The trap
Date: 2025-01-12T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Short stories; Murderers -- Fiction; Detectives -- Fiction

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The trap

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.

Title: The trap

Author: Murray Leinster

Release date: January 12, 2025 [eBook #75094]
Most recently updated: July 1, 2025

Language: English

Original publication: New York: The Frank A. Munsey Company, 1929

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/75094

Credits: Roger Frank and Sue Clark

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TRAP ***

Colby stood stock still

THE TRAP

Colby’s murder plan was perfect—except at one point

By Murray Leinster

This is a very instructive story. It deals with the value of a reputation, the best way to commit murder, what to do with embarrassing letters, and where stolen thousand-dollar bills may be exchanged or spent with the minimum discount—all of which information is useful; but mostly it deals with the value of a reputation.

Colby had thought about reputations rather carefully, but the sound of the shot with which he killed Grahame had not quite died away before he remembered the reputation of Detective Sergeant Nesbit. Then cold sweat came out on his forehead.

He stood stock-still for a matter of seconds, with a horrible sick feeling coming all over him. Grahame, of course, caused none of that feeling of nausea. Grahame had acted according to schedule. The load of buckshot went into his skull just where the spinal column entered it. While the thunderous crash of the gun still echoed among the nearer tree trunks, his arms went stiffly out in an aimless gesture and he fell with a slight splashing sound in the leaf-littered mud underfoot. Colby stood still, with thinning smoke coming out of the gun barrel, while the echoes died away to a dimming murmur among the trees, until even that sound was lost in the noise of the breeze in the bare branches overhead and the dry rustling of lingering brown leaves.

It was very peaceful, here among the trees. The brown clothing of the crumpled figure on the earth blended in color with the carpet of leaves. Any living creatures that might have been within hearing had been startled into immobility and silence by the shot. Colby had not yet moved even his feet after pulling the trigger. There was no sound at all, except a faint trickling noise from a little stream some twenty yards to the right.

Colby pulled out his handkerchief and wiped his forehead—not at all the conventional thing for a murderer to do, of course; but he was not thinking of the dead man at his feet. He was thinking of Nesbit.

He stood with his handkerchief held rather absurdly before him, listening to the stillness. Then he moved to put the handkerchief away. His gun interfered irritatingly. Somehow his hands fumbled. Eventually he shifted the gun to his left hand and stuffed the thing into his coat pocket.

The silence continued. All the world seemed full of a vast immobility, a vast quietude, which was only emphasized by the faint whispering of dry branches and drier leaves overhead. The stillness was reassuring. Nesbit would never know of this! Colby’s plan was too well worked out for him ever to find out anything.

The murderer bent over the huddled mass at his feet. Grahame would have ten thousand dollars on him. Colby searched for it industriously; but it is a curiously unhandy business to go through another man’s clothes. One’s hand catches, the linings follow one’s fingers out of the pockets, one spills things messily—especially if the other man happens to be dead.

Colby went into one pocket after another. A little trace of panic came over him. He found a cigarette case, a lighter, a handkerchief, a notebook, twenty or thirty dollars loose in a vest pocket. Then he remembered—it would be in a money belt, of course.

He unbuttoned Grahame’s vest clumsily and fumbled with the buttons of his shirt. It was unpleasant to have to search like this. Colby felt hideously ashamed—not of the murder, of course, or even of the fact that he was a thief; but searching like this, searching a dead man’s clothing, made him feel unclean.

No, there was no money belt. Colby swore, a trifle shaken. Grahame must have the money on him! He was a free-lance bootleg operator. He had come down to make a deal for two thousand gallons of corn whisky. Colby told him that he had been running a still for three months, and wanted to sell all his product in a lump, avoiding constant dealings and mysterious trucks and cars, and so eliminating the probability of suspicion. Grahame must surely have brought the money; but where was it?

Colby felt sick with disappointment before he had finished hunting. Every pocket contained its appropriate objects—a knife, a watch, a luck piece, scraps of paper with undecipherable notations on them, a newspaper clipping in an envelope.

