The trouble at Pinelands A detective story
Better call ’em both! Hustle up, sheriff, turn them pris’ners loose!”
They pelted up the steps; a key sounded in the door, and presently
Lewis, Peter, and I were outside, taking great breaths of the fresh air.
The clerk of the superior court stood at my elbow, a fat, red-faced man
in a shiny black alpaca coat. He wiped his moist face.
“Carabas County’s goin’ to build another new jail, I reckon,” he drawled
resignedly.
The building itself was of brick, but floors, doors, and interior trim
were all pine, and they burned merrily. All the prisoners must be
loosed; Sheriff Redden and his deputy herded them out and rounded them
up in two groups, white and colored, while county officials organized a
volunteer guard.
As I have said, the county buildings were equidistant from Smyrna and
Pinelands; before the fire department of either town could answer the
alarm the fire had a fine start. Then both engines arrived at once, and
the sheriff was put to it to prevent a fight between the rival fire
companies for prior rights to a hydrant. At last the blaze was subdued,
and by sundown the two engines pumped water upon an empty brick shell,
whose furniture and woodwork were destroyed. Some of the cells, of steel
and concrete, were undamaged; but even these were too hot for occupancy.
Sheriff Redden stopped beside me to stroke his absurd wisp of mustache.
“Quite a clearance,” he observed mildly. “Started over on th’ colored
side; George Willett’s colored boy, Jim, he done set fire t’ another
boy’s mattress ‘f’r a joke,’ he claims. I aim t’ make that fellow
realize it wa’n’t no joke. Uh-huh! But we cain’t keep nobody out here
to-night, nohow. Lucky I ain’t got more’n nine pris’ners, an’ most o’
them c’n go right to Smyrna to th’ lockup there. An’ Doc Parker here,”
turning to Lewis, “w’y, doc, I reckon I better send you back t’
Pinelands. They got a reel comf’table lockup there, an’ Rufe Wakefield,
he’ll look after you good. Ain’t got no backbone, Rufe ain’t, but he’s
got a reel good heart, an’ his ol’ woman cooks splendid. Yessuh! Be
kinda better f’r yuh, anyways, mebbe, right clost to yore folks that a
way.”
Thus it was arranged, and presently Peter and Lewis and I, with a
taciturn, tobacco-chewing deputy sheriff, squeezed into the flivver and
drove back to Pinelands.
We routed out Wakefield, the constable, and he took us all to the
village lockup, a small brick building, rather like a magnified shoebox,
directly behind the business section of Pinelands. Its interior proved
rather better than I had feared; though hardly palatial, it was
comfortable enough.
“Reel nice room!” Wakefield pointed it out with pardonable pride.
“Spring bed and ever’thing. Colored side’s beyond that brick wall there.
Mister Uhlman c’n fetch ye sheets, ’f he wants t’, or anything else. An’
th’ woman’ll cook ye up some supper directly.”
We left, promising to return shortly with sheets, a feather pillow and a
clean mattress, an armchair, and what comforts we could manage. Lewis
dropped on the edge of the bunk, chin in hands, and let us go without a
word.
CHAPTER X
MORE TROUBLE THREATENS
As we climbed back into the flivver, I suddenly became conscious of an
aching internal void. I had had nothing to eat since morning; in the
shock of that unimagined verdict I had quite forgotten my lunch.
“Let’s go and eat, Peter,” I suggested.
“Right-o!”
Just as we climbed into the flivver the shrill whistle of an approaching
train sounded. Peter swore.
“The Limited!” he said. “This is Monday night, and poor old Lewis’ best
man will be on that train. We’ll have to stop for him, unk. I only hope
he’s as good as the old boy thinks; maybe we’ll get a little action.”
“I hope so, indeed. But, Peter, he can’t have had much experience. He
was Lewis’ classmate, you know. I’m afraid the boy overvalues him. We
can’t look for too much from him.”
“Well, we’ll see soon enough.” Peter stopped the car beside the tracks,
just as the long string of Pullmans clanked and squealed to a halt. Only
one vestibule was opened, for this was the through train for Florida,
and in summer it rarely left a passenger at Pinelands.
A single passenger alighted; a tall, lanky young man, whose hat was
pulled down over his eyes. His arms and legs seemed extraordinarily long
and thin. The porter dropped a couple of bags beside him, caught up his
step, and climbed back; the long train wheezed and roared away.
The stranger stood still, looking irritably about the deserted platform.
In winter the Pinelands station is lively enough, with gay-clad,
chattering folk, with expensive motor cars parked the full length of its
platforms; while passengers by the dozen, bearing golf bags and gun
cases and tennis rackets, climb on and off every train. Ours is a
tourist town, and it begins to be one of the best-known of the Eastern
winter resorts. But in summer it is quiet enough.
The stranger scowled, I say, and glanced about him with an expression of
acute dissatisfaction upon his dark, saturnine features. “Friendly
looking beggar, what?” whispered Peter to me. Then he saw us and
beckoned imperiously.
“Where’s Parker?” he demanded. “Doctor Parker?”
“He’s detained,” said I, advancing with outstretched hand. “I’m his
uncle, George Uhlman. This is Doctor Somers?”
“How do?” he asked indifferently. “Pity Parker couldn’t take the trouble
to come himself! Rotten town, this. Those are my bags.”
He stalked to the car and clambered in, his remarkably long, thin arms
and legs giving him somewhat the appearance of that insect we used to
call daddy longlegs. Peter winked at me, then picked up the bags, which
our cavalier guest had indicated, and lugged them meekly to the car.
“Where to, sir?” Peter asked, burlesquing a chauffeur’s salute.
