The Dangerous Ladies Affair Read online

  Pauline Dupree’s origins were hazy, though she had apparently first seen the light of day in the Sierra foothills town of Sonora some twenty-five years ago. She had begun traveling with a motley group of small-time actors while in her mid-teens, left them to join another thespian group in Virginia City, Nevada, and moved on from there to Sacramento, where she had been arrested and fined for performing a one-woman show that was deemed lewd and lascivious. After that she had made her way to San Francisco and the Gaiety, where she had been employed for the past three years.

  La Dupree had made profitable use of her time here, consorting with—and no doubt finding ways to fleece—several men of both high and low repute. Titus Wrixton was not the only prominent individual to succumb to her charms; while keeping him on her string and at the same time conspiring with Raymond Sonderberg, she had also been keeping company with a San Joaquin Delta rancher and businessman named Noah Rideout. An amazingly amoral and ruthless woman, Pauline Dupree. And one, Quincannon reflected, with a remarkable amount of physical stamina.

  Rideout, it developed, was a very wealthy gent of fifty-seven years who had had two wives and at least one known mistress and who spent a considerable amount of his time in San Francisco as well as in Sacramento and Stockton. He owned much of the rich Schyler Island croplands, having forced several small farmers to sell their land to him at low prices, and earned the enmity of others by a tireless campaign to build more levee roads as a means of flood control. He had also been a leader in the legal battle against hydraulic gold mining in the Mother Lode, the dumping of billions of cubic yards of yellow slickens that had clogged rivers and sloughs and destroyed farmland. The California Debris Commission Act, passed in 1893, had made the discharge of debris into the rivers illegal and virtually put the hydraulickers known as the Little Giants out of business.

  An even riper plum for the picking, Noah Rideout. Surely Dupree would have taken financial advantage of his attraction to her. Extortion of the same sort as she had perpetrated on Wrixton, using another confederate as the go-between? Either that or some equally devious means of separating Rideout from a large amount of cash.

  A plainspoken interview with Rideout was indicated, once the rancher’s present whereabouts had been determined. Meanwhile Quincannon decided to have another talk with Titus Wrixton. Not an easy proposition considering that the banker remained completely under the actress’s spell and refused to see him. Refused to pay the balance of the agency’s fee as well, which Quincannon had communicated by means of a brief note delivered by messenger—a default that rankled him almost as much as the Dupree woman’s duplicity.

  On Friday morning he hied himself to the Woolworth National Bank. The fact that Wrixton once again refused an audience deterred him not at all. A casual question of one of the tellers, while changing a fifty-dollar greenback, brought him the information that Wrixton took his luncheon break from twelve until one-thirty. At a quarter to twelve Quincannon took up a position outside the bank. The decision to be early was a wise one, for Wrixton emerged not more than three minutes later.

  The banker was alone and, from the look of him, in a state of some distress. His shoulders were slumped, his gait burdensome, his florid features hangdog. Bracing him on the crowded street wouldn’t do; a measure of privacy was necessary for the conversation Quincannon intended to have with him. He might be on his way to meet someone. If so, then the best place for contact to be made was in the reception area of whichever restaurant he entered.

  Except that where Wrixton was bound was not a restaurant. Rather, it was the Reception Saloon at Sutter and Karny, the traditional first stop on the businessman’s nightly eating and drinking revel along the Cocktail Route. Quincannon was only a few yards behind him, and when he himself entered he saw the banker head straight for an empty section at the far end of the long, polished mahogany bar and there stand, or rather hunch, with his elbows propped on the gleaming bar top. He waited until the banker had been served a large pony of brandy, then sauntered ahead and bellied up next to him.

  “Drinking your lunch today, Mr. Wrixton?”

  The banker lifted his nose from the brandy, blinked in recognition, and then glowered. It wasn’t much of a glower, being tempered by a despair that was even more evident at close quarters.

  “I told you before, Quincannon, you’ll not get another penny from me. Not only did you grievously defame Miss Dupree, you’ve failed to find and return my letters as you promised to do. Dereliction of duty on all fronts.”

