Part 7 (1/2)
Vorse sniffed.
”You think he can be bluffed?” he said. ”You haven't seen him yet; go take a look. We'll not throw any scare into him. If he were that kind, he wouldn't have told us who he is. He wanted us to know he's after us, that's my opinion. He wants to shake our nerve--and he shook the Judge's all right that day at my bar.”
”He did,” Gordon admitted. ”The thing was so infernally unexpected.
Almost like Joe Weir himself appearing. I didn't sleep a wink that night, what with my heart being bad and what with seeing him.”
”Suppose he _has_ proofs?” Vorse asked after a pause, while his narrowed eyes moved from one to another of his companions.
A considerable silence followed. The question jerked into full light the issue that had all the while been lurking in the recesses of their minds--an issue full of ghastly possibilities. Judge Gordon's fingers trembled as he wiped with handkerchief the cold sweat on his brow.
”We're all in it,” Vorse added.
Burkhardt brought his fist down on the desk with a sudden crash.
”If he has proofs, then it's him or us,” he exclaimed, while the blood suffused his face. ”Him or us--and that means him! I'll never go behind bars!”
”Sure not. None of us,” Vorse said.
”It will mean----” Judge Gordon began in an agitated voice, but did not finish.
Sorenson gave a nod of his head. His bear-trap mouth was compressed in a determined evil line.
”Exactly. He'll never use his proofs. We're in too far to halt now if matters come to the point of his trying to use them. He has a grip on us in one way; he knows we can't declare his father, Joe Weir, did the killing; that would make us--what do you call it, Judge?”
”Accomplices after the fact. Besides, it would then come out that we had taken over and shared among us his stuff, fifty thousand apiece.
It's a deplorable situation we're in, gentlemen, deplorable. If we were but able to start the story Joe Weir believed and fled because of, it would cut the ground out from under this man's feet at once.”
”It's him we'll cut, not the ground under him,” Burkhardt growled, thrusting his hairy chin forward towards the lawyer. ”And cut his d.a.m.ned throat.”
”I hate to think of our being forced to--to homicide. Even justifiable homicide.”
”Homicide nothing! It's just killing a rattlesnake waiting in the brush to strike. That's the way we used to do in the old days, and if he's going to bring them back that's what we'll do again.”
Sorenson smiled grimly.
”We'll wait till we're sure he has the proofs, then----”
”Then we'll act quick and sure,” Vorse shot out.
”And quietly,” the cattleman added. ”We'll take no more chances this time. It will be arranged carefully beforehand; all four of us will be in it, of course,--equal responsibility; and there'll be no witnesses.”
Judge Gordon's face wore a pallid, sickish look.
”I hope to G.o.d there's some other way out of it,” he muttered.
”So do all of us,” Burkhardt snarled. ”But if there isn't, it means guns. For you, too, along with the rest of us.”
Sorenson leaned forward and gazed from under his heavy brows, compelling Gordon to meet his fixed look.