THE NIGHT ARTEMUS GORDON DIED



Author’s note: If you want to know whether there are any character deaths, click here. This story is set about two weeks after “The Night of the Bogus Bandits” (w: Henry Sharp; d: Irving J. Moore). All quotations are from Shakespeare, mostly from Hamlet—and be warned: there are major spoilers in here for both Hamlet and “BB.”  Grateful acknowledgment to BJ (and T’Beej!) for crucial suggestions.


Special thanks to Michael Garrison for creating two such irresistible characters, and to Robert Conrad and Ross Martin for bringing them to exuberant life; if ever two actors were born to play their parts, it was these two.


Disclaimer: Copyright for everything related to The Wild Wild West is held by Paramount/CBS. This particular story is mine—written for fun, not for profit.

 

For Guy, as always—

 

********************

 

[two]

 

“Artie, wake up—it’s nearly six o’clock!” West tugged off his cravat and flapped it over Gordon’s slack face. “Since when are you such a layabout when we have plans for the evening? You’ve been stretched out on that sofa all afternoon.” He disappeared down the narrow corridor toward the dressing room, the thud of his boot heels on the carpet yielding to the distant clatter of shaving things and the opening and closing of drawers.


“Mm-hmm.”


Having taken only passing notice of his energetic partner’s noisy entrance, Gordon closed his eyes again, which he’d barely opened anyway. Long legs crossed at the ankles, one arm dangling to the floor, he felt as if he were aboard a ship that rolled with the swells of the sea, though the train was stationary in the Presidio yard.


“Colonel Richmond was as good as his word—I’ve got our new letters of credit.” The sound of West’s voice rose and then fell as he emerged from the corridor and strode the length of the parlor. “He likes his temporary assignment but he hates the fog.” Papers shuffled in the desk. “Artie, you haven’t moved.”


“Mm-hmm.” Swell and roll, swell and roll—


“Artie!”


Now Jim was shaking his shoulder, looming over him in brisk concern, fully dressed in starched white shirt, black linen tailcoat, a splash of bay rum, and Gordon’s special preparation for the hair. Oughta patent that stuff, he thought woozily, call it “hair-stay-put”—


“Artie, are you all right? This really isn’t like you.”


Gordon stirred at last, his arms and legs feeling numb and insubstantial until he actually moved them, when they felt as if they’d been encased in lead. As he pushed himself upright the volume of Shakespeare he’d been reading slipped from his chest to the floor. He made a game effort to retrieve it but gave up when he nearly pitched forward to join it. “I dunno, Jim—I just don’t have any steam. I’m a little dizzy, too. I’ll never make it through Hamlet like this.” He pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead with a groan. “Listen, you take the girls and have a good time.”


West plucked the book off the floor, his usual coiled vitality seeming all the more boundless in comparison with Gordon’s own lethargy. “But you promised Charlotte a night to remember the next time we stopped in San Francisco.”


“She’ll remember the night Artemus Gordon stood her up, won’t she?” He rubbed at the ache in the back of his neck. “I’ve been under the weather all afternoon. I just kept hoping I’d snap out of it.”


West frowned. “You do look a little pale.”


“I feel pale.” The snifter of 1857 Raynal Napoleon he’d poured earlier still contained a sip or two; he drained it, but the brandy tasted sour. “Ugh.”


“You want me to send for a doctor?”


“No, no, I just need some rest. Probably a delayed reaction to that jolt of electricity I took the other day.”


“That was a lot more than a jolt. How many times do I have to remind you that you aren’t indestructible either?”


Barely two weeks before, Artemus had foiled Dr. Loveless’s attempt to carve a kingdom out of the western states and territories by using his own very mortal flesh to short out the telegraph equipment with which Loveless was about to signal his assault teams. Unfortunately, however, Loveless had managed to escape yet again, thanks no doubt to his beautiful but ruthlessly loyal assistant (and perhaps mistress—West was never quite certain about the good doctor’s feminine companions) Pearline. Colonel Richmond, temporarily heading up the western division of the Service while Colonel Crockett was on leave, had ordered Gordon to rest while West interrogated Loveless’s even more beautiful assistant (and perhaps mistress) Belladonna—neither as intelligent nor as well-informed as Pearline but not loyal at all after her erstwhile paramour had taken her hostage in order to shield his own escape. After a few days of extra sleep, Gordon had seemed to be quickly regaining his strength, visiting his favorite haunts in the city by the bay with almost his usual vigor as if he hadn’t nearly been electrocuted mere days before.


“Maybe you just did too much too soon,” West suggested as he helped himself to some brandy. “And that bullet bruise to your chest probably didn’t help much.”


When Gordon had gotten too close to identifying her as a member of the gang, Pearline, being not only ruthless and loyal but pragmatic as well, had fired a .38 at him point-blank; he’d been alive to jam his elbow into the transmitter only because of the thick sketchpad his artist character had been carrying in his breast pocket.


“Yeah, she’s a great gal, that Pearline. If I ever run into her again I’ll know to shoot first.” Gordon sank back into the sofa in disgust. “So now I have another reason to be peeved with that twisted little pest. Poor, deprived Charlotte. Poor, deprived me!”


West made sure the garotte and saw-wire were in the seams of his jacket and the explosive pellets in the buttons of his vest, then donned his cloak. “That’ll teach you to be so shockingly heroic.”


Gordon groaned and wished he had the strength to throw something. “Will you just go? Kiss Charlotte for me—but don’t get carried away.”


West laughed and displayed his best good-natured leer. “Don’t wait up.” He checked the action of his sleeve-derringers one last time, snatched up his sword-cane, and was gone.


“Think of me a little,” Gordon murmured piteously to the empty parlor, knowing that Jim, as sole escort for two outstanding embodiments of feminine beauty and charm, would not. “‘So ridest thou triumphing in my woe—’”


With a sigh he relit the cigar that had burned itself out in the ashtray while he slept, but it left a bitter aftertaste. “Dr. Loveless,” he growled, “for the unforgivable ruination of fine brandy and cigars you should get five extra years. Maybe ten.” He stubbed out the cigar with a sigh. “Nothing left but sleep, perchance to dream—”


But when he stood the room lurched and spun and a vise constricted his lungs. Staggering across the parlor he reached for the voice-pipe, but he couldn’t judge the distance and his hand missed the funnel as he fell sprawling to the floor.

 

********************


Curiously, he woke just as his head seemed to be making contact with his pillow; he had the unsettled sensation of having fallen backward. Beside his bunk West was straightening up, tugging his tailcoat back into its form-fitting shape. Relief flashed across his face, but he said only, “You know, you could have waked up before I carried you in here.”


“Wha— Carried me—? Didn’t you go to the play?”


“Artie, it’s three in the morning. I just got in and found you out cold. You looked as though you were reaching for the pipe to call Joe.”


“Joe?”


“Our engineer— Artie, what happened? I was about to send for a doctor.”


“Uh—I remember standing—felt short of breath—sicker than I thought—” He let his weighted eyelids fall shut. His tongue seemed too large for his mouth and there was a roaring in his ears, as if the ocean were sloshing around in his skull. He opened his eyes, and West’s face sloshed before him. “Jim—what are you doing here?”


At that West frowned and turned up the lamp at the edge of the small dressing table. In its light he examined Gordon’s eyes, pulling back first one eyelid then the other. “Artie, you aren’t sick—you’ve been drugged.”


“Drugged?”


West held a mirror to Gordon’s face. “Your pupils are dilated—look.”


Gordon squinted, then widened his eyes, then pushed West’s hand away. “I can’t even see my pupils.” He elbowed himself up against the pillows, surprised to find that he felt a little less dizzy than he had during the languid afternoon. “Okay, I’ve been drugged. Why?”


“Somebody wanted to get onto the train—quietly, since the crew obviously weren’t alerted. But again—why? To put something aboard—?”


“I’m guessing not a gift from a secret admirer.”


“Explosives?”


Without thinking Gordon shook his head, but found that the sloshing wasn’t as noticeable; the effects of whatever drug he’d been given seemed to be wearing off. “Probably something more subtle—and don’t ask me what, since my brain currently consists of fog thicker than what’s outside—but I suppose we’d better check.” He made as if to rise but West pushed him back against the pillow.


“I’ll check.”


“All right, but check under there first.” Gordon’s hand circled down to jab the air under his bunk.


West grinned and obeyed. “It’s clear.”


He roused Joe Emory and the fireman and brakeman, all three veterans of army intelligence work and well accustomed to emergencies such as this. Though The Wanderer had been cleaned and serviced during this layover and a bomb probably wouldn’t have escaped notice, nevertheless the crew searched the exterior of the train and the wood and freight cars by strong lantern light, removing the horses to a safe distance behind some storage sheds, while West and Gordon, who was wobbly on his feet but improving, searched the parlor car. West’s sharp eyes were alert for the minutest alteration in the furnishings—a stack of papers or a book shifted slightly to one side, an antimacassar out of place, a window shade askew, items missing from hidden compartments or items that shouldn’t be in them but were. Gordon concentrated on the galley and laboratory, where he would be the first to notice anything amiss. It was on his dented, stained work table next to his catalogues of notes and sketches that he spied the envelope addressed to him in a confident, flowing hand.


With extreme suspicion he peered beneath its edge to try to determine whether simply picking it up from the tabletop might spring a tripwire and set off a catastrophic chain reaction among his many potentially lethal chemicals. When he had judged that particular danger unlikely, he donned rubber gloves and sprinkled the paper with various powders and solutions that would identify poisons that could be absorbed through the skin. Even in the brightest light he could turn upon it the paper showed no changes. Removing the gloves he picked up the envelope and felt it gingerly for wires or metal strips—but his practiced fingers detected nothing but one sheet of very fine rag paper, folded twice.


At last he slit the envelope, unfolded the paper inside, and read its message.


Read it again.


“Jim—”


Alarmed by the strangled dread in Gordon’s voice, West interrupted his prowl of the sleeping quarters and burst into the brightly illuminated lab with both derringers extended—but found his partner alone, staring at a piece of paper that rattled in his trembling hand. He had never seen a face so colorless except in death.


“Artie, what’s wrong?”


Gordon’s throat worked but he made no sound, only held out the paper. West now noted that his left sleeve was rolled up above his elbow.


He retracted the derringers and accepted the paper. “‘To Mister Artemus Gordon,’” he read aloud. “‘Despite my fond recollection of our most recent electrifying meeting—’”


Loveless. He groaned inwardly and steeled himself to read on.


“‘—it is with sincere regret that I inform you that you have been injected with a slow-acting poison—’” West’s appalled gaze shot to Artemus, who seemed barely to be breathing. “‘—or more precisely an admixture of poisons of varying degrees of toxicity, some of which I have listed below. Because this is an original formula and because subjects on whom to test it are in regrettably short supply, I cannot tell you exactly how long you have to live—and in any case these things are quite individual, you understand, depending on the victim’s own physiology, additional substances consumed, and other such variables—but I should think it on the order of two to three days—’” West broke off, fingers tightening on the paper until it began to crumple. “It’s a lie,” he said in a voice of flint. “It has to be a lie.”


“It’s no lie.” Gordon’s voice contained hardly more color than his face. He held out his bare left arm and West now saw the brown-red dot at the bend of his elbow, just exactly over the bluish bulge of vein.


He returned his attention to the sinister missive. “‘If you don’t believe this assertion simply roll up your left sleeve—’” His eyes flicked up to Artie’s, then back. “There’s a list of ingredients—”


“Only partial, and even if it were complete there’s no way to develop an effective antidote without knowing the proportions.” Gordon’s eyes met West’s for an instant, then looked away. “I have to get to work.” He pulled a rubber tourniquet from a drawer of assorted straps and chains and springs and tied it around his arm, then reached for a hypodermic syringe and vials and began to draw his own blood.


“Draw enough for me to take some to the hospital.” Gordon nodded and pulled another vial from the box.


West removed to the lamplit desk in the parlor, and by the time he had finished making a copy of the note, including its mocking closure and the arrogant sweeping signature—“With warmest regards, Miguelito Quixote Loveless”—Gordon had brought him two stoppered vials of blood. In minutes he had waked a cabbie at the depot stand and was racing through dark and empty streets in the direction of Colonel Richmond’s hotel, the vials of Artie’s blood tucked inside his jacket still warm next to the small cold knot of fear in his heart.

 

********************

He returned two hours later in the greyed-out dawn, his evening clothes wrinkled and dusty as if he’d met with alley mayhem. The chill dampness on his face and hands reminded him inescapably of the gothic cliché of fog as a harbinger of death, and he was glad of the distraction Joe Emory provided, hurrying across the gloomy trainyard toward the cab stand.


“He’s sent me out for more chemicals,” Emory said in response to West’s query, waving a list. “A couple of ’em might be hard to come by, he said.”


How is he? West wanted to ask, but he would find out for himself soon enough. “You do whatever it takes, Joe—understand?” Bribe, threaten, break in— “Whatever it takes.”


Emory knew his boss well. “I understand, sir, never you fear.” In an instant he had disappeared among the fog-blurred shapes of cars and warehouses.


In the lab West saw evidence of Gordon’s feverish activity—new spills and stains from the beakers and retorts bubbling over burners and the racks of test tubes filled with variously colored liquids; new pages of hastily scrawled notes; a score of books on chemistry and biology and toxicology discarded in a jumble on the floor; a microscope with slides scattered about, some of them broken. Despite his recent bloodletting his color was better and he held his balance well enough on his work stool, but his face was beaded with sweat, his collar askew and damp.


“I left Colonel Richmond at the hospital pulling strings,” West reported. “As I was leaving they were starting at least a dozen tests.”


Gordon met his eyes briefly, and gave a nod. “Thanks.” He returned his attention to his equipment and books.


Observing him in frustrated silence, West saw the slight clumsiness in the usually dexterous hands, the unconscious movement of the lips as Gordon voiced theories to himself and immediately rejected them, sometimes squeezing his eyes shut and then flaring them open as if he couldn’t see straight. He had to wonder how coherently his partner was thinking. Uncertain what to say, he toyed with various possibilities but didn’t much like any of them.


At last he burst out, “Artie, are you sure—?” Artemus was more a chemist than a biologist. Maybe he’d misread something. Maybe—


Gordon didn’t look up. “That there’s a foreign substance in my blood? Yes. That it’s some kind of toxin? Yes.” His tone was unwavering. Sure.


He was trying to separate a stack of new slides that were clinging stubbornly together. West stepped forward to help him before the sharp edges sliced open his unsteady fingers. “What’ll it do?”


Gordon jerked his head in the direction of the open reference books. “With those ingredients, any number of a veritable smorgasbord of nasty symptoms. Chills, fever, vertigo, profuse sweating, muscle weakness, nausea—” As he talked he made new slides, adding a drop or two of various chemicals to smears of his blood. “—heart palpitations, cramps, paralysis, dementia— Clearly the good doctor strove for variety. As for the unknown ingredients—well, their effects will just have to be a surprise, won’t they.” He picked up the cruel message, flung it down again. “Datura poisoning can result in coma—with any luck that one will get me before some of the others do.” His voice suddenly quavered and caught. “In my opinion, by the way, Loveless’s estimate that I might last three days was—overly optimistic.”


West’s jaw was clenched so hard it hurt. He fought down the urge to smash something. “It’s no good talking to Belladonna again—she’s already told us everything she knows—” A sudden terrible thought struck him. “Artie—”


Gordon had been similarly struck. “I’ll test for belladonna.” His tone already held grim defeat; there was a reason belladonna was also known as deadly nightshade.


“I’m going to search again outside.” West wasn’t certain Gordon had heard him.


With the rising of the sun the fog had thinned, so that he was able to examine the steps and handrails and walls of the parlor car for a distinctive boot print or threads of fabric, a smudged hand print that might indicate the size of Gordon’s assailant—even such vague evidence might prove useful. He bent low to scrutinize the ground between Wanderer and its neighbors, but their siding was paved with brick and the mist-damp gravel and sand beyond was so scuffed with early morning traffic that he couldn’t make out individual impressions. Back aboard, he stalked about the parlor, snapping his fingers as if to prod his brain into quicker thought, wishing there was some action he could take, some essential task he could perform—but Artemus had drafted Joe Emory to run errands. Emory had returned while West was searching the siding, had spent a few minutes in the lab and then hurried away again.


Taking advantage of the brief lull in urgent activity, West changed out of his evening clothes and freshened himself up. While shaving he nicked his chin, and the bite of the styptic seemed to jolt him out of a mental fog—his own kind of shock, he supposed. There had to be a lead he could follow. How had the initial knockout drug been administered? It could have been on the street or in the railroad yard or depot; it could have been in any shop Artie had visited or by anyone who’d brushed against him on his route through the city from bookstores to tailors to dealers in fine liquors. But they’d wanted to get on the train; surely they would have delivered the anesthetic in such a way that they could immediately take advantage of it. And surely Loveless would leave a tantalizing clue. West thought of the last time he’d seen Artie hale, immersed in the Bard, luxuriating in a first-rate cigar, swirling a snifter of brandy—


He bounded into the parlor and snatched the box of cigars up from the table, jogged down the corridor to the lab and thrust them into Gordon’s field of vision. “Test these.”


It was a few seconds before Gordon looked up. “What?” He paid no attention to the cigars.


Now West noted his gray face, his slumped shoulders. He grew still. “Is it—”


Gordon gestured weakly toward the slide in his microscope. “Belladonna.” His voice was barely audible over the hiss and pop of the burner flames.


“Then opium—” West began.


“—is something of an antidote for belladonna, true, and so are coffee and green tea, but you still need to know the proportion and you still need to know what else is in the mix.” He removed the slide and inserted another. “But I guess it’s a start.” The movement of his arms and hands was slow and heavy; his tone held no confidence now.


West pulled himself together; it wasn’t over yet, not by a long shot. “Here, test these.”


At last Gordon looked at the cigar box. “Why?” he asked dully.


“These are your special blend—I don’t generally smoke them. Anything else you ate or drank yesterday I shared: lunch at the Carlton, your brandy—” He wondered in passing if he’d been spared only because Loveless hadn’t been able to devise a way to drug a new saddle blanket or a case of ammunition.


Understanding now, his movements more deft with purpose, Gordon applied a speck of tobacco leaf to a slide with tweezers, added a chemical or two, looked up with a spark of cautious hope in his eyes. “Without more tests I can’t be sure exactly what, but there’s something in there that isn’t tobacco.”


West, too, was brimming with sudden new energy; he and Artie had tracked down more than one villain by way of slimmer leads than this. “So they slipped you the anesthetic this way, kept watch on the train, and when you passed out they came in.”


All at once dubious, Gordon frowned. “Sort of an uncertain method, wouldn’t you say? I might not have tried the new cigars right away. And you might have swiped one.”


“No, it was a safe bet you’d want to try them before we rolled out of town. You probably smoked one in the shop. And maybe Loveless would have poisoned me, too, if he’d had the chance—or just let me sleep it off. It depends on what he wants from us.” He shrugged. “Maybe the uncertainty is part of the game.” Noting the name and address of the manufacturer on the box, he added, “I’ll pay Mr. Swanson a visit.”


“Jim, I’ve patronized Swanson for years. I can’t believe—”


“It’s all we have. I’ll be back.”


“Jim—” West turned in the doorway. “When you get back, in case I’m—” Gordon fingered some papers, slid off the stool and took a hesitant step forward. One hand gripped the edge of the worktable for balance, the other swept through the limited space of the lab and then in the direction of his room, with its surreal collection of wigs and beards, rubber noses and garish scars, and assorted clothing from which he could assemble a costume from almost any walk of life. “Everything I have is yours, if you can make use of it.”


“Artie, don’t talk like that!” West’s eyes blazed. “Why do you always have to imagine the worst?”


“And what would you be imagining—?” Gordon dragged in a steadying breath and mopped at the new sheen of sweat on his face. “Sorry, Jim. I know you’ll do all you can, but—”


“You bet I will—I look awful in makeup.” West’s smile was genuine but fleeting, and he held Gordon’s eyes with his own for a moment before he hastened away.

 

********************

The corner of Market and Post was halfway across San Francisco from their siding at the Presidio, through carriage and horsecar and pedestrian traffic that only increased as the cab approached the business districts. Wooden wheels and iron-shod hooves clattered on the bricks and cobblestones and planks of the streets; shouts and whistles and newsboys’ patter reverberated from the three- and four-story buildings lining block after block and casting the streets partway into cool shadow beneath the morning sun. West drummed his fingers on the door, peering out the window to judge the cab’s progress and wishing he could pace. All his demands for speed, all his threats and bribes, were worse than useless; the red-faced, cursing cabbie simply could not make the clots of humanity creep any more swiftly. A quarter of an hour passed, and then another—thirty minutes of Artie’s life. Just as he was about to abandon the cab and cover the remaining distance on foot, the cabbie was at last able to urge his horse to a modest burst of speed; moments later he knocked on the roof to let West know they’d arrived.


In seconds he’d paid the fare and plunged through the traffic of the vast, chaotic intersection to Swanson’s Fine Cigars on the corner diagonally opposite. Mr. Swanson was just opening up, propping in the front window a signboard advertising a new shipment of Cuban long-fillers at a ten-percent discount, this week only.


“Good morning, sir,” he said pleasantly as West entered the shop and was immediately engulfed in the heady, sweet-sour aroma of excellent tobacco from the hundreds of cigars on display in their orderly rows; light reflected off the spotless glass case-fronts. Short, balding, and rotund, with the direct gaze of a shrewd businessman, Mr. Swanson did seem an unlikely poisoner—but West had learned not to make such potentially fatal assumptions. Besides, even good men could be blackmailed, or deceived.


“You have a customer named Artemus Gordon,” he said without preamble.


