“Mrs. Carpenter. Yes, you might say that.”
Bakker bowed, rather clumsily given his bulging midsection. “If you’ll excuse me, I believe I’ll have another look at the exhibition.” He
favored her with another smile and moved ponderously toward the display table.
Behind Sabina at the food buffet stood a gentleman with a tortoiseshell pince-nez, squinting through its lens at a brick of Stilton cheese as if he found it suspect. “Harrumph!” he exclaimed repeatedly, as though something were lodged in his throat. At the other end of the long table, a group of ladies clad in the slimmed-down dresses of the nineties—bustles, thank the Lord, were no longer in fashion—milled about nibbling canapés and talking. She looked away from the well-dressed crowd and again let her gaze wander over the bags on display.
Her favorites were the chatelaine bags: reticules that in olden times had hung from an ornamental hook on the jeweled girdles of ladies of high station and contained useful household items. Made of beadwork or silver or gold mesh, many were set with semiprecious or precious gems, such as the diamond-and-ruby encrusted bag that Marie Antoinette had worn at Versailles. The Antoinette bag was wide and long, six by ten inches, with a rigid gold frame and clasp. It was the jewel of this exhibition, valued at several thousand dollars. Across the room she spied her partner near the wine and liquor buffet, something of an irony because he had renounced Demon Rum after a tragic accident during his days with the United States Secret Service. With his luxuriant freebooter’s beard and in his gray sack coat, matching waistcoat, and striped trousers he cut a handsome figure. The red four-in-hand was a bit garish, but then he could
be flamboyant when the mood struck him.
Still, he was finely turned out—not that Sabina would flatter him by telling him so. Any such praise would only encourage him in his pursuit of her, set him to spouting the poetry he so loved and importuning for opportunities to dine together. She had been a widow too long for such romantic nonsense—her husband, like she, had worked as a Pinkerton agent in Denver, and had been foully murdered several years ago in the line of duty. Besides, she valued John too much as a friend and business partner to welcome any sort of dalliance.
Although at times, being well aware of the pleasures of the flesh, she wondered—
None of that now! You are here to observe and protect, not woolgather.
She moved closer to the display to once more marvel at the Antoinette chatelaine bag. It was suspended from a hook in its blue velvet display case, jewels winking in the soft electric light. Such a history it had: seized by French revolutionists and paraded through the streets
of Paris as an example of the monarchy’s excesses. Lost for two decades, it had resurfaced in the possession of a descendant of a minor revolutionary, who donated it to the Louvre Museum. And there it had been permanently displayed until Bernard La Follette, curator, joined with curators from museums in Florence and Venice to organize this exhibition and bring it to selected American cities under the guidance of Marcel LeBeaux.
The gallery venue was especially favorable: small, secure, and most of the visitors were known to Andrew Rayburn, the owner. Far better here than a large exhibition hall with many entrances and exits, or even the local museums with their dark nooks and crannies. Yes, the reticules should be quite safe here. Mr. LeBeaux’s hiring of the Carpenter and Quincannon agency had been an unnecessary precaution, perhaps, but Sabina was glad of it even if John groused at a job he considered beneath his talents. The opportunity to view such a splendid collection was a pleasure, and the fee was excellent.
She looked over the crowd again, then crossed the room to speak with John.
“All seems well,” she said in low tones. “Another day without incident or suspicious characters among the viewers.”
He nodded and then said in tones that bore an undercurrent of jealousy, “You and that fat gent appeared to find each other amusing.”
“Amusing?”
“All smiles, both of you. Who is he?”
“Mr. Thaddeus Bakker, of the Sacramento Bakkers.”
“Whoever they are. What did he want?”
“Why, I assume what men always want.” John narrowed his eyes at her. “And that is?”
“A pleasant conversation, of course,” she said serenely, and went back to her station near the food buffet.
