A Double Barrelled Detective

M >> Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) >> A Double Barrelled Detective


"Come to a vote, men!" This from one of the Daly gang, Shadbelly Higgins.
"Quick! is it hang, or shoot?"

"Neither!" shouted one of his comrades. "He'll be alive again in a week;
burning's the only permanency for him."

The gangs from all the outlying camps burst out in a thundercrash of
approval, and went struggling and surging toward the prisoner, and closed
around him, shouting, "Fire! fire's the ticket!" They dragged him to the
horse-post, backed him against it, chained him to it, and piled wood and
pine cones around him waist-deep. Still the strong face did not blench,
and still the scornful smile played about the thin lips.

"A match! fetch a match!"

Shadbelly struck it, shaded it with his hand, stooped, and held it under
a pine cone. A deep silence fell upon the mob. The cone caught, a tiny
flame flickered about it a moment or two. I seemed to catch the sound of
distant hoofs--it grew more distinct--still more and more distinct, more
and more definite, but the absorbed crowd did not appear to notice it.
The match went out. The man struck another, stooped, and again the flame
rose; this time it took hold and began to spread--here and there men
turned away their faces. The executioner stood with the charred match in
his fingers, watching his work. The hoof-beats turned a projecting crag,
and now they came thundering down upon us. Almost the next moment there
was a shout:

"The sheriff!"

And straightway he came tearing into the midst, stood his horse almost on
his hind feet, and said:

"Fall back, you gutter-snipes!"

He was obeyed. By all but their leader. He stood his ground, and his
hand went to his revolver. The sheriff covered him promptly, and said:

"Drop your hand, you parlor desperado. Kick the fire away. Now unchain
the stranger."

The parlor desperado obeyed. Then the sheriff made a speech; sitting his
horse at martial ease, and not warming his words with any touch of fire,
but delivering them in a measured and deliberate way, and in a tone which
harmonized with their character and made them impressively disrespectful.

"You're a nice lot--now ain't you? Just about eligible to travel with
this bilk here--Shadbelly Higgins--this loud-mouthed sneak that shoots
people in the back and calls himself a desperado. If there's anything I
do particularly despise, it's a lynching mob; I've never seen one that
had a man in it. It has to tally up a hundred against one before it can
pump up pluck enough to tackle a sick tailor. It's made up of cowards,
and so is the community that breeds it; and ninety-nine times out of a
hundred the sheriff's another one." He paused--apparently to turn that
last idea over in his mind and taste the juice of it--then he went on:
"The sheriff that lets a mob take a prisoner away from him is the
lowest-down coward there is. By the statistics there was a hundred and
eighty-two of them drawing sneak pay in America last year. By the way
it's going, pretty soon there 'll be a new disease in the doctor-books
--sheriff complaint." That idea pleased him--any one could see it.
"People will say, 'Sheriff sick again?' 'Yes; got the same old thing.'
And next there 'll be a new title. People won't say, 'He's running for
sheriff of Rapaho County,' for instance; they'll say, 'He's running for
Coward of Rapaho.' Lord, the idea of a grown-up person being afraid of
a lynch mob!"

He turned an eye on the captive, and said, "Stranger, who are you, and
what have you been doing?"

"My name is Sherlock Holmes, and I have not been doing anything."

It was wonderful, the impression which the sound of that name made on the
sheriff, notwithstanding he must have come posted. He spoke up with
feeling, and said it was a blot on the county that a man whose marvelous
exploits had filled the world with their fame and their ingenuity, and
whose histories of them had won every reader's heart by the brilliancy
and charm of their literary setting, should be visited under the Stars
and Stripes by an outrage like this. He apologized in the name of the
whole nation, and made Holmes a most handsome bow, and told Constable
Harris to see him to his quarters, and hold himself personally
responsible if he was molested again. Then he turned to the mob and
said:

"Hunt your holes, you scum!" which they did; then he said: "Follow me,
Shadbelly; I'll take care of your case myself. No--keep your popgun;
whenever I see the day that I'll be afraid to have you behind me with
that thing, it 'll be time for me to join last year's hundred and
eighty-two"; and he rode off in a walk, Shadbelly following.

When we were on our way back to our cabin, toward breakfast-time, we ran
upon the news that Fetlock Jones had escaped from his lock-up in the
night and is gone! Nobody is sorry. Let his uncle track him out if he
likes; it is in his line; the camp is not interested.




V

Ten days later.

"James Walker" is all right in body now, and his mind shows improvement
too. I start with him for Denver to-morrow morning.

Next night. Brief note, mailed at a way-station.

As we were starting, this morning, Hillyer whispered to me: "Keep this
news from Walker until you think it safe and not likely to disturb his
mind and check his improvement: the ancient crime he spoke of was really
committed--and by his cousin, as he said. We buried the real criminal
the other day--the unhappiest man that has lived in a century--Flint
Buckner. His real name was Jacob Fuller!" There, mother, by help of me,
an unwitting mourner, your husband and my father is in his grave. Let
him rest.