The Bughouse Affair

29

QUINCANNON

“The man is infuriating!” Quincannon ranted. “Insufferable, insulting, exasperating!”

“John, for heaven’s sake…”

“Thinks he’s a blasted oracle. Sees all, knows all, an expert on every arcane subject under the sun. He’s full of-”

“John.”

“-hot air. Enough to fill a balloon and carry it from here to the Sandwich Islands. Crackbrain! Braggart! Conceited popinjay!”

“Lower your voice,” Sabina said warningly. “The other diners are starting to stare at us.”

Quincannon subsided. She was right, he was calling attention to himself. The Cobweb Palace, Abe Warner’s eccentric eatery on Meiggs Wharf in North Beach, was a noisily convivial place at the dinner hour, and to draw scrutiny here was no mean feat. The ramshackle building was packed to its creaking rafters on this Saturday evening-with customers partaking of the finest seafood fare in the city, and with the usual complement of monkeys, roaming cats and dogs, and such exotic birds as the parrot that was capable of hurling curses in four languages. Warner had a benevolent passion for all creatures large and small, including spiders; his collection of rare and sundry souvenirs, everything from Eskimo artifacts to a complete set of dentures that had once belonged to a sperm whale to rude paintings of nude women, were draped floor to ceiling in an undisturbed mosaic of cobwebs.

At length Sabina ventured to say, “I don’t know why you carry on so about the Englishman. You didn’t have to spend all of yesterday trekking through the Barbary Coast and Chinatown with him.”

“It was only to get rid of the confounded pest. Besides, I gave him my word that I would, to my everlasting regret.” Quincannon’s ire began to rise again, and his voice along with it. “The day was interminable. He insisted on seeing every squalid nook and cranny. Opium dens, gambling hells, wine dumps, half the pestholes from Dupont Street to the waterfront. Yes, and the Fiddle Dee Dee and the Hotel Nymphomania, among other parlor houses. He even stopped half a dozen street prostitutes to ask the prices for their services, not only for comparison here but with streetwalkers in London’s Limehouse. Faugh! I had half a mind to bribe Ezra Bluefield to feed him a Mickey Finn and turn him over to the shanghaiers-”

“Hush!”

Quincannon subsided again, but not before muttering, “Blasted addlepate.”

“Yes, but there’s no gainsaying the fact that he has a rare talent for detective work.”

“Rare talent! Bah! Just because he happened to stumble upon the correct solution to the Costain murder?”

“Be honest, John. He not only matched your deductive skill, but bettered it in more than one respect.”

“I would have come to the same conclusions,” Quincannon grumbled, “if I hadn’t been out chasing after Dodger Brown.”

“I’m sure you would have. But you’re still being too harsh on the man. After all, he could have gone directly to the police with his discoveries, in which case you’d have gotten little or none of the credit. Instead he gave us both advance warning of his intentions.”

She had a point, but he wasn’t about to say so. “Only so he could brag about his alleged genius. He’d have gone ahead with his arrangements if I hadn’t stopped him. I still say he had no business poking his nose into my investigation, even if I did unwittingly give him the opportunity.”

“I suppose you feel the same about my nose.”

“Eh? No, of course not. You’re my partner.”

“But not your equal as a detective?”

“Yes, that, too,” he admitted grudgingly. “That was an admirable piece of sleuthing you did on the Clara Wilds matter.”

“Well! A professional compliment from the master himself. So you hold no grudge against me for what took place in Pollard’s office?”

“None. Besides, your investigation and mine were essentially separate.”

“So much for compliments,” Sabina said.

“You know, you should have told me you suspected Penelope Costain of Wilds’s murder, and why. It would have made my job easier.”

“And if you’d confided your suspicions to me, it would have made mine easier. Why must you always play your cards so close to the vest?”

“My father’s teachings, and a dozen years with the Secret Service.”

“And a colossal conceit.”

Quincannon pretended to be hurt. “You wound me deeply.”

“Oh, bosh. You’ll never change, will you?”

“I might, if you’ll agree to accompany me to dinner more often.”

