing than I’d ever been—I did think once, ‘If Major Cambert were to die…’ ”

* * *

Tom Hall turned up at the jail the next morning, entering with a quick step and a brow furrowed with concern for Jim, and full of apology. “Sorry I wasn’t here sooner, Jim,” he said. “Old Ted never came around to tell me you were here till this morning. Must have stopped off along the way and got drunk last night.”

“Lucky he got to you at all,” grunted Andrew Royal.

“It’s no matter,” said Jim Cambert rather listlessly.

He stood a little apart while Hall and the sheriff went through the formalities of bail, his hands in his pockets, staring out the window at the sunlight glistening down through the wet golden and russet trees onto the rain-washed street. Then Hall joined him, clapping a reassuring hand on his shoulder, and led him outside.

“Don’t worry, Jim,” he said. “It’ll all be over sooner than you think. I’m going to see about lining up a good lawyer for you today.”

“I don’t see what good a lawyer can do,” said Jim, “except try and confuse a jury about how long it takes to ride from our house to the line camp and back.”

“Nonsense. There’s precious little against you, Jim, except a no-good puncher’s story for a motive. Have you thought about that?”

He gave him another slap on the shoulder. “It’ll all come out right. We’ll get you out of this, and then you and I’ll go back to the way you did things before. You’ll have a free hand to run the ranch; I’ll be just a formality standing in your grandfather’s place as guardian, and handle the money for you till you come of age next year.”

Jim managed a slight smile. “There’s nobody I’d rather work with, Mr. Hall, besides Grandfather.”

“Good. That’s settled, then.” They had been walking along the street as they spoke, and now Tom Hall nodded ahead. “Why don’t you come home with me. You’re welcome to stay for as long as the trial takes. Nothing fancy for meals this week, since my wife’s away—tell you the truth, I’ve been doing a lot of eating at the hotel—but it’ll be handier for you being here in town.”

“All right…I guess so.”

Hall stopped at the street corner. “I’ve got to be getting on to the bank. Had anything to eat yet?”

“No…I guess I’ll go have something now. I’ll see you later.”

Jim wandered down a side street, and eventually made his way through the open door of one of the town’s cheaper eating-houses—where he would be less likely to encounter anyone who knew him. There were several tables occupied near the windows, and a bar across the back; and Jim, paying little attention to what he was doing, walked mechanically to the bar and leaned against it.

The bartender eyed him with the mixture of curiosity and uneasiness Jim had seen on so many faces this week. But this time it arose from a different cause. The bartender coughed. “I cain’t serve you liquor, you know,” he said apologetically. “County ordinance. Them temperance women got hold of us last election and—”

Long-subdued anger flared suddenly in Jim Cambert. “Yes, I know, I know!” he said harshly, shoving away from the bar. “I’m too young. I can’t get married, I can’t sign a check, I can’t buy a drink. I don’t know why any of you think I’d want to kill my grandfather; I can’t do anything without him!”

His voice rang loud around the room as he flung the words at anyone who happened to be in his way; and then without waiting for anyone’s reaction he stalked blindly out through the open door.

* * *

A witness to this scene, unnoticed by Jim Cambert, was the same swarthy, black-eyed cowboy who had stood outside the door the night of the fateful quarrel. From a table in a far corner, leaning back a little with one arm hooked over the back of his chair, he looked on with his dark face inscrutable; but as always, giving the impression that he stored all away for future use.

He resumed eating his breakfast, and it was there, some ten minutes after Jim Cambert’s departure, that Sheriff Royal discovered him when he entered the eating-house. The sheriff came over and yanked out a chair at the same table without ceremony and sat down.

“So it’s you, is it?” said Royal, jerking the chair in with a shriek of wood legs on wood floor. “How come you’re not working out at Cambert’s? Not a holiday so far’s I know.”

“Nobody seems to miss me,” said Gennaro.

Royal gave a short laugh. “Can’t say as I blame them,” he said. “Been kicked out?”

Gennaro took a deliberate pause to swallow, and lift his coffee cup to his mouth, watching the sheriff to see how he took it. “I rode in this morning on business of my own.”

Andrew Royal leaned forward over the table, his eyes boring from between the covert of his hat brim and his thick moustache. “You listen,” he said. “I ain’t going to pretend with you. I’ve thought from the first you were more likely to have shot Cambert than that kid was, for any fool reason at all. But any fool reason wouldn’t go with a jury, which is why it was the kid’s name on that warrant instead of yours. So if you’re lying about anything you seen and heard, or keeping something back, you better spill it right—here—and—now.” He punctuated the last words with a stab of his forefinger on the table for each.

