The Lost Mine Murders

by Sharon Rowse

  And it would give her an opportunity to find out more about Albin Pearson. Surely Mary Pearson would be able to answer at least some of the questions that were troubling her.

  Scott’s eyes moved past her. “I don’t see him.”

  “He has a carriage waiting.”

  He nodded, then quickly turned back to the train carriage when a soft voice called his name. Putting out a hand, he helped a young woman down the steps from one of the sleeping compartments.

  Emily’s eyes took in soft brown hair, slate blue eyes, a gentle smile and a very shapely figure. Mary Pearson met her look, then cast her eyes down and blushed slightly. Emily advanced towards her, hand outstretched.

  “How do you do? I am Emily Turner.”

  “Mary Pearson. And it’s very nice to meet you.”

  “She’s had a long journey. We should get her home.”

  Emily’s gaze flicked to Mr. Scott, narrowing as she saw the tenderness with which he regarded Mary’s bent head. Was he smitten? And so quickly?

  She held back a quick grin at the idea of the petite Mary and the very large Scott together.

  In the carriage, Emily turned to Mary, seated beside her. “You had a safe journey?”

  Another blush. “Yes, thanks to Mr. Scott,” she said, casting a look at him from under her lashes.

  Emily noted a second look cast in Granville’s direction. Was she playing up to both of them? And after Granville had been introduced as her own fiancé?

  Emily’s gaze sharpened. “And he told you what has been occurring? Your uncle’s arrest for the murders of Mr. Cole and Mr. Morgan?”

  Mary’s brow puckered and tears stood in her eyes. “Yes. I still can’t believe it.”

  “You knew nothing of the events leading up to his arrest?”

  “No. My uncle and I left for Seattle on the sixteenth, where he left me with relatives. I haven’t heard from him since.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Emily said, softening at the pain in the other woman’s eyes. Perhaps she’d misjudged that glance at Granville. “It must be very hard.”

  A nod, a delicate half-sniff and Mary’s lacy handkerchief came out.

  Mr. Scott looked like he wanted to gather Mary close and protect her from everything, Emily noted, wishing she didn’t need to ask her next questions. “Do you know why your uncle came back? He might never have been arrested if he’d stayed in Seattle.”

  “He has business dealings here. He and my father…” her voice broke, resumed. “They found gold in the Klondike. My father…”

  She stopped and looked down, hiding her eyes. “My father was a dreamer. He put much of his money into a gold map, dreaming of even greater riches. It is why he partnered with Mr. Cole. And he died for it.”

  Her voice quivered. “My uncle invested in property here. And he too will die here.”

  “Only if he is found guilty,” Emily said.

  Mary raised her damp eyes, met Emily’s look. “You think he might not be?”

  Scott seemed about to protest, then subsided.

  Emily said nothing for a moment, regarding Mary’s pale face thoughtfully and casting a glance at Granville, who was watching them with no expression at all on his usually expressive face.

  “I wonder if we know the full story of the deaths, especially that of Mr. Morgan,” she said carefully. “He sounds a most unpleasant man. I gather you knew him?”

  “Yes,” Mary said, and hesitated.

  “We’re here,” Mr. Scott broke in, as the carriage drew up in front of the shabby boarding house where the Pearsons lived.

  He sounded relieved, Emily thought. Did he have the sense of things unsaid hovering in the air that she had? Or was she being fanciful?

  “Will you stay for tea?” Mary asked with a wistful smile, gathering her dignity around her like a grand duchess entertaining the tenants.

  Over china cups and the ham and cress sandwiches provided by the landlady, Emily found it hard to turn the conversation back to the topic of murder. Mary was playing the gracious hostess, making sure the cups were filled and that Granville and Scott had a surfeit of sandwiches, but she wouldn’t meet Emily’s eyes.

  Emily watched Mary over her cup of tea. Was she as sweet as her expression and her cast down gaze suggested?

  Emily caught the occasional sideways glance, quickly veiled, that suggested there was more to Mary than she wanted to show. She was sure the other woman knew more about her uncle’s situation than she was letting on. But how to win her confidence?

  Emily cast a glance at Scott’s bemused expression. He wasn’t likely to interfere. Good.

  “Your father and your uncle must have been very close,” she began.

  Mary’s lashes swept down. “Yes. They were always together.”

  “Were you equally close to your uncle?”

  “I knew him well as a child, but not since. He and my father were always off chasing gold.”

  “Yet he seems to be willing to do much for you.”

  Again the sideways glance, a slight frown. “You mean the gold.”

  She did? Emily didn’t respond, just tried to make her expression encouraging. It seemed to work.

  “He’s told you then,” Mary said. “Yes, he intends to give everything to me. The investments, all of it.”

  “That’s very generous,” Emily said. “He must love you very much.”

  Mary’s smile was tinged with bitterness. “He loves my father’s memory that much. And he doesn’t expect to live. Nor does he want to, no matter what I say.”

  Mary’s face crumpled, and Scott sat nervously on the edge of his chair, looking like he wanted to leap to her aid. Granville, for all his polish, looked uncomfortable.

  Mary’s pain and the depth of her distress seemed genuine. “I’m very sorry,” Emily said.

  Mary put her handkerchief to her lips and waved an acknowledgement as she fought to regain her composure. “Now I have gold of my own. I don’t need his.” Her voice broke.

  Emily’s gaze flicked to Scott. Had he told her about the map and the mine? He looked confused, so perhaps not.

  Then how had the woman known?

  Her eyes narrowed slightly as a preposterous idea began to take shape. “Gold of your own?” she repeated.

  Mary nodded. “The map that was my father’s, as was the mine. More money than I ever dreamed of.”

  Emily’s eyes moved to Granville.

  Was he asking the same question she was? His head was slightly tilted as he watched Mary, but his look was pitying.

  How to ask the one thing she needed to know? “Were you able to spend much time with your father before he was killed?”

  “No.” A muffled sob. “He wanted to have enough money that we could live in style, first. I barely saw him when he returned from the Klondike—though he bought me this,” and her fingers clenched around a slim gold locket at her throat. “Then he was off after more gold.”

  Mary’s grief touched Emily, and she wished there were some way she could comfort her. Probably she’d been wrong to suspect her story. Feeling like an Inquisitor, she asked “Have you no-one else?”

  Mary shook her head. “My mother died when I was very young. My father and my uncle raised me.”

  “And the relatives in Seattle?”

  “Very distant; second cousins only. I’m afraid I wore out my welcome there. I was never so glad to see anyone as Mr. Scott when he arrived to escort me back.” She gave Scott a little smile, and he beamed.

  Ducking her head, Mary dabbed at her eyes. “I simply wish he hadn’t come with such dreadful news.”

  Emily sipped her tea, hiding her thoughts behind the polite ritual of the afternoon call. Even if it was morning. “You didn’t grow up here, then?”

  “No, I was raised just outside Denver.”

  “Oh, before I forget. Mrs. Raynor sends her best regards.”

  A look of surprise, hastily veiled. “Thank you. She’s a lovely woman.”

  “And very fond of you.
You worked for her for nearly four years, I believe? Was it your first position in the area?”

  Mary nodded. “More tea?”

  “Thank you.”

  Mary busied herself pouring tea for all of them, and passing out the tea biscuits that the landlady had brought them. “Yes, we left Denver when word of the Klondike rush got out. I came as far north as Vancouver and waited for them here.”

  Emily noted a sudden alertness in Granville’s gaze. What had Mary said? “It must have been difficult, growing up without a mother, just you and two men.”

  “It is not very ladylike of me, but I adored it.”

  “Did you not feel unsafe?”

  Mary leaned closer, gave her a conspiratorial smile. “I dressed as a boy much of the time. And my uncle taught me to shoot.”

  “Oh, how very brave of you. I’ve never even held a gun.”

  “Living here? You should learn to shoot; every woman should.”

  “Perhaps I’ll ask you to give me lessons, then.”

