Chapter FIVE: Colonel George Harbison

Terror-stricken as he was, Mr. Shrimplin recognized the man into whose arms he had fallen. There was no mistaking the nose, thin and aquiline, the bristling mustache and white imperial, the soft gray slouch hat, or the military cloak that half concealed the stalwart form of its wearer.

Colonel George Harbison, much astonished and in utter ignorance of the cause of Mr. Shrimplin's alarm, took that gentleman by the collar and deftly jerked him into an erect posture.

"My dear sir!" the colonel began in a tone of mild expostulation, evidently thinking he had a drunken man to deal with. "My dear sir, do be more careful--" then he recognized the lamplighter. "Well, upon my word, Shrimp, what's gone wrong with you?" he demanded, with military asperity.

"My God, Colonel, if he ain't lying there dead--" a shudder passed through the little man; he was well-nigh dumb in his terror. "And I stumbled right on to him there on the floor!" he cried with a gasp.

He collapsed again, and again the colonel, whose gloved hand still retained its hold on his collar, set him on his trembling legs with admirable expertness.

"I tell you he's dead!" cried Mr. Shrimplin, lost to everything but that one dreadful fact.

"Who's dead?" demanded the colonel. "Stand up, man, don't fall about like that or you may do yourself some injury!" for Mr. Shrimplin seemed about to collapse once more.

"Old man McBride, Colonel--if he ain't dead I wish I may never see death!"

"Dead!" cried the colonel. "Archibald McBride dead!" He released his hold on Mr. Shrimplin and took a step toward the door; Shrimplin, however, detained him with a shaking hand, though he was calmer now.

"Colonel, you'd better be careful, he's lying there in a pool of blood; some one's killed him for his money! How do we know the murderer ain't there!" This conjecture was made to the empty street, for Colonel Harbison had entered the store.

"Why does he want to leave me like that!" wailed Shrimplin, and his panic threatened a return.

He dragged himself to the door. Here he paused, since he could not bring himself to enter, for before his eyes was the ghastly vision of that old man huddled on the blood-stained floor. He heard the colonel's steps echo down the long room, and when their sound ceased he knew he was standing beside the dead man. After what seemed an age of waiting the steps sounded again, and a moment later the colonel's tall form filled the doorway.

"Andy!" said the colonel.

Mr. Shrimplin turned with a start. At his back within reach of his hand stood Andy Gilmore. He had been utterly unaware of the gambler's approach, but now conscious of it he dropped in a miserable heap on the door-sill, while the white and unfamiliar world reeled before his bleached blue eyes; it was the very drunkenness of fear.

"Howdy, Colonel," said the gambler, as he gave Harbison a half-military salute.

He admired the colonel, who had once threatened to horsewhip him if he ever permitted his nephew, Watt, to enter his rooms.

"Come here, Andy!" ordered the colonel briefly.

"God's sake, Colonel!" gasped the wretched little lamplighter, struggling to his feet, "don't leave me here--"

"What's wrong, Colonel?" asked Gilmore.

"Archibald McBride's been murdered!"

Mr. Gilmore took the butt of the half-smoked cigar from between his teeth, tossed it into the gutter, and pushing past Mr. Shrimplin entered the room.

Colonel Harbison, a step or two in advance of his companion, led the way to the rear of the store. The colonel paused, and Gilmore gained a place at his elbow.

"You are sure he's dead?" questioned the gambler.

Kneeling beside the crumpled figure Gilmore slipped his hand in between the body and the floor; his manner was cool and businesslike. After a moment he withdrew his hand and looked, up into the colonel's face.

"Well?" asked the colonel.

"Oh, he's dead, all right!" Gilmore glanced about him, and the colonel's eyes following, they both discovered that the door leading into the side yard was partly open.

"He went that way, eh, Colonel?"

"It's altogether likely," agreed the veteran.

"It's a nasty business!" said Gilmore reflectively.

"Shocking!" snapped the colonel.

"He took big chances," commented the gambler, "living the way he did." He spoke of the dead man.

"Poor old man!" said the colonel pityingly.

What had it all amounted to, those chances for the sake of gain, which Gilmore had in mind.

"He can't have been dead very long," said Gilmore. "Did _you_ find him, Colonel?" he asked as he stood erect.

"No, Shrimplin found him."

Again the two men looked about them. On the floor by the counter at their right was a heavy sledge. Gilmore called Harbison's attention to this.

