they entered, he stood and gave them a tenuous smile. “Ah, this must be Mrs. Margaret Tinsley and her daughter, Leticia.”
Letty nodded. “That’s correct, sir, and you are?”
The smile disappeared. “My name is Mathew Hastings. I work for Mr. Garth Morgan.”
Mother’s eyebrows raised in surprise. “The Morgans of Beacon Hill?”
“The very ones.” A wry smile played on Mathew Hastings’s thin lips. “The very rich Garth Morgan whose father founded the Morgan Shipping Line. We’ve just returned from California.” He glanced at the sofa. “Perhaps you should sit down? I’m afraid I’ve brought bad news.”
Oh, no. Fear clutched Letty’s heart. This visit must have something to do with Charles. They seated themselves on the sofa, across from their visitor. She took her mother’s hand and held it tight. “Please, just tell us.”
“Well, then.” Looking very much as if he’d like to be elsewhere, Mathew Hastings cleared his throat. “As I’m sure you know, your brother, Charles, owned Golden Hill, a mining claim at Empire, in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California.”
“Yes, of course we know. Please do go on.”
“I don’t know if your brother ever mentioned my employer?”
Letty thought hard. “Garth Morgan? Charles may have mentioned him in his letters, but I’m not sure.”
“Mr. Morgan owns several hotels in California. One, the Alhambra, is located in Empire. When he first came to Empire, your brother met my employer, and they became good friends. That’s why Mr. Morgan was most distressed when…”
Letty held her breath as their visitor cleared his throat again.
“…there’s no easy way to tell you. Your brother has disappeared.”
Disappeared. For a moment, the word didn’t sink in. When it did, Letty turned to her mother who had gasped and turned pale. “Are you all right?”
Mother closed her eyes and nodded. “I’m fine. Let’s hear the rest.”
Letty didn’t want to hear the rest but she must. “Please continue, Mr. Hastings.”
“From the day your brother staked his claim, he worked dawn to dusk, digging, running his sluice boxes. Before long, all that hard labor paid off and he struck a rich vein of gold. Golden Hill was high up the mountain and hard to get to, but we saw him every few days when he came down to Empire for supplies. Then, around the middle of October, as best I recollect, Charles stopped coming into town. At first, we didn’t notice. Gradually we realized we hadn’t seen him for a while, at least a week, maybe two. Finally, we got worried enough that we climbed to his claim and found it deserted. Nothing left but an empty tent and indications his possessions had been…well, disturbed.”
“What do you mean by disturbed?” Letty braced herself.
“Clothing scattered. Cot overturned. Papers strewn about. Obviously they were looking for something.”
“They?”
Hastings heaved a deep sigh, obviously reluctant to provide details but knowing he must. “I’ll be honest, ladies. When gold was first discovered, you couldn’t find a safer place than the diggings. By that I mean where men staked their claims around the gold mining towns. You could leave a thousand dollars worth of gold in your tent all day and not have to worry. Not anymore, I’m afraid. The gold fields are a dangerous place now, what with bandits, thieves and robbers everywhere. There are ruthless men out there who’ll steal you blind and kill you in the blink of an eye if they have to, or even if they don’t have to.”
Letty found it hard to speak over the lump forming in her throat. “So you’re saying that’s what happened to Charles?”
Hastings nodded. “Sorry to say it looks that way. We couldn’t find a trace of him. Your brother was just gone. As you know, his claim had yielded a small fortune, although it was just about played out when he disappeared. He was a trusting man—kept a lot of gold in his tent and didn’t even own a weapon. Rumor had it that the notorious bandit, Juaquin Marietta, was in the area at the time. If I were to guess, I’d say Marietta and his men broke into Charles’s tent in the middle of the night, robbed Charles of his gold and…”
“Killed him?” Letty could hardly choke the words out.
“Yes, killed him and hid his body.”
“My son is dead?” Mother spoke in a strangled voice. “How can you be sure? Maybe they kidnapped him and are holding him captive.”
“I don’t believe so, Mrs. Tinsley. Bandits seldom take prisoners. Besides, there was blood in the tent—lots of blood.”
Letty put her arm around her mother’s trembling shoulders. “There’s no hope?”
For a moment, their visitor bowed his head, as if searching for something positive to say. When he looked up, his expression told them he could not. “Death is commonplace in the California gold fields. Accidents, diseases, malnutrition, murder. If Charles Tinsley is still alive, it would be a miracle. My advice is to accept the fact he’s not.”
A wave of grief struck Letty so hard she could hardly breathe. And they must simply accept that Charles was dead? No! “What you’re telling me is that Charles is dead, disappeared without a trace, and there’s nothing to be done?”
Their visitor gave a regretful shrug. “Empire, California, is a rough-and-tumble mining camp with a wild and lawless reputation. Violence is common. There’s at least one murder a day in Empire. Hardly any murderer is caught, and even if he is, punishment is highly uncertain. Could be death by hanging or nothing at all.” He looked down at the package at his feet. “Mr. Morgan wanted you to have Charles’s personal effects. Items we collected from his tent—clothing, writing implements, his diary, that sort of thing.”
Letty took a moment to collect herself. This was no time to be looking at items that would surely bring back heart-wrenching memories. “Thank you, Mr. Hastings. We shall go through them later.”
“Well, then.” Hastings rose to leave. He’d done his duty. Plain to see he was eager to escape. “Mr. Morgan sends his sincere condolences. If for some reason you need to talk to him, you’ll find him at 151 Cambridge Street, his residence on Beacon Hill.”
Letty held her tears in check with rigid control. “Please convey my thanks to Mr. Morgan. How kind of him to let us know.” She accompanied their visitor to the door, thanked him, and said good-bye.
Returning to the parlor, she found her mother still sitting on the sofa, pale, shaken, and beyond tears. “Charles is dead?” She looked up at Letty with searching, grief-stricken eyes. “This is so sudden. I can hardly believe it.”
Letty looked for words. None were adequate. “I can hardly believe it either, but it must be true.” She offered her hand. “Come along, let’s go upstairs. This is a horrible shock. You need to lie down. I’ll get a cool cloth for your forehead.”
As if in a daze, Mother allowed her to lead her up the staircase. At the top, she paused. “This Garth Morgan, did Charles ever mention him?”
“Now
