the north side of the Square to the second lamp which stood a block away
at the corner of High Street. He was drawing Bill's head about--Bill
being smitten with a sudden desire to go directly home leaving the
night's work unfinished--when the muffled figure of a man appeared in
the street in front of him. The inch or more of snow that now covered
the pavement had deadened the sound of his steps, while the eddying
flakes had made possible his near approach unseen. As he came rapidly
into the red glare of Mr. Shrimplin's hissing torch that hero was
exceeding well pleased to recognize a friendly face.
"How are you, Mr. North!" he said, and John North halted suddenly.
"Oh, it's you, Shrimp! A nasty night, isn't it?"
"It's the suffering human limit!" rejoined Mr. Shrimplin with feeling.
As he spoke the town bell rang the hour; unconsciously, perhaps, the two
men paused until the last reverberating stroke had spent itself in the
snowy distance.
"Six o'clock," observed Mr. Shrimplin.
"Good night, Shrimp," replied North irrelevantly.
He turned away and an instant later was engulfed in the wintry night.
Having at last pointed Bill's head in the right direction Mr. Shrimplin
drove that trusty beast up to the lamp-post on the corner of High
Street, when suddenly and for no apparent reason Bill settled back in
the shafts and exhibited unmistakable, though humiliating symptoms of
fright.
"Go on, you!" cried Mr. Shrimplin, slapping bravely with both the lines,
but his voice was far from steady, for suppose Bill should abandon the
rectitude of a lifetime and begin to kick.
"Go on, you!" repeated Mr. Shrimplin and slapped the lines again, but
less vigorously, for by this time Bill was unquestionably backing away
from the curb.
"Be done! Be done!" expostulated Mr. Shrimplin, but he gave over
slapping the lines, for why irritate Bill in his present uncertain mood?
"Want I should get out and lead you?" asked Mr. Shrimplin, putting aside
with one hand the blankets in which he was wrapped. "You're a game old
codger, ain't you? I guess you ain't aware you've growed up!"
While he was still speaking he slipped to the ground and worked his way
hand over hand up the lines to Bill's bit. Bill was now comfortably
located on his haunches, but evidently still dissatisfied for he
continued to back vigorously, drawing the protesting little lamplighter
after him. When he had put perhaps twenty feet between himself and the
lamp-post Bill achieved his usual upright attitude and his countenance
assumed its habitual contemplative expression, the haunted look faded
from his sagacious eye and his flaming nostrils resumed their normal
benevolent expression. Taking note of these swift changes, it occurred
to Mr. Shrimplin that rather than risk a repetition of his recent
experience he would so far sacrifice his official dignity as to go on
foot to the lamp-post. Bill would probably stand where he was,
indefinitely, standing being one of his most valued accomplishments. The
lamplighter took up his torch which he had put aside in the struggle
with Bill and walked to the curb.
And here Mr. Shrimplin noticed that which had not before caught his
attention. McBride's store was apparently open, for the bracketed oil
lamps that hung at regular intervals the full length of the long narrow
room, were all alight.
Mr. Shrimplin, whose moods were likely to be critical and censorious,
realized that there was something personally offensive in the fact that
Archibald McBride had chosen to disregard a holiday which his
fellow-merchants had so very generally observed.
"And him, I may say, just rotten rich!" he thought.
Mr. Shrimplin further discovered that though the lamps were lit they
were burning low, and he concluded that they had been lighted in the
early dusk of the winter afternoon and that McBride, for reasons of
economy, had deferred turning them up until it should be quite dark.
"Well, I'm a poor man, but I couldn't think of them things like he
does!" reflected Mr. Shrimplin; and then even before he had ceased to
pride himself on his superior liberality, he made still another
discovery, and this, that the store door stood wide open to the night.
"Well," thought Mr. Shrimplin, "maybe he's saving oil, but he's wasting
fuel."
Approaching the door he peered in. The store was empty, Archibald
McBride was nowhere visible. Evidently the door had been open some
little time, for he could see where the snow, driven by the strong wind,
had formed a miniature snow-drift just beyond the threshold.
"Either he's stepped out and the door's blowed open," muttered Mr.
Shrimplin, "or he's in his back office and some customer went out
without latching it."
He paused irresolutely, then he put his hand on the knob of the door to
close it, and paused again. With his taste for fictitious horrors,
usually indulged in, however, by his own warm fireside, he found the
present time and place slightly disquieting; and then Bill's singular
and erratic behavior had rather weakened his nerve. From under knitted
brows he gazed into the room. The storm rattled the shuttered windows
above his head, the dingy sign creaked on its rusty fastenings, and with
each fresh gust the bracketed lamps rocked gently to and fro, and as
they rocked their trembling shadows slid back and forth along the walls.
