The Bughouse Affair (23 page)

“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.

26

SABINA

In the hack as it rattled away from the Axminster home, Sabina said, “Well, John?”

“Well what?”

“Is what you told Holmes the truth?
Do
you know the who, why, and how of the Costain homicide?”

“Do you believe
he
does?” John countered.

“At the least, he has a viable theory. He wouldn’t have suggested a meeting of the principals if he didn’t.”

“Bah. He’s mad as a barn owl.”

“You haven’t answered my question.”

“Of course I know the who, why, and how,” John said testily, but without quite meeting her eye. “Even if that pompous, preening, presumptuous popinjay has a glimmering of the truth, do you suppose I’ll allow him to outshine me in front of our client?”

“Then tell me what you suspect. Who killed Costain and how was the escape from the sealed house managed? And in what way is Clara Wilds’s murder connected?”

“All will become clear tomorrow.”

“You’re being as evasive as Holmes.”

He made grumbling noises in his beard and lapsed into a brooding silence.

Sabina sighed. There were times when her partner was a heavy cross to bear. If he would trust in her, and in turn listen to her suspicions, of which she had more than a few, they could work together to clarify the details of the affair. But no, his pride and his conceit were too great, as was his passion for drama; he was as much a glory hound as the Englishman professed to be. He did not have all the answers now, she was sure of that, but expected to by morning and without any assistance from her. Perhaps he would succeed—he had before. He had also failed before, and if that happened in this case, he would bluster and make excuses and do whatever else he deemed necessary to save face.

Well, she could play the same closemouthed game herself. If the fancied Mr. Holmes had in fact arrived at the truth through observation and deduction, and if John expected to by morning, then there was no reason why she couldn’t do the same.

The coach clattered along the cobblestones, heading downtown. Sabina hadn’t heard the directions John had given the driver, and she broke the silence by asking, “Where are we bound?”

“You’re going home. I have an errand to attend to.”

“What sort of errand?”

“For the nonce that’s my concern.”

The remark roused her ire. She stamped her foot, and said sharply, “I will
not
be treated like a minion! You refuse to confide in me—very well, that’s your privilege, but only up to a point. I’m as deeply involved as you are, and that means I have a right to know what you’re up to if it’s pertinent. Is it?”

“… Perhaps.”

“Your errand, then?”

“If you must know, a visit to Geary Street.”

“Andrew Costain’s law offices?”

“Yes.”

“In search of what?”

“Proof to support my deductions.”

Or to stimulate them. “The offices will surely be locked. Do you intend to break and enter?”

He patted his waistcoat pocket. “Not exactly.”

“The use of lock picks still constitutes unlawful entry.”

“You needn’t explain the law to me, my dear. Besides, that bloody Englishman committed the same crime at the Costain home this afternoon, didn’t he?”

“Yes, but he has a few screws loose and you don’t. Ostensibly.”

He said, “Hmpf,” and busied himself with his pipe and tobacco pouch.

Sabina said, “I’m coming with you.”

“What’s that? No, you’re not.”

“Yes, I am. If we’re caught, then we’ll both suffer the consequences.”

He glowered at her.

She glowered back. “I can be just as stubborn as you can,” she said. “More so, if needs be.”

“Of that I have no doubt.”

“It’s settled then. We’ll break the law together.”

*   *   *

They had no difficulty entering the Geary Street building that housed Andrew Costain’s law offices. There was no nightwatchman, and lamplight glowed in the window of an office on the floor above—one of the other attorneys evidently working late.

The first floor hallway was deserted. The door to Costain’s offices was locked, of course, but John’s deft use of his lock picks had it open in less than a minute. He entered first, located a wall switch, and turned it to bring on a pale ceiling globe. John led the way across a neglected anteroom to the closed but unlocked door to Costain’s private office. The mingled odors of dust and the stale residue of cigar smoke and alcohol assailed Sabina as she stepped inside. The whole place wanted a good airing. And a thorough cleaning as well. The amount of dust and dead flies on the floor, furniture, law books, and the helter-skelter of papers strewn about was considerable.

