The trouble at Pinelands A detective story
cautiously through the pines and down the long slope to where the
flivver stood. Here our leader stopped.
“You both got a good look?” he asked. “You could swear to all three of
those men?”
We nodded. “But of course we don’t _know_ there was whisky in those
barrels,” objected Peter. “We couldn’t swear to that.”
Somers chuckled. “You needn’t, old son. I’m no prohibition agent, you
know, but we’ve got to convince Satterfield that we’ve got this on him.
Uncle George there would be a bad liar, I’m afraid. No doubt you’d do
better at it.”
Peter bowed in mock acknowledgment of this dubious compliment. “But what
are you after?” he asked. “Let’s get it straight, so we can back you up;
the virtuous Mr. Uhlman to the limits of fact, and me all the rest of
the way.”
“I’m as good a liar as either of you boys!” I protested, somewhat hurt,
and they both laughed uproariously.
“Here it is, then,” said Somers more seriously. “By hanging around
Minnie Satterfield and drinking with her father I’ve learned a lot about
this business. They’re handling corn whisky, moonshine, by wholesale.
It’s made up in the mountains and brought down here once or twice a
week, sometimes by truck and sometimes, like to-day, on a lumber wagon.
It’s only about forty miles, you know. They make the trip a different
way every time, and a different man drives, so nobody’ll notice. The
whisky comes in barrels, hidden in a fake cotton bale, or in kegs put up
in grocery boxes, like canned goods. They notify Satterfield by phone,
at night; makes it awfully handy to have Minnie as operator, you see;
saves a leak at this end. And Satterfield meets them out here. I had a
time locating this place and finding a way to get out here without being
seen. Then I wasn’t sure but the booze would come out that road we took,
and they’d find the flivver; in which case, Peter, your pistol might
have been useful.
“Well, they repack the liquor here; I don’t know how. Bates hauls it
down to Pinelands, or over to Hokesville, along with his peach crop--he
has an orchard over beyond the clearing--and ships it North. Oh, it’s a
flourishing business which they do!
“And here’s my scheme. If Satterfield didn’t kill Gaskell himself, and
I’m beginning to doubt that--I got pretty intimate with him, you
know--if he didn’t do it, he knows who did, and why. Doctor Gaskell
found something, I imagine; located this cache, perhaps, and the gang
decided to wipe him out before he could squeal. Gaskell was a mighty
decent chap, they say, not one to stand for bootlegging. I don’t think
Satterfield did the killing himself, but he knows something. Now
to-night we’ll corner him and call for a showdown. Then what we find out
will depend on whether he’s more afraid of being arrested for murder or
of losing his job. And these mountaineer liquor runners are pretty tough
characters, some of them. It’s quite possible that he will take a chance
of being tried for the shooting, rather than let the rest of his gang
believe he’s turned them up. Get me?”
“We do, old top!” declared Peter. “We sure do! Oh, boy, you’ve got a
bean. We’ll have this little old murder cleared up like winking, and
Parker ready to take his wife into that little red-and-white bungalow as
soon as they planned--even if this has been a pretty tough honeymoon for
both of them.”
CHAPTER XXII
THE SHOWDOWN
Somers clambered into the little car. “You crank her, Pete,” he ordered
languidly. “I’m the brains of this combination; you can be the brawn.”
“Long-legged, lazy beggar!” retorted Peter. He stooped his five feet
four in front of the hood, set his hundred and twenty pounds against its
crank, and stopped to grin. “And the brains match the brawn,” he jeered.
“Both lightweights.”
Somers’ retort was lost in the roar of the motor. “Climb in, Peter!” he
yelled. “Those chaps might hear us; it isn’t more than half a mile. We
want to be out of gunshot before they come barging over that hill!”
Turning the little car he bumped off at a round pace, splashing through
the branch, bouncing and creaking over tree roots, and skidding through
the loose sand. The pace he maintained was racking to my old bones, and
I prayed for the springs of Lewis’ flivver. But the bones and the
springs held, by the especial grace of Heaven, though I heaved a deep
sigh of relief when we swung at last into the clay road.
We got back to Fort House without mishap, and there Somers left us.
“I’ll drive around and leave word for Satterfield,” he said. “He’ll be
busy out yonder for a while yet, but we ought to catch him before
evening. Where would be a good place for a quiet talk?”
“Why not at our house?” I asked. “We could have him in my nephew’s
office there. The place has been closed up since Lewis was arrested.
There’s nobody there.”
“That’ll be fine,” replied Somers. “I’ll leave word for Satterfield, and
after lunch we can go over there and wait for him.”
He rattled off in a cloud of dust and evil-smelling smoke, while Peter
and I went into the house. It was almost noon; the morning had passed
quickly enough. Somers returned in time for lunch.
“They expect him back about two,” he reported. “I told them to send him
over to your place, Uhlman, as soon as he comes in. I hinted at a little
quiet game; that’ll bring him, if anything.”
“Show-down,” declared Peter grimly.
We evaded Dorothy’s eager questions as best we might; all three of us
felt, I suppose, that it was best not to raise her hopes too high, for
fear of the inevitable reaction, should our enterprise fail. She had
been bubbling with optimism so often; and so often she had drooped
again, disappointed and inclined to blame us for her disappointment.
Directly after lunch we slipped out. Somers pacified his hostess by
handing her the jail key, which he still kept much more constantly than
did the constable.
“Here, child, I appoint you a deputy-deputy sheriff for this afternoon.
Parker had his breakfast, and his lunch; I routed out Wakefield and saw
to that. Now trot down there and keep him company for the afternoon. If
we’re not back, you can see to his supper; picnic there with him, if you
like. How’s that?”
The poor child thanked him warmly, glowing at the thought of one single
meal alone with her husband. It was pitiful.
