P. K. Pinkerton and the Pistol-Packing Widows

by Caroline Lawrence

  I could not write it fluently—that would take practice—but I had Made a Start.

  Barry was so impressed with my progress and so pleased with my method of remembering cards that he helped me write a report of Friday’s proceedings for Jace.

  I dropped it off around 11:30 at night, handing it to the Night Clerk at the St. Charles Hotel. I was dressed as Danny Ashim, in my Jewish Phonographic Boy Disguise. As I was exiting the hotel lobby, Mrs. Violetta De Baskerville was entering.

  She was alone and I do not know if she saw me or not, for she looked straight ahead with her chin up. But as she passed by she swerved a little so that her puffy hoopskirt jostled me & I fell over & banged my elbow on a copper planter with a fern in it.

  “Dang you, Mrs. Violetta De Baskerville,” I said to myself. “Just you wait until I get the bulge on you.”

  THIS IS HOW I ALMOST got the bulge on Mrs. Violetta De Baskerville.

  It was Tuesday afternoon, almost a week after I first arrived in Carson. The Legislature had adjourned early for the big wedding, to which all the legislators & reporters had been invited. Barry had decided to go, so I was in my room at Mrs. Murphy’s, dressed in my comfortable buckskin trowsers & flannel shirt and writing up my report of the day, when I heard a tap at my window.

  It was Miss Carrie Pixley.

  “Why ain’t you at the wedding?” she cried.

  I said, “I thought your Beloved might invite you.”

  “He didn’t,” she wailed. “You have got to go there and spy for me!”

  I was going to tell her I had to finish my report for Jace when she added, “All the pretty spinsters and widows in the Territory will be there, too, and I think he has eyes for one of them.”

  When she said “widows” I thought of Violetta. This might be my chance to get the bulge on her.

  But how could I spy on her without her knowing?

  I was pretty sure she had recognized me in my Jewish Phonographic Boy Disguise and she knew my Night Shadow Disguise, too. There was no way I was going to wear my Blind Widow Disguise. If I did, someone might want to dance with me. A Chinese Boy, Negro or Indian would not be allowed in. What could I do?

  I sent up an arrow prayer to the Almighty and he sent an idea right back.

  I knew the wedding was being held in the Chamber of the Second House, the room where I had fainted. I could go in the back door & hide behind the crimson curtain draped against the back wall. If I poked a small hole in the curtain I might be able to see what was happening.

  “All right,” I said to Carrie, “I will do it. I can hide behind a curtain and see what is happening.”

  I quickly changed into my Jewish Phonographic Boy Disguise. That way if someone caught me behind the curtain I could say I was looking for a lost pencil, or similar.

  I went round to the back entrance of the Great Basin Hotel & up the stairs. I opened the door a crack & peeped in.

  The ceremony must have just finished because everybody was cheering and facing away from me. I slipped inside & slid behind the curtain & found a natural hole in the fabric, which meant I did not even have to cut one.

  Now I could see the bride in a puffy white dress with a wreath around her head and a big lacy veil falling down behind. She was standing next to the groom, a man of medium height with a beard like a bib.

  He was shaking hands with guests.

  She was accepting something else: kisses.

  I saw Sam Clemens plant a kiss full on the bride’s lips. At first I was dismayed, and wondered what to tell Carrie. Then I saw that every man in the line was kissing her. Even Governor Nye.

  I could not bear to watch this serial kissing so I averted my gaze. In so doing I saw something that shocked me even more.

  Mrs. Violetta De Baskerville was also kissing somebody. It was the man with the floppy chestnut-colored hair she had been speaking to in the gallery on Saturday afternoon. They were hidden behind one of the wood-burning stoves where only I could see them.

  I thought, “Dang my buttons! Violetta is being False to Jace.”

  Twang!

  I nearly jumped out of my skin as somebody twanged a banjo right by my left ear.

  Some musicians were standing on the platform usually occupied by the Speaker of the House and they commenced playing. Couples began to pair off and twirl around the room.

