The Sedalia mayor, Dr. Overstreet, spirited John Dollarhide off to the Katy hospital. Hal, Jemmy, Scott Joplin, and the Koocks delivered Scalager and the woman to the police station in the wee hours of Saturday morning. The quintet drank coffee that could have passed for kerosene while they wrote sworn statements of the night’s events.
The sun was up by the time they walked out the door. The energizing smell of morning dew refreshed Jemmy’s face.
Hal shook Scott Joplin’s hand. “I hope you will come perform in St. Louis. I was mighty taken with your music.”
Jemmy added, “Your piano playing amazed me. You sound like an entire orchestra.”
Obadiah shook hands with the musician. “I don’t know how we could have managed to free Mr. Dwyer without you, Mr. Joplin. If I can be of help to you in some way, please don’t hesitate to call on me.”
Scott nodded. “I’m honored to be able to help. The event itself was reward enough. It gave me an idea for a ragtime title, ‘Something Doing.’ Maybe I’ll find an honest publisher who will give me a royalties contract instead of making me sell my songs outright. Someday I might get ‘Something Doing’ published—in F major, I think—for the Scalagers, the major fakirs.” He smiled as he tipped his hat to the ladies and took his leave.
Obadiah looked thoughtful as he turned to Dorothea, “I know an honest music dealer right here in town, John Stark. Perhaps he knows an honest publisher.”
Jemmy turned back to read the sign announcing the building on Second Street as home to the Sedalia Police. She shook her head in bewilderment. “Those criminals had some gall. The wagon where Scalager and the woman held Hal prisoner stands only five blocks from the police station.”
With one hand Obadiah steadied Dorothea’s elbow as she mounted her horse. With the back of his free hand, he covered a yawn. “I can’t remember a more exhausting day in my entire life. I’ll send word to the Katy shops I won’t be in at all.”
He motioned to Hal to hand Jemmy up on the other Koock saddle horse as he stuck his foot in the stirrup to climb on behind Dorothea. “We can ride double back home. It’s not far.”
Hal backed away. “I have to get my camera—all my gear from the wagon.”
“Don’t fret yourself. I’ll send Jean Max with the cart.”
“I have to go to the arena.” Hal hung his head. “If I don’t get some pictures, my boss will fire me.”
“You could hardly take pictures while you were tied up. Surely he wouldn’t expect you to do the impossible.”
“Mr. Koock, sir, you don’t understand. Mr. Hamm must not find out outlaws tied me up. I’m supposed to be a bodyguard and a photographer. How can I tell him I got myself hobbled like a calf for branding? What’s worse, I didn’t take pictures, either.”
Jemmy added under her breath, “And instead of rescuing a damsel in distress, the damsel rescued you.”
Obadiah seemed to appreciate Hal’s problem, even if Jemmy didn’t. “What do you say, Miss McBustle? If you choose to write the whole story exactly as it happened, Mr. Dwyer won’t be able to hide the facts from his boss or anyone else.”
This moral dilemma twisted Jemmy’s brain pretzelwise. She had never taken an oath to tell the whole truth, but journalists—true journalists—lived by a code. The unwritten laws allowed them to exaggerate and sensationalize. But true newspapermen viewed the out-and-out lie as a crime punishable by excommunication from the ranks of the elite.
On the other hand, she owed Hal. He had helped her out of some tough scrapes. Yes, he was a pain, but a replacement—if Hamm would hire one at all—could be even worse.
If Mother didn’t believe Jemmy had proper protection, she would insist Jemmy stop working at the Illuminator. Jemmy couldn’t stand the thought of failing as a stunt reporter. What would I do? Hire on as clerk at Barr’s Department store? Marry a rich old codger with nothing better to do than complain about his gout?
Hal reminded her of a sad-eyed bloodhound that had lost its power of smell. She could no more resist his begging look than she could leave him in the clutches of kidnappers.
She made up her mind, but she didn’t speak right away. Base motives popped into her head. She tried to quash them. Still, she couldn’t suppress a shamefully devious thought.
Not only would Hal owe her on a scale he could probably never repay, but if he should ever get out of line, she had the means to gain his cooperation. Saving him from the Scalager woman was as good as a nose ring in a bull. She could twist it any time she wanted and cause him unendurable pain.
With gracious condescension she offered, “Of course. I wouldn’t wish Hal to lose his job. Let’s get a few hours of sleep, then go to the fairgrounds.”
