The Portrait of Jirjohn Cobb, page 15
“Why’d you plaster that there outfit on yo’se’f that’s now on you—and whar did you get it?”
“I donned it,” replied the other quietly, “so that I could move about these river bottomlands without suspicion. And since there is no line work during a flood—I’d not be marked as—as a phoney. I got the outfit together from some old trunks in my attic. This cap, now—it’s a ski-cap. And this—but what the hell is this? I’ve admitted who I am. Does that start the third degree?”
“If I see fit to conduct a third degree,” said the Sheriff, “it’ll be conducted. To find which o’ you fellers is Hart. For they ain’t going to be no drawing straws now for them two belts—not with that dirty crook amongst you.” Again he stroked his chin, and scratched his head. “Now one o’ you birds—according to that raddio story—done made a sign to that feller, the Rat—to blow and keep mum—and get his share of that diamond-pin stealing job later. And if on’y we c’ld all agree on which of you—” He turned suddenly on the Mexican. “See here, Mex—you had yo’re hand plumb in front o’ you when that Rat tried to land here. ’Thout even the excuse of yo’re thumb being hooked in yo’re belt. By God—”
“Wait—wait a meenut,” put in the Mexican excitedly. “That don’ mean I geelty of geeving seegnal! I torn’ my head joos’ befor’ that Rat he shoot up on lan’—an’ both heem—” He indicated the man in the yokel costume—“—an’ heem—” He indicated the man who had admitted to having been Blake, the embezzler—“—had wan hands in front. Van Hareengday, now, he’s thomb was hook’ in vest weeth all feengers free; an’ Meester Ambazzler Blake, as he call heemself, he’s arms were fold’—weeth wan hand free above, and wan below. Either han’ could weegle feengers in and out like a fan. So w’y een hell—”
“But the p’int is,” emphasized the Sheriff, “that you, down thar in front, didn’t have even the log’cal position of yo’re arms being folded, nor your thumb in yo’re belt nor vest. It seems to me—however, you Spaniards—when you are Spaniards!—are allus wavin’ yo’re hands around in front of yo’rese’ves as though they’re windmills, and—” He turned to the other two. “Well, either of you men want to accuse the other? On that signaling business?”
“Not I,” said the man who had announced himself as being the missing Indianapolis bank teller. “And any man who does will be a damned liar. We were all spread apart as fanwise as—as those fingers which sent that signal—but each, with the exception of Mex here, definitely behind the next, and too far behind—for any of us to see any other one of us do anything. And besides, every damned one of us had our eyes glued on that Rat bird when he was landing—as though he was a diamond pin himself! If you, Sheriff, who was in back of us all, and could see all the elbows sticking out, can’t figure whether a signal was being sent by the fingers of a hand in front of some man’s stomach or chest—then any other man who claims it is a liar!”
“Well, I didn’t see even elbows,” admitted the Sheriff. Which was the truth. “But if Mex here turned around once—I thought mebbe one o’ you two might-a done the sa—”
“Mex,” replied the man who had just spoken, “is the only man who could have seen anything by turning—and he turned at the wrong time, that’s all. Myself, being second from the water line, could have seen only van Harringdale—behind me, and displaced from me—if I’d turned—which I didn’t. While van Harringdale, being third and furthest, is altogether out—and I mean O-U-T!—from testifying as to how any man’s hands were placed—or what he did with ’em; but not out by a damn sight—Mr. ‘van Harringdale’!—from what he may have been doing with his own hands. And if he—or Mex—claims I made any signal with my fingers, by God, I’ll—”
“You’ll keep yo’re position, and yo’re distance, from everybody else,” warned the Sheriff. “For ef you start attackin’ anybody here, I’ll know right off yo’re throwing smoke in ever’body’s eyes—trying to get holt o’ one of them lifebelts back there in a free-fur-all—and that’ll prove yo’re Hart, by God. Fur Hart ain’t going to get a belt—and damn well knows it! And, mo’over, I promise you all that—to boot. So fu’st—and this is for the two o’ you which ain’t Hart—don’t try to start confusion. Fur that’ll be the shore way to brand yo’se’f jest enough to justify me in shooting you.”
There was silence following the meaningful warning.
“In fact,” added the Sheriff sternly, “set down—the whole three o’ you. When yo’re on yo’re behinds I’ll know you ain’t figgering fur to make no rush.”
