The Bags of Tricks Affair--A Carpenter and Quincannon Mystery

by Bill Pronzini

  Lady One-Eye, Sabina saw, was standing stock-still next to her table, her body stiff, her mouth clamped tight. Her good eye blazed with cold fire, but her set expression seemed void of sorrow, anger, even shock. Her brother, bunched among the miners and sports staring down at the dead man, showed no emotion of any kind; his face was as blank as a piece of slate. There had been no love lost between him and Jack O’Diamonds, Sabina thought, the two men barely on speaking terms, at least in public. Because of Diamond’s affair with Lily Dumont, or for some other reason?

  Amos McFinn was bellowing to his bouncers to seal off the front and rear entrances, keep everybody inside the hall. To an extent, fortunately, this had already been done. One of the bouncers, a massive fellow with the bulging biceps of a blacksmith, had taken up a post at the front entrance and was not allowing anyone to leave or enter. The others rushed to obey their employer’s command.

  Lily drew back from her lover’s body, and two of the men moved to help her to her feet. Immediately she shook a clenched fist at Glen Bonnifield, who was down on one knee a few feet away. “You did it! Damn you, Glen, you killed him!”

  Bonnifield appeared dazed from his scuffle with the bouncers; if he heard her he made no reply. One of the miners held the Peacemaker Bonnifield had drawn at Lily’s faro bank. John stepped over to him, took the weapon and felt and then sniffed the barrel.

  “Not with this, he didn’t,” he said. “It hasn’t been fired.”

  McFinn came dancing up, his eyes as wide as a toad’s. “Then who did shoot him?” he demanded. “Quincannon, did you see who pulled the trigger?”

  John admitted that he hadn’t. He glanced at Sabina; she responded with a slight shake of her head.

  “Did anyone see who fired that shot?” the little man roared.

  No one had. Or at least no one would own up to having witnessed the shooting.

  Lady One-Eye had hobbled down off the platform, pushed her way through the crowd, and was pointing her cane at the remains of Jack O’Diamonds. “Look there,” she said. “Some blackguard not only murdered my husband, he stole Jack’s diamond stickpin.”

  She sounded more upset over the loss of his stickpin than she did over the loss of his life.

  * * *

  Sheriff Hezekiah Thorpe was a man in his early fifties, with a tawny soup-strainer mustache and an efficient, no-nonsense manner. He took charge as soon as he and two of his deputies arrived with the man McFinn had dispatched to bring them.

  The answers to a few terse questions allowed him to separate the principal players in the drama from the extras and onlookers, none of whom had been allowed to leave the hall. No one admitted to having witnessed the shooting. Thorpe and his deputies searched the men, Quincannon included, and then the rest of the assembled patrons and employees. Four hideout pistols were the result, but not one of those had been fired, either. Nor was the murder weapon anywhere to be found on the premises.

  The sheriff and one of the deputies herded Sabina, John, and the other principals into McFinn’s private quarters at the rear. The single exception was Glen Bonnifield. One of the bouncers had fetched him a crack on the head with a billy club in order to subdue him after he drew his Peacemaker, and Bonnifield still had not regained his wits. He was being administered to by a town doctor.

  Suspense crackled among the small group. Lily Dumont continued to shed tears—genuine tears, Sabina judged—and Lady One-Eye once again wore her stoic poker face. But it was plain that neither she nor Lily, nor the equally stoic Jeffrey Gaunt, were pleased to learn that a pair of San Francisco detectives had been operating undercover in their midst, the reasons for which having yet to be divulged. The recent widow kept casting glacial looks at Sabina (who had shed her itchy Saint Louis Rose wig once her true identity was revealed), the looks a measure of her resentment at having been duped by a disguised woman investigator who was also her equal at the poker table. McFinn was still in a lather. He kept glaring at John with open hostility, as if John were somehow responsible for the death of Jack O’Diamonds in his establishment.

  They had met Thorpe on their arrival in Grass Valley; it was always wise for private inquiry agents hired to operate undercover in foreign territory to make themselves known to the local constabulary, in order to avoid any potential conflict. The sheriff had been friendly enough then, but the friendliness was in abeyance now. There was an edge to his voice as he said, “Can you sort out for us what took place here tonight, Mr. Quincannon?”