  The organizers of the fandango had put a long table right in front of my crimson-curtain hiding place. This table was laid out with cake & champagne. There were also plates & forks & glasses. Sam Clemens and Clement T. Rice had retreated from the dancing to congregate there. They each had a glass in one hand and a piece of cake in the other. Like me, their attention was on Mrs. Violetta De Baskerville, who was being swirled around the room by the man who had been kissing her.

  “Who is that clean-shaven young man with floppy chestnut-colored hair and long-lashed brown eyes?” drawled Sam Clemens. “The one dancing with Mrs. De Baskerville?”

  “His name is Con Mason,” said Clement T. Rice, through a mouthful of cake. “He arrived in town last week. Been hanging around the Legislature. Probably hoping to get himself a Toll Road Franchise like everybody else in the Territory.”

  “I believe I will try for one of them Toll Roads,” said Sam Clemens. “I might try for a dance with that widow, too.”

  “She is a fine-looking lady,” said Clement T. Rice. “But beware: they say she packs a pistol.”

  Sam Clemens pointed with his fork. “Lo and behold! Here comes Dr. Pugh with determination on his countenance and resolution in his step. I believe he is going to try to cut in. Let us see how he fares.”

  The dance had ended & gray-haired Dr. Pugh was bowing to Violetta & saying something to her. I guess he was asking for the next dance. But instead of saying yes, she gave her head a little shake and caught Mr. Chestnut Hair’s hand and pulled him to one side.

  “Shot down without mercy,” said the chubby reporter, dropping crumbs from a new piece of cake.

  Sometimes I can read people’s lips.

  I could see Violetta clearly so I watched her red mouth closely. I thought I saw her say, “Will you meet me tonight?”

  Mr. Con Mason nodded.

  She said something else I could not decipher because she was standing on tiptoe and whispering right in his ear.

  Mr. Con Mason’s cheeks grew bright pink.

  “Man is the only animal that blushes,” remarked Sam Clemens. “Or needs to.”

  At that moment I felt something scrabbling at my ankle.

  It was Sazerac, the silent lapdog! Attracted by the patter of cake crumbs he had come to investigate and thus discovered my hiding place.

  He was not entirely silent, for he was making that strange wheezy whining sound.

  “Sazzy!” I heard Dr. Pugh call over the music. “Sazzy, where you got to?”

  “Skedaddle!” I hissed to Sazzy. “Git!”

  But Sazzy did not skedaddle. Suddenly I realized what Sazzy wanted. I always keep maple sugar in one of my pockets and beef jerky in the other, in case I am overtaken by hunger.

  The lapdog must have smelled the jerky. I reached into my pocket & fished around in there & found a piece of jerky & dropped it on the floor.

  Sazzy settled down happily to chew it.

  “Not right there,” I hissed, giving the dog a nudge with my toe. “Somewhere else. Vamoose!”

  “That is a mighty strange dog,” came the voice of Sam Clemens from the other side of the curtain, “with his silent bark and immodest tail. I have heard he is addicted to fleas.”

  “You were misinformed,” said the other. “They do not make fleas at this altitude.”

  “What has he found behind that curtain?” drawled Sam Clemens.

  “Perhaps it is a rat,” offered Clement T. Rice.

  “Looks like something bigger,”
said Clemens.

  “Shall we investigate?” said Rice.

  “Sazzy!” cried Dr. Pugh.

  “Here, sir!” cried the reporters in unison.

  They were all coming straight for me!

  I started edging towards the door but Sazzy wanted more jerky and had commenced tugging my trowser cuff. I reckon he thought it was a jolly game, but when the whole curtain fell down around us it was no joke.

  The music screeched to a halt and everybody started yelling.

  That lapdog had flushed me out of my hiding place. Using the curtain as a cover, I ran along the wall and out the back door. Then, shedding the heavy curtain, I fled down the stairs and into the night and back to the safety of my boardinghouse.

  That was a shame, because the next day I found out that Con Mason with the floppy chestnut hair had been shot and killed later that night.

  “HOW DO YOU TELL if a woman is Playing a man False?” I asked Mrs. Murphy the next morning when she brought me my breakfast tray at 9 a.m. (I was thinking about Violetta’s behavior. I had not yet learned of the bloody murder.)

