Holmes on the Range (35 page)

“Fire?” the Duke asked.

“Sack,” Edwards explained with smug satisfaction.

“Oh, by all means! And his fool of a brother, as well, if he bothers to return.”

“Really, must you—?” Brackwell began, but his voice didn't have much wind behind it, and Uly easily outspoke him.

“You heard the man, Amlingmeyer. You're done. Just hand over that gun and I'll have my brother escort you—”

“
Ha!
” I barked. “There's only one way you're gettin' this gun off me.”

That made things so plain Martin couldn't stay out of it any longer.

“Calm down, everybody,” he said. He was trying to play the part of the gruff, domineering lawman, but his pose wasn't helped by his choice of position. He was fifteen feet from the McPhersons and a good
thirty feet from me, yet he didn't make a move to get any closer, and he certainly didn't step into the line of fire. “There ain't gonna be any of that while I'm around.”

“Oh, is that a fact?” Spider said. His gaze was still on me, but it had moved downward, from my face to my hand.

My only chance was to draw before they did. I knew it, and Spider knew it. He also knew it was him I'd be coming for first. Yet his smile never wavered. The sight of it brought to mind a real spider, its fangs gleaming with poison as it closes in on a fat fly dumb enough to think it can bust loose of the web.

Yet I had fangs of my own, and the time had come to use them. I pictured it in my mind—Spider first, then jerk the barrel to the right, fan the hammer. . .and hope for a miracle.

“Come on, boys,” Martin said, his voice now more pleading than commanding. With his dark, sweat-soaked hair and big buck teeth, he was taking on the look of a frightened beaver. “Don't do anything foolish.”

Uly's eyes flickered to the left as Martin took a hesitant step toward us.

This was my chance. I had to use the distraction while I had it.

I had to draw now.

“What's going on here?”

Now
I
was distracted. Fortunately, Uly and Spider were just as surprised to hear Lady Clara's voice.

Each of us stole a peek toward the castle's front door, and distraction turned to outright astonishment, for by the lady's side was the small figure of a dust-coated cowboy.

“Ease down, fellers. There'll be time enough for that later,” Old Red said. “Right now we've got us some talkin' to do.”

Or, Old Red Talks Up a Storm and Stirs Up a Cyclone

T
he dirt on Gustav's
clothes and the scrapes on his face and hands said he'd covered a lot of miles fast—and someone had tried to stop him. He looked like a man with quite a story to tell. Yet at least one person there was in no mood to listen.

“You're too late, Amlingmeyer,” the Duke said. “Brackwell has lost the wager. And now I intend to have you—”

“As I recall,” Old Red cut in calmly, “the issue at hand was whether I could come up with an explanation for Boudreaux's death before a lawman got here.”

“And you failed!” the Duke boomed.

“Oh, but I didn't. You never said I had to give that explanation to
you
.”

“That's ludicrous! If not me, then. . .?” The Duke turned his gaze to the woman at my brother's side, and the fire in his eyes flickered. “You? But—?”

“Amlingmeyer and I have had quite an illuminating conversation,”
Lady Clara said, her own gaze cool and distant. “I think it would be best if that illumination were shared with everyone.”

“Well,” Gustav said with a little cough, “maybe not
everyone
. Your Grace, Mr. Edwards, Mr. Brackwell, Jack, Uly, Spider, Otto—if you'd join us in the office, I think we could clear this up pretty quick.”

The Duke grumbled, but with the lady behind Old Red he couldn't kick up too much fuss. Everyone filed inside and headed for Perkins's office. My brother pulled me aside before I could join the others, leaving us alone in the foyer.

“I spotted some buzzards circlin' on my way north,” he said. He wrapped his hands around my forearms. “It's good to see you here.”

“It's good to be here to be seen. That was Brick and Tall John you passed on the trail.”

“Oh.” Old Red gave my arms a squeeze, then took his hands away. “That's a shame about Brick.”

“
So
,” I said, “have you got everything Holmesed out?”

My brother nodded, suddenly looking downright cheerful. “Everything. Well, except who was in the office with Boudreaux the other night.”

I smiled back at him—until his words sank in. “You mean. . . everything except
who killed Boo
?”

“Shhhh. Not so loud.”

He spun on his heel and hustled down the hallway toward the kitchen.

“Gustav! What—?”

My brother stopped, shushed me again, then opened the door to the room next to the office.

“Perkins's bedroom—just the way he left it,” he said. “Looks comfortable.”

He continued down the hall, and I caught up just as he pulled open the next door.

“Well, now,” he said. “Comfortable this
ain't
.”

A small chest of drawers was jammed into one corner of the tiny room, and from the comb and brush and other feminine sundries scattered about, it was obvious who'd made her quarters here.

“Poor Emily—shoved into this matchbox when there's a room twice as big one door over,” Old Red said. He pointed to the bed—little more than a cot barely as long or as wide as Emily herself. “No, that'd never do, would it?”

“I don't guess a maid's got much say in the matter.”

“It ain't the maid I'm thinkin' of.”

Before I could take a step down that trail, my brother slapped his hands together and gave them a rub.

“Alright—can't keep ‘em waitin' any longer.”

“Well, maybe you should if you still don't know—”

But Gustav wasn't listening. He'd already spun around and headed back up the hall. I followed him feeling like a bull in a stampede—I didn't know where we were going, and it was too late to stop us from going there.

When we stepped into the office, we found Lady Clara and Edwards seated upon the ottoman, with Brackwell leaning one buckskin-clad shoulder against the wall nearby. The Duke had wedged himself into the chair behind Perkins's desk, and Uly had snagged the chair on the other side—much to Jack Martin's obvious annoyance. He and Spider were standing on either side of the window. Emily was over near Martin, having apparently been escorted in before Old Red and Lady Clara stepped outside to fetch us.

