Speaker 1: 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.