The Dangerous Ladies Affair Page 9

  “By placing a dressmaker’s dummy in the chair, covering the head with the white wig, and draping the rest with the large shawl. This morning I found the dummy where you placed it, in the foyer closet.”

  Wrixton made disbelieving, spluttering sounds.

  The actress said, “And why would I have set such an elaborate stage?”

  “To flummox me, of course. You knew from Mr. Wrixton that I would follow Sonderberg from the hotel and that I would be nearby after he arrived home with the money satchel. Your plan all along was to eliminate him once he had outlived his usefulness, and to do so by making cold-blooded murder appear to be suicide and staging an apparent vanishing act must have seemed the height of creative challenge.”

  The banker should have been swayed by this time, but he wasn’t. His feelings for Pauline Dupree were evidently stronger than Quincannon had realized.

  “My dear,” he said to his paramour, “you don’t have to listen to any more of this slanderous nonsense—”

  “Let him finish this fiction of his, Titus. I’d like to know how he thinks I accomplished such a creative challenge.”

  “It wasn’t difficult,” Quincannon said. “So devilishly simple, in fact, it had me buffaloed for a time—something that seldom happens.”

  “Indeed?” she said.

  “Indeed.” He paused to fluff his whiskers. “Your actions from the time you set the scene in the house were these: You left the same way you’d entered, by the rear door, crossed along the walkway, and were admitted to Sonderberg’s quarters through his rear door. Thus no passerby could possibly have seen you from the alley. How you explained the old crone’s makeup to Sonderberg is of no real import. By then I suspect he would have believed anything you told him.”

  Quincannon paused, but she had nothing to say.

  “You waited there, warm and dry,” he went on, “for his return from the Hotel Grant with the satchel. He locked both the entrance to the cigar store and the inside door leading to his quarters. You made haste to convince him by one means or another to let you have the satchel. Then you left him, again through the rear door, no doubt with instructions to lock and bar it behind you.”

  “Oh? Then how am I supposed to have killed him inside his locked quarters?”

  “By slipping around into the side passage and tapping on the window, as if you’d forgotten something. When Sonderberg opened it, raising it high on its hinge, you reached through the bars, shot him twice—the first shot must not have been a fatal one, an error on your part—and then immediately dropped the pistol to the floor. Naturally he released his grip on the window as he staggered backward, and it dropped and clattered shut—the loudish thump I heard before I ran into the passage. The force of impact flipped up the loose swivel catch at the bottom of the sash. Of its own momentum the catch then flipped back down and around the stud fastener, locking the window and adding to the illusion.

  “It took you no more than a few seconds, then, to run to the rear walkway and reenter the house, locking that door behind you. While the patrolman and I were responding to the gunshots, you drew the parlor drapes, removed the dressmaker’s dummy from the rocking chair, donned the wig, and assumed the role of Letitia Carver. When I came knocking at the door a short while later, you could have simply ignored the summons; but you were so confident in your acting ability you decided instead to have sport with me, holding the candle you’d lit in such a position that your made-up face remained in shadow the entire time.”

  A few moments of silence ensued. Wrixton stood glaring at Quincannon, disbelief still plainly written on the lovesick dolt’s round features. Pauline Dupree’s expression was stoic, but in her eyes was a sparkle that might have been secret amusement.

  “Utter bunkum,” the banker said with furious indignation. “Miss Dupree is no more capable of such nefarious trickery than I am.”

  “Even if I were,” she said, “Mr. Quincannon has absolutely no proof of his claims.”

  “When I find the ten thousand dollars and Mr. Wrixton’s letters, which of course were never stolen, I’ll have all the proof necessary. Hidden here, are they, or in your rooms?”

  Again her response was not the one he’d anticipated. “You’re welcome to search both,” she said. Nor did the sparkle in her smoky eyes diminish; if anything, it brightened. Telling him, he realized, as plainly as if she had spoken the words, that such searches would prove futile and that he would never discover where the greenbacks were hidden no matter how long and hard he searched.