Pure despair filled him the instant before he thrust his hand into Grahame’s inside breast pocket. But the wallet was there, and the shock of finding it brought back confidence. He should have known! Dealing as Grahame did, the man knew all the tricks of the trade. An inside breast pocket is the one place that a dip will never touch. It is the safest possible receptacle for any valuable.

Colby opened the wallet. Four twenties, six hundreds, and ten, twelve, thirteen other bills—thousand-dollar bills. Colby’s breath whistled in his nostrils. Much better than he had expected! He had never seen a thousand-dollar bill before.

He folded them and thrust them into his own breast pocket with a strong sense of satisfaction. He felt a sort of professional gratification at remembering why one should use a breast pocket. Now there remained only the business of getting rid of Grahame and going back to town and making his proper report. He had everything worked out. Nesbit would never even hear of this affair. He was safe!

He rubbed his handkerchief carefully over every article that he replaced in Grahame’s pockets, to remove possible finger-prints. The woods remained very quiet. To be sure, as the effect of the single shot wore away, there were little sounds near by. An old dog squirrel barked reassuringly, and his wife and relations came out of their holes and went about their businesses. A partridge that had frozen into stillness at the sound of the shotgun came to life and darted to a more promising spot. Colby heard it scratching and rustling among the fallen leaves.

It whirred off into nowhere when he picked Grahame up, however, and the squirrels lapsed abruptly into utter silence when his feet crackled on leaves and small branches as he staggered toward the stream with his burden.

Twenty yards, no more. He had seen the glitter of the stream curving toward the footpath before he shot Grahame. It was an unimportant little watercourse, nowhere more than half a dozen paces across, and it murmured and sang pleasantly to itself over its gravelly bed.

Colby went painstakingly down to its margin. He knew exactly where he was and what he was going to do. After a heavy rain the stream ran with a strong current. It was always carving at its banks or making minor changes in them, and at one spot it had undermined the six-foot clay wall which confined it so that a hollow of considerable depth was roofed over only by tree roots and the earth on top of them. Sooner or later that roof would cave in.

It was easy to push the dead body into the hollow, where it was well hidden. Few people ever came near this place, anyhow. No one would ever dream of creeping in there and risking a cave-in for no purpose. With one single rain of any size, the roof would probably collapse and bury Grahame securely. No one would ever think of looking for a missing man under a cave-in of that sort.

Colby climbed up the bank and tested the roof with his foot. It quivered promisingly. He stamped. He stamped harder. With a sticky thumping of rain-softened earth, it gave way. Small rootlets snapped, falling earth cascaded, and Grahame was safely buried under three feet of soil.

There was absolutely no suspicious sign above. The cave-in looked perfectly natural. No searching party would ever dream of anything hidden under there. No searching party would ever look for Grahame, anyhow. He had come up from Richmond by train, and had ostensibly gone out to hunt with Colby. Colby would explain that as they walked back along the concrete road toward town, a car had come by, headed for Richmond, and in it was an acquaintance of Grahame’s. The man had hailed Grahame and offered a lift, which the latter had taken.

There would be no inquiry, no investigation. There was no need for anything of the sort. It was unlikely that any one in Richmond knew where Grahame had gone.

After Colby had spent twenty minutes clearing away tracks and had carefully dropped one or two blood-spattered leaves into the hollow of a double-trunked poplar, there was absolutely no evidence of a murder anywhere except under that collapsed bank. There was the money in Colby’s pocket, of course, but nobody would know anything about that for a long time—not even Nesbit.

Colby had done his murder in an absolutely perfect way. As you see, this story is instructive.

II

Walking to a little distance among the trees, Colby found a fallen trunk, and on this he seated himself comfortably. He was supposed to be hunting, and he wanted to kill a suitable amount of time, so he sat there for two hours and smoked the better part of a pack of cigarettes, going over and over his plans. He could find no flaw in them anywhere.

