The trouble at Pinelands A detective story
“Where’s Somers, unk?” asked the latter.
“Not coming. He doesn’t seem very keen to see Lewis, after all.”
“Well! That’s queer. He’s cooking up some other deep scheme, I suppose.
I shan’t find fault with him, after last night.”
“Probably you’re right, Peter,” I conceded.
But Dorothy, beside me, wriggled impatiently. “You two men are perfectly
blind! He’s just waiting for Aunt Mary to lie down, so he can see Miss
Christie.”
We both laughed. “What, that sleepy thing?”
“Yes! If you had any eyes at all, you could see he was perfectly struck
on her. And she may be a sleepy thing, but just you watch her brighten
up, once there’s a man around to notice her. Oh, you can laugh! But I
tell you Anne Christie is a _beauty_, if she’d just wake up a little.”
“She’s too fat,” objected Peter.
Dorothy gave him a maddeningly superior smile. “And they say men are the
best judges of a woman’s looks! Wait till you see her in an evening
dress, instead of those horrid, stiff, old uniforms! Oh, yes, you will!
I’ll just bet you ten pounds of candy against a carton of cigarettes she
begins to dress up within a week!”
We hunted up a very sheepish constable and told him our errand. He
handed the jail key over to me.
“Yeah,” he said, “you jus’ take it along, an’ bring it back w’en you git
through. Don’t forgit t’ lock th’ door after yuh. Yeah, shore it’ll be
all right! Nobody don’t need t’ know you got it, does they? An’
say”--coming closer and dropping his voice to a hoarse whisper--“they
ain’t no need o’ tellin’ about las’ night, is they?”
It was a bribe, I saw: free access to the jail against silence as to
Rufe Wakefield’s inglorious part in last night’s troubles. He knew he
was safe enough in giving me the key, irregular as it seems; for my
nephew would not have dreamed of escaping, even if I would have allowed
it.
“All right, Rufe,” I promised. “We’ll keep quiet; and I’ll have the key
back to you before noon.”
All this had taken some little time. As we drove back down Main Street,
Dorothy nudged me sharply. “What did I tell you?”
We swung round the corner, past Olsen’s drug store, to reach the jail,
which was almost directly behind it. And on the drug store steps, just
going in, stood Miss Anne Christie, while Doctor Somers held the screen
door back for her, with a long, skinny arm.
“She does carry herself well,” said Peter critically.
Dorothy sniffed. “I think he might be doing something for Lewis, instead
of gallivanting round with that girl!”
We drove on to the lockup, to find my nephew haggard, but fairly
cheerful.
“Rufe brought me in a gorgeous breakfast,” he told us. “Really, he’s not
such a bad chap. Yes, I got quite a bit of sleep, too, but I’ll be glad
of clean sheets. There, there, honey!” Dorothy had choked forlornly,
snuggling close to his shoulder. “Don’t worry any more; old Somers’ll
figure out some way of getting me out in a day or two.”
“But to-morrow was our wedding day!” she exclaimed disconsolately. “And,
besides, your precious Somers is just flirting with Aunt Mary’s nurse;
he’s not trying to do a thing for us!”
However she did her bridegroom’s prospective best man something less
than justice. It might have been an hour later, while we four still sat
with our heads together, cudgeling our brains for a way out, that he
strolled casually in.
I heard the outer doorknob rattle and started up, for I had forgotten to
lock the door after us, and I feared some official visitor. Before I
could reach it, the heavy door swung back, and Somers’ black head
appeared.
“Thought I’d find you folks here,” he said. “Ought to be locked in,
though; people might talk about our vigilant cop.” He turned the key on
the inside and paused to laugh silently.
“Clever chap, that Wakefield,” he went on, advancing. His long,
grotesquely thin legs moved stiffly, like a pair of compasses. “I heard
him talking about that little affair last night; he’s out on Main
Street, holding forth right now. ‘An’ I stood right there beside the
lockup,’ he was saying, ‘ready f’r bus’ness. ’At skinny feller come in
on Number Seven, he stood on th’ steps ’ith a bumb, darin’ ’em t’ come
any furder. They was all a-yellin’, an’ they wouldn’t of paid him no
mind, but then _I_ come out ’ith th’ ole persuader’--and he showed them
that rusty pocket cannon he lugs around--‘an’, “Stan’ back, fellers!” I
says. We-ell, they all knew _me_! An’ so they wa’n’t no lynchin’ las’
night!’”
We all laughed. Somers’ imitation of the constable’s rumbling drawl was
irresistibly comic.
“So that’s what he’s telling!” A light struck me. “No wonder he didn’t
want us to talk about last night! He bribed us to keep quiet, doctor, by
letting us take the jail key.”
“I told you you had a clever constable, unk. Oh, I’ve learned lots of
things this morning! I’ve talked with a number of your leading citizens,
so I have.”
“When we saw you, you were otherwise occupied,” said Dorothy cruelly.
“Or is Miss Christie one of the ‘leading citizens’ you meant?”
Somers merely smiled at her. “Oh, that! I took her to the drug store to
get some thyroid extract. The girl’s sick, and I’m going to cure her.
Wait a couple of weeks; you won’t know her!”
“And after you got the medicine?” I prompted, curious to know how he had
forgathered with Wakefield.
“Oh, Miss Christie introduced me to the druggist, Olsen, then she went
on home. And I hung around, making myself agreeable. Just a little
fishing expedition, Uncle George--that’s all!”
CHAPTER XVI
SOME CLEWS, AND A SUGGESTION
His light eyes sparkled at us, and gratified pride replaced his usual
look of acute dissatisfaction with the world. “Old Doc Somers is a great
man!” he boasted.
