by Nerys Leigh
Ben walked over to the drag marks and studied them for a few moments. “You’re right. I hadn’t noticed that. Your observational skills are very good.” He smiled. “At least, where everything except how men see you is concerned.”
Heaving an exaggerated sigh, she waved him away. Although she was thrilled at his praise. She wanted to show him she could be useful.
Something caught her eye. She walked over to the end of the canvas and crouched to examine a group of three small piles of dried earth on the floor. “This is strange.”
Ben walked over to her. “What’s strange?”
She circled one finger around the area of floor. “See these piles of dirt?”
“There’s dirt everywhere,” he pointed out. “They clean the bones here.”
“I know, but someone picked this dirt up again. See the marks where fingers have scraped it up?”
He leaned down to study the scattered remains of the tiny mounds. “It doesn’t look like they tried to clean it up so much as pick it up.”
“Why would anyone want to replace dirt they’ve just cleaned off?”
“Good question.” He straightened and offered her his hand. “I don’t know what this means, but I would have missed it. In fact, I think pretty much everyone would have missed it. How’d you get so good at this?”
She took his hand and rose to her feet. “I’ve always noticed details. It just comes naturally to me.” She didn’t add that it had likely developed as a way to protect herself growing up. She didn’t want him to look on her with pity.
“Well, I’m impressed. Anything else you’ve noticed that I haven’t?”
She took a final look around the tent, very aware that he hadn’t yet released her hand. “No, that’s all.” At least, she was fairly sure it was. His fingers wrapped around hers were proving somewhat distracting.
“Good. Let’s go find Hall for that guard duty roster, and then we can have lunch.”
They found Mr. Hall in his tent, which doubled as his office.
He looked up from the paperwork on his table, which doubled as his desk. “Yes? Do you have any news?”
“Not yet,” Ben said. “We’ve been told you hold the roster for guarding the tent where the bones are kept. We’d like to know who was on duty the night the skull was taken.”
Mr. Hall waved a hand to dismiss them, lowering his eyes back to the papers. “I’ve already questioned him. He was no help.”
Ben took a step towards him, his voice taking on an edge. “We’d like to know anyway. You did say we could come to you for help when we needed to.”
Was it silly to feel a shiver in one’s chest when one’s husband asserted himself?
A flash of irritation darkened Mr. Hall’s face before he covered it with a false smile. “It was Cyrus Small, but I promise you that questioning him again will just be a waste of time.”
“Thank you.”
Ben ushered her from the tent.
“Do you get the feeling he doesn’t want us to investigate?” he said, once they were out of earshot.
“Do you think Mr. Hall stole the skull?”
“It’s possible. We’ll see what Small has to say. He should be at lunch. We’ll speak to him afterwards. You should question him.”
She stared up at him, startled. “Me? Why?”
“It’ll be good practice. And he’ll tell us more if it’s you.” He smiled. “He likes you.”
She sighed and shook her head in mock despair. “Again this ridiculous notion that any interest anyone shows in me is anything other than because I’m an anomaly in a place full of men.”
Chuckling, he slipped his arm around her waist and tugged her against his side. “One day you’re going to realize that you are a very attractive woman, and I hope I’m there to see it. If only so I can say I told you so.”
She shook her head and looked down, so he wouldn’t see her blush betraying her again.
First carrying her over the river and now this.
If she made it through the day without falling hopelessly in love with her husband, it would be a miracle.
Chapter Eight
At lunch, Cyrus Small again made a point of sitting close to Kitty.
Ben told himself that was a good thing and Small would be more forthcoming when Kitty questioned him, but he still couldn’t help feeling annoyed at the man. Kitty was his. You didn’t flirt with another man’s woman.
Much as he didn’t want to, when Small pushed his chair back from the table, Ben nodded to Kitty.
Looking a little nervous, she blurted out, “Would you mind if I spoke to you in private?”
Not exactly smooth, but at least she’d done it. He was proud of her for that.
Small cast a glance at Ben before smiling at Kitty. “I don’t mind at all.”
Ben swallowed the urge to punch him.
As the two of them headed outside, Ben followed at a discrete distance. Although if Small tried anything, that distance would fast become less discrete and more close up and violent.
When the two of them stopped a little way from the trickle of people leaving the tent, Ben found a place where he could watch and hear their conversation without being seen.
“How may I help you?” Small asked.
“Mr. Hall said that you were on guard duty the night the skull was taken,” Kitty replied.
Small suddenly looked awkward. “That’s true.”
“So did you see it taken?”
“No. The truth is, I, um…” He cleared his throat. “I fell asleep.”
“Oh.” She thought for a moment. “For how long?”
“A few hours.” He frowned. “Strangest thing it was. I’ve done guard duty plenty of times and had no trouble staying awake all night, but I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I sat down to rest my feet and the next thing I knew, I was waking up on the ground. Didn’t even remember lying down. Had the worst headache too. I figure I must’ve been ill.”
A headache alone might have indicated illness, but falling asleep like that indicated something else entirely. Ben was about to step from his hiding place to confirm his suspicions when Kitty spoke again.
