Cotton said triumphantly: “You’re durned right it could.”
A heavy voice said from the doorway:
“Have you got a search-warrant? What the hell are you doing here if you haven’t? It’s burglary, and you know it.”
Harvey Whidden was there. His big body, in a yellow slicker, filled the doorway. His heavy-featured face was dark and angry.
Vernon began: “Whidden, I–”
The marshal screamed, “It’s him!” and pulled a gun from under his coat.
I pushed his arm as he fired at the man in the doorway. The bullet hit the wall.
Whidden’s face was now more astonished than angry. He jumped back through the doorway and ran downstairs. Cotton, upset by my push, straightened himself up, cursed me, and ran out after Whidden. Vernon, Feeney, and Rolly stood staring after them.
I said: “This is good clean sport, but it makes no sense to me. What’s it all about?”
Nobody told me. I said: “This comb and brush were on Mrs. Collinson’s table when we searched the house, Rolly.”
The deputy sheriff nodded uncertainly, still staring at the door. No noise came through it now. I asked:
“Would there be any special reason for Cotton framing Whidden?”
The sheriff said: “They ain’t good friends.” (I had noticed that.) “What do you think, Vern?”
The district attorney took his gaze from the door, rolled the things in their towel again, and stuffed the bundle in his pocket. “Come on,” he snapped, and strode downstairs.
The front door was open. We saw nothing, heard nothing, of Cotton and Whidden. A Ford–Whidden’s–stood at the front gate soaking up rain. We got into it. Vernon took the wheel, and drove to the house in the cove. We hammered at its door until it was opened by an old man in gray underwear, put there as caretaker by the sheriff.
The old man told us that Cotton had been there at eight o’clock that night, just, he said, to look around again. He, the caretaker, didn’t know no reason why the marshal had to be watched, so he hadn’t bothered him, letting him do what he wanted, and, so far as he knew, the marshal hadn’t taken any of the Collinsons’ property, though of course he might of.
Vernon and Feeney gave the old man hell, and we went back to Quesada.
Rolly was with me on the back seat. I asked him:
“Who is this Whidden? Why should Cotton pick on him?”
“Well, for one thing. Harve’s got kind of a bad name, from being mixed up in the rum-running that used to go on here, and from being in trouble now and then.”
“Yeah? And for another thing?”
The deputy sheriff frowned, hesitating, hunting for words; and before he had found them we were stopping in front of a vine-covered cottage on a dark street corner. The district attorney led the way to its front porch and rang the bell.
After a little while a woman’s voice sounded overhead:
“Who’s there?”
We had to retreat to the steps to see her–Mrs. Cotton at a second-story window.
“Dick got home yet?” Vernon asked.
“No, Mr. Vernon, he hasn’t. I was getting worried. Wait a minute; I’ll come down.”
“Don’t bother,” he said. “We won’t wait. I’ll see him in the morning.’
“No. Wait,” she said urgently and vanished from the window.
A moment later she opened the front door. Her blue eyes were dark and excited. She had on a rose bathrobe.
“You needn’t have bothered,” the district attorney said. “There was nothing special. We got separated from him a little while ago, and just wanted to know if he’d got back yet. He’s all right.”
“Was–?” Her hands worked folds of her bathrobe over her thin breasts, “Was he after–after Harvey–Harvey Whidden?”
Vernon didn’t look at her when he said, “Yes;” and he said it without showing his teeth. Feeney and Rolly looked as uncomfortable as Vernon.
Mrs. Cotton’s face turned pink. Her lower lip trembled, blurring her words.
“Don’t believe him, Mr. Vernon. Don’t believe a word he tells you. Harve didn’t have anything to do with those Collinsons, with neither one of them. Don’t let Dick tell you he did. He didn’t.”