The Case of the Petrified Man (24 page)

I now knew the Killer—Lt. Deforrest Robards—was a Confederate, so that meant I was looking for a man with a Southern accent. I started to strike through the names of those who were not American, but then I stopped.

What if he had changed his accent as well as his name?

Then another even more terrible thought occurred: what if he had changed his appearance, too?

After all, did I not disguise myself and use other names & accents from time to time?

What if he had shaved off his mustache & beard & dyed his hair black?

What if he now put on an Italian accent? Or French?

What if he was not even on my list?

Those thoughts made me dizzy.

I needed to find something else that would identify the Killer. Something not connected to his name or appearance or accent. But what?

I went to the bars of my cell & gripped them hard & thumped my head softly against the cold iron: What? What? What?

“Stop that banging,” said the Saturday Jailer. He was sitting at the desk, reading the paper & drinking coffee & smoking a pipe.

I could tell from the odor of his pipe that he was smoking No. 81 on my list: “Taylor Made,” which comes in a muslin pouch with a blue seal and white letters.

Then the Lord above sent down another ray of Illumination: whiz! Right into my brain.

This idea was so brilliant that I whooped & did a Victory Dance around my cell.

The jailer jumped out of his chair so fast that he dropped his pipe in his coffee & got riled & told me to “Stop that god-awful noise.”

But I did not care.

I knew how to identify the Killer.

MR. WILLIAM MORRIS STEWART
arrived as I was eating some slimy porridge cooked up by the jailer. I almost dropped the tin plate in my eagerness to address him. I went to the bars of the cell and gripped them.

“Mr. Stewart,” I said. “Is there some way you can get me out of here? Even for just a few hours? I know how to find the Killer of Miss Sally Sampson but I cannot do it trapped in here.”

“I suppose so,” said Mr. William Morris Stewart, “but someone will have to post bail.” He looked at the Jailer. “How much to bail out this little Indian?”

“Two thousand dollars,” said the Jailer without even looking up.

“Two
thousand
?” said Mr. William Morris Stewart.

“He’s wanted for murder, ain’t he?” said the Jailer, puffing his pipe & turning a page of the paper. “Anyways, that’s what the Deputy Marshal said.”

“I have nearly fifteen hundred dollars in my account at Wells, Fargo & Co.,” I said.

Mr. William Morris Stewart shook his big head. “We’ll still have to raise over five hundred. Do you know anybody who could lay their hands on five or six hundred dollars?”

My first thought was Jace. He certainly had thousands & he would bail me out in a flash. But he had vamoosed to Carson City & I did not know when he would be back.

Then I had another idea.

It was a long shot but worth a try.

“Do you know a Boarding House owner called Big Gussie in a brick house down on D Street?” I asked.

Mr. William Morris Stewart gave me Expression No. 4: Surprise. Then he said, “Course I know Gussie. Everybody knows Gussie.”

I said, “She told me to call on her if I ever needed anything.”

He said, “I will go down there as soon as you write me a note of release to Wells, Fargo & Co.”

He was as good as his word and within an hour he was back with a heavy pouch full of gold.

“I withdrew fourteen hundred from your account,” he told me as he made the Saturday Jailer sign a Receipt. “Big Gussie
and her girls raised the remaining six hundred. They are mighty fond of you down at the Brick House.”

“That is good,” I said. “For that is where I am bound right now.”

“I am a student of crime and punishment,” said Mr. William Morris Stewart, as the Jailer unlocked the door of my cell. “Mind if I accompany you?”

I came out of the cell and looked up at him. “I like to work alone,” I said, “but you have been a Friend to me this day so, yes, you may come.”

As we walked out into the crisp and clear October morning, I told Mr. William Morris Stewart my reasoning.

I told him how Martha had hid out for days at the only place she knew apart from Sally’s: The Flora Temple Livery Stable. She had lived on oats and water from the trough and hid in a pile of hay. But she got more and more desperate. Early one morning, she heard the men at the Flora Temple Livery Stable read my Advertisement in the
Enterprise
.

Hunger & desperation outweighed fear and she made her way up to my office.

“But there are not many dark-skinned girls here in Virginia City,” I said. “She had the bad luck to be spotted by Robards, the very man she had been avoiding. He must have followed her to my office,” I said. “When I went out to get her some food, he came and peered into the window. Maybe rattled the door. I had locked it, but Martha panicked and went out my back window and down a rickety ladder and then doubled back up to the stables. Robards lost her trail but he
loitered near my office and followed me instead. I believe he hoped I would lead him to Martha so he could kill her, she being the only witness to his terrible deed. I thought I lost him but I must have been wrong, because when I finally figured out where she was hiding and went there, I led him straight to her. He tried to burn the place down.”

“Yesterday’s fire at the Flora Temple Livery Stable!” cried Mr. William Morris Stewart. He thrust his arm out to stop me jumping down onto C Street in front of a Stagecoach.

“That’s right,” I said, as we waited on the boardwalk for the stagecoach to drive past. “But Virginia City’s finest were quick to quench the blaze and no one died.”

“That poltroon!” exclaimed Mr. William Morris Stewart, as we crossed over. “He was willing to burn down a whole stable—nay, an entire town!—just to keep his secret safe. And you say she did not even get a good look at him?”

“That’s right. But he does not know that.”

“Where is Martha now?”