“Why yes, I can always count on an order from Mr. Gordon whenever he expects to be in the city. He picked up several boxes just yesterday, in fact, and sampled my new Cubans.” Mr. Swanson straightened the signboard with one last nudge, dusted off his hands, and frowned up at West. “But how this is any business of yours—”


West gave the man his most piercing stare, adopted his most menacing stance and tone. “Mr. Gordon is a very good friend of mine.” The proprietor merely blinked at him and waited for him to make his point. “You’ve been filling his orders for how long?”


“Five or six years, I believe. But it’s hardly my habit to discuss my customers with strangers. If I can be of no service to you, sir, I bid you good day.” Swanson made as if to turn toward his display counter, but West’s hand on his armed stopped him.


“Mr. Swanson, I need some information. Mr. Gordon is—is ill, and his cigars have been adulterated.”


The proprietor’s indignation at being so disrespectfully manhandled turned instantly to dismay that West read as genuine. “I assure you, sir, I stock only the finest examples of the cigar-maker’s art, blended myself from leaves packed to my specifications and imported from the most trusted sources—”


“I’m sure that’s true. This—adulteration—affects only Mr. Gordon’s supply. Think back—did anything out of the ordinary happen while you were filling his order—anything at all?”


Swanson slowly shook his head. “I can’t imagine what it would have been—not much excitement attends the making and selling of cigars.”


“Did you leave the shop even for a moment?” West pressed. “Did anything happen outside to distract you? It was only yesterday—you have to remember—”


Swanson edged away from his interrogator, disconcerted by West’s intensity but clearly doing his best to dredge some pertinent fact from his memory. Just then the bell rang as the street door opened, and into the shop came the customer in question.


West crossed the room in two strides. “Artie, what are you doing here?”


Gordon moved with deliberation, using a cane not as a prop or affectation but as a necessary support. “I’ve started some more tests, but they’ll take a couple of hours. I couldn’t stand waiting.”


Mr. Swanson had bustled over in West’s wake. “Mr. Gordon, I—words cannot express—I can’t tell you how sorry I am—”


Carefully Gordon waved a dismissive hand. “That’s all right, Mr. Swanson—I never for a moment suspected you.” His smile was a wan reflection of itself. Swaying a bit he sank into one of Swanson’s fine leather chairs, West lunging forward to grasp his elbow.


Mr. Swanson snapped his fingers. “That’s it! That little man!”


The two agents traded a bleak, unsurprised look. “‘Little man?’” West prompted.


“Yes, a dwarf. He was perusing my selection while I was packaging Mr. Gordon’s order, and he began to feel faint, so I sent my assistant for a doctor while I—got him some water from the washroom in the back—” His voice lost much of its force as he realized the significance of what he was saying.


“How long were you out of this room?”


“Two or three minutes, no more.”


“Plenty of time to open a few boxes and spray them with an anesthetic,” Gordon said. “It wouldn’t be as strong or act as fast as an injection, but he obviously wasn’t in any hurry or he’d have used a more efficient method.”


“Where is your assistant now?” West demanded of Swanson, eyes darting toward the curtained back room.


Mr. Swanson turned almost as pale as Gordon. “He quit the next day, and left no forwarding address.”


“How well did you know him?”


“Not at all—he’d been with me less than a week.”


“The doctor he brought for the little man—was he from the neighborhood?”


“I’ve seen him about, but I don’t know his name. He examined the man but detected no sign of illness, and shortly the little fellow went away in a private carriage.”


There was a silence. It was Gordon who broke it, with macabre humor. “Dead end.”


“There’s no such thing,” West snapped. To Swanson he said, “I want a description of the doctor and an estimate of how long it took him to get here, and I want a description of your erstwhile assistant.” Mr. Swanson did his best, able only to guess but nevertheless giving West some idea of how many blocks he might have to comb for a tall, stooped physician with a walrus mustache. “Did you have another assistant before this one?”


“Yes, a man who’d worked for me for several years.”


“What happened to him?”


“He received a legacy—a general store out Point Lobos road—left to him by an uncle he hadn’t heard from in years. His son and daughter work with him—the son is an apothecary. Gentlemen, I’ve known Bob Miller and his family for years. I can’t believe—I won’t believe—that he would have anything to do with something so monstrous!” Swanson had obviously come to the dire conclusion that Gordon, ashen-faced and uncharacteristically quiet, was not merely “ill.”


“He might not know the whole story,” West said. “Our enemy is perfectly capable of learning about and making use of a long-lost relative.” He obtained Miller’s new address, and he and Gordon thanked Swanson and took their leave.


“Mr. Gordon,” Swanson added, “I hope to see you right as rain again very soon, sir. And I’ll keep your next order under lock and key.”


Gordon’s acknowledging nod was cordial enough, but West could tell he didn’t expect to be placing any more orders—for anything.


Outside the sun had burned off the fog and the morning was cool and fresh; a breeze from the bay carried the smells of the morning’s catch and the sounds of its unloading. West helped Gordon into his waiting cab as he might help a frail old man, his sharp gaze searching his partner’s face. “Artie, you’d better get back to the train. I’ll let you know what I find out—”


Gordon sank back against the worn leather of the bench seat, slowly shaking his head. “Two leads, two of us. You take the doctor, I’ll take the long-lost relative—I’m afraid I’m not up to any hikes just now. Besides, I’ve met Bob Miller—he might talk to me more easily than—than he’d talk—”


What little color tinted his cheeks suddenly drained away and he sagged forward. West caught his shoulders and pushed him upright, then climbed into the carriage and sat facing him. “Artie— Artie!” Gordon’s pulse jumped and pounded in his throat; a sudden wash of sweat gleamed on his face and neck.


But before West could bark an order to the cabbie, Gordon began to come around, mumbling and shaking his head to clear it. “Sorry— Sorry, Jim. Little dizzy spell—”


“I’m taking you to the hospital.” Leaning past Gordon, he reached for the cabbie’s window, but Gordon’s shaking hand stayed his arm.


“What good will that do? You go on. These spells come and go—I’ll be all right for a while yet.” His color was indeed returning, and his eyes looked a little brighter than they had even in Swanson’s store.


West didn’t ask how many of “these spells” Artemus had already suffered. “But you should rest—surely too much exertion—”


“—will probably hasten the effects of the poison, true—but maybe I can come out alive anyway by saving you some legwork. To me it sounds like a chance worth taking. Jim—” and West flinched from an intensity he rarely saw on Gordon’s genial face “—I can’t just sit and wait to die!”


The cab rocked as the horse stamped impatiently. At the same moment both men exhaled their tension. West knew that in Gordon’s place he would feel the same way. With no further objection he hopped out of the cab, resting his hand a moment on Gordon’s where it had pulled the door shut. “See ya, Artie,” he said, with emphasis.


In his partner’s determined expression and in his simple words Gordon read the fierce promise to give his last breath in the search for the antidote to Loveless’s poison cocktail. Warmed and touched, he smiled. “See ya, Jim.”


West watched the cab pull away, hands curling into fists at his sides. And then he wrenched his thoughts to the job at hand.


If the doctor was legitimate and the assistant had been planted by Loveless for the purpose of alerting him to Artie’s next order of cigars, it wasn’t very likely that the false assistant would know where to find the nearest physician when his unsuspecting employer had sent him on his errand. He would simply have looked at office signs, or asked in neighboring shops. West did the same, and in a land office across the street he was directed to a Dr. Melton around the corner on Montgomery. He found the place with ease, a second-story surgery with tall east-facing windows at the top of a narrow staircase marked by a neatly lettered sign. Taking the stairs two at a time he found himself in a small waiting room; the acrid smell of carbolic made his nostrils tingle.


“How can I help you, sir?” asked the stout receptionist at the front desk. Her manner was distracted, her desk cluttered in a way that reminded West of the usual state of Artemus’s laboratory. On the adjacent wall hung a tintype of a doleful-looking gentleman about sixty years of age who possessed not only an impressive silver mustache but also a ferocious set of bushy, jet-black eyebrows. It was exactly the sort of disguise Artie would often don.


He gave himself an inward shake; he couldn’t think of Artie now. “Is that Dr. Melton?”


The receptionist peered at him over her pince-nez. “It is. And I am Mrs. Melton.”


“I’d like to see him, please.”


She reached for a record-book. “Name and complaint.”


“My name is James West, but I don’t have a complaint.” He lowered his voice. “I’m a government agent investigating an attempted murder. Dr. Melton might be able to provide some useful information.”


The woman gave a little gasp. “My goodness! Well—please take a seat, Mr. West. Doctor is with a patient but I’ll tell him you’re here.” She hurried down a narrow hallway.


West ignored the half-dozen chairs and paced the tiny waiting area past a sunken-chested man with an asthmatic wheeze who appeared to be engrossed in the morning Chronicle and a prim elderly lady knitting a bright purple scarf and muttering the stitch pattern to herself. Either could be one of Loveless’s apparently inexhaustible supply of minons, an innocent dupe or a trusted member of his inner circle; the vicious little genius made profligate use of both types of pawns. But the two paid West no attention—unlike the pretty, perfumed brunette at the end of the row, who was casting him coy glances from under her feathery lashes. His experienced eye tending to notice pretty young women, he remembered seeing her enter the building just before he had reached it. He gave her a polite but wary nod. Loveless employed pretty minions, too.


Taking his notice as an invitation, she said, “Dr. Melton tries not to keep patients waiting, or so I’ve heard. I’ve been here just a few minutes.”


“That’s good to know.” Under other circumstances he might have issued an invitation she wouldn’t have had to guess at—but as he drew nearer he could see in her eyes a calculating gleam that he decided he didn’t much care for. He reached the wall and reversed direction.


“And he provides interesting reading material,” she said, trying again as his restless stride brought him near. She held a copy of Harper’s Bazaar, but he hadn’t seen her actually read it. Her hands looked to him strong and sure and the slightest bit rough, as if they’d known manual labor of a moderate sort or for a short time—hands that didn’t quite go with her fine silk gown and elegantly coifed hair. He merely smiled.


As he passed before her she finally ventured rather forwardly, “Perhaps I might ask your advice, sir.”


Such a direct appeal he could not ignore. Concealing his reluctance, he sat down beside her. “James West, at your service, Miss—?”


Her pert chin tipped up. “Yes, ‘miss.’” She leaned toward him, abruptly bold and conspiratorial. “Miss Pearline Jones.”


If he’d been a dog his hackles would have bristled. So this was Pearline, who had done her level best to murder Artemus in cold blood. Members of the fairer but not always weaker sex had proved to be some of West’s most fiendish and merciless opponents, but they tended to hire out their dirty work. Pearline, in contrast, chose to do her own; even Artie, who for all his melodramatic protestations to the contrary wasn’t truly easily unnerved, had gone a little pale when relating his encounter with her.


“What a coincidence,” he said, knowing it wasn’t. “A friend of mine met a young lady by that unusual name just recently.”


“My—that is a coincidence!”


“Isn’t it. In fact, he still carries a memento of their meeting—a nearly broken heart.”


