EQMM, December 2006
Page 19
Or was it?
No. Something seemed different now....
Quincannon stood for a few moments, cudgeling his memory. Then he made a careful examination of the room and its contents. A thin smile split his freebooter's beard when he finished. So that was the answer! Bully!
He dusted a smudge of yellow powder off his fingers, relocked the storeroom door, and sought out Jack Malloy. The answers to the questions he asked the loading-dock foreman added weight to his conclusions.
Time now to confront his man.
Only it wasn't, not quite.
The bookkeeper's cubicle in the office wing was empty. A quick search revealed further damning evidence: a yellow smear on one leg of the desk chair, and two small dried flower buds on the floor under the desk. There could be no doubt now that Adam Corby was Lansing's accomplice, or of how the murder and his “disappearance” from the locked storerooms had been managed.
He would have proceeded to comb the brewery for Corby, but one of the office staff put a crimp in that notion. “Mr. Corby left early,” he was told, “not more than half an hour ago. Said he had an important errand to run."
Important errand? Nefarious one, more likely. Well, thirty minutes wasn't too long a headstart; if he made haste, he might be able to prevent Corby from completing it and vanishing yet again.
* * * *
There were no hansom cabs in the vicinity of the brewery. Quincannon had to cover the two blocks to Market Street on shanks’ mare before he found one. As he was settling inside, one of the newfangled horseless carriages passed by snorting and growling like a bull on the charge. Dratted machines were noisy polluters that frightened women, children, and horses, but he had to admit that they were capable of traveling at an astonishing rate of speed. Too bad he hadn't the use of one right now; it would get him to his destination twice as fast as the hansom, and speed was of the essence.
At the promise of a fifty-cent tip, the hack driver drove his horse at a brisk pace through the crowded streets. Luck rode with Quincannon; the timing of their arrival at Caleb Lansing's boardinghouse was almost perfect. Two minutes earlier and it would have saved him a considerable amount of temper and exertion.
As it was, Golden Gate's diminutive bookkeeper had just emerged and was on his way through the front gate when the hansom rattled to a stop. Quincannon flung coins at the driver and hopped out. In stentorian tones he roared, “Corby! Adam Corby!"
Corby froze for an instant, his head craned and his eyes abulge. Then he emitted a cry that sounded like “Awk!” and broke into a headlong run.
One foot chase in a single day was irritation enough; two offended Quincannon's dignity and sense of fair play, stoked his wrath. Damned cheeky felons! Growling and grumbling, he plunged after his quarry.
Corby dashed into the street, passing so close to an oncoming carriage that the horse reared. The animal's flashing hooves narrowly missed Quincannon as it buck-jumped forward. This served to increase both his outrage and his foot speed. The little man was driven by panic, however, and there was still a distance of some twenty rods separating them when he leapt up onto the far sidewalk. He banged into a woman pedestrian, sent her and her reti-cule flying. Though the collision staggered him, he managed to stay on his feet; seconds later he ducked through the doorway of an oyster house.
By the time Quincannon reached the eatery and flung inside, Corby was at a counter at the far end and had swung around to face him. Something came flying from his hand, whizzed by Quincannon's head as he advanced, and splattered him with trailing liquid. It was followed by two more of the same—large oysters, unshucked, from an iced bucket on the counter. One of them thumped stingingly against his chest before he could twist aside.
Another indignity! Damn the man's eyes!
Corby spun, raced out a side entrance. Quincannon, unslowed by the hurled oysters, shoved his way through a clutch of startled customers and emerged into a wide cobbled alley. The scoundrel's lead was less than twenty rods now. He threw a look over his shoulder, saw Quincannon gaining on him, and veered sideways across a short yard and through a pair of open doors into a ramshackle wooden building. A sign above the doors proclaimed: Thomas Vail and Sons, Cooperage.
Quincannon pounded inside in Corby's wake. The interior was weakly lighted, inhabited by a trio of men in leather aprons working with hammer, saw, and lathe. Barrels and kegs of various types and sizes rose in stacks along one wall. The rest of the space was cluttered with tools, lumber, staves, forged metal rings. Corby was at the far end, hopping back and forth, searching desperately for a nonexistent rear exit. One of the coopers shouted something that Quincannon paid no attention to. He advanced implacably.
