World's Greatest Sleuth! (15 page)

“Colonel Crowe adopted me when I was a child,” Diana said, speaking slowly, as one would when addressing the village idiot. (And I cannot deny that, in our little village of three, I was the one for the job.) “He and my father served together in…” She shook her head and looked away. “It’s a long story, and there’s no reason to go into it now.”

“Why didn’t you tell it to us before?” Gustav asked.

Diana let out a long breath as one will when asked an obvious question one’s pondered often—without ever coming up with a decent answer.

“When I first met you, I was a spotter for the railroad under orders not to reveal my true identity. After that … well, it becomes harder to explain. I was just being cautious, I suppose. Wary. Out of habit, perhaps. I’ve been hiding behind other names for a long time now, and I find I’ve grown to like it. I started working for the colonel nearly ten years ago, and in all that time, not half a dozen people with the Southern Pacific even knew who I really was. The colonel liked it that way. As you might recall, he was always convinced the railroad was riddled with spies. A certain … predisposition for distrust has always been one of his eccentricities.”

“That’s putting it kindly,” I said.

When Diana went on talking, she was looking at Old Red alone.

“I saw such potential in you, such promise, and I just wanted to be certain of it before I put all my cards on the table. Plus, I knew it would be awkward when you finally learned everything.” She threw me a look again, and I was relieved to see it included a wry smile. “I was well aware you might not have the highest opinion of the colonel yourselves. Believe me, though, I never would’ve wanted the truth to come out the way it did. We had no idea you two were going to be here, at first. When my father—” Diana’s eyes flared, shooting me a warning I’d be wise to heed. “And, yes, Otto—I do think of him as my father. When he bought our way into the contest, he was told Mr. Smythe’s representative would be someone called ‘Dan Slick, the Dude Dick.’ ”

“Dan Slick, the Dude Dick?” My brother snorted. “That’s worse than ‘the Holmes of the Range.’ ”

I was gracious enough to let that slap pass without reply.

“Funny we ain’t never heard of him,” I said. “We’ve sampled every dime novel dick out there.”

“You ever hear what happened to Mr. Slick?” Gustav asked the lady.

“No. We arrived Sunday afternoon, and by then the switch had already been made. Dan Slick was out, you were in. The colonel was actually quite enthused when he heard the news.”

“Cuz now he’d have the chance to show us up for the country bumpkins we really are,” Old Red said.

“Exactly. The colonel was with the Southern Pacific Railroad Police fourteen years. Then he hired you two, and he was sacked within half a week. You can’t blame him for being bitter.”

“I don’t,” Gustav said, “but I get the feelin’… well…” He drifted over to the window and pretended to inspect something down in the alley below. “The way he keeps herdin’ you away from us makes me think there’s more to it than that. Something other than him just holdin’ a grudge.”

Suddenly, Diana looked like she wanted her own window to stare out. Or escape through.

“You’re right. There is something else,” she said. “You know I’ve been trying to talk the colonel into hiring you for his new detective agency. Unfortunately, I was a bit too persistent. He’s gotten it into his head that I have an emotional reason for wanting the two of you to join us.”

“Emotional?” I said.

“Personal.”

I think I got it then. Some part of me just wanted to hear the lady say it.

I furrowed my brow and cocked my head.

“Intimate,”
Diana said.

“Oh. Oh! You mean he thinks you’ve … you’re … you might…? With one of us?” I had to gulp and loosen my collar before carrying on. “Whatever gave him that idea?”

“You did. You came right out and told him as much.”

“When did I…?”

I cut myself off before I could say something stupid. Alas, this is not something one’s able to do
ex post facto
.

“My book.”

Diana nodded. “Your book.”

No wonder the colonel didn’t trust us, given what I’d written about the lady. I may as well have sent a note to a pitchfork-toting farmer:
Will be behind the woodshed tonight defiling your daughter. Aim for the head.

“I owe you an apology, miss,” I said. “I always figured they’d cut that stuff out along with all the naughty words and blood and whatnot. And I never dreamed the colonel would read any of it.”

“He’s read it,” Diana said. “As have I.”

“What are you two talkin’ about?” Gustav asked, finally stepping away from his window.

I started looking for one of my own.

