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Show vrf BLACK SOMBREROj 'MTy CLIFFORD KNIGHT ZZX,J X U possession. When it did, Chesebro already was in his house in bed and suffering from a heart attack. Dwight Nichols and Sam Chatfield were of similar build and height. . How easy for Pedro, if he did actually actu-ally see Sam Chatfield on his way to murder Chesebro, to confuse him with Nichols! "Reed" Rogers turned abruptly to Reed Barton "your fish knife was used to kill Rumble. Can you . explain that away?" j Reed Barton sat staring over the j rail at the town. He shifted his j long legs and said: "I can tell you behind him not very far is another senor following him. This is Senor Chatfield. Pancho and I recognize him but we do not speak. We are loafing on the street near the wharf all the time, and soon Senor Chatfield Chat-field comes walking very fast toward to-ward the town. He does not see us. Pancho asks: 'What is his hurry, hur-ry, Felipe?' and I say I do not know. Then I wonder if the senor with the fine clothes is still out on the wharf. And I say to Pancho, 'Let's go and talk to the senor,' because be-cause he is un gran caballero, and perhaps we can sing for him. "Well, senor, we go, Pancho and I. But he is not on the wharf. We think the launch has come and taken tak-en him, only the time is too short. But we do not know'." Silence fell upon us at the conclusion con-clusion of this lengthy account. Rogers Rog-ers thanked the youth and turned to Lombardo. "Senor," he said, "are you satisfied satis-fied now, as I am satisfied, that when Sam Chatfield separated from Dwight Nichols at the hotel that night, he followed George Rumble to the wharf because he feared that Rumble would tell what he knew, and killed him with the knife he had taken from Reed Barton's room? And threw the body from the wharf and tossed the bag and the weapon after him, and then returned to meet the others of the party at the hotel?" "Yes, Senor Rogers, I am satisfied." satis-fied." "The death of Sam Chatfield can have been only an accident. It occurred oc-curred before the fate of George Rumble was known, and for that reason confused me. A perfectly natural accident, I should say, and a fate justly due the man." . "I agree, senor." Rogers abruptly left us and went to the companionway. He disappeared disap-peared for a few minutes, then returned re-turned carrying the huge black sombrero som-brero with its silver ornaments. He stopped before us, turned the hat upside down and his fingers slipped inside the sweatband. He drew out a slip of paper, and held it out to Lombardo. "The handwriting is that of Rumble," Rum-ble," he said. I noted the immature, imma-ture, schoolboy writing I'd seen before. be-fore. "You can verify it at the newspaper office. You will note the names in the following order: Madison, Mad-ison, Barton, Rogers, Nichols, Chatfield, Chat-field, Chesebro. , Those are names of the men in this party, excepting Rumble's. You note that every name is crossed out in the same heavy pencil line, except the name of Chatfield. For what it's worth, it's the evidence, Senor Lombardo, offered by a dead hand. By what means he discovered Sam Chat-field's Chat-field's guilt we'll never know. The slip was found only last night" "I am satisfied, Senor Rogers," Lombardo repeated, rising. "I shall go ashore now and set Pedro free. He cannot be guilty now." As the two shook hands and went down the ladder, followed by Felipe and Pancho, the launch appeared with Elsa, Margaret and Berta, eager ea-ger now to come aboard, to leave Mazatlan behind them. They paused to say goodby to Lombardo and Doctor Cruz and the two boys, and then came up the ladder. We stowed the launch and lashed it down, and an hour or so later in the full sunshine that beat down upon us out of a hot sky we lifted anchor and dropped down stream toward the long swells of the open ocean. THE END Elsa Chatfield Is disinherited by hei Aunt Kitty who dies of an overdose ol morphine. Hunt Rogers and Barry Madison Mad-ison go to Mexico to solve wbat they believe be-lieve to be Aunt Kitty's murder. On arriving ar-riving they find tbat Elsa's party has preceded them by plane. James Chesebro Chese-bro is murdered, Elsa's father, Sam, meets death from the sword of a martin, and George Rumble Is murdered and thrown Into the sea near the dock. Rogers Rog-ers questions Berta, Sam's wife, and on examining the quirt with which Elsa bad beaten Chesebro discovers that it conceals con-ceals the knife that killed Chesebro. Rogers visits Lombardo and names each of those who bad a motive for killing Aunt Kitty. CHAPTER XIX "The time Rumble died is important," impor-tant," he said. "The hands of his watch were stopped at nine-nine. But that is an impossible hour; Rumble was alive at that time and with us in the bar. He checked out of the hotel at ten-thirty, and disappeared. dis-appeared. His body was found floating float-ing later near the wharf. His bag, discovered in the water at the edge of the