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  “He couldn’t’ve hid his sign better even should he’ve sprouted wings and headed south like a swallow comes cold weather,” supplemented William “Fast Billy” Cromaty, looking his most vacantly dimwitted. “But, was I to get asked, going by the way he’s all of a suddenly not ’round any more, I’d say there could be something in you concluding’s how it might’ve been him’s pointed the way to have you made wolf bait both times it was tried.”

  “Just could be?” Major Bertram Mosehan asked dryly.

  “Well now, sir,” the lanky cowhand answered, blinking like a particularly unintelligent screech owl caught out in the bright sunlight. “My mammy allus told me’s I shouldn’t never say nothing was certain unless I’m right sure myself it is and, being me, not even then.”

  “If I could get the rights of it,” the major informed the foreman. “That might make right good sense.”

  Taking into account having seen Erroll Madden looking at him as he was sitting by the window in the bar room, shortly before the shooting which had cost the life of an innocent passer-by, Mosehan had added it to his thoughts regarding the previous attempt on his life. Therefore, he had questioned the Governor of Arizona about the clerk. Although he had learned nothing to satisfy his curiosity, his suppositions had been strengthened when he was told by the bellboy on duty at the reception desk in the lobby of Madden’s arrival and hurried departure while he was conversing with “Mr. Jervis.”

  On Glendon and Cromaty having come to report, the major had told them of his belief that Madden had betrayed him to his intended killers on both occasions. Without being in any way sycophantic, they had expressed agreement with his point of view. After he had had described all that had taken place behind the depot of the Arizona State Stage Line, he had asked them to go in search of Madden. Neither thought of questioning the order, which was how each regarded it despite the polite way it had been worded. They were aware of why he had delegated the task to them. Not only did they know the town of Marana and its population far better, but he had matters with “Mr. Jervis” demanding his attention.

  Unfortunately, although they had performed the search adequately within the limits of the knowledge they had at their disposal, the efforts of the two men had been without success!

  “I’m damned if I can figure out where he went,” Glendon declared. “He came in on the Governor’s private coach and it’s still here. Unless he’s gone on foot, which I wouldn’t reckon’s likely, he must still be somewhere around town. He hasn’t hired a horse, or a rig, from the livery barn and, so far as we’ve heard, nobody’s found out he’s widelooped one or the other from them.”

  “He doesn’t know anybody who lives here,” Mosehan remarked. “At least, the Governor says he’s never mentioned anybody and reckoned he’d never been here when they were coming up from Phoenix and, before anybody tells me, I know that’s what he would say under the circumstances even if he’d been born and raised here.”

  “Which he wasn’t,” Cromaty drawled. “Maybe those two gunnies had somebody else in on the deal with them, maj’. That same company, seeing’s how they didn’t come through it alive, could’ve concluded it’d be safer for all concerned was Madden to be took off out of town and had hosses, or a rig, it could be done on.”

  “It’s possible,” Mosehan admitted, not in the least surprised by this latest example of the reasoning power possessed by the lanky cowhand. “Which brings up something else that’s puzzling me.”

  “Who’s trying to get you killed,” Glendon guessed.

  “Way I see it, which’s likely all wrong,” Cromaty said soberly. “It’s somebody who don’t want you to take on this chore for the Governor, maj’. Or somebody’s is hoping we’ll figure that’s the way the trail runs.”

  “You figure somebody with a grudge might figure this chore for the Governor makes a good chance of covering their sign, should the major have wound up dead?”

  “That’s how it could be, Pete.”

  “If it’s the last, I can’t for the life of me think who the son-of-a-bitch doing it might be!” Mosehan claimed. “Hell, I know I’ve made my share of enemies, but I can’t bring to mind any one of them who would have been able to learn what was doing with the Governor. Or, rather, when and where the meeting was to take place.”

  “He could’ve got that from Madden,” the foreman pointed out.

  “Sure,” the major admitted. “But I still can’t think who it could be.”

