Wanted! Belle Starr! Read online

  Approaching the table, Penfold overheard the young woman making a remark to the effect that there would hardly be sufficient time. However, becoming aware of his presence at that moment, Salford prevented her from continuing. Nevertheless, on sitting down, the young man soon began to suspect the nature of the interrupted comment. Having accepted the pocketbook and, without apology, checked that its contents were intact, the Pastor showed no inclination to start discussing the reason for it having been taken away. In fact, he became evasive when Penfold tried to raise the matter of the sale. To the young man’s way of thinking, the reticence suggested that his host had belatedly seen the possibility of making a personal profit from the deal and was considering delaying his departure of Austin to conduct the business himself.

  Having met a number of men like Salford, Penfold knew better than to ask directly for the deeds to be handed over so he could handle the ensuing deal. Remembering the letter in the pocketbook, his devious and not over scrupulous mind suggested a solution to the problem. The writer had warned that, not having made their acquaintance or being known to any of them, the Pastor would have to create a suitable impression with the Elders responsible for appointing the incumbent. Penfold therefore told the Pastor that he had met the Elders in question and, without mentioning the lucrative post which he knew was available, he said the thing which had struck him most about them was their insistence upon strict punctuality in all matters pertaining to the business of the Church.

  Despite having clearly taken what he was told to heart, it was obvious that Salford still hoped to find a reason to remain in Fort Worth and personally conclude the profitable negotiations. At last, with the meal over, he declared that real trust could only be established by proof that one was willing to give as well as display it. With an air of expecting a refusal, he then suggested his guest showed such a willingness by submitting to a further test. Hearing he was to hand over his wallet, to be taken away by the couple and brought back with the deeds and other documents pertaining to the sale, he had known there was only one course left open to him. If he refused, this would be seized upon as a reason to exclude him from the deal and any delay in the Pastor’s arrival in Austin would be excused on the grounds of there having been no suitable Eastern Traditional Baptist available in Fort Worth to carry out the transaction. Telling himself the profit must be well worthwhile for his host to be willing to put in jeopardy an opportunity to take over a church in a wealthy neighborhood, he had acceded to the suggestion. Accepting the proffered wallet with obvious reluctance, the Pastor promised to tell the cashier he would settle the check when he and his daughter came back. Alice had offered to remain with Penfold, but her father had refused on the grounds that for her to do so would render the test of trust pointless.

  Left to himself, the young man decided he would have another portion of the apple crumble which he had found so enjoyable. Adding it to the check his host would have to pay would do something to alleviate his annoyance over having been subjected to the second test. Glancing around for the waitress who had served at their table, he saw she was speaking with the cashier. Before he could try to attract her attention, she walked towards him.

  “Excuse me, sir,” the woman said, holding out a sheet of paper. “Could you settle the check now, please?”

  “Me?” Penfold asked.

  “Yes, sir,” the waitress confirmed. “I’m going off duty now and need to have it cleared before I leave.”

  “That’s no concern of mine!” Penfold stated. “The man I’ve been dining with said he’d settle the check when he came back.”

  “Is that what he told you, sir?”

  “It is!”

  “That’s strange,” the waitress claimed, glancing at the maitre d’hôtel and making a motion with her head. “The gentleman told the cashier you would pay and you waved to show it was all right with you.”

  “He said what?” the young man demanded, glaring across the room. The couple with whom he had dined had already left the cafe, so he went on, “But Pastor Salford told me he’d pay when he came back!”

  “Is something wrong, Mrs. Blake?” the maitre d’hôtel inquired, he and the cashier having converged on the table in response to the signal given by the waitress.

  “This gentleman won’t settle his check !” the waitress began.

  “It isn’t my check to settle!” Penfold protested. “Pastor Salford said he’d arrange to settle it when he came back!”