  Sharp and bitter frustration goaded Quincannon now. There was no question that his deductions were correct, and he had been sure he could wring a confession from Pauline Dupree or at the very least convince Titus Wrixton of her duplicity. But he had succeeded in doing neither. They were a united front against him.

  So much so that the banker had moved over to stand protectively in front of her, as if to shield her from further accusations. He said angrily, “Whatever your purpose in attempting to persecute this innocent young woman, Quincannon, I won’t stand for any more of it. Consider your services terminated. If you ever dare to bother Miss Dupree or me again, you’ll answer to the police and my attorneys.”

  Behind Wrixton as he spoke, Pauline Dupree smiled and closed one eye in an exaggerated wink.

  * * *

  “Winked at me!” Quincannon ranted as he stalked back and forth across the office. “Stood there bold as brass and winked at me! The gall of the woman! The sheer mendacity! The—”

  Unflappable as usual, Sabina said, “Calm yourself, John. Remember your blood pressure.”

  “The devil with my blood pressure. As matters stand now she’s in a position to get away with murder!”

  “Of a mean no-account as mendacious as she.”

  “Murder nonetheless. Cold-blooded murder and blackmail, and with her idiot victim’s complicity.”

  “Unfortunately, yes. But what can you do about it? She was right that you have no proof of her guilt.”

  There was no gainsaying that last statement. He muttered a frustrated oath.

  “John, you know as well as I do that justice isn’t always served. At least not immediately. Women like Pauline Dupree seldom go unpunished for long. Ruthlessness, greed, amorality, arrogance … all traits that sooner or later combine to bring about a harsh reckoning.”

  “Not always. And the likelihood is not enough to satisfy me. Blast Titus Wrixton, too. I don’t understand the likes of him. What kind of man goes blithely on making a confounded fool of himself over a woman?”

  Sabina cast a look at him, the significance of which he failed to notice. “All kinds, John. Oh, yes, all kinds.”

  “Bah. I earned our fee, by Godfrey, but we’ll never collect it now.”

  “Well, we do have his retainer.”

  “It’s not enough. I ought to take the balance out of his hide.”

  “But you won’t. You’ll consider the case closed, and take solace in the fact that once again you solved a baffling mystery. Your prowess in that regard remains unblemished.”

  As true as this statement was, it didn’t serve to mollify Quincannon. The image of the actress’s sly wink still burned in his memory. “Consider the case closed?” he said darkly. “No. Absolutely not. Mark my words, Sabina. One way or another, John Quincannon will be the one to make Pauline Dupree pay for her crimes.”

  12

  SABINA

  The doorbell at her Russian Hill flat ground out an unexpected summons early Wednesday morning, just as she finished fixing her two cats a shared plate of raw cod, their favorite meal. The animals were her pride and joy, companions that helped to combat the loneliness she sometimes felt. Adam, an Abyssinian mix, had been a stray she’d adopted, or rather who had adopted her, a little over a year ago. Eve, an all-black shorthair, had been a gift from Charles Percival Fairchild III—the strange, mysterious crackbrain who fancied himself to be the famous British detective Sherlock Holmes. The cats had taken to each other immediately and
were fond of playing all sorts of endlessly entertaining feline games.

  Looking down at Eve, Sabina thought of Charles the Third, who had helped, hindered, and exasperated her and John on several of their recent investigations. Charles had disappeared some three months ago, the Lord only knew where to, after the revelation of his true identity involved him and Sabina in the Plague of Thieves Affair. Like John, she was relieved that the surprisingly adept faux Sherlock was no longer around to suddenly pop up out of nowhere, often enough in outlandish disguises and with amazing bits of information and deductions, and to insinuate himself into their professional and personal lives. Yet she had to admit that she’d grown almost fond of him, now and then missing his stimulating if perplexing presence. After all, he had given her Eve and his final act before vanishing had been to literally save her life.…

  The doorbell put an end to these thoughts. Sabina hurried downstairs. Callers at 8:00 A.M. were rare; not even John had had occasion to stop by at such an early hour. The last person who had was the nasty muckraking journalist Homer Keeps, during the Spook Lights Affair. There had been no recent case sufficiently sensational for Keeps or any of his ink-stained brethren to be bothering her, but then members of the Fourth Estate were notoriously unpredictable.

