The Breaking Point Read online

  XV

  Louis Bassett had left for Norada the day after David's sudden illness,but ten days later found him only as far as Chicago, and laid up in hishotel with a sprained knee. It was not until the day Nina went back tothe little house in the Ridgely Road, having learned the first lesson ofmarried life, that men must not only be captured but also held, that hewas able to resume his journey.

  He had chafed wretchedly under the delay. It was true that nothing inthe way of a story had broken yet. The Tribune had carried a photographof the cabin where Clark had according to the Donaldson woman spent thewinter following the murder, and there were the usual reports that hehad been seen recently in spots as diverse as Seattle and New Orleans.But when the following Sunday brought nothing further he surmised thatthe pack, having lost the scent, had been called off.

  He confirmed this before starting West by visiting some of the officesof the leading papers and looking up old friends. The Clark story wasdead for the time. They had run a lot of pictures of him, however, andsome one might turn him up eventually, but a scent was pretty cold inten years. The place had changed, too. Oil had been discovered fiveyears ago, and the old settlers had, a good many of them, cashed in andmoved away. The town had grown like all oil towns.

  Bassett was fairly content. He took the night train out of Chicago andspent the next day crossing Nebraska, fertile, rich and interesting. Onthe afternoon of the second day he left the train and took a branchline toward the mountains and Norada, and from that time on he became anurbane, interested and generally cigar-smoking interrogation point.

  "Railroad been here long?" he asked the conductor.

  "Four years."

  "Norada must have been pretty isolated before that."

  "Thirty miles in a coach or a Ford car."

  "I was reading the other day," said Bassett, "about the Judson Clarkcase. Have a cigar? Got time to sit down?"

  "You a newspaper man?"

  "Oil well supplies," said Bassett easily. "Well, in this article itseemed some woman or other had made a confession. It sounded fishy tome."

  "Well, I'll tell you about that." The conductor sat down and bit off theend of his cigar. "I knew the Donaldsons well, and Maggie Donaldson wasan honest woman. But I'll tell you how I explain the thing. Donaldsondied, and that left her pretty much alone. The executors of the Clarkestate kept her on the ranch, but when the estate was settled threeyears ago she had to move. That broke her all up. She's always said hewasn't dead. She kept the house just as it was, and my wife says she hadhis clothes all ready and everything."

  "That rather sounds as though the story is true, doesn't it?"

  "Not necessarily. It's my idea she got from hoping to moping, so tospeak. She went in to town regular for letters for ten years, and thepostmaster says she never got any. She was hurt in front of the postoffice. The talk around here is that she's been off her head for thelast year or two."

  "But they found the cabin."

  "Sure they did," said the conductor equably. "The cabin was no secret.It was an old fire station before they put the new one on Goat Mountain.I spent a month in it myself, once, with a dude who wanted to takepictures of bear. We found a bear, but it charged the camera and I'd berunning yet if I hadn't come to civilization."

  When he had gone Bassett fell into deep thought. So Maggie Donaldsonhad gone to the post office for ten years. He tried to visualize thosefaithful, wearisome journeys, through spring mud and winter snow, alwaysfutile and always hopeful. He did not for a moment believe that she had"gone off her head." She had been faithful to the end, as some womenwere, and in the end, too, as had happened before, her faith had killedher.

  And again he wondered at the curious ability of some men to secureloyalty. They might go through life, tearing down ideals and destroyingillusions to the last, but always there was some faithful hand torebuild, some faithful soul to worship.

  He was somewhat daunted at the size and bustling activity of Norada.Its streets were paved and well-lighted, there were a park and a publiclibrary, and the clerk at the Commercial Hotel asked him if he wisheda private bath! But the development was helpful in one way. In theold Norada a newcomer might have been subjected to a friendly butinquisitive interest. In this grown-up and self-centered community a manmight come and go unnoticed.

  And he had other advantages. The pack, as he cynically thought of them,would have started at the Clark ranch and the cabin. He would get tothem, of course, but he meant to start on the outside of the circle andwork in.

  "Been here long?" he asked the clerk at the desk, after a leisurelymeal.

  The clerk grinned.

  "I came here two years ago. I never saw Jud Clark. To get to the Clarkplace take the road north out of the town and keep straight about eightmiles. The road's good now. You fellows have worn it smooth."

  "Must have written that down and learned it off," Bassett saidadmiringly. "What the devil's the Clark place? And why should I gothere? Unless," he added, "they serve a decent meal."

  "Sorry." The clerk looked at him sharply, was satisfied, and picked up apen. "You'll hear the story if you stay around here any time. Anything Ican do for you?"

  "Yes. Fire the cook," Bassett said, and moved away.

  He spent the evening in going over his notes and outlining a campaign,and the next day he stumbled on a bit of luck. His elderly chambermaidhad lived in and around the town for years.

  "Ever hear of any Livingstones in these parts?" he asked.

  "Why, yes. There used to be a Livingstone ranch at Dry River," she said,pausing with her carpet sweeper, and looking at him. "It wasn't much ofa place. Although you can't tell these days. I sold sixty acres eightyears ago for two thousand dollars, and the folks that bought it aregetting a thousand a day out of it."

