The Loner: Trail Of Blood Read online

  “My thinkin’, exactly. Should we leave this’un here for ’em to find?”

  An idea occurred to Conrad. “No, let’s put him in the carriage. I’d like to have a talk with him.”

  From all appearances, the incident was just an attempted robbery that had gone very wrong for the would-be criminals. But Conrad had learned not to trust appearances. He wanted to ask the robber a few questions when the man regained consciousness.

  “Let me give you a hand,” he said to Clancy. “How bad are you hurt?”

  “’Tis nothin’ to worry about, sir. A mere scratch on me arm.”

  Conrad wasn’t so sure about that. Clancy seemed to be having trouble using his left arm as together they lifted the unconscious man and piled him into the carriage.

  “Can you handle the reins?”

  “Aye.”

  “Do you know a place we can take this man where we won’t be disturbed?”

  Clancy frowned and scratched his head before he put on the plug hat that had fallen off when he tackled the robber. “Aye, but just what did ye have in mind? I won’t be a party to cold-blooded murder.”

  Conrad laughed, but the sound didn’t have much genuine humor in it. “If I wanted him dead, he’d already be dead.”

  “Somehow I’m not doubtin’ that,” Clancy muttered.

  “I just want to talk to him. Really.”

  “All right. Best keep them guns handy in case he wakes up while we’re goin’.” The big Irishman paused. “You’re the first tuxedo-wearin’ gentleman I’ve hauled around who carries a couple o’ six-guns. I don’t know ye, sir, but I got the feelin’ you ain’t much like the other swells in Boston.”

  Conrad’s chuckle was real, as he said, “Let’s go, if you’re sure you’re all right.”

  “Aye. Them coppers’ll be here in a minute.”

  The carriage got underway, leaving the scene of the attempted holdup. Conrad holstered one of the Lightnings but kept the other gun in his hand, covering the man who slumped on the carriage’s front, backward-facing seat.

  It was a good thing he had Clancy along to find their way out of the warren of narrow streets and alleys through which the vehicle rolled, Conrad thought. He had grown up in Boston, but wasn’t sure exactly where they were, not having spent much time in those neighborhoods as a boy and a young man.

  Clancy finally drew up at the closed double doors of a big, barnlike structure. “Gallagher!” he called. “Gallagher, ’tis me, Clancy. Let us in, that’s a good lad.”

  A smaller door next to the big doors opened a little, leaving a crack big enough for the twin barrels of a shotgun to thrust through it. “Clancy? What’re ye doin’ here in the middle of the night? You’re drunk, right?”

  “Nary a drop has passed me lips this evenin’,” Clancy insisted. “I’ve had a spot of trouble and could use your assistance.” He paused. “It’ll be worth your while.”

  “Well, why didn’t ye say so? Hold on.”

  The shotgun disappeared, the narrow door closed, and a moment later the big ones began to swing open with a creaking of hinges.

  Inside the carriage, the robber stirred. He grated a curse as he started to sit up.

  “Take it easy.” Conrad pointed the Lightning at the man. If he’d had a single-action revolver, he would have cocked it, to reinforce the threat behind the order. Since it was too dark to see much inside the vehicle, he added, “I’ve got a .38 aimed at you. At this range it’ll blow a nice-sized hole in you if you try anything.”

  “What the hell?” the man whined. “Who’re you?”

  “The man you tried to rob,” Conrad said coldly.

  The carriage rolled into the barn, and the big doors closed with a firm slam behind it.

  “Mister, take it easy,” the man said with fear edging into his voice. “We didn’t mean to hurt you. We just wanted your wallet.”

  Outside the carriage, someone struck a match and held it to a lantern’s wick. As the glow washed outward, some of it spilled through the carriage window and showed Conrad the scared, ratlike face of his prisoner. Clancy opened the door.

  Conrad gestured slightly with the Colt’s barrel and ordered, “Get out.”

  “I’m goin’, I’m goin’. Just don’t shoot.” The man climbed out.

  Conrad followed, assuming the small, wiry man holding the lantern was Gallagher. The light revealed the bloodstain on the left sleeve of Clancy’s coat.

