UNDER SUSPICION
None of the usual greetings of the Northern trail were offered
Seymour as he rode up to the group. Instead, he found himself the
target for a battery of frowning glances. The men presented a stolid
front of frigid scrutiny. The probability flashed upon him that, as
the first stranger to reach the scene, he was under suspicion in
connection with the crime.
The sergeant stopped his horse and was about to dismount when there
was a movement among the men. A short, stout man, from whose ample
belt dangled a small cannon of a revolver, waddled forth to stand
before him.
"What's happened?" asked Seymour quickly deciding to say nothing of
his previous visit.
"That's what we're goin' to find out," said the fat man in that
shrill small voice with which humans of undue girth often are
afflicted. "Who're you?"
This question was as natural as Seymour's own, but the manner in
which it was asked put him on edge. And since Bart had appropriated
his name along with his uniform, he could not answer truthfully
without laying himself open to a further explanation than he proposed
to make at that moment.
"As for that, who're you?" he snapped back.
"I'm Deputy Coroner Samuel Hardley." The speech was pompous; so was
his turning back of a coat lapel to exhibit a nickle-plated badge of
office. "I'm also deputy sheriff and represent the law of British
Columbia in Gold."
Seymour had suspected his interrogator's identity; was ready with his
"Glad to meet you, chief."
"And I've got authority to make you answer my questions," piped the
deputy. "Where you from and what's your business?"
"From the Caribou country by way of the Old Sun trail," Seymour
answered truthfully enough. "There's my outfit." He jerked his
thumb over his shoulder toward the pack horse which stood with
prospector's equipment in broadside view. "That tells you what my
business is."
"Be ready to prove it. What you know about this murder?"
The sergeant wished he knew just how the Duperow girl stood in this
matter. Probably, for reasons of her own, she had gone on before any
of the town party had arrived--possibly because she had heard them
coming. If any of them had seen her, it seemed evident that she had
not mentioned his participation in the discovery, or that he was
beating the bush on the case. Yet, after all her seeming frankness
and her keen personal interest in the victim, why had she "slid out."
Since he could not answer that mental query, he decided on reticence
in answering the deputy's spoken one.
"I don't know anything about it," he replied with no appreciable
delay, although without accenting the "know," as he should have done
in strict truth.
"Queer you should come ambling along with Seymour of the Royal
Mounted lying in the road not yet cold," grumbled Hardley. "Yes
sir-ee; it looks right queer to me. I think I'd better take you in
on suspicion."
Seymour bore down on him with a most direct glance, the blue of his
eyes almost black in their intensity--black as the ears of Kaw
between which he was forced to look for exact focus. "And I think
you'd better do nothing of the sort--on suspicion. I'm a Canadian
citizen; I have and know my rights."
The sergeant, of course, was running a sheer bluff. The provincial
officer might have placed him under arrest; but to suffer detention
was not in Seymour's program, for relief from it probably would
require the disclosing of his identity at a time when he felt he
could work more to advantage under cover. In the brief moment of
their roadside controversy, he had "sized" his man and believed him
one who would yield to a stronger will without other than ocular
demonstration.
But he did not have time to prove his estimate of Hardley. Aid, or
interference--whichever way one looked at it--came from an unexpected
quarter.
"The stranger's right, Sam," spoke a handsome, blond-haired chap
whose look of intelligence recommended him to Seymour as above
average. "You haven't any call to arrest him just because he
happened along a public trail at an unlucky moment. Far as that
goes, you might better arrest yourself."
"What you driving at, Phil Brewster?" demanded Hardley, breaking away
from the stranger's gaze and turning on his fellow townsman. "Are
you hinting that I had any hand in sending 'West' one of his
majesty's officers?"
"You was jealous of him," put in an old man with a twisted face; the
driver of the oxen, if one could judge from the goad upon which he
leaned.
"And sore as a pup when you found he had been here a month without
your suspicioning," contributed another townsman.
Evidently Hardley was not surrounded by any picked posse and was none
too much respected as the peace officer of the community.
Relieved to be out of the calcium, at least for the moment, Seymour
swung from his horse and crossed the road to look at the body of
Bart, the natural move had he really been stranger to the tragedy.
The deputy chose to ignore the jibes of his neighbors. But he
renewed his demands upon Brewster for an interpretation of his
insinuations, reminding him he was no "bohunk freighter" to be talked
to as an ox.
"Oh, I don't think for a minute that you kicked off the staff
sergeant," the handsome chap began to explain. To the real Seymour,
listening, came a creepy feeling at the use of his name in such a
connection. "I was just using you as an example to show your hasty
methods with this stranger," Brewster went on. "You were sitting in
your saddle and staring down at the remains when I rode up from the
creeks. But I didn't suspect you of firing the shot or even of
knowing anything about it."
