The Case of the Petrified Man

by Caroline Lawrence

  Boz started to struggle to his feet & as he did so he caught sight of me crouching under the faro table.

  “You damned puppy!” he hissed. “This is all your fault. I’m gonna get you and cut your throat!”

  Bang!

  Farner Peel had fired another shot up into the ceiling. It brought down a satisfying shower of dust & plaster.

  “I will count to ten,” said Peel.

  He had barely got to six when the saloon doors were swinging and the space Boz had occupied was empty.

  I breathed a sigh of relief and crawled out and dusted off the sawdust.

  There was a round of applause from some of the patrons, but Mr. Leeky did not seem happy.

  “Sir,” he said to Langford Farner Peel, “please do not take offence at what I am about to say. But there was a shooting affray here last week and I only just finished having the ceiling replastered.”

  “You want me to leave and never come back?” said Peel with a half smile & a raised eyebrow.

  “If you don’t mind, sir.” Mr. Jasper Leeky gave Peel a little bow. I noticed his hands were shaking.

  “Very well.” Peel picked up his slouch hat and put it on his head and slowly walked towards the exit.

  As he passed by me, I said, “Thank you, Mr. Peel.”

  He gave that strange half smile again and touched his finger to his hat.

  Then he, too, went out the swinging doors.

  “You! Indian boy!” said Mr. Jasper Leeky. I looked up to see that he was addressing me.

  His arm pointed towards the door. “You go, too!” he said. “You bring heap bad medicine.”

  I gave Jace a sidelong look, but he was flicking a piece of lint from his coat.

  I knew he would understand my leaving so abruptly.

  I gave Mr. Jasper Leeky a curt nod & bent to pick up my begging cup & went out after the three gunmen.

  I glanced around to make sure none of them were lying in wait for me. They appeared to be gone.

  Nevertheless, I kept to the shadows as I made my way home through the lively streets.

  I reckon it was nearly 2:30 a.m. when I climbed back up my ladder & tumbled in through my half-open window.

  I took off my hat & put down my begging cup & I knelt beside my camp bed to say my prayers but my mind was spinning like a top with all the things that had happened since the morning:

  I had received a ghoulish parcel containing a Stone Baby with the letters R.I.P. on its belly. I had witnessed a shooting affray & helped the Doc perform a delicate medical operation. I had been swung at & knocked down & nearly kissed. I had met the new Preacher & interviewed four ladies in their corsets. I had seen my first Minstrel Singers & some Dancing Firegirls & also some real Firemen in action. I had got my first Genuine Client, then lost her, then found her & then nearly lost her again to flames. I had nearly got set on fire and/or lynched. Jace had taught me some more useful things about people and I had seen Stonewall blub like a baby. And just now I had stopped two desperados from shooting me by flinging a nearly-full spittoon at them.

  I thought, “Yes, this is a good place to learn about the ways of men and the wickedness thereof.”

  Little did I imagine what the next day held in store for me.

  Ledger Sheet 35

  I WAS WOKEN on the morning of Friday October 3 by an insistent knocking on the front door of my office.

  I unrolled myself from my begging blanket & sat up. My left arm was throbbing from my gunshot wound & from where about three people had gripped me hard the day before. My ear ached from where Ludwig Hamm had struck me. My ankle was still sore from jumping from one balcony to another last week. And now my heart was banging from being wrenched from sleep by urgent knocking.

  I felt tired & low, but as I stood up, the sight of that 100-mile view of far-off deserts & mountains & the sun gilding Sugar Loaf Mountain revived my spirits a little. Through the soles of my moccasins, I could feel the steady thump of a thousand Quartz Mills pounding ore into silver-filled dust. That thudding came right up through the stilts on which my back room was propped. It was like the mountain’s heartbeat.

  I had fallen asleep still dressed in my moccasins & buckskin trowsers & faded red flannel shirt & wrapped in my Paiute begging blanket. My hair is still real short from where Ma Evangeline shaved it against nits, so I did not have to comb it or do anything else to get ready except put on my dark blue coat with the brass buttons.

