a sound.”

“I see. Oh, there’s one more thing. You don’t know anything about his next of kin?”

“No,” I said. “I’m sorry. My understanding is he came from Texas, but I’m not sure where.”

“Well, we’ll try the store, and his personal gear. Thanks.”

Barbara was watching wide-eyed as I hung up. I told her about it. “Oh, no!” she exclaimed. “How awful.”

“It’s a rotten shame.” He was probably still in his twenties. But at least he didn’t have a wife and children to break the news to, as far as I knew. In spite of the fact he was a tenant of mine, I didn’t know a great deal about him other than the fact he was a deadly shot at skeet and drove a high-powered sports car. He was a lean, dark, Indian-looking type who was pleasant enough but never talked much about himself. He’d come to Carthage about ten months ago and opened the Sports Shop in the Duquesne Building, in the same space where Frances had had her dress shop, and lived in the small apartment behind it. Just before hunting season he’d joined the Duck Club, buying Art Russell’s membership when Art moved to Florida. We kept it limited to eight members.

But how had he done it? While I’d never hunted with him, I had shot skeet with him a couple of times at the Rutherford Trap and Skeet Club, and he was a natural with a gun. He followed the safety rules in that automatic way of men who’ve been handling guns all their lives. But then hunting accidents were nearly always inexplicable. I tried to push it out of my mind and go on with the letters, but the feeling of depression persisted.

The storm struck a few minutes after five. I went out front and stared through the window at the rain-lashed street where the ropes of tinsel still up from Christmas whipped and billowed in the wind. Evans and Turner had already gone. Barbara was covering the typewriter and taking her purse from a drawer.

“I’ll run you home,” I said.

She smiled, but shook her head. “Thanks. I brought my car today.”

Just as she was going out the door the telephone rang. I motioned for her to go ahead, and picked it up myself. It was Scanlon again. “Warren? Can you get over to the courthouse right away?”

“Sure,” I said. “What is it?”

“It’s about Roberts.”

“Have you been able to figure out how it happened?”

“We’re not sure. I’ll tell you about it when you get here.”

I locked the front door and made a run for the car. It was only three blocks over to the courthouse on Stanley, the second street north of Clebourne. It was perceptibly colder now, and already growing dark under the downpour. I found a parking place near the entrance and dashed up the steps.

The sheriff’s office was on the lower floor left. It was a big room, separated from the doorway by a chest-high counter and a railing with a gate. On the far wall was a large-scale map of the county and a glass-fronted case containing several .30-30 carbines and a couple of tear-gas guns, while most of the space on the right was taken up by a battery of filing cabinets. There were four desks with green-shaded droplights above them. Mulholland, the chief deputy, was standing at the end of one of the desks near the left side of the room, intent on several objects atop it under the hot cone of light. One was a Browning double-barreled shotgun with the breech open, while the others appeared to be a shotgun shell, an envelope, and some photographs. Just as I approached, Scanlon emerged from his private office at the left beyond the desk. He was a big man, still slender and flat-bellied in middle age, and was coatless, the collar of his shirt unbuttoned and the tie pulled open. The graying hair was rumpled and he looked tired, but the hawk-beaked face and gray eyes were expressionless.

Without a word he handed me one of the big 8-by-10 photographs. I looked at it and felt my stomach start to come up into my throat. It had apparently been taken in the entrance to the duck blind. Roberts had fallen back into the small boat in which he’d been sitting, most of the side of his head blown away above the right eyebrow and the eye itself exploded out of the socket by some freak of hydrostatic pressure. I shuddered and put