by Erin Lindsey
“In other words,” Thomas said, “our theory has been sound in all the particulars save one: the involvement of Roberts.”
“Which means our best lead just went up in smoke.” The words tasted like ash on my tongue.
“I wouldn’t go that far. Roberts may yet hold some clue as to the identity of Mr. S.” Thomas started to say more but was interrupted by the doorbell. Frowning, he went to answer it, returning a moment later with an unsealed letter. “It’s from Miss Harris.”
“The Bloodhound?” Frankly, I was a little surprised she was even literate.
He scanned the scrap of paper, and as he read, the exhaustion seemed to melt away from his features. “She’s found the Irishman and his gang. The lot of them are drinking at the Tub of Blood right now. I say, that’s quick work, even for her.”
“Tub of Blood?” Chapman made a face. “Half the saloons below the Line go by that name. She give you something more specific?”
“On the Bowery, just north of Canal. She’s waiting outside, keeping an eye on them.” He snatched his overcoat from the rack. “I have to go.”
“Hold up there, chief. This fella’s wanted for murder. We’ll be doing this properly. Just let me use your phone and I’ll call the station.”
Thomas looked aghast at the idea. “We haven’t the time, and even if we did, involving the police would only make a mess of things.”
“Glad to hear you have such faith in law enforcement, Wiltshire.”
“Sergeant, please. I know you’d prefer to do things by the book, but there’s too much at stake. This isn’t merely a murder investigation. Those men may be our only link to finding their employer, and he, in turn, may hold the key to ending the scourge of shades afflicting this city. How many bodies today?”
Chapman sucked at a tooth and glanced away. “Unexplained deaths … half a dozen.”
“Half a dozen deaths in a single day. If you would spare others that fate, please, let me handle this.”
“Look, I don’t deny we got problems in the department, but doing things by the book is what separates me from the crooked ones.”
“What separates you from your colleagues is competence.”
Chapman scowled. “If you think insulting my fellow officers is gonna convince me—”
“Can’t you see I’m trying to avoid a bloodbath?”
“Stop.” I stepped between them, literally. “Mr. Wiltshire is right, Sergeant. These are dangerous men. You show up at that saloon with a bunch of coppers … Well, I think we all know what’ll happen.” I could see Chapman was about to object, so I went on hastily, “But you’re right, too—the police ought to be involved. So maybe we can compromise. You come along and help us make sure we take our man alive.”
“We?” He flicked an eyebrow. “You’re not suggesting you oughta come along, too?”
“No, I’m not suggesting it, I’m telling you. Both of you,” I added, shooting Thomas a warning look. “I have more at stake here than you know, Sergeant, and I’m not about to be left out just because I’m a woman.”
Thomas and Chapman eyed each other for a long moment, silently transmitting manly thoughts. I could guess what they were, but I didn’t care. Chapman would have to handcuff me to the front door if he wanted to leave me behind. As for Thomas, I think he’d finally learned that there was no point trying to put me off.
Chapman sighed and looked away, shaking his head in irritation.
“It would be good to have you there, Sergeant,” Thomas said. “I could use a man of your experience.”
Man. Experience. At least one of those words was aimed at me, but I let it alone. We’d come a long way in twenty-four hours, Thomas and I; by this time tomorrow, I figured our working relationship would be good and broken in.
If I lived that long.
“All right,” Chapman said, “but so help me, Wiltshire, if our man slips away because of this…”
“If our man slips away, we have much more to fear than a botched murder investigation.” So saying, Thomas grabbed his hat.
* * *
“What in the hell took you so long?” the Bloodhound hissed from the shadows. “And what’s he doing here?”
I counted it a strange sort of victory that Annie didn’t seem to have any objection to my presence—just the copper’s.
“We need all the help we can get,” Thomas said, his words half lost amid the babble of revelers lining the street. “Now, are you certain he’s in there?”
“Him or his gang, or both.”
Thomas frowned. “You were paid to find the murderer, not his accomplices.”
“Like I said, it’s damned tough tracking that scent. Fact is, I only found it ’cause of the rotten gas, and there’s at least three of ’em in there reek of it. How do I know who’s who?”
“I should have given you a physical description.” Irritably, Thomas added, “And you should have asked for one.”