Before he emerged from the woods he dug a tiny hole and buried the cigarette butts, just as an added precaution. The white paper would be conspicuous, and a dozen of them lying in one spot would tell that a man had been waiting there. Buried, and with pine needles strewn over the spot, even that incitement to idle curiosity was removed.

He came out on the concrete road at a moment when there were no cars in sight, and he marched sedately on toward town with his gun over his shoulder. Within fifteen minutes he was passed by at least a dozen cars going in both directions. He found it possible to smile comfortably at the perfection with which things were going.

About a mile from the spot where he came out on the road, he overtook two colored boys dawdling toward Culpeper, with a single antiquated gun between them. They gazed at him fearfully and tried to hide the rabbit that one of them was carrying. Colby passed them with a negligent nod. They dropped behind, and were out of sight before he had gone a mile farther.

Colby had gone over his plans so thoroughly that he felt entirely secure. He felt so secure, in fact, that he began to puzzle a little over his moment of terror immediately after firing the shot.

He had known all about Detective Sergeant Nesbit before he planned this coup. He knew Nesbit personally, as he knew nearly everybody in Culpeper. The man had a reputation altogether out of proportion to the size of his territory. People considered him the equivalent of Nemesis.

For instance, when Jud Harris’s wife was found with her head beaten in, and there was every indication that she had been killed by a casual tramp, Nesbit had gone through the usual motions of investigation and had turned up nothing at all; but a full two years later he got a new story and convicting evidence from Jud Harris’s second wife. He had been working on a bootleg case, and had terrified her into revealing the secret of the nearly forgotten murder. That case was typical of the way he worked.

Nesbit’s reputation, in Colby’s opinion, came from the fact that he never forgot an unsolved case. He might not work out a solution at once. Indeed, it seemed to Colby that he rarely did; but if any evidence turned up, however belatedly, Nesbit was sure to fit it into its place among the innumerable half solved puzzles that he always carried in his brain. His results were slow but dramatic, and his reputation was secure.

Hiking along with his gun over his shoulder, Colby congratulated himself upon his own system. Nesbit would have no chance to come in this time. There would be no mystery for him to mull over in his painful, patient way. Grahame had come to town as Colby’s guest. Nobody knew him. He and Colby had gone out hunting. A car had picked Grahame up and carried him back to Richmond. That was all, absolutely all, except the little wad of currency in Colby’s pocket.

The rattling rumble of an old Ford sounded behind him and came thudding solemnly in his wake. It came roaring alongside, and its brakes squealed.

“H’llo, Mistuh Colby!” said Nesbit heavily. “I’m goin’ in to town. Can I give ye a lift?”

Colby swallowed something. He felt his forehead beading; but Nesbit was bending down in the driver’s seat, critically adjusting the carbureter ferrule and watching the radiator absently.

“Th-thanks,” stammered Colby.

He got in. Nesbit shoved in the clutch to first speed and took off his foot, and the car jerked into high. It went quivering and rumbling along the road to town.

Colby wiped the sweat from his face again. In the back seat, silent and awed, and perhaps a trifle fearful, sat the two colored boys whom he had passed twenty minutes before. They gazed at him with the amazing blank woodenness of colored boys in a white man’s car. Colby felt his heart racing.

“Get any shootin’?” asked Nesbit presently, never taking his eyes from the road ahead. “I saw ye goin’ out with yer friend.”

“We bagged a few,” said Colby. He was fighting off a panic that he knew to be unreasonable, so he added: “We started back to town, but a car came along with one of Grahame’s friends in it. He was going on to Richmond, so Grahame got in with him. Saved him a train trip. I gave him the whole bag.”

“Yeah,” said Nesbit heavily. He drove in silence for a space. “I don’t reckon we realize how much city people like birds. We can get ’em when we want ’em. They can’t.”

“Grahame seemed to enjoy himself,” said Colby.

He forced himself to be calm. Nothing was wrong. Nesbit’s presence was a pure accident. Those colored boys, with their rabbit—they must have been near by when he shot Grahame; but Nesbit did not look suspicious. He couldn’t know anything.

