room and find a pair of beautiful ladies like you waiting for him?”
They ignored the compliment. Janice said, “Is it true? Have you really taken Senator Padgett off to jail?”
“That’s where he belongs,” Longarm said harshly. “Because of him, some good men are dead back in Albuquerque.”
Julie shook her head. “I don’t understand. I thought someone tried to kill the senator while we were in Albuquerque. At least that’s what Mr. Mercer told us a little while ago. The poor man’s so upset. I’ve never seen him so broken up. He refuses to believe that Senator Padgett could be guilty of anything.”
“Well, it’s good for a fella to believe in the man he works for.”
So Mercer had spilled the story of the assassination attempt to the Cassidy sisters. Longarm wasn’t particularly surprised. There was no point in keeping it a secret any longer.
“Is it true?” asked Janice. “Did someone try to kill Senator Padgett? Is that why you’ve been traveling with him ever since?”
Longarm sat down in the room’s other armchair and stretched his legs out in front of him, crossing them at the ankle. He wished he had a glass of good Maryland rye. Explaining was usually thirsty work.
“I’ve been traveling with the senator and the rest of you racing folks because I figured somebody amongst you was a killer.”
“You thought one of the other owners hired somebody to take a shot at the senator?” Julie exclaimed.
“Nope,” Longarm said patiently. “I knew none of you were responsible for that shooting at the racetrack in Albuquerque. I was.”
They both stared at him wide-eyed, utterly confused.
“It all goes back to a fella named Edward Nowlan,” continued Longarm. “He was a counterfeiter, maybe the best engraver of phony printing plates to ever come down the pike. Me and some other marshals caught up to him in Albuquerque and busted up his operation. Nowlan got himself killed in the shooting. But he wasn’t the boss of the whole thing; as good as he was at what he did, he was just another hired hand when you got right down to it. Somebody else organized all of it.”
“And you’re accusing Senator Padgett of being this mysterious ringleader?” asked Janice.
Longarm nodded and said, “When I saw that Nowlan had a ticket for a horse race in his pocket when he died, I wondered if there was a connection. Nowlan was known to be all business, didn’t care about anything except his engraving. It stood to reason that a fella like that wouldn’t be going to a horse race for fun. But he might have been planning to go to meet his boss.”
“The senator,” said Julie.
“I’m getting to that,” Longarm said. “When I went out to the race, I didn’t even know Padgett would be there, let alone that he was part of the circuit now. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized what a good cover it would be for the ringleader to travel around from race to race. He could drop off some of the phony money at every stop for his agents to pass. Except he didn’t have the money, because we confiscated it from the warehouse in Albuquerque where it was being stockpiled. We got the printing plates too, but we didn’t manage to keep ‘em because the other marshals were murdered and the plates stolen while I was at the race that first day.”
Janice shuddered. “You mean someone killed those men just to get some … some printing plates?”
“Those plates are worth a fortune to the right folks,” Longarm pointed out. “The boss could always rebuild the operation, as long as he had the plates.”
Julie took a deep breath and said, “All right, let me get this straight. You thought the ringleader of the counterfeiters was connected with the racing circuit and that he had stolen the plates back from your friends?”
“It was a hunch,” Longarm admitted, “but one that seemed to stand a good chance of being true. It was worth investigating, anyway. That was why I wired my boss and had him set up the phony assassination attempt on the senator.
“The gunman wasn’t really trying to kill Senator Padgett?” Janice asked.
“Nope, we just made it look good. Then, when I was assigned to protect him from any more assassination attempts, it gave me a perfect excuse to tag along with you folks and made it look too like the whole counterfeiting angle had been put aside for the time being. I didn’t know then that Padgett had anything to do with Nowlan and the plates.”
“So you were really after the leader of the counterfeiting ring, not some mysterious assassin?” Understanding was beginning to dawn on Julie’s face.
“And I knew I was on the right track too when somebody tried to kill me that first night.”
“What?” said Janice. “That’s the first I’ve heard of an attempt on your life.”
Longarm nodded soberly. “Somebody clouted me over the head with a two-by-four and tried to push me off the train while it was passing over the Rio Grande between Albuquerque and El Paso.” He saw Julie blush slightly, and knew she was remembering what else had happened on that train platform that night. “When I got back to the senator’s compartment,” Longarm went on, “he was unaccounted for. That was the first inkling I had that he might be involved with the case. If he was the ringleader, he sure wouldn’t want me tagging along. He’d be afraid I might stumble over some evidence linking him with the counterfeiters—which is exactly what finally happened. That pile of phony money hidden in his valise is proof he was involved up to his neck.”
“It’s amazing,” Janice said, “the way you were able to piece all this together, Custis.”
Longarm shrugged modestly. “I’ve tracked down more than a few no-good scalawags. They always slip up somewhere and give themselves away.”
Julie said, “It certainly sounds like you have a solid case against the senator. I guess we’ll have to believe what you’ve told us about him, whether we really want to or not.” She smiled sadly. “He was a bit crude sometimes, but I hate to think he was actually a cold-blooded killer.”
“Oh, he never got his own hands dirty, but he sure paid for those killings. He had me bushwhacked in Tucson too, and it’s no fault of his that I’m still here drawing breath.”
