“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
“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
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.”
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. For 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
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
