Free American Gun Mystery by Ellery Queen Page A

very old; so old that the vertical creases—there were two, one crossing the second, the other the third buckle hole—had from long use worn the leather thin; so old, indeed, that the belt might have girdled the waist of a Pony Express rider. And as in the case of the pistol belt, this belt too displayed Horne’s initials in silver.
    “The man,” murmured Ellery as he relinquished the belt to his father, “was an antiquarian of the Occident, by the beards of the Academie! Why, that’s a museum piece!”
    The Inspector, accustomed to his son’s flights of fancy, spoke softly to one of the detectives near by, and the man nodded and made off. The detective returned with Grant, who seemed to have pulled himself together. He carried himself with unnatural stiffness, as if braced to withstand another blow.
    “Mr. Grant,” said the Inspector sharply, “I’m going to start this investigation the right way—details first; we’ll get to the big things later. This looks like a long job.”
    Grant said hoarsely: “Anything ya say.”
    The Inspector nodded in a curt way and knelt once more by the body. Lightly his fingers moved over the broken clay, and inside of three minutes he had collected a small heap of miscellaneous articles from the dead man’s clothes. There was a small wallet; it contained some thirty dollars in bills. The Inspector passed it to Grant.
    “This Horne’s?”
    Grant’s head jerked. “Yeah. Yeah. I—hell—I gave it to him for ’is last … birthday.”
    “Yes, yes,” said the Inspector hastily, and retrieved the wallet, which had slipped from the rodeo owner’s fingers. A handkerchief; a single key with a wooden tag attached bearing the words “Hotel Barclay”; a packet of brown cigaret-papers and a little sack of cheap tobacco; a number of long matches; a checkbook. …
    Grant nodded dumbly at all the exhibits. The Inspector examined the check-book thoughtfully. “What was the name of his New York bank?”
    “Seaboard. Seaboard National. He opened an account only a week’r so ago,” muttered Grant.
    “How d’ye know?” said the Inspector quickly.
    “He asked me to rec’mend one when he got to Noo Yawk. I sent ’im over to m’own bank.”
    The old man replaced the check-book; its blank checks bore, plainly enough, the name of the Seaboard National Bank & Trust Company. According to its last stub-entry there was a balance of something over five hundred dollars.
    “Find anything here,” demanded the Inspector, “that oughtn’t to be here, Mr. Grant?”
    Grant’s bloodshot eyes swept over the pile of small possessions. “No.”
    “Anything missing?”
    “I wouldn’t know.”
    “Hmmm. How about his duds? These things what he always wears? Look all right to you?”
    The stocky man’s hands clenched into fists. “Do I have to look at him again?” he shouted in a strangled voice. “Why the hell do ya torture me this way?”
    The man’s grief seemed genuine enough. So the Inspector said in a gentle voice: “Pull yourself together, man. We’ve got to check over everything; there’s often a clue on the body. Don’t you want to help us find your friend’s murderer?”
    “God, yes!”
    Grant stepped forward and forced his eyes downward. And his eyes swept from the horizontal boots to the gruesome concavity of the poor mangled head. He was silent for a long time. Then he threw back his thick shoulders and said harshly: “All there; nothin’ missing. That’s his reg’lar movie outfit. Every shaver from here to ’Frisco knew this rig-out in the days he was makin’ pitchers.”
    “Fine! All—”
    “Interrogation,” said Ellery. “Mr. Grant, did I hear you say nothing is missing?”
    Grant’s head screwed around with unnatural slowness; his eyes met Ellery’s boldly, but there was something puzzled and—yes, fearful—in their muddy depths. He drawled: “That’s what I said, Mr. Queen.”
    “Well, sighed Ellery, as his father squinted at him with a sudden