with the anger in her voice again.
“I don’t like to be damned. Now are you going to do as you’re told?”
“All right. All right!”
“That’s better.”
She fingered her cheek where his hand had left a red mark. “What about that drummer?”
“I haven’t made up my mind about him yet. If he keeps asking the wrong questions, he’ll wish he hadn’t.”
“Another disappearance, Jack?” she said bitterly.
“Never mind that. One matter at a time. But we can’t afford to let anyone stand in our way now, this close to the finish. Not anyone, you understand?”
“When will we be able to leave Silver?”
“It won’t be long,” Bogardus said. “Now that we’re operating again, another couple of weeks is all we’ll need — at least two more big shipments. Then I’ll arrange to blow up the Rattling Jack, claim an accident, and we’ll all leave here rich.”
“We’ll go to Europe? You promised me that.”
“You sure you don’t want to keep on living with that pig you married?”
“Don’t toy with me, Jack. You know how I feel about you. I was a fool to walk out the way I did in Portland.”
“Yes you were. But it’s a good thing you did or neither of us would be in Silver right now.” Bogardus rubbed her reddened cheek with the back of one hand. “All right, Helen. New York first, then Europe.”
“London? Paris?”
“Anyplace you want to go.”
She looked at him for a time with her eyes as dark and hot as his. Then she said softly, “Damn you, Jack. Damn you.”
The words surprised Bogardus, but only for a few seconds. A slow smile lifted the corners of his mouth — and he slapped her. Not hard enough to rock her, but harder than before.
“Damn you,” she said.
He slapped her again.
Her breath came faster; Quincannon could hear the irregular rhythm of it even out where he was crouched. Perspiration put a polished sheen on her flushed cheeks. “Damn you. Damn you.”
Another slap, with enough force this time so that it sounded like the crack of a pistol shot. And in the next second she was in Bogardus’ arms, her hands in his black hair, her mouth hungry on his. Quincannon watched, feeling like a voyeur but unwilling to leave just yet; he was afraid of making a noise to alert them to his presence and of missing out on further conversation.
But they had nothing more to say to each other, at least not there in the sitting room and not with words. When their embrace ended, Bogardus urged her through a doorway and she went along willingly. It was obvious where they were bound. As soon as they were out of sight, Quincannon stood up out of the painful crouch he had been in, left the shelter of the lilacs, and hurried out of the yard and down away from the house. For the time being, there was nothing more to be learned there.
But his chance few minutes of eavesdropping had paid some dividends. He now had more confirmation, by implication if not by direct statement, that Bogardus and Helen Truax were involved in an illegal enterprise that almost certainly had to be the coney game. And that Bogardus considered him a potential threat, and would arrange “another disappearance” if he deemed it necessary.
The significance of the rest of their conversation, however, eluded him. What was it Bogardus had been demanding that she do tonight? What were the two of them plotting? He felt he ought to have some inkling of the answer, yet he couldn’t quite grasp it. That second whiskey he had taken before going to the Truax house still had his mind fuddled. He would have to be more careful about how much and how often he drank, at least until this business was resolved.
Downtown again, he found himself on Avalanche Avenue. He glanced up at the window of Sabina’s Millinery as he walked by, but he didn’t hesitate; he had nothing more to say to Sabina Carpenter, not this soon after last night. At Jordan Street he turned downhill. His intended destination was Cadmon’s Livery for a horse, which he would ride to the Paymaster mine for another talk with Oliver Truax; but the Western Union sign beckoned as he passed the Wells Fargo office. He turned inside.
Waiting for him was a second telegram from Boggs, just come in from San Francisco. This one said:
SC CONFIRMED DENVER PINK ROSE ASSIGNED PMC FMFM STOP PROBABLE OT PYRAMID STOP IS THERE CONNECTION OUR BUSINESS QMK PINK ROSE RELIABLE ALLY IF JOINT VENTURE DESIRABLE OR NECESSARY
Quincannon stared at the words in amazement. Well I will be damned, he thought.
The news that the Paymaster Mining Company flimflam was a probable pyramid swindle — in which Oliver Truax would be juggling stock proceeds, paying dividends to early investors with the money from sales to later investors and then pocketing the difference — came as no surprise. It was the other revelation that astonished him, the fact that Truax and his scheme were already being investigated first-hand and undercover by a “Pink Rose.”
Sabina Carpenter was an operative for the Denver branch of the Pinkerton Detective Agency.
Chapter 15
She was alone in the front part of the millinery shop, cutting a strip from a bolt of paisley cloth, when Quincannon turned in off the stairs. She looked up, wearing the polite smile of a proprietress for a prospective customer; then the smile vanished and she straightened and set down her shears. She stood stiffly, watching him.
He stopped five feet from the table. Her hair was different again today: pulled back and rolled into a tight chignon. It gave her face a severity that was enhanced by the displeasure in her expression. Nevertheless he felt the same physical desire as last night: like it or not, she was a fire in his blood. He forced himself to remember their last meeting, the embarrassment of it; to face her with a professional detachment.
She said, “You have quite a nerve, Mr. Lyons, coming back here after last night. I should have thought I made it quite clear how I felt.”
“You did. The purpose of this visit is strictly business.”
“What sort of business?”
“The sort that needs to be discussed in complete privacy. I think you should go downstairs, put up the ‘Closed’ sign, and lock the door so we won’t be disturbed.”
She smiled wryly. “I’m sure you do.”
“I assure you,” he said with some of her stiffness, “that I have no intention of making any more improper advances. Your virtue is quite safe.”
“Just what is it you wish to discuss?”
“Among other matters, you and your reason for coming to Silver City.”
She frowned. “My reason for coming here was to open this millinery shop.”
“No it wasn’t,” he said. “You came to prove, if you could, that Oliver Truax is operating a pyramid swindle with Paymaster Mining Company stock.”
The words startled her. Some of the color faded out of her cheeks; the displeasure and the feminine righteousness faded with it, leaving her with an uncertain look. She caught her lower lip between her teeth, realized what she was doing, and released it. She didn’t speak.
Quincannon said, “The fact is, Miss Carpenter, you are a Pink Rose operating out of Denver. You do know what the term ‘Pink Rose’ means, don’t you?”
She knew and she grew even paler. Her gaze held his for another second or two, then slid away. Abruptly she came away from the table, moved past him to the stairs, picked up her skirts, and hurried down. He heard her at the door, the sound of the bolt being thrown. When she came back up she returned to the table, without looking at
