Oddments

The Highbinders A Carpenter & Quincannon Story

In his twenty years as a detective, Quincannon had visited a great many strange and sinister places, but this May night was his first time in an opium den. And not just one — four of them, so far. Four too many.

Blind Annie’s Cellar, this one was called. Another of the reputed three hundred such resorts that infested the dark heart of San Francisco’s Chinatown. Located in Ross Alley, it was a foul-smelling cave full of scurrying cats and yellowish-blue smoke that hung in ribbons and layers. The smoke seemed to move lumpily, limp at the ends; its thick-sweet odor, not unlike that of burning orange peel, turned Quincannon’s seldom-tender stomach for the fourth straight time.

“The gentleman want to smoke?”

The question came in a scratchy singsong from a rag-encased crone seated on a mat just inside the door. On her lap was a tray laden with nickels — the price of admittance. Quincannon said, “No, I’m looking for someone,” and added a coin to the litter on the tray. The old woman nodded and grinned, revealing toothless gums. It was a statement, he thought sourly, she had heard a hundred times before. Blind Annie’s, like the other three he’d entered, was a democratic resort that catered to Caucasian “dude fiends” — well-dressed ladies and diamond-studded gentlemen — as well as to Chinese coolies with twenty-cent yenshee habits. Concerned friends and relatives would come looking whenever one of these casual, and in many cases not so casual, hop-smokers failed to return at an appointed time.

Quincannon moved deeper into the lamp-streaked gloom. Tiers of bunks lined both walls, each outfitted with nut-oil lamp, needle, pipe, bowl, and supply of ah pin yin. All of the bunks in the nearest tier were occupied. Most smokers lay still, carried to sticky slumber by the black stuff in their pipes. Only one was Caucasian, a man who lay propped on one elbow, smiling fatuously as he held a lychee-nut shell of opium over the flame of his lamp. It made a spluttering, hissing noise as it cooked. Quincannon stepped close enough to determine that the man wasn’t James Scarlett, then turned toward the far side of the den.

And there, finally, he found his quarry.

The young attorney lay motionless on one of the lower bunks at the rear, his lips shaping words as if he were chanting some song to himself. Quincannon shook him, slapped his face. No response. Scarlett was a serious addict; he regularly “swallowed a cloud and puffed out fog,” as the Chinese said, and escaped for hours, sometimes days, deep inside his pipe dreams.

“You’re a blasted fool, all right,” Quincannon told the deaf ears. “This is the last section of the city you should’ve ventured into on this night. It’s a wonder you’re not dead already.” He took a grip on the attorney’s rumpled frock coat, hauled him around and off the bunk. There was no protest as he hoisted the slender body over his shoulder.

He was halfway to the door with his burden when his foot struck one of the darting cats. It yowled and clawed at his leg, pitching him off balance. He reeled, cursing, against one of the bunks, dislodged a lamp from its edge; the glass chimney shattered on impact, splashing oil and wick onto the filthy floor matting. The flame that sprouted was thin, shaky; the lack of oxygen in the room kept it from flaring high and spreading. Quincannon stamped out the meager fire and then strained over at the waist, righted the lamp with his free hand. When he stood straight again he heard someone giggle, someone else begin to sing in a low tone. None of the pipers whose eyes were still open paid him the slightest attention. Neither did the smiling crone by the door.

He shifted Scarlett’s inert weight on his shoulder. “Opium fiends, tong rivalry, body snatching,” he muttered as he staggered past the hag. “Bah, what a case!”

Outside he paused to breathe deeply several times. The cold night air cleared his lungs of the ahpin yin smoke and restored his equilibrium. It also roused Scarlett somewhat from his stupor. He stirred, mumbled incoherent words, but his body remained flaccid in Quincannon’s grasp.

Nearby, a streetlamp cast a feeble puddle of light; farther down Ross Alley, toward Jackson Street where the hired buggy and driver waited, a few strings of paper lanterns and the glowing brazier of a lone sidewalk food seller opened small holes in the darkness. It was late enough, nearing midnight, so that few pedestrians were abroad. Not many law-abiding Chinese ventured out at this hour. Nor had in the past fifteen years, since the rise of the murderous tongs in the early eighties. The Quarter’s nights belonged to the hop-smokers and fan-tan gamblers, the slave-girl prostitutes ludicrously called “flower willows,” and the boo how doy, the tongs’ paid hatchet men.

Quincannon carried his burden toward Jackson, his footsteps echoing on the rough cobbles. James Scarlett mumbled again, close enough to Quincannon’s ear and with enough lucidity for the words — and the low, fearful tone in which he uttered them — to be distinguishable.

“Fowler Alley,” he said.

“What’s that, my lad?”

A moan. Then something that might have been “blue shadow.”

“Not out here tonight,” Quincannon grumbled. “They’re all black as the devil’s fundament.”

Ahead he saw the buggy’s driver hunched fretfully on the seat, one hand holding the horse’s reins and the other tucked inside his coat, doubtless resting on the handle of a revolver. Quincannon had had to pay him handsomely for this night’s work — too handsomely to suit his thrifty Scots nature, even though he would see to it that Mrs. James Scarlett paid the expense. If it had not been for the fact that highbinders almost never preyed on Caucasians, even a pile of greenbacks wouldn’t have been enough to bring the driver into Chinatown at midnight.

Twenty feet from the corner, Quincannon passed the lone food seller huddled over his brazier. He glanced at the man, noted the black coolie blouse with its drooping sleeves, the long queue, the head bent and shadow-hidden beneath a black slouch hat surmounted by a red topknot. He shifted his gaze to the buggy again, took two more steps.

Coolie food sellers don’t wear slouch hats... one of the badges of the highbinder...

The sudden thought caused him to break stride and turn awkwardly under Scarlett’s weight, his hand groping beneath his coat for the holstered Navy Colt. The Chinese was already on his feet. From inside one sleeve he had drawn a long-barreled revolver; he aimed and fired before Quincannon could free his weapon.

The bullet struck the limp form of James Scarlett, made it jerk and slide free. The gunman fired twice more, loud reports in the close confines of the alley, but Quincannon was already falling sideways, his feet torn from under him by the attorney’s toppling weight. Both slugs missed in the darkness, one singing in ricochet off the cobbles.

