It was a steep rough climb up the rocky slope. Strenk followed Shayne in silence. The cabin door was open and they went in.
Two-Deck Bryant leaned negligently against the wall near the stove. He gave Shayne a cold, tight-lipped stare. Neither of his torpedoes was present.
Shayne stopped in the doorway and asked, “What are you doing here?”
The gambler’s smile was insolent. “I’ve always wanted to watch a gumshoe at work when he wasn’t trying to pin something on me. Go right ahead. I want to see you detect something.”
Shayne said, “Don’t be too sure you’re in the clear.” He glanced at Fleming and Windrow. The sheriff looked mildly curious at this interchange, but Windrow’s rugged face was enigmatic. He might have been backing four aces or bluffing with a busted straight.
Shayne stepped aside and motioned for Cal Strenk to come in. He asked the miner, “Do you see one of the three men you were telling me about in the barroom?”
Strenk pointed to Bryant. “Yep. That’s one of ’em. The other two—”
Shayne said, “I know all about the other two.” In a flat tone, he advised Bryant, “That gives you a pretty definite stake in my gumshoeing, so you’d better stick around.” He turned to the sheriff. “I’ve got another murder for you, Fleming.”
“Another one? God ’lmighty, Mr. Shayne. We’ve never had anything like—”
“I thought you said it was suicide,” Windrow interrupted.
Shayne’s brooding gaze went slowly to Jasper Windrow’s face. “You’re jumping to a lot of conclusions. In the first place I haven’t said Joe Meade tried to commit suicide. I don’t know. In the second place, this one is a girl. Down on the bank of the creek. Her name is Nora Carson.”
Not a flicker of emotion showed on Windrow’s face. He nodded almost imperceptibly, pleasurably, perhaps. “The actress who tried to claim Pete as her father.”
“The girl,” Shayne corrected, “who positively identified Pete as her father. I’ll swear to that in court.”
Sheriff Fleming interceded hastily. “No matter about that now. Down by the creek, you say? Right here at Old Pete’s cabin?”
Shayne nodded. “We found her when we were looking for footprints across the creek. The state cop is waiting down there with his flashlight.”
The sheriff said, “I guess I better go see.” He went heavily across the cabin and out the door.
Bryant approached Shayne, asking in an even, menacing tone, “What’s the idea of having this old gink put the finger on me? How do you figure that pulls me into the picture?”
Shayne dropped one hip onto the center table again and lit a cigarette. “I’m wondering what prompted your interest in Screwloose Pete this past week.”
A mocking grin twitched the gambler’s saturnine features. “I’ve been thinking about taking a little flyer in the mining game. Looks to me like a chance to hit a real jackpot without laying too much sugar on the line.”
Shayne shook his head. “You know an easier way of making money, Bryant — with all the percentages in your favor. Casey tells me that clip-joint of yours on the Parkway is wired so heavy that the only play you get nowadays is from out-of-town suckers who don’t know the ropes. Storekeepers in town on buying trips from jerkwater towns like this.”
Again, he failed to get a rise out of Jasper Windrow. If the barbed shaft struck home, the man wasn’t giving out. He interrupted impatiently, “I’ve still got a bone to pick with you, Shayne. Your championship of the Carson girl’s claim against Pete’s estate isn’t going to mean very much. The sheriff and I failed to find a single thing among his effects to indicate he was her father.”
Shayne glanced sardonically around the orderly cabin.
“And I suppose you ripped everything to pieces trying to find some such evidence?”
Windrow reiterated, “We found nothing. Perhaps you’d like to look for yourself — while I’m here to see you don’t plant something to support her contention.”
That, Shayne agreed, would be a hell of a good idea. “I’ll at least try, which is more than I think you’ve done.” He turned to Cal Strenk. “You batched here with Pete. Any idea where to start looking for private papers?”
“I don’t reckon Pete never had no papers. Never showed me none.”
Shayne slid off the table and went to cupboards behind the stove. He rattled pots and pans to reach back behind them, then began a slow circuit of the four mud-chinked walls of peeled logs, feeling into crevices in the corners and studying the bare wooden floor for signs of a cache as he moved about.
Bryant stood spread-legged on the brick hearth in front of the fireplace when Shayne finished his search without finding anything. The gambler laughed softly. “Looks like you forgot your magnifying glass, Sherlock. Oughtn’t you to pick up samples of the dirt and cigarette ashes from the floor to test in your laboratory?”
Shayne frowned and tugged at the lobe of his ear, refusing to let himself be disturbed by Bryant’s taunts. As he stared slowly around the room, Bryant stepped forward, opening his lips to speak again. A hearth brick creaked under his foot as he lifted his weight from it. He glanced swiftly downward, then stepped back and began speaking rapidly:
“I’m glad I came up to get some lessons. Are you all done, Shamus, or have you got some more tricks up your sleeve?”
“I think,” said Shayne, “I’m going to pull a brood of rabbits out of the hat for you.” He stalked forward purposefully. “That sounds like a loose brick you’re standing on, Bryant. They say it’s difficult to teach an old dog new tricks — and fifty years ago half the valuables in this country were stashed under a brick in the hearth. Step aside and let’s take a look.”
Bryant held his position. “That wasn’t a loose brick. I just scraped my foot on that dirt in front.”
Shayne said, “I’ll see.”
Bryant hesitated a moment, then shrugged and stepped aside. Shayne dropped to his knees and studied the mortared bricks. He took hold of one protruding slightly above the others, and waggled it. It was loose in its mortar.
Cal Strenk hurried forward as Shayne pulled it up. “Doggone, I plumb forgot about that. Ol’ Pete allus cached his nuggets an’ rich samples there in a ol’ Prince Albert tobaccy can. Said he was hidin’ ’em from burglars, but he’d pull that brick out an’ show ’em to anybody that come aroun’.”
Shayne laid the brick aside. He reached into the rectangular hole and lifted out a battered tobacco can. Windrow breathed uneasily as he and Bryant peered over the detective’s shoulder. Shayne opened the lid and emitted a grunt of disappointment when the contents dribbled out into his palm. There were half a dozen smooth heavy pellets smaller than a pea, and several jagged bits of rock which didn’t look at all rich in gold to the uninitiated eye.
There was nothing else in the can. Shayne rocked back on his heels and cursed. Bryant snorted with glee at his discomfiture, and taunted, “Why don’t you keep on digging? Maybe you’ll hit the lost Gregory lode.” Shayne was staring down at the floor in front of the hearth. He nodded suddenly. “I might, at that.” He dug his long fingers into the soft dirt upon which the can had lain. It came out easily, and after a moment, he paused and grinned up at Windrow’s intent face.
“You’re going to love this.” He fumbled in the hole and brought out another tobacco can similar to the first one.
He settled back on his haunches contentedly, murmuring, “One will get any gambler ten if this isn’t the real McCoy.”
Cal Strenk was the only one who spoke. “Damn if Ol’ Pete wa’n’t a slick un. In ten years we lived here he never showed me that other can underneath.”