The Bughouse Affair: A Carpenter and Quincannon Mystery (21 page)

Quincannon shoved furiously to his feet. The damned scruff had gotten away from him once, but not this time. No, by Godfrey, not this time! He unholstered the Navy again as he charged into the hallway.

Brown was running for the stairs, and when Quincannon spied him he loosed a bellow that shook the walls, brought startled noises from behind closed doors. The little burglar’s head jerked around and his stride faltered, which caused one bare foot to slide and bind up in a carpet fold, which in turn caused him to stumble past the staircase into the newel post on its far side. He spun off with arms flailing, lurched sideways across the hallway, and thumped into the wall with such force that he bounced backward, somehow managing to remain upright as he did so. He threw a terrified glance at his fire-breathing pursuer, who was now almost to the stairs, and commenced a splay-footed run toward the end of the hall.

There was a street-front window there, but it was closed and covered with a red shade; the yegg’s only chance for escape, or so he thought, was through one of the rooms. He clawed at the latch on the nearest one, yanked it open, and plunged inside to the sound of alarmed cries from the occupants.

Quincannon got there in time to prevent the back-flung door from slamming in his face. He shouldered it wide and barreled through. A naked fat man and an equally naked, equally fat Mexican girl were in the process of scrambling off a rumpled bed in a confusion of arms and legs, while Dodger Brown sprinted past to an airshaft window on the opposite side. He was frantically trying to open the window far enough to squeeze his scrawny body through when Quincannon reached him, caught hold of the collar of his long johns, lifted him off his feet, and yanked him around.

Brown fought him with body twists, fisted hands, and a shin kick, but this time Quincannon was ready for his sly tricks. He slammed the burglar backward into the wall next to the window, deftly avoiding another attempted shin kick. Held him there with a cocked hip and poked the bore of the Navy squarely between his bloodshot eyeballs.

“You’re pinched, lad,” he panted. “Resign yourself to it if you want to keep on breathing.”

The Dodger, staring cross-eyed at the Colt, was neither brave nor stupid; he knew the game was up. All the struggle and sand left him at once and he sagged quiescently in Quincannon’s grip.

“Here … what’s the meaning of this … this outrage!”

The spluttering voice came from the fat man, who was crouched on the far side of the bed with some, though not all, of his nakedness now swaddled in bedclothes. He seemed to be trying to hide his face as well, but enough of it remained visible for Quincannon to recognize him. There was no sign of the Mexican girl; she was either cowering under the bed or had managed to flee during the skirmish.

Quincannon holstered his revolver as he hauled Dodger Brown toward the door. On the way he used his free hand to doff his derby, which had miraculously managed to remain in place, at the fat man.

“Apologies for the interruption, Senator,” he said. “Carry on as you were.”

The last sound he heard before shutting the door behind himself and the Dodger was a mournful quacking cry like that of a ruptured duck.

Eyes followed the two of them back down the hallway, two of the brightest belonging to Lettie Carew, who had climbed puffing to the top of the stairs. When Quincannon assured her in passing that there would no more commotion, she said, “Well, at least there wasn’t any shooting,” sighed heavily, and headed back down to her lair.

In Ming Toy’s room, Quincannon dumped Dodger Brown on the mussed bed and used the handcuffs he carried to circle both thin wrists. The little housebreaker offered no resistance; his vulpine features were now arranged in an expression of painful self-recrimination.

“It’s my own fault,” he said in tones almost as mournful as the state senator’s. “After you near nabbed me the other night, I knew I should’ve staightaway hopped a rattler in the Oakland yards. Gone on the lammas instead of comin’ over here.”

“Aye, and let it be a lesson to you.” Quincannon grinned and added sagely, “The best-laid plans aren’t always the best-planned lays.”

*   *   *

“Murder?
Me?
” Dodger Brown looked and sounded appalled at the notion. He squirmed on the rumpled bed, his manacled hands clutched together behind his scrawny back. “I never killed nobody in my life. Never! It wasn’t me who broke into the Costain joint and bumped him off. I was here last night, all night—I never left for a minute. Ask Ming Toy, she’ll tell you.”

“I already asked her.”

