Drat! She should have considered that Patch Creek would be too small to have a Western Union office. So should John have, for that matter. Both had promised to exchange brief wires, she with background data on Jedediah Yost, he to inform her of his progress and reassure her regarding his welfare. Now neither was possible.
What was she to do? John would surely want the information on Yost, but how could she get it to him? And was it vital? Perhaps not. Yost was already under suspicion in the high-grading scheme; John surely would be keeping an eye on him.
Still, there might well be something in the impostor’s true identity that had a bearing on John’s investigation. It behooved her to do all she could to find out who and what the man was.
She paid a visit to the San Francisco branch of the Pinkerton Detective Agency, where she provided the agent in charge with Yost’s description and possible criminal enterprise. The Pinkertons, as she well knew from her time as a Denver “Pink Rose,” had a far more extensive file of known felons than any other small agency such as theirs. But the branch’s files contained no leads to Yost’s identity.
Calls at two more of Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional Detective Service’s rival investigative agencies proved equally unproductive.
There was one other possible source of information on the impostor, but she was reluctant to explore it. It was slim at best, and it would open up old wounds.
As a young metallurgist Carson Montgomery had been briefly mixed up in a scheme to steal gold from a Mother Lode mine, the Gold King, by falsifying reports on the amount and value of its gold-bearing ore. He had backed out before actually committing the crime, but his brief involvement with the conspirators, who were later caught, tried, and convicted, had led to a vicious blackmail attempt by one of them upon release from prison. The revelation of Carson’s checkered past and her subsequent entanglement with the extortionist were not the only reasons she and Carson had parted ways, but they had played a significant role.
It was unlikely, given the fact that ten years had passed since the Gold King cabal, that the man calling himself Jedediah Yost would have been involved in it or that he would be known to Carson. It had been more than a year since she’d last seen Carson, and she had no desire to renew their acquaintance. He surely felt the same way. Still, as awkward as a meeting with him might be, she decided professional necessity outweighed personal feelings. So she girded herself after leaving The Morning Call, proceeded to the Montgomery Block, and called at the offices of Monarch Engineering (no connection to the Monarch Mine, merely a coincidental appellation).
Only Carson was not there. And the officious clerk she spoke to refused to tell her where he could be reached or when he was expected back in the office. Leave a message asking him to contact her as soon as possible? For all she knew he might be out of town, and if he wasn’t, she could hardly blame him if he chose to ignore the request.
She departed without giving the snooty clerk her card. She would simply have to come back again on the morrow, on the chance that Carson would be here then and willing to talk to her.
7
Quincannon
It took him most of a week to put together a partial list of suspects. The Monarch’s nervous assistant foreman, Frank McClellan, was one; another was a slab-faced day-shift station tender named Joe Simcox, whom Quincannon had spied sneaking away from the station one afternoon and who had unaccountably managed to disappear when followed. He agreed with O’Hearn’s estimate that it would take at least half a dozen miners to steal enough gold to make the risk worthwhile for all concerned, some of whom figured to be working the night and graveyard shifts. The gang’s methods were clever and sophisticated, which to him meant that it must be gold dust and not gold-bearing ore that was being smuggled out. But he had yet to uncover a clue as to how such a bold refining process could be accomplished in a mine operating with mostly full crews twenty-four hours a day.
Jedediah Yost, if in fact that was his true name, was also on the suspect list; O’Hearn had been right in not trusting the man’s recurring presence in Patch Creek. Whether or not Yost was a union representative was still open to question, though Quincannon doubted it. That the camp did not have a telegraph office, a fact he had discovered to his chagrin the evening after his arrival, made it difficult if not impossible for Sabina to forward any data she might have uncovered about the man. (And for him to keep his promise to contact her periodically.) It was conceivable that Yost was an outside member of the gang, perhaps even the ringleader — the man to whom the stolen gold was given for safekeeping or for conversion into greenbacks or bonds. Deeply involved in any event.
Other factors made Quincannon reasonably sure of this. On more than one occasion, he’d learned by hearsay, McClellan had visited Yost in his room at the Monarch Hotel, ostensibly to discuss union business. Simcox had also been a visitor. To make the connection complete, Quincannon had twice seen the trio sharing a poker table at the Golden Dollar, and on another occasion spotted Yost and McClellan engaged in a low-voiced conversation that struck him as conspiratorial.
Most genuine union organizers were firebrands, but Yost was neither bombastic nor prepossessing; for the most part his manner was as bland as his countenance. According to hearsay, his call for larger wages and better safety regulations on his previous two visits had been low-key, and O’Hearn’s instructions to his guards to use force if Yost attempted to enter the Monarch compound had failed to stir Yost to action. On this third stay, he had spent no time passing out leaflets and speechifying on behalf of the Far West Mine Workers Union. All of which pointed to the man’s not being who and what he claimed to be.
His alleged interest in buying land in the area appeared bogus, too, since he seldom left the settlement during the day and spent most of his nights playing stud poker. Why was he here, then? Two possibilities, separate or in conjunction. One: dissension among the gang members required his presence as unifying force or peacemaker. Two: a large amount of looted gold was being stockpiled and he had come to collect it.
Just who was Yost? Gambler, grifter, professional thief, black-marketeer? And where had he come from? None of the miners or tradespeople seemed to know. Or to care, as long as he kept buying free drinks and losing as much as he won at stud poker.
Quincannon had made no effort to speak to the man directly. Nothing would have been gained by making himself known to Yost, and might have succeeded only in putting his undercover status at risk and compromising his investigation. As it was, McClellan’s apparent suspicion of him as a company spy had surely been communicated to Yost and the other members of the gang. In which case they would be keeping an eye on him, just as he was doing on the three suspected conspirators.
That was one reason he had not attempted a search of Yost’s hotel room, much as he would have liked to. Not for the stolen gold — Yost was too smart to keep any among his belongings — but for some idea of who the man was and where he’d come from. Such a venture was too dangerous even if an opportunity had presented itself. A newly hired timberman had no business in the Monarch Hotel unless invited, and trying to sneak in under cover of darkness was a fool’s gambit.
But there was another search he could make, so long as he went about it with extreme caution. And he would, as soon as circumstances favored it.
One thing he now knew for sure was that Yost, despite his small stature and quiet demeanor, possessed a commanding presence and a penchant for deadly violence. An incident Quincannon had observed in the Golden Dollar on Wednesday night removed any doubt of that.