Читать книгу Never Fire First - James French Dorrance - Страница 5

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As is the silken kerchief to the Latin garroter, so is the Ugiuk-line to the Eskimo bent upon strangulation. Strong reason had Sergeant Seymour of the Mounted to realize the possibilities in the clutch of the stout cord made from the skin of a bearded seal.

Although he had made no mention of the fact in Karmack's quarters, when the trader pronounced warning that the out-of-hand Eskimos soon would be clutching for the throats of the wearers of the scarlet, already had they clutched at his. The vivid memory of his narrow escape had brought his involuntary shudder at sight of the sinister drape about O'Malley's throat.

On the farthest-North night of his last patrol, he had elected to sleep in a deserted igloo on the skirts of a village rather than suffer the stifle of an occupied one. After midnight he had awakened from a strangling sensation to find himself in the hands of two stalwart assailants. The knot of a similar seal-hide line was gripping his throat. He had thrown off the pair only by an effort so supreme as to leave him too weak to follow them through the snow tunnel into the storm. Probably he never would know their identity or be able more than to guess at their motive as one of fancied revenge.

Seymour did not speak of this now as they stood in the hut of tragedy. No more did he mention the news that slowly was filtering through the North that Corporal Doak, Three River detachment of the Royal Mounted, and Factor Bender of the Hudson's Bay company post had been slain in a brutal and treacherous manner. To spread alarm was no part of his policy. But over at the post was the Ugiuk-line that had been used on him and in his mind was a vivid idea of its practice in Eskimo hands.

From these—the fearsome souvenir and the shuddering memory—he suspected that the O'Malley case was not as open-and-shut as it seemed. For him, mystery stalked the crime, one that would not be solved by the apprehension of Avic, the Eskimo.

Silently, he completed his immediate investigation of the crime. Two points stood out to confirm the suspicion born of his intimate knowledge of the Eskimo garroting methods. Upon the corpus delicti there was absolutely no mark except the sinister purple rim about the throat and a blood spot beneath the skin where the knot in the seal line had taken strangle hold. In the hut there was no sign of a struggle such as he had put forth to save himself in the igloo, not a dent in the earthen floor or a skin rug out of place. Yet, as he well knew, O'Malley was a powerful youth and of fighting stock!

"Let's have the facts—such as you know." The sergeant turned suddenly to Karmack.

"Dear eyes, I should say you shall have them—every one," returned the trader eagerly.

Despite certain mannerisms and his unusual—for the outlands—fastidiousness of dress, Karmack was straightforward and exceedingly matter of fact.

Word from native sources, it seemed, had reached the trading company's store several days before that Avic was in from his trap line with fox pelts "worth a fortune," according to Eskimo standards. He had borrowed this hut in which they now stood in the outskirts of the town from a relative and had sent the native for the makings of a "party," or potlatch. The hunter himself had not appeared in camp or sent any direct word to Karmack that he had fox skins for sale. He had no debit on the books of the Arctic company, so the reasonable supposition of his aloofness was that he meant to drive a hard bargain.

Skilled in barter with the natives, Karmack said he had countered by betraying no interest in the arrival of the aloof hunter. He had felt confident that, given time, Avic would run short of funds for entertaining and market his catch at a reasonable figure. But, at length, had come disturbing rumors over his native "grape-vine." Avic had heard, the rumor went, that the Moravian Mission has established a new trade store at Wolf Lake, near the big river—the mighty Mackenzie. He was excited by tales of high prices paid there and was planning to migrate to that market with his prizes.

"It was then," continued Karmack, "that I told O'Malley to mush over to see this bird and talk him into a good humor. The young chap had developed a knack at sign-language barter, although he knew little Eskimo; I was busy on a bale of furs at the store. He was just to persuade Avic to come into the post where we'd come to some satisfactory agreement as to price for whatever the 'Skim's traps had yielded.

"By gar, sir, two hours passed and Oliver did not come back, nor was there any sign of the hunter. The mission shouldn't have taken him half an hour, for all in the name of reason that the native could have wanted was for us to come to him with an invitation. I began to get anxious and started out to see what was what. Meeting La Marr out front, I asked him to come along with me, still with no apprehension. We found what you yourself have seen—exactly that and nothing more."

He paused for a moment with his emotion, then: "Holy smoke, man, if I had known what would eventuate, I'd never have sent him but gone myself. They're afraid of me, these confounded huskies, and I'd grown to love that boy as a brother!"

"What do you know about O'Malley, Karmack—how he came into the territories—what he'd done in the provinces—all that sort of thing?" Seymour asked the disjointed question seemingly satisfied with the other's preliminary statement.

The trader was silent a moment, thinking.

"Not a great deal, come to think of it," he said, before his hesitation had become pronounced. "A tight-mouthed lad, Oliver, when it came to his own affairs. He hails from Ottawa and was sent out by the president of the Arctic Trading Company. Brought a letter from the big chief telling me to make a trader out of him, if possible. Evidently his people have money or influence. Perhaps there's some politics in it. I don't really know, old bean."

"Hadn't been in any jam down below, had he?"

"Oh, rather not—not that sort at all. May have seen a bit of Montreal or Quebec and perhaps had crossed the home bridge to Hull, where it's a trifle damp, you know, but nothing serious, I'm certain. The big chief never would have sent me a blighter."

The sergeant asked for the victim's next of kin and who should be notified.

"Oliver never spoke of his family," answered the factor. "Had a picture or two on the packing box he used for a bureau, but we never discussed them. Said to notify the head office if anything went wrong with him. Dear eyes, the lad was peculiar in some ways. You'd think——"

The sergeant's interest seemed not to lie in the trader's thoughts. He had two inquests on his hands, to say nothing of the capture of Avic of the foxes. For the moment forgotten was the fact that he had promised Constable La Marr this detail. Moreover, there remained that suspicion, born from his own narrow escape from the Ugiuk-line, that there was more behind the murder than appeared on the surface. He led the way from the hut; waited until La Marr had affixed another police seal on the door, then moved ahead into the main trail, a sled-wide path which camp traffic kept beaten down between the banks of snow.

A shout from down-trail startled them. From out of the increasing dusk, bells jangling, bushed tails waving like banners, dashed a dog team dragging a light sled. Wondering, they flattened against the snow to give gangway. The arrival of a strange team at that time of year was an event.

The sled was braked to a halt a few yards down the trail. A tall driver, slim despite an envelopment of furs, sprang from the basket and waited for them to come up.

"I thought I recognized a uniform in passing—and I need direction."

The voice sounded clear as a bell on the evening frost and unmistakably feminine. Moreover, it carried none of the accent peculiar to the half-breed mission-trained women who spoke English. They looked closer into a face of pure white and eyes that might have been brushed into the pallor with a sooty finger.

A white woman in Armistice—a young and comely girl of their own race! Think how incredible it must seem to three who had settled down to an October-April winter of isolation.

"I'm Sergeant Seymour, of the Mounted, in charge of this detachment," offered the policeman, for once speeding his speech. "Who're you looking for, ma'am?"

"I must find Oliver O'Malley's fur trading store.

"And who might be seeking our young trader?" The sergeant kept from his voice any hint of the dread that had clutched him.

"I'm Moira O'Malley of British Columbia—his sister."

This astounding complication left the three men speechless, glad for the dusk that helped mask the consternation that must be written on their faces.