“Oh, how sad. Well, I’m sure he won’t suffer it very long,” she said brightly, and West’s lips thinned at her spiteful taunt. She laid the magazine aside. “Mr. West, you look like a man who appreciates the finer things in life. I wonder if you could recommend a purveyor of quality cigars. I need to find just the right birthday present for my dear intended.” Her eyes danced with unwholesome amusement.


West said flatly, “Your ‘dear intended’ wouldn’t happen to be scientifically inclined, and a little on the short side?”


She beamed at him, enjoying herself immensely. “Why yes! However did you know?”


His own smile was cold. “Oh, just a lucky guess. It’s funny how often that happens to me.” Nerves beating a tattoo on the inside of his skin, he readied himself to fend off attack—subtle or otherwise—or to pursue her if she ran.


Mrs. Melton chose that moment to return, for all her generous size stepping neatly over the outstretched legs of the asthmatic man, who was now dozing, and the elderly lady’s trailing scarf. “The doctor is available now, Mr. West. I’ll show you to his office.”


Miss Pearline Jones suddenly sprang up from her chair. “Oh no! I just remembered that I have another appointment—with my intended, in fact,” she added in a significant aside to West. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Melton, but I must come back another time. It was very nice talking with you, Mr. West.”


Of course it was a trap, her parting words a dare. Without hesitation he jumped up to follow.


“Sorry to have troubled you, ma’am,” he flung over his shoulder as he hurried out the door and down the stairs after the pretty snake named Pearline.


Block after block he followed her, at a breathless pace that told him she didn’t wear her stays very tight—uphill and down, across broad avenues and through connecting alleys, past shops and banks and offices and warehouses in an involuntary walking tour of a fair portion of the city. Presently a dozen clocks began to chime the noon hour, and Pearline looked often over her shoulder to make sure she wasn’t about to lose him in the crowd of workers emerging from offices and shops in search of lunch.


They reached a district of warehouses and wholesalers, where pedestrian and carriage traffic was lighter but the streets were crammed with many more delivery carts and heavy freight wagons. At last Pearline slipped furtively into an alley and from there through the side door of a paint factory; West wasn’t close enough to see whether she had picked the lock or used a key. A minute later he slipped in behind her—of course she had left the door unlocked—and felt his eyes trying to adjust to the inadequate light. When he could make out the sink and pump along one wall and the pallets of stacked paint cans ahead of him, he stepped forward and waited for the inevitable welcoming committee to emerge from the shadows.


They didn’t make him wait long, sidling out from behind the pallets in twos and threes—eight large hirelings with the battered noses and missing teeth and cauliflower ears that indicated frequent similar employment. Most of them also possessed the brutish demeanor of Loveless’s typical muscle-men—mere thugs, and because stupid men didn’t work as a team and didn’t employ any strategy beyond hitting or butting as hard as they could, they wouldn’t be much of a challenge provided he could keep all eight from rushing him at the same time. They formed a ragged circle around him, slowly advancing, and for an instant he thought he heard a high-pitched giggle overhead, quickly smothered—but he didn’t have time for more than a glance toward the storage loft before the first three charged.


He launched himself at them horizontally so that they fell backward beneath his weight into two more of their number. While those five untangled themselves, clumsy and slow as big men often were, he charged the other three. These, however, quickly separated so his fists and boots couldn’t reach more than one at a time, and spaced themselves so that if he charged one the others could easily flank him. These three weren’t mere thugs, West realized, coming to a tense halt; Loveless had found himself a few smart fighters.


His blood rose to the challenge, eyes glinting behind a determined scowl as he set himself in his fighting stance and took their measure, watched as they chose their positions, watched how they carried their weight, looking for a tendency to shift to the left or right, to settle too far forward or back on their feet. They were tallish, stocky men, Loveless’s obsessive resentment of his own small stature blinding him to the occasional disadvantage of bulk. Though lighter on their feet than the five beginning to rise from the floor, they weren’t as quick as West himself, weren’t as low in their fighters’ crouch, or as flexible in their knees and ankles. Always, he was alert for hands moving too close to holsters or boot-knives. Always, he was aware of the first five where they now hung back awaiting their chance to strike. Their big hands twitched over their weapons, but they couldn’t fire yet without hitting one of their own—not that Loveless would care.


Of the three smart ones, the burly man to West’s left stood with his knees nearly straight and his weight back on his heels; he would be a second or two slower to spring than the red-haired man in the center, who balanced well forward on the balls of his feet. The man with the toothy grin to West’s right was left-handed and wore his gunbelt too low to allow for free movement in the hips. West leaped sideways and as he came down jammed his boot-heel like a piston into Smiley’s knee. Screaming as the ligaments tore, Smiley went down hard on his gun arm; West heard the elbow crack on the concrete floor.


Assuming that West was now off-balance, Red was drawing a thick arm back to punch. West retreated one strategic step, crouched, and leaped high, driving his heel into Red’s jaw; Red’s head snapped back so hard his hat flew off. Already unconscious, he toppled into Burly, who had finally managed to shift his considerable weight onto the balls of his feet and start forward; not agile enough to sidestep Red’s inexorable fall, he collided with Red with the doubled force of their two moving bodies and tumbled backward with Red’s full weight on top of him.


While Burly struggled to extricate himself, West plowed into the other five, taking advantage of their befuddlement at the swiftness with which he’d dispatched the cream of Loveless’s crop of minions. Two were standing close together; one right cross shattered both their noses and thrust them several feet backward, sprays of blood on the floor in their wake. West now had space to set up and deliver a left uppercut to the green-vested solar plexus of the third. As that one crumpled out of his way to the right, he swiveled into a roundhouse kick that caught the ribs of the fourth man as he stepped forward into position; arms flailing instead of punching, that one tumbled down in a heap. The fifth man had second thoughts about the whole job and scuttled out the door.


The man in the green vest had regained his feet. Bull-like, he lowered his head and drove toward West’s stomach; but he was gasping for breath, unsteady with no power in his legs, and West had only to grasp his shoulders and knee him hard in the jaw to send him sprawling backward into a neat stack of paint cans that obligingly rained down on all four groaning men. Lids popped off and the floor and its occupants were drenched with a thick, colorful flood. The groans ceased.


Whip-corded arms closed around West from behind: Burly, freed at last of Red’s smothering dead weight. West simply grabbed one meaty arm, thrust back with his hips for leverage, and flipped Burly over his shoulders, pulling hard on the wrist to dislocate the elbow and shoulder as Burly landed, screeching in pain.


Smart, but not smart enough.


Brushing the dust off his knees and straightening his jacket, West prepared to obtain some answers. Pearline, of course, was nowhere to be seen. He was just pumping some water into a pail so he could splash Burly awake when a cannonball smashed into the side of his head and the sun exploded in his skull.


As he crashed to his knees, fingers clawing at the sink for support so he wouldn’t slam face-first into the unforgiving floor, the weapon slid into his view, poised to deal a second, possibly fatal blow. He saw that it was, in fact, a cannonball, a four-pounder chained to a six-foot-long staff of heavy oak like a murderous Puritan sleep-vanisher, wielded by a familiar gloating figure who snorted and pranced with self-congratulatory glee.


Half-expecting a surprise blow, West had kept one ear cocked behind him; he’d heard the uneven, scuffing stride and the rustle of clothing, the grunt of great effort from so small a man, though Loveless was strong for his size and as quick as a child in his movements. He’d been turning to meet the new threat so the weapon had clipped his head a little off-center; he wasn’t quite unconscious when the thugs, dripping slate blue and canary yellow as they clambered to their feet spitting teeth and blood, began to drag him into the darkness beyond the splash of light from the front windows; wasn’t so far gone that he couldn’t smell Pearline’s perfume or hear the cackling and clapping that accompanied the scrape of his heels on the rough floor. He managed to yank his left arm away from the two ham-sized hands gripping it, but a boot jabbed his ribs and the convulsion of his body caused more lights to explode behind his eyes, and after that everything went black and silent.

 

********************

Gradually the brick and cobblestone and plank streets of the established city gave way to the churned dirt and construction sites of the farflung Point Lobos toll road and its intersecting avenues, and as the cab began to rock uneasily over ruts and drop into potholes Gordon added nausea to his growing list of symptoms. He made a clinical note of the time and the degree of severity, in the hope that such information might prove useful—to himself or to the doctors Colonel Richmond was harassing at the Presidio hospital. He gave heartfelt thanks to whatever deities concerned themselves with the welfare of brave, resourceful, and occasionally foolhardy Secret Service agents that he had in his corner someone capable of protracted authoritarian harassment: Jim didn’t have the patience for anything protracted and he himself didn’t have the stamina. Only hours after the administration of the poison he was forced to accept the chore requiring the least exertion, when usually it was he who combed every saloon on a waterfront, every cove on a hundred miles of river, every records office in ten counties—Jim not usually having the patience for that, either.


At the moment Gordon’s appreciation of Jim West’s impatience and consequent efficiency was beyond even his own considerable eloquence. “‘The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel—’”


With a shake of his head he gathered in his rambling thoughts. Though his very life depended on his usually keen ability to spot a tangible clue or register a discrepancy in something he read or was told, he was finding it harder and harder to stay focused on the task at hand. He must make the most of his talk with Bob Miller and then go back to the lab to check the results of his tests, though at the rate his symptoms were progressing his strength would probably fail before he could contribute anything worthwhile to his own salvation—or vengeance. Gigantic in triumph, Loveless would tower at the edge of his grave and send him into death with an impish snigger and a song—


“Pardon me, sir, but we’re here—”


Gordon came to himself with a start that almost convulsed his queasy stomach into an unfortunate emission all over the cab. He swallowed hard. “Sorry—must have dozed off—” Peering first out the door the cabbie was holding open and then out the opposite window, he saw no sign among the new frame buildings announcing the premises of Miller’s General Store.


“You’ll have to walk about half a block, sir,” the cabbie explained, with a comical mixture of apology for inadequate service and impatience to get back to the city and its frequent fares of which Gordon made automatic note for use in a future characterization—if I ever get the chance. “Couldn’t get right up to the door for all the builders’ wagons and supply carts, and if I stopped in the street we’d soon be part of it.”


“Never mind—I’ll manage.”


Half a block, he thought with an inward groan. Thirty paces at most, but it might as well have been thirty miles—in lead boots. Using both the door handle and his cane for leverage and balance, he pulled himself forward and succeeded in exiting the cab without crumpling to his knees. When he paid the cabbie twice what he owed him so far, the man’s forbearance became suddenly limitless, and he arranged himself on his box for a snooze.


The half-block was, of course, uphill, and by the time he shuffled into Bob Miller’s store Gordon was sweating so copiously he was surely leaving wet footprints on the new boardwalk even through his shoes, and all his deep, slow breaths could not calm the sick fluttering of his heart. A brisk rub of his eyes did nothing to dispel the black pulsing fog that clouded his vision, but employing the cane as a blind man would he was able to navigate through the store without bumping into display tables or knocking over the tidy stacks of bottles or cans or boxes.


The young lady who greeted him from the counter was somewhat blurry about her shapely edges, but he assumed she was pretty because most young women struck him as pretty in their wondrously varied ways.


