Novel 1981 - Comstock Lode (v5.0) (24 page)

“Put it away! Please! I’m afraid of the things. There were several shootings in Sacramento when I was there. That man Trevallion—”

“Who?”

“Trevallion. He was a miner, I think, or a prospector. He was said to have killed a man named Rory over a card game. Caught him cheating, or something. You’d never have thought it to see him, either. He looked the perfect gentleman, and handsome! Had I been a few years younger—”

“You’re young enough.”

“Maybe.” She paused, sipping her tea. “There was a story, though. Everybody was talking about it. There was some sort of conversation between them before the shooting, talk that had nothing to do with cards or the game. Something about some trouble back in Missouri. I never got the hang of it.”

“Trevallion, you say?”

“It’s an uncommon name. He was pointed out to me once, in the theater. He was always there, for every production. And always alone.”

“You seem to remember him well.”

“Who would not? He was a striking figure of a man, and then there was that night when Johnny Ferguson went up in his lines.”

“We’ve all done that.”

“Of course, and it was in an easy place. All he had to do was step off the stage, but the fool stood there gasping for words like a fish out of water.”

“What was the play?”

“
Francesca da Rimini,
Boker’s play. It was right at the end of the first act, and Johnny was playing Lanciotto. He got to the lines ‘A neighing steed, a fiery onset, and a stubborn fight rouse my dull blood,’ and he came up empty. He repeated it ‘rouse my dull blood…rouse my dull blood…’ and he stopped cold.

“Then it happened. Trevallion leaned over the railing and said,

‘…tire my body down

To quiet slumbers when the day is o’er,

And night above me spreads her spangled tent,

Lit by the dying cresset of the moon.

Ay, that’s it; I am homesick for the camp.’

“I must say he read them damned well, too, and Johnny, thanks be to God, had the grace to turn, doff his plumed helmet, and give him as fine a bow as I’ve seen, and the crowd loved it. Johnny left the stage to the best round of applause he had all season.”

“Is he living there? In Sacramento?”

“Who knows? He’s the type not to stay anywhere long. We all heard about him, of course, as we heard all those stories about shootings and knifings.

“The Rory story stayed alive a lot longer because a friend of his was killed not long after. They were very bad characters and when the two were killed so close together the papers made a lot of it. This man Skinner and Rory had been friends in Missouri.”

As though it were no more than an hour ago Grita heard his voice, his small boy’s voice, but it was suddenly stern, and she had been frightened. She heard him say it.
I will kill them. I will kill every one of them. I will kill them or die trying
. “Did Trevallion kill Skinner, too?”

“Skinner? Oh, no! At least, I don’t think he did. Nobody ever connected him with it that I know of.”

“Is he—I mean, have you heard of him since?”

“No, it’s like I said. He’s a drifter. The chances are he’s gone to the Comstock. That’s where they will all be until there’s a new boom somewhere.”

Sophie glanced at her curiously. “Since when did you become interested in gunfighters?”

“I’m not, only—and please don’t mention this, I think I knew him.”

“Rory?”

“Trevallion. As you said, it’s an unusual name. I think I knew him once when I was a very little girl. He sounds like a boy I knew. And that was his name. Only we called him Val.”

That evening she received a gift of roses from Hesketh. They were very beautiful and only a simple note:
In admiration,
and signed with his full name.

Sunlight was dancing on the bay when she came out on her little balcony and settled down to go over her lines. After a few minutes she put the pages down and just sat, enjoying the mild warmth and the view over the bay, where several sailing craft were moving about.

Occasionally someone passed along the street below, and she was aware of them without really noticing. One man turned the corner and started up the street on the opposite side. Twice he paused and he seemed to be looking up at the balcony where she was. There was no way he could see her, however, as she was hidden by the high side. On the corner he paused, a lean, blond-haired man, sunken in the chest and sallow of complexion.

