The Plague of Thieves Affair

by Marcia Muller

  When he finally paused for a breath, the Frenchman seized his arm and said in English, perhaps in deference to Sabina’s presence, “You must come now, M’sieu Holmes, and view Reticules Through the Ages.”

  “And the jewel of the collection, the Marie Antoinette chatelaine handbag. Yes, I should very much like to. Will you excuse me, Mrs. Carpenter?” And off they went, arm in arm, Charles the Third saying sententiously, “If I may say so, M’sieu le conservateur, I have always contended that Marie Antoinette’s reputation for promiscuity was exaggerated and that she was quite undeserving of the name L’Autrichienne…”

  Sabina sat down again. She still felt bewildered, and now concerned by what Charles the Third had told her. Was there a plot afoot to steal the Marie Antoinette bag? His ability to ferret out bits and pieces of underworld goings-on that she and John and their various contacts knew nothing about had proven to be astonishingly accurate in the past. It was entirely possible that he’d done so again. She couldn’t imagine how such a theft could be accomplished, no matter how boldly clever the thief’s plan might be, with the chatelaine bag under close scrutiny at all times by herself, Marcel Carreaux, Andrew Rayburn, Rayburn’s clerks, and scores of admiring and honest citizens. But she would be extra vigilant from now on. It might also be wise to try talking John into joining the surveillance. And if he wasn’t willing or able, to engage one of the agency’s part-time operatives for the task.

  She was still considering this when the crackbrain returned a few minutes later. “Most impressive,” he said. “The Marie Antoinette is exquisite, a plum ripe for the picking.”

  “I don’t see how.”

  “Nor do I. But where there’s a will there’s a way, if I may be permitted a cliché.” He sat down next to her. “Now then. You were about to tell me, when we were interrupted earlier, the reason for your personals advertisement.”

  Sabina hesitated. “This really isn’t the proper place to discuss it. Perhaps we could meet somewhere after the exhibition closes.”

  “That, unfortunately, won’t be possible. There is another game afoot tonight that requires my attention.”

  “Sometime tomorrow, then.”

  “Is it so important to wait until then? Why not simply tell me now?”

  Again Sabina hesitated. Then she drew a breath and plunged. “Very well. The reason for the ad is that I was hired to find you.”

  “Hired? By whom?”

  “A Chicago attorney named Roland W. Fairchild.”

  His only reaction was a slight stiffening of his lean body. “I know no one of that name.”

  “His uncle, Charles Percival Fairchild the Second, died recently. The sole heir to the estate is his son, Charles the Third, last seen in London nearly two years ago.”

  He stared at her in stoic silence.

  “Charles Percival Fairchild the Third,” Sabina said. “That’s your birth name, isn’t it. Your true name.”

  “It is not.” He spoke coldly, his eyes glittering in their nest of false whiskers. “My name is and always has been Sherlock Holmes, of 221B Baker Street, London. I answer to no other.”

  “Roland Fairchild and his wife are staying at the Baldwin Hotel. If you’ll just speak to him—”

  In one swift movement, using his blackthorn stick for leverage, he was on his feet and turning for the door.

  “Wait, please—”

  He didn’t wait. He thrust the door open and rushed out onto Post Street. It took Sabina only a few seconds to gain the sidewalk, but by then Charles the Third had already vanished into the night.

  11

  SABINA

  The Baldwin Hotel and Theater, on the corner of Market and Powell, was second only to the Palace among the city’s luxury hostelries. Built in 1876, a year after the Palace, by a mining and real estate speculator named “Lucky” Baldwin, it was a massive structure containing nearly six hundred guest rooms and several cafés and public rooms; the accommodations in its prominent hexagonal dome five stories high were reserved strictly for ladies. The attached theater, originally known as Baldwin’s Academy of Music, Sabina knew to be opulently decorated in crimson satin and gold. She had attended performances there by such touring players as Lillian Russell and Frederick Warde, and on one occasion sat in a proscenium box with Callie and Hugh to hear diminutive Della Fox sing amusing songs with such lyrics as “Just a little love, a little kiss” and “A babbling brook, a shady nook, sweet lips where kisses dwell—oh!” Hotel and theater combined took up an entire block, and though it was not as majestic as the Palace, it was grand enough to attract the rich and famous along with the simply well-to-do. The fact that Roland W. Fairchild and his wife could afford to stay there indicated both good taste and financial stability.

