Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 28, 2025
Never had he seen Kedsty's face more like the face of an emotionless sphinx. But what disturbed him most was the presence of people he had not expected. Close behind Kedsty was McDougal, the magistrate, and behind McDougal entered Constables Felly and Brant, stiffly erect and clearly under orders. Cardigan, pale and uneasy, came in last, with the stenographer.
And Kent spoke her name gently as he saw her great, wide eyes blazing dully their agony and despair. Then, like one stunned and fascinated, she stared down upon Kedsty again. Every instinct of the man-hunter became alive in Kent's brain as he, too, turned toward the Inspector of Police. Kedsty's arms hung limp over the side of his chair. On the floor under his right hand was his Colt automatic.
Nor can I say a word about Kedsty. It may be, some day, that you will know. And then you will not like me. For nearly four years before I saw you that day I had been in a desolation. It was a terrible place. It ate my heart and soul out with its ugliness, its loneliness, its emptiness. A little while longer and I would have died. Then the thing happened that brought me away.
Well, I may be both blind and a fool, and perhaps a little excited. But it seemed to me that from the moment Inspector Kedsty laid his eyes on that girl he was a little too anxious to let McTrigger go and hang you in his place. A little too anxious, Kent." The irony of the thing brought a hard smile to Kent's lips as he nodded for the cigars.
I never called you a liar in my life, but I'm calling you one now!" He was gripping Kent's hands in the fierce clasp of a friendship that nothing could kill. Kent winced, but the pain of it was joy. He had feared that O'Connor, like Kedsty, must of necessity turn against him. Then he noticed something unusual in O'Connor's face and eyes.
"And his Chinaman cook and housekeeper is away." "And the bungalow is closed, or supposed to be." "Except at night, when Kedsty goes there to sleep." O'Connor's hand gripped Kent's. "Jimmy, there never was a team in N Division that could beat us, The girl is hiding at Kedsty's place!" "But why HIDING?" insisted Kent. "She hasn't committed a crime." O'Connor sat silent for a moment.
But it was Inspector Kedsty, commanding N Division, the biggest and wildest division in all the Northland, that roused in Kent an unusual emotion, even as he waited for that explosion just over his heart which the surgeon had told him might occur at any moment. On his death-bed his mind still worked analytically. And Kedsty, since the moment he had entered the room, had puzzled Kent.
He had lied to save a human life, but that life the Law itself had wanted. So he had both robbed and outraged the Law, even though a miracle saved him the greatest penalty of all. The weight of the thing crushed him. It was as if for the first time a window had opened for him, and he saw what Kedsty had seen. And then, as the minutes passed, the fighting spirit in him rose again.
He wanted her on the river. He wanted her going north and still farther north. The thought that she was mixed up in some affair that had to do with Kedsty was displeasing to him. If she was still in the Landing or near the Landing, it could no longer be on account of Sandy McTrigger, the man his confession had saved.
Then, Kent, came the night of your freedom, and a little later Donald came to Kedsty's home. It was he whom you saw that night out in the storm. He entered and killed Kedsty. "Something dragged Marette down to the room that night. She found Kedsty in his chair dead. Donald was gone. It was then that you found her there.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking