“I’ve kept it for a surprise,” Towne said stiffly. “What’s your interest in it?”
“I’m interested in its proximity to the border — and the fact that Mexican silver is worth only half the price of domestic silver — plus the fact that Josiah Riley was fired from your employ ten years ago after reporting your vein in the Big Bend pinched out.”
Towne’s face was slowly being drained of color. “How do you figure those add up?”
“They add up to fraud,” Shayne told him pleasantly, “when you consider the stamp mill you set up at the Plata Azul ten years ago, your ownership of a smelter here in El Paso where your Big Bend ore is processed, your revolutionary method of mining the Lone Star with steam shovels, and the fact that you went all out ten years ago to prevent Carmela from marrying the only man she ever wanted to marry.”
“What do you know about the Lone Star mine?” Towne snarled.
“Everything. I paid the mine a visit last night, Towne. I know the shaft is abandoned, and for years you’ve been scooping up the mountainside to get bulk to load into cars on top of refined ore you’ve been smuggling over the border from the Plata Azul. By shipping it to your own smelter here, you’ve been able to hoodwink the government into paying you the double price for domestic silver. Not only that, but every ounce of it came from the Mexican mine actually owned by Carmela, and you’ve defrauded her out of a fortune during these ten years.”
Towne stood very straight and very still in front of Shayne. “You sound very sure of your facts.”
“It’s the only answer that comes out right,” Shayne said wearily. “It’s tough, isn’t it, after you got rid of Jack Barton and Neil Cochrane after they had discovered the truth? You thought your secret was safe. And now, by God, here’s another guy popping up to plague you!”
Towne moved aside and sat down heavily in front of the liquor cabinet by the fireplace. He opened it and withdrew the tequila bottle they had drunk from last night. He poured himself a drink with a steady hand and asked, “What do you mean about Barton and Cochrane?”
Shayne glanced out the window into the sunlight. “After killing two men, it must be tough to learn your secret still isn’t safe.” He took a step forward away from the window.
Jefferson Towne stopped his glass two inches from his lips. He said stonily, “I paid Jack Barton, and I was prepared to meet Cochrane’s price. I told him so yesterday afternoon. I can also afford to pay you off. How much?” He put the glass to his lips and drank.
Shayne shook his head and said mockingly, “Don’t kid me, Towne. I know how your mind works. Josiah Riley inadvertently tipped me off with an old border proverb: ‘Los muertos no hablan.’ You know it’s cheaper to kill a man than to pay blackmail. The dead don’t talk. That’s the only sure way to shut up a blackmailer. That’s why you killed Jack Barton Tuesday afternoon — and Cochrane last night.”
Towne set his empty glass down. “Very interesting, except that you overlook a couple of facts. Jack Barton is in California spending the ten thousand I paid him — and I was in bed last night when Lance Bayliss shot Cochrane with Carmela’s pistol.”
Shayne shook his head. “Jack Barton never left for California. You bought a ticket and had someone get on the bus, just to make things look right if anyone checked up. And you drew the ten grand out of your bank and put one of them in the letter you had Jack write his parents before you killed him. But you should have had him address the envelope before you killed him, Towne. A man doesn’t forget his own address, but you forgot to put South in front of the Vine Street number. That one mistake is what cooked your goose. The delay in the delivery of that letter sent the Bartons to Dyer with the whole story when they thought the unidentified body from the river was Jack.”
“But it wasn’t Barton!” Towne exploded. “They said so themselves after looking at him.”
“Of course it wasn’t. You weren’t dumb enough to kill a blackmailer and throw his body in the river and hope to get away with it. You thought you were safe because Jack Barton was already buried in an unmarked grave in the Fort Bliss military cemetery.”
Towne hunched lower in his chair. His face was livid, and his eyes were becoming mad. He leaned forward to tap an uneasy tattoo on the edge of the liquor cabinet. He said, “I don’t know which one of us is crazy.”
“You were,” Shayne told him cheerfully, “to think you could get away with it. Though you almost did — until I thought about comparing the fingerprints of the body from the river with those taken from Jimmie Delray when he enlisted under the name of James Brown. Then I realized that you had put the soldier’s uniform on Jack Barton Tuesday afternoon and-”
Towne’s hand darted inside the liquor cabinet. It came out clutching a sawed-off. 38, a replica of the pistol taken from Carmela Telgucado in Juarez. Shayne dropped to the floor as Towne whirled on him, and a bullet whistled over his head. He had his own gun out, but a heavier report from the open window prevented him from using it.
Towne fell back with a. 45 slug from a police revolver in his shoulder, and his weapon clattered to the floor.
Shayne nodded to the uniformed man leaning through the window covering Towne with a smoking. 45, and said approvingly, “That was nice timing.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Chief Dyer’s face showed up disapprovingly beside the sergeant’s. “What’s going on in there?”
Shayne got up and strolled forward to pick up the. 38 Towne had dropped. He told Dyer, “Why don’t you come around by the front door, and we’ll let Towne tell us all about it?”
Towne was crouched back against the wall, gripping his wounded shoulder with his left hand. He mouthed curses at Shayne while he kept an eye on the patrolman’s revolver. Shayne turned his back on him and broke the sawed-off revolver. He dumped four snubnosed bullets out on the table and examined them. The soft lead of each bullet was notched in the shape of a cross like the two taken from Carmela’s weapon.
He dribbled the four bullets into Dyer’s hand when the police chief trotted into the library from the hallway. “There’s the rest of your case against him. He killed Cochrane with a duplicate of his daughter’s gun, after planting a recently fired empty in hers before he sent her across the border to lead Cochrane into the alley where he was waiting to kill him.”
“That’s another lie!” Towne shouted. “I was at home. Bayliss has already confessed using her pistol to kill Cochrane.”
“Bayliss,” said Shayne, “is in love with Carmela. Ballistics says only two of those exploded shells in her pistol were fired from it. That’s another place you slipped up, Towne. You knew a comparison test couldn’t be run on a dumdum bullet, but you forgot there are tests that prove which gun an exploded cartridge was fired from. You slipped an exploded shell from your gun into hers last evening — after you decided Cochrane had to die the same as Jack Barton died.”
“I don’t understand it,” Dyer said peevishly. “Mr. and Mrs. Barton both said the body wasn’t their son.”
“That body wasn’t.” Shayne looked at the chief in surprise. “Haven’t you been listening outside the window?”
“Ever since you opened it,” Dyer growled. “I wasn’t going to let that evidence against Carter and Holden out of my sight until I knew Towne had it safely.”
“I figured you’d be close,” Shayne admitted, “as soon as you put that tail on me. But I’m glad you stayed out of sight, because I wanted to push Towne into a corner where he’d feel like pulling his gun on me. I’d already figured he must have one just like his stepdaughter’s, but I didn’t know where he’d have it hidden.”
Towne had stopped cursing. He sank into his chair, breathing hard. He reached for the tequila bottle and filled his glass to the brim.
Dyer watched him curiously, and then sighed, “I still don’t get it about Barton and the dead soldier — nor Cochrane either.”
“Cochrane was comparatively simple,” Shayne told him. “A sudden decision without any previous planning. You see, Cochrane had finally figured out the secret of Towne’s two silver mines. Remember that Barton had hinted part of the truth to him, and the Free Press ran a story on the Plata Azul not long ago. Cochrane added them up the same way I did, and realized that Towne was just using his Big Bend mine as a blind to get Mexican silver from the Plata Azul into the country and smelt it as domestic silver. Then he checked into the Plata Azul and discovered it
