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THE AFFAIR OF THE
DEAD STRANGER


BOOKS BY CLIFFORD KNIGHT
THE AFFAIR OF THE SCARLET CRAB
Winner of the $1000. Red Badge Mystery prize
THE AFFAIR OF THE HEAVENLY VOICE
THE AFFAIR OF THE GINGER LEI
THE AFFAIR AT PALM SPRINGS
THE AFFAIR OF THE BLACK SOMBRERO
THE AFFAIR ON THE PAINTED DESERT
THE AFFAIR OF THE CIRCUS QUEEN
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
THE AFFAIR OF THE CRIMSON GULL
THE AFFAIR OF THE SKIING CLOWN
THE AFFAIR OF THE LIMPING SAILOR
THE AFFAIR OF THE SPLINTERED HEART
THE AFFAIR OF THE JADE MONKEY
THE AFFAIR OF THE FAINTING BUTLER


7177118119171144444444444444444444444444
IR OF THE
HE AFFAIR OF
DEAD
STRANGER
by
CLIFFORD KNIGHT
DODD, MEAD & COMPANY
NEW YORK
1944





The incidents and the characters in this story are
entirely fictitious, and no reference is intended
to actual happenings or to any person whatever.





o 7.5.!! EI.
All that day in Taxco it was impossible to get the dead man
out of my mind. His face had been covered with a square of
dark cloth, and he had lain that morning on the narrow cob-
bled street with candles burning at head and feet. Buzzards
soared in the blue sky; round and round they wheeled like
somber monitors of death. A lean, dusty sow snuffed near by,
searching out grains of corn spilled on the uneven surface of
the street.
And all the while an awed group of humble Mexicans milled
slowly in the presence of death, stopping, uncovering, staring,
moving on.
Pedro now stood regarding the dead man thoughtfully. The
day before he had leaped upon the running board of the car
as we climbed with whining gears to the hotel, and announced
himself a guide in Taxco. His boyish face was solemn, his large
dark eyes were troubled. To my question he replied:
"No one knows his name, señor. He is a stranger.”
. “Mexican?"
“Of course."
"How did it happen?"
"It was in the night. They say a car on the Acapulco road
must have killed him.”
“But what will they do? His being a stranger"
“They will bury him, señor—this afternoon.”
A burro pack train clattered by over the cobbles, and I
turned up the street to the hotel. The way was steep and nar-
row. The words Mexican holiday kept saying themselves over


THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
after you wake up.” A very gracious, attractive fellow he was;
he laughed heartily when he said it.
Beastly way dreams have of slipping up on one! He'd slapped
me on the shoulder. I opened my eyes to find that the sun was
well down behind the mountain on which the hotel was perched,
and homing buzzards were alighting heavily in the leafless coral
trees whose strange blossoms glowed like rich red embers on the
darkening slopes below.
"You saw the funeral, didn't you, Professor?” a woman's voice
inquired.
“Yes. It was most interesting. Particularly the music. It was
beautifully done. There was a violin and a flute, a clarinet and
tuba. Two men and two women carried the coffin on their shoul-
ders. The mourners sang as the procession moved along. Their
voices were plaintive and reverent and very beautiful. They tell
me that the man was a stranger.”
I leaned forward to see who was speaking. He was a fellow
named Rogers. Huntoon Rogers. He had been in the same car
with me on the trip from Mexico City to the pyramids. He was
a professor of English in the university in California, and had
proved an interesting traveling companion. While touring in
Mexico, or, elsewhere for that matter, you keep running into
the same people; Professor Rogers had shown up in Taxco.
He was sitting on the stone railing of the sun terrace now,
talking to a small group of tourists. The Mexican sun had tanned
him. He was a large man. He wore no hat and his thinning blond
hair was brushed straight back over his well-rounded skull. His
mild blue eyes had a way of twinkling when he talked; he had
a strong nose and his ears stood out noticeably from his head.
"Hello, Wiley,” he said, observing that I was awake. “Have
a nap?"
"Yes, I did.”
“We were talking of the dead stranger and his funeral.”
"I know."


THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
Rogers later sat down to dinner with me on the terrace that
overlooked the town. Darkness had fallen, and the round moon
was rising. The soft-footed Indian girl with her black hair in
braids down her back, had removed the soup plates.
"I nearly starve waiting for dinner time here in Mexico."
Rogers smiled. “Dinner at a quarter to eight is cruelty to an
American stomach.”
"But you can't hurry the Mexican or make him change his
ways."
"I suppose not."
He buttered a piece of rich dark bread, his gaze shifting to the
tile roof tops of the town below us where moonlight was begin-
ning to settle.
“I'm going down to see a man tonight. Like to go along? You
might find him interesting.”
“Yes, of course."
"He's an American. Scion of an old and wealthy family. He
comes down here to Taxco occasionally, and stays for months
at a time.”
"I can't imagine anybody wanting to stay for more than
day or two in Taxco, interesting though it is.”
"Oh, he paints a little,” Rogers explained. “He's done some
etching too."
"Taxco would be more interesting to an etcher, I should say,
than to a painter.”
“I dare say you're right.”
Thoughts of the dead stranger intruded.
“I was wondering—” I began, then stopped, not a little dis-
mayed at what I had started to say.
"Yes?” A look of curiosity was in Rogers' eyes.
"Sorry," I said. “It was only a dream, really. You were talk-
ing about the funeral when I wakened out there on the sun ter-
race late this afternoon."
“Oh, the funeral. It was an interesting experience. The man


THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
was a stranger. And yet there was music, and mourners.”
“That's just the point; they said he was a stranger. Is any-
body ever a stranger? Someone knew him, of course. No one is
ever so devoid of human contacts that he is completely alone-
Pardon me, though.” I halted abruptly. “I'm just a little off the
beam, perhaps. What I had in mind to say was that I'm puzzled
about the man's identity."
“Did you know him?” Rogers' blue eyes were intent upon
mine.
"I don't know. That is, I dreamed out there on the terrace this
afternoon, that he and I had had a tequila cocktail together some-
where in a home where there was a bar. There was a red tile
floor and rattan furniture.”
I wanted to drop the matter now that I had broached it. But
Rogers' interest was aroused.
“Did you see the dead man's face?”.
"No. He was lying on a sort of low pallet, with a dark cloth
over his face. The head was turned slightly to the side. There
was something, though, about the head-the shape of it. And
the hair was very dark and slightly waved. That's what I can't
forget—that's what kteps knocking inside my head. That's the
part that isn't the dream.”
"And, therefore, you have a feeling that you knew him?"
“But he was a Mexican,” I countered.
"He wore shoes, though, instead of guarachas."
“I noticed that. These people who have gone barefooted all
their lives here in this rough country, or worn the light sandals,
have the most amazing feet.”
"Haven they, though?”
“But the point, Professor Rogers, is that I don't know any
Mexicans. I never drank a tequila cocktail with one in my life.”
“Odd, isn't it?"
"It could have been a fancied resemblance. After all there
aren't so many different types of head and hair. One not infre-


THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
quently mistakes strangers for his friends; or, notes astounding
likenesses."
“Does a name or the circumstance of some meeting back home
with a person resembling the dead stranger occur to you?"
“No. So what do I do?”
"I wouldn't do anything if I were in your situation. I would
forget it."
"Perhaps I should.”
The Indian girl placed the entrée on the table, and farther
down the terrace three mariachis began to sing. The voices of
the singers and the soft thrumming of their guitars; the moon-
light on the old tile roofs of the quaint town perched on the
mountain slopes below, the soft night air contrived to bring back
the mood of the Mexican holiday I had come so far to enjoy.
The grim dark scene of the dead stranger on the cobbled street
with candles burning at his head and feet was no longer in my
thoughts.


PROFESSOR HUNTOON Rogers and I set off down the hill from the
hotel, our path lighted by the moon. Neither of us spoke until
we reached the first turn in the street where the retaining wall
ended. Here a rubbish dump on the downward slope gave off a
faint disagreeable odor.
"I came by here early this morning,” said Rogers. "Imagine!
Searching through the rubbish were two buzzards, a thin, hungry
dog, an old sow and a man. All on this one small rubbish heap.”
“Nothing is wasted in Taxco apparently."
We continued along the cobbled street. From dimly lighted
houses came the occasional sharp tap of a hammer as some silver-
smith labored over a bit of jewelry for the tourist trade.
At the first fountain in the street, a dark figure detached it-
self from the shadows and fell into step with us. .
“Good evening, señores. I am Pedro.”
We greeted the boy. He spoke English well, having learned
it, he said, from the tourists.
“Señores,” he began after a short silence, “I have a piece of
silver."
"I am not interested in silver, Pedro," I answered.
“But this is different, señor. It is something I have not seen
before. It was not made in Taxco. It was not made in Iguala,
either, where they make the silver beads. I will show it to you.”
We halted in the rays of a dim light from an uncurtained win-
dow. Pedro put the piece of silver in my hand. Its design sug-
gested a sunburst and it was about the size of a half dollar. A
woman's pin, I thought. But the back of it was smooth; there


THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
was no means by which it could be fastened to a dress. It might
have been a pocket piece, for its surfaces were worn.
"No," I said.
“But I ask only two pesos, señor."
Rogers took it from me and turned it about in his large fingers.
"Where did you get it?”
The boy seemed disappointed. He was a most engaging youth.
His face fell when Rogers returned it to him.
"Señor," he said, addressing Rogers, “I am truthful. Was
given to me for a service I performed. Señor Velasco, the coffin
maker, only half an hour ago said: 'Pedro, I give you this, be-
cause I owe you something.' You see, señor," Pedro explained,
“when word came of the dead stranger lying on the Acapulco
road, I ran to the house of Señor Velasco to tell him.”
From my billfold I took out two pesos and gave them to the
boy and he thanked me with a polite bow.
“By any chance, Pedro,” asked Rogers, "did the coffin maker
say where the silver came from?"
“Yes, señor. He found it on the body of the dead stranger.”
We started to turn away. Pedro spoke.
"Could I. be of some more services, señores.?"
"No, thank you.”
“Good night, then.”
"Muy buenas noches, Pedro,” said Rogers.
Our footsteps echoed in the narrow street as we walked on-
ward.
"The dead stranger has a way of popping up in our path, hasn't
he, Wiley?"
Rogers' voice contained a note of grim humor, as if he real-
ized my predicament. We passed the place on the street where
that morning the body had lain, which was just before one
reached the station where the second class busses stopped for
passengers. Neither of us spoke of it, however.
In the small plaza before the cathedral a peanut vender with


THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
his little piles of peanuts spread out upon the ground still hoped
for customers; the open air bar of fresh fruit juices was doing
business, and from a bench under the huge trees came the sound
of a guitar and a voice singing one of Mexico's innumerable
songs about a rancho.
We kept to the near side of the plaza and went down the street
alongside the cathedral, whose high towers soared into the moon-
light.
“It's not far now, Wiley. Only a door or two. As I said earlier,
the man we're to see comes of an old and widely known family,
a name familiar in almost every household in America up until
this present generation. The name is Durkin-Felix Durkin. I
thought you'd be interested in meeting him. Here we are now."
He rapped on a door and we waited in the dark shadows in the
narrow street. There were voices and laughter from within. I
looked up at the soaring walls of the cathedral, marveling at
what silver had done for Taxco. Because he had found silver
here long years before and because he was grateful, one Jose de la
Borda had built this cathedral, paying for it from his full purse.
The door opened suddenly and light streamed out into the
dark street, bathing us in its rays.
"Mr. Durkin. I'm Huntoon Rogers,”
"Rogers? Hunt Rogers! Come in, come in, you master sleuth,
and welcome!”
I followed Rogers inside, wondering a bit at this strange greet-
ing. Durkin and Rogers were simultaneously patting each other
on the back, performing what the Mexicans call the brazos, in
their enthusiasm.
“This is Osborn Wiley, Mr. Durkin.” Rogers turned to me.
"I keep running across him down here in Mexico. He tells me
he writes things. But they sound headachy to me—in the field
of esthetics.”
"Welcome, Mr. Wiley. I won't hold that against you,” he said,
laughing heartily and shaking my hand. "The only charge I'd


10
THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
bring would be associating with this master mind, this nemesis
of the evil doer, this amateur criminologist, I hope you're not
in the same business as a side line-"
"Honestly," I said somewhat bewildered. “I'm only this mo-
ment learning with whom I've been associating. Is he?"
"Sure. The one and only Huntoon Rogers, who's never happy
unless he's hunting down a killer."
"Well," I said, “I've seen him off and on now for ten days,
and this is the first I've heard of his being the Huntoon Rogers.
I thought the name was familiar, but I just didn't place it—"
"Come in, both of you, and make yourselves at home. I want
you to meet a couple of lonesome Americans."
The sudden transition from dark narrow streets to the
brightly lighted room, the enthusiastic welcome on the thresh-
old had obscured the fact that two persons sat watching us.
“Miss Elsie Tatum,” our host said, turning to a woman sit-
ting comfortably in a chair.
Rogers shook hands with her, as did I. I had seen the woman
at the hotel earlier in the day. She occupied the room next
to mine.
"Elsie's my factotum, my secretary, who follows me to the
ends of the earth, if necessary, when I have to sign something.
She won't give me any peace and quiet. I try to hide from her,
so she won't know where to find me, but it's no good.”
Elsie Tatum laughed. Her blond hair was of a shade that
does not readily reveal the gray when it begins to creep in. She
was thin and had an air of resourcefulness.
“And here we have Benton Slater-Professor Rogers and Mr.
Wiley.” Felix Durkin turned to a man with a large gray head
who sat on the other side of the room. “You've heard of wast-
rels,” our host went on after we had shaken hands with Slater.
“He wastes talent and time—and good liquor, when, if he would
work at it, he could easily be our foremost sculptor.”
"Who's interested in sculpture?” inquired Slater. “Nobody'll


THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
11
buy it, nobody wants it, nobody's interested these days in sculp-
ture. It's the stepchild of the arts.”
His statement led to an argument, and I sat back with a
cocktail Felix Durkin poured for me. In the midst of the dis-
cussion, Elsie Tatum, who like me took no part in it, leaned
over to say:
“He's always at it; he loves the rough and tumble of an argu-
ment whether it's about anything important or not."
Felix Durkin was the dominant figure in the room; slight
of physique and quick in his movements, he seemed hardly
more than a youth. But the lined face, the thinning gray hair,
the frail white hands betrayed his age. I guessed it as some-
where in the late fifties. He was tenacious in argument to the
point of rudeness; he prodded at Benton Slater mercilessly but
the latter was good natured and seemed in a quiet way to stir
Felix Durkin to do his utmost.
The argument soon became tiresome, and I gave my atten-
tion to the room we were in. It was large and square with a
high ceiling; its rough walls were painted a dull wine color
and hung with several indifferent pictures done in oils. There
was a group of etchings in a corner of the room, but the light
was not good and I couldn't judge their quality. A small piano,
its rack covered with music, was against one wall. The room
suggested that its occupant's interests were entirely artistic.
Through an open doorway I could see farther into the house.
Beyond a dark hallway a narrow slit of a lighted room was
visible, and a woman moved about, and I smelled the odor
of coffee.
Suddenly the argument ended; it was like the abrupt ces-
sation of rain on the roof.
“You're hopeless, Slater. I give up. Maybe if you turned your
attention to sculpture, I'd lose you as a lawyer.” Durkin looked
at me. “Didn't I tell you that Slater's my lawyer? He came
down here with Elsie; they're conspiring to make me sign some-


12 . THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
thing that doesn't amount to a hoot. They could have waited
till I got home”
“That's just the point, Mr. Durkin,” said Slater. “There's
no knowing when you'll be home. You seem to have settled
down here in Taxco.”
“María!" Durkin shouted, without bothering to reply to
Slater. “Coffee, María! Coffee!”
“Sí, señor," a woman's voice floated to us from the interior
of the house.
"I've taught her how to make coffee,” said Durkin proudly.
"The untutored Mexican, you know, has a genius for ruin-
ing it."
"It's better than it used to be in Mexico," Rogers asserted.
“They're learning to make it the way we like it.”
A middle-aged Mexican woman came in with coffee and little
cakes and we settled down to less argumentative subjects. Felix
Durkin was an entertaining host, but back of his conversation
was the suggestion of a great disillusionment, of resentment, of
bitterness.
At one point he shook a warning finger at Slater.
"Don't get me started on my relatives," he commanded.
"Sorry."
A knock sounded at the door. Durkin set down his cup hast-
ily, and a little of the liquid splashed into the saucer.
"That's Dan!”
He jumped up and hurried to the door. But a man wearing
glasses stood outside. A woman was with him. They had mis-
taken Durkin's house for the house of a friend two doors down
the street. He closed the door and returned to his chair.
“Dan is your nephew?" inquired Rogers.
“Yes. Dan McBride. Of all my relatives Dan is the only
decent one. You know him, don't you, Hunt?”
“I've heard you speak of him; I haven't met him.”
"He's coming down from Los Angeles. Got his letter only


THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
13
yesterday. Nice boy; he knows his uncle is not a scoundrel and
a weakling. You see, Mr. Wiley,” he turned suddenly to me,
"my health has never been good. When I was young I had to
have special doctors and nurses. I had to go away for my
health. I wasn't allowed to enter the family business and learn
anything about it; they shunted me off; I must be protected,
sheltered, never permitted to test my strength lest something
awful happen to me. That was hammered into me from child-
hood.
"And, naturally, it did something to me, but it did much
more to them; they got to believing it. I'll admit I wasn't
strong; that physically I couldn't stand a great deal. That's
what I hold against life. It used to make me miserable. But
it hurt them worse than it did me in the long run. They thought
I didn't count. They wouldn't listen to me about family mat-
ters; my opinion was worthless. But I tied up the estate. I
wouldn't sign anything. I wouldn't let them liquidate. We were
at odds for twenty years. Incidentally, they're all poor now,
and I have all the money. I'm sorry. You're not interested in
my family history.”
“But-" I protested, feeling a slight embarrassment.
"Oh, no, you're not. There's no use boring you with the
Durkin family affairs. Slater over here, though, and Elsie
Tatum,” he waved a hand at the two_“I pay them to listen
to it. They know the story better than I do, if they've earned
their money, and I'm sure they have.” He turned to Rogers.
“They tell me there was a funeral in town today.”
“Yes. Some fellow killed on the highway,"
"You don't realize how meager, how stark, how hard life can
be until you've lived a while in Taxco, as I have. The dogs
are half starved; you never see a fat pig; overhead all day
the buzazrds fly. Yet here they make the silver ornaments you
buy in New York and Chicago and Los Angeles at fancy prices.
Go down to any of these shops and see how young the workers


THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
are; mere boys. Little kids seven and eight are starting out to
learn the business; all day they stand beside an older artisan
and with a light hammer tap the end of a tool as it is moved
about over the pattern. At home we'd put that sort of thing
on an electric motor. Who was the man who got killed, Hunt?"
"A stranger. They said no one knew his name.”
"Buried him, I suppose, as an unknown. You can disappear
off the face of the earth just like that in Mexico.”
"There was music and mourners,” I said.
“Yes, of course, there's that. But the folks at home, say, in
Xalitla or Chilpancingo, or Cuernavaca—if that's where he
came from—will they ever know? It's not likely. Identification
not established. Just an unknown. A stranger.”
"I don't like Mexico,” said Elsie Tatum. “For things like
that.”
"Well, Elsie-1-I guess you're entitled to your own opinion.
But that's why I like the country; you seem to get closer to the
fundamentals of life down here. We've got a lot of gadgets
in our lives up in the States that we don't need; we'd be hap-
pier without them.”
It was late when we broke up, and started toward the hotel
through the quiet dark streets. Both Elsie Tatum and Benton
Slater came along with us, walking a short distance behind.
"I thought you'd be interested in Felix Durkin,” said Rogers.
“I was; thank you for including me—".
"I wonder, though—” Rogers hesitated. “By any chance did
you ever happen to know Dan McBride—his nephew?"
"No."


ELSIE TATUM was sitting in a chair on the terrace just outside
her door next morning when I came out of my room. She was
gazing down the slope into the coral trees where several buz-
zards still lingered in their roost. The sun was well up, and its
warmth was beginning to permeate the early morning coolness.
A furious barking broke out in a small corral high on the
slope above the hotel, followed by the squeal of a pig. Roosters
were crowing close by as well as at a distance.
“Good morning, Miss Tatum.”
"Oh, good morning, Mr. Wiley. I didn't know you were
my neighbor. I've been sitting here watching the sunlight in
those red blossoms on the trees, and thinking-among other
things—that wherever you go in Mexico you seem to be in the
midst of rural sounds.”
She emphasized slightly the words “among other things.” A
burro pack train laden with huge bundles of straw rounded the
curve in the highway below the hotel.
“Yes, even in Mexico City," I replied. "It's odd to hear roost-
ers crowing above the noise of traffic in the heart of the business
district. You said 'among other things,'" I reminded her, curi-
ous as to what was in her thoughts.
“Buzzards and cemeteries,” she said, with a wave of a thin,
capable hand, which included the dark forms of the large birds
still in their roost, as well as the cemetery on its little hill well
over to the left.
"Bit gloomy for early morning thoughts.”
“I'm never cheerful before breakfast."
15


16
THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
"Hasn't the breakfast bell rung yet?”
"No." She got out a packet of cigarettes, then put them slowly
away, as if resolved not to smoke at this early hour. “I hope
Mr. Durkin didn't bore you last night.”
“On the contrary.”
“We get awfully fed up. I'm including Benton Slater. We've
lived, so to speak, in the midst of a family brawl for twenty
years. It was exhilarating at first, like fireworks, but-you know.
Probably you're saying to yourself, 'What a fine private secre-
tary she is, talking behind her employer's back—'"
“It hadn't occurred to me."
"It's because I feel I ought to apologize for him. He never
will. He's an exhibitionist, of course. Who wouldn't be with
that background; he thinks everybody is interested in his fam-
ily quarrels, because he believes the Durkin family is one of
the foremost families in America. Of course, in years gone,
every family almost in the land had some sort of Durkin gadget
in the household, and millions of us grew up with that word
Durkin staring us in the face at every turn. We couldn't help.
knowing it. But the real brains of the family, to my way of
thinking, died out a generation or so ago. And what there is
left is sinking into obscurity. Certainly, to hear him tell it,
they've mostly all fallen upon lean and hungry years, except
for him."
The breakfast bell rang in the patio. Elsie Tatum stirred.
"Shall we go up and eat?”
We had finished the papaya before we got back to our con-
versation.
"But where do the buzzards and the cemetery come in?” |
inquired cautiously, for I had only met Elsie Tatum the eve-
ning before and didn't know much about her.
"Oh, I was thinking of last night, and what was said about
the dead stranger, and how one can disappear in this country."
"One can disappear in the States, just as he can down here.”


THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
17
"I know. But somehow those things strike you differently
when you're in a foreign country. You fancy maybe it might
be you, and it's not your native soil. It's frightening. And,
naturally, buzzards are associated with thoughts of death, and
cemeteries are unpleasant places. I ran into that dead man in
the street yesterday morning. It was quite a shock. At home
we wouldn't lay out a corpse in the street. We'd at least put
a blanket over it, not just a little piece of cloth over the face.
I'll be glad when I get back to California.”
"I've a strange feeling that somewhere sometime I met and
talked with the dead stranger.” She looked at 'me oddly but
did not speak. I changed the subject. “Does Mr. Durkin live
in Los Angeles?”
“In Brentwood—not far from Santa Monica."
"I'm familiar with the locality. I live in Westwood. There
are only my sister and I left of the family. She couldn't come
with me.”
“Really? What are you doing in Mexico?”
There was a bluntness about Elsie Tatum that I found at-
tractive; her level gray eyes were keen; they seemed to search
out the hidden places in one's being.
"A little holiday. I've been working hard. I thought new
scenes would be relaxing."
“I wouldn't mind so much being down here in Mexico, if I
had come of my own free will. But when you've got a boss who
has only to crook his finger and those who serve him drop every-
thing to answer the summons—well. The whole thing could
have been attended to by mail. But, no, Benton Slater and I
both had to come down. Spend several hundred dollars when
a postage stamp would do. And the devil of it is,” she said,
tightening her jaw, and thumping softly on the edge of the table
with her fist, “every day so far he's said, 'Talk to me about it
tomorrow.'
“Felix Durkin grows more interesting.”


