The Stolen Gold Affair

20 Quincannon

He bid a none-too-fond farewell to the Monarch Mine and Patch Creek on Tuesday morning. A mixture of frustration and steadfast determination rode with him on the stage to Marysville. The various searches of Joe Simcox’s living quarters and belongings and those of the other high-graders had not turned up the slightest lead to the whereabouts of the elusive Jedediah Yost. Interrogations of the three night-shift and graveyard-shift conspirators proved equally futile.

Quincannon’s frustration increased in Marysville, for the train to Sacramento was delayed nearly two hours by some sort of problem on the right-of-way. He used part of the waiting time to compose and send a coded telegram to Sabina, informing her that he was alive and well and his undercover work at the Monarch Mine had been successfully completed. Naturally, he made no mention of such specifics as his arrest and overnight incarceration for the murder of Frank McClellan, or his narrow escape from the mine chute; those vexing matters were better discussed in person, if at all. About Jedediah Yost he wrote nothing, stating only that it was necessary he spend a day or two in Sacramento before returning to San Francisco and would be lodging at the Golden Eagle Hotel.

Most of the day was gone when the train finally deposited him at the main railroad station — too late to begin his inquiries into Yost’s means of disposal of the stolen gold. Just as well, for the one good suit he’d brought with him, stored the past ten days in his war bag, was sorely in need of brushing and pressing, and he was sorely in need of a bath, a decent meal, and a night’s sleep in a comfortable bed.

The Golden Eagle was his usual choice of hostelries on his infrequent visits to Sacramento. Its proximity to the Capitol Building made it a gathering spot for local and national politicians and the occasional residence of Republican governors and their families; Quincannon liked it anyway. It was, as its advertisements claimed, a “strictly first-class” establishment, offering accommodations and a restaurant bill of fare the near equal of those in the Palace and Baldwin hotels in San Francisco. Expensive, of course, which went against his thrifty Scot’s nature, but he would include the cost on the Hoxley and Associates expense account for reimbursement. Besides, he was entitled to pamper himself when circumstances warranted it.

The Golden Eagle provided free transportation by carriage from the railroad depot and steamboat landings. Quincannon availed himself of the service and was delivered more or less promptly to the hotel. The three-story, two-hundred-room edifice on the corner of 7^th and K streets had been built in 1863 on land raised by the construction of reinforced brick walls filled with dirt, the raising having been necessary after floodwaters from the American and Sacramento rivers inundated the downtown area in the winter of 1861. The first floors of many buildings had become basements as a result, with what had previously been sidewalks now at the basement level.

The amount of pedestrian, equipage, and light-rail traffic appeared to have increased since Quincannon’s last visit. Once a settlement founded when gold was discovered at Sutter’s Mill in ’48, Sacramento had grown over the past half century and was now bordering on a metropolis. The city had prospered first as the hub of supplies freighted to the gold fields in the Mother Lode and across the mountains to the silver boomtown of Virginia City, then as an agricultural shipping point. Its location at the confluence of the two rivers allowed it to control commerce on both, and the levying of tariffs on goods transported by competing railroads during and after the Civil War increased its economic success. A boast had been made that there were as many millionaires among its citizenry as resided in San Francisco. True or not, Quincannon was of the opinion that it had just as many robber barons, not a few of whom occupied seats in the state legislature.

His rumpled suit and war bag were given a disdainful glance by the Golden Eagle’s door porter. Quincannon repaid him with a long and equally disdainful glower, took a firmer grip on the bag, and toted it across the ornately appointed lobby. The clerk at the registration desk, a middle-aged fellow with a starched face to match his starched collar, had no better manners than the porter, but they improved somewhat when Quincannon stated that he had been a guest of the hotel on several previous occasions. Rooms were always kept available on short notice to repeat customers.

“Your name, sir?”

“John Frederick Quincannon. Of Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional Detective Services, San Francisco.”

