Henry Gentry was Indiana’s answer to P. T. Barnum. The enterprising fellow billed himself as “Professor,” but he had never seen the inside of a college classroom. In fact, he started in the humblest way imaginable. He rounded up a bunch of stray dogs in Bloomington, trained them, and began the most successful dog and pony show in the world.
The genius of H. G. was simple. He kept the operation small—one eighty-foot roundtop tent for the main ring and two outer tents for the animals. When he had more success than he could handle, he started a second troupe—then a third and a fourth—each managed by one of his brothers. The same troupe could play a single city for weeks by moving its tent to different neighborhoods.
Troupe number one played Sedalia that September. The band leader, Beach Parrott, began the show by blaring out a fanfare. Children in the audience whooped with glee when the ringmaster, Wink Weaver, invited them to ride ponies free after the performance.
The show was a marvel, though Jemmy paid it less attention than she would a woolly worm on the sidewalk. A little pink pig dived from a platform into a teeny pool; goats climbed ladders and slid down slides. The baby elephant waved an American flag while dogs atop military ponies trotted in close formation around the ring to Sousa’s “Stars and Stripes Forever.”
Jemmy’s head rolled up and down like a yoyo as she tried to see the show and find Hal at the same time. Starting at the top of the stands, she worked her way down section by section. She systematically scrutinized every face in the crowd. She made herself dizzy switching back and forth from the search to the sprightly antics of Professor Gentry’s “150 ~ aristocratic ~ animals.”
Jemmy scowled and stewed. Hal had deserted her, true; but now a big dose of pure concern softened her anger. No matter what photogenic sights had enticed him, he surely would have finished shooting them in less than six hours.
Guilt closed in from another quarter. Is this any way for a professional journalist to behave? Not find Hal and not do my job either? I should be on my way to the train depot to send a finished “dog and pony” story to St. Louis by the next train. She was too dispirited to even begin the article.
As the show let out, she asked directions to Liberty Park and soon found herself back at the Koock home. She crossed her fingers as she knocked on the door. She never would have thought she’d yearn to see Hal’s freckled mug. Her longing was so overwhelming she even wished for a repeat of Hal’s disastrous debut as butler. She’d welcome Hal back even if he spilled a whole tureen of tomato soup on her best gabardine skirt.
Her spirits sank still lower when Dorothea opened the door. “Isn’t the young man with the camera with you?”
Jemmy had to admit, “I haven’t seen him since before noon. I hoped he might have returned here after we became separated in the crowd.”
Dorothea sounded alarmed. “You’ve been out in public for hours with all manner of hooligans in town without an escort?”
“Please don’t tell Aunt Tilly. She would never let me out of doors if she knew.”
Dorothea patted her arm and spoke in a conspiratorial tone. “Don’t fret. Aunt Tilly wouldn’t approve, but personally, I find the idea thrilling. I only wish I had half as much gumption.”
“I need your help,” said Jemmy. “I’ve been to all the places I think Hal would have wanted to photograph, at least the ones within walking distance. Where can he be? I’m too worried to concentrate on my articles for the paper. I must find out what’s happened to him. Can you think of anything we might do?”
“We could go to the police.”
“I’ve already been. The deputy said I would save myself grief if I stopped looking for brawlers.”
“I see. He didn’t take you seriously because you’re female.”
“Perhaps Lilburn might know something, or Jean Max. Perhaps one of them remembers a place Hal mentioned—someone or something he wanted to photograph.”
Dorothea led Jemmy through the kitchen where Pélagie was peeling sweet potatoes. They stepped out the back door into the garden where Jean Max was turning over the compost heap.
“Jean Max, would you have any notion of where we might find Miss McBustle’s photographer? He’s gone missing.”
Jean Max gave a Gallic shrug of his shoulders. Dorothea tried again. “Perhaps you heard him mention some scene he wanted to photograph—some place or some person.”
Jean Max cocked his head, then nodded in the affirmative. “Beeg poster of Wild Beel. He try but light no good. Maybe light better now, eh?”
Jemmy brightened at the thought. Hal might be waiting for the right light to capture the immense barn roof sign on the road to Kansas City. A nagging bit of reality at the back of her mind told her not to hope. Still, it was something to try—something to occupy the next hour—something to free her brain from this maddening limbo.
Dorothea said, “Hitch up, Jean Max. We’ll give him a ride home so he doesn’t have to carry all that heavy glass.”
Until dusk they scoured the city. They drove to barn roofs, hoardings, walls of vacant buildings plastered with posters. Hal was nowhere to be found.
Back at home, Aunt Tilly rebuked Jemmy and Dorothea for a host of improprieties: for being late to dinner, for failing to arrive at table in a proper state of dress and toilette, and—most of all—for failing to make cheerful conversation. Aunt Tilly didn’t seem to miss Hal, though—perhaps because a newly hired and supremely efficient butler made the dinner flow seamlessly from butternut squash soup through apple cake without a single catastrophe.
