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Show I III! ; U I i,y r CLEAVER. I straiian tan lv-:jSy fOPYRKVHTby DOUBLEDAY OORAN COtNC. HWUSERVICE "Let mo sc,- iiiinerf TTahfl continued, con-tinued, "whore was I? Gaby, after going through Hie room, stopped on the porch for n minute to talk to Chnd. ne came Into the house in a fine humor. Gaby then went around the housp to the rabbit hutch, and for some reason, gave her bracelet to Martha. Marl ha was In the house again within five or ten minutes Danny had come down by that time. From four to Ave, then, you and 1 were playing chess. Chad was at the piano. Danny and Mary were over there, talking together. Mrs. liicker was tatting. Martha was just fooling around the room. I'm pretty certain not one of us left this room during that hour. "At five we three men went together togeth-er to let the cows In and to milk. Mary, I believe, was In the kitchen alone, getting supper, during that time. Mrs. Ricker, Danny and Martha remained here In the living room. Is that right?" clothes.-Vi'lien Tie came "down "he" acted like a man in n daze. He couldn't eat. He offered being out in the sun as an excuse. He is out in the sun every day. "I think that he had met Gaby, as they had planned, right after dinner wlnn he started for Rattail. Maybe she had promised him to leave the place. He was crazy to get her off the ranch. I know that. He told me so, just the other day said she was making trouble here, and so on. She may have had something on him, that she was threatening to tell Danny, or Sam. I don't know about that, either, l don't know a d n thing about whatever they might have had between them. But I think that he killed her, out on the desert some place. (To Be Continued) ' CHAPTER IX The Session When I went down to the living room, at five minutes before three, Danny, John, Mrs. Ricker and Martha ffere all there. Martha was on the biggest davenport, playing with the charm. Tlds gTin Is here Tor 1u.5t one -nf-pose, and I'm dead certain U won t be used for that A word to the wise, though. - No person, barring none and Including the ladies, Is to leave this room until l give the word. No innocent person Id here will try to leave. Any guilty person In here and, before Tod, there is a guilty person here; guilty, at least, of aiding and abetting is going to have too much sense to try to make a break. That Is whj 1 won't need the gun. Not, 1 mean, until we find the guilty person. When we have found him. It may be of some use until the sheriff sher-iff can get here. 411 I'm asking, of everybody here, Is that you all tell the truth. You'll have to, sooner or later. Better make It sooner." "Maybe it Is, and maybe it isnt," Sam said. "There Is the hour in there, before supper, that we'll all have to account for, right accurately, before any of us has that water-tight alibi you were talking about, Hand.'' "All right," Hubert Hand agreed. "You and Chad and I went down to the barns together. We let the cows in. We milked them. At least, you and I did. Chad stayed with you and was kidding around down In your end of the barn, I heard yon laughing laugh-ing and talking down there, together, the whole time. "I milked four cows. And I , will swear that you were In the barn the entire time. Anyway, that Is easy settled. Mary, did I, or did anyone any-one of the three of us, come through the kitchen and go npstairs during ' that hour?" i ' Sf.m and Hubert Hand came Into the room together. Sam looked around, counting noses. "All here," he said, and locked the door he and Hubert had come through, and dropped the key In his pocket. He went all around the room, closing and locking the doors ana windows. He moved a chair to tie foot of the stairway, pulled a gnall table over beside it, took his six-gun out of his back pocket, put It on the table, and sat down in the chair. No one had moved nor had said a word. I know that I was frightened. I wa9 not afraid of Sam, and I was not afraid of that sis-gun. Mostly, I guess, I was afraid of being made afraid; partly, I was afraid of myself. my-self. Hubert Hand spoke first, "Cannon ugh?" he sneered. "That's all right. Hand," Sam answered. an-swered. "This is here, mostly I think, for ornamental purposes." "Daddy," Martha piped up, "aren't we going to have the fireworks tonight?" to-night?" Sam frowned at her. "Not tonight, During this speech my dander had been