The very air of the place was inhospitable, forbidding, and Mr.
Shrimplin was strongly inclined to close the door and beat a hasty
retreat.
Still peering down the narrow room with its sagging shelves and littered
counters, he crossed the threshold. Now he could see the office, a space
partitioned off at the rear of the building and having a glass front
that gave into the store itself. Here, as he knew, stood Mr. McBride's
big iron safe, and here was the high desk, his heavy ledgers--row after
row of them; these histories of commerce covered almost the entire
period during which men had bought and sold in Mount Hope.
A faint light burned beyond the dirty glass partition, but the tall
meager form of the old merchant was nowhere visible. Mr. Shrimplin
advanced yet farther into the room and urged by his sense of duty and
his public spirit, he directed his steps toward the office, treading
softly as one who fears to come upon the unexpected. Once he paused, and
addressing the empty air, broke the heavy silence:
"Oh, Mr. McBride, your door's open!"
The room echoed to his words.
"Well," carped Mr. Shrimplin, "I don't see as it's any of my business
to attend to his business!" But the very sound of his voice must have
given him courage, for now he stepped forward, briskly.
On his right was a show-case in which was displayed a varied assortment
of knives, cutlery, and revolvers with shiny silver or nickel mountings;
then the show-case gave place to a long pine counter, and at the far end
of this was a pair of scales. Near the scales on a low iron standard
rested an oil lamp, but this lamp was not lighted nor were the lamps in
the bracket that hung immediately above the scales, for behind the
counter at this point was a door, the upper half glass, that opened on a
small yard which, in turn, was inclosed by a series of low sheds where
the old merchant stored heavy castings, bar-iron, and the like. Mr.
Shrimplin was shrewdly aware that it was one of McBride's small
economies not to light the lamps by that door so long as he could see to
read the figures on the scales without their artificial aid.
And then Mr. Shrimplin saw a thing that sent the blood leaping from his
heart, while an icy hand seemed to hold him where he stood. On the floor
at his very feet was a strange huddled shape. He lowered his gasolene
torch which he still carried, and the shape resolved itself into the
figure of a man; an old man who lay face down on the floor, his arms
extended as if they had been arrested while he was in the very act of
raising them to his head. The thick shock of snow-white hair, worn
rather long, was discolored just back of the left ear, and from this
Mr. Shrimplin's horrified gaze was able to trace another discoloration
that crossed in a thin red line the dead man's white collar; for the man
was dead past all peradventure.
[Illustration: On the floor at his feet was a strange huddled shape.]
Mr. Shrimplin saw and grasped the meaning of it all in an instant. Then
with a feeble cry he turned and fled down the long room, pursued by a
million phantom terrors. His heart seemed to die within him as he
scurried down that long room; then, mercifully, the keen fresh air
filled his lungs. He fairly leaped through the open door, and again the
storm roared about him with a kind of boisterous fellowship. It smote
him in the face and twisted his shaking legs from under him. Then he
fell, speechless, terrified, into the arms of a passer-by.
CHAPTER FIVE
COLONEL GEORGE HARBISON
Terror-stricken as he was, Mr. Shrimplin recognized the man into whose
arms he had fallen. There was no mistaking the nose, thin and aquiline,
the bristling mustache and white imperial, the soft gray slouch hat, or
the military cloak that half concealed the stalwart form of its wearer.
Colonel George Harbison, much astonished and in utter ignorance of the
cause of Mr. Shrimplin's alarm, took that gentleman by the collar and
deftly jerked him into an erect posture.
"My dear sir!" the colonel began in a tone of mild expostulation,
evidently thinking he had a drunken man to deal with. "My dear sir, do
be more careful--" then he recognized the lamplighter. "Well, upon my
word, Shrimp, what's gone wrong with you?" he demanded, with military
asperity.
"My God, Colonel, if he ain't lying there dead--" a shudder passed
through the little man; he was well-nigh dumb in his terror. "And I
stumbled right on to him there on the floor!" he cried with a gasp.
He collapsed again, and again the colonel, whose gloved hand still
retained its hold on his collar, set him on his trembling legs with
admirable expertness.
"I tell you he's dead!" cried Mr. Shrimplin, lost to everything but that
one dreadful fact.
