Wilde West (49 page)

“Mathilde,” he said, “how on earth can you ask that? I
loved
the woman. I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her.”

“But you barely knew her,
n'est-ce pas
?”

“I barely knew her, yes. Now I know her all too well.”

She leaned forward and put her hand over his. “Oscair, do not judge her so harshly. Did she ever promise to share your life with you?”

“She never promised
not
to.” He took a sip of coffee, sadly shook his head. “You know, Mathilde, in matters of the heart, I've always been able to rely upon the fact that deep down, I'm rather a shallow person. If a particular flower were unavailable, forbidden, promised to another, why then, I could always wander on and pluck the next. The fields are full of lovely flowers, are they not? But somehow this wretched woman has managed to worm her way
beneath
my superficiality. I find even her treachery less disturbing than this. Treachery, after all, one expects. Elephants grow tusks, dogs chase cats, human beings betray each other. I'm sure this is precisely what Jesus was trying to convey to poor Judas Iscariot at the Last Supper. But to penetrate into the core of my being the way she's done—that is something that I doubt I can ever forgive.”

“But Oscair, you placed her there yourself.”

“But I wouldn't have placed her there,
couldn't
have placed her there, if she hadn't been the sort of woman she was.”

“Or the sort of woman you believed she was.”

“Exactly.”

“Oscair,” she said, “you are in pain now—”

“In agony,” he corrected.

With a small smile, she nodded. “In agony, if you like. But it will pass.”

“But when? The woman has moved into my mind and taken up residence, like some dreadful relative who arrives for Christmas dinner and never leaves. I
cannot
stop thinking about her. It's absolutely intolerable.”

“Will you be seeing her again?”

“You heard O'Conner? What he said about her private room at the Clarendon? Well, she had the nerve to suggest that I visit here there tonight, after the lecture.” He reached into his pocket, fished out the key. “You see? She gave me her key. Room 303.”

“Will you be seeing her?”

“Of course not,” he said, slipping the key carefully back into his pocket. “Seeing her is the last thing in the world I intend to do. No, what I must do now is forget her entirely. I must find some way to remove her from my mind, my heart, my life.”

“You know, Oscair,” she said, “the only way to remove a pain is to suffer through it.”

“Rubbish. The only way to remove a pain is to ignore it. To divert oneself. Write a poem. Climb up an Alp. Or, better still, fall off one. Or catch a cold. Catching a cold is probably the best diversion of all. Who can worry about a broken heart when his nose is bright red and stoppered with phlegm?”

She was gently smiling. “Oscair, do you really believe everything you say?”

He smiled sadly. “I should be exceedingly credulous if I did. But I do believe, Mathilde, that I need a diversion of some kind. Any kind.”

She shrugged. “Then you must discover one.”

“But I can't, you see. My mind is stoppered with Elizabeth McCourt Doe.”

She pursed her lips. “Wolfgang told me that you were attempting to discover who among us might have committed these horrible murders.”

“Ah.” In fact, he had been so preoccupied by Elizabeth's treachery, and by the murder he had witnessed that he had very nearly forgotten the murders of the prostitutes. “Well. I did take a stab at that.” He heard the words after he spoke them, and added, “No pun intended, I assure you.” He shook his head. “I wasn't terribly successful.”

“But what did you do?”

He told her of his wasted trip to Shantytown, his fruitless conversation with the crapulous old man. “All he was able to tell me about the dead woman, this Molly Woods, was that she had red hair.”

The Countess nodded, then slightly narrowed her lovely brown eyes. “But perhaps, you know, this is significant.”

“I shouldn't think so. Quite a lot of woman have red hair.” He frowned, remembering the tumbling titian tresses of Elizabeth McCourt Doe.

The Countess was smiling. “Like your Mrs. Doe.”

“Hardly
my
Mrs. Doe.”

Her face serious now, she looked off for a moment, toward the rear of the train, and then said, “But Oscair, red hair is not so commonplace after all. Perhaps you should discuss this with Marshal Grigsby.”

“Whatever for? Presumably he already knows she had red hair. And besides, he's still back in Manitou Springs.”

“Indeed he is not. Here he is now.”

