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Show fiab.v woulilii't listen to Danny's plan of coming hero. Cut, once or twice, she used the idea ns a threat to make this llauermnnt bird conte to terms, lie wouldn't mine. Later, Gaby began be-gan to give liini some of his own blackmailing medicine. I guess he was pretty keen to get rid of her. And her having talked about the Desert Des-ert Moon gave Mm his Idea. (To Be Continued) KAY ' "ilWvjfeA SI 13AS1AN Etyj I I V vV)y (OPYRI&HTby DOUBLEDAY OORAN CatNC. ' UNU SERVICE connected will) the" murder?" " "I think," Danny said, "that Chad did it. Uncle Sam, listen. You spoke about clearing e-veryone's name, and about the honor of the Desert Moon. Chad's confession does that does nil of It Why not let well enough alone?" My own words; but I had not expected ex-pected to hear them from Danny. The only reason for them seemed to be that Hubert Hand had frightened her with his case against John. Was she the sort of girl who would keep on loving John, and marry him, If she thought that he had killed her sister? I did not believe It. Sam said, "Somebody else suggested sug-gested that today, Danny. I told them that there was no question of well enough while the man who hat? murdered your sister was going about alive, and whilo Ida hoi nor wfl a Upon- CHAPTER VIX Continued. ""Idon't know why he brought her body back and hid It In the hous-e. He amy have been afraid of footprints In the road, or on the desert, If he carried the body away and tried to hide it out there. Be didn't know tlmt the storm was coming, to cover up his tracks. I think, though, that It was pure funk that made him come driving home with the body hidden In the car covered with the sacks of rock salt "1 didn't like to think that It was Danny who helped him out, after that. It didn't seem like her. I couldn't think of anyone else, though, who would help him. In the last few minutes, I've managed to think of someone else. It is a lucky thing for John. Tou are a d n sight stronger ally, Sam, than Danny or Ing his secret on the Desert Moon." "You said that?" Danny questioned, and gave us all another severe shock by accenting the pronoun. "1 said that, yes." Sam showed signs of rising dander. "And I thought that you, it anyone, more than anyone, would agree with me. You're going to be a good, sensible girl, now, and answer a few questions ques-tions 1 want to ask you. First thing I want to know Is, what was It that you girls were hunting for, all the time, here on the ranch?" "We had been told," Danny answered, an-swered, "that there was a very large sum of money hidden here on this place. We came to get IL That is Gaby did. I cared much more about staying here, and keeping Gaby here, than I cared about finding the money. Really, I I hoped not to find the money. There was no money here, as it turned out. That Is if Gaby told me the truth about anything. I thought that she did. But now she spoke of keeping fear and dread from me, In her last note to me. I I can't talk of this, today I" "See here, dad," John spoke up, "Danny is-n't fit to go through with this today. I think she has told me everything she has to tell. She told me most of it this morning. I've got It straight. How about allowing me to go on with it?" "Do you think any of it might have a bearing on the murder?" 'Tes, I think it might." Sam hanged on the table with his fist. "By G d," he roared, "what kind of people have I got to deal with? Not five minutes ago, you sat right there and swore that you had told evertyhing you know. Couldn't even begin. Couldn't think of a thing to say. No suspicion. No hints of any kind, except a slur at a dead boy. Now you come out with this. By the Lord, Hand, you may be a better man than I think you are " Danny's voice cut In like scissors slithering through taffeta silk, "Be careful, there," she said. I remembered remem-bered the way she had brushed the folks, too a person can't get to "the bottom of anything without going down. In tliis caw, It looks like we were going to have to go pretty low down a trip to b I for most of us. 1 reckon. But It will be a round trip. Most of us will come up clean, to a clean Desert Moon. Can't we go down, then, like a lot of reasonable human beings, and not like n kennel of yapping dogs?" "It won't hold, dad," John answered. an-swered. "Not this round trip to