Melancthon stares into his cup. “He also says they have valuable cargo that might create some problems, and they’ll need a steady hand moving all of it once they get to Panama.”
This definitely sounds like Hardwick. “When exactly are they sailing?” I’m willing to bet the rest of my savings it’s not before Tuesday’s auctions.
“End of the week,” Melancthon says. “After the auctions.”
Time enough to collect all the money first. Sometimes you have to quit when you’re well and truly ahead, he told me.
“Do me a favor, Mr. Jones,” I say. My mind is churning, churning, churning. Hardwick leaving so soon could present an obstacle. Or maybe . . . an opportunity. “Wait a day or two before you accept that offer.”
He opens his mouth to ask why, but Jefferson wanders into the galley, whistling like a yellow warbler with a mouthful of spring. He pulls up a chair and sits beside me.
“You’re in a good mood this morning,” I say glumly. “Like every morning.” This is what I have to look forward to for the rest of my life: Jefferson’s morning cheer assaulting me like a bag of bricks.
“Yep.” He grabs a plate and helps himself to a large serving of everything.
Becky enters carrying the baby, who is most certainly not named Rosy. The Major follows behind, guiding Andy and Olive toward the table. He and the children eye the flapjacks with distrust. I reckon they’re not used to seeing such a fine, evenly cooked repast. Henry stumbles in a moment later.
“I’ll make myself scarce,” Melancthon says, gathering up his plate and coffee.
“You can stay,” I tell him, but I don’t enthuse too hard.
“I expect you all have things to talk about,” he says. “And I like to sit on deck in the morning.”
He leaves, and everyone starts eating. Once we all have a bit of food and coffee in us, I spring the bad news. “We have to move up our timetable.”
“We had a timetable?” the Major says around a mouth of flapjacks. He’s chewing them uncertainly, like a cat with a feather stuck in its mouth, and I get the strangest notion that he might prefer Becky’s.
“But we’ve barely started gathering information,” Becky says.
Jefferson nods. “I’m still trying to find an angle on Mr. Keys. I’ve never seen him alone, without at least two guards. And he doesn’t gamble or have any bad habits, as far as I can tell.”
“It doesn’t matter. It’s not our timetable; it’s Hardwick’s.” I tell them everything I’ve learned over the past few days. Hardwick selling off his other properties in the state, wringing every dollar out of his San Francisco interests, bragging to me about getting out while he was ahead. “And then there’s this news: according to Melancthon, someone’s chartered a ship called the Argos to take valuable cargo out of San Francisco to New York. It has to be Hardwick, leaving town with all his gold.”
“Why would he do that?” Jefferson asks.
“People sometimes make rash choices when they’re in love,” Becky says. “He’s got that new lady friend, right? We met her at the law offices. What’s her name?”
“Helena Russell,” I say. My voice squeaks a little.
“So maybe he’s ready to get married and settle down. Maybe they want to start a family.”
I shake my head. “They have a closeness, an . . . intimacy, I suppose,” I say, thinking of the way she hung on his arm, drank from his whiskey glass. “But I don’t think they have marriage in mind.”
“Why not?” Becky asks.
“He calls her his associate, and she goes with him to all his business meetings.”
“Like a secretary?” Becky says.
“Not exactly like,” I say. “She watches everything. She . . .” I hesitate. I should tell them about her eyes, about my suspicions, but the words lodge in my throat.
“Last night I learned that she used to be a fortune-teller,” Henry offers. “A few months ago she was running a scam, mostly on miners, pretending to tell their futures, if they’d find gold, that sort of thing.”
I give him a sharp look. “Who told you that?”
“That girl Sonia.”
“The pickpocket?”
“She and Billy and their mob of runaways were hanging around the Eldorado last night. Looking for easy takes, I suspect. She didn’t have any information about Mr. Keys. But she and Helena Russell targeted some of the same people.”
“Marks,” Becky says.
“Yes, they targeted some of the same marks. So she knew all about Russell’s scam.”
The air around me is suddenly hot and tight. I’m not sure I’d discount Russell’s fortune-telling as a scam.
“I asked about Hardwick,” Henry continues, “but Sonia said they avoid him—his guards kill anyone who crosses them. Or worse. When I told her he was back in the private room she and her crew made themselves scarce.”
“That explains what Helena wants with Hardwick,” the Major says. “She’s trying to run some kind of scam on him and take his money. But what does he want with her?”
Silence around the table. Beneath it, Jefferson grabs my hand and squeezes, as if to say, “Go ahead. Tell them.”
Before I can change my mind, I blurt the previous evening’s events, leaving nothing out.
Another silence follows.
“The second sight,” the Major says at last.
“Huh?” I ask.
He wipes his mouth with a napkin; before keeping company with Becky, he would have wiped it with his sleeve. “I mean, what if Hardwick keeps her around because her fortune-telling powers are real?”
That’s exactly what I was thinking.
“I knew some women like that, not on the Craven side of my family, but the O’Malleys. Something passed down from the old country. We called it the second sight. They could find lost items, tell a person’s future just by looking at him, dream about things far away. I’ve seen it with my own eyes.”
I lean forward. “Seen what?”
He takes a sip of coffee and considers his next words. “When we were small, my little brother fell out of a tree and broke his right arm. The same day it happened, my mother got a letter from Aunt Lizzy, her sister, warning that she had had a dream about my brother breaking his arm, and telling my mother to be careful. It’d been written days before.”
“That’s not exactly proof,” I say.
He shrugs. “No, but there were other things, too. Even now, for example, there’s this girl . . .” He gives me a knowing look. “Who can sniff out gold better than a bloodhound on the trail. When she does, her brown eyes turn the most mesmerizing shade of gold.”
“Really?” Becky says. “I never noticed that!”
Everyone is suddenly staring at me, as if expecting my eyes to shoot daggers. Like I’m dangerous.
Something inside me breaks just a tiny bit. Sniffing out gold is the most valuable, wondrous thing I can do. But even the people closest to me, the people I love with all my heart, sometimes view my power with suspicion. And maybe they’re right to do so.