The Breaking Point - Page 215/275

"I'm not hiding behind her skirts," Dick said shortly. "And there's

nothing incriminating in what you say. She saw me as a fugitive, and she

sent me a warning. That's all."

"Easy, easy, old man. I'm not pinning anything on her. But I want, if

you don't mind, to carry this through. I have every reason to believe

that, some time before you got to Norada, the Thorwald woman was on my

trail. I know that I was followed to the cabin the night I stayed there,

and that she got a saddle horse from her son that night, her son by

Thorwald, either for herself or some one else."

"All right. I accept that, tentatively."

"That means that she knew I was coming to Norada. Think a minute; I'd

kept my movements quiet, but Beverly Carlysle knew, and her brother.

When they warned David they warned her."

"I don't believe it."

"If you had killed Lucas," Bassett asserted positively, "the Thorwald

woman would have let the sheriff get you, and be damned to you. She had

no reason to love you. You'd kept her son out of what she felt was his

birthright."

He got up and opened a table drawer.

"I've got a copy of the coroner's inquest here. It will bear going over.

And it may help you to remember, too. We needn't read it all. There's a

lot that isn't pertinent."

He got out a long envelope, and took from it a number of typed pages,

backed with a base of heavy paper.

"'Inquest in the Coroner's office on the body of Howard Lucas,'" he

read. "'October 10th, 1911.' That was the second day after. 'Examination

of witnesses by Coroner Samuel J. Burkhardt. Mrs. Lucas called and

sworn.'" He glanced at Dick and hesitated. "I don't know about this

to-night, Livingstone. You look pretty well shot to pieces."

"I didn't sleep last night. I'm all right. Go on."

During the reading that followed he sat back in his deep chair, his

eyes closed. Except that once or twice he clenched his hands he made no

movement whatever.

Q. "What is your name?"

A. "Anne Elizabeth Lucas. My stage name is Beverly Carlysle."

Q. "Where do you live, Mrs. Lucas?"

A. "At 26 East 56th Street, New York City."

Q. "I shall have to ask you some questions that are necessarily painful

at this time. I shall be as brief as possible. Perhaps it will be

easier for you to tell so much as you know of what happened the night

before last at the Clark ranch."