Sleuths (5 page)

"But . . . what happened? What was he doing here with the gold?"

"I was chasing him, the spalpeen."

"You were? Then . . . you knew of his guilt before the explosion? How?"

"I'll explain it all to ye later," O'Hara said. "Right now there's me wife to consider."

He left the bewildered captain and his crew to attend to Chadwick and the gold, and went to find Hattie.

Shortly past nine, an hour after the
Delta Star
had docked at the foot of Stockton's Center Street, O'Hara stood with Hattie and a group of men on the landing. He wore his last clean suit, a broadcloth, and a bright green tie in honor of St. Patrick's Day. The others, clustered around him, were Bridgeman, the captain, the Nevada reporter, a hawkish man who was Stockton's sheriff, and two officials of the California Merchants Bank. Chadwick had been removed to the local jail in the company of a pair of deputies and a doctor. The Mulrooney Guards, after medical treatment, a severe reprimand, and a promise to pay all damages to the packet, had been released to continue their merrymaking in Green Park.

The captain was saying, "We are all deeply indebted to you, Mr. O'Hara. It would have been a black day if Chadwick had succeeded in escaping with the gold a black day for us all."

"I only did me duty," O'Hara said solemnly.

"It is unfortunate that the California Merchants Bank cannot offer you a reward," one of the bank officials said. "However, we are not a wealthy concern, as our urgent need for the consignment of dust attests. But I don't suppose you could accept a reward in any case; the Pinkertons never do, I'm told."

"Aye, that's true."

Bridgeman said, "Will you explain now how you knew Chadwick was the culprit? And how he accomplished the theft? He refused to confess, you know."

O'Hara nodded. He told them of finding the war-issue coin under the pilothouse stove; his early suspicions of the gambler, Colfax; the reporter's remark that such coins were being used in California to decorate leather goods; his growing certainty that he had seen and heard enough to piece together the truth, and yet his maddening inability to cudgel forth the necessary scraps from his memory.

"It wasn't until this morning that the doors in me mind finally opened," he said. He looked at the newspaperman. "It was this gentleman that gave me the key."

The reporter was surprised.
"
I
gave you the key?"

"Ye did," O'Hara told him. "Ye said of the river:
Clear as
a mirror, isn't it? Do ye remember saying that, while we were together at the rail?"

"I do. But I don't see—"

"It was the word
mirror
,"
O'Hara said. "It caused me to think of reflection, and all at once I was recalling how I'd been able to see me own image in the pilothouse windshield soon after the robbery. Yet Chadwick claimed he was sitting in the pilot's seat when he heard the door open just before he was struck, and that he didn't turn because he thought it was the captain and Mr. Bridgeman returning from supper. But if I was able to see
me
reflection in the glass, Chadwick would sure have been able to see his—and anybody creeping up behind him.

"Then I recalled something else: Chadwick had his coat buttoned when I first entered the pilothouse, on a warm night like the last. Why? And why did his trousers look so baggy, as though they might fall down?

"Well, then, the answer was this: After Chadwick broke open the safe and the strongbox, his problem was what to do with the gold. He couldn't risk a trip to his quarters while he was alone in the pilothouse; he might be seen, and there was also the possibility that the
Delta Star
would run into a bar or snag if she slipped off course. D'ye recall saying it was a miracle such hadn't happened, Captain, thinking as ye were then that Chadwick had been unconscious for some time?"

The captain said he did.

"So Chadwick had to have the gold on his person," O'Hara said, "when you and Mr. Bridgeman found him, and when Hattie and I entered soon afterward. He couldn't have removed it until later, when he claimed to be feeling dizzy and you escorted him to his cabin. That, now, is the significance of the buttoned coat and the baggy trousers.

"What he must have done was to take off his belt, the wide one decorated with war-issue coins that I found in his cabin, and use it to strap the gold pouches above his waist—a makeshift money belt, ye see. He was in such a rush, for fear of being found out, that he failed to notice when one of the coins popped loose and rolled under the stove.

