The Plague of Thieves Affair (25 page)

And yet—

And yet there was no gainsaying the fact that he also possessed a number of laudable qualities. He'd saved her from being shot by the wild-eyed Octavia Fairchild, hadn't he? And always treated her in a cordial, even courtly fashion, with as much respect for her sleuthing abilities as his assumed Sherlockian arrogance would allow—more respect than McGinn and Stennett had demonstrated, certainly. And brought her the kitten Eve as a companion for Adam. And helped her and John solve more than one difficult case …

Oh, drat!
The truth was she didn't know quite how she felt about Charles Percival Fairchild III, whether she liked or disliked him, whether she was more delighted or more sorry to have him gone from her life, and the ambivalence was bothersome in the extreme. Appropriately enough, given his tendency to be bothersome in the extreme.

One thing she did know for certain: John would be ecstatic when he learned that the aggravating thorn in his side had finally removed itself. He had never forgiven S. Holmes, Esquire, for providing much of the solution to the Bughouse Affair, thereby stealing his thunder. At times his ego could become as inflated as that of his nemesis, though it never quite swelled to an objectionable degree.

And where
was
John? He hadn't been to the agency in three days now, nor left her any kind of message to explain his absence. Sabina had begun to feel pricklings of concern. If anything had happened to him …

Nothing had. Her fears were alleviated shortly past eleven-thirty when he burst into the office, rather like a bewhiskered bull entering a china shop, waving a handful of newspapers and looking both vexed and bleary-eyed. “I've just seen these!” he half shouted. “What in heaven's name have you been getting yourself into?”

“Nothing I couldn't get myself out of,” she said calmly, managing to conceal her relief that he was unharmed. “As the accounts in those sheets plainly state.”

“Not the one by Homer Keeps in last night's
Evening Bulletin
. He as much as accuses you of harboring a fugitive lunatic.”

“A pox on Homer Keeps. The Fairchild misadventure has been satisfactorily resolved.”

“Charles Percival Fairchild the Third. An appropriate moniker for a crackbrain. Heir to a Chicago manufacturer's fortune … bah! Why didn't you tell me you'd been hired to track him down?”

“You know the answer to that, John, given the way you feel about the man.”

“How did you find him? Why did you let him involve you in two crimes in two days including a homicide? There's little enough in these rags to explain any of that.”

“It's a long story. Sit down and I'll recount it to you.”

“I haven't time now for a long story. I'm on my way to pay a debt and to deliver the stolen steam beer formula to James Willard.”

“But when you saw the newspaper headlines you had to rush up here to chastise me and make sure I haven't gotten into any more trouble.”

“No, no. To make sure you're all right, and to find out what the devil—”

“I'm fine, and so, I see, are you. I take it you've wrapped up the Golden State case?”

“I have. Yes. Naturally.”

“Very well, then,” Sabina said. “We can regale each other with our triumphs later. For now, suffice it to say that neither of us will have any more trouble with Charles Fairchild the Third, alias Sherlock Holmes. As a result of all the publicity, he has left San Francisco with no intention of returning.”

“He has? Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

That mollified John enough to put an end to his fulminating. His only remark, at least for the present, was a relatively mild, “Good riddance to the blasted nuisance.”

When he was gone, Sabina reread Charles's letter.
Good riddance, nuisance?
she thought when she laid it down again.
Or good-bye, comrade?

 

26

QUINCANNON

“A plague of thieves,” Quincannon said.

Sabina looked at him questioningly.

“That is what you and I have been dealing with the past several days. You with the Fairchild woman and the crafty pincher from Sacramento and his brother-in-law at the Rayburn Gallery. And I with Lansing, Corby, Jones, and Cyrus Drinkwater.” He might have added his name and that of Slick Fingers Sam Rigsby to the list, though of course he didn't; their nocturnal escapade in Drinkwater's office would remain his secret, thus sparing him Sabina's disapproval. “Thieves, the lot of them. A plague of thieves.”

