The voice at Johnnywater

by B. M. Bower

He lay for a time dozing and trying to forget the terrible gnawing in his stomach. Then his thoughts wandered on and he mumbled,

“I’m not kicking—if this is the way it’s supposed to be. But I did want Pat to have her gold mine. And now the location work is all covered up—so maybe it won’t count. And some other gink will maybe come along and jump the claim, and my Pat won’t get her gold mine. I guess it’s all right. But I didn’t think the Big Director would do this!”

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
MONTY MEETS PATRICIA

Monty had made up his mind to go on to Los Angeles and see for himself why Patricia would not answer his telegram, when he received the word that she was coming from Kansas City. He swore a good deal over the delay that would hold him inactive in town. To fill in the time he wrote a long letter to the sheriff in Tonopah, stating all the facts in the case so far as he knew them. He hoped that the sheriff was already on his way to Johnnywater, though Monty could not have told just what he expected the sheriff to accomplish when he arrived there.

He tried to trace James Blaine Hawkins, but only succeeded in learning from a garage man that Hawkins had come in off the desert at least three weeks before, cursed the roads and the country in general and had left for Los Angeles. Or at least that was the destination he had named.

Even Monty could find no evidence in that of Hawkins’ guilt. His restless pacing up and down the three short blocks that comprised the main business street of the town got on the nerves of the men who knew him. His concern over Gary Marshall gradually infected the minds of others; so that news of a murder committed in Johnnywater Cañon was wired to the city papers, and the Chief of Police in Los Angeles was advised also by wire to trace James Blaine Hawkins if possible.

Old cuts of Gary Marshall were hastily dug up in newspaper offices and his picture run on the first page. A reporter who knew him well wrote a particularly dramatic special article, which was copied more or less badly by many of the papers. Cohen got to hear of it, and his publicity agents played up the story magnificently, not because Cohen wished to immortalize one of his younger leading men who was out of the game, but because it made splendid indirect advertising for Cohen.

Monty, of course, never dreamed that he had done all this. He was sincerely grieving over Gary, whose grave he thought he had discovered by the bushy juniper. The mere fact that James Blaine Hawkins had appeared in Las Vegas approximately three weeks before did not convince him that Gary had not been murdered. He believed that Hawkins had lain in wait for Gary and had killed him on his return from Kawich. The grave might easily be that old.

Of course there was a weak point in that argument. In fact, Monty’s state of mind was such that he failed to see the fatally weak point until the day of Patricia’s arrival. When he did see it he abandoned the theory in disgust, threw out his hands expressively, and declared that he didn’t give a damn just how the crime had been committed, or when. Without a doubt his friend, Gary Marshall, had been killed, and Monty swore he would never rest until the murderer had paid the price. The weak point, which was the well-fed comfort of the pigs and Jazz, he did not attempt to explain away. Perhaps James Blaine Hawkins had not gone to Los Angeles at all. Perhaps he was still out there at Johnnywater, and Monty had failed to discover him.

He was in that frame of mind when he met the six o’clock train that brought Patricia. Naturally, he had no means of identifying her. But he followed a tired-looking girl with a small black handbag to one of the hotels and inspected the register just as she turned away from the desk. Then he took off his hat, extended his hand and told her who he was.