  It was Amity Wellman and Elizabeth Petrie, not a reporter, who stood outside her door.

  Surprised, Sabina admitted them. If their presence here hadn’t been enough to tell her something unpleasant had taken place, their expressions would have. Amity appeared nervous, tense. Elizabeth’s usual deceptively grandmother-like air had been replaced this morning by a stern, tight-lipped demeanor.

  Elizabeth said, “I’m glad we caught you home, Sabina. I tried to call earlier, but as usual the Exchange is having problems with the telephone lines. And I wasn’t sure you’d be going to the agency this morning.”

  “What’s happened?”

  “There’s been another note,” Amity said. “Slipped through the mail slot last night, the same as the others. Kamiko found it.”

  Elizabeth produced the message from the large plaid bag she carried. Although it was a knitting bag, it would also contain a small-caliber pistol that had belonged to her husband, Sabina knew.

  Both the envelope and note were identical to the others in Sabina’s possession, written in blue ink in a ruler-neat hand on heavy vellum paper. The words on this one read:

  Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul, but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. The wages of false prophecy is the same as the wages of sin: DEATH AND DAMNATION AWAIT YOU!

  Elizabeth said, “I don’t mind saying it gave me the shivers. Whoever is doing this to Mrs. Wellman is surely insane.”

  Sabina said nothing. She was still studying the words.

  “What I don’t understand,” Amity said, “is why he bothered writing another note after already trying once to kill me. There doesn’t seem to be any sense in that.”

  “No,” Sabina said musingly, “there doesn’t.”

  Elizabeth reported no other incidents, no sign of trespassers or anyone lurking in the neighborhood. She and Kamiko had made sure the house and grounds were secure before going to bed last night. Neither Amity nor her bodyguard had been able to convince the Japanese girl to reveal whatever it was she was keeping to herself, though Amity was still of the opinion that if Kamiko’s secret had anything to do with the devilment she would surely have revealed it after the shooting on Sunday evening; Kamiko’s loyalty and adoration were above reproach.

  The girl’s reticence was bothersome just the same. There didn’t seem to be any good reason for her continued silence, whether her secret pertained to the threats or not. Sabina resolved to have another private talk with her.

  The three left the flat together, Sabina for Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional Detective Services, and Amity and Elizabeth for the Parrot Street offices of Voting Rights for Women. As usual, John was not at the agency when Sabina arrived. Just as well this morning. The office stillness, marred only by the muted sounds of trolleys and equipage rattling by on Market Street below, allowed her to concentrate on the three threatening notes, which she spread out side by side on her desktop.

  Now, with the arrival of the latest, she knew the answer to the question she’d asked herself on Tuesday morning. Why would a person deliver a series of warnings in advance of a murder attempt? He wouldn’t. No one, no matter how mentally unbalanced, would have reason to write another such note after having tried to kill his real or imagined enemy. As Amity had pointed out, it made no sense.

  Clearly, therefore, the writer of the messages and the person who had fired the shot at Amity, or had hired it done, were not the same individual.

  Two people with two different motives had begun deviling Amity simultaneously, the first with quotations perhaps meant only to harass and frighten, the second with the deadliest of intentions. One of those bizarre coincidences that now and then cropped up in investigative work, as they did in other walks of life. If Sabina was right in her deduction, and she was sure she was, it doubled the problem facing her.

  She continued to examine the three sheets of vellum. The commonality among the messages was obvious: all three contained quotes from the New Testament. As had the first one Amity had received and destroyed, apparently.

