The Stolen Gold Affair

by Bill Pronzini

  The lone window was small, designed for ventilation, but not too small for a man Morgan’s size to wiggle through. Quincannon, if he’d tried it, would have gotten stuck halfway through. It was shut but not latched; he hoisted the sash, poked his head out. The stinging slipstream made him pull it back in again. A futile effort at any rate, for there had been nothing worth seeing.

  “Gone, yes,” he said, “but I’ll eat my hat if he jumped at the rate of speed we’ve been traveling.”

  “But … he must have. The only other place he could have gone…”

  “Up atop the car. That’s where he did go.”

  The conductor didn’t want to believe it. His thinking was plain: if the dangerous fugitive Quincannon was after had leaped out, he was rid of a threat to his passengers’ security. He said, “A climb like that can be almost as lethal as jumping.”

  “Not for an agile and desperate man.”

  “He couldn’t hide up there. Nor for long on top of any of the cars. There is nowhere for him to hide inside, either—the only possible places are too easily searched. He must know that if he’s familiar with trains.”

  Quincannon had nothing to say to that.

  Bridges asked, “Do you think he crawled along the roofs, then climbed back down between two other cars?”

  “It’s the likeliest explanation.”

  “Why would he do such a thing?”

  Why? The answer was obvious enough to Quincannon, bitterly so. Morgan must have recognized him on the platform or in the coach, from a description furnished by Walrus Ben, and confirmed the recognition when he was followed into the smoking car. He also must have guessed that J. F. Quinn was a detective employed to investigate the high-grading—the primary reason he’d left Patch Creek so abruptly on Sunday. For all Morgan knew now there were other lawmen on board or waiting at the Capitol Express’s first stop in Vacaville; he couldn’t take the chance of waiting to find out, not with the stolen gold dust in his possession, as it surely was in a belt buckled around his middle. If there had been anything of value in the satchel, he had removed whatever it was before chucking the bag through the window and climbing out.

  The actions of a desperate man, but also a cunning one. Morgan had some sort of escape plan in mind, or else he would not have taken the risk he had.

  Bridges asked anxiously, “Who is he? What crimes did he commit?”

  “His name is Morgan, Bartholomew Morgan. A thief, among other criminal offenses.”

  “You said he’s dangerous. Do you think he’s armed?”

  “No question of it.”

  “Oh, Lordy. What does he look like?”

  Quincannon provided a cogent description. “The birthmark should make him easy enough to spot. If he tries to conceal it under a stolen garment, that will give him away too.”

  “So you think he’ll attempt to blend in with the other passengers?”

  “Unless he has another trick up his sleeve. How long to the Vacaville stop?”

  Bridges checked his railroad watch. “Forty minutes.”

  “That should give us plenty of time for a search. Every nook and cranny from locomotive to caboose, if necessary.”

  “If we don’t find him, what then?”

  “We’ll find him,” Quincannon said darkly. “He is still on this train, Mr. Bridges. He can’t have gotten off.”

  * * *

  While Bridges stood watch, Quincannon stepped through the vestibule doorway and carefully climbed to the top of the iron ladder outside. He peered over the roofs of the cars, protecting his eyes with an upraised arm, for the coal-flavored smoke that rolled back from the locomotive’s stack was peppered with hot cinders. As expected, he saw no sign of his quarry. But he did find evidence of the man’s passage: marks in the thin grit that coated the tops of the lounge car as well as the smoking car, indicating that Morgan had gone forward.

  Back in the vestibule, he used his handkerchief to cleanse his hands and face. The grimy streaks on the cloth confirmed another fact: no matter how long Morgan had been above or how far he’d crawled, his clothing had to be soiled when he came down. Someone may have seen him. And he couldn’t have wandered far in that condition. Either he was hiding where he lighted—one of the Pullman compartments, mayhap—or he would take the time to wash up and brush his clothes.

  Quincannon said as much to the conductor, who responded, “I still say it makes no sense. Not a lick of sense.”

