The Bughouse Affair q-2 Read online

  Quincannon muttered five short, colorful words, none of them remotely of a deductive nature.

  As much as Quincannon disliked and mistrusted the city police, the circumstances of this crime were such that notifying them was unavoidable. He telephoned the Hall of Justice on the instrument in Costain’s study. After that he paced and cogitated, to no reasonable conclusion.

  The Englishman, meanwhile, examined the corpse a second time, paying particular attention, it seemed, to a pale smear on the coat near the fatal knife wound. He then proceeded to squint through the glass at the carpet in both the study and the hallway, crawling to and fro on his hands and knees, and at any number of other things after that. Now and then he muttered aloud to himself: “More data! I can’t make bricks without clay!” and “Hallo! That’s more like it!” and “Ah, plain as a pikestaff!”

  Neither man had anything more to say to the other. It was as if a gauntlet had been thrown down, a tacit challenge issued-which the bughouse Sherlock seemed to think was the case. Two bloodhounds on the scent, no longer working in consort, but as competitors in an undeclared contest of wills. Quincannon would have none of that nonsense. As far as he was concerned, there was only one detective at work here, only one sane man qualified and capable of answering the challenge.

  The blue coats arrived in less than half an hour, what for them was swift dispatch. They were half a dozen in number, accompanied by a handful of reporters representing Fremont Older’s Call, the Daily Alta, and San Francisco’s other newspapers, who were made to wait outside-half as many of both breeds as there would have been if the murder of a prominent attorney had happened on Nob Hill.

  The inspector in charge was a beefy, red-faced Prussian named Kleinhoffer, whom Quincannon knew slightly and condoned not in the slightest. Inspector Kleinhoffer was both stupid and corrupt, a lethal combination, and a political toady besides. His opinion of flycops was on par with Quincannon’s opinion of him.

  His first comment was, “Involved in another killing, eh, Quincannon? What’s your excuse this time?”

  Quincannon explained, briefly, the reason he was there. He omitted mention of Dodger Brown by name, using the phrase “unknown burglar” instead and catching the Englishman’s eye as he spoke so the lunatic would say nothing to contradict him. He was not about to chance losing a fee-small chance though it was, the police being such a generally inept bunch-by providing information that might allow them to stumble across the Dodger ahead of him.

  Kleinhoffer sneered. “Some fancy flycop. You’re sure he’s not still somewhere in the house?”

  “Sure enough.”

  “We’ll see about that.” He gestured to a burly red-faced sergeant, who stepped forward. “Mahoney, you and your men search the premises top to bottom.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Kleinhoffer’s beady gaze settled on the Englishman, ran over his face and his ridiculous disguise. “Who’re you?” he demanded.

  “S. Holmes, of London, England. A temporary associate of Mr. Quincannon’s private inquiry agency.”

  Quincannon was none too pleased at the last statement, but he offered no disclaimer. Better that false assertion than a rambling monologue on what a masterful detective Holmes fancied himself to be.

  “A limey, eh?” Kleinhoffer said. Then, to Quincannon, “Picking your operatives off the docks these days, are you?”

  “If I am, it’s no concern of yours.”

  “None of your guff. Where’s the stiff?”

  “In the study.”

  Kleinhoffer gave Andrew Costain’s remains a cursory examination. “Shot and stabbed both,” he said wonderingly. “You didn’t tell me that. What the hell happened here tonight?”

  Quincannon’s account, given in detail, heightened the inspector’s apoplectic color and narrowed his beady eyes to slits. Any crime more complicated than a Barbary Coast stabbing or coshing invariably confused him, and the evident facts in this case threatened to tie a permanent knot in his cranial lobes.

  He shook his head, as if trying to shake loose cobwebs, and snapped, “None of that makes a damned bit of sense.”

  “Sense or not, that is exactly what took place.”

  “You there, limey. He leave anything out?”

  “Tut, tut,” Holmes said with dignity. “I am an Englishman, sir, a British subject … not a ‘limey.’”

