2 The Spook Lights Affair

by Marcia Muller

  “After her last lesson, a few days before she … died. We had tea together, at her request.”

  “Why did she make the request?”

  “Just to talk, she said.”

  “How did she seem that day?”

  “Well … now that I think about it, she was somewhat nervous. Not trepidatious. As if she were excited about something.”

  “Did she give you any idea what it might be?”

  “No. She babbled on about art, hers and mine, and about my parents and their home and their travels. Things like that.”

  “Why did she bring up the subject of your parents?”

  “I don’t know, really. I’d told her all there was to tell the week before, when she visited me.”

  “Visited you here?”

  “Yes. She asked to see my watercolors and I invited her. She noticed my photographs,” Miss Kingston said, gesturing at the table that held them, “and asked about them. She seemed particularly intrigued by the one of the Burlingame house. One of her regrets, she said, was that her parents refused to buy a country home as my family did because they preferred city life.”

  Sabina asked a few more questions, none of the answers to which were informative. By the time she finished her tea, Miss Kingston seemed drained of speech and showed signs of delayed reaction to her evening’s mishap. Sabina rose to leave, saying that she’d taken up enough of her hostess’s time.

  At the door Miss Kingston said, “I hope you find out what happened to Virginia, Mrs. Carpenter. If you do, I would appreciate knowing. The more I think about it, the more I find it hard to believe that she would do away with herself, dramatically or otherwise.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Self-centered people seldom kill themselves—and quite frankly, Virginia was as self-centered as any girl I’ve ever known.”

  16

  QUINCANNON

  “Thunderation!” Quincannon was so furious he commenced pacing the office in hard strides, the heels of his leather half boots making sharp staccato clicks on the linoleum floor. “Who does that confounded English lunatic think he is, interfering yet again in our business?”

  “He thinks he’s Sherlock Holmes,” Sabina said. “And he wasn’t interfering. He offered his information free of charge, as an aid to what he referred to as his fellow detectives.”

  “Bah. Don’t you believe it. He’s after something, by Godfrey, and if it’s to lay claim to my Wells, Fargo reward, he’ll regret it tenfold.”

  “The reward isn’t yours yet, John. Nor will it be unless you recover the stolen money, and after what you’ve told me happened to Bob Cantwell, that’s by no means a certainty.”

  Quincannon managed to refrain from glowering at her. She was always so dratted calm and reasonable, as unflappable a woman as he had ever known. It was one of the reasons he admired her, of course, but still.…

  “I’ll find it, never fear,” he said a bit lamely.

  “Are you going to do as Holmes suggested and consult with the Tenderloin denizens?”

  “Yes, and I didn’t need the addlepate to reach that conclusion. It’s what I intended to do today.” This was not quite the truth—in fact, he’d been at somewhat of a loss as to how to proceed—but it wasn’t necessary for Sabina to know that.

  “Do you think it’s possible David St. Ives had something to do with the robbery?”

  “The scion of one of the city’s wealthy families?”

  “A profligate scion known to have lost large sums of money gambling and whose father has threatened to disinherit him unless he mended his ways. Joseph St. Ives may have backed up his threat by curtailing David’s access to family funds. If so, and if David couldn’t bear to give up gambling and womanizing, it’s not inconceivable that he would have resorted to theft. Frankly, I wouldn’t put it past him.”

  “Would you put murder past him?”

  “The murder of Bob Cantwell? Are you sure it wasn’t the mysterious Zeke who shot him?”

  “Sure enough,” Quincannon said. “He was too terrified of Zeke, whoever he is, to have attempted to blackmail him. His killer was Jack Travers’s partner, likely the one who planned the crime.”

  “The Kid.”

  “Yes, the Kid.”

  “David St. Ives is young enough to have been referred to in that fashion,” Sabina pointed out.

  “So, for that matter, was Bob Cantwell.”

  “Yes, and Lucas Whiffing. He could also be the Kid. We have testimony to the fact that there is a connection between Whiffing and David St. Ives. Why not one with Bob Cantwell, too? They’re all of an age.”

