The Adventures of Johnny Vermillion

by Loren D. Estleman

  Mme. Mort-Davies’ hair was, in fact, a rather alarming shade of violet, piled high and caught cruelly with combs; it was not observed to move even when the wind toppled a large valise from the mountain of luggage. She was nearly as tall as Mr. Vermillion, straight-backed and buxom, and fifty-five if she was a day. Matrons were her specialty, but she had been known to don a beard for Polonius, and strain credulity to cracking to allow Miss Clay to abandon the ingenue for a smaller part that offered more challenge. Saturday night, she would also pull a set of false whiskers as the venal warden of the Chateau d’If.

  Her husband, introduced as Major Evelyn Davies (emphasis on that first long E), formerly of the Queen’s horse guard, stood a head shorter and round as a barrel hoop in a buffalo coat and morning dress, dove-gray gaiters on his square-toed boots. He wore white handlebars and carried a gold-headed stick. His responsibilities included the beleagured Edmond Dantes’ aged father and also the Abbe Faria, Dantes’ fellow prisoner.

  “Finally, Mr. Cornelius Ragland, the plain sturdy band that holds together our quartet of gems. Tomorrow night you shall know him as the villainous Danglars, and perhaps recognize him among an army of coachmen, stewards, and prison guards. However, impersonation is not the sum total of his genius. He is the playwright who distilled Dumas Peré’s great work into three manageable acts, with time for intermission.”

  Young Mr. Ragland was plain as tin, but far from sturdy; he made the hollow-chested journalist look burly by comparison. Stoop-shouldered, bespectacled, with ears that stuck out conveniently to prevent his hat from settling onto his shoulders, he appeared miserable in the cold, and his suit of clothes was far from clean. At every glance he belonged to that genus of sickly male described as Too Fragile for this World.

  “What do you play, Mr. Vermillion?” someone called out. “The Chateau Deef?”

  The leader of the troupe laughed with the others. “It will be my privilege to ask you to accept me in the person of Edmond Dantes and his alter ego, that mysterious, haunted fellow, the Count of Monte Cristo.” He bowed deeply, and those in witness could do naught but clap their hands. Frontier audiences were notoriously generous.

  Isadore Weaver arrived, crimson-faced and puffing, apologizing for certain entrepreneurial details that had delayed him at the Golden Calf. He made the company’s acquaintance and explained that accommodations awaited them at the Railroad Arms; a brace of stagehands was on its way to transport their costumes and stage properties to the theater. Mr. Vermillion seemed prepared to resume orating, but Miss Clay tugged at his sleeve and asked the fellow from the Blanket for the time of day. Among the crowd on the platform there was a furious scramble for pockets. The reporter alone came up empty-handed and bewildered by the situation.

  Miss Clay smiled and produced a battered turnip watch and chain from her little reticule. “It’s a handsome timepiece,” she said. “I couldn’t resist a closer look.”

  Blushing, the young man accepted its return, along with her sweet apology. Miss Clay, explained Mr. Vermillion, was a gifted parlor magician whose father had studied under Monsieur Robert-Houdin in Paris. His listeners applauded the charming demonstration of legerdemain, and not one noticed the blue-icicle gaze he fixed upon the pretty conjurer.

  When the fire curtain rose Saturday night, bearing with it its wallpaper pattern of advertising (“TROPICAL FRUIT LAXATIVE, THE GENTLE PERSUADER, AVAILABLE AT BOYLAN’S DRUGS”; “ELY & SONS PRESENT SUMMER AND WINTER SUITS FOR MEN AND BOYS”; “SHARPS METALLIC CARTRIDGES BY CASE OR GROSS, ORDER AT PARDON’S GENERAL MERCHANDISE”), a capacity crowd cheered everything, even the set.

  The set, at least, benefited heavily from anticipation. Back then, itinerant actors traveled much more lightly than the Broadway road companies of the present day, depending upon theaters to supply all but their costumes and makeup and some hand properties specific to the production. The Golden Calf appealed in turn to its patrons, who built and painted sets and donated odd sticks of furniture, some of which came from the trash heap behind the Old Cathay Saloon after its biweekly brawl. As a result, the home of Edmond Dantes in Act I was more reminiscent of a Victorian jumble sale than of the play’s French Empire setting, and when Edmond bearded Danglars in his own den in Act III, a number of sharp observers noted that the villain appeared to shop in the same places as his mortal enemy. But it was the performances that mattered.