  Somewhat reluctantly, Sabina went to the Baldwin on Saturday morning. She felt she owed her client an accounting of last evening’s contact with his cousin, even though it cast her in a poor light. She’d spent a restless night, berating herself time and again over the way she had mishandled Charles the Third. She should have been more circumspect, elicited his promise to return to the gallery tonight and then tried again to arrange a private meeting. More subtle in broaching the subject of his heritage, too. She should have known he would react as he did when suddenly confronted. While he suffered from an addled self-delusion, he hadn’t completely lost awareness of who he really was. He might have refused to admit it no matter where or how she braced him, but in different, quieter circumstances she’d have had a better chance of reasoning with him.

  As it was, she feared that she had provoked him into fleeing the city or hiding himself so well in its darker recesses that no one could find him. In either case, she might never lay eyes on him again—a bitter prospect because it meant she’d failed in her responsibility. The one slim hope she had was his passion for the cat-and-mouse detective game, particularly a case in which he had personally involved himself. The allegedly planned attempt to steal the Marie Antoinette bag might, just might be enough to lure him back to the Rayburn Gallery, if not tonight, then on one of the subsequent evenings.

  No matter what happened, she owed it to herself as well as her client to own up to her mistake and, if possible, make amends for it.

  From an obsequious clerk at the desk in the Baldwin’s ornate lobby she learned that Mr. and Mrs. Roland W. Fairchild occupied room 311. The absence of a key in their room box indicated that they were in residence. She waited while a bellhop took her card upstairs, and when he returned he conducted her into a hydraulic elevator similar to the ones at the Palace and left her outside the door marked 311.

  Her discreet knock was immediately answered. The large-boned woman who opened the door was approximately Sabina’s age, raven-haired, attractive in a severe and rather haughty way. No welcoming smile, merely a long appraising look out of cool gray eyes. She wore a pinch-bodice shirtwaist that accented an overlarge bosom, and a trumpet-shaped skirt that fit closely over broad hips and flared just above the knee. The hourglass figure she presented, Sabina thought, was considerably aided by a tightly laced corset.

  “Mrs. Fairchild?”

  “I am Octavia Fairchild, yes.” Her voice was as cool as her gaze. “I must say, you’re not quite what I expected, Mrs. Carpenter.”

  “No? And why is that?”

  “I always thought lady detectives were a middle-aged and masculine lot. My husband didn’t tell me his was young and rather comely.”

  The remark was not in any way a compliment. In fact, the reference to her being “his” lady detective was mildly insulting.

  “Is Mr. Fairchild here?”

  “Not at the moment, but I expect him back shortly. You may as well come in and wait.”

  The sitting room was small by Baldwin standards, its windows overlooking the Powell Street cable car tracks. This coupled with the fact that it was on a lower floor and thus lacked the panoramic views of the larger rooms and suites on the upper floors, caused Sabina to revise her opinion of the Fairchilds’
financial situation. Not wealthy, just moderately well-to-do. Putting up at the Baldwin, like the expensive clothing each wore, was more a façade calculated to make their station seem loftier than an expression of good taste.

  Not very graciously, Octavia Fairchild invited her to sit on a tufted red plush settee. “Have you come because you’ve located my husband’s cousin?” she asked as she lowered her corseted hips onto a matching chair.

  Sabina said, “I’ve learned that he is still in San Francisco, yes. Or was last night.”

  “What does that mean, pray tell?”

  “It means he responded to a personals ad I placed in the newspapers and that I spoke to him briefly.”

  “Why briefly?”

  “Circumstances prevented a longer discussion.”

