Part 39 (1/2)

”h.e.l.lo, Conway,” Parker greeted him, as the old contractor came into the dining room and hung his battered old hat on a wall peg. ”Did you bring back my spark plugs?”

”Did better'n that,” Conway retorted. ”The porcelain on one plug was cracked and sooner or later you were bound to have trouble with it. So I bought you a new one.”

”Do any good for yourself in El Toro this morning?”

”Nope. Managed to put over a couple of deals that will help the boy out a little, though. Attached your bank account and your bank stock.

I would have plastered your two automobiles, but that tender-hearted Miguel declared that was carrying a grudge too far. By the way, where is our genial young host?”

”Horse bucked him off this morning. He lit on a rock and ripped a furrow in his sinful young head. So he's sleeping off a headache.”

”Oh, is he badly hurt?” Kay cried anxiously.

”Not fatally,” Parker replied with a faintly knowing smile. ”But he's weak and dizzy and he's lost a lot of blood; every time he winks for the next month his head will ache, however.”

”Which horse policed him?” Bill Conway queried casually.

”The gray one--his father's old horse.”

”Hum-m-m!” murmured Conway and pursued the subject no further, nor did he evince the slightest interest in the answers which Parker framed glibly to meet the insistent demand for information from his wife and daughter. The meal concluded, he excused himself and sought Pablo, of whom he demanded and received a meticulous account of the ”accident” to Miguel Farrel. For Bill Conway knew that the gray horse never bucked and that Miguel Farrel was a hard man to throw.

”Guess I'll have to sit in at this game,” he decided, and forthwith climbed into his rattletrap automobile and returned to El Toro.

During the drive in he surrendered his mind to a contemplation of all of the aspects of the case, and arrived at the following conclusions:

Item. Don Nicolas Sandoval had seen the a.s.sa.s.sin walking in from the south about sunset the day previous. If the fellow had walked all the way across country from La Questa valley he must have started about two P.M.

Item. The Potato Baron had left the Farrel hacienda about one o'clock the same day and had, doubtless, arrived in El Toro about two o'clock.

Evidently he had communicated with the man from La Questa valley (a.s.suming that Don Miguel's a.s.sailant had come from there) by telephone from El Toro.

Arrived in El Toro, Bill Conway drove to the sheriff's office. Don Nicolas Sandoval had returned an hour previous from the Rancho Palomar and to him Conway related the events of the morning. ”Now, Nick,” he concluded, ”you drift over to the telephone office and in your official capacity cast your eye over the record of long distance telephone calls yesterday afternoon and question the girl on duty.”

”_Bueno_!” murmured Don Nicolas and proceeded at once to the telephone office. Ten minutes later he returned.

”Okada talked to one Kano Ugichi, of La Questa, at 2:08 yesterday afternoon,” he reported.

”Considerable water will run under the bridges before Kano Ugichi returns to the bosom of his family,” Conway murmured sympathetically.

”He's so badly spoiled, Nick, we've decided to call him a total loss and not put up any headstone to his memory. It is Farrel's wish that the matter be forgotten by everybody concerned.”

”I have already forgotten it, my friend,” the urbane Don Nicolas replied graciously, and Bill Conway departed forthwith for the Hotel de Las Rosas.

”Got a j.a.p name of Okada stopping here?” he demanded, and was informed that Mr. Okada occupied room 17, but that he was ill and could not be seen.

”He'll see me,” quoth Bill Conway, and clumped up the stairs. He rapped peremptorily on the door of room 17, then tried the k.n.o.b. The door opened and the old contractor stepped into the room to find the Potato Baron sitting up in bed, staring at him. Uttering no word, Bill Conway strode to the bed, seized the j.a.panese by the throat and commenced to choke him with neatness and dispatch. When the man's face was turning purple and his eyes rolling wildly, Conway released his death-grip and his victim fell back on the mattress, whereupon Bill Conway sat down on the edge of the bed and watched life surge back into the little brown man.

”If you let one little peep out of you, Okada,” he threatened--and snarled ferociously.

”Please, please,” Okada pleaded. ”I no unnerstan'. 'Scuse, please.

You make one big mistake, yes, I zink so.”

”I do, indeed. I permit you to live, which I wouldn't do if I knew where to hide your body. Listen to me, Okada. You sent a countryman of yours from the La Questa valley over to the Rancho Palomar to kill Don Miguel Farrel. I have the man's name, I know the hour you telephoned to him, I know exactly what you said to him and how much you paid him to do the job. Well, this friend of yours overplayed his hand; he didn't succeed in killing Farrel, but he did succeed in getting himself captured.”