Fire — what would extinguish a fire? Water. There was none in here. Chemicals. There were none — Wait!
Chemicals — no — but baking soda! Why, there were three large cartons of it right here behind him on the bench. Baking soda, one of the finest dry fire extinguishers in the world. Quade had read about it in his encyclopedias and had tried it out — as he had many other things that particularly interested him. He’d built a fire of charcoal wood and paper, had let it blaze fiercely. Then with an ordinary carton of baking soda he’d put out the fire in an instant. That had been an experiment on a small scale, however; would it work on a large scale — when it was an absolute necessity?
Quade reached behind him and snatched up a five-pound carton of baking soda. He reached in, drew out a handful and hurled it into the midst of the big blaze. A flash of white leaped high and was followed by greyish smoke. Quade’s eyes, looking sharply at the floor where the soda fell, saw that the fire burned less fiercely there.
He advanced on the fire then. It seared his face and hands, but he threw the baking soda full into the flames, handful after handful. Then, finally, with a desperate gesture, he emptied the box. He whirled his back on the fire and started back for the second box. He caught it up, ripped open the cover and turned it on the fire.
A wild surge of joy rose in him. Why, there was a wide swath of blackened flooring now leading to the door. The fire still blazed around the edges but the heart was cut out of it. Quade attacked the fire with renewed effort. He hurled soda right and left. His eyes smarted, his lungs choked and his skin was scorched, but he persisted. The second box of soda went and now the fire was but a few flickering flames around the edges. It required only a few handfuls from the third box to put out the last little flame.
Quade surveyed the fire-blackened wreckage and let out a tremendous sigh of relief. A stench of burnt flesh penetrated his nostrils. A mass of smoking flesh and feathers told of the fate of the fighting cock that had attacked him.
Five minutes later Quade leaned against the doorbell of the big Ragsdale residence. A butler opened the door, gasped and tried to close the door again, but Quade shoved it open smartly and stepped into the hallway.
“Mr. Ragsdale in?”
The butler rolled his eyes wildly. “Why — uh — I don’t think so.”
Quade heard voices and the tinkling of glasses ahead. He brushed past the butler. A wide door opened off the hallway into a luxuriously furnished room, containing about twenty men. Ragsdale, standing just inside the door, caught sight of Quade and cried out in astonishment. “Why — it’s Oliver Quade. Good Lord, man, what happened to you?”
Quade walked into the room. His eyes searched the crowd, picking out familiar faces — Morgan, Wilcoxson, the medical examiner, even Tom Dodd. Then his eyes came back to Ragsdale. “One of your hen houses caught on fire and I put it out,” he explained.
“Good for you!” exclaimed Ragsdale. “We all left the barn right after the police found the hypodermic which pinned Treadwell’s murder on Cleve Storm.”
“Storm didn’t kill Treadwell,” Quade said bluntly. “The murderer is right here in this room. He’s the same man who poisoned your Jungle Shawls and made you lose the cocking main.”
“He’s a liar!” Tom Dodd, face black as a thundercloud, came forward. “Your birds weren’t poisoned, Mr. Ragsdale. I handled them myself and examined each one before I pitted them.”
Quade looked insolently at the furious handler. “I didn’t see all the bouts, but I did see four Shawls in a row get killed — and each one of them was killed because he apparently turned yellow — and faltered. But they didn’t really falter. They were poisoned—”
“That’s a lie!” screamed Tom Dodd. “The Shawls lost because they were up against better birds.”
Quade grinned wolfishly. “Say — whose side are you on?” he asked. “You brought those Shawls here and claimed they were the best in the world.”
“That’s right!” snapped Ragsdale. “I paid Walcott a fancy price for those birds and he guaranteed them to beat the best in the country.”
“I think they would have,” Quade assured him. “They were real fighters. One of them almost killed me — but let that pass for the moment. Mr. Ragsdale, just to prove my point, pick up that phone there and call Mr. Terence Walcott, of Corvallis, Oregon.”
“Why should he call up the boss?” cried Dodd. “I’m the handler. I’ve raised fighting cocks all my life!”
“Have you?” Quade didn’t seem impressed. “I’ve raised a few birds myself. By the way, have you gentlemen noticed that we Southerners use different cocking terms than Northerners? For example, up here you say, ‘stuck’ when a bird is wounded. Down South we say ‘hung.’ Am I right, Mr. Morgan?”
“That’s right, Mr. Quade,” the editor replied. “There’s quite a difference in the terminology of the South and North. I’ve published articles on the subject in my magazines.”
“Well, did any of you notice that every time a Jungle Shawl was hung, Tom Dodd cried out, ‘Hung’? Yet Mr. Dodd says he comes from the North!”
The silence in the room was suddenly so profound that Tom Dodd’s hoarse breathing sounded like a rasping cough. Quade broke the silence. “By the way, Dodd, that’s a peculiar ring you’re wearing. Mind letting me take a look at it?”
Tom Dodd looked down at the ring on his left hand. His lips moved silently for a moment, then he looked at Quade. “No — I don’t mind. Here—”
He started toward Quade who, to the surprise of everyone in the room, suddenly lashed out with his right fist. He put everything into the blow, the pent-up emotion and anger he’d accumulated in the burning poultry house. The fist caught Dodd on the point of the jaw, smashed him back into a couple of the guests. They made no move to catch him and Dodd slid off them to the floor. He lay in a huddle, quiet.
“There’s your murderer!” cried Quade, blowing on his fist.
That broke the spell. Men began shouting questions. Quade stooped down, slipped the ornate ring from Dodd’s finger. He held it up for all to see. “See this little needle that shoots out on the inside of the ring?” Heads craned forward.
“That’s why those birds of yours died without fighting, Mr. Ragsdale,” Quade explained. “Just as Dodd would let them go, he’d prick them with this needle. There’s poison on it, which took effect almost instantly.”
Ragsdale shook his head in bewilderment. “But Treadwell—”
“Was killed in a similar fashion, but not with the ring. Remember there was an intermission before the last fight — during which I tried to sell you men a few books,” Quade grinned. “That’s when Dodd stuck a little poisoned needle into the flat top of the railing where Treadwell sat. Perhaps he’d noticed Treadwell eyeing him with suspicion. Suspecting that he was poisoning the cocks. Dodd worked out the whole thing pretty cleverly. Took no chances. Witness the hypodermic which he tossed into the sand. That was for a blind.
“He’d figured out that when Treadwell’s bird won the last and deciding bout that Treadwell would probably smack the railing in his excitement — maybe he’d watched him doing it after other bouts. Well, that’s exactly what Treadwell did. The needle’s still in the railing. I ripped my coat on it when I started to leave.”
“But what made you suspect Dodd?” asked Ragsdale.
Quade grinned. “My encyclopedic brain, I guess. In the excitement of learning that Treadwell was murdered, Dodd was still cool enough to remove the carcass of the Shawl. That was the first thing that got me to thinking. Then the matter of terminology stuck in my mind. I didn’t catch it at first. Dodd cried out ‘hung’ every time. Well, that’s a Southern term and Dodd was supposed to have come from Oregon: claimed he’d lived there all his life.”