Gennaro leaned back in his chair again, and finished chewing his last mouthful. “Anything I got to say,” he said, “I’ll say it just once—at the trial.”

Andrew Royal thumped his fist on the table. “Doggone it, you know who did it!”

A strange, knowing smile flickered across Gennaro’s dark face. “I know who didn’t do it. That’s all.”

The sheriff opened his mouth, and for a few seconds he groped for words. “You—”

Gennaro stood up, and pushed his chair back with one foot. “I’ll talk when I get ready to,” he said. He picked up his tin cup and threw back the last swallow of coffee, let the cup down on the table with a dull clank and walked away. He flung a coin over the counter in payment for his meal and went out, leaving the sheriff frustrated, suspicious and glowering behind him.

* * *

That afternoon Mrs. Meade had another caller. Randall Morris, who had been made free of the boarding-house in times past, let himself in without encountering Mrs. Henney and went into the parlor, where Mrs. Meade had been sitting abstractedly counting over the same row of stitches in her knitting and occasionally putting it down to think with a frown.

She laid it down with some relief at his appearance and greeted him with pleasure. “Randall! How good to see you. And how are Charity and the baby?”

For five minutes the conversation was purely domestic, and then Randall said, nodding toward the knitting on the sofa, “What seems to be the trouble?”

“I don’t know exactly what the trouble is,” said Mrs. Meade, picking up the knitting-needles with a slight sigh. “I have been thinking. Thinking of—I was convinced within myself that no one could commit a murder out of pity or kindness, but now I am forced to consider whether they could by reason of an ardent—a most ardent love?”

“That’s a—a pretty strong reason,” admitted Randall slowly. “But as to whether they’d actually do it—”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Meade, giving her knitting a sharp little flap. “That is the question.”

“It’s the Cambert murder, isn’t it?” said Randall. “To tell you the truth, that’s why I came to see you, Mrs. Meade. I’ve been bothered a lot by it myself. Jim’s a friend of mine, you know, and I just don’t see how he could shoot his grandfather in cold blood.”

“It appears to be hot blood that is in question,” said Mrs. Meade.

“Jim has that, I’ll admit,” said Randall, smiling a little ruefully. “But it’s still got me baffled. I knew you’d have an opinion, though, and I was curious to know what it was.”

Mrs. Meade’s eyes twinkled, but she pretended to speak seriously. “My dear Randall, why should you think I would be more interested in this murder than anyone else?”

The young man grinned. “Mrs. Meade, don’t be a humbug. I owe exactly one beloved wife and one son and heir to your devastating common sense, and I could name a few other people who’d say similarly. You know you’ve always got an opinion when it comes to things like this.”

“Dear me, by those calculations your debt to me can only multiply,” said Mrs. Meade. “Nonsense. But you’re quite right. I should never like to be called a busybody, but it has always been my fortune—or my misfortune, depending on which way you look at it—to be concerned with other people’s problems. I am troubled over this murder. But at present I am at a loss to see what help anyone could possibly offer.”

“Did you know Major Cambert?” said Randall.

“I was acquainted with him, yes, but I hadn’t seen him in some time.”

“I’ve been out there pretty often,” said Randall. “I sold them some horses when they first set up there, and Jim and I got to be good friends. I like him a lot—and the Major wasn’t a bad sort, even if he was as close as the dickens. Wonder if it came of all those years living on Army pay.”

“Heavens, no. People who live on government pay are never careful with money,” said Mrs. Meade with a decision that convulsed her listener. “Major Cambert was simply a suspicious man—and never shy of making his suspicions known. I’ll never understand how Jim grew up to have such nice manners, living with him,” she added irrelevantly.

“It’s been rough on him, I’ll bet,” said Randall. “I haven’t seen him to talk to since it happened. He seems to be keeping out of the way of anyone he knows, and I can’t say I blame him. And then he even had to spend a night in jail on top of it, thanks to that no-good Old Ted.”

“What’s that?” said Mrs. Meade quickly.

Randall explained. “Jim sent Old Ted last night to find Tom Hall and ask him to come bail him out, but Old Ted got drunk or something and never found Hall till this morning. So Jim had to spend the night in jail.”

“Dear me,” murmured Mrs. Meade, almost too low to be heard, “that is very…interesting.”

