The Lost Baroness Read online

  "What the hell?"

  Siri spun around. Standing in the open doorway was the man from the Chinese store, the man who had been looking for a woman. Once again his sheer masculine presence came close to overwhelming her, stealing the breath from her chest and drying her mouth. She curtsied, while she was thinking of what to say.

  He came toward her, stopped barely a foot away. Although he was not much taller than she, he seemed to loom over her. Siri tried to retreat, but her bottom was snug against the windowsill and she could not move.

  "Disappointed, are you?" he said, his deep voice silky and threatening at the same time. "No gold, no jewelry, nothing at all worth stealing."

  "Stealing? I was not--"

  "Bullshit! You had a fine time pawing through my gear. The only problem is, you didn't have time to put it back, did you?" He waved his hand, the gesture encompassing the entire room. "Or were you unpacking for me? Just another service of the house?"

  "I did nothing except--"

  He took a step toward her. Siri felt the warmth of him, even though their bodies were not touching. Then his hand, hard and strong, cupped her chin. "You're a lot younger than you seemed, last night. Your eyes... iceberg blue..." He chuckled. "And about as cold."

  He drew a finger across her cheek, and her skin burned as if he'd branded her.

  "What were you looking for, sweetheart? Money? There are better ways than stealing it."

  She slapped his hand aside, pushed against his chest. She might as well have tried moving a rock. "I do not steal. I cleaned your room, picked up your clothing. You are en gris...a pig. Your clothing is so fine, and you strew it about like so much skräp...so much trash." She squeezed around him and went to the pile of shirts. "Look!" She shook the one with the boot print before him. "See! So dirty it may never come clean! Vad synd! What a shame!"

  "Let me see that!"

  Siri handed it to him.

  He turned the shirt over in his hands, inspected the black smear. "Where was this?" His tone was mild.

  His gaze was not. It was full of anger.

  She recoiled, stumbling over the rag rug before the dresser. "On the floor. There." She pointed to the spot near the bed where the shirt had lain.

  "And you say the room was a mess? How? What else was out of place?"

  "Allting...everything. The shirts were on the floor, your cravats, even your... your underkläder." Siri felt her cheeks heat.

  His lips twitched. "Even my underwear, huh? Okay, I believe you. If you'd been rifling my gear, you'd not want me to know it." He looked around the room, almost as if he expected to see an intruder's name writ on the wall. "How long have you been in here?"

  Suddenly she understood what he was thinking. "Not long. Only enough time to clean, pick up, give you clean sheets. Half an hour?"

  "And I went out early. So the room was empty for five or six hours, maybe." He cast another searching look around. "Was anyone else likely to be on this floor, other than lodgers?"

  "No one is allowed above the stairs," she told him. It was a strict rule of the house. Only guests could enter the guest corridors leading to bedrooms and suites. The door in the lobby was kept locked at all times, and it was the only entrance to... "Oh!"

  "You thought of something?" He was leaning against the windowsill now, looking much like Siri imagined a lion would look at its rest. His mane of tawny curls only added to the impression of a big cat ever alert and ready to spring upon its unwary prey.

  "The servant stairs. They come up the outside of the house. The doors are kept locked, but sometimes, when we are bringing up linens..." She paused, thinking about the many times she had left a door unlocked, knowing she would return soon from the laundry with her arms full of clean sheets and towels. "I had to wait for Chu to finish ironing." She bit her lip. "It was only a short while." No more than the time it had taken her to drink a cup of tea, but enough time for someone to go up the stairs and enter the third floor corridor. She had cleaned the suites first, then had gone to dinner, so an intruder could have had more than two undisturbed hours in this room.

  "I am sorry," she told him. "Was anything stolen?" What if he complained? Mrs. Welkins was particular about the maids lingering in the laundry, but the day was damp and cold, and the steam-filled room had been warm. She had not been able to resist.

  "I doubt it. Let me take a look and I'll let you know." He smiled for the first time. "I don't keep anything valuable in here, so the most he would have gotten was a few dollars."

  A few dollars? He must be a rich man. Siri earned only two dollars a week.

  Buffalo believed the maid. She simply didn't look, didn't sound like a woman bent on stealing. He was sure she was the same woman who'd been sitting in the shadows in the Chinese store last night. At the time he'd wondered at a white woman being there. Then he'd forgotten her in his surprise at hearing Li Ching was here in Astoria.

  "I am finished here," the maid said. She was eyeing him as if he'd grab her and prevent her leaving. No fear in those ice-blue eyes, though. Just suspicion and wariness.

  "Look, don't say anything about this--" He glanced around the room. "I'd just as soon keep it quiet that I had a... a visitor." Let the thief think he'd gotten away with his robbery. If the intruder had indeed been a thief.

  "But you do not know if something was stolen. We should tell Mr. Welkins. The police..."

  "If something was stolen, I'll let the police know. No need to upset the hôtelier, though. I don't want a fuss made."

  She looked as if she would argue, so to forestall her, Buff said, "How long have you lived in Astoria?"

  "As long as I can remember." She picked up the basket of cleaning supplies. "I must go now. I have more rooms to clean." She dodged past him and all but scurried out the door.

  She's afraid of me, all of a sudden. Why?

  There was something about her. Something familiar. He'd seen her--or her twin--before.

  No, it's just not possible. You heard her. She's always lived here. It's just a coincidence.

  Buff sorted through his possessions. Nothing was missing, not so far as he could tell. The intruder had searched carefully and thoroughly. His trouser pockets were turned inside out. The small piece of Baltic amber he carried as a good luck piece was in a different pocket of his waistcoat than he usually kept it. And most telling of all, the careful arrangement of bills and notes in his shaving kit had been disturbed. Ever since the first attempted robbery on the ship from Boston to London, he'd kept his valuables about his person or in a safe, and set a trap so he could tell if someone had searched his room.

  Hattie Lachlan hadn't raised any stupid children. And his Pa would had a fit if he let himself be robbed like any greenhorn.

  Once his clothing had been restored to the dresser drawers, Buff lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling, thinking about what step to take next and the likelihood of its being any more productive than today's investigations.

  "I'll talk to Li Ching," he decided. Although he'd done little more than nod a greeting to the Chinese labor contractor back in Idaho, he knew about him. Reasonably honest, a hard taskmaster, but one who'd fight for decent treatment of the men who worked for him. More than once, Li Ching had pulled his Chinese laborers from a job because they'd been mistreated.

  The question was, would he be honest with a white man?

  He stayed on his bed until the supper bell rang, making little sense of the disparate bits and pieces of information he'd collected so far in Astoria.

  The only thing he knew for sure was he was going to be in town for a while.

  * * *

  Jaeger sipped his lager and watched the others in the smoky tavern. They were mostly northern Europeans, Swedes and Danes and Norwegians, so he fit right in.

  Of course, he always did. That was one of the reasons for his success. He was part of the background, the man no one remembered seeing.

  This town, this Astoria, what a peculiar place it was. The Occident Hotel was small, but it
was as elegant as any of its size in Europe. Yet one stepped from its lobby into a muddy, unpaved street and faced the unpainted façade of a mercantile that sold gum boots and oilskins as well as bolts of velvet and silk. On the few streets, carriages as fine as any in Copenhagen wove among sledges drawn by shaggy oxen. A Chinese store sat next to a saloon, a milliner's elegant window looked across into another saloon. A raw, crude town.

  The waterfront was as rough and dangerous a place as Macao's or Bombay's. Anything could be had, from opium to a man's life. Already he'd seen a knife fight which left both combatants bleeding. When he'd first stepped off the ship's tender, he'd been cornered by a pair of would-be robbers, sure they had found helpless prey.

  He had surprised them.

  Chapter Three

  Buff had never met so many inscrutable Orientals in his life as he encountered the next morning. Only one or two admitted understanding English, and those looked at him blankly when he mentioned he was seeking Li Ching.

  After a while he couldn't even find a Chinaman to ask. It was if they'd all faded into the mist.

  He went back to the Chinese store. The woman behind the counter was using a cleaver with frightening competency. "Can you pass the word to Li Ching that I need to speak with him?" he asked.

  He might as well have spoken to the wall.

  "Look, ma'am, I only want to ask Li Ching about a ship that might have gone aground a long time ago. There may have been Chinese women on it. That's all. Can you pass the word?"

  The woman continued to chop vegetables.

  Well, hell! Buff shook his head. "I'm staying at the Pacific Western Hotel," he said. "Tell Li Ching to get word to me there, if he'll talk to me. And tell him my name. Buffalo Lachlan. He'll remember me."

  He touched his hat brim. "Thank you, ma'am."

  "Rain come morning," the Chinese woman told him, just before he pulled the door closed.

  He knew that. Rain came every morning in Astoria.

  * * *

  When Siri went to pick up clean sheets from the laundry on Friday morning, Chu handed her a slip of paper. "What is this?" she asked the laundryman.

  "From Li Ching," he said. "You read."

  She tucked it into her pocket without looking at it. If it was bad news, she wanted to be alone. After picking up the stack of towels and sheets for the top floor rooms, she paused, unable to restrain her curiosity. "Chu, have you heard anything about the new man? Mr. Lachlan? He asked about Chinese women the other night at Mrs. Leong's store."

  Chu's eyelids lowered and his busy hands stilled. "He look for Li Ching, ask many questions. Not know why."

  "But you've heard nothing bad about him?"

  "Not hear bad, not hear good. Wait." Chu turned back to his labors, stirring the steaming cauldron of lye-scented water.

  Siri knew better than to try to learn more. Chu would not tell her anything unless he thought she needed to be told.

  Once she was on the fourth floor, she set the bundle of clean linens down and opened the note. In spidery letters it said "No new. We ask more." Under that was a Chinese character, like a signature.

  Depressed, yet hopeful too, she hurried through her work. No news was better than bad, she supposed. And the note said they were still looking, still asking about her children. Today she wanted to finish early so she could go to the waterfront. The Lolochuck had docked last night and was scheduled to lay over until tomorrow, in hopes of picking up cargo from a coastwise steamer waiting to cross the bar. Captain Witherspoon had promised to ask about a woman with children arriving in Portland aboard any of the Columbia steamships.

  For once her work went quickly and Mrs. Welkins let her go before four. She hurried down the hill, waving at Mrs. Leong as she passed the Chinese store. Captain Witherspoon wasn't in the Deep Six Saloon, as she'd feared he would be. She finally found him outside the Portmaster's office.

  He was deep in conversation with Mr. Lachlan.

  Siri stood well back, so she could not be thought eavesdropping. The men had glanced at her as she approached, but neither acknowledged her presence. Looking about, she saw a barrel lying on its side against one of the pilings that supported the narrow boardwalk across the street. It called to her, a place to sit and rest. She hitched herself up on the barrel and leaned against the tarry wood behind it. Despite the chill of the mist, she was comfortable here, out of the wind and off her tired feet.

  Behind her the water slap-slapped at the pilings, and the strong smells of tar and dead fish filled her nose. It brought back memories she usually kept firmly in the back of her mind. She had often gone down to Daws' Landing to meet Valter when the gillnetters came in at day's end. The light little fishing boats, with their wide sails, had earned the name of "The Butterfly Fleet." She had heard that tourists wrote poetic accounts of how they looked, flying over the rough waters of the Columbia.

  She hated them, as she hated anything to do with the sea or with boats. The gillnetters were dangerous and demanding, leaving a man with little energy for anything after a day's fishing. Valter Trogen had courted her in the winter, when he had time to walk with her, energy to speak sweet love-words and make seductive promises. By spring, when she realized that marriage to a gillnetter would be no better than to a deepwater fisherman like her father, it had been too late.

  After a while, she saw Captain Witherspoon slap Mr. Lachlan on the shoulder. They both laughed. Then Mr. Lachlan shook the captain's hand and walked away.

  "Well, missy, I suppose you're after the news I bring?" Captain Witherspoon said, as he came across to where she sat.

  Siri slid off the barrel. "Yes. How are you, Captain? Did you have a good voyage?" Captain Witherspoon's sidewheeler plied the rivers between Astoria and the Falls of the Willamette, making three or four round trips this far downstream a month. He was the only one of the several steamer captains on the river who had shown any interest in helping her. The others answered her questions grudgingly, if at all.

  But of course, Valter's father had been one of them, and most had stayed at his mother's boarding house. Why should they take her side?

  "Tolerable. Business is slow in Portland this winter. Must be the weather." He pulled out a big-bowled pipe and began filling it. "I don't have anything for you, missy, and I'm sorry. I kept my ear to the ground, but I never heard a word about a woman with little ones debarking anywhere along the rivers." He got the pipe going, and puffed a moment in silence. His brow was wrinkled, as if he was deep in thought.

  Siri backed away a step, out of the cloud of rank smoke. "Nothing?" she said, and despised the quaver in her voice. "So she must have gone up or down the coast, then."

  "Could be. Yes, could be, but I doubt it. Martine, she had a lot of friends along the rivers. They could have helped her disappear."

  Exhaustion overwhelmed her. Siri bit her lip and willed the tears not to gather. "Tack, Captain." One deep breath, then another, until her voice steadied. "You will keep asking? Please?"

  He patted her shoulder, awkwardly, like a man unused to touching women. "Of course I will, missy. That was a bad thing Martine did. She shouldn't get away with it."

  How I wish all the others felt that way, Siri thought, but she said only, "I am so grateful. Tusen tack! Thank you so much."

  "You're welcome. Now you take yourself off home, young lady. It's gettin' too late for a nice girl like you to be roaming these streets."

  "Yes. Of course." She was reluctant to leave him. "You will ask again?"

  "My word on it," he said. "Now scat!"

  Siri hurried up the street, walking on the opposite side from the Deep Six.

  Even so, she had to evade two drunken sailors and dodge a woman-hungry fisherman before she reached the decent part of town.

  * * *

  After supper, Buff decided to walk downtown and see what excitement he could scare up. Tonight he wanted bright lights and loud music.

  And maybe a fancy woman to dance with.

  He looked into a couple of
saloons, had a beer in the third. None was the kind of place he was looking for. They were filled with fishermen, still clad in wool jackets smelling of fish and seaweed. The looks turned on him as he entered had been curious, questioning. Suspicious.

  When he bellied up to the bar in the third place--Fisherman's Rest it was called--he heard snatches of German, Swedish, Portuguese, and an almost familiar tongue he assumed was Norwegian. The beer was strong, much like the brews he'd tasted in northern Europe, and dark. But the message in the faces of those at the tables had been You don't belong here.

  He went to the next street over, the one that led to the commercial docks. Ahead a spill of light invited him to the source of tinny piano music and raucous laughter.

  As he reached the corner, a man stepped from the shadows. "Guten Abend, Herr Lachlan."

  Buff stopped, peered. A Roman collar identified the man, as did the tinted glass of his spectacle lenses. "How are you, Father Spatz? Glad to be ashore, I reckon."

  "I am indeed. Although I wish I did not have to board any kind of watercraft for several weeks."

  Less than a block away, the evening's entertainment waited. Buff contained his impatience. "Oh? You're not staying a while, then?"

  "No. I shall travel upriver tomorrow."

  "Well, good luck in your new assignment." He touched his hat brim. The priest was a fine enough fellow, but not a companion he'd choose this evening. "Good night."

  Father Spatz, nodded, his narrow lips widening in a slight smile.

  For a moment Buff wondered if he was being laughed at, for there was more amusement than friendliness in the expression. Then he decided the German priest had so little practice at affability that smiling was difficult for him. A more serious fellow Buff had never met.

  He left the priest behind and went on to the saloon. The Deep Six, it was called, and aptly so. Many of its patrons were more than likely to find their fate thereabouts, sooner or later.