h I stuff, as human beinga If 1 hadn't stopped being a human being, that is, a man, t wouldn't have sat si ill here and let Hand have his say out. And I wouldn't have done it, not to save my 'own neck. Rut 1 know how you feel about the ranch. I've gone through with it for that reason and for Danny, though I know that all of this is a rotten mistake on your part. I know that; but it Is no use telling you, now that you've started. I'll go on with .it, the best I can. 1 guess the others will, too. tlop to it. dad. What's your next question?" Sam asked, "Do you suspect, with reason, anyone in this room?" "I do lot." John answered Sam's question, straight. "But it seems darn queer to me the way everyone is leaving leav-ing Chad's suicide out of this. Hold on, dad I I'm not saying that I think Chad killed her. I know he didn't. But 1 know just as well that he didn't walk out and shoot himself simply because he had loved Gaby. Chad was a queer bird, all right. I guess none of us understood him very well. He was as emotional as the deuce, too I'll grant that. But he was not, ever, a d n fool. "It is like this. Regular fellows, and Chad sure was one, don't walk out and kill themselves, when they find the girl they love is dead. It takes more than death to make a real man kill himself. No sir. I tell you Chad did not shoot himself because Gaby was dead. Sure, that was a part of it; but not the main part. "Chad was a darn good guy. Good 1 iV'::L all the way through. We all know that he didn't kill her. We'd know it if dad didn't have his alibis for him. But what I'm getting at is that, someway or other, and not meaning to at all, he got himself mixed up in it When he saw what had happened, and realized that he had been involved in-volved There's your reason, all right. 1 think that, If we can find out why Chad shot himself, we'll find out most of the other things we want to know. I'm through, dad. I've said all I've got to say, and more tOO.": Sam hesitated a minute. I was relieved re-lieved to see Mm take Chad's note out of his pocket "Chad says that he killed her," he said, and read the note aloud. Everyone but me, to whom it was no surprise, showed their horrified astonishment. John spoke first "I'll bet four dollars he never wrote it." Sam passed the paper to him. "It looks like his writing. It sounds like him, too. I wish there was an expert ex-pert of some kind that we could send it to, to find out why he wrote it." "Uncle Sam," Danny said, and I could see that the note had upset her pretty badly, "there is something no one has thought of. We haven't had time to think. But, where was Chad during the hour we were hunting for Gaby?" "I reckon," Sam spoke real gently to her, "that we have all had time .to do some tall thinking about that hour, little girl. But there couldu t be any doubt that Gaby had been dead a sight longer than an hour, when we found her." "But can you know that, for a certainty?" Danny insisted. "just as certain as I know that she was dead. Danny. I Wei . n the early days here- Never - mind tha , "All, Right," Sam Said, "All Through?" any one else would have been. For instance this present magnificent bluff of yours." "All right," Sam said. "All through?" "I'm satisfied, If you are," Hubert Hand answered, "I'm not" Sam drawled. "Because, like .;he caterpillar said, 'It's all wrong from beginning to end.' It Is a queer thing, though, the way quotations quota-tions always come to me. Most of the time you were talking, Hand, I kept thinking of this one: "Give a guilty man enough rope and he will hang himself.' " Sam told John it was his turn to ' talk. "I don't know where to begin," John said. "I've got nothing to talk about "Begin at the beginning. What did Gaby say to you, after dinner, that made you decide, right off, to go to Rattall?" "I've told you that already. I've got no changes to make in it. Gaby told me, after dinner, that Danny's headache was getting worse. She said that Danny had sent to Salt Lake for a certain kind of headache medicine, the only kind that ever did her any good. She said it should have come in the morning's mail. She said that Danny would be peeved at her for telling me about it asking me to go, that is. So, if I didn't want a fuss, and wanted to be allowed al-lowed to go, I'd better make a sneak of it, with no explanations. I did. ' Here is something 1 