She looked up at Randall. “What of this cowboy called Gennaro? You doubtless know more of the men who work out there than I could—”

“Well, he’s not the most pleasant character,” said Randall. “Drinks too much sometimes, and that puts him in an ugly mood. Most of the time he does his job. But he irked Major Cambert, and the Major decided to make an example of him and docked his pay. That’s what Gennaro hated; he thought he was being made a laughing-stock in front of the other boys. He’s sure not the only one who’s gotten drunk now and again, but he’s the one Major Cambert came down on.”

Mrs. Meade had listened to this chronicle of masculine vice with deep scientific interest, as one might to the doings of the inhabitants of another planet. “I see,” she said.

She got up from the sofa, straightened out her knitting and placed it and its ball of yarn on the nearby table. “And yet I do not see. There is a pattern here somewhere, just as surely as there is in these stitches, but I have not found it yet.”

Randall considered for a minute. “I’d say it was—humiliation,” he said. “Major Cambert sure had a knack for that. He humiliated Jim by telling him he wasn’t man enough to marry—Miss Ruskin by calling her a fortune-hunter. He made a laughing-stock out of Gennaro, or at least Gennaro thinks he did—and he humiliated Old Ted by throwing a dollar at him to get rid of him whenever—”

Mrs. Meade gave a little cry of triumph. “There it is! Thank you, Randall.”

“Not at all,” said Randall automatically. “There—what is?”

“The pattern I was looking for. And it does make a difference—oh, yes, it does. But the fact remains, out of all these people with motive, all had an equal opportunity. That hour, that hour for which none of them can produce a witness. That—” Mrs. Meade stood with arms folded, the fingers of one hand drumming on the other elbow, her brows knitted in thought. “That remains our barrier.”

* * *

Jim Cambert was walking with his head down a little—a habit newly formed on him these last few days. But that did not prevent Randall Morris, who always went straight to the point, from recognizing him and hailing him just as he turned a corner off the main street. Jim halted, reluctantly, as Randall caught up to him.

To anyone who knew him, the change in Jim could hardly have been more marked. No trace of the firm, youthful confidence remained; his whole attitude spoke defeat and dejection, and he avoided others’ eyes almost furtively. Randall hesitated a second as he reached him, as if a little taken aback; and then he took him resolutely by the arm. “I’ve been looking for you,” he said. “There’s something I want to talk to you about. No, it’s important, Jim. Come with me and I’ll tell you what I mean.”

Rather unwillingly Jim accompanied him. It was not far to the livery stable, and Randall did not speak again until they reached the doors. Once or twice he glanced over his shoulder, surveying the street as if to see whether they were observed.

“I heard the trial is set to start Saturday,” Randall said, once inside the shadow of the stable. He beckoned Jim to the far end of the aisle, near the stall where Randall’s own horse stood. “Listen, Jim, I don’t like it. I don’t think the sheriff’s dug half as deep as he could have. They’re rushing you through this without half enough evidence gathered.”

Jim shifted his shoulders uneasily, and tried to make it a shrug. “Tom Hall says it’s not a very strong case.”

“Well, sure he’d say that—he’s a friend, and he’s trying to keep your spirits up. But I’m your friend too, Jim, and I don’t want to see you get railroaded. I’ve been thinking things over—I talked to Mrs. Meade too—and I’ve got an idea or two of my own. But it’ll take some time to prove ’em. Do you want to know what I think?” Randall took a deep breath. “I think you should skip out of town for a few days, just to stall off that trial.”

“Jump bail? That’s crazy; it’d make me look guilty right—”

“I know it sounds crazy, but if it saves you from hanging isn’t it worth it? Just listen to me for a minute. All you’ve got to do is stay up in the hills for a few days and stay out of sight, and if this hunch of mine pays off I can help you make it all right with the sheriff afterwards.”

“And if it doesn’t? Then what?”

“Jim, you sound like a born pessimist! At worst you won’t be any worse off than you are now. It’s just a question of time—three days might be enough to play this hunch, but then it might not. I think you ought to try it and buy some more time.”

“You’re trying to get me out of the way,” said Jim, studying his friend with something approaching suspicion. “What for? What—who do you suspect?”

“I’m not,” said Randall. “I’ve told you why—and believe me, I’m only trying this for your own good. Won’t you just think about what I’ve said?”

