“Hardly the thing for a bachelor to invite an unmarried lady to tea, Bonham, don’t you think?” said Simon.
“Forgive me, Miss Duniway,” said Tony. “No offense was intended. Our ways are less formal here. Sometimes Mr Prake lapses into small town conventionalities. Until later, then,” he ended, an inviting glance directed at Annabelle and a more sullen one directed at Simon.
Annabelle and Simon walked on toward the mansion in silence; she could feel the muscles in his arm, corded and tense as if to strike out at someone. “I suppose you’re wondering what that was all about,” said Simon in time.
“To ask, I felt, was to pry, sir,” she murmured.
“True enough, I suppose, though I wouldn’t have taken it that way. Tony Bonham playing the sophisticate galls me, to say the least. My education is better than his, and he knows it. Money doesn’t always make for quality, Papa says, and the Bonhams are the best example of that I can think of!” His face looked anything but boyish, and if looks really smoldered, the Bonham mansion would have turned into a heap of ashes on the spot. He must have felt Annabelle’s quiet regard, for he looked down at her, blushing. “Tony accused me of over-caution in my conduct, but I fear, Miss Duniway, that I too often speak my mind without enough regard for convention.”
“I have a few engineers among my acquaintance, Mr Prake,” she smiled. “Bluntness seems to be a common thread among them.”
“True enough! Well, here we are.” Simon knocked on the door, and Annabelle surreptitiously straightened her bracelet. She’d felt not a single tickle since they’d left the ethergraph office, and she wondered if this plain-spoken, handsome young man could really be the one she sought. How sad that would be.
The door swung open. “Yes?” sniffed an older woman in a plain black dress.
“Good afternoon, Mrs Walters,” began Simon.
“Are you expected?” the woman interrupted.
“Are ethergrams usually expected?” he said in irritation. “I have an ethergram for Mr Bonham. That’s my only business.”
“And your lady...friend?”
Annabelle stiffened at the implied insult.
“I’m surprised you don’t know our new schoolteacher. She’s here to meet Lily and Mrs Bonham. Could you announce her, please, and tell Mr Bonham I have an ethergram--” he ignored the housekeeper’s reach-- “to be delivered to his own hand? I can entrust it to no one else, ma’am.”
Mrs Walters sniffed again, but showed them both into the front parlor.
The room should have been bright and airy, with its tall windows overlooking the town. But its dark paneling and oppressive level of ostentation left Annabelle longing to be back in her simple rooms. A restless, uncouth hand had selected the furnishings, all different styles and time periods, but marked as expensive even by the untrained eye. Every tabletop struggled under the burden of a thousand little gewgaws, each proclaiming its owner’s magnificence if not his taste.
Into this rich confusion came the Bonhams. Simon handed Jed the ethergram, while Lily greeted her new teacher affectionately. Mrs Bonham stood unmoving to one side. She wore a gas-green silk dress that played up her lush figure and the waves of dark red hair framing her beautiful, dissatisfied face.
Annabelle cast her mind over her files. Mrs Bonham was some years younger than her husband, a beauty who claimed to be from Chicago, though on investigation no one in its top social circles seemed to know who the former Charity Grant was.
Charity’s gray eyes met Annabelle’s blue ones with an appraising glance Annabelle knew too well; it told her there was room for only one great beauty in Scryer’s Gulch, and it was Charity Bonham. Annabelle simply ducked her head in an outward show of shyness and submission, and focused on little Lily’s artless prattling.
Meanwhile, Simon took Jed’s signature in his receipt book, and excused himself in short order with one backward smile at Annabelle. Jed followed the smile, and joined his little daughter at Annabelle’s side. He shook Annabelle’s hand, and reluctantly released it; she felt Charity’s hot gaze leveled at her in response. Throughout the conversation with Lily, Charity stood beside the sofa and chairs, unspeaking, unmoving but for the increasing swell of her breast, while Jed spared her not a glance. He focused entirely on Annabelle, commenting on her charming bonnet, inquiring whether he could send her a hamper to augment the lamentable food at Hopewell’s (he could not), and generally doing his best to fluster a pretty young schoolteacher.
