Freebooty by Bill Pronzini

Author:Bill Pronzini [Pronzini, Bill]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781628151961
Publisher: Speaking Volumes
Published: 2014-06-26T22:04:57.085000+00:00

CHAPTER TWELVE

The table which Colfax and the others had occupied in the Gentlemen’s Saloon was now empty. The gambler was not among the crowd of men in the room, nor was Tanner or the miner or even Horace T. Goatleg. O’Hara went out into the Social Hall, and there he spied the newspaperman helping himself to cold cuts at the refreshment tables.

He sauntered over and stood in next to the reporter, who nodded and gave him a companionable smile. “Have Colfax and yourself given up on the Saloon for the evening?” O’Hara asked.

“As far as drinking goes, yes.” A rueful smile. “I’ll not want a head tomorrow as large as today’s. But I imagine the poker game will continue when he returns from his ten o’clock engagement. As great as his luck has been tonight, a poker table is nothing less than a field white for the sickle.”

O’Hara said, “Engagement, did you say?”

“With a lady—or perhaps not such a lady.” The newspaperman chuckled softly. “Those are Colfax’s words, not mine.”

“Did he happen to be mentioning the lady’s name?”

“Not in my hearing. You seem rather absorbed in Colfax’s activities, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

“It’s my wife’s cousin, you see,” O’Hara said, putting a trace of worried indignation into his voice. “She’s a precocious one and easily swayed by a glib tongue. My wife noticed her conversing with Colfax before we departed San Francisco and is a mite fearful for the girl’s virtue. She’s asked me to keep an eye on matters.”

The reporter nodded, serious now. “Perhaps Colfax’s engagement was with some other young lady entirely.”

“Aye, I hope so.”

O’Hara speared a slice of ham, bade the newspaperman good night, and drifted out of the Hall. He was rather pleased with his lie, which had only in that moment occurred to him, and he thought that he would use it again when next he spoke with Tanner; it might help him smooth over the earlier incident and thereby allow him to do a bit of subtle probing without further arousing the one-eyed man.

On the weather deck again, he entered the tunnel down the center of the texas and stopped before the door to Tanner’s stateroom, Number 14. No light showed within, and when O’Hara knocked there was no response.

As he turned away and started forward, Hattie appeared at the tunnel entrance in that direction. She saw him, gestured animatedly, and hurried up to him. “I’ve been looking all over for you, Fergus,” she said. “I’ve discovered a fact or two that may or may not have meaning, but I find them interesting, in any case.”

“What fact or two, my lady?”

“We had best go inside our cabin first, where it’s private.”

He shrugged slightly and unlocked the door to their stateroom. Hattie said as he lighted one of the lamps, “I decided after you left me that if your mind was made up to involve us in this gold thievery business, I might as well embark on a little investigating of my own. I’m not partial to being left out of things, you know.

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