  When I came out of my bedroom I could see the shape of a figure in my door window. As I got closer, I saw it was Mr. Sam Clemens. He was looking back across the street towards the Shamrock Saloon. When he heard the key in my lock he turned & smiled down at me & took the pipe from his mouth.

  “No flowers grow here, and no green thing gladdens the eye,” he drawled, pointing with his pipe, “but saloons spring up like weeds. That one seems to have appeared overnight. Did you hear about Murphy who was shot yesterday? They say he might live! I reckon this rarified atmosphere carries healing to gunshot wounds.”

  I said, “What do you want?”

  “You know, P.K.,” he said, strolling into my office, “now that you have set up as a Private Eye, you might consider adopting a more formal way of greeting your clients. ‘How may I help you?’ or ‘What is troubling you?’ are both preferable to a blunt ‘What do you want?’”

  “How may I help you?” I asked, stifling a yawn with my hand.

  “Oh, I am sorry,” he said, puffing on his evil-smelling pipe. “Did I wake you? Were you up till all hours at some saloon last night?” He chuckled & then stopped when I nodded.

  “Yes,” I replied. “I was over at the Virginia City Saloon until about two a.m. Two desperados came gunning for me but I distracted them with a spittoon long enough for Farner Peel to draw his piece & scare them out of town.”

  “Dang it, Pinky,” he drawled. “You have the Devil’s Luck. You always seem to be in the right place at the right time.” He clasped his hands behind him & rocked back on his heels & gazed up at the sky-window & puffed. “What I would have given to live by myself and frequent saloons until two a.m. when I was your age,” he said. “What a life.”

  “It is no Feather Bed,” said I. “Being a Detective is harder than I thought it would be.”

  Sam Clemens removed the pipe from his mouth and scowled at it. “Dan De Quille got wind of that Shooting last night. He has already conducted interviews and written it up,” he said. “Dan found Boz nearly bleeding to death and turned him in and got the two hundred dollar reward.”

  “He turned Boz in?” I said. “So I don’t have to worry about him?”

  “I reckon not.”

  “What about Extra Dub?”

  Sam Clemens shrugged. “Some witnesses saw him tearing away towards Carson City at a prodigious rate,” he said. “His horse was shedding foam-flakes like a ship in a typhoon.”

  “That is good news,” I said.

  I sat behind my desk and he sat in my Client’s chair before me.

  I poured myself a cup of cold coffee.

  “You going to share that with me?” he drawled.

  “I only have one cup,” I said, taking a sip. “Besides, it is cold and black.”

  “Like your heart,” he muttered. Then he sat forward and said, “P.K., I have a problem. I got my job at the Territorial Enterprise by writing the occasional witty Letter to the Editor. But now they want me to fill two columns every single day. And by God, that ain’t easy, especially as Dan gets first choice on all the Shootings and really exciting things. At the moment, my notebook is barren. Bereft of ideas. Blank as a desert.”

  I nodded, to show I was listening.

  He tipped his chair back and continued, “After the gun duel between Patrick Murphy and Farner Peel that was snatched from me, I happened upon a beautiful fistfight down on C Street. But as nobody was killed or mortally wounded, my paper will not publish the details. Then my hopes soared when I heard the fire bell yesterday evening. I rushed across the street t
o the Flora Temple Livery Stable but by the time I got there the fire was almost out. Those Firemen are so doggone rapid that they prevented any loss of man or beast. It seems fistfights and fires without deaths are of no consequence to anybody.” He puffed his pipe & said, “I do pine for murder.”

  I said, “I am trying to solve the murder of Short Sally.”

  He waved his pipe. “Last month’s news.”

  I kept quiet. I did not want him muddying my waters anyway. He seemed to twist every fact he got hold of.

  Then he leaned forward. “Yesterday Dan suggested I go down to the Coroner and get some stories from him. You know, children run over by Quartz Wagons or puppies fallen down Mine Shafts. Now that was a good idea, the reader loves that sort of Tragedy. The only problem is that the Coroner and I are feuding.”

  “Do you mean Mr. G.T. Sewall?” I said. “A big red-faced man with a silver-tipped walking stick?”

