The Stolen Gold Affair

by Bill Pronzini

  Jedediah Yost was not in attendance on this night. Quincannon stayed long enough to learn that, O’Hearn having given him a description of the man. Just as well. He wanted as much background information on Yost as could be obtained before devoting time and energy to investigating the man’s presence in Patch Creek. Sabina would gather it as quickly as possible from the Far West Mine Workers Union and other sources, and supply it to him by coded wire.

  He asked no questions of Pat Barnes or anyone else about the union man, nor did he make mention of the high-grading rumors; there was nothing that would arouse suspicion more quickly among hardrock men than a stranger showing too keen an interest in local matters. Time enough for probing once he was established at the Monarch. Now it behooved him to gain acceptance among the miners, which he’d already made inroads in doing at the Golden Dollar, and to keep his eyes and ears open and his mouth shut except when asked about his work history and indulging in the usual miners’ badinage.

  It was after eleven when he returned to the lodging house for a few hours’ rest of his own.

  * * *

  The buildings of the Monarch Mine were step-laddered down the steep hillside below the main shaft, so that from a distance they resembled a single multilevel structure inside a wire-fenced and guarded compound. Their sheet metal roofs glistened under the early morning sunlight. So did the fan of tailings below the stamp mill, spread out from the foot of a cantilevered tramway that extended to the mill from the tunnel above. Jets of smoke and steam spewed out through the mill’s roof stacks, fouling the air and laying a gray haze over the clear blue sky.

  Quincannon rode up to the compound in one of the wagons that carried mine workers to and from Patch Creek. As early as it was, the mine yard was a noisy hive of activity. Powder blasts deep inside the mine added rumbling echoes to the din; so did a tramway skip clanging out of the main shaft and dumping its load of ore into bins set beneath the gallows frame. Three burly freight-haulers were profanely unloading materiel from a big, yellow-painted Studebaker wagon drawn by a team of dray horses. Topmen and mules maneuvered planks and heavy shoring timbers for lowering to the eleven-hundred- and twelve-hundred-foot levels currently being mined. Rope-men and track-laying steelmen were also at their tasks. Day-shift miners stood talking and laughing in little groups near the gallows frame, waiting to take the place of the graveyard-shift crew.

  He made his way to the paymaster’s office, as per instructions. When he gave the J. F. Quinn name, the paymaster made the damnfool mistake of saying, “Oh, right, Mr. O’Hearn said you’d be signing on.” To forestall any mention of already being marked for assignment to the day shift, he quickly related Pat Barnes’s request that he be put on the Irishman’s timber crew. The paymaster told him to report to Walrus Ben Tremayne for approval.

  Another man in the office, this one in miner’s garb, had overheard the mention of O’Hearn’s name. He fixed Quincannon with a long speculative look, then followed him outside.

  “Just a minute, Quinn. How do you happen to know Mr. O’Hearn?”

  “Who’s asking?”

  “Frank McClellan. Assistant foreman.”

  Quincannon sized him up. Thirtyish, curly-haired, thin-lipped, eyes closely set; a small jagged scar narrowed the outer corner of the left eye. A steady imbiber of John Barleycorn, if the odor of whiskey on his breath this early in the day was any indication. His manner was aggressively self-important—assistant foreman was a cushy job, mostly that of inspection of completed work—yet also wary and a little nervous.

  “Well? Answer my question.”

  “I wouldn’t know Mr. O’Hearn from Adam’s off ox.”

  “Then why’d he tell the paymaster you’d be signing on?”

  “Ask him.”

  “I’m asking you.”

  Quincannon shrugged. “A friend in Grass Valley put in a word for me here, not that it matters. I’m no damn company informer, if that’s what’s bothering you.”

  McClellan’s jaw tightened. He opened his mouth, then seemed to think better of what he’d been about to say and snapped it shut again. He turned on his heel and stalked off.

  A man to watch, Quincannon thought. The wariness and nervous suspicion might be due to a concern that excessive drinking would cost him his job, but it might also be apprehension if he were one of the high-graders. An assistant foreman had full knowledge of the workings of a gold mine and a free run of its gold-bearing innards.

