The Floating Outfit 27

by J. T. Edson

  ‘What’s happened, deputy?’ yelled the businessmen who had suggested employing torture to Mark Counter during the meeting in the Fair Lady Saloon on the day of his arrival in Mulrooney, looking over Ramage’s shoulder and anticipating the question he was on the point of asking.

  ‘Trouble!’ replied the Kid bluntly, but did not elaborate. Instead, his voice took on a polite timbre which nevertheless indicated he expected to be obeyed. ‘I’d be obliged happen you gents’d wait outside while I talk with Sir John and his sir—the feller’s’s rooming here.’

  ‘That will be best, gentlemen,’ the taller baronet supported, grateful the suggestion had come from the very young and innocent looking—albeit somehow dangerous-seeming—peace officer. He did not know what had happened, but had no wish for anything untoward in which Dinglepied had become involved to be discussed in the presence of their hosts for dinner. ‘Perhaps you would like to wait in the bar and have a drink or so on me until I can join you?’

  ‘We’ll do that, John,’ a local businessman promised, having learned the taller baronet preferred the prefix, ‘Sir’ to be deleted when being addressed informally. Living in Mulrooney, he was better acquainted than the previous speaker with the Kid and willing to oblige on that account. ‘Come on, Sid, fellers, let’s leave the deputy ’tend to his duty.’

  ‘Well, young man,’ Ramage said, after his hosts-cum-guests had retired and the door was closed. ‘I’d say this requires an explanation.’

  ‘In more ways than one,’ the Kid agreed, but was not allowed to continue.

  ‘H—He saved my life, Ramage!’ Dinglepied asserted, turning around and walking forward on unsteady legs. His face was still ashy gray and, if possible, more unpleasant than usual as he quelled the desire of his stomach to continue the vomiting and went on, ‘I found those two here when I came back from dinner. They said they’d come to rob and kill me. I was afraid they would do, but this fine young man came to my rescue.’

  Although nauseated by what he had seen, such violent happenings having been something he had not previously encountered, the shorter baronet had had time to think while huddled in the corner and retching the contents of his stomach over the floor. He could not imagine how it happened, but he suspected that the black clad ‘detective’ had learned of his connection with the first of the men to die. However, he hoped to be able to dispel the suggestion when it was leveled and had set about paving the way.

  ‘You’re to be commended,’ Ramage informed the Kid, his tone unemotional although a cynical smile had twisted briefly at his lips as he had listened to the shorter baronet say, ‘a fine young man’ and compared it with the less flattering references he had frequently heard made about law enforcement officers from the same source. ‘Deputy, isn’t it?’

  ‘Deputy town marshal, sir,’ the Texan confirmed, deciding his original summations with regards to the tall Englishman showed no sign of being incorrect.

  ‘How did you come to be here so fortuitously, deputy?’ Ramage inquired.

  ‘Just fortunate, I reckon,’ the Kid replied, realizing the explanation given by Dinglepied might seem acceptable to anybody who was not conversant with the true facts and wanting to discuss these with Freddie Woods and Dusty Fog before telling even the tall baronet.

  ‘Very fortunate for you, Dinglepied,’ Ramage commented dryly. ‘You’re not looking any too good, old thing.’

  ‘I d—don’t feel any too good!’ the shorter baronet admitted, which was true enough as far as it went. Despite suspecting the remark had only been made in a sense of malicious mischief, he saw how it might offer a way of avoiding further embarrassing and perhaps even incriminating questions. ‘Th—Those m—men—The way they di—!’

  ‘Most distressing, I’m sure,’ Ramage consoled, although his voice held little sympathy. Aware that Dinglepied was one of those most vocal in favor of abolishing corporal and capital punishment, he went on sardonically, ‘Of course, it’s probably saved the expense of trying and hanging them.’

  A shrill whistle came from the speaking tube before any more could be said. Giving the smaller baronet no time to speak or move, the Kid crossed over and picked it up.

  ‘It’s Wal—the desk clerk, for me,’ the Texan reported, having removed the plug made of cork from the brass tip of the tube and listening to the voice at the other end. Then he spoke into the mouthpiece, ‘Gracias, amigo. I’ll stay put until he gets here and you’d best have a couple of swampers standing by, there’s a mite of cleaning up needs doing in here.’ He transferred the device to his ear for a moment, then resumed talking down it, ‘No, you wouldn’t’ve heard no shooting. Didn’t I promise you faithful I wouldn’t start using ole Granny?’

