Билл Пронзини - The Bags of Tricks Affair

The second wire, from Sheriff Hezekiah Thorpe informing them of Lady One-Eye’s imminent trial date and Gaunt’s sudden disappearance, must have arrived while he was in Delford and increased his anxiety twofold. “Whereabouts unknown” — an ominous phrase. Where else would that blackguard have gone but here to San Francisco?

Dark thoughts tumbled through Quincannon’s mind. If Gaunt harmed a hair on Sabina’s head—!

Steady now, he told himself, don’t go off half-cocked. She’s all right, Gaunt hasn’t done anything to her yet. Find her, make sure she’s safe. Then track him down and neutralize his threat one way or another.

Rather than continuing to rely on public transportation, he went to the United Carriage Company office outside the Palace Hotel, where he arranged to rent a small hooded buggy and a good horse — damn the expense. A cab delivered him to the company’s stables on Eighth Street where he claimed the equipage. From there he drove back to the foot of Russian Hill.

Sabina still had not returned. He rang the bell of the other flat in the building, in the hope that one or both of the occupants, a young married couple named Christopher, had seen her recently. As blasted luck would have it, they were also away.

He drove to Hyde Street, where Elizabeth Petrie resided. The former police matron was home, but she had nothing to tell him. She hadn’t had any contact with Sabina other than a brief telephone conversation shortly after their return from Grass Valley.

Callie and Hugh French’s home on Van Ness Avenue drew him next. Sabina’s cousin, dressed in Sunday lounging clothes, greeted him effusively. Through a smile that felt pasted on, he told her he had just returned from a three-day business trip to the San Joaquin Valley and was eager to confer with Sabina. She wasn’t at her flat; had Callie seen her today?

“No, not since our luncheon on Thursday,” she said. Then, with keen perception, “You seem worried, John. Is everything all right?”

“Worried? No, not about Sabina,” he lied. “I’m just eager to see her. Have you any idea where she might be?”

“None, I’m afraid.”

“She didn’t indicate any plans for the weekend when you lunched with her?”

“No. John... are you sure there’s no cause for concern?”

“Not in the way you mean. You needn’t worry.”

“Well, if you say so. But your and dear Sabina’s profession frightens me sometimes. After what happened to her late husband and all the dangers you and she have faced together...”

Callie’s fretting only served to increase his anxiety. He patted her hand, said something mundanely reassuring, and made a hasty exit.

Amity Wellman and her husband, a well-known dealer in Spanish antiques, resided on Telegraph Hill. Quincannon went there next. Kamiko, the Wellmans’ adopted Japanese daughter, answered his ring and his questions. Mrs. Wellman was not at home, she had gone bicycling in Golden Gate Park, as was her custom on Sundays. Yes, she had mentioned having seen Mrs. Carpenter on Friday evening, at the Voting Rights for Women supper, and that they had arranged to ride together today.

This relieved him, but only until he reached the Golden Gate Ladies Bicycle Club on Clayton Street near the Panhandle. The woman on duty there knew Sabina, but said she hadn’t appeared today as expected; Mrs. Wellman had waited half an hour for her before riding off to join the other members of the club.

Tense, frustrated, Quincannon waited nearly an hour for Amity Wellman’s return, sitting in the rented buggy and smoking pipeful after pipeful of shag cut until his mouth and throat were scorched raw. Mrs. Wellman, a slender, handsome woman with hair the color of taffy, was surprised to see him since they had never met in person before. She expressed dismay at Sabina’s failure to keep their date; Sabina had been enthusiastic about resuming their Sunday rides together, she said, and in good spirits when they parted after the Friday-night supper.

“There must be a good reason why she didn’t come today,” Mrs. Wellman said. “An urgent business matter that came up suddenly, perhaps.”

Quincannon recalled the report he’d found in her desk of her recent two-day investigation. He’d only glanced through it, but he recognized the prominent client’s name, Joshua Brandywine, and remembered the man’s address on Nob Hill. Could something related to that case have required an urgent follow-up on Sabina’s part? A slim possibility, since she had marked it “Closed,” but he had no other leads to check.

The menswear magnate was home, but he refused an audience with Quincannon. He sent word by way of a dour-faced housekeeper that he hadn’t seen Mrs. Carpenter since Friday morning, and furthermore wanted nothing more to do with her or Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional Detective Services. Whatever had happened to ruffle Brandywine’s feathers couldn’t have been Sabina’s doing; she took pains to be civil with clients, and if there had been a contretemps of any import she would have mentioned it in her report. Dead end. The Brandywine case had nothing to do with her disappearance.

Evening was coming on now. With nowhere else to go, he drove once more to Russian Hill. Ringing Sabina’s bell proved as futile as the previous two times. So did another attempt to summon the Christophers.

Desperation led him to do then what he would never have done under normal circumstances: invade the sanctity of her home. If Gaunt was not responsible for her absence and she learned of his intrusion, she might never forgive him. But he had to know if everything was as it should be inside her flat. There might even be something there that would explain her failure to keep the appointment with Amity Wellman.

The lock on her door was not as easy to pick as most, but he’d expected this: she was as security conscious as he. Quincannon had to work at it for several minutes before the tumblers finally released. He stepped quickly inside, to be greeted by a pair of mewling cats. He cudgeled his memory for their names... Adam and Eve. This was the first time he had seen either of them, never yet having been invited inside Sabina’s private domain. On all their social outings to date, she had greeted him at the door and parted from him afterward on the front porch.

He made a swift check of each of the flat’s four rooms. That all were empty and showed no signs of disorder was a temporary relief, tempered by the flat’s faintly musty odor and then ended by the cats’ behavior. They kept following him, mewling loudly all the while — cries of hunger, he realized, when he saw their licked-clean food bowls in the kitchen. How long since they’d been fed? At least a day, likely two or more. Sabina would never have abandoned them without making arrangements for feeding, no matter how urgent a new investigation that might have come her way.

The sense of dread seized him again. Something had happened to her, Friday night or early Saturday. There could be little doubt of it now.

Gaunt. Accosted by that goddamned rogue somewhere in the city. But he hadn’t silenced her, not yet. She was alive, she had to be. He refused to think otherwise.

Adam’s and Eve’s cries grated on Quincannon’s nerves. He found a bottle of milk and a package of liver in the icebox, filled their bowls to the brim. Then he commenced a search, looking for anything that might give him a clue to what had happened to her.

A Wooton secretary-desk in the parlor yielded nothing except private papers. In different circumstances he would have been reassured of his position in her affections by the fact that none of the letters she’d kept bore a man’s signature; now, he barely noticed. There was nothing in any of the other rooms, either.