One advantage to reading a book out for an audience—assuming you know that audience as well as, say, a brother—is the opportunity to skip the bits that’ll get the chilliest reception. Or even spark a fight. So when reading my yarns to Old Red, certain passages I had a tendency to skim over with a droned “Etc. and so on and so forth.” Which was fine with my brother, as he was only interested in the deducifying anyway and frowned mightily on flowery descriptions and allegedly humorous asides and other such folderol. But now the folderol had caught up to us.

“
On the Wrong Track,
” I said. “There are some parts in it that get a little … well, I guess I was pretty honest about how much we both enjoy workin’ with Miss Crowe. How very,
very
much.”

Gustav’s face went the dark red of rose petals.

I was just glad
The Black Dove
hadn’t seen print yet. That one would turn him purple.

“Etc. and so on and so forth, huh?” Old Red said to me.

“It was in the ‘so on.’ ” I sighed. “How come this never happened to Doc Watson?”

“Doc Watson ain’t a goddamn idjit.”

“You might just be onto something there.”

“Feh—enough of this,” my brother spat. “You and me can pick it up again later. For now, it’s neither here nor there. It’s just good to know where we stand with Colonel Crowe—which is in the shitter, thanks to you.”

“He apologizes for his foul language,” I said to Diana.

“I’ll handle my own apologies, dammit.”

“He apologizes for that, too.”

“No, I don’t.”

“
Gustav
.
Otto,
” Diana said, and she didn’t go on till it was clear our traps were shut and were going to stay so. “There is no need for apologies. I grew up around soldiers. If I let a little swearing unsettle me, I would never have survived to adulthood. And, in any case, Gustav is right. So far as the colonel’s concerned, you two are in the shitter. There is a way out, though. Colonel Crowe might be irascible, opinionated, distrustful, and not especially inclined toward forgiveness, but if there’s one thing he respects, it’s results.” She looked at my brother. “I’ve told him again and again how brilliant I think you are.”

I didn’t
think
I grimaced, but I must have from the way Diana turned toward me and smiled reassuringly.

“And how brave and resourceful you are, Otto. But words haven’t been enough. You’ve got to show the colonel what you can do. Prove you’re the great detectives I say you are.”

“And the manure clue didn’t do it,” Old Red said.

Diana shook her head. “The manure clue most definitely did not do it.”

“It is a good clue, though.”

“Most instructive.”

“We found us some Herefords nearby, by the way. In the Stock Pavilion. And there were dung stains on a windowsill over to the Agriculture Building. Inside, too, we was told, though they’d been mopped up by the time we got to ’em.”

“Well, then. That settles it.”

“Couldn’t be more obvious.”

Gustav and Diana kept their eyes locked on each other as they talked, as was their way when bandying about clues. It was always like that when the two of them put their heads together: The rest of the world was blotted out entirely. Including me.

This time, though, I was determined not to be a blottee.

“Yup,” I chimed in. “It’s positively elementary.”

From the looks on their faces as they turned toward me, you’d have thought it was the dresser that had piped up.

“Curtis leaves the restaurant,” I said, “comes back here, and collects his clues for the next day’s contest. Then he heads back to the White City and starts spreadin’ ’em around. Somewhere in there, the killer gets to ridin’ drag on him—and Curtis almost spots him. He finds a place to hide just in time, though: a cattle pen, where he mucks up his shoes. It’s plenty dark by then, so when he sets off after Curtis again, he don’t realize he’s leavin’ a trail. When Curtis goes into the Agriculture Building, the killer slips in through a window, for some reason. And when he finds Curtis up atop the Mammoth Cheese—passed out, maybe, like folks’ve been guessin’—he takes the opportunity to smother him. With his foot on the back of the man’s head, you understand, so as to shove his face down deep into the cheese. In the process, he grinds that plop off the bottom of his shoe into Curtis’s hair. Then he leaves, thinkin’ everyone’ll just chalk it up to some kinda bee-zar accident. Only he don’t reckon on
us
.”

Diana gave me a round of applause and a “Bravo!” Yet though my brother’s always needling me about my detecting, he didn’t seem particularly pleased to see me Holmesifying at his and the lady’s speed now.

“Not bad,” he muttered.

