“Dead,” said the voice, “lying there dead, with marks on his throat—murder, all right.”
The little cabin room went suddenly black for Beth. The noise of the brook down by the trail seemed roaring in her ears; out beyond she heard the wolf still howling. She knew she must not faint—whispered it bravely, despairingly to herself.
“Beth! Beth, what is it?” The boy had started to his feet.
At the sound of his voice her head suddenly cleared. She let go of the telephone box she had clutched for support, and raised her hand in warning for silence. The voice in her ear was still sounding. She recognized the voice now—the sheriff of Rocky Gulch.
“—hell of a scrap this afternoon,” the voice was saying. “It’s him all right—only circumstantial evidence, but damn strong. And he’s gone—you know him—Tom Hawley—that slim young feller from the East over at Ransome’s.”
The man in Vailstown made some answer.
“You send some men down the trail,” the sheriff went on. “He might come along any time. Probably won’t. And phone Centerville—or whatever else you think best. You’ll hear from me later-morning probably. I gotta ride way over now and tell his daughter—I dassent phone her, with her all alone out there. Hell of a job, too. Then in the morning we’ll get busy right.”
Again the man in Vailstown spoke—some question this time about One-Eyed Charlie—and the conversation then continued.
But Beth heard no more. The shock of this abrupt news of her stepfather’s death, and then the suggestion of murder—murder done by Tom Hawley, the man she loved—the man whose wife some day she wanted to be—all whirled through her confused brain.
Tom Hawley, standing there now by the fireplace watching her wonderingly—Tom Hawley was a murderer?