Chapter 11: Clarion Call

Henry Burrows checked his appearance in the long mirror. Yes, he would do. Mid-brown hair well groomed, smart dark-blue jacket and trousers, white shirt, plain crimson tie and gleaming black shoes. Not that it mattered, as the meeting was informal. Still, it was as well to look good at all times. Of course, dress was only a part of the overall impression. The face was important too. And that was just right: clean-shaven, broad, a trifle florid, blue eyes radiating sincerity, overall expression mildly bonhomous. The deportment was perfect: stout, five-foot-eight body erect, bearing confident, movements unhurried, verging on the ponderous. All these things were big assets to a man in Burrows’ line of work. Plausibility was an essential tool for the confidence man.

The name also was complementary. It had been selected with care, calculated to sound solid and reassuring, and was far from the first the man had used since discarding his original one many years earlier. Not long ago, he had been Thomas Horton. That was in Colorado – a part of the world he had left hurriedly in circumstances he didn’t care to recall. Now it seemed like time to move on again. Perhaps he could stay where he was and continue to do well, but on balance it was better for a man in his business to change habitat frequently. A moving target is hard to hit and if a man stayed too long in one place he never knew what might happen.

Closing the wardrobe door, Burrows left the bedroom of his rented house and went downstairs to join his three partners in the living room. Although he had spent less than eighteen months in the High Plains community of Calooga, Burrows had become something of a socialite, cultivating the contacts pertinent to his trade and always affable in his dealings with everyone else. This evening, his visitors were Horace Lamb, Jack Benton and Elias Baldwin. Lamb ran the town’s only bank, Benton had a virtual monopoly of construction in the area and Baldwin’s general store was dominant in the retail sector.

The four men were business partners, though their association had been formalised elsewhere, when they had created a company at Rankin, forty-five miles north of Calooga. The declared aim of the new entity was to invest in real estate. So far it had done that on two occasions, in respect of which its quartet of executives had already seen handsome returns.

There was no gavel-banging at this or any other meeting of the company’s officers. Tonight’s get-together flowed from desultory conversation to a kind of order when Burrows asked his colleagues to take seats, after he had distributed French brandy and first-class cigars – nothing small-minded about mine host. He opened the discussion. “When we started this venture, we all knew we’d do well by way of ... er ... fees for our exertions, if for nothing else.” This brought chuckles all round.

“But,” Burrows continued, “I promised to come up with something a little more substantial. I think I’ve done that.”

“Spill it out, Henry,” said Benton, a rough fellow, not disposed to niceties.

“All in good time,” Burrows replied. “We have to consider others. Obviously, we’re all men of principle here” – more smiles – “and I must tell you that I have an informant whose incognito must be preserved.”

This was a strain for Benton, who preferred monosyllables. “Let’s hear it straight,” he grunted.

“So you shall. We accepted that I would be executive president and that any really big proposition would most likely be a land deal. It has taken time and I’ve had to call in a few favours, but I can now tell you that we’re in a position to clean up at once. However, if we do that, there might be a slight risk and my view is that we shouldn’t take any chances at all. If we wait a few days, we can push this through without hazard. There’ll be no way that anyone can touch us. However, my man is in a sensitive position and I’m not willing to endanger him. If you were in his situation, you would expect no less of me, and I hope you will understand that I would prefer that the details remain between this fellow and myself. So, immediately and there’s a possible hitch, or a matter of days and there’s none. The question is, are you willing to leave this to me?”

Burrows expected to get approval and he did. His three companions refrained from putting awkward questions. After the main – if somewhat vague – proceedings, more liquor went down, Burrows distributed further fine smokes and the atmosphere became euphoric. Present wellbeing did much to induce a sense of continuing prosperity.

Helen Verity was proprietor, compositor, printer and sole journalist of Calooga Valley’s press organ, the Clarion. Until two years earlier, she had been in the shadow of her father, who had presided over production of the newspaper. It was only after the passing on of John William Verity that people had realised the role Helen had played. For several years her father, a widower, had limited his work to the printing and distribution of the Clarion. During that period Helen had provided virtually all the material which so entertained the local populace. Whether it was news of births, deaths, marriages, arrivals, departures, knitting ideas, new goods or services, social and sporting events, or momentous occurrences from the world outside, nearly all the words had come from Helen Verity.