  “He couldn’t sort out a handful of poker chips,” McFinn snapped. His habitual nervousness had given way to outrage. “Neither him nor his lady partner. I hired them to keep disaster from my door and they failed miserably. The publicity from this will give the bluenoses all the ammunition they need to close the Gold Nugget down. I’ll be ruined—”

  “Amos, hold your tongue.”

  “I still say Glen Bonnifield shot poor Jack,” Lily said before John could respond. “He hated him, he made no bones about that. And last night … I was told by a neighbor that shots were fired at my cottage. That must have been Glen, too, after Jack.”

  “Diamond was at your cottage last night?”

  “No. I wasn’t there, either, when it happened. But Glen must’ve thought we’d gone there together.”

  “Why would he shoot at an empty cottage?”

  John said carefully, “It may be that he was hiding outside and mistook a shadow for a man.” He cast a glance at Sabina as he spoke, not that she needed to be warned to keep silent. She knew as well as he did that declaring he was a mistaken target would serve no purpose except to vex the sheriff. He had, after all, entered Lily’s home illegally; and he had also failed to report the shooting.

  Thorpe asked him, “So then you also think Bonnifield killed Jack Diamond?”

  “No. I suspect it was Bonnifield who fired those shots last night, but he had nothing to do with what happened here.”

  “How do you know he didn’t?”

  “You examined his weapon, just as I did. He must have cleaned it after using it last night—it hadn’t been fired tonight. Also, the report of a Peacemaker is loud, booming. The shot that folded Jack O’Diamonds was low and popping, like that of a firecracker.”

  “A small-caliber weapon, then.”

  “Yes. A derringer or a pocket revolver.”

  “Does Bonnifield carry a hideout weapon, Miss Dumont?”

  “No. I’ve never seen one.”

  “And if he did have one tonight,” John pointed out, “he had no time to rid himself of it.”

  “Then who did shoot Diamond?”

  “Not my sister or me,” Jeffrey Gaunt said, speaking for the first time. “Neither of us has ever carried a weapon.”

  “Did Diamond?”

  “On occasion, yes. A double-barreled derringer.”

  “Well, it wasn’t on his body.” Thorpe turned to Lady One-Eye. “When did you last see it, Mrs. Diamond?”

  “I don’t recall,” she said. “If he wasn’t carrying it, I expect you’ll find it among his belongings in our lodgings.”

  “Someone could have stolen it and used it to shoot him.”

  “Yes, but who? And who stole his diamond stickpin?”

  John said, “I can answer that question.”

  “Oh, you can,” Thorpe said. “Who?”

  John’s penchant for the dramatic led him to pause before responding. He lifted a hand and would have fluffed his beard if it were still untrimmed. As it was he settled for clearing his throat several times.

  “Lily Dumont, of course,” he said.

  “Her! I should’ve known.” Lady One-Eye jabbed menacingly at the younger woman with her cane. “You dirty, murdering husband-stealer—”

  Lily shrank away from her. “It’s a lie! I didn’t kill Jack and I didn’t steal his stickpin.”

  “Ah, but you did,” John said. “Slipped it out of his cravat when you flung yourself down beside his body, in the moment before you announced that he was dead. Yo
u were the only person close enough to have managed it without being noticed.”

  Sabina said wryly, “Jack O’Diamonds’ handsome face wasn’t his only lure for her. Money and the promise of more to come was at least part of the reason she was going away with him.”

  “What’s that?” Thorpe said. “She was going away with Diamond?”

  “All right,” Lily cried, “all right, I was. And yes, I took his stickpin—why shouldn’t I? He was dead and he would’ve wanted me to have it. He loved me and I loved him.”

  Lady One-Eye uttered a coarse word well known to cattlemen. “I want it back. Where is it?”

  “Where you’ll never find it.”

  “You didn’t have time to hide it. It’s still on your person. I’ll strip you naked right here in front of these men if you don’t give it up.”

  The threat, Sabina thought, was not an idle one. Lily knew it, too. She bit her lip, turned her back, and fished the stickpin from the bodice of her dress. Lady One-Eye reached for it, but Thorpe claimed it first.

