and so I found myself asking if he was the same Mister Chambrun who'd bought that adorable colt Off Captain Bedford. He admitted he was, with neither shame nor hesitation!'
P.S. Plover nodded sagely. 'There You have it, young Sir. I naturally reported what Vigdis told me, in writing, that very afternoon. When are you Planning to arrest the thieving redskin?'
Longarm put the notebook away so he could take the cigar out of his mouth as he explained. 'I ain't planning to arrest nobody right off. It ain't that I'm lazy. It's just that I've found it tough to start a fire with wet matches or keep a cuss in jail on weak evidence. And by the way, who's holding that treasury note at the moment?'
Plover blinked in surprise and said, 'Why, we are, of course. In its own sealed and marked envelope, in our vault, lest we mix it up with innocent bills. I offered it as evidence to the sheriff as soon as I saw its serial number was on that list. But the sheriff told me I'd best hold on to it for the time being because he'd be reporting what seemed a purely federal matter to you federal officers.'
Longarm nodded and said, 'He did good. Put a man with a lawyer in a county jail on an interstate federal charge, and he'll be out on a writ and likely long gone before anyone like me is likely to be in town. I'd just have to find some safe place to store the evidence for now if I was to ask you to turn it over, so I won't.'
The smart buxom blonde asked who'd get stuck in the end, knowing there was no way to exchange a counterfeit note for the real thing, once you'd been dumb enough to get stuck with it.
Longarm told her, 'We're not jawing about queer money, ma'am. We're talking about stolen goods. Once that bill in your safe ain't evidence any more, the Fort Collins paymaster who replaced the murdered one will likely reclaim it.'
She protested that it hardly sounded fair to stick her bank for funds stolen clear out Colorado way. So he said, 'I hadn't finished. Didn't that merchant get the note from Bedford to begin with? And didn't he get that money from this Wabasha Chambrun?'
She clapped her hands like a delighted girl-child and exclaimed, 'That's right! We can ask Captain Bedford to make good on the note, and then he can ask Wabasha Chambrun to make good on the note, and... where does it all end in the end?'
Longarm shrugged and said, 'On the gallows, once we backtrack to the gang member as commenced such complicated cash transactions. The Point is that this bank won't be stuck in the end for that hundred dollars. So I'd sure like it to stay where it is for now.'
P.S. Plover scowled across his desk and complained, 'I'm not sure I like your tone, young Sir! Are you Suggesting we might try to pass that treasury note on? Have you forgotten it was I who brought it to the law's attention in the first place When I could have just pretended to Overlook it and passe it on?'
Long shook his head. 'Nope. If I had you down as a party to that payroll robbery, I wouldn't be asking you to hold on to that evidence for us.'
He leaned forward to flick cigar ash in a tray On Plover's desk as he continued. 'I need more evidence before I go arresting anybody. I mean to talk to both Bedford and Chambrun as smooth as Miss Vigdis here might have. I ain't sure what I'll do after Bedford says he got that paper Off Chambrun and Chambrun tells me he came by it just as innocently.'
Plover asked what made Longarm so certain the mysterious newcomer to Brown County would be able to offer such a good excuse.
Longarm said, 'He'll have to. Would You just admit you robbed and gunned a federal Paymaster even if you had?'
CHAPTER 10
Somebody in these parts had to be lying. Until he was sure who it was, Longarm felt it best to play his own cards closer to his vest than usual. So once he'd checked out his saddle and other possibles at the depot he refrained from heading for a livery as he otherwise might have. He just braced the awkward load on his left hip, leaving his gun hand free as he headed back to the Pedersson place, with his eyes peeled and hugging the sunny side of the street because that was the side you met the fewest on when the afternoons got this hot.
Ilsa Pedersson looked a tad older than before, after all that eye-to-eye smiling at Pretty young Vigdis Magnusson, but she'd tidied up her grayer hair and changed into a fancier gingham print and fresh apron by the time Longarm got back as if to remind him how stale his own shirt must look despite his bath and a store-bought shave with bay rum. But she allowed he looked way more civilized than when he had hunkered down in her tulip bed, and said she'd show him right up to his room so he could store that army saddle and such before she served him another snack out back.
He said he'd rather just tote his riding gear on back to her carriage house if she'd meant what she'd said about hiring him one of her ponies.
She said he'd be riding her jumper, Blaze, but Pointed out that it would soon be suppertime, To which he could Only reply with a wistful smile, 'I can smell what you got in your oven from here, ma'am. But they sent me here to put in a day's work for a day's pay, and I've just about time for a couple more calls before sundown if I start right now.'
She didn't argue. But as she led the way around to the back she naturally wanted to know where he'd be riding, and seeing he'd be riding there on her stock, he felt obliged to tell her.
She gasped. 'The Bedfords dwell a good six miles north of town, and you say these mysterious breeds are homesteading nine miles out beyond them?'
Longarm said soothingly, 'We won't be jumping no fences loping either way, ma'am. I don't see how we'll get back before sundown either, but it's a county road and the moon will rise full tonight with no clouds worth mention.'
So she sighed and said she'd put the ham she was baking in the warming oven up above, so it could cook much slower, but warned him his supper would be ruined if he didn't get back by seven or eight. He doubted he could, but he never said so as he followed her inside, agreed the black gelding with a white blaze she introduced him to was a handsome brute, and went along with her suggestion he use her bridle instead of his own because old Blaze was more used to the feel of the bit. He wasn't about to ride fifteen miles each way in her sidesaddle.
Seated astride an old McClellan, with his own Winchester back in its saddle boot, Longarm rode out the north side of town a little before four, and asking directions only twice along the way, rode into the Bedford dooryard around five.
