The Plague of Thieves Affair (10 page)

Andrew Rayburn appeared in front of her. Here in his gallery he seemed less fussy and more cheerful; the large turnout obviously pleased him, despite the fact that no one was buying any of the expensive art works on display. “All seems to be going quite well, Mrs. Carpenter. Quite well indeed. You've seen nothing, ah, out of the ordinary, I trust?”

“Nothing whatsoever.”

“Splendid.” He rubbed his hands together. “Splendid,” he said again, and vanished among the guests.

Sabina stifled a yawn. Nothing out of the ordinary, nor would there be, she felt sure, the rest of this evening or either of those to follow.

The door opened and she looked up to see a tall, spare gentleman with a long mane of gray hair and a flowing beard to match, dressed in evening clothes and top hat and carrying a blackthorn walking stick. Her first impression was that he resembled photographs she'd seen of Southern military officers. But that walking stick didn't fit the image. In fact it seemed familiar—

Abruptly she stood as the newcomer turned toward her. Half hidden in the whiskers was a thin, hawklike nose and a pair of piercing eyes that regarded her alertly and with a hint of amusement. He bowed and said, “Good evening, my dear Mrs. Carpenter.”

Nothing out of the ordinary? Days before I had any news of Charles the Third, if at all? How wrong I was! For there he stands, popped up like a bad penny and wearing one of his silly disguises.

“My apologies for the tardiness of my arrival,” he said in his perfect imitation of a British accent. “I was unavoidably detained.”

“Tardiness?”

“I trust, given the atmosphere of pleasant camaraderie in the room, there has been neither incident nor suspicious activity.”

“No, there hasn't, but…”

He peered keenly at her. “I daresay you seem surprised to see me, dear lady. Surely you knew I would come tonight in answer to your summons.”

“Summons? You mean the personals ad in the newspapers? I hoped you'd respond, yes, but … here, tonight?”

“Indubitably. I peruse the newspapers daily, as a private inquiry agent of stature must and as you correctly intuited I would.”

“You believed the ad was a request for you to attend Reticules Through the Ages?”

“Not merely to attend the exhibition, but to offer my expertise in identifying the malefactor and preventing a bold attempt at theft. The rumors, I venture to say, are quite true.”

“Malefactor? Rumors?”

“That a cunning prig after a pogue … excuse me, cunning thief after a prize of great value will attempt to steal the Marie Antoinette chatelaine handbag.”

Sabina thought she'd banished the last remnants of her surprise and confusion, but she hadn't. Drat him, he had the infuriating knack of befuddling her—something no other man had ever been able to do. “Who? Who is going to attempt such a theft?”

“I have been unable to learn his name, or the details of his plan though it is bound to be as canny as it is bold. Have you any inklings of whom he might be?”

“No. I've not even heard those rumors you alluded to.”

“You haven't? But then why did you call upon me? Surely not to assist you in routine security precautions?”

“No. I had another reason entirely.”

“And that reason is?”

Before she could respond, Marcel Carreaux appeared at her side. The Frenchman hadn't heard any of their conversation, which had been conducted in low tones; his smiling, slightly flushed countenance radiated pleasure. “Ah, Madame Carpenter, all is well, eh? Ah,
bon
.” He made a sweeping Gallic gesture. “So many ladies and gentlemen have come tonight, it is most gratifying.”

Charles the Third stepped forward.
“Vous devez
être Monsieur Carreaux, le conservateur de cette exposition splendide,”
he said.
“C'est un grand plaisir de vous rencontrer, monsieur.”

“Ah!
Vous parlez français! Oui, je suis Marcel Carreaux. Et vous
êtes?”

“S. Holmes, Esquire.”

Sabina flinched.
Please don't tell him the S. stands for Sherlock!

He didn't, thankfully. He said only,
“Je suis le plus heureux de faire votre connaissance aussi.”

They shook hands, beaming at each other, and continued speaking together in rapid French, with the crackbrain doing most of the talking. Sabina's command of the language was limited, but she understood enough to determine that he was saying he had been to Paris many times, “a city perhaps as grand as my native London,” considered the Louvre to be the world's finest museum, and M. Carreaux blessed to have achieved the position of assistant curator.