“I hadn't thought of it that way, but of course you're right. We were fortunate to have brought them all to justice.”

“Not quite all. Drinkwater is still free as a bird, at least for the nonce. But if I have my way, he'll pay for this and his other crimes one day.”

They had just been seated in an intimate booth in the Tadich Grill, a landmark establishment known as San Francisco's “Cold Day” restaurant. The appellation had nothing to do with the city's weather; it stemmed from a boast a politician named Alexander Badham had made there, to the effect that it would be a cold day when he was defeated for reelection, shortly before he was soundly trounced at the polls. Both Quincannon and Sabina wore evening clothes, for after dinner they would attend one of Charles Hoyt's farcical sketches at the New Bush Theater. Quincannon had no particular liking for drawing room comedies, but since Sabina did he was perfectly willing to accommodate her—in this and anything else on their social evenings together. And with no ulterior motives in mind. The pleasure of her company and the prospect of more evenings to come were satisfaction enough.

He favored her with a toothsome smile. She had dressed well for him tonight, as he had for her in his best tailcoat suit, a light-colored waistcoat, and a white tie. Her gown was of ruby-red brocade with a lace-trimmed bodice and a fluffy, floor-length skirt. Pendant ruby earrings, a wedding gift from her late husband, made a fiery complement to her sleek dark hair. Even more to his liking was the shell brooch at her breast—a gift from her doting partner and would-be swain the previous Christmas.

She allowed him to openly admire her without comment. As a matter of fact, unless he was very much mistaken, she seemed to bask in his attention, something she had never done in the offices of Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional Detective Services, and only to a minimal degree on their previous social engagements. She truly did seem to be weakening toward him, he thought. No, “weakening” was the wrong word. Mellowing. Returning his affection in kind, if still a bit warily.

A waiter brought their libations, a glass of Chablis for her and a cup of warm clam juice for him, and took their dinner selections. Sabina opted for crab cakes, Quincannon for the oyster and bacon frittata known as Hangtown Fry, both Tadich specialties.

When the waiter departed, they toasted each other's good health. After which Sabina said, “You know, John, there's one thing about the murder of Caleb Lansing you neglected to explain to me. Not on purpose, I trust.”

“I would never knowingly withhold pertinent information from you, my dear.” A prevarication, but a harmless one. “If I neglected to explain something, it was purely an oversight. What was it?”

“How Elias Corby managed his escape from the brewery's utility room and storeroom. Usually you trumpet your clever deductions.”

“Trumpet? Well … perhaps. I did tell you about my discovery of the lupulin, didn't I?”

“The powder residue from freshly picked hop flowers, yes, and how you found it in both the storeroom and Corby's office. But not how he was able to miraculously escape from two locked rooms.”

“I must have been distracted in some way or other … Ah, the telephone. It rang while I was finishing up my account and you spent several minutes talking with our new client, Mr. Friedlander.”

“Yes, and we were both so eager to discuss his troubles that we failed to continue with the Corby matter. I only realized it as I was dressing earlier tonight.”

Quincannon hadn't realized it at all until she'd brought it up—the result, no doubt, of the prospect of a substantial fee from a land baron as wealthy as J. M. Friedlander. Still, he was surprised at himself. Ordinarily he derived considerable pleasure from elucidating the details of one of his deductions. And would again … now.

He fluffed his well-groomed whiskers and temporarily adopted a brisk professional air. “The dried lupulin was the essential clue,” he said, “along with two others. The fact that Corby appeared in the storerooms so soon after we discovered Lansing's body. And the man's stature.”

“What do you mean, his stature?”

“Just that. He was the only Golden State employee who could have been guilty.”

Sabina nudged his ankle with the toe of her slipper. “Don't be cryptic, John. Please get to the point before the food arrives. You know I dislike discussing business while dining.”

