The Plague of Thieves Affair (23 page)

“Do you always lock your office door when you're expecting a visitor?” The woman's voice was as icy as her appearance.

“Only when the visitor is a murderess.”

“That is an abominable accusation. I could very easily sue you for defamation of character.”

“You could if the accusation were false, which it isn't.”

“Of course it is. Utterly false, utterly preposterous.”

“Then why are you here? Why didn't you take my note to Harold Stennett or another attorney? Or to Lieutenant McGinn?”

Octavia Fairchild's chill gaze roamed the office, much as her husband's had on his visit; her rouged lip curled upward far enough to expose her gums. “What a nasty hovel this is. Exactly the sort of place I expected.”

“You haven't answered my questions, Mrs. Fairchild. Why didn't you take my note to an attorney or the police, instead of coming here as directed?”

“I intend to do both after I've heard what evidence you claim to have against me. And I expect to make an additional charge.”

“Oh? What would that be?”

“Attempted blackmail.”

“Is that what you think? That I intend to blackmail you?”

“Why else would you have arranged this meeting? How much do you want?”

“How much will you pay?”

“Not one penny. I won't be blackmailed and I won't be bluffed.”

“I am not bluffing. Why would I?”

“Then why haven't
you
gone to the police with this evidence of yours, if it's so damning?”

“Do you think I won't?”

“That is precisely what I think. You won't because you haven't any evidence, you couldn't possibly have because none exists.”

“Oh, but it does. One piece, in fact, is in your possession.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“The murder weapon, of course—your husband's hound's head walking stick.”

The statement caused a slight eye-widening, a twitch at one corner of the rouged mouth—the first thin cracks in the ice mask. Sabina smiled and went to her desk. Octavia Fairchild remained standing, her hands thrust into the pockets of her muskrat coat.

“You felt no need to dispose of it, once it was cleaned of all traces of blood and other matter,” Sabina went on when she was seated. “Even if you had, it would not have been as easy to spirit away as whatever bloodstained garment you wore. You might have concealed the stick under that coat you're wearing, but a stick is a cumbersome object that might well be noticed. No, it's still among your husband's effects at the hotel.”

“Yes, it is. Clean and polished, as Roland always kept it. It could hardly be proven to have been used as a weapon.”

“But it can. The wounds on his skull were made by its distinctive elongated knob and can be matched to it.”

“… How do you know that? The body was gone when you were brought to the room.”

Sabina smiled again. “Detectives have ways of finding out such things.”

“A match would hardly prove a case against me. The stick Charles used to murder Roland had a similar type of knob.”

“No, it didn't. He carried his usual round-knobbed blackthorn stick when he paid his visit yesterday morning.”

“You can't know that unless you've seen him, talked to him. You're harboring a murderer—”

“On the contrary, I'm conversing with one.”

“It's Charles's word against mine. Whom do you suppose the police will believe, a bereaved widow or a madman who masquerades as Sherlock Holmes?”

“His, if corroborated by mine and by the rest of the case against you. Your motive, for instance.”

“What motive could I possibly have?”

“The age-old one—wealth. With your husband dead and Charles the Third judged insane and incarcerated in an asylum, you stand to inherit the Fairchild millions as next of kin by marriage. You planned all along to dispose of Roland and frame his cousin for the crime. That is why you traveled to San Francisco with your husband, why you were so insistent that Charles be located and induced to meet privately with him.”

“Conjecture. Sheer conjecture.”

“When Charles left your hotel room yesterday, you picked up Roland's stick, brained him with it, then changed clothing and began screaming to attract attention. That is the way it happened, isn't it?”

“More ridiculous conjecture. You have no proof of any of this!”

“You're forgetting the gash on your cheek.”

“What about it? It came from Charles's stick when he attacked me.”

“No, it didn't. He never attacked you. It was your husband who gashed your cheek in an effort to ward off your attack on him.”

