John was at his desk when she entered the agency. What she’d learned from Mrs. Jones satisfied him, though he would have been more pleased if she had managed to uncover a lead to Dinger’s whereabouts. Fortunately for him, he didn’t say so. He praised the cleverness of her book ruse, but he was less enthusiastic when she told him of her request to the Seattle Pinkerton office.
“An operative on the task full-time will cost us dearly,” he said, “and with no chance of reimbursement from the government.”
“We can afford it. And it was the only way to find out what you need to know. Of course, I can wire a cancellation if you’d rather turn the matter over to Mr. Boggs.”
“No, no. I don’t want to burden him with what may turn out to be a false lead.”
“But you don’t think it will be. Nor do I. The fact that Seattle was the trunk’s origin indicates it contained more than just old books and family mementos.”
He admitted that it was likely. His stubborn determination to be the one to track down Dinger Jones and Paddy Lasher remained undaunted. Like a bloodhound on the scent, he refused to give up the chase until his quarry was tracked down — an admirable quality in a detective when it wasn’t carried to extremes.
“Was Long Nick Darrow married?” Sabina asked.
“No. At least, not that I was able to determine during my investigation. Were you thinking that Esther Jones’s sister was Darrow’s widow?”
“The possibility occurred to me. Assuming, of course, that Darrow did in fact die that night ten years ago.”
“Even if he didn’t, what possible connection could he have had with the married sister?”
“An illicit affair?”
“Unlikely,” John said. “He was a loner as well as a villainous cuss, and evidently confined his interest in women to prostitutes. I find it hard to believe he would have entrusted anything to any woman, much less material related to his coney racket.”
“If the sister did have such material in her possession, she may not have known she had it.”
“Hidden in her belongings without her knowledge? Possibly. But not by Darrow, I’ll warrant.”
“A confederate of his, then? He did have confederates?”
“Yes, several. All now either dead or in prison.”
“One could have filched some of the counterfeit bills,” Sabina pointed out, “and a cache of them what Dinger found.”
“True enough, but as I told you earlier, the queer being passed now is not the same as the ones manufactured by Darrow’s gang.”
“Could the new bogus notes have been made using his old ones as a prototype?”
“It’s possible to copy Darrow’s method of bill-splitting,” John said, “but in order to produce such certificates as the one Mr. Boggs showed me, a new set of plates would be needed.”
“Could duplicates be made from the plates Darrow used?”
“Yes, if the engraver was skilled enough. But as I also told you, those plates were destroyed in the fire.”
“Are you absolutely sure of that?”
“The printing press and a stack of counterfeit notes were in plain sight in the warehouse when the other agents and I entered. So was Thomas Cooley, the engraver who made the plates, so they must have been there, too. Darrow wouldn’t have let them out of his sight.”
“What happened to Cooley?”
“Killed in the raid, by one of the other agents’ bullets.”
Sabina spread her hands, palms up. “Well, then, what could have been tucked away in the trunk that Dinger found and that led to the current counterfeiting operation?”
Rhetorical question. John wagged his head, fluffed his beard.
“The Pinkerton report may provide a clue,” she said. “But if it doesn’t?”
“Then I’ll pry the answer from Dinger. Or Paddy Lasher.”
“If you can find them.”
“I’ll find them,” he vowed. “One way or another.”
22
Quincannon
There was no word from the Seattle Pinkerton office on Wednesday. Nor word from Ezra Bluefield or any of Quincannon’s other contacts on the whereabouts of Dinger Jones and Paddy Lasher. But on Thursday morning—
It was Slewfoot who provided the first lead to Lasher, when Quincannon stopped at the vendor’s newsstand for a copy of the Argonaut. Slewfoot, who had the miraculous ability to see clearly from behind his dark glasses when the need arose, glanced around to make sure no one was in earshot before he said in an undertone, “I’ve a bit of information for you, Mr. Q., might help you find one of the lads you’re looking for.”
“Dinger?”
“No, Paddy Lasher. The name of a lad what knows him. Ben Baxter.”
“I don’t know the name. Who is he?”
“Used to be in the shanghaiing trade, worked with Lasher back then.”
“And doing what now?”
“Nothing much. Retired on account of his health, what’s left of it. Word is Lasher supplies him with foot juice for old times’ sake.”
“Foot juice” was cheap red wine, of the sort sold at wine dumps such as Jack Foyle’s on Stockton Street. “Where can I find Baxter?”
Slewfoot paused to sell another newspaper. Then, when they were alone again, “Clayton Hotel, Vallejo Street. He lives there, watches over the desk.”
“Is it alcohol that ruined his health?”
“That and bad arthritis, so I been told.”
The information was worth a silver dollar. Slewfoot, as was his habit, bit into the coin to make sure it was genuine before slipping it into his pocket. No one ever had or was ever likely to pass off a counterfeit coin or bill on the wily news vendor.
Quincannon had been on his way to the agency. Now he reversed direction and climbed Stockton Street to Jack Foyle’s, where he paid a nickel for a quart of foot juice drawn from one of the barrels behind the long bar. The Mason jar into which it went was cracked and dirty — the hodgepodge of containers used in Foyle’s were all unsanitary — but the warped lid fit well enough to keep any of the foul stuff from slopping out. The bartender provided a paper sack for which he had the audacity to charge an extra penny.
The two-story Clayton Hotel was one of several run-down hotels and lodging houses beyond Broadway at the edge of the Barbary Coast. Its sign was so small and weather-faded that Quincannon almost walked by without spying it. The odors of dry rot, stale tobacco smoke, stale wine, and even less pleasant substances assailed him when he entered. There was nothing in the tiny lobby except a none-too-stable-looking staircase to the upper floor, and next to it, a cubbyhole desk fronted by a waist-high board partition.
From the doorway, it looked as though no one was inside the cubbyhole. But as Quincannon crossed to it, the warped and unswept floor creaking underfoot, a grizzled head appeared above the countertop. The man had been slouched down in an ancient morris chair, its stuffing bleeding through several rips and tears in the fabric. Asleep, evidently, for he rubbed at his eyes as he struggled to sit up.
He was a wreck of an individual who might have lived anywhere between forty and sixty years. Rheumy, blood-flecked eyes under which purplish pouches hung. Sunken cheeks coated with gray whiskers, greasy hair straggling from under a cracked leather cap, a bulbous nose disfigured by broken blood vessels. His hands, clawlike, the wrist joints and knuckles bulging with arthritic knots, trembled slightly when he moved them.
“Ben Baxter?”
The rheumy eyes peered up at Quincannon. “Who wants to know?” he said in a voice as raspy as a file on wood. The words were clear enough, not slurred but quivery. The shakiness and the bloodshot eyes indicated he was suffering from alcohol deprivation.