“Why did I come? What is it about.... It is about murder!”
“Murder!... What—murder?”
“The murder of Sheriff Churchill of Gibeon.”
“But he was not murdered. He ran away, absconded.”
Fownes laughed. “You have all the facts in that matter, Governor.”
“I think so....”
“You have no facts.” Carmel clutched his sleeve. “This man, if he has given you the facts you have, has lied to you.... Sheriff Churchill is dead. He did not abscond. He was killed doing his duty by men who feared detection.”
“What are you saying? What is this, Fownes? What does she mean?”
“Politics,” said Fownes, in a voice he tried to keep steady.
“It is not politics. Sheriff Churchill was lured from his home and killed. I know. By the crowd of men in Gibeon who are making themselves rich by smuggling whisky over the border.... There is a wholesale traffic, Governor. I have seen it. I, myself, discovered a cache of hundreds of bottles in the woods.... It is no petty bootlegging, but a great, wholesale traffic....”