Marcia Muller - The Body Snatchers Affair

“Do you suppose he was intentionally trying to kill you, too, in Ross Alley?”

“I think so, yes.”

“Because he recognized you, or with premeditation?”

“The former. It’s unlikely he could have known I was searching for Scarlett that evening. I suspect he knew in which resort Scarlett was holed up, learned it from an informant perhaps, and went there with the intention of murdering him while he lay drugged inside. By happenstance I must have arrived just before he did. He recognized me, feared that Scarlett was my quarry as well as his and that the lawyer had told or would tell me something that might threaten his plans, and determined to kill me, too, if I emerged with Scarlett in tow, as I did. He set up his ambush by frightening off the genuine coolie food seller and assuming position over his brazier.”

“And Fowler Alley?” Sabina said after a pause. “Have you learned its significance yet?”

“No, confound it. Although I feel as though I should have by now.” He stood abruptly and went to the window overlooking Market Street, his hands clenched behind his back. Rumbling trolley cars and a near collision between one of them and a horse-drawn barouche held his attention for a few seconds. Then he turned and began to pace the office, muttering, “Fowler Alley, Fowler Alley...”

There was a sudden loud thumping on the office door. It brought him up short, and a second thump sent him to the door. When he opened it he found himself looking at an elderly woman dressed in black and wearing a black veil, a gold-headed walking stick upraised in one thin hand in preparation for a third thump.

“Yes, madam?”

“Are you the other half of Carpenter and Quincannon?”

“I am. John Quincannon, at your service. How may I help you?”

“By stepping aside and letting me enter. I’ve come to speak to Mrs. Carpenter.”

“Is she expecting you?”

“No, but she will certainly see me. Well, young man?”

Quincannon stepped aside. Sabina was on her way around her desk, he saw out of the corner of his eye. The old woman entered and then stopped to lift her veil and scrutinize him as if sizing up a side of beef.

“He’s a big one, isn’t he,” she said to Sabina.

“Yes, he is.”

“Looks like pictures I’ve seen of Blackbeard, the scourge of the Spanish Main.”

Quincannon wasn’t sure whether to be flattered or offended until Sabina said, “John, this is our client Mrs. Harriet Blanchford.” Then he allowed a bright professional smile to crease his whiskers.

“Ah, yes. A pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Blanchford, even under such trying circumstances—”

“Eyewash,” the old lady said in her feisty way. “Whether or not it’s a pleasure remains to be seen.”

Sabina took gentle hold of her elbow, guided her to one of the client’s chairs. “What brings you here?” she asked then. “Have you news?”

“I have. A decision that neither of you will agree with, I imagine, but that is neither here nor there. I’ve just come from my bank, the Whitburn Trust, where I made a substantial withdrawal of funds.”

“You don’t mean—”

“I do. For payment of the ransom demand.”

Sabina exchanged a look with John, whose smile had turned upside down. Before he could say anything, she asked Harriet Blanchford, “Tell us, please, why you decided to pay the ransom?”

“Bertram convinced me it had to be done,” she said. “Another note was delivered this morning. Even more harshly worded and threatening than the first. It said my husband’s remains would be... disposed of in a most disgusting fashion if the seventy-five thousand dollars wasn’t paid this afternoon. The threat was too great to be ignored.”

“Do you have the money with you?”

“No, Bertram has it. He is on his way to deliver it to the specified location.”

“And that is?”

“Near one of the bandstands in Golden Gate Park.”

Sabina repressed a sigh. As gently as she could, she said, “I must say I wish you had consulted with me before withdrawing the funds.”

“You would not have been able to talk me out of it. My mind was made up. Besides, there was no time for a consultation. The ransom is to be paid no later than four o’clock.”

“One of us could have accompanied your son,” John said, “perhaps apprehended the culprit—”

“I wouldn’t have allowed it. It might well have jeopardized the safe return of my husband’s remains. The note promised in its crude way that if instructions were followed to the letter, Ruben would soon be back in his final resting place.”

“Unfortunately, the promises of kidnappers of any stripe are seldom to be trusted.”

Sabina gave him a reproving look; he was not always as tactful as he should be. The old matriarch glared at him. “Are you saying these fiends won’t keep their word?”

“Not at all,” Sabina said quickly. “They may well return the body or inform you where it can be found.”

“But it is a possibility I should be prepared for?”

“I’m afraid so. But even if that should be the case, it doesn’t mean that any harm will have been done to the body. It might still be recovered intact.”

“By whom? You? You have no idea who the kidnappers are or you would have said so by this time.”

“That’s not entirely true,” Sabina said. “I am gathering information that I expect will soon reveal their identities.”

“Indeed? What sort of information?”

“I would rather not say just yet.”

“If you are being deliberately evasive, Mrs. Carpenter—”

“I assure you, I’m not. Merely cautious. You do want me to continue my investigation?”

“Naturally. I came here to keep you informed, not to discharge you. I want those fiends caught and punished for their heinous crime, whether they keep their promise or not.”

“They will be,” John put in. “And if at all possible, the seventy-five thousand dollars will be recovered and returned to you as well.” Leave it to him to mention the money.

“That is the least of my concerns.” With the aid of her cane, Harriet Blanchford rose to her feet. “I’ll be going now. I want to be home when Bertram returns from the park.”

“Please let us know right away of any new developments.”

“I will.”

John, in his courtly fashion, sought to take her arm as she started toward the door. She shrugged off his hand. “I am quite capable of making my own way, young man.” She squinted up at him through her glasses. “You really ought to trim those whiskers of yours,” she said then. “Blackbeard the pirate is one breed, Blackbeard the detective quite another.”

Sabina hid a smile as the door clicked shut behind her. The expression on John’s face was a delight to behold. He was not at all used to dealing with women of Harriet Blanchford’s age and outspoken manner, and she’d left him more than a little nonplussed. Not that he would admit it. And of course he didn’t.

John soon departed, not saying where he was bound for but only that he didn’t expect to return before closing time. Alone in the quiet office, Sabina attended to necessary paperwork — reports, invoices — that had begun to pile up on her desk. While she worked, part of her mind reviewed the Blanchford case and what she’d discovered about the Gold King scandal.

The former was the least mystifying of the two. The fact that a second threatening note had convinced Harriet Blanchford to pay the ransom, she decided, was a blessing in disguise. Usually it was a bad idea to give in to the demands of kidnappers of the living or the dead, but in this case it might well hasten a successful conclusion. She was reasonably sure now that she knew the how, why, and who of the matter. By tomorrow, if the next development happened as she now anticipated, and if her informants came through with the necessary information she’d requested, she would know for certain and proceed accordingly.