  Whatever his thespial challenges—he tended to speechify, and Mr. Ragland’s script indulged that tendency—Mr. John Tyler Vermillion of Chicago cut a dashing figure in tights and delivered his soliloquys in a ringing tenor, punctuated by clashing blades and much athletic hopping about during the fencing scenes. Miss April Clay captivated the women with her courage and the men with her decolletage; a bit of modest lace in the last act, and a dash of talcum to her temples, supported the passage of years. Poor Mr. Ragland was a weak and unconvincing swordsman, but spoke his lines with a serpentine hiss (and a bit of a lisp) appropriate to the dastard of the drama. All agreed that the Madame and the Major were rather fine, and the choice of material fortunate. During the quiet stretches, a great many fewer shots were fired into the ceiling than usual.

  At intermission, those consulting their programmes for the first time were startled to learn that Miss Clay and Mme. Mort-Davies had disguised themselves as prison guards to dispose of Faria’s earthly remains. It had been assumed those mute parts were played by men of the cast.

  The Tannery Blanket and its readers joined in declaring The Count of Monte Cristo a successful opening to the winter theatrical season. The review would have claimed the entire first column had not someone robbed the Pioneers Bank & Trust midway through the second act.

  3

  It is an established fact of American town life that one neighborhood is singled out as the best among three adjoining, that one of two identical houses is regarded as superior, and that traffic is heavier on one side of Main Street than on the other. The Pioneers was the more successful of Tannery’s two banks simply because its competitor, the Planter State, stood on the side where Grand Street entered Main at a right angle, interrupting the pedestrian flow. Even rugged settlers, once settled, tend to follow the path of least resistance. That path led to Horace Longnecker’s institution three doors down from the Golden Calf Theater.

  Alvin S. Geary was on duty the night of the robbery. As the cashier in shortest residence, he’d been ordered to come in that night to correct a shortfall of sixty-two cents in Friday’s deposits, an assignment accepted with ill grace. Geary suspected Old Longnecker had pocketed the difference in order to force Geary to surrender his ticket to The Count of Monte Cristo to Longnecker’s married daughter. He was sufficiently bitter to attract suspicion, but his refusal to change his account eventually persuaded City Marshal Fletcher to broaden his search.

  According to Geary, he had the deposits spread out on the large worktable in Longnecker’s office, counting the notes and coins and comparing the sums to figures in the ledger, when he heard the street door open and close. Certain he’d locked it securely, Geary stepped into the lobby to investigate and found himself facing a cloaked figure pointing a large revolver directly at his chest.

  The intruder gestured toward the office. Hands raised unbidden, Geary backed inside, followed by the visitor, who produced an oilcloth sack from a coat pocket. No explanation was required. The cashier took the sack and scooped the money into it. The figure with the gun took back the sack, gestured for Geary to sit down behind Longnecker’s desk, and backed out, reversing the key in the office door and locking him inside. The episode was over in less than five minutes, with no words spoken.

  By the time Geary broke free, some thirty-four hundred dollars in notes, gold, and silver had vanished without a whisper.

  The bandit wore a soft dark hat with the brim pulled down and a coarse scarf wound around his lower features, with a bulky coat that hung to his heels. He stood under the average height and the coat was far too big for his slender frame; the slee
ves were turned back twice and the revolver appeared too heavy for the delicate wrist that stuck out of the right. Geary had the impression he was a youth, aged no more than sixteen.

  “You’re stout enough,” said the marshal. “You ought to have tried to outwrestle him.”

  “Not for Old Longnecker’s money. The gun was stouter.”

  Marshal Fletcher was forty and unpleasantly fat, a fixture in outlaw tales of this type. Picture him in a horizontal heap behind his desk, batting at flies with a paper fan given out by the local undertaker, soup stains on his vest and egg crusted on his badge of office. A fly lands on his neck; he swats, but he’s too slow, and the insect takes flight, insolent and drowsy in the heat from the potbelly stove. A pot of coffee has simmered there since morning—when it’s poured you could tie a knot in the stream. There is the usual gun rack and the usual bulletin board shingled with pluguglies and offers of reward, with no restrictions as to their condition upon delivery.