  “That is the varmint!” cried Sam Clemens & pointed at me with his pipe stem. “See? You arrived the same afternoon I did and already you know more about this town and its denizens than I do.”

  “I do not like G.T. Sewall,” I said.

  “Nor do I,” said Sam Clemens. “So here is my proposition to you. I will pay you a dollar to go down to the Coroner and find out if there have been any grisly or gruesome deaths recently.”

  “No,” I said.

  “What do you mean: no?”

  “I mean I went down there yesterday to ask about my Case. He thought you had put me up to it and he almost brained me with his silver-tipped walking stick. He already thinks I am in cahoots with you.”

  “That could be a problem.” Sam Clemens sat back & puffed on his pipe.

  I sat back, too, and took a sip of yesterday’s cold black coffee.

  I had an idea. “Would your readers like to hear about a man cut in half by a Quartz Wagon?”

  He shook his head. “Too commonplace. We had one of those last week. I need something new. Something fresh.”

  I thought, “I’ll bet you would like the story of a little girl who witnessed a crime and now the killer is after her.” But I did not say it.

  After a moment Sam Clemens sat forward. “You could go down in disguise,” he said.

  “My disguises are for shadowing people,” I said. “Not for interviewing them. They only work because they help you blend in to the background. They don’t bear close examination.”

  “There is one disguise you have that might work,” said he.

  “Which one is that?” I asked. But already I thought I knew what he had in mind.

  “That one where you dress up as a little girl,” he said. “It quite transforms you.”

  “That is a time-consuming disguise,” I said. “I am in the middle of an important investigation. I have to check the whereabouts of various suspects on the evening of Friday last.”

  “Give me their names,” said he. “I will question them with tact and discretion, under the pretence of writing an article. I will find out if any of them are unaccounted for.”

  I took another sip of cold black coffee & pondered his proposal.

  It was a good one. I had not had much luck interviewing suspects. They always seemed to get mad at me, probably because I came straight at them as Jace had said. It might be that Sam Clemens was better at flanking maneuvers.

  “All right,” I said. “I will question my next-door neighbor, Mr. Isaiah Coffin. If you question a barber named Pierre Forote, a policeman named Isaac Brokaw and a telegraph operator named Yuri Ivanovich, then I will visit the Coroner for you.”

  I did not say it out loud, but I thought, “If my disguise is convincing enough, I might even get some more clews about Short Sally’s Killer.”

  Ledger Sheet 36

  BEFORE I WENT DOWN to the Coroner’s Office to get news of grisly murders and/or gruesome deaths for Mr. Sam Clemens, I fortified myself with a hearty Detective Breakfast of two mutton chops, eggs & buttered toast with marmalade.

  Then I went next door to interview Suspect No. 6 on my list. I was still pretty sure No. 1 had done it—Ludwig Hamm—but this would give me a chance to practice my interview skills.

  I knocked at the door of Isaiah Coffin’s Ambrotype & Photographic Gallery.

  His Chinese assistant, Ping, opened the door with a scowl.

  “How are you, Ping?” I asked carefully. “How is everything at home?”

  He shrugged. “All right. Everyone still asleep,” he said.

  I nodded to show I understood. “May I come in?”

  “Why?” he asked.

  “I need to borrow a costume,” I said. “And also to question your boss.”

  “He busy,” said Ping. “He is teaching me to mix chemicals. Also, he is vexed because you keep borrowing clothings. He say you wear and tear.”

  “I will pay him for any damaged goods,” I said. “Please let me by?”

  Ping stood back to let me by. He was wearing an apron over a smart gray worsted suit. The suit looked store-bought. I reckon he had bought it with some of the $500 I gave him for helping me the previous week.

  Ping followed me into the clothes cupboard.

  The door to the small Dark Room was open. I saw & smelled Mr. Isaiah Coffin mixing chemicals. Isaiah Coffin is tall & slim with a wispy billy goat beard & one eyebrow almost permanently raised.

  “Good morning, P.K.,” he said in his English accent. “How are you today?”

  “I am well, thank you. Ping says you are vexed at me.”

