He stopped his fingers an inch from the point and his eyes narrowed suddenly. It wasn’t a nail on which the coat had caught, but a needle. It stuck up about a sixteenth of an inch from the top of the flat railing. This was the exact spot behind which Treadwell had sat.
At that moment one of the policemen down in the pit yelled. “I’ve found it!” He held aloft a shiny hypodermic needle. The medical examiner hurried down into the pit and took the needle from the policeman’s hand. He sniffed at it. “Not sure,” he said, “but it smells like curare, that stuff the South American Indians put on their blow-gun arrows. Kills instantly. Figured it was something like this that killed Treadwell,” he said triumphantly.
Quade shook his head. Curare at a cock fight! Things were getting complicated. A scrap of information in the back of Quade’s head bothered him. He had a habit of filing away odd bits of information in his encyclopedic brain, and when he had time, marshaling them together like the pieces of a crossword puzzle. A marvelous memory and this faculty of fitting together apparently irrelevant bits of information was largely responsible for his nickname — the Human Encyclopedia.
Quade deserved that name. Fifteen years ago he’d come into possession of a set of the Encyclopedia Americana, twenty-five large volumes. Quade read all the volumes from A to Z and then when he had finished, began at A again. He was now at PU on the fifth trip through the volumes. Fifteen years of reading the encyclopedias, plus extensive reading of other books had given him a truly encyclopedic brain.
What was this odd bit of information that puzzled him? It had something to do with the mix-up here tonight — something he’d observed or heard. Storm? No, because Quade was quite sure Storm was innocent. Something about the birds?
He hesitated for a moment, then sauntered over to the rear door of the barn. He slipped out quietly.
The yard was pitch dark. In the front of the building he could hear voices and automobiles, but back here it was as still and dark as the inside of a pocket. There was no moon or stars. A long black shadow loomed up ahead. Quade made his way toward it.
As he approached the building he recognized it for a Cornell type laying house. There was a door at one end of the building. Quade set down his bag and tried it. It was unlocked. He pushed it open. He stepped inside and struck a match. By the light of it he saw a light switch beside the door. He turned it and electric lights sprang on.
Quade saw that the building was evidently used as a conditioning room for poultry. Wire coops, sacks of feed, a bench on which stood cans of oil, remedies, tonics and other paraphernalia. Quade examined the objects and grinned. There was even a box of face rouge. Having raised birds himself he knew that breeders often used rouge to touch up the ear lobes of the birds. Baking soda was used to bring out the color of the red Jungle Shawl birds. The oil was for slicking up the feathers.
A large gunny sack on the floor caught his eye. There was a small pool of dark liquid beside the sack. Quade stooped and picked up the shawl. He dumped out the contents — four Jungle Shawl cocks — dead.
Four? Nine of Ragsdale’s birds had met defeat. Quade hadn’t seen all the bouts, but he’d been informed by other spectators that six of the losing Shawls had been killed, three merely wounded. Well, where were the other two carcasses? The bag was large enough to have held all of them. That didn’t make sense. If Tom Dodd had brought the carcasses here why hadn’t he brought them all? Or hadn’t Dodd brought them here?
A sound behind him caused Quade to whirl. He was just in time to see the door push open and a couple of hairy arms reach in. The hands held a huge, red fighting cock. Even as Quade looked, the cock was dropped to the floor and the door slammed shut. Quade heard the hasp rattle outside and knew that the person who had thrown in the Jungle Shawl had locked the door on the outside.
Quade’s eyes were focused on the fighting cock. The bird was ruffling up his hackles and uttering warning squawks. Quade gasped. He’d known game cocks down in the South to kill full-grown sheep with their naked spurs — and those were ordinary games. These Jungle Shawls were only one generation removed from the wild ancestors of the Malay jungles.
This particular cock was well equipped for fighting. It had needle pointed steel gaffs on his spurs which seemed to Quade longer than those the birds in the pits had used. They were at least three inches long.
One slash of those powerful legs and the needles would rip through clothing, skin and flesh. They would lay open a thigh to the bone.
Quade was given no time for thought. With a sudden vicious squawk the Jungle Shawl hurled himself at Quade, half running, half flying. Quade sprang backward and collided with a sack of egg-mash. He stumbled on it and tripped to the floor. He rolled over on his side as quickly as he could and just missed the attack of the angry rooster. One wing brushed his face. He sprang to his feet and put a safe distance between himself and the bird.
The cock whirled and uttered a defiant screech. Then it charged again. Quade sidestepped and began stripping off his topcoat which he’d donned before leaving the big barn. He held the coat a foot or so before him and waited.
The bird charged. Quade flicked out the coat like a bull fighter teasing a bull and lashed out with his foot at the same time. The bird hit the coat and there was the ripping sound of cloth. At the same moment Quade’s foot caught something solid and a sharp streak of pain shot through his leg.
The kick hurled the bird several feet backward and Quade looked down. The steel gaffs had slashed the topcoat clean through, pierced Quade’s trouser leg and the skin underneath. Quade felt the warm blood course down his shin and cursed aloud.
He was fighting a losing fight, he knew. The bird seemed hurt by the kick but was preparing for another charge. Quade tossed his coat aside and sprang across the room for a heavy broom that stood against the wall.
Glass tinkled as Quade hefted the broom. His eyes shot to the little window beside the door. A red galvanized pail appeared in the opening and its liquid contents poured in to the floor with a tremendous splash. The fumes of gasoline hit Quade’s nostrils and he gasped. The distraction fortunately had also attracted the attention of the fighting cock, for if it had charged just then it would have been too bad for Quade.
The hair on Quade’s neck bristled. He had a feeling that he was in the most dangerous spot of his entire life. In front of him a fighting cock — and on the side—?
The rooster was cackling again. Quade took the fight to the bird now. He rushed across the room and met him in full charge. The smack of the broom as it hit the rooster could have been heard a hundred yards away. The cock screeched as it was lifted off its feet and hurled against the wall. Quade followed up his attack, smashed the bird again as it hit the floor.
Then — then the entire room shot up in one terrific blaze of fire. The attacker outside the shed had tossed a blazing piece of newspaper into the gasoline. One entire side of the room was a sheet of flame, from floor to ceiling. Quade rushed back from the crippled bird and stared, panic-stricken, at the fire.
The door was locked on the outside. The windows were small and had wire mesh nailed outside of the glass. He could never get through one of them — not in time at least. This building was made of dry spruce boards. It would be in ashes inside of ten minutes.
Quade was trapped.
Heat from the huge flames scorched Quade’s face. Fire! Of what use now was his encyclopedia knowledge when he was trapped in a burning building? Was there anything in the Encyclopedia Americana that would tell him how to get out of such a predicament?