The Spook Lights Affair (16 page)

Her hostess, bringing the tea service, saw her looking at the photographs. “My parents and their summer home in Burlingame,” she said, setting the tray down on a small dinette table.

“It seems quite nice.”

“I suppose so, but I never liked going there when I was a child. No other homes on Badger Hill, no one to play with except for the children of occasional guests, nothing much to do except walk in the woods or wade in a stream that runs through them. I don’t know why Mother and Father keep it, since they spend very little time there anymore. They’re currently in Europe, no doubt having a marvelous time.”

“Do they travel often?”

“Oh, yes. Constantly. They close up their San Francisco home for long periods and let the servants go.”

“Is that where you grew up, here in the city?”

“Yes, on Rincon Hill. If you’re wondering why I live in this flat instead of in the family home, it’s because I have an independent nature and prefer smaller quarters.” Miss Kingston sighed—a little sadly, Sabina thought, as if there might be another reason why she chose to live here alone, one related to her parents’ constant travels. After a moment, she sank into in a deep-cushioned chair and ran a hand over her brow. Shorn of her coat and hat, she had proved to be a plain but by no means homely young woman with lustrous brown hair worn in ringlets. Normally her full cheeks would have good high color, but now she was pale and slightly damp skinned.

“Are you certain you’re feeling well?” Sabina asked.

“Yes. It’s just that I’ve never been … manhandled like that before.”

“No woman should ever have to be,” Sabina said.

“No. And for so little reason in my case—I have no more than two dollars in my bag, and never carry any of my jewelry.”

“A wise decision.”

“In your profession, Mrs. Carpenter, you must have had experience with men like that. You were very brave and very forceful.”

“And very angry. Yes, I have. More than I care to think about.”

The kettle began to whistle. Miss Kingston stood to fetch it and then to pour tea for both of them. When she was seated again, she said, “Virginia’s death … it’s too horrible for words. I can’t imagine why she would have done such a thing. And in such a sensational fashion.”

“She gave no indication of being severely depressed?”

“No, none. She seemed quite happy, almost … bubbly at times. But then, she could also be secretive and overly dramatic.”

“I understand the two of you were close.”

“I wouldn’t exactly call our relationship close. I suppose Virginia considered me a mentor.”

“She confided in you?”

“Not on personal matters, no. She was an aspiring artist, and she wanted to know what an artist’s life was like. The pleasant, satisfying, and what she considered glamorous parts—she wasn’t interested in the unpleasant aspects, such as adverse criticism. Typical of her age. Girls of eighteen, pampered ones especially, have romanticized notions of life.”

“Did she mention any beaux?”

“No. Nor did I ask. She came from a very sheltered background, as I’m sure you know, and I assumed that if she had any suitors, her parents would carefully screen them.”

“All except one. Does the name Lucas Whiffing mean anything to you?”

Whiffing’s name hadn’t been in the newspapers. Miss Kingston shook her head. “Who is he?”

“A young man she was seeing, a friend of her brother’s. Do you know David St. Ives?”

“No. I met him once, briefly.” And didn’t like him, judging from Miss Kingston’s tone.

“Tell me, when did you last speak with Virginia?”

“After her last lesson, a few days before she … died. We had tea together, at her request.”

“Why did she make the request?”

“Just to talk, she said.”

“How did she seem that day?”

“Well … now that I think about it, she was somewhat nervous. Not trepidatious. As if she were excited about something.”

“Did she give you any idea what it might be?”

“No. She babbled on about art, hers and mine, and about my parents and their home and their travels. Things like that.”

“Why did she bring up the subject of your parents?”

“I don’t know, really. I’d told her all there was to tell the week before, when she visited me.”

“Visited you here?”

“Yes. She asked to see my watercolors and I invited her. She noticed my photographs,” Miss Kingston said, gesturing at the table that held them, “and asked about them. She seemed particularly intrigued by the one of the Burlingame house. One of her regrets, she said, was that her parents refused to buy a country home as my family did because they preferred city life.”

Sabina asked a few more questions, none of the answers to which were informative. By the time she finished her tea, Miss Kingston seemed drained of speech and showed signs of delayed reaction to her evening’s mishap. Sabina rose to leave, saying that she’d taken up enough of her hostess’s time.