  “Then maybe we should try cutting the sign for somebody’s doesn’t want you taking on the chore,” Cromaty suggested. “I’d reckon, ’specially should that Eastern law twister gets his wantings up to Coconino County, there’d be a whole slew of owlhoots around who wouldn’t want no company of peace officers who could come and go anywhere over county lines.”

  “That’s true enough,” Mosehan agreed. “But, apart from Curly Bill Brocius and Johnny Ringo,1 I can’t think of any of them who would be smart enough, or have the kind of connections, to arrange things the way they happened.”

  “Curly and Johnny are slick enough,” Glendon accepted, but with reservations. “Only I don’t reckon neither of them would hire to get you killed.”

  “If they did,” the lanky cowhand added. “They’d’ve picked somebody a whole heap better than those two yahoos we put down.”

  “That’s the way I see it,” the major said grimly, having met the two men in question and formed a surprisingly favorable opinion of their character if not their honesty. “Well, sitting here talking isn’t going to give us the answers.”

  “There’s only one feller who can,” Glendon asserted. “And that’s Madden his-self.”

  “Trouble being, we can’t find him,” Cromaty went on dolefully. “’Course, we might get real lucky and have him come looking for us, all ready to tell what’s doing.”

  Before either Mosehan or Glendon could make any answer, there was a distraction in the form of revolver shots!

  “Very well, m’sieur,” Pierre Henri Jaqfaye said, sounding almost on the verge of breaking into tears and reaching with his left hand to prevent Norman Atkinson drawing the Colt Storekeeper Model Peacemaker from its holster. “You are leaving us without any alternative.”

  “I thought you’d see it my way!” Erroll Madden declared, but without releasing his hold on the latch of the door or looking around.

  “As I said, you have left me with no other choice, mon ami,” the Frenchman sighed. “I will give you what you deserve.”

  Although the disloyal clerk had started to experience serious qualms as he was crossing the room, realizing that having walked away from a man he knew to be a hired killer—the dress style of a professional gambler notwithstanding—after delivering such an ultimatum might be most ill-advised, he had taken comfort from the belief that he was safe in doing so. In his estimation, Atkinson would not chance firing a revolver with so many people at the brothel who were sure to hear the shot. Nor, he had told himself, would the gambler dare to harm a person with his important connections in the capital of Arizona.

  There were serious flaws in both suppositions, but Madden had failed to take them into consideration!

  Hearing what was being said by Jaqfaye, who he regarded as posing no threat whatsoever to his well being, a surge of elation rose and the clerk was satisfied that he had won his demands!

  Turning with a smugly triumphant smirk, Madden was enjoying an unusual sensation of power. It was created by an assumption that, for once in his life, he was in a position from which he could control events. Such a thing had never happened before and he intended to make the most of it. He wondered how much money he should demand as the price of his silence.

  The satisfaction and speculation ended almost immediately!

  Taking the restraining hand from the sleeve of the gambler, Jaqfaye had transferred it to join the other in grasping the shining black walking stick. As he was going toward the clerk with a swift and almost balletic grace, which was charged with deadly menace
in spite of the somewhat effeminate movements, he tugged in opposite directions. Liberated and sliding from the wooden outer sheath, the blade of what was clearly a sword came into view. While slender, it was shaped like an épée de combat and he was handling it in the fashion of one.

  Unlike a fencing foil, which it also resembled, such a weapon could be used to cut as well as thrust!

  Wielded with the skill of a master swordsman, glinting briefly in the light of the lamp suspended from the center of the ceiling, the blade flickered around almost too rapidly for the human eye to follow. Sharp as a razor, the cutting edge passed beneath Madden’s chin and laid open his throat to the bone before he could utter a sound. As he stumbled involuntarily backward against the door, blood gushing redly from a mortal wound, his assailant struck again. Going into a classic lunge, the Frenchman directed the point to impale his heart and withdrew it when its unnecessary task was done.

  “As I said, m’sieur!” Jaqfaye purred almost disinterestedly, watching the lifeless body sliding to the floor. “Just what you deserve!”