  Quincannon returned to the gallows frame just as the whistle blew to announce the end of the graveyard shift. One of the waiting hardrock men pointed out Walrus Ben Tremayne to him. A squat, beetle-browed gent of some fifty years, the day-shift boss sported thick, flowing, nicotine-stained mustaches—no doubt the source of his moniker.

  Tremayne looked him up and down, grunted, and said in a wheezy baritone, “Timberman, eh?”

  “That’s right. Pat Barnes asked that I be put on his shorthanded crew.”

  “So he told me. New hires usually start with the mucking crew on the graveyard shift.”

  Quincannon had no desire for that kind of work. Mucking meant cleaning up debris in the galleries and crosscuts after blasting—the miners’ equivalent of a stablehand’s backbreaking job. He said, “I came here for timber work.”

  “And you think you’re good at it, do you?”

  “I know I am. Never had a complaint yet.”

  “Last worked the Empire in Grass Valley?”

  “For two years. A string of other mines in Sonora and Jamestown before that—all timber jobs.”

  Walrus Ben grunted again. “All right, then. I’ll give you a chance to prove yourself down on twelve-hundred today. Tell Barnes I said so.”

  Quincannon sought out Pat Barnes, who showed his broad grin again and followed it with a friendly thump on the shoulder. He hoped the jovial Irishman would not turn out to be one of the high-graders. It irked him when a favorable first impression of a person proved to be false.

  Inside the gallows frame the shaft cage rattled, then shot into view at a jolting, close-to-unsafe speed before squealing brakes gripped the cable. This was evidently a regular and dangerous little game played by the hoist tender, judging from the ominous grumblings among the night-shift men as they filed out, caked with dust and sweat and smelling like mine mules, and from a sharp reprimand from Walrus Ben as he led the day-shift miners onto the swaying cage.

  The rebuke had little enough impact on the tender; the drop into darkness was fast and jerky, the square of light above vanishing almost immediately, for the shaft was crooked from the pressure of the earth against it. The cage bounced to a stop at the eleven-hundred-foot level, where a dozen men alighted, then dropped to the gallery station at twelve-hundred. By then Quincannon’s ears were clogged and he was deaf from the change in air pressure. It was a phenomenon he hadn’t gotten used to in the Eastern mine where he worked in his youth, and likely wouldn’t here, either. He stamped his feet as he stepped out, as did the others, until the pressure eased and hearing returned.

  In the powder room across the station they hung up coats, stowed lunch pails (Quincannon’s had been prepared for him by the cook at the lodging house), gathered tools, and lit oil-wick cap lamps and tin hand lanterns. When they emerged, Pat Barnes introduced Quincannon to the other members of his timber crew.

  The graveyard-shift powder man had blasted loose tons of rock to widen and lengthen a new crosscut, and the damp, humid air was thick with silica dust and the stench of burnt powder. The job hadn’t been done to Walrus Ben’s satisfaction, however. Tremayne had evidently been a powder man himself prior to his promotion to shift boss; he had his own ideas on the finer points of loading, capping, and detonating sticks of dynamite, and still worked at the task, as a length of Bickford fuse visible in his coat pocket attested. He bellowed orders and gave the muckers, trammers, and timbermen not a moment’s rest after they set to work.

  And long, arduous work it was. It had been a while since Quincannon had engaged
in heavy physical labor; it didn’t take long for the carrying and setting of lumber for shoring the walls of the crosscut—and those of a new stope, a vertical shaft above the cut that would connect twelve-hundred with eleven-hundred—to blister his hands inside heavy gloves, strain every muscle, cake his freebooter’s beard with dust and sweat. He was by no means soft, but mining labor put even the hardiest of men to the test, the more so one who had not in many years worked an eight-hour shift in the dangerous bowels of the earth. Down here, cave-ins, premature detonations, fires, floods, rock gas, runaway cages and tramcars were potentially greater threats to his longevity than the actions of a gang of gold thieves.