Gustav closed the door and gave me a
stay here
look that kept my substantial bulk planted in front of it. Then he walked to the center of the room and set loose a herd of words so massive it almost brought his lifetime head count up around mine.

There was a glow to him as he spoke that was totally unlike the crabby, quiet Gustav I'd known so well for so long. I think it was pure joy that lit him up so, as strange as that may sound given our predicament.
He'd been following the trail blazed by his hero, Sherlock Holmes, and now he was but a hop, skip, and a jump from its end.

“Alright then,” he said. “I guess it would be best to begin at the beginning, but this matter's so kinked up it's hard to even say where the beginning begins. So I'll just pick it up with yesterday mornin': We found Boudreaux in the privy with a bullet in his brain. The gentlemen here let me look into how it got there, and it's a good thing they did, too. Cuz after talkin' to folks, I stumbled across what you might call an
irregularity
about Boudreaux's death. The boys out yonder in the bunkhouse heard the gunshot right around dawn. But our guests here in the house heard it, too—only they say it was hours earlier, in the middle of the night. I turned that over and turned that over and turned it till it wouldn't turn again. But I couldn't make any sense of it till I realized the answer was so simple I shouldn't have wasted a heartbeat's time huntin' for it.”

Gustav paused and looked around, waiting for someone to dare an explanation. No one took the bait. My brother ended his survey of the room facing me.

“Tell ‘em, Otto,” he said. “Assumin' nobody's lyin', how is it folks in two different places could hear the same gunshot at two different times?”

I stared back at Old Red, wondering why he'd gone out of his way to humble me by putting me on the spot.

“Well,” I said, and the second I opened my mouth it came to me that I wasn't on the spot at all. My lips stretched into a grin, and Gustav grinned back at me.

He hadn't thrown that question my way because I couldn't figure out the answer. Just the opposite. He was filled with faith that I
could
.

“It's obvious, ain't it?” I said. “They weren't hearin' the same shot at different times. . .because they weren't hearin' the same shot at all.”

My brother gave me a wink, then packed away his smile as he swiveled around to face everyone else again.

“Exactly. There were
two
gunshots—the earlier one closer to the
big house, the later one closer to the bunkhouse. The hands didn't pay any mind to the one they heard, as Mr. Brackwell made a habit of early-mornin' target practice. But it's harder to figure why our guests wouldn't react to such a noise. Visitors from parts East are usually looking for Cheyenne braves under their beds, yet nobody so much as poked a head out after hearing a
bang
in the dead of night.”

“It was more of a
thump
than a bang,” Edwards said. “It didn't sound like a—”

Gustav silenced him with a raised hand. “I'll get to that. Bang or thump, no one stepped out to investigate. Well, with a little cogitation I could think of a reason for each and every person to keep to their beds. Lady Clara—she's been known to dabble in affairs usually fenced off to those of her gender, yet she still might leave any actual
danger
to servants and menfolk. As for them, Mr. Edwards had his bad back, and Mr. Brackwell . . .” Old Red shrugged apologetically at our young friend. “I do believe he was drunk as a skunk.”

Brackwell returned an embarrassed shrug of his own that said,
True enough
.

“As for the Duke,” Gustav went on, “I suspect he was. . .let's say ‘entertaining a visitor.' ”

I puzzled over which “visitor” Old Red might mean until I realized he'd skipped someone who'd been in the house that night—Emily. That brought to mind his comment about the size of her cot. And then there was her gossip about the St. Simon family's habit of dallying with the hired help, not to mention the deep sleep from which it was so hard to rouse the Duke.

My brother turned toward the maid now, and though he said nothing, his eyes blazed a question at her.

“I. . .I. . .,” she stammered before pursing her lips up tight. She said no more, but the blush that came to her round cheeks spoke loud enough.

“You disgusting insect!” the Duke spat, hoisting his girth halfway
from his chair. No doubt he had more names for my brother, but he didn't get a chance to sling any of them on account of Edwards, who took the extraordinary step of interrupting the old man.

“Why should it matter who was doing what inside the house?”

“Because that's where Boudreaux was murdered,” Old Red replied. “Here in this very room, in fact.”

The Duke was struck dumb, and it was left to Edwards to blurt out “Preposterous!” for the both of them. The McPhersons threw out their own protests, Uly's being “Hogwash!” and Spider's a less genteel “Bull-shit!”

“Nope, it ain't preposterous or hogwash either one,” Gustav said, ignoring Spider's contribution to the discussion. “Jack, you get a whiff of the powder burn, don't you? Our guests might not have the nose to pick it out, but surely you can.”

Martin's nose twitched like a hare's. “Well, I'll be damned,” the lawman mumbled before he could stop himself.

“If you need more convincin',” Old Red said to Edwards, “there's a bloodstain about one foot beneath your behind.”

Edwards bent to look underneath the ottoman. His back was obviously still paining him, for his doughy face twisted into a grimace. The Duke, Martin, and Uly all leaned forward to get a better look at the rug, as well.

“That stain could be months old!” the Duke hollered.

“Looks like ink to me,” said Uly.

“He put it there himself!” Edwards declared.

Gustav sighed.

“Amlingmeyer didn't make the stain,” Brackwell said, finally speaking up from his perch against the wall. “I was here when he found it.”

“It makes no difference,” the Duke shot back. He had his teeth sunk into that two hundred pounds like a Gila monster on a fellow's foot, and he wasn't going to let go. “This proves nothing.”