"I'd better post you on a few details," he said. "Ever hear of the Keithley assassination?"
I shook my head.
"Keithley was the prosecuting attorney in some rather celebrated murder trials. He was shot to death one afternoon as he came out of the court-room."
"Yes?" I questioned.
"Six months later Con Hoover was shot from the laurel on this road. He had allied himself with those who sought to avenge Keithley."
I nodded my head.
"There were Cale Springer, Bud Dode—I could enumerate other victims, but that is all unnecessary detail. What concerns us is this. Jim Garvin is county judge. In a rough way he is the political boss of the region and he has built up a fortune. His own gun is unnotched, but a half-dozen men who have incurred his displeasure have come to abrupt ends. The newspapers in Louisville and Lexington have intimated that besides being at the head of fiscal affairs and operating a general store the judge also issues his orders to a murder syndicate."
"Why," I demanded in some disgust, "hasn't it been proven?"
"It is difficult to prove things of this sort—when the defendant is more powerful than the law and when juries walk in terror," Weighborne reminded me. "He has twice been tried for complicity. A company of state guards patrolled the court-house yard to reassure venire-men and witnesses. The only result was the defeat, at the next election, of the judge and prosecutor who had made themselves obnoxious."
"Why," I inquired, "aren't such malefactors taken into a civilized circuit, on a change of venue, and tried where jurors are not intimidated?"