18
THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
"To you, perhaps; but to me he's a chronic pain in the neck.
Sorry,” she said apologetically. "I guess I've caught it from
the boss—blabbing about my personal affairs to a perfect
stranger. Sorry—"
“I'm not a perfect stranger. I'm not only a fellow American,
but at home I'm practically a neighbor."
"Oh—that makes a difference.”
"Who's this Dan McBride they mentioned last night? I
thought Mr. Durkin was upset when it turned out that it wasn't
Dan at the door."
She gave me an odd look. "A nephew,” she answered simply
after a moment. “He's all right."
"You're acquainted with him, then?"
"Oh, yes.”
There was something in her gray eyes that betrayed a strange
sort of anxiety.
“What does he look like?”
"He's young-about thirty; quite dark of complexion. Wears
glasses. He's been very atKletic, but is beginning to let his golf
and tennis go ".
“Look anything like a Mexican?"
"He might pass for Mexican, just as a lot of these blond
Mexicans down here could pass for Americans.”
Where this conversation might have led, I've no knowing.
For at this moment Huntoon Rogers came out on the terrace
where we sat.
"Good-by," he said, holding out his large hand to me. “Good-
by, Wiley. Hope to see you again somewhere sometime. Cer-
tainly at home when we get back, I'm going to look you up."
"Are you leaving Taxco?"
"Good-by, Miss Tatum take good care of Mr. Durkin. I like
to argue with him.”
“Off so soon?” Miss Tatum said, shaking hands.
"A car is waiting to take me to Acapulco. I won't stop off


20
THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
in tiny patios, parrots sqawking from cages on high balconies,
brown-faced children hopeful of coins calling out shyly to me
“ 'Allo-quinto”—this was the Taxco I found that morning
above the cathedral.
Backed into a shady corner where the ascending street turned
and widened, I suddenly ran across a man sitting on a small
camp stool before an easel. He had a smear of color on his
palette which he was thoughtfully regarding, stirring it with a
brush. I would have passed him by without speaking, if he
hadn't looked up at the moment and said,
"Hello, Wiley."
"Why, good morning, Mr. Durkin. I'll swear I didn't recog-
nize you. The sun was in my eyes.”
“Come and sit down.”
He indicated a projection of the adobe wall which afforded
a fairly comfortable seat, and I walked over to it. The climb
had been stiff, and rest, therefore, was welcome. Durkin for
some moments was engaged in testing the color on his palette,
while I looked over his shoulder. He had a small sketching board
in the raised lid of his paint box which was affixed to legs to
form an easel. From where we sat the view was down over the
tiled roofs on the slope below, to the cathedral, the tall spires
of which soared like shafts of silver into the morning sky. It
was an interesting view to put on canvas.
"You know,” said Durkin, as if reading my thoughts, “no-
body has done this—at least I haven't seen it, if they have.
Painters, particularly water colorists, come down here and paint
a pretty picture. You'll notice the old tiles on those roofs are
almost black, and yet those birds will paint 'em as though they
were fresh from the tile factory. They know better. I don't
know why they do it, though.”
"In the few paintings I've seen around here of Taxco, the
colors are all wrong."
“That's it. And you're not a painter, are you?”


THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
23
the coffin maker had given it to him. It was found on the body
of the dead stranger they buried yesterday afternoon."
Durkin handed it back to me. His fingers were cold as they
touched my palm. He looked off upon the tiled roofs below.
Thoughtfully he dipped his brush into a small bottle of kero-
sene in his paint box, and wiped it clean on the rag. He fitted
the palette into the paint box, and shut down the lid and locked
it. He began to close the collapsible legs.
"Quitting?" I inquired in slight astonishment.
"I'm expecting my nephew. There's a bus from Mexico
City,” he looked at the watch on his wrist—“in about fifteen
or twenty minutes."


It was after six o'clock that day when we left Taxco, and the
sun was getting far down in the western sky. Earlier I had
asked for transportation at the hotel desk, and the youthful
manager at a few minutes to six had come hunting for me on a
shady terrace. An empty car had arrived from Acapulco going
to Mexico City, and was waiting in the patio. I paid my bill,
closed my luggage and was getting into the car when Elsie
Tatum ran out from the lounge.
"Is this car going to Mexico City?" she demanded breath-
lessly.
“Yes, señorita," said the manager who was standing by talk-
ing with the driver.
“Do you mind? Is it a private car? Do you mind sharing it?"
"Not at all,” I said. “I'd be glad of company."
"It won't take us ten minutes. Mr. Slater is going too."
The driver eased the car down the steep streets and around
narrow turns and out upon the highway before anything was
said. We had settled in the car for the long ride when Elsie
Tatum broke silence.
"Well, that's that!” She spoke with blunt emphasis.
"You're getting away earlier then you thought possible this
morning," I remarked.
“That's what a whim will do for you,” explained Slater. “Be-
cause his nephew failed to arrive on the bus, Mr. Durkin de-
cided to get down to business."
"I don't see the connection, Bent."
"There isn't any, Elsie. But it must have been a whim; that's
24


THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
25
.
the way Durkin does business—when he feels in the mood.
Imagine how much would get done in the business world if
we all waited for the mood to strike us!” Slater's tone was
scornful.
"I understand, though, that he can afford it.”
“Yes, he can afford it, Mr. Wiley."
“Don't you think, Bent, that the boss has been more so
lately?"
“More so, Elsie?"
"Yes—crazier, or more whimsical, or more moody—whatever
it is that makes him like he is.”
“I think so; all his queer traits seem accentuated these last
few years.”
Slater picked up a small traveling case from the floor and
opened it on his lap. He searched among its contents for a mo-
ment then closed the case with an exclamation of annoyance.
“Forget something?” Elsie Tatum asked.
“Yes, I knew I would. A bottle of stomach bitters. I remember
now I left it in the bathroom.” He dropped the case on the
floor.
“I wouldn't worry," I said. "You probably can get it at San-
born's in Mexico City.”
“Thanks. I'll try there."
Dusk was settling over the broad sweep of landscape as the
last sharp curve of the winding mountain road receded swiftly
behind us. An occasional adobe house, a weary ox team at the
end of a long day's plowing, cast an air of loneliness over the
land. The car swept steadily northward over the hard surface
of the highway. Miles slipped by before anything more was
said, then I remarked:
“The nephew seems to be an elusive sort."
“Dan McBride?" Slater spoke. “Yes. Mr. Durkin had been
expecting him for several days."
"Does McBride live in California?"


26 : THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
“Yes. At the Durkin home in Brentwood. His father and
mother are dead. His sister Marian-married to Doctor Ful-
bright-lives not far from Durkin's place.”
We approached Cuernavaca in the early darkness, and droned
up the long, dimly-lighted street without stopping. Beyond the
town we began to climb toward the high rim of mountains
which encloses the Valley of Mexico. The full moon came up;
it seemed to take on life and move about in the sky as the
car climbed steadily up the winding road on the tree-grown
mountain slopes. At last we tipped over the valley's rim and
the glow of myriad lights in the capital city was spread out
on the far horizon below us.
"You know," said Elsie Tatum, “I intended to buy some
silver in Taxco for my mother; and I put it off, then when the
rush came to get away, there wasn't time.”
"You can buy it in Mexico City," suggested Slater. “I know
several good places.”
"I think I'll do that. I think I'll not go back to California
right away. I'll take a week off, now that I'm down here."
“Why not? Mr. Durkin urged you to."
“Yes, I know. I intend to stop off at Guadalajara and see
my brother," Elsie Tatum added. “I haven't seen him for
several years. He's in business there,” she said as if for my
benefit. “Are you going home at once, Mr. Wiley?"
"No," I answered. “Not for a week, perhaps."
"Did you buy any silver in Taxco?" asked Elsie Tatum
of me.
"Well—no. My sister asked me not to buy any. Oh, I did
buy a sort of pocket piece from Pedro. Not because I wanted
it, but the boy seemed disappointed when I first said no. Then,
after it was mine, he told me it came from the coffin maker,
who had got it off the body of the dead stranger.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Elsie Tatum. “What a gruesome souvenir!"
I laughed. “Not at all. I don't feel that way. I was talking


THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
with Mr. Durkin this morning while he was painting. And he
happened to see my souvenir. Rather odd reaction, I thought,
for while at the time he seemed set for a full morning at his
easel, he promptly quit work, and said he was expecting his
nephew on the next bus.”
A queer feeling of tension developed suddenly in the car; I
could sense it. For a while no one spoke, then Slater remarked
very casually: “Typical Durkin.”
We drew up in front of their hotel on the Avenue de la Re-
forma and said good-by, and then I was driven to my hotel
downtown near the Zócalo. They had been interesting acquaint-
ances; I had had a glimpse into the life of Felix Durkin; I
had seen Taxco; I had met and parted a second or third time
with Huntoon Rogers, but the thing that remained in my con-
sciousness and kept returning even after I had got my mail
at the desk and gone up to my room, was the memory of the
dead stranger lying in a street in Taxco, with flame-blown can-
dles burning at his head and feet. And a silent, milling crowd
of Mexicans passing, uncovering, and crossing themselves.
A week later I sat in the club car of the long train watching
the lights of the Mexican capital fade in the darkness. There
was only one other American besides myself among the many
passengers in the car, and he was talking with a Mexican at the
far end of the section. So I fell to thinking over my Mexican
holiday. There had been the warm sun of February, and new
scenes, and train and hotel acquaintances, and Felix Durkin in
Taxco. It had been a rest for me. But of all the things I had
encountered below the border the one still most vivid was the
scene in Taxco where the dead stranger lay on the cobbled
street.
There had been several odd circumstances in connection with
the incident; there had been ideas vaguely hinted at; conclu-
sions not drawn; insinuations that left disturbing impressions


THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
"29
tourist agencies, they were competent and responsible young
Mexicans.
I wished that Huntoon Rogers were with me to thresh the
thing out. This was his sort of problem. I discovered that I
wasn't getting anywhere; there wasn't any way now that I
could prove the suspicion that the dead stranger was Dan
McBride. It was one of those things that probably would al-
ways remain unsolved for me, an eternal mystery, something
that I would ponder in years to come. For I was heading home
from Mexico, and the chance acquaintances in that brief period
in Taxco probably would never cross my path again.
The hour grew late as the train bored steadily onward in
the darkness. One by one the people in the club car withdrew.
For a time there was much activity outside on the observation
platform where the brakeman was engaged in tossing out red
fusees. We stopped and finally a train pulled by us, and we backed
up and then started on once more. We were losing time already,
which was customary on Mexican railroads I had discovered. I
wondered how late we would be into Nogales more than fifteen
hundred miles to the north.
The other American in the car finally lost his conversational
companion, and sat idly smoking a cigarette and drinking a
bottle of beer. He was young, rather dark of complexion and
wore glasses. He could have passed for a Mexican, so far as
appearances went; as to his Spanish, I didn't know, of course,
although he appeared to carry on a fluent conversation with
his neighbor.
He suddenly looked at me, as if discovering for the first time
that I was on board the train. Then he promptly picked up his
glass and came and sat in the vacant chair beside me.
“Won't you have a glass of beer with me? I'll ring—".
"No, don't,” I said as he leaned toward the push button. "I
don't care for it this late."
“Going far?”


THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
31
plained. “I met your uncle in Taxco. Your name was men-
tioned. He was expecting you."
"I got there finally. A little late. That is, he misunderstood
my letter. I stopped over a couple of days in Mexico City be-
fore going down to Taxco. He thought I was coming straight
through."
"I see. Interesting man, your uncle.”
“Yes. He's tops." His dark face had lighted up at mention
of Felix Durkin, and he spoke with enthusiastic approval.
“Most people think he's queer, or even nuts, but he should
worry about that."
"You didn't stay long in Mexico, then.”
“Uncle Felix decided all of a sudden to go home. He's up in.
the next car.”


WE WERE late into Guadalajara next morning, and there was
only time for a short stroll in the vicinity of the station. I was
sorry that I was not stopping over when I heard the bells in the
cathedral ringing, and saw the long rank of horse-drawn cabs
lined up near the station.
As I climbed back upon the train I discovered that a woman
on the steps ahead of me, following her bags into the car, was
Elsie Tatum.
“Hello,” she responded heartily when I spoke. "Nice to see
you again. Going through?"
“Yes."
“So am I."
It turned out she had the lower berth across the aisle from
mine. After Guadalajara was left behind and we were creeping
up the long heavy grade northwest of the city, she put away a
letter she had been reading.
“Did you see your brother in Guadalajara?" I inquired.
“I had a nice visit with him.”
"By the way, did you know that Mr. Durkin is on the train?"
She was astonished. “No."
"I haven't seen him yet. But his nephew, Dan McBride, said
that he was.”
"Dan! Is Dan on the train?” This fact only added to her aston-
ishment. Her gray eyes searched my face. “Dan—then he must
have got to Taxco finally.”
"Yes. A misunderstanding,” he said. "He'd stopped off in
Mexico City. Mr. Durkin, I inferred, took a sudden notion to
32


THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER -
33
return to California.”
“Oh!”
"What became of Mr. Slater?"
"Slater? I haven't seen him since that night we came up from
Taxco, the three of us. You see, I left the next day for Guadala-
jara. I talked with him on the telephone. He said he was staying
only a day or two in Mexico City, then going on, perhaps as far
as Mazatlán for a few days, and then home.”
We visited for a while, and then I went back into the observa-
tion car where I spent the afternoon, my time divided between
a book and the rugged scenery visible through the car windows,
as the train like a writhing snake wound through the barrancas.
It was with a feeling of relief that evening, shortly after dark,
when the train stopped at Tepic and I got out to stretch my legs.
We were down out of the high altitudes where I had been for
nearly a month.
I strolled up the station platform in the darkness. Tables
loaded with food, and lighted by small smoky torches had been
set out of doors for the coach passengers, and hungry travelers
were crowding about them. One could not see beyond the lighted
railway station, but there was the feeling that farther out in the
soft darkness, there ebbed and flowed the life of an old town.
“They say this town of Tepic is Old Mexico. Untouched as
yet.”
I looked about to see who had spoken, and found Elsie Tatum
at my elbow.
“I'm sorry I'm not stopping over.”
We walked as far as the engine, then turned back. The soldier
guards, armed with rifles, who rode the train, were standing idly
on the platform; venders were crowding about under the coach
windows, selling edibles to those who had not got out to patronize
the dinner tables on the platform. Tortillas, fruit, short lengths
of sugar cane were handed up to be seized by reaching arms.
"By the way,” Miss Tatum inquired somewhat guardedly as.


THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
35
would they be down here for?”.
“I'm sure I don't know, Mr. Durkin.”
“No, of course you wouldn't. Nice looking people—make a
good appearance—but-you wouldn't know any of them by sight
-well—"
His conversation was like that for a while, then he seemed to
get hold of himself. He began to talk about the picture he was
going to paint when he got home; he had finished the color notes
he had been making that morning when I found him sketching,
and as soon as he got back to Brentwood he'd go right to work
on the painting itself. I left him after half an hour or so.
My berth was made up when I came out of the drawing room,
and since I was tired and hadn't slept well the night before, I de-
cided to go to bed. I dropped to sleep thinking of Felix Durkin's
strange behavior, and did not waken until nearly morning. There
were faint traces of gray in the eastern sky when I raised the
window shade. I got up and dressed, finishing just as we came to
a stop. One whiff of the air as I went down the Pullman steps,
and I realized that we were at Mazatlán, for the smell of the sea
was strong. There was a light overcast, and the air was cool; it
had the feel of the tropics in it.
A few dim electric lights pitted the darkness; nothing could
be seen of the town. Dawn was coming, of course, for the sky was
growing lighter. I walked forward. An ambulance was drawing
up near the Pullmans. I walked toward the engine. Only a few
fruit venders were astir about the train; the bored soldier guard
stood near the baggage cars. The activity about the train sud-
denly died out, and I hurried back toward the rear of the train.
The ambulance was driving away. As I climbed aboard I asked
the porter when the dining car would be open, and he said it
would open in a few minutes. So I went forward, for I was
hungry.
A brilliant sunrise developed in the light clouds as we pulled
away from Mazatlán, and I stared out of the window as I waited


36
THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
im
"
for the waiter to bring my breakfast.
“May I sit down with you, Mr. Wiley?".
I looked up at the tall figure of Professor Huntoon Rogers.
A broad smile was on his face, and he held out a large hand to me.
For a moment I didn't recognize him, having thought not to see
him again.
“Why, hello, Professor!”
“Nice to see you once more, Wiley."
“Sit down and join me. And I'll tell you the news.”
"News?"
“Mr. Durkin, and Miss Tatum, and Dan McBride, the nephew,
are on board.”
"You don't mean it! Dan McBride—that's right, Mr. Durkin
was expecting him."
His reaction was disappointing, for from his tone he had not
put the importance upon Dan McBride that I had; apparently
there had been no connection in his mind between the nephew
and the dead stranger.
"You didn't happen to see Benton Slater in Mazatlán? He was
said to have gone there.”
“I have distressing news of him. He's on the train now; but
they had to bring him to the station in an ambulance.”
"Why? What happened? Anything serious?"
"It might have been. He was struck by a stray bullet night be-
fore last on the street. There was some shooting. There's a carni-
val going on and things got pretty rough toward midnight. He
was unfortunate enough to be outside the hotel when it started
and the lead began to fly."
“Not seriously injured, I hope.”
"Bullet went through the flesh of his leg near the hip, so Doctor
Fulbright tells me. He's got him patched up and says he'll be all
right until he gets to Tucson. Slater's better off traveling, he says,
than staying in Mazatlán. He was rather shaken up by his ex-
perience, and his mental attitude improved at once when he heard


THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
37
that he could go home. Doctor Fulbright and his wife are on the
train.”
"I'm sorry to hear of his bad luck.”
"Oh, it'll turn out all right.” Rogers attacked his plate of ham
and eggs with enthusiasm. “There are four in the Fulbright party
—the Fulbrights and the Pettybones. They've had enough of
Mexican carnivals. And, besides, the marlin aren't running. They
came down to fish. Slater and they are former friends, or some-
thing—anyhow, Slater had joined their party.”
I waited until he had finished and then we went back into the
Pullmans. Across the aisle from my berth and one section for-
ward, Benton Slater had been put to bed in the lower. We stopped
to speak to him, for he seemed to be resting comfortably and in
a mood to talk.
“I'm sorry for what has happened,” I said, as we shook hands,
“but I congratulate you on your escape." :
“I guess I was lucky, Wiley. But, I'm telling everybody
you'll not get me into Mexico again soon. I'll not make another
trip down here.”
We did not stay long. Doctor Melvin Fulbright came up as
Rogers and I turned away, and Rogers introduced us. He was a
short, gray man in his early fifties, but full of vitality; his brown
eyes were quick to appraise and his handshake was hard. We left
Fulbright with his patient, and made our way back to the ob-
servation.
It is a long pull by rail north from Mazatlán, with little to see
in a landscape overgrown with tropical vegetation. Elsie Tatum
was in the observation end, Dan McBride was outside on the
platform talking with three young Mexican girls who had got
on the train at Guadalajara. I hadn't seen Miss Tatum since the
night before when she had asked me to look in upon Durkin. She
began by commenting upon Benton Slater's bad luck.
"It would happen to him," she said. “Mr. Durkin knows about
it already.” She looked at me. "If you found him as nervous as


38
THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
a cat on a hot stove, you ought to see him now. Blames Fulbright
for it. Imagine that!”
“What's Doctor Fulbright got to do with it?” Rogers asked.
“The doctor married one of Mr. Durkin's nieces—Marian;
much younger than the doctor."
“And he doesn't like the niece?"
"Neither the niece nor the doctor, especially the doctor, to hear
him rave,” she said bluntly.
"Childish.”
"Of course. But it's Felix Durkin."
The long day dragged by. It began to rain toward evening; the
train had lost a couple of hours. On several occasions we stood
for no conceivable reason for long periods of time at dismal, rain-
soaked little Mexican towns. Benton Slater's berth was the one
spot of lively interest in the car. Many of the passengers, Mexi-
can and American alike, stopped to have a word with him, to ask
if they might do something for, or bring him a drink of water
from the cooler. Slater seemed to enjoy it. Doctor Fulbright ran
them all away late in the afternoon and closed the curtains.
· The next morning the rain was still beating down; we were
now hours late. The complexion of the passengers in the train
was gradually changing as we got nearer to the border. More and
more Americans were in evidence, and there were fewer Mexi-
cans. I had a long talk with Dan McBride in the observation car
that day. He seemed a healthy, normal young fellow, interested
in athletics, and trying to get started in insurance. That he was
favored of all his kin by his uncle, Felix Durkin, was not appar-
ent in his attitude; he spoke respectfully of him, even with affec-
tion. He made no mention of Mrs. Fulbright or the doctor,
although according to Elsie Tatum, the doctor's wife was his
sister. I had seen them talking together the afternoon before.
By afternoon the rain had ceased, and the blue sky was filled
with broken cloud masses. Benton Slater was bright and cheerful
when I stopped at his berth and asked if I could get him a drink


THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
39
of water. He accepted and I brought water in a paper cup from
the cooler.
"We'll cross the border before midnight,” I remarked, “al-
though we're hours late now.”
"Thank the Lord for that!” he said fervently.
"Feeling better?”
"I'll be practically well when I can feel the good old U.S.A.
under me once more."
It was nearly eleven o'clock that night, however, when we
reached Nogales. The Mexican customs made only a cursory in-
spection of the luggage, and then the Pullman was switched out
of the Mexican train and moved across the line into Arizona. The
American inspectors came aboard.
Someone in the car was breathing heavily. I couldn't see who
had dropped asleep, but as the train stood at the station it was
plainly audible. I had nothing but hand luggage and so I stayed
in the car. The inspector glanced at the declaration I had filled
out, poked experimentally among the contents of my bags and
passed on. He paused at the partly open curtains where Benton
Slater was lying in the berth.
"What about your luggage, sir?" I heard him ask.
Doctor Fulbright came up hurriedly.
"He's ill,” he said. "Gunshot wound.”
“Too bad. Where's his luggage?”
“In the upper."
"He's breathing awfully hard."
"Yes—he is.”
The heavy breathing came to a sudden end. I saw Doctor Ful-
bright bend down and look in upon Benton Slater. The customs
inspector pushed the curtain aside as if to see better. Then he
looked at Fulbright oddly, and said:
"If you ask me, I'd say he's not sick-he's just died.”


The voice on the telephone sounded a trifle apologetic when I
assured the caller that I was Osborn Wiley.
"Are you the Mr. Wiley who was on the West Coast train that
got into Nogales Thursday night from Mexico?”
"Yes.”
“There was a man died on the train, you remember.”
“I recall it very distinctly."
"My name is Frank Martindale," said the voice. "I'll tell you
why I ask. I'm from Nogales. I'm deputy sheriff of Santa Cruz
county. I'm here in Los Angeles to make some inquiries. I wonder
if you could come out to Felix Durkin's house this afternoon.
It's in what you call Brentwood. Several others who were on that
same train are going to be there."
"Why the inquiry?"
“There's some doubt às to the cause of the man's death, and
I'm here to see what I can find out; you understand—the case has
to be cleared up.”
“Yes, of course, I'll be there. What time?"
"Two o'clock.”
He gave me the address and hung up.
As I drove to Brentwood that afternoon I turned over in my
mind several facts concerning the sudden and inexplicable death
of Benton Slater. The body had been removed on the American
side at Nogales, and Dan McBride left the train there in order to
make what arrangements were necessary as to burial.
The rest of us got little sleep that night. Next morning after
breakfast on the train, we discussed his death from many angles,
40


THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
41
arriving at no conclusions about it at all. We separated that eve-
ning on the station platform at Los Angeles to go our several
ways, and I thought that that would be the last of it so far as
I was concerned. It would be one more puzzling circumstance in
connection with my Mexican holiday—there was the dead
stranger on the street in Taxco, and now Benton Slater.
Frank Martindale was something less than the popular notion
of an Arizona deputy sheriff. He was only slightly above five feet
in height. But he wore a black string tie and a black suit and
high-heel boots. His thin dark hair was pasted flat to his small
round skull, and he leaned heavily on a cane when he walked.
"I'm certainly much obliged to you folks for getting together
like this; it saves me a lot of runnin' around huntin' you all up,”
he began when we had assembled in the living room at Felix
Durkin's home. “You understand, of course, I'm here just to in-
quire. And Mr. Durkin was kind enough to suggest that you all
come out here to his house. This gentleman here on my right is
Deputy Riley Tubbs from the Los Angeles County sheriff's office,
a good friend of mine, by the way, and this other gentleman is
Glen Stevens, special agent for the railroad company. Glen's
from Tucson.”
The two mentioned nodded self-consciously to us and sank
back into their chairs. The living room was large; its ceiling was
two stories, and from its high window there was a wide sweep of
descending slopes with the Pacific Ocean sparkling in the dis-
tance.
“Of course, you'll understand,” Deputy Martindale went on,
“that all I'm interested in is facts enough to close the case in the
sheriff's files. There was an autopsy, of course. Mr. McBride
here,” he indicated Felix Durkin's nephew who sat in a deep arm
chair—"explained before he left Nogales, how the deceased was
shot down in Mazatlán. But that, the surgeon says, was nothing
more than a flesh wound. The injury wasn't the cause of death.”
Dan McBride was leaning forward in his chair, his dark eyes


THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
behind their lenses fixed upon the speaker. Doctor Melvin Ful-
bright and his wife, Marian, sat together on a small love seat. The
doctor, although he had been in attendance upon Benton Slater on
the train, was puzzled as to the cause of death. He had said little
however, as we discussed the case coming into Los Angeles. Now,
although he seemed to be listening with small interest to Martin-
dale, nevertheless I observed that it was only a pretense.
“The cause of the deceased's death, I may as well tell you, was
poisoning. Morphine poisoning.”
"Morphine!” the exclamation came from Felix Durkin. He
had been quietly fidgeting in his chair all this time, stealing sly
glances at Doctor Fulbright and his wife. He now looked stead-
ily at Fulbright. “Morphine! Did you get that, Fulbright?” he
demanded.
"I heard it.”
"Well?”
The question was challenging, but Doctor Fulbright ignored
it. After a moment Deputy Martindale went on.
"The man died, as you probably all know, after he crossed the
border. The Mexican authorities say they're out of it; won't have
anything to do with the matter. They say he didn't die on Mexi-
can soil, and that's that. All I want to know is what you folks can
tell me. How could the deceased get hold of enough morphine to
kill himself? Doctor Fulbright, how about it? Have you any ex-
planation?”
"He wouldn't want to kill himself, not Slater," interjected
Felix Durkin sharply, his small gray eyes seeming to kindle.
"Maybe I should word it differently,” said Martindale, “how
was it possible for him to die of morphine poisoning?"
Doctor Fulbright cleared his throat softly. He ignored Felix
Durkin's obvious thrust. “I'll tell you all I know about the case,
Mr. Martindale. I was in Mazatlán when Benton Slater was
struck by a stray bullet. My wife and the Petty bones were walk-
ing in the street near the hotel with him when the accident oc-


44
THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
might say to you folks, that the man's luggage and his pockets
were searched, just in case he had had the morphine himself.
There'd have to be a container, or something-empty bottle or
little box. But there wasn't. We wired Los Angeles to have the
berth and the soiled linen, and everything gone through—but
there was no luck."
“Suicide, I should say, is out,” I suggested. “I talked with
Slater only a few hours before we got into Nogales. He was glad
that he would soon be out of Mexico. I remember his saying,
'I'll be practically well when I can feel the good old U.S.A. under
me once more.' I ask you, is a man who has had a narrow escape
from death, and who feels himself on the road to recovery, and
who is coming home—is he at all likely to think of suicide, much
less commit the act?”
There was an immediate outburst of comment.
"No," said Martindale.
“That's what I say,” exclaimed Durkin. "It wasn't suicide.
Slater wouldn't kill himself. It was the last thing he'd ever do."
"Then, ladies and gentlemen, you tell me what it is,” Martin-
dale suggested grimly.
“There's no chance, is there," asked Dan McBride anxiously,
"that he got it accidentally?”
“How?" inquired the special agent.
"Well—I don't know. Could he have taken it by mistake?"
“People aren't careless with that much morphine, Dan,” re-
marked Doctor Fulbright.
“Is there only the one conclusion possible," asked Rogers,
speaking for the first time, “that the morphine was given him in
some manner with intent to commit murder?”
The room grew strangely quiet; it was only too evident that
we had been moving toward that conclusion for some minutes
without the temerity to put it into words. Instantly a host of
questions arose about the manner of its doing and the reason
therefor.
-
-
-
-
-
-- --
-
-
-
-
- --


THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
45
"That's about what we over in Nogales have decided,” said
Deputy Martindale simply. “So I drove over to see you folks and
ask if you could help us out by anything that you remember of
the circumstances surrounding the deceased's death.” He turned
suddenly to me.
“Mr. Wiley, you said you talked with him only a few hours
before you got to the border. When was that?”
“About sundown. I remember there was a particularly beauti-
ful sunset at the time. We'd just pulled out of Magdalena."
“Did he seem all right, then?”
“Yes. Except as Doctor Fulbright has said, he seemed keyed
up. I got him a drink of water from the cooler. After that I didn't
see him again. I went to the diner. The curtains to the berth were
closed when I came back into that car an hour or so later."
“You gave him a drink of water?” stressed the deputy, his
bright eyes looking at me curiously.
“Yes.”
I thought he might pursue the question further, but instead
he left me thinking over the implications in my admission, and
turned to Doctor Fulbright.
"When did you last see him, Doctor?”
"About six-thirty.”
"Was he all right at the time?”
"He was. He was worrying a little about customs, and I told
him that I'd see that his things were looked after.”
"Was that the time you gave him the morphine?”
“Yes.”
"I was wondering—” Elsie Tatum spoke from her place near
Felix Durkin, "wouldn't it have been possible to dissolve the
morphine in a cup of water and give it to him in that way, when
he asked for a drink of water?”.
Both Rogers and Doctor Fulbright replied. Rogers said:
“It's quite possible, yes, but, What were you going to say,
Doctor Fulbright?”.