“But what,” asked the man who had given his name as Montmorency van Harringdale, “if—if that dam breaks—and that wall of water—”
“We decided, awhile back, one and all of us,” said the Sheriff, “that ’twasn’t on the immedi’te eve o’ breakin’—else they’d have broadcast the news for ever’body to run like billy-hell. And befo’ she does, we’ll have this thing figgered out. Now squat—the whole three o’ you. Squat!”
All three men dropped, sullenly, to their boulders. And the Sheriff, sliding his revolver just inside his armpit holster, and seeing that his lifebelt and coat were well open, dropped down himself.
And, aided by the increasing imminence of death that had come to this island, as well as by the fact that every man now facing him was desperately anxious conclusively to prove himself not to be Al Hart, the Sheriff prepared, at last, to rip from these three the mantle of mystery that unmistakably shrouded them.
CHAPTER XV
THRUST AND PARRY!
“One o’ you three,” began the Sheriff sternly, judicially, and it must be admitted, troubledly, “was identyfied today as Al Hart. And cinched his own identyfication by signalin’ back to a—”
The man in the yokel costume spoke.
“Though there’s no proof—that Hart—one of us, that is—cinched his—that is Hart’s—humph—identification—by signaling back. For that might been just a blooming lie of that fellow Glover’s so that his official hearer—or hearers—wouldn’t laugh at him—and wave his story away. And so, in all fairness to two innocent men here—”
“A’right,” amended the Sheriff. “O’ course the Glover feller mought ha’ lied—an’ fur the exact reason you say—on’y—he didn’t. Fur they couldn’t a-be’n no doubt in Hart’s mind today that he wuz rec’nized. He knew, hisse’f—and we know—that a man don’t live in a cell ’ith another man fur a full year ’thout knowin’ him better’n he knows his own brother. And ’sides, that Rat had all the time in the world to make shore o’ his identyfication, fur he stood thar in the prow o’ that green boat of his’n—an’ stood—an’ stood—an’ stood. And never did I see a look of rec’nition like went over his face. His mouth fell plumb open—why I, myse’f, back of you-all, could see his jagged teeth. And his eyes—they looked like glass balls. Whichever’n o’ you was Hart, seed that—and shore sent a signal danged fast—and danged shore! He mebbe thought that woman crook they’ve identify this morning over yander on the Bluff—goddang that woman!—I half ’spected allus she wan’t exackly what she pertended to be—I—anyway, Hart mebbe ’spected her o’ doing some double-crossing—and figgered to do some hisse’f—though, ef she ’uz ’sociated ’ith him in the past ’round Kansas City, he must have knowed she was ok—but,” the Sheriff broke off, irritated with himself that he should be indulging in reasoning—at least of sorts—at this crisis of things, “let all that pass. ’Tain’t got no bearing on th’ sityation. And th’ p’int remains that Hart was identyfied amongst you three men this morning, and—”
“But Hart,” put in the man with the brilliant silk neckerchief, and ironically, “is now officially part of the ‘History of Crime’!”
“Ef that fool broadcaster,” snorted the Sheriff, “had cut out all the damfool smart-aleck frills an’—an’ padding designed to register hisse’f on the Great American Public—an’ to also eat up time on the air whilst a bunch o’ sax’phone tooters was guzzling likker som’ers, and had put that man Hart’s dee-scription on the air when and where he should have—we’d have known then and there which two o’ you men ain’t Hart. So—”
“All theez mean,” put in the Mexican angrily, “that I maybe Hart! Well, sheez beegest nut fool goddam’ idea ever I have heard. I 30 years ol’—sure!—but anybody know I no creem’nal. Bot I know w’y, Shereef, you wan’ peeck out Hart—you no wan’ leave Hart here to drownd—you wan’ put lifebelt aroun’ heem an’ take heem down reever, an’ caller’ twenty-thousand doll—”
“Oh, be yourself, you fool Spic,” said the Sheriff, irate at the very ridiculousness of the physical feat which the other had set forth with true Latin paranoical suspicion. “A fine time I’d have piloting a prisoner in flood water like this! I—and whichever two o’ you gits belts—will have all we can do to keep our heads upright—and dodge wreckage—and kick an’ pound our way out o’ whirlpools. I ain’t denying to none o’ you that I’d like—” And the Sheriff was indeed recounting an episode that he would very much like to experience. “—that I’d like fur to come floating up to some p’int of land whar they’s men waiting—’ith ropes an’ all—and my captive tucked onder my elbow!—an’ climb out and tell them men: ‘Holt this man whilst I git to a phone—he’s Al Hart—and the proppity O’ Shelby’s Bluff.’ On’y—that’s imposs’ble. A man in a life belt is on his own—and how! And he ain’t no circus procession trailin’ along pris’ners and elephants and whatnot. Al Hart is due to git drownded fur his crimes—and me, who needs but a little piece o’ that reward fur Hart—and mor’n I ever needed anything in my life—ain’t due to get nary smell of it—under the conditions we heerd t’day ’twas to be paid.”
