Four Furlongs

by C. K. Crigger

  In the end, the mob found the white-haired man’s words convincing. Grat, careful not to turn his back either on Jimsy or the men, steered his prisoner toward the trolley, which we’d catch to take us downtown to the police station. I ran after them.

  Jimsy was still arguing. “The old feller’s right. You ain’t the law. You can’t arrest me.” He writhed in Gratton’s grip. “You’re that digity detective been tailin’ me for the last two days.”

  “There you go talking too much.” Grat kept his voice low. Two of the group still followed us. “You better hope nobody else questions my authorization—unless you actually want them to find a rope and a tree.”

  Finally, a hint Jimsy understood. His struggles subsided. He grabbed at his hat, lifting it from where it had sagged over his ears. “Turn me loose. I’ll pay you. I’ll pay you fifty bucks.”

  Grat gave the weasel’s shoulder a shove. “I thought you didn’t have any money. Isn’t that what you told everybody? And what the search was all about?”

  “I can get money,” Jimsy said.

  “Yeah?” Grat said.

  “Yeah.”

  Behind us, the followers, no doubt enticed by the call for the next race, doubled back.

  I trotted a half pace behind Jimsy and Grat, watching the top of Jimsy’s porkpie hat bob at a level no higher than Grat’s shoulder. A sudden urge to giggle came over me. Jimsy seemed to contradict himself, but I rather thought I’d caught onto his trick. The question was, did I want to tell all I knew—or suspected—right this moment, or should I wait until we got to the police station?

  All thoughts of Jimsy and money fled from my mind as Nimble stopped in her tracks. She spread her front legs and ducked her head, heaving and gagging. Nothing came up, but she fought for breath, gasps wheezing from her lungs.

  “Nimble,” I cried.

  “What’s the matter with your dog?” Grat spun around.

  “I don’t know.” I’m sure my face must’ve turned white as a cauliflower.

  “Do something, China,” he said.

  I did. Prying Nimble’s mouth open, I peeked inside. No obvious obstructions.

  She continued to struggle. And heave. And gag.

  Please, no. Was something blocking the airway to her lungs? Would she die? Tears filled my eyes. With no other remedy occurring to me, I stuck my hand in her mouth. Ignoring her gnashing white teeth, I felt around.

  Touched ... something. Something slimy and unpleasant.

  I shut my ears to her whimpers.

  Drawing a shuddering breath, despite her strong measure of resistance, I dug between her two back molars with my fingernail. A slippery brown object popped out, landing on the ground at my feet. I bent to look.

  Half of a well-chewed peanut shell. It looked every bit as disgusting as it had felt.

  Nimble, her agonies relieved, ignored my effort in saving her without so much as a thank-you. She pranced over to Gratton to receive pats on her funny little wedge-shaped head.

  Regarding Jimsy and the money? I decided to delay further comment until we got to the police station.

  2

  From what I can tell, nothing upsets men more than having their preconceived notions foiled, whether by the law, a private detective, or a bunco man. When foiled by a woman ... well, let’s just say he’s not likely to appreciate the woman’s efforts, no matter her intentions.

  Gratton accepted my company if not complaisantly, at least without objection right up until the three of us, Jimsy Woodsmith, Gratton, and I, stepped from the streetcar. He’d been taking sideways glances at me during the entire ride downtown, and now, on the verge of entering the police station, he stopped in his tracks.

  “What’s that expression on your face?” he demanded, stepping in front of me to bar my way.

  “Expression?”

  “Smug,” he said. “Like you know something I don’t.”

  “I can’t imagine what you mean.” I opened my eyes wide.

  His mouth twisted, half distrust, half grin. His grip on Jimsy’s arm tightened as the bunco man squirmed in a last-ditch effort to escape. “Sure you can. You got it right before Nimble started gagging.” He flicked a glance at Nimble. “I didn’t give her any peanuts, so don’t blame me for her choking spell. She stole it.”

  “I know she did. I don’t blame you.” I’d never accuse him of harming the little curly-coated dog.

