“I suppose,” he said at last, “that
if I ran away I was in pretty serious trouble.
What was it?”
“We’ve got no absolute proof that you
are Clark, remember. You don’t know, and
Maggie Donaldson was considered not quite sane before
she died. I’ve told you there’s a
chance you are the other man.”
“All right. What had Clark done?”
“He had shot a man.”
The reporter was instantly alarmed. If Dick
had been haggard before, he was ghastly now.
He got up slowly and held to the back of his chair.
“Not—murder?” he asked, with
stiff lips.
“No,” Bassett said quickly. “Not
at all. See here, you’ve had about all
you can stand. Remember, we don’t even
know you are Clark. All I said was—”
“I understand that. It was murder, wasn’t
it?”
“Well, there had been a quarrel, I understand.
The law allows for that, I think.”
Dick went slowly to the window, and stood with his
back to Bassett. For a long time the room was
quiet. In the street below long lines of cars
in front of the hotel denoted the luncheon hour.
An Indian woman with a child in the shawl on her
back stopped in the street, looked up at Dick and
extended a beaded belt. With it still extended
she continued to stare at his white face.
“The man died, of course?” he asked at
last, without turning.
“Yes. I knew him. He wasn’t
any great loss. It was at the Clark ranch.
I don’t believe a conviction would be possible,
although they would try for one. It was circumstantial
evidence.”
“And I ran away?”
“Clark ran away,” Bassett corrected him.
“As I’ve told you, the authorities here
believe he is dead.”
After an even longer silence Dick turned.
“I told you there was a girl. I’d
like to think out some way to keep the thing from
her, before I surrender myself. If I can protect
her, and David—”
“I tell you, you don’t even know you are
Clark.”
“All right. If I’m not, they’ll
know. If I am—I tell you I’m
not going through the rest of my life with a thing
like that hanging over me. Maggie Donaldson
was sane enough. Why, when I look back, I know
our leaving the cabin was a flight. I’m
not Henry Livingstone’s son, because he never
had a son. I can tell you what the Clark ranch
house looks like.” And after a pause:
“Can you imagine the reverse of a dream when
you’ve dreamed you are guilty of something and
wake up to find you are innocent? Who was the
man?”
Bassett watched him narrowly.
“His name was Lucas. Howard Lucas.”
“All right. Now we have that, where does
Beverly Carlysle come in?”
“Clark was infatuated with her. The man
he shot was the man she had married.”
Shortly after that Dick said he would go to his room.
He was still pale, but his eyes looked bright and
feverish, and Bassett went with him, uneasily conscious
that something was not quite right. Dick spoke
only once on the way.
