Crucifixion River Page 17

  Once again she forced her thoughts away from John Quincannon.

  The woman she had followed from the amusement park was now well into the crowd on Montgomery Street-known as The Ambrosial Path to cocktail hour revelers. Street characters and vendors, beggars and ad-carriers for the various saloons’ free lunches, temperance speakers, and the Salvation Army band-all mingled with well-dressed bankers and attorneys, politicians and physicians. Sabina made her way through the throng, keeping her eye on the woman’s hat, brushing aside the importunings of a match-peddler. The woman moved along unhurriedly and after two blocks turned left and walked over to Kearney.

  There the street scene was even livelier: palm readers, shooting galleries, and auction houses had their quarters there. Ever present were the shouting vendors and pitchmen of all sorts; fakirs and touters of Marxism; snake charmers and speech makers of all persuasions. It seemed every type of individual in the world had come to Kearney Street for the start of the evening. Sabina kept her eyes on the woman as she moved at a leisurely pace, stopping to finger a bolt of Indian fabric and then to listen to a speaker extol the virtues of phrenology. She moved deeper into the crowd, and Sabina momentarily lost her; seconds later she heard a faint cry and pushed her way forward.

  A gent in a frock coat was bent over, his silk hat having fallen to the sidewalk. As he straightened, his face frozen in a grimace of pain, he reached inside his coat. Sudden anger replaced pain and he shouted: “Stop, thief!”

  But no one was fleeing. The crowd murmured, heads swiveling, faces curious and alarmed. The man again shouted: “My watch! I’ve been robbed!”

  Sabina moved forward. “What happened?”

  The man stared at her, open-mouthed.

  She hurriedly removed one of her cards from her reticule and gave it to him. “I am investigating a series of thefts. Please tell me what happened.”

  He examined the card. “Will you find the person who took my watch? It is very old and rare…”

  “Was it you who cried out earlier?”

  “Yes. I suffered a sharp pain in my side. Here.” He indicated his lower left rib cage. “I have had such discomfort before, and I’ve just come from the Bank Exchange where, I’m afraid, I consumed an overlarge quantity of oysters on the half shell. I suppose the thief took advantage of my distress.”

  “Did you not notice anyone close to you? A woman, perhaps?”

  The gent shook his head. “I saw no one.”

  Sabina turned to the ring of people surrounding them, asked the same question of them, and received the same answer.

  The woman she’d followed from the amusement park had found her mark, struck, and swiftly vanished.

  It was nearly 7:00 p.m., an inconvenient time to go calling, but over the course of her years as a Pinkerton operative and a self-employed detective, Sabina had become accustomed to calling on people at incon venient times.

  At her flat on Russian Hill, she changed into a heavy black skirt and shirtwaist and a long cape in deference to the foggy San Francisco eve ning. Once again she left in a hansom cab, one she’d hired to wait for her at her stops along the way. She had studied the list of names of the pickpocket’s victims that Lester Sweeney had given her, and mapped out a convenient and easy route.

  Her first destination was the home of Mr. William Buchanan on Green Street near Van Ness Avenue. Mr. Buchanan was not at home, the maid who answered the door told her. He and Mrs. Buchanan had gone to their country house on the Peninsula for two weeks.

  In the cab again, Sabina crossed Mr. Buchanan’s name off the list, and instructed the driver to take her to an address on Webster Street in the Western Addition.

  The house there was large and elegant, and Mr. John Greenway resembled many of the well-attired gentlemen Sabina had earlier seen parading on the Cocktail Route. He greeted her cordially, taking her into the front parlor and introducing her to his attractive wife, who looked to be expecting a child.

  “A note from Mister Sweeney at the Chutes was delivered this afternoon,” he told Sabina. “It said you wish to speak with me concerning the theft of my diamond stickpin. I hope I can help you.”

  “As do I. What were the circumstances of the theft?”

  Greenway glanced at his auburn-haired wife, who smiled encouragingly. “We had ridden the water slide and stopped at the refeshment stand for a glass of lemonade,” he said. “The ride had made me feel unwell, so we decided to come home. There was a large crowd watching a juggler near the gates, and we were separated in it. I felt a sharp pain in my side…the result of the ride, I suppose…and momentarily became disoriented. When I recovered, and my wife rejoined me, she saw that my stickpin was missing.”