Jim thought it over for a minute. Randall, seeing that he looked undecided, was quick to follow up on his opportunity. “We can switch horses here—you’ll want a fast horse. If anybody asks questions we can say you’re trying him out because you were thinking of buying him from me. And you’ll want some money with you, for emergencies…have you got any?”

“No, only a couple dollars. I can’t ask Hall for a loan; he’d know what was up.”

Randall hesitated, and then said, “I’d lend you some, only I don’t think there’s time—”

“No, you couldn’t. I don’t want to get you in trouble.”

“No, just leave that end of it to me,” said Randall, grinning rather dryly. “You could ride home first, couldn’t you, if you’ve got any money there?”

“Yes…I guess I could. I’ll want to get some blankets and a camp outfit—and all our money is still in Grandfather’s safe. The sheriff left it all as it was since there wasn’t any question of robbery. I can leave a note in the safe for Hall, and—” Jim paused and bit his lip. “I want to leave a letter with you, to deliver. Have you got anything I can write with?”

“Not here. You could step in the Colonial lobby and write a note—go ahead now and I’ll have the horses saddled when you get back.”

There was no one else in the stable except Old Ted muddling around with a pitchfork up near the doors. Randall had not lowered his voice any noticeable degree, and the details of their plan carried clearly. When Jim had gone out, and Randall set about saddling the fast, slim brown horse, Old Ted laid down his pitchfork and slunk quickly and quietly out.

Randall put his own saddle on Jim’s big black horse, and led the brown to the door of the stable. In a few minutes Jim returned, looking pale but determined, with a folded and sealed letter in his hand. “Will you give this to Frances Ruskin?” he said, holding it out to Randall. “I—I didn’t mention you by name, but I’ve got to let her know the truth. I don’t want her to think that I’ve just lost my nerve.”

Randall accepted the commission, not without a slight twinge of conscience, and hoped it did not show in his face. He handed the brown horse’s reins to his friend. Jim, as he put his foot in the stirrup, gave vent to a mirthless chuckle.

“I’ve always been intending to get my hands on this horse,” he said. “You’re an awfully trusting fellow.”

“Good luck,” said Randall, “and be careful…”

He watched Jim ride off up the street, the latter looking as if he appreciated the chance to have the fast brown horse under him in spite of the situation. Then Randall drew another deep breath.

“That was a lot harder than I thought,” he said.

The rather obvious exchange of horses had not escaped the notice of Andrew Royal. As Jim rode off the sheriff emerged from his office, and approached Randall Morris before Randall could mount the black horse.

“Where’s he going?” Royal asked, jerking his head in the direction Jim had gone.

“He’s trying out a horse of mine,” said Randall. “Jim’s been wanting to buy him for a while, and I’m thinking about selling him.”

The sheriff spoke in the tones of one who has had the weight of the world put on his shoulders and doesn’t like it. “Not to call you short-sighted,” he said, “but d’you think it’s altogether wise to let a man who’s out on bail ride off with the fastest horse you own?”

Randall, to his credit, was not very good at dissembling, and he made a decidedly amateurish job of it. He coughed, cleared his throat and said, “Sheriff, you don’t really think that Jim would—”

“It don’t matter what I think,” said Royal. “All I know is I’ve got to see that nobody ties another knot in this doggoned murder case before the trial starts Saturday. I think I’d best ride along after and make sure I meet him coming back.”

“Then I guess I’ll ride along with you, if you haven’t any objection,” said Randall.

“None that I can think of,” said Andrew Royal with a grim quirk of a bushy eyebrow, and departed to procure a horse.

Left alone for a moment, Randall cast a slightly uneasy glance at the sun beginning to set behind the western mountains. How much of a start did Jim have? He did not entirely mind the way things were going; it might be useful to keep the sheriff with him. But Andrew Royal had an undeniable mind of his own, and could easily upset some rather delicate calculations.

By the time the two were well on their way, and a bend of the road behind them had hidden Sour Springs proper from view, Randall was earnestly regretting that he had undertaken this matter at all. The pace Sheriff Royal set seemed one minute to be too fast, the next minute too slow. It was imperative that the sheriff should not come up with Jim before the latter reached the Cambert ranch—but to lag too far behind—

Randall suddenly held up a hand, and slowed his horse. “Hold it a minute. I hear someone coming.”

This was strictly true. There were hurried hoofbeats sounding beyond the pine-clad bend in their rear as both riders turned in the saddle to look. Randall had expected no more than an innocuous passer-by, giving him an excuse to delay a moment—but to his surprise, the rider who came in view around the bend was Old Ted, mounted on a bony nag belonging to the owner of the livery, his tattered coat flapping beneath his elbows in his haste.

