an appearance of being too squat for its two stories; and it stood on a grassy hill, well away from the country road upon which it turned its back to look down on the Mokelumne River.
The Ford that I had hired to bring me out from Knownburg carried me into the grounds through a high steel-meshed gate, followed the circling gravel drive, and set me down within a foot of the screened porch that ran all the way around the house’s first floor.
“There’s Exon’s son-in-law now,” the driver told me as he pocketed the bill I had given him and prepared to drive away.
I turned to see a tall, loose-jointed man of thirty or so coming across the porch toward me – a carelessly dressed man with a mop of rumpled brown hair over a handsome sunburned face. There was a hint of cruelty in the lips that were smiling lazily just now, and more than a hint of recklessness in his narrow gray eyes.
“Mr. Gallaway?” I asked as he came down the steps.
‘Yes.” His voice was a drawling baritone. “You are -“
“From the Continental Detective Agency’s San Francisco branch,” I finished for him.
He nodded, and held the screen door open for me.
“Just leave your bag there. I’ll have it taken up to your room.”
He guided me into the house and – after I had assured him that I had already eaten luncheon – gave me a soft chair and an excellent cigar. He sprawled on his spine in an armchair opposite me – all loose-jointed angles sticking out of it in every direction – and blew smoke at the ceiling.
“First off,” he began presently, his words coming out languidly, “I may as well tell you that I don’t expect very much in the way of results. I sent for you more for the soothing effect of your presence on the household than because I expect you to do anything. I don’t believe there’s anything to do. However, I’m not a detective. I may be wrong. You may find out all sorts of more or less important things. If you do – fine! But I don’t insist upon it.”
I didn’t say anything, though this beginning wasn’t much to my taste. He smoked in silence for a moment, and then went on, “My father-in-law, Talbert Exon, is a man of fifty-seven, and ordinarily a tough, hard, active, and fiery old devil. But just now he’s recovering from a rather serious attack of pneumonia, which has taken most of the starch out of him. He hasn’t been able to leave his bed yet, and Dr. Rench hopes to keep him on his back for at least another week.
“The old man has a room on the second floor – the front, right-hand corner room – just over where we are sitting. His nurse, Miss Caywood, occupies the next room, and there is a connecting door between. My room is the other front one, just across the hall from the old man’s; and my wife’s bedroom is next to mine – across the hall from the nurse’s. I’ll show you around later. I just want to make the situation clear.
“Last night, or rather this morning at about half-past one, somebody shot at Exon while he was sleeping – and missed. The bullet went into the frame of the door that leads to the nurse’s room, about six inches above his body as he lay in bed. The course the bullet took in the woodwork would indicate that it had been fired from one of the windows – either through it or from just inside.
“Exon woke up, of course, but he saw nobody. The rest of us – my wife, Miss Caywood, the Figgs, and myself – were also awakened by the shot. We all rushed into his room, and we saw nothing either. There’s no doubt that whoever fired it left by the window. Otherwise some of us would have seen him – we came from every other direction. However, we found nobody on the grounds, and no traces of anybody.”
“Who are the Figgs, and who else is there on the place besides you and your wife, Mr. Exon, and his nurse?”
“The Figgs are Adam and Emma – she is the housekeeper and he is a sort of handy man about the place. Their room is in the extreme rear, on the second floor. Besides them, there is Gong Lim, the cook, who sleeps in a little room near the kitchen, and the three farm hands. Joe Natara and Felipe Fadelia are Italians, and have been here for more than two years; Jesus Mesa, a Mexican, has been here a year or longer. The farm hands sleep in a little house near the barns. I think – if my opinion is of any value – that none of these people had anything to do with the shooting.”
“Did you dig the bullet out of the doorframe?”
“Yes. Shand, the deputy sheriff at Knownburg, dug it out. He says it is a thirty-eight-caliber bullet.”
“Any guns of that caliber in the house?”
“No. A twenty-two and my forty-four – which I keep in the car – are the only pistols on the place. Then there are two shotguns and a thirty-thirty rifle. Shand made a thorough search, and found nothing else in the way of firearms.”
“What does Mr. Exon say?”
“Not much of anything, except that if we’ll put a gun in bed with him he’ll manage to take care of himself without bothering any policemen or detectives. I don’t know whether he knows who shot at him or not – he’s a close-mouthed old devil. From what I know of him, I imagine there are quite a few men who would think themselves justified in killing him. He was, I understand, far from being a lily in his youth – or in his mature years either, for that matter.”
“Anything definite you know, or are you guessing?”
Gallaway grinned at me – a mocking grin that I was to see often before I was through with this Exon affair.
“Both,” he drawled. “I know that his life has been rather more than sprinkled with swindled partners and betrayed friends, and that he saved himself from prison at least once by turning state’s evidence and sending his associates there. And I know that his wife died under rather peculiar circumstances while heavily insured, and that he was for some time held on suspicion of having murdered “her, but was finally released because of a lack of evidence against him. Those, I understand, are fair samples of the old boy’s normal behaviour, so there may be any number of people gunning for him.”
“Suppose you give me a list of all the names you know of enemies he’s made, and I’ll have them checked up.”
“The names I could give you would be only a few of many, and it might take you months to check up those few. It isn’t my intention to go to all that trouble and expense. As I told you, I’m not insisting upon results. My wife is very nervous, and for some peculiar reason she seems to like the old man. So, to soothe her, I agreed to employ a private detective when she asked me to. My idea is that you hang around for a couple of days, until things quiet down and she feels safe again. Meanwhile, if you should stumble upon anything – go to it! If you don’t – well and good.”
My face must have shown something of what I was thinking, for his eyes twinkled and he chuckled.
“Don’t, please,” he drawled, “get the idea that you aren’t to find my father-in-law’s would-be assassin if you wish to. You’re to have a free hand. Go as far as you like, except that I want you to be around the place as much as possible, so my wife will see you and feel that we are being adequately protected. Beyond that, I don’t care what you do. You can apprehend criminals by the carload. As you may have gathered by now, I’m not exactly in love with my wife’s father, and he’s no more fond of me. To be frank, if hating weren’t such an effort – I think I should hate the old devil. But if you want to, and can, catch the man who shot at him, I’d be glad to have you do it. But-“
“All right,” I said. “I don’t like this job much, but since I’m up here I’ll take it on. But, remember, I’m trying all the time.”
“Sincerity and earnestness” – he showed his teeth in a sardonic smile as we got to our feet – “are very praiseworthy traits.”
“So I hear,” I growled shortly. “Now let’s take a look at Mr. Exon’s room.”
Gallaway’s wife and the nurse were with the invalid, but I examined the room before I asked the occupants any questions.
It was a large room, with three wide windows opening over the porch, and two doors, one of which gave to the hall and the other to the adjoining room occupied by the nurse. This door stood open, with a green Japanese screen across it, and, I was told, was left that way at night, so that the nurse could hear readily if her patient was restless or if he wanted attention.
A man standing on the slate roof of the porch, I found, could have easily leaned across one of the window- sills (if he did not care to step over it into the room) and fired at the man in his bed. To get from the ground to the porch roof would have required but little effort, and the descent would be still easier – he could slide down the roof, let himself go feet-first over the edge, checking his speed with hands and arms spread out on the slate, and drop down to the gravel drive. No trick at all, either coming or going. The windows were unscreened.