  ‘I thought somebody would talk when they got downstairs,’ Ramage remarked, restraining his curiosity over the last part of the conversation.

  ‘They did,’ the Kid confirmed, returning the speaking tube to its holder on the wall. ‘Wa—the desk clerk allows he’s sent for Cap’n Fog.’

  ‘I’m pleased to hear it,’ the taller baronet claimed. ‘Not that I’m belittling you, deputy, of course.’

  ‘I—I’ve got to get out of here!’ the shorter baronet gasped and, although having a desire to avoid being subjected to further interrogation, his distress was far from being simulated.

  ‘Why don’t you go down to the bar and see if a drink or two will put you to rights before Captain Fog gets here?’ Ramage suggested. ‘You can charge them to me.’

  ‘I — I never let intoxicating liquor, or tobacco, sully my lips!’ Dinglepied claimed, contriving to sound pompously righteous.

  ‘Then you’d better go—!’ the taller baronet offered, darting a pointed glance at the almost empty decanter on the table and deciding it confirmed his suspicions that the other was a secret drinker in spite of repeatedly denouncing the ‘evils’ of alcohol and smoking.

  ‘Into the bedroom?’ the shorter asked, starting to turn in the appropriate direction.

  ‘I was going to say the bathroom along the passage,’ Ramage corrected and swung his gaze deliberately to the patch of nausea by the wall. ‘I’m sure you wouldn’t want to put the hotel’s workers to the unpleasant task of cleaning up any more of that.’

  ‘N—No!’ Dinglepied conceded, although the thought had not crossed his mind and, even having had it brought to his attention, being entirely uncaring about how unpleasant a task of cleaning he had made for the staff of the hotel. ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Then toddle off to the bathroom, old thing,’ the taller baronet ordered rather than merely suggested. ‘Stay there until we let you know those chaps have been moved and things tidied up. Shall I call Ushermale to give you a hand?’

  ‘He’s gone out for the evening,’ Dinglepied answered, scowling at the reminder of his confidential secretary’s absence. Then a stronger sensation assailed his stomach and, clutching at it, he gasped, ‘I—I’d bet—go!’

  ‘Poor little man,’ Ramage remarked, still without giving any discernible suggestion of whether he was expressing genuine or false sympathy. Having watched the shorter baronet scuttle from the room, he turned his attention inwards. ‘Just how fortunate was it that you happened to be here, deputy?’

  ‘We go ’round all the hotels on occasion,’ the Kid lied. ‘Just to make sure everything’s kept nice and quiet.’

  ‘And you’re always given the pass-key?’ the baronet said sardonically, gesturing towards the still open door.

  ‘We couldn’t get into a room, was we needed, without one,’ the Texan countered.

  ‘That’s logical,’ Ramage conceded, his hawk-like tanned face showing no expression. ‘But what made you decide to come into this particular room?’

  ‘I just sort of reckoned it could be worth looking into.’

  ‘Ah! you mean like when one of your skunk things ran through the lounge of the White Lion Hotel in Melton Mowbray one night?’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Instinct!’ Ramage said, still without a change o
f expression. Then a frosty smile creased and made his features more amiable. ‘Sorry, old chap. Shouldn’t make jokes after poor Dingers was almost robbed and foully done to death in his bed.’

  ‘That was a joke,’ the Kid challenged, deciding he must remember the story to try on Waco.

  ‘You should hear some of them,’ the baronet answered and, waving a hand which encompassed the room with its gesture, he became serious. ‘Would this have anything to do with the other deputy who came this afternoon to find out whether I’d written to ask Freddie Besgr—Miss Woods to meet me here?’

  ‘It could have,’ the Kid replied evasively.

  ‘Good man!’ Ramage praised, nodding with what was clearly approval at the reticence shown by the black dressed young Texan. ‘I’ll wait until Captain Fog gets here and then we can talk freely.’