  A slanderous and inaccurate comment, on which Quincannon forbore comment. “Money is not the reason I’m here. Not directly, that is.”

  “Damn your eyes, this new development is all your fault.”

  “What new development? Don’t tell me your paramour has broken off relations with you?”

  Wrixton cast furtive glances along and behind the bar. He said sotto voce, “For God’s sake, keep your voice down. I am known in here.”

  “We can move over to a table if you like.”

  “No. I won’t go to a table and I won’t stand here with you. Leave me be. I have nothing to say to you.”

  “But I have some things to say to you.”

  The habitual act of cheek pooching, which Wrixton indulged in just then, had a convulsive aspect today. He drank deeply from the snifter of brandy.

  “They concern Pauline Dupree,” Quincannon said.

  “I refuse to listen to any more of your scurrilous lies.”

  “Facts, sir, not lies. The plain unvarnished truth.”

  “If you don’t leave, I’ll tell the bartender you’re harassing me.”

  “Then I’ll tell him about you and Miss Dupree.”

  “You wouldn’t dare—”

  “Wouldn’t I?”

  For a clutch of seconds Wrixton brooded into his brandy; then he abruptly lifted the glass again. The swallow he took this time was substantial enough to make him choke and start him coughing. His round face flamed scarlet; globules of sweat popped out on his forehead. When he had his breathing under control he produced a linen handkerchief and swabbed his mouth and face with it, pooching his cheeks as he did so.

  Quincannon said, “Do you know a man named Noah Rideout?”

  “Who? No.”

  “Wealthy farmer on Schyler Island in the San Joaquin Delta. His business interests often bring him to San Francisco.”

  “That is no concern of mine.”

  “Ah, but it is. You and he share common interests, and have for some time. The Gaiety Theater for one. Pauline Dupree for another.”

  A dark flush moved up out of Wrixton’s celluloid collar. “Another of your damned lies. Paula has never been unfaithful to me.”

  That last statement might have been sardonically amusing if it weren’t so pathetic. “I have it on good authority that she has, often. With Noah Rideout and others.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Not only that,” Quincannon said, stretching the truth as he knew it, “but it’s likely she arranged to extort a large sum of money from Rideout, just as she did from you.”

  “More of your slanderous poppycock.”

  “On the contrary. Your devotion to the lady is completely unwarranted. She is, in fact, no lady, but exactly what I accused her of being—a schemer, an extortionist, and a cold-blooded murderess.”

  Wrixton half-turned, drawing his arm back as if he intended to take a swing at Quincannon—a serious error in judgment had he gone through with it. But he didn’t. His anger faded as quickly as it had appeared; his shoulders drooping again, he leaned heavily against the beveled edge of the bar.

  “Go away,” he said in a dull voice. “Just go away and let me suffer in peace.”

  “Suffer, Mr. Wrixton? Did she break off relations?”

  Silence. Quincannon repeated the question, with greater emphasis. This time it elicited a reply.

  “In the worst possible way. She’s leaving.”

  “Leaving? You mean leaving the cit
y?”

  “Driven to it by you and your disgusting accusations.”

  Damn and damnation! “Bound for the East, I suppose?”

  “Yes. To realize her ambition to perform on the New York stage. I tried to talk her out of it, but she…” Wrixton wagged his head. “She is a very determined woman.”

  “Cunning” and “ruthless” were better descriptive adjectives. “I take it she hasn’t already gone. How soon?”

  “Tonight. On one of the Sacramento packets.”

  Now that was interesting. If Dupree was in fact bound for New York, she would have to make transcontinental train connections in Sacramento. Why, then, would she take an overnight packet to the capital city when the trip could be made much more quickly via ferry to Oakland and a Southern Pacific train from there?

  “Did you ask her why she is traveling by steamer?”

  “No, and she didn’t say.”

  “But you’re certain that’s her mode of transportation?”

  “I saw the steamer tickets in her room last night.”

  “Which packet or line?”

  “I didn’t look at them that closely. What does it matter?”

  It mattered a great deal to Quincannon, though he didn’t say so. “Are you planning to see her off?”

