The Bags of Tricks Affair

25 Quincannon

With Sabina for company, time had passed swiftly enough on his previous trips on the eastbound Southern Pacific train into the Sierras. This one dragged interminably. He couldn’t seem to sit still, got up from his seat every few minutes to pace through the cars.

When they arrived at last at Colfax, his patience was further tested by a thirty-minute wait for the next Nevada County Narrow Gauge train. By the time that slow conveyance, with its numerous passenger stops, traversed the three miles from Nevada City to the Grass Valley station, it was after three o’clock and his patience was gone, his temper short, and his simmering anger near the boiling point.

Waves of sticky heat assailed him as he made his way up East Main to the city jail. Back and forth the past week from sweatbox to summer chill to sweatbox — bah! Now all he needed was for Sheriff Hezekiah Thorpe to be away from his office.

But he was spared that, at least. Thorpe was present, seated at his desk under a sluggish fan, sweat glistening on his seamed and side-whiskered face. He blinked his surprise at seeing Quincannon come marching in.

“What in tucket brings you back here?”

“Jeffrey Gaunt.”

“Gaunt? Didn’t you get my wire?”

“That he’d left Grass Valley for parts unknown, yes.”

“Not that one,” Thorpe said, “the one I sent yesterday afternoon.”

“No, I didn’t.” It must have come in after he’d left the agency offices to pay his call on D. S. Nickerson. “What did it say?”

“That Gaunt’s back. Seems he went down to Sacramento to arrange with a lawyer to represent his sister at the trial.”

The devil he did! “He tell you that himself?”

“When he came in to visit her. I sent the wire right afterward.”

“Where can I find him?”

Thorpe, a shrewd old bird, sensed the tension and anger in Quincannon. “What do you want with him? You got some kind of bone to pick?”

Quincannon was not about to confide his purpose, not yet. The sheriff would either try to talk him out of it, or demand to join forces with him, and Thorpe had no more legal standing than he did, Sabina’s abduction having taken place in San Francisco. No matter how it played out, this was between Quincannon and Gaunt and nobody else.

He said shortly, “Personal business. Where is he lodged? The Holbrooke?”

“No. Same place he’s been staying ever since Amos McFinn evicted him. Lily Dumont’s cottage.”

“What? You mean with her?”

“No. She packed up and made herself scarce right after you and Mrs. Carpenter left,” Thorpe said. “Afraid of what Glen Bonnifield might do to her, I reckon. He was keeping her, all right. And damn mad when he recovered. Went and talked to Gaunt, or vice versa — I never did get the straight of that — and they worked up an arrangement.”

“You wouldn’t happen to know if Gaunt is at the cottage now?”

“Nope. He came in to see Lady One-Eye earlier, but where he went after that I couldn’t tell you.” The sheriff paused; his gaze held steely glints. “This personal business you have with Gaunt. Must be pretty important to bring you all the way up here now, with the trial only a few days off.”

“It is. Very important.”

“Won’t jeopardize the case against Lady One-Eye, will it?”

“On the contrary,” Quincannon said. “One way or another, it’ll ensure that she’s convicted.”

“One way or another? You want to elaborate on that?”

“Not now, Sheriff. Later, after I have my talk with Gaunt.”

“You listen here now, I don’t want any more trouble in my town—”

But Quincannon wasn’t listening. He was already on his way out.

Gaunt was not at Lily Dumont’s cottage.

Quincannon rattled his knuckles loudly on the door several times before subsiding. What now? It was too blasted hot to chase around hunting his quarry; Gaunt could be anywhere in Grass Valley, or in Nevada City at Bonnifield’s Ace High Saloon. On impulse Quincannon tried the door latch. Locked, naturally. He could pick the lock, or the one on the rear door as he’d done that night the previous week, and wait inside to catch Gaunt by surprise. But that was a mug’s game, the disadvantage outweighing the advantage. Illegal trespass would not mitigate in his favor with Sheriff Thorpe no matter how the confrontation with Gaunt played out.