  “You need to get that wound tended to,” Conrad said with sudden concern. “It looks like more than a scratch to me. We’ll find a doctor—”

  “Who’ll tell the coppers about me comin’ to him with a bullet hole in me arm.” Clancy shook his head. “No need to do that, sir. Gallagher here can clean and patch up a wound as good as any sawbones. We got plenty of experience at such chores, fightin’ the Rebs from Chickamauga to Richmond.”

  “Aye,” Gallagher agreed. He had a small brush of a gray mustache on his upper lip.

  “All right, if you’re sure.” Conrad looked around. The barn had several stalls on each side of the center aisle. He spotted a short, three-legged stool and told the prisoner, “Go over there and sit down.”

  “What’re you gonna do to me?” the man asked in a surly voice as he did what Conrad told him.

  “Nothing, as long as you give me straight answers.” Conrad held the .38 revolver straight out in front of him, pointing at the prisoner’s forehead. “But if you lie to me, I’ll blow your brains out.”

  The man’s eyes widened, his face took on a frightened pallor, and his prominent Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard.

  “So tell me, did someone hire you to kill me tonight?”

  Chapter 8

  In the tense silence that followed the question, Clancy cleared his throat. “Beggin’ your pardon, sir, but I said I wouldn’t be a party to cold-blooded murder.”

  “Killing a rat isn’t murder,” Conrad said, his eyes never leaving the prisoner’s terrified face. “Well, how about it? The truth, now. This is a double-action revolver, and it doesn’t take much pressure on the trigger to make it go off.”

  The robber lifted trembling hands. “Please, Mr. Browning, don’t kill me. It was just a robbery, I swear. We seen the coach and knew whoever was inside it was likely to have some money and jewels on them.”

  Conrad’s nostrils flared as he drew in a deep breath. The self-declared robber had just made a critical mistake without being aware of it.

  “Coming from vermin like you, I might be inclined to believe your story … if you hadn’t just called me by name. How did you know that unless someone sent you after me?”

  The man’s eyes bulged with the realization of what he had done. He tried to recover, stammering, “I-I heard the driver say your name—”

  “He didn’t,” Conrad cut in. “You were told who I am. The question is, who did the telling?” He moved a step closer. “Are you going to answer me, or am I going to—”

  He didn’t get the chance to complete the threat he wouldn’t have carried out anyway. At least, he didn’t think he would have pulled the trigger and killed the man in cold blood.

  Sheer desperation sent the man falling over backward as he upset the stool and kicked at Conrad’s gun hand. The toe of his shoe struck Conrad’s wrist and sent the revolver flying.

  Conrad bit back a curse and leaped after the man, who twisted around onto his hands and knees as he hit the floor. He headed for the doors, trying to scramble away. Fear had the ratlike little gunman moving fast.

  “I’ll cut him off,” Clancy bellowed as he broke into a run. The Irishman was so big it was more of a lumbering trot.

  Conrad’s right hand throbbed from the kick. Reaching across with his left he drew the other Lightning.

  Clancy had almost caught up with the escaping prisoner. He reached down to grab the man, saying, “C’mere, ye little—”

  The man snatched up a pitchfork leaning against a post and whirled around to slash at Clancy with the razor-sha
rp tines. He let out a startled yell and jerked back just in time to avoid having his belly ripped open. One of the tines tore his coat.

  Clancy was in the line of fire as Conrad tried to draw a bead on the robber and knock a leg out from under him with a well-placed shot. Conrad couldn’t risk firing.

  The hijacker jabbed the fork at Clancy again, forcing the Irishman to give ground. “Leave me alone, you big damn lummox!” the man yelled.

  “Clancy, get down!” Conrad called.

  The robber or would-be assassin or whatever he was slashed back and forth with the pitchfork. As Clancy backed up, he stumbled and his balance deserted him. He fell heavily to the hard-packed dirt floor. The man lifted the pitchfork, ready to plunge the tines into Clancy’s body.

  Conrad drilled the thief’s right thigh with a slug from the .38.

  Yelping in pain the man dropped the pitchfork as his wounded leg gave out and folded up underneath him.

  Then he screamed as he fell on the pitchfork and the tines speared deep into his body.

