Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 128, No. 6. Whole No. 784, December 2006
- Автор: Пикард Нэнси, Пронзини Билл
- Год: 2006
- Язык: английский
- Год: Dell Magazines
- ISBN: 0013-6328
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 128, No. 6. Whole No. 784, December 2006». Краткое содержание книги:
He dusted a smudge of yellow powder off his fingers, relocked the storeroom door, and sought out Jack Malloy. The answers to the questions he asked the loading-dock foreman added weight to his conclusions.
Time now to confront his man.
Only it wasn’t, not quite.
The bookkeeper’s cubicle in the office wing was empty. A quick search revealed further damning evidence: a yellow smear on one leg of the desk chair, and two small dried flower buds on the floor under the desk. There could be no doubt now that Adam Corby was Lansing’s accomplice, or of how the murder and his “disappearance” from the locked storerooms had been managed.
He would have proceeded to comb the brewery for Corby, but one of the office staff put a crimp in that notion. “Mr. Corby left early,” he was told, “not more than half an hour ago. Said he had an important errand to run.”
Important errand? Nefarious one, more likely. Well, thirty minutes wasn’t too long a headstart; if he made haste, he might be able to prevent Corby from completing it and vanishing yet again.
There were no hansom cabs in the vicinity of the brewery. Quincannon had to cover the two blocks to Market Street on shanks’ mare before he found one. As he was settling inside, one of the newfangled horseless carriages passed by snorting and growling like a bull on the charge. Dratted machines were noisy polluters that frightened women, children, and horses, but he had to admit that they were capable of traveling at an astonishing rate of speed. Too bad he hadn’t the use of one right now; it would get him to his destination twice as fast as the hansom, and speed was of the essence.
At the promise of a fifty-cent tip, the hack driver drove his horse at a brisk pace through the crowded streets. Luck rode with Quincannon; the timing of their arrival at Caleb Lansing’s boardinghouse was almost perfect. Two minutes earlier and it would have saved him a considerable amount of temper and exertion.
As it was, Golden Gate’s diminutive bookkeeper had just emerged and was on his way through the front gate when the hansom rattled to a stop. Quincannon flung coins at the driver and hopped out. In stentorian tones he roared, “Corby! Adam Corby!”
Corby froze for an instant, his head craned and his eyes abulge. Then he emitted a cry that sounded like “Awk!” and broke into a headlong run.
One foot chase in a single day was irritation enough; two offended Quincannon’s dignity and sense of fair play, stoked his wrath. Damned cheeky felons! Growling and grumbling, he plunged after his quarry.
Corby dashed into the street, passing so close to an oncoming carriage that the horse reared. The animal’s flashing hooves narrowly missed Quincannon as it buck-jumped forward. This served to increase both his outrage and his foot speed. The little man was driven by panic, however, and there was still a distance of some twenty rods separating them when he leapt up onto the far sidewalk. He banged into a woman pedestrian, sent her and her reticule flying. Though the collision staggered him, he managed to stay on his feet; seconds later he ducked through the doorway of an oyster house.
By the time Quincannon reached the eatery and flung inside, Corby was at a counter at the far end and had swung around to face him. Something came flying from his hand, whizzed by Quincannon’s head as he advanced, and splattered him with trailing liquid. It was followed by two more of the same — large oysters, unshucked, from an iced bucket on the counter. One of them thumped stingingly against his chest before he could twist aside.
Another indignity! Damn the man’s eyes!
Corby spun, raced out a side entrance. Quincannon, unslowed by the hurled oysters, shoved his way through a clutch of startled customers and emerged into a wide cobbled alley. The scoundrel’s lead was less than twenty rods now. He threw a look over his shoulder, saw Quincannon gaining on him, and veered sideways across a short yard and through a pair of open doors into a ramshackle wooden building. A sign above the doors proclaimed: Thomas Vail and Sons, Cooperage.
Quincannon pounded inside in Corby’s wake. The interior was weakly lighted, inhabited by a trio of men in leather aprons working with hammer, saw, and lathe. Barrels and kegs of various types and sizes rose in stacks along one wall. The rest of the space was cluttered with tools, lumber, staves, forged metal rings. Corby was at the far end, hopping back and forth, searching desperately for a nonexistent rear exit. One of the coopers shouted something that Quincannon paid no attention to. He advanced implacably.
Another “Awk!” came out of the little man. He dodged sideways, quick but not quick enough. Quincannon clamped fingers around one arm, brought him up short. Corby struggled, managed to tear loose, but in doing so he fell backwards against a stack of barrels; the barrels toppled over on him with a great clatter, knocked him flat to the sawdusted wooden floor. Quincannon danced out of the way just in time to avoid a similar fate.
Corby wasn’t badly hurt. He moaned and tried to regain his feet. An extra-solid thump on the cranium changed the little scruff’s mind. And a second thump stretched him out cold.
Quincannon was on one knee beside his prisoner, transferring to his own pockets the greenbacks and gold double eagles Corby had taken from Lansing’s rooms, when one of the coopers came rushing up. “Here, what’s the meaning of all this?” the man demanded in irate tones. “Look what you’ve done to these barrels!”
Straightening, Quincannon pressed one of the double eagles into his palm.
“This will pay for the damage.”
The cooper gawped at the coin, then at him. “Who are you, mister?”
“John Quincannon, of Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional Detective Services. At your service.”
“A detective?”
“The finest in San Francisco,” Quincannon said virtuously, “if not in the nation and the entire world.”
It was not often that he could persuade Sabina to dine with him, but he managed it the next day by promising her a full accounting of his prowess in the devil’s-brew case. Generally his thrifty Scot’s nature limited his restaurant meals to the less expensive establishments, but on this evening he surprised Sabina by calling for her in a rented carriage and taking her to Maison Riche — one of the city’s tonier French bistros, at Dupont and Geary streets, whose specialties included such epicurean delights as caviar sur canane and poulet de grain aux cresson. There were two dining rooms on the ground floor; he requested seating in the smaller, more intimate one with individual tables. He would have preferred one of the discreet dining cubicles on the upper floor, whose amenities included a velvet couch and a door that could be locked from the inside. But Sabina, of course, would have had none of that and he didn’t bother to suggest it.
She had dressed well for him, he was heartened to note. Beneath her lamb’s-wool coat, she wore a brocade jacket over a snowy shirtwaist and a wine-colored skirt. Pendant ruby earrings, a gift from her late husband, made a fiery complement to her sleek dark hair. Even more to his liking was the shell brooch at her breast — a gift from her doting partner, bought for her while he’d been away on a case in the Hawaiian islands the previous year.
When they were seated and their drink orders placed — French wine for Sabina, clam juice for him — Quincannon took one of her small hands in his. “You look particularly lovely tonight, my dear,” he said.
She permitted him to hold her hand while she thanked him for the compliment, and then gently withdrew it. “Now then, John,” she said. “Let’s have your explanation.”
“Explanation?”
“Of the devil’s-brew case, as you promised.”