Carpenter? Why are you here?”
“First, to offer my condolences.”
“Thank you.”
“And I have something of your husband’s that I thought you might wish to have.”
“Of Andrew’s? What might that be?”
Sabina produced and handed over the silver money clip. Penelope Costain turned it over in her hand. As her fingers traced the intricate design, she winced slightly as if struck by a painful memory.
“Where did you get this?”
“From a pickpocket I was hired to apprehend.”
“A pickpocket. I see. And did you apprehend him?”
“Her.”
“A woman? Well, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.”
“She was killed yesterday by an unknown assailant.”
“Deservedly, I’m sure. You’ll pardon my callousness, but I have no sympathy for such creatures. I would not be unhappy to hear that the man who shot my husband has also been killed.”
“Understandably so. You did know that the money clip was stolen from your husband?”
“He mentioned the fact, yes.”
“When and where did it happen?”
“A few days ago, I believe. Near the Palace Hotel after Andrew left his office.”
Another of Clara Wilds’s random victims, then, on her prowls along the Cocktail Route?
“Did he say how much cash he carried in the clip?”
“A few banknotes, no more than thirty dollars. He was more upset at losing the clip than the money. That, and the fact that the pickpocket jabbed him with a sharp object just before she struck.”
Sabina saw no need to reveal what the object was. “Was anything else stolen besides the clip and banknotes?”
“No.”
“You’re sure?”
“Andrew would have mentioned it if there had been. Why are you asking all these questions, Mrs. Carpenter? The pocket-picking incident is no longer of any importance. My husband has been cruelly murdered. Finding the man responsible is all that matters now.”
“Of course. My partner is engaged in that very activity. In fact, he may already have accomplished it.”
“He knows the identity of the burglar?”
“He believes so.”
“But he’s not sure?”
“He won’t be until the man is in custody.”
“Have the police been informed?”
“They may have been by now. You needn’t worry, Mrs. Costain. Your husband’s murderer will not escape punishment, whether he’s the man Mr. Quincannon is pursuing or not.”
“That is of little comfort to me at the moment,” Penelope Costain said. Her head still cocked in that birdlike way, she made discomfited movements that caused the black taffeta to rustle and crackle again; her patience seemed to have worn thin. “Is there anything else?”
“Not at present, no.”
“Then I trust you will be good enough to leave me alone to grieve in private.”
“The history of teatime,” Sherlock Holmes said sententiously, “extends back to the seventeenth century, when Queen Elizabeth granted the East India Company the right to establish worldwide trade routes. Originally the routes were used for the transport of spices, but by the time Charles the Second claimed the throne, tea had become the beverage of choice for English society. Now the custom has spread to your country, although of course it is not yet either properly refined or highly regarded here.”
Sabina sipped her jasmine tea and wished the Englishman would cease pontificating and get to the point of this meeting. The tea shop on Federal Street was small and maintained a pretense of gentility despite the fact that the South Park neighborhood was no longer fashionable among the city’s gentry. She and Holmes were seated at a window table. She was not overly fond of tea, preferring coffee or John’s favorite beverage, warm clam juice, but she could appreciate a national tradition that supported eating well and often. Or she could if she weren’t being bombarded with far more details of British habits and tastes than she cared to hear about.
“Naturally there are several variations on the tea service: cream tea, with scones, jam, and clotted cream; light tea, with scones and sweets; and full tea, with savories, scones, sweets, and dessert.” Holmes motioned with mild distaste at the plate of scones and strawberry jam on the table between them. “This fare wouldn’t do in England, you know. No, not at all. The scones and elderberry preserves served in the London shop near my rooms on Baker Street are far superior.”
Sabina thought the scones and jam tasted just fine, but she didn’t say so. It would only have encouraged him. Not that he needed any encouragement to continue his lecture on the subject of tea. He seemed oblivious to her impatience.
“Few people,” he prattled on, “realize how many different varieties of tea there are from all over the globe. Assam, chamomile, Lapsang souchong, chai, jasmine-though the variety served in this establishment is rather poor. Oolong from the Far East, Darjeeling from India. Ali shan, Ti kuan yin, Formosa. Oh, yes, many, many different varieties. Perhaps one day I shall write a monograph on tea. Yes, I believe I will. Of course other studies have already been done, but I would adopt a much more scholarly approach-”
“Mr. Holmes,” Sabina said. Her voice was tart; she had had enough tea, literally and figuratively.
“Yes, dear lady?”
“Why did you ask me to meet you here? Surely not to regale me with your esoteric knowledge.”
“Nor merely to socialize, I confess. Did your interview with Mrs. Costain prove illuminating?”
What she had or hadn’t learned from the widow was no concern of his. “Interview isn’t the proper term. As I told you earlier, my purpose in visiting her was to offer my condolences.”
“You also intimated a professional reason.”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, there was another. The return of an item that had been stolen from her husband.”
“Ah. And what would that item be?”
“A silver money clip.”
“Not one of the items taken last evening, surely?”
“No. Andrew Costain was the victim of a pickpocket a few days ago.”
“Was he indeed? And how did you come into possession of the money clip, pray tell?”
“I would rather not say.”
Holmes shrugged. “As you wish.”
Sabina said, “Now I’ll ask you a question. Did you learn anything from your snoop inside her home?”
“Snoop? I must say I find your quaint American vulgarisms amusing, though that one is not quite applicable.”
“What would you call unlawful entry into a private residence?”
“A continuance of my investigations, as you heard me tell Mrs. Costain.”
“You’re not authorized to investigate, as you heard me tell you.”
“Not officially, perhaps,” Holmes admitted, “but a bloodhound cannot be easily deterred when he has the scent. Particularly not when he has sighted his quarry.”
“And just what does that mean?”
His eyes gleamed-rather madly, it seemed to Sabina.
“I beg your pardon?”
“The case is solved.”
“Oh, it is?”
“Indubitably. I have deduced how Andrew Costain came to be murdered in his locked study, and how his
