"Threefall and I were standing down near the front door talking, when we heard a shot. I thought it had been fired up here, but he said it came from across the street. Anyhow, we came up here to make sure—making a bet on it first; so Threefall owes me a dollar. We came up here, and just as we got to the head of the steps we heard another shot, and Brackett came running out of here with this gun in his hand."
He gave the automatic to the marshal, and went on: "He took a few steps from the door, yelled, and fell down. Did you see him out there?"
"I did," Fernie said.
"Well, Threefall stopped to look at him while I came on in here to see if my father was all right—and found him dead. That's all there is to it."
Steve went slowly down to the street after the gathering in the dead man's office had broken up, without having either contradicted or corroborated Larry Ormsby's fiction. No one had questioned him. At first he had been too astonished by the killer's boldness to say anything; and when his wits had resumed their functions, he had decided to hold his tongue for a while.
Suppose he had told the truth? Would it have helped justice? Would anything help justice in Izzard? If he had known what lay behind this piling-up of crime, he could have decided what to do; but he did not know—did not even know that there was anything behind it. So he had kept silent. The inquest would not be held until the following day—time enough to talk then, after a night's consideration.
He could not grasp more than a fragment of the affair at a time now; disconnected memories made a whirl of meaningless images in his brain. Elder and Mrs. MacPhail going up the stairs —to where? What had become of them? What had become of the man with the bandages on throat and jaw? Had those three any part in the double murder? Had Larry killed the hanker as well as his father? By what chance did the marshal appear on the scene immediately after murder had been done?
Steve carried his jumbled thoughts back to the hotel, and lay across his bed for perhaps an hour. Then he got up and went to the Bank of Izzard, drew out the money he had there, put it carefully in his pocket, and returned to his hotel room to lie across the bed again.
Nova Vallance, nebulous in yellow crepe, was sitting on the lower step of the MacPhails' porch when Steve went up the flowered walk that evening. She welcomed him warmly, concealing none of the impatience with which she had been waiting for him. He sat on the step beside her, twisting around a little for a better view of the dusky oval of her face.
"How is your arm?" she asked.
"Fine!" He opened and shut his left hand briskly. "I suppose you heard all about to-day's excitement?"
"Oh, yes! About Mr. Brackett's shooting Mr. Ormsby, and then dying with one of his heart attacks."
"Huh?" Steve demanded.
"But weren't you there?" she asked in surprise.
"I was, but suppose you tell me just what you heard."
"Oh, I've heard all sorts of things about it! But all I really know is what Dr. MacPhail, who examined both of them, said."
"And what was that?"
"That Mr. Brackert killed Mr. Ormsby—shot him—though nobody seems to know why; and then, before he could get out of the building, his heart failed him and he died."
"And he was supposed to have a bad heart?"
"Yes. Dr. MacPhail told him a year ago that he would have to be careful, that the least excitement might be fatal."
Steve caught her wrist in his hand.
"Think now," he commanded. "Did you ever hear Dr. MacPhail speak of Brackett's heart trouble until to-day?"
She looked curiously into his face, and a little pucker of bewilderment came between her eyes.
"No," she replied slowly. "I don't think so; but, of course, there was never any reason why he should have mentioned it. Why do you ask?"
"Because," he told, her, "Brackett did not shoot Ormsby; and any heart attack that killed Brackett was caused by poison—some poison that burned his face and beard."
She gave a little cry of horror.
"You think—" She stopped, glanced furtively over her shoulder at the front door of the house, and leaned close to him to whisper: "Didn't—didn't you say that the man who was killed in the fight last night was named Kamp?"
"Yes."
"Well, the report, or whatever it was that Dr. MacPhail made of his examination, reads Henry Cumberpatch."
"You sure? Sure it's the same man?"
"Yes. The wind blew it off the doctor's desk, and when I handed it back to him, he made some joke"—she coloured with a little laugh—"some joke about it nearly being your death certificate instead of your companion's. I glanced down at it then, and saw that it was for a man named Henry Cumberpatch. What does it all mean? What is—"
The front gate clattered open, and a man swayed up the walk. Steve got up, picked up his black stick, and stepped between the girl and the advancing man. The man's face came out of the dark. It was Larry Ormsby; and when he spoke his words had a drunken thickness to match the unsteadiness—not quite a stagger, but nearly so—of his walk.
"Lis'en," he said; "I'm dam' near—"
Steve moved toward him. "If Miss Vallance will excuse us," he said, "we'll stroll to the gate and talk."
Without waiting for a reply from either of them, Steve linked an arm through one of Ormsby's and urged him down the path. At the gate Larry broke away, pulling his arm loose and confronting Steve.
"No time for foolishness," he snarled. "Y' got to get out! Get out o' Izzard!"
"Yes?" Steve asked. "And why?"
Larry leaned back against the fence and raised one hand in an impatient gesture.
"Your lives are not worth a nickel—neither of you."
He swayed and coughed. Steve grasped him by the shoulder and peered into his face.
"What's the matter with you?"
Larry coughed again and clapped a hand to his chest, up near the shoulder.
"Bullet—up high—Fernie's. But I got him—the big tramp. Toppled him out a window —down like a kid divin' for pennies." He laughed shrilly, and then became earnest again. "Get the girl—beat it—now! Now! Now! Ten minutes'll be too late. They're comin'!"
"Who? What? Why?" Steve snapped. "Talk turkey! I don't trust you. I've got to have reasons."
"Reasons, my God!" the wounded man cried. "You'll get your reasons. You think I'm trying to scare you out o' town b'fore th' inquest." He laughed insanely. "Inquest! You fool! There won't be any inquest! There won't be any tomorrow—for Izzard! And you—"
He pulled himself sharply together and caught one of Steve's hands in both of his.
"Listen," he said. "I'll give it to you, but we're wasting time! But if you've got to have it—listen.
"Izzard is a plant! The whole damned town is queer. Booze—that's the answer. The man I knocked off this afternoon—the one you thought was my father—originated the scheme. You make soda niter by boiling the nitrate in tanks with heated coils. He got the idea that a niter plant would make a good front for a moonshine factory. And he got the idea that if you had a whole town working together it'd be impossible for the game ever to fall down.
"You can guess how much money there is in this country in the hands of men who'd be glad to invest it in a booze game that was air-tight. Not only crooks, I mean, but men who consider themselves honest. Take your guess, whatever it is, and double it, and you still won't be within millions of the right answer. There are men with—But anyway, Ormsby took his scheme east and got his backing—a syndicate that could have raised enough money in build a dozen cities.
"Ormsby, Elder, and Brackett were the boys who managed the game. I was here to see that they didn't double-cross the syndicate; and then there's a flock of trusty lieutenants, like Fernie, and MacPhail, and Heman—he's postmaster—and Harker—another doctor, who got his last week—and leslie, who posed as a minister. There was no trouble to getting the population we wanted. The word went around that the new town was a place where a crook would be safe so long as he did what he was told. The slums of all the cities of America, and half of 'em out of it, emptied themselves here. Every crook that was less than a step ahead of the police, and had car fare here, came and got cover.