“A scurrilous lie—”

“A fact, a provable fact. He inflicted the wound with two downward-hooked fingers on his right hand. You neglected to clean the skin and blood from beneath the nails on those two fingers. They're still there and can be matched to the gash.”

Fissures had formed in the ice mask now. Even the eyes were no longer a glacial blue. The woman's fury had shifted from cold to hot, an inner fire that was melting the exterior chill.

“So you see, Mrs. Fairchild?” Sabina said. “That one fact alone is sufficient to cast serious doubt on the validity of your story. Combined with my testimony and that of the man you sought to frame, you stand no chance of getting away with your crime.”

“The police … do they know any of this yet?”

“No, but they soon will.”

“Have you told anyone else?”

“Only Charles.”

“No one will pay heed to him.”

“But the police will pay heed to me. I guarantee it. Why maintain your pretense of innocence? Why not admit the truth?”

More of the ice melted; the blue eyes held a fiery glow now. “Damn you, why don't you drop
your
pretense. How much do you want to keep silent? Ten thousand dollars?”

Sabina shook her head.

“Twenty thousand? Fifty?”

“You couldn't buy my silence for ten times fifty thousand dollars. I can't be bought, Mrs. Fairchild. Your only hope is to admit the truth. To me, to Lieutenant McGinn. Admit that you murdered your husband. Admit your guilt.”

All the ice was gone now; the woman's face was contorted with a feverish rage.

“Admit it,” Sabina said relentlessly. “Admit that you bashed his brains in with his own stick. Admit—”

“All right! Yes! I killed him, I bashed his brains in and I'm glad of it! He was a failure and a cheat and a bully and I loathed him!”

The eruptive confession brought Sabina halfway out of her chair. But her elation turned to sudden dismay, for Octavia Fairchild had withdrawn a small-caliber pistol from her coat pocket.

Sight of the steadily pointed weapon froze Sabina. She could have kicked herself for not anticipating the possibility that Octavia Fairchild might have come here armed. Both her hands were clutching the desk edge; she let the right one slide off slowly, move downward to the partially open middle drawer.

“But you'll never tell anyone!” the woman cried. “You'll be as dead as Roland and no one will believe that lunatic Charles!”

Sabina's heart skipped a beat as her fingers touched the Remington derringer. Could she draw and fire it in time to save her life?

She was never to know the answer. For in that moment, the alcove door flew open and out, bless him, came that lunatic Charles.

What happened next came so swiftly that it was almost a blur. He entered the office in a rush, his blackthorn stick upraised and flicking the air. Octavia Fairchild swung toward him, but she had no time to fire her pistol. In two slashing strokes Charles disarmed her: the first smacked her wrist and elicited a sharp cry of pain, the second, driven up underneath, popped the pistol free of her grasp and into an arc that allowed him to catch it deftly in midair with his free hand.

“Lunatic, indeed!” he snapped indignantly. “Charles, indeed! Holmes is the name, Sherlock Holmes, acknowledged expert at singlestick”—he waggled the blackthorn for emphasis—“as well as the use of sword, riding crop, and
baritsu
.”

Sabina sank down into her chair; she had faced a handgun twice before in her years as a detective, but in neither instance had she come so close to being shot, and her knees were understandably a little shaky. Edward Boone, who had also emerged from the alcove, stood gawping at Charles. So did Octavia Fairchild, clutching her wrist and grimacing in pain, but only for a few seconds. Then, all at once, she melted completely. Collapsed to the floor and puddled there, her face buried in her arms, tears of self-pity staining the sleeves of her brand-new muskrat coat.

“Now then,” Sherlock Holmes said, “I will summon the police and finis will be written to, as the good Doctor Watson might have it, the Adventure of the Wronged Detective.”

 

24

QUINCANNON

It was evening when he returned to the city. His arrival at the Ferry House would have been much later if he hadn't been fortunate in boarding the last southbound train just as it was leaving Los Alegres and then the ferry just as it was departing Sausalito.

