Читать книгу The Iron Trail - Frederick Schiller Faust - Страница 3
ОглавлениеThe Sheriff Lays a Bet
You could not call Sheriff Cliff Matthews a natural detective, but you might say that he was an antitype of the true “law-hound,” with a sense of humor added. He knew a joke when he saw one, and by dint of not taking himself too seriously he was continued in office as sheriff of Burnside County. However, he occasionally made an arrest, and at the very moment when we see him first such a rare event was about to take place. But he stood for a time at the door of the office, his hand upon the knob, and listened to his victim discoursing cheerfully within. On the clouded white glass of that office door was written “P. D. Burke, Junior,” because the original P. D. Burke still clung to life in his eighty-eighth year and kept his son, by a sense of shame, from retiring also and handing over the law practice to his son—because it would seem rather odd for two generations to be retired while one did the work.
It was not the voice of P. D. Burke, Junior, to which the sheriff listened so attentively, but another, brisker, younger man, who at this moment was pouring forth his heart in the following manner:
“Well, Mr. Burke, when I saw this sample of ore and when I listened to the old prospector’s story, I looked out from the door of the shack and into the valley; and the first thing that I saw in the floor of the valley was the gleam of the dome of the courthouse in Burnside! Like a light on shore, sir, when your ship is laboring through a storm at sea! It occurred to me, at that moment, that the best thing I could do was to strike for Burnside; because, sir, why should a magnificent prospect like this mine be turned over to Eastern capital, to be exploited? Why shouldn’t our own West have the pleasure and the credit?”
“Why, indeed?” said P. D. Burke heartily, and the sheriff could hear the lawyer clap his hands vigorously together.
“So I left the prospector as comfortable as I could make him, with plenty of food at hand and bandages for his wounded leg, and I made straight for Burnside. The moment I came here, I stepped up the main street looking for a name that I might have heard about, because, naturally, I didn’t want to associate some unknown man with us in this proposition. And when I looked up at your window and saw P. D. Burke written there, I knew at once that this was the place where I should try first! Because, of course, I had heard a good deal about you as the leading citizen of—”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that!” protested Mr. Burke coyly.
“Well, Mr. Burke, I suppose the best men are always the most modest ones, also. However, that brings us down to the first step in the business. Fifteen hundred dollars is not a great deal, but I think that if I take a flying trip straight back to the mine, and show the old prospector that much hard cash, he’ll be glad enough to sell out his share. Not that we want to rob him—”
“Oh, of course not!” protested Mr. Burke.
“But an old-fashioned man of that sort would be a frightful drag to any progressive work—”
“Exactly so! Wait till I get my check book! We’ll go down to the bank and cash it at once and—”
The sheriff had heard enough. He tapped on the door and presently it was opened by Mr. Burke, wearing an impatient frown at this interruption.
“Hello, hello, Matthews,” said he. “You catch me at my busy time, but what can I do for you?”
“Not a thing, Burke,” said the sheriff, “unless you’ll give me thirty seconds’ talk with that young—mining promoter in there.”
Mr. Burke looked at him, amazed.
“Where in the world can you have heard—” he began.
“You’d better let me come in,” said Matthews, and he looked so grave that Mr. Burke changed color a little and stepped back.
“I want to introduce you,” said he as the sheriff entered, “to a new young friend of mine, name Charlton L. Legrange of—”
“Hello, Legrange,” said the sheriff, “but as a matter of fact, I was looking for you under one of your other names, or I might have been here sooner!”
Mr. Legrange, a young man with a noble forehead and a slender, intellectual face, looked earnestly at the sheriff and then flicked a glance toward the window.
“You’d better stand fast,” said Matthews, resting the muzzle of his revolver on the edge of the desk. “Excuse me for showing the shooting iron, Burke, but I hear that this young one is slippery and quick.”
“Matthews, Matthews!” cried P. D. Burke, Junior. “What on earth are you talking about? This is a man in whom I have every confidence and—”
“Look here, Burke,” said the man of the law, “just as I got to the door I heard you say that you had about fifteen hundred dollars worth of confidence in him. I can tell you that other folks have given him even more confidence than that, and it’s never come back to them again. Particularly from Eddie Clewes, which is his most usual name!”
