LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF A
Berkel
THE UNITERSILY OF CALIFORNIA
BUSORT LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CH
UBRARY OE THE URBVERSITY OF CALIFOBBIA
LIERARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFOSKIA
LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
418RARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY OF
LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
SIY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA ATERAL
BRANYA
GE CALIFORNIA - LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
CALEDALA LIBBABY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA · LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
LIBRARY OF THE
(Decree
GAURORA SUBRARY OF THE UN
LIBRARY OF THE DY
Berts








THE AFFAIR IN
DEATH VALLEY


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


**kkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk
THE AFFAIR IN
DEATH
VALLEY
CLIFFORD KNIGHT
DODD, MEAD & COMPANY
NEW YORK
19 4 o


COPYRIGHT, 1940
BY DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, INC.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
NO PART OF THIS BOOK MAY BE REPRODUCED IN ANY FORM
WITHOUT PERMISSION IN WRITING FROM THE PUBLISHER
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
BY THE VAIL-BALLOU PRESS, INC., BINGHAMTON, N. Y.


PS3521
N67A4
1940
MAIN
To MADELEINE AND LEE SHIPPEY,
NOT ONLY WITH RECOLLEC-
TIONS OF A JOURNEY TO-
GETHER TO DEATH VALLEY,
BUT BECAUSE OF A FRIENDSHIP
THAT ENDURES
M117516





NOTE:
Every character in this book is entirely fictitious
and no reference whatever is intended to any
person.


The Annual Red Badge
$1000 PRIZE CONTEST
Each year the Red Badge Editors conduct a new
mystery story contest for a $1000 prize and additional
royalties, opening the first of February and closing the
first of December. A complete prospectus will be mailed
upon request.
FORMER PRIZE WINNERS
THE AFFAIR OF THE SCARLET CRAB
By CLIFFORD KNIGHT
FAST COMPANY by Marco PAGE
CANCELLED IN RED by Hugh PENTECOST
A MATTER OF IODINE by David Keith
THE RED BADGE BULLETIN
A Bulletin giving current and advance information
about Red Badge books, publishing communications from
authors and readers, discussing trends and conducting in-
teresting puzzles and competitions, is issued quarterly and
will be sent free of charge upon request.
THE EIGHT-POINT TEST
Each year, hundreds of detective-story manuscripts
are submitted to Dodd, Mead and Company. From these
only a very small number receive the coveted Red Badge
imprint because every one must first pass a rigid eight-
point test—so severe that all but absolutely first-class mys-
teries are eliminated. Copies of this eight-point test will
be mailed without charge.
DODD, MEAD & CO., Inc., 449 Fourth Ave., N. Y.


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
car continued to float.
..... “It looms like the gates of hell,” said Huntoon Rogers
solemnly from the seat beside me. He hadn't spoken in the
last hour, for the long afternoon in the desert had wearied
:: him. But: the apparition now before us roused him com-
pletely.
“The road turns to the left before we get to it," I re-
minded him. He made no response. His eyes were fixed
upon the tremendous scene. “Any old desert rat, though,”
I added, "probably would tell you that you're as close to
hell right around in this country as you'll ever get on earth.”
“I hope they have a good dinner at the Amargosa,” he
said. “I'm hungry.”
A light truck of a sudden turned into the highway off a
desert road, and our tires squealed on the pavement and
the car swayed violently as its speed fell off, but we avoided
a collision. However, neither the driver of the truck nor his
companion on the seat looked back as they drew rapidly
away from us through the gathering dusk in the direction
of Death Valley Junction. I muttered something about a
fool driver and switched on the headlights. Huntoon
Rogers said nothing.
The highway soon became a twisting road through an
unkempt region of salt and alkali which in the fading day-
light looked like dirty snow. Twice I ran up close behind
the truck prepared to pass it and then slackened speed as
our headlights swept the vehicle. There was something fa-
miliar about the driver's back, something about his bat-
tered hat, the set of his shoulders as he sat hunched over
the wheel. But I couldn't pronounce the name that was at
the tip of my tongue. It was this puzzling over his iden-
tity that prevented my noticing what lay on the floor of


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
the truck.
Not until we were passing through the odd little com-
munity of Shoshone, which was weird and ghostlike in the
darkness, did I discover what was in the body of the truck.
I did not speak of it immediately, but continued to study
its shape and size while I kept the headlights upon it. At
length I slackened speed and let the truck draw ahead, a
curious sensation of cold playing along my spinal column.
“You know what it is, don't you, Joe?” Huntoon Rogers'
voice startled me, coming as it did out of the darkness at
my side.
“I can guess."
“They wrap them in canvas that way.”
"Yes, I know. That is, sometimes they do."
“Certainly; when they find them out in places difficult
to get to."
The truck drew on ahead of us, its single red taillight
shining balefully back at us through the gloom as if it re-
sented our discovery that a dead man lay wrapped in can-
vas on the floor of the truck.
• All trace of daylight had now vanished from the sky and
we rolled along in a strange world. The old railway line,
reminiscent of the great days of gold excitement in the
desert camps of Tonopah, Goldfield and Rhyolite at the
turn of the century, kept silent pace for several miles along-
side the highway.
"We seem almost to be standing still,” Rogers com-
plained.
“We're doing fifty," I replied, glancing at the speedome-
ter.
“Really? It's an illusion."


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
load, using the taillight as a guide. Otherwise I'd not have
driven so fast.
"I ought to know the driver of that truck," I said at last.
"So?”
“There's something familiar about him.”
"He'll probably stop at the Junction.”
"If we weren't so far from Independence I'd say that he
was a part-time deputy sheriff from over there, named Dick
Stocker. But it's almost two hundred miles from where we
first saw him below Shoshone to Independence—across
Death Valley, the Panamints and the Argus Range, and on
up Owens Valley—"
“What do you mean part-time deputy sheriff?”
"Just special jobs into the back country where the regu-
lar force probably would get lost. That's all they use him
for. Or did.”
"Well, some of these California counties are bigger than
whole states back East. Why wouldn't a deputy sheriff be
found two hundred miles away from the county seat?”
Rogers' voice sounded not only as if he were hungry but
as if hunger were affecting his temper. We had lost the rail-
way line. A light glimmered feebly somewhere off in the
desert, and then ahead and to the right a group of lights like
a constellation in the black void of the night sky came into
view, shining brightly although still several miles away.
I stepped up the speed and we closed the distance be-
tween us and the truck. We followed the vehicle with its
gruesome burden around to the hotel and parked alongside
it, and got out stiffly to stretch our legs after our long drive.
"Hello, Dick,” I called to the driver of the truck, who
was making his way toward the hotel entrance.
The tall, slightly stooped figure turned and gazed at me


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
searchingly. Although I could not see his eyes in the dim
light, I knew that they were the bluest, clearest eyes I had
ever seen.
"Oh, hello, Hibbard! Was that you who nearly hit me
back there where I come off the Tecopa road?”
"Well, I didn't hit you, did I?” I answered, taking the
huge hand which was like a warm, rough piece of granite
and which cracked the knuckles in my fingers in a single
powerful shake.
“No, you didn't,” he grinned. “How are you? Haven't
seen you since that time we went pokin' around the old
Cerro Gordo together. You were going to write a story."
“I want you to meet a friend of mine, Dick,” I said.
I introduced Rogers. The other man had disappeared
and it was explained later that he was John Foster, a man
the deputy had picked up at the Junction earlier in the day
to accompany him into the desert beyond Tecopa. Rogers
reminded us that it was getting late and that he was still
hungry, so we entered the hotel and walked through the
little lobby into the dining room. Warmth and light and
the comforts of civilization after the miles of barren desert
were welcome. We climbed onto stools at the lunch coun-
ter and ate hungrily.
Food was more important than conversation at the mo-
ment, more so even than the questions I meant to ask. The
waitress had just set our dessert before us when a tall, youth-
ful figure in grayish-green uniform with stiff-brimmed hat
and polished brown boots came in from the lobby.
“Hello, Dick,” the young man called, removing his gloves
and putting them carefully on the counter beside his hat.
“Find him?"
“Yes, I did. Meet these fellows, Otis," the deputy said to


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
the newcomer. “Otis Barton, park ranger, Joe Hibbard and
Huntoon Rogers—friends of mine.”
We shook hands and the ranger sat down at the counter,
"Have any trouble locating him?” asked Barton after he
had ordered a cup of coffee.
"I could have walked to where he was blindfolded.” The
deputy pushed away what remained of his dessert with a
gesture of distaste for all food, fished a sack of tobacco from
his pocket and rolled a meager cigarette. He set it alight
with a match which he exploded on his thick thumbnail.
“He didn't have anything much on him,” he announced,
the cigarette flopping on his lower lip.
The huge fist explored again in a pocket and then from
rough fingers there dropped one by one on the counter
among the dishes a pearl-handled pocketknife, a billfold
stuffed with currency, and the cap from a fountain pen.
Stocker made an awkward full-arm movement to indicate
that these were all he had found on the dead man.
"Count it for me, Otis.” The deputy indicated the bill-
fold.
The ranger reached for the expensive, almost new leather
billfold, removed the money and counted it, stacking the
bills neatly in a little pile. We waited in silence until he had
finished.
"Two hundred eighty-five dollars,” he announced.
“There ain't anything else in it, is there, Otis? Cards?
Papers?”
The ranger searched the billfold. “Nothing,” he said.
“How old a man was he, Dick?"
“I'd guess he was fifty-five; maybe sixty. It's a little hard
to say."


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
The deputy continued to smoke his thin, lumpy cigarette,
gazing contemplatively at the pitiful collection of personal
effects.
"If I'd found his coat, maybe there'd be more,” he sug-
gested. “But I didn't. Wasn't any shirt neither.”
"Just where did you find the body, Dick?" asked the
ranger.
“Pahrump Valley; this side the Nevada state line. Ten-
twelve miles beyond Tule Spring, and about four-five miles
off the road. Outside of Death Valley. So it ain't anything
for you rangers to worry about. Been dead two months—no,
make it three.”
“It's an odd thing,” observed Otis Barton, a sober light
in his alert brown eyes, “but they usually imagine they're
wading in water, or swimming.”
"Yeah," echoed the deputy. “They do. I remember one
time over in north of the Panamint Valley, settin' on a hill-
side, me and another deputy, to rest. We'd been huntin' a
fellow who was lost. All of a sudden we see him about a
quarter of a mile away. He was just tearin' off his shirt. He
throwed it down and begun to run. We grabbed our can-
teens and caught him. He was plumb crazy by then.
Thought we were goin' to try to drown him. He was steppin'
high like he was wadin' in water. We made him drink a
little water, as much as we could, because his tongue was all
swelled up, and then we had to fight him to keep him away
from it. It don't take long to die of thirst in the desert. All
you have to do is be careless just once about your water
supply.”
“They start walking in circles—or running,” said Barton.
“This fellow we picked up today had too. His tracks was


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
still plain in the sand.”
The ranger took up his gloves and hat and climbed off
his stool.
“Where you goin', Otis?” Stocker's eyes shifted to the
ranger.
"I've got to be moving. Have to take a man from the park
service to the train at Las Vegas tonight. He's still waiting
outside for me. Wouldn't come in. Headache bothering
him.”
“Vegas? How far is Vegas from the Junction here?"
“A hundred and eight miles.” The ranger drew on his
gloves, standing smartly beside the counter, the silver badge
on his jacket reflecting the bright lights in the all but de-
serted dining room. “What are you going to do with the
body?”
“I'll take it on over to Independence tonight, I guess.”
Mentally I traced the lonesome road across Death Valley,
up over the Panamints and down into the deep valley be-
yond them and then up over the Argus Range and on to
the county seat in Owens Valley. I shouldn't want to drive
the one hundred fifty desolate miles alone with a dead man
who had died horribly of thirst three months before. I
looked at Huntoon Rogers, who until now had sat a silent
listener at the deputy sheriff's elbow. His thoughts were
still on the objects on the counter. He reached forward and
picked up the fountain pen cap and turned it about in his
fingers. After a moment he rubbed it on the sleeve of his
coat and examined it again.
“Anything wrong with it?" inquired Stocker.
"I was just wondering why it was worn and scratched
that way on the end. The marks seem recent. Looks as
though the cap might have been rubbed on rocks or in hard


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
sand.” He gave it to the deputy. The latter dropped the end
of his cigarette in his coffee cup and looked closely at the
cap.
"I guess you're right about it, Mr. Rogers." He gathered
up the other objects and stuffed them in the side pocket of
his coat. “That was two hundred and eighty-five, wasn't it,
Otis?”
"That's right, Dick. Well—so long. I'm glad to have met
you, gentlemen,” the ranger said, looking at Rogers and
me. "Are you going on down to Furnace Creek tonight?”
“Yes,” I answered.
"Perhaps I'll see you tomorrow, then.” He waved a
gloved hand and disappeared, leaving a feeling of friendli-
ness and efficiency behind him.
Dick Stocker climbed off the counter stool and we walked
out to the desk in a corner of the lobby. Over near the fire-
place, where a small fire was burning, two gray-haired
women tourists sat comfortably knitting and talking.
The manager and his wife, standing behind the desk,
were restless, which of course was understandable, for the
gruesome object in the truck outside was a disturbing
thought.
"Some desert rat, was he, Dick?” inquired the youngish
manager in a subdued voice.
The man's name was Edward Long. He was small and
dapper in appearance, and a tiny mustache grew in a thin
line across his upper lip. His dark hair was oiled flat to his
skull and one thought of night clubs and masters of cere-
mony rather than the desert when he spoke.
"Desert rats don't have creases in their pants, Ed.”
Stocker's voice was a low rumble. “This fellow might have
been a college professor. Or a doctor."


10
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
"Why do you say that?”
“Looked like it. He had a goatee.”
“Oh—” Long shuddered perceptibly. “How did you
happen to find him?”
"Some fellow was flyin' over that part of the desert a
couple of days ago, and he reported seein' the fellow layin'
out there."
I bought a package of cigarettes and we went outside-
to the obvious relief of the manager, who followed us out.
“One more question, Dick,” he pressed. “How did he
happen to die out there? Where was his car?”
"Didn't see any sign of a car. Didn't have a canteen
neither."
"How would he get where he was, then?”
"Walk, I guess, Ed.”
"It sounds queer to me.”
Dick Stocker did not reply. He was rolling another of his
lumpy cigarettes. A match exploded against his thumbnail,
and the flare lighted up his rugged face. “A lot of queer
things happen around here, Ed. You've been here long
enough to know that. Well, I'm still a long ways from home,
boys. So long; I'll be seein' you."
We called after him as he walked down to his truck. A
few moments later the truck's motor roared, the lights
flashed on, and the vehicle backed away and headed off on
the road to Death Valley.
“Let's go,” urged Huntoon Rogers as the truck disap-
peared. “Good night, Mr. Long. That was a good dinner,”
he said pleasantly to the manager, and walked over to our
car and climbed in.
I followed him, and soon we were rolling along the dark
road which drops down Furnace Creek Wash into Death


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
11
Valley. Only once did we catch a glimpse of Stocker's tail-
light far ahead of us in the darkness. Neither Rogers nor I
felt like talking. The tragic fate of the dead man weighed
upon us. The checking station just inside the park bound-
ary was closed when we approached it, and so we did not
stop, but continued on down the wash, the air becoming
warmer as we dropped down to the lower end of the three-
thousand-foot grade. At last we rounded the final curve
and drew up in front of the inn.
Again there was light and warmth and the comforts of
civilization. The lobby and the lounges were filled with
contented people. Bright paintings of bizarre desert scenes
were upon every wall. The smart efficiency of metropolitan
service was extended to us, which made it the more difficult
to realize that vast lonesome desert stretches surrounded
us on every hand; still more difficult, even, to realize the
tragedy that had been enacted in the desert.
"I can't get my mind off of it somehow, unt," I said to
Rogers as the bellboy closed the door softly upon us and
left us alone in our room.
He did not reply for a long moment, but continued to
stand at the window and gaze down over the broad reach
of black desert, to the ranch which lay below the inn, its
lights sparkling like strange diamonds in the darkness.
“There's no other region on earth, I guess, that's had the
long and somber history that Death Valley has,” he re-
marked meditatively.
“Yes, I know," I answered. “But I'm talking about the
dead man. Who was he? And why did he die like that? As
Stocker said, desert rats don't have creases in their pants.
What do you see in it? You haven't told me, but I know
you're thinking something—"


12
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
“Thinking? No, I'm just hoping,” he interrupted, turn-
ing from the window, his mild blue eyes fixed searchingly
upon me. He had drawn to his full height of nearly six feet.
There was something resentful in his manner.
I looked at him carefully: at the strong nose, the slightly
flaring ears, the thinning light hair on his head. He was an
attractive man, a man of benign appearance, an engaging
personality. We were in Death Valley together at my sug.
gestion that we look over some of the old ghost towns of the
region.
“Yes, I know," I said, prepared to drop the matter. "I
know what you're hoping, and I hope so too—that one of
your famous cases is not beginning to get under way. I really
came up here to look about some for the old ghost towns—”
"What puzzles me is why his fountain pen is scored on
the end. And—where's the rest of the pen? Why wasn't it
all together?"
"It is a bit of a puzzle, isn't it?"


THE croaking of a raven wakened me and I rolled out of
bed, realizing as I stumbled to my feet that I had slept
dreamlessly. Huntoon Rogers had disappeared and I was
left with the annoying thought that he had dressed and van-
ished without my hearing him. Through the window I
could look down upon the camp at the ranch, where already
there were signs of life. Two horseback riders were setting
out upon an early-morning excursion; a motor car was
maneuvering near the filling station. Beyond the camp,
towering above the valley floor were the Panamints, rearing
gigantic sun-bathed peaks into a clear blue sky. There was
a vast unbroken peace overlying the whole scene, against
which the croaking of a single raven seemed an infinitesi-
mal sound.
Rogers was just beginning his breakfast when I joined
him in the dining room. He looked up at me with a twinkle
in his eyes.
"You've really decided to join me for lunch, have you,
Joe?” he grinned.
“Breakfast comes first,” I retorted.
"I was beginning to think that you would sleep all morn-
ing,” he twitted me, glancing at his wrist. “It's all of eight-
thirty now."
“Really? And what did you gain by getting up at the
crack of dawn?” I fired at him.
"I met a couple of fellows out on the terrace who are
13


14
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
nursing a novel idea.”
“What idea?”
"You never know why people do the things they do; it's
enough, I guess, to know that they do them. It might make
an interesting study for publication someday—the things
people do that they don't have to do, things that can be
labeled stunts"
"Why don't you come to the point?" I requested peev-
ishly. “What stunt?”
"Well, you can drive back to civilization—meaning
Los Angeles or the San Fernando Valley, say—in seven or
eight hours easily. Why, then, should anybody want to walk
it? Walking the whole distance now would be just a stunt
when you can ride, wouldn't it?”
“Yes."
"Well, that's the whole point. They're not crazy, either,
to talk to—these two fellows. They told me they're plan-
ning to start with no more than Manly and Rogers had in
'49 when they walked out to bring help to the stranded
wagon train here in the valley, carry only the same amount
of food, drink only at the same springs, follow the route
they pioneered.”
“It's crazy," I said, picking up the menu card. “What is
it, a build-up of some sort? If that's all you gained by your
early rising, I'm glad I stayed in bed.”
“I just thought I'd tell you,” he grinned. “If you see two
fellows walking about the valley the next few days you'll
know who they are and what they're up to; they're going
through the hardening process. They're sitting over by the
window now."
I glanced at the pair. They were vigorous-looking and
quite thoroughly tanned. One seemed much older than the


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
15
other and less exuberant than his companion, who was a
young man in his middle twenties.
"Their names are Harry Byers and Keith Hayes," Rogers
announced.
“That's so interesting," I commented, dismissing the
matter and giving my order to the waiter who had been
hovering at my elbow.
With breakfast over, though, I felt better, and Rogers
abandoned his efforts to annoy me. He had recovered com-
pletely from the tedium of the previous day's drive, and so
excellent was his health that he now seemed filled with
energy and enthusiasm.
“What else have you discovered around here?" I asked as
we strolled out into the lobby and made for the door that
opened upon the terrace.
“There was a very pretty girl around here before you
came down. She was accompanied by a man who probably
is her father. They've gone for a horseback ride, I think.”
“How soon do you want to start for Rhyolite?"
"Any time you're ready, Joe,” Rogers answered, sitting
down on the terrace wall and looking off down the valley
toward Bad Water.
A moment later his eyes lifted to the snow-capped crest
of Telescope Peak, and he contemplated in silence the lofty
mountain rising steeply more than eleven thousand feet
from its base on the below-sea-level valley floor. Suddenly
he left off and took his fountain pen from his pocket and
drew it several times upon the rock wall, and examined the
result. He returned the pen to his pocket, saying nothing.
“Let's get going,” I suggested.
“All right.”
The car was waiting for us when we came down, and we


16
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
circled the inn on the winding drive and came out upon the
road and headed northward past the sheltered cottages of
the ranch with its heavy growth of tamarisk and palm.
“The first recorded resident of the ranch,” remarked
Rogers as we drove by without stopping, "bore the interest-
ing name of Bellerin' Teck, and the place was long known
as Greenland.”
"Yeah," I answered. “The highest known temperature
ever recorded was here at the ranch. What a sense of humor
the old boys had who pioneered this Godforsaken coun-
try!”
The sunlight and the broad reaches of the valley, the vast
sweep of the mountains against the blue sky and the good
breakfast had done something to us. The somber atmos-
phere of the night just past, with a dead man in a truck and
a deputy sheriff who set out alone across the mountain
ranges, had vanished like a bad dream. A holiday mood had
come back to us; we had shaken off all sense of tragedy.
“I don't know when I've seen more wild flowers in Death
Valley before,” Rogers said as we skimmed over the smooth,
hard road. He indicated a slope covered with desert sun-
flowers which had turned the barren surface into a yellow
carpet. “How about stopping at the park headquarters and
paying our respects to the superintendent, who is an old
friend of mine?"
“Okeh,” I said. “It won't take but a few minutes."
A group of buildings a short distance from the road at
the right had come into view, and I turned off and drove
toward them. I think Rogers noted the truck standing in
the parking area before I did. But as I stopped the car and
took the key from the ignition my eyes fell upon it. The
license number, I realized, had lingered in my subconscious


18
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
“How's the Professor?” he inquired genially. "Still teach-
ing English at the university?”
“I'm fine, Mr. Garvey,” Rogers grinned. “Yes, I'm still
at the teaching. Do you know Joe Hibbard, Mr. Garvey?
... Harris Garvey, superintendent of Death Valley Na-
tional Monument, Joe.” .
I shook hands with him; but my eyes already were upon
Dick Stocker, who sat in a chair beside the big desk, an odd
sort of a grin on his face, his blue eyes, the bluest eyes I've
ever seen, seeming to catch all the sunlight of the out-of-
doors.
"Hello, Dick,” I called.
The superintendent waved us to a couch against the wall
with the request that we sit down, and went back to his
chair behind his desk.
"Maybe you two are just the fellows Dick wants to see,"
he remarked. “Dick's been telling me something that's hard
to believe.” Harris Garvey glanced at the deputy, as if he
were poking fun at him slyly.
“I'll say you are, boys,” the deputy responded. “Glad you
dropped in. Garvey here's tryin' to make me think I'm off
my nut, and I was never more serious in my life.”
The deputy was leaning elbows on the arms of his chair,
his sober, rugged face thrust toward us hopefully.
“We supposed you were in Independence by now,”
Rogers said.
“I would have been—"
"We saw your truck out there," I added. “But we didn't
figure out what it was doing there.”
"Well, you see—" Stocker swallowed nervously, and his
thoughts shot off at a tangent. “You fellows saw the body I
had in the truck, didn't you?” he asked anxiously.


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
19
“We saw something on the floor of the truck as we trailed
you into the Junction last night. It looked like a dead man
wrapped in canvas.”
Deputy Stocker was greatly relieved at this statement.
He reached into his pocket for his tobacco and began roll-
ing one of his lumpy-looking cigarettes. It was as though he
felt the statement had vindicated him in the eyes of the
park superintendent.
"What do you want to know that for?" I inquired.
“Garvey here thinks I been givin' him a cock an' bull
story about a dead man. But I ain't. I'm tellin' it to you
straight.” He turned to the superintendent, the cigarette
flopping on his lower lip. “I stopped for gas at the ranch
last night. Everything was all right then. I can't prove it,
because the boy at the fillin' station didn't look to see what
I had. Then I go on. I stop for one more cup of coffee at
Stovepipe Wells. Maybe I talk for half an hour, then I go
on. I drag on up over and down the Panamints and across
the next valley, and just the other side of Panamint Springs,
about where the Darwin road takes off, I get a hunch. Maybe
it ain't a hunch; maybe the truck ain't ridin' just like it
ought to; maybe the sound of it is different, the little noises
it makes ain't clickin' the way they'd ought to. So I stop
the truck, light a match and look back to see. And the dead
man is gone!”
An odd sort of silence fell among us for a moment.
Through the windows of the office the desert stretched
away into the vast distance without sign of life or move-
ment. A blue sky arched over barren earth; soaring moun-
tains hemmed us in.
“I turned around," the deputy took up again, “wonderin'
where I'd lost him. He can't slide out, because the end gate


20
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
is closed and latched. I ain't stopped nowhere, except the
ranch and Stovepipe Wells. Of course, all the way back I'm
watchin' the road to see if he didn't slide out. But there
wasn't any sign of him. I come back as far as Stovepipe, and
by that time I'm dead tired, and I figured nothing could be
done till daylight anyhow, so I turn in there and get some
sleep. I come on down here after breakfast, and—Garvey
here"—the deputy sought to enlist our sympathies against
the superintendent—"gets the notion that maybe I've
dreamed all this.”
“Now, Dick,” Superintendent Garvey interposed quickly,
“I'm not doubting your word. If you say that you had a
body and that it disappeared, then those are the facts. But it
sounds crazy. In the first place, who is going to steal a body
that's lain three months in the desert? In the second place,
what for?"
“I get your point, Garvey,” agreed Stocker. “But you
know me; you know my reputation. I'm not going to come
in with a windy yarn. I'm not that kind. I lost the body.
It's gone. Stolen.”
“I know, Dick. But the thing's cockeyed."
“Well—what do we do, though?” the deputy asked
earnestly.
The superintendent leaned forward in his chair and
reached for the telephone, his eyes screwed up behind his
horn-rimmed glasses.
"We'll investigate, of course. I'll put some rangers on the
job—”
"What about the stop at Stovepipe Wells?” Rogers in-
terrupted. “You didn't make it clear what happened there."
“I thought I did,” Stocker answered oddly.
“You said you stopped for a cup of coffee, stayed there


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
21
for half an hour, and then went on. Did you look to see if
you had the body before you left there?”
“I think I did, Mr. Rogers.'
“But you're not sure?”
"Well, here's the way it was: I came out to the truck after
I'd had my coffee, walked along beside it to the seat and
climbed in. It was light enough the way I was parked there,
and the way I came up to the truck so that if there'd been
anything wrong I think I'd have noticed it. I didn't walk
right up and look right at the spot where the body would
be, and make sure if it was there—”.
“Then it could have been gone, and you could have been
mistaken in thinking everything was all right?”
“Yes, I guess I could have. But here's the point: I asked
around at the hotel when I got back if anybody'd been there
actin' suspicious-like, and they said no. I was the only one
who stopped there after sundown. They had some guests
there, of course, but most of 'em had gone to bed before
I showed up."
"Well”—the superintendent's voice cut across the con-
versation—“I'll call up Captain Brown and see if he's got
some boys he can detail to help out our rangers.”
We were silent while Harris Garvey waited for his con-
nection. I noted a beautifully tooled Visalia saddle on a
wooden trestle in a corner of the room and a couple of
scarred old rifles standing behind it, which probably had
histories connected with the region.
“Captain Brown?” said the superintendent. “This is
Garvey at headquarters. Something's just come up that I
need a little help for."
He went on to explain what had happened. After a few
moments he hung up, and turned back to us.


22
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
"We'll get some help from the CCC boys. If the body was
stolen here in the monument, or outside and brought in,
we're interested in finding it. Bodies don't vanish into thin
air; either they're on top the ground or they're under it.
If this one is under it, then there should be fresh signs. But
Death Valley National Monument is a pretty big place.
Who was the man?" He turned to Dick Stocker.
"I don't know. There wasn't anything on him that said.”
"Some prospector?" the superintendent inquired.
"Some outsider with city clothes. Creases in his pants.
Could have been a doctor or a lawyer, maybe. Couldn't tell
very well. His hair was kind of gray and I think he'd had a
goatee.”
“It gets more interesting," said the superintendent, screw-
ing up his eyes and looking away through a window. “You
say you found him over in Pahrump Valley?"
“In the lower east edge of it.”
A brisk step sounded in the hallway outside the door, and
a quick tap rattled on the panel.
“Come!" called the superintendent.
The door swung inward and Otis Barton, the ranger we
had met at the Amargosa, stepped inside. He seemed as
fresh as he had the night before, as neatly dressed and as
alert. He carried his gloves in his hand, and now removed
his stiff-brimmed hat.
"Well, you got back all right from Las Vegas, I see,”
greeted the superintendent.
“Yes, sir. About one o'clock this morning. Mr. Mitchell
made his train all right." The ranger's eyes had taken in the
rest of us in the room. He greeted us, and then his gaze
fixed upon the deputy. "I didn't expect to find you here,
Dick," he exclaimed. “How come?”


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
23
“That's what we'd like to find the answer to," answered
Garvey. “Without knowing how or where it happened,
Dick seems to have lost the body."
The ranger whistled. “I say now, that's something!”
“Captain Brown is detailing several parties of CCC boys
to help us,” continued the superintendent. “You'd better
get as many rangers as can be spared to oversee them, Otis.
And go yourself, if necessary. The sooner you get organized
the better. Captain Brown is coming right over, and we'll
figure out the best way to handle it.”


We didn't get to Rhyolite that day. Three truckloads of
CCC boys were waiting in front of park headquarters when
we came out of the superintendent's office, having arrived
from the barracks near by. Brief instructions were given
the drivers by Captain Brown, a sandy-haired, athletic in-
dividual, and they pulled away to start a search for the
vanished body of a dead man.
Huntoon Rogers and I stood outside park headquarters
and watched them go. I suggested Rhyolite, but he appar-
ently did not hear me.
"Just where did you find the body, Dick?” he inquired of
the deputy who lingered, leaning against an adobe pillar,
uncertain what to do next.
“Well, if you remember where you saw me come into
the highway last night-just follow that road ten-twelve
miles—"
“Can we find the place by ourselves? Or can you go with
us?"
"I don't hardly want to leave here, Mr. Rogers; they
might want me for something. But you can find it all right,
if you're aimin' to go back down there. Just after you pass
the last mountain on the left going down into Pahrump
Valley, you'll see where I drove in there. You can go in
there maybe a couple of miles in a car, then you'll have to
walk the rest of the way. But you won't find nothin' when
you get there. Some footprints is about all. They're plain
yet.”
24


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
25
"We can find the place, I'm sure.”
“As I say, I don't think you'll find anything. They
wouldn't take the body back over there, whoever stole it.
It's around here somewheres in Death Valley."
“Yes, I know. But I want to look over the ground where
the man died.”
“Okeh," said the deputy with an air of resignation, reach-
ing for his sack of tobacco. "It'll be a nice ride this morn-
ing." He grinned and with rough fingers began to roll one
We walked over to the car and climbed in. I took the
wheel, backed into the roadway and headed downgrade.
An ancient Indian on an old horse was ambling up the
highway when we reached it. He stared at us and plodded
on.
“It's astonishing how the Indian could live here for gen-
erations in this valley which spelled only death to the white
man for so long," Rogers remarked.
“That's because he would eat anything—things the white
man wouldn't eat.”
"More important than that, he knew where the water-
holes were. Did you know that a white rock placed on top
of another rock is an Indian sign of a waterhole in this
country?"
"So?"
“Yes. Find a second one like it near by and take a
sight along that line and it will lead you to the waterhole."
We stopped at the inn for a few minutes before setting
off on our trip to Pahrump Valley, and there as I came out
from the lobby upon the broad terrace I met a man dressed
in an open-throated sports shirt, a purple coat and brown
gabardine trousers tucked into high laced boots. He was


26
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
average in all proportions, except for a slight bulging at
the waistline, and beginning to gray, but not to age.
He stopped me with an outstretched hand, and waited
an impressive moment before addressing me.
"Pardon me,” he said in a rather pleasant voice. "Perhaps
you can tell me— My name is Downes, by the way. George
Downes of Chicago. What is this I hear about a body being
found on the desert yesterday? Mr.—Mr.-"
“Hibbard," I answered.
“I'm glad to meet you, sir. Is it true about this fellow?”
“Yes.”
“What happened to him?"
“Ventured too far without a canteen in hot weather."
"Is it possible? I thought this country was civilized. Some
poor devil of a prospector, was he?”
“On the contrary, there's good reason to believe he was
not."
There was a slight narrowing of his eyes, and he glanced
away across the valley. “How do they know?” he asked with
what I thought was an odd sort of inflection; but, of course,
I had only met the man and I was not familiar with his
habits of speech.
"By the clothes he wore.”
"Oh, yes, of course,” he said quickly. “But it's a bit queer,
don't you think? I mean that a man of intelligence would
get himself into danger like that.”
“There is something queer about it, perhaps. But
stranger than that, I think, is the fact that the body has
disappeared."
His eyes came to rest upon my own, and there was a
hardness in them as he stared at me. “But I understood that


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
27
it was found only yesterday.”
taken through Death Valley in a truck.”
He stuck his thumbs inside his belt, listening attentively
as I gave him a brief account of what had happened.
"I think that's very strange,” he said emphatically. “Very
strange, indeed. I don't understand things like that."
Huntoon Rogers had come up as we talked and I intro-
duced the two.
"Wouldn't you say that the whole thing is very odd, even
for Death Valley, Mr. Rogers?” he pursued.
“I agree with you.”
“Why would anybody steal the body? What would he do
with it? Don't you think the deputy probably got drunk
and lost it out of his truck?”
“No!" Rogers was quick to deny it. “That's out."
A pair of heels clicked rapidly along the terrace, and a
youthful voice called: “Father, I've been waiting—"
We looked about to see a young girl dressed in an outfit
that smacked of a dude ranch, beige trousers, apricot silk
blouse and a green neck scarf. A wide-brimmed fawn-
colored hat was pulled down upon her dark hair. She was
about twenty and possessed of an attractiveness that went far
toward harmonizing the clashing colors she wore.
“Yes, dear.” George Downes extended an arm toward
the girl and drew her to his side. “My daughter Ruth,” he
said proudly, introducing us.
We exchanged a few words more, then left them on the
terrace and climbed into the car and set off along the high-
way up Furnace Creek Wash on our self-assumed mission
to Pahrump Valley.


28
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
“He's the fellow I mentioned at breakfast time," re-
marked Rogers, settling into his seat, “and she's the pretty
girl.”
As we passed the checking station where a road branched
off up a little valley to the right, Rogers remarked, still
harking back to our original purpose of visiting the old
ghost towns of the region: “If we get back in time this after-
noon let's take a run up to Greenwater."
“We can,” I said, thinking of the camp which a genera-
tion ago was believed destined to become the greatest cop-
per producer in the world, and in which millions were sunk
only to have them soon vanish and the camp settle back
into the silence of the desert.
We didn't stop at Death Valley Junction, but kept on
down the highway through Shoshone and on to the turnoff
where the day before at dusk we narrowly missed hitting
the truck which Dick Stocker had just driven off the desert
road.
“Listen, Hunt,” I said to Rogers as we drove along the
deserted road, “what are you doing this for? Why aren't you
exploring the old ghost camps as we planned to do?”
He looked at me a bit startled, as if the thought had not
occurred to him before; as if, walking in his sleep, he had
been aroused and made aware of actions which he was per-
forming unconsciously.
"I don't know,” he said. “Really, I hadn't thought. But
it's obvious, isn't it, that Stocker, and the rest of them, will
need some help in solving this thing?"
“You're getting at it backwards,” I commented.
“How do you mean?”
“I mean that you sense a first-class mystery developing
right under your nose, and that you no more can be kept


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
29
away from it than an old fire horse could be held in the barn
when the alarm rang.”
He didn't reply for a moment, then he said musingly:
“Am I as bad as that? I mean, I guess that I just can't help
it, Joe. But to start with, here's the body of a man who
obviously was not used to the desert. It is found and
promptly it is stolen. The money in his billfold is found
intact-presumably. There was only the cap of his foun-
tain pen, and not the entire pen. Things like that, you
know, are a challenge. The mystery is not a dead one, it's
not static; it's active. The body was stolen last night. Why?”
“I guess you're right, Hunt. Perhaps we will discover the
whys very soon."
“I hope so.”
The low hills on either side of the road began to open
out, and I watched for the place where Dick Stocker had
turned off the road. We had no difficulty in finding it, for
tire tracks were plain in the hard sandy surface. They
wound away through sagebrush toward the base of a moun-
tain over a track which became rough and difficult, and
which before long had the water boiling in the radiator.
“Why not walk the rest of the way?” suggested Rogers.
I stopped the car and we climbed out, and without a.
glance back kept on ahead into the rough going, following
the deputy's tracks. We soon came to the end of them, how-
ever, and while there was little to guide, except the con-
tour of the land, we managed to follow in what must have
been the way Dick Stocker and his helper had taken the
day before.
"You know," Rogers began after some minutes of si-
lence, “I can't quite figure it out. Why would a man die
of thirst in this particular corner of Inyo County, on the


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
edge of Pahrump Valley? Any experienced desert man
would not be in difficulty in this region.”
“How did the man come in here? The way we did? Or
from the other end of the valley?”
"I'm sure I don't know.”
We plodded onward. Footprints were plainer now. We
could see where Stocker and his helper had walked carry-
ing a burden between them.
“We're practically behind the south end of that moun-
tain, Hunt; that gates-of-hell-ajar which fascinated you
last night,” I said.
"Yes, I know. What's that? There ahead?” He quick-
ened his pace so that I had difficulty in keeping up with
him.
A few moments later we stood looking down upon what
clearly was the spot where the man had died. The hopeless
confusion of footprints in a wide circle about the spot in
the shadow of a huge silver-gray bush of desert holly told
a story. Three pairs of footprints, two approaching the
spot and one going away, stretched from the place toward
the mountain.
“There's where I want to go,” announced Rogers.
“There's nothing here for us.”
He led the way, keeping a short distance away from the
tracks. A hundred yards farther on, and over a slight rise,
one approaching and the single returning track ceased.
"Here's as far as Stocker went," Rogers observed.
The dead man's footprints up to this point had been the
footprints of a weary, staggering man. They curved in a
track around a near-by knoll. We resumed our explora-
tions. At one point to the left something white a few yards
from our course drew our attention.


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
· 31
“I thought it might be a shirt,” remarked Rogers. “But
it isn't.”
What we had found were the whitened bones of a burro's
skull at the side of a creosote bush. We had started back to
the dead man's tracks when Rogers halted. I saw what he
had seen, a double track beyond the burro's skull, going
and returning, to the crest of the little knoll. This was
something new. We followed it up to where it ended on the
knoll, which overlooked the whole area where the doomed
man had staggered through the heat to die. The rocky crest,
however, held no footprints.
“Whoever came up here," I suggested, “could have
stayed all day or only ten minutes, for all that the signs
indicate.”
Rogers was looking about among the rocks. Twice he
stooped to pick up something, then he held out to me what
he had found.
“Whoever he was he stayed long enough to smoke three
cigarettes,” he replied, exhibiting on the wide palm of his
hand three dried stubs.
"What does that suggest to you?" I inquired examining
them.
"I'm not reading a meaning into them,” he said. “But
note these facts: the fire was crushed out in each of them,"
“I see that.”
"Note, too, that there is no sign of moisture ever having
touched the unburned end. Obviously somebody who uses
a cigarette holder was here long enough to smoke three
cigarettes."
“Yes—that's so."
“Odd, isn't it, here in the desert?"
“Very.”


32
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
Rogers strode down the slope and took up again where
we had left off. It was almost a mile before we found first
a shirt and then an undershirt, lying as they must have
fallen from the hand of the owner. We examined them
closely, then rolled them up and carried them with us.
Farther on, a blue and white polka-dot necktie lay in a
rather rocky, sandless area which the doomed man had
crossed. I picked it up and gave it to Rogers, who exam-
ined it. He stuffed it into his pocket and set out once more
on the back track, saying over his shoulder: “A necktie of
this quality always has the maker's name and the seller's on
it. This has neither.”
It was a matter of considerable doubt in my mind that
we would find a coat at all. For, as I argued with Rogers
as we trudged along, it must have been hot the day the man
died. He might not have worn one; or he might have left
it in his car, for surely he must have come by car of some
sort to the vicinity of this lonely desert region.
"Maybe you're right,” he agreed. “Still—why the foun-
tain pen cap and not the rest of the pen? The cap must
have been on the pen; how did they happen to be separated,
and where is the pen? Shouldn't it be in the coat?”
It was another mile before we found the coat where
months before it had been thrown down upon a reddish
ledge of rock. It was a light gray coat of summer weight,
excellent material and workmanship. The fierce rays of
the sun had bleached the exposed surfaces somewhat.
Rogers reached it before I did. His mild blue eyes held a
gleam of triumph as his hands were thrust into first one
pocket and then another. The light faded quickly, though,
when his search resulted in exactly nothing.
"Nothing?" I echoed in astonishment.


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
33
“Not a thing,” he said grimly. “Not even the pen.” .
The character of the ground had changed. There was
less and less of the sandy soil we had trudged through since
we left the car. More and more the surface had become
covered with a loose, dark reddish rock washed down in
ages past from the mountain that loomed on our left. The
track in consequence now was more difficult to follow. We
had since given up trying to trace the footprints that had
ascended to and then descended from the little knoll where
the cigarette ends had been found.
Some distance farther on we came of a sudden upon a
smoother area of hard baked soil, something between a
rock and a sand. As Rogers gazed at it, standing on the
edge of the area, I realized that all along this was what he
had been expecting and hoping to find. It was like a huge
slate or blackboard laid upon the ground, only it was a red-
dish color, too hard for one's shoes to make more than the
faintest mark, yet soft enough to scratch easily with any
suitably hard point. It was roughly fifty by a hundred feet
in area.
“I thought so,” said Rogers, almost as if talking to him-
self. “I thought so.”
He took his fountain pen from his pocket and, kneeling
down, scratched it upon the hard surface. It left a definite
mark. He did this several times, drawing parallel lines,
then looked at his pen. The mottled plastic material was
scored with fine lines, much as the pen cap belonging to the
dead man had been scored.
"Somewhere on this place, or some other like it not far
from here, there's a message for us. Wait!” His eyes were
fixed upon the opposite edge of the area. “Over there, Joe.
See!”


34
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
We hurried across to the other side, where his sharp eyes
had discovered something, and halted beside a patch of
writing, or, rather, crude printing in the reddish surface.
At first we could make nothing of it. Definite sections had
been obliterated, but here and there words could be made
out. For some minutes we studied the markings silently,
trying to decipher them.
“Do you make anything of it at all, Hunt?" I asked.
“There are words—possibly names—scratched out be-
yond all hope of deciphering them. I make out a phrase-
Here—” He dropped to his knees and pointed to the spot.
“This is badly marred but you can make it out. 'Did this to
me,'” he quoted, pointing with a thick forefinger as he
slowly said the words. “Whoever did it—the name, I mean
—and to whom it was done—those words are gone.”
We got to our feet and stood contemplating the blurred
message scratched upon the surface. My eyes shifted to the
edge of the area farther on, and I touched Rogers' arm.
“There's more over there," I said. We walked over to it.
Here again names, if that's what they were, had been
obliterated, but the message was plainer: "Did this to me.”
Still another spot, and still the same thing seemed to stare
up at us from the ground: “Did this to me."
“Do you get it, Hunt?” I asked.
“Yes,” he answered grimly. "I can picture the most hor-
rible drama that I've ever known. The victim had been
stripped of all identification—the letters and papers he
probably carried, and upon which he might have written
an accusing word, his pen and pencils taken. His canteen
was denied him, and he was driven off into the desert, prob-
ably at the point of a gun, without water. Probably already
he was in dire need of water, for otherwise he might have


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
35
been able to walk out from here.
“But the victim started away. When he reached this spot
he thought of the fountain pen cap which in some manner
still remained to him. Of course, he could have used any
one of the thousands of small stones along the way, but the
point is he didn't. Here he wrote an accusation: 'So and so
did this to me.' And signed his name. But the killer, fol-
lowing along behind to make sure of his victim, obliterated
both the victim's name and his own. When he came to the
coat, he made sure there was no possible identification re-
maining. He picked up the necktie and removed the tag
from it. The victim by this time had become crazed with
heat and thirst. He started to run. He stripped off his shirt
and undershirt, and the killer lurking in the background,
climbed the little knoll back there behind us and sat down
to smoke cigarettes and watch him die.”


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
37
a.
sist for years. Nothing seems to change much in the desert.
In the Calico Mountains I've unscrewed with my fingers
hand-made nuts on old headframes of worked-out mines
that had been in place for sixty years; have picked up old
square-cut nails scarcely stained by rust in all that time.
“But who was the fellow, Joe?” Rogers interrupted my
thoughts.
"I've no idea.”
“No, of course not.”
We reached the spot where the man had died, paused
for a few minutes in silent contemplation, then resumed
our walk to the car. I was glad to sit down after our long
and tiring excursion into the sand and sagebrush of the
valley. Rogers tossed the dead man's clothing into the back
of the car and climbed in beside me. There were a couple
of cans of beer, a package of cheese and a box of cookies
which had been put in the car the day before for just such
a time as this. And we made a lunch of it before starting
back. For it was long past noon and we were hungry.
"There's one tentative conclusion to be drawn, Joe,"
said Rogers, munching a cookie as he stared through the
windshield at the vast sweep of the desert valley, "and that's
in connection with the disappearance of the dead man last
night. Concealment of his identity is still vital to the mur-
derer.”
“And that the murderer is still somewhere about Death
Valley," I added.
"Yes, of course.”
I turned the car about and we went bumping over the
valley floor to the road, where we headed for the highway
to Death Valley Junction.
"It's a bit difficult, don't you think, Hunt, to establish


38
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
the dead man's identity under the circumstances?" I said
as we rolled along the desert road.
“Not merely difficult, impossible. Until we can discover
the body we haven't even a corpus delicti. Nobody can prove
that the man, whoever he may have been, is dead. If you
can't prove that he's dead, how are you going to prove who
he is, or was?”
“It is a tough one, isn't it?”
“Dick Stocker and his helper are the only persons known
actually to have seen the dead man. In them is the only
hope of an identification—"
“The missing persons bureau," I interrupted.
“It's possible,” he agreed. “If we got a bunch of pic-
tures of missing men Stocker might find one among them
whom the man now dead three months could have resem-
bled. It might be narrowed down, perhaps, to a few, per-
haps even to one. With his identity established and some-
thing of a background reconstructed, then, in view of what
has happened, the finger of suspicion might point to a
suspect.'
“Why not suggest it when we get back?"
"Of course, if they haven't already thought of it."
The proposal had lost most of its immediate interest by
the time we reached the highway, and had been dropped
from the conversation. We rolled northward along the
highway, encountering little in the way of traffic. Shoshone
had dropped several miles behind us when Rogers sat up
suddenly in his seat, and stared ahead to a curious sight in
the desert today. For crossing the highway were two small
burros laden with their packs, and beside them belaboring
them with a stick was a bearded man with an old black hat
pulled down upon his forehead.


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
39
"They're a rarity now," said Rogers. "Let's stop. The
prospector of today does most of his prospecting from a
car,” he continued as we slowed. “But old fellows like this
were the boys who found the gold in them thar hills.
Hello!” he called out to the grizzled, weather-beaten veteran
of the desert as we pulled up beside him.
He was not talkative; he seemed scarcely friendly. He
nodded to us and looked away then back to his burros as if
he felt that the effort to belabor them into activity, now
that they had stopped, was more than he could muster. His
clothing was fairly new, but desert-stained. He wore only
a pair of jeans and a plaid shirt; his heavy shoes were scarred
and dusty; around the frayed ribbon of his old hat were
stuck matches on end.
“How long have you been out?” Rogers asked, grinning
at him in a friendly show of interest.
"About four weeks,” the desert rat answered in a quiet
voice.
"Where are you heading for?"
The man looked away again before he replied, then he
said: “Up toward Greenwater.”
"Where'd you come from?"
“Over to Johnnie,” was the prompt answer as the man
thawed a little.
"Didn't come through Pahrump Valley, did you?"
"No."
"Do you happen to know anything about a fellow who
died of thirst over toward the south end of the valley?"
"No. Who was he?"
“That's what we don't know. City fellow. So Dick Stocker
thinks. He found the body yesterday. Been dead probably
three months. Do you know Dick?”


40
· THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
The old man nodded his head.
"My name's Rogers; this fellow here is Joe Hibbard. Do
you need anything?"
"Guess not.” Then in an unexpected burst of confidence
he announced: “My name's Bill Weed.”
“I've got a couple of packages of cigarettes you might as
well take along with you, Bill,” said Rogers, fishing them
out of the glove compartment.
The old man by now had edged over to the car. He ac-
cepted the cigarettes with a polite thank you and stood
looking in at us with an air of increasing interest.
“It wouldn't be no desert man who'd die of thirst over
in Pahrump Valley. A city fellow might, not knowin' how
to handle hisself over in there in the summertime. Didn't
nobody know he was lost?"
“I guess not,” Rogers replied. “Looking over the signs
this morning, Joe and I got to thinking that maybe some-
body held a gun on him and started him off without his
canteen.”
The old prospector's eyes narrowed, his lips tightened
within the concealment of his beard. He looked away, then
back again.
"That might happen," he said quietly. “It's happened be-
fore now in this here desert. And again I've knowed 'em to
die of thirst with a full canteen right beside 'em. Some-
thin' just happens to 'em all of a sudden."
“You've been around a long time, haven't you?" Rogers
remarked.
“Quite a spell. I was at Tonopah, and at Grandpa. An'
Bullfrog. Yes, I seen 'em all come an' go. But this country
ain't done yet, son. Why, all the gold that's been took out
in the last forty year ain't scratched the surface; there's bil-


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
41
lions yet, waitin' to be took out. Someday we'll stumble
onto the mother lode we've been lookin' for all these years,
then we'll all be rich.”
“I think you're right,” Rogers agreed with him solemnly.
“You said you were going up toward Greenwater?"
“I'm aimin' to, son.”
“We may see you up there."
“Are you prospectin'?”
“No. Joe Hibbard here is a writer, and I'm just a college
professor.”
"Well,” The old man backed away from the car. "I see
you're in a hurry to go on. So'm I.” He had taken a small
piece of rock from his pocket and now turned it about in
his scarred old fingers. “This is pretty good stuff,” he said.
“Runs about forty dollars. It's from over around Johnnie.
I remember ten-twelve years ago, last time I was over
Thought I'd better be gettin' back over there and find it
again."
to see you again.”
"Same to you," he replied quietly as I started the motor
and we pulled away from him.
We were speeding up the highway when Rogers re-
marked matter-of-factly: “That's the way the desert grape-
vine works. He'll see somebody else in a day or two and
tell them about our dead man, and they'll tell somebody
else. In that way the news will spread all over this country.”
"You're not expecting anything to come of it, are you?"
"You never know, Joe. Probably not. However, the news,
when it gets around, might possibly bring to light some-
thing of value.”


42
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
We continued on into Death Valley Junction, reaching
there late in the afternoon. I was driving past the Amargosa
Hotel without stopping, heading for the final thirty miles
down to Furnace Creek when Rogers spoke.
“I say,” he announced, as if the thought had just oc-
curred to him, “I'd like to talk to that fellow who went
along yesterday to help Dick Stocker bring the body back.”
"Who was he?"
“The name is John Foster. Turn in at the hotel here
and we'll ask Ed Long where to find him.”
We climbed out and hunted up the manager, who was in
his office writing a letter. In answer to our question Long
leaned back from his desk and considered his reply.
"John Foster is not here at the Junction today,” he said.
"Where is he?”
“He went down to Baker this morning. Won't be back
until tomorrow. John's an automobile mechanic. Works
around here most of the time, but goes out on other jobs
when they call him. Baker's where he is now.”
The manager continued to eye us as we stood before him
in the room. He knew how we had occupied our time dur-
ing most of the day, or guessed it, for he said: "Stir up any-
thing of interest?”.
“Yes, Mr. Long. The man was murdered.”
The manager's dark eyebrows lifted involuntarily, and
with one finger he traced the tiny line of mustache on his
upper lip.
“Did you find out who he was?” he asked after a mo-
ment's silence.
Rogers shook his head. “We were wondering if Foster
could identify the man's picture if we could dig one up
somewhere-missing persons—"


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
43
Edward Long sat forward in his chair and became con-
fidential. He cast a glance out into the lobby, then he said
softly: "Otis Barton, the park ranger, was here earlier.
He told me that's what they're going to do now. Some-
body's coming up tomorrow from the sheriff's office in Los
Angeles with a bunch of pictures."
“Had they found any trace of the body?”
“They've got CCC boys scattered all the way from Scot-
ty's Castle to Jubilee Pass. But Otis said they haven't found
anything yet.”
We seemed temporarily to have been stalled in our in-
vestigation. Murder, in our confident opinion, had been
done; but until the body had been recovered and the
identity of the dead man established little could be accom-
plished in the way of uncovering the murderer. Rogers
seemed suddenly to drop all the attributes of the sleuth,
and his thoughts shifted to other matters, but before he
could say what he was thinking the manager inquired hope-
fully:
“Staying for dinner, gentlemen? We've got a good one
tonight.”
“Why not?” Rogers answered. He looked at his watch.
“It's a little early yet. How about it, Joe? Eat here or down
at the inn?"
“Either place suits me.”
We went outside, having decided to remain at the Junc-
tion for dinner, leaving the manager to the completion of
his letter. The arcade which reached down the length of
the sprawling hotel was filling with shadows, for the sun
was behind the western mountains. We strolled down to
the end and back again toward the entrance, Rogers re-
calling to me something of the early history of the discovery


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
45
ing the introduction. Her hand was cold and nerveless.
“But you're young yet,” she said encouragingly. Her
features were extraordinarily good; in fact, as I studied her
blonde loveliness it was difficult to believe the statement
that she was the mother of the dark-featured girl at her
side. “There's lots of time in this business. My new story
about the Jayhawker party in Death Valley is going to be
filmed; shooting starts next week, and I'm up here sort
of looking around.”
"Indeed!” I said, suddenly becoming flustered. “I'm so
glad to hear it.” I would have said more, perhaps, but
Rogers' elbow was pressing strongly into my ribs, a steady
pressure that almost upset my balance.
"Here's Harry Byers,” said Vivian Ellis. “We're neglect-
ing you, Harry.” She turned to the man who had been
fidgeting in the background. “I want you to meet Professor
Rogers, and Mr.—Mr. Hubbard, was it?"
“Hibbard,” I said.
We shook hands with the fellow. He was somewhere in
his early forties, quite dark, almost swarthy of complexion,
with a manner of looking sidewise as though he were con-
stantly expecting to be assailed by some sort of flank attack.
I was trying to place him when Rogers spoke.
"You're the man who's planning to walk out of Death
Valley to San Fernando emulating Manly, the forty-
niner.”
“That's right,” Harry Byers answered crisply.
“It's quite an idea," I asserted.
“Right. I've wanted to do it for a long time.”
“By any chance," asked Rogers, “has the stunt any con-
nection with Miss Ellis' forthcoming motion picture?"
Again I felt Rogers' elbow pressing hard against my side.


$6
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
"Well," Byers replied, “it won't hurt it any."
Our conversation suddenly faded for lack of a common
interest. I had nothing to offer for my part, for I still was
unable to understand Vivian Ellis. Later in the dining
room Rogers began to twit me about her. She was sitting
with her daughter and Byers beyond earshot, talking with
a show of disagreement and paying no attention to us.
“I didn't think you'd do this to me, Joe,” Rogers be-
gan, his eyes twinkling.
“But”
“All the time you've been telling me that you wrote the
Jayhawker story they're going to film—".
“But, Hunt—"
"You said that you did the script yourself, and got an
enormous price for it—"
“Let me explain—"
“Can you?"
“Listen, Hunt; I never saw the dame before. I don't know
what her racket is. But I'll swear that she didn't work on
the story. I've never even heard of her before. I didn't
know what to say out on the porch a while ago when she
threw that at me. Claiming to my face that my story is her
story. I've heard of people doing that—".
"Well, Joe,” Rogers interrupted with a grin, “she didn't
fool me. I've met one or two before now of her unfortu-
nate type—impostors after a fashion—craving the notoriety
they are not able to achieve themselves. But what interests
me is why her husband isn't here, and why Harry Byers is
so attentive."


The slight mystery surrounding Vivian Ellis was deep-
ened somewhat following dinner when she obtained her
key at the desk and with a faint, semifriendly smile in our
direction led the way toward her room, her daughter and
Harry Byers following in her wake.
“Mrs. Downes is stopping here, is she?" Rogers inquired
casually of Mrs. Long, the tall, slender young wife of the
manager, who was standing behind the desk.
"You mean Miss Ellis? Yes, she's been here for several
days. That's her daughter with her. The daughter's stop-
ping down at the inn.”
“Beautiful girl,” said Rogers. "I understand that Mrs.
Downes is a writer.”
“Oh, yes; under her pen name of Vivian Ellis,” Mrs.
Long explained. Her smile was engaging, and her eyes
sparkled with interest. “Miss Ellis wrote the story they're
going to start making down in the valley next week.”
"Very interesting. Don't you think so too, Joe?" said
Rogers, his eyes twinkling.
But I was turning away and did not answer. There was
a man lounging alone in one of the chairs near the fireplace,
watching the burning logs. He was a rugged block of a
man, broad through the shoulders, thick of chest, and with
massive legs. He had a heavy iron-gray mustache, and his
eyes, when later I came to look into them, seemed to be of
that cold gray of freshly broken iron. He had a bushy head


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
49
ing eye upon me once more. “You favor him a little. You
wouldn't know me. My name's Lambert. Wallace Lambert.
I've been around this country”—he made a tiny gesture
with the cigarette holder held between thick fingers, which
seemed, however, to include hundreds of square miles of
territory—“for quite a spell now. Where do you live?”
"Beverly Hills.”
“Nice place. I don't get there often.”
“Is your home down that way too, Mr. Lambert?”
He didn't seem to hear me. The ivory cigarette holder
was clamped between his teeth and he stared dreamily into
the fireplace. It wasn't, I felt, that I had asked too personal
a question; it was as if he had been struck by some thought
resurrected out of his past by our brief conversation and
had forgotten what I had said, or, perhaps, not even have
heard it.
Then of a sudden he roused from his contemplation of
the fire and said: “Oh, I live around—anywhere. Get my
mail over at Las Vegas. Go wherever I feel like going. Stay
as long as I like."
Rogers by this time had observed us talking. He came
over and I introduced him. They didn't shake hands. There
was something in Wallace Lambert's manner which pre-
cluded such acknowledgment. His cold glance slowly took
in Rogers' large frame, traveling almost inch by inch from
his feet to his head, pausing to search the mild blue eyes
that looked into his own.
"As I was just telling Mr. Hibbard,” he began with vast
equanimity, addressing Rogers, “Death Valley, except for
roads and hotels, hasn't changed any. The same intense
heat returns every summer to this region. The number of
known waterholes hasn't increased much. Unless you know


50
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
how to handle yourself it's suicidal to go far from the high-
ways. There was a friend of mine once, not so many years
ago, who matched for the last canteen of water—and lost.
We found his skeleton and a note he'd written exonerating
his partner. There was the crazed boy seen years ago wan-
dering in the sand dunes who couldn't be caught, and who
was left to his fate. There was the young engineer that
Titus Canyon was named for. I knew him. He disappeared
in the canyon hunting for water for his party and their live-
stock. They'd started from Rhyolite to cross the valley and
prospect in the Panamints. When he didn't come back, a
second man took the twenty-one head of livestock and fol-
lowed. He, too, disappeared. Several weeks later seven of
the burros showed up at a waterhole. The third man in the
party back tracked instead of going forward, and managed
to pull through. The stories of that kind can be repeated
endlessly. Many a man's fate is unknown-they just dis-
appeared. Never found. The desert got them. It's true today
too. Every summer the desert takes toll of the unwary. I hear
that you and Hibbard were investigating this latest case
down Pahrump Valley way. Find anything of interest?”
The question seemed to have a quality of the clear sky
about it, plumped at us as it was without warning. But
Lambert evinced no more than a casual interest in what we
might have to tell him. He glanced at the cigarette in the
ivory holder, crushed the burning end in the tray at his
elbow and slowly removed the stub. He appeared to debate
the profit of another cigarette, then decide against it, for
he placed the holder in a worn case he took from an in-
side coat pocket.
“Considerable, I think,” Rogers answered.
"In what way?” The iron-gray eyes sought Rogers' face.


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
51
“Murder is always interesting."
Wallace Lambert did not reply for some moments, his
eyes meanwhile drawn to the logs in the fireplace. “Yes, I
agree with you. Who was the victim?"
“We didn't discover. Identification is not possible yet."
"He'd been dead some time, I heard. Several months.
That would put it back at least to late August or early
September, perhaps. It was very hot in the desert then-
or was the man shot to death?” he asked suddenly, as if he
might have been making an unwarranted assumption.
“The deputy sheriff from Independence said it was
thirst.”
“Yes. I see. I hear, too, that the body disappeared last
night as it was being taken through the monument.”
• “That's correct.”
"It should make a very neat little puzzle for somebody
to solve,” Lambert said.
Although his face was completely sober and the firm
lines of his rugged countenance unrelaxed, I detected a
quivering of his thick torso as if he were inwardly moved
to laughter. The remark as well as that silent shaking as
with amusement was not lost upon Rogers, although he
appeared to have noticed nothing.
"It probably will require the combined efforts of several
persons to untie the knots in this one,” he answered lightly.
"If we could find the man's relatives," I began. "Some-
body who has a member of his family missing— In like
circumstances we'd all of us leave somebody behind—”
“Are you sure?” Wallace Lambert interrupted.
"Well—hardly anybody is so alone in the world that
there's not somebody," I insisted, defending my statement.
The man's eyes sought the fireplace once more. “There'd


52
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
be nobody to inquire after me—no relative, I mean. I
haven't any."
"Friends, then," I persisted.
He screwed up his eyes at me, his lips underneath the
shelter of the overhanging iron-gray mustache worked
quietly.
“I have just one friend in the world who would be in-
terested enough to inquire after me, should I be missing
someday.”
"Really?” exclaimed Rogers, as if the remark were sur-
prised out of him.
“It's a fact; everybody else in my life has dropped away.
Gone on ahead of me over the long trail."
“Life can become very lonesome,” observed Rogers.
“I don't find it so, Professor,” Lambert answered brightly,
cocking his head on one side. “I still enjoy it.” He pulled
a thick gold watch from his pocket which was attached to a
heavy gold chain. He glanced at it, returned it to his pocket
and then drew his large feet underneath him preparatory to
getting up. “And now, I'll ask you to excuse me, gentle-
men. It's my bedtime.”
He got up and walked away without even the perfunctory
good night he might have spoken, or the polite assertion
that he had enjoyed meeting us. Of course, if he didn't feel
that he had enjoyed talking with us, that was his affair.
"Queer old bird, isn't he?" I remarked to Rogers.
"You find 'em like that now and then. Probably he
could tell you a lot about this country." Rogers glanced at
the stone in the fireplace. "Travertine,” he said. “Polishes
beautifully. Takes a finish almost like silk. Well”-he
gazed at me solemnly for a moment—"if you're not going
to have it out with Vivian Ellis, the writer, as to who is


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
53
the author of the Jayhawker story, we might as well head
for Furnace Creek, don't you think?” His eyes were twin-
kling again.
"Let the dame alone,” I snorted. “She can claim it if she
wants to. I wrote it. I got the money for it, and I'll get
the screen credit.”
At the moment I spoke, Vivian Ellis, her daughter Ruth,
and Harry Byers came into the lobby, moving slowly toward
the entrance. The girl had put on a light coat and was
drawing on her gloves. All three disappeared through the
doorway. We waited at the fireplace, basking in its warmth,
until we heard a motor start outside, heard voices in fare-
well shouts, and then Vivian Ellis returned alone to the
lobby and without looking in our direction disappeared
into the hallway leading to her room.
“I still don't understand why she is here, her husband
down at the inn thirty miles away, and the daughter goes
back and forth.” Rogers said. “It's none of my business, of
course, but have you anything to suggest, Joe?”
“The only suggestion I've got, Hunt, is to get going our-
selves. I'm tired. That was a long trip today.”
"Come on, then,” he agreed, and led the way toward
the door.
Edward Long, the manager, stopped us as we went past
the desk. “Come and stay with us again,” he said pleas-
antly. We thanked him. He gestured vaguely with his head
in the direction of the fireplace. “The old gentleman,” he
said. “I saw you talking with him. Crusty old fellow, but
interesting to talk to.”
“Very," I replied.
“He's an original. I never knew anybody quite like him.
He comes here once in a while. I'll bet that he knows the


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
55
holder belonged to another plane than his. His mind was
sharp. Moreover, he had been amused inwardly at the
thought of the tough problem of solving the mystery of the
dead man.
"Somebody ahead there on the road is flagging us down,”
said Rogers suddenly. The moving point of light stood out
brilliantly in the darkness, having struck upon my eyes at
the moment Rogers had spoken. “Wonder what's hap-
pened."
"We'll stop and find out." I slowed somewhat. "A light
like that's hard to judge. I mean just how far away it is."
The light continued to be waved back and forth. I low-
ered, then raised, the beam in the headlights as a signal,
and the light ahead ceased its motion. We rolled up to the
spot and I shut off the motor.
"It's Ruth Downes and friend Byers,” said Rogers.
“So I notice.” I had recognized the girl's coat.
Harry Byers came alongside the driver's window when I
halted, flashing his light on me for a moment as he ap-
proached.
"Oh, I say, Mr. Hibbard-isn't it?”
"What's the trouble?”
“Oh–I don't know,” he answered with an expression of
disgust. “I think I've burned out a bearing. Damned awk-
ward, though, to have it happen."
“What do you want to do?”
tow. Would you mind giving us a lift to the inn?"
“Get in. Glad to help you out.”
The pair climbed into the back seat, and we started on-
ward, leaving Byers' car where he had driven it in the shal-
low ditch beside the road.


56
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
“It was silly," began the girl almost at once, speaking to
Byers. “I told you you ought to drive into the garage and
find out.”
“Now, don't start that again," Byers retorted sourly.
"You're just like your mother. You don't know when to
let up."
"Well, I don't care. If I want to speak my mind, I'm go
ing to speak it. The thing was silly, and I want you to know
that I think so.”
“All right, all right; now I know it. So let's forget it.”
“Okeh by me.”
“But you won't—if you're like your mother. You'll be
nagging—"
“Now, there you go again!” exclaimed the girl heatedly.
“We settled it once. You said to forget it, and I said it's
okeh by me."
"I'm talking about you and your mother. You're just like
her."
"We don't look anything alike. She's blonde and I'm
brunette, like father. I'm more like father in my disposition,
too, than mother; so I don't see how you get that way.”
“That's your idea. I have an objective point of view.
Things you can't see—and I say that you're just like your
mother. You're self-centered. As soon as some bug bites you,
like writing or acting, you'll be your mother all over
again—"
"I don't think you're being fair to mother, Harry Byers!"
"I can be her willing slave and still criticize her weak-
nesses, can't I?” Byers protested.
The pair seemed totally oblivious to the fact that two
strangers in the front seat must perforce listen to their bick-
ering. Rogers, I felt, was frankly enjoying the exchange. He


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
57
had settled deeply into his seat after a nudge which ap-
peared to suggest that the pair not be interrupted. We
passed the summit of the ridge and began the long descent
to Furnace Creek.
“I don't think you're being fair to any of us,” said the
girl from the darkness of the back seat, still addressing her-
self to Byers. “Certainly you're not being fair to father
and me."
“How so?”
"Father would like to make things up with mother; that's
why he's here in Death Valley. He's always been in love
with her. But you've come along to complicate things. You
know mother's weakness is money. She's never had enough
to satisfy her. Not half; nor anywhere near enough. Father
was never successful in a big money way. And, then, you
come along with your money—and—don't you see how it
is? You've messed up things no end for me. How can I
make any headway at bringing father and mother together
again, with you hanging around the way you are?".
“Whose idea was it about patching things up? It wasn't
Vivian's.”
“It was father's idea. He wrote me he was coming and to
try to persuade mother to come up where they could talk
things over without being spied on by gossipy friends. So
why didn't you stay in Hollywood? Why did you follow
mother up here? That's all a fake, your walking back to
Los Angeles, or wherever it is you're going. It's just an ex-
cuse to follow mother up here,” The girl's voice had
risen noticeably, as if she were beating herself up to anger.
“Pipe downl” commanded Byers roughly. "Why do you
want to spill all this now? These gentlemen aren't inter-
ested in your private affairs.”


58
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
“I don't care," the girl replied meekly, after a moment's
silence. “You brought it all on yourself by saying what you
did. I'm sorry, Professor Rogers." The voice was apologetic.
It seemed that only now had she realized that she had been
overheard.
“Don't mind us,” Rogers responded. “Feelings are much
better expressed, you know, than bottled up.”
“I'm sorry. I really am. But Harry Byers makes me so
angry that I just lose all sense of propriety.”
seat. Rogers tried once or twice to draw the girl into con-
versation by asking how she liked Death Valley, and if she
had seen the amazing panorama from Dante's View, but he
got nowhere. At last, in a silence that enveloped us all like
a funeral pall, we rounded the final curve in the highway
and drove up the ramp that led to the front entrance of the
inn.
Both Harry Byers and Ruth Downes were profuse in their
thanks for the lift they had been given. They did not tarry,
however, but ran up the broad steps and disappeared.
I gave the car in charge of an attendant and as it was
driven away I said to Rogers: "Well, you found out why
mother stays at the Amargosa and father puts up at the inn
—as well as some other things."
“Yes, I did."


60
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
aware."
“Well, anyway,” Barton said, “there's probably a shorter
cut to establishing the man's identity. Dick Stocker and Mr.
Garvey got their heads together after you left this morning,
and did some telephoning. There'll be a man up here to-
pictures of missing persons he has on file. Dick thinks he
might be able to identify the dead man that way. It's the
best bet." '.
"Perhaps it is under the circumstances. What, if any.
thing, was uncovered today by the CCC boys?".
The ranger shook his head. “Nothing."
"No trace?"
"The valley is big, and the boys relatively are only a
handful, and they've had only one day to work on the prob-
lem. Because they didn't find any trace of the body today
is no argument that they won't find it tomorrow."
“Of course not."
As we talked I felt rather than saw the presence of a
man behind me. Rogers glanced at him once, then back
at the ranger, as we talked, without offering to extend the
circle to include George Downes. But the man came in
anyway. The colorful morning costume had given way to
a neat gray business suit. Rogers introduced him to Barton.
"I overheard you just now,” he began in his rather pleas-
ant voice, “talking about the Death Valley mystery. Per-
haps I shouldn't be, but I'm really interested in it.”
“Do you have anything to offer, Mr. Downes, any sug-
gestions, any information?" asked the ranger politely.
“I'm sorry, Mr. Barton, but I haven't. It's just that I'm
interested. I don't mean that I'm morbid at all, or that I


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
61
have any flair as an amateur detective, or anything like
that. It just seems odd to me that here in such a strange
place there would be a murder mystery. In Chicago, where
I come from, things like this murder, with mysteries at-
tached to them, are frequent enough. What are the latest
developments, if you don't mind telling an outsider?"
His manner, his obvious interest in the mystery were to
be taken seriously. After all, it probably was just as well
to share what we knew; publicity might be an aid in re-
covering the missing body, or even in establishing the vic-
tim's identity. Although little help of this kind, I fancied,
could be expected from George Downes.
“It was murder,” said Rogers, summing the matter up
briefly. “The body is still missing; the man's name is as yet
undiscovered."
“I heard that you and Mr. Hibbard spent the day down
where the body was found. My daughter-"
“Part of the day,” I corrected.
“Yes, of course. And you found nothing of importance?
I mean nothing that would throw any light upon the man's
identity?”
“That's right."
“Of course,” began Downes, "when the detectives go to
work, it will be different. Having experienced investigators
on the job—"
“Listen,” I said, interrupting, laying a hand on his arm,
"you don't know what you're talking about when you say
experienced investigators. Professor Rogers has solved some
of the toughest cases in the records of criminal investiga-
tion. He's a regular human bloodhound. He's—".
“Now, Joe, that's enough!” Rogers broke in on me
sharply, and I realized then that George Downes had


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
63
Neither spoke. Downes, then, with surprising strength,
almost as if he were manipulating a toy, seized Byers' chin
and elevated his face, then slapped it. The blow was a smart
one, for it turned Byers half around in his tracks. But
Downes apparently had used only a small part of his
strength. Still as if he were amusing himself with a toy, he
seized Byers by the shoulder, turned him about again, ele-
vated the man's chin as before, and then slapped him. Hav-
ing done this, Downes turned abruptly on his heel and
moved with catlike grace and silence down the lobby and
into the long corridor and disappeared from view.
Harry Byers watched him go with a look of mingled as-
tonishment and resentment on his dark face. He rubbed his
cheek experimentally with his open hand, glanced swiftly
at us, and then, as if attempting to shrug the incident off,
strolled in the direction of the bar.
The thing had happened so quickly and with so little
confusion that few in the lobby, except ourselves and the
clerk at the desk, who at the sound of the first slap had
looked up with sagging jaw to discover what was happen-
ing, knew what had occurred. Otis Barton shifted the gloves
he carried from one hand to the other, drawing them
through his partly closed fingers, staring after the retreat-
ing Byers.
“That's something new,” he said.
Rogers was smiling enigmatically. He looked at me, then
at Barton. “It's quite understandable,” he said. “The apex
of the triangle, who is Mrs. Downes, and estranged from
her husband, is stopping at the Amargosa. The informa-
tion is part of the grist from the mill today.”
“Oh, I see," muttered the ranger. "Perhaps that will be


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
65
“Of course.”
We had begun to move toward the entrance when a
slight, elderly woman leaning on a gold-headed cane ap-
proached us. A black velvet band of ribbon encircled her
thin neck, and a most amazing pair of dark eyes seemed to
burn in the depths of their sockets.
“Young man,” she began, laying a hand upon the rang-
er's arm. Barton came to attention. “I'm Mrs. Treadwick.
I heard your lecture a while ago, and I must say I enjoyed
it.”
"Thank you."
“We have some pretty hot days back home where I come
from, in Evanston, but I got to thinking maybe you were
spoofing us about how hot it gets here in the summer-
time."
“Oh, not at all."
“And you really don't dare pick up a piece of metal?”
"If it's been lying in the sun it's too hot to hold. The
metal knobs on the instrument board of your automobile
and door handles get very hot; all metal surfaces, in fact,
the car itself—well, be careful and don't lean against them.
And don't hold your bare hand outside in the sun and wind
when you're driving through the valley."
“My goodness! I won't be driving through here in sum-
mertime. But how do you rangers stand it?”
“We move out. We go up to a higher altitude into Wild-
rose Canyon, where the heat is less intense.”
“Oh, yes; I remember you said that. And count moun-
tain sheep.”
"Yes.” Otis Barton waited for any further questions from
the old lady. There was one trembling on her thin, rouged
lips, which she hesitated to put into words. “Yes?" en-


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
67
coming across the lobby, slapped him twice, then walked
away.
“Twice!” she caught her breath sharply. “Harry is mak-
ing threats! Whatever possessed Father to do a thing like
that! It's so complicating for me. I've got to find him.”
"If we can be of any assistance,” began Barton.
“No, you can't be; I'll find him," she flung at the ranger,
and ran toward the steps to the lobby.
“Complications and more complications,” I said as we
resumed our search for the car.
"Like one of your stories, Joe,” said Rogers as he walked
along in the lead. “With luck there could be a happy end-
ing.”
The remark was an odd one, and I thought it over to
the accompaniment of our footfalls upon the hard pave-
ment in the echoing enclosure. Certainly the beginning
bent only on looking over some of the old ghost towns, we
had been catapulted into a mystery even before we had
reached the boundary of the national monument, a mystery
which showed no immediate sign of being cleared up. We
were even now on our way to obtain the clothing of the
dead man and give it to the park authority. Meantime with
luck, as Rogers had said, there could be a happy ending.
We found the car in a small area at the rear of the inn,
where it had been parked by the attendant. I reached into
it and took the key from the ignition.
"I don't suppose you have any trouble with stolen cars
here,” I remarked to Barton.
“That's never been a problem,” he answered.
Rogers had gone to the rear door on the opposite side,
opened it and was rummaging about the interior, his large


68
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
figure half out and half inside. He was at it longer than was
necessary; then he backed out and straightened up to his
full height, his whole manner one of bewilderment. He
stood for a moment without speaking, and then climbed
into the back seat and began again a more thorough search.
“The stuff's gone,” he said at length, sliding out upon
the ground once more and facing us with the startling fact.
“Are you sure, Hunt?” I began.
“Of course, I'm sure," he answered crisply. "I put the
things there myself.”
“Yes, I know. Before we left Pahrump Valley."
"Well, they're gone now.”
Otis Barton stood by, saying nothing. He walked the few
feet to the car, stooped down and gazed underneath it as
if the things might accidentally have fallen out upon the
ground when the door was opened, and gone unnoticed.
He got up and went around to the other side, and then
returned.
“When did you last see them in there?” he inquired.
"At Death Valley Junction. When we got out at the ho-
tel.”
“Who'd steal them out of the car?” I demanded. “Who
would know whose they were and that they were of any
importance?”
"If I had the answer to that, Joe,” said Rogers, almost
biting off the words, “I'd tell you who killed the man who
once wore the clothes.”
"Ruth Downes and Harry Byers!” I exclaimed, as if pos-
sessed of a revelation.
“What about them?” Barton asked.
"We gave them a lift to the inn. Their car had stalled.”


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
69
“Let's go talk to them now while the thing is still fresh,”
suggested the ranger.
Rogers turned away from the car without a word, and
led the way back toward the lobby.


My thoughts ran in a curious circle as Huntoon Rogers
and I walked with the ranger along the hard driveway
toward the entrance to the inn. The body of the murdered
man had been found only to be stolen as it was being taken
through Death Valley; the dead man's clothing had been
recovered at the expense of a day-long trip to Pahrump
Valley, and now they had as promptly disappeared.
There was an appallingly sinister aspect to these two
happenings; the impact of it was terrific. The conclusion
was inescapable that the murderer was all-seeing in his
watchfulness of our activities. Not only was he present
among us but he seemed to know our every move, almost
to anticipate them; moreover, he was ruthless in his pur-
pose to blot out all trace of his victim's identity. Something
might have come of the articles of clothing, some slender
clue leading back to the seller or the maker and thus
through to the murdered owner. But now that chance had
vanished.
As we came around in front of the inn once more, George
Downes appeared strolling up from below. He moved de-
liberately, easily, with an air of sauntering as if he had
been out for a solitary ramble in the darkness. We halted
as if by concert on the lowest step and waited for him to
come up.
“I say," he began, recognizing us as we stood expect-
antly before him, “you saw me slap that fellow in the lobby."


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
71
“Yes,” answered Otis Barton.
“I never do things like that. Never. I don't know what
possessed me. Something just came over me, I guess.”
"What's between you and him that you should strike
him, Mr. Downes?" inquired the ranger.
“That, sir, is a private matter. He was no stranger. That
is, I mean I knew who he was, and so it was not a mad im-
pulse or anything like that. I'm not crazy. Believe me, the
matter is private. What I can't understand in myself is why
I should so far forget the proprieties and do such a thing
in so public a place as the lobby of a hotel. You see my
point?"
"Perhaps," agreed Rogers.
“Yes, of course. I'm not sadistic. I've no joy in inflicting
pain. The thing, though, has upset me completely. I had
to get away and think things over a bit alone. It's quite a
walk down to the camp below, isn't it? I didn't go all the
way. Just part of the way. I don't know what my daughter
will think of me. I've embarrassed her, I'm afraid—when
she learns what I've done."
“She already knows about it," I said. "She's looking for
you now."
“Oh, I'm so sorry for that. She's young. She's doing her
best to help me out. But this fellow—the man I slapped"
"Harry Byers.” I furnished him with the name.
“Byers?” he echoed. “Yes, Byers. Yes, I remember; I don't
know what he thinks of me."
"Your daughter said he was making threats.”
"Threats? Probably he would. But his threats don't
worry me. All I'm interested in is keeping down scandal,
preventing gossip about my personal affairs. Good night,”
he ended abruptly, and climbed rapidly up the steps and


72
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
disappeared into the lobby.
We remained below, staring up after him for a few mo-
ments before anything was said.
"Odd sort, isn't he?" commented Rogers.
"Well, shall we hunt up Byers and the girl now, and find
out what they know about the missing clothing?" sug-
gested Barton.
“Yes,” Rogers said, and led the way up the steps.
We discovered Harry Byers in his room. In response to
Otis Barton's request on the house telephone, the man
came down to the lobby. His manner was quiet, although
his dark eyes were apprehensive as he halted before us.
Rogers questioned him, making the vanished clothing
seem a trivial matter; in fact, he was almost apologetic in
his approach to the subject. Byers listened attentively, al-
though his eyes were not on his questioner.
“I don't remember,” he answered, after studying over
his reply for several moments. "Perhaps there was some-
thing on the seat-”.
"The clothing was on the floor of the car,” Rogers cor-
rected.
"As I started to say,” Byers resumed, “the things could
have been on the seat between Ruth and me, and I wouldn't
know it. She sat as far away as she could get from me, so
the middle of the seat was empty. Maybe the clothing was
there; I don't know. It could have been on the floor, too,
and I wouldn't know. Ruth got in first and crossed to the
other side, and I just sat in the corner.”
“Then the clothing could have been there, and you
wouldn't be sure whether it was or not?" Barton summed
up.
“That's right. She was nagging me, you know." He


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
73
turned to Rogers. “Besides I was concerned about my car,
wondering if it could be repaired up here. So I didn't really
notice. Why?” he demanded. “Why are the clothes so im-
portant? If you're accusing me”
“Now, don't get excited,” Rogers cautioned. “You're not
being accused. It happens that the clothing belonged to the
murdered man.”
“I see!” Byers exclaimed, his eyes for the first time fixing
upon Rogers' face. “Well, count me out of it, gentlemen.
Absolutely!"
“Thank you for coming down and telling us what you
knew,” said Rogers.
Thus dismissed, Byers, after glancing up and down the
length of the lobby, walked rapidly in the direction of his
room.
We had no such luck, however, in finding Ruth Downes.
There was no answer when Rogers called her room; like-
wise his telephoning brought no response when he rang
her father's room. A tour through the lounge and lobby
white stone bar was fruitless. So we gave it up for the night
and parted with Otis Barton, assuring him that we would
see him early next day.
Rogers sat long in a chair gazing out of our window at
the little constellation of lights down at the ranch in the
black desert below the inn, apparently lost in thought. He
did not seem aware of my activities as I prepared for bed.
Finally I spoke to him.
"Baffling problem, isn't it?"
"Baffling?” he replied with a start at the sound of my
voice. “No; just puzzling. I've an odd feeling I've never
experienced before. We're only a handful of people set


74
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
down in one of Nature's great show places, able to move
in a relatively restricted area-along the roads and about
the hotels. Most of us are strangers to each other, here for
two or three days at most. Our comings and goings, and
the reasons therefor, however, are fairly simple. Against the
background of Death Valley we stand out very clearly for
what we are, wearing our insignia on our sleeves, as it were.
And yet we harbor a murderer in our midst; an active, re-
sourceful, ruthless, ever-watchful slayer who will kill again
if and when the circumstances in his opinion require it.”
“You make it sound terrifying, Hunt."
“No more than it actually is.”
“If we could only keep the thing under cover."
"No!” he exclaimed. “That's just the point. The crowd
is so transient; somebody here innocently might know some-
thing of importance today. Tomorrow or two or three days
from now he may be hundreds of miles away—the old lady
with the cane, for instance; Byers and his friend who are
planning to walk out to San Fernando; Ruth Downes; her
father; her mother; the old fellow at the Amargosa-Lam-
bert, is his name. Today we're like a pattern in a kaleido-
scope; tomorrow's turn can change it completely."
"Yes.” He got up suddenly. “I'm tired. I think I'll go to
bed.”
Rogers was asleep before I was. I tossed for a while, con-
tending with the thoughts he had stirred up for me, then
finally fell asleep.
We went down to the dining room together next morn-
ing and ate breakfast without so much as mentioning the
preceding day's activity. Rogers was not talkative. More-
over, he seemed to have nothing particular on his mind.


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
75
He gazed out of the windows observing the life beginning
to stir in the desert valley. Toward the close of breakfast,
however, he put down his napkin hurriedly and walked
rapidly out into the lobby.
When I caught up belatedly with him, he was talking
with Ruth Downes, and the girl was shaking her dark head
with great positiveness. She had a faint smile and a nod of
her head for me when I joined them, and then abruptly
ran away and out the front door.
"She doesn't know anything," Rogers explained. “If
there was any clothing on the floor of the car last night she
didn't notice it. Which isn't saying, Joe, that it couldn't
have been there and neither Byers nor Ruth Downes no-
tice it. They were arguing; it was dark as a pocket in the rear
seat-50-
"So what?"
“I'm wondering if we have time to run up to the Amar-
gosa and make some inquiries there.”
“But how about this other thing? This missing persons
thing?"
The answer to that question came in the form of a sum-
mons to the telephone, from which Rogers returned within
a few minutes.
"We'll put over the inquiry at the Junction indefinitely.
Barton just telephoned. Said that a man from the missing
persons bureau in the sheriff's office at Los Angeles got up
as far as the Amargosa last night late and will be down at
headquarters here as soon as he can drive it." There was
an air of elation in his manner, as if he were confident at
this development of a long stride ahead. “Barton also said
that he did a little investigating of his own last night too
-about the clothing."


76
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
"How so?"
“Among the help at the inn. All who possibly might know
something. But nobody did.”
“We can forget the clothing, can't we, Hunt, if Stocker
can identify the man from the pictures?" I asked.
“You reason almost like a detective, Joe,” he grinned
at me.
We went out on the terrace to bask for a while in the
early-morning sunshine, and to follow with our eyes the
magnificent sweep of the valley. The vast alluvial fans at
the base of Telescope Peak looked in the morning light like
the muddy down-wash after rain. I knew, though, that if I
and boulders scattered upon the 2500-foot-thick pile of
detritus which through ages past had been washed out of
the mountain canyons. I recalled what Rogers had said the
previous night; all human things in this great desert valley
seemed infinitesimal, our activities of so little moment and
so much on the surface that nothing could long remain con-
cealed.
"What do you say to driving up to park headquarters
now?” he asked after half an hour or so of idleness. “Bar-
ton was telephoning from there. Dick Stocker and he are
waiting for this fellow from Los Angeles. And he'll be com-
ing before long now.”
“Let's go," I agreed, leading the way down from the ter-
race and around the hotel to where the car was parked.
We climbed into the front seat, and as we did so Rogers
leaned over to look into the rear compartment.
“You won't find anything,” I reminded him. “You looked
last night, you know."
“My habit of thoroughness, Joe,” he answered lightly.


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
77
“I know there is nothing there, and yet I look again."
"Nothing?" I asked as he settled down beside me.
"Nothing. And, anyway, something tells me that the
pictures will serve us far better than the missing clothing."
We dropped down off the level of the inn into the valley
below and turned northward past the ranch, outside whose
entrance stood the weathered relics of the days when borax
was hauled from the valley in huge, high-wheeled wagons
low desert sunflowers here and there upon the rocky soil
gave the ground a faintly yellowish cast. Here and there,
too, I noted the white gravel ghost, whose slender stems
were so difficult to see against the rocks that the flowers
appeared to float in the air. Mingled with them was an oc-
casional purple phacelia, or wild heliotrope, and the laven-
der and crimson cups of the little spotted mallow. Above
and to the right of us towered the Funeral Range, majestic,
barren and sinister not only in name but in appearance.
We turned off the main road and headed up toward
park headquarters, where against the blue sky on its tall
pole lazily floated the flag. Beyond, at the CCC barracks,
there was considerable activity. A truck loaded with young
men drove down the road and passed us headed for the
highway.
"Still hunting for the missing body, I guess," I said to
Rogers.
“Barton said when he telephoned that they came back
empty-handed last night.”
We parked and I shut off the motor. There was nobody
about. Dick Stocker's truck still stood where it had the day
before. Otis Barton's smart green car, top down, its bright
surfaces sparkling in the sun, was beside it. And so we


78
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
walked across to headquarters, opened the door, and went
inside. The same youthful ranger at his desk looked up,
said good morning, and directed us to go on into the super-
intendent's office.
Dick Stocker sat moodily in a chair, a cigarette hanging
upon his lower lip, his bright blue eyes gazing unseeingly
at Harris Garvey, who was shuffling through some papers
on his desk. They both glanced up as we entered. A slow
smile spread over the deputy's rugged features; the super-
to a seat on the couch against the wall.
“Well,” grinned Stocker, “you fellows, I hear, didn't
have any better luck holdin' on to the dead man's clothes
than I did to his body."
“You haven't found the body; we haven't found the
clothes,” Rogers returned.
“Tell me what you found down there in Pahrump," re-
quested the deputy. “I admit I didn't follow the fellow's
trail far enough to find the stuff Otis says you picked up.
Didn't seem worth while."
Rogers reviewed our expedition, omitting nothing and
interpreting the facts we had discovered. At the conclu-
sion he reached into his pocket and passed over to Stocker
the three cigarette ends he had picked up on the barren
little knoll.
“Whoever did it, certainly has succeeded admirably in
wiping out his victim's identity,” remarked Superintendent
Garvey.
"I'll say he has," echoed Stocker.
The door opened and Otis Barton came in.
"Seen anything yet of that fellow from Los Angeles?"
asked Garvey.


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
79
“I think he's coming up the road now."
The superintendent glanced out of the window. “Yes, I
guess so,” he said, studying the approaching car.
A few minutes later a tall, grizzled figure in a light gray
suit, carrying a topcoat on his arm, and a brown brief case,
stood in the doorway. He had intent, owlish eyes that
stared at us from a thin, narrow face.
“I'm Bert Quimby,” he announced, smiling a little.
“Sheriff's office in Los Angeles.”
We shook hands all around, and settled again in chairs.
The brown brief case rested upon the superintendent's
desk.
“It was obliging of you to come up,” began Garvey. “It
appealed to us as easier and quicker to have a man come
up here than to round up those who might be of help and
take them all down to Los Angeles—”
"Don't mention it,” Quimby interrupted. “It ain't every
day that I get a nice trip like this. I was glad to come up, and
bring along the pictures we've got. You said the body was
a man's."
“Yes."
"Well, I didn't bring any pictures of missing women
with me.” He reached for the brief case and set it on his
lap, pulling open the zipper fastening as he talked. “I went
back in the files a long ways. I've got old pictures in cases
that've never been cleared up, as well as recent ones. Because
you're never sure in this business. Somebody may have
been missing for years, you know, and finally come to the
end of his string out here in the desert. It's happened be-
fore now."
"You're right,” agreed Stocker. “You've sure got a bunch
of them."


80
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
“Yes.” Quimby placed a large sheaf of photographs on
the superintendent's desk, shoving them first in the direc-
tion of Garvey and then toward Stocker, as the superintend-
ent disclaimed any competence to select from them.
“I didn't see the body," he explained. “Dick Stocker and
a fellow up at the Junction are the two who should look
at them. By the way, Otis”-he turned to the ranger—"how
about Foster?”
"I talked with him last night on the phone. He got back
from Baker yesterday evening. He said he'd come down this
morning. Also, Wallace Lambert promised he'd drop in,
too, sometime this morning."
“Who's he—this Lambert?" asked Quimby.
"An old-timer in these parts, who might, if Stocker can
pick out the right picture, be able to tell us something
about the fellow.”
"Is that necessary?" Quimby's tone was skeptical.
"It was a case of murder, according to Professor Rogers."
“Murder! I didn't understand it that way."
"We didn't know it when we called you yesterday,” Gar-
vey told him.
A strange blond young man of medium height, with a
small nose and wide shoulders, wandered into our midst at
this point, surveyed the room with restless blue eyes, took
in the significance of this last statement, and looked about
for a seat.
"Anything I can do for you, sir?" inquired the super-
intendent.
“Oh, this is Morris Pine,” said the Los Angeles deputy,
making the introduction. “Newspaperman who came along
with me.”


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
88
“Well, we hope you're right, Dick," commented Garvey.
“I'm sure I'm right.” Stocker picked up the photograph
again and gazed at it intently. “I'm right. I'd swear it's the
same fellow.”


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
85
The door swung open, and the thick-bodied, iron-gray
man with whom Rogers and I had talked the evening be-
fore at the Amargosa entered. The small, round-crowned
black hat was pulled down tightly upon his forehead, the
large feet encased in black shoes were thrust forward alter-
nately in a sort of slow waddle.
“Hello, Mr. Lambert,” exclaimed Harris Garvey gen-
ially, getting up and moving with that tireless ease he pos-
sessed to meet the man. “You arrive just in time.”
"Good morning, Mr. Garvey,” responded the newcomer
without enthusiasm. “Glad to see you. I got your message
through this young man here.” He indicated Otis Barton,
who was shoving forward a chair for him. “Why, though,
just in time?”
“Maybe you can help us out. I say maybe, because I'm
really not sure. First, though, you haven't met Mr. Quimby
and Mr. Pine, both of Los Angeles." The superintendent
made the introductions.
I don't know why the appearance of Wallace Lambert
should appeal to me as a welcome addition to our circle,
unless it was because the problem, now that the dead man
had been identified, seemed suddenly to have grown to un-
believable proportions.
"You've heard, of course,” the superintendent continued,
“that a body was found in Pahrump Valley."
“Yes."
“Also that the man was murdered.”
“I learned it last night.”
“Finally that the body was stolen, and even the clothing
he threw away on the desert has disappeared,” Garvey fin-
ished.
“That the body was stolen, yes—”.


86
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
“And so was the clothing," repeated Garvey. “But we've
got something of importance now. Mr. Quimby brought up
from Los Angeles this morning a lot of pictures of miss-
ing persons. Dick Stocker has picked out one which he'll
swear is of the dead man. A fellow named Austin. A judge
from Detroit.”
Harris Garvey had moved behind the desk to his chair,
and was reaching for the photograph as he talked. My eyes
had been upon Wallace Lambert. At the sound of the mur-
dered man's name, a curious expression had flashed into
the iron-gray eyes. The heavy mustache had quivered
briefly, and then the lips underneath it had thinned a trifle
as he set his jaw. Garvey reached across the desk to ex-
tend to him the photograph. The old man took it, and
held it before his eyes for a long minute. He stared at the
face of the well-groomed, scholarly-appearing man in the
picture as if it brought a flood of recollection to him.
"Don't happen to know him, do you, Mr. Lambert?"
asked Quimby.
Lambert laid the photograph back on the superintend-
ent's desk before he replied, then he turned slowly to face
his questioner.
“Yes,” he said. "He is an old friend of mine. In fact, a
side-kick of almost forty years ago. I've kept in touch with
him ever since we were young fellows."
"You're just the man we're looking for, then," Rogers
interrupted. “If you can give us enough out of his past
life, it should help in running down the man who mur-
dered him.”
“Yes. Yes,” Lambert said vaguely. “You say he's dead.”
“Of course," Rogers answered. “As you already know—"
"You say he died some time ago, though.”


