Sheriff on the Spot Page 2

  Some of Pat Stevens’ uneasiness evaporated as he shouldered the swinging doors aside and stepped into the saloon. The bar was crowded with laughing men, and half a dozen were grouped around the accordion and tinny piano at the end of the room singing a popular song of the day in loud disharmony.

  Certainly, he thought, nothing very serious had happened here as yet. It gave him a sort of foolish feeling to walk into this scene of gaiety and good fellowship when he had been fearing something else.

  He tipped his Stetson back on his head, hooked his thumbs in his gun-belts and looked around for Fred Ralston or Kitty Lane. Neither of them was in the saloon adjunct to the hotel. Neither did he see either Sam Sloan or one-eyed Ezra about. But as he stood there in the doorway, Joe Deems detached himself from the group at the bar and came toward him with a hearty greeting:

  “Well, well. If it’s not Patrick Stevens. Going to loosen up and celebrate now that you’ve got rid of that badge, Pat?”

  Pat said, “I’m looking for Sam Sloan.”

  “He’ll probably be around.” Deems put his hand on Pat’s arm and urged him toward the bar. “Have a drink on me—now that you’re not a sheriff any more.”

  Joe Deems was about Pat’s height, with a deceptive slimness of figure that hid a lot of substantial weight. He was about thirty-five, though his thinning sandy hair made him look older. His face and voice had a surface appearance of geniality, though it couldn’t wholly hide the intrinsic hardness of the man underneath. His forehead sloped back sharply from ragged eyebrows, and he had a sharp nose that had at one time been knocked awry. It had grown back almost straight, but enough one-sided to give his face a curious appearance of unevenness. He had long white hands and a way of gesturing nervously with them, and he wore a green-striped shirt with red suspenders holding up tight-legged pants of black broadcloth, and red elastic armbands on the sleeves of his shirt.

  Pat let himself be led to the bar by the proprietor, but said quietly, “I’ll buy my own drink, Deems. An’ drink it alone.”

  Deems let go of his arm with a pained look. “That’s not being very friendly, Stevens.”

  Pat said, “I didn’t mean it to be.” He turned away from Deems and said curtly to the bartender, “Green Valley.”

  Joe Deems stayed by his side. He cleared his throat as the bartender set out a shot-glass and poured bonded bourbon into it. “I thought the reason you’d stayed away from my place was because you were sheriff and felt you shouldn’t do much drinking in public.”

  Pat downed his drink without saying anything.

  Deems laughed uncertainly. “But I thought things would be different after you turned your badge over to Jeth Purdue.”

  Pat set his empty glass down and spun a silver half dollar across the counter. He said, “You do a lot of thinking, don’t you, Deems?” and turned, brushing past the proprietor toward a side door leading into the small hotel lobby.

  There was a leather-covered sofa and four straight chairs in the lobby. A wizened little man leaned on the counter over an open hotel register, blinking rheumy eyes at the brightly lighted saloon. He showed some yellow snags of teeth in a smile when Pat came through the doorway. “Fust time I’ve seed you around here, Pat.”

  Pat said, “Evenin’, Forrey.” He came to the counter and leaned one elbow on it, looked down at the open register while he got out the makings.

  “Reckon you jest couldn’t make out to stay away no longer.” The aged clerk chuckled gleefully. “That Kitty Lane brings ’em all in sooner or later. But you’ll hafta cut out Sammy Sloan if you git anywheres with Kitty.” His cackle of merriment had an obscene sound.

  Leaning over the counter, Pat was reading the last name written on the register. In heavy, bold letters was written, “F. A. Ralston, Denver, Colo.” The number of the room assigned to Ralston was scratched so thinly that Pat couldn’t make it out. He put the blunt tip of his finger on the name and asked, “What room has he got?”

  Tom Forrest peered down at Pat’s fingertip. “That dude feller from Denver? Number fifteen. I recollect he ast fer it particular.”

  “Is he in his room now?”

  “I reckon. He went up an’ I never seed him come down.”

  “What room have Sam and Ezra got?”

  “They got two rooms.” The clerk chuckled happily. “Yes sirree. One room for each of ’em. Livin’ in style since they sold out their ranch an’ moved into town.”

  “What are their room numbers?” Pat asked sharply.

  “Eighteen an’ twenty. Right straight back from the head of the stairs. I dunno whether you’ll find ’em there or not.”

  Pat said, “I’ll see.”

  When he turned away he became aware that Joe Deems had come up silently behind him while he stood at the counter. The hotel proprietor had light brown eyes which looked yellowish now as they met Pat’s. Deems stood between Pat and the foot of the stairway leading up to the hotel rooms. He stood there with his arms folded and asked the clerk, “What did Stevens want?”

  “He ast me what room Ezra an’ Sam Sloan was in.”

  Joe Deems’ lips came back from his teeth. “Didn’t he ask you something else?”

  “Well, now I do recollect—”

  Pat took a step forward, his eyes blazing. “Why don’t you ask me, Deems?”

  “All right. I will. What are you snooping around for?”

  Pat Stevens drew in a deep breath. His hands were bunched into big fists by his sides. He said, “I’m going up.”

  “No, you’re not.” Deems stepped backward, up to the second stair, the yellowish glint becoming more pronounced in his eyes.

  Pat controlled himself and asked, “Why not?” in the tone of a reasonable man who wants an answer.

  “Because I say you’re not. This is my hotel.”

  “It’s a public place,” Pat told him gently.

  “I own it.”

  Pat took a step forward. His voice remained gentle but it had a steely firmness. “You’ll get hurt ’less you get out of the way, Deems.”

  Deems snarled, “Not me.” He unfolded his arms and showed Pat a stubby, double-barreled derringer in his right hand. It was no larger than a woman’s fist, yet a lethal weapon of large caliber. Deems warned in a thin voice, “Don’t force me to use this in protection of my property, Stevens.”

  Pat put one hand on the newel post and grinned up at the proprietor. “This is a funny way to treat a sheriff.”

  “You forget you’re not the sheriff any longer.”

  Pat slowly reached into the pocket of his flannel shirt and drew out his silver sheriff’s badge. He showed it to Deems in the palm of his hand. “What does this look like?”

  Deems paled and bit his underlip. “But—I thought Jeth Purdue—”

  Pat shrugged and replaced the badge in his pocket. “Changed your mind about me comin’ up?”

  “No.” The derringer still threatened Pat. “Sam and Ezra aren’t in their rooms. If you’ll wait in the barroom I’ll have them located for you.”

  Pat’s lunging body drove forward, and his left arm shot out to encircle Deems’ legs. He straightened up swiftly and the proprietor’s head went back, hitting a stair-step loudly. His body went limp and the tiny pistol clattered down at Pat’s feet. Pat tossed Deems aside on the floor and picked up the derringer, said curtly over his shoulder, “Throw some water on him, Forrey,” and went up the uncarpeted stairs two at a time.

  There was a wide hall at the top, with closed doors on each side. Pat strode down the hall and stopped in front of the door numbered 18. He knocked on it loudly, but got no response. He moved to the next door on the same side, number 20, and knocked on it with the same negative result. He tried both doors and found them securely locked.

  He swung about and went across the hall to number 15. He got no answer when he knocked on it, either.

  He hesitated for a moment, his face grim and his eyes narrowed, glanced up and down the hall, but all the doors remained tightly closed.<
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  He turned the knob of number 15, and was surprised to have the door swing open.

  It was dark inside. He struck a match and went across to the washstand to put fire to the wick of a kerosene lamp, turned to survey the small hotel bedroom in the yellow light.

  A suitcase lay open on the bed. Fred Ralston’s straw hat lay beside it. The room showed no other sign of occupancy. Pat grunted his disgust and turned to blow the lamp out. In the darkness, his gaze was attracted by a thin slit of light showing along the base of the wall on the right.

  He stepped to it and investigated, found it was coming beneath a door leading into another room. He put his ear against the thin panel and listened, but could hear nothing from the adjoining room.

  A tentative rapping on the door brought no response. Again, he tried the doorknob, and felt it turn under his hand. He eased the door open with his right hand on the butt of his holstered gun.

  He saw a frilly bedspread, and there were creamy lace curtains at the window of the lighted room. A lady’s dress was draped over the foot of the bed.

  Pat pulled the door open wider, waiting apprehensively for a scream of fright that would tell him it was occupied.

  Then he saw the man’s body lying in the middle of the floor. The crumpled body of Fred Ralston lying face downward with the bone handle of a hunting knife sticking up between his shoulder blades.

  Pat hurried forward and dropped to his knees beside the corpse of the man from Denver. Ralston was quite dead. And Pat recognized the hunting knife that had been driven deep into his back. He stared at the initials carved into the bone handle. S. S. It was Sam Sloan’s hunting knife.

  3

  Pat Stevens knelt there a long time looking down at the murdered man without moving. In his turbulent past he had seen much of violent death, had stood looking down at many murdered men, but he’d never been made sick by the sight before. Never before had he been forced to endure the sight of a knife belonging to his best friend protruding from the back of a corpse.

  Far stronger than any other emotion as he stood there was the helpless feeling that he could have prevented this tragedy half an hour ago. Though it seemed inconceivable that Fred Ralston could have known this was waiting for him at the Jewel Hotel, it was also just as apparent to Pat that his death was, somehow, the result of the mysterious plan that had brought him to Powder Valley from Denver. A plan that required the services of a new sheriff, and which Pat could have stopped simply by declaring himself to Ralston in the lean-to office.

  Pat drew in a deep breath and jerked his thoughts back to the present and pressing emergency.

  Here was a dead man, and there was Sam Sloan’s knife sticking in his back. If Sam had wielded that knife, Pat knew the smaller man had had a good reason for striking. But, why wasn’t Sam here to take the consequences of his act? Why was Ralston lying here alone in a hotel room in a pool of his own blood?

  Pat drove himself swiftly into action as various possible answers to the questions came to him. He hurried to the hall door of the death room and tried the knob. The door was locked.

  He went back into Ralston’s room, closed the door gently and found a key on the inside of the door. He turned the key and went back into the adjoining room.

  Obviously, a woman’s bedroom. There were several glittering gowns hung in one corner behind a curtain, and there were dainty, feminine toilet articles neatly laid out on top of the bureau.

  A framed picture on the bureau caught Pat’s attention. Though he had seen Kitty Lane only once, he knew it was a photograph of the hotel hostess.

  There was no evidence of any struggle in the room. Two rocking chairs stood close together near the curtained window, with a small table between them. There was a tray and a bottle of whisky and two glasses on the low table. The bottle was less than half full. Around the edge of the tray were burned-out butts of brown paper cigarettes. Sam always rolled his smokes with brown paper. And the cigarettes were smoked down very short as he always smoked his.

  Pat Stevens moved around the room slowly. He pretended he was looking for a clue, though inwardly he admitted he wouldn’t recognize a murder clue if one rose up on its hind legs and snapped at him.

  Besides, what did he need with a clue? The whole story of the murder was told in that hunting knife. All he had to do was find Sam and arrest him.

  Thinking of that put a sour taste in Pat’s mouth. There was still plenty of killing in the West. Powder Valley hadn’t got so civilized that men didn’t fight and die occasionally, and there was no thought of arrest.

  But a knife in the back was a different matter. And, right here in a lady’s bedroom!

  Pat stopped his aimless wandering to stoop over the corpse and stare down at it broodingly. Ralston lay belly downward on his left side. His right leg was drawn up, and his right arm was outflung. His eyes were closed and he looked completely at peace.

  Pat knew what he had to do long before he did it. He stood there, pretending he was trying to make up his mind, trying to justify himself, while all the time he knew he was going to hide that damning evidence against his best friend.

  He stooped and gingerly took hold of the initialed bone handle of the slender-bladed knife.

  It didn’t come loose when he pulled at it. It was as though the lifeless clay of Fred Ralston resented his effort to dislodge the death weapon, as though the dead man were determined it should stay there as mute evidence against Sam Sloan.

  Pat got a tighter hold and wiggled the knife back and forth. The dead flesh released its hold reluctantly. It came out suddenly.

