“That’s —— funny.”
“What is, Tony?”
“About Dale. The games closed early last night. Soapy Caswell wanted to
play stud, but wanted me to do the dealing. Buzzard Bailey sat in and we
had a three-handed session. Long about five o’clock this morning Bailey
dropped out. I think it was about half-past five when Soapy decided to
quit and went to his room. A little later on I heard the stage leaving.
I looked out and saw Buzzard Bailey driving the stage out of
town—alone.”
“Mebbe Dale was inside the stage,” suggested Brick.
“Might ’a’ been,” agreed Tony. “Been used to seeing him on the driver’s
seat and never thought about him being inside the stage.”
“Did yuh know Dale very well?” asked Brick.
Tony shook his head.
“No, not very. He’s been here about three months. Nice kind of a boy.
Never seen him drinking anything until last night.”
“Drunk?” queried Brick.
“Yeah, he was.”
Brick humped over, tracing meaningless patterns in the dust with a
match. Tony watched him for a few moments and sat down beside him.
“Sheriff, do yuh know anything about phony money?”
Brick jerked up his head and stared at Tony.
“Meanin’ what, Tony?”
The gambler took out a long bill-fold and extracted several bills.
“Somebody,” said he slowly, “somebody is passing bad money around here.
I’ve collected these in the last four months.”
Brick examined the bills. They were clever imitations.
“Anybody else know about this?” asked Brick.
“Buck Pelham. He got some, too. I showed him the first two I got, but I
don’t know who passed ’em to me. That was about four months ago. Since
then I’ve got the rest, but I’ve never been able to find who spent ’em.”
“Why didn’t you or Buck notify me, Tony?”
“I wanted to, sheriff; but Buck said it was a job for the U. S.
Marshal.”
“Buck’s right,” agreed Brick, “but I wish I had known.”
“Likely a lot of it circulating around. Maybe they thought that a
gambler was a good person to pass it on.”
Harp grinned down at the ground. He knew of eighty dollars of bad money
that had bought chips for him and Silent, but through no fault of
theirs.
“Well, I’ve got to go to work,” stated Tony, brushing off his trousers
and replacing the bill-fold. “If I can help yuh any, sheriff—just yelp.”
“Yuh never can tell,” smiled Brick. “Much obliged.”
A small middle-aged man, well dressed, was walking up the other side of
the street, going toward the bank. Brick got to his feet and called to
him—
“Can I see yuh a minute, Mr. Bray?”
The man stopped and squinted at Brick, as he and Harp crossed the
street. Felix Bray was president of the Silverton bank. He was precise
in his conversation, held himself aloof from the rest of the community
and was not entirely popular in Silverton.
Felix Bray dressed well and his linen was immaculate. He never appeared
unshaven. Brick had noted that Felix Bray never seemed to be looking at
him while in conversation, but just past him. Bray’s nose was sharp at
the end and very thin at the bridge. He had a habit of compressing his
lips tightly at the end of a sentence and often closed his eyes, as if
amazed at his own wisdom. There was no question but what Felix Bray was
a prominent citizen of Silverton, whether Silverton cared or not.