  She sighed. She had touched the hem of fortune's garment and passed on;for some opportunity knocked but faintly, and for others it burst openthe door and forced its way in.

  "I'd be a millionaire now if I'd held on," she said somberly. That dayBassett engaged a car by the day, he to drive it himself and return itin good condition, the garage to furnish tires.

  "I'd just like to say one thing," the owner said, as he tried the gears."I don't know where you're going, and it's not exactly my business. Herein the oil country, where they're cutting each other's throats for newleases, we let a man alone. But if you've any idea of taking that car bythe back road to the old fire station where Jud Clark's supposed to havespent the winter, I'll just say this: we've had two stuck up there for aweek, and the only way I see to get them back is a cyclone."

  "I'm going to Dry River," Bassett said shortly.

  "Dry River's right, if you're looking for oil! Go easy on the brakes,old man. We need 'em in our business."

  Dry River was a small settlement away from the railroad. It consistedof two intersecting unpaved streets, a dozen or so houses, a closed andempty saloon and two general stores. He chose one at random and foundthat the old Livingstone place had been sold ten years ago, on the deathof its owner, Henry Livingstone.

  "His brother from the East inherited it," said the storekeeper. "He cameand sold out, lock, stock and barrel. Not that there was much. A fewcattle and horses, and the stuff in the ranch house, which wasn'tvaluable. There were a lot of books, and the brother gave them for alibrary, but we haven't any building. The railroad isn't built this faryet, and unless we get oil here it won't be."

  "The brother inherited it, eh? Do you know the brother's name?"

  "David, I think. He was a doctor back East somewhere."

  "Then this Henry Livingstone wasn't married? Or at least had nochildren?"

  "He wasn't married. He was a sort of hermit. He'd been dead two daysbefore any one knew it. My wife went out when they found him and got himready for the funeral. He was buried before the brother got here." Heglanced at Bassett shrewdly. "The place has been prospected for oil, andthere's a dry hole on the next ranch. I tell my wife nature's like therailroad. It quit before it got this far
."

  Bassett's last scruple had fled. The story was there, ready for thegathering. So ready, indeed, that he was almost suspicious of his luck.

  And that conviction, that things were coming too easy, persisted throughhis interview with the storekeeper's wife, in the small house behind thestore. She was a talkative woman, eager to discuss the one drama ina drab life, and she showed no curiosity as to the reason for hisquestion.

  "Henry Livingstone!" she said. "Well, I should say so. I went out rightaway when we got the word he was dead, and there I stayed until it wasall over. I guess I know as much about him as any one around here does,for I had to go over his papers to find out who his people were."

  The papers, it seemed, had not been very interesting; canceled checksand receipted bills, and a large bundle of letters, all of them from abrother named David and a sister who signed herself Lucy. There hadbeen a sealed one, too, addressed to David Livingstone, and to be openedafter his death. She had had her husband wire to "David" and he had comeout, too late for the funeral.

  "Do you remember when that was?"

  "Let me see. Henry Livingstone died about a month before the murder atthe Clark ranch. We date most things around here from that time."

  "How long did 'David' stay?" Bassett had tried to keep his tonecarefully conversational, but he saw that it was not necessary. She wasglad of a chance to talk.

  "Well, I'd say about three or four weeks. He hadn't seen his brother foryears, and I guess there was no love lost. He sold everything as quickas he could, and went back East." She glanced at the clock. "My husbandwill be in soon for dinner. I'd be glad to have you stay and take a mealwith us."

  The reporter thanked her and declined.

  "It's an interesting story," he said. "I didn't tell your husband, forI wasn't sure I was on the right trail. But the David and Lucy businesseliminates this man. There's a piece of property waiting in the Eastfor a Henry Livingstone who came to this state in the 80's, or for hisheirs. You can say positively that this man was not married?"

  "No. He didn't like women. Never had one on the place. Two ranch handsthat are still at the Wassons' and himself, that was all. The Wassonsare the folks who bought the ranch."

  No housekeeper then, and no son born out of wedlock, so far as anyevidence went. All that glib lying in the doctor's office, all thatapparent openness and frankness, gone by the board! The man in thecabin, reported by Maggie Donaldson, had been David Livingstone.Somehow, some way, he had got Judson Clark out of the country andspirited him East. Not that the how mattered just yet. The essentialfact was there, that David Livingstone had been in this part of thecountry at the time Maggie Donaldson had been nursing Judson Clark inthe mountains.

  Bassett sat back and chewed the end of his cigar thoughtfully. Thesheer boldness of the scheme which had saved Judson Clark compelled hisadmiration, but the failure to cover the trail, the ease with which hehad picked it up, made him suspicious.

  He rose and threw away his cigar.

  "You say this David went East, when he had sold out the place. Do youremember where he lived?"

  "Some town in eastern Pennsylvania. I've forgotten the name."

  "I've got to be sure I'm wrong, and then go ahead," he said, as he gothis hat. "I'll see those men at the ranch, I guess, and then be on myway. How far is it?"

  It was about ten miles, along a bad road which kept him too muchoccupied for any connected thought. But his sense of exultationpersisted. He had found Judson Clark.