The Bughouse Affair

22

SABINA

Inside the house Penelope Costain’s voice said angrily, “And just what did you expect to find in my home, Mr. Holmes? The police went over every inch of the premises last night.”

“Clues to the unfortunate events that took place here.”

“And you found none that the police overlooked, I’m sure. If you’ve disturbed or taken anything, I’ll have you arrested.”

“Tut, tut. Nothing has been disturbed or removed.”

“I should have you arrested for trespassing anyway, but I won’t if you leave at once.”

“As you wish, madam. Au revoir.”

Footsteps sounded inside. Sabina had just enough time to back down onto the path before the door opened and the cape-and-deerstalker Englishman emerged, his blackthorn walking stick in hand. He hesitated when he spied her, and glanced behind him. The door remained closed, Mrs. Costain still inside.

Holmes bowed as he joined Sabina. There was a smudge of dirt on one of his cheeks, as if he had spent part of his time inside crawling around in dark corners or a dusty attic. “My dear Mrs. Carpenter. An unexpected pleasure. May I ask what brings you here?”

“I’ve come to extend my condolences to the widow.”

“Detective business as well, perchance?”

“Perhaps. Though not of the same sort you’ve been indulging in.”

“Ah, you overheard my conversation with Mrs. Costain.”

“Part of it. I’ll thank you to cease claiming to be what you’re not-an authorized employee of the Carpenter and Quincannon agency.”

“My apologies, dear lady, for the small deception. But it was in a good cause, I assure you.”

“Yes? Did you learn something my partner and I should know?”

Holmes’s smile was crafty. Instead of answering her question, he said, “It’s almost teatime. On my way here I noticed a tea shop around the corner on Federal Street. Would you do me the honor of joining me there after you’ve finished speaking to Mrs. Costain?”

“I have no time for social niceties, Mr. Holmes.”

“You might find it worthwhile nonetheless,” he said. He bowed again and sauntered off, the ferrule of his stick tapping rhythmically.

Sabina watched after him for a few seconds, then returned to her former place at the front door. She had to move the funeral wreath aside in order to lift the heavy brass knocker.

The door opened abruptly and there appeared a pale, wrathful face under a black hat with a drawn-up veil, her prominent chin outthrust. “Now what do you-? Oh. I thought you were someone else.” The woman’s expression modulated into a frown. “I don’t know you. What do you want?”

“A few minutes of your time. My name is Sabina Carpenter.”

“Carpenter? Of the detective agency?”

“Yes.”

Penelope Costain hesitated. “I shouldn’t be speaking to you at all. If your partner and that fool Holmes had done their jobs properly, my husband would still be alive.”

“Please don’t blame Mr. Quincannon for what happened to your husband. If it had been humanly possible for him to have prevented it, he would have done so.”

“So you say.”

“May I come in?”

“I’ve just returned from making funeral arrangements. I’m really quite tired.”

“I won’t keep you long.”

“… Oh, very well.”

The widow’s mourning attire was a rather inappropriate black taffeta dress that rustled and crackled from static electricity as she ushered Sabina into an underheated and overdecorated parlor. Flowers and ruffles, statues of shepherds and shepherdesses, a hideous ormolu clock on the mantel. Antimacassars, Faberge eggs, ornately painted plates on a wall rail. Life-size china dogs beside every chair, multicolored glass baskets holding mints and candies. An empty gilt canary cage. And over it all, a patina of dust as if the room hadn’t had a proper cleaning in some while. There was even a spiderweb between two of the ornate plates.

A gauche display of wealth that had been neglected-and plundered a bit, judging from the spaces where more of the ostentatious clutter had once been displayed. How could people live in such surroundings?

Mrs. Costain stood stiffly, her head cocked to one side in an oddly birdlike fashion, her short dark hair touching the high collar of her dress. Eyes like the points of arrowheads jabbed at Sabina as she said, “Well, Mrs. Carpenter? Why are you here?”

“First, to offer my condolences.”

“Thank you.”

“And I have something of your husband’s that I thought you might wish to have.”

“Of Andrew’s? What might that be?”

Sabina produced and handed over the silver money clip. Penelope Costain turned it over in her hand. As her fingers traced the intricate design, she winced slightly as if struck by a painful memory.

“Where did you get this?”

“From a pickpocket I was hired to apprehend.”