"Who's dead?" demanded the colonel. "Stand up, man, don't fall about
like that or you may do yourself some injury!" for Mr. Shrimplin seemed
about to collapse once more.
"Old man McBride, Colonel--if he ain't dead I wish I may never see
death!"
"Dead!" cried the colonel. "Archibald McBride dead!" He released his
hold on Mr. Shrimplin and took a step toward the door; Shrimplin,
however, detained him with a shaking hand, though he was calmer now.
"Colonel, you'd better be careful, he's lying there in a pool of blood;
some one's killed him for his money! How do we know the murderer ain't
there!" This conjecture was made to the empty street, for Colonel
Harbison had entered the store.
"Why does he want to leave me like that!" wailed Shrimplin, and his
panic threatened a return.
He dragged himself to the door. Here he paused, since he could not bring
himself to enter, for before his eyes was the ghastly vision of that old
man huddled on the blood-stained floor. He heard the colonel's steps
echo down the long room, and when their sound ceased he knew he was
standing beside the dead man. After what seemed an age of waiting the
steps sounded again, and a moment later the colonel's tall form filled
the doorway.
"Andy!" said the colonel.
Mr. Shrimplin turned with a start. At his back within reach of his hand
stood Andy Gilmore. He had been utterly unaware of the gambler's
approach, but now conscious of it he dropped in a miserable heap on the
door-sill, while the white and unfamiliar world reeled before his
bleached blue eyes; it was the very drunkenness of fear.
"Howdy, Colonel," said the gambler, as he gave Harbison a half-military
salute.
He admired the colonel, who had once threatened to horsewhip him if he
ever permitted his nephew, Watt, to enter his rooms.
"Come here, Andy!" ordered the colonel briefly.
"God's sake, Colonel!" gasped the wretched little lamplighter,
struggling to his feet, "don't leave me here--"
"What's wrong, Colonel?" asked Gilmore.
"Archibald McBride's been murdered!"
Mr. Gilmore took the butt of the half-smoked cigar from between his
teeth, tossed it into the gutter, and pushing past Mr. Shrimplin entered
the room.
Colonel Harbison, a step or two in advance of his companion, led the way
to the rear of the store. The colonel paused, and Gilmore gained a place
at his elbow.
"You are sure he's dead?" questioned the gambler.
Kneeling beside the crumpled figure Gilmore slipped his hand in between
the body and the floor; his manner was cool and businesslike. After a
moment he withdrew his hand and looked, up into the colonel's face.
"Well?" asked the colonel.
"Oh, he's dead, all right!" Gilmore glanced about him, and the colonel's
eyes following, they both discovered that the door leading into the side
yard was partly open.
"He went that way, eh, Colonel?"
"It's altogether likely," agreed the veteran.
"It's a nasty business!" said Gilmore reflectively.
"Shocking!" snapped the colonel.
"He took big chances," commented the gambler, "living the way he did."
He spoke of the dead man.
"Poor old man!" said the colonel pityingly.
What had it all amounted to, those chances for the sake of gain, which
Gilmore had in mind.
"He can't have been dead very long," said Gilmore. "Did _you_ find him,
Colonel?" he asked as he stood erect.
"No, Shrimplin found him."
Again the two men looked about them. On the floor by the counter at
their right was a heavy sledge. Gilmore called Harbison's attention to
this.
"I guess the job was done with that," he said.
"Possibly," agreed Harbison.
Gilmore picked up the sledge and examined it narrowly.
"Yes, you can see, there is blood on it." He handed it to Harbison, who
stepped under the nearest lamp with the clumsy weapon in his hand.
"You are right, Andy!" and he glanced at the rude instrument of death
with a look of repugnance on his keen sensitive face, then he carefully,
placed it under the wooden counter. "Horrible!" he muttered to himself.
"It was no joke for him!" said the gambler, catching the last word. "But
some one was bound to try this dodge sooner or later. Why, as far back
as I can remember, people said he kept his money hidden away at the
bottom of nail kegs and under heaps of scrap-iron." He took a cigar from
his pocket, bit off the end, and struck a match. "Well, I wouldn't want
to be the other fellow, Colonel; I'd be in all kinds of a panic; it
takes nerve for a job like this."
"It's a shocking circumstance," said the colonel.
"I wonder if it paid!" speculated the gambler. "And I wonder who'll get
what he leaves. Has he any family or relatives?"
"No, not so far as any one knows. He came here many years ago, a
close-mouthed Scotchman, who never had any intimates, never married, and
never spoke of his private affairs."
