Rex Stout (13 page)

Without stopping for a by-your-leave, Dillon snatched the box from Clara’s fingers and pulled the lid off. He gazed at the contents in bitter disappointment. The box was no more than three-fourths full.

“To be sure.” Miss Henckel lifted her brows at him and there was an edge of scornful condescension to her tone. “I said thirty-five cartridges, didn’t I? I realized that it might possibly be of vital significance if the box was full. Mr. Archer states that he doesn’t care to have loaded cartridges lying around his shed, and he searched with great thoroughness and is absolutely certain that he got every one. His son states that that is all there were. But I have been dealing with boys for nearly thirty years. I led him into details and, among them, he told of removing the wrapping paper from the box after he had taken it from the bag. The fact that there was still wrapping paper on it permits the assumption that the box had not been opened. I told the boy that, nearly an hour ago, but he sticks to his statement.
It is a remarkable case of stubbornness, really remarkable. At that point I decided you should be notified, Miss Brand, so that you could take whatever—”

“Where’s the boy now?” Dillon demanded.

“In my office with his father.”

“I’ll handle him! Come on—”

“I came here with information for Miss Brand. It is in her hands. If she thinks the police or Mr. Anson—”

“Clara, damn it all! Let me go! If we find the rest of those cartridges—Listen, you come too! We’ll both go! All right, Miss Henckel?”

“Whatever Miss Brand decides. Though I can tell you, you’re not going to choke it out of him. It will take finer handling than that.”

“All right, Clara? Come on!”

Clara got up and started for the door.

Jimmie Archer said for the hundredth time, with tears in his eyes, “I tell you I’m not a squealer, doggone it! I tell you I’m not a rat! I tell you I won’t squeal!”

They were beginning to believe him. Instead of showing signs of weakening in the last half hour, since they had tricked him into the admission that he had had a confederate in the robbery, the obduracy in his eyes, in spite of the tears, had grown more and more intense, and his jaw had stopped quivering entirely. He had confessed that there had been a division of the spoils and that he had kept thirty-five cartridges for himself, but there seemed to be no conceivable technique that would compel or entice him into the pronouncement of a name.

His father said, “No use licking him. I’ve tried that before. It tightens him up like a rusty nut. I used to
pull his ears, I guess that’s one reason they stick out, but I quit. It’s no use.”

Miss Henckel said, “We could check up on all the boys who were supposed to go to Miss Brand’s class that day, but that would be an endless job. There was no roll call.”

They were in Miss Henckel’s outside office for a council of war, having left Dillon and Clara in the inner room with Jimmie. As the principal had said, it was a remarkable case of stubbornness, intensified to fanaticism when the issue had got down to the name of the accomplice. Clara’s entreaties, Miss Henckel’s appeal to reason, the father’s threats, warnings and bribes, and Dillon’s cross-examination, were all repulsed.

Dillon emerged from the inner room, closing the door behind him, and joined the council. “Look here,” he said, “we’re wasting our breath. He gets worse instead of better. There’s not a chance in the world of our getting that name out of him. Are you sure his mother couldn’t do it? It seems as though his mother—”

“Nothing doing.” Mr. Archer was positive. “Usually him and the missis hit it off fine—the way she does it, she never goes against the grain. When he once gets that look in his eyes—of course, if she had two or three days for it—”

“She hasn’t got two or three days! If you don’t think she can do it, I’ve got an idea. It’s complicated, but it will only take an hour or maybe less, and it may work. First I’ll go in and tell him—”

Five minutes later Dillon left them there and returned alone to the inner room, where Clara sat gazing in hopeless exasperation at the criminal’s obstinate tear-stained face.

“Look here, Jimmie,” Dillon said sternly, “I’ll give
you one more chance to tell me the name of your pal who has the rest of those cartridges. This is your last chance.”

The boy shook his head, sullenly and inflexibly.

“Tell me.” Dillon waited five seconds. “You won’t? All right, then it’s up to the law. We’ll see if you can beat the law. You’re in for it, Jimmie, I’m telling you straight. You can’t fight the law by sitting there shaking your head. You will have to get a lawyer, and a mighty good one, and you’d better get him quick. Have you got a good lawyer?”

“I don’t—” The boy’s lip quivered. “I never really had a lawyer.”

