The Spook Lights Affair (8 page)

“Good afternoon, my good man. A pleasure to see you again, despite the present circumstances. It has been much too long since our last meeting.”

“Not long enough.” Quincannon glowered at him. “I thought you’d gone back to England or wherever you came from.”

“I intended to return from the dead, as it were, yes, to resume my private inquiry practice in London and to put the good Dr. Watson’s mind at ease. He believes me to have fallen victim to my arch enemy, Professor Moriarity, at Reichenbach Falls, if you recall, and I feel badly for having deceived the poor fellow. However, for personal reasons I have decided to remain ‘deceased’ and in your stimulating bailiwick awhile longer.”

Stimulating bailiwick. Bah. “I suppose you’re still sponging off Dr. Axminster.”

“Sponging? Upon my soul, sir, you wound me grievously. I have never sponged, as you so quaintly put it, off anyone. I was a guest in Dr. Axminster’s home for only a few weeks. In the interim since our last meeting, I have taken lodgings in several different places, under several different names, most recently in the Old Union Hotel.”

Quincannon snorted. The Old Union was a less-than-genteel hostelry on the fringe of the Barbary Coast that catered to performers, traveling salesmen, and—evidently—candidates for mental hospitals.

“I have not sought to renew our acquaintance until now,” Holmes went on, “inasmuch as I have been engaged on a mission of the utmost secrecy and importance. The mission has been successfully accomplished for the most part, but of course I am still not at liberty to discuss it.”

Bah and double bah. “Well? Why are you bothering me now?”

“Why, for purposes of commiseration, my dear chap. And to offer my services again, should you desire them.”

“I don’t desire them. Not today or ever again.”

“Tut, tut,” Holmes said, but his tone was one of tolerant comradeship. “It may well require my analytical powers as well as yours and the charming Mrs. Carpenter’s to unravel last night’s curious mystery at Mayor Sutro’s estate. That is,
par foi
, if you and she have not yet deduced the correct answer.”

“I haven’t had time to deduce anything,” Quincannon growled. “We haven’t spoken yet today.”

“Ah. So your knowledge of the young woman’s strange disappearance comes from the same source as mine, the afternoon newspaper. All the more reason for us to join forces, wouldn’t you say? Two preeminent detectives once again working in consort, now that a new game is afoot.”

Quincannon studied the Englishman’s neck, his fingers curled and his palms itching. Holmes or whatever his name had been a major irritant in a robbery, fraud, and murder investigation the previous year—what Quincannon referred to as the bughouse affair. Admittedly the addlepate had played a small role in the solution of the complicated case, purely through blind luck despite his claim of having used “observation, in particular observation of trifles, and deductive reasoning.” The fact was, without Holmes’s constant interference, the investigation would have been brought to a satisfactory conclusion much sooner. Sabina didn’t agree, preferring to give the devil his due; she maintained that mad or not, the imposter had been surprisingly adept at employing the methods of his namesake. Poppycock! Not even the genuine Sherlock Holmes, if he were still alive and practicing, would have been able to outsleuth John Quincannon.

To still the strangler’s urge in his hands, he proceeded to load tobacco into his stubby briar. Holmes took this as a tacit invitation to occupy the client’s chair and charge his curved clay pipe. They regarded each other through clouds of mingled aromatic and putrid smoke, the Englishman still smiling, Quincannon still glowering.

At length Holmes said, “Well, John. May I call you John?”

“No.”

“Shall we discuss our theories about last night’s mystery?”

“Theories? What theories?”

“I have two. Surely you have hypothesized the same?”

“I told you, I haven’t spoken to my partner today. How could I have any theories yet? All I know is what was written in the blasted newspaper.”

“Which rather lurid account yielded two possible explanations for the evening’s curious events, both perfectly sound, though of course neither may be the correct one. We must have more information before we can be certain of the truth.”

Quincannon made an ominous rumbling sound in his throat. “I don’t want to hear your damned theories. What did or didn’t happen to Virginia St. Ives is none of your business and I’ll thank you to keep your long nose out of it.”

“Tut, tut,” Holmes said mildly. “As you know from our past experience together, I’m quite a tenacious fellow once I’ve caught the scent.”

“You’ll catch something else if you don’t go away and leave me be. Can’t you see I’m busy?”

Surprisingly, the bughouse Sherlock didn’t put up any further argument. He said, “Ah, yes. As you wish, then,” and got to his feet, taking his time about it; adjusted his cape, and made his way slowly to the door. But instead of walking through after he’d opened it, he turned, and said, “Before I take my leave, may I ask how your investigation is progressing?”

“What investigation?”

“The recent Wells, Fargo Express robbery.”

This startled Quincannon enough to unhinge his jaw. “What makes you think I’m investigating that?”

“Three things I observed during our brief visit. No, four, counting the contusions on your forehead and temple.”

“I don’t know what the devil you’re talking about.”

Holmes smiled his enigmatic smile. “You needn’t worry, John. I am merely an interested observer in that matter as in the one on Sutro Heights. I have no designs on the reward.”

Quincannon said, somewhat lamely, “What reward?”

The answer was a widening of the smile and a broad wink. “If you should change your mind and decide to seek assistance or counsel, I shall remain at your service. The Union Hotel, room twelve.” And with that, the Englishman was gone.

For several seconds Quincannon sat fuming and puzzling. A pox on the conceited twit!
What
three things had he observed, or was that balderdash? Yet he seemed to have guessed that the contusions were related to the Wells, Fargo investigation, and how was that possible? And how had he known about the reward? Quincannon refused to credit the Englishman with special deductive powers, but there was no gainsaying the fact that he had an uncanny knack for both guesswork and stumbling upon a surprising amount of covert information. It must have something to do with his derangement. Crackbrains could be very shrewd, especially one who claimed to be a famous deceased British detective.

The office was blue with smoke, most of it a foul leftover reek from the godawful tobacco Holmes preferred. Quincannon opened the window behind his desk, letting in a wind-driven swirl of fresh air and the clanging passage of cable cars on Market Street below. Then he finished opening the mail—not a single check, drat it—and was in the process of laboriously writing a report (he hated writing reports) on a recently concluded case when Sabina finally appeared.

“Oh, John,” she said. “Good, I’m glad you’re here.”

“And I’m glad
you’re
here. Where have you been?”

“Trying to make some sense of what happened last night. You know about that by now, I’m sure.”

“From everyone but you, it seems.”

“Yes, well, I’m sorry, but I thought you might not be in this morning and I wanted … oh, never mind.” She looked and sounded frazzled as she shed her lamb’s-wool coat, unpinned her hat, and hung both on the coatrack. “Have you been bothered by newspaper reporters?”

“Only one. And not for long.”

“There’ll be others, no doubt.” Her nose wrinkled as she started toward her desk. “What’s that dreadful smell? Not your usual pipe tobacco, is it?”

“No. A new blend.” He had resolved not to tell her about the lunatic’s unannounced and unwanted visit. It was of no importance and she had enough on her mind as it was.

“Well, I hope you won’t—” She broke off, peering at him more closely now. “John, your face. What happened to you?”

The concern in both her voice and her expression pleased him. “An accident of no consequence,” he lied. He had also resolved not to burden her, just yet, with last night’s misadventures on Telegraph Hill and along the waterfront. His wounded pride and dignity were still tender. When he did tell her, he would leave out some of the more embarrassing details.

Sabina was not fooled, however. She said, “You’re a caution, John Quincannon. One of your nightly forays will be the death of you if you’re not careful.”

“You needn’t worry about me, my dear. I’m well able to take care of myself.”

“Are you? My husband said the same thing to me two nights before he was killed.”

Sabina went to sit at her desk. A stray wisp of her high-coiled black hair come loose and was tickling her nose; she produced a hand mirror and proceeded to tuck and pin it back into place. Quincannon watched her avidly. As always, her dark blue eyes, high-cheekbone face, and comely figure quickened his pulses. He had never wanted for female companionship when he sought it, yet no woman had ever had quite the same effect on him as his partner. Part of it was unrequited passion, but his feelings for her ran deeper than simple desire. More deeply—and therefore more frustrating—with each passing day, it seemed.

When she finished fixing her hair, he said, “What exactly did happen at the mayor’s soiree last night? The blasted newspaper account was somewhat sketchy on details. You had words with the St. Ives girl and followed her when she ran outside?”

“She had the words, not I. I thought she might have rushed out to meet her forbidden young swain, Lucas Whiffing.”

“But instead she was bent on taking her life.”

