Original subtitles

DRIVER: Hyah! Hyah!

Yah! Hey hey!

Hey!

What did I tell ya? We won!

Ha!

What did he win by, Dan?

Over a 100 votes! It wasn't even close!

MAN: Speech, speech!

Speech! Speech! Speech!

Speech! Speech! Speech!

All right!

All right.

I'll see what I can do.

But when a man's been a politician

for only a few minutes,

you can't expect him to be much of an orator.

BROWN: I don't know

whether to thank you people for electing me,

or to be plain mad at you

because you got me involved in another job.

Personally, I always figured that runnin'

the Wells Fargo office was problem enough.

Even so, I'll try to do my best

and give Dan here the sort of support

a hard-workin' marshal deserves.

Right now, ladies and gentlemen,

with the 4:00 train due to leave,

I better be gettin' back to my job.

You see, the Wells Fargo office

don't give me no time off for bein' mayor.

Jess, I wouldn't have missed it for the world.

Congratulations, boy.

Thanks, Miles.

MILES: Jess!

My name is Jim Hardie,

Special Investigator for Wells Fargo.

I never did take a fancy to funerals,

but I was here for more reasons than to say goodbye

to a man I'd known and respected for many years.

Jess Brown had been the Wells Fargo agent at River Oaks

from the day the town was founded

until the afternoon he was chosen to be its mayor.

I had been sent to find out who had murdered him

and why.

We watched the widow start back to the little house

Jess Brown had built beyond the edge of town.

You had to admire the way she conducted herself.

There was nothing you could do.

You were saying, Mr. Rogers?

I was as close to what happened as anyone, I guess,

but I can't do more than confirm what the marshal's told you.

No chance of tellin' where the gunshot came from?

Not the least.

You couldn't hear the shot distinctly,

not with that train whistle sounding off at the same time.

My own idea is that it must have been planned that way.

Well, Marshal, looks like you and I have got to get started.

I already started.

The only stranger in town

who could have had anything to do with it

was Ben Locust,

sticky-fingered crook from Banner City.

I locked him up.

What'd you arrest him for?

I arrested him on general principle.

Three different people

saw him up there on that balcony lookin' real sneaky-like

just before Jess was killed.

Oh, I...

I don't mean that Ben fired the shot.

He couldn't have. Somebody would've seen him.

But I do mean that he could've been

signaling to somebody else.

Couldn't he?

I don't think we can afford to guess, Marshal.

I'll go over to the jail and have a talk with him.

See you, Mr. Rogers.

All right, Hardie. I'll answer your questions

Just remember one thing.

You're gettin' paid by Wells Fargo for askin' 'em.

I'm gettin' nothin' for answerin'.

Why'd you leave Banner City, Ben?

Maybe I figured this was free and open country.

I had no idea it was a crime

to listen to a man make a speech.

Fact is, I don't like this town.

I never have cared much for an empty jail.

Nobody to talk to,

except a chuckle-headed marshal,

when he ain't polishing his badge, that is.

One more remark like that and I'll tie a knot

in your skinny little neck.

Is that what you're gonna say to Sonny Boston

when he rides into town?

Is that what you're gonna tell him when he asks you why

you locked me up in this lousy 10-cent jail?

I'll take care of Sonny Boston.

I've seen loudmouth marshals before

who said they were gonna take care of Sonny.

What about you, Hardie?

I've met Sonny before.

In Banner City when Jess Brown

was running our office for us there.

You remember that, don't you, Ben?

You were there. What about it?

Somebody held up one of our stages

just 10 miles south of Banner City.

Sonny and me was in the saloon

when that stage was held up.

But I don't think there's any doubt

that you know who did it.

$40,000 is a good deal of money, Ben.

I suppose it is.

I just never learned to count that high, Mr. Hardie.

Let's go. We'll never get anything out of him.

Well, what do you think, Hardie? I don't know.

Where's that slug they took out of Jess Brown?

I got it right here.

There it is.

It don't look like much when you put it up against a .45,

but it was enough to take care of Jesse.

