Escape from Five Shadows - Leonard Elmore John (книги серия книги читать бесплатно полностью txt) 📗

Her eyes lowered again. “If you really knew what kind of a man my husband is…The way he treats me-”

“Look,” Bowen said patiently. “I’m convinced. Let’s get to the point.”

She looked at him calmly now, without pretense. “You don’t think very highly of me, do you?”

“It wouldn’t matter one way or the other,” Bowen said. “Do you have something, or don’t you?”

Lizann’s hand came out of the folds of her skirt and she pressed the barrel of the revolver against Bowen’s belt buckle. “I have this,” she said and caught the momentary surprise in Bowen’s eyes as he saw the revolver. “Will it help?”

Bowen nodded slowly, thoughtfully. “It’ll help.”

“Then it’s yours,” Lizann said. “On one condition.”

Bowen’s hand went to the revolver. The short barrel remained pressed against him and he could feel her finger on the trigger. “What’s the condition?”

“How you escape from here is your business,” Lizann said. “You can have the gun and use it however you like. That will be no concern of mine. I’m not asking you to take me with you.”

“What’s the condition?” Bowen asked again.

“That you kill my husband first,” Lizann said calmly.

9

The second letter from Lyall Martz, the Hatch & Hodges attorney, arrived on the Saturday afternoon stage. It came unexpectedly, for Karla had written to him only the day after talking to Bowen, Tuesday, and there had not been time for her letter even to reach Prescott, much less receive an answer already.

Her father watched her. “Well, go ahead and read it.”

“I’m afraid to,” Karla said.

“You’re not going to change what’s inside by staring at the envelope.”

“It’s bad news,” Karla said tonelessly. “Either he’s decided not to work on it or else he’s run up against a stone wall.”

“Sis, that’s some gift you have-being able to read letters without opening them.”

She glanced at her father. “It has to be one or the other. Mr. Martz hasn’t even received my letter yet. He couldn’t have been working on it-he needed the information he asked for first.”

“Then,” Demery said, “he couldn’t have run into a stone wall…not yet.”

Karla nodded dejectedly. “He’s decided he can’t spare the time. That must be it.”

“Sis, if you don’t hurry up and read it, I’ll have to.”

“I will,” Karla said.

Demery watched her finger work open the envelope, take out the letter and unfold the pages bearing Lyall Martz’s large, down-slanting scrawl. He watched her-a frown, a somber tight-lipped expression on her face, now biting her lower lip lightly, thoughtfully, now her lips parting and not biting them, her eyes opening, opening wide, glancing up, but only for part of a moment, concentrating on the letter again, and her mouth began to form a smile. She looked up again and the smile was in her eyes: a moist, glistening smile that struck John Demery as the most genuinely happy smile he had ever seen in his life.

“Bad news?”

Karla’s lips moved, but no sound came from them.

“Are you going to read it to me,” Demery said, “or do I have to guess.”

She stared at him, still smiling, and handed him the letter. “Read it out loud.”

“This must be some letter,” Demery said. He began to read:

Dear Karla,

As soon as I accepted this “spare-time job” as you call it, I had to admit to a weakening of the will. I am afraid my giving in has touched off a complete breakdown of my mental faculties, for now I must admit to even a weakening in the intellect department. (Don’t tell your father that, though he wouldn’t understand it anyway.)

Demery looked up, but before he could speak Karla said, “Go on, read.”

After I wrote to you [Demery continued] outlining the information I needed, it occurred to me: how is Karla going to get information from a man locked up in a convict camp? That could be difficult even for Karla. Then I realized that all I need do was talk to McLaughlin myself. He was at the trial and, of course, he saw the bill of sale. Which I did.

Mac stated that the handwriting on the bill of sale was clearly an imitation of his own, and a fairly good one, especially the signature. My reasoning then eliminated both your friend Bowen and the other one, Manring, as the forger. It is possible that they know how to write but highly improbable they write well enough to copy the ornate signature Mclaughlin has been practicing for fifty years.

That pointed to a third man. I asked Mac if the identity of the forger was established at the trial. He recalled that it had not even been brought up. He also told me that Manring had worked for him once before, though had denied it at the trial. Could Manring have procured a blank bill of sale at that time? Yes, but that had been three years ago, Mac stated. Only six months before the trial, he had purchased new stationery and forms. The bill of sale was of the new batch.

Now, so far we have established that there must be a third man. But, who?

Probably anyone who worked for McLaughlin could have come by a blank bill of sale. He admitted that. But again, we eliminated three-quarters of his hands on the basis of not being able to write at all. So it must be a man who wrote well enough himself to copy another so exactly. Still, a man who worked for McLaughlin.

His bookkeeper? No, Mac said. He kept his own books since firing Roy Avery. McLaughlin looked at me and I looked at him and that, Karla, was how it happened. You see, McLaughlin always tended his own paper work until deciding a man of his holdings should have a bookkeeper of his own. (It took him twenty years to decide this.) So he hired Avery, who lasted two months. He did nothing dishonest, then. But Mac didn’t care for him in general and when he fired him they had an argument over the justice of it.

If the identity of the forger had been investigated at the trial, Mr. Avery’s name would already appear in the record. That is how obvious it was his doing. Being obvious, Roy Avery of course left Prescott at the time the two men were apprehended. But-and it is questionable whether this is evidence of nerve or imbecility-Mr. Avery returned to Prescott upon learning there had been no mention of him made at the trial. Hence, he was arrested right here in Prescott, McLaughlin having agreed to proffer charges.

Yesterday morning Roy Avery signed a statement admitting his part in the case. He stated that his dealings were with Earl Manring only, that he had never met a Corey Bowen, had never even heard of him until the trial.

As far as he knew, Manring had planned to take the cattle alone. If Bowen helped him, Avery stated, then he was fairly certain Bowen was working at what he believed to be an honest job. Avery reasoned it this way: if Bowen knew it was rustled stock, he would have demanded a close to equal share in the profit. Knowing Manring, Avery said, Manring would never have agreed to that. Therefore, since Bowen did go along, Avery believes he was drawing nothing more than trail wages. We must compliment Mr. Avery on a piece of uncommonly sound reasoning.

This morning, Karla, I filed a motion for a new trial. The date has not yet been set, but I think your friend has a much better than average chance of winning an acquittal. And I generally do not make predictions.

Incidentally, the court record stated that neither of the two men had been arrested previously. However that meant only that the Prescott sheriff’s office did not have a wanted dodger on either of them. Tracing Manring’s past seemed almost impossible to begin with and after a wire to the Tucson authorities, and receiving a negative reply, I gave up on him. However I was able to find out something about Bowen.