Old Ted pulled up his horse near them. He seemed more edgy and ill at ease than usual, his eyes darting back and forth between them, but returning to Royal often enough to indicate he wanted to speak to the sheriff. He cleared his throat with a high-pitched sound and did so.

“Sheriff, I seen Jim Cambert ridin’ out of town,” he said. “I figgered you might wanter know—seein’ as he was ridin’ somebody else’s horse, and—”

“I know plenty. I don’t need you to tell me.”

Old Ted fidgeted, and looked at Randall. The expression on that young man’s face may have kept him from saying some other things he could have said, but in spite of his palpable nervousness he was not to be shaken off. “Reckon you’re lookin’ for him? I could go along with ye. I might be some help, Sheriff.”

“I’m not heading a posse,” said Sheriff Royal in sepulchral tones, “but there ain’t any law against sight-seeing tours. You ride where you please, but don’t pester me.”

Ordinarily this was the sort of speech that would have sent Old Ted slinking away thoroughly cowed, but he swallowed twice, and fell in beside Randall as the sheriff’s horse started forward. They rode in silence into the chill dusk that was beginning to fall, a few ghostly leaves whisking across the road in their path. Randall glanced sidelong at Old Ted—whose refraining from speech, as much as his uneasiness, betrayed that something was up. Here were results from the hunch played, anyway; Old Ted was certainly showing his hand pretty plainly. Yet why, Randall wondered, was he so anxious to be near the sheriff? At this point, Randall thought Old Ted would have wanted to be as far away from the sheriff as possible. He resolved to keep a close eye upon him.

It was not fully dark when they reached the Cambert ranch; only the elusive, gray-tinted dusk in which it is hardest to see. Ranch house and bunkhouse stood black and silent beneath the shoulder of a pine-clothed hill that sheltered the clearing. A tiny alarm flickered off in Randall’s mind. Where were the two men who were supposedly staying in the bunkhouse?

They all saw the brown horse at the same time, standing in the shadow near the house. Andrew Royal said nothing, but Randall Morris could feel the grimness exuding from him as they crossed the yard. This did not look like a trial of a horse for sale. Behind them, Old Ted’s nervousness was building; Randall could hear his frustrated, wheezy breathing. He seemed terrified of going forward and yet unable to hang back.

They dismounted by the steps…they had made no effort to disguise the sound of their arrival. And then everything happened at once. Inside the house came the muffled sound of a voice raised abruptly, and then a gunshot exploded. A thud, a crash, and stumbling footsteps followed—Andrew Royal lunged up the steps, yanked the door open and disappeared inside. Randall tried to follow, but Old Ted flung himself upon him from behind and dragged him back. “Don’t go in there!”

His clutch was like that of a panicked octopus, but somehow Randall wrenched himself free and rushed up the steps. Inside the house was dark—he vaguely heard running footsteps receding somewhere toward the back, but dim light was leaking from a half-open door nearer at hand, and the sheriff had made for it. Randall caught up to him—and glimpsed the scene inside the room over his shoulder. It was almost dark; the yellow glow of an oil lamp turned nearly all the way down penetrated the blackness enough to show the confusion of an overturned desk on the floor, and gleamed on the edge of the old iron safe standing open in the corner. In front of the wide hearth Jim Cambert lay on his back, one arm outflung, a glistening pool of blood trickling from beneath him.

Andrew Royal jerked around and there was a brief struggle in the doorway as he forced his way off down the dark hall after the sound of the footsteps at the same time Randall pushed forward into the room to kneel down by Jim. The sheriff banged his elbow on an unseen doorknob and swore loudly in the dark. But before he had taken more than a few blind steps another shot rang out from outside, followed by the sound of shattering glass. It located for Royal the whereabouts of the back door, and he made for it. He emerged, gun in hand, at the top of the board steps. Down in the yard another man was approaching from a distance of several yards away, with a smoking gun directed at the house. It was Gennaro; and between them, at the foot of the steps, with a canvas bag in his hand and a look of trapped rage on his face, was Tom Hall.

* * *

More lamps had been lit, fires had been kindled; and there had been more voices and footsteps and more comings and goings in the Cambert ranch house in the past hour than in previous months combined. Jim Cambert had been carried to his own room and had his wounded arm dressed by the doctor, summoned from Sour Springs by Gennaro along with a deputy to assist Sheriff Royal in the bestowal of a prisoner.

