by Paul Colt
“Samantha Maples.” She extended her hand.
Still it took a moment to register. “Agent Maples?”
She smiled with anticipated amusement. “You were expecting someone else?”
“Why, ah, I mean.”
“Don’t be. It happens all the time. Mr. Pinkerton thinks it a disarming advantage.”
“Disarming, I see, quite so.”
“I expect that gentleman seated near the vault is the cashier. Come along.”
He fell in step beside her still trying to make sense of his new partner.
“Mr. Pierpont?”
He looked puzzled. “Yes.”
“Samantha Maples, Pinkerton Agency, this is my associate, Reginald Kingsley. We’ve come about the Texas & Pacific bond you accepted. We are retained by Texas & Pacific to investigate the matter. May we have a few moments of your time?”
“Why, ah.” He cut his eyes to Kingsley as if the man might provide some sense to what he’d just heard.
“It shouldn’t take long,” Kingsley said.
“Please, have a seat.”
She arranged her skirts, opened her handbag, and drew out a pad and pencil. Kingsley noted a pearl-handled revolver in the bag. Remarkable, and no doubt she knows how to use it.
“Now, Mr. Pierpont, can you tell us what happened?”
“Certainly.”
The man had regained his composure.
“But first may I ask how you know my name? We made no report to Pinkerton.”
“You sign the bank statements as cashier. Now, about the bond.”
“As I told Mr. Longstreet and his associate Mr. Cane, the bond was used to secure a letter of credit for a woman calling herself Cecile St. James.”
“Longstreet? That name is familiar.”
“Formerly one of ours,” Kingsley said. “He’s recently gone over to the Great Western Detective League. Cane is one of theirs.”
Samantha bit a thoughtful lip. “I’m not familiar with that organization.”
“The bank has retained Colonel Crook’s organization to help recover our loss,” Pierpont said.
“Then perhaps we shall have some help?”
“Not exactly, it takes some explaining,” Kingsley said.
“Continue, Mr. Pierpont.”
An hour later they left the bank for the stroll back to the depot hotel.
“I say, what do you make of all that?” Kingsley said.
“It’s the opening act to the play.”
“Opening act? I’ve been given to understand the first bond was presented in Chicago.”
“Not related to this play.”
“What do you mean?”
“The Chicago bond was redeemed by an amateur opportunist, the son of an engraver who was murdered. He found the bond following his father’s death. We believe the engraver was holding out on whoever paid him to forge the bonds. Whoever that is killed him to cover their tracks. What we have here is the passing of the perpetrator’s first bond.”
“So you believe there will be others.”
“Almost certainly. Creating the plate for a decent counterfeit is an arduous and expensive task. Why would anyone go to that kind of trouble and stop at one impression? No, there will be more. The pertinent questions are where and when?”
“Well, it is plain we don’t have much to go on. Thousands of women could fit the description Pierpont gave us.”
“I’m afraid we’ll have to wait until we get another report to give our search some direction.”
“Quite so,” Kingsley said.
“I intend to wait here. With access to the railroad, chances are I’ll be in position to move quickly the next time a bond is cashed. There’s no point to you twiddling your thumbs here.”
“No, I think not. I shall return to Denver on the morning stage.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Rawlins
The westbound train slowly rolled into the station, spewing clouds of steam and throaty whistle tones. Outside the streaked window glass, a dusty frontier tapestry scrolled by. The town appeared to be little more than one street stretched along the tracks across from the depot. She could easily pick out the small hotel from her seat. She’d meet her employer’s rat-faced man there and be done with this dump in a day or two at the worst. The train lurched to a stop, hissing steam and squealing brakes. She collected her traveling case and started up the coach aisle for the door.
The smell assaulted her senses as she stepped down to the platform. What on earth? A mocking chorus bleated response to the question. Sheep, lots of them, filled the air with dust and noise and unbearable stench. She clutched a lace handkerchief to her nose, glanced across the tracks to the stock pens, and hurried off in the opposite direction toward town. She reached the small hotel lobby to the horrifying realization. She’d been followed by fragrance Eau de ewe.
She coughed into her handkerchief.
“May I be of assistance?”
The desk clerk eyed her with something more than mild interest. She’d become used to having an ogling effect on men. This one had slick dark hair parted in the middle, a waxed mustache, and leering gaze that exposed carnal interest. The prospect repulsed her imagination, near matching her disgust at the sheep stench. The oily voyeur could be brushed aside or toyed with at her pleasure. The sheep smell could not.
“Does one ever get used to it?”
“Used to it? Ah, you mean the sweet scent of prosperity? One adapts. Now, how may I help you Miss . . . ?”
“Cecile, Cecile Carroll. I shall need a room.”
“And how long will you be staying with us, Miss Carroll? It is Miss Carroll, isn’t it?”
“It is and to be blunt, no longer than necessary.”
“Pity. That will be a dollar a night.”
She passed a dollar across the counter and signed the guest register. “I should like to leave a message for a Señor Escobar who may be checking in later.”
“He has already arrived. I can deliver your message to him.”
“Thank you.” She scratched a note. Meet in the lobby for supper at six.