  “Well now, sir, I find that mighty strange,” drawled the big and burly cashier, exchanging a glance redolent of suspicion with the equally brawny maître’d. “You see, the reverend gentleman told me that you would wave to show how it’d be you who’d be paying when you was ready to leave.”

  “But that wasn’t what he told me!” Penfold denied, with less than his usual bombast as he studied the polite and yet somehow menacing fashion in which the two men were regarding him. “He’s going to the Cattlemen’s Hotel to collect some papers and he said he’d arrange with you to pay when he came back.”

  “Are you sure it’s the Cattlemen’s Hotel he’s going to?” the maitre d’ inquired.

  “Yes,” Penfold confirmed.

  “Correct me happen I’m wrong, will you, Mr. Beaumont?” requested the maitre’d, looking at his fellow employee. “But I seem to recollect as how the Cattlemen’s Hotel is down to the left from here?”

  “It was the last time I looked, Mr. Hoffman,” the cashier replied.

  “And yet the reverend gentleman and his lady turned right when they went out of the door,” the maitre d’ asserted. “Do you reckon, them being strangers in town, they could have got themselves all turned around and lost?”

  “You mean they haven’t gone to the hotel?” Penfold yelped.

  “If they have,” the maitre d’ replied. “They’re taking a roundabout way to it.”

  “I’ll go and fetch them b—!” Penfold commenced and started to move forward, but the two burly men moved until effectively blocking his path.

  “Now I’m not saying’s how it’s so in your case, sir,” the maitre d’ interrupted, his manner still icily polite, while also implying he believed there was a possibility of the bill not being paid. “But I’ve heard that one before. Only then, none of them came back. Like I said, though, I’m not allowing that’s what you’ve got in mind. Only I reckon the best thing for all concerned would be for you to settle the check before you leave, then go and see the reverend gentleman about the mistake.”

  “But I let him take away my wall—!” Penfold began, conscious that everybody in the room was staring at him. Then a full realization of what he had allowed to happen struck him. At that moment, he felt the weight of something in the outside pocket of his jacket. Aware that the longer he stood arguing, the more time he was granting to the departed couple, he snatched out the wallet he had found in the hotel. Opening it, he snarled bitterly, “Tell me how much the check comes to and I’ll pay it!”

  Chapter Nineteen – You Can’t Cheat an Honest Man

  “That went off smoothly, ‘Parson’,” Belle Starr remarked, as she and the elderly, somberly attired man who had claimed to be “Pastor Samuel Salford” were walking away from the Crystal Room Cafe.

  “So it did, my dear, so it did,” agreed Reginald Higgert, whose physical appearance and the religious pose he almost always employed when conducting a confidence trick, had caused him to be given the sobriquet, “Parson”. Despite retaining something of its harsh timbre, his voice had become more amiable and even respectful. “I don’t know about you, but I always find it most satisfying when I’ve taken down a thoroughly unpleasant mark like him.”

  “So do I,” the lady outlaw admitted, thinking how vast was the difference between the apparently austere and forbidding exterior of her companion and his true nature. The rasp which never left his voice resulted from a vocal defect, although it was most useful in helping create the kind of character he most frequently adopted when engaged upon his chosen fiel
d of endeavor. “Going by what I saw of him, he’s the sort of Christian who always takes a shotgun to church so’s he’ll be sure to get whatever he’s praying for. There’s one thing I’ll give you though, Parson. I’ve never seen anybody who can touch you when it comes to picking the right mark.”

  “Now that, coming from you, my dear, is what I call a real tribute,” declared the leathery faced conjuneero. Although a stranger would have noticed little or no change in his grim expression, he directed what Belle identified as a glance of delight her way and was clearly flattered by her compliment. “And I’m in your debt for helping me to pull it off. Blast it, if I’ve told Alice once, I’ve told her a dozen times that, if she has to take up with a married man, she should make sure he doesn’t have a jealous wife nearby who’ll start pulling hair and have them all thrown into the pokey for disturbing the peace. Until I happened across you so fortuitously, I thought I would have to miss out on Penfold and my every instinct told me I’d not be likely to find anybody better in Fort Worth to set up for the old ‘Proof Of Trust’ game.”

