Bill Pronzini - The Bughouse Affair

The first to break the frozen tableau was a small, round-faced gent with Lincolnesque whiskers and ears that resembled the handles on a pickle jar. He stepped forward and to one side so that he faced the Englishman. If the fellow was an Englishman. Quincannon was not at all sure the cultured accent was genuine.

“Where did this man come from?” the large-eared gent demanded. “Who is he?”

“On my stroll in the garden I spied him climbing over the fence. He claims to be a detective on the trail of a pannyman. Housebreaker, that is.”

“I don’t claim to be a detective,” Quincannon said sourly. “I am a detective. Quincannon’s the name, John Quincannon.”

“Doctor Caleb Axminster,” the large-eared fellow said. “What’s this about a housebreaker?”

The exchange drew the others closer in a tight little group. It also brought the owner of the English voice out to where Quincannon could see him for the first time. He wasn’t such-a-much. Tall, excessively lean, with a thin, hawklike nose and a prominent chin. In one hand he carried a blackthorn walking stick, held midway along the shaft. Quincannon scowled. It must have been the stick, not a pistol, that had poked his spine and allowed the scruff to escape.

“I’ll ask you again,” Dr. Axminster said. “What’s all this about a housebreaker?”

“I chased him here from a neighbor’s property.” Quincannon shifted his gaze to the plump banker. He was not a man to mince words, even at the best of times. “Yours, Mr. Truesdale.”

Mrs. Truesdale gasped. Her husband’s face lost its healthy color. “Mine? Good Lord, man, do you mean to say we’ve been robbed?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“Of what, do you know? What was stolen?”

“A question only you can answer.”

“Little enough, I pray. My wife’s jewelry and several stock certificates are kept in the safe in my office, but the thief couldn’t have gotten into it. It’s burglarproof.”

No safe, in Quincannon’s experience, was burglarproof. But he allowed the statement to pass without comment, asking instead, “Do you also keep cash on hand?”

“In my desk … a hundred dollars or so in greenbacks…” Truesdale shook his head; he seemed dazed. “You were on my property?”

“I was, with every good intention. Waiting outside.”

“Waiting? I don’t understand.”

“To catch the burglar in the act.”

“But how did you know…?”

“Detective work, sir. Detective work.”

The fifth man in the room had been silent to this point, one hand plucking at his middle as if he were suffering the effects of too much rich food. He was somewhat younger than the others, forty or so, dark-eyed, clean-shaven, with a nervous tic on one cheek; his most prominent feature was a misshapen knob of red-veined flesh, like a partially collapsed balloon, that seemed to hang unattractively between his eyes and a thin-lipped mouth. He aimed a brandy snifter at Quincannon, and said in aggrieved tones, “Thieves roaming everywhere in the city these days, like a plague, and you had the opportunity to put one out of commission and failed. If you’re such a good detective, why didn’t you catch the burglar? What happened?”

“An unforeseen occurrence over which I had no control.” Quincannon glared sideways at his gaunt captor. “I would have chased him down if this man hadn’t accosted me.”

“Accosted?” The Englishman arched an eyebrow. “Dear me, hardly that. I had no way of knowing you weren’t a prowler.”

Mrs. Truesdale was tugging at her husband’s arm. “Samuel, shouldn’t we return home and find out what was stolen?”

“Yes, yes, right away.”

“Margaret,” Axminster said to one of the other women, a slender graying brunette with patrician features, “find James and have him drive the Truesdales.”

The woman nodded and left the parlor with the banker and his wife in tow.

The doctor said then, “This is most distressing,” but he didn’t sound distressed. He sounded eager, as if he found the situation stimulating. He produced a paper sack from his pocket, popped a horehound drop into his mouth. “But right up your alley, eh, Mr. Holmes?”

The Englishman bowed.

“And yours, Andrew. Eh? The law and all that.”

“Hardly,” the man with the drinker’s nose said. “You know I handle civil, not criminal, cases. Why don’t you introduce us, Caleb? Unless Mr. Quincannon already knows who I am.”

Quincannon decided he didn’t particularly like the fellow. Or Axminster, for that matter. Or the gaunt Englishman. In fact, he did not like anybody tonight, not even himself very much.

“Certainly,” the doctor said. “This is Andrew Costain, Mr. Quincannon, and his wife, Penelope. And this most distinguished gentleman from far-off England…”

“Costain?” Quincannon interrupted. “Offices on Geary Street, residence near South Park?”

“By God,” Costain said, “he does know me. But if we’ve met, sir, I don’t remember the time or place. In court, was it?”

“We haven’t met anywhere. Your name happens to be on the list.”

“List?” Penelope Costain said. She was a slender, gray-eyed, brown-curled woman some years younger than her husband-handsome enough, although she appeared too aloof and wore too much rouge and powder for Quincannon’s taste. “What list?”

“Of actual and potential burglary victims, all of whom own valuables insured by the Great Western Insurance Company.”

This information seemed to make her husband even more dyspeptic. He rubbed nervously at his middle again as he asked, “Where did such a list come from?”

“That remains to be determined. Likely from someone affiliated or formerly affiliated with Great Western Insurance.”

“And Truesdale’s name is also on the list, I suppose. That’s what brought you to his home tonight.”

“Among other things,” Quincannon said.

Axminster sucked the horehound drop, his brow screwed up in thought. “Quincannon, John Quincannon … why, of course! I knew I’d heard the name before. Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional Detective Services. Yes, and your partner is a woman.”

“A woman,” the man called Holmes said. “How curious.”

Quincannon skewered him with a sharp eye. “What’s curious about it? Both Mrs. Carpenter and her late husband were valued operatives of the Pinkerton Detective Agency.”

“Upon my soul. In England, you know, it would be extraordinary for a woman to assume the profession of consulting detective, the more so to be taken in as a partner in a private inquiry agency.”

“She wasn’t ‘taken in,’ as you put it. Our partnership was by mutual arrangement.”

“Ah.”

Quincannon demanded, “What do you know of private detectives, in England or anywhere?”

“He knows a great deal, as a matter of fact,” Axminster said with relish. He asked the Englishman, “You have no objection if I reveal your identity to a colleague?”

“None, inasmuch as you have already revealed it to your other guests.”

The doctor beamed. He said as if presenting a member of British royalty, “My honored houseguest, courtesy of a mutual acquaintance in the south of France, is none other than Mr. Sherlock Holmes of 221 B Baker Street, London, England.”

Sherlock Holmes, my eye, Quincannon thought. This must be the fellow Bitter Bierce had written about in his column in this morning’s Examiner -the crackbrain posing as the legendary detective.

He said, “Holmes, eh? Not according to Mr. Ambrose Bierce.”

Axminster made sputtering noises. “Bierce is a poisonous fool. You can’t believe a word the man writes.”

“I assure you, Mr. Quincannon, that I am indeed Sherlock Holmes.” The Englishman bowed. “At your service, sir.”