“You... you contemptible rat!” Garth raged, his face congested, eyes glassy with fear and hatred.
“No, no, my dear Bootan!” Brayden corrected. “Mouse! Just a mouse that has found a way to torture the cat — even if it can’t whip it. Now, on with the show, Bootan — the others will miss us.”
Garth turned about, but flung back over a shoulder:
“Two hundred grand, Sam — and my word to get you off light!”
Brayden laughed. “Your word isn’t worth a damn to me, Bootan!” he said. “And that’s final.”
The rest of the party had begun to descend the ladder from the completed wing onto the central portion, a matter of seventy-five feet below the finished top. Garth followed them down, and was in turn followed by Brayden. Then, walking over the rough surface of the lately poured concrete, the forms reaching them about knee high, the party proceeded toward the southern wing.
The finish was not far off, both Brayden and Garth now knew. The grim, hard faces of the inspectors, who were likewise stockholders, left them in no doubt about that. The cheating had been laid bare.
It was nearing the noon hour when the leaders of the group finished their inspection of the uncompleted part of the work and began climbing to the top of the south wing. Garth and Brayden still lagged somewhat in the rear.
“Three hundred grand!” Garth hissed at Brayden, his eyes indeed resembling those of a cat as he paused with one foot on the lower rung of the ladder.
“Who is the cat now?” Brayden queried, a lilt in his voice. “And how does it feel to be a mouse?”
Garth, without another word, started climbing up the ladder, Brayden following. When Garth reached the top of the finished work he found the others grouped with their heads together, backs to him. He paused there, thinking intently. Presently Brayden finished the climb and stood upon the wing. Garth flashed a glance toward the others who were still grouped with their backs toward him. Nowhere within range of his vision was there another person to be seen — and Garth, seeing his opportunity, grasped it and acted.
“Listen, Sam,” he said, a pleading note in his voice, stepping toward the engineer. “Let’s get together on this—”
With a sudden thrust of his left hand Garth, at that instant, gave Sam Brayden a slight push — just enough to send him over the edge of the dam.
IV
A hoarse cry broke from Bray-den’s lips as his body, sprawled in the air, hands clawing wildly, shot down toward the rocks two hundred feet below. Garth by then had moved almost up to the rest of the group, and all turned together and rushed to the dam’s edge just as Bray-den’s body struck.
“God!” Garth cried, his face ashen. “How did it happen? Did anybody see him fall?”
The white-faced group of men, limp and dizzy in the presence of such tragedy, denied, one and all, having seen Brayden until after they heard him cry out.
Then he was halfway down the side of the dam.
“He must have been overcome with dizziness—” one began, only to be cut short by another member.
“In view of what he was up against — what this board has found wrong with the dam — I can think of another plausible reason for his plunge. The easiest way out, gentlemen. Suicide.”
Several others nodded agreement.
Garth, trembling in every fiber of his body, dizzy with the thought of the desperate chance he had taken, was peering down at the sprawled body of Brayden on the rocks. Light glinted on a bit of polished metal on the dead man’s coat — the shield of which he had once been proud. A ray of sunlight, reflected as though from a highly polished mirror, flashed upward squarely into Garth’s eyes. He clamped a hand over them, and staggered back from the edge of the dam.
“God!” he cried, his voice hoarse and strained. “Poor Brayden — what a terrible end!”
What Garth had in mind was something different. He was not superstitious, but the light flashing up from the polished surface of the shield squarely into the eyes of the wearer’s murderer—
Was it an omen?
“Hell!” Garth snarled, getting a grip on his nerves. “I don’t believe in omens! My opportunity came, and I took advantage of it. Sam Brayden, in like circumstances, would have done the same!”
By the time the sheriff and coroner reached the scene and the body had been removed to the village, Herb Garth had fully recovered his nerve. Was, in fact, almost in an exultant mood. Had he not saved the day for himself, and put the one man he had feared, of all those with whom he had had nefarious contact, beyond the power of speech?
Furthermore, he had convinced himself, by artful questioning, that not one of the others on the dam had the least idea that he had been anywhere near Brayden when lie went down to his death.
The other members of the party confessed to a state of confusion. The thing had been so sudden, so startling and tragic, that nobody could say for certain where he or any of the others were exactly when the body of the engineer went over the edge.
The sheriff asked many questions, and then the coroner had his innings. A hastily summoned jury was asked to consider the evidence, and it was a foregone conclusion that the verdict would be that Brayden had met an accidental death or else had committed suicide.
Then a tall, bronzed young man in khaki and boots, a sub-engineer oh the dam, walked into the room where the inquiry was being held, and desired himself sworn as a witness. He was duly sworn.
“My name is John Talbot, employed on the Big Rock dam construction,” he stated in a quiet voice. “To-day being Sunday, I went down the river on a fishing trip. Some time near noon I saw, in looking up the stream toward the dam, a party of men, some seven or eight, walking across the work. I knew, of course, that they were the inspectors slated to arrive to-day. They were so far away they looked like children from my point of vantage.
“The party crossed the central portion of the dam, and when I looked again all were on top of the south wing. At that distance it was not possible for me to identify any one of them, but something occurred that indicated the identity of the last man of the group, one who lagged behind, with another map somewhat ahead of him. It was a gleam of light which flashed from the breast of the lagging man — and I knew the gleam came from Mr. Brayden’s badge. Who the man next above him was I could not tell, even if I might have known him intimately by sight.
“Then, gentlemen,” the engineer went on, his voice grave, “I saw something which makes it impossible for anybody to entertain the theory that Sam Brayden either fell from the dam accidentally or leaped with suicidal intent. While I was idly observing the men on the south wing a man appeared to detach himself from the group and walk toward Brayden. Then, as I stared horrified, the man’s arm flashed out — and Sam Brayden was thrust over the edge of the dam. I saw that happen, and make my oath to it here and now.”
The crowded room was as silent as though it had been empty when the engineer made his amazing disclosure. Then voices buzzed, and the coroner rapped for silence. He looked toward the sheriff, and the sheriff gave him a dazed look in return.
“You ask what questions you sees fit to, Brooks,” the sheriff said, evading the issue himself. “It’s up to you.”
But no amount of questioning could shed any light upon who the man might have been that detached himself from the main group and shoved Brayden over the edge.
Herbert T. Garth scouted the engineer’s testimony. It was all a fancy of his own creation. He and all the other members of the board had been conferring in a bunch when Sam fell or leaped over, and he could and would swear that not a member of the party was anywhere near Brayden. At least, near enough to have touched him.