Good Men and True; and, Hit the Line Hard/Good Men and True/Chapter 4
Chapter IV
"Good fellow, thy shooting is good,
An if thy heart be as good as thy hand,
Thou art better than Robin Hood."
WHEN he woke the soft-voiced, white-handed man again sat beside the bed, again in the same equestrian attitude, clasping the back of the chair, beaming with good humor.
"And how is our young friend now? Much better, I trust. We have had a long and refreshing sleep. Is our brain quite clear?"
Here the fat man—the less ill-favored one—rose silently from beside the fire and left them.
"Our young friend is extremely hungry," said Jeff. "Our young friend's brain is clear, but our young friend's head is rather sore. Where am I? In jail?" He sat up and pushed back the bandage for clearer vision.
The jovial gentleman laughed a merry and mellow peal. "What a spirited fellow you are! And what an extremely durable headpiece you have! A jail? Well, not exactly, my dear fellow, not exactly. Let us say, in a cache, in a retreat, sometimes used by gentlemen wishing temporary retirement from society. You are also, though I grieve to say it, in a jackpot—to use a phrase the precise meaning and origin of which I do not comprehend, but which seems to be, in the vernacular, a synonym for the more common word predicament." He shook his head sorrowfully. "A very sad predicament, indeed! Quite unintentionally, and in obedience to a chivalrous impulse—which does you great credit, I assure you—you have had the misfortune to mar a very-well-laid plan of mine. Had I not been a quick thinker, marvelously fertile in expedients, your officiousness would have placed me in an awkward quandary. However, in the very brief time at my disposal I was able to hit upon a device equally satisfactory—I may say even more satisfactory than the original."
"Hold on!" said Jeff. "I don't quite keep up. You planned a midnight assassination which did not go off smoothly. I've got that. You were one of the men in the cab. There was a fight"
"There was, indeed!" interrupted the genial gentleman. His eyes lit up with enthusiasm; his shapely fingers tapped the chair back. "Such a fight! It was magnificent! Believe me, my dear Bransford, it inspired me with an almost affectionate admiration for you! And your opponent was a most redoubtable person, with a sensitive trigger finger"
"Excuse the interruption," said Jeff. "But you seem to have the advantage of me in the matter of names."
"So I have, so I have! As you will infer, I looked through your pockets. Thorpe is my name—S. S. Thorpe. Stay—here is my card. You will see that I am entitled to the prefix 'Hon.' having been sometime State Senator. Call me Judge. I have never occupied that exalted position, but all the boys call me Judge. To go back—we were speaking of your opponent. Perhaps you knew him? No? Mr. Broderick, Mr. Oily Broderick, once of San Antonio, a man of some renown. We shall miss him, Mr. Bransford, we shall miss him! A very useful fellow! But your eyes ask the question—Dead? Dear me, yes! Dead and buried these many hours. He never knew what ailed him. Both of your bullets found a vital spot. A sad loss! But I interrupt. I am much interested to see how nearly ac curate your analysis of the situation will be."
"The short man was he killed, too?" asked Jeff.
"The worthy Krouse was killed as well," said Judge Thorpe, sighing with comfortable resignation. "But Krouse was a negligible quantity. Amiable, but a bungler. Go on!"
"Your intended victim seems to have escaped"
"Survived," corrected Judge Thorpe gently, with complacent inspection of his shapely hands. "Survived is the better word, believe me. Captain Charles Tillotson, Captain of the Rangers. An estimable gentleman, with whom, I grieve to say, I was not on the best of terms. To our political enmity, of long standing—and you perhaps know that Southwestern politics are extremely bitter—has been added of late a certain social rivalry. But I digress. You were saying"
"But you are prompting me," said Jeff testily. "It is hardly necessary. Your enemy not being killed outright, you choose to assassinate his good name, juggling appearances to make it seem that he was the murderer—and to that end you have spirited me away."
"Exactly! You are a man after my own heart—a man of acumen and discernment," said Judge Thorpe, beaming, "although I did, as you suggest, prompt you at some points—knowing that you were not familiar with all the premises. Really, Mr. Bransford, though I would not unduly exalt myself, I cannot help but think my little device showed more than mere talent. It was, considering the agitating circumstances, considering that both conception and execution had to be instantaneous, little less than Napoleonic! I feel sure that when I tell you the details you will share my enthusiasm."
Jeff was doing some quick thinking. He recalled what he had heard of Thorpe. He was best known as a powerful and wealthy politician of El Paso, who in his younger days had been a dangerous gunfighter. Of late years, however, he had become respected and reputable, his youthful foibles forgotten.
The appalling frankness of this avowal could bode no good to Jeff. Evidently he was helplessly in this man's power, and his life had been spared for some sinister and shameful purpose.