At the door Miss Kingston said, “I hope you find out what happened to Virginia, Mrs. Carpenter. If you do, I would appreciate knowing. The more I think about it, the more I find it hard to believe that she would do away with herself, dramatically or otherwise.”

“Why is that?”

“Self-centered people seldom kill themselves—and quite frankly, Virginia was as self-centered as any girl I’ve ever known.”

16

QUINCANNON

“Thunderation!” Quincannon was so furious he commenced pacing the office in hard strides, the heels of his leather half boots making sharp staccato clicks on the linoleum floor. “Who does that confounded English lunatic think he is, interfering yet again in our business?”

“He thinks he’s Sherlock Holmes,” Sabina said. “And he wasn’t interfering. He offered his information free of charge, as an aid to what he referred to as his fellow detectives.”

“Bah. Don’t you believe it. He’s after something, by Godfrey, and if it’s to lay claim to my Wells, Fargo reward, he’ll regret it tenfold.”

“The reward isn’t yours yet, John. Nor will it be unless you recover the stolen money, and after what you’ve told me happened to Bob Cantwell, that’s by no means a certainty.”

Quincannon managed to refrain from glowering at her. She was always so dratted calm and reasonable, as unflappable a woman as he had ever known. It was one of the reasons he admired her, of course, but still.…

“I’ll find it, never fear,” he said a bit lamely.

“Are you going to do as Holmes suggested and consult with the Tenderloin denizens?”

“Yes, and I didn’t need the addlepate to reach that conclusion. It’s what I intended to do today.” This was not quite the truth—in fact, he’d been at somewhat of a loss as to how to proceed—but it wasn’t necessary for Sabina to know that.

“Do you think it’s possible David St. Ives had something to do with the robbery?”

“The scion of one of the city’s wealthy families?”

“A profligate scion known to have lost large sums of money gambling and whose father has threatened to disinherit him unless he mended his ways. Joseph St. Ives may have backed up his threat by curtailing David’s access to family funds. If so, and if David couldn’t bear to give up gambling and womanizing, it’s not inconceivable that he would have resorted to theft. Frankly, I wouldn’t put it past him.”

“Would you put murder past him?”

“The murder of Bob Cantwell? Are you sure it wasn’t the mysterious Zeke who shot him?”

“Sure enough,” Quincannon said. “He was too terrified of Zeke, whoever he is, to have attempted to blackmail him. His killer was Jack Travers’s partner, likely the one who planned the crime.”

“The Kid.”

“Yes, the Kid.”

“David St. Ives is young enough to have been referred to in that fashion,” Sabina pointed out.

“So, for that matter, was Bob Cantwell.”

“Yes, and Lucas Whiffing. He could also be the Kid. We have testimony to the fact that there is a connection between Whiffing and David St. Ives. Why not one with Bob Cantwell, too? They’re all of an age.”

“Cantwell was a small-time gambler, not a high-roller like St. Ives. And Travers was an older man.”

“Yes, but Cantwell did some of his gambling at the House of Chance, didn’t he? And from your description of Travers, he was only a few years older than the others. Still young enough to have consorted with them.”

Quincannon conceded the truth of all this, but it didn’t quite dispel his skepticism. “A coincidental link between your investigation and mine still strikes me as improbable,” he said.

“It may seem that way given what we currently know,” Sabina said. “But there’s much both of us have yet to find out—facts that may establish a link, and not such a coincidental one. Holmes was quite certain that such a link exists.”

Holmes again. Faugh! Quincannon was loath to give credence to anything the Englishman had to say. The notion that he had uncovered information on his ramblings about the city that had so far eluded not only a legitimate detective but a sane one was galling. And yet, if what he had suggested to Sabina
should
prove to be valid, it might well be the key to locating the missing $35,000 and collecting the reward. There was no gainsaying the necessity to find out.

“There’s something else, too,” Sabina said, “that I haven’t told you about yet.”

“Yes? And what would that be?”

“A new client—Barnaby Meeker, the man who left his card with us yesterday morning.”

“Investment broker, isn’t he?”

“Vice president of Western Investment Corporation.”

“Ah, then he’s wealthy.”

