“Naturally, we’ll do all that,” Dyer agreed. “You can’t teach us routine police stuff, Shayne. You’re the guy who’s supposed to pull rabbits out of the hat.”
“Maybe I’ll do that, too.” Shayne hesitated, then asked, “What do you know about Towne’s silver mine in the Big Bend?”
“The Lone Star mine,” Gerlach supplied. “Only big producer in all that region. Other small deposits have been found, but they always petered out.”
“Near the border?”
“Not too far, I guess. The Southern Pacific has a spur track that takes off from somewhere below Van Horn.”
“That wouldn’t be too far from the old army camp at Marfa,” Shayne mused.
“In that general neighborhood,” Gerlach agreed.
“Do they still have trouble in the Big Bend? Mexican bandits and so on?”
Gerlach and Dyer both shook their heads. “Not for a good many years. They pulled the cavalry off the border years ago.”
“But they still have a camp at Marfa, don’t they?” Shayne persisted.
“Sure, but — Look here!” Dyer exploded, “What are you getting at now?”
Shayne said, “I wonder if Towne has any army guards from Marfa assigned to protect his mine or ore shipments — and if any of them are missing. I’m still looking for a logical explanation of that naked body.” He turned and went out abruptly.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Behind the wheel of the police department automobile, it took Shayne a few minutes less than two hours to reach Van Horn. He pulled up at a filling station to inquire about the distance to Marfa and the road leading to Jefferson Towne’s Lone Star silver mine.
The attendant told him it was about seventy miles to Marfa, and that the mine lay about fifty miles south of the main highway, with a road branching off to it a few miles out of Van Horn. There was another road direct to the mine from Marfa, he told the detective, making the two sides of the triangle only about a hundred miles if he wished to go to Marfa first and return via the mine.
Shayne thanked him and pulled out on the seventymile stretch through the greasewood and tabosa grass flats lying north of the mountainous Big Bend. It was a desolate road, with long tangents and sweeping curves, and Shayne settled back to make it as fast as he could. He had an idea it was going to prove a wasted effort, but there was no use passing up any bets while he was so close to the army camp. It would have been difficult for him to explain exactly why he was making this long trip. It was more a hunch than anything else. A hunch that wouldn’t let him alone.
Somehow, mining and the Big Bend and soldiers kept popping up in the case — or cases. There was the young soldier who had been a miner in Mexico and who was induced to enter the army under an alias by some unknown person in El Paso, and there was a second corpse stripped of his clothing in a manner to indicate he might have worn a uniform before the killing occurred. There was Josiah Riley who had been fired and blackballed from the mining business by Jefferson Towne ten years ago, and there was young Jack Barton, an unsuccessful mining engineer who had been “changed,” his father said, after a prospecting trip into the Big Bend. After another brief disappearance from home he had returned with some information about Towne worth ten thousand to the mining magnate.
Somehow, they all tied together. Along with, Shayne told himself morosely, Lance Bayliss, who had been a Nazi sympathizer; a racketeer and former smuggler named Manny Holden; a Mexican girl who had a yen for American soldiers on the wrong side of the Rio Grande, and was also the daughter of Towne’s Mexican paramour; and an Austrian refugee named Larimer, who ran a secondhand clothing store; plus Neil Cochrane, who had once loved Carmela Towne and now hated both her and her father and, presumably, Lance Bayliss, who had won her love while Neil was courting her.
It all added up into a hell of a tangle. That was the only thing he was positive about. But there had to be a connecting link somewhere. There were soldiers in the Big Bend, and there was a silver mine. The soldiers were stationed there to protect American property from the depredations of bandits from across the border.
Shayne didn’t know whether that was important or not. He had a hazy idea that it might be.
He was glad when the little sun-baked cowtown of Marfa showed against the horizon ahead. The army post was in plain view on the flats south of town. Shayne turned off before reaching the business district, drove through the Mexican section out to the post.
A bored sentry stopped him at the entrance. Shayne showed his credentials and explained that he was cooperating with the El Paso police in clearing up the murder of an army man, and asked to speak to the commanding officer.
The sentry waved him on toward post headquarters and advised him to ask for Colonel Howard. Shayne parked in front of a one-story concrete building and went in. An orderly directed him along a corridor to the open door of a large, plainly furnished office. An erect, military figure sat behind a flat desk. He was broadshouldered and middle-aged, with brown eyes and a clipped mustache.
He looked up from some papers and nodded pleasantly enough when Shayne walked in. The detective introduced himself and explained that he represented the civilian authorities in El Paso, who were investigating the death of one soldier and the possible death of another.
“A second body was found in the Rio Grande last night, stripped to the skin,” Shayne explained. “He was murdered at approximately the same time the other soldier was killed, and in a somewhat similar manner. We think he may have been stripped to hide the fact that he was wearing a uniform and to deter identification.”
Colonel Howard was interested. He knew of Michael Shayne by reputation, and had read press reports of the Private Brown case. He asked why Shayne had come to see him.
“To learn whether any of your men have been missing since last Tuesday — or before that.”
The colonel shook his head and said he didn’t think so, but he would have the matter checked. He called in a corporal and issued instructions. The corporal promised to have the report in a few minutes and disappeared into an inner office. “But why come to Marfa, Mr. Shayne?” Colonel Howard asked interestedly. “There are many larger army posts nearer El Paso.”
“I happened to be in this vicinity,” Shayne explained, “and didn’t want to pass up any bets.” He paused to light a cigarette. “Do you still maintain any sort of border patrol? Have any squads or troops on detached duty along the Rio Grande?”
“Not as a regular thing. The old posts up and down the river at Candelaria, Ruidosa, Presidio, and so forth have been abandoned for many years. We send out patrols only in case of a raid or some unusual disturbance.”
“Then — patrolling the border to prevent smuggling or illegal entry isn’t part of your routine?” Shayne persisted.
The colonel told him it wasn’t. “There are Customs men at the Ports of Entry, of course, and Texas keeps a few rangers stationed in the Big Bend. But there hasn’t been any serious trouble here for years.”
Shayne’s blunt fingertips drummed impatiently on the colonel’s desk. “Any spy scares in this vicinity, or even a hint of subversive influences?”
The colonel laughed gently. “We’re a small unit, completely isolated here, Mr. Shayne. I’m afraid a spy wouldn’t learn much of value in Marfa.”
The corporal returned to report that their records showed no men A.W.O.L.
Shayne thanked the colonel and started to get up. He asked casually, “Has Jefferson Towne ever requested troops to guard his mine ore shipments?”
“The Lone Star mine near the border? I haven’t heard of any trouble there.”
“Are any of your troops stationed near there — or is it on a main road traveled by your patrols?”