The clerk cocked his head to one side, birdlike. “We didn’t expect you, Mr. Quincannon. Naturally you will require a second room.”

“Second room?”

“Unless of course you are married.”

“Married? Why should that matter to you?”

“Sir,” the clerk said a bit stiffly, “we are a conservative establishment. We do not allow ladies and gentlemen to occupy the same room without benefit of clergy.”

Quincannon looked at him askance. “What the devil are you talking about?”

“The wire we received specifically requested a single room reservation.”

“Wire from whom?”

“Presumably your, ah, business associate, Mrs. Sabina Carpenter.”

Sabina! Quincannon managed not to gawp his astonishment. “When did you receive the wire?”

“This morning.”

“What time this morning?”

“I don’t recall the exact time, sir.”

“But it was before noon?”

“Yes, it was. Shortly after ten o’clock.”

“For when and how long was the accommodation requested?”

“For tonight and possibly tomorrow night. You were not aware that Mrs. Carpenter would be joining you, sir?”

“Of course I was,” Quincannon lied. “My surprise is due to her failure to request a reservation for me as well. She must have assumed I had done so myself. I have been away on business for some time and we planned to meet here before I left.”

“I see. You will require a room of your own, then?”

“Certainly. Mrs. Carpenter is a widow and I am unmarried. Our relationship is strictly professional.”

The clerk said he had no doubt of that, a probable lie of his own.

“Mrs. Carpenter hasn’t checked in yet, I presume?”

“No, sir. Her wire stated that she expected to arrive early evening. Would you care to leave a message for her?”

“That won’t be necessary.”

Quincannon forbore asking if a room had been assigned to Mrs. Carpenter, and if so, one for himself nearby. It would only have made the clerk more doubtful. He signed the register and was given a room with a private bath on the second floor.

A uniformed bellhop and an elevator conducted him upstairs. In the room, small but well appointed, he asked the bellhop for valet service and handed him a nickel — an indication of how distracted he was by the news of Sabina’s imminent arrival. Usually he took a dim view of the practice of tipping.

Coincidences were not uncommon in detective work, but this one was somewhat staggering and not a little perplexing. She couldn’t possibly have known he would be in Sacramento today; his wire from Marysville hadn’t been sent until a few minutes past noon. She had to be making the trip for some purpose of her own, and had chosen the Golden Eagle because she knew of his preference for the establishment. A stopover on her way to Patch Creek, where she thought him to be, to bring him vital information of some sort? Possibly, but then why had her wire to the hotel stated that she might be staying more than one night?

Well, there was no sense in tying his brain in knots attempting to answer the temporarily unanswerable. He would have a full account when Sabina arrived.

He shed his suit and waistcoat, and when the valet came knocking, turned the articles over to him for immediate brushing and pressing. Then he drew a bath in the clawfoot tub, and sat for the better part of an hour soaking his sore muscles and washing away the last of ten days of Monarch-induced grit, grime, and sweat. He was finishing a trim of his whiskers when the valet returned. Dressed in his last clean shirt and freshened clothing, he decided, on a mirror inspection, that he was presentable enough to meet his betrothed. The prospect excited him, not because of whatever reason Sabina had for coming here, but because he would be with her again much sooner than anticipated.

He considered spit-polishing his shoes, decided against it, and rode the elevator down to the lobby. At a shoeshine stand in the hotel barbershop he paid for an expert buffing and polishing and tipped the Negro lad a nickel. This time it was because contemplation of the fee and large bonus he would receive from Everett Hoxley had put him in an expansive mood. Why not share the wealth with those less fortunate?

It was after five o’clock when he reentered the lobby. His stomach was making ominous grumbling noises — his only provender for the day had been a tasteless sandwich in Marysville — but dining alone tonight had no appeal. Besides, he did not want to be in the midst of a meal when Sabina arrived.

He bought the most recent edition of the Sacramento Bee, found a comfortable leather chair within view of the registration desk, and settled down to wait.