Marcia Muller - The Plague of Thieves Affair

A light rain had begun to fall during the night and it was still slicking streets and sidewalks when Quincannon once again arrived at Golden State Steam Beer shortly before ten on Friday morning. He would have preferred not to confront and arrest Elias Corby at the brewery, after yesterday’s debacle, but it was a better choice than waiting until later in the day. He was bigger and stronger than the bookkeeper, and Corby was not the sort to panic as Caleb Lansing had. The coldly calculating fashion in which he had dispatched Lansing in the utility room and subsequently escaped proved that.

The issue, however, turned out to be moot.

Corby was not in his office or anywhere else on the premises.

Impatiently Quincannon waited in the bookkeeper’s cubicle. He might have revealed Corby’s guilt to James Willard, but his client also had yet to put in an appearance. Just as well. It better suited him and his sense of the dramatic to reserve explanations until after all the facts in a case were known to him and the felon in custody.

Ten o’clock came and went. Still no sign of Corby. Or Willard, for that matter.

By this time Quincannon had worked himself into something of a lather. Enough of this blasted inactivity. Action was what he craved, his hands on Corby’s scrawny neck if the rascal gave him even the slightest bit of trouble. He quit pacing the cubicle, as he’d been doing restlessly for the past several minutes, slapped on his derby at a forward-leaning angle, and went to determine if his quarry could be found at his boardinghouse.

The answer to that was yes. He rattled his knuckles sharply on the door, once without a response, then a second time, and if that last knock had gone unanswered he was prepared to pick the lock for another quick search. But his sharp ears picked up stirrings inside — the creak of bedsprings, followed by the muted shuffle of approaching steps.

Corby’s voice, hoarse and wary, called out, “Who is it?”

“John Quincannon.”

“... What do you want?”

“Open the door and I’ll tell you.”

“I... I’m not feeling well. That’s why I didn’t go to work this morning. A touch of the grippe...”

“You’ll soon feel worse if you don’t open the door.”

There were a few seconds of silence. Then the latch lock rattled and the door opened partway, just far enough for Quincannon to see that Corby was in his nightshirt and that his eyes were bleary from more than just interrupted sleep. His beard-stubbled cheeks had a sunken, grayish tinge. A touch of the grippe? Bah. Severe hangover was more like it. The bookkeeper had, in fact, spent much of last night in the company of demon rum, either by way of celebration or in an attempt to assuage a guilty conscience.

“Well? If you’re here on behalf of Mr. Willard—”

Quincannon said, “On his behalf and mine,” and threw his shoulder against the door panel. Corby, driven into a backward stagger, emitted a bleat of protest as Quincannon entered and thrust the door shut behind him.

“What... what’s the idea? You have no right to barge in here—”

“On the contrary. I have every right as a duly licensed upholder of the law to make a citizen’s arrest.”

Fear crawled into the little man’s bloodshot eyes. “Arrest?”

“For the murders of Otto Ackermann and Caleb Lansing and the theft of Ackermann’s steam beer formula.”

“Those are ridiculous accusations. Lansing is the one who stole the formula and killed poor Otto. And he wasn’t murdered, he died by his own hand—”

“It’ll do you no good to lie or deny, laddybuck. I know the two of you were partners in the first crime, hired by Cyrus Drinkwater through his West Star brewmaster, Xavier Jones. And that it was your hand, not Lansing’s, that put the bullet in his heart. I also know the clever method you employed afterward to avoid detection. The yellow hop dust, lupulin, gave you away.”

Corby’s face was a deathly gray color now. He avoided Quincannon’s piercing gaze, swinging his head in wobbly arcs as if seeking an avenue of escape.

“You have two choices,” Quincannon said. “You can come along peaceably to the Hall of Justice, or you can be carried there unconscious and trussed up hand and foot. Which will it be?”

Corby’s desperation lasted until Quincannon, to emphasize his words, opened his greatcoat and then his frock coat to reveal the holstered Navy Colt. Then the wild look evaporated, the thin shoulders sagged; there was no resistance in him as he half staggered to the rumpled bed, sank down on it, and covered his face with splayed fingers.

“No, there’ll be no bogus remorse, either. On with your clothes, and be quick about it.”

Slowly, jerkily, Corby obeyed. Quincannon kept a sharp eye on him as he shed his nightshirt and reached for his shirt and pants. There had been no weapon in the room when he’d searched it the day before, and it was likely that the LeMat revolver had been the only one he’d possessed. Vigilance was called for nevertheless, but Corby made no false moves.

While he draped his skinny frame, Quincannon asked him how much he’d been paid for his theft of the formula and what he’d done with the money. Headshakes were his only response. Either the bookkeeper had been rendered mute by his fear, or more likely there was enough stubbornness left in him to avoid self-incrimination. Quincannon might have been able to get it out of him by threat or force, but inasmuch as he had no claim to the spoils he saw no reason to exert himself. Let the coppers attend to that chore once Corby was in their custody.

When Corby had donned his raincoat, they went downstairs and out onto the wet sidewalk, Quincannon maintaining a tight grip on the small man’s arm. It was still raining, harder now and driven on a slant by a gusty wind; citizens with unfurled umbrellas hurried along, not all of them mindful of their surroundings. The hack that had brought Quincannon here was waiting at the curb, and as he and Corby crossed to it, a pedestrian with his head down and his umbrella canted forward came bustling toward them. Quincannon sidestepped, but not in time to avoid a glancing collision that turned him half around and broke his grip on Corby’s arm. Before he could untangle himself from the fathead with the umbrella, his prisoner was off and running.

Quincannon shouted, “Corby! Halt, blast you, halt!” to no avail, and plunged after him.

Corby dodged past the front of the hansom, causing the harnessed horse to rear and the hack to buck forward, which in turn caused Quincannon to change direction to avoid the horse’s plunging hooves; this allowed Corby to put a few more yards between them. He raced diagonally across the street and into a vacant lot.

Providence seemed to have cursed Quincannon with a continual scourge of foot chases. He’d been involved in more than one the previous year, there was yesterday’s in pursuit of Lansing, and now here he was after Corby in yet another — none through any direct fault of his own. This one stoked his wrath to a white heat as he ran. Damned weather! Damned fools who didn’t watch where they were going in the rain! Damned cheeky murdering thieves!

The lot was overgrown with tall grass, weeds, shrubs, a scattered few stunted trees. Chill wind stung Quincannon’s face as he plowed into and through the wet vegetation, drawing his sidearm as he went. The footing was slippery, forcing both him and Corby to slow their headlong flight. Halfway across he saw the fugitive stumble, lurch, nearly fall; this allowed him to gain enough ground to cut the distance between them by half. He lengthened his stride, mowing down some sort of tall flowering bush.

A gnomish tree loomed up on the far side, its skeletal branches clicking and rattling in the wind. He started to veer around it — and his boot sole slid on the slick grass, then his toe stubbed against something unyielding, a tree root or rock, hidden there. He lost his balance and went down hard on his belly, skidding sideways to fetch up against the bole of the tree.