  “I don’t care if you’re the president of England-”

  “There is no president of England. My country is a monarchy.”

  Kleinhoffer gnashed his yellowed teeth. “Never mind that. Did Quincannon leave anything out or didn’t he?”

  “He did not. His re-creation of events was precise in every detail.”

  “So you say. I say it couldn’t have happened the way you two tell it.”

  “Nonetheless, it did, though what seems to have transpired is not necessarily what actually took place. What we are dealing with here is illusion and obfuscation.”

  The inspector wrapped an obscene noun in a casing of disgust. After which he stooped to pick up the Forehand amp; Wadsworth revolver. He sniffed the barrel, broke it open to check the chambers as Quincannon had done, then dropped the weapon into his coat pocket. He was squinting at the empty valuables case when Sergeant Mahoney entered the room.

  “No sign of anybody in the house,” he reported.

  “Back door still wedged shut?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Then he must’ve managed to slip out the front while these two flycops weren’t looking.”

  “I beg to differ,” Holmes said. He mentioned the heavy chair. “It was not moved until your arrival, Inspector, by Mr. Quincannon and myself. Even if it had been, I would surely have heard the scraping and dragging sounds. My hearing is preternaturally acute.”

  Kleinhoffer said the rude word again.

  Mahoney said, “Mrs. Costain is here.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The dead man’s wife. Mrs. Penelope Costain. She just come home.”

  “Well, why didn’t you say so? Bring her in here.”

  The sergeant did as directed. Penelope Costain was stylishly garbed in a high-collared blouse, flounced skirt, and fur-trimmed cloak, her brunette curls tucked under a hat adorned with an ostrich plume. She took one look at her husband’s remains, shuddered violently, and began to sway as if about to faint. Mahoney caught one arm to steady her. Quincannon took hold of the other and together they helped her to one of the chairs.

  She drew several deep breaths, fanned herself with one hand. “I … I’m all right,” she said after a few moments. Her gaze touched the body again and immediately away. “Poor Andrew. He was a brave man.… He must have fought terribly for his life.”

  “We’ll get the man who did it,” Kleinhoffer promised foolishly.

  “Can’t you … cover him with something?”

  “Mahoney. Find a cloth.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Penelope Costain nibbled at a torn fingernail, her head tilted to one side as she peered up at the faces ringed above her. “Is that you, Mr. Holmes? What are you doing here, dressed in such outlandish clothing?”

  “He was working with me,” Quincannon said.

  “With you? Two detectives in tandem failed to prevent this … this outrage?”

  “None of what happened was our fault.”

  She said bitterly, “That is the same statement you made two nights ago. Nothing, no tragedy, is ever your fault, evidently.”

  Kleinhoffer was still holding the empty valuables case. He extended it to the widow, saying, “This was on the floor, Mrs. Costain.”

  “Yes. My husband kept it in his desk.”

  “What was in it?”

  “Twenty-dollar gold pieces, a dozen or so. And the more expensive pieces among my jewelery … a diamond brooch, a pair of diamond earrings, a pearl necklace.”

  “Worth how much, would you say?”

  “I don’t know … several thousand dollars, I should think.” She look
ed again at Quincannon, this time with open hostility.

  Kleinhoffer did the same. He said, “You and the limey were here the entire time, and still you let that yegg murder Mr. Costain and get away with the swag … right under your noses. Well? What’ve you got to say for yourselves?”

  Quincannon had nothing to say.

  Neither did the bughouse Sherlock.

  18

  QUINCANNON

  It was well past midnight when Quincannon finally trudged wearily up the stairs to his rooms. After Kleinhoffer had finished with him, the newspapermen had descended-on him but not on the Englishman, who managed to slip away unnoticed. Quincannon had taken pains to keep Holmes well in the background; in his comments to the reporters, he referred to him as a “temporary operative” and an “underling.”

