The Bughouse Affair

25

QUINCANNON

The city prison, in the basement of the Hall of Justice at Kearney and Washington streets, was a busy place that testified to the amount of crime afoot in San Francisco. And to Quincannon’s experienced eye, there were just as many crooks on the outside of the foul-smelling cells as on the inside. Corrupt policemen, seedy lawyers haggling at the desk about releases for prisoners, rapacious fixers, deceitful bail bondsmen … more of those, in fact, than honest officers and men charged with felonies or with vagracy, public drunkenness, and other misdemeanors.

Quincannon delivered a sullen Dodger Brown there, and spent the better part of an unpleasant hour in conversation with a plainclothesman he knew slightly and a booking sergeant he neither knew nor wanted to know. He made no mention of Andrew Costain in his statement; it would only have complicated matters and subjected himself and Dodger Brown to the questioning of that lummox, Kleinhoffer, an ordeal to be avoided at all costs in the present circumstances.

He signed a complaint on behalf of the Great Western Insurance Company, and before leaving, made sure that the Dodger would remain locked in one of the cells until Jackson Pollard and Great Western officially formalized the charge. He knew better than to turn over any of the stolen goods, did not even mention that they were in his possession.

His first stop after leaving the Hall’s gray-stone pile was the insurance company’s offices on Merchant Street just east of the Montgomery Block, his intention being to report his success to Jackson Pollard. The claims adjustor, however, was not there. He had vacated the premises a short while before and was not expected to return.

Quincannon’s mood was still on the dour side when he entered the agency office. Sabina, seated at her desk, regarded him with her usual sharp eye. “Bad news, John?”

“Some bad, some good.”

“Mine as well. Dodger Brown?”

“Yaffled and in police custody. That’s the good news.” He sketched the day’s events for her, embellishing a bit on his brief skirmishes with Salty Jim O’Bannon on the oyster boat and the Dodger at Lettie Carew’s.

“You take too many risks, John,” she admonished him. “One of these days you’ll pay dearly for such recklessness-just as your father and my husband did.”

He waved that away. “I intend to die in bed at the age of ninety,” he said. “And not alone.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if either boast turned out to be true.” Her generous mouth quirked slightly at the corners. “You had no difficulty finding your way around the Fiddle Dee Dee, I’m sure.”

“Meaning what?”

“Don’t tell me you’ve never been in a parlor house before.”

“Only in the performance of my duties,” he lied.

“If that’s so, I pity the city’s maidens.”

“I have no designs on the virtue of young virgins.” He added with a wink, “Young and handsome widows are another matter.”

“Then you’re fated to live out your years as celibate as a monk. Did you wring a confession from Dodger Brown?”

“Of the first three burglaries, yes.”

“But not the one of the Costain home?”

“That’s the bad news. The Dodger was cozied up at the Fiddle Dee Dee all of last night with bottles of wine and a Chinese strumpet named Ming Toy. She and Lettie Carew vouch for the fact.”

“They could have been paid to lie.”

“Could have been, but weren’t. Whoever broke into the Costain home and shot our client, it wasn’t Dodger Brown.”

“A copycat burglar?”

“A possibility.”

“Do you put much stock in it?”

“No. I can’t abide another coincidence.”

“Nor can I. I don’t suppose Dodger Brown is guilty of Clara Wilds’s murder any more than that of Andrew Costain?”

“Evidently not,” Quincannon said. “He claims he hasn’t seen her in months, since they parted company over her involvement with Victor Pope. And he has no claw marks anywhere on his person, as I had the distasteful task of confirming.”

“I was afraid of that.”

“Could Pope have stabbed the pickpocket?”

“No,” Sabina said. “He had neither the time nor the means. You may find this far-fetched, John, but for a time today I had the notion her murderer might have been Andrew Costain.”

Quincannon paused in the process of charging his pipe with tobacco. “Yes? Why would you think that?”

“Grasping at straws, perhaps.”

Sabina went on to explain about the buggy that had been parked in the carriageway behind Clara Wilds’s rooming house, and her investigation of the carriage barn on the Costain property. While she spoke, she removed a circlet of brass from her skirt pocket and handed it to him, saying, “I found this wedged between the buggy’s seat cushions. Do you recognize it?”

He turned it over in his fingers. “Yes. A gambling token from Charles Riley’s House of Chance, a high-toned establishment on Polk Street. Good for one dollar in play. Riley gives them to favored customers.”

“Andrew Costain being one?”

Quincannon said thoughtfully, “Perhaps. If it belonged to him. I’ll just keep it, if you don’t mind.” He pocketed the token when Sabina nodded her consent. “Did you find anything else in the buggy?”

“No.”

“Do you still consider Costain a suspect in Clara Wilds’s murder?”