“Did you have anything to eat or drink before you fell asleep?”
She’d had the same idea he did. Ben was so happy he almost laughed out loud.
“Now you mention it, I did. David Welch brought me a cup of coffee. It tasted horrible though. Too bitter.”
“But you drank it anyway?”
He shrugged. “Coffee is coffee.”
“Does he usually bring the guards coffee?”
“I don’t know. He’s never brought me any.”
“And did you set the coffee down at all while you were drinking it?”
Ben couldn’t suppress his grin. She may have been new at this, but she was smart and she thought of everything.
Small raised his eyes to the sky as he thought. “No, not that I remember. I wouldn’t want to put it on the ground here anyway. Anything could crawl in.”
Ben immediately looked down, but the ground around him was clear of anything he wouldn’t want to encounter, either swimming in his coffee or climbing up his boots.
“And did you tell all this to Mr. Hall?” Kitty asked.
“Not about the coffee; he never asked about that. I just told him about falling asleep.”
She was silent for a few moments and then nodded, apparently satisfied. “Thank you, Mr. Small. You’ve been very helpful.”
“It was my pleasure, ma’am.” Pushing his hands into his pockets, he scuffed one boot in the dirt. “You need anything else, anything at all, you just ask me. Anything.”
Kitty gave him a much too genuine-looking smile. “I’ll do that, thank you.”
“Remember, anything you need, I’m here,” he called after her as she turned to leave.
Ben shook his head in disgust. A real man didn’t beg. And he especially didn’t beg another man’s wife.
With Small safely walking away, Ben backed ou
t of sight, waiting for Kitty to pass. As she did, he grasped her hand and pulled her into his arms. It was only when she was staring up at him, her mouth open in surprise, that he realized what he was doing.
Seeing her with Small had ignited a possessiveness of which he hadn’t known he was capable. He was so close to kissing her he could almost taste her on his lips.
Letting her go, he stepped back and attempted to cover his fluster with a grin. “That was perfect. You did brilliantly.”
He watched her neck bob in a swallow. Poor thing had probably been startled half out of her wits when he grabbed her.
“There was something in that coffee to make him sleep, wasn’t there?” she asked. “Did I get that right?”
“I’d bet a month’s wages on it.”
Her uncertainty melted into a pretty smile. “So now we go and find Mr. Welch?”
He held out his elbow and she slipped her hand around it. “Now we go find Mr. Welch.”
And he would try to stop thinking about how much he’d wanted to kiss his wife.
~ ~ ~
David Welch wasn’t in the camp, so they took a walk to the dig site.
As they approached the foot of the cliff where the excavations were taking place, Kitty couldn’t help but stare in astonishment. She’d never seen anything like it.
An area roughly fifty by sixty feet had been stripped of topsoil, some places just down to a few inches, some a few feet. The men clustered around larger bones jutting from the ground or worked individually on smaller finds, carefully chiseling and brushing and shoveling the soil packed around the evidence of the massive animals that had once roamed the earth.
It was like something out of an adventure novel.
Gazing at a half-exposed bone at least four feet long that five of the men were working to uncover, she finally began to understand why anyone would spend so much time, money and effort on long-dead bones. It was fascinating.
Mr. Miles looked up from where he was working and waved. Despite his bank clerk-like appearance, he looked completely in his element.
“There he is,” Ben said, indicating a man on the far side of the trench, working by himself. He called out to the nearest diggers. “Can we walk across here?”
A man Kitty remembered as being Mr. Larsen looked up and shook his head. “Go around the outside. And if you have to walk over the excavated area, don’t tread on anything that looks even remotely like it could be a bone. Webster will have a fit if you break anything important.”
Ben raised a hand in acknowledgement and they made their way around the rim of the huge trench until they reached the place where David Welch was working.
“Mr. Welch,” he called when they were as close as they could get without stepping into the excavated area.
He looked up from where he knelt beside a rock, painstakingly brushing the dirt from a small, curved bone.
“Could we ask you a couple of questions?”
Leaving the brush on the rock, Mr. Welch rose and picked his way carefully over to them, dusting his hands off on the back of his trousers.
Was this the man who had drugged Mr. Small and stolen the skull, Kitty wondered. Would they really solve the crime so quickly? Much as she wanted to succeed in her first case, she didn’t want it to be over. Because once it was over, she and Ben would have their marriage annulled. She would no longer have his name or get to see him every day. He’d never again kiss her forehead, like he had that morning, or hold her close, like he had when carrying her over the river. He wouldn’t make her laugh, or tell her she was pretty.
She wanted to solve the case, but with all her heart she didn’t want Mr. Welch to be guilty.
“What can I do for you?” he said, once he’d reached them.
“On the night the skull was stolen, did you take a cup of coffee to Cyrus Small while he was on guard duty at the finds tent?” Ben asked.
Kitty held her breath.
“Sure did. Frank asked me to give it to him as I was going that way anyway. My tent’s right nearby.”
She breathed out in relief. It wasn’t him.
“Which Frank?” Ben asked. There were two amongst the men there.