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY ' 87
“I'd figure two or three months, anyhow, Mr. Lambert,"
Stocker said.
Wallace Lambert shook his head as if he didn't compre-
hend the information. "How do you know it's Bailey Aus-
tin?" he suddenly shot at Stocker, and a malevolent light
glowed in his eyes.
"I picked up what was left of the body in the desert,”
Stocker retorted. “And I picked out his picture from the
bunch here. I'm as sure as anybody could be. Same goatee
and gray hair. Same forehead."
“Well, you're wrong" Lambert snapped.
"Wrong?" echoed Stocker unbelievingly. “Well, we'll
get John Foster up at the Junction to bear me out. He went
down there after the body with me.”
“The dental description," interrupted Quimby, “ought
to settle the point.”.
“Yes, but we haven't got the body," Rogers reminded
him.
“My mistake," apologized Quimby.
“Oh-Mr. Lambert-” began Superintendent Garvey
diplomatically, “you say that Stocker is wrong. That im-
plies, certainly, some information that we don't have. Other-
wise it seems Stocker's word will have to stand. If Foster
confirms the identification then it must be—"
“It can't be," retorted Lambert impatiently. His thick
fingers had strayed inside his coat. “I'm expecting Bailey
Austin here at Death Valley in the next day or two—"
“Expecting him?" echoed Garvey, staring at the older
man.
“That's what I said,” he replied, digging into his pocket.
He brought out a long, old-fashioned wallet around which
was snapped a broad rubber band; its worn appearance


90
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
ruption from the eager circle that listened to it.
“Wrote to you, you mean, Mr. Lambert?" asked the su-
perintendent.
“I'll show you."
Again the man dug into an inside pocket for the worn
wallet. He unsnapped the rubber band with the same irri-
tating deliberation as before, searched among the papers
in the leather compartments, and finally selected an en-
velope similar to the first, drew out a folded sheet of note
paper, opened it and passed it across to the outstretched
hand of the superintendent.
"It says here—" began Garvey at once. "Same stationery,
by the way, same initial signature, but written from De-
troit. The date is August 15, this year. It says: 'Dear Wal-
· lace: The summer has been hard on me, and I'm tired. I'm
going away for a little rest. Don't be alarmed by anything
you may read about me in the papers. I'll write you later
concerning our annual meeting this fall. Ever yours,
B.B.A.'” The superintendent finished the brief note,
reached across his desk toward Lambert and said: “The en-
velope, please.”
“Oh, yes.” Lambert picked it up and gave it to Garvey.
“It's postmarked,” the latter said, glancing up, “the same
as the letter—Detroit, August 15." He tossed both the letter
and the envelope upon his desk, and shoved them toward
us.
"I'm not backing down—yet," asserted Stocker. “I'll
have to be convinced. So I'm waitin' to hear what John
Foster will say."
“But, Dick,” expostulated Garvey, “Judge Austin fore-
cast the hue and cry that was stirred up when he went
away for a rest. And only two weeks ago wrote Mr. Lam-


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
91
bert that he'll see him here at the inn this week. Your man,
though, you say, has been dead several months."
“I know, I know,” the deputy argued stubbornly. “I can
be wrong. If I'm wrong, I'll admit it. But I ain't doin' it
now." He flung about in his chair in protest. “Wait till
"All right, I'll wait,” remarked Morris Pine. “I'm wait-
ing, too, right here in Death Valley for Judge Austin to
show up. Maybe that won't be a story, either! But I'm wait-
ing with you, Stocker."
“I know faces—even if they are dead. You can't fool
me-much,” asserted Stocker, fishing in his pocket for his
sack of tobacco.
Wallace Lambert seemed to be enjoying this grim meet-
ing in the superintendent's office. He rummaged slowly
through his pockets and finally brought out his ivory cig-
arette holder. He accepted a cigarette I offered him, care-
fully inserted it in the holder and lighted it. Meanwhile the
worn wallet lay open on his knees. All the while, though,
Lambert had an eye for the two letters which had proved to
be so sensational. The first one still rested on Garvey's desk;
the other was slowly making the rounds of the room.
When it came to me I examined it closely. So far as I
could tell, the same hand had written the signature to
both notes; the same well-inked typing and perfectly cen-
tered body indicated a neat, methodical person as the au-
thor. There were no stenographer's initials in the lower
left-hand corner, so there was no manner of checking
through that source. Rogers noted this fact at once.
“Do you know whether or not your friend did his own
typing?” he inquired of Wallace Lambert.
"Personal notes, yes."


92
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
"One note was written apparently in Detroit, the other
in St. Louis. It's the same type script in both, Mr. Lam-
bert—".
“He carries a small portable typewriter with him when-
ever he goes anywhere."
The man's reply was quick, almost suspiciously so, I
thought. The slow, deliberate way in which he smoked the
cigarette in the ivory holder afforded a striking contrast
with his quick words.
“You know what I'm wondering, fellows,” Bert Quimby
spoke up suddenly after a long silence.
"What's that?” demanded Stocker.
"I wonder if it wouldn't be a good idea to get in touch
with Detroit in this thing, and have 'em send somebody out
here who worked on the Detroit end of the case. He'd know
a lot of things about Austin; have the answers to the things
you're just guessing at."
“Not a bad idea,” responded Rogers. “It might be well
to wait, though, until after we've seen John Foster and
found out whether or not he can identify the body as that
of Austin.”
"Here now,” said Stocker, getting suddenly up from his
discussion and thrust it into the center of the pile that
Quimby had brought to Death Valley. “Let's see if John
can pick it out from the bunch like I did.”
“Okeh, Stocker," agreed Quimby. He gathered up the
photographs and crowded them back into his brief case,
and closed the zipper. "Where do we see this Foster guy?”
“He is supposed to come down and see us,” answered
Garvey. “Ought to have been here before now."
"Why not call him up,” suggested Morris Pine, "and find


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
93
out when he's getting here?"
“We can do that,” said the superintendent. “When did
you talk with him, Otis? This morning, or last night?”
"Last night after ten. He said he'd leave the Junction
about seven-thirty. He should have been here long before
this.”
Harris Garvey reached for the telephone and asked for
a number at Death Valley Junction. Morris Pine got up
and wandered out into the hall. Dick Stocker sat smoking
a cigarette and staring dreamily out of the window. I spoke
to Rogers.
"Rather looks as though the dead man's clothes might
still be important—if we can find them doesn't it?”
“They could be, yes.”
The superintendent continued talking on the telephone.
Pine came back into the room. Rogers borrowed a cigarette
from Wallace Lambert, and exchanged a brief word with
Otis Barton. Harris Garvey hung up the receiver and spoke
to the room generally.
“The garage where Foster works says they haven't seen
anything of him this morning," he said. "He has no phone
where he lives."
"Couldn't be on the way down, could he?" inquired
Barton.
“His car is at the garage now. So he can't have started.”
There was a general movement in the room. Rogers
crushed out the fire in his cigarette, which he had just
lighted.
"I'll go with you up to the Junction,” he said. “Come on,
Joe. We might as well start looking for the dead man's
clothes at that end."
“Okeh.”


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
“What's the matter with me going along?" suggested
Quimby. “How about you, Stocker? Coming?"
"Sure. I'll go along. We can talk to John up there, same
as down here. Let's get this thing over with as soon as we
can.”
Otis Barton suddenly stooped at Wallace Lambert's feet,
picked up something from the floor, and gave it to the old
man. “Your rubber band," he said.
“Yes. Thank you."
We filed out of the office, leaving Wallace Lambert talk-
ing with Superintendent Garvey, the letters of Judge Aus-
tin lying between them on the desk.


EVENTS had taken an odd turn. No sooner had Dick Stocker
identified the victim from a photograph than Wallace
Lambert had proved the identification worthless. More
than that, of course, was the disclosure that Lambert had
been carrying about with him valuable information in the
amazing disappearance of a prominent individual for whom
the police of the nation had searched in vain. The incredi-
ble fact was that Lambert had kept still through some three
months of almost daily reference in the press to the missing
man, remaining silent even when within the past two weeks
he had received a note from him arranging a meeting in
Death Valley.
Morris Pine came up as we climbed into the car in front
of park headquarters and stood looking in at us.
“Hunt," he began, addressing Rogers, a serious expres-
sion in his restless blue eyes, “will you do me a favor?"
"Of course—if I can, Morris.”
“Will you, please, not say anything about this that will
get back to town? So far I'm the only gentleman of the press
on the job. And it will mean a lot to me if I'm still the only
one here when this guy Austin shows up—if he does.”
“All right, Morris. What do you think about those
letters?”
The young man shrugged his wide shoulders. “Who am I
to say they're phony? Lambert says they're okeh; Garvey
says Lambert's okeh, so what have we? I just want to be here


96
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
when and if Austin shows up—without any competition.
How about you, Hibbard?”
"Go to it, Pine," I answered. “You can have it alone so
far as I'm concerned. I'm no longer a gentleman of the
press.”
“Thanks, fellows; that's sweet of you,” he said heartily,
turning away in the direction of Quimby's car.
We drove on toward the inn, talking over the strange
turn the mystery had taken. Rogers was inclined to be
skeptical of Dick Stocker's identification. He did not, how-
ever, seem to regard Wallace Lambert's silence in the dis-
appearance of Judge Austin as extraordinary.
“I've known fellows like him before,” he said as we were
approaching the ranch. “They're indifferent, even some-
what antagonistic, toward the press; they often doubt the
truth of what they read; claim to see exaggerations and de-
liberate falsehood where they don't, of course, exist. And,
therefore, they wouldn't turn a hand to help the press to a
Roman holiday, so to speak, in a case like the disappearance
of Austin. Lambert may be like that. I don't know. Again
he may conceive that he is helping his friend to a period of
rest by keeping still. Let's stop at the inn for a few minutes,”
he ended as we sped past the ranch and swept on up the
road toward the hotel.
We parked before the entrance, and Rogers went inside
and obtained the key from the desk, while I lingered about
the lobby entrance. A young man was sitting near by on the
terrace in a chair, lazily smoking a cigarette. He glanced
up at me and spoke.
"Your name's Hayes, isn't it?" I inquired, introducing
myself.
"Keith Hayes,” he answered, apparently surprised and


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
97
grateful for this bit of recognition. “Harry Byers and I are
together. Planning to walk out to San Fernando tomorrow.
Maybe.”
“I remember. You were pointed out to me as one of the
two planning to do it. Not quite hardened enough to it
yet?"
"Not yet. I can't get Byers to do much training. He was
hot enough about it when we first talked of doing it, but
now that we're up here he finds too many other things that
seem to need his attention.”
Keith Hayes looked to be perhaps twenty-seven years
old. He had a roundish head topped with light brown hair,
and his face was screwed into a constant expression of
squinting, as if his eyes were weak. A fashionably cut sports
suit covered a lanky frame, and he wore an open-throated
brown sports shirt with a wide collar which flared out upon
his coat lapels, and a yellow scarf was tucked about his neck.
We talked a few minutes of the weather, spoke of the
wooded upper slopes of the Panamints soaring above the
valley, and then Rogers reappeared. He shooks hands with
Hayes. The young man opened his eyes somewhat as if to
appraise Rogers, then assumed his squinting expression
again.
Rogers glanced beyond him to the far end of the terrace.
I had been observing down there for some minutes a thin,
elderly woman who leaned slightly upon a gold-headed
cane. The filmy lace dress of the past evening had given way
to a gray tweed, but she still wore the black band about her
thin neck. Her actions had been interesting. She had been
gesticulating, waving her cane, and even at one time shak-
ing her fist under Harry Byers' nose. Keith Hayes had been
dividing his attention between her and me.


98
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
“Who is the old lady who's laying the law down to Harry
Byers?” Rogers inquired of Hayes. “Is it Mrs. Treadwick?”
"Yeah. She's Byers' aunt."
“His aunt?”
“Yes. From Evanston. Aunt Mary Treadwick, no less.
Well, not exactly his aunt. There's no relation, blood or
otherwise. She merely got interested in him the time when
Harry was sent to the penitentiary. Sort of took him under
her wing, as it were."
"Little wonder, then, that she was upset last night when
George Downes slapped him," Rogers remarked.
“He did?" inquired Hayes, surprised into cocking his
head up at Rogers. “He didn't tell me."
"In the lobby." .
"That's not what the row's about this morning, though,”
Hayes began, as if he relished the situation in which his
friend was in.
“She's certainly telling him about it, whatever it is,” I
commented in order to prod Hayes.
“He ran off with her car last night. Got the keys from the
chauffeur. Woke the fellow up after he'd gone to bed, and
went out for a lonesome ride. I don't know how she found
out about it, but she did. Gas is high here—thirty cents, I
think. The old lady's got more money than she knows what
to do with, but she makes a hobby out of pinching pen-
nies.”
“He's got a car of his own,” I said.
“That's what it was all about. He broke down in the
wash last night, and he went up to see about it. Complained
he couldn't get any satisfaction about it over the telephone.
At least, that's what he's telling her. I was in at the start
of the argument. It began right after breakfast and I


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
99
.
ducked it.”
“Did he go on up to the Junction?” asked Rogers.
“The garage up there, he thinks, is better equipped to
repair the car.”
"We picked him and the girl up on the road last night,"
I remarked.
“So Byers said,” answered Hayes. "Who was the fellow
who got murdered?"
“Nobody knows yet," Rogers answered. “We thought we
had him identified once this morning, but the identification
blew up later. The body, by the way, is still missing. When
you're walking about the valley, you'll keep a lookout, of
course, for any signs of it.”
“Oh, sure. We'd do that. Glad to have met you, Hib-
bard,” he called to me as Rogers and I moved toward the
steps.
We climbed into the car, circled the inn and headed up
the wash toward Death Valley Junction. Our stop had con-
sumed some fifteen or twenty minutes. Two cars, which I
knew to be those of Bert Quimby and Otis Barton, had
passed the inn as we talked with Hayes, and now preceded
us. As we drove along I recalled Keith Hayes' lazy attitudes
on the terrace.
"He doesn't impress me," I said, “as a fellow likely to
walk a couple of hundred or more miles just as a stunt.”
"No." Rogers' reply suggested that his thoughts were
preoccupied.
"It's one of the great stories of pioneer days," I went on,
thinking of the script I had turned in at the studio the week
before. “The party, already broken up and traveling in
several groups, came down this wash here into the valley.
They were on starvation rations, their oxen skin and bone.


100
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
They had found hardly any water fit to drink. And then
when they got down into the valley proper and saw the
Panamints barring their way, they were ready to give up.
The Manly contingent, I mean.”
"Yes, I know,” interrupted Rogers. "If they only had
gone around the northern end of the range, as the Jayhawk-
ers did, they'd have got out all right. But, no, they had to
drift on south toward Bad Water, and cross over to find the
spring known as Bennet's Well.”
"And then Manly and Rogers, with what food they could
pack on their backs—and it always seemed crazy to me-
climbed right up over the range a little to the south of
Telescope Peak, and down into the next valley and tackled
the Argus Range—”.
"What's the need of telling this thing all over again?”
asked Rogers a bit querulously. “It's history. You have, of
course, turned in an historically accurate script and a good
story, which will be spoiled in the making. They're doing
better by the authors, though, than they used to—”
"What are you so jittery about, Hunt?” I demanded of a
sudden. “You're all at once like a cat on a hot stove."
"I am jittery,” he confessed. "For no reason at all.”
"You don't get jittery without a reason. You never have.
You just don't want to put a finger on it and say what it is."
"Yes, I know. But have you noticed — Of course, you
have, because we've already spoken of it. The killer has
been absolutely ruthless. Not only did he sit out there on
the little knoll in Pahrump Valley and watch his victim
die, but he went back over the trail, removed every label
from the clothing, and obliterated the messages scratched
upon the rocks. More than that, when the body finally was
discovered and was being trucked through the valley to


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VACLEY :::. 101:
:::
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH V
Independence, it was stolen. The clothing disappeared.
Everything's gone that can point to the identity of the vic-
tim. Everything."
“What about the cigarette you borrowed from Lambert
a while ago?"
“You noticed that?” he asked suspiciously.
“Why shouldn't I?”
"No reason at all why you shouldn't, if your eyes are
open. You know what we found on the little knoll.”
“What about the cigarette? Lambert's?”
“It's the same brand.”
"The same?"
“But that doesn't necessarily mean anything. Billions of
cigarettes are smoked. There are comparatively few popular
brands. You can't draw any conclusions from that. It's in-
dicative of a trend, perhaps, the trend of a clue in that
general direction.”
“But the ivory holder?"
"The same thing applies to that too."
“Maybe it does," I admitted. “But let me point out
some things. You know them, as well as I do, because you
haven't been asleep. What about the initials on those letters
supposed to be from Judge Austin? Who says they're
Austin's?"
"Wallace Lambert.”
“Who says it's Austin's stationery? Lambert again. True
enough it's engraved and the paper is a good bond, and it's
the kind of personal stationery a judge on the Federal bench
would be expected to use. But you can duplicate it in al-
most any print shop anywhere.”
"Admitted.”
“And who knows where Lambert has been the last three


902:
AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
.
months? He could have been in Detroit and Saint Louis and
mailed them himself. He said himself at the Amargosa last
night that he moved around wherever and whenever he felt
like it.”
"Yes, I know."
“Besides that, whoever tolled the victim down into
Pahrump Valley must have known something of the coun-
try hereabouts, and how best to set the stage for what hap-
pened. Lambert admitted he'd been around this country
since the turn of the century. That's a long time."
"You think, then, that Lambert might have had some-
thing to do with it?”
"Whoever had something to do with it had all to do with
it. I don't say that it was Lambert. I don't say even that the
victim is Judge Austin. But there are several points in his
story that require confirmation before I'll believe them.”
“As Quimby pointed out,” Rogers remarked thought-
fully, “somebody from Detroit might be a help at this end
in establishing the facts in the Austin case. You're right,
of course, Joe. Some digging has got to be done. The case
hasn't even got a good start yet. There are so many angles
that need investigation. Find the body and the dental de-
scription would quickly settle whether or not it's Austin.
Find the clothing and, while we have much less to work on,
still it's something. Bring the Detroit investigators in on
this new lead that Lambert has furnished—”
"If it isn't Austin's body, then Lambert's out of it."
Rogers was hesitant. "Perhaps—yes, I guess you're right
about it, Joe. If it isn't Austin's body, what would be the
object of the Austin letters, forged or genuine? They
wouldn't have any bearing on the case, would they? And
yet,”


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
103
“And yet what?"
"I don't know, Joe. We become involved in too compli-
cated a process of reasoning; too complicated, I think, to
consider at this point. The other cars are ahead of us, aren't
they?"
“They went by the inn while we were talking with
Hayes.”
"We haven't caught up with them, so, I guess, this fellow
Foster can't have started yet to the valley.”
We suddenly lapsed into silence after this flurry of dis-
cussion of the mystery. We paused at the checking station,
where a soft-spoken young man jotted down something on
his record and asked if he could be of service.
"Do you know a fellow named John Foster up at the
Junction?” Rogers inquired.
“Yes, sir."
“Has he come by this morning going down to Furnace
Creek?"
"No, sir.”
We thanked him and drove rapidly onward, expecting
that we might overtake the others who preceded us. For
Rogers' manner betrayed an anxiety to reach Death Valley
Junction as soon as possible. So swiftly did we drive the last
few miles that we closed in behind Otis Barton's green car
in front of the Amargosa Hotel. Dick Stocker, sitting beside
the ranger in the topless car, lifted one arm in a lazy salute.
Bert Quimby and Morris Pine had pulled up beside the
road, permitting Barton to lead the way to the garage at
The six of us got out of our cars and strolled in upon the
concrete floor of the garage. A youngish mechanic, sleepy-
eyed and fat, looked up from a bench, and then came


104
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
toward us. His name was Pete McPhail. I noted Harry
Byers' coupé on the floor partly dismantled.
“Good morning," said McPhail, exhibiting a gold tooth
as he smiled broadly. “What's troubling you all? Oh, hello,
Dick,” he said, singling out the deputy. He wiped greasy
fingers on an old rag.
"Hello, Mac. We're lookin' for John Foster. Seen him
around?”
"No, I hain't, Dick. I could use him, too, on this here car.”
He indicated the torn-down coupé. “I been too busy to go
down and get him. He usually comes around, though. Been
thinkin' any minute for the last two hours he'd show up.
John's the kind of a guy if he's got a couple of bucks in his
pocket he ain't much interested. He had that job down at
Baker yesterday. He's a good mechanic and—”
"Has he got a phone, Mac?” interrupted Otis Barton.
"No, he hain't.”
“Does he still live where he did?”
“Yeah. Other side of the tracks on the Johnnie road.
Little sort of blue house down there. He batches. Why,
what's he done, Dick? You all look like you might be goin'
to gang him.”
"Oh,” Stocker said, fishing out his cigarette papers and
his tobacco, and beginning to roll one of his cigarettes.
"You remember that body John and me brought in out of
Pahrump Valley?"
"Yeah.”
"Well, Deputy Quimby here is up from Los Angeles with
some pictures of missin' people. I thought John might help
identify the fellow. John was supposed to come to head-
quarters this mornin', but didn't.”
We were drifting out to the cars as the conversation came


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
105
to an end. The ranger was waiting for Stocker. Rogers and
I already were in and I was pulling out. Quimby and Pine
were climbing in.
“You know,” said McPhail, following Stocker to the
ranger's car, “I'm kinda worried about John, to tell the
truth. Mind if I go too?"
"Hop in,” said Barton.
We pulled out, the dust drifting lazily up from our
tires, and the green car led the way beyond the railroad
tracks to a small house which once had been painted blue.
It stood off by itself on the extreme edge of the little desert
community. There was no sign of life about it as we drew
up. The windows were closed and the door shut. It was one
of those dreary little dwellings of desert country. A clump
of cholla cactus grew near the front steps, but nothing else.
Otis Barton, his brown boots glistening in the sun, his
neat gray-green uniform trim and snug-fitting upon his
athletic figure, rapped with gloved knuckles on the door.
There was no response. The rest of us drew closer about
him and listened. He knocked a second time.
“Maybe the door ain't locked, Otis,” suggested Stocker.
“Push on it."
The ranger seized the knob and turned it quickly. The
door swung inward. The ranger's figure stiffened suddenly,
his face paled underneath his tan, and he turned his eyes
away for a moment, wincing at the sight within.
"Gad!” he said. “What a way to die!”


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
107
figure why he had to get it like that."
“Did he have any people?" asked Pine, his newspaper
training still dominant in his reactions.
“None I ever heard him speak of. He was a desert man,
the kind that didn't talk. I never asked no questions."
“How long had he been around?”
“Oh—at Baker and Tonopah and here, I guess, eight-ten
years. I've knowed him or knowed of him that long any-
how."
"Did he have any enemies?”
“Not him. I never heard of anybody who had it in for
him. He never argued. His only fault was he was lazy; he
didn't work if he didn't need money.”
“Drink any?”
“Nothin' hard. He told me once he was a cryin' drunk
when he got too much. But I never seen him like that.”
Rogers joined us before Pine concluded questioning
McPhail.
“Seen enough, have you, Hunt?” Pine turned to him.
“Plenty, Morris.”
“The guy was strangled, wasn't he?”
“Yes. He put up a good fight, though, but it wasn't
enough.”
Rogers appeared depressed, as if a burden weighed him
down. His shoulders sagged, and his eyes looked tired, or,
rather, it seemed as if he preferred less horrible scenes than
the one he had just witnessed inside the drab little house.
He looked away to the rugged, somber crest of the Funeral
Range, and then out over the barren sweep of the Amargosa
Desert.
"It wasn't no fit, then, or no heart attack—nothin' like
that, I guess,” remarked the sleepy-eyed McPhail.


108
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
"No. Why?" demanded Rogers.
"Nothin'. I was just hopin' it was something like that.
Murder- Somehow you don't like to have guys you are
fond of go out that way. It's like bein' cheated out of what's
comin' to you in life. John was a good guy."
“He lived here all alone, did he?” asked Rogers. “Didn't
take anybody in with him at any time?"
“I never heard of it if he did. He was a lone wolf.”
Dick Stocker and Deputy Quimby came out of the door
together, and Dick shut the door behind him.
thought anybody would get John Foster like that. He was
smart enough always to figure out in advance what the other
fellow was goin' to do, and was ready for him.”
"When do you think he was killed? What time?” in-
quired Pine, turning to Stocker.
“Looks like he's been dead several hours. It must have
happened some time last night.”
“Must have got him up out of bed,” opined Quimby.
"I wouldn't say that, Quimby," Stocker pointed out.
"Just because the bed is mussed up it doesn't mean he'd al-
ready gone to bed. Lots of men batchin' like John was don't
make up their beds every day like a woman.”
"He'd taken off his shirt,” Rogers reminded him.
"Oh, he could have just been goin' to bed.”
"When did you see him last, McPhail?” Rogers asked.
“About eight-thirty last night, when I left the garage.
He was still talkin' to Harvey Lefevre, the night man.”
"I talked with Foster on the telephone," put in the
ranger. “It was about ten o'clock. Perhaps five or ten min-
utes until ten. I got him at the garage. He promised to come
down early, you know, to look over Mr. Quimby's pictures."


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
“That's right,” Rogers replied. “I remember your say-
ing that.”
"Well,” said Stocker, "I've got to be stirrin’. Do a little
phonin' myself. Ain't nothin' more to find out here now.
How about you other fellows?” He looked first to Rogers,
then to Deputy Quimby.
“I think I've seen enough,” Rogers told him.
“Let's go,” said Quimby, moving toward his car. "What
do I do, though, Stocker? It was just you and Foster”-he
jerked his grizzled head toward the faded little house where
the dead man sprawled on the floor—"wasn't it, who could
identify this body? Right?”
“That's right, Quimby,” Stocker answered solemnly.
“There's no point in my sticking around then, any
longer. I'll leave a picture of Austin—you say it's the one,
although you can't prove it now that the body is missing-
and be heading back to Los Angeles.” He reached into the
car for the brown brief case, opened the zipper, fished for
a while among the photographs until he found the likeness
of Judge Austin, and gave it to Stocker. "What if I tell
Detroit when I get back to town tonight that there's strong
possibilities that your dead man is the missing Austin?"
“Go ahead and tell 'em,” urged Stocker in a slightly ag-
grieved tone. “I'm stickin' to my identification, in spite of
Wallace Lambert.”
“Okeh, I'll do that then. If anybody plans to come out
from Detroit, I suppose he'd better come direct to Death
Valley, hadn't he?"
“Yes, sure. I don't know when I'll be gettin' away from
here. If whoever done it keeps poppin' 'em off, the way
they've done with John Foster, I may be here from now on.”
“Okeh. Good-by, Stocker. Glad to have met you." Quimby


110
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
stuck out his hand. Before he had finished he had shaken
hands with all of us, except Pine. “Coming, Morris?" he
questioned, folding his tall form under the steering wheel
of his car.
“I'm staying, Bert. And remember what you promised
me. Keep all this under your hat about the Austin business.”
“I'll do it as long as I can, Morris. So long."
The deputy's intent, owlish gaze swept over us in fare-
well. The next moment the car pulled out toward the
highway, and soon was lost to view in the desert.
We climbed into the cars, McPhail getting in with us,
and Pine with Otis Barton and Dick Stocker. As we started
away McPhail made a suggestion.
“Why don't we go talk to Harvey Lefevre? Maybe he
knows somethin'."
“The night man at the garage?" asked Rogers.
“Yes. He'll be over around the filling station. He just
stays at the garage nights for emergency. Sleeps 'most all
night. He might know somethin'.”
We led the way back to the filling station, and found
Harvey Lefevre, a gnarled, desert-shriveled, reddish man of
uncertain age, addicted to the old-fashioned vice of chew-
ing tobacco. The man's jaw sagged in shocked amazement
at the news of Foster's death.
"Well, yes,” he said in answer to our questions, rubbing
the wiry bristles on his chin, “some fellow phoned along
about nine-thirty—just before you talked to John Foster,
Mr. Barton. Said his car was down on the Furnace Creek
road. Wanted I should go down and tow it in. I said:
‘Couldn't it wait till mornin'?' and he said: 'No.' I told
him it would be all right. I knew John didn't want to go
down there with me. He said he didn't. And I said I'd get


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
111
it in the morning.
“That made the fellow mad, I guess. Sounded like it. Said
he was comin' up to see about it. I kidded him. Didn't think
he would. But three-quarters of an hour later here he come
in a big limousine. Wanted I should go down there. I said
I didn't have anybody to help me. He wanted to know
where John Foster was. I told him John had gone home.
... Gosh, I can't get over John's bein' murdered! ...
The fellow wanted to know where he lived and I told him.
And he went off in that direction. Said, before he went off
mad, that he wanted to be sure John did the work on the
car. He didn't trust nobody else with it. And I said: 'Okeh,
pardner, it's your car.'”
"What time was that, Harvey?" Stocker asked. “When
he left?”
“Oh-ten-thirty; maybe quarter till."
“Was he by himself?” inquired Rogers.
“Yeah. There wasn't nobody with him.”
“Did he come back this way?” Stocker resumed the ques-
tioning.
“If he did I didn't see him. Soon's he left I fixed out my
cot and hit the hay."
“Did he make any threats while he was here? Against you
or Foster?” persisted Rogers.
“I wouldn't say that they was threats, exactly, mister. He
was just one of them guys who swell up all important-like
when they don't get their own way in everything. Wasn't
any sense to goin' down after that car of his'n last night.
Mac and I went down this mornin' and towed it in. If
they'd had an accident, and they'd been somebody hurt and
needin' help, that'd been different. Besides, the guy rubbed
me the wrong way when he started out yellin' at me over


112
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
the phone.”
The news of John Foster's murder spread quickly in the
community. Edward Long, the hotel manager, knew of it
when we dropped in upon him later that morning.
"Were your guests behavin' all right last night, Ed?"
asked Stocker confidentially, leaning with elbows on the
desk and shoving his shapeless hat up from his forehead.
A thin cigarette flopped on his lower lip.
“H-m-m, yes. So far as I know, Dick.”
"Everybody in bed by ten-thirty or eleven o'clock?"
“Not everybody. I didn't go to bed myself until eleven-
thirty. Had some work to do."
"Who all was still prowlin' around at that time?"
"Well—Mr. Lambert came in about a quarter after
eleven ”
“How long had he been outside?" interrupted Rogers.
The dark-featured manager felt carefully of his well-
knotted necktie while he concentrated upon his reply.
“About an hour, I think. Probably walking around. He
walks a good deal.”
"Who 'else?" pressed Stocker.
"Well”—the manager lowered his voice until it was
scarcely above a whisper—“if you weren't a minion of the
law, Dick, I wouldn't be telling you this.”
“Yes, but I am," asserted the deputy seriously. “Who
else?"
“Vivian Ellis. I didn't see her go out. She came in just
after I had knocked off work and was thinking of going to
bed. I was standing at the door. She was getting out of a
car. Sounded like a big car, if you know what I mean. It
backed away from the hotel almost with no noise, and dis-
appeared in the direction of Furnace Creek—or, at least,


114
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
"Sure. Okeh. Go ahead.”
We moved toward the door and encountered Vivian
Ellis just outside. She smiled and nodded to me and to
Rogers. Rogers apparently was intent on leading us out
to the cars where Morris Pine and Otis Barton stood talk-
ing, when he stopped as if remembering something.
“Oh, Miss Ellis," he began. “You're a writer of the
Western scene, I understand.”
"Yes?”
“My friend here is somebody you should meet. Come
here, Dick.” He took hold of Stocker's arm, and turned
him about to face the woman. “If I may, Miss Ellis, per-
mit me-Deputy Sheriff Dick Stocker of Inyo County.
Dick knows the desert better than any other man I can
name.”
Stocker took off his shapeless hat and bowed awkwardly,
while Vivian Ellis expressed a vague pleasure at making
his acquaintance. In daylight I had a better look at the
woman who claimed to be not only a writer but the author
of at least one thing I had written myself. Her eyes were
dark blue, with a level, calculating expression in them.
They were easily the dominant feature, although the
others were extraordinarily good. Obviously she was a
woman of depth and force and enigma.
“Dick just now," began Rogers, “is engaged in a man
hunt. Man hunting in the desert has its odd angles.”
“Yes?” replied Vivian Ellis, endeavoring to be inter-
ested.
“Not satisfied with tracking down the mystery of one
death in the desert, he has now taken on the problem of
the second before the first one is solved."
“I hadn't heard anything about any mysteries, Pro-


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
115
fessor,” Vivian Ellis replied. She took a silver cigarette
case from her handbag. Rogers obligingly supplied her
with a lighted match. “Thank you,” she said, smiling at
him.
“Haven't you heard about the body that was found
down in Pahrump Valley, and how it later disappeared
from Dick's truck?".
“Tell me about it.”
Rogers outlined the story briefly, omitting only the
morning's developments concerning the identification of
the body.
“And now, we have a crime even closer home than
that,” he continued. “A man who's name is known. John
Foster, a mechanic at the garage, was killed last night, or,
rather, murdered in cold blood. Sometime after ten-thirty.
That's the immediate problem. Who killed him? Ob-
viously somebody who was abroad last night after ten-
thirty.”
The woman's eyes became set for a moment, then her
glance shifted. She looked down the length of the arcade,
then back to Rogers and smiled.
"You're not, I suppose, hinting that I may know some-
thing about the murder?” Her tone was disarming.
“Do you know anything about it?" Rogers inquired
casually.
"Certainly not!” she snapped. She started to move away
and Stocker blocked her path. “Let me by, please,” she
demanded, her temper rising.
“Pardon me, ma'am,” said Stocker apologetically, lift-
ing his battered hat, “but you're bein' questioned.'
“Oh, I am, am I?”
“Yes. I'm the deputy sheriff in charge of this investiga-


116
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
tion. I hope you'll tell us what you know without makin'
any trouble.”
There was an implied threat in his tone which the
woman understood. She stared up at him for a moment,
then smiled as if to imply that she had been joking.
"I can't understand what you think I might know about
the murder of a man I'd never heard of.”
“Nobody's accusin' you, ma'am, of killin' him. In fact,
you couldn't have killed him, not the way he died, un-
less you're a whole lot stronger than you look to be. But
maybe you know something that will help us out."
“Thank you for exonerating me, Mr. Stocker,” she re-
plied with a faint suggestion of sarcasm in her voice.
"You see—I'm more interested in this fellow Harry By-
ers. What he might know about it,”
"Well?" she spoke sharply.
“You got out of his car last night here in front of the
hotel at eleven-thirty. I was just wonderin'-".
“That's my private affair. My daughter and I—"
"Your daughter wasn't with you, ma'am.”
"Oh!” she exclaimed. “You accuse me of lying!"
“Yes, I guess I do.” Stocker waited respectfully for her
reply, but there was none coming. “You see, you and
Byers went somewhere together. Byers wanted to see John
Foster last night. Did you drive over to John's house? It's
a little place the other side of the railroad. Stands on the
desert all by itself.”
"Mr. Byers wanted to tell me something, if it's any of
your business," she flung at him. "What he wanted to
tell me hasn't anything to do with your question—".
"Could it be about your husband slappin' Byers at the
inn last night?”


