Chapter Thirty-two
“Are you out of your mind, Pinkerton?” Buttons Muldoon said. “Only a crazy man would say what you just said.”
“Miss Huckabee is a fare-paying passenger of Abe Patterson and Son Stage and Express Company, and as such I am responsible for her safety. I will not let her be used in this way,” Red Ryan said. “No, it’s out of the question.”
“Red, I want to do it,” Hannah said. “If I can get rid of this murderous fiend and save another woman’s life, then my duty is clear. And I very much want you and Mr. Muldoon to protect me tonight. But if you refuse, then Detective Proudfoot says he can hire some likely lads.”
“All of them stalwarts, I assure you, Miss Huckabee,” Proudfoot said. “Well-armed and resolute citizens of this fair town.”
“Hannah, let me be in that adjoining room,” John Latimer said.
“No, John,” Hannah said. “I won’t trust you with my life, and there’s an end to it.”
“I would willingly sacrifice my life for you, Hannah,” Latimer said.
“No, John. And please do not mention it again.
“Hannah, are you sure you want to go through with this?” Red said. “It’s dangerous, and Proudfoot had no right to ask you to do it.”
“Yes, I want to go through with it. My mind is made up. I have it within my power to save the life of another woman, or a young child, and I can’t—and I won’t—turn away from that responsibility.”
Mr. Chang said, “As Miss Huckabee say, if she can do good things for other people, it is not a choice, it is a duty.”
“Miss Hannah could get her head chopped off with an axe, you crazy Chinee,” Buttons said.
Mr. Chang smiled. “You and Mr. Ryan brave men, Mr. Muldoon. You can prevent such an unfortunate end to Miss Huckabee’s illustrious career.”
“Pinkerton, you don’t even know if the killer will show up,” Buttons said.
“I’m pretty sure he will,” Proudfoot said. He consulted his huge watch and said. “It’s ten o’clock. Time Miss Huckabee was tucked up in bed.”
Red and Buttons exchanged glances, and Rush Sanford said, “Don’t anybody ask me for help. I’m too damned old to be facing down an axe murderer.”
Red’s sigh seemed to come all the way from his toes. “All right, we’ll do it,” he said. “I’m agin it, but I’ll do it for Hannah’s sake.”
“Damn tomfoolery if you ask me,” Buttons said. “The killer isn’t going anywhere near the Regency Hotel tonight, anyway. But nobody cares what I think.” Then to Proudfoot, “Is there a back door to the hotel?”
“Good question, Mr. Muldoon,” the Pinkerton said. “Yes, there is, and that’s the door you and Mr. Ryan will use. I will already be there, waiting for you. The room adjoining Miss Huckabee’s is number 27.” He consulted his watch. “Give us thirty minutes to get ready and then come to the Regency. One last thing, I want this killer dead.”
“Question is, what does he want?” Buttons said.
Proudfoot frowned. “He wants Miss Huckabee. That I can guarantee.”
* * *
The balding desk clerk was just going off duty when Hannah Huckabee and Rufus Proudfoot arrived in the lobby.
“All quiet tonight,” the clerk said. “It seems that all the guests are asleep.” He hurried toward the door as though anxious to leave. “Well, good night to you, Miss Huckabee. I’ll be here at seven sharp tomorrow morning, should you need anything.”
After the clerk left, the Pinkerton saw Hannah to her room and said, “For obvious reasons I won’t say good night, but keep your revolver handy.”
“Trust me, I will,” Hannah said. “Now that it’s happening, I don’t feel as brave as I did in the restaurant.”
“It’s a fearful thing I’m asking you to do,” Proudfoot said. “Hannah, if you wish to back out now, I won’t blame you. And no one else will, either.”
“I’ll stick,” Hannah said. “I’ve come this far, and I’ll see it through.”
The Pinkerton placed his hand on Hannah’s slim shoulder. “You’re a brave woman, Hannah. The bravest I’ve ever known.”
