The Bags of Tricks Affair

by Bill Pronzini

  “I suppose not.”

  “Your servants? Are they on the premises?”

  “Mrs. Endicott is in the kitchen and Grimes somewhere on the grounds. The carriage house, likely—he has a room there. But they have nothing to tell you, either. Nor does my nephew. I’ve already questioned them, as I told you earlier.”

  At the top of the stairs Mr. Brandywine turned down a long carpeted hallway to the right and stopped before a heavy oak door with a pair of cast-bronze locks set one above the other. He took two separate keys from his pocket. The locking mechanisms, Sabina noted, were well oiled and the bolts turned with only the faintest of clicks.

  “I’ll ask you to please not touch any of the artifacts,” he said. “Some are quite fragile.” Then he opened the door, reached inside to turn a switch that flooded the interior with electric light.

  Sabina caught her breath as they entered. It was not unlike walking into an extravagant museum exhibit. The lights gleamed and glittered off the multitude of jade and porcelain artifacts arranged on shelves, tables, pedestals, and inside slant-topped glass cases. So many, large and small, that even though the room was of substantial size, there was space for only a scant few items of furniture—two leather chairs, a small table and a smoking stand set between them, a single low bookcase next to a marble fireplace. Velvet drapes the color of claret wine were drawn across the outer wall opposite.

  Mr. Brandywine conducted her through the maze of displays. Despite the gravity of her visit, his passion and his pride of ownership brightened his features and his voice as he pointed out various treasures. There were vases, bowls, cups, wine vessels, small boxes, incense burners, bangles, belt hooks, snuff bottles, the flat circular objects he referred to as bis; the carved images of dragons, birds, and coiled serpents; porcelain figures of people and animals painted in intricate detail; other pieces she was unable to identify. All had been lovingly cared for. The porcelain colors and those of the various types of jade—white, dark green, blue, yellow—seemed to glow as with an inner fire.

  But she was not here to look at and admire the client’s collection. After a single pass-through, she returned to the door to examine the locks and locking plates with a keen eye. Stephen had been an expert with locks, and John was another; from them and through practical experience, she had learned as much as she would ever need to know.

  These locks were obviously custom-made, no doubt by a master locksmith—the kind that could not be opened by means of a skeleton key or a set of lockpicks of the sort John carried. The keyholes and plates bore no marks of tampering, nor was there any trace of wax residue; they were as gleamingly clean as the artifacts. The only way the thief could have entered this way was if he possessed Mr. Brandywine’s keys or exact duplicates—which, if the testimony of the purveyor of fine menswear was trustworthy, could not have been managed.

  A swishing sound redirected Sabina’s attention. Brandywine had opened the dark red drapes to reveal the French-style windows behind them. He beckoned to her, and said when she joined him, “These windows haven’t been opened since I bought this house a dozen years ago. Can’t be opened, as I told you before.”

  Sabina examined them closely. The windows were some three feet in height, two leaded panes of glass in each half; a heavy, curved latch that matched the ornate handles fastened the two together.

  “And why can’t they be opened?” she asked.

  “See for yourself. Stand to one side or the other and look through the glass at an angle.”

  She did that. The glass was less than clean inside and out and slightly opaque as a result, but she had no trouble viewing the thick, rough-textured strips that had been applied to the edges of both halves and to the crack where they joined in the middle.

  “Weather stripping,” she said.

  “More precisely, a permanent seal. Strips of thick rubberized pile bonded to the frames. The windows leaked when it rained and permitted drafts to enter even in dry weather. That is one reason I had them sealed. The other, of course, being security.”

  The windows were hinged to open outward. Sabina lifted the curved latch, grasped both handles, and pushed hard enough to cause the halves to rattle faintly in their frames. The weather stripping held them fast together.

  “You see?” Brandywine said. “Still sealed tight. I checked them myself again this morning.”