“Good morning, miss.” His actor’s ears detecting the thready tremor in his voice, he cleared his throat and strove to sound hearty. “I’m looking for Mr. Robert Miller.”


“I’m afraid he’s away from the city until tomorrow afternoon.”


Braced against the cane, Gordon’s left arm spasmed and nearly buckled. He had imagined many possible disasters, but not something so simple or so irredeemably final. He clung to the edge of the counter for balance; the nearest chair was several impossible steps away. “That is most unfortunate—you see, I’m somewhat pressed for time—”


“I’m his daughter and business partner, Miss Josephine Miller. Jo,” she amended in her pleasing soprano. “Perhaps I could help you?”


He was near enough now to see that her eyes were a sparkling cornflower blue, her smile intelligent and earnest. Could she be involved? Could such forthright loveliness be tainted by megalomania or—more mundane but in this case no less lethal—greed? Perish the thought—but he dared not make that assumption and therefore dared not tell her the truth, even as much of the truth as he and Jim had let on to Mr. Swanson. Or so he told himself—but perhaps he simply didn’t want to see those luminous eyes dim with pity.


“And business partner? Capital, capital! Well, I’d be very grateful if you would try, Miss Miller. My name is Artemus Gordon. I was directed here by your father’s former employer, Mr. Swanson, who informed me of his happy windfall.” He looked about the store with an admiring air, and made a carefully expansive gesture with the hand that held the cane while his left hand tightened on the counter. His knees trembled slightly. “May I say that this is a fine establishment, so bright and cheerful—I see so many quality items for all manner of customer—gentlemen and ladies, families—a veritable emporium!”


He turned back to her too quickly and the room tilted; lurching into a wider stance he thrust a knee against the counter, below the shelf where she couldn’t see—but Miss Miller was not an apothecary’s sister for nothing.


“Mr. Gordon, do forgive me for prying, but—are you quite well?”


“A—bit of a headache, that’s all, but I do thank you for asking.” He bestowed upon her a paternal smile that was not entirely shammed; fatherly feelings were not at all his usual reaction to lovely young ladies, but today he was shatteringly mortal, measuring his remaining span in hours rather than the decades to which he should have been entitled, given that Great-aunt Maude had ruled the family until she was a hundred and two. “You’ve a sharp eye, my dear; it’s no wonder your father avails himself of your business acumen.” His own vision was much less than sharp—he could no more describe the goods arrayed against the far wall than he could describe the man in the moon—but he made sure not to squint at her.


In the gentle sunlight through the clerestory windows, however, he could see the faint flush of pride rising to her cheeks. “I do wish Papa could hear your praise—he’s dreamed of a store like this for so many years. He used to make inventory lists and design displays with the items in Mama’s pantry.” The faintest glimmer of moisture appeared in her eyes, a sign of fond remembrance and grief, but grief was quickly erased by delight. “And then just last week he received this wonderful store as a legacy from an uncle who came west from Kentucky in ’49—to make his fortune, of course, but no one in the family had ever heard from him again and so had assumed he’d died, but Papa says Uncle Pratt fooled us all. It was so kind of Uncle to remember him in his will—Papa said that really he should name the store ‘Pratt’s.’ Once the papers were signed Papa was able to take over right away—in fact it was a condition of the legacy, though Papa hated to leave Mr. Swanson on such short notice, but there are always men looking for work in the city and Mr. Swanson was able to replace him almost at once, I believe.”


“Yes, that was a lucky thing, wasn’t it—?”


Miss Miller had to excuse herself in order to sell some horehound drops and licorice and peppermints to three rowdy boys, and when she returned Gordon eased into his questioning before she could resume her reminiscences.


“I sought out your father, in fact, because I hoped to obtain from him some necessary information on the very subject of Uncle Pratt, or rather of another of his legatees whom I’ve been unable to locate.” Let her think him a lawyer, or a detective in the Pinkerton mode; even Mr. Swanson was unaware of his true occupation. “I don’t suppose your father ever mentioned a man by the name of Horace P. Wimmelwart?”


She couldn’t suppress a giggle; her hand pressed becomingly against her bosom. “No, I’m afraid not, and I do think I would remember such a name as that!”


He joined in her laughter, though it made his head pound. “Yes, it is distinctive, isn’t it? One pities the poor schoolboy— Well, perhaps I might find something helpful among the papers your father was sent from Mr. Pratt’s representatives. I presume he retained all the relevant correspondence?”


“Oh yes—he’s very thorough with regard to business matters. Mama used to say they wouldn’t have to dig him a grave—they could just bury him in paper. But he’s taken a large order out to the Cliff House and is planning to stay the night.”


“Yes, well, that’s too bad—” For an instant Gordon was at a loss for words; her mention of graves and burials had shaken him right out of character. “I—I believe I indicated that I haven’t very much time—I must be aboard the 3:05 to Denver—an urgent case, can’t be put off— Do you know where your father keeps his correspondence?”


Her hesitant glance toward the back room was his answer. “Mr. Gordon, I’m sorry for your predicament, but I don’t feel it’s my place to discuss my father’s affairs.”


“But—you are his business partner?”


“Ye-es—”


Under other circumstances he would simply have returned after hours and searched the back room, but he thought it very probable that “after hours” would find him incapacitated. “I assure you, Miss Miller, that I don’t want to take the papers away, only to make a few notes and look for some hint of Horace P. Wimmelwart’s whereabouts—and that was a mouthful, wasn’t it?” he added with the perfect rueful chuckle. His tactic paid off; she had to stifle another giggle and was obviously feeling a certain camaraderie with a friendly and amusing gentleman who needed her help. “You wouldn’t want to deprive him of the same opportunity your father has enjoyed, would you?”


She squared her shoulders, abruptly decisive. “No, I would not,” she declared. “Papa was so sad after Mama died last year, and now he’s embracing life again—” The guardian angels of Secret Service agents had not forsaken him; he had stumbled upon just the right comment. “Please wait here a moment, Mr. Gordon—I’ll get them.”


She disappeared through the curtained doorway and he could hear her opening and closing heavy drawers and flipping through files. He fretted that she wouldn’t find them, that Loveless had hired thieves to sneak in and steal them—


Suddenly Loveless himself popped up from behind the counter, nose and fingers resting on the edge next to Miss Miller’s vase of nasturtiums and pinks. He clambered up a stool and strutted along the thickly varnished oak, a foot taller than Gordon now, chest puffed out and thumbs thrust into vest pockets—


Gordon stumbled back, coming up sharply against a rack of ladies’ footwear. Several pairs of button boots clattered to the floor, and when he unwisely bent to pick them up he nearly fainted. The room was swimming again, and his legs were buckling. Though he hated to risk disrupting his artful characterization, he tottered over to the distant chair and half-fell into it, sitting with his feet spread wide against a floor that seemed to tilt, one hand clutching the seat, the other thrusting his cane against the planks as if he were trying to stand upright on a storm-pitched deck. Slowly, deeply, he filled his straining lungs, trying to regulate his stuttering pulse, trying not to be sick.


Probably he was wasting his last breaths in futile effort. Why should Loveless have bothered to formulate an antidote if his object was to rid himself of one or both of his peskiest antagonists? He might as well resign himself to the inevitable outcome—The undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns—


“Always imagining the worst,” he was muttering to himself when Miss Miller returned with a slim folder.


“I beg your pardon?” she asked, startled.  He couldn’t bring her face into focus, and he must have squinted this time, for she added with new concern, “Mr. Gordon, you are ill. Let me get you a tonic. My brother is making deliveries right now but he keeps some general concoctions on hand—he’s an apothecary, you know—”


Gordon dabbed at his forehead with his handkerchief, striving to invest the pathetic gesture with a bit of flair. “Thank you, my dear—you’re very kind, but in the last few days I’ve had enough concoctions to last a lifetime. I’ll just peruse those papers quickly and be on my way.”


Though Miss Miller’s concern was not assuaged she could hardly insist, and reluctantly she handed him the folder. The paper and the handwriting were the same as in the message Loveless had placed aboard the train. “May I ask how these were conveyed to your father?”


“The nicest little man came to our house one evening after supper. A dwarf.”


Of course Loveless had visited them himself—the good doctor taking a personal interest again, controlling as many aspects of his scheme as he could. “A dwarf?” Gordon said rather casually. “Unusual, I must say.” He could easily picture Loveless’s merry self-satisfaction as he dribbled out his careful crumbs.


“His name is Mr. Michaels. I must have stared at him in quite a rude fashion, because I’d never seen a dwarf before, not up close, only read about them, and my brother went once to a fair—but he was so kind and polite, and didn’t seem to take offense. I suppose he must be used to being stared at, poor man. Such a shame, because he’s really quite handsome and elegant—” Abruptly she frowned. “But wouldn’t you know Mr. Michaels, if you’re both working on Uncle Pratt’s will?”


“I am retained by Mr. Wimmelwart’s family,” Gordon replied smoothly.


“Oh, I see. Well, Mr. Michaels explained the terms of the will and promised to oversee Uncle Pratt’s investments and report to Papa regularly.”


“Did he? How thoughtful of him.”


He’d have to tell Jim to warn the Millers later, to convince them of the true nature of their charming little benefactor, in case Loveless really did have plans to continue his association with them, to blackmail them into delivering supplies to his innumerable hideouts, or to use the store as a way station for smuggled goods or as a dispersal point for stolen money, or even as another avenue—this time through business ownership—toward a run for the governorship of California. Just now Gordon literally didn’t have time for long explanations or the inevitable cascade of questions this particular explanation would inspire. He noted the name of the legal firm on the will so he or Jim could check its legitimacy, wondering if Miller himself had done so—but why would he, when the title to the building was also included in the papers? He wondered if the title itself was genuine. If it wasn’t, the Millers were in for real heartache when they learned the truth. Something else for Jim to look into—


A small stream of customers spared him the necessity of excusing himself to read; he couldn’t afford to risk making Miss Miller change her mind by appearing rude. Before his aching eyes the words swam on the paper, black specks floating on an undulating creamy sea; he struggled to clear his vision and his thoughts. Loveless might not have actually invented a long-lost relative but he had certainly resurrected one, and Bob Miller—in Gordon’s estimation as ingenuous and as disinclined to suspicion as his daughter—would have had no reason to question such a change in his circumstances when he really had had an Uncle Pratt who really had come west to make his fortune. He made a sketch of the stamp and its fancy-cancel postmark, and held each page and the envelope up to the light. At first glance nothing struck him as unmistakably a clue, and a few discreet sprays from the atomizer in his pocket revealed no invisible ink; but there were place names he could research through the Data Bureau, proper names that might be anagrams, a few phrases that struck him as peculiar in one way or another, possible ciphers in the will itself—which was brief enough that he needed only a few minutes to copy it down in his notebook in his own personal shorthand. The cover letter he quickly memorized. With any luck, and the further blessings of those helpful Secret Service deities, something here would tie in with whatever leads Jim was even now uncovering.


Blackness hovered again at the edge of his vision. Nightshade, he thought giddily, shade of night—


He didn’t have much time.


