“PC Daltry, Friargate.”
“Sidney Hickman.” Said in a surly manner.
“Mr. Hickman, you have been arrested and cautioned in connection with the double murder and aggravated burglary in the Toucey household, eighteen years ago. Mr. Shane Cody has given a statement to the effect that you offered him a porcelain figurine and other items stolen during the burglary. The figurine has been positively identified as stolen from the Toucey household.”
“Him and his big mouth.”
“So you concede you perpetrated the crime?” Sant tried to hide his surprise.
Hickman shrugged.
“Please answer for the benefit of the tape.”
“Aye ... yes, yes, yes, yes. Is that all right? ... a thousand times yes, for the benefit of the tape.”
“That'll do,” Sant said. “That'll do nicely.”
“Tell you the truth, I'm quite relieved. I've done the crime, but I don't do violence. It just isn't on my agenda.”
“So what happened at the house that night?”
“We thought they were out, so when we rang the bell just to be on the safe side, and the old guy answered, Billy Lear smashed him one helluva punch and he hit his head going down.... The old lady, she came into the hallway and cried out, then stumbled into a side room clutching her chest, sort of folding up as she went down. Then we emptied the house.”
“With two people lying dead or dying?”
“We were young then. It didn't seem to bother us. Death only happened to other people.”
“Now?”
“Now it haunts me. Now I've reached the age where I know death will happen to me ... now that night haunts me. Even criminals can feel bad. I didn't know there was going to be violence that night.”
“Carried on with the burglary though, didn't you? Didn't flee the scene as soon as Billy Lear punched the old boy, did you? Makes you just as guilty as if you had felled the old gentleman yourself.”
“That'll be something to talk over with my lawyer.”
“I told Cody that a full and frank confession will help him. It'll help you too.”
Hickman nodded. “There was me, Billy Lear, Tom Ingrow, and Charlie Pitt. We were young bulls, especially Billy Lear and Charlie Pitt. Me and Tom, we never did violence.”
“Where will we find them?”
“Billy's got form, you'll pick him up easily enough if he isn't inside at the moment, he never did stop duckin’ and divin'. Tom Ingrow and Charlie Pitt have gone straight, both married with families, never got caught, so didn't get any form. Calmed down and went to university. Tom's an accountant now and Charlie's a schoolteacher. I can tell you where they live.”
Sant groaned. Arresting a professional man of standing in the community at seven a.m. for a crime committed a long, long time ago was never easy. Sometimes he envied the Americans their Statute of Limitations, even though he knew it didn't apply to the crime of murder. But it was not unknown in the United Kingdom, nor in Sant's relatively brief experience as a police officer, that an act committed in a person's twenties was not traced to him, with life-ruining consequences, until he was in his middle years of life. The long shadow of the past, as it is known.
* * * *
Simon Toucey, who a few weeks earlier, whilst walking in Micklegate one Sunday morning, had spied a piece of dun-coloured porcelain in an antiques shop window, stood and climbed into his black gown, and then, with a practiced flourish, placed the wig upon his head. Later, in a hushed room, he turned to a thin-faced youth and said, “You have, in my opinion, quite properly been found guilty of the crimes for which you have been charged. You have ruined the lives of your victims and I have been observing you throughout this trial and you have not shown the slightest trace of guilt or remorse for your actions. I sentence you to life imprisonment.”
Copyright © 2012 Peter Turnbull
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* * *
Fiction: GUNPOWDER ALLEY
by Bill Pronzini
MWA Grand Master Bill Pronzini is best known for his contemporary “Nameless Detective” novels, but he's just as comfortable with historical settings, as is evident in the Carpenter and Quincannon series. In 2013, Forge will publish The Bughouse Affair, a novel featuring the 1890s detectives written in collaboration with Marcia Muller; although Bill Pronzini created the characters, this may be the last story to bear his byline alone. Don't miss his new Nameless novel, Hellbox.