I unlocked my house, which held already the queer, dank smell of disuse,
and we three entered and disposed ourselves comfortably upon dusty
chairs to await Satterfield’s coming. He kept us long enough; he had not
appeared at two, or at four. Indeed it was close upon sunset, and
Dorothy, no doubt, was already arranging her pathetic supper party in
the lockup, before we heard a heavy step on the porch, followed by his
loud knock.
Somers went to the door. “Hello, Satterfield! Come right in this way.”
“H-howdy, doc!” said Satterfield boisterously. His gruff voice was
blurred with liquor. He slapped Somers’ lean back and swaggered into the
darkened room. “Howdy, gents! Aim t’ have a li’l’ game, huh? Have
drink?”
Producing a quart flask he thrust it forward uncertainly, weaving back
and forth upon booted feet. Then he perceived suddenly that we were not
of his intimates.
“Wh-what’s this here?” he demanded. “Thought you was gointa have s’m’
reg’lar sports, doc?”
“I have,” replied Somers equably. “Come in the office, Satterfield; we
want to talk with you a bit.” And, as the other lurched past him through
the doorway, he passed a deft hand over both hips, then slipped it under
the loose coat with surprising speed and whipped out a big revolver.
The bootlegger whirled, snarling. “Here! Whaddaya mean?”
“Sit down, friend.” Somers waved him amiably to a chair, using the
pistol to gesture with. “We’re going to have a nice, quiet talk, and I’d
hate to have it interrupted by gun play.”
Blinking at him uncertainly, Satterfield subsided. “You done drank a
right smart o’ my liquor,” he said.
The doctor made a wry face. “Yes--for my sins! Now, Satterfield, we know
all about your bootlegging business; where the liquor comes from, who
makes it, how it’s brought to Pinelands, and where it goes from here. We
know you got five barrels of whisky this morning; it’s in the old drying
house, back of Bates’ orchard, right now. We know all about it; we’ve
got it all over you like a tent!”
Our victim scowled belligerently. “Huh! Dirty revenue sneak, are yuh?
Spy! Revenuer!”
Somers grinned. “Not that,” he said. “I’m no prohibition-enforcement
agent. _I_ don’t care how much booze you peddle, though I do think it’s
a pretty bad job for any man, especially, considering the kind of stuff
you’re putting out! I don’t want to squeal on you, Satterfield, and I
shan’t--unless----”
The other eyed him closely, tugging at his piratical mustache. “An’ I
thought you was my friend!” he said, apparently on the verge of maudlin
tears. “Well, gwan; how much? I c’n git a bunch o’ money f’r ye, I
s’pose.”
Somers shook his head. “Not that, either. All I want is the truth about
Doctor Gaskell’s murder. Did _you_ kill him, Satterfield?”
The man sat up suddenly, with a queer, galvanic jerk. Beneath its
grizzled stubble, his face turned a pasty white; his fierce eyes roved
uneasily, fear-filled, looking about for escape.
“I cain’t!” he protested. “I cain’t tell you-all nothin’ ’bout it. Ain’t
healthy. Nossir!”
“Very well! I’ll drop over to Raleigh to-morrow--no, to-night! I’ll hunt
up the collector of internal revenue there, and I’ll tell him all about
this wholesale booze business of yours. And, Satterfield,” as the other
shook a stubborn head, “_I’ll say you told me about it!_”
At the threat, delivered with terrifying earnestness, Satterfield leaped
up wildly. His truculence had disappeared; he was cold sober and in
deadly fear.
“Ah, no, no, _no_!” he exclaimed, his face ghastly. He literally went
down upon his knees, groveled on the floor, plucking at Somers’ shoes
with shaking hands. “Ah, don’t! Don’t, doc, he’ll k-kill me shore--he’ll
cut my heart out--he’ll b-burn me alive. You don’t know ’im, doc--he’d
skin me! Don’t you, now! Ain’t we been good frien’s, an’ drank together,
an’ all? Yuh wouldn’t do that t’ me? You-all ain’t a-goin’ to let him,
will yuh?”
He turned to us, tears trickling down his cheeks, a revolting, pitiable
spectacle.
“You’d better talk, then,” said Somers inexorably.
“Oh, yeah--yeah! Anythin’ on’y that! I’ll give up anythin’, if you-all
won’t turn ’im loose onto me.”
“Get up!” ordered our leader disgustedly. “Sit over there and quit
wallowing; act like a man.”
Satterfield obeyed. “I ain’t scared o’ many things, doc,” he said
unresentfully, but with a certain rude dignity. “There’s them could tell
yuh I ain’t no coward, but I am a-scared o’ him! Whaddaya want?”
“Did you shoot Gaskell?”
“Nossir!” he replied emphatically.
“Did you see him shot?”
“Nossir!”
“Well,” said Somers impatiently, “your daughter phoned to you that he
was going out, about four that morning. You borrowed Tulliver’s shotgun
without asking for it, and you started off down the hill, meaning to
kill him, didn’t you?”
Satterfield stared in wonder tinged with admiration. “Was you there?
Naw, yuh didn’t come till next day. It beats my time how yuh found out,
doc, but that’s straight--all of it.”
“Well, go on! What did happen? What did you do? Whom did you see? Come
out with it all, or I’ll go to Raleigh on the eight-ten!” Somers pulled
his watch. “I’ve just nice time to catch it.”
“Aw, now, doc, lissen! I come down th’ hill with Tulliver’s gun, jus’
like yuh said, an’ hung round Gaskell’s house waitin’ f’r him t’ come
out. But I never shot him, doc--I never seen him shot; I never seen him
come outa th’ house, even! I--I saw a--another feller hangin’ round, an’