Wide-brimmed hat with bedraggled ostrich feathers: a badly scarred young woman whose affliction made Sabina flinch. Toque draped in fading tulle: red hair and freckles. Another feather-bedecked chapeau: porcine, with a double chin and heavily rouged cheeks
The proprietor of a small, tawdry freak exhibit urged Sabina to surrender five cents for the privilege of viewing a deformed infant preserved in formaldehyde. She declined-not at all pleasantly.
Extravagant hat with many layers of feathers and a stuffed bird’s head protruding at the front: long blond hair and an unblemished chin.
A pair of temperance speakers warning of the evils of drink and painful death from diseased kidneys and handing out tracts to support their claims. No, thank you.
Yet another bird-themed hat. What was the fascination with wearing dead avian creatures on one’s head? The woman beneath the brim looked not much healthier than the bird that had died to grace her headpiece.
Another pitchman tried to entice Sabina to buy a bottle of something called the Kickapoo Indians Tape-Worm Secret. An emphatic no to that, also.
In front of the next wagon, a single woman wearing rather baggy clothes and a green hat with a wide brim drawn down low on her forehead caught Sabina’s eye. The woman seemed less interested in the miraculous electrified belt filled with cayenne pepper whose purveyor was claiming would cure any debilitation, than in the faces of the men grouped around her. Sabina’s blood quickened. She moved closer-close enough to recognize the large blue glass Horner hatpin overlaid with gold that decorated the green hat.
The woman evidently found none of the men around her suitable prey. She moved on at a leisurely pace, her gaze roaming all the while. Sabina followed a few paces behind.
The pickpocket stopped to listen to the Salvation Army band. Paused again in front of a shill exalting the virtue of White’s Female Complaint Cure. Accepted a flyer from a man hawking the Single Tax doctrine and pretended to read it by the light of a flickering torch. All the while her head and her eyes continued their restless search.
An elderly chap leaning on a cane, walking haltingly nearly ten yards away, struck Sabina as a likely candidate. But no, the dip passed him by. A well-attired man carrying a malaca walking stick. No. A tall blond gent dressed in a broadloom suit and gaudy vest. No.
More wandering. More pretended interest in the shows and wares. Sabina was careful to maintain a measured distance, with her small body shielded from the woman’s view by those of the larger men.
In front of the bright red-and-yellow coach belonging to the purveyor of Dr. Wallmann’s Nerve and Brain Tonic, the woman stopped again. Stood watching as a fat, middle-aged man wearing a plug hat and sporting a gold watch chain questioned the pitchman, then examined one of the brown bottles as if he were having difficulty making up his mind whether or not to buy it. Sabina sensed he was the dip’s choice even before the woman sidled up next to him, stretching an arm up as she did so to snatch the Horner pin free from her hat.
Sabina elbowed in behind her, calling out a warning that was lost in the sudden shrieking of an organ grinder’s monkey. The fat man suddenly twisted, clutching at his corporation, and the dip had his purse. She was turning away when Sabina reached her and caught hold of her right arm, bending it so that she dropped the purse, then pinning the arm behind her back. The pickpocket emitted a cry of pain, then a curse, and began struggling and trying to stab her captor with the hatpin she held in her other hand. Sabina pulled the arm higher, making her cry out again, while she clutched at the dangerously flailing wrist.
Men surged in around them, voices raised in alarmed query. Sabina cried, “Help me, she’s a pickpocket!” to the man nearest her-a mistake, as it turned out. The man made a clumsy effort to assist, which earned him a puncture wound from the slashing pin. He yelled in pain and reeled into the two women, throwing Sabina off balance and allowing the dip to squirm out of her grasp. A hatpin thrust grazed Sabina’s arm, then she felt a painful blow to her ribs-and the woman lunged away past the medicine pitchman’s wagon, bowling him over when he tried to stop her.
Sabina gave chase, but to no avail. Once again her quarry managed to escape into the milling crowd.
As galling as this was, there was some small comfort in the fact that she now knew who she was after. She had had a clear look at the woman’s face during their struggle, and was certain of her identity: Clara Wilds, who had evidently forsaken the extortion racket for the equally lucrative trade of cutpurse.
What made the identification even more provocative was the fact that Clara Wilds’s last-known consort was Dodger Brown, the slippery yegg John suspected of being responsible for the recent string of home burglaries.
10
QUINCANNON
He was late reaching the agency on Thursday morning, through no fault of his own. The cable car he regularly rode to Market Street from his apartment building on Leavenworth failed to come by-some sort of mechanical problem, probably, as all too often happened with the cable and trolley lines. The distance was too far to walk; he hired a cab instead, with every intention of adding the cost to the Great Western expense account.
Sabina was present when he arrived, but about to depart. She was in the process of putting on her long coat over her shirtwaist and bell-bottomed skirt-a slender vision in no need of the tight corsetting most women favored. He held his scrutiny to a minimum; the tight set of her mouth plainly indicated that she was in no mood today for bandinage.
He shifted his gaze to his desktop, which was conspicuously bare. “No word yet from Ezra Bluefield,” he said. Messages from the Scarlet Lady’s owner sometimes came at night or in the early morning hours, in the form of an envelope slipped under the door. “Dodger Brown’s hideout must be well concealed. Either that, or he’s riding the rods for parts unknown.”
“If he is still in the area,” Sabina said, “I hope it’s in the company of Clara Wilds.”
“The extortionist? Why mention her name?”
“She has another trade now. Picking pockets. She’s the dip who has been menacing customers at the Chutes and on the Cocktail Route.”
“Ah. You crossed paths with her again.”
“Last night at the bazaar opposite the Palace.” Sabina’s voice was bitter. “I caught her robbing another mark, but she got away from me again. She’s as slippery as an eel.”
“What happened?”
Sabina provided terse explanations, making no excuse for Clara Wilds having now twice eluded her. She was even more determined to locate and nab the woman, now that she knew Wilds’s modus operandi had rendered her a murderess as well as a thief.
“Did she recognize you?” Quincannon asked.
“She may have. I’m not certain. In any case, the close call may keep her from plying her new trade for a time.”
“Gone to ground with Dodger Brown, mayhap.”
“There’s no mention in her dossier that the pair ever cohabited, merely that they were known consorts.”
“Do you have her last known address?”
“A rooming house on the edge of the Barbary Coast. The information is some months old, but perhaps someone there has knowledge of her current whereabouts. That’s where I’m bound now.”
Quincannon said, “I’d go with you, but I should keep myself available for a message from Bluefield. And I have an appointment with R. W. Jackson at one o’clock.”
“I’m perfectly capable of pursuing Clara Wilds on my own.”
“Of course you are-”
“I’ll telephone or send word by messenger if I learn anything you should know.”
When Sabina had gone, Quincannon spied the Wilds dossier on her desk and sat down to read it over. The information on the woman was scant. Born on a farm in the San Joaquin Valley twenty-eight years ago; orphaned at age ten and sent to live with an aunt in Carson City, Nevada, from whom she picked up some of her wicked habits-extortion primary among them. Expert at collecting damning information on individuals in positions of trust or power and then using her knowledge to extract cash or favors from them. Arrested and tried for attempted fraud in Nevada, but acquitted for lack of evidence. Moved to San Francisco four years ago and arrested twice here on similar charges, the second time last year-Sabina’s initial encounter with her, the agency having been hired by the victim-but again escaped conviction as a result of police and judicial incompetence.