Holmes on the Range (36 page)

“It don't?” Gustav countered with a little chuckle that turned the
old man's already flushed face beet red. “I'd say it proves Boudreaux was killed by somebody here in the house.”

“It
doesn't
,” said Edwards, his eyes going droopy behind his spectacles, as if humoring my brother had him all tuckered out. “A stain on the rug? A scent most of us can't even smell? Please.”

“Oh, there's more proof than that. You've seen it already, Mr. Edwards.”

Suddenly, Edwards's eyes weren't quite so droopy.

“Of course, it's under about eight feet of water now, but all we need's a rope and a hook to drag it up,” Old Red continued. “When a valise and an iron go missin' right before a feller with a boogered-up back drags himself out for a nine-mile buggy ride, all so he can ‘picnic' next to a pond . . .well, it hardly requires any deducin' at all, does it? I assume there's a freshly fired derringer and a couple bloody pillows in that handbag, too.”

Edwards barked out a mirthless laugh of disbelief. “Are you actually accusing
me
?”

Old Red shrugged. “I ain't the one doin' the accusin', exactly. Lady Clara just about spooned the whole thing on my plate for me.”

“She
what
?” the Duke roared, whipping around to face his daughter.

She ignored him, instead fixing Edwards with a deep, unblinking gaze—a look of devotion mixed with regret.

“When Amlingmeyer came to me a little while ago, he told me he had suspicions about your buggy ride yesterday—and about my motivations in asking that the wager be abandoned. He was”—the lady's long, dark lashes fluttered, and her eyes flicked toward my brother for an instant—”extremely persistent. I finally had to admit that I knew more than I'd said.”

Her eyes took on a shimmery shine as tears welled up and threatened to streak across her pale skin.

“There
were
two gunshots. I heard the second one, as well. It was faint, but I was already beginning to awaken, and the noise was enough
to draw me to the window. And I saw you, George—I saw you running back to the house. When that man's body was found, I prayed that it wasn't what it appeared. But I couldn't be sure. And when Amling-meyer told me his theories. . .told me where you went yesterday. . .”

Edwards shook his head slowly. But the bellowed protests for which I steeled myself never emerged. His expression changed, righteous indignation giving way to something like relief.

“There's no use lying anymore,” he said. “Yes. . .I killed that man.”

The words were like buckets of water sloshed in our faces, and everyone came spluttering to life to gasp or mutter curses or blurt out “What?” The exceptions were Old Red, who took in Edwards's words with an unnatural calm, and Lady Clara, who was still fighting to keep her tears in her eyes and not on her face.

My brother said something I couldn't catch through the commotion. It must have been “Tell us what happened,” for that's what Edwards proceeded to do.

“The pain in my back kept me from sleeping, so I came downstairs. We'd been reviewing the Cantlemere's books, and as long as I was awake I thought I'd go through a few more files. I'd been here perhaps thirty minutes when that ghoulish-looking Negro walked in—pointing a gun. He wanted jewels, cash, anything valuable. And he. . .well. . .” Edwards's expression turned sour, as if the next words were too bitter to hold in his mouth. “He demanded to know which rooms the women were in.”

Brackwell and Martin frowned and shook their heads, and the Duke muttered, “Animal!” The men's reaction seemed to boost Edwards's confidence, and he continued his tale with more dramatic dash.

“I knew I had to act. I wasn't facing a mere thief. I was facing a
fiend
. Fortunately, I wasn't as helpless as the blackguard assumed. I had with me a gift from the Duke—a derringer pistol. I concocted some folderol about a safe in the desk, and when the Negro walked around to take a look, I ‘got the drop on him,' as the cow-boys say. I had no choice but to shoot, for it was plainly his life or mine in the balance.”

“Of course,” the Duke assured him. “Bully for you, Edwards!”

“Thank you, Your Grace. But I couldn't be sure everyone would be so understanding. Law in the West is a capricious business. Every day, murderers are set free because their neighbors refuse to convict them, while honest cattlemen can't raise a finger against ‘rustlers' lest they be lynched by some bloodthirsty mob. There could be no ‘jury of my peers' for a gentleman like myself. If the man I'd killed was well-liked, if he had enough friends, allowing myself to stand trial would be suicide.”

“You needn't have worried about that, mister,” Martin said. “A man like yourself shoots a thievin' nigger? Nobody'd blink an eye.”

“I wish I'd known that two days ago,” Edwards said. “But I didn't, so I moved to protect myself. When no one came to the office to investigate the gunshot, I knew I had a chance to hide what I'd done. I decided to leave the body someplace outside—hopefully, it wouldn't be discovered until we'd left the Cantlemere. But before I got far, I saw the ranch cook heading toward the house. I had to hide the corpse quickly. I threw it into the outhouse, slipped around the side, and waited for the man to leave. Once he was gone, I discovered to my dismay that the outhouse door was stuck. Fortunately, I was able to keep my wits about me, and I soon had a new plan.”

Whereas Edwards had begun reeling out his story mournfully, with an air of guilt about him, by now he was talking fast and with obvious pride.

“I would leave a gun with the body, and everyone would assume the man had shot himself. I couldn't leave my own, of course—it would be recognized as one of the derringers His Grace had given to his traveling companions. But I was in luck. While going through Perkins's drawers earlier, I discovered that he kept a derringer of his own. There was one problem, however: It hadn't been used. I had no choice but to fire a shot, slide the gun through the ventilation hole in the outhouse door, and run for the house as quickly as I could—which is exactly what I did. I'd already cleaned up the blood with pillows from the closet upstairs,
so the next step was to cover the smell of gunpowder that lingered in the room. I attempted to do so by building the biggest blaze I could in the fireplace. After that, I had to dispose of the pillows and the gun, which I did on my ‘picnic.' All the while, I played along with the Duke's wager as a show of confidence. It was pure bluff, as was my later change of heart.”

