Chapter XVI: Some Clews, and a Suggestion

His light eyes sparkled at us, and gratified pride replaced his usual look of acute dissatisfaction with the world. “Old Doc Somers is a great man!” he boasted.

We all stared at him, breathlessly eager. “What have you found out?” I demanded.

“A whole lot of things; enough so we can begin planning a defense for Parker.”

Peter straightened at the word. “A defense! Of course he’ll have to be tried now, won’t he? Folks, we’ve got to hire a lawyer right away!”

Dorothy and I nodded agreement. Lewis said nothing at all.

“There’ll be a trial, yes,” said Somers; “that is, if the grand jury indicts. And I haven’t much doubt that it will; you see, your man Vanbrugh, your prosecuting attorney that pleased you all so much at the inquest, will present the evidence against Parker. Yes, he’ll be indicted--I haven’t a doubt of it.”

“So we need a lawyer,” insisted Peter.

“We-ell, not to be too modest about it, I’m a tolerable lawyer myself, McGregor. You see, I started out to make myself a medicolegal expert; to specialize in medical jurisprudence. I studied law first; I was admitted to the bar six years ago, and I practiced a little while before I entered the medical school.”

I looked at him more closely. Last night, knowing him to be my nephew’s classmate, I had thought him thirty, at the most. No doubt my knowledge of Lewis’ age had influenced me; moreover Somers had one of those lean, dark faces on which the years leave little mark. But now, by the morning sun which streamed through the unshaded windows of the jail, I could see that he was older. His black hair was shot with gray over the temples; there were fine lines in his forehead and about the corners of his deep-set eyes. He must be at least thirty-eight--perhaps older. No wonder he had impressed me as more mature than Peter or Lewis!

“Yes, I’m a lawyer,” he went on, “and not such a bad lawyer, either. In a case like this, where the medical testimony will be so important, perhaps I’d do as well as another. That’s up to you, of course, Parker. If you want somebody else, I’ll do all I can to help, just the same.”

Lewis shook his head vigorously. “No! I don’t want anybody else, if you’ll only help me out, old man.”

“Well, then”--he made no protest of willingness, no fervid promises of success; he took the matter as settled, and I liked that in him--“to begin with, we’ll take it for granted that there’ll be a trial--unless in the meantime we manage to find the murderer.”

“You think he was murdered, then?” asked Dorothy fearfully.

“He must have been. He surely didn’t shoot himself and then swallow the gun.”

“But you--but Lewis----” she faltered.

“But Lewis didn’t do it! Of course not. Gaskell was dead before he got there. But our trouble will be to prove that. If Uhlman here gets up and swears Gaskell’s body was cold when he got to it, five minutes after he heard the shot, your prosecuting attorney--your solicitor, as they call him--will ask why he didn’t say so at the time; why Wakefield didn’t notice it; why it wasn’t brought out at the inquest. And what can you say, Uhlman, except that you didn’t think of it until I asked you about it? Then your man Vanbrugh will say: ‘Ah, you didn’t remember this very important point until the learned counsel for the defense explained it to you?’--with a significant glance at the jury. And then: ‘And you’re related to the prisoner, aren’t you, Mr. Uhlman? His uncle, I think, yes? And you’re fond of him, aren’t you--very fond of him, in fact? Exactly!’ And he’ll give the jury another wise look and tell you to step down.”

I nodded soberly. “But--but then they’ll convict him!” said Dorothy.

“Oh, no--at least we’ll hope not. But the best way to defend him is to find out who really committed the murder; don’t you see? So let’s talk it over.”

Somers settled himself more comfortably and re-crossed those extraordinary legs.

“To begin with I had a chat with your constable. Had it occurred to you to wonder how he happened to be coming past Fort House at five in the morning, just at the right time to hear Parker shoot? No? Well, I thought of it. He’d been out at a little poker party, an all-night session at Tulliver’s, back on the hill. He lost fifty dollars, too; it made him mad, and that, I suspect, was behind his zeal in enforcing the ordinance about discharging firearms in the corporation. He had been drinking! Officially, I’ve no doubt that the amiable Rufus is an ardent prohibitionist; but unofficially he likes his toddy. Corn liquor was plenty up on the hill, it appears; and Rufe was too much under its influence to notice details; didn’t you know that, Uncle George?”

