A noise came over the wire that might have been a bitten-back oath. “When do you expect him back? Soon?”
“By the end of the week, I hope, though it depends on how his investigation progresses.”
“Where is he? Can he be reached by telephone?”
“I don’t believe so. He left Sunday for Jamestown in the southern Mother Lode, on a job for the Sierra Railway. Is there anything I can help you with, Mr. Boggs?”
There was a long, staticky pause before he said, “The name Long Nick Darrow mean anything to you, Mrs. Carpenter?”
“Long Nick Darrow. Yes, a notorious counterfeiter. John told me of his encounter with the man several years ago.”
“Ten, to be exact. Have you heard anything of Darrow recently?”
“No, sir. He’s dead, isn’t he?”
“So we’ve presumed,” Mr. Boggs said. “What is the name of the man who hired John for Sierra Railway?”
“C. W. Cromarty, the line’s division superintendent.”
“Based in Jamestown, you said?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll try contacting John by wire. It’s urgent that I speak with him as soon as possible.”
“Can you tell me why, Mr. Boggs?”
“Not on the telephone. But it’s nothing for you to be concerned about. If you should hear from him before I make contact, inform him of our conversation and ask him to get in touch with me immediately.”
The urgent matter might not be cause for concern, Sabina thought after Boggs ended the call, but it was puzzling and a bit disconcerting nonetheless. According to John, Long Nick Darrow had been one of the slipperiest coney men west of the Mississippi, whom John had tracked down in Seattle and who had died as a result of a pitched battle between them. In his estimation, no koniaker had ever done a better or more distinctive job of bleaching and bill-splitting than Darrow.
The process, he’d explained to her, was one in which a one-dollar note was sliced lengthwise down the center, the two thin sheets then bleached to transparency with chemicals; colored silk threads were placed in the zone systems between the layers to resemble the authentic variety, then the halves were pasted back together, and each side was reprinted from bogus hundred-dollar plates. When done with skill, the counterfeit could be detected only by looking for two giveaways through a magnifying glass: a slight thickness from the paste; and the pressure marks from the original scroll work on the one-dollar bills, marks that couldn’t be bleached out along with the colors.
And now, fantastic as it seemed, Long Nick Darrow might not be dead after all. If not, was he back in the counterfeiting business after a long absence, or had he never left it and somehow managed to escape detection the past ten years? Something along these lines must be the reason for Mr. Boggs’s apparent apprehension. But why did he want to confer with John? Was it because Darrow was now thought to be in San Francisco or the Bay Area?
Now even more than before, Sabina hoped for her partner’s early return from Jamestown.
6
Quincannon
Dr. Amos Goodfellow — his full name was lettered on a small sign tacked to his office door — had evidently not yet returned from his ministrations at the Rappahanock mine when Quincannon sought him out at nine o’clock Tuesday morning. The door was locked, and several knuckle raps produced no response.
The dry-goods store downstairs was open for business. He asked the middle-aged, sour-faced clerk if Doc Goodfellow had treated anyone for a severe gash or cut on the hand, wrist, or forearm in the past three days. The clerk either didn’t know or refused to say. His only comment was, “Doc treated plenty of cuts and gashes up at the Rappahanock yesterday, I’ll wager. Broken bones and worse, too.”
Quincannon saw no point in asking his question of any of the other citizens abroad this morning, cooperation being at a minimum in Tuttletown’s closed environment. The only person who could answer it was Amos Goodfellow... if he turned out not to be as closemouthed as the rest of the locals.
With another unsatisfactory café meal stirring gaseously in his innards, Quincannon rented a horse at the hostelry and rode out Icehouse Road to the field where the breached safe had been abandoned. No one had attempted to move the safe since yesterday, nor come to paw over it so far as he could tell. He examined the box once again, carefully, not expecting to find another useful clue. He didn’t, but his peering and probing at the damaged door and hinges did produce a glimmer of an idea as to how the alleged burglarproof safe had been opened.
The morning was warming, the road and meadow completely deserted; except for birdcalls and the distant pound of the stamps, silence prevailed. Quincannon settled himself under the oak tree, gave a satisfactory belch, filled and lighted his briar, and began toying with the idea. Possible, yes, he decided. But he needed more information before he could be even halfway sure.
He rode back to town and once again climbed the outside stairs to Amos Goodfellow’s second-floor office. This time he found the door unlocked; the doctor had returned. When he entered, a tall, saturnine man seated at a rolltop desk lifted his head from where it had been resting on folded arms and regarded Quincannon with bleary eyes. He bore a superficial resemblance to Honest Abe and was evidently proud of the fact; the beard he cultivated was decidedly Lincolnesque.
His “Yes?” was followed by a weary, jaw-cracking yawn. “Sorry. I’ve been up most of the night.”
“The Rappahanock mine cave-in.”
“That’s right. Two men dead, nine injured.”
“I’m sorry to hear it.”
“Dangerous profession, mining.” Goodfellow yawned again. “You look hale and hearty, whoever you are. What can I do for you?”
Quincannon identified himself. Goodfellow had heard of the theft of the safe and its discovery, naturally, but because of the mine cave-in he wasn’t aware of Quincannon’s mission in Tuttletown. He seemed less wary of outsiders than most of his fellow citizens, and willing to cooperate when the question of whether he had treated anyone for a severe gash or cut in the past three days was put to him.
“I have, yes,” he said. “Two men and a ten-year-old.”
“The men were locals, I take it?”
“Yes.”
“Who would they be?”
“A railroad section hand named... let’s see, Jacobsen, I think it was. Consequences of a fall. Gashed his arm and broke his wrist in two places. I had a difficult time setting the bones.”
“And the other man, Doctor?”
“One of the Schneider brothers — Bodo. Deep cut on the back of his left hand and wrist.”
“Miners? Railroad men?”
“No. The Schneiders own the icehouse.”
“Ah. Big fellows, are they? Brawny?”
“Yes, of course. Men who make their living cutting and hauling ice can hardly be puny.”
“Have they been in Tuttletown long?”
“Not long. They bought the business about three years ago.”
“Do you happen to know where they came from?”
“I’ve been told they owned a similar business down in Bishop,” Goodfellow said, “but I don’t know for certain. They’re a closemouthed pair.”
“Peaceable men, law-abiding?”
“Well, the younger, Jakob, has a reputation for rowdiness when he’s had too much to drink. But so do half the men who live and work in these parts.”
“Do the Schneiders live at or near their icehouse?”
“No. In a cabin on Table Mountain.” The doctor frowned. “Do you suspect them of stealing the safe from the express office?”
“At this point,” Quincannon said, “I suspect everyone and no one.” Which wasn’t quite the truth, but it permitted him to take his leave without further questions.
Having returned his rented horse to the hostler’s, he walked to the side street that led to Icehouse Road. A brisk five-minute stroll brought him to the icehouse. He had paid little enough attention to it the times he had passed by yesterday and only slightly more this morning; now he paused at the edge of the road for a closer study while he loaded the last of his tobacco into his briar.