“No have money. No take money. Why you keel my man?” she wailed tearfully. “Mounted police! Bah!”
“Easy,” cautioned Rand. “Where’s that money?” He drew up to his full height. “Better answer me quickly now or I’ll take you along too.”
“No money,” insisted the girl. “He no catch ’em money that time. Beeg prospector wake up. No chance then. My man he come away.”
“Rot!” declared the policeman. “Your man killed Dewberry. Robbed him. Nobody else.”
“Leesen!” MacGregor’s wife plucked at his sleeve. “You think wrong this time. You make heem beeg mistake. My man no rob, no keel—nothing! I prove you find no money here. My man heem try rob, but no get nothing. Otherwise, we go south—Edmonton. No can go without money.”
Although Rand was certain that the half-breed lied, a careful and painstaking search of the premises failed to reveal the hiding place of Dewberry’s gold. Baffled, he was forced on the day following to place the girl under arrest and set out for detachment headquarters, two hundred miles away. There he filled in his report, turned the prisoner over to Inspector Cameron for further questioning.
But to no avail. Invariably the same answer, repeated over and over again:
“My man heem no rob, no keel. No take beeg prospector’s money. Mounted police! Bah!”
From that point it became a baffling case indeed. Corporal Rand, to whom it had been assigned, still believed, in the months that followed, that MacGregor had committed the murder. But where was the money and the poke? Did the girl really know where Dewberry’s gold was? If the theft had actually been committed by MacGregor, why had he broken precedent and remained in the North.
At Frischette’s stopping-place, two miles east of the Big Smoky River, Rand heard again Fontaine’s story of the drugged drink, together with such other information as the two Frenchmen could supply. Both were of the opinion that MacGregor, and no one else, had planned and executed the crime. Frischette’s voice came droning in his ears: