The Loner: Trail Of Blood (8 page)

“But don’t worry, Arturo, I’ll be careful.” Conrad’s face and voice grew grim. “These probably won’t be the last risks I’ll have to run before I find my children.”

The valet couldn’t argue with that. He inclined his head in acknowledgment that for Conrad Browning, there were more important considerations than his personal safety.

Clancy arrived with the carriage at the appointed time. A slight bulkiness under the left sleeve of his coat where the bandage was wrapped around his arm was the only sign of his injury. He thumbed his plug hat back on his head and asked, “Where is it we’re headed this afternoon, sir?”

“A private sanitarium in Cambridge, Clancy.”

The big Irishman frowned. “Are ye havin’
medical problems, sir? I hope you’re not thinkin’ about havin’ this arm o’ mine looked at. ’Tis not necessary.”

“No, I’m just looking for information,” Conrad assured him.

They crossed the Charles River on the West Boston Bridge and rolled into Cambridge, where Conrad had attended Harvard. He saw a lot of familiar sights from those days but felt no particular nostalgia for them. When he was in college, he had thought he knew everything there was to know. It had taken life itself to teach him how ignorant he truly was.

The Futrelle Sanitarium and Private Hospital was located behind a high stone wall lined with hedges. When the carriage pulled up to a pair of massive wrought-iron gates, Conrad looked between the bars and saw a squarish, three-story building of brown brick squatting in the middle of a landscaped lawn that covered several acres. The grounds were fairly attractive, with plenty of green grass, trees, and flower beds with flagstone walks winding between them. The sanitarium itself was plain and ugly.

A stocky guard in a blue uniform and black cap that made him look a little like a police officer stepped out of a guardhouse next to the gates. He carried a single-barreled shotgun tucked under his arm and regarded Clancy with narrow, suspicious eyes. “What can I do for you?”

Conrad had told Clancy what to say. “Mr. Conrad Browning to see Dr. Futrelle, if ye don’t mind.”

“Wait there.” The guard ducked back into the little building and was gone for a minute or so. When he came back, he shook his head and said, “Mr. Browning isn’t on the list of the doctor’s appointments. Sorry, you can’t come in.”

Conrad opened the carriage door and stepped down to the ground. He smiled at the guard. “I know I don’t have an appointment, but I won’t take up much of the doctor’s time. He and I have a number of mutual friends.”

“You need to see him about a medical matter?” the guard asked.

“That’s right.”

Working there, the man would know wealth when he saw it. He thought it over for a second, then said, “If you can wait a minute, Mr. Browning, I’ll check with the doctor’s secretary.”

“Thank you. I appreciate that.”

They had some way of communicating between the guardhouse and the main building, Conrad thought. Either a telephone line or some sort of speaking tube. He filed the information away in his mind. You never knew when such a thing might come in handy.

The wait was longer, but when the guard came back out, he said, “Dr. Futrelle will see you for a few minutes.” He shoved a lever that sent the gates rumbling back. “Drive straight to the main building and someone will meet you.”

“Thank you.” Conrad climbed back into the carriage.

By the time they reached the main building, a
woman in a starched white dress and light blue apron and cap was waiting for them. “Mr. Browning?” she asked as Conrad climbed down from the carriage. “I’m Lois Fielding, one of the nurses here. If you’ll come with me, I’ll take you to Dr. Futrelle’s office.” She glanced at Clancy. “Your driver will have to wait here.”

“That’s fine. Don’t wander off, Clancy.”

“Oh, no, sir. I’ll be right here.”

Having spent so much time in the more egalitarian West the past few years, Conrad found the nurse’s condescending tone when she spoke about Clancy bothersome. He didn’t show his annoyance. As a rich Bostonian, he was supposed to feel the same way.

Conrad noted the heavy locks on the front door and the bars on the windows as he went inside the sanitarium with the nurse. She led him through a small reception area and down a corridor to a set of double doors. He had a feeling it was all offices on the ground floor, with the patients being housed on the upper floors. The iron bars on the windows ought to keep them in, but the height served as an extra deterrent to escape. Somebody who really wanted a drink might go to almost any lengths to get one.

Nurse Fielding knocked on one of the double doors. A man’s voice called from the other side. “Come in.”