“Well, then? You know I done the other burglaries, okay, I admit it. But no more after you almost nabbed me at the banker’s. I ain’t been near the Costain place, not even to tab it up.”

“What make of pistol do you carry these days, Dodger?”

“None. I give that up—too dangerous, even unloaded like I always carried mine. Look in my clothes over there, you won’t even find a Barlow knife.”

“We both know that’s because Lettie Carew doesn’t allow customers to bring their weapons upstairs,” Quincannon said. “Will I find one downstairs in the lockbox with your name on it?”

The little burglar opened his mouth to lie again, changed his mind, and sighed instead. “Pocket pistol. Twenty-five caliber. But it’s empty and you won’t find any cartridges for it. I ain’t loaded it once since I bought it and that’s the plain truth.”

“I thought your preference was a larger-caliber weapon. A Forehand and Wadsworth thirty-eight, for instance.”

“Is that what plugged the lawyer? Well, I never owned a piece like that. Never. You can’t put the frame on me for no killing.”

“Clara Wilds,” Quincannon said.

“Huh?” Dodger Brown blinked at the sudden shift of subjects. “What about Clara?”

“Still keeping company with her?”

“No. Not anymore. We busted up awhile back.”

“Why?”

“She was two-timing me.”

“While you remained faithful except for your regular parlor house visits. Who was her new lover?”

“Some no-account named Pope.”

“Her fenceman, Victor Pope?”

“Yeah. How’d you know that?”

“When did you see Clara last?”

“Four, five months ago. Why all these questions about her?”

“She’s dead. Murdered.”

The Dodger’s eyes bulged. “Clara? Bumped off? When? Where?”

“In her rooms yesterday afternoon.”

“Who done it?”

Quincannon cocked an eyebrow.

“Say! You ain’t tryin’ to make out it was me?” Outrage replaced the scruff’s real or feigned shock. The handcuffs rattled again noisily. “I told you, I never carried a loaded weapon and I never shot nobody—”

“Clara wasn’t shot.”

“Then how—?”

“Stabbed with her own hatpin. And her rooms ransacked afterward.”

“Hatpin. Jesus.”

“You knew about her new dodge, I’ll wager.”

“Doin’ the dip? Yeah, she learned the game from old Sal Tatum. She must’ve made a big score and some bastard found out about it and was after the swag.”

Quincannon cocked his eyebrow again.

“Not me! I got plenty from my own scores. Listen, you got to believe me, I never—”

“Scoot around and lie facedown on the bed.”

“… What?”

“You heard me.”

Dodger Brown stared at him for three or four seconds, licked his lips, then twisted and flung himself flat across the bed. He squawked and began struggling when Quincannon caught hold of the collar of his unbuttoned long johns and dragged the top down over his shoulders. “Hey! What’s the idea? What you gonna do?”

“Nothing, if you keep quiet and hold still.”

No gouge or scratch marks had been visible on the yegg’s face and neck; there were none on the upper back, shoulders, or upper arms. Quincannon rolled him over and pulled up first one sleeve, then the other. More unbroken skin. The Dodger made another squawking protest when Quincannon yanked the drawers down over his scrawny flanks long enough to determine that his belly and thighs were likewise free of injury.

The little housebreaker called him several colorful names, which Quincannon chose to ignore. He’d been feeling rather pleased with himself when he snapped the cuffs on Dodger Brown, for it had seemed then that one if not two cases of theft and foul play were nearing their conclusion. Now his mood had soured somewhat. Part of the burglary investigation for Great Western Insurance had been satisfactorily resolved, but as for the rest of it …

Dodger Brown was clearly not guilty of either his former paramour’s murder nor Costain’s. So who the devil was? Clara Wilds’s new paramour or one of her victims? A copycat burglar who had adopted the Dodger’s modus operandi? Two separate cases, or were they somehow intertwined? Two murderers—or one?

Hell and damn! What had seemed a simple and easily resolved matter had turned out to be anything but. It was annoying and frustrating enough, though he hated to admit it, to tie the brain of even the most wily detective into temporary knots.

24

SABINA

Sabina seemed to be spending much of her time lately prowling about residential carriageways. Just one of the many exciting and glamorous aspects of detective work. Another being afternoon tea with a candidate for a mental institution.

The carriageway that bisected the block behind the Costain home was completely deserted. This genteel South Park neighborhood had seemed almost slumbrous as she made her way back to it from the tea shop. None of the few people abroad had paid any attention to her, and no one had been about when she entered the carriageway. Trees and shrubbery flanked the passage, making it unlikely that prying eyes such as those of Clara Wilds’s neighbor, Mrs. Marcus, would follow her progress along its grassy expanse. Nonetheless she made her way slowly, as if she were a resident out for a casual late-afternoon stroll.

When she neared the halfway point in the block, the rear fence and outbuildings of the Costain property took shape ahead. Vegetation was her ally here, too, a pair of gnarled old walnut trees screening the roadbed from the house. John had mentioned the carriage barn at the rear, which meant the Costains owned equipage and an animal to draw it. It seemed probable that Penelope Costain had driven herself to the funeral parlor, and since there’d been no sign of a rig on the street after her return home, it was also probable that she’d put it and the horse away.

The barn was of the small, utilitarian type painted a peeling white, adequate for the housing of a single carriage and the supplies necessary for its maintenance. A narrow shedlike attachment and a small, empty corral stretched along one side.

The double-sided gate that gave access to both the property and the barn was closed and latched, but it hadn’t been locked last night, John had told her, and it wasn’t locked now. Sabina paused with her hand on the latch to satisfy herself that she was still alone and unobserved, then opened one half of the gate and slipped inside, closing it again behind her.

The barn was set a few feet beyond the gate. She hurried across to the closed double doors, which also proved to be unlocked. The half she opened creaked and squeaked, but not loudly enough for the sounds to carry. It also bound up slightly at the bottom so that she had to tug and lift to open it.

Semidarkness redolent with the odors of hay and manure folded around her as she stepped inside. She left the door half ajar and took out the old flint lighter she carried for such occasions as this. When she snapped it alight, its pale flame showed her the buggy that filled most of the interior, and the horse munching hay in a side stall.

The rig’s body, traces, and calash folding top were all black, showing signs of wear and neglect. But on closer inspection she saw that it was a Studebaker and that its wheel spokes were unpainted. The horse placidly munching hay in its stall was a chestnut roan.

Drat!

Sabina hesitated, then on impulse leaned inside the buggy. There was nothing on or under the wide leather seat, or on the floorboards. She ran her fingers into the crack between the two seat cushions, felt a thin piece of metal wedged there. At first she thought it was a coin, but the lighter flame revealed it to be made of brass—a token of some sort. Slot-machine token? Slot machines proliferated in San Francisco, and while tokens had not yet come into widespread use, there was a move afoot by the city fathers to disallow legal tender in the machines.

But no, this wasn’t a slot-machine token. Nor the kind that had such phrases as “good for one drink” or “good for 5c in trade” etched into the metal. One side bore a triangle with H
OF
C in its center; the other side was blank. The initials were unfamiliar to her. A meaningless discovery, probably, but Sabina slipped it into her pocket anyway. John might know what it signified and from where it had come.

Sabina returned to the door half, doused her light before opening it and stepping out. At the outer gate, she peered into the carriageway to make sure it was still empty before going through, closing up, and resuming her saunter to the end of the block.

So much for the notion that the buggy parked behind Clara Wilds’s rooming house had belonged to and been driven by Andrew Costain, and that Costain was her murderer. It had been a stab in the dark in the first place. What motive could Costain have had for killing the pickpocket? Surely not the recovery of the silver money clip.

Now Sabina was back to where she’d been before, with no leads except for Dodger Brown.

Or was she?

*   *   *

The door was locked when she arrived at the agency. She was in the process of using her key when footsteps sounded on the stairs behind her and a somewhat breathless voice called out, “Mrs. Carpenter—finally.”

The voice belonged to Jackson Pollard, Great Western Insurance’s chief claims adjustor. It was after five o’clock and he had apparently just left his office for the day; he wore a greatcoat and top hat, carried his gold lion’s head cane, and approached her in a cloud of the bay rum he liberally applied for his evenings’ excursions along the Cocktail Route. Either that, or as John had once surmised, Pollard had a wife or mistress who liked her man to smell as if dunked in a vat of the stuff.