“Did you send me a mysterious. Spanish-type beauty this morning, chief?” I queried.
“Show me a beauty, Spanish, Hungarian, Fijian or plain Siwash, Tug, that ain’t mysterious, and I’ll buy you a new lid!” Enger came back. “What’s the trouble? Somebody been leading you astray?”
“Not lately,” I replied. “Didn’t send me a client this morning, then, I take it?”
“No.”
“All right. Good-by!”
Funny, isn’t it, how meeting with obstacles makes a fellow all the more eager to climb? Makes me that way, anyhow. I wasn’t so very particular about that Spanish-looking woman until Enger told me he knew nothing of her. That served to sharpen my curiosity.
Then I reached a sort of solution. During the Santelle episode, newspapers all over the country had somewhat widely advertised Tug Norton and the Kaw Valley. We took a prominent part in the play, at the start, and figured in the accounts of the matter. ’Most anybody who had not already established relations with a sleuthing organization in Kansas City would Be inclined to consult with me, if needing a detective, thanks to that same advertising. That might account for the woman’s picking me.
“This woman,” I reflected, as I sped up the Kaw, “probably is staking her life on the outcome of a problem that will be answered before ten o’clock tomorrow morning. If she gets the wrong answer, then some hotel or boarding house will call up the police department and order an ambulance to remove a beautiful, Spanish-type woman who has bumped herself off. Then I’ll open the letter and know all about it.”
I’ve known it to happen that way before, and this case had all the earmarks of a to-be-opened-in-case-of-death affair.
I let it go at that.
“Everything serene,” Steel reported when I reached Willow Bend. “This promises to get monotonous, Tug, if you ask me. That Cletus bird is mighty congenial, and makes it mighty easy to keep watch on him — suspiciously easy — but I like a little action now and then.”
I didn’t reply to Jim right then. He had said something that gave me pause. So like what had touched a remote corner of my own reasoning machine. Suspiciously easy. That was the phrase.
Was Flash Santelle, for reasons best known to himself, deliberately establishing espionage upon himself? If so, what could be his reason?
Then the answer came to me in a flash.
“An alibi!” I ejaculated. “That’s it, Jim — an alibi!”
“What’s an alibi, and why?” Jim demanded, examining me critically.
“Never mind that just now,” I replied. “But bear down hard on this night-watch business,” I instructed with emphasis. “Watch not only Santelle, but each and every person with whom he comes in contact. If my alibi theory is correct — well, it ’ll be a good alibi, and no mistake!”
Chapter VIII
A Young Man in Trouble
Jim, somewhat disgusted over my secretive tactics, departed for bed, and a moment later I was hailed by a tall young man on the lawn. It was Tommy Patterson.
“Norton,” he said quietly, a smile struggling with a somewhat serious expression on his face, “whom did you come out here to detect? Has my old man been hiring somebody to watch mother, or is it the other way about?”
That was my cue to cry “Discovered!” in a deep, chagrined voice — but I did nothing of the sort.
“If there is anybody in the Patterson family who needs watching, it’s you,” I told him, grinning. “From the looks of things, based on my observations last night, you’ll be ready to commit murder pretty soon. Why the devil don’t you either marry the girl or quit thinking about her in that way?”
The smile vanished from his lips, and his face was immediately shrouded in gloom. “That’s why I called to you,” he informed me seriously. “Wanted to talk with you, I mean, about what you refer to. Recognized you the minute you showed up yesterday, Mr. Norton,” he went on to explain, “but since your being here is none of my business, I have not mentioned it to anybody. Don’t intend to, if you request me to keep it quiet.”
“I’ll be glad to talk with you, and I do want you to keep your knowledge about me to yourself,” I told him. “What’s on your mind?”
He led the way to a bench which was out of view from the house, and we sat down.
“I don’t like this business about Santelle,” he informed me without apology or preamble. “No matter what his uncle may be, he himself was, and no long time back, one of the most notorious and elusive crooks in all crookdom. A man doesn’t reform so suddenly, if you ask me. He’s working some kind of a racket, I’ll bet. Not that I care about that. What I’m interested in is his butting in between me and my girl. That’s what’s getting me hot under the collar — and damned hot.”
“I figured that out,” I told him. “How long has it been going on?”
“It began when all that goo was being circulated about this poor, misunderstood crook of a Flash Santelle!” he replied hotly. “Aroused her interest — and then her old fool of a dad takes him right home and makes him one of the family! Can you beat that?”
“No,” I replied. “Can’t even equal it. But that shouldn’t worry you much, I’m thinking. Miss Bailey is just taken with a passing fancy—”
“Hell!” Patterson exploded. “I thought you were a man of good sense! You are talking just like dad — and as for him, well, it’s a good thing for sis and mother and me that he made his money in a day when it didn’t require much besides brawn and a little cow-sense to do it! A passing fancy, eh?” he mimicked. “Tell me this, how long does it take for these so-called fancies to pass? And what about the bird that is waiting for the passing? Flow about his feelings?”
“Go on,” I urged. “You interest me, Tommy. I’ll admit everything you say, and imply. Spill yourself.”
“I mean to,” he snapped, his face flushing. “I love Marthe. Mr. Norton — and I’m willing to tell the world I do! She seemed to care a lot about me, too, until here lately. Enough to wear my ring and set the date for next June. That much, anyhow. Now she has returned the ring, and the only especial interest I now have in the coming of June is the fun I may get out of watching the June bugs. So, you see, I happen to be the ‘passing’ fancy in the case. What do you say to that?”
“I say that you have some cause for complaint,” I acknowledged. “Still, it could be worse. The girl isn’t Mrs. Cletus Santelle yet — and not likely to be. Have you any reason to think that he has serious intentions in regard to her?”
“He’d better have!” Tommy blazed. “If he’s got any other kind of ideas, and I find it out, I’ll drill him with about a ton of hot lead! Taking my girl away from me and making her Mrs. Santelle would be bad enough, but the other—”
“You don’t get me,” I interrupted soothingly. “I mean do you not think it quite possible that Santelle is merely humoring the young lady’s infatuation, if it has gone that far, with no intention of using it in any way? Couldn’t that be possible? Must there be—”
“Have you ever spent a few minutes even in company with a girl like Marthe Bailey?” he demanded. “I guess not, or you wouldn’t make such damned fool cracks. She’s the kind men take to — young or old. And she’s wild about this redeemed crook. Talk sense!”
“Well,” I conceded, “we’ll grant that she is wild about him, and that he couldn’t resist her if he wanted to. What then? What can be done about it? Got anything to suggest?”
“That’s the undiluted hell of it!” he groaned. “I haven’t!”
I felt sorry for Tommy. At the age of twenty-five they take such things hard. I did, I distinctly remember. The perfume of June roses, mingled with the smell of raindrops in the dust of a country road—