“Never needed one before.” Annie shrugged. “Reckon there’s a first time for everything.”
“All right,” Chapman said, “let’s do this. You armed, Wiltshire?”
Thomas nodded, drawing his trusty derringer from the silk lining of his jacket. Chapman eyed the little pistol with a frown, drawing his own weapon—a Colt .45, naturally. The Bloodhound reached into the waistband of her men’s trousers and pulled out a big army revolver.
I gave Thomas a sour look.
“Pinkerton with a muff pistol,” the Bloodhound said with a shake of her head. “Now I seen everything.”
Our strange foursome hurried across the Bowery, guns tucked away once more as we weaved through the crowd. My pulse should have been pounding in my ears, but instead I felt curiously calm as I hefted my own lacy little pistol inside my pocket. In a few minutes, I might have cause to fire this gun, something I’d never done before. Maybe even to kill a man, if things got out of hand. That ought to have terrified me, but for some reason I just couldn’t call up the fear. I guess when you’ve got a fragment of a dead woman working its way toward your heart, it’s hard for anything else to compete.
“I’ll head around back,” Annie said, “in case any of ’em tries to make a run for it.”
“Remember,” Thomas said, “this is a live bounty. If he dies…”
“Don’t you fret, Pinkerton. Comes to that, I’ll take me a leg shot.” She flashed a rotten-toothed smile and ducked around the side of the building.
“Here’s what I’m thinking,” Chapman said. “After what happened at the gasworks, these fellas’ll see you coming a mile off. So what say I head in there first, get the lay of things. I’ll sidle up to the nearest Irish accent and we can take it from there.”
“That sounds eminently sensible,” Thomas said.
“The ringleader has auburn hair,” I told the detective, “and he’s big. Well over six feet. Flashy dresser, too, like a Bowery Boy.”
With a brisk nod, Chapman shouldered his way through the door.
Thomas drew out his Patek Philippe (an instrument not much smaller than the derringer, incidentally) and we waited a full five minutes before following the detective.
It was a scene straight out of a dime novel—or a Sunday morning sermon. The place was packed to the rafters, roughs and gamblers and stargazers mingling with rheumy-eyed old men who looked like they were ready for the potter’s field. The piano was out of tune, the laughter shrill and gritty, the air so thick with cheap cigars that it brought tears to my eyes. It was, in short, a living ode to the sporting life, the kind you’re always hearing about but rarely see in the flesh. And sweet Mary and Joseph, was there flesh—not just of the female variety. A few of the men had taken off their shirts, presumably getting ready for a boxing match. Most gin joints cover the floorboards in sawdust to help sop up the beer, but I had a feeling that wasn’t all that got spilled in here. The Tub of Blood had probably earned its name a dozen times over.
“And here I thought One-Eyed Johnny’s was bad,” I muttered as we elbowed o
ur way through the mob. “Annie’ll be right at home, anyway.”
“Sorry?” Thomas couldn’t hear a word above the clamoring piano.
“Never mind.”
He’d had the good sense to leave his fur-collared overcoat behind, and he took his tall hat off now, tossing it onto a table as he passed. He didn’t exactly blend in, but at least he didn’t stand out quite as much. As for me, a few of the patrons might wonder at the presence of a woman who obviously wasn’t a stargazer, but I doubted I’d attract anything more than idle curiosity.
We found Chapman near the bar. Scanning the patrons nearest him, I tensed in instant recognition. The short, stocky man from Sligo—the one who’d brought Thomas his lunch at the gasworks—hovered near the detective’s elbow, along with the man who’d attacked us with a knife. The big auburn-haired fellow was nowhere to be seen.
Thomas leaned in close to my ear. “I recognize three of them. You?”
I raised two fingers.
“The third man, the one you haven’t had the pleasure of meeting—he’s the chap with the ridiculous side-whiskers. No sign of the ginger, though.”
I shook my head. “I’ll make my way over and signal to Chapman. You stay back—they’ll recognize you straightaway.”
Thomas pursed his lips in displeasure, but he nodded.