Another “Awk!” came out of the little man. He dodged sideways, quick but not quick enough. Quincannon clamped fingers around one arm, brought him up short. Corby struggled, managed to tear loose, but in doing so he fell backwards against a stack of barrels; the barrels toppled over on him with a great clatter, knocked him flat to the sawdusted wooden floor. Quincannon danced out of the way just in time to avoid a similar fate.
Corby wasn't badly hurt. He moaned and tried to regain his feet. An extra-solid thump on the cranium changed the little scruff's mind. And a second thump stretched him out cold.
Quincannon was on one knee beside his prisoner, transferring to his own pockets the greenbacks and gold double eagles Corby had taken from Lansing's rooms, when one of the coopers came rushing up. “Here, what's the meaning of all this?” the man demanded in irate tones. “Look what you've done to these barrels!"
Straightening, Quincannon pressed one of the double eagles into his palm.
"This will pay for the damage."
The cooper gawped at the coin, then at him. “Who are you, mister?"
"John Quincannon, of Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional Detective Services. At your service."
"A detective?"
"The finest in San Francisco,” Quincannon said virtuously, “if not in the nation and the entire world."
* * * *
It was not often that he could persuade Sabina to dine with him, but he managed it the next day by promising her a full accounting of his prowess in the devil's-brew case. Generally his thrifty Scot's nature limited his restaurant meals to the less expensive establishments, but on this evening he surprised Sabina by calling for her in a rented carriage and taking her to Maison Riche—one of the city's tonier French bistros, at Dupont and Geary streets, whose specialties included such epicurean delights as caviar sur canane and poulet de grain aux cresson. There were two dining rooms on the ground floor; he requested seating in the smaller, more intimate one with individual tables. He would have preferred one of the discreet dining cubicles on the upper floor, whose amenities included a velvet couch and a door that could be locked from the inside. But Sabina, of course, would have had none of that and he didn't bother to suggest it.
She had dressed well for him, he was heartened to note. Beneath her lamb's-wool coat, she wore a brocade jacket over a snowy shirtwaist and a wine-colored skirt. Pendant ruby earrings, a gift from her late husband, made a fiery complement to her sleek dark hair. Even more to his liking was the shell brooch at her breast—a gift from her doting partner, bought for her while he'd been away on a case in the Hawaiian islands the previous year.
When they were seated and their drink orders placed—French wine for Sabina, clam juice for him—Quincannon took one of her small hands in his. “You look particularly lovely tonight, my dear,” he said.
She permitted him to hold her hand while she thanked him for the compliment, and then gently withdrew it. “Now then, John,” she said. “Let's have your explanation."
"Explanation?"
"Of the devil's-brew case, as you promised."
"Business before we dine?"
"We both know you've been eager to glory in your latest triumph. You've worn your preening look all day."
"I do not have a preening look."
"Yes, you do.
Like a peacock about to crow. Well, go ahead and spread your feathers."
Quincannon pretended to be wounded. “You do me a grave injustice."
"Oh, bosh,” she said. “How did you know Adam Corby was guilty of murdering his partner?"
"Lupulin,” he said.
"...I beg your pardon?"
"Yellow glands between the petals of hop flowers. A fine powdery dust clings to them, some of which is released when the flowers are picked.” He added sententiously, courtesy of Jack Malloy, that it was this dust, not the hop buds themselves, that offset the sweetness of malt and gave beer its sedative and digestive qualities.
"Amazing,” Sabina said, not without irony.
"There was a smudge of the powder on the leg of Corby's office chair. And two dried hop flowers on the floor under his desk."
"Dried? I thought you said the powder comes from freshly picked flowers."
"It does."
"John..."
"Those were the essential clues. Along with two others."
"And what were they?"
"The fact that Corby appeared in the storerooms so soon after we discovered Lansing's body. And the man's stature."
"What do you mean, his stature?"
"Just that. He was the only Golden Gate employee who could have been guilty."
