‘Darling, I’ve never been so frightfully disconcerted, or embarrassed in my life,’ Amelia Penelope Diana Benkinsop asserted, continuing the story of certain events in which she had recently participated and knowing she was approaching the portion in which the person she was addressing would be most interested. ‘There I was in all “me finery”, happily chatting with Dusty Fog and convincing myself he believed I really was Lady Winifred Amelia Besgrove-Woodstole, when a rather tipsy rancher joined us and said enough to give me just the tiniest suspicion I wasn’t being quite as successful as I imagined.’79
‘Good heavens, Benkers, what a facer,’ declared the genuine Lady Winifred Amelia Besgrove-Woodstole—although she was currently known by another, less aristocratic name—employing the sobriquet with which her traveling companion was addressed by close friends and showing neither surprise nor annoyance over the disclosure that the other had been using her identity. ‘Although I could have told you it was unlikely you would be.’
The speakers were holding their conversation while seated on opposite sides of the table in a well-furnished and comfortable private railroad car. Each was a magnificent example of feminine pulchritude (although neither openly flaunted it), and had demeanor indicative of birth and breeding. Expensively and tastefully attired as fashion dictated for traveling and exquisitely jeweled, although not ostentatiously so, nor too excess, they were both clearly accustomed to making a journey in such a luxurious form of transportation. However, while their accents and the honorific preceding the name of the one and under which the other had been masquerading—unsuccessfully according to her story—indicated they were well educated, upper class English ‘gentlewomen’, the train upon which they were riding was carrying them eastwards across Kansas.
Close to five foot eight inches in height and in her late twenties, the genuine Lady Winifred had such a commanding presence that she appeared taller and older. There was, however, nothing of the formidable and domineering female dragon about her. She had elegantly coiffured black hair, cut somewhat shorter than was dictated by current fashion, framing an exceptionally beautiful face which radiated charm, backed by personality and considerable strength of will. Despite her costly black two-piece traveling costume and well-filled frilly bosomed white silk blouse being almost severely masculine in style and line, she contrived—without making any conscious, or deliberate, effort to do so—to make them seem as sensual and revealing as the most daring ball gown. They set off her richly contoured body magnificently.
For all that, the second passenger was in no way at a disadvantage as far as physical attractions went.
Lacking perhaps an inch of her companion’s height, Benkers was about the same age. She too possessed a regal beauty which was enhanced by an aura of patrician distinction without affectation. Although lacking the letters patent to place before her name as an indication of a noble birthright, she clearly shared a similar social upbringing and family background. She too had removed her hat on settling down in the car and her longer honey blonde hair was drawn up in a large bun, being held in place by a net at the back of the neck. Like her friend’s, her brown two-piece traveling costume and unadorned light blue blouse were an excellent fit, neither concealing nor deliberately seeking to show oft an equally curvaceous and well developed figure.
‘Of course, I had noticed that Mark Counter, the Ysabel Kid and Waco gave me a few funny looks when I was introduced to them,’ Benkers went on. ‘But I’d been telling myself, where the Kid and Waco were concerned at any rate, it was only because they weren’t accustomed to being in the company of a lady.’
‘Some of my girls might be willing to give you an argument over that,’ Lady Winifred asserted with a smile, having made the acquaintance of all the men to whom her friend was referring and being intimately acquainted in the case of Captain Dustine Edward Marsden ‘Dusty’ Fog, C.S.A.80 ‘Although I must admit Lon and Waco would tend to shy away from the company of “ladies”, in your context, unless there was no way they could avoid it.’
‘Be that as it may, Freddie, I still feel it was most inconsiderate of you,’ Benkers complained, employing the abbreviation usually applied to her long-standing friend’s name. ‘I travel all the way over here to the “Colonies”,81 posing as you—rather adequately, if I may be excused for saying so—because I’d been assured by the staff at your family’s hunting lodge in Melton Mowbray that you were gadding around India, hunting tigers, or whatever one does there—and what do I find when I arrive?’
‘I can hardly wait to be told,’ the black haired beauty replied. She knew sufficient about her friend’s far from conventional family background not to ask why it had been considered necessary to pose as her while making the visit to the United States. She was, however, confident that it would not have been detrimental to her in any way.
‘I find out, at a most inopportune moment I might add, that far from being in India, you are over here’ Benkers explained, in aggrieved tones, waving her left hand languidly towards the nearest window of the car. ‘Not only running a music hall—or whatever the “Colonials” call it—but also the mayor of a charming and most prosperous town in Kansas.’
All of which was true!
In spite of her family’s servants having received instructions to inform everybody who asked—even such a close friend as Benkers—that she was traveling in India, Lady Winifred was making her home in the United States. Not only had she helped found the ‘railroad’ town of Mulrooney, Kansas—which derived much of its income out of the herds of longhorn cattle driven from Texas to its shipping pens—but she owned and operated its best saloon, the Fair Lady. Furthermore, being known by the residents and visitors as ‘Freddie Woods’, she had been elected mayor and was responsible for the policies which had given the town a well-deserved reputation for honesty and fair dealing among the people who found the need to visit and transact business there.82
‘ “Colonies, Colonials!” ’ Freddie sniffed, eyeing the blonde with mock disdain. ‘You’re beginning to sound like Pat Reeder, my girl.’
‘Good heavens, am I?’ Benkers ejaculated, displaying either real or well simulated horror at the prospect. ‘I really must watch out for that, it could ruin me socially. But you shouldn’t blame Pat, Actually, I haven’t seen the dear boy since the night we celebrated his promotion to captain.’
‘You should have been in Mulrooney a couple of weeks ago,’ Freddie remarked, but out of consideration for the type of military duties upon which their mutual friend was engaged83 and about which she felt sure the blonde was probably even better informed, she had lowered her voice to a conspiratorial level. ‘He was passing through and we had dinner together.’
