There was a knock on the door which led to the anteroom. Baker said come in. It opened and a man entered and closed it behind him.
“Well?”
“Mrs. Cowles says her appointment was for nine o’clock and it’s half past and she’s leaving in one minute.”
Pellett arose. Baker said, “I want to talk with you some more.”
“Not about...”
“All right. About various things. About your theory. Can you be here at eight in the morning?”
“I’ll be here.” As he went out, Pellett’s stooping shoulders were a load on his spine.
“Bring her along,” Baker told the man.
Frank Phelan said, “Quin Pellett’s right. As sure as God made little apples.”
Bill Tuttle said, “You’d better get transferred to Silverside County. It was a woman that killed Jackson and I’ve got—”
Ed Baker said, “Can it.”
Wynne Cowles was dressed up. In her suite at the Fowler she had a wardrobe which would have been adequate for any of the capitals of gaiety on either side of the Atlantic and, since her own opinion of her appearance was the only one she cared much about, she attended to it in Cody much as she would have done in Juan-les-Pins or White Sulphur. She looked as out of place in that courthouse office as had Squint Hurley, but not at all as if she felt out of place. As she dropped into the chair indicated by Baker, she let her shimmering yellow wrap fall from her shoulders and drape itself on the chair’s back; and the three men, sitting down again, evidently found it necessary to study her. At night her pupils were elliptical only in a bright light or when contracted by an impulse from within. They were so now. She directed them at Ed Baker and told him energetically, “You got me here by a trick.”
“On the contrary, Mrs. Cowles, I—”
“Yes you did, though perhaps you didn’t know it. I agreed to come only because I thought I might get a shot in for the Brand girl, and as soon as I get to town I learn that you’ve set her free and she’s all cleared up. I came anyway because I had said I would.” She glanced at a circlet of emeralds on her wrist. “We start dancing over at Randall’s at ten o’clock, so if I’m suspected of shooting Dan Jackson you only have a little over twenty minutes to make me confess.” She turned abruptly to Bill Tuttle: “Yes, I have very nice arms and I’m glad you admire them.”
Baker said with creditable aplomb, “I’ll be as brief as I can, Mrs. Cowles, and we’ll postpone your confession till tomorrow. All I know is that you were having an argument with Jackson in his office when Delia Brand got there Tuesday afternoon around four o’clock. Is that right?”
She shrugged the admired shoulders. “Call it an argument. I went there to make a face at him.”
“Did he threaten to run you out of the state?”
She smiled. “I believe he actually did.”
“Did he yell at you to keep your hands off of him?”
She frowned; her face was always doing something. “That doesn’t sound likely. I don’t try pawing and clawing very often. Of course you got this from Delia Brand, and she looks as if she might have some imagination— Oh! That must be it. He was telling me to keep my hands off of the grubstaking business and especially he didn’t want me — but I guess that’s confidential.”
“Is that what the argument was about, the grubstaking business?”
“Yes.” She twisted her lips into a little grimace. “Are you thinking of the dear dead past, Mr. Baker? I’ll tell you about that. When I was in Cody two years ago I heard about grubstaking and it sounded fascinating — having men working for you, partners, dozens and scores of them, out in these old hills, looking for gold and silver in the rocks — and other things. I decided to take a hand in it, I like to take a hand in things, and I was told that Charlie Brand knew more about it than all the others put together, so I went after him. Without shame, you know? We all try whatever keys we have on a door we want to get through. But my keys didn’t fit with him. He was worse than contrary, he was absolutely deaf and blind. I was about to give him up when the news came that he had been found murdered. That shocked me naturally, but I was still fascinated by the idea of grubstaking and it seemed that Charlie Brand’s partner would be the best place to get the necessary information. I like to do things, but I like to know what I’m doing and do them right. So Dan Jackson and I became quite friendly. It worked out very well, until he learned that I had opened a little office and hired Paul Emery and had started grubstaking on my own. Naturally I wanted the best prospectors available and the information I had got from him was quite valuable. Also that old orangutan that thinks he owns from the Rockies to the Sierras, Lem Sammis — he was foaming at the mouth. I said it’s a free country and went ahead. Then I left and Paul Emery was supposed to keep it going, but he’s not much good. When I came back a couple of weeks ago I looked into it and decided it was still worth trying. I was in Jackson’s office Tuesday afternoon having a talk with Clara Brand when Dan came in, and he promptly hit the ceiling. Clara left to keep an appointment and I stayed to quiet Dan down, because I would always rather have a friend than an enemy provided the cost is the same, but I didn’t get very far because we were interrupted by Delia Brand coming in. It wasn’t any fun anyway, so I left.” Wynne Cowles lifted a hand to catch, over her shoulder, a corner of her yellow wrap. “There. All right?”
“Sure it’s all right.” Baker was looking, apparently, at the dazzle of the emeralds. “If you don’t mind — when you left Jackson’s office, did you see anything in the upstairs hall?”
“See anything?” She frowned.
“Did you see anybody?”
“In the hall? No.”
“Or on the stairs or the lower hall?”
“No.”
“As soon as you left the office, did you go right down the stairs and out to the street?”
“Naturally, I did.”
“You didn’t, for instance, go to that old bin against the wall to get a souvenir?”
She stared. “I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about. I didn’t know there was a bin. That hall is so dark you have to feel for the stairs with your foot.”
“You didn’t know there was a bin there containing pieces of ore?”
“Good heavens, no. Is it worth prospecting?”
Bill Tuttle cackled. Baker shot him a glance of disapproval and went on, “I asked if you saw anyone in the hall because shortly after you left a man went up those stairs and when he got to the top he was hit on the head with a piece of that ore and knocked unconscious.”
She smiled. “I didn’t do it. Honest. Who got hit?”
“A man named Quinby Pellett. The Brand girls’ uncle. Do you know him?”
“No, I never— Oh, yes I do, too! Pellett the taxidermist?”
“That’s him.”
“Yes, I’ve met him. He looks as if he’d just eaten something sour and his hair needs washing. Since he knows how to handle animals’ hair so beautifully, you’d think he’d take better care of his own. Was he badly hurt?”
“Not much. He’s all right.” Baker glanced at the clock on the wall; he, too, felt that he would just as soon have a friend as an enemy, especially since his scene with Ollie Nevins. “Just another question or two, Mrs. Cowles, please. Was your argument with Jackson exclusively about the grubstaking business?”
“Yes. The time’s up, you know.”
“I know it is. You said that Jackson was telling you to keep your hands off of the grubstaking business, and especially he didn’t want you — and then you stopped and said that was confidential.”
She nodded. “That was also about the grubstaking business and it concerned a third person.”