“I--I----” I stammered. “We were all so upset that I didn’t think it odd that he seemed so, too. But, now that you speak of it, he did seem rather--rather uncertain.”

“Humph! It makes it bad for us, too. When Vanbrugh gets hold of him, Wakefield will swear to almost anything, just to prove he was sober enough to know all that happened. Well, here’s another thing. You know this chap Satterfield--Ralph Satterfield? He led the mob last night. Did he have any grudge against Gaskell?”

“Why, yes,” answered Lewis and I together. “Gaskell was one of the town commissioners. And during May he was acting mayor. Satterfield was brought before him for being drunk and disorderly and for bootlegging, and Gaskell gave him thirty days on the roads.”

“And that’s not all, Uncle George,” my nephew went on. “Remember there at Olsen’s he bragged that he was going to settle with Gaskell?”

“All right,” said Somers. “Satterfield was at the poker party, too. Tulliver has a phone; about four o’clock somebody called Satterfield up there, and he went out in a great hurry, saying he’d be back in an hour. What’s more, he went out the back door, and Tulliver’s shotgun stood right beside it. I got all this firsthand, by a little judicious questioning, partly from Rufe, and partly from another chap who was there. Mind you, we don’t know that Satterfield took that gun; but he might have taken it and brought it back with him. Nobody was out that way while he was gone.

“He came back in an hour or so, very much out of breath. When somebody asked him where he’d been, he drew a pistol and threatened to kill the fellow. They quieted him down; but, as they were all more or less drunk, they didn’t think much about it. But it’s worth looking into, especially as it seems Satterfield’s daughter, Minnie, is your night telephone operator. Olsen phoned for Doctor Gaskell to come and see his sick baby; and this girl put the call through, and no doubt listened in; night operators usually do. Right after that, as I figure it, she called up Tulliver’s house and gave a message to her father.”

“Why, it’s open and shut!” I exclaimed excitedly. “She told her father Gaskell was going out. Satterfield knew he’d take the short cut, that path through the Fort House grounds; it’s the nearest way to Olsen’s. He took Tulliver’s gun and ran down there, while the doctor was dressing, and lay in wait for him and killed him!”

“It’s possible,” conceded Somers. “We’ll investigate, at least. And, if we can’t hang it on him, we’ll bring it up at the trial, anyhow. It will go to show that somebody else might have done the shooting.”

“Oh, the trial, the trial!” It was Dorothy, impatiently tearful. “You keep talking about a trial, and that’ll be weeks and weeks, maybe months! And all that time my poor Lewis will have to stay in this horrid old jail, and--and t-to-morrow was our wedding day! Oh, dear, oh, dear! What shall I do?”

The poor girl broke down completely and wept without restraint, hanging upon her lover’s neck.

Somers looked at her keenly. “What do you want to do?”

She sobbed. “I was going to be married to-morrow, and my wedding dress is all ready, and the cake baked, even! And now Lewis is in j-jail for weeks and months--and maybe they’ll c-convict him or something, and we c-can’t ever be married at all! And I’ll die an old maid, because I won’t ever marry any other body!”

“Humph! Get married, then.”

“And it’s just awfully unlucky to put off your wedding day, and--and----” She broke off suddenly, raising a tear-stained face, as the meaning of Somers’ words struck home. “Get m-married? What do you mean?”

“What I say. Your wedding dress is ready, you say, and the cake is baked. Well, here I am, too, a perfectly good best man. And there’s Parker; and here’s the jail. There’s a preacher in town, I suppose. We’ve got the freedom of the lockup, thanks to Rufe Wakefield; why not have your wedding right here to-morrow, on schedule time?”