by John Mead
“Tell Inspector O’Leary we have passed here,” Jack tried to shout at one cop, controlling traffic at a busy intersection, but the red faced officer failed to hear him over his own oaths, shouted at Jack to stop and the noise of two delivery wagons crashing as one lurched into the other to avoid the speeding cab. Despite the best efforts of Jack and his horse, eventually they lost sight of the other pair, as the riders turned down a back alleyway the cab could not pass down. In the unlikely hope of catching sight of one or the other rider Jack had decided to turn down a cross street to see if he or any passerby, to whom he called, had any sight of them. Two blocks on he saw the sergeant still on horse back and trailing the second horse, emerge from an alley.
“Do you have him?” Jack shouted, pulling up to the other man but seeing nothing of Jaunty.
“Only the horse he rode, I lost sight of them in the back alleys then came upon his horse standing halfway down this one. He either hid in the shadows until I passed or has run into one of these buildings,” the sergeant was breathing heavily and cast about as if expecting to catch sight of their quarry as he gave Stevens the bad news, “but it could be any building in either block backing onto the alleyway.”
“We need reinforcements to help with the search,” Jack said, still optimistic, getting down to help the sergeant tie the harnesses of the two horses he had to the rear of the cab. “If we can send for help we can watch the buildings from opposite corners to see if Jaunty emerges,” even as he spoke Jack realised the impossibly long odds of this working and he could see from the sergeant’s expression that the chase was over. “Damn, we were close.”
“It’s not over yet,” the young sergeant reassured him, squaring his shoulders in determination, “we will scour the city for him, I will raise every station and have men out on every street looking for him.”
“I know this place,” Jack had stopped listening, they had moved to the corner of the main thoroughfare, a section of South Clark Street, and he was looking at the diner opposite. “Coming here by the meandering route we took in the chase I did not recognise it but this building here on the corner is the hotel Martha and I first stayed at when we came to the city six years past.”
“That is good to know Jack and if we continue over in that direction we will find a police emergency telephone,” the sergeant informed him, not understanding what Stevens was on about.
“I think I know where Tipwell has gone,” Jack said heading for the hotel entrance but stopping by a shoeshine boy sitting in the early morning sun on the edge of the steps. “Has anyone been in here during the last few minutes?” Jack asked the ragged boy, dropping a quarter into his box of polishes, brushes and rags.
“None but an elderly couple leaving a little while back,” the boy looked up, happy that the first money he earned that day came with such little effort. “They and their bags got a cab up to the station.”
“Then I wager Jaunty went in by the back way, not far from where you found the horse he rode with such a lack of grace,” Stevens turned to Magnuson. “Write a note for the boy to take to the nearest police station, I’ll give him two more quarters and they will tip him a dollar. That’s a fair rate of pay isn’t it boy?” Jack smiled down at the lad, who smartly jumped up his face beaming his luck at the thought of such wealth.
“How do you know he is here?” the sergeant demanded as he hastily scribbled a note with instructions to alert Inspector O’Leary of where they were, to send reinforcements and to tip the boy a whole dollar.
“Because he has run to the one person he thinks will help him get away, a woman who has her own escape route long planned,” Jack told him with a grim smile. “I believe this hotel is where Mrs O’Shea and Black Rube are hiding out.”
“How can you know that?” Magnuson incredulously asked, handing over the note and watching the boy sprint off faster than the nag he had ridden in the chase.
“I have sufficient history with Mrs O’Shea for me to be certain and it will be quicker to prove my theory by entering than standing here in explanation,” Jack told him, reloading his weapons as he spoke. “Take care as we go in, if I’m right, there will be armed men watching for us.”
Six years previous Jack had been laying on his bed in a room on the second floor when Mrs O’Shea had knocked on his door. It was a short and angry visit, with Jack holding a gun on the tall, muscular colored man who stood in the shadow of the corridor, whilst Mrs O’Shea lambasted him. At first she thought he would angrily go after Brandon and Martha at being given news of their affair but, when realising he already knew and cared little about the situation, she resorted to goading.
“What sort of coward are you?” she demanded, every inch of her stout figure aquiver with indignation and anger. “A pander? Or a weak willed, fawning cuckold?”
Jack, torn between amusement at being so accosted and annoyance at having his rest disturbed, answered in a like vein, “And what sort of lady are you to come to a man’s room with a colored ape in tow?” Jack had already levelled his pocket revolver at the ‘ape’ in anticipation of an attack provoked by his words, but had also managed to hook his colt out of his belt and holster hanging on the end of the bedstead with his left hand and aimed it at Mrs O’Shea. “Feel free to step forward and I will put a bullet in you both,” Jack assured her, as she rained cuss words down on him and his family heritage.
After a moment or so, Jack sat himself back on the bed, keeping his guns levelled on the pair in front of him, taking his ease to show he had all the time in the world and no worries about his current predicament. Faced by such profound indifference and realising that Stevens would not hesitate to shoot, and being a sheriff thought himself above the law, Mrs O’Shea recognised the stand off and throwing further curses and cuss words over her shoulder she left. For a moment the ‘ape’, still a hulking shadow at the edge of the doorway, remained motionless perhaps thinking that taking two bullets to the chest a small price to pay to get at Jack’s throat, but turned and left as Mrs O’Shea called, “Come Rube, we waste our time on the horned fool.”