“So the manner in which Curtis was killed isn’t really in question,” Diana said, “and I daresay the motive isn’t, either. At that dinner last night, Curtis flaunted his willingness and ability to publicly humiliate any of us. Brady, Greene, Valmont—he hinted at secrets he’s uncovered about them all. And Tousey and Blackheath-Murray and Smythe all stand to lose thousands if their heroes’ reputations are besmirched. So that gives us six suspects. A nice round number easily divided between the three of us.”

“I’m afraid it ain’t as tidy as that,” Old Red said. “We got us a wild card.” He looked to me while jerking his head at the lady. “Tell her about him.”

I knew straight off who “him” was: the Bearded Man. I told Diana how he’d tried to steal our wheeled chairs, then come sniffing around the hotel and later yet waylaid us and smashed Gustav’s glasses.

“Obviously, someone’s trying to sabotage your chances in the contest,” Diana said when I was done. “He meant to strand you at the Kansas Building yesterday, and today he tried to deprive Gustav of his shaded spectacles thinking it would slow him down or perhaps even blind him.” She turned a quizzical look on my brother. “I’ve been meaning to ask about those glasses myself, by the way. Did you ever really need them?”

“We’ll swap long stories, one of these days,” Old Red said. “Right now, I think it’s about time we gave that coat a good goin’ over.”

I shrugged off the overcoat, a little embarrassed to realize I’d been carrying fresh evidence around on my back without even thinking of it.

“Got a tag here in the lining,” I said. “ ‘Manookian Bros. Fine Tailoring, Cleveland.’ ”

“Anything in the pockets?” Diana asked.

“Nope. That I would’ve noticed a … well, hel-lo, to coin a phrase.”

There was an inside pocket I hadn’t noted up to then, and when I slipped my fingers into it I felt a piece of thin paper.

I drew out a folded note and snapped it open. I started reading it aloud, was interrupted by my own “I’ll be damned,” then had to start over. This is what I read:

Enclosed you will find the money order I promised your father. Please have him take you to the train station immediately. He knows where to find me here.

Do not delay, my little friend! Many challenges lie ahead, but so, too, does glory!

Your pal,
Urias Smythe

The stunned silence that fell over us proved fortuitous. Without it, we might have missed the sound of footsteps echoing down the hallway.

Then the sound of a woman saying, “Right this way, Sergeant. Room two-twelve.”

Then the sound of jingling keys.

16

THE MOTHER LODE

Or, New Clues Fall into Our Lap (After Our Laps Fall upon Them)

The room had no
closet for us to jump in. The bed was too low to the ground for us to slide under. The dresser drawers were, as one might imagine, too small for us to dive into.

All of which left us only two options, so far as I could see: We could throw the overcoat over our heads and hope we’d be taken for a coat rack or we could simply make ourselves comfortable and wait to get caught.

My brother had a bit more imagination. So much so, in fact, for a moment I thought he’d forgotten we can’t fly.

He threw open the window, turned to me, and whispered one word: “Out.”

“But we’re on the second—”

“What exactly are you looking for?” I heard Mrs. Jasinska ask out in the hall.

“In my line of work,” replied a man with a soft Irish brogue, “one often doesn’t know till one finds it.”

“Ah. Well. Here we are, Sergeant.”

That last I barely caught, for I was already slipping over the sill and letting gravity do the rest.

There was a heap of junk down in the alley below: metal garbage cans and boxes of discarded bric-a-brac and a stained mattress that, presumably, was too odiferous and lice-infested for even such as the Columbian Hotel. It was this last I aimed for.

I hit it, too. Or half of me did, anyway. My other half hit one of the trash cans, upending its contents all over myself as I oofed flat onto my back. I barely had time to notice the malodorous rubbish spilling over my belly and chest, though, for it soon had company in the form of my brother.

“Christ!” I wheezed.

“Up!” snapped Old Red.

I managed to stagger to my feet and clasp hold of his hands just in time to catch the plummeting form of Diana Crowe.

The three of us ended up in a heap back on the litter-strewn pavement.

“We’re looking for clues,” Diana said as she writhed her way over and off me.

(Knowing, as I do now, that she and her father might actually read this book, I will make no comment here on said writhing or any effect it might have had on me.)