  ‘W—What do you want?’ Sir Michael Dinglepied asked, looking nervously at the three Texans who converged upon him as he emerged from the men’s rest-room at the passenger depot.

  ‘We heard tell’s how you’re leaving Mulrooney, your sir-ship’ the Ysabel Kid explained. ‘And come to see was it true.’

  ‘Y—Yes,’ the baronet confirmed. ‘I—I’m not a well man and after last night—!’

  However, despite the solicitous way in which the question had apparently been couched, Dinglepied was still uneasy. Then he noticed something which added to his instinctive belief that all was far from being as it seemed on the surface. Although they had done so at all times when he had seen them previously, not one of the ‘detectives’—his paranoiac dislike for the United States would not allow him to even think of them in the American fashion as ‘deputy town marshals’—was wearing his badge of office in plain view.

  The words came to a quavering halt!

  To give Dinglepied credit, the events in his room at the Railroad House Hotel the previous evening had shaken him deeply. It was not until after he was left to himself, in new accommodation as he had declared he would be unable to sleep in the bedroom of the suite even though its walls and access door would shield him from looking at where the two men had been killed, that a full appreciation of his situation had come to him. It went beyond the realization that he might really have been murdered after he was robbed by the pair.

  Although nothing had been proven, the baronet had felt certain the big blond haired senior ‘detective’ was far from being convinced that he was innocent of trying to arrange the abduction of Lady Winifred Amelia Besgrove-Woodstole. What was more, he was just as sure that the matter would not be allowed to end if he remained in Mulrooney. Knowing Shaun Ushermale, Dinglepied was disinclined to rely upon his continued discretion if he should be subjected to questioning of the kind which the black dressed ‘detective’ in particular looked capable of conducting. In fact, he had stated frankly that he wanted to leave the vicinity as quickly as possible on returning after being released from arrest—with instructions to, ‘Go back and take care of your boss’—when the peace officers returned to the jail.

  Having no faith in the loyalty of his confidential secretary, but filled with a grudging respect for the ability of the big blond Texan, the baronet had decided the time had come for departure even before the visit he had received that morning.

  Speaking with a bluntness which startled Dinglepied, Sir John Uglow Ramage had demanded rather than suggested he retired from the British Railway Commission and left Mulrooney without delay. He had been aware that the other baronet belonged to a family which could exert considerably more influence in the ‘corridors of power’ than he had ever achieved and, supplemented by the far from niggardly sums in prize money earned by Captain Lord Ramage, R.N., during the previous Century's wars against France, 59 were vastly more wealthy. Therefore, he had had no desire to antagonize such a powerful potential enemy. Stating that he intended to do so, because of “ill health', he had made immediate arrangements to go. However, he had no intention of forgetting his desire to seek revenge for the deaths of two very good friends and ruination of a third’s career.

  Arriving at the ‘railway station’ to catch the mid-afternoon east-bound train, which was the earliest he could reach, the baronet had left Ushermale to organize the tickets while he went to attend to the call of nature.

  Now Dinglepied was wishing he had controlled, or ignored, his bodily functions and remained with his secretary!

  ‘You going back to England, huh, you sir-ship?’ the Ysabel Kid inquired.

  ‘Only to Washington,’ the baronet replied, but refrained from correcting the repetition of the incorrect honorific he had been granted.

  ‘They do say’s how Washington’s mighty unhealthy this time of the year,’ the black dressed Texan drawled and there was something in his demeanor which frightened the recipient of the information. ‘And could be ’specially so for you!’

  ‘Are you threatening me?’ Dinglepied queried, noticing with growing alarm that the youngest of the trio had intercepted and was preventing Ushermale from joining him and the blond giant was standing a short distance away in the other direction, stopping anybody else from coming close. ‘If you are, being detectives—!’

  ‘We’re not detectives, nor ever have been,’ the Kid corrected. ‘And, seeing’s how we’re not wearing our badges, we’re not even peace officers right now. Which means this’s just between us personal’ and you. So, like I said, Washington could be ’specially unhealthy for you.’

  ‘W—Why me?’

  ‘Those three yahoos allowed they’d been hired by somebody to grab Miz Freddie and take her to Brownton to be held until she could be extradited to England and stand trial for something she’s supposed to have done.’