“The short and sweet of it, then. Once Corby fired the fatal shot, for the reasons I outlined previously—self-protection and Lansing's share of the money from the theft of the formula—he placed the revolver near Lansing's hand and rifled his pocket for the storeroom key. In different circumstances he would have simply unlocked the storeroom door and slipped out at the first opportunity. But he'd heard the sounds I made at the door, knew the shot had been heard and the passage was blocked and he was therefore trapped there with a dead man. What could he do?”

“Well? What did he do?”

“He had two options,” Quincannon said. “Hold fast and bluff it out, claim that he'd tried and failed to stop Lansing from shooting himself. But he had no way of knowing how much I knew and must have feared that such a story would not be believed. His second option was to hide and hope his hiding place would be overlooked in the first rush.

“Corby was quick-witted, I'll give him that. He had less than five minutes to formulate and implement his plan and he must have used every second. His first act would have been to lock the utility room door; the key that operates the storeroom door lock works on that one as well. The purpose being to create more confusion and solidify the impression that Lansing had committed suicide. He then entered the room containing the sacks of malt and hops and established his hiding place.”

“Where?” Sabina asked. “You said you looked into that room immediately after the door was unlocked and there was no place for a man to hide.”

“No obvious place. Corby counted on the fact that the first inspection would be cursory, and he was quite right, it was. If there had been time for a careful search then, I would have found him quickly enough. But I and the others were intent on finding out what had happened to Lansing.”

“Well? Where was he?”

“When I first looked into the storage area, I registered a single sack of hops propped against the end wall. When I returned later, the sack was no longer there; it had been moved back into the tightly wedged row along the side wall. That and the pile of empty sacks gave me the answer.”

“Ah! Corby hid
inside
one of the empty sacks.”

“Just so,” Quincannon said. “He dragged a full sack from the end of the row, climbed into an empty one or pulled it down over him, and wedged himself into the space. When he heard the locked door being opened and the group of us rushing in, he held himself in such a motionless position that he resembled the other sacks in the row. Now you see what I meant by his stature being an essential clue to his guilt. Only a pint-sized man could have fit inside a fifty-pound hop sack.”

“And while you and the other men were huddled around Lansing's body, Corby quickly stepped out of the sack, replaced it on the pile of empties, returned the full sack to its proper place, and pretended to have just arrived.”

“Precisely. It struck me as odd at the time that he should have shown up when and where he did. A brewery's bookkeeper has little business in the storerooms.”

“The lupulin you found in his office came from the hideout sack?”

“From inside it, yes. Residue clung to the twill of his trousers and perhaps inside the cuffs. Golden State buys its hops from a farm in Oregon's Willamette Valley. The flowers are picked, dried, and sacked there, and now and then dried hops are put into bags previously used by pickers. In such cases, a residue of the yellow powder clings to the interior of the burlap.”

“Well done, John, I must say. Your usual excellent detective work.”

“No more so,” Quincannon said magnanimously, “than yours in uncovering the hiding place of the stolen Marie Antoinette handbag.”

They smiled at each other across the candlelit table.

The arrival of their dinners broke the pleasant spell of the moment. The food was superb, as always at the Tadich Grill, and they spoke little as they tucked into it. Quincannon finished his Hangtown Fry in short order and was in the process of loading his briar from his oilskin pouch when he saw that Sabina had paused and was gazing off into the middle distance, an oddly wistful expression on her face.

“What are you thinking about, my dear?”

“Oh,” she said, blinking and focusing on him again, “I couldn't help wondering if we would ever see Charles the Third again.”

Quincannon repressed a scowl. “If the pompous rattlepate knows what's good for him, he'll never again darken either of our doors.”

“Yes, he's pompous, and meddlesome and annoying, but he can also be charming and helpful and … well, even endearing at times.”

“Endearing! Faugh!”

“You're not forgetting, are you, that he saved my life?”

“Of course not. For that, he has my undying gratitude.”

“That, if nothing else, endears him to me,” Sabina said. “And you must admit that in spite of his clownish disguises and his addled ways, he really is a very good detective. The genuine Sherlock Holmes, even though it's his identity that has been usurped, might even have been proud of the manner in which Charles adroitly adopted his methods.”