  “The god-damned stupid son-of-a-bitch!” Atkinson growled, showing no surprise over the speed and murderous efficiency displayed by the Frenchman. “As if we’d just stand back and let him walk out of here after what he said.”

  “It wasn’t the most sensible thing he could have said, or done,” Jaqfaye seconded and bent to wipe clean the bloody blade on the clothing of his victim.

  “I’ll clean things up here and get rid of him,” the gambler offered, waving a hand toward the body and the blood which ran on to the floor from the wound in the throat. “It’d be best for all concerned that Glory Joyce doesn’t find out what happened.”

  “I leave it in your hands, m’sieur,” the Frenchman accepted. “And I know I can rely upon you to ensure his body will not be found.”

  “Sure,” Atkinson grunted, knowing the other too well to show any resentment over being reminded of something so basic.

  “There is another matter, mon ami,” Jaqfaye warned.

  “God damn it!” the gambler ejaculated furiously, after he had been told about the hold up of the stagecoach and theft of the incriminating pocketbook from Senator Paul Michael Twelfinch II. “And I called Madden stupid!”

  “I know what you mean!” the Frenchman admitted in a vicious hiss. “It is a great pity that I cannot treat le bon Senator in the same manner. Unfortunately, we still have use for him.”

  “That’s the way it goes,” Atkinson drawled, more philosophically.

  “True,” Jaqfaye conceded, also reverting to his more normal tone. “But we still have to get the pocketbook back to make sure it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.”

  “Like his?”

  “His, more than anybody else’s.”

  “Thing being, who do I have to pass the word to look for?”

  “It seems the hold up may have been carried out by Belle Starr and her gang.”

  “Does it, by god?” Atkinson demanded.

  “It seems she was responsible,” the Frenchman corrected. “However, one of the other passengers doesn’t think this is the case and he has put up sound arguments to support his view.”

  “Who is he?”

  “A young man called ‘Franks.’”

  “Is he a peace officer?”

  “Not that he mentioned,” Jaqfaye replied. “And, if he should be, I would say he is from the East and not a Westerner.”

  “A dude, huh?” the gambler asked.

  “Possibly you would regard him as a dude,” the Frenchman answered and described the doubts and suppositions expressed by the youngest surviving passenger.

  “Like you say, he’s got some right good thoughts on it,” Atkinson conceded, at the conclusion of the explanation. “Only, going by all I’ve heard of her, she’s smart enough to have been pulling a double bluff.”

  “A double bluff?” Jaqfaye repeated, examining the blade fastidiously and, satisfied all traces of blood were removed, returning it to the wooden sheath in which it had been concealed until required for use. “You mean that she and her men made the apparently unintentional and indiscrete comments so it would appear they were only pretending to be themselves?”

  “It could be,” the gambler affirmed. “What I can’t figure out is why they’d go to all that trouble to hold up a stagecoach. For Belle Starr to be interested, there’d have to be a fair slew of money involved. Was it carrying plenty in the strongbox?”

  “Not that I know of. At least, they never even asked about it, much less had it down to look. However, the man they killed was apparently carrying a large sum they knew about. It could have been him, rather than the strongbox, they were after and the rest of us were just incidental to him.”

  “That could be, too.”

  “The thing is, mon ami,” Jaqfaye said pensively. “Were we robbed by Belle Starr and her gang?”

  “I dunno,” Atkinson replied. “But she’s in Arizona.”

  “You are sure of that?” the Frenchman asked.

  “Feller I got it from knows her from up in the Indian Nations,” the gambler explained. “Way he told it, she was making her way down to Tucson, but he didn’t know what she’s up to.”

  “Could you find out whether she is there, please?” Jaqfaye requested. “No matter whether it was she and her gang who robbed the stagecoach or not, I want to meet Belle Starr!”

  Seated at the sidepiece which served as a writing and dressing-table, Jedroe Franks was distracted from the letter he was writing by hearing the door of his room opening!

