Part 26 (1/2)

”My notion is that he didn't have the slightest chance in the wide world,” was Wingfield's comment. ”Let us prove or disprove it if we can,” and he opened a blade of his penknife and dug the point of it into the bullet of the cartridge first extracted from the dead man's gun.

”There is my notion--and a striking example of Mexican fair play,” he added, when the bullet, a harmless pellet of white clay, carefully moulded and neatly coated with lead foil, fell apart under the knife-blade.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ”There is my notion--and a striking example of Mexican fair play.”]

The playwright's audience was interested now, beyond all question of doubt. If Wingfield had suddenly hypnotised the three who saw this unexpected confirmation of his theory of treachery in the Sanderson tragedy, the awed silence that fell upon the little group around the table could not have been more profound. It was Bromley who broke the spell, prefacing his exclamation with a mirthless laugh.

”Your gifts of deduction are almost uncanny, Wingfield,” he a.s.serted.

”How could you reason your way around to that?”--pointing at the clay bullet.

”I didn't,” was the calm reply. ”Imagination can double discount pure logic in the investigative field, nine times out of ten. And in this instance it wasn't my imagination: it was another man's. I once read a story in which the author made his villain kill a man with this same little trick of sham bullets. I merely remembered the story. Now let us see how many more there are to go with this.”

There were four of the cartridges capped with the dummy bullets; the remaining seven being genuine. Wingfield did the sum arithmetical aloud.

”Four and five are nine, and nine and seven are sixteen. Sanderson started out that day with a full magazine, we'll a.s.sume. He fired five of these dummies--with perfect immunity for Manuel--and here are the other four. If the woman had had a little more time, when she was pretending to hide the gun, she would have pumped out all of the good cartridges. Being somewhat hurried, she exchanged only nine, which, in an even game and shot for shot, gave Manuel ten chances to Sanderson's one. It was a cinch.”

Ballard sat back in his chair handling the empty rifle. Bromley's pallid face turned gray. The tragedy had touched him very sharply at the time; and this new and unexpected evidence of gross treachery revived all the horror of the day when Sanderson had been carried in and laid upon the office couch to die.

”Poor Billy!” he said. ”It was a cold-blooded murder, and he knew it.

That was what he was trying to tell me--and couldn't.”

”That was my hypothesis from the first,” Wingfield a.s.serted promptly.

”But the motive seemed to be lacking; it still seems to be lacking. Have either of you two imagination enough to help me out?”

”The motive?” queried Bromley. ”Why, that remains the same, doesn't it?--more's the pity.”

The playwright had lighted the long-stemmed pipe, and was thoughtfully blowing smoke rings toward the new patch in the bungalow ceiling.

”Not if my theory is to stand, Mr. Bromley. You see, I am proceeding confidently upon the supposition that Sanderson wasn't messing in Manuel's domestic affairs. I can't believe for a moment that it was a quarrel over the woman, with Manuel's jealousy to account for the killing. It's too absurdly preposterous. Settling that fact to my own complete satisfaction, I began to search for the real motive, and it is for you to say whether I am right or wrong. Tell me: was Sanderson more than casually interested in the details of Braithwaite's drowning? That story must have been pretty fresh and raw in everybody's recollection at that time.”

Bromley's rejoinder was promptly affirmative. ”It was; and Sanderson _was_ interested. As Braithwaite's successor, and with the fight between the company and the colonel transferred to him, he couldn't s.h.i.+rk his responsibility. Now that you recall it, I remember very well that he had notions of his own about Braithwaite's taking off. He was a quiet sort; didn't talk much; but what little he did say gave me to understand that he suspected foul play of some kind. And here's your theory again, Mr.

Wingfield: if a hint of what he suspected ever got wind in the camp, it would account for the superst.i.tious twist given to the drowning by Hoskins and the others, wouldn't it?”

Wingfield smote the table with his fist.

”There is your connecting link!” he exclaimed. ”We have just proved beyond doubt that Sanderson wasn't killed in a fair fight: he was murdered, and the murder was carefully planned beforehand. By the same token, Braithwaite was murdered, too! Recall the circ.u.mstances as they have been related by the eye-witnesses: when they found the Government man and took him out of the river, his skull was crushed and both arms were broken ... see here!” he threw himself quickly into the att.i.tude of one fis.h.i.+ng from a riverbank. ”Suppose somebody creeps up behind me with a club raised to brain me: I get a glimpse of him or his shadow, dodge, fling up my arms, so--and one good, smas.h.i.+ng blow does the business.

That's all; or all but one little item. Manuel's woman knows who struck that blow, and Sanderson was trying to bribe her to tell.”

If the announcement had been an explosion to rock the bungalow on its foundations, the effect could scarcely have been more striking. Ballard flung the empty gun aside and sprang to his feet. The collegian sat down weakly and stared. Bromley's jaw dropped, and he glared across at Wingfield as if the clever deduction were a mortal affront to be crammed down the throat of its originator.

The playwright's smile was the eye-wrinkling of one who prides himself upon the ability to keep his head when others are panic-stricken.

”Seems to knock you fellows all in a heap,” he remarked, calmly. ”What have you been doing all these months that you haven't dug it out for yourselves?”

Bromley was moistening his lips.

”Go on, Mr. Wingfield, if you please. Tell us all you know--or think you know.”

”There is more; a good bit more,” was the cool reply. ”Three months ago you had a train wreck on the railroad--two men killed. 'Rough track,'

was the cause a.s.signed, Mr. Bromley; but that was one time when your cautious chief, Macpherson, fell down. The two surviving trainmen, questioned separately by me within the past week, both say that there were at least inferential proofs of pulled spikes and a loosened rail. A little later one man was killed and two were crippled by the premature explosion of a charge of dynamite in the quarry. Carelessness, this time, on the part of the men involved; and _you_ said it, Mr. Bromley.