Quincannon struggled out from under the tangle of Scarlett’s arms and legs. As he lurched to one knee he heard the retreating thud of the highbinder’s footfalls. Heard, too, the rattle and slap of harness leather and bit chains, the staccato beat of horse’s hooves as the buggy driver whipped out of harm’s way. The gunman was a dim figure racing diagonally across Jackson. By the time Quincannon gained his feet, the man had vanished into the black maw of Ragpickers’ Alley.

Fury drove Quincannon into giving chase even though he knew it was futile. Other narrow passages opened off Ragpickers’ — Bull Run, Butchers’ Alley with its clotted smells of poultry and fish. It was a maze made for the boo how doy; if he tried to navigate it in the dark, he was liable to become lost — or worse, leave himself wide open for ambush. The wisdom of this finally cooled his blood, slowed him to a halt ten rods into the lightless alleyway. He stood listening, breathing through his mouth. He could still hear the assassin’s footfalls, but they were directionless now, fading. Seconds later, they were gone.

Quickly he returned to Jackson Street. The thoroughfare was empty, the driver and his rig long away. Ross Alley appeared deserted, too, but he could feel eyes peering at him from behind curtains and glass. The highbinder’s brazier still burned; in its orange glow James Scarlett was a motionless bulk on the cobbles where he’d fallen. Quincannon went to one knee, probed with fingers that grew wet with blood. One bullet had entered the middle of the attorney’s back, shattering the spine and no doubt killing him instantly.

If the Kwong Dock tong was responsible for this, Quincannon thought grimly, war between them and the Hip Sing could erupt at any time. The theft of Bing Ah Kee’s corpse was bad enough, but the murder of a Hip Sing shyster — and a white man at that — was worse because of the strong threat of retaliation by police raiders and mobs of Barbary Coast and Tar-Flat toughs. All of Chinatown, in short, was a powder keg with a lighted fuse.

The Hall of Justice, an imposing gray stone pile at Kearney and Washington streets, was within stampeding distance of the Chinese Quarter. Quincannon had never felt comfortable inside the building. For one thing, he’d had a run-in or two with the city’s constabulary, who did not care to have their thunder stolen by a private investigator who was better at their job than they were. For another thing, police corruption had grown rampant in recent times. Just last year there had been a departmental shakeup in which several officers and Police Clerk William E. Hall were discharged. Chief Crowley claimed all the bad apples had been removed and the barrel was now clean, but Quincannon remained skeptical.

He hid his edginess from the other three men present in the chief’s office by carefully loading and lighting his favorite briar. One of the men he knew well enough, even grudgingly respected; this was Lieutenant William Price, head of the Chinatown “flying squad” that had been formed in an effort to control tong crime. He had mixed feelings about Crowley, and liked Sergeant Adam Gentry, Price’s assistant, not at all. Gentry was contentious and made no bones about his distaste for flycops.

Short and wiry, a rooster of a man in his gold-buttoned uniform, Gentry watched with a flinty gaze as Quincannon shook out the sulphur match. “Little Pete’s behind this, sure as hell. No one else in Chinatown would have the audacity to order the shooting of a white man.”

“So it would seem,” Quincannon allowed.

“Seem? That bloody devil controls every tong in the Quarter except the Hip Sing.”

This was an exaggeration. Fong Ching, alias F.C. Peters, alias Little Pete, was a powerful man, no question — a curious mix of East and West, honest and crooked. He ran several successful businesses, participated in both Chinatown and city politics, and was cultured enough to write Chinese stage operas, yet he ruled much of Chinatown crime with such cleverness that he had never been prosecuted. But his power was limited to a few sin-and-vice tongs. Most tongs were law-abiding, self-governing, and benevolent.

Quincannon said, “The Hip Sing is Pete’s strongest rival, I’ll grant you that.”

“Yes, and he’s not above starting a bloodbath in Chinatown to gain control of it. He’s a menace to white and yellow alike.”

“Not so bad as that,” Price said. “He already controls the blackmail, extortion, and slave-girl rackets, and the Hip Sing is no threat to him there. Gambling is their game, and under Bing Ah Kee there was never any serious trouble between them. That won’t change much under the new president, Mock Don Yuen, though it could if that sneaky son of his, Mock Quan, ever takes over.”

“Pete’s power-mad,” Gentry argued. “He wants the whole of Chinatown in his pocket.”

“But he’s not crazy. He might order the snatching of Bing’s remains — though even the Hip Sing aren’t convinced he’s behind that business, or there’d have been war declared already — but I can’t see him risking the public execution of a white man, not for any reason. He knows it’d bring us down on him and his highbinders with a vengeance. He’s too smart by half to allow that to happen.”

“I say he’s not. There’s not another man in that rat-hole of vice who’d dare to do it.”

Quincannon said, “Hidden forces at work, mayhap?”

“Not bloody likely.”

“No, it’s possible,” Price said. He ran a forefinger across his thick moustache. He was a big man, imposing in both bulk and countenance; he had a deserved reputation in Chinatown as the “American Terror,” the result of raiding parties he’d led into the Quarter’s dens of sin. “I’ve had a feeling that there’s more than meets the eye and ear in Chinatown these days. Yet we’ve learned nothing to corroborate it.”

“Well, I don’t care which way the wind is blowing over there,” the chief said. “I don’t like this damned shooting tonight.” Crowley was an overweight sixty, florid and pompous. Politics was his game; his policeman’s instincts were suspect, a failing which sometimes led him to rash judgment and action. “The boo how doy have always left Caucasians strictly alone. Scarlett’s murder sets a deadly precedent and I’m not going to stand by and do nothing about it.”

Gentry had lighted a cigar; he waved it for emphasis as he said, “Bully! Finish off Little Pete and his gang before he has more innocent citizens murdered, that’s what I say.”

“James Scarlett wasn’t innocent,” Price reminded him. “He sold his soul to the Hip Sing for opium, defended their hatchet men in court. And he had guilty knowledge of the theft of Bing’s corpse, possibly even a hand in the deed, according to what Quincannon has told us.”

“According to what Scarlett’s wife told my partner and me,” Quincannon corrected, “though she said nothing of an actual involvement in the body snatching. Only that he had knowledge of the crime and was in mortal fear of his life. Whatever he knew, he kept it to himself. He never spoke of Little Pete or the Kwong Dock to Mrs. Scarlett.”

“They’re guilty as sin, just the same,” Gentry said. “By God, the only way to ensure public safety is to send the flying squad out to the tong headquarters and Pete’s hangouts. Axes, hammers, and pistols will write their epitaphs in a hurry.”

“Not yet,” Price said. “Not without proof.”

