“By crackey!” grunted Hasser.
“The owner is not necessarily the man who seized Fatty Dell,” Nace went on. “The fellow who had the rag tied around his feet wore black and white sport shoes. Some of the shoe polish and the white cleaner rubbed off on the cloth.”
“Gimme,” said Hasser, extending a hand. “That thing is a clue.”
Nace passed it over. “Want me to call the medical examiner?”
“Yeah — sure. You’ll find a house with a phone up the road about half a mile.”
Nace swung off. But he didn’t go far. When he judged Constable Hasser could no longer hear his footsteps, he wheeled and ran back silently.
Creeping through the brush, Nace stared at the moonbathed lake shore.
Nace was of the opinion Constable Hasser had appeared on the explosion scene a bit too early. Therefore, he was not greatly surprised at what he saw.
Constable Hasser stood knee deep in the lake. He was industriously washing the fragment of shirt — obviously to remove traces of the white and black shoe polish.
Hasser wrung the shirt out, then scrutinized it.
“That oughta put a crimp in the dang city feller!” His surly mutter reached Nace’s ears.
Coming out of the water, Hasser stared at the fragments of Fatty Dell’s body. He seemed extremely puzzled.
“But why kill Fatty?” he grumbled. “Fatty was goin’ to croak this dang Nace. By crackey, maybe Nace done Fatty in!”
Hasser bit off a segment of plug tobacco, growled, “I gotta find out about this! Better spread a warnin’ about them black and white sport shoes in case it wasn’t Nace—!”
He moved off beyond earshot.
Nace trailed in grim silence. Hasser went to the road, followed it a short distance, then turned off on a path. The path was well made. It crossed gullies via rustic bridges, and was graveled in the low places.
The gravel prevented Nace getting close enough to Hasser to hear what he said, in case the man talked to himself again.
Trees interlaced above the path, making it a black tunnel. But the distant lightning reddened the tunnel occasionally, furnishing another reason for Nace remaining well to the rear.
A wooden bridge boomed under Hasser’s feet. Far-off thunder rumbled a louder echo.
Nace listened carefully, heard Hasser crunching through gravel a hundred feet ahead, and thus relieved, ran lightly across the bridge.
At the farther end, he sprawled headlong over a taut wire.
A man hurtled from the darkness and landed upon him.
Nace twisted quickly upon his back, spun half around and kicked with both legs. His feet hit the attacker squarely. The assailant squawked surprise and pain. He was propelled backward. He made a loud crash in the trailside brush.
Then the man cut loose with a gun. The weapon made a nasty chung-chung-chung series of reports. It was silenced. The silencer swallowed nearly all the muzzle flame.
Nace was burned on the leg slightly. He got to his feet with a rolling convulsion. He jumped the direction which came handiest. It happened to be toward the bridge.
He jumped up and down on the planks, then swung over the rail and hung by his hands, as far under the bridge as he could get. Holding with one hand and a foot, he dug his gun out of the sleeve sheath.
Constable Hasser came charging back along the path, bellowing, “Hey! What the devil—?”
“Shut up!” barked Nace’s attacker. “That damn New York detective followed you!”
The shrillness of the man’s voice, its strained quality, told Nace it was disguised.
Hasser began, “Oh, it’s you, Mister—!”
“Hell!” ripped the other. “Don’t speak my name! The dick is on the bridge somewhere. I tripped him with a wire, but he got away—!”
“Well, we’ll get the gol-dinged—!”
“Nix. Come on!”
The two ran off rapidly. Before they were out of earshot, the shrill, disguised voice of Nace’s assailant drifted back.
“My car is on the road. We’ll leave Mister Detective a present there.”
Nace swung back onto the bridge, wondering about that last remark. He ran to the end of the bridge, stopped there to yank the wire loose. He splashed his flashlight on it for a short instant.
The wire was the same type as the length which had been tied between unfortunate Fatty Dell’s jaws. Nace felt certain that piece had been cut from this one.
Nace left the trail, then moved along a few yards from it. He was wary of another ambush. The remark about leaving a present at the road was still in his thoughts. He wondered what it meant.
He knew an instant later.
A jarring, smashing roar of sound caromed across the woods. A bluish flash, brief, brilliant, splashed on the treetops. Then a procession of echoes boomed from the surrounding hills.
The explosion had come from the left.
Nace discarded caution, sprinted for the spot. He could guess, now, what the present would be. Tree trunks and branches smashed his head, shoulders, arms. Brambles dug at his hide and picked small holes in his clothing. He sprawled into a gulch. After that, he used his flashlight.
Ahead, a car starter made a loud sawing noise; an engine blared up. The machine screamed away in second gear.
Nace reached the road too late to get even a glimpse of the fleeing vehicle. It had whirled around a curve in the highway.
Nace fanned his flash beam about.
Like a white string, the luminance crawled over what remained of Constable Hasser.
It wasn’t much.
Hasser’s head and torso were nearly intact, as were his legs. These two segments lay a full ten paces apart. The explosion which had demolished the man had been nearly fantastic in its violence.
Nace searched some minutes, seeking something which might tell him the nature of the explosion. He found nothing.
Using the flash, Nace hunted for footprints. The leaves were dry, the ground below arid enough to be solid. There had been no rain recently.
Thunder hooted from the horizon, as though in derisive laughter at his efforts. Lightning winked redly.
Nace kept at his search. Constable Hasser had been murdered so Nace could not get hold of him and pry out information. Hasser had obviously known a lot. And his murderer was the man who had also done in the deputy constable, Fatty Dell.
Nace growled sourly. Fatty Dell had been at the lake to kill him — Nace. Constable Hasser’s mutterings had revealed that much. Nace could think of only one reason for their desiring his own end — to keep him from doing any investigating.
They obviously knew of the telegram he had received, signed by the name Sol Rubinov.
Nace doubled to study an object his flashlight had picked up. It was a mushroom, the type called a puffball because of the brownish powder it contains when mature. This one had been kicked and burst open, the brownish powder strewn about.
Nace went back and examined Hasser’s shoes. They bore no traces of the brown powder.
Next, Nace conducted an intensive hunt for the old shirt. It was nowhere to be found. Hasser’s murderer had taken it.
Voices were to be heard, and running feet. Residents of the vicinity were coming to investigate the noise of the explosion.
Nace cut across the woods, making for Mountain Town. No one saw him. Once on the village sidewalks, he set a course for his hotel.
Chapter III
Deceit Trail
The sleek hotel clerk was turning a telegram thoughtfully in his hand when he came in.