“You’re dismissing the killing?”
“Great heavens, no.” Even when he threw his hands up, the gesture was theatrical. “But I take pains to run a respectable company, and yes, ma’am, we stretch the truth on occasions, but we don’t break any laws.” He clucked his tongue. “Those who do are not welcome with us.”
With an ostentatious salute, he turned on his black, booted heel and strode away towards the booths.
Jessica watched him go. Took two deep breaths. Then brought up her breakfast over the headlines.
Swing low, sweet chariot—
It was the “in between” time. That deep, dark, tranquil period that exists only once the last, defiant spurt of adrenaline has popped, and before the first, faint spike of recuperating energy has stirred. The limbo hour, when yesterday seems a million miles behind, and tomorrow feels like it will never come. The loneliest, most desolate of times.
— coming for to carry me home.
The takings had been counted, recorded, and padlocked away. The last oil lamp, the last bonfire, the last naphtha flare was extinguished long ago. All that remained of four thousand seething souls was a lingering smell of stout, saddle soap, and stale fish and chips, mixed with tobacco, cheap scent, and carbolic. Soft snores emanated from the cluster of wagons and wigwams. A horse snickered and shifted. The corner of a sideshow tent flapped languidly in the breeze.
Swing low, sweet chariot—
No one was singing. The haunt was merely echoing softly in Jessica’s head. Along with a sense that the ending was near.
She watched the booth signs creaking back and forth beneath a sky that was low, and dark, and menacing. Wondered how long before the first jagged spike of lightning would cut through the blackness. The first rumble of thunder would ricochet over Wimbledon Common...
— coming for to carry me home.
“Can’t sleep?” The Texan drawl was little more than a whisper. “Or is it the storm?”
What could she say? She hugged her arms to her body to stop them from trembling. “You know how it is with us showgirls, Mr. McLintock. We get overexcited at times.”
He didn’t smile. “You’re shivering.”
“It’s a cool night.”
“Here.” He pulled off his jacket and wrapped the buckskins around her. They smelled of cedar, and were softer than petals.
For a long time, they stood facing each other. Her, digging her nails into her flesh. Him, staring at her with the clear steady gaze of the marksman. In the distance, she heard the clop of a hansom cab crossing the Common, before the night swallowed it up.
“Your carpetbag,” he said eventually. “When Joe called me over, said you were looking for work, I couldn’t help but notice.”
She remembered the length of time he’d stared at it.
“No one arrives with so few possessions, especially someone as educated as yourself. And then, when you accepted an acting role, instead of a clerical position, I was convinced.”
She had to ask. “Of what?” She had to know.
“That you were a police agent.”
Whatever else Jessica had been expecting, this wasn’t it. “Is that why you baited me?”
“No, Miss Tate. I baited you because I liked you and because you have spunk, and for that very reason, I tidied your caravan and made you more comfortable than I normally do for my brave young pioneer wives. The difference,” he grinned, “was the lengths I went to, to convince you how upright and honest we all are.”
“You tidied my caravan?”
“Seeing all those old newspapers scattered about, it seemed a good time for a clear-out.”
Thunder rumbled, way in the distance. A long, low drumroll of doom. “They were your reviews.”
“They were history,” he corrected. “And the past, as I’m sure you know, only holds a person back.”
She swallowed. “Each of those papers carried an account of a woman’s murder.”
“I don’t doubt it.” He rocked on his heel. “Fairs and circuses have a bad reputation and always attract the wrong crowd. That’s why, to answer your earlier question, women don’t stay long with this show. They come for glamour and romance, then find it’s bloody hard work. Being propositioned day in and day out’s the last straw.” His mouth twisted. “Don’t tell me you suspected a mass murderer amongst us?”
“Of course not,” she lied.
A zigzag of lightning lit up the sky, throwing him into silhouette. “But,” he said slowly, “we do have a killer amongst us.”
He was no Cherokee seer, he admitted, no reader of minds. But the hollows under her eyes, the drawn cheeks, the clothes buttoned up tight? “They spoke of tension, Miss Tate.”
The tension a police agent might feel, for example, expecting to be unmasked any moment.
“Or,” he added, almost to himself, “someone on the run.”
But what could a well-educated, respectable young woman be escaping from? What would make her pack so few things in a hurry? Hide her face from the policeman patrolling the crowd?
“Until it occurred to me that the best place to hide something is in plain sight.” He reached into the breast pocket of his shirt and drew out a page tom from the Wimbledon Times.
“Your reaction this morning had less to do with the discovery of that young woman’s body. More that your husband had been found bludgeoned to death in his own home, after neighbours alerted the police to the smell.”
The blood—
She had never seen so much blood—
Even when he beat her until she passed out—
“What are you going to do?” she whispered.
McLintock stroked his goatee beard. “Between shows today, I asked around. Seems the dead man had the reputation of being a foul-mouthed bully who spent his wife’s inheritance on booze, then sent her out to work to earn the money. Which kind of got me wondering whether those buttons mightn’t be hiding bruises.”
Sometimes they were the size, and shape, of a footprint. Other times, he’d wrap a lump of wood in a towel, so as not to leave marks. Sometimes he just enjoyed hearing the crack of her ribs. Always, always, he raped her. And what made a young woman, recently orphaned, think marriage would offer comfort and peace?
“I asked you a question, Mr. McLintock.”
“So you did, Miss Tate, so you did. But my problem is this. I have my Cherokee squaw and my pioneer wife, but I am still short of an Annie Oakley-style sure-shot.”
“What—”
“It’s all trickery, of course. I can’t risk losing paying customers to stray bullets. But you seem to have an aptitude for these things, so I was thinking. Maybe I could teach you to shoot a rifle over your shoulder in time for our next venue, which is Paris? And then, if you feel you’d like to discuss it further, we could talk it over in Rome.”
“Paris?”
“You’d have to travel with Raven Feather, as Three Ponies, his wife. Nag, nag, nag and all that.” He looped his thumbs in his belt and tossed his long showman’s hair over his shoulders. “But no one checks the Indians’ papers, so what do you say, ‘Jessica Tate’? Is it a deal?”
Something wet trickled down her face. Was it the rain? Was it tears? Was it both?
“Thank you,” she wanted to say, but when she looked up, there was nobody there.
Just voluminous buckskins draped round her shoulders. A loud crack of thunder. And a sense of friendship, belonging, and peace.
The Adventure of the One-Penny Black
by Ellery Queen
Since EQMM no longer has a “Fall” issue, the closest we can get to an issue that marks the precise 70th anniversary of the magazine is the one you hold in your hand. And this celebratory Septemher/Octoher EQMM would not be complete without a reprint of an Ellery Queen story. Not only was “Ellery Queen” the official founder and first editor of EQMM, stories by Ellery Queen were among the many reprints included in the magazine during its first years. This tale was written and published before EQMM existed, in The Adventures of Ellery Queen.