The Case of the Bogus Detective 12

My spirits revived a little when Pa took me to Almack’s Oyster and Liquor Saloon down on C Street. We were shown to a high-tone dining room in back. 

It had tables around a polished square of wooden floor with a big chandelier overhead. It was now dusk and there were candles giving a soft, golden light. 

The tables had heavy white tablecloths & silverware & crystal goblets. 

A high-tone waiter in black and white led us to a table for two. He pulled out a velvet chair for me.

When I slumped down on it, Pa rolled his eyes. 

He showed me how to sit with ankles crossed and Good Posture. 

He told me to take off the little white gloves he had made me buy. 

Then he ordered a bottle of Best Champagne. (Ma Evangeline had made me promise never to drink liquor but my Pinkerton pa said the bubbles meant it didn’t count as liquor, and he was teetotal so he should know.)

The bottle of Best Champagne made a pop when the waiter opened it & it spurted out some white foam. Pa tried to catch it in one of the glasses and he laughed when it soaked his new shirt cuff. (I had bought him a new shirt to go with his hat.) The waiter dabbed Pa’s damp cuff with his waiter-napkin & then poured the champagne into special glasses that were flat & round & shallow. I was entranced by the pale-gold liquid. It had about a hundred tiny silver bubbles all swimming up in strings that never ran out.

I downed mine in one, like I have seen folk do with whiskey in a saloon, but I had a bad coughing fit on account of the bubbles & coldness. 

‘Sip, for the love of God,’ hissed my pa, as he refilled my glass. ‘Sip!’

I sipped.

It was sweet & fizzy & made my heart rise up in my chest like a little hot air balloon in the blue sky. 

It was the bulliest beverage I had ever tried. 

There were 3 forks & 2 knives & a passel of little spoons on my place mat. Pa told me to start with the outside utensils and work my way in. 

Pa ordered a fancy five-course meal. It was tasty food but I would have enjoyed it more if Pa had not kept telling me what not to do.  

He told me not to hunker down like a vulture over its prey, but to sit up straight.

He told me not to slurp my soup, but make my spoon like a boat.

He told me not to tip the oysters out of their half-shells straight down my open throat, but to use a special fork. 

He told me not to use the horseradish to glue the peas to my knife. 

He told me not to lick the last of the strawberry blancmange off my plate.

After all five courses, the waiter brought two china cups of black coffee and a plate of fancy little marzipan cakes called petits fours which are pronounced Putty For. Pa taught me to crook my little finger while sipping coffee and he challenged me to eat one of the marzipan cakes in ten tiny mouthfuls. I just about managed to do both those things. 

About this time two men with fiddles started playing toe-tapping music. A few couples got up & began swirling around the little bare space which was a dance floor. The music was bully & it might have entranced me but Pa wanted to teach me how to make Small Talk. 

Small Talk is where you talk about the weather & other genteel things but never about how a Methodist preacher & his wife found you on the Great Plains by the grave of your massacred Injun ma or how they adopted you & taught you reading & writing & scripture and brought you to Nevada Territory before they too got massacred. 

By and by Pa allowed me to tell my story but he made me do it without the cussing or scalpings. 

Then he let me tell him about some of the crimes I had solved. By now he had stopped telling me not to cuss nor mention blood. He just listened with his mouth half open. I reckon he was entranced. 

I was telling Pa how I had vanquished a beautiful but murderous widow named Violetta de Baskerville when he stood up sudden-like and offered his hand. 

‘What are you doing?’ I asked.

‘I am going to teach ye to dance,’ he replied. 

‘Do I have to learn how to dance?’

‘Aye,’ he said. ‘A young lady needs to know how to dance. If ye are to be a Pinkerton operative, ye might have to do lots of it. Put on yer wee gloves and hold up yer right hand,’ he said. ‘Like ye’re taking an oath in court.’

Part-Indians like me cannot take oaths in court but I held up my right hand anyways. He took it & pulled me to my feet & put his arm around my waist. I usually do not like to be touched but I did not mind it too much as he was my pa. He showed me how to move my feet by moving his own. 