“I don’t know,” Sabina admitted. “He doesn’t seem to have had any plausible motive. Nor any way to have identified Wilds as the woman who robbed him.”

“It’s also unlikely that he would have had time to change into old clothing, drive from his office to her lodging house, commit the crime, and then return to Geary Street, change back into his business attire, and be waiting when I arrived. If that was his plan, he wouldn’t have sent his message to me when he did. Or admitted, as he did, to being away from the office at all.”

Sabina nodded. “I’m sure you’re right. But I do still believe the two cases are connected somehow. Don’t you?”

“Possibly. Though at the moment I don’t see how.”

“Nor do I.” Sabina paused to tuck away a stray wisp of her dark hair before saying, “There are some other things you should know, John.”

“Yes?”

“For one, Jackson Pollard was here not long before you returned, all in a dither. And not just because of what happened last night. Two more claims, he said, have taxed his patience to the limit.”

“Two more?”

“Both filed today by Mrs. Costain. One for the assessed value of her missing jewelry.”

“And the other?”

“The Costains also have a joint life insurance policy with Great Western, for the double indemnity sum of fifty thousand dollars.”

“So the widow wasted little time, did she,” Quincannon said. “What did you say to Pollard?”

“That you knew the identity of the burglar, and expected to have him in custody and the stolen goods recovered soon. He should be somewhat mollified when he hears that you’ve accomplished that part of your mission.”

“But not completely until the Costain matter is cleared up.”

“No. And if that isn’t done soon to his satisfaction, we may well lose one of our best clients. He threatened as much.”

“It’ll be done, never fear.”

“Is that bluster, John? Or do you have some idea of the explanation for the Costain puzzle?”

“I never bluster,” Quincannon said, which earned him one of Sabina’s raised-eyebrow looks. “Of course I have some idea. No muddle, no matter how mysterious it might seem, has ever baffled me for long.”

“Not even the one of how Andrew Costain was murdered and his assailant managed to escape from a locked room and then a sealed house under close observation?”

“Pshaw. I know how that was done.” Which wasn’t true. Glimmerings of the truth, yes, now that Dodger Brown had been exonerated of the crime, but the exact details were still unclear. Soon, however. Soon.

“Do you, now?” Sabina said in tones that he chose not to construe as dubious. “And how was it done, pray tell?”

“All in good time, my dear. All in good time.”

“You may not have as much time as you think. You’re not the only one investigating the Costain murder.”

“If you mean that dolt Kleinhoffer-”

“No. I mean our ‘employee,’ thanks to you.”

“Employee? The bughouse Sherlock? I thought we were rid of him.”

“Not hardly. While Mrs. Costain was out making funeral arrangements today, he entered the house illegally. She caught him prowling around when she returned, and was in the process of evicting him when I arrived.”

“What the devil was he looking for?”

“He wouldn’t tell me when I met him outside,” Sabina said, “or when I suffered through his invitation to tea a short while later. But he seemed very pleased with his search.” Sabina paused again before continuing. “Now don’t get upset, John, but I overheard him tell Mrs. Costain that he was acting on our behalf.”

“Damn the man!”

“Mrs. Costain was beside herself, but I think I managed to unruffle her feathers. I don’t believe she’ll press charges.”

“If she does,” Quincannon said darkly, “he’ll be the one to suffer the consequences.”

“I told him as much. I also told him he’s to cease and desist pretending to be affiliated with this agency. He said he wouldn’t because it was no longer necessary.”

“What did he mean by that?”

“That’s the other thing you should know. He alluded to having solved the mystery of Andrew Costain’s death.”

“Alluded?”

“The phrase he used was ‘le cas est resolu.’ French for ‘the case is solved.’”

“Humbug! That addlepate couldn’t solve the riddle of how to fasten a pair of gaiters.”

“I’m not so sure about that, John.”

“Bah.” Quincannon began to restlessly pace the office. “The mystery will be solved shortly, yes, but not by that blasted Englishman.”

“Don’t be too cocksure. He may be a bit daft, but he’s canny nonetheless and he may well have found out something important, by accident if not by design. I think it would be a good idea if you spoke with him about it. As soon as possible.”

“Consult with that pompous buffoon? A waste of valuable time.”

“There’s another reason you should see him.”

“Yes? And what would that be?”

“He’s so certain of himself that he plans to arrange a meeting of the principals in the case, at which he’ll reveal what he knows or believes he knows.”

“What!”

A favorite expression of Quincannon’s father when taken with sudden fury had been that “his blood ran hot as boiling tar and just as dark.” Such was an apt description of his own blood at this news. Snarling and muttering invective, he stomped the floor hard enough to produce tremors in the office furniture. From Sabina’s expression, she had expected his furious reaction. She maintained a prudent silence.