rising. It had got up pretty good and high by this time. "Sam Stanley," 1 spoke out, "you ought to know that you can't force truth out of anybody at the point of a gun, nor by keeping them locked up. We'll get hungry. We'll get thirsty. And when we do we'll eat and drink and go about our affairs. At least I will unless you shoot me. I'm not fixed to put up with this kind of foolishness." foolish-ness." "Mary," Sam roared at me. "That's enough out of you. You be quiet. You are going to do as you are told. So are the others." Sam had never spoken like that to me before. It left me limp as a drained jelly bag. Before I could get my breath for an answer, Hubert Hand was talking. "Changed your mind since morning, haven't you, Sam? You were dead sure this morning that no one on the place had had anything to do with the murder." "No," I answered. "Mrs. Ricker," Hubert Hand questioned, ques-tioned, "did any one of us men come In, and go upstairs through the living room, during that hour?" "No," she said. "Mrs. Ricker," Sam asked, ."were you right there, alone, In the living room during that entire hour?" "I was not alone. Martha was with me. And, several times during the hour, five or six times at least, Danny came In from the dining room to see whether she could see John coming up the road." "Danny," Sam spoke to her, "were Mrs. Ricker and Martha in the living room every time you went in there?" "I think so." "Only think so, eh?" Hubert Hand half sneered it. "I mean," Danny explained, "that I am sure Mrs. Ricker was here. I did not particularly notice Martha." "I can vouch for Marthr," Mrs. Ricker snapped. "All right," Hubert Hand went on, "so far, so good. The ladies, I think, especially if you remember the glass doors between the living room and the dining room, have established alibis that would satisfy any jury. "Now for you and Chad and me, again. We walked together, carrying carry-ing the milk, to the dairy. There we took off the barn coveralls, and, at your suggestion, washed up in the dairy kitchen to save time. We came back to the house together. Mary said that supper was on the table. We all sat down to the table together. to-gether. All present, you see, except John. flaughter." She opened her mouth and began making those dreadful noises she always al-ways made whenever she was crossed in anything. Sam rapped on the table, "Shut that up, here and now," he said. "Not; another whimper out of you. Hear me, Martha?" She closed her mouth with a snap. "Never mind about my morning's opinions, Hand. You are right. Dead right. I've changed my mind. Now, since you are already going pretty good, I'll begin with you and work around the room, taking each one in turn. I want you to tell everything you know, and everything you suspect sus-pect concerning the murder." "Sorry," Hubert Hand said, "but 1 don't know a d n thing except that, apparently, she was strangled to death some time between four o'clock yesterday afternoon and eight o'clock yesterday evening. We saw her alive at four. We found her dead at eight. That's the extent of my knowledge. ' "All right. " Now go ahead with I Nr . it what you suspect-' "I can't see," Hubert Hand objected, ob-jected, "that suspicions have any place here. Beyond stirring up a rumpus and hard feelings, they wouldn't get any f us any place." "That is for me to decide," Sam said. "You were mighty busy for a while this morning, throwing out hints and slurs. It this session doesn't do anything else, it can anyway any-way clear out all this whispering that is going around. Come on now. Hand. Come clean." "Well," Band said, "1 can talk all right But I want to start with this understanding. I don't know any facts that amount to a d n. You're 1 rignt that I have suspicions, and, since you are determined to have them now, at the point of a gun, I'll say that I think John did it, and that somebody else in the house is shielding shield-ing him." . "Would it have been possible for I you, or for me, or for Chad, to have gone down to the barn (you and I j each milked four cows, remember), come back to the bouse and through It, with not one of these ladies seeing see-ing us, committed the murder, got back to the barn, and then to the house again, all in an hour? I think, Sam, the wisest thing you can do, is to grant us all our alibis for that hour, anyway, and then work on from there, if you're bound to." "The alibi hour