“All the gold in them mountains? Look at ’em.” The sheriff waved his hand toward the peaks rising black and ominously against the sky. “The surface hasn’t hardly been scratched yet. Why, there’s a dozen mines producing gold the year ’round in a mile of here.”
“A million dollars,” Shayne mused, “is motive enough for a dozen murders. You said he had a third share. Who are his partners?”
“Well, sir, there was another old-timer in with him by the name of Cal Strenk. And Jasper Windrow grubstaked them both. So it’s got to be split three ways.”
A muscle twitched in Shayne’s cheek. “The storekeeper?”
“That’s right.” Fleming cleared his throat elaborately. “Fellow you had a run-in with this afternoon. He’s been grubstaking Pete and Cal for years, and now he’s due to clean up.”
“Then Strenk and Windrow will profit by Pete’s death,” Shayne mused aloud.
“I don’t rightly see how,” the sheriff said. “I reckon Pete’s girl will get his third.”
“But, if the daughter hadn’t shown up?” Shayne said harshly. “No one knew who Pete was until tonight. Suppose he had died without an heir? Wouldn’t his share revert to his partners?”
“I don’t know what the law’d be on that. But I don’t see how it matters. His own girl identified him. You saw her do it. She’ll come into his share, all right.”
“It does matter,” Shayne grated. “Whoever killed him didn’t know he was Nora Carson’s father — that by a strange coincidence she was going to see and recognize him a few minutes before he was murdered. That was pure chance. Something the killer hadn’t reckoned on. Looking for a motive, we can leave the girl’s identification of Pete out of it. See what I mean?”