We all stared at him, breathlessly eager. “What have you found out?” I
demanded.
“A whole lot of things; enough so we can begin planning a defense for
Parker.”
Peter straightened at the word. “A defense! Of course he’ll have to be
tried now, won’t he? Folks, we’ve got to hire a lawyer right away!”
Dorothy and I nodded agreement. Lewis said nothing at all.
“There’ll be a trial, yes,” said Somers; “that is, if the grand jury
indicts. And I haven’t much doubt that it will; you see, your man
Vanbrugh, your prosecuting attorney that pleased you all so much at the
inquest, will present the evidence against Parker. Yes, he’ll be
indicted--I haven’t a doubt of it.”
“So we need a lawyer,” insisted Peter.
“We-ell, not to be too modest about it, I’m a tolerable lawyer myself,
McGregor. You see, I started out to make myself a medicolegal expert; to
specialize in medical jurisprudence. I studied law first; I was admitted
to the bar six years ago, and I practiced a little while before I
entered the medical school.”
I looked at him more closely. Last night, knowing him to be my nephew’s
classmate, I had thought him thirty, at the most. No doubt my knowledge
of Lewis’ age had influenced me; moreover Somers had one of those lean,
dark faces on which the years leave little mark. But now, by the morning
sun which streamed through the unshaded windows of the jail, I could see
that he was older. His black hair was shot with gray over the temples;
there were fine lines in his forehead and about the corners of his
deep-set eyes. He must be at least thirty-eight--perhaps older. No
wonder he had impressed me as more mature than Peter or Lewis!
“Yes, I’m a lawyer,” he went on, “and not such a bad lawyer, either. In
a case like this, where the medical testimony will be so important,
perhaps I’d do as well as another. That’s up to you, of course, Parker.
If you want somebody else, I’ll do all I can to help, just the same.”
Lewis shook his head vigorously. “No! I don’t want anybody else, if
you’ll only help me out, old man.”
“Well, then”--he made no protest of willingness, no fervid promises of
success; he took the matter as settled, and I liked that in him--“to
begin with, we’ll take it for granted that there’ll be a trial--unless
in the meantime we manage to find the murderer.”
“You think he was murdered, then?” asked Dorothy fearfully.
“He must have been. He surely didn’t shoot himself and then swallow the
gun.”
“But you--but Lewis----” she faltered.
“But Lewis didn’t do it! Of course not. Gaskell was dead before he got
there. But our trouble will be to prove that. If Uhlman here gets up and
swears Gaskell’s body was cold when he got to it, five minutes after he
heard the shot, your prosecuting attorney--your solicitor, as they call
him--will ask why he didn’t say so at the time; why Wakefield didn’t
notice it; why it wasn’t brought out at the inquest. And what can you
say, Uhlman, except that you didn’t think of it until I asked you about
it? Then your man Vanbrugh will say: ‘Ah, you didn’t remember this very
important point until the learned counsel for the defense explained it
to you?’--with a significant glance at the jury. And then: ‘And you’re
related to the prisoner, aren’t you, Mr. Uhlman? His uncle, I think,
yes? And you’re fond of him, aren’t you--very fond of him, in fact?
Exactly!’ And he’ll give the jury another wise look and tell you to step
down.”
I nodded soberly. “But--but then they’ll convict him!” said Dorothy.
“Oh, no--at least we’ll hope not. But the best way to defend him is to
find out who really committed the murder; don’t you see? So let’s talk
it over.”
Somers settled himself more comfortably and re-crossed those
extraordinary legs.
“To begin with I had a chat with your constable. Had it occurred to you
to wonder how he happened to be coming past Fort House at five in the
morning, just at the right time to hear Parker shoot? No? Well, I
thought of it. He’d been out at a little poker party, an all-night
session at Tulliver’s, back on the hill. He lost fifty dollars, too; it
made him mad, and that, I suspect, was behind his zeal in enforcing the
ordinance about discharging firearms in the corporation. He had been
drinking! Officially, I’ve no doubt that the amiable Rufus is an ardent
prohibitionist; but unofficially he likes his toddy. Corn liquor was
plenty up on the hill, it appears; and Rufe was too much under its
influence to notice details; didn’t you know that, Uncle George?”
“I--I----” I stammered. “We were all so upset that I didn’t think it odd
that he seemed so, too. But, now that you speak of it, he did seem
rather--rather uncertain.”
“Humph! It makes it bad for us, too. When Vanbrugh gets hold of him,
Wakefield will swear to almost anything, just to prove he was sober
enough to know all that happened. Well, here’s another thing. You know
this chap Satterfield--Ralph Satterfield? He led the mob last night. Did
he have any grudge against Gaskell?”
“Why, yes,” answered Lewis and I together. “Gaskell was one of the town
commissioners. And during May he was acting mayor. Satterfield was
brought before him for being drunk and disorderly and for bootlegging,
and Gaskell gave him thirty days on the roads.”
“And that’s not all, Uncle George,” my nephew went on. “Remember there
at Olsen’s he bragged that he was going to settle with Gaskell?”
“All right,” said Somers. “Satterfield was at the poker party, too.
Tulliver has a phone; about four o’clock somebody called Satterfield up
there, and he went out in a great hurry, saying he’d be back in an hour.
What’s more, he went out the back door, and Tulliver’s shotgun stood
right beside it. I got all this firsthand, by a little judicious
questioning, partly from Rufe, and partly from another chap who was
there. Mind you, we don’t know that Satterfield took that gun; but he
might have taken it and brought it back with him. Nobody was out that
way while he was gone.
“He came back in an hour or so, very much out of breath. When somebody