Chapter XXII: The Showdown

Somers clambered into the little car. “You crank her, Pete,” he ordered languidly. “I’m the brains of this combination; you can be the brawn.”

“Long-legged, lazy beggar!” retorted Peter. He stooped his five feet four in front of the hood, set his hundred and twenty pounds against its crank, and stopped to grin. “And the brains match the brawn,” he jeered. “Both lightweights.”

Somers’ retort was lost in the roar of the motor. “Climb in, Peter!” he yelled. “Those chaps might hear us; it isn’t more than half a mile. We want to be out of gunshot before they come barging over that hill!”

Turning the little car he bumped off at a round pace, splashing through the branch, bouncing and creaking over tree roots, and skidding through the loose sand. The pace he maintained was racking to my old bones, and I prayed for the springs of Lewis’ flivver. But the bones and the springs held, by the especial grace of Heaven, though I heaved a deep sigh of relief when we swung at last into the clay road.

We got back to Fort House without mishap, and there Somers left us. “I’ll drive around and leave word for Satterfield,” he said. “He’ll be busy out yonder for a while yet, but we ought to catch him before evening. Where would be a good place for a quiet talk?”

“Why not at our house?” I asked. “We could have him in my nephew’s office there. The place has been closed up since Lewis was arrested. There’s nobody there.”

“That’ll be fine,” replied Somers. “I’ll leave word for Satterfield, and after lunch we can go over there and wait for him.”

He rattled off in a cloud of dust and evil-smelling smoke, while Peter and I went into the house. It was almost noon; the morning had passed quickly enough. Somers returned in time for lunch.

“They expect him back about two,” he reported. “I told them to send him over to your place, Uhlman, as soon as he comes in. I hinted at a little quiet game; that’ll bring him, if anything.”

“Show-down,” declared Peter grimly.

We evaded Dorothy’s eager questions as best we might; all three of us felt, I suppose, that it was best not to raise her hopes too high, for fear of the inevitable reaction, should our enterprise fail. She had been bubbling with optimism so often; and so often she had drooped again, disappointed and inclined to blame us for her disappointment. Directly after lunch we slipped out. Somers pacified his hostess by handing her the jail key, which he still kept much more constantly than did the constable.

“Here, child, I appoint you a deputy-deputy sheriff for this afternoon. Parker had his breakfast, and his lunch; I routed out Wakefield and saw to that. Now trot down there and keep him company for the afternoon. If we’re not back, you can see to his supper; picnic there with him, if you like. How’s that?”

The poor child thanked him warmly, glowing at the thought of one single meal alone with her husband. It was pitiful.

I unlocked my house, which held already the queer, dank smell of disuse, and we three entered and disposed ourselves comfortably upon dusty chairs to await Satterfield’s coming. He kept us long enough; he had not appeared at two, or at four. Indeed it was close upon sunset, and Dorothy, no doubt, was already arranging her pathetic supper party in the lockup, before we heard a heavy step on the porch, followed by his loud knock.

Somers went to the door. “Hello, Satterfield! Come right in this way.”

“H-howdy, doc!” said Satterfield boisterously. His gruff voice was blurred with liquor. He slapped Somers’ lean back and swaggered into the darkened room. “Howdy, gents! Aim t’ have a li’l’ game, huh? Have drink?”

Producing a quart flask he thrust it forward uncertainly, weaving back and forth upon booted feet. Then he perceived suddenly that we were not of his intimates.

“Wh-what’s this here?” he demanded. “Thought you was gointa have s’m’ reg’lar sports, doc?”

“I have,” replied Somers equably. “Come in the office, Satterfield; we want to talk with you a bit.” And, as the other lurched past him through the doorway, he passed a deft hand over both hips, then slipped it under the loose coat with surprising speed and whipped out a big revolver.

The bootlegger whirled, snarling. “Here! Whaddaya mean?”

“Sit down, friend.” Somers waved him amiably to a chair, using the pistol to gesture with. “We’re going to have a nice, quiet talk, and I’d hate to have it interrupted by gun play.”