‘Are you two talking about me, heh?’ demanded a strident and indignantly querulous feminine voice from near the door at the forward end of the car.
Surprised by the interruption, Freddie Woods and Benkers Benkinsop looked at the hitherto silent third occupant of the compartment. Clad from head to toe in a cheap black ensemble of the kind referred to as ‘widow’s weeds’, which gave her an appearance of being dumpy in build and made estimating her height difficult, a veil attached to the hat securely pinned on stringy white hair served to conceal the speaker’s features. The timbre of her harsh Southern accent and her posture suggested she was advanced in years. Although she had announced herself earlier as ‘Mrs. Henrietta Turnbull’, the gloves she wore hid any rings which would prove this to be her correct marital status.
The woman was not a member of the friends’ party and, if it came to a point, had no right to be sharing their comfortable accommodation. The private car belonged to an important official of the railroad company and had been put at Freddie’s disposal for the trip to Chicago she was taking with Benkers. On their arrival, although the Negro porter had insisted he had locked the doors after making the compartment ready for them, Mrs. Turnbull had been sitting inside. She had steadfastly and indignantly refused to leave, waving a large and almost shapeless black umbrella—which, along with a bulky old carpetbag of equally decrepit aspect, appeared to be her only possessions—to emphasize her intention of staying where she was.
Amused by the woman’s determination not to be put upon, Freddie had told the porter she could remain in the compartment. It had soon become obvious that her insistence had not stemmed out of a desire for feminine society. She had declined an invitation to join the friends at the table and, rebuffing their attempts to make conversation, continued to sit defiantly nursing her umbrella on the seat next to the forward door. Respecting her privacy, they had left her to her own devices and had spent the half hour or so which had elapsed since leaving Mulrooney chatting about various events that had transpired since their last meeting in England. It was, in fact, the first time the subject of Benker’s visit to the United States had come up and her friend was looking forward to learning the details, as well as telling what little she knew about the assignment upon which Captain Patrick Reeder—otherwise known as ‘the Remittance Kid’—was currently engaged.
Before either Freddie or Benkers could refute the accusation, the forward door of the car was thrust open. Once again, if appearances were any guide, the compartment was being invaded by unauthorized passengers.
Three of the intruders—and there could be no more apt description of them—were tall, lanky young men wearing the attire of town dwellers in the middle income bracket. Long hair trailed from beneath their badly fitting billycock hats.84 Their hollow-cheeked, sunken-eyed, sullen-mouthed faces were alike in being unshaven and so sallow it was plain they spent little time out of doors. Although moderately costly, their three-piece suits were crumpled and stained. Their white shirts showed signs of having been worn for considerably longer than one day. The two shortest did not wear collars and that of their companion, embellished by a badly knotted red tie, was equally grubby from use. They were all holding cheaply manufactured revolvers of the kind which would come to be known as ‘Saturday night specials’, but these could be as dangerous as the products of the major companies making firearms of better quality.
Bringing up the rear, closing and bolting the door behind her, was a young woman. Straggly, untidily combed brunette hair showed from a brimless and unadorned toque hat. Her plump face was as sallow as those of her companions, but suggestive of Gallic rather than Anglo-Saxon origins and, bearing an expression of almost fanatical intensity, no more prepossessing. Of medium height, she was stocky and filled her grey two-piece tailored costume in a way that was flattering neither to her figure nor the garments. She was empty handed, but the plain black vanity bag suspended from her left wrist was hanging in a manner that suggested there was something heavy and bulky inside.
‘Start screaming and you’re dead!’ warned the tallest of the three men, darting a surprised look at the black-clad woman sitting by the door, as they walked forward.
Taking her duties as mayor seriously, as well as being aware of the advisability of keeping a watch for potential trouble makers in her saloon, Freddie made sure she kept in touch with everything of importance that happened in Mulrooney. While she had never seen the female intruder before as far as she could remember, she was able to identify the men. In order of size, they were Alan Fisher, Jamie Morris and Davis Basnett, a trio of political agitators who had arrived a few days earlier, apparently with the intention of stirring up unrest among the railroad construction gangs and other workers in the area.
‘I’ve not the slightest intention of screaming, my good man,’ Benkers declared, directing a quick and regretful glance to where her hat and vanity bag lay on the seat under the left side window. Although she did not recognize any of the intruders, she formed an accurate estimation of the men’s characters and guessed the woman came into a similar category. ‘Have you, Freddie?’
‘None whatsoever,’ the black haired beauty replied, throwing an equally quick and frustrated glance to where her hat and bag lay on the opposite side of the compartment. Then she returned her gaze, which became filled with disdain, to the approaching men and went on, ‘May I ask what you mean by bursting into a private car in such an ill-mannered fashion?’
‘Listen to that, Gertrude!’ Fisher jeered, looking over his shoulder, his accent Mid-West and suggestive of a good education. ‘This capitalist’s “something-sucking” whore—!’
‘You keep your talk clean around womenfolk.’ Mrs. Turnbull ordered, rising with more alacrity than her quavering old voice suggested she could attain.
‘Sit down and shut up, you old fool!’ Gertrude Fioret ordered, speaking English with a noticeable French accent.
‘Don’t you dare talk to me like that, you foreign hussy!’ Mrs. Turnbull yelped, taking a pace forward.
‘I said sit…’ Gertrude began, grabbing the body of the umbrella which was being brandished in front of her face with her left hand and putting the right against the old woman’s veiled face so as to fend off what appeared to be a contemplated attack.
The Frenchwoman’s words came to an abrupt and startled end!
