“Last one at the end, next to the empty lot where the old icehouse used to set.”
Quincannon put another nickel on the bar, pushed it and his untouched beer over in front of the old salt. “My thanks.”
“And mine to you, laddy.” Then, his nose in his glass as Quincannon turned away, “One brown, one blue — I never seen the like.”
The designated lodging house at the end of Icehouse Alley was a single-story, unpainted frame dwelling that contained a pair of adjoining units. The one on the near side had to be Paddy Lasher’s, for its side window faced toward the two-story building next door.
Glances in both directions assured Quincannon that the alley was presently empty of foot and vehicle traffic. Without slowing his pace, he turned up a cracked cement walkway and climbed three steps to the door, his hand inside his coat and resting on the handle of his holstered Navy Colt. If Lasher was home, there would be no shilly-shallying; the pistol would come out immediately. He had enough circumstantial evidence against the mug to place him under citizen’s arrest, after which he would hie him off to the Secret Service office at the Mint. Mr. Boggs and his operatives would soon enough pry loose the names and whereabouts of Lasher’s partners in the coney game, possessing as they did less violent methods of persuasion than those at Quincannon’s disposal.
But there was no answer to his knuckle raps on the door. Instead of the Navy, then, he drew out his set of lock picks. When he was sure he remained alone and unobserved, he set to work with the picks. The door lock was no match for his expertise; he had the tumblers free in less than a minute. He opened the door just long enough to ease himself through.
Drawn curtains over the side window rendered the room semidark. Outside he had noted wires strung here from a nearby electric light pole; he located the wall switch, turned it. A fly-specked ceiling globe flickered on, steadied, and brought the interior into clear view.
There were two rooms, the one he was in and a smaller one that served as sleeping quarters. Lasher had lived here for some time, evidently, and none too tidily; the rooms were cluttered with furniture, strewn clothing, unwashed dishes.
Quincannon began a systematic search. What he discovered in the bedroom wardrobe and dresser was a disparate array of items that rightly belonged to many individuals other than Paddy Lasher. A brand-new set of surveyor’s tools. A brass sextant. Purses, billfolds, and handbags, some expensively made and all empty. A small store of valuable men’s and women’s rings and bracelets. A gold double hunter pocket watch with chain and engraved fob. A fashionable beaver fur stole. Now he knew how Lasher had supported himself before graduating to federal crime — as a thief and dispenser of stolen goods.
Also in the wardrobe was a new, well-tailored suit of the sort Samuel Funderburke had made for Dinger Jones. Quincannon searched the pockets, found them empty. None of the other hanging garments provided him with any connection to the coney racket. Nor did anything else he examined in both rooms, including the dusty floor under Lasher’s unmade bed.
Now what?
Quincannon perched on the edge of a mohair chair to consider. He could wait here for Lasher’s return, but that might take hours, if not considerably longer. There was no food in the apartment, and the meal residue on the unwashed plates was crusted solid; Lasher may well have spent one or more nights elsewhere and intend to do so again tonight. Besides, Quincannon hadn’t the patience for an extended vigil in this iniquitous den.
What he should do, then, was to take what he’d learned directly to Mr. Boggs and let the government agents pursue Lasher and Dinger Jones. He’d done an admirable job of uncovering their names and involvement in the coney game, hadn’t he? Of course he had, and Mr. Boggs would be properly appreciative. Still, he was reluctant to abandon his own investigation just yet, without some lead to the identity of the man running the operation and where the counterfeit bills were being manufactured.
Even so, it seemed that now, stymied as he was, he had little choice in the matter. He might as well go ahead and unburden himself to Mr. Boggs.
As he started to lift himself from the chair, his eye caught and held on the wardrobe, visible through the open doorway between the rooms. Specifically, the curved pediment once meant to be decorative, now as timeworn as the rest of the piece that it surmounted. He reentered the bedroom, pulled a ladderback chair over in front of the wardrobe, climbed up on it, and felt around behind the pediment.
His first exploration found nothing. But when he moved the chair to the left and tried on the other side, his fingers encountered metal — a metal box stuffed down onto the wardrobe’s recessed top. Ah! He had to move the chair again and stretch up and around to get a firm grip on the box, then lift it out of its nest of dust.
It was an old steel strongbox, heavy and locked. The lock was no match for his picks; he had it open in no time. Paddy Lasher’s private trove. A man’s valuable gold ring set with a fat ruby, likely another piece of robbery loot. A chamois pouch containing four gold double eagles and five eagles. A glass vial of white powdery substance which Quincannon judged to be morphine. Three hundred-dollar banknotes which he could tell by close eye-squint and feel were newly minted counterfeits. And last but by no means least, a small torn piece of butcher paper on which was scrawled in a childish hand: J 72 Folsom 2.
Some sort of code?
No, by godfrey. Abbreviations. J — an initial. 72 Folsom 2 — an address, 72 Folsom Street, unit number 2.
Quincannon relocked the box with his pick, replaced it behind the pediment. As he stepped down off the chair, his mouth quirked into one of his basilisk smiles. He wouldn’t have to abandon his investigation yet after all. Not if his guesses were correct and the address belonged to either Dinger Jones or, better yet, the head koniaker whose name might also begin with a J.
23
Sabina
The morning having been quiet and uneventful, Sabina took a longer than usual noontime break. On Geary Street just off Market was one of her favorite luncheon places, the Midtown Bakery, which specialized in custard-filled éclairs, scones with clotted cream, and other pastries of the sort favored by Cousin Callie. Unlike Callie, whose sweet tooth had broadened her hips and waistline, Sabina had been blessed with the ability to eat anything she chose, in any quantity, without gaining an ounce; her weight was the same as it had been as a young girl, her figure just as svelte.
The bakery’s more sugary confections held no appeal for her today, however. She lunched on two extra-large buttered muffins, one banana and one blueberry, a glass of milk, and a cup of tea. And bought a chocolate chip cookie to take back to the agency for a mid-afternoon snack.
The afternoon mail had arrived in her absence, and along with it, a messenger-delivered Western Union telegram. At her desk she glanced through the mail, none of which was important enough to be opened immediately, and then turned her attention to the wire. Intuition told her that it was from the Seattle Pinkerton office. If so, John should be the one to read it first. But she couldn’t know who it was from without opening it, and she, after all, had been the one to send the original request. She picked up her letter opener, slit the envelope, and removed the wire.
Yes, it was from the Pinks office in Seattle. A rather lengthy synopsis of their findings, semicoded as usual in sensitive cases and ending with the phrase “full report to follow by mail.” And an enlightening conspectus it was.
The shipping firm whose name and address were on the trunk label had been hired by a law firm in charge of the estate of Maureen Cooley, deceased sister of Esther Jones. Mrs. Cooley had been a childless widow of little means. Her husband, Thomas Cooley, a printer and engraver by trade, had served four years in the Washington State penitentiary on a forgery charge. And his involvement in the counterfeiting of United States currency had led to his death, as John had told her, during the April 1887 warehouse raid.