From where he sat propped behind a copy of the San Francisco Argonaut, Quincannon had an unobstructed view of both the entrance to the Hotel Grant's bar parlor and the booth in which his client, Titus Willard, waited nervously. The Seth Thomas clock above the backbar gave the time as one minute past nine, which made the man Willard was waiting for late for their appointment. This was no surprise to Quincannon. Blackmailers seldom missed an opportunity to heap additional pressure on their victims.
Willard fidgeted, looked at the clock for perhaps the twentieth time, and once more pooched out his cheeks—an habitual trick that, combined with his puffy muttonchop whiskers, gave him the look of a large rodent. As per arrangement, he managed to ignore the table where Quincannon sat with his newspaper. The satchel containing the $5,000 cash payoff was on the seat next to him, one corner of it just visible to Quincannon's sharp eye.
The Argonaut, like all of the city's papers these days, was full of news of the imminent war with Spain. The Atlantic fleet had been dispatched to Cuban waters, Admiral Dewey's Asiatic Squadron was on its way to the Philippines, and President McKinley had issued a call for volunteer soldiers to join Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders. Quincannon, who disdained war as much as he disdained felons of every stripe, paid the inflammatory yellow journalism no mind while pretending to be engrossed in it, and wondered again what his client had done to warrant blackmail demands that now amounted to $10,000.
He had asked Willard, of course, but the banker had refused to divulge the information. Given the fact that the man was in his mid fifties, with a prim socialite wife and a grown daughter, and the guilty flush that had stained his features when the question was put to him, his transgressions likely involved one or more young and none-too-respectable members of the opposite sex. In any case, Willard had shown poor judgment in paying the first $5,000 demand, and good judgment in hiring Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional Detective Services, to put an end to the bloodletting after the second demand was made. The man may have been worried, frightened, and guilt-ridden, but he was only half a fool. Pay twice, and he knew he'd be paying for the rest of his life.
Quincannon took a sip of clam juice, his favorite tipple now that he was a confirmed teetotaler, and turned a page of the Argonaut. Willard glanced again at the clock, which now read ten past nine, then drained what was left of a double whiskey. And that was when the blackmailer—if it was the blackmailer and not a hireling—finally appeared.
The fellow's entrance into the bar parlor was slow and cautious. This was one thing that alerted Quincannon. The other was the way he was dressed. Threadbare overcoat, slouch hat drawn low on his forehead, wool muffler wound up high inside the coat collar so that it concealed the lower part of his face. This attire might have been somewhat conspicuous at another time of year, but on this damp, chilly November night, he drew only a few casual glances from the patrons, none of which lingered.
He paused just inside the doorway to peer around before his gaze locked in on his prey. Out of the corner of one eye Quincannon watched him approach the booth. What little of the man's face was visible corroborated Willard's description of him from their first meeting: middle-aged, with a hooked nose and sallow complexion, and average to small in size, though it was difficult to tell for certain because of the coat's bulk. Not such-a-much at all.
Titus Willard stiffened when the fellow slipped into the booth opposite. There was a low-voiced exchange of words, after which the banker passed the satchel under the table. The hook-nosed gent opened it just long enough to see that it c
ontained stacks of greenbacks, closed it again, then produced a manila envelope from inside his coat and slid it across the table. Willard opened the envelope and furtively examined the papers it contained—letters of a highly personal nature, judging from the banker's expression. They would not be the sum total of the blackmail evidence, however. Finding the rest was one part of Quincannon's job, the others being to identify and then yaffle the responsible party or parties.
While the two men were making their exchange, Quincannon casually folded the newspaper and laid it on the table, gathered up his umbrella and derby hat, and strolled out into the hotel lobby. He took a position just inside the corridor that led to the elevators, where he had an oblique view of the bar entrance. His quarry would have to come out that way because there was no other exit from the bar parlor.
