Читать книгу On the Trail of Four - Frederick Schiller Faust - Страница 4

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If I could not immediately follow after the murderers, I could at least make sure what had been the motive of this cold-blooded crime, to complete which the assassin had sneaked back and thrown the knife. Perhaps, through a thinning of the fog, as he hurried away he saw the glimmer of the light from the cabin and knew that someone was there—some one who might take advantage of a dying whisper of the other. So the final touch had been given.

I cannot tell you how infuriating it was to me. It was not the first time, of course, that I had seen death. Though I was not half so familiar with it as those fools who wrote articles for newspapers and magazines about “red-handed Hugo Ames, the outlaw.” But I had never witnessed a death that took me so by the throat—that had so much ghostly terror about it. A great deal of pathos, too, for I couldn’t imagine this dead man as a villain in the life of any one.

I went mechanically through the shack. There was not the least doubt, of course, that the crime had been committed not for revenge, but on account of the poor little pittance of gold old Truck Janvers had been able to grind out with his coffee mill in the past month or so.

Yet I went through the cabin, turning things over with an idle hand, because there was nothing else for me to do, in the white blanket of the fog that lay over the world outside. Finally, miserably concealed in a corner of the hut, I stumbled onto a little box, and in the box a canvas bag, and in the bag a small handful of sparkling yellow dust—here was the treasure of poor Janvers.

Here was the only motive for which I could imagine a murder. I sifted the stuff carelessly back and forth in my hands, and some of it spilled onto my clothes. I cared nothing about the stuff itself. But if there was no money motive behind the killing, what was the reason?

It was not a very cheerful situation in which to consider a murder mystery. The drifting forms in the white mist beyond the open door sent shudders of apprehension through me. I restored the gold to its former place with a shudder.

Another possibility leaped into my mind. It was possible that the vein which Janvers was working had opened out into a rich streak and that some one, envying his fortune, had decided to steal from him the source of the gold rather than the gold itself. But this was a thing which I could not investigate further until the daylight came and I could enter his hole in the ground.

Yet it seemed almost highly improbable that old Truck, with his fondness for hard liquor, would be wasting golden moments on the side of the hill when here in the sack was enough to take him to the village to celebrate his discovery!

I turned from the cabin to Truck himself. His blunt face and high, Scandinavian cheekbones were certainly not easily to be associated with mystery of any kind.

So I went through his pockets. I found odds and ends—nothing else. In his wallet there were three much-soiled and crumpled dollar bills. There were a couple of clippings from newspapers—foolish cartoons which had caught the eye of the simple fellow. There was a letter, as well. The envelope had rubbed to tatters and a mass of pulp. The outer fold of the letter itself was a blurred mass of ink which no eyes in the world could have deciphered as writing.

I opened it without interest, but, the moment it was unfolded, I was truly startled to find within a man’s handwriting, but a handwriting of the finest quality—well formed and flowing—a handwriting young, rich in character—the sort of writing which one might associate with a man of talent—talent in some handicraft. The writing of a gentleman, I thought it was, as well.

All of this was the more intriguing, of course, because as far as I had heard of Janvers—and he had been in these mountains for ten years at least—he hardly knew a handful of people who could pass as civilized.

Then again, there was a renewed interest because this was a familiar letter.

... but afterward, I grew tired of such a way of life, Truck....

Those were the first words that I could make out. I turned to the signature and found: “Crinky.”

That was another poser. The sort of nickname one could give to a girl, say—a little girl. What the devil had a man by the name of Crinky to do with this rough-handed old miner and prospector?

I scratched my head over that and then I went back to the reading of the letter itself. But who had ever heard of such a name as Crinky? No one that I know! There was something rather catchy about the name—a token of affection, you might almost say. At least, that was how I read it in that cabin, beside the dead man. You will see that my mind was reaching after very small clues indeed!

I began with the letter where I had left off:

... I grew tired of such a way of life—Truck, I had to settle down in some way. You know the rest.

I know that you don’t approve of what I have decided on. I know why you don’t approve. But I ask you to remember two things. The first is that I’m not the same fellow you used to know. I think that you would be almost proud to recognize me, now. The second is that people down here in San Marin haven’t the same outlook on life that you have. They aren’t so stern. They don’t expect so much of a man—especially of a young man.

If I haven’t been a model—well, I’ll admit all of that. I haven’t been industrious, either. I’ve been as full of faults as a haystack is full of straws. But then, you know that a man can change. Look at your own life!

I suppose that I should not leave that in the letter for fear that it might anger you, but I presume, after all, that you are too fair and square to mind frank talk. At least, you have always been very frank with me.

Perhaps, at the base, you are entirely right. But remember that every man will try to live. There’s that instinct in us. I am merely fighting to live.

You must not smile at that. When I say that I am fighting to live, I mean just that. Other people may be able to scratch out an existence and call it life. But I cannot be satisfied with that. I must live beautifully or else I do not care to live at all.

You can destroy my chance of happiness. You can destroy my chance of becoming a good and a useful man! It needs only a word from you to do it. But for the sake of mercy, let me go on in my own way. At the worst, I shall never draw you into my affairs again. As ever,

Crinky

What a letter and what a signature!

I sat there and brooded over that missive for a long time. I should have been certain that this was a letter which Janvers had picked up and with which he had nothing to do. But he was named in the very first line of it!

An easy letter, a humble letter, a gentle letter, and yet a desperate letter, too. I guessed that there might be steel claws behind this velvet if Crinky were cornered.

And that name, Crinky! A devilish odd and intriguing name. But what had it to do with that dead bull, Truck Janvers?

Finally I put the letter carefully back into his pocket. I did not need it any more. I knew every word of it by heart and I also knew that I should repeat that letter a hundred times, unconsciously, until it was printed in my flesh, so to speak.

However that may be, I knew suddenly and perfectly why Truck Janvers had been killed. He was able to stretch out his hand from the distance and forbid that happiness toward which Crinky was aspiring.

What did that happiness of Crinky consist in? Some guilty thing, no doubt. Perhaps the power of Truck over this stranger was his knowledge of the stranger’s past.

However, I had not failed to note in the letter of Crinky a certain gentle and appealing tone. It was hard for me, even out of written words, to imagine this as a man capable of serious crimes.

But on the spot I made up my mind that I could not rest, until I had followed the name of Crinky around the entire world and located the owner of it at last. I had one clue which might work out in the beginning.

“My boy—San Marin—”

In the town of San Marin, therefore, I intended to hunt for news first of all. But where was San Marin? How could I, an outlawed man, travel safely toward it, and into a country where I knew nothing of the people or the landscape? Madness, you will say, for me to slip out of my hole-in-the-wall country where I was familiar with every crevice, and risk myself abroad.

Well, I thought of all these things, but in the end I knew that I could not resist the temptation. I had to ride on that trail, no matter where it took me.

It was not that I had any particular fondness for Truck. Of course he was almost an utter stranger to me; but the crime against him was what fascinated me. I guessed at a vast power of evil behind the crime. But oh, if I could have had a hint of the real blackness behind the knife which struck him down, I should never have been able to wrap myself in my blankets that night and sleep in the cabin on the floor beside the murdered man.