A pine tree grew close to the far end of the porch, and a tall oleander shrub grew around the corner in front; together they created a patch of deep shade. And drawn up against the railing there was a cane-bottom chair. As good a place as any to do his waiting, he decided. He positioned the chair so that it would be hidden from the street and most of the front walk. Gaunt wouldn’t see him until he reached the porch steps and started up.

It was a fairly long wait. Now that he was here, now that the meeting with Gaunt was imminent, enough of Quincannon’s patience returned to make the waiting tolerable. The shade helped, too, holding off the sweltering heat so that his face and hands remained more or less dry. He sat quietly, his coat thrown open, now and then fingering the handle of the Navy.

His thoughts, when he thought at all, were of Sabina. In his mind’s eye he could see her as she came stumbling wraithlike out of the fog; and later, as she lay small and pitiable in Dr. Jorgensen’s ward bed. He could feel, too, despite the heat here, the trembling of her wet and chilled body as he carried her to the buggy and when she pressed against him during the long, jouncing ride into the city. The visual and sensory memories added fuel to the hate that bubbled inside him.

Now and then a vehicle rattled by on the street, and somewhere in the neighborhood a dog set up a desultory barking, and once he heard the sound of voices as an unseen man and a woman strolled past. Otherwise, the distant, steady pound of ore-crushing stamps at the Empire Mine was the only break in the afternoon stillness.

More than an hour passed. He had just looked at and put away his stem-winder for the third time when he heard footfalls on the walkway. He sat forward, tensing. It was Gaunt — alone, dressed as always in black despite the temperature.

Quincannon waited until he mounted the last of the steps before gaining his feet and saying, “It’s about time, Gaunt.”

Gaunt was too self-controlled, too coldly emotionless, to do anything but stop and turn his head. His expression betrayed neither surprise nor alarm, nor even wariness. It was almost as if he’d expected Quincannon. As he surely had, though not this soon.

“Well, the renowned detective,” he said in his slow drawl. “How long have you been here?”

Quincannon had himself under tight rein as well — for the moment. “Long enough.”

“Why? You must know that the trial isn’t until next week.”

“The trial isn’t what brought me.”

“No? Then what did?”

“You know the answer to that.”

“I’m afraid not. Suppose you enlighten me.”

“Sabina Carpenter.”

“Your erstwhile partner. What about her?”

“Her sudden disappearance.”

“Oh? Disappeared, you say?”

“Last Friday night in San Francisco.”

“That’s too bad. How did it happen?”

“She was kidnapped,” Quincannon said. Rage was close to the surface now; his voice was thick with it.

“What makes you think that?”

“I don’t think it, I know it.” He took two steps forward, so that only a few paces separated them. “Kidnapped, locked in an abandoned building without food or water, and left there to die.”

Nothing changed in Gaunt’s demeanor. One arm hung at his side, the other was drawn up at his middle so that the fingers just touched the flap of his coat. Armed? A hideout weapon within easy reach? Quincannon hoped so, hoped for a sudden draw. He was not sure yet what he would do. Draw himself and fire first, mayhap. Or swing the Navy like a club. Or take the hideout away from him and make him eat it.

“How do you know this?” Gaunt’s voice was still cold, without inflection.

“She didn’t die, Gaunt. She escaped and I found her. Yesterday afternoon.”

“How did she escape? How did you find her?”

“Ingenuity on her part, detective work on mine.”

“Are you accusing me of abducting the woman? Is that why you’re here?”

“Yes, to both questions.”

Gaunt’s upper lip curled. “The accusation is false and slanderous besides. I was in Sacramento on Friday, consulting with an attorney named Barstow. He’ll swear to that if need be.”

“A shyster paid to lie.”

“Another slanderous statement.”

“I can prove you kidnapped her.”

“How? Did she see her abductor?”

“He spoke to her and she recognized his voice. Yours.”