“A pickpocket. I see. And did you apprehend him?”

“Her.”

“A woman? Well, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.”

“She was killed yesterday by an unknown assailant.”

“Deservedly, I’m sure. You’ll pardon my callousness, but I have no sympathy for such creatures. I would not be unhappy to hear that the man who shot my husband has also been killed.”

“Understandably so. You did know that the money clip was stolen from your husband?”

“He mentioned the fact, yes.”

“When and where did it happen?”

“A few days ago, I believe. Near the Palace Hotel after Andrew left his office.”

Another of Clara Wilds’s random victims, then, on her prowls along the Cocktail Route?

“Did he say how much cash he carried in the clip?”

“A few banknotes, no more than thirty dollars. He was more upset at losing the clip than the money. That, and the fact that the pickpocket jabbed him with a sharp object just before she struck.”

Sabina saw no need to reveal what the object was. “Was anything else stolen besides the clip and banknotes?”

“No.”

“You’re sure?”

“Andrew would have mentioned it if there had been. Why are you asking all these questions, Mrs. Carpenter? The pocket-picking incident is no longer of any importance. My husband has been cruelly murdered. Finding the man responsible is all that matters now.”

“Of course. My partner is engaged in that very activity. In fact, he may already have accomplished it.”

“He knows the identity of the burglar?”

“He believes so.”

“But he’s not sure?”

“He won’t be until the man is in custody.”

“Have the police been informed?”

“They may have been by now. You needn’t worry, Mrs. Costain. Your husband’s murderer will not escape punishment, whether he’s the man Mr. Quincannon is pursuing or not.”

“That is of little comfort to me at the moment,” Penelope Costain said. Her head still cocked in that birdlike way, she made discomfited movements that caused the black taffeta to rustle and crackle again; her patience seemed to have worn thin. “Is there anything else?”

“Not at present, no.”

“Then I trust you will be good enough to leave me alone to grieve in private.”

“The history of teatime,” Sherlock Holmes said sententiously, “extends back to the seventeenth century, when Queen Elizabeth granted the East India Company the right to establish worldwide trade routes. Originally the routes were used for the transport of spices, but by the time Charles the Second claimed the throne, tea had become the beverage of choice for English society. Now the custom has spread to your country, although of course it is not yet either properly refined or highly regarded here.”

Sabina sipped her jasmine tea and wished the Englishman would cease pontificating and get to the point of this meeting. The tea shop on Federal Street was small and maintained a pretense of gentility despite the fact that the South Park neighborhood was no longer fashionable among the city’s gentry. She and Holmes were seated at a window table. She was not overly fond of tea, preferring coffee or John’s favorite beverage, warm clam juice, but she could appreciate a national tradition that supported eating well and often. Or she could if she weren’t being bombarded with far more details of British habits and tastes than she cared to hear about.

“Naturally there are several variations on the tea service: cream tea, with scones, jam, and clotted cream; light tea, with scones and sweets; and full tea, with savories, scones, sweets, and dessert.” Holmes motioned with mild distaste at the plate of scones and strawberry jam on the table between them. “This fare wouldn’t do in England, you know. No, not at all. The scones and elderberry preserves served in the London shop near my rooms on Baker Street are far superior.”

Sabina thought the scones and jam tasted just fine, but she didn’t say so. It would only have encouraged him. Not that he needed any encouragement to continue his lecture on the subject of tea. He seemed oblivious to her impatience.

“Few people,” he prattled on, “realize how many different varieties of tea there are from all over the globe. Assam, chamomile, Lapsang souchong, chai, jasmine-though the variety served in this establishment is rather poor. Oolong from the Far East, Darjeeling from India. Ali shan, Ti kuan yin, Formosa. Oh, yes, many, many different varieties. Perhaps one day I shall write a monograph on tea. Yes, I believe I will. Of course other studies have already been done, but I would adopt a much more scholarly approach-”

“Mr. Holmes,” Sabina said. Her voice was tart; she had had enough tea, literally and figuratively.

“Yes, dear lady?”

“Why did you ask me to meet you here? Surely not to regale me with your esoteric knowledge.”

“Nor merely to socialize, I confess. Did your interview with Mrs. Costain prove illuminating?”

