Women other than police matrons and Barbary Coast streetwalkers being taken to the basement city prison were a rarity at the Hall of Justice, especially young, attractive, stylishly dressed women. Sabina was the recipient of several admiring glances and a smattering of leers from uniformed officers and other men when she entered, while she was requesting an audience with Lieutenant Asa Brinkman of the Fraud Division, and as she was being escorted to his office on the second floor. All of which unwanted flattery she ignored.
Brinkman, despite his fifty-some years and position of command, was not averse to giving her a similarly appreciative once-over. His smile turned upside down, however, when she identified herself.
“The notorious lady detective,” he said.
“Notorious?”
“You and your partner both. Numerous instances of interference in police matters—the homicide at the Baldwin Hotel and that Chinatown body-snatching sensation, among others.”
“Cases we were drawn into unwillingly. And which, I might point out, we had a strong hand in resolving.”
“By devious means, according to some reports.”
Meaning newspaper reports, Sabina thought, specifically Homer Keeps’s columns in the muckraking Evening Bulletin. That nasty little troll took perverse delight in denigrating the good works done by Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional Detective Services. His innuendos as to their honesty and integrity always stopped just short of libel; otherwise he would have faced a defamation suit. Thus far Keeps’s scurrilous attacks were viewed by most for what they were—pure claptrap—and had done no harm to their business.
“Untrue, I assure you,” she said. “Ours is a reputable agency, always ready and willing to cooperate with the police. Which is why I’ve come to see you today.”
Brinkman remained skeptical. He was gray-haired and blue-jowled, his nose and cheeks spider-webbed with broken capillaries that attested to a chronic overindulgence in alcoholic beverages. A fondness for rich food was evidently another of his vices; his broad torso and thick neck strained the buttons on his uniform tunic.
“I have information I think you’ll find pleasing, Lieutenant. It concerns a real estate swindler who operated in the city eight years ago, under the name Harold Newcastle.”
“Newcastle?” The results of a brief memory search altered Brinkman’s expression. “How did you come across that piece of ancient history?”
“It’s no longer ancient history,” Sabina said. “He has come back and is running the same game as before.”
“The devil he has! He wouldn’t dare! You must be mistaken.”
“A tubby little man with white hair and a cheerful smile. Is that the description you had of Harold Newcastle?”
“Yes, but I still can’t believe—”
“Some confidence men are fearless risk-takers, as you well know. Especially when they have succeeded in flaunting the law over a long span of time.”
“True enough,” Brinkman admitted. “He’s running the same swindle here in the city, you’re sure of that?”
“Exactly the same. Selling vacant lots and homes he doesn’t own for whatever down payments his victims are willing to part with.”
“By Christ, it does sound like the same man. He isn’t still calling himself Harold Newcastle?”
“No. Elmer J. Goodlove. Goodlove Real Estate, 1006 Guerrero Street. Surely all the proof necessary for his arrest and eventual conviction is to be found there.”
Brinkman repeated the name and address, then went to his desk and wrote them down. When he came back to face Sabina, he said, “I still want to know how you came by this information.”
Time for another white lie. “It was revealed during the course of an investigation that has nothing to do with Goodlove,” she said. “Or with real estate, except indirectly. An ancillary discovery, as it were.”
“What does your investigation have to do with?”
“I am not at liberty to divulge that. Suffice it to say that it is extensive and completely legal, for a client who shuns publicity and demands discretion.” She paused for effect. “Nabbing an elusive swindler is the important thing, isn’t it, Lieutenant?”
“As long as what you’ve told me is the truth.”
“It is. And I ask no credit for it.”
“No? I suppose you brought this to my attention out of civic duty.”
“Exactly. As I said before, my partner and I believe in cooperating with the police.” Sabina favored him with a conspiratorial smile. “You could say in your report that you received an anonymous tip.”
“So I could.” And so he would, if she was any judge of character. A resolute gleam shone in his eyes now. Plainly he was thinking that not having to share credit for closing an old and nettlesome case would be a large feather in his cap.
He said, “Very well, Mrs. Carpenter, I’ll take you at your word. Is there anything more you have to tell me before you depart?”
Sabina took a tighter grip on her well-stuffed handbag. “No,” she said. “Nothing more.”
* * *
At Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional Detective Services, she consulted the office set of various city business directories. As she’d suspected, Western Pacific Supply and Cosgrove Ironworks were nonexistent companies created by Vernon Purifoy. Their alleged respective owners, Aurelius D. Jones and George Cosgrove, were established aliases, their invoices for goods supplied to and paid for by the Hollowell Manufacturing Company bogus. It had been simple enough for Purifoy, masquerading as Jones and Cosgrove, to regularly withdraw funds from the two dummy accounts and to then arrange for the drafts to be sent to the New Orleans bank. A clever and profitable embezzlement scheme that had gone undetected because Purifoy, as chief accountant, authorized payments of all monthly invoices submitted by Hollowell suppliers and sub-contractors. Obviously he was considered a trusted employee and his books had never been audited.
