The Loner: Trail Of Blood

by J. A. Johnstone

  “Boys? Girls?”

  “One of each,” the doctor said.

  A powerful sensation, almost like a physical blow, coursed through Conrad. He was a father. He had a son and a daughter. Even though he had read Pamela’s hateful letter dozens of times, even though he’d heard Mallory’s report about a patient at the sanitarium who might have been Pamela and who might have given birth to twins, he finally had proof. It was a world-changing revelation that went right to his very core.

  He let go of Futrelle’s arm and stepped back. His hands covered his face for a moment. He felt stunned. But he was alert enough to realize he’d made a mistake.

  Futrelle lunged forward and slapped his hand down on the bell push. “You won’t get away with coming in here and threatening me like this,” Futrelle gloated. “Now you’ll see that in this sanitarium, my word is law!”

  The doors behind Conrad burst open. In answer to Futrelle’s summons, three big, heavily-muscled orderlies rushed in, obviously ready for trouble.

  Futrelle pointed at Conrad and ordered, “Grab this man! He’s unstable and needs to be locked up!”

  Chapter 11

  Conrad instantly grasped what Futrelle was trying to do. The doctor didn’t want any kind of scandal to threaten his lucrative business. By claiming Conrad was insane, Futrelle could get away with locking him up and keeping him a prisoner in the sanitarium, perhaps forever. He knew Conrad no longer had any relatives in Boston to dispute the claim.

  As he whirled around to face the three orderlies, Conrad was aware he was fighting not only for his freedom but for his very life. Once he was a “patient” there, it would be easy for Futrelle to dispose of him without anyone knowing about it.

  As the orderlies lunged at him, Conrad’s hands flashed underneath his coat and came out filled with the Lightnings. “Stay where you are!”

  The men came to awkward, skidding halts as they looked down the barrels of those revolvers.

  Conrad heard movement behind him and looked around. Futrelle was coming at him, swinging a heavy glass ashtray he had snatched up from the desk. The doctor had quite a bit of strength in his short, stocky body, and smashed the ashtray against the side of Conrad’s head with stunning force. He went down on one knee.

  One of the orderlies leaped forward and grabbed his right arm, wrenching the gun aside. Another man went for his left arm. Pain shot through Conrad’s shoulder as the orderly tried to twist the arm out of its socket. The third orderly closed in from the front.

  The way the three of them moved in tandem told Conrad they had plenty of experience at dealing with violent patients. Unless he broke free quickly, they would overpower him and all would be lost.

  He would never find his children.

  He let his weight sag so the two men who had seized him were holding him up. Pulling both legs up, he snapped them out in a savage double kick that sunk the heels of his boots deep into the belly of the third orderly. The man grunted in pain, doubled over, and blundered right into his companion who was holding Conrad’s right arm.

  That loosened the man’s grip enough for Conrad to pull free. He twisted his body and hooked a foot behind the knee of the man holding his left arm. A quick jerk upset that man, and suddenly everyone in the office was on the floor except for Dr. Futrelle, who danced around nervously, still holding the ashtray as if he wanted to hit Conrad with it again.

  Conrad surged to his knees. One of the orderlies tried to grapple with him again. From the corner of his eye, Conrad saw Futrelle rush in and swing the ashtray at him. He jerked his head aside. Futrelle’s momentum carried him forward, and the blow smashed into the orderly’s face, crushing the man’s nose and shattering cheek bones. Blood spurted as the orderly howled in pain and fell backward, clutching at his ruined face.

  The man Conrad had kicked in the stomach was lying curled up on his side, mewling in agony at the damage done to his gut. The one with the broken nose was hurting too much to worry about anything else. That left just one orderly and Dr. Futrelle for Conrad to deal with.

  He rolled to his feet and realized he still had the guns in his hands. As the remaining orderly tried to scramble up, Conrad pointed one of the Lightnings at his face and said, “Don’t.” He leveled the other .38 at Futrelle, who had backed off and stood against one of the bookshelves, his face pale and his chest heaving with fear.

  “Don’t … don’t shoot me!” the doctor babbled. “Please, don’t kill me! I … I’m sorry about the children!”