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
117
"What do you know about it?”
"I just heard that he did, is all. And, now, did you drive
over to this house?” persisted Stocker.
“Yes.”
“Did you and Byers go inside?”
“I stayed outside in the car. Harry went in for a little
while. That's all I know. We drove farther out into the
desert, and then came back to the hotel. That's abso-
lutely all—"
"When Harry Byers came out of Foster's house," Rogers
interrupted, "was he excited about anything that might
have occurred inside?"
"He didn't even mention what, if anything, happened.
He didn't tell me what he went there for. If you think he
killed the man you're absolutely wrong. He couldn't
have"
"Was he excited, or upset?”
“Absolutely not. He was as calm as I am now."
“Thank you, Miss Ellis,” Rogers smiled as he opened
the lobby door for her.


І І
"'I DON'T know that I would call her exactly calm,” I com-
mented to Stocker and Rogers as Vivian Ellis disappeared
from view. “Anybody whose hands shake like hers, and
who throws away a cigarette after the first drag on it,
isn't calm.”
“Not exactly,” agreed Rogers. "Well, shall we go?”.
We moved over to the cars. Morris Pine, who had stood
with Otis Barton beside the ranger's car, overhearing
what was said, asked me who the woman was. I told him
and he made a note of her name.
“How about hunting up Byers now?” suggested Stocker.
“Of course. Wallace Lambert too,” Rogers replied.
Lambert was the first to be encountered. For, as it hap-
pened, about half an hour later, when we were nearing
Zabriskie Point, we saw him driving up the wash toward
us in his desert-stained coupé. We flagged him down and
drew up alongside him at the edge of the road, not bother-
ing to get out of the cars.
The man listened without comment to the news of the
murder at Death Valley Junction. There was not the least
shadow of emotion in his stolid manner, no reaction be-
yond a mere acceptance of what might have been a small
bit of neighborhood gossip. At his continued silence
Stocker was moved to ask a question.
"You knew Foster, didn't you, Mr. Lambert?"
“Oh, yes. Lazy sort; but, on the whole, a nice fellow."
“Here's what we're gettin' at,” pursued Stocker, looking
118


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
119
away up the wash, then back at Lambert, "where were you
last night from about ten-thirty to eleven-fifteen, when
you got back to the Amargosa?"
The man did not reply for some moments, and then
he remarked quite matter-of-factly: “If you're thinking,
Stocker, that I killed him, you're wrong. In the first place,
I wouldn't have any reason to kill him. He was an inoffen-
sive sort; never did me any harm; never gave me any
reason to want to kill him. Fortunately, I've had almost
no quarrels in my lifetime, certainly none of them of the
sort to result in a killing.”
"Did you happen to be in the vicinity of Foster's house
while you were out last night, Mr. Lambert?” inquired
Rogers.
“I went the other way, Professor. Down along the Green-
water road.” He fixed Rogers with his cold eyes, as if he
had remembered something. “I told you I was sleepy and
was going to bed last night, Professor, when I left you and
your young friend. That's only an excuse I use when I
don't want to talk any longer of an evening."
“I don't mind that,” returned Rogers solemnly. “Have
you any suggestions at all that might throw light on the
Foster murder?"
“None whatever, gentlemen. I'll be going.”
Without waiting for Stocker to indicate that he was
satisfied with the questioning, the iron-gray, stolid man
started his motor and engaged the clutch. In a few mo-
ments he was rolling up the road toward Death Valley
Junction.
“Well, he's at least certain in his own mind that he
knows nothing about it," I remarked to Rogers as we
dropped in behind Otis Barton's car.


120
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
But Rogers did not reply. He seemed lost in thought
and remained slumped down in his seat the rest of the
way to the inn.
We stopped at the inn with the purpose of finding
Harry Byers and requiring him to tell us what happened
in the drab little house on the edge of the desert. But
the man had vanished. There was no answer when we
telephoned his room. The clerk at the desk could tell us
nothing. We scouted the lounge, the long lobby, the bar,
the swimming pool and the terraces. Neither did we see
anything of his companion, Keith Hayes. At last we en-
countered Ruth Downes as she drove up to the inn in a
beige-colored sports coupé. Her dark hair was bound
tightly to her head by a gay scarf, and her cheeks were
fresh from contact with the cool air.
“Harry Byers?” she echoed the name when Rogers ques-
tioned her. “Oh, yes. He and Keith Hayes are climbing
up the mountain from Bad Water to Dante's View this
afternoon. I drove them down there just before lunch.
They expect to hike back along the road to the inn. I'm
supposed to pick them up about four o'clock wherever I
find them on the road."
"Where's your father?"
"Father? Probably taking a nap. He always takes a nap
after lunch. He eats too much. The poor dear can't stand
anything. He had to go to bed right away after he slapped
Harry Byers. Imagine that!”
She seemed gay and untroubled. All trace of her argu-
mentative mood of the preceding evening had vanished.
She waited while an attendant parked her car and brought
her back the keys. She opened her bag, dropped them in-
side and, with a smile in our direction, ran up the steps


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
121
to the lobby, abandoning us where we stood at the foot
of the steps.
I was reminded that Rogers and I had set out earlier in
the day with the purpose of making a search for the miss-
ing clothing of the dead man. The murder of John Foster
had intervened and the mission had been forgotten. When I
mentioned it now, Rogers dismissed it as of no importance.
“Later,” he said, “not now.”
"The CCC boys are looking for the clothing in addition
to the body,” Otis Barton remarked. “If the things are find-
able, they'll find them.” He consulted his watch. “I've got
some other things to look after this afternoon. If you'll
excuse me, I'll be on my way."
“Go ahead,” Stocker urged him. “We don't need you,
Otis. Nothin' to do until Byers shows up this evening. I'm
not going to climb the Black Mountains this afternoon to
find a guy who'll come back to the inn at suppertime.”
"All right. See you later.” The ranger stepped into his
car and whirled away around the inn.
The ranger's going seemed to leave us at even more of a
loose end. Morris Pine glanced up at the inn towering
above us on its terraces, and then down at the camp below
us among the trees of the ranch.
“I'd like to go down to the camp and see if they can find
room for me, if you don't mind driving me down, fellows,”
he requested.
“Let's go," I said. “Come on, Dick. You're stopping at
the camp too, aren't you?”
"Yeah.”
The next moment, however, Pine started climbing the
steps to the inn. He went up six or eight steps, stooped and
picked up a folded piece of paper, then turned back down


122
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
the steps toward us.
“What have you found, Morris?" Rogers asked, mildly
curious.
Pine opened the folded paper, glanced at its contents
and then gave it to Rogers. “You probably know more
about poetry than I do, Hunt. It's signed 'Vivian Ellis,’ so
I guess the Downes girl must have dropped it just now-
don't you think?"
“Probably,” said Rogers, scanning the lines neatly typed
on the large sheet of paper. We waited for him to read it
through. He glanced up at the end. “Not bad,” he said, “for
at Death Valley. She seems to have been powerfully moved
by Nature's handiwork. Shall I read her reactions to you,
Joe?” Rogers grinned.
“No," I groaned. “Lady poets are poison ivy to me."
Rogers glanced up at the lobby entrance as if he were
about to set out in search of Ruth Downes and restore her
mother's poem to her.
"Come on,” said Stocker. “You can give it back to her
next time you see her.”
The four of us climbed into the car and drove down to
the camp office, where Pine obtained a room. And, then,
with a boy to direct us riding on the running board, I drove
him down a tree-lined way to his room.
“Come on in, fellows,” Pine invited as the boy opened
the door of a corrugated-iron cottage. “We can sit around
and be comfortable, while you give me the whole story of
this Austin thing-if it is Austin—from first to last.”
Sitting in the cool, comfortable room, first Stocker and
then Rogers went over the story as each knew it, while
Pine, half reclining on the bed, made occasional notes.


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
123
“What's the motive, do you think, Hunt, for the killing
of Austin, if it is Austin? Or have you got that far in your
thinking?”
Rogers was long in answering. He leaned back in his
chair, his mild blue eyes fixed upon some vague spot be-
yond the walls of the room. “I don't know any motive, Mor-
ris. I don't know what possible motive the murderer could
have for such a crime. You can run over all the motives for
murder in the calendar, and you can't say which one, if
any, of them fits. Any one of several different motives might
explain the unusual circumstances under which he died.
But which?”
“Revenge?” suggested Pine, his restless eyes busy with
Rogers' relaxed figure.
“The fiendishness of it suggests revenge. But you can't
be sure. Assuming, as we are, that the body found in Pah-
rump Valley is that of Judge Austin, I'd have to know more
about the man's background than I do now to assign a
motive for the death he died.”
As he talked, Rogers' gaze came to rest upon Dick Stocker,
who sat, elbows on his chair arms, battered hat pushed up
from his forehead, cigarette clinging to his lower lip, staring
into space. Something else was growing in importance in
Rogers' thoughts even while he talked of motive. He left
off finally and gazed fixedly at the deputy with something
approaching fascination. Stocker became aware of this scru-
tiny. His china-blue eyes lifted to Rogers' face.
"What's eatin' on you, Hunt?” he demanded, using Rog-
ers' given name for the first time.
Rogers was quick to reply. “Something important, Dick.
Right now it appeals to me as far more important than any
motive I know of in the so-called Austin case.”


124
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
"What?” The deputy's interest was aroused.
“Let's review what already has happened.” Rogers paused
for a moment, then began again. “You and Foster went
down to Pahrump Valley to bring back the body of a dead
man. You got back to Death Valley Junction with it with-
out incident. Foster left you there and went about his own
affairs. You started out for Independence that night, but
the body was stolen from your truck somewhere before
you reached Panamint Springs. And remains lost up to the
present.”
“That's all correct,” agreed the deputy.
“To continue," Rogers went on, “the next morning Joe
Hibbard and I went down to Pahrump Valley, and investi-
gated the scene of the crime. We back tracked several miles
and found a coat with all labels removed, and nothing in
the pockets. We found a shirt, an undershirt and a neck-
tie. Labels also had been removed from these. Still farther
on the back track we discovered on some soft, flat rocks
embedded flush with the ground, what obviously had been
a message left by the doomed man. The message was sev-
eral times repeated. But someone, presumably the killer,
had obliterated the signature of the writer and the name
of the man he accused of having ‘done this to him.'”.
“Could those be photographed, do you think, Hunt?”
demanded Pine, thrusting his face forward in his interest.
"If you first outlined the marks with a piece of chalk for
contrast, I'm sure you could." Rogers waited for a further
question, but there was none. “Now, then, Dick,” he re-
sumed, “see what happened when Joe and I returned to the
Amargosa and stopped over long enough for dinner and
a little lobby conversation. It was dark when we left for
Furnace Creek. We picked up Ruth Downes and Harry


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
125
Byers, whose car had broken down. When we reached the
inn and later thought to obtain the clothing from the car,
it had disappeared. Did it disappear at Death Valley Junc-
tion or at the inn? I don't know. Who would steal it? I
don't think anybody would steal it, except the one per-
son responsible for the man's death in Pahrump Valley.”
"Well, I guess you're right,” agreed Stocker.
“Now, then, we come to the death of Foster. I'll tell you
the motive for his death right now, and I'll not change it
later. For there's nothing more certain in what has hap-
pened so far than that Foster was murdered to close his
mouth.”
"What did he know that I don't?” asked Stocker, slightly
surprised.
“Nothing.”
The silence in the room grew prolonged. Stocker leaned
forward to drop his cigarette end in the ash tray. He glanced
at Rogers, then away to the dense foliage of a tamarisk tree
outside the window.
"You see, Dick,” Rogers began again, “we're dealing with
a man with an uncanny knack for figuring all the angles.
He's cunning; he's ruthless; he's thoroughly familiar with
the problem with which he is faced; he anticipates our every
move, and he's carrying through some well-thought-out,
some carefully planned plot which cannot as yet have
reached its culmination.”
"It sure begins to look like it," agreed Stocker.
“But don't you see what I'm getting at, Dick?" Rogers
eyed the deputy sheriff narrowly.
“Maybe I do.”
“You and Foster went down together to get the body,
didn't you?”


126
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
“Yes."
“The two of you wrapped it in canvas and brought it
back.”
“Yes."
“Then the wrapped body disappeared before anyone
else examined it.”
"It did.”
“That left you and Foster as the only persons qualified
to identify it." Rogers paused significantly. “And John
Foster is dead.”
Stocker made no answer. He glanced at Rogers, then his
gaze shifted to the tree outside the window. He felt in his
pocket for his tobacco, and gave his whole attention to roll-
ing a cigarette. He exploded a match on his thumbnail be-
fore he replied.
“I get you, Hunt,” he said. “Since I'm the only one left
alive who can look at a picture and say whether it is or it
ain't of the dead man, then I'm marked for the next victim.”
“That's my meaning exactly. Do you believe it?”
"Well," Stocker hesitated, “you've got a good argument.
So have I.” He patted the heavy revolver underneath his
coat.
“But you're crazy, Dick, if you think you're safe!” Rogers
exclaimed. “The man won't give you a chance. He has the
advantage—he's unknown to you. And he could, prob-
ably would, remain unknown to you until that last split
second, when it wouldn't do you any good. That's the kind
of murderer we're dealing with. There's something he has
planned to do, something yet to be achieved, and nothing
will be permitted to stand in his way. You'll go out like a
light when he strikes."
"What can I do about it?” Stocker asked. He held his


I 2
THERE was no arguing with the man. He had made up his
mind.
Rogers put an end to it by saying: “Well, Dick, at least
you know your danger. And that's your best defense; you'll
be on your guard.” He looked at the watch on his wrist.
“What do you say that we get on up to the inn? It's nearly
five. If Ruth Downes was going to pick up Harry Byers
and his companion about four somewhere on the road to
Dante's View, they could be getting back by this time if
they came directly to the inn.”
“Let's go,” said Stocker, rising and starting toward the
door.
When we reached the inn, however, our man had not
returned. We looked through the lobby and the lounge.
There was no response when we telephoned Byers' room.
In a chair on the terrace, tapping the ferrule of a gold-
headed cane impatiently upon the stone flooring, was the
elderly Mrs. Treadwick. As we drew near her at one point
in our search for her nephew, she hailed Rogers and me.
“I'm Mrs. Treadwick,” she began in the frayed voice of
the aged. “What's this I hear about a body being found in
some lonesome valley?".
“That's true, Mrs. Treadwick,” Rogers began. “The
man"
"Well, who was it?" she demanded.
"That's what several of us would like to know too."
128


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
129
“Don't they know anything about him? Was he a tender-
foot?”
“The clothing indicated he was from the city."
“Which city? Detroit?”
"Well”—Rogers laughed shortly—“we don't know. The
labels were all cut from his clothing. If they hadn't been
we might have said that he was from Detroit, or Chicago, or
Kansas City. Why Detroit? Why did you mention Detroit,
Mrs. Treadwick?”
The old lady stared at him shrewdly before she replied.
“Why shouldn't I say the first thing that comes into my
head, young man?"
"It's natural that you would, of course," Rogers smiled.
“There's some ground, though, for believing that he was
from Detroit.”
"It wasn't Judge Austin, was it?" she inquired.
“Possibly.” Rogers' glance searched the aged face. “Did
Judge Austin's name just happen to pop into your mind,
too, Mrs. Treadwick?”.
“I've often wondered what became of that man,” she
evaded, adding with a note of complaint in her voice. “The
newspapers don't print much about him any more the way
they did a few months back. I think that's what's wrong
with the papers. They get you all worked up about some-
thing like the Austin case, then they don't follow up with
it, and you never know what finally happened.”
“Did you, by any chance, happen to know Judge Aus-
tin?”
The old woman shot a glance at Rogers, and her dark
eyes seemed suddenly to blaze with fire. “No, no," she said
emphatically. “I never cared for the man. I don't know him
at all.” She gazed steadily at her questioner with almost a


130
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
glare in her dark eyes. “I never heard of him until he dis-
appeared. Are you a detective?"
“Only in an amateur capacity. Thank you, Mrs. Tread-
wick.”
We retreated along the terrace to the farther end, where
we sat down on the wall to watch the sunset fading from
the high peaks of the Panamints and await the return of
Harry Byers.
“You called the old lady Treadwick, Hunt,” remarked
“Does the name mean anything to you?”
"She's hooked up somehow in my mind, but I can't tell
you now.”
"She's from around Chicago. Evanston, I believe,” Rogers
said.
“I'll think of it, if you give me time.”
But Morris Pine hadn't recalled anything in connection
with Mary Treadwick up until the time Harry Byers and
Keith Hayes came up the steps together. Stocker called
Byers over to where we sat.
"What's on your minds, gentlemen?" the man asked,
halting before us.
He had a way of looking at you as if he were searching
out your most vulnerable point in case of sudden attack,
then shifting his gaze. This mannerism was coupled with a
subtle attitude that you, unlike him, were of some vague
and obscure origin and, therefore, of no importance. The
small, dark eyes set in his swarthy face seldom came to rest
for more than a moment upon anybody with whom he
spoke.
"We want to go into a little matter with you, Byers,”
Stocker began, with a hard note in his voice.


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
131
"Yeah? But tell me who you are first. I've not had the
pleasure.”
"I'm Dick Stocker, deputy sheriff of Inyo County. I'm
investigatin' a murder or two around this part of the
county.”
“Go on,” said Byers irritatingly.
“You drove up last night to Death Valley Junction, didn't
you? And you stopped at the garage about ten-thirty or a
quarter of eleven, and tried to get Harvey Lefevre, the
night man, to go down the road and tow in your car, didn't
you? And when Harvey said it could wait till morning, you
swelled up and wanted to know where John Foster lived.
Didn't you? And when Harvey told you, you went over to
the Amargosa and got the Ellis woman out and went over
to see Foster. Didn't you? You went inside Foster's house
for a while, didn't you? You came out and drove off into
the desert, turned around, drove back and left the Ellis
woman at the Amargosa at a quarter after eleven or there-
abouts. Didn't you?”
"Really, Mr. Sheriff, your information is astounding."
“Didn't you?" demanded Stocker, overlooking Byers' re-
mark.
"Yes. But since that's a perfectly normal evening, and
quite my own private affair, what damned business is it of
yours?"
"It's my business now,” Stocker asserted, his temper un-
ruffled. “I want to know how the argument started.”
“There was no argument.” Byers' manner was wary.
"You're in pretty good physical condition, aren't you?"
The deputy's question seemed irrelevant.
"I'm always in good condition.” The man made a ges-
ture which ended with palms outward toward Stocker. His


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY 133
“Did he have his coat on?”
"No. In fact, he'd taken his shirt off. I remember now.”
“Couldn't you have transacted your business at the door,
under the eyes of Miss Ellis?" Rogers continued.
"He asked me inside."
“And there was no argument, and you didn't kill him?”
“That's right.”
"Was he nervous, as if he were expecting trouble?”
"He was quite calm.”
Rogers was thoughtful while Byers stood before us in the
fast-gathering dusk, eager to be off but not daring to go.
"What can you offer us in the way of information, Byers,
that might help out? Foster was choked to death after con-
siderable of a fight in his house last night as early, pos-
sibly, as eleven o'clock."
“So that's what happened!” Byers was silent for a mo-
ment. “But what would I know about it? Foster was alone
when I saw him. And, as I say, apparently wasn't expecting
anybody.”
“Did you meet anybody on the road going to or coming
from Foster's house who acted suspiciously? Any strange
cars? Anyone on foot?”
"On foot?" Byers thought a moment. “Yes, we did. Miss
Ellis and I drove out the Johnnie road a few miles after I
talked with Foster. The road isn't much, and when it be-
gan to get rough I turned around and drove back into the
Junction. Just as we crossed the railroad track a man was
walking ahead of us toward the Amargosa. He stepped off
to the side to let us pass.”
"What sort of a man?” Stocker inquired.
“Oh”-Byers hesitated significantly—“I thought I recog-
nized a man who's staying here at the inn. That is, I think


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
135
but I'm goin' down there."
“We'll join you,” said Rogers.
We climbed into the car and dropped down the hill onto
the lower level of the valley, where the extensive ranch with
its cottages and headquarters buildings loomed like a dark
blot in the larger darkness of the evening. I nosed the car
up among others parked along the covered porch, locked
it, and joined the group at the lunch counter.
The day had been strenuous, and we were all hungry. So
far as I could discover, however, we were no further ad-
vanced in the solution of the mystery than we had been
at this time the evening before. And added to our diffi-
culties was the death of John Foster which as yet remained
a mystery with the other. We had seen nothing of Otis Bar-
ton since early afternoon, so the result of the day's search on
the part of the CCC boys was unknown.
When I mentioned it, Rogers said: “Barton will be down
at the camp this evening. I noticed when we came in that
he's billed for a lecture tonight in the hall.”
Even so, I felt that had anything of the missing body
been discovered we would have heard of it before now. And
so it turned out when we saw the ranger before he began
his talk to the audience assembled in the hall to hear him.
“Not a thing,” he answered in answer to Rogers' ques-
tion, his eyes roving over the audience as he stood at the
rear waiting for time to begin. “As I said, the valley is big;
but in two days' time they've covered a lot of territory, all
of it the more likely places adjacent to the roads. Still noth-
ing, however.”
"Nothing of the missing clothing, either?”
"No."
Rogers' gaze, roving about the room, came to rest upon


136
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
the figure of George Downes, just as mine had. I was think-
ing of the accusation that Harry Byers had made up at the
inn, that he had seen Downes walking along the road near
John Foster's shack at about the time the man had been
murdered. If this were true, then Downes would have some
explaining to do. The ranger looked at his wrist watch, and
walked to the front of the hall and immediately began his
talk on the wonders of Death Valley. I caught Roger's eye
and drew him outside.
“You noticed Downes in there, didn't you?" I inquired.
Stocker came over and joined us, and with him was Mor-
ris Pine.
“You know," began Rogers thoughtfully, “I've been won-
dering ever since we questioned Harry Byers just how much
is truth and how much is fiction in what he said."
Dick Stocker stared at him in the dim light and said noth-
ing.
"Why do you say that?” inquired Pine. “He sounded like
he was telling a pretty straight story."
"You didn't see Downes slap Byers last night in the
lobby of the inn, Morris," Rogers answered. “And because
of the peculiar triangular situation existing, Downes to
Byers to Vivian Ellis, as it were, you wonder if Byers
wouldn't like very much to involve Downes in Foster's
murder. It's not beyond him."
“I agree with you, Hunt,” I said.
“It doesn't sound reasonable, does it,” Rogers pointed
out, “that Downes, who is stopping at the inn, would be
on foot at the spot Byers says he saw him, which is thirty
miles from the inn? If he were in that vicinity at all he
would have driven there and would be driving, not walk-


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
137
ing. It's doubtful that it was Downes whom Byers says he
saw.”
“We'll talk to Downes when he comes out,” announced
Stocker.
We sat down on the edge of the porch outside and waited.
There was no hurry. Downes would be available whenever
the ranger's talk was finished. Moreover, it was pleasant sit-
ting there talking idly, listening to the sound of a guitar
being played in the darkness somewhere near by. I got up
once and stepped inside the hall to see how Otis Barton's
talk was progressing. He was speaking of the birds in the
monument, particularly of the rock and the canyon wrens,
those mysterious, difficult-to-see little birds whose songs
carried like faint whisperings along the rugged rock faces
of the mountains. I came out and sat down again to wait.
The first of the audience began shortly to file out. I
looked inside. Several persons remained for questions which
were being put to the ranger. Suddenly a figure confronted
me in the doorway.
"Oh, Mr. Downes,” I said.
“Hello, Mr. Hibbard,” he answered pleasantly, offering
me his soft hand to shake. “Interesting talk the ranger
made. I wanted to hear it last night at the inn, but I didn't
have the opportunity. So I came down here tonight.”
"I don't see your daughter."
"Ruth wasn't interested in coming."
I had drawn him to one side of the entrance. Rogers and
Stocker came up behind him, with Pine bringing up their
rear, and thus we surrounded him.
"What is this, gentlemen?" He glanced about almost in
alarm.


138
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
“Just a few questions, Mr. Downes," Rogers smiled at
him. “If you don't mind.”
“Questions?” he repeated. “Questions? Why, what have
I done?”
“That's what we want to find out,” Stocker asserted.
“Ask me anything you like, gentlemen,” he said, ges-
turing with open arms.
“You know, of course, of the finding of the body in Pah-
rump Valley. You and I were talking about it yesterday
morning.”
“Oh, yes, Professor."
“There was murder last night at the Junction. A man
named Foster—"
"Foster? I don't know him. I wouldn't, naturally, being
a stranger.”
“A mechanic at the garage. Anyway, he was murdered
last night as early as eleven o'clock, possibly. It could have
been later. Now, here's what we're getting at. One indi-
vidual, who admits that he was driving near the scene of
the murder late last night, says that he saw you walking
along the road in the direction of the Amargosa Hotel. You
stepped out of the road to let the car pass—"
“Me?" the man said in utmost astonishment. “Me? Walk-
ing along the road in Death Valley Junction late last night.
Why, my dear fellow, that's absolutely absurd! Who told
you that?” he asked suspiciously. His voice took on a de-
termined tone. "Was it Byers? The man I slapped last
night?”
"Yes,” answered Stocker.
"Well”—Downes opened his hands in a gesture that im-
plied vindication—"what else can I expect of him? A fel-
low like that! After I've just slapped him.”


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
139
“Then you say you weren't the fellow?” asked Stocker.
"Yes, sir; that's exactly what I say. I'll tell you where I
was at the time. I was in bed at the inn, completely done
in. It was a shock to me to have to strike the fellow. To
realize, you understand, that I was obliged to demean my-
self to the level of a common brawler. It unnerved me. I
went to bed—my daughter will tell you the same story. She
came in to sit with me. Why-I met you, didn't I, outside
the inn just after I slapped the fellow? I'd had to walk
around outside a bit to cool off. I left you and went im-
mediately to bed. It did something to my nerves.”
"Well”—Rogers brought an end to the questioning-
“thank you, Mr. Downes. Sorry to have troubled you. But
we're glad to have that particular bit cleared up."
“Yes. Well, so am I.” Downes hesitated a moment awk-
wardly. "Well, good night, gentlemen. I'll be going back
to the inn. Can I give any of you a lift?”
“No, thank you."
Downes walked the length of the porch toward the parked
cars, selected a beige-colored coupé, backed it out and a
moment later drove swiftly out of the camp gate.
“Well,” remarked Morris Pine, stepping off the porch
and starting away from us, “I'm going to hit the hay. I'm
tired. See you all tomorrow."
"Wait a minute, Pine, and I'll walk up that way with
you,” Stocker called, stepping off the porch to join him.
“Good night, Hunt, and Joe,” he said.
We exchanged good nights and stood watching after their
shadowy figures until they disappeared from view. Otis
Barton came out of the hall at last, still answering politely
the questions of a middle-aged tourist who was greatly in-
terested in the sand dunes of the valley. He finally satisfied


140
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
her thirst for knowledge, and joined us at the porch edge.
He was tired from his day's activities. He stood slapping his
thigh with his gloves, his stiff-brimmed hat pushed upon
the back of his head, his neat military figure somewhat re-
laxed from its usual erectness.
As we stood there talking idly of calling it a day, and
wondering what the morrow might hold for us, there came
from among the cottages beyond the filling station the
sound of an explosion. For a moment we did not recog-
nize the sound for what it was and stood silently intent.
Then Otis Barton stiffened. Suddenly he leaped off the
porch and started running in the direction of the sound.
“That wasn't any backfire,” he called to Rogers and me
as we ran too.
Past the filling station and down the long row of corru-
gated-iron cottages we ran. We heard stirrings in the cot-
tages; doors were opening; other running feet than our
own sounded on the hard gravel. As if by instinct we halted
in front of one of the cottages. Morris Pine was just emerg-
ing upon the little porch. He saw us, and recognized us
in the dim light.
"Come in quick!” he called.
He slammed back against the open screen door, making
way for us, and we crowded through the doorway not
knowing what horrible thing we might see.
It was difficult at first to grasp what had occurred. For
staggering about the room, blood running down over his
left ear and upon the collar of his shirt, was Dick Stocker.
His eyes seemed glazed; he stared at us as if he did not
know who we were. Then of a sudden he collapsed upon
the bed and lay limp.