“He’s a good fellow,” said Colby rather breathlessly, “though he’s one of the worst shots in the world.”

Nesbit nodded. He was coarse and unlovely, and seemed almost embarrassed by Colby’s presence. He had offered a lift purely as a matter of the courtesy of the road—nothing more than that. Colby gradually convinced himself that the thing was pure coincidence. It couldn’t be anything else.

He drew out his cigarette case and offered it to Nesbit. Nesbit took one with a mumble of thanks. Colby shielded a match with his hands, lighted his own, and offered to light Nesbit’s. Too late, he saw a tiny smear of dried blood on one of the fingers. His cupped hands trembled like tuning forks.

“Car shakes a lot,” said Nesbit heavily.

He took the match and puffed at it himself. Then he tossed it over the side of the car and drove on, frowning over something in his mind.

“I got to get a new car somehow,” he observed presently. “This heah one’s goin’ to fall apart.”

He jammed on the brakes and turned in his seat. The two colored boys rose and tumbled out, headed for a small negro cabin set back from the road. The older of the two mumbled his thanks. The car took up its rattling way again.

“I sent their father to jail,” said Nesbit heavily. “Runnin’ a still. He’ll be out in a couple o’ months.”

Colby felt a throb of satisfaction. The colored boys wouldn’t have been willing to talk to Nesbit, anyhow. As a law officer, they would have avoided him instinctively; but with a personalized family terror of him they would have sat dumb behind him, no matter what they had seen or suspected. Probably they had seen nothing at all. Probably, if Nesbit had noticed the blood, he would credit it to a partridge. Colby could ignore the little speck, now wiped off inconspicuously on the cracked leatherette cushion.

The rather absurd confidence about the colored boys relieved his mind so thoroughly that he was chatting amiably as the car chugged into town and Nesbit obligingly turned off and set him down at his own door. It was almost bravado that led him to say, with the wad of money that he had taken from Grahame’s body pressing delightfully against his chest:

“I wish I’d thought of it before, Mr. Nesbit. I hear you’re a mighty good shot. I’d have asked you to make a third with Grahame and myself.”

Nesbit managed to mumble something politely, without looking at Colby. He would never shine in society, would Nesbit. Then he said heavily:

“Maybe nex’ time. I’d like to talk to Mistuh Grahame. I—uh—I think I know him.”

His tone seemed peculiar to Colby; and as the sergeant drove off, Colby found his heart pounding in a sudden paralyzing suspicion.

III

One phrase made Colby descend alive into hell, where he remained for seven days and nights: “I—uh—I think I know Grahame.”

In seven days he aged five years, and all the time he spent desperately in an effort to seem exactly as usual. The phrase might mean anything or nothing. Nesbit might know everything, or nothing at all, or he might merely be suspicious. It depended on the colored boys, perhaps; but mostly it depended on how well he knew Grahame.

Colby was seeing him now and then, and he was waving abstracted, meaningless greetings and disappearing amid the tinny rumblings of his ancient car.

Colby tried to assure himself that he was safe. There was no evidence anywhere to prove him a murderer. If the colored boys had had a tale to tell—and most likely they had not—there might be suspicion of him, but he could never be convicted. After he had burned the boots worn the day of the murder, even footprints from the stream edge cast in plaster would not incriminate him. Nesbit could not find proof that he was a murderer. There was no proof!

He lay awake at night, staring at the moonlit rectangle of his window, going over and over his plan in search of a flaw in it; but he found none. There was no flaw in his plan.

Then he remembered Nesbit’s heavy, dull-witted patience, and how he had hanged Jud Harris two years after his first wife’s murder. It had taken him two years to solve that crime, but he had done it. If he believed Colby had murdered Grahame, he would keep on working until he had an air-tight case, if it took him ten years.

