BUCKY FOLLOWS A HOT TRAIL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 24 April 1939, Page 10

BUCKY FOLLOWS A HOT TRAIL

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT.

COPYRIGHT.

BY

WILLIAM MACLEOD RAINE.

CHAPTER XXIV. (Continued). "No. The last time I was in his house, he eased me out with adjectives. I gathered he would be pleased never to see me there again.” "Any of your men have a date with him? Tim Murphy, say?” “Not as far as I know. You may count them out, Chief.” "I’ll count out who I please without any help from you.” “I was trying to save you from wasting time,” Bucky said mildly. O’Sullivan’s poker face lost its dead pan look. This young man’s coolness so bland in its occasional effrontery, got under the chief’s hide, as he himself expressed it. “If you’re so anxious to save me from wasting time come clean with all you know,” he said, exasperated. “For instance, what about that business down, at the Fort street rooming house? Why did you and Lewis lay a trap for Clem? The story is you tried to kill him then, but he flashed the light on and you hadn't the nerve to go through with it.” “That's a story you don’t believe. Chief. I took Judge Lewis with me because he stands so high in the community nobody could fall for any such nonsense. I’ll tell you all about it. We’ve nothing to conceal.” “Nobody has,” the officer countered biterly. "Three men have been killed, and two wounded in this town, since the robbers walked into the First National Bank that night. But nobody is to blame. Everybody is as innocent as Shirley Temple. You killed a man not more than a block from here, but you’ve turned so damned righteous butter wouldn’t melt in your mouth. Maybe you've forgotten what wild riproaring hellion you used to be, but by Moses, I haven’t. I’ll lisen to what you’ve got to say about this lodging house row, and if I don’t like it I'll throw you behind the bars. I may have been a friend of Cliff Cameron once, but you can’t go around making a monkey of me.” Bucky told the story of the Fort street episode. The chief was inclined to believe it true, but the implications of it angered him. “What the hell right have you to pull off a stunt like that?” he demanded. “I’m the head of the law enforcement department of this town. If you had anything on Clem or anybody else you should have come to me with your information. But no. You’re one of these smart guys. You have to run the show yourself. I won’t have it!” O’Sullivan’s heavy fist smashed on his desk. “I’ll have you know I’m. chief of police. Pull anything like this again, and you’ll go to gaol and like it.” Bucky knew the man’s official vanity was touched. “That's right. I should have thought of that. I'll certainly come to you next time.” The young man’s manner was remorseful. “I’m honestly trying to help you, Chief, and if I get anywhere you’ll get all the credit. I’ll see to that.” O’Sullivan dismissed them gruffly. “You may go. But stick around, Cameron, where 1 can reach you easily by phone. I’ll probably want you later.” Bucky lingered to ask a question. "Anybody hear the shot, Chief? “If so, he’s holding out on me Why?” “I was thinking about .the gentleman with the silencer,” Bucky drawlO’Sullivan stared at him. “All right'. Find him for me.” „ • “I will,” Bucky promised. "Soon. The eye of the chief was cynical. “Everybody knows a cop's business better than a cop. I’ll bet you fifty dollars you don’t find him.” “Too easy,” Bucky said, shaking his head. "I’ll give you a better wager than that. Fifty even 1 turn over to you the First National Bank murderers. Fifty more I put my fingers on the man who killed Garside.” ' “When are you going to do all that, scoffed O'Sullivan. “Within a week. On one condition, if I want any assistance from your department you are to give it and ask no questions.” “What sort of assistance?” ‘Access to any documentary evidence I would like to see.” “You’re on. I’ll take both bets, and I certainly hope you win, though I know you won't. It will be worth a lot more to me than a hundred iron men to get my hands on those fellows. Understand, you've got to give me evidence enough to convict. I’ll not be satisfied with one of your crazy hunches.”

“Neither shall I.” Bucky was briskly business like. “First, Chief, I would like to make an appointment with your fingerprint expert for this afternoon. Second, I want an order to look over some papers at the First National which I think bear on the crime. You can send an officer with me to make sure I don’t seal, deface, or destroy anything of value.” “I don’t know what you are driving at, but since I’ve started I'll go through.” “You won’t regret it, Chief. I'm hot on the trail. If this works out as I think it will I’ll see you get the credit for it in the papers.” “It won’t work out,” O’Sullivan said with harsh scepticism. “All I’ll get out of it is a hundred dollars. You’ve got a hell of a nerve thinking you know more than the whole police department. Now scram. I'm busy.” Outside, Nancy turned a doubtful glance on Bucky. “Is it all a bluf!.’ Or do you really know all you claim !o do?"

“Il's a bluff,"he admitted cheerfully, '“but if I'm lucky enough I’ll make it good. ’ "And if you are not lucky enough you will be out a hundred dollars.” “I'm paying that for O’Sullivan’s cooperation.” “I suppose it’s a secret —what you have in mind?”

"Yes, but 1 think Mitchell is moving toward the answer too. He’s going to beat me to it if I don't hurry.”

“Professional jealousy,” Nancy mentioned, grinning at him. "You're afraid he’ll get the glory.” "Well, I came back here to solve this case,” he said. ."I don't want to take a back seat for somebody else. You know I’m supposed to have a lot of vanity, that likes to bask in the limelight. 1 think I’m a couple of jumps ahead of O’Sullivan. But Mitchell is a born detective, and he is as close to a solution as I am.” “You told the chief he could have the credit.”