142
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
think the bullet just grazed his skull. How are you coming,
old man?” he said, addressing Stocker with lifted voice.
There was no noticeable response. The man lay inert;
the rugged face, however, and the firm lips held no sug-
gestion of serious injury.
“He didn't have time to pull his own gun," I pointed out,
noting the revolver in its holster underneath his arm.
"Guess not.” Pine went over to close the door and shut
out the curious onlookers. “This is a double cottage,” he
said, coming back. “I have the other side of it. Stocker
hardly had time to get inside before it happened. I said
good night to him, and opened my door at the same time
he did his. I had only taken off my hat when I heard the
shot.”
I went to a window which was open and from which the
draperies were pushed back. There was a hole made by the
bullet about the center of the screen. I closed the window
and pulled the draperies over it, although with the excite-
ment in the camp and with Rogers, I was sure, leading a
searching party there was no chance that the attempt would
be repeated.
"How are you coming, old man?” Pine's voice was raised
again in a cheerful note of inquiry to the wounded deputy.
In response Stocker opened and closed the thick, rough
fingers of his right hand, which lay upon the pink bed-
spread. He began slowly to flex the muscles of his arms. A
towel had been placed underneath his head and a few
drops of blood had trickled down upon it. He reached up
before his eyes.
“Better lie still, Dick," I cautioned. “I wouldn't move
about too much, if I were you. Barton went to telephone.


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
143
He'll have a doctor here before you know it.”
“Hell!” said Stocker, his voice almost normal. "I'm all
right.”
"You had a close call,” Pine told him.
"I guess I did. Hunt Rogers was right, wasn't he?"
“I'll say he was. Now, don't talk any more. Want a drink
of water?”
“Yes, please, Joe.”
I got a glass of water and helped him to drink a few
swallows. He lay back upon the bed, staring at the ceiling.
Pine sat down in a chair and lighted a cigarette, while I
opened the door and went outside, wishing that I had gone
with Rogers in what probably, I felt, would be a vain pur-
suit. People crowded around me, sharply outlined forms
casting fantastic shadows in the light of a single, glaring
electric bulb overhead.
“Yes, of course, it's serious," I answered one inquirer,
and then a strange impulse prompted me to add, “I don't
see how he can get well. Hit in the head like that,”
"Who got shot?" inquired the woman tourist who had
been interested in sand dunes.
"A deputy sheriff working on a murder case here in the
valley.”
“Oh! You think he's going to die?”
I shrugged my shoulders and went back inside and
locked the door.
"Listen, Pine,” I said, drawing him to the bathroom,
where the rallying Stocker could not overhear us. “Maybe
I've started something. I gave them the impression out there
that Stocker's going to die. I don't think he is, but I don't
see why it isn't a good idea to spread the news.”
"How so?” he inquired suspiciously, standing back from


144
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
me, his shoulders squared.
“The man who tried to kill him can't check on whether
he dies or not. If he hears that Dick died, he'll lay off snip-
ing at him.”
"You'll have to keep him out of circulation, then, when
he gets up and about."
The sound of a car outside cut short our conversation.
There was a pounding on the door, and I went to unlock
it. Doctor Frank Jonas, a thin, long-legged man whose
head was almost bald, rushed in with his medical kit, fol-
lowed by Otis Barton and a couple of stretcher-bearers. I
locked the door. Dick Stocker suddenly sat up on the edge
of the bed and swung his legs down to the floor.
“Don't do that, please,” said Doctor Jonas firmly. “Lie
back again.”
“Nothin' wrong with me, Doc. A little sore spot on my
head is all.”
The doctor pushed him gently down, drew a floor lamp
close beside the bed, and proceeded to examine the dep-
uty's wound.
"Is that the only place you were struck?" he demanded
after some moments of close inspection.
“Yep.”
"You're lucky. But you're going to sleep out at the in-
firmary tonight so we can make sure just how lucky you
are.”
“Oh, no,” protested Stocker. "I'll stay here."
“You'll do as I say. You'll be carried to the ambulance,
and you'll ride stretched out like that to the infirmary."
“Okeh,” said Stocker resignedly.
He was lifted upon the stretcher and carried outside to
the waiting ambulance through a lane formed by the si-


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
145
lent, curious cottagers lined up on either side, who fancied
they looked upon a dying man. Otis Barton and the doctor
swung up inside the ambulance alongside Stocker, and the
car pulled swiftly away in the direction of the CCC camp
at park headquarters.
The crowd faded quickly, and Morris Pine and I were
left alone on the steps of the small cottage. I was far from
sleepy after what had happened, and Pine, who earlier had
confessed that he was ready for bed, was now awake and
restless.
We walked up the cottage-bordered lane toward camp
headquarters. The attack was being discussed among the
late stayers about the lobby, and on the porch outside.
Rogers had disappeared. No one seemed to know where he
was. We looked about in obvious places without discover-
ing him, and finally sat down on the porch to wait.
Otis Barton of a sudden appeared, walking rapidly in at
the camp gates. He came up to us and halted.
"We thought you'd gone with the ambulance,” I said.
"It wasn't really necessary. I got out a half mile down
the road and walked back. My car is here. I got to thinking
about the bullet. Did you find the bullet in the room?"
“Didn't think to look," I said, gazing at Pine. “Did you?"
"No."
“Let's go get it,” urged Barton.
We met Rogers near the filling station as he was coming
up from the direction of the stables. He stopped us.
“You can see I'm empty-handed,” he said apologetically.
“It always turns out that way. I'm a fool to run at a time
like that, for it's always wasted effort. I'd much better stay
on the ground.”
"Where all have you been?"


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
147
car up at camp headquarters when I went by there a while
ago. What's he doing down here?”
"I don't know. Why, you don't think he had anything
to do with this?” The ranger's alert brown eyes searched
Rogers' face intently.
“I'm merely asking.”
“He's the last fellow, I should say, who'd take a shot at
Dick Stocker,” Barton said, as if defending the man.
“I don't dispute you, Otis." Rogers was serious. “I merely
saw his car there alongside Joe's, and I wondered what he
was doing so far from Death Valley Junction at this hour.
It's getting late.”
“Let's find out.” Barton turned on his heel and made for
the door.
We walked to camp headquarters. The stars overhead
were brilliant in a velvet sky, and as sharply shining in the
night were the lights up at the inn a mile away. A cool
wind was blowing down the great sweep of the valley, whis-
pering in the branches of the dark tamarisk trees, rattling
the fronds of the few palm trees towering above the camp.
Wallace Lambert was not at first to be found. The lobby
was empty of all save the night clerk. The dining room was
closed and dark. The lights had been turned out in the hall
where Barton earlier had given his lecture, but parked
alongside my car was the desert-stained coupé which we
recognized as belonging to Wallace Lambert. We stood
looking about wonderingly when suddenly a man came
walking in at the main gate to the camp.
“There he comes,” I said.
The others turned to observe the thick, solid figure walk-
ing steadily along the gravel roadway into the circle of light
where we stood. The light was dim, but the slow-moving


148
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
figure was unmistakable. He came without pause or devia-
tion straight to where we stood, his heavy shoes crunching
on the gravel with something of the inevitable progress of
approaching doom, a dark, somber figure, with his black
hat pulled low upon his forehead, the iron-gray mustache
seeming to block out the lower part of his face.
“Good evening,” he said pleasantly as he emerged from
the semidarkness. Apparently he had no thought of paus-
ing, for he continued his steady march in the direction of
his car.
"Mr. Lambert,” called the ranger. From a standing posi-
tion on the porch, Barton dropped suddenly down and sat
upon the top step. “Just a minute."
Lambert halted. "What can I do for you?"
“I wasn't sure it was you coming along there just now.”
"No?”
"Somehow I associate you with the Amargosa. Pretty
late for a man of mature years like yourself to be so far
from home, isn't it?” The ranger's voice was pleasant; his
manner implied an invitation to stop and chat.
“No, sir.” Lambert's reply contained no sign of resent-
ment.
“Won't you sit down for a few minutes?”
“No, thank you. I ought to be getting back up to the
Amargosa.”
“Going all the way back up there tonight alone?" Barton
appeared to take interest in the statement.
“Why not?” The man, however, showed no disposition
to hurry.
Rogers stepped down from the porch and sat alongside
the ranger.
“I don't know why we should beat about the bush with


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
149
you, Mr. Lambert,” he said in a businesslike tone. “There
was an attempt at murder here at the camp half an hour
or so ago.”
"Is that so?” The man was matter-of-fact about it. Rogers
waited for anything he might add, but Lambert displayed
no curiosity.
“Dick Stocker had a narrow escape from death-if he
gets well.”
Wallace Lambert drew his thick watch from his pocket
and peered at it in the dim light, then restored it to its
place.
"I'll have to ask you, Mr. Lambert,” said Barton firmly,
“what you are doing down here tonight?”
"Am I not privileged to come here if I choose?” A faint
note of resentment crept into his tone.
“That's not the point,” Rogers took up. “Do you know
anything about the attempt on Stocker's life?"
“Nothing whatever, sir.” The words were clipped. “If I
must explain my presence here, I'll say that I came down
to the inn for dinner, and to inquire if my friend Judge
Austin by any chance had come in through Lone Pine or
had yet made his reservation.”
"Had he?” Morris Pine inquired.
“No to both of them. I don't understand—”
“What are you doing down at the ranch?” demanded
Rogers.
"Taking a walk before returning to the Junction. I knew
the ranch in the old days before the tourists came. I love
to ramble around when I'll not be disturbed, recalling the
days that used to be.”
“You know nothing, then, of the shooting?"
"I didn't even hear the sound of the shot. Probably I


150
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
was down below the hangar at the landing field at the time.”
There seemed suddenly nothing more to ask the man.
He had answered every question with a show of frankness,
although his replies were strange, I thought. Of a sudden
Otis Barton made a demand of him that changed the pic-
ture completely.
“Give me your gun, Mr. Lambert,” he requested quietly,
holding out his gloved hand for it.
Without any protest whatever at this request the man
reached inside his coat and drew forth a heavy, old-fashioned
revolver, extending it butt foremost to the ranger. Barton
took it, snapped the cylinder out and emptied it into his
left hand. I counted five cartridges and an empty shell. Bar-
ton smelled the end of the barrel, then looked up with
steady gaze at the man standing on the ground before him.
“How come?” he asked pointedly.
The reply was calmly and quickly made. “I took a shot
at a coyote about dusk this evening as I was coming down
to the inn.”
“Inside the monument?"
“Outside. Near the summit of the grade. He was chasing
a rabbit.”
“Get him?"
“Of course.”
The ranger turned the weapon about in his hands. He
slowly pocketed the five cartridges and the empty shell,
snapped the cylinder into place, and said: "I'll keep the
gun for the present, Mr. Lambert.”


14
That scene in front of camp headquarters stayed in my
thoughts until long after it had ended. In fact, I dreamed
about it that night. Only instead of Wallace Lambert say-
ing good night politely as he did, and walking to his coupé
and getting in and driving off without once looking back
at us, he did something entirely different in my dream. In
that odd way that dreams have he suddenly was on a little
desert knoll in front of us, lighted cigarette in ivory holder,
waiting grimly for us to die of thirst.
“Why isn't it Wallace Lambert who murdered the man
we think is Judge Austin?” I demanded of Rogers next
morning at breakfast. “Why isn't he guilty of John Foster's
death, and the attempt on Dick Stocker's life?"
Rogers did not answer at once. He glanced out of the
window at the long sweep of valley from which a bright
sun had routed the darkness of the preceding night.
“I don't know why it isn't Lambert,” he replied thought-
fully, "except, of course, we haven't any proof that he did
it.”
"I wonder if we could find the coyote he said he killed
last night.”
“Would that prove anything?" Rogers was mildly sar-
castic.
Nevertheless, we did find a dead coyote lying about
twenty-five yards from the road at about where Wallace
Lambert said he had killed it. But that was later on in the
151


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
153
can't let anything else happen!" He twisted his gloves in
his strong hands at the thought of the impending calamity.
"I agree with you that we should try,” said Rogers. “But
we're helpless. I'm in the dark. Presumably somebody else
will die. Who? Is it old lady Treadwick? Is it George
Downes? Just to name somebody. I don't know. I can't tell
you. But at least we know how to save Dick Stocker's life.”
"I imagine you're right, Hunt. Do as you think best,
though. I'll play along with you.” Barton looked at his
watch. “I've got to be on my way. Isn't much time to talk."
"Where are you going?"
"Las Vegas. Mr. Garvey had word that a man from the
Detroit police department is flying in this morning. There's
no way of his getting over here to the monument unless I
go after him. I'll see you later." He pulled on his gloves
and walked briskly away through the entrance and down
the steps to his car.
Outside on the terrace, where the sun was warm and the
air crystal clear, we found Keith Hayes sunning himself
like a lizard.
“Nice climb yesterday?" Rogers inquired of the young
man.
“Fair,” Hayes responded without enthusiasm.
"When are you planning to start your big walk?”
“Not till Harry Byers gives the word. It looks now as
though that won't be until the whole Downes family leaves
Death Valley." He was silent for a moment, then said:
“What do you think of a guy with money, who could pick
out plenty of unattached young things upon whom to lavish
his money and affection, choosing another man's wife, and
a fake at that who never wrote anything in her life? You
wrote that story they're going to film up here, didn't you,


154
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
Hibbard?”
“Yes, I did.”
“She's going around bragging that she wrote it.”
“Any more clashes between Byers and George Downes
that you've heard of?” I asked innocently.
"Oh, they've glared at each other two or three times. Old
lady Treadwick's found out all about it, and she's trying
to pressure Harry into pulling out.”
George Downes came out of the lobby entrance, nodded
to us and stood gazing off across the valley to the towering
mountains. He was dressed in his purple coat, brown trou-
sers and high boots. Rogers changed the subject, speaking
rather loudly.
“Too bad about that deputy named Stocker.”
“What happened?" inquired Hayes, only mildly inter-
ested.
“Died. Somebody shot him down at the camp; fired
through a window from the darkness—"
“Who?"
“Nobody knows."
George Downes had overheard this bit of misinforma-
tion. He moved nearer, approaching with a sidling motion.
"Who's that who got shot?” he asked.
“A deputy sheriff named Stocker," Rogers answered. “He
was here working on a murder case.”
“Did you say he died?” The man's face was filled with a
vague concern, as if in imagination he could fancy the
victim as someone near to himself.
“Yes. Last night at the infirmary."
"What a shamel" Downes exclaimed. “Do they know
yet who did it?"
“No.”


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
155
“Oh, I say, he was one of the fellows with you last night
down at the camp, when you were inquiring what I had
been doing, wasn't he?"
“Yes.”
“I hope they catch whoever did it.”
“Probably they will," Rogers answered him. “Usually
they do."
"I hope you're right.”
Rogers looked at his wrist watch, then at me with a
steady, meaningful glance. “Let's be going, Joe.”
I followed him down the steps and around to the car.
“Where are we going?” I asked as the motor leaped into
life.
“Let's drive up to the Junction and talk to Vivian Ellis."
It was Rogers' sharp eyes which discovered the dead
coyote lying a little to one side of the road near the sum-
mit of the grade. We climbed out and walked over to the
dead animal. It was stiff, its eyes glazed, its fangs bared.
Rogers turned the body over with his foot. A bullet hole
near the shoulder testified to the marksmanship of its
slayer.
"Well,” I observed as we started back to the car, “it looks
like old man Lambert told the truth last night.”
“Did he?"
“Why not?”
"I don't know why. But think harder, Joe. What if Lam-
bert had set out last night purposely to kill Stocker, and
what if, being a shrewd man, he reasoned that he might
be picked up near the scene of the crime and his gun ex-
amined. The exploded cartridge would be in the cylinder.
Therefore, to explain that fact he would naturally be pre-
pared in advance to do so. He could shoot at something


156
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
along the way. A signpost probably. But he was lucky, say,
and found a coyote for a target. Having killed it, he would
slip another cartridge into the cylinder, this one meant for
Dick Stocker. Who, then, can deny his assertion? The coy-
ote is evidence-"
“There ought to be an empty cartridge around here
somewhere then."
“Oh, no,” Rogers protested. “A shrewd man wouldn't
leave an empty cartridge near the coyote, where it would
be found. Besides, he claimed he shot it from his car. No,
there are ten million hiding places among the rocks be-
tween here and the camp, Joe. We would waste time look-
ing for it. Therefore, whether we believe him or not, we
take Mr. Lambert's word for what happened last night-
until something contradicts him.”
We drove on toward Death Valley Junction after this
interlude of speculation, saying little, although I was think-
ing a great deal, and so, I presumed, was Rogers. Wallace
Lambert was the complete villain, a mysterious character
whose comings and goings were like sinister shadows. If
any one individual could conceive and execute the fan-
tastic plot, it was Wallace Lambert. His knowledge of the
region of Death Valley, his strength and resourcefulness
were equal to it.
Step by step in those last few miles to Death Valley Junc-
tion I went over in my mind what had occurred not once
but several times, and I came out with the same answer
each time. Wallace Lambert was guilty.
“But what would be the motive, though, Hunt, for Lam-
bert to do the killing?” I sought Rogers' opinion as we were
rolling into the Junction.
“I don't know, Joe. Of course,” he pointed out, “it's not


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
157
far to seek a motive for the murder of John Foster, or the
attempt on Dick Stocker's life. It's too obvious. The motive
in the death of the man who may have been Bailey Austin
is the tough one. Supply the motive for that murder, Joe,
and you've got something. But what is there to work on?
Until we know definitely who the victim was, where do we
go? What becomes of the murder case, too, if the corpus
delicti is not rediscovered? True, we've got a corpus delicti
in John Foster. That's enough, of course, to convict the man
who is guilty. But the mystery itself can't be cleared up, ex-
cept through the thirst victim. The thoroughness with
which every vestige of the crime has been destroyed argues
a plot that would challenge the best of the man hunters to
solve. Let's find out what Vivian Ellis may have to tell us
this morning," he ended as I drew into the parking space
in front of the hotel.
We discovered Vivian Ellis in her room. She was reluc-
tant to be disturbed, sending word that she was busy. But
Rogers' persuasive powers overrode her reluctance, and
we rapped after a short while at her door at the end of the
long hall. She wasn't at all pleased to see us, however, giv-
ing us the impression that we were interrupting her at her
morning's work. She was dressed in a fawn-colored suit of
slacks and was smoking a cigarette. On a small table was a
pad of yellow paper and a typewriter. Beside it were several
sharply pointed pencils and a pair of tortoise-shell glasses.
"I reserve the morning hours for my work,” she said,
partly in explanation of her unwillingness to see us, I
thought, and partly to insure that our visit would not be
prolonged.
“So I see,” said Rogers, beaming. “A writer's life must
be a very interesting one.”


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
159
whole, we feel, needs a better outlet for just such things as
this. I'm on the editorial board. I—I wish you'd let me have
it for the magazine. I'm quite sure it will pass the other
members of the board—”.
“Really?” said Vivian Ellis with faint surprise.
“Yes, of course. I mean it."
"Well"—the woman got up and opened the drawer in
the table—“Ruth wanted this copy. She liked it so much.
If you don't mind, Professor, I'll give you another copy of
it. I just typed it off before you came in, thinking of send-
ing it out, you know.” She handed Rogers a fresh, unfolded
sheet of paper with a poem neatly typed upon it.
Rogers seized it, scanned it rapidly. “Yes. Yes, thank you.
I see you've changed the last line.”
“Don't you think it improves it?”
“I believe it does. Shall I keep this then this copy?"
“Yes."
“Thank you.” Rogers folded it carefully and put it into
his billfold. “You'll hear from me later about it.” He smiled.
For a moment we seemed at a loss for conversation, then
Vivian Ellis crushed the fire from her cigarette and said:
“But what brought you to see me? It wasn't just the poem,
was it?” Her tone was businesslike.
“The crimes of Death Valley,” Rogers responded, "grow
apace. Another one last night. Dick Stocker, the deputy who
questioned you about your trip with Harry Byers night
before last. Remember? He was shot at the camp."
"Who shot him?" she inquired with only faint interest.
"If I knew, I wouldn't be troubling you this morning.”
The woman grew still and tense. She pressed her lips to-
gether. “Just how am I supposed to take that?” she inquired
icily.


160
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
“Any way you choose. As a matter of fact, Miss Ellis, we
wouldn't be here this morning except for something Harry
Byers said. I need your denial or confirmation. You're quite
aware, of course, that your husband, George Downes, is
stopping at the inn—".
“And what business is that of yours?” She lighted a fresh
cigarette.
“I'm coming to it,” Rogers parried, smiling engagingly.
“I'm not interested in your private affairs at all. I have
been given to understand, however, that you and your hus-
band are estranged, that your daughter is endeavoring to
patch things up. Whether you know it or not your husband
and Mr. Byers had an encounter at the inn the other night,
at which time your husband slapped Byers twice, and Byers,
according to Ruth, thereafter made threats against your
husband.”
The woman sat staring at Rogers with a sort of cold
fury. It was quite possible, I fancied, that she would like
nothing better than to fasten her strong, capable hands
about Rogers' neck and choke him into silence.
“All this, as I say,” Rogers went blandly on, "is of no
concern to me, except as it may have some bearing on the
crimes that have been committed—”.
“And just what bearing could it possibly have?"
"I imagine that the feeling of dislike—hatred may be
the word—is mutual between Byers and your husband;
conceivably either would enjoy doing an ill turn to the
other."
“Still I don't see—"
“Now, just a moment!” Rogers said a bit sharply. “On
this trip night before last to see John Foster, who was mur-
dered some time that same night, did you encounter, or see,


We retreated to the car parked outside the hotel, sharing
the feeling that we had met a minor defeat in a campaign.
We climbed in and sat a few minutes before heading else-
where. Rogers finally summed the thing up.
“Her trouble, Joe, is that she doesn't know what Harry
Byers told us. If she did she'd probably agree with him.”
“Then there's no collusion so far in their statements, or
they would have had that point ironed out in advance.”
“Yes, probably.”
“More probably, don't you think, Hunt, it was Lambert
she saw? And the old man lied about where he went that
night?”
“I wouldn't know,” he said with a sigh that seemed to dis-
miss the person of Vivian Ellis completely. “Let's go and
see if we can find anything at Foster's shack that's been
overlooked.”
The body had been removed from the drab little house
at the edge of town, but otherwise the interior remained
as I remembered it on the morning we discovered the dead
man in the shabby room. The kerosene lamp either had
been blown out or had exhausted the oil in its opaque
reservoir. The odor of death seemed still to hover in the
dreary place, although beyond the tumbled appearance
there was no evidence of what had occurred.
"Fingerprints?" I asked, after we had stood silently to-
gether for several minutes staring about.
163


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
165
We climbed out of our cars and Barton introduced us to
Lieutenant Mowbray Turner of the Detroit police, who
hugged a black leather brief case under his arm. He was
barely above average height, and rather spare of figure. His
chin was sharp and his nose was like a beak, and the little
eyes which lurked astride it were shrewd and bleak. His
voice was hard and schooled in unfriendliness, although he
LIIS.
“What a country!” he rasped in a voice like a file drawn
across metal. He gazed about at the enormous sweep of
barren valley and mountains.
“Your first time here?” Rogers inquired, smiling.
“Yes.”
“Keep coming and you'll learn to love it.”
He gave Rogers a suspicious look, as if he suspected he
was being made fun of, and closed up like a clam. He strode
rather than walked with us over to the neat adobe build-
ing, where we followed Barton inside and to Superintend-
ent Garvey's office. Here, when the introductions and pre-
liminary remarks were concluded, we settled down with a
feeling that important things were about to be revealed.
"I was just talking with the infirmary,” announced Gar-
vey, offering cigarettes. “Stocker is doing nicely, but they're
not ready yet for him to leave his bed.”
“That's the man who got shot last night?" asked Lieu-
tenant Turner, lighting his cigarette with a patent lighter.
“Yes.”
“On the ride over from Las Vegas, Mr. Barton went over
with me the things that have happened here," said Turner.
“The whole thing's queer, but I've got it all in mind
now. So if you've got any questions, shoot 'em at me. I've
brought our file on the Austin case. I've done the work


166
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
on it—with some help, of course. In fact, I've done prac-
tically nothing else since the judge disappeared.”
“That's fine,” Rogers said enthusiastically. “But I'm
sorry that Dick Stoker can't be here with us."
“Yes, so am I," responded Turner, flipping the black
brief case about on his knees and jerking open the zipper.
“The sheriff's office in Los Angeles made me feel that we
have a real lead at last.”
Superintendent Garvey picked up a photograph from his
blotter, and held it out.
"That's our man Austin,” the detective said after a glance
at it. “It's the picture I put out. I understand that Stocker
picked this out of a bunch of others," he said in his hard
voice. “That ought to clinch things pretty well, I'd think.
Now, if you'll tell me what you want to know, I'll be glad
to go into any one or all of the angles of the case with you."
At this point Morris Pine walked into the office. I had
forgotten him for the time being. We had gone to Death
Valley Junction without him, and had not thought to look
him up at the ranch when we went by. Turner gazed in-
quiringly at the blond young newspaperman. Rogers in-
troduced them.
“You're not the man, then, who claims to have a couple
of letters that Judge Austin wrote?” Turner asked.
“No. I'm just waiting for Austin to show up here. Good
story, if it breaks.” Pine's restless blue eyes appraised the
Detroit detective.
"I'll say it is. Well—what about it? What do you want
to know?" Turner's gaze came back to Rogers.
“Something—anything about Austin's past that will sup-
ply background. We can't produce the body to prove the
identification. Only one man is now alive who can say that


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY - 167
the photograph is a likeness of the dead man.”
“What was the body like? Did he say?"
"Sort of dehydrated-dried up. Enough left to establish
identification, though. But what about Austin?”
Turner leaned back in his chair, and crossed his knees.
His eyes relaxed and he seemed fascinated by the view
through the windows. “Well,” he began, “Austin was sixty-
one years old the week before he disappeared. He was a
quiet, steady sort, apparently not given to doing things
without first thinking them over and weighing conse-
quences. He'd been on the bench about twenty years. Prior
to that time he'd practiced law. Respected, popular among
friends and acquaintances. No financial troubles, because
he was a wealthy man whose money was soundly invested.
His salary was good, and he apparently lived within his in-
come.” The hard voice went on reciting facts in the life of
the missing judge as if each were a bullet being fired at us
at short range.
"What of his family?” Rogers asked.
“No family.”
“Not married?"
"Widower. No children. He lived in a big house with a
housekeeper and other servants. He married rather late in
life. He and his wife didn't get along well together. She
money. Ourrier. She
alimony. Two
ment in cash. No alimony. Two or three years after that she
died in New York of pneumonia.”
"Who was she?” Rogers asked. “And what of her family
now?”
“She'd been married once before to a fellow named Kerr.
He died. Her maiden name was Treadwick—”
“Treadwick!” exclaimed Morris Pine, thrusting his face


168
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
toward the detective and then glancing at Rogers. “That's
where I got that name. I couldn't place it until now.”
“What about it?" demanded Turner. The bleak eyes
astride the sharp nose gazed fiercely at Pine.
“There's an old lady stopping at the inn. Name's Tread-
wick.”
“Mary Treadwick? From Evanston?"
“Yes.”
"Odd, don't you think?" Turner looked away through
the window. “Could be coincidence'
“Her nephew, Harry Byers, is at the inn too."
“Byers?” Turner shook his head. “Byers? I don't recall
now that we have anything about Byers. He's the old lady's
nephew?"
“Yes.”
"Mary Treadwick of Evanston—must be eighty-one or
-two-once was Austin's mother-in-law. There was fric-
tion between her and Austin. She had to be cautioned on
the stand at the divorce trial. Bitter. Sharp-tongued. I went
into the court records on that angle.”
"Well, that's important fact number one,” commented
Rogers.
“Byers is one of your suspects?” asked Turner, looking
first to Barton and then to Rogers.
“You might call him that,” Rogers answered. “At least
his activities so far haven't been cleared up entirely to my
satisfaction.”
“All right. What else? Shall I go on talking about Aus-
tin”
“Yes, please.”
"Well, Austin dropped completely out of things in De-
troit, like a fellow suddenly attacked by amnesia. But every-


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
169
thing was all right, as I say, at his house and at his office.”
“What about this man Wallace Lambert, who claims
to be an old friend of Austin's?” inquired Superintendent
Garvey. “I thought once of asking the old fellow down
here today, but decided you might have something that
you'd rather the old man didn't hear."
“Well, yes, maybe I have.”
"As I understand it,” Pine put in, “Lambert was an old
side-kick of Austin's, dating back to the heyday of the gold
camps out here."
have more on that than I have. The judge didn't talk much
about his early life. I don't think it was because he had
anything to conceal. I didn't get that impression from his
friends; but it was more because it was a long ways back in
his past, and his interest was all in his work on the bench.
They did tell me, though, that his money came from min-
ing ventures somewhere out West when he was a young
man. He'd led 'em to believe that, anyhow.”
“How much was he worth?” Rogers inquired.
"Well, as near as I could get an estimate on it, he was
worth between a half and three-quarters of a million dol-
lars.”
“And nobody to leave it to, then, I suppose, since there
was no wife and children,” Rogers commented.
An odd look came into Turner's bleak eyes. He fidgeted
in his chair, uncrossed his legs, opened the black brief case
again and fingered among the papers, while we waited to
discover what he was up to. Suddenly he jerked out a sheet
of note paper and handed it to Superintendent Garvey.
"By the way,” he said, “here's some of the judge's sta-
tionery. Does it look anything like the stuff Lambert was


170
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
showing you?”
The superintendent put on his horn-rimmed glasses and
studied it for some moments, then passed it on to Rogers.
"It's the same thing,” he said.
"Here's a sample of his handwriting too.” Turner tossed
it onto the desk.
"I wouldn't be sure,” Garvey said after studying it briefly.
“It looks as I remember the signature on Lambert's letters.”
“Didn't the man have any relatives at all?" Rogers in-
quired, passing the sample of stationery along to me.
“None that I found. Nobody among his friends could
remember that Austin ever spoke of relatives. Which
doesn't mean that he might not have some, of course. You'd
think, though, that if he had any surely at a time when
he was missing, and every paper in the country front-paging
him, the relatives would have spoken up. They always do.”
“It is odd.”
“Did the Treadwicks say anything?” inquired Pine.
“No, they didn't. I want to talk to the old lady too, now
that I've caught up with her. This Lambert, though,” he
said, rubbing his sharp chin with a hard hand and staring
through the window at the gray stretch of valley floor now
darkening with the first shadows of approaching evening.
“The name begins to come back to me. It's funny—I
thought when Mr. Barton mentioned him on the way over
from Las Vegas that it was a new name to me in the case.
Funny, too, how things go. I've talked to hundreds of peo-
ple since this file was opened on Austin. I can't remember
all their names. Some names stick, others you forget next
day. I wonder—" He continued to fish about among the
papers in the brief case. “I've got a copy of the will. We
found it among his papers in the judge's chambers. I haven't


174
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
"Is there so much hurry?” asked Turner nervously.
“You'll get used to this sort of thing, Turner, after you've
been out West for a while,” said Rogers jokingly. “You're
perfectly safe riding with Joe Hibbard. He's smashed up
only two, or is it three, cars, Joe?"
“One,” I said. “And that wasn't any fault of mine."
"See there, Turner; you're perfectly safe.”
Morris Pine spoke up again. “You don't suppose the old
fellow saw the trap closing and took this way out, do you?"
“I wouldn't know," responded Turner, refusing an
opinion.
"You're probably right, Morris,” I agreed. “The whole
affair shapes up that way, when you consider everything."
“Don't be hasty, you two Sherlocks,” cautioned Rogers.
He seemed for some reason to be in a much lighter mood
than he had exhibited earlier in the day. “I wouldn't pre-
judge anything that happens in this affair in Death Valley.
Wait until we have all the facts in hand, and have reduced
them by careful analysis to a logical story before any con-
clusions are drawn.”
“But, look at it this way, Hunt,” I persisted with con-
siderable emphasis. “Who profited by the death of Austin?
It was Lambert. There's your big fact. The biggest fact in
the whole thing. He knew he was down in the will. He
found that out somehow. Austin probably told him. Why,
the whole thing is simple—”
"Look out!” shouted Turner from the rear.
A lone Indian riding a horse along the edge of the high-
way suddenly loomed ahead of us. I twisted the wheel and
snapped it back and we missed him by a comfortable mar-
gin, although the car swerved violently. After that I left off
attempting to impress my views upon Rogers. Obviously