  He learned nothing about the high-grading during the long shift, either by observation or listening to conversations among his fellow laborers, but he hadn’t expected to his first day on the job. Or down here in the hole for that matter, at least initially. Considerably more time was needed to learn who was involved and how the gold was being smuggled out, and he had the feeling that some of the answers were to be found in Patch Creek.

  4

  SABINA

  The day John departed for Patch Creek she arranged to have lunch with Callie, to tell her the wedding date would have to be postponed. The restaurant she chose was a favorite of her cousin’s, the Sun Dial on Geary Street—a calculated and probably futile effort to provide a convivial atmosphere for the telling. Sabina was not looking forward to the task.

  When she left Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional Detective Services, she stopped at the nearby Western Union office to send a wire, at John’s request. It was to the headquarters of the Far West Mine Workers Union in Sacramento, asking for general background information on FWMWU representative Jedediah Yost; the reason she gave for the request was a routine insurance matter. The day being Friday, neither she nor John expected a reply until Monday.

  Callie was already seated in the Sun Dial’s bright, airy main dining room when Sabina arrived. Sunlight slanting through one of the large skylights laid a golden sheen on her cousin’s intricately braided and coiled blond hair. On the chair beside her was one of the many lavishly fashionable hats she owned, a creation decorated with bunches of dark red currants that matched the color of her outfit and trimmed with a tall peacock feather.

  In her youth Callie had been a vivacious beauty, and despite the addition of several pounds—she had an inordinate fondness for sweets—she was still regally attractive in her mid-forties. Like Sabina, she had been born in Chicago, but her family had moved to California when she was five, before Sabina was born. They had resided in Oakland for a time, settling in San Francisco when her father was promoted to the regional headquarters of the Miners Bank. Her marriage to Hugh French, a protégé of her father’s who eventually became the bank’s president, had firmly entrenched her among the city’s social elite.

  She had been delighted when Sabina moved to San Francisco from Denver, and even more delighted when she learned of John’s marriage proposal and Sabina’s acceptance. But today, as expected, she was anything but delighted at the news of the delay and the reason for it.

  “Oh, Sabina,” she said, “how could you let John take on such a lengthy assignment now?”

  “I couldn’t very well stop him.”

  “But virtually at the last minute…”

  “Three weeks is not the last minute, Callie. There’s still plenty of time to reschedule.” Sabina paused. “You haven’t already sent out the invitations, have you?”

  “No. But I was about to have them printed.”

  “Then all that’s necessary is to change the date.”

  “Once we know what the new date is.”

  “It won’t be far off. John gave me his solemn promise that if he can’t finish the job within the allotted month, he won’t ask for an extension.”

  Callie said portentously, “Assuming he survives that long. Dangerous undercover work in a gold mine, of all things!”

  “He has survived more hazardous undertakings.” Such as the near-fatal shooting that robbed him of his earlobe, but she banished that thought as quickly as it came. “He simply can’t resist a challenge or an attractive fee.”

  “Surely you tried to talk him out of it?”

  “Yes, but he had already agreed, and his word is his bond.”

  “Agreed without consulting with you?”

  Sabina repeated John’s explanation for that.

  “Humph.”

  A white-jacketed waiter delivered their luncheon orders—crab-and-prawn salads and crusty sourdough bread. Callie poked reflectively at one of the large prawns in her salad. “You know,” she said at length, “there is one thing you could do, but I hope you’re not foolish enough to do it.”

  “Now there’s an enigmatic statement. What could I do that you hope I don’t?”

  “Travel to Patch Creek yourself. Keep a close eye on John instead of waiting and worrying here.”

  “What makes you think I’m worrying about him? He only just left.”

  “I know you, dear. You can’t fool me by pretending you’re not concerned about the welfare of the man you’re about to marry.”

  “Concerned, yes, but not unduly. And certainly not enough to hie myself off to Patch Creek. John wouldn’t like it, for one thing. And for another, the sudden arrival of an unescorted woman in a gold camp would cause undue attention.”