“Well, then, why don’t we take the squad and find some? Evidence that Pete’s behind the killing. Evidence to point to the cold storage where old Bing’s bones are stashed.”

“Pete’s too clever to leave evidence for us to find.”

“He is, but maybe his highbinders aren’t.”

“The sergeant has a good point,” Chief Crowley said. “Will, take half a dozen men and go over those places with a fine-tooth comb. And don’t take any guff from Pete and his highbinders while you’re about it.”

“Just as you say, Chief.” Price turned to his assistant. “Round up an interpreter and assemble the men we’ll need.”

“Right away.” Gentry hurried from the office.

Quincannon asked through a cloud of pipe smoke, “What do you know of Fowler Alley, Lieutenant?”

“Fowler Alley? Why do you ask that?”

“Scarlett mumbled the name after I carried him out of Blind Annie’s. I wonder if it might have significance.”

“I can’t imagine how. Little Pete hangs out at his shoe factory on Bartlett Alley and Bartlett is where the Kwong Dock Company is located, too. I know there are no tongs headquartered in Fowler Alley. And no illegal activity.”

“Are any of the businesses there run by Pete?”

“Not to my knowledge. I’ll look into it.”

Quincannon nodded, thinking: Not before I do, I’ll wager. He got to his feet. “I’ll be going now, if you’ve no objection.”

Chief Crowley waved a hand. “We’ll notify you if you’re needed again.”

“Will you bring Mrs. Scarlett word of her husband’s death?”

“I’ll dispatch a man.” The Chief added wryly, “I imagine she’d rather not hear it from you, under the circumstances.”

Quincannon said, “I expect not,” between his teeth and took his leave.

The law offices of James Scarlett were on the southern fringe of Chinatown, less than half a mile from the Hall of Justice. Quincannon had visited the dingy, two-story building earlier in the day, after leaving Andrea Scarlett with Sabina. The place had been dark and locked up tight then; the same was true when he arrived there a few minutes past midnight.

He paid the hansom driver at the corner, walked back through heavy shadows to the entranceway. Brooding the while, as he had in the cab, about the incident in Ross Alley. How had the gunman known enough to lie in ambush as he had? If he’d been following Scarlett, why not simply enter the opium resort and shoot him there? Witnesses were never a worry to highbinders. The other explanation was that it was Quincannon who had been followed, though it seemed impossible that anyone in Chinatown could know that Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional Detective Services, had been hired by Mrs. Scarlett to find and protect her husband.

Then there was the fact that the assassin had fired three shots, the last two of which had come perilously close to sending Quincannon to join his ancestors. Poor and hurried shooting caused by darkness? Or had he also been a target? Something about the gunman fretted him, too, something he could not quite put his finger on.

The whole business smacked of hidden motives, for a fact. And hidden dangers. He did not like to be made a pawn in any piece of intrigue. He liked it almost as little as being shot at, intentionally or otherwise, and failing at a job he had been retained to do. He meant to get to the bottom of it, with or without official sanction.

Few door latches had ever withstood his ministrations, and the one on James Scarlett’s building was no exception. Another attorney occupied the downstairs rooms; Quincannon climbed a creaky staircase to the second floor. The pebbled-glass door imprinted with the words J. H. Scarlett, Attorney-at-Law was not locked. This puzzled him slightly, though not for long.

Inside, he struck a sulphur match, found the gas outlet — the building was too old and shabby to have been wired for electricity — and lit the flame. Its pale glow showed him a dusty anteroom containing two desks whose bare surfaces indicated that it had been some while since they had been occupied by either law clerk or secretary. He proceeded through a doorway into Scarlett’s private sanctum.

His first impression was that the lawyer had been a remarkably untidy individual. A few seconds later he revised this opinion; the office had been searched in a hurried but rather thorough fashion. Papers littered the top of a large oak desk, the floor around it, and the floor under a bank of wooden file cases. Two of the file drawers were partly open. A wastebasket behind the desk had been overturned and its contents gone through. A shelf of law books showed signs of having been examined as well.

The fine hand of a highbinder? Possibly, though the methods used here were a good deal less destructive than those usually employed by the boo how doy.

The smell of must and mildew wrinkled his nostrils as he crossed to the desk, giving him to wonder just how much time Scarlett had spent in these premises. The office wanted a good airing, if not a match to purge it completely. Scowling, he sifted through the papers on and below the desk. They told him nothing except that almost all of Scarlett’s recent clients had been Chinese; none of the names was familiar and none of the addresses was on Fowler Alley. The desk drawers yielded even less of interest, and the slim accumulation of briefs, letters, and invoices in the file drawers was likewise unproductive. None bore any direct reference to either the Hip Sing or Kwong Dock tongs, or to Fong Ching under his own name or any of his known aliases.

The only interesting thing about the late Mr. Scarlett’s office, in fact, was the state in which Quincannon had found it. What had the previous intruder been searching for? And whatever it was, had he found it?

Sabina was already at her desk when he arrived at the Market Street offices of Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional Detective Services, at nine A.M. She looked bright and well-scrubbed, her glossy black hair piled high on her head and fastened with a jade barrette. As always, Quincannon’s hard heart softened and his pulses quickened at sight of her. A fine figure of a woman, Mrs. Sabina Carpenter. For a few seconds, as he shed his derby but not his Chesterfield, the wicked side of his imagination speculated once again on what that fine figure would look like divested of its skirt and jacket, shirtwaist and lacy undergarments...

She narrowed her eyes at him as he crossed the room. “Before we get down to business,” she said, “I’ll thank you to put my clothes back on.”

“Eh?” Sudden warmth crept out of Quincannon’s collar. “My dear Sabina! You can’t think that I—”

“I don’t think it, I know it. I know you, John Quincannon, far better than you think I do.”

He sighed. “Perhaps, though you often mistake my motives.”

“I doubt that. Was your sleepless night a reward of that lascivious mind of yours?”

“How did you know—”

“Bloodshot eyes in saggy pouches. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you had forsaken your temperance pledge.”

“Observant wench. No, it was neither Demon Rum nor impure thoughts nor my misunderstood affections for you that kept me awake most of the blasted night.”

“What, then?”

“The death of James Scarlett and the near death of your most obedient servant.”

The words startled her, though only someone who knew Sabina as he did would have been aware of it; her round face betrayed only the barest shadow of her surprise. “What happened, John?”