“So he can, in the newspapers, but among my friends I want it known I

was the fair-haired lad who did the job.” The girl slanted a quizzical look at him. “Miss Garside says you’re wasted because you're not in the movies.” “She’s had my number ever since we were in the third grade together,” he said ruefully. “Neil Cameron, poseur.” “Only it doesn’t happen to be true,” Nancy said carelessly. “Much obliged, young fellow. Sometimes I’m not sure she isn’t right.” They had reached a corner. Nancy stopped. “I must go back to the hospital. I’m on a case.” “Be seeing you soon. It really was a swell moon, Nancy.” “I thought so, too,” the girl laughed. “Since you are so fancy free we might give it another chance.” "I don’t guarantee statements I make to the police under pressure,” she told nim. "A fortune teller hinted at a dark young man in’ the offing.” “Not really dark,” he amended. Bucky watched her ’walk down the street with that light-limbed grace which seemed an expression of joy in life bubbling within her. CHAPTER XXV. Kathleen found it as difficult to answer Bucky’s note of condolence as it had been for him to write it. It was important to her, and had been to him, that no trace of hypocrisy or sentimenttality should appear. He has asked her if he could not meet her in person to clear up certain points. At first she had been ready to send an indignant refusal. He had assaulted her father the day before his death. But if Bucky had any justification for his conduct she wanted to know what it was. There was an imperative urge in her to think well of this man who occupied her mind so much of the time. The letter she at last decided upon addressed him as Dear Sir and consisted of one short sentence: —“I shall be at home tomorrow afternoon at five o’clock.” Beneath this was her signature. Four hours before his arrival she was in a fever of restlessness. He and his family had always been enemies of her father. They had fought a long war bitterly. Yet she was tired —just new desperately so —of the destruction this feud had brought. It had destroyed her father and his, perhaps too his uncle. Still, there could be no friendship between this man and.her. When 1 Kathleen rose to meet Bucky she was pale and drawn. Never, he thought, had he seen her so lovely. Sad shadows-darkened her eyes. The girl was strong as steel, but she looked exhausted. Her father had been the only close relative. His loss had been a blow. It had shaken the security that had been at the foundation of her pride. Bucky felt a wave of deep sympathy. She had suffered, and must suffer more perhaps. For to prove the Camerons innocent of crime might be to shift the guilt to Clem Garside. Her visitor bowed, not offering to shake hands. She did not ask him to sit down, nor did she sit herself. Without any preamble Bucky told ner why he had wished to see her. “I don’t know what you have been told or what you think,” he said. “All sorts of wild rumours are current. I had to find out . . I’m the same boy who went to school with you, grown up now. i m not an assassin.” “Will you explain why you laid a trap and assaulted him the night before . . before his death?” she asked. “I didn’t lay a trap for him and didn’t assault him,” he answered after a moment of hesitation. “He told me you did.” Bucky chose his words carefully. “I can see how he might think so. There is a story that I tricked him with a note to bring him down to the rooming house. That is not true.” The dark eyes, looking straight at him were hostile. “Some one else sent him the note, and you just happened to be sitting there in the dark with you friends. “I thought he might come, but I did nothing to bring him there. When he saw us he switched out the light. Perhaps he thought we intended to injure him. I closed with him for fear he might use a weapon. There was no time for explanations. I was careful not to hurt him.”

“You have not told me why you expected him.” “I cant go into that, Kathleen.” The name slipped out with Volition. He had not called her by it since they had been children in school. "There was a stale of warfare between us. I shall not try to defend all my actions. The reason I came back to Toltec was to clear the name of my uncle. This brought me into conflict with your father.”

“He stood between you and the ruffians who wanted to kill you,” she said, defence sharp in her voice. “Yes, I think he did that.” He spoke quietly, gravely. ‘‘We can’t agree on the right and wrong of all the things the Garsides and the Camerons have done. Must we take them all up and thresh them out? Can’t we let them be water under the bridge?” “If we only could.” The words were a sigh, scarcely audible. Emotion ran through her like a flame and broke into words. “Oh Neil, I’m so tired of it! What has it got us? Your father and mine murdered, your life in constant danger, mine so unhappy. Isn’t there peace for us anywhere, at any price?” "It rests with us.” he said gently. “There can’t be war between us if neither of us will fight.” “No,” she agreed. “But we’ve fought all our lives, you and I.” He smiled. “I was a pest, if ever a boy was. And all the time I thought you the swellest girl I knew. ’ Tears brimmed her eyes. "I liked you too—and never spoke a decent word to you.” “I never gave you a chance. Always I was the smalt Aleck trying to get the best of you.” “And you did usually, because I am red-headed and lost my temper,” she admitted. “I suppose I liked to see the fireworks,” he confessed, his fine teeth flashing in a smile. “From now on I'm a reformed character.” “I wonder if you are,” she said. “I wonder if 1 am. Just at present I’m different because of father. But that won’t last. Pretty soon I’ll be the same old Kathleen, acting as if I were one of God’s anointed and could be a law to myself.” . “And I’ll be understudying Clark Gable,” he suggested. (To be Continued.)