46
THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
“Probably the same thing that you were, Professor. Morphine
has a bitter taste. I doubt that Mr. Slater would have swallowed
a cupful of water with a lethal dose of morphine dissolved in it-
that is, willingly—unless—"
“Unless what, Doctor?” Martindale pressed quietly.
"Unless he had been taking, say, stomach bitters, and had been
misled into thinking that that was what he was drinking."
“There was a bottle of stomach bitters in his luggage,” said
Martindale matter-of-factly.
“I remember in Mexico his saying something about stomach
bitters. He'd forgotten his bottle at Taxco and was going to buy
more in Mexico City,” | volunteered, then wished I had kept
· silent. For I already had admitted having given him a drink of
water that evening as we were nearing the border.
"Is it possible, then, Doctor," pursued Martindale, "to have
administered a lethal dose in that manner?"
"Yes—it's possible. 1—"
"What were you going to say?"
"I was wondering, though, when it could have been given. He
showed no signs of it when I administered the hypodermic."
"Could he have drunk it immediately before, or, even, soon
after you gave him the hypodermic?"
"I think so."
"It would have to be, wouldn't it?”
“Yes. If he had been given the morphine in a drink of water
before I gave him the hypodermic, the effects of the drug would
soon have become apparent. That is, he would have been quiet,
or sleeping, and I would not have decided the hypodermic was
necessary. If it were after the hypodermic had begun to take
effect- I don't know whether it could have been done successfully
or not. Perhaps—"
"I'd like to know who all gave Mr. Slater a drink of water at
about that time—say, six to six-thirty. Mr. Wiley has said that
he did. Who else?”.


THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
47
Dan McBride stirred uneasily, and put down his cigarette. “I
think most of us are guilty, Mr. Martindale, of giving Mr. Slater
a drink now and then from the cooler. He couldn't wait on him-
self. I know I did.”
"At about the time in question, Mr. McBride?”
"No; earlier. It was about three in the afternoon.”
"I didn't. Not at any time,” said Felix Durkin dryly. “Not that
I wouldn't. But everybody else was anxious to help, so I let 'em.”
Elsie Tatum admitted having brought him water in the late
afternoon, but she was sure it was before I gave him the drink.
Mrs. Fulbright, youthful and blond, admitted to having helped
entertain and wait upon Benton Slater, but not to having brought
him water near the time in question.
“There's one point, Doctor Fulbright-perhaps I should have
said this before. At the time of autopsy, when it was learned the
deceased died of morphine poisoning, a second check was made
to find out if the stuff was given hypodermically. They found
just the one puncture wound in the arm. That's how, I suppose,
you gave it to him? We assumed in Nogales that that's how the
poison dose was administered.”
"Oh, no! No! I gave him only a quarter grain to quiet him.
That's not a lethal dose.”
"It has to be given either by mouth or hypodermically,” said
Martindale simply.
“Yes, yes, you're right,” replied Doctor Fulbright testily, the
back of his neck showing red above the dark collar of his coat.


50
THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
each other at Taxco, although we all stopped at the Telva.”
“Are the—?"
She didn't let me finish, but broke in with a curious twisted
little smile. “I know what you're going to ask: are the Pettybones
anathema to Uncle Felix too? The answer is yes. He berates
them, just as he does the other relatives. They understand. At
least they don't lose any sleep over what Uncle Felix says.”
That hadn't been my question, but I let it go at that.
"You're staying for dinner?” I asked.
"Oh, yes. I usually have a fight with the doctor after we get
home. I will tonight. Every time he stays to dinner, he vows he'll
never do it again, so help him.”
The dinner was a calm and peaceful occasion after all; from
all that had been said by the several members of the Durkin
family at various times, one expected fireworks at any moment.
On the contrary, it was free from acrimony; in fact, we became
even jovial because of Professor Rogers, who with Deputy Mar-
tindale's aid, got to recalling people of the back country of
Arizona; they seemed both to know many of the same amusing
and interesting characters.
The Pettybones were pleasant. I remembered them when I
saw them again; their names just hadn't registered. What they
had to add to the information already given that afternoon
about the death of Benton Slater, was not required until after din-
ner. In the living room once more, Deputy Martindale sketched
for their benefit what already had been brought out.
“And, now, Mr. Pettybone,” inquired Martindale, "can you
give us any information?"
Pettybone was silent for some moments, apparently thinking
hard. Then he raised his head and spoke slowly.
"I don't think I can. Of course, I had known Benton Slater for
a long while, and our relations always had been friendly. I can
think of no suspicious circumstance. Amelia here,” he turned to
the small plump woman at his side, “helped look after Slater on


THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
the train, just as Marian and the other passengers did-brought
him water, lighted his cigarettes, shook up his pillow, helped him
with his meals when they came in from the diner, talked to him-
you know, little attentions like that.
“But I'd be more interested, Mr. Martindale, in why he died
than how. You point out how it must have been done, but, nat-
urally, I didn't do it, and I know Amelia didn't. There's no good
reason why either of us should want to kill Slater, or anybody
else, for that matter. I mentioned a moment ago the why, rather
than the how. If you've got a murder, the why is important. Find
the man who had a reason and make him tell you how he did it.”
“That's easier said than done.” Martindale's voice was dry.
"You're right, of course. But what I meant was if we knew
what was on Benton Slater's mind, say, we might have a starting
point."
"Why do you say that?” asked Doctor Fulbright.
“There was something on Slater's mind, Mel.” Pettybone
turned to the doctor. “He was on the point of telling me what it
was when the shooting broke out there in Mazatlán, and after
that, of course, he didn't say anything."
“What would he have on his mind, Will?" demanded Felix
Durkin. There was a suggestion of apprehension in his voice.
"I don't know, Cousin Felix. He didn't give me the slightest
hint. But I knew him and knew what his moods portended.”
“Didn't he give any inkling at all, Will?” asked Dan McBride.
Pettybone looked briefly at his questioner before he replied.
“As I say, he didn't give me the slightest hint of what it was.
‘There's something, Will, I want to talk over with you,' he was
saying privately to me at the moment the shooting began. ‘About
Durkin family matters?' I asked, for that was the thought in my
mind. For we had been talking of Cousin Felix-"
"Oh, you had, had you?” said Felix Durkin sarcastically.
"You wouldn't want us to ignore you, Cousin Felix," observed
Pettybone slyly. He waited a moment for a reply, then went on.


THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
"Slater was about to say something else when I heard the shot
and the zing of the bullet that came our way, then the sound of it
as it hit his leg. The word 'soon' was on his tongue, and that's all
that was said about the matter. But he was really quite serious.”
“I wonder what it could have been,” said Marian Fulbright
slowly. “Now, we'll never know.”
"I'm afraid not, Marian. Of course," Pettybone turned to
Martindale, “I wouldn't have said even this much to anybody
about that conversation, except that it may have some bearing
upon the case—if we can find out what it was he had to tell me.”
“He didn't refer to it again?” asked Martindale.
“No, not once.”
"Did you mention it to him, either?”
"No." Pettybone thought for a moment. “I assumed that in his
own good time he would refer to it again. There was no knowing
he was going to die so soon."
“Do you think it-I mean what he was going to tell you,
would have pointed the finger of suspicion at his murderer?”
“I have no way of knowing that.”
The matter was argued from all angles over the next half hour.
We went over the whole situation, repeating much that had been
told that afternoon, but in the end we brought up against the
same stone wall that had barred our progress earlier in the day.
Huntoon Rogers had been silent during most of the evening,
listening attentively to all that was said, but offering nothing in
the way of comment. Finally in a lull he spoke.
“Mr. Durkin—"
“Yes, Hunt."
“I have a reel of pictures—two of them, in fact-out in my
car. Pictures of Mexico. I just got them back yesterday. They
haven't been edited, and there are no captions. If you are inter-
ested, I'd like to show them,”
“Oh, do,” said Amelia Pettybone.
“Yes, let's see them," echoed Marian Fulbright.


54
THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
to the fact that there were no captions. Frequently he supplied the
information necessary to identify a locality. We toured the
Mexican capital, stood at the stone railing about the castle on
the hill at Chapultepec and gazed off at the two mountains,
Iztaccihuatl and Popocatépetl.
“And now we go to Taxco,” he said.
There were remembered scenes along the highway; odd bits of
local color, scenes shot from the moving car as Rogers had sped
through Mexican villages, until at last we came to Taxco and
moved up winding narrow cobbled streets to the hotel.
"It sort of brings everything back," said Elsie Tatum with a
sigh. “Do you remember the patio of the hotel, Mr. Wiley?”.
"Yes, I do, Miss Tatum.”
• “I can almost smell the town, and see the buzzards flying about
overhead.”
“Here they are,” said Rogers.
On the screen there appeared the coral trees on the slope below
the hotel. The huge somber birds were taking off from among
the red blossoms for their circling flight over Taxco. Then the
film brought them in flight round and round overhead. Next the
film took us down the long descending street toward the village.
Pedro, the youthful guide, stepped out from beside the fountain
and grinned good naturedly at us.
"Oh, I remember that boy! He's Pedro," said Miss Tatum.
"He piloted me all over town."
From the fountain we moved on down the street. Then of a
sudden I recognized a slowly-milling crowd about an object on
the cobbles. Humbly hats came off, and many made the sign of
the cross; a few sat watchfully in the street, and on a low pallet
lay the body of the dead stranger with candles burning at head
and feet.
From among us there was the sudden sound of a breath sharply
indrawn. Somebody stirred noisily in his chair, then a woman's
voice uttered a single sound, slowly, feelingly.


THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
55 •
“Oh," it said. The sound died out on a hopeless note.
I tried in the darkness to see which of the three, Mrs. Petty-
bone, Marian Fulbright, or Elsie Tatum had spoken, but I
couldn't determine. There was a moment's silence. Rogers re-
marked:
“I'm sorry I haven't sound effects for this next.”
On the screen appeared the funeral procession which I had
not seen while in Taxco, but which I had heard described. “The
music was really lovely. No one knew this man,” Rogers ex-
plained for the benefit of those who had not been in Taxco at the
time. “He was a stranger, killed in the night on the highway,
presumably by a car. The body was brought into town, and
was buried that same afternoon."
The reel ended with the funeral procession. The butler turned
up the lights, and went to assist Rogers at the projector. He put
the reel we had just seen into its metal container, looked about
for a place to lay it down, then walked the few steps to the fire-
place and put it on the mantel beside a bowl of flowers.
Was I never to be rid of that scene of the dead stranger on the
stone cobbled street of Taxco? Had I shared a drink of tequila
with him somewhere sometime at a bar in a home where there
was a red tile floor and rattan furniture? I shook my head as if
to get the vision from before my eyes and glanced at Felix Dur-
kin. He was gazing fixedly before him, and slowly and sound-
lessly he was driving his right fist into the open palm of his left
hand, repeating it over and over as if lost in the tortuous depths
of thought, as if this would help him think.


For the greater part the second reel was comprised of scenes in
and about Mazatlán, where I had not stopped. It was of particu-
lar interest, however, to the Pettybones and the Fulbrights. I
found it entertaining, but not sufficiently so to push thoughts of
the dead stranger from my mind.
“Doesn't he look natural! And to think-!” Marian Ful-
bright's exclamation directed my attention to the screen where
Benton Slater, his shaggy gray head seeming too large for his
body, was posing and smiling at the camera.
“That's the man who died, isn't it?” inquired Deputy Mar-
tindale's voice in the darkness.
“Yes,” Rogers answered.
"From the looks of him, I'd say he'd be plenty able to take care
of himself. If anybody killed him they'd have to slip up on him
when he wasn't lookin'." It was rather a curious remark to make,
but it passed without comment.
As the reel unwound, however, I got to thinking of the truth
in what the deputy had said. Only through trickery could the
murderer have given Slater the fatal dose of morphine, mislead-
ing him into thinking he was taking a dose of his stomach bitters.
It left me with an uncomfortable feeling, for admittedly I was the
only person who could have given it to him in a drink of water,
when the time element, which was important, was taken into
consideration. If Doctor Fulbright was mistaken as to the hour
when he administered the hypodermic, or was deliberately de-
ceiving us about the time, then it might have been possible that
someone else had done it.
56


THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
57
A great deal hinged on the truth of Doctor Fulbright's asser-
tions, not only as to the time he administered the hypodermic,
but the amount he had given, the quantity of the drug he claimed
he had with him in his kit. And how was anybody going to
make certain of those facts now? One hard and fast fact stood
out, there was only one puncture wound from the needle's thrust,
and that was Fulbright's. So what? I kept thinking.
The reel came to an end, and the lights were turned on once ..
more. There were many expressions of appreciation and approval
directed at Professor Rogers.
“I'm very grateful to you, Hunt, for showing us those pic-
tures,” said Felix Durkin, shoving about in his chair and facing
Rogers who was removing the film from the machine. The rest
of us got up and moved about in the room.
"I'm glad you liked them, Mr. Durkin.”
"I'd like to see that first reel again, the Taxco part of it-
sometime.”
"I'll run it over for you now, if you say so."
"Later, if you don't mind. Oh, Fulbright,” he said, addressing
the doctor, who had taken a turn to the far end of the large living
room. There was a hint of prospective battle in his summons.
“Yes?” The doctor faced about.
"It was said when the picture started that it might refresh our
memories. Seeing you and Slater there in Mazatlán together,
where you seem to be struggling, you and Slater both, to pay for
some fruit at the market, reminds me of something. Didn't you
owe Slater a lot of money?"
“A lot of money? No. Not a lot. Some—if you insist on talking
about it.” Fulbright's tone was resentful.
“Good sized sum, if it's the money you tried to borrow from
me, and which I wouldn't let you have.”
“Oh, I say now, Uncle Felix, is that fair?" Marian Fulbright
protested.
"Fair? Of course, it's fair. I haven't seen Benton Slater's will.


-58
THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
He had one, of course, being a lawyer. In fact, he said he had,
when he was drawing up mine. Slater was the kind who would
forgive his debts,"
"Listen, Felix Durkin!” Doctor Fulbright's short sturdy figure
suddenly stood over the other man in a menacing manner; his
face was red with anger, his fists doubled. “Do you know what
you're hinting?"
"Of course," replied Durkin calmly, his small gray eyes fixed
briefly on Fulbright's face, unconcerned at the other's threat. He
looked about to discover Frank Martindale. “Maybe this'll give
you an idea, Mr. Martindale."
The deputy from Nogales moved toward the pair. Fulbright
realizing how it must appear to the others, swallowed his anger
and turned away.
"You mean that the doctor has a motive?” The deputy was
impressed
"Well—I'm not accusing him,” said Durkin, “but I hope you
didn't miss everything there was in that flare-up of his. It's
something to keep in mind, I should say, if I were interested in
running down Slater's murderer.”
"Since you've brought up motives,” said Doctor Fulbright,
running his fingers through his gray hair nervously, “why not
ask who else might have a motive?"
Nothing was said for a moment or two to break the uneasiness
that had settled in the room. Rogers apparently was paying no
attention to this development, but continued with the butler's
help to clear away the apparatus that had been used for the
pictures.
"I wonder where that other reel has gone,” he remarked, as if
'to himself.
"I put it on the mantel, Professor,” said Canby. "I don't see
how it could have been removed.”
The attention was still upon Fulbright whose insinuation had
gone unanswered.


THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
59
“Just who are you hitting at, Mel?" asked Mrs. Pettybone.
"Did you and Will ever really get over disliking Benton Slater
for what he did to you?"
“What do you mean, Mel?” Will Pettybone's voice was cau-
tious.
“Didn't he drive you pretty hard in that real estate develop-
ment that went flooey several years back? You were all going to
get rich, but you got squeezed instead—thanks to Slater."
“Oh, that's all water over the dam, Mel. It was forgotten
years ago.” Will Pettybone scoffed at the idea, but his manner
was resentful. “Why bring it up?"
"Well, why did Mrs. Fulbright's uncle bring up a possible
debt I owed Slater? One's as sensible as the other, one's as much
a cause for murder as the other. I go about trying to save people's
lives, not murdering them. Why doesn't somebody accuse
Durkin? He hired Slater; they probably had their differences—"
Felix Durkin laughed in a thin high voice. “Going to call the
kettle black, are you, Fulbright?" It seemed to amuse him. He
rubbed his frail hands together. “Listen, Fulbright, if I had
wanted to get rid of Slater, all I had to do was fire him; I didn't
have to kill him. I went down to Taxco so he'd let me alone—he
and Elsie. Always sticking business under my nose. Slater was
much easier on me than the other fellow before him was. Why
would I want to kill him?”.
"How about the young man-Mr. McBride?" interrupted
Martindale. “Since all the men of the family are involved, except
him?" I thought there was a twinkle of amusement lurking in the
deputy's bright eyes; he was only egging them on. That was
obvious.
Dan McBride had been moving aimlessly about the room, lis-
tening, but saying nothing. He turned at the sound of his name.
“I'll leave it to Uncle Felix,” he answered quietly. “He knows
that Mr. Slater and I were practically strangers. I'd met him
only two or three times before they carried him onto the train


--
--
-
60
THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
-
the other day at Mazatlán."
“Yes, he's all right, Martindale—what he says is the truth.
Unless Dan didn't like the way he combed his hair or the neck-
tie he wore, there'd be no motive there.”
"Sorry,” said the deputy, slowly removing a cigar from its
wrapper. “Facts, of course, are facts; and that's what I'm inter-
ested in right now. Unquestionably murder was done; Slater died
as the result of somebody's scheming. But—".
Whatever else Deputy Martindale was about to impart, was
destined not to be said. For at that moment the fireplace ex-
ploded. Canby was in the act of setting the heavy brass screen
away from the opening, when a sheet of flame licked out at him,
and embers flew out into the room, and burning logs rolled upon
the hearth.
Canby lost his balance in his effort to escape injury, and the
tongue of white hot flame shot out over him as he lay sprawled
on the floor. A small center of fierce flames continued to burn
within the fireplace, and more sparks and embers and small
pieces of. burning wood showered out into the room.
For a moment no one spoke, no one thought what to do. It was
one of those incredible things which while they are happening
are beyond comprehension.
The next moment the startled occupants of the room roused to
the danger. Elsie Tatum was helping Canby to his feet.
“Are you hurt, Canby? Did the fire burn you?” Miss Tatum's
voice held a flutter of hysteria, then calmed down instantly.
"Here. Get up! There's fire all around you.”
Rogers was actively at work with a small fire shovel trying
to rake live coals off the oriental rug. The odor of burning wool
was in the air, as well as that of smoking bits of eucalyptus logs
that were burning in a wide arc about the open fireplace.
The white hot flame in the depths of the fireplace was gradu-
ally lessening in intensity. It was difficult to work close to it, how-
ever. Others of us were kicking live coals toward the hearth, shov-


THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
61
ing chairs and davenports about to get at coals that had rolled
underneath them, stamping out small embers. There was shout-
ing, and running about. A maid appeared with a pitcher of water
and poured it on a smoking ember near the doorway.
“Better call the fire department!” shouted Will Pettybone.
"No, wait! We'll get it out,” said Dan McBride, picking up a
burning stick in his bare hands and running with it to the fire-
place.
“Look at that drape! Call that fire department, Amelia! Now!
Look at that fire run up that thing!”
An overlooked ember in the folds of a long drapery which
touched the floor had ignited it, and fire had licked up its length
like a whip lash. Rogers and I both raced to pull the drapery
down, but fire had got into the valance, and was racing along
overhead. We were coughing from the fumes of the numerous
smoking embers in the rug, which we had not put out, and from
the gases blown out into the room from the fireplace.
“Get outside!” Felix Durkin's voice rose commandingly above
the racket of our fire fighting. "Outside! Outside! Let 'er burn!”
“Has anybody called the fire department?" roared Petty bone.
“Amelia's calling,” shouted Doctor Fulbright.
We still fought the fire despite Durkin's urgings to get out.
The high-ceilinged room was blue now with smoke. Fire was
roaring in a corner behind a davenport. Now that it had done its
damage, the fire in the fireplace had settled back to a cherry glow,
which looked dull and angry through the accumulating smoke.
One by one we finally backed out of the room. Dan McBride
was the last to come coughing outside into the cool night air.
Fire was beginning to break out around the windows. Below us
in the darkness we could hear the siren of the department as the
trucks came roaring up the curving roads.
The fire was beginning to burn fiercely in the roof of the living
room when the first stream of water was laid on. It had not
touched the other part of the house.


THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
"Well,” said Rogers, wiping his face with his handkerchief, as
· we huddled together, “they'll probably hold it to that one room.”
"I don't know about that, Hunt," objected Felix Durkin.
“It's lucky the living room is built off to itself like that, with
no room over it. Sort of detached, Uncle Felix,” Marian Ful-
bright said consolingly.
The chief of the fire department when the water was playing
well upon the flames came over to us.
“What happened?” he asked when he had sorted Durkin from
among us as the owner. “How did it get started?"
“That's what I'd like to know. All of a sudden the fireplace
blew up. Whoosh! Sparks and burning logs came out into the
room. It got away from us before we could stamp it all out."
“Why would it blow up like that?"
"I don't know.”
"Was something thrown on the fire?”
"No. The butler was just taking the screen away. We'd had a
fire screen up while we were looking at some pictures."
"Picture films?”
“Yes.”
"Could one of those have got into the fireplace?"
"I don't see how.”
"Could somebody have put it in there accidentally or pur-
posely?"
"I suppose it could have been done. But who would do it, and
why?” Durkin's voice rose testily.
“I was just asking, Mr. Durkin. We like to get at the cause of
a fire. Maybe we can find out more about it when the fire's out
and we can check the fireplace.”
: He went away leaving us gazing at the spectacle.
A few moments later I found myself standing beside Professor
Rogers. We were somewhat removed from the others by this time.
“You were looking for one of your reels of film, weren't you?"
"Yes. The first one. It disappeared.”


THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
63
“That was the one that had the Taxco pictures in it.”
“Yes.”
"The shots of the dead stranger," I remarked.
He didn't answer me at once, then he said: “Yes, the dead
stranger."


