The Stolen Gold Affair

by Bill Pronzini

  Quincannon felt the prod of envy again as they set off, though such a vehicle was an extravagance better suited to this flatland country than to hilly San Francisco, and more cheaply housed here as well. He and Sabina had discussed purchasing a carriage for their personal as well as professional use, which they could certainly afford, but he had not been able to justify the outlay of funds. Perhaps the time had come to take the plunge now that they were about to be man and wife, and hang the expense. The cost could be recouped by raising their agency rates to the level of Flannery’s.

  West Sacramento was one of three small communities on the opposite shore of the Sacramento River, the other two being Bryte and Broderick. During the Gold Rush, it had been a settlement stop for California Steam Navigation Company riverboats bearing travelers through then-treacherous marshlands to Sacramento and the gold fields. Nowadays it was primarily an agricultural and fishing center, though enough treasure seekers still mined the river’s sloughs and byways to support small-scale assayers and outfitting merchants.

  A short ferry ride transported them from Sacramento’s public dock to West Sacramento’s. Delta Metallurgical Works was situated a short distance from the waterfront landing, in a section mostly occupied by saloons, eateries, and transient lodging houses. As they clattered along Poplar Street, Flannery called down that their objective was coming up on the right. Quincannon unsnapped the side curtain, peered out.

  The place was about the size of one of the miners’ shacks in Patch Creek and no better constructed—a false-fronted, board-and-batten building flanked on one side by an ironmonger’s shop and on the other by a lot containing the skeleton of a building under construction. Hardly a prosperous assay business, likely no more than a legitimate or semi-legitimate cloak for Bart Morgan’s nefarious activities. A wooden sign tacked to the windowless wall next to the entrance gave its name in faded black letters. Atop the flat tar-paper roof, wisps of smoke curled out of a tin chimney stack into the morning overcast.

  “Occupied,” he said to Sabina, who was leaning sideways to look past him.

  “By Morgan, I hope.”

  “We’ll soon find out.”

  Flannery drove on a short distance, brought the carriage to a stop, and swung down. Quincannon adjusted the holster for the Colt Peacemaker that Flannery had supplied—the weapon was clean and well balanced, a reassuring weight on his hip—and opened the door. Before he stepped out, Sabina gripped his arm and urged him to caution.

  “I am always cautious in these situations,” he assured her.

  “Not as much as you should be sometimes. Don’t make me a widow before I become a bride.”

  “Not before, my dear, and not after.”

  There was little traffic on the street, few pedestrians on the sidewalks. A light, cold breeze carried the faint mingled odors of river mud and marsh growth. From somewhere downstream, a high-pitched whistle announced a steamboat’s imminent arrival at the Sacramento dock.

  When they reached the door to the assay building, Quincannon drew his coattail away from the Peacemaker and wrapped his fingers around the handle. He had not forgotten Morgan’s lightning-fast draw in Patch Creek. Then he led the way inside, with Flannery close behind him.

  Anticlimax.

  The lone man in the cluttered room was not Bart Morgan.

  He half turned when he heard the door open—a scrawny, vulpine individual who had lived some sixty years and had half a dozen strands of dark hair plastered to a liver-spotted scalp. He said, “Be with you in a minute, gents,” and turned away to close the door to a glowing assay furnace.

  Quincannon neither relaxed nor removed his hand from the butt of the Peacemaker. A long scan of the room, lighted by a pair of kerosene lamps, showed him a closed door at the rear. He moved ahead to a counter on which several ore samples were arranged, some of which had sat there untouched for so long they were coated with dust. Flannery hung back against the wall near the entrance.

  The fox-faced man was now hovering over a plank bench strewn with sample sacks, molds, flux bins, tongs, cupels. He opened a glass case of balance scales, took one out, and set a chunk of ore on it. He was watching the balance needle quiver when Quincannon spoke sharply.

  “Is the proprietor here?”

  “Mr. Morgan? Nope,” the man said without looking up.

  “Anyone else besides you?”