“Well, you’d better get one in a hurry. I’ve told your father what I’m going to do, and he’s pretty scared about it, and I suppose he’ll recommend a good lawyer to you if you care to consult him about it. That’s all I have to say. It’s up to the law now. I’ll send your father in. Come on, Clara.”

“But, Ty, we can’t—”

“Come on!”

They left him there alone. In the outer room Dillon said to Mr. Archer, “All right. Let it soak into him for five minutes and then go in and try it. For heaven’s sake be careful and do it right if you can. Don’t take him over there until you hear from me.”

He departed with Clara and drove as fast as the traffic would permit to Mountain Street, and in the new Sammis Building ascended to the offices of Escott, Brody & Dillon. There he had a stroke of luck. He had expected to have to haul his senior partner away from his lunch somewhere, but at the adjournment of court Escott had stopped in at his office and was there when the conspirators arrived. Dillon first telephoned the Pendleton School and then went to Escott’s room and
opened up on him. The veteran lawyer was at first annoyed because it bordered on interference in another firm’s case; then he was amused and interested; and finally he agreed.

James Archer, Senior, must have encountered some resistance, for it was getting close to one o’clock when he entered with his son. There was no one in the anteroom but a young woman at a desk. Senior pushed Junior forward, and Junior looked at the young woman with glum eyes and mumbled at her, “I wanna see Mr. Escott.”

“Name, please?”

“Jimmie Archer. Junior.”

She went out. In a moment she came back, let him through the gate, led him down the hall and ushered him into a room. Old Phil Escott arose to shake hands with him, got him into a chair and, after the door had closed behind the young woman, addressed him man to man.

“Well, Jimmie Archer, what can I do for you? Something about the law?”

The boy sat with his shoulders hunched. “Yes, sir.”

“What’s the trouble? A lawsuit or something?”

“No, sir. They want me to squeal and I won’t do it. I’ll take the rap, but I won’t squeal!”

“That’s fine. I admire that. Shake!” Jimmie suspiciously and reluctantly stuck out his hand, and they shook again. “Who wants you to squeal?”

“Aw, it’s a whole gang after me. There’s my father, and Miss Henckel the principal, and a woman they call Clara that’s got a sister in a jam, and a guy named Dillon, he’s nothing but a big bully—”

“Ha! Dillon! I know that man Dillon. He’s no good. What do they want you to squeal about?”

“About my pal that helped me take the catriches from Miss Brand’s bag. I’m not a rat.”

“Of course you’re not. I can see that by looking at you. When did you take the cart—catriches?” As the boy was silent, Escott leaned back and pressed the tips of his fingers together. “Of course you realize, Jimmie, that if I am your lawyer I’ll have to have all the details. Do you know what it means for me to be your lawyer?”

“Sure I do. It means you’re my mouthpiece.”

“That’s right. That’s it exactly.” Escott’s lip twitched a little, but he mastered it. “When did you and your pal take the catriches?”

“Aw, it was day before yesterday. At Rhythmic Movement. Him and me sneaked in the cloakroom because it makes us sick, and Miss Brand’s bag was there, and we just thought we’d try and see if it would come open—”

“Wait a minute! And the catriches were in her bag!”

“Yes, sir.”

“And they were in a box, wrapped up, and you took the whole thing!”

“Yes, sir.”

Jimmie’s brows were drawing together with renewed suspicion, but Escott swept on: “Why, my goodness, I know all about that case! In fact, I’ve been engaged by the man who sold the catriches to get them back! I’m his mouthpiece too! I’ll be doggoned!” Escott opened a drawer of his desk and took out a cardboard box, and from it dumped onto the desk a pile of silver dollars. He stacked them, and fingered them like poker chips. “Look at that!”

“What’s that for?”

“Why, that’s the reward the man offered for whoever returned the catriches! Ten dollars! It’s a mighty
lucky thing you happened to come to me, Jimmie! I know that man Dillon; he was trying to get all the catriches so he could claim the reward! He’s a slick one.”

The suspicion on Jimmie’s face disappeared to make room for another emotion which seemed likely to tap the tear ducts again. “But l-l-look here!” he faltered. “I ain’t got the catriches any more! My father took ’em and now that c-c-crook Dillon’s got ’em!”