  She put the tray on the table. “Good morning to you, too, P.K.,” she said. “Well now, to answer your question: there are a few ways of telling if a gal is genuinely taken with a fellow.”

  “How?” I asked through a mouthful of eggs.

  She perched on my bed.

  “You promised to tell me about the wedding,” she said. “I want to know who was wearing what.”

  “I am eating,” I said, taking a forkful of beans. “You go first.”

  “Well then, in my experience there are things a woman does without realizing it. For example, I have found that if a woman likes a fellow she will open her eyes wide and smile and hold his gaze and sometimes tilt her head to one side.”

  I put down my fork & pulled out my pencil. This was just what I needed. I opened my Detective Notebook and began to make notes.

  “Sometimes while a fellow is talking,” said Mrs. Murphy, “a woman will touch her own hair or stroke her cheek, without even realizing she is doing it. And if she lightly pats his arm then she is well disposed towards him. Some women will make their eyelashes flutter and then look up at the fellow through them. But he’d better watch out if she crosses her arms or narrows her eyes or turns away.”

  I nodded. This was good. Jace had not yet taught me about tilting the head to one side nor the touching nor the flapping eyelashes neither, for he & I had only got as far as torsos.

  “Does that help?” she asked.

  I crunched a piece of bacon. “Yes, that is bully. And what does it mean if she kisses him in public?”

  I was pretty sure I knew the answer would be “She is Playing her Man False” and was therefore surprised when Mrs. Murphy said, “That means she wants something from him. Or that she is a Soiled Dove. Or both. Now, tell me who was wearing what.”

  I said, “Mr. Sam Clemens and his friend Mr. Rice were both wearing boiled shirts with paper collars. Also dark trowsers and frock coats. I think Mr. Clemens had a gray cravat—”

  “Not the men, for the love of God!” she cried. “The women! What were the women wearing, at all?”

  I said, “Oh. Well, the bride was dressed in puffy white with a passel of orange blossoms and lacy veils—”

  “Don’t say ‘white’!” she cried. “Are you not a Detective? Then be precise! Was it Cream? Ecru? Champagne? Oyster? Sure, and there are a dozen shades of white!”

  I had never thought about this before, but I guessed she was right. Detectives do have to be precise.

  I said, “I reckon it was closest to chalk white.”

  “Oh, pshaw!” she said. “What about the other ladies?”

  I said, “Mrs. Violetta De Baskerville was wearing a puffy dress of reddish purple with her shoulders showing.”

  “Oh, P.K.” Mrs. Murphy put her hands on her hips. “You cannot just call dresses ‘puffy.’ And ‘reddish purple’ is either Solferino or Magenta.”

  “Those sound like battles, not dresses,” I said.

  “They are battles,” she said. “But they are also the latest colors.”

  Mrs. Murphy reached into her apron pocket and pulled out the morning paper. “Look! Here is an account of a big society do in San Francisco last week,” she said. “Tell it to me like that!”

  I studied the paragraph her finger was pointing to:

  This season foulards of plain colors seem to be preferred: cream color, Solferino, Magenta, strawberry, violet, etc. The camails are ornamented with bands of guipure, and macarons of black gimp, terminating with chenille fringe; others are with bugles and chenille.

  I stared at her. “This seems to be about camels and cookies and bugles, but I do not understand French.”

  She sighed and reached for the newspaper.

  I held on. I had been scanning it for a report of a spy behind the curtain at the Curry wedding the night before, when I saw a more shocking story on the front page.

  “Wait!” I cried, as she tugged the paper.

  “What?” she said. “What is it?”

  “Murder,” I said. “Bloody murder.”

  “Oh, pshaw!” she said. “That ain’t news. We are always having them.”

  I held fast to the paper. This is what I read:

  MURDER IN CARSON!

  The good people of Carson are enjoying the sensation of a first class murder, which came off here about one o’clock this morning. A full-grown, cold-blooded murder, with thrilling accompaniments, had not happened right here in Carson for upward of a fortnight previously. Consequently this affair has all the charm of novelty! The victim was a young man by the name of Con Mason. The murderer is—nobody knows who for a certainty, and probably the law never will ascertain.

