Devil by the Tail

by Jeanne Matthews

  “Will you return them?” asked Quinn. “Elfie Jackson’s trial is coming up. There’s a signed statement he’ll need.”

  “You had no thought of that when you robbed him.” Rice sorted through the files, found Jemelle’s statement and laughed. “If Winthrop thinks the affidavit of a naughty-house wench can persuade a jury, he shall certainly have it. Now. This meeting is adjourned.”

  They left abruptly. The mayor didn’t linger to tell Lou goodbye and his bodyguard didn’t return Garnick’s gun.

  Quinn saw them exit through the hedge and continued to stew. “Do you think I have too figurative a turn of mind, Garnick?”

  “It’s your imagination that makes you a good detective, but maybe Stram was more literal than you thought.” He pulled out the roll of greenbacks and smoothed a Lady Liberty twenty open on the table. Someone had drawn a crude map in black ink over part of the bill. “If I’m not mistaken, that’s the area upstream of the South Branch of the Chicago. A lot of lumber docks on that stretch of the river.”

  “Kadinger’s company?”

  “About where the X is. Now under the management of Mr. Burk Bayer.”

  Chapter 29

  Jemelle was gone, spirited away before sunup in the white and gold barouche with the purple doors. Marcel, Lou’s regally accoutered coachman, burnished the ornamental brass trappings with the tenderness of a lover. He had a long face, a shiny bald pate, and his long, stick-thin limbs reminded Quinn of a daddy long-legs.

  “Where did you take her?” she asked.

  He viewed the detectives with a jaundiced eye. “I drive the gals where they say to drive them. I don’t notify the other gals where that is.”

  Quinn hated his assumption that she was one of Lou’s “gals,” but why would he think otherwise? After these last few days why would anyone? “Please, Marcel.” She put her hands together in a prayerful gesture. “Jemelle’s due in court the day after tomorrow. A woman’s life depends on her testimony.”

  “I don’t know that gal. I know Miss Jemelle.”

  “How well?” asked Garnick, all wide-eyed innocence. “She hasn’t been at the Mansion for long.”

  “What are you getting at?”

  “Do you know she’s wanted by the law?” Garnick’s expression was grave.

  “The law?”

  “She could go to jail if she fails to appear in court,” said Quinn, having no idea if that was true. “You could land in jail yourself as an accessory.”

  “What’s an accessory?”

  “A person who aids a fugitive to escape,” said Quinn, inventing again. “Did she have a valise with her when she left?”

  “She had two.” He drew himself up straight and proud, straining the brass buttons on his livery. “I don’t care if she was a fugitive. Those that run got reasons. Only a rat would send the law after a scared woman.”

  “Was Miss Jemelle scared this morning?” asked Garnick.

  “She looked over her shoulder a few times, nervy like.”

  Quinn tamped down her alarm. Jemelle knew she was in danger and she was smart enough to run. The only hitch, she might not be running from the right man. “Did she have any visitors last night?”

  “Marking visitors ain’t my job.”

  “Marcel, Jemelle has gotten herself involved in a murder. She’s right to be scared, but she may not know which direction the danger’s coming from. Please tell us where she’s gone. We don’t want to arrest her. We want to warn her.”

  “Miss Jemelle’s had a hard life. Big Annie’s place was a sty, no place for a human. I hope she don’t get kidnapped back there.”

  “If you’re worried,” said Garnick, “you can ride along with us to make sure she stays safe. In fact, we’ve no way to travel unless you drive us.”

  Quinn could see Marcel’s reluctance begin to wane. “Think how terrible you’d feel if something happened to her and you hadn’t done what you could to warn her.”

  After an interval of silent reflection, he said, “I took her to the rail station.”

  “Did she say where she was going?” asked Garnick.

  “St. Louis, but the next train ain’t till noon. I can get us there. Let’s make time!”

  Quinn and Garnick boarded the garish contraption and Marcel barreled away from the Mansion, switching the horses’ backs like a Pony Express rider. Quinn held onto the door to keep from bouncing all over the seat. Garnick sat on the facing seat and braced his legs against the floorboard.