  “It does to him. And it will to us when we find him.”

  They worked their way forward, making sure Morgan wasn’t closeted in any of the lavatories, Bridges quietly alerting members of the crew. Their inspection of the lounge and dining cars was cursory. Morgan, shrewd as he was, could not have hoped to pass undetected in either one and so had avoided them.

  When they reached the first-class Pullman, Bridges began knocking on compartment doors. No one in those occupied had seen Morgan. Nor was he in either of two temporarily empty compartments; Bridges’ passkey allowed searches of both. By the time they finished, the urgency and frustration both men felt were taking a toll: Quincannon nearly bowled over a pudgy matron outside the first-class women’s lavatory, and Bridges snapped at a pompous gent who demanded to know what the devil was going on.

  It took them five minutes to scan through the passengers in the third day coach—another exercise in futility. When they entered the middle coach, Sabina rose as soon as she saw them. Quincannon beckoned her out onto the vestibule, where he introduced her to Bridges—“My partner, Mrs. Sabina Carpenter”—and gave her a terse account of the situation. She received the news stoically; unlike him, she met most crises with a shield of calm.

  She said, “He’s not in the second coach. I would have noticed any newcomers, especially one with the side of his face covered.”

  “Almost certainly not in the first then, either. He wouldn’t have crawled that far over the tops of the cars.”

  No, Morgan was not in the first coach. A swift search proved that.

  In the vestibule again, Sabina said, “The man may be full of tricks, but he can’t make himself invisible. He has to be somewhere.”

  “Not the tender or the locomotive,” Bridges said. “There’s no way he could get into either one without being seen and thwarted.”

  “Which leaves the baggage car and the caboose.”

  “He couldn’t get into those, either.”

  Quincannon said, “Are you sure about the baggage car?”

  “The baggage master secures all the doors as soon as we depart.”

  He bit back a self-deprecating expletive in deference to Sabina. “Blast it, we should have checked there before we came forward. But it’s not too late if we hurry, Mr. Bridges.”

  Sabina said, “I’ll go with you—”

  “No need. Take a slow stroll through the cars on the off chance we somehow overlooked him among the passengers.”

  She didn’t argue.

  * * *

  The baggage master’s office was empty. Beyond, the door to the baggage car stood open a few inches.

  Frowning, Bridges stepped up to the office door, tried the latch. Unlocked. “Oh, Lordy,” he said in a choked whisper, then opened the door and called out, “Dan? You in the car?”

  No answer.

  The hot prickly sensation was back between Quincannon’s shoulder blades. He drew the Webley, shouldered the conductor aside, and crossed the office to widen the doorway to the baggage car. The oil lamps inside were lighted; most of the interior was visible. Boxes, crates, stacks of luggage and express parcels, but no sign of human habitation.

  “What do you see, Mr. Quincannon?”

  “Nothing. No one.”

  “I don’t like this, none of this,” Bridges said. “Where’s Dan? He’s always here, and he never leaves doors unlocked…”

  Quincannon eased his body through the doorway and into a crouch behind a packing crate. Peering out, he saw no one and no evidence of disturbance anywhere. Several large crate
s and trunks were belted in place along the inner wall. Against the far wall stood a pair of carts piled with luggage. More of the same rested in neat rows nearby, among them Sabina’s carpetbag and his war bag. None of the baggage appeared to have been tampered with, or moved except by the natural motion of the train.

  Toward the front was a shadowed area into which he could not see clearly. A possible hiding place? He straightened, edged around and alongside the crate with the revolver cocked and ready. No sounds other than the thrum of steel on steel. And no movement until a brief lurch and shudder as the locomotive nosed into a curve and the engineer used his air. Then something slid into view in the dusky corner.

  A leg. A man’s leg, twisted and bent.

