Evidence by Murray Leinster. It was hot. My pony jogged listlessly along,
without interest or animation, while I was only concerned with the problem of getting
to shade and water, but especially shade. The sun was hot enough to
fry any one's brains in his skull, and my saddle burned my hand if
I touched it. Where the sun struck it, there was a trickling stream
of perspiration down either cheek, and a third stream down my nose. From
time to time I smudged the dust across my face in an attempt to stop
the streams, but the action merely interrupted their course. It was in this
peculiarly Texan atmosphere that I came upon Jimmy Calton. He was standing by the
open hood of one of those mechanical miracles known as a Tin Lizzie, holding
a sooded spark plug and a cloth in one hand and attempting to clean it
with the other. He was swearing the while dispassionately in a curious mingling of
good Anglo Saxon and Doby Spanish. Hello, Jimmy, I said listlessly.
He looked up and nodded, say you look hot, he observed, Come
on and ride aways with me. Lizzie. Here, I'll be running in
a minute, and you can tie your pony on behind. Going anywhere in
particular, I asked over to see the coroner. He's told me old Abe
Martin got shot the other day, and folks are saying Harry Temple done it.
They got him locked up. Anyways, I dismounted stiffly and tied my
pony to the rear of the machine, allowing him plenty of lead rope.
Jimmy finished wiping the last of the spark plugs, apostrophizing the car. In
the meantime, you creakin growlin' spark plug fowlin blasted hunk a tin. He
finished lyrically and put down the hood. He went to the crank and turned
it half a dozen times. The engine caught sputtered and began to run with
a pretentious roar. Jimmy hastily reached for the wheel and adjusted the spark and
throttled and climbed in leisurely with a grinding and a lurch. We started off,
my pony following docilely behind. Yees ten tin tin, said Jimmy doing
mysterious things with his feet. I have scorned you, and I've flayed you.
But by the guy who made you, you are better than a big
car lunk a tin. We slipped into the car's second and highest speed and
began to run more smoothly. Jimmy looked behind to see that my pony was
all right, and began to roll a cigarette with his left hand while expertly
guiding the car around the numerous ruts and rocks in the roadway. I watched
the process of cigarette rolling without interest. I can't seem to get the neck
of that, I remarked, when he had finished and was licking the edge
of the paper to hold it in place, imitating, said Jimmy casually.
There ain't any way that everybody can do. Nobody else I know rolls them
like this. It's just easiest for me. You'll have to mess around till
you find a way that fits your fingers. I'll smoke tailor made, I
said, rather than bothered with learning, just like the new generation, said
Jimmy severely. Jimmy, it may be said, is thirty, but affects
the authority of a man of eighty, wanting everything done by somebody else,
else by machinery. They even want the thinking done, fam, it's too
hot to think down here. I took off my hat and wiped the moisture
off the sweatband. Jedgin by the little bit of it people do, Jimmy
remarked acridly. Most people agree with you. Most people look at thinking something
they was taught to do in schools, and as such, something to forget
as soon as possible from the folks that don't think about the spiggetty revoltosos just
across the border, and are feigned and surprised when the spiggottyes run off with
some of the cattle. Down to the folks that had rather buy cigarettes than
bother thinking up a way to roll them one handed for themselves. Everybody's just
the same. Why it wouldn't surprise me none at all if most folks told
the truth, just cause it's too much trouble to think up a lie.
I accepted his rebuke in the matter of cigarettes meekly and said, nothing.
It's a fact, said Jimmy, with an air of mournful pity for a
race fallen so low. I saw in a book the other day that the
best lion is the lie that's near the truth. Ain't that ridiculous. That's
just justifying laziness. If folks got the goods on you, you can't get
away from the truth, then it's all right to dilute the truth until it's
harmless. But otherwise a good lie beats the almost truth nine ways from Sunday
Only. It's a lot of trouble thinking up a good lie and fortifying it
with accumulative evidence. Jimmy rolled those two words off his tongue with some satisfaction.
