Erle Gardner - Erle Stanley Gardner’s The Case of the Murderer’s Bride and Other Stories

Suddenly a thought gripped her — “they” would hardly be expecting her to take the initiative. “They” always kept the initiative — that was why they always seemed so damnably efficient, so invincible.

They chose the time, the place and the manner. Give them that advantage and—

There wasn’t time to reason the thing out. She jerked open the door of the little closet, whipped out her plaid coat, turned the fur collar up around her neck, and as the train eased to a creaking stop, she opened the door of her compartment and thrust out a cautious head.

The corridor was deserted.

She could hear the vestibule door being opened at the far end of the Pullman.

She ran to the opposite end of the car, fumbled for a moment with the fastenings of the vestibule door on the side next to the double track, then got it open and raised the platform.

Cold morning air, tanged with high elevation, rushed in to meet her, dispelling the train atmosphere, stealing the warmth from her garments.

The train started to move. She scrambled down the steps, and jumped for the graveled roadbed by the side of the track.

The train gathered speed. Dark, silent cars whizzed past her with continuing acceleration until the noise of the wheels became a mere hum. The steel rails readjusted themselves to the cold morning air, giving cracking sounds of protest. Overhead, stars blazed in steady brilliance. To the east was the first trace of daylight.

She looked for a town. There was none.

She could make out the faint outlines of a loading corral and cattle chute. Somewhere behind her was a road. An automobile was standing on this road, the motor running. Headlights sent twin cones of illumination knifing through the darkness, etching into brilliance the stunted sagebrush shivering under the north wind.

Two men were talking. A door slammed She started running frantically.

“Wait!” she called. “Wait for me!”

Back on the train the fat man, fully dressed and shaved, contemplated the open vestibule door, then padded back to the recently vacated compartment and walked in.

He didn’t even bother to search the baggage that had been left behind. Instead, he sat down in the chair, held a telegraph blank against a magazine, and wrote out his message:

THE BUNCLING SEARCH TRICK DID THE JOB. SHE LEFT THE TRAIN. IT ONLY REMAINS TO CLOSE THE TRAP. I WILL GET OFF AT THE FIRST PLACE WHEN I CAN RENT A PLANE AND CONTACT THE SHERIFF.

Ten minutes later the fat man located the porter. “I find the elevation bothering me,” he said. “I’m going to have to leave the train. Get the conductor.”

“You won’t get no lower by gettin’ off,” the porter said.

“No, but I’ll get bracing fresh air and a doctor who’ll give me a heart stimulant. I’ve been this way before. Get the conductor.”

This time the porter saw the twenty-dollar bill in the man’s fingers.

Seated between the two men in the warm interior of the car, she sought to concoct a convincing story.

Howard Kane said, by way of introduction, “This is Buck Doxey. I’m afraid I didn’t catch your name last night.”

“Nell Lindsay,” she said quickly.

Buck Doxey, granite-faced, kept one hand on the steering wheel while he doffed a five-gallon hat. “Pleased to meet yuh, ma’am.” Howard Kane gently prodded for an explanation.

“It was a simple case of cause and effect,” she said, laughing nervously. “It was so stuffy in the car that I didn’t sleep at all. So,” she went on quickly, “I decided that I’d get out for a breath of fresh air. When the train slowed and I looked at my wrist watch, I knew it was your stop and... well, I expected the train would be there for at least a few minutes. I couldn’t find a porter to get the door open, so I did it myself, and jumped down to the ground. That was where I made my mistake.”

“Go on,” Kane said.

“At a station you step down to a platform that’s level with the tracks. But here I jumped onto a slanting shoulder of gravel and sprawled flat. When I got up, the step of the car was so far above me... well, you have to wear skirts to understand what I mean.”

Kane nodded gravely. Buck turned his head and gave Kane a questioning glance.

She said, “I guess I could have made it if I’d had sense enough to pull my skirt all the way up to the hips, but I couldn’t make it on that first try and there wasn’t time for the second one. The train started to move. Good heavens, they must have just thrown you off.”

“I’m traveling light,” Kane said.

“Well,” she told him, “that’s the story. Now what do I do?”

“Why, you accept our hospitality, of course.”

“I couldn’t... couldn’t wait here for the next train?”

“Nothing stops here except to discharge passengers,” he said.

“But there’s a station there. Isn’t there someone on duty?”

“Only when cattle are being shipped,” Buck Doxey explained. “This is a loading point.”

“Oh.”

She settled back against the seat and was conscious of a reassuring masculine friendship on her right side, a cold detachment on her left side.

“I suppose it’s horribly ravenous of me, but do we get to the ranch for breakfast?”

“I’m afraid not,” Kane said. “It’s slow going. Only sixty feet of the road is paved.”

“Sixty feet?”

“That’s right. We cross the main transcontinental highway about five miles north of here.”

“What do we do about breakfast?”

“Well,” Kane said, “in the trunk of the car there’s a coffee pot and a canteen of water. I’m quite certain Buck brought along a few eggs and some ham—”

“You mean, you stop right out here in the open and cook?”

“When yuh stop here, you’re in the open, ma’am,” Buck said and somehow made it seem his words were in answer to some unjustified criticism.

She gave him her best smile. “Would it be impertinent to ask when?”

“In this next coulee... right here...”

The road slanted down to a dry wash that ran east and west. The perpendicular north bank broke the force of the north wind. Buck attested to the lack of traffic on the road by stopping the car squarely in the ruts.

They watched the sun rise over the plateau country as they ate breakfast. She hoped that Buck Doxey’s cold disapproval wouldn’t communicate itself to Kane.

When Buck produced a battered dishpan she said, “As. the only woman present I claim the right to do the dishes.”

“Women,” Buck said, “are—” and abruptly checked himself. She laughingly pushed him aside and rolled up her sleeves. “Where’s the soap?”

As she was finishing the last dish she heard the motor of the low-flying plane.

All three looked up.

The plane, which had been following the badly rutted road, banked into a sharp turn.

“Sure givin’ us the once-over,” Buck said, his eyes steady on Kane’s face. “One of ’em has binoculars and he’s as watchful as a cattle buyer at a loading chute. Don’t yuh think it’s about time we find out what we’ve got into, boss?”

“I suppose it is,” Kane said. Before her startled mind could counter his action, Buck Doxey picked up the purse which she had left lying in the car.

She flew toward him.

Doxey’s bronzed, steel fingers wrapped around her wet wrist. “Take it easy, ma’am,” he said.

He pushed her back, found her driving license. “The real name,” he drawled, “seems to be Jane Marlow.”

“Anything else?” Kane asked.

“Gobs of money, lipstick, keys and... gosh, what a bankroll.”

She went for him blindly.

Doxey said, “Now, ma’am, I’m goin’ to have to spank yuh if yuh keep on like this.”

The plane circled, its occupants obviously interested in the scene on the ground below.