The Bughouse Affair

18

QUINCANNON

It was well past midnight when Quincannon finally trudged wearily up the stairs to his rooms. After Kleinhoffer had finished with him, the newspapermen had descended-on him but not on the Englishman, who managed to slip away unnoticed. Quincannon had taken pains to keep Holmes well in the background; in his comments to the reporters, he referred to him as a “temporary operative” and an “underling.”

He donned his nightshirt and crawled into bed, but the night’s jumbled events plagued his mind and refused to let him sleep. At length he lit his bedside lamp, picked up a copy of Walt Whitman’s Sea-Drift. Usually Whitman, or Emily Dickinson or James Lowell, freed his brain of clutter and allowed him to relax, but not tonight. He switched reading matter to Drunkards and Curs: The Truth About Demon Rum. He and Sabina had once been hired by the True Christian Temperance Society to catch an embezzler, and this had led him to his second collecting interest: temperance tracts, whose highly inflammatory rhetoric he found amusing.

Drunkards and Curs did the trick. Before the end of one turgid chapter he was sound asleep.

He awoke not long past seven, allowed himself a hasty breakfast, and within an hour was at the agency offices. For once he was the first to arrive. And when he unlocked the door and stepped inside, he was pleased to find an envelope that had been slipped under the door. It contained a single sheet of paper, on which was written in Ezra Bluefield’s backhand scrawl:

Duff’s Curio Shop. He knows.

E.B.

A wolf’s smile split Quincannon’s freebooter’s whiskers. Ezra Bluefield, true to his word as always, had finally come through, and the morning was now considerably brighter.

He went to coax steam heat from the radiator; on mornings such as this, the offices were as damp and chill as a cave. While he was so engaged, Sabina arrived.

“Up bright and early this morning, I see,” she said. Then, as she removed her straw boater, “But not bushy-tailed. Another sleepless night?”

“For the most part.”

“Did something happen at the Costain home?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“Dodger Brown struck again?”

“Struck, and committed another cold-blooded murder.”

“Murder? Who was killed? Not that man Holmes-”

“No. More’s the pity.”

“Who, then?”

“Andrew Costain. Stabbed and shot in bizarre circumstances.” He went on to outline the evening’s events.

Sabina’s only reaction was the high lift of her eyebrows as he unfolded the tale. “It all seems fantastic. How could Dodger Brown possibly have escaped both the locked study and the house?”

“How indeed. A pretty puzzle, the crackbrain called it. His only worthwhile remark the entire night.”

“You have no one to blame for his presence but yourself,” she reminded him.

Quincannon ignored the remark. “You should have seen him, crawling around on hands and knees, peering through his magnifying glass. Ludicrous. Why, he even seems to think there’s to be a contest between us to see who can solve the riddle. As if he could manage it by aping methods used by the real Sherlock Holmes!”

“Perhaps he can.”

“Balderdash. There’s only one man clever enough to get to the bottom of a crime such as this.”

Sabina fixed him with one of her analytical looks. “You wouldn’t be feeling a touch threatened by him, would you?”

“Threatened? By a lunatic? Faugh!”

“Well and good, then. Have you any theories yet?”

“No, but it’s only a matter of time and a bit more legwork.”

“You know, John, this business may be more complicated than you realize.”

“Why do you say that?”

“You recall the silver money clip I found in Clara Wilds’s rooms? It belonged to Costain.”

“Costain? You’re sure of that?”

“Yesterday I took it to the silversmith who made it. He made a positive identification.”

Quincannon loaded and fired his briar while he pondered this. “So then Costain must have been one of the dip’s victims. And a recent one, if what I took to be gastric discomfort at our first meeting was in fact pain from a wound caused by one of Wilds’s hatpin thrusts.”

“Coincidence, do you think?”

“I don’t see how it could be anything else,” he said when he had the pipe drawing. “And yet…”

“Yes, ‘and yet.’ Clara Wilds was murdered two days ago, Andrew Costain was murdered last night. And both, conceivably, by the same person. That would seem to be stretching coincidence to the breaking point.”

“So it would.”

“There’s something else that bothers me,” Sabina said, “if we assume Dodger Brown is guilty of both crimes. His criminal record.”

“What about it?”

“His felonies have always been nonviolent. Why, all of a sudden, would he commit two bloody homicides in two days?”

“Greed. Fear of capture. He is known to carry a pistol.”

“But never to have used it.”

“True.”

“Is it likely he’d also carry a weapon such as a stiletto?”

“Not from what we know about him, but his habits might have changed for some reason.” Quincannon ruminated again. “It may also be that either or both weapons used belonged to Costain. The revolver bought by him for protection, a purchase he neglected to tell his wife about. The lethal weapon an object from his desk, such as a letter opener. In any case, the murder would seem to be the result of a brief but fierce struggle.”

“That seems plausible,” Sabina said. “But why would Dodger Brown carry a bloody stiletto or letter opener away with him and leave the pistol behind?”

“Panic. A man who has just taken another man’s life doesn’t always act rationally. Whatever happened in Costain’s study, we’ll find out when I’ve yaffled the Dodger. And that won’t be long now.”

“You said that yesterday. He’s still at large.”

“But now we have a lead,” Quincannon told her, “courtesy of Ezra Bluefield.” He showed her the message that had been slipped under the office door.

“Our old friend Luther Duff.”

“One of the easier eggs to crack in the city. For our purposes, Dodger Brown couldn’t have picked a better fenceman.”

“Assuming Duff knows his whereabouts. With at least one murder on his conscience, he may have already gone on the lammas.”

“If he has,” Quincannon said darkly, “I’ll track him down no matter where he goes. But I have a feeling he’s still in the area. If he is and he’s planning to run, he’ll need cash and Duff drives a hard bargain. Luther should know where to find him if anyone does.”

“Let’s hope so. John, have you informed Jackson Pollard of last night’s events?”

“No, not yet.”

“Don’t you think you should?”

Quincannon grimaced at the prospect. “Likely he’ll lay the blame on me and I’m in no mood for one of his rants.”

“If you’d rather I telephoned him…”

“No, the duty’s mine. I’ll stop in at Great Western after I’ve seen Luther Duff.”

“Before would be better.”

“But afterward I expect to have favorable news to sweeten his temper.” Quincannon reached for his derby, tipped it onto his head. “And with a smile from lady luck, before the end of the day I’ll have Dodger Brown.”