A cumulative evidence like a good lie ought to have. He fell silent
for a while, doing marvels of steering in the avoidance of obstacles and depressions
in the really horrible road, and thinking, he said, suddenly, presently,
folks don't like thinking. Anybody with any sense of no, Harry Temple
wouldn't a shot old Abe Martin. Harry Temple has got a bank account in
the Farmer's and Ranches Bank, and it ain't in reason that he'd go and
shoot anybody to steal their role. Old Abe sold off six hundred steers and
got the money. He was old fashioned and didn't believe in banks, so
he took the money home with him, and somebody went and shot him and
took the roll. But Harry Temple with a bank account at the Farmers and
Ranches Bank. It ain't reasonable that he'd go and shoot anybody for to steal
the money. If he's any like I am, he's too busy wondering if
somebody is going to steal his money to go stealing somebody else's. Jimmy said
this last, with an air of virtue that made me smile. Jimmy's much
too good a poker player to be worried about his money. I know he
owns one small ranch he never goes near, bought out of the proceeds of
a colossal gain still remembered along the border. But they think he did it,
I asked, show they do, Jimmy said, scornfully. They's going
around saying they know he did. That's toro. Of course, one of
jimmy individualities as his habit of translating American slang into Adobe Spanish and using it
in his conversation. What are you going to see the coroner for? They's
holding an inquest, said Jimmy. I'm sort of goin to hornyin a little
I reckon. These folks are too lazy to do any thinkin' if I see
a chance, I'm going to do some head work for them. They is
a Martin's place right ahead. We turned in the gate and swung up to
the house. Half a dozen cars, most of em say make as Jimmy's,
clustered about the front, and there were a dozen or more ponies tethered
close by the porch and dozing in the baking heat. It was quite a
pretentious place, built in the old fashioned style of the days when a rancher
was almost a barren in his own right. Two big barns and a huge
stable behind the house almost dwarfed the dwelling proper and quite hid it from the
rear. Jimmy eased his car in among the others, snapped the switch and
alighted. Three or four of the men about the door nodded to him and
told him the inquest had not started, but that it would begin shortly once
he found that out. Jimmy plunged into an intricate and technical discussion of patented
attachments for his machine, and I drifted off into the house. It was
a very old house, and built with old fashioned disregard for space. I
gathered, however, that the house keeping done in It was but sketchy.
Half a dozen of his riders made at their headquarters with old Abe Martin.
They bunked there, and a cook prepared the meals for all of them.
There was a long table with a checked red tablecloth on it. The room
was empty now except for buzz and flies where they had their meals. On
the day of the shooting, I learned the men had all been gone away
on their duties, and the cook had gone into town for supplies, so
Abe Martin had been alone presently. I went out to look at the stables.
They were huge, but not much used. Three or four ponies were
in their stalls, and several more stalls seemed to be used from time to
time, but most of them were without signs of recent use. There had
been a time when the place was the headquarters of a busy ranch, but
since the time of fences, the activity had lessened, until only Abe Martin,
his half dozen riders, and the cook lived there. It was curious
to see the dwelling place, large in itself, dwarfed by its outbuildings.
A stir in the house called me inside. The inquest was evidently to be
more or less of an informal affair, but there was none the less a
determined than business like air behind it. All those men meant to get at
the bottom of the matter. The coroner seemed to be a conscientious individual who
took the evidence of the first witness with great exactitude, though he knew perfectly
well beforehand just what the testimony would be. The whole inquiry, as a
matter of fact, promised to be cut and dried, in spite of Jimmy's
announced intention of horning in the first witness was the cook who had discovered the
body. He had come back from town, entered the house and discovered his
employer dead on the floor of the hall. He had been shot through the
heart. A rider whom the cook had hastily summoned, corroborated his testimony and
added that the body was cold when he was called, proving that death had
occurred some time before. The evidence shows, said the coroner casually, that
Abe was shot when there wasn't nobody else in the house but him and the
murderer. The cashier, the farmer's in rancher's bank ain't here, But he
has give me the information that Abe had over four thousand dollars on him when
he was killed. That's gone. Evidently he was shot for his money.
It's part of the duties of a coroner's jury to uncover any evidence that will
help in solving the problem of who the murderer might be. Mister Joe Harkness
will take the stand. There was a movement of interest in the small crowd
packed into the one room I had managed to get beside Jimmy Calton, and
his face became extraordinarily mild and gentle. It hinted at some expectation of excitement
if I knew Jimmy. Everyone had heard Harkness's story before, so it was
simply a recapitulation. I ain't got a thing to say, announced Harkness bluntly,
except that I seen when Harry Temple come out of this here house about
three o'clock, just after Aide Martin was shot. I was having trouble with
my spark plugs down the road of ways when I seen Harry. He come
out of the kitchen door, looked all round as if he was looking to
see if anybody seeing, and then he went down toward the stables. He
went inside there. Then he come out of that and went over to the
quarters and got a drink at the pump by the door. I was wondering
what he was doing, but it looks to me like he was making sure
there wasn't nobody around that could have told that he'd been around. And there's
one mole thing when he come out of the house. He come out of
the kitchen doll. He was putting something in his breast pocket. I glanced
at Jimmy Calton. He was looking at Harkness with a gentle, placid smile.
His face did not change when Harry Temple stood up, pale beneath his
tand everything Harkness says, his soul said Harry Temple determinedly, every single word.
Only I didn't shoot old Abe. I come out here to see him
about selling him some yearlings. He wasn't here, so I went in the
kitchen to see if I couldn't leave wood with a cook. The cook was
missing, too, but I thought I heard somebody moving around somewhere, and
I went just where Harkness said, and just in the order he said.
He must have seen me first. When I come out of the kitchen.
When I couldn't find nobody, I cranked up and laughed. Harkness stood up.
