Prale sat down before the window, lighted a cigar, and looked up at Murk.
"Go ahead," he said. "It won't hurt anything, and it will serve to kill time until we hear from Jim Farland. What do you want to talk about first?"
"It seems to me," said Murk, clearing his throat and attempting to speak in an impressive manner, "that this is a double-barreled affair."
"What do you mean?" Prale asked.
"Well, there's the murder thing, and then there's this thing about you havin' some powerful and secret enemies that are tryin' to do you dirt without even comin' out in the open about it. Maybe them two things are mixed together, and maybe again they ain't. If they ain't, we've got two jobs on our hands."
"And, if they are?" Prale asked.
"Then it looks to me, boss, like the gang that's after you is tryin' to hang this murder on you after havin' had somebody croak that Shepley guy."
"I've thought of that, Murk. But it doesn't look possible," Prale said. "If my enemies merely wanted to hang a murder charge on me, as you have suggested, I think they would have planned better and would have made the evidence against me more conclusive. It would mean that there would be a lot of persons in the secret; the men who plan murder do not like to take the entire town into confidence about it."
"Well, that sounds reasonable," Murk admitted.
"And why Rufus Shepley?"