THOUGH hours may drag themselves into the past
so sluggishly that one is fairly maddened by the
snail's pace of them, into the past they must go
eventually. Jean had sat and listened to the wheels of the
Golden State Limited clank over the cryptic phrase that
meant so much. "Letter-in-the-chaps! Letter-in-the
chaps!'' was what they had said while the train
pounded across the desert and slid through arroyas and
deep cuts which leveled hills for its passing.
"Letter-in-the-chaps! Letter-in-the-chaps!'' And then a silence
while they stood by some desolate station where
the people were swarthy of skin and black of hair and
eyes, and moved languidly if they moved at all. Then
they would go on; and when the wheels had clicked over
the switches of the various side tracks, they would take
up again the refrain: "Letter-in-the-chaps!
Letter-in-the-chaps!'' until Jean thought she would go crazy
if they kept it up much longer.
Little by little they drew near to Los Angeles. And
then they were there, sliding slowly through the yards
in a drab drizzle of one of California's fall rains. Then
they were in a taxicab, making for the Third Street
tunnel. Then Jean stared heavy-eyed at the dripping
palms along the boulevard which led away from the
smoke of the city and into Hollywood, snuggled against
the misty hills. "Letter-in-the-chaps!'' her tired brain
repeated it still.
Then she was in the apartment shared with Muriel
Gay and her mother. These two were over at the
studio, the landlady told her when she let them in, and
Jean was glad that they were gone.
She knelt, still in her hat and coat and with her
gloves on, and fitted her trunk key into the lock. And
there she stopped. What if the letter were not in
the chaps, after all? What if it were but a trivial note,
concerning a matter long since forgotten; a trivial note
that had not the remotest bearing upon the murder?
"Letter-in-the-chaps!'' The phrase returned with a
mocking note and beat insistently through her brain.
She sat back on the floor and shivered with the chill of a
fireless room in California, when a fall rain is at its
drizzling worst.
In the next room one of the men coughed; afterwards
she heard Lite's voice, saying something in an
undertone to Art Osgood. She heard Art's voice mutter
a reply. She raised herself again to her knees,
turned the key in the lock, and lifted the trunk-lid with
an air of determination.
Down next the bottom of her big trunk they lay, just
as she had packed them away, with her dad's six-shooter
and belt carefully disposed between the leathern folds.
She groped with her hands under a couple of riding-skirts and her high, laced boots, got a firm grip on the
fringed leather, and dragged them out. She had forgotten
all about the gun and belt until they fell with a
thump on the floor. She pulled out the belt, left the
gun lying there by the trunk, and hurried out with the
chaps dangling over her arm.
She was pale when she stood before the two who sat
there waiting with their hats in their hands and their
faces full of repressed eagerness. Her fingers trembled
while she pulled at the stiff, leather flap of the pocket,
to free it from the button.
"Maybe it ain't there yet,'' Art hazarded nervously,
while they watched her. "But that's where he put it,
all right. I saw him.''
Jean's fingers went groping into the pocket, stayed
there for a second or two, and came out holding a folded
envelope.
"That's it!'' Art leaned toward her eagerly.
"That's the one, all right.''
Jean sat down suddenly because her knees seemed
to bend under her weight. Three years—and that letter
within her reach all the time!
"Let's see, Jean.'' Lite reached out and took it from
her nerveless fingers. "Maybe it won't amount to anything
at all.''
Jean tried to hold herself calm. "Read it—out
loud,'' she said. "Then we'll know.'' She tried to
smile, and made so great a failure of it that she came
very near crying. The faint crackle of the cheap paper
when Lite unfolded the letter made her start nervously.
"Read it—no matter—what it is,'' she repeated,
when she saw Lite's eyes go rapidly over the lines.
Lite glanced at her sharply, then leaned and took
her hand and held it close. His firm clasp steadied her
more than any words could have done. Without further
delay or attempt to palliate its grim significance,
he read the note: