Part 37 (2/2)

”What?” There was considerably more than pained incredulity in the judge's tone.

”We'll shoot it out with 'em here, I said. I ain't kicked all the fighting blood out of you, have I? If I have I can soon kick it in again. Here, come alive, you lousy pup! Get the gun off that feller I downed. It's on his leg yet. His Winchester is over there in the corner. It's loaded, and there's two boxes of cartridges on that shelf. Bring 'em all over here. Then you take that window and I'll take this one. We'll give 'em the surprise of their young lives. Get a wiggle on you, Judge. You've got a brush ahead of you. Fight? You can gamble you'll fight! It's you or them, remember!”

”Suppose he comes bustin' in the back way?” quavered the judge, perceiving that he had indeed fallen between two stools.

”We'll try to take care of him. But he'll come the other way, I guess.”

But Slike guessed wrong, for Billy Wingo, judging that the psychological moment had arrived, shoved his gun hand through a window pane and shouted, ”Hands up!”

”You dirty Judas!” yelled Slike and, firing from the hip, he whipped three shots into the judge before he himself fell with four of Billy Wingo's bullets through his shoulder and neck.

Shot through and through, Judge Driver dropped in a huddle and died.

Slike, supporting himself on an elbow, mouthed curses at the man who he believed had betrayed him. The murderer's supporting arm slid out from under and he collapsed in a dead faint, even as Billy Wingo, with window gla.s.s cascading from his head and shoulders, sprang into the room.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

OPEN AND SHUT

”Well,” said the district attorney, ”you can't hold this man on any such biased evidence as this.”

”But you see I am holding him,” pointed out Billy Wingo.

”They'll get him out on a writ of habeas corpus.”

”They? Who's they?”

”His friends. I suppose the man has friends.”

”Oh, yes,” acquiesced Billy, ”the man has friends. Too many friends.”

The district attorney looked away. ”You'd better let him escape--or something,” he suggested brazenly. ”We--we mustn't be made ridiculous, you know.”

”We? We? Don't get me mixed up with you, Rale. I'm particular who I bracket with, sort of. Another thing, the last time you were in here you went out on your head, remember. Well, lemme point out that you're here, I'm here, so's the door, and history is just the same thing over again.”

The close-set little eyes wavered. ”I tell you, Wingo, the case looks black for you too.”

Billy Wingo rolled and lit a placid cigarette before he spoke. ”Black?

For me?” Inquiringly.

”I'm afraid so.”

”You mean you hope so. Go on.”

”There are a great many strange things about the whole affair. For instance, why was Judge Driver wearing your clothes when the bodies were found? If, as you say, you saw the whole thing, why did you not prevent the murder? How do we know that you did not kill both Tom Walton and the judge and then lay the blame on this stranger?”

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