Sam Bergen, that's our gunsmith,

he says it's .36 caliber.

I told him, I didn't know anybody around here

that used that caliber.

Sam says it's probably some foreign make.

I think he's right.

Would you ever know anybody that used that caliber revolver?

Yes, I did. One man. Who?

A little fella.

Wasn't exactly on the side of law and order either.

What's his name, so I can go find him?

His name was Feeney.

Haven't heard of him in quite a while now.

Do me a favor, will you, Dan? Sure.

What kinda favor?

Let Ben Locust out of jail. What?

Why?

So he can hightail it out of town

and team up with Sonny Boston?

He's not doin' us any good here.

Hadn't told us anything.

It'd be more interesting to let him out,

see who he runs to.

Uh-uh. The answer is no.

Hey.

Isn't that Sonny... Sonny Boston now?

It sure is.

Looks like your town's gonna be honored with a visit.

MARSHAL: You goin' over there now, Hardie? Why not?

To me, Sonny's about as illegal as a game of dominoes.

Good day, Marshal.

Whisky. Howdy.

I'm Harry Granger, Sonny.

This is my friend Nick Dolan here.

Welcome to River Oaks. Why?

Well, it ain't a very friendly town.

Tell me more.

That friend of yours, Ben Locust,

that had a room upstairs here?

What about him?

Well, he ain't got one now.

He's got a cot over at the city jail.

I happen to know he's in jail.

SONNY: Ah.

The man from Wells Fargo.

How are you, Hardie?

Good. How are you, Sonny?

I'd like to talk to you outside, if I could.

HARRY: Hardie, huh?

We just got rid of a Wells Fargo man.

I didn't think much of him, either.

Who was that?

Fella named Brown, Jesse Brown.

People were stupid enough

to elect him mayor the other day.

Then somebody was smart enough

to correct that mistake with a bullet.

We ain't gonna miss him much, Hardie.

Was he a friend of yours?

Yes, he was.

You friends of all the cheap politicians, boy?

Get him outta here!

Couple of drinks for my friend.

Much obliged.

No trouble at all.

You wanted to talk to me. What about?

About a little fella that nobody's seen

since he held up one of our stages

just south of Banner City for $40,000.

I wouldn't know about a thing like that.

Robbin' a stage is illegal.

This was a friend of yours.

A friend of mine?

Who you got in mind? Joe Feeney.

You call him Holy Joe, I believe.

He carried a .36 caliber Walther Special,

the only one like it in this part of the country.

Interestin'.

Jess Brown was killed with a .36 caliber gun.

Real interestin'.

I hate to bother you, but I thought I'd ride by.

Oh, no bother at all.

I'd just as soon have company after a funeral

than sit here talking to myself.

Or for that matter

reading the sage advice of Mr. Emerson.

Uh, sit down.

Can I offer you a drink?

No. No, thank you.

I just had a drink with Sonny Boston.

You can see I'm not too particular about the company I keep.

Had anything develop?

No, I'm just playin' a hunch.

Kind of wanted to talk about Jess

and figured who would be a better man than Jess's best friend.

You saw a good deal of him, I understand.

Yes, a good deal.

Just about every day for the year and a half I've had this place.

You ever hear him mention a fella named Feeney?

Feeney? No.

Holy Joe Feeney, we called him.

He was a man that had a hankerin'

for things that didn't mix.

He was the type of little fella

that'd walk in and hold up a bank

and start spoutin' the Bible to the cashiers

as he was stuffin' the money in the sack.

You never heard him mention him?

Not to me, Jim. No.

Joe was a crook, all right,

but he wasn't vicious.

Though he carried a gun, no one ever heard of him usin' it.

Except, once in a while he'd shoot the petals off a daisy

just to show you he could use it if he had to.

What's the trouble, Marshal?

Trouble is I'm gettin' tired of dead bodies.

A cowhand chasin' strays

just found a man half buried at Hogan's Quarry.

What'd he look like?