“That gives me a laugh,” said the man who called himself Blake. “Your—needing money! Now I—but since when does a man in a small town need money?”
The Sheriff turned savagely on the other. And he felt savage. Savage at the manner in which the other had practically insouciantly proclaimed that he was the only man in the universe who needed money. Whether the other were Gilbert Blake, as he claimed to be, or were not, the Sheriff, of course, had no way of knowing. But he decided that chances were 2 out of 3 that the man was; and—if he were—he required a good dressing down on the subject of—
And the Sheriff spoke. Defiantly.
“So you—from the big, big city o’ Indi’nap’lis—’r p’sum’bly so!—think that I—o’ Shelby’s Bluff—don’t need money? Couldn’t need it? Of—of—all the sheer insolent assu’ance. Well, I’ll tell you why I need money—and danged bad—and a danged sight ma’ than my man on this island who ain’t Hart. Fur Hart don’t need nothin’ but a bellyfull o’ water. I’ll tell you-all why I need money—though I’m tellin’ on’y the two men hyar who air innocent men. Fur I ain’t wastin’ expl’nations on that dirty killer Hart—whichever o’ you three—five years ago,” the Sheriff broke off, desirous of getting this over with the fewest words, and half sorry that he had started the explanation, but stubborn enough to go ahead now that he had announced it, “I was made legal guardeen fur half—but half on’y—o’ the $10,000 cash estate of a moughty good-lookin’ widder near Shelby’s Bluff—a gal not even thutty-two today—and who I love like nobody’s business—and don’t you thutty-year-old squirts, none o’ you, think a man 41—humph!—40—cain’t love. I’d—I’d lay down my life fur that gal. I thunk I’d shore die when my friend, Caleb Jenkins, married her, and tuk her to Jenkins Corners. I’m shore I felt wu’se—by far!—than Philaster McCo’niss hisse’f felt, when the woman he wanted to marry, in the long long ago, up and marrit somebody else—fur that’s the ‘secret grief’ I had ref’ence to awhile back—though I wan’t divulgin’ his affairs to—to no river tramps—no! He tolt that, anyway, to that danged woman who’s now proved to be a crook—and she tolt it to me—so they’s a couple of people, anyway, what knows why he stayed a bach’lor all his life. And I bring it up hyar now ’caze—well, the proof of how a man feels onder sich sarcumstances lays in the very way Philaster McCo’niss has went and ’ranged to have that diamond butt’fly pin pinned next his heart—plainly, he bought it fur a engagement present or so’thin’ in the long ago—on’y—the other man got the gal! Oh, I onderstand a’right, a’right, how he felt—though I doubt if any thutty-year-old squirt in the whole U.S.A. could!” The Sheriff paused, balefully. Then continued belligerently: “And ef’n thar’s any man hyar that thinks I didn’t love this gal at Jenkins Corners, I’ll so much as say that the proof thereof lays in the fact that nothin’ hurt me so much as to l’arn she wan’t happy with Caleb—becaze of his drinkin’ all the time. Anyway—” The Sheriff sighed from his laced boot-tops. “Caleb he made his pile—$10,000—and died—and lef’ me fur to be guardeen o’ half of it, not trustin’ his wife’s sense none. And I ’uz giv’ full latytitude to invest that half—that $5000 of her’n what I had—and which I did—and, God he’p me, lost evr’y dumned cent of it in sev’ral slicker prop’sitions I wan’t go into here. Oh, you city fellers don’t need to look smug an’ cocky—you-all took yo’re rides on them gold skycraper bonds you all bought long back ago. But gettin’ back to me and Mehit’ble Jenkins—she, God bless her!—smart gal that she was—she doubled the half she helt.
