Page:Bedford-Jones--The Mardi Gras Mystery.djvu/270

 It never occurred to you that other people might have been there in the bushes when the sheriff was murdered, eh?"

Chacherre went livid.

"It was another mistake to throw away your knife after you killed him," pursued Gramont, reflectively. "You should have held on to that knife, Ben. There's no blood, remember, on Hammond's knife—a hard thing for you and your friends to explain plausibly. Yet your knife is heavy with blood, which tests will show to be human blood. Also, the knife has your name on it; quite a handsome knife, too. On the whole, you must admit that you bungled the murder from start to finish"

Chacherre broke in with a frightful oath—a frantically obscene storm of curses. So furious were his words that Gramont very efficiently gagged him with cloths, gagged him hard and fast.

"You also bungled when you forgot all about burning that bundle, in your excitement over getting Hammond jailed for the murder," he observed, watching Chacherre writhe. "No, you can't get loose, Ben. You'll suffer a little between now and the