There was a slight commotion at the door. They could hear Shrimplin's
agitated voice, and a moment later two men, chance passers-by with whom
he had been speaking, shook themselves free of the little lamplighter
and entered the room. The new-comers nodded to the colonel and Gilmore
as they paused to stare mutely at the body on the floor.
"He bled like a stuck pig!" said one of the men at last. He was a
ragged slouching creature with a splotched and bloated face half hidden
by a bristling red beard. He glanced at Gilmore for an uncertain instant
out of a pair of small shifty eyes. "It's murder, ain't it, boss?" he
added.
"No doubt about that, Joe!" rejoined the gambler.
"I suppose it was robbery?" said the other man, who had not spoken
before.
"Very likely," answered the colonel. "We have not examined the place,
however; we shall wait for the proper officials."
"Who do you want, Colonel?"
"Coroner Taylor, and I suppose the sheriff," replied Harbison.
The man nodded.
"All right, I'll bring them; and say, what about the prosecuting
attorney?" as he turned to leave.
"Yes, bring Moxlow, too, if you can find him."
The man hurried from the room. Gilmore leaned against the counter and
smoked imperturbably. Joe Montgomery, with his great slouching shoulders
arched, and his grimy hands buried deep in his trousers pockets, stared
at the dead man in stolid wonder. Colonel Harbison's glance sought the
same object but with a sensitive shrinking as from an ugly brutal thing.
A clock ticked loudly in the office; there was the occasional fall of
cinders from the grate of the rusted stove that heated the place; these
were sounds that neither Gilmore nor the colonel had heard before.
Presently a lean black cat stole from the office and sprang upon the
counter; it purred softly.
"Hello, puss!" said the gambler, putting out a hand. The cat stole
closer. "I guess I'll have to take you home with me, eh? This ain't a
place for unprotected females!" The cat crept back and forth under his
caressing touch.
At the street-door Shrimplin appeared and disappeared, now his head was
thrust into the room, and now his nose was flattened against the dingy
show-windows; from neither point could he quite command the view he
desired nor could he bring himself to enter the building; then he
vanished entirely, but after a brief interval they heard his voice. He
was evidently speaking with some one in the street. A little crowd was
rapidly gathering about him, but it disintegrated almost immediately,
his listeners abandoning him to hurry into the store.
"You must stand back, all of you!" said the colonel. "Unless you are
very careful you may destroy important evidence!"
The crowd assembled itself silently for the most part; here and there a
man removed his hat, or made some whispered comment, or asked some eager
low-voiced question of Gilmore or the colonel. Men stood on boxes, on
nail kegs, and on counters. Except for the little circle left about the
dead man on the floor, every vantage point of observation was soon
occupied. It was scarcely half an hour since Shrimplin had fallen
speechless into Colonel Harbison's arms, yet fully two hundred men had
gathered in that long room or were struggling about the door to gain
admittance to it.
At a suggestion from Harbison, the gambler, followed by Joe, elbowed his
way to the front door, which in spite of the protest of those outside,
he closed and locked. A moment later, however, he opened it to admit
Doctor Taylor, the coroner, and Conklin, the sheriff. The latter
instantly set about clearing the room.
Gilmore and the colonel remained with the officials and during the
succeeding ten minutes the gambler, who had kept his post at the door,
opened, it to Moxlow, young Watt Harbison and two policemen.
As the coroner finished his examination of the body, the sound of wheels
was heard in the Square and an undertaker's wagon drew up to the door.
The murdered man was placed on a stretcher and covered with a black
cloth, then four men raised the stretcher and for the last time the old
merchant passed out under his creaking sign into the night.
"I've agreed to watch at the house, Andy," said Colonel Harbison. "I
want you and Watt to come with me."
The gambler lighted a fresh cigar and the three men left the store.
On the Square groups of men discussed the murder. Though none was
permitted to enter the store, the windows afforded occasional glimpses
of the little group of officials within, until a policeman closed and
fastened the heavy wooden shutters. Then the crowd slowly and
reluctantly dispersed.
Meanwhile the town marshal, under cover of the excitement, had descended
on the gas house where tramps congregated of winter nights for warmth
and shelter. Here he found shivering over a can of beer, two homeless
wretches, whom he arrested as suspicious characters. After this,
official activity languished, for the official mind could think of
nothing more to do.
With the scattering of the crowd on the Square, Shrimplin climbed into
his cart and drove off home. The smother of wind-driven snow still
enveloped the, town, the very air seemed charged with mystery and
horror, and before the little lamplighter's eyes was ever the haunting
vision of the murdered man.