Annabelle pondered whether she should play that part, but decided her own honest reaction was best; she deflected every attempt at flirtation with a cool but friendly demeanor, ignoring anything with the least hint of impropriety. She kept waiting for an introduction to Mrs Bonham, but when one wasn’t forthcoming, she sighed inwardly and said, “Mrs Bonham, I should very much like to hear your concerns for Lily’s schooling.”
“My concerns for Lily’s schooling?” erupted Charity. “My only concern was to send her away! I’m sure,” she continued, recovering herself, “that you are a fine teacher, Miss Duniway, but it cannot be thought that the rough life here at Scryer’s Gulch can be good for the refinement of a young lady like our Lily.”
The girl in question looked up at her stepmother with grave eyes. “Now, sweetheart,” her father said, taking her hands. “We’re not sending you away. I’d never send my own, my only Lily far from me, now would I?” The little girl shook her head. He put his arm around her and pulled her close to his side; she snuggled in with a sigh, and he kissed the top of her head. Charity clenched her hands, and for a moment, Annabelle wondered just how safe little Lily was in her own home.
Annabelle left the Bonham mansion and returned to Hopewell’s. As she untied her bonnet strings, she heard a frantic scratching at the window. She opened it, and Misi came flying into her arms. “O DARK ONE, ANNIE, ARE YOU ALRIGHT?” he yowled.
“Be quiet, you simpleminded cat!” she whispered, detaching his claws one by one from her bodice. “This is my nice poplin!”
“I was so worried!” whimpered the cat.
“Calm down, what’s happened?”
Misi related his encounter with Mamzelle. “If she knows who I am, she’ll tell her owner, and then the jig is up!”
Annabelle put her bonnet away and patted her hair as she thought. “So Jed Bonham has a demon, running a brothel? Why would he waste a demon like that?”
“Aren’t you at all worried? She knows who I am! Annie, we should be packing!”
“How would she know who you are?”
“What?”
“How many black cats do you suppose there are in Scryer’s Gulch?”
Misi looked at her blankly. “A half-dozen that I’ve seen. But Annie, she can tell us apart, I swear she can.”
“Come here, kitty,” she said, sitting down and smoothing her lap; Misi jumped up, putting his front paws on her shoulders and his head against her neck.
“I was so scared for you, Annie.”
“I know, sweetie. Answer me this: if the tables were turned, and you found a captive demon, would you tell me?”
“I’d have to if you made me.”
“Yes, but you try all the time not to tell me what I want to know as a point of pride.”
“True, but you always smoke me out.”
“Ah, that’s because I’m a professional! I’ve had you eight years now. How long do you think Bonham’s had Mamzelle?”
Misi considered. “We didn’t talk much, but just from her attitude, not long, I think. The sign out front of the Palace says it was established two years ago, so I’m thinking at least that, but not much more. You think she might hold out on him somehow?”
“If you were her, what would you do?”
“Hold out on him any way I could. And plot his slow, horrible death nine ways to Sunday. I plot yours, you know,” he added self-consciously.
“I know you do, pussycat,” she soothed, scratching him behind the ears until he flexed his paws helplessly. “I know you do.”
Episode 7: An Accusation
So you’re back, huh? Well, it’s a good story. I think I might be keeping you from reading it. I get so wrapped up in all this stuff I know about the Old West, about how the Brinkertons would come in and take over a town, how girls would arrive thinking they were getting a nice job as a maid or something and get stuck in a whorehouse, all the exciting discoveries in technology that came straight out of the western expansion. Can you imagine a time when 35 miles per hour was breakneck?
But I digress.
The thing is, I worry that all my jabbering is more like a lecture. Well, it is. So I might stick my oar in from time to time from now on, but mostly, I’m just gonna get out of the way. That’s what happens when you’re old. You just get in the way.
The first day of school arrived. Georgie and Amelia stopped next door to pick up Jamie, who stood in the small garden, feet firmly planted, his uncle Rabbit even more firmly pushing him out the gate. “No arguments! If we catch you--and you know we’ll catch you--your Pa will whip you till your behind lights up Main Street! And I’ll just stand there and laugh, you watch me.”
“C’mon, Jamie, it won’t be so bad,” said Amelia.
“Says you,” he scowled.
“Jamie, c’mon,” said Georgie. He grabbed his friend by the collar and marched him down the street toward the schoolhouse. “I see Lily in the schoolyard, Amelia, go on ahead.” His sister ran to meet her best friend, leaving Georgie alone with Jamie. “Now, listen, Jamie, you can’t do that again.”
“Do what?”
“You know very well what! Harry Lockson’s only six, which leaves you and me. No one’ll think it’s you, you’re the sheriff’s son. Which leaves me. T’ain’t fair! If you’re gonna do stuff like that, you should be a man, and not blame it on other folks!”
“I didn’t do nothin, an I ain’t blamin it on anyone!”
“Now, I ain’t sayin it wasn’t a fine thing. Made me laugh, anyway! But I’m still in trouble from tying Mr Hopewell’s shoelaces together at our house when he wasn’t paying attention. That was funny,” Georgie said, his face full of fond memories.
“I didn’t do nothin.”
“Aw, c’mon, Jamie!”
By now the two boys had reached the schoolyard. Miss Duniway stood in the door ringing the bell; it was time for class. They walked past the rebuilt fence and into the repainted schoolhouse.
As soon as they entered, Annabelle’s bracelet pricked at her wrist; she hid her surprise. “Children, please sit down. Little ones to the front, older ones to the back. I’ll return in a moment.”
“Wonder where she’s going,” she heard Georgie whisper to Jamie.
“Maybe she’s gotta pee,” said Harry Lockson. Georgie and Jamie guffawed. “But maybe she does!” Harry repeated in earnest concern.
Annabelle rolled her eyes, and walked quickly up and down the street, as if looking for errant pupils; her bracelet made not a tickle. The schoolhouse stood off to itself enough that she knew nothing came from a nearby building. No, it was in the schoolhouse, and it came from either Jamie or Georgie.
Neither of them were old enough to be fooling with the magical structure of hermetauxite--but someone in their families might be. Simon Prake was already on her short list of suspects; she sadly added another mark against him.
Now, she had the Runnels to consider, too. Sheriff John didn’t check out as at all trained in the engineering way, but she’d had bigger surprises. Deputy Rabbit was a blank slate; he hadn’t shown up in her research at all. She returned to the schoolhouse and began the lesson, wincing to herself every time she passed Georgie and Jamie’s bench.
The schoolday ended, just in time for Annabelle’s patience to give out. Teaching a couple of squirming benches full of children was not as easy as she’d thought; as she entered her rooms, she sighed in relief at the relative quiet.
She’d savored it a full minute when Misi came tearing through the window. “Well? How’d it go?” he yowled. She recounted the day, and Misi whistled through his sharp teeth. “A kid, huh?”
“No, of course not! It’s a member of the family, if it’s really one of them.”
“Not looking good for that Prake fellow, Annie.”
“No.” She worried her lip. “I really don’t want it to be him, kitty.”
“Hm, sweet on him, are we? I’d’ve thought the sheriff was more your type. Tight-jawed lawman and all that.”
Annabelle ignored him. “What’s going on around town?”
“A drunk guy knocked another drunk guy over the head down at the Lucky Pint. Now drunk guy number one is in the jailhouse, and Doc Horridge is standing vigil over drunk guy number two. He’s not expected to make it, so we may have a hanging. Um, lessee. Oh! Chen gave me two chicken hearts! I like that man, even if he is a man!”
“I’m sure that was splendid for you. I meant, what’s going on that might pertain to our reason for being here.”
“Oh, that,” he grimaced. “Annie, that stuff tastes so bad!”
“Next time go on patrol first, and then finagle chicken hearts out of sympathetic cooks. Well?”
“It’s all over the ethergraph office. I saw traces at the assayer’s office, too--actually traces all over town but nothing I could pinpoint. I can’t get a really good whiff unless I’m right on top of it, and then, you know, it leaves me a little vulnerable.” He shivered his whiskers. “But it’s strongest at the ethergraph office.”
