CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
MONTY MEETS PATRICIA
Monty had made up his mind to go on to Los Angeles and see for himself why Patricia would not answer his telegram, when he received the word that she was coming from Kansas City. He swore a good deal over the delay that would hold him inactive in town. To fill in the time he wrote a long letter to the sheriff in Tonopah, stating all the facts in the case so far as he knew them. He hoped that the sheriff was already on his way to Johnnywater, though Monty could not have told just what he expected the sheriff to accomplish when he arrived there.
He tried to trace James Blaine Hawkins, but only succeeded in learning from a garage man that Hawkins had come in off the desert at least three weeks before, cursed the roads and the country in general and had left for Los Angeles. Or at least that was the destination he had named.
Even Monty could find no evidence in that of Hawkins’ guilt. His restless pacing up and down the three short blocks that comprised the main business street of the town got on the nerves of the men who knew him. His concern over Gary Marshall gradually infected the minds of others; so that news of a murder committed in Johnnywater Cañon was wired to the city papers, and the Chief of Police in Los Angeles was advised also by wire to trace James Blaine Hawkins if possible.
Old cuts of Gary Marshall were hastily dug up in newspaper offices and his picture run on the first page. A reporter who knew him well wrote a particularly dramatic special article, which was copied more or less badly by many of the papers. Cohen got to hear of it, and his publicity agents played up the story magnificently, not because Cohen wished to immortalize one of his younger leading men who was out of the game, but because it made splendid indirect advertising for Cohen.
Monty, of course, never dreamed that he had done all this. He was sincerely grieving over Gary, whose grave he thought he had discovered by the bushy juniper. The mere fact that James Blaine Hawkins had appeared in Las Vegas approximately three weeks before did not convince him that Gary had not been murdered. He believed that Hawkins had lain in wait for Gary and had killed him on his return from Kawich. The grave might easily be that old.
Of course there was a weak point in that argument. In fact, Monty’s state of mind was such that he failed to see the fatally weak point until the day of Patricia’s arrival. When he did see it he abandoned the theory in disgust, threw out his hands expressively, and declared that he didn’t give a damn just how the crime had been committed, or when. Without a doubt his friend, Gary Marshall, had been killed, and Monty swore he would never rest until the murderer had paid the price. The weak point, which was the well-fed comfort of the pigs and Jazz, he did not attempt to explain away. Perhaps James Blaine Hawkins had not gone to Los Angeles at all. Perhaps he was still out there at Johnnywater, and Monty had failed to discover him.
He was in that frame of mind when he met the six o’clock train that brought Patricia. Naturally, he had no means of identifying her. But he followed a tired-looking girl with a small black handbag to one of the hotels and inspected the register just as she turned away from the desk. Then he took off his hat, extended his hand and told her who he was.
Patricia was all for starting for Johnnywater that night. Monty gave her one long look and told her bluntly that it simply couldn’t be done; that no one could travel the road at night. His eyes were very blue and convincing, and his southern drawl branded the lie as truth. Wherefore, Patricia rested that night in a bed that remained stationary, and by morning Monty was better satisfied with her appearance and believed that she would stand the trip all right.
“I reckon maybe yuh-all better find some woman to go on out, Miss Connolly,” Monty suggested while they breakfasted.
“I can’t see why that should be necessary, Mr. Girard,” Patricia replied in her primmest office tone. “I am perfectly able to take care of myself, I should think.”
“You’ll be the only woman in the country for about sixty-five or seventy miles,” Monty warned her diffidently. “Uh course there couldn’t anything happen to yuh-all—but I expect the sheriff and maybe one or two more will be down from Tonopah when we get there, and I thought maybe yuh-all might like to have some other woman along for company.”
He dipped three spoons of sugar into his coffee and looked at Patricia with a sympathetic look in his eyes.
“I was thinkin’ last night, Miss Connolly, that I dunno as there’s much use of your going out there at all. Yuh-all couldn’t do a thing, and it’s liable to be mighty unpleasant. When I sent that wire to yuh-all, I never thought a word about yuh-all comin’ to Johnnywater. What I wanted was to get a line on this man, Hawkins. I thought maybe yuh-all could tell me something about him.”