  “Well—”

  Jimsy, no doubt aggravated with me because I was the one who had tripped him, thereby enabling his capture, did his part to sow discord. “Don’t trust her, Doyle. A hoity-toity miss like her don’t have any business showing her face in a police station. What’ll all the respectable people think?” He gave his porkpie a jerk, raising it a quarter-inch higher above his ears before it settled down again.

  Hoity-toity? Me? Just because I’ve become a master—or do I mean mistress?—at ignoring people on trains or boats or streetcars who look at me with down-turned mouths. Which is what the passengers had done today when they saw I accompanied a disreputable man in handcuffs.

  “Oh, please,” I said, disgusted, even though I had half a hunch Grat might agree with Jimsy. In this case and at this moment, at least. “I doubt we’ll find many people in the police station whose opinion I need worry about.”

  Gratton scanned from one side of the street to the other. “Maybe, or maybe not, but he’s right about one thing, China. The police station is no place for a lady.”

  “I dare say I’d as soon not be here,” I responded crisply. “However, this man assaulted me and I intend to press charges. Let’s get this over with. Maybe I can still get the client’s bill out in the afternoon mail.”

  But Grat was holding back. “Are you forgetting we gotta recover his money first? Lion’s share, anyway. It’s part of the contract.”

  Brow arching, I frowned at him. “I know what the contract says. I wrote it.”

  “Has it escaped your—”

  “Don’t worry. I believe we’re covered,” I said.

  Jimsy renewed his struggles upon hearing my cryptic reply, so that Grat, in forcing the little man into the station in front of him, failed to keep me out.

  Sergeant Lars Hansen of the Spokane Police Department, a tall man resplendent in his thigh-length blue coat, crisp white shirt, and luxuriant handlebar mustache, was standing by a much-battered oak desk talking with a beat officer. Sunlight shone through a dusty window, glinting off his slicked-back blond hair.

  Two or three other policemen sat at desks, heads bent and pencils in hand, looking as if they were conducting important business. For all I know they may have been, but Lars’s presence likely had a little something to do with their activity. Another bluecoat loomed threateningly over a female wearing a very low-cut frock. She sat on a wooden bench bawling like an orphan left on the church steps, poor young thing. A short, white-haired man with a stethoscope hanging from his neck emerged from a door on our right, reminding me of the morgue located in the basement below.

  The officer speaking with Lars opened his eyes wide and nudged the sergeant in the ribs as I elbowed Jimsy aside. It drew Lars’s attention. He turned, his blue gaze chilly as it swept over our party.

  “Hire a new man?” he called to Gratton, loudly, so everyone in the room could hear. An insult, since everyone there either recognized Jimsy as a repeat offender or knew him for what he was.

  Oh, dear. I sighed internally. Here we go again.

  Lars and Gratton did not get along. Have I said it plainly enough? Oh, they’d been forced to cooperate on various matters during the time I’d known them, but the truce never lasted more than a day or two. Sometimes only hours. Their trouble stemmed from both wanting the same woman. One who, whether they admitted it or not, played them both false. Each man preferred to blame the other instead of her.

  I, of course, was not the woman.

  Fools, the pair of them.

  “Nah.” Gratton’s retort boomed louder than Lars’s initial comment. “Ju
st out doing your job for you, nabbing outlaws and keeping the public safe. Someone has to do it.”

  Pin drop, anyone?

  Gratton, as one might guess, doesn’t have many friends or supporters in the police department. Blame his private-detective status, although his prowess at the game of baseball might be a larger cause.

  “Take your prisoner into the back room.” Lars cocked his thumb toward a hall leading deeper into the building where the jail cells were located. “You know which one I mean. Ought to, at least.”

  An implication Grat had been present there in something other than a prosecutorial capacity, I believe.

  “You mean the one where three or four bluecoats pound the uh ... stuffing ... out of one handcuffed feller?” Grat responded.

  Jimsy let out a little moan. Feet shuffled in the background. I began to perspire. My word, they were apt to go on like this all day if I didn’t take a hand.

  I cleared my throat in an attention-getting kind of way. “We’ve made a citizen’s arrest, Sergeant Hansen, and brought this man to you to hold for trial.” Nothing like stating the obvious, but it served to curb their collision-bound train of thought.