  Sabina replaced the latch around its fastener, then peered out again through the glass. The nephew, Philip, was still performing his athletic rituals on the grass below. Directly beneath the windows was a bed of closely spaced purple flowers at least six feet wide that separated the house wall from the greensward.

  “That flower bed below. Soft earth?”

  “Yes. That is another reason why the windows are not the means by which the thief entered this room. There is no way to reach them except by ladder—not even a monkey could climb the wall—and if a ladder had been placed in the bed, the delphiniums would have been crushed and there would have been deep indentations as well as footprints. There was no such damage when I examined it this morning. And Grimes would have reported it to me if there had been previously.”

  The fireplace was not the answer, either. It was no longer in use, had in fact been sealed—evidently another casualty of Mr. Brandywine’s dislike of drafts. The room, and likely the rest of the house, was gas heated.

  Nor was there any sort of secret room or passageway between the walls—an improbability, but one that had to be considered. Her client had assured Sabina of this, but she did some random tapping and searching to make certain.

  When she was done with that, she perused the spines of the books in the small case. “Are these all you have on the subject of Chinese antiquities?” she asked him.

  “Except for one or two downstairs in the library where I sometimes do my reading. Why do you ask?”

  “No particular reason. Successful detectives are curious creatures, Mr. Brandywine.”

  There was nothing more to be examined here. Sabina said she would like to interview Mrs. Endicott. Brandywine, after double-locking the antiquities room, accompanied her downstairs and summoned the housekeeper to the library—a large room lined with books in glass cases and otherwise filled with a refectory table and dark leather furniture arranged before a massive fieldstone fireplace.

  The gray-haired servant answered Sabina’s questions readily and, it seemed, honestly. As her employer had indicated, she had no information that might shed light on the thefts.

  “And now, Mrs. Carpenter?” Brandywine said after dismissing the housekeeper. He looked and sounded impatient. Tempus fidgets.

  “A look around outside. Alone, if you don’t mind.”

  “As you wish.”

  Outside, she went around to the side wall beneath the antiquities room and stood peering upward. The house wall was sheer all the way up past the French-style windows to a small window beneath the eaves; there were no hand- or footholds of any kind, and the white-painted boards appeared to be free of marks. No, not even a monkey could have climbed it.

  A study of the flower beds for a dozen feet in either direction also bore out Brandywine’s claim. Neither the purple delphiniums nor the soft earth had been disturbed. The beds were too wide for a ladder, even a long one of the sort painters used, to have been placed at an angle at the edge of the green and then climbed from there. And if further proof were needed, there were no telltale indentations in the grass.

  “Hello. Are you the lady detective my uncle hired?”

  Sabina turned. The nephew, Philip, had come up softly behind her. At close quarters, the lad—he was not long past the age of legal majority—was the picture of youthful health and fitness. Towheaded, muscles rippling in his bare arms and shoulders, his face damply aglow from his exertions, a grave smile curving his mouth.

  “I am. How did you know?”

  “He grumbled to me when he came home about having to settle, as he put it, for a woman and hoped he hadn’t made a mistake in d
oing so. What is the world coming to, and all that.” The youth chuckled. “My name is Philip. But then you already know that, I’m sure.”

  “Yes. Mine is Sabina Carpenter.”

  “Well, I’m charmed, even if Uncle isn’t.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Have you any idea how someone could have gotten into the antiquities room? If someone did, that is.”

  “If?”

  “Uncle said it couldn’t be done. And his memory isn’t what it once was, by his own admission. He might have sold or traded the items he claims are missing.”

  “Does he do much selling and trading?”

  “I don’t know. He’s closemouthed about his hobby.”

  “He seems convinced ten items were stolen.”

  Philip shrugged. “Then I suppose they must have been, somehow.”

  “Do you know anything about Chinese artifacts, Philip?”

  “Not a thing. They don’t interest me in the slightest.”

  “What does interest you?”

  “Sports.” Excitement brightened the lad’s hazel eyes. “Track and field, primarily. Sometimes I do my training with friends at the Olympic Club, sometimes here by myself.”

