Нэнси Пикард - Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 128, No. 6. Whole No. 784, December 2006

“Yes, in a safe place, but that was years ago. It’s possible he made refinements since then. Even if he didn’t... the competition, man, the competition.”

Quincannon understood; he’d been well schooled in the subject. A master brewer’s formula, the proportions in which he mixes his ingredients, the manner in which he treats them in the processing, is the lifeblood of a successful brewery. Golden Gate’s reputation as San Francisco’s best producer of steam beer would suffer, and lead to reduced sales, if West Star were to begin brewing lager of comparable quality.

“Tell me this, Quincannon. Why would Lansing need an accomplice to steal the formula, when he had access to it himself as Ackermann’s assistant?”

“The accomplice was likely the brains of the pair. His idea and plan, mayhap. He may even have had a hold of some sort on Lansing to force him into the crime.”

“You suspected there were two of them all along, then?”

“Of course,” Quincannon lied. He should have suspected it, given Lansing’s weak-stick nature. When viewed in the proper light, the man was a poor candidate for the solo planning and execution of such a crime. Ackermann had been a burly gent; it could not have been an easy task to cosh him and then pitch him into that vat of fermenting lager. Well, even the best detectives suffered a blind spot now and then. Not that he would ever admit it to a client, or to Sabina or anyone else.

“The motive for Lansing’s murder?” Carreaux asked. “And why in such a location?”

“My suspicion is that the two arranged to meet secretly in the utility room this morning, likely not for the first time. Lansing was consulting his watch when I found him in the fermenting room, which suggests that the time of a meeting was near at hand. When he escaped from me, he fled to the storerooms to keep the rendezvous and to tell his partner that the game was up. Lansing was the sort who would spill everything in an instant, once he was caught, and the accomplice knew it. Either he felt he had no choice but to dispose of him then and there before his name was revealed, or the killing was premeditated; the latter would explain why he was armed.”

“Do you have any idea of his identity?”

“Not as yet.”

“Or how he could have committed murder behind two locked doors and escaped unseen with you and others guarding the only exit route?”

“Not as yet. But I’ll find out, never fear.”

“You’d better, Quincannon,” Carreaux said. “You advertise yourself as San Francisco’s premier detective. Well, then, prove it as a fact and not mere braggadocio — and prove it quickly. For the sake of your reputation and mine!”

The door to the storerooms had been locked again after the removal of Caleb Lansing’s body, at Quincannon’s urging and Carreaux’s order. And all the keys had been rounded up and accounted for. Quincannon took one of the keys with him when he left Carreaux’s office. He appropriated a bug-eye lantern from the shipping offices to supplement the weak electric light, and then let himself into the storerooms and locked the door again behind him.

He re-searched the utility room first, in the interest of thoroughness. It contained nothing that he might have overlooked the first time. He went next to the room housing the sacked barley. The dusty smells of grain and burlap were thick enough to clog his sinuses and produce several explosive sneezes as he shined the bug-eye over the piled sacks. They were stacked close together, at a height of some five feet and flush against the back and side walls. Nothing larger than a kitten could have hidden itself behind or among any of them.

He crossed into the other large room. The boxes of yeast and heavy sacks of malt, sugar, and hops stood in long, tightly packed rows along the side walls. No one could have hidden behind or among them, either. The floor at the far end wall was bare; a pile of empty hop sacks and a pair of hand trucks lay against the near end wall. Everything was as it had been when he’d looked in earlier.

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 reticule 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.