In the meantime all that Colby could do was to behave in a perfectly natural fashion. Nesbit might know nothing. He had said that he thought he knew Grahame. He might have meant just that. It might have been pure coincidence. He was acting exactly as any man would act who had known a fellow townsman vaguely for years, and one day had picked him up in a car and talked to him for half an hour or so. His nod of recognition would change to a wave of the hand thereafter. That was all. That was how Nesbit was acting; but that was also how he would act if he were suspicious.

Colby watched the moonlight wax nightly to full brightness and begin to wane again, lying awake in the darkness while the curtains at his window flapped idly in and out of the window sill according to the vagaries of the chilly night breezes.

He would have given one of—no, he would give half of the thousand-dollar bills set in behind the horrible chromo above his washstand, if he could find out what Nesbit meant by saying that he thought he knew Grahame when he saw him with Colby.

That one thing made Colby’s nerves grow taut and jangling. For seven nights he lay awake and stared at the idiotically garnished rectangle that let in the moonlight. For seven nights that one phrase fretted at his nerves. During the day he went about his business under the horrible, the overwhelming strain of acting exactly as usual, and at night the problem banished sleep.

If Nesbit had known Grahame as a bootleg operator, he would have watched the man closely. Going hunting with Colby, it would have occurred to him that something else was in the wind. He might have cranked up his car to find out. He might have thought of Grahame as intending to make a cache of liquor near Culpeper. He might have gone out on the concrete road just to look about, to see if there were signs of heavy trucks turning off on the dirt side roads.

If he was out scouting around on Grahame’s account, he would know that Grahame did not leave Culpeper in the car of an acquaintance. He might have known from the beginning that Colby lied. That possibility put dark circles under Colby’s eyes, and hollowed his cheeks a little, and after a few days made his hands the least bit clumsy. One of his customers—a motherly, meddling person—commented sympathetically that he did not look well. Colby cursed her frantically in his heart, while he was beaming at her and assuring her that there was nothing wrong except too much Sunday dinner.

But he looked carefully in his mirror that night, and told himself to stop worrying. There was no sign of anything wrong. Nesbit had shown no suspicion. Colby and Grahame together had probably faded entirely from his mind.

That same night, however, Colby lay awake despairingly in his bed with the cold night air in his nostrils, watching the weaker rays of the waning moon strike through his window upon the elaborately figured wall paper, move slowly across to the washstand, reflect upward from the china basin, and make wavy lines of feeble light upon the atrocious chromo behind which he had hidden his booty. He had taken off the paper backing of that picture and had gummed the bank notes beneath it.

It was near dawn, then, and he had not slept at all.

If Nesbit knew that he had lied, and knew Grahame, the detective might have made inquiries in Richmond. He might have learned that Grahame was not to be found. He would know, of course, that a man in Grahame’s business makes his deals with cold cash, and carries it on him. He might couple that fact with Grahame’s disappearance, and have a case to work on in his clumsy, patient fashion. If so, his patience would lead him to devise a trap for Colby.

The trap appeared on the eighth morning. No one but Colby would have recognized it as a trap. It was the most innocent-appearing of envelopes, bearing no return card, and mailed in Richmond the day before. It was addressed to Grahame, in care of Colby.

Colby took it from the mail rack in the front hall as he came down for his breakfast. He felt the blood draining from his face as he stared at it. His knees shook horribly as he retreated to his room in panic-stricken haste.

There he sat on his bed and gazed unseeingly at nothing, while the blood drummed in his ears. After a long time he realized that he was staring at the hopelessly inartistic picture which hid his booty—“Playmates,” it was called, showing an impossibly benevolent St. Bernard dog with a little girl in an impossibly starched pink dress.

Colby swallowed nothing whatever, and tried to fight down utter terror. Nobody knew that Grahame was coming to Culpeper. Nobody would have dreamed of writing to Grahame in his care, except Nesbit. It was a trap of Nesbit’s. No doubt he had asked that a watch be kept in the post office, to see what Colby did with the letter—to see if he remailed it or destroyed it—to see what effect it had.

