“Where did this man come from?” the large-eared gent demanded. “Who is he?”
“On my stroll in the garden I spied him climbing over the fence. He claims to be a detective on the trail of a pannyman. Housebreaker, that is.”
“I don’t claim to be a detective,” Quincannon said sourly. “I am a detective. Quincannon’s the name, John Quincannon.”
“Doctor Caleb Axminster,” the large-eared fellow said. “What’s this about a housebreaker?”
The exchange drew the others closer in a tight little group. It also brought the owner of the English voice out to where Quincannon could see him for the first time. He wasn’t such-a-much. Tall, excessively lean, with a thin, hawklike nose and a prominent chin. In one hand he carried a blackthorn walking stick, held midway along the shaft. Quincannon scowled. It must have been the stick, not a pistol, that had poked his spine and allowed the scruff to escape.
“I’ll ask you again,” Dr. Axminster said. “What’s all this about a housebreaker?”
“I chased him here from a neighbor’s property.” Quincannon shifted his gaze to the plump banker. He was not a man to mince words, even at the best of times. “Yours, Mr. Truesdale.”
Mrs. Truesdale gasped. Her husband’s face lost its healthy color. “Mine? Good Lord, man, do you mean to say we’ve been robbed?”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“Of what, do you know? What was stolen?”
“A question only you can answer.”
“Little enough, I pray. My wife’s jewelry and several stock certificates are kept in the safe in my office, but the thief couldn’t have gotten into it. It’s burglarproof.”
No safe, in Quincannon’s experience, was burglarproof. But he allowed the statement to pass without comment, asking instead, “Do you also keep cash on hand?”
“In my desk … a hundred dollars or so in greenbacks…” Truesdale shook his head; he seemed dazed. “You were on my property?”
“I was, with every good intention. Waiting outside.”
“Waiting? I don’t understand.”
“To catch the burglar in the act.”
“But how did you know…?”
“Detective work, sir. Detective work.”
The fifth man in the room had been silent to this point, one hand plucking at his middle as if he were suffering the effects of too much rich food. He was somewhat younger than the others, forty or so, dark-eyed, clean-shaven, with a nervous tic on one cheek; his most prominent feature was a misshapen knob of red-veined flesh, like a partially collapsed balloon, that seemed to hang unattractively between his eyes and a thin-lipped mouth. He aimed a brandy snifter at Quincannon, and said in aggrieved tones, “Thieves roaming everywhere in the city these days, like a plague, and you had the opportunity to put one out of commission and failed. If you’re such a good detective, why didn’t you catch the burglar? What happened?”
“An unforeseen occurrence over which I had no control.” Quincannon glared sideways at his gaunt captor. “I would have chased him down if this man hadn’t accosted me.”
“Accosted?” The Englishman arched an eyebrow. “Dear me, hardly that. I had no way of knowing you weren’t a prowler.”
Mrs. Truesdale was tugging at her husband’s arm. “Samuel, shouldn’t we return home and find out what was stolen?”
“Yes, yes, right away.”
“Margaret,” Axminster said to one of the other women, a slender graying brunette with patrician features, “find James and have him drive the Truesdales.”
The woman nodded and left the parlor with the banker and his wife in tow.
The doctor said then, “This is most distressing,” but he didn’t sound distressed. He sounded eager, as if he found the situation stimulating. He produced a paper sack from his pocket, popped a horehound drop into his mouth. “But right up your alley, eh, Mr. Holmes?”
The Englishman bowed.
“And yours, Andrew. Eh? The law and all that.”
“Hardly,” the man with the drinker’s nose said. “You know I handle civil, not criminal, cases. Why don’t you introduce us, Caleb? Unless Mr. Quincannon already knows who I am.”
Quincannon decided he didn’t particularly like the fellow. Or Axminster, for that matter. Or the gaunt Englishman. In fact, he did not like anybody tonight, not even himself very much.
“Certainly,” the doctor said. “This is Andrew Costain, Mr. Quincannon, and his wife, Penelope. And this most distinguished gentleman from far-off England…”
“Costain?” Quincannon interrupted. “Offices on Geary Street, residence near South Park?”