  Lazy fat men are commonly dismissed as cowardly and stupid. This was not true in Fletcher’s case, although in most circumstances he preferred to sit still and acquire the reputation than stir himself to correct it. Against that, he had a drawer full of fans given him by the undertaker, and a board stuck in Boot Hill for every one. A fly is not a desperado.

  Once he was satisfied of Geary’s innocence, the Law in Tannery took the obvious next step and presented himself at the Golden Calf.

  The cashier had insisted that the robbery took place at five minutes past nine, nearly an hour before the theater let out; but Fletcher knew a bit about the comings and goings of actors in performance, even if he didn’t care for entertainments of that nature. He’d read somewhere, possibly in the Police Gazette, of Edwin Booth absenting himself from Richard III in New York City long enough to get smashed at the Knickerbocker bar and staggering back onstage just in time for his cue. He reckoned that an experienced imbiber would be twenty minutes at such a task; the Pioneers bandit had needed just five to remove thirty-four hundred and change.

  Fletcher sheltered no prejudice against theater people, only strangers. He was a community booster, confident in the belief that most serious felonies were committed by people from out of town.

  Summoned to the lobby, Isadore Weaver was unhappy to learn that the marshal intended to interview the cast of the splendid play that was then whirling and crashing toward its final curtain. He was unhappier still that Fletcher wished to detain all six hundred members of the audience until they’d been questioned and released. He became obstreperous on the second point. A compromise was reached: The public would be allowed to go home after leaving their names with the head usher and information on where they could be reached. The owner beckoned to that fellow, told him what was needed, and conducted the marshal backstage.

  The Golden Calf retained two dressing rooms, each generously proportioned according to the standards of the time. Mabel North, she of the duet with the canary bird, had had one all to herself and her partner in its cage, but the Farrell Family of tumblers, high-wire performers, and dog trainers had crammed themselves in eight to a room, plus six poodles. Gallantly, the male portion of the Prairie Rose Repertory Company shared the smaller of the two chambers and gave the other to Mme. Mort-Davies and Miss Clay. Marshal Fletcher smoked a cigar in Weaver’s office and questioned them one by one, starting with the men.

  He found Mr. Vermillion cooperative and pleasant. Wan Mr. Ragland was nervous; many of his responses were mumbled and unintelligible and had to be repeated for clarity, but Fletcher was experienced with uncertain youth and did not reckon it a mark against him. He positively disliked the apoplectic Major Davies, who challenged him constantly, thumping the floor with his stick and answering every question with one of his own. Fletcher had to smack Weaver’s desk hard with his hand to startle the man into submission. All three assured the marshal they had not left the theater from first curtain to last, nor witnessed any of the others leaving.

  Vermillion smiled. “Do you understand repertory, Mr. Fletcher?”

  “Marshal. I think I do. You shuffle yourselves like cards and play each other’s parts.”

  “And whatever parts are called for beyond the first and second leads: grooms, nurses, Lord High Mayors, lunatics—spear-carriers, we call them. Most plays have five or six such characters, nonspeaking usually, but essential to the business onstage. Some have dozens. We play them all. There isn’t time to step outside for a smoke, much less rob a bank.”

  Fletcher struggled upright. “Who said anything about robbing a bank?”

  “A theater is a leaky old barn, Marshal. Rumors fly in and out like sparrows.”

  Ragland, too, knew Fletcher’s purpose; the audience had been lined up as far back as the stage, waiting to give the head usher the information he wanted and get out. He’d overheard them talking on his way there from the dressing room.

  Asked if he also was aware of the situation, Major Davies thumped his stick and demanded to know if his wife was to be subjected to this infernal inquisition.

  Miss Clay resembled a little girl with her makeup scrubbed off and a silk scarf over her head, a smart coat covering her robe. She was sweet and answered questions readily. Mme. Mort-Davies, who had had time to fix her face and hair and put on street clothes, provided direct responses, offering no details beyond those requested. Their sessions went swiftly.