“Thank you,” Hannah said. “Well, let’s get this adventure underway.”
“Mr. Verne would be proud of you,” the Pinkerton said.
Hannah smiled. “I’d rather be in a balloon.” She closed the door but didn’t turn the key in the lock, and Proudfoot stood in the hallway for a long time, his head bent in thought, his heart racing. He heard Hannah preparing for bed as he reached into his coat and drew his Shopkeeper Colt from the shoulder holster and thumbed a round into the revolver’s empty chamber. Satisfied, he re-holstered the Colt and remained outside Hannah’s door awhile longer, his face grim, before he made his way downstairs.
The key to Room 27 hung on a hook on the rack behind the desk, and Proudfoot took the key and walked through a darkened hallway to the back door. Behind him, in the lobby, the slightly-out-of-tune grandfather clock chimed into the dead silence, like eleven silver coins dropping one by one into a cracked pewter bowl.
Red Ryan and Buttons Muldoon were already waiting outside. The Pinkerton held up the key. “Room twenty-seven,” he said. “Let’s go. Quietly now.”
Red carried his shotgun and Buttons his holstered revolver, but what suddenly gave Proudfoot pause was the tall, slim figure of John Latimer emerging from the gloom. “And you are?” the Pinkerton said.
“My name is Latimer. I’m a friend of Miss Huckabee.”
“He’s all right,” Red said. “He wanted to come along with us, and he’s handy with a gun.”
“You can vouch for him?” Proudfoot said.
Buttons said, “Like Red said, he’s all right. He was once engaged to be married to Miss Huckabee.”
“A lifetime ago,” Latimer said. “But yes, we were engaged to be married.”
Proudfoot nodded. “Good to have you along, Latimer. Are you armed?”
“I have a derringer.”
“Good. If you tangle with the murderer, stick it in his face and pull the trigger. It will get the job done. Now follow me.”
The four men returned to the lobby, walking carefully through darkness. Buttons, prone to hay-fever attacks when he was excited, sneezed, and Red, irritated, jabbed the butt of the Greener into his ribs.
“I can’t help it,” Buttons said. “A man can’t hold in a sneeze.”
And Proudfoot said, “Shh . . .”
The stairs were in darkness, and Buttons said to no one in particular, “Watch where you walk.”
Slowly, carefully, the four men climbed the stairs, a single, creaking step at a time. Once in the hallway, Proudfoot whispered. “Room twenty-seven. Let’s go.”
“I don’t like this,” Buttons said. “I don’t like this one bit.”
“Shh . . .” Proudfoot said again.
The Pinkerton halted at Room 27 and opened the door. It creaked on its hinges, and for a moment Red thought his heart had stopped. One by one the four men filed into the room, and Proudfoot stood by the door of the adjoining room and whispered, “Now we wait . . .”
Buttons, in distress, held his nose, squeezing hard, trying to stifle a sneeze. Red glared at him.
Proudfoot was breathing noisily in short little gasps.
Red felt his belly tying itself in knots, and his mouth was dry. He put his Colt in his left hand, dried his sweating gun hand on his pants, and then passed the revolver back to his right again.
Outside a woman laughed in the street, a man’s droning voice said something to her that made her laugh again, and then there was silence.
The room was so quiet, Proudfoot’s watch could be heard tick, tick, ticking in his vest pocket. Sweat trickled down Red Ryan’s back, and beside him Buttons gave a little series of gasps as he held back a sneeze. Time seemed to stand still, the four men in the room standing motionless in place. Then, from Hannah’s room her brass bed creaked, accompanied by a soft, thumping sound as she pounded her feather pillow into place. Then the hush descended again.
Buttons took his hand from his nose, looked at Red, and smiled and nodded.
Then two events happened that opened the ball.
Buttons let out a rip-roaring, “Aaach-oooo!”
And a moment later a gunshot hammered through the hotel . . . followed by the shriek after hysterical shriek of someone in mortal agony.