  “What circumstances?” Then, when Sabina didn’t respond, “Did Charles consent to speak with my husband?”

  “I told him he could be reached here at the Baldwin.”

  “That doesn’t answer my question. Does he intend to speak to Roland? Does he intend to return to Chicago to claim his inheritance?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t have a chance to ask him.”

  Three horizontal lines marred the smooth surface of Octavia Fairchild’s forehead. “Why not?”

  “I would rather wait until your husband returns before I explain.”

  “That’s not necessary. Roland and I have no secrets from each other.”

  “Just the same, I’d rather wait.”

  “At least tell me this,” the woman said through pursed lips. “Does Charles still retain the mad notion that he is that British detective, Sherlock Holmes?”

  “Yes.”

  “He should be put in an asylum. I’ve said that all along and Roland agrees with me. He’s a danger to himself and quite possibly to others.”

  “I don’t agree, Mrs. Fairchild.”

  “You’re not qualified to judge. You hardly know the man.”

  “Nor do you. From what your husband told me, no one in your family has seen Charles in years.”

  Octavia Fairchild fixed her with a gimlet eye. Sabina met and returned the gaze stoically. This silent clash of wills lasted for some fifteen seconds; then Mrs. Fairchild got abruptly to her feet and, without a word, walked to the bedroom in an exaggerated regal stride, entered, and closed the door sharply behind her.

  Sabina sat with a tight curb on her temper. She hadn’t much cared for Roland W. Fairchild, and she actively disliked his wife. Among other things, the woman was artificial, overbearing, contrary, and downright rude. In short, she was what Stephen had referred to as a provider of a severe pain in the gluteus maximus.

  Waiting, Sabina wondered if she might have been a little hasty in defending Charles the Third. Was he in fact a danger to others, if not to himself? She remembered the incident in October, her discovery of the body of Artemas Sneed, the scruff who had attempted to blackmail Carson Montgomery, and her surmise that it might well have been the crackbrain Sherlock who had skewered him with a sword cane. In self-defense, if so, she’d thought at the time, but it could have been otherwise—a lunatic’s premeditated act of vigilante justice. Even if she’d confronted him, Charles the Third would not have admitted to the slaying no matter what had transpired in Sneed’s waterfront lair. So there was no way for her to know one way or the other.

  The sound of a key turning in the door latch heralded Roland Fairchild’s return. Sabina remained seated as he entered and closed the door behind him. When he spied her he halted, blinking, and glanced around the otherwise empty room. His surprise at finding her alone in the sitting room was obvious, as well it should be.

  “Mrs. Carpenter,” he said. “Ah … where is my wife?”

  “In the bedroom, I believe.”

  “Bedroom? Why?”

  Sabina had no doubt the woman was listening behind the closed door. She said, “You’ll have to ask her, Mr. Fairchild.”

  He made a vague dismissive gesture, as if his wife’s actions were of no particular consequence to him, removed his bowler hat, and seated himself in the same chair she had occupied. His attire was as natty today as it had been on Thursday, dominated this time by a Lombard houndstooth silk vest and a cravat the color of burgundy wine.

  “You have news of my cousin? You’ve found him?”

  “Not exactly. He is still in San Francisco, or was last evening, but I wasn’t able to find out where he’s residing.”

  “Then how do you know he’s still here in the city? Did someone see him?”

  “Yes. I did.”

  “Where?”

  “At an art gallery on Post Street. As I told your wife, I spoke to him briefly.”

  “Did you tell him you know his real identity?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well? What did he say?”

  “He refused to admit it.”

  “Of course he still believes he’s Sherlock Holmes,” Fairchild said, as if he were neither surprised nor displeased at the fact. There was what Sabina took to be a hopeful note in his voice when he asked, “Is it your opinion that his delusion is such that he has completely suppressed the truth about himself?”

  “For the most part, yes, though I should say he has moments of awareness.”

  “He may be certifiably insane nonetheless. What was his reaction to the news of his father’s death and the inheritance awaiting him in Chicago?”

  “None.”

