“Well, then, we’ll find him.” The police chief turned to Bridges. “Conductor, disembark your passengers. All of ’em, not just those for Vacaville.”
“Just as you say.”
Bridges signaled to the porter, who swung the steps down and permitted the exodus to begin. One of the first passengers to alight was Sabina. She came straight to where Quincannon stood, took hold of his arm. Her manner was urgent, her eyes bright.
“John,” she said, an edge in her voice, “I found Morgan.”
Hoover said, “What’s that? Who’re you, madam?”
“Sabina Carpenter. Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional Detective Services.”
“A lady flycop. Now if that don’t beat all.”
Quincannon had long ago ceased to be surprised at anything Sabina said or did. He asked her, “Where? How?”
She shook her head. “He’ll be getting off any second.”
“Getting off? With the other passengers?”
“Yes, he— There he is!”
Quincannon squinted at the passengers who were just then disembarking—two women, one of whom had a small boy in tow. “Where? I don’t see him…”
Sabina was moving again. Quincannon trailed after her, his hand on the Webley. The two women and the child were making their way past Chief Hoover and his deputies, not paying the law any heed. The woman towing the little boy was young and pretty, with tightly curled blond hair; the other woman, older and pudgy, powdered and rouged, wore a traveling dress and a close-fitting bonnet that covered most of her head and shadowed her face. She was the one, Quincannon realized, that he had nearly bowled over outside the women’s lavatory in the first-class Pullman.
She was also Bartholomew Morgan.
He found that out five seconds later, when Sabina boldly walked up and tore the bonnet off to reveal the short-haired male head and clean-shaven face hidden beneath. Her action so surprised Morgan that he had no time to do anything but swipe at her with one arm, a blow that she nimbly dodged. Then he fumbled inside the reticule he carried, pulled out the hammerless .32-caliber pistol he’d drawn at the Patch Creek poker game; in the next second he commenced a headlong flight along the platform.
Sabina shouted, Quincannon shouted, the blond woman let out a thin screech; there was a small scrambling panic among the disembarking passengers. But it lasted no more than a few seconds, and without a shot being fired.
Morgan was poorly schooled in the mechanics of running while garbed in women’s clothing; the dress’s long skirt tripped him before he reached the platform’s end. He went down in a tangle of arms, legs, petticoats, and assorted other garments that he had wadded up and tied around his torso to create the illusion of pudginess. The fall also unveiled the other item tightly buckled around his midriff—a money belt whose pockets bulged with what was certainly the stolen gold dust.
He was still clutching the pistol when Quincannon reached him, but one well-placed kick and it went flying. Quincannon then plunged down on Morgan’s chest with both knees, driving the wind out of him in a hissing grunt. Another well-placed blow, this one to the jaw, put an end to the skirmish.
Chief Hoover, his deputies, Mr. Bridges, and a gaggle of the Capitol Express’s passengers stood gawping at the half-disguised and unconscious crook. Hoover was the first to speak. He murmured in awed tones, “Well, I’ll be a son of a bitch.”
Which mirrored Quincannon’s sentiments exactly.
* * *
Morgan was soon carted off in steel bracelets to the Vacaville jail, Quincannon accompanying him, Hoover, and one deputy in the paddy wagon. Once he verified that the stolen gold dust was indeed packed into the money belt, he was not about to let it out of his sight until it was locked into the jail safe. Also put into the safe was a packet of papers that had been tucked between the belt and Morgan’s belly, for they contained evidence identifying the San Francisco smelting firm that had been buying the gold. Morgan must have been carrying the packet in his satchel and later transferred it to his person.
Sabina and Bridges remained at the depot. The departure of the Capitol Express, much to the consternation of the waiting westbound passengers, was delayed a while longer. One reason was the removal of Sabina’s and Quincannon’s luggage from the baggage car. He’d suggested that she continue on to San Francisco, since he intended to remain in Vacaville until arrangements could be made to transport the prisoner to the Yuba County jail in Marysville where the other high-graders had been taken, and for the gold—some $13,000 worth at a rough estimate—to be returned to James O’Hearn. But she insisted on staying overnight with him here, a prospect he naturally found pleasing.
An attempt to question Morgan proved futile; he had wrapped himself in unbroken silence. This suited Quincannon well enough, but Hoover wanted to know the details of the miscreant’s daring escape attempt. The situation being what it was, he had to settle for an educated guess.