“Howdy,” said Grigsby, still wearing his battered sheepskin jacket and his silly Kilimanjaro hat and looming over their table like a … like a burly forest animal of some indeterminate sort.

Oscar was suddenly awash in sweat and guilt. He was absolutely certain that Grigsby had come here to cart him off to the federal lockup—masked jailers, iron shackles dangling from damp stone walls, rats squeaking with hunger—for the murder of Biff the Behemoth. He leaped up and shot out his hand. “Marshal Grigsby,” he said, his own voice a bit squeaky; and, as Grigsby grabbed Oscar's right hand, nearly pulling him off balance, Oscar put out his left for support and smacked the head of the passenger sitting in the seat behind him.

He looked down, reflexively muttered “Terribly sorry,” and turning, saw the long black expressionless face of Henry Villiers.

“Henry! Good Lord! Sorry about that.”

Henry nodded. “That's okay, Mistuh Oscar.”

Oscar turned to Grigsby. Perhaps an exuberant show of friendship would convince the marshal that he had the wrong man; or would at least confuse him. “Well, Marshal Grigsby, fancy meeting you here! Join us, won't you?”

Grigsby, who did seem mildly confused, or at least uncertain, or at least not actively hostile, took off his twenty-gallon hat and turned to the Countess. “If that's okay with you, ma'am.”

“But of course,” she said, smiling. She moved over to the window and patted the seat she had just vacated. “Please.”

As Grigsby sat, Oscar watched him carefully. The marshal hadn't arrested him yet, but perhaps this was in deference to the feelings of the Countess. Or perhaps he was playing at cat and mouse, deliberately trying to put Oscar at his ease before he attacked.

Well, it would take more than these bumbling efforts to hoodwink Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde.

He noticed that Grigsby was looking rather more wholesome today than he had at their first, memorable, meeting. Beneath the sheepskin jacket and the leather vest, his red plaid shirt was clean and seemed freshly pressed. The whites of his eyes so longer displayed, at their corners, the deltas of tiny red Niles. He no longer gave off the penetrating reek of stale alcohol. Instead, he smelled of something herbal and faintly sweet, perhaps the fragrance of whatever grease he had used to slick his gray hair back into a shiny skullcap.

Possibly the marshal had a sweetheart in Leadville. Some earnest little thing in gingham, some cowgirl hausfrau redolent of baked bread, steamed apples, and outdoor plumbing.

Grigsby and the Countess were exchanging pleasantries:
Quite well, thank you, and you? Mighty fine, ma'am.
Then Grigsby turned to Oscar. “Wanted to talk to ya,” he said.

“Yes?” said Oscar, blinking only once and keeping his face superbly bland.

Grigsby nodded. “I found out it couldn'ta been you, killed off them … women. Just wanted to tell ya. I reckon I came on a little strong, that time up in your room.”

“Not at all,” said Oscar. What, after all, was a loaded revolver between friends?

“I was pretty well steamed up at the time,” said Grigsby. “Reckon I owe you an apology. Anyways, like I say, you're in the clear.”

The man seemed guileless; surely this was no trick? Oscar asked him, “And how did you make this determination?”

Grigsby gave him a small smile. “Your feet.”

“My feet?”

Grigsby nodded. “They're too big.”

“Too big,” Oscar said, “for what?”

“To belong to the killer. He left some tracks at Molly Woods' place. His feet are average size. Couldn't help but notice, when I took a look, that yours are a little on the largish side.”

The waiter was hovering at the table. “Howdy do, Marshal,” he grinned. “Get you a drink?”

“Howdy, Edward. Not today, thanks. Cup of coffee?”

“Yes sir, coming right up.

“I've always thought of my feet,” saidOscar, “as rather nicely sized in proportion to my height.”

Grigsby smiled again. “Never said they weren't. They fit
you
just fine. They just don't fit the killer.”

“I see. Well, thank you for telling me.” Still rather nettled: his feet were, in his opinion, one of his finest features. “Have you also examined the feet of the rest of the men on the tour?”

A nod. “Took a look or two. Average size, all of 'em.”