He lit a cigarette, continuing to watch. For the first time she really noticed him. There was no question about it, the man was watching her balcony, or at least her corner of the house. After a bit he went on up the street. Disturbed, she went inside and looked around quickly, for the first time realizing how vulnerable she was.

True, there was the derringer. She had found it among some things of her father’s in an old chest. She knew how to load it and how to use it. If someone broke in while she was there, she would not hesitate to fire.

What if someone came when she was gone? She had very little jewelry that was of value and nothing worth stealing but that and what little money she had.

There were, of course, some old letters and papers that had belonged to her father and mother, and someone might assume they were of value because they were in an old wallet of her father’s.

She had played too many melodramas not to know all the obvious hiding places under pillows, mattresses, or carpets, behind loose stones in a hearth or fireplace. The small dining area was separated from the rest of the room by colonnades made from yellow pine. The pedestal was four feet high, with leaded glass doors and a column about seven inches in diameter supporting a beam with a seven-inch drop. That beam was of panels, and when dusting on her first day, she discovered that the bottom panel in one of the beams would slide in its grooves.

Taking her packet of papers and a few odds and ends of jewelry, she slid back the panel and placed them inside the beam, sliding the panel back into place. It was not the best hiding place but might defeat a hasty search.

On her way to the theater she glanced back and saw the man standing on the street. He was not looking at her.

Probably, she thought, somebody who works in the area. Nonetheless she was disturbed.

The rehearsal went as they usually did; some of it went well, much did not. Nevertheless, the play was taking shape.

She was preparing to leave the theater when the stage manager put his head in the door. “A gentleman to see you, Miss Redaway. A Mr. Hesketh.”

Later, in the foyer of the theater, he showed her some tickets. “For Tucker’s Academy of Music,” he said. “Lotta Crabtree is performing there tonight, and I thought you’d like to see her. I have three tickets,” he added, “if you’d like to bring a friend.”

Everyone was talking about Lotta, the little girl who had been entertaining in the mining camps and was rapidly becoming California’s most popular actress.

Sophie had come to meet her. “You should see her,” she said. “Lotta is very special.”

“All right, tonight then?”

“And for supper, afterwards?” he suggested.

After he had gone, Sophie warned her. “You’ve never been to a melodeon, and most of them won’t accept women customers, but when Miss Lottie is playing, they relax the rules.

“Mary Ann, that’s Lottie’s mother, won’t stand for any nonsense, either. It’s in their contract that one obscene word and they leave, and she means it. But the miners all love Lottie, so they like it that way.”

“Is she really good?”

“She’s the greatest natural clown I ever saw. Sings, dances, mimics—she’s good, Grita. Very good.”

“How old is she?”

“I don’t know; fourteen I’d guess. She might be a year older. They never talk about age. But remember what I said about melodeons. They are very rough.

“But don’t worry,” she added. “I know some of the boys will be there tonight. The Knickerbrocker Hook and Ladder Company as well as the Lafayette outfit. I don’t know who said it, but somebody did, that the fire companies were to San Francisco what the Cossacks were to Russia. And they like Lottie and nothing’s going to happen while she’s in the theater. You can bet on it.”

The melodeon was jammed to the doors with a sweating, cheerful crowd, drinking, smoking, and shouting back and forth across the room.

One of the Knickerbrockers suddenly stood up and shouted. When he had the attention of all, he said, “When the little lady comes on the stage, we’ll have no sound but applause, d’ you ken what I mean? If there’s anybody makes trouble, he’ll be thrown out, an’ if there’s more trouble, the Knickerbrockers will clear the room.”

“And the Lafayettes will help!”

The performance that followed was like none Grita had ever seen. Lotta might not be an actress; she was certainly a superb and talented clown. She sang, she danced, and worked with energy and skill.

“Now you see,” Sophie said as they left the theater, “the kind of competition we have.”

“She’s very good,” Grita said. “Very, very good, and she’s still very young.”

At Winn’s Branch, over supper, the talk changed to mining and to Virginia City. “You should be thinking about the future,” Hesketh suggested. “There are good investments in mining stock if you choose with care. I’d be glad to offer any suggestions I can. And certainly, as far as the Comstock is concerned, I know which mines are worth investments and which are not.”