  “Ping is quite correct,” said Isaiah Coffin, raising his raised eyebrow even higher. “You have been using up my costumes. Wear and tear, my boy, wear and tear. My problem, you see, is that they belong to my friend Maguire. I’m only storing them until he opens his theater.”

  “May I borrow the Prim Little Girl costume one last time if I buy a replacement?”

  “I suppose so,” he said. “As long as your replacement is of the same quality.”

  “Thank you,” I said. I went behind a rack of clothes and began to change. I could have taken my costume to my own place next door but I wanted an excuse to stay & question him.

  I remembered Jace’s advice so I tried coming at Mr. Isaiah Coffin from the side: a “flanking maneuver.”

  I cleared my throat and said, “Mr. Coffin, do you ever go to the Melodeon or the Dog Fights of an evening?”

  He stuck his head out of the small room and frowned at me. “What?”

  “Topliffe’s Theatre, for example. Do you ever go there?”

  “B’yen syoor,” said Isaiah Coffin. “I love the theater in all its forms.”

  I unbuttoned my faded red (not pink) flannel shirt. “Were you there last Friday by any chance?” I asked. “Only I noticed the poster said a woman was doing a ‘Fancy Dance’ and I was wondering what that was.”

  “I was not there,” replied Mr. Isaiah Coffin. “I had a Secret Meeting. But I imagine a ‘Fancy Dance’ is some sort of energetic jig.”

  “Secret Meeting?” I said, turning to face his open door. “What Secret Meeting?”

  “It is a secret,” he said, his voice was muffled as he bent over a tray.

  I tried coming at him from another side.

  “Where do you live, Mr. Coffin?” I asked, as I slipped on the calico dress.

  “I live in a boardinghouse south of here, near the Divide.”

  “Were you up late last Friday night?” I asked, as I pulled on the bloomers. “At your ‘Secret Meeting’?”

  His head appeared over the clothes rack & almost made me jump out of my dress.

  “Why all these questions?” he asked.

  “Just curious,” I said.

  “Cease and desist,” he said. “I am teaching Ping how to develop tintypes and we are using dangerous chemicals. You are distracting me.”

  “I apologize,” I said. “I will not bother you anymore.”

  They closed the door of the small dark room behind them & I sighed.

  My flankin
g maneuver had failed. I hoped Sam Clemens was having more luck with the French barber, the American policeman and the Russian telegraph operator.

  I finished changing into my Prim Little Girl Disguise. It takes about five minutes to do up all the little buttons on each boot. I was glad I did not have to wear such an outfit every day.

  The strange thing about wearing a disguise is that it makes you feel different. It is a little like adopting a person’s posture. Wearing a calico dress & boots & bonnet, you can almost imagine what it would be like to be a Prim Little Girl. It changes the way you walk and the way you see the world. Your dress prickles your neck & your bonnet blinkers your vision & your too-tight white button-up boots make you take wincing, mincing steps. Bloomers feel strange, too, because a breeze comes up under your skirt & whistles around your nether parts & this can be unsettling. The temperature had dropped so I also took a knitted, woolen woman’s shawl. It was a shade of purple and did not match my pink calico dress but that could not be helped.

  When I took my own clothes back next door, I observed there were still no clients waiting outside to hire me.

  I thought, “I had better solve this case or my career as a Detective will soon be over and I will never get to Chicago.”

  When I finally got down to the Coroner’s office it was about 11 o’clock a.m. The door was closed.

  I knocked politely.

  “Come in!” said a voice from within.

  I opened the door. Sure enough it was that red-faced bully G.T. Sewall.

  “Good morning, sir,” I said in a little girl’s voice. I kept my head down as if I was shy so he would not get a good look at my face. Under my pink bonnet I was wearing a wig with black ringlets. “Are you the Coroner?” I asked. I perched on the edge of a wooden chair facing his desk.

  “I am,” he said. “What brings you here?”

  “My brother has gone missing,” I said. “My ma sent me to see if you’ve had any deaths recently. She is too upset to come herself.”

  This was the story Sam Clemens had coached me to say. He said to be as vague as possible about “my brother.”