He told her in detail, including the things that bothered him about the incident and the speculations shared with the three police officers. The smooth skin of her forehead and around her generous mouth bore lines of concern when he finished.

“Bad business,” she said. “And bad for business, losing a man we were hired to protect to an assassin’s bullet. Not that you’re to be blamed, of course.”

“Of course,” Quincannon said sardonically. “But others will blame me. The only way to undo the damage is for me to find the scoundrel responsible before the police do.”

“Us to find him, you mean.”

“Us,” he agreed.

“I suppose it’s back to Chinatown for you.”

“It’s where the whole of the answer lies.”

“Fowler Alley?”

“If Scarlett’s mutterings were significant and not part of a hop dream.”

“You said he sounded frightened when he spoke the name. Opium dreams are seldom nightmares, John. Men and women use the stuff to escape from nightmares, real or imaginary.”

“True.”

“Scarlett’s other words — ‘blue shadow.’ A connection of some sort to Fowler Alley?”

“Possibly. I’m not sure but what I misheard him and the phrase only sounded like ‘blue shadow.’”

“Spoken in the same frightened tone?”

Quincannon cudgeled his memory. “I can’t be certain.”

“Well, our client may have some idea. While you’re in Chinatown, I’ll pay a call on her.”

“I was about to suggest that.” He didn’t add that this was a task he himself wished to avoid at all costs. Facing a female client whom he had failed would have embarrassed him mightily. The job required Sabina’s fine, tactful hand. “Ask her if she knows of any incriminating documents her husband might have had in his possession. And where he kept his private papers. If it wasn’t at his office, the mug who searched it before me may not have found what he was after.”

“I will. Who would the mug be, do you suppose, if not one of Little Pete’s highbinders?”

“I don’t say that it wasn’t a highbinder. Only that the job seemed to have a more professional touch than the hatchet man’s usual ham-fisted tactics.”

“Is there anything you can remember about the gunman?” Sabina asked. “It’s possible he was known to Mrs. Scarlett as well as her husband.”

“It was too dark and his hat pulled too low for a clear squint at his face. Average size, average height.” Quincannon scratched irritably at his freebooter’s whiskers. “Still, there was something odd about him...”

“Appearance? Movements? Did he say anything?”

“Not a word. Hell and damn! I can’t seem to dredge the thing up.”

“Let it be and it’ll come to you eventually.”

“Eventually may be too late.” Quincannon clamped his derby on his head, squarely, the way he always wore it when he was on an important mission. “Enough talk. It’s action I crave and action I’ll have.”

“Not too much of it, I hope. Shall we meet back here at one o’clock?”

“If I’m not here by then,” Quincannon said, “it’ll be because I’m somewhere with my hands around a highbinder’s throat.”

Fowler Alley was a typical Chinatown passage: narrow, crooked, packed with men and women mostly dressed in the black clothing of the lower-caste Chinese. Paper lanterns strung along rickety balconies and the glowing braziers of food sellers added the only color and light to a tunnel-like expanse made even gloomier by an overcast sky.

Quincannon, one of the few Caucasians among the throng, wandered along looking at storefronts and the upper floors of sagging firetraps roofed in tarpaper and gravel. Many of the second and third floors were private apartments, hidden from view behind dusty, curtained windows. Some of the business establishments were identifiable from their displayed wares: restaurants, herb shops, a clothiers, a vegetable market. Others, tucked away behind closed doors, darkened windows, and signs in inexplicable Chinese characters, remained a mystery.

Nothing in the alley aroused his suspicions or pricked his curiosity. There were no tong headquarters here, no opium resorts or fan-tan parlors or houses of ill repute; and nothing even remotely suggestive of blue shadows.

Quincannon retraced his steps through the passage, stopping the one other white man he saw and several Chinese. Did anyone know James Scarlett? The Caucasian was a dry-goods drummer on his second, and what he obviously hoped would be his last, visit to the Quarter; he had never heard of Scarlett, he said. All the Chinese either didn’t speak English or pretended they didn’t.

Fowler Alley lay open on both ends, debouching into other passages, but at least for the present, Quincannon thought sourly as he left it, it was a dead end.

The Hip Sing tong was headquartered on Waverly Place, once called Pike Street, one of Chinatown’s more notorious thoroughfares. Here, temples and fraternal buildings stood cheek by jowl with opium and gambling dens and the cribs of the flower willows. Last night, when Quincannon had started his hunt for James Scarlett, the passage had been mostly empty; by daylight it teemed with carts, wagons, buggies, half-starved dogs and cats, and human pedestrians. The noise level was high and constant, a shrill tide dominated by the lilting dialects of Canton, Shanghai, and the provinces of Old China.

Two doors down from the three-story tong building was the Four Families Temple, a building of equal height but with a much more ornate facade, its balconies carved and painted and decorated with pagoda cornices. On impulse Quincannon turned in through the entrance doors and proceeded to what was known as the Hall of Sorrows, where funeral services were conducted and the bodies of the high-born were laid out in their caskets for viewing. Candlelight flickered; the pungent odor of incense assailed him. The long room, deserted at the moment, was ceilinged with a massive scrolled wood carving covered in gold leaf, from which hung dozens of lanterns in pink and green, red and gold. At the far end was a pair of altars with a red prayer bench fronting one. Smaller altars on either side wore embroidered cloths on which fruit, flowers, candles, and joss urns had been arranged.

It was from here that the remains of Bing Ah Kee, venerable president of the Hip Sing Company, had disappeared two nights ago. The old man had died of natural causes and his corpse, after having been honored with a lavish funeral parade, had been returned to the temple for one last night; the next morning it was scheduled to be placed in storage to await passage to Bing’s ancestral home in Canton for burial. The thieves had removed the body from its coffin and made off with it sometime during the early morning hours — a particularly bold deed considering the close proximity of the Hip Sing building. Yet they had managed it unseen and unheard, leaving no clue as to their identity or purpose.

Body snatching was uncommon but not unheard of in Chinatown. When such ghoulishness did occur, tong rivalry was almost always the motivating factor — a fact which supported Sergeant Gentry’s contention that the disappearance of Bing Ah Kee’s husk was the work of Little Pete and the Kwong Dock. Yet stealing an enemy leader’s bones without openly claiming responsibility was a damned odd way of warmongering. The usual ploy was a series of assassinations of key figures in the rival tong by local or imported hatchet men.

Why, then, if Little Pete wanted all-out warfare with the Hip Sing, would he order the murder of a white attorney to shut his mouth, but not also order the deaths of Hip Sing highbinders and elders?