“By God,” Costain said, “he does know me. But if we’ve met, sir, I don’t remember the time or place. In court, was it?”
“We haven’t met anywhere. Your name happens to be on the list.”
“List?” Penelope Costain said. She was a slender, gray-eyed, brown-curled woman some years younger than her husband-handsome enough, although she appeared too aloof and wore too much rouge and powder for Quincannon’s taste. “What list?”
“Of actual and potential burglary victims, all of whom own valuables insured by the Great Western Insurance Company.”
This information seemed to make her husband even more dyspeptic. He rubbed nervously at his middle again as he asked, “Where did such a list come from?”
“That remains to be determined. Likely from someone affiliated or formerly affiliated with Great Western Insurance.”
“And Truesdale’s name is also on the list, I suppose. That’s what brought you to his home tonight.”
“Among other things,” Quincannon said.
Axminster sucked the horehound drop, his brow screwed up in thought. “Quincannon, John Quincannon … why, of course! I knew I’d heard the name before. Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional Detective Services. Yes, and your partner is a woman.”
“A woman,” the man called Holmes said. “How curious.”
Quincannon skewered him with a sharp eye. “What’s curious about it? Both Mrs. Carpenter and her late husband were valued operatives of the Pinkerton Detective Agency.”
“Upon my soul. In England, you know, it would be extraordinary for a woman to assume the profession of consulting detective, the more so to be taken in as a partner in a private inquiry agency.”
“She wasn’t ‘taken in,’ as you put it. Our partnership was by mutual arrangement.”
“Ah.”
Quincannon demanded, “What do you know of private detectives, in England or anywhere?”
“He knows a great deal, as a matter of fact,” Axminster said with relish. He asked the Englishman, “You have no objection if I reveal your identity to a colleague?”
“None, inasmuch as you have already revealed it to your other guests.”
The doctor beamed. He said as if presenting a member of British royalty, “My honored houseguest, courtesy of a mutual acquaintance in the south of France, is none other than Mr. Sherlock Holmes of 221 B Baker Street, London, England.”
Sherlock Holmes, my eye, Quincannon thought. This must be the fellow Bitter Bierce had written about in his column in this morning’s Examiner-the crackbrain posing as the legendary detective.
He said, “Holmes, eh? Not according to Mr. Ambrose Bierce.”
Axminster made sputtering noises. “Bierce is a poisonous fool. You can’t believe a word the man writes.”
“I assure you, Mr. Quincannon, that I am indeed Sherlock Holmes.” The Englishman bowed. “At your service, sir.”
“I’ve already had a sampling of your ‘service,’” Quincannon said irascibly. “I prefer my own.”
“Nous verrons.”
King’s English, and now French. Bah.
“Sherlock Holmes died in Switzerland three years ago. Resurrected, were you, as Bierce inferred?”
The Englishman ignored the last comment. “Reportedly died. Dispatched at Reichenbach Falls by my archenemy, Professor Moriarity. Officially I am still deceased. F
or private reasons I’ve chosen to let the misapprehension stand, until recently confiding in no one but my brother, Mycroft. Not even my good friend Dr. Watson knows I’m still alive.”
“If he’s such a good friend, why haven’t you told him?”
Holmes, for want of another name, produced an enigmatic smile and made no reply.
Axminster said, “Dr. John H. Watson is Mr. Holmes’s biographer as well as his friend, as you must know, Quincannon. The doctor has chronicled many of his cases: ‘A Study in Scarlet,’ ‘The Red-Headed League,’ ‘The Sign of Four,’ the horror at Baskerville Hall, the adventure of the six orange pips.…”
“Five,” Holmes said.
“Eh? Oh, yes, five orange pips.”