“That’s the surest way to get yourself cleared of a crime,” said Dr. Dunton as he secured the bandages. “I wouldn’t recommend it as a regular thing, though.” Jim, looking rather pale and exhausted, tried to smile.

Dr. Dunton helped him ease the injured arm into a sling, and lie back against the pillows. “There you are. You’ll come out of this all right—it’s only a slight fracture and ought to heal cleanly.”

“It was entirely my fault,” said Mrs. Meade, entering the room at that moment. Mrs. Meade had arrived in the doctor’s buggy as if quite accustomed to it, and superintended all household matters, with the much-maligned second man of the bunkhouse roused from his sound sleep to serve as a worshipful minion. “I do hope you’re not implying, Doctor, that we arranged for Jim to be cleared by being murdered himself, for it was not so.”

“Far be it from me to suggest such slander,” said Dr. Dunton, who was an old friend of Mrs. Meade’s and had a substantial sense of humor besides.

Mrs. Meade looked around the room. “Oh, and there is coffee in the kitchen for anyone who feels they need it.”

“I don’t want coffee, I want some sense,” said Andrew Royal, unwittingly slandering himself with his grammar. “What in thunder happened here tonight, and who knew it was going to? I haven’t got the straight of it from anybody yet.”

Dr. Dunton was putting his instruments away in his black leather case, but glanced up with keen attention to listen to the answer. Gennaro, who was also present, leaning against the wall by the door, looked on with his customary subtle amusement.

“Well,” said Mrs. Meade, folding her hands resignedly in front of her as she stood near the foot of the bed, “in a way, I am responsible for the whole thing—that is, I suggested the ruse to Randall, who agreed to carry it out. We had a long talk about the murder yesterday afternoon, and agreed upon one thing: that all the persons with a motive to kill Major Cambert had equally worthless alibis, and so in order to discover which one had really done it, the guilty person must be made to give themselves away.

“I had felt that there was some sort of pattern among the motives for this crime, but I could not pick it out until a remark of Randall’s made it plain to me. What was one of Major Cambert’s strongest peculiarities? His close-fisted attitude towards money. Money—that was the recurring pattern. His grandson was entirely dependent upon him financially, as well as in other things. His dislike of Miss Ruskin stemmed from a stubborn belief that she could only be interested in money, or at least security. He offended Mr. Gennaro by withholding certain of his wages”—the cowboy blinked; he had never heard his grudge so delicately described before—“and Old Ted by flinging him a dollar to get rid of him whenever he became inconvenient.”

“But there wasn’t a dollar stolen,” said Dr. Dunton, before the sheriff could speak.

Mrs. Meade inclined her head. “And that was what was so very clever about this crime. Because none of the money in the safe was touched, no one gave a thought to robbery as a motive. But what if the murderer had deliberately left the money untouched for this very reason? If all suspicion was turned another way, he could come back for the money later without the slightest danger—or possess himself of it in a different way entirely.

“When I heard what happened the night of Jim’s arrest, it set me thinking.”

Gennaro shifted in his place against the wall, a look of intelligence in his eyes. Mrs. Meade nodded as if in answer to him. “Randall told me how Jim had sent Old Ted to ask Tom Hall to come and put up bail. Mr. Hall did not arrive until the next morning, saying that Old Ted had never delivered his message till then. But suppose—just suppose—that one of them was not telling the truth? It meant one of two things. Either Old Ted purposely delayed giving the message, to allow himself a few hours’ time for something—or Tom Hall really did receive the message that night, and lied about Old Ted not arriving till morning, in order to give himself time to do something before presenting himself at the sheriff’s office.”

“I heard somebody at the house that night,” said Gennaro. “They rode off before I got close enough to see who it was, but they hadn’t showed a light—so I knew they were up to no good. I went to town next morning and I heard Jim had been in jail all night, so he couldn’t have been here. That’s how I figured it wasn’t him who shot the Major.”

“And that is how I knew it was Tom Hall,” said Mrs. Meade.

Andrew Royal lifted a hand and started to speak again, but once more Dr. Dunton got in before him. “But why that night? Why did he have to lie about it? If he was after the money, why did it have to be just then?”

“He needed the money,” said Mrs. Meade, “for Jim’s bail.”

“That’s foolishness,” said Andrew Royal abruptly. “Tom Hall’s well-off enough to have posted bail himself. And if he was stingy enough to want Jim to pay his own bail he could’ve said so.”