  “I’m not very good, I’m afraid. But just the sight of a woman brandishing a firearm is enough to put fear into most men.” And she smiled directly at Emily, merriment dancing in her eyes.

  Emily smiled back as laughter broke the tension in the small room. Granville and Scott relaxed and reached for biscuits as Mary poured more tea.

  It was well done of her, Emily thought, watching her downcast face and capable hands. “I’ll ask my fiancé to teach me, then,” she said, with a nod and a smile to Granville.

  “You don’t need to learn,” he said quickly.

  Emily wondered if the masculine arrogance in his voice was real, and hoped it wasn’t. Giving a little shrug, she shook her head at him and exchanged a wry smile with Mary Pearson.

  “When does Mr. Pearson go to trial?” she asked Granville.

  “The indictment hearing is Thursday, the trial should be the following week,” he said, ignoring Scott’s instinctive protest.

  Mary Pearson sucked in a quick breath. “So soon?”

  “Yes.”

  “We know a good barrister,” Scott said quickly. “Don’t worry—Randall will defend your uncle.”

  “He should be able to get him a lighter sentence, since your uncle didn’t actually shoot our client,” Granville said. “There were others hired to do that, and none of them survived the avalanche.”

  She hadn’t known that. Emily glanced at his face, but couldn’t read his expression. His eyes met hers, and softened. She gave him a tiny nod. “You’ve been talking to the police from New West?”

  “Yes. They haven’t found the bodies, but they’ve confirmed four men are missing from Port Hammond. Two are brothers of your Mr. Riggs, the third is a nephew and the fourth often works for them.”

  She was momentarily distracted. “So that explains how Andy Riggs knew about the ambush.”

  “Yes. Pearson hired them, but it could be argued that he only hired them to get the map back.”

  “Doesn’t lessen the fact that we were shot at, nearly killed,” Scott said.

  “The hirelings got greedy and thought to kill us so we couldn’t talk, then steal the map and double cross their employer. Pearson.”

  Emily nodded, her brain connecting previously unrelated pieces. It was possible. “If he didn’t intend murder, he won’t be hung.”

  Mary’s eyes were huge and filled with tears as they darted from one to the other. “But what about Mr. Morgan?”

  “He wasn’t a nice man,” Emily said. “I believe him to be a blackmailer, and perhaps worse. Perhaps he was shot in self-defense?”

  “Which is legal here,” Scott put in.

  A light had begun to glow behind Mary’s eyes. “How good is your lawyer?” she asked.

  “Josiah Randall is very good indeed,” Granville said.

  “I must speak with him,” Mary said.

  FORTY-THREE

  Tuesday, January 30, 1900

  “She’s gone,” Granville said as he joined her in the elaborate front room in her father’s house.

  Emily hadn’t heard him come in. Her stomach tightened. She looked up from her study of the World. “Mary?”

  “Yes. You knew she’d run, did you not?”

  “I suspected it. Once I realized she had to be the one who killed Morgan, not her uncle.”

  And Emily was glad of it. She didn’t want to see a woman hang, and she suspected having Mary Pearson in a Vancouver prison would be more trouble than any of them were ready for.

  “How did you guess it was she who had hired Riggs and shot Morgan?” he asked.

  “I didn’t, not at first. But I liked her uncle, and something just felt wrong. Then she said he’d taught her to shoot.

  “And that she’d been raised as a boy.”

  “Yes,” Emily said. “I began to see what could have happened. When did you suspect?”

  “About the same time, though I’d felt all along Pearson surrendered too easily. There was no reason for him to come back to Vancouver. We’d never have found him in the States.”

  “Will they find her?”

  He shook his head. “They won’t look. She’s left a signed statement with Randall saying she shot Morgan in self-defense. Hiring Riggs and company to commit a robbery that failed isn’t sufficient reason to send men after her.”

  “What about the death of your client?”

  “Cole? She says she hired Riggs and company only to steal the map, which belonged to her in any case. The men who shot at us and set off the avalanche went too far. And there is no-one left alive to dispute her claim.”