When he finally paused for a breath, the Frenchman seized his arm and said in English, perhaps in deference to Sabina's presence, “You must come now, M'sieu Holmes, and view Reticules Through the Ages.”

“And the jewel of the collection, the Marie Antoinette chatelaine handbag. Yes, I should very much like to. Will you excuse me, Mrs. Carpenter?” And off they went, arm in arm, Charles the Third saying sententiously, “If I may say so,
M'sieu le conservateur,
I have always contended that Marie Antoinette's reputation for promiscuity was exaggerated and that she was quite undeserving of the name L'Autrichienne…”

Sabina sat down again. She still felt bewildered, and now concerned by what Charles the Third had told her.
Was
there a plot afoot to steal the Marie Antoinette bag? His ability to ferret out bits and pieces of underworld goings-on that she and John and their various contacts knew nothing about had proven to be astonishingly accurate in the past. It was entirely possible that he'd done so again. She couldn't imagine how such a theft could be accomplished, no matter how boldly clever the thief's plan might be, with the chatelaine bag under close scrutiny at all times by herself, Marcel Carreaux, Andrew Rayburn, Rayburn's clerks, and scores of admiring and honest citizens. But she would be extra vigilant from now on. It might also be wise to try talking John into joining the surveillance. And if he wasn't willing or able, to engage one of the agency's part-time operatives for the task.

She was still considering this when the crackbrain returned a few minutes later. “Most impressive,” he said. “The Marie Antoinette is exquisite, a plum ripe for the picking.”

“I don't see how.”

“Nor do I. But where there's a will there's a way, if I may be permitted a cliché.” He sat down next to her. “Now then. You were about to tell me, when we were interrupted earlier, the reason for your personals advertisement.”

Sabina hesitated. “This really isn't the proper place to discuss it. Perhaps we could meet somewhere after the exhibition closes.”

“That, unfortunately, won't be possible. There is another game afoot tonight that requires my attention.”

“Sometime tomorrow, then.”

“Is it so important to wait until then? Why not simply tell me now?”

Again Sabina hesitated. Then she drew a breath and plunged. “Very well. The reason for the ad is that I was hired to find you.”

“Hired? By whom?”

“A Chicago attorney named Roland W. Fairchild.”

His only reaction was a slight stiffening of his lean body. “I know no one of that name.”

“His uncle, Charles Percival Fairchild the Second, died recently. The sole heir to the estate is his son, Charles the Third, last seen in London nearly two years ago.”

He stared at her in stoic silence.

“Charles Percival Fairchild the Third,” Sabina said. “That's your birth name, isn't it. Your true name.”

“It is not.” He spoke coldly, his eyes glittering in their nest of false whiskers. “My name is and always has been Sherlock Holmes, of 221B Baker Street, London. I answer to no other.”

“Roland Fairchild and his wife are staying at the Baldwin Hotel. If you'll just speak to him—”

In one swift movement, using his blackthorn stick for leverage, he was on his feet and turning for the door.

“Wait, please—”

He didn't wait. He thrust the door open and rushed out onto Post Street. It took Sabina only a few seconds to gain the sidewalk, but by then Charles the Third had already vanished into the night.

 

11

SABINA

The Baldwin Hotel and Theater, on the corner of Market and Powell, was second only to the Palace among the city's luxury hostelries. Built in 1876, a year after the Palace, by a mining and real estate speculator named “Lucky” Baldwin, it was a massive structure containing nearly six hundred guest rooms and several cafés and public rooms; the accommodations in its prominent hexagonal dome five stories high were reserved strictly for ladies. The attached theater, originally known as Baldwin's Academy of Music, Sabina knew to be opulently decorated in crimson satin and gold. She had attended performances there by such touring players as Lillian Russell and Frederick Warde, and on one occasion sat in a proscenium box with Callie and Hugh to hear diminutive Della Fox sing amusing songs with such lyrics as “Just a little love, a little kiss” and “A babbling brook, a shady nook, sweet lips where kisses dwell—oh!” Hotel and theater combined took up an entire block, and though it was not as majestic as the Palace, it was grand enough to attract the rich and famous along with the simply well-to-do. The fact that Roland W. Fairchild and his wife could afford to stay there indicated both good taste and financial stability.