The wait this time was less than two minutes. When Hook-nose appeared, he went straight to the swing door that led out to New Montgomery Street. Quincannon followed twenty paces behind. A drizzle of rain had begun and the salt-tinged bay wind had the sting of a whip. It being a poor night for travel by shanks’ mare, Quincannon expected his man to take one of the hansom cabs at the stand in front of the Palace Hotel opposite. But this didn't happen. With the satchel clutched inside his overcoat, the fellow angled across Montgomery and turned the far corner into Jessie Street.
Quincannon reached the corner a few seconds later. He paused to peer around it before unfurling his umbrella and turning into Jessie himself, to make sure he wasn't observed. Hook-nose apparently had no fear of pursuit; he was hurrying ahead through the misty rain without a backward glance.
Jessie was a dark, narrow thoroughfare, and something of an anomaly as the new century approached—a mostly residential street that ran for several blocks through the heart of the business district, midway between Market and Mission. Small, old houses and an occasional small business establishment flanked it, fronted by tiny yards and backed by barns and sheds. The electric light glow from Third Street and the now-steady drizzle made it a chasm of shadows. The darkness and the thrumming wind allowed Quincannon to quicken his pace without fear of being seen or heard.
After two blocks, his quarry made another turning, this time into a cobblestone cul-de-sac called Gunpowder Alley. The name, or so Quincannon had once been told, derived from the fact that Copperhead sympathizers had stored a large quantity of explosives in one of the houses there during the War Between the States. Gunpowder Alley was even darker than Jessie Street, the frame buildings strung along its short length shabby presences in the wet gloom. The only illumination was strips and daubs of light that leaked palely around a few drawn window curtains.
Not far from the corner, Hook-nose crossed the alley to a squat, dark structure that huddled between the back end of a saloon fronting on Jessie Street and a private residence. The squat building appeared to be a store of some sort, its plate-glass window marked with lettering that couldn't be read at a distance. The man used a key to unlock a door next to the window and disappeared inside.
As Quincannon cut across the alley, lamplight bloomed in pale fragments around the edges of a curtain that covered the store window. He ambled past, pausing in front of the glass to read the lettering: cigars, pipe tobacco, sundries. r. sonderberg, prop. The curtain was made of heavy muslin; all he could see through the center folds was a slice of narrow counter. He put his ear to the cold glass. The faint whistling voice of the wind, muted here, was the only sound to be heard.
He moved on. A narrow, ink-black passage separated R. Sonderberg's cigar store from the house on the far side—a low, two-storied structure with a gabled roof and ancient shingles curled by the weather. The parlor window on the lower floor was an uncurtained and palely lamplit rectangle; he could just make out the shape of a white-haired, shawl-draped woman in a high-backed rocking chair, either asleep or keeping a lonely watch on the street. Crowding close along the rear of store and house, paralleling Gunpowder Alley from the Jessie Street corner to its end, was the long back wall of a warehouse, its dark windows steel-shuttered. There was nothing else to see. And nothing to hear except the wind, muted here in the narrow lane.
A short distance beyond the house Quincannon paused to close his umbrella, the drizzle having temporarily ceased. He shook water from the fabric, then turned back the way he'd come. The woman in the rocking chair hadn't moved—asleep, he decided. Lamp glow now outlined a window in the squat building that faced into the side passage; the front part of the shop was once again dark. R. Sonderberg, if that was who the hook-nosed gent was, had evidently entered a room or rooms at the rear—living quarters, like as not.
Quincannon stopped again to listen, and again heard only silence from within. He sidestepped to the door and tried the latch. Bolted. His intention then was to enter the side passage, to determine if access could be gained at the rear. What stopped him was the fact that he was no longer the only pedestrian abroad in Gunpowder Alley.
Heavy footsteps echoed hollowly from the direction of Jessie Street. Even as dark and wet as it was, he recognized almost immediately the brass-buttoned coat, helmet, and hand-held dark lantern of a police patrolman. Hell and damn! Of all times for a blasted bluecoat to happen along on his rounds.
Little annoyed Quincannon more than having to abort an investigation in mid-skulk, but he had no other choice. He turned from the door and moved at an even pace toward the approaching policeman. They met just beyond the joining of the saloon's back wall and the cigar store's far side wall.
