“Hello, Uncle Hank,” she said to Henry, who was no kin of hers, “I just dropped in for a glass of milk and to stick my nose into your business. I understand you’re harboring a dangerous criminal hereabouts.”
“I sure have,” said Henry, grinning at her. “A regular killer-diller.”
“Good for you,” said Laura. “I’ve been hearing about him and I understand that the citizens of our community don’t like him. Well, anybody these people around here don’t like has a long running start toward being my pal. I don’t like most of them, either.”
Then Claude Warren, his face smudged with grease from his working on the tractor, came around the corner of the house and stood staring at Laura as if he’d never seen a girl before. Certainly he’d never seen a girl so healthy and tanned and with such golden hair and with such a friendly look in her eyes.
“Hi, Dirty-face,” she said gaily to him. “Come on over and sit a spell.” As he stood and goggled at her she laughed at him. “Don’t be bashful,” she said. “I came over here just to see you. Robbed any interesting banks lately?”
Her grin was so infectious and friendly that he grinned back at her and finally obeyed her command and sat beside her on the porch. Henry departed to get a glass of milk and, when he returned, Laura had already succeeded in thawing Claude out. He was talking to her, a little embarrassed, but with the eagerness of a kid who has long been starved for companionship.
It might have been sympathy and understanding on Laura’s part at first, but it soon grew beyond that and presently everybody in Green Valley was discussing the outrageous carryings-on of Laura Hannifer with the ex-convict. The carryings-on weren’t very spectacular. After attending a village dance and being frozen cold by the others, Claude and Laura contented themselves with hunting and fishing and riding horses together, and, in order to give Claude time for that, Laura helped him with his chores around Henry’s place. The mere fact that Laura kept company with Claude, however, constituted a howling scandal.
Ramsey Hannifer and his wife did their best to break up the affair. At first they pleaded with Laura, and then they threatened all sorts of punishment, but she defied them. She loved Claude, she declared, and she intended to marry him one day. Any interference from them, she told them, would only succeed in hastening the event. They knew her well enough to realize that she meant business. Finally, in the hopes that the whole thing was merely infatuation on Laura’s part and that eventually she would come to her senses, they ceased to offer any open opposition to the affair. They had, however, a definite plan of action which they intended to adopt in case the thing went too far.
Other residents of Green Valley did not know of this plan and they were of the opinion that immediate and drastic action should be taken to end what they considered to be an intolerable breach of public morals. There was some talk of forming a citizens’ committe to remove Claude forcibly from the community, but it is doubtful if anything would ever have been done about it if, one afternoon, Henry Rankins had not been found dead in a pool of blood on the floor of his barn. Jason Watters, the county tax assessor, who discovered the body, did not bother to investigate the cause of death. He ran from the barn and called for Claude and discovered that Claude was nowhere in sight and that, in addition to this Henry’s car was missing. Jason telephoned Sheriff Ben and then proceeded along the road to town, spreading the word that Henry Rankins had been murdered and that Claude Warren had disappeared.
By the time Sheriff Ben arrived at the farm, a dozen cars were parked in front of it and the barn was filled with men who milled in a circle about the body and disturbed or destroyed whatever evidence there might have been. This had not prevented them from forming opinions, however. They had picked up and handled and passed around various instruments, one of which they were certain had been used to crush Henry’s skull, and they were in disagreement only as to which was the true weapon. Even if Sheriff Ben had been an expert, which he wasn’t, he could not have gained much information from conditions as he found them. He ordered the others out of the barn and then telephoned Doc Doran, the coroner, to come get the body.
By the time Sheriff Ben came out of Henry’s house after making the phone call, the crowd in the yard had doubled and they were excitedly discussing a new aspect of the case. Laura Hannifer, it had been learned, had also disappeared. Her worried parents didn’t know her whereabouts, but they were afraid that she might have eloped with Claude Warren. This was all the crowd needed to know. They scattered to their cars and the search for Claude and Laura was on.
Sheriff Ben went back to his office and waited. It was not long before Lonnie Hearne, his deputy, assisted by Orry Quinn and another volunteer posseman, came in, dragging Claude and Laura with them. Claude had evidently resisted arrest and he was considerably banged up and bloody about the face. Laura, whose clothes were torn, was breathing fire and defiance and still struggling in the arms of the two possemen.
“Caught ’em with the goods,” Lonnie announced proudly. “They were in Henry’s car and Claude had a pocketful of money that he didn’t earn as no farm hand.”
While Lonnie prodded Claude with his revolver, the two kids told their story. They had discovered that Laura’s parents had been secretly planning to send her to California to live with relatives, and, aided and abetted by Henry, they had decided to get married. Henry, they claimed, had lent them his car and the money for the elopement and the last they had seen of him he was in good health. They had not known, they declared, that Henry was dead until Lonnie and the others arrested them.
“And that’s the truth, so help me,” said Claude.
“It’s a damn lie and, this time, nobody's going to help you,” said Lonnie, viciously jamming the revolver against Claude’s spine.
“Up until the present moment,” said Sheriff Ben, knocking the revolver out of Lonnie’s hand, “you’re neither judge, jury, nor executioner for this commonwealth, Lonnie. You, Orry, let go of that girl and all of you clear out. I’ll take over from now on.”
After the others had made a reluctant departure, Sheriff Ben turned to Claude.
“Maybe you’re telling the truth,” he said. “I don’t know. Anyway, I’m going to lock you up until we get a better idea of what the truth is.”
Following a struggle with Laura, who insisted on being locked up too, Sheriff Ben succeeded in placing Claude in a cell. Then he sat and talked with Laura until her parents arrived and, after a great deal of difficulty, persuaded her to go home with them.
At first there were only a dozen men in front of the jail. They stood around and talked angrily but without purpose. Orry was one of them. After awhile he detached himself from the group and went into the village where he found a cluster of citizens gathered in front of the hotel discussing the case. He shoved his way into the center of the cluster and soon dominated the conversation by boastfully telling of his part in the capture and subjugation of Claude Warren, the murderer.
“How do you know he’s a murderer?” someone asked. “Did he confess?”
“Well,” said Orry, hesitating a moment, “not in so many words, but he practically did.”
Then Orry went about the village and told his story to other groups of eager listeners, embellishing it as he went along. By the time he had reached the end of the main street he had dropped the word practically from his narrative. Claude, according to his story now, had actually confessed to having beaten Henry Rankins to death for his money. The news swept back up the street and presently even those who had heard Orry’s first version of the story, were convinced that Claude had admitted his guilt.