Jean Backus - Ellery Queen. The Best of Suspense

“Naturally,” Ames said. “I was curious.”

“I didn’t follow far enough to see whether you caught up with her,” the sheriff said. “I saw the rain clouds piling up pretty fast and I hightailed it back to my camp and got things lashed down around the tent. Of course,” the sheriff went on, “I don’t suppose you know how close you were to that running woman?”

“The tracks looked fresh,” Ames said.

“Thought you might have seen her as she went by,” the sheriff said. “Thought that might have accounted for the way you went over to the trail in such a hurry. You were walking pretty fast. Then I went back to the place where you must have been standing on that rock where you could get a good cast, up by the eddy below the waterfall, and darned if you could see the trail from there! It runs within about fifty yards, but there’s a growth of scrub pine that would keep you from seeing anyone.”

Ames was uncomfortable. Why should he protect Roberta Coe? Why not tell the sheriff frankly what he had heard? He realized he was playing with fire in withholding this information, and yet he couldn’t bring himself to come right out and say what he knew he should be saying.

“So,” the sheriff said, “I sort of wondered what made you drop everything in such a hurry and go over to the trail and start taking up the tracks of this woman. Just a lot of curiosity. Sort of felt I was snooping, but, after all, snooping is my business.”

Once more the sheriff s silence invited confidence from Frank Ames.

“Well,” the sheriff went on after a few moments, “I got up this morning and thought I’d stop down and pay you a visit, and then coming down the trail I saw a long streak down the side of the hill. It had been rained on but you could see it was a fresh track where someone had dragged something. I looked over here and found this camp. He’d dragged in a big dead log that he was aiming to chop up for firewood. Thought at first it might have been a sort of a tenderfoot trick because he only had a little hand ax, but after looking the camp over, I figured he might not have been quite so green as those new boots would make you think. Evidently he intended to build a fire under the middle of this log and as the two ends burned apart he’d shove the logs up together — make a little fire that way that would keep all night. He didn’t have any tent, just a bedroll with a good big tarp. It’s pretty light weight but it would turn water if you made a lean-to and was careful not to touch it anyplace while it was raining.”

“You — you know who he is?” Ames asked.

“Not yet, I don’t,” the sheriff admitted. “So far I’ve just looked around a bit. I don’t want to do any monkeying with the things in his pockets until I get hold of the coroner. Too bad that rain came down just when it did. I haven’t been able yet to find where the man stood that did the shooting.”

“How long ago did you find him?”

“Oh, an hour or two, maybe a little longer. I’ve got to ride over to the forest service telephone and I thought I’d go call on you. Now that you’re here, I guess the best thing to do is to leave you in charge while I go telephone. You can look around some if you want to, because I’ve already covered the ground, looking for tracks, but don’t touch the body and don’t let anyone else touch it.”

Ames said, “I suppose I can do it if — if I have to.”

“Isn’t a very nice sort of a job to wish off on a man,” the sheriff admitted, “but at a time like this we all of us have to pull together. I’ve got to go three, four miles to get to that ranger station and put a call in. My camp’s up here about three quarters of a mile. I’ve got a pretty good saddle horse and it shouldn’t take long to get up there and back.”

“I’ll wait,” Ames said.

“Thanks,” the sheriff told him, and without another word turned and swung silently down the slope to the trail and vanished...

Ames, his mind in a turmoil, stood silently contemplating the scenery with troubled eyes that were unable to appreciate the green pines silhouetted against the deep blue of the sky, the patches of brilliant sunlight, the dark, somber segments of deep shadow.

A mountain jay squawked raucously from the top of a pine, teetering back and forth as though by the very impetus of his body muscles he could project his voice with greater force.

The corpse lay stiff and still, wrapped in the quiet dignity of death. The shadow of a nearby pine marched slowly along until it rested on the dead man’s face, a peaceful benediction.

Ames moved restlessly, at first aimlessly, then more deliberately, looking for tracks.

His search was fruitless. There were only the tracks of the sheriff’s distinctive, high-heeled cowboy boots, tracks which zigzagged patiently around a complete circle. Whatever previous tracks had been on the ground had been washed out by the rain. Had the murderer counted on that? Had the crime been committed when the thunderheads were piled up so ominously that he knew a deluge was impending?

Ames widened his circle still more, suddenly came to a halt as sunlight glinted on blued steel. He hurriedly surveyed the spot where the gun was lying.

This was quite evidently the place where the murderer had lain in ambush, behind a fallen pine.

Here again there were no tracks because the rain had washed them away, but the .22 caliber rifle lay in plain sight. Apparently the sheriff had overlooked it. He doubted that he himself would have seen the gun had it not been for that reflecting glint cast by the sunlight.

The fallen log offered an excellent means of approach without leaving tracks.

Ames stepped carefully on the dead roots which had been pulled up when the tree was blown over, worked his way to the top of the log, then moved silently along the rough bark.

The gun was a .22 automatic with a telescopic sight, and the single empty shell which had been ejected by the automatic mechanism glinted in the sunlight a few feet beyond the place where the gun was lying.

Ames lay at length on the log so he could look down at the gun.

There was a scratch on the stock, a peculiar indentation on the lock where it had at one time been dropped against a rock. The laws of probability would not admit of two weapons marked exactly like that.

For as much as five minutes Ames lay there pondering the question as to what he should do next. Apparently the sheriff had not as yet discovered the gun. It would be a simple matter to hook a forked stick under the trigger guard, pick the gun up without leaving any trace, put it in some safe place of concealment, then clean the barrel and quietly return it to the wall of his own cabin.

Ames pondered the matter for several minutes, then pushed himself up to his hands and knees, then back to his feet and ran back down the log, afraid that the temptation might prove too great for him. He retraced his steps back to a position where he could watch both the main trail and the spot where the body lay.

Some thirty minutes later Ames heard the sound of voices, a carefree, chattering babble which seemed oddly out of place with the tragic events which had taken place in the little sun-swept valley.

Ames moved farther back into the shadows so as to avoid the newcomers.

Ames could hear a voice which he thought was that of Dick Nottingham saying quite matter-of-factly, “I notice a couple of people are ahead of us on the trail. See the tracks? Let’s wait a minute. They turn off right here. They look like fresh tracks — made since the rain. Hello, there!”

One of the girls laughed nervously. “Do you want reinforcements, Dick?”

“Just good woodcraft,” Nottingham said in a tone of light banter. “Old Eagle Scout Nottingham on the job. Can’t afford to lead you into an ambush. Hello, anyone home?”