“Moderately, yes. More to the point is his reason for wanting the services of a detective agency—specifically, our agency.”

“And that is?”

“Ghosts. Or to be more exact, ghostly manifestations and other eerie happenings in the dead of foggy nights.”

Quincannon blinked at her, his mouth slightly open.

“No, John, I haven’t gone daft. These manifestations have taken place over the past few days in Carville-by-the-Sea, where Mr. Meeker and his family reside. It’s also where Lucas Whiffing and his family reside.” She went on to give a brief description of the alleged spook happenings as Meeker had described them to her. “Now do you understand?”

“You believe there is some sort of relationship between these alleged hauntings and what happened on Sutro Heights?”

“It’s possible, isn’t it? Carville is only a few miles from the mayor’s estate, Lucas Whiffing and Virginia St. Ives were more deeply involved than I’ve been led to believe, and I’m no longer convinced that what I witnessed last Friday night was exactly what it seemed to be. There was a ghostlike quality to those events as well, as I told you.”

“Illusion? Trickery?”

“It could very well be.”

“Why, if so? And why the spook business in Carville?”

“Those are two more questions still begging answers,” Sabina said. “I offered to investigate the latter myself, but Mr. Meeker was adamant that a male detective be given the job. Unfortunately you weren’t available by close of business last night, else I’d have asked you to undertake it then.”

“You want me to go ghost hunting in Carville tonight, is that it?”

“I have a feeling it’s important, John. Will you do it?”

Quincannon didn’t much like the idea of spending part or all of a night in the fog-ridden desolation of that eccentric dunes community, but he saw no good reason to refuse. Sabina’s instincts were often as finely tuned as his own; the matter might well be important. He said, “I will, yes, unless I uncover information of a more vital and pressing nature during the day. In that case, I’ll get word to you and you can arrange for Micah Dolan or one of our other part-time operatives to investigate.”

“I’d rather it be you if at all possible. If not, I’m afraid you’ll have to make the arrangements with Micah. I won’t be here the rest of today.”

Quincannon paused in the process of charging his pipe. Sabina had picked up her hat, a gray bonnet trimmed with white lace, and was pinning it to her hair with a gold-and-onyx hatpin. Her outfit today was also gray, a familiar gray serge—her traveling clothes, he realized belatedly. Normally there was nothing about her appearance that escaped his attention, but all they had had to impart to each other this morning had served as a distraction.

“Oh?” he said. “Off on a trip somewhere?”

She smiled faintly. “So you’ve finally noticed my attire.”

“I noticed it when I arrived.”

“But forebore comment until now. Eagle-eye John Quincannon.”

To cover his mild embarrassment he finished tamping shag into the briar’s bowl and lighted it. “You haven’t answered my question.”

“I’m off,” she said, “in pursuit of a hunch.”

“What sort of hunch?”

“One concerning what I witnessed, or seemed to witness, on Sutro Heights. I finally recalled what kept nettling me about it.”

“And that is?”

Sabina smiled again, a secretive smile this time. “All in good time, John. If my hunch bears fruit.”

“Here, now. You’re being unduly mysterious.”

“No more than you when you have one of your hunches.” Sabina finished pinning her hat, took a business card from one corner of her desk, and stood to hand the card to him. At a glance he saw that it was Barnaby Meeker’s. “It would be a good idea if you’d drop by Mr. Meeker’s office and introduce yourself at some point during the day,” she said. “He’ll want to meet beforehand the man who is going to lay his ghost for him.”

“Ghosts. Bah.” But Quincannon slipped the card into his vest pocket.

Sabina gathered her reticule and a small overnight bag that had been hidden behind her desk. “I’ll be leaving now.”

“Wait a moment and I’ll walk down with you.”

“Off to the Tenderloin first thing?”

“No. I’ve another stop to make first.”

“To interview David St. Ives?”

Quincannon shook his head. “To interview a lunatic,” he said.

*   *   *

The Old Union Hotel was a two-story brick structure that had seen better days, though even when newly built it would have had little to recommend it to the discerning eye. Its lobby was small, dark, stuffy, and dusty. The two old men sitting in chairs across a chessboard had a dusty look as well, as if they had been planted there at about the time the hotel opened for business.