176
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
Rogers ranged up beside him. He waited until the thin,
long-legged doctor had got slowly to his feet with a gesture
that put for all time the seal of hopelessness upon the tragic
figure of the dead man. The body was not a pretty sight:
some of it drying already in the desert air upon the blanched
face; the huge iron-gray mustache like a sinister blot against
the unnatural whiteness.
“All up with him?” Rogers' words echoed the doctor's
gesture.
"Oh, yes.”
"You'll make an examination, I suppose, Doctor Jonas,
so we'll know what particular wound was mortal?”
"I'll do that, of course. Is it important, though?”
“I think so. I'm sure that if a request is necessary Superin-
tendent Garvey will make it.”
"That won't be necessary. I'll make the examination.
Probably death was due to excessive bleeding. You can see
that he was cut pretty badly about the head."
"So I notice."
We stood aside while the ambulance crew, superin-
tended by Doctor Jonas and aided by Otis Barton, removed
the body through the window of the wrecked car. It was a
tight squeeze, for Wallace Lambert had been a large man.
At one point in the removal the body seemed to catch and
hold on something, but it finally came loose. A squarish
rock of about two pounds weight had jammed between the
window frame and the dead man's chest, and not until I
had reached in and freed it could the body be drawn
through the window. The dead man was laid out on a
stretcher on the highway, where it was observed that there


178
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
kept straight ahead.”
“Running too fast, then, don't you think?" suggested
Turner.
“Perhaps,” Rogers admitted. "How fast do you drive
along here, Joe?”
“Fifty—maybe fifty-five. You've got to keep watch of your
speedometer, though, because on this long, uniform down-
grade it will slip up on you before you realize it.”
"A moment of carelessness, then,” said Turner philo-
sophically, “and it's all over-like this. And as Mr. Garvey
was saying, does it end the case or do we get a fresh start?"
“That's what we've got to find out,” Rogers answered, a
note of grimness creeping into his voice. He played his
flashlight over the wreck, bringing its beam to rest in turn
upon each of the four wheels. The tires were intact. “Bit
unusual,” he said, “but I guess it can happen. You see it,
don't you, Joe?"
“It wasn't a blowout that upset him, then.”
"No."
As carefully as if he were inspecting a house he was plan-
ning to buy, Rogers went over the outside of the wrecked
coupé. The fenders were crumpled like paper, its top
crushed, although it still supported the weight of the car.
The gasoline tank had been punctured, and the fuel had
leaked away among the rocks; the radiator was torn off; the
windshield, except for a jagged section in the right-hand
side, was completely gone.
Rogers' flashlight lingered upon the gaping hole left by
the broken windshield. He lay down among the rocks
on the ground in order better to examine it, testing its
edges with his fingers. Then he got to his feet and cast his
flashlight beams about the rough, rocky area where the car


180
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
"I'm satisfied that there's nothing of interest inside the
car."
"What else can you think of, Hunt, that we ought to
look into?" asked Otis Barton.
“I'm wondering just now about tire tracks on the pave-
ment."
“Tire tracks?” echoed the ranger.
“Yes."
“There aren't any."
But Rogers declined to take the ranger's word for it. He
began an extended search of the pavement for telltale
tracks, walking some distance up the road in the direction
from which Lambert had driven. For some time his flash-
light bobbed along in the darkness beyond the range of our
headlights. Presently he came back.
“Am I right, Hunt?" asked Barton.
“Not a tire track. Lambert apparently didn't even touch
the brake. And he went straight off the road where it begins
to curve to the left, as if he hadn't seen the curve at all.
Here's where he left the road.” Rogers paused at the unmis-
takable spot whence the car had hurtled into the rocky
ditch.
"Just a minute,” Turner rasped. “He was an old man,
wasn't he?"
“Yes.”
"Maybe he had a heart attack just as he hit this curve.
Wouldn't that account for not applying the brak
dead, or helpless, just before he got to this point, and he
didn't have a chance."
“That's possible," admitted Rogers, with a modicum of
doubt in his voice. “I wish we might believe that that actu-
ally happened."
US


182
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
breath. Her eyes in the glare of the headlights seemed to
glitter with fire. “I knew him,” she exclaimed. “Nice old
fellow. I talked with him several times. Was he killed in-
stantly?"
“Unquestionably,” Barton informed her.
"I'm glad. That's the way anybody would want to go.”
“Did anyone see it happen?" inquired Downes, unwilling
to abandon the subject until he was possessed of all the
information available.
“Nobody that we know of. One of our rangers came along
very soon afterward; maybe five or ten minutes. He's not
sure.”
"Too bad,” said Downes, shuffling his feet as if ready to
turn away. “Perhaps it might have helped if somebody had
been here.”
“I doubt it,” asserted Rogers.
“Maybe you're right, Professor. But things like this—if
there was just somebody on hand to hold an artery, or
something—"
“Are you by any chance a doctor?” asked Pine.
“Doctor? No. No, I'm an insurance broker in Chicago.”
“Father,” interrupted the girl, "we'd better be going, if
we're going to eat dinner with mother.”
“Yes, Ruth. Well, is there anything I can do if I stay,
gentlemen?” he asked as the girl pulled at his sleeve.
“No, thank you, Mr. Downes,” Barton responded.
"Well, then, good night. We'll be going."
The pair of them, the man looming above the slender
girl, walked over to the car and climbed in. The girl took
the wheel and they disappeared up the road in the darkness.


“WELL,” said Barton as the sound of the car faded out, “I
don't know that there's any more to do here now. Anybody
hungry? I am.”
"Let's go eat,” urged Pine.
I looked at my watch in the rays of the headlights. It was
six-fifteen. It seemed incredible that so much could have
happened in so short a time since we sat in Superintendent
Garvey's office and watched the first creeping shadows of
evening stealing out across the valley floor.
“If we eat now, what do we do about everything? Mean-
ing the wallet the professor found—” began Lieutenant
Turner.
“How about another session after dinner?” suggested
Barton.
“Suits me," Turner answered.
We climbed into the cars and a few moments later were
dropping down the grade, leaving the battered wreck in
the shallow ditch.
Rogers was silent all through the meal. I tried to break
up his somber mood, but with no success. Turner and I,
therefore, carried on a conversation without him. The man
wanted to know everything I could tell him about Death
Valley. In the midst of an account of summer temperatures,
the elderly Mrs. Treadwick in a filmy lace dress came into
the dining room, walking briskly beside her nephew, Harry
Byers, tapping her gold-headed cane on the hard floor as
183


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
187
head, and said: “Jerry is coming in, isn't he, Otis?" His ques-
tion was directed to the ranger.
“Yes, sir; he'll be over soon.”
“About your examination of the body, Doctor," began
Rogers.
"Oh, yes. You wanted to know what killed the man.
Quite obviously the immediate cause was loss of blood.
There were severe internal ruptures, however, which could
have proved fatal. Thrown against the wheel that way does
awful damage. He must have been traveling very fast.
But—there was hardly any blood left in him. Artery in
the neck was severed, as well as one in the left arm.”
“Did you take a look at his heart?" asked Rogers.
“A preliminary examination only. However, it looked
quite sound. Excellent for a man of his age.”
"You don't say so!” exclaimed Turner in astonishment.
“Then he didn't have a heart attack?"
“The heart looked sound," repeated Doctor Jonas. "It's
extremely doubtful that he suffered anything that might
be termed an attack. No, I think you'll have to find some
other explanation of why he went off the road.”
“That certainly knocks out that theory, then, Hunt,” I
interrupted. “We get back to the suicide idea."
“Suicide?” asked the doctor, picking up the word. “You
mean deliberately drove off the road in order to kill him-
self?"
“Yes.”
"Well, no doctor in the world can answer that question
for you."
"Is that all there is to report, Doctor?” inquired Garvey.
“Yes—I think so," Doctor Jonas replied. “The man was
quite badly cut about the neck, which is a bit unusual in


188
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
these days of safety glass. Considerable glass is in his face
too.”
“Small pieces, you mean?" inquired Rogers.
“Yes. Many of them buried under the skin. He was cut
particularly about the chin and neck. His lower jaw was
broken. He would have been quite a problem to patch up
if he'd survived the wreck.”
The sound of footsteps in the hall outside drew our at-
tention to the half-open door. The next moment the
blond, rosy-cheeked ranger who usually occupied the desk
near the front door stood on the threshold.
“Come in, Jerry," directed Superintendent Garvey.
“This is Jerry Towne," he addressed the circle about his
desk. His attention then returned to the ranger. “We've
just been discussing the accident. Otis thought that, per-
haps, you might add something to our knowledge of it."
“I'm afraid I don't know much about it, sir,” responded
the young man in a soft drawl.
“You reported the accident."
“Yes, sir," the ranger replied, still standing beside the
desk.
"Sit down, Jerry. Here.” The young man sat down and
stretched his long thin legs in front of him. “Since you
were first on the ground we'd better hear what you have
to say about it.”
“Yes—well,” Towne drawled, “I'd been up at the check-
ing station and finished what I had to do up there. It was
getting late, so I started back to headquarters. I saw the
wreck, of course—"
“Just a minute,” interrupted Rogers, "if I may—" He
smiled at the superintendent. “Did you see Wallace Lam-
bert when he passed the checking station?”


190
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
“How long was it after he left the station before you fol-
lowed?"
“About ten minutes, I think; maybe fifteen. I couldn't be
sure. I talked a bit longer with one of the CCC boys."
“One more thing,” said Rogers. “Did any other car pass
the station going toward Furnace Creek between the time
Lambert left and your departure?"
"No, sir. None either way.”
We had reached a stopping place in the rapid exchange
of question and answer, and we paused for fresh cigarettes.
The uncurtained windows of the office were black squares
in the bright wall, for no lights gleamed beyond them in
the desolate waste of rock and sand. Rogers was impatient
to take up the questioning again.
“What was the situation, Jerry, when you reached the
wreck?" he asked.
"Well, of course, I saw the car in the ditch as I came up
to the curve. I stopped. Everything was deathly quiet.
There was considerable smell of gasoline fumes. I saw right
away that Mr. Lambert was either dead or very badly in-
jured. I tried to find a pulse but couldn't. Then I concluded
he was dead, and that I'd better get to a telephone as soon
as I could. So I came on down to Furnace Creek and tele-
phoned. I didn't waste any time. After I got started, though,
I wondered if maybe he might still be alive. That's why I
wasn't quite sure when I phoned, although I said he looked
dead to me."
The youthful ranger seemed to have filled in the last de-
tail of the tragedy. There was nothing lacking now in the
complete picture we had reconstructed. But Rogers had
one other question.
"You drove fast from the wreck, of course, Jerry?"


192
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
the theory, but before I could formulate any reason to sus-
tain my contention the telephone bell rang sharply.
“Garvey speaking,” the superintendent said, lifting the
receiver from its cradle. “Who? Ed who? . . . Oh, Ed
Long! Hello, Ed; haven't seen or heard from you for a long
time. Where are you calling from? The Amargosa? ...
Oh, the inn. Didn't know you ever got down our way.
What's on your mind? . . . That so? We can come up
there, all of us. What's the matter with your coming down
here? We've just been discussing the case. . . . All right,
come ahead.”
The superintendent put back the receiver, and looked
steadily at the circle of faces confronting him. “Ed Long
from the Amargosa says he's got something interesting for
us in the Lambert case. Won't say what it is over the tele-
phone.”


In less than half an hour the lights of an automobile turned
off from the highway and came up the grade toward park
headquarters, while we waited wondering what the man-
ager of the hotel at Death Valley Junction had to tell us.
The dark, dapper young man, looking as if he were about
to take charge of the floor show in a night club, came into
the superintendent's office, walking with a brisk, confident
step. He greeted us with an air of knowing something im-
portant, and was introduced to Turner.
“From Detroit?" Long questioned, still shaking the de-
tective's hand. “The Austin case has brought you out?” His
voice was charged with a subtle excitement.
“That's why I'm here."
"Wait and hear what I have to tell you,” Long advised.
He glanced about the room. “I hope I haven't kept you
waiting,” he said apologetically, sitting down. “Some busi-
ness brought me to Furnace Creek. I could have called you
earlier if I'd known you were holding a session out here."
“What's on your mind, Ed?” the superintendent prodded
him playfully. “You've got us all pepped up. Are you going
to solve all of Death Valley's mysteries?”
"You'll be surprised,” retorted the hotel manager,
leaning forward in his chair and addressing Garvey. “I
heard about Wallace Lambert's accident, and that's what
prompted me to phone you. I came by the wreck. It gives
one the creeps out there on that road after dark, especially
193


194
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
if you know what the old man was like. Pleasant sort, wasn't
he? I enjoyed him. Do you want to know why Lambert got
killed?”
“Yes,” we chorused. Edward Long was enjoying himself,
although his manner was now a bit sober. His dark eyes
were filled, however, with the importance of what he knew.
“He was killed because of a telephone call."
“What sort? Who from?” demanded Pine.
“Ah, there it is! You know this case of Judge Austin who's
been missing now for several months—’
"We know all about it, Ed,” Garvey's voice interrupted
impatiently. "All that's known for sure. But what do you
know about that?”
"That's what I'm coming to. That's who the phone call
was from.”
“From Austin?" said Turner, his mouth sagging open.
"You don't mean that Austin phoned.”
“Yes. I'll tell you how it was. I was at the desk this after-
noon when a call came through for Lambert. Lambert
wasn't in his room, and I didn't know where he was, so I
asked if there was any message. The party calling said, yes,
there was, and would I see that Lambert got it promptly.
He was quite urgent that I make sure that Lambert would
get it. First, though, he had asked me about Lambert's be-
ing at the Amargosa.” The manager glanced about the cir-
cle, making sure that we were listening to him before he
went on.
"Here's what was said—it's quite distinct with me:
'Please say that Bailey Austin wishes very much to have
Wallace Lambert come down to the inn this evening and
have dinner with him.' Those were the exact words. I wrote
them on a slip of paper and put it in Lambert's box.”


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
195
"Where did the call come from?” demanded Turner.
"From the inn, I think. I didn't ask Austin, of course.”
"Go on,” said Garvey.
"Well, as I say, I put the note in Lambert's box. Four
o'clock was the time. I remember jotting it down on the
message. I went off duty for a while a few minutes after
that, and my wife took over. Lambert, so Lola tells me, came
in about half an hour or so later, got his key and the note
and went to his room. He seemed pleased over the note, ac-
cording to Lola, who, by the way, didn't know what was
in the message.
"I got to thinking about that note after I left the front
desk. The name Bailey Austin kept running through my
head. I wondered where I had heard it before, but I couldn't
place it. And then about five o'clock it occurred to me all
of a sudden who Bailey Austin was. He is the missing judge
of Detroit. A few minutes afterward I went to the lobby,
planning to ask Lambert about it; but he had left five min-
utes, maybe ten minutes, before, Lola told me. And so that
was that." The manager ended with a gesture of his soft,
well-kept hands.
"But,” began Rogers, who had listened closely, "about
Bailey Austin,”
“When I-pardon me, Professor Rogers—" Long took
up again hastily. “When I passed the wreck I didn't get out.
I didn't know until I got to the inn that it was Lambert who
had been killed. I thought perhaps Austin had slipped in
and registered and nobody had recognized either his name
or him as the missing Judge Austin. But here's the puzzling
thing about it, though—there's no Bailey Austin registered
at the inn. They thought I was crazy when I wanted to make
sure that he wasn't there."


196
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
“How about the telephone call?” The question came
from Pine.
“There was a call about four o'clock to the Amargosa, the
girl said. But it was put through from one of the booths in
the lobby. So she didn't see who it was who was calling,
and the money was dropped into the slot when she asked
for it.”
“Would the girl recognize the voice again?"
“She's not sure."
“Would you?"
“I think so, if it came over the phone again."
“But how about Austin being registered?” pressed Tur-
ner. "Couldn't he have registered under another name?
Did you think of that?”
“I thought of it, but I wouldn't know what name he was
using."
"He'd naturally use his own name in getting in touch
with Lambert, wouldn't he?" the detective continued,
thinking aloud. “But not necessarily otherwise. In other
words, he's still trying to remain incognito. We'd better
look into it farther at the inn,” he announced, gathering his
feet under him. “Now that Lambert's dead, if Austin's there
under an alias, he won't stay long-probably.” He got to
his feet and put on his coat. He jammed his hat upon his
head, took his brief case under his arm and strode to the
door.
"Under the circumstances, gentlemen," said Harris Gar-
vey, getting up from his chair, “perhaps we'd better ad-
journ. We seem to have threshed out a good deal tonight."
"Thanks to your good offices,” said Rogers, preparing
to go.
We went clattering out through the short hallway to the


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
197
front door, and across the porch and to the cars in the park-
ing space. Otis Barton and Jerry Towne withdrew from
further activity for the night, as did Doctor Jonas and Su-
perintendent Garvey. The superintendent appeared to be
doubtful that anything would come of further inquiry at
the inn. It was something, moreover, that Turner and
Rogers could run down without help.
“I'll go along with you, though,” announced Long. “I've
got to drive on back to the Junction tonight, anyway. You
go on ahead and I'll follow to the inn."
It was one of those futile things, though. For, crowded
into the office of the inn, just off the lobby, we went over the
list of recent arrivals and found that it assayed exactly noth-
ing. No one man traveling alone had registered that day;
in fact, not for several days. Several family groups, three
couples, two parties composed of women, and an elderly
woman with companion and maid—these made up the
day's arrivals.
"Well,” said Turner, his hard eyes reflecting the disap-
pointment he felt, “that's that, then. Like all other leads
in this case it's just another water haul. I'm beginning to
think I'd better have stayed in Detroit and let you fellows
run this thing down by yourselves. Austin isn't alive. He
can't be—”
“But he gave me his name over the phone,” Long pro-
tested.
"You're not crazy enough to think it was really Austin,
after all that's happened, are you?” Turner said in amaze-
ment.
The manager shrugged his shoulders. “All I've tried to
do is to help you fellows out in this thing," he explained
defensively.


198
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
"You've been a real help, Mr. Long,” said Rogers, patting
the manager's shoulder. “One more angle in the case has
been explored, and you've helped us to do it. Lambert was
lured to his death. It's as simple as can be. How the killer
of Austin and Foster contrived, though, to wreck Lambert
as he did is something I don't yet understand. But I will
understand it,” he ended grimly.
“I'll be running along, then, gentlemen,” announced
Long, feeling better after Rogers' praise. "If I can be of
any further help, remember that I am only too willing to
accommodate you."
“Thank you; I'm sure of it,” said Rogers, shaking hands
with him.
We went out into the lobby with the man, and followed
even to the terrace before he finally separated from us and
ran down the steps to his car. We watched him drive away
before anything else was said.
“It's one of the most amazingly successful crimes—the
death of Lambert—that I've encountered," Rogers re-
marked thoughtfully. “The murderer of Lambert not only
is a bold, resourceful criminal but has amazing luck. His
plans carry without hitch; he conceives and executes his
plot with a precision as to detail and timing that leaves me
wondering if we will ever uncover him.”
“He's slipped up a couple of times, though, Hunt,” I said,
"Where?”
"He miscalculated about that fellow who died out in the
desert. He didn't expect him ever to be found—”
“Are you sure?” A tinge of sarcasm was in his voice.
“Why not?"
"Where else did he fail?”
“He didn't kill Dick Stocker."


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
199
“No,” admitted Rogers after a long pause. “He didn't.
Extraordinary luck on Dick's part saved him. And there,
by the way,” he went on, his voice scarcely above a whis-
per, “is where we may have fooled him. He thinks Dick is
dead-out of the way. No longer a liability to him.”
“You spoke last night of the killer having a main pur-
pose. Was it Lambert, then, if it wasn't suicide? And I still
think it could be”.
“After what Ed Long told us, and the fact that there's no
Bailey Austin at the inn?".
"Well,” I stammered, “maybe you've got me on that,
Hunt. But do you think, then, that Lambert was the man
the killer was aiming at all the time?"
“I don't know. Frankly I'm at sea about it. I hope, though,
that there are no more destined in this plot to a violent end.”
A car drove up and stopped, and George Downes and his
daughter Ruth climbed out. An attendant entered the car
and drove it away, while father and daughter mounted the
steps to where we stood. Rogers greeted them, or, I think,
the two would have passed on inside without speaking.
"Oh, hello,” said Downes, pausing with an air of friendly
feeling toward us. “Still investigating, you fellows?" he
asked lightly.
"We're practically finished," Rogers answered.
“That's a gruesome sight up the road. Terrible! That
car bottom up. When you know what happened—”
"Father, if you're going to talk, I'm going on up to my
room,” announced Ruth Downes.
“Good night, then, dear," the man said, stooping to kiss
the girl's upturned face. “I'll see you in the morning."
“Good night, Father. Good night, gentlemen,” the girl
said, and went hurriedly toward the lobby entrance.


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
201
“May I send for something—whisky and soda—anything
you like?" he questioned hospitably, moving toward the
telephone.
It was not until the bellboy had departed and we were
seated comfortably that we got around to the reason for
George Downes' invitation.
“You know—” he began, his eyes fixed upon the glass he
held. A short silence followed, then he glanced up first to
Rogers and then to Turner. “You know, I'm quite aware
of what is going on in Death Valley. I mean what you, Pro-
fessor Rogers, and you, Mr. Turner, are endeavoring to do.”
“We've not kept the matter a secret, you know," Rogers
reminded him.
The man smiled quickly. “I had no thought of startling
you by beginning what I have to say in that manner. I
merely wanted to establish a common ground for what I
Austin too. Or discovering what happened to him."
The statement had a most amazing quality to it. It was
followed by several moments of dead silence, then Turner,
glaring at the man with his hard, bleak eyes, spoke.
"Who are you?"
"I'm George Downes. You know that. I'm an insurance
broker with headquarters in Chicago. My interest in the
case of the missing man, though, is not what you might
think. It isn't a matter of insurance. The insurance com-
panies, I assume, are interested. However that may be, I'm
not involved in that phase of the disappearance."
"Then just what is your interest in the case?" inquired
Turner, his voice sounding like a file in the quiet room.
In reply Downes heaved himself out of his chair and
went to a chiffonier drawer, pulled it open, and took out


204
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
that in it which finally decided me on making a trip out
here instead of writing to Lambert to ask him what, if any.
thing, he knew about Bailey's absence. I failed to find Lam-
bert in Las Vegas. They said there that he had come over
here. And so,” Downes ended with a gesture, “here I am.
And Wallace Lambert is dead.”
“Had you talked with Lambert about Judge Austin?”
"I hadn't had any talk with him at all.”
“There's one more question,” Rogers said. “I apologize
for asking it, but it has its place—"
"I know what it is,” Downes interrupted. “You want to
know about my wife and daughter—why they're here—"
“Yes.”
“My wife and I have been separated for three or four
years. She lives in Hollywood and my daughter with her.
While I continue in Chicago where my business is. Vivian is
very ambitious to be a writer—"
"So I've discovered.”
"Yes—well—I love my wife and daughter very dearly.
This separation has been very trying—disheartening, in
fact. When I decided to come West in search of Wallace
Lambert, I wrote my daughter and suggested that she and
her mother come up to Death Valley, where we could talk
things over away from prying eyes and gossiping tongues.
And sowell, that's that, gentlemen. All my cards are on
the table.”


19
We sat long in George Downes' room at the inn talking
over the disappearance of Judge Bailey B. Austin. Now that
he had decided to make known to us his reasons for being
in Death Valley, he was eager to impart any knowledge he
had which might be of avail in the search for the vanished
man. He was not only willing but desirous of joining forces
with us in solving the mystery of his cousin's disappearance.
“Of course," he said judicially, “it gets back to this: if
the body of the man found in the desert, and which disap-
peared while it was being transported through the monu-
ment, could only be found-granting that it is in such con-
dition that it could be identified—I could tell very readily
whether or not it is that of my cousin. The whole thing
could be very easily cleared up. The mystery, I mean, sur-
rounding the disappearance. And if he was murdered, as
you believe to be the case, Professor Rogers, why, then,
there would be a starting point somewhere in that fact, if
you get what I mean."
“I suppose so," said Huntoon Rogers.
“I mean that we would have actually the fact of the body
and the fact that Bailey was murdered, as you have theorized,
and proceed from there ultimately to fasten the guilt upon
the slayer.” With two tense fingers of his right hand he beat
out the final words upon the arm of his chair. The man's
face was a study in emotion, of vindictive malevolence for
the murderer of his cousin. “That is, if he's not already
205


208
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
somely by me.”
"You're not even mentioned in his will,” said Turner
with brutal frankness.
A noticeable shock coursed through the form of George
Downes. Then he sat for a time in stony silence, a curious,
changing expression playing upon his face.
“Are you sure?” he asked at last, rather weakly.
Turner patted the brief case on his knees. “I have a copy
of the will. You're left out. Lambert inherited everything.”
Downes shook his graying head slowly from side to side.
“One never knows one's relatives and what they may do,"
he said, and his voice sounded flat. Of a sudden he was gal-
vanized by a new idea. He sat up in his chair, leaning slightly
forward and tapping the chair arm with two rigid fingers
of his right hand. “There it is!” he exclaimed tensely.
“There it is! I can see the whole thing now. Bailey in some
manner was lured out here to his death at the hands of
Wallace Lambert, who must have known that he would in-
herit. And that's why Bailey spoke as he did. He was sus-
picious of Lambert.”
Belief in this explanation shone enormously in Downes'
whole manner; the weight of his entire personality was be-
hind it.
"Hunt,” began Morris Pine of a sudden, "if you'll ex-
plain away that telephone call this afternoon, as Hibbard
says, the whole thing washes out clear and simple. How do
you know but what Lambert himself made that call to him-
self? Disguised his voice so that nobody would recognize
it? If he wrote those letters to himself, which he showed us
in Garvey's office, he'd only be following his own pattern
of deception by telephoning himself as an excuse for later
committing suicide?"


210
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
believe actually happened. But here's the flaw in it. If Lam-
bert killed Austin for his money, why would he want to
steal the body after it was discovered and hide it? Lambert
has got to establish the fact that Bailey Austin is dead before
he can claim the money, hasn't he?".
An odd look spread over Rogers' face as Downes pointed
out this difficulty. I recalled that Rogers had mentioned it
himself once before. “That's my point, Downes,” he said
quickly. "How is that going to be explained away?"
There was a lengthening silence which was broken when
Turner cleared his throat noisily. We expected the man
from Detroit to offer something by way of explanation, but
he did not.
“Maybe—” Morris Pine began, thinking hard. “Maybe
Lambert wasn't ready to have the body discovered. I mean,
he wanted it to be found eventually, of course, but the time
wasn't ripe. Who knows, though, why it wasn't ripe?” No-
body could supply the answer. We were all thinking upon
the problem when Pine resumed. “Maybe it was like this:
maybe he wanted the body found and identified, say, a
month or two later, for the reason there was still something
else to be done first. Say somebody else to be killed. Say,
for the sake of the argument, it was Downes here. Lambert
hadn't had the opportunity yet to do it. Say maybe Austin,
when he saw he was going to die, made believe that he had
written to Downes to investigate if he wasn't heard from
in a certain length of time. Like a victim, say, holding over
his would-be murderer the thought that there was some-
thing in his safe-deposit box to give away his murderer.
“And then when the body was discovered prematurely,
say, by Foster and Stocker, they had to be put out of the
way immediately. And then at this point the old man lost


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
211
his nerve. Things were getting too complicated. He could
see the jaws of the trap closing, and he all of a sudden aban-
doned his elaborate plot to obtain the judge's money and
headed for the ditch instead.”
In the silence that followed this plausible line of reason-
ing, Rogers got to his feet and stretched his cramped
muscles. He glanced lazily about the room and yawned.
"Pardon me, gentlemen, if I appear to be sleepy," he
apologized. “It's been an interesting evening. I've no doubt
that we got somewhere. I'm sure that Mr. Turner is obliged
to you, Mr. Downes, for taking us into your confidence, as
I am. In my opinion the case definitely has been advanced
by your action. But, Morris,” he said, smiling oddly down
at the newspaper reporter, "as a detective I think you're
pretty much of a crackpot. My opinion hasn't changed-
Wallace Lambert was murdered. And all the wishful think-
ing that you and Joe Hibbard have been doing doesn't
change the fact.”
Later on, after we had said good night to the others and
locked the door to our room behind us, I sought to elicit
from Rogers something more than he had divulged at the
gathering in Downes' room, but he only laughed at me.
"Why not let's get a little sleep, Joe? Do you realize that
it's after midnight, and that we've been practically eating
and sleeping with this affair in Death Valley?"
"Sorry, Hunt,” I apologized. “I guess I have prodded you
a bit in this thing. I didn't mean to. But the affair, as you
call it, is tied so tight in a knot that I don't see any other
way out of it, except that Lambert killed himself. It's the
only solution."
He yawned prodigiously, standing in the window and
gazing down upon the immense blackness of the valley be-


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
213
from falling out, should the case be inverted, by a broad
rubber band which was snapped about it end to end. She
put on her spectacles, leaving the case and the rubber band
at her elbow. Turner said something to me at this point
and I ceased prying.
Rogers quickly lost interest in his breakfast, but it didn't
occur to me that the rubber band had anything to do with
the fact until after Turner and I had finished. Then he
leaned toward us and lowered his voice.
“Let's move in on the old lady now,” he suggested.
Rogers could be most engaging when he chose to be.
It was an ingenuous, almost a boyish approach that he
adopted, and before I realized what was happening the
elderly woman had asked all three of us to sit down at
her table and finish a cup of coffee with her. With simu-
lated absent-mindedness Rogers picked up the broad rub-
ber band which lay beside the spectacles case, and snapped
it around his hand. He continued to toy with it while he
went through a preliminary exploration of Mrs. Tread-
wick's reactions to Death Valley. The rubber band of a
sudden, though, seemed to draw his attention.
“Where did you get this, Mrs. Treadwick?" he asked
innocently.
The old lady merely glanced at it, as if it were beneath
conversation. “My nephew gave it to me last night. I'm
always dropping my glasses out of that case. Why in the
world would the oculist give me that sort of a case any-
way? Why—” Of a sudden she became suspicious. “Why
do you ask that?” Her dark eyes glowed deep in their
sockets.
Rogers shrugged his shoulders slightly. "Oh, no reason,"
he said. “Except possibly because this rubber band a couple


214
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
of days ago, when I last saw it, was around the wallet of
the old man who was killed yesterday evening in the auto-
mobile accident—"
“Why! Why!” the old lady exploded breathlessly. “I
never in all my life! Why, what do you mean?".
"The same two little nicks are in the edge of it,” Rogers
explained, as if he had not observed the old lady's indig-
nation, "and this ink stain here. See?”
Mrs. Treadwick snatched at it, and Rogers gave it to
her without an effort to retain it. With thin, agitated hands
the elderly woman stuffed her glasses into the case, snapped
the rubber band about it and popped it into her bag.
Her hands continued to move jerkily, her mouth worked
with the violence of her emotions, and her eyes blazed. She
pushed back her unfinished cup of coffee so violently that
it slopped out upon the snowy tablecloth, and prepared to
get up
"I was never so insulted in all my life before. Never!
I'm going to report—"
“Just a minute, Mrs. Treadwick,” said Turner in his
hard, unfriendly voice, “I want to ask you a few ques-
tions”
"Me? What do you want to ask me? I'll not listen. Who
are you?"
"I'm here to investigate the murder of Judge Bailey
Austin, who was once your son-in-law. I'm from the De-
troit police department.”
The thin, wrinkled face slowly drained of its color, and
her eyes took on a hunted look. After a moment she re-
gained control of herself.
"I'll not talk to you," she asserted defiantly. "I've noth-
ing to say—"


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
215
"But, Mrs. Treadwick—" protested Rogers.
“I'll not talk to you here in the dining room. Let's go
somewhere else, if I've got to answer questions."
“If you want your nephew with you,” suggested Rogers,
"you can—"
"Harry's already gone. He and his friend started walk-
ing out of Death Valley before sunup this morning."


