a second man for the surveillance.”
“Two detectives, and neither able to prevent blatant murder and robbery.”
“It happened under peculiar and still unexplained circumstances no detective could have foreseen.”
“So you say. Mrs. Costain seems to think otherwise.”
“Mrs. Costain is hardly an impartial witness.”
“Perhaps not. But if I find out she’s correct, your agency will get no more business from Great Western Insurance.”
“You needn’t threaten me, Mr. Pollard. John and I have always maintained cordial relations with you, and we’ve never yet failed to carry out an assignment to mutual satisfaction.”
“Never before has so much been at stake. Don’t forget, Mrs. Carpenter-even if Quincannon recovers most or all of the stolen goods, which is by no means a certainty, Great Western is still liable for the fifty-thousand-dollar life insurance claim.”
He wished her a gruff good day and departed.
Sabina opened the window behind her desk, letting in fresh air to dissipate the too-sweet odor Pollard had left behind him. The clock on the office wall read 5:20. John might or might not return to the office at this late hour; she decided she would wait until six o’clock before closing up. There was much to be discussed with him, not the least of which was the would-be Sherlock’s claim to have solved the Costain mystery.
Fanciful nonsense, of course … wasn’t it? John would surely think so, but she couldn’t quite make up her mind whether the Englishman was a buffoon or in fact had some of the same ratiocinative brilliance as the genuine Baker Street sleuth.
25
QUINCANNON
The city prison, in the basement of the Hall of Justice at Kearney and Washington streets, was a busy place that testified to the amount of crime afoot in San Francisco. And to Quincannon’s experienced eye, there were just as many crooks on the outside of the foul-smelling cells as on the inside. Corrupt policemen, seedy lawyers haggling at the desk about releases for prisoners, rapacious fixers, deceitful bail bondsmen … more of those, in fact, than honest officers and men charged with felonies or with vagracy, public drunkenness, and other misdemeanors.
Quincannon delivered a sullen Dodger Brown there, and spent the better part of an unpleasant hour in conversation with a plainclothesman he knew slightly and a booking sergeant he neither knew nor wanted to know. He made no mention of Andrew Costain in his statement; it would only have complicated matters and subjected himself and Dodger Brown to the questioning of that lummox, Kleinhoffer, an ordeal to be avoided at all costs in the present circumstances.
He signed a complaint on behalf of the Great Western Insurance Company, and before leaving, made sure that the Dodger would remain locked in one of the cells until Jackson Pollard and Great Western officially formalized the charge. He knew better than to turn over any of the stolen goods, did not even mention that they were in his possession.
His first stop after leaving the Hall’s gray-stone pile was the insurance company’s offices on Merchant Street just east of the Montgomery Block, his intention being to report his success to Jackson Pollard. The claims adjustor, however, was not there. He had vacated the premises a short while before and was not expected to return.
Quincannon’s mood was still on the dour side when he entered the agency office. Sabina, seated at her desk, regarded him with her usual sharp eye. “Bad news, John?”
“Some bad, some good.”
“Mine as well. Dodger Brown?”
“Yaffled and in police custody. That’s the good news.” He sketched the day’s events for her, embellishing a bit on his brief skirmishes with Salty Jim O’Bannon on the oyster boat and the Dodger at Lettie Carew’s.
“You take too many risks, John,” she admonished him. “One of these days you’ll pay dearly for such recklessness-just as your father and my husband did.”
He waved that away. “I intend to die in bed at the age of ninety,” he said. “And not alone.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if either boast turned out to be true.” Her generous mouth quirked slightly at the corners. “You had no difficulty finding your way around the Fiddle Dee Dee, I’m sure.”
“Meaning what?”
“Don’t tell me you’ve never been in a parlor house before.”
“Only in the performance of my duties,” he lied.
“If that’s so, I pity the city’s maidens.”
“I have no designs on the virtue of young virgins.” He added with a wink, “Young and handsome widows are another matter.”
“Then you’re fated to live out your years as celibate as a monk. Did you wring a confession from Dodger Brown?”
“Of the first three burglaries, yes.”
“But not the one of the Costain home?”
“That’s the bad news. The Dodger was cozied up at the Fiddle Dee Dee all of last night with bottles of wine and a Chinese strumpet named Ming Toy. She and Lettie Carew vouch for the fact.”
“They could have been paid to lie.”
“Could have been, but weren’t. Whoever broke into the Costain home and shot our client, it wasn’t Dodger Brown.”
“A copycat burglar?”
“A possibility.”
“Do you put much stock in it?”
“No. I can’t abide another coincidence.”
“Nor can I. I don’t suppose Dodger Brown is guilty of Clara Wilds’s murder any more than that of Andrew Costain?”
“Evidently not,” Quincannon said. “He claims he hasn’t seen her in months, since they parted company over her involvement with Victor Pope. And he has no claw marks anywhere on his person, as I had the distasteful task of confirming.”
“I was afraid of that.”
“Could Pope have stabbed the pickpocket?”
“No,” Sabina said. “He had neither the time nor the means. You may find this far-fetched, John, but for a time today I had the notion her murderer might have been Andrew Costain.”
Quincannon paused in the process of charging his pipe with tobacco. “Yes? Why would you think that?”
“Grasping at straws, perhaps.”
Sabina went on to explain about the buggy that had been parked in the carriageway behind Clara Wilds’s rooming house, and her investigation of the carriage barn on the Costain property. While she spoke, she removed a circlet of brass from her skirt pocket and handed it to him, saying, “I found this wedged between the buggy’s seat cushions. Do you recognize it?”
He turned it over in his fingers. “Yes. A gambling token from Charles Riley’s House of Chance, a high-toned establishment on Polk Street. Good for one dollar in play. Riley gives them to favored customers.”
“Andrew Costain being one?”
Quincannon said thoughtfully, “Perhaps. If it belonged to him. I’ll just keep it, if you don’t mind.” He pocketed the token when Sabina nodded her consent. “Did you find anything else in the buggy?”
“No.”
“Do you still consider Costain a suspect in Clara Wilds’s murder?”
“I don’t know,” Sabina admitted. “He doesn’t seem to have had any plausible motive. Nor any way to have identified Wilds as the woman who robbed him.”
“It’s also unlikely that he would have had time to change into old clothing, drive from his office to her lodging house, commit the crime, and then return to Geary Street, change back into his business attire, and be waiting
