The H. Bedford-Jones Pulp Fiction Megapack. H. Bedford-Jones
here.”
“Thanks,” I murmured, feeling pretty well dazed.
“I am going to Dawson’s farm for a short visit,” she went on. “If you care to see me there, I’ll be very glad to explain matters fully. I think the up-lake launch is about due.”
I did not know anything about the up-lake launch, but I took chances.
“No,” I said positively. “She ran on a mud bar this morning and is stuck with a broken propeller. If you want to get to Dawson’s, will you let me take you in my launch? There’s not another to be hired, I assure you. Besides, it will let us talk on the way.”
I have a suspicion that she knew that I was lying; but if so, she did not mind. At all events, she accepted my invitation. As she had only her suitcase, we were chugging away from Lakeport inside of ten minutes. She added to the mystery by stating that Dawson’s took boarders, and that, while she was totally unknown here, she had determined to pay a visit to the lake on business. I began to feel somewhat uncomfortable.
“There are several things to straighten out, Miss Balliol,” I observed. “First, your remarks about my honesty. Then, if you remember, when I told you about your brother, you exclaimed that ‘they’ had killed him—”
She whitened a little.
“Please!” She checked me swiftly. “Let me take things in order, Mr. Desmond. I should not have made that remark about your honesty; it required another apology from me. Now, let me get these things out.”
She opened her handbag and began to look over papers. Meantime, she went on to give me some idea of her brother’s past life, and of her own.
Balliol, senior, who had been a wealthy lawyer in Boston, had died suddenly, six years previously. He had left few resources except a family residence near Boston, and two small, undeveloped ranches here in Lake County. Martha Balliol had at once fitted herself for a position as stenographer, remaining at home with her mother. John Balliol, a boy nearly through Harvard, had come to California and had set to work developing the two ranches on Clear Lake.
He had worked like a Trojan, too. As the girl told me of what he had accomplished lone-handed, I felt a pang of pity for him. Two years before this present time, he had sold one of the ranches for a handsome sum. He had sent a large part of the money home to relieve conditions there and pay off the mortgage on the family home. Then, meaning to bring his mother and sister to Clear Lake, he had built his house on the twenty-acre ranch, and had built it well. The work had taken him nearly a year, for he had done most of it with his own hands.
During that time, however, some trouble had developed. To balance this, he had made money off his crops, and had ordered his Paragon car, specially built. What with one thing and another, he had spent every red cent that he could raise, being confident of the future.
“Then,” went on the girl, “the trouble increased. What it was, I don’t know; I can’t find out! He only wrote about it once, and then he sent this photograph. It explains itself, so far as I can discover. Jack must have made an enemy of this man, and took his picture while they were having an argument. That was like Jack—he had no lack of nerve.”
“Or of nerves either,” I added to myself, as I took the letter and picture which she handed me.
The picture was a kodak snapshot of a very angry young man shaking his fist at the camera. There was no doubt about his anger; a snarling, venomous rage was stamped all over him! As I recognized his face, however, an exclamation escaped me; for, beyond all question, it was the same swarthy young man who had tried to cut my tires at McGray’s Tavern.
“What’s the matter?” broke out Miss Balliol. “You know him?”
“I’ve seen him,” I commented. “Tell you about it in a minute.”
Beneath the picture was written: “John Talkso registering rage.”
Taking the letter, I read a marked paragraph. It dealt with the same John Talkso, a name whose very queerness made me wonder what nationality the young man could be. Balliol had not explained this, but had written:
Am having more trouble with the individual whose picture I enclose. However, I hope to obviate further trouble with him. The whole thing is so silly that one hesitates to write any explanation. Don’t worry about it.
That was finely indefinite, was it not? It was.
“About six months ago,” resumed Miss Balliol, “we got into terrible trouble, and I was afraid to write Jack about it, because we were trying so hard not to increase his worries. Mother was very ill and we had to mortgage the house again; then a private bank failed—a bank in which father had left us a block of stock. The stock had never been any good, and then on the failure of the bank we had to pay a tremendous assessment to secure the depositors—and that finished everything for us. Mother died suddenly. When it was all over, I wrote Jack what had happened. Then I went back to work.”
I did not hasten her recital, and she paused for a few moments. We were chugging merrily down the lake, and the heat of the sun was relieved by a cool breeze which brought stray locks of Martha Balliol’s hair about her face in distracting fashion.
“It was a hard blow to Jack, of course,” she went on. “Now, what has happened I don’t know and can’t discover, Mr. Desmond. He wired me a month ago to meet him in Los Angeles at once—he wrote little or nothing in the interim. I came to Los Angeles and he did not turn up; I could not get into touch with him at all. Then, one morning, he called me up on the telephone and told me to catch the night train to San Francisco, and to meet him at the station an hour before the train left.
“I felt that something terrible was happening, but he gave no explanation. When we met at the station, he was a nervous wreck, and he was frightfully mysterious about everything. He told me to go on to San Francisco and that I’d hear from him en route.”
“How did you recognize his car from the train?” I broke in. “You’d never seen it.”
“No, but he had sent us the colored picture when he had ordered it built, and he had sent photographs of it after he had received it—it’s such a distinctive car that no one could possibly mistake it!”
That was true enough, as I had discovered.
“Well, that night at the station,” she pursued, “Jack gave me an envelope and said to open it after the train had started; he made me promise him. Then he kissed me good-by and said not to worry, that he had fixed everything all right for me. That’s the last I saw of him, Mr. Desmond. Later—on the train—I opened his letter and found your check to him, with this note.”
She handed me a note in Balliol’s writing, which read as follows:
Dearest Sis:
The game’s up as far as I’m concerned; you’ll hear about it soon enough. They were too much for me at the ranch. They drove me out, to put it bluntly. If I hadn’t had too much cursed pride, I might have done otherwise; but I fought them, and now they’ll get me sure if I go back.
Besides this, I’ve got in bad with another deal. If I go through with it, then you’ll lose everything, and I can’t face it. I guess I’m pretty well broken down, sis. I’ve been a fool, that’s all. There’s only one way to secure to you what can be secured, and I’ve taken it. I’ve sold the ranch for ten thousand, which is far below its value, and enclose the check. Cash it immediately in San Francisco. Good-by, dear little sis, and make the best of it.
Jack
That was on the face of it a cowardly letter, considering that an hour later Balliol had killed himself; but I could not help remembering all that he must have endured and fought for in the past years.
“Still we haven’t solved the secret of the mysterious ‘they,’” I observed, “except that John Talkso, whoever he is, is concerned in it. This letter, too, speaks of another deal—vague and mysterious as ever. Miss Balliol, do you have any idea why your brother did what