The odor of fish was strong in Quincannon’s nostrils as he left the temple. And the stench did not come from the fish market on the opposite side of the street.

The ground floor of the Hip Sing Company was a fraternal gathering place, open to the street; the two upper floors, where tong business was conducted, were closed off and would be well guarded. Quincannon entered freely, passed down a corridor into a large common room. Several black-garbed men, most of them elderly, were playing mah-jongg at a table at one end. Other men sat on cushions and benches, sipping tea, smoking, reading newspapers. A few cast wary glances at the fan kwei intruder, but most ignored him.

A middle-aged fellow, his skull completely bald except for a long, braided queue, approached him, bowed, and asked in halting English, “There is something the gentleman seeks?”

Quincannon said, “An audience with Mock Don Yuen,” and handed over one of his business cards.

“Please to wait here, honorable sir.” The Chinese bowed again, took the card away through a doorway covered by a worn silk tapestry.

Quincannon waited. No one paid him the slightest attention now. He was loading his pipe when the bald man returned and said, “You will follow me, please.”

They passed through the tapestried doorway, up a stairway so narrow Quincannon had to turn his body slightly as he ascended. Another man waited at the top, this one young, thickset, with a curved scar under one eye and both hands hidden inside the voluminous sleeves of his blouse. Highbinder on guard duty: those sleeves would conceal a revolver or knife or short, sharp hatchet, or possibly all three.

As the bald one retreated down the stairs, highbinder and “foreign devil” eyed one another impassively. Quincannon had no intention of relinquishing his Navy Colt; if any effort were made to search him, he would draw the weapon and take his chances. But the guard made no such attempt. In swift, gliding movements he turned and went sideways along a hallway, his gaze on Quincannon the whole while. At an open doorway at the far end, he stopped and stood as if at attention. When Quincannon entered the room beyond, the highbinder filled the doorway behind him as effectively as any panel of wood.

The chamber might have been an office in any building in San Francisco. There was a long, high desk, a safe, stools, a round table set with a tea service. The only Oriental touches were a red silk wall tapestry embroidered with threads of gold, a statue of Buddha, and an incense bowl that emitted a rich, spicy scent. Lamplight highlighted the face of the man standing behind the desk — a man of no more than thirty, slender, clean-shaven, his hair worn long but unqueued, western-style, his body encased in a robe of red brocaded silk that didn’t quite conceal the shirt and string tie underneath. On one corner of the desk lay a black slouch hat with a red topknot. Quincannon said, “You’re not Mock Don Yuen.”

“No, I am Mock Quan, his son.”

“I asked for an audience with your father.”

“My father is not here, Mr. Quincannon.” Mock Quan’s English was unaccented and precise. “I have been expecting you.”

“Have you now.”

“Your reputation is such that I knew you would come to ask questions about the unfortunate occurrence last night.”

“Questions which you’ll answer truthfully, of course.”

“Truth is supreme in the house of Hip Sing.”

“And what is the truth of James Scarlett’s death?”

“It was arranged by the Kwong Dock and their cowardly leader, Fong Ching. You must know this.”

Quincannon shrugged. “For what purpose?”

“Fong is vicious and unscrupulous and his hunger for power has never been sated. He hates and fears the Hip Sing, for we are stronger than any of the tongs under his yoke. He wishes to destroy the Hip Sing so he may reign as king of Chinatown.”

“He’s the king now, isn’t he?”

“No!” Mock Quan’s anger came like the sudden flare of a match. Almost as quickly it was extinguished, but not before Quincannon had a glimpse beneath the erudite mask. “He is a fat jackal in lion’s skin, the son of a turtle.”

That last revealed the depth of Mock Quan’s loathing for Little Pete; it was the bitterest of Chinese insults. Quincannon said, “Jackals feed on the dead. The dead such as Bing Ah Kee?”

“Oh yes, it is beyond question Fong Ching is responsible for that outrage as well.”

“What do you suppose was done with the body?”

Mock Quan made a slicing gesture with one slim hand. “Should the vessel of the honorable Bing Ah Kee have been destroyed, may Fong Ching suffer the death of a thousand cuts ten thousand times through eternity.”

“If the Hip Sing is so sure he’s responsible, why has nothing been done to retaliate?”

“Without proof of Fong Ching’s treachery, the decision of the council of elders was that the wisest course was to withhold a declaration of war.”

“Even after what happened to James Scarlett? His murder could be termed an act of open aggression.”

“Mr. Scarlett was neither Chinese nor a member of the Hip Sing Company, merely an employee.” Mock Quan took a pre-rolled cigarette from a box on his desk, fitted it into a carved ivory holder. “The council met again this morning. It was decided then to permit the American Terror, Lieutenant Price, and his raiders to punish Fong Ching and the Kwong Dock, thus to avoid the shedding of Hip Sing blood. This will be done soon.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“The police now have evidence of Fong Ching’s guilt.”

“Evidence?” Quincannon scowled. “What evidence?”

“The Kwong Dock highbinder who shot Mr. Scarlett was himself shot and killed early this morning, during a police raid on Fong Ching’s shoe factory. A letter was found on the kwei chan bearing the letterhead and signature of the esteemed attorney.”

“What kind of letter?”

“I do not know,” Mock Quan said. “I know only that the American Terror is preparing to lead other raids which will crush the life from the turtle’s offspring.”

Quincannon was silent for a time, while he digested this new information. If anything, it deepened the piscine odor of things. At length he asked, “Whose idea was it to leave the job to the police? Yours or your father’s?”

The question discomfited Mock Quan. His eyes narrowed; he exhaled smoke in a thin jet. “I am not privileged to sit on the council of elders.”

“No, but your father is. And I’ll wager you have his confidence as well as his ear, and that your powers of persuasion are considerable.”

“Such matters are of no concern to you.”

“They’re of great concern to me. I was nearly shot, too, in Ross Alley. And I’m not as convinced as the police that Little Pete is behind the death of James Scarlett or the disappearance of Bing Ah Kee’s remains.”

Mock Quan made an odd hissing sound with his lips, a Chinese expression of anger and contempt. There was less oil and more steel in his voice when he spoke again. “You would do well to bow to the superior intelligence of the police, Mr. Quincannon. Lest your blood stain a Chinatown alley after all.”

“I don’t like warnings, Mock Quan.”

“A humble Chinese warn a distinguished Occidental detective? They were merely words of caution and prudence.”