  Quincannon muttered the expletive he had suppressed earlier, closed the gap by another half dozen paces. He could see the rest of the man’s body then—a sixtyish fellow in a trainman’s uniform, lying crumpled, his cap off and a dark blotch staining his wispy gray hair. Quincannon went to one knee beside him, found a thin wrist, and pressed it for a pulse. The beat was there, faint and irregular.

  “Mr. Bridges! Be quick!”

  The conductor came running inside. When he saw the unconscious crewman he jerked to a halt; a moaning sound vibrated in his throat. “My God, old Dan! Is he—?”

  “No. Wounded but still alive.”

  “Shot?”

  “Struck with something hard. A gun butt, like as not.”

  “Morgan, damn his eyes.”

  “He was after something in here,” Quincannon said. “We’ll take a quick look around. Tell me if you notice anything missing or out of place.”

  “What about Dan? One of the drawing-room passengers is a doctor…”

  “Fetch him. But look around first.”

  They took a turn through the car. None of the belted boxes and crates showed signs of having been tampered with, nor did any of the hand luggage. If Morgan had gotten into any of the baggage, he had done a good job of covering up afterward. But why would he have bothered?

  Bridges confirmed that as far as he could tell, nothing was amiss. “But Dan is the only one who’ll know for sure.”

  “One thing before you go. Are you carrying weapons of any kind? Rifles, handguns in unmarked boxes? Or dynamite or black powder?”

  “None by manifest or declaration, thank heaven.”

  Bridges hurried away. Quincannon pillowed the baggage master’s head on one of the smaller bags, noting that the blood on and around his wound had begun to coagulate. The assault must have taken place not long after Morgan’s disappearance from the lavatory. The foxy devil had anticipated a check of the tops of the cars, marked the grit on the lounge car to give the false impression that he’d gone forward, then crawled back here. Damnation! If they had thought to check the baggage car first thing, they might have caught him in the act.

  But this was no time for recriminations. Whatever Morgan’s reason for coming here, it had to be an integral part of the escape plan he’d devised. Yes, but he still had no idea what that could possibly be.

  26

  QUINCANNON

  The doctor was young, brusque, and efficient. Quincannon and Bridges left old Dan in his care, hurried forward again.

  As they passed through the dining car, the locomotive’s whistle sounded a series of short toots.

  “Oh, Lordy,” the conductor said. “That’s the first signal for Vacaville.”

  “How long before we arrive at the depot?”

  “Ten minutes.”

  “Blast!”

  They came upon Sabina in the Pullman car; she shook her head.

  Quincannon was beside himself by this time. The entire rolling stock had been carefully searched now, front to back. So where the bloody hell was Morgan?

  They held a huddled conference. Quincannon’s latest piece of bad news ridged the smoothness of Sabina’s forehead, her only outward reaction. “You’re certain nothing was taken from the baggage car?” she asked Bridges.

  “As certain as I can be without a thorough examination and the cooperation of the passengers.”

  “If Morgan did steal something,” Quincannon said, “he was careful not to call attention to the fact, in case the baggage master regained consciousness before he could make good his escape.”

  “Which could mean,” Sabina said, “that whatever it was would have been apparent to us at a cursory search.”

  “Either that, or where it was taken from would have been apparent.”

  Something seemed to be nibbling at her mind; her expression turned speculative. “I wonder…”

  “What do you wonder?”

  The locomotive’s whistle sounded again. There was a rocking motion and the loud thump of couplings as the engineer began the first slackening of their speed. Bridges said, “Five minutes to the Vacaville station. If Morgan is still on board—”

  “He is.”

  “—do you think he’ll try to get off there?”

  “No doubt of it. Wherever he’s hiding, he can’t hope to avoid being discovered in a concentrated search. And he knows we’ll mount one in Vacaville with the train crew and the local authorities.”

  “What do you advise we do?”

  “Assign someone to summon the law as soon as we arrive at the station,” Quincannon said. “Then tell your porters not to allow anyone off the train until you give the signal. And when passengers do disembark, they’re to do so in single file from between two cars only. That will prevent Morgan from slipping off in a crowd.”