  He donned his nightshirt and crawled into bed, but the night’s jumbled events plagued his mind and refused to let him sleep. At length he lit his bedside lamp, picked up a copy of Walt Whitman’s Sea-Drift. Usually Whitman, or Emily Dickinson or James Lowell, freed his brain of clutter and allowed him to relax, but not tonight. He switched reading matter to Drunkards and Curs: The Truth About Demon Rum. He and Sabina had once been hired by the True Christian Temperance Society to catch an embezzler, and this had led him to his second collecting interest: temperance tracts, whose highly inflammatory rhetoric he found amusing.

  Drunkards and Curs did the trick. Before the end of one turgid chapter he was sound asleep.

  He awoke not long past seven, allowed himself a hasty breakfast, and within an hour was at the agency offices. For once he was the first to arrive. And when he unlocked the door and stepped inside, he was pleased to find an envelope that had been slipped under the door. It contained a single sheet of paper, on which was written in Ezra Bluefield’s backhand scrawl:

  Duff’s Curio Shop. He knows.

  E.B.

  A wolf’s smile split Quincannon’s freebooter’s whiskers. Ezra Bluefield, true to his word as always, had finally come through, and the morning was now considerably brighter.

  He went to coax steam heat from the radiator; on mornings such as this, the offices were as damp and chill as a cave. While he was so engaged, Sabina arrived.

  “Up bright and early this morning, I see,” she said. Then, as she removed her straw boater, “But not bushy-tailed. Another sleepless night?”

  “For the most part.”

  “Did something happen at the Costain home?”

  “Unfortunately, yes.”

  “Dodger Brown struck again?”

  “Struck, and committed another cold-blooded murder.”

  “Murder? Who was killed? Not that man Holmes-”

  “No. More’s the pity.”

  “Who, then?”

  “Andrew Costain. Stabbed and shot in bizarre circumstances.” He went on to outline the evening’s events.

  Sabina’s only reaction was the high lift of her eyebrows as he unfolded the tale. “It all seems fantastic. How could Dodger Brown possibly have escaped both the locked study and the house?”

  “How indeed. A pretty puzzle, the crackbrain called it. His only worthwhile remark the entire night.”

  “You have no one to blame for his presence but yourself,” she reminded him.

  Quincannon ignored the remark. “You should have seen him, crawling around on hands and knees, peering through his magnifying glass. Ludicrous. Why, he even seems to think there’s to be a contest between us to see who can solve the riddle. As if he could manage it by aping methods used by the real Sherlock Holmes!”

  “Perhaps he can.”

  “Balderdash. There’s only one man clever enough to get to the bottom of a crime such as this.”

  Sabina fixed him with one of her analytical looks. “You wouldn’t be feeling a touch threatened by him, would you?”

  “Threatened? By a lunatic? Faugh!”

  “Well and good, then. Have you any theories yet?”

  “No, but it’s only a matter of time and a bit more legwork.”

  “You know, John, this business may be more complicated than you realize.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “You recall the silver money clip I found in Clara Wilds’s rooms? It belonged to Costain.”

  “Costain? You’re sure of that?”

  “Yesterday I took it to the silversmith who made it. He made a positive identification.”

  Quincannon loaded and fired his briar while he pondered this. “So then Costain must have been one of the dip’s victims. And a recent one, if what I took to be gastric discomfort at our first meeting was in fact pain from a wound caused by one of Wilds’s hatpin thrusts.”

  “Coincidence, do you think?”

  “I don’t see how it could be anything else,” he said when he had the pipe drawing. “And yet…”

  “Yes, ‘and yet.’ Clara Wilds was murdered two days ago, Andrew Costain was murdered last night. And both, conceivably, by the same person. That would seem to be stretching coincidence to the breaking point.”

  “So it would.”

  “There’s something else that bothers me,” Sabina said, “if we assume Dodger Brown is guilty of both crimes. His criminal record.”

  “What about it?”

  “His felonies have always been nonviolent. Why, all of a sudden, would he commit two bloody homicides in two days?”

  “Greed. Fear of capture. He is known to carry a pistol.”

  “But never to have used it.”

  “True.”