  Men in distress, Sabina thought. A clever pickpocket noting this and taking advantage of their momentary confusion.

  She thanked the Greenways and took her leave.

  No one came to the door at either of the next two victims’ residences, but at a small Eastlake-style Victorian near Lafayette Square, Sabina was greeted by the plump young daughter of Mr. George Anderson. Her parents, the daughter said, were at the Orpheum, a vaudeville house on O’Farrell Street. Could she reveal anything about the distressing incident at the amusement park? Sabina asked. Certainly, the daughter said, she had witnessed it.

  In the small front parlor, Ellen Anderson rang for the house keeper and ordered tea. It came quickly, accompanied by a plate of ginger cookies. Sabina took one as Miss Anderson poured and prattled on about her excitement about meeting a lady detective. Then she proceeded with her questioning.

  “You were with your father at the amusement park when his purse was stolen?”

  “My mother, my brother, and I.”

  “Tell me what you saw, please.”

  “We were near the merry-go-round. It was very crowded, children waiting to board and parents watching their children on the ride. Allen, my brother, was trying to persuade me to ride with him. He’s only ten years old, so a merry-go-round is a thrill for him, but I’m sixteen, and it seems so very childish…”

  “Did you ride anyway?”

  “No. But Allen did. We were watching him when suddenly my father groaned. He took hold of his side, slued around, and staggered a few paces. Mother and I caught him before he could fall. When we’d righted him, he found all his money was gone.”

  “What caused this sudden pain?”

  “A gastric distress, apparently.”

  “Does your father normally suffer from digestive problems?”

  “No, but earlier we’d had hot sausages at the refreshment stand. We assumed they were what affected him and then a thief had taken advantage of the moment.”

  Every thief has his or her own method, Sabina thought, and evidently this one’s was to seek out people who had fallen ill and were therefore vulnerable.

  “Did your father talk about the incident afterwards?”

  Ellen Anderson shook her dark-curled head. “He seemed ashamed of being robbed. In fact, Mother had to insist he report the theft to the park manager.”

  “Did his distress continue afterwards?”

  “I don’t think so, but he’s never been one to talk about his ailments.”

  Two more fruitless stops left her with a final name on the list: Henry Holbrooke, on South Park. The oval-shaped park, an exact copy of London’s Berkeley Square, had once been home to the reigning society of San Francisco, but now its grandeur, and that of neighboring Rincon Hill, was fading. Most of the powerful millionaires and their families who had resided there had moved to more fashionable venues such as Nob Hill, and many of the elegant homes looked somewhat shopworn. Henry Holbrooke’s was one of the latter, its paint peeling and small front garden unkempt, a grand old lady slipping into genteel poverty.

  A light was burning behind heavy velvet curtains in a bay window, but when Sabina knocked, no one answered. She knocked again, and after a moment the door opened. The inner hallway was so dark that she could scarcely make out the person standing there.
Then she saw it was a woman dressed entirely in black. She said: “Missus Holbrooke?”

  “Yes.” The woman’s voice cracked, as if rusty from disuse.

  Sabina gave her name and explained her mission. The woman made no move to take the card she extended.

  “May I speak with your husband?” Sabina asked.

  “My husband is dead.”

  “…My condolences. May I ask when he passed on?”

  “Two weeks ago.”

  That would have been a week after he was robbed of his money belt at the Chutes.

  “May I come in?” Sabina asked.

  “I’d rather you didn’t. I’ve been…tearful. I don’t wish for anyone to see me after I’ve been weeping.”

  “I understand. What was the cause of your husband’s death?”

  “An infection and internal bleeding.”

  “Had he been ill long?”

  “He had never been ill. Not a day in his life.”

  “What did his physician say?”

  The widow laughed harshly. “We couldn’t afford a physician, not after his money belt was stolen. He died at home, in my arms, and the coroner came and took him away. I had to sell my jewelry…what was left of it…so he could have a decent burial.”

  “I’m sorry. Why did he have so much money on his person during an afternoon at the amusement park?”