I drew out my hairpin—still mangled from its work on Thomas’s bonds—and let my hair fall down about my face, partially hiding my features. Thomas watched me in silence. Just as I was about to turn away, he reached for me, brushing my forehead as he took a lock of hair between his fingers. He paused for a moment as if he might say something. Then, gently, he arranged the hair over my stitches.
I don’t know if it was the look in his eyes or something else entirely, but suddenly I felt very nervous indeed. But it was too late to back out now. Squaring my shoulders, I started off through the crowd.
Chapman spotted me from a way off. Slowly, deliberately, I cut a glance at the short man from Sligo. Then, bringing a hand to my forehead as if to brush hair from my eyes, I raised three fingers, drawing them conspicuously down the side of my face to indicate side-whiskers. In reply, Chapman cocked his head subtly at the remaining man, the one in the bowler hat. I confirmed it with a nod, then watched as Chapman reached into his jacket to rest a hand on the butt of his revolver.
I sidled up to the bar at right angles from Chapman and the Irishmen, giving myself a good line of sight.
A few moments later Thomas appeared, moving fast through the crowd. He came up behind Sligo and pressed his gun to the back of the short man’s head, and before his comrades could even react, Chapman had Bowler Hat by the scruff of the neck, revolver jammed into his ribs. Figuring that was my cue, I drew my own gun and leveled it across the corner of the bar at Side-whiskers.
The floor around us cleared awfully quickly after that, the saloon’s patrons retreating to a safe distance to watch the drama unfold. Most of the chatter died down, though the piano player went on stomping on the keys, oblivious.
Bowler had a gun of his own stashed in his jacket; Chapman grabbed it and pointed it at the barman. “Hands where I can see ’em. No need to make this your concern.”
The barman eyed him darkly but complied, raising his hands up from under the bar where he’d been reaching for whatever weapon helped him keep order in the Tub of Blood.
Thomas patted his man down and found another gun, plus a knife concealed in the man’s belt. “Here, Miss Gallagher,” he said, sliding the revolver down the bar toward me. “Perhaps that will suit your tastes better.”
I picked up the Colt .45—and very nearly dropped it, surprised by its weight. It was all I could do to hold the thing steady with one hand while I cocked the hammer, but I didn’t dare lose face now. “Thanks,” I said stoutly, “it does.”
Chapman frisked Bowler, then Side-whiskers. More guns and knives on the bar; he had the barman toss them into an ashcan. By this point, the music had finally gone silent, so his next words were clear to everyone in the saloon: “Who gets the cuffs?”
“How about you use ’em on yourself, copper?”
Thomas stiffened, but before he could turn the auburn-haired Irishman had the barrel of a revolver pressed against the base of his skull.
Where in the hell did he come from? Not that it mattered; he’d got the drop on us somehow, and now the tables had most definitely turned.
“I’ll have your iron on the floor,” he said, “all of you.”
Chapman narrowed one sleepy eye. “Seems to me we got a standoff here. You got one of ours, we got three of yours. Advantage to us, I’d say.”
“You sure about that, copper? What makes you think you know who’s who? Could be five of me lads in here, or ten. Maybe this saloon belongs to one of me mates.”
“Or maybe,” Sligo put in, “there’s a fair few in here who fancy the idea of having a go at a copper and a Pinkerton, just for the hell of it.”
The first threat was probably bluster, but the second rang true. I couldn’t help glancing nervously at the crowd, wondering how many had been thinking just that.
“I’ll have a go!” cried a slurring voice, and a wreck of a woman lurched through the onlookers. She made it as far as the edge of the crowd before blundering drunkenly into the corner of a table and tumbling to the floor, landing in a heap in the middle of the standoff.
Thomas moved.
Liquid as a dance step, he twisted and threw the big Irishman over his hip, planting him flat on his back even as he wrenched the man’s wrist, forcing him to drop the gun. Before Sligo could turn to help, the Bloodhound had her Colt pointed at his chest, grinning up at him from the floor with her rotten smile. As for Chapman, he’d clocked his man in the skull with the butt of his revolver, sending him staggering. That left the detective free to deal with Side-whiskers, since I was too far away to do anything but shoot the man down.
Unfortunately, we all forgot about the barman, and before anyone could react he had a shotgun racked and leveled across the bar at Sergeant Chapman.
