Read Online Murder in Dogleg City by Ford Fargo - Free Book Online Page B

the
barbershop doorway. “I apologize for intruding into this—this
masculine sanctuary,” she said. “But practically the only other
place I can find you is in one of those foul saloons, and I refuse
to even darken the doorway of one of those dens of Satan. And it’s
not as though you ever actually show up at your office.”
    “ What can I do for you,
Mrs. Pettigrew?”
    She looked around, conspiratorially,
then spoke in a hushed tone.
    “ He’s at it again,
Marshal!”
    “ Who?”
    “ That livery man, that’s
who! Tolliver, or Torrance, or Tollison, or whatever he’s calling
himself.”
    “ Ah,” Sam said. “Yes, it
is hard to follow his name changes—I’ve come to just think of him
as ‘B. T.’ to simplify things in my own mind. I presume, then, that
our mighty stable-master is once more baring his hirsute torso,
before God and tax-paying citizens, in flagrant disregard of all
civilized rules of propriety?”
    “ Why—why yes, that’s
exactly what he’s doing.”
    “ He’s doing what ?” Hix
asked.
    “ Ben Tolliver is walking
around without his shirt on again,” Sam explained.
    “ Oh,” Hix said.
“Well—ain’t it mighty hot in there with them horses, though, it
bein’ August?”
    “ It is mighty hot in Hell,
Mister Hix,” Edith Pettigrew said. “Marshal, I demand you do
something. I am tired of consulting Sheriff Satterlee—he keeps
telling me it is not a county problem, it is a city
problem.”
    “ Does he, now,” Sam
said. Damn his eyes, I’ll get him for
this .
    “ What are you going to do
about it?”
    “ Madam, it is a shame you
weren’t here a few minutes earlier. Reverend Stone was in this very
chair—I think this sort of damnable, sinful behavior is more his
territory than mine.”
    She sniffed the air haughtily. “Sir, I
am a Methodist!”
    Sam leaned forward, studying the
woman’s face. Even from this distance he could tell that her eyes
were glazed. She was chasing the dragon, all right.
    “ Was his shirt all the way
off?” Sam asked.
    “ Of course!”
    “ The bastard!” Sam
said.
    “ Marshal!” she
gasped.
    “ Why, I bet he was
perspiring—so heavily that his body shimmered, and his trousers
dripped!”
    She fanned herself. “Oh
my!”
    “ And this took place in
his stable, am I correct?”
    “ Of course!”
    “ Then, dear lady, how
could you have known about it?”
    “ Because—because—oh!”
    Sam leaned forward. “Fear not, madam,”
he said. “I’ll take a hand in this, indeed I shall.”
    “ What will you
do?”
    “ I’ll shoot him if I have
to. But I think a stern talking to will suffice.”
    “ I—thank you,
Marshal.”
    “ No need to thank me, it
is my job. And in fact, you have stung my conscience, Mrs.
Pettigrew, by pointing out as you did how prodigal I have been in
my duties. As soon as I straighten this renegade wrangler out, I’ll
find something else productive to put my hand to—in fact, I might
just get ambitious and take actions to stamp out the wicked opium
trade that is going on in this city, under our very noses, and
expose the criminals who are encouraging those godless Celestials
by purchasing their vile wares. Thank you, madam, for inspiring
me.”
    “ I really must be going,
Marshal,” Edith Pettigrew said, and bustled away.
    “ That woman is cracked in
the head,” John Hix said.
    “ At the very
least.”
    “ Marshal—I shouldn’t be
spreading tales, but most ever’body knows she sends that poor
afflicted boy Dickie Dildine down to the Red Chamber to buy her
dope. Or, when he ain’t around, that one-armed drunk.”
    Sam nodded. “She hasn’t been pestering
either of them lately, that I can tell. She must have some new way
of procuring what she needs. And that’s good, in my opinion. She
has no business getting either of those poor souls mixed up in her
antics.”
    “ Are you really gonna
close Soo Chow down, like you told her?”
    “ Hell, no. There’s no law
against opium, any more than there is