  “Nope. Just me, Floyd Tucker.”

  “You expect Morgan this morning?”

  “Nope.”

  “That door at the rear. Where does it lead?”

  “Storeroom.”

  Flannery, on his own initiative, went to open the door and look inside. He nodded once in confirmation before shutting it again and returning to his stance by the entrance.

  Tucker’s attention was still fixed on the balance scale. He made an adjustment that held the needle motionless, then squinted to read the gauge.

  Quincannon said to him, “So Morgan doesn’t live here.”

  “No, he sure don’t.”

  “Where can I find him?”

  “Can’t say. Look, mister, I’ll be with you directly—”

  “You’ll be with me right now,” Quincannon said, and smacked the countertop with the flat of his hand. The ore samples jumped like hop toads and so did Tucker. He swung around, blinked, blinked again. More than one man had quailed at one of Quincannon’s fearsome stares and Tucker was no exception.

  “What’s the idea?” he said. “You in a hurry?”

  “That’s right. In a hurry to find Morgan.”

  “Dunno where he is. I haven’t seen him in two weeks.”

  Quincannon drew the Peacemaker, laid it on the counter. “You best not be lying to me.”

  The heat from the assay furnace had put a sheen of sweat on Tucker’s face; the sight of the gun thickened it and broke it into runnels. He seemed to shrink another inch or two, and his Adam’s apple commenced a spasmodic bobbing in his scrawny throat.

  “I ain’t lying, mister. Honest. Two weeks since I seen Mr. Morgan, and he didn’t tell me where he was headed or when he’d be back.”

  “How long have you worked for him?”

  “Three years, off and on, since I moved up here from Modesto to live with my daughter after my wife passed away. Two, three days a week when he’s busy elsewhere and there’s enough work to do. Ain’t been much, lately, and there’ll be less come winter—”

  Quincannon sliced a hand downward to cut off the babble of irrelevant words. “Where does Morgan live?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You’ve worked for him three years and you don’t know where he hangs his hat?”

  “He never said and I never asked. None of my business.” Tucker wiped his sweaty face with his shirtsleeve. His gaze kept shifting from Quincannon to the Peacemaker, and it made him anxious to please. “But wherever, it ain’t likely around here.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Man’s got plenty of money, he don’t live out here on the river unless he’s a local bigwig. Mr. Morgan ain’t one of those. He don’t spend much time here at all.”

  “How do you know Morgan has plenty of money?”

  “Must have—clothes he wears, fancy rig he drives. Sure didn’t make it with this place. Must have another business somewhere else.”

  That he did. Gold thievery.

  “Or maybe it’s poker winnings,” Tucker said. “I been told he plays a mean game of stud.”

  “Where does he play when he’s in town?”

  “Ace High Card Club, over on South Street. Always a poker game going on there.”

  “Anyone he plays with regularly?”

  “I don’t know, unless maybe Luke Jaeger.”

  “Who would Luke Jaeger be?”

  “Owns the Ace High.”

  “All right,” Quincannon said. He picked up the Peacemaker, hefted it in his hand. “My companion and I will be leaving now. Not that we were ever here.”

  Tucker said quickly, “N
obody’s been here this morning, nobody at all.”

  “You won’t forget that, will you?”

  “No, sir, I sure won’t.”

  Quincannon rearranged his expression to one less threatening, holstered the weapon, and went to the door. Flannery followed him out.

  On the sidewalk Flannery said, “You handled the fellow rather well, Quincannon.”

  “Did you think I wouldn’t? Or that you could have done better?”

  “Now, don’t be crusty. We’re lodge brothers, after all.”

  “Bah.”

  Sabina had exited the brougham and was pacing along beside it. She said as they came up, “So Morgan wasn’t there.”

  Quincannon wagged his head. “Nor will he be, evidently.”

  “Did you learn where to find him?”

  “No, confound it. Not yet.”

  Flannery climbed up into the driver’s seat, waited until his passengers were seated inside before saying to Quincannon, “Ace High Card Club?”

