From his position of vantage on the threshold, Shayne’s attention was attracted by a gasp from a tall, willowy woman standing in the doorway leading to the lobby. Her brown eyes were riveted in terror upon the sheriff and his unwilling companion, and there was a shocked look of comprehension upon her white face. She was quite tall, sheathed in a trailing gown of ice-blue. Diamonds glittered on her fingers and pearls circled her thin neck. Shayne guessed she would be on the short side of forty.
Shayne’s gaze moved to the right. Standing a few feet back of the woman, he saw Two-Deck Bryant’s saturnine features. He, too, watched the sheriff and Mattson with more than a normal spectator’s interest.
A grin twitched Shayne’s wide mouth. Bryant was getting an eyeful of how the law worked Out West.
Shayne turned his attention to the woman again. Some of the terror had gone from her eyes, leaving a sickly and desolated apprehension. Her thin lips were tight. She turned and went slowly into the hotel lobby.
Shayne followed Fleming and Mattson outside. The sheriff suggested, persuasively, “Better give me your shooting iron until you cool off.”
Mattson started to be damned if he would, but his voice trailed off to a mumble. He surrendered the frontier relic to the sheriff who let it dangle on his forefinger by the trigger guard.
Fleming said, “We’ll take a little walk up the street and let some of the liquor in you cool off.”
The disarmed man wet his thick lips. “Guess I’ve been a fool,” he admitted humbly. “I’m — look here, sheriff — I’m John Mattson, from Denver. You won’t have to — this won’t have to go any further, will it? The publicity—”
“Reckon I won’t lock you up. Hate to spoil my record.” He chuckled. “I just want to make sure you don’t stumble into more trouble.” He urged the big man up the street with a hand on his elbow.
Before they had gone ten feet, the tall, glittering woman slid out of the shadows and confronted them. She sobbed, “John! Oh, John, what made you do that awful thing!” and flung bare arms around her husband’s thick neck.