The trouble at Pinelands A detective story
“So he recommended me, and I got the place and came to Fort House. I’ve
been here ever since. Perhaps you’ve wondered why I kept so close in the
house and never went anywhere? Or, perhaps, you just thought I was too
sleepy and sluggish to want to go out. But I saw that man Satterfield
downtown one day, and I didn’t dare show myself after that, for I’d seen
him on the Devil’s Branch, at my stepfather’s, twice. He had something
to do with disposing of the liquor they made; I don’t know what.
“I couldn’t change my name, you see, because I’m a registered nurse and
have to have a license. But my stepfather has never lived out of the
mountains, and he doesn’t know anything about registration and all that;
so I wasn’t afraid he’d trace me through the State board. I kept right
close in the house and hoped Satterfield wouldn’t see me or think of my
being the same one, if he heard my name. Nobody much knew my name,
anyhow, I kept so quiet. People just thought of me as that stupid nurse
up at Fort House.
“And I lived in fear that some day my stepfather would find me out, or
come here and kill Doctor Gaskell anyway, as he’d threatened; and I
think I’d have gone crazy if it weren’t for this stupid, sleepy feeling
I always had. I suppose it was a disease, as you said, Doctor Somers,
but I think it saved my reason.
“And at last he did find me out. Was it any wonder I was frightened, Mr.
Uhlman, when you came in that night and said you’d seen Roaring Lafe
Rutledge on Doctor Gaskell’s porch, threatening to ‘settle with him
before sunup?’ And now you know why I ran right out without stopping to
explain. I went over to the doctor’s house, right across the road, and
told him my stepfather was here, and I begged him to hide, or have him
arrested.
“He only laughed, for he was never afraid of my stepfather. But he did
promise not to go to the hotel and see him. And then, next morning, you
found him out there--dead! I thought right away it must have been my
stepfather who did it, and I suppose I fainted. I was almost glad”--she
looked at Dorothy in wistful apology--“when they said Doctor Parker had
done it by accident. The--the other seemed so terrible; to think he’d
been killed because of me! And then, afterward, when the solicitor made
it look like murder, I didn’t know what to do. And I hoped you-all could
prove it was Satterfield who was guilty, or anybody in that gang except
my stepfather, and for any reason except because of me. And it seemed
harder and harder”--her beautiful, appealing eyes were fixed upon Somers
once more, as in mute explanation of her difficulty--“harder than ever
to have to tell all this, and to have to admit that I was only a poor,
uneducated girl from the mountains, without any relatives in the world
that I know of except my stepfather.”
She stopped and bent her fair head, sobbing desolately. Somers patted
her shoulder. “You poor child!” he said, his casual tones suddenly
deeper, softer, charged with sympathy. She looked up at him adoringly,
with the wistful, worshiping gaze one sees in a dog’s eyes. But he
seemed blind to its significance.
“Don’t you fret any more,” he went on. “You needn’t marry this Cal Col
fellow or any other man. And if Lafe comes roaring round here, he’ll get
into trouble. I’m not afraid of him, either!”
“Oh, you don’t know him. He’s terrible--just terrible! Sometimes I
wonder if he’s quite human. If he comes for me, I’ll just have to go
back, that’s all, and marry Cal Col, if he says so. I--I can’t have
anybody else murdered for me.”
“Humph!” said Somers. “I begin to feel that I ought to have a bit of a
chat with this Mr. Rutledge!”
“Oh, no, no, no!” The girl’s voice rang sharp with fear; she clutched at
his arm. “He--he’d kill you, too!”
“I think not.” Somers freed his arm gently and rose. “But look here,
Anne, if Rutledge knew you were here, why hasn’t he come after you? I
don’t believe his business with Gaskell had anything to do with you; I
don’t believe he knows where you are at all. Satterfield admitted that
Doctor Gaskell had found out about their whisky-smuggling business; he
said his mysterious chieftain had ordered Gaskell killed for that. If
Rutledge is this leader whom Satterfield’s so afraid of--and it looks
that way--he ordered the killing because Gaskell knew too much. You
hadn’t a thing to do with it. And then he came down here to do it
himself; wouldn’t trust Satterfield, I suppose.”
He began to pace the floor; six long, loose strides this way, a turn,
and six more back. On the hearthrug he stopped.
“It’s plain enough now. Gaskell was murdered by the moonshiners for fear
he’d break up the business. And Rutledge did the killing. Now all we’ve
got to do is round up Roaring Lafe and fetch him down here to stand
trial. Once he’s safe in jail, Satterfield will probably get over his
fright enough to testify against him; nobody looks quite as dangerous,
once he’s been quietly arrested and locked up.”
Anne Christie cried out upon him. “Oh, no, no! You mustn’t, you can’t!
You’ll be killed! And, anyhow”--plucking up courage at the thought--“it
wouldn’t do any good; you can’t find anybody to serve a warrant on
Roaring Lafe. The sheriff wouldn’t go up on Devil’s Branch for anything,
and, if he did, nobody could find Lafe Rutledge, once he’d taken to the
laurel.”
“Humph!” said Somers. “You’re forgetting something.” He touched the star
on his breast. “I’m a perfectly good deputy sheriff myself. I can serve
a warrant. Even if that is another county, I guess we can stretch a
point of law. Maybe the sheriff over there will deputize me, too.”
He cut her further protests short. “It’s getting late; why, it’s after
midnight! We’ll all go to bed and make our plans in the morning.”