Quincannon’s smile was nothing more than a lip-stretch. He said, “I have no intention of leaving a single drop of my blood in Chinatown.”

“Then you would be wise not to venture here again after the cloak of night has fallen.” His smile was as specious as Quincannon’s. So was the invitation which followed: “Will you join me in a cup of excellent rose-petal tea before you leave?”

“Another time, perhaps.”

“Perhaps. Ho hang la — I hope you have a safe walk.” “Health and long life to you, too.”

As he made his way out of the building, Quincannon felt a definite lift in spirits. The briny aroma had grown so strong that now he had a very good idea of its source, its species, and its cause.

Your hat, Mock Quan, he thought with grim humor. In your blasted hat!

Sabina said, “Mrs. Scarlett has taken to her bed with grief and the comfort of a bottle of crème de menthe. It made questioning her difficult, to say the least.”

“Were you able to find out anything?”

“Little enough. Her husband, as far as she is aware, had no incriminating documents in his possession, nor does she know where he might have put such a document for safekeeping. And she has no recollection of his ever mentioning Fowler Alley in her presence.”

“I was afraid that would be the case.”

“Judging from your expression, your visit to Fowler Alley proved enlightening.”

“Not Fowler Alley; that piece of the puzzle is still elusive. My call at the Hip Sing Company.”

She raised an eyebrow. “You went there? I don’t see a puncture wound anywhere. No bullets fired or hatchets or knives thrown your way?”

“Bah. I’ve bearded fiercer lions in their dens than Mock Quan.”

“Who is Mock Quan?”

“The son of Mock Don Yuen, new leader of the tong. A sly gent with delusions of grandeur and a hunger for power as great as Little Pete’s. Unless I miss my guess, he is the murderer of James Scarlett and the near murderer of your devoted partner.”

Sabina’s other eyebrow arched even higher. “What led you to that conclusion?”

“His hat,” Quincannon said.

“His— Are you quite serious, John?”

“Never more so. The gunman outside Blind Annie’s Cellar wore a black slouch hat with a red what-do-you-call-it on top—”

“A mow-yung,” Sabina said.

He frowned. “How do you know that?”

“And why shouldn’t a woman know something you don’t? A mow-yung is a symbol of high caste in Chinese society.”

“That much I do know,” Quincannon growled. “Coolie food sellers don’t wear ’em and neither do the boo how doy. That’s what has been bothering me about the assassin from the first. He wasn’t a highbinder but an upper-class Chinese masquerading as one.”

“How do you know it was Mock Quan?”

“I don’t know it for sure. A hunch, a strong one. Mock Quan is ambitious, foolhardy, corrupt, and ruthless. He covets Little Pete’s empire in Chinatown. He as much as said so.”

“Why would he risk killing Scarlett himself?”

“If my hunch is correct, he’s working at cross-purposes to those of his father and the Hip Sing elders. It’s his plan to let Lieutenant Price and the flying squad finish off his enemies and then to take over Little Pete’s position as crime boss — with or without the blessings of his father and the tong. He has allies in the Hip Sing, certainly, but none he trusted enough to do the job on Scarlett. He’s the sort to have no qualms about committing cold-blooded murder.”

“For the dual purpose of stirring up the police and silencing Scarlett? Mock Quan is behind the body snatching, too, if you’re right.”

“I’d bet five gold eagles on it,” Quincannon agreed. “And another five he’s at least partly responsible for the letter of Scarlett’s found on the Kwong Dock highbinder who was killed by the police this morning.”

“That’s fresh news,” Sabina said. “Tell me.”

He told her.

“I wonder how Mock Quan could have managed such flummery as that?”

“I can think of one way.”

“Yes,” she said slowly, “so can I. But proving it may be difficult. The case against Mock Quan, too.”

“I know it. But there has to be a way to expose him before the kettle boils over. His plan is mad, but madder ones have succeeded and will again.” He began to pace the office. “If we only knew the significance of Fowler Alley... Did you manage to have a look around the Scarlett lodgings?”

Sabina nodded. “Scarlett kept a desk there, but it contained nothing revealing. I did learn one small item of interest from Mrs. Scarlett before she fell asleep. It answers one question, while posing another.”

“Yes?”

“She was followed when she came to see us yesterday. She intended to mention the fact but she was too upset about her husband.”

“Followed? Not by a Chinese?”

“No, a Caucasian. A stranger to her.”

“What did he look like?”

“She wasn’t able to get a clear look at him. A man in a blue suit was all the description she could provide.”

Quincannon muttered, “Blue shadow, eh?”

“Evidently. Another Caucasian on the Hip Sing payroll, one of Mock Quan’s allies. And the explanation of how Mock Quan was able to follow you on your rounds of the opium resorts.”

“Mmm.” Quincannon continued to pace for a time. Then, abruptly, he stopped and said, “Perhaps not such a small item of interest after all, my dear.”

“Have you thought of something?”

“Been bitten by another hunch is more like it.” He reached for his coat and derby.

“Where are you off to?”

“Scarlett’s law offices. My search last night was hasty and it’s possible I overlooked something of importance. Or rather, spent my time looking for the wrong thing.”

No one else had passed through the portal marked J. H. Scarlett, Attorney-at-Law since Quincannon’s nocturnal visit. Or if anyone had, it’d been without any further disturbance of the premises.

With a close curb on his impatience, he set about once more sifting through the lawyer’s papers. He examined each document carefully, some more than once. The hunch that had bitten him had plenty of teeth: One name kept reappearing in similar context, and the more he saw it, the more furiously his nimble brain clicked and whirred. When he stood at last from the desk, his smile and the profane oath he uttered through it had a wolfish satisfaction.

He was certain, now, that he knew most of what there was to know. The only piece of the game he didn’t have, in fact, was the one that had eluded him since last night: Fowler Alley.

A sharp, chill wind blew along the alley’s close confines. Litter swirled; pigtailed men and work-stooped women hurried on their errands, not half so many as there had been earlier. Quincannon sensed an urgency in their movements, an almost palpable tension in the air. Word had spread of the flying squad’s planned raids and the law-abiding were eager to be off the streets before dark.

Quincannon walked slowly, hands buried in the pockets of his Chesterfield, his shoulders hunched and his head swiveling left and right. The buildings in the first block, with their grimy windows and indecipherable calligraphy, told him no more than they had earlier. He entered the second block, frustration mounting in him again.