He'd had plenty of time on the trip to decide on a way to accomplish the final phase of his mission. The one he settled on required immediate action, which meant postponing the night's rest his body craved after the long, wearying day. It also required breaking of the law (though only technically, in his view), and its success depended on his powers of persuasion and a not inconsiderable amount of luck. The risk bothered him not at all—he didn't exactly thrive on danger, but neither did he shy away from it—and it was the only method of recovering the stolen steam beer formula that did not involve violence. Besides which, if it could be accomplished it would provide an added element of satisfaction to the closing of the Golden State case.

Outside the Ferry House he boarded a Market Street trolley and rode it to Fourteenth Street. From there he walked three blocks and turned onto Capp, a narrow residential street that contained facing rows of modest Victorian Stick–style houses. Light showed in the front windows of the fifth in the row on the south side. This one had been occupied by Slick Fingers Sam Rigsby and his wife for the past dozen or so years—except, that was, for the three years Slick Fingers had spent in Folsom Prison. It had been more than twelve months since Quincannon had had any contact with the man; if providence was with him, the Rigsbys would still be in residence.

It was and they were. The door was opened in answer to his turn of the bell by Anna Rigsby, a middle-aged harridan with the face of a dyspeptic mule and a disposition to match. Her mouth pinched into a lemony pucker when she recognized him. Her obvious dislike stemmed from the fact that Quincannon had been responsible for the three years her husband had spent as a guest of the state. Slick Fingers, on the other hand, held no grudge. Quincannon had spoken on his behalf at his trial, requesting leniency because Rigsby had been coerced by his two partners into taking part in the abortive bank caper, and as a result the judge had imposed the minimum sentence.

“Oh, it's you, is it,” she said. “Don't tell me you're here to arrest Rigsby again?”

“On the contrary. Is he home?”

“What do you want with him?”

“A private conversation on a matter beneficial to both of us.”

“Hah. Double-talk. Say it out plain or you don't come in.”

“An offer of money—a sizable sum if he accepts a proposition I have for him. Plain enough?”

Her eyes took on an avaricious glitter. “Plain enough,” she said, and stood aside. Then, when Quincannon had entered the vestibule, “He's in the back bedroom working on another of his fool gadgets. Down the hall there, second door on the right.”

The house smelled of a none-too-pleasant blend of boiled cabbage, cooked fish, dust, and dry rot. Mouth-breathing, he went along the hallway, the floorboards creaking ominously under his weight. The second door on the right stood ajar; he pushed it inward and stepped through.

“Good evening, Slick Fingers.”

Rigsby was seated at a table on which was spread an array of tools, a soldering iron, metal rods and plates of various sizes, and other objects which Quincannon neither could nor cared to identify. Slick Fingers, in addition to his primary source of income, fancied himself an inventor. He tinkered continually with this or that mysterious contraption, none of which, so far as Quincannon knew, had ever earned him a dime.

He looked up, registered startlement and flickers of anxiety, started to stand, changed his mind, and sighed gustily as he sank back in his chair. A slender gent of some fifty hard-lived years, he had two distinguishing features: protuberant jumbo ears and large hands with long, spatulate fingers, both of which figured prominently in the plying of his chosen trade. He regarded Quincannon in a wary, defeated way, the expression of a man expecting to hear the voice of doom.

“I ain't done nothing,” he said, his nervousness and his shifty gaze belying the words. “No box jobs since I got out of Folsom. I learned my lesson, I'm out of the game for good. Handyman work now when I can get it, that's all until I sell one of my inventions. Clean as a whistle.”

“You needn't try to snow me. Once a box man, always a box man. And still the best in the business, I'll wager.”

Slick Fingers almost but not quite managed to conceal his pride at the compliment. “What is it you want, Mr. Quincannon?”

Quincannon shut the door behind him before he answered. “Your expertise and a few hours of your time, in order to right a wrong. For which you'll be well paid.”

“I don't see what— Wait a minute. You ain't here to offer me a box job?”

“That's precisely why I'm here.”

“What kind? Legit?”

“Not exactly.”

“You mean you want me to crack a safe and
steal
what's in it?”