I could not do it. 

‘Keep trying,’ he said. He smelled of Lucy Hinton tobacco & coffee & musky hair balm. It was a nice smell. I kept trying. 

I could not master it. 

‘They are playing a dance called a Schottische,’ he said. ‘It is from Scotland. It is our slower version of a polka.’ He was smiling & not getting impatient with my clumsiness & stupidity. 

Concentrating on the steps prevented me from slipping into a music trance but I found my pa looked like a friendly otter again. I did not mind dancing with a friendly otter. 

I kept trying to get it. 

I almost had it. 

I finally got it! 

One moment I was stepping on my pa’s new shoes & the next we were dancing! I could do it. Even in my silly button-up boots, I could do it! 

We were spinning & trying not to barge the 2 other couples & our feet were twinkling & the fiddlers’ faces whirled past wearing No. 1 smiles. Finally the music stopped & everyone laughed & clapped & fanned their faces. 

When my Pa went out back to use the outhouse, I almost plonked down at our table but remembered just in time and sat with ankles crossed and Good Posture. 

I finished the champagne in my glass. I felt like all the little bubbles were lifting me up from inside. 

Suddenly Jace was sitting opposite me. 

‘P.K.,’ he said. ‘What do you think you are doing?’

‘Jace! What are you doing here?’ I said. My words came out a mite slurry. 

He looked at me through a cloud of cigar smoke. ‘News reached me a couple of hours ago. People ain’t happy that you have been pranking them for seven months. Why are you dressed like that? Folk will think you are mocking them.’

‘What is wrong with this?’ I said, looking down at my yellow and green frock. I could hear my voice was too loud. The room was tilting a little. 

‘Well, that color don’t suit you for one thing,’ he said. 

‘You think Magenta would be better?’ I said. ‘Or maybe Solferino? Like what Violetta wears?’

(Violetta de Baskerville was the beautiful but deadly widow I had been telling my pa about. She was partial to fashionable shades of purple. She had tried to get her claws into Jace a few months earlier, but I had saved him from unholy matrimony & sent her packing to Frisco.)

He turned his head to blow smoke away from me. ‘I ain’t saying you should dress like Violetta,’ he said. ‘Though any dress in her closet would suit you better than what you are wearing now.’

It stung me when he said that but I was sure my face showed no emotion. 

‘This is the way my Pa likes me to dress,’ I said, lifting my chin. 

‘Yeah,’ said Jace. ‘I been watching you and your pa.’

‘Well he is going take me to Chicago and I don’t care what you think.’

Jace stubbed out his cigar even though it was only half-smoked. ‘All right then. I didn’t come to talk ladies’ fashions. I just came to try to help. But it looks like you don’t need advice. Good luck in Chicago.’ 

‘Who was that?’ said Pa, coming up to the table. 

I looked at Jace’s retreating back. ‘Just an old client,’ I said. 

‘I have had a wee notion,’ said my pa. 

‘What?’ The champagne in my stomach had gone sour. 

‘I have decided to adopt ye.’

‘What?’ I said again. There was a high-pitched ringing inside my head. 

‘I’m going to adopt ye. Tomorrow morning first thing, if ye will let me.’

‘But,’ I said, ‘what about your wife?’

He shrugged. ‘I’ll tell Caroline that ye’re an orphan. I know she’ll learn to love ye. And ye’ll be a bone fide Pinkerton. Now gissa hug.’ 

I stood up and let him embrace me in a strong, firm bear hug. 

Through the muffling sleeves of his jacket against my ears I heard a lady say, ‘Aw, ain’t that sweet. A pa hugging his daughter.’

I knew I should have felt happy, for my dearest dream was about to come true. 

But for some reason I only wanted to blub. 

Dang my changing body!

Read on HERE...

The Case of the Bogus Detective by Caroline Lawrence is the fourth P.K. Pinkerton Mystery. You can buy the first 3 real cheap HERE. And you can read the rest of this one HERE. Or just check into this blog, where I will be posting chapters weekly!  

The Case of the Bogus Detective 11

After Bee slapped me, she turned & ran through the crowd back the way she had come. 