Mrs. Meade shook her head. “No, Andrew, that’s just it—that was the whole motive for the murder. I very much fear that more people in Sour Springs are going to be hurt by this than just poor Major Cambert. When you come to examine the accounts of the First National Bank, I suspect you will find little actual money in the vault. I don’t know whether Mr. Hall has been speculating with his investors’ money, or whether he simply mismanaged it, but I think he had reached a point where he was desperate for a sum of cash to keep up the pretense of solidity a little longer. He knew Major Cambert had money—in cash, and plenty of it, kept at home. Perhaps he tried unsuccessfully to convince Major Cambert to deposit it in the First National—and then when that failed, he plotted murder.”

“He was always trying to get Grandfather to put his money in the bank,” said Jim quietly from his pillow. “They’d been wrangling about it that week, before Grandfather and I quarreled—just in their usual friendly way. I never suspected anything different.”

He lifted tired, pain-shadowed eyes to Mrs. Meade’s face. “Did Hall try to frame me for the murder?”

“He certainly made use of the quarrel, which everyone in Sour Springs knew about, to divert suspicion,” said Mrs. Meade gently. “But I think he tried to plan it so as to avoid any real condemning evidence against you—making certain you were away from the house before he entered, and so forth. He was quite sincere about defending your innocence, for it was necessary that you be kept alive and out of prison for him to have a trustee’s access to your inheritance. That is what he really wanted, you know. Major Cambert must have told him he would be executor and guardian. He could have secretly used your money to try and keep his bank afloat, no doubt convincing himself he could repair his fortunes and return the money in the year before you came of age—as many another untrustworthy trustee has done before him.”

Andrew Royal was about to speak, but when Dr. Dunton seemed about to ask a question he desisted and glared at him, evidently feeling it was a lost cause trying to get in ahead. But the doctor had apparently changed his mind, and Mrs. Meade went on:

“He had no alibi for that night either, you know. His wife was away and he was home alone. So Randall and I discussed it, and agreed that the way to alarm him was to make him believe his extraction of the bail money from the safe was about to be discovered. Randall was to convince Jim to jump bail (as I believe the expression is), to stay away for a few days and take some money from home with him—all in plain hearing of Old Ted, who would carry the news to Hall. There was always the slight chance that we were mistaken, and Old Ted was the culprit, in which case he would have probably hurried ahead to steal the money before Jim arrived. But if we were right, he was undoubtedly in Mr. Hall’s pay for keeping quiet about when he had really delivered his message. And if we were right, Mr. Hall would almost certainly try and get to the ranch himself before Jim did, to keep him from discovering the theft—the amount required for bail being missing might give him away. Jim knew how much money was supposed to be in the safe. Mr. Hall might have taken it all away to cover his tracks, or he may have simply attempted to stall Jim off and keep him from opening the safe. What I did not expect was for him to entirely lose his head.”

“A busted bank’s enough to drive anybody off his head,” said Royal.

“Well, you see,” said Mrs. Meade somewhat apologetically, “Randall was to have followed Jim much more closely, but you interfered with that, Andrew—all with the best of intentions, of course. Randall was armed; he was to serve as a witness to anything that occurred, as well as forestall any unpleasantness that might arise. However, I see now that we made entirely too little allowance for circumstances beyond our control, and I am very sorry for that. But there wasn’t much time, you see—and it was my first experience with arranging anything of this sort, so I hope you will forgive me.”

Gennaro coughed—he caught Dr. Dunton’s eye, and then they avoided each other’s glance for a moment after that. “I’d been watching the house these last two nights,” Gennaro said, “and I saw Hall get here tonight and go inside. He left his horse hid in the trees. But then a minute later Jim showed up, so I hung back to see what was going on. I was sneaking round back to see if I could listen at a window when the shooting started, so I ran round and stopped him when he came out the back door.”

Jim was silent. He had said nothing of that brief confrontation that must have taken place by the hearthside, when the man he had believed to be a friend had been revealed as his grandfather’s murderer, and Mrs. Meade did not expect him to.

“Er—what do you suppose has become of Old Ted?” said Dr. Dunton.

“I rather think Sour Springs has seen the last of Old Ted,” said Mrs. Meade. “Randall said he never saw him again after the commotion started. I fancy he left in a hurry.”

Andrew Royal grunted. “Got rid of him cheap if all anybody’s out is the price of Murdock’s horse. Won’t be so cheap in Hall’s case, though, if all this about the bank turns out true.”