Blinking at him uncertainly, Satterfield subsided. “You done drank a right smart o’ my liquor,” he said.

The doctor made a wry face. “Yes--for my sins! Now, Satterfield, we know all about your bootlegging business; where the liquor comes from, who makes it, how it’s brought to Pinelands, and where it goes from here. We know you got five barrels of whisky this morning; it’s in the old drying house, back of Bates’ orchard, right now. We know all about it; we’ve got it all over you like a tent!”

Our victim scowled belligerently. “Huh! Dirty revenue sneak, are yuh? Spy! Revenuer!”

Somers grinned. “Not that,” he said. “I’m no prohibition-enforcement agent. _I_ don’t care how much booze you peddle, though I do think it’s a pretty bad job for any man, especially, considering the kind of stuff you’re putting out! I don’t want to squeal on you, Satterfield, and I shan’t--unless----”

The other eyed him closely, tugging at his piratical mustache. “An’ I thought you was my friend!” he said, apparently on the verge of maudlin tears. “Well, gwan; how much? I c’n git a bunch o’ money f’r ye, I s’pose.”

Somers shook his head. “Not that, either. All I want is the truth about Doctor Gaskell’s murder. Did _you_ kill him, Satterfield?”

The man sat up suddenly, with a queer, galvanic jerk. Beneath its grizzled stubble, his face turned a pasty white; his fierce eyes roved uneasily, fear-filled, looking about for escape.

“I cain’t!” he protested. “I cain’t tell you-all nothin’ ’bout it. Ain’t healthy. Nossir!”

“Very well! I’ll drop over to Raleigh to-morrow--no, to-night! I’ll hunt up the collector of internal revenue there, and I’ll tell him all about this wholesale booze business of yours. And, Satterfield,” as the other shook a stubborn head, “_I’ll say you told me about it!_”

At the threat, delivered with terrifying earnestness, Satterfield leaped up wildly. His truculence had disappeared; he was cold sober and in deadly fear.

“Ah, no, no, _no_!” he exclaimed, his face ghastly. He literally went down upon his knees, groveled on the floor, plucking at Somers’ shoes with shaking hands. “Ah, don’t! Don’t, doc, he’ll k-kill me shore--he’ll cut my heart out--he’ll b-burn me alive. You don’t know ’im, doc--he’d skin me! Don’t you, now! Ain’t we been good frien’s, an’ drank together, an’ all? Yuh wouldn’t do that t’ me? You-all ain’t a-goin’ to let him, will yuh?”

He turned to us, tears trickling down his cheeks, a revolting, pitiable spectacle.

“You’d better talk, then,” said Somers inexorably.

“Oh, yeah--yeah! Anythin’ on’y that! I’ll give up anythin’, if you-all won’t turn ’im loose onto me.”

“Get up!” ordered our leader disgustedly. “Sit over there and quit wallowing; act like a man.”

Satterfield obeyed. “I ain’t scared o’ many things, doc,” he said unresentfully, but with a certain rude dignity. “There’s them could tell yuh I ain’t no coward, but I am a-scared o’ him! Whaddaya want?”

“Did you shoot Gaskell?”

“Nossir!” he replied emphatically.

“Did you see him shot?”

“Nossir!”

“Well,” said Somers impatiently, “your daughter phoned to you that he was going out, about four that morning. You borrowed Tulliver’s shotgun without asking for it, and you started off down the hill, meaning to kill him, didn’t you?”

Satterfield stared in wonder tinged with admiration. “Was you there? Naw, yuh didn’t come till next day. It beats my time how yuh found out, doc, but that’s straight--all of it.”

“Well, go on! What did happen? What did you do? Whom did you see? Come out with it all, or I’ll go to Raleigh on the eight-ten!” Somers pulled his watch. “I’ve just nice time to catch it.”

“Aw, now, doc, lissen! I come down th’ hill with Tulliver’s gun, jus’ like yuh said, an’ hung round Gaskell’s house waitin’ f’r him t’ come out. But I never shot him, doc--I never seen him shot; I never seen him come outa th’ house, even! I--I saw a--another feller hangin’ round, an’ I knew it wa’n’t healthy f’r me around there, an’ I beat it. Honest, that’s all!”

