“No. He died of heart failure. There
was an autopsy. But he had a bad cut on his
head. Of course, he may have fallen—Bill
and Jake were away. They’d driven some
cattle out on the range. It was two days before
he was found, and it would have been longer if Mr.
Wasson hadn’t ridden out to talk to him about
buying. He found him dead in his bed, but there
was blood on the floor in the next room. I washed
it up myself.”
“Of course,” she added, when Bassett maintained
a puzzled silence, “I may be all wrong.
He might have fallen in the next room and dragged
himself to bed. But he was very neatly covered
up.”
“It’s your idea, then, that this boy put
him into the bed?”
“I don’t know. He wasn’t seen
about the place. He’s never been here
since. But the posse found a horse with the Livingstone
brand, saddled, dead in Dry River Canyon when it was
looking for Judson Clark. Of course, that was
a month later. The men here, Bill and Jake,
claimed it had wandered off, but I’ve often wondered.”
After a time Bassett got up and took his leave.
He was confused and irritated. Here, whether
creditably or not, was Dick Livingstone accounted
for. There was a story there, probably, but
not the story he was after. This unknown had
been at the ranch when Henry Livingstone died, had
perhaps been indirectly responsible for his death.
He had, witness the horse, fled after the thing happened.
Later on, then, David Livingstone had taken him into
his family. That was all.
Except for that identification of Gregory’s,
and for the photograph of Judson Clark.... For
a moment he wondered if the two, Jud Clark and the
unknown, could be the same. But Dry River would
have known Clark. That couldn’t be.
He almost ditched the car on his way back to Norada,
so deeply was he engrossed in thought.
On the seventh of June David and Lucy went to the
seashore, went by the order of various professional
gentlemen who had differed violently during the course
of David’s illness, but who now suddenly agreed
with an almost startling unanimity. Which unanimity
was the result of careful coaching by Dick.
He saw in David’s absence his only possible
chance to go back to Norada without worry to the sick
man, and he felt, too, that a change, getting away
from the surcharged atmosphere of the old house, would
be good for both David and Lucy.
For days before they started Lucy went about in a
frenzy of nervous energy, writing out menus for Minnie
for a month ahead, counting and recounting David’s
collars and handkerchiefs, cleaning and pressing his
neckties. In the harness room in the stable Mike
polished boots until his arms ached, and at the last
moment with trunks already bulging, came three gift
dressing-gowns for David, none of which he would leave
behind.
“I declare,” Lucy protested to Dick, “I
don’t know what’s come over him.
Every present he’s had since he was sick he’s
taking along. You’d think he was going
to be shut up on a desert island.”