"I guess the job was done with that," he said.

"Possibly," agreed Harbison.

Gilmore picked up the sledge and examined it narrowly.

"Yes, you can see, there is blood on it." He handed it to Harbison, who stepped under the nearest lamp with the clumsy weapon in his hand.

"You are right, Andy!" and he glanced at the rude instrument of death with a look of repugnance on his keen sensitive face, then he carefully, placed it under the wooden counter. "Horrible!" he muttered to himself.

"It was no joke for him!" said the gambler, catching the last word. "But some one was bound to try this dodge sooner or later. Why, as far back as I can remember, people said he kept his money hidden away at the bottom of nail kegs and under heaps of scrap-iron." He took a cigar from his pocket, bit off the end, and struck a match. "Well, I wouldn't want to be the other fellow, Colonel; I'd be in all kinds of a panic; it takes nerve for a job like this."

"It's a shocking circumstance," said the colonel.

"I wonder if it paid!" speculated the gambler. "And I wonder who'll get what he leaves. Has he any family or relatives?"

"No, not so far as any one knows. He came here many years ago, a close-mouthed Scotchman, who never had any intimates, never married, and never spoke of his private affairs."

There was a slight commotion at the door. They could hear Shrimplin's agitated voice, and a moment later two men, chance passers-by with whom he had been speaking, shook themselves free of the little lamplighter and entered the room. The new-comers nodded to the colonel and Gilmore as they paused to stare mutely at the body on the floor.

"He bled like a stuck pig!" said one of the men at last. He was a ragged slouching creature with a splotched and bloated face half hidden by a bristling red beard. He glanced at Gilmore for an uncertain instant out of a pair of small shifty eyes. "It's murder, ain't it, boss?" he added.

"No doubt about that, Joe!" rejoined the gambler.

"I suppose it was robbery?" said the other man, who had not spoken before.

"Very likely," answered the colonel. "We have not examined the place, however; we shall wait for the proper officials."

"Who do you want, Colonel?"

"Coroner Taylor, and I suppose the sheriff," replied Harbison.

The man nodded.

"All right, I'll bring them; and say, what about the prosecuting attorney?" as he turned to leave.

"Yes, bring Moxlow, too, if you can find him."

The man hurried from the room. Gilmore leaned against the counter and smoked imperturbably. Joe Montgomery, with his great slouching shoulders arched, and his grimy hands buried deep in his trousers pockets, stared at the dead man in stolid wonder. Colonel Harbison's glance sought the same object but with a sensitive shrinking as from an ugly brutal thing. A clock ticked loudly in the office; there was the occasional fall of cinders from the grate of the rusted stove that heated the place; these were sounds that neither Gilmore nor the colonel had heard before. Presently a lean black cat stole from the office and sprang upon the counter; it purred softly.

"Hello, puss!" said the gambler, putting out a hand. The cat stole closer. "I guess I'll have to take you home with me, eh? This ain't a place for unprotected females!" The cat crept back and forth under his caressing touch.

At the street-door Shrimplin appeared and disappeared, now his head was thrust into the room, and now his nose was flattened against the dingy show-windows; from neither point could he quite command the view he desired nor could he bring himself to enter the building; then he vanished entirely, but after a brief interval they heard his voice. He was evidently speaking with some one in the street. A little crowd was rapidly gathering about him, but it disintegrated almost immediately, his listeners abandoning him to hurry into the store.

"You must stand back, all of you!" said the colonel. "Unless you are very careful you may destroy important evidence!"

The crowd assembled itself silently for the most part; here and there a man removed his hat, or made some whispered comment, or asked some eager low-voiced question of Gilmore or the colonel. Men stood on boxes, on nail kegs, and on counters. Except for the little circle left about the dead man on the floor, every vantage point of observation was soon occupied. It was scarcely half an hour since Shrimplin had fallen speechless into Colonel Harbison's arms, yet fully two hundred men had gathered in that long room or were struggling about the door to gain admittance to it.

At a suggestion from Harbison, the gambler, followed by Joe, elbowed his way to the front door, which in spite of the protest of those outside, he closed and locked. A moment later, however, he opened it to admit Doctor Taylor, the coroner, and Conklin, the sheriff. The latter instantly set about clearing the room.

Gilmore and the colonel remained with the officials and during the succeeding ten minutes the gambler, who had kept his post at the door, opened, it to Moxlow, young Watt Harbison and two policemen.

