The death howl began to catch its measure by the boom and screak of these two instruments. A noise to beat against the inside of men’s skulls and set the bone of them in rhythm. Savage as the peaks of Altar, unremitting as the drive of wind-blown sand against granite.
Bum-chut-chut-chut! Sob of a land in chains.
“Oh, tell them to cut it!” Grant’s frayed nerves cried out protest. The other merely gave a wave of his hand comprehending resignation.
“Might as well tell the wind to stop. This’ll keep up for three days—this ding-dong business. It’s custom, old son.”
As they drew near to the house of death again Grant caught his mind harking back to that moment when he had come from Don Padraic’s chamber to confront the girl’s wild eyes—eyes with almost the unthinkable look of accusation in them. That aspect of her eyes dumbfounded him, left him groping for an explanation.
Once at the house, Grant took his friend to his chamber and showed him the knife where it lay on the floor as he had dropped it. The big Arizonan stooped over with the candle near the grisly thing—his hawk’s nose and salient cheekbones were outlined against the candle flame like the raised head of some emperor on a Roman coin—and very gingerly he turned the dagger over.
“Finger prints here on the haft,” he grunted.
“Yes, mine,” Grant put in. “I picked it up at first without knowing—without reckoning there might be—” He broke off to pour water into the quaint old willow-ware bowl which stood with its ewer on a stand in a corner, then he scrubbed his hands vigorously. A great relief came to him with this act of purification.
“Yours—yes, and probably somebody else’s,” Bim was mumbling his thoughts aloud. He stood erect once more and measured the height of the barred window over the lintel of which was fixed the rosette of arms. “Hum. I simply don’t figger why the man who wanted to kill the old don came to the outside of this room, clum up the wall an’ reached in through those bars there to take one of these old knives. Can’t see why all that fuss—more particular, why he snuck back here an’ tossed the knife through the bars after his bloody work.”
“Perhaps he wanted it to appear I am the murderer,” Grant hazarded doubtfully.