He said to Bridges, “You have a fugitive on board your train, is that right?”
“Yes.”
“Who is he? What’s he done?”
“Ask Mr. Quincannon here. He’s a detective from San Francisco on the man’s trail.”
“That so? Police detective?”
Quincannon said, “Private. Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional Detective Services.”
“Oh, a flycop.” Hoover was not impressed, but neither did he show any hostility. A man not given to rushes in judgment. “Well? What’s this all about?”
Quincannon explained in concise terms, stating for emphasis that Morgan was the man responsible for a series of gold robberies and likely in possession of some of the loot.
Now Hoover was impressed. “You say you searched everywhere, every possible hiding place,” he said. “If that’s so, how can this thief Morgan still be on the train?”
“That question has no answer yet. But he is — I’ll stake my reputation on it.”
“Well, then, we’ll find him.” The police chief turned to Bridges. “Conductor, disembark your passengers. All of ’em, not just those for Vacaville.”
“Just as you say.”
Bridges signaled to the porter, who swung the steps down and permitted the exodus to begin. One of the first passengers to alight was Sabina. She came straight to where Quincannon stood, took hold of his arm. Her manner was urgent, her eyes bright.
“John,” she said, an edge in her voice, “I found Morgan.”
Hoover said, “What’s that? Who’re you, madam?”
“Sabina Carpenter. Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional Detective Services.”
“A lady flycop. Now if that don’t beat all.”
Quincannon had long ago ceased to be surprised at anything Sabina said or did. He asked her, “Where? How?”
She shook her head. “He’ll be getting off any second.”
“Getting off? With the other passengers?”
“Yes, he— There he is!”
Quincannon squinted at the passengers who were just then disembarking — two women, one of whom had a small boy in tow. “Where? I don’t see him...”
Sabina was moving again. Quincannon trailed after her, his hand on the Webley. The two women and the child were making their way past Chief Hoover and his deputies, not paying the law any heed. The woman towing the little boy was young and pretty, with tightly curled blond hair; the other woman, older and pudgy, powdered and rouged, wore a traveling dress and a close-fitting bonnet that covered most of her head and shadowed her face. She was the one, Quincannon realized, that he had nearly bowled over outside the women’s lavatory in the first-class Pullman.
She was also Bartholomew Morgan.
He found that out five seconds later, when Sabina boldly walked up and tore the bonnet off to reveal the short-haired male head and clean-shaven face hidden beneath. Her action so surprised Morgan that he had no time to do anything but swipe at her with one arm, a blow that she nimbly dodged. Then he fumbled inside the reticule he carried, pulled out the hammerless .32-caliber pistol he’d drawn at the Patch Creek poker game; in the next second he commenced a headlong flight along the platform.
Sabina shouted, Quincannon shouted, the blond woman let out a thin screech; there was a small scrambling panic among the disembarking passengers. But it lasted no more than a few seconds, and without a shot being fired.
Morgan was poorly schooled in the mechanics of running while garbed in women’s clothing; the dress’s long skirt tripped him before he reached the platform’s end. He went down in a tangle of arms, legs, petticoats, and assorted other garments that he had wadded up and tied around his torso to create the illusion of pudginess. The fall also unveiled the other item tightly buckled around his midriff — a money belt whose pockets bulged with what was certainly the stolen gold dust.
He was still clutching the pistol when Quincannon reached him, but one well-placed kick and it went flying. Quincannon then plunged down on Morgan’s chest with both knees, driving the wind out of him in a hissing grunt. Another well-placed blow, this one to the jaw, put an end to the skirmish.
Chief Hoover, his deputies, Mr. Bridges, and a gaggle of the Capitol Express’s passengers stood gawping at the half-disguised and unconscious crook. Hoover was the first to speak. He murmured in awed tones, “Well, I’ll be a son of a bitch.”
Which mirrored Quincannon’s sentiments exactly.
Morgan was soon carted off in steel bracelets to the Vacaville jail, Quincannon accompanying him, Hoover, and one deputy in the paddy wagon. Once he verified that the stolen gold dust was indeed packed into the money belt, he was not about to let it out of his sight until it was locked into the jail safe. Also put into the safe was a packet of papers that had been tucked between the belt and Morgan’s belly, for they contained evidence identifying the San Francisco smelting firm that had been buying the gold. Morgan must have been carrying the packet in his satchel and later transferred it to his person.
Sabina and Bridges remained at the depot. The departure of the Capitol Express, much to the consternation of the waiting westbound passengers, was delayed a while longer. One reason was the removal of Sabina’s and Quincannon’s luggage from the baggage car. He’d suggested that she continue on to San Francisco, since he intended to remain in Vacaville until arrangements could be made to transport the prisoner to the Yuba County jail in Marysville where the other high-graders had been taken, and for the gold — some $13,000 worth at a rough estimate — to be returned to James O’Hearn. But she insisted on staying overnight with him here, a prospect he naturally found pleasing.
An attempt to question Morgan proved futile; he had wrapped himself in unbroken silence. This suited Quincannon well enough, but Hoover wanted to know the details of the miscreant’s daring escape attempt. The situation being what it was, he had to settle for an educated guess.
Morgan had climbed out through the lavatory window, Quincannon opined, taking his satchel with him. He then crawled over the top of the smoking car and down the ladder to the baggage car, where he used some sort of ruse to get the baggage master to open up. After finding and rifling a woman passenger’s suitcase, he stuffed the various items of female apparel into the satchel, mounted topside again, and crawled forward over three car roofs to the Pullman.
Once there, he waited until he was sure the first-class women’s lavatory was empty, then climbed down into it through its window. He locked the door, washed and shaved off his mustache with a razor from the satchel, dressed in the stolen clothing, put on pilfered rouge and powder to cover his birthmark, and stuffed his own clothing into the satchel before dropping it through the window.
And when he left the lavatory on his way to a seat in the third day coach, Quincannon had nearly knocked him down. If only he had, he thought ruefully. It would have saved them all considerable trouble.
The one question Hoover asked that Quincannon could not satisfactorily answer was how Sabina had known Morgan was disguised as a woman. Perhaps she had gotten close enough to him while they were waiting to disembark to see through his disguise. But that didn’t account for her earlier statement about coincidence or her rushing off on an unexplained errand.
He put the question to her later that evening, while they were having dinner in the Vacaville Hotel. How did she know?
“Familiarity,” she said.
“Familiarity? With what?”
“Something I first thought was a coincidence but wasn’t.”
“So you said. Don’t be enigmatic, my dear.”
“I’m not, intentionally. John, you are without question a splendid detective, but there are times when you’re not as observant as you might be. Tell me, what was I wearing when you met me in the lobby of the Golden Eagle Hotel last night?”