Romance Classics (42 page)

He turned to his companion, who was carefully threading a length of cord through the trigger of the gun, so it could be lifted without endangering any fingerprints the smooth stock and barrel might hold.

“Soon’s we test that for fingerprints, we’ll know who was lying,” he said grimly.

“And you’ll find it was Larry,” said Lynn firmly.

The chief shot her an amused, friendly glance.

“Sound mighty sure about that, Miss Lynn.”

Lynn met his eyes steadily.

“You see, I know Mr. McCullers,” she pointed out sweetly. “No one else in town made any effort to know him or be his friend.”

She thought Chief Hudgins colored, but she couldn’t be sure, for his weather-worn face was incapable of changing color noticeably.

“Well, now, Miss Lynn, didn’t seem like he cared much about being friendly with the folks hereabouts,” he told her, and turned to his companion. “Get that gun in the car, Walt. And be almighty careful in case there’s fingerprints. Think we’d best go have a talk with Larry.”

“Could I come with you?” asked Lynn eagerly.

Chief Hudgins eyed her with a glint of amusement in his eyes.

“Well, now, Miss Lynn, guess you’d better not,” he advised her. “Larry might panic and tell some more lies,” he answered.

“Then you do believe he lied about this!” Lynn flashed.

“Sure begins to look like it, Miss Lynn,” Chief Hudgins agreed. “You broke the case, Miss Lynn. You leave the rest to us.”

“How soon will Wayde be free?” she asked eagerly.

“Well, now, that’s hard to say.”

“But if he’s innocent—”

“Well, we’ll have a talk with Larry,” Chief Hudgins said cautiously. “Throw him a good scare and see what he says. And then we’ll talk about Mr. McCullers coming home.”

He turned and, with a word to his companion, started back up the path through the woods to where they had left their car.

Lynn watched them go and then turned to Bert, who was watching her anxiously.

“Did I do good, Miss Lynnie?” he asked worriedly.

“Oh, Bert, you did wonderfully!” Lynn assured him, beaming at him joyously. “And you know something, Bert? Nobody — but nobody — is ever going to hunt in these woods again! Your ‘little folks’ are going to be safe from now on. This is going to be a sanctuary for them. That I promise you!”

When she reached the house, Ruth came to meet her, anxious.

“What was all that about?” she asked the moment Lynn walked into the kitchen.

“Your friends gone?” asked Lynn.

“Now, Lynn, you mustn’t speak of them with contempt,” Ruth protested the tone rather than the words. “I’m sure they are just as eager to know the truth as I am; as all of Oakville, yes and Rivertown, too.”

“I’ll bet!” drawled Lynn, bright-eyed, unable to control her malice at the thought of how easily all these people had been convinced of Wayde’s guilt.

“Now, Lynn!”

Lynn laughed and hugged her.

“It’s all right!” Her voice was shaken, yet a paean of delight. “Wayde’s innocent, just as I knew he was all along.”

“You found some evidence of that? Down where Larry was shot? And you said on the phone that you’d found an eyewitness. Who?”

“Bert Estes.”

Ruth looked shocked and distressed.

“Oh, now, Lynnie, you know nobody will believe poor Bert.”

“Chief Hudgins did,” Lynn boasted confidently. “He said Bert didn’t have mind enough to tell a lie like that. And the gun was Wayde’s but Larry shot himself.”

Ruth blinked and protested, “Suicide? Oh, not a boy that age—”

“Of course not! It was an accident!” Lynn cut in. Swiftly she recounted the story Bert had told her and how he had come to tell it. He was afraid of the gun and had wanted somebody to remove it from his beloved woods and dared not touch it himself. “So you see? Chief Hudgins has gone to have a talk with Larry. And once they face him with Bert’s story, and the gun will probably have Larry’s fingerprints on it, well, Wayde will be home in a little while. You wait and see!”

Ruth sat down heavily in a kitchen chair and studied Lynn.

“Well, I surely hope it all works out like that,” she said.

Lynn whirled about sharply.

“Well, why wouldn’t it? It’s true, and Chief Hudgins will force Larry to confess! They’ll throw a scare into him when they tell him how the gun was found and that there were his fingerprints on it. How can he keep on lying after that?” she demanded sharply.

“I don’t know,” Ruth admitted helplessly. “I find it so hard to believe that Larry could have lied in the beginning—”

Lynn’s eyes flashed.