Morgan had climbed out through the lavatory window, Quincannon opined, taking his satchel with him. He then crawled over the top of the smoking car and down the ladder to the baggage car, where he used some sort of ruse to get the baggage master to open up. After finding and rifling a woman passenger’s suitcase, he stuffed the various items of female apparel into the satchel, mounted topside again, and crawled forward over three car roofs to the Pullman.
Once there, he waited until he was sure the first-class women’s lavatory was empty, then climbed down into it through its window. He locked the door, washed and shaved off his mustache with a razor from the satchel, dressed in the stolen clothing, put on pilfered rouge and powder to cover his birthmark, and stuffed his own clothing into the satchel before dropping it through the window.
And when he left the lavatory on his way to a seat in the third day coach, Quincannon had nearly knocked him down. If only he had, he thought ruefully. It would have saved them all considerable trouble.
The one question Hoover asked that Quincannon could not satisfactorily answer was how Sabina had known Morgan was disguised as a woman. Perhaps she had gotten close enough to him while they were waiting to disembark to see through his disguise. But that didn’t account for her earlier statement about coincidence or her rushing off on an unexplained errand.
He put the question to her later that evening, while they were having dinner in the Vacaville Hotel. How did she know?
“Familiarity,” she said.
“Familiarity? With what?”
“Something I first thought was a coincidence but wasn’t.”
“So you said. Don’t be enigmatic, my dear.”
“I’m not, intentionally. John, you are without question a splendid detective, but there are times when you’re not as observant as you might be. Tell me, what was I wearing when you met me in the lobby of the Golden Eagle Hotel last night?”
“I don’t see what that has to do with—” Then, as the light dawned, he said in a smaller voice, “Oh.”
“That’s right,” Sabina said. “The bag Morgan plundered was one of the last loaded into the baggage car. The gray serge traveling dress and Langtry bonnet he was wearing are mine.”
27
SABINA
What with one thing and another, it was two weeks shy of Thanksgiving before she became Mrs. Sabina Carpenter Quincannon.
Professional matters were partly responsible. John spent two more days in Vacaville awaiting extradition orders for Bartholomew Morgan and arranging for the return of the stolen gold. Meanwhile Sabina returned to the city to find a pair of messages indicating that the agency’s brief business drought had ended; one, from their best client, Great Western Insurance’s claims adjuster Jackson Pollard, concerned a major fraud case she knew John would want to investigate. (He did, despite having collected his fee and a handsome bonus from a grateful Everett Hoxley, and the investigation took more than a week.) Two other, less time-consuming cases also came their way, both of which she handled herself—an absent husband who turned out to be a philanderer, and a
missing set of expensive seed pearls that had been filched by a society matron’s male secretary to pay off a gambling debt.
To her considerable relief, she had escaped repercussions from both of her impulse investigations. According to a brief news story in the Morning Call, Vernon Purifoy had been arrested and charged with embezzlement, and had accused Gretchen Kantor of stealing his private records and sending them anonymously to his employers. If Miss Kantor had any inkling that Sabina was responsible, she had been so disillusioned by her lover’s betrayal that she’d chosen to remain silent. And Elmer Goodlove, whose true name the police still had not discovered, had made no statement connecting Mrs. Jonathan Fredericks with his fate.
Snags in preparations for the wedding and reception were also responsible for the delay. On the first-chosen day, Amity Wellman had a Voting Rights for Women engagement that could not be broken, necessitating a shift to the following weekend; John continued to waffle as to whom he wanted to be his best man, finally settling on his former Secret Service boss, Cecil Boggs (Cecil!), and then had some difficulty convincing Mr. Boggs to accept the honor; the minister Callie engaged to perform the service was forced to cancel on short notice due to illness in his family; Callie and the caterer had a falling-out over the reception menu which caused her to have to seek out and employ another. The only preparation that went smoothly was Sabina’s search for a bridal gown. She found one that suited her in a small dressmaking shop on Geary Street: pearly white (the devil with convention), scalloped high neck, sheer lace and tiered crochet overlay, elbow-length sleeves.
The wedding, when the day finally came, took place with nary a hitch. Callie had kept her promise of restraint in furbishing her and Hugh’s home for the occasion, with tasteful flower arrangements and none of her usual lavish frippery. John, handsome in formal suit and tie, was so nervous during the ceremony that he nearly dropped the wedding ring before sliding it onto her finger—a moment she found endearing. The guests, who included Jackson Pollard, Elizabeth Petrie, and another part-time agency employee, Whit Slattery, in addition to Amity and Mr. Boggs, were a convivial mix. Kamico, Amity’s young Japanese ward, was exactly the right person to have caught the toss of the bridal bouquet. And the food and beverages at the reception buffet could not have been better.
The honeymoon exceeded Sabina’s expectations as well. Four lovely days and nights at Boyes Hot Springs in scenic Valley of the Moon. The nights especially. So blissful were they that afterward she felt her blood quicken whenever she thought of them.
* * *
A registered package was waiting for them at the agency when they returned. Elizabeth, who had been minding the store, had signed for it and put it into the office safe. It was small, neatly wrapped, and postmarked “Salt Lake City.”
“We don’t know anyone in Salt Lake City,” John said.
“Somebody there knows us, apparently.”
Sabina removed the outer wrapping. Inside was a gift box of the sort jewelers used; inside the box was a velvet drawstring pouch and a note on a Bristol vellum card; and inside the velvet pouch …
Five tiny white-gold nuggets.
John peered at them gleaming in the palm of her hand. “Someone’s idea of a joke,” he said.
“They look genuine to me.”
He picked one up, studied it, then rubbed it between his thumb and forefinger. “You’re right. Real gold, by godfrey.”
Sabina returned the nuggets to the velvet pouch and picked up the note.
The fine spidery hand that had penned it was familiar. Smiling, she read the message aloud. “‘Felicitations, valued colleagues. My sincere apologies for the tardiness of this small gift, but I only just learned of your recent nuptials. May your union be a long and contented one.’”
“Mawkish sentiment,” John said.
“Oh, I don’t think so.”
“Who is it from?”
“It’s signed, ‘With fond regards, S.H.’”
“S.H.? I know no one with those initials.”
“Yes you do. Charles Percival Fairchild the Third. Better known to us as the fancied Sherlock Holmes.”
“Faugh! I thought we’d heard the last of that infernal crackbrain. Five tiny white-gold nuggets … what kind of daft wedding present is that?”
Sabina laughed. “A good omen to his skewed way of thinking, considering what the nuggets are likely meant to represent.”
“And that is?”
“Pips,” she said. “Five orange pips.”
While John was puzzling over the connection to the genuine Sherlock Holmes case, she reread the note and its two-line postscript. She hadn’t quoted the postscript aloud, and would not share it with him just yet, if at all; it was liable to start him fulminating. But she had to concede that it rather pleased her.
“I shall soon return to your fair city,” it read. “Adieu, mes amis, until we meet again.”
CARPENTER AND QUINCANNON MYSTERIES
BY MARCIA MULLER AND BILL PRONZINI
The Bughouse Affair
The Spook Lights Affair
The Body Snatchers Affair
The Plague of Thieves Affair
The Dangerous Ladies Affair
BY BILL PRONZINI
The Bags of Tricks Affair
The Flimflam Affair
The Stolen Gold Affair
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
BILL PRONZINI has been nominated for, or won, every prize offered to crime fiction writers, including the Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America. The Detroit Free Press said of him, “It’s always nice to see masters at work. Pronzini’s clear style seamlessly weaves [story lines] together, turning them into a quick, compelling read.” He lives and writes in California, with his wife, crime novelist Marcia Muller. You can sign up for email updates here.
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
1. Quincannon
2. Sabina
3. Quincannon
4. Sabina
5. Sabina
6. Sabina
7. Quincannon
8. Quincannon
9. Sabina
10. Sabina
11. Sabina
12. Quincannon
13. Quincannon
14. Sabina
15. Quincannon
16. Quincannon
17. Quincannon
18. Sabina
19. Sabina
20. Quincannon
21. Sabina
22. Quincannon
23. Quincannon
24. Sabina
25. Quincannon
26. Quincannon
27. Sabina
Carpenter and Quincannon Mysteries
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organization, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THE STOLEN GOLD AFFAIR
Copyright © 2020 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust
All rights reserved.
Cover art by Fred Gambino
A Forge Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates
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New York, NY 10271
www.tor-forge.com
Forge® is a registered trademark of Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC.
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-1-250-21648-9 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-250-21649-6 (ebook)
eISBN 9781250216496
&nbs
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First Edition: April 2020
The Stolen Gold Affair Page 17