With a feeling of panic, Colby realized that he was already showing an effect. His face was ashen. His hands were shaking. If he arrived late at his business, Nesbit would assuredly notice that.

He rubbed his face desperately with a rough towel until the color came back to it. He went down the stairs, savagely making his knees serve him. He went out and set off briskly toward the store. If he acted naturally in every way, Nesbit would think he was mistaken. Nesbit was only suspicious. He couldn’t be more than suspicious.

He had gone three blocks when Nesbit passed him amid the tinny thunderings of his decrepit car. He turned heavy, indifferent eyes upon Colby, abstractedly waved a meaningless salute, and went on.

But Colby was ashen white and utterly limp behind him, and he could not but believe that Nesbit had noticed.

That day was torture. Three people remarked that he didn’t look well. Black blasphemy yammered in his heart as he assured them that it was a touch of indigestion, nothing more. He lived all day in deepest hell, and that night he cursed himself because he had not kept Grahame’s notebook. There would be addresses in it, to one of which he could forward the letter. Nesbit’s suspicions would follow whoever kept the letter; but Colby knew no one who would accept the mail.

Of course he knew better than to go to the stream bank and dig down for the notebook. Nesbit would have somebody watching there, night and day.

Colby’s terror was the deeper because he did not know what to do. He dared not destroy the letter, for that would confirm Nesbit’s belief. He did not dare open it, because that would be detected when Nesbit had it again. He did not dare hold it. The frenzied helplessness that he felt racked his already tortured nerves unbearably.

On the ninth morning after the murder he made his first panic-stricken move. To make Nesbit doubtful, to get rid of the letter, which he knew to be a trap, to gain time—anything!—he scribbled an address on the envelope and crossed out his own. The address was meaningless, written at random. He mailed the letter openly, so that he would be seen.

At noontime he saw Nesbit go into the post office, where he remained for a long time. Colby had a nervous chill.

He had made a mistake. He should have burned the letter, written another, and put it into a precisely similar envelope. It would not matter to whom his own letter was addressed. He should have gone to Richmond and mailed it in the central post office, at the busiest possible instant, when it could hardly be picked out for Nesbit. It would be assumed that he had remailed the trap letter to a proper address for Grahame. Nesbit’s trap would have been useless.

This story, as you see, is instructive. That is the proper thing to do with embarrassing letters—burn them.

Colby had made a mistake; and four days later his hands were shaking uncontrollably as he stared down at a little white envelope in his fingers. It was the letter addressed to Grahame. A rubber-stamped notation with a penciled correction on the envelope showed that some postal clerk had been zealous in the effort to keep a piece of mail with no return card out of the dead letter office.

The notation read, in rubber-stamped characters, “Return”—in pencil, “to previous addressee”—and in rubber-stamped letters again, “For Better Address.”

IV

A room in a boarding house can be horribly still. On the night when Colby came home and saw the trap letter returned, his room was quiet with a deadly, isolated silence in which innumerable small noises from outside came with the sharpness of scratches on a window pane. He heard the squeaking of a car’s brakes blocks away; voices in the street outside; the creak of bed springs somewhere in the house, as someone, reading in bed, shifted his position.

The lamp shed a dismal glow about the room. Its shade was cracked, and an irregular blotch of light was smeared against the figured wall paper. Colby sat on the edge of his bed, twitching a little, while he stared at the letter that had been returned. His brain was exhausted.

Some one walked past the house with measured, sedate footfalls—the walk of a man who is not in a hurry. Colby’s mouth twitched. Of course the house was watched now. He had no chance—none at all!

Heavily, drearily, his worn-out brain essayed one last review. He had foreseen everything, he had taken care of everything, with one exception; but no living man could have foreseen that Nesbit knew the man he had chosen as a victim. Nobody could have known that! Colby repeated it passionately, as a vindication, as an excuse—although there was no one requiring excuses.

