“If we had been,” said the lineman, with a caustic laugh, “we’d have been ‘gatted up’—and there’d probably have been a dead sheriff before the fray was over.”

  “All right—all right,” said the Sheriff, catching the real argument back of the allusion. “I know that none of you hadn’t no guns—but they’s plenty criminals, you know, that don’t carry guns at all—or ever.”

  “Well, theez creem’nal,” put in the Mexican bitterly—and sarcastically, “hees tong’ she ees hanging out for want of smoke. How-about, Shereef, you look wance more and see eef you no maybe got joos li’l scrapings from tobacco, an’ we all divi—”

  “I told you once,” said the Sheriff curtly, “and the rest of you too—that when them 8 cigarettes that come off the whole three o’ you was gone, you was out of luck so far as any more went. I chaw—but I don’t smoke; and I ain’t even my plug with me. So any tongue that takes a notion to hang out—will jest have to hang out! Sence even the snipes o’ them 8 cigarettes got smoked up. And if any or all o’ you are criminals, let this be a lesson to you to go out on yo’r next piece o’ skullduggery with enough smokes to carry you through.”

  “Well, why not,” persisted the lineman, “give us the benefit of the doubt? All of us have not only sworn to high heaven that we didn’t come here for any monkey-business—but that we didn’t even know a man was buried here—nor who he was. So—give us the lowdown! You say you’ve lived on the river for years. That being so, then you must have known this man well—and the history of this island to boot—for it must have a history, if it’s privately owned—as you claim. How about it, Sheriff? While we’re waiting for the water to fall—as fall it must!—give us the lowdown. Come on—be a sport.”

  The Sheriff was reflectively silent. He was, as he had said, no mathematician; but he did know that it was not logical that three men should all have started this morning from points upstream—the very moment the night fog had lifted—only to turn in for safety at Bleeker’s Island. Particularly a blithefully toolless lineman wearing an expensive silk neckerchief—a stage-like rube the extreme style of whom even the Sheriff had never met up with—and a soft-handed Mexican with heavy silver dollars sewed all around his hat. And—most particularly of all!—in the face of a single fact which the Sheriff and but a few—a very few!—persons in Shelby’s Bluff knew concerning that body which had been put away late yesterday afternoon in yonder vault.

  And, to himself, the Sheriff was frankly reflecting that it might indeed pay to give these three individuals all the facts about old man McCorniss—all, that is, but the single special fact known to himself, and to those certain others!—and to watch these men’s faces while he did so. For—so the Sheriff argued to himself—one or more of the three would be bound to show that he knew the general facts already, while maybe one or another would put in a lead question which would either show that he knew the secret fact or would indubitably show him up as a faker.

  “Yes,” the Sheriff added to himself, “I’ll do it! And watch like a hawk as I do do it! And, aloud, he spoke.

  “All right. Don’t matter none ef I do do what you ask. Even ef I recount facts that, i’God, one or more o’ you know right this minute. No, it don’t matter none. Sence we’re all here—waiting for the river to fall—and got to stay thisaway till something—anything—happens to change the deal. Though sich ‘somethings’ and sich ‘anythings,’ ” he added darkly, “are bridges that kin be crossed as they’re reached! Sence—anyway, here’s the facts yo’r presum’bly all cur’ous about!” He sniffed a bit ironically. “The facts about Millionaire McCo’niss. Who got interred here last evening—and jest in the nick o’ time, fur all anybody knows, fur my town o’ Shelby’s Bluff to inherit one hund’ed thousand dollars!”

  CHAPTER V

  THE MAN WHO OWNED AN ISLAND

  “The full name o’ the man whose body now lays in yander vault,” began the Sheriff, carefully watching the three pairs of eyes that were all interestedly watching him, “was Philaster McCo’niss. As you’d all know ef you read last night’s newspapers—anywhere’s in the whole U.S.A.; and as mebbe you all do know—sence I still say you didn’t all jest waft onto this island through crossing the riv—however, we’ll skip that, sence I’m tent’ively taking you-all at yo’re own words.”

  He cleared his throat and began again, determined to keep any more challenging innuendoes from drifting into his words, lest none of these three men be led to trap himself.

  “Philaster McCo’niss,” the Sheriff continued, “lived fur at least the last 20 years of his life—in my town yander—Shelby’s Bluff. He retired to it, when he got 50-and old—because ’twas the town where he was born in. He was purty tired, I guess.

  “Of course you musta all heard o’ the McCo’niss Gas’-line Plow. He invented it. Fur he’d inher’ted, from his own father, the so-called McCo’niss Helical Plow—and ef Mister ‘van Harringdale’ there was a gen-u-ine farmer instid of the stage one he is, he’d be nodding right-smart emphatic w’en I mention that thar plow; but being quite so’thin’ else ag’in—” The Sheriff’s sarcasm at the words ‘so’thin’ else’ was poorly concealed, “wropped up in a farmer’s get-up, plows and small towns and farms an’ so forth is Greek to him. Anyway, be all that as it may, the McCo’niss Helical was a so’t of peculiar plow that was said to fling the sod from a furror fu’ther than any other plow. Maybe ’twas all a talking p’int—I don’t know. But Philaster’s old man piled up a fairish fortune—a half million or so—out of that partic’ler plow—and Philaster inher’ted the half million, at around 30—and the plow!

  “We don’t know much about his life before he come to Shelby’s Bluff. He had b’en t’uk from the town when on’y a infant, by his old man, Dan McCo’niss, a roving buggy mechanic—who’d stopped off long enough to marry one of the town gals. And had then gone East, with the glimmerings of his plow idea. Fur’s Shelby’s Bluff was concerned, it had erased the name McCo’niss from itse’f dee-cades before. Though was proud to git a native-borned son back—when fin’lly he ’cided to come home. A strange silent man, Philaster McCo’niss was—a man whut never, so fur as anybody ever heered, or even knew, had his pikter t’uk—or would even ’low it to be t’uk!—sup’stitious mebbe, as ’twould fotch his death on his haid—a man, too, whut didn’t drink, pet didn’t hold nary briefs ag’in the town tavern—a man whut didn’t smoke, but yit didn’t go contributin’ to the Anty-Tobaccy League—a man who—”

  “Married?” asked the lineman.

  The Sheriff shook his head. “No, a bachylor.” He paused.

  “A strange, silent and, partic’ly sad man, that’s all—appurently glad to take anchor somewhere in the evenin’ of his life, whar ’twas peaceful. For he’d b’en purt’ near ever’where in the world, it seems, in his prime. So now he anchored. An’ outside of a single vacation trip he t’uk to New York about five years ago, I don’t think he’s b’en mo’n a hund’ed miles away from the Bluff in them whole five years. Jest a sad old man whut had found whar peace really lays—in a quiet kentry town.

  “He brung his own servants with him,” the Sheriff continued, “when he come to Shelby’s Bluff. One being Alex Risdon, as old—to a year—as Philaster was; and one, Hannah Grudy, older, i’God, than he was hisse’f. For Hannah must—yes—must be seventy-five today! They’d both b’en his servants sence he was a young man. And was even servants to his own father—atter the old man got into the money. I don’t know, by God, how they ever managed to hobble around and keep up the big house on Flowerdale Street. But hobble they did! And keep it up they did. And little they needed to do for Philaster, but dust off the dust in his rich liberry—and cook him a little dy-speptic’s food—and see as his cyclone-slots didn’t none of em git filled ’ith old disca’ded fu’niture, ’r junk, ’r ashes—and—”

  “Cyclone—slots?” echoed the lineman. “And what on earth—are cyclone-slots? Now cyclone-cellars, I know, but—” And he broke off with a look on his face so bewildered that it literally beseeched explanation.

  The Sheriff sighed.