Having first pushed with and then withdrawn her head, Mrs. Turnbull was also giving a twisting tug at the umbrella. Feeling the pressure against her right hand, Gertrude Fioret instinctively grabbed hold of and began to bunch up the veil. As she did so, the old woman jerked backwards causing Gertrude’s fingers to tighten and she felt the veil coming away.
So was the hat—and the white “hair” to which it was firmly pinned!
What the removal exposed was not the face of an old woman!
Instead, there came into view black hair cropped almost boyishly short and, set in an expression of grim determination, the beautiful features of a girl about the same age as Freddie and Benkers.
So amazed was Gertrude by the remarkable metamorphosis, she gave no thought to the fact that while she still grasped the body of the umbrella, its handle—which ended in a small steel ball—remained in ‘Mrs. Turnbull’s right hand.
The Frenchwoman was not granted an opportunity to ponder at length upon either phenomenon, or how to act for the best. Rising swiftly, ‘Mrs. Turnbull’s left arm delivered a backhand slap to the side of her face. It landed with sufficient power to send her spinning uncontrollably to collide with the wall of the car.
Nor did the ‘old woman’ restrict her attentions to Gertrude. Still displaying the rapidity which had replaced her earlier slow and doddering movements, she advanced farther into the car. So swiftly and unexpectedly was she acting that none of the men had yet begun to respond to the change her intervention was creating to their plans. Before any of them could move, her right foot went to the seat of Basnett’s trousers and shoved sharply to propel him forward. Losing his hat and with the revolver flying from his grasp, he landed in a helpless sprawl face down across the table between the two Englishwomen. Nor did his discomfiture end there. A strong hand dug from either side of his head into his back hair, raising and slamming his features against the top of the table. On being released an instant after the far from gentle impact, he toppled backwards to alight upon the portion of his anatomy which had been subjected to the shove.
Letting out startled and profane exclamations, the other two men had begun to turn around without waiting to see what happened to their companion. Nor would they have been greatly concerned if they had seen his fate. They were more interested in discovering what—if any—threat was posed to themselves.
Of the two, Fisher came off worst. Even as he was trying to turn his weapon upon the transformed ‘old’ woman, he saw the handle of her umbrella being swung horizontally in his direction. For a moment only, he thought he was beyond its reach. The supposition proved to be invalid, but he was unable to do anything to avert his fate.
Sliding forward under the impetus created by its wielder’s movements, the steel ball proved to be attached to a short rod of the same metal. This in turn was connected to the end of a powerful coil spring. Having been telescoped into the handle of the umbrella, both emerged to make a substantial increase to the distance at which a blow could be delivered. Driven with the added force supplied by the whip-like action of the spring, the ball caught Fisher at the side of the jaw. There was a crack as the bone snapped and he twirled, almost gracefully, losing his hold on the revolver as he pitched headlong across the car until halted by its wall.
Having completed the attack on the tallest of the men, the ‘old’ woman reversed the direction in which her most effective weapon had been traveling. Swiftly and efficiently as she did so, she failed to achieve the success attained against her two previous victims.
Unlike Fisher and Gertrude, Jamie Morris was not caught unawares. Forgetting the firearm he was holding, he concluded some form of evasive tactics were called for. Possessing a healthy sense of self-preservation and an appreciation of the danger he was in served to put an added zest to his normally languid motions. Filled with alarm over the danger he was facing, he was able to leap aside and avoid what would otherwise have been an incapacitating blow. However, his misfortunes were not over and he failed to escape unscathed.
After the man who had been propelled on to the table was disposed of, with Benkers’ able assistance, Freddie was not content to leave the rest of their salvation to the surprisingly competent ‘old’ woman. Before leaving England, she had seen games of football played in the style originated at Rugby School. Ever unconventional, a factor which had caused her to have to leave her homeland and live under an assumed name in the United States,85 she had learned and practiced various of the game’s moves, acquiring a skill which—seeing how Morris was behaving—she proceeded to put to good use.
Sending her chair skidding away as she rose, Freddie left the table and dived towards the young man. Her lunging body crashed against him and, locking her arms around his legs, she brought off as fine a tackle as she had ever managed. Although some Rugbeian exponents of the game might have found minor faults with her technique, she felt no cause to complain over the results. Caught while he was still in the throes of his hasty withdrawal beyond the reach of the ‘old’ woman’s weapon, Morris was swept from his feet. As he fell, his head struck the wall of the car and he lost all further interest in the proceeding for some time to come.
Although the cracked rib she had acquired shortly after her meeting with Dusty Fog was now healed, Benkers felt she would be ill-advised to duplicate the spectacular methods being employed by Freddie and she lacked the means to produce the effect that the ‘old’ woman had achieved. Nevertheless, her contribution to the affair was not to be discounted. She too had come to her feet and, seeing that Basnett had not been rendered hors de combat, made him the object of her attentions.
Ignoring the blood which was gushing from a nose made even less attractive by the impact against the top of the table, the young agitator was reaching towards the revolver he had dropped while falling. Stepping forward, the blonde stamped upon his outstretched hand and pinned it to the floor with her heel. Incensed by the pain-filled profanity which burst from him, she decided to show her disapproval in no uncertain way. Hitching up her skirt as high as was necessary and displaying shapely legs encased in black silk stockings, she pivoted and delivered a kick to his jaw which brought the tirade to an abrupt end. Receiving no provocation from him after he had slumped silent and unmoving to the floor, she tentatively removed her foot from his hand. From the absence of response, she concluded he would not be causing any further trouble in the immediate future.
Glancing around and showing no surprise at the competent way in which her traveling companions had behaved throughout such a desperate situation, ‘Mrs. Turnbull’ swung her gaze to where the Frenchwoman had fallen to the floor. Spitting obscenities in her native tongue, Gertrude was sitting with her back to the wall and trying to open the vanity bag.