  “Son of a bitch!” Conrad leaped forward. He still wanted to question the man. Cold steel buried in the man’s gut. Blood was already welling around the tines as the man lay on his side, curled up around them in agony.

  Conrad didn’t try to move him. Kneeling beside the man he said, “Who sent you after me? Who?”

  The man gave a gurgling groan. He turned his head enough to look up at Conrad, who saw the pain and hate in the man’s beady eyes.

  “You can … go to hell …” the man gasped. Cords stood out prominently in his throat and he bared his teeth in a grotesque grimace as a fresh spasm of pain wracked him. His expression smoothed out abruptly. A long, rattling sigh came from him.

  Conrad had seen and heard those signs too often in the past. Life began to fade from the man’s eyes as Conrad grabbed his shoulder and shook him. “Damn it, who hired you? Who sent you after me?”

  “I don’t think he’s gonna answer ye, sir,” Clancy said from behind him.

  “I know it,” Conrad said bitterly. He stood up. “He’s gone.” He turned to look at Clancy. “He didn’t get you with that pitchfork, did he?”

  “No, but it wasn’t for lack of tryin’, the little scut.”

  Gallagher came over to join them. “Now that I take a better look at the fella, I think I recognize him.”

  “Do you know his name?” Conrad asked.

  “Albie, Alfie, somethin’ like that.” Gallagher shook his head. “It don’t really matter. What’s important is that I know who he works for. He hangs around with Eddie Murtagh at a tavern not far from here. Hung around, I guess I could say, because he ain’t gonna be doin’ it no more.”

  “Who’s Eddie Murtagh?”

  “A bad man,” Clancy answered with a solemn frown. “He’d throw his own ma down a flight o’ stairs if ye paid him enough to do it.”

  “That sounds like the sort of man you’d hire to get rid of somebody you wanted gotten rid of.”

  Clancy said, “You sure ain’t like any of the other society swells I ever saw.”

  “What’s the name of this tavern where I’ll find Murtagh?”

  Gallagher said, “It’s called Serrano’s. Run by a Eye-talian fella.”

  Conrad smiled faintly. “I didn’t think the Irish and the Italians got along that well.”

  “We don’t.” Gallagher snorted contemptuously. “But Serrano sells cheap booze and cheaper women. I don’t go there, myself.”

  “And you shouldn’t, either, sir,” Clancy added. “I don’t know what’s goin’ on here, but ye’d be better off steerin’ well clear o’ Eddie Murtagh.”

  “We’ll see.” Conrad looked at the bloody corpse. “Right now we have a more pressing problem.”

  Gallagher shook his head. “No, I can get rid of that body, don’t ye worry. Nobody will ever find it and ask any inconvenient questions.”

  “What about that gunshot?”

  “Also nothin’ to worry about. Since it was just one shot, anybody who heard it will figure somebody was shootin’ at a rat or some such.” Gallagher frowned at the corpse. “They wouldn’t be far wrong, at that.”

  “Tend to Clancy’s wound first,” Conrad told him. “Then we’ll get out of here.” He took some bills from his pocket and pressed them into Gallagher’s hand. “For your trouble.”

  “Gettin’ rid o’ gutter scum like this is no trouble. It’s more along the lines of a pleasure.”

  Gallagher got Clancy’s bloody coat and shirt off him, revealing the wound in the big Irishman’s arm to be a fairly deep furrow where a bullet had creased him. It had bled a lot and probably hurt like hell, but Conrad didn’t think the injury was serious. Gallagher used some whiskey to clean it, leading to bitter complaints from Clancy about a waste of perfectly good booze. Then the smaller man bandaged the wound.

  “I can get back to the hotel alone if you’re not up to driving,” Conrad offered.

  “Oh? Ye think you could find your way back, do ye?”

  Conrad smiled. “Well … not really.”

  “Never you mind. I’m fine to drive, now that Gallagher here has finished tendin’ to me arm.”

  “There’s a bonus in this for you, too. I know you didn’t expect gunplay when you hired on to drive me tonight.”

  “’Tis not necessary … but I’ll not be turnin’ it down.”

