Ted Strong in Montana Part 31

"How long have you known Farnsworth?"

"About three years. Ever since he has been traveling through this part of Arizona."

"Don't you know that he is a very undemonstrative man, and that if he really cared for any one he is not the sort to exhibit it?"

"Yes, I reckon Fancy is a cold sort of a proposition."

"How have you got him sized up?"

"I'd hardly know how to tell it. He's some of a mystery to me, and he ain't never let no one as I know of snuggle beneath his jacket."

"But, as an officer, you must have kept some sort of tab on him."

"Sure. I know Fancy as well as most. I always looked upon him as a crook, and a very dangerous man with a gun."

"Has he ever been convicted of a crime?"

"Ain't never been able to land him. Generally he gets away by some slick trick, just as he did to-night, or he bluffs off the fellows who go after him with his guns."

"Has any crime ever been fastened on him so positively that there was no doubt that he committed it?"

"Can't say there was; but that don't cut no ice, for he's been in several killings where no gun got busy but his, an' we've been able to track him right up to crimes, but there we lose him. He's too slick to get caught."

"Something like the murder of Miss Mowbray? He is seen leaving the vicinity of the murder, and is immediately suspected of the crime, although probably fifty other men in the town were near the house or on the road before the murder was discovered, eh?"

"That's true enough. I pa.s.sed the house myself on my way home, just before midnight."

"Why don't you arrest yourself as a suspect? But how was the murder discovered?"

"Some one pa.s.sing saw a flame at the corner of the house, and, looking through a window, saw that the house was afire. He gave the alarm, and the blaze, which was in a corner of the library, was put out before much damage was done."

"Then the body was discovered, I suppose?"

"Yes; a fireman found it in the bedroom on the floor."

"In what condition?"

"She was dressed for bed, and around her neck a cord was tied so tightly, in a peculiar slipknot, that she could not breathe, and her face was black and her tongue protruding."

"Simply strangled to death, eh?"

"That's about it, I reckon."

"What became of the two j.a.panese?"

"Disappeared."

"Where are the ingots of gold?"

"Gone."

"What became of the cord by which she was strangled?"

"I have it."

"How does it happen that you have it?"

"At the alarm of fire I left my home and ran to the scene. As I entered the house by the front door, one of the firemen came running out of the bedroom, crying that he had found a dead woman. I ran into the room, and saw Miss Mowbray lying on her face on the floor, at the foot of the bed."

"She was dead then, I suppose?"

"I thought so. I placed my hand on her bare shoulder, and it was cold."

"She had been dead several hours, then?"

"Two or three hours, perhaps, but maybe less, for the room in which she lay was cold, there being no fire in it or in the adjoining rooms."

"What did you do when you found that she was dead?"

"I turned the body over, and saw by the discoloration of her face and the protruding tongue that she had been strangled. Then I discovered the cord, which was sunken deeply into the flesh of her throat, and so hidden that I would not have discovered it had I not seen the end of it."

"What did you do with it?"

"In the hope that she might not be dead, and that something might be done to revive her, I managed, with great difficulty, to get the cord untied and off her neck."

"What authority did you have for that? I suppose you know that it is the coroner's duty to do things of that sort?"

"Yes; but, besides being a deputy marshal, I am also deputy coroner."

"I see. What did you do with the cord?"

"I don't remember. Oh, yes. I think I put it in my pocket. Yes, here it is."

"Let me see it. Why, this is very peculiar. Do you know what sort of a cord this is?"

"I don't. I never saw one like it before."

"I have. Notice its thickness, and how closely it is woven, and that it is strong as a piece of wire."

"Yes, I noticed that when I found it. What sort of cord is it?"

"j.a.panese."

"j.a.panese, eh?"

"Yes, and a very rare sort of j.a.panese cord, too, fortunately."

"Why fortunately?"