‘I’m an expert at savate, Mademoiselle Fioret,’ the ‘old’ woman announced, speaking French fluently—if with the accent of a New Orleans’ Creole—in a far younger voice than she had previously employed. Stepping close enough to be able to put the threat into effect and drawing up the skirt to show lower limbs attired in skin tight black riding breeches and matching Hessian boots, she went on, ‘If you don’t throw that bag aside and shut up, I’ll kick your teeth down your throat and you’ll have to mumble the answers to the questions I’m going to ask.’
‘I’d listen if I was you,’ Freddie advised, showing just as great a facility in the use of Gertrude’s native tongue. ‘Colonel Boyd could—and would—do it if need be.’
‘C … Colonel Boyd?’ the Frenchwoman gasped, staring at the beautiful and grimly determined face which might otherwise have appeared incongruous topping such archaic mourning attire. ‘B … but you can’t be the one they call the Rebel Spy?’
‘All you have to do to find out is keep trying to take out whatever you have in that bag,’ Freddie declared, as she and the blonde started to collect the three men’s discarded revolvers. ‘And you’ll soon have the matter settled, although perhaps not to your delight and satisfaction.’
‘Belle, I’d like you to meet Benkers, a dear friend of mine from England,’ the mayor of Mulrooney, Kansas, introduced. ‘Although, if we’re going to be formal, I suppose I should say, Colonel Boyd,86 allow me to present Miss Amelia Penelope Diana Benkinsop.’
Half an hour had elapsed and the three beautiful young women once more had the private car to themselves. However, the formerly uninvited passenger no longer conveyed the impression of being a person advanced in years and in deep mourning. Nor was she continuing to behave in the previously unsociable and uncommunicative fashion.
Accepting that ‘Mrs. Turnbull’ really was the woman who had earned the sobriquet, The Rebel Spy, for her exploits on behalf of the Confederate States during the War of Secession, but who now served just as loyally and efficiently in the United States’ Secret Service, Gertrude Fioret had tossed away her vanity bag with the revolver it held undrawn and surrendered. Nor were any of her male associates in a condition to essay further hostilities, or resistance.
After the Frenchwoman had been questioned by Belle Boyd and—although too frightened by the proposed repercussions to lie—proving unable to supply the desired piece of information, Freddie Woods had summoned the porter and the train’s conductor. She had explained that a holdup had been attempted, but was thwarted by the intervention of ‘Mrs. Turnbull’, an operative of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency. Such was the fear inspired by the Rebel Spy’s apparently ruthless nature and the willingness of the Englishwomen to support her in the threats she had uttered, that Gertrude had not refuted the story or disclosed Belle’s true identity. Help had been procured from among the male passengers, along with the services of a doctor, to remove the prisoners to the caboose. They would be held there, under the watchful eye of the armed brake-man, until being turned over to the authorities on arrival in Kansas City. Being well known and respected by a number of influential people in that city, Freddie had declared she was confident she would be able to prevent any awkward questions being asked about Belle’s participation and would be able to ensure their journey was not delayed.
With the compartment to themselves, the Rebel Spy had discarded the ‘widows’ weeds’. Underneath, she was wearing a man’s dark blue, open necked shirt, black riding breeches and Hessian boots which did full justice to her slender—yet anything except flat chested and skinny—figure. She had, however, covered the masculine attire with a dove-grey two-piece traveling costume and green cravat which came, along with an equally realistic brunette wig, from the commodious old carpetbag. Having reassembled the umbrella and stripped off the outer covering to convert it into a more dainty looking parasol, she placed the black material and the rest of her previous disguise in the bag. At the completion of the task, she had joined the other two at the table and Freddie performed the introductions
‘I’m pleased to make your acquaintance—at last—Benkers,’ Belle declared.
‘At last?’ queried the honey blonde with a smile.
‘We’ve something of a dossier on you,’ the Rebel Spy explained. ‘And I believe I had the pleasure of meeting one of your uncles not too long ago.’87
‘One of my uncles?’ Benkers repeated.
‘A corpulent gentleman with the grandiloquent name of Octavious Xavier Gulliemot,’ Belle informed.
‘The Ox is only a honorary uncle,’ Benkers corrected, employing the sobriquet by which the man in question was known to the police of four continents and showing no annoyance at the suggestion that she was related to a notorious international master criminal. ‘He’s quite nice when you get to know him.’
‘I’ll take your word for that,’ Belle stated, but without any trace of animosity or disbelief. Then she slapped a slender and shapely thigh with her right hand and went on, ‘You must be the “Lady Winifred Besgrove-Woodstole” who was with the European crown prince down in Texas.’
‘I was,’ Benkers admitted, smiling wryly. ‘Not knowing that the genuine Lady Winifred had been so dashed inconsiderate as to be very good friends with certain people who it was imperative should accept my bogus identity. I say, though, may I state you’re all I’ve heard. That disguise was perfect.’
‘I’d no idea it was you,’ Freddie supplemented. ‘And it’s not all that long since I had dinner with you and Pat Reeder.’
‘Thank you,’ the Rebel Spy said quietly, far from displeased at receiving such compliments from two women for whom she had considerable respect.
‘But how did you come to be here so providentially?’ Freddie asked. ‘The last time I saw you, you were going up to Stokeley, Montana, with Calamity Jane and Pat to try to stop that Metis chap causing a rebellion in Canada.’
‘We did it,’ Belle answered, but did not go into details. ‘I was passing through Mulrooney on my way to Chicago when I was told there might be an attempt to rob and kill you on the train. So I thought I’d better see what could be done to stop it.’