Patricia glanced unseeingly around the insufferably hot little café. She was not conscious of the room at all. She was thinking of Gary and trying to force herself to a calmness that could speak of him without betraying her feelings.
“I don’t know anything about Mr. Hawkins, other than that I arranged with him to run the ranch on shares,” she said, and the effort she was making made her voice sound very cold and impersonal. “I certainly did not know that Mr. Marshall was at Johnnywater, or I should not have sent Mr. Hawkins over. I had asked Mr. Marshall first to take charge of the ranch, and Mr. Marshall had refused, on the ground that he did not wish to give up his work in motion pictures. Are you sure that he came over here and was at Johnnywater when Mr. Hawkins arrived?” Patricia did not know it, but her voice sounded as coldly accusing as if she were a prosecuting attorney trying to make a prisoner give damaging testimony against himself. Her manner bred a slight resentment in Monty, so that he forgot his diffidence.
“I hauled Gary Marshall out to Johnnywater myself, over six weeks ago,” he told her bluntly. “He hunted me up and acted like he wanted to scrap with me because he thought I’d helped to cheat yuh-all. He was going to sell the place for yuh-all if he could—and I sure approved of the idea. It ain’t any place for a lady to own. A man could go there and live like a hermit and make a bare living, but yuh-all couldn’t divide the profits and break even. I dunno as there’d be any profits to divide, after a feller’d paid for his grub and clothes.
“Gary saw it right away, and I was to bring him back to town in a couple of days; but I had an accident to my car so I couldn’t come in. I reckon Gary meant to write anyway and tell yuh-all where he was. But he never had a chance to send out a letter.”
Patricia dipped a spoon into her cereal and left it there. “Even so, I don’t believe Gary disappeared very mysteriously,” she said, her chin squaring itself. “He probably got tired of staying there and went back to Los Angeles by way of Tonopah. However, I shall drive out and see the ranch, now that I’m here. I’m very sorry you have been put to so much trouble, Mr. Girard. I really think Mr. Marshall should have left some word for you before he left. But then,” she added with some bitterness, “he didn’t seem to think it necessary to let me know he was coming over here. And we have telephones in Los Angeles, Mr. Girard.”
Monty’s eyes were very blue and steady when he looked at her across the table. He set down his cup and leaned forward a little.
“If yuh spoke to Gary in that tone of voice, Miss Connolly,” he drawled, “I reckon he wouldn’t feel much like usin’ the telephone before he left town. Gary’s as nice a boy as I ever met in my life.”
Patricia bit her under lip, and a tinge of red crept up over her cheek bones to the dark circles beneath her eyes, that told a tale of sleepless nights which Patricia herself would have denied.
The remainder of the breakfast was a silent meal, with only such speech as was necessary and pertained to the trip before them. Monty advised the taking out of certain supplies and assisted Patricia in making up a list of common comforts which could be carried in a touring car.
He left her at the hotel while he attended to the details of getting under way, and when he returned it was with a Ford and driver, and many parcels stacked in the tonneau. Patricia’s suit case was wedged between the front fender and the tucked-up hood of the motor, and a bundle of new bedding was jammed down upon the other side in like manner. Patricia herself was wedged into the rear seat beside the parcels and packages of food. Her black traveling bag Monty deposited between his feet in front with the driver.
At the last moment, while the driver was cranking the motor, Monty reached backward with a small package in his hand.
“Put on these sun goggles,” he said. “Your eyes will be a fright if you ride all day against this wind without any protection.”
“Thank you very much, Mr. Girard,” said Patricia with a surprising meekness—for her. What is more, she put on the hideous amber glasses; though she hated the jaundiced look they gave to the world.
Patricia had a good deal to think about during that interminable, jolting ride. She was given ample opportunity for the thinking, since Monty Girard never spoke to her except to inquire now and then if she were comfortable.