What she had or hadn’t learned from the widow was no concern of his. “Interview isn’t the proper term. As I told you earlier, my purpose in visiting her was to offer my condolences.”

“You also intimated a professional reason.”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, there was another. The return of an item that had been stolen from her husband.”

“Ah. And what would that item be?”

“A silver money clip.”

“Not one of the items taken last evening, surely?”

“No. Andrew Costain was the victim of a pickpocket a few days ago.”

“Was he indeed? And how did you come into possession of the money clip, pray tell?”

“I would rather not say.”

Holmes shrugged. “As you wish.”

Sabina said, “Now I’ll ask you a question. Did you learn anything from your snoop inside her home?”

“Snoop? I must say I find your quaint American vulgarisms amusing, though that one is not quite applicable.”

“What would you call unlawful entry into a private residence?”

“A continuance of my investigations, as you heard me tell Mrs. Costain.”

“You’re not authorized to investigate, as you heard me tell you.”

“Not officially, perhaps,” Holmes admitted, “but a bloodhound cannot be easily deterred when he has the scent. Particularly not when he has sighted his quarry.”

“And just what does that mean?”

His eyes gleamed-rather madly, it seemed to Sabina. “Le cas est resolu,” he said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“The case is solved.”

“Oh, it is?”

“Indubitably. I have deduced how Andrew Costain came to be murdered in his locked study, and how his assailant appeared to vanish from the premises after the crime was committed.”

“How clever of you. Explain, please.”

“You’ll pardon me, but not just yet. I prefer to make my discoveries known in the presence of the various concerned parties, including you and Mr. Quincannon, and I require time to properly prepare. I confess to a propensity, you see, for the dramatic presentation. If I had not chosen to become a detective, I might well have sought a career on the stage.”

Nonsense, Sabina thought. The man was a daft fraud, after all; the real, and now deceased, Sherlock Holmes would have been all too eager to trumpet his triumphs. Or would he? John was usually eager to trumpet his triumphs, but he, too, had been known to keep his deductions to himself until he was ready to unveil them in front of an audience.

She said, “When and where do you intend to make this presentation of yours?”

“Soon. As early as tomorrow morning, if arrangements can be made.”

Lord, he was infuriating! No wonder John disliked him so intensely, though it was John’s fault the fellow was involved. “Surely you understand that you have no right to withhold information in a robbery and homicide case.”

“From you and your partner? As you took pains to point out, I am no longer even marginally in your employ.”

“I meant from all concerned individuals. A man’s life has been cruelly snuffed out and his widow left grieving. Violent death is not a matter to be taken lightly.”

“I do not take it lightly,” he said. “On the other hand, I do not regard death in quite as serious a light as you Americans. We British prefer to face its inevitability in a matter-of-fact fashion, without undue emotion, and I might say less euphemism and pretense as well.”

Sabina said with temper, “There is no such thing as a national approach to either death or bereavement.”

“If that is your belief, I shan’t argue. However, there are many differences between our nations. We British…”

And he was off again on another monologue. Solidarity of British society despite problems with the Cornish, the Welsh, the Irish, the Scots, and the rebellious nature of the Empire’s colonies; traditions passed down over multiple generations; the lessons taught and learned through the long and glorious history of the British Isles.

Sabina thought she might shriek if he didn’t shut up. She forestalled the necessity by deliberately rattling her cup and saucer loudly enough to turn the head of the shop’s elderly proprietress.

Holmes blinked at her.

“You seem to have invited me here in order to pontificate and gloat,” she said. “I have better things to do with my time than to be subjected to either.”

“You misunderstand me, dear lady. My one and only purpose was to inform you that I have solved the case, thus saving you and your estimable partner the need to continue your investigations.”

“I’ll believe that when you’ve proven it to me.”

“And so I will-tomorrow.”

“When and where tomorrow?”

“The time and place have yet to be determined.”

Sabina had had enough of his sly, arrogant manner. She pushed her chair back and stood. “Thank you for the tea-and good-bye.”

The Englishman also stood. “The pleasure was all mine,” he said, and offered up another of his bows. “I shall let you know as soon as the necessary arrangements have been made. I guarantee neither you nor Mr. Quincannon will be disappointed.”

Sabina knew what John would have said to that, but she was too much a lady to ever use “Bah!” as an exit line. She took her leave in dignified, if bristling, silence.