‘Rob and kill?’ Freddie queried, refraining from asking questions about the Rebel Spy’s source of information. ‘I know I talked a bunch of gandy dancers88 out of going along with their, “Workers of the world unite” ideas, but that hardly seems cause enough for even their kind to deliberately set out to murder two women.’
‘From what I was told, you weren’t their primary target,’ Belle explained. ‘Although, apparently your disruptive efforts gave the prospect of killing you as well as “Lady Winifred” an added attraction.’
‘You mean they were after me?’ Benkers asked, showing puzzlement. ‘Or, at least, who they thought me to be?’
‘So I was informed,’ Belle confirmed.
‘But I’ve never seen any of them before today,’ the honey blonde protested.
‘Apparently you helped cause Mademoiselle Fioret’s sister to be killed,’ the Rebel Spy countered.
‘But she can’t be related to the Comtesse de Petain!’ Benkers objected, referring to one of the conspirators who had sought to cause the assassination of the visiting Crown Prince and who Benkers had shot in self-defense.
‘No,’ Belle agreed. ‘But her sister was the Comtesse’s maid. It appears she blames you as much as Dusty Fog for her sister being killed and, probably, considered your collection of jewelry made you a more profitable as well as safer subject for revenge.’
‘But what did you think she might have to do with that “Butcher” chap you were asking about?’ Freddie wanted to know, after having heard a brief resume of the events to which her companions had been referring.89
‘Not much, really,’ Belle sighed. ‘It was just a chance she had. He’s an illicit salesman of arms, ammunition and explosives. In fact, he’s the reason I’m going to Chicago. He operates from there and I’m hoping to find him.’
‘To stop his activities?’ Freddie said, the words being more of a statement than a question.
‘To stop him? Belle confirmed, her tones showing deadly earnest.
‘How much do you know about him?’ Benkers asked.
‘Very little, I’ll admit,’ the Rebel Spy replied. ‘I’m sure he lives in Chicago and, as he’s called “die Fliescher”, he is probably German.
‘Then how do you propose to find him?’ the honey blonde inquired, being aware that “die Fliescher meant, “the Butcher” in German.’
‘Ask around and hope I’ll get on his trail,’ Belle answered.
‘Perhaps I can help,’ Benkers offered, out of gratitude for having been saved from robbery and murder. ‘At least, I’ll try.’
‘Thank you, Benkers!’ Belle said sincerely, being aware of just how useful help from the beautiful Englishwoman might be.
According to the dossier at the headquarters of the United States’ Secret Service, although this was her first visit to the New World, Amelia Penelope Diana ‘Benkers’ Benkinsop was just as prominent and successful in international criminal circles as Octavius Xavier ‘the Ox’ Gulliemot. Such a person would possess contacts with far greater and more diverse sources of information than were available to the Rebel Spy, or the United States’ Secret Service.
‘Howdy there!’ Belle Boyd greeted the tall, buxom blonde, a Germanically good looking maid who answered the door in response to her pull on its bell. ‘I’ve come to see “die Fliescher.’
‘Who?’ the servant asked, the one word being sufficient to establish her ethnic origin.
‘Die Fliescher, Dutchy,’ the Rebel Spy repeated, with an accent far different from her usual cultured Southern drawl. ‘Go tell him it’s Calamity Jane and I’ve been driving for good ole Jebediah Lincoln.’
Only three days had elapsed since Belle’s arrival in Chicago. Using sources the nature of which Belle had not questioned, Benkers had obtained the name and address of the man she was seeking. Although the information she required was delivered on the first evening, along with details of an unusual form of entertainment to which Ernst ‘die Fliescher’ Kramer was partial, she had spent the intervening time making preparations for the visit to his home.
Once again, the Rebel Spy was demonstrating her ability at disguising herself and giving a convincing portrayal of the character she was pretending to be. She was helped in this instance by being well acquainted with the person she was impersonating. Furthermore, despite being more slender in build, she was confident that she could pass herself off as the Martha ‘Calamity Jane’ Canary whose exploits were frequently reported in the Police Gazette and similar magazines commanding a large sale throughout the East.
Belle had dyed her hair a fiery red and wore thin leather gloves to conceal that her hands were less work-roughened than might be expected from one employed as the driver of a six-horse freight wagon. She was sufficiently tanned to preclude the need for make-up to aid her pose of being a person who spent most of her life out of doors. A search of the city’s shops had procured the requisite attire, although the low crowned, wide brimmed black hat she was jauntily wearing should have been a battered U.S. Cavalry kepi to obtain absolute authenticity. She had on a tight fitting, open-necked tartan shirt, a fringed buckskin jacket and matching trousers, with Indian moccasins for footwear. As the laws of Chicago prohibited carrying firearms in such a fashion, she had not donned a gunbelt and was unsuccessful in acquiring a hull whip such as Calamity Jane almost always wore attached to the waist belt. She did, however, have an ivory handled Dance Bros, copy of the Colt 1851 Navy revolver tucked into the left side of her trousers’ waist band, its butt turned forward to be readily available to either hand.
In addition to supplying the information, Benkers had insisted upon helping Belle. Wearing masculine attire and made up to look like a mustached young man, she had driven the Rebel Spy in a fringe-top Surrey90 to the high rent north-eastern district of the city and was waiting in it outside the grounds of Kramer’s large mansion.
‘I don’t understand!’ the maid stated, starting to close the door.
‘Who is it, Gretchen?’ barked a harsh masculine voice in German.
Taking advantage of the maid looking around, Belle pushed by and gained access to the mansion. She found herself in a large entrance hall and was given her first glimpse of the man she had come to find.
