CHAPTER 27

The Livingston mansion was always a dark and ominous place but now was all the more uninviting because two men had died bloody deaths there.

Kevington stood looking up at it, with Stockton at his side. The boy’s usual cocky attitude was gone now, driven away by a fear of Kevington and his toughs that he tried unsuccessfully not to show.

“How are we going to get inside?” Evaline asked.

“Break out a window,” Graham said.

“You don’t have to do that,” Stockton replied. “I know some secret ways into the house. It was built with secret ways in and out because old Livingston’s dead wife liked that kind of thing.”

He led them around the rear of the mansion and into a root cellar that was built right into the hillside and nearly hidden in a tangle of foliage and scrubby trees that had been allowed to have their way unmolested for years.

“It’s in there.”

“What is?”

“The door to the tunnel.”

Indeed there was a door hidden inside, on the rear wall. It was designed to blend into the structure in a natural way and had no apparent latch. But Stockton pushed one board, which tilted out and revealed a latch beneath. He tripped it easily.

“Did the man who owned this place know you made yourself such free and easy entrance to his dwelling?” Kevington asked.

“Old Livingston never used this tunnel, and I never went all the way into the house except once, when I knew he was gone. I’d come up here and hide in the end of the tunnel, mostly.”

“Hide from what?”

“My father. When he gets drunk, he beats me.”

Kevington grunted. He was not a sympathetic man. “Well, I’ll be the one to beat you if all this proves unworthy of the effort.”

“You wanted in the mansion, I’m getting you in the mansion.”

By match light they proceeded into the dank and earthen tunnel, bending low in the claustrophobia-inspiring place. Soon, though, they reached a door similar to the one that had admitted them. Stockton triggered the latch.

They entered a cellar so dark it was distinguishable from the tunnel itself only by the sense of open space around them. Graham struck another match, and by its light they saw and proceeded toward the flight of stairs leading to the main floor.

Stockton still led the way, being familiar with this house.

“There’s all kinds of other passages and tunnels and such,” he said, much like a tour guide. “Old lady Livingston was crazier than her husband and liked stories about tunnels and towers and passageways and all. That’s what everybody says, anyway.”

“Honestly, young man, I couldn’t give a tinker’s damn about the history of this house or the relative sanity of those who built and occupied it,” Kevington said. “I want to know only two things: whether Brady Kenton was here alone, or with my Victoria, and where the pair of them are now.”

The stairs led them into a rear hallway. Stockton led them to the main room. “There’s some lamps and candles around if you want light.”

“Candles will suffice,” Kevington said. “I don’t want much light to draw attention from the outside.”

They lit three candles among them and moved through the room, examining the bloody places on the floor where the bodies had lain. Though Stockton found it fascinating, the men weren’t much stirred by the sight. They’d drawn enough blood themselves over the years to take little interest in it now.

“Where are the bedrooms?” Kevington asked.

“Upstairs,” Stockton replied.

They climbed and began to explore the rooms. It was evident which one had been Livingston’s. It was packed and dirty and disordered, the room of a man who had lived for a long time without the organizing influence of a female. They found the room Kenton had been in as well but did not realize it because he had left no identifying traces behind.

In the largest of the bedrooms, however, they found two items of significance: a woman’s brush and a ruby-tipped hairpin that Kevington recognized as Victoria’s. He held it in his hand and for the first time exhibited visible excitement.

“She was here,” he said firmly, then repeated it twice, each time with more emphasis on the final word. “That bastard Kenton took her all the way from England, took her from me, and thought he could hide her here in this damned little mountain mining town … but he failed to take into account the determination of his adversary. I’ve tracked them down! He thought he could hide from me, but I’ve tracked him down like a hound on the trail of a fox! Ha!”

“Seems to me that some of us had a bit to do with tracking him down, too,” muttered Evaline, with a glance at Kendall Brown.

Kevington paced about the room, brows knit and mind racing. “I think I know what has happened here. Kenton is so desperate to hide his trail that he’s taken to killing. He’s murdered his own host and taken away Victoria to an even more remote hiding place. He’s so determined to keep Victoria for himself that he’s killing anyone who knows he has her. But I’ll track him down. And when I do, it will be Kenton who dies.”

“Begging your pardon, Doctor, but Kenton may already be dead,” said Graham. “Remember that there were two men killed in this house. I figure the second one was Kenton. Almost nobody knows that Kenton didn’t really die last year, so nobody would recognize the dead man as Kenton even if it was Kenton. They’d just assume it was somebody who happened to resemble him. All we’ve got is this boy’s word that he’s seen Kenton alive since then. And I figure this boy is saying whatever he thinks will make him a dollar. I’ve been thinking, and I’ve got a theory. I believe McCurden tracked down Kenton and your woman, murdered Kenton and the man who owned this place, and took Victoria away somewhere else to hold her for ransom. I expect you’ll hear from him before long, making a big demand.”

Kevington thought about this, eyes glaring in anger. “If he’s done such a thing, I’ll see him suffer a good long while before he dies.”

Evaline spoke. “Seems to me what we’ve got to find out is who this second dead man is. If it’s Kenton, then we can assume that McCurden’s probably got the woman with him somewhere. If it’s McCurden, then we can figure the kid here is probably telling us the truth, and Kenton’s gone with his woman to the ghost town.”

Kevington wheeled and faced him. “Don’t ever refer to Victoria as Kenton’s woman. Don’t ever say that again. Do you understand me?”

“Mighty sorry, sir. I misspoke.”

Kevington nodded. “Yes … but you have a point. We need to learn who died here besides this Livingston gent.”

“They got a morgue in this town, boy?” Brown asked Stockton.

“Just the undertaking parlor.”

“Maybe the corpses are still there,” Kevington said.

Graham stepped forward. “I’ll go see. I’ve seen Kenton’s picture enough to know his face, and I met McCurden when you hired him. I’ll go and settle this matter for us … if the bodies are still in the morgue.”

“A good idea, Graham,” Kevington said. “We’ll await you.”

“At the hotel?”

“Right here.”

“What about the boy?” Evaline asked.

“He stays with us, until we’re through with him.”

This was fine with Stockton, who spent many nights away from home when his father was drinking. It usually took three or four nights away from home before his father came looking for him. If he was lucky, he wouldn’t come looking tonight. Stockton right now had one goal: to do whatever it took to see this through to the end and get his hundred dollars.

“I’ll be back,” Graham said, readying to go.

“Don’t rouse too many questions,” Kevington said. “Attention is not what we want.”

“I’ll be careful,” Graham replied.