Please come out here as soon as you can. Come to-night without fail.
I need you.
It was signed with Hazel Walton's full name.
Billy folded the note carefully. He did not look directly at the
judge. He looked at him by way of the mirror. He was not unduly
astonished to perceive that the judge was watching him like the
proverbial hawk.
Billy unfolded the note, read it again, then refolded it. He started
to put it into a vest pocket, though better of it, balled it into a
crumple and tossed it into the cardboard box that served for a
waste-paper basket.
He got to his feet, pulled out his watch and glanced at the time.
"Four-thirty-two," he muttered, apparently oblivious to the judge's
presence. "I'll have to hurry."
He crossed the room to an open door giving into one of the inner rooms.
Passing through the doorway, he pushed the door partly to behind him.
Turning sharply to the left he sat down on a cot that creaked. The
foot of the cot butted against the jamb on which the door was hung.
Billy threw himself sidewise and applied his eye to the crack between
the door and the jamb. His feet at the end of the cot were busy the
while, gently kicking the wall and iron-work of the cot. Any one
hearing the noise would have been reasonably assured that Billy Wingo
was employed in God knows what, at a distance from the door of at least
a cot length. What he might be doing did not matter. The point was to
give the judge the impression that he was not close to the doorway.
Evidently the judge was thus impressed. Billy saw him lean forward,
pluck the wadded-up note from the wastebasket and dive noiselessly
across the room to the stove. Without a sound the judge opened the
stove door and dropped the letter on the top of the blazing wood.
Closing the door as noiselessly as he had opened it, the judge returned
to his chair, sat down and crossed one knee over the other. His
expression was that of the cat that has just eaten the canary. Billy
could almost see him licking his demure chops.
Billy returned to the office. He was carrying a box of cartridges and
an extra six-shooter. His regular six-shooter, with its holster and
belt, hung on the wall behind the table.
"About Jake Kilroe now," said Billy, sitting down at the table and
snicking open the box of cartridges, "about Jake Kilroe--what does the
marshal want me to do?"
"Get evidence against him," was the smooth reply. "Enough to convict
him, of course."
"Of course. Not enough to convict him would help us very little.
Yeah. Any suggestions, Judge?"
"What kind of suggestions?" the judge inquired with just a trace of
impatience.
"How I'm to start in--what do you guess? I don't know much about Jake,
y'understand. For instance, where does Jake get his liquor in the
first place?"
"How should I know?"
"I dunno. Thought maybe you might. Judges are supposed to know a lot.
But if you don't, you don't, that's all."
Judge Driver sat up a trifle straighter in his chair. He looked at
Billy with some suspicion. It could not be humanly possible that Billy
was joking with him, yet----
"I guess I'd better start in this afternoon," continued Billy briskly.
"There's nothing like a quick start. And the marshal would like it
too. Suppose you and I, Judge, go down to Jake's and see what we can
see."
"I thought you were going somewhere else," demurred Judge Driver.
"What makes you think so?"
"That note-- You said you had to go some place in a hurry."
"Did I? Well, I am. I'm going down to Jake Kilroe's, and you're going
with me, huh?"
"Look here," said the judge, the light of desperation in his eyes, "you
don't have to go down to Kilroe's now. That can wait. The marshal
ain't in such a fright of a hurry as all that. Go on and do whatever
you have to do. I didn't mean--I don't want this to interfere with
your personal business, and I'm sure the marshal wouldn't. He'll
understand. I know he will. You go on and do whatever you have to do,
Bill."
"I will," murmured Billy. "I will. Where are you going, Judge?"
"Oh, I guess I'll be drifting along, Bill," smiled the judge,
half-turning on his way to the door. "You don't need me any longer."
"Yes, I do too," Billy declared fretfully. "You come on back and set
down. I've got something here I want to read you."
Involuntarily the judge's eyes strayed to the wastebasket. He came
back and sat down.
On the table between the extra six-shooter that Billy had finished
loading and the box of cartridges was a small leather-bound book.
Billy picked up this book and turned to the index. He ran his finger
down the page till he came to that which he sought.
"'Morality, rules of, where consonant with those of law,'" he read
aloud, and turned back to page twenty-eight.
Judge Driver stared at Billy Wingo in some amazement. What on earth
was the sheriff driving at. Rules of morality? Well!
"This book," said Billy, glancing across at the judge, "is a copy of
the grounds and maxims of the English laws, by William Noy, of
Lincoln's Inn, Attorney General, and a member of the Privy Council to
King Charles the First."
"What in God's name," demanded the now thoroughly amazed judge, "has
that to do with me?"
"I want to read you something," persisted Billy. "You know that our
laws were practically taken from the English laws. Our grounds and
maxims are the same as theirs. What's good law with them is good law
with us, and _vice versa_. You're a judge. You know that as well as I
do. Don't you?"