"Before you favor me with any more details, Judge," said Jeff, "can't you give me an old boot to chew on?"
"What wonderful spirits, what splendid nerves! I compliment you!" said the Judge. "Our good Mac went, when you first awoke, to prepare steak, eggs and coffee for you. You will pardon us if we do not have your meals brought in from a restaurant. It would not do. We are quiet here, we do not court observation. For the same reason we have been forced to abstain from medical attendance for you, otherwise so desirable. I, myself, have filled that office to the best of my ability. Now as to the replenishing of the inner man. Mac is an excellent cook."
"Cleaner than Borrowman," said Jeff.
"And is, as you observe, much cleaner than Borrowman. He will prepare whatever the market affords. You have only to ask. And, while we are waiting, I will return to my story.
"I was, as you so readily surmised, in the cab, together with my good friend, colleague and lieutenant, Mr. Sam Patterson. We had telephoned ahead to Krouse and Broderick that Tillotson was on his way. We were to be witnesses that Krouse acted purely in self-defense, you know—as, indeed, were also the cab driver and Broderick. Broderick was to hold himself in reserve and not to assist, except in case of mishap. We supposed that Krouse would kill Tillotson without difficulty. Krouse bungled. He inflicted three wounds, painful but not dangerous; including one which creased the scalp and produced unconsciousness."
The man took such shameless delight in parading his wickedness that Jeff began to wonder if, after all, it would not have saved himself much difficulty if Broderick had killed him. But he set his mind like a flint to thwart this smiling monster at any cost.
The Judge went on: "Such was the distressing situation when I came up. Some men would have finished Tillotson on the spot. But I kept my presence of mind; I exercised admirable self-restraint. It would be but an instant before the aroused neighborhood would be on the street. We bundled you and your gun into the cab and the driver hurried you away to a certain rendezvous of ours. To have done with the driver, I will say at this time that he came in and gave his testimony the next day very effectively, fully confirming ours; accounting for his conduct by the very natural excuse that he was scared and so ran away lest he should be shot.
"The gun in Broderick's right hand, you may remember, had not been fired. His stiffening fingers still held it. I picked up his other gun, unbuckled his belt, buckled it around Tillotson, and dropped Broderick's empty gun by him. No more was needed. The populace found me caring for Captain Tillotson like a brother, pouring whisky down him—and thereby heaping coals of fire on his head.
"Now, as to our evidence. As you may readily guess, we were driving by when the trouble began. We saw Captain Tillotson when he fired the first shot, killing Broderick with it. He continued to shoot after Broderick dropped; Krouse, defending his friend, was killed also, wounding Tillotson, who kept on shooting blindly after he fell. The circumstantial evidence, too, was damning, and bore us out in every respect. Broderick, a man of deadly quickness, had been killed before he could shoot. Tillotson had emptied one gun and fired four shots from the other; his carrying two guns pointed toward deliberate, fore-planned murder. The marks on the houses, made by a number of his wild bullets, were in a line directly beyond Broderick's body from where Tillotson lay. Broderick was between you and the others, you know," explained the Judge parenthetically. "But as nothing is known of you, the marks of Broderick's bullets are supposed to be made by Tillotson's—incontrovertible evidence that he began the fighting."
Nothing could have been more hateful, more revolting, than this bland, smiling complacency: Jeff's fingers itched to be at his throat. It became clear to him that either this man would be his death, or, which was highly improbable, the other way about. His resolution hardened; he began to have visions of this smiling face above a noose.
"When Tillotson regained consciousness he told a most amazing story, obviously conflicting with the facts. He had carried but one gun; Krouse had made a wanton attack upon him, without warning; he had returned the fire. Simultaneously Broderick had been killed by some fourth man, a stranger, whom Tillotson did not know, and who had mysteriously disappeared when the people of the neighborhood arrived. It looks very black for Captain Tillotson," purred the Judge, shaking his hands and head sorrowfully. "Even those who uphold him do not credit this wildly-improbable tale. It is universally thought that his wealth and position will not save him from the noose. El Paso is reforming; El Paso is weary of two-gun men.
"And now, my dear Bransford, comes the crucial point, a matter so delicate that I hesitate to touch upon it. All of my ingenious little impromptu was built and founded on the natural hypothesis of your demise, which, in my haste, I did not stop to verify. It did not occur to me as among the possibilities that any man—even myself—could weather six shots, at hand-grips, from Oily Broderick. Imagine, then, my surprise and chagrin when I learned that you were not even seriously hurt! It was a shock, I assure you! But here comes Mac with the tray. I will bathe your hands, Mr. Bransford. Then I beg that you will fall to at once. We will discourse while you break your fast."
"Oh, I can get up," said Jeff. "I'm not hurt. Put it on the table."