20
We found a secluded corner on the terrace which was
flooded by warm sunshine. Rogers placed the elderly
woman in the most comfortable chair, and the rest of us
drew up about her. She was quite calm and collected by
now-in fact, almost calculatingly shrewd in her manner
—and I did not expect any profit from what she had to say
to us. However, I was mistaken.
“Let's get it over with,” she began at once. “I've planned
to drive up to see Scotty's Castle today, and I haven't any
time to waste."
“We're quite willing,” said Rogers, grinning cheerfully.
“I never liked Bailey Austin, either as a man or as a
son-in-law,” she began without further prompting. "I told
my daughter Margaret, when she married him, that she
was making a mistake. They were no more suited to each
other than anything. He was a slow-thinking, dull stay-at-
home who squeezed every penny and never wanted Mar-
garet to go anywhere or have anything that she was en-
titled to and should have had. I was glad when she got
rid of him.”
"Your daughter died subsequent to the divorce, did she
not?” Rogers inquired casually.
“Twelve years ago.”
“There were no children? Either their own or adopted?”
"No."
"Well, now," began Turner bitingly, taking up the ques-
216


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
217
tioning, "what happened after the divorce? Did you see
anything of Judge Austin or did he drop out of your lives
completely?”
“Well”—the old lady glanced away to the towering peaks
of the Panamints bathed in the sunlight of early morning
-“I never saw him after the divorce.”
“But did he drop out of your lives? Wasn't there some-
thing else that happened?” Turner was insistent.
“Not between him and me,” she retorted. “I was through
with him. Absolutely! And I told him so. He'd wrecked
Margaret's life.”
"How wrecked it?” Rogers asked.
“She was never the same again. She'd be alive today if
she'd never seen Bailey Austin.”
“Do you base that on anything in particular that hap-
pened?” Rogers wanted to know.
"No. On just on how I feel about it. And I'm sure, as
sure as any mortal body can ever be, that I know what I'm
talking about."
“Can you tell us, Mrs. Treadwick, anything about Judge
Austin's relatives?" Rogers asked, taking a new tack.
“Relatives? If he ever had any I never heard of it. That's
another thing. He never talked about his past. Every year
about this time he'd go off by himself, and never tell Mar-
garet when he came back where he'd been or what he'd
done. She used to think that he went out West somewhere,
where he made his money when he was a young lawyer
in a gold-mining camp. But she never knew for certain."
“But getting back for a minute, Mrs. Treadwick," put in
Turner, “to what was said a few moments ago. You say
he dropped out of your life. But how about the lives of
other members of your family? How about Harry Byers,


218
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
for instance?"
“Harry Byers? My nephew?" she said, her withered hand
stealing up to touch the black ribbon about her thin neck.
She shook her head. “I don't see much of Harry. Now and
then we meet. We happened by accident to be here in
Death Valley at the same time."
"Wasn't there something about your nephew now, Mrs.
Treadwick_” Turner began in a sort of wheedling tone.
“It seems to me that I recall something now that happened
to him. You see, Mrs. Treadwick, a detective has to have
a pretty good memory, and I've got one-"
“If you're hinting at what happened several years ago,
I don't know anything about it.” Mrs. Treadwick seemed
eager to avoid the matter, whatever it was.
"Wasn't Harry Byers up in the courts on a charge of
fraud in connection with the promotion of some sort of
bond issue-selling something that maybe wasn't quite
legal?"
“That's what they tried to prove,” snapped the old lady,
her eyes beginning to fire up.
"It seems to me,” continued Turner, his bleak eyes now
shining with a glow of triumph as he recalled something
which until now had lain buried in his memory, “it seems
to me that he came up for trial in Judge Austin's court in
Detroit and that he got a stiff fine and a term in prison,
didn't he?"
“That was all the work of Bailey Austin. He didn't like
Harry.” She began to pound with a thin fist on the arm
of her chair as she talked. “Harry would never have gone
to prison if it hadn't been for Bailey Austin. They could
have proved there was error if they had appealed it. De-
liberate error just to injure Harry. And all because of that


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
219
mean streak in Bailey Austin. Do you wonder now that I
never cared for the man? I could see through him, even
though my daughter never could. And so—” she finished
with a sigh as if the violence of her emotions had exhausted
her strength. "Well, that's all I know. I can't tell you any-
thing more, because I don't know anything else.”
"Harry Byers is not really your nephew, is he, Mrs.
Treadwick?" Rogers questioned.
“No. But he's very dear to me.” She looked searchingly
at Rogers. “He's the son of a very old friend. I sort of
adopted him—not legally, though—when Bailey Austin
deliberately fixed it so Harry would have to go to the
penitentiary.”
“By any chance," asked Rogers, dropping the matter of
relationship, “do you know of any enemies who might
conceivably have caused Judge Austin's death?”
"No."
“One more question. How do you suppose Harry Byers
got hold of the rubber band that belonged about Wallace
Lambert's wallet?”
"'I don't know. He'd be able to tell you. He's not a thief,
though. He didn't have anything to do with any accident
in which the man was killed. You'll have to ask him where
he got it."
"But if he's started walking to San Fernando, say, he'll
be out of reach for ten days or more.”
"Well, that's your lookout, not mine," she snapped.
“But you're barking up the wrong tree if you think for
one minute that Harry Byers is mixed up in the death of
Bailey Austin."
“Byers has spent a lot of time in the West, hasn't he?”
Rogers asked.


220
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
“More or less."
"When did you come out from Evanston, Mrs. Tread-
wick?"
“The latter part of August. I've been living in Beverly
Hills all the time, except for this trip up here."
Rogers’ glance sought Turner as if inquiring whether
or not he was finished with his questions, then returned
to the elderly woman.
“I hope,” he said, “that you have a pleasant trip today
up to Scotty's Castle. It's a nice drive.”
“Thank you. And now is that all you want to ask me?"
"Yes, and thank you again. You've been very helpful.
I always hesitate to pry into another person's private af-
fairs, like this, Mrs. Treadwick. But the problem involv-
ing the death, as we believe, of your former son-in-law is
too serious not to explore every avenue open to us."
"Have I really told you anything at all?”
“I think so. But, if there are any more questions that
come up, I hope that we may trouble you again to answer
them.”
“I'd be glad to," said the woman, getting to her feet and
holding out her hand in a sudden impulse of friendly feel-
ing. “You're not as fearsome a lot as you sounded at first.”
With that she went tapping away along the terrace with
her gold-headed cane, and disappeared inside the inn. We
got up wondering, or at least I did, what if anything was
the net total of our bout with Mrs. Treadwick.
“How did you happen to pin her down on Harry Byers'
tilt in the courts with Bailey Austin?” Rogers asked
Turner.
The man swelled a bit with pride at the question. “Well,
that,” he said boastfully, “I had forgotten the whole


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
223
the sound of the ambulance faded away that night at the
camp as it bore the deputy to the infirmary. He made few
comments as the account ran smoothly on. He had heard
of the death of Wallace Lambert through the doctor, but
listened intently to Rogers' description of how it had hap-
pened. Rogers reached the morning's interview with Mrs.
Treadwick, and finally ended the story.
"And there it is, Dick, up to the minute.”
Stocker was silent for several moments. "Sort of tied up
in a knot, ain't it?” he observed soberly. "And so you think
Lambert was murdered, do you, Hunt?"
“Nothing else makes sense. But what I don't understand
is why the letters from Austin were stolen out of Lambert's
wallet while he lay in the wreck.”
“Is that important?”
“Yes.”
"Maybe he wasn't carryin' 'em at the time. Maybe they're
in his luggage up at the Amargosa.”
“That's possible. I'd like to look through it and make
sure.”
"No reason why you can't. I'll go up with you, if Doc
Jonas says I can go. If you say the letters are important—"
“Maybe you'd better not, Dick.”
"Oh, I'm all right. But I-I ought to be kicked off this
case. I told you when you come in a while ago that I had
something to tell you.” He was hesitant, and his manner
oddly apologetic. He sought inspiration in another ciga-
rette.
"You can't help getting shot. No fault of yours. You
were foolish, though, for not pulling out when you had
the chance," Rogers chided.
"That ain't what I mean. You know—” He made an


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
225
about stoppin' at the inn, did I?"
The deputy's story came in curious bursts of energy,
interspersed with moments of silence in which he seemed
to build himself up to the effort he was making. He took
up where he had left off, after Rogers had assured him that
nothing had been said about the inn in his previous ac-
count.
"You see,” Stocker went on, throwing away his half-
smoked cigarette, “I don't drink anything hardly ever. I
don't seem to need it. But that was a long trip John and I
had made down to Pahrump, and I was kind of tired. And
there was that long drag ahead of me at night, with a
dead man in the back end of the truck who I knew wouldn't
be very sociable. So I stopped at the inn and went down to
the bar, and stood around quite a while. I had two or three
drinks, and—well, I stayed longer than I ought to, and
took maybe one drink more than I should have."
"Weren't you afraid to do that, Dick, with all that
mountain driving ahead of you?” I asked.
“An old mountain driver like me? That ain't the point,
Joe. The point is, when I come out I never looked in the
back of the truck. A dead man ain't inspirin', you know.
And I never looked when I stopped to get gas at the ranch.
And the truck'd stood there near the inn for an hour any.
how, maybe more. That's a nice bar, you know. I'd keep
puttin' off startin'. It's comfortable there, and I'd get to
thinkin' about that long drag across the Panamints and
the Argus Range—just me and a dead man—10—that's
how it was.” He ended with an awkward flourish of his
arms, then hauled out his sack of tobacco and his packet
of cigarette papers.
Of a sudden Rogers laughed. "What's the difference,


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
229
did and maybe he didn't. If he committed suicide, don't
you suppose he'd have left something about it in his room,
or in his luggage?”
“That's a possibility.”
But we didn't find anything, and my belief in the theory
received another blow. The assistant manager had just
come on duty when we reached the hotel, a wide, flat sort
of fellow, gray at the edges, so to speak, with weary eyes
and wearing an exaggerated sports suit in tones of reddish
brown and green. His name was Robertson. I hadn't known
him, for he was new at the hotel.
“Mrs. Long knows you're coming," he said hoarsely.
"She's been at the desk most of the morning, but has gone
out now. She'll be back though. She said it was quite im-
portant. She wants to see you before you leave. So if you
don't mind waiting after you're through here with Mr.
Lambert's things, providing she doesn't come back before
that time, she'll appreciate it. She tried to telephone you
at Furnace Creek, but you were gone.”
He made a long speech of it, then unlocked the door and
ushered us into Lambert's room. He raised the shades at
the windows, and paused as though to inquire if there was
anything further he could do for us. “If you need anything,
let me know.”
"All right,” said Rogers. “But I think we can do what
we have to do right here, and not bother anybody else in
the hotel.”
“Yes. Okeh.” Robertson closed the door and his heavy
tread vanished in the carpeted corridor.
"Well, let's begin,” Rogers suggested, glancing about the
room.
The bed was made up; a suit of clothes was hanging


230
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
neatly in the closet. A couple of newspapers and a maga-
zine were on a table.
“You do the lookin', Hunt, you and you other fellows,”
said Stocker, sitting down on the bed. “If I do too much
stoopin' over my head hurts, so I'll set here and watch.”
Turner pulled a worn black leather bag out of the
closet and set it in the middle of the floor. It was not
locked, and when it was opened it was discovered to be
almost empty. Rogers and Turner looked through the
things between them, while the rest of us stood by. The
dead man's toilet articles were in the bag, as were the
usual socks and underwear and handkerchiefs and a some-
what mussed but otherwise clean shirt.
"The old bird was ready to fly at a moment's notice,
wasn't he?" Morris Pine suggested.
“How so?" I asked.
“Everything all packed. Grab the suit in the closet and
he was off.”
Turner and Rogers continued to paw through the bag.
They reached the bottom, and Rogers with an expression
of satisfaction brought something up to view and sat back
on the floor to examine it. It was a packet of letters tied
with a string. He undid the string and spread the en-
velopes in his fingers as if it were a bridge hand.
“Six of them,” he said. “All from Austin, if I'm not mis-
taken.”
Examination proved that he was correct. Turner reached
for them eagerly and with steady fingers began to open
them.
"Are the two you saw in here?" he asked. “Which ones
are they?"


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
231
Rogers took the envelopes and shuffled them quickly.
“These two,” he said. “Going by the postmarks." He
opened them, and spread the single sheet of notepaper in
each for Turner to read.
“What about the other four?”
Rogers was already scanning them. I picked up one that
he dropped, and Pine another, while Stocker looked on
unmoved, waiting for whatever the verdict would be.
“They're just notes from Austin. Signed with his in-
itials. They date back a couple of years—at least this one
does,” he went on, addressing Stocker. “Nothing important
in any of them. Just 'How are you getting along, Wallace?'
‘Will look forward to seeing you this fall. Ever yours,
B.B.A.'"
"Well, now, wait a minute," said Turner, taking charge
of things. “I've got a sample of Austin's handwriting.
These four letters Lambert didn't show you have got to be
genuine. Lambert wouldn't forge all of them, just to carry
around. Forgery was one of your theories. Let's see how
these two he showed you stack up with the handwriting
I've got, and the other four."
The bright sunlight pouring in at the window drew us
all to the table, where Turner spread out the notes. We
bent over them, studying the paper, the typed messages,
the initial signatures of each. All of us, except Stocker who
professed no skill, examined them in turn.
"If the signatures are not genuine," announced Turner
at last, “it will take an expert to say so. Don't you think
so too, Rogers?"
“You realize what that means, then, Turner," Rogers
countered. “It means that the body Dick found was not


232
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
Austin's body,"
"What do you think about the signatures?" insisted
Turner.
“I agree with you. If they're forged-well, who'll say
whether they are or not?” Rogers' face seemed drawn, his
muscles were tense, and an odd light of bafflement was in
his mild blue eyes. “A theory I've got is going to pot if
these letters—” He did not finish what he intended to say,
but held up one of the notes to the light. “The paper may
be the same as that in the others,” he said. “But I'm not
sure. One thing, though, is certain. The other five were
typed on the same typewriter. This one wasn't. Notice the
letter 'v' in the ‘Ever yours.' It's slightly twisted to the
right in the five notes, but not in this one; and the letter
‘o' is slightly flattened on the left side in the five other
notes, but not in this one."
“What do you make of it, Hunt?” demanded Stocker.
“The odd one of the six notes is the one dated August
fifteenth, the one which says Austin is going away for a
rest—"
A knock sounded on the door, a sharp, insistent rapping
of knuckles that demanded immediate attention. Morris
Pine opened the door.
“May I come in, gentlemen?” Lola Long, the manager's
wife, stood smiling on the threshold. Behind her was her
husband.
“Of course," said Rogers. “Come in. Both of you. We
were just going through Wallace Lambert's bag. Our dis-
covery is interesting—”
"Wait until you hear what Lola has to tell you," inter-
rupted Edward Long, taking over for the moment. “You


But nobody rode after Bailey Austin. Huntoon Rogers
pointed out that a telephone call to the sheriff at Las
Vegas would be far more effective than any wild dash after
a man with more than half an hour's start of us.
As a matter of fact, Rogers seemed suddenly to lose in-
terest in the pursuit of Austin. “Either you catch him or
you don't,” he said. “Meantime there's something else Joe
Hibbard and I can be doing. Two are enough to go.
Come on, Joe.”
It was some twenty miles from Death Valley Junction
over to the site of the ghost camp of Greenwater in a rug-
ged canyon in the eastern slope of the Black Mountains.
Rogers and I went alone. He managed to shove Turner and
Pine and Dick Stocker upon Otis Barton for the afternoon,
and we left them at the lunch counter in the hotel still
discussing the appearance of Bailey Austin at the Amar-
gosa and waiting for an answer to their call to the sheriff
at Las Vegas.
"See you at the inn tonight,” Rogers said as we left
them. “I'm not going to have my vacation spoiled entirely.
I want to see at least one ghost camp.”
“Yes,” I said, scolding him as we drove along the de-
serted road, “you've managed to pull out of this thing at
a crucial time. Everything is up in the air and who's got
the answer?"
"I hope I'll have it tonight," he said oddly.
I tried to pull out of him what he meant, but he began
237


238
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
to put me off. “Do you know what it's all about, Hunt?"
I demanded.
“It's all right here in my hand, Joe,” he said, flashing
me a sudden smile and holding his large hand in front of
him, the fingers curved inward. “It's the most amazing
story I've ever encountered.”
"What's a ghost camp like Greenwater got to do with it?”
“Not a great deal. It may turn out that it will have been
worth while to go over there. But there's nothing vital.
No, we've got an afternoon off from the grind of criminal
investigation. Let Stocker and Turner and the rest of them
stew in their theories and speculations. I'm fed up. I'm not
saying anything else about it.”
It was useless to try to pump anything more from him
when he had decided to play the role of the clam, and so I
gave over the attempt. Greenwater was one of those aban-
doned mining camps of which great things had been ex-
pected. Millions of dollars had been poured into the spot
almost overnight the whole thing faded like a dream, and
there was now almost nothing to show for it. And unless
you knew just where to look and what to look for you'd
never realize that once in the rugged gulch was striving
and hope and ambition, and all the gaudy life of a Western
mining camp.
We drove as far up into the gulch as we could and
climbed out of the car, and went scrambling on over rocks
and boulders that had been tumbled in roaring floods of
winter rains until they had all but succeeded in obliterat-
ing the handiwork of man.
“It's incredible what puny man has been able to do in
a country like this,” Rogers remarked, dropping down to


242
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
ners for years."
Rogers hesitated for a moment. He looked away down
the gulch, then back to the old prospector. “You haven't
heard about Lambert's accident, I guess.”
“Accident? What accident?” The old man's interest was
aroused.
“His car ran off the road last night in Furnace Creek
Wash.”
“No! Hurt him much?”
“Killed him."
“No! You don't mean to tell me!” The grizzled old man
was shocked by the news. His mouth sagged open in the
depths of his beard. He glanced away up the gulch, then
back again to Rogers. “So old Wally is gone over the
divide,” he muttered. “Well-he was the best friend an'
grubstake I ever had. And his car went off the road?”
“It happened last night about sundown. Little after,
maybe. It was just beginning to get dark. One of the rang-
ers found him.”
“Well, well. I'm sure sorry to hear it.” He scratched his
beard with gnarled fingers, a faraway look in his keen old
eyes.
None of us for a few moments had anything to say. The
sunlight in the narrow gulch was beginning to fade. Bill
Weed glanced about him, appraising the time of day, then
his hand reached for his skillet.
“I ought to be gettin' supper. It'll soon be time to go
to bed.”
Rogers extended a hand to stay him. “Listen, Bill,” he
asked, "are you going to the funeral?"
“I'd like to a lot, just for old times' sake. But I cain't.
It's too fur. They'll bury him in Vegas, I guess.”


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
245
happened, wa’n't it?” he inquired of Rogers.
“Just about.”
"Well," said the old man thoughtfully, stooping down
and picking up a squarish piece of rock that would weigh
about two pounds, “burros is lots safer if you want to git
where you're goin' than an automobile.” He turned the
rock about in his hands curiously while Rogers and I looked
on without interest. “I wouldn't have said that this piece of
rock belonged just here in the wash,” he remarked.
“Why not?” Rogers asked.
"It just don't seem that it ought to, is all,” said Bill
Weed. “I know where I've seen some like it and that's in
Gower Gulch below here a piece on the road—”
“Now, Bill,” began Rogers jokingly, “don't tell me you
smell gold—”
"Wait a minute,” I said, something jogging my mem-
ory. "Lambert must have been carrying that rock with
him,"
“How so?” demanded Rogers.
“That's the rock that was jammed between the body
and the window frame when we were taking Lambert out."
“You mean that it was inside the car?”
"It must have been. As the body was pulled out of the
window, it rolled in such a way as to jam it. I reached in
and worked it out and dropped it on the ground. Don't you
remember?"
“Are you sure, Joe?"
“Yes. It's the same rock. I remember it.”
“All right.”
Rogers moved toward the car with it, and Bill Weed
and I climbed in. The possession of the rock seemed to
do something to Rogers. He was no longer talkative, but


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
251
this morning she is telling the truth. How do you explain
that, gentlemen?"
"The whole thing, Mr. Garvey,” remarked Rogers
quietly, “is a most amazing story.”
“Why, though,” interrupted Morris Pine, “would a guy
like Harry Byers, who had a good head start, risk every-
thing by coming back to take a pot shot at another victim?"
“I don't know,” the superintendent answered. He turned
to Otis Barton, who sat beside him. “Otis, just what hap-
pened up at the inn?"
“It was like this, sir. I dropped in at the inn about five-
thirty o'clock to see who was to make the talk tonight in
the auditorium, Charlie Hughes or I. And as I went into
the lobby I saw Harry Byers. I'd understood that he and
his friend, Hayes, started their walk this morning. Byers
was in hiking clothes and I realized that he must have
turned around and come back for some reason. He carried
a gun. I saw it under his coat. He went on down to the
bar, I think. He didn't speak, though, and I tabbed him
mentally to ask him later how come. Then I got to talking
things over with Charlie and time slipped on.
“Of a sudden I saw Downes coming along in the lobby.
He was dressed for dinner. He saw me and spoke. He said:
'The wife's having dinner with me tonight.' And went
on out the front door as if he might be going for a stroll.
Behind him, following along almost as though he were
stalking him, came Byers. I didn't like the looks of it, but
I couldn't figure it out. So I trailed him outside. Both of
them, though, had disappeared. As I was going around the
inn, trying to figure the thing out, I heard the shot that
got Downes. I ran that way and ran right into Byers. I
grabbed him and took his gun away from him, and brought


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
255
facts to bear me out. First the negative facts. As Doctor
Jonas has told us, Wallace Lambert did not suffer from
heart disease. Therefore, he had not been seized by an at-
tack just before his car left the road. Further, as we know,
he didn't have a blowout. All his tires were intact. Also,
it was still light enough to see clearly, especially if one
was familiar with the road, as Lambert was.
"So much for the negative facts. Now the positive.” Of
a sudden he picked up the squarish rock that had been re-
trieved from the scene of the wreck and which until now
had lain unnoticed in Bill Weed's lap. “This rock,” he said
slowly, “was inside the coupé with Lambert's body, lying
in such a position as to impede its removal. Joe Hibbard
released it so that the body could be taken out through the
window. Now that rock when the car turned over may
have been accidentally thrown into the coupé. But was
it? Or did Wallace Lambert for some reason of his own
pick it up in Gower Gulch, which is where Bill Weed says
it comes from, and have it with him in the car when he
went off the road? Is there a third explanation for the
rock's being in the car?
"The victim, according to Doctor Jonas, was badly cut
by glass about the chin and neck, and his jaw was broken.
If you'll go back out to where the accident occurred, you'll
find where the murderer stood, just off the shoulder of the
road where there is a slight rise rather than a ditch.
"Very well, the murderer, as I reconstruct the crime,
took his place at the spot I have indicated. He already had
lured his victim by a telephone call. Now what is going to
happen to the driver of a car running downgrade on a
mountain road at possibly fifty, maybe sixty, miles an hour,
when a rock is crashed through the windshield and strikes


256
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
the driver in the face, rock and glass together? There's not
one chance in thousands that he will come through the
experience alive. The split second out of control at the be-
ginning of a curve is fatal. Remember that Jerry Towne,
coming down from the wreck, thought he saw a speeding
car ahead of him with which he never caught up. The
murderer was escaping. If there'd been no car there, would
it ever have occurred to Jerry that there might have been a
car ahead of him? I offer that explanation of Wallace Lam-
bert's death,” Rogers ended, "for the light it throws on
what follows."
He paused for a few moments, while no one in the room
offered any comment or asked any questions. I gazed about
me. Every pair of eyes was upon Rogers in this brilliant
reconstruction of what had happened the night before to
Wallace Lambert.
"All right,” Rogers took up once more, "I've told you
how it happened, and why it is murder and not accident
and not suicide. There's even stronger evidence among the
intangibles, so to speak, to bear out my contention that
Lambert was murdered.
“I don't want to go into the murder of John Foster and
the attempt upon Dick Stocker's life. Important as they
are to the individuals concerned, they are both incidental,
although necessary, crimes to the murderer. There are two
major crimes in this series, both linked together and which
must be considered together, if we are to arrive at an un-
derstanding of what has occurred. Mr. Turner,” he ad-
dressed the detective from Detroit, "you have, I under-
stood you to say, in your brief case a copy of Judge Austin's
will."
“Yes, sir.”


THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
261
"No."
“As I thought. Would you, in the case of John Foster,
late at night, while you were taking Mrs. Downes for a
ride into the desert, have stopped at his shack, killed him,
and then calmly driven—".
"I didn't kill Foster. That's ridiculous!"
“Whom did you see walking along the road on your re-
turn?”
“George Downes.”
“Mrs. Downes,” said Rogers, turning suddenly to the
woman, “the other morning you wouldn't tell me whom
you saw, because you didn't know what Harry Byers had
told me. Tell me now who it was walking along the road
that night.”
The woman's lips had closed tightly and her eyes had
narrowed, then with sudden resolution animating her she
said: “My husband, George Downes."
In the silence that followed, Rogers half turned and
picked up the pistol lying on the superintendent's desk.
"This is yours, isn't it, Mr. Byers?"
“Yes,” responded Byers after bending an intent glance
upon it.
Rogers handed the weapon to Otis Barton. “Will you
look at it, Otis, and tell me when it was fired, if recently,
and how many times.”
We watched the ranger expertly take the gun, detach the
magazine and proceed to examine it. He looked up once
in the midst of the process, then back to the weapon. He
lifted the barrel to his nostrils and sniffed.
"It hasn't been fired,” he said oddly.
“Is it the gun you took away from Byers at the inn?"
“Yes.”


264
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
"Where's the motive?"
Rogers sat smilingly on the edge of the desk until the
clamor had quieted down. His gaze came to rest upon the
thin, poorly clad figure of Bill Weed.
“Tell us, Bill, what you were telling me a while ago
about Austin."
"Well, Mr. Rogers,” the old prospector said, holding a
half-smoked cigar carefully between thumb and index
finger, “I don't know very much, you know. I did know
Bailey Austin when he was just a young squirt, him and
Wallace Lambert. The boys was workin' a lease on the
Apex and in a few months' time they made a million out
of it between them. This here George Downes, I knowed
him too. He was a cousin of Austin, but they looked enough
alike to be brothers. But they sure wa'n't of the same flesh
and blood. Downes was low down and ornery and mean.
He wouldn't work. He lived by stealin' in the camp, till
Austin read him the riot act one day and washed his hands
of him. And the last I seen of George Downes was one
Saturday night when he was just two jumps ahead of a mob
that was goin' to lynch him. But him bein' a good foot
racer, he got away." The old man finished his brief tale
and stuck his cigar back between his yellow teeth.
Rogers waited for a moment to see if there was anything
else, then he remarked: “I'm afraid George Downs never
really reformed. You asked me, Mr. Turner, how does he
expect to profit by the murder of his cousin when the will
was drawn in favor of Lambert? Am I not right, Mrs.
Austin?"
Vivian Ellis Downes had sat like a stone statue; the tight
lips, the cold eyes indicated nothing of what she may have


266
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
that when Austin arrived at the appointed meeting place
it was Downes and not Lambert who met him. Perhaps
there was quiet gun play to influence Austin to accompany
Downes into the desert, or the further lure that Lambert
was down in Pahrump Valley.
"At any rate, the victim was tolled into that out-of-the-
way spot where he died. Under other circumstances—that
is, in cooler weather or out from under the threat of the
killer's pistol—and free to think things out clearly, Austin
would have been in no danger of dying of thirst there. A
man accustomed to the desert-Bill Weed here, say—
would have had no trouble. It's when you are under stress
and get panicky that serious trouble starts.
“Now, then, what else happened after Austin was dead,
all identifying marks pointing to the identity of his victim?
The letter which Lambert had received, telling the re-
cipient not to worry if the writer disappeared for a little
rest, was a forgery. It must be. The other letter, purport-
ing to be from Austin, which Lambert received a few days
before he died was the lure that brought Lambert to a spot
where he could be murdered. A forgery, of course.
“We come now to the critical period of all of Downes'
plotting. He was taking long chances, of course, that Aus-
tin's body would not be found until he was ready for it.
Hence when it was discovered and John Foster and Dick
Stocker went down to get it, Downes already was on the
ground waiting to carry out his plot. By accident Dick
Stocker stopped at the inn that night he was transporting
the body through the park. Downes knew without having
to inquire who the dead man must be. Something that


268
THE AFFAIR IN DEATH VALLEY
visitation of a fraudulent Bailey Austin who appeared this
morning before Lola Long at the Amargosa in Death Val-
ley Junction, and vanished. No word has come that he
reached Las Vegas. Significant, isn't it? The disguised
Downes, who looked enough like his cousin in early life
to be his brother, was masquerading.
"You see, when Bailey Austin disappeared, if he were
never seen or heard from again, he could at the end of
seven years be declared legally dead, the presumption of
death arising at the expiration of that time. Circumstances
in evidence, of course, can quicken the time. Supposing
that it came to court on a question of when Bailey Austin
was last seen alive, though, and Lola Long were on the
stand, can you doubt the testimony she would give? Any
jury in the world would believe her. It's the clever touch.
Downes fixed it in her mind so strongly that no attorney
for the prosecution could shake it from her. And George
Downes, being the next and only kin of the late Bailey
Austin, who apparently survived his friend Wallace Lam-
bert, could set up a claim for his cousin's estate, which in
all probability would be allowed.
“Whether George Downes was planning to wait the
seven years is doubtful. Probably he planned, in the be-
ginning, to discover, or arrange for the discovery of, the
body down in Pahrump Valley after a suitable time had
elapsed, a body easily identifiable through evidence he
would be clever enough to plant on it, and thus shorten
the seven-year waiting period. A few more months out
there in the desert and no one could say definitely from
the physical appearance of the body that Austin had died
before Lambert. I'll wager Downes would have allowed
for that. And, besides, perhaps there would be forged let-


RETURN CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT
| TOS 202 Main Library
LOAN PERIOD 1 12
HOME USE
ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS
1.month loans may be renewed by calling 642-3405
6-month loans may be recharged by bringing books to Circulation Desk
Renewals and recharges may be made 4 days prior to due date
DUE AS STAMPED BELOW
FEB 9 1983 60 auto. DISC. FEB 10 '87
REC, CIR. AUG 27 82 SENT ON ILL
FEB
9 10 11
FEB 0 3 2003
U. C. BERKELEY
RECEIVED
OCT 1 0 1984
JUL 2 0 2004
NOCEREBY BY
NOV 27 1924
CIRCULATION DEPT.
FEB 24 1987
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, B!
FORM NO. DD6, 60m, 12/80 BERKELEY, CA 94720
relcalifornia


LI

A
LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
LIBRARY OF THE UBY
OF CALIFORNIA
Y OF CALIFORNIA
GENERAL LIBRARY - U.C. BERKELEY
Berke
B000725456
LIBRARY
VERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAUFORNIA
33120 van
Berk
LIBRARY OF THE UNITE.
WINEO1113 90 EUISMANN 31 30 2978811. VINS OSTRVS 30
OF CALIFORNIA
Berkele
LIBRA
BY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA · LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
BR
DELLO WERD
OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
Berkeley
Berke
LIRBART OF TRE UNIVERSILY OF CALIFORNIA
NEDAN
20 BISA
NIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
32