“Neither one of us had any idea that that man MacGregor was playing the same sort o’ game as us. He was stopping at Frenchie’s that night, along with a lot of others, and, of course, we thought nothing of it. You see, we was sure that we was the only ones ‘in’ on the secret. We had got the dope from the kid and had made our plans.”
“Was a part of your plan to kill Dewberry?” Inspector Cameron interrupted.
“Wasn’t any other way our plan would work out. We simply had to do it. We was compelled to put Dewberry out of the way, else he’d sound the alarm and prevent us from getting into his cabin at Peace River Crossing.
“About nine o’clock Frischette come into the room where I was, bringing my supper. Then the two of us sat there talking. We had decided that it wasn’t much use to try to do anything until along about midnight. So we waited there in the dark. When the bunk-hall began to get a little quiet we stopped talking ourselves for fear we might keep someone awake. It was exactly twelve by my watch, when we stole out of that room.”
Creel paused reflectively, his eyes half closed. He remained motionless and silent so long that Dick began to wonder if the man had lost his power of speech. Suddenly he sat up straight in his chair and continued:
“We was both in our stocking-feet and we moved as quiet as ghosts between the rows of sleepers. Nobody could have heard us. Men was snoring all around us. It was dark in the room, almost black, but we knew exactly where to go. All the details had been planned out in advance. Yet, as I said before, we hadn’t figured on MacGregor, and on that account we nearly got tripped up. We didn’t know nothing about him until we was directly over him.”
Again Cameron interrupted: “Directly over him? What do you mean? Had you made a mistake and gone to MacGregor’s bunk instead?”
“No! No!” the old recluse spoke impatiently. “He was on his knees, stooping over Dewberry, with the poke and money in his hands. Dewberry was dead!
“MacGregor hadn’t even heard us come up. I was carrying a knife in my right hand and I pushed it against his throat. I whispered that if he made a sound I’d kill him. In fact, I thought I would anyway. I was so frightened I could hardly stand on my feet. But if I was frightened, MacGregor was worse than that. He was frozen like a block of ice. I don’t think he had more than strength enough to hand over the poke and the roll of bills. After that we took him back into the kitchen and told him we would give him his life if he’d promise to leave the place at once and make no effort to get back the poke.”