Doctor Somers grinned; his dark, sardonic face changed wonderfully, and
for an instant became cheerful, friendly. “Don’t be an ass,” he
requested equably. “You’re Peter McGregor, I take it. Lewis has written
me about you, his best girl’s brother. He said you were a little runt.”
Peter snorted. “He never told me you were such a long, silly clothes
prop,” he retorted. “Why, man, those legs haven’t any more meat on ’em
than bean poles!” Peter’s size is a sore topic with him.
The stranger grinned again, quite undisturbed. “Climb in, climb in,” he
urged. “I’m hungry. Where is old Parker, anyhow? Ministering to the
needs of his extensive and growing practice, no doubt.”
I had found the man’s brusque, indifferent impudence rather engaging,
but this question sobered me suddenly. “My nephew is in trouble,” I
replied. “No”--Doctor Somers’ lips opened--“don’t make any fool joke
about it. It’s a serious matter. He’s in jail, charged with murder.”
But, if I had looked for excitement or interest, I was disappointed.
Doctor Somers made no comment, showed no interest whatever. “Well, drive
on,” he said. “I’m hungry.”
We drove home in silence to an agitated household. Luckily Dorothy had
not yet heard of the fire at the jail; she had been spared that further
alarm. Over the supper table we told her, and she listened, wide-eyed
and tremulous.
Aunt Mary did not come to the table. She had been much subdued all day,
it appeared, and had kept to her room and scarcely opened her mouth,
even to discuss her sufferings. So the nurse, Miss Christie, could eat
undisturbed to-night. As usual, she had nothing to say. With her round,
sleepy face bent over her plate, she ate hurriedly and pushed back her
chair before we others were through, murmuring an apology. She must go
and fix Miss McGregor’s tray.
Our guest, Doctor Somers, was taciturn also. Poor, distraught Dorothy
had given him a word of greeting and then forgotten him. She was too
upset to play the hostess. But he did not seem in the least embarrassed.
He ate sparingly, his sallow face wearing that same expression of
distaste for everything about him. His gray-green eyes, curiously light
beneath black brows, were fixed keenly upon Miss Christie’s sleepy face.
He did not seem at all interested in what Peter and I were saying to his
hostess.
When the nurse had gone out he turned to me. “I take it that my friend
Parker has got himself into trouble.” His face was sober enough, but,
behind it, the hint of a sarcastic grin seemed to lurk. “Suppose you
tell me just how it happened, now. All I gather from your discourse to
date is that he’s in jail, charged with murder by a coroner’s jury--or,
rather, that he was in jail until it burned down.”
Dorothy turned upon him, a heartbreaking hope shining from her eyes.
“Oh, Doctor Somers, we’re so upset! You must forgive us. But Lewis told
me you’d straighten it out for him. Why----”
Somers’ thin lips parted in an acid grin, but he said nothing. We all
began to talk at once, pouring out breathlessly the whole dreadful
story, and he listened abstractedly, or, at least, we supposed he was
listening.
“And so the jury recommended that he be held,” I finished. “There were
no grounds at all--it was pure accident. If it hadn’t been for that
miserable lawyer Vanbrugh----”
Somers yawned and nodded his head. “I’ve got it!” he announced. “Of
course I’ll make an examination in the morning, but I’m sure of it now.”
We all gaped at him, open-mouthed. “That girl, the nurse,” he went on
placidly, “deficient thyroid! That’s what ails her. No wonder she looks
sleepy!”
“Gr-r-r-r!” said Peter indignantly, and pushed back his chair. “I’m
going for the mail.” He stalked out.
Doctor Somers looked from Dorothy to me and back again, with that
curious suggestion of a sardonic grin behind his sober face. Plainly
enough our faces expressed disgusted hopelessness.
“I’m sorry,” he said in apology, and there was something very likable in
his frank, direct gaze. “I’m a queer sort, I suppose. I’m always getting
off on the wrong foot like this. But, after you get to know me better,
you’ll find I’m not so bad after all. I heard all you said,” he went on,
to Dorothy’s implacable face. “I’m used to thinking of two or three
things at once; in my work one has to. Cheer up! That’s better,” he
declared, as Dorothy, in spite of herself, softened before his
friendliness.
“It’s a pretty serious thing--to us!” she replied.
“My child,” he answered very gravely--and he could not have been over
thirty, I supposed, but suddenly he seemed older, wiser, more mature
than I am at sixty--“I know it, but the only way to handle a matter like
this is to go at it dispassionately. I’m fond of old Parker myself”--and
the dark, sour face softened wonderfully for a second--“but I can’t let
myself get flustered and upset and run round in rings as you folks have.
For example: You heard the shot, Uhlman. You ran out at once, got there
within five minutes, and put your hand on the dead man’s chest, didn’t
you?”
I nodded in amazement. The fellow had heard all we said, after all!
“You touched the body, then, within perhaps five minutes of the time
Parker shot. Now, did it occur to you to notice whether it was still
warm--or cold?”
I stared dumbly, searching a confused memory. “Why--why, I never thought
of that. I was too upset. But now I remember. Why, of course, I noticed
it at once; his flesh was as cold as a stone! That’s why I was sure he
was dead.” Then an illuminating thought struck me; I jumped up,
shouting. “Hurrah! He didn’t do it, Dorothy, he didn’t do it by accident
or any way! He couldn’t have, of course! I must run right down there and
tell him; that’s what has been troubling him all along--the thought that
he’d killed a man!”
“Sit down,” suggested Somers equably. “Take it easy. There’s been
altogether too much of this running round and talking, and too little
plain thinking.”