  I looked up at Mrs. Murphy. “The murdered man was at the wedding last night!” I cried. “He was kissing Mrs. Violetta De Baskerville. And I am almost positive she asked him to meet her after!”

  I FELT BOTH SICK & excited as I continued to read the front page column about the bloody murder of Con Mason, the man who had been kissing Violetta at the wedding:

  About one o’clock this morning a pistol shot was fired in the street. A few minutes later a man came into the Ormsby House and stated that he had just stumbled over a body three or four squares west. He said he found a well-dressed, youngish-looking man lying stiff and stark on his back, his hat on his breast, his chestnut hair dabbling in a large pool of blood, and his glazed eyes staring upward at the stars of heaven. He was lying in front of a small wooden house with “to let” on the door, and a porch which may have afforded concealment to the lurking assassin. There was a round hole under his left ear, and a corresponding hole nearly opposite under the right ear, which probably marked the passage of the leaden messenger of death into and out of his head.

  At first I did not understand the last sentence. But then I realized that a “leaden messenger of death” was reporter-talk for a Bullet.

  I thought, “Violetta was sparking the murdered man at the wedding last night.”

  Then I thought, “She asked him to meet her later.”

  And finally, “Was the ‘leaden messenger of death’ a bullet from her Bosom Deringer?”

  “I think I know who might have killed him!” I cried.

  I dropped the newspaper, left my eggs & bacon & beans, and ran out of my room past an openmouthed Mrs. Murphy. Now, I had got in the habit of taking Cheeya for early morning rides before breakfast, so I was wearing no disguise at all but just my comfortable buckskin trowsers, moccasins, blue woolen coat & feathered slouch hat.

  I found the scene of the crime four blocks west of the Ormsby House Hotel. People were milling about, so I loitered behind a cottonwood tree & surveyed the scene from there. It was just as the newspaper article had described: a small wooden house with “to let” on the door & a porc
h. The people were clustered around a spot right on the path in front of that porch.

  Ma Evangeline had once read me a Dime Novel in which a Detective claimed that a criminal always returns to the scene of the crime like a dog to his vomit, in accordance with Proverbs 26 and verse 11.

  I searched the crowd, looking for Violetta.

  She was not there.

  However, I did see several legislators known to me, viz: Six-Shooter Luther, Sabbath Pray, Monkey Van Bokkelen and Firewood Winters.

  Lapdog Pugh was there, too, with his dog, Sazerac. The critter might have sought me out again and exposed me, but Lucifer, the monkey, started tormenting him and they were too busy feuding to notice a half-Indian kid lurking behind a tree.

  Presently someone said, “We’d best get going, boys, or the Sergeant at Arms will tan our hides.”

  “Is that where it happened?” said a girl’s voice behind me.

  I jumped, but it was only Miss Carrie Pixley.

  “What are you doing here?” I said.

  “I live just there.” She pointed. “I heard a bang last night and woke up and almost went to see what made it. But my bed was warm so I just went back to sleep. If I had looked out of my window I might have seen the killer.”

  “I wish you had,” I said.

  “Me, too,” said Carrie with a shudder. Then she said in a small voice, “P.K., why do people kill other people?”

  I said, “JAG.”

  “Beg pardon?”

  “Jealousy, Anger & Greed,” I explained. “And sometimes the desire to be an actor,” I added, recalling my last case.

  The legislators had dispersed and there was only a woman and her two children staring at something on the path leading up to the house. I left the shelter of my tree & started towards them.

  “Where are you going?” asked Carrie.

  “One of the jobs of a Detective,” I said, “is to look for clews.”

  Carrie followed me down the path leading to the porch. It was made of crushed oyster shells. When the woman heard us crunching up the path she looked over her shoulder, then grasped the hands of her children and went quickly away. I guess she did not mind bloodstains as much as she minded a half-Indian kid. Her departure revealed a large patch of reddish brown on the crushed oyster shells. Beside me, Carrie gasped & covered the base of her throat with her fingers. “Is that . . . ?”