“In a Safe Haven,” I said. As we turned down D Street I continued explaining. “This morning, when the Jailers were reading that article about a Petrified Man found over by Gravelly Ford, one of them said reporters hardly ever use their real names. That is when I realized that Robards might be using a fake name, too.”

“Great Caesar’s ghost, you’re right!” cried Mr. William Morris Stewart. “Plenty of people here in Virginia have fled the war, but Robards is a special case. Not only is he a Confederate officer, he is a coward who froze under the pressure of battle and caused the deaths of many men.”

“But Short Sally did not know he was a deserter when she caught sight of him up at Topliffe’s last Friday night,” I said. “And he was not going to risk her finding out and betraying his secret. Or telling people his real name.”

“So that’s why she was murdered,” said Mr. William Morris Stewart.

I nodded. “It might be that he disguised himself, too,” I said, “and if he changed his appearance once, then maybe he did it again after he killed Short Sally.”

“So how will you find him?” said Mr. William Morris Stewart. “Sally Sampson was the only one who knew him in the South and now she is dead.”

I looked up at him. His head appeared to me as a beard topped by a slouch hat with a big Cuban cigar sticking out between the two.

“A friend of mine claims that a man’s tobacco is his first love,” I said.

“So?”

“So a man might think to change his name & even his appearance but it might not occur to him to change his brand of tobacco as well.”

“Quite right,” said Mr. William Morris Stewart, nodding. “It might even be a comfort to him. A familiar comfort in a strange new world.”

“Yes,” I said. “That is why we are here at Short Sally’s crib. She had not had any Gentlemen Callers in nearly a month. Plus, Martha swept the crib every morning until it was speckless. The Killer, Lieutenant Deforrest Robards, must have been the last person to visit her. My idea is this: all the
furniture might be gone, but the Killer might have left a cigar stump or a shred of tobacco.”

“But what good would a shred of tobacco be?” said he.

I smiled. “I can identify over one hundred different types of smoking, chewing and leaf tobacco. And I can do it with no more than a shred or two.”

“Great Scott! But how?”

“Partly my Indian tracking skills,” I said, “and partly that I like collecting things. Ma Evangeline called it one of my Eccentricities. I have an extensive tobacco collection back at my office. You are smoking a cigar called ‘La Honradez.’”

“Great Caesar’s ghost! You are absolutely correct!”

“I can tell by the color and shape and the smell of it, too,” I said.

We had reached Sally’s Crib with its yellow door. Outside stood a horse and a wagon loaded with furniture.

The door of the Crib was open.

It was clear what was happening: a new Nymph of the Night was moving in.

I ran inside.

A pretty Lady in a dark green velvet dress & matching hat stood with her hands on her hips, looking around. “Great Mary Mother of God,” she said in an Irish accent. “They have not even swept the place.”

“Hallelujah!” I said. Then I got down on my hands & knees and I began to sniff around at the dust & fluff still lying at the edges of the floor where it met the wall.

“What in the bejeezus are you doing?” asked the pretty lady in the green velvet dress.

“That there is P.K. Pinkerton, Private Eye,” came the deep voice of Mr. William Morris Stewart. “He is just nosing around for clews. Found anything, P.K.?”

“Just a moment,” I said, holding up one hand. Then I resumed my sniffing.

A moment later a scent in the southeast corner of the room stopped me short. Could it be?

Yes, it was.

All the little hairs on the back of my neck stood up.

I carefully picked up two small shreds of tobacco and placed them in the palm of my hand. They were the right color and texture.

I stood up & turned & faced the front of the room.

Mr. William Morris Stewart stood there, flanked by the Lady in Green. Big Gussie had appeared, along with her four girls: Irish Rose, Honey Pie, Spring Chicken and Big Mouth Annie.

“Do you know who done it?” rasped Gussie; she had a broom and dustpan in her hand.

I looked down at the two little shreds of tobacco in the palm of my hand.

“Yes,” I said happily. “I know who done it.”

“You know from
that
?” said Mr. William Morris Stewart, stepping forward and peering into my hand.

“Yes, sir,” I replied.

All the Boarding House Girls crowded around, saying “Ooh!” and “Ah!”

Only the recently arrived Irish Lady kept repeating, “Who done what?”

“P.K.,” said Mr. William Morris Stewart. “I am mighty impressed with your deductive skills. But even a great lawyer such as myself might need more than two shreds of tobacco to convict a man of desertion and murder. Do you have anything else up your sleeve?”

I thought for a moment & then nodded. “Yes,” I said. “I believe I do.”

I WENT BACK TO MY OFFICE
& got in a disguise so I would not be followed by Deforrest Robards who was still at large. Then I let myself down the rickety ladder at the back of my office & went by a roundabout route to see Martha in her Safe Haven.

She was with Ping’s family down in Chinatown.

Two nights before, I had gone to Ping’s uncle’s Laundry & found Ping there. For a fee of $20 a day, he had agreed to protect & care for her.

When I now showed up at Hong Wo Washer’s in my Prim Little Girl disguise & asked for Ping, a pretty Chinese girl shook her head. I was pretty
sure I had seen her the day before but I could not be sure, as I am not so good with faces.

“I am P.K. Pinkerton,” I said. “I was here yesterday. I need to see Martha.”

The Pretty Celestial smiled & shook her head once again.

“Me seek little girl,” I said. “Dark skin. You protect.” I pointed to myself. “Me want see her.”

Another smiling shrug.

“Look,” I said, lifting my bonnet and part of my wig, too. “It is me!”