  “There’s no point in it,” Wrixton said morosely. “It was difficult enough saying good-bye to her last evening. She promised to write, and to allow me to visit her in New York once she becomes established, but it’s such a long way, three thousand miles.…” The banker wagged his head again, sighed, performed his rodent imitation, then emptied the pony and signaled to the aproned, mustached bartender to refill it. He didn’t seem to notice when Quincannon took his leave.

  * * *

  Several steamers departed San Francisco for Sacramento every day and evening. Some were primarily cargo boats, dropping off and picking up goods at numerous small wharves and brush landings in the Sacramento River Delta; others were mainly passenger carriers, offering private staterooms, good food, and other amenities, and made only a few stops en route. Most of the passenger packets left early in the morning, but there were three that departed at 6:00 P.M. daily for overnight runs to the capital city.

  Quincannon made the rounds of the companies that operated the night boats, starting with Southern Pacific. The story he had concocted was well designed: his sister, Miss Pauline Dupree, had wired him that she had booked passage for Sacramento this evening and asked him to join her, but she had neglected to state the name of the packet. The simplicity of the fabrication and his gentlemanly dress and demeanor brought a respectful response from the clerk he spoke to. What it didn’t bring was the answer he sought. Pauline Dupree was not on the passenger list for the SP’s evening stern-wheeler.

  He was told the same at the offices of Sacramento Transportation. And again at the Union Transportation Company.

  Had Titus Wrixton lied to him or gotten the day or time of her departure wrong? Were the steamer tickets he’d seen in her room a ruse of some kind? None of those possibilities seemed likely. Wrixton had been too swaddled in gloom to have mistaken the day or time or made the effort to concoct a lie, and the woman had no conceivable reason to have bought tickets she had no intention of using.

  A thought struck Quincannon as he was leaving the Union Transportation offices. What if Pauline Dupree had deliberately misled Wrixton as to her destination? Noah Rideout’s Schyler Island holdings were in the San Joaquin Delta, and if memory served there was a steamer landing, Kennett’s Crossing, not far away. Could she be planning a visit to Rideout’s farm before proceeding on to Sacramento?

  Quincannon went back inside and commenced another consultation with the UT clerk by stating that his sister was somewhat scatterbrained and might have decided at the last minute to travel first to Stockton and then to the capital city, instead of the other way around. Was Miss Dupree booked on their Stockton packet this evening? Yes, she was—a stateroom on the Captain Weber, the line’s fastest stern-wheeler. And yes, the Captain Weber serviced Kennett’s Crossing when a request was made.

  One stateroom was left unbooked for tonight, or it was until Quincannon reserved it under the name James Flint. He did so without hesitation. He had no pressing business to keep him in the city over the next three days, and Sabina was unlikely to require his assistance on the Amity Wellman investigation. He was free to pursue Pauline Dupree and his lovelorn fool of a client’s ten thousand dollars and batch of missing letters. If the actress was on her way to meet Noah Rideout, Quincannon would put himself in a position to end her criminal career on Schyler Island, one way or another.

  15

  QUINCANNON

  He arrived at the UT wharf at five o’clock. The early arrival was deliberate, in the hope that he would already be on board when Pauline Dupree appeared. He would have come even earlier, but it had been necessary to return to his flat on Leavenworth to pack his cowhide valise and then to stop in at the offices of Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional Detective Services. Sabina hadn’t been there, which was probably just as well, since it allowed him to avoid lengthy explanations and a probable reprimand. He’d written her a short message:

  In haste—

  Bound for San Joaquin Delta aboard night boat this evening, on the trail of P. Dupree. May be away for several days. Will wire details and developments if so.

  Have gathered sufficient evidence to prove Featherstone guilty of embezzlement. No time to deliver report to client as promised. Regret task is now yours. Will make it up to you upon return.

