«Frank Luders,» the sheriff said. «That would be the man that’s bought in over there. I don’t think I met him. What does he do?»
«Ha, ha,» the man with the eyebrows said.
The sheriff looked at him peacefully. «Well, that ain’t the only place where they run a nice poker game, Mr. Holmes.»
Mr. Holmes looked blank. «Well, I got to go back to work,» he said. «You need any help to move him?»
«Nope. Ain’t going to move him right now. Move him before daylight. But not right now. That will be all for now, Mr. Holmes.»
The man with the eyebrows looked at him thoughtfully for a moment, then reached for the doorknob.
I said: «You have a couple of German girls working here, Mr. Holmes. Who hired them?»
The man with the eyebrows dragged his cigar out of his mouth, looked at it, put it back and screwed it firmly in place. He said: «Would that be your business?»
«Their names are Anna Hoffman and Gertrude Smith, or maybe Schmidt,» I said. «They had a cabin together over at the Whitewater Cabins. They packed up and went down the hill tonight. Gertrude is the girl that took Mrs. Lacey’s shoes to the shoemaker.»
The man with the eyebrows looked at me very steadily.
I said: «When Gertrude was taking the shoes, she left them on Weber’s desk for a short time. There was five hundred dollars in one of the shoes. Mr. Lacey had put it in there for a joke, so his wife would find it.»
«First I heard of it,» the man with the eyebrows said. The sheriff didn’t say anything at all.
«The money wasn’t stolen,» I said. «The Laceys found it still in the shoe over at the shoemaker’s place.»
The man with the eyebrows said: «I’m certainly glad that got straightened out all right.» He pulled the door open and went out and shut it behind him. The sheriff didn’t say anything to stop him.
He went over into the corner of the room and spat in the wastebasket. Then he got a large khaki-colored handkerchief out and wrapped the bloodstained knife in it and slipped it down inside his belt, at the side. He went over and stood looking down at the dead man on the bed. He straightened his hat and started towards the door. He opened the door and looked back at me. «This is a little tricky,» he said. «But it probably ain’t as tricky as you would like for it to be. Let’s go over to Lacey’s place.»
I went out and he locked the door and put the key in his pocket. We went downstairs and out through the lobby and crossed the street to where a small, dusty, tan-colored sedan was parked against the fireplug. A leathery young man was at the wheel. He looked underfed and a little dirty, like most of the natives. The sheriff and I got in the back of the car. The sheriff said: «You know the Baldwin place out to the end of Ball Sage, Andy?»
«Yup.»
«We’ll go out there,» the sheriff said. «Stop a little to this side.» He looked up at the sky. «Full moon all night, tonight,» he said. «And it’s sure a dandy.»
EIGHT
The cabin on the point looked the same as when I had seen it last, The same windows were lighted, the same car stood in the open double garage, and the same wild, screaming bark burst on the night.
«What in heck’s that?» the sheriff asked as the car slowed. «Sounds like a coyote.»
«It’s half a coyote,» I said.
The leathery lad in front said over his shoulder, «You want to stop in front, Jim?»
«Drive her down a piece. Under them old pines.»
The car stopped softly in black shadow at the roadside. The sheriff and I got out. «You stay here, Andy, and don’t let nobody see you,» the sheriff said. «I got my reasons.»
We went back along the road and through the rustic gate. The barking started again. The front door opened. The sheriff went up on the steps and took his hat off.
«Mrs. Lacey? I’m Jim Barron, constable at Puma Point. This here is Mr. Evans, from Los Angeles. I guess you know him. Could we come in a minute?»
The woman looked at him with a face so completely shadowed that no expression showed on it. She turned her head a little and looked at me. She said, «Yes, come in,» in a lifeless voice.
We went in. The woman shut the door behind us. A big grayhaired man sitting in an easy chair let go of the dog he was holding on the floor and straightened up. The dog tore across the room, did a flying tackle on the sheriff’s stomach, turned in the air and was already running in circles when she hit the floor.
«Well, that’s a right nice little dog,» the sheriff said, tucking his shirt in.
The gray-haired man was smiling pleasantly. He said: «Good evening.» His white, strong teeth gleamed with friendliness.
Mrs. Lacey was still wearing the scarlet double-breasted coat and the gray slacks. Her face looked older and more drawn. She looked at the floor and said: «This is Mr. Frank Luders from the Woodland Club. Mr. Bannon and» — she stopped and raised her eyes to look at a point over my left shoulder — ’ ’I didn’t catch the other gentleman’s name,» she said.
«Evans,» the sheriff said, and didn’t look at me at all. «And mine is Barron, not Bannon.» He nodded at Luders. I nodded at Luders. Luders smiled at both of us. He was big, meaty, powerful-looking, well kept and cheerful. He didn’t have a care in the world. Big, breezy Frank Luders, everybody’s pal.
He said: «I’ve known Fred Lacey for a long time. I just dropped by to say hello. He’s not home, so I am waiting a little while until a friend comes by in a car to pick me up.»
«Pleased to know you, Mr. Luders,» the sheriff said. «I heard you had bought in at the club. Didn’t have the pleasure of meeting you yet.»
The woman sat down very slowly on the edge of a chair. I sat down. The little dog, Shiny, jumped in my lap, washed my right ear for me, squirmed down again and went under my chair. She lay there breathing out loud and thumping the floor with her feathery tail.
The room was still for a moment. Outside the windows on the lake side there was a very faint throbbing sound. The sheriff heard it. He cocked his head slightly, but nothing changed in his face.
He said: «Mr. Evans here come to me and told me a queer story. I guess it ain’t no harm to mention it here, seeing Mr. Luders is a friend of the family.»
He looked at Mrs. Lacey and waited. She lifted her eyes slowly, but not enough to meet his. She swallowed a couple of times and nodded her head. One of her hands began to slide slowly up and down the arm of her chair, back and forth, back and forth. Luders smiled.
«Ida liked to have Mr. Lacey here,» the sheriff said. «You think he’ll be in pretty soon?»
The woman nodded again. «I suppose so,» she said in a drained voice. «He’s been gone since midafternoon. I don’t know where he is. I hardly think he would go down the hill without telling me, but he has had time to do that. Something might have come up.»
«Seems like something did,» the sheriff said. «Seems like Mr. Lacey wrote a letter to Mr. Evans, asking him to come up here quickly. Mr. Evans is a detective from L.A.»
The woman moved restlessly. «A detective?» she breathed. Luders said brightly: «Now why in the world would Fred do that?»
«On account of some money that was hid in a shoe,» the sheriff said.
Luders raised his eyebrows and looked at Mrs. Lacey. Mrs. Lacey moved her lips together and then said very shortly: «But we got that back, Mr. Bannon. Fred was having a joke. He won a little money at the races and hid it in one of my shoes. He meant it for a surprise. I sent the shoe out to be repaired with the money still in it, but the money was still in it when we went over to the shoemaker’s place.»
’Barron is the name, not Bannon,» the sheriff said. «So you got your money back all intact, Mrs. Lacey?»