“Marshal,” said the Countess, putting her hand briefly atop Grigsby's arm, “Oscair has, like yourself, been trying to discover the identity of the killer.”

Grigsby turned back to Oscar. A small smile. Amusement? “That right?”

Oscar shrugged. “A few questions here and there. Nothing terribly elaborate. A sort of intellectual exercise, really.”

“Yes, but Oscair, you did learn something about the poor dead prostitute.”

Why on earth was she pursuing this?

Grigsby said, “What's that?”

Oscar shook his head. “Nothing, really. Only that she had red hair.”

Grigsby nodded, his face unchanged, and said nothing.

But by rights he should have belittled the information; laughed at it; after all, it was useless. Unless …

“Which of course,” said Oscar, “would be significant only if the other murdered women also had red hair.”

His face still unchanged, Grigsby still said nothing.

“Here you go, Marshal,” said the grinning black waiter.

“'Predate it, Edward.” Grigsby looked at the Countess, looked back at Oscar.

Oscar said, “They did, didn't they?”

Grigsby sipped at his coffee, set the cup carefully back down on its saucer, looked back at Oscar. “You can keep your mouth shut?”

“I can be,” said Oscar, “and often am, the soul of discretion.”

“I want your word on it. That you won't go gabbin' about any of this to the others.”

“That goes without saying.”

“My experience, things that go without sayin', they go better when they're said.”

“You have my word. But by now it's obvious, isn't it. They did have red hair.”

Grigsby nodded.

“All four of them?” asked the Countess.

Grigsby turned to her. “All five of 'em. There was another one. Just got a telegram this mornin'.”

“Where?” Oscar asked him.

“San Jose, California.”

The Countess turned to Oscar. “We were in San Jose, were we not?”

“At the beginning of February.”

“February the sixth,” said Grigsby.

“When was she killed?” Oscar asked, already knowing the answer.

“That night.”

Oscar felt the breath leave his lungs. Its departure weakened him, and he sat back.

The Countess said to no one in particular, “Then there is no doubt at all. It is one of us.”

Grigsby nodded. “Looks like.”

Listlessly, Oscar said, “What about Dr. Holliday?” Not really believing in the possibility, and feeling curiously disloyal even for suggesting it. After all, the man had saved his life, and Elizabeth's. “He might've been in San Jose that night.”

“Prob'ly was. Doc's a gambler. He's been followin' your tour. Been settin' up poker games with the high rollers who come in to see ya.”

“He told you this?”

Grigsby nodded. “And I got no reason. to disbelieve him.”

Yes. It could be. And perhaps, too, this explained why the gunman seemed so concerned with Oscar's welfare, why he had saved him twice from possible—no, admit it, from
certain
disaster. He had been protecting the farmer who gathered the geese who laid the golden eggs.

For some reason this notion—that Holliday had all along, and without Oscar's knowledge, been using him—disturbed him nearly as much as learning about the additional murder. He felt rather as though he had been betrayed yet again, not by a friend or a lover, which one might expect, but by a stranger, gratuitously.

But why should this bother him? Elephants grew tusks …

“What will you do now?” the Countess was asking Grigsby.

He shrugged. “What I been doin' all along. Keep watchin'. Keep waitin' for someone to make a move on a prostitute.”

“They've all been prostitutes?” asked Oscar, more out of politeness now than out of any real interest. He felt flat, exhausted, defeated.

“All but one,” Grigsby said. “And maybe that one was workin' on the side. Or maybe this fella just figured she was. I got the feelin', readin' about her, that maybe she was a little loose. Maybe that was enough for him.”

Oscar nodded. He wanted to lie down in a bed and pull the covers over his head. He wanted, failing that, to complain some more about his heartache, which he could hardly do in front of Grigsby. Grigsby, a man as sensitive as a piano bench, would never understand. “Countess,” he said, “shall we go?”

She leaned forward. “Oscair, would you mind very much if I spoke to Marshal Greegsby for a few minutes longer?” She smiled at Grigsby. “If, Marshal, you do not mind my company?”

“No, ma'am, be a pleasure.”

“Of course not,” said Oscar. Still another betrayal. It was an epidemic. He stood. “Marshal. Countess.”