A Colorado Christmas Read online

  “I-I suppose you’re right. . . .”

  “I know I am.”

  “I don’t know why you’re helping me”—Halliwell swallowed hard—“but I appreciate it.” He turned and scurried away, leaving Rinehart alone in the alley with the unconscious Binder.

  Rinehart figured he would give the banker a chance to get several blocks away, then he’d go find a police officer and turn Binder over to him. Then he’d pay a visit to the hotel where Seraphine DuMille was staying . . .

  He heard a faint scuff of shoe leather on cobblestones and turned to see a woman lunging at him, her face contorted with hatred and the knife in her hand raised high, poised to strike and drive deep into his chest.

  CHAPTER 6

  Despite his relative youth, Ed Rinehart had come close to losing his life many times during his career as a detective, so he didn’t panic when he found himself under attack. He darted to the side, avoiding the swiftly struck blow, and reached out to grab the woman’s arm as she stumbled slightly, thrown off balance by missing him.

  He had learned early on that chivalry had no place in his work if he wanted to stay alive. He hung on to the woman’s arm with both hands, pivoted sharply, and threw her into the brick wall beside them. She crashed into the building with enough force to jolt the knife out of her hand.

  Moving with speed of his own, he lashed out with his leg to kick the knife away from them. The weapon clattered on the dirty cobblestones as it bounced and slid along the alley until it was well out of reach.

  She recovered before Rinehart could do anything else and came at him, arms outstretched, fingers curled into harpy-like talons. He suspected she filed her long fingernails to a sharpness that would shred his skin if he allowed her to claw his face. She would go for his eyes, too, and attempt to blind him.

  His hands flashed up, caught her wrists before she could carry out her attack, and thrust her arms up to keep those fingernails away from his face. Her momentum carried her forward and she rammed into him with enough force to knock him back half a step. The collision didn’t loosen his grip. He still maintained a firm hold on her wrists.

  Her face was only inches from his. If she hadn’t been snarling so savagely, she would have been beautiful. Tumbled masses of ebony curls framed a lovely face. Her dark, sultry good looks allowed her to deceive plenty of men into believing that she cared for them. In truth, she cared only for the money they had—or had access to, in the case of marks like E. G. Halliwell.

  “You might as well stop fighting, Seraphine,” Rinehart told her. “It’s over.”

  A torrent of French words spilled from her mouth. Rinehart understood enough of the language to know she was cursing him bitterly for interfering with her plans. Whether it was her native tongue or not, she was fluent in the profanity part of it.

  “I’ll kill you!” she finally said, spewing the threat through tightly clenched teeth.

  “I don’t think so. Your friend Binder is still unconscious, and you’re unarmed. All I have to do is shout for the coppers, and you’ll both wind up behind bars.”

  “If I’m locked up, I’ll ruin that fool Halliwell!”

  Rinehart shook his head confidently. “You can tell whatever story you want, but it’ll be your word against his. Actually, it would be your word against his and mine and my agency’s. I’ll make sure the authorities understand you attempted to ensnare my good friend E.G. in your schemes, but he resisted and came to me for help.”

  She stared at him for a second and then burst out, “But that’s not true!”

  Rinehart couldn’t resist the urge to laugh, which just angered her more. It was ludicrous that a thief, confidence artist, and woman who was no better than she had to be was acting so outraged at the prospect of someone telling a lie.

  “When I tell my boss and everyone else that Halliwell was working with me to set a trap for you and Binder, they’ll believe me,” Rinehart assured her. “So you have a choice, Seraphine or whatever your name really is. You’re losing Binder’s services either way. You have to decide whether you want to go to jail, too, or whether I let you escape with your promise to leave New York and never bother E. G. Halliwell or his family again.”

  She glared at him and asked sullenly, “You give me your word that you won’t turn me in to the law?”