“But you didn’t find it hard to believe Wayde had done such a vicious thing? Shot the boy and then walked off, leaving him to die like an animal? Did you find that easy to believe?”

Ruth said with a trace of spirit, “Now you drop that tone when you speak to me, Lynn. I’m still your mother, remember?”

“I remember,” Lynn said curtly, but her eyes were still hot with anger. “But I don’t see how you, of all people, could possibly believe Wayde was guilty—”

“I didn’t say I believed he was guilty,” Ruth defended herself. “I’ll admit frankly I was a little hurt when I found he didn’t want your father to defend him and preferred one of his own legal friends.”

Lynn stared at her, shocked.

“Oh, Mother, you didn’t believe that!” she gasped.

“I did, and so did your father,” Ruth insisted. “He would never admit it for anything in the world, but he was hurt and humiliated.”

“Oh, no!” gasped Lynn. “It was Steve who made me promise I wouldn’t ask Dad. Wayde
wanted
Dad. He sort of took it for granted Dad would act for him. And
he
was hurt when I had to tell him Dad couldn’t.”

“What’s Steve got to do with it?” Ruth puzzled. “I can’t see that it would concern anybody but your father and Wayde.”

“Steve felt Dad wasn’t strong enough to go through a trial that could be such an ordeal,” Lynn admitted reluctantly.

Ruth’s eyes flashed. “Well, I like Steve’s impudence! How did he dare presume—”

Lynn smiled and hugged her.

“Steve is very fond of you and Dad, and I suppose he’s a bit possessive about you both,” she pointed out. “Anyway, on the way over to the county seat he made me promise I wouldn’t ask Dad or let Wayde ask him.”

“Well, if Steve felt your father wasn’t strong enough — and that’s just plain silly, because there’s nothing your father likes better than getting his teeth into a case, especially one like this that involves someone he knows and likes—” Ruth puzzled aloud, her smooth brow furrowed—”why didn’t Steve offer his services?”

A faint smile that was entirely mirthless touched Lynn’s mouth.

“He felt he couldn’t afford to get involved in a case that would make him unpopular with the townspeople,” she said gently.

Ruth caught her breath, and her eyes flew wide.

“Steve said that?” She obviously found it hard to believe.

Lynn nodded. “In so many words,” she answered quietly.

“Why, that sounds as if Steve believed Wayde was guilty,” Ruth protested.

“I got the impression that he did,” Lynn answered dryly.

“Well, of all things,” Ruth murmured, and then she looked up at Lynn and admitted frankly, “Somehow, I don’t feel I really know Steve as well as I thought I did.”

“Oh, he’s an ambitious, aggressive young man who’s obviously going places in law, and he has to be careful of involvements that might interfere with his popularity,” Lynn drawled.

“I suppose so,” Ruth said, still troubled.

“Well, let’s not worry about it now, Mother.” Lynn was happy in the knowledge that even this moment Chief Hudgins was probably getting a confession from Larry and that Wayde would be back soon. “Let’s just gloat joyously over the fact that Wayde has been proven innocent and that he’ll sleep in his own bed at Spook Hill tonight instead of in the county jail.”

She shivered and made herself smile.

“It just about killed me to think of him there, caged up—” She broke off and laughed unsteadily. “You’re not going to mind having him as a son-in-law, are you?”

Ruth said reluctantly, “Not if you’re sure he’s the one you want.”

“I couldn’t possibly be more certain about anything in the world,” Lynn said happily.

“Well, of course you won’t plan to be married for a long time.”

“Get that crazy idea out of your head this minute, Mother,” Lynn said firmly. “I’m going to marry him the very minute he’s ready for me. I’d be waiting for him at the county seat tonight, ready to rush right to the license bureau and the nearest Justice of the Peace, if I didn’t think it might seem a little unmaidenly of me.”

“Well, you’ll rush off to no Justice of the Peace, my girl!” Ruth was scandalized at the thought. “You’ll have a proper wedding, in church, with a group of bridesmaids and a white satin gown and orange blossoms. Don’t think you’re going to cheat me out of something I’ve wanted for you since the day you were born.”

“Oh, Mother—” It was a small wail from Lynn.

“Don’t ‘oh, Mother’ me, my girl,” Ruth said sternly. “There’ll be a long engagement.”

“There will not!”

“With time for a trousseau, and parties, and showers, all the fuss I’ve watched other mothers of daughters stage-manage!” Ruth insisted firmly. “Don’t think you’re going to short-change me out of that! We’ll announce the engagement, your father and I, but we’ll wait a few weeks until this ugly business has been forgotten.”