Two coloreds sat in the hotel foyer, ostensibly reading newspapers, one to the right of the stairs at the far end of the reception desk, the other to the left of the front entrance, between them they could cover each other, the stairs, door and foyer. It was as much the strategic convenience of their seating positions as the thin, pale receptionist throwing himself to the floor, as Jack and the sergeant entered, that gave the game away. Magnus had left his rifle on the stable floor, having been knocked flat as Jaunty bolted out the door on the stolen nag’s back, but had his pistol at the ready. Jack had his Winchester against his shoulder as they went through the double doors, the bottle glass of its windows not giving them much hint of what lay beyond.
“Police! No one move!” the sergeant shouted, noticing the receptionist ducking down, he turned his pistol onto the man sitting to his left. “Stay put and keep your hands in view.”
“Move and I shoot!” Stevens, dropping to his knee and taking aim, shouted at the man in the chair at the opposite end of the foyer. “You are a dead man if you do.”
The pair of guards, despite being warned that Jaunty was followed, were taken by surprise at such quick and determined action and both raised their hands, their own guns in their laps having hoped to trap the pair between them in the foyer. Magnuson used his Beans to handcuff the two men, one wrist each through the banister rail at the bottom of the stairs, ordering them to stay quiet if they valued their skulls remaining in one piece.
“Where did the man who ran in here from the rear entrance go?” Jack demanded, pulling the quaking receptionist to his feet.
“To the second floor,” the man blurted out, his voice shrill, “to the owners rooms.’
“Owners?” Jack kept a firm grasp on the young man, lest he fall down again.
“Mrs Hall,” came the response, “they have the four rooms at the front, be
hind a locked door in the corridor for their privacy.”
“They? Who are they?”
“Mr Roberts, the manager, his two associates and now the man who just came in,” the receptionist found his legs at last, though supporting himself on the desk, and Jack let go of his grasp to allow the young man to stand free.
“Roberts is a large, muscular man of color?” the youth nodded and nodded again when Jack added. “His two associates like that pair over there?”
“Do you think they know we are here?” the sergeant asked Jack as they crouched at the end of the corridor, looking at the door which kept the four front rooms sealed off from the rest of the corridor.
“We should assume so, using the rooms at the front gives them sight of the streets to the front and sides, though it blocks them from the stairs,” Jack replied, thinking hard about the next move to take. “It’d not be an issue for the men who could easily climb down to the pavement but Mrs O’Shea is no climber, not even down a single storey, but then they probably never planned on Jaunty bringing us down on them.”
“We should wait on Inspector O’Leary’s arrival, we’ll have them trapped like rats then.”
“You should go and watch outside in case Jaunty tries to escape, I doubt the others would leave Nina but he would run.”
“Very well, but if I hear shots I’ll be back.”
“Keep to your post, I’ll be fine,” Jack assured him, “I’ll use one of the empty rooms for cover and they won’t get past.’
“It won’t be long before a relief force is here,” the sergeant said, and he wasn’t wrong. The shoeshine boy had delivered Magnuson’s message and the superintendent at the local station understood its importance and was organising men to assist. Inspector O’Leary had also been informed and was racing to the scene with Pinky, Pug and two officers noted for their marksmanship, using the horses the Pinkertons had taken to the raid.
Jack waited until he had counted to one hundred, enough time for Magnus to get outside before he opened fire. His first volley of shots smashed the door lock and sent the door flying open, and the two men behind diving for cover into the first two rooms beyond.
Screams from behind him, alerted Jack to the occupants of the rooms trying to escape, he shouted for them to, “Get back and take cover!” although on the whole he was ignored, apart form one woman who hid in a wardrobe, and they threw themselves in disarray and most only partially clad, down the corridor and stairs. Jack continued to fire methodically at anything that was fool enough to poke itself around any of the doors before him.
The commotion the guests made, coming down from both the second and third floors and into the lobby, which combined with the noise of gunfire sounded as if a massacre was underway in the hotel. And, Sergeant Magnuson was on the verge of rushing back inside when he heard a noise from the street on his left. Changing direction and turning the corner Magnuson found Jaunty and one of the guards helping each other down from the floor above and bade them both to, “Put up your hands,” to which instruction they complied, realising he had a pistol levelled at them whilst their own were in their pockets.
Jack, meanwhile, decided to take a calculated risk. He reckoned that Nina was in the end room on the left, probably with Black Rube, as this had been the room Martha had occupied six years ago. Whilst the rooms on his right had fallen silent with shots only being returned from the one on his left and this room was the one that had an adjoining door into Nina’s room. So that is where he aimed to go. He put his last two bullets in his Winchester into the door frame of the room, expecting this would cause the defender to keep his head down, then pulled his old colt from his waist band fanning the hammer to rapidly fire four more bullets, one for each of his strides, to keep his man pinned down and to hide his footsteps.