  “Training?”

  “For the Olympic Games in Paris when the century turns. I had hoped to be able to compete in this year’s games in Athens—the first international Olympic games in modern times, you know. But Uncle wouldn’t allow it. He said I was too young.”

  “You must have been disappointed.”

  “Yes, but I suppose he had a point. I’ll be in even better condition in four years, and old enough to make my own plans and decisions.”

  “What events do you hope to participate in?”

  “The sixty-meter and one-hundred-meter races. The one-hundred-ten-meter high hurdles. Gymnastics, too, if possible. I’m sure I’ll be able to qualify for at least one event, but even if I don’t, I’ll attend the games as a spectator. It’s sure to be a thrilling experience.”

  “Your uncle doesn’t seem to share your enthusiasm for sports.”

  “Not at all. He didn’t even want me to join the Olympic Club, even though important men such as Charles Crocker and Leland Stanford are members. But then we all have different passions, different skills, don’t we.”

  “That we do. Good luck to you, Philip.”

  “And to you, Mrs. Carpenter.”

  The youth loped off. Sabina watched after him for a moment, then returned to the front of the house. The wide carriage lane looped around on the opposite side and led to the carriage house at the rear. A light wind had begun to blow in from the bay. As she hurried along, the breeze carried the familiar booming sound of a horn as one of the fast coastal steamers drew away from a pier along the Embarcadero.

  In front of the open doors to the carriage house, a man she assumed was Grimes stood industriously polishing the brightwork on a handsome Concord buggy. A small mongrel dog sat companionably nearby. The animal cocked its head, gave Sabina a brief study, apparently decided she was of no interest, and yawned. Grimes was in his thirties, with long hair and chin whiskers of a deep russet color—a brawny specimen who appeared even more fit than young Philip, his chest and shoulders broad, muscled arms as thick as saplings. Coachman, gardener, handyman. And a more than adequate bodyguard, no doubt, if his employer ever had need of one.

  Sabina identified herself. Grimes gave her a brief, not quite impudent look and allowed as how Mr. Brandywine had told him he’d hired a detective. “Didn’t say it was a woman, though.”

  She had nothing to say to that.

  “Never seen him so upset,” Grimes said. “You think you can find out how the thief got into that special room of his?”

  She countered by asking, “Do you have any idea how it was done?”

  “No, ma’am. Not hardly.”

  “I understand you have a room here in the carriage house. You’ve neither heard nor seen any sign of an intruder on the grounds?”

  “None. And I would have, I think, if there’d been one. I’m not a heavy sleeper, and Pard here has keen ears. So does Mabel, the coach horse. Set up a racket over a cat more’n once, both of ’em.”

  “Has Mr. Brandywine ever invited you to view his collection?”

  “Not me. He don’t allow anyone in that room that I know about.” Grimes’ smile was just a little bent when he added, “Only times I’ve ever been inside the house was for a kitchen meal or when repairs were needed.”

  “Do you have keys to any of the doors?”

  “No, ma’am. Never been trusted with ’em.”

  “And you know nothing about Chinese artifacts?”

  “Me? Not a blessed thing.”

  “Have you ever seen any of Mr. Brandywine’s, at any time?”

  “Well, yeah, once. In the rig here, when I was driving him home, he showed me one he’d just bought—a carved dragon he said was thousands of years old. Pretty enough, I guess, but nothing I’d fuss over.” A belated thought seemed to strike the man. His eyes narrowed, his whiskers twitched. “Say, you don’t think I had anything to do with those thefts?”

  “Your employer assured me you didn’t.”

  “And that’s a fact. I never so much as stole a nickel in my life, nor ever will. I like my job, and what Mr. Brandywine pays me takes care of all my needs.”

  Too great a protest? Sabina reserved judgment for the time being.

  “There are ladders in the carriage house, I trust,” she said.

  “Ladders? Why?”

  “I may have need of the tallest you have.”

  “What for?”

  “For a close look at the antiquities-room windows.”