  “Evidence,” he said.

  Lily appealed to him, saying, “But I didn’t shoot him. You have to believe me. I don’t own a handgun, I don’t even know how to fire one.”

  The sheriff turned to John. “Is she telling the truth or not?”

  John cleared his throat again, but not for the same reason as before, and tugged at his shirt collar as if it had grown a tad snug. The gesture almost made Sabina smile. She knew him well enough by now to know when his deductive prowess had temporarily failed him: he had no clear-cut idea of who had fired the fatal shot.

  “Ah, perhaps she is,” he hedged, “and then again perhaps she isn’t.”

  “What the devil does that mean?”

  “It means,” McFinn said scornfully, “he doesn’t know either way. He doesn’t have a clue to the identity of Diamond’s murderer.”

  There was a small uncomfortable silence.

  The time had come for Sabina to step in. She said, “Of course he does. We both know the murderer’s name and how the crime was committed. Don’t we, John?”

  He blinked at her. There had been a time in the early years of their professional relationship when he’d considered her a very competent detective though not his equal when it came to solving the knottier type of problem. That attitude had since changed, fortunately for both their sakes or they would not have reached the level of intimacy they presently shared. The look he gave her now not only showed gratitude for her face-saving gesture, but both respect and eagerness.

  “Well, Mrs. Carpenter?” Thorpe demanded. “Who was it?”

  “Lady One-Eye, of course.”

  Heads swung toward the recent widow. Lady One-Eye stood in her usual ramrod-stiff posture, one hand resting on the gold knob of her cane, her good eye impaling Sabina. The only emotion it or her expression betrayed was contempt.

  “How dare you accuse me. I might have been shot, too, tonight. Or have you forgotten the note that threatened my life and my husband’s?”

  “I haven’t forgotten it. You wrote that note yourself.”

  “I wrote it? That’s ridiculous.”

  “On the contrary,” Sabina said. “When we were about to play stud tonight I noticed a faint smudge of green on your left thumb—green ink, the same color as the writing on the note, that multiple hand-washings was unable to eradicate. My guess is that you didn’t bother to dispose of the bottle and the sheriff will find it in your lodgings.”

  “Suppose she did write the note,” Thorpe said. “What was her purpose?”

  Lady One-Eye said, “Yes, whatever your name is, what possible reason could I have for threatening myself and shooting my husband?”

  “He was going to leave you, that’s why!” Lily cried. The shift of suspicion from her to her rival had relieved her, made her bold again. “He was tired of you and your cold and stingy ways. And you knew it.”

  “I knew nothing of the kind. Did I, Jeffrey?”

  “Certainly not,” her brother said, his slow drawl as wintery as hers. “Nor did I, for it isn’t true.”

  Lily pointed a tremulous finger at Lady One-Eye. “Oh, yes it is. You as much as said so last night at my table. You warned me against trying to take Jack away from you.”

  “If that were true, which it wasn’t, and I were going to shoot anyone, it would have been you, not him.”

  “Unless,” Sabina said, “your hate for him and his faithless ways had become intolerable, as it surely had. He must have let something slip earlier today that convinced you he was going to run off with Lily, and soon, perhaps as soon as tonight.”

  “Yes,” Lily said. “Tonight!”

  “With her and possibly some or all of your recent winnings.”

  “Utter claptrap,” Gaunt said. He laid a protective hand on Lady One-Eye’s arm, glaring daggers at Sabina as he did so. “I have complete control of my sister’s finances. There is no way Jack could have gotten his hands on any of her money.”

  She ignored him. “That’s why you acted when you did,” she said to Lady One-Eye. “As for the note, you wrote that to divert suspicion from yourself, to make it seem as though you were also an intended victim—further proof of premeditation. I’ll warrant, too, that if you’d had enough time to complete your plan, you would have found a way to frame Lily for the crime. That way, you would have gotten revenge on both of them.”

  “Sheriff,” Lady One-Eye said to Thorpe, “I won’t stand for any more of these outrageous accusations. How could I possibly have shot my husband? I was sitting at my table on the platform, in plain sight of the room. My hands were in plain sight, too. If I had drawn a gun and fired it, someone would surely have seen me do it.”

