Speedy's Bargain by Max Brand

Author:Max Brand [Brand, Max]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Western
Publisher: Roy Glashan's Library
Published: 2017-02-08T23:00:00+00:00

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CHAPTER IX.

THE deputy sheriff had been having a drink in Jerry’s saloon because, when he returned to the jail, he knew that a very unpleasant task was waiting for him.

Al Dupray was getting the third degree, and he had been getting it for the last hour now.

The third degree, in Clausen, was bad enough, although it was not the refined torture that was resorted to in larger and more hurried cities. The idea of Stew Osgood was simply to keep his man awake for thirty-six hours and try, by the steady pressure of questions, to make him confess a crime that, Osgood was confident, he had committed.

It was not the sort of thing that Osgood liked. He was a rough fellow. His skin was thick enough to practice most of the brutalities of his office without a qualm. But the third degree was something that revolted him. He had been told that it had to be done. The case was clear and strong against Dupray. There was hardly a doubt that he would be convicted when the case went to trial. But it would cost the county a great deal to prosecute. For the unlucky news had come in that the great and terrible Charles Dupray, the uncle of Al, was again free and roving. He would be certain to pour huge sums of money into the defense, and, when he did that, it meant that he could hire some of the best lawyers in the country to fight out the case. Even if they failed, pressure would be brought to bear upon the prosecuting district attorney. Extra legal help would be required. Besides costing the taxpayers of the town a round sum, the trial would also give Clausen undesired publicity as a wild Western center of gun play and all the rest. The unhappy past would surely be raked up, and the town of Clausen wished at all costs to avoid such a resurrection.

There was one way to preclude all the expense of time and dollars, and that was to secure a confession from Al Dupray. A day and a half before the questioning had started. Now it was about to end, and Deputy Stew Osgood had prepared himself to put on the final pressure.

He strode back to the jail, with the shorter-stepping Pedro hurrying behind him.

When they got to the jail, the mind of the deputy sheriff was not upon his new employee but upon the disagreeable work before him. He simply picked a cap off a nail on the wall and jammed it on the head of Mexico. He picked off a uniform coat and threw it toward him.

“There’s your outfit that shows you belong to the jail,” he observed. “Now get busy. Grab a broom and a mop or something and start tidying up, Mexico. All you gents south of the Río Grande know how to scrub, or you ought to.”

Pedro accepted the broom as though it were the sword conferring knighthood upon him. The deputy sheriff hurried on toward his own office.

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