  “I realize I should have you arrested, too, but some of Halliwell’s problems came about as the result of his own stupidity. So, against my better judgment, I’ll give you a break. You can get out of town. You have my word on that.” Rinehart shook his head. “Not Binder, though. He’s hurt too many people in the past. He needs to pay for his crimes.”

  “Very well. I accept your proposal.” Hatred still burned in her eyes, though.

  Rinehart let go of her wrists and stepped back. He didn’t trust her—she had agreed a little too quickly—so he watched her closely, ready to snatch the sap from his pocket and lay her out, too, if it proved necessary.

  Seraphine just backed away, glaring at him. She raised a finger and pointed it at him for a second, and Rinehart felt a chill go through him that had nothing to do with the weather. Then she turned and broke into a run, her shoes tapping swiftly on the cobblestones as she fled.

  Maybe he shouldn’t have let her go, he thought. That last gesture of hers had held a definite threat.

  If I worried about every threat that had been made against me over the years, I wouldn’t have time for anything else, he told himself.

  He turned back to the still senseless Binder, took a whistle from his pocket, and blew a shrill blast from it, knowing the summons would soon bring the nearest copper.

  * * *

  An hour later, Binder was locked up, awaiting charges of attempted murder, assault, and criminal conspiracy that would have him behind bars for a good long time. With the criminal record he already had, a judge might just put him away for good.

  The story Rinehart told the police didn’t include anything about E. G. Halliwell or Seraphine DuMille. Acquainted with the detective, the coppers knew he was an operative for a private detective agency, so they believed him when he told them he had received a tip from an informant concerning the whereabouts of a dangerous fugitive.

  “Ye should’ve told us about it, instead of goin’ to capture him yerself,” a burly sergeant pointed out.

  “This way I get the reward,” Rinehart responded with a smile.

  “Aye, for what it’s worth. It’s not like this fellow is Jesse James come back from the grave! If ye want rewards, Rinehart, ye’d do better to go after some o’ them Western desperadoes.”

  Rinehart just shook his head. “Anywhere west of New Jersey is too far west for me.”

  He left the police station and walked a number of blocks before trotting up the steps of a brownstone where the front door had the North American continent painted onto the glass of its upper half, along with the agency’s name in gilt letters.

  As he walked into the outer office, a man at a desk on the other side of a dividing railing looked up and said, “Cap Shaw wants to see you, Ed.”

  “What, you mean he’s already heard about what happened this afternoon?”

  “I wouldn’t know about that,” the other operative replied with a shake of his head. “He has clients with him. I suppose he thinks you’re the man for whatever job it is they have.” There was a slight note of jealousy in the man’s voice. He knew their boss, Captain Albert Shaw considered Rinehart the top investigator in the New York office.

  Rinehart took off his overcoat and fedora and hung them on a rack. He briefly considered transferring the sap from his overcoat to one of his trousers pockets, then decided he wouldn’t need it in the agency’s office.

  He knocked on the door of Shaw’s office and heard the captain’s harsh tones tell him to come in. When Rinehart walked in, he found Shaw standing behind the desk, thumbs hooked in his vest. A man and a woman sat in front of the desk in the leather chairs, and Rinehart’s experienced eye told him their clothes pr
obably cost more money than he made in a year.

  Captain Shaw was a mostly bald, florid-faced man with an impressive girth. He was not soft, however, despite his fleshiness. He fixed the newcomer with a steely gaze. “I expected you back before now, Mr. Rinehart.”

  “The matter took somewhat longer to wrap up than I thought it would, but it came to a successful conclusion, Captain.”

  Shaw nodded curtly. When he read Rinehart’s report later, he probably wouldn’t be happy that Seraphine DuMille had gotten away, but Binder had been arrested, E. G. Halliwell’s reputation was safe, and most important, the bank’s securities were back in the vault where they were supposed to be. The captain would be satisfied with that outcome, at least.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Litchfield have been waiting for you,” Shaw said with a nod at the couple seated in front of his desk. “Or rather, for my top operative, which I’ve assured them you are, Mr. Rinehart.”

