Longarm said, “I didn’t, until I’d been on her a spell. It’s a shuddersome thing to study on. I even went to sleep a few winks, with her and my guns in the same compartment. I wasn’t thinking all that much about members of the gang at large until Billy told me some of ‘em at least were in Denver.”
He reached absently for a smoke as he continued, “Once I knew that, and that the early arrivals had to be strapped for cash if they were cashing in stamps so risky, I started thinking again.”
He lit his cheroot and explained, “I recalled how heavy that one sample case had been, and that reminded me that I’d have had a time meeting any gal aboard that train from El Paso if she hadn’t been in El Paso about the time I was shooting it out with the last male members of the gang. I was still hoping she just admired my shoulders as much as she let on, but I thought it only common sense to wire the outfit she said she sold stuff for and, guess what, she’d been fibbing about that. She knew a lot of show business terms for a traveling saleswoman. But, like I said, we’d have never convicted her all that serious if she hadn’t kept acting so wild to the end.”
He turned to Vail to ask, “Do you reckon her sisters in sin will get off light, seeing we recovered the money and all?”
Billy Vail said, “I doubt any of the others will have to serve much time. I don’t want either of you two to testify how any of ‘em might have served you!”
All three had to laugh. Then Guilfoyle said, “It was mean of them to poison me like that. But I have to admit that this time the law came out ahead, in more ways than one.”
