“Why indeed. I expected a report, in person or at least by telephone of last night’s catastrophe, and I’ve had neither. I telephoned three times.”
“I’ve been out all day,” Sabina said. “John didn’t come by to see you? He told me he intended to.”
“Well, he didn’t.”
“Then he must have a good reason.” Which wasn’t necessarily true; he might have simply avoided the inevitable unpleasantness-a mistake in judgment, if that was the case.
“He had better have a good reason.” Pollard had been to the agency before, but he looked about the office now with an air of disapproval, as if seeing it for the first time and finding it lacking in some way. He was a fussy, sometimes crusty little man with sparse sandy hair and sideburns that resembled miniature tumbleweeds. His faded blue eyes, magnified by thick-lensed spectacles, seemed about to pop from their sockets when he was as upset as he was now. “When did you see him last?”
“Early this morning.”
“And you haven’t seen him since?”
“No.” Nor had John returned to the office in her absence. If he had, he would have left a message, as was their long-established practice when investigations were in progress. The top of her desk was bare of any such note.
“And where was he bound when he left, if not to Great Western?” Pollard asked.
“To continue his investigation into the burglaries, naturally.”
“Still proceeding blind, I suppose.”
“As a matter of fact, John believes he knows the identity of the burglar and expects to have him in custody shortly.”
The little claims adjustor was neither mollified nor reassured. “He expected to have the man in custody at the Truesdales’, and should have but didn’t.”
“Through no fault of his.”
“And I suppose what happened at the Costain home was no fault of his, either?”
“It was not. If the newspapers implied it was, they’re quite wrong.”
“I did not find out about it from the newspapers, any more than from you or your partner. Do you realize how embarrassing it can be to be caught completely unawares by news such as this?”
“Yes, and you have my apologies. It wasn’t the police who told you?”
“Mrs. Penelope Costain. She came to see me this afternoon.”
Sabina raised an eyebrow. “For what reason, so soon after her husband’s death?”
“For what reason do you suppose? To file a pair of claims, one of which we’ll have to honor even if the burglar is caught and the stolen valuables recovered.”
“I assume one is for the assessed value of her stolen jewelry. And the other?”
“Life insurance policy. Double indemnity. Fifty thousand dollars.”
Sabina managed to conceal a wince.
“According to Mrs. Costain,” Pollard said, “Quincannon and a British detective named Holmes were at her home last night supposedly guarding it against invasion. The widow said this man Holmes was in the employ of your agency. I didn’t authorize any such extra expense.”
“And none will be charged to you.” Fortunately Pollard seemed not to have read any of the real Holmes’s investigations as recorded by Dr. Watson, or Ambrose Bierce’s diatribe in the Examiner. If he had, he’d be even more up in arms. “Andrew Costain also retained John to guard his home, a task which required a second man for the surveillance.”
“Two detectives, and neither able to prevent blatant murder and robbery.”
“It happened under peculiar and still unexplained circumstances no detective could have foreseen.”
“So you say. Mrs. Costain seems to think otherwise.”
“Mrs. Costain is hardly an impartial witness.”
“Perhaps not. But if I find out she’s correct, your agency will get no more business from Great Western Insurance.”
“You needn’t threaten me, Mr. Pollard. John and I have always maintained cordial relations with you, and we’ve never yet failed to carry out an assignment to mutual satisfaction.”
“Never before has so much been at stake. Don’t forget, Mrs. Carpenter-even if Quincannon recovers most or all of the stolen goods, which is by no means a certainty, Great Western is still liable for the fifty-thousand-dollar life insurance claim.”
He wished her a gruff good day and departed.
Sabina opened the window behind her desk, letting in fresh air to dissipate the too-sweet odor Pollard had left behind him. The clock on the office wall read 5:20. John might or might not return to the office at this late hour; she decided she would wait until six o’clock before closing up. There was much to be discussed with him, not the least of which was the would-be Sherlock’s claim to have solved the Costain mystery.
Fanciful nonsense, of course … wasn’t it? John would surely think so, but she couldn’t quite make up her mind whether the Englishman was a buffoon or in fact had some of the same ratiocinative brilliance as the genuine Baker Street sleuth.
25
QUINCANNON
The city prison, in the basement of the Hall of Justice at Kearney and Washington streets, was a busy place that testified to the amount of crime afoot in San Francisco. And to Quincannon’s experienced eye, there were just as many crooks on the outside of the foul-smelling cells as on the inside. Corrupt policemen, seedy lawyers haggling at the desk about releases for prisoners, rapacious fixers, deceitful bail bondsmen … more of those, in fact, than honest officers and men charged with felonies or with vagracy, public drunkenness, and other misdemeanors.
Quincannon delivered a sullen Dodger Brown there, and spent the better part of an unpleasant hour in conversation with a plainclothesman he knew slightly and a booking sergeant he neither knew nor wanted to know. He made no mention of Andrew Costain in his statement; it would only have complicated matters and subjected himself and Dodger Brown to the questioning of that lummox, Kleinhoffer, an ordeal to be avoided at all costs in the present circumstances.
He signed a complaint on behalf of the Great Western Insurance Company, and before leaving, made sure that the Dodger would remain locked in one of the cells until Jackson Pollard and Great Western officially formalized the charge. He knew better than to turn over any of the stolen goods, did not even mention that they were in his possession.
His first stop after leaving the Hall’s gray-stone pile was the insurance company’s offices on Merchant Street just east of the Montgomery Block, his intention being to report his success to Jackson Pollard. The claims adjustor, however, was not there. He had vacated the premises a short while before and was not expected to return.
Quincannon’s mood was still on the dour side when he entered the agency office. Sabina, seated at her desk, regarded him with her usual sharp eye. “Bad news, John?”
“Some bad, some good.”
“Mine as well. Dodger Brown?”
“Yaffled and in police custody. That’s the good news.” He sketched the day’s events for her, embellishing a bit on his brief skirmishes with Salty Jim O’Bannon on the oyster boat and the Dodger at Lettie Carew’s.
“You take too many risks, John,” she admonished him. “One of these days you’ll pay dearly for such recklessness-just as your father and my husband did.”
He waved that away. “I intend to die in bed at the age of ninety,” he said. “And not alone.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if either boast turned out to be true.” Her generous mouth quirked slightly at the corners. “You had no difficulty finding your way around the Fiddle Dee Dee, I’m sure.”
“Meaning what?”
“Don’t tell me you’ve never been in a parlor house before.”
“Only in the performance of my duties,” he lied.
“If that’s so, I pity the city’s maidens.”
“I have no designs on the virtue of young virgins.” He added with a wink, “Young and handsome widows are another matter.”
“Then you’re fated to live out your years as celibate as a monk. Did you wring a confession from Dodger Brown?”
“Of the first three burglaries, yes.”