  “To my presence in San Francisco? You did tell him I am staying here at the Baldwin Hotel?”

  “Yes, but he didn’t respond to that, either.”

  “Did you try to talk him into contacting me?”

  Time to pay the piper.

  “I didn’t have time,” Sabina said. “He fled before I could say or ask anything more.”

  “Fled? For what reason?”

  “I’m afraid it’s my fault.”

  A nose twitch showed Fairchild’s displeasure. “Are you saying you acted inappropriately, frightened him away?”

  “Somewhat rashly, yes. The circumstances were such that—”

  “Hang the circumstances. Why didn’t you stop him?”

  “How should I have done that, Mr. Fairchild? By force?”

  The bedroom door opened abruptly and out came Octavia Fairchild, dark visaged, like a cloud that robbed the room of some of its light. “A proper male detective would have stopped him by whatever means necessary. I told you, Roland, that hiring a woman was a foolish decision.”

  Fairchild aimed a narrow-eyed glance at his wife. “Eavesdropping is childish behavior, Octavia. Why didn’t you simply step out here and join us? Why were you lurking in the bedroom in the first place?”

  “I neither like nor approve of your Mrs. Carpenter. She was quite rude to me before you came. Rude, and quite obviously incompetent. If you ask me, she should be discharged immediately and replaced by a capable male investigator as I suggested in the first place.”

  “I haven’t asked you. Please keep still and permit me to determine what’s best.”

  Octavia Fairchild snapped her mouth shut and stood stiffly, arms akimbo, directing dour looks at both her husband and Sabina.

  “Mrs. Carpenter,” Fairchild said, “do you consider it likely my cousin will remain in San Francisco?”

  “It’s difficult to say for sure. For the time being, perhaps he will. He has what he considers, or rather his Sherlock Holmes persona considers, to be pressing business here.”

  “What sort of pressing business?”

  Sabina had no intention of sharing this information with the Fairchilds. “He didn’t take me into his confidence.”

  “Is it possible he’ll contact you again of his own volition?”

  “As unpredictable as I’ve found him to be, yes, it is. He might also decide to contact you in spite of his actions last evening, though that seems doubtful.”

  “And if he doesn’t do either? What are your chances of locating him again?”

  Unable to keep still, O
ctavia Fairchild said, “Slim and none, I should say. I still think you should discharge her.”

  “In favor of a male investigator who has had no dealings with Charles in San Francisco, doesn’t know him at all?” Fairchild said this without looking at his wife.

  “What about her partner, Mr. John Quincannon? Surely he is more competent than she.”

  Sabina said, “My partner is involved in another case that commands his full attention. Even if he were free, there is nothing he could do that I can’t or haven’t already.”

  “So you claim.”

  “That’s enough, Octavia,” Fairchild said sharply. Then to Sabina, “Well? What are the chances of communicating with Charles again?”

  “I can’t answer that. All I can tell you is that if you wish me to continue, I will do everything in my power to bring you and your cousin together.” John wouldn’t like what she was about to say next, but there was no need for him to know about it. She must do what she felt was right and proper. “If I fail, I will not only waive the remainder of our agreed-upon fee, but refund your retainer.”

  Octavia Fairchild emitted an unladylike snort. Her husband ignored her. Nose twitching again, he said, “Very well, Mrs. Carpenter. You have three days. If Charles has not contacted me in that time, with or without your assistance, I will consider our arrangement terminated, hold you to your promise regarding financial matters, and seek other options.”

  “Very well,” Sabina said.

  Fairchild showed her to the door. All the way across the room, she could feel Octavia Fairchild’s hostile gaze like a dagger between her shoulder blades.

  12

  QUINCANNON

  Elias Corby might have vanished into thin air, for all the success Quincannon had in attempting to find him after the embarrassing incident at the cooperage. He spent several hours interviewing coworkers and neighbors of Corby’s, none of whom knew the man well. If the murderous crook had any close friends, male or female, or any vices such as gambling or the services of prostitutes, he’d spoken of them to no one. A closemouthed loner, from all indications.