The Plague of Thieves Affair (14 page)

“And why not, madam?” Charles the Third asked her.

She sniffed. “You're dressed like a refugee from the Barbary Coast. How can we be sure
you
are not the one who pinched the missing bag?”

A few mutters and grumbles followed this. Sabina, who would have liked to box the dowager's ears as well as those of Charles the Third, sought to reassure everyone that not only was her “assistant” innocent of the theft, but that Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional Detective Services, was the city's most reputable detective agency. One of the guests whom she knew by sight, but whose name she couldn't recall, vouched for the veracity of her statement. Order was then restored, though not for long.

The crackbrain rubbed his hands together briskly. “To repeat my earlier statement, ladies and gentlemen, whoever nicked the chatelaine bag is still in this room. A careful search will turn it up.”

A heavyset gentleman in a top hat said, “Do you intend to search each of us?”

“If necessary, sir. Indeed, if necessary.”

“Outrageous!” This from the dowager. “I refuse to be treated like a common thief—”

“Whether or not you're a thief, madam, common or otherwise, remains to be determined.”

“What? How dare you!”

Once again Sabina hurriedly interceded. “If a search of your person is necessary, it will be done in private and with the utmost prudence. No one will be unduly inconvenienced.”

“I, for one, have no objection to being searched,” Thaddeus Bakker said. “No innocent person should have.”

“Just so, Mr. Bakker.”

“Searched by whom?” the dowager said, waving her lorgnette. “These two alleged detectives? Why not the police? Summon the proper authorities, I say.”

Charles the Third said, “They shall be once we have both thief and reticule in hand. There is no need for their services at this juncture. Too many cooks spoil the broth, eh?”

“What in heaven's name does that mean?”

He ignored her. “Shall we proceed?” he said.

There were a few more protests, but eventually they all allowed themselves to be herded to the wall behind the food buffet and to remain there in a group. All except Sabina, the crackbrain, Carreaux, and Rayburn, who held a conference some distance away.

“I don't see how searching everyone will turn up the bag,” the gallery owner said, nervously stroking his shoelace mustache. “Surely the thief wouldn't have it on his person.”

The Frenchman concurred. “
Mais oui.
The clasp alone would make it impossible to conceal.”

“Everyone will have to be searched nonetheless,” Charles the Third insisted.

“Perhaps the thief has hidden it somewhere in this room, with the intention of returning for it at a later time.”

“Or in the storeroom or my office,” Rayburn added.

“Not likely in either of those places, Mr. Rayburn. It is a certainty no one other than you left this room while the lights were out, nor has left it since you turned them on again.”

“Yes, that's right.”

“We shall conduct our searches of their persons now and have done with that chore first.” Charles the Third turned to the Frenchman. “Sooner or later, in one place or another,
M'sieu le conservateur
, we will find the missing article.”

“We had better find it,” Carreaux said portentously. “If I were to return to Paris without it, I would no longer be assistant
conservateur
at the Louvre Museum.”

To be thorough before the searches began, Sabina and Charles the Third probed all possible hiding places in the storeroom and Rayburn's office. They found nothing. Then, while she watched over the women, the crackbrain ushered the male guests, Eldredge, and Holloway into the office, and with Rayburn's help searched each of them. Carreaux apparently insisted that his and Rayburn's persons also be searched and, when that was done, that Charles also submit to a search.

The chatelaine bag remained missing.

Sabina took her turn with the half-dozen women guests, the sausage-curled dowager still angry and making dire threats of a lawsuit against all parties concerned. If a muzzle had been close at hand, Sabina would cheerfully have used it to still her yapping.

None of the women possessed the bag, either.

So it must be hidden somewhere in the gallery. Either by design, in which case the thief believed himself to be more cunning than he was; or because he had realized belatedly that he couldn't get away with the bag and stashed it to avoid being revealed as the guilty party.

Guests and employees were herded into the storeroom, with Carreaux on guard, after which Sabina, Rayburn, and Charles the Third commenced a careful exploration of the gallery. Every possible hiding place was examined—the undersides of the exhibit display table, chairs, the settee by the entrance; the insides of antique vases, jars, and urns; the backs of paintings mounted on the walls; the buffet tables and the food, bottles, plates, and glassware atop them; and every conceivable nook and cranny.

The Marie Antoinette was nowhere to be found.

 

15

SABINA

“Sacrebleu!”
Carreaux exclaimed in exasperation. He had been summoned to join Sabina, Rayburn, and Charles the Third after the gallery search was finished. “You are certain, M'sieu Holmes, that the thief could not have departed during the blackout?”

“Unless he or she has the power to walk through the solid walls, I am. Most assuredly.”

“Then why have we not found the Marie Antoinette? No hiding place has been overlooked.
C'est impossible!”

Charles the Third smiled his enigmatic smile. “So it would seem. But we have eliminated the impossible, and it is an old maxim of mine that when this has been done, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”

“Why do you say we have eliminated the impossible?”

“We have established, have we not, that no one could have left the premises after the theft. Also that the thief could not have hidden the missing reticule anywhere in this or the other rooms. Therefore, as improbable as it might seem, the chatelaine is still in his possession.”

“But everyone has been searched. How could the
voleur
still possess it?”

“The answer to that lies in the observation of trifles. The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes.”

“Well? What trifles?” Rayburn demanded waspishly.

“Patience, my dear sir. Patience.”

“Patience, my foot. Do you know or don't you?”

“I do,” Sabina said.

All eyes turned to her. She had been deep in thought; now she was sure she was right in the conclusions she'd drawn from
her
“observation of trifles.” Had Charles the Third made the same deduction? No matter. Whether he had or not, the time had come for her to take command.

She said to him, “Do you agree that two individuals, not just one, are involved in the theft?”