  “Waste of time. Those windows can’t be opened.”

  “So I’ve been told more than once. I’d still like them examined.”

  “Can’t put a ladder up in the beds over there without crushing some of the plants,” Grimes said, frowning. “Mrs. Brandywine won’t like it.”

  “Nonetheless, I think it’s necessary.”

  “You’re not thinking of climbing up a tall ladder yourself … a lady nice dressed like you?”

  “Not I.” She was athletic enough to have done so, but even dressed in less expensive and confining clothing, climbing tall ladders in public was an activity a well-bred lady simply did not indulge in. One day, perhaps, when the emancipation of women was complete, but at this time it was best to observe some of the rigid standards of social etiquette.

  “Well, I won’t do it,” Grimes said. “Or put a ladder up for anybody else. Not without Mr. Brandywine’s permission.”

  “I had no intention of asking you to do either task … yet. You do have a ladder tall enough to reach those windows?”

  “Yes, but like I said—”

  Sabina gave him the benefit of a small smile, thanked him, and left him still wearing his disapproving frown.

  Mrs. Endicott answered her ring at the house and showed her into the library, where Joshua Brandywine was waiting. “Well, young woman?” he demanded in clipped tones. “Do you have any theories yet?”

  “I’d rather not say at the moment.”

  “Why the devil not?”

  “Our agency’s policy is never to discuss an investigation until completed.”

  Brandywine emitted a faint snorting sound. “Which means, I expect, that you’re still as much in the dark as I am.”

  “Not necessarily, sir,” Sabina said. Before he could respond to that, she said, “I’d like your permission to have the antiquities-room windows examined from the outside, even though it will mean disturbing the flower beds.”

  “What’s that? What for? I have already told you—”

  “I believe it’s necessary. Do I have your permission?”

  “Examined when? By whom?”

  “Tomorrow morning. By an associate of mine.”

  “Tomorrow? Why not today?”

  “Because it can’t be arranged today.”

  Mr. Brandywine hemme
d and hawed and finally gave in. “This notion of yours had better produce results,” he said portentously. “If it doesn’t, I’ll see to it you pay for any and all damage to my property.”

  “Agreed.”

  He once again consulted his gold watch. “Is there anything more you want to ask me? Or to look at?”

  “Not at present.”

  “Then I’ll ring for Grimes to drive you downtown.”

  The cushions in the Concord buggy were well padded and comfortable. And conducive to cogitation. Sabina’s response to her client’s comment that she was as much in the dark as he had not been evasive or dissembling. She had an idea of how the seemingly impossible trick of breaching the antiquities room and making off with the ten artifacts had been worked. Tomorrow she would know if her surmise was correct.

  When they neared Market Street she directed Grimes to cross over and turn west on Folsom. Her destination was the blacksmith shop owned by Whit Slattery. Upon arrival there, she asked Grimes if he minded waiting while she went inside, then dropping her back at Market and Second. “Not at all, ma’am,” he said. “I got nothing else to do, and Mr. Brandywine’s instructions were to drive you wherever you wanted to go.”

  Blacksmithing was Whit’s primary profession, but he also doubled as a part-time operative whenever Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional Detective Services, had need of one. John had met him during the course of a Secret Service investigation several years ago, and recruited him when he learned that Slattery had been a member of the U.S. Army assigned to guard valuables in transit over the Panama Railroad during the revolutionary activity in 1885. He had proved to be trustworthy, quick-witted, and implacable when necessary.

  He was glad to be of assistance, as always, even though the task was a simple one that required neither brains nor brawn. Sabina readily accepted his offer to come by for her in the morning and drive them to the Brandywine home.

  It was after four when Grimes delivered her to her next destination, the Commercial Street offices of the Morning Call. She spent fifteen minutes in the company of Ephraim Ballard, the old man in the dusty green eyeshade who presided over the newspaper’s morgue and who supplied her with the back issue she sought. The information she read therein to refresh her memory added strength to her theory.