Auntie did notice the undersupply of Koock gentlemen. She clucked her tongue over the absent young Mister Marmaduke and his father, Obadiah. Jemmy wondered when she would take those two males more firmly in hand.
After dinner Auntie whisked Fanny and Sissy off to the nursery. Dorothea looked at her stepson. “Lilburn, if you have any notion where Miss McBustle’s photographer might be, please tell us.”
Burnie said, “The only place I can think to go is the Maple Leaf Club. Hal was much taken with ‘Perfessor’ Joplin’s music.”
When the four arrived on East Main, Jean Max and Burnie left to seek Hal. Dorothea rolled down the blinds on her side of the carriage and pulled her shawl over her face. When Jemmy leaned forward, Dorothea tapped her with her fan. “Roll down your blinds. Don’t let people see you in this neighborhood. You’ll cause a scandal.”
“I’ve already scandalized these people once. I don’t think one more teensy disgrace can make much difference.”
Jemmy turned her good ear toward the club. The ragged beat and tinkly descant made her a fan of Scott Joplin’s ragtime from that moment on. She closed her eyes and stuck her head out of the carriage. In her heart of hearts she wished she would open those eyes to find a certain skinny robber asking her to listen to music with him.
A voice she recognized spoke, but not one she delighted in hearing. Her eyes opened to view the pimply forehead of Duke Koock.
“Damn me. You’re almost as much of a nuisance as the old sow you came from St. Louis with. What are you doing here?”
“Hunting for you. When you didn’t come home to dinner, Mrs. Koock was worried.”
He snorted. “If my stepmother came chasing me every time I skipped a meal at home, my father would have to divorce her on grounds of desertion. Go back to the house or old Dotty and the old sow will both be hunting for you.”
“How silly of me to try to spare your feelings by suggesting anyone would bother trying to find you. I have no interest whatsoever in your whereabouts. In point of fact, we’re trying to locate my photographer Hal. Have you seen him?”
Duke bugged out his eyes and stroked his chin. “Well, maybe.” He motioned for Jemmy to lean forward, then cupped his hand to whisper in her ear. Instead of the expected whisper, he delivered a raucous sputtering that could only be described as a mighty good imitation of a fart. Ear itching from the raspberry and damp with spit, Jemmy shuddered and yanked her head inside the carriage. On the way she bumped her head on the window frame.
She winced as she dug in her reticule for her hanky. While Duke sauntered off laughing, she gave the mucky ear a vigorous cleaning.
Duke’s “whoos” of laughter sounded like an amorous male peacock with the hiccups. His repellent sounds faded; but his presence lingered in her ear—her good ear, her ear drenched in Duke’s obscene spittle.
Dorothea asked, “Did he call me Old Potty?”
“ ‘Old Dotty.’ He called you ‘Old Dotty.’ ”
“My stepson calls me a crazy woman? I must be a crazy woman to put up with him.” Dorothea started to weep.
Jemmy patted her hand. “Better ‘Old Dotty’ than ‘Old Potty.’ ”
“I don’t see much difference. They both imply insanity.”
“But the second one suggests you also smell bad. You don’t. You smell like violets in spring.”
“Thank you, Jemmy. You always say the right things to cheer me. I’ll surely miss you when you return to St. Louis.”
Jemmy was still cleaning her ear and Dorothea was still sniveling when Burnie returned without news of Hal. “Did something happen while I was gone?”
“Duke favored us with a few moments of his precious time.”
“I didn’t see him.”
“He went off that way.” As she pointed in the direction Duke had gone, she saw three figures emerge from the shadows to meet him under the gaslight. She recognized the skinny robber and the pipe-smoking deputy from the sheriff’s office. She couldn’t identify a plump lady in a yellow plug hat. Jemmy drew the blinds in hopes they had not noticed her. What are those four up to?
Back at the Koock house, Jemmy’s anxiety mounted with each chime of the clock. The slightest crack or rustle raised hope of Hal’s return. Every time the noise turned out to be the creak of a house settling its bones. Disappointment wallowed in disappointment.
Jemmy slept little. One nightmare after another drubbed her brain. She dreamed she saw herself with pounding headache in place after ugly place—shackled in a dank cave—tied up in cobwebs in a musty cellar—drugged and suffocated by bedclothes that stank of formaldehyde. She struggled to free herself, but only managed to punch Aunt Tilly in the shoulder.
Aunt Tilly awoke in mid-snore. Jemmy pretended sleep. Soon Auntie’s open mouth once again produced sounds reminiscent of grunts from hogs nosing each other aside to find the best place in the trough.
Jemmy gave up on sleep. She brooded until daylight under the burden of not knowing and the double burden of not doing. She fretted her lack of sleep would give her puffy eyes and a scattered brain. She stewed still more at her own lack of feeling. How can I think of myself when Hal is still missing?
Bleary-eyed and lacking any plan to find Hal, she rose early. This was Friday—the big day—the whole reason she had come to the Queen City. That very day the Wild West would return to Sedalia.