The Flimflam Affair

3 Quincannon

Icehouse Road, obviously named after a native-stone building with ICE painted on its facing wall that squatted alongside a broad creek, serpentined away from town into the hilly countryside. The buggy that Booker had had waiting for them bounced through chuckholes and over thick-grassed hummocks. A grim-visaged C. W. Cromarty sat up front with the express agent, Quincannon on the backseat with Newell. All four kept their own counsel on the quarter-mile ride.

Around a bend, a broad meadow opened up near where the road forked ahead. Scrub oak and manzanita, and outcroppings of rock, spotted the high grass. A buckboard and a saddled chestnut gelding partially blocked the road, and under one of the larger oaks some twenty rods away, a group of three men stood waiting.

One of the men, a leaned-down gent with a handlebar mustache, detached himself from the others and hurried out to meet the rig. The star pinned to his cowhide vest identified him as the local constable, George Teague. He said to Cromarty, “Damnedest thing you ever saw, Mr. Cromarty. Just the damnedest thing. I couldn’t hardly believe my eyes.”

“Who found the safe?”

“Ben Higgins. He’s a dairy rancher lives farther out this way.”

Quincannon asked, “Has anything else been discovered in the vicinity?”

“Just a line of trampled grass,” Teague said. “Looks like the safe was carried in from the road.” He paused, studying Quincannon with his head cocked slightly to one side as if he suffered from a stiff neck. “You the detective from San Francisco?”

Cromarty answered the question and introduced them. Then he said in bleak tones, “Very well. Let’s have a look at it.”

They trooped through the grass to where the other two men — the rancher, Higgins, and Teague’s deputy — waited. The safe lay tilted on its side in the oak’s shade, one corner dug deep into the grassy earth. The black circular door, bearing the words SIERRA RAILWAY EXPRESS in gold leaf above the manufacturer’s name, was open and partially detached, hanging by a single bolt from a bent hinge. Cromarty and Newell stood staring down at it, mouths pinched tight. Quincannon stepped past them, lowered himself to one knee for a closer examination.

“She wasn’t blowed open,” Teague said behind him. “You can see that plain enough.”

Quincannon could. There were no powder marks on the door or other evidence that explosives had been used, nor did the center hold for the dial and spindle show any damage. Yet the door had clearly been forced somehow; the bolts were badly twisted. There were small gouge marks along the bottom edges of the door, the sort a wedge or chisel struck by sledgehammers would make, but a safe of this construction could not have been ripped open in that fashion, by brute force.

A whitish residue adhered to the steel along where the wedge marks were located. Quincannon scraped it with a thumbnail, rubbed it between thumb and index finger. Hard, flaky.

“What’s that?” Newell asked.

“Dried putty, from the look and feel of it.”

“Putty? What the devil could that have been used for?”

Quincannon gave no response. He was looking at another substance that had dried on the safe, on a corner of the door and on one of the outer sides — brownish smears of what was certainly dried blood.

Teague had spotted it before their arrival. He said, “One of ’em must’ve gashed hisself when they busted into the express office. And again when they got her open. There’s blood on the floor inside, too.”

Again Quincannon said nothing. Something else had drawn his attention, a piece of straw caught on one of the skewed bolts. He plucked it loose. Ordinary straw, clean and damp.

He leaned forward to peer inside the safe. Completely empty — not a gram of gold dust or speck of the other variety remained. He ran fingertips over the smooth walls and floor, found them to be cold and faintly moist. The dampness of metal and straw could have been the result of the safe having lain here in the open since last night, assuming that was when it had been dumped; but if that were the case, it should have dried by now, the day, though overcast, holding no indication of moisture.

When he straightened, Cromarty asked him, “Have you any idea how it was done?”

“Not as yet.”

“If I weren’t seeing it for myself, I wouldn’t believe it. A guaranteed burglarproof safe... it just doesn’t seem possible.”

Quincannon suppressed a darkly pleased smile. Actions and events that didn’t seem possible were his meat. There was nothing he liked better than the challenge of feasting on crimes that baffled and flummoxed average men and average detectives.

“Leave the safe here, Mr. Cromarty, or take it back to town?” Teague asked.

“Leave it for now. We’ll send some men out for it later. Unless you’d rather have it brought in for further study, Mr. Quincannon?”

“Not necessary. I’ve seen enough of it.”

Higgins had no useful information to impart. He had spied the safe as he was driving past in his wagon, he said, and stopped to investigate; no one else had been in the vicinity. A search of the area where the safe had been dumped provided no additional clues. The ground was too hard beneath the trampled grass here and in the section of meadow between the oak and the road to retain identifiable footprints.

The men rode back into Tuttletown. At the depot, Quincannon asked to have a look at the scene of the robbery both inside and out. Teague and Booker accompanied him to the rear of the old wood-frame building that housed the baggage and express office.

A small grove of poplars grew close together near the door on that side; under the cloak of late-night darkness, a wagon could easily have been drawn up under them and be well hidden in their shadows while the safe was removed. The jumbled tracks of men, wagons, and horses told Quincannon nothing illuminating, however.

He stepped up on the platform to look at the door. Its bolt lock had been forced with a pinch bar or similar instrument. As old and rusty as it was, it wouldn’t have taken more than a few seconds for such to have been done.

Booker said, “There’s a wood crossbar on the door inside, but they got it free somehow. It was on the floor when I come in yesterday morning.”