  Yet the young man had turned the key in the lock on entering!

  As was the case with the other two passengers, Franks had been found accommodation for the night at the Pima County Hotel. After they were assigned to their temporary quarters. Pierre Henri Jaqfaye had arranged with the depot agent of the Arizona State Stage Line for a sum equivalent to that stolen from the young man to be made available to him. Although necessity had demanded he accept, with the proviso that it was a loan given on his note of hand and not a gift, he had had no desire to extend his acquaintance with the Frenchman or Senator Paul Michael Twelfinch II. Nor, even if he had had an ulterior motive for his generosity, had Jaqfaye showed any inclination to do so.

  Having eaten alone, Franks returned to his room. He was not tired, nor did he feel like going in search of some form of diversion. Instead, he had settled down and started to write a letter to his home in Hartford, Connecticut. Much as he hated to do so, he intended to ask for money. The necessity angered him, for he knew his widowed mother was far from wealthy. However, he was even less enamored of the prospect of remaining obligated to the Frenchman.

  The disinclination to be placed in such a situation, in case there might be an attempt to exploit it sexually instead of by a repayment of the money, was only one reason for the young man having decided to try to locate and bring to justice the gang who had robbed him!

  However, the idea of doing so was neither as foolhardy or impractical as it might appear on the surface!

  Franks might have only recently arrived in Arizona Territory and had not been for any extensive period west of the Mississippi River, but he was far from being a helpless “dude” where matters of survival were concerned!

  Although his vision at long distances was sufficiently poor to necessitate the use of spectacles, which he did not require for such things as reading and writing, the young man had always led an active life. As a boy growing up in the farming country around his home town, he had been encouraged to participate in a variety of healthy outdoor activities. Hunting and camping expeditions away from the more civilized areas of Connecticut had taught him lessons in survival which he had never forgotten or let fall into disuse. What was more, on going to college, he had engaged upon boxing, wrestling and other sports to keep him physically fit.

  Always interested in the enforcement of law and order, but disinclined to follow his father into the legal and courtroom side, Franks had nevertheless devoted
much time to studies designed to help him enter the practical side in that field. He had concluded the West offered greater opportunities than his home area, or any of the larger Eastern cities, for finding the kind of employment as a peace officer he desired. Unfortunately, the uncle he had travelled to meet in Tucson and who had promised to help him achieve his ambition had died three days before he arrived. In spite of that, never one to give up without a struggle in the face of difficulties, he had been travelling to Phoenix to try to obtain an appointment in a law enforcement agency by his own efforts.

  Even without his reservations over the loan from Jaqfaye, therefore, the young man would have been determined to make an attempt to recover his property!

  In addition to the hold up of the stagecoach having deprived Franks of all the money he had with him, the carpetbag had held items which had great personal importance and significance for him. He came from a sturdy stock which did not turn the other cheek when they were subjected to any form of hostile treatment. What was more, he realized that—due to the conditions prevailing currently in Arizona Territory, as a result of the incident affecting the sheriff of Coconino County—the local peace officers were likely to be restricted in their efforts to locate and apprehend the gang. Being a free agent, he considered he was better able to conduct a search for them. If he should be successful, unless he had the opportunity to make a citizen’s arrest of the gang—which he had concluded was unlikely—he would be able to lead the appropriate local peace officers to help capture them.

  These were the conclusions drawn by the young man!

  It was Franks’ intention to put them into effect the following morning instead of continuing the journey by stagecoach to Phoenix!

  Reaching instinctively for his spectacles as he heard the door being opened, the young man looked over his shoulder. Somewhat restricted though his vision might be without them, he could see sufficiently well to be warned there was nothing as harmless involved as somebody having entered his room by accident. Nor was it a member of the hotel staff coming in for some legitimate, if unannounced, purpose. Even in the unlikely event of two locks receiving identical keys, at least as far as those allocated to the guests were concerned, the person who was stepping across the threshold would not have been carrying a cocked revolver, or any other kind of weapon.