Carreaux and Rayburn seemed surprised at the question. The crackbrain showed no reaction; his smile remained enigmatic. “Naturally,” he said. “One to loosen the fuse at a prearranged time, the other to step over the rope and lift the reticule from the display table.”

“Mr. Rayburn. Is it likely one of the guests would know where the fuse box is located?”

“No. Customers and guests are not allowed in the storeroom.” The gallery owner's eyes narrowed. “Are you implying that I—”

“Not at all, sir. You have no credible reason to have stolen the Marie Antoinette.”

“One of my clerks then? Holloway, Eldredge?”

“How long has each of them worked for you?”

“Eldredge for four years, Holloway for just under one. But—”

“The storeroom door was not under careful watch, only the display,” Sabina said. “One or the other of them could have slipped through unnoticed, loosened the fuse, then hidden himself until after you tightened it to restore the electricity.”

Rayburn fussed with his mustache again before he said, “Yes, that's possible. There are places in the storeroom where a man who knows it could briefly hide himself without my seeing him. My attention was on the fuse box when I entered by matchlight, then on returning to the exhibit once the lights were back on.”

“Did you notice where Holloway and Eldredge were standing prior to the blackout?”

“Let me think … Yes. They were both near the display table, on the side nearest the storeroom door. When the lights came on, Eldredge was in front of the table—apparently the first to notice the Marie Antoinette was missing. He's the one who gave the alarm.”

“And Holloway?”

“He was at my side after I stepped out of the storeroom. I remember because he spoke my name.”

“Could he have followed you out, walking softly?”

“He could have, yes, if he'd been hiding somewhere near the door.”

Martin Holloway was called to join them. The man had a habit of clasping his long-fingered hands at his waist; he stood rubbing them together in an agitated fashion. But his gaze was steady and his posture one of defensive innocence.

He vehemently denied having been in the storeroom. “I was at the wall next to the display table,” he said, “from just before the lights went out until they were restored.”

“Who else was near the table prior to the blackout?” Sabina asked.

“George Eldredge. Moving about in front.”

“Just him?”

“In the immediate vicinity, yes.”

“And you have no idea who snatched the bag?”

“None. None at all.”

Over the course of her career Sabina had developed a sharp eye for facial expressions and body movements, a sharp ear for nuances of speech; it was the rare individual who could fool her successfully. She stepped close to the small man, fixed him with her fiercest stare.

“You lie, Mr. Holloway,” she said. “I know you're guilty. We all know it. Confess, identify your confederate, and perhaps Monsieur Carreaux will be inclined to be lenient with you.”

“But yes, I will,” the Frenchman said. “My only concern is the recovery of the Marie Antoinette.”

But the clerk foolishly clung to a misguided faith in his partner in crime and his hope for a share of the spoils. “You can't intimidate me,” he said. “I had nothing to do with the theft. Nothing, do you hear me? And you can't prove I did.”

Sabina said, “I believe we can.”

“As do I,” Charles the Third concurred.

He escorted Holloway back to wait with the others and returned with George Eldredge, a man some years older and several pounds heavier. Eldredge was cooperative, but had nothing of importance to relate. He had stopped near the far corner of the table when the room went dark, he said, and remained there until the electric lights came on again. He couldn't recall if Holloway had been in the room when he spied the empty blue velvet case; his attention had been riveted on that. Nor could he say who else might have been close enough to step over the ropes and snatch the chatelaine bag in the sudden darkness.

But Sabina could.

She said to Charles the Third, “There's another person to be questioned, and without delay.”

“Indeed there is. Will you name him, or shall I?”

That, Sabina thought, may have been because he had made the same final deduction as she, or it may have been a sly bit of face-saving on his part. She was inclined toward the latter. For one thing, while he was proud of his Sherlockian powers of observation, he hadn't spent nearly as much time as she had observing and mingling with the guests the past two nights. And for another, his ego was such that if he did have the answer, he would surely have attempted to seize the moment himself instead of allowing her to do so.

“I will,” she said. “Thaddeus Bakker.”

“Ah. Yes. Mr. Bakker.”

“Fetch him, please.”

“You suspect him of being the thief?” Rayburn asked.

“I do.”

“But … what makes you think so?”

“Because he ate nothing from the buffet last night or prior to the blackout tonight. Because his neck is slender and so are his arms and legs. And because of his frilly white shirt.”

The gallery owner gaped at her. “I don't understand.”

“You soon will. Now will you please fetch him.”

Rayburn did so. Thaddeus Bakker seemed puzzled by the summons; he stood rocking slightly on his heels. “I can't imagine why you asked to see me, Mrs. Carpenter. I know nothing whatsoever about the theft.”

“Tell us where you were when the blackout ended.”

“Why … I don't recall exactly. By the liquor buffet, I believe.”

“No, you weren't,” Rayburn said. “I saw you standing near the wall beyond the exhibit.”

“You must be mistaken—”

“I saw you there as well,” Sabina said. “You were just turning around and apparently fussing with your shirtfront. But what you were actually doing was refastening the last of the buttons.”

“What of it?” Bakker drew himself up. “Are you suggesting I stole the Marie Antoinette reticule and hid it inside my shirt?”

“Stole the bag, yes. Hid it, yes. But not inside your shirt.”

“The accusation is preposterous. I was searched as thoroughly as any of the others.”

“Not thoroughly enough. The bag was not and is not in your clothing, Mr. Bakker.”

“Then how can you claim I—”

To the astonishment of the other three men, Sabina suddenly and with all her might punched Thaddeus Bakker in his protruding belly.

Her closed fist must have sunk two inches into Bakker's midriff, yet the man's only reaction was a small startled grunt. Thus confirming her suspicions and justifying her bold action. No genuinely fat man could have absorbed such a violent blow without indications of distress.