  “Shucks, I was only too happy to help you out,” Belle asserted with sincerity, having learned almost everything she knew about organizing and running confidence tricks from the man at her side. Then, as she continued, her voice took on a slightly wistful note. “What brought me to Cowtown didn’t pan out and I was at a loose end.”

  “I must confess I was surprised to find you here,” Higgert drawled. “From what I’d heard, you had a team working the trail end towns.”

  “I was and doing pretty well at it,” the lady outlaw replied. “But I thought Kansas was going to become a little mite too hot for comfort.”

  There had been a not entirely unexpected repercussion as a result of the way in which Belle had taken her revenge upon David Icke. Unlike some better-publicized peace officers in Kansas, Town Marshal Kail Beauregard of Mulrooney was most competent and conscientious in the performance of his duties. Already wondering why the playwright had felt it necessary to employ an alias and to hire bodyguards, he had not considered the death of the three men as bringing the matter to an end. Instead, he had made a thorough investigation. In the course of it, he had learned much which the lady outlaw would have preferred to remain undiscovered. On hearing of his investigations, having the greatest respect for his ability, she had concluded a change of location preferably far removed from his area of jurisdiction was advisable. Having divided the not inconsiderable profits of their association with the other members of her team, she had told them to go their separate ways and promised to notify them when she was ready to resume operations.

  Electing to travel southwards alone, although Sammy Crane and Blue Duck were going in the same general direction, Belle had intended visiting her parents at their ranch in Oklahoma Territory. Learning there could be an earlier opportunity than she had anticipated for a meeting with the only man who had ever captured her heart and affections, she had revised her decision. Unfortunately, on arriving at Fort Worth and making inquiries, she had discovered Mark Counter was no longer in the vicinity. xx

  Due to her sojourn in the trail end towns having proved so lucrative, although her hopes for a pleasant rendezvous with the handsome blond giant member of the OD Connected ranch’s floating outfit had failed to materialize, the lady outlaw had not meant to indulge in any illegal activities in Fort Worth. However, having met Higgert at the home of a mutual friend and been informed of his dilemma, she had offered to play the role of his ‘downtrodden and browbeaten daughter’ as a temporary replacement for his indisposed regular partner. Not only had she felt indebted to him for past favors, she had wanted to watch an acknowledged master of their illicit occupation in action.

  As Belle was already aware, for almost every type of confidence trick to succeed, there must be a willingness on the part of the intended victim to take what appeared to be an unfair advantage of somebody else’s misfortune or difficulties. While giving her instruction in such matters, Higgert had insisted there was much truth in the premise, “You can’t cheat an honest man.” xxi As with the other advice she had received from him, experience had taught her the assumption was all too frequently correct. It certainly was in the case of Hubert Charles Penfold the Third.

  Despite knowing how best they might make the acquaintance of their intended victim, the lady outlaw and the elderly conjuneero were equally aware that the need to make a hurried departure might arise. With this in mind, they had timed their arrival at the Cattlemen’s Hotel on the previous day to be shortly before the clerk in charge of the reception desk was due to go off duty. Normally, if asked for accommodation by would-be guests who had no baggage, there would have been a request that payment in advance for at least one night was given as evidence of good faith. Taken in completely by the aura of religious respectability presented by the couple, the clerk had accepted without question the explanation that their trunks would be brought from the stagecoach depot as soon as the agent could arrange for delivery. Nor, being convinced he was dealing with a genuine member of the clergy, had he thought to inform his relief of the situation when handing over the desk prior to going home.

