Marcia Muller - The Body Snatchers Affair

“Evidently. Quite a pleasant gentleman, too.”

“That sounds as though you knew him.”

“Hardly. I happen to have met him at a reception at the Palace Hotel a year or so ago.”

“Reception? I don’t recall you mentioning that before. Were you there in conjunction with a case?”

“No.”

“As an invited guest? Or in the company of one?”

“That’s neither here nor there.” Sabina’s narrow-eyed look chastised him for prying into her personal life again. Blast her passion for privacy! “Don’t you want to know the reason for Mrs. Blanchford’s call?”

“Naturally. What’s her trouble?”

“Well, I’m not quite sure. Something about a kidnapping.”

“Oh? Who has been abducted?”

“Her husband, I thought she said, but that’s hardly possible. As usual with the Telephone Exchange, the connection was poor. I managed to make an appointment with her at her home at one-thirty.”

A kidnapping, eh? That sort of major crime usually involved considerable investigative time and effort. Visions of a handsome fee danced in Quincannon’s head, overshadowing the unpleasant ones involving Sabina and Carson Montgomery.

He said, “Of course we’ll do all we can to give the poor woman whatever help she needs.”

“Of course. Especially since the poor woman is anything but poor.”

Quincannon forbore comment on this. Instead he said, “Now would you like to know what I was actually doing all of last night?”

“If it involves business, I would.”

“It does. Hunting for James Scarlett, as promised to his wife.”

“And did you find him?”

“Oh, I found him well enough. As you’d know if you’d seen the morning newspapers.”

“The newspapers? That sounds ominous. What happened, John?”

“He was shot to death in Chinatown while in my charge,” Quincannon said, and added after a deliberate pause, “It was only by the narrowest of margins that I escaped the same fate.”

One of Sabina’s fine dark eyebrows lifted and the corners of her mouth tightened. “Who was responsible?”

“A hatchet man posing as a food seller.”

He went on to describe in detail the events in Ross Alley and his activities afterward, including the things that bothered him about the incident and the speculations he’d shared with the three ranking police officers. When he finished, the smooth skin of Sabina’s forehead and around her generous mouth bore lines of concern.

“Bad business,” she said. “And bad for business. Not that you’re to be blamed, of course.”

“No, but others will surely blame me. The only way to undo the damage is for me to find out who ordered the murder and why, before any more blood is shed and before Horace Keeps and his ilk crucify me in print.”

“Us to find out, you mean.”

“Us,” he agreed. “Though you’d be well advised not to venture into Chinatown.”

“I have no intention of it. Though I suppose you do.”

“It’s where the truth lies.”

“And Fowler Alley?” Sabina asked. “What do you suppose that has to do with Scarlett’s death?”

“Perhaps nothing, if his mutterings were part of a hop dream.”

“You said he sounded frightened when he spoke the name. Opium dreams are seldom nightmares. Men and women use the drug to escape from nightmares, real or imaginary.”

“True.”

“Then his mention of Fowler Alley has some significance, wouldn’t you say? ‘Blue shadow’ as well.”

“Possibly,” Quincannon allowed. “Though I can’t be positive of the latter phrase. I may have misheard it.”

“Was it spoken in the same fearful tone?”

He cudgeled his memory. “I can’t be certain.”

“If it was ‘blue shadow,’ you’ve no idea what it might mean?”

“None.”

“Our client may have,” Sabina said. “If she’s home or to be found elsewhere today.”

“Will you see if you can locate her before you keep your appointment with Mrs. Blanchford?”

Sabina hesitated. “I had another matter I intended to pursue... but it can wait. The Scarlett case takes precedence. Yes, I’ll try to find her.”

“Good. And if you talk to her, ask her where she was last night. A woman is more apt to confide in another member of her sex.”

“I will.”

“You might also ask her if she has any idea where her husband might have kept sensitive material pertaining to his Hip Sing activities, other than in his office files. Whoever searched the office before I did may not have found what he was after.”

“You don’t think the search was made by the highbinder who shot Scarlett?”

“It seems unlikely.”

“Has it occurred to you that Mrs. Scarlett may have done it? To look for evidence of her husband’s criminal activities, perhaps destroy it?”

“It has. But the search was made either before or shortly after he was murdered. I see no way she could have known of the shooting before I made my search last night, and it doesn’t seem likely she would have invaded his office while believing him to be alive. It would have served no purpose.”

“True. Then who do you suppose is responsible, if not a highbinder or our client? Whoever is behind Scarlett’s murder?”

“Likely. Whoever in Chinatown that may be.”

“Is there anything you can remember about the gunman that might help identify his tong affiliation?”

Quincannon puffed up a great cloud of tobacco smoke, scratched irritably at his freebooter’s whiskers. “No, confound it. It was too dark and his hat was pulled too low for a clear squint at his face. Average size, average height. Black coolie clothing. Dark-colored topknot on his hat of the sort highbinders wear.”

“Did he say anything before he began shooting?”

“Not a word.” Quincannon stood and went to don his Chesterfield and clamp his derby on his head, squarely, the way he always wore it when he was about to embark on a mission. “Enough talk. It’s action I crave and action I’ll have.”

“Not of the sort you had last night, I hope,” Sabina said.

“If there’s to be any more shooting,” he vowed, “it will be my finger on the trigger and a highbinder on the receiving end of the bullet.”

She hadn’t told John about the bughouse Sherlock Holmes’s evident interest in Carson Montgomery for three reasons. The first was that it would have upset him unnecessarily, considering how he felt about the poseur. The second: She wasn’t completely positive that the Englishman had been following Carson last night, and even if she had been, she needed to know the reason why before she considered taking John into her confidence. The third: her embryonic relationship with Carson was too personal and too uncertain, and any mention of it to John was sure to bring down an avalanche of disapproval. There were moments when she thought of him as an overprotective father, rather than a professional associate and wistful suitor.

Still, keeping silent on the matter gave her an odd sense of disloyalty to him. Her personal life was her own, as was his, and that was as it should be, but from the inception of their partnership they had been completely candid with each other on business matters. She really didn’t like keeping secrets from him.

Nonetheless, Holmes’s inexplicable actions and Carson’s apparent secretiveness continued to prey on her mind. Her original intention this morning had been to consult with those among the agency’s informants who might be able to discover where the fake Sherlock could be presently found, if not what he was up to, as well as those who had occasion to deal with the city’s upper classes and might have knowledge of anything disturbing in Carson’s past. Cousin Callie would have been the most likely person to see first, but Callie was a staunch admirer of Carson and would have been horrified to hear that Sabina had any doubts that he was a social and personal paragon. Better that she should conduct her inquiries through professional channels.