Билл Пронзини - The Bags of Tricks Affair

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A conman always has a bag of tricks, ready to fool the unsuspecting, and almost everyone is unsuspecting until they get taken. When that happens, they turn to Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional Detective Services, to recover their money and what’s left of their dignity, and perhaps even to save their lives.
When one such case leaves Sabina Carpenter the only witness to a murder, the family of the culprit vows to stop at nothing to keep her silent. The threat leaves John Quincannon deeply concerned for Sabina’s safety, but there’s no rest for the wicked and so the crime-solving duo must split up to tackle two separate con games, run by two villains with deadly bags of tricks at hand.
And when Sabina’s life is put in danger, John must rush to save her while grappling with the terrifying realization of exactly how much she means to him.

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“So you informed me yesterday, sir.”

“Get on with it, then. Grimes is waiting for you at the carriage house. I have canceled an appointment and a luncheon in order to be on hand this morning, and I expect... no, I demand results.”

Outside, Sabina led the way around toward the carriage house. “Not a very pleasant gent, is he,” Whit said.

“Pompous is the word.”

“Well, I hope this business turns out the way you hope it will. He meant what he said inside.”

“Yes. He did.”

A tall extension ladder leaned against the wall of the carriage house; Grimes lounged near it, smoking a cigarette that he quickly discarded when he saw them approaching. He eyed Whit, nodded when Sabina gave his name; neither man offered to shake hands. The ladder was some eight feet in length, the extension another four or five, and it looked to be heavy, but Grimes shook his head when Whit offered to help him carry it. As if to demonstrate his strength and agility, he hoisted it under one arm and brought it effortlessly to the side of the house where the antiquities room was located, his dog trotting along at his heels.

“I’ll set it up,” Grimes said. “Do the least amount of damage that way.”

He proceeded to lay the ladder in the grass at the edge of the flower beds, after which he spent two or three minutes creating as much space as possible among the close-set delphinium plants. Then, carefully, he picked the ladder up again, extended it, carried it on tiptoe through the flower bed, and leaned it gently at an angle against the house wall. Despite his precautions, he was unable to avoid crushing two or three of the plants. The top of the ladder reached to just below the bottom windowsills.

Back on the grass, he urged Whit to be careful and then stood back with his arms folded. He and Sabina watched as Whit stepped gingerly to the ladder, managing not to murder more than one additional delphinium on the way, and made short work of the climb up. Balanced at the top he began carrying out Sabina’s instructions, probing the frames, the thick rough-textured pile sealing them, the leaded-glass panes.

“What’s he looking for anyway?” Grimes asked.

Sabina sidestepped the question by asking one of her own. “Are you the one who weather stripped the windows?”

“No. That was done before my time. Professional job.”

“That small window above the others. What is behind it?”

“Attic.”

“For storage or some other purpose?”

“Storage. Old furniture and the like. Most of it I hauled up there myself — part of my job.”

After some minutes Whit finished his examination and climbed back down. When he was on the grass, Grimes said, “Didn’t find anything, did you?”

Whit said nothing.

The handyman took his silence to mean he hadn’t. “Knew you wouldn’t,” he said, and stepped into the flower bed once again to remove the ladder.

But Whit had found something, just the sort of tampering Sabina had expected he might. In a lowered voice he told her about it in detail on their way back to the front entrance. Now she knew beyond any doubt how the antiquities room had been breached. The question now was how the thief had gotten to the windows without use of a ladder, and she was fairly sure she knew the answer to that, too.

Joshua Brandywine was alone in the library, puffing on a cigar and paging through one of his tomes on Chinese curios, when Mrs. Endicott showed them in. He put the book down and popped to his feet. “All finished with that ladder business, I take it. Did you or didn’t you find anything?”

“We did.”

“Well? What?”

“Patience, Mr. Brandywine.”

“Patience, my eye. I told you before, I am not a patient man.” As if to validate the fact, he stamped his foot in a manner that reminded Sabina of a temperamental horse.

“Rather than explain,” Sabina said, “Mr. Slattery and I will demonstrate in the antiquities room. But we’ve somewhere else to go first.”

“What’s that? Where?”

“The attic.”

“The— What for?”

“You’ll soon see.”

Muttering to himself, Brandywine led them up the curving staircase to the second floor and then a straight staircase behind a closed door and into the attic. The low-ceilinged space had not been wired for electricity; he lit a pair of gas wall lamps that provided just enough feeble light to see and navigate by.

The attic was dusty, decorated with cobwebs and cluttered with the usual jumble of castoffs. Sabina made her way through the maze to the far wall, moving aside a heavy iron bedstead in order to reach the small grit-streaked window directly above the antiquities room. The window was held shut by a simple catch. When she flipped it and nudged the glass, the window opened outward soundlessly on oiled hinges.

She looked closely at the bedstead. Dust coated it, except for a section on one of the thick frame supports that had been rubbed more or less clean. Now she had the rest of the solution.

Turning to Mr. Brandywine, she asked, “I take it your nephew is not home at present?”

“Philip? No, he left for some sort of sports activity just after breakfast. Why are you asking about him?”

“Yesterday you told me you don’t approve of his interest in sports. And he told me later that he aspires to participate in the Olympic Games in Paris in nineteen hundred, and that he plans to attend even if he is unable to compete.”

“The boy is much too young to go gallivanting halfway round the world on a foolish whim.”

“So you’ve told him you refuse to finance such a journey?”

“Yes, I— What are you getting at, young woman?”

“That it was Philip who stole your artifacts. In order to finance such a trip himself.”

“That... that is preposterous!”

“I’m sorry, sir, but it’s the only possible explanation.”

“How the devil could he have gotten into the antiquities room?”

“By utilizing one of his gymnastic skills.”

“Skill? What skill?”

“A newspaper article about the Olympic Games I reread yesterday identified the gymnastic events in detail. They include synchronized team floor calisthenics, running, and high jumping. And one other.”

“Well?”

“Rope climbing,” Sabina said.

Mr. Brandywine wagged his head in dismay.

“It was a simple matter,” Sabina went on, “for Philip to slip up here in the middle of the night, open this window, secure one end of a strong rope to this iron bedframe, then climb out and shinny down the side wall to the antiquities-room windows below. I suspect a more careful search of the attic will uncover the rope.”

Brandywine still didn’t quite believe it. “How in heaven’s name could the boy get through latched and sealed windows while dangling at the end of a rope?”

“Easily enough, for a lad as fit and agile as Philip. We’ll go downstairs now for the demonstration.”

On the second floor, Sabina and Whit waited while Brandywine fetched his keys from the study safe, then the three of them proceeded to the antiquities room. With a hand that was not quite steady, the menswear tycoon opened the double locks and led them inside.

Sabina took the lead here, crossing among the glittering displays to open the velvet drapes. “To begin with,” she said then, “Philip would have committed his burglaries well after midnight, when he was certain everyone was fast asleep. What he did after climbing down from the attic was this: he braced both feet — likely bare to avoid leaving marks — against the wall to hold himself in place next to the windows. Hanging onto the rope with one hand, he then unsealed and unlatched the windows—”

“You make an apparent impossibility seem like child’s play. How did he open the sealed windows?”

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