"They mustn't meet," she said desperately. "Vance, if you're half a man
you'll find some way of getting that pompous, windy idiot off the place."
"My dear! Do you want me to invite him to leave?"
"Something--I don't care what!"
"Neither do I. But I can't insult the fool. That type resents an insult
with gunplay. We must simply keep them apart. Keep the sheriff from
talking."
"Keep rain from falling!" groaned Elizabeth. "Vance, if you won't do
anything, I'll go and tell the sheriff that he must leave!"
"You don't mean it!"
"Do you think that I'm going to risk a murder?"
"I suppose you're right," nodded Vance, changing his tactics with
Machiavellian smoothness. "If Terry saw the man who killed his father,
all his twenty-four years of training would go up in smoke and the blood
of his father would talk in him. There'd be a shooting!"
She caught a hand to her throat. "I'm not so sure of that, Vance. I think
he would come through this acid test. But I don't want to take chances."
"I don't blame you, Elizabeth," said her brother heartily. "Neither would
I. But if the sheriff stays here, I feel that I'm going to win the bet
that I made twenty-four years ago.
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