Quincannon
The number of visitors had thinned to less than a dozen men and women, all of them grouped in the middle of the room between the two buffets. Quincannon consulted his stemwinder. Six minutes until closing. And seven o’clock would arrive not a moment too soon. He was weary of the day’s long, standing vigil, and in need of a genuine meal such as the unparalleled seafood fare at the Cobweb Palace at Meig’s Wharf. Perhaps Sabina—
“Excuse me, young man.”
A rather overdressed, middle-aged matron had sidled up next to him. “Yes, madam?” he said through an artificial smile.
“Are you an employee of this establishment?”
“Why do you ask?”
“You have been standing in this same place the entire time I’ve been here, looking at everything except the exhibition. Are you an employee?”
“After a fashion.”
“That is not an answer. I don’t believe you are. I have been a patron of Rayburn’s for many years and I’ve never seen you before.” She waved a lorgnette at him as if it were a miniature sword. “I find you suspicious.”
Quincannon managed to maintain his professional smile; “Do you, indeed.”
“Just who are you?”
“A gentleman of industry.”
“A what? Bosh.You look like a thief.”
And you look like a bulldog, he thought. “Have you ever seen a thief, madam?”
“Yes, and he looked exactly like you. Though I must say his attire was of much better quality.”
This altered his smile into a ferocious glower. “Madam, if you—” And all the lights went out.
The sudden darkness was nearly absolute. There were no street lamps in the immediate vicinity outside the gallery; the only light that penetrated, and only faintly, came from the lamps of hansoms, carriages, and one of those infernal horse-frightening motorized contraptions passing on Post Street. The bulldog emitted a startled sound that was more bark than shriek. Voices rose querulously; there was a confused milling about.
Quincannon’s reaction was immediate. Three long strides took him to the front entrance; he barred it with his body and out-flung arms, and shouted in stentorian tones, “Stand clear of the doors! No one is allowed to leave!”
Sabina had moved just as quickly and instinctively. Her voice rose out of the darkness: “Rear doorway secure!”
Andrew Rayburn’s came next: “Remain calm, ladies and gentlemen, remain calm. I’ll soon have the lights back on.”
The others in the room quieted and grew still. Someone brushed up against Quincannon, either by accident or in an attempt to exit; a none-too-gentle shove brought instant retreat. A lucifer scratched and flared, then a brighter flame that came from a flint lighter. In the flickering glow the faces of the dozen or so people appeared like masks of shadow. Quincannon squinted toward the Reticules Through the Ages display. No one was in close proximity to it except George Eldridge, one of Rayburn’s clerks.
The sudden extinguishing of the lights might have been accidental; such blackouts were not uncommon in this new age of electricity. But Quincannon distrusted coincidence whenever the possibility of nefarious activity was afoot—the more so when something like this happened at such a convenient time. He pressed his back more tightly against the doors, the fingers of his right hand touching the butt of the Navy Colt concealed inside his coat.
No one made any effort to push past him while the blackout lasted, a period of no more than two minutes. But when the lights came on again—
“The Marie Antoinette bag! It’s gone!”
The outcry came from Eldridge, who stood pointing at the
Reticules Through the Ages display. Even from a distance, Quincannon could see that the blue velvet centerpiece case was empty. He bit back a richly inventive and sulphurous oath, settled instead for a muttered, “Hell and damn!” His scowl was one of malignant ferocity.
Another babble of voices had followed the clerk’s pronouncement. Most of the people were grouped together in the center of the room, all except for Holloway and the corpulent gent who stood off by himself, looking frightened and twitching his fingers across the front of his corporation. Marcel LeBeaux and Andrew Rayburn stood next to Sabina at the rear doorway, both men gesticulating wildly. She said something to LeBeaux that resulted in a violent head shake, after which the Frenchman turned, spied Quincannon, and came rushing over to him with Rayburn at his heels.