A more experienced defender would have guessed the manoeuvre and quickly beat a retreat behind the bed, taking aim with his gun at the doorway to shoot Jack as he entered. Fortunately, Jack’s gamble that the guard, though a hard man of the streets, lacked experience and remained crouching behind the door waiting to return fire when there was a gap in Jack’s fusillade, was correct. The man never got the chance to return fire as Jack put his last two bullets into him the moment he reached the doorway and had him in his sights.
Jaunty though a sadistic and violent bully was no street fighter and in such circumstances was inclined to let others take the lead. He pushed his companion into the sergeant’s path then leapt past the grappling pair to hightail it down the street. However, the sergeant was no raw recruit, having as the saying goes ‘seen the elephant’, and clubbed the the second man to the ground with the butt of his revolver then turning to take aim on Jaunty. But, there was no need for the sergeant to fire as Jaunty had, literally, run into the arms of a burly uniformed constable who had only that second arrived on the scene.
Jack laid his empty colt carefully on the washstand, took his five-shot pocket revolver in his left hand and his newer, single-action colt in his right, paused to calm his breathing and listen. If he had the wrong room it would not matter, but the slightest shifting of a body’s weight behind the adjoining door told him he had chosen correctly. Striding forward he shot the lock with a bullet and kicked the door in with the same movement, only his misjudging the way the door opened saved him from the shotgun blast, that blew a hole in the door and sent it crashing back on its hinges into the room where Jack had fallen back from his misplaced kick. Jack, in his turn, put a shot from his revolver through the open doorway, causing Nina and Black Rube, both armed with shotguns, to step back.
“Stevens, is that you?” Nina shouted, though not having any doubt who their assailant was. “We nearly shot you, what is this fools game?”
“No game Nina, put the guns down and come out.”
“There is no need for this Jack,” Nina reasoned, “you can say we blasted our way out to get past you. Our deal is done and scores are settled. Your killing Brandon in return for my leaving you and Kitty in peace was a fair trade and leaves us square. I’ve had my little revenge on Martha with the killing of her friend and you will get Jaunty for murdering the two women, a foul and unnecessary murder he deserves to hang for. We are square Jack, nothing more to be served by our shooting it out. A ship waits to take me and Rube to Europe. Hank will restore order here in the city and will soon be calling all the shots. It’s an end Jack, best for us all.”
“Only Beatrice is unaccounted for,” was Jack’s only response.
“Are you alone? We only saw you and O’Leary’s sergeant arrive, and he is out front, no doubt chasing Jaunty by now.”
“I have two capable friends with me each with more bullets than I need,” Jack almost laughed, he felt exhilarated. The world had suddenly turned against its axis and he was again in the forests of Virginia, or perhaps the Black Hills, stalking his prey.
“Then step forward and let us see their faces,” Nina cooly returned, not a shred of fear in her tone, knowing their two shotguns were more than a match for Jack. The quiet that followed allowed Jack a moment of tranquility and calm he rarely experienced, monetarily he was free of the rage and fear that had haunted him from the earliest days of the war, from his first encounter with death when his best friend died. He did not breathe, his heart did not beat, his head slightly tilted so he could almost feel the cool, wooden stock of his sniper rifle on his cheek as he took deadly aim on his target. He stepped forward and put a bullet from his colt directly into Nina’s face, the roar of Black Rube’s shotgun deafening him, as the bullet from his pocket revolver hit Rube in the guts.
Jack died before his body hit the floor, whilst Rube lasted long enough to crawl to Nina’s side and lay his heavy, black head in her lap.
12
Reportage
Day 18 – Friday May 2nd 1886
The four men, Cage, Magnus, Pinky and Pug, had gathered in the inspector’s office at an hour before midnight.
Exhausted by two days with little rest or nourishment to keep them going, Cage had broken out a bottle of whiskey and was filling the four mismatched glasses. The police station was finally quite with barely a soul but themselves about.
“The papers did your young constable proud,” Pinky tapped a broadsheet, one of half a dozen that sat on O’Leary’s desk with various other papers and files. “They made him the hero of the day.”
“They did,” O’Leary sighed, “I emphasised it enough when I spoke to the newsmen. He may have been young but he had a wife and son, so there must be no doubt about his pension.”
“Here is to the death of a good man!” Sergeant Magnuson, raised his glass, clinked it with the others and took a mouthful of the smoky liquid, as they echoed his toast and followed his example.
“You have also had it reported as a raid on another disorderly house, but one met with resistance from the Kings,” Pug said as way of a ‘thank you’, to the inspector for agreeing to the subterfuge. “It has allowed us to look into the papers we found at the house.”
“Have they told you anything of use?” The inspector wanted to know, his first reaction was that with Joseph Mannheim dead, the notebook they had found offered little enlightenment on its own.
“More than we could have hoped,” Pug told him. “We have cross-referenced the initials he put beside the number and type of guns and sticks sold with the reports made by Mary Walsh and have found six names into which we have looked more closely.”