As he stood to return the papers to Miss Miller where she was tidying the disarranged shoes, every blood vessel in his body seemed to empty and then fill again; his pulse roared in his ears and for an instant his vision went black. He clutched at the chair and willed himself not to pass out, and by the time his vision cleared Miss Miller had laid her hands against his cheeks and forehead, her palms cool against his hot skin.


“You have a terrific fever, Mr. Gordon. You should really see a doctor.”


He suspected that his attempt at a wry smile looked rather more like a grimace. “In fact a doctor has seen me, my dear.” He had no doubt that Loveless had administered the injection personally. “It’s a passing ailment, nothing serious.” On a sudden impulse he lifted the back of her hand to his lips, perhaps his last bit of gallantry in this world. “Miss Jo, you are as kind as you are lovely. I hope you will relay my very best wishes to your father. I’m so pleased for you all that something good has come of—of Uncle Pratt’s adventures.”


Blushing and stammering, she waved him out the door and into the rush of clerks and copyists and shopgirls buying sandwiches and coffee and pastries at the lunch wagons causing bottlenecks on the boardwalks. He found himself trying to move against the tide, pushing and shoving to make himself a path, inserting an arm and then a shoulder to wedge himself through gaps too small for a monkey. He had to get back to the train and make some notes or his effort would truly have been in vain—but his strength was fading and his forward progress was agonizingly slow. With every downhill step he felt as if he were about to tumble off the edge of the earth; his uncertain eyesight distorted his view of the boardwalk and he slapped and shuffled his feet like the sots he had often impersonated. From the street the crunch and squeak of carriage wheels and the thud of hooves hammered in his ears; the boardwalk trembled and rumbled underfoot with the ceaseless tread of pedestrians; whinnies and shouts and laughter reverberated in his skull. He slipped and fell and people helped him up, but though he uttered words of thanks their faces were all a blur, their solicitous phrases an incomprehensible drone.


He almost staggered past the cab, but the cabbie spotted him and hopped down to tap his elbow. Gordon gasped out, “Presidio Depot—private siding—,” then crawled inside and pulled the curtains closed.


The seat opposite him was occupied by a tittering dwarf, bouncing up and down on the seat and clapping his hands, a polished, manic imp in a gray frock coat and a froth of ruffles above his paisley vest.


Gordon reared back on his seat, one hand fumbling at his vest buttons for a pellet of knockout gas, the other at his inside coat pocket for his handkerchief—


The figure vanished, but the titters echoed around him, mocking his puny efforts to save himself. He could still hear the clapping hands. Slender, artistic hands, incongruous on such a stunted body, long-fingered hands adept at sculpting clay or flesh, wielding paintbrush or scalpel, spidery fingers dancing over the invisible strands of far-reaching webs that ensnared and constricted— The triumphant cackling and clapping continued, punctuated with crowing and then with words—You’re too late this time, Artemus Gordon, too late—

 

********************

West stirred, lifted his aching head, and opened his eyes. A rat was perched on his boot, the contempt in its beady eyes reminding him, disconcertingly, of Dr. Loveless. Any second now it would start singing—


He kicked it off and jumped to his feet—but he was alone in a wet, stinking alley behind a row of fifth-rate chophouses, judging from the sour stench of moldy onions and rancid oil and rotting meat. As he stumbled out of the alley and squinted into the afternoon sunshine looking for a street sign, a bank clock chimed half past three. Three hours lost to oblivion. And they’d brought him nearly to Twin Peaks; half the city lay between him and Dr. Melton’s surgery, to which he would have to return if he had any hope of tracing Pearline—more time lost to a delaying tactic no less effective for its pettiness. A cold burst of anger settled inside him like fuel as he swung aboard an approaching horsecar.


He reached his destination as the fourth chime from the church tower down the block still hummed in the air. Quickly ascending the stairs, pain lancing through his head and side with every step, he was dismayed to meet Mrs. Melton on the landing. Panting, he blocked her way down.


“Excuse me, ma’am, but you aren’t closing the surgery so early, are you?”


“I beg your pardon, young man?” Her nose wrinkled, and he became aware that after a brawl and then a nap in a restaurant alley, he didn’t smell much like bay rum anymore.


“You might remember me from this morning—James West. I’m a government agent—”


Her indignant frown became a glare. “Oh yes.” Sharp green eyes narrowed formidably. “You left rather suddenly, Mr. West, and after Doctor had interrupted a consultation to speak with you.”


“Yes, ma’am, I’m sorry about that, but I have to follow leads when they present themselves, even if others are inconvenienced. Mrs. Melton, the young woman who left just before I did—Miss Pearline Jones—I need whatever information you have on her in your files.”


The redoubtable Mrs. Melton drew her wrap more tightly about her ample shoulders. “It’s Wednesday. Doctor closes early on Wednesdays to visit shut-ins.”


“Unless Miss Jones is a regular patient, which I very much doubt, I don’t need to see Dr. Melton after all. Just your files.” She showed no sign of yielding. “It is an emergency, ma’am.”


She blew air out through her nose. “And how would you like it if a doctor’s staff told anyone who asked all the private details in your file, Mr. West?”


“If I knew that the doctor’s ‘staff’ would be arrested for obstruction of justice if she didn’t comply with the government agent who was doing the asking, I’d probably understand.” She didn’t so much as blink. He took a small step toward her. “The files, Mrs. Melton?”


Her rather thin lips pursing with irritation, she gave way at last, turning to huff her way back up the stairs. “Since you put it that way, I’m sure Doctor will understand.”


West bounced impatiently on his toes while she fumbled with her keys and turned up the gaslights in the anteroom, but froze in sudden suspicion when she handed him a file folder conveniently awaiting his attentions on the top of her desk. “Why was this out?” He glanced around the room, checked the hallway for furtive movement or the sound of a quick, scuffing stride.


“I hadn’t filed it yet because there’s nothing in it.”


West snapped the folder open, nearly tearing its spine. It was empty.


“Today was Miss Jones’s first visit to Doctor,” Mrs. Melton informed him—rather defensively, as if she feared he might hold her responsible.


“I’ll bet it was also her last,” he muttered.


He was gripped by a despondence the likes of which he had rarely known. Dead end. He couldn’t go back to Artie with nothing.


Enraged, he flung the folder onto the desk and Mrs. Melton jumped with alarm—but West barely noticed, because he could now see the address printed neatly on the back.


No. 10-A 2nd St. A lead he was meant to find and to follow, certainly, but Loveless was never so straightforward.


He took polite leave of the disapproving Mrs. Melton and hurried away to Tenth Street.

 

********************

Gordon’s prison was suddenly washed with watery sunshine, partly blocked by a man in silhouette. He squinted and blinked. “Jim?”


“Beg pardon, sir?”


No, not Jim—the cab driver, staring at him where he lay wedged in a corner of the seat. He passed a hand over his eyes as if he was just waking up. “Have we reached the depot?”


The cabbie puffed up with pride. “That we have, sir, and in record time, too. The private siding, as requested.”


Gordon clambered out of the cab with little grace but no actual fall, though after he paid his fare and climbed the mountainous steps into the parlor on legs the consistency of jelly he had to rest on the sofa before he could manage the remaining distance to the lab halfway down the car. Once there he removed his coat and vest and rolled up his sleeves, but sweat continued to pour from him so that his sodden shirt clung to his chest and back and he had to mop his face repeatedly in order to see what he was doing. Checking color changes in test tubes and the rates of sedimentation and evaporation in beakers and retorts, he found that his tests of blood and of gastric and respiratory secretions had in fact determined the proportion of belladonna and also the presence of a curare derivative, another ingredient Loveless had neglected to mention. He tried to be pleased, but the information was still of limited use without the complete formula. As he amended the list of ingredients he could hardly hold the pen and his hand left damp spots on the paper; his usually neat penmanship was sloppy and splotched with puddles of ink. Turning his attention to the false documents, he began to reproduce the will and cover letter from memory and his shorthand notes, making lists of words, circling letters, marking curious repetitions; he’d switched to pencil, but even then he smudged his lines badly, the result like an old man’s shaky scrawl.


He rarely thought about growing old. Given their profession neither he nor Jim really expected to live to a ripe old age of veneration and wisdom, Great-aunt Maude’s longevity notwithstanding. His dignity was offended, however, that he might be cheated of a heroic exit while saving the President or the nation, a diplomat or a visiting monarch or a gorgeous and amorously appreciative damsel in distress. While saving Jim, perhaps— He would have counted his life’s end worthwhile if he’d been able to spend it saving Jim. Such times the two of them had shared—grand, sweet, uproarious times: wine, women, laughter, and song; exultation and grief; peril and triumph and defeat; hair’s-breadth rescues that might have cheated death once too often— So many things he’d wanted to do before his last curtain call; but he had known Jim West, and maybe that was enough.


With effort he directed his wandering wits back to the task at hand, and began to notice a pattern in the words, a repeating rhythm of short and long syllables in the style of Morse code but of Loveless’s own invention. On a separate sheet of paper he diagramed the sentences using short and long slash marks to indicate the syllabic stresses. The language of the documents was itself fairly straightforward, with the exception of several ten-pound words employed where five-pounders would have served, even in a communication of a legal nature. These he wrote out on yet another sheet of paper and began to look for anagrams. Muscle spasms clenched and jerked his hands and arms so that the pencil gouged holes and made jagged lines on the paper; he could hardly read the notes he made.


Blowing into the voice-pipe strained his burning lungs and made him cough and wheeze, but Joe heard him and answered his summons, and was soon on his way with a message to Colonel Richmond. In Jim’s absence he had to report to somebody, but his hands weren’t steady enough for the telegraph; any message he sent would be nothing more than gibberish at the receiving end. Likewise, it was becoming apparent that he would never be able to produce a coherent written account of his researches. If the colonel wasn’t available he’d make his report to Joe, security clearance be hanged. He knew what Loveless was up to now, knew where he was, had to write it all down— Feverishly he scribbled more notes, drew lines to connect related syllables and circles to highlight revealing words and phrases, demanding more movement from muscles and joints that wanted to lock, fighting the hovering darkness—

 

********************

Number 2 Tenth Street was a three-story boarding house of characterless brick but with pretty gingham curtains in the windows facing the street, though dry rot and peeling paint on the trim marred the cheerful effect. The building contained six rented rooms, two on each floor, room A being situated just inside the front door on the left. West wondered if Pearline had lived here before Loveless had recruited her, or if she’d been installed especially for this particular scheme. He noted the agent’s name and address pasted on the wall near the mailboxes in the cramped and musty foyer, but he fully expected to find his next lead in the room, even if he didn’t find Pearline.


She was there, however, answering his knock just as he was reaching behind his lapel for his lockpick. At the sight of him she took a surprised step backward, her mouth opened in a provocative o.


He didn’t wait for an invitation but strode past her into the cozy room, quickly checking for other occupants before swinging around to face her. She was alone. “You didn’t wait to hear my recommendation about a cigar shop,” he said, challenge in his tone. “That was a neat trick—reversing your address. Did your ‘intended’ come up with it?” He wondered if she genuinely believed that Loveless was her intended, wondered if she knew the true circumstances of Belladonna’s departure and how precarious her own status might be in the doctor’s affections.