  “You went to Grass Valley not long ago in the guise of a lady gambler.”

  “With John’s consent and in consort with him, and that adventure nearly cost me my life. This is an entirely different situation.”

  “Yes, of course it is,” Callie agreed with a sigh. “It’s a foolish notion and I’m relieved that you find it so. I shouldn’t have mentioned it in the first place.”

  Foolish indeed, Sabina thought. Of course she couldn’t travel to Patch Creek. The only women other than lady gamblers who went to such rough-and-ready towns were saloon girls and cheap prostitutes, and she was not about to resurrect the bawdy Saint Louis Rose. Plus, there was little or nothing she could do there to assist John’s investigation; her presence might even compromise it. He would never forgive her for meddling without just cause.

  Sabina speared and ate a section of crabmeat, then switched the conversational topic back to the wedding.

  * * *

  The rest of that day and the weekend passed slowly. Saturday afternoon, after half a day at the agency, she spent shopping. She visited three exclusive women’s apparel shops in an effort to select her wedding dress, but the only one that appealed to her—a taffeta gown with a fitted empire-style bodice, dropped waist, and pleated ruffles—was too fancy for what would be a relatively simple ceremony, and its pure white color was inappropriate for a widow marrying for the second time. Two more hours were devoted to a stroll through the open-air California Market, the city’s block-square “entrepôt of foods,” where she bought fresh fruit, vegetables, seafood for herself, and a small amount of codfish for Adam and Eve, the cats’ favorite treat.

  Solitary evenings at her Russian Hill flat, which she usually looked forward to, seemed to have temporarily lost some of their allure. A feeling of being at loose ends was the cause, she supposed. The flat had been her home since arriving in San Francisco, a comfortable three rooms and bath, and she would miss it, at least for a while, when she moved in with John after the wedding. His Leavenworth Street flat was larger, with plenty of room for her belongings, and though there were alterations that needed to be made—the removal, to which he’d agreed, of certain items he’d accumulated during his uninhibited bachelorhood—she was certain she would be perfectly content living there. So would Adam and Eve, eventually; cats were adaptable creatures.

  On Sunday she indulged in one of her favorite activities, riding in the park with Amity Wellman and other members of the Golden Gate Ladies Bicycle Club. Amity, like her, was a “New Woman,” the term used to describe the modern woman who broke with the traditional role of wife and mother by working outs
ide the home; Amity was also an even more ardent suffragist than Sabina, head of the most active local organization, Voting Rights for Women. They had become good friends as a result of their mutual passions and Sabina’s solution to a series of deadly threats to Amity’s life. Sabina told her of the probable wedding postponement, Amity having agreed to be her matron of honor, and explained the reason for it. Unlike Callie, she was not critical of John’s decision or Sabina’s acceptance of it.

  In terms of business, Monday was another dull day. No prospective clients at the office, no calls through the Telephone Exchange, no mail of any importance. And no answering wire as yet from the Far West Mine Workers Union office in Sacramento. Evidently the FWMWU was too busy or did not consider her request for information on Jedediah Yost important enough for a swift response.

  She passed time by writing letters to slow-paying clients, responding to correspondence of a minor nature, reorganizing files, sifting through the wanted posters John accumulated, and finally delving into recent issues of the Police Gazette, a publication Callie considered unfit reading matter for ladies of culture and refinement. Sabina found that attitude amusing, given the fact that her cousin’s taste in reading ran to such women’s magazines as the Ladies’ Home Journal and the moribund Godey’s Lady’s Book.

  She hoped that the lack of business did not mean the agency was about to experience one of its protracted slack periods. That would make the wait for John’s safe return even more difficult. What she needed was an investigation of her own to pursue, one such as the department stores’ shoplifting case, that tested her detective skills …

  * * *

  Ask, and sometimes ye shall receive.

  At ten o’clock Tuesday morning, a potential client arrived at the agency in the person of a young woman named Gretchen Kantor. And what she brought developed into a complicated investigative challenge, though it did not start out that way.