  Sabina took her copy of the King James Bible from the desk drawer. She had read and absorbed it as a child and again as an adult after Stephen’s death in an unsuccessful attempt to find solace in religion. Her recall being excellent, it didn’t take her long to locate each of the three passages. “Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves” was from the book of Matthew. As was “Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul.” The book of Revelation was the source of “And the devil that conceived them was cast in the lake of fire and brimstone.”

  So the note writer was not only familiar with the New Testament but a possible religious zealot as well. Nathaniel Dobbs? Yesterday he had accurately quoted a passage from Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians.

  That didn’t necessarily make him the guilty party, of course. A great many people had the ability to quote passages from the Bible. Still, the references accusing Amity of being a false prophet doomed to death and damnation surely referred to her work on behalf of woman suffrage.…

  Sabina’s memory stirred. She leaned back in her chair, closing her eyes. It wasn’t long before a small, grim smile lifted the corners of her mouth. Quickly she rose, donned her hat, coat, and muffler, and left the office, locking the door again behind her.

  * * *

  The main room at Solidarity Party headquarters was even more cluttered today. What appeared to be twice as many signs and placards were now propped against walls and laid out in uneven rows on the floor, and pamphlets of various sizes were stacked on tables and chairs. There was even a smattering of oversized and somewhat fuzzy daguerrotypes attached to sticks and staves, of groups of men holding aloft signs and placards similar in design and content to the ones here.

  Tubby little Josiah Pitman was in conversation with an equally tubby man decked out in a checkered sack coat, striped trousers, and plug hat. The stranger had the good manners to doff his hat when Sabina entered. Pitman merely glowered at her from where he stood behind his worktable. Across the room behind them, she could see that the door to Nathaniel Dobbs’ private sanctum was closed.

  “Back again, are you,” Pitman said in waspish tones. “Mr. Dobbs is busy. He doesn’t wish to be disturbed.”

  “Then I won’t disturb him.”

  Sabina crossed to the nearest wall defaced by the Anti slogans. Behind her Pitman said, “Here now, don’t touch any of those.”

  She ignored him. Several of the signs bore the same black-lettered statements as the two she’d glanced at yesterday: Woman Suffrage a Folly! and Keep the Fair Sex Out of Politics! Another read: Wise Men Oppose th
e Female Vote! Yet another seemed to have been inspired by her book of Timothy quote to Dobbs: Suffer Not a Woman to Vote—Female Silence Is Golden! She examined several in turn, all of which had been lettered in the same neat fashion.

  The two men finished their low-toned conversation and the plug-hatted one departed. As soon as he was gone, Pitman said to Sabina, “I told you before, Mr. Dobbs does not wish to be disturbed. Kindly be on your way.”

  Instead of answering, she picked up one of the Wise Men Oppose the Female Vote! signs and went ahead to his worktable with it upraised. “Is this your handiwork, Mr. Pitman?”

  “And if it is?”

  “The lettering is quite well done. Very distinctive. Especially the slight curve at the tail of the vertical stroke in the capital F.”

  He preened a little at that. “I pride myself on my penmanship.”

  “Perfectly straight lines, too. Ruler straight, in fact.”

  “Indeed.”

  “You compose correspondence in the same precise fashion, I imagine.”

  “Correspondence?”

  “Letters and such.”

  The corners of his mouth turned down, tightened. Now he was guarded. “No,” he said. “No, I write my letters cursively. Printing them would take too much time.”

  “But you do print short personal notes?”

  “No. I’m not in the habit of writing notes, personal or otherwise.”

  “What sort of stationery does the Solidarity Party use?”

  “… Stationery?”

  “Heavy white vellum, perhaps?”

  “No. Cotton fiber. Besides, all of our stationery is embossed.”

  “Why did you say ‘besides’?”

  No answer came to him; he shook his head instead of replying.

  “Is your personal stationery heavy white vellum?” Sabina asked.

  “That, madam, is none of your business.”

  “You’re religious, aren’t you.” It wasn’t a question.

  “… What?”

  “Religious. A devout, God-fearing man.”