CHAPTER 26

Where Graham had a certain English grace about his manner, despite his burly build, George Evaline and Kendall Brown were Americans, products of poverty and violent households, and as rough-edged as men could be. Both were lean, flinty-eyed, and even more unscrupulous than Graham but were loyal to those who paid them. Upon his arrival in the United States, Kevington had hired an underground agent to assemble him a little army of investigators and hired toughs, and Evaline and Brown had come with the highest recommendations.

“Who’s this?” Kevington challenged Brown as he threw open the door, gesturing toward the boy with them. The boy wore a smart, disdainful expression and had the butt of a reeking cigar smoldering on his lip. He strode into the room like he owned it, Kevington glaring at him and instantly disliking him.

“That’s Stockton Shelley,” Brown said. “Local boy … he says he knows some things about Brady Kenton.”

“What I know I’m glad to tell,” Stockton said. “For the right price.”

Kevington knelt and looked into the boy’s face. Smiling, he reached up and removed the cigar from his lips and handed it to Evaline, who took it to the window and tossed it out.

“Cheap tobacco is rather revolting,” Kevington said. “So are little boys with exalted views of themselves.”

“You’re foreign!” Stockton said, not at all cowed by Kevington’s menacing manner. “Where the hell you from? France?”

“England, young man. The mother country of this vast wasteland of yours. Now, tell me what you know about Brady Kenton.”

“I know he drawed some might pretty pictures in his day. Anything else I know about him don’t come free.”

Evaline stepped forward, ready to grab the boy and begin persuading him to change his mind. But Kevington shook his head and waved him back.

“I’m not inclined to pay for that which may prove worthless,” Kevington said to Stockton.

“Then I reckon you’ll never know,” Stockton said, pulling another cigar from his pocket and sticking it in his mouth. It was a cheap saloon cigar, the kind barkeeps sold for a nickel out of jars. Stockton turned to Graham, who was puffing on his pipe. “Got a match, compadre?”

Graham laughed as he pulled a match block from his pocket. He liked this boy. “Here you are, young man.”

“Well, well! Another Frenchman!” He fired up the cigar and blew the smoke toward Kevington.

Graham laughed heartily. “You know, young gentleman, I’ve killed men for lesser insults than that one.”

“I don’t believe you’ll want to kill me. Not if you want to know where to find Brady Kenton.”

“You have this information, I take it?”

“Wouldn’t be talking about it if I didn’t.”

“You have a wiseacre attitude about you, young fellow. Do you have any notion how serious a matter we are talking about here?”

With a gesture toward Evaline and Brown, Stockton said, “I know that these two were going around asking whether anybody knew where Brady Kenton was. Most folks laughed and told them to look in the graveyard. But me, I know better. I can tell you where he’s been … and where he is now.”

“A big claim.”

“Needs some big money to go with it.”

Kevington had never met a boy he disliked more, and he disliked all children. But right now he was short on leads. McCurden had not appeared. Urchins of the street sometimes did know things worth knowing. He’d put up with the boy for now, in case he really did know something.

“If you can lead me to Kenton, my boy, it’s worth a hundred dollars to me.”

Stockton Shelley’s bravado couldn’t hold up. His eyes widened and it was clear at once that he hadn’t expected an amount like that. To Stockton, a hundred dollars was a rich man’s fortune.

“I’ll lead you to him,” he said. “And I hope you get somebody to arrest him, because he’s a murderer.”

“What do you mean?”

“He killed two men up in the Livingston mansion.”

“How do you know it was Kenton?”

“Who else could it be? He was up there in that house.”

“How do you know?”

“I seen him.”

“Was there a woman, too?”

“You’re the second man to ask me that. I never saw no woman. But if she was in the house, I wouldn’t have seen her.”

“Who is in the house now?” Kevington asked.

“Nobody that I know of.”

“Who was the second dead man?”

“I don’t know. But I know it wasn’t Kenton.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because I seen Kenton, traveling.”

“Alone.”

“No. Not alone. There was a woman.”

“You told me you never saw a woman with him!”

“I told you I never saw a woman with him the first time I saw him.” Stockton smirked.

“Damn you, boy, I’ll not have you play games with me! I don’t know that I believe a word you’re telling me.”

Graham spoke. “If that big house on the hill is empty, I think we should go in it. If Kenton and Victoria have been there, maybe there will be some sign of it.”

“You said you saw Kenton traveling, boy. Where was he going?”

“All I can say is what he seemed to be going toward.”

Kevington reached into a pocket. His hand closed around a derringer that he was ready to pull out and shove into the boy’s face. But instead he took a deep breath, put his face closer to Stockton’s, and said in an icy tone: “Listen to me, young man. I don’t know you, and I don’t know whether you are telling me the truth. But I have the strongest sense that you think you are very clever indeed, and that all of this is quite the game. Let me tell you something, my boy. I am not a gentle man. I am not a friendly man. I am not a man who has an abundance of scruples. If I find that you are indeed toying with me, I will personally cut off your ears, one at a time, and send you home to give them to your father and mother for whatever use they may want to make of them. Have I made myself clear?”

Stockton lost his smirk. “Yes, sir.”

“Now … we will go to this house, and look it over. If we find evidence that Kenton and Victoria have been there, your credibility will rise. But you will tell me—now—where it is you believe Kenton has taken her.”

“I’m thinking, sir, that maybe he’s taking her to the ghost town across the mountain, a town called Caylee. There’s a house there that Livingston kept up for staying in. I think Kenton killed Livingston and headed for that other house.”

“And why would Kenton kill Livingston and some stranger?”

“I don’t know. Maybe he was trying to protect the woman or something.”

Kenton as a killer. Kevington thought it over and found it perfectly plausible. God knows he himself would gladly kill for Victoria. Kenton would probably do no less.

“Let’s go,” Kevington said. “I want to look through that mansion. Is it locked up?”

“I know a way in,” Stockton said. He was being cooperative now, not nearly so snide and cavalier. Kevington had scared him, almost enough to make him run.

The only thing holding him back was that he didn’t have his hundred dollars yet.