As the coroner finished his examination of the body, the sound of wheels was heard in the Square and an undertaker's wagon drew up to the door. The murdered man was placed on a stretcher and covered with a black cloth, then four men raised the stretcher and for the last time the old merchant passed out under his creaking sign into the night.

"I've agreed to watch at the house, Andy," said Colonel Harbison. "I want you and Watt to come with me."

The gambler lighted a fresh cigar and the three men left the store.

On the Square groups of men discussed the murder. Though none was permitted to enter the store, the windows afforded occasional glimpses of the little group of officials within, until a policeman closed and fastened the heavy wooden shutters. Then the crowd slowly and reluctantly dispersed.

Meanwhile the town marshal, under cover of the excitement, had descended on the gas house where tramps congregated of winter nights for warmth and shelter. Here he found shivering over a can of beer, two homeless wretches, whom he arrested as suspicious characters. After this, official activity languished, for the official mind could think of nothing more to do.

With the scattering of the crowd on the Square, Shrimplin climbed into his cart and drove off home. The smother of wind-driven snow still enveloped the, town, the very air seemed charged with mystery and horror, and before the little lamplighter's eyes was ever the haunting vision of the murdered man.

He drove into the alley back of his house, unhitched Bill and led him into the barn. His torch made the gloom of the place more terrifying than utter darkness would have been. Suppose the murderer should be hiding there! Mr. Shrimplin's mind fastened on the hay-mow as the most likely place of concealment, and the cold sweat ran from him in icy streams; he could, almost see the murderer's evil eyes fixed upon him from the blackness above. But at last Bill was stripped of his harness, and the little lamplighter, escaping from the barn with its fancied terrors, hurried across his small back yard to his kitchen door.

"Well!" said Mrs. Shrimplin, as he entered the room. "I was beginning to wonder if you'd ever think it worth your while to come home!"

"What's the bell been ringing for?" asked Custer. Mrs. Shrimplin was seated by the table, which was littered with her sewing; Custer occupied his usual chair by the stove, and it was evident that they knew nothing of the tragedy in which Mr. Shrimplin had played so important, and as he now felt, so worthy a part.

"I suppose I've been out quite a time, and I may say I've seen times, too! I guess there ain't no one in the town fitter to say they seen times than just me!"

The light and comfort of his own pleasant kitchen had quite restored Mr. Shrimplin.

"I may say I seen times!" he repeated significantly. "There's something doing in this here old town after all! I take back a heap of the hard things I've said about it; a feller can scare up a little excitement if he knows where to look for it. I ain't bragging none, but I guess you'll hear my name mentioned--I guess you'll even see it in print in the newspapers!" He warmed his cold hands over the stove. "Throw in a little more coal, sonny; I'm half froze, but I guess that's the worst any one can say of me!"

"You make much of it, whatever it is," said Mrs. Shrimplin.

"Maybe I do and maybe I don't," equivocated Mr. Shrimplin genially.

"Maybe you're not above telling a body what kept you out half the night?" inquired his wife.

"If you done and seen what I've did and saw," replied Mr. Shrimplin impressively, "you'd look for a little respect in your own home."

"I'd be a heap quicker telling about it," said Mrs. Shrimplin.

Mr. Shrimplin turned to Custer.

"I guess, you're thinking it was a burglar; but, sonny, it wasn't no burglar--so you got another guess coming to you," he concluded benevolently.

"I know!" cried Custer. "Some one's been killed!"

"Exactly!" said Mr. Shrimplin with increasing benevolence. "Some one has been killed!"

"You done it!" cried Custer.

"I found the party," admitted Mr. Shrimplin with calm dignity.

"Oh!" But perhaps Custer's first emotion was on the whole one of disappointment.

"How you talk!" said Mrs. Shrimplin.

"I reckon I might say more, most any one would," retorted Mr. Shrimplin quietly. "It was old man McBride--someone's murdered him for his money; I never seen the town so on end over anything before, but whoever wants to be well posted's got to come to me for the particulars. I seen the old man before Colonel Harbison seen him, I seen him before Andy Gilmore seen him, I seen him before the coroner seen him, or the sheriff or _any one_ seen him! I was on the spot ahead of 'em all. If any one wants to know how he looked just after he was killed, they got to come to me to find out. Colonel Harbison can't tell 'em, and Andy Gilmore can't tell 'em; it's only me knows them particulars!"

The effect of this stirring declaration was quite all he had hoped for. Out of the tail of his eye he saw that Mrs. Shrimplin was, as she afterward freely confessed, taken aback. As for Custer, he had forgotten his disappointment that a death by violence had occurred for which his father was not directly responsible.

"Did you see the man that killed old Mr. McBride?" asked Custer, breaking the breathless spell that was upon him.

"No; if I'd been just about fifteen minutes sooner I'd have seen him; but I was just about that much too late, sonny. I guess he's a whole lot better off, though."

"What would you have done if you'd seen him?" Custer's voice sank to a whisper.

"Well, I don't pack a gun for nothing. If I'd seen him there, he'd had to go 'round to the jail with me. I guess I could have coaxed him there; I was ready for to offer extra inducements!"

"And does everybody know you seen old Mr. McBride the first of any?" asked Custer.

"I guess they do; I ain't afraid about that. Colonel Harbison's too much of a gentleman to claim any credit that ain't his; he'd be the first one to own up that he don't deserve no credit."

"What took you into McBride's store? You hadn't no errand there." Mrs. Shrimplin was a careful and acquisitive wife.

"I allow I made an errand there," said Mr. Shrimplin bridling. "I reckon many another man might have thought he hadn't no errand there either, but I feel different about them things. I was just turned into the Square when along comes young John North--"

"What was he doing there?" suddenly asked Mrs. Shrimplin.

"I expect he was attending strictly to his own business," retorted Mr. Shrimplin, offended by the utter irrelevancy of the question.

"Go on, pal" begged Custer.

He felt that his mother's interruptions were positively cruel, and--so like a woman!

"Me and young John North passed the time of day," continued Mr. Shrimplin, thus abjured, "and I started around the north side of the Square to light the lamp on old man McBride's own corner. If I'd knowed then--" he paused impressively, "if I'd just knowed then, that was my time! I could have laid hands on the murderer. He was there somewheres, most likely he was watching me; well, maybe it was all for the best, I don't know as a married man's got any right to take chances. Anyway, I got to within, well--I should say, thirty feet of that lamp-post when all of a sudden Bill began to act up. You never saw a horse act up like he done! He rose in his britching and then the other end of him come up and he acted like he wanted to set down on the singletree!"

"Why did he do that?" asked Custer.

"Well, I guess you've got some few things to learn, Custer;" said Mr. Shrimplin indulgently. "He smelt blood--that's what he smelt!"

"Oh!" gasped Custer.

"I've knowed it to happen before. It's instinct," explained Shrimplin. "'Singular,' says I, and out I jumps to have a look about. I walked to the lamp-post, and then I seen what I hadn't seen before, that old man McBride's store door was open, so I stepped on to the sidewalk intending to close it, but as I put my hand on the knob I seen where the snow had drifted into the room, so I knew the door must have been open some little time. That's mighty odd, I thinks, and then it sort of come over me the way Bill had acted, and I went along into the store in pretty considerable of a hurry."

"Were you afraid?" demanded Custer in an awe-struck whisper.

"I'll tell you the truth, Custer, I wasn't. I own I'd drawed my gun, wishing to be on the safe side. First thing I noticed was that the lamps hadn't been turned up, though they was all lit. I got back to the end of the counter when I came to a halt, for there in a heap on the floor was old man McBride, with his head mashed in where some one had hit him with a sledge. There was blood all over the floor, and it was a mighty sickenin' spectacle. I sort of looked around hoping I'd see the murderer, but he'd lit out, and then I went back to the front of the store, where I seen Colonel Harbison coming across the Square. I told him what I'd seen and he went inside to look; while he was looking, along come Andy Gilmore and I told him, too, and he went in. They knowed the murderer wasn't there, that I'd been in ahead of them. After, that the people seemed to come from every direction; then presently some one started to ring the town bell and that fetched more people, until the Square in front of the store was packed and jammed with 'em. Everybody' wanted to hear about it first-hand from me; they wanted the _full particulars_ from the only one who knowed 'em."

Mr. Shrimplin paused for breath. The recollection of his splendid publicity was dazzling. He imagined the morrow with its possibility of social triumph; he went as far as to feel that Mrs. Shrimplin now had a certain sneaking respect for him.

"Did you see tracks in the snow?" demanded Custer.

"No, I didn't see nothing," declared Mr. Shrimplin.

"You seen young John North."

It was Mrs. Shrimplin who spoke.

"Well, yes, I seen young John North--I said I seen him!"