“Evidently. She met no one on the way, and I saw no one else on the overlook. At least no one near where she had climbed up onto the parapet. The fog was quite thick.”

“How clearly did you see her on the wall?”

“Clearly enough. She had her back to me, facing the sea with her arms bent away from her body. A ghostlike figure in the mist.” Sabina paused, little wrinkle lines appearing in the smooth skin of her forehead. “There was something … odd about the way she was standing there. It didn’t strike me at the time, and yet when I think about it…”

“Odd in what way?”

“I can’t quite put my finger on it. It was the next second or two that she jumped.”

“You’re certain she did jump, not slipped and fell?”

“It certainly looked as though she threw herself forward off the parapet. I heard her scream, then the sounds of her body sliding through the ice plant below the wall and over the edge.”

“Yet there was no sign of her body on the Great Highway.”

“None. Except for the scarf she was wearing, caught on a torn cypress limb.”

“Then the only possible explanation is that someone came along, found her, and spirited her away alive or dead. Was there enough time for that to have happened?”

Sabina nodded. “Fifteen to twenty minutes had elapsed by the time I summoned the others and we started down to the highway. But it’s an unlikely explanation. There was very little traffic because of the fog, the mayor’s home is the only one in the immediate vicinity, and we met no one entering the grounds or driving on Point Lobos. If someone did happen along and picked up the body, where would it have been taken? Not to the nearest habitation south of the Heights, Dickey’s Road House; we inquired there. And what reason could anyone have had for transporting it any greater distance?”

“Isn’t Carville where the Whiffing lad lives?”

“With his parents, yes. Even if by some bizarre happenstance he was on the Great Highway when she fell, he’d have no reason to take her all the way to his home. It’s unlikely a doctor resides in Carville. There would hardly have been a need for one in any event.”

“The girl couldn’t possibly have survived the fall?”

“Of some two hundred and fifty feet? Hardly.”

“So,” Quincannon said, “a pretty riddle.”

“Ugly riddle is more appropriate. And there’s more to it than what happened to Virginia St. Ives’s body.”

“Indeed?”

“When she left the mansion, she took a circuitous route through the grounds rather than going straight to the overlook from the rear. I can’t help wondering why.”

“Did she know you were following her?”

“She must have. I made no attempt to keep her from seeing me.”

“Didn’t matter to her, then, because she believed you wouldn’t be able to catch up and stop her.”

“And I didn’t,” Sabina said with bitter regret.

“Not your fault. You couldn’t have guessed what she had in mind. What do you suppose drove her to it?”

“I wish I knew. Whatever it was, it wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment decision. The suicide note proves that.”

“The usual reason young girls commit suicide, perhaps?”

“Pregnant, you mean? Yes, I thought of that. The child’s father would most likely be Lucas Whiffing, in that case, and he would have had to refuse to marry her to put her in such dire straits. But he seemed genuinely shocked and upset when I spoke to him this morning. He claims their relationship was not as serious as the St. Ives believed. Denied they had been intimate, and appeared to resent the implication that she had been anything but virtuous.”

“Men have been known to lie in such circumstances,” Quincannon said mildly.

“Well, of course they have. Whether Lucas Whiffing is one of them is still open to question.”

*   *   *

Nothing happened during the remainder of the afternoon to improve Quincannon’s spirits. There were no visits or messages from any of his contacts. Twice he had to fend off tenacious newspapermen who arrived in person to seek interviews with Sabina, and immediately hung up on two others who telephoned. Sabina grew weary of the constant interruptions and left early for an unspecified place where she could “have some peace and quiet,” leaving Quincannon to deal with any agency business that might come along (there was none) and wait in mounting frustration.

Shortly before five o’clock a Western Union deliveryman brought an answering wire from Clem Holloway. The preliminary information provided by the Los Angeles detective, taken from his copious files, contained two pieces of information that deepened Quincannon’s gloom and raised his ire. Bob Cantwell, that blasted little sneak, had baldly lied to him. Jack Travers was
not
his cousin; Travers had no living relatives. He did have a record of three robbery and burglary arrests, as well as a shooting scrape, but his only conviction had resulted in a two-year, not four-year, prison sentence. Whatever Cantwell’s reason for lying about his connection with Travers, it had nothing to do with childhood beatings at the hands of a bullying relative.