Читать книгу Never Fire First - James French Dorrance - Страница 7

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La Marr was away at dawn with a venire facias for each of the three gold explorers, the only competent jurors within reach. As it was a matter of forty miles' rough sledding to the prospectors' camp and return, the inquests could scarcely be held before the late afternoon. That the girl whose emotions they were conspiring to protect might be too busy for vagrant suspicions, Sergeant Seymour suggested to the Morrows that they open up Mission House while he was at liberty to help them.

"Don't want to seem inhospitable, Mrs. Morrow," he said in his slowest, most deferential manner, "and you know you'll be welcome here as long as you care to stay, but I'm sure you want to get into your own place as soon as possible. Never know when some Arctic hades is going to cut loose and take me out on the trail. I'm off duty this morning—more than ready to help with the heavy work."

This brought an offer from Moira O'Malley that struck the hearts of those who knew.

"Our sergeant of the Dismounted is positively brilliant this morning," she said, confounding him utterly with twin flashes of Irish blue. "Why, all the time I attended school in Ottawa, I saw no one more considerate. You see, when Oliver gets back from this inconsiderate mush of his, I'll become quite useless as your handmaiden, Emma, with all the things a brother will be needing done for him."

Mrs. Morrow had not been advised of the true situation, but she had her own ideas as to the proper habitat in an outland's camp for a girl like Moira.

"Oh, you'll keep right on living at Mission House as long as you're here, my dear," she said. "The shack of a bachelor trader is no place for so dashing a belle."

"But I know Olie's quarters, whatever they are, will need my sisterly attentions," she protested, spreading unconscious agony to the two men. "His room at home always was a sight. A place for everything but nothing in its place seemed to be that Mick's motto."

As the two men went on ahead to the small dwelling that had been closed since the previous spring thaw, Seymour found himself asking again why she had come. Were sisters as devoted as that? As motherly? Never having had a sister, he was unable to answer.

The pair stripped weather boarding from doors and windows, aired the house thoroughly and carried in a supply of wood from the shed. They then closed it tight and built roaring fires in every available stove to remove the winter chill. The native hostler from the post already had shoveled paths through the snow.

So far as the two males could see, but little inside cleaning would be necessary. But the women, on coming to the house presently, revised that verdict and fell to with broom and mop.

The smoke from Mission House stove-pipes probably had been reported to Karmack, for he arrived presently, his interpreter drawing a toboggan loaded with provisions which were presented to the missionaries with compliments from the trading company. The gift was gracious, the supplies being of a sort not found in the somewhat meager store of staples provided by the societies. They were gratefully received.

Came then a second shock from Moira, again an innocent one, in the form of coupled questions.

"But Mr. Karmack, have you locked the store?" she asked first.

"Not much trade these wintry days and if customers come, they'll stick around like summer bull-flies." He accomplished the only laugh of the morning.

"But who is there to tell Oliver, when he comes back, that I've arrived and am waiting?"

Harry Karmack's freshly shaved, usually ruddy face went as white as the girl's natural pallor at this unexpected turn to his attempted whimsicality. He staggered back as if she had struck him a blow. Seymour, standing near, steadied him into a chair.

"That bad heart of yours again, old top?" the sergeant asked quietly.

No one ever had heard of anything being the matter with Karmack's heart, but the timely question served to cover his emotion. Mrs. Morrow noticed it, but did not wonder thereat, Evidently Moira had hit these sons of isolation hard, and there were in prospect interesting sessions, she thought, for Mission House living room that winter.

Seymour decided he had endured enough agony for one morning and so, on the plea of police routine, started for the post. But the thumbscrew of misadventure was to receive one more turn. From the door of Mission House the melodious voice of Moira carried to him.

"Oh, Sergeant Scarlet, please do keep an eye open for my merry brother along Rideau Street, or whatever you call the thoroughfare which passes your headquarters."

"And I'll have him paged at the Chateau Laurier and ask for him out at Brittania Park," he managed to answer in terms of the city of her schooling. But he had no heart for the jest, mindful of the change that soon must come to her happy mood.

He entered the police shack by the back door and looked in for a moment on Olespe. His prisoner from Lady Franklin oblivious of his fate, seemed to revel in the luxury of the guard room's warmth. The sergeant went through and out the front way.

"Rideau Street indeed," ran his thoughts. "What a name for that streak through the snow in Armistice!"

At that, Moira showed that she knew her Ottawa, for Rideau is the street on which face the red brick headquarters of the Royal Mounted. Would that she had never left the capital! Would that he could waft her home again, sacrifice though that would be in this ice-bound isolation!

Straight to Avic's hut he went and broke the seal upon the door, as was his right. Again his eyes were upon all that remained of her "merry brother." He wondered about death and the hereafter and various things that never should enter a Mountie's mind—not when he's stationed north of Sixty-six.

Then, suddenly, his eyes seemed to open as though a mote had been cast from each. Perhaps this was effected by the magic of Moira's charm and beauty. Certainly he saw details that had not impressed him the previous afternoon.

As might a wolverine in defense of her young, he pounced upon the silver fox pelt that lay on the sleeping bench beside the murdered youth—lay in such a way as to indicate its purchase had already been negotiated. He studied the set of the fur and sniffed at the tanning on the inner side. His eyes widened as he held the beautiful exhibit before him and realized the possibilities that were opened up by this definite clue.

"Magic skin," he murmured half aloud after the fashion of men who find themselves often alone in the wilderness. "You widen the mystery; may you help to close it!"

Gently, without shrinking from the cold touch, he removed the last clutch of O'Malley's fingers from the black fox—probably the pelt of ostensible contention. Close examination of this showed the same conditions to exist.

Neither of the foxes had been trapped in the present winter; both had been cured at least a year.

"Magic skin," he repeated, and breathed a wish too fervent for utterance even in the hut where he stood alone.

In the act of wishing, memory put its finger on him. There came to mind that famous tale of Balzac's, "The Magic Skin." The story dealt with the hide of an ass which, with every wish invoked from it, shrank until the greedy owner was threatened with the disappearance of his magic possession.

Perhaps Seymour had best cease wishing. But he recalled he had a pair of magic skins in hand; grew defiant of the venerable myth, and wished again, more fervently even than before that it would fall to his lot to solve the deepened mystery of the Oliver O'Malley murder.

Opening the pea jacket of his winter uniform, he tucked both furs beneath his tunic. Closing and resealing the hut, he strode back to the police cabin. Had he intended to appropriate the silver and black treasures for his own gain, he scarcely could have hidden them more carefully.