She drew herself up with a pout. “He’s very clever.”


He took a step toward her. “I’m cleverer.” Alert for the slightest change in her expression, he caught the hint of the fascinated smile that tugged at her lips. He had scored a point. “What I want to know is, are you bait, or a prize?” He scanned the walls, looking for mirrors that might look back, gouges in the faded striped paper that might be peepholes. “Is he watching us?”


“Of course not.” She didn’t give the lie to her assertion by glancing toward a blank spot in the wall or a dresser that might hide a secret panel; she gave no indication that Loveless was near. Abruptly she was smug. “He’s busy elsewhere.”


West’s heart gave a little thud. Busy with Artemus? When he took another step toward her she held her ground; in fact her eyes seemed to flare a little wider. His subtly threatening demeanor was only partly an act. He’d been up all night, been lured by her into a long walk and then a fight, been clouted on the head, kicked in the ribs, and dumped in an alley; he was very angry and he was in a very great hurry.


His next step brought him near enough to take her into his arms.


“If you get fresh I shall scream,” she declared. Her warm breath smelled of peppermint.


“No, you won’t.” He got fresh, and she didn’t scream. Her lips were soft and hungry. “You do enjoy your work, don’t you? Do you always play both sides?”


“Only when both sides have something to offer.”


When he pulled her more snugly against him she did not resist. “I know what I can offer. What about Dr. Loveless?”


She smiled and leaned in to nibble on his earlobe. “The usual enticements. Money, power—”


“And luxurious surroundings. Yes, I can see how that would be irresistible.”


“You don’t think I live here? I was simply waiting for you.” Her fingers brushed against his lips. “I must admit that I wasn’t expecting you until after you’d found the clue in the room on Second Street. But Miguelito told me I was underestimating you.”


“I’m flattered. I suppose you were watching us in the cigar shop.”


“Of course, and we knew when you started for Dr. Melton’s. I’d arrived only a moment before you did.”


“Yes, I noticed you.”


“And now I’m flattered.” She purred appreciatively as he nuzzled her neck.


“I realize I’m a little ahead of schedule,” he murmured, the movement of his lips a caress on her velvety skin, “but aren’t you supposed to take me somewhere?”


Within the circle of his arms, she drew far enough away to regard him with a saucy tilt of her head. “Another lucky guess?”


“A deduction based on experience. Your boss should be less predictable.”


Her laugh was a gentle, melodic trill that nonetheless contained a layer of the same unpleasant derision he’d heard only hours before. “Poison isn’t unpredictable enough for you?”


He shoved her away, lips curling with distaste, certain now that her fascination wasn’t strong enough to tempt her further than a few kisses; he could not make her an ally. “Lead on, Lucretia.”


Her disdainful smile announcing that he, too, had been more than a little predictable, she opened the door. He gestured her out and followed, but at once she turned back with a soft exclamation.


“Oh! I forgot my wrap. I’ll be right with you.”


He was diving at the door even as it slammed shut behind her, but it was already locked. He kicked it in and burst past the splintered jamb—into an empty room. One spring took him to the window, the only visible exit, but there was no sign of her in the bustling crowd, and the window itself was stuck tight.


Furious, he searched the room quickly but thoroughly, upending furniture, emptying drawers, pulling up the rugs and coughing from the dust—squandering more moments of Artie’s life, growing more and more incensed by Loveless’s cruelly casual revenge. His head pounded; his ribs ached. He couldn’t shake the feeling that Loveless was watching him, but another close examination of the walls and ceiling yielded nothing.


At last he discovered an anomalous item pinned to the inside of a cabinet door: a handbill announcing the visit of a theater troupe to a town called—rather optimistically, since it was nowhere near a railroad line—Whistle Stop, about forty miles south of San Francisco. In a sparsely furnished room rented for a brief time for limited purpose, in which he had found only a moth-eaten sweater, two cans of tomatoes, a tin of soda crackers, and a cake of rose-scented soap, here was a colorful advertisement that promised thrilling operatic arias, astonishing sleight of hand, and dramatic scenes from the Bard—all types of performance at which Artie excelled and the mere mention of which called him immediately to his partner’s mind. It was true that the handbill was over a year old and might have been left by a previous tenant, and that many itinerant theater companies offered similar attractions; but given that he was clearly expected to find a clue in this room, he simply couldn’t view the discovery as a coincidence.


Still, it was a gamble, and there were other avenues he could explore. He could search for the clue at Number 10-A Second Street; he could question the agents for that property and this one; he could question the owner of the paint factory. Those investigations would take several hours. Riding the forty miles to Whistle Stop and back would take many more.


If he found Loveless in Whistle Stop, he might not get back at all.


Somewhere in the distance a clock chimed five. He left Pearline’s room and pulled the ruined door closed behind him.

 

********************

After another interminable cab ride—interrupted by a half-dozen blocks on foot to avoid a hopeless mire of traffic surrounding a calamitous horsecar accident at the bottom of Telegraph Hill—West trudged up the parlor car steps shortly after half-past five. His decision all but made, he planned to consult a map to make certain he knew the route to Whistle Stop; only unexpected news from Artemus would redirect him.


He closed the door on the smoke and shouts and metallic shrieks and clangs of the busy yard—and knew at once that Artie wasn’t inside.


Before he could even take a step toward the voice-pipe, the far door opened and closed; footsteps came fast down the corridor. “Mr. West?”


Joe Emory must have been watching for him. West didn’t like what that suggested. “Here, Joe.” He met the engineer in the corridor, just outside Gordon’s room. “What is it?”


“It’s Mr. Gordon, sir—he’s in the hospital. He came back about noon and worked a while. He was in pretty bad shape but he seemed to be onto something. He sent me for Colonel Richmond, but by the time we got back Mr. Gordon was— Well, he was half out of his head, sir, sort of raving. He tried to say something and then collapsed, and the colonel took him over to the hospital. That was a little past two, I’d say, and no messages since.”


In the splash of late-afternoon sunlight through the freshly washed windows, West leaned heavily against the wall. For no good reason he had fully expected to find Artemus here, waiting to pool their respective findings as if this were an ordinary case. A little after two. At a little after two he’d been lying senseless in a filthy alley, accomplishing absolutely nothing.


“Get my horse ready, please,” he said woodenly. “Supplies for three days.” If he wasn’t back by then, Artie wouldn’t be here to come back to.


“Yes, sir.” Joe hurried away down the corridor. The door opened and closed.


In the dressing room West changed into sturdy trail clothes, loaded the many seam-pockets with weapons and tools, checked the action of his .45 and his supply of bullets. His movements were automatic, his mind preoccupied. Noticing that Artie hadn’t tidied his shaving things when he’d dressed to go to Swanson’s, he rinsed the mug and brush, and wiped up the cologne and hair tonic spilled by shaking hands. In the laboratory he saw evidence of tests completed and aborted, and new splotches on the worktable. He picked up a few pieces of broken glass that Artie had missed, and secured the latches of a cabinet that contained stoppered bottles cushioned with cotton and rubber—caustics that could eat through the wooden floor or a man’s arm if they should spill—and of another whose door was labeled DO NOT MIX. The cleaned syringes were drying on the worktable; West returned the tourniquet to its drawer. The lab area seemed small to him; no wonder Artie worked so often in the parlor. Maybe they could make some room in the freight car—


The telling silence pressed upon him, along with something like horror at the awareness that he might soon have the train all to himself again. At first it had been assigned to him exclusively and Gordon had been more assistant than partner, joining him for a case now and then but working with other agents in between, or in Washington as an interpreter for visiting diplomats, since he was fluent or nearly so in all the common languages of the world and a few of the uncommon ones as well. But that had gradually changed as West learned the amazing range of the former actor’s talents. Not only could Artemus insinuate himself into any social or criminal milieu, he had proven himself an innovative engineer and chemist. Always intrigued by the devices for attack and escape the Service provided its field agents, he had learned their designs and then bettered them, putting to vastly different use his expertise in inventing mechanisms for the stage. He and West worked together more and more often, their complementary skills compiling an impressive list of successes. Realizing that his mission plans had come to assume Artemus’s participation, West decided that it was only sensible to offer him one of the spare sleeping compartments; and as their partnership had become not only permanent but equal Artie had become a friend and comrade unlike any other he would ever know.


He prayed that this quiet emptiness didn’t portend the years ahead. He didn’t want to go back to solo work or solitary travel, couldn’t imagine passing the long hours on the rails without belted arias or the aromas of mouth-watering meals wafting from the galley; without Artie’s periodic violin recitals of Chopin or Mozart or his own whimsical compositions; without strange odors and miniature conflagrations in the lab as he tested new potions or corrosives; without looking up from cleaning his weapons or writing a letter to see Artie sink into the sofa half-unconscious from trying out a new knockout gas on himself, or to see his rueful face a startling shade of orange or gray when a new makeup didn’t behave as he’d expected. Theatrical makeup being much too thick and heavy for close-up use, Artie had had to develop his own, along with hairpieces and glues that could stand up to close scrutiny or a good strong yank. When Artie was making up West never knew who was going to emerge from the dressing room, a grungy, slouching salt or a crusty miner or a pompous fop or a monocled, mustachioed general— Some of the infinite array of characters were necessary to a mission but many were purely for Artemus’s own amusement, for he was the biggest ham West had ever met in his life, on one occasion even preaching at his own staged funeral. He would miss Artie’s grizzled codgers calling him a young whippersnapper—


Artemus had even managed to fool his partner a time or two, West recalling with relish the thrill of smug relief when a new arrival in a nasty situation had turned out to be Artie in disguise, with that knack he had for knowing when West was in trouble. Artie’s tendency to imagine the worst had in fact gotten West out of more than a few nasty situations, usually by way of an ingenious gadget or three. Rarely did he resort to brute force or weaponry, not being as accomplished as his partner in the former and disdaining the latter as beneath his dignity: though he was in fact proficient in the use of quite a few weapons, especially anything with a blade, he preferred to outfox an opponent rather than outfight him. Nevertheless over the years he had worked to improve his skill in hand-to-hand, benefitting so much from West’s coaching that West had stopped looking out for him in a fight, confident he could take care of himself. For such a flamboyant character Artemus talked little about his past, but West had the impression he’d been an artistic boy rather than a brawler, losing most of the schoolyard scraps he couldn’t finesse his way out of. But he’d never run from them, and in West’s opinion it took a lot more guts to face up to a fight you knew you were going to lose. Artie didn’t lose many fights anymore.


And he isn’t gonna lose this one, West vowed to himself, —not if I can help it.


The pipe whistled: Emory letting him know that Midnight was saddled and ready. As he rode away into the gathering evening, the base clock chimed six.

 

********************

The lights of the city were beginning to illuminate the lengthy summer twilight by the time West arrived at the hospital, the square brick edifice rising out of an approaching fog rather like the ships that crowded the harbor not far away; the faint creaks of rigging and hulls in the stiff bay breeze and the toots of an incoming ferry just reached his ears.


