Marcia Muller - The Plague of Thieves Affair

“I believe I’ll partake now. Will you join me?”

“Thank you, no. I’ve already eaten.”

Bakker bowed again and moved away to the food buffet. No sooner had he done so than Andrew Rayburn approached her. He gestured toward the fat man, who was circling the buffet with an empty plate, taking his time about making a selection from the trays. “Who is that man you were talking to?” he asked. “He was at the opening and now he’s back again. You seem to know him, but I don’t.”

“Only since last evening. His name is Thaddeus Bakker. Of the Sacramento Bakkers. An art connoisseur.”

“Ah. Well, that’s all right then.” Rayburn smoothed his shoelace mustache. Then he frowned twitchily and gestured again. “I don’t know that fellow, either — the one in front of the display. He seems to be taking an inordinate interest in the Marie Antoinette centerpiece.”

Sabina looked. It was the slight man with the pince-nez. “Just admiring it, apparently, like everyone else.”

“He was at the opening as well. Do you know him?”

“No. But there is nothing suspicious about him. Another connoisseur, most likely.”

“I believe I’ll introduce myself. To Thaddeus Bakker as well. I am always interested in making the acquaintance of connoisseurs.”

Especially those who might be in the market for the overpriced art works you sell, Mr. Rayburn.

The evening progressed. Guests came and went, ate and drank, engaged in animated conversations, and admired the antique reticules. Sabina’s feet and lower back began to ache from the constant moving about; she would have liked to rest for a time on the velvet settee by the entrance, but Charles the Third’s dire warning kept her from doing so. She tried to maintain a central location where she could keep watch on both the display and the entrance, but that wasn’t always possible because of the shifting of the crowd.

She passed near the exhibit, where Andrew Rayburn was now standing, when a rather overdressed middle-aged dowager with great sausage-shaped curls hurried up to the gallery owner. The woman said in irritated tones, “Mr. Rayburn, I must protest. This is a refined gathering, after all.”

“Protest, Mrs. Delahunt? For what reason?”

“That a suspicious individual who quite obviously does not belong among ladies and gentlemen of culture and breeding has been allowed to enter the premises and piggishly stuff himself at the buffet.”

Sabina glanced toward the food buffet, but the clutch of guests nearby obscured her view. She stepped forward. “Did you say suspicious, madam?”

“I did.” Mrs. Delahunt peered at her through her lorgnette. “Who are you, young woman?”

“One of my, ah, employees,” Rayburn said.

“Indeed. Well, I suggest you have this... person removed immediately. Lord knows what he might be up to besides decimating the hors d’oeuvres. He reminds me of those dreadful Australian hooligans, the Sydney Ducks, that infested the city when I was a girl.”

Sabina made her way through the knot of guests until she could see the food buffet and the man standing there filling a plate with a variety of canapés. Martin Holloway, Rayburn’s clerk, was speaking to him in a low voice. A few of the remaining guests stood peering at the newcomer askance, murmuring among themselves.

Sabina had been away from the door when the man slipped inside; she hadn’t seen him until now. He was dressed in a rolled-brim derby, a long-tailed broadcloth coat with red velvet collars, and baggy trousers; his hair was long, shaggy, and of an unnatural inky black color, and he wore snaky black mustaches of the sort that villains twirled in stage melodramas. A smudge of what appeared to be lampblack stained one unshaven cheek.

Her heart gave a small leap. No one in his right mind would come to an exhibit in a high-toned art gallery looking as he did, in such an atrocious disguise. No one except the one person she knew who was not in his right mind.

Charles the Third had returned after all.

Holloway said, “Oh, Mrs. Carpenter. This... person claims you know him and that he has a right to be here.”

“Of course she does and I do,” Charles the Third said. “Good evening, dear lady. I should have come straight to you, I know, but I daresay I’m famished. I have had no opportunity to dine the entire day.”

Rayburn had joined them, looking fussily nonplussed. The crackbrain’s disguise was effective enough so that the gallery owner didn’t recognize him as the same man who had attended the opening in a much less ridiculous outfit. “ Do you know him?” he asked Sabina.

“I do.” Unfortunately.

“I am Mrs. Carpenter’s assistant, as it happens.”

“Assistant? But...” Rayburn appealed to Sabina. “But the way he’s dressed...”

“I must apologize for that,” Charles the Third said before she could speak. “I also had no opportunity to change my present costume for more appropriate attire.” He smiled disarmingly at Sabina. “I must say, you have exquisite sartorial taste. Your gown this evening... charming, quite charming.”

Sabina, caught between relief and exasperation, took hold of his arm and firmly guided him away from the buffet. On their stroll across the room he nibbled one of the canapés from his plate. “These are reasonably palatable despite an excess of mayonnaise. Wild cold-water lobster from Alaskan waters, I should say.”

She could think of nothing to say. Once again, he had her at a loss for words. She steered him behind one of the low partitions, where she released his arm and shook her head to clear it.

Lord, he can be infuriating!

“I must also apologize for my tardiness,” he said. “I intended to arrive promptly at six o’clock, but in the words of the commendable Scotsman Bobbie Burns, the best laid plans o’ mice and men gang aft agley.”

“I didn’t expect you to be here at all tonight.”

“And why not, pray tell?”

“Well, after our conversation last evening, and the way you dashed off...”

He made a dismissive gesture with his free hand. “I have decided that issue is of no consequence. Merely a matter of mistaken identity, to be cleared up at a later time.”

“Cleared up how?”

“In a satisfactory manner.”

“Satisfactory to whom?”

“To all concerned, naturally.”

“Then you intend to meet with your cousin Roland?”

“I do not have a cousin Roland. I have a brother Mycroft, and he is my only living relative. As I will most assuredly make clear to this Roland Fairchild person.”

“You still insist you’re not Charles Percival Fairchild the Third?”

“Of course I do. The notion is absurd. You of all individuals in this metropolis should know that I am Sherlock Holmes, the world’s foremost consulting detective.”

Sabina opened her mouth, then closed it. Once more she could think of nothing to say. A cold draft led her to glance around the partition. Several of the guests had already departed and others were leaving, at least in part because of the incident with Charles the Third. The remaining visitors numbered no more than a dozen, all grouped in the middle of the room.

The crackbrain finished his last canapé, dabbed at his lips with a cocktail napkin, set the plate on a pedestal on which a bronze statuette of a nude woman rested, dusted his hands, and said, “Now then. To the matter of immediate importance to both of us. Quite obviously nothing out of the ordinary has occurred this evening.”

“Only your arrival in that ridiculous disguise. Why did you claim to be my assistant?”

“I am temporarily acting in that capacity, am I not? As a result of having brought you the information I uncovered of the planned attempt to pilfer the Marie Antoinette handbag? Indeed. I spent much of today in an effort to learn the thief’s identity, but without success. Perhaps tomorrow I shall have better fortune.” He consulted his timepiece. “Less than half an hour until closing. Let us hope the blackguard waits until the last night of the exhibit to—”