“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 to you first.
“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 his 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. That, I think, is all.”
“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 handyman 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 possibly 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 38-caliber bullet.”
“Any guns of that caliber in the house?”
“No. A .22 and my .44—which I keep in the car—are the only pistols on the place. Then there are two shotguns and a .30‒30 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 closemouthed 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 behavior; 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, and see what we can find that way.”
He raised an indolent hand in protest.
“The names I could give you would be only a few in 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 banteringly.
“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—if it didn’t require so much energy—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
