The Stolen Gold Affair

27 Sabina

What with one thing and another, it was two weeks shy of Thanksgiving before she became Mrs. Sabina Carpenter Quincannon.

Professional matters were partly responsible. John spent two more days in Vacaville awaiting extradition orders for Bartholomew Morgan and arranging for the return of the stolen gold. Meanwhile Sabina returned to the city to find a pair of messages indicating that the agency’s brief business drought had ended; one, from their best client, Great Western Insurance’s claims adjuster Jackson Pollard, concerned a major fraud case she knew John would want to investigate. (He did, despite having collected his fee and a handsome bonus from a grateful Everett Hoxley, and the investigation took more than a week.) Two other, less time-consuming cases also came their way, both of which she handled herself — an absent husband who turned out to be a philanderer, and a missing set of expensive seed pearls that had been filched by a society matron’s male secretary to pay off a gambling debt.

To her considerable relief, she had escaped repercussions from both of her impulse investigations. According to a brief news story in the Morning Call, Vernon Purifoy had been arrested and charged with embezzlement, and had accused Gretchen Kantor of stealing his private records and sending them anonymously to his employers. If Miss Kantor had any inkling that Sabina was responsible, she had been so disillusioned by her lover’s betrayal that she’d chosen to remain silent. And Elmer Goodlove, whose true name the police still had not discovered, had made no statement connecting Mrs. Jonathan Fredericks with his fate.

Snags in preparations for the wedding and reception were also responsible for the delay. On the first-chosen day, Amity Wellman had a Voting Rights for Women engagement that could not be broken, necessitating a shift to the following weekend; John continued to waffle as to whom he wanted to be his best man, finally settling on his former Secret Service boss, Cecil Boggs (Cecil!), and then had some difficulty convincing Mr. Boggs to accept the honor; the minister Callie engaged to perform the service was forced to cancel on short notice due to illness in his family; Callie and the caterer had a falling-out over the reception menu which caused her to have to seek out and employ another. The only preparation that went smoothly was Sabina’s search for a bridal gown. She found one that suited her in a small dressmaking shop on Geary Street: pearly white (the devil with convention), scalloped high neck, sheer lace and tiered crochet overlay, elbow-length sleeves.

The wedding, when the day finally came, took place with nary a hitch. Callie had kept her promise of restraint in furbishing her and Hugh’s home for the occasion, with tasteful flower arrangements and none of her usual lavish frippery. John, handsome in formal suit and tie, was so nervous during the ceremony that he nearly dropped the wedding ring before sliding it onto her finger — a moment she found endearing. The guests, who included Jackson Pollard, Elizabeth Petrie, and another part-time agency employee, Whit Slattery, in addition to Amity and Mr. Boggs, were a convivial mix. Kamico, Amity’s young Japanese ward, was exactly the right person to have caught the toss of the bridal bouquet. And the food and beverages at the reception buffet could not have been better.

The honeymoon exceeded Sabina’s expectations as well. Four lovely days and nights at Boyes Hot Springs in scenic Valley of the Moon. The nights especially. So blissful were they that afterward she felt her blood quicken whenever she thought of them.

A registered package was waiting for them at the agency when they returned. Elizabeth, who had been minding the store, had signed for it and put it into the office safe. It was small, neatly wrapped, and postmarked “Salt Lake City.”

“We don’t know anyone in Salt Lake City,” John said.

“Somebody there knows us, apparently.”

Sabina removed the outer wrapping. Inside was a gift box of the sort jewelers used; inside the box was a velvet drawstring pouch and a note on a Bristol vellum card; and inside the velvet pouch...

Five tiny white-gold nuggets.

John peered at them gleaming in the palm of her hand. “Someone’s idea of a joke,” he said.

“They look genuine to me.”

He picked one up, studied it, then rubbed it between his thumb and forefinger. “You’re right. Real gold, by godfrey.”

Sabina returned the nuggets to the velvet pouch and picked up the note.

The fine spidery hand that had penned it was familiar. Smiling, she read the message aloud. “‘Felicitations, valued colleagues. My sincere apologies for the tardiness of this small gift, but I only just learned of your recent nuptials. May your union be a long and contented one.’”

“Mawkish sentiment,” John said.

“Oh, I don’t think so.”

“Who is it from?”

“It’s signed, ‘With fond regards, S.H.’”

“S.H.? I know no one with those initials.”

“Yes you do. Charles Percival Fairchild the Third. Better known to us as the fancied Sherlock Holmes.”

“Faugh! I thought we’d heard the last of that infernal crackbrain. Five tiny white-gold nuggets... what kind of daft wedding present is that?”

Sabina laughed. “A good omen to his skewed way of thinking, considering what the nuggets are likely meant to represent.”

“And that is?”

“Pips,” she said. “Five orange pips.”

While John was puzzling over the connection to the genuine Sherlock Holmes case, she reread the note and its two-line postscript. She hadn’t quoted the postscript aloud, and would not share it with him just yet, if at all; it was liable to start him fulminating. But she had to concede that it rather pleased her.

“I shall soon return to your fair city,” it read. “Adieu, mes amis, until we meet again.”