haven't told, though, for Danny just told me, when we came In here at three. She hadn't sent for any headache medicine to Salt Lake, nor anywhere. That certainly cer-tainly looks as if Gaby wanted to get either me, or the sedan, off the Job and out of the way, yesterday beaded bag. Something cold went trailing down my backbone. It was time, -and past, I thought, for me to take a hand. "Sam," I said, "what's become of all your fine talk about us not acting like yelping dogs, and swallowing our pride, and helping out and so on? If you think the fact that John wouldn't betray Danny's confidence to satisfy a crazy whim of yourg makes him out a murderer, you've got less sense at sixty-five than you had when you were born. The best thing you can do, is to follow your advice to me, and be quiet. John's ready to talk now, If you'll keep still and give him half a chance." The strongest man will drop before a good, strong volley of woman's words, the same as he would before a shooting squad. "Go on, John," I said, seeing that Sam had dropped, and wanting John to get a start before Sam had time to pick himself up, and dust off, and ask Danny what she had meant by hissing at him to be careful. "Shall I, Danny?" John asked. She nodded. "It isn't any too pleasant, even for me," John began, "but the straight of it is, that while Danny, for years, was a companion to a lady in England, Eng-land, Gaby was running around over Europe with a darned rotten lot of associates. On the face of things, she was an actress ; leading lady with a company that traveled all over the country over several countries giving giv-ing plays. That seemed to be mostly a blind", though, for her real occupation, occupa-tion, which was leading lady with a crew of blackmailers. Danny doesn't admit it, but I think there Is no doubt but that she had a lover named Lewis Bauermont something like that, "About six months before Danny wrote here, the lady, whom Danny had been serving as a companion, died. It left Danny at loose ends. She had next to no money saved. Gaby wrote that she could give her a small part in her company. Danny joined her in France. She had been there a couple of weeks, when the company went on the rocks. Danny thoueht it was done purposely, since one of their blackmail victims was making it too hot ft.r them. "G-ibrielle and Dj.nny went to Switzerland. This Bauermont showed up there in a few days and hung around. He r,r,l Gaby cot to quarreling quar-reling all the time. Gaby, who had always had plenty of money, ht-jsan to be short of funds. ..Danny was as miserable as--f"l. as Dar.nv would be in a mess like tj,at Pile remembered this place, and "begged Gaby to come here, and r,t a while, and got nd of f!. i;.,ermont, and the other haners-or, and cet rog-ll tj. make n frosa start. though. I've naa e-M'"' deaths, kind of on that order. I know The coroner and the sheilff Lew'. But, she might have been brought into thft house during that hour Hand let loose on his alibi husincss a little too early " 'm no fool," nnnert Hand Interrupted Inter-rupted "You admit that she could no have been murdered during the hour between sis and seven. Every one of us, except John, can acconn Tor every minute of our time t orn four o'clock, when we saw Gaby alne. no to seven." . -AH right. All right," Sam sa d. "Have It your own way. But you ye b?d your say, and plenty of time to . i? in You'll maybe have another tu ate', Now, keep still. We are 2" to hear from the others. H is your turn next, Danny, I'm sor y You understand, we haven t soiry. xo Take it easy, S?oV h' D yon suspect, with rea- afternoon. She must have had some reason for sending me on a fool's errand like that" "Did anyone see you towing Saule to his place?" "Not that 1 know of. I towed him aU right; but I can't prove it. Hand ai right when he said he could be nought for a half dollar. He might come cheaper. I'd try him with a barter, first. Hand." "Son," Sam said. "1 don't blame you a d n bit for heing sore clear to the bone. But, come to that, we Javon't any right to blame Hand. Jere, either; not if he Is honest in tls suspicions, and, maybe, he is. I Iflrcvd them out of him. Can't yon billow your pride, for a while, and 'Tve swallowed it already," John ,ai. "if that's what you want. Swal-H Swal-H till I'm choked with it." know, 1 know. But it is li'e . John and this goesforal! SJ |