  At the end, the marshal felt he had a clear picture of what each player had been doing at the time of the robbery. A score of interviews conducted at random over Sunday convinced him that none of the players had been outside the view of six hundred witnesses long enough to have committed it; but lazy men, once they’ve overcome inertia, are thorough. Before he led a posse out of town in pursuit of a lone fugitive, he directed three full-time deputies to search the theater, the company’s rooms at the Railway Arms, and their many trunks and bags for the missing money, which contained too much gold to conceal on the person. The Prairie Rose arsenal of fencing foils and stage pistols was impressive but hardly conclusive, as everyone owned firearms. Their props were numerous and varied and included a bicycle. The bandit’s attire, so vaguely described by Mr. Geary, might have been anywhere among the dozens of costumes and accessories so tightly packed in pasteboard drawers and placed upon thin wooden hangers, or nowhere at all.

  Neither the search nor the posse was successful. On Monday morning, butt-sore and lighter by several inconsequential pounds, Marshal Fletcher apologized to the players for their inconvenience and escorted them to the depot. As the train pulled away, he saw his employment future leave with it. For once, the swarm of flies that overhung Tannery had given way to a cloud of doubt concerning the local system of law enforcement. Every merchant in town had lost some portion of his profits while the Count of Monte Cristo was busy settling old scores, and all Fletcher had managed to do was discourage him and his party from ever coming back to free the town from its travails.

  Eight miles due west of Tannery and a brief, kidney-rattling buckboard ride north of the U.P. tracks lay the hamlet of New Hope, now entering the late stages of dissolution. An establishing shot lingers significantly on a plank sign with a black X painted through “NEW” and “NO” lettered above in the same dismal shade. The town’s founder had undertaken to swindle E. H. Harriman in a business transaction, and without pause to reflect, the dyspeptic force behind the Transcontinental Railroad had altered the construction by a quarter-inch on the surveyors’ map. New Hope withered.

  As their transportation slowed to negotiate the prairie-dog town that had taken up residence on the broad single street, April Clay frowned prettily in the shade of her parasol.

  “Johnny, it’s deserted. There’s no one to protect us from Indians.”

  Vermillion, seated facing her on the bench opposite, reached out and patted her knee. “Of course there is, dear. You’ve met Gunderson.”

  Their driver, a representative specimen of frontier color introduced as New Hope’s mayor pro tem, wore a Uni
on forage cap and the greatcoat of a colonel in the Confederacy. He’d appointed himself to fill the vacancy left by the founder’s suicide.

  “It’s a damn Whitechapel in the desert,” declared Major Davies, gripping his stick. “There are rats in the street.” He was always in bad cess when his wife was absent.

  “Those aren’t rats, old fellow. They’ll keep the rattlesnakes out of our beds.”

  “You don’t mean we’re to stay here overnight!” April glared defiance—a showstopper in the third act.

  “That depends on Liz. She doesn’t pedal as fast as she used to.”

  “She rode the high wire in Atlantic City in sixty-three,” said the Major. “My part against yours she’ll be here by dark.”

  “Even so, there’s no train before morning. I’ve slept outside on Blue Island. We’ll survive.”

  “It will be an adventure,” said Cornelius Ragland.

  All eyes turned to the fragile young man, who had not spoken since before they left the train. He sat next to Gunderson on the driver’s seat. His eyes, large as pears in his thin face, gleamed through his spectacles.

  “Corny’s our pioneer,” Vermillion confided. “There’s nothing for him back East but the sanitarium.”

  They drew rein before a gaunt barn in a community of duncolored clapboard. Gunderson hopped down among the obligatory tumbleweeds and reached up to help Vermillion unload their single trunk; all but it and April’s leather train case had remained aboard the train, bound for their next port of call.

  “Oh, Johnny, a barn?”

  He bared his polished teeth. “I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.”

  Inside, a lantern burned on a table inside a circle of barrel stoves, an island of warmth in the dank vastness smelling of grain. There were chairs, a pile of bedrolls, a picnic basket, and a foilwrapped glass neck sticking up out of a galvanized bucket filled with chunks of ice. The Major drew out the bottle of champagne and squinted at the label. “New Jersey.” He let it slide back.