She had already decided what she must do. The proper course of action was to personally deliver the two envelopes to the Hollowells, per et fils, but that was out of the question for the same reason she had not informed the police of Purifoy’s crime: it would mean admitting that she had come into possession of the evidence by means of illegal trespass and theft from a locked desk. Nor could she attempt to swear the Hollowells to secrecy; if they refused, she would be subject to an additional criminal complaint. Not only would her freedom be in jeopardy, but so would the agency’s good name and her future with John.
But neither, in all good conscience, could she allow Vernon Purifoy to continue misappropriating funds from his employers. The only way she could see to prevent that, and at the same time protect herself, meant once more compromising her professional ethics. So be it, then. As John was fond of saying, the end did sometimes justify the means.
From the office storeroom she fetched a small carton, a roll of wrapping paper, and a ball of stout twine. Then, on a sheet of plain paper, she wrote in a slanted backhand: Vernon Purifoy is an embezzler. Here is proof. She put the manila envelopes into the carton, wrapped it several times around, and secured it with the twine. In the same backhand she penned a gummed label to both Lucas J. and Norman A. Hollowell at the Stevenson Street address, and marked it PERSONAL AND PRIVATE in large letters.
It was past five o’clock by the time she finished, too late to have the package delivered to Hollowell Manufacturing today. She locked it in the office safe for protection overnight. First thing tomorrow she would arrange delivery by messenger, utilizing a trustworthy service that guaranteed the sender’s anonymity.
What was not guaranteed was that she would remain anonymous. It was possible that either Purifoy or Gretchen Kantor would connect her with his unmasking and so inform the authorities. It was also possible, if less likely, that Elmer Goodlove would make a similar connection to his sudden exposure and arrest and tell of their illegal trespass into Purifoy’s cottage. If either or both should happen, she would have to confess and explain that she had acted w
ith the best of intentions. The only alternative, weaving another web of white lies in the hope they would be believed, was out of the question.
What a muddle these two intertwined cases had turned into. She had brought about the downfall of two felons in the span of two days, an accomplishment that under normal circumstances would have been a source of pride. Instead she faced the possibility that her rash actions would result in a downfall of her own.
And all because she had allowed herself to act on not just one but a series of whims.
REAL ESTATE SWINDLER ARRESTED
The headline topped a page 1 news story in Tuesday’s edition of the Morning Call, a copy of which Sabina picked up at the newsstand operated by the “blind” vendor and underworld informant known as Slewfoot. She read the story avidly. Lieutenant Brinkman had wasted no time in making the pinch and obtaining a full confession, and if Harold Newcastle alias Elmer J. Goodlove had said anything about Mrs. Jonathan Fredericks, there was no mention of it. Nor were any of his actual victims mentioned by name. The story focused on the nature of his crimes and his audacity in operating a swindle identical to the one he had perpetrated in the city in 1889. It also applauded the swift action taken by the head of the Fraud Division after receipt of an anonymous tip.
Sabina was both satisfied and relieved, her conscience now clear on at least this case. The doing of her “civic duty” had been rewarded in more ways than one.
Not long after the private messenger service picked up the package on Tuesday morning, a Western Union messenger brought her another wire. Again it was from Henry Flannery, this one a report that pleased her as much as the arrest of Newcastle/Goodlove.
Bartholomew Morgan had in fact returned to the state capital after being forced out of Downieville in 1887, four years later if not immediately. B. Morgan had been the proprietor of Delta Metallurgical Works in West Sacramento since 1891. And there could be no doubt that he was also Jedediah Yost, for he fit exactly the supplied physical description.
Now she had another decision to make. And she made it immediately, without a second thought.
20
QUINCANNON
He bid a none-too-fond farewell to the Monarch Mine and Patch Creek on Tuesday morning. A mixture of frustration and steadfast determination rode with him on the stage to Marysville. The various searches of Joe Simcox’s living quarters and belongings and those of the other high-graders had not turned up the slightest lead to the whereabouts of the elusive Jedediah Yost. Interrogations of the three night-shift and graveyard-shift conspirators proved equally futile.
Quincannon’s frustration increased in Marysville, for the train to Sacramento was delayed nearly two hours by some sort of problem on the right-of-way. He used part of the waiting time to compose and send a coded telegram to Sabina, informing her that he was alive and well and his undercover work at the Monarch Mine had been successfully completed. Naturally, he made no mention of such specifics as his arrest and overnight incarceration for the murder of Frank McClellan, or his narrow escape from the mine chute; those vexing matters were better discussed in person, if at all. About Jedediah Yost he wrote nothing, stating only that it was necessary he spend a day or two in Sacramento before returning to San Francisco and would be lodging at the Golden Eagle Hotel.
Most of the day was gone when the train finally deposited him at the main railroad station—too late to begin his inquiries into Yost’s means of disposal of the stolen gold. Just as well, for the one good suit he’d brought with him, stored the past ten days in his war bag, was sorely in need of brushing and pressing, and he was sorely in need of a bath, a decent meal, and a night’s sleep in a comfortable bed.
