“No, I guess not,” agreed Coggeshall. “Still, if you ask me, I’d say this Paul deCamp is just a lowdown, doggone crook.”
Tommy stared at him.
Chapter Twenty-Five
It was exactly nine-thirty when Coggeshall’s dog, outside the house, suddenly started barking. Tommy Dancer kicked back the chair in which he had been sitting and started for the door, but Coggeshall exclaimed:
“Better let me open the door, Tommy!”
“Who else could it be but Betty Targ?”
“It is probably her, all right, but I told you that talking on the radio wasn’t private.”
He stepped around Tommy and opened the door. The dog began barking even more furiously.
“Down, Beowulf,” the caretaker ordered.
The dog subsided and Tommy, peering through the window, saw headlights come around a turn in the steep road that led up to the mine. He watched them approach and drew the revolver from his pocket.
The headlights stopped forty or fifty yards from the cabin. A car door slammed and a voice that Tommy knew, called: “Is this the Four Square Mine?”
“Yes, it is,” replied Coggeshall.
High-heeled shoes spurned gravel as Betty Targ came running toward the cabin. Tommy waited until she was within a few feet of the door, then jammed his revolver into his pocket and sprang out.
“Betty!” he cried.
She came into his arms and he felt her body tremble and quiver. “Tommy,” she half sobbed. “I’m so glad to see you.”
Shoes crunched on the gravel behind Betty and George Roan’s voice said, coolly, “Tommy, how are you...?”
Tommy released Betty and stepped back. “I didn’t expect you to come along.”
“Couldn’t let her come up here in the mountains alone this time of night.”
“Sure you weren’t followed?”
“By Paul deCamp? No.” Roan chuckled. “He was hanging around outside. I called the cop on the beat; Bill Prentiss, you know — I play pinochle with him. He pinched deCamp for loitering.” He nodded to the caretaker’s shack. “Do you think we ought to be moving along?”
“Yes,” said Tommy. “But there’s something I want to pick up inside.”
“Sure, the money.”
Tommy headed for the cabin. Betty was at his side and behind, them came Coggeshall and George Roan. Inside the cabin, Roan crowded past Tommy toward the cot on which lay the briefcase. “A hundred and sixty thousand dollars...” Roan took his hand out of his pocket. There was an automatic in it. “It’s a lot of money, Tommy...”
Betty Targ exclaimed in sudden anguish. “Oh, no!”
“I could say I’m sorry,” Roan went on tonelessly. “But that wouldn’t be the truth. A hundred and sixty thousand—”
“Is a lot of money, you said,” Tommy cut in, bitterly.
“Trent sold me on the idea,” Roan went on. “He thought I’d make a good decoy to bring you in. He didn’t trust deCamp. That’s the trouble with money. You can’t trust anybody. DeCamp and Trent made a deal to share the money, after deCamp had killed Faraday. Only Trent didn’t trust deCamp. So he came to me and offered me half the money if I brought you in. But after all, if he didn’t trust deCamp and deCamp didn’t trust him, why should I have trusted either of them?”
“So you killed Trent?”
“Will it bore you if I say again, that a hundred and sixty thousand dollars is a great deal of money? As a matter of fact, it’s more than I’ve earned in my entire lifetime. And more, perhaps, than I can spend during the years that are left to me.” Roan smiled faintly. “But I don’t know, I’ll try to spend it. Down in Brazil.”
He moved to the cot and picked up the briefcase. With it under his left arm he faced the others. “I’m going to have some bad moments about this...”
“Don’t be a fool, Roan,” Tommy said, sharply. “You can’t kill three people in cold blood.”
“I never thought I could kill even one,” Roan said. “But it wasn’t hard, Tommy, it wasn’t hard at all. And that was before I actually had the money in my hand. But now I’ve got it and...” Roan smiled fleetingly, sadly. “There was a piece in the paper only last month about a fellow who killed another fellow for only two dollars and fifty cents. Imagine that!”
“I’m imagining it,” said Tommy, through his teeth — and went for the revolver in his coat pocket. He caught Roan by surprise and actually got the gun free of his pocket, before Tommy’s former employer fired. But then a needle of pain pierced Tommy’s right shoulder. He gasped and contracted the fingers of his hand in an effort to fire at Roan, but it was useless for the gun had fallen from his hand. It was at his feet and Tommy dropped down to scoop it up. Roan kicked it clear across the room.
“Sorry, Tommy, I wanted to give it to you nice and clean but...”
A blinding light suddenly came into the little shack from outside and a voice thundered: “Hey, you, inside...!”
George Roan sprang to one side as if a thousand volts of electricity had suddenly struck him. “Who’s that?” he cried hoarsely.
The face of the elderly caretaker twisted crookedly. “Just the police.”
“The police!” cried Roan. “How...?”
The voice outside bellowed: “Are you all right, Coggeshall?”
Coggeshall ignored the call outside for a moment. He said to Roan: “Why, it was that radio call, you know...” He looked down at Tommy who was kneeling on the floor, his right hand hanging limply at his side. “I neglected to tell you, Tommy, that WC33L was a lieutenant in the Burbank Police Department. In his spare time he’s a radio amateur...”
Outside the shack, a voice blared: “We open fire in ten seconds — with a Tommy gun...”
“On the other hand,” said George Roan, “I probably wouldn’t know how to spend that money anyway.” He stepped to the open doorway. “I’m coming,” he called out into the darkness. “I’m coming, shooting...”
He stepped out. A gun barked once — the sound of it was drowned by a roar of machine gun fire.
Coggeshall stepped to the doorway. “All right,” he said.
Policemen crowded into the shack. They found Tommy Dancer seated on the floor, with Betty Targ kneeling beside him, her arms around him.
“Dancer?” one of the policemen asked.
Tommy nodded. “I’m ready.”
Coggeshall came over and stooping, laid his hand on Tommy’s shoulder. “I hope you make it all right, Tommy.”
Betty looked up at him. There were tears in his eyes. “He’ll make it,” she said. “It won’t be forever and I’ll... I’ll be waiting.”