“Yes.”
“Don’t doubt your word for a moment, Bucky, but before I do any talking I’d like to hear him say so. I’ll not round on him until I know he’s given himself away.”
The convict was sent for. He substantiated the ranger reluctantly. He was so hemmed in that he did not know how to play his cards so as to make the most of them. He hated Fendrick. But much as he desired to convict him, he could not escape an uneasy feeling that he was going to be made the victim. For Cass took it with that sarcastic smile of his that mocked them all in turn. The convict trusted none of them. Already he felt the penitentiary walls closing on him. He was like a trapped coyote, ready to snarl and bite at the first hand he could reach. Just now this happened to belong to Fendrick, who had cheated him out of the money he had stolen and had brought this upon him.
Cass heard him out with a lifted upper lip and his most somnolent tiger-cat expression. After Blackwell had finished and been withdrawn from circulation he rolled and lit a cigarette.
“By Mr. Blackwell’s say-so I’m the goat. By the way, has it ever occurred to you gentlemen that one can’t be convicted on the testimony of a single accomplice?” He asked it casually, his chair tipped back, smoke wreaths drifting lazily ceilingward.
“We’ve got a little circumstantial evidence to add, Cass.” Bucky suggested pleasantly.
“Not enough—not nearly enough.”
“That will be for a jury to decide,” Cullison chipped in.
Fendrick shrugged. “I’ve a notion to let it go to that. But what’s the use? Understand this. I wasn’t going to give Blackwell away, but since he has talked, I may tell what I know. It’s true enough what he says. I did relieve him of the plunder.”
“Sorry to hear that, Cass,” Bucky commented gravely. “What did you do with it?”