  “I ’spose,” he said wearily, “I’m going to flatter explain all the side-issues of ever’thing—as I go along! Well, the so-called cyclone-cellar what you speak of is one of the fooledest inventions man has ever invented. The idea bein’ fur to make a place onderneath the disturbance to lay up in—’twell it’s over. With the result, many times, that the house falls in on the owner—and kills him daid! Now we-uns in this part of the kentry—the kentry, that is, jest ’round Shelby’s Bluff o’ny—and o’ny sich of us, furthermo’, as cares to be p’epared to outwit Old Man Cyclonus, as we call him—fur ever’body don’t go to so much bother, you see—well, we don’t dig cyclone-cellars. No! We dig vert’cal slots in our back yards—one fur each member o’ the fambly—and one, to boot, fur sich nigger as that fambly may employ—even ef at times o’ny; slots ’bout 5 foot deep, an’ a few feet acrost, each with a wooden trap door over it ’ith four long iron hooks that kin be hooked tight to the eyes of 4 long iron eyebolts anchored deep in the dirt walls of the slot. And when a cyclone does start to play ’round the gen’al reentry side—which ain’t mo’n once in 5 y’ars—we dive down into them slots—fus’ come—fus’ served,—in case that cyclone takes a part’cler notion to root its unfriendly nose along Shelby County, or right acrost Shelby’s Bluff—the former o’ which contingencies ain’t happened mo’n once in a dozen y’ars—nor the latter mo’n once in 25.” The Sheriff sighed again. “Which fotches me right plumb back to what I ’uz sayin’ when I ’uz interrupted: namely, that most cyclone-slots gits filled up, atter a few years, with junk that the house-owner don’t know whar to store or to put, with the result that when Old Man Cyclonus does amble along, mo’ often than not, there ain’t nowhar for the house-owner to drap down into—with the result that he has to laig it fur his neighbor’s fruit cellar or whatnot. Mebbe gittin’ thar—and mebbe instid, gettin’ blowed into the next state! And so, as I was saying, all good servants in our part of the kentry—white or black—allus sees to it that the slots is kep’ cl’ar of rubbish and junk—jest in case Ol’ Man Cyclonus does ’cide to rumble down. And which—as also I was saying—was one of the few light duties devolvin’ on old Alex Risdon and Hannah Grudy in the McCo’niss house on Flowerdale Street. And, as I was ’bout then to say—”

  “Whot McCornees he woz wurth when he die?” asked the Mexican abruptly. Which was at least a more practical question—considering the subject being expatiated upon—than the one previous, dealing as it did merely with certain quaint architectural customs of certain sagacious natives of a countryside now far across the waters from this island, and so invisible, moreover, at this moment, that it was all practically non est!

  “McCo’niss was wu’th one million dollars,” said the Sheriff promptly, in answer to the Mexican’s question. “And earn’t by his own brains too. Fur he’d turned that old McCo’niss Helical Plow into a hell-popping Gas’line Helical Plow that could run rings around all gas plows—in plowing land laying in hollows ’r on slants—”

  “Heela-beely lan’!” pronounced the Mexican triumphantly.

  “Heela-beely?” the Sheriff repeated wonderingly. “Oh—hill-billy land? Yes, that—and all kinds o’ slanting land. Anyway, he sold the gas plow, in turn, to the Harvester Trust, back when the Trust bought in all the w’uthwhile farming tools. Time, in fact, when he retired. It seems, from a statement in his will, that he got $750,000 fur the plow. And had a quarter million of his old man’s money when he come to Shelby’s Bluff. And—”

  “But what,” asked the man in the rustic costume courteously, “became of all the earnings—on the million—during those 20 years? Surely—”

  “Shor’ly he couldn’t spend ’em in Shelby’s Bluff, heh?” the Sheriff filled in. “No, he had his million in a so’rt of trust at the State Capital—a trust that give him all he asked, each year, fur his needs—and then turned the balance over to a try-o of New York hospitals. You see, young man, we older men l’arn what you cain’t see; that money in itse’f ain’t worth nothing at all. That—”

  “But his will,” the lineman put in, “disposes of a cold, cool, crisp million, eh?”

  “Exactly,” assented the Sheriff. “Approx’mately that—plus one old mansion on Flowerdale Street—a lot of ol’time furnishings—some old fambly jewelry—and so fo’th. As fur the estate, atter all debts has b’en paid—like, fur instance, taxes or taxes accrued, on this here island of his’n, or his Flowerdale Street home—and suttin bequests, in turn, has b’en paid off—and ever’thing in the estate that ain’t cash has b’en converted into cash—it’s to go to the so-called McCo’niss Trust, to fu’ther the study of agryculture. “Twill be, I reckon, about three quarter million, that remainder.”

  “What bequests were there?” The lineman was persistent.

  “Well, I happen to know they was $50,000 to each of them old servants—they knew it theirse’fs for months—the will layin’ open around the house!—$50,000 which each was to git, ’thout no restrictions, soon’s they tuk oath to the probate court they had did some suttin pussnel thing what them two on’y knew about, and which was all futhermo’ set fo’th in some sealed letter in a safety bag of Philaster’s back at the State Capital, and—”

  “What was the thing?” the lineman asked frowning curiously.

  “I don’t know,” said the Sheriff curtly and coldly. “Ask ’em.” And started to continue. But the lineman proved a persistent questioner.

  “Well,” he queried, “is—is just their own word that they did this, or did that, or did thus, and did so, to be sufficient with a court that—”

  “Ef you knew old Alex Risdon and old Hannah Grudy,” said the Sheriff, irritated, “you wouldn’t be asking sich a fool question. Both is members of the Church, and the God-fearingest souls, bar none, in Shelby’s Bluff. Philaster knew that, and knew that their promise to do anything, and their swo’n wu’d they’d did it, was better than all the legal pervisions in the world.”

  The lineman chuckled dryly. “Though I note,” he said, “that far as their ‘promise-to-do’ went, your estimable ex-townsman made their respective $50,000’s contingent on their ‘having done.’ But go on, Sheriff. Where passes the rest of the filthy lucre?”

  The Sheriff endeavored to frown down the other’s levity. Though felt a bit unsuccessful in the doing.

  “$25,000,” he drove on, “is to go to the Amer’can Arthuritic Sassiety to make a study of a suttin cur’ous hot spring our town has had fur mo’n a half-century—fact is, th’ spring ’uz thar befo’ the town was!—anyway, it’s a spring that seems to be able to h’ep arthuritics, ef’n they live right with it, and drink its water daily, and pore th’ water into their bathtubs, fur sich arthuritics as is res’dents of the town has been he’ped materi’lly, and now thar’s even one rich, elderly woman, who’s b’en to every waterin’ place in Europe—at least so she says!—that lives right outside the town so’s to be near that spring. And so that $25,000 bequest is jest’fied. And—continuin’ ’ith the bequests—$10,000 is to go to a suttin elderly friend o’ McCo’niss’, livin’ in another town, down-river a piece. And then thar’s but the one final bequest: $100,000. Which, as I implied back thar, goes to the town itse’f—but on’y pervidin’—”

  The three hearers leaned forward slightly as one man. Whether or not any or all knew these facts, one thing was certain: that each knew he was receiving them from a man who had been closer to them than any newspaper reporter.

  “Pervidin’s” the Sheriff went on, surveying troubledly the intent gaze leveled from three directions on himself, “that McCo’niss be burrit—in not mo’ than 60 hours atter the moment of his legal death—and on this here island. In his own vault—to be exact—on this here island. Which island he loved. And which he owned, every stone on it.

  “For, my fine river-crossing friends, yo’re settin’ on his propitty right now. The one part of his estate I hain’t mentioned as going nowhar—fo’ the reason that it goes into a so-called trust in per—per—per—”

  “Perpetuity,” put in the lineman kindly.

  The Sheriff frowned. “Yes. Trust in perpetuity—to be a pussenel graveyard fo’ all time to come. Which can legally be did—this not being a gov’ment-owned island like scores of the islands up and down river—but a private island. It can go into trusts—change hands—do an’thing a piece o’ land on the river bank can do—and all because the fu’st man to put it of record did so befo’ Uncle Sam did so—and had become its legal owner, when he did so, under suttin hard-and-fast squatter’s rights. Fact is, all the transfers o’ this island are of reco’d today in our own co’tehouse. And they begin right at the beginning, too, whar Sam Bleeker—long befo’ the Civil War—tu’k squatter’s rights on it durin’ a long long spell when they weren’t nary flood on the river—and thar didn’t seem’s though they ever would be flood ag’in. An’ how Gil Bleeker, his son, inhairted it. And how Gil sold it to Cu’nnel Benjamin Yancey—the fu’st o’ th’ famous Yancey Fambly that was oncst o’ these hyar parts. And how it stayed right in that there Yancey Fambly all the way down to Gail Yancey, the no-good last of the tribe, who was alive yet—at least up to a few y’ars back—in N’Orleans. And them records show how, y y’ars ago, McCo’niss bought th’ island from Gail, down thar in N’Orleans, for thus and so much—ruther, thus and so much, minus th’ pot o’ taxes as was then piled on it. And how he cla’red off them accrued taxes, and thus pu’ffected his own title. Under which title th’ island rests today. The whole record is thar, even to the false entry whar one old County Clerk acc’dentally reco’ded it as ‘Destiny’s Stage’ ’stid o’ Bleeker’s Island’—and th’ transfer on which false entry had to be later ironed out—confi’med—by a special act o’ the State Legislayture. An’—”

 

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