“It would,” John said, “except for the missing satchel, the presence of the whiskey bottle and two glasses on the table, and the pistol that dispatched Sonderberg lying at a distance from the body. There can hardly be any doubt that both killer and victim were together inside those sealed quarters.”
“The thump you heard just after the shots were fired. Can you find any significance in that?”
“None so far. It might have been a foot striking a wall — that sort of sound.”
“But loud enough to carry out to Gunpowder Alley. Did you hear running steps?”
“No. No other sounds at all.” John stood and began to restlessly pace the office. “The murderer’s vanishing act is just as befuddling. Even if he managed to extricate himself from the building, how the devil was he able to disappear so quickly and completely? Not even a cat could have climbed those fences enclosing the rear walkway. Nor the warehouse wall, not that such a scramble would have done him any good with all its windows steel shuttered.”
“Which leaves only one possible escape route.”
“The rear door to Letitia Carver’s house, yes. But it was bolted when I tried it and she claimed not to have had any visitors.”
“She could have been lying.”
John conceded that she could have been.
Sabina said, “I don’t suppose there’s any chance that she herself could be the culprit?”
“She’s eighty if she’s a day. Besides, I saw her sitting in her parlor window not two minutes before the shots were fired. That wouldn’t have been enough time to have committed the deed and escaped back into her house with the satchel.”
“Lying to protect the guilty party, then. A relative, perhaps. In which case the murderer was hiding in the house while you spoke to her.”
“A galling possibility, if true. And still only a partial explanation.” John paused, glowering, to run fingers through his beard and then fluff it again. “The crone seemed innocent enough, yet now that I consider it, there was something... odd about her.”
“Furtive, you mean?”
“No. Her actions, her words... I can’t quite put my finger on it.”
“Why don’t you have another talk with her?”
“That,” he said, “is precisely what I intend to do.”
8
Sabina
The Solidarity Party’s headquarters was located in a somewhat shabby two-story brick building on Ellis Street. Nathaniel Dobbs, however, was not in residence this morning. The lone occupant of what a sign on the door labeled a suite — a misnomer if ever there was one, given the cramped, unkempt confines of the two rooms inside — was a tubby little man seated behind a long, cluttered worktable. He wore a green eyeshade and a pair of spectacles with lenses as thick as the bottoms of milk bottles. He seemed surprised to see a woman enter the premises, and wary and not a little scornful when he squinted at her business card. Sabina knew what he was going to say before he said it; she had heard the same tiresome twaddle dozens of times before.
“A woman detective? Of all things on God’s earth!”
“You disapprove of women with professional credentials?”
“I do; I most certainly do,” he said huffily. “A woman’s place—”
“—is anywhere she chooses it to be,” Sabina said with asperity. “What did you say your name was?”
“I didn’t say. Josiah Pitman, though I don’t see that it matters.”
“It doesn’t matter in the slightest. Nor do you or your outmoded opinions. When do you expect your employer?”
“Not until later today,” Pitman said through pinched lips. “He has important business elsewhere this morning.”
“No doubt. What time do you expect him?”
“Whenever he arrives. Why does a... a detective want to see him?”
“To have a private conversation.”
“Concerning?”
“‘Private’ means ‘private.’ But you may tell him that it concerns Amity Wellman.”
“Amity Wellman! That—”
“Don’t say it, Mr. Pitman. My response would not be at all ladylike.”
The look she gave him, long and smoldering, made Pitman flush and turn his head away. Satisfied, Sabina turned on her heel and left him to stew in his vinegary juices.
Her next stop, by means of an Embarcadero trolley to China Basin, was Egan and Bradford, Tea and Spice Importers. The address turned out to be a combination office and large warehouse, with a long wharf at its backside extending out into the channel. A four-masted schooner was tied up there at present, being loaded or unloaded by a cluster of noisy stevedores.
A large sign on the warehouse wall gave the company’s name in ornate, Oriental-style letters. A smaller sign at the entrance to the office repeated it and also served as an advertisement for Egan and Bradford’s specialties, “the finest exotic teas and spices from the Orient and the Far East.” Specific items were listed: Darjeeling and Nepalese black tea, Chinese White Hair Silver Needle tea; Sichuan pepper, Indonesian cinnamon, Moluccan nutmeg and cloves, and two spices that Sabina had never heard of, Indian garam masala and Japanese shichimi togarashi. “Exotic” was indeed the word for the importers’ wares.
The strong mingled scents of teas and spices tickled Sabina’s nostrils — a heady mixture that made her want to sneeze — when she entered an office presided over by two male clerks and a handsome young female receptionist with curled yellow hair and a thrusting bosom. The hair and the bosom, Sabina guessed, were the attributes that had gotten her her job; lack of mental acuity was evident in her eyes, her smile, and her somewhat nasal voice. One of Fenton Egan’s conquests, like as not.
Sabina’s luck here was no better than it had been at the Solidarity Party’s “suite.” The yellow-haired wench informed her that she was oh, so sorry, but Mr. Egan was not expected until early afternoon; would she like to speak to Mr. Bradford instead? Sabina briefly considered the suggestion, decided it would serve no good purpose, and declined. She also considered asking for an envelope and pen and ink, writing Amity Wellman’s name on the back of one of her business cards and sealing the card into the envelope with Mr. Fenton Egan, Private written on the front. She decided against this, too. It would be best not to give Amity’s former lover any advance warning of her profession or her purpose.
Sabina splurged on the price of a hansom cab for her visit to the Egan manse in Pacific Heights. If Prudence Egan happened not to be in residence, at least the trip would have been made in relative comfort, rather than on one of the hard seats in rattling trolleys. She wouldn’t even put the fare on the expense account; call it a donation to the cause.
The views of the bay and the Golden Gate were splendid from the Heights, which, combed with the best weather in the city, made it another desirable neighborhood for the city’s wealthy residents. The one drawback was that, unlike the fine homes atop Nob Hill and Telegraph Hill, those here were built more closely together along the steep hillside streets. Shouldered by neighbors on both sides and perched on the edge of a sharp drop to the street below, the Egan home had almost no landscaping to relieve its stark aspect. An architect with odd, scattered tastes had evidently designed it; it was a jumbled mixture of Italianate and Colonial Revival, with Gothic windows, exposed trusses, and a great deal of ornate scrollwork. The Egans probably considered it unique. To Sabina’s eye, it was something of a monstrosity.
She asked the cabbie to wait and went to the door. A uniformed maid responded to her ring. Yes, she said, Mrs. Egan was at home. Mr. Egan, too, by any chance? No, the mister was out, and whom should she tell Madam was calling? Sabina gave her name and handed over one of her cards, saying, “Inform Mrs. Egan that I’ve come on behalf of the leader of Voting Rights for Women.” This plainly meant nothing to the maid. She admitted Sabina and asked her to wait in the foyer.