I’ll give Johnny credit, son. The cuss batted nary eye. He jest grins, lazy-like.
“I aimed fer to tell the sheriff, Jedge,” says he. “Thet fust mornin’. But Mister Mitch Gullen wouldn’t give me no consideration.”
“You come along an’ tell him now,” says I.
Sheriff Mitch Gullen was a mighty sick-lookin’ feller when I walked in with Johnny Durvupp. He was sicker-lookin’ when Johnny admitted right out thet Ross Murphy Murdock had been kilt accidental in thet skunk trap. But bein’ natchelly hardheaded, Mitch tried to get around it.
“You mean to tell me,” says he, “thet you went to all that trouble to cover up an accident, Mister Durvupp?”
Johnny nods his head.
“Seemed like the easiest way out at the time, Sheriff,” drawls Johnny. “My health ain’t good no-ways an’ I had all my winter pertaters to dig an’ it seemed like I jest wouldn’t have no time to come down h’yere to Troy an’ explain how it happened.” Then, he thinks a minute an’ brightens up. “Furthermore, Sheriff, thet doubletree was cracked an’ the whiffletree plumb broke through. I jest wasn’t in no condition to make a long trip thetaway.”
Still, Mitch Gullen wouldn’t give in.
“Why did you lay the body out with a cross an’ a hymnbook an’ a pillow an’ a tarpaulin?”
Johnny Durvupp sinks plumb exhausted inter a chair. He’s got somethin’ stickin’ between his teeth but he’s too dern’ lazy to lift a arm to pick at it.
“We-ell Sheriff,” says Johnny Durvupp, sleepy, “I shore didn’t aim to do nothin’ fer Ross Murphy Murdock. I figgered he desarved whut he got for try in’ to rob a pore man’s hen roost. But my missus is a good Christian ’ooman. She allowed it was plumb sinful to leave a corpse in a ditch without respectful attention.”
Says I: “Knowed it. Missus Durvupp done all thet trimmin’ of the corpse.”
Johnny looks plumb hurt.
“Thet’s mighty hard on a feller, Jedge,” he says. “I found them binder-bolts fer her. Had ter hunt mighty near a hour fer them bolt-taps, too.”
Sheriff Mitch Gullen hits the ceilin’, an’ I can’t say I blamed the feller. He’d mighty near wore his eyes out a-lookin’ at them fingerprint pictures. I knowed he hadn’t found a one thet tallied with Bijah Yackey’s neither.
“By rights the county ought to make you pay for the expense of this investigation,” yells Sheriff Mitch Gullen, “an’ serve out the bill at a dollar a day.”
Johnny Durvupp is a meek, amiable feller.
“That’s all right, Sheriff,” he says, “I aim to do whut’s fair. I’ll start sarving my time right now.”
Whut say? Nope. Mitch didn’t. He jest made Johnny sign an affidavit to whut happened an’ told him to stay outer Troy f m now on.
Whilst all this was goin’ on, Bijah Yackey had been turned loose. Him an’ Pearlina made some purty nice comments on my legal ability — not thet it brung me any more business, because folks in Bushwhacker takes thet fer granted. Solving the biggest murder case ever happened in Bushwhacker — an’ don’t get the idee I’m braggin’ — didn’t begin to test my legal mind.
Whut say? It wasn’t a murder, arter all? Why, son, be you daft? Sartainly it was a murder case. Sartainly.
Y’see, son, I follered Johnny Durvupp over to whur he’d hired a nigger to mend thet whiffletree. Johnny was a-settin’ in the shade right well pleased with hisself.
“I shore do thank ’ee kindly, Jedge,” says Johnny Durvupp, “fer pintin’ out my duty ter tell the Sheriff the gospel truth—”
“Gospel truth, eh?” says I. “Why didn’t yer tell Mitch thet all them nests was flat on the dirt floor of thet hen house, whilst thet shotgun was aimed high enough to hit a six-foot man in the middle of his back?”
Johnny Durvupp hangs his head sheepish.
“Jest didn’t get around to thet, I reckon, Jedge,” says he, “but I’m scot-free now, ain’t I?”
“Yep,” says I, “you be — jest as long as Sheriff Mitch Gullen don’t find out thet you ain’t kept no chickens in thet hen house fer at least six months. Reckon I know old chicken droppin’s when I see ’em. An’ I reckon a nose thet’s sharp enough at seventy-one ter whiff wild onions can still smell moonshine licker — even if same is hid under the hen-house floor!”
What say? Did Johnny claim like Ross Murphy Murdock had come to steal his moonshine? Why, son, a feller don’t ask questions like thet around Bushwhacker. Murder? Motive? Why, son, who’d believe Johnny Durvupp could plan a sure enough murder? He never was right bright. An’ besides, sech matters ain’t the consarn of an old man who never had G-man expeerience. Sech matters should be allowed to rest under the all-concealin’ veil of Christian charity. Y’see, son, when it comes to thet — I was one of the fellers who threatened to kill Ross Murphy Murdock!
The Adventure of the Treasure Hunt
by Ellery Queen
There was no trail to the necklace that vanished, so Ellery Queen made one.
“Dismount!” roared Major-General Barrett gaily, scrambling off his horse. “How’s that for exercise before breakfast, Mr. Queen?”
“Oh, lovely,” said Ellery, landing on terra firma somehow. The big bay tossed his head, visibly relieved. “I’m afraid my cavalry muscles are a little atrophied, General. We’ve been riding since six-thirty, remember.” He limped to the cliff’s edge and rested his racked body against the low stone parapet.
Harkness uncoiled himself from the roan and said: “You lead a life of armchair adventure, Queen? It must be embarrassing when you poke your nose out into the world of men.” He laughed. Ellery eyed the man’s yellow mane and nervy eyes with the unreasoning dislike of the chronic shut-in. That broad chest was untroubled after the gallop.
“Embarrassing to the horse,” said Ellery. “Beautiful view, General. You couldn’t have selected this site blindly. Must be a streak of poetry in your make-up.”
“Poetry your foot, Mr. Queen! I’m a military man.” The old gentleman waddled to Ellery’s side and gazed down over the Hudson River, a blue-glass reflector under the young sun. The cliff was sheer; it fell cleanly to a splinter of beach far below, where Major-General Barrett had his boathouse. A zigzag of steep stone steps in the face of the cliff was the only means of descent.
An old man was seated on the edge of a little jetty below, fishing. He glanced up, and to Ellery’s astonishment sprang to his feet and snapped his free hand up in a stiff salute. Then he very placidly sat down and resumed his fishing.
“Braun,” said the General, beaming. “Old pensioner of mine. Served under me in Mexico. He and Magruder, the old chap at the caretaker’s cottage. You see? Discipline, that’s it... Poetry?” He snorted. “Not for me, Mr. Queen. I like this ledge for its military value. Commands the river. Miniature West Point, b’gad!”
Ellery turned and looked upward. The shelf of rock on which the General had built his home was surrounded on its other three sides by precipitous cliffs, quite unscalable, which towered so high that their crests were swimming in mist. A steep road had been blasted in the living rock of the rearmost cliff; it spiralled down from the top of the mountain, and Ellery still remembered with vertigo the automobile descent the evening before.
“You command the river,” he said dryly, “but an enemy could shoot the hell out of you by commanding that road up there. Or are my tactics infantile?”
The old gentleman spluttered: “Why, I could hold that gateway to the road against an army, man!”
“And the artillery,” murmured Ellery. “Heavens, General, you are prepared.” He glanced with amusement at a small sleek cannon beside the nearby flagpole, its muzzle gaping over the parapet.