Quade closed his sample case, walked down to Reggie Ragsdale’s ringside seat and prepared to watch the last fight of the evening. Ragsdale grinned at him.
The handlers were down in the pit now. Ragsdale’s handler, Tom Dodd, carried a huge, red Jungle Shawl and Treadwell’s handler, Cleve Storm, a fierce-looking Whitehackle.
“Treadwell must have a lot of confidence in that Whitehackle,” Quade remarked. “He’s battle-scarred. Been in at least four professional fights.”
Ragsdale looked at Quade in surprise. “Ah, you know that cocks are at their best in their first fight?”
“Of course,” said Quade. “I was raised down in Alabama and fought a few cocks of my own. That Whitehackle must be one of those rare ones that’s improved with every fight instead of deteriorated. Ah!”
The referee had finished giving the handlers their instructions and Storm and Dodd retired to opposite sides of the sand-covered pit.
The referee looked at first one handler, then another. He hesitated a moment, then cried, “Time!”
Both handlers released their birds. There was a fluttering of wings, a rushing of air from both directions — and a sudden rumbling of voices from the audience. For the Jungle Shawl faltered in his charge — turned yellow. An unforgivable weakness in a fighting bird.
It cost the Shawl his life, for with a squawk and flutter of wings the Whitehackle hurtled through the air and pounced on his opponent. His vicious beak hooked into the hackle of the Shawl and for a second he straddled the bird, then the two-inch steel gaffe slashed down — and the Jungle Shawl was dead!
“Hung!” cried Tom Dodd.
Both handlers rushed forward. Quade looked at Reggie Ragsdale. The young millionaire was rising to his feet, his lips twisted into a wry grin. Quade looked across the cockpit at George Treadwell — and gasped.
Treadwell was still seated, but his arms and head hung over the top of the pit and even as Quade looked, his hat fell from his head and dropped to the sandy floor. At the distance Quade could see that Treadwell’s eyes were glassy.
“Treadwell!” Reggie Ragsdale exclaimed. He, too, had glanced across the pit.
Ragsdale brushed past Quade and hurried around the pit to Treadwell’s side, Quade following. Other spectators saw Treadwell then and a bedlam of noise went up.
“Don’t anyone leave!” thundered Ragsdale, his bored manner gone. “Treadwell is dead!”
“He’s been murdered!”
The three words rang out above the rumble of noise. Quade looked down into the pit at the awe-stricken face of Cleve Storm, Treadwell’s handler.
“Don’t be a fool, man!” he cautioned. “You can’t make an accusation like that! Mr. Treadwell probably died of heart failure.”
“He’s been murdered, I tell you!” cried Storm. “There wasn’t nothin’ the matter with his heart.”
Ragsdale straightened beside Quade. “Doctor Pardley!” he called.
A middle-aged man with a grey-flecked Vandyke came up. He made a quick examination of George Treadwell, without touching the body. Then he frowned at Ragsdale. “Hard to say, Reggie. Might have been apoplexy — except that he’s not the type.”
Ragsdale blinked. “He was a dead-game sportsman — I’ll see that his widow receives my check at once.”
“That ain’t gonna bring him back to life!” cried Cleve Storm. “I–I warned him not to come up here.”
“Why?” snapped Ragsdale testily.
Cleve Storm looked around the circle of hostile faces, for most of the men here were personal friends of Ragsdale. He gulped. “Because he didn’t have a chance — not against your money. You — you always win.”
Ragsdale winced. It was the deadliest insult any man could have hurled at him: to accuse him of not being a real sportsman. His lips tightened.
Quade came to Ragsdale’s assistance. “I’d advise you to keep your opinions — for the cops.”
Ragsdale flashed him a wan smile of thanks. “That’s right, we’ve got to call the police. And when the newspapers hear of this!”
Quade knew what he meant. Cock fighting was an undercover sport. A murder on the Ragsdale estate — cock fighting. The tabloids would have a scoop.
Ragsdale signaled to a steward. “Telephone for the Charlton police, Louis,” he ordered. “Tell them someone died here — might possibly be a murder.” He did not spare himself.
Quade looked at his leather case full of books and shook his head. Well, this shattered his hopes of making sales. The prospective customers wouldn’t be in the mood now for buying books, even if Quade had the bad taste to try selling them with a corpse just a few feet away.
Wait — a thought struck Quade. The police! They’d be here in a few minutes. This might be a murder after all and everyone here knew everyone else — except Quade. He was a gate-crasher — and he was not a millionaire. Why — why, he might even have some very bad moments trying to explain his presence here.
The police came, four of them, led by Chief Kells. With them came the county medical examiner. There was deference in the chief’s manner as he approached Ragsdale.
“Cock fighting, sir? It’s going to make quite a stir in town. It’s — it’s against the law!”
“I know,” replied Ragsdale wearily. “Go ahead, do your duty.”
The chief looked importantly at the medical examiner who was already going over the body of George Treadwell. “Very well, sir, you might begin by telling me just what happened.”
Ragsdale sighed. “Our birds were fighting in the pit — the last bout. My bird lost. When I looked across the pit, there was Treadwell, head hanging over the railing, dead.”
“Who was beside him?” asked the chief.
Ragsdale shook his head. “I don’t know, several of my guests, I suppose. I know only that I was directly opposite him across the width of the pit. But no one — excepting myself — had any motive for wishing his death.”
“And why yourself?” The chief pounced on Ragsdale’s self-accusal.
“Because I had a bet with Treadwell and lost.”
The chief looked worried, but just then the medical examiner came up. He, too, was frowning. “Not a mark on him,” he said. “Yet I’d swear that it wasn’t apoplexy or heart failure. Symptoms indicate he’s been poisoned, but I can’t find anything on him. I’ll have to do a post-mortem.”
Cleve Storm, who had released his Whitehackle in the pit and come up, sprang forward. “I knew he was poisoned. I knew it.”
“How did you know it?” asked Chief Kells sharply. “And who are you anyway?”
“He was Treadwell’s trainer,” explained Ragsdale. “A loyal employee.”
Kells shrugged his shoulders hopelessly. “It would have to be murder. All right, Mr. Ragsdale. I’ve got to do some questioning. How much money did you have bet on the final outcome of these cock fights?”
“Ten thousand — no, wait. Thirty-five thousand altogether. Ten thousand with Treadwell and twenty-five thousand with a man down in the South.”
“Who? Is he here?”
“No, and I really don’t know the man except by reputation. The bet was made through correspondence. A cocking enthusiast who lives in Nashville; C. Pitts is the name.”
The chief’s eyes narrowed. “That sounds screwy. You mean this Pitts guy just up and sent you twenty-five thousand as a bet?”
“Not exactly. Pitts sent the money to the editor of the Feathered Fighter,” explained Ragsdale. “I gave my own check to Mr. Morgan when he arrived here.”