I hate to contradict Harry, he said sharply, but he's made a
mistake. He didn't crank up and leave. He was driving somebody else's car,
and it had a self starter on it. Every Temple flushed slightly.
That's a fact, he acknowledged. I'd forgotten that I was driving a car
they lent me at the garage. I'd left my own there to have some
repairs made, of course, said Harkness sarcastically. Nobody suspects that you was
driving a strange car with strange tires, so they couldn't prove nothing on you
by the tracks. Jimmy put a question in a gentle voice. There's another
question, he said, softly. What was Harry putting in his pocket when
Harkness saw him coming out of the house. I don't remember putting anything in
my pocket, said Temple, beginning to be worried. It was probably my
handkerchief. There was a moment's silence. One or two of the men in
the room stirred uneasily. Jimmy called and smiled sweetly to himself. Mister corner,
he said, slowly, May I make an observation or two, it
looks like somebody ought to point out two or three facts. Go ahead,
Jimmy said. The coroner seemed to be bothering him that so much seemed to
point to the guilt of Harry Temple. Temple did seem to be quite a
decent sort, and the coroner evidently hated to bring out so much to his
discredit without anything to counteract the impression thus made. Knowing Jimmy, he knew
Jimmy would not interfere unless he thought things were going the wrong way, and
that meant in this case that he had something to say in Temple's favor.
Mister Cohner and gentlemen, said Jimmy formally, it don't seem hardly fit to
bring out all this he evidence against a man without any evidence the other way.
I want to point out two things about this here case. The first
is that Harry Temple has got money in the bank, and the second is
that he never disputed a single thing Hackness said about out him. You know,
and I know that a man with money in the bank ain't goin around
doin highway robbery and murder. He can't afford to. You Just think about
that a while and here's something else to think about. Did you notice that
Harry Temple said right off that he'd done just what Harkness said. Now,
if he'd shot old Abe Martin, you know, he'd have tried to make
some of that stuff sound just a little less incriminatin'. He'd a said he
didn't go in the house, just to the door knocked, and he'd ha
tried to weaken everything. Harkness said just that way. But he didn't.
He's telling the truth so hard he can't seem to see. It's putting a
rope around his neck in spite of his beIN just as innocent as he says.
As for his putting something in his breast pocket, nobody puts money there,
and especially stolen money. But most everybody puts the handkerchief there. But
that ain't evidence, said the coroner, disappointedly. I've thought you had some
facts to give us. I'll give you one fact, Jimmy offered. Harry
Temple didn't shoot Abe Martin. Looky here, Harkness himself. Don't believe he
did, do you, he demanded, turning to that person. Harkness sat
stolidly in his chair. You heard what I said, he grunted. You
heard what I seen him do? Saw I do, Jimmy admitted readily.
But you know he didn't shoot Abe. Jimmy seemed to be making a fool
of himself. I tugged at his sleeve for him to sit down, but
he paid no attention. What do you mean, demanded Harkness suspiciously. Nothin
whatever, said Jimmy, with a gentleness I suddenly recognized as dangerous. Nothing
whatever except what I said. You know Harry Temple didn't shoot Abe. You
mean to tell me I'm lyin, snapped Harkness angrily. No, said Jimmy
in a cooing drawl. Nothin so harmless. I'm accusing you of someth my,
damn sight more dangerous than lying. I'm accusing you of tellin the truth,
the exact truth. There's a puzzled pause. I noticed, however,
that Harkness was watching Jimmy with a curious alertness. It's always more dangerous to
tell the truth in a case like this, Harkness, said Jimmy, still
in that gentle drawl. You told the absolute truth about what you saw Harry
do. And that's the most dangerous thing you could have told, cause there
ain't but one man could have told that, mister Corner. If you look
out of the window, you'll see just where Harry Temple walked down the kitchen
steps, just where he went back to the stables, just where he went
into the Big Bond, and just where he got a drink. And then
if you look, you'll see where he stopped his car so Harkness could see
that it had a self start on it instead of a crank. I saw
a light break on the coroner's face as he looked from place to place in
the yard behind the house. He faced about just as Jimmy deliberately pulled a
revolver out of his pocket. Harkness told the truth, said Jimmy, softly.
He told the absolute truth. But there ain't but one place you can
see all them things from, with all them bonds outside, there ain't but
one place you can see the door of the stables, and the big Bond,
and the pump by the quarters and the kitchen door all at once.
And there wasn't but one man in the world who could have seen Harry Temple
do all of them things, Because there wasn't but one man in that place.
The only place you can see all them places from is this here room?
And the only man in the house when Harry Temple did them things was
the man who'd shot a Martin and hadn't had time to get away. When
Harriet Temple come driving in Harkness, Jimmy's voice was suddenly like steal. If
you pull that gun on me, I'll blow a hole right through the place
your brains ought to be. End of evidence.