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must be on guard every hour of the day and night. That Pike would ride on out
of the country he did not believe for one moment. The man was vindictive, and
dangerous. He would wait ... The worst of it was, he might be trapped by one
of the Bucklins, forcing them into a shootout.
Throughout the day, Val worked the fingers of his right hand. They were
limber enough, but the shoulder was stiff, and there was no ease in his
movements, and no speed. Meanwhile, he could not help but notice how well kept
the ranch was. The buildings had been painted, the gates all worked easily,
and what stock he could see was in good shape.
A third of this was his, but though he had provided the money that made the
difference, there was here no work of his hands, no planning of his brain.
This was the work of others, for which he could take no credit.
He shifted in his chair. He was nothing but an aimless drifter; he was not
even as much as Will had been, who was a gambler, admitted it, and enjoyed
it enjoyed it, at least, until he met Princess Louise.
What had become of her?And of Prince Pavel? At the thought of Pavel he felt
coldness take hold of him. He would never forget that day on the outskirts
ofInnsbruck when Pavel had tried to whip Will Reilly.
Yet in the end it was Pavel who had triumphed. His money and his hatred had
reached where he could not, dared not. Henry Sonnenberg was only the tool. The
killer was Pavel.
"I think I will go toEurope ," he said aloud.
"Bostonwill be disappointed, Val," Betsy said. She had come up to him
quietly. "Why toEurope ?"
"I've some unfinished business over there," he said. "There's a man I must
see."
"You haven't told me how you liked your part of the house," she said. "We
spent a lot of time planning it, thinking about it."
He was ashamed. "I've been preoccupied," he said. "Will you show me through?"
He struggled to his feet, swung his stiff leg around and limped after her.
There were three rooms in the east wing of the house a small but comfortable
living room, a bedroom, and a bath. The walls of the living room, which he had
not entered until now, were lined with books. He crossed the room to look at
them.
"You were always reading," Betsy said, "and you mentioned several of the
books you liked, and sometimes when you wrote to us you mentioned what you
were doing, so we asked Mel and David to help us."
He saw there Scott'sMarmion, Volney'sRuins of Empire,The Life of Sir Walter
Scott, by Lockhart,Hypatia, by Kingsley ... and there were works by Plato,
Hume, Locke,Berkeley , Spinoza, and Voltaire, and a shelf of the poets.
"You must thank Mrs. Winslow for me," he said. "And I want to thank you
andBoston ."
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It was an easy, comfortable room, unlike the crowded, overdone rooms of so
many eastern homes he had seen. It was closer in style to the rather bare
rooms of the Spanish ranches inCalifornia .
When Betsy had gone into the other part of the house, Val browsed through the
books, taking them one by one from the shelves. A few of them he had read,
most of them he had not, but all were books he had wanted to read.
He heard the door from the veranda open, and took a book from the shelf,
turning as he did so.
Thurston Pike was standing there, gun in hand. "Got my horse right here," he
said, "an' I'm goin' to kill you, mister, an' nobody the wiser."
As he finished speaking, he fired, and the impact of the bullet, fired at a
distance of not more than a dozen feet, knocked Val back against the
bookshelves, but he drew from his waistband as he fell back, and fired as his
shoulders braced against the bookshelves. He felt the impact of another
bullet, but Pike was going down as Val shot the second time.
The door burst open and Betsy stood there, a rifle in her hands. Thurston
Pike was on his back in the doorway, half in, and half out.
Val was staring at the book in his hand. He had taken it from a shelf, had
turned, and the thick, leather-bound book had taken both bullets, aimed
directly at his heart. Neither bullet had gone more than two-thirds of the way
through the book.
He glanced at the title. It wasBurton 'sAnatomy of Melancholy. "You know,
Bets," he said, "I was never able to get through this book myself."
Chapter Twenty
Myra Fossett sat behind her desk and looked across at Mr. Pinkerton, "You
have news for me?"
"Yes ... from several sources.First, the young man, Mr. Valentine Darrant. He
is now inTexas , and we discover he is part owner of a ranch there. It
comprises some sixty thousand acres of range land."
"They own this land?"
"No, ma'am, actually it is government land, but they own the water holes. You
understand this gives them "
"I do understand. I know all about water holes and water rights, Mr.
Pinkerton. What else?"
"There was an attempt to kill him by a gunman, a notorious killer named
Thurston Pike. He did not succeed."
"What happened? Get to the point, please."
"Young Mr. Darrant was surprised in his library by the killer. Pike seems to
have fired twice, Mr. Darrant also. Mr. Darrant's bullets found their mark."
Pike, was it? She remembered him, remembered him as a customer of one of her
girls far away inIdaho . He had been a tough, dangerous man even then.
Evidently her son could take care of himself.
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"What led to the fight?"
"We checked into that. It seems Mr. Darrant was reared by a gambler, a man
named Will Reilly."
Of course.Will Reilly had been a friend of Van's, but no friend of hers. She
felt a little pang when she thought of him, for Will Reilly was the one man
who had really interested her. As a matter of fact, she hated men; she used
them and got rid of them, but Will had never so much as given her the time of
day.
Pinkerton had turned a leaf in his notebook. "This Reilly was the target of a
reward offer ... not by the law, by some private party." Pinkerton looked up
at her as he said this, and she smiled cynically.
"Don't worry yourself. I know nothing of that."
"Of course.I did not for the moment "
"You're a damned liar, Pinkerton. Now get on with it."
"There were three men Thurston Pike, Chip Hardesty, and Henry Sonnenberg.
They ambushed him, caught him coming out of a lighted door."
He paused. "The first two are no longer with us. Mr. Darrant seems to have
killed them both."
"And Sonnenberg?" [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]