  “My husband never went anywhere without that belt. He was afraid to leave it at home. This neighborhood is not what it once was.”

  Sabina glanced at the neighboring homes in their fading glory. Henry Holbrooke would have been better advised to keep his money in a bank.

  “Did the coroner tell you what might have caused of your husband’s infection?” she asked.

  Mrs. Holbrooke leaned heavily on the doorjamb; like South Park, she was slowly deteriorating. “No. Only that it resulted in internal bleeding.” The woman reached out and placed a hand on Sabina’s arm. “If you apprehend the thief, will you recover my husband’s money?”

  Most likely it had already been spent, but Sabina said: “Perhaps.”

  “Will you return it to me? I’d like to buy him a good grave marker.”

  “Of course.”

  If the money had indeed been spent, Sabina resolved that Carpenter and Quincannon would supply the grave marker, out of the handsome fee Charles Ackerman would pay them-whether John liked it or not.

  Sabina returned to the hansom, but asked the driver to wait. A pickpocket, she thought, rarely works the same territory in a single day. The woman she had followed was unlikely to return to the Chutes in the near future; she’d seen Sabina eyeing her suspiciously. The Ambrosial Path would be similarly off limits, since she’d had success there and word would by now have spread among the habitués of the area. Where else would a pickpocket who preyed on the infirm go to ply her trade?

  After a moment, Sabina said to the hack driver: “Take me to Market and Fourth Streets, please.”

  The open field at Market and Fourth was brightly lit by lanterns and torchlights, and dotted with tents and wagons. Music filled the air from many sources, each competing with the other; barkers shouted, and a group of Negro minstrels sang “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.” Sabina stood at the field’s perimeter, surveying the medicine show.

  From the wagons men hawked well-known remedies: Tiger Balm, Snake Dust, aconite, Pain Begone, Miracle Wort. Others offered services on the spot: painless dentistry, spinal realignment, Chinese herbs brewed to the taste, head massages. Sabina, who had attended the medicine show with John after moving to San Francisco-a must, he’d said, for new residents-recognized several of the participants: Pawnee Bill, the Great Ferndon, Doctor Jekyll, Herman the Healer, Rodney Strong-heart.

  The din rose as a shill for Dr. Wallmann’s Nerve and Brain Salts stood in his red coach-six black horses stamping and snorting-to extol the product. Sabina smiled; John had frequently posed as a drummer for Dr. Wallmann’s, and said the salts were nothing more than table salt mixed with borax.

  Someone nearby shouted: “The show is on!” A top-hatted magician and his sultry, robed assistant emerged from a striped tent; another show-Indians in dancing regalia-began to compete, the thump of tom-toms drowning out a banjo player. The entertainment quickly ended when the selling began.

  Sabina continued to scan the scene before her. The crowd was mostly men; the few women she judged to be of the lower classes by their worn clothing and roughened faces and hands. Not a lady-fancy or fine-in the lot. And no one with a picture hat and unusual pin. However, the woman she sought could have changed her clothing as she herself had. Sabina moved into the crowd.

  A snake charmer’s flute caught her attention, and she watched the pathetic defanged creature rise haltingly from its shabby basket. She turned away, spied under the wide brim of a battered straw hat. The woman had dark eyes and gray hair-not the person she was looking for.

  On a platform at the back of a wagon, a dancer was performing, draped in filmy veils. Unfortunately the veils slipped and fell to the ground, revealing her scarlet long johns. A man with an ostrich-featherbedecked hat began expounding upon the virtues of Sydney’s Cough Syrup, only to fall into a fit of coughing. Sabina glanced at the face under the brim of an old-fashioned bonnet and saw the woman was elder ly.

  Wide-brimmed hat with bedraggled feathers: a badly scarred young woman whose plight made Sabina flinch. Toque-draped in fading tulle: red hair, and freckles. Another bonnet: white hair and fine wrinkles.

  As Sabina was approaching a model of France’s infamous guillotine, a cry rang out. She soon saw that the ostrich feathers of the spokesman for Sydney’s Cough Syrup had caught fire from one of the torches. A nearby man rushed to throw the hat to the ground and stomp the flames out.