He was halfway along when he noticed a high-sided black wagon drawn up in front of some sort of business establishment. A small cluster of citizens stood watching something being loaded into the rear of the wagon. Quincannon moved closer. He was taller than most Chinese; he could see over the tops of the watchers’ heads as he neared. One clear look at the object being loaded and he fetched up in a sudden standstill.

Casket.

Hearse.

Undertaking parlor!

He turned swiftly,ran back on that side of the alley until he came to an opening between the buildings. A tunnel-like walkway brought him into a deeply rutted dirt passage that paralleled Fowler Alley. He counted buildings to the rear of the one that housed the undertaker’s. The door there was neither barred nor latched; he pushed it open with his left hand, drawing his Navy Colt with his right, and entered the gloomy corridor within.

The sickish odor of formaldehyde dilated his nostrils, set him to breathing through his mouth as he eased along the hall. From the front of the building the singsong of Chinese dialect came to him, but back here there was no sound.

The lantern-lit chamber into which he emerged was empty except for rows of coffins, most of them plain, a few of the lacquered teakwood favored by the high-born and the wealthy. A tapestried doorway opened to the right. Quincannon went there, pushed the covering aside.

Here was the embalming room, the source of the formaldehyde odor. He crossed it, past a metal table, an herb cabinet, another cabinet in which needles, razors, and other tools of the mortician’s trade gleamed, to where a row of three slender storage vaults were set into the wall. The first vault he opened was empty. The second contained the body of a very old Mandarin whose skin was so wrinkled he might have been mummified. Quincannon opened the third.

The body in this vault was also an old man’s, but one who had lived a much more pampered life. It was dressed in an intricately embroidered robe of gold silk; the cheeks had been powdered, the thin drooping moustaches trimmed; a prayer book was still clutched between the gnarled hands.

“Bing Ah Kee,” Quincannon said under his breath, “or I’m not the master detective I believe I am.”

He closed the vault, retraced his steps to the doorway, pushed the tapestry aside. And came face-to-face with a youngish individual wearing a stained leather apron over his blouse and pantaloons. The man let out a startled bleat and an oath or epithet that threatened to escalate into a full-fledged cry of alarm. As he turned to flee, voice just starting to rise, Quincannon tapped him with the barrel of his Navy at the spot where queue met scalp. Flight and cry both ended instantly.

Quincannon stepped over the fallen Chinese, hurried across the coffin room and into the rear corridor. Fortunately for him, he had the presence of mind to ease the outside door open and poke his head out for a look around, instead of rushing through. It saved him from having some tender and perhaps vital portion of his anatomy punctured by a bullet.

As it was, the gunman lying in wait in a nearby doorway fired too hastily; the slug thwacked into the wall several inches from Quincannon’s head, which he quickly jerked back inside. There were no more shots. He stood tensely, listening. Was that the slap of footfalls? He edged the door open again and poked his head out at a lower point than the first time.

Footfalls, indeed. The assassin was on the run. Quincannon straightened and stepped outside, but before he could trigger a shot the black-outfitted figure vanished into the walkway to Fowler Alley.

Mock Quan, of course, in his highbinder’s guise. The fact that he’d made this attempt at homicide in broad daylight was an indication of just how desperate Quincannon’s discovery had made him. So was the craven way he’d taken flight after his first shot missed its mark.

That was the difference between despots such as Little Pete and would-be despots such as Mock Quan, Quincannon mused. Both were rapacious and reckless, but the true tyrant was too arrogant to give himself up to panic. The would-be tyrant was far easier to bring down because his arrogance was no more than a thin membrane over a shell of cowardice.

When Quincannon arrived at the Hall of Justice he found Price, Gentry, and a dozen other men of the flying squad already preparing for the night’s assault on Chinatown. The basement assembly room was strewn with coils of rope, firemen’s axes, sledgehammers, artillery, and bulletproof vests similar to the coats of chain mail worn by the boo how doy.

He drew the lieutenant aside and did some fast talking, the gist of which was that he had information which would render the raids unnecessary. Fifteen minutes later he was once again seated in the chief’s office, holding court before the same three officers as on his previous visit. As he spoke, he noted that the expressions worn by the trio were more or less the same, too: Crowley’s stern and disapproving, Price’s intently thoughtful, Gentry’s hostile.

None of them commented until he finished and leaned back in his chair. Then each spoke in rapid succession.

Crowley: “That’s quite a tale, Quincannon.”

Gentry: “Hogwash, I say.”

Price: “Fact or fiction, we’ll find out soon enough. I want my own look inside that undertaking parlor.”

“What good will that do?” Gentry argued. “Even if Mock Quan is behind all that’s happened, old Bing’s bones will be long gone by the time we get there.”

“I think not, Sergeant,” Quincannon said. “Mock Quan likely has nowhere to move the body on short notice. And he won’t destroy it for the same reason he didn’t before — fear of the wrath of the gods and all of Chinatown. Even if he were able to remove the body, there are bound to be ties between him and the mortician. Put pressure on that party and his terror of tong reprisal will bring out the truth. I’ll warrant the whole house of cards can be collapsed around Mock Quan in a few hours, and that he knows it as well as I do. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that he has already left the city — on the run ever since his bullet missed my head.”

“Nor would I, if you’re right,” Price said. “And I’m beginning to believe you are.”

The chief leaned forward. “You really think Mock Quan is capable of plotting such a scheme, Will?”

“I wouldn’t have until now. He’s sneaky and ruthless, yes, but not half so clever as Little Pete. Still...”

“The plan wasn’t his alone,” Quincannon said. “He had help in its devising.”

“Help? Help from whom?”

“A blue shadow.”

“What the devil are you talking about?”

“James Scarlett said two things before he was killed. One was ‘Fowler Alley’; the other was ‘blue shadow.’ And the truth is, he was as afraid of a blue shadow as he was of Mock Quan. His guilty knowledge wasn’t only of the body snatching, but of the identity of Mock Quan’s partner — the man who followed Scarlett’s wife to my offices yesterday and who arranged for Mock Quan to follow me in Chinatown last night.”

“What partner?” Chief Crowley demanded. “What does blue shadow mean?”

“It means a shadowy person in blue,” Quincannon said. “Not a plain blue suit, as the partner wore yesterday, but a blue uniform — a policeman’s uniform.” He paused dramatically. “One of the policemen in this room is Mock Quan’s accomplice.”

All three officers came to their feet as one. Gentry aimed a quivering forefinger as if it were the barrel of his sidearm. “Preposterous nonsense! How dare you accuse one of us—”

“You, Sergeant. I’m accusing you.”