  “Do you believe her?”

  One eyebrow lifted and the little laugh lines appeared beside his eyes. “Someone tried to kill us in Denver. An exceptional marksman; if I hadn’t ducked, I’d be standing here dead.”

  “That isn’t funny. And you didn’t tell me that!”

  “I didn’t want to worry you.”

  She shook her head at him. “I begin to think it a good thing I’m not really going to marry you.”

  “I think we should discuss the matter further.”

  She slid a glance at him. He was grinning at her.

  “Perhaps,” she said, and smiled back. “So tell me, which of them was it?”

  “I would guess Mary. I think she was determined to avenge her father.”

  It didn’t surprise her he was willing to believe a woman could be a crack shot, though Emily rather thought Mary’s motive might have been rather more self-interested. “So what stopped her? I mean, it sounds as if she didn’t keep shooting?”

  “No, it was only the one incident, on our second day there. And I’m not sure what stopped her. It was either because she found out we meant to give her the map, or she found out we were looking for little Sarah. I’m inclined to believe the latter. She had just lost her father, and she seems softhearted enough to care about the plight of another fatherless child. It also seems to be what she told her uncle.”

  Again Emily wasn’t so sure about the purity of Mary’s motives, but she saw no need to tell Granville that. It was like him to believe the best of a woman.

  “How is Mr. Scott taking it?” she asked instead.

  “He’s not talking much.”

  Emily nodded. It would take him time to get over it, though she doubted he’d really known Mary at all. The facade of the quiet, demure miss seemed to be something she could assume at will. It had probably stood her in good stead in her years with Mrs. Raynor, judging by that lady’s high regard for her former maid.

  Emily doubted Mrs. Raynor had ever seen the side of Mary that was a crack shot and comfortable hiring killers. “And what of the mine?”

  “Scott and I discussed it. It’s not right that Mary profit from Cole’s murder, any more than Cole had the right to profit from Jim Pearson’s.”

  “I begin to think the shaman was right,” Emily said. “That mine is cursed, or at least unlucky.”

  He laughed. “Perhaps it is. There’ve been too ma
ny deaths already, and those are just the ones we know of.”

  “So what will you do about it?”

  “It’s done—we’ve burnt the map. The gold from the cache can be our payment; Cole owed us that.”

  “And you’ll just forget about the mine?”

  He shook his head. “No-one can just forget a mine that rich. But it rightfully belongs to Pearson’s heir—Mary. Since she can’t collect on it, the gold can stay in the ground for another thousand years until someone else discovers it.”

  “What if James Pearson stole it from someone else first?”

  “It’s possible, though his brother says James invested his own take from the Klondike. It doesn’t change anything—without the map, Mary won’t get near the mine.”

  “Can you really ignore all that gold?”

  He shrugged. “The cache was a rich one—enough to set us up for some time.”

  “But you went to the Klondike to find your fortune. Now you have, and you’re letting it go?”

  “It isn’t mine. And too much gold can create more problems than it solves. I learned that in the Klondike, if nothing else.”

  It was like him to value justice over gold. She studied his face. “What would you have done if you’d found gold there? In the Klondike, I mean.”

  “Gone back to England, bought land, flaunted my success in my brother’s face.” He grinned. “I prefer the life I’ve found here.”

  “Won’t others still be after you, thinking you have the map?”

  “That’s why we burnt it, with Benton and Frances as witnesses.”

  “Brilliant. They’ll get the word out, in order to protect both of you.”

  “Well, Frances to protect Scott, and Benton to please her. But enough of that—I think we should be discussing our own nuptials.”

  “Our supposed nuptials, do you mean?”

  “Exactly. We need to determine a date,” he said, and reached into the pocket of his waistcoat, drawing out a small velvet box. “And for veracity, you really should have one of these.”

  “Oh, Granville,” Emily said, gazing at a beautifully set emerald, flanked with diamonds.

  “It reminded me of you,” he said, placing it gently on her finger. “Do you like it?”