“No,” the colonel answered. “The mine is located in a rough and isolated section of the mountains. So far as I know, none of my men have been near the mine.”
Shayne thanked him for his help. He went out and drove back to Marfa, and headed southward into the mountains on a rough dirt road. The road became winding and dangerous as it climbed upward into the low mountains, and it was mid-afternoon when he came to a railroad crossing paralleled by a wider and smoother road. Two pointed pine boards were nailed to a tree. One pointed to the left and read LONE STAR MINE. The other pointed to the right and read VAN HORN 50 MI.
Turning to the left, he climbed steeply for a little more than a mile, stopping in front of high steel gates padlocked together with a heavy chain. When opened, the double gates were wide enough to accommodate both railroad track and the automobile driveway. A twelve-foot woven-wire fence led away from the gates in both directions, surmounted by three strands of barbed wire leaning outward at a forty-five degree angle.
A sign on one of the gates read KEEP OUT.
Shayne cut off his motor and sat with his big red hands gripping the steering wheel. Through the steel gates he could see an unpainted shed about fifty feet beyond the gate. Farther up the slope were several low buildings that appeared to be bunkhouses and tool sheds. On the left was a huge loading bin on high stilts with the rails leading beneath in order that gondolas could be spotted there to receive their load of ore fed to the bin from the mine entrance by a gravity chute down the hillside.
The whole place was unaccountably deserted. He listened intently for some sound of miners at work, then realized that production was probably at a lower level and any sounds of activity would be muffled.
He got out of the car after a moment and sauntered toward the padlocked gates. A man came out of the nearby shed and looked at him. He wore a greasy black Stetson and corduroy pants, and the wide cartridge belt around his waist sagged with the weight of a bolstered six-shooter on his right hip. He took cigarette papers and a sack of Bull Durham from his shirt pocket and began to roll a cigarette. Shayne stopped in front of the gates and shouted, “Hey!” The guard licked his brown-paper cigarette and stuck it between his lips. He lit it and hooked his thumbs in his gun belt and strolled forward. “Whatcha want?”
“Unlock this damned gate so I can drive in.”
“Gotta permit?”
“A what?” Shayne asked incredulously.
“A permit.” The guard stopped on the other side of the gates, peering at him suspiciously.
Shayne said, “For God’s sake! I’m not going to steal any of your damned silver ore.”
“Ain’t got no permit, huh?” The man shook his head disapprovingly.
“What kind of a permit?” Shayne demanded.
“One that’s signed by Mr. Towne. That’s what kind.” The guard tugged the brim of his hat lower over his eyes and started to turn away.
“Wait a minute,” Shayne said. “I’m a friend of Mr. Towne’s. He sent me out here to look over some machinery.”
“What machinery?”
“The hoisting engine,” Shayne hazarded. “It’s getting old and needs some repairs.”
The man shook his head and spat contemptuously. “That won’t work, Mister. Not without you gotta permit signed with Mr. Towne’s name.”
“What in the name of God is all the secrecy about?”
The man shrugged. “Guv’ment orders,” he said vaguely. “Silver’s a mighty important war material an’ we’re clost to the border here. Them’re my orders, anyhow, an’ no amount of fast talkin’ won’t get you in.”
Shayne said, “Mr. Towne will fire you when he hears about this.”
The man spat again and then walked back toward his shack. Shayne stared after him impotently. The man went inside, and that seemed to be an end to it.
Shayne went back and wheeled his coupe around and sped back toward El Paso.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
It was less than a three-hour drive back from the mine. Shayne drove straight to police headquarters and went in. He found Chief Dyer with his hat on ready to go out to eat. The chief looked tired and disgusted. He grunted, “Where’ve you been hiding all afternoon?”
“Around and about.” Shayne eyed him speculatively. “Things been happening?”
Dyer nodded. He took off his hat and looked at it as if surprised to find it on his head. He threw it down on his desk and said, “Plenty.”
“Have you got time to bring me up to date?”
Chief Dyer sighed and sat down in his swivel chair. “I haven’t any place to go,” he confessed. “I just wanted to get away from this damned office before a couple of gremlins sneak in to inform me that there haven’t been any murders or dead bodies or any other damned thing.”
“Is it that bad?” asked Shayne.
“Just about. The whole thing’s blown up. We’re all the way out on a limb, and I’m wailing for it to be sawed off.”
Shayne draped himself on a chair and said, “Give.”
“First thing is the Bartons. They came down about two o’clock with a note they’d just received in the mail from their son. It was postmarked last Tuesday. Mailed in a downtown box.”
“With ten onehundred-dollar bills?”
“That’s right. Just like Towne said.”
“What the hell has it been doing in the mail ever since Tuesday?”
“One of those things,” Dyer groaned, “that walk up and slap us in the face sometimes. I don’t live right, Shayne. That’s all there is to it. What happens to me shouldn’t happen to a dog.”
Shayne said, “I’m listening.”
“The envelope was addressed wrong. In his hurry or excitement, Jack Barton neglected to put a ‘South’ in front of the street name. So it went out by the wrong carrier. Came back to the main post office, where they looked in the directory and found the Bartons lived on South Vine. So it didn’t reach them until the afternoon delivery today.”
“No doubt about its authenticity?”
“None at all,” Dyer sighed. “They recognized their son’s handwriting, and I had it checked by an expert with the other note he left. In it, he told them he was leaving town hurriedly and for them to tear up the other note he’d left behind without reading it. Exactly what Towne told us he dictated to him.”
“I wondered about that,” Shayne admitted. “It sounded like the sort of thing Towne would do. He couldn’t afford to ship Jack Barton out of the city without taking some precaution to prevent the other letter from reaching us. He figured the grand would tie the old folks’ hands — that, and the knowledge that their son was a blackmailer. It seems to me that arrival of the note clarifies things,” he added encouragingly.
“You haven’t heard half of it yet,” Dyer growled. “I insisted that they look at the body anyway, with some crazy idea, I guess, that Cochrane had gotten mixed into it after Towne made the payoff.”
“And the body isn’t Jack Barton?” Shayne guessed easily.
“Definitely not. They’re both absolutely positive. I watched their faces while they looked at it, and I’m convinced they were telling the truth.”
Shayne shrugged. “It really couldn’t have been Barton. It didn’t make sense that way. Towne would know a body thrown in the river would have to show up eventually. If he killed Barton he certainly would have disposed of the body so it couldn’t ever be identified again.”
“I don’t know about that,” Dyer argued. “Getting rid of a corpse isn’t that easy. Plenty of murderers have tried it and failed. All sorts of elaborate schemes. You know that.”
“Sure, it’s difficult,” Shayne agreed. “But he could have devised something a lot better than just stripping the body and throwing it into the river. No, after I heard Towne’s story this morning, I felt sure the naked body wasn’t Jack Barton.”