He tied Midnight to the rail in the line of horses and carriages belonging to staff physicians and to other visitors, wishing he felt easy about leaving the horse and his belongings, including the pistol and holster wrapped in his bedroll, unattended. Carefully he traversed the thickening shadows of the cobblestoned courtyard and walkway, but he saw no suspicious lurkers, nor did he catch a whiff of the conniving Pearline’s perfume; but nonetheless he was sure his every step was observed by Loveless or one of his underlings.


At the front desk a matron directed him to a room down a hall to his right. The corridors were sparsely lit and clusters of staff read charts under the gas lamps on the wall; a few glanced at him in momentary curiosity, but returned their attention to their work after he had passed by. Again he saw no obvious thugs, but Loveless was perfectly capable of blackmailing a doctor or an orderly or a nurse.


Upon entering the room he went straight to Artie’s bedside, barely glancing at Colonel Richmond reading in a corner but scrutinizing the duty nurse as she discreetly withdrew to the opposite side of the room. Resting a hand on Artie’s shoulder he said his name, but Artie didn’t respond; under the dark stubble of new beard his face was the color of ash. Seeing him like this, already felled by Loveless’s potion, for the first time West felt the possibility of defeat.


“What happened?” he asked Richmond, who had come to stand beside him, some papers rustling in his hand.


The colonel’s kindly face, rather avuncular except for the shrewd brown eyes, was a study in worry. “Your engineer came to get me. Said it was an emergency, that Artemus had some crucial information but was too shaky to operate the telegraph. When we got back to the train Artemus was waiting in the parlor. I think he was trying to stay conscious so he could tell me what he’d learned. He was anxious, agitated. He said something—it was hard to understand him, he was rubbing his throat as if it was constricted—something about not knowing where to start— But then he just—sank to the floor. I brought him here immediately, along with all the papers he was working on at the table. I gave his notes on his tests to the doctors, but I’m sorry to say I don’t know how much use they’ll be—I can’t understand any of these—” He handed West the pages he held.


“He’s probably using code.” West began to read, trying not to consider that these might be the last words Artie would ever write. “It’s his report on Bob Miller. He says Miller appears to be innocent. He received a will and a cover letter in Loveless’s handwriting, and title to the store. Loveless seems to have some further use for them, but nothing clear— Something about anagrams, and a dot-dash code— Here’s a section of repeated phrases—I don’t know what that means—he might just have been thinking on paper.” He frowned in frustration. “I can usually read Artie’s shorthand but I can’t make this out. And all these slash marks—”


“Maybe he wasn’t lucid when he wrote it.”


Dismally West said, “In which case he won’t be able to explain it when he wakes up.”


“If he wakes up,” Richmond said with obvious painful reluctance.


West didn’t reply. He continued to read.


“Here’s something: ‘forward,’ ‘back,’ ‘right,’ I think, and something smudged— Could be an ‘l’—must be ‘left.’”


“Sounds like directions?” the colonel suggested hopefully.


“Maybe, but useless without a reference point. He’s got to wake up!”


He looked down at the sleeping form—and saw that Gordon was stirring, perhaps responding to the sound of voices so near him. His hand closed on Gordon’s shoulder. “Artie?”


“Jim?” Gordon’s voice was ragged and strained.


“Yeah, Artie, I’m here.”


“Wasn’t sure—sometimes I hear things— Didn’t know if I’d see you again before I—took my last bow.” Behind fluttering lids his eyes rolled slowly in bruised hollows; the skin sagged away from the bones of his face. He struggled to smile. “‘Now cracks a noble heart. Good-night, sweet prince, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!’”


“It isn’t your heart that’s cracked,” West said firmly. “You aren’t going anywhere.”


“Yeah, better not—where would you be without me?—”


Incomplete. The thought broke unbidden into West’s mind. He quashed it.


“Artie, I need you to explain some things in your notes. Can you sit up?” He slipped an arm under Gordon’s pillow and lifted him a little. Gordon tried to hold the pages but his fingers couldn’t grip, and Richmond stepped forward to hold them for him. “Can you tell me what you mean here, and here?” West asked, pointing with his free hand.


Gordon squinted, then widened his eyes, clearly having difficulty focusing. His head lolled on the pillow. “Directions. Follow directions.”


“I know it’s directions. But directions to where? From where?”


“Don’t know where to start—explain— Forward, left, back—”


“Take it slow, start at the beginning. Artie, start at the beginning. What did you find in these phrases—you’ve written them over and over again—”


Gordon only shook his head. “Thought I knew the whole scheme, but—just another hallucination. Don’t even remember what I was working on— Don’t know where to start—” He gave a low, desolate moan. “Tale told by an idiot, signifying nothing—” His head began to roll back and forth, his arms to flail weakly about; his legs thrashed beneath the covers. “You need my help and I don’t remember!”


West was searching for words of comfort and reassurance when Gordon lunged up from the bed with sudden wild strength. “Look out, Jim!”


His arm freed by Gordon’s abrupt movement, in one smooth motion West dropped into a defensive crouch and whirled toward the door derringer in hand, reaching to pull Richmond down and behind him—but no threat appeared, no cavorting dwarf or sinister orderly—and he realized that Artemus was suffering a hallucination, the first he himself had witnessed. He retracted the derringer and let go of Richmond’s coat as he stood.


“Artie, there’s nothing there—Artie, it’s all right—”


But Gordon’s agitation increased and West leaned across his chest to force him gently back onto the bed, Gordon’s struggles too feeble to dislodge him. The nurse hurried out of the room. “Jim!” Gordon cried, “—Jim—no—too late—”


Responding to the nurse’s summons, a doctor with whom West was acquainted arrived with an orderly bearing leather straps that they fastened to the bed and buckled across Gordon’s chest and thighs. Red-faced and sweating, he strained ineffectually against them.


“Can’t you spare him that?” West demanded. “Can’t you sedate him?”


The doctor ignored him while he examined his patient, stethoscope pressed to Gordon’s heart, one hand holding his head still so he could check his eyes. At last he straightened. “It would be very unwise. Since we haven’t yet determined all the toxins in his system, we don’t know what the effect of any sedative might be. It could worsen his symptoms or even kill him.” With effort West reined in his temper. Dr. Isaac was a tall man with thinning gray hair, a calming presence, and a solid reputation. He was on call to the San Francisco office of the Service; it was he who had examined Gordon the week before. “Mr. Gordon was briefly lucid a short while ago. He agreed with my decision.”


“He didn’t want to be sedated in case you might need him,” Richmond elaborated. He added softly, “I’m not sure that’s relevant now.”


Gordon had quieted down, and Isaac dismissed the orderly with a nod. West watched both men carefully, but there was nothing in their bearing or actions that seemed out of place. “In fact I was just coming in to see you, Colonel,” Isaac said. “I’m glad you’re here as well, Mr. West.” His listeners exchanged an apprehensive glance. “It isn’t good news, I’m afraid. Thanks to our own tests and Mr. Gordon’s notes, we believe we’ve isolated the most devastating of the poisons, including two more that weren’t on the list. We also believe that an antidote is theoretically possible—” West held his breath. “—but there’s simply no hope of determining the proper formula and dosage in time to save his life. If a specific antidote doesn’t already exist, he won’t survive.” All at once he looked as old as West felt. “I’m sorry, gentlemen. That isn’t the sort of prognosis I enjoy delivering.”


“Don’t deliver it to Artemus.” Richmond’s voice was low and toneless. “He doesn’t need to know.”


West was remembering Artie trying to make what amounted to a verbal will. “I think he knew from the beginning. Doctor, how much time does he have?” How much time do I have?


“He might linger another day, but that’s only a guess, Mr. West, and it probably contains a hefty share of wishful thinking. We’ll keep him as comfortable as we can. So far he doesn’t seem to be in much pain, but he’s prone to drenching sweats and he can’t keep anything down. I’ll send the orderly in to change his gown and sheets again.” After a last searching glance at Gordon, he left the room.


West’s jaw worked. Twenty-four hours. Artie had twenty-four hours—if they were lucky. In a voice like stone he said, “I’ll get that antidote if it’s the last thing I do.”


The room had grown darker with the oncoming night. When Richmond turned up the table lamp the flame made caverns of the weary hollows of his face. “You think Loveless actually made one?”


“I know he made one. This is all a game to him, probably part of a larger scheme but still a game, and in a game there has to be a prize.” West rifled again through the pages stained with ink and perspiration. “If I could just get Artie to tell me what these phrases mean—but it could be hours before he wakes up again—if he wakes up again—” It wasn’t very often that West felt despair. He felt it now. “Colonel, I have to go. I found what might be a lead, but even if I’m wrong Loveless will plant another clue—I’m sure he’s watching me.” His gaze flicked toward the door. “He probably has someone watching Artie, too—”


“I’ll put men in the corridor and outside the window, and I’m not going anywhere.” A box of files rested on the floor next to his chair.


“Thank you, sir. I’ll be back just as soon—”


The bedclothes rustled as Gordon stirred and mumbled; in a breath West was at his side. “Artie?”


Gordon’s eyes fluttered open. “Jim!” His hand fumbled for West’s and clutched hard. “You’re all right— I thought— Oh God, every nightmare I’ve ever had—” His words were slurred, his voice barely recognizable as itself.


West poured a glass of water from the ewer on the bedside table and held it to Gordon’s lips. “Here, drink as much as you can.” Gordon’s gown was soaked with sweat, the sheets damp beneath him. To West he looked frail, though he was the taller and heavier of the two. When Gordon lifted his mouth away from the glass, West put it aside and retrieved the pages of notes from the table. “Artie, I need you to think, to remember. What do these lines mean?” Gordon’s face twisted in a spasm of pain; his hands clenched in the sheets. West hated himself for badgering him, hated Loveless for making him do it. “Artie, we have to get that antidote—we have to stop Loveless. What does this mean?”


Teeth gritted with determination, Gordon managed somehow to gasp, “Where—to start— First step—” And then with a sigh he slipped back into merciful oblivion.


At the other side of the bed, where he had hastened the instant Gordon stirred, Richmond sighed, too—but West’s own despair and dragging fatigue had instantly vanished under the onslaught of revelation. He stuffed Artie’s notes into his inside jacket pocket. “Colonel, he means the starting point! He figured out the directions but he doesn’t know where to begin. But I do.” He gripped Artie’s limp shoulders, laid a hand on his burning forehead. “You did it, Artie, you saved me those few hours.” Snatching his hat off the table he strode toward the door, almost colliding with the orderly bringing fresh linens. He called back to Richmond, “When Artie wakes up, tell him I’ll be back with the antidote. Tell him to hold on.”


“West, wait!” New hope but also new anxiety were written on the colonel’s face. “Tell me where you’re going and I’ll send some men to assist—”


West spun around, and Richmond drew back from the savage glitter in his eyes. “Sorry, sir—this is a private party.”


On legs suddenly made of springs West dashed out the door, and in a moment the courtyard reverberated with the clatter of hooves as the hospital clock struck seven.

 

********************

 

Continue

 

Home