12

SABINA

It was after two o’clock when she entered the agency offices for the first time that day. John had been there before her, she discovered when she sank wearily into her desk chair. His note and the attached business card on her blotter had not been there on Saturday.

Barnaby L. Meeker, Western Investment Corporation. Your services required on matter of bizarre nature. Please communicate at your earliest convenience. Cryptic handwritten words of the sort that would usually have stirred John into an immediate follow-up. He must have been in a hurry to have left her to deal with Mr. Meeker.

She had no desire to consult with a prospective new client, even a prospective new client with an impressive sounding business name and offices on Sansome Street, but neither was there anything more she could accomplish on the Virginia St. Ives investigation this afternoon. She sat for a time, to gather herself, and then once again picked up Barnaby Meeker’s card.

Western Investment Corporation was on the city telephone exchange; the number was printed on the card. Sabina placed a call. Barnaby Meeker was evidently a highly placed member of the firm; less than thirty seconds after the call was answered and she gave her name and asked to speak with him, he was on the line.

“I’ve been waiting to hear from you, Mrs. Carpenter.” He sounded harried, as if his day had gone no better than hers. “I left my card before nine this morning.”

“My apologies for the delay, Mr. Meeker. My partner and I have both been out of the office and I’ve only just seen your card.”

“Yes, well, I’m glad you called. I would rather not have to consult with another detective agency.”

“May I ask why you chose us?”

“All the flap in the newspapers about the incident at Sutro Heights. I believe your version of the events.”

“Thank you, but I—”

“They bear a certain similarity to my predicament, you see.”

“I’m afraid I don’t. A matter of a bizarre nature, your note said?”

“Strange happenings in the fog. Ghostly illusions — the phrase one of the reporters used to describe what you witnessed. The beach near my home has been plagued with such unexplained phenomena and my wife is frankly terrified. I want you to get to the bottom of what is going on.”

“Where exactly do you live, Mr. Meeker?”

“Carville-by-the-Sea.”

Carville. He now had Sabina’s full, undivided attention. “What sort of ghostly illusions?”

“I would rather discuss the details in person, if you don’t mind. I would come to your offices, but I have an important meeting at two o’clock. Could you come here immediately? If not, a meeting later this afternoon will do.”

The Sansome Street address was only a short distance from the agency. “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes,” she said.

* * *

According to a discreet sign on its door, Western Investment Company dealt in railroad and mining stocks. It was a fairly small operation, with a pair of clerks and three inner doors to private offices occupied by the firm’s president and two vice presidents. The fact that Barnaby Meeker’s name was one of the latter two confirmed his highly placed position with the company.

Sabina gave her name to one of the clerks and was immediately ushered into Meeker’s private office. He turned out to be a short, fidgety man of some forty years, the owner of an abnormally large head perched atop a narrow neck and a slight body. A tangle of curly brown hair made his head seem even larger and more disproportionate. He invited her to sit down, but instead of sitting himself, he lighted a fat and rather odorous cigar without asking her if she minded and then began to pace about restlessly with the aid of a cane topped by a black onyx knob carved in the shape of a bird. The cane was necessary because something was amiss with his right leg that caused a slight limp.

“Yes, Mrs. Carpenter,” he began without preamble, as if continuing their telephone conversation after a short pause, “an apparition of unknown origin. I’ve seen it myself, three times.”

“Near your home in Carville-by-the-Sea.”

“In a scattering of abandoned cars nearby, that’s correct. Floating about inside different ones and then rushing out across the dunes and suddenly disappearing.”

“Are you saying that a group of abandoned horse-traction cars are haunted?”

“I don’t believe in ghosts,” Meeker said, “or at least I didn’t until this past week. Now I’m not so sure. After what I’ve seen with my own eyes, my own eyes, I repeat, I am no longer certain of anything.”

“This apparition fled when you chased after it?”

“Both times I saw it, yes. Bounded away across the dune tops and then simply vanished into thin air.” Meeker stopped pacing and thumped the ferrule of his cane on the floor for emphasis. “Well, into heavy mist, to be completely accurate.”

“What did it look like, exactly?”

“A human shape surrounded by a whitish glow. Never in my life have I seen an eerier sight.”

“And it left no footprints behind?”

“No impressions in the sand of any sort. Ghosts, if they do exist, would hardly leave footprints, would they?”

“I suppose not.”

“The dune crests were unmarked along the thing’s path of flight,” he went on, chewing the end of his cigar as he spoke, “and it left no trace in the cars — except, that is, for claw marks on the walls and floors.”

Sabina had begun to wonder if Mr. Barnaby Meeker might be more than a little eccentric. John would no doubt refer to him as a rattlepate. And no doubt scoff at his story. She could just hear him saying, “Glowing apparitions, unmarked sand, claw marks on walls and floors … balderdash! Confounded claptrap!” And yet, were those fog-shrouded things really any stranger, any more seemingly impossible, than Virginia St. Ives’s apparent death leap and the disappearance of her body?

“Have others in Carville seen what you have?” she asked.

“My wife, my daughter, and one of my neighbors. They will vouchsafe everything I have told you.”

“The neighbor wouldn’t be a member of the Whiffing family, by any chance?”

“No, it wouldn’t.”

“But you do know the Whiffings?”

