“All well and good,” Buckley said, “but the woman was outside the locked door, pounding on it, less than a minute after Vargas was stabbed. Explain that.”
“Simple misdirection, Mr. Buckley. Before the stabbing she replaced all props in the sideboard and closed the top, then unlocked the door, the key made a faint scraping and the bolt clicked, sounds which John and I both heard. Then she crossed the room, plunged her dagger into Vargas, re-crossed the room immediately after the second thrust, let herself out into the darkened hallway, and relocked the door from that side. Not with Vargas’s key, which remained on the sideboard, but with a duplicate key of her own.”
No one spoke for a cluster of seconds. In hushed tones, then, Grace Cobb asked, “Why did you do it, Annabelle?”
The psychic assistant’s mouth twisted. Her voice, when it came, was with passion. “He was an evil unbeliever. He mocked the spirits with his schemes, laughed and derided them and those of us who truly believe. I did his bidding because I loved him, I obeyed him until the spirits came in the night and told me I must obey no longer. They said I must destroy him. Angkar guided my hand tonight. Angkar showed me the path to the truth and light of the After-world...”
Her words trailed off; she sat staring fixedly. Looking at no one there with her blazing eyes, Quincannon thought, but at whatever she believed waited for her beyond the pale.
It was after midnight before the bumbling constabulary (Quincannon considered all city policemen to be bumbling) finished with their questions, took Annabelle away, and permitted the others to depart. On the mist-wet walk in front, while they waited for hansoms, Cyrus Buckley drew Quincannon aside.
“You and Mrs. Carpenter are competent detectives, sir, I’ll grant you that even though I don’t wholly approve of your methods. You’ll have my check for the balance of our arrangement tomorrow morning.”
Quincannon bowed and accepted the financier’s hand. “If you should find yourself in need of our services again...”
“I trust I won’t.” Buckley paused to unwrap a long-nine seegar. “One question before we part. As I told you in your offices, the first séance Mrs. Buckley and I attended here was concluded by Vargas’s claim that Angkar had untied him. We heard the rope flung through the air, and when the gas was turned up we saw it lying unknotted on the floor. He couldn’t have untied all those knots himself, with only one free hand.”
“Hardly. Annabelle assisted in that trick, too.”
“I don’t quite see how it was worked. Can you make a guess?”
“I can. The unknotted rope, which he himself hurled across the room, was not the same one with which he was tied. Annabelle slipped up behind him and cut the knotted rope into pieces with her dagger, then hid the pieces in the sideboard. The second rope was concealed there with the props and given to Vargas after she’d severed the first.”
“His planned finale for tonight’s séance too, I fancy.”
“No doubt. Instead, Annabelle improvised a far more shocking finish.”
“Made him pay dearly for mocking the spirits, eh?”
“If you like, Mr. Buckley. If you like.”
Quincannon had time to smoke a bowlful of shag tobacco before a hansom arrived for him and Sabina. Settled in the darkened coach on the way to Russian Hill, he said, “All’s well that ends well. But I must say I’m glad this case is closed. Psychic phenomena, theocratic unity... bah. The lot of it is—”
“— horsefeathers,” Sabina said. “Yes, I know. But are you quite sure there’s no truth in it?”
“Spiritualism? None whatsoever.”
“Not spiritualism. The existence of a spirit afterlife.”
“Don’t tell me you give a whit of credence to such folly?”
“I have an open mind.”
“So do I, my dear, on most matters.”
“But not the paranormal.”
“Not a bit of it.”
For a time they sat in companionable stillness broken only by the jangle of the horses’ bit chains, the clatter of the iron wheels on rough cobblestones. Then there was a faint stirring in the heavy darkness, and to Quincannon’s utter amazement, a pair of soft, sweet lips brushed his, clung passionately for an instant, then withdrew.
He sat stunned for several beats. At which point his lusty natural instincts took over; he twisted on the seat, reached out to Sabina with eager hands and mouth. Both found yielding flesh. He kissed her soundly.
In the next second he found himself embracing a struggling, squirming spitfire. She pulled free, and the crack of her hand on his cheek was twice as hard as the slap in Vargas’s spirit room. “What makes you think you can take such liberties, John Quincannon!” she demanded indignantly.
“But... I was only returning your affection...”
“My affection?”
“You kissed me first. Why, if you didn’t care to have it reciprocated?”
“What are you gabbling about? I didn’t kiss you.”
“Of course you did. A few moments ago.”
“Faugh! I did no such thing and you know it.” Her dress rustled as she slid farther away from him. “Now I’ll thank you to keep your distance and behave yourself.”
He sat and behaved, not happily. Had he imagined the kiss? No, he wasn’t that moonstruck. She had kissed him, for a fact; he could still feel her lips against his. Some sort of woman’s game to devil him. He imagined her smiling secretly in the dark — but then the hack passed close to a streetlamp and he saw that she was leaning against the far door with her arms folded, unsmiling and wearing an injured look.
The only other explanation for the kiss... but that was sheer lunacy, not worth a moment’s consideration. It must have been Sabina. Of course it was Sabina. And yet...
The hansom clattered on into the cold, damp night.
Jade
La Croix had not changed much in the three years since I had last seen him. He still had a nervous twitch, still wore the same ingratiating smile. We sat together in a booth in the Seaman’s Bar, on Singapore River’s South Quay. It was eleven-thirty in the morning.
He brushed at an imaginary speck on the sleeve of his white tropical suit. “You will do it, mon ami?”
“No,” I said.
His smile went away. “But I have offered you a great deal of money.”
“That has nothing to do with it.”
“I do not understand.”
“I’m not in the business anymore.”
The smile came back. “You are joking, of course.”
“Do you see me laughing?”
Again, the smile vanished. “But you must help me. Perhaps if I were to tell you the reason—”
“I don’t want to hear about it. There are plenty of others in Singapore. Why don’t you hunt up one of them?”
“You and I, we have done much business together,” La Croix said. “You are the only one I would trust. I will double my offer. Triple it.”
“I told you, the money has nothing to do with it. I’m not the same man I was before you went away to Manila or Kuala Lumpur or wherever the hell you’ve been.”
“Mon ami, I beg of you!” Sweat had broken out on his forehead.
“No.” I stood abruptly. “I can’t do anything for you, La Croix. Find somebody else.”
I walked away from him, through the beaded curtains into the bar proper. La Croix hurried after me, pushed in next to me as I ordered another iced beer. When the bartender moved away La Croix said urgently, “I beg of you to reconsider, M’sieu Connell. I... as long as I remain in Singapore my life is in grave danger...”