Mr. Burke turned a wild eye upon his younger visitor, and still he found the eye of Legrange-Clewes so steady that he could hardly face him. He looked past him over the lower roofs of Burnside and on to the brown hills over which grazed the cattle which gave the town its prosperity, and beyond the hills to the tall blue mountains where his soul had just been delving in glittering tons of gold.
Such dreams fade unwillingly.
“Are you sure, Sheriff?” he asked.
“Nothing is sure till the judge says ‘yes,’ ” remarked the sheriff with the philosophy of one who has made mistakes in his day. “But the best thing is to let Clewes rest in jail for a day or two while some of the evidence that’s coming by train ripens against him!”
He said to Legrange-Clewes, “Will you put your hands up, young fellow!”
“Certainly,” said Clewes, and obediently raised his hands above his head while the sheriff went through his clothes, but no sign of a mortal weapon did he find upon his prisoner save a little penknife, hardly two inches long!
“You’re wrong,” said Mr. Burke. “You’re wrong, Matthews. That isn’t the way a criminal goes equipped!”
But the sheriff only smiled, and something in his smile made the lawyer wince. “As a matter of fact, Matthews, this doesn’t need to get out—I mean—it would do me no good to pass for a buyer of green goods—”
“You would have seen through him before the finish,” said the merciful sheriff. “And besides, he’s done nothing to you. We won’t send him to the pen for this trick, but for some that he’s worked through to the limit!”
After his monosyllabic reply to the sheriff’s order, Mr. Legrange-Clewes did not speak until he was marching out of the office in front of Matthews. Then it was simply to say: “I like your faith in me, Mr. Burke. You’ll see that this rubs out as clear as crystal. In the meantime, we know our business.”
He extended his arm and shook the limp, clammy hand of the lawyer.
“If there’s anything that I can do—” began Mr. Burke very feebly.
“Not a thing,” said the cheerful Mr. Legrange-Clewes. “I’ll be out of this before morning.”
And he went out on the street with the sheriff.
The jail was only around the corner, and they walked to it more like friend and friend than like sheriff and prisoner.
“We have you cold, Clewes,” said Cliff Matthews, when his man was safely locked into a neatly barred cell. “And of course, as I said before, whatever you say will be held for testimony. You know that. But, at the same time, a confession that clears the way for us will get you a very light sentence.”
“The way needs clearing, then?” the other inquired.
“Aw, Clewes,” sighed the sheriff, “I’m not playing smart with you. I’m just telling you the easiest way out. Because, as a matter of fact, I’m sort of sorry for you!”
“Thanks,” said Clewes. “Do I smoke here?”
“Never been in a jail before, I suppose?”
“Never, so I’m glad of the experience.”
“What business will it help you in?”
“The job of getting out the second time they get me.”
“Get you for what?”
“The confidence game, Sheriff; the confidence game, of course!”
“Look here, son, that might be enough to convict you—just that!”
“Is it?” grinned the other. “However, I don’t know that I’ll wait to see the judge, much as I’d like to. I hear that he’s a fatherly old chap.”
“You won’t wait to see him?” said the sheriff.
“I don’t think so,” remarked Clewes, looking steadily about him. “I must start on, sometime tonight. I almost promised Burke that I’d go, you know.”
The sheriff frowned a little, and then decided to smile.
“That’ll do as a sort of one-legged joke,” he said. He tapped the bars. “Tool-proof steel, partner.”
“Good,” said Mr. Clewes. “I would hate to melt my way through butter. And nobody to watch me at work, either? That’ll be lonely!”
He looked gayly up and down the empty ranks of cells.
“You never let your business rush you, Matthews, I see.”
“I’ll tell you what,” said the sheriff. “I have a thousand in the bank that isn’t doing anything. I’d like to know if you have as much.”
“Here is a pet of mine,” replied Mr. Clewes, “that’s worth more than a thousand.”
He showed a ring with a broad-faced ruby set into it.
“All right,” said the sheriff. “My thousand against the ruby, that you don’t get out.”
“Taken,” said Mr. Clewes. “You’ll have no trouble collecting, if I lose!”
The sheriff nodded. But he was still, in spite of the bet, inclined to take his prisoner in a jovial mood.
“Look here, Clewes,” said he, “how did you ever happen to take up this business?”
“And why not this business?” asked Mr. Clewes. “Do you know of a better, or a cleaner, or a harder business than that of a confidence man?”
