The Case of the Petrified Man (6 page)

Martha must have skedaddled down that ladder.

Going down that old ladder did not seem much safer than jumping onto the roof of the Washoe Exchange Billiard Saloon, but I did not have a choice. I turned myself around & stuck one leg out of the window & groped with my toes until I found the top rung & eased my weight down on it. I could feel it creak. I am small and skinny, but I wager Martha weighed even less than me. Would the ladder hold my weight? I swung my other leg out of the window & cautiously descended rung by rung. My heart stopped beating when my
foot almost went through the cracked fifth rung. Luckily the other rungs held.

As I went down, I got to where I could see underneath the building I shared with the photographic studio. It was a steep, dank slope of earth. Nothing grew there, as the sunshine was blocked by the building backing onto it.

When I finally reached solid ground I heaved a giant sigh of relief. This part was littered with empty bottles & tin cans. I guessed they lived high at the Washoe Saloon, for I saw champagne bottles and tinned peaches.

Among the cans and bottles, I spotted the fresh print of a small bare foot. Despite the gloom, it did not take any of my special Indian tracking skills to follow Martha’s trail. It went past an outhouse to an alley leading down between two saloons onto C Street. After those dim back passages, it was good to emerge onto the bright & warm & lively street. But I soon lost Martha’s trail on the boardwalk.

Not trusting the ladder & window route back, I returned to that alley and found a path back up the steep slope between buildings to B Street. I emerged onto the boardwalk and returned to my office via the front door.

Once inside, I sat at my desk & picked up the black & gold cross on a chain & stared at it.

My first Genuine Client had finally appeared & hired me to solve the biggest mystery in Virginia City. I reckoned she had given me her most precious possession to do this.

And now she was gone.

There had been only one set of prints going from the
bottom of that ladder to C Street. So I knew she had not been killed or captured, just frightened.

Something must have spooked her while I was out. Had someone knocked at the door? Or tried to open it, despite the
CLOSED
sign? Or did she just panic?

I was pondering these questions when I was roused from my reverie by a bloodcurdling scream from next door.

MY OFFICE SHARES PART
of a sky window and all of one dividing wall with the Ambrotype Studio. Usually I cannot hear what goes on next door but that scream seemed to fill the whole street.

I guessed it was thrice-shot Murphy, being operated on by Doc Pinkerton.

I hurried next door to investigate this theory.

I was right.

Murphy lay on the buffalo-skin-draped couch, surrounded by four standing men and one prostrate one. The man on the floor was Isaiah Coffin.

“What happened to Mr. Coffin?” I asked, closing the door behind me.

“He fainted,” snapped Ping, who was holding a teacup with a metal ball in it. “Here,” said Ping. “You hold. I try to revive him.”

I took the cup and moved closer to Murphy.

As Ping gently slapped Isaiah Coffin’s face, I watched the doctor work.

It was fascinating. Doc Pinkerton was seated on the edge of a fringed armchair and leaning over his patient. He had cut into the wounds to make them bigger & he was using an instrument to hold one wound open so that he could get at the ball.

“Aaaaaah!” screamed Murphy.

“For God’s sake,” muttered Doc Pinkerton. “I can’t work with all that noise. Here. Bite on this bullet.” He put something in Murphy’s mouth.

I came closer and knelt down beside the chair, so I could see better. I held the teacup ready for when Doc Pinkerton extracted the second ball.

“These are .36 caliber balls, ain’t they?” I asked, as it went into my teacup with a clink.

“Yes, indeed,” said Doc Pinkerton. “Thirty-six caliber Navy balls.” For the first time he seemed to notice me. “Why, hello, P.K.,” he said. “How are you? How is your arm coming along?”

“I am tolerable,” I said. “My arm aches a little and has recently started to itch.”

“Itching is good,” grunted Doc Pinkerton. “That means it’s healing. Just resist the urge to scratch it. Can you reach me the long tweezers from my black bag?” he added. “This last ball has gone in deep.”

“Yes, sir,” I said. I put down the china teacup & fetched out his long tweezers.

I handed them over.

Murphy had stopped screaming. He had gone very still. His eyes were closed.

“Is he dead?” I asked.

“Just passed out, I hope,” said the doctor. “Probably best for all concerned. It is lucky for him that I heard those shots.”

“I think he swallowed that bullet he was biting on,” I said.

Doc Pinkerton did not reply. He was intent on his work.

“If someone punched him hard in the stomach,” I said, “would the bullet go off?”

Doc Pinkerton smiled. “Only if he swallowed powder and a lit match,” he said. “I gave him a lead ball to bite on, not a cartridge.”

I nodded. My own Smith & Wesson’s seven-shooter has cartridges with the cap & ball & powder all encased in a single shell but most gunmen here in Virginia have to combine those separate ingredients in the chambers of their revolvers.

I watched Doc Pinkerton probe with the tweezers for a while.

Ping had revived Isaiah Coffin & was now standing just behind me & holding a sponge floating in a bowl of water.

“Doggone it!” said Doc Pinkerton. “That sky window provides excellent light but my spectacles are badly scratched and befogged. I am waiting for a new pair to arrive from San Francisco. P.K., can you see the ball in there?”

“I see it,” I said. “It is kind of a silver glint among all the red slimy bits.”

“Here,” said Doc Pinkerton, handing me the long tweezers. “I will hold the sides of the wound open. See if you can fetch it out. Be careful not to pierce any throbbing veins or vital organs.”

I stood up & bent over the wound & probed for the ball.