“Make false claims and try to steal my thunder, will he?” Quincannon said when he had a reign on his anger. “By Godfrey, he won’t get away with it!”

“Then you’ll see him tonight?”

“As soon as I can find the rank dingbat. Still encroaching on Dr. Axminster’s hospitality, is he?”

“He didn’t say.”

“I’ll start there.” Quincannon jammed his derby down so hard on his head that the brim blocked his vision momentarily. When he adjusted it upward, he saw that Sabina was putting on her hat as well.

“I’m going with you,” she said.

“No, you’re not-”

“Yes, I am. To forestall any mayhem you may be contemplating, if for no other reason.”

An owl-eyed housekeeper opened the front door of Dr. Caleb Axminster’s Russian Hill home and announced that the doctor had not yet returned from his surgery. From behind her, somewhere inside, Quincannon could hear the cheerful, somewhat fantastic plucking of violin strings-no melody he had ever heard before or wanted to hear again. It only served to start his blood boiling again.

He said, “It’s that blasted … it’s Sherlock Holmes we’ve come to see.” He handed the housekeeper his card, and she carried it and his and Sabina’s names away with her. Soon the violin grew silent, and shortly after that the housekeeper returned to usher them into a sitting room off the main parlor.

The Englishman, sprawled comfortably in an armchair, his violin and bow now on a table beside him, greeted them effusively. “Well, my esteemed colleagues, I must say I’m glad you’ve come. I intended to call on you at your rooms later this evening, Quincannon. Now you’ve saved me the trouble.”

“How do you know where I live?”

Holmes smiled his enigmatic smile. “To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit? You have news? Located your pannyman, perchance?”

Quincannon glowered at him in silence. Sabina said, “Located and arrested Dodger Brown, yes. And recovered the burglary loot.”

“My dear Quincannon, you surpass yourself!” Holmes assumed a sly expression. “And did he confess to the murder of Andrew Costain?”

Sabina shook her head. “No, because he’s not guilty of it. It was someone else who broke into the house and fired the shot.”

“Yes, I know.”

Quincannon growled, “You know, do you?”

“Oh, yes. Broke in, rifled the fellow’s strongbox, shot him, and then apparently vanished into thin air.”

“And you claim to know how that was accomplished, and the name of the guilty party.”

“Of course. Surely you do, too?”

“For some time now,” Quincannon lied.

“Splendid. Elementary, wasn’t it?”

Elementary. Quincannon’s basilisk gaze left the Englishman’s, slid down to his scrawny neck-a sight that made his fingers twitch. “Let’s have your theory, if you’re so all-fired sure of yourself.”

“I shall be delighted-though it’s not a theory, but certain fact. I expect you’ve arrived at the identical solution. By utilizing the same deductive methods, I wonder, or ones slightly different? It will be most interesting to compare notes, eh? Most interesting indeed.”

“The devil it will. Mrs. Carpenter tells me you plan to arrange a meeting to reveal what you claim to know.”

“Yes. Tomorrow, perhaps at the Hall of Justice. I deduce from your expression that you don’t approve?”

“I not only disapprove, I demand that you scrap the notion.”

“But why, my good fellow?” Holmes asked. “Surely you wish to have the matter resolved as quickly as possible. Mrs. Carpenter indicated as much during our talk earlier.”

“Yes, but by us as the consulting detectives, not by you. You have no right to arrange anything. You no longer work for our agency. You are nothing but a confounded-”

Sabina nudged him sharply with her elbow.

“-interloper. When arrangements are ready to be made, I’ll make them. Is that understood?”

“My intentions all along have been to aid, not hinder, your investigations. After all, I, too, am a skilled detective, if temporarily retired from the profession.”

Quincannon growled, “You’ll be permanently retired if you don’t do as I say.”

The Englishman essayed a languid shrug. “As you wish. With one caveat-that I am permitted to attend the gathering whenever and wherever it takes place.”

“Oh, you’ll be invited, never fear. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Sabina nudged him again. “We wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“Excellent. I look forward to the, ah, unveiling with great anticipation.” He beamed at her, at Quincannon, and then reached for his violin and bow. “Now if you’ll excuse me,” he said, “I feel the need to resume playing. Mendelssohn’s violin concerto in E minor helps to relax me after a strenuous day, though I must confess I prefer the effects of a seven percent solution. Dr. Axminster, however, has rather uncharitably asked that I not indulge my harmless habit while a guest in his home.”

The bughouse Sherlock picked up the instrument and began sawing on it. Quincannon caught hold of Sabina’s elbow and ushered her quickly out of the room; if he’d tarried, he might have given in to the impulse to create a collision between the violin and the Englishman’s skull.