  “Quick as you can get us there.”

  23

  QUINCANNON

  The Ace High Card Club occupied the second floor of a South Street firetrap, above a tonsorial parlor and a washhouse. You might have missed it if you weren’t on the lookout, for the only sign was wired to a support post at the foot of an outside staircase. The sign was some two feet square with faded lettering and a painted arrow pointing upward; a reversible card in a metal holder stated that the club was open.

  Quincannon climbed the stairs alone, there being no need for Flannery’s presence here. The door at the top opened into a long, wide room bisected lengthwise by a waist-high partition, the room’s plain furnishings and lack of adornments indicating that its clientele was primarily farmhands, fishermen, and other members of the working class. One side was taken up with half a dozen round poker tables covered with green baize, all of which were deserted. On the other side were several smaller tables for those who preferred different card games; two elderly men, the only customers at this early hour, sat at one playing a desultory game of pinochle. At the rear was a short buffet, above which was tacked a placard that read: Beer 10c. No Hard Liquor.

  Just inside the entrance stood a kind of three-sided cage presided over by a heavy-set man wearing a green eyeshade and thick galluses over a green and white striped shirt. Strangers in the Ace High were evidently a rarity; he looked Quincannon up and down, taking his measure.

  “If poker’s your game, friend,” he said, “you’ve come too early, as you can see. Likely won’t be a game of stud or draw until this afternoon.”

  Quincannon showed him an amiable smile. “It’s a man I’m looking for, not a poker game.”

  “What man would that be?”

  “The assayer, Bart Morgan. I was told he is a regular here when he’s in town.”

  “Told by who?”

  “Floyd Tucker, his assistant.”

  “If you saw Tucker, then he must’ve also told you his boss hasn’t been around for two weeks or more.”

  “He did, but it’s important that I talk to Mr. Morgan as soon as possible. Would you be Luke Jaeger?”

  “I would.”

  “Well, Tucker said you might be able to tell me where Morgan resides.”

  “What makes him think I’d know?”

  “Just that you and Morgan might be friends, seeing as how you both fancy five-card stud.”

  Jaeger tugged at one of his galluses. “What’s so important that you need to talk to him? Assay business?”

  “Mining business, yes.”

  “You don’t look like a prospector.”

  “I’m not. Engineer.” The two pinochle players had their ears cocked, listening to the conversation; Quincannon lowered his voice. “I made a discovery Morgan is sure to be interested in, once he verifies its potential.”

  “Rich discovery? Why go to him with it?”

  “I have my reasons. Do you know where he lives?”

  “Suppose I do,” Jaeger said. “Why should I help feather his nest?”

  “And why not, if you’re a friend of his?”

  “I wouldn’t call him a friend. He took close to a hundred dollars off me the last stud game at his house.”

  “So you’ve been to his house. Located where?”

  “What’s in it for me if I tell you?”

  “Morgan’s undying gratitude. And mine.”

  “Hah. Man can’t eat or drink gratitude.”

  Quincannon put a hitch on his impatience, another on his distaste for parting with hard-earned money even in a good cause. He said, “A man can do both with a five-dollar gold piece.”

  “Let’s see the color of it.”

  Quincannon pinched out one of two Liberty coins in his purse, held it up, then drew it quickly back when Jaeger reached for it. “An honest answer first, Mr. Jaeger.”

  “I always give honest answers when I’m paid for them. All right. Bart’s place is over in Sacramento, on F Street.”

  “Where on F Street?”

  “I don’t recall the number. Off Fourteenth, not far from Washington Park. Red brick house with a crabapple tree in front.”

  “He lives there alone, does he?”

  “With his wife. I’d watch out for her if I were you.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Likes brandy, Mrs. Morgan does. Got a mean tongue when she likes too much of it, which is most of the time.”

  “I’ll remember that.”

  “No charge for the advice,” Jaeger said, and stretched out his hand, palm up. Quincannon dropped the coin into it, not without reluctance.

