Beyond Rue Morgue Anthology (13 page)

“You staring at me like you want to have my child,” the gunslinger said, his words like sawdust.

Nate sighed, still baffled that such a thing as
ratiocination
really existed. The further idea that he could even remotely have the other man’s child sickened him to the point where Nate had to cover his mouth with the back of his left hand. “If you’ll pardon me,” Nate said, careful to speak in small-syllable words, “I’m looking for a man known as Burt Johnson. I thought you might be him.”

The man, who just a moment before seemed about to pass out from too much rye, suddenly straightened and adjusted his cowboy hat. He levered his tired frame from the stool. Dressed like every other cattle puncher in southern Arizona, the thing that set him apart was the way he let his gun ride low and easy on one hip, as if they were old friends and had gone places together. “What if I might be this man you looking for? You got some kind of beef?”

Nate shook his head, acutely aware of his own appearance. Where the other man was large and filled out with bulky muscle, Nate was small-boned and more finely muscled. Instead of dusty canvas and stained cotton attire, Nate wore wool pants and a vest over a clean white shirt beneath a gold and brown brocade coach jacket. He had a pistol as well, but his was a German Mauser 9mm Zig-Zag kept tucked under his left arm, rather than the Peacemaker the other wore like a third limb. There was, of course, the additional fact that Nate’s green-tinted sunglasses were a little off-putting. He hadn’t seen anyone else wearing sunglasses since he’d left Saint Louis three weeks earlier. He had never liked wearing a hat, preferring to let his blond hair bleach beneath the hard desert sun and his face take on the hue of well-tanned leather.

“No beef, Mr. Johnson. I’m on a search and rescue mission, as it were.”

“Rescue? Who is it you’re going to rescue?”

“Not who, Mr. Johnson—as I do believe you are the man I’m looking for.” When the other gave an almost imperceptible nod, Dupes continued. “Rather, a
thing.
A painting, to be exact. Mr. Oliver in Saint Louis said you’d appropriated it for a Mr. J.C. Magillicutty, formerly from Chicago, Illinois, but now residing here in Douglas. Do I have my facts about right?”

“I didn’t
‘propitiate
nuthin.’” The big man spat tobacco on the floor as if to accentuate his innocence.

“Appropriate.
It means you received and took it to the man who hired you.”

“Then why didn’t you say that yourself?”

“I have no idea,” Nate replied, trying very hard not to roll his eyes. “So then you are that man.”

“So what if I am?”

“Then I’d like to give you twenty dollars.”

Greed won over guile. “Yeah, I’m him.”

Nate reached into his vest pocket and brought out a gold piece with two fingers. “Just one thing before I give this to you.”

Johnson’s watery eyes fixed on the gold eagle coin. “What?”

“Please describe the painting you delivered to Mr. Magillicutty.”

“The painting? I don’t know art. It was just a painting.”

Nate pulled out another gold piece and tucked it neatly into the same two fingers that still held the first coin. “I was hoping you knew art just a little bit, Mr. Johnson.”

It was all the big man could do to keep from drooling. “It was a picture of Jesus with soldiers and stuff.”

“Was it a small picture?”

Johnson shifted his eyes from the coins to Nate’s face. “Who you kidding? It was a huge painting. The size of a man, only rolled up and pushed into a wooden tube.”

“And you delivered this to your boss?”

Johnson nodded.

Nate handed over the coins.

“Is that all you want to know? You don’t want to see it?” Johnson asked. He rolled the coins in one hand, obviously hoping for more.

“That’s enough for now.” Nate touched a finger to his forehead in a small salute, then turned and left the bar, mindful that Johnson didn’t follow. It would be better, he decided, to get back to his hotel than continue his search tonight; perhaps he could get the owner to once again scrounge up some ice. This town was beyond hot. Even the night gave almost no respite. But before he could get relief, he had one more chore, a telegram to send and one which should have gone out the moment he’d arrived.

* * *

This evening a cold water bath was the best the owner could provide, so Nate sat in the beaten copper tub with his legs hanging over one edge and his head resting on another while he read the latest issue of the
Douglas Dispatch
. A newspaper told a lot about a town if one paid attention. His grandfather Le Chevalier C. Auguste Dupin believed that even a bad newspaper could provide a good detective with the necessary links one would need to determine the major players.