Long before the fire was extinguished a small crowd of near-by
residents had gathered to witness it; the younger members
now were running over the lawn and from them came expressions
of regret as the crackling flames were brought under control. A
car pulled into the driveway and stopped. Two dark figures
climbed out and joined the firemen close to the house. Presently
they came in our general direction, our whereabouts having been
pointed out by the chief.
"Which of you gentlemen is Mr. Durkin?” one of the figures
asked.
"I am."
"We were just drivin' by in the car. Thought we'd stop and see
if everything's all right. We're from the West Los Angeles sta-
tion.”.
“Police?"
“Yes.” The officer hesitated. “You think the fire was an ac-
cident-or something else?” Evidently he had been talking to
the fire chief.
“What else could it be?” Durkin's voice was sharp. "We were
all sitting around the room when the fireplace blew up. Fire flew
all over the room. We couldn't put it out. Why?"
"Well,” the officer thought over Durkin's explanation. “How
long had you been sitting in the room before it happened?"
"Oh-an hour and a half, maybe. Wouldn't you say so, Hunt?"
"About that, Mr. Durkin,” Rogers replied.
"And without warning she just blew up on you?" the other
officer who hadn't spoken before, inquired.


THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
65
"Exactly."
"Funny, I'd say."
One of the pair was now peering at Rogers through the flicker-
ing light from the fire. Finally he spoke.
“Are you Professor Huntoon Rogers?”
“Yes.”
“Do you remember me? I'm Ed Sterling.”
“Of course, I do. How are you, Sterling?" Rogers reached for
the officer's extended hand, and they shook vigorously. “Is this
Frankie Peters with you?”
“Yes, I'm Peters," replied the other. “It's been a long time
since we saw you last, Professor.” They shook hands. “Remember
the murder case over in Bel-Air—movie writer, she was? It had
us all goin' for a while. About a year ago, wasn't it?”
• “All of that, Frankie.”
"If it hadn't of been for you, Professor, that fellow Kelly
Reevers from the homicide bureau downtown wouldn't of solved
it, either.”
"You're too complimentary."
"No, he ain't either, Professor," said Officer Sterling. “You're
sure fire when you get to work on a case."
“By the way,” said Rogers, and he turned to the deputy from
Nogales, who had moved up beside the group, “have you met
Frank Martindale, deputy sheriff from Nogales?”
"How do you do, Martindale?”
"Howdy do?”
They shook hands all around and remarked about the fire, then
Officer Sterling cleared his throat and ventured a remark.
"Deputy sheriff?” he said pointedly, addressing Rogers. “Is
it-?"
“Yes, from Nogales.”
“What's he doin' here, if it's any of our business?"
“Oh, checking up on some things in connection with a little
matter—" Rogers began when Martindale interrupted.


66
THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
“A guy got it over in our county, boys. It sure looks like mur-
der. These people knew some things I wanted to know.”
“Say, Professor,” and Officer Sterling pushed Rogers playfully
on the shoulder. “Is another one of your cases starting?”
Rogers laughed. “I hope not—"
"You always seem to bust right into the middle of these things,
don't you, Professor?” said Frankie Peters. “The mere fact of
your bein' here when a house is on fire, and a deputy from Ari-
zona is checkin' on a murder over there, tells me that there's liable
to be dirty work at the crossroads—or, is there?"
“Forget it, Frankie. Nothing like that. Murder doesn't follow
me around that way. I've gone along for a whole year very peace-
fully in my profession as a teacher of English. There hasn't been
a fingerprint, or a stab in the dark, or a shot, or a poison pill"
he halted suddenly, “until this fellow Benton Slater died on the
train. I happened to be there"
"Oh, is that the fellow? I remember readin' about it,” said
Sterling. “I think we'd better make a note of it, Frankie, just in
case the boys down at the station set up a holler that we hadn't
been on our toes when the thing started up here—"
"Listen, you fellows,” interrupted Durkin irritably. “There
isn't anything starting up here for you. This all happened in
Arizona. Or, maybe, Mexico. It's all over but finding out who
did it. I know all about Hunt's cases. This isn't one of them.”
The fire chief shoved his way through the growing crowd gath-
ered about the group. Without waiting to discover whether he
was interrupting, he announced that the fire was out.
"I just wondered if you boys wanted to take a look at that
fireplace with me.”
“All right, Jack.”
We streamed over to the house. Durkin and Rogers and I fol-
lowed the chief inside. Peters stayed at the door to keep the others
out, while Sterling came along with us. The fire was out in the
living room; a few roof beams steamed eerily in rays of the spot


THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
67
lights that were turned in at the windows. The floor was sound,
but the charred rafters overhead were black against the sky, the
windows gaped open, the walls were smudged and soaked and
partly charred. A hole was burned through the floor close to the
fireplace, but the area was easily accessible. The fire's cherry glow
had become wet ashes.
With the small fire shovel, the chief poked about among the
ashes in the rays of the flashlights directed at them. He care-
fully scraped out everything from the big fireplace, examining
each burned stick of wood, poking carefully among the dead
embers.
“Whatever it was, you're not going to find it,” said Durkin.
“Probably something in a stick of wood. Some damn fool
thought he'd play a practical joke on me.”
"Who would he be?" inquired Officer Sterling.
“How should I know?” Durkin replied sourly. "Now, I've got
to rebuild this room. Won't have the use of it till it's done."
"Wait! What's that, Jack?” Sterling pointed with the rays of
his flashlight at something under the shovel.
"Nothing—just a piece of wood.” He struck it sharply with
the flat of the shovel and pushed it aside, continuing to scrape
among the debris.
"You'll not find anything," Durkin was bent on proving his
contention.
"I won't, eh?” said the chief, as he dragged something out of
the ashes, striking it with the shovel to free it of the gray coating
that covered it.
· "What is it?” Sterling inquired.
"You tell me.” The chief touched it carefully with his finger
and discovered it was cool enough to handle. He wiped it clean,
holding it up in the light.
"Piece of metal,” I said.
It was a battered piece of metal; the fire had melted it down
until it was little more than a lump, with just the suggestion of


68
THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
its former shape.
"What is it?" asked Sterling.
"It's been a can, or box of some light metal, I guess."
"What do you say it is, Professor?” Sterling asked.
“I could only guess; it may have been the metal case in which
I had a reel of film-before the fire started.”
“And you haven't got the film now?"
"It disappeared before the fireplace exploded.”
"Well, saying it was your can of film, Professor, how would it
have got into the fireplace?"
"Perhaps it was put into the fireplace.”.
“You mean deliberately?"
"If someone had had it, and accidentally let it fall into the
fire, I should think that his commonsense would have warned
him of the consequences, and he would have said immediately
what he had done. Everybody knows that film is highly in-
flammable."
“But why would it be put in deliberately?"
Rogers did not answer at once, then he replied as if puzzled
by it all, “I don't know, Ed.”
"Well,” said the chief, "if that's the explanation, then there's
something mighty close to what they call arson that's been com-
mitted here, Mr. Durkin.”
"Arson!” scoffed Durkin. “Nobody was trying to burn the
house down. There's no object in that. It isn't beyond Fulbright's
doing, though.” The thought struck him as plausible.
"Fulbright? Who's he?" asked Sterling.
"Married my niece. He's around somewhere. A fellow who'd
kill Slater wouldn't be above trying to burn me out, would he?"
Nobody said anything for a moment, then Sterling asked.
“Did Fulbright kill this fellow Slater?"
“I don't know. Understand I'm not accusing him, but I'd never
be surprised at anything he did.” Felix Durkin's face looked
strangely old in the hard rays of the flashlights, and a distilled


THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
69
hatred seemed concentrated in his small gray eyes.
"Well—while it's all fresh in everybody's mind, why don't we
ask a few questions? Is it all right with you, Mr. Durkin?”
“All right? Of course, it's all right. Round 'em up. We can go
into the library. There wasn't any fire there. I'm just as anxious
as you are to find out more about this.”
We gathered in the library, those of us who had been in the
room at the time of the fire, plus the two officers. The fire chief
did not attend, and after a while we heard the crew pull out for
the station in their trucks.
"I'll ask a few questions just to get started,” began Officer
Sterling, laying his notebook on the blotter of the big desk, “and
then if I miss anything, Professor, will you check up on it?"
"I probably can save you a little time by stating the situation
just as it was the moment the fireplace exploded."
“Go ahead.”
“All of us here, excepting only Canby and Deputy Martindale,
were in Mexico quite recently-together with Benton Slater, the
man who died at Nogales. We were all on the same train coming
home. I had taken some motion pictures in Mexico, and since we
were all interested, I was showing them. The first reel was run,
then put in its case, which Canby set on the mantel. The second
reel had been run, and I had taken it from the projector and put
it in its case, and the machine was being cleared away before I
discovered the first reel was missing. We were searching for it
when the fire occurred.”
"Is that right, Canby—thank you, Professor-is that right,
Canby?” Sterling turned to the butler.
“Yes, sir."
"You're sure you put it on the mantel?”
“Yes, sir."
“Now, who took it off of there?” The officer glared about the
library at the persons gathered. No one answered for a moment,
then Elsie Tatum said:


70
THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
"No one will admit it, Officer, in view of what happened."
"Did you, Miss—Miss Tatum, or did you see anybody else
take it?"
"I say no to both questions," answered Elsie Tatum firmly.
“I remember, though, looking at the mantel just before the fire
exploded, and there wasn't any case there. I supposed that Canby
had moved it, or Professor Rogers had done so. But, of course,
the Professor had mentioned that it was missing, and we had
all looked about to see what had become of it.”
“Mrs. Fulbright,” Sterling turned suddenly to the doctor's
wife. "What can you tell me about this?"
"Why-nothing.” Marian Fulbright was startled. "In fact, I
didn't know what was happening until all of a sudden they were
yelling fire, and we all tried to put it out.”
Sterling went meticulously around the circle, asking the same
questions of each, but discovered nothing of importance. It was
as if we were in a tight conspiracy to reveal nothing of what had
occurred in that room. He came finally to Dan McBride. The
young man sat on a small couch lazily smoking. He had taken off
his glasses and was holding them in his hand.
“What do I know?” he repeated, leaning forward and knock-
ing the ash from his cigarette. “Nothing. I wish I did. I remember
I was strolling around the room; sitting still had made me want
to stretch my legs. I remember this, though—nobody else has
mentioned it. Uncle Felix said he wanted to see the first reel over,
and Professor Rogers asked if he wanted it run immediately, and
Uncle Felix said, “No, later.'”
"When was that?”
"Oh, that was some little time before the fire. We argued for
a while after that about who killed Slater."
Officer Sterling turned to Durkin. "Why did you want to see
the first reel again?"
"Why wouldn't I? It was an excellent piece of work. Some


THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
stuff of Taxco was shown. I'd naturally have enjoyed seeing it
again.”
“And that was the only reason?”
"Yes,” snapped Durkin. "What are you trying to do, make a
mystery of my wanting to see it again?"
“No, sir; I just thought that if there was some private reason
why you did, then maybe it might give us a clue to why the film
was put in the fire.”
Durkin did not reply, but his feelings were eloquently ex-
pressed by the savage air with which he struck a match and held
it to his cigarette.
When it seemed there was nothing more to be gained by asking
questions, Officer Sterling, and his companion, rose to take their
departure. We filed out of the room into the hall which reeked of
smoke and water-soaked charcoal. I don't know what made me
stoop and pick up a small wad of paper rolled tightly into a ball.
It lay on the hall rug, just outside the library door. I palmed the
thing, and a moment later put it into my pocket. Some minutes
afterward under the light on the wide porch, while the police
were climbing into their car, and the crowd was scattered about
the steps and on the lawn, I unrolled the paper.
There were only five printed words on the small bluish slip of
paper now crinkled by countless creases. They were these:
"Why did you do it?"
There was no address; no signature. But there was a curious
little doodle underneath the printed words, and beside it the
figure three, I studied it for a few moments, an odd sensation
creeping slowly up my backbone. The penciled design was
strangely like the sunburst on the piece of silver that I carried in
my pocket; the one I had bought from Pedro in Taxco, and which
he said had been found on the body of the dead stranger.


lo
The firemen and the police were gone; the last of the curious
neighbors had disappeared from the lawn when we went back
into the house again. Somebody remarked that it was getting late,
intimating that it was time for some of us to be going home.
“Late?” scoffed Felix Durkin, glancing at the grandfather clock
as we stood about in the hall. “Nonsense. It's only ten-thirty.
Come on in, all of you. Now that the firemen and the police have
gone, perhaps we can find out a few things for ourselves.”
“If we're going to start quarreling again, Uncle Felix, you'll
have to count me and the doctor out."
"Quarreling? Who said anything about quarreling, Marian?
Let's see if we can't get some coffee from the kitchen, and maybe
some cake, or something. Canby, go out and see what you can
dig up, and bring it to us in the library.”
We were soon eating cookies and drinking coffee. We all felt
the need of it, for the excitement of the fire had pulled us down.
In a few minutes we were joking and laughing at the odd things
we had done and said under the stress of excitement when we
were slapping at firebrands, and snatching down burning dra-
peries. It was curious after all that had occurred under the roof
of this strange household. We had been quarreling—that is, the
family had—throughout most of the evening; now they were
engaged in a sort of love feast.
I was conscious all the while, however, of the small crinkled
scrap of paper in my pocket which asked the pertinent and re-
vealing question, "Why did you do it?” Presumably it referred
to the placing of the film in the fireplace. Someone had observed
72


THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
73
that act, and had kept still during the subsequent question. Was
it to shield somebody, or later to blackmail him? Did somebody
suspect that there was more behind the destruction of the film
than was apparent on the surface, or was in the minds of most
of us?
"Will kept yelling for somebody to call the fire department,”
laughed Amelia, “and all the time he could have done it himself.”
"And the maid—did you see the maid?” chuckled Doctor Ful-
bright, his brown eyes full of amusement. “She ran in with a
pitcher of water and poured it on a spark on the floor.”
"We all do queer things under stress like that,” remarked
Rogers.
Felix Durkin crushed out his cigarette in an ashtray and looked
about at Elsie Tatum.
“And Elsie in the midst of all the excitement, while the house
was burning down about her ears, took time out to write a note,
or something—"
"I, Mr. Durkin?”
“Yes. In a corner of the room on a table. You were scribbling.
What was so important?”
“Oh, that! It was a memo to ask you tomorrow about a sub-
scription to one of your art magazines. It had expired."
"See that, Hunt? Just as you said. I'd call that a queer thing.
Instead of saving her life, or helping put out the fire, she takes
time out to make a memo of a silly thing like that."
Elsie Tatum laughed heartily, half closing her gray eyes.
"I'll admit it,” she said.
“The perfect secretary,” said Rogers, grinning.
Was Elsie Tatum lying? Had she made a memo about a sub-
scription, or had she written the note which I now had in my
pocket? If she were lying, then she knew who had put the reel of
film in the fireplace; there wasn't any quibbling about it. The
note didn't say, “Did you do it?" It asked specifically “Why did
you do it?” The only possible inference—unless she actually had


74
THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
made a memo about a magazine subscription—was that Elsie
Tatum knew who was guilty. But who was this person?
I tried to recall who had preceded me from the library when
the police were leaving. I might eliminate the persons behind
me who couldn't possibly have dropped the little wad of paper.
But I realized with regret that there was only Frank Martin-
dale, the deputy. He was the last from the room. All the others
had gone out ahead of us, any one of whom could have dropped
the thing unseen.
For a moment I debated announcing my find. Suddenly con-
fronted with the fact that the note had been found, I wondered
if perhaps the identities of both writer and recipient might not
be disclosed. But I decided against it; it was too spectacular and
might defeat my purpose. Both writer and recipient might be
successful in covering up, and thus prevent our finding out what
was under way between them.
Later that night, after the party broke up, I talked with
Huntoon Rogers about it. We left the Durkin place about mid-
night, and I stopped in at Rogers' apartment on my way home.
He picked up the note which I had unfolded and laid on the
table in his study, having made only this remark to him:
“Professor, this is something interesting.”
"Where did you find it?”
I explained how I had come by it, and in brief outlined my
reactions and why I hadn't mentioned it at the Durkins'.
“Good thing,” he said. “That would be going off half-cocked."
“That's what I was afraid of doing, so I kept still.”
He continued to pore over it, testing the quality of the paper
turning it over and about, holding it up to the light..
“Do you know what it looks like, Wiley? It looks like the slip
of paper a physician writes a prescription on."
“Yes."
"Only it's blank. Usually there's the little symbol Rx in the
upper corner."


THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
75
"What does that suggest?”
"There was a physician there tonight.”,
"Do you notice the mark under the message--like a piece of
doodling done while you're at the telephone?"
“Yes, of course. But the figure '3?—?"
Without further words I pulled the silver pocket piece from
my pocket and placed it beside the note which he had now laid
on the table. I pointed to the penciled mark and the design of
the piece of silver. Rogers knitted his brows over this striking
coincidence. Finally he spoke, touching the silver.
"Isn't this the thing you bought in Taxco from the boy?"
“Yes.”
“Sit down,” he said peremptorily.
He offered me a cigarette, and we both sat for a time frowning
and smoking.
“There are some very peculiar things about this,” I began.
“I've been hoping that Slater's death was an isolated in-
cident." Rogers' voice was a trifle harsh. “But why would that
reel of film be thrown into the fireplace? Slater wasn't in it; he
was in the other reel. What's the motive back of Slater's death?
Who could have killed him, except the doctor? Why was Durkin
in such a nervous state on the train? Why did he leave Taxco
when he did, when he had attended to all the business there was
to see to through Slater and Miss Tatum?”
"Was the shooting of Slater at Mazatlán an attempt on his
life?"
"I'm satisfied, Wiley, that that was only an accident. A stray
shot. It was one of those things that can happen in Mexico. We
managed all of us to get on the same train, but that train runs
only three times a week. It's the only through train. So there's
not so much coincidence in that I mean, that we all got to-
gether that way. But this doodle on the note, and this piece of
silver you bought. That could be coincidence.” He picked up
the two objects and examined them again. “Maybe the writer


76
THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
tried to draw a sunburst on the note."
"Would Elsie Tatum have time to do it while the house was on
fire?"
“She admits she took time to write a memo. This looks like it
was done in a hurry. It's printed and not written, which sug-
gests an effort at concealment upon the part of the writer; one's
handwriting is too telltale. The writer may have felt that he or
she had become part of a plot, willingly or unwillingly. The
question asked could be intended as reproof for committing an
indiscretion; or, again, a seeking for information; or a warning
to be more careful, that others may have overseen the act, or
might witness other damaging acts unless the doer thereof were
more careful.”
Professor Rogers was thinking aloud. Hitherto he had had a
rather disinterested attitude toward the whole thing, the little
unrelated incidents as well as the death of Slater; now for the
first time he seemed genuinely concerned about them all. It was as
though a jigsaw puzzle had been dumped before him and he had
picked up the first two or three pieces and was thinking, “Yes,
there very probably is a picture in this scrambled mess.”
"There's this about the note, too," I suggested. “The writer
didn't want to be seen talking with the recipient. Also there is
implicit a willingness to cooperate by keeping silent, in other
words to become a conspirator; or, perhaps, admitting a con-
spiracy in being, and seeking information, as you suggest.”
"But why would the note be discarded?”
“Either it was dropped accidentally, or else the recipient is
careless and rather sure of himself.”
“Probably."
Rogers was silent for a while then carefully phrased a question.
"Have you the slightest notion why the dead stranger might
figure in these odd happenings?”.
“I've racked my brain, but I can't see the slightest connection.”
"We both saw the body on the street that morning, Wiley.


THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
77
Who else of the crowd, so to speak, saw it?"
"Elsie Tatum did; and I'm sure that Slater saw the body. But
as to the others, I don't know. Dan McBride was in Mexico City.
His sister Marian and the others of their party was in Taxco
that night the man was killed, if my calculation is correct, but
whether they saw the body next morning or not, I can't say. But
what difference would that make?”
“That's what puzzles me. It can't possibly have any bearing on
what happened afterward. A Mexican unknown gets himself
killed on the Acapulco highway, the body is carried into town
and laid out on the street. Several of us see the body. The funeral
is held in the afternoon, and that's the end of him. Why, there-
fore, should there arise out of that incident a train of events
affecting our lives? It's fantastic."
“That's just the word I was going to use."
"It's a blind alley, thinking that way. But there are hard facts
we can consider. So far we have a murder committed on a train;
the damage to Felix Durkin's house by fire of incendiary origin;
I've lost a roll of film which I went to considerable effort in Mex-
ico to obtain. The body of one Benton Slater had one puncture
wound admittedly made by Doctor Fulbright's hypodermic nee-
dle; you have in your possession a note containing five words and
a doodle, indicating, or, at least, pointing to guilty knowledge of
the fire at Durkin's, and the fire department has the melted case
of my roll of film. Is that right, Wiley?"
“Yes."
“Does that strike you that the murder wagon is beginning to
roll?"
“It has an ominous sound.”
"I can hear the wheels rumbling, Wiley; and I don't like it."


11
SEVERAL days passed before I saw Huntoon Rogers again, then
one morning I met him in the village in Westwood near a market.
Almost his first words were:
“The deputy went back to Nogales. But I've heard nothing
more about the case."
“It would be rather difficult, I should think, to come to a deci-
sion from what Martindale learned at Durkin's.”
“Yes, I'd hesitate to say who´among those present was guilty.
For all practical considerations the scene of the crime has van-
ished; the passengers in that particular Pullman are scattered;
the car itself by now is probably down in Mexico somewhere.
And the body has been buried. All they've got over there in
Arizona, I suppose, is an autopsy report and Martindale's account
of what he learned here, which is mostly a lot of loose statements,
suspicions and insinuations on the part of Felix Durkin.”
“Do you still think it's murder?"
He looked at me. His mild blue eyes were steady and sincere.
“Yes, it's murder." He was quite definite. For a moment he
was silent, then he went on. “About that note you found, Wiley.
It since has occurred to me that perhaps the writer wasn't think-
ing of the film being thrown into the fireplace, but of something
else."
“What else?"
“Of the murder of Slater."
“Then it could have been written earlier."
"Sometime in the afternoon, or after dinner—any time, in fact,
except when we thought it was written. Of course, it's just an-
78


THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
79
other idea. Our first supposition probably is correct. By the way,
I saw Doctor Fulbright yesterday—"
“You did?”
"I had him write me out a prescription for a spot of eczema
that comes on my arm occasionally.” He pulled a slip of paper-
from his vest pocket. “Let me see that note again.”
I produced it and Rogers examined the two. Obviously they
were not the same. Color and texture of paper were quite dif-
ferent. Several words in the prescription were printed. Rogers
compared those with the words in the note.
“No,” he said, after a few moments. “Neither paper nor writer
is the same.”
"You'd eliminate Fulbright, then?”
"He didn't write the note.” He put away his prescription, and
I carefully returned the note to my billfold.
When I looked up at him, his gaze had shifted to someone or
something behind my back.
“Oh, Canby!” he called suddenly
I looked about and saw Durkin's butler coming out of the
market. The three of us moved together, and the butler stood
inquiringly before us after an exchange of greetings.
“How's the hand?” Rogers asked.
The butler's hand was bandaged. Fulbright had dressed it that
evening for slight burns he had sustained when the fire swept
out of the fireplace and he fell with the screen.
“Doing very nicely, thank you, sir.”
"It could have been serious," I said.
“Yes, sir, Mr. Wiley; I realize that.”
“How's everything over at the Durkins'?” Roger inquired.
“Quiet, sir, quiet, after all the excitement. The men have gone
to work repairing the damage to the living room. It will take
some time, though, I'm sure, to restore it to what it was.”
The butler was an intelligent, quiet-spoken man of middle age.
His pale eyes were round and rather prominent. Talking to him


80
THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
on the street as we were, the harried, shrinking manner he had
exhibited that day at the Durkins' was absent.
"Have you been long with Mr. Durkin?"
“A little over a year, Professor."
“I thought so. I remember the other man who died."
“Yes, old Tompkins. All of us are new, comparatively speak-
ing, at Mr. Durkin's, except the housekeeper. She's been in his
employ a great many years.”
"You heard the inquiry, Canby; do you have any ideas about
who killed Benton Slater?"
“I-I have no ideas as to who did it. You understand—” He
thought a moment, then his pale eyes widened a trifle as he
realized the import of what he had said. “Not that I mean it just
that way. Naturally, when it comes to murder I would certainly
speak out. But suspicions, say, if I had any, I should keep to
myself, unless I believed that they were more than mere suspi-
cions; they would have to be convictions, in fact, that I knew
something vital.”
"And you have no convictions, then, about the slayer?”
“No, Professor."
“This may be a digression, Canby, but tell me, when Mr.
Durkin is away in Mexico, does the household keep going just as
though he were there? I'm not prying, you understand.”
If I had been looking at Rogers a little straighter at the mo-
ment I might have thought he had winked at me.
"I understand. Yes, the house runs just the same. You see, Mr.
McBride makes his home at his uncle's. And his friends come
out, and his sister, Mrs. Fulbright, and the Pettybones are there
frequently. I've really seen little of Mr. Durkin in the year or
longer that I've been with him. He's been home less than half the
time, I should say. And, of course, Miss Tatum has her quarters
there too, although she doesn't always stay there. Frequently she
visits her mother in Long Beach. She has to carry on, of course,
with many business matters when Mr. Durkin goes away."


THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
81
"You say the housekeeper has been there a long time?"
"Twenty years, I believe. Mrs. Giles is her name. She was gone
for a while this last month, though, when Mr. Durkin was in
Mexico. Her sister died in Michigan. She didn't come back until
after all of the others had gone to Mexico too—I mean Mr. Mc-
Bride and Miss Tatum. For Mr. Durkin had been in Mexico since
long before Christmas.”
"Miss Tatum went before Mr. McBride?” I ventured in this
rather pointless delving into the household arrangement at the
Durkins'.
"Yes, sir.”
"By the way, Canby," Rogers asked, "did you see Miss Tatum
write a note while the fire was being fought?”
"No, sir. But I heard you all laughing about it later."
“Speaking of notes,” Rogers pursued, “did you by any chance
that evening at any time oversee anybody else writing a note, or
being given a note, or reading a note, or crumpling one up and
throwing it away?”
The butler's eyes narrowed in his otherwise passive face; his
manner became one of earnest thought. Finally he answered.
"No, sir. I can't recall any of the various things you speak of.”
He hesitated, then inquired, “Would that, perhaps, have some-
thing to do with the murder of Mr. Slater?”
“It's possible, Canby—if such a note were written and given to
somebody to read.”
"It's all very mysterious to me, sir, how you criminologists
work,” Canby confessed. “You postulate a note, say, I think
that is the term– You postulate it and then think all about it in
circles in the hope of uncovering vital information. Then if that
doesn't yield, you postulate something else. Am I right?”
Rogers' face was solemn, and he replied seriously. “More or
less, yes, Canby. There are various methods of tracking down
criminals. Some use one method, others use other methods.”
"I'm very glad that you are interested in our case, if I may


82
THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
speak of it so early in that way, sir. I knew the butler at the
Janeways' over in Bel-Air-Chaucer Feeters was his name-
where you had that very baffling case, and he tells me you were
marvelous. In the Hollywood vernacular, as he used it, you were
terrific."
“Now, now, Canby—you're running ahead of events that I
sincerely hope may never occur. Moreover, you're too compli-
mentary. Don't imagine things. Well, I see that you're out on
errands this morning, so we won't keep you. Thanks, though,
for your information. And I hope that that hand of yours heals
quickly."
"Oh, it will. And thank you, and good-by, gentlemen."
We watched him climb into a car and drive away.
“Well, any grist from the mill?”
"Not much, Wiley. It may not add up at all. But you never
know what particular bit of information may later pop up out of
seemingly idle conversations to become vital in a murder case.”
"You're proceeding on the assumption that the thing isn't over
yet."
“Benton Slater's murderer is still at large,” he said simply.
"So he is. Any notion at all who it might be?"
“Not the foggiest, Wiley. If I mentioned any name among the
principals it would be only to guess. And murder is too serious
for guessing games.”
We parted soon after that; he went toward the university and
I drove downtown to the public library. I was late home to din-
ner, and my sister Patsy who lives with me remarked rather
pointedly as we sat down at the table:
"Some woman called you several times."
“Who was she?"
"She refused to give her name; it became rather mysterious."
“Became mysterious? How?
"Once her voice sounded rather hurried and breathless, and
other times she talked so low I could scarcely hear her.”


84
THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
and when I asked for Miss Tatum, she left the line open for some
minutes. Finally she came back on the line with the information
that Miss Tatum was not in. I left word that I had called.
“Don't go imagining things, Osborn,” said Patsy as I came
back into the living room and picked up a magazine.
"I can't help it, after what has happened. Mysterious tele-
phone calls frequently occur in murder cases."
“But, why not let Professor Rogers do the worrying?"
"It may be important.”
"Of course, it's important to the woman; at least it sounded
desperately so."
“Desperately?”
Our doorbell rang, and Patsy went to see what was wanted at
this late hour, for it was nearly ten o'clock. There was an ex-
change of words, the door closed and Patsy came back with a
letter.
“Special delivery for you.” She held it out to me,
“Mailed here in town,” I said, glancing at the postmark.
"Well, open it. Maybe it's your mysterious caller.”
I tore the envelope open. The message was brief, and began
without a salutation:
"Do you remember the conversation in Taxco about buzzards
and cemeteries? And what you said about the dead stranger?
I must see you. But wait till I call you. 'Elsie Tatum.”
I read it through twice, then gave it to Patsy.
"What do you make of it?” she inquired when she had read
the note.
“That was Elsie Tatum trying to telephone me.”
“Yes, but what does she mean 'buzzards and cemeteries'?
What's that got to do with it all?”
“I wish I knew, Patsy. As nearly as I recall the conversation


THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
85
at the hotel that morning before breakfast, it had something to
do with disappearing in Mexico-how easy it was for an in-
dividual to vanish, and no one be the wiser. She'd been thinking
about the dead stranger.”


12
SLEEP was long in coming that night. I sat up until quite late
momentarily expecting a call from Elsie Tatum. But none came.
Had it not been for the injunction in her note to wait until she
should call, I would have tried again to get in touch with her.
Naturally, I reasoned, her note had to do with the murder of
Benton Slater; some new development was foreshadowed, some
urgency had come upon her to get in touch with me. But why not
the police, or Huntoon Rogers? And why should she recall the
conversation about buzzards and cemeteries?
As I lay tossing sleeplessly, I tried to sort out from the many
impressions in this strange series of events something that might
throw light upon this new development. There had been in Taxco
occasionally odd periods of tension, strange interludes of quiet,
a faltering of the conversation at times when I expected a re-
sponse; they had to do, as I recalled, with observations I had
voiced about the dead stranger, or, questions asked about the
Durkin family and Elsie Tatum's relation to it. But there was
nothing, try as hard as I could to discover it, that bore upon this
urgency to see and talk with me.
Next morning I busied myself at home, expecting at any mo-
ment to hear the telephone bell ring. I debated going over to the
Durkin place in Brentwood on some pretext in the hope of
chancing upon Elsie Tatum, and thus ending the suspense, but
when I was upon the point of telephoning Rogers at the uni-
versity to seek his advice, the doorbell rang.
Standing outside were three men. For a moment I did not grasp
the situation and I stood waiting for them to speak, not realizing
-
--
86


THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
87
that I was confronted by Deputy Sheriff Martindale, Glen
Stevens, the special agent for the railroad company, and an odd-
looking man who nevertheless had a familiar air about him. I
looked closely at this third man. He was Mexican, a sort of a bag
of a man, paunchy and heavy on his feet, with a rugged dark
face creased by many wrinkles. When he saw me he smiled, dis-
closing a mouth full of yellowed and irregular teeth.
"Oh, buenos días," I said.
“Ab, sí, señor, buenos días,” he replied.
He was the Pullman porter on the trip from Mexico City to
Nogales. Dressed as he was in street clothes I had not recognized
him.
“Come in, all of you.” My heartiness was tinged with curiosity
at this sudden apparition on my doorstep. “Come in, and sit
down and tell me what it's all about."
“We just thought we'd drop by and say hello,” said Martin-
dale matter-of-factly. "We just got in from Nogales this morn-
ing.”
The dust-stained car that stood at the curb outside dore testi-
mony of the desert. They came in, Martindale leaning notice-
ably on his cane. I passed the cigarettes and sat down.
“Still working on the Slater case?” I inquired.
“Yes,” answered Martindale. “Glen and 1—” he referred to
the special agent—"grabbed Pancho off at Nogales. He hadn't
been to Los Angeles for a long time, had you, Pancho?”
“No, sir,” the Pullman porter answer with a toothy smile. His
accent was pronounced. “Not for a very long time.”
"You were on Pancho's car coming up from Mexico, weren't
you?” asked Stevens pointedly.
“Of course. He took good care of us. It wasn't his fault that the
water in the dressing rooms ran out twice. That's Mexico.”
Pancho Montez grinned broadly. “That happen,” he explained,
"when we lose time. Long distance between stations where we
can get water. Always have beer to drink, though. Good Mexi-


THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
93
the windows. No one spoke for some moments. I was confident
that this act had been rehearsed; for both Martindale and Ste-
vens were engaged in observing our varied reactions.
“It isn't mine, if that's what you're driving at," Doctor Ful-
bright said testily, shooting a glance at Felix Durkin, who
seemed to enjoy the act. Fulbright gestured toward his medical
case at his feet. “Mine's in there.”
"Is your statement susceptible to proof?” asked Durkin slyly.
"Of course it is. I'll gamble my neck that you can't prove it's
mine.” The doctor's gray hair seemed to bristle with the resent-
ment he felt.
“But what if it isn't yours, dear?” said Marian. “They're try-
ing to blame it on Elsie Tatum, who isn't here to defend herself.
Pancho says Elsie was leaning into the berth at the critical mo-
ment. And the hypodermic is found in the women's dressing
room among the soiled towels.”
“That's so," I said.
Pancho grinned. “You see,” he explained, indicating the
syringe, “I put it away in my locker. I not know somebody is
going to die in my car. I not know about these things. Maybe it
is broken and no good, and that is why it is in the towel basket.
The conductor that night at Nogales say it is no matter; it is not
worth anything. So I put it in my bag and that is all, until I talk
with Señor Stevens, and they think it is important."


THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
95
paying any attention to dreams, Mrs. Tatum. . . . If you know
your daughter as well as we do up here, she's plenty able to take
care of herself. Plenty. ... Now, don't worry. ... Yes, yes.
I'll have her call you as soon as she comes in. ... And if she
comes in down there, tell her to call us. If you start to dreaming
like that, you'll get us upset. Yes. . . . All right. All right.
Good-by."
He put the receiver back in its cradle. "Old fool of a woman,"
he growled. “Eighty-two or three. Said she had a bad dream
about Elsie last night. Gone and got herself all worked up over
it now."
"What kind of dream, Uncle Felix?" asked Marian Fulbright.
"Oh, I don't know. She tried to tell me. Something had hap-
pened to her. Foolishness! Forget about it! Nothing's happened
to Elsie. Most capable woman I ever knew. Resourceful—"
“Just the same, Mr. Durkin," I interrupted, “she tried several
times late yesterday afternoon to telephone me. I was downtown
and she didn't succeed. She wouldn't leave a message. But a spe-
cial delivery letter from her reached me late last night.” I went
on, explaining somewhat more fully.
"Could we see the letter?” asked Martindale hopefully.
“Of course."
He knitted his brows over it, then when he had read it passed it
on to Stevens.
"Can you tell us what she means about this buzzards and
cemeteries business, Mr. Wiley?” inquired Martindale.
Marian Fulbright picked up the phrase. “Buzzards and ceme-
teries?”
"Yes," I answered the young woman. “Do you remember how
the buzzards fly all day over Taxco? And you remember the
little cemetery on the hill below the Rancho Telva? You can see
it from the sun terrace."
“Yes, of course.”
"Well, that was what she was referring to. The phrase was


96
THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
associated with a thought that had been expressed in connection
with the incident of the dead stranger on the street in Taxco,
which some of us saw. The thought being the ease with which
one could disappear in Mexico and no one at home ever be the
wiser. You see this dead stranger was an unknown who had been
killed on the highway, and the villagers buried him that after-
noon. He could have been from this country, or Guatemala, say,
or Cuba, and no one would know it.”
Felix Durkin broke in on me. “Did Elsie see the dead stranger,
Wiley? Or do you know?”
“She saw the body on the street. Gave her quite a turn, she
said.”
Felix Durkin's thin fingers picked nervously at the edge of
the green blotter on the desk. “Go on, go on,” he said irritably.
"That's all I wanted to ask.”
Elsie Tatum's note was being handed about the room, and
read with varied comment.
"But what does she mean, Mr. Wiley?" asked Amelia Petty-
bone anxiously. “Do you think it has anything to do with the
murder of Mr. Slater?”
I have no way of knowing that. All I can offer is the observa-
tion that something has occurred to frighten her; or, at least, to
excite her greatly. Whether it had to do with the death of Slater
or not, I don't know. And I haven't the slightest idea what buz-
zards and cemeteries have to do with it, or with me.
"You understand I'd never seen Elsie Tatum before in my life,
until I met her in Taxco. And except for the fact that I had heard
of Mr. Durkin—knew him by reputation, of course—you were
all total strangers to me before I went to Mexico a little over a
month ago. Now, why Miss Tatum would select me to share
whatever it was she had discovered, or been alarmed by, is some-
thing I can't tell you."
Doctor Fulbright stirred. “It is something of a puzzle, Mr.
Wiley. From the note and the efforts at telephoning, it would


THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
97
seem that she was greatly upset.”
The railroad special agent spoke up. “Do you suppose she
wanted your advice, Mr. Wiley?"
"Advice? Possibly. What kind of advice?"
"Well-suppose—” he wasn't sure of his ground—“suppose
she killed Slater, and she got to thinking, maybe, that we'd pick
up this hypodermic angle, and because she'd made the mistake of
throwing it away in the women's room, instead of the men's to
confuse us—of course, what she should have done was throw it
off the train—but saying she'd made the mistake, wouldn't she
think it was time she saw a lawyer—?"
“But I'm not a lawyer.”
"Oh. Sorry. Somehow I thought you were.”
Felix Durkin's voice suddenly exploded. He struck the desk
with his fist.
“You're all talking damn nonsense! Elsie Tatum never killed
Benton Slater. I know Elsie. I've known Elsie for twenty years.
She's been my secretary. I know her moods, and her capabilities.
She never hated anybody in her life. She couldn't. When we
needed a new lawyer to look after the interests, she picked Slater
herself. Saved me the trouble. Her only fault was that she liked to
talk; she'd tell anything she knew with only a little encourage-
ment-"
"Could she possibly have told Slater something—just any-
thing, say—Uncle Felix, that she wished later she hadn't said?
And then realized that she had to kill him to shut him up?" Dan
McBride propounded the question, his dark eyes serious behind
his glasses.
His uncle looked at the young man in amazement. “You don't
talk sense,” he scolded. “There wasn't anything to tell. Elsie
didn't know anything about my business affairs-or personal,
for that matter—that Slater didn't know too. I always have said
what I think; and they both had ears, and they weren't deaf,
either one of them. Let's get back to the hypodermic. That's im-


98
THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
portant. I'd say it's the one that killed Slater.”
"I'm sure you're right, Mr. Durkin,” said Rogers, who had
been sitting quietly through all this conversation. “Hypoder-
mics are not common among non-medical folk. You wouldn't
find one on board a hundred trains, which was not the property
or in the possession of a physician. The most significant fact is
that it was discarded among the soiled towels. The user thereof
was through with it; he had finished, and he didn't want it dis-
covered upon his person, or in his luggage when he went through
customs at the border. Did you have any trouble, Doctor Ful-
bright, crossing the border?”
"No; but I had to show everything in my medical kit, though.”
"How many hypodermic syringes did you have with you?”
The question for some reason seemed to embarrass Fulbright.
“One,” he said after a moment's hesitation.
“But you always carry two, dear,” said Marian Fulbright help-
fully.
“There you go!" the doctor turned angrily upon his wife.
"But-you do."
Doctor Fulbright with an effort brought his temper under con-
trol.
"All right,” he said. "I did have two when I went to Mexico.
But I came back with only one."
“How so, Doctor?" asked Martindale.
“Somebody stole the other one.”
"When was that?"
“The first night on the train out of Mazatlán.”
"Rifled your kit, did they?"
“How else would it have been taken?" he replied testily.
"When did you miss it?"
“The next morning.”
"Is this your syringe?" pressed the deputy, pointing to the
instrument which Pancho still held on his knees.
Fulbright leaned forward and took it carefully by the needle


· 100
THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
ing said this, Fulbright suddenly seemed like a man who had
walked out of a dark cellar into the sunlight. “I hadn't thought
of that. Somehow it hadn't occurred to me. Of course, that's how
it was done! But not everyone would know that.”
Felix Durkin was like a cat at a mousehole. "You'd almost
have to have medical knowledge in order to know that, eh, Ful-
bright?”
"Oh, I don't know," the doctor flared.
Rogers interrupted calmly. "Not necessarily,” he said. “Any
doctor, of course, should know the fact. But I can conceive of a
situation like this one, say. We will suppose that after Doctor
Fulbright had administered the sedative, Slater fell asleep. He
would be covered. His arms probably would be under the blan-
ket. Of.course, what led the murderer to select this means of doing
away with his victim is a puzzle in itself, and we'll not speculate
upon its answer. But suppose that he came to the victim's berth
with intent to commit murder by administering morphine hypo-
dermically.
"Doctor Fulbright's sedative had taken effect, and Slater was
asleep. Many of us in a relaxed state sleep with mouth open.
Wouldn't it be quicker and simpler, instead of uncovering the
victim's arm, to stick the needle into the sleeping man's mouth,
under the tongue, say. No medical knowledge upon the part of
the murderer, beyond the technique of preparing the morphine
and injecting it, would be required to do that. Perhaps the mur-
derer was lucky, in so far as leaving a telltale mark is concerned,
that Slater, as we have supposed, slept with his mouth open.”
"Well, then, you couldn't have done it that way, if he had been
awake?” interjected Martindale with a show of excitement.
“It would have been impossible.”
“But wouldn't he wake up, Professor," asked Dan McBride,
“when he felt the needle?”
Rogers did not reply, but looked to Doctor Fulbright who now
seemed eager to enlarge upon the possibilities involved.


THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
101
"No, Dan. If he were sleeping under a quarter grain of mor-
phine, he wouldn't waken. There's a momentary prick of pain,
which almost immediately is overcome by the morphine itself.
Slater might stir slightly from subconscious reaction, but he
wouldn't waken.”
We sat pondering this information. Clearly many things had
been solved. We seemed a little closer to the central facts, if this
supposition were true. As we sat for a moment silently, I realized
that I had heard the sound of a motor car outside in the drive-
way. Before the conversation was resumed the doorbell rang and
Canby, loathe to leave the library, set off to answer it.
"But you can't prove it, Hunt,” said Durkin stubbornly.
“Unfortunately no. As Doctor Fulbright has pointed out no
autopsy surgeon could find the mark of the needle."
“But the discarded hypodermic syringe must mean something,
Uncle Felix,” said Marian Fulbright. “Certainly it's a confession
that it was used, for it to be thrown away as it was."
“Yes, but it isn't legal proof.”
-
An argument was getting under way between Felix Durkin and
his niece when Canby reappeared in the doorway escorting a tall
figure in police uniform. Canby presented the officer to us with
a gesture that was sufficiently revealing. We all turned to look.
The man had taken off his cap. He was embarrassed but resolute.
"I— Did a Miss Tatum live at this address?”
Durkin glowered at the officer. "She lives here, yes—"
“I'm sorry to bring bad news, sir. She—"
"What's happened?” asked Marian Fulbright in a strange
voice.
"Well—it's like this, lady; they've just found her up in the
hills back of here."
“Do you mean-she's dead?”
“Yes, lady."


14
The officer departed, leaving us stunned by the news of Elsie
Tatum's death. Felix Durkin leaned forward and put his elbows
on the desk; his eyes were fixed upon the green blotter. Finally
he began idly moving the various objects about on the surface of
the desk. Dan McBride got down from his seat on the desk and
ranged restlessly about the room. I looked at Huntoon Rogers
who was across the room from me, remembering what he had
said about the rumble of the murder wagon which was beginning
to roll. He seemed lost in thought.
"Poor old Elsie,” said Felix Durkin, as if talking to himself.
"I wonder what happened to her.”
Doctor Fulbright's voice was harsh; his brown eyes narrowed.
"Well, he just told us that she was dead, didn't he? Sitting in her
car up in the hills. That's what happened.”
“That's not what I mean exactly, Mel,” said Durkin, wearily.
"Why did she die?" He went on after a moment. “I was watching
a chipmunk in a cage one time when I was a boy. All of a sud-
den he stopped running around, did a sort of dance on his hind
legs, pawing at the air, then fell over dead. Elsie reminds me of
it. She was running around here yesterday, the same as usual.”
He fastened his eyes upon me. “Then all of a sudden she's upset,
pawing the air, trying to get in touch with Osborn Wiley, proba-
bly all the time knowing that death was about to strike. Then she
died.”
“But the policeman didn't say she was murdered, Cousin
Felix,” suggested Amelia Pettybone.
"No, he didn't say it. But what do you think? After what's
102


THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
103
already happened."
Dan McBride burst out with a suggestion of violence in his
tone. "We don't know anything for sure yet. Let's go find out.”
“Where do we go?" asked his sister.
“The station down in West Los Angeles,” said Rogers quietly.
“If you want I'll go talk to them, and report back to you."
"I think we'd better go with you, Glen and me,” said Deputy
Martindale. “Pancho can go along if he wants to. I've got a
hunch that this thing is all hooked together somehow—"
"Hooked together?” said Felix Durkin with a dry cackle. “Of
course, it's hooked together.”
"I guess I'll not go," said Marian Fulbright. “I'll stay here."
"Well—" Doctor Fulbright got to his feet. “If this meeting is
adjourned, I'll be running along. I've another call or two to make
in this neighborhood.”
Dan McBride didn't go with us. At first he was determined
that he would, but changed his mind when his sister remarked
that he ought to stay at the house with his Uncle Felix.
We were starting away when I recalled Elsie Tatum's special
delivery note of the night before. It had been going the rounds
of the room when I last had track of it. The note might be of im-
portance now.
“The note,” I said, "from Miss Tatum.”
“Haven't you got it?" Rogers asked.
"It didn't come back to me. Who had it last?"
None among the others answered; from their expressions,
though, they couldn't tell me where it had gone. The Mexican
Pullman porter grinned at me. “I not read it,” he said. “I pass it
on to this lady here.” He indicated Amelia Pettybone.
“I haven't got it,” she said. “I just glanced at it, and passed it
on—to somebody. I must have."
Curious how the thing could have disappeared, but the fact
was quite clear that Elsie Tatum's note had vanished. On the
way to the police station I mulled over this disturbing incident


104
THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
which seemed to indicate that the murderer of Benton Slater-
and very likely Elsie Tatum-had been in the room with us at
the moment the officer arrived with news of Elsie Tatum's death,
and under cover of the excitement had concealed the note. Pos-
sibly, too, I was thinking nonsense. The note could have been
mislaid, in which case it likely would be found.
Assuming, however, that the note had been stolen, the fact in
itself was sufficient reason to eliminate one of the group from
suspicion in the death of Elsie Tatum—if not that of Benton
Slater. Will Pettybone had not been present at the meeting, could
not have known about the note, could not have stolen it-if
stealing it resulted from a guilty conscience and a calculating,
clever mind. On the other hand, though, did it eliminate Petty-
bone? Couldn't the same watchful person who had written that
wadded note which asked “Why did you do it?” at the time of
the fire, have been present to protect the interests of a fellow
conspirator? Presumably this would be Pettybone's wife, Amelia.
It could be someone else too, for that matter, Marian Fulbright,
say, or her brother, Dan McBride
It was a ride of only a few minutes to the police station in West
Los Angeles. We passed the desk sergeant in the lobby and went
clattering up the echoing stairwell to the office of the detectives
on the second floor. Rogers led the way, calling out greetings,
shaking hands here and there as we progressed, as though he
were a welcome familiar at the station.
"Well,” said Fred Craigie, the detective sergeant in charge,
when we had been introduced and were seated in chairs facing
his desk. “Quite a gathering. What's it all about?” He addressed
his remarks to Rogers, his broad dark face beaming as he spoke.
“The Elsie Tatum case, Fred. She was found a short while ago
in her car back in the hills behind Brentwood."
"Oh, that one,” said Craigie, lighting a cigar, and then picking
up a greasy pack of playing cards and placing it in his desk.
“Some stuff has just come in." He opened a desk drawer and


106
THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
“Wasn't an attempted assault, was it?" inquired Martindale.
"Nothing like that is indicated. There's money in her purse;
so it wasn't robbery. No, it looks like whoever it was, had only
one purpose and that to kill her. And he did."
"Where was the body, outside the car?" asked Rogers.
"Inside. But the fight took place outside. There's blood on the
ground, and the grass was tramped down at the edge of the road.”
“There'd be a fight, I imagine, Sergeant,” I said.
"Yeah? You knew her?”
“She was the kind who would put up a scrap."
“But why the garden hose?” Martindale pressed.
“We ain't figured that out yet, Sheriff.”
"Just where was it? In the car coiled—?” Rogers was curious
too.
"No, Professor. That's the funny part. One end of the hose
was stuck in the exhaust pipe of the car, the other end of it had
been brought around on the ground to the car door. You can rea-
son that here was a suicide pact that didn't jell. They'd brought
the hose along, and he-I suppose it was a he-was out getting
the hose fixed up when she changed her mind, and jumped out
of the car and the argument started—and ended in the shooting."
"That's one way of looking at it,” remarked the railroad spe-
cial agent thoughtfully. "It's certainly plausible.”
“But why didn't he go ahead, then, and kill himself too, if
there was a suicide pact?" Martindale asked.
"They change their minds frequently,” remarked the sergeant
wisely. “It's something on the order of taking a cold bath, only
more so. When they see the results of one's going, they lose their
enthusiasm, and decide against going along too."
“Did she have a sweetheart, though?" asked Martindale.
“We haven't found that out yet."
"I doubt it,” said Rogers. "You'd have to check on it to be
certain, of course.”
The note still was uppermost in my mind. I spoke of it. “Some-


THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
107
how," I said, after I had aired the facts about it, "she wouldn't
be writing a note like that if she were planning suicide or a sui-
cide pact. Personally, I've never known a suicide and therefore
have had no chance to observe his actions shortly before he com-
mitted the act. But I doubt if he'd say anything at all; his actions
might be a trifle mysterious, but they'd be secretive. He wouldn't
want anybody to know what he was doing, would he?"
The sergeant blew a cloud of cigar smoke and waved his hand
through it.
"Well, I don't know; they're all kinds, of course. There's some
who broadcast it, and get all worked up about it. But mostly,
I think, those folks are hoping they won't have to make good on
their threat, hoping somebody will stop 'em before they go too
far. Their inferiority complex, or something, blows its top."
"But if it wasn't a suicide pact, the garden hose becomes a
little too much of a complication, doesn't it?” asked Stevens.
"How are you going to kill somebody with carbon monoxide from
the exhaust if the intended victim objects?”
"It doesn't look feasible,” Rogers commented. “Unless the plan
was to knock the victim unconscious first. A killer might first tie
up the victim, then release the bonds after death had ensued, in
an effort to make it look like suicide, although in reality it was
murder."
The sergeant was impressed by Rogers' explanation. “I
wouldn't be surprised, Professor, but what you've got something
there. His plans were all right, but they went sour; the victim put
up a scrap, and he had to shoot her.”
"Well, then, whose gun is it?" asked Martindale, “his or hers?”
Sergeant Craigie lifted the gun from the desk and looked at it
closely. It was of small caliber; probably not more than a .25.
"There's no initials on it,” he observed. “But just judging off
hand, I'd say it was a woman's gun and not a man's. A man
wants something heavier. A woman usually doesn't; most of the
shootin' a woman plans to do—that is, when she's not out to kill


THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
109
"What do you see, Mr. Wiley?”.
"Isn't there something written on that purse?"
Craigie glanced at it. “I don't see anything."
"I can see it from this angle.”
The sergeant picked it up. “Yes—you're right.” He laid down
his cigar, and twisted the purse about so as to catch the light
upon it. “Something sure as hell is on it. Wait a minute-a couple
or three words.” He read with difficulty. "It says, 'Not suicide
I-'" He sat back, looking at us oddly. "It ain't good writing.
You have to guess at the last letters of the word 'suicide.' And the
l' is just a scrawl.”
We sat silently for a moment. Then the railroad special agent
spoke.
"Looks like she did her best to help you out. If it's hers.”
"Yeah," responded Martindale. “Probably had strength
enough left after he shoved her back in the car to rally and
write that.”
"Probably that's why the lipstick wasn't in the purse, but on
the car floor," mused Sergeant Craigie.


