Breakheart Pass

whisky!'

Deakin gave an acknowledging nod. 'And excellent stuff it is, too. You don't have to be afraid of offering this to anyone.'

Without a word and without warning Pearce stepped forward and savagely struck Deakin's right wrist, sending the glass flying.

Marica's reaction was involuntary, as surprising to her as it was to the others. She said in sudden anger: 'What a brave man you are. Marshal – with that big gun hanging by your side.'

With the exception of Deakin, everyone stared at her in astonishment. Pearce looked back towards Deakin, the surprise on his face giving way to contempt, a contempt reflected in his gesture as he pulled the Colt from its holster, threw it on the couch and smiled invitingly at Deakin. Deakin made no response. Pearce swung his left hand and hit Deakin, hard, across the lower face with the back of his clenched fist, a humiliating blow with which to strike any man. Deakin staggered and sat down heavily on the sofa, then, after a few seconds during which the other men averted their faces in shame for lost manhood, rose, dabbed some blood from a split lip and walked across to the other corner of the compartment, near the entrance to the passageway where, to the accompaniment of the screeching of brakes, the others brushed by him as they hurried to take up observation positions on the platforms. Marica came slowly after them and stopped in front of Deakin. From her reticule she brought out a flimsy wisp of cambric and patted the cut lip. When she spoke, it was in a very quiet tone.

'Poor man,' she said. 'So little time to live.'

'I'm not dead yet.'

'I didn't mean you. I meant the Marshal.'

She walked down the passageway and entered her sleeping compartment without looking back. Deakin looked after her thoughtfully, then crossed to the liquor cabinet and helped himself to some more bourbon.

While Deakin was lowering the level in the Governor's bottle, Banlon backed the train slowly down the valley. Four men stood at the very end of the train, the rear platform of the second horse wagon, heavily wrapped against the biting cold and the thinly falling snow: Claremont and Pearce studied the track-side to the right, the Governor and O'Brien the side to the left. But as mile succeeded crawling mile there was nothing to be seen. The snow on both sides was virginal, untouched except for the faint dusting of soot from the locomotive's earlier passage; nor was the snow heavy enough to have concealed any recent disturbances in the ankle-deep snow on the ground, far less have covered the body of a man. In short, there was no sign of the Reverend Peabody or any mark made by him had he fallen – or been pushed – from the train.

Claremont straightened and turned at the same instant as O'Brien, on the other side of the platform, did the same. Claremont shook his head slowly and O'Brien nodded in reluctant agreement; the latter turned again, leaned far out over the platform safety rail and waved his arm. Banlon, who had for the past fifteen or twenty minutes been looking towards the rear of the train, gave an acknowledging wave of his arm. The train jolted to a halt, then began to move forward again. Reluctantly, the four men on the rear platform moved away from the safety rails and returned to the comparative warmth of the horse wagon.

As soon as they returned to the day compartment Claremont had assembled there, with the exception of Banlon and his soldier-fireman Rafferty, the only eight remaining survivors of the original trainload. The atmosphere was heavy with suspicion and menace, not unmixed with fear. Every person present appeared to be carefully avoiding the eyes of every other person, with the exception of Deakin, who didn't appear to care where he looked.

Claremont passed a weary hand across his forehead.

'It's impossible. It's just absolutely impossible. We know that Peabody is not on the train. We know he can't have left the train. And nobody saw him after he left this compartment. A man can't just vanish like that.' Claremont looked round the listeners, but there was no help from there, no reaction except the embarrassed shuffling of the feet of Carlos, the Negro cook, who was clearly embarrassed by the unaccustomed presence of the gentry. Claremont repeated: 'Well, he can't, can he?'

'Can't he?' Fairchild said heavily. 'He's done it, hasn't he?'

Deakin said: 'Well, yes and no.'

Pearce's antagonism flared instantly. 'What do you mean – yes and no? What do you know about this disappearance, mister?'

'Nothing. How could I? I was here from the time Peabody left till the time Henry reported his disappearance. Miss Fairchild will vouch for that.'

Pearce made to speak but Claremont lifted a restraining hand and turned to Deakin. 'You have something in mind?'

'I have something in mind. True, we haven't crossed any ravines during the time that Peabody could have disappeared. But we did cross over two small trellis bridges in that stretch. The outside of the train is practically level with the sides of the bridges – and neither of those have guard rails. He could have gone from the train over the edge without leaving a trace.'

O'Brien made no attempt to conceal the disbelief in his voice. 'An interesting theory, Deakin. All you have to explain now is why he jumped from–'

'He didn't jump. He was pushed. More likely, someone just picked him up and threw him over the edge. He was, after all, a very little man. A big strong person could have thrown him well clear. I wonder who that person could have been. Not me. I've an alibi. Not Miss Fairchild. She's not a big strong man and, anyway, I'm her alibi, although I suppose my testimony is worthless in your eyes. But you're big strong men. All of you. Six big strong men.' He paused and surveyed them severally and leisurely. 'I wonder which one of you it was.'

The Governor didn't splutter but he came close. 'Preposterous! Absolutely preposterous!'

Claremont said icily: The man's crazy.'

'I'm only trying to find a theory to fit the known facts/ Deakin said mildly. 'Anyone got a better one?'

From the uneasy silence it was apparent that no one had a better one. Marica said: 'But who on earth would want to – to kill a harmless little man like Mr Peabody?'

'I don't know. Who on earth would do away with a harmless old doctor like Molyneux? Who on earth would want to do away with two – I presume – harmless cavalry officers like Oakland and Newell?'

Pearce's suspicions were immediate and inevitable. 'Who said anything's happened to them?'

Deakin regarded him for a long and, it seemed, pitying moment; he appeared bent on making it clear that the strength of his determination not to become involved physically with Pearce was matched only by his total disregard for the man, an attitude that Pearce was manifestly finding more intolerable by the moment. Deakin said: 'If you believe, after all that's happened, that their disappearance is just the long arm of coincidence, then it's time you turned over your badge to someone who isn't solid bone between the ears. Why, Marshal, you might be the man we want.'

Pearce, his face ugly, stepped forward, his fist swinging, but Claremont quickly interposed himself between him and Deakin and whatever Claremont lacked it was certainly not authority.

'That will be quite enough, Marshal. There's been too much violence already.'

'I agree entirely with Colonel Claremont.' Fairchild puffed out his cheeks and spoke weightily in his impressively gubernatorial manner. 'I think we're being panicked. We don't know that anything of what this – this felon is suggesting is true. We don't know that Molyneux was murdered–' Fairchild had a splendid gift for emphasis with a telling pause after each word so emphasized – 'and we've only Deakin's word for that, we've only Deakin's word that he, Deakin, was a doctor – and we all know what Deakin's word is worth.'

'You're maligning my character in public, Governor,' Deakin said. 'There's a law in the constitution that says you – that's me – can seek redress for such unsubstantiated imputations. I have six witnesses to the fact that you have slandered me.' Deakin looked around him. 'Mind you I wouldn't say that they are all unbiased.'

'The law! The law!' Fairchild had turned an unbecoming turkey red and the popping bloodshot blue eyes appeared to be in some danger of coming adrift from their moorings. 'A scofflaw like you, a murderer, an arsonist, daring to invoke the sacred constitution of our United States!' He paused, probably because of the awareness that he was operating some little way below his thes-pian best. 'We don't know that Oakland and Newell were murdered. We don't actually know that Peabody was the victim of–'