CHAPTER I
THE MURDER AT THE T-INVERTED R
Inspector Barker, of the Royal North-West Mounted Police, raised his frowning eyes from the weekly report he was scrawling, to watch absent-mindedly the arrival of the Calgary express as it roared out from the arches of the South Saskatchewan bridge and pulled up at the station.
It was a morning ritual of the Inspector's. Three hundred and sixty-five days of the year, relatively at the same hour—if Rocky Mountain slides, foothill floods, and prairie snowstorms permitted—the same train broke in on the mid-forenoon dullness of the "cow-town" of Medicine Hat; and the same pair of official eyes followed it dully but with the determination of established convention, clinging to it off and on during its twenty minutes' stop for a fresh engine and supplies to carry it on its four days' run eastward.
But on Mondays the transcontinental was favoured with a more concentrated attention. On that morning Inspector Barker prepared his weekly report. A pile of letters and staff reports scattered his desk; a smaller pile, the morning's mail, was within reach of his left hand. His right clumsily clutched a fountain pen. Thirty years of strenuous Mounted Police duties, from Constable to Inspector, during a period when Indians, rustlers, cattle-thieves, and the scum of Europe and Eastern Canada, were held to a semblance of order only by the stern hand of the "red-coats," had robbed his chirography of any legibility it ever possessed.
His iron-grey hair was rumpled by frequent delvings of his left hand, and the left needle of his waxed moustache was sadly out of line. His tunic was open—he never removed it when on duty—more in capitulation to mental than to physical discomfort, though Medicine Hat can startle more records in July than in the depth of winter, cold-blooded official reports to the contrary notwithstanding. His pipe lay cold beside the half-spilled tobacco pouch that always adorned the corner of his blotting pad.
Over on the station platform before his window the crowd thinned. A man ran along the top of the cars with a hose, thrusting it into a tiny trap-door, flicking up a slide in the nozzle, holding it a moment till the tanks below filled, flicking the slide down again, and then on to the next-trap door. A butcher's boy with a heavy basket on his arm scrambled down Main Street, crossed the track, and galloped with shuffling feet along the platform to the diner. The conductor drew his watch, examined it critically, raised his hand, and the fresh engine started noisily for its relief at the next divisional point, Swift Current.
Any morning that the Inspector was on duty the arrival of the Calgary express produced a similar scene in and out of the Police barracks—except a few of the trimmings indicative of mental irritation; any Monday morning you would find trimmings and all.
Yet throughout the tangle of that summer's special Police task Inspector Barker's mind reverted in his moments of leisure to the passing of an innocent daily train.
He was lowering his eyes reluctantly to the completion of his weekly irritation, when the desk telephone rang sharply, peremptorily. He jerked it to him.
"Yes, yes!"
"I'm sorry, sir, to have to report——"
"Drop the palaver, Faircloth!" snapped the Inspector. "I take that for granted."
"A murder was——"
"Hold on, hold on! Hold the line a minute!"
The Inspector dropped the receiver, scrawled an illegible but well-known "Barker, Inspector," at the bottom of the sheet before him, jammed it into an envelope and sealed it. At least he would have a week of freedom for the task implied by Corporal Faircloth's interrupted disclosure.
"Now!" he shouted into the telephone, one hand instinctively buttoning his tunic to more official formality.
Faircloth restarted:
"Last night, shortly after midnight, at the T-Inverted R——"
"Bite it off, for Heaven's sake!" broke in the Inspector. "Who, and how, and by whom?"
"Billy Windover—shot—cattle-thieves!" the Corporal chipped off.
For just the fraction of a second Inspector Barker waited. Then:
"Well? Nothing more?"
The Division knew that tone.
"Two hours before we were informed," apologised the Corporal. "Trouble on the telephone line. Followed the trail—they got the cattle as well—till lost it in fresh tracks of the round-ups."
The Inspector laughed shortly.
"Did you expect a paper-chase trail?"
The Corporal made no reply. Usually it took him a sentence or two to remember the Inspector's impatience, but for the particular interview concerned he observed the training well when he did recall it.
"Why didn't you telephone right away? Why did you give the trail up? Oh, damn it, wait!"
For a moment or two the only sound in the barracks office was the buzzing of the flits on the dirty window glass. Thereafter he was himself.
"Any strangers seen out there in the last couple of days? Any cowboys off their beats?"
"No time yet to enquire, sir."
"Get Aspee and Hughes out immediately. Did the tracks lead toward the Cypress Hills?"
"No, sir."
"Hm-m-m!"
"A bit north-east—far as we could follow."
The Inspector paused. "What's your plan?"
"Going to scurry round—to look for the cattle."
It came with just a suggestion of defiance, as if the speaker were a little ashamed of the sound of it but was prepared to defend it. The Inspector laughed.
"God bless you!" he mocked. "How did you think of it?"
"The very cattle themselves," Faircloth persisted. "It happens——"
The Inspector's laugh became less pleasant. "And you think——"
"Pardon, sir; but it isn't quite as silly as it sounds. I know this particular herd almost as well as their own punchers—and I think I know something of brands."
"Lad, your optimism is contagious—but this dairy-maid tracking is such a new stunt in the Force. When you come across Co-Bossie and Spot give them my compliments and ask them to drop in some afternoon——"
He sickened of his own banter.
"Get Aspee and Hughes out immediately," he rasped. "Remain yourself within reach of the phone for fifteen minutes. I'll have a campaign then.... Do you happen to recall that this is the third case of cattle-stealing in your district in a month? ... By the way, know anything about dogs—tracking dogs? I expect a couple of rippers from down East in a day or two. I'll get them out to you. See what you've let the Force sink to! Now hustle!"
He slammed the receiver into its place and sank back in his chair, chin resting on breast. A constable, receiving no reply to his knock, opened the back door softly—and closed it again more softly. He knew that attitude of his chief.