She found Escobar waiting in the lobby. The man had a menace about him she found uncomfortable. Uncomfortable as it may be, she could overlook it given the money she stood to make for a few weeks suffering an association with him. He nodded an unspoken greeting. She led the way out to the boardwalk.
“There’s a café down the street. I doubt there are many to choose from in this town.”
He nodded.
The Ram’s Head Café was small. The smell of freshly baked bread mercifully muted the less than pleasant street odor. She chose a corner table far enough away from the only other diners that they might have a quiet conversation. She withdrew the Laramie Cattleman’s Bank letter of credit from her handbag and passed it across the table. Escobar placed it in his coat pocket without looking.
“I take it you had no difficulty,” he said.
She shook her head.
A harried waiter approached the table. “May I take your order?”
“Do you have a special?” she asked.
“Mutton.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Of course. Anything else?”
“Fried chicken.”
“I’ll have that.”
“I’ll have the mutton,” Escobar said.
The waiter went off.
“You will obtain another letter tomorrow?”
“Yes. I’m out of this disgusting town on the next train after that.”
“Sí. I will meet you in Green River the day after tomorrow. How long will it be before the authorities know of our activities?”
She shrugged. “They may know by now. If not, they soon will. The important thing is to keep moving.”
The waiter arrived with two steaming plates.
Escobar wolfed at his.
Cecile picked at hers.
The pocked man pointed his fork, “How is the chicken?”
“Tastes like mutton.”
The Herd
er’s Bank of Rawlins was small and sleepy. It had its share of sweet scent, but without much prosperity to go with it. The waxy thin banker with slicked back hair looked as though he might have been equally comfortable serving as an undertaker or dealing faro. She disarmed him with a smile, dazzled him with a bond, and caught the afternoon train west with a letter of credit in hand.
U.P. Hotel
Cheyenne
The dark-haired woman with the catch-your-eye figure floated across the lobby. Longstreet didn’t hesitate. He managed to casually meet her at the dining room entry. He paused with a slight bow.
“After you, ma’am.”
“Why thank you, sir. There is something chivalrous about a southern gentleman.”
“Beauregard Longstreet at your service.”
“Ah, Mr. Longstreet, I heard you were in town.”
“You heard I was in town? Who would have told you such a thing? I’ve only recently arrived and scarcely knew it myself.”
She smiled an even white sparkle. “Reginald Kingsley.”
“His Lordship is here?”
“His Lordship?”
“Private joke.” He looked about the lobby. “Is he here?”
“He left.”
“Are you Pinkerton?”
“I am. Samantha Maples.” She extended her hand.
Longstreet accepted it. “I was about to have a bite of supper, would you care to join me?”
She looked him up and down with an amused half smile. “Why, yes, I believe I should enjoy that.”
A waiter in a starched jacket led them to a candlelit corner table set in linen, china, crystal, and silver. Longstreet made a show of holding her chair.
“May I bring you something to drink?”
A flicker of mischief crossed her eye. “I believe I shall have a sherry.”
“And you, sir?”
He knit his brow and thought about a whiskey. “I’ll have one too.”
“Kingsley tells me you were once one of us, Mr. Longstreet.”
“I was. Please call me Beau, all my friends do.”
“I’m sure they do. Very well then, Beau, you must call me Sam. Only my best friends call me that. I enjoy the social ruffle it causes the prim and proper.”
The waiter returned with their drinks.
Longstreet lifted his glass, “To social ruffle, then.”
She laughed a throaty laugh and returned his toast.
“And what may I offer you this evening?” the waiter asked.
“I believe I’ll have a steak,” Samantha said.
“Make that two.”
The waiter bustled off to the kitchen.
“So you left the Pinkerton Agency for some detective league or other as Kingsley tells it. Why?”
“Money. What’s more interesting than that is how you came to be a Pinkerton.”
“Well, I suppose that was money too, after a fashion. I came west from Boston. Got as far as Chicago and decided I needed a job. By chance I met William Pinkerton. He suggested I apply at his agency.”
“Did you have experience as an investigator?”
“Heavens no, women are not common in this business or hadn’t you noticed?”
“I had. That’s why I asked. So old Pinkerton saw some potential in you?”
She struck that mischievous pose again. “I suppose he did. Men sometimes do.”
“I’m sure they do.”
She smiled. “Some of them are criminal. William saw advantages to a woman operative. Some criminals are women, take the case at hand for example. I doubt the lady with the bogus bonds anticipates being pursued by a woman. Societal expectations can be useful in that regard, don’t you think?”
“It would seem so. My own are a bit wobbly at the moment.”
“Good,” she said with a mysterious twinkle in her eye.
Longstreet couldn’t tell disarmed from undressed. Well, of course he could; it’s just, at the moment, he felt a bit of both.
The waiter arrived with the steaks.
By the time they finished dessert and a nightcap in the lounge, they’d tippled enough sherry to make the climb upstairs something less than steady. Ever the gentleman, Longstreet steadied Samantha’s arm to her door. She fumbled in her purse for the key. She concentrated on the lock. Longstreet guided her hand. The key found its way home. The door clicked open. She turned, flushing dreamy eyes to her escort.
