Erle Gardner: The Case of the Rolling Bones

Leeds said, “Look here, Mason. This is sheer nonsense, but it’s dangerous nonsense.”

Mason said, “Emily Milicant has taken a run-out powder. She sent me a phoney letter from a Yuma hotel, hoping that would pull the wool over my eyes.”

“She isn’t there?” Leeds asked, his voice either showing surprise or a well-simulated imitation.

“No,” Mason said. “That hotel has no party by that name stopping there — no one at all who answers the description.”

Leeds digested the information in thoughtful silence.

“Suppose,” Mason said, “you tell me a little more about Hogarty.”

“Suppose I don’t?”

“In that event,” Mason said, “I’ll fill in the gaps as best I can, and do as I see fit.”

“What makes you think Emily killed him?”

“Lots of things,”Mason said. “I don’t think you’re the type who would run away from a killing in a fair fight, and I don’t think you’d kill a man deliberately unless you did it to protect someone you loved. If you’d done that up in the Yukon, there’d have been two witnesses — you and Emily. You’d have stayed and faced the music.”

Leeds twisted his long fingers together. “Emily,” he said, “was high-spirited. She was fond of adventure, and the restrictions which were carried over as an aftermath of the gay nineties, didn’t appeal to her in the least. She went very much on her own. She was very willful, very determined, and very independent.”

“Go on,”Mason said.

“She’d met Hogarty. She came up to the claim as a young woman who wanted to throw in her lot with two prospectors on a basis of share and share alike. She was willing to do her share of the work to make the cabin neat and attractive, to do the cooking, to do anything else she could around the mine. But she wasn’t going to stand for some of the stuff Hogarty had in mind. Hogarty overplayed his hand when I was in at the nearest settlement getting grub. I came back and found her gone. She’d left a note.”

“Where’s that note?” Mason asked.

“Burnt,” Leeds said crisply.

“She killed him?”

“Evidently,” Leeds said. “They had a knockdown and drag-out battle. Emily shot, and the bullet knocked him over. He got up and ran out. She didn’t know where he was hit. It was toward the end of the season. It was getting dark early. I think it was the trail of the blood on the floor and in the snow that put her in a panic. She threw some things onto a sled, and started out. There were only two dogs left in camp. I was getting provisions with the big dog team.”

“When did you get back to the cabin?”

“Three days later.”

“You tried to find her?”

Leeds nodded. Evidently, he didn’t care to discuss that phase of the matter.

“And you tried to find Hogarty?”

“Hogarty was dead,” Leeds said. “He’d been shot in the abdomen. Another prospector took care of him. That prospector’s name was Carl Freehome. I, of course, didn’t know that until later. I got there to the shack, found it deserted, found Emily’s note. We’d struck it rich while we were working on a pocket. That had been before Emily showed up. We didn’t let Emily know. Hogarty refused to let her in on that. The gold was cached under the floor of the fireplace. I dug up the gold, used the provisions I’d got as a stake, and made it through to White Horse. I found no trace of Emily.

“Then was when I had the idea of throwing the authorities off the track by going out as Bill Hogarty. Then if anyone accused her of murdering Bill Hogarty, the records would show that he’d left the country. If they claimed it was Leeds she’d murdered, Leeds could show up very much alive and well. It was the best I could do for her under the circumstances.”

“You finally found her in Seattle?”

“Yes.”

“When did you hear about this man Freehome?”

“I didn’t hear about him. She did years later. She told me a few weeks ago when we met. I employed a detective agency to try to find him. The said he’d been seen two years ago in Dawson City. There, they lost his trail. Later on they heard a rumor he was in Seattle.”

“What became of Hogarty’s body?”

“After he died,” Leeds said, “Freehome loaded it on his sled, went up to the cabin. He found the hole where I’d dug the gold cache out of the floor, and was shrewd enough to tell that it had been a pretty good cache. He started looking around, and found the rest of the pocket. Lord knows how much was left in it. I wasn’t interested at the time. I was trying to find Emily... That’s my theory anyway, putting two and two together from the facts as I discovered them.

“Put yourself in Freehome’s place. It was a wild country. Winter was coming on. The ground was freezing up hard. Freehome had a chance for a stake. He dug a shallow grave, buried Hogarty, and went to work. When he’d finished with the claim, he left Hogarty where he was. He had no other choice. Legally, the claim was ours. He’d stripped it of the rest of the pocket. Naturally he didn’t want to have an argument over who owned the gold... I wanted to find him and tell him he could keep the gold — if he had any left. What I wanted was his story. I hoped that Hogarty had made some statement before he died. That’s why we flew north.”

“You didn’t find him?”

“Lord, no! We didn’t have a chance to even look. The police nabbed me first.”

Mason said, “Your nephew, Harold, apparently has been cutting a wider swath than he’s been given credit for. His mistress had an apartment in the same building with Milicant. Leeds went downstairs to call on Milicant. He’d found out Milicant was going under the name of Conway, and found out about the twenty grand. Harold didn’t know whether it was blackmail or what. He wanted to find out. He’s the witness who saw you leave the room.”

“Harold, eh?”

“It doesn’t seem to surprise you,” Mason said.

Leeds said dryly, “Nothing surprises me. I’ve had too many birthdays.”

“I don’t suppose,” Mason said, “that, under the circumstances, you’d care to go on the witness stand and tell your story.”

Leeds looked at him, steadily, slowly shook his head.

Mason scraped back his chair, and got to his feet. One of the deputy sheriffs reached for the telephone. Mason said, “I’ll see you in court,” and walked across to the barred door. The second deputy opened the door, escorted Mason through the anteroom, and out into the corridor. Leeds, standing behind the screen of the divided table, turned to wait — expectantly facing the door of the elevator which was to take him down to the jail.

Drake was waiting for Mason at his office. It needed but a look at Della Street’s face to tell Mason that the detective had bad news. “What is it, Paul?” he asked.

Drake said, “We’ve located Emily Milicant.”

“Where?”

“San Francisco.”

“What’s she doing there?”

“Hiding out in a hotel.”

“Anyone with her?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Who?”

“Ned Barkler.”

“Oh, oh !” Mason said. He slid his weight to the corner of the desk and lit a cigarette. “Together?”

“In the same hotel, but not living together.”

“How come?” Mason asked.

“Well, when you told me that she’d taken a powder on you and wasn’t in Yuma, we started checking airplanes. She’d been in Yuma all right, and probably mailed you the letter telling you she was going to the Border City Hotel, but after she did that, she went to the telegraph office and asked for messages for Mrs. J. B. Beems. She got a message. We don’t know what it was. Anyway, she took a plane for San Francisco as soon as she read the telegram. Barkler was waiting for her there.”