  Lars made a face. “Oh, you have, have you?” His glance at me seemed barely more friendly than the one he aimed at Grat. “What do you want him charged with, if I may ask?”

  “You asleep, Hansen? You’ve taken our Jimsy in custody often enough to know his methods. Same as usual. A few minutes ago, a certain Mr. Dobbs caught him picking his pocket out at the racetrack. Several men are willing to testify he falsified their bets. Couple others have complaints, too. Should be enough to start with.”

  “I never did,” Jimsy denied firmly.

  I was a bit startled when Gratton didn’t mention the charge made against the little man by our client, a certain Mr. Mickelson. But then I thought I understood. Gratton wanted first crack at recovering any monies Jimsy may have hidden away before the police got their hands on it. Our fee depended on returning the money.

  On further thought, entertaining Jimsy in the back room might be a good idea after all.

  “What kind of complaints?” Lars demanded. “Who are these ‘others’? Why aren’t they here to press charges?”

  “I’m here,” I broke in, “and I’m telling you he assaulted me, knocked me to the ground.”

  Lars studied me. “Are you hurt, China? Excuse me ... Miss Bohannon. You don’t look hurt.”

  “Do I have to suffer visible wounds? Isn’t my word good enough?” I fear my expression turned belligerent as I fingered a small tear in my skirt and brushed at some remaining dust particles.

  Grat made an impatient gesture. “Get him for disturbing the peace and interfering with the races, if nothing else. He dang near caused a riot down by the track. Officials had to hold up the fifth.”

  “So what’s your horse in this race, Doyle?” Lars grinned at his own witticism. “Seeing as how you’re the one bringing him in.”

  Grat winked. “Just doin’ me civic duty,” he said, broadening his Irish brogue. A good many of the police were Irish themselves, not that their ethnicity stopped every last one of them in the room from practically busting a gut, to coin a phrase, over the idea of Gratton and civic duty.

  “Good one.” Lars, face still red from laughing, twirled his lush handlebar mustache like a storybook villain. “So, got any way to prove these pickpocket charges? Or the betting swindle? Need something concrete enough to make it worth my while if you want me to hold him.”

  This worth my while business was one of the things regarding Lars my uncle Monk and Gratton always cautioned me about. He was on the take, open to the highest dollar. And, the good Lord only knows how, he always managed to keep his job, even rising in rank.

  “Alls I have in my pocket is a dollar,” Jimsy said, possibly sensing a break coming his way. Lifting his cuffed hands, he raised his porkpie hat from around his ears, even though it immediately sank again. “Swear to you, Sergeant. If I’m lyin’, I’m dyin’.”

  “Harrumph,” I said before I could stop myself.

  Grat shot me a quick look. “I hear you put a bet down on a horse now and again, Hansen,” he said. “How would you like it if your bookie stiffed you? Took your money then claimed you bet on a different horse after you won.”

  I heard a couple strangled gasps, then a fearsome silence lasting a full ten seconds.

  “Is this what the weasel’s been doing?” Lars shook his head. “He ain’t a licensed bookie anyway. Who’d be stupid enough place a bet with him?”

  “From the look of things, several people,” Gratton said.

  Lars huffed and puffed before giving in. “All right, all right. Take him into the back room. I’ll round up a clerk and you and China can fill out some paperwork.”

  “Thank you,” I told Lars and gave Gratton a nudge. “The back room. Come along, Nimble.”

  My dog came willingly. Jimsy not so much. Gratton wasted a couple of those minutes chatting up a man wearing a baggy suit, its seat thin and shiny with sitting. I was actually breathless with impatience before we finally entered a dark and dirty room measuring about ten feet square. It contained a table and a couple chairs, all of which were on their last legs, and bore a bare electric lightbulb overhead. Nothing else. The place stank of blood, dirt, and fear. The light bulb put forth an annoying hum.

  Jimsy, head hanging, sank onto one of the chairs.

  “Told you this is no place for a lady.” Grat eyed my disgusted expression. “You’re not going to faint, are you, or cry?”

  “Me?” I was offended. “No. I most certainly am not. Although the sooner we leave here the better. What were you doing, exchanging life stories with that man? Who is he, anyway?”