“I said to Morris, before he left,” said Gennaro, “‘I guess Cambert’s keeping his money out of the bank cost him more in the end.’ He laughed and said, ‘I wasn’t thinking that. I’m just glad my money’s in the Stockmen’s Associated instead of the First National.’”

“And he’s quite right,” said Mrs. Meade. “Anyone’s money would be safer under a rock than in a bank run by a man who would murder for it.”

The sound of buggy wheels was heard outside. Dr. Dunton looked up, and snapped his bag shut. “I think I will have some of that coffee,” he said, as he buckled the straps. “Made strong, I hope, Mrs. Meade?”

“Oh, yes, Doctor. Quite strong enough to match the circumstances,” said Mrs. Meade.

Dr. Dunton picked up his bag and went out, and Gennaro went with him. A moment after the door had closed behind them, more footsteps and voices were heard in the house, and then steps approached and Randall Morris opened the bedroom door. He stood aside to make way for Frances Ruskin, who halted on the threshold, white-faced and uncertain, her eyes going half fearfully to the bed where Jim lay. Jim Cambert turned his head a little on the pillow and saw her. She took a few slow, hesitant steps into the room. Then Jim lifted his good hand a little and stretched it out toward her, with an unmistakable look of love and longing. And Frances came forward the last few steps with a swift, stumbling rush, dropped on the edge of the bed and bent and hid her face against him. Jim put his arm around her, and whispered brokenly in her ear.

Randall, who knew a little something about these moments himself, tapped the Sheriff gently on the shoulder, and they exited by the door that Mrs. Meade held open for them.

###

Would you like to receive email notifications of new releases from Second Sentence Press? Sign up here: http://eepurl.com/biZJDb

Word-of-mouth is crucial for any author to succeed. If you enjoyed this book, please consider leaving a review, even if it’s only a few lines; it would make all the difference and would be very much appreciated.

More Mrs. Meade

The Silver Shawl: A Mrs. Meade Mystery

In a small town in turn-of-the-century Colorado, a young woman has disappeared from the boarding-house where she lives. Her distraught fiancé is certain that she must have been kidnapped. But the case takes a new turn when a city detective appears on the scene, looking for a woman who matches the description of the missing girl. Was Charity really kidnapped, or did she have a reason to flee? Mrs. Meade, a gentle but shrewd widow lady who lives across the hall in the boarding-house, feels that there is something wrong with the story of Charity’s disappearance…but can she unravel the mystery before it is too late? The first entry in the Mrs. Meade Mysteries series, approximately 15,700 words.

The Parting Glass: A Mrs. Meade Mystery

Mrs. Meade is not the only one in Sour Springs who is shocked at the news when Clyde Renfrew is accused of drunken assault on a woman. Clyde, a sober, steady young rancher, seemed the last person likely to do such a thing. Between an emphatic witness and Clyde’s own apparent reluctance to defend himself, the case seems open and shut. But Mrs. Meade—who seems to have a knack for being just across the hall when things happen—has a few ideas of her own…The second entry in the Mrs. Meade Mysteries series, approximately 12,500 words.

The Oldest Flame: A Mrs. Meade Mystery

Mrs. Meade had been looking forward to a pleasant visit with old friends—but their house party turns to disaster when a fire destroys the house during the night. Even worse, the fire appears to have been deliberately set. Which of the people who were in the house that night is responsible? There are several possibilities, and Mrs. Meade is not sure which is the most distressing…The third entry in the Mrs. Meade Mysteries series, approximately 17,800 words.

About the Author

Elisabeth Grace Foley is a historical fiction author, history buff and insatiable reader. She has been a finalist for the Peacemaker Award for Best Independently-Published Western Novel, for Left-Hand Kelly, and is also the author of short story collections The Ranch Next Door and Other Stories and Wanderlust Creek and Other Stories. Her work has appeared online at Rope and Wire and The Western Online. Her other books include a series of short historical mysteries, the Mrs. Meade Mysteries; and short fiction set during the American Civil War and the Great Depression.

More books by this author:

Left-Hand Kelly

Wanderlust Creek and Other Stories

The Ranch Next Door and Other Stories

Corral Nocturne: A Novella

Elisabeth’s Blog: www.thesecondsentence.blogspot.com

Twitter: www.twitter.com/ElisabethGFoley

Table of Contents

The Silent Hour

More Mrs. Meade

About the Author