  * * *

  Morgan’s home was in midtown Sacramento, in a residential neighborhood Flannery identified as Boulevard Park. There was a certain irony in the fact that only a few dozen blocks separated it from the Golden Eagle Hotel. If only some knowledge of its whereabouts had been available yesterday! But Flannery swore that he’d checked the residential listings and property ownership records and there had been none for B. or Bartholomew Morgan. Shrewd cuss that Morgan was, he must have seen to it that the house was put in his wife’s name, married or maiden, or another of his aliases.

  On F Street near 14th, red brick, crabapple tree in front … It was easy enough to find. Quincannon gave it a quick study as Flannery drove past on the cobblestone street. Fairly large and well landscaped, testimony to the profits Morgan had obtained through his various criminal ventures. The front windows were draped and there was no activity outside. A driveway led along one side to a carriage barn at the rear.

  Near the end of the block Quincannon said to Flannery, “Drive around the corner. Let’s see if there is a carriageway behind Morgan’s house.”

  There was, a narrow lane that bisected the block straight through to the next street. “Stop here and let me out,” he said then. “I’ll walk back. You drive on in and keep watch at the rear.”

  Sabina said as Flannery braked at the entrance to the carriageway, “You can’t just walk up bold as you please and knock on the door, John. Suppose Morgan sees and recognizes you before you can get the drop on him.”

  “I had no direct dealings with him in Patch Creek,” Quincannon said. “He may have noticed me among the miners, but he wouldn’t recognize me in these clothes.”

  “He might if he spied you coming alone. He’d be much less likely to pay attention to the approach of a man and a woman.”

  He had to admit that she had a point. But he said, “No. Too dangerous.”

  “Stop treating me as if I were fragile goods. I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself and you know it.” She patted her reticule. “I’m armed, don’t forget.”

  He wasn’t likely to. She seldom ventured out on serious business without her Remington derringer, a twin of his.

  Before he could say anything more, she opened the door on her side and stepped down. He swung down beside her.

  “Well, John?”

  There was nothing to be gained in arguing with a headst
rong woman; it would only waste time. Besides, she was perfectly capable of taking care of herself. “All right. Just let me do the talking.”

  She slipped her hand inside the crook of his left arm while he made sure his coat flap covered the holstered Peacemaker. Flannery prodded the blue dun into the carriageway behind them as they set off.

  There were no pedestrians on F Street, nor any street traffic after a hansom cab clattered past. The sky had partially cleared and a pale sun laid streaks of light on the cobblestones. Except for the distant barking of a dog, the neighborhood was wrapped in a somnolent hush.

  Sabina said something inconsequential, smiling as they turned onto the Morgan property—a casual pretense in the event they were being observed. Quincannon watched the windows; the curtains remained still. On the porch he paused to listen, heard nothing from within. Sabina released his arm, stood aside when he drew the Peacemaker. He slid the weapon quickly inside his coat, holding it close to his chest, then twisted the crank handle on the doorbell with his left hand.

  The door stayed closed, the interior silent. After half a minute he twisted the bell handle again. Another fifteen seconds crept away. Nobody home? More vexation if that was the case—

  Footsteps inside.

  Quincannon tensed as the latch rattled. But when the door squeaked open, it was not Morgan he faced but a harridan incongruously draped in a purple sateen dress and a lemon-yellow feather boa. Middle-aged, stout, so tightly corseted her formidable bosom bulged the dress’s bodice to the ripping point. Blotchy red face, dyed black hair, squinty gray bloodshot eyes. And according to the brandy fumes emanating from her open mouth, well on her way to inebriation at a few minutes past noon.

  The squinty eyes shifted from him to Sabina and back to him. In a surprisingly clear voice she said, “Who’re you? What do you want?”

  “Are you Mrs. Morgan?”

  “What if I am? Don’t tell me you’re missionaries looking to convert me. I’ll spit in your eye if you are.”

  “We’re not missionaries. Is your husband here?”