15
It was after lunch when we got back to the Durkin house in
Brentwood. We had parted with Glen Stevens and Pancho Mon-
tez, the Mexican Pullman porter. The latter had to get back to
his job. He had played his rôle successfully, and, anyway, it
looked as though the murder of Benton Slater was due, tempo-
rarily at least, to be put aside for this newest and more urgent
matter of Elsie Tatum's death. They were reluctant to go, how-
ever.
"I think I'll stay another day, anyhow,” said Deputy Sheriff
Martindale, as he bade them good-by. “Something could come
of this new angle that might clear up my case for me.”
As we climbed out of the car in front of the Durkin place, a
police car in the driveway ahead of us disgorged a slight-appear-
ing nervous individual dressed in a blue pin-stripe suit and a
light gray hat whose brim was snapped down over his eyes. He
halted as we climbed out, and waited for us to come up.
"As I live and breathe,” he said with great emphasis, begin-
ning slowly to extend his right hand toward Huntoon Rogers,
“if it ain't the professor himself in person.”
“Hello, Reevers. Haven't seen you for a long time.”
They shook hands with enthusiasm. Then Rogers introduced
us to Detective Lieutenant Kelly Reevers of the homicide bureau
at headquarters. He was a larger man than he appeared at first
glance, and his handshake was like a grip of steel.
“Then it's really serious, Professor," the detective lieutenant
· said, turning to Rogers.
"How so?”
110


THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
111
"You wouldn't be here, if it wasn't something special. Remem-
ber the Janeway case in Bel-Air?"
"Of course.”
"Looked simple to start out with, but it was a tough one be-
fore we got through with it. Vitamin pills, wasn't it, that they
all got to swallowing? How's this one shaping up?"
"It looks like your meat, Lieutenant,” said Rogers, grinning
at him. “I just happened to be in on it when it started.” We
walked up the steps to the front door. “That's part of the plot,”
Rogers said, pointing to the marks of fire in the midst of new
construction.
"Arson too? Say, Professor, I don't ever want to know you
very well—except in a professional way, like this.”
"Why do you say that?”
"I want to stay alive. Have you got any friends or acquaint-
ances left? They're always getting themselves killed off."
“Oh, now—” Rogers laughed. “I've still got lots of 'em. It's
perfectly safe to be on a friendly basis with me.”
Canby let us into the house, and for some minutes we sat
about in the library giving those who had remained at home an
account of Elsie Tatum's death. The death of his secretary had
been a stunning blow to Felix Durkin. The others sat with blank
faces, while the story, so far as it was known, came out.
"Can't we get outside?” asked Reevers. He ran his finger
around the neckband of his dark blue shirt collar, as if it were
choking him. “Isn't there a patio?"
"Sure,” said Dan McBride briskly. “It's a nice day too. I don't
know why we sit inside like this. Come on out.”
"I want to know what it's all about. From the beginning,"
said Reevers as we followed McBride out into the bright patio.
"I want a fill in before I jump off the deep end on it. They tell me
a lot has happened already."
"In Mexico. And Arizona,” Deputy Martindale said.
The patio was large and comfortably furnished. There was an


114
THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
all been reading it in turn."
"Just mislaid, was it, in the excitement?"
Dan shook his head. “I don't think so, Lieutenant. Those of us
who stayed here looked for the note and we couldn't find it."
"Are you all here, who were in the room at the time?"
Rogers glanced about the circle. “Except for Doctor Fulbright,
the railroad special agent and the Pullman porter."
"Could any one of them have carried it off with him?"
“Doctor Fulbright wouldn't do anything like that,” Marian
Fulbright answered in defense of her husband.
"You say that because he's your husband, Mrs. Fulbright—"
"I know he wouldn't. You're implying that he's guilty of some-
thing, maybe murder, and I'll not stand for it.”
Reevers shrugged his shoulders. “Oh, all right, all right. It
takes proof, though, and not assertions when you get to monkey-
ing around in a murder case.”
“Anyway,” Marian Fulbright strove for the last word
“What difference does it make? Miss Tatum didn't name any-
body in the note. She didn't say she was expecting to be killed.
She didn't say who murdered Mr. Slater. So what difference does
it make?"
"Maybe it wouldn't make any difference, Mrs. Fulbright. That
is, the note itself. But if somebody took it, or hid it, or destroyed
it, you'd be justified in suspecting that person. He'd be figuring
that the note might be used as evidence against him-or some-
body close to him who he was trying to protect.”
"In other words, Marian,” explained her brother, “it would be
done because of a guilty conscience.”
"That's right, Mrs. Fulbright,” said Reevers in a mollifying
tone. “I've no doubt your husband didn't do it. But he'll have to
prove it—maybe. And now, let's ask a few questions— But, first
where's the envelope the note came in, Mr. Wiley? Did that dis-
appear too?"
“No, I have it.” I pulled it out of my pocket and gave it to him.


THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
115
He looked at it closely. Turned it about, even smelled it. "Wom-
an's stationery," he said. “Doesn't tell much. Post mark 7:30
P. M. Could have been put in the box a couple of hours before
that. Does anybody recognize the handwriting as Miss Tatum's?”
He offered the envelope generally to us. Felix Durkin reached
for it. He merely glanced at the handwriting, then gave it back
to Reevers.
"It's Elsie's,” he said.
"Well, that settles that, then. Do I understand that she made
her home here, Mr. Durkin?"
“Practically that.”
"Practically?"
Durkin's voice revealed a slight irritation. "She had a room
here. Worked here. Slept here. Looked after my mail and routine
business matters. Sort of ran things, especially when I was in
Mexico. She was free to come and go, though, at any time. Take
a few days or a week off, if she felt like it. Kept her own hours.
All I required was that she look after the damned details so I
wouldn't have to bother with them.”
“I see.”
Durkin retired to the solace of his cigarettes, his eyes fixed
vacantly on the patio wall.
"She ate her meals here, did she?”
“Of course,” Dan McBride answered, after a glance at his
uncle.
"Was she here for dinner last night?"
“Yes.”
. "What time was that?”
McBride looked about at Canby who was standing in the back-
ground. “When was it, Canby?”
“Dinner was served at six-thirty o'clock, sir.”
• "When did you get through, and what became of Miss
Tatum?”
"They finished about seven-fifteen, or a little after, sir. Miss


116
THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
Tatum left the dining room. I didn't notice what became of her,
sir."
“Does anybody know anything of her actions after dinner?"
he made the question general. For a moment nobody answered.
"If I may suggest, sir,” said Canby, “the chauffeur says that
she took her car from the garage about seven-thirty o'clock. And
never came back.”
“Chauffeur? Is there a chauffeur? Where's he now? Let's see
him.”
“He's Julius, sir. I'll call him.”
The butler hurried out of the patio in the direction of the
garage. Reevers lighted a cigarette, and looked at his watch.
He cocked an eye at Rogers.
“Do you see any short cuts to this thing yet, Professor?"
"Not yet."
“No use fiddling around if we can find a short cut. The boys
from the West Los Angeles station are doing the leg work. That's
important, of course. But this Mexican angle, though—” he blew
a smoke ring, musing upon the information supplied him while
we waited for the chauffeur.
Canby returned in a few minutes with him. The latter was a
heavy set man in chauffeur's garb. He wore a clipped mustache,
and when he spoke his speech suggested Scandinavian origin.
“This is Julius,” said Canby.
“Tell me about Miss Tatum. What did she do last night? And
when? I want all you know about her.” Reevers pounced on him.
The chauffeur studied his questioner for a moment quietly. He
began to speak with meticulous exactness, as if measuring his
words to his ideas.
“Miss Tatum came to the garage at seven-thirty, sir. I offered
to drive her in the big car, but she said she was only going on a
short errand. She took her own car, which is a coupé, backed out,
and turned around and went out the driveway, sir. She didn't
come back. She hadn't come back when I went to bed about


THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
117
eleven o'clock. My quarters are over the garage.”
“I see. What was her manner? Nervous, upset, or jovial—or
what?"
"Quiet, sir. As if she were thinking. Usually she joked, or had
something pleasant to say. But this time it was different.”
"Who else left the house? I mean, did anybody else from the
house follow her in a car? How many cars have you got here?”
This multiple question made Julius blink. He was silent for a
moment, then answered.
“No one else, sir, left the house. At least not in a car. There are
four cars. Miss Tatum's and Mr. McBride's, and then the big
car, and the coupé which Mr. Durkin drives sometimes.”
“I see. And the other three cars were in the garage all evening
after Miss Tatum drove away?”
“Yes, sir."
Amelia Pettybone sitting next to me suddenly screwed up her
face in a threatened sneeze. She drew her lips tightly together as
if to ward it off, then sneezed loudly.
“Excuse me,” she said, reaching hurriedly for her purse on the
bench. She opened it looking for a handkerchief, and catching
at a small bit of cloth, pulled it out. But something else came out
with it. It was a folded piece of paper that popped out upon her
lap, then slid to the ground. I stooped to pick it up for her, when
I realized what it was.
Kelly Reevers' attention shifted suddenly to Mrs. Pettybone.
“Something, is it?" he said lightly.
“Yes—1—"
"Let's have it. You won't mind, will you, Mrs. Pettybone?"
“Of course not. What is it?"
“That's what I'm wondering."
He unfolded it. It was Elsie Tatum's note to me.


THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER 119
exasperation. Amelia Pettybone was playing with him. But Ree-
vers' question had brought back an earlier thought of my own
which had occurred to me when we were on our way to the police
station. It was plausible, I had reasoned, that whoever had taken
the note could have done so in order to cover up for a confederate
who was not present at the morning meeting in the library-
meaning, of course, Will Pettybone. Once before there had been
evidence of collaboration. That wadded note printed by an un-
known hand and signed with a penciled sunburst, had asked
someone why he had done what he did. Somehow this wasn't the
time to bring that note out into the light; it would only confuse us
on the point at issue. Reevers came back and sat down. He put on
his hat and pulled it tight upon his forehead.
“Excuse me,” he said as if ruffled over his lost temper. “Now,
tell me, Mrs. Pettybone, about this note. In the excitement when
the report came of Miss Tatum's death, you took the opportunity
to conceal the note in your purse, is that it?"
"No."
"No?"
“I don't know how the note got into my purse. I didn't know it
was there until something flopped out of it just now, and you said
it was the lost note.”
“Do you know who killed Elsie Tatum?”
"No."
“Do you suspect anyone?”.
"No."
“All right. Forget it.”
Reevers folded the note and tucked it into his wallet, which
he stowed in his pocket.
"You know—” he said, squinting at Deputy Sheriff Martin-
dale who sat intently listening. He paused and then went on as if
addressing his remarks to the deputy, "a detective leads a hard
life; it could be so much easier too, if only everybody in a case
like this would be perfectly frank and truthful and cooperative.


120
THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
Even those of you who didn't do it, are not always frank and
truthful. You're so afraid you'll say something that will give me
the notion that you're guilty, that you actually mess up things;
you hinder instead of help.” He took a heavy drag on his ciga-
rette and blew out the smoke slowly in a thin plume.
“Now, I don't know who killed this woman last night—yet.
But I will know. It looks like the kind of a case that might go
on indefinitely; I mean that you may all have your throats cut
before this thing ends. One guess is that the Tatum woman knew
something about Slater's murder, and the killer was afraid to let
her go on living. How many more of you know something-oh,
you may not know you know it—which may endanger your own
lives? The longer it takes me to find the guilty person, the more
chance is there that you're going to join Slater and Miss Tatum.
Get me?" He looked about the circle meaningly. “If anybody's
got anything to say, he'd better say it.”
Nobody spoke for several moments, then Felix Durkin flipped
away his cigarette end.
“If I knew anything at all, Mr. Reevers, I'd certainly tell you.
But I don't know anything. I've been puzzled ever since Slater
died. Elsie's death leaves me groping for an answer."
"Why did you all go to Mexico?”
"Me?” responded Durkin. "I've been going down there for
many years. I like it. Life is simpler, more fundamental down
there. I've been trying for forty-odd years to get away from my
past-nurses and doctors and coddlers, and relatives, and ideas
of inferiority implanted in me when I was young."
“Oh, I see; Mexico's sort of an escape.”
"More or less. When I get fed up at home, I go down there."
"Why did Slater and Miss Tatum go down there?"
“Business matters.”
"Is it pertinent to the inquiry what that business was?”
"I don't think so. I don't mind telling you, though. Some final
papers in the estate of my son had to be signed. They brought


THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
123
when nobody was looking. It's never locked up—"
“That's very true, Mrs. Pettybone, but,"
"And why wouldn't they take our hose? They'd be crazy to
take their own hose, just as we would be, if Will or I had gone in
for murder.” She enjoyed sniping at Reevers.
“Yes, but now suppose we're dealing with a subtle person. The
obvious line of reasoning you've just pointed out; but supposing
the killer went one step further and reasoned that if he took his
own hose, instead of somebody else's, he'd make it harder—"
"Oh, we're subtle now, we Pettybones!"
“Lady, 14”.
The patio gate opened and Doctor Fulbright's short gray figure
entered, putting an end to the bickering. He came up as if sus-
picious of us, and merely nodded when his wife pointed out
Reevers and said, “This is the detective, dear, who's going to
solve things.”
"That's fine. I'm glad to hear we're going to get to the bottom
of this business. I'll have to get out of private practice if this
keeps up. I've got patients—”.
"See anything of Cousin Will?" asked his wife.
“Isn't he here yet?"
A figure loomed at the patio gate. “Isn't who here yet, Mel?”
Will Petty bone called out. “Of course, I'm here.” He seemed in
a pleasant mood. He came up to the group, shook hands with
Reevers, and looked about for a comfortable chair. He sat down
and lighted a cigarette.
“We're talking about Elsie Tatum,” his wife explained. "She
died.”
“I'm sorry to hear it. Nice girl, Elsie. She was getting along
but there was a lot of fun left in her. Who do you think did it,
Reevers?” He turned an inquiring glance upon the detective.
Reevers stirred irritably in his chair. Mrs. Pettybone moved with
sly nonchalance deeper into the conversation.
"He's trying to think that the Pettybones are guilty."


17
AN AFTERNOON of beating about through the facts at hand got us
nowhere. The Pettybones withstood all of Detective Lieutenant
Reevers' attacks, Will Pettybone insisting stoutly that the scratch
on his face was from a tree branch on the near-by golf course.
Once more we went all through the trip up the West Coast of
Mexico and the death of Benton Slater, until the thing was
threadbare. A couple of newspapermen trailing Reevers finally
arrived, but they sat quietly listening as the detective hammered
away at us.
The maid and the housekeeper, and at one time the cook, were
all in the patio with us, but they didn't supply any information
of value; none of them had heard anything or seen anything sus-
picious nor could they throw any light upon Elsie Tatum's last
movements about the house. The housekeeper, a grim-faced in-
dividual struggling to hold off the onset of old age, was moved
to remark at one point:
"I don't know anything; this has always been a very proper
household. I was away for ten days, having been called to Michi-
gan. Miss Tatum and Mr. Dan both were gone to Mexico when
I returned; but everything was just as it should be.”
“Mrs.—Mrs.”
“Mrs. Giles,” she helped out.
"Have you any private suspicions that you've kept to your-
self in this thing? Have you a theory as to what may have hap-
pened to bring about the death of these two people?”
For a moment the woman hesitated; so brief, however, was the
interval that it was scarcely noticeable. It could have been the
125


126
THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
result of indecision as to just how to word her reply.
"No, sir.”
"I thought perhaps you had."
That was all that was said, and Mrs. Giles and the servants
went back into the house. Canby remained, however. Through
it all Felix Durkin had been smoking silently. He had volun-
teered nothing, had spoken only briefly when he was addressed.
Finally the conference broke up.
"I'll take a rain check,” said Reevers to Durkin. “This thing
hasn't even got a good start. So expect me back at any time.”
“Any time is all right,” said Durkin.
"So long, then.” Reevers took Martindale by the arm and they
went away together.
Rogers and I made ready to follow them. Practically the whole
day had been given to this latest development in the strange case
that had its roots in Mexico. I turned to speak to Durkin.
"Don't go,” he said. He reached out and caught Rogers by the
arm. "Stay around with me, Hunt. This thing," he looked after
the departing newspaper men who were trailing the detective.
“That fellow won't solve anything. He talks, but he doesn't think
much. He's sharp, but he doesn't cut deep. I've been trying to
piece some odds and ends together while you were talking. Stay
and have dinner. We can talk over some things this evening."
I telephoned my sister that I would not be home to dinner, then
went out on the front steps to watch the sun sink in the Pacific
Ocean. Dan McBride joined me and we sat smoking with now
and then a word of conversation between us.
“Beastly business," he said once, a puzzled frown on his dark
face. "Why does anybody ever want to kill anybody else?”
“Looked rather bad for a while for Pettybone.”
"I can't think Will did it. I don't know why he wants to lie,
though.”
"Lie?"
"He didn't play golf yesterday afternoon. At any rate, he


THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
127
didn't have that scratch as late as six o'clock last night. I stopped
at their place for a cocktail on my way home.”
"Why would he say what he did, then?”
Dan McBride shrugged his shoulders. His glasses suddenly re-
flected the late sunlight. “That's what I say. I don't know why
he wants to lie about it. When Reevers finds out, it will throw
suspicion on him stronger than ever.”
· "But”
"I know what you're going to say. Why don't I come out with
the truth? Well, I'm not squealing on anybody. Of course, if I
thought he was guilty that would be different."
It was an odd sidelight, but an understandable one. It was as
though the family as a whole, despite Durkin's apparent dislike
for his relatives, instinctively banded together to prevent the
blot of murder from staining the family's good name.
Dinner was a quiet and rather solemn meal. There were only
Durkin and Dan McBride, Rogers and I. All the others had van-
ished, leaving us alone. We were weary, of course, of the day's
main topic; it had been squeezed dry. We turned to Mexico as a
subject for conversation. I could not help contrasting this now
calm, middle-aged man with the harassed individual I had seen
in Mexico. Elsie Tatum that night on the station platform in
Tepic wanted me to note how strangely excited he was. All that
had passed now. He even seemed tolerant of his relatives.
"But why would they come to Taxco and pass me up like
that?” he mused. “Taxco isn't to be seen in a few hours. You can
study all of Mexico in that one small place. They've kept it as it
was in colonial days. And yet the Pettybones and the Fulbrights
went racing through it. I'm surprised that they didn't fly both
ways between Acapulco and Mexico City. That's all they think
of, this modern generation. They fly everywhere they can, and
see nothing that's on the ground. After all it's the people that
make the country, any country, what it is.” He rambled on, ap-
parently enjoying talking uninterruptedly, in which we abetted


128
THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
him by our silence, and occasional encouraging comment.
Dan McBride excused himself when dinner was over, and left
the house; he said he was going to a picture show in the village.
· "Make yourselves at home,” Durkin said, leading the way into
the library and sitting down at the big desk. “Help yourselves to
smokes. This thing has hit me harder than any of you realize."
“I'm sorry,” said Rogers.
“Don't bother to say that, Hunt. It's just one of those things.
I'll get over it-maybe. If I live long enough. Have you any
ideas at all, Hunt, what's going on here?”
“It would be difficult, Mr. Durkin, to draw any conclusions at
this point as to the identity of the murderer—"
“Do you really think Elsie was murdered?”
"It wasn't suicide."
"What I mean is, did the same person who killed Slater do this
too? Couldn't it have been a kidnap, attack, robbery, or what
have you? Some fellow jumped on her running board and shoved
a gun in her face and made her drive up into the hills.”
“But the garden hose, Mr. Durkin," I objected.
“I've thought of that too. Having killed her couldn't he have
thought about the hose and come down the road to the Petty-
bones and stolen their hose, and gone back up there planning to
fix things to look like a suicide?"
"It's a possibility, Mr. Durkin."
“I'd like to think it was what actually happened.”
“You speak as if you don't like the alternative.”
Felix Durkin's small gray eyes looked steadfastly for a long
moment at Rogers, then he said simply:
"I don't.”
“Let me ask you a question, Mr. Durkin.” Rogers leaned ear-
nestly toward the elder man.
"Yes?”
"Is there any particular person whom you suspect?"
Durkin flicked the ashes from his cigarette, hesitating long


130
THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
and getting out the wadded note.
"What is it?” he asked, taking it from me.
"I found it in the hall just outside the library door after the
fire the other night. Wadded up. I've shown it to Rogers, but
other matters have crowded it out of the picture today. Probably
it fits in somewhere."
The silence lengthened as we sat waiting for Felix Durkin's
reaction. Finally he looked up.
"It refers, I suppose, to the explosion in the fireplace."
"Obviously. Because I found it that same evening. Somebody
saw somebody else do something at the fireplace prior to the fire.
Does it suggest anything?"
“That two of them are at it,” he said, his lips becoming thin
and hard.
"You noticed the similarity of that signature design to the
silver piece I got from Pedro. It's the way you'd draw a sunburst
in a hurry with a pencil.”
“I noticed that."
"Why the figure three?” There was no reply. “Does it suggest
anything further?"
He hesitated for a long while, then at last he said: "I can go
only so far—yet. Trying to go too far while I was still in Taxco,
and on the way home, was very disturbing to me. I can look at
things more calmly now. There's a pattern emerging. At first
Benton Slater's death seemed meaningless; now it fits. That
Elsie's death is outside the pattern is too much to hope. I can see
that the garden hose and the gun wiped clean of fingerprints, and
Elsie's effort to tell us what had happened, make it fit into the
pattern. It's more logical in than out of the pattern. But why did
Will Pettybone lie about that scratch?”
"Did you know that too?" I asked, incredulous.
“Too?"
"Your nephew mentioned it to me before dinner. He said he
stopped at Pettybone's for a cocktail last evening, and there was


THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
131
no scratch on his face then."
"I'm glad. For that corroborates Elsie."
"How's that, Mr. Durkin?" Rogers asked.
"I wanted to speak to Cousin Will yesterday, and I had Elsie
phone the golf club about the time he's usually there. They said
he wasn't there, and had phoned word that he wasn't coming,
and for the others in his foursome not to wait."
"Interesting,” Rogers remarked.
“Especially when you know your relatives, Hunt. Amelia acted
like a damn fool today. That's what I've got against Will-he
married that scheming, grasping, hysterical, unreliable little wife
of his. Families deteriorate by bad marriages. If I were only to
turn my back that woman would sink her claws in me. That's the
feeling I get whenever she's around. Now, on the other hand,
Marian purrs; she's got claws, but she won't use them except in •
emergency. She made a bad marriage too. He's too old for her.
And I'll bet anything I've got, but I don't know how you're to
prove it, that Fulbright had more than four or five grains of mor-
phine with him on that trip. He said he didn't. He's a liar too.
You see, I'm giving you a little bit of the picture, Hunt. You can
fill in the rest of it.”
“But the pattern you spoke of.” Rogers' statement was pro-
vocative.
"It may never be completed, in which case all is well and
good.”
"And if it is completed?”
"I'll never know it, Hunt."
We sat for a moment pondering this statement. It had some-
thing terrifying in it.
"Just how do you mean that, Mr. Durkin?"
"I'll be a part of the pattern; I'll fit in with Slater and Elsie."
It was a shocking thing to hear; more shocking still to observe
Felix Durkin sitting philosophically at his desk talking about
his own death.


132
THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
“Don't you think you'd better ask for a police guard, Mr.
Durkin, until this thing is straightened out?"
"No,” he said slowly. “I'd be better off in Taxco. I had enough
of nurses and coddling when I was young."