Hardley looked somewhat mollified.
"But Sam was jealous," persisted the ox-driver.
"Stop your noise, Cato!" shrilled the deputy. "There was a perfectly
good reason for my being first on the scene. I saw the sergeant ride
past my shack all uniformed-up and looking as if he meant business!"
"More'n you'd know how to look," goaded Cato, playfully prodding the
deputy with one of his inordinately long arms.
"Want me to bash you up?" Hardley demanded, irritated; then went on
with his explanation. "For reasons best known to himself and beyond
my ken, now never to be disclosed to mortal understanding, Seymour
hadn't been taking me into his confidence either before or after
uncovering himself. It wasn't good policemanship on his part, I'll
say, but I'm big enough of a man----"
Cato's crackling laughter interrupted. "Big enough, I'll say--but of
a man?" he burst out.
"Anyway, I figgered I knew the breed of wolves up the creek better
than he did and that he might need help. You know Sam Hardley's gun
is always ready. So I saddled up old Loafer there and took out after
him, prepared to lend a hand to law and order as was my sworn duty."
There was further exchange among the Goldites--theories regarding the
new crime, gratuitous advice for the fat deputy, speculation
regarding its effect on the outside reputation of the camp. Glad
that interest had shifted from himself, Seymour listened
subconsciously.
Suddenly his attention was claimed by a decoration which had not been
on the uniform when he had at first scrutinized it. Into the breast
opening of the serge coat was tucked a spray of snow flowers.
"Her last tribute," his thoughts whispered. "And an ill-considered
one if she has any reason for not wanting her little world to know
that she first discovered the crime."
It was unlikely that the imposter had been anywhere that morning
where he could pluck flowers which Seymour knew to grow only in the
deeper gulches where the packed snow of winter resisted the thaws of
spring to the last. The wearing of the nosegay was so out of keeping
with the character that Bart had assumed as to attract attention.
The sergeant wondered that the men arguing behind him had not already
noticed and questioned its presence.
Kneeling ostensibly to tie a bootlace, he rectified the girl's
mistake by plucking forth the flowers and tucking them into an inside
pocket of his coat. The others, although approaching, evidently had
not noticed this deft appropriation. Ruth Duperow's connection with
the tragedy was her secret unless later she wished to take the camp
into her confidence.
"It's a cinch that these two killings are linked," Hardley was
shrilling to all ears within range. "When I get the man that killed
the sergeant, I'll have the man that shot the B.C.X. driver; and,
vice versa, if I get the man that killed the stage driver, I'll have
the one that shot the sergeant."
"Which one do you calculate to get first, Sam?" asked Brewster,
straight-faced as an undertaker.
The pudgy deputy stared at him in momentary suspicion, then took the
bait. "Cato the Ox might be excused a fool question like that, Phil,
but I'd have thought you'd be wise to vice versa. Don't you see,
man, that these murderers are one and the same?"
"Then I'd advise you to throw down on that one and the same quick as
the Almighty will let you," said Brewster. "The Mounties will be
riled to the core over the killing of one of their own; they'll swarm
in here like flies as soon as the news gets out."
The mining camp's deputy coroner was obviously disturbed by this
logical counsel. Although the morning was not warm, he whipped out a
saffron-colored handkerchief and mopped his brow. Evidently that
ministration did not satisfy for he took off his hat and polished his
pate, which was disclosed to be as bald as an eagle's.
"'Spite your astonishing ignorance in some things, Phil, you
sometimes show a glimmer of sense," he said at last. "I was headed
right in the first place. I've got to make some arrests and have the
victims ready for the Mounties when they come swarming."
His eyes, while delivering himself of this pronouncement, had fixed
on the sergeant.
"Victims--you said it," offered Seymour in calculating defense.
"Some arrests. I suppose you'll make a bunch of them. Well, start
in with me and bring in lots of company. You might as well make the
mounted police plumb disgusted with you while you're about it." For
a moment he watched Hardley squirm under this obvious scorn, then
added: "Isn't a coroner's inquest the first of orderly procedure in a
case of this sort? If you get a verdict from a jury, you'll have
something to stand on when--when the Mounties come."
Hardley embraced the offering found in Seymour's sudden change from
scorn to a practical suggestion. "I'll have an inquest with all due
respect to the law, just as soon as we can get the late
staff-sergeant into town," he shrilled. "See that you stick around,
stranger. There's no telling at who the coroner's jury will point
the finger of guilt."
Seymour nodded agreement. From official experience, he knew that
there was no telling.