“Humph!” said Somers. “Who was it?”

But there Satterfield balked. He would say no more; nothing could move him to give the man’s name, he protested. We would go to the collector; to the prohibition enforcement agents? Very well! That would be the death of _him_, but it would do us no good. “I tell yuh I’m a-scared o’ this feller,” he repeated. “I ain’t a-goin’ t’ say nothin’ _about_ ’im--not one thing! He might as well kill me f’r squealin’ about one thing as another, an’ I ain’t a-goin’ t’ squeal, neither! You-all c’n git me killed if yuh like, but I ain’t done nothin’ t’ deserve it.”

His final protest was not without its dignity. He was adamant; he admitted, white-faced and shaking, that a horrible death awaited him if it should be thought that he had betrayed his confederates in the illicit liquor traffic. None the less, he would tell us nothing.

“You seem as much frightened of this man you saw waiting for Gaskell as you do of the leader of your gang,” declared Somers at last. Then he added a shrewd suggestion: “Perhaps they’re the same man?”

Satterfield threw up his hands. “For law’s sake, doc!” he exclaimed. “Naw--yes--naw! I don’t know what t’ say!” And he fell to weeping openly.

“Well, tell me this: Why did you plan to kill Gaskell?”

He looked up sullenly. “I had my orders. Th’ feller knowed too much.”

“It wasn’t just because he sent you to jail, then?” asked Somers.

“Huh? That wa’n’t s’ much. I been in jail afore that.”

“You had orders to shoot Gaskell, then. And, when you got down there, you found the man who gave you those orders, and you decided he was going to take the matter over himself. Is that right?”

Satterfield nodded reluctantly.

“Did the same man order you to lynch Parker?”

“We-ell, no, not exactly, but I figgered mebbe he’d like t’ have it seed to.”

“Exactly! So you think the chief of your bootlegging gang killed Doctor Gaskell? But you’re afraid to admit it, even though we don’t know the fellow.”

Somers rose. The other, completely cowed, gazed at him in fear. “No,” said Somers, with a grim laugh, “we shan’t turn you up this time. But listen closely, Satterfield: You keep quiet! If you drop so much as a hint to this mysterious boss of yours, that you’re so scared of, if you suggest to him that we’re after him, Heaven help you! And now, get out!”

Satterfield rose with alacrity, half in doubt that he was to be let off so easily. “I won’t say nothin’,” he replied. “Ain’t got to! You go monkeyin’ round with _him_, an’ that’ll be th’ last of yuh!”

He disappeared, and we locked up the place and started back toward Fort House.

At the corner, Peter turned. “I’ll trot down after the mail,” said he. “Be back in five minutes.”

We found Dorothy and Miss Christie in the living room. Both looked up at us expectantly.

“Progress,” said Somers. “I think we’re on the trail of the murderer at last.” And he told them briefly of to-day’s work. As he finished, a thought struck me.

“Look here, Somers; remember that third man out there? I told you he was in town the night of the murder. He was over at Gaskell’s, and he made some sort of a threat; you remember my telling you, Dorothy? A tremendous old man with a long, white beard, called himself ‘Roaring Lafe’ Rutledge? What if he were this mysterious leader of the whisky smugglers? He was in town, and he threatened Gaskell.”

Somers did not reply. His eyes were on Anne Christie, who had grown very white. I had seen her flinch at the name of Rutledge, and now I recalled her strange conduct of that other night, when she had dashed from the house after hearing that name. What did she know of this thing?

“Are you sick?” asked Somers. “Miss Christie--Anne! What’s the matter?”

Her lips opened, but Peter dashed in with a black face.

“Grand jury proceedings are out,” he announced. “And they’ve indicted Lewis Parker for murder in the first degree!”

The news stunned us all, though we had been more or less prepared for it. Then, in the sudden silence which greeted this bombshell, Anne Christie spoke.

“I--perhaps I could help a little,” she said.