Obadiah threw cold water on her idea. “I doubt you would find anyone there later today. The Wild West is playing the town of Joplin, Missouri, tonight. Their train leaves at seven-seventeen. I know, because they’re taking the Katy line.”
Dorothea offered, “We have plenty of time. I suggest we borrow the Pinkerton fellow’s horses, collect Mr. Dwyer’s gear, and go straight to the Wild West. I expect we’ll catch the performers at breakfast.”
Obadiah grinned. “The campgrounds it is—if Miss McBustle agrees.”
Jemmy felt a tiredness so overwhelming she feared falling asleep before they traveled a single block. She refused to let it stop her, but gamely mounted the little mare she had ridden the night before. “Lead the way.”
Dorothea added, “On the way home, we can drop by the Katy Hospital and see how Lilburn and the other injured fellow are doing. We can ask the Pinkerton man what we should do with his two horses.”
The time had come for Jemmy to confess. “About my not telling you when Aunt Tilly took Burnie to the hospital—”
Dorothea said, “I wish you had trusted me enough to tell me, but I understand why you kept silent. Mr. Koock’s telephone call to the hospital reassured us Lilburn will be fine. That’s the main thing.”
The fairgrounds hummed with action as the four rode up to Annie’s tent. The Butlers were enraptured by the story of Hal’s release. They applauded the capture of Scalager and the woman who had been plaguing the Wild West. The famous couple wore broad smiles as they posed for Hal’s endless picture-taking.
Members of the cast were only too happy to don costumes and even war paint. Hal could not have commanded more eagerness to please if he were President McKinley. Johnny Baker personally wrote ten passes for each of them to the governor’s box at any future show. He apologized again and again because the colonel was not on hand to reward them properly. “I know the colonel will honor you in a manner befitting the heroes who saved the Wild West star attraction and the ticket money, too.”
Annie insisted Dorothea and Jemmy keep the togs they’d worn when they played Frank and herself—along with a promise to send proper rewards as soon as she got home to Maryland.
Not until late morning did the four arrive at the Katy Hospital. The Sisters of the Incarnate Word did not welcome visitors who arrived outside of regular visiting hours. When they saw Katy boss Obadiah Koock himself had come to see his son, they relented. The sisters did insist each of the two injured men would have only one visitor at a time.
The four settled on an order: Hal would see John while Obadiah visited Burnie, then the men would switch. Afterward the ladies would take the men’s places. Dorothea had to prod Jemmy awake when Hal returned.
As she passed Mr. Koock, she noted his blinking eyes and red nose. They betrayed the tough businessman’s tender feelings for his son.
Exhausted, Jemmy plodded behind a tiny nun in a snowy wimple to the far end of the men’s dormitory. She sat in a chair recently vacated by Mr. Koock.
She steeled herself for what she had to do. She knew she should be pouring out her gratitude to John and Burnie. Both fellows had been shot to save Jemmy—voluntarily, too. But as she sat down by Burnie’s bed, she now asked for still more sacrifice. “I wonder whether you might do me a great favor.”
His face lit up. “Anything. Just ask.”
“Be my hero, a second time.”
“I’d like nothing better, but I don’t understand.”
“I want to write the story this way. You saved me from robbers at the ticket wagon just as you most valiantly did. But then the assassins who were trying to ruin the Wild West kidnapped you and tied you up in a wagon. Of course it was Mr. Dwyer they actually tied up, but he would lose his job if our boss found out. You wouldn’t want Hal to be fired, would you?”
He looked doubtful. “Why would anyone kidnap me?”
“Because the Scalagers know your family has money and that I’d come for you. They needed money. They wanted to hold me hostage because they thought my family would pay a big ransom. Two hostages from families with money would be worth even more, don’t you think?”
His eyes opened wide and started blinking; but he said nothing.
Jemmy hurried on. “Naturally, I brought your parents to help. They captured the crooks and rescued me. They’re extraordinary people—so brave—so clever. Anything you want to know about last night, ask them.”
Burnie grabbed her hand as she tried to stand. “Don’t go, please. I agree to the favor you want. Don’t I deserve a favor in return?”
Jemmy sat down. “Ask away.”
“Wait for me.”
Jemmy didn’t follow. “Wait for you to . . . ?”
“Turn fifteen. It’s less than two years away.”
