Both of them went into Sterrett’s store, where Kent earned the reputation from Sterrett of being “awful dang choosy about what he gets,” and came out into a considerable part of the populace, which had followed. As they reëmbarked, the sheriff put his foot on the running-board.
“Better take my tip,” he said significantly.
“Very well,” returned Kent. “There will be no arrest, then?”
“Not just now.”
A peculiar smile slid sidewise off a corner of the scientist’s long jaw. “Nor at any other time,” he concluded.
He threw in the clutch, leaving Schlager with his hand in his hair, and the crowd, which might so easily have become a mob, to disperse, slowly and hesitantly, having lacked the incentive of suggested flight on the part of the suspects to be spark to its powder. When the car had won the open road beyond the village Sedgwick remarked:
“Queer line the sheriff is taking.”
“Poor Schlager!” said Kent, chuckling. “No other line is open to him. He’s in a tight place. But it isn’t the sheriff that’s worrying me.”
“Who, then?”
“Gansett Jim.”