  She said, “You talked so tough with Rice and Tench. I wish you’d demanded your gun back from that bodyguard.”

  “That copper’s the kind of thug who’d beat a man to death whether the mayor approved or not. I’d as soon err on the side of caution and scavenge a replacement. I’m still packing your derringer. You got a pouch to carry it?”

  “I borrowed a purse from Sissy, but I don’t want to touch that gun. I don’t think I could ever shoot any gun again.”

  “You could if you had to.”

  She rubbed her neck, which was still sore. Glad as she was to be alive, she was pretty sure she’d fired a weapon at another human being for the last time. She couldn’t decipher Garnick’s speculative look. Anyway, the ride was too rough and noisy to talk.

  The barouche slowed in a clog of traffic and a man on the sidewalk hooted at her and made an obscene gesture. She shrank against the seat back, fixed her gaze on her lap, and entertained the idea of appropriating Stram’s cash and running away with Jemelle to St. Louis. Marcel unleashed a string of less than genteel observations regarding the paternity of the heckler, the bovine stupidity of the other drivers, and the almighty bumbling of the pie eaters from Peoria who didn’t know how to cross a city street. The blockage cleared and the Mansion’s scandalous conveyance jerked forward, leaving an outcry of curses and epithets in its wake.

  “Water off a duck’s back,” said Quinn.

  “Uh huh.”

  “Really.”

  The traffic around the rail station made progress impassable. Marcel’s shouts and imprecations had no effect. Stalled, Garnick and Quinn hopped out and began to push through the throng of pedestrians.

  “Wait up,” called Marcel. “I got to park proper. I can’t leave Madam’s barouche in the middle of the street.”

  Quinn secretly hoped never to see the purple horror again. “I’m sorry, Marcel. We’re really grateful for your help, but it’s half past eleven. We’ve no time to waste.”

  Marcel shouted a parting prediction about the destination of their souls as they rushed on toward the station house. Inside, a mob of departing and arriving travelers and heavy-laden porters shouldered this way and that. The St. Louis train was waiting on the tracks. Jemelle was nowhere to be seen.

  “She must have boarded already,” said Garnick.

  They hurried to the train, but a conductor stopped them and asked for their tickets.

  “We’re not traveling,” said Quinn. She pulled out of her purse a small bottle of hand cream she’d borrowed from Sissy’s washstand, keeping her fingers over the label. “Our sister forgot her medicine. She has heart dropsy.”

  “All right but make it fast. We’re due to leave at noon on the dot.”

  They climbed aboard and started making their way through the cars.

  Garnick said, “I hope you’ve got a line of persuasive patter in your bag of tricks in case Jemelle refuses to cancel her plans and come along peacefully.”

  “I should have told the conductor she’d escaped from the lunatic asylum and you were a keeper come to retrieve her.”

  They spotted her at the back of the fourth car, sitting alone with her luggage in the seat beside her. She saw them at once and the animosity in her eyes did not augur peace.

  Quinn threw herself into the facing seat. “You can’t leave before Elfie’s trial, Jemelle.”

  “The lawyer won’t call me to testify. That piece in the Tribune gave him cold feet.”

  “He’s changed his mind,” said Quinn. />
  “Can’t you badgerers leave me alone? You’ve got my signed statement.” Her bruises had faded and a new front tooth had been deftly wired into the hole left by the old. The red lip salve was gone, her brown hair was rolled at the nape of her neck and encased in a simple silk net, and her sinuous figure looked austere and standoffish in a dark navy traveling dress. She looked like an ordinary woman, making an ordinary journey, perhaps to visit an ailing relative or take up teaching school in a prairie town. Only her eyes gave her away. They had seen too many Jack Strams. She said, “I want nothing more to do with Elfie’s troubles. She brought them on herself.”

  “Oh, you helped a little,” said Quinn. “We’ve been thinking about your statement, wondering if you might like to correct some falsehoods.”