  “Cantwell was a small-time gambler, not a high-roller like St. Ives. And Travers was an older man.”

  “Yes, but Cantwell did some of his gambling at the House of Chance, didn’t he? And from your description of Travers, he was only a few years older than the others. Still young enough to have consorted with them.”

  Quincannon conceded the truth of all this, but it didn’t quite dispel his skepticism. “A coincidental link between your investigation and mine still strikes me as improbable,” he said.

  “It may seem that way given what we currently know,” Sabina said. “But there’s much both of us have yet to find out—facts that may establish a link, and not such a coincidental one. Holmes was quite certain that such a link exists.”

  Holmes again. Faugh! Quincannon was loath to give credence to anything the Englishman had to say. The notion that he had uncovered information on his ramblings about the city that had so far eluded not only a legitimate detective but a sane one was galling. And yet, if what he had suggested to Sabina should prove to be valid, it might well be the key to locating the missing $35,000 and collecting the reward. There was no gainsaying the necessity to find out.

  “There’s something else, too,” Sabina said, “that I haven’t told you about yet.”

  “Yes? And what would that be?”

  “A new client—Barnaby Meeker, the man who left his card with us yesterday morning.”

  “Investment broker, isn’t he?”

  “Vice president of Western Investment Corporation.”

  “Ah, then he’s wealthy.”

  “Moderately, yes. More to the point is his reason for wanting the services of a detective agency—specifically, our agency.”

  “And that is?”

  “Ghosts. Or to be more exact, ghostly manifestations and other eerie happenings in the dead of foggy nights.”

  Quincannon blinked at her, his mouth slightly open.

  “No, John, I haven’t gone daft. These manifestations have taken place over the past few days in Carville-by-the-Sea, where Mr. Meeker and his family reside. It’s also where Lucas Whiffing and his family reside.” She went on to give a brief description of the alleged spook happenings as Meeker had described them to her. “Now do you understand?”

  “You believe there is some sort of relationship between these alleged hauntings and what happened on Sutro Heights?”

  “It’s possible, isn’t it? Carville is only a few miles from the mayor’s estate, Lucas Whiffing and Virginia St. Ives were more deeply involved than I’ve been led to believe, and I’m no longer convinced that what I witnessed last Friday night was exactly what it seemed to be. There was a ghostlike quality to those events as well, as I told you.”

  “Illusion? Trickery?”

  “It could very well be.”

  “Why, if so? And why the spook business in Carville?”

  “Those are two more questions still begging answers,” Sabina said. “I offered to investigate the latter myself, but Mr. Meeker was adamant that a male detective be given the job. Unfortunately you weren’t available by close of business last night, else I’d have asked you to undertake it then.”

  “You want me to go ghost hunting in Carville tonight, is that it?”

  “I have a feeling it’s important, John. Will you do it?”

  Quincannon didn’t much like the idea of spending part or all of a
night in the fog-ridden desolation of that eccentric dunes community, but he saw no good reason to refuse. Sabina’s instincts were often as finely tuned as his own; the matter might well be important. He said, “I will, yes, unless I uncover information of a more vital and pressing nature during the day. In that case, I’ll get word to you and you can arrange for Micah Dolan or one of our other part-time operatives to investigate.”

  “I’d rather it be you if at all possible. If not, I’m afraid you’ll have to make the arrangements with Micah. I won’t be here the rest of today.”

  Quincannon paused in the process of charging his pipe. Sabina had picked up her hat, a gray bonnet trimmed with white lace, and was pinning it to her hair with a gold-and-onyx hatpin. Her outfit today was also gray, a familiar gray serge—her traveling clothes, he realized belatedly. Normally there was nothing about her appearance that escaped his attention, but all they had had to impart to each other this morning had served as a distraction.

  “Oh?” he said. “Off on a trip somewhere?”

  She smiled faintly. “So you’ve finally noticed my attire.”