  “Thank you for that vote of confidence, sir.” Rinehart nodded to the Litchfields. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

  “I wish the circumstances were better,” snapped the man. “I’m William Litchfield. This is my wife.”

  Rinehart had already gathered that, but he nodded politely to the woman and murmured, “Ma’am.”

  Mrs. Litchfield had a thin, pale face under the stylish hat on her upswept dark hair, but she possessed a fragile beauty that would catch the eye of most men. Her husband, on the other hand, was thick of waist and neck and had a jaw like a stone slab.

  His name was vaguely familiar. The detective thought he had something to do with railroads or shipping or maybe even both. He was rich, no doubt about that.

  Suddenly, the name tripped another trigger in Rinehart’s brain, and he couldn’t stop himself from exclaiming, “The Litchfield murder case!”

  “That’s right,” William Litchfield said, nodding.

  Beside him, his wife bit her lip.

  Sensing that she was disturbed, he reached over and clasped her hand. To Rinehart, he went on. “You’ve heard of it, of course.”

  “Certainly.” Rinehart started to make some comment about how could he not have heard of it, since the story had been plastered all over the newspapers for weeks, but then he thought better of it. “My condolences on the loss of your brother and his wife, sir.”

  “It was months ago,” Litchfield said impatiently. “We’re past mourning now and want to do something about it.”

  Financier Grant Litchfield, who if anything was even richer than his older brother, had been murdered in his Riverside Drive mansion, along with his wife Claire, one of the darlings of the society pages. The police had devoted every possible effort to finding the killers but had come up empty-handed.

  “You want the agency to attempt to locate the murderers?” Rinehart asked.

  Litchfield shook his head. “This is about my nephew.”

  Once again, Rinehart thought back over the newspaper stories he had read. Grant and Claire Litchfield had had a young son named . . . Donald, that was it. Donald Litchfield. The detective frowned. “You took the boy in, didn’t you, Mr. Litchfield? That was what the newspapers reported.”

  “That was a lie,” Litchfield said harshly. “The police suggested it. They believed the murderers were supposed to kill Donald, too, but he escaped them somehow. The police found footprints outside the mansion the next morning after the . . . murders . . . and were convinced that Donald made them as he fled the house. The detectives thought it best—and I agreed with them—to fabricate the notion that Donald was safely with my wife and me so the killers wouldn’t try to find him. At the same time, the police were searching for him, in the hope that he can tell them what he saw that night and lead them to the killers. But they’ve failed . . . failed utterly! And I’m tired of it. My nephew must be found, and I’m willing to pay this agency whatever it takes to find him!”

  CHAPTER 7

  Northern Colorado

  Gray clouds scudded through the sky above the mountain trail, a darker gray than the peaks themselves, although the appearance of the clouds was just as jagged as that of the snow-capped crags. The two young men riding along the trail paused to rest their horses.

  As they reined in, one of them looked up, squinted at the sky, and commented, “Looks like rain.” He was medium-size and a bit of a dandy in a brown tweed suit, brown Stetson, boiled white shirt, and string tie. When he took off his hat, he revealed close-cropped sandy brown hair.

  His companion shook his head. “Nope. Those are snow clouds, I reckon.” He was bigger and more obviously muscular than the first rider. A thatch of dark hair curled around his ears and stuck out from under his thumbed-back hat. He wore denim trousers and a buckskin shirt.

  Both young men wore holstered revolvers, and something else was the same about them. Despite their differences, the resemblance between their facial features was so strong it was immediately apparent they were brothers. Most people wouldn’t have taken them for twins, but that was, in fact, what they were.

  “If it’s going to snow, we’d better be moving on,” Chance Jensen said. “We don’t want to be caught up here in a storm. You know how fast these mountain passes can get blocked during a blizzard.”

  Ace nodded “Well, it’s December, after all. You have to expect some bad weather in these parts at this time of year.”