  “That’s right,” McFinn said, “I would have. I happened to glance at her table before the shot and again just afterward and she was sitting as she said, with her hands in plain sight.”

  “Yes, she was,” Sabina agreed. “I saw her myself. One hand on the table, the other clutching the knob of her cane.”

  “Well, then?”

  “Lady One-Eye is a mistress of sleight of hand. She has been cheating her opponents at poker with the ploy … that’s right, Mr. McFinn, she is a skin-game artist … and tonight she used the same principle to dispose of her husband.”

  “Don’t talk in riddles, Mrs. Carpenter. How the devil could she have done it?”

  “Remember, there was general confusion at the time; no one was looking closely at her. Remember, too, that the lower half of her body was mostly hidden by the table skirt. And add to those two facts: one, that she was holding her cane, something she never did while she was seated at the poker table; and two, that the lower two-thirds of the cane were out of sight beneath the table skirt.”

  And in one swift movement Sabina caught hold of the ebony stick, pulled it from Lady One-Eye’s grasp, then stepped back with it held out at a horizontal angle. Gaunt lunged forward, but John prevented him from snatching it away from her. She twisted the lion’s head knob. The knob was not immovably fastened; rather, it turned on a tight, hidden swivel. One twist slid aside the ferrule on the bottom, and a second twist produced an audible click.

  John, who had remained silent throughout Sabina’s reconstruction and who was seldom surprised by anything, said a startled, “Hell and damn!”

  “Not only a cane,” Sabina said, “but a half pistol, half rifle cleverly manufactured of a hollow metal tube disguised as wood and designed to fire a single shot.”

  7

  SABINA

  “You’ve kept me in suspense long enough,” John said a short while later, in her room at the Holbrooke. “How did you know Lady One-Eye’s cane had been outfitted as a firearm?”

  Sabina, freshly bathed, was dressed in one of her own stylishly sedate outfits; the Saint Louis Rose had been packed away in her traveling bag, to be given back to the costumer who had supplied the bawd’s various components upon their return to San Francisco. She was tempted to draw out the explanation as John
would have, give him a taste of his own medicine, but that would have been petty.

  She said, “I once encountered a man in Denver when I was with the Pinkertons who employed a similar device. He had a pegleg that a gunsmith had bored out and fitted with a sawed-off rifle barrel. He fired it through the pocket of his trousers by means of a spring mechanism attached to his thigh.”

  “Ah. You might have mentioned this to me.”

  “I had no reason to before tonight. Or to suspect Lady One-Eye’s stick of being anything other than what it seemed—not until Jack O’Diamonds was shot and I glimpsed the tip of the cane beneath the table skirt before she pulled it back, saw a faint wisp of smoke rise up at that point.”

  “And then noticed that her hand was on the knob.”

  “Yes.”

  John gnawed on the stem of his favorite briar. He would have liked to smoke it, but she’d forbidden him to do so. The stench of the godawful tobacco he preferred would have been intolerable in the confines of the small room. She really must try to convince him to change his brand.

  “It must have taken considerable practice for her to fire her weapon accurately in such a fashion,” he said.

  “No doubt it did,” Sabina agreed. “And no doubt Lady One-Eye carried the weapon for self-protection in the event any of her challengers tumbled to her skin-game tactics, and that she practiced often with it. She may even have had occasion to use the trick a time or two before last night.”

  “Her brother must have known she was guilty of the murder as soon as it happened. And he’ll keep on lying to protect her.”

  Sabina nodded. “He’s fiercely protective, loyal to a fault.”

  “That, and the fact that she was his meal ticket,” John said cynically. “Did you notice how furious he was at you when you revealed her as both a murderer and a card cheat?”

  “Oh, yes, I noticed.”

  “He is a piece of work, and so is she—two of a kind. Her claim to the sheriff that there was an empty cartridge in the weapon because she’d fired it accidentally this afternoon, and his that he’d witnessed it, are a feeble defense. If it were true, she would surely not have ‘forgotten’ to reload it. Could the bullet that killed Jack O’Diamonds be matched to the cartridge, she wouldn’t have a leg to stand on.”