Jemmy thought she knew why, but she needed to make sure. “What happens when you are fifteen?”
“I can marry without my father’s consent.”
Jemmy tried to let him down easy. “I know you want to marry me now, but two years is a long time. I doubt you’ll feel the same way then.”
“But I will. You may count on it.”
She removed his hand from hers and patted it. “I can’t promise to marry you. Most particularly, I would never marry you without your father’s consent. I’m sure he has great plans for you that do not include marrying when you are only fifteen years old.”
“He wants me to go to the University of Missouri in Columbia. He says I’ll learn the wisdom of the ages and make good contacts.”
“I’m sure he’s right. You must know I would never do anything to displease your parents. They saved my life last night.”
“I’ll have lots of time to talk them into it. They like you. I know they do. Will you wait? Please tell me you will.”
“I have no plans to marry anyone, none at all. I can tell you no more.”
He covered her hand with his and bit his lip. “Will you at least promise not to marry without speaking to me first?”
He sighed with such longing she had not the heart to refuse him. “I promise.”
He fell back against his pillows and released her hand. “Thank you. I’ll make myself worthy of you. I’ll swear as much on my mother’s grave.” Burnie looked so pitifully earnest, so eager for a kind word from her—like a cute beagle yearning for a pat on the head for bringing its master a dead toad. She felt a sudden and completely inappropriate urge to laugh. She managed to suppress it, barely.
She smiled to herself as she walked toward John’s cot. As if the two could read each other’s minds, Jemmy and Dorothea crossed paths at the center of the ward as they exchanged places.
Jemmy slipped into a chair by John’s bed. “Thank you for saving my life.”
“And thank you right back. Scalager’s woman stopped battling right quick when you bashed her over the head with the crate of elixir. How did you ever think of it?”
Jemmy tried not to wince when John patted her battered hand. She didn’t want to disappoint this brave man. She was not about to tell him she beaned the woman purely by accident. Jemmy was only trying to shake the smashed crate off her arm without letting go of her pistol.
She said, “We made a good team—the two of us—along with Scott Joplin and the Koocks.”
“You’re too modest. I don’t know how long I could have kept up the fight after Scalager’s woman shot me in the shoulder.”
Jemmy’s smile turned thoughtful as she leaned toward him. “Tell me something. Why did you persuade me to get out of the carriage that night in the alley by the Maple Leaf Club? Was I window dressing for some Pinkerton plan or—”
“Did you think I had something nefarious in mind?”
“No, I don’t think you had evil intentions. Truly, I didn’t then and I don’t now. I just want to understand. Why did you defend Duke and me?”
He answered lightly. “My chivalric nature, I guess.”
“So it wasn’t personal.”
John sobered. “It couldn’t have been more personal.”
“Yes?”
“I’m trying to decide whether to tell you the real reason.” He grimaced as he flexed the swollen fingers sticking out of his muslin sling. “I have a lonely job. Undercover work is hard. I have to cozy up to crooks I despise and romance women who would poison my beer if they discovered I am a spy. Most of the time I find myself in places no self-respecting bum would go, much less a true lady.”
He looked up at her. “But Wednesday night—just three days ago—I saw a lovely face, the freshest face I’ve seen in months. I wanted to pretend, if only for a little while, that I was just a young man from town who had a right to listen to music with a pretty girl.”
His words brought tears to her eyes. He brushed away one that fell to her cheek. “No tears for me. I chose my line of work, and I’m good at it. This is the first time I’ve ever been shot.”
With a jolt, Jemmy remembered the duties of a hospital visitor. “And I haven’t even asked how your shoulder is. All I’ve talked about is how I feel. You must think me a heartless, selfish girl.”
“I think you’re a brave girl who has a good head on her shoulders. The kind of girl I’d pick over a frail empty-headed lass any day.”
Jemmy teared still more. “You’re too generous. It was on account of me you got shot.”
“Don’t be silly. Risk goes with the job—and with good pay and expenses and bonuses, too.”
Jemmy fumbled for her hanky with her free hand. John lifted the other to his lips and kissed it, then sank back in his pillows. “Maybe we’ll find ourselves putting crooks out of business again sometime. When I’m in St. Louis, I’ll look you up at the Illuminator—if you don’t get too famous, that is—Mac.”
