“Room 206? That would be Mr. Jensen’s room. I would not have thought he would be the type to share his room, but if you say. Go on up and knock. I am sure that he is in.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t want to wake ’im up. Why don’t you just give me the key?”
“Give you the key to an occupied room? Oh, no, sir, I’m afraid I can’t do that,” the clerk said.
Cassidy pulled his pistol and pointed it at the hotel clerk. “I said give me the key to Room 206, you son of a bitch!”
With shaking hands, the clerk took the spare key to 206 from the hook and held it out toward Cassidy. Cassidy took the key, then brought the pistol down hard on the clerk’s head. The clerk collapsed on the floor behind the desk.
With the key in one hand and his pistol in the other, Cassidy hurried up the stairs to the second floor. The hallway was well lit by wall-mounted gas lamps that gave off a quiet hissing sound as they burned.
Room 206 was at the far end of the hall. There was also a window there. The window was closed for now, but Cassidy opened it, then stuck his head through to have a look around. Two floors below was the back alley. That was a pretty long jump, but if he crawled out of the window, then hung from the ledge and dropped that way, it wouldn’t be so bad. And this would give him a route to get away after he took care of Jensen and stole the money. He left the window up so he wouldn’t have to take the time to raise it afterward.
Stepping over to the door that had the numerals 206, he put the key into the keyhole, then turned it as quietly as he could.
It wasn’t quiet enough. Even while asleep, Matt heard the lock tumblers click. Quickly and silently, Matt pulled his pistol from the holster that hung from the headboard just above him, then slid out of bed and moved to the opposite side of the room.
The door opened, and in the backlight provided by the hall lamps, Matt saw a man standing there. His right arm was crooked and he was holding a pistol. The man stepped over to the bed, then pointed his pistol before he realized the bed was empty.
“What the hell?” he said in surprise and frustration.
“Are you looking for me?” Matt asked.
Swinging toward the sound of the voice, Cassidy fired, the flame pattern of the muzzle flash lighting up the room. The bullet crashed through the window beside Matt, even as Matt fired back.
The impact of the bullet knocked Cassidy back onto the bed and he lay there with his arms thrown to either side of him, his head back, and his eyes open. His pistol hung by the trigger guard from Cassidy’s finger.
“You’ve been a busy man, today, Mr. Jensen,” the police officer said a short while later. Matt was talking to the policeman in the lobby of the hotel, along with several of the other hotel guests who had come down to the lobby out of curiosity. The hotel clerk was there as well, holding a towel to the wound on his head. Two men were carrying Cassidy’s body out on a stretcher. “I heard about the incident with Red Plummer.”
“Yes, it has been a busier day than I would want,” Matt said.
“Did you know Pogue Cassidy?”
“I never saw him before he came into my room,” Matt said.
“Do you have any idea why he broke into your room?”
“Most likely reason, I suppose, is that he wanted to rob me,” Matt said.
“I’m sure that’s it. I know Cassidy, we have had him in our jail a few times, mostly for fighting and disturbing the peace. But he did serve two years in the penitentiary down in Rawlins for robbery.”
“I’d better get a new sheet for your bed,” the clerk said. “Like as not Cassidy bled on the one you have.”
“Thanks,” Matt said. He looked back at the police officer. “Is there going to be an inquiry on this? The reason I ask is because, if there is going to be one, I wonder if we could combine it with the one I have at ten in the morning. I need to get away as soon as I can after that, because I have to be somewhere else.”
The policeman chuckled. “Let’s see, you have been involved in two shootings in less than twenty-four hours. I’ll talk to the chief. I don’t see why he couldn’t convince the judge to hold both inquiries at the same time.”
At ten o’clock that morning, Judge William D. Clanton held a rare double inquiry, one into the death by gunshot wound of Ronald (Red) Plummer, and another into the death by gunshot wound of Pogue Cassidy. Witnesses from the saloon testified first, explaining how Plummer had made the first move. Also introduced into evidence was the account of the bank robbery and murder down in Colorado. Grant Peal, the clerk at the Western Hotel, testified that Pogue Cassidy knew which room Matt was occupying and that when he refused to give him a key to the room that Cassidy hit him over the head and took the key anyway.
When all the testimony was heard, Judge Clanton found no cause for charges to be brought against Matt and he was free to go. Matt thanked the police department and the judge, then he mounted Spirit for the long ride up Sussex.
When Winnie and his mother debarked in New York, they and the other first-class passengers were escorted through customs by courteous and helpful officials. Winnie saw hundreds of passengers from steerage, holding dearly on to all their worldly possessions, poorly dressed and clinging together in apprehension and wonder as they lined up to be processed through Castle Garden.
Once they were through customs, Winnie got his first good look at a city that was as big as London, but had a brashness to it that London did not have. He could see the huge sweeping “S” curve of the elevated railroad just off Pier 8. Looking back to the east, he could see the superstructure of the ship he and his mother had just left, as well as the towering masts of the sailing ships that were in port. On the docks, there were many wagons loaded with freight that had been taken from the ships and with freight that would be put on the ships.
Jennie’s first act was to hail a cab for them, a hansom cab that allowed Winnie and his mother to ride inside while the driver sat on a seat above and behind them. Having exchanged British pounds for American dollars at the customs office, Jennie passed the fare up through the hole in the roof.
“Disabuse yourself of any idea that I’m a foreigner without knowledge of the city,” Jennie said. “I was born here.”
“Sure ’n I wouldn’t think of such a thing now, m’lady,” the cab driver replied in a very thick Irish accent.
Winnie laughed.
“What is so funny?”
“You were afraid he would think you were a foreigner when he is,” Winnie said.
Jennie smiled. “I had almost forgotten that about New York,” she said.
The cab dropped them off in front of the Jerome Mansion on the corner of Madison Avenue and 26th Street. The five-story edifice, built by Jennie’s father Leonard, had a six-hundred-seat theater, a breakfast room that seated seventy people, a ballroom of white and gold with champagne- and cologne-spouting fountains, and a view of Madison Square Park.
Leonard Jerome, who was a major stockholder of the New York Times, had defended the newspaper office during the New York draft riots by personally manning a Gatling gun. He was the father of three daughters: Jennie, Clara, and Leonie. The girls were known as the good, the beauty, and the witty. Jennie, who was an exceptionally beautiful woman, was “the beauty.” Clara, whose real name was Clarita, was known as “the good,” and Leonie was “the witty.”
Jerome’s wife had given him one more daughter, Camille, who had died at the age of eight. It was also said of him that he had fathered the American operatic singer Minnie Hauk, though the rumor was never substantiated.
“Jennie!” her father said, greeting her with open arms. “How wonderful of you to visit us!”
Jennie’s mother was just as effusive in her greeting, and smothered Winnie with hugs and kisses.