MARSHAL: Oh, kind of a little fella, and he was...

he was wearin' preacher's clothes.

Was his face kinda pushed in?

Have a red nose?

Yeah. Yeah, that's him. Who is he?

Sounds like it could be Holy Joe Feeney.

MARSHAL: Oh.

I was wonderin', Miles, if I could borrow your wagon

and take him back into town?

Anything.

I'll go with you, Marshal.

JIM: It was Holy Joe, all right.

He'd been dead several days.

The Marshal, his deputy, and I made a litter

and covered his body with the blankets

we borrowed from Miles Rogers.

We headed back to town.

I dropped the sheriff and the deputy off at the jail

and took the little man over to the mortuary.

Now there were two deaths to try and puzzle out.

Somehow I had a feeling they were linked together.

But how?

Did you see who fired that shot? No.

All I know is Sonny Boston busted Locust out of jail.

When?

Two minutes after you let us off at the jail.

JIM: Jess Brown had built his house

on a fine patch of ground beyond the town.

He used to tell me that

when his Wells Fargo days were over,

he hoped to do some great things with his place.

It wasn't much fun for me to be recalling that now.

Good morning, Mr. Hardie. Mornin', Miss Brown.

I was just returnin' Miles' wagon to him.

Thought I'd drop by on the way.

Of course. Won't you come in?

These were Jess's personal effects down at the office.

I thought I'd drop them by.

How very thoughtful of you, Mr. Hardie.

Jess was fond of you, you know?

I'm glad to hear that.

I was quite fond of him.

I admired and respected him a good deal.

Thank you.

It was a relief to see you, actually, this morning, alive.

How's that?

Well, there was some talk last night that Ben Locust

and Sonny Boston had tried to kill you.

No, I don't think so.

If either of them tried,

they wouldn't have missed.

Well, that's a comfort.

Forgive me, Mr. Hardie. Won't you sit down?

Thank you. May I offer you some tea?

No, I don't think so.

There's one odd thing about last night.

That little fella we bought in from Hogan's Quarry,

Feeney, his name was.

I had the feeling that he was

on his way to see your husband.

Why would he want to see Jess?

You remember when Jess came up to Banner City

and filled in for us for a while,

and there was a stage hold-up.

We lost $40,000.

Well, yes. I remember that.

I remember how badly Jess felt.

He seemed to feel that he was

completely responsible for it.

We never caught the man who did that.

The report we got was that it was a little man,

dressed in the clothes of a clergyman,

and spreading the gospel to the Indians,

at the time when our stage stopped for water.

That's when they made a mistake.

'Cause right then was when Wells Fargo

kissed $40,000 goodbye.

Yes. Now that you... You mention the details,

I... I remember the case quite clearly.

Like I say,

we never caught that clever little man.

But if that wasn't Holy Joe Feeney

dressed in the clothes of that clergyman,

then my name's not Jim Hardie.

Do you think he killed my husband, Mr. Hardie?

No, ma'am, I do not.

I think you killed your husband,

and you used Joe Feeney's gun to do it.

I what?

Jess was killed with a .36-caliber gun

of a foreign make.

They're very rare in this part of the country.

He was killed a few moments after his best friend

stepped down off of his wagon

and walked up to congratulate him on...

being elected mayor.

That was exactly at 4:00.

The train whistle screeched like a scalded hog.

It helped muffle the shot.

Tell me more, Mr. Hardie.

This is a very interesting tale.

I suppose it is,

in a grizzly way.

You were a model widow at the funeral, Mrs. Brown,

and I possibly never would have figured the whole thing out,

if Miles Rogers had been a little more tidy about the toolbox

on the back of his wagon.

Or if he didn't actually

need the heavy lens glasses that he wears.

Take your hands off of me!

Now, I found this hairpin

in the toolbox on the wagon.

This one, I just took from your hair.

They match exactly.

I'm just wondering now how long you and Rogers

have been carrying on together.

What are you talking about, Mr. Hardie?

I'm talking about the toolbox on his wagon.

JIM: How you climbed and hid in there.

