“He was stalling you!” he cried. “Making you look like the suckers you are! He was talking about Mox. He knew he was cornered. This man is Mox — a murderer — and you’ve let him die without learning the truth!”
With a glum expression, Tharbel stared at Wyngarth’s dead body. He seized the handle of the knife, and twisted it free from the dead man’s back. He looked at the long, sharp-pointed blade; then, with a violent, angry stroke, drove the point deep into the desk beside the body, and left the knife quivering there.
There were calls from below. Tharbel, pacing the floor, swung to the window. The men from the jail were barely visible in the growing dusk. They were carrying a limp object. Tharbel ordered them to bring their burden upstairs.
The office assumed the appearance of a morgue when the twisted body of the ugly dwarf was deposited upon the floor. The creature was dead. The men who had picked him up said that he had died in their arms.
“He tried to talk to us,” informed one. “He sort of waved his arms and said: ‘Mox — Mox;’ then he thumped his hands against his chest and said: ‘Sulu — Sulu.’ After that, he just coughed and died.”
“See?” challenged Tharbel, swinging around to look at every member of the silent group. “There’s the answer. He meant that he had killed Mox. Then he told his own name. Sulu.”
Swinging past Wyngarth’s body, the county detective yanked open the desk drawer and brought out the two notes — the one which he had held; the one which had come to Cardona. He pointed to the letter “S” which served as signature on each message.
“That means Sulu,” affirmed Tharbel. “It’s all plain now. Wyngarth was Mox. Sulu was his servant. Does that knife look like the one that plugged Schuyler Harlew?”
“Exactly,” returned Cardona. “But I don’t see how it could be thrown that distance—”
CARDONA paused as one of the men who had brought in Sulu’s body grinned sheepishly. From his hip pocket he drew a short, thick-barreled gun that he had brought back beneath his coat.
“I picked this up side of the fence,” said the man. “Shoved it under my coat, and on my hip, so I could help carry the dead guy. Looks like an air gun.”
It was an air gun. Cardona saw that the moment that he received the weapon. He pulled the knife from Tharbel’s desk and found that the cylindrical handle fitted perfectly in the muzzle of the air gun.
“Now I know how he got Harlew,” announced Cardona soberly. “He could have plugged him through the open window, where Harlew was sitting. This gun has a range, and is accurate. We’ve seen it work.”
“Yes,” retorted Tharbel sourly. “You’ve seen it kill Mox.”
He pointed to Wyngarth’s body as he spoke.
“What about Salbrook?” questioned Cardona. “I brought him in here—”
“I’m going to free Salbrook,” interrupted Tharbel testily. “This case is ended. Mox is dead. Put down this statement” — he was turning to the court stenographer — “and you’ll have my final conclusions.”
“Mox — Jarvis Moxton — was Hoyt Wyngarth in disguise. He had a servant named Sulu, who escaped with him. He probably deserted Sulu, who, to get revenge, put a note under my door, telling where Wyngarth could be found.
“After that, Sulu, to square himself with Mox, tried to make amends by naming Irving Salbrook in another note. Salbrook was probably the former owner of the dog, and Sulu figured that the test with him would get Wyngarth free.
“When that didn’t work, Sulu became afraid. He watched the jail, and when he saw Wyngarth — Mox — brought up here, he decided to kill him before he could name Sulu as the murderer of Schuyler Harlew.”
“How about questioning Salbrook?” asked Cardona, when Tharbel had completed his statement. “He can tell us whether or not he once owned the dog that—”
“You’ve let the real crook die!” interrupted Tharbel hotly. “Wyngarth is the one I wanted to question. He was the prisoner I landed. You brought Irving Salbrook here; you can take him away.”
“I’ve got no charge against him,” declared Cardona. “I was after the man who killed Schuyler Harlew. Here he is” — Cardona pointed to Sulu — “and that ends it for me.”
“Then release Salbrook after I turn him back to you. I intend to question him in my own way. I’ll tell him what has happened; if he wants to talk, he can. If he wants to keep mum, he’ll go out of my jail in the morning.”
Tharbel turned toward the county prosecutor, and glared as he spoke. Barry Davies, realizing that his own use of authority had ruined Tharbel’s plans, made no objection. Cardona, however, was still bitter in his protest.
“Maybe I helped lead Wyngarth to his death,” said Cardona, “but I didn’t kill Sulu. I wounded him — that’s all. You’re the one who killed him, Tharbel, when you didn’t have to kill him.”
“Then we’re quits,” glowered Tharbel. “You killed my suspect; I killed yours.” Assuming his show of authority, Tharbel waved toward the bodies as he spoke to Scudder and the men from the jail.
“This is no morgue,” he said testily. “Get these corpses out of here. Then clean the place up. Take them in here.”
OPENING the door ahead, Tharbel stepped into the lighted front room. As he disappeared from view, the others heard an angry exclamation come from his lips; then came the sound of joyous yelps. Tharbel came retreating through the door, the brown-spotted Dalmatian leaping upon him as a dog that has found its master.
“Who brought the hound here?” shouted Tharbel, as he cuffed the dog. “Take him away from me! Take him away!”
The coach dog did not seem to mind the blows that Tharbel was delivering. Clyde Burke leaped forward and grabbed the dog’s collar. The Dalmatian snarled fiercely. It broke away, madly.
Cuthbert Challick seized the beast by the collar. He swung it about, and began to pull and drag it toward the front room.
Under this treatment, the Dalmatian cowered. It lost its fight, and whined as Challick pushed it into the front room. Slinking, the dog went to a far corner and lay quiet.
As Challick stepped aside, the men carried the first of the two bodies past. Clyde Burke was nursing scratches that he had gained in his struggle with the dog. Junius Tharbel was striding about the room in ruffled fashion.
“That settles it,” he blurted. “The fact that the dog made friends with Irving Salbrook doesn’t mean a thing, now that this has happened, I doubt if Salbrook ever saw the dog before.”
The men had come back for Wyngarth’s body. Tharbel pointed as they carried the dead form into the front room.
“There goes Mox,” decided the county detective. “He was the first person the dog liked. After that, it was ready to make friends.”
“But with very few people,” rejoined Cardona, in an artful tone.
“What’s that?” Tharbel caught up the statement. “Hm-m-m. Next thing we know” — he was laughing sullenly — “you’ll be asking me to arrest myself.”
The county detective swung to the prosecutor. His tone still showed the anger which he had ceased to suppress. Tharbel’s customary reserve had disappeared.
“You started this,” he told the prosecutor. “Go ahead and finish it. You have my summary. Improve it if you can. Get the coroner for the inquest on those dead men. Plenty of witnesses saw what happened. I’m tired of this interference, and I’m glad the case is over. I’m going out to the hunting lodge, and have a real day’s shoot tomorrow. There won’t be any one chasing after me to bring me in here.
“I’ll be in tomorrow evening — at my home. If there’s anything that turns up, I can take care of it after that time. That settles everything.”
Thinking deeply as he listened to Tharbel’s dictatorial words, Joe Cardona was staring at the floor. His eyes were upon a blackened silhouette that seemed rooted to the spot where it lay. That splotch was bringing back recollections.