One of the mysteries in Calooga Valley was that Helen had never married. In an area short of women, there had been a fair supply of suitors. And there was no doubt about the desirability of the local newshound. She was five-foot-five, built in a way that was sure to attract the attention of the local males, had curly shoulder-length ginger hair, green eyes, a light sprinkling of freckles in a broad face, full of character, and an impressive fund of wit and humour – perhaps too much of the former for some potential swains. But it seemed that Helen Verity had a one-track mind. She was set upon keeping her business afloat and brooked no distraction.

Week in, week out, Helen toured the valley in her buggy, collecting items of interest. Often they were banal, but such was the lot of a journalist. Sometimes, the standard fare was spiced with news garnered from the railroad telegraph station at the northern end of the valley. Helen’s lot was a demanding one, requiring literacy and versatility, plus mental and physical stamina. Yet it was satisfying, giving her a good deal of scope for creativity and ensuring her independence.

The bell atop the street door of the Clarion’s premises tinkled. The proprietor, sitting at her desk at the rear of the office-cum-print room, looked up. Noting that the visitor was Edward Denny, she sighed, preparing herself for an irritating interview, which she intended to keep as short as possible. She had just started writing an article, and she hope that by keeping her pen poised she would convey to her far from welcome caller the message that she had little time.

Edward Denny was a pleasant enough fellow, twenty years of age, physically unremarkable and usually on good terms with most of the townspeople, but widely considered as not quite right in the head. In fact, he was not as deficient in that respect as commonly thought, but his view was that if people wished to regard him as a simpleton, they were welcome to do so.

Following the death of his mother four years earlier, Edward, who had no siblings, lived with his ailing father at the southern edge of town. His education had been rudimentary and a little tiresome for both him and his only teacher. Edward’s mental state, as perceived by others, precluded steady employment, so he made out as best he could, doing odd jobs for anyone who offered them. Even those chores sometimes proved difficult, as Edward was given to fits of forgetfulness and mind-wandering, often pausing for long periods midway through the most undemanding of tasks. Suspecting that he might be seeking work which she did not have to offer, Helen Verity did her best to appear even busier than she was.

Edward came forward diffidently, his hands twisting the brim of the old black hat he’d inherited from his father. “Morning, Miss Helen.”

“Good morning, Edward. Would you like to sit down?” She hoped he wouldn’t.

“Yes ma’am. Thank you.”

Having taken the only available chair, Edward sat for a long moment, looking at nothing in particular, apparently oblivious of the fact that the visit had been his idea. Even by his standards, that was odd. Helen was not the most patient of people. “Yes, Edward, was there something?”

Finally, young Denny gathered his thoughts. “Yes, ma’am. Do you think I’m crazy?”

Suppressing another sigh, Helen put down her pen and sat back. This was likely to take longer than she’d thought. “No, Edward, I don’t think you’re crazy. Why do you ask?”

Edward shuffled his feet, his knuckles whitening as he continued to savage the hat. “Well, I know what folks say about me.”

“What do they say?”

“Oh, maybe I don’t talk much, but I hear things all right. They say I ain’t normal an’ I’m below average.”

Helen passed a hand across her brow. “Edward, those words don’t mean much. Now, take average. If you have one man seven feet tall and one of three feet, their average is five feet, but neither of them is anywhere near that. Or take a genius and an idiot. You could say the average there is ordinary, but neither one is close to that. Do you see what I mean?”

It seemed like a struggle for Edward, but he got the point. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Very well. Now, as to normal. Is that how you’d consider me?”

“Uh ... I guess so.”

“Well, I don’t. Let me tell you something, Edward. I’m thirty-seven years of age. I’ve heard that I’m considered not unattractive, yet I’ve rejected marriage proposals from three of the most eligible men in Calooga Valley. I work here alone, usually sixteen hours a day, six days a week and ten hours on the seventh day. In fact, I do nothing but work, eat and sleep. I haven’t been out of the valley for nearly twenty years. Would you call that normal?”

“Er ... I don’t know. Maybe not.”

“All right. Now let’s think of, say, Mr Carswell. You know him?”

“Yes.”

“Right. So you’re aware that he’s a highly educated man, wealthy and well-connected, with no obvious problems. He shouldn’t have a care in the world. But he’s killing himself by drinking two bottles of cheap whiskey and smoking twenty of those vile cheroots every day. Do you think that’s normal?”

“I can’t say I do.”

“Good. Now think about Mr and Mrs Sloper, who live near you. Mondays to Saturdays, they behave like most people. Sundays, they are together in the same house all day and don’t speak a work to one another, on account of some belief they have. Does that strike you as normal?”

