“There is nothing unmanly in the sport, John.”
“Perhaps not. But it’s of no interest to me.”
“Not even in a good cause? Amity is planning a bicycle rally to help fund Voting Rights for Women.”
“I’ll offer my support in other ways, if you don’t mind.”
“Financial support?”
“Well... yes, up to a point.”
“So you do sincerely believe in our cause.”
“I’ve said so often enough, haven’t I? My word is my bond. There is nothing I would like more than to have the women of California given the vote.”
Sabina could tell that he meant it. She said, smiling, “Except, that is, for greenbacks and gold specie.”
“Speaking of which,” he said without missing a beat, “I trust you charged Mrs. Wellman an appropriate fee for all you did for her.”
Same old John. Yes, and she supposed she wouldn’t have him any other way.
“And so,” Sabina said, “Pauline Dupree is in custody in Walnut Grove.”
It was Wednesday morning, and he had just finished regaling her with an account of his adventures on the Captain Weber and in Stockton and Kennett’s Crossing and his hair-breadth escape from drowning in Dead Man’s Slough.
“Yes,” he said, “and soon to be transferred to the jail in Stockton. Charged with two counts of murder and one of extortion.”
“I don’t suppose she confessed?”
“No. She refused to speak to me. Or to the Walnut Grove sheriff, once I turned her over to him, except to demand the services of a San Francisco lawyer.”
“Which one?”
“She wasn’t particular. Whichever one she chooses, I’ll hear from him eventually. Not that he’ll have any luck in getting her off, despite her considerable charms.”
“The charges against her are provable, then.”
“Eminently so. The pistol she used to dispatch Gus Burgade and his deckhand was in her possession, as was the twelve thousand dollars she obtained from Noah Rideout through her pawn, Burgade. Not a man to be trifled with, Mr. Rideout. Once informed of her deceit, he couldn’t wait to bring the extortion charges against her.”
Quincannon favored Sabina with a well-pleased smile. “And he was so grateful for my having saved his life, his twelve thousand dollars, and his reputation from considerable embarrassment that he presented me with a handsome reward.” He saw no need to add that the reward had been his idea, not Rideout’s, and that it had come only after a bit of verbal tussling.
“How handsome?” Sabina asked.
“Five hundred dollars. His check is in my purse, soon to be deposited in our account at the Miners Bank.”
Sabina ran the pink tip of her tongue over her lips, a mannerism that never failed to spark Quincannon’s imagination. “What about the money Dupree extorted from Titus Wrixton?” she asked. “Did she have that in her possession as well?”
“No. She sent the cash on ahead to New York by Wells Fargo Express.”
“How do you know that?”
“I found the receipt in her bag. Along with a one-way ticket on the transcontinental train from Sacramento and a packet of highly indiscreet letters Rideout had written to her, which I returned to him.”
Sabina shook her head. “Why men insist on writing such overheated billets-doux is beyond me.”
“Love does strange things to some people,” Quincannon said sagely. He himself had never penned such missives, nor even once been tempted to. Actions, after all, spoke louder and more passionately than words.
“Did she also have Wrixton’s letters?”
“No. She may have destroyed them. More likely, knowing her devious and duplicitous ways, she intended to keep them and the ones from Rideout, as insurance in the event she ever again needed large sums of money. If that’s the case, it’s probable she sent the banker’s missives on ahead with his ten thousand dollars. The cash, if not the letters, will be recovered and handed over to Wrixton; I’ll see to that.”
“When do you intend to inform him of her arrest?”
“This afternoon,” Quincannon said. “The sheriff provided me with a signed deposition proving that she’s in custody and outlining the charges against her. That should be sufficient to convince even a love-blind mooncalf that he was bamboozled.”
“And to allow you to collect the balance of the fee he owes.”
“Oh, he’ll pay it, and without another peep of protest, or I’ll take it from his blasted bank and frame him for embezzlement.”
“Really, John...”
“Merely a figure of speech, my dear,” he assured her, more or less honestly. “But I’ve earned that fee balance three times over and nearly lost my life in the process. I won’t be denied.”
Sabina had a few more questions. “When do you suppose Dupree found out that you were on her trail?” she asked.
“When I first arrived at Kennett’s Inn. She was cosseted in her room at the time, the one nearest the common room, and likely she overheard my conversation with Adam Kennett.”
“It must have given her quite a shock.”
“Undoubtedly,” Quincannon said with relish. “She must have also overheard my later mention to the innkeeper that I intended to meet Noah Rideout at the steamer landing. It was she who put Burgade up to taking an ax to the ferry’s cable, shortly before she disposed of him and his unfortunate deckhand.”
“How did you know so quickly that it was Dupree in the nun’s habit? You said her makeup and the use of cotton wadding to change the shape of her mouth and cheeks made for another flawless impersonation.”
“Several reasons. First, she had to be in Kennett’s Crossing that night; no one else had a better motive for disposing of her cohort in the Rideout extortion. Second, her skill at playacting a variety of different roles. Third, the figure I saw hurrying away from the store boat shortly before the ferry cable snapped. In the rainy darkness a woman wearing a wind-blown garment could well resemble a huge winged vulture. And fourth, a nun passed through the lobby of the Yosemite Hotel during my vigil — a curious sight in retrospect, for nuns usually travel in pairs. Dupree in her nun’s disguise, the habit brought with her from San Francisco.” He added, somewhat ruefully, that he had also paid scant attention to the carpetbag the nun was carrying, a fact he’d recalled only after he’d yaffled her. There had been nothing distinctive about her bag, and many guests had toted similar luggage in and out of the hotel lobby.
“But why was she wearing the disguise then?” Sabina asked. “Did she intend to pose as a nun all the way to New York?”
“More likely only as far as Sacramento. My deduction is that Burgade had been charged with bringing Mr. Rideout’s twelve thousand dollars to her at the hotel and that she had plans to cosh him or dope his drink in her room and then make off with the loot in her nun’s disguise. But he double-crossed her. The note he wrote and had sent up to her room must have been a demand for a larger cut of the spoils and that she meet him on Sunday in Kennett’s Crossing to make the exchange. A fool as well as a knave, Burgade. That note was his death warrant.”
“And she wore her nun’s disguise when she left the hotel for the same purpose, to make Pauline Dupree disappear into thin air from that point onward.”
“My surmise as well,” he agreed. “She could then travel to Kennett’s Crossing and commit her crimes there with impunity before moving on to Sacramento. Or so she thought, not having reckoned on the doggedness and cunning of John Frederick Quincannon.”
25
Sabina
On Friday evening John escorted her to a performance of Verdi’s Aida at the Opera House, followed by a late supper of oysters a la poulette at the Poodle Dog.