“Oh,” the Sheriff explained, a note of pride sounding in his voice, “she don’t hold my losin’ half of her money ag’in me nary bit—hell-f’re no!—she loves me, that’s what. But—but the p’int is that never, ’twell I kin lay her lost $5000 back on her knee—wall—hrmph—her lap—kin I ast her to marry me. A louse mebbe could—yes—’r a mouse could—but a man couldn’t. And I count myse’f half a man onyway. And so,” the Sheriff finished challengingly, “ef’n thar’s any man hyar that thinks I like fur to leave Hart to drownd—’stid o’ takin’ him in—that man’s plumb crazy, that’s all—fur capturin’ Hart—ruther, de-liverin’ Hart to them as kin send him back the long, long road that reaches to Folsom—seems t’ be the on’y chanct I’ve ever had—or ever will git—to squar’ myse’f ’ith that gal—and marry her—and now, dang it to hell, even that chanct is lost.”
And the Sheriff, at this juncture, fell into such deep melancholy that he had to be aroused by the Mexican speaking. And even then was some time arousing.
“Mebbe,” the latter was saying, “the man who pos’ reward he geev you leetle of eet—wan thousan’ dollars?—joos’ becoze you make eet that Hart get drown’—and out the way?”
“In a pig’s eye,” said the Sheriff, who, in spite of the fact that he wasn’t the best appraiser in the world of financial propositions, did know mankind—and knew them well. “Fur he’ll know what we a’ready know now!—that Hart was left to drownd—which he’s gonna be, by God’s he’p!—so’s three other men could save their lives—not to deliver jestice to the wu’1d.”
“Bot mebbe, yes,” persisted the Mexican. “An’ so mebbe ef all we halp you fin’ weech ov us eez Al Hart, then don’t we also—hey?—cot into your leetle wan thousan’—mebbe—reward?”
“By the Gods, Mex,” ejaculated the Sheriff, shaking his head, “yo’re never dead when the subjec’ o’ money is mentioned—or in th’ offin’. Settin’ in danger o’ yo’re very life, yo’re figurin’ to cut into a little cons’lati’n reward that don’t exist—and never will—’caze ’twas posted by a man with bitter hate and revenge in his heart—and on’y fur deliverin’ another man alive to whar he b’longs: a stone cell. I—give up!”
“The point seems to be,” commented the man who now called himself Blake, and dressed in a synthetic lineman’s costume, “that you’re confronted with three men, Sheriff, one of whom is Hart—but which one you haven’t a chance in the world of finding out. Simply because there isn’t a test in 7 continents which will prove a man to be another man—or a man not to be a certain man.”
“Quite right,” conceded the Sheriff. “They ain’t nary test—no!—that’ll—”
And he stopped short. For a peculiar experiment occurred to him at this moment. An experiment based on a certain small item he had found on the island this morning—though after all of these men had landed. Had he found the item ’way back around the time—either just before—or just after—he had drawn down the ponderously balanced lid of the McCorniss vault, after insuring himself as to certain conditions therein, he would have then known, with nearly practical certainty, that the small item had been dropped by one of that funeral party of the night before. Even in spite of the fact that the object in question was exceedingly dry—too much so, really, for it to have lain on the island all night. As matters had stood, however, the Sheriff, at the time he had found it—and dropped it quietly and unobservedly in his side coat pocket—had gone on the assumption that it had been dropped by one of the funeral party; and had, for some reason inherent in the materials of which it was made—and those which it contained!—remained dry. Now he knew better—even as he knew he should have known better then! It was something which one of these three men had hastily chucked from his person, lest it convict with some story he was prepared to tell. And, in the face of the broadcast that had just been received, the object took on, if not a more curious aspect than heretofore, at least certain dramatic possibilities. At least with respect to—
Whereupon the Sheriff fumbled in his side coat pocket. And his fingers closed on the thing: that small round orange pasteboard pillbox—no less—on which was pasted a garish green label, printed—as he well recalled:
THE KANSAS CITY DRUGSTORES
Embracing stores in
KANSAS CITY and NEW YORK
and bearing, in handwriting, on the same label, just the words
Aspirin tablets