“Ingenious!” the Duke exclaimed with the same chummy admiration he might use to compliment a fellow nobleman on a well-played hand of whist.

The old man's attitude rubbed off on Martin, who shook his head and grinned. “That was some pretty slick thinkin', alright.”

“Oh, yes, well done, Edwards,” Brackwell added, not sounding enthused even though he now had grounds to claim two hundred pounds from the Duke. “And well done to you, too,” he said to Gustav with considerably more sincerity.

Old Red didn't acknowledge the salute—his attention was focused on Edwards and Lady Clara.

“Oh, George! If only I'd known!” the lady said, clutching his hands. “Can you ever forgive me?”

“There's nothing to forgive,” Edwards replied. “All the shame in this affair is mine and mine alone.”

Lady Clara's tears let loose now, and Edwards wrapped an arm around her to offer comfort. That had the Duke looking mighty pleased. Though he'd just lost a small fortune, it appeared he'd soon have access to a considerably larger one—through a new son-in-law.

“Well,” Martin said cheerfully, “I'll have to make a report when I get back to Miles, but there won't be any need to dredge up all the ins and outs of this thing. Mr. Edwards was attacked and he defended himself. That's that.”

“No, Jack. That
ain't
that,” Old Red sighed, looking like a fellow who's found half a worm in his apple. “Everything we just heard is pure horseshit.”

Or, The Truth Comes Out—and So Do the Guns

A
lmost everyone in the
room blurted out “What the hell?” or words to that effect. Not surprisingly, Edwards's and the Duke's protests were the loudest, the former assailing Gustav's sanity while the latter howled and growled about my brother's “damnable insolence.”

“For God's sake, let him talk!” Brackwell roared at them.

The two older men swiveled around to stare, momentarily slack-jawed with surprise. Old Red threw himself into the resulting silence while it was still there to jump into.

“I'd be happy to explain, but it might be best if we sent Emily along first,” he said, turning to the Duke. “I'm sure she's got things to do, am I right?”

His Grace gave Emily a brusque nod without looking her in the eye. She curtsied and moved slowly toward the door, her ears no doubt straining to sweep up any additional dirt they could before she left. After
she'd pulled the door shut behind her, Old Red's gaze jumped from me to the door and back again.

Once again he wanted a roadblock in front of the exit, and once again the roadblock was to be me. I moved to the door and leaned up against it, tucking my hands casually over my gunbelt—leaving my right hand just inches from my .45.

I figured I knew why Gustav wished Emily scooted from the room: He'd pulled from her what information he'd needed, and now he didn't want bystanders around if things got hot. And they seemed to be warming up fast.

Across the room was my mirror image—Spider, leaning against the wall next to the window, his hands resting on
his
gunbelt. Uly smiled at me from his seat, his fingers clasped loosely on his lap, ready to reach for a trigger in the blink of an eye. Martin noticed our preparations and made his own, sliding back to press himself into the wall, as if he wished to trade in his badge and take up a new career as a filing cabinet.

“Now to start with,” Old Red said, “just look at Mr. Edwards here.”

We obliged, but all there was to see was a sweaty son of a bitch foolish enough to wear tweed in Montana on a warm May day.

“That back of his is stiff as board, ain't it?” Gustav pointed out. “And any of you catch sight of his face when he moves? Looks like he's got wasps in his socks.”

“So?” Edwards snipped.

“So how are you supposed to be draggin' dead cowboys around when you say it was your bad back that kept you from sleepin' in the first place?”

“Oh. . .well. . .a man is capable of extraordinary things in a time of crisis.”

“Like sprinkling feathers around after shootin' somebody to death?” Old Red said. “We found down stuck to Boudreaux's forehead. You wanna tell me how it got there?”

Edwards sidestepped that one entirely. “I don't even know why we're listening to this little tramp any longer,” he said to the Duke and Martin.

“You need a reason to listen?” Gustav asked. “Try this on: Perkins was robbin' the Sussex Land and Cattle Company blind—and Boudreaux was killed cuz he had proof.”

Uly waved off the accusation with the back of his hand. “Awww, now that he's slandered every livin' person in the room, he has to go and speak ill of the dead!”

But my brother's words had hooked the Duke like a jowly trout.

“What's this about Perkins robbing us?”

“I thought that might interest you folks,” Old Red said. “In fact, it's the real reason you're here, ain't it?”

“Who told you
that
?” the Duke demanded.

Brackwell, however, was done beating around the bush. “You're right,” he said. “One of the board members, Sir Charles Appledore, owns an interest in another ranch near here. Apparently, Sir Charles had been hearing about our ranch from the general manager there. The Cantlemere was sending fewer and fewer cows to market, he said—far fewer than Perkins's reports indicated. So the board sent a party to investigate the situation personally. . .and discreetly.”

“And if you didn't like what you found,” Old Red said, “you could sell the VR at the Stockgrowers Association meetin' in Miles City.”

“Who told you that?” the Duke blurted out again.

“No one told me. The timin' of your visit just seemed a touch. . . convenient.”

“You're right,” Brackwell said. “The plan was to find a buyer for the Cantlemere if we discovered anything troubling.”

“And did you?”

“Well, aside from all the
deaths
, everything seemed to be in order.”

The hint of a grin tugged at Old Red's lips. “That's right, Mr. Brackwell—death
sss
. I'm glad you haven't forgotten that we've had more than one corpse around here lately.”