Adventure stories; World War, 1914-1918 -- United States -- Fiction
The most careful search of Andrew Paul's person established one thing
beyond all question: the man had deliberately removed everything that
might in any way serve to aid the authorities in determining who he
really was and whence he came. The tailor's tags had been cut from the
smart, well-fitting garments; the buttons on the same had been replaced
by others of an ordinary character; the names of the haberdasher, the
hat dealer and the boot maker had been as effectually destroyed. There
were no papers of any description in his pockets. His wrist watch bore
neither name, date nor initials. Indeed, nothing had been overlooked in
his very palpable effort to prevent actual identification, either in
life or death.
Subsequent search of the two rooms disclosed the same extreme
precautions. Not a single object, not even a scrap of paper had been
left there on the departure of the men at nine o'clock. Ashes in an
old-fashioned fireplace in Roon's room suggested the destruction of
tell-tale papers. Everything had vanished. A large calibre automatic
revolver, all cartridges unexploded, was found in Paul's coat pocket.
In another pocket, lying loose, were a few bank notes and some silver,
amounting all told to about thirty dollars.
The same thorough search of the dead body of Roon later on by the
coroner and sheriff, revealed a similar condition. The field-glasses,
of English make, were found slung across his shoulder, and a fully
loaded revolver, evidently his, was discovered the next morning in the
grass beside the road near the point where he fell. There were several
hundred dollars in the roll of bills they found in his inside coat
pocket.
Roon was a man of fifty or thereabouts. Although both men were
smooth-faced, there was reason to suspect that Roon at least had but
recently worn a mustache. His upper lip had the thick, stiff look of
one from which a beard of long-standing recently had been shaved.
Later on it was learned that they purchased the two horses in
Hornville, paying cash for the beasts and the trappings. The
transaction took place a day or two before they came to Hart's Tavern
for what had been announced as a short stay.
Standing on Jim Conley's front porch a little after sunrise, Barnes
made the following declaration:
"Everything goes to show that these men were up here for one of two
reasons. They were either trying to prevent or to enact a crime. The
latter is my belief. They were afraid of me. Why? Because they believed
I was trailing them and likely to spoil their game. Gentlemen, those
fellows were here for the purpose of robbing the place you call Green
Fancy."
"What's that?" came a rich, mellow voice from the outskirts of the
crowd. A man pushed his way through and confronted Barnes. He was a
tall, good-looking fellow of thirty-five, and it was apparent that he
had dressed in haste. "My name is O'Dowd, and I am a guest of Mr.
Curtis at Green Fancy. Why do you think they meant to rob his place?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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