Somewhat reluctantly, Sabina went to the Baldwin on Saturday morning. She felt she owed her client an accounting of last evening's contact with his cousin, even though it cast her in a poor light. She'd spent a restless night, berating herself time and again over the way she had mishandled Charles the Third. She should have been more circumspect, elicited his promise to return to the gallery tonight and then tried again to arrange a private meeting. More subtle in broaching the subject of his heritage, too. She should have known he would react as he did when suddenly confronted. While he suffered from an addled self-delusion, he hadn't completely lost awareness of who he really was. He might have refused to admit it no matter where or how she braced him, but in different, quieter circumstances she'd have had a better chance of reasoning with him.

As it was, she feared that she had provoked him into fleeing the city or hiding himself so well in its darker recesses that no one could find him. In either case, she might never lay eyes on him again—a bitter prospect because it meant she'd failed in her responsibility. The one slim hope she had was his passion for the cat-and-mouse detective game, particularly a case in which he had personally involved himself. The allegedly planned attempt to steal the Marie Antoinette bag might, just might be enough to lure him back to the Rayburn Gallery, if not tonight, then on one of the subsequent evenings.

No matter what happened, she owed it to herself as well as her client to own up to her mistake and, if possible, make amends for it.

From an obsequious clerk at the desk in the Baldwin's ornate lobby she learned that Mr. and Mrs. Roland W. Fairchild occupied room 311. The absence of a key in their room box indicated that they were in residence. She waited while a bellhop took her card upstairs, and when he returned he conducted her into a hydraulic elevator similar to the ones at the Palace and left her outside the door marked 311.

Her discreet knock was immediately answered. The large-boned woman who opened the door was approximately Sabina's age, raven-haired, attractive in a severe and rather haughty way. No welcoming smile, merely a long appraising look out of cool gray eyes. She wore a pinch-bodice shirtwaist that accented an overlarge bosom, and a trumpet-shaped skirt that fit closely over broad hips and flared just above the knee. The hourglass figure she presented, Sabina thought, was considerably aided by a tightly laced corset.

“Mrs. Fairchild?”

“I am Octavia Fairchild, yes.” Her voice was as cool as her gaze. “I must say, you're not quite what I expected, Mrs. Carpenter.”

“No? And why is that?”

“I always thought lady detectives were a middle-aged and masculine lot. My husband didn't tell me his was young and rather comely.”

The remark was not in any way a compliment. In fact, the reference to her being “his” lady detective was mildly insulting.

“Is Mr. Fairchild here?”

“Not at the moment, but I expect him back shortly. You may as well come in and wait.”

The sitting room was small by Baldwin standards, its windows overlooking the Powell Street cable car tracks. This coupled with the fact that it was on a lower floor and thus lacked the panoramic views of the larger rooms and suites on the upper floors, caused Sabina to revise her opinion of the Fairchilds' financial situation. Not wealthy, just moderately well-to-do. Putting up at the Baldwin, like the expensive clothing each wore, was more a façade calculated to make their station seem loftier than an expression of good taste.

Not very graciously, Octavia Fairchild invited her to sit on a tufted red plush settee. “Have you come because you've located my husband's cousin?” she asked as she lowered her corseted hips onto a matching chair.

Sabina said, “I've learned that he is still in San Francisco, yes. Or was last night.”

“What does that mean, pray tell?”

“It means he responded to a personals ad I placed in the newspapers and that I spoke to him briefly.”

“Why briefly?”

“Circumstances prevented a longer discussion.”

“What circumstances?” Then, when Sabina didn't respond, “Did Charles consent to speak with my husband?”

“I told him he could be reached here at the Baldwin.”

“That doesn't answer my question. Does he intend to speak to Roland? Does he intend to return to Chicago to claim his inheritance?”