The Frenchman was a tall, spare gent with elegantly tonsured silver hair; the gallery owner, by contrast, was a fussy little man with a fussy little black moustache. LeBeaux still waved his arms, his saturnine face mottled with a mixture of outrage and anxiety. “The chatelaine bag is missing! Stolen!”
“So I understand.”
“Diable! Do something, m’sieur! You were hired to prevent such a thing from happening—”
“Which neither Mrs. Carpenter nor I could very well do in a blacked-out room full of people.”
“Yes, yes, but the Marie Antoinette, the Marie Antoinette—” One of LeBeaux’s flailing hands narrowly missed Quincannon’s nose. “The gendarmes, the police—we must summon them immediately.”
The police. Faugh! The present regime was as corrupt and incompetent as any in the city’s history. Should the bluecoats be brought in and one happen to stumble across the missing bag, like as not he would steal it himself.
“There’s no need for the police,” Quincannon said, “when you have the finest detective west of the Mississippi River, if not in the entire nation, already on the premises.”
“Eh? Who?”
Quincannon’s glower grew even more malignant. “John Quincannon, naturally. At your service.”
Rayburn said, “Yes, well, then do something, for heaven’s sake!”
“I have been doing something—guarding this door.”
“No one slipped past you before you took up your position? You’re sure?”
“Positive. Nor did anyone slip past Mrs. Carpenter, I take it?”
“Only me. I went into the storeroom just after she took up her position, to find out what happened to the lights.”
“Could you tell if anyone else was in the storeroom?”
“I didn’t see anyone when the lights were restored.”
“What caused them to go out?”
“A fuse had come loose. I screwed it back in.” Come loose by itself? Not likely.
“Is the rear entrance locked?”
“Yes. I made sure of it before I returned to the gallery.”
“Who else has a key besides you?”
“No one. It’s in my vest pocket.”
“Bully,” Quincannon said.
“What? Bully? What the devil’s the matter with you, Quincannon? Don’t you understand that someone has made off with the most valuable chatelaine bag in the collection?”
“Calm yourself, Mr. Rayburn. No one has made off with it.”
“Eh?” LeBeaux said. “What’s that you say?”
“Everyone who was in the gallery before the lights went out is still here, Quincannon said. “Ergo, both the thief and the missing reticule are still here.We’ll soon have both in hand.”
Sabina
After Andrew Rayburn locked the front doors, he and M’sieur LeBeaux gathered all the guests and the two clerks together in the middle of the gallery and revealed her and John’s identities. There were exclamations of surprise. The man with the pince-nez still seemed to be trying to dislodge an obstruction in his throat; a series of “Harrumphs!” overrode the other voices. A dowager with great sausage-shaped curls topped by a feather-strewn hat said in a disbelieving voice, “Detectives? A woman and this … this man?”
John glowered at her. “And why not, madam?”
“You still look like a thief to me. Mr. Rayburn, are you sure he isn’t the one who pinched the missing bag?”
Mutters and grumbles followed this. John, who had little patience at the best of times, looked as if he would like to strangle the woman; Sabina put her restraining hand on his arm as he took a step forward. The gallery owner sought to reassure everyone that not only was John innocent of the theft, but that Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional Detective Services, was the city’s most reputable detective agency. His words were met with more mutters and dubious expressions, none more sceptical than the sausage-curled dowager’s.
It was John who restored order by taking control of the situation. He did this in typical John Quincannon fashion, by expanding his chest and shouting in a voice loud enough to rattle window glass. “Quiet! Quiet, I say!” The words brooked no argument, and there was none. “Whoever took the confounded bag is still in this room. So is the bag itself. A careful search will turn it up.”
A gentleman in a derby hat said meekly, “Do you intend to search each of us?”
“If necessary.”
“Outrageous!” This from the dowager. “I refuse to be treated like a common thief—”
“Whether or not you’re a thief, madam, common or otherwise, remains to be seen.”
“What? How dare you!”
