In a Deadly Vein by Brett Halliday Read Free Book Online Page A

the barroom. Circled by a group of men and women spectators, a big, ruddy-faced man was pounding the mahogany and proclaiming loudly:
    “You bet I’m not taking it lying down. Not John Mattson.” His pudgy hand caressed the butt of a long-barreled, single-action .45 thrust into the waistband of his gray business suit. His voice was thick with liquor and rage; bloodshot eyes peered around defiantly at the circle of amused faces. He should have been a ludicrous spectacle of middle-aged drunkenness, but he wasn’t even slightly funny to Shayne, who stopped in the doorway while Fleming pushed his way forward.
    John Mattson was dangerously in earnest. Drunkenness removed the normal inhibitions that govern civilized man. He thumped an empty glass on the bar and straightened his bulky body, folded his arms across his chest in a posture of dignified solemnity, and delivered a speech which brought nods of approval from the crowd:
    “This is still a free country where a man can fight for his rights and his home. Trying to steal my wife, by God. Thinks he’s back in N’York where people trade wives like we trade horses out here. Sneaking behind my back and making up to her with his slick talk. That’s what he did. Where is he? That’s all I wanta know. Where is he?”
    He took a step forward, but swayed back against the bar. His right hand dropped to the butt of his frontier weapon again.
    “Somebody bring him here,” he shouted. “Tell him we still shoot coyotes when they sneak into our back yards.”
    Sheriff Fleming was efficiently working his way toward Mattson, moving slowly, his rugged face now retaining its good humor as he spoke quietly to open a passage through the circle. He stopped in front of the drunken man and laid a sinewy hand on his broad shoulder. In the silence his slow drawl was clearly heard throughout the barroom:
    “Better take a walk in the cold air with me, Mister. Seems sort of stuffy in here.”
    Mattson’s bloodshot eyes glowered at Fleming, then wavered away. Behind the sheriff’s drawl was the cold ring of authority, and Shayne began to understand why Gilpin County had remained crimeless with Sheriff Fleming in office.
    “Best to come on along with me,” Fleming urged. “Cold air is mighty fine medicine for what ails you.”
    Mattson squinted between puffy lids at the sheriff’s badge. He squared his shoulders and thrust out a blunt jaw and shouted, “I’m taking the law in m’own hands. I’ll handle things in my own way.”
    “Why, no. I reckon we can’t have anything like that. You’re disturbing the folks that came up here to have fun.” The sheriff’s big hand tightened on Mattson’s shoulder and drew him forward, though Mattson hung back like a balky mule.
    From his position of vantage on the threshold, Shayne’s attention was attracted by a gasp from a tall, willowy woman standing in the doorway leading to the lobby. Her brown eyes were riveted in terror upon the sheriff and his unwilling companion, and there was a shocked look of comprehension upon her white face. She was quite tall, sheathed in a trailing gown of ice-blue. Diamonds glittered on her fingers and pearls circled her thin neck. Shayne guessed she would be on the short side of forty.
    Shayne’s gaze moved to the right. Standing a few feet back of the woman, he saw Two-Deck Bryant’s saturnine features. He, too, watched the sheriff and Mattson with more than a normal spectator’s interest.
    A grin twitched Shayne’s wide mouth. Bryant was getting an eyeful of how the law worked Out West.
    Shayne turned his attention to the woman again. Some of the terror had gone from her eyes, leaving a sickly and desolated apprehension. Her thin lips were tight. She turned and went slowly into the hotel lobby.
    Shayne followed Fleming and Mattson outside. The sheriff suggested, persuasively, “Better give me your shooting iron until you cool off.”
    Mattson started to be damned if he would, but his voice trailed off to