“What sequel?”
“Two of the men who killed Will Reilly are dead … There were three.”
He stared at her. This woman must be the devil in person. Did she know everything?
“That’s another reason,” she said, smiling slightly, “why you had better be a nice boy. Avery Simpson, in turn for a lighter sentence, could give evidence against you. And they hang men for murder in this country.”
“I think,” he said, “you do not understand my position. In my own country—”
“But you are not in your country,” Myra interrupted, “and you will find little sympathy here. On the other hand, since we like titles over here, and with those scars and all those medals—oh, don’t worry! I’ll not tell anybody how you got the scars—that you were horsewhipped by a gambler.”
She looked at him, still smiling. “And you may even find it amusing here. The women will idolize you, especially the older ones, or those with daughters who are single. You can make a lot of money; and if you are interested you might marry one of the daughters and get a substantial settlement.”
Pavel’s mind was reaching for a solution that would save him, but he was realizing that there was none. From now on, until he had money enough to escape from this situation, he was practically a prisoner.
She was hard—he admired her for that even while resenting it that any woman could outgeneral him. He was, he admitted, a little afraid of her. She had told him a good deal. She had, as these Americans would say, “laid it on the line,” but what worried him were the things she had not told him, the further plans she preferred to keep to herself.
“I shall need money,” he said, “as long as we are talking money. If this is to be your operation, it is only correct that you should finance it.”
“Of course.” She opened a drawer and took out a packet of bills. “There are five thousand dollars.”
Then she said, “There is to be a performance at the opera tonight. We will go … You and your cousin are to be houseguests of mine. You are to accept no invitations that do not include me; however, I doubt if anyone would go to that extreme.
“If anyone inquires as to how we met, say simply that we have mutual friends.” She took another list from a desk drawer. “I want you to memorize these names. The three men on the left are the men with whom I wish to do business. They operate on a very large scale, they make excellent profits, and no outsider has ever participated in their operations.
“The names on the right are those of men who belong to clubs to which the men on the left also belong. They are occasional associates of yachting, gambling, hunting, and at social events. Any one of those on the right might introduce you to those on the left.
“Don’t gamble with them. They are very shrewd, tough gamblers, and any one of them can win or lose enough in an evening to support you for a year—I mean that—and there is no sentiment in their gambling. It is all-out war.
“If I succeed in what I have planned,” she added, “your share might even come to a quarter of a million dollars. You could return to Europe a modestly wealthy man.”
“It seems simple enough,” he said at last. “Those people will be at the opera?”
“They will. They will see you, and they will be curious. I shall see that they know who you are. The rest will follow.”
He stood up now. “And my cousin, the Princess Louise?” he asked.
Myra got to her feet also. She was almost as tall as he. “She need know nothing of all this. You have some land in Siberia, I believe?”
He was no longer surprised, but he had almost forgotten that land himself.
“You can tell her I am interested in hydraulic mining, and wanted to discuss a deal whereby one of my companies would dredge for gold there. In fact, you can mention this to anyone, if you like. The people with whom we are concerned know that I am a business woman.”
“These arrangements … they will be here? In New York?”
“Yes.” She hesitated. “There is a possibility we may have to travel to San Francisco. One of the men in whom I am most interested lives there.”
When Prince Pavel was out on the street he stood on the curb for a moment, waiting for the carriage to come around. Ninety days, she had said. Three months—and then a rich man. He doubted many things about Myra Fossett, but he did not doubt the genuineness of her intentions. She wanted to make money and she would; and after all, was not that what he came over for?
TWENTY-THREE
The Windsor, in Denver, opened in June of 1880, was the height of elegance, with three hundred rooms and sixty bathtubs, gaslights, and Brussels carpets. The backbone of its business was furnished by mining men and cattlemen, the latter coming from half a dozen states, for Denver was considered by many to be the only city worth visiting between Chicago and San Francisco.
Denver had the name of being a wide-open sporting town, but Valentine Darrant had no desire to gamble or to visit any of the tough joints on Blake or Holliday streets. He was in town on business, and he was wary of trouble.
It was a gun-toting town, but the guns were usually kept out of sight, worn in the waistband or elsewhere not visible to the immediate glance. Bat Masterson was in town, and so was Doc Holliday. They were only two of the best-known of the forty or fifty known gun-handlers in town.
Val was in his room, dressed in a gray suit, with black tie. His black hat lay on the bed. Dube came in, uneasy in his store-bought clothes.
“Where you goin’ to meet this gent?” he asked.
“Peck? He should be here now … In Denver, I mean. He was coming down from Empire to meet me here.”
“He the man you left your money with?”
“His father, actually.”
“Lot of eastern folks down in the lobby. Seems like some big mining deal is about to be pulled off. You know anything about it?”
“No.”
“Well, those eastern folks do. Come up all of a sudden, they say, and there’s a scramble on.”
Val was concerned only with Peck. Once their business was completed, he could relax and show Boston some of the town. Dube and Tensleep probably had plans of their own, but there were several places in Denver noted for their good food. Although he had not been in the city for several years, he remembered the City Hotel where Charles Geleichman was chef, he who had been chef for the King of Denmark, or so it was said. There was also Charpiot’s.
He was combing his hair before the mirror and debating whether he should wake Boston, if she was not awake, when there was a sudden tap on his door.
His pistol lay on the table, and habit made him pick it up as he moved to the door. Opening it, the gun concealed but ready, he was surprised to see Stephen Bricker standing there.
“Val!” Bricker stepped in quickly and closed the door. “Have you heard the news?”
“What news?”
Bricker glanced at the pistol. “Thank God, you’re armed!”
Bricker was older, a little heavier, but still a fine-looking man. He looked at the lean, powerful-shouldered young man before him with pleasure. The boy he had known had become a man.
“Val, we’ve been trying to get hold of you for weeks! Peck told me what he believed was happening, and I did a little discreet investigating, and whether you like it or not you are right in the middle of one of the biggest railroad-mining fights this country has ever seen!”
“How could that be?”
“Look,” Bricker explained, “when you were a youngster you left some money with Peck, senior, to be invested. Am I right?”
“Of course. It wasn’t much, but—”
“Val, Peck turned that money over to a banker and he and his son have since acted in a sort of unofficial supervisory capacity. Right at the beginning they bought a pieee of some mining claims—the discoverer needed money—and then because there seemed to be an effort developing to close off access to the upper end of the canyon, they went down below and bought about half a mile of the canyon right where it opened out. Today that half-mile of canyon is worth almost any price you want to ask for it.”
“What’s happened?”
“The railroads want it. They want a branch line in there to bring out coal. Nobody dreamed that stretch was anything but government or state land, because it was just about useless for anything but a right-of-way. We hoped to let you know what was happening before anyone talked you into signing anything.”