Read Online The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume Six by Louis L’Amour - Free Book Online

You should still have a key.
    “Suppose, he asked me, that the dead man is not the insured man? Suppose the dead man was murdered and substituted, and then at the last minute the murderer remembered the key…perhaps his wife was away from home…then he would take that key from the ring, never suspecting it would be noticed.
    “So he began to investigate, the money had been paid, but that was not the end. Your wife had left town, several months, at least. But probably you didn’t trust her with all that money. She had said she was going to live with her sister…only she didn’t. He knew that within a few hours. Then where had she gone?
    “You see, Marmer? Bob Constant (I was beginning to admire my invention) was suspicious, so he started the wheels moving. All over the United States a description went out, a description of you and of your wife. New people in a community were quietly looked over, your relatives were checked. Your sister-in-law had been getting letters from your wife, and then they stopped. Your sister-in-law was worried.
    “More wheels started turning,” I said quietly, “they are looking for you now in a thousand cities. For over a year, we have known you were alive. For over two years evidence has been accumulating. They don’t tell me much about it. I’m only a small cog in a big wheel.”
    “You’re lying!” His voice was louder, there was an underlying strain there.
    “We dug up the body,” I continued quietly, “…doctors keep records of fractures, you know, and we wanted to check this body for a broken bone that had healed.
    “Did you ever watch a big police system work? It doesn’t look like much, and no particular individual seems to do very much, yet when all their efforts mesh on one case the results are prodigious. And you…you are on the wrong end of it.
    “No information is safe. Baggage men, hotel people, telephone operators, all are anxious to help the police if only to be known as cooperative in case they want to fix a parking ticket.”
    I was talking for my life, talking because I knew this man was willing to kill me, and that he could do it now and there would be small chance that I could protect myself in any way. Suppose I grabbed him suddenly, and throttled him? Suppose I killed him? I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t do it because I didn’t know if I could and because of the fear that he hadn’t been lying, that he had, in fact, set me up.
    Never had life been so beautiful as then! All the books I wanted to read, the food I wanted to taste, the hours I wanted to spend at many things, all of them seemed vastly greater and more beautiful than ever before.
    Fear…it was my only weapon…if I was lucky he might let me go or, more realistically, if I got away he might choose to go into hiding rather than pursue me. I also realized I might have another weapon…hope.
    “They can’t miss, Marmer, you’re not safe and you never have been. Did you ever see a man die in a gas chamber? I have. You hear that it is very quick and very easy. You can believe that if you like. And what is quick? The word is relative.
    “Did you ever think how that could be, Marmer? To live, even for an instant, without hope? But in those months on death row, waiting, there is no hope.”
    “Shut up.”
    He said it flatly, yet there was a ring of underlying terror in it, too. Who was to say what responsive chords I might have touched? “Have it your own way,” I said, then I moved to close the deal. “You can beat the rap if you’re smart.”
    “What?” He stared at me, his interest captured in spite of himself. “What do you mean?”
    “Look.” I was dry, patient. “Do you think that I want to see you dead? Come on, man, we’ve been friends! The insurance company could be your ally in this. Suppose you went to them now…Suppose you went up there and confessed, and then offered to return what money you have left? You needn’t even return it all.” I was only thinking of