“We’ll finish up this work down — there,” he announced.
“Find anything, sheriff?” demanded ’Lige, whose curiosity had overcome his natural reticence.
“Nothin’ I didn’t already know,” replied Rutherford enigmatically, leading the way down the sharp incline to the base of the precipice.
IV
Upon reaching the bowlders Rutherford motioned his deputy forward.
“Let’s move the body over in the shade, Crit,” he suggested, and gently they placed it upon a bed of leaves and Rutherford removed his coat and spread it over Bart’s face. Then he came back and stared long and thoughtfully at the bed of wild morning glory vines, crushed and flattened by the deputy’s crumpled weight.
“Strange thing about that watch, ’Lige,” observed Rutherford at last. “Ye know, when a man puts his watch in his pocket he allus puts it in with the crystal next to his body so’s it won’t get broke. But Bart had stuck his’n in until the crystal out.”
Hook-Dave’s eyes narrowed and one of his hands crept toward his inside coat pocket. Out of the corner of his eye the sheriff saw his deputy’s hand close upon the butt of his forty-five, and at the same time Hook-Dave’s left hand dropped to his side.
“Another thing about that watch,” continued the sheriff, never taking his eyes off Hook-Dave, “is that not only was the crystal outside, but it wasn’t even cracked — while the back side of that watch was mashed up.”
“What do ye make o’ that, sheriff?” asked old ’Lige softly, but it was apparent that he had caught the drift of Rutherford’s monologue.
“I figger that somebody took that watch outta Bart’s pocket — after he was dead.”
Complete silence greeted the statement.
“Another thing, ’Lige!” resumed Rutherford in even tones which seemed to carry a hint of steel. “Bart wa’n’t killed at nine o’clock. I’d say that whoeveh took his watch outta his pocket set it at four minutes to nine o’clock to prove him an alibi. Bart was throwed off’n that cliff afore sun-up.”
“Eh?” ’Lige’s glance shot toward Hook-Dave, but the latter’s expressionless face gave no indication of the thoughts that were seething behind it.
“Yeah,” drawled Rutherford. “What time was sunrise this mo’nin’?”
“ ’Bout six, I reckon.”
“Then Bart was murdered afore six thirty. Look thar!” Rutherford pointed dramatically toward the bed of wild morning glory vines upon which the body had been lying.
“The sun,” resumed the sheriff, his eyes on Hook-Dave, “would strike this place a few minutes after it come up. By six thirty these mo’nin’ glory flowers would all be closed up like they are now. But them flowers which was under the body ain’t closed up yet. See.”
’Lige peered intently in the direction in which Rutherford’s accusing finger was pointed and saw the scattered full-blown petals which were beginning to wilt. Rutherford’s reasoning was irrefutable. The morning glory vines established the time of the tragedy to be not later than six thirty that morning.
“Mebbe he lost his footin’ in the oncertain light of early mornin’,” suggested ’Lige.
“Bart was murdered,” declared the sheriff in a tone of finality, and in the same instant he whipped out a heavy calibered revolver and covered Hook-Dave.
“Stick up yore left foot, Dave,” he ordered sharply, “so’s we can see yore heel.”
Not a hint of changed expression showed on Hook-Dave’s face as he coolly sat down upon a bowlder and thrust out his left foot.
“Lost yore heel-tap, Dave,” murmured Rutherford. “Mighty careless of ye. Ye left the marks of them four tacks which are stickin’ outta yore heel up thar on that shelf when ye was strugglin’ with Bart afore ye hit him in the head with that steel hook. Give me that shoe, Dave, ’cause it’ll be the evidence which is goin’ to send ye to the chair. Also ye left the mark of that steel hook in a crack in the rock up thar when ye anchored yoreself to keep from bein’ thro wed oveh yoreself. Ye’ve alius covered yore tracks mighty well, Dave, but this is one time ye slipped up. Take his shoe an’ put the handcuffs on him, Crit,” he ordered turning to his deputy.
The latter stepped forward with alacrity and as he reached for the shoe which the accused held out in his left hand, Dave swung that steel hook upward viciously with such power that it would have crushed Crit’s skull. Rutherford’s gun barked once, and with a look of utter surprise Hook-Dave recoiled and that terrible steel hand dropped uselessly at his side. A split second later the deputy had disarmed him and had linked the left arm of his prisoner to his own right arm.
“Good shootin’, sheriff!” complimented ’Lige. “Ye caught him in that arm neat.”
“Accident,” grunted Rutherford. “I was aimin’ at his durned head.”
The Madame Aubertin
by David Redstone
The butcher, the baker she finished with poison — and the candlestick maker had a role in the plot...
I
Aubertin, the baker, was plying his trade in the usual even tenor of his way, when, one day, at the time of the year when the grass almost bursts with greenness, he fell ill with a violent pain that tore at his stomach as if with invisible knives.
He groaned so loudly that certain of the citizens of the village in the Vosges mountains heard him.
His wife, wringing her hands in terror, remained helpless to do anything but bring him the water which he craved. In the midst of his intolerable thirst he gasped, retched, and breathed his last.
Neighbors were rushing in.
“The good God!”
“What has happened, Madame Aubertin?”
“Dead! But it is impossible!”
“Get water! Chafe the hands! A little brandy—”
“Ah, he is past all hope, I fear.”
Indeed, it was so. The baker of the Vosges village lay in death, his form convulsed, his contorted face horrible to see.
“He has had a fit, the poor man!”
The neighbors uttered their sorrow and comforted the widow as well as they could, but they were not long able to bear the sight of the deceased. Soon they departed in little groups, and the woman was left alone to take care of her dead.
The bereaved wife sent word to her daughter, who had been spending a fortnight with her friends in a near-by town.
When Yvette arrived a day later, she gazed not upon her father’s face, but on his grave, for, swiftly as the death had come, the burial was equally surprisingly sudden. Such hurried management drew more than censure upon Madame Aubertin; it drew suspicion, for whisper followed whisper about the circle of scattered cottages.
“Alas, the good man dies like a candle snuffed out, and she does not even wait for the body to lose its warmth. She is in a remarkable hurry, that woman!”
“Yet why not?” a somewhat kindlier villager said. “Even in life Aubertin’s face was a large replica of a meat ball. And since you say that he was a sight a pig would turn its eyes away from when the fit possessed him, do you blame the poor woman, all alone as she was, for burying him with such dispatch?”
“Not only are you stupid, Alphonse, but you are also gullible,” the wife of this charitable citizen said. “It is fortunate for her that the gendarmerie are also men. As if every one who is not blind cannot see how greatly the Monsieur Hennezal is concerned. And how much she is concerned with him — la! There is neither grief nor shame in the hussy.”