Buck shuddered. “I abhor physical violence. A man with brains doesn’t have to resort to it.”
“Brains?” exclaimed Boston. “Man, where we were your brains would have got you a concrete block.”
Christopher Buck wrapped himself into knots and dropped into a chair. “What’re you going to do next, Quade?” he asked.
“Gather in the murderer,” Quade replied bluntly. “Before there is another killing.”
The telephone tingled. Quade picked it up.
“This is Felix Renfrew,” said an excited voice. “I’m over here at the bus station. I just got in. I’ve got something very important to tell you.”
“Come right over,” Quade told him. He hung up the receiver and turned to Buck. “Sorry, but I’m having a visitor. You’ll excuse me, won’t you?”
Buck scowled. “Holding out again, huh?”
“Look,” said Quade, exasperated. “You’ve fooled around on this case long enough. Your client is dead, so why the hell don’t you take a powder?”
Buck blustered but Quade shoved him through the door. Quade turned to Boston, his eyes gleaming. “This thing is breaking fast, Charlie. Felix Renfrew is coming up here. I think he’s going to give me the proof I’ve been trying to get.”
“That Demetros knocked off young Lanyard? Hell, I knew that long ago.”
Five minutes passed, but Felix Renfrew did not show up. Quade fidgeted. “Wonder if Buck ran into him and bought him off to spill it to him. That man would do almost anything to get credit for breaking a case.” He held up a hand suddenly. “Listen, isn’t that a police siren? Lord, I wonder…”
Quade bounded off the bed and out of the room. He took the stairs to the first floor, three at a time, and burst through the lobby. People were rushing by on the street, heading for a spot in the next block where a large crowd had gathered. Quade caught hold of a man’s arm. “What’s happened?”
“Man’s been shot!”
It was Renfrew, of course. Quade found Chief of Police Costello and his entire force herding the curious back from the huddled body.
Costello was very unhappy. “More killings!” he snapped. “It’s getting to be an epidemic around here.”
“How’d it happen?”
“No one seems to know exactly. He was crossing the street and someone took a shot at him from an automobile. Only one or two people around and they thought at first the noise was just a backfire. Only natural. Up to now, people haven’t been in the habit of firing off guns on our Main Street. What happened to you?”
Quade touched the mouse under his eye. “I got tough to the wrong man. Well, you still satisfied that Bob Lanyard committed suicide?”
The chief cursed roundly. “I been out to the Lanyard house. The old man and his daughter claim it was murder. This Renfrew killing makes me wonder now.”
Quade saw the lank figure of Christopher Buck forcing through the crowd and slipped away. He walked to the hotel and climbed into his disreputable flivver.
Ten minutes later he rang the bell at the Lanyard home.
“Miss Lois Lanyard,” he said to the butler.
“I’m sorry, she’s not at home.”
Quade frowned. “Mr. Lanyard then.”
The butler led Quade into the living-room where Guy Lanyard was sitting by the rear window, moodily looking out toward the dog kennels.
“Where’d Lo — Miss Lanyard go?”
“To the dog show. I thought it best for them to get out for a while.”
“Them?”
“She and Jessie both went. Poor girls.”
Quade left abruptly and drove to the dog show — fast. It was around dinnertime and attendance was slight. Quade went swiftly from aisle to aisle but saw neither Lois nor Jessie Lanyard. He did, however, run into Freddie Bartlett. The wealthy playboy gritted his teeth at sight of Quade. “Here you are, I’ve been looking for you all day.” Freddie spoke as he would to a servant.
“The hell you have,” snapped Quade. “Where’s Miss Lanyard and her sister-in-law?”
“What business is it of yours?” sneered Bartlett. “You’ve been around them just about enough. I was looking for you today to see that you didn’t annoy any of us any longer.”
“Oh, hell!” snorted Quade. “Are you going to try to lick me?”
“Someone seems to have started the job,” Bartlett said ominously, “but I’m going to finish it. You didn’t know I was light-heavyweight champion of my university, did you?”
Quade sighed, stepped forward and smashed Bartlett a terrific blow on the point of the jaw. Bartlett staggered back against a dog partition. His eyes rolled wildly as he struggled to keep his feet.
“So you want to fight?” Quade asked. He lashed out with a left hook, and Freddie Bartlett hit the wooden partition and slid down it to a sitting position. He wasn’t out, but he sat there goggle-eyed. “And now,” Quade said, “where’s Lois?”
Bartlett looked up stupidly. “I–I don’t know,” he mumbled. “They were here, then they said they were going for a drive up River Road. Jessie said something about going where it was quiet. Woods down there—”
Quade left Bartlett sitting there. He dashed to the exit of the building, then on sudden impulse ran back. He found the Old English sheep dog aisle and stepped into one of the stalls, the one occupied by Oscar, Lois’ first-prize winner.
The dog was a bit skittish, but Quade spoke soothingly to it and unchained it. Leading it by the chain, he started again for the exit.
The show secretary was coming in just then. “Here, here, you!” he cried. “You can’t do that.”
Quade did not even answer. He brushed the man aside and rushed out to his car. He put the dog in the front seat and climbed in beside it. In a moment he was scooting out of the fair grounds.
Quade didn’t know the section of the country around Westfield, but during the last few days he’d seen the river several times and instinctively headed toward it. The road beside it was a winding one. There were a few houses and farms on both sides of the road, near town, but when he got out a mile or two, the farms gave way to thick woods. Quade cursed furiously. There was no fencing along the side of the road and every now and then there was a winding wooded lane or road, cutting off from the main drive. Jessie and Lois could have turned down any of these roads and he would miss them.
Quade stopped the flivver beside a small road and listened. There were fresh tire tracks leading into the road, but it did not necessarily mean anything. This was a populated country and someone used these roads every day. He stepped on the starter, but suddenly switched it off again. He strained his ears, but heard nothing. The dog beside him growled deep in his throat. Quade looked at it and his eyes flashed.
“Bark!” he cried, in a sudden command. The dog was startled and barked warningly. “Louder!” Quade cried, making a pass at the dog. The dog barked and bared his teeth threateningly.
And then Quade heard it — a wolf-like howl rising to a mournful note and dying out. It came from the woods ahead and not so far away. Quickly Quade stepped on the starter of the flivver and slipped the gears into second. He stepped on the throttle and the car leaped into the narrow winding road.
As he drove he bore down on the horn. The noise excited the dog beside him even more and it barked. And from ahead, came the answering howl of a dog. The flivver burst into a clearing and Quade brought it to a stop in a cloud of dust. Ahead was a bright yellow roadster, Lois’ own car. Oscar, the sheep dog, began barking excitedly and tried to get out of the car. Quade sighed in relief, kicked the door open beside the dog.
He saw the girls then. They were in the back of the clearing, near an old stone house. Jessie had the big Eskimo dog with her. It was bristling at the approach of the sheep dog and Jessie had to speak to it to keep it from attacking the woolly as the latter bounded across the clearing to his mistress.