  Regardless of his belief that Penfold had the requisite qualities to fall for the deception, Higgert had taken the precaution of conducting what he claimed to be an infallible test to ensure he was correct in his assumption. Having placed the wallet in the passage, he and Belle had kept watch from their room. Seeing the way in which the young man behaved on making the ‘find’, the elderly conjuneero had declared this proved he was sufficiently lacking in scruples to be susceptible. By following him into the reception lobby, having made sure he had become aware of them as fellow guests the night before, they had avoided the suspicion which would almost certainly have been aroused if they had tried to make his acquaintance elsewhere.

  Glancing at the lady outlaw as they were talking, the elderly conjuneero decided he could not fault the performance she had given during the main part of the swindle. The part she had been called upon to play, at short notice, was of importance in that it helped to create the required impression where the intended victim was concerned. Despite it having been the first time she had taken the role, he was willing to concede she had been at least as effective as would his regular partner. Such was her histrionic ability that, using only simple make-up and the unflattering clothing he had provided, she had been able to prevent even the slightest suggestion of her true personality from showing. In fact, had he not known her, he felt sure that he too would have accepted her as what she was pretending to be.

  Taking everything into account, Higgert felt considerable satisfaction over the way in which the beautiful young woman he regarded as something of a protégé had turned out. Although their paths had crossed several times over the years, after he had given her lessons in the conducting of various confidence tricks, they had not previously worked together. Having done so, he concluded that she had absorbed all the advice he had passed on to her. What was more, he decided she justified the claims regarding her expertise which he had heard made by other members of their very specialized illegal profession. He also wished that, competent as she was, his regular partner possessed an equal amount of talent.

  “Unless I miss my guess, my dear,” the conjuneero remarked, the code of conduct by which he and his companion lived preventing him from asking what had made Kansas become ‘a little mite too hot for comfort’, “young Penfold is deciding to order something else and have it added to the check.”

  “I wouldn’t want to bet against him doing it,” Belle replied. “And I’d dearly love to see his piggy little face when he finally gets around to realizing that, not only are we not coming back, but he’s going to be stuck with paying for the meal. It’s just a pity he’ll be able to use the money from your wallet to do so.”

  “Rather him than me, my dear,” Higgert declared, with a frosty grin which gave an indication of his far from somber and humorless true nature. “While they will pass muster unless
most closely scrutinized, those bills in the leather I put out for him to find weren’t printed by the Government of the good old U.S. of A.”

  “Do you think you were wise to dump ‘queer jack’ on him, Parson?” the lady outlaw inquired. “He’s going to scream like a fattening shoat being knife-stuck for butchering when he finds out how he’s been taken. It isn’t likely the town marshal would call in the Rangers for a simple confidence game, he’s not that important. But they’re almost certain to be brought in when it comes out there’s counterfeit money involved.”

  “That’s true,” the elderly conjuneero conceded, but showing no sign of finding the possibility of investigation by the Texas Rangers disturbing. For all that, he knew the reminder had been given with his interests at heart and not through fear of being involved personally, so he was grateful to his beautiful companion for her concern. Wanting to alleviate this, he continued, “However, I doubt whether anybody, unless sufficiently experienced in such matters and having reason to be on the look-out for them, would detect they aren’t the real thing. By the time this is discovered, even if it should happen hereabouts, I’ll long have shaken the dust of Fort Worth from my heels. In fact, my dear, I have fond expectations of making good my departure even before our friend back at the Crystal Room realizes he’s been taken for a sucker.”

  “Are you going without Alice?” Belle wanted to know, satisfied there would be no immediate repercussions as a result of employing counterfeit money in the trick.

  “We never travel together, at least not as ‘father’ and ‘daughter’,” Higgert replied. “But, even if to do so would be most injudicious, I have no intention of leaving her to languish in durance vile. Annoying as some of her habits can be, saving only your good self, she’s the best back-up I’ve had in many a year. So I’ve made arrangements to secure her early release, left the necessary finances and instructions for where to join up with me. What’re your plans, my dear?”