“A roundabout compliment, but thank you.”
He didn’t pursue the issue, instead quaffed some of his warm clam juice. He had taken to the stuff after making his private temperance pledge seven years ago as a nonalcoholic substitute for whiskey. To each his own. Sabina had nothing against clams per se, or else she would not have ordered the chowder, but she found the warm juice unpalatable.
“You said Morgan’s identity was part of the reason you came here,” he said. “What is the other part?”
“I know where you can find him.”
“You do? Confound it, why didn’t you tell me that straightaway?”
“I would have if you hadn’t castigated me.”
“Faugh. Well? Where can I find him?”
“He owns and operates an assay shop, Delta Metallurgical Works, in West Sacramento.”
“Did you find that out from Montgomery, too?”
“No. From Henry Flannery.”
“Flannery? You brought him into it?”
“And why not? He is a very good investigator — it took him only a short time to locate Morgan.”
“Good, yes, but his fees are too high.”
“So are ours on occasion, when you have your way.”
John dismissed that remark with a grunt. “The address of Delta Metallurgical Works?”
“Ninety-seven Poplar Avenue.”
He sat in silence for a time, his jaw set, his gaze focused inward. She knew what he was thinking. “It would be folly to go out there alone tonight,” she said. “Morgan may not live on the premises — Flannery’s wire didn’t say — and I don’t suppose you’re familiar with the area. Are you?”
“No.”
“Then wait until morning and I’ll go there with you.”
He maintained the introspective pose a few seconds longer, then shook himself and said, “I’ll wait until then, but you’ll not go with me. Morgan is a dangerous man.”
“I know. He reputedly killed a rival in Downieville. You mustn’t go after him alone. Take Flannery with you.”
“At his hourly rates?”
“John, for heaven’s sake!”
“... All right, I’ll take Flannery if he’s available.”
Their clam chowder arrived. While they ate John launched into an account of his feats of deduction and derring-do in Patch Creek. No doubt some of it was embellished by his flair for the dramatic, and she had the feeling that he left out certain details and glossed over others that concerned personal perils he’d faced. Just as well. She had no desire to know what those perils were. All that mattered was that he had survived his time in the depths of the Monarch Mine unscathed.
He finished his oratory just before the waiter brought their entrees. He asked then what she had been up to during his absence besides consulting with Carson Montgomery (she had to admit she found his unwarranted jealousy both gratifying and amusing). Had there had been any new clients or prospects?
She would have relished telling him of her dual triumphs in ending the criminal careers of a confidence man and an embezzler. In a sense both cases had a certain parallel to John’s investigation. What, after all, were the cash Goodlove had bilked from his clients and the $20,000 Vernon Purifoy had misappropriated but forms of stolen gold?
But of course she didn’t dare mention either. Mainly because John would have chastised her, and rightly so, for her impulsive and unprofessional behavior, but also because in neither of the two cases had Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional Detective Services, had a paying client or earned so much as one thin dime — a cardinal sin, to John’s way of thinking. She said only that business had been very slow, which was true enough, and that she had been bored much of the time, which was also true.
Over dessert, an excellent crème brûlée, she steered the conversation to their nuptials and honeymoon plans. But she could tell that John’s enthusiasm for both was tempered by unfinished business, and that his thoughts kept wandering to Bartholomew Morgan and tomorrow’s hoped-for confrontation in West Sacramento. She couldn’t fault him. The slate needed to be wiped clean before either of them could concentrate on their future.
The meal cured her headache, but it also made her sleepy. John didn’t object when she refused coffee, saying she wanted to retire early. He escorted her to her room, and it was a measure of his preoccupation that he did not ask to be invited in. She would have issued a firm rebuke if he had; this was neither the time nor the place for another premarital dalliance. He merely gave her cheek a chaste peck, said he would call for her at seven-thirty for breakfast, and took his leave.
Lying in bed, she wondered if she ought to insist on joining John and Henry Flannery tomorrow. The prospect of waiting here for his return was disconcerting. Besides, it was through her efforts that he was on the trail of Bart Morgan, and no matter how volatile the man might be, she had never shied away from danger. But would he permit it? He might, if she promised to keep out of harm’s way.
No, he would accede, she thought just before sleep claimed her, because she would not take no for an answer...
22
Quincannon
Henry Flannery resembled an aging politician, a likeness he cultivated by dressing in expensively tailored business suits and gold-chain-draped waistcoats, smoking expensive Cuban cigars, and affecting a loquacious hail-fellow-well-met persona. He was stout, seemed soft and flabby but wasn’t, and sported a shortened, bushy, imperial beard. His office on J Street was larger and more expensively furnished than that of Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional Detective Services, and was presided over by a comely red-haired secretary young enough to be his daughter — both of which facts induced envy and mild rancor in Quincannon. There was, however, no question of Flannery’s competence, or of his regard for Quincannon’s — hence their quid pro quo arrangement. Though that might not continue if Flannery didn’t lower his blasted fees.
“One hundred dollars to locate Bartholomew Morgan? An outrageously inflated sum.”
“Not at all,” Flannery said cheerfully. “Two days’ work at fifty dollars per is not only fair but represents a generous discount. My usual fee is sixty dollars per day.”
“Bah. All you did was locate his business in West Sacramento. You didn’t even find out whether or not he also resides there.”
“I doubt that he does, given the location. And neither he nor a Mrs. B. Morgan is listed in the residential section of the City Directory.”
“Yes, well, and now you want another hundred dollars to accompany me out there.”
“Accompany us,” Sabina said.
Quincannon kept his glower on Flannery. He was irked at himself for having given in to her insistence on joining this morning’s mission; a possible confrontation with a thief and reputed murderer was no venue for a woman, even one as capable and fearless as Sabina. But he never could refuse her when her mind was made up.
He said, “Well, Flannery?”
“The fee includes use of my private equipage for transportation to and from West Sacramento and to the constabulary here if Morgan is in our custody. Also hazardous-duty pay.”
“What do you mean, hazardous duty? I’ll be the one to confront Morgan, not you.”
“Then why do you want me along? To protect Mrs. Carpenter?”
“I do not need protecting,” Sabina said. “I won’t be in the way.”
Quincannon said to Flannery, “In case it takes two of us to subdue Morgan, not that I expect it will. But I won’t pay you extra to do nothing more than stand by.”
Flannery chewed on his unlit cigar, shrugged. “Very well, then. Eighty dollars if stand by is all I am required to do.”
Eighty was still exorbitant, but further haggling was a waste of time. “I’ll need the loan of a pistol. All I have with me is a twin-barrel derringer.”