‘Why did she strike you?’ asked Affable, looking after her retreating bonnet. 

I stared at the boardwalk. ‘She had a bad habit of trying to kiss me,’ I said. ‘I reckon she is mortified to learn I am a girl.’

‘I will attempt to console her,’ said Affable. He touched his hat & turned & followed her. 

As my pa and I resumed our perambulation along the boardwalk I clenched my jaw. All my fears were coming to pass. My friends felt betrayed by my secret that was no longer a secret.

If my deception had caused a prim and proper girly-girl to strike me, how would my less demure friends react? 

I wished I could put on my beloved buckskin trowsers & pink flannel shirt. 

I stopped dead. ‘Where are my buckskin trowsers and flannel shirt?’ I asked my pa. ‘I took them off at Wassermann’s.’

‘Those greasy old things?’ said Pa. ‘Why, Ray and I tossed them on a bonfire out back of the livery stable while you were getting alterations.’

I was too stunned to reply. 

Then my pa stunned me some more: instead of crossing over to Almack’s, he turned right. He was taking me up steep & muddy Taylor Street.

‘Where are we going?’ I said. ‘Almack’s is right back there. It is kitty corner across C Street. Ain’t we going to supper?’

‘I thought it would be good for us to preserve this special moment with an ambrotype,’ he said. ‘Before the sun sets.’

He was taking me to Isaiah Coffin’s Ambrotype & Photographic Gallery right next door to my office! That meant Isaiah would find out I was a gal. So would Belle Donne. So would Ping, the person I most dreaded telling. 

‘No!’ I cried digging in my heels.

‘But I want to send photographic image to my brother, when I tell him about you,’ said my pa. 

Reluctantly, I undug my heels. 

The sun had not yet dropped behind Mount Davidson when we reached Isaiah Coffin’s Ambrotype & Photographic Gallery. The little bell over the door gave a familiar tinkle as we came into the empty studio. 

‘They ain’t here,’ I said, tugging his arm & backing up. ‘Let’s go. We can try tomorrow.’

‘Nonsense,’ said my pa. ‘The door was unlocked and the sign said OPEN. Hello?’ he cried. ‘Anybody here?’ 

There were some muffled noises from the store room where the proprietor has various costumes & also a small laboratory in a cupboard. After about a minute Mr. Isaiah Coffin emerged, putting on his frock coat. Despite a grim-sounding name he is a good-looking man with fair hair, symmetrical features and a billy-goat beard. I observed his cheeks were pinker than usual. 

‘Excuse my disarray,’ he said, ‘but I was developing – Zounds!’ He stopped with his arm half in one sleeve and stared at me open mouthed. Then he closed his mouth & resumed putting on his coat. 

‘That is to say: Good afternoon, sir! Good afternoon, little girl. May I help you?’

‘We’d like ye to ambrotype us,’ said my pa. ‘My name is Robert Pinkerton. I believe ye know my daughter, Prudence Kezia?’ 

Mr. Isaiah Coffin’s gray eyes opened wide in Expression No. 4 - surprise. ‘Prudence Kezia?’

I nodded. 

He narrowed his eyes. ‘Prudence Kezia?’ This time his face wore No. 5 – suspicious or thinking.

I sighed. ‘Yes.’

Finally his face showed No. 1 – a genuine smile. ‘Prudence Kezia?’ 

I sighed again. Deeply. ‘Yes.’

‘Sacray blur! You have confounded us all! For over half a year you have pulled the proverbial wool over our eyes.’

‘Who has pulled the wool over our eyes?’ said a feminine voice, and Miss Belle Donne came out of the same storeroom from which her husband had emerged. Yes, the prim & proper English photographer and the pistol-packing Soiled Dove were now man & wife, though she retained her stage name. 

She was prettily attired in a dark blue silk outfit with flounces & furbelows. Her cheeks were also pinker than usual and her bodice was buttoned wrong near the top. 

‘Vwa La!’ said Isaiah Coffin to his wife. He flourished his hand at me. ‘It transpires that P.K. Pinkerton is one of the weaker sex.’