The stuffily overheated room was making Quincannon sweat. He stripped off his gloves, unbuttoned his greatcoat, and swept the tails back. At the same time he essayed a closer look at the man who claimed to be Sherlock Holmes. For an impostor, he seemed to fit the role of the Baker Street sleuth well enough as described in Dr. Watson’s so-called memoirs. Despite his gaunt, almost cadaverous appearance in evening clothes, his jaw and hawklike nose bespoke intensity and determination, and his eyes were sharp, piercing, lit with what some might consider a keen intelligence. Quincannon’s opinion was that it was the glow of madness.
The bright eyes were studying him in return. “I daresay you’ve had your own share of successes, sir.”
“More than I can count.”
“Oh, yes, Mr. Quincannon and his partner are well known locally,” the doctor said. “Several of their investigations involving seemingly impossible crimes have gained notoriety. If I remember correctly, there was the rainmaker shot to death in a locked room, the strange disappearance on board the Desert Limited, the rather amazing murder of a bogus medium.…”
Holmes said, “I would be most interested to know the methods you and your partner employ.”
“Methods?”
“In solving your cases. Aside from the use of weapons, fisticuffs, and such surveillance techniques as you employed tonight.”
“What happened tonight was not my fault,” Quincannon said testily. “As to our methods … whatever the situation calls for. Guile, wit, attention to detail, and deduction, among others.”
“Capital! My methods are likewise based on observation, in particular observation of trifles, and on deductive reasoning-the construction of a series of inferences, each dependent upon its predecessor. An exact knowledge of all facets of crime and its history is invaluable as well, as I’m sure you know.”
Bumptious, as well as a candidate for the bughouse. Quincannon managed not to sneer.
“For instance,” Holmes said, smiling, “I should say that you are unmarried, smoke a well-seasoned briar, prefer shag-cut Virginia tobacco, spent part of today in a tonsorial parlor and another part engaged in a game of straight pool, dined on chicken croquettes before proceeding to the Truesdale property, waited for your burglar in a shrub of Syringa persica, and … oh, yes, under your rather gruff exterior, I perceive that you are well read and of a rather sensitive and sentimental nature.”
Quincannon gaped at him. “How the devil can you know all that?”
“There is a loose button and loose thread on your vest, and your shirt collar is slightly frayed-telltale indications of our shared state of bachelorhood. When I stood close behind you in the garden, I detected the scent of your tobacco; and once in here, I noted a small spot of ash on the sleeve of your coat, which confirmed the mixture and the fact that it was smoked in a well-aged briar. It happens, you see, that I once wrote a little monograph on the ashes of one hundred forty different types of cigar, pipe, and cigarette tobacco and am considered an authority on the subject.
“Your beard has been recently and neatly trimmed, as has your hair, which retains a faint scent of bay rum, hence your visit to the tonsorial parlor. Under the nail of your left thumb is dust of the type of chalk commonly used on the tips of pool cues, and while billiards is often played in America, straight pool has a larger following and strikes me as more to your taste. On the handkerchief you used a moment ago to mop your forehead is a small, fresh stain the color and texture of which identifies it to the trained eye as having come from a dish of chicken croquettes. Another scent which clings faintly to your coat is that of Syringa persica, or Persian lilac, indicating that you have recently been in close proximity to such a flowering shrub; and inasmuch as there are no lilac bushes in Dr. Axminster’s garden, Mr. Truesdale’s property is the obvious deduction.
“And, finally, I perceive that you are well read from the slim volume entitled Poems tucked into the pocket of your coat, and that you have a sensitive and sentimental nature from the identity of the volume’s author. Emily Dickinson’s poems, I am given to understand, are famous for those qualities.”
There was a moment of silence. Quincannon, for once in his life, was at a loss for words.
Axminster clapped his hands, and exclaimed, “Amazing!”
“Elementary,” Holmes said.
Horse apples, Quincannon thought.
Penelope Costain yawned. “Mr. Holmes has been regaling us with his powers of observation and ratiocination all evening. Frankly I found his prowess with the violin of greater amusement.”
Her husband was likewise unimpressed. He had refilled his glass from a sideboard nearby and now emptied it again in a swallow; his face was flushed, his eyes slightly glazed. “Mental gymnastics are all well and good,” he said with some asperity, “but we’ve stayed well away from the issue here. Which is that my name is on that list of potential burglary victims.”