Close to six foot in height, heavily built, although much of his bulk was fat, Kramer was in his late fifties. He had on stylish and expensive city clothes, but they neither flattered his appearance nor distracted from his all too obvious corpulence. Being cropped very close, his greying hair emphasized the bullet shape of his head. He had florid, porcine features and a well fed air which contributed to his sobriquet, ‘the Butcher’, although he also pretended his source of income was attributable to participation in that business.
‘Howdy, “Mr. Butcher”,’ Belle said, thrusting her hat into the hands of the clearly indignant maid. ‘Good ole Jebediah Lincoln said I should drop by and visit a spell any time I was in the Windy City. So here I be to do it.’
‘He did, did he?’ Kramer barked, in guttural and Germanic-accented English, the man in question being his chief agent in the Montana region and, as such, knew his address. However, he was aware of something else and it lead him to continue in his native tongue, ‘Shut the door, Gretchen.’
‘Jawohl! Herr Kramer!’ the maid answered.
‘Why sure,’ Belle agreed. She spoke sufficient German to understand the order and she waited for it to be carried out. ‘Only, seeing’s how poor ole Jebediah gotten his-self sort of killed by those jaspers he left behind afore he went on his last trip, I reckon’s how you’d maybe be pleased to see me.’
‘Ach, so!’ Kramer grunted, pronouncing the second word, ezoe! ‘And who are you?’
‘Calamity Jane,’ Belle lied.
‘Calamity Jane?’ Kramer repeated and nodded his head.
‘What the—?’ Belle yelled, as two hands gripped and jerked the buckskin jacket over her shoulder to pin her arms.
‘So you are the famous Calamity Jane, are you?’ Kramer challenged, stepping forward to pluck the revolver from the girl’s waistband and withdrawing a hurried couple of paces as she tried to kick at him.
‘You just bet your god-dammed life I am!’ Belle continued to prevaricate heatedly. ‘Now what the hell’s the son-of-a-bitching idea?’
‘I have heard you are a very tough young lady,’ the Butcher replied, allowing the weapon to dangle uncocked at his side as he moved farther away. ‘But, although I am not from Missouri, I always need to be shown—Gretchen!’
Hearing her name and knowing what was expected of her, the maid released her hold on the jacket in a shoving motion which propelled Belle into the center of the hall. Having done so, she removed her white cap and tossed it on to the black hat she had dropped when carrying out her employer’s unspoken instructions. Kicking off her shoes, she reached behind her back.
‘God damn it!’ Belle screeched at the fat man as, remembering the information she had received from Benkers, she wriggled from and discarded the jacket. ‘What the hell’s your son-of-a-bitching game?’
‘Gretchen is tough also,’ Kramer replied, running the tip of his tongue across his thick lips in a gesture suggestive of licentious anticipation. ‘So we will see which of you is the tougher, nein?’
‘Gretchen?’ Belle spat out, looking over her shoulder at the maid. ‘If you mean her, it’ll be more son-of-a-bitching “stretchen” than Gretchen time I’m through with her.’
‘That we will see!’ the Butcher claimed and continued in German, ‘Thrash her good, little one!’
Eyeing the slender girl with sadistically malicious pleasure, having understood the derogatory comment, the maid tugged at the waist band of her skirt. It opened and, accompanied by the frilly white apron which completed her uniform, the garment slid down to reveal a pair of brief white underpants from which suspender straps made scarlet stripes along the milky white of her bulky—if shapely—thighs until joining black silk stockings. Stepping clear of the skirt and apron, she clenched her fists after the fashion of a male pugilist and advanced.
‘She’s going to get hurt!’ Belle warned over her shoulder, keeping her gaze on the taller, heavier woman.
‘That is what she will be paid for,’ the Butcher replied.
Despite having heard of Kramer’s penchant for watching women fighting,91 the Rebel Spy had not anticipated that she would be compelled to participate in his erotic pleasures. Neither was she caught entirely unawares, due to Benkers’ information, when he decided to force her to defend herself. What was more, some of her own clothes were designed to be discarded in a similarly rapid fashion. Yet, studying the maid’s posture, she sensed she was up against a very competent opponent.
For her part, Gretchen felt no qualms whatsoever. Since coming into Kramer’s employment, she had been required to tackle other women. Everyone had been larger and heavier than the slender ‘red-head’ and she did not doubt that her knowledge of pugilism, backed by her far from inconsiderable strength, would offer her a similar advantage to those earlier occasions.
Coming into range of the apparently unprepared Belle, the maid swung a looping round-house left punch. Ducking at the last moment and allowing it to pass over her head, the Rebel Spy shot her clenched right fist on to the point at which the black blouse and white panties joined. It was a good blow and, despite the rubbery hardness of the muscles beneath the garments, elicited a sharp intake of breath from its recipient.
But nothing more!
Instead of being winded, or even compelled to step away, Gretchen delivered a back-hand swing with her right arm. Caught at the side of the face, Belle was knocked staggering for a few steps. While she managed to remain on her feet, she was given no chance to recover. Moving in swiftly, the maid grabbed a double handful of her short ‘red’ hair and used it to precipitate her across the room. Sent in a wild twirling reel, she could not prevent herself from colliding against the wall. Although much of her momentum had gone, she was still dumped in a sitting position with her back to it. Nor were her troubles over.
Walking forward, aware of the kind of things her employer enjoyed watching at such times, Gretchen bent and thrust both hands into the open neck of Belle’s shirt, causing its buttons to burst from their fastenings and the material to rip to the waist. Sliding beneath the bodice, the fingers and thumbs dug into the mounds of the two firm breasts. Crushing and grinding at them, as if kneading dough for bread, she lifted her victim erect. While doing so and ramming the slender girl backwards against the wall, she could not resist looking at Kramer for evidence of his approbation.