  “Is it likely he’d also carry a weapon such as a stiletto?”

  “Not from what we know about him, but his habits might have changed for some reason.” Quincannon ruminated again. “It may also be that either or both weapons used belonged to Costain. The revolver bought by him for protection, a purchase he neglected to tell his wife about. The lethal weapon an object from his desk, such as a letter opener. In any case, the murder would seem to be the result of a brief but fierce struggle.”

  “That seems plausible,” Sabina said. “But why would Dodger Brown carry a bloody stiletto or letter opener away with him and leave the pistol behind?”

  “Panic. A man who has just taken another man’s life doesn’t always act rationally. Whatever happened in Costain’s study, we’ll find out when I’ve yaffled the Dodger. And that won’t be long now.”

  “You said that yesterday. He’s still at large.”

  “But now we have a lead,” Quincannon told her, “courtesy of Ezra Bluefield.” He showed her the message that had been slipped under the office door.

  “Our old friend Luther Duff.”

  “One of the easier eggs to crack in the city. For our purposes, Dodger Brown couldn’t have picked a better fenceman.”

  “Assuming Duff knows his whereabouts. With at least one murder on his conscience, he may have already gone on the lammas.”

  “If he has,” Quincannon said darkly, “I’ll track him down no matter where he goes. But I have a feeling he’s still in the area. If he is and he’s planning to run, he’ll need cash and Duff drives a hard bargain. Luther should know where to find him if anyone does.”

  “Let’s hope so. John, have you informed Jackson Pollard of last night’s events?”

  “No, not yet.”

  “Don’t you think you should?”

  Quincannon grimaced at the prospect. “Likely he’ll lay the blame on me and I’m in no mood for one of his rants.”

  “If you’d rather I telephoned him…”

  “No, the duty’s mine. I’ll stop in at Great Western after I’ve seen Luther Duff.”

  “Before would be better.”

  “But afterward I expect to have favorable news to sweeten his temper.” Quincannon reached for his derby, tipped it onto his head. “And with a smile from lady luck, before the end of the day I’ll have Dodger Brown.”

  19

  SABINA

  Despite her misgivings about investigating Clara Wilds’s murder, Sabina foun
d herself doing just that when she left the home of the last of the pickpocket’s victims. She had no other pressing business, and she was still not convinced Dodger Brown was the guilty party. Whether it was Brown or someone else who had stabbed Wilds, the culprit might have been seen entering or leaving her rooms. The police operated on the theory that the deaths of felons, male or female, violent or otherwise, were a benefit to society and so expended little effort in such cases. They would not have bothered with any but a routine investigation.

  Wilds had been a wicked woman whose extortion schemes and dipping forays had harmed numerous individuals, but she had also been a human being. In Sabina’s view, murder should never be condoned no matter who the victim. Besides, there were curious elements in the woman’s sudden demise-the silver money clip belonging to a second murder victim, Andrew Costain, for one-that aroused Sabina’s sleuthing instincts.

  She spent the rest of the morning in the vicinity of Wilds’s rooms, asking carefully phrased questions of residents, passersby, and wandering street vendors. The pickpocket’s murder seemed to have aroused only mild interest in the neighborhood, and only two individuals acknowledged knowing her by sight. But neither knew or would say anything about Wilds’s comings and goings or any regular male visitors she might have had.

  Sabina’s perseverance finally produced results at two o’clock, when she knocked on the door of a home across the carriageway that ran behind Wilds’s boarding house.

  The woman who answered the door seemed more inquisitive than any of the other neighbors. When she admitted to having seen Wilds on several occasions and to being shocked by the murder, Sabina decided that the best way to gain her confidence was to identify herself-something she had avoided doing elsewhere in the neighborhood. She presented her card, and explained her interest in Clara Wilds in vague terms, saying that Wilds was “the subject of an investigation for an important client.” The neighbor, whose name was Mrs. Anthony Marcus, seemed thrilled to be in the presence of a lady detective; she invited Sabina into a tidy parlor free of the usual gimcracks for further conversation.