“I wouldn’t be concerned, Andrew,” Axminster said. “After tonight’s escapade, that fellow wouldn’t dare attempt another burglary.”
Quincannon said, “Not immediately, perhaps. He may well suspect that I know his identity.”
“You recognized him?”
“After a fashion.”
“Then why don’t you go find him and have him arrested?” Costain demanded.
“All in good time. He won’t do any more breaking and entering tonight, that I can guarantee.”
Mrs. Costain asked, “Did you also guarantee catching him red-handed at the Truesdales’ home?”
Quincannon had had enough of this company; much more of it and he might well say something he would regret. He made a small show of consulting his stem-winder. “If you’ll excuse me,” he said then, “I’ll be on my way.”
“To request police assistance?”
“To determine the extent of the Truesdales’ loss.”
Dr. Axminster showed him to the front door. The Costains remained in the parlor, and the counterfeit Sherlock Holmes tagged along. At the front door the fellow said, “I regret my intervention in the garden, Mr. Quincannon, well-intentioned though it was, but I must say I found the interlude stimulating. It isn’t often I have the pleasure of meeting a distinguished colleague while a game’s afoot.”
Quincannon reluctantly accepted a proffered hand, clasped the doctor’s just as briefly, and took his leave. Nurturing as he went the dark thought of a different game, one involving his foot, that he would have admired to play with the Axminsters’ addled guest.
6
SABINA
Before leaving her Russian Hill flat on Wednesday morning, Sabina set out a bowl of milk for the young cat she’d recently adopted, Adam-so named because he was the first in what she hoped would be a long succession of pets-and opened the bedroom window a few inches so he could come and go as he pleased. She had never sheltered an animal before, but Adam provided companionship and comfort against the cold of the night.
“Don’t stray too far,” she told him as he brushed against her ankles. “You’re much safer here, with a nice soft featherbed to sleep on.”
I must be daft, she thought, speaking this way to a creature that can’t possibly understand me. Yet she felt that the cat, in its own way, seemed to understand her moods, especially that of loneliness. And
she was lonely often of late, even more so than usual since Stephen’s death, for reasons that were not quite clear to her. Perhaps she ought to accept one of John’s frequent invitations to dinner and a performance at the opera house.…
She’d contemplate the notion later. At the moment there was business to attend to.
As usual she was the first to arrive at the agency office. John came in a short while later. Sabina had a sharp eye for his moods; one long look at his gloomy visage prompted her to say, “I take it your surveillance at the Truesdale home last night was unproductive.”
“Oh, the yegg came skulking, right enough.”
“But you weren’t able to nab him?”
“It wasn’t my fault that I didn’t.” Her partner shed his Chesterfield and derby, hung them on the clothes tree, and retreated behind his desk where he tamped his pipe full of tobacco and set fire to it with a lucifer. “Unique scent,” he muttered. “Monograph on a hundred and forty different types of tobacco ash. Faugh!”
“What’s that you’re grumbling about?”
“Confounded lunatic. Not only did he cost me the housebreaker’s capture, he did his level best to make a fool of me with a bagful of parlor tricks.”
“Lunatic?”
“That blasted Englishman pretending to be Sherlock Holmes.”
Sabina raised an eyebrow. “You mean the fellow Mr. Bierce wrote about yesterday?”
“None other.” He puffed furiously on his pipe. “Sherlock! What kind of name is that?”
“John. Exactly what happened last night?”
She listened gravely while he explained in detail accurate to a fault. When he was done, she said, “Well, the Englishman may be an impostor-”
“May be!”
“-but it sounds as though he’s well versed in the methods employed by the genuine Sherlock Holmes.”
“Bah. A mentalist in a collar-and-elbow variety show at the Comique could perform the same tricks.”
“Nevertheless,” Sabina said, “he must be adept at his role to have fooled Dr. Axminster and his guests into believing him.”
The Bughouse Affair q-2 Page 4