Reelfoot gulped. "You had me go to Wingo's office, and rile him up, and spin him a lot of jerkwater stuff about my rustled cows, so's to get him and his deputies all ready to go away with me, when Driver was to come in with that stuff about Kilroe and keep Bill in town while the deputies went with me. Well, you know how only Shillman went. But I couldn't help that. Anyway, I suppose you thought you was foxy not to tell me the rest of the story about Skinny Shindle and the fake letter and so forth. Gents, you was foxy. Yeah, you was foxy. But I'm foxy himself. I can put two and two together and make four any day."
He paused and glared at the pair of them. "I wondered what it was all about. Yeah, I wondered, and I asked you and you said it was to keep Bill Wingo from mixing into a li'l stock deal. Stock deal!" Here Simon spat upon the floor. "Stock deal!" rushed on Simon. "You never said it was murder."
Rafe Tuckleton and the district attorney exchanged wooden looks.
"Now that you mention it," said Rafe, "I don't believe we did."
"I thought you didn't like Tom Walton," observed the district attorney.
Simon Reelfoot swore a string of oaths. "I didn't like him, not a bit. But I don't want to be hung for helping having him killed."
"That would be unfortunate," murmured the district attorney.
"I ain't sorry he was killed, of course," Simon fretted on, unheeding. "That part was all right, but I didn't want to be mixed up in it. There's no sense in doing a thing like that if you're gonna be caught. And I don't mean to be caught! You didn't have no right to get me into this deal without telling me all the circumstances first," he concluded weakly.
"Then you think you've been badly treated?" purred the district attorney.
"I know it," declared Simon.