The Golden Eagle was his usual choice of hostelries on his infrequent visits to Sacramento. Its proximity to the Capitol Building made it a gathering spot for local and national politicians and the occasional residence of Republican governors and their families; Quincannon liked it anyway. It was, as its advertisements claimed, a “strictly first-class” establishment, offering accommodations and a restaurant bill of fare the near equal of those in the Palace and Baldwin hotels in San Francisco. Expensive, of course, which went against his thrifty Scot’s nature, but he would include the cost on the Hoxley and Associates expense account for reimbursement. Besides, he was entitled to pamper himself when circumstances warranted it.
The Golden Eagle provided free transportation by carriage from the railroad depot and steamboat landings. Quincannon availed himself of the service and was delivered more or less promptly to the hotel. The three-story, two-hundred-room edifice on the corner of 7th and K streets had been built in 1863 on land raised by the construction of reinforced brick walls filled with dirt, the raising having been necessary after floodwaters from the American and Sacramento rivers inundated the downtown area in the winter of 1861. The first floors of many buildings had become basements as a result, with what had previously been sidewalks now at the basement level.
The amount of pedestrian, equipage, and light-rail traffic appeared to have increased since Quincannon’s last visit. Once a settlement founded when gold was discovered at Sutter’s Mill in ’48, Sacramento had grown over the past half century and was now bordering on a metropolis. The city had prospered first as the hub of supplies freighted to the gold fields in the Mother Lode and across the mountains to the silver boomtown of Virginia City, then as an agricultural shipping point. Its location at the confluence of the two rivers allowed it to control commerce on both, and the levying of tariffs on goods transported by competing railroads during and after the Civil War increased its economic success. A boast had been made that there were as many millionaires among its citizenry as resided in San Francisco. True or not, Quincannon was of the opinion that it had just as many robber barons, not a few of whom occupied seats in the state legislature.
His rumpled suit and war bag were given a disdainful glance by the Golden Eagle’s door porter. Quincannon repaid him with a long and equally disdainful glower, took a firmer grip on the bag, and toted it across the ornately appointed lobby. The clerk at the registration desk, a middle-aged fellow with a starched face to match his starched collar, had no better manners than the porter, but they improved somewhat when Quincannon stated that he had been a guest of the hotel on several previous occasions. Rooms were always kept available on short notice to repeat customers.
“Your name, sir?”
“John Frederick Quincannon. Of Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional Detective Services, San Francisco.”
The clerk cocked his head to one side, birdlike. “We didn’t expect you, Mr. Quincannon. Naturally you will require a second room.”
“Second room?”
“Unless of course you are married.”
“Married? Why should that matter to you?”
“Sir,” the clerk said a bit stiffly, “we are a conservative establishment. We do not allow ladies and gentlemen to occupy the same room without benefit of clergy.”
Quincannon looked at him askance. “What the devil are you talking about?”
“The wire we received specifically requested a single room reservation.”
“Wire from whom?”
“Presumably your, ah, business associate, Mrs. Sabina Carpenter.”
Sabina! Quincannon managed not to gawp his astonishment. “When did you receive the wire?”
“This morning.”
“What time this morning?”
“I don’t recall the exact time, sir.”
“But it was before noon?”
“Yes, it was. Shortly after ten o’clock.”
“For when and how long was the accommodation requested?”
“For tonight and possibly tomorrow night. You were not aware that Mrs. Carpenter would be joining you, sir?”
“Of course I was,” Quincannon lied. “My surprise is due to her failure to request a reservation for me as well. She must have assumed I had done so myself. I have been away on business for some time and we planned to meet her
e before I left.”
“I see. You will require a room of your own, then?”
“Certainly. Mrs. Carpenter is a widow and I am unmarried. Our relationship is strictly professional.”
The clerk said he had no doubt of that, a probable lie of his own.
“Mrs. Carpenter hasn’t checked in yet, I presume?”
“No, sir. Her wire stated that she expected to arrive early evening. Would you care to leave a message for her?”
“That won’t be necessary.”
Quincannon forbore asking if a room had been assigned to Mrs. Carpenter, and if so, one for himself nearby. It would only have made the clerk more doubtful. He signed the register and was given a room with a private bath on the second floor.
A uniformed bellhop and an elevator conducted him upstairs. In the room, small but well appointed, he asked the bellhop for valet service and handed him a nickel—an indication of how distracted he was by the news of Sabina’s imminent arrival. Usually he took a dim view of the practice of tipping.
Coincidences were not uncommon in detective work, but this one was somewhat staggering and not a little perplexing. She couldn’t possibly have known he would be in Sacramento today; his wire from Marysville hadn’t been sent until a few minutes past noon. She had to be making the trip for some purpose of her own, and had chosen the Golden Eagle because she knew of his preference for the establishment. A stopover on her way to Patch Creek, where she thought him to be, to bring him vital information of some sort? Possibly, but then why had her wire to the hotel stated that she might be staying more than one night?
The Stolen Gold Affair Page 12