"Once he had the pouches secured, he waited until he heard Mr. Bridgeman and the captain returning, the while tending to his piloting duties; then he lay down on the floor and pretended to've been knocked senseless. He kept his loose coat buttoned for fear someone would notice the thickness about his upper middle, and that he was no longer wearing his belt in its proper place; and he kept hitching up his trousers because he wasn't wearing the belt in its proper place."

Hattie took her husband's arm. "Fergus, what did Chadwick do with the gold afterward? Did he have it hidden in his quarters all along?"

"No, me lady. I expect he was afraid of a search, so first chance he had he put the gold into the calfskin grip and then hung the grip from a metal hook inside the gallows frame."

The Stockton sheriff asked, "How could you possibly have deduced that fact?"

"While in the pilothouse after the robbery," O'Hara said, "I noticed that Chadwick's coat was soiled with dust and soot from his lying on the floor. But it also showed streaks of grease, which couldn't have come from the floor. When the other pieces fell into place this morning, I reasoned that he might have picked up the grease marks while making preparations to hide the gold. My consideration then was that he'd have wanted a place close to his quarters, and the only such place with grease about it was the gallows frame. The hook I discovered inside was new and free of grease; Chadwick, therefore, must have put it there only recently—tonight, in fact, thus accounting for the grease on his coat."

"Amazing detective work," the reporter said, "simply amazing."

Everyone else agreed.

"You really are a fine detective, Fergus O'Hara," Hattie said. "Amazing, indeed."

O'
Hara said nothing. Now that they were five minutes parted from the others, walking alone together along Stockton's dusty main street, he had begun scowling and grumbling to himself.

Hattie ventured, "It's a splendid, sunny St. Patrick's Day. Shall we join the festivities in Green Park?"

"We've nothing to celebrate," O'Hara muttered.

"Still thinking about the gold, are you?"

"And what else would I be thinking about?" he said. "Fine detective—faugh! Some consolation
that
is!"

It was Hattie's turn to be silent.

O'Hara wondered sourly what those lads back at the landing would say if they knew the truth of the matter: That he was no more a Pinkerton operative than were the Mulrooney Guards. That he had only been
impersonating
one toward his own ends, in this case and others since he had taken the railroad pass and letter of introduction off the chap in Saint Louis the previous year—the Pinkerton chap who'd foolishly believed he was taking O'Hara to jail. That he had wanted the missing pouches of gold for himself and Hattie. And that he, Fergus O'Hara, was the finest
confidence man
in these sovereign United States, come to Stockton, California, to have for a ride a banker who intended to cheat the government by buying up Indian land.

Well, those lads would never know any of this, because he had duped them all—brilliantly, as always. And for nothing. Nothing!

He moaned aloud, "Forty thousand in gold, Hattie. Forty thousand that I was holding in me hands, clutched fair to me black heart, when that rascal Chadwick burst in on me. Two more minutes, just two more minutes . . ."

"It was Providence," she said. "You were never meant to have that gold, Fergus."

"What d'ye mean? The field was white for the sickle—"

"Not a bit of that," Hattie said. "And if you'll be truthful with yourself, you'll admit you enjoyed every minute of your play-acting of a detective; every minute of the explaining just now of your brilliant deductions."

"I didn't," O'Hara lied weakly. "I hate detectives . . ."

"Bosh. I'm glad the gold went to its rightful owners, and you should be too because your heart is about as black as this sunny morning. You've only stolen from dishonest men in all the time I've known you. Why, if you
had
succeeded in filching the gold, you'd have begun despising yourself sooner than you realize—not only because it belongs to honest citizens but because you would have committed the crime on St. Patrick's Day. If you stop to consider it, you wouldn't commit
any
crime on St. Pat's Day, now would you?"

