“He was glad of the chance, I guess,” a smile twisted Creel’s lips. “We were pretty sure that we’d never see him again. We weren’t afraid that he’d squeal, because he was the one that had committed the murder. Our hands was clean. Things had worked out better than we could have planned ourselves.”
“Yes, we did worry—some. We knew that MacGregor wouldn’t say a word about us unless he was placed under arrest for the murder. We didn’t think you was going to get him, and you wouldn’t either if it hadn’t been for Fontaine. We had no idea that Fontaine knew anything about MacGregor until he blabbed out that he had seen MacGregor dope a drink he was mixing for the prospector. We could have killed the kid for that, but if we had, you’d have known right away that we was the ones that had done it and was implicated in some way in the other murder. There wasn’t a thing for us to do but just sit and wait.
“We didn’t have to wait very long either. MacGregor gets himself killed in a scrap with the police. And lo and behold!—the ‘Rat’s’ wife won’t talk. She wouldn’t tell you a thing and she knew _everything_. You can bet MacGregor told his wife all about us. But why didn’t she squeal? She could have got revenge on us good and proper. She had us right where she wanted us. When she wouldn’t give evidence, we knew what was in that lady’s mind then and there: _She was planning to get back that poke!_”
“Have you any more to say for yourself?” asked the inspector, following a long interval of silence.
“If you don’t mind,” said Rand, addressing his superior, “I’d like to ask him a question.”
“What was in the poke the evening Emery and Burnnel came to your cabin?”
Creel’s laugh sounded like the cackle of a madman.
“A rusty nail and a piece of broken string, taken from an old alarm clock. That’s what I call a clever piece of work. It was my idea. Frischette didn’t know a thing about it. It fooled everybody. I buried Dewberry’s keys in a hole I dug in the cellar. When I got the chance, I came back and dug them up. It was the same day that you went over to investigate about Frischette. You thought he had committed suicide.”
“If he didn’t commit suicide, what happened to him?”
One might have thought that Rand had been shot himself. He jumped. It was several moments before he fully recovered from his surprise.