Douglas, it seemed, was fighting to become an incorporated township. The odds looked good because of the railhead and the silver mines, but certain landowners, such as the infamous J.C. Magillicutty, were against it because of its possible disruption of the free-range cattle business.

There had also been several recent fires. Two occurred at warehouses, but a third destroyed the home of a ranch hand who’d been accused of raping a Mexican girl, but released for lack of evidence. The cattle worker himself was nowhere to be found.

Sears, Roebuck and Co. had just established a catalogue store.

Buffalo Soldiers, a Negro cavalry unit out of nearby Camp Huachuca, were assisting elements of the 10th Cavalry in the relocation of several Apache Indian tribes.

Twin girls, Eloise and Marie Duvall, had been missing for several days with no clues as to their whereabouts.

A gunfight on Main Street had resulted in the death of one Mr. Frank Dorsett, a known card shark and cheat.

Agnes Moffit brought in another pail of cold water from the well. A one-time girl of Madame Menadue’s, she was now house woman of the inn where Dupes was staying, and she was no stranger to the sight of a naked male body. However, what had stunned her when she’d first helped him out of his clothes were the tattoos covering his back and arms. Many of them were done in black and white ink, but several more were in color; all sported a Far East Asian motif and were indelible memories of the five years Nate Dupes had spent in China.

“I see you’re reading the newspaper of our fine city,” she said. He could tell she was trying to sound as civilized as possible in front of him.

“I am, dear Agnes. Just pour that water in and—” His words broke off as the cold water hit his stomach and groin. He let out a surprised gasp, then inhaled and smiled. When he had his air back, he asked the question he’d been wanting to for at least half an hour. By then Agnes had settled on a rocker with her back to him; ready to assist if needed, she was passing the time by crocheting a doily. “So, what’s interesting that
isn’t
in the newspaper?”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” she said without looking up from her work.

“Well, take this man whose house burned down. What’s the real story behind that?”

“If you mean that no good rapist Billy Picket, then he got exactly what he deserved.”

“Says here there was a lack of evidence.”

“Ain’t no evidence found around here that can stand up in an American court when it’s a Mexican against an American.”

“So he was guilty?”

He watched her back as she paused in her crocheting. “I’m not knowing if he was guilty or not, but if he did rape that woman, it wasn’t the first Mexican girl he’d forced himself on.”

Ah. So the fire was payback.

“Looks like people are going to be able to order anything they want now that Sears and Roebuck has a catalogue store.”

“Oh, yes,” she said as she went back to her doily and rocked backward. “Mr. Magillicutty brought one all the way from Chicago. Says we need to be as civilized as the rest of America.”

Nate raised one eyebrow behind the woman’s back. He had seen how civilized America really was and thought the remark more than exaggerated. Born in Paris, Nate’s father had immigrated to America, allowing the administrators on Ellis Island to change the family name from Dupin to Dupes. That single deed had ruined America for his father, a man who had continually basked in the shadow of his own sire. All his life the elder Dupin had been unable to do anything but promote the brilliance of the fictionalized accounts of Nate’s grandfather, the very real Le Chevalier C. Auguste Dupin. Nate, however, didn’t care a bit. While he appreciated the fame of his grandfather, he was determined to make a name for himself. His only nod to his ancestor was to take a similar job, which was why Nate had not only been a detective in the employ of Lloyd’s of London, but most recently worked for the famous American Pinkerton Detective Agency.

“It’s a shame about these twin girls,” he said. “Any hope of finding them?”

She ceased crocheting and sat, not moving or speaking. He’d struck a nerve.

“Their mother must be crazed with concern,” he added, hoping for something... anything. He waited a few moments, then decided to let it go.

Then she surprised him by speaking in a low, slow voice. “Girls have been disappearing around here for a long time. Three years, maybe. No one knows who’s taking them, or even how they do it.”

“The article doesn’t mention anything about it.”

“And it won’t. Because up to now it was only Mexican girls.”