The tinny roaring which was unmistakably Nesbit’s car, was not even a surprise when it came. Colby heard it blocks away. He heard it come nearer and stop with squawking brakes before his door. The roaring rumble of its engine ceased. Nesbit’s footsteps sounded crisp and crackling on the cinder walk, and heavy and solid on the porch. He heard Nesbit’s ring.

Minutes later there came a rap on the door, and the landlady’s voice.

“Mr. Colby! Mr. Nesbit’s downstairs to see you,” she said.

Colby’s voice was a croak.

“Tell him to come up,” he replied feebly.

Apathy possessed him. He stared at the little white envelope on the dresser. His eyeballs burned from sleeplessness. His muscles twitched occasionally, without warning. His throat felt dry. He seemed to be moving feverishly amid a myriad thoughts without the possibility of sleep, while his brain was desiccated, dried up, mummified from the lack of rest.

The landlady turned the knob and released the door. Nesbit came in, mumbling embarrassed thanks. The woman drew the door shut behind her.

One last flicker of spirit made Colby stand up. In the shadow of the lamp shade, perhaps, his pallor did not show. He waited as if for the volley from a firing squad.

“Howdy, Mistuh Colby?” said Nesbit awkwardly. “Maybe ye remember a couple o’ weeks ago we were talkin’ about huntin’.”

Colby nodded. The movement was ghastly, the acquiescence of one who looked like a dead man.

“I—uh—I was thinkin’ of takin’ a day off tomorrow,” said Nesbit, “an’ I thought maybe ye’d like to go huntin’—”

Colby’s weary, wakeful brain told him pitilessly what Nesbit really meant.

“Maybe,” said Nesbit heavily, “ye could locate Mistuh Grahame. That’d be right nice.”

Colby’s face had been ghastly before. It became corpselike now. He moved stiffly to a chair and sat down. His muscles twitched uncontrollably as his knees gave way.

Nesbit moved embarrassedly, unlovely and ill at ease. He moved his hands awkwardly.

“Mighty nice place ye got heah, Mistuh Colby. It’s just to my taste. I—uh—I got a copy o’ that picture, too. It’s mighty pretty, ain’t it?”

Colby’s sleepless, smarting eyeballs turned to follow Nesbit’s gaze. They stared at the benevolent St. Bernard dog and the coy, impossible child in the pink starched dress.

Colby’s voice was dull and expressionless when he spoke.

“You don’t have to play with me, Nesbit. How much do you know?”

Nesbit was suddenly still.

“How much do you know?” repeated Colby apathetically. “I didn’t think you knew the money was behind that picture, but I’ve known for a long time you knew the rest. How did you find out?”

Nesbit mumbled inarticulately, staring at Colby.

“You don’t have to take me out hunting tomorrow,” continued Colby in a flat, dull voice. “I’ll show you where I buried Grahame after I shot him. You can count the money I got from him. It’s all there.”

It may be that Nesbit started, or perhaps he did not; but he looked steadily at Colby now, and embarrassment had dropped from him.

Colby managed a mirthless grin. He was sick at heart. He didn’t know how much evidence Nesbit had, but it was enough; and he was tired—so hopelessly tired!

His voice was flat and lifeless. The small insistent noises of the world outside intruded into his speech at first; but his tone rose when he spoke of the letter. He had already told everything else, even where and how he had hidden Grahame’s body.

“That damned letter told me you knew everything,” he said in a dreary pride. “You thought it would break me down, or maybe make me go to look at Grahame’s body; but it didn’t. If you hadn’t guessed where the money was I’d have bluffed you at that.”

His muscles relaxed suddenly. Without any warning whatever, Colby, who had just put his head in a noose, found it possible to sleep for the first time in nearly two weeks. He slept heavily, slumped in his chair, twitching a little from his fretted nerves.

Nesbit stared at him and whistled softly. It was the sort of whistle with which a man expresses blank amazement. Also, perhaps, it was Nesbit’s way of showing that he was disturbed. It is upsetting to go to a man’s room for the sole purpose of inviting him to hunt with you, and have him confess a cold-blooded murder.

