Corkscrew and Other Stories by Dashiell Hammett Read Free Book Online Page A

then comes the doctor and Mr. Adderly, and I go out, and after the doctor looks at him and says he is dead, we carry him into Mr. Bardell’s place and put him on those tables.”
    That was all the Jew knew. I returned to the Border Palace. Dr. Haley—a fussy little man whose nervous fingers played with his lips—was there.
    The sound of the shot had awakened him, he said, but he had seen nothing beyond what the others had already told me. The bullet was a .38. Death had been instantaneous.
    So much for that.
    I sat on a corner of a pool table, facing Mark Nisbet. Feet shuffled on the floor behind me and I could feel tension making.
    â€œWhat can you tell me, Nisbet?” I asked.
    He didn’t look up from the floor. No muscle moved in his face except those that shaped his mouth to his words.
    â€œNothing that is likely to help,” he said, picking his words slowly and carefully. “You were in in the afternoon and saw Slim, Wheelan, Keefe and I playing. Well, the game went on like that. He won a lot of money—or he seemed to think it was a lot—as long as we played poker. But Keefe left before midnight, and Wheelan shortly after. Nobody else came in the game, so we were kind of short-handed for poker. We quit it and played some high-card. I cleaned Vogel—got his last nickel. It was about one o’clock when he left, say half an hour before he was shot.”
    â€œYou and Vogel get along pretty well?”
    The gambler’s eyes switched up to mine, turned to the floor again.
    â€œYou know better than that. You heard him riding me ragged. Well, he kept that up—maybe was a little rawer toward the last.”
    â€œAnd you let him ride?”
    â€œI did just that. I make my living out of cards, not out of picking fights.”
    â€œThere was no trouble over the table, then?”
    â€œI didn’t say that. There was trouble. He made a break for his gun after I cleaned him.”
    â€œAnd you?”
    â€œI shaded him on the draw—took his gun—unloaded it—gave it back to him—told him to beat it. He went.”
    â€œNo shooting in here?”
    â€œNot a shot.”
    â€œAnd you didn’t see him again until after he had been killed?”
    â€œThat’s right.”
    I got down from my perch on the table and walked over to Nisbet, holding out one hand.
    â€œLet me look at your gun.”
    He slid it swiftly out of his clothes—butt-first—into my hand. A .38 S. & W., loaded in all six chambers.
    â€œDon’t lose it,” I said as I handed it back to him, “I may want it later.”
    A roar from Peery turned me around. As I turned I let my hands go into my coat pockets to rest on the .32 toys.
    Peery’s right hand was near his neck, within striking distance of the gun I knew he had under his vest. Spread out behind him, his men were as ready for action as he. Their hands hovered close to the bulges that showed where their weapons were packed.
    â€œMaybe that’s a deputy sheriff’s idea of what had ought to be done,” Peery was bellowing, “but it ain’t mine! That skunk killed Slim. Slim went out of here toting too much money. That skunk shot him down without even giving him a chance to go for his iron, and took his dirty money back. If you think we’re going to stand for—”
    â€œMaybe somebody’s got some evidence I haven’t heard,” I cut in. “The way it stands, I haven’t got enough to convict Nisbet, and I don’t see any sense in arresting a man just because it looks as if he might have done a thing.”
    â€œEvidence be damned! Facts are facts, and you know this—”
    â€œThe first fact for you to study,” I interrupted him again, “is that I’m running this show—running it my own way. Got anything against that?”
    â€œPlenty!”
    A worn .45 appeared in his fist. Guns blossomed in the hands of the men