Swindled!: The 1906 Journal of Fitz Morgan (16 page)

He sounded honestly glad to see that I was okay. Fine, he was not the poisoner. But I had a feeling he was the one who bound
me to the chair.

“How dare you tie me up!” I shouted at him.

William Henry held out his long arms in an apologetic gesture. “We found you on the floor. You were unconscious. You stopped
this train–illegally, I might add–and probably tampered with the telegraph system–once again, illegally. The train officials
demanded that you be bound to the chair so you couldn’t do any more mischief. It was either that or put you back in the storage
room.” Seeing my rage, he added, “I am sorry. Truly.”

“Where’s Judge?” I asked, unwilling to forgive him. He stared at me blankly. “Justine! Where is Miss Pinkerton?”

“With Dr. Freud and Teddy. She is out of danger and asleep. She survived both the cyanide and the amyl nitrate.…” William
Henry’s voice trailed off. My cap must have fallen off when I fainted, and I could see his eyes finally taking in my long
brown hair. The wheels of his brain turned, and then he said: “Hey! You’re a girl!”

I rolled my eyes. “Good detective work, inspector,” I said sarcastically. “Where are we?”

William Henry appeared slightly stunned that I wasn’t a boy. He replied, “On a train.”

“I know that.” I assumed my natural English accent. “But where is the train?”

“Just about to pull into San Francisco. Because of you, we’re arriving late. It’s 4:45 AM.”

I had thrown the train off schedule. In his mind, this was apparently one of the worst things a person could do.

He looked at me closely. “Who are you? Are you British?”

We didn’t have time for this. I said, “Let’s make a bargain. I’ll explain everything to you later, and you can ask your questions
then. In the meantime–”

“We have a few other issues to deal with,” he said, finishing my sentence.

“Exactly. For instance, where is Agent Howard?”

“He’s gone. I can only guess that he came out of his coma. But he’s nowhere to be found! We’re afraid he might have fallen
off the side of the train.”

“I must speak with Judge right away,” I demanded.

William Henry shook his head. “As I said, she’s safe but asleep. Dr. Freud doesn’t want anyone to disturb her.”

I was about to insist that we see Judge when William Henry said, “She was holding this when we found her. The only words she
said before going to sleep were ‘Give it to Fitz.’”

He handed me a crumpled dollar bill. This must be what Judge had in her hand when she collapsed. I looked at it more closely.
It had the same serial number as the bill I’d caught on the platform and the one I had reconstructed.

“Was she repaying a debt?” William Henry said.

“No,” I answered, remembering the way Judge had saved my life by pulling me back onto the train. “I’m the one who is in her
debt.”

“Then what does the bill mean?” he asked. “Why was it so important that you get it?”

“Good questions,” I admitted. I thought back. The last time I had seen Judge before she was poisoned, she had just recovered
from being struck by the mailbag and was running toward the front of the train, toward the baggage car.

Suddenly, this memory was replaced by the image of a little girl with pigtails tied in blood-red ribbon whining for me to
wake up so that I could play with her in the baggage car.

The journal entry where the note had been left was about… the baggage car.

“Of course!” I shouted. “We have to get to the baggage car!”

I started toward the door, but William Henry stepped in front of me. “Look. I’ve just discovered that you’re not an American
boy but an English girl. For all I know, you could be the poisoner. If you want me to let you go, you have to convince me
there’s a good reason.” He pulled out his pocket watch and flipped it open. “You have thirty seconds, and then I’m going to
tie you up again.” It was clear that he meant what he said.

I spoke quickly. “All right. I know it sounds crazy, but here’s what I think. Someone is smuggling counterfeit money to San
Francisco. The money is in the baggage car.”

“Balloon juice,” he said. “How do you know that?”

“Because at least two of the three people who were poisoned had gone into the baggage car.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Both Judge and Asyla were in the baggage car at some point. Don’t you see? The dye used to make phony money contains cyanide.
The money must have been printed recently, and some bills were still wet. I think Agent Howard was investigating the counterfeit
money. That’s what the Secret Service does. I’ll bet he touched the wet bills, and his skin absorbed the cyanide dye.”

“So you’re saying he accidentally poisoned himself?” William Henry nodded, thinking it over. “But what about Asyla Notabe
and Miss Pinkerton?”

“Simple,” I replied. “Asyla played in the baggage car and must have snooped in a bag holding the money. Judge must have discovered
the bills when she was hiding there from the train officials. Everyone who comes in contact with large quantities of the fake
money is poisoned. We have to hurry. Once we pull into San Francisco, the suspects will leave the train. They’ll be gone–”

“What suspects?” William Henry interrupted me. “If the poisonings were accidental as you say… then there are no suspects.”

“Of course there are!” I cried. “You’re forgetting about the counterfeit money. Someone is smuggling it on board this train.
And if we don’t get to the baggage car before we reach San Francisco, we’ll never catch the criminal. You have to make a decision
now, William Henry. There’s no time!”

William Henry gazed down at the watch in his hands. Doubt clouded his features as if he were asking himself, What if this
timepiece doesn’t have all the answers?

After a moment, he snapped the watch closed and tucked it into his pocket.

He nodded at me and said with a lopsided grin, “Well, whoever you are, what are we waiting for? Let’s get to the baggage car!”

5:00 AM

If someone reads this journal in the
future, they’ll discover a guide on what to do if he or she is riding on a train full of poisoned passengers and counterfeit
money. But as William Henry and I raced toward the baggage car, no such guide existed–and I realized that even with all my
training, nothing could truly prepare me for this unique and dangerous situation.

“Wait,” I whispered, and William Henry stopped just as he was about to open the door to the baggage car. “We can’t just barge
in there. We don’t know who or what we’ll find inside.”

“So what do we do?” William Henry asked.

At that instant the train began to shriek in an eardrum-bursting way. It was braking. We were pulling into the station in
San Francisco. We were almost out of time!

“What should we do?” I wondered out loud.

“Either we go in now or we’ll be too late,” a voice said from behind us.

Startled, I turned around to discover–

“Judge!” I cried–instantly glad the sound of the brakes covered my shout. I threw my arms around her.

I had missed my friend more than I realized. We hugged tightly. Then questions flew from my mouth. “Are you all right? What
are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be in bed?”

She laughed at my excitement “You’re here, so I guess William Henry gave you my message.”

“You’re an amazing detective, Judge. That dollar bill you gave him led us here.” I then took a good look at her She was very
pale, but her lips had lost their frightening bright red color.

Before I could ask any more questions, she said, “Not to worry, Fitz. I feel like I’ve been run over by a train, but I’ll
be okay. When I woke up, Dr. Freud was in a chair by my bed and Teddy was at my feet–both snoring. So I crept out of the compartment.”

“You…” William Henry spoke for the first time since Judge’s arrival. I prepared myself for his long list of reasons why Judge
should return to the safety of her Pullman.

Judge didn’t rant or rave as she once might have. She simply looked into his eyes and said quietly. “William Henry, I have
to be here. This is my case, too.”

“You…” he repeated, but something about her manner seemed to have changed his tone. “You’re right on time. You have no idea
how much I admire that,” William Henry said, using almost the same words as when they had first met.