  “I noticed it when I arrived.”

  “But forebore comment until now. Eagle-eye John Quincannon.”

  To cover his mild embarrassment he finished tamping shag into the briar’s bowl and lighted it. “You haven’t answered my question.”

  “I’m off,” she said, “in pursuit of a hunch.”

  “What sort of hunch?”

  “One concerning what I witnessed, or seemed to witness, on Sutro Heights. I finally recalled what kept nettling me about it.”

  “And that is?”

  Sabina smiled again, a secretive smile this time. “All in good time, John. If my hunch bears fruit.”

  “Here, now. You’re being unduly mysterious.”

  “No more than you when you have one of your hunches.” Sabina finished pinning her hat, took a business card from one corner of her desk, and stood to hand the card to him. At a glance he saw that it was Barnaby Meeker’s. “It would be a good idea if you’d drop by Mr. Meeker’s office and introduce yourself at some point during the day,” she said. “He’ll want to meet beforehand the man who is going to lay his ghost for him.”

  “Ghosts. Bah.” But Quincannon slipped the card into his vest pocket.

  Sabina gathered her reticule and a small overnight bag that had been hidden behind her desk. “I’ll be leaving now.”

  “Wait a moment and I’ll walk down with you.”

  “Off to the Tenderloin first thing?”

  “No. I’ve another stop to make first.”

  “To interview David St. Ives?”

  Quincannon shook his head. “To interview a lunatic,” he said.

  * * *

  The Old Union Hotel was a two-story brick structure that had seen better days, though even when newly built it would have had little to recommend it to the discerning eye. Its lobby was small, dark, stuffy, and dusty. The two old men sitting in chairs across a chessboard had a dusty look as well, as if they had been planted there at about the time the hotel opened for business.

  The clerk who held forth behind the counter was somewhat younger, seemed to have been recently swept, and wore a large red bow tie as if to compensate for the fact that he had very little if any chin. He favored Quincannon with a gap-toothed smile and asked how he could be of service, though he was not particularly effusive about it.

  “S. Holmes,” Quincannon said. “Is he in?”

  “Holmes? I don’t believe we have a guest by that name, sir.”

  “Room twelve.”

  “Twelve? I believe … yes, that room is vacant.”

  “Since when?”

  “Since yesterday morning. I checked the gentleman out myself. But his name was Peabody, Aloysius Peabody.”

  “Englishman. Tall, thin, nose like a hawk’s, carries a blackthorn stick and wears a cape and a large cap.”

  “No … Mr. Peabody was tall and thin, but he didn’t look or dress like that. And he wasn’t English—he was from Australia. Some place called Canberra.”

  Quincannon remembered Sabina’s description of the crackbrain’s latest disguise. “Handlebar mustache, stovepipe hat, loud purple vest embroidered with orange flowers.”

  “Why … yes, that sounds like Mr. Peabody.”

  Peabody. Bah. “How long was he here?”

  “Ten days, I believe. Yes, that’s right. Ten days.”

  “I don’t suppose he left a forwarding address.”

  “I don’t think so, but I’ll check.” And a minute later, “No, I’m sorry, sir, no forwarding address.”

  “Or said anything about going home to bloody England.”

  “No, sir. But he wasn’t from England. Australia, as I said. Canberra, Australia. Are you sure he’s the man you’re looking for?”

  “All too blasted sure.”

  Vanished into the ether again, just as he had seven months before. But for how long this time? Quincannon had thought he was rid of the man last fall, but oh no, no such luck. Popped up twice this past week like a damn jack-in-the-box, and would doubtless do so again at some inopportune time in the future. Or opportune time, confound him, if what he had told Sabina on the trolley last night proved valid. That was the most infuriating thing about the dingbat Sherlock. How could a mental defective find out so much about covert criminal activities and be right about so much of it so often?

  “It may be,” the clerk was saying helpfully, “that your friend decided—”

  “He’s no friend of mine.”