The nurse opened the door and said, “Mr. Browning, Doctor.” She stepped back.

Conrad entered and found himself in a large, book-lined room that obviously served as both
office and library for Dr. Vernon Futrelle. The window behind the desk looked out over the grounds and relieved some of the grim atmosphere engendered by the rank upon rank of thick volumes mostly bound in black or dark brown leather.

The man who came out from behind the desk and walked toward Conrad with his hand extended was familiar. He realized he had seen the doctor at various social functions in the past. Futrelle was short and thick-bodied, with a prominent paunch over which a gold watch chain draped. He had a bulldog face, spectacles, and a brush of graying red hair that stuck up straight from his head. His grip was strong as he shook hands with Conrad.

“Mr. Browning,” he said. “I believe we’ve met before. I knew your mother and your father, certainly.”

The way he phrased it made it sound as though he wasn’t aware that Frank Morgan was really Conrad’s father, which was certainly possible. Vivian Browning had never done anything to publicize that fact, and neither had Conrad while he lived in Boston.

“It’s good to see you again, Doctor.”

Futrelle waved him into a comfortable leather armchair in front of the desk. “Sit down, my boy. What can I do for you? You’re not having medical problems, are you? I must say, you look as healthy as a horse! Healthier than some horses I’ve seen, in fact.”

“No, I’m fine,” Conrad said as he sat down and
crossed his legs. He rested his hat on his knee. “I’m here about someone else. A … friend of mine.”

Futrelle settled back in his chair and clasped his hands over his stomach. “Not one of those hypothetical friends that are really you, I hope.”

Conrad laughed and shook his head. “No chance of that. This lady had a condition that’s quite impossible for me to attain.”

Futrelle raised his eyebrows. “A lady, eh? Are we speaking of a … delicate condition?”

“Precisely,” Conrad said.

“Well, that’s troubling,” Futrelle said. “I suppose that discretion is an absolute necessity, eh?”

“Yes, I’m afraid so.”

Futrelle nodded slowly, wisely. Conrad knew exactly what he was thinking. The doctor believed Conrad had gotten some girl pregnant, probably a servant, and wanted the situation dealt with as efficiently as possible, with no fuss. In cases such as that, the gentleman involved would pay for the girl to stay at the sanitarium until the baby was born, and then a discreet adoption would be arranged. The whole process was expensive, but well worth it for a man who valued his privacy.

“I believe we can assist you, Mr. Browning,” Futrelle said. “What’s the young lady’s name?”

“Pamela,” Conrad said.

Futrelle raised his eyebrows again. He was surprised, and though he tried to control the reaction, he didn’t quite succeed.

“Pamela Tarleton,” Conrad went on.

There was a flash of genuine fear in Futrelle’s
eyes, and Conrad knew he had come to the right place.

Anger replaced the fear as Futrelle snapped, “This isn’t amusing, Mr. Browning. I know very well that Miss Tarleton was your fiancée at one time. I also know that she’s dead. If she ever was a patient here, and I’m not saying she was, I’d be honor bound not to reveal anything about her stay with us.”

“You don’t have to reveal anything, Doctor,” Conrad said in a tone as sharp as Futrelle’s. He played the rest of his cards. “I already know she came here to give birth, and that’s exactly what she did. She bore two children, twins. What I want to know is what happened to those children.”

Futrelle reached for a bell push on the desk. “This is none of your business, sir—”

In a motion almost too swift for the eye to follow, Conrad was on his feet. His hand shot out and closed around Futrelle’s wrist, stopping the doctor from reaching the bell.

“It is every bit my business,” Conrad said in a low, dangerous voice. “Those were my children, Doctor. You’re going to tell me what happened to them and where they are now.”

Futrelle’s eyes looked wild and panicky behind the thick lenses of his spectacles. “You’re insane! I don’t know what you’re talking about. None of this ever happened—”

“Show me the records, Doctor,” Conrad grated. If he found out what he needed to know at the sanitarium, he wouldn’t have to go to Serrano’s. “Show
me the records, or my lawyers will be in court first thing tomorrow morning filing motions.”

“You can’t force me to do such a thing! It’s not legal.”

“Maybe not, but it certainly wouldn’t be a good thing for your business to be dragged into the light of a courtroom, would it?”