“I know nothing about mines,” Grita said, “although it must be exciting to dig gold and silver right from the ground.”

“You’ve never invested in stocks?” he asked.

Albert Hesketh, she thought, had a strange shading to his voice whenever he asked a pointed question. It was something she had detected at once, although she doubted that many did. He was not skillful in disguising his interests, and she was shrewd enough to know that while he might be interested in her as a woman, it was a secondary interest.

“Of course not,” she spoke casually. “When one is in the theater, there’s little chance to think of anything else. I’ve had my own company for only a year or so, and we have been reinvesting whatever we have made in costumes and equipment.”

The talk changed to other topics and Hesketh was quiet, thinking. Could he be mistaken? Was he going to all this trouble for nothing?

Where was Will Crockett? Was he in San Francisco? Or worse, was the information from the records of the Solomon long out of date or false? Suppose even now Crockett was making arrangements to meet the owner of that stock and to buy it? Suppose Crockett was about to do as he had done, and pitch him right out of office? At the thought his face went almost white with a sudden burst of fury, and he looked up to see Grita Redaway looking at him.

“Mr. Hesketh? Aren’t you feeling well?”

“Quite well.” He stood up. “I must keep you no longer. Our carriage should be waiting.”

Later, as she went up the steps to her door and put the key in the lock, she wondered again. He was odd, very odd.

She opened the door and stopped very still. Someone had been here.

Her flat had been entered while she was gone.

Suppose that someone was still here? She dropped her keys into her purse and took hold of the .44 derringer.

She took a slow, deep breath.
Careful now! Don’t turn your back. Be ready
.

She put a foot against the door and pushed it shut.

Chapter 27

N
OTHING HAPPENED.

She waited, listening. Her eyes swept the room. She had left a script open on the table with a pencil beside it for making notations. The script was still open but not at the place where she had stopped work.

Gun in hand she pushed open the door into the small kitchen—empty.

She looked across at the bedroom door, which she always left open when she was in the apartment alone. It was closed.

She started to glance up at the beam where her things were hidden, then averted her eyes. If someone was watching or listening they would expect her to check to see if her things were still hidden, and in that way they would find them. The lace curtains were drawn but the heavier curtains were not. If she went to that beam, somebody standing across the street on the sidewalk would see what she did.

Crossing to the bedroom door, she took the knob in her eft hand and opened the door, pushing it wide.

Empty!

Carefully, she looked around, then ventured inside. The mattress was a bit askew, as if someone had looked under it and then hurriedly replaced it.

A complete search of the flat revealed that someone had entered, searched it very carefully, trying to leave behind no evidence of his entry. It had been very well done, and with someone less ordered the visit might have gone unnoticed.

She had been going through the script making notations and had left it open where she stopped work, with the pencil laid carefully alongside. Now the pencil was moved and the script open at a different page. Somebody must have brushed against the table and the script had flopped shut. He had hastily opened the script, having no idea of the page or that it would be noticed.

The next question was how he got in and if he would return. He certainly had found nothing, unless he had gotten inside the beam, and she doubted that. Unless an extremely tall man, he would have to stand on a chair to reach it, and no chairs seemed to have been moved.

If he was just a thief, he would not come back. But what if he were looking for some one thing? Having not found it, he would certainly try again.

But what could it be? She was involved in no intrigue. She had no blackmailing letters or secret formulas such as used in melodramas.

She had nothing but a few old letters, kept for sentiment’s sake, and that old stock. There was a letter or two from Val, also.

She drew the shades, turned the lights low, and began to prepare for bed. She kept the derringer close to her hand.

She propped a chair under the doorknob, pushing it up until it was snug and tight.

The balcony? She had not looked to see if a man could scale the front of the building, but all these houses had a lot of gingerbread decoration, so it might be possible. Also, someone might somehow come up the back and come over the roof.