The smoky air fairly crackled. Price and Crowley were both staring at Gentry; the sergeant’s eyes threw sparks at Quincannon. The cords in the short man’s neck bulged. His color was a shade less purple than an eggplant’s.

“It’s a dirty lie!” he shouted.

“Cold, hard fact.”

Price said with contained fury, “Can you prove this allegation, Quincannon?”

“I can, to your satisfaction. After I left here last night, I went to James Scarlett’s law offices. They had already been searched sometime earlier, likely soon after Mrs. Scarlett visited my offices. At first I believed the job was done by one of the highbinders, hunting any incriminating evidence Scarlett may have had in his possession. But that wasn’t the case. The search hadn’t the stamp of the tong man; it was much more professionally conducted, as a policeman goes about such a frisk. Gentry’s work, gentlemen.”

“For the same reason?”

“More probably to look for evidence of his conspiracy with Mock Quan. If there was any such evidence, Gentry made off with it. He also made off with a letter written on Scarlett’s stationery and signed by the attorney — the same letter you found on the Kwong Dock highbinder who was killed last night. Killed by Gentry, wasn’t he? And the letter found by Gentry afterward?”

“Yes, by God. Right on both counts.”

“He tried to put a knife in me!” Gentry cried. “You saw him, Lieutenant—”

“I saw nothing of the kind. I took your word for it.”

“A clever attempt to tighten the frame against Little Pete,” Quincannon said. “As was Gentry’s constant urging of you and Chief Crowley to crush Pete and the Kwong Dock.”

“Lies! Don’t listen to him—”

The other two officers ignored him. Price said, “Go on, Quincannon.”

“When Gentry searched Scarlett’s offices he carried off any direct evidence he may have found, as I said. But he failed to notice indirect evidence just as damning. Scarlett’s legal records indicate the sergeant was in the pay of the Hip Sing, just as Scarlett himself was, long before Gentry and Mock Quan cooked up their takeover scheme. He was mixed up in nearly all of the cases in which Scarlett successfully defended a Hip Sing member. In some, his testimony — false or distorted — resulted in acquittal. In others, it’s plain that he suppressed evidence or suborned perjury or both.”

Gentry started toward Quincannon with murder in his eye. “If there are any such lies in Scarlett’s records, you put them there, you damned flycop! You’re the one trying to pull a frame—”

Price stepped in front of him. “Stand where you are, Sergeant,” he said in a voice that brooked no disobedience.

Quincannon went on, “Another piece of proof: Last night, if you recall, Gentry suggested taking the flying squad to find evidence of Little Pete’s guilt in Scarlett’s death — the bogus evidence he later planted himself. He also said, ‘Evidence to point to the cold storage where old Bing’s bones are stashed.’ Yet for all any of us knew at that point, the body might have been burned, or buried, or weighted and cast into the Bay, or had any of a dozen other things done with it or to it. Why would he use the specific term ‘cold storage’ unless he knew that was what had been done with old Bing’s remains?”

Gentry called him a name and tried once again to mount a charge. The lieutenant shoved him back, nonetoo gently.

“And if all that isn’t sufficient validation of his duplicity,” Quincannon concluded, “there is Mrs. Scarlett. She had a good look at the man who followed her yesterday and can easily identify him.” A bald lie, this, but an effective capper nonetheless. “Gentry had no official reason to be following the woman, did he, Lieutenant?”

“No,” Price said darkly, “he didn’t.”

The chief stalked around his desk and fixed Gentry with a gimlet eye. “A damned highbinder no better than Little Pete or Mock Quan — is that what you are, Gentry?”

“No! No, I swear—”

“Because if so I’ll see your mangy hide strung from the highest flagpole in the city.”

Gentry shook his head, his eyes rolling, sweat shining on his forehead and cheeks. He was still wagging his head as Quincannon judiciously slipped out and went to find a quiet corner where he could smoke his pipe and enjoy his vindication.

“Gentry’s shell was no harder to crack than a Dungeness crab’s,” he told Sabina a while later. “It took Crowley and Price less than fifteen minutes to break him wide open.”

“No doubt with the aid of some gentle persuasion.”

“Have you ever known the blue shadows to use another kind?”

She laughed. “What was his motive? Power and greed, the same as Mock Quan’s?”

“Those, and severe gambling losses. Which was why he sold himself to the Hip Sing in the first place. It seems the sergeant has a fondness for roulette and fan-tan, and little skill at any game of chance.”

“Well, I must say you’ve plenty of skill at your particular game.”

“I have, haven’t I?”

“Exceeded only by your modesty,” Sabina said. “Still, it’s thanks to you that the crisis in Chinatown has been averted.”

“For the time being. Until another, smarter Mock Quan emerges or something or someone else lights the fuse. Mark my words — one of these days, the whole Quarter will go up in flames.”

“You may be right. In any event, this is one case it will be a relief, if not a pleasure, to mark closed. We’ll waive Mrs. Scarlett’s fee, of course. I’ll post a letter to her tomorrow — Why are you looking at me that way?”

Quincannon was aghast. He said, “Waive her fee?”

“It’s the least we can do for the poor woman.”

“Sabina, have you forgotten that I was shot at twice and almost killed? As well as made to trek through low Chinatown alleys, prowl opium dens, and invade an undertaking parlor in search of a snatched corpse?”

“I haven’t forgotten.”

“Well, then? All of that, not to mention a near tarnish on our fine reputation as detectives, for not so much as a copper cent?”

“I’m afraid so, my erstwhile Scot. It’s the proper thing to do and you know it.”

“Bah. I know nothing of the kind.”

Her expression softened. After a silence during which she seemed to be doing a bit of weighing and balancing, she said, “I suppose you should have one small reward, at least.”

“Yes? And what would that be?”

“An evening out with me, if you like. Dinner at the Palace, then a performance of Gilbert and Sullivan’s new opera at the Tivoli Theater. I’ve been wanting to see Patience since it opened.”

Quincannon’s momentary gloom evaporated as swiftly as an ice cube in a furnace. Smiling jauntily, he said, “And after the performance?”

“You may escort me to my flat.”

“And after that?”

Sabina sighed. “You never give up, do you, John Quincannon?”

“Never. For my intentions are honorable, my passions sweet and pure. No, never, as long as a breath remains in my body.”

The word Sabina uttered in response to that was heartfelt and decidedly unladylike.