O'Hara grumbled and glowered, but he was remembering his thoughts in Chadwick's cabin, when he had held the gold in his hands—thoughts of the captain's reputation and possible loss of position, and of the urgent need of the new branch bank in Stockton. He was not at all sure, now, that he would have kept the pouches if Chadwick had not burst in on him. He might well have returned them to the captain. Confound it, that was just what he would have done.

Hattie was right about St. Pat's Day, too. He would not feel decent if he committed a crime on—

Abruptly, he stopped walking. Then he put down their luggage and said, "You wait here, me lady. There's something that needs doing before we set off for Green Park."

Before Hattie could speak, he was on his way through clattering wagons and carriages to where a towheaded boy was scuffling with a mongrel dog. He halted before the boy. "Now then, lad; how would ye like to have a dollar for twenty minutes good work?"

The boy's eyes grew wide. "What do I have to do, mister?"

O'Hara removed from the inside pocket of his coat an expensive gold American Horologe watch, which happened to be in his possession as the result of a momentary lapse in good sense and fingers made nimble during his misspent youth in New Orleans. He extended it to the boy.

"Take this down to the
Delta Star
steamboat and look about for a tall gentleman with a mustache and a fine head of bushy hair, a newspaperman from Nevada. When ye've found him, give him the watch and tell him Mr. Fergus O'Hara came upon it, is returning it, and wishes him a happy St. Patrick's Day."

"What's his name, mister?" the boy asked. "It'll help me find him quicker."

O'Hara could not seem to recall it, if he had ever heard it in the first place. He took the watch again, opened the hunting-style case, and saw that a name had been etched in flowing script on the dustcover. He handed the watch back to the boy.

"Clemens, it is," O'Hara said then. "A Mr. Samuel Langhorne Clemens . . ."

A
cross the aisle and five seats ahead of where Quincannon and Sabina were sitting, Evan Gaunt sat looking out through the day coach's dusty window. There was little enough to see outside the fast-moving
Desert Limited
except sun-blasted wasteland, but Gaunt seemed to find the emptiness absorbing. He also seemed perfectly comfortable, his expression one of tolerable boredom: a prosperous businessman, for all outward appearances, without a care or worry, much less a past history that included grand larceny, murder, and fugitive warrants in three western states.

"Hell and damn," Quincannon muttered. "He's been lounging there nice as you please for nearly forty minutes. What the devil is he planning?"

Sabina said, "He may not be planning anything, John."

"Faugh. He's trapped on this iron horse and he knows it."

"He does if he recognized you, too. You're positive he did?"

"I am, and no mistake. He caught me by surprise while I was talking to the conductor; I couldn't turn away in time."

"Still, you said it was eight years ago that you had your only run-in with him. And at that, you saw each other for less than two hours."

"He's changed little enough and so have I. A hard case like Gaunt never forgets a lawman's face, any more than I do a felon's. It's one of the reasons he's managed to evade capture as long as he has."

"Well, what
can
he be planning?" Sabina said. She was leaning close, her mouth only a few inches from Quincannon's ear, so their voices wouldn't carry to nearby passengers. Ordinarily the nearness of her fine body and the warmth of her breath on his skin would have been a powerful distraction; such intimacy was all too seldom permitted. But the combination of desert heat, the noisy coach, and Evan Gaunt made him only peripherally aware of her charms.

"There are no stops between Needles and Barstow; Gaunt must know that. And if he tries to jump for it while we're traveling at this speed, his chances of survival are slim to none. The only sensible thing he can do is to wait until we slow for Barstow and then jump and run."

"Is it? He can't hope to escape that way. Barstow is too small and the surroundings too open. He saw me talking to Mr. Bridges; it's likely he also saw the Needles station agent running for his office. If so, it's plain to him that a wire has been sent to Barstow and the sheriff and a complement of deputies will be waiting. I was afraid he'd hopped back off then and there, those few minutes I lost track of him shortly afterward, but it would've been a foolish move and he isn't the sort to panic. Even if he'd gotten clear of the train and the Needles yards, there are too many soldiers and Indian trackers at Fort Mojave."