Unlike many of his brethren, the bluecoat, an Irishman in his middle years, was a gregarious sort. He stopped, forcing Quincannon to do likewise, and briefly opened the lantern's shutter so that the beam flicked over his face before saying in a conversational tones, “Evening, sir. Nasty weather, eh?”
“Worse coming, I expect.”
“Aye. Heavy rain before morning. Like as not I'll be getting a thorough soaking before my patrol ends.”
Quincannon itched to touch his hat and move on. But the bluecoat wasn't done with him yet. “Don't believe I've seen you before, sir. Live in Gunpowder Alley, do you?”
“No. Visiting.”
“Which resident, if you don't mind my asking?”
“R. Sonderberg, at the cigar store.”
“Ah. I've seen the lad a time or two, but we've yet to meet. I've only been on this beat two weeks now, y'see. Maguire's my name, at your service.”
Before Quincannon could frame a lie that would extricate him from Officer Maguire's company, there came in rapid succession a brace of muffled reports. As quiet as the night was, there was no mistaking the fact that they were pistol shots and that the weapon had been fired inside the squat building.
Quincannon's reflexes were superior to the patrolman's; he was already on the run by the time the bluecoat reacted. Behind him Maguire shouted something, but he paid no heed. Another sound, a loudish thump, reached his ears as he charged past the shop's entrance, dropping his umbrella so he could grasp the Navy Colt in his coat pocket. Seconds later, he veered into the side passage. The narrow confines appeared deserted and there were no sounds of movement at its far end. He skidded to a halt in front of the lighted window.
Vertical bars set close together prevented both access and egress. The glass inside was dirty and rain-spotted, but he could make out the figure of a man sprawled supine on the floor of a cluttered room. There was no sign of anyone else.
The spaces between the bars were just wide enough to reach a hand through; he did that, pushing fingers against the pane. It didn't yield to the pressure.
Officer Maguire pounded up beside him, the beam from his lantern cutting jigsaw pieces out of the darkness. The bobbing light illuminated enough of the passage ahead so that Quincannon could see to where it ended at the warehouse wall. He hurried back there while Maguire had his look through the window.
Another short walkway, shrouded in gloom, stretched at right angles to the side passage like the cross bar of the letter T. Quincanno
n thumbed a lucifer alight as he stepped around behind the cigar store, shielding it with his hand. That section was likewise empty except for a pair of refuse bins. There was no exit in that direction; the walkway ended in a board fence that joined shop and warehouse walls, built so high that only a monkey could have climbed it. The match's flicker showed him the outlines of a rear door to R. Sonderberg's quarters. He tried the latch, but the heavy door was secure in its frame.
Maguire appeared, his lantern creating more dancing patterns of light and shadow. “See anyone back here?” he demanded.
“No one.”
“Would that rear door be open?”
“No. Bolted on the inside.”
The bluecoat grunted and pushed past him to try the latch himself. While he was doing that, Quincannon struck another match in order to examine the other half of the walkway. It served the adjacent house, ending in a similarly high and unscalable board fence. The house's rear door, he soon determined, was also bolted within.
The lantern beam again picked him out. “Come away from there, laddie. Out front with me, step lively now.”
Quincannon complied. As they hurried along the passage, Maguire said, “Is it your friend Sonderberg lying shot in there?”
No friend of mine or society's, Quincannon thought. But he said only, “I couldn't be sure.”
“Didn't seem to be anybody else in the room.”
“No.”
“Well, we'll soon find out.”
When they emerged from the passage, Quincannon saw that the elderly woman had left her rocking chair and was now standing stooped at the edge of her front window, peering out. One other individual had so far been alerted; a man wearing a light overcoat and high hat and carrying a walking stick had appeared from somewhere and stood staring nearby. Quincannon knew from rueful experience that a full gaggle of onlookers would soon follow.
EQMM, August 2012 Page 9
