Bill Pronzini - The Bughouse Affair

“Can you describe his features?” she asked.

“Afraid not. Had his cap pulled down and coat collar up.” The flower seller grinned crookedly, exposing stained yellow teeth. “Drove worse than a woman, he did.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Almost caused the accident. In a big hurry, swerving all over the road, not paying attention the way women-” At Sabina’s sharp look, he broke off and then added hastily, “No offense, miss.”

“None taken,” she lied, dropped coins into his hand, and turned away thinking that it would require a great deal of education to bring men like him into the era of the New Woman.

A quick canvass of the other vendors in the area revealed nothing further about the buggy or its driver. Sabina crossed Washington Square and went on down to a hack stand opposite the Saints Peter and Paul church at the corner of Filbert and Grant. By the time she entered one of the cabs, she’d decided on her next destination: the Jersey Street home of Victor Pope.

Evidently Pope had been Clara Wilds’s lover as well as her greed-driven fenceman. It was just possible he was her murderer as well, though one factor mitigated against it: the time element. Sabina had gone directly to Washington Square after leaving Pope’s hardware store. True, her cabbie had been in no hurry, but even if Pope had left immediately afterward and driven swiftly and directly to Clara Wilds’s lodging house, there would have been precious little time for him to kill his paramour, conduct his search, and vanish before Sabina’s arrival.

In order for this to have happened, the murder would have to have been premeditated; there simply wasn’t enough time for a falling out of some sort, a sudden homicidal rage. And why would he have wanted Wilds dead badly enough to commit the deed in broad daylight? Besides, he’d seemed calm enough during Sabina’s meeting with him, and had snatched eagerly at the bait for greater riches that she’d dangled in front of him.

No, it wasn’t likely that he was the guilty party. But she wouldn’t be satisfied of the fact until she learned whether or not Pope owned a black Concord buggy and a bay horse.

Confronting him again would have necessitated more lies and perhaps put her at risk. Guilty or innocent, his suspicions would be aroused. His mother, however, might not yet know of Wilds’s demise; Pope wouldn’t have told her in any case, and the deaths of common criminals were seldom reported in the newspapers. She could find out what she needed to know, she reasoned, from Dippin’ Sal.

The crippled old woman was home and if not happy to see her, not hostile, either. “Well, missy, back again. Did you find Clara?”

“No. Not yet.”

“Victor wouldn’t tell you where she’s livin’, eh? Close-mouthed rascal, same as his father. But it’s no use askin’ me again. Like I told you the other day, that ungrateful bitch don’t come around to see me no more.”

The thought occurred to Sabina that Dippin’ Sal might be lying. That she’d known all along where Clara Wilds was residing, that she might have harbored a deadly grudge against her protegee and coveted her spoils, and that she might be the murderer. But as quickly as the notion came, Sabina dismissed it. No one as old as this woman, with those misshapen, arthritic hands, could have driven a buggy a long distance or overpowered one as young and strong as Wilds.

Victor Pope was not guilty, either. She was convinced of that moments later when in a roundabout way she brought up the subject of Victor Pope’s transportation.

“He don’t own a buggy,” Dippin’ Sal said, “and he don’t own a horse. How does he get around? Trolleys and cable cars, that’s how. Too cheap to hire cabs. He don’t take me anywhere, neither. Can’t be bothered with an old woman like me, just lets me sit here in this house and listening to my arteries harden and my bones creak.” She added bitterly, “I done some things in my time that I ain’t proud of, but the worst I ever done was give birth to that damn no-account son of mine.”

Dippin’ Sal had been a hellion in her day, but Sabina couldn’t help feeling a touch sorry for her as she was now. She still carried the half-dozen roses she’d bought from the vendor at Washington Square; on impulse she handed the packet to the old woman, who blinked her surprise.

“What’re these for?”

“I thought you might like a bit of color to brighten your day, Mrs. Tatum.”

“Pink roses.” The rheumy eyes glistened. “Why … that’s real nice of you, missy. Nobody give me flowers in so long, I can’t remember the last time.”

Nor ever would again, Sabina thought as she returned to the waiting hansom, likely not even when Dippin’ Sal went to her final resting place.

* * *

The cobbled street in front of the Costain house near South Park was deserted, though Sabina imagined that it had been teeming with vehicles and curious neighbors and bystanders last night and perhaps earlier today. In her experience, citizens in neighborhoods such as the one where Clara Wilds had died were generally indifferent to scenes of violent crime, but those in residential neighborhoods like this one always drew a crowd. The lower classes were used to violence in their midst and had learned to live with it; those in the upper classes were not and had not.

This would be her last stop before returning to the agency, she thought as she alighted from the cab. She disliked intruding on Andrew Costain’s widow so soon after his demise, but she had no other avenues left to explore. Until Dodger Brown was caught and examined, the possibility existed that someone else had stabbed the pickpocket and driven the buggy from the scene of the crime. If that were true, then it was also possible the two cases were connected in a way as yet undetermined. Penelope Costain might conceivably know something that would provide her with a new lead.

Sabina opened the gate and walked up a path that wound through an unkempt front yard dominated by lilac shrubs. The house was on the unkempt side as well, in need of fresh paint and gingerbread repair. On the front door, a large funeral wreath hung slightly askew from a brass knocker speckled with verdigris. No, not askew-the door was open a few inches as if it hadn’t been properly latched and the light afternoon breeze had pushed it inward. As she drew nearer she heard the sound of voices rise from within, the first a woman’s quivering with anger, the second a man’s calm and controlled.

“How dare you lurk about spying on me, then break into my home!”

“My dear Mrs. Costain, I neither lurked nor spied on you. I knew from Dr. Axminster when you would be leaving for your appointment with him and so seized the opportunity for further investigation. Nor did I break and enter. The police left a rear window unlatched. I merely stepped over the sill.”

“You’re still trespassing. You have no right to be here!”

“Ah, but I believe I do. Inasmuch as I was present during last night’s unfortunate tragedy, as a temporary employee of the agency hired by your husband, I am duty bound to continue my inquiries.”

Penelope Costain. And Sherlock Holmes.

QUINCANNON

Duff’s Curio Shop was crowded among similar establishments in the second block of McAllister Street west of Van Ness. It contained, according to its proprietor, “bric-a-brac and curios of every type and description, from every culture and every nation … the new, the old, the mild, the exotic.” In short, it was full of junk.

This was Quincannon’s fourth visit to the place, once in his capacity as a Secret Service operative on a case involving the counterfeiting of 1840s eagles and half eagles, three times as private investigator, and he had yet to see a single customer. It may have been that Luther Duff sold some of his wares now and then, but if so, it was by accident and with little or no effort on his part. Where he had procured his inventory was a mystery; all that anyone knew for certain was that he had it and seldom if ever added new items to the dusty, moldering stock.