CHAPTER XXV
A TRIP TO THE MOUNTAINS
Next morning at breakfast Doctor Somers set forth his plan. For once all
the people of Fort House sat down together; even Aunt Mary appeared in
time to be wheeled to her place before we were seated.
“I will go up into the mountains,” he announced. “I’ll start this
evening, spend the night in Asheville, and go on to-morrow. How far is
it, Anne?”
“All of twenty miles, the way one has to go, and no roads worth speaking
of. You can’t drive a car.” The girl was very pale; there were bluish
shadows beneath her eyes. She spoke reluctantly and seemed determined to
make the way as difficult as might be. “And you’d never find the place
without a guide.”
“Humph! If I can’t drive a car, I can ride a horse. They taught us
equitation in the army--what, Peter, old son? Also, I can walk; my legs
are long enough. And, if you’ll draw a map, I’ll engage to find the
Devil’s Branch. I’m not easy to lose, even in the mountains.”
Miss Christie still objected, and Dorothy seconded her. “It won’t do any
good,” she declared. “You’ll get lost, or killed, and Lewis needs you
here. Why not just go to the sheriff or the district attorney and swear
out a warrant, and let the police arrest him? That’s their business.”
Somers shrugged. “Swear out a warrant? On what grounds? He was in
town--Rutledge, I mean--and he had threatened to shoot Doctor Gaskell
several years ago. That’s all we could prove. Satterfield won’t testify;
he wouldn’t even admit to me that Rutledge was the man whom he saw. And,
if we could get a warrant on that, your name would have to be signed to
it, as complaining witness, and Rutledge would know where you are, Anne.
And, if the sheriff’s afraid of him, as you say, Rutledge wouldn’t be
caught anyhow. He’d be warned, have a chance to hide out, and maybe to
slip down here and make trouble for you. I wish old man Redden were the
sheriff of Whitfield County up there! I’ll bet he wouldn’t be afraid of
Roaring Lafe!”
He paused, looking about the table, with half-whimsical seriousness.
“And, furthermore, my children, have you considered that I shan’t be
perfectly safe here in Pinelands from now on? No, nor you two, either.”
He jabbed at Peter and me successively with a long, bony finger. “When
Satterfield reports to his mysterious chief and tells him that the three
of us know all about this whisky-running game of theirs, it’s quite on
the cards that Mr. Roaring Lafe may decide we could all be spared, just
like Gaskell. Suppose we just stayed here and did nothing, and a couple
of sturdy bootleggers ambushed Fort House and shot us up?”
Here Aunt Mary interposed. She had been waiting, open-mouthed, for a
chance to interrupt.
“I won’t have it!” she declared shrilly. “I can’t stand it! My rest is
broken enough now; those miserable birds are driving me frantic; I
haven’t a bit of rest, and nobody cares if I die of exhaustion. But this
is too much. You’ll have to go, all three of you! You’ll have to leave
Fort House at once. No, Dorothy, I insist. I will be heard for once.
I’ve submitted to being ignored and put aside and slighted long enough.
Nobody considers me any more; nobody seems to care whether I live or
die. As if Lewis Parker, a big, healthy young man, weren’t lots more
comfortable in jail than I am here, lying on my bed of pain! It’s
absurd--it’s monstrous! But I will assert myself for once: Either you
men leave this house, all three of you--Peter’s no more help or comfort
to me than you others--either you leave Fort House, or I will!”
We stared uncomfortably, the others, no doubt, as much amazed as I was
by the old lady’s colossal, callous selfishness. For she had not a cent
of her own, and she was a pensioner upon the bounty of her nephew and
niece.
“You can stay,” she went on, “but if you do, I go to a hotel this very
morning. I won’t have my life endangered; I won’t have my rest broken
any longer! Why, this whole affair of the murder has annoyed me beyond
endurance.” One would have thought that we had planned Doctor Gaskell’s
death, with malice aforethought. “But I’ve stood all I can. Dorothy,
phone to the Pinelands House at once and engage two rooms and bath for
me. And you’d better pay them a week in advance, too.”
“Humph,” said Doctor Somers, placidly. “You see?”
Dorothy nodded reluctantly. Miss Christie said nothing. She was very
pale.
Somers rose. “It’s settled, then. I start for the mountains to-night.
And, Peter, you and Uncle George had better come along, I think. You can
put up at a hotel in Asheville. I really think you’ll be safer there
than to stay in Pinelands just now.”
“Oh, we’ll come,” I answered for both of us. “But you needn’t think
we’re going to stay at any hotel and let you go off alone. You need
somebody to look after you, man!”
“Humph! Well, we can settle that later.” He pushed back his chair and
bowed to Aunt Mary. “And now, madam, we’ll relieve you of the distress
of our presence. Come along, you chaps, we’ll stay at Uhlman’s house
until train time.” He bowed ironically and stalked out.
As I followed, I saw Dorothy turn upon her aunt, her face white with
anger, her eyes flashing. I grinned inwardly, feeling that for once the
old lady was about to hear some sharply wholesome truths.
I hurried after my companions. “Pack a bag, each of you,” ordered our
leader. “Put in things for a week, anyhow. And bring your field glasses,
Peter, and that pistol of yours. Wish we had three of them!”
“I’ve got one at home,” I said, “a police revolver. I’ll bring that.”
Miss Christie hurried past us, as we stood in the hall, and returned in
two minutes. “Here!” She thrust something into Somers’ hand. “Take that
and use it if you must. And, oh, my dear, be careful!”
She was gone in a breath, leaving the lanky physician staring down in
bewilderment at a businesslike revolver, whose wooden butt was battered
and worn.
Our few preparations made, for we were to go in light marching order, we