Jemmy dabbed her eyes as she nodded. She felt an overwhelming warmth to know he recalled even the phony name she gave herself. “You remembered.”
“A girl named ‘Mac’ is hard to forget.”
She leaned toward him and inhaled the sweet clean smell of apples and shaving cream. She took her leave with a chaste kiss to his forehead.
She didn’t see him dab his eyes as she left. Her own eyes clouded by tears, she stumbled through the ward. Thank heaven in a handbag, Aunt Tilly didn’t see the kiss. Auntie would make me suffer for such a vulgar display.
Back at the Koock home, the four crime foilers took to their beds. They left clear instructions not to be disturbed until the following day by anything less important than a large earthquake or a small tornado.
Jemmy would have relished the chance to sleep until she couldn’t sleep any more, but Aunt Tilly’s displeasure would be too high a price to pay. All four rose for breakfast, church, and a dutiful Sunday dinner with Parson Polkinghome and his family as the Koocks’ guests.
Jemmy spent Monday writing articles while Hal tinkered with smelly chemicals and glass photographic plates. Monday night’s farewell dinner showcased the new, very efficient butler. By then, Fanny and Sissy were firmly under the thumb of the new nanny, who had been chosen by Aunt Tilly to resemble herself as much as possible.
Obadiah not only attended, he played the true host. He told jolly stories and complimented Dorothea on everything from the food to her perfume.
Aunt Tilly seemed satisfied with her handiwork at the Koock household. Still, Jemmy had a premonition of the tongue-lashing she was apt to receive from the stern dame on the train ride home.
Jemmy would have liked another late-night gabfest with Dorothea, but the chat between friends was not to be. Obadiah and wife had become all but inseparable.
The train ride home was as unpleasant as Jemmy expected. The official explanation of where Hal, Jemmy, and the Koocks had been Friday after the show failed to satisfy. Aunt Tilly knew it to be false. After all, she had been at Burnie’s bedside in the Katy Hospital through the entire night.
Aunt Tilly was too polite to give brash girls like Jemmy their comeuppance while they were houseguests. Ordinarily she would not air dirty linen in so public a place as a train. However, she couldn’t contain her disgust. “I am shocked! A girl under my own personal charge showed off the shape of her legs in men’s pantaloons. What cheek!”
For once, a lie was slow to come to Jemmy’s lips. Hal rescued her. “It was the Pinkerton fellow. He persuaded Mrs. Koock and Miss McBustle to help him with his case.”
“The very idea. I shall write to the Pinkerton Agency and seek the dismissal of anyone who would have such little regard for the fair sex. Jemima so young and Dorothea a mother—the very idea—appalling. What’s this fellow’s name?”
Jemmy stammered. “I-I-I never found out his name.”
Hal rubbed his chin as if he were in deep thought. “Wasn’t it Phineas? Yes, I feel certain it was Phineas T. Munrab.”
Jemmy bit her lip to keep from laughing at “Barnum” spelled backward. She adopted a pose of innocence. “Was it? You found out more about him than I did.”
“Maybe Hamm will make a reporter out of me and a bodyguard out of you.”
Aunt Tilly gave each one “The Look” until both busied themselves with their private thoughts for the rest of the ride back to St. Louis.
Jemmy focused her thoughts on two famous women she’d seen in action. They were alike in bravery. Louisa Cody didn’t need a firearm to bring criminals to justice. Her hatpin was weapon enough. Annie Oakley was the world’s greatest shot, but she didn’t put a deadly bullet into her target criminal. She simply chased the Annie imposter on foot.
Of course, the two were also different as a brass ring from a bathtub ring. Annie Oakley earned her fame by endless hours of practice. Louisa Cody’s fame radiated from her bigger-than-life husband.
But Louisa’s life only looked plush and easy on the surface. It didn’t take Sherlock Holmes to see the woman’s misery. Jemmy thought she must be desperate, to travel from Nebraska to Kansas City to have a showdown with her roving husband and end up protecting him instead.
Choosing between these two as the better role model for herself posed no great problem. She vowed to herself to become the best reporter St. Louis ever saw—no matter how long the hours or how painful the sacrifice.
Of course, Jemmy envied one more thing about Annie. She and Frank were completely devoted to each other. Someday Jemmy might be lucky in love, too. At least, seeing Annie and Frank together made her believe some man might come to love her even if she happened to be headstrong and willful. Well, she could hope for such a miracle.