“What happens to them?”

She turned, her eyes shining with tears. “I don’t know. I just heard they sometimes find a body in the desert, buried and curled into a ball just like when they came out of their mother’s womb.”

* * *

The next morning Dupes had two messages waiting for him. One was from none other than Mr. J.C. Magillicutty requesting his presence. Nate’s forty dollars in gold pieces was as useful as the thirty pieces of silver Judas Iscariot had been given to betray a certain other J.C. The other message was from the sheriff, so Dupes decided to attend to that one first. He was late in presenting his
Bona Fides
to the local constabulary anyway. So after a meal of toast and eggs, Nate made his way to the sheriff’s office, and it took only a few moments of pretending that the sheriff was in charge and showing his Pinkerton credentials before he was allowed to leave. He held back his warrant for the missing painting, signed by the Secretary of the Interior; he’d use that when needed, but there was no hurry to reveal its existence now. With such an endorsement, not even the territorial governor had the power to countermand the warrant.

Magillicutty’s property was an hour away by horseback, due east along the border. Nate got there, but watched the place for an hour before he descended a small hill and rode down the front road. Surrounded by pastures, the main house was an impressive three-story Tudor mansion that seemed as out of place in the American southwest as a Caravaggio painting. An old silver mine rose out of the hillside behind it, the tailings scattering down the side of the mountain like a black and red veil.

A couple of men lolled around the front door, but they stood straight as he strode toward them. Both kept their hands near their pistols, but at least they didn’t have the bad grace to draw. He gave one the reins to his horse and bade the other announce him, providing a card with his name and title. The man looked at Dupes like the visitor had made his stomach go sour, but complied.

A few minutes later a big man with ruddy skin and a lion’s mane of red hair burst through the door. “Nathanial Dupes,” he said as he reached out a hand to shake, “no one told me you were a Pinkerton Detective. My man Johnson left that part out.”

“I might have forgotten to tell him,” Nate said, observing the quality of tailoring on Magillicutty’s Savile Row wool suit.

“Well, come on in. We’re still unpacking,” Magillicutty said. “Please forgive the mess.”

Nate followed him inside, realizing immediately that the other’s statement was nothing but platitudinous. Everything was in its place and seemed perfectly arranged. He’d always felt he had an eye for decorating, and he could find no fault in the decidedly European interior. “How long have you been here?”

“Five years, but it took some time to build the house and have my things shipped.” They’d made it to a library and the homeowner shoved his hands in his pockets. “I had three homes and consolidated everything into this one.”

Nate nodded, noting several statues and two paintings whose provenance, once established, would make each of them worth more money than he was likely to ever see in his life. The man was definitely a collector.

They exchanged some polite talk for a few minutes after Dupes accepted a seat in a comfortable leather chair, then he and Magillicutty got down to brass tacks.

“So why are you interested in my painting?” his host asked. As it had turned out, the J.C. was short for John Christopher and he’d asked to be called John.

“Because it’s not your painting,” Dupes told him bluntly. “It was stolen sixty years ago and it’s taken this long to track it down.”

John sat very still for a few moments behind his massive desk. Finally, he sighed. “I’m sorry. You seem like a nice enough and responsible fellow, but you can’t have it.”

Nate had been waiting for this. He leaned forward and drew out the piece of paper he’d kept close at hand for these past four months. “I’m afraid you don’t understand, I have a warrant for its return, signed by the Secretary of the Interior.”

John smiled slightly. “No, I’m afraid you’re the one who doesn’t understand. It’s true that I had the painting at one time, but I don’t have it any longer.”

Nate’s smile fell. “You lost it? Sold it?”

“I don’t have it,” John repeated. “If you like, feel free to check every room.”

“I will,” Nate said stiffly. “What happened to it?”

John leaned back and shrugged mightily. “Who knows?”

For the first time in weeks Nate found himself flustered. The man had had the painting, but now it was gone. He’d even offered to let Nate check his house—and Nate definitely would—but the best he could offer was only that he didn’t have it anymore?

“I doubt very much it grew legs and walked away by itself,” Nate said. “Either you gave it away or it was stolen. So who has it now?”