After a few seconds Borden said in a low voice: “Okay, Sheriff. Slow her down. I’ll hop off. Go about a hundred feet and then stop... Better switch out your lights when you stop, so be can’t recognize you.”
“Okay,” the sheriff said, slowing the car.
Borden swung out from the running-board, balanced himself for a moment over the flowing ribbon of cement, and then, with hardly a sound, dropped back into the darkness. The sheriff ran on for a few seconds, stopped the car, and switched off the lights.
Dark silence enveloped the little group waiting in tense expectancy in the automobile.
Thirty seconds became a minute. The minute stretched on towards two minutes. The little noises of the night which had been frightened into silence by the automobile once more chirped into existence; then suddenly stopped in an ominous silence which indicated something was moving in the night.
The sheriff, scowling in concentration, peered out into the darkness. Milred, leaning toward Frank, had just started to whisper, when suddenly there was the sound of a commotion from the darkness beside the road not over twenty feet from the automobile.
They heard Borden’s voice in a gruff command; then Gramp Wiggins shrilling with excited indignation.
“Okay, Sheriff,” Borden called.
The sheriff’s spotlight cut through the darkness.
Borden had his left arm thrown around Gramps from behind, his forearm under Gramps’ chin. His right hand held Gramps’ right wrist. The beam of the spotlight showed the revolver clutched in Gramps’ hand.
“You handle it, Pete,” Duryea said. “I won’t come in it until the last minute.”
The sheriff opened the car door, got to the ground. “You got a licence to carry that gun?” he asked.
“Who is it?” Gramps asked.
“This is the sheriff.”
“Oh, that you, Lassen?” Gramps said, relief in his voice. “I didn’t know—”
There was no cordiality in Sheriff Lassen’s voice. “All right, Wiggins, what’s the gun for?”
“Well, I... I sorta thought—”
“You got a licence to carry that gun?”
“Well, not in this county, no—”
“Or in this state?”
“Well, not if you come right down to it, no.”
Lassen said: “I guess you’d better put the handcuffs on him, Borden.”
“Now, you look here,” Gramp Wiggins shrilled. “You’ve got no right to do that! You’re interfering with the cause of justice. You can’t put no handcuffs on me, like I was a common, ordinary criminal.”
“I don’t see why not,” the sheriff said. “You may be related to the district attorney, but so far as I’m concerned, you’re just the same as any other citizen. You’re hanging around by the side of the road with a drawn gun waiting to ambush automobiles — attempted highway robbery committed with a gun. You know what that means.”
“Attempted highway robbery nothin’,” Gramps retorted in a voice made high and reedy with anger. “You certainly can’t be as dumb as that!”
Borden still holding Gramps’ wrist in a firm grasp, said to Lassen: “You’ve seen the gun all right, Sheriff?”
“Yes. I’ve seen that he has it in his hand.”
“All right,” Borden said. “Drop it.”
He twisted the wrist until the gun dropped from Gramps’ fingers; then, shifting his hold suddenly so that he held both of Gramps’ hands imprisoned he slid handcuffs from his belt, and with a quick dextrous slapping motion fastened them around Gramps’ wrists.
“All right, Wiggins,” the sheriff announced, in the patient, weary voice of a man who is merely performing a duty, “you’re under arrest. Anything you say can be used against you. Get in. We’re going back to the county seat.”
“Wait a minute. You can’t take me away from here.”
“Why not?”
“Because... because it’d make trouble.”
“Not for you. You’re in plenty of trouble already.”
“Don’t you understand? I got—”
“What have you got?” the sheriff asked as Wiggins abruptly became silent.
“Nothin’,” Gramps said.
“You all alone out here?”
Gramps hesitated for two or three thoughtful seconds, then said sullenly: “Yes.”
“No one with you?” the sheriff asked.
“Don’t be a sap,” Gramps told him. “Do I look as though I had anyone with me?”
Duryea said to the sheriff: “Go ahead. Load him in. He’s got to find out that I’m here sooner or later, and we may as well get it over with.”
“All right, Borden,” Lassen said. “Bring him up to the car.”
Duryea leaned forward. “Gramps, I warned you that you were on your own,” he said.
“Oh, so you’re here?”
“Yes.”
“Humph!” Gramps said. “I begin to smell a rat now.”
Bordon hustled him forward, opened the door in the rear of the car, bundled the old man in.
“And you’re here, too, Milred?”
“Yes.”
“Humph!” Gramps said again, and then added after a moment: “Helluva note, when us Wigginses can’t stand together.”
Duryea said: “You had your warning, Gramps. I told you not once but a dozen times.”
“Watcha goin’ to do with me?” Gramps asked.
“Take you in to the county seat,” Lassen announced promptly.
“You can’t hold me.”
“Why not?”
“I haven’t committed any crime.”
Lassen laughed. “Try telling that to a jury. You didn’t know who was in this automobile. We were law-abiding citizens, driving along a public highway. We stopped the car, and you came stalking us with a gun. The implication was plain. You were trying to hold up an automobile.”
Gramps thought for a moment, then suddenly began to laugh. “Got it all now,” he said. “It’s a damn, dirty frame-up.”
“That’s what they all say,” Lassen announced.
“How’d you know I was here?” Gramps asked. “Tell me that.”
“I didn’t have to know you were here. I simply stopped the car—”
“Stopped the car after you’d let this young cat-footed giant out to come sneakin’ up on me... Sort of thought I heard somethin’ movin’ behind me, but was so interested in findin’ out what was goin’ on in the car, I didn’t pay enough attention... You ain’t goin’ to make yourself ridiculous along about election time, by throwin’ an old man in the cooler for tryin’ to get evidence?”
“Evidence of what?” Lassen asked.
“Evidence of murder, of course.”
“And in order to get it, you arm yourself and go out on to the public highways ready to pounce on the first unsuspecting motorist who comes along,” Duryea announced sarcastically.
Gramps looked at him with piercing eyes. “You’re kinda overdoin’ it a little bit, son,” he said. “Guess the idea is to throw such a scare into me you’ll make a good dog out of me, huh?”
Duryea said: “Once and for all, I’m telling you that you’re on the same footing as any other citizen.”
“Yeah, I know, but you wouldn’t come pouncin’ down on any other citizen this way — not if you knew him an’ knew what he was workin’ for.”
“Just what are you working for?” Lassen asked.
“Tryin’ to get the murderer for you.”
“And you expected that he’d come along here and stop, so that you could have a little chat with him?” Duryea asked.
“No, I didn’t,” Gramps said. “But I expected he’d come along an’ try to go into that house, an’ when he did, I wanted to be right behind him.”
“Why should he go into the house?” Duryea asked. “What specific reason is there for him to show up at this time and go into the cabin?”