“All right, then.” Annabelle fetched her valise and brought it into the bedroom, where the curtains were closed. Carefully, she reached inside and pulled out a false bottom; within it was a small black book. “I need to send Chief Howman a message, Misi. Be quiet while I work out the code.” She carried it back to the sitting room and began a complicated scribbling, flipping through the cipher book as she went.
Misi fell asleep, purring in the patch of sun from the sitting room window. When the patch shifted, leaving him in shadow, he woke up and stretched. Annabelle was just closing the book back up in the false bottomed valise; she wore her gloves and bonnet. “Where are you off to?”
“The ethergraph office. I’m sending a message to my ‘Cousin Daniel’ filled with all my news. I don’t know how he’s going to take our current hot suspect being an eight-year-old boy!”
“I’ll be right here when you get back,” yawned Misi. Once the door closed, he moved to the new patch of sun and promptly fell back asleep.
Meanwhile at the jailhouse, Jamie Runnels sat on the bench by the corner cell, kicking his legs. “I hate school, Aloysius,” he said. “Did you hate it?”
“Cain’t say whether I hated it er not, son,” said the voice. “Never went. Mighta liked to. Woulda been nice to read, an sign my name as more’na X.”
“But you got by, didn’t you?”
“If’n you call this gettin by. Didn’t really see myself stuck in a jailhouse cell fer all eternity. Didn’t see it as my fate. Buuut I doubt school woulda helped me avoid this’n.” Jamie pulled a little nugget out of his pocket, rolling it in his fingers. “Watcha got there, son?”
Jamie put it back. “Nothin.”
“Aw, now, Jamie, you know ol’ Aloysius ain’t gonna tell nobody.”
“What about that guy over there?”
“Him? He ain’t even woke up yet. They’re prolly gonna hang him by the neck anyways. Shore hope he don’t end up here. Bad enough without gettin crowded to boot. Watcha got?”
Jamie crunched himself up in the corner, trying to get close even though there was nothing to get close to. “It’s a piece of hermetauxite!” he whispered. “Found it just lyin there in the street by the ethergraph office!”
Aloysius let out a low whistle. “That’s a fine thing, Jamie! Watcha gonna do with it?”
“Just keep it. I like lookin at it. I feel funny when I hold it in my hand, like I’m stronger or somethin.”
“You be careful, Jamie Runnels. Who knows what’s been spelled into that thing.”
>
“It ain’t been spelled on, Aloysius, it’s just a nugget! My nugget. Don’t tell!”
“I promised I wouldn’t, didn’t I?”
“All right, then.” Jamie sat in the corner, throwing it up and catching it, until it was time for supper.
Episode 8: A Confession
Annabelle felt the same tingle at her wrist the next day when Georgie and Jamie entered the schoolroom together. Jamie’s grim face and Georgie’s flushed one told her the boys had been arguing.
When it came time for the children to go home to lunch, she asked Georgie to stay behind. “I don’t know anything about it!” he blurted as soon as the other children were gone.
“Don’t know anything about what, Georgie?” she said, narrowing her eyes.
“The school, miss. That’s why you wanted to talk to me, weren’t it?”
“‘Wasn’t it,’ Georgie, and no, that’s not why I wanted to talk to you. But as long as we’re on the subject, what is it about the school that you don’t know?”
Georgie’s already-florid face burned even hotter. “I thought you wanted to know about who might’ve done that to the school, miss.”
“And why would I think you’d know anything about it, Georgie?”
“Why...well, I thought...I mean, none of the girls coulda done it. I’m a boy, and so’s Jamie and Harry, and...I mean, I thought you’d think it was one of us three.”
“Was it?” said Annabelle, giving him a hard, but sympathetic look.
“I don’t know, Miss Duniway,” answered Georgie, swallowing.
“I see.” Annabelle stood up from her desk. “Well, Georgie, if you do hear anything, you be sure to tell me or Sheriff Runnels right away, all right? Now go along home for your lunch.” Georgie fled the schoolroom.
Annabelle fetched her lunch pail and sat back down to eat. Nary a tingle from her detector bracelet. If Georgie had the infected hermatauxite, he didn’t have it with him now--or the vibration came from Jamie.
Scryer's Gulch Page 5
