Bill Pronzini - Quincannon

“Whistling Dixon was involved, too,” Quincannon said. “I believe that’s why he was killed. And the same is true of Jason Elder.”

“Elder is dead?”

“Yes. His body was found yesterday, in a canyon back in the hills. He had been tortured before he was killed.”

“My God. Why?”

“He had something Bogardus and his gang badly wanted; I’m not sure what. But he wouldn’t tell them what he’d done with it even under the torture. They thought he might have hidden it at the newspaper office or given it to Will Coffin; that is why the office and Coffin’s house were broken into, not because of any Chinese retaliation against his stand on opium. They also searched Elder’s shack, of course. It was ransacked before you searched it yourself?”

“Yes. I thought it strange when I found it that way.”

“Why were you at Elder’s shack?”

“Last week I followed Mrs. Truax there — a curious rendezvous for a woman of her station. I intended to investigate her relationship with Elder, but then I learned Oliver Truax was going to Boise to sell a block of Paymaster stock and I followed him there instead. Tuesday morning was the first opportunity I had to check up on Elder. And it seemed safe enough to search his shack then; I ran into Will Coffin before I went there and he told me Elder had disappeared.”

“Where did you find the stock certificate?”

“In a fireproof box inside the stove.”

“Was there anything else in the box?”

She shook her head. “Is it possible the certificate is what Bogardus was after?”

“I don’t see how. Do you?”

“No,” she said. “There is nothing important or incriminating about it that I can see. Still… she was eager enough to have it back when she confronted me.”

“ She confronted you? Didn’t you tell her on Tuesday night that you had found the certificate?”

“I did not. I had struck up an acquaintance with the woman and invited her to visit the shop.” There was reproof in Sabina Carpenter’s tone as she said, “You were the one who told her I had the stock.”

“A foolish mistake,” Quincannon admitted, “and I apologize for it. What was her mood when she came to you about it?”

“Angry, of course. She demanded that I let her have the certificate.”

“Did you give it to her?”

“I had no choice. She threatened to go to the marshal if I didn’t.”

“Do you know why she signed her stock over to Elder?”

“No. She wouldn’t say, and I had no luck finding out on my own. I couldn’t imagine a personal relationship between her and Elder. You never saw him, did you? He was an ugly little man with yellow skin from his addiction. But now I wonder if it was something to do with the boodle game that caused her to give him the stock.”

“It must have been.”

“You suspect Elder of being the engraver of the counterfeit plates?”

“Yes,” Quincannon said, and something stirred in his memory — something he had overheard Bogardus say to Helen Truax. Now that we’re operating again, another couple of weeks is all we’ll Meed — at least two more big shipments.

Now that we’re operating again…

“The plates,” he said.

Sabina Carpenter looked at him questioningly.

“The plates,” he repeated. “God, yes, that must be what Elder hid from Bogardus. There was a falling out of some sort, Elder took the plates, Bogardus tried to buy them back with Mrs. Truax’s Paymaster stock and when that didn’t work, he resorted to torture that went too far.”

“That does sound reasonable,” she said. There was animation in her voice now that her initial shock and confusion had gone. An excitement, too — the kind that had once been in him when a difficult and intriguing case was about to break wide open. “But where could Elder have hidden the plates?”

“He didn’t hide them; he gave them to his opium supplier, Yum Wing, for safekeeping.”

“Of course! And Yum Wing’s death last night — Bogardus was responsible for that?”

Quincannon dipped his chin affirmatively. “I was almost able to prevent it,” he said, “but I realized the truth too late. Yum Wing was already dead when I arrived. His killers jumped me from hiding; they mistook me for another Chinese in the dark or they would probably have murdered me too.”

“That explains the cut on your head — I’ve been wondering about that.” She paused. “Do you think they got the plates?”

“I’m certain they did,” Quincannon said. He explained what he had overheard at the Truax house.

“What will you do now?” she asked. “It seems to me you have sufficient proof against Bogardus to take direct action.”

“To me as well. But Mr. Boggs and the gentlemen in Washington are much more cautious in these matters than either of us.”

“I know what you mean. The man I work for in Denver, James Lumley, is the same sort. Which is why I’m still operating this shop and Oliver Truax is still a free man.”

“You have evidence of Truax’s guilt, then?”

“Considerable evidence.”

“A pyramid swindle?”

“Exactly. The man is riddled with greed, and reckless because of it. He will sell any amount of Paymaster stock to any interested party for immediate payment in cash. He told me there were no shares available for sale when I first approached him, but when I showed him the Agency’s five thousand dollars, I owned a hundred shares less than twenty-four hours later.”

“He tried the same ploy on me,” Quincannon said, “when I approached him on behalf of the owner of my fictitious patent medicine company.”

“Then you see what I mean. Bold as brass. The reason he went to Boise was to sell five hundred shares to a banker there; I got wind of the deal and arranged for a witness to the exchange. And still Mr. Lumley and our clients want more proof to insure a conviction.”

“Who are your clients?”

“A group of Paymaster investors. They began to suspect the swindle a few weeks ago.”

Quincannon nodded, and a momentary silence settled between them. A shaft of sunlight slanting in through the window touched her hair, making it glisten with reddish highlights. He felt the physical desire again, rebuked himself sharply, and looked away from her.

“May I ask you a personal question, Miss Carpenter?”

“That depends on the question.”

“How do you happen to work for Pinkerton?”

She smiled faintly. “Do you hold a prejudice against women operatives, Mr. Quincannon?”

“None whatsoever. I met Allan Pinkerton’s first female employee, Kate Warne, on a case in Chicago some years ago and found her highly competent. But I confess to curiosity: detective work is not an ordinary job for a woman.”

“My husband was an operative for the Denver agency,” she said. “One of its best, I may say.”

“Was?”

“He was killed while on a land-fraud case two years ago.” She spoke the words matter-of-factly, but he detected traces of bitterness and lingering grief. “Shot to death during a raid.”

“So was my father,” Quincannon said. “Several years ago on the Baltimore docks. He was a detective too, a rival of Pinkerton’s.”

There was a space before she spoke again; her eyes, steady on his now, held a look of what he took to be compassion and a sense of kinship. He felt that he wanted to go to her, touch her, but he was afraid she might misinterpret any such intimacy as another improper advance.

“Birds of a feather,” she said. “Lonely birds, always on the wing — targets for a hunter’s gun.”

It was an odd phrase, vaguely haunting, and it invited no reply.

She asked. “You are lonely, aren’t you, Mr. Quincannon? I sense it in you. Is that why you took to whiskey?”