Free American Gun Mystery by Ellery Queen

that is to say, for a living creature; it was evident that bones had been broken by the crushing weight of the trampling beasts.
    Ellery, a little pale, straightened up and looked around. He lit a cigaret with slightly trembling fingers.
    “Good thorough job,” muttered the Inspector.
    “I find it difficult,” murmured Ellery, “to be anything but religious at the present moment.”
    “Hey? What’s that?”
    “Oh, don’t mind me,” cried Ellery. “I’ve never become accustomed to these bloody exhibits. …Dad, do you believe in miracles?”
    “What the devil you talkin’ about?” said the old man. He began to unbuckle from Horne’s body the trouser belt, which was clasped snugly about the waist at the first hole; and then he struggled to detach the heavy pistol belt.
    Ellery pointed to the dead face. “Miracle the first. His face wasn’t touched, although those terrible hooves pounded all about him.”
    “What of it?”
    “Oh, God!” groaned Ellery. “What of it? the man says. Nothing of it. That’s exactly the point! If there was anything of it, it wouldn’t be a miracle, would it?”
    The Inspector disdained to reply to such obvious nonsense.
    “Miracle the second.” And Ellery blew smoke jerkily. “Look at his right hand.”
    The old man obediently, if somewhat wearily, complied. The right arm seemed to be broken in two places; but the right hand was healthily brown, and there was not a scratch on it. Gripped in the tight clutch of the fingers was the long-barreled revolver they had seen Horne flourish only a few moments before.
    “Well?”
    “That’s not even a miracle; it’s downright act of Providence. He fell, he was probably dead before he struck the ground, forty-one horses stepped all over him—and, by heaven, his hand doesn’t drop the gun!”
    The Inspector nursed his lower lip. He looked bewildered. “Well, but what of it? You don’t think there’s something—”
    “No, no,” said Ellery impatiently. “There can’t be anything human about the causes of these phenomena. There’s a surfeit of eye-witnesses for that. No, that’s why I call these things miracles; they were accomplished by no human agency. Hence divine. Hence something to get a headache over. …Oh, hell, I’m going potty. Where’s his Stetson?”
    He broke through the ring of men and looked around. Then he brightened and stepped briskly across the dirt to a spot some eight feet off, where a high broad-brimmed hat lay ignominiously in the dust. He stooped, picked it up, and returned to his father.
    “That’s the hat, all right,” said the Inspector. “Knocked off his head when he fell and, I s’pose, kicked away by some horse.”
    They examined it together. Its once noble crown was crushed in, like the head it had adorned; it was a black Stetson of smooth, marvelously soft felt with a very wide brim flaring at the edges. Around the crown there was a fine belt of braided black leather. Inside, in letters of gold, were stamped the initials B H.
    Ellery laid the Stetson gently beside the crushed body.
    The Inspector was peering intently at the dead man’s two belts; Ellery watched him with some amusement. The pistol belt with its attached holsters was enormously long and heavy, since it was designed to go twice about the body of its wearer. Like the rest of Horne’s showy gear it was elaborately adorned with silver conchas and gold nails, and its cartridge holders gleamed. A silver monogram bore a scrolled B H. Although the belt was soft and pliable and quite obviously kept perfect by loving fingers, it was quite obviously also of great age.
    “Had this a long time, the poor coot,” muttered the Inspector.
    “I suppose,” sighed Ellery, “it’s like taking care of your precious books when you’re a bibliophile. Have you the remotest notion how many hours I’ve put in oiling the calf bindings of my Falconers?”
    They examined the trouser belt. It was in a perfect state of preservation, though