sounds tine, Hand," Sam said, "but you are making a mistake. Sou are assuming that I think that someone here committed the murder. I don't think that. I do think that someone in this room, right now, knows who did it Where any one of us wns, or was not, at the particular hour you're making such a stew about, probably doesn't cut any ice." $ J What Had Become of the Key to the S I Atic Door? Danny gave a thin, sick utue snnen and threw her arm around John in a protecting way. John straightened. Under his tan I could cee the color seeping out of his face. Gently, he removed Danny's arm. Sam lowered his white eyebrows until his eyes looked like two slits of blue light, glinting out from away i behind his face. When he spoke ' his voice was iron. "Why do you think. John killed "I think it does. 1 told you I didn t have any proofs, didn't I, when you made me talk? But I have got some pretty solid bases for my suspicions John decided, all of a sudden, to go to Rattail for the mail or something. some-thing. He was gone four hours instead in-stead of the two two and a half, anyway that tie could have made it in. He had two bum excuses. First, trouble. Two hours Is a long time f 'thought those immense eyes of hers 5,5 fould pop out of her head. I am sore the others of us all felt the way S e looked. In all the years we had ;1 ed on the Desert Moon, it was the trst time any one of us had ever g Sam 'speak impatiently to I fertha. As for scolding her, being with her, up to this minute it 1 tad never been in the book. S j "I reckon," Sam began, "that all of I J Km in here know that anyone could op o any man or woman in , ttre and call him or her a murderer, !ig Ea that not one of us could give the lie, right now. 4 J'1 reckon that you know, too, as 'j fteryone In the country knows that, jj 'his hour, the Desert Moon ranch I 4 rotten with the muck of crime and ;loion. Maybe you don't know '?5 11 " Is not going to say that way J aj more hours. a? JVe nave called the law In, as was 'bt ond proper. And the law has reil polite, and bl'nke its eyes, " 4 :a parted. 'Folded its tents like Aral)s, and silently stole away.' ,;(". tha's all right 1 didn't much ,;;e about having those fellows mix i' r;" niJ prixate business; anyway, J 1 until had found out -that I ;;lll't attend to it myself. I am 3 j'! 8,)itiS to llnd that out. I can S l;' to it. i am going to, right J j :6 ar"l now. Later on, when we ii? j..' the law again, we'll call on it. J V ; '"nocent In this room will have s,s j ' names cleared. The Desert '3 wlH be a fit place for a white V "Ve on- ' ) "'Is gun here may look like i,5 j ,vlolen' or something. I don't. nt going to act violent. he"In the first place, John is the only one here who hasn't a water- "SatT T'a-n he Isn't' Sam interrupted. "But never mind. Go "At four o'clock Gaby came down through Jbe room. While she was still In sight, Danny called down, trying try-ing to get her to come back lovr this is lust another suspicion ; 1 don t know whether anyone will back me up in it or not probably not, -be added the last in a hateful, slurring way-"but I noticed that her voice funded strange, like she was excited, ex-cited, maybe, or else afraid Sam asked, "Did anyone else heie notice anything of that kind? Mrs. Ricker spoke. "I noticed it, she said. . Hubert bowed at her, in a sort of mocking way. Knowing what I knew I thought that oer corroboration would do Hubert Hand more harm than good. But, of course, the others oth-ers did not know what I knew. to change tires. The second excuse was, that he had met Leo Saule and had' given hint a tow. Saule Is a rotten rot-ten little half-breed, who could be nought for a half dollar. Also, he lives alone, away off the main road" John jumped to his feet. "Get this. Hand" ,, . . Sara bad Jump-d to... he not to John and put his hands on his shoulders. shoul-ders. "Keep your shirt on, son. I am to blame for this. Tour turn Is coming. com-ing. Wait for it Go on, Hand. John hesitated, and sat down again. Sam went back to his chair by the table. , "Sorrv," Hubert Hand apologized. -I don't like this a d-n bit bette, than John does : hut it seems to be up to e. Well, then, he came In two hou-s late. He came through the kitchen; and, instead of leaving e car in the garage, he left it In he-back he-back entrance. He went straight up stairs. It took :nm half an hour, oi more, to get shaved and changa hi |