tomorrow.”
“Wrong,” Henry declared with no remorse whatsoever. The slightly built fellow, whose meek appearance belied a firm resolve whenever push came to shove, was secretary, confidant, and aide to William “Billy” Vail, United States marshal for the Denver District, United States Justice Department. Custis Long, known to his friends and to a good many enemies as Longarm, was Billy Vail’s top deputy. A deputy who at the moment was supposed to be off duty and was not pleased with this interruption.
“Go away, Henry. I’ll see you an’ the boss come morning.”
“Sorry, Custis. He needs you.”
“On a Sunday morning?”
Henry grinned.
“What’s so funny?”
“It’s the middle of Sunday afternoon, for one thing. And you haven’t been down to take a meal, nor had one sent in, since yesterday noon. What I think is that the marshal is doing you a favor by calling you back to work. You need the rest.”
“Someday I’m gonna ask you how the hell you find out all the things you do. You know that?”
“Who knows. Someday maybe I’ll answer you if you do ask. So anyway … Can I tell him you’re on your way?”
“Yeah, hell, you know you can. Tell him I’m fifteen …” Longarm glanced behind him in the direction of the bedroom he just left. “Tell him I’m half an hour behind you. Okay?”
“Don’t be any longer than that, Custis. You have a train to catch this evening.”
Before Longarm had a chance to ask for an explanation, Henry was ambling away down the hall.
Longarm stepped back and let the door swing shut, then reached for a cheroot and matches. A train to catch on a Sunday evening? He found that his curiosity was getting the better of him. He felt his chin. Coarse grit and sandpaper. But if he didn’t take time to shave he figured he could make it to the office not more than ten minutes behind Henry.
Dame Edith would just have to wait.
Chapter 2
Longarm paused on the landing before going the rest of the way down into the hotel lobby. He adjusted the string tie at his throat and tugged at the bottom of his vest. At this time of year he preferred a fairly heavy calfskin vest for its extra warmth and laid his usual tweed coat aside in favor of a heavy sheepskin-lined ranch coat. As always, though, the familiar gold watch chain dangled loose across his belly. That chain and its attachments had been of great service on more than one occasion, for at one end of it there was the expected railroad-quality Ingersoll key-wind pocket watch, but at the other, instead of a decorative fob, there was a far more utilitarian item, a small brass-framed .44caliber derringer.
Satisfied that his appearance was as good as he was going to get after such a hasty departure—made all the more swift by Edith’s fury when he told her he had to leave—Longarm clamped his cheroot between his teeth at a jaunty angle and made his way on down into the lobby.
He needn’t have been concerned about his appearance, it turned out. Apart from the hotel staff there were only two guests in the place, and they were engrossed in reading their newspapers. Longarm nodded a pleasant good day to the clerk behind the counter and strode toward the wide entryway where a doorman in a gold-trimmed red coat was waiting. Before Longarm came near, the doorman snapped to attention as crisply as a West Pointer could have managed, and a whole lot more smartly than any private soldier Longarm had ever seen. The fellow fairly jumped at his chance to open the door. Not for Longarm, as it happened, but for a young, handsome, and quite obviously wealthy swell who was heading in from outdoors.
The newcomer came breezing in amid a flurry of swirling snowflakes. It hadn’t looked like snow the last time Longarm poked his head outside, but then February weather is never predictable in the High Plains country. And Denver is situated to catch the worst of the plains storms and the tail end of the bitter mountain storms as well.
The swell was greeted with so much enthusiasm that Longarm would have found it damned well embarrassing, but this young gent took it all in stride as if it were his due.
He was, Longarm noted in passing, tall and built with all the tough resilience of a sword blade. His hair was blond and curly, giving him a soft and almost feminine look. Until one noticed his eyes. The fellow, for all his wealth and pampering, had the cool and confident look of a gambler. And a damned successful one at that. Longarm suspected this was not a man he would want to face across a gaming table. Nor a dueling ground either, unless it was Longarm who was given the choice of weapons. This looked like a very competent gent indeed.
Longarm gave the fellow a polite nod and went by him.
“Welcome back, Lord Matthew,” the desk clerk enthused loudly.
Lord Matthew indeed! The elderly impotent of the walrus breath and the cuckold’s horns?
Longarm slowed and paused by the door to take another look at the man in whose bed he would surely have been caught if not for Henry’s recent intrusion.
“I thought the gent was off shooting buffalo Or something,” he muttered to the doorman.
“Lord Matthew? Oh, no, sir. Lord Matthew don’t do much shooting. Though I hear he has his hired hunters to collect trophies for him to take back to his estates. Kind of an odd sort, he is. Or so they say. Me, all I know is that he spends free and easy. Catch his eye and there’s sure to be one of them English sovereigns, gold ones they are, to put in your pocket right soon. Oh, he’s a spender, that one is. But … different from the way an American would be. Thinks his shit don’t stink just because he’s a lord.” The doorman shrugged. “What the hell, is what I say.” The shrug gave way to a grin. “Just so long as he keeps on handing out them gold coins, right?”
“Yeah, I’m sure,” Longarm said. But as he looked back at Lord Matthew, who now was heading up the stairs toward his gorgeous wife, Longarm couldn’t help wondering if Dame Edith had been playing a deliberate and malicious game today.