“I will-the day you learn the meaning of the word humility.”

He wasn’t offended. Nothing she said tonight could offend him. He reached over to touch her hand, half expecting her to move it away. When she didn’t, at least not immediately, it stirred his tender feelings. He gazed wistfully at her across the table, reflecting again that she had dressed well for him. Beneath her lamb’s wool coat, she wore a brocade jacket over a snowy shirtwaist and a wine-colored skirt. Pendant ruby earrings, a gift from her late husband, made a fiery complement to her sleek dark hair and creamy complexion.

“Have I told you how captivating you look this evening, my dear?”

“Three times now. Personal compliments are also well taken, but you needn’t overdo it.”

“I could tell you fifty times a day how attractive you are and still not be overdoing it.”

“You ought to know by now that flattery will get you nowhere.”

Flattery-sincere flattery-might get him nowhere tonight, but his ardor and his hopeful determination remained undampened. There would be other evenings such as this. And on one of them … ah, surely on one of them …

SABINA

Once John settled down and gave his attention to his abalone steak, attacking the succulent shellfish with gusto, the dinner progressed well and she was not sorry she had accepted his invitation. The crab cakes were delicious, the wine well chilled, and his personal compliments, if not his professional ones, well taken despite their underlying intent. He was pleasant company when he had reined in his emotions and allowed his gentle and vulnerable side to dominate. Charming, even. Yes, and handsome, too, with his dark eyes and thick but well-groomed beard, and the gray sack coat, matching waistcoat, and striped trousers he wore.

Not that having dinner with him tonight meant she’d changed her mind about their relationship. But there was no harm in giving in to a minor temptation. But it was there that she drew the line and would continue to draw it. Still … she was young and healthy, and while she could never love any man except Stephen, she couldn’t help wondering what it would be like if she succumbed, just once, to John’s advances.…

She felt herself starting to blush and quickly put the thought out of her mind.

If only John weren’t so persistent in his designs on her virtue. And so jealous of his prowess as a detective. His self-esteem was justified up to a point-he was almost as good as he believed he was-but it sometimes blinded him to the long view of things. Their recent investigations, for instance. It didn’t matter a whit that he’d had to share the limelight with her and a daft poseur. All that mattered was that a cold-blooded double murderess had been apprehended, all the stolen property had been recovered, Jackson Pollard was pleased that his company was not liable for any of the insurance claims, and Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional Detective Services, had been well compensated and were assured of Great Western Insurance’s continued patronage. But there was no use in trying to tell John any of this, at least not tonight, his feelings toward the Englishman running as hot as they were. She had no doubt that he would indulge in more grumbling before the evening came to an end.

And of course he did.

He was a jovial companion until they were finishing an excellent rum cake dessert. Then, after a short interval during which his face turned cloudy again, he muttered, “He wouldn’t tell me when he plans to leave San Francisco.”

Sabina sighed. “I don’t suppose I need to ask who you mean.”

“The crackbrain, of course. He likes it here, he said. Finds the city stimulating. Might stay on awhile.”

“Well? That’s his privilege, isn’t it?”

“It is as long as he doesn’t bother me again with his infernal presence. Why doesn’t he go back to England? That’s where he belongs-an asylum in England.”

The imp in Sabina made her say, “Does he really? We could be wrong about him, you know.”

“What do you mean, wrong?”

“Suppose he isn’t an impostor. Suppose he really is Sherlock Holmes, the world-famous detective.”

John stared at her as if a fiddler crab had suddenly crawled out of the collar of her dress. “You’re not serious?”

“It’s possible, isn’t it?”

“No! The real Holmes is dead. It’s folly to think that scrawny, gibbering imitation presuming on Dr. Axminster’s hospitality is the genuine article. You know that as well as I do.”

“Perhaps. But I have a feeling that whoever he is, neither of us has seen the last of him-personally or professionally.”

“We’d better have,” John said in ominous tones. “If he tries to interfere in any more of our investigations, I may not be able to restrain myself from strangling, bludgeoning, stabbing, or shooting him.”

Sabina rolled her eyes and maintained an eloquent silence.