  “I reckon you’ve figured out by now that I don’t have a whole lot left to lose, Doc.” Conrad didn’t realize until later how much that sounded like something Kid Morgan would say. “Were you telling me the truth about the twins?”

  “Yes! Yes, I swear it.”

  The orderly asked, “What twins?”

  “That’s none of your business,” Futrelle snapped at the man, some of his imperious attitude coming back now that he was talking to an underling.

  “And the records?” Conrad asked.

  “I already told you. Miss Tarleton took them with her when she left with her maid and those … those men.”

  “The man who was in charge, do you remember what he looked like?”

  “Not … not that well. It was years ago. You have to understand. All I recall is that he … he had dark hair, and he wasn’t very big. But he was frightening. I looked in his eyes, and I felt like a … a bug on the sidewalk, like he could step on me and crush the life out of me and never feel a thing about it.” Futrelle swallowed. “His eyes … I remember now … They were a very pale blue-gray, like the color of ice.”

  Conrad nodded. “Pamela didn’t call him by name?”

  “Never. Not that I heard.”

  Conrad was convinced Futrelle was telling the truth. The man was too scared to lie. Conrad nodded and backed toward the open double doors. He holstered the left-hand gun and picked up his hat, which had fallen on the floor. The two injured men continued to groan. The other orderly looked like he wanted to tear Conrad’s head off, but he was smart enough to know he would get a bullet for his trouble if he tried.

  “Here’s what you’re going to do, Futrelle,” Conrad went on. “You’re going to take excellent care of those men, because it’s your fault they’re hurt. They can stay here in your hospital for as long as they need to, at your expense. You understand?”

  The doctor bobbed his head. “Of … of course.”

  “If I hear otherwise—and I will hear about it if you don’t do what I tell you—I’ll be back. You don’t want that.”

  Wordlessly, Futrelle shook his head.

  “You’re not going to say anything to the police about what’s happened here and you’ll make sure your staff doesn’t say anything.” Conrad glanced at the third orderly. “By the way, I’m not insane, and I’m not just saying that because it’s what a lunatic would say. Your boss wanted me locked up because he didn’t want me going around talking about what really goes on in here.”

  Futrelle managed to lift his chin in a show of defiance and anger. “I’ve broken no laws,” he insisted. “Everything I’ve ever done in this institution has been perfectly legal.”

  “Sometimes there’s a difference between legal and right, and you know it,” Conrad snapped. “Anyway, I don’t have any interest in putting you out of business, Futrelle. I came here for information, that’s all. We’re finished, you and I, as long as you do what I’ve told you. Let’s keep it that way.”

  Futrelle swallowed again and nodded. “Yes. Yes, I agree.”

  “Don’t push any more buttons or have your staff try to stop me on my way out of here.”

  Futrelle waved a hand. “Just go,” he said bitterly. “No one will try to stop you.”

  Conrad gave him a curt nod and backed through the doorway. As he turned to walk quickly along the corridor toward the entrance, he put the hand holding the gun under his coat, but he didn’t holster the .38. Not until he was outside in the sunlight again.

 
Clancy was waiting for him, leaning against the carriage. The big Irishman straightened. A frown creased his broad forehead as he said, “Ye look a wee bit rumpled, sir. Trouble inside?”

  “A little,” Conrad admitted. “But I found out what I wanted to know. Let’s get back to the hotel.”

  Clancy opened the carriage door. “Aye. To tell ye the truth, I’ll be glad to get away from this place. I was just standin’ here lookin’ at the bars on the windows, and I got to admit it made me a mite nervous. Like standin’ outside a prison.”

  Conrad looked at the building and realized just how close it had come to being exactly that for him. “You’re not far wrong,” he murmured. “Let’s go, Clancy.”

  Chapter 12

  Back at the hotel, Conrad filled Arturo in on what he had discovered at the sanitarium. “It was a close call,” he concluded. “Futrelle could have claimed I was crazy and kept me locked up there from now on.”

  “Doubtful, sir,” Arturo said. “For one thing, I know you’re sane, and so does Mr. Mallory. We would have taken action on your behalf.”

  “No offense, Arturo, but I’m not sure the word of a valet and a shamus would carry enough weight against a man like Futrelle to do any good.”

  “None taken, sir. In that case, I would have simply gotten in touch with your father and told him you had disappeared. Even though I’ve never met Frank Morgan, I suspect he would not have allowed the situation to go unchallenged.”

  Conrad grinned at the thought. Frank Morgan had come to Boston once before to right a wrong, and Conrad had no doubt Frank would have answered Arturo’s summons, much to the regret of Dr. Vernon Futrelle.

  “We don’t have to worry about that,” Conrad said. “Futrelle has enough sense to keep his mouth shut.”

  “What if he tries to make sure your mouth is shut … permanently?”

  “You mean if he hires somebody to kill me?” Conrad shrugged. “Wouldn’t be the first time, now would it? I’m pretty hard to kill.”

  He hoped that continued to be true.

  By the time evening rolled around, Conrad was dressed in clothes he had sent Arturo out to buy at a second-hand shop. The gray tweed suit was threadbare, and Conrad preferred not to think about the origin of the stains on it here and there. Under it he wore a dingy work shirt and no tie. Brogans with holes in the soles were on his feet. Arturo handed him a workingman’s cap and watched critically as Conrad pulled it down on his sandy hair.

  “Sir, you look positively disreputable.”

  Conrad smiled. “Good. Maybe I won’t look too out of place at Serrano’s.”

  “You wouldn’t look out of place in the back of a police wagon, either. What is it they call them? Black Marias?”

  “Something like that.”

  He was only going to carry one Lightning, since the coat wasn’t cut to conceal either the shoulder harness or the cross-draw rig that belted around his waist. He checked the revolver, made sure the hammer was resting on the lone empty chamber, and tucked it behind his belt at the small of his back.

  A knock sounded on the door of the suite. Conrad said quietly, “You can answer that while I get out of sight in case it’s not Mallory.”

  He stepped into his bedroom while Arturo went to the door. A moment later the valet called through the open doorway, “It’s all right, sir, it’s the gentleman you were expecting.”

  Mallory wore a buttoned-up overcoat despite the season not warranting it, and he had a neatly creased fedora on his head. He took off the overcoat to reveal that he was dressed in old, well-worn clothes like Conrad. He brought a flattened derby from under his coat and punched it into shape. It looked like it had been knocked off and stepped on in numerous barroom brawls. If he had worn the garb openly into the hotel’s lobby, he never would have been allowed upstairs.

  The two men nodded in approval of each other’s outfit.

  “Nobody’ll pay much attention to us in a dive like Serrano’s,” Mallory said.

  Conrad asked, “Are you armed?”

  Mallory reached into one pocket and brought out a heavy black sap. Another pocket produced a pair of brass knuckles. “And if that’s not enough”—the detective stowed those items away—“I’ve got this, too.” He brought out a razor that he opened with a flick of his wrist. The obviously keen blade glittered in the lamplight.

  “Excellent,” Conrad said with a nod. “I have a .38.”

  “I hope we won’t need it. We don’t want to get in a shootout with Murtagh and his boys. They’ll outnumber us, and they’re lads who don’t shoot to wound.” Mallory paused. “What is it you intend to do, anyway? You can’t just ask Murtagh who hired him to kill you.”

  “I don’t know,” Conrad admitted. “I’ll figure that out when we get there.”

  Mallory sighed. “I ought to have my head examined for going along with a crazy scheme like this.”

  “I know a place where you could have that done,” Conrad told him, smiling. “Dr. Futrelle’s sanitarium. Once he got you in there, though, he might not let you out again.”

  Mallory frowned. “What do you mean by that? What happened over there this afternoon?”

  Conrad told him about the conversation in Futrelle’s office and the violence that had resulted. When he was finished, Mallory said, “Somebody needs to take that man down a notch or two.”

  “I promised to leave him alone if he went along with what I said.”

  Mallory rubbed his angular jaw. “Yeah, but I didn’t. I’ll be keeping an eye on him from now on.”

  “I don’t think that would hurt a thing.”

  A short time later, they were ready to go. Before they left the hotel room, Arturo asked, “Would it do any good to tell you to be careful?”

  “Probably not,” Conrad said.

  He and Mallory waited until the hotel corridor was clear of guests and staff, then walked quickly to a set of service stairs and went down, leaving the hotel through a rear entrance used by employees. Once they were outside, they caught a streetcar that took them to the North End of Boston, within walking distance of the dangerous neighborhood where Serrano’s tavern was located.

  “Keep your wits about you,” Mallory warned as he and Conrad walked along the narrow streets. “The Eyeties aren’t that fond of Micks like me, and they’ll likely take you for one, too.”

  “How does Murtagh get away with making Serrano’s his headquarters?”

  “He’s always surrounded by plenty of tough boyos who can shoot fast and straight. And Eddie Murtagh likes living dangerously. He and Serrano have a truce, but it’s a delicate one.”

  Conrad was aware of hostile stares and glances directed toward him and Mallory by the people they passed on the street, but no one tried to stop them. A few minutes later they came to Serrano’s, an old frame building with large, dingy front windows covered by heavy curtains. When they went in, they found themselves in a foyer where two large men lounged, passing a jug of some sort of liquor back and forth. They were obviously guards, and came to their feet as Conrad and Mallory entered.

  “What do you want here, Irish?” one of the men asked as he thrust his jaw belligerently at Mallory.

  Conrad answered, “We’re looking for Eddie Murtagh.”

  “No Micks here,” the other guard snapped. “Go back to the south side.”

  Conrad shrugged. “All right, but Murtagh won’t be happy when he finds out you cost him some money.”

  “What sort of money?”

  “The sort you can spend.”

  The man moved closer to him, hands clenching into fists. “I don’t like funny Irishmen. They ain’t funny.”

  “Just go tell Murtagh that Futrelle sent us,” Conrad said.

  “Who the hell is Futrelle?”

  “He’ll know.”

  Conrad had no idea if Murtagh knew who Dr. Futrelle was, but it seemed like a worthwhile gamble. If Murtagh was connected somehow with Pamela, he might know where she had gone to give birth to the twins.

 
The guards thought it over. They looked at each other, and one of them shrugged. The other nodded and turned to go through a closed door on the other side of the foyer. During the moment it was open, Conrad heard piano music coming from inside, along with talk and laughter.

  The guard who was left slipped a hand into a coat pocket. Conrad was pretty sure the man was gripping a gun.

  The other man came back a couple minutes later. “Serrano says let them in,” he reported. “But if they cause any problems, out they go on their Irish asses.”

  “Fair enough,” Conrad said.

  He and Mallory went on through the foyer into the tavern’s main room. It was dim and smoky, an eastern version of the sort of squalid western saloon Conrad had seen more than once. A man wearing an apron over his vest and trousers got in their path. His nose was big and impressive, and his dark eyes sparkled with menace.

  “I’m Serrano,” he growled. “What do you want with Eddie Murtagh?”

  “I have a business deal I want to offer him,” Conrad said.

  Serrano was every bit as big and brawny as Mallory. He looked like he could break most men in half without really trying. He jerked his head toward a door. “In there. But tell Murtagh I don’t like him doing business here. He can come here and drink, but he needs to keep his business elsewhere.”

  Conrad nodded. “I’ll tell him.”

  “I’ll go first. Otherwise you’re liable to get shot, and it’s hard enough keeping this place clean without a lot of blood on the floor.”

  Serrano led them to the door and knocked on it. A rough voice from the other side of the panel asked, “Who is it?”

  “Serrano. Murtagh has visitors.”

  The door opened a little.

  “No shooting, got it?” Serrano said.

  “Come on in, laddies,” the voice said, and something about it reminded Conrad of death. It was like being invited into a grave.

  He and Mallory stepped into a room lit by a couple of lamps that had been turned down low. Four men were in the room. The one who had answered the door was as cadaverous as his voice. Two men sat at a table with glasses and a half-empty bottle of wine in front of them. The fourth man was stretched out on a sofa, his ankles crossed and a lit cigarette dangling from his mouth. He held a huge revolver on his chest that looked like a miniature cannon.