Ladies and GentlemenCobb, Irvin S. (Irvin Shrewsbury)
General
Ladies and Gentlemen
Cobb, Irvin S. (Irvin Shrewsbury)
Fiction; Short stories, American
"Nothin' much was wrong with them, only this," he explained. "There
was one set too many, that's all. When you backed across that sand you
done a first-rate job, but you plumb forgot to brush out the prints
you'd already made comin' in. You'd got down out of the saddle and
was walking your horse when you started down that day. I'm right,
ain't I? You needn't answer--I know I am. Well, that was your mistake,
brother--not wipin' out the first set. So there they was as plain as
the nose on your face--two sets of prints, about a yard and a half
apart and both pointin' in the same direction!
"They say a feller that's fixin' to commit a cold-blooded murder always
leaves something behind him to convict him, and I judge it's the same
way with a feller that takes it in his head all of a sudden to try
to work a fraud on an insurance company or somebody. Lawsy me, that
double set of tracks showin' there to give you away, and no doubt you
sayin to yourself how smart you was all the time you was makin' 'em!
Why, say, listen, the only way it could 'a' been possible for you to
make 'em honest would for you to be twins.
"Well, later on when I found out more about you, I wouldn't been much
surprised to hear you was twins and carried the other twin hid on your
person somewheres and trotted him out when you wanted to use him.
Because by all accounts you certainly are a great one, Chaney, for
havin' an extry supply of everything in your war bags. Well, maybe that
is good medicine--I won't say; but it certainly turned out bad for you
this one time.
"Well, anyhow, I kept my mouth shut, not takin' nobody in my
confidence, on the trip back to Polebridge. As soon as I could get
a minute to myself I called up Kalispel--and say, talk about your
coincidences! The news of you and young Hurley bein' missin' had been
given out the day before by the sheriff and it was telegraphed all over
the country to the newspapers, and the home office of our company in
New Haven, Connecticut, had seen the dispatch and wired to the district
agency at Helena sayin' you carried a policy with us and for them to
start an inquiry into the circumstances and get confirmation and all;
and the district agency had wired to me sayin' the same thing.
"Maybe them home-office folks wasn't astonished when the word came
right back to 'em that their local representative was already on the
job and smellin' a rat. Just to show you, they thought so well of me
on account of what I'd already nosed out they didn't send no special
investigator out from headquarters to handle the matter. They turned it
over to me, with an expense account and a drawin' account and all; just
told me to drop everything else and stick to this case till I found
you. So I got a leave of absence from the sheriff's office, and, buddy,
I've been on your trail ever since, and that's goin' on eleven months.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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