“Wise. He’s at the femur.” Mr. Welch pointed to the men around the large bone they’d seen first.
“Thanks.”
They made their way back around the trench to the huge leg bone. Now Kitty knew what it was, she marveled even more that such a massive beast had once lived there. She tried to imagine it plodding across the landscape, grazing on the vegetation.
Ben called out to Mr. Wise and he left the femur to join them.
“Did you give David Welch a cup of coffee to take to Mr. Small on the night the skull was stolen?”
“Yup.”
It didn’t sound like the confession of a guilty man, but that one word nevertheless jolted Kitty’s stomach.
“Was there a particular reason you wanted him to have that coffee?” Ben asked.
“I didn’t care one way or the other,” Mr. Wise replied. “Edwin Hall told me to take it to Cyrus, but David was going that way so I asked him to take it for me. Am I in trouble or something?”
“No, not at all.” Ben gave him an easy smile. “Just trying to get everything straight about that night. So did Mr. Hall give the cup of coffee to you?”
“No, I got it. He was in the kitchen when I went in to get something to eat. I get hungry at night, you see, so I always take something to bed. Anyway, Ed said Cyrus was looking tired and could I take him a cup of coffee to wake him up. So I did.”
“So you made the coffee yourself?”
“Yup.” He frowned. “Well, I poured it out. I didn’t make it. There was a pot left on the stove with just enough for one cup in it.”
“And you don’t know who made it?”
Mr. Wise shrugged. “I’d guess at the cook, but I suppose I don’t know that for sure. The pot was already there when I got there. Could’ve been anyone.”
Ben glanced at Kitty and she shook her head to indicate she had nothing to add. He really was very good at this.
“Well, Mr. Wise,” he said, “thanks for your time. We’ll let you get back to your bone.”
“My pleasure.” He nodded to Kitty, said, “Ma’am,” and headed back to the femur.
“So do you think he’s telling the truth?” Ben asked her as they started back to the camp.
She’d been considering that. “I do. If he was going to lie, it would be stupid to give us a story that we could easily check by asking Mr. Hall. He could have just said it was him who saw Cyrus Small looking tired and found the coffee in the pot in the kitchen. That would make more sense if he was lying, don’t you think?”
He smiled. “Kitten, you are going to make an excellent Pinkerton agent. That’s exactly what I was thinking.”
She looked down at the dusty ground in front of them, just in case her blush made an unwanted appearance. “Maybe you were right and this is why Mr. Hall didn’t seem to want us to question Cyrus Small.”
“Maybe. Let’s find out.”
~ ~ ~
On returning to the camp, Ben and Kitty headed straight for Edwin Hall’s tent.
“I want you to stay out here,” Ben told her, “just in case it is him and things go wrong.”
When confronted, guilty men often chose to try fighting their way out. He didn’t want Kitty in any danger if that happened.
Her eyes widened as she stared up at him. “What do you mean, if things go wrong?”
“It probably won’t,” he said quickly. “We don’t even know it’s him. I just want to be extra sure it’s safe first.” He patted the revolver at his hip. “I’ll be fine.”
Lowering her gaze, she took a step back. “You mean I’ll just be in the way.”
So much for growing her confidence. Berating himself, he hurried to reassure her. “No, that’s not what I mean. I’m armed and you’re not. Hall carries a pistol.”
She raised her eyes. “Will you be t
eaching me to shoot as part of my training?”
Would he? The thought of Kitty being anywhere near flying lead made him feel sick. “If there’s time. We can talk about it later. So you’ll stay out here?”
She nodded.
“All right. You stay back here. If you do hear anything, don’t come in. Go and get help.” She nodded again and he breathed out in relief. As long as she was safe. “Good. I’ll be right back.”
He crossed the open space between them and the tent and pushed the flap aside without announcing his presence. Hall was right where they’d left him an hour earlier, at his desk.
Ben did a quick scan of the room as he walked in. Rifle hanging from a hook on one of the posts behind Hall, pistol at his waist, hunting knife on the chair beside the bed, no other weapons in sight.
“Mr. Riley, something else I can do for you?” Hall’s hands rested on the desk. Relaxed.
“We’ve questioned Cyrus Small, and it appears he was drugged the night the skull was taken.”
Hall’s brow rose and he sat back. His hands remained on the desk. “Really? It was my understanding that he fell asleep. I was considering docking his pay for it.”
Ben couldn’t tell if he was being truthful or not.
“He was given a cup of coffee, which he says wasn’t usual. David Welch brought it to him, but he got it from Frank Wise. And Wise says you told him to take Small the coffee when he was in the kitchen late that night.”
Hall nodded. “That’s right. I remember seeing Cyrus yawning. I figured he could use it.”
“Who made the coffee?”
“I have no idea. It was on the stove when I got there. You think that’s how he was drugged?”
“He said it tasted very bitter. He also woke up with a headache. Classic sign of a drugging.”
Hall sat forward again, frowning. Still his hands didn’t move. “That would explain why he didn’t wake up. You think either David or Frank did it?”
