“Good afternoon, madam,” he said.
“Good afternoon. Are you Mr. Bromberg?”
“I am. What can I do for you? If it is stationery you’re interested in, I have in stock excellent watermark bond at a special price.”
“Thank you, no. Actually, I have a rather unusual request a customer of yours said you might be willing to grant.”
“Yes? The customer’s name?”
“Mr. Philip Justice.”
“Mr. Justice, the importer of fine cigars. A long-time satisfied customer, yes.”
Sabina removed the Oscar Follensbee business card from her bag, placed it on the countertop. “This must also be your work, Mr. Bromberg. The paper stock and embossed design appear similar to those on the cards you supply to Mr. Justice.”
He peered at it. “It is mine,” he said with a touch of pride. “Printed and designed by Nathan Bromberg. You would like such a card yourself?”
“As nice as it is, no, I’m afraid not.”
“Your unusual request, then?”
Sabina adopted a beguiling tone. “Well, I thought perhaps you might be so kind as to help me locate Mr. Oscar Follensbee.”
“Locate him?”
“Yes.” Sabina didn’t like lying, but sometimes it was necessary in a good cause. “I met him recently, and we discussed home renovation. I have decided to make use of his service. But his company is quite new and not as yet listed in the City Directory, and there is no contact information on his card. Do you happen to have Excelsior’s address or his own?”
“Unfortunately I do not. Not his address.”
“I don’t quite understand.”
“This card I printed together with another order. One set for the customer himself, the other, this one, as a favor for a friend.”
“Oh, I see. May I ask when this was?”
“A few weeks ago,” Bromberg said. “A small order. Fifty cards and fifty sheets of letterhead stationery, envelopes, and contract forms for himself. And a mere twenty-five cards for Mr. Follensbee. Such small orders from new customers I do not forget.”
“What was the customer’s name?”
“Goodlove. An uncommon name, easy to remember.”
“And what was his line of work? Also home improvement?”
“No. He is a real estate agent.”
“Oh? Would Mr. Goodlove be a plump, bald gentleman of short stature?”
“He would. You are knowing him?”
“I think so,” Sabina said. “Did he have his address put on the card you printed for him?”
A frown put deep wrinkles in Bromberg’s forehead, making him look even more like a mournful hound. “He did, yes. The address... what was it? One minute, please.”
He went away into the rear of the shop. Sabina waited slightly more than a minute before he returned. “Elmer J. Goodlove, Goodlove Real Estate, 1006 Guerrero Street. Would you like I should write it down for you?”
“That won’t be necessary. Thank you very much, Mr. Bromberg.”
“You are welcome.” He presented her with one of his own business cards. “You will remember me, please, when you are in need of quality printing and lithographing?”
“I certainly will,” Sabina said, and meant it. It would be with Mr. Bromberg she would place her order for the new Sabina Carpenter Quincannon business cards.
So Oscar Follensbee and Elmer J. Goodlove were the same man, she thought as she strolled back to Grant Avenue. A pair of aliases if he were up to some sort of chicanery, which struck her as probable. But what sort of chicanery? Assuming he had illegally entered Vernon Purifoy’s cottage with a skeleton key, for what reason if not to steal something?
And why had he had two cards printed for two different businesses, home improvement and real estate? Some sort of swindle involving both? But if that were the case, why was he carrying only the Excelsior card when Purifoy caught him?
She puzzled over these questions for a full block before a notion began to take shape. Suppose the “new” home improvement business was completely bogus, nothing more than a name to back up his salesman’s story if he were spotted trespassing on private property; that would explain the lack of an address on the Follensbee card, and why he hadn’t been carrying the Goodlove card. In which case his game had something to do with the real estate business.
Real estate. And illegal trespass with a skeleton key.
Her memory jogged, produced a connection to a swindle she’d been told about that had been perpetrated in the city before her move here from Denver. Same dodge, same crook after a long hiatus? One thing a detective learned from experience was that anything was possible, no matter how far-fetched it might seem. That included audacious confidence games that worked because of their fantastic nature.
Elizabeth Petrie was the person who’d told her about the swindle, and since Elizabeth could usually be found at her Hyde Street residence, Sabina proceeded there directly from Market Street. The trolley ride proved to be worthwhile: Elizabeth was home and welcoming as always.
The creation of finely crafted wholecloth and patchwork quilts was her profession, but her true passion was police work. She and her late husband, Oliver, had both been on the San Francisco force, he as an inspector and she as a matron. But when Oliver was implicated in a corruption scandal, and convicted and sentenced to Folsom Prison, the scandal’s taint had unjustly robbed her of her job. Oliver had drowned himself in whiskey after his release and eventually died of acute alcoholism, but Elizabeth had persevered. In her late forties now, she supported herself not only by selling her quilts, but by working part-time for a select few of the city’s private investigative agencies, Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional Detective Services being one of them, when they were in need of an experienced female operative. Her gray-haired, grandmotherly appearance combined with her no-nonsense intelligence made her a valuable asset in a wide range of cases.
Elizabeth had been blessed with a sharp memory and was a font of information on local criminal activities, particularly those that had taken place during her time as a police matron. She had shared accounts of some of the more interesting and bizarre cases with Sabina, one of them being the real estate swindle. She was eager to repeat the details once Sabina explained the reason for her visit.
“It certainly sounds like the same clever con as the one back in ’89,” she said. “And the same fat little bald grifter running it.”
“What was his name?”
“He went by Harold Newcastle. Sure to be an alias.”
“He calls himself Goodlove now, if he’s the same man. Elmer J. Goodlove.”
Elizabeth smiled wryly. “A particularly specious handle, that one.”
“Did Newcastle make use of a second name and a second bogus business such as the Excelsior Home Improvement Company?”
“No evidence of it was found, as I recall, but I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if he did. The department never did find out his real name. Or where he went after he skipped with his spoils.”
“How much did he get away with?”
“Close to five thousand dollars, based on the statements of the people he swindled,” Elizabeth said. As she spoke she continued to work on her current project, a handsome medallion quilt with a large Tree of Life at its center; she sewed rapidly and effortlessly, without making a stitching error or losing her train of thought. “Two officers were dispatched to his hole-in-the-wall real estate office in Polk Gulch after the first victim complaint was filed. Asa Brinkman was one of them. He was a sergeant then; now he’s a lieutenant in charge of the Fraud Division. I’m sure he’d be delighted to get his hands on the man.”