You used the vent holes to look through.

And the .36-caliber gun,

it was perfect for the job.

Do you think you can prove that, Mr. Hardie?

I think so.

But that'll be left up to a court.

What I can't figure out is

how or why you killed little Joe Feeney,

unless it was for the $40,000.

This much I do know...

That you and Miles Rogers killed your husband

and used Feeney's gun to do it with.

Miles Rogers means nothing to me.

He doesn't, huh?

You even have the same taste in literature.

Emerson.

It's too bad your husband didn't have a little taste.

JIM: Hello, Rogers.

I can't say you weren't expected.

I missed you last night at the mortuary.

I promise I won't miss a second time.

So what do you think?

I think today is somebody's payday.

You got any other ideas?

Now I wanna know about Joe Feeney. Oh, yes.

Yours and Jess's little friend.

Would you tell me, incidentally, why both of you

were so fond of that little thief?

I don't know for sure.

Maybe it's because there are some thieves that have a...

sort of warmth and kindness about them

that others don't have.

Do you understand the difference, ma'am?

Yes, I do, Mr. Hardie.

You'll find that I'm not very sensitive.

As I was saying, your friend Joe Feeney,

or Holy Joe as you referred to him,

was suffering from superstitious delusions.

How was that?

He came here to see Jess with $40,000

stuffed into a money bag.

Did he show you the money? Yes, he did.

And that was his first mistake.

Of course, you have to give the little man his due credit.

He didn't know that Miles was in the other room

overhearing the entire conversation.

Why did he bring the money here?

He felt that after having robbed a stagecoach

dressed as a clergyman

that he'd done something sacrilegious.

And then when his wife almost choked

on some half-cooked rhubarb,

well, he took that as a sign from heaven.

Isn't that amusing, Mr. Hardie?

How'd you kill him?

Miles managed it very nicely with a stove lid.

Even his poor eyesight was good enough for that.

Then you took his body to the quarry and you dumped it.

Oh, Mr. Hardie.

His body fit very nicely into the box in the wagon,

and it gave us an idea.

An idea to kill your husband.

How would you like to share $40,000, Mr. Hardie?

Well, you could do worse.

How long would you have to work for Wells Fargo

before you could earn half of $40,000?

It's your choice, Mr. Hardie.

This?

Or this?

That's Feeney's gun.

Oh. What did you think it was, Mr. Hardie?

A souvenir from the war with Mexico?

.36 caliber, one shot fired.

And that was one shot too many.

Put the gun down, lady.

It won't do you no good.

Don't you reach for nothin', Mr. Hardie.

You ain't that fast. Nobody is.

This is the second time I'm glad to see you, Sonny.

It's Joe's, all right.

This may come as a surprise to you, Hardie,

but Joe never fired this at more than

a tin can or a sunflower in his life.

Now, which one of them killed him?

I hate to disappoint you, Sonny, but it was him.

How much about this do you know?

I know that Joe was bringing every penny

of this money back to his friend, Jess Brown.

That, I know.

He'd been hidin' out for six months,

readin' the Holy Book,

and wrestling' with the devil every day.

I know this, because I brought his food to him

out at the place he hid out.

What happened then?

And after that when we didn't hear anything from him,

I sent Ben over here from Banner City

to see what had happened.

It was too late, I guess, then

for anybody to help Joe.

You mean, you didn't come here to share in the $40,000?

That's blood money, Hardie.

No one knows it better than you.

I wouldn't touch it with a dirty stick.

The only illegal thing I've done

in the last six months

was to bust Ben outta jail.

Holy Joe Feeney was my ruination.

Now, you may laugh at this, Hardie...

but seeing so much of the little guy,

well, he got me reading the Holy Book.

I haven't made a dollar since.

JIM: Well, that's about all there is to it.

I took the widow and the body of Miles Rogers back to town.

Lot of folks would say she was much too pretty

to dangle from a rope.

And it did seem a shame, in a way.

Trouble is, she should have considered that

before she murdered Jess Brown,

her husband and my friend.