  Your Devoted Servant,

  John

  The Captain Weber was a fairly new stern-wheeler, having been built in 1892. One hundred and seventy-five feet in length, with a modern, high-revolution compound engine, she had slim, graceful hull lines and three decks, the uppermost weather deck containing the pilothouse and officers’ quarters. Despite being well-appointed and the fastest boat on the Stockton run, she carried fewer passengers on the average than the other packets. The reason for this was Mrs. Sarah Gillis, who had inherited the Union Transportation Company after her husband’s death and who was an outspoken leader of the Stockton local of the W.C.T.U. The Captain Weber and her sister boat, the Dauntless, were the only two dry packets on either river. Either Pauline Dupree wasn’t aware of this or alcohol was not one of her many vices.

  Freight wagons and baggage vans clogged the wharfside, joining with the deep-throated bellows of foghorns to create a constant din. Burly roustabouts unloaded sacks and boxes of freight, passenger luggage, and steamer trunks and trundled them up the aft gangplank. A smattering of travelers had already boarded, and a well-dressed gentleman and a handsome woman in a large hat preceded Quincannon up the forward gangplank to the steerage and cargo deck. He wondered idly if they were married or if they might be about to indulge in a clandestine extramarital or premarital dalliance. The night boats to Sacramento and Stockton had a reputation among the city’s upper class as discreet floating bagnios.

  A few of the early arrivals were clustered along the deck railings, watching the loading process—a scant few, for the evening was cold, the bay shrouded in thick, wet fog. This worked to Quincannon’s advantage, allowing him to wear his chesterfield, a wool muffler drawn up tightly over the lower half of his face, and a woolen cap pulled down over his forehead. Anyone who knew him by sight, Pauline Dupree included, would have to stand close to recognize him. Valise in hand, he ascended to the deckhouse, where the Social Hall and the staterooms were located, and took up a position among the watchers at the hammock-netted rail there that allowed him a clear view of the gangplank.

  More passengers began to arrive on foot and by hansom. Small merchants, miners, sun-weathered farmers and farmhands, and coolie-hatted Chinese remained on the steerage deck; the more affluent continued on up the stairway to the deckhouse. It was five-thirty by Quincannon’s stem-winder when a hansom delivered Pauline Dupree.

  He watched her alight—she was alone—and make
her approach. Dusk was descending; electric lamps had been lit along the wharf, lanterns on the gangplank. He had a clear view of her as she mounted, one gloved hand on the railing, the other clutching a large neutral-color carpetbag that looked to be moderately heavy. She was regally dressed in a heavy wool hooded cape of red and gold, high-button calfskin shoes, and a red ostrich-plumed hat atop her dark gold hair.

  She allowed one of the deckhands to help her aboard but not to relieve her of the carpetbag, then climbed the staircase looking neither left nor right and proceeded into the tunnel-like hallway that bisected the deckhouse lengthwise, where the entrances to starboard and larboard staterooms faced each other across the wide plank deck.

  Quincannon followed, waiting a few seconds to give her time to present herself to the cabin steward. Then he entered slowly, in time to watch the steward show her to her stateroom, the forward most in the starboard row.

  When she was inside with the louvered door closed and the steward returned, he claimed his own stateroom near the aft larboard end.

  It was well appointed, the upholstery red plush, the paneling of tongue-and-groove pine, brass lamps polished to a bright sheen. None of this made an impression; he had traveled the far more opulently furnished Mississippi River steamers during his years in Baltimore. He stayed just long enough to deposit his valise and shutter the window, locking the door behind him with the key provided by the steward. Outside again, he made his way forward to a place at the rail where he could keep an eye on the passage between the deckhouse exit and the Social Hall.

  Pauline Dupree did not join the handful of other passengers on deck when the gangplank was raised at exactly six o’clock. The Captain Weber’s buckets astern immediately began to churn the water in a steady rhythm; her whistle, which had been shrilling an all-aboard and all-visitors-ashore warning, altered cadence to become a steerage signal for the pilot. Competing whistles sounded and bells clanged elsewhere along the waterfront as the other night packets commenced backing down from their berths. There was a period of controlled chaos as the boats, flags flying from their jackstaffs and from their verge staffs astern, maneuvered for right-of-way in the heavy mist. Columns of smoke from their stacks joined with the fog to turn the evening sky a sooty gray-black.