The Bughouse Affair

24

SABINA

Sabina seemed to be spending much of her time lately prowling about residential carriageways. Just one of the many exciting and glamorous aspects of detective work. Another being afternoon tea with a candidate for a mental institution.

The carriageway that bisected the block behind the Costain home was completely deserted. This genteel South Park neighborhood had seemed almost slumbrous as she made her way back to it from the tea shop. None of the few people abroad had paid any attention to her, and no one had been about when she entered the carriageway. Trees and shrubbery flanked the passage, making it unlikely that prying eyes such as those of Clara Wilds’s neighbor, Mrs. Marcus, would follow her progress along its grassy expanse. Nonetheless she made her way slowly, as if she were a resident out for a casual late-afternoon stroll.

When she neared the halfway point in the block, the rear fence and outbuildings of the Costain property took shape ahead. Vegetation was her ally here, too, a pair of gnarled old walnut trees screening the roadbed from the house. John had mentioned the carriage barn at the rear, which meant the Costains owned equipage and an animal to draw it. It seemed probable that Penelope Costain had driven herself to the funeral parlor, and since there’d been no sign of a rig on the street after her return home, it was also probable that she’d put it and the horse away.

The barn was of the small, utilitarian type painted a peeling white, adequate for the housing of a single carriage and the supplies necessary for its maintenance. A narrow shedlike attachment and a small, empty corral stretched along one side.

The double-sided gate that gave access to both the property and the barn was closed and latched, but it hadn’t been locked last night, John had told her, and it wasn’t locked now. Sabina paused with her hand on the latch to satisfy herself that she was still alone and unobserved, then opened one half of the gate and slipped inside, closing it again behind her.

The barn was set a few feet beyond the gate. She hurried across to the closed double doors, which also proved to be unlocked. The half she opened creaked and squeaked, but not loudly enough for the sounds to carry. It also bound up slightly at the bottom so that she had to tug and lift to open it.

Semidarkness redolent with the odors of hay and manure folded around her as she stepped inside. She left the door half ajar and took out the old flint lighter she carried for such occasions as this. When she snapped it alight, its pale flame showed her the buggy that filled most of the interior, and the horse munching hay in a side stall.

The rig’s body, traces, and calash folding top were all black, showing signs of wear and neglect. But on closer inspection she saw that it was a Studebaker and that its wheel spokes were unpainted. The horse placidly munching hay in its stall was a chestnut roan.

Drat!

Sabina hesitated, then on impulse leaned inside the buggy. There was nothing on or under the wide leather seat, or on the floorboards. She ran her fingers into the crack between the two seat cushions, felt a thin piece of metal wedged there. At first she thought it was a coin, but the lighter flame revealed it to be made of brass-a token of some sort. Slot-machine token? Slot machines proliferated in San Francisco, and while tokens had not yet come into widespread use, there was a move afoot by the city fathers to disallow legal tender in the machines.

But no, this wasn’t a slot-machine token. Nor the kind that had such phrases as “good for one drink” or “good for 5c in trade” etched into the metal. One side bore a triangle with HOFC in its center; the other side was blank. The initials were unfamiliar to her. A meaningless discovery, probably, but Sabina slipped it into her pocket anyway. John might know what it signified and from where it had come.

Sabina returned to the door half, doused her light before opening it and stepping out. At the outer gate, she peered into the carriageway to make sure it was still empty before going through, closing up, and resuming her saunter to the end of the block.

So much for the notion that the buggy parked behind Clara Wilds’s rooming house had belonged to and been driven by Andrew Costain, and that Costain was her murderer. It had been a stab in the dark in the first place. What motive could Costain have had for killing the pickpocket? Surely not the recovery of the silver money clip.

Now Sabina was back to where she’d been before, with no leads except for Dodger Brown.

Or was she?

The door was locked when she arrived at the agency. She was in the process of using her key when footsteps sounded on the stairs behind her and a somewhat breathless voice called out, “Mrs. Carpenter-finally.”

The voice belonged to Jackson Pollard, Great Western Insurance’s chief claims adjustor. It was after five o’clock and he had apparently just left his office for the day; he wore a greatcoat and top hat, carried his gold lion’s head cane, and approached her in a cloud of the bay rum he liberally applied for his evenings’ excursions along the Cocktail Route. Either that, or as John had once surmised, Pollard had a wife or mistress who liked her man to smell as if dunked in a vat of the stuff.