  “Just a fella I know,” Grat said. “He’s in a position to help us pick up some clients if he puts in a good word. Aren’t you the one always going on about the agency needing more work? Best advertisement is word of mouth. I remember you telling Monk and me so. Repeatedly.”

  I couldn’t deny it.

  “Although,” he said, “unless we can return Mickelson’s money to him, could be the word of mouth thing will do us more harm than good.

  “Now,” he went on, giving me a sharp look when I smiled, “what’s up with you, China. You’re jumping around like an ant on a hot stove. I know you’ve got some devious plan in mind.”

  His attitude struck me as more apprehensive than anticipatory.

  I sat down across from Jimsy and batted my eyes at our prisoner. “I don’t know if you’ve ever heard,” I asked him with a simper, “but a gentleman should always remove his hat when in the presence of a lady?”

  Clamping his cuffed hands to his porkpie, Jimsy jerked upright. “Huh,” he said, “I don’t see no ladies here. Alls I see is a wild-haired harridan and her freakish little dog.”

  Involuntarily, I touched my hair. Blasted man. He was right. I swiveled my eyes far enough to spy brown locks slipping from under my boater and springing out in curls around my ears. Which gave him no excuse whatever to pick on Nimble.

  I guess Gratton didn’t think so either. “Watch your mouth, you little weasel,” he snapped. Before Jimsy could shy away, he flipped a finger and knocked Jimsy’s porkpie to the floor.

  The hat thumped resoundingly onto the filthy floor. A gold double eagle bounced out, disappearing into a corner of the room.

  Jimsy made a curious whining sound and sent a wary sideways glance at Gratton. Hah. Wrong decision. I was the one who’d caught onto his tells.

  “Fetch it,” I told Nimble, upon which she pounced on the coin. I smiled as I retrieved Jimsy’s surprisingly heavy hat. He moaned and tried to rise from his chair as though to stop me.

  Gratton smacked him back down. “What’s going on, China?”

  “Didn’t you notice the way Mr. Woodsmith is forever adjusting his hat?” I hefted the porkpie as though to show its weight. “I began to suspect there was a reason it kept falling over his ears. Gold is heavy, after all
. I do believe we’ve discovered Jimsy’s bank.” I was willing to share credit with my partner.

  Oh, my, Jimsy had quite the vocabulary of curse words. I felt the tips of my ears heat and glow red even as I recovered the first of nineteen more twenty-dollar gold pieces from the partitions sewn around porkpie’s headband. Plus a bearer’s bond in the amount of ten thousand dollars stuffed in the crown. No wonder our client had been so worried.

  “Quick, stow everything in your pocketbook.” Grat flashed a toothsome grin.

  He didn’t need to tell me twice. I’d just snapped my poor stuffed pocketbook’s clasp tight around the recovered goods when Lars and his clerk strode in. By this time Jimsy was on the verge of tears at seeing his stolen cache disappear.

  Lars cast us a suspicious look. “Get a confession?” he asked. I’m sure he wondered why Gratton smiled like Lewis Carroll’s Cheshire cat while Jimsy appeared so woebegone.

  Grat offered me his elbow, which I took. “I’m not doing your job for you, Hansen. Beat it out of him yourself. We’re leaving. China’s not feeling well.” His nose twitched. “The stench, I imagine. Sure and it’s rank enough in here to choke a hog.”

  I took Nimble’s leash in hand, and the three of us swept out of the police station on a wave of euphoria. We were nearly run down in the doorway as a young officer sprinted in, bouncing off Gratton in his hurry.

  “Come quick,” he yelled into the room. “There’s been an accident at the races. Horses are down and a kid has been killed. There’s a fight—a riot—brewing. Big Bill Shannon says we need Sergeant Hansen and all the men he can muster.”

  Footsteps pounded around us as policemen answered the call. When they had passed, Gratton looked down at me, his face sober. “Jimsy did us a favor.”

  I didn’t understand. “He did?”

  “Yes. I’m glad you weren’t there to see what happened.” He shook his head. “I’m glad I wasn’t there to see what happened.”

  How were we to know we’d soon be knee-deep in the aftermath?

  3