  Conrad asked Gallagher, “Is there anything else you can tell me about this man”—he nodded toward the dead man—“or about Murtagh?”

  Gallagher shook his head. “I have as little as possible to do with their sort. Men like Murtagh been runnin’ gangs in this town for a long time. They’re used to killin’ anybody who gets in their way. I still think it’d be best for you to stay away from Serrano’s. Hell, if somebody wants you dead bad enough to hire Murtagh, maybe you ought to get outta Boston entirely!”

  “That wouldn’t do any good,” Conrad said. “Whoever it is would just come after me, or send someone like Murtagh after me. I’d rather meet the trouble head-on.”

  “May the saints be watchin’ over ye, then,” Gallagher said, “because you’re likely to need all the help ye can get!”

  Chapter 9

  Arturo knew something had happened as soon as Conrad came into the hotel suite. “You’re rumpled and dusty and positively disreputable, sir. What have you been doing, rolling around in the street?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes. A horse knocked me down.”

  “I thought I smelled something. I take it this incident did not occur at Mrs. Garrison’s dinner party?”

  “No, some men stopped the carriage on the way back here.” Conrad left out the fact that he and Clancy had actually been on their way to an Irish pub, not to the hotel. “They tried to make it look like a robbery, but I’m convinced their actual goal was to kill me.”

  “Let me guess,” Arturo said. “You killed them instead.”

  “Well, I wounded a couple of them, but they got away. I don’t know how bad they were hit. One of the others … well, he wound up with a pitchfork in his belly, but that wasn’t completely my doing.”

  Despite his attempt at an unflappable demeanor, Arturo looked a little shocked. “Are you injured or just disheveled, sir?”

  “I’m all right,” Conrad assured him. “I’d appreciate it if you’d have this tuxedo cleaned and pressed. I might need it again while I’m here.”

  “Of course. Is there a chance the night’s activities are going to result in a visit from the authorities?”

  “Not likely. I don’t think anybody knows what happened except you, me, and Clancy … and the men who tried to kill me, along with the man they work for.”

  “Do you know who that is?” Arturo asked.

  Conrad smiled. “I have a pretty good idea.”

  “So I suppose you’ll be paying him a visit, as well?”

  “Yes, but not tonight.” Conrad pulled his tie off. “I think I’m done for the night.”

  Despite that comment, he
had a lot to think about. After he turned in, he found himself lying in bed, staring up at the ceiling as the wheels of his brain revolved.

  It had been a hunch on his part the apparent robbery was more than that. Once it was confirmed, it left him with another, more compelling question. Who wanted him dead badly enough to hire Eddie Murtagh to see to it?

  Pamela’s cousin and lover, Roger Tarleton, had been behind Conrad’s recent troubles, but Roger was locked up in New Mexico. Some other Tarleton relative could have taken up the family legacy of twisted vengeance.

  Another possibility occurred to Conrad. Pamela had gone to a lot of trouble in her efforts to make his life miserable. He wondered if she could have made some sort of arrangement with Murtagh before she left Boston with the twins. She could have paid him to arrange to have Conrad killed if he ever showed up in the city again, whether she was still alive or not. That was just the sort of diabolical thing she might have done.

  The good thing about all this, Conrad told himself, was that he didn’t have to wonder.

  All he had to do was ask Eddie Murtagh.

  Conrad didn’t plan to venture out to Serrano’s until the next night, thinking he would have more luck finding Murtagh then. He slept late and was having breakfast in the sitting room when a knock came on the door.

  He didn’t think Murtagh would come after him in the hotel, but he slipped his hand into the pocket of his dressing gown and closed it around the butt of the small .32 caliber pistol he had placed there before he nodded to Arturo to answer the door.

  “Who’s there?” the valet called.

  “Jack Mallory.”

  Conrad nodded again. Arturo opened the door to admit the private detective. Mallory came in and handed Arturo his hat.

  Conrad asked, “Would you like some coffee?”

  “Sure.”

  “I didn’t expect to see you again so soon,” Conrad said as Arturo poured the coffee.

  “You didn’t say how often you wanted reports from me. Since I had some information I thought I’d go ahead and give it to you.”

  Conrad leaned forward eagerly. “What have you found out?”