“He must sink it, since it would not sink of itself, and damned quickly. It almost seemed as-if the thing knew this was the way to avenge itself! Why it would not sink he couldn’t tell. He was too ignorant to know. What harrowing superstitious dread must have attacked him!
“But, by God, it had to be sunk! It flashed upon him how to do it. There was an extra coil of rope in the raft shack and he got it out. He noosed one end around the neck of his uncle’s corpse and the other end he tied to the handle of the coveted satchel with its heavy burden of glittering coins.
“After the flood subsided, after he and his uncle were given up for lost, he would return and retrieve the satchel. He marked which of the steel supports he was by — the fourth one from the shore. That would tell him where to look when he returned.
“He cast the heavy satchel over. But in his haste he stepped into a loop of the rope which had formed into a slip knot. When the heavy satchel went overboard Pete Granger was yanked from his feet and went after it, and atop of him came, with dead, white fingers distended as if clutching at his throat, the corpse of his uncle!
“The body of Pete Granger, when found, had only been in the water a brief time — it showed scarcely any signs of immersion. But the body, hands and feet and face of old Judd Granger were water withered and puckered. His body had been in the river for many hours.”
Witches’ Brew
by Madeleine Sharps Buchanan
Ransom’s Bluff Forces the White Cross Killer into the Open, and Brings About a Dreadful Confession.
William Delaney has been murdered by a poison known as monkshood, and Jane Shannon shot as she entered the room where Delaney slumped in death. When Lieutenant Ransom and Detective Jim Pensbury get to the house of murder, they find the gun which has killed the Shannon woman in the dead hand of Delaney, and a bullet from the same weapon in Delaney’s head.
Lieutenant Ransom believes this murder connected somehow with the suicide of Lucius Talbot, Delaney’s stepfather. All through the case runs a strong undercurrent of terror and witchcraft. Delaney’s wife, Gail, testifies that her husband was tormented by some mysterious dread preceding his murder. Delaney’s brother, Giles, is also sure some powerful criminal force is at work, and Ed Hopeton, who knew Jane Shannon, tells the police that she too walked in fear.
Police are unable to discover why William Delaney was at the house where he was found murdered. The house is owned by Eva Wallace, a stenographer in Richard Boyerson’s office; Boyerson was a partner of Lucius Talbot.
Ann Darien, a newspaper reporter, comes forward with the story that her brother was framed and sent to prison several years ago in Montana, in a case strangely resembling the Delaney one. Lieutenant Ransom immediately gets in touch with the Great Falls Montana, police department.
Chapter XLVIII
Ransom’s Bluff
After Delaney had left him, Lieutenant Ransom took up the receiver of his desk phone and called the sergeant on duty in the room below.
“Get hold of Pensbury, Ralph,” he instructed him, “and tell him to throw things about in Boyerson’s apartment as though a detailed search has taken place. I want Boyerson to know it. See? No; I don’t know just where Jim is at present. But get this over to him immediately.”
Replacing the receiver, he called the hospital where death had stepped in and robbed him of his strongest card in the complicated witch murders as the cases had come to be called — Jane Shannon. The expressionless voice of the head nurse spoke to him after a time.
“Miss Garfield, I don’t want the news of Jane Shannon’s death to creep out until I permit it,” he told the woman. “Simply say to people who inquire that she is still very ill, but will be able to talk to the police in the morning. Be sure to give that out. And let my guard remain outside the door of the room where she died. If you can keep her there until to-morrow, it will be a big help.”
The editor of the Daily Messenger, who was a close friend of Ransom’s, received his next call.
“Frank, I want you to do something a bit out of the usual for me,” said Ransom when the editor’s booming voice spoke to him. “I want you to run in your next edition scareheads or whatever you call them announcing that the mystery woman in the Wallace house murder, Jane Shannon, is about to talk to the police. Say that she is anxious to tell all she knows about the case, that the identity of the criminal will be published within another twelve hours. Get that? Do that for me, will you?”
“But, why the ingratiating tone and the request?” laughed Frank Cogswell. “That’s big news. Will I publish it? Try to stop me!”
“You don’t get me right,” said Ransom. “It isn’t news, Frank. It’s a lie. Jane Shannon died to-day.”
“What!”
“Yes. In dying without opening her lips she knocked the props from under our investigation, and we’re up against a tough proposition. I want the man we are after to think his game is up. That the girl is about to talk. And I want you to help me.”
“I suppose you’ll stand back of our statement,” said the editor caustically.
“Certainly we will,” snapped Ransom. “And the girl has no people. If we get the man through this ruse you’ll be a public benefactor.”
“Well, on one condition,” agreed Cogswell finally. “That you let us have the news of her death before any other paper.”
“You know how I play, Frank — fair,” said Ransom.
The lieutenant’s next call was to the offices of a broadcasting station where, nightly, local news was sent out over the air. The man in charge of the station was another good friend of Lieutenant Ransom’s. Ransom had found that it was important to have friends in certain positions.
“Ray, I want you to do something for me in this Delaney case,” he told the man earnestly. “I want you to slip into your broadcast to-night the announcement that Jane Shannon is about to talk to the police and tell what she knows about the Wallace house murder. Say that she knows the identity of the criminal and will not hesitate to make it known to the police. Lay it on thick, Ray.”
“That’s big news!” said the other man. “Sure I’ll have it announced for you.”
“Not so fast,” said Ransom grimly. “Jane Shannon died to-day. She was our one best bet to get this fiend. I’m trying to reach him through the same medium he used to wrest money and their lives from his victims — fear. Whether it will turn and trap him or not I can’t say. But we’ve got to try it. Do this for me, will you? Our department is back of any statement you make.”
As Ransom replaced the receiver he sat for a moment in silence, staring across the office.
The man, whoever he was, who had poisoned Delaney and killed Jane Shannon, had not only been able to get Hopeton’s gun from his room and place it in the dead man’s hand. He had used some of Hopeton’s paper, in all probability — although they could not be sure of this — to write that note to Delaney, the note which had cost three lives. The killer, then, knew all about the Wallace house and Hopeton.
He had acted with demoniac humor, for he had used Hopeton’s gun to kill the woman Hopeton loved, and at the same time had tied her up with murder! He had known that Jane Shannon was breaking under what she knew and that she was going to the Wallace house to meet Delaney. The killing in Montana had pointed the way to this second spectacular crime.
Sergeant Pierce entered the office while Ransom sat deep in his depressing thoughts.