“Yes, of course I know them. Fine people, James and his wife — forward-thinking like myself in their selection of Carville-by-the-Sea for their residence. Why do you ask?”

“Their son Lucas was a friend of Virginia St. Ives.”

“Was he? Not a close friend, I hope.”

“Why do you say that?”

“The lad is too brash for his own good, or that of any young woman who catches his eye.”

“That sounds as if you don’t approve of him.”

“I don’t. Ambitions above his station and dubious morals. He made advances to my daughter Patricia last year, before I put a stop to it.”

“By confronting him?”

“There would have no point in that. No, I had a stern talk with my daughter. She’s an obedient girl — she has had nothing to do with young Whiffing since.”

Lucas Whiffing seemed to have a penchant for inciting parental objection in his female relationships, Sabina thought. And with good cause, apparently. Not only was he brash and the possessor of dubious morals, but also a confirmed liar.

“But that has no bearing on the matter at hand,” Meeker said, and thumped the floor with his cane as if in dismissal of the subject. “The neighbor who saw the spook lights was E. J. Crabb. He occupies a car not far from the abandoned group where they first appeared.”

“At what time of night do these happenings take place?”

“After midnight, in all four instances. Crabb was the only one who spied the thing the first time it appeared.”

“When was that?”

“Five nights ago, when the first of the week of heavy fogs rolled in. I happened to awaken on the second night and saw it in one of the cars. I went out alone to investigate, but it fled and vanished before I could reach the cars. Lucretia, my wife, and my daughter and I all saw it on Saturday night and again last night — in one of the cars and then on the dune tops. I examined the cars by lantern light and again in the morning by daylight. The marks on the walls and floor were the only evidence of its presence.”

“Claw marks, you said.”

Meeker repressed an involuntary shudder. “As if the thing had the talons of a beast.”

And evidently the heart of a coward, Sabina thought wryly. Why else would it run away or bound away or whatever it allegedly did? It was humans who were afraid of ghosts, not the converse.

“Just what is it you expect our agency to do, Mr. Meeker?”

“Investigate, of course. Find an explanation for these bizarre occurances, paranormal or not. Put a stop to them before word gets out and curiosity seekers and spiritualists and God knows who else overrun our little community. If that happens, residents will begin leaving, new ones will shy away, and Carville will become a literal ghost town.”

Sabina thought he was over-dramatizing the threat, if threat it was, but she said nothing, merely offered a sympathetic nod.

“Carville-by-the-Sea is my home,” Meeker went on, “and if such as these ghostly manifestations are not allowed to interfere, one day it will be the home of many other progressive-minded citizens like myself. Businesses, churches — a thriving community. Why, Mayor Sutro himself has expressed the hope of persuading wealthy San Franciscans to buy land there and build grand estates like his own at the Heights.”

“A noble aim,” Sabina lied. Grand estates built on windswept sand dunes and beach grass? If Adolph Sutro actually believed this, he was guilty of grand folly. More likely, given the mayor’s shrewd business acumen, it was merely a ploy to sell the beach land for large profits.

“I am willing to pay five hundred dollars for a satisfactory explanation of these fantastic goings-on. And an additional five hundred for a guarantee that we will never again be plagued by them.”

“One thousand dollars?” If John had been present, his ears would have pricked up like a hound’s.

“You say that as if you believe I can’t afford it,” Meeker said, bristling. “Would I offer it if I couldn’t?”

“No, naturally not—”

“I suppose you’re unsure because of where I reside. It so happens I am a man of considerable means.” He thumped his stick on the floor for emphasis. “Our firm specializes in railroad and mining-stock investment, as I’m sure you noticed, and I have a substantial portfolio of my own. I make my home in Carville-by-the-Sea because I have always been fond of the ocean and the solitude of the dunes, and because I share Mayor Sutro’s belief in the future of our little community.”

“Please, Mr. Meeker. I have no doubts about your financial position or the veracity of what you’ve told me.”

This seemed to mollify the little man. “Well, then? Will your agency investigate?”

“Yes.” But only because of the tenuous connections between Meeker’s problem and her own concerning Virginia St. Ives.

“Excellent. How soon can your partner or one of your male operatives come to Carville? Tonight?”

“You don’t wish me to come myself?”

“A woman, chasing after God knows what in the fog?” Meeker seemed shocked at the idea. “No, Mrs. Carpenter. I realize you are a professional detective and your credentials worthy of respect, but after your experience on Sutro Heights … well, I am sure you understand.”

Sabina suppressed a sigh. She understood all too well. As many advances as she and other members of her sex had made in recent years, most men continued to view them as fair and inferior flowers. Barnaby Meeker was one of them. And there was nothing to be gained, and perhaps an investigation to be lost, by arguing with him.

“Very well,” she said. “But there may not be enough time to make arrangements for tonight. It depends on whether or not my partner has other plans and how soon I’m able to contact him. If not tonight, then tomorrow night, if that is satisfactory.”

“I suppose it will have to be. The counterman at the coffee saloon on the highway can point the way to our home.” Meeker paused. “Tonight or tomorrow night, no further delay?”

“One or the other,” Sabina said, “you can rely on it.” Even if it meant flying in the face of Barnaby Meeker’s objections and going ghost hunting herself.

Загрузка...