Sabina nudged him with the toe of her shoe, not lightly. “You're being deliberately cryptic. Come now—how did these clues identify Corby as the murderer and his method of perpetrating the crime?"
Quincannon fluffed his well-groomed whiskers and adopted a brisk professional air. Sabina was not a woman to be trifled with when it came to business matters; she had been a Pinkerton operative in Denver before he met her, with a record every bit as exemplary, if not more so, than his own. She was not to be trifled with as a woman, either, as he had learned to his frustration and chagrin. Both qualities made her all the more desirable.
"The short and sweet of it, then,” he said, and began by relating the same facts and suppositions he had presented to James Carreaux after the murder. “Corby intended to shoot Lansing at their prearranged meeting in the utility room, had brought the pistol with him for that reason. His motives being self-protection and Lansing's share of the West Star payoff money. Once Lansing told him that I had accosted and chased him, he wasted no time firing the fatal shot. He placed the revolver near Lansing's hand, rifled his pocket for both the storeroom key and the key to Lansing's rooms. In different circumstances he would have simply unlocked the storeroom door and slipped out at the first opportunity. But he'd heard the sounds I made at the door, knew the shot had been heard and the passage was blocked. He was trapped there with a dead man. What could he do?"
"What did he do?"
"He had two options,” Quincannon said. “Hold fast and bluff it out, claim that he'd tried and failed to stop Lansing from shooting himself. But he had no way of knowing how much I knew and he was afraid such a story wouldn't be believed. His second option was to hide and hope his hiding place would be overlooked in the first rush.
"Corby was quick-witted, I'll give him that. He had less than five minutes to formulate and implement a plan and he used every second. The first thing he did was to lock the utility-room door; the key that operates the storeroom door lock works on that one as well. The idea of that was to create more confusion and solidify the false impression of suicide. Then he entered the room containing the sacks of malt and hops and established his clever hiding place."
"Where?” Sabina asked. “You said you looked into that room and there was no place for a man to hide."
"No obvious place. Corby counted on the fact that the first inspection would be cursory, and that is what happened. If there'd been time for a careful inspection then, I would have found him quickly enough. But I and the others were intent on finding out what had happened to Lansing."
"Well? Where was he?"
"When I first looked in the room, I registered a single sack of hops propped against the end wall. When I returned later, the sack was no longer there; it had been moved back into the tightly wedged row along the side wall. That fact and the pile of empty hop sacks gave me the answer."
"Ah! Corby hid inside one of the empty sacks."
"Just so. He dragged a full sack from the end of the row, climbed into an empty sack or pulled it down over him, and wedged himself into the space. When Malloy opened the storeroom door and we rushed in, Corby held himself in such a position that he resembled the other sacks in the row. Now you see what I meant by his stature being proof of his guilt. Only a bantam-sized man could have fit inside a fifty-pound hop sack."
"And while you and the other men were huddled around Lansing's body, Corby stepped out of the sack, tossed it onto the pile of empties, returned the full sack to its proper place, and pretended to have just arrived."
Quincannon nodded. “It struck me odd at the time that he should have shown up when he did. A brewery's bookkeeper has little business in the storerooms. Unless he'd been there all along and his business was murder."
"The hop flowers you found in his office came from the hideout sack?"
"Yes. Caught on the twill of his trousers or inside the cuffs."
"And the lupulin?"
"Also from the inside of the sack. Golden Gate buys its hops from a farm in Oregon's Willamette Valley. The flowers are picked, dried, and sacked there, and now and then dried hops are put into bags previously used by pickers. In such cases, a residue of the yellow powder clings to the inside of the burlap. Corby hadn't changed trousers when I apprehended him; the yellow residue was still visible on both legs."
"Well done, John, I must say. But I do have one more question."
"Ask it, my dear."
"I assume you turned the partially burned note over to the police as evidence against Corby. Did you also turn over the two thousand dollars he took from Lansing's rooms?"
Quincannon assumed an injured expression. “And have it disappear into the pockets of a corrupt bluecoat five minutes after I left the Hall of Justice? That would have been irresponsible."
"Which means you still have the money and you intend to keep it."
