CHAPTER XV
THE SHERIFF FINDS A CLEW
“Miss Pettis,” Captain Wilding remarked to his office attendant, a day or two after he had been summoned to meet Solange and had heard her rather remarkable story, “I’ll have to be going to Maryville for a day or two on this D’Albret case. I don’t believe there will be anything to discover regarding the mine and the man who killed her father, but, in case we do run into anything, I’d like to be fortified with whatever recollection you may have of the affair.”
“I don’t know a thing except what I told the dame,” said Marian, rather sullenly. “This guy Louisiana bumps the old man off after he leaves our place. Pete was comin’ in and was goin’ to take granddad in with him on the mine, but he can’t even tell where it was except that it was somewhere along the way he had come. You got to remember that I was just a kid and I don’t rightly remember anything about it except that this Louisiana was some little baby doll, himself. His looks were sure deceiving.”
“Well, how old was he at this time?”
“Oh, pretty young, I guess. Not much more than a kid. Say that French dame has a crust, hasn’t she, 190 comin’ in here after all these years, swellin’ round with her face covered as if she’s afraid her complexion wouldn’t stand the sun, and expectin’ to run onto that mine, which, if she did find it would be as much mine as it is hers. And who’s this Delonny guy she’s bringin’ with her? Looks to me like a bolshevik anarchist or a panhandler.”
“Humph!” said Wilding, musingly. “He’s nothing like that. Fact is, she’s got a gold mine right there, and she wants to divorce it. Now, you’re sure Louisiana did this and that he left the country? Ever hear what became of him?”
“Nary a word,” said the girl, indifferently. “I reckon everybody has forgotten him around here except Snake Murphy, who works for Johnny the Greek. Snake used to know this guy, and it was for shootin’ him that Louisiana was run out of the country. Fact is, I’ve heard most of what I know from Snake.”