The Stolen Gold Affair

by Bill Pronzini

  Quincannon replaced the pouch and the rest of the items, pushed the duffel and the case of Pain Killer back under the bunk. He searched the bunk itself, feeling under the mattress; all he found was the desiccated remains of a large moth. The wall bench yielded nothing, either; nor did the stove’s ash box and flue. The woodbox beside the stove was partially full; he lifted out the sticks of firewood, to no avail. Then he moved the empty box aside to probe underneath.

  Ah! A foot-long section of floorboard there was loose.

  He pried it up with the aid of his pocket knife. Tucked into the narrow opening beneath was a drawstring pouch similar to the one in the duffel. This one, however, contained paydirt—literally. McClellan’s private stash. Quincannon emptied a little of the gold dust into the palm of his hand, where it glittered wickedly in the candle flame. After a moment he sifted it back inside, then hefted the pouch. Perhaps two troy ounces, he judged.

  He returned the pouch to the hidey-hole, covered it with the loose board, covered that with the woodbox, and restacked the cordwood inside. Then he removed the candle from the tin dish, set the dish back on the bench where he’d found it, and slid the propped chair away from the window curtain. A quick glance around assured him that everything was now as it had been when he entered. He blew out the candle flame, cracked the door open, peeked out. A night owl had the area to itself, and flew off hooting when Quincannon emerged and slipped away downhill among the shadows, feeling well pleased with the night’s effort.

  Two troy ounces of gold were worth less than $50 total. Not enough to prove conclusively that McClellan was one of the high-graders, but enough to satisfy himself of the man’s complicity. What other reasonable explanation could there be for a mine official paid in greenbacks and coins to possess a hidden stash of pure gold dust?

  9

  SABINA

  It did not take Sabina long to locate the man who had called himself Oscar Follensbee.

  The business card Gretchen Kantor had given her was what made the task much simpler than she’d anticipated. Another study of it stirred her memory: it was familiar because another card made of the same heavy white vellum and with a similar design had been presented by an agency client within the past year or so. She rummaged through their file of business cards. Yes, there it was. Philip Justice, Importer of Fine Cigars. She recalled the case: John had exposed the individual, a disgruntled former employee, behind an attempt to extort money from Justice by dint of a false claim of marital infidelity.

  The card gave Justice’s business address on Battery Street but no telephone number. The importer was on the Exchange, however; a check of John’s report of the investigation provided the number. And a call to an obliging Mr. Justice elicited the name of the firm that printed his business cards—Bromberg Printing and Lithographic Company.

  The printer’s Commercial Street address was within walking distance. Sabina closed the agency and joined the throng of downtown pedestrians. The crisp fall air was invigorating after the stuffy confines of the office; she set a brisk pace.

  Bromberg Printing turned out to be a small storefront, its name neatly painted in a half-moon scroll on a plate-glass panel in the entrance door. The thump and chatter of a printing press in operation, and the usual, not unpleasant odors of ink, paper, and machine oil, greeted her when she stepped inside.

  There were no customers at present, and no one behind the service counter. A hand bell on the countertop gave out a surprisingly loud ring when she struck it with her palm. Presently a middle-aged man wearing a full-length leather apron appeared. He bore a somewhat startling resemblance to a hound dog—pouches like miniature valises under his eyes, drooping jowls, ears so large and protuberant they gave the impression of flopping when he moved. Even his smile had a faintly mournful canine quality.

  “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.”

  “Newcastle was already gone when the officers arrived?”

  “Either he smelled trouble or just decided it was time to pull up stakes. The office was closed and empty of any phony transaction records he kept.”

  “And nothing has been heard of him or his activities since?”

  “Not until now. Went on practicing his grift in other cities, no doubt, and managed to stay out of the hands of the law. A slippery cuss. You know the type, Sabina—charming, slick-talking, shrewd, and like most of his breed, as cold-blooded as a snake.”

  Sabina nodded; she knew the type all too well. “Refresh my memory on exactly how he worked his swindle.”

  “By selling property, or shares in property, he didn’t own. Abandoned buildings for renovation, vacant lots for new construction. He collected down payments from the marks, mostly for alleged ninety-day escrow closings.”

  “Tricky business. He couldn’t hope to remain in one place more than a few months.”