A moment later I held up the ball, held fast by the long tweezers.

Doc Pinkerton squinted at it. “Is the ball whole?” he said. “That is to say, in one piece?”

“Yes, sir,” I said.

“Well done, P.K.,” said he. “Ping? Hand me that sponge. Let’s clean him up before we bandage him.”

I put the ball in the teacup with the two others. I had enjoyed helping Doc Pinkerton. Concentrating like that made me forget everything else. I reckoned operating on a person was almost as good as ordering a Collection for staving off the Mulligrubs.

Doc Pinkerton showed me how to pack the wounds with lint and bind them with bandages. As he was finishing, I heard footsteps come into the shop & I smelled cigar smoke.

“Doc,” said a man’s voice.

Doc Pinkerton glanced up. “Hello, Deputy Marshal,” he said.

I looked at the Deputy Marshal with interest. He was a short man with a coffee-colored plug hat on his head, a thin cheroot in his mouth & a big Colt’s Army stuck into his belt. He had a thick black mustache & matching eyebrows & a squashed nose.

I had not yet met any of the lawmen here in Virginia.
Maybe this Deputy Marshal could help me find Sally’s Killer and protect Martha.

I do not like touching people but I stood up and politely extended my hand.

“My name is P.K. Pinkerton, Private Eye,” I said. “We are both fighting for Justice and Truth.”

The Deputy Marshal turned his gaze on me.

The eyes beneath the heavy eyebrows were unblinking. They reminded me of Snake Eyes.

I withdrew my hand as he made no move to shake it but just stared at me.

His gaze made me feel cold inside.

At last he removed the cheroot from his mouth. “P.K. Pinkerton?” he said in a growl. “You the one whose foster parents was scalped and murdered down in Temperance last week?”

“Yes, sir,” I replied.

The Deputy Marshal did not offer his commiserations. Instead he jabbed his cheroot at the unconscious Murphy. “If that man dies, it is your dam fault.”

THE DEPUTY MARSHAL
of Virginia City was regarding me with Expression No. 3: Disgust.

“That is your dam fault!” he repeated.

Doc Pinkerton rose frowning from his chair. “Are you saying P.K. was the cause of the shooting affray in which this man was injured?”

“That is exactly what I am saying.” He sucked hard at his cigar & blew the smoke down. “He kilt that Whittlin Walt and upset the balance. Now every young Rough is trying to fill the vacancy Walt left. They all want to be Chief.”

“Chief?” said Doc Pinkerton.

“Chief of the Desperados,” said the Deputy
Marshal. “That Farmer Peel, for example. He’s been here in Virginia for over a month.” He jabbed his cheroot at me. “He was no trouble at all until your heroics last week. It is that Dam Domino Effect.”

I said, “What is the Dam Domino Effect?”

Ping came into the studio. He had been disposing of Murphy’s bloody shirt. “I know dam domino effect,” he said. “Stand up dominoes like customers in line. Push one. All others fall down. Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam.”

“Durn right,” said the Deputy Marshal. “One galldarn action sets a passel of events in motion.” He turned his unblinking gaze on me. “Who gave you leave to start killing off this town’s citizens, anyway?” he growled.

“I did not kill Whittlin Walt on purpose,” I said. “It was self-defense.”

“And who gave you leave to call yourself a Detective?”

Before I could think of an answer he growled, “I don’t like Injuns, I don’t like Detectives and I don’t like
you
. I ain’t sure it is even legal for a brat like you to set up as a Private Eye. You cause any trouble & I will have you thrown in jail or even hanged.” He threw down his dead cigar, turned on his heel and departed.

As I gazed after him, I said, “I guess that means I should not expect much help from the Law in my investigation of the murder of Short Sally.”

“You are going to investigate the murder of that Nymph of the Night?” said Isaiah Coffin.

I nodded & picked up the Marshal’s discarded cigar butt &
examined it. I was pretty sure it was a Long Nine. Long Nine cigars are pencil thin and nine inches long. This one had been smoked down to one inch, but it was pencil thin and matched the description in the catalogue. I saved it for further examination.

Doc Pinkerton looked over his spectacles at me & lowered his voice. “Be careful of Jack Williams. He is little more than a desperado himself. It is said that he has sometimes drawn his revolver and demanded money contributions from the citizens of Virginia at dead of night. Not long ago he shot a man dead over a game of billiards.”

I nodded to show him I had understood.

Doc Pinkerton took out his own pipe and lit it. “Deputy Marshal Williams is right about one thing,” he said. “You are far too young to be a Detective.”

“That may be,” I said, “but I have a client who needs me.”

I did not mention that I had failed to protect my client who was now lying low or on the run.

I went next door to my office & unlocked the door & went in & locked it behind me & left the
CLOSED
sign showing. I needed to think.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out some cigar butts and my Pinkerton Detective Button. I put the butts on my desk but held on to my pa’s button. It was the only thing of his I had.

It reminded me that I had Detective blood flowing through my veins.

It reminded me that my aim was to learn detective skills
and then join my uncle Allan Pinkerton at his Detective Agency in Chicago.

It reminded me that my pa might still be alive, and that I wanted him to be proud of me.

I put the button back & took out my Detective Notebook and wrote down everything Martha had said.

I am good at remembering things I see but not so much things I hear. So I need to make notes.

When I had finished, I looked at the last few words she had called out to me.

The Forest

and

Bear
or
Bar
?

I reckoned she had been trying to tell me where she was hiding out. It was obviously a Bear Cave in a Forest.