"And why not?” he said defensively. “It doesn't legally belong to our client or to anyone else. We have just as much right to it as a fat jailer or corrupt desk sergeant. More of a right, by godfrey, as an added bonus for pure and noble detective work. And I won't listen to any argument to the contrary."
"I won't even try. When it comes to money, John Quincannon, you're incorrigible."
He gazed fondly, longingly into her dark blue eyes. Money was not the only thing about which he was incorrigible.
Copyright (c) 2006 by Bill Pronzini
[Back to Table of Contents]
ADAMS, ALINA: Peek-a-boo August 80
ALEXANDER, GARY: Whither Columbus Sept /Oct 188
ALLYN, DOUG: The Top Ten List March /April 210; The Black Chapel Sept /Oct 4
ALTER, JAY: Chick Sweeney to the Rescue March /April 72
AMES, JOHN EDWARDS: Sneaky Pete From Bourbon Street November 105
ANTHONY, MEREDITH: Murder at the Butt End of Nowhere December 40
APPEL, RENÉ: Bloody Hot August 31
BAANTJER: DeKok and the Death of a Rottweiler June 134
BACH, MISCHA: Full Moon January 70
BALDWIN, BARRY: Graves of Academe January 30
BANKIER, WILLIAM: Other People's Money February 85; Who's Alfredo, the Big Bad Wolf? August 136
BARBIERI, TERRY: The Final Cut July 2; Body Shop Sept /Oct 208
BARNARD, ROBERT: The Old Couple March /April 87; Provenance July 111
BREEN, JON L.: The Jury Box January-December
BROOKS, KATHERINE H. & TERRY LERDALL-FITTERER: Photo Finish (verse) March /April 239
CHITTENDEN, MEG: The Frog That Croaked in the Night February 92
COBB, JAMES H.: Framed June 90
COLLINS, MICHAEL: The Smoking Gun of Elizabeth Henze July 33
COOPER, NATASHA: Sister
s and Lovers June 140; The Brick Sept /Oct139
CUTLER, JUDITH: Shaping the Ends May 2
DE NOUX, O'NEIL: When the Levees Break November 116
DOBBYN, JOHN F.: Nine, Ten ... and Out February 36
DUBOIS, BRENDAN: The Lights at Crawford Hills March /April 142; The Right Call Sept /Oct 163
DUNBAR, TONY: Monday at the Pie Pie Club November 55
EDWARDS, MARTIN: Test Drive May 23
ELLIS, KATE: A Man of Taste March /April116
EQMM Readers Award (2005) May 104
FAHERTY, TERENCE: The Vigil June 12
FEMLING, JEAN: The Last Calabresi Sept /Oct 218
FENNELLY, TONY: The Code on the Door November 136
FRANCISCO, RUTH: Dear Ethicist July 48
FREEMAN, MARY: Back Track August 2
GEBERT, ANKE & PAUL LASCAUX, STEFAN SLUPETZKY, RICHARD LIFKA, THOMAS PRZYBILKA, & CHRISTOPH SPIELBERG: The Copyist December 115
GORMAN, ED: Blog Bytes August, Sept /Oct GOULART, RON: Brief Nudity May 47
GUIBORD, MAURISSA: Yankee Swap March /April155
HALTER, PAUL: The Night of the Wolf May 37
HAMBLY, BARBARA: Libre November 4
HEALY, JEREMIAH: A Matter of Honor March /April40
HERREN, GREG: Acts of Contrition November 86
HERRON, MICK: Lost Luggage Sept /Oct64
HILL, SAM: Success Story March /April167
HOCH, EDWARD D.: The Problem of the Devil's Orchard January 57; Leopold in the Lab February 71; The Pueblo Tomb March /April 127; The Nameless Poison May 81; The Theft of the Blue-Ribbon Pie June 121; Romeo and Joliet July 62; The Pulp Artist's Wife August 67; The Problem of the Shepherd's Ring Sept /Oct 51; The Sugar Train November 22; A Convergence of Clerics December 50
HOCKENSMITH, STEVE: Naiveté January 2; Wolves in Winter February 108
HOWARD, CLARK: Arizona Heat August 92; Dead Even December 17