Garret said he understood. “Miss Brann and I won’t turn you in. We’re after someone else. The parties who rigged up that phony accident to explain Harvey Yault’s death.”
“Oh-oh!”
“Millie Hippo says you were with Yault a little while before he was killed.”
“That’s so. I was. And I always had my own ideas about that cockeyed cave-in, but working with Jig Darcy all the time, I didn’t want to shoot off my mouth and wind up under a few tons of loose ore myself.”
“Millie says Yault told her he might be murdered because he’d accidentally discovered where copper was being stolen from Ajax.”
The old peter-man rubbed the stubble of his chin thoughtfully. “Oh! Was that it?”
Garret nodded. “You know where the place is. Yault said it was on Fear Street.”
“Yuh. I know.” Scat pinched his Adam’s apple uneasily. “It’s one of the old stopes on the two-thousand-foot level.”
“A tunnel in the mine?” Shirley was astonished.
“Yezzum. A bad one. Ore’s soft there. Chalcocite, they call it. Crumbles easy. Lots of good guys did their last mining on Fear Street. That’s why it got its name.”
“That’s where Yault was hurt?” Garret thought he began to see some of the pieces fitting together.
“Yezzir. Him and me and Darcy were looking over the stope to see if we could retimber it, and Jig sends me back to the main shaft for a couple of hydraulic jacks. When I come back, Harve was under fifty ton of rock and Darcy was bawling for the rescue crew.”
Garret gripped Scat’s shoulder fiercely. “Can you get me down where I can have a look at this Fear Street?”
Scat Prodger shook his head slowly. “No sir. Somebody else — not me. I couldn’t get even as far as the cage without that dirty slob Narriver putting the arm on me.”
“Suppose I could fix it so Narriver wouldn’t bother you, and those old indictments would be dropped?”
“No siree. It ain’t that I don’t take your word, Mr. Garret. You’re on the up-and-up. There ain’t a stir-bug who knows you would say different. But you know how it is. I saw promises made with the best of intentions, many’s the time. Only the guy who made them couldn’t carry them out, because some dirty little drip with a title and a bellyful of ambition thought he could climb another step up the ladder by slapping another poor sucker in the pen.”
Shirley came across the room. “Mr. Proctor—”
“Yezzum? Ain’t no use trying to talk me outa it. I had many’s the bitter experience with human nature.”
“But this is different,” she said. “Really different. By doing what Mr. Garret wants, you’ll be helping the men in our armed forces to get the ammunition they may need to win a battle.”
“Howzatt?”
Garret said, “The copper that’s being stolen, down there on Fear Street, ought to be making cartridges. If we can find out who’s stealing the metal, we can help to put more rounds in those machine-guns and—”
“Hold on! Hold on!” Scat strode majestically to the take. He poured out a stiff slug of beady liquor, drained it at one gulp, shook his head and tugged at his coat lapels. “You don’t have to go no further. If an old-timer like me can do his bit in this shindig, he’d be a terrible bum if he didn’t do it, wouldn’t he? A terrible bum!” He jerked open the door. “You keep that fink Narriver off my neck and I’ll take you to Fear Street or anywhere else you want to go!”
In the corridor, Scat Prodger turned. “I said I’d take you down, Mr. Garret. But how you going to get as far as the cage?”
“That’s right. I have to have a pass before they’ll let me in the hoist house.”
Shirley snapped open her handbag. “Wait.” She fumbled with coin purse and compact; found a pad of printed blanks and a pencil. Swiftly she filled in ruled spaces, tore off a sheet. “That’s not Ken’s signature, but it’s close enough. I make out most of the passes for him to sign. Lucky I have the pad with me.”
“Saves time,” Garret agreed.
She tucked her hand under his arm. The cloth of his coat was sticky. “You’re hurt! That’s blood!”
“Courtesy of Jig Darcy.” They were going down the stairs again; this time no one paid any attention to them. Garret said, “It’s not serious, except it’ll cost three bucks to have the sleeve rewoven.”
“If you’ll stop a second, I’ll fix it.”
“Thanks, no. But if you really want to do something for me—”
“What?”
“See if you can find out the names of Loomis’s backers in Consolidated Reclaimers. Charlie Ryder was talking to them on long distance tonight. Might be important to learn who they are. Do it without letting anybody know I’m interested.”
“Maybe Ken would know.”
He avoided her eyes. “Why don’t you ask the phone people?”
She hesitated. “All right.” His evasion seemed to trouble her.
They edged through the crowd at the bar. Calloused palms were clapping together in accompaniment to The Heart of Texas. Shirley had to press close against him to make herself heard. “It’ll be dangerous, down in the mine.”
Garret gestured at the old safe blower. “He knows his stuff.”
“I don’t mean danger from cave-ins. Harvey Yault wasn’t caught in a rock fall,” she said.
“I’ll keep my eyes open for the other hazards. And I’ll be seeing you.”
“I hope... I hope... I hope!” Shirley said.
Out on the street, Garret waited until her trim figure swung around the corner of the block.
“Let’s go, Scat.”
“This ain’t gonna be no picnic, y’know.”
“Hey, where you heading? Hoist house is up the hill.”
“I’m gonna stop down at my boarding house for a couple of helmets. You’d get your skull stove in before you went a hundred yards down Fear Street, without you had a helmet.”
The boarding house wasn’t far. Prodger reconnoitered a bit before he decided to go in. “Reckon Narriver’s been here and gone.” He marched up the steps and came back in a minute with two steel helmets that might have been regulation army issue, except for the electric lamps attached to their fronts. Prodger handed one to Garret, put one on himself, and disposed of other packets in various parts of his clothing.
“I’m set. That thick-neck cap’n better not push me around now.” He patted his coat gently.
But Garret, toiling up the steep grade, didn’t waste any grey matter on Narriver. Instead, he mulled over the strange activities of Shirley Brann’s brother. Especially, the strange shuffling of those fiber disks under the water faucet in Jig Darcy’s house. What was it Ken Brann had said? Darcy couldn’t have had any use for those steel rails, unless—
Unless what? Beyond question, the theft of the iron was connected with the stealing of the copper. But how? Why hadn’t Brann come right out with it? Why didn’t Charlie Ryder make it clear, what the super’s curious charade-play had meant? Why had Loomis changed his mind about letting Garret go through the smelter works right after the detective brought up the matter of scrap iron? Strangest of all, why had someone in the Consolidated plant — very likely Nels Jamstrom — done his best to wrench Garret’s head from his body with that belt slipped off the whirling pulley? Just because the investigator had found that pile of rusty chain and smashed-up auto bodies?
Maybe Scat could furnish him with the key, if he asked. “Scat?” “Getting pooped? This is a tough hill.” “I’ve got my second wind. Scat, how can a man swap old iron for new copper?”
“Howzatt?”