J. Kofoed - The Black Mask Magazine (Vol. 1, No. 6 - September 1920)

"After Kelly turned in that night, Lee and Wentworth sat up soldering, you remember. Finally Lee dropped off to sleep with his head on the table. It was too good an opportunity for Wentworth to miss — for he hated Lee's guts — so he drops a bit of the hot solder into Lee's ear. He died without a struggle, as I knew he would — for the infernal stuff paralyzes every faculty. Afterward Wentworth took off his boots and sneaked in to see if we were asleep. Finding that we were, he carried Lee in and laid him on his bunk.

"You remember how Wentworth tore his shirt on a nail there by the door? I recollected that there was a scrap of wool hanging onto it. When Wentworth went back into the other room to put away his tools, I jumped out, took the little piece of wool from the nail and got it into Lee's clenched fingers and jumped back into bed before Wentworth returned. Pretty smooth, eh?

"Wentworth couldn't stand the gaff. He imagined that I knew that he had killed Lee, so he killed himself."

Mason groaned.

"I killed Wentworth!" he blurted out. "You told me that he had — that, he — he — about what he done to — to Cora. I saw that this was a good opportunity to get rid of him and let you fellows think he had done it himself? You put me up to it, you devil!"

Halligan laughed.

"So it was you, after all, eh?" he chuckled. "I knew that you had swallowed my little story, but I'll confess that I didn't think you would get busy so quick."

"But the letter you showed me from her — from Cora?"

Halligan chuckled again. "Mason, I don't mind telling you that when I went after supplies with Lee I fixed up five letters, all identical except the names. I put one of your names in each letter. I showed each one of you a different letter, playing each one of you against the other. That's why Kelly knifed you. He didn't care a cuss for Drew — he was itching for an opportunity to get you. See? I stuck Drew myself, using your knife to throw suspicion on you, knowing that it would start the Irishman. Where I miscalculated was in thinking that you'd be armed. I didn't want to stain my own hands with murder any more than I had to. I put some dope in all of your grub last night when I got supper so that I could pull off the stunt without arousing you.

"That idea of mine of playing each one of you against the other was pretty slick, wasn't it? No one knows of the existence of this blind gulch here. I'll have a pretty good nest egg, and, after I marry Cora, I can always take a run back here for more if I need it. Of course, I'll bury all of you fellows nice and shipshape and I'll tell them back home about our separating and each going in a different direction. Oh, I've got a food yarn cooked up, all right."

The wounded man glared at him malignantly.

"Damn you!" he cried. "God's long arm will get you yet — even out here in the ice and snow of this God-forsaken country."

Halligan smiled. "God? Bah! If I'd believed in such foolishness I'd never won out over the rest of you. But I made you think I did — and that's how I got the best of you."

He arose and stretched himself. Then, seizing the dead man, he dragged his victim out of doors and buried him alongside of the others.

Mason watched him at his work with glaring eyes. Then, as he left the room, the wounded man dragged himself across the few feet that separated him from the bunk. Carefully, every movement filled with pain, he reached up and took the gun. He tried to lift himself to his feet and felt himself going.

"O God," he murmured, "help me — help me — get him — don't let him get — away with it. Help me for Cora's sake."

He succeeded in getting the weapon cocked — in hiding it inside his trousers pocket.

His jaw dropped and, with a convulsive twitch, he died.

Halligan finished burying Kelly and returned to the cabin for warmth. Replenishing the fire, he entered the other room and found Mason dead. Throwing him across his shoulder, he staggered out into the gulch again and laid him on the snow crust while he hastily scooped another shallow grave.

He bent over the body to roll it into the hole. As he did so there was a flash and a report. The bullet swept across his lids, searing them with its heat. His eyes were filled with the powder.

Blinded, sobbing with his misery, he tried to grope his way back to the cabin. He lost his sense of direction. He stumbled and fell, arose and stumbled again. His snowshoes dropped from his feet. Too miserable to care, he tried to go on without them. He broke through the crust to his waist. On and on he floundered his way, whimpering with pain — chilled to the marrow — thinking to reach the cabin, but ever getting farther from it.

And finally, exhausted, blinded, freezing, he fell into the stupor which marks the beginning of the end in the Land of Eternal Snow.

For the sudden cold, grasping hold of the dead body of Mason, had hastened rigor mortis . The dead fingers, stiffening suddenly, had tightened about the trigger of the hidden revolver.

It was the long arm of God.

The sanctum of Madame Sovio was drab and tawdry. The room was small and done in faded blue draperies upon which were tinsel stars and moons. The one window that overlooked Sixth Avenue bore the name of the astrologer in porcelain letters and the information that her hours of business were from two o'clock to five daily. A broad table that stood in the center of the room held a plaster skull and a quantity of astrological charts. Other charts were nailed up on either side of a door which led into an ante-room. The low ceiling had once been painted to give the impression of drifting clouds. Twin gas jets, blackening it, had long past destroyed the effect. The faint though pungent odor of gin hung on the stirless air.

The owner of the astrology parlor sat at the center table. Madame Sovio wore a flowing Egyptian kimono patterned extravagantly with the mystic signs of the zodiac. She was old, gaunt and unprepossessing. Her untidy hair was wreathed with a greasy veil; her shrewd eyes focused on the financial page of a morning newspaper. From time to time she stimulated herself with small quantities, of fluid poured from a square bottle convenient to her elbow.

Madame Sovio finished a perusal of the page she read and was turning languidly to the front sheet of the paper when she looked up. The door of the outer room had opened and closed. With the practice born of long experience she placed both bottle and newspaper in a lower drawer of the table, thrust a few cloves into her toothless mouth, and stood up.

The "waiting room" of the establishment was even smaller than the inner room. It contained nothing save a number of rickety chairs and a red-faced youth who was pinching out a cigarette ere consigning the stub to a coat pocket. The caller was tall, bulky and unattractive. He wore a rusty brown suit and stained yellow brogans with bumpy toes. A celluloid collar held a stringy purple cravat; from under the sagging peak of a shoddy cap a low, protruding forehead, dark, crafty eyes and a loose, rapacious mouth were visible. It was evident to Madame Sovio that the youth was flotsam cast up by the turgid rivers of subterranea.

He met her gaze and shuffled forward.

"You the one that slides out the dope on what's gonna happen?"

The woman inclined her head.

"Yes. Come in."

The visitor stepped into the room hung with the faded blue draperies. Madame Sovio closed the door after him. She indicated he should take the chair opposite her across the table.

"Do you wish a horoscope or a reading?" she inquired as he sat down.

He stared.

"A spinner on the docks give me the gab that you had steered him straight on the bang-tails. I'm due to gay-cat tonight on something important. I want a frame telling me how my luck is gonna break."