The Company of Strangers

Jantallian

3

"Take him to my room!" June Dark seized the key the clerk was offering her and thrust it at the men escorting her husband's body. It was pure chance which made her glance at the register as she waited for them to carry it upstairs. Skimming absently down the list, she suddenly focused on a particular name, a few entries above her own. She noted the room number and hastened upstairs.

In her room, she found Jim laid out on the bed and the men just leaving, with muttered words of sympathy and no little anger because such a man had met his end at the hands of a worthless saddle tramp. It was a tribute to her charm that none of them appeared to blame her for the gunman's actions. June just bowed her head and nodded her thanks, concealing her impatience to get them out of the room. As soon as they had gone, she locked the door behind them and, as an added precaution, closed the curtains.

Then she ran to the bed and frantically removed her husband's gory shirt and the heavy protection wrapped tight round his chest. Jim gave a strangled grunt as he fought to catch his breath and struggled to sit up. He looked down at the neat groove running across the leather-bound pouch strapped to his left side and grinned with genuine pleasure. "Exactly as we practised! That boy sure is a crack shot!"

"He can be trusted." June sounded as if she had been totally unsure of this. She gave Jim an ecstatic hug, but did not allow her joy that it had all worked out to distract her from the next part of their plan. Almost at once, she demanded: "The business man, the latest one to disappear – did you say he was a Frenchman, someone called Picard?" When Jim nodded in assent, she told him: "His daughter is here in the hotel."

"We'd better talk to her."

"I'd better talk to her. You're supposed to be dead, remember?"

But this sensible action was not to be. Knocking at Chantal's door, she received no answer at that time or later in the evening, when the girl should have returned. Fearing the worst, they were forced to wait until the hotel had closed down for the night before they could creep along to her door, where Jim resorted to his knife and forced the lock. The moment they entered, it was obvious the girl was no longer resident, even though some of her belongings still remained. Jim made a swift examination of the room, but his wife's attention was caught immediately by an envelope propped up against the desk lamp.

"Jim!" She pointed to the name on the envelope and he swore softly. "Should we …?"

"Yes!" he said decisively. "There's too much at stake. Jess is in no position to open it himself and it may be vital."

June found a paperknife and slit open the envelope. Somehow it seemed less intrusive than just ripping it open. She looked at the single sheet enclosed and read from the sloping, French handwriting: 'Jess, something has happened to my father. I can't go to the Marshall because there is no proof, but I'm following a lead through his business connections – a man called Turner here in Denver. Not sure what to do next, but I know I need your help. Chantal.'

She folded the paper and replaced it slowly in the envelope. "I knew there was something!"

"What d'you mean?" Jim respected his wife's intuition, for it was her business to be good at reading people.

"Jess was so edgy! He must have known she was here."

"So? Can't see why that should make a difference?"

"Don't be stupid!" June waved the envelope under his nose. "This is exactly the kind of note I'd have written to you. No polite introduction. No fuss or elaboration. Just straight to the point. She trusts him and she knows he won't let her down."

"He won't have that option, where he is right now."

"But where is she?"

Finding the answer had to wait until the following morning. Under the pretext of another enquiry to the reception clerk, June asked casually, "Is Miss Picard in the hotel at the moment? We are old friends and I ..." she paused, catching her breath, "I need a friend right now."

The clerk, an educated man, frowned and said with emphasis, "Mademoiselle Picard has retained her room, but I understand she is spending some days as the guest of Mr Emory Turner."

June turned whiter than anyone with such a pale, smooth complexion should be able to and her trembling legs would scarcely carry her back to her room.

"The clerk says she's staying with Emory Turner!"

Jim struck his fist on the table and swore. "That's the last thing we need! It plays right into his hands." He thought for a moment and then decided, "I'll have to go up there straight away. I daren't wait the way we'd planned, if the girl's involved."

"I'm sure Jess will protect her!" June felt she now understood his reticence at dinner. "He won't let any harm come to her."

"He may not be able to do anything to prevent it. He's there to get information and find their weak-spots. And," he added with a wry grin, "he hasn't exactly been acting as a protector of women, has he?"

"Then I'm coming too!"

"You'll do no such thing!"

"Yes, I must. Who else can you trust? Besides, I can get into the house – I've been Turner's guest before. He doesn't know that I know where Jess went. It will amuse him no end if I turn up asking him to help me get revenge." Jim hesitated and she added firmly, "And if Jess can't do anything, someone else has to look out for the girl because she's walked into a trap!"

# # # # #

The approach to Turner's house surprised Chantal. Although Rick fetched her in a buggy, they drove only a few miles before arriving at a river-bank and embarking on a little steam launch. Rick looked at her amazed face and laughed. "I thought you might prefer to travel in comfort, as I am sure a young lady of your great wealth is accustomed. The river will take us all the way to my father's mansion. Please, sit back and enjoy the view."

Chantal smiled graciously at him as she reclined on the comfortable cushioned seat and remembered to flutter her eyelashes from time to time as he regaled her with descriptions of the extent of his father's land and the history of the house to which they were travelling. She was subconsciously picking out relevant facts which might be useful at the same time as which her mind was in overdrive. Why that reference to wealth? Surely the Turners were prosperous in their own right? "You must be so rich, to run a boat like this," she complimented and went on to enquire teasingly: "Or do you have a whole fleet of them?"

"Just the one. For special guests."

There was something about the way he said this which sent a shiver of apprehension over her skin. She pulled her shawl closer about her and wished fervently she had dressed practically rather than ornamentally. She could just hear Jess's comments on the subject – but she would never hear them again, never have any contact with him again, not after …

"There's my father's house!" Rick was pointing ahead, upstream, where the land began to rise even higher into the mountains and the river turned and twisted to carve a curving path. At one point, it cut round a huge outcrop of rock, surrounding it almost completely. On top of this bluff, she could see a sprawling building, which seemed unexpectedly to resemble a Spanish hacienda and which was protected naturally from any attack by the river and the cliffs. She let a perfectly genuine sense of wonder permeate her voice: "How ever did he manage to build in such a place?"

"Easy!" he laughed. "Before the war, there was plenty of slave labour – if you knew where to find it."

"Magnificent! But it must be difficult getting supplies up there?"

"They're brought upstream on cargo boats. There's a dock and a winching system. It is quite simple, really." The reply was delivered in the patronising tones of one who did not expect women to … "Don't bother your beautiful head about it. You'll be well taken care of."

Chantal didn't much like the sound of this either and felt that her false expression of infatuated delight was going to crack her cheeks if she had to keep it up much longer. "I feel very privileged."

"My dear Chantal, it is your right," he told her with a possessive smile. "Only employees have to ride the distance. And my father's men are well paid to do it!"

He was thinking of the group which had set off in the early hours of the morning, with, in their midst, a certain gunman who should, by rights, be nursing a cracking hangover. If he was, however, Jess Harper had given not the slightest sign. He had also driven an extremely hard-headed bargain on the subject of payment.

And a whole day after the two parties had made their way by land and water to the house on the cliff, a lone buggy with an escorting horseman raced through the midday heat in desperate haste to avert a disaster which seemed all too likely to happen.