  “The secret of his success,” Elizabeth said. “He must have a sixth sense about just when to close up shop and disappear. He made the mistake, or near mistake, of operating here too long in ’89, in order to complete a large score on a private home he claimed had just been put on the market. The buyer was completely duped, because Newcastle or whatever his true name is gave him a tour of the home before an agreed-upon down payment was made. It was the buyer who filed the criminal complaint, after showing up at the house without Newcastle for another look around and being confronted by the owner.”

  “How much was the down payment?”

  “Twenty-five hundred dollars. In cash.”

  “No small amount. Was it the victim who chose the house?”

  “Yes. He was looking for a certain type of affordable home in the neighborhood.”

  “So what Newcastle must have done, then,” Sabina said, “was to scout up a place that fit the victim’s specifications.”

  “That’s it,” Elizabeth agreed. “By wandering around, observing, and asking discreet questions. The one he picked was temporarily empty, the owner and his wife being away on an extended vacation. The place had no immediate neighbors, so it was a simple matter for him to let himself in with a skeleton key and take a general inventory of the premises, which he then passed along to the victim. Once he had the mark hooked, he took him to the house for the tour.”

  “And did he steal anything from the home?”

  “No. The owner found nothing missing when he returned.”

  “Just as Vernon Purifoy found nothing missing from his cottage.”

  “Clearly the same swindle and the same mountebank working it. He must have decided that eight years was long enough to allow him to come back here and run his swindle under a different guise in a different neighborhood. Bold as brass.”

  “And twice as lucky, if he has never been caught.”

  “I wonder how long he’s been operating in the city this time.”

  “Five weeks or so,” Sabina said, “judging by when he had the business cards and stationery printed. Long enough for a mark looking for a Potrero Hill cottage to seek him out, and for him to scout up what he considered a likely place.”

  “Fortunate for Mr. Purifoy that he returned home when he did and made Goodlove’s first illegal entry the last.”

  “Not necessarily the last.”

  “Oh? Do you expect him to try again despite being caught in the act?”

  “He might be persuaded to, yes.”

  Elizabeth paused in her stitching. “That sounds as though you intend to try persuading him.”

  “I’m thinking of it.”

  “But why?”

  Sabina hadn’t confided her dislike and suspicions of Vernon Purifoy; they were best kept to herself for the present. She said only, “I have my reasons.”

  “Well, I’m sure you know what you’re doing. But my advice is to report him to Lieutenant Brinkman straightaway before he bilks any more marks and disappears again. Even without evidence of present criminal activity, he can be arrested on the old fraud charges.”

  Sound advice, but Sabina was not ready to take it just yet. Purifoy’s oddly secretive, violent behavior nettled her enough to warrant a bold effort to get to the bottom of it. And there might be a way to accomplish that, depending on just how reckless and just how greedy the swindler was.

  10

  SABINA

  Vernon Purifoy’s address was listed in the city directory as 2675 Eighteenth Street, which put it at the foot of Potrero Hi
ll rather than on the hill itself. Originally a Mexican land grant called Potrero Nuevo, Sabina had been told, the area had not been a convenient location to get to, separated as it was from the rest of the city by Mission Bay. It was not until the Long Bridge had been built in the mid-1860s that access to Potrero Hill was made easy enough to transform the area from a virtual wasteland into a desirable hub. In the years since, it had been settled by working-class families, many of whom toiled in the shipyards, iron factories, steel mills, and warehouses that stretched south along the bayfront between China Basin and Islais Creek Channel.

  On Friday morning Sabina rode a trolley car across Long Bridge and another to Eighteenth Street to have a look at the Purifoy property. Gretchen Kantor had referred to the place as “a charming little cottage,” a decidedly rose-colored-glasses view. It was in fact an early, 1870s version of Pelton’s “Cheap Dwellings,” named for the architect who designed them and that proliferated in the Potrero and Irish Hill neighborhoods. Built on a lot no more than twenty feet wide, it appeared to be one of the four-room variety considered modestly stylish and attractive in its day, with a scrolled, Eastlake-style front door and a heavy projecting cornice. Time and neglect had taken their toll on it. Miss Kantor’s estimation that it was in need of renovation “to some extent” was another generous assessment; in fact it needed considerable work, including structural repairs, a fresh coat of paint, and a new roof.

  What had made it ideal for Elmer Goodlove was that unlike many Pelton cottages, it was not one of a linked row built close to the street. Rather, it was set back a short distance behind a weedy front yard and screened from its neighbors, one a renovated and expanded Pelton, the other a brown-shingle dwelling, by clumps of unkempt shrubbery. A trespasser’s access to it, if casually managed, would be sure to go unnoticed.