The inattention proved to be an error of judgement!
Tormented from the punishment being inflicted upon her bosom, Belle did not allow it to render her incapable of resistance. The moment Gretchen looked away, she thrust up her right knee. Passing between the spread apart legs, it rammed into a portion of the feminine anatomy very susceptible to such an attack. Although it was not delivered at full strength, because of the pain the Rebel Spy was suffering, she was brought immediate relief.
Letting out a strangled squawk, Gretchen staggered towards the center of the hall. On emerging from the bodice, her hands went to clutch at the stricken area. For all that, when Belle approached to continue the attack, she threw a punch. Although missing its intended mark and only catching the shoulder, it halted the slender girl. An instant later, however, a set of hard knuckles dug into her left breast. As the thin black blouse was all that covered her bosom, there was nothing to protect it and she let out a little yelp of protest. A punch to the face, which started her nose bleeding, one just as hard to the other breast and a third to the jaw, delivered in rapid succession, drove her into an involuntary retreat of which she felt sure her employer would not approve. So, shaking her head, she lunged forward. Failing to achieve her desire by pinning her opponent’s arms down, she encircled the slim waist with her own and began to squeeze.
Croaking in agony. Belle found herself being compressed against the maid’s hard body and lifted from her feet. As she was borne backwards across the hall, she knew she must free herself quickly. With that in mind, she clenched her hands and dug the knuckles of each forefinger into the mastoid region behind Gretchen’s ears. Such was the agony this inflicted, the woman could not stand it. Giving a screeched out obscenity in German, she opened her arms and used her bosom to thrust the Rebel Spy away.
Alighting on her feet and in control of her movements, despite her ribs feeling as if she had just emerged from the coils of a boa constrictor, Belle sprang aside to avoid the maid’s rush. Making a fast pivot as the blonde blundered by, the girl performed a bounding savate kick which drove both moccasin-covered feet into her shoulders. Hurtled forward, she crashed face and bosom foremost into the wall and bounced, dazed and helpless from it. Catching her right wrist in both hands, Belle swung her around and propelled her to land and roll until supine a short distance from her employer. Darting over, the girl sank until crouching astride her stomach. Taking her hair and raising her head, the girl banged it hard on the floor.
Delivering a second bang with the head and feeling the big woman’s already feeble struggles end, the Rebel Spy looked up. Kramer was standing a few feet away. Perspiration soaked his face as he stared with rapt attention. His left hand was thrust into the pocket of his trousers and he had allowed the Dance Bros, revolver to dangle unheeded at his side.
Thrusting herself from the recumbent body of the maid, Belle butted the Butcher in the stomach with her lowered head. As she did so, hearing him belch out his breath in a croaking profanity, she caught hold of the weapon with her left hand. Plucking it from his grasp as he stumbled backwards and fell on to his rump, gasping to replenish his depleted lungs, she transferred it so the butt was in her right fist.
‘All right, you son-of-a-bitch!’ The Rebel Spy hissed, cocking the weapon and lining it at the startled face of the fat man, her tone closer to normal than that of Calamity Jane.
‘You’ve had your god-damned pleasure. Now listen to mine!’
Kicking open the door of the only room in the derelict building from which there was a light showing, Ernest Kramer entered with a short-barreled Colt Storekeeper Model Peacemaker revolver in his right hand. Following on his heels, armed in the same way, were two tall, husky-looking, blond haired and Germanic young men. One of them had brought him to the building in an almost deserted portion of the slum area on the fringes of the Streeterville district and, despite his misgivings, he found his journey had not been a wild-goose chase.
‘So!’ the Butcher barked, pointing the revolver towards where Belle Boyd and Amelia Benkinsop were seated on the two chairs at the rickety table which comprised the remainder of the room’s far from luxurious appointments. In fact, apart from a fair-sized leather trunk beneath the table, they were its sole furniture. ‘That is the way you are!’
There was a reason, if not justification for the cryptic utterance.
Apart from having changed her tom shirt for one which was undamaged, the Rebel Spy was dressed as she had been during the visit to Kramer’s mansion. While Benkers had removed the false moustache she had worn and the hat with which she concealed her golden blonde tresses, she still had on the rest of the masculine attire.
‘I like fellers’s well,’ Belle replied, in her ‘Calamity Jane’ voice, showing no more concern than her companion at the three armed men’s eruption into their presence. ‘We wondered how long it’d take you to get here, didn’t we, Benkers?’
Yes,’ confirmed the blonde, keeping her reply to a minimum to lessen the chance of her English accent being noticed.
Having kept the Butcher covered with her revolver, effectively preventing his two men from intervening when they had appeared in the entrance hall from the rear of the mansion, the Rebel Spy had explained the supposed reason for her visit. She had been gambling upon his not knowing the full facts, even if he had heard of Jebediah Lincoln’s death at the hands of three former employees, regarding the agent’s last and abortive assignment.
The gamble had paid off.
While Kramer had heard of Lincoln’s demise, he did not question the version of the events prior to it which Belle had given. The arms which should have been delivered to equip the proposed Metis and Indian uprising in Canada had been returned to his depot in Stokeley. However, the precautions which were always practiced to prevent treachery on the part of the purchasers—removing a small and vital piece of each weapon’s mechanism and hiding them—had been carried out by Lincoln on the night before the rendezvous was to have been reached. Circumstances had prevented him from recovering them, but Belle had claimed they were in her possession. Her story of having followed Lincoln when he buried the parts, then returned to collect them after he had deserted her, went unchallenged. She had prevented it from being questioned by offering to sell them, along with some incriminating documents obtained from Lincoln, to their rightful owner. Then, telling the Butcher she would inform him later when, where and how much money he was to bring in exchange for the property, she had made the men lie on the floor face down and took her departure without impediment.