“Uh ... uh ... no, Miss Helen.”

“Very well. Now, in your case, sometimes you don’t think as quickly as some people and possibly not in such straight lines as they do. Does that make you any more abnormal than others?”

This was a new and refreshing idea to Edward. He wasn’t sure that he fully grasped what Helen was saying, but was comforted. “Well, I guess not, ma’am.”

“Then we’re clear so far, but I suppose that’s not why you came in here, is it?”

Edward had almost forgotten the purpose of his call. With a monumental effort, he pulled himself together. “No. There’s somethin’ else.”

“I don’t want to be impolite, Edward, but I’m up to my neck in work. What is it?”

“Well, first off, do you reckon it’s right for a man to tell about somethin’ secret he’s heard? I mean, could I tell you?”

“Edward, it is the duty of any citizen to report anything that might be for the public good. As for what you say to me, it’s what is called privileged information. It’s between you and me, just like what goes on between doctors, lawyers or priests and the people they talk to. What you have to say remains confidential to the two of us, unless you wish it to be otherwise.”

“Well, you know I get jobs here an’ there?”

“Yes.”

“This mornin’, I was workin’ for Mrs Lamb. You know her?”

“The banker’s wife. Yes, I know her.”

“Well, she asked me to chop some firewood an’ sweep out the yard.”

“And?”

“An’ there’s a shed built onto the store room at the back. Well, I did the wood, then looked for a broom. I went into the shed, which has a door outside to the yard an’ one inside to the store room, then at the inside end of the store room, there’s a another door to the dinin’ room.”

“I’ll take your word for that.”

“Well, I went into the outhouse an’ I couldn’t find the broom, so I opened the door to the store room an’ I noticed that the other door to the dinin’ room was a little bit open. I was goin’ to ask Mrs. Lamb for the broom when I heard them talkin’ in the dinin’ room.”

“Heard who talking, Edward?”

“Far as I could tell, there was three of ‘em – Mrs Lamb, Mrs Benton, who’s married to the builder, and Mrs Baldwin, the storekeeper’s wife. They were talkin’ for a good while an’ I heard most of it.”

Helen Verity scented news. “Yes, I understand. Now, what did they say?” Edward’s recollection of detail was perfect and he told all.

The day after Edward Denny’s visit to the Clarion’s premises, Henry Burrows took the stagecoach north to Rankin. Shortly afterwards, the heavens fell, at least locally. Helen Verity changed the habits of two decades, when she prepared her buggy and departed, leaving a message with a neighbour and a note on the office door, stating that she would be absent for a few days and that that week’s issue of the Clarion would be combined with the one for the following week.

Helen was as good as her word, returning in the evening, eight days later. She paid a brief visit to her one and only confidante to assimilate the latest gossip, two items of which were of special interest. One was the arrival, a day earlier, of a hard-looking stranger who wore a six-gun, thonged to his right thigh. The other was the sudden disappearance of Edward Denny, who had vanished shortly after his visit to Helen. Perhaps because of relief of having spoken with her, he had called at a saloon, where he took a couple of beers more than his usual ration. His tongue had loosened, and among his audience had been a loyal employee of the construction boss, Jack Benton.

It was a thoughtful Helen Verity who returned to the Clarion office following the visit to her friend. Calooga’s newspaper chief was a woman who could put two and two together as well as anyone. She knew instinctively what was afoot. Leaving the office in darkness, she went to her bedroom and wrote a letter to the town’s only lawyer, Joseph Curry, then retired for the night.

Early the following morning, the indefatigable scribe was on her way north yet again, but not before she had rousted Curry from his bed, handing him a small package. That was a Wednesday. This time, Helen was absent until late on the Thursday evening. When she got back, the town was largely quiet and dark, the only noise and most of the light coming from the saloons. This was February and a biting wind discouraged unnecessary outdoor activity. Most people had settled for an early night, but that wasn’t Helen Verity’s way. She lit the lamps and the stove in the Clarion’s office, made coffee then sat at her desk. She had been there barely ten minutes when the doorbell sounded. A man came in, black-clad from head to foot.

The caller, seemingly in no hurry, pulled down the blind over the door, did the same with the one covering the window, then stepped forwards. “You Helen Verity?” he asked, in a flat tone.

“Yes,” Helen replied. “I was wondering when you’d come.”

“That’s funny. You don’t know me.”

“Oh, I don’t mean you personally, just someone of your kind. After all, you are a hired killer, aren’t you? What are they paying you for this one?”