  A freak show was starting. The barker urged Sabina to enter the tent and view the dwarf and deformed baby in a bottle. She declined-not at all respectfully.

  Extravagant hat with many layers of feathers and a stuffed bird’s head protruding at the front: long blonde hair. Temperance speakers, exhibiting jars containing diseased kidneys. No, thank you.

  Another bird hat. What was the fascination with wearing dead avian creatures on one’s head? The woman beneath the brim looked not much healthier than the bird that had died to grace her headpiece.

  A barker tried to entice Sabina into a wax display of a hanging. No to that, also.

  Worn blue velvet wide-brimmed hat, secured by…a Charles Horner hatpin, blue glass overlaid with a gold pattern. Ah! The woman moved through the crowd, head swiveling from side to side.

  Sabina waited until the her quarry was several yards ahead of her, then followed.

  The woman pretended interest in a miraculous electrified belt filled with cayenne pepper whose purveyor claimed would cure any debilitation. She stopped to listen to the Negro minstrels and clapped appreciatively when their music ended. Considered a temperance pamphlet, but shook her head. Accepted a flyer from the seller of White’s Female Complaint Cure.

  All the time, as Sabina covertly watched her, the pickpocket’s head continued to move from side to side-looking for someone in distress. Someone who she could rob.

  Sabina seldom had difficulty controlling her temper. True, it rose swiftly, but just as swiftly it turned from hot outrage to cold resolve. She, too, began looking for someone in distress. Someone who she could save from the woman’s thievery.

  Before long, she saw him, nearly ten yards away, humped over, leaning on a cane, walking haltingly. She poised to move in, but the woman, who obviously had seen him, too, surprised her by turning the other way.

  Another old man, limping, forehead shiny with perspiration in spite of the chill temperature.

  The woman passed him by.

  Had Sabina been wrong about the pickpocket’s method? No, this dip was clever. She was waiting for the ideal victim.

  More wandering. More pretending interest in the shows and wares. No indication that the pickpocket had spied her.

  In fron
t of the bright red coach belonging to the purveyor of Dr. Wallmann’s Nerve and Brain Salts, the woman stopped. She spoke to the vendor, examined the bottle, then shook her head. A crowd had pressed in behind her. She stretched her arms up behind her head, then dropped them, and angled through the people.

  And in that moment Sabina knew her method.

  She pushed forward into the crowd, keeping her eyes on the blue velvet picture hat. It moved diagonally, toward the Chinese herbalist’s wagon. Now, after 10:00 p.m., most of the women had departed, their places taken by Cocktail Route travelers on a postprandial stroll, after which many would visit the establishments of the wicked Barbary Coast. The woman in the blue hat would be there, too, plying her trade upon the unsuspecting-unless Sabina could stop her.

  The blue hat now brushed against the shoulder of a tall, blond man clad in an elegant broadloom suit. The perfect victim.

  Sabina weaved her way through men who had stopped to hear Rodney Strongheart sing in a loud baritone about how his elixir would keep one’s heart beating forever. A few gave her disapproving glances-she should not be here at this hour, and she certainly shouldn’t be elbowing them aside.

  Sabina continued to use her elbows.

  Now she was beside the woman. She reached for her arm and missed it just as the man in broadloom groaned and clutched his side. Sabina saw the dip’s right hand move to his inner pocket; she was quick, and the man’s purse was soon in her grasp.

  But not soon enough to make her escape.

  Sabina grasped the woman’s right hand, which held the purse, and pinned the dip’s arm behind her back. The pickpocket struggled, and Sabina pulled the arm higher until she cried out, and then was still.

  The victim had recovered from his pain. He stared at Sabina, then at the thief. Sabina reached down and wrested the blue-and-gold Charles Horner hatpin from the woman’s hand.

  “And that,” John Quincannon said, “was the last of the Carville Ghost.” He looked pleased with himself, sitting at his desk, smiling and stroking his freebooter’s beard-a feature that made him appear rakish and dangerous. He fancied himself the world’s finest detective and he always preened a bit when he brought an investigation to a successful conclusion. “And,” he added, “I have collected the fee. A not inconsiderable twenty-five hundred dollars. I would say that justifies dinner for two at Marchand’s and perhaps…”