He drove into the alley back of his house, unhitched Bill and led him
into the barn. His torch made the gloom of the place more terrifying
than utter darkness would have been. Suppose the murderer should be
hiding there! Mr. Shrimplin's mind fastened on the hay-mow as the most
likely place of concealment, and the cold sweat ran from him in icy
streams; he could, almost see the murderer's evil eyes fixed upon him
from the blackness above. But at last Bill was stripped of his harness,
and the little lamplighter, escaping from the barn with its fancied
terrors, hurried across his small back yard to his kitchen door.
"Well!" said Mrs. Shrimplin, as he entered the room. "I was beginning to
wonder if you'd ever think it worth your while to come home!"
"What's the bell been ringing for?" asked Custer. Mrs. Shrimplin was
seated by the table, which was littered with her sewing; Custer occupied
his usual chair by the stove, and it was evident that they knew nothing
of the tragedy in which Mr. Shrimplin had played so important, and as he
now felt, so worthy a part.
"I suppose I've been out quite a time, and I may say I've seen times,
too! I guess there ain't no one in the town fitter to say they seen
times than just me!"
The light and comfort of his own pleasant kitchen had quite restored Mr.
Shrimplin.
"I may say I seen times!" he repeated significantly. "There's something
doing in this here old town after all! I take back a heap of the hard
things I've said about it; a feller can scare up a little excitement if
he knows where to look for it. I ain't bragging none, but I guess you'll
hear my name mentioned--I guess you'll even see it in print in the
newspapers!" He warmed his cold hands over the stove. "Throw in a little
more coal, sonny; I'm half froze, but I guess that's the worst any one
can say of me!"
"You make much of it, whatever it is," said Mrs. Shrimplin.
"Maybe I do and maybe I don't," equivocated Mr. Shrimplin genially.
"Maybe you're not above telling a body what kept you out half the
night?" inquired his wife.
"If you done and seen what I've did and saw," replied Mr. Shrimplin
impressively, "you'd look for a little respect in your own home."
"I'd be a heap quicker telling about it," said Mrs. Shrimplin.
Mr. Shrimplin turned to Custer.
"I guess, you're thinking it was a burglar; but, sonny, it wasn't no
burglar--so you got another guess coming to you," he concluded
benevolently.
"I know!" cried Custer. "Some one's been killed!"
"Exactly!" said Mr. Shrimplin with increasing benevolence. "Some one has
been killed!"
"You done it!" cried Custer.
"I found the party," admitted Mr. Shrimplin with calm dignity.
"Oh!" But perhaps Custer's first emotion was on the whole one of
disappointment.
"How you talk!" said Mrs. Shrimplin.
"I reckon I might say more, most any one would," retorted Mr. Shrimplin
quietly. "It was old man McBride--someone's murdered him for his money;
I never seen the town so on end over anything before, but whoever wants
to be well posted's got to come to me for the particulars. I seen the
old man before Colonel Harbison seen him, I seen him before Andy Gilmore
seen him, I seen him before the coroner seen him, or the sheriff or
_any one_ seen him! I was on the spot ahead of 'em all. If any one wants
to know how he looked just after he was killed, they got to come to me
to find out. Colonel Harbison can't tell 'em, and Andy Gilmore can't
tell 'em; it's only me knows them particulars!"
The effect of this stirring declaration was quite all he had hoped for.
Out of the tail of his eye he saw that Mrs. Shrimplin was, as she
afterward freely confessed, taken aback. As for Custer, he had forgotten
his disappointment that a death by violence had occurred for which his
father was not directly responsible.
"Did you see the man that killed old Mr. McBride?" asked Custer,
breaking the breathless spell that was upon him.
"No; if I'd been just about fifteen minutes sooner I'd have seen him;
but I was just about that much too late, sonny. I guess he's a whole lot
better off, though."
"What would you have done if you'd seen him?" Custer's voice sank to a
whisper.
"Well, I don't pack a gun for nothing. If I'd seen him there, he'd had
to go 'round to the jail with me. I guess I could have coaxed him there;
I was ready for to offer extra inducements!"
"And does everybody know you seen old Mr. McBride the first of any?"
asked Custer.
"I guess they do; I ain't afraid about that. Colonel Harbison's too much
of a gentleman to claim any credit that ain't his; he'd be the first
one to own up that he don't deserve no credit."
"What took you into McBride's store? You hadn't no errand there." Mrs.
Shrimplin was a careful and acquisitive wife.