The Bags of Tricks Affair--A Carpenter and Quincannon Mystery

by Bill Pronzini

  A noonday meal in the dining car helped pass some of the time. Afterward Quincannon sought to escape the banker’s company by entering the club car, but Kasabian followed him and proceeded to down two large whiskies and soda, the liquor serving to make him more talkative. By the time they reached the farming community in mid-afternoon, Quincannon’s patience and temper were both on short leashes.

  The old watchman’s shack Leopold Saxe had made his headquarters was at the south end of the railroad yards, a short distance from the station. As the train passed it, slowing and hissing steam, he had a clear look at it. And at a portion of the field behind it where the swindlers’ equipage—a roan horse and what looked to be a converted dougherty wagon—were picketed.

  The shack was a ramshackle affair, listing a few degrees farther south on one side, its dusty windows blinded by squares of monk’s cloth. Half a dozen citizens lounged in the shade of a small copse of locust trees at the rim of the field nearby—far fewer, no doubt, than had been in attendance when Saxe began his rain-conjuring experiments the previous week.

  The length of brand-new stovepipe that poked up more than a dozen feet through the shack’s roof was presently emitting clouds of the yellowish gas Kasabian had described. The contraption on the wooden platform that had been erected alongside resembled a cross between a cannon and a gigantic slingshot. Stretched between the platform and the building was a silken banner festooned with ribbons that hung limp in the hot dry air. The crimson words emblazoned on the banner were the same as those on the Cloud Cracker’s business card.

  When the train stopped in the station, Quincannon and Kasabian were the only two passengers to alight. Of course not a trace of cloud, cracked or otherwise, marred the smoky blue of the sky overhead. Nor was there even the faintest whiff of ozone among the mingled odors of summer dust, river water, and the noxious chemical gas. Quincannon thought sourly that the temperature here must be at least ten degrees higher than it had been in Grass Valley, the faint breeze like a breath from an open furnace. Sweat immediately slicked his face, trickled through the hairs of his beard as he stood surveying the town of Delford.

  It stretched out to the north and east, some five square blocks in size, its main street defined by orderly rows of gaslight standards, electricity not having come into general use here as yet, and zinc-sheathed telegraph poles. The few crop, hay, and freight wagons that moved along it raised puffs and spurts of dust that seemed to hang suspended in the lifeless air. There was hardly any pedestrian activity, owing to the heat and the fact that this was a farm community still caught in the vise of a drought. Wheat fields surrounded it, broken only by the Southern Pacific tracks on one side and the willow-lined banks of the San Joaquin River on the other.

  Two men who had been standing in the shade of the depot’s roof stepped out together and came forward. Both were middle-aged, one very fat and bald except for little sprouts of gray hair here and there on his scalp, the other thin and lantern-jawed. Kasabian introduced the fat man as James Parnell, mercantile proprietor and mayor of Delford, and the thin gent as town marshal Tom Boxhardt. Quincannon hardly needed the introduction to deduce Boxhardt’s occupation; a badge was pinned to his shirt under a sweat-stained cowhide vest, and he wore an old-fashioned Civil War–vintage Beaumont-Adams revolver in a side holster. Parnell’s handshake was moist, Boxhardt’s firm and dry.

  The banker looked around nervously before saying, “Sheriff Beadle and his deputies haven’t arrived yet, I take it.”

  “Not yet,” Parnell said. He had a high, reedy voice, incongruous in a man of his bulk. A gleaming watch chain a quarter of an inch thick bisected his bulging corporation. “No, not yet.”

  Just as well, Quincannon thought. The sheriff’s tardy arrival would allow him to join in the arrest of the three swindlers.

  “When are they coming?” Kasabian asked Boxhardt. “Have you had word?”

  “No. Better be soon, though. Matters have heated up, and I don’t mean the weather.”

  “Those crooks haven’t tried to leave?”

  “No. They’re still at work in the shack. Fired off them chemical bombshells of theirs the last two nights and claim they’ll do the same again tonight.”

  “Then what—?”

  “Trouble between Daks and Mr. Goodland.”

  “What kind of trouble? What’s happened?”

  “O.H. threatened to kill the rainmaker last evening.”

  “Oh Lord. For what reason?”

  “Evidently Daks, or Saxe, made improper advances to his daughter,” Parnell said distastefully. “May even have seduced the poor girl. Molly denied it, but Mr. Goodland’s not convinced.”

  Quincannon asked when and where the advances were made.

  “Same day Mr. Kasabian left for San Francisco, over in the willow grove by the river. The girl went there for the evening shade and Saxe followed her. Mr. Goodland found out yesterday afternoon, when he came upon Molly crying in her room.”

  “Does Saxe’s mistress know about this?”

  “Well, she wasn’t there when he accosted Daks, but she must’ve heard by now. The other one … Rollins, is it?… was there when it happened outside the Valley House.”

  “Accosted?” Kasabian said. He was putting his red handkerchief to use again, mopping his ruddy cheeks and neck inside the already wilted starched collar. “Were blows struck?”

  “Worse’n that,” Boxhardt said. He spat into the dust beyond the edge of the station platform. “Mr. Goodland was carrying his revolver and he drew the weapon when the rainmaker give him no satisfaction. I disarmed him, warned him against any more violence. But you know how he is.”

  “All too well. Stubborn, and a grudge-holder. There’s no telling what he might do.”

  Quincannon asked, “Is he here in town today?”

  “Never left,” Boxhardt said. “Took a room last night at the hotel, down the hall from Saxe’s and the woman’s room.”

  “Any more trouble between them since?”

  “Not that I know about.”

  “Is he at the hotel now?”

  “In the saloon, last I saw of him.”

  “Building his courage with whiskey,” Kasabian said. His disapproving tone was wryly ironic, given his own penchant for strong spirits. “O.H. is temperamental enough when he’s sober, but under the influence he is twice as unpredictable.”

  “He hasn’t been told about the fugitive arrest warrant?”

  Mayor Parnell said, “No, of course not. No one in town knows but the four of us.”

  Quincannon leaned down to pick up his valise. “Suppose we go have a talk with Mr. Goodland,” he said, “and make sure he keeps a tight rein on his temper until Sheriff Beadle arrives.”

  12

  QUINCANNON

  The Valley House was a plain, two-story frame building opposite the bank. It had two entrances, one marked HOTEL and the other GENTLEMEN’S SALOON. When Quincannon followed Kasabian, Boxhardt, and Parnell through the latter, he found himself in a dim, stuffy room ripe with the smells of beer and spirits. A handful of patrons were lined along the bar and two old men played cribbage at one of the tables.

  “O.H. isn’t here,” the banker said. “Perhaps he went up to his room—”

  Loud, angry voices from the adjacent lobby interrupted him. One, a tolerable bellow, prompted Boxhardt to say, “That’s Mr. Goodland.” He hurried through the archway separating the saloon from the lobby.

  At the foot of the staircase to the upper floor, a burly gent in farmer’s garb stood nose to nose with a slender young man in a cutaway coat and brocade vest. A flaxen-haired woman clad in a white shirtwaist and flowered skirt was making an effort to push the farmer, no doubt O. H. Goodland, away. He took no notice; she might have been pushing at a rooted tree.

  “… all of you out of town before noon tomorrow,” Goodland was shouting, “or you’ll suffer the consequences.” The words carried a whiskey slur. Veins stood out on his thick neck; his sunburned face had darkened a
poplectically. “You hear me, Conley? You and Daks and this woman here and all your damned paraphernalia by noon tomorrow!”

  Mortimer Rollins, alias Ben Conley, was four inches shorter and fifty pounds lighter, but he, too, stood his ground. Flashing eyes and the hard set of his mouth belied the dandified appearance given him by the thin handlebar mustache and sleekly pomaded hair. He was neither afraid of the farmer nor intimidated by him.

  “Your threats are worthless, sir,” he said. “We intend to remain in Delford until we have fulfilled our contract to bring rain to this parched land—”

  “Rain! Humbug! Not a cloud much less a cloudburst in six days.”

  “We are scientists, not wizards.”

  Goodland uttered a rude word that brought a gasp from the woman and a “Here now!” protest from the mayor. Quincannon thought the gasp was theatrical; Cora Lee Johnson had likely heard—and spoken—far worse in her twenty-eight years. She was small and soft-looking, but there would be sand and cold steel at the core of her.

  She said with spirit, “You are vulgar, sir, as well as a drunkard and a fool.”

  “Better a vulgar fool than a charlatan and a debaucher.”

  “My husband is not a charlatan. And he did not seduce your daughter.”

  “Can’t deny he made advances to her.”

  “I can and I do deny it.”

  “By God, she told me he did and she’s not a liar.”

  “Then she must have imagined or misinterpreted the situation. Now will you kindly allow us to proceed to our rooms?”

  “Proceed to the devil, the lot of you,” Goodland snapped. “You’ll be welcomed with open arms.”

  At this insult Rollins’ control deserted him. He launched a blow without warning, one that, despite his small stature, had a good deal of force behind it when it landed on the farmer’s chin. Goodland reeled backward and went down, but only for the length of time it took him to shake his head and roar out a savage oath; then he scrambled to his feet with his fists cocked. He would have charged Rollins if Quincannon hadn’t moved in quickly to grab hold of him, pin his arms at his sides.

  Goodland struggled, and when he couldn’t break loose he swiveled his head to see who had him in such an iron grip. “Who the hell are you?” he demanded.

  Kasabian said quickly, “He’s the, ah, the man I went to San Francisco to see. John Quincannon.”

  “Yeah? Well, let go of me.”

  “Not until you agree to behave,” Boxhardt told him.

  “That damned fop hit me—”

  “You seem to’ve given him good reason.”

  Goodland repeated the rude word, tried again to pull free.

  “You’ve had a bit too much to drink and it’s an infernally hot day,” Quincannon said. “A bad combination, sir.”

  He applied pressure on the farmer’s right arm until Goodland grunted and subsided. “All right, blast you. You needn’t break my arm.”

  Quincannon, with Boxhardt’s assistance, led him to a nearby wing chair and bent him into it. Goodland stayed put, massaging his arm and muttering to himself.

  Leopold Saxe’s mistress said, “You have our gratitude, Mr.… Quincannon, is it?”

  He essayed a slight bow. “Yes. An acquaintance of Mr. Kasabian’s.”

  She introduced herself as Nora Daks and Rollins under his assumed name. “What brings you to Delford, if I may ask?”

  “I am a reporter with the Call-Bulletin,” Quincannon lied glibly, “come to witness the marvels of pluviculture firsthand. I had hoped to arrive earlier in the week, but another matter kept me in the city. I seem not to have missed either a deluge or a sprinkle thus far.”

  “You’ll see the latter shortly,” Rollins said.

  “Indeed? And the former?”

  “By Saturday morning at the latest. Given sufficient time, the Cloud Cracker’s miracle formula always produces the desired results.”

  “Always? In every venue?”

  “Absolutely. Guaranteed.”

  “I look forward to meeting the great man.”

  “He’ll want to meet you, too,” Cora Lee said. “Come to the rail yards before seven this evening and Mr. Conley and I will arrange for an introduction and an interview.”

  “He’ll be bruising the sky again with his rockets this evening?”

  “Yes. Promptly at seven.”

  When she and Rollins had gone upstairs, Quincannon and Boxhardt wasted no time in hoisting O. H. Goodland out of the wing chair and marching him past a wide-eyed desk clerk and out through the hotel’s rear door. The wheat farmer’s protests were mild; heat, exertion, and alcohol had combined to make him both sluggish and docile. Kasabian and Parnell trailed along behind.

  In the shade of the hotel livery barn Quincannon sat Goodland down again on a bale of hay. A water pump and trough beckoned nearby. Neither the marshal nor the two businessmen objected when he pumped up half a dipperful and doused the farmer’s head. This roused Goodland, brought him sputtering to his feet.

  “How dare you! You … you…”

  “Are you sober enough now to listen to reason?”

  “Mr. Quincannon and I have news, O.H.,” Kasabian told him hastily. “News you’ll be glad to hear.”

  “That scoundrel’s death is the only news that would cheer me.” Goodland pushed up off the hay bale, dried his face with the sleeve of his shirt. His spurt of anger seemed to dry with it. He regarded Quincannon through eyes that were bleary but focused. “You’re a detective, eh. Well? What’s your news?”