  ‘I—I know nothing about that!’ the baronet asserted, his sense of perturbation growing as he realized the three ‘Yankees’ considered they were no longer bound by the rules which were applied to all peace officers and he did not care to contemplate what the absence of such restrictions might mean to him.

  ‘Somebody does,’ the Kid replied. ‘Which me, Mark and Waco there, we’re tolerable certain it was you.’

  ‘How could it be?’ Dinglepied asked, feeling relieved that the three men hired by Ushermale at his instigation were dead and unable to give evidence against him. ‘The only time I left the hotel was in company with the other members of the Railway Commission.’

  ‘That tame lap-dog of your’n was out and about, though,’ the black clad Texan reminded. ‘But it doesn’t make no never-mind whether you paid those yahoos or not. ’Cause they’re dead and, even if we could, we wouldn’t haul you to jail to stand trial’s doing it would make fuss for Miss Freddie.’

  ‘Then why are you here?’

  ‘To get something cleared up in your head.’

  ‘And what might that be?’

  ‘You won’t chance hiring no more knob-heads to come after Freddie like the last time,’ the Kid claimed. ‘Which we both know is what you who put up that hombre I throat-slit ’n’ coup-counted and his two amigos to do, no matter who-all did your talking. But you still might be hankering, you being such an upstanding believer in law ’n’ justice and all, to see as how Freddie gets hauled back to Merrie Old England and put on trial for whatever it is she’s done.’

  ‘I -1 wouldn’t do that.’

  ‘But you might know somebody’s would,’ the Kid pointed out, with justification as this had been Dinglepied’s intention. ‘Or have some other notion.’

  ‘What kind of notion?’ the baronet was unable to resist inquiring.

  ‘You missed out on trying it your own way,’ the black dressed Texan explained and, suddenly—although Dinglepied had never seen one—his Indian dark features once again acquired the savage aspect of an angry Pehnane Comanche dog soldier. ‘So you could be figuring on having it done legal-like through your stinking soft- shell buddy, Senator Foulkes—’

  ‘I—I—!’ Dinglepied croaked, terrified by the change which had come and wondering why he could ever have thought the young looking ‘de
tective’ seemed innocent. He also could not imagine how the other had learned the identity of the man with whom he was meaning to make arrangements for the extradition. ‘How did you kn—?’

  ‘So listen good to me, your sir-ship,’ the Kid commanded, as if the interruption had not been made and without mentioning that Dusty had guessed who would be involved if any more legal attempts were made to bring about the purpose for which the abduction was employed. ‘Let just one more thing be even tried against Freddie and this whole god-damned wide world of our’n won’t be big enough for you to hide in. ’Cause, hombre, soon’s it does, we’ll be coming after you. Which, even without calling on Dusty or Freddie, Mark’s got more’n enough money of his own to let us do it.’ Pausing as if wishing to let what he had said so far to be absorbed, he continued with an even more chilling tone, ‘Then, when we find you, what I’ll do to you, you’ll wish I’d let those two sons-of-bitches in your room done their worst afore finishing you off. And you’ve got my word, which I’ve never yet broke’, nor ever mean to, on that. Sabe? which means, “Do you understand”?’

  ‘I—I understand,’ Dinglepied confirmed, his face ashy white and he was feeling more terrified than ever before in his life, so decided that—intimate as their relationship had been—he would forget trying to take revenge in behalf of his three friends. ‘And you can res—!’

  The assurance which the baronet had intended to give was not complete!

  There was a thud, followed an instant later by the crack of a rifle shot from across the railroad line and the bullet shattered its way through Dinglepied’s skull!

  Almost at the same instant, there was another rifle shot from the same area!

  Jerked backwards as if struck by a powerful yet invisible hand, Ushermale went sprawling on to the wooden boards of the platform with the lead in his chest!

  Chapter Fourteen – You’re A Mite Late

  ‘The big jasper’s still acting mean, Dusty,’ announced the deputy town marshal who had come from the rear section of the building which was given over to a line of cells for prisoners. ‘What’re you going to do about the telegraph message you had from good ole Senator George Foulkes, “friend of the under-privileged masses”, asking was it true what he’d heard about you keeping a “fellow human being chained like an animal to the wall”?’