18
Rogers and I said good-by to Felix Durkin at the front door,
then went down to the driveway to the car.
“Odd, isn't it," I said, as I drove homeward, "that a man
would sit calmly saying in effect that he had less than a fifty-fifty
chance of staying out of the pattern?”
“Yes.”
“Has he got any particular individual in mind?”
"I don't know, but I doubt it."
"If he named over his suspects, he'd name only those that we
already have in mind.”
“That's right.”
"I hate to go away and leave him alone. He ought to have
some protection, more than he's got.”
“The butler's there, the housekeeper—”.
"Maybe the butler is none too clean in this thing. He could
have put that film in the fire. He was there when it blew up.”
“Yes, but he wasn't on the train from Mexico.”
“That's so. Still—".
"When I get home I'll telephone Reevers, and suggest that
somebody be around out here tonight, whether Mr. Durkin likes
it or even knows about it.”
That made me feel better. I dropped Rogers at his apartment
and drove home to a night of disturbing dreams. Until long after
two o'clock I lay wide awake going over everything not once but
several times, hoping that somewhere I could find the loose thread
with which I could untangle the knot that seemed only to grow
tighter. A depressed mood was upon me next morning. It caused
133


134
THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
my sister, Patsy, to inquire if I were feeling well.
"You seem so quiet and not like yourself this morning."
"I'm all right,” I protested. “There doesn't seem any explana-
tion for what's happened. That's all.”
“It will clear up. You say Professor Rogers is on the case."
"Yes, I know.”
The telephone bell interrupted our conversation, and I went
to answer it. Huntoon Rogers was at the other end of the wire.
"You didn't happen to be listening to the news broadcast just
now, did you, Wiley?” There was a portent of evil in his abrupt
question.
"No. What's up?"
“Felix Durkin's dead!"
“No!”
"It's just been reported. It's not in the morning papers. I'll
pick you up, if you want to go out.”
"Of course."
"I'll see you in twenty minutes.”
It was Saturday morning. Rogers remarked that he had no
classes. As we drove out to Brentwood we said little about this
new development. When we turned off into the road leading up
to the Durkin house he remarked:
"It was a bludgeon this time. I was talking with Reevers. Mrs.
Pettybone spent last night in jail—"
“In jail!”
“Yes.”
He didn't explain. We swung from the road into the driveway
and pulled up behind the police car.
"Good morning, Professor," said Frankie Peters who was
standing beside the car. “Things are moving along, aren't they?"
He seemed cheerful. “They got the old man last night.”
“Yes, I know."
Officer Sterling came out of the house and down to the car. He
shook hands with us. “We got to go down and get Mrs. Pettybone


THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
135
and bring her back up here."
"Just what happened?” Rogers asked.
"Well, you see,” Sterling explained, "we were driving along
the road just below here when this woman all of a sudden shows
up in the headlights, carryin' something. She's coming down from
up this way, see? And when she hears us coming, she tries to hide
behind a tree. But we stop and get out to see who it is, and it's
Mrs. Petty bone. And she's carryin' a piece of garden hose"
"Garden hose!” I exclaimed. “What for?"
"That's what we wanted to know too. But she wouldn't tell.
So we took her down to the station and they gave her a nice com-
fortable cell. It was on our next round up through here that we
found Durkin. The body was layin' just off the road. We pretty
near missed it. Maybe it was there the first time. It was in the
shadows close to some shrubbery. There's Lieutenant Reevers
now. We got to get goin', Frankie. Everybody's due back up here
as soon as we can round 'em up."
Reevers swung off the road and stopped behind Rogers' car.
He jumped out, talking before his feet hit the pavement.
"Where was it you found the body, boys?” he demanded.
"Just down the road a little piece.”
"Let's go down there before we do anything else.”
“We've looked over everything already, Lieutenant,” said
Sterling. Nevertheless, the three of us climbed into the police car
with the two officers. “We got the weapon. It was a piece of new
two-by-four. No question about it. We didn't find anything else."
"Well, I want to see the spot.”
About a hundred yards below the entrance to the Durkin place,
the car stopped and we got out. We walked a few feet along the
pavement which bordered a large piece of neglected vacant
ground.
"It was right here," said Frankie Peters.
“There was a gladstone bag near the body."
"A bag? What did you do with it?”


136
THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
"Took it to the station.”
This interesting item of information was dropped as Rogers
and the detective began a survey. I stood on the pavement's edge
with the two officers, while Rogers and Reevers began a slow
check of the area. There were some signs of struggle. A small
dark stain on the ground undoubtedly was blood. But there was
nothing else of importance.
“There was just the body, and the bag and the two-by-four,
Lieutenant,” said Sterling.
“What was in the bag?”
"We don't know. We took it to the station."
“We'll go down and have a look. Coming?" He turned to
Rogers and me.
A few minutes later we unstrapped the bag in the detectives'
room at the police station. Reevers stirred about among its con-
tents. But there was nothing worthy of note; there were only the
usual things a man would pack into a bag if he were going away
on a trip.
"No diaries, no account books, no letters, no nothing,” Reevers
summed it up.
Fred Craigie dumped the articles back into the bag, and
strapped it together again. "Where was he running away to; and
what was he running away from?” asked Craigie.
"Pertinent questions, both of them," Rogers commented.
"Is that the bludgeon there?” asked Reevers, pointing to a
two-foot length of new two-by-four on the window sill.
“That's it."
No one touched it. There was fresh blood upon it, and earth
stains marred its newness. Reevers looked at it for a few mo-
ments.
“Better send it downtown to the laboratory," he directed.
"And don't mess up any prints on it, if any. Handle it carefully."
"Yes, sir," answered Craigie.
“All right, boys, let's go.” Reevers started away.


138
THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
went to his wife at once, stooped and kissed her.
“Are you all right, darling?” he inquired solicitously.
“Yes,” was the faint answer.
Kelly Reevers waited for the group to be seated, then he began
in a voice touched with anger.
"Now, what happened here last night? I want you all to come
clean. Don't hold back anything. Who's got some information?
Facts, not theories or guess work, or lies." He glared at the faces
confronting him. The butler cleared his throat softly, and the de-
tective turned to him. “Yes? What is it, Canby?”
"Just this, sir. It was a very strange night—".
“Strange? How?"
"That's what I'll tell you, sir. Professor Rogers and Mr. Wiley
stayed for dinner, and they and Mr. Durkin talked a long while
here in the library. The guests left for home, though, about a
quarter to eleven. I came to see if Mr. Durkin wanted anything,
and he said no, that I could go to bed. There was something in his
manner most unlike him. When he saw me waiting, he looked at
me and said solemnly, “Maybe I'm at the end of the road, Canby.'
"Why do you say that, sir?" I asked him.
“'I'm afraid the net has been cast, and I'm entangled in it.
And, now, it's probably too late.'”
"I sought to make light of his fears, and persuaded him to go
to his room. Then when I was turning out the lights here in the
library I heard somebody outside the window. I tried to see from
the window what or who it was that made the noise, and I
thought a shadow went across the lawn. Then Julius called on
the house phone, and said somebody had been lurking around
the garage, and he had frightened them away, he thought."
“You didn't go out to look around, did you?"
"No, sir. Whoever it was prowling about would have had the
advantage of me.”
“What time was it when you heard the noise?”
"Probably about eleven o'clock.”


THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
139
Officer Sterling interrupted. “It was eleven-ten when we ar-
rested Mrs. Pettybone.”
Reevers turned his attention to Mrs. Pettybone. "Was it you
who were monkeying around the garage?"
The woman's round dark face devoid of makeup seemed to
grow bleak and frightened. “I'm neither affirming nor denying
anything,” she said in a faint voice.
“She was walking down the road away from this place,” said
Sterling.
Reevers looked at Mrs. Pettybone for a long moment as if
debating whether or not to press her further for an explanation,
then he turned back to Canby.
“You said it was a strange night. What else happened?"
"Well, you see, I turned out the lights here, and went to my
room. Mr. Durkin's light was still on. That would not be un-
usual, but what was odd was that he was making rather violent
sounds"
“What kind of sounds? You mean yelling and calling out?"
“No, sir. He was not saying anything. But he was slamming
and jerking open chiffonier drawers. I distinctly heard the buckle
of a strap as it struck something hard. I knocked and asked if I
could do anything, and he said no, to get the hell out. He seldom
spoke roughly to me like that. He always treated me more gen-
teelly than he did his relatives."
“Then what happened?”
“I went to bed, sir. Or, rather, I went to my room. I was uneasy
because of what he had said in the library, in view of all that
has happened. I wondered what I should do, if anything. I won-
dered if I should call you or Professor Rogers and ask what to do
in a case like that. Then a few minutes later I heard Mr. Durkin's
door slam, and all was quiet. It was a suspicious quiet, if I make
myself clear. I had taken off my collar and put on my house
slippers—".
"Well, but slamming a door—"


THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
141
him? How far did you go down the road? How long did you
search?"
"When I realized I would not find him, it occurred to me that
perhaps he'd gone into the Pettybones to stay the night, or farther
on down the road at the Fulbrights. I was forced to the conclu-
sion that he feared to remain in his own home. Of course, I didn't
give up the search at once. This explanation did not occur to me
until I had driven clear down to Sunset Boulevard. Which was
much farther than he could have walked in the time elapsed
since he left the house. I came home, sir, and put up the car
about a half hour after I started the search for him, as nearly as I
can estimate the time. I was so disturbed, though, that I really
forgot to look at the clock.”
“In the ten minutes before you were able to leave the house,
Canby, do you think there was time enough for Uncle Felix to
have been murdered and his body thrown off the road, so that
you missed it when you drove by?”
Dan McBride propounded the question which was already
forming in our minds. His dark sober countenance was bent upon
the butler.
"I think so, for this reason, Mr. McBride. Your uncle was an
active man, although he was nearing sixty. He was an excellent
walker. I don't think it's more than three-minutes' walk to where
his body was found.”


IN THE succeeding half hour devoted to an analysis of the butler's
story of the strange night which had ended in the murder of Felix
Durkin, it became obvious that the crucial time was the ten
minutes required for the butler to get the car on the road to begin
his search.
After careful scrutiny of the known facts, it seemed likely that
Felix Durkin did not leave his house carrying his bag, before
eleven-fifteen. Rogers and I had departed about a half hour
earlier. The butler had found Durkin alone in the study a few
minutes after our departure; there had been a brief conversa-
tion; Durkin had been persuaded to go to his room. The prowler
had been heard outside, and Canby sought to see who it was, and
Julius telephoned from his quarters over the garage. After that
the butler had gone upstairs, rapped on Durkin's door, and been
told to go to bed, meanwhile Durkin's furious sounds of packing
had been going on. Did all this take half an hour?
The clincher that it did, of course, was the unquestionable
evidence of Officers Sterling and Peters that they had arrested
Mrs. Pettybone at eleven-ten on the road which Durkin was
shortly to traverse to the point where he met his death about
halfway between the Durkins' and the Pettybones'. If Felix
Durkin had been on the road before eleven-fifteen, then, surely
the police or Mrs. Pettybone would have seen him.
"Well, where was everybody else, then, at this time?” de-
manded Reevers, moving ahead in the inquiry. “We know where
the chauffeur was, where Canby was, where Mrs. Pettybone was.
Where were you others?”
142


144
THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
"Would you accept this as proof, sir, of Mr. McBride's state-
ment?” asked Canby.
"What is it?"
“I remember quite clearly that when I opened the garage doors
and turned on the light, that Mr. McBride's car was there, and
that the engine was warm.”
"Were you close enough to find that out?"
“Yes, sir, when I got into the coupé, which was next to it, I
was close enough to the hood to feel the warmth. And besides I
could smell the warm oil.”
“Okeh; that does it.” Reevers lifted his hand to McBride in a
sort of salute. He turned back to Canby. “How does it happen,
though, that you didn't ask Mr. McBride to help in the search
for his uncle?"
An odd expression came into the butler's eyes. After a moment
he spoke. “I'm sorry, but it didn't occur to me until you spoke
just now about asking his help. It seemed at the time that over-
taking Mr. Durkin was my exclusive problem; I had no other
thought whatever. I had to act at once, and keep driving and
pushing until I accomplished my purpose.”
"I see," was Reevers' response. He dropped the butler. “And
now who else knows where he was?”
"I was at home in bed reading," said Marian Fulbright
promptly. “And I heard nothing, and saw nothing, of course,
that in any way relates to what has happened—”
"And the doctor?” The question seemed directed at Mrs. Ful-
bright, and she answered promptly
“Oh, he was out hunting the dog—"
“Marian!” said Doctor Fulbright sharply. “Why say that?
You didn't see me go out?”
“No, but I heard you out whistling for Sparky."
"The dog?” said Reevers with an amused smile. “Tell us about
the dog, Doctor."
Doctor Fulbright stirred violently in his chair. He was angry at


THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
147
heard Meir up, dia on kept 1
peared completely. So I went outdoors. She wasn't outside any-
where, either. Naturally I began to worry. After a few minutes I
heard Mel Fulbright calling and whistling for his dog."
“Kept it up, did he?"
“How do you mean kept it up?"
“I mean did he whistle and call continuously, while you were
outside looking for Mrs. Pettybone, or just once in a while?"
“More or less just once in a while. The last time I remember
hearing him call, the sound was from north of my place, up
toward Durkin's."
An angry sound, almost like a snarl, came from Doctor Ful-
bright.
“Why do you have to say that, Will? Why can't you be more
careful in your statements—?".
"Well,” interrupted Reevers with amusement, "did you or
didn't you? That's more interesting to me.”
“Yes, I did,” snapped Fulbright. He smoothed down his gray
hair with a heavy sweep of his hand. “And I'll tell you why.
There's a pack of dogs back in the hills here, gone wild, and I've
been afraid Sparky might take up with them. So I walked up this
way whistling to him, and finally gave it up, and went home.
Where the road turns I cut through that vacant property. There's
a path. If anything happened on the road while I was out, I
didn't see it.”
“Where was the dog, when you finally found him?"
“On the front steps waiting for me to let him in.”
“And, now, all your cards are on the table, Doctor?"
“Yes."
“Thank you.” Reevers looked at us solemnly. "You see what I
mean when I say you make it hard for me? Doctor Fulbright is
just as guilty or just as innocent as he was a while ago, when he
said the first time that his cards were all on the table; but he held
out on me. Which makes one a bit suspicious. Can't help it. It's


THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
149
enough to let me tell my own story?” Pettybone's voice was
angry.
“I'm sorry, sir. I reasoned that you should be the one to bring
it out. But Mr. Reevers' ideas differ; and I can't afford to appear
in the light of shielding someone”
"Shielding my eye! I'll tell my own story. So you keep out of
it,” Pettybone's voice roared.
“Yes, sir.”
“Then suppose you go ahead and tell it,” prodded Reevers
with an irritating grin.
"As a matter of fact,” Pettybone began more quietly, ignoring
the detective's delight at this turn, “there's very little to tell. Since
I didn't find Amelia about the place, I wondered if perhaps she
had gone up to Durkin's.”
“Why Durkin's? At eleven o'clock?"
"I don't know why. I just did. I could have telephoned, I sup-
pose, but when you're out in the yard looking for your wife, you
keep going a little farther and then a little farther, because in the
next few yards you'll probably meet her coming back—"
“You were expecting her to come back with the hose?"
Pettybone ignored the question. “There's a path from the side
of our place up across lots to Durkin's. I took it. I could have
taken the road, but I didn't. And I don't know why. I just didn't.
The Durkin house was lighted up and I kept going toward it.
And when I got there, I saw the light in the garage was on, and
one of the cars was gone—and couldn't get the idea. Something
was up, but I didn't know what. And, then, about that time
Canby drove back and I asked him what was up, and he said
Durkin had gone away and he couldn't find him. He wondered
if he'd gone down to my house to spend the night, and I said no,
I was hunting Mrs. Pettybone, and there wasn't anybody there.
And that's the truth, Mr. Reevers."
“The truth. Hm!” mused the detective. "I hope it is—”
“Hope it is?” Pettybone snapped.


150
THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
"I was just thinking," observed Reevers, “that you said you
got your face scratched at the golf club when you were hunting
your ball in the rough. We've learned that you didn't play that
day."


THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER 153
about it except what Julius tells me.”
"You do the gardening here and at the Pettybones' too?”.
"Yes, sir.”
“What's this about the Pettybone hose having been stolen?”
"Well, you see, there was only a twenty-five-foot piece miss-
ing the morning after the woman was killed. That was all. I
carry my own hose, of course, if it's needed, but the Pettybones
have enough just as they had here, and I don't have to use mine.
And now there's a twenty-five-foot piece gone from here today.
Can't find it anyhow.”
"Just walked off, eh?”
"You might say that. I understand Mr. Durkin was killed by a
two-by-four.” He changed the subject.
“Yes.”
"Well, there's lots of it layin' around here where they're re-
building the room that burned out.” He indicated the lumber on
the ground.
"That's right. How long have you been the gardener?”
Rogers asked.
“A couple of years. I haven't seen much of Mr. Durkin, though,
in that time; he stayed down in Mexico a lot, I understand. I
hardly knew him. Mrs. Giles told me one time that his boy being
killed in the war had hit him awful hard.”
“Did you know the boy?” Rogers inquired.
"No." The gardener looked away across the lawn. “I never did.
Nice boy, though, Mrs. Giles said. He was a flyer. She'd known
him since he was just a little kid. I guess now that Durkin's gone,
that ends his branch of the family. There's just the cousins and
nieces and nephews left. Did he leave much money?”
None of us answered for a moment, then Rogers observed:
"It's been generally believed that he was a rich man.”
"Bad luck catches up with all kinds, rich or poor. Well, I got
to get on with the watering. If there's anything I can do to help,
you just let me know.”


21
"What's the matter, Mr. Wiley? Don't you feel well?” Petty-
bone's voice penetrated my odd confusion. “You look kind of
funny.”
"I'm all right," I said. “But you didn't live here then.”
"Live here then? When is then? I've been here about a year and
a half. Why?"
“But the rattan furniture. I've seen it before."
“We bought it from the people who sold us the house."
“Yes," I said, “that must be right. I was here three or four
years ago—no, it's four years. We were talking over a charity
drive.”
Both Rogers and Lieutenant Reevers looked at me as if I had
slipped somewhat from the normal. “Listen,” I said, realizing that
it sounded as though I were talking nonsense, “if we knew who it
was who died down in Taxco we'd be a long way on the road to
solving these crimes.”
"Taxco?" said Pettybone queerly. “What's Taxco got to do
with it, and who died in Taxco?"
"I don't know who he was,” I said, “but I know I drank a
cocktail with him here in this room.” I turned to Rogers. “Don't
you remember the dead stranger, Professor ?"
“Yes, of course."
“And I said to you then that I had the odd feeling that I knew
him. He had very dark, wavy hair. I remembered the set of the
head. You know how it is in a case like that, you can't say what
particular thing it is that makes you certain you've met a man
before. You just do. And it's all hooked up in some way. I mean
158


162
THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
Durkin's boy, Edward. Killed overseas.”
“You knew him, then, did you?”
"Yes, sir."
"When did you last see him?"
The chauffeur narrowed his light blue eyes. “The last time was
about six months after I first came here. He went away to war,
then.”
“Never seen him since?"
The eyes widened. “Why, no, sir; he never came back, you
know."
"Have you been here all the time since he went to war?”
“Yes, sir; that is, I've been in Mr. Durkin's employ con-
stantly. I've lived here in my quarters. Of course, I've had vaca-
tions. Sometimes I could go to the ball games, or the fights. I'd
drive Mrs. Giles to market. I've had to take the cars to be serv-
iced, and things like that.”
He was obviously puzzled when we left him to find Canby. The
sun had come out and it was warm and pleasant in the patio. We
got the butler out there and showed him the photograph. He
replied instantly that it was Edward Durkin's likeness.
“But you understand, Professor," he said at once, “I know it
only second hand, so to speak. There's been a picture like this in
a silver frame in Mr. Durkin's room ever since I've been here. I
was told that it was the son who was killed overseas."
“And you never saw the boy himself?”.
“No, sir. I came into employment here after he'd gone to war."
“He never came back while you were here?”
The butler shook his head. "No, sir.”
"Have you been here all the time?"
“Yes, sir."
Reevers took up the questioning. “You mean all the time,
every minute? You haven't been off the place?"
"Oh, that's absurd. How would I do errands? I have my day
off each week. I couldn't have stayed here continuously; that's


164
THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
died. I was so sorry for Mr. Durkin; it almost killed him when
the telegram came. It was in the papers—"
"You were away some time in January or February?”
"I lost my sister who lived back East. I was gone for ten days.
I left here the twenty-fifth of January.”
“Did you hear any rumors when you returned affecting Ed-
ward Durkin?”
"Why, no. I don't understand what you're driving at. I'm upset
as it is, what with Miss Tatum's death and now Mr. Durkin's.
And here you come hinting things that make me wonder if I'm
losing my mind."
“I'm sorry,” said Rogers. “But thank you for your informa-
tion.”
The housekeeper, followed by the butler, went back into the
house, and we were left alone. I felt let down, and said so.
“It's no go,” said Reevers. “Hunches turn sour on you, Wiley.
But it's not your fault. It might have proved out all right and
given us a short cut in this thing."
"After all,” I said, “the dead stranger in Taxco had been
killed by a truck on the highway. I hadn't thought of that until
now."
We sat silently for a while. There was a far away look in
Rogers' mild blue eyes; I felt that he was disappointed by our
failure to prove the impossible. The gardener came round the
house. He had a flat of young pansy plants, which he proceeded
to set about the base of the orange tree in the patio. We watched
him deftly transplanting them into the damp earth. He got up
finally, and felt of his back as if it were tired. Rogers called to
him. The man came over. Without a word of explanation, Rogers
held the photograph out to him. The gardener hesitated, then
wiped his hands on his trousers and accepted it. He looked at it
for some moments.
“Ever see that man?” Rogers asked.
The gardener knitted his brows and screwed up his mouth.


THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER 165
Finally he sat down on the edge of a bench.
"It kinda seems to me I have.”
"How long did you say you'd worked here?"
“About a year and a half. Yes, it seems to me l've seen this
man. Who is he?"
"When did you see him?"
The gardener looked away over the patio wall, his eyes mere
slits in his effort to remember.
"Why, recently, I think.”
"Did you ever know Mr. Durkin's son, who was killed over-
seas?”
“No, I never did. He was gone to war when I started working
here. But this fellow here I'm tryin' to think when I seen him.
Oh, I know—" he handed the photograph back to Rogers. “Yeah,
it was one day several weeks ago now. One afternoon it was. He
came here when everybody was gone. I saw him come up the
walk when I was watering the front lawn. He tried to get in, but
nobody was at home. They was all gone that day. Finally he
come around to me, and wanted to know if anybody was at home.
And I said no, everybody was in Mexico. And I remember he
asked about Mrs. Giles, and I said she was back East somewhere
-Illinois or Indiana, I didn't remember which. Then he went
away. I didn't see him again. Why?”
"Was he driving?"
"I didn't see how he come or how he went away, sir.”
"You're sure he's the man you saw?” said Reevers indicating
the photograph.
“As sure as I can be, I guess. I wouldn't swear to it in court,
though. I'd have to say that he looks like the picture, anyhow.
He never said who he was, so I never knew his name.”


22
“Maybe it's just as well he doesn't know his name," observed
Rogers after the gardener had gone.
"Do you think his life would be in danger?” Reevers gave a
startled exclamation, then answered his own question. "Yes, it
would.”
“But Mrs. Giles," I pointed out, "and Julius and the butler-
they know we've started to investigate this new angle.”
“They don't know anything, though. None of 'em saw young
Durkin when he was here—if the gardener is right-and they all
thought we were crazy. They're safe enough, I guess—"
“But, listen," I interrupted. “This fellow—the dead stranger-
was hit by an automobile on the highway, so what difference
does it make? Probably he was hitch hiking. It's an interesting
angle, but it's a sideshow—”.
“But you were the one, Wiley, who first brought the matter
up,” said Reevers accusingly. “Said it would solve everything."
"Yes, I know," I admitted. “I thought it would when the idea
first struck me, but I can see now that it won't."
Rogers stirred out of his thoughtful silence. He tucked the
photograph into a pocket.
"Nevertheless,” he remarked with a smile, “I think it's the best
lead so far in the case. It ought to be followed.”
A small figure in dark suit and cowboy boots limped into the
patio. His tan hat was crushed down upon his head and seemed
to rest on his ears.
"Come in, Martindale," called Reevers, as the deputy sheriff
swung over toward us, leaning noticeably on his cane. “Sit down.”
166


THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
167
"I can't stay. This is Saturday. I'm pushing off to Nogales right
away. Want to be home over Sunday. Anything new in the case?”
He sat down on the edge of the bench. “I mean about my angle
of it? I've heard how Durkin got it last night.”
“Yes and no," Rogers answered.
"You mean that things are working out? I suppose I might
just as well go home and stay there, until you get done over here.
You've pushed Slater aside for these other two. You'll probably
run it down for us.”
“It all adds up to the same thing, Martindale. We've got the
same suspects as you have in the Slater case,” said Reevers.
“The Pettybones and the Fulbrights and McBride and the
butler. But the butler wasn't, of course, in on the Slater angle,
was he? Or did he go to Mexico?”
“Not that we know of.”
“You know, Reevers, the people back in the Pullmans of a
Mexican train, never know who's riding up in the first and sec-
ond class coaches. They're two different worlds.”
Rogers jotted something on a leaf of his notebook, tore it loose
and gave it to the deputy, who accepted it with an inquiring
look.
“It could be of considerable help, Martindale,” he said, "if
when you get back home you'd see the Mexican immigration
authorities in Nogales and find out when those people crossed
the border. Between the dates I've noted.”
Martindale studied the memorandum, then glanced up.
"You've got Edward Durkin's name down here. I thought the
old man's name was Felix.”
“It is. But Felix Durkin was in Mexico long before Christmas.
Edward Durkin is another fellow.”
"I see. A new name. Well," he got up and tucked the mem-
orandum into a vest pocket. “I'll phone you, when I find out. If
I don't drive over again the first of the week.”
“Do that. If you want to, add Canby's name to the list.”


THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
171
His statements regarding the time may have been wholly false.
He could have slain Durkin, taken his body out into the shrub-
bery at the roadside, then come back and started the hullabaloo
that he described.
And then there was Dan McBride. Somehow, it seemed to me
when I got to thinking of him, McBride had been rather left in
the background. Unlike Pettybone and Doctor Fulbright who
had taken a beating, figuratively, on more than one occasion,
McBride had gone unscathed through much of it. There had
been opportunity for him, of course, in all three crimes; I felt
sure of that. But I couldn't believe that he had any motive for
killing Slater. The motive for killing Elsie Tatum, which could
be assigned to Canby and Julius, would not readily apply to him,
for Miss Tatum had been years older than he. Money, of course,
could be the motive for the slaying of Felix Durkin. But if he
were going to kill his uncle for his money, why kill Slater and
Elsie Tatum before he got around to his uncle? It didn't make i
sense. He could have plotted his uncle's death and accomplished
it without having first to kill these other two.
I was still wallowing through a maze of imaginings and sup-
positions when the telephone bell rang. I thought as I went to
answer it, that Amelia Pettybone and Marian Fulbright should
be considered too, more than they had been. Mrs. Pettybone's
carrying of a garden hose on the road at night, was still unex-
plained. Why had she done that? And while Reevers had said
that a bludgeon crime, as in the case of Durkin, was a man's crime
and not a woman's, I wasn't so sure about it. Marian Fulbright
said she was in bed at the time. Her husband was wandering
about out of doors looking for the dog. But was she? Couldn't she
have waylaid her uncle? And was Canby right in his timing?
Couldn't Mrs. Pettybone have killed him before the police picked
her up?
“Hello," I said, putting off with difficulty these latest specula-
tions.


172
THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
"Hello, Wiley. This is Hunt Rogers.”
"Yes, hello. Where are you?”
"Home again. I just thought I'd call and tell you something."
“Yes.”
“There was an Edward Durkin as late as the twenty-ninth of
January."
"Really?”
"He obtained a tourist card at the Mexican consulate here in
Los Angeles on that date."
“That settles that, then, doesn't it?”
"It's perfect—if we can prove the signature. That shouldn't be
hard to do, though. Somewhere there is probably an authentic
record of his handwriting.”
"Well, that puts us a long way on the road, then, toward a solu-
tion, just as my hunch had it this afternoon."
"Exactly—if Edward Durkin was the dead stranger.”
“If he was the dead stranger?”
“There's no proof he was. He may still be alive-Durkin, not
the dead stranger, of course—and somewhere down in Mexico.”


THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
175
little trail. But you find yourself asking the question: Why, if
he were in Taxco, didn't he go to see his father?”
"Perhaps he didn't know he was there."
“That's possible. Supposing, though, that Durkin had been
slain on a stroll away from the hotel, how long could the slayer
keep up whatever story he would have to tell the others on his
return without Durkin? Especially after the news that Edward
Durkin was alive comes out, as it will? Of course, if Durkin were
with the others at the hotel, he would be registered. We can
check that.”
“If I had seen him at the hotel that evening,” | pointed out,
“I'm sure I would have remembered him. He was a fellow not
easily forgotten."
Rogers was silent for some minutes and I did not disturb his
thoughts. “Yes, there are difficulties, Wiley, to this supposition.
Anyway, that was the evening we went down to Durkin's house
near the cathedral. And it's quite easy to miss a person staying
in the same hotel with you, if the stay is short for one or both.
Still it's something to keep in mind. No solution, even an im-
probable one, should be discarded until it's proved impossible.”
“My feelings have figured more or less in this case," I began.
“Yes?" he looked at me questioningly.
"It was that strong feeling from the very first that I'd seen the
dead stranger somewhere before, which now seems to be proving
out.”
"Any others you haven't disclosed?”
"It's not really new," I said, realizing that we had discussed it
before. “We talked about it the other night before Felix Durkin
died. It puts a slightly different face on things now, though.
Durkin brought it up himself, remember—the piece of silver
Pedro sold me that night in Taxco. He said he had been quite
upset about it after I had showed it to him that morning in
Taxco, and was in a very nervous state on the train coming
home. He was trying to fit things to a pattern, he said.


THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
177
"Obviously that's what the burner of the film feared; Felix
Durkin was the whom, but who is the who?"
"Wouldn't we like to know, Wiley!"
"Say it's money that's at the bottom of all this—Felix Durkin's
money."
"All right. Say it, then where do we go?”
"You immediately think of relatives who will inherit. Why
not Dan McBride?"
“Yes, why not?” he answered thoughtfully. “Also, why not
Pettybone, or Doctor Fulbright, and/or their respective wives?
Reevers' leg men already have turned up the fact that Pettybone
is hard pressed for money right now.”
“Is that so?”
“And that Doctor Fulbright is an enthusiastic follower of the
races, and bets heavily, although he apparently isn't pinched for
money. And, you can't exclude the point that servants, as we've
remarked already, expecting a bequest from the master, some-
times become impatient.”
“Which leaves us," I laughed ruefully, “right where we started
from.”
"Exactly."
“Why didn't Elsie Tatum recognize the dead stranger?” |
asked.
“I don't know. Did she see him?"
“Yes, and she told me she got a nasty shock out of it.”
“A shock sometimes includes more than the physical reaction.
It could be that she thought she was seeing a ghost. Do you sup-
pose she told her suspicions to Felix Durkin?”
"I wonder. She saw the film. Could she have written the note-
having seen the person in the act of throwing the film into the
fire, and thereby sealing her own doom, so to speak?"
"Why would she use that particular symbol for a signature,
though? That would link her with Edward Durkin in some
way_"


178
THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
"It's one of those inexplicable things, Hunt.”
“It begins to look as though it will continue so ”.
The telephone bell ran and he got up to answer it. "Yes,” he
said. “Yes. Professor Rogers talking. . . . All right, I'll wait.”
He looked at me from across the room. “Long distance," he
said. “Hello. ... Oh, hello, Martindale. ... Yes. ... You
did? That's fine. . . . Wait till I get a piece of paper." He pulled
a pad on the table around into position, and unscrewed his foun-
tain pen.
"All right, let's go. . . . All right, Miss Tatum,” he spelled it
out as he wrote the name down. “Yes, the next. . . . All right.
. . . Next. . . . That's all. . . . I'm glad you called. . . . Yes,
I got the names and dates. ... That was nice of the Mexican
immigration authorities to give the information to you. All right.
Good-by and thanks for your trouble. It will help a lot.”
He hung up and came slowly back toward the fireplace. He
screwed the top on his fountain pen and stuck it in his pocket,
then got out his billfold and placed the memorandum carefully
in it. A faint smile lurked about the corners of his mouth, and
there was a twinkle in his eyes as he sat down.
"Well, Wiley,” he said with satisfaction, "we progress, as the
Mexicans say, poco a poco, little by little. Martindale got the
Mexican authorities to look up their records, and we now know
when everybody crossed the line-except for the Pettybones and
Fulbrights who flew down. We'll get that tomorrow.”
"Was?"
"I was saving it for the climax,” he answered with a grin. “Ed-
ward Durkin crossed the border on January thirty-first."
"Poco a poco," I said.


180
THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
together on a bench smoking and talking in low tones. Mrs. Giles,
firm and forbidding of countenance sat apart from the others.
I gathered that Mrs. Pettybone had engineered this early
morning meeting. As a matter of fact, it turned out that Mrs.
Pettybone had come up to the Durkin place the night before and
asked Dan McBride and Mrs. Giles to let her stay there, and
they had taken her in. Shortly before breakfast she had called
Reevers and said she wanted to talk, and then had notified the
others concerned, chiefly the Fulbrights and her husband.
Reevers was strolling about. I don't know why he waited, unless
it was for the newspapermen who followed us shortly into the
patio. Meantime Huntoon Rogers had gone over to Mrs. Giles,
drawn up a chair beside hers and was talking with her. He
jumped up once and came over to me and asked to borrow the
silver pocket piece, and then went back and rather secretly, I
thought, showed it to her, and they became engrossed in con-
versation. So much so that they scarcely looked up when Doctor
Fulbright came briskly into the patio.
"Well,” he said, when he saw us all waiting, “have we got to go
through all this again?" His tone was sharp.
“Sit down, Doctor, and make yourself comfortable," said
Reevers hospitably. “It may be interesting.”
“But I've got patients to see this morning.” He sat down,
however, and lighted a cigarette.
"It probably won't be long. I don't know—” Reevers began,
seemingly at a loss how to start. “I didn't summon all of you
who are here. I'd planned to dig elsewhere this morning—until
Mrs. Petty bone telephoned me. But, to get down to business—so
the doctor can go see his patients—we might as well listen to what
Mrs. Pettybone has on her mind.” He turned to her with a
gesture.
"Well—” Amelia Pettybone suddenly became absorbed in the
end of her cigarette. She had been sitting somewhat apart from
the others. She was carefully made up, looking fresh and plump,


THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
181
scarcely resembling the disheveled individual we had brought
up from the jail Saturday morning. “I have been thinking over
a lot of things the last day or two." Her voice was a trifle hard.
She was driving herself to something which required all her will
power. “And I think it's time I said something important."
No one spoke, but all eyes were upon her. She slowly tapped
the ashes from her cigarette.
"I want to explain why I was carrying the hose down the road
the night I was arrested. You see,” she seemed in difficulty.
"Take your time,” Reevers counseled. She gave him a quick
look and then returned to the contemplation of her cigarette.
"Something was said here the next morning after I was arrested
about garden hose. There was a hose found at the spot where Elsie
Tatum died. That hose came from our house, I was told. And the
discussion brought out that if the murderer of Elsie had been
really subtle he would have taken his own hose and not a neigh-
bor's. For instance, if the killer was from the Durkin household
he would have taken the hose from there, instead of down at our
place.”
“I recall some such statement,” Reevers said. “But go on.”
"It's like this: Will Pettybone, my husband, is the most un-
subtle creature who ever lived; he never did a thing in his life
that wasn't obvious.” She cast a quick glance at her husband,
whose jaw was slowly sagging as he gazed at his wife. “I thought
I had to help him out; it was my duty to stand by him. When the
investigation eventually got to the point where everything was
carefully analyzed, I reasoned that here would be a glaring dis-
crepancy; Will's lack of subtlety would surely suggest that he
had taken his own hose-".
“Just a minute,” interrupted Reevers sharply. "Do I get it
right, Mrs. Pettybone, that you're accusing your husband of the
murder of Elsie Tatum?”
"Now, Amelia!” shouted Will Pettybone. Reevers quieted him
with a gesture.


THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
183
"You were in the bar at your home at the time. Didn't you get
mad at him and throw your bag of knitting at him?"
The woman thought for several moments, her eyes fixed on
vacancy. “I may have. I don't know. Sometimes he makes me so
mad I don't know what I'm doing. Afterwards I can't remember."
Reevers sat down and pulled his hat brim sharply down upon
his forehead. Here was either a solution, or another and more
baffling complication to iron out. It was plain in his manner.
I saw him exchange a glance with Rogers.
“Mrs. Pettybone,” Rogers began, “may I ask you a question?"
"Certainly."
“Did you ever know an Edward Durkin, son of Felix Durkin?"
"Yes. He died in the war.” Her eyes were questioning.
"You didn't by any chance see him in Mexico?"
“Mexico? When in Mexico?” Her eyes widened a trifle. "You
mean on our last trip? But I just told you he died in the war."
“And you didn't see him while you were in Mexico recently?"
"Why, no!” Her tone was one of amazement. “Did we?” She
turned to the Fulbrights. “Why!” She was mystified and speech-
less.
"Questions like that," rasped Doctor Fulbright, “don't get
anywhere, Professor. The dead don't come back. There's no ques-
tion that Ed Durkin died in the war. It's all authenticated.”
There was an odd twinkle in Rogers' mild blue eyes as he
waited for the sudden disturbance his questions had created to
die out. He turned to Fulbright and his voice was apologetic.
“I know in criminal investigation questions may seem at times
nonsensical, even idiotic. You left Taxco that morning, Doctor-
you and your party. Did you notice near the plaza a crowd of
people and a dead man lying on the ground?”
“Yes. Briefly, that is. The car didn't stop. I was on that side,
and I didn't want Marian to see it. So I didn't look for more than
a moment, but instead diverted her attention. Just, I think, as
Will Pettybone did to his wife. Will noticed.”


184
THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
"Did you recognize the dead man?”
"Recognize him?” The doctor's voice rose oddly. “Of course
not. Some Mexican. Why would I recognize him?”.
"Did you recognize him in the film the night of the fire?”
“Of course not.”
Rogers put the question to Mrs. Fulbright and the Pettybones,
but received only mystified answers in the negative.
"I know I sound as if I had suddenly lost my mind,” Rogers
grinned. I wondered which of the four he suspected of lying. He
turned next to Dan McBride. “You've heard the questions about
Edward Durkin, Mr. McBride. What can you tell us about him-
he'd be your cousin, wouldn't he?"
“He was my cousin, yes.” McBride emphasized slightly the
past tense of the verb. “But—we all know that Ed is dead—that
he died in the war. I've seen the correspondence and things;
Uncle Felix showed it all to me at the time. You see, I moved in
with Uncle Felix after Ed died—he—sort of wanted somebody
to take Ed's place, and Uncle Felix and I had always been fond
of each other. So I've lived here ever since. As far as Ed's being
alive I don't see how that could possibly be. If he was, I'm sure
I'd have known it. Uncle Felix would have told me."
"You didn't see Edward Durkin while you were in Mexico?”
McBride's dark eyes were fixed upon Rogers. The young man
slowly held out his cigarette and tapped the ashes from it.
"Oh, no. As I say, I couldn't have. And—to answer your ques-
tion about the dead man on the street in Taxco, I didn't get to
Taxco when my sister Marian and the others were there. We since
have compared dates, and it was two days later when I arrived in
Taxco. The fellow must have been buried by then. They don't
keep them long down there, you know.”
“But you didn't stay long in Taxco.”
"I had expected to stay some time. Uncle Felix wrote me to
come prepared for a month at least. But almost immediately he
was in a sweat to go home. That's puzzled me a great deal."


THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
185
"What day did you cross the border going to Mexico?".
“Let me see— January thirty-first.”
“If Edward Durkin had been on that train would you have
seen him? Surely you would.”
"Well—” McBride studied over his reply, then looked up
with a disarming smile, “the answer could be both yes and no.
I'll explain. From time to time I've made a lot of notes about
Mexican life, and some day I want to write a book about Mexico.
I speak Spanish fluently, you know, and so to get closer to the
Mexican people, I didn't take a Pullman out of Nogales, but
bought a ticket in the first class coach, and all the way down slept
sitting up, and ate the stuff the Mexicans brought to the train to
sell. I had a wonderful time doing it. I got next to the campesinos
in a way I never had before."
"If your cousin had been alive and on the train, in the Pull-
mans, say, could you have ridden all the way to Mexico without
meeting him anywhere en route?”
“It's quite possible. You see,” he explained, "they're two dif-
ferent worlds."
Rogers paused. “You don't happen to know of another Edward
Durkin, do you? Is there or not any other family of Durkins here
in this vicinity?"
Dan McBride slowly shook his head. "I suppose there could
be. It's not an unusual name. But if there are other Durkins I
don't know them.”


188
THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
"Mrs. Fulbright—" Rogers turned abruptly away from Petty-
bone to the doctor's wife.
"Yes?” The blond young woman on the bench beside her
brother sat up a little straighter.
"On the night of the fire you saw the reel of pictures."
“Why, yes. I thought they were very interesting indeed."
"I showed two reels. The first one was put on the mantel. And
when the second was finished and Canby and I were still at the
projecting machine and the people in the room were beginning
to stir about, you saw somebody pick up the can of film from
the mantel and put it into the fire. And then later you wrote a
note to that person saying, 'Why did you do it?' And signed it
with a pencil drawing of a sunburst—"
"Yes," said Marian Fulbright, as she followed Rogers' words
with a sort of fascination. “Oh, no! NO! I didn't,” she suddenly
cried out, sitting back in her seat, her eyes widening with alarm.
Reevers cut in swiftly. "Which, Mrs. Fulbright? You say yes.
You say no. Which is it?”
"No," she said quietly, a faint smile on her lips. "I didn't mean
to say yes. I meant that I didn't see it happen."
“And you didn't write the note?”
"No."
"And you don't know who threw the film on the fire?"
"No."
Reevers shrugged his shoulders, and turned his face away and
looked at the patio wall, leaving the field to Rogers who stood
curiously inert, hands in pockets.
Rogers seemed at a loss to know what to do, but the next in-
stant he came to life. He took his hands out of his pockets and
from his right hand there suddenly spun upward into the sun-
light a bright object that turned over and over from the impulse
given it by his thumb. He caught the object which I felt sure was
the silver pocket piece I had acquired in Mexico.
“Mrs. Giles," he began, a smile spreading over his sober face.


THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
189
“Yes."
“We had a little confab a while ago. Now, I want you to tell
us what you were telling me. First, however," he walked to her
side, "did you ever see this piece of silver before?" He gave her
the pocket piece. The housekeeper examined it briefly and handed
it back.
“Yes,” Mrs. Giles answered, “that, or one just like it.”
"When did you last see it?”
"The day Edward Durkin went to war."
"Tell me what was said then.”
"Edward pulled it out of his pocket and showed it to me. He
said, 'Remember this, Giles? My old lucky piece. It will bring
me home safe from the war.'”.
The simple statement had a terrific impact upon the listeners.
A dead silence settled upon them. For a moment no one stirred,
then Doctor Fulbright scuffed his shoes noisily.
"But how did it get here?” he rasped. “Did the government
send it back to Felix?"
A faint smile twitched at the corners of Huntoon Rogers'
mouth. He turned to me.
"Explain how you got it, Wiley, if you will, please.”
"Well," I began, my pulse beating rapidly in my ears. "It was
one night in Taxco. That day the dead stranger had lain on the
street. He was buried that afternoon. Professor Rogers and I were
on our way to Felix Durkin's house, when a Mexican boy named
Pedro stopped us, and wanted to sell us that piece of silver—"
I indicated the silver in Rogers' hand. “I bought it. We asked him
where he had got it and he said the coffin maker had given it to
him. And that the coffin maker had taken it from the body of the
dead stranger."
I stopped there. Silence greeted my ears. No one seemed to
have anything to say for a moment. A newspaper man was scrib-
bling a note on a pad of copy paper, and a photographer moved
in to take a picture of Rogers' hand holding the pocket piece.


190
THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
When it was done, Rogers looked up at us.
“Now, I'll tell you what happened,” he said soberly. “Edward
Durkin was killed that night in or somewhere near Taxco, and
his body left on the highway. He was buried in a stranger's grave
by the villagers the following afternoon. There is ground for
believing that Felix Durkin had some notion—perhaps it was no
more than a premonition of the identity of the first victim in
this series of crimes. But so far as I know he made no effort to
confirm his suspicions. Probably he tried to believe he was mis-
taken. I rather fancy that he believed at first that Dan McBride
was the dead stranger. He saw the pocket piece in Taxco and
drew some conclusion from that fact.
"But at any rate he started home. All of us who are involved
at first one point and then another, boarded the same train. Ben-
ton Slater at Mazatlán with the Fulbrights and the Pettybones.
Slater, of course, suffering from a bullet wound in the leg. Both
Slater and Elsie Tatum had been in Taxco. Both saw the dead
man on the street. Both knew that Edward Durkin was believed
to have been killed overseas. Both, however, in all probability
were troubled by a similarity between the dead man and Ed-
ward Durkin. They wouldn't speak to strangers about the fact,
but might, after comparing notes, and when the time was right,
speak of it to Felix Durkin.
“Now, the slayer of young Durkin made the mistake of not
removing the pocket piece from the body of the victim. He could
have overlooked it, or he could have thought that it was not im-
portant. I must assume that sometime during the trip from Ma-
zatlán to Nogales, Slater made the mistake of mentioning his
suspicions concerning the identity of the dead stranger, to the
slayer of Felix Durkin's son. Most likely it was done in order to
obtain that person's reaction as to when and how best to bring
the idea to Felix Durkin. The thought in Slater's mind, though,
I've no doubt, was that the younger Durkin died an accidental
death.


194
THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
of it. We know pretty well the rest of it."
For a moment Dan McBride looked away at the mass of red
lantana against the patio wall. I thought at first he was going to
seal his lips, then suddenly he wanted to talk.
"All right,” he said, his eyes avoiding ours as he talked in a
low and hurried voice. “Uncle Felix was gone. He had written me
to come to Taxco, and I was planning to go. That's all straight.
Mrs. Giles had to go to Michigan. Elsie Tatum and Slater had
just gone to Mexico. Then there came a telegram from Ed, ad-
dressed to his father. Canby didn't see it. I opened it. Ed just
said he was coming on the twenty-ninth. You can imagine what
I felt. I had thought he was dead, just as everybody else did.
“I knew Julius and Canby would hike out if I gave them half
a chance. I said I was going the twenty-ninth, but I didn't go.
But I missed Ed at the station. I came back out here, and met
him as he was walking down the road to Sunset Boulevard. I ex-
plained where everybody was. I told him I had forwarded his
telegram to Uncle Felix, and that he'd wired me to come on,
bringing Ed with me. So we got a tourist card for Ed, and left
the next day. We stayed that night here, of course. We were
alone. But—there was something funny about Ed. He wasn't
quite himself. He wasn't in very good shape physically, either.
I did a lot of thinking as we rode down together to Mexico City
on the train.”
McBride paused and looked inquiringly at Reevers, and the
latter merely motioned for him to continue. After a moment he
went on.
“I hired a car when we got to Mexico City. A drive yourself.
And it was dark when we got close to Taxco. You know how you
begin to get into mountains and twisting roads after crossing
wide open country for miles. Well, it was in there. I never really
had made up my mind to kill him, but I kept thinking what's the
use. He died once, so far as Uncle Felix was concerned, and the
rest of us too. He was still dead to everybody else in the family,


196
THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER
ings. But coming north on the train, I was beginning to get my
nerve back, when out of a clear sky Benton Slater told me con-
fidentially that he thought the fellow he'd seen on the street at
Taxco was Ed Durkin, and what should be done about it? I lost
my nerve. I'd be accused of killing Ed anyway. And so—well,
Professor," he said to Rogers, “you've figured the rest of it all
out the way it was."
For a moment I did not realize that Dan McBride had fin-
ished. The others sat fascinated and speechless until Amelia
Pettybone broke the silence with a question.
. “Did you put that note in my purse, Dan?"
Dan McBride laughed. “No. You did it yourself. I saw you. It
was the excitement at the moment, I guess. You didn't know what
you were doing.”
Reevers interrupted. “What about this Tatum woman the
hose, I mean? What was your idea?”
“It was just an idea that didn't work out. I took it up there first
and then came back and rode up with Elsie. I had her thinking
it was Will Pettybone who'd killed Slater, and she wanted to talk
to me about it. But she found out her mistake too late. She
spoiled my plan to make it look like suicide. She'd have got me
sooner or later, though, if I hadn't got her first. She was sharp.”
"And how did you manage to give Slater that morphine?” de-
manded Fulbright.
"Just as Professor Rogers has said. He had his mouth open.
I didn't know it was the best place I could have given it. I was
going to stick it in his arm that night when he was asleep. But he
was breathing a bit heavy and I thought I could get away with
it. Nobody noticed what I was doing. The porter wasn't in the
car at the time.”
“There's a point I'd like cleared up, Dan,” said Rogers.
"Well-I might as well—what is it?"
"You didn't hear Canby talking to your uncle through the
door that night. You didn't see Canby going around the turn in


THE AFFAIR OF THE DEAD STRANGER 197
the upper hall just as you topped the stairs, did you?"
“No I didn't."
"Just what happened?"
"Well-I'd come into the garage and put my car away when
I saw the front lights go on and heard Canby yelling at Uncle
Felix. I went around front to see what was doing, and saw Uncle
Felix going away with his bag. And so I followed, when Canby
closed the front door, and picked up a two-by-four as I went by
the lumber pile on the lawn. I followed Uncle Felix down the road
and—well, you know what happened.”
"Yes, but you said you heard Canby and your uncle talking
and saw Canby going around the turn in the hall,” said Reevers.
“It fitted like a glove to what Canby had told us. How come?"
"That's easy,” Dan McBride answered with a trace of amuse-
ment in his voice. “Canby gave me my cue when he told his story
of the strange night he had had. All I had to do was to fit my
alibi to it."
"When and how did you get back into the house after you
killed your uncle?"
"I just walked back and came up the front steps and in at the
front door. Canby was out in the car hunting Uncle Felix."
"Didn't you see anything of Mrs. Pettybone or her husband,
or Doctor Fulbright?"
"No."
"Well—” said Kelly Reevers, getting to his feet and motion-
ing to McBride, "let's take a ride downtown.”