  Succinctly Quincannon told him who and what the Cloud Cracker and his cohorts were, and of the arrest warrant and the imminent arrival of Sheriff Beadle and his two deputies to take the trio into custody. The news put a small, satisfied smile on Goodland’s mouth and a gleam in his bloodshot eyes.

  “Frauds and highbinders,” he said. “By Christ, I knew it all along. How’d you find all this out so quick?”

  “Detective work of the most advanced and perspicacious sort. Did you think Mr. Kasabian would hire a commonplace detective, sir?”

  “No, no, not at all. I had faith in Aram’s judgment.”

  Quincannon fixed him with a steely eye. “Now that you know what to expect, I trust you won’t attempt to confront the miscreants again.”

  “Put your mind at rest, sir. Now that I know Daks or Saxe or whatever the scoundrel’s name is headed for prison, I’ll not try to avenge my daughter’s honor.”

  “You’ll return to your farm, then?”

  “No, that I won’t do. Not until I see him arrested with my own eyes.” Goodland paused, frowning. “Why haven’t Beadle and his deputies shown up by now? What’s keeping them?”

  “They’ll be along soon,” Boxhardt said.

  “They’d better be.” Goodland added his favorite rude word and stalked back into the hotel.

  * * *

  But Beadle and his deputies didn’t arrive soon. And wouldn’t today or tonight.

  It was while Quincannon sat sweltering with Boxhardt in the marshal’s cramped, bakery-oven office at the jail that the town’s telegrapher delivered the wire. He read it over Boxhardt’s shoulder.

  ARRIVAL UNAVOIDABLY DELAYED UNTIL NOON TOMORROW EARLIEST STOP REGRET ADDITIONAL DELAY POSSIBLE WILL NOTIFY IN THAT EVENT STOP

  A BEADLE

  “Regret additional delay possible” might mean late Friday or Saturday before Beadle and his deputies finally showed up. The prospect scratched at Quincannon’s temper like a thorn. The longer the delay, the shorter the odds that O. H. Goodland would lose his head once he found out, or that Saxe, Rollins, and Cora Lee would attempt to abscond with the coalition’s two thousand dollars. Not only that, but the delay also meant that he was stuck here for one, two, possibly even three more days.

  * * *

  At the Valley House, Quincannon booked a room, staying in its cauldronlike atmosphere just long enough to deposit his valise and douse his face and hands from the jug of tepid water provided by the establishment. Boxhardt
had gone to inform Aram Kasabian and James Parnell at their places of business of the delay. O. H. Goodland had not been informed, nor would he be. There had been no sign of him since the conversation earlier. Ensconced in his room, if he had any sense; if he’d foolishly decided to do any more imbibing, it was somewhere other than in the hotel bar.

  Quincannon was sitting in a wing chair in a corner of the lobby, pretending to read a two-day-old copy of the Stockton Record, when Cora Lee Johnson came downstairs. She was alone, Rollins having left twenty minutes earlier and the as yet unseen Leopold Saxe evidently still at the watchman’s shack. He watched her walk across the lobby and pass outside. On her way to an early supper, he judged, before joining her comrades for yet another spurious rocket assault.

  He consulted his Hampden pocket watch; the time was ten before six. He laid the paper aside, climbed the stairs to the second floor. He had learned from the desk clerk which rooms were occupied by Saxe and Cora Lee and by Rollins; Rollins’ was closest and he went there first. The door was locked, of course, but this presented little difficulty to a man of Quincannon’s talents. The handy little set of burglar tools he carried in his pocket gave him access in less than a minute.

  A thorough search of luggage, furnishings, and other possible hiding places turned up no hint of the Delford Coalition’s two thousand dollars. Finding and confiscating the cash would not only ensure that the coalition was repaid, but help keep the three swindlers from attempting a late-night getaway.

  Quincannon relocked the door and then picked the latch on the one adjacent. The money was not among Saxe’s and Cora Lee’s possessions, either. The search of their rooms had been a small hope at best; chances were the greenbacks rested in a money belt around the Cloud Cracker’s waist.

  But he did find one item of considerable interest, in plain sight on the stand next to the bed: a timetable for Southern Pacific’s Central Valley passenger trains, with notations penned in ink at the top. The notations read: Stockton Limited, Friday, nine a.m. Bainsville.