“You’re going to scare us into an elopement!” Lynn warned.

Ruth eyed her sternly.

“Speaking of unmaidenly behavior!” she scoffed. “Where’s the rush? If you two are in love with each other—”

“We are!”

“Then give yourselves time to get acquainted, something you haven’t had up to now,” Ruth insisted. “It hasn’t been more than a month since you were arrogantly certain that you hated the man!”

“I know,” Lynn admitted soberly. “It took you and Steve to point out how close love and hate were. I think Steve knew long before I did that I was in love with Wayde. Steve accused me of it on the way to the county seat the night Wayde was arrested.”

“So Steve’s fine Italian hand is showing up all over the place,” said Ruth, and there was a touch of grimness in her eyes. “Now I’m sure you will have to wait. You’re practically strangers.”

“I love him, Mother.”

“Oh, I know.” Ruth was growing a trifle impatient. “You love the man you think he is, but you don’t really know him well enough to be sure that he
is
that man. Give yourself a few weeks for a real courtship, to get to know each other. He may decide he doesn’t love you.”

“He doesn’t dare!” Lynn protested hotly, and colored beneath her mother’s glance. “Well, I mean — after all, he said right there in Sheriff Tait’s office—”

“Let’s wait until you get to know each other a bit better and give him a chance to say it in some more romantic spot,” Ruth counseled firmly.

“It seems an awful waste of time,” Lynn said rebelliously.

“Well, you can afford it,” Ruth pointed out reasonably. “You’re twenty-three; he’s probably twenty-eight or thirty. You can spare a few weeks, to be sure you don’t make a mess of your life. Now let’s not hear any more about it. I’ve got to get dinner started.”

Lynn watched her for a moment, and then she made a little gesture that acknowledged her defeat and said meekly, “Shall I set the table?”

Ruth glanced over her shoulder and smiled.

“Why, yes, dear, that would be nice,” she said placidly.

Lynn said quietly, “Sorry I blew up. We’ll wait, of course.”

“Of course you will,” said Ruth serenely, and they both laughed.

She knew, the moment Judge Carter stepped into the house, that all was well. He beamed happily at her and nodded.

“It’s all right, honey,” he answered her before she could put the question. “Chief Hudgins stopped by the office and asked me to go with him to see Larry. Said since I’d defended Larry in his previous scrapes, and since it was you that had found the evidence that seemed to indicate Larry had lied, he’d like to have me with him.”

Judge Carter sighed and rumpled his snowy hair with a tired hand.

“I confess I felt sorry for the boy,” he admitted, and went on before Lynn could speak, “At first he denied everything. Swore that it was as he had first said. But when Chief Hudgins showed him the gun, and that his fingerprints and no one else’s were on it, he broke down and told us the whole story. He stole the gun, of course, while the servants were having their lunch; and he shot himself accidentally. He was terrified that he would be sent to reform school for stealing the gun, and so he lied.”

“The filthy little creep!” Lynn flashed hotly.

“Now, Lynn,” her father protested gently, “he’s only a boy. Little more than a child, really.”

“But if Bert hadn’t been an eyewitness to the whole thing — if Larry had died—”

“I know. Wayde would probably have gone to the electric chair,” said Judge Carter solemnly, and Lynn shuddered. “But now that we know the truth, how it all happened — well, Wayde’s lawyers should be able to get him released in a matter of hours.”

He looked up at Lynn gravely.

“Chief Hudgins telephoned Sheriff Tait as soon as Larry’s confession was signed,” he went on.

“Then Wayde should be free by now.”

“There are a few legal technicalities to be disposed of first,” said Judge Carter. “Wayde’s attorneys, I’m sure, will know what to do. You don’t happen to know who his attorneys are, do you, Lynnie?”

Lynn looked straight across the room at Steve, and her chin went up a little.

“The only thing I know, Dad, is that
you
would have been his attorney if Steve hadn’t forbidden it,” she said grimly.

Judge Carter frowned at her, startled, and then turned to Steve.

“You didn’t feel I was capable of handling a case like this, Steve?” he asked.

“It wasn’t that at all, sir,” Steve said sharply, and his look at Lynn was inimical. “It was that I didn’t feel you were physically able to endure the ordeal.”

Judge Carter looked from him to Lynn and back at Steve.

“And may I ask you, Steve, just what gave you the right to that opinion?” he asked thinly.