  Pat held it away from him and let the blood drip on the floor, then carried it over to the washstand and wrapped the knife in a thin hotel towel. He lifted his pants leg and dropped the wrapped knife down inside his boot, then shook the cloth down again.

  He went back into Ralston’s room and closed the door behind him, felt his way to the hall door in the darkness, and unlocked it.

  He took the key out, and after he’d gone through the door and closed it, he locked the door on the outside and dropped the key into a pocket of his short leather vest together with the derringer he had taken from Joe Deems.

  The doors along the hall were still closed. As far as he knew, no one had seen him go in or out of the Denver man’s room. He didn’t think he’d been more than ten minutes altogether.

  He got out his bandanna and mopped his face as he went back to the stairs. The wizened clerk leaned on his counter and gave Pat a toothless grin as he came down. “Was Sam an’ Ezra in their rooms?”

  Pat shook his head. He stopped in front of the counter. “When did you see them last, Forrey?”

  “Little after dark, I reckon. Ezra went up to his room fust—then Sammy went up.” Tom Forrest snickered. “Sammy was taking three steps on every stair—with a mighty purty lady he’pin’ him along.”

  “Kitty?”

  “Tha’s right. Seems like Kitty shore does cotton to that measly little pardner of yourn, Pat.”

  “Has she come down since then?”

  “Nope. Not by the front stairs, leastways. Mighta used the back, though. She does a lot.”

  Pat turned around and looked on the floor where he had last seen the hotel proprietor.

  “Where’s Deems?”

  Tom Forrest chuckled loudly. “They come an’ carted him off for repairs. Mighty nigh cracked the back of his head, I reckon, when you jerked him down. Why was he so dead sot on keepin’ you from goin’ up to see Sam, Pat?”

  “That,” Pat Stevens said, “is something I want to ask Deems.” He lifted his head and stared through the glass door leading into the saloon.

  Noticing his look, the clerk nodded. “Yep. Tha’s her all right. Mighty purty singin’, if you ast me. I guess she did come down from upstairs by the back way.”

  Pat nodded and went toward the glass door through which he could faintly hear a clear soprano voice singing Annie Laurie.

  When he opened the door, Kitty Lane’s li
mpidly beautiful tones came out clearly. She stood on a little dais at the end of the room, accompanied by the accordion played by a pallid-faced youth with the limp butt of a cigar drooping from his lips.

  Pat stopped in the doorway and looked at the singer. Kitty Lane was no longer young, but she was still beautiful. Her body had lost the slimness of youth, but was softly rounded, and swelled the bodice and hips of the long, tight, shimmering dress of yellow material that swept down to her feet. Her cheeks were delicately rouged and her lips were quite red, yet she managed to wear the artificial coloring without being really conspicuous. Her gown was cut quite low in front, showing a smooth neck and creamy-white shoulders and the beginning curve of a full bosom, yet it did not appear immodest on Kitty Lane. Her hair was the color of ripe wheat, coiled about her small head in a heavy braid, and she wore long, red earrings which hung almost to her bare shoulders.

  Her gaze caught Pat’s as she started on the last chorus of her song, and he thought she gave a little start of recognition but her tone did not falter.

  He stood watching her gravely until she finished singing, but she did not look at him again.

  Men crowded around her as she stepped down from the dais, applauding loudly and calling for more. But she brushed past them, smiling and gay, and came across the saloon toward Pat.

  He took off his hat, walking forward slowly to meet her. Kitty curved her red lips upward in a gay smile as they met in the center of the saloon. “It is the sheriff, isn’t it?” She clasped her hands in front of her and demurely lowered her eyes. “I’ve wondered whether I was ever going to get a chance to meet you.”

  Pat said, “I’ve missed a lot by not coming around sooner.”

  She flirted her eyelids up at him, then laughed and took his arm. “I know you’re a married man, Sheriff Stevens, but I hope that won’t keep you from buying me a drink.”

  He said, “It sure won’t, Ma’am,” and went with her to a secluded table in the rear corner where he drew out a chair for her and then took the one opposite.