  Chance raised a finger in the air. “Exactly! That’s why I told you six weeks ago we needed to start heading south. Texas, I told you. Or even Mexico. It never gets cold in Mexico.”

  “Some places it does,” Ace argued. “There are mountains down there, too, you know. I’ve read about ’em.”

  Ace was the more studious of the pair, seldom without a book or two in his saddlebags. Chance tended toward less solitary pleasures—like the shuffle of cards on a felt-topped table, the gurgle of whiskey being poured in a glass, and the smiling laughter of a pretty girl.

  “Yeah, I know you warned me about the weather,” Ace said as he rested his hands on his saddle horn and leaned forward to ease tired muscles. “But we couldn’t just ride off and leave those folks up in Montana in the lurch, could we?”

  “No, I suppose not, the way hell was popping all around.” Chance shrugged. “But now we’ll be racing winter all the way to the border country.”

  Ace leaned forward to pat his horse on the shoulder as he said, “We’d better get moving, then—” He stopped short as a shot blasted somewhere not far away, setting off a series of echoes that bounced back and forth between the rocky slopes around them.

  They stiffened in their saddles. A single shot could mean just about anything. It didn’t have to signify the beginning of trouble—even though the Jensen boys seemed to find themselves up to their necks in it on an alarmingly regular basis.

  The trail they were following ran through a gorge twenty yards wide that sloped down at a fairly gentle angle for several hundred yards before it made a sharp bend to the right. Cliffs at least two hundred feet high rose on either side of it. Once inside the gorge, they would have to follow it to its end or turn around and go back. There wouldn’t be any climbing out of it.

  The few stunted pines growing here and there beside the trail would furnish some cover if they needed it, but overall, vegetation was sparse because the cliffs prevented light from penetrating down there.

  A moment after the first shot more gunfire sounded, along with the pounding hoofbeats of several riders in a hurry.

  “That’s a running fight,” Chance said tensely. “Somebody’s in trouble.”

  Ace pulled his horse toward the nearest clump of trees and called over his shoulder to his brother, “Come on!”

  Chance followed Ace’s lead and galloped toward the pines.

  Reaching the trees, they swung down from their saddles with the lithe grace of born horsemen. The brothers yanked Winchesters from saddle boots and split up, each taking cover behind a different tree. The trunks weren’t thick enough to shelter them completely, but they were bett
er than nothing.

  “Are we gonna take a hand in this?” Chance called over to Ace.

  “Don’t know. Reckon we’ll have to wait and see.”

  “How are we going to tell who’s in the right?”

  That was a good question. Ace didn’t know the answer.

  A lone rider suddenly exploded into view around the bend. He was pushing his horse up the trail for all it was worth. The animal struggled valiantly. Ace could tell the horse was giving everything it had, but it might not be enough, especially going uphill.

  He couldn’t tell much about the rider. The man wore a hat with a big, floppy brim that had blown back against the crown because he was moving so fast. Ace caught a flash of white that he thought might be a mustache.

  Other details would have to wait. At that moment, five more riders came into sight, boiling around the bend and starting up the trail after the lone man. Flame from the guns in their hands spouted from the weapons as they fired at their quarry.

  The odds of hitting anything by firing from the back of a galloping horse were pretty small, but by throwing enough lead around, anything was possible. They were directing a veritable storm of lead at the lone man, who leaned forward in the saddle as far as he could to make himself a smaller target. The echoes from all the shots set up a tremendous racket.

  Ace looked over at Chance and called, “Five to one odds!” He wasn’t sure if his brother understood him or not, but Chance nodded grimly so Ace assumed he did.

  “That’s enough for me!” Chance yelled. He lifted the Winchester to his shoulder and lined the sights.

  Ace did the same but didn’t want to kill anybody when he wasn’t sure what the situation was. He aimed past the fleeing man and in front of the pursuers, and fired three rapid shots, working the rifle’s lever between rounds. Chance did likewise. The bullets struck the ground several yards in front of the five men and kicked up a spray of dirt and rocks into the faces of their horses.