CHAPTER 13

GUNNISON was surprised. He’d rarely seen Kenton express dislike for another person with such a pure and venomous contempt. “Is Kevington the counterpart of the mysterious French doctor who kidnaps Victoria … Candice, I should say?”

“Yes. But Kevington wasn’t French. He was an Englishman.”

“Are you telling me there was a real counterpart to this kidnapper physician?”

“There was. And he was a physician himself. Just like in the story.”

“Who was he? Why have you never mentioned him?”

“Because it’s painful. Unpleasant. It’s not something one likes to remember … knowing that a man was following your own wife, like a hunter stalking prey. And knowing that you let your guard down long enough to allow him to climb onto a train on which she was a passenger, with no one to protect her but her sister … and me nowhere near.”

“How do you know he was on that train?”

“I know the name of every person on that train, Alex. I studied the passenger list, the crew manifest … I even learned the names of a couple of vagabonds who had stowed away in one of the back cars. So you see, I only learned that Dr. David Kevington was on that train after he and Victoria were both killed. But we know now that Victoria was not killed after all. Maybe Kevington wasn’t, either.” Kenton looked Gunnison in the eye. “I think they both survived, just like Candice and Dr. Lanval in the novel. And I think that Kevington took her away, just as Lanval took Candice off to California. And I think that whoever wrote that novel knows it firsthand, as a fact, and is revealing the truth in the form of fiction.”

“Those are big jumps, Kenton.”

“Yes. But sometimes a man knows.”

“Or thinks he knows.” It was hard to speak this forthrightly with Kenton, who even after all these years—and even in this pitiful, drunken state—managed to somewhat intimidate Gunnison.

Gunnison went to the window and looked down onto the street. A sizable crowd was gathered around the front of the saloon whose window Kenton had ruined. The injured man was talking to a fellow with a notepad. Gunnison shook his head. He knew a reporter when he saw one. Just like almost every person in the United States knew Brady Kenton when they saw him, thanks to the excellent likeness of the man published in each edition of the Illustrated American.

Gunnison looked Kenton over out of the corner of his eye. At the moment he didn’t look a lot like himself, thanks to his disheveled, unwashed, and unshaven state. With any luck, the people below did not realize that the big troublemaker who had thrown the man out the window was America’s most famous journalist. He decided not to mention the reporter to Kenton. He’d also not mention the fact that a uniformed Denver policeman was approaching the scene, walking at the side of a tall fellow in a long coat …

Gunnison looked closely. Was that Jessup Best? Initially he thought so. When the man came a little closer, though, Gunnison saw that it was not Best. Just a fellow with a similar gait and manner of dress.

If fortune smiled, no one had paid attention when he and Kenton entered this rooming house. Maybe the policeman would never locate Kenton, and once Kenton was sober, he and Gunnison could slip out of Denver unnoticed. Then, as Gunnison foresaw matters, it would be off to the head offices of the Illustrated American for a meeting with the senior Gunnison. It was time to take care of this problem with Kenton’s job status. Gunnison understood his father’s dissatisfaction with Kenton’s job performance, even his suspension of the man, but in the long run it was a rather absurd situation. The Illustrated American needed Kenton a lot more than Kenton needed the Illustrated American. Bad recent job performance or not, there were journals and magazines and major newspapers all across the nation that would pay dearly to have Kenton for their own. The man could make a living writing books and lecturing, if he ever chose to do it.

Gunnison turned away from the window. Kenton was seated now, leaning against the wall, looking sick and weary. His heart went out to the man.

“Kenton, are you afraid of finding her?”

Kenton looked up at him. “My, my, Alex,” he said, sounding remarkably rational for a man very much drunk. Kenton had always been quick to shake off the effects of the alcohol that sometimes ensnared him. “Sometimes you are quite insightful. And a little too straightforward, diplomatically speaking.”

“Why would you be afraid, Kenton? It’s what you’ve wanted for so many years.”

“I know. I know. I think that … I think that I’m afraid I’ll find that, in the end, she’s no longer alive. And I’ll have missed my last chance to find her. Or, I’ll find that she is alive … and doesn’t want me.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“That’s the thing … there is nothing to say. I just have to face the facts as they are.”

“Do you want to keep looking?”

“Yes. I have to. I have to know. No matter what the truth may be.”

“Do you really believe that novel carries clues? Or are you just clinging to a wild hope?”

“Both. I understand how unlikely it all seems,” Kenton said. He rubbed his temples. “I’m beginning to not feel well.”

“You should lie down.”

“I think I will.”

Gunnison had been ready to tell Kenton about Rachel Frye and Jessup Best. But it could wait. Either or both might be in Denver right now, but neither were likely to appear here. It could wait. Gunnison sat by the window, watching the crowd below disperse. The policeman and the long-coated man with him moved on, not approaching the boardinghouse.

Kenton had been lucky this time. Unless, of course, that newspaper reporter had determined who he was. That sort of publicity could be fatal to Kenton’s career, if it got back to the Illustrated American.

*   *   *

Kenton was in bad shape when he woke up. He avoided the light and sat with his eyes hidden in his hands.

Gunnison had gone out for food, but Kenton was having none of it. He did, however, take occasional sips from the coffee Gunnison had poured for him.

“I need to tell you something,” Gunnison said. “I met a woman in Leadville. English. She said her name is Rachel Frye … and she claimed to be your daughter.”

Kenton looked up at that. “What did you say?”

“She claimed to be your daughter. She came to Leadville to find you. She’d seen the publicity.”

“Daughter! Lord, what foolishness.”

“So there’s no chance it’s true.”

“Of course not.” Kenton buried his eyes in his hands again. “I’ve got no children, American, English, Chinese, Canadian, French, Irish, or otherwise.”

Gunnison was glad to hear it. “I didn’t think it could be true.”

“The woman is either a liar or insane.”

“Also dangerous. I need to warn you about her. It’s one of the reasons I came to Denver to find you.”

Kenton looked weakly at his partner. “Warn me about what?”

“I met a Texas Ranger … well, a former Ranger … who is under the hire of a family in Texas, whose relatives she purportedly murdered. He told me she’d also committed murder in England.”

“Must be one devil of a woman.”

“I suppose so.”

“I’ll keep an eye out for murderous Englishwomen, then. Why did she want to find me?”

“Well, she thinks you’re her father. I guess she plans to tell you she loves you. Or murder you.”

“Whoever she is, she’s not important. What’s important is that I keep pursuing my quest.”

“Last night you said you were afraid to find Victoria.”

“And I’m also afraid not to, so one balances out the other. What tilts the scale is that I refuse to end my days without having tried, without having pursued every possible lead.” Kenton sipped his coffee carefully, wincing at the effort of swallowing.

“No more liquor, Kenton. You’ve got to stop with it before it takes you over completely.”

“I know.”

“Then swear it: no more liquor.”

“Oh, come on, now, Alex, what good is—”

“Swear it, Kenton!”

“Oh, hell’s bells, Alex.”

“Swear!”

Kenton stuck up his hand. “I swear. There. Swear on my mother’s grave. Swear on my grandfather’s pocket watch. Swear on my uncle Walter’s dead mule. Whatever you want.”

“Thank you.”

Kenton drank more coffee. “I think I’ll try to eat a little.”

“Then what?” Gunnison had his eye on the sketching table and its surrounding heaps of poorly done drawings.

Kenton followed Gunnison’s gaze. He stared at the failed attempts at his craft. “Well … not that. I won’t be doing that.”

Gunnison realized the potential significance of what he was hearing. “You mean you’re not going to finish the assignments that the Illustrated American is waiting for?”

“That’s what I mean.”