“Not very tidy, was he,” she said.

“Nor as successful as he pretended to be.”

Sabina eyed a nearly empty bottle of rye whiskey standing in plain sight on the desktop. “A fondness for alcohol being one of the reasons.”

“No doubt. I’ll start with the desk.”

She nodded and stepped over to the file cabinets. They were no less neatly kept than the rest of the office. Client files, briefs, court records, correspondence, bills, receipts, and miscellaneous items were all jumbled together, some in labeled and unlabeled folders, others in manila envelopes. Andrew Costain had evidently had packrat tendencies: the dates on some of the accumulation ranged back ten years or more. A few of the names in the client files were familiar to Sabina, but none had any apparent relationship to the murders of Costain or Clara Wilds. The correspondence was likewise worthless. A folder containing bills and invoices, however, appeared more promising.

Behind her at the desk, John exclaimed softly, “Just as I suspected.”

Sabina turned. “What have you found?”

“Costain’s bank book. As I suspected, he was in financial difficulty. Until fifteen months ago he maintained a substantial bank balance of five to six thousand dollars. Since then he made only a few small deposits, none in the past month, and steady withdrawals of a hundred here, two hundred there. His balance as of two days ago, after he wrote his check to me, was one thousand and fifty dollars. As of yesterday, there was only fifty left.”

“Another check or a cash withdrawal?”

“Cash. Now why would a lawyer on the brink of insolvency want that much in greenbacks?”

“Yes,” Sabina said musingly, “why would he?”

John tucked the bank book into his jacket pocket and resumed his rummaging through the desk drawers. Sabina did likewise among the files. She plucked out an unlabeled manila envelope, undid the string clasp. Inside were a sheaf of unpaid bills for both home and office—mortgage, rent, electricity, water, other services. Some were current, others past due and stamped as such. Andrew Costain hadn’t just been insolvent, he’d been teetering on the brink of bankruptcy.

She opened the bottom file drawer. Inside was a stack of very old case files—and bound together by a rubber band at the back, a dozen small pocket notebooks the size of a billfold. She paged through one, then a second and a third. Each was filled with writing in Andrew Costain’s somewhat crabbed hand. The man had not only been an alcoholic and a packrat, he’d been a compulsive recorder of bits and pieces of his life. The books contained a hodgepodge of jottings—calendar dates, brief chronicles of activities both social and professional, notes concerning clients and points of law, accounts of trips taken and trips planned, comments on sporting and social events, lists of figures in what appeared to be some kind of personal code, doodlings, even fragments of poorly conceived poetry.

John said, “What’s that you have there?” He had finished with the desk and come over to stand behind her.

She showed him the most recent book, which spanned the period from January through August of the current year. He flipped through it until he reached the coded list of figures. Those pages he studied carefully, a small smile lifting the corners of his mouth.

“The figures mean something to you?” she asked.

“A list of gambling wagers, unless I miss my guess, at such establishments as the House of Chance. With far more losses noted than winnings.”

“One of the reasons Costain was in financial straits, then.”

“Yes. The final piece of the puzzle, by Godfrey.”

“Well?”

But he just smiled his well-fed wolf’s smile and refused to elaborate. Instead he ushered her out of the offices, relocking the door behind him. They left the building without incident, and soon parted company at a nearby hack stand.

Her partner’s cryptic behavior would have irritated her more than it did if not for the fact that the search had also provided her with the final pieces of the Clara Wilds puzzle. If John chose to keep his conclusions secret until he deemed it suitable to announce them, then she would do the same with hers.

*   *   *

Sabina let herself into her furnished Russian Hill flat and for a moment leaned wearily against the closed door. A long day, and a productive one, but she was glad to be back in this comfortable nest she’d created for herself. Adam twined around her ankles, making soft burbling sounds that she knew were a plea for food.