Free Nightmare Town: Stories by Dashiell Hammett Page A

MacPhails’ porch when Steve went up the flowered walk that evening. She welcomed him warmly, concealing none of the impatience with which she had been waiting for him. He sat on the step beside her, twisting around a little for a better view of the dusky oval of her face.
    “How is your arm?” she asked.
    “Fine!” He opened and shut his left hand briskly. “I suppose you heard all about to-day’s excitement?”
    “Oh, yes! About Mr. Brackett’s shooting Mr. Ormsby, and then dying with one of his heart attacks.”
    “Huh?” Steve demanded.
    “But weren’t you there?” she asked in surprise.
    “I was, but suppose you tell me just what you heard.”
    “Oh, I’ve heard all sorts of things about it! But all I really know is what Dr. MacPhail, who examined both of them, said.”
    “And what was that?”
    “That Mr. Brackert killed Mr. Ormsby – shot him – though nobody seems to know why; and then, before he could get out of the building, his heart failed him and he died.”
    “And he was supposed to have a bad heart?”
    “Yes. Dr. MacPhail told him a year ago that he would have to be careful, that the least excitement might be fatal.”
    Steve caught her wrist in his hand.
    “Think now,” he commanded. “Did you ever hear Dr. MacPhail speak of Brackett’s heart trouble until to-day?”
    She looked curiously into his face, and a little pucker of bewilderment came between her eyes.
    “No,” she replied slowly. “I don’t think so; but, of course, there was never any reason why he should have mentioned it. Why do you ask?”
    “Because,” he told, her, “Brackett did not shoot Ormsby; and any heart attack that killed Brackett was caused by poison – some poison that burned his face and beard.”
    She gave a little cry of horror.
    “You think -“ She stopped, glanced furtively over her shoulder at the front door of the house, and leaned close to him to whisper: “Didn’t – didn’t you say that the man who was killed in the fight last night was named Kamp?”
    “Yes.”
    “Well, the report, or whatever it was that Dr. MacPhail made of his examination, reads Henry Cumberpatch.”
    “You sure? Sure it’s the same man?”
    “Yes. The wind blew it off the doctor’s desk, and when I handed it back to him, he made some joke” – she coloured with a little laugh – “some joke about it nearly being your death certificate instead of your companion’s. I glanced down at it then, and saw that it was for a man named Henry Cumberpatch. What does it all mean? What is -“
    The front gate clattered open, and a man swayed up the walk. Steve got up, picked up his black stick, and stepped between the girl and the advancing man. The man’s face came out of the dark. It was Larry Ormsby; and when he spoke his words had a drunken thickness to match the unsteadiness – not quite a stagger, but nearly so – of his walk.
    “Lis’en,” he said; “I’m dam’ near -“
    Steve moved toward him. “If Miss Vallance will excuse us,” he said, “we’ll stroll to the gate and talk.”
    Without waiting for a reply from either of them, Steve linked an arm through one of Ormsby’s and urged him down the path. At the gate Larry broke away, pulling his arm loose and confronting Steve.
    “No time for foolishness,” he snarled. “Y’ got to get out! Get out o’ Izzard!”
    “Yes?” Steve asked. “And why?”
    Larry leaned back against the fence and raised one hand in an impatient gesture.
    “Your lives are not worth a nickel – neither of you.”
    He swayed and coughed. Steve grasped him by the shoulder and peered into his face.
    “What’s the matter with you?”
    Larry coughed again and clapped a hand to his chest, up near the shoulder.
    “Bullet – up high – Fernie’s. But I got him – the big tramp. Toppled him out a window – down like a kid divin’ for pennies.” He laughed shrilly, and then became earnest again. “Get the girl-beat it – now! Now! Now! Ten minutes’ll be too