“Oh, that’s all right. Don’t worry about that, Jimmie. You’ll get the reward all right, because I’ll pay it to you myself. Half will go to you and half to your pal. Of course the businesslike way to do it, to clean it all up at once, will be to get him here, and I’ll give you five dollars and him five dollars—”

“Hey!” Jimmie’s voice rang out and his face had changed again. “That ain’t fair!”

“What ain’t fair?”

“To give him half and me half! It ought to be the way we divvied up the catriches! I had thirty-five and he’s only got fifteen!”

Escott, for a second, was speechless. He regarded James Archer, Junior, this time without affection or reservation, as man to man. “Well,” he said finally, “that will have to be a matter for mutual agreement. He’ll have to be here with you and me, and we’ll have to settle it.”

Jimmie had slid off the chair to his feet. “I’ll settle it,” he said grimly. “I’ll go get him.”

“It will be better if we send someone after him and you stay here. It’ll be quicker that way. What’s his name?”

“His name’s Eric Snyder. He’s red-headed. He lives at 319 Humboldt Street. He’s in the fourth grade—”

Escott had pushed a button on his desk and the
door opened to admit a young woman. He told her: “Tell Mr. Tyler to get Eric Snyder, 319 Humboldt Street. That’s right. He’s red-headed and in the fourth grade.”

When the young woman had gone Escott turned to his client again, “Well, we might as well figure this out and be ready for him. Let’s see. If it’s to be divided in the same proportion as the cartridges were, that will mean seven dollars for you and three for him. Right?”

“It don’t sound right.” Jimmie looked wary and suspicious again. “Three bucks for only fifteen catriches sounds like too much.” He frowned deeply. “Gimme a pencil and a piece of paper.”

Escott got them and handed them over.

K
enneth Chambers, Sheriff of Silverside County, with only one eye on the spittoon eight feet away from his chair, squirted a beautiful stream of tobacco juice squarely into its middle.

“Yeah, I know,” he drawled, “I know all about that. But take it from me, Squint Hurley had a hand in it.”

Bill Tuttle, Sheriff of Park County, who was seated at his desk in his office, said in a voice made querulous by the heat, not to mention one or two other vexations, “You’ve got a grudge against Hurley, Ken.”

“What if I have?” the other demanded. “Who wouldn’t have? Didn’t he murder Charlie Brand right square in the center of my county and then go scot free just because a couple of wisenheimers said the bullet wasn’t from his gun? They call it science! Next thing they’ll measure my hind end and tell me where I sat down last!” He spat again and nearly missed. “As far as that goes, couldn’t he have faked up a catrich if he was a mind to? Couldn’t he have used another gun?”

Tuttle sighed. “Well, Ken, I followed that trial pretty close. And I’ll tell you. My candid opinion is that both you and that what’s-his-name, the prosecutor, were as dumb as a pair of hee-haws. You didn’t have a
single damn thing on Hurley except that he was handy, still you went ahead and tried to bulldog him. If you’d found some of that money on him, or a place where he cached it, that would have been different.”

“He was as guilty as a bear in a bees’ nest.”

“Maybe he was and maybe he wasn’t, but you had no proof of it. And here you drive over here on a hot day just to add to my troubles as if I didn’t have enough already! Didn’t I tell you on the phone yesterday that Hurley had nothing to do with it except he went up there to ask Jackson for some money and found the girl right there with the gun in her hand?”

“I don’t care what you told me,” Chambers said obstinately. “I’m convinced Hurley was mixed up in it. How did he happen to be going to see Jackson at night? And how did he happen to be going to see Jackson at all? In the past year and a half, since that half-witted jury turned him loose, Jackson has refused to have anything to do with him and I understand he got a little nibble from Bert Doyle down at Laramie and since then he’s been eating bunch grass. Where is he? I suppose you’ve let him slide along?”

“Certainly not. He’ll be my star witness.”

“He will like hell. He’ll be one of the defendants.” The sheriff of Silverside County spat. “I’m going to light a fire under him.”

“Not in Park County you’re not.” Tuttle, from being querulous, became pugnacious. “Get my star witness sore just to nurse a grudge? Not on your life! There’s not a bit of evidence that Squint Hurley was in it at all and no reason to suppose he was. You’re all right for a neighbor, Ken, these counties being as big as they are, but I’m damned if you’re going to start hazing my stock inside my fences. My God, as if this case wasn’t bad enough already! Go on back home and
flush a mutton-rustler or something! I’d like to trade places—Excuse me.”