“All mixed up,” muttered Nesbit. “All fussed up over a killin’!”

Colby had been hopelessly wrong from the beginning. Nesbit’s acquaintance with Grahame had been limited to half an hour’s desultory talk in a smoking car, a year or more ago. The envelope that Colby had taken for a trap actually contained no more than the words:

Pete said you left this address in case of a telegram. Limpy’s hanging around and says he wants to see you. When are you coming back?

Jim.

It was evidently a letter from a gentleman in Grahame’s own line of business, but the matter to which it referred would never receive Grahame’s personal attention. Nesbit, of course, had never seen it before.

The detective’s reference to the picture of the benevolent dog and the pink starched dress had been merely an expression of his whole-hearted admiration for that particular work of art. Colby had been entirely, utterly wrong all through. Even the money for which he had killed Grahame—

Nesbit checked the bills with a list of scribbled numbers in his notebook. He nodded. Thousand-dollar bills are much used in wholesale bootleg circles. That is the only place, in fact, in which stolen thousand-dollar notes are accepted with the minimum of discount. Colby’s tale was proven in its entirety by the numbers on the bills, because all banks and most police departments have their lists of stolen currency.

“What d’ye know about that?” asked Nesbit heavily. “What d’ye know about that? Everything in the world breakin’ his way, an’ he blows the works because he lost his nerve!”

Nesbit was wrong—Colby had not lost his nerve; he had been trapped. Nesbit’s reputation was the trap that caught him.

As you see, this story is instructive.

Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the August 1929 issue of Munsey’s Magazine.

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TRAP ***

Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will be renamed.

Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away—you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark license, especially commercial redistribution.

START: FULL LICENSE

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG™ LICENSE

PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK

To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work (or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project Gutenberg License available with this file or online at www.gutenberg.org/license.

Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg electronic works

1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property (trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg electronic works in your possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project Gutenberg electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.

1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg electronic works even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project Gutenberg electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.

1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the Foundation” or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project Gutenberg electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the United States and you are located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project Gutenberg mission of promoting free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg name associated with the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg License when you share it without charge with others.

1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project Gutenberg work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any country other than the United States.

1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:

1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg License must appear prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg work (any work on which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, copied or distributed:

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg™ License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.

1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg electronic work is derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase “Project Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg electronic work is posted with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked to the Project Gutenberg License for all works posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.

1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg.

1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project Gutenberg License.

1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg work in a format other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official version posted on the official Project Gutenberg website (www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.

1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg works unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing access to or distributing Project Gutenberg electronic works provided that:

- • You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from the use of Project Gutenberg works calculated using the method you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg trademark, but he has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in Section 4, “Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.”

- • You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg™ License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg™ works.

- • You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of receipt of the work.

- • You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free distribution of Project Gutenberg™ works.

1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg™ electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.

1.F.

1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project Gutenberg™ collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg™ electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain “Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.

1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark, and any other party distributing a Project Gutenberg™ electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further opportunities to fix the problem.

1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’, WITH NO OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.

1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.

1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone providing copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg work, and (c) any Defect you cause.

Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg

Project Gutenberg is synonymous with the free distribution of electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from people in all walks of life.

Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg’s goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg collection will remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure and permanent future for Project Gutenberg and future generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org.

Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation

The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit 501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws.

The Foundation’s business office is located at 41 Watchung Plaza #516, Montclair NJ 07042, USA, +1 (862) 621-9288. Email contact links and up to date contact information can be found at the Foundation’s website and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact

Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation

Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without widespread public support and donations to carry out its mission of increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations ($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt status with the IRS.

The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate.

While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who approach us with offers to donate.

International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.

Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate.

Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg electronic works

Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and distributed Project Gutenberg eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.

Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.

Most people start at our website which has the main PG search facility: www.gutenberg.org.

This website includes information about Project Gutenberg, including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.

Table of Contents

- THE TRAP
- II
- III
- IV
- THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG™ LICENSE