“Thank you, Beau. It was a lovely evening.”
He bent to her upturned lips. Soft and sweet flashed white light.
She grasped him by the lapels and dragged him into the darkened room. The door clicked closed.
A message slipped under the door went unnoticed in the flurry.
She awoke to the distant sound of a train whistle. Gray morning light filtered through lace curtains. Beau slept undisturbed beside her. Her head felt a bit fuzzy. She reckoned it a small price for the pleasant echoes of all that came with it. She lifted the sheet in recollection, magnificent, truly magnificent. She glanced around the room at the discarded reminders of the rush. The message caught her eye. She slipped out of bed, careful not to wake him, and padded across the room. She picked up the envelope and read.
Texas & Pacific reports a bond redeemed
Cattleman’s Bank, Laramie.
—Kingsley
She glanced at Longstreet. Pity. She bent to gather her clothes.
Daylight intruded on his private reserve of fatigue and fog. He pushed it aside in favor of more pleasant reflections. Then it dawned. She was gone. He sat up. So were her bag and clothes. She was gone all right. Where?
Shady Grove
The colonel’s head nodded. I shook a writer’s cramp out of my hand and closed my notebook. We’d covered rather a lot of ground already this week.
His head bobbed. “Sorry about that, Robert. I may have dozed off there for a moment. Now, then, where were we?”
“Longstreet and Samantha Maples had just gotten, ah, acquainted.”
He smiled. “One of Longstreet’s many talents. I quite admired him for that.”
“He does seem to have women fall into his arms at the drop of a hat.”
“Unlike you, my young friend, who must be pushed by my more assertive nature.”
“Unlike Longstreet, I’m more than content with my lot in that respect.”
“Lot is it? I shouldn’t let her hear you refer to her in such plebian terms.”
“What plebian terms?” Penny said.
She couldn’t have arrived at a more inopportune moment.
“The colonel and I were discussing Longstreet’s proclivity for attracting women and I was telling him how happy I am.”
She lifted a brow that seemed to question the veracity of my explanation. “And those are plebian terms?”
“I didn’t think so.”
“And you, Colonel, what did you find plebian in them?”
He held up a hand in protest. “Most likely a poor choice of words on my part. I thought he might have been more extravagant in singing your praise is all I meant to say.”
“Really? I shouldn’t have thought you’d admit to a foible like a poor choice of words.”
“It must be time for my nap. Until next week then, Robert, enjoy your lot in life.”
She knit her brow, puzzled, and pushed him off down the hall.
I’d have to explain it all later. It was only a question of how.
CHAPTER NINE
Laramie
Edwin Sinclair’s fat fingers trembled as he stared at the wire from the Salmon Chase Bank of New York. Counterfeit? He’d placed one hundred thousand dollars of bank funds at risk on a counterfeit bond. A loss that size could put the bank at risk. How could he have been taken in so easily? A Texas & Pacific Railroad bond was as good as gold. In this case clearly it was not. He’d never thought to question it. He couldn’t bring himself to admit he’d been charmed. He remembered the classically beautiful woman with the cultured manners and a come-hither flicker in her ey
e. He fancied he’d imagined that at the time. The look was come-hither all right but not for the purpose he might have imagined. Now what? He had no idea. He could report it to Sheriff Bisbee, but what could he do? The woman was obviously long gone. Still the loss must be reported. Whatever measures might be taken must be taken. He rose from his desk and crossed the lobby to the head teller’s cage.
“I’m going to see the sheriff, Mable. I should be back before closing.”
She nodded a look of concern. “Is everything all right, sir?”
“Fine, everything’s fine.”
She watched him go. Fine seldom necessitated a visit to the sheriff.
Laramie Sheriff Trent Bisbee sensed alarm the moment Edwin Sinclair entered the office.
“Is everything all right, Ed? You look as though the bank has been robbed.”
“I suppose it has, after a fashion.”
“What?”
“Here, read this.” He handed the telegram across the sheriff’s cluttered desk and collapsed into a barrel-backed side chair.
Counterfeit, the word leaped from the page. The sheriff shook his head. “Don’t tell me. The bond was in the amount of one hundred thousand dollars.”
The banker’s jaw dropped. “Why, yes, how did you know?”
“I received this just this morning.” He rummaged through a stack of dodgers on his desk to produce a telegram he handed to Sinclair.
The wire was an alert to Great Western Detective League members in regard to a counterfeit ring obtaining letters of credit secured by Texas & Pacific Railroad bonds.
“I was about to come by this afternoon to alert you to the problem.”
“Sadly it would have been weeks too late. The question is, what’s to be done now?”
“The Great Western Detective League is on the case. I shall report your loss to Colonel Crook. He will coordinate the investigation among other league members.”
“Great Western Detective League, what’s that?”
“It’s an association of law enforcement officers across the west that cooperate in solving cases that cross jurisdictions. Other losses from this ring have already been reported. That means there is a trail of sorts. Quite often the exchange of information among league members leads to the apprehension of criminals like these. What can you tell me about the person who gave you this bond?”