“Of course not. Carville-by-the-Sea is my home and one day it will be the home of many other progressive- minded citizens like myself. Businesses, churches…a thriving community. Why, no less a personage than Adolph Sutro hopes to persuade wealthy San Franciscans to buy land there and build grand estates like his own at Sutro Heights.”
“I will pay you five hundred dollars to come to Carville and view the phenomenon for yourself,” Barnaby Meeker said.
“Eh? What’s that?”
“Five hundred dollars, sir. And an additional one thousand dollars if you can provide a satisfactory explanation for these fantastic goings-on.”
Quincannon’s ears pricked up like a hound’s. “Fifteen hundred dollars?”
“If, as I said, you provide a satisfactory explanation.”
“Can you afford such a large sum, Mister Meeker?”
“Of course I can afford it,” Meeker said, bristling. “Would I offer it if I couldn’t?”
“Ah, I ask only because…”
“Only because of where I choose to reside.” Meeker thumped his stick to punctuate his testy displeasure. “It so happens I am a man of considerable means, sir. Railroad stock, if you must know…a substantial portfolio. I have made my home in Carville because I have always been fond of the ocean and the solitude of the dunes. Does that satisfy you?”
“It does.” Quincannon’s annoyance and suspicion had both vanished as swiftly as the alleged Carville ghost. A smile now bisected his freebooter’s beard, the sort Sabina referred to rather unkindly as his “greedy grin.” “I meant no offense. You may consider us completely at your service.”
“John,” Sabina said, “let’s not be hasty. You know how busy we are…”
“Now, now, my dear,” he said, “Mister Meeker has come in good faith with a vexing problem. We can certainly find the time and wherewithal to oblige him.”
“And naturally you’ll keep an open mind in the process.”
Quincannon chose to ignore her mocking tone. He rose, beamed at the cracked filbert, shook his hand with enthusiasm, and said: “Now, to business…”
When Barnaby Meeker had gone, leaving a $500 check neatly blotted on Sabina’s desk, she said: “I’m not so sure it was a good idea to take on this case.”
“No? And why not, with five hundred dollars in hand and another thousand promised?”
“We’ve a full plate already, John. Or have you forgotten the pickpocket case, the missing Miss Devereaux, and the Wells Fargo Express robbery?”
“Hardly. You’ll identify the amusement park dip, we’ll find Miss Devereaux, and I have no doubt I’ll locate the Wells Fargo bandits and recover the stolen loot before anyone else can…all in good time.” Quincannon rubbed his hands together briskly and opined: “This ghost foolishness can be disposed of in short order tonight. Fifteen hundred dollars is a handsome fee for a few hours’ easy work.”
“Don’t be too sure it will be easy. Or that it’s foolishness.”
“Of course it is,” he said. “Ghoulies, ghosties, things that go bump in the night. Pure hogwash.”
Late that afternoon, huddled inside his greatcoat, Quincannon drove the hired livery horse and buggy out past Cliff House and Sutro Heights. A chill, southwesterly wind blew curls and twists of fog in off the Pacific; the mist was already thick enough to hide the sea from the road, although he could hear the distant murmur of surf and the barking of sea lions. The foghorn on the Potato Patch off Point Lobos gave off its mournful moan at regular intervals.
This was a bleak, lonesome section of the city, sparsely traveled beyond the Heights. As he rattled past the Ocean Boulevard turning into Golden Gate Park, a lone wagon emerged from the junglelike tangle of scrub pine and manzanita that marked the park’s western edge; otherwise, he saw no one. Empty sand-blown roadway, grass- topped dunes, gulls, fog-a blasted wasteland. There were no lampposts here, south of the park. At night, in heavy fog, the highway was virtually impassable, even with the strongest of lanterns, to all but the blind and the foolhardy.
The sea mist thinned and thickened at intervals until he reached Carville, where it roiled in like a ragged gray shroud spread out over the barren dunes. Carville-by-the-Sea.
San Francisco’s transit companies were the culprits. When the city began replacing horse-drawn cars with cable cars and electric streetcars, some of the obsolete carriages had been sold to individuals for $10 if the car had no seats, $20 if it did; the rest were abandoned out here among the dunes, awaiting new buyers or to succumb to rust and rot in the salty sea winds. A grip man for the Ellis Street line had been the first to see the nesting possibilities; in 1895, after purchasing a lot near the terminus of 20th Avenue, he had joined three old North Beach & Mission horse cars and mounted them on stilts above the shifting sand. The edifice was still standing three years later; Quincannon had passed it on the way, a lonesome sight half obscured by the blowing mist.
Farther south, where the Park and Ocean railway line terminated, a Civil War vet named Colonel Charles Daily made his home in a shell-decorated realtor’s shed. An entrepreneur, Daily had bought three cars and rented them at $5 each-one to a ladies’ bicycle club known as The Falcons-and also opened a coffee saloon. Others, Barnaby Meeker among them, bought their own cars and set them up in the vicinity. A reporter for the Bulletin dubbed the place Beachside, but residents preferred Carvilleby-the-Sea and the general public shortened that to Carville.
Quincannon had been there before, once on an outing with a young woman of his acquaintance, once on the trail of a thief who had used the ragtag community as a temporary hideout before taking it on the lammas to San Jose. It had grown since his last visit over a year ago. Most of the structures were strung closely together along the highway, a few others spaced widely apart among the seaward dunes. Most were more or less permanent homes- single-or double-stacked cars, some drawn together in horseshoe shapes for protection against the wind, and embellished by lean-tos and fenced porches. A few were part-time dwellings-clubhouses, weekend retreats or, by reputation, rendezvous for lovers. The whole had a colorless, wind-blown, sanded appearance that blue sky and sunlight did little to brighten; on days like this one, it was downright dismal.
The coffee saloon, a single car with a slant-roofed portico, bore a painted sign: THE ANNEX. Smoke dribbled out of its chimney, to be snatched away immediately by the wind. Quincannon pulled the buggy off the road in front, affixed the weighted hitch strap to the horse’s bit, and went inside.
It was a rudimentary place, with a narrow foot-railed counter running most of its width. There were no seats or decorations of any kind. The smells of strong-brewed coffee and pitch pine burning in a potbellied stove were welcome after the long, cold ride from downtown.
The counterman was a stooped oldster with white whiskers and tufts of hair that grew patchily from his scalp like saw grass atop the beach dunes. Quincannon sensed immediately that he was the garrulous type hungry for company and this proved to be the case.
“One coffee coming up,” the oldster said, and, as he served it in a steaming mug: “Colder than a witch’s hind end out there. My name’s Potter, but call me Caleb, ever’body does. Passing by or visiting, are ye?”
“John Quincannon. Visiting.”
“Ye don’t mind me asking who?”
“The Barnaby Meekers.”
“Nice folks, Mister and Missus Meeker. The boy’s a mite rascally, but then so was I at his age. You a friend of theirs?”
“A business acquaintance of Mister Meeker.” Quincannon sugared his coffee, found it too strong, and added another spoonful. “Strange goings-on out here of late, I understand,” he said conversationally.
“How’s that? Strange goings-on?”
“Ghost lights in cars and vanishing spooks in the dunes.”
