Sleuths (12 page)

Grace Cobb asked, "