“Doin’ the dip? Yeah, she learned the game from old Sal Tatum. She must’ve made a big score and some bastard found out about it and was after the swag.”
Quincannon cocked his eyebrow again.
“Not me! I got plenty from my own scores. Listen, you got to believe me, I never-”
“Scoot around and lie facedown on the bed.”
“… What?”
“You heard me.”
Dodger Brown stared at him for three or four seconds, licked his lips, then twisted and flung himself flat across the bed. He squawked and began struggling when Quincannon caught hold of the collar of his unbuttoned long johns and dragged the top down over his shoulders. “Hey! What’s the idea? What you gonna do?”
“Nothing, if you keep quiet and hold still.”
No gouge or scratch marks had been visible on the yegg’s face and neck; there were none on the upper back, shoulders, or upper arms. Quincannon rolled him over and pulled up first one sleeve, then the other. More unbroken skin. The Dodger made another squawking protest when Quincannon yanked the drawers down over his scrawny flanks long enough to determine that his belly and thighs were likewise free of injury.
The little housebreaker called him several colorful names, which Quincannon chose to ignore. He’d been feeling rather pleased with himself when he snapped the cuffs on Dodger Brown, for it had seemed then that one if not two cases of theft and foul play were nearing their conclusion. Now his mood had soured somewhat. Part of the burglary investigation for Great Western Insurance had been satisfactorily resolved, but as for the rest of it …
Dodger Brown was clearly not guilty of either his former paramour’s murder nor Costain’s. So who the devil was? Clara Wilds’s new paramour or one of her victims? A copycat burglar who had adopted the Dodger’s modus operandi? Two separate cases, or were they somehow intertwined? Two murderers-or one?
Hell and damn! What had seemed a simple and easily resolved matter had turned out to be anything but. It was annoying and frustrating enough, though he hated to admit it, to tie the brain of even the most wily detective into temporary knots.
24
SABINA
Sabina seemed to be spending much of her time lately prowling about residential carriageways. Just one of the many exciting and glamorous aspects of detective work. Another being afternoon tea with a candidate for a mental institution.
The carriageway that bisected the block behind the Costain home was completely deserted. This genteel South Park neighborhood had seemed almost slumbrous as she made her way back to it from the tea shop. None of the few people abroad had paid any attention to her, and no one had been about when she entered the carriageway. Trees and shrubbery flanked the passage, making it unlikely that prying eyes such as those of Clara Wilds’s neighbor, Mrs. Marcus, would follow her progress along its grassy expanse. Nonetheless she made her way slowly, as if she were a resident out for a casual late-afternoon stroll.
When she neared the halfway point in the block, the rear fence and outbuildings of the Costain property took shape ahead. Vegetation was her ally here, too, a pair of gnarled old walnut trees screening the roadbed from the house. John had mentioned the carriage barn at the rear, which meant the Costains owned equipage and an animal to draw it. It seemed probable that Penelope Costain had driven herself to the funeral parlor, and since there’d been no sign of a rig on the street after her return home, it was also probable that she’d put it and the horse away.
The barn was of the small, utilitarian type painted a peeling white, adequate for the housing of a single carriage and the supplies necessary for its maintenance. A narrow shedlike attachment and a small, empty corral stretched along one side.
The double-sided gate that gave access to both the property and the barn was closed and latched, but it hadn’t been locked last night, John had told her, and it wasn’t locked now. Sabina paused with her hand on the latch to satisfy herself that she was still alone and unobserved, then opened one half of the gate and slipped inside, closing it again behind her.
The barn was set a few feet beyond the gate. She hurried across to the closed double doors, which also proved to be unlocked. The half she opened creaked and squeaked, but not loudly enough for the sounds to carry. It also bound up slightly at the bottom so that she had to tug and lift to open it.
Semidarkness redolent with the odors of hay and manure folded around her as she stepped inside. She left the door half ajar and took out the old flint lighter she carried for such occasions as this. When she snapped it alight, its pale flame showed her the buggy that filled most of the interior, and the horse munching hay in a side stall.
The rig’s body, traces, and calash folding top were all black, showing signs of wear and neglect. But on closer inspection she saw that it was a Studebaker and that its wheel spokes were unpainted. The horse placidly munching hay in its stall was a chestnut roan.
Drat!
Sabina hesitated, then on impulse leaned inside the buggy. There was nothing on or under the wide leather seat, or on the floorboards. She ran her fingers into the crack between the two seat cushions, felt a thin piece of metal wedged there. At first she thought it was a coin, but the lighter flame revealed it to be made of brass-a token of some sort. Slot-machine token? Slot machines proliferated in San Francisco, and while tokens had not yet come into widespread use, there was a move afoot by the city fathers to disallow legal tender in the machines.
But no, this wasn’t a slot-machine token. Nor the kind that had such phrases as “good for one drink” or “good for 5c in trade” etched into the metal. One side bore a triangle with HOFC in its center; the other side was blank. The initials were unfamiliar to her. A meaningless discovery, probably, but Sabina slipped it into her pocket anyway. John might know what it signified and from where it had come.
Sabina returned to the door half, doused her light before opening it and stepping out. At the outer gate, she peered into the carriageway to make sure it was still empty before going through, closing up, and resuming her saunter to the end of the block.
So much for the notion that the buggy parked behind Clara Wilds’s rooming house had belonged to and been driven by Andrew Costain, and that Costain was her murderer. It had been a stab in the dark in the first place. What motive could Costain have had for killing the pickpocket? Surely not the recovery of the silver money clip.
Now Sabina was back to where she’d been before, with no leads except for Dodger Brown.
Or was she?
The door was locked when she arrived at the agency. She was in the process of using her key when footsteps sounded on the stairs behind her and a somewhat breathless voice called out, “Mrs. Carpenter-finally.”
The voice belonged to Jackson Pollard, Great Western Insurance’s chief claims adjustor. It was after five o’clock and he had apparently just left his office for the day; he wore a greatcoat and top hat, carried his gold lion’s head cane, and approached her in a cloud of the bay rum he liberally applied for his evenings’ excursions along the Cocktail Route. Either that, or as John had once surmised, Pollard had a wife or mistress who liked her man to smell as if dunked in a vat of the stuff.
Nonetheless, his stop-off here was a mild surprise. Usually he conducted his business with Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional Detective Services, by telephone or summons to his office. One look at his frowning visage and pinched mouth told Sabina he was not the bearer of good tidings. Pollard confirmed it in irritable tones as soon as they were inside.
“I thought it was you I saw entering the building just now,” he said. “I was beginning to think you had closed for business today.”
“Why would you think that?”