That’s when things turned into a real bag of nails.
Quicker than you could say rough neighborhood, pistols and knives were everywhere. The crowd was nervous now; what had started out as a good show was turning into something uglier. So far nobody looked to be choosing sides, but I’d witnessed enough street brawls to know that could change in a heartbeat. As for the barman, I think he intended to chase the lot of us out of his saloon, but he never got the chance. Side-whiskers must have liked his odds now that Chapman was staring down the barrel of a shotgun, because he threw an elbow into the detective’s ribs and made a grab for his gun.
A split second later the auburn-haired Irishman drew a knife and slashed it across the back of Thomas’s leg. Thomas buckled, sending Sligo sprawling; the Bloodhound mistook the sudden movement for an attack and fired. She’d aimed low, but the short man had lost his balance and took the bullet full in the chest. He collapsed right on top of her. Thomas went for the fallen gun, but the auburn-haired man was faster, hauling him down and using his bulk to pin Thomas’s slender form to the floor.
Shouts from the crowd now, people scattering. A bystander tried to wrestle Side-whiskers away from Chapman, but all he managed to do was knock the detective off balance. Still weaponless, Side-whiskers lunged for a bottle of whiskey on the bar—startling the barman and ending up with a gutful of buckshot for his troubles. Bowler fared no better; he got tangled up with the helpful bystander and took a bowie knife in the belly. As for me, I’d nearly reached Thomas by the time Annie righted herself. She kicked the auburn-haired Irishman in the ribs and rolled him off Thomas. But the big man recovered quickly, and while Annie helped Thomas to his feet, the Irishman grabbed the fallen Colt and cocked the hammer.
I had a heartbeat to react, maybe less. I fired.
The bullet struck the Irishman in the thigh. He bucked on the floor, howling and clutching at his leg. Thomas snatched up the fallen gun, but he needn’t h
ave bothered; the thug wasn’t going to be any more trouble. I might not have had Clara’s medical training, but I knew straightaway something was wrong. Blood pumped from the wound in great gushes, soaking the Irishman’s trousers.
“Damn!” Thomas dropped to the man’s side. “Quickly, Annie, your belt!”
“He needs a doctor,” Chapman said, his words barely audible above the howls of pain. “I’ll find a cab…” Meanwhile, Annie kept a wary eye on the saloon’s patrons, in case anyone was still feeling jumpy.
The Irishman’s screams were fading by the time Thomas drew the tourniquet tight. “Stay with me!” He slapped the big man’s cheek. “I want a name! Whose man are you?”
But it was no use; the rough’s eyelids fluttered and his head lolled. He wouldn’t be answering questions anytime soon, and maybe not ever again.
Chapman found a cab, and a pair of stout patrons helped to hoist the wounded man up. All I could do was watch as they hauled the Irishman away. He was limp, bleeding, on the brink of death.
I’ve killed him, I thought numbly. And for good measure, I’d killed our case as well.
CHAPTER 26
HAND OF FATE—THE EMERALD ISLE—A KISS GOOD-BYE
Chapman climbed into the cab with the Irishman, but not before extracting a promise from Thomas to wait for the police. No more dodging statements, he’d said, and Thomas had just nodded, his gaze fixed on the unconscious figure slumped in the seat.
“I’m so sorry,” I said miserably as the cab juddered away.
“You’ve nothing to be sorry for, Rose. You saved my life, again, and even had the presence of mind to take a leg shot. It’s terribly bad fortune the bullet struck an artery, that’s all.”
Terribly bad fortune. That was one way of putting it. To me, it felt as if the hand of Fate had grabbed the blade of ice in my breast and given it a twist, just for spite.
Thomas tied a handkerchief around his slashed leg, and we waited for the police. The crowd around us continued to grow. Half the saloon had followed us out into the street, and there’s nothing like a mob to draw an even bigger mob. The Bowery was always good for a spectacle, especially on a Saturday night, and even if you were too late to catch the show, there was usually a good yarn to be had from the audience. I recognized one or two of the faces from the neighborhood, since we were only a few blocks away from Mam’s flat. I wondered if it would get back to her that I’d been mixed up in a shoot-out in a Bowery saloon. For some reason, that almost made me laugh.