As the girls had anticipated, on rejoining Benkers and driving away from the mansion, they had soon been followed by one of Kramer’s young men. Showing no indication of knowing he was behind them, they had driven across town and returned the Surrey to the livery barn in the Streeterville district from which it had been hired. Still allowing him to keep them under observation, they had walked to the small and derelict house in a street of equally dilapidated and practically deserted properties in a slum area which was being cleared to make way for more habitable dwellings. He had kept watch on the house until nightfall, then left—as they had assumed correctly—to bring his employer to call upon them.
‘You knew we would come?’ Kramer barked, realizing what was implied to the response his comment had elicited.
‘Why sure,’ Belle declared, making no attempt to touch the Dance Bros, revolver which lay on the table between her and Benkers. ‘I don’t know how that big feller stacks when it comes to dogging city folk, but he wouldn’t last five minutes up again’ a ten-year-old button raised west of the Big Muddy. We let him trail us here, figuring he’d fetch you,’
‘Why?’ the Butcher asked, frowning.
‘To show you I wasn’t bluffing about what I’d got,’ the Rebel Spy explained, moving the trunk forward with her foot. ‘It’s all in here,’
‘Everything?’ Kramer inquired.
‘Could be everything,’ Belle said, in a cagey fashion. ‘Or, then again, I might not’ve left anything in it,’
‘Open the trunk, Fritz!’ Kramer snapped, speaking German.
‘Happen you’re telling him what I reckon,’ Belle remarked, as the man who had followed them stepped forward. ‘It’s locked.’
‘You have the key?’ the Butcher wanted to know, reverting to English.
‘Right here in my pocket,’ Belle agreed.
‘Give it!’ Fritz commanded, making a threatening gesture with his Colt and holding forward his left hand. ‘Carefully!’
‘Whatever you say,’ the Rebel Spy assented, reaching into her jacket’s right side pocket and extracting a sturdy brass key with her thumb and forefinger. ‘Just so long’s your boss don’t mind you seeing what’s inside,’
‘What do you mean?’ Kramer demanded, as Fritz glanced at him.
‘Could be there’re things in the trunk you’d’s soon nobody else saw,’ Belle replied.
‘I trust my men!’ the Butcher asserted.
‘You know ’em better’n me,’ Belle countered, having detected a slight note of uncertainty in Kramer’s voice and making a motion as if eager to allow the trunk to be opened by the younger man.
‘No!’ the Butcher barked, again in his native tongue. ‘Give me the key, then take them both outside and wait for me.’
‘Jawohl!’ Fritz assented, taking the key from Belle. Having handed it to his employer, he picked up her revolver and said in English, ‘Go outside, both of you.’
‘Hold on just a god-damned minute!’ the Rebel Spy protested. ‘Are you going to buy back that stuff?’
‘Buy back what is mine?’ Kramer snorted. ‘I am taking it back!’
‘By grab!’ Belle hissed in what appeared to be fury. ‘If that’s the game, you just open that trunk and you’re going to wish you hadn’t.’
‘I will take my chances on that!’ the Butcher declared. ‘Take them outside.’
‘What do we do with them, Herr Kramer?’ the second young man asked.
‘Keep them quiet until I come,’ the Butcher replied. ‘Then we take them with us and see if Miss Calamity Jane can defeat Gretchen, a second time, or some other of the girls.’
Waiting until his men had escorted the girls from the house, Kramer went to the trunk. Bending down and thinking he had never seen such a large, sturdy lock on any other piece of luggage, he inserted and turned the key.
The sudden crack of an explosion, followed by a whooshing roar and rapidly growing glow of flames came as the two young Germans were hustling Belle Boyd and Amelia Benkinsop towards the fringe-top Surrey in which they had traveled from Ernst Kramer’s mansion. The sound was followed by a brief, but horrifying masculine scream of mortal agony.
‘Now!’ the Rebel Spy hissed, as the Germans let out startled exclamations in their own language. She turned to snatch the Dance Bros, revolver from Fritz’s unresisting grasp and, swinging the base of its butt against the side of his jaw, tumbled him unconscious to the ground.
Showing commendable presence of mind, considering she was taken just as completely unawares as their escort, Benkers reacted almost as quickly as her companion. Jerking her arm free from the second German’s grasp, she spun and kneed him in the groin with sufficient force to drop him in a moaning, writhing heap at her feet.
‘Come on!’ Belle ordered, glancing at the glare which told the fire inside the room was spreading at a great rate. Accompanied by the Englishwoman, she ran to the Surrey. Jerking free the weighted hitching rope, she climbed aboard and, as soon as Benkers joined her, set the already restless horse into motion. ‘Let’s get away from here.’
‘What was in the trunk?’ the honey blonde inquired, after the vehicle had covered about a hundred yards from the now freely blazing house.
‘A powder charge to set off a bottle of Berney’s “Liquid Fire”,92 which had pieces of phosphorus in it to ensure it burned once air got at it,’ the Rebel Spy replied. ‘The lid of the trunk opened from what appeared to be the back. Its lock was a fake, fitted with percussion caps which were detonated and set off the powder charge when the key was turned. The Yankees nearly killed me with something similar during the War,93 so I took, a chance we still had some around and, sure enough, one was sent along when I telegraphed for it.’
‘Did your people know what you wanted it for?’ Benkers inquired.
‘My superior knew who I was after,’ Belle answered. ‘And it was he who authorized the issue. I don’t regret what I’ve done in the slightest, Benkers. The Butcher has made a fortune peddling death for years.’
‘I know,’ Amelia Benkinsop said quietly. ‘He certainly deserved his fiery end.’