The policemen continued to move about the room.
Johnny seated himself on the couch. His hand fell over the end of the couch, onto the burlap sack. His fingers opened the sack.
“Hey!” exclaimed one of the policemen.
Johnny looked into the mouth of the bag, got a glimpse of leather boots, a round water canteen, the cover encrusted with salt. Then a policeman’s hand knocked away his own. “Don’t touch things!” the policeman snapped.
Mulligan came back into the room, caught Johnny’s eye and signalled to him. Johnny got up and followed Mulligan out of the room and out of the house. Ed Wright remained behind.
“You’re an awfully lucky fellow,” Mulligan said, bleakly as they walked to the curb.
“How do you figure?”
“Because my wife’s a cop’s wife. She heard the shooting and looked at the clock before she phoned Headquarters. You’re safe by ten minutes. The shooting was just about four minutes before I stepped into your room at the hotel... You couldn’t have got there in that time.”
Johnny got into the car beside Mulligan. “Your wife’s a wonderful woman, Mulligan!”
Mulligan turned the car left at the corner and stepped hard on the accelerator. “You can tell her.”
“Good!” said Johnny.
Mulligan drove a block and a half down an unpaved street, then turned into a pair of ruts that led up to his little house.
Mrs. Mulligan came to the door as Mulligan and Johnny got out of the car.
“Nell,” said Mulligan, “this is Johnny Fletcher. My wife, Fletcher...”
Mrs. Mulligan shook hands with Johnny. And then Johnny said to Mulligan, “I see what you mean...”
They went into the house. Mulligan stepped into the little kitchen and got out two bottles of beer. He opened them and handed one to Johnny.
“Sit down a minute.”
Nell Mulligan started for the bedroom door, but turned back. “You’ve been — over there?”
“Yes. The chief told me. You heard the shooting and saw the car drive off — a big limousine, but the distance was too far to see the license number...”
“There were two men in the car...”
“Two?” asked Johnny.
“That’s what I want to talk to you about, Fletcher,” said Mulligan.
“Excuse me,” murmured Mrs. Mulligan. “I’ve got some work to do...”
She disappeared into the bedroom.
Mulligan seated himself on the couch, facing Johnny across the narrow living room. He drank some of his beer. “Two men,” he repeated.
“Carl Shinn... and Bill?”
“What do you think?”
Johnny looked at his bottle of beer and slowly shook his head. “I may be wrong, but somehow I got the idea that Carl Shinn was a tomcat, a snarling tomcat, yes, but still a tomcat... and Jim Langford was another kind of cat...”
“A bigger cat?”
“A wildcat. And Bill... well, Bill was a bulldog. Carl was smarter than Bill, but in a rough and tumble, Bill would have licked Carl. But my money would have been on Langford against both Carl and Bill.”
“Langford’s got four bullets in him,” said Mulligan.
“Well, the gun may have equalized them.”
Mulligan put the beer bottle to his mouth and drank heartily. Then he held the bottle up to the light, noted that there was another good swallow left in it and polished it off. He stood the bottle on the floor.
“Fletcher,” he announced then, “I’m going to tell you something.”
“That Jim Langford killed Harry Bloss?”
“How do you know?”
“I noticed yesterday that Langford was pretty sunburned; recently. And that sack in the room over on Bonneville; it’s got some clothes and a canteen in it. They’re crusted with salt — like you find in Death Valley...”
“All right,” said Mulligan. “I could have grabbed Langford yesterday, even if only for the California people. I suppose you’re wondering why I didn’t?”
“I guess you thought he’d lead you to the boodle.”
Mulligan leaned against the back of the couch and studied Johnny for a moment. “I had an idea you’d figured things out pretty well by now. Go ahead — tell me about it...”
“About the crowd getting to the dealers?”
“Yes.”
“You know more about that than I would,” said Johnny, modestly. “You’ve been on the ground floor and you know the people who got taken...”
“Oh, but they kept it pretty quiet. They don’t like to let those things get around. Gives others ideas... How much would you say they got?”
“A hundred thousand?”
“My guess is two...”
“And Harry Bloss grabbed it all and skipped!”
Mulligan frowned a little. “It looks like that, Fletcher, but that’s something I find it hard to swallow. I knew Harry.”
“You think he was honest?”
“Once, after I’d gone through my pile and didn’t know where my next meal was coming from, Harry bought me a drink... and after he’d gone I found a hundred dollar bill in my pocket.”
“I knew a man in Iowa once,” said Johnny. “The kids used to cross the street to meet him, because he always gave them nickels. He was a teller in a bank and worked there thirty-two years. Then one morning he was gone and so was about half of the bank’s money.”
Catch ’Em Alive Mulligan nodded. “Harry was getting along and he was still dealing at fifteen dollars a day.” He rubbed his chin with the back of his hand. “And he was Jim Langford’s uncle, by marriage. By the way, did you find out yet that Langford was here for a few days some time ago?”
“It ties in. He laid the groundwork, then went away. A few weeks later the team came. They got together two hundred thousand and Uncle Harry took the bag and ran away with it. Nephew Jim followed him... but didn’t get the bag. Which brings us to third base... who is Nick?”
“I’ll bite,” said Mulligan. “Who is Nick?”
“Nick Jones, Nick Bleek, Nick Fenton, Nick Smith, Nick Brown... Take your choice...”
Mulligan shook his head. “I’ve been thinking, Fletcher... you said Bloss died in your arms... could he have been delirious when he talked to you?”
“He was,” said Johnny, “that’s why I’ve practically given up trying to find Nick.”
“But what about the cards?”
“What about them?”
“When the chief took me in the other room he showed me Jim Langford’s effects. There were no cards.”
“I didn’t expect there would be.”
“Why not?”
“Wasn’t that why he was killed?”
Mulligan looked at Johnny through narrowed eyelids. “You’ve been hinting at that before; your theory is that there’s a mysterious Mr. X, who’s the head of the crowd. All right, I’ll buy it... but who is it?”
“If I knew that,” said Johnny, “I’d have an awfully good chance of collecting myself that two hundred thousand.”
“Two hundred thousand is a lot of money,” said Catch ’Em Alive Mulligan. “So’s a hundred thousand, for that matter...”
“A hundred thousand?”
“That’s what I said.”
“I thought your price was two hundred and fifty thousand?”
“I’ve come down.”
Johnny rose to his feet. “I’ve got some things to do if I’m to leave town by nine tomorrow morning.”
“Oh,” said Mulligan, “I wouldn’t leave if I were you. Not yet...”
“You told me...”
“Things have happened since then.” Mulligan got up. “I’ll drive you back to the hotel...”
Mulligan’s wife came out of the bedroom. “Good-bye, Mr. Fletcher,” she said.