There was no mystery as to how that had been accomplished. Once the bolt had been snapped, the thieves had pried a gap between the door edge and jamb just wide enough to slip a thin length of metal through and lift the crossbar free. Whoever they were, they were resourceful and determined.

Quincannon tried the door, found it secure; naturally Booker had replaced the crossbar. He asked the agent to go inside and remove it. While Booker was obliging, Quincannon studied the broken lock, the gouged wood, the crusted brown stains on the door edge. A fair amount of blood had been lost during the robbery; there were spatters on the platform as well. And more on the rough wood floor inside, he saw when Booker let him inside.

That much was clear. What was puzzling was the blood inside the safe. How had it come to be there after the alleged burglarproof box had been breached?

A dusty square in one corner outlined where the safe had stood. It had been bolted to the floor, the rust-flecked bolts pried loose with the same instrument that had been used on the rear door. Still more dried blood stained the boards here.

Teague stood watching in his stiff-necked fashion. “You know, I looked the place over pretty good myself,” he said. His patience seemed to be wearing thin. “Damn thieves didn’t leave nothing of theirselves behind, else I’d’ve found it.”

Nothing except for the blood, Quincannon thought but didn’t say.

“If you ask me,” Booker said, “the ones that done it are long gone by now. And the gold with ’em.”

“Possibly. And possibly not.”

“Well, they dumped the empty safe, didn’t they? What reason would they have for sticking around?”

“Strong ties to the community, mayhap.”

“Here, now,” Teague said. “You saying you think they’re locals?”

“Just speculating at this point, Constable. If they are locals, it stands to reason the gold is still in the vicinity as well.”

“Even if you’re right, that don’t put us any closer to finding out who they are.”

“Or how they got that safe open,” Booker said. “Dynamite wasn’t used and they couldn’t of done it with hammers and chisels.”

“Nor a pile driver,” Quincannon said wryly, echoing Newell’s words in Jamestown.

“Then how in bloody hell did they manage it?”

“The how and the why may well be linked. The answer to one question will provide the answer to the other.”

“Well now, mister,” Teague said, “that sounds like double-talk to me. Ain’t no shame in admitting you’re as fuddled as the rest of us.”

No shame in it if it were true, but it wasn’t. Quincannon prided himself that he was never fuddled, at least not for very long.

Teague mistook his silence for tacit agreement. “So then how’re you gonna go about finding the answers?”

“A detective never reveals his methods until his investigation is complete,” Quincannon said. And sometimes, he added silently, not even then.

Dusk had begun to settle when he left the express office. Cromarty had issued an invitation to dine with him and Newell and to spend the night in his private car, but Quincannon preferred a solitary environment and his own company when he was in the midst of a case. He went first to Tuttletown’s only hostelry, the Cremer House — the best room the hotel had to offer, which turned out to be cramped, spartanly furnished, and stuffy. He stayed in it just long enough to deposit his valise and open the single window partway.

Downstairs again, he asked the elderly desk clerk, “Does Tuttletown have a doctor?”

“Why? You feeling poorly?”

Quincannon ignored the question. “Is there a doctor here?”

“There is. Doc Goodfellow.”

“Where does he reside?”

“Home and office above the dry-goods store, one block east. But you won’t find him there.”

“No? Why not?”

“Cave-in up at the Rappahanock mine a couple hours ago. They were still digging out the injured when one of the men come for the doc. Likely he’ll be up there most of the night.”

Quincannon didn’t bother asking the clerk how he knew about the accident; word traveled swiftly in small towns such as this, especially word of a sudden tragedy. Nor did he answer a second query about the state of his health. His business with Dr. Goodfellow was none of the clerk’s.

Just down the street from the hotel he spied a place labeled the Miners Rest Café. He made it his next stop — and wasted half an hour on an unsatisfactory dinner. A bowl of mulligan stew was watery and oversalted, and a pie made with vinegar and raisins — a Mother Lode country favorite, the waitress informed him — was about as appetizing as its name, fly pie. You would think an eatery that catered to miners would have better fare, but then most of the town’s business establishments were saloons and dance halls — testimony to the fact that liquor, beer, and the usual free lunches claimed most of the hardrock business.

A brisk stroll around the crowded, noisy town aided his digestion and eliminated the last of the muscle kinks from two days of train travel. When he’d had enough of the mountain night’s chill and the constant throbbing of the stamps, he made the rounds of the watering holes to see if he could pick up any useful scuttlebutt.

As he’d anticipated, there were two main topics of conversation: the mine cave-in, and the robbery and mysterious cracking of the burglarproof safe. The consensus of opinion among the rough-garbed locals about the latter event seemed to be that one of the gangs of gold thieves that roamed these foothills was responsible; if anyone knew anything to the contrary, he kept it to himself. These men were naturally suspicious of outsiders, and the fact that Quincannon was a San Francisco detective had as quickly become common knowledge as the Rappahanock mine cave-in. He was recognized as soon as he entered each saloon, and mostly given a wide berth and ignored. None of the few patrons he approached would discuss the robbery with him, not even for the price of a drink.

He was neither dismayed nor disappointed. The effort had been a long shot at best; it was unlikely that he would be given assistance from any quarter in his investigation, voluntary or otherwise. Not that he would need it. His canny brain was busily piecing together the clues already in his possession, and while a pattern had yet to emerge, he was confident that one would.

Weary now, he returned to Cremer House and stretched out on the lumpy bed in his room. One of the temperance tracts he carried with him on trips — the perfect soporific — put him to sleep before he had turned two pages.