wharf, indicates that he was, in spite of his quarrel with Dwight Nichols, determined to go aboard the Orizaba and accompany us swordfishing the next day. Rumble was like that, senor; he was a strange man. - "The hour of nine-nine has no meaning, unless we can explain it satisfactorily. That, I think, is quite simple. Of course, the watch could have stopped of itself, but I'm sure that's not the explanation. The first day ashore after the Orizaba arrived ar-rived in Mazatlan, we met Rumble on the street. The time of day was mentioned. He looked at his watch, which I noted did not agree with mine. In fact, it was two hours slow. He explained it by saying that he was still keeping Los Angeles Ange-les time, which is two hours slower than Mazatlan time. "Now, then," Rogers went on earnestly, ear-nestly, "assuming that, on the night he died, his watch was still keeping Los Angeles time, what does that signify? He must have died at eleven-nine. That simplifies things immensely. im-mensely. Where were we all at that time? Barry Madison and I at that time were on board the Orizaba. The others Elsa, Dwight Nichols, Sam Chatfield and Reed Barton came aboard about midnight. mid-night. Reed Barton arrived alone at the wharf, having had to go around by his hotel for his things. Elsa, her father, and Dwight Nichols Nich-ols went to the wharf together. What time, Reed, did you reach the wharf?" 1 "How long had you been waiting when the others arrived?" "I'd have to guess, Hunt. Perhaps Per-haps twenty minutes. Maybe half an hour." "Did you see anything of Rumble?" Rum-ble?" ; "No." ! Rogers turned to Dwight. "What time did you reach the wharf?" "Oh," said Dwight, "we left the hotel at a quarter to twelve. Went down in a taxi. Shouldn't have taken five minutes." "Now, this question, Dwight: After Aft-er Barry and I left you and Sam Chatfield together, what happened? Were you together the remainder of the evening?" Dwight was slow to answer. At length he replied: "No. Sam and I separated at ten-thirty. He said there was something he had to do yet before he could go aboard the Orizaba. He came back about an hour later. It was eleven-thirty, at any rate, when I' met him again." "Perhaps, senor, we have made a wrong assumption somewhere our discussion has not disclosed the murderer. Perhaps," he paused, his manner somewhat hesitant, "perhaps this testimony you've heard just now seems rehearsed, senor; but I assure you it is not. I have realized that Dwight Nichols and Sam Chatfield could not have been in each other's company all that evening, but I have not known the facts until now. "Earlier," Rogers continued, a new note of confidence coming into his voice, "I assumed that it was proper to exclude from suspicion all those persons who, subsequently to Katherine Chatfield's death, died by violence. I named Chesebro, Sam Chatfield and Rumble as victims of and not the probable killer." "Yes, sir." "Consider for a moment Sam Chatfield" "Senor Chatfield?" "Yes. He had a most excellent motive for killing his sister. Mrs. Nichols, some months ago said this of him: 'He clutched decency to himself with all the passion of a fierce new love.' Now, then, had not his sister, an unmarried woman, disgraced the family by bearing a child? Had she not committed an even greater wrong against his daughter Elsa? "And so " Rogers drew from his pocket the rotogravure clipping and gave it to Lombardo. "After Sam Chatfield had died, I found this on his desk at the rancho. Senor Lombardo, Lom-bardo, you did not know Chesebro, and, therefore, the point is lost upon you. But the child in the picture bears an unmistakable likeness to Chesebro. I believe that Sam Chatfield Chat-field did not know that Chesebro was the guilty man until this picture pic-ture from the paper came into his Elsa what I think happened, Hunt. The kaife was in my room at the hotel the morning I was arrested. Later, when I went to get my things together to-gether for the fishing trip, I looked for the knife to take with me, but it was gone. I did not see it again until I found it on Senor Lombardo's desk at headquarters." "Do you accuse anybody?" "No. But there is this to think about: While I was in jail, I asked Mr. Chatfield to get my watch from my room at the hotel. He brought it to me a couple of hours later. I've since, investigated and I'm convinced con-vinced that Mr. Chatfield is the only one who visited my room and could have taken it." "Ah, so?" breathed Lombardo. "Felipe," the conversation shifted swiftly into Spanish, as Rogers at last addressed the older of the two mariachis, "I want you to answer some questions." "Si, senor." "Did Senora Chatfield send you and Pancho with a note to the rancho?" "Yes, sir." "Did you see anything of Senora Chatfield when you returned to the wharf?" "No, sir. And when the launch is gone, Pancho and I go toward the town. Just as we are leaving the wharf the senor with the big sombrero som-brero and the fine clothes he passes us going out onto the wharf. And |