The gallantry was a trifle forced, but she appreciated it nonetheless.
Seventeen-ten Clay Street was a large two-story structure, once a private residence, now a middle-to-low-income boardinghouse. It was the sort of neighborhood Sabina had expected from the address, and justified her decision to remove the jeweled barrette from her upswept hair, her seed-pearl earrings, and her Charles Horner hatpin, and to don a less stylish cape, before leaving the agency. The decision was further justified by a ROOM TO LET sign on the front gate: it gave her just the right opening gambit for the ruse she intended to employ. Now if Mrs. Esther Jones was home and in a receptive mood...
She was. Sabina found her sweeping the floor in the front hallway, a thin middle-aged woman with sad eyes, careworn hands, and a lined and wrinkled face. A woman who had known considerable sorrow in what had not been an easy life, she judged.
“I’m Mrs. Jones, the landlady. What can I do for you, miss?”
“I saw your sign,” Sabina said, smiling. “How large is the room being let?”
“Good-sized. Second-floor rear, overlooks a bit of a garden. Nice and airy.”
“And how much are you asking?”
“Twenty-five dollars a month.”
“Mmm. I’m not sure I can afford that much just now...”
“Breakfast included.”
“Well... may I see it?”
“Take you right up.”
Sabina followed Mrs. Jones up the uncarpeted stairs, down a bisecting hallway to a door bearing the numeral 3. The room was more or less as the woman had described it, functionally and somewhat skimpily furnished, spotlessly clean. Esther Jones was a punctilious housekeeper.
Time for the ruse. Sabina felt a pang of regret at the need for deception — she disliked lying, especially to honest, hardworking individuals who had already suffered hardships — but if the woman’s son was involved with the counterfeiting ring as John believed, it was in a just cause.
“It’s a nice room,” she said. “That wall there would be perfect for my books. That is, if you have no objection to bookcases being brought in.”
“Well... how many bookcases?”
“Two or three, depending on the exact measurements.”
“You must have a lot of books, miss.”
“Yes, I do. I’m employed in a secondhand bookshop downtown, you see, and my employer lets me have unsold volumes either free or at nominal prices. Nothing rare or valuable, of course.”
“He must be a good man to work for.”
“He is. Have you many books yourself, Mrs. Jones?”
The woman shook her head. “I’m not much of a reader.”
“The reason I asked,” Sabina said, “is that my employer is always in the market for new acquisitions. I thought that perhaps you might have some for sale.” She feigned a self-deprecating smile. “I sometimes act as a scout for him, for a small stipend to supplement my salary.”
Mrs. Jones brushed at a loose strand of graying hair. “What kind of books is he interested in?”
“Oh, all kinds, especially rare volumes and sets. Do you have any you’d be willing to sell?”
“Well... a trunkful my sister had come to me a while back.”
“Really? I wish I had a relative who was that thoughtful.”
“Wasn’t a matter of being thoughtful. She died three months ago.”
“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Well, she was in poor health for some time. A widow like me, didn’t have much. Put in her will that I was to have the family mementos she’d stored up, photographs and such and our pa’s old books.”
“Did she live in this area?”
“No. Up north.”
“The Pacific Northwest, by any chance? I have a relative in Seattle.”
“That so? Seattle’s where Maureen lived.”
“Small world,” Sabina said through her fixed smile. “May I ask what business her husband was in?”
Wrong question, too personal. Esther Jones’s face closed up.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pry,” Sabina said. “I guess I’m just a nosey parker.”
One thin shoulder lifted, dropped. “No offense. You want to look at the books? I doubt they’re worth much.”
“They may be, one can never tell.”
“They’re down in the basement.”
A flight of stairs led from the ground floor into a musty, gaslit basement dominated by an old coal-burning furnace. At one end was a wire-fenced storage area — four separate units with padlocked doors, one each for Mrs. Jones and her tenants. The largest of them, which she proceeded to unlock, contained a jumble of items, one of which was an old, battered, brassbound trunk set atop a rickety table.
“Books’re in there,” Mrs. Jones said. “Didn’t see any reason for my son to take ’em out.”
“Oh, your son lives here with you?”
A tic fluttered the woman’s left eye. “No, he don’t. Not anymore.”
Sabina said brightly, “I hope he didn’t move too far away.”
“Why would you hope that?”
“Why, for your sake, Mrs. Jones. Mothers always like to have their children close by. Mine certainly did.”
“He’s got his own life to live,” the woman said with more than a trace of bitterness. “Go on in, miss. Trunk’s not locked.”
The subject of the son was now closed as well; any more questions would only arouse suspicion. Sabina stepped inside and bent to the trunk.
A large label on its top confirmed that it had been shipped from Seattle. It provided the name and address of the drayage firm, and was stamped with the date of shipment, slightly more than three months ago. She committed the information to memory as she lifted the trunk’s lid.
The books were in a haphazard jumble, as if they had been taken out and then tossed back by the handful. Dinger Jones’s doing. No reputable drayage firm would pack in such a careless fashion. Sabina removed them a few at a time, some threescore in total. There was nothing else in the trunk.
“Worth anything?” Mrs. Jones asked.
Sabina was hardly an expert, but she knew books well enough to judge that this lot was composed entirely of inexpensive editions of populist fiction and nonfiction. Her feelings about this were mixed. The books’ relative worthlessness made it unnecessary to keep up the pretense of interest in them and relieved her of any further responsibility, but she also felt sorry that Esther Jones would receive no money for them. If they had had value, she would have felt obligated to notify a reputable secondhand book dealer on the woman’s behalf.
She said truthfully, “I’m afraid not.”
“Figured as much. Walter said they were just junk.”
“Walter?”
The question earned Sabina nothing but a headshake.
She returned the books to the trunk, stacking them neatly. When she was finished, Mrs. Jones relocked the wire door and led the way upstairs. In the foyer she said, “About the room, miss. Yours if you want it.”
“I do like it, but... I have to make sure I can afford the rent before I decide.”
“Don’t take too long. There’s other interest.”
Which, if true, was a salve on Sabina’s conscience. She said, “Thank you for showing it to me, Mrs. Jones, and for allowing me to look through your books. I really am sorry they’re not valuable.”
“Don’t be. I didn’t expect any different.”
When Sabina stepped off the trolley on Market Street, she went straight to Western Union where she composed a wire to the Pinkerton office in Seattle. She included the information she’d gleaned from the trunk label, and requested that at the expense of Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional Detective Services, an operative be directed to trace the shipper and determine the name of Esther Jones’s deceased sister. She also requested background data on the sister and her family, in particular any known or suspected criminal activity.