“But … but … I can’t show you the records! There
aren’t
any records!”

Conrad’s grip on the doctor’s arm tightened. “Are you trying to tell me that Pamela wasn’t here?”

Futrelle shook his head. “No … No, she was here … but she took all the records with her. When she left with … with the children … there were some men with her. I don’t know who they were, but they were very … threatening.”

Conrad drew in a deep breath. He didn’t doubt that Pamela had hired some thugs to make Futrelle turn over all the records. She had hired gunmen to kidnap and murder Rebel and then later to try to kill him. He wondered suddenly if Eddie Murtagh had been working for her even back then.

The main thing filling his mind at the moment was Futrelle’s admission that Pamela had left with the children. It was the first direct evidence Conrad had found that the children even existed.

“The twins,” he said softly. “They were twins?”

Futrelle jerked his head in a nod. “That’s right.”

“Boys? Girls?”

“One of each,” the doctor said.

A powerful sensation, almost like a physical
blow, coursed through Conrad. He was a father. He had a son and a daughter. Even though he had read Pamela’s hateful letter dozens of times, even though he’d heard Mallory’s report about a patient at the sanitarium who might have been Pamela and who might have given birth to twins, he finally had proof. It was a world-changing revelation that went right to his very core.

He let go of Futrelle’s arm and stepped back. His hands covered his face for a moment. He felt stunned. But he was alert enough to realize he’d made a mistake.

Futrelle lunged forward and slapped his hand down on the bell push. “You won’t get away with coming in here and threatening me like this,” Futrelle gloated. “Now you’ll see that in this sanitarium, my word is law!”

The doors behind Conrad burst open. In answer to Futrelle’s summons, three big, heavily-muscled orderlies rushed in, obviously ready for trouble.

Futrelle pointed at Conrad and ordered, “Grab this man! He’s unstable and needs to be locked up!”

Conrad instantly grasped what Futrelle was trying to do. The doctor didn’t want any kind of scandal to threaten his lucrative business. By claiming Conrad was insane, Futrelle could get away with locking him up and keeping him a prisoner in the sanitarium, perhaps forever. He knew Conrad no longer had any relatives in Boston to dispute the claim.

As he whirled around to face the three orderlies, Conrad was aware he was fighting not only for his freedom but for his very life. Once he was a “patient” there, it would be easy for Futrelle to dispose of him without anyone knowing about it.

As the orderlies lunged at him, Conrad’s hands flashed underneath his coat and came out filled with the Lightnings. “Stay where you are!”

The men came to awkward, skidding halts as they looked down the barrels of those revolvers.

Conrad heard movement behind him and looked around. Futrelle was coming at him, swinging a heavy glass ashtray he had snatched up from
the desk. The doctor had quite a bit of strength in his short, stocky body, and smashed the ashtray against the side of Conrad’s head with stunning force. He went down on one knee.

One of the orderlies leaped forward and grabbed his right arm, wrenching the gun aside. Another man went for his left arm. Pain shot through Conrad’s shoulder as the orderly tried to twist the arm out of its socket. The third orderly closed in from the front.

The way the three of them moved in tandem told Conrad they had plenty of experience at dealing with violent patients. Unless he broke free quickly, they would overpower him and all would be lost.

He would never find his children.

He let his weight sag so the two men who had seized him were holding him up. Pulling both legs up, he snapped them out in a savage double kick that sunk the heels of his boots deep into the belly of the third orderly. The man grunted in pain, doubled over, and blundered right into his companion who was holding Conrad’s right arm.

That loosened the man’s grip enough for Conrad to pull free. He twisted his body and hooked a foot behind the knee of the man holding his left arm. A quick jerk upset that man, and suddenly everyone in the office was on the floor except for Dr. Futrelle, who danced around nervously, still holding the ashtray as if he wanted to hit Conrad with it again.

Conrad surged to his knees. One of the orderlies tried to grapple with him again. From the
corner of his eye, Conrad saw Futrelle rush in and swing the ashtray at him. He jerked his head aside. Futrelle’s momentum carried him forward, and the blow smashed into the orderly’s face, crushing the man’s nose and shattering cheek bones. Blood spurted as the orderly howled in pain and fell backward, clutching at his ruined face.