  “—that your, ah, acquaintance or business associate decided to take up residence in another hotel—”

  “Nor either of those.”

  “—and that you’ll be able to find, uh, whoever he is by—”

  “I don’t want to find him. I never want to see him again.”

  “But … but you came here looking for him.…”

  “And a good thing for him that he wasn’t here,” Quincannon said, and left the clerk looking as if his brain had just been tied in knots.

  17

  QUINCANNON

  The uptown section known as the Tenderloin, an area roughly encompassed by Market Street, Union Square, City Hall, and Van Ness Avenue, was a curious mixture of middle-class residences, medium-quality restaurants and saloons, dance halls and variety-show theaters, the Tivoli Opera House, the luxurious Baldwin Hotel, and in recent years, a proliferation of gambling establishments and sporting houses that catered to the city’s gentry. In the latter respect, the Tenderloin was considered a less dangerous, more genteel version of the Barbary Coast. Its name was said to have derived from an oft-quoted comment made in 1879 by a New York City police captain, one Alexander Williams, when he received a transfer to a similar section of that city known as Satan’s Circus. Alluding to extortion payments made to police by illicit business owners, he stated to a friend, “I’ve had nothing but chuck steak for a long time, and now I’m going to get a little of the tenderloin.”

  Charles Riley’s House of Chance, on Post Street, was one of the area’s high-toned gambling houses. Not so much externally, the building being a plain wooden one, except at night when the energized gas in a large electric discharge lamp glowed its name for all to see. Inside, it was close to opulent. Fresco and gilt, large paintings of voluptuous women in various stages of undress, ceiling-high mirrors, dazzling lamplight. A well-appointed bar and long rows of mahogany tables, some of them covered now because daytime play was light, the rest presided over by scantily outfitted women, all offering a variety of games of chance—faro, chuck-a-luck, roulette, craps. At the rear was a card room where poker and blackjack were played round the clock. None of the games, so far as Quincannon knew, was rigged. Unlike the proprietors of the Barbary Coast dens, Riley relied on unlucky repeat customers and house percentages for his profits.

  The owner could generally be found on the premises, ensconced in his combination office and living quarters above the card room. He w
as there when Quincannon arrived. While there was little enough trouble in the House of Chance, Riley was a timid little man with a horror of both violence and theft and so employed several security men. One guarded the stairs to his lair at all times; no one was allowed admittance unless Riley granted permission. Quincannon presented his card to the massive individual on duty, waited while it was taken upstairs, and eventually was allowed to climb and enter.

  Three items of furniture dominated the office, each so large it made Riley seem even smaller when he occupied it. One was a gleaming mahogany desk, the second a red velvet, pillow-strewn couch that likely doubled as a bed, and a matching overstuffed chair with flat armrests nearly a foot wide. Whenever Riley sat in the chair, as he was presently doing, he reminded Quincannon of a diminutive potentate on a plush throne. Curled up at his feet was his constant companion, a huge mastiff named Rollo. The dog’s amber-colored eyes regarded Quincannon as though he were a cut of tenderloin. As he had on previous visits, he chose to pretend the beast was nonexistent.

  Riley was not one to mince words. He said, “Well, Quincannon? What brings you here this time?”

  “A few more questions, if you don’t mind.”

  “I’ve already told you all I know about that fellow Cantwell.”

  “Except for one thing. Did he do his gambling here alone or in the company of others?”

  “I have no idea. I hardly knew him until he came to me with his proposition.”

  “Don’t waste your time with piddlers and pikers, eh? But you do know the high-rollers among your regular customers.”

  “Of course.”

  “Would David St. Ives be among them?”

  Two vertical lines appeared on Riley’s forehead and extended down to bracket his thin nose—his version of a frown. “Why do you ask?”

  “Professional interest.”

  “The same professional interest as in Bob Cantwell?”

  Quincannon shrugged. “Is St. Ives one of your regular customers, Charles?”

  “He is. Or was until recently. A valued one, as matter of fact.”