“But she didn’t see the man, did she? And voice recognition is unreliable, the more so at night.”

“How would you know she was abducted at night unless you abducted her?”

“I assumed it.”

Enough of this cat and mouse. Quincannon said in a flat, hard voice, “The building where you took her and left her to die is an abandoned boat repair shop on the South Basin marsh — property owned by your former land-swindle partner, D. S. Nickerson. He’ll testify in court that you coerced him into acting as your accomplice.”

Gaunt’s mouth thinned to a straight white line, like a knife slash before it begins to bleed. “Damn you, Quincannon. And damn Mrs. Carpenter, too.”

“No, damn you, you sadistic son of a bitch.”

Long, tense seconds passed before Gaunt said, “What do you intend to do? Kill me?”

“If you give me cause.”

“And if I don’t? Put me under arrest?”

“My license from the state of California gives me that authority. You’ll occupy a cell next to your sister’s until the San Francisco police can arrange for extradition.”

Some of the ice in Gaunt’s eyes thawed. There was an edgy, poised look to him now. His right hand still rested on the front of his waistcoat, the tips of his fingers just touching the lapel of his black frock coat. Quincannon immediately swept the tail of his coat aside with his left hand to expose the holstered Navy, gripped its handle with his right — movements so swift that Gaunt had no time to react.

“Go ahead and draw your hideout weapon,” he said. “I’d like nothing better than to shoot you dead where you stand.”

The clash of wills continued a few seconds longer, neither man moving, their gazes locked. Then Quincannon said, “Well, Gaunt? Will you come along peaceably or—”

Gaunt’s nerve broke. The compulsive protector, the black-hearted avenger, the man supposedly fashioned of ice and iron spun on his heel, leaped down off the porch, and ran.

Quincannon drew the Navy and gave chase, shouting, “Stop, blast you, I’ll shoot if you don’t!”

The fugitive paid no heed to the warning. He staggered out through the open gate, onto empty, heat-blistered Pleasant Street. There was a gun in his hand now, too, a small pistol, and he skidded to a halt long enough to turn and fire. Quincannon dodged, but the shot was wild, the bullet clipping off an elm branch twenty feet away.

Gaunt commenced running again, plunging headlong downhill toward town. Panic made him fleet of foot, fleet enough to outrace his pursuer to a more populated area and thus endanger innocent citizens. Quincannon couldn’t let that happen. He slowed, drew a long bead between the fleeing scoundrel’s shoulder blades. But he had never in his life shot a man in the back, and he couldn’t bring himself to do so now. He lowered his aim, steadied the Navy again, and fired.

His marksmanship was accurate as always. The bullet took Gaunt just behind the right knee, sent him yelling and tumbling onto the cobblestones. He rolled over twice before sliding to a stop in a supine sprawl. The pistol was still clutched in his hand, but he was no longer trying to use it; pain had him in too tight a grip. Quincannon ran up and kicked the weapon out of his grasp, stepped over to retrieve it, then stepped back and stood over him with the Navy pointed downward at the deep cleft in his chin.

Gaunt stared up at him, grimacing, clutching at his wounded leg. It had been a clean shot, the slug likely shattering bone but not piercing an artery; there was little enough blood. His panic had ebbed swiftly under the lash of agony, and the man of ice and iron briefly reemerged.

“Go ahead, put a bullet between my eyes and have done with it. You want to, I can see it in your face.”

Quincannon did want to — a measure of his hate for this soulless excuse for a human being. But he had never killed a man in cold blood and he was not about to start now, in broad daylight, with a handful of citizens aroused by the gunfire beginning to congregate. Nor, for that matter, would he have if the two of them had been alone together on a mountaintop or the desolate marshland at Candlestick Point. Nothing, he knew now, not even what had been done to Sabina, could ever make a murderer out of John Frederick Quincannon.

“No,” he said, and holstered the Navy, and then caught hold of Gaunt’s coat collar and dragged his unpleasant carcass off Pleasant Street.