Tact was sometimes as lacking in John as patience. Sabina hurriedly interceded. “If a search of your person is necessary, it will be done privately and with the utmost prudence. No one will be unduly inconvenienced.”
“I, for one, have no objection to being searched,” Thaddeus Bakker said. “No innocent person should have.”
“Just so, Mr. Bakker.”
John ordered everyone to move over to the wall behind the food buffet and to stay there in a group. When this was done, he, Sabina, LeBeaux, and Rayburn held a brief conference on the opposite side of the gallery.
“I don’t see how searching everyone will turn up the bag,” Rayburn said. “Surely the thief wouldn’t have it on his person.”
“And why not?”
Sabina answered John’s question. “You didn’t pay much attention to it, but it’s too large to be hidden in men’s or women’s clothing.” She held out her hands in an approximation of the chatelaine’s size. “The clasp alone would make it virtually impossible to conceal.”
The Frenchman concurred. “Mais oui. Quite impossible.”
“Everyone will have to be searched nonetheless.”
“Perhaps the thief has hidden it somewhere in this room, with the idea of returning for it later.”
“Or in the storeroom or my office,” the gallery owner added. “Not likely in either of those places, Mr. Rayburn,” John said. “It’s
a certainty no one left this room while the lights were out, nor has left it since you put them on again.”
‘Yes, that’s right.”
John fluffed his beard and smacked his hands together. “We’ll search the lot of them now,” he said, “and have done with that first. Sooner or later, in one place or another, we’ll find your Marie Antoinette.”
“We had better find it, M’sieur Quincannon,” LeBeaux said portentously. “We had better!”
Quincannon
While Sabina watched over the women, Quincannon searched each of the four male guests and the two gallery employees in Rayburn’s private office. LeBeaux then insisted that his and Rayburn’s persons be searched, and when that was done, that Quincannon submit to a search as well. The Frenchman’s pat-down technique was more thorough than Quincannon felt was necessary, but he offered no complaint. The chatelaine bag remained missing.
Sabina took her turn with the five women guests, the blasted bulldog still outraged and making dire threats of a lawsuit against all parties concerned. If a muzzle had been close at hand, Quincannon would cheerfully have used it to still her yapping.
N
one of the women possessed the bag, either.
So it must be hidden somewhere in the gallery. Either by design, in which case the thief believed himself to be more clever than he was; or because he had realized he couldn’t get away with his crime and stashed the bag to avert detection. He would be unmasked and snaffled in any case. No thief had yet outwitted John Quincannon and no thief ever would.
Guests and employees were herded into the storeroom, with Sabina again on guard, after which the three men commenced a careful exploration of the gallery. Every possible hiding place was examined—nooks and crannies, the undersides of the display table, chairs, and pedestals used to exhibit sculptures, the backs of paintings mounted on the walls, and the food, bottles, plates, and glassware on the two buffets. Quincannon even went so far as to test the walls and floor for possible hidey holes, of which he found none.
The bag was not there.
“Zut alors!” LeBeaux said in exasperation when they were finished. “C’est incroyable. You are certain, M’sieur Quincannon, that the thief could not have left this room during the blackout?”
“Unless he or she has the power to walk through solid walls, I am.”
“Then where is the Marie Antoinette?”
Quincannon had no idea where the blasted bag was, not that he would ever have admitted it to the Frenchman or anyone else. “No one will leave these premises until we find it,” he said with more conviction than he felt. He went to the storeroom door and gestured to Sabina to come out.
“Mrs. Carpenter,” he said formally when she joined them, “do you agree that there are two people involved in the theft?”
LeBeaux and Rayburn both seemed surprised at the question. But only until Sabina answered it.
“I do,” she said. “One to loosen the fuse at a prearranged time, the other to lift the bag from the display table.”
“Is it likely one of the guests would know where the fuse box is located and be able to find it by matchlight in a dark room?”
“Not likely at all.”
Silver Bullets Page 18