Nonetheless, his stop-off here was a mild surprise. Usually he conducted his business with Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional Detective Services, by telephone or summons to his office. One look at his frowning visage and pinched mouth told Sabina he was not the bearer of good tidings. Pollard confirmed it in irritable tones as soon as they were inside.

“I thought it was you I saw entering the building just now,” he said. “I was beginning to think you had closed for business today.”

“Why would you think that?”

“Why indeed. I expected a report, in person or at least by telephone of last night’s catastrophe, and I’ve had neither. I telephoned three times.”

“I’ve been out all day,” Sabina said. “John didn’t come by to see you? He told me he intended to.”

“Well, he didn’t.”

“Then he must have a good reason.” Which wasn’t necessarily true; he might have simply avoided the inevitable unpleasantness-a mistake in judgment, if that was the case.

“He had better have a good reason.” Pollard had been to the agency before, but he looked about the office now with an air of disapproval, as if seeing it for the first time and finding it lacking in some way. He was a fussy, sometimes crusty little man with sparse sandy hair and sideburns that resembled miniature tumbleweeds. His faded blue eyes, magnified by thick-lensed spectacles, seemed about to pop from their sockets when he was as upset as he was now. “When did you see him last?”

“Early this morning.”

“And you haven’t seen him since?”

“No.” Nor had John returned to the office in her absence. If he had, he would have left a message, as was their long-established practice when investigations were in progress. The top of her desk was bare of any such note.

“And where was he bound when he left, if not to Great Western?” Pollard asked.

“To continue his investigation into the burglaries, naturally.”

“Still proceeding blind, I suppose.”

“As a matter of fact, John believes he knows the identity of the burglar and expects to have him in custody shortly.”

The little claims adjustor was neither mollified nor reassured. “He expected to have the man in custody at the Truesdales’, and should have but didn’t.”

“Through no fault of his.”

“And I suppose what happened at the Costain home was no fault of his, either?”

“It was not. If the newspapers implied it was, they’re quite wrong.”

“I did not find out about it from the newspapers, any more than from you or your partner. Do you realize how embarrassing it can be to be caught completely unawares by news such as this?”

“Yes, and you have my apologies. It wasn’t the police who told you?”

“Mrs. Penelope Costain. She came to see me this afternoon.”

Sabina raised an eyebrow. “For what reason, so soon after her husband’s death?”

“For what reason do you suppose? To file a pair of claims, one of which we’ll have to honor even if the burglar is caught and the stolen valuables recovered.”

“I assume one is for the assessed value of her stolen jewelry. And the other?”

“Life insurance policy. Double indemnity. Fifty thousand dollars.”

Sabina managed to conceal a wince.

“According to Mrs. Costain,” Pollard said, “Quincannon and a British detective named Holmes were at her home last night supposedly guarding it against invasion. The widow said this man Holmes was in the employ of your agency. I didn’t authorize any such extra expense.”

“And none will be charged to you.” Fortunately Pollard seemed not to have read any of the real Holmes’s investigations as recorded by Dr. Watson, or Ambrose Bierce’s diatribe in the Examiner. If he had, he’d be even more up in arms. “Andrew Costain also retained John to guard his home, a task which required a second man for the surveillance.”

“Two detectives, and neither able to prevent blatant murder and robbery.”

“It happened under peculiar and still unexplained circumstances no detective could have foreseen.”

“So you say. Mrs. Costain seems to think otherwise.”

“Mrs. Costain is hardly an impartial witness.”

“Perhaps not. But if I find out she’s correct, your agency will get no more business from Great Western Insurance.”

“You needn’t threaten me, Mr. Pollard. John and I have always maintained cordial relations with you, and we’ve never yet failed to carry out an assignment to mutual satisfaction.”

“Never before has so much been at stake. Don’t forget, Mrs. Carpenter-even if Quincannon recovers most or all of the stolen goods, which is by no means a certainty, Great Western is still liable for the fifty-thousand-dollar life insurance claim.”

He wished her a gruff good day and departed.

Sabina opened the window behind her desk, letting in fresh air to dissipate the too-sweet odor Pollard had left behind him. The clock on the office wall read 5:20. John might or might not return to the office at this late hour; she decided she would wait until six o’clock before closing up. There was much to be discussed with him, not the least of which was the would-be Sherlock’s claim to have solved the Costain mystery.

Fanciful nonsense, of course … wasn’t it? John would surely think so, but she couldn’t quite make up her mind whether the Englishman was a buffoon or in fact had some of the same ratiocinative brilliance as the genuine Baker Street sleuth.