‘Ha, ha!’ said Belle. ‘That is rich.’

‘Go on, Prudence,’ said my pa. ‘Tell her.’

I hung my head. ‘It is true,’ I confessed. ‘I am a gal.’ I shot a glare at Isaiah Coffin. ‘But I ain’t weaker, dam it!’

‘Prudence…’ said my pa with an admonishing tone. ‘Didn’t I tell ye not to blaspheme?’

‘I meant a mill dam,’ I said. 

‘Why you cunning little vixen!’ cried Belle, narrowing her eyes. 

She came close to me & circled round me & took my chin to turn my head this way & that. Finally she prodded my chest with a hard forefinger.

‘Outch!’ I cried. 

‘Dang!’ cried she. ‘You have been pulling the wool over our eyes. The merino wool!’ Then she laughed & clapped her hands. ‘Oh, but this is bully news! I must tell everybody I know and have ever met.’

‘No!’ I cried. ‘Don’t!’

Too late. She was out the door. 

By the time Isaiah had stood me and pa up against his new painted backdrop of a Greek Temple & put our heads in iron vise-like contraptions to keep us from moving – lest we make the image blurry – a whole passel of people had gathered outside the shop and were peering through the window at us. 

I stood there in humiliation – the back of my lighthouse bonnet gripped by iron pincers – and watched the townspeople of Virginia City watch me. 

I saw my lawyer, Mr. William Morris Stewart, a lofty man with a beard the size of a sagebrush whose office was right across the street. He had obviously been doing business with Joe Goodman, the young owner of the Daily Territorial Enterprise Newspaper, for he was there, too. Stewart and Goodman had both helped me in times past, but now they were staring at me with Expression No. 4. 

Doc Pinkerton (no relation) appeared beside them. He had once offered to adopt me. I wondered if he would have made that offer if he had known my sex. 

I noticed Titus Jepson, who had lost the tip of his pinky finger on account of me, but had promised to feed me in perpetuity. His Mexican waiter Gus was there, too, and several regular customers known to me by sight. They were all staring at me with banjo eyes & open mouths & shaking their heads in disbelief. 

I felt a dribble of sweat tickle my backbone as Isaiah Coffin made a few last adjustments to his camera. 

‘Compose your faces,’ he commanded, ‘look into the lens, and do not move! The sun will be gone in a moment.’ Then he took a black disc from the front of the camera. I kept my eyes on the front of the camera but that did not stop me spotting the person I dreaded seeing most: my partner Ping. 

Belle Donne was beside him, gesturing & talking in an animated fashion.  But he was taking no notice of her. He was glaring at me with his arms folded across his chest & the scowliest scowl I had ever seen. He was mouthing something, too. I am good at lip-reading but I could not tell what he was saying. I reckoned he was cussing in Chinese. 

Finally Ping turned and stalked off. 

I wanted to run out of the studio & go after him to explain, but my head was in the jaws of that vise & also I was too ashamed. Of all people, I should have told him sooner, for he was my business partner. 

I hoped he would not stay riled at me forever. 

More people had come and were jostling at the window to see. 

They had stopped staring & were now laughing & pointing & shaking their heads. I felt my cheeks go hot.  

When Isaiah released us from the gripping vises & said we could go, I wanted to climb out the back window & escape down that rotten ladder. But Pa said I must hold my head high and be seen as his daughter, so he made me go out the front door & hold his arm. 

As we pressed through the gawping & grinning throng I heard people say, ‘Is it true? Have you really been a gal all this time?’ 

I kept my head up but squinched my eyes shut. I clung onto Pa as he led me through the clamoring crowd. 

I knew it was vital to our Plan that I act like a girly-girl, but I hated it. 

I thought, Pa had better take me back to Chicago when we have solved this case for I will never be able to face the folk of Virginia City again.

Read on...

The Case of the Bogus Detective by Caroline Lawrence is the fourth P.K. Pinkerton Mystery. You can buy the first 3 real cheap HERE. And you can read the rest of this one HERE. Or just check into this blog, where I will be posting chapters weekly!