  “The second and third day coaches?”

  “Good. Meet me in the vestibule there.”

  Bridges hurried off.

  Quincannon said to Sabina, “You may as well take your seat until we reach the station.”

  “No, I have something else to do.”

  “Yes? What?”

  “I noticed something earlier that I thought must be a coincidence. Now I’m not so sure it is.”

  “Explain that.”

  “There’s no time now. You’ll be the first to know if I’m right.”

  “Sabina…”

  But she had already turned her back and was purposefully heading aft.

  He took himself out onto the vestibule between the second and third coaches. The train had slowed to half speed; once more the whistle cut shrilly through the late afternoon stillness. He stood holding on to the hand bar and leaning out on the side away from the station to look both directions along the cars—a precaution in the event Morgan attempted to jump and run through the yards. But he was thinking that this was another exercise in futility. Morgan’s scheme was surely too clever for such a predictable ending.

  Bridges reappeared and stood watch on the offside as the train entered the rail yards. On Quincannon’s side the dun-colored depot building swam into view through the fading daylight ahead. Once a pioneer settlement and Pony Express stop, Vacaville was now a thriving agricultural center widely known as the fresh fruit capital of California. But it was nonetheless a small town, so relatively few passengers would be waiting to board. Even if Morgan managed to get off the train here, he couldn’t reasonably expect to escape detection and capture. Yet it was utter folly for him to remain hidden on the Capitol Express.

  He had to be planning to exit here, but how? A diversion of some sort? That was the most probable gambit. Quincannon warned himself to be alert for anything at all out of the ordinary.

  Sabina was on his mind, too. Where had she gone in such a hurry? What sort of coincidence…?

  Brake shoes squealed on the rails as the Express neared the lighted station platform. He’d been right in his estimate of the number of those waiting; less than a score of men and women stood beneath a roof overhang. He swiveled his head again. Steam and smoke clouded the gathering dusk, but he could see clearly enough. No one was making an effort to leave the train on this side. Nor on the offside, or else Bridges would have cut loose with a shout.

  The engineer brought the cars to a rattling stop
alongside the platform. Quincannon dropped off, with Bridges close behind him. At the same time a porter jumped down from between the two forward cars, raced off through a cloud of steam on his mission to fetch the local law.

  Minutes passed. Quincannon’s eyes moved restlessly back and forth along the length of the rolling stock. Through the windows he could see passengers lining up for departure; Sabina, he was relieved to note, was one of them, in the forefront. Another porter stood in the vestibule between the second and third coaches, waiting for the signal from Bridges to put down the steps.

  Some of the embarking passengers began voicing complaints at the delay, and Bridges took command of the situation. What he said by way of explanation Quincannon didn’t hear, but it succeeded in quieting them. With the aid of the station agent, he herded them all off the platform and into the safety of the depot.

  It was another five tense minutes before the law arrived, in the person of the police chief and two deputies. The chief, who gave his name as Hoover, was burly and sported a large drooping mustache; on the lapel of his frock coat he wore a five-pointed star, and holstered at his belt was a heavy Colt Dragoon.

  He said to Bridges, “You have a fugitive on board your train, is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who is he? What’s he done?”

  “Ask Mr. Quincannon here. He’s a detective from San Francisco on the man’s trail.”

  “That so? Police detective?”

  Quincannon said, “Private. Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional Detective Services.”

  “Oh, a flycop.” Hoover was not impressed, but neither did he show any hostility. A man not given to rushes in judgment. “Well? What’s this all about?”

  Quincannon explained in concise terms, stating for emphasis that Morgan was the man responsible for a series of gold robberies and likely in possession of some of the loot.

  Now Hoover was impressed. “You say you searched everywhere, every possible hiding place,” he said. “If that’s so, how can this thief Morgan still be on the train?”

  “That question has no answer yet. But he is—I’ll stake my reputation on it.”