  “How many times you think I’m gonna change my story? You want a correction, make it up your own self.”

  Garnick stepped out of the aisle to let passengers through to the next car. He propped his elbows on the back of Quinn’s seat. “Could be you just misrecollected where some of your information came from, Jemelle. For instance, the way you learned the name Handish.”

  “I told you. Stram said Handish gave him the money he paid me.”

  “The problem,” said Quinn, “is that Stram didn’t know about Handish. He never heard of him.”

  “Have it your way. I don’t know who gave Stram the money. He’s the one paid me to lie about Elfie. You badgered me to take back that story and I did, so go rattle your hocks.”

  “How did you come to hear about Handish?” persisted Quinn.

  “He looked me up a couple of days after Stram socked me. I don’t know how he found me so don’t ask. He said Stram was trying to pin a murder on him, some gal down in Cairo. He meant to set him straight and did I know where he was staying. I didn’t, but I saw a chance to make more money in a day than I’d made the last six months in this crummy town with Annie skimming half my take. I told Handish the last I heard tell Stram was living in a boat down by the reaper works. I figured if he didn’t find him, it wouldn’t be on me. He could’ve moved on, which I guess he did.”

  “To perdition,” said Quinn. “He’s dead.”

  “Music to my ears.”

  A cacophony of squawks filled the car as a man wrestled a large wooden crate of chickens down the aisle. Jemelle pulled her suitcases in closer and stared out the window.

  Quinn waited until the squawking passed into the next car. “What did you think when the man found dead in the alley behind Lou’s place was identified as Handish?”

  “What do you think? That he was dead. That he’d found Stram and Stram shot first.”

  “But you never saw his body, did you?”

  “No.”

  “Then it must’ve given you quite a turn when you saw him walking around alive.”

  She licked her lips and twisted her gloves.

  “All aboard for St. Louis! All aboard!”

  Garnick tapped his watch. “Quinn?”

  “Yes, yes. But you did see Handish again, didn’t you, Jemelle? Isn’t that why you’re on the run?”

  “You’re a glutton for punishment, ain’t you, long as you ain’t the one getting punished?” She pulled one of her bags into her lap like a barricade.

  “Leastways give us a description of the man you say called himself Handish,” urged Garnick.

  “Light hair and eyebrows, expensive clothes, kind of a dandy. A real spieler.”

  “Winthrop,” grumbled Garnick. “He used Handish like a puppet when he was alive and he’s still using his name.”

  “When was the next time you saw him?” asked Quinn.

  “The day I gave you my statement. He showed up late that night wanting to know what else you’d asked, what else I’d said about him. Wore his hat low and his collar high like he’d rather be dead in a ditch than spotted in a whorehouse. He said I’d be wise, his word, to leave town before Elfie’s trial. He showed up again around midnight last night to remind me. I didn’t like the odds he was offering if you know what I mean. He gave me money to vamoose and that’s what I’m doing. You ain’t dragging me off this train.”

  “All aboard! Last call for St. Louis!”

  “You heard the lady, Quinn. No use persisting.” Garnick stepped into the aisle. “Let’s skedaddle.”

  She got to her feet but turned to make a last appeal. “Please, Jemelle. We won’t let him hurt you and Elfie needs you.”

  “Can’t you get it through your heads? Elfie matters like Deuteronomy to me.”

  Garnick made a more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger face. “Did you used to go to church or did somebody happen to mention Deuteronomy’s the part of the Good Book that warns against bearing false witness?”

  “You go to bla–”

  The high-pitched whistle blared. The train chugged and began to move.

  “Come on!” Garnick grabbed Quinn’s arm and pulled her into the gangway at the end of the car. He hopped onto the bottom step, still holding her hand. “I’ve got you. Jump.”

  The train chugged and swayed and the sight of the tracks passing underneath made Quinn swimmy headed. She pulled back and tried to free her hand from his grip. “I can’t.”

  The tracks raced under her, faster and faster. The whistle trumpeted.

  “Now!” With a force that nearly ripped her arm out of its socket, he yanked her down the steps, wrapped his arm around her waist, and made a leg-pumping, hair-raising leap. They came to a running stop well clear of the tracks.

  When Quinn got her wind back, she leaned against him to steady herself. “I don’t know what got into me. The motion of the tracks made me dizzy.”

  Garnick gave her a hug and laughed. “No honeymoon train to Niagara for us. Let’s go on a lake cruise.”

  “Don’t get ahead of yourself, Garnick.” She laughed, kissed him on the cheek, and put the momentary weakness behind her. As the train gathered speed down the tracks, she said, “I’m sorry Winthrop won’t have to face Jemelle in court. If she’d felt safe, she might have unloaded the whole truth.”

  “I suspicion Jemelle had more to be scared of than Winthrop.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He took Quinn’s arm and steered her toward the row of hackneys. “She’s away clean now. It can wait. Anyways, I’m of two minds whether the whole truth would do Miss Elfie as much good as you think it would. Showing her lawyer up as a first-class finagler during the trial would prob’ly make the jurors all the more wrathy. As he ain’t the one they’re called to render a verdict on, I expect they’d take out their displeasure on his client.”

  Chapter 30

  Garnick deposited Stram’s money in the Garnick & Paschal bank account for safekeeping. He withdrew twenty dollars of his own money and bailed Leonidas and the rig out of the stable. After a quick mid-day snack, he and Quinn went shopping for a dress for Elfie to wear to trial and one for Quinn to replace the ill-fitting outfit she’d borrowed from Mrs. Farraday. Quinn had heard of a seamstress on Alcott Street who often had ready-made dresses for sale and they began there. They were in luck to find the shop open and the dressmaker at her Singer machine stitching up a storm. She had three pre-made dresses on display, one in a size Quinn thought would fit Elfie. It was cut modestly enough. Quinn held it up and considered its possible effect on the jurors. Its sunflower bright hues might be construed as too gay and gladdening for a woman accused of murder and she hung it back on the dress form.

  A tawny colored, sack-like dress lay across the ironing board. It could be taken in with a few darts and made to fit, but it fell on the frumpy side of the scale. Elfie had to look pretty, but not pert. Quinn and Garnick continued shopping.

  In a ladies apparel shop on Pine, Quinn stopped in front of a gray-green walking dress with a single flounce garlanded with an embroidery of mountain green leaves. It was soft, quiet, and appealingly chaste. It practically radiated innocence.

  “What do you think of this one, Garnick?”

  “I’d say t
he girl who wore it to a box social would get more than a few bids from the gents.”

  “Perfect.” Quinn had the proprietress box it along with a new petticoat and green velvet hair net. In the same shop, a Berlin blue cotton frock with not too many buttons and a trim skirt cried out to Quinn. The seamstress altered it to fit and Quinn wore it out of the shop feeling like a new woman. She and Garnick spent the rest of the afternoon canvassing for a respectable boarding house that would accept her without a letter of recommendation. Grateful as she was to Lou and the people at the brothel, she couldn’t spend another night there. Could not go on being mistaken for “one of the gals.” She had no idea what to expect at tomorrow’s trial, but if Winthrop called her to the stand and asked her where she lived, her answer would not be Lou’s Mansion.

  So far, three boarding houses had turned her away, notwithstanding her fresh blue dress and semi-true story of a fire that destroyed her previous residence. It was getting late and Garnick, who had different ideas about where and how she should pass the night, was starting to grow restive.

  “We can spend the night at my cabin and nobody’s gonna know. Winthrop’s not going to call either one of us to testify. He’ll be too worried we might let the cat out of the bag about him and Delphine.”

  “It’s already out of the bag. Did you see the way Rice looked at that photograph? It was news to him that his attorney had been involved with the ‘temptress.’”

  “Winthrop must have met with her father a few times,” said Garnick, “to communicate His Honor’s suggestions on how to sow doubts amongst the bondholders. If Tench was telling the truth about the lady’s overfriendly bent, I expect she flirted with Winthrop and he got carried away.”