Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol. 51, No. 2, June 28, 1930

“How ye happen to be up hyeh, ’Lige?” demanded Rutherford.

“We was goin’ up thar on that upper bench atter them curly-walnut stumps,” explained Honeycutt. “Feller offered me a good price fo’ stumps like that an’ I’d made arrangements for Hook-Dave hyeh to go along with us an’ blow ’em up. He knows how to handle dynamite. We was comin’ along that sheep path past this cliff when I jes’ happened to see the — body.”

“What time did ye first see Dave this mo’nin’?”

“ ’Bout seven o’clock, I reckon. Atter he come we waited a leetle while on Ranse hyeh, an’ then we had to wait till my boy got in with the dynamite. Must ’a’ been nigh onto ten o’clock when we got started.”

“On a guess, ’Lige,” continued Rutherford thoughtfully, “what time would ye say that this — happened?”

“Couldn’t say, sheriff. Might ’a’ been a hour — might ’a’ been half a day. To tell the truth I didn’t get dost. Thought I’d leave ever’thing jes’ as it is fo’ ye to examine.”

Rutherford nodded his approbation, and then stooped over and raised slightly the deputy’s body, extracting a silver, hunting-case watch. The rear of that watch was dented and battered, but the crystal, strangely enough, was intact. But the force of the fall had shattered the jewels and ruined the works.

The four spectators crowded about Rutherford and watched him as he tried to wind the timepiece. Then he shook his head.

“Looks like it happened at four minutes to nine o’clock,” declared ’Lige softly. “She stopped then. Is she bad broke, sheriff?”

“Plumb ruined.”

Rutherford shot a quick glance at Hook-Dave, but the latter’s expression was masked in indifference. His alibi was perfect. He had been with ’Lige and Ranse at that hour and could not have had a part in the murder.

“What do ye reckon he was doin’ up thar on top, sheriff?” queried ’Lige curiously.

“He was tryin’ to spot Hook-Dave’s still,” replied Rutherford bluntly.

With one accord the little knot wheeled and watched Dave, but the latter’s enigmatical smile could have meant anything. Me offered no denial of the charge of moonshining, but shrugged and resumed his seat upon the moss-covered bowlder.

“Let’s go up on top an’ see what we can see,” suggested Rutherford. “He must ’a’ been on that ledge up thar near the top.”

Up a precipitous path on the right of the cliff they toiled, the sheriff and Deputy Randall leading the way with the other three men following a few paces in the rear. Watching his chance Rutherford leaned close to the deputy and whispered:

“Keep yore eye on Hook-Dave, an’ if he makes a break for it, stop him — with a bullet.”

“Huh!” The deputy grunted his surprise. “His alibi—”

Rutherford’s gesture was one of warning and the deputy grew silent. A few minutes later they were on top of the precipice and gingerly advancing along a narrow ledge from which it was palpable that Bart Cantrell had fallen. At a point directly over the scene of the tragedy Rutherford halted and motioned to the others to remain where they were. Then inch by inch he went over the ground, seeking signs of a struggle, footprints — anything that might throw light on the mystery.

The surface of the ledge was bare stone, relieved here and there by tiny patches of moss and crevices. At its broadest point the ledge was not more than six feet wide and at the rear arose a wall of granite some twenty to thirty feet high. Just a few paces ahead of Rutherford the shelf narrowed and became sheer wall.

On hands and knees Rutherford examined the entire surroundings, keeping his back to the watchers as much as possible. Three times he found scratches upon the stone surface — four parallel marks about an eighth of an inch apart, and once he located a fresh cut along the jagged surface of the rear wall. Manifestly there had been a struggle, but the evidences of it were meager and vague.

At last he arose to his feet and stood tugging at his mustaches. Then with a deep sigh he drew near his companions.

“We’ll finish up this work down — there,” he announced.

“Find anything, sheriff?” demanded ’Lige, whose curiosity had overcome his natural reticence.

“Nothin’ I didn’t already know,” replied Rutherford enigmatically, leading the way down the sharp incline to the base of the precipice.

IV

Upon reaching the bowlders Rutherford motioned his deputy forward.

“Let’s move the body over in the shade, Crit,” he suggested, and gently they placed it upon a bed of leaves and Rutherford removed his coat and spread it over Bart’s face. Then he came back and stared long and thoughtfully at the bed of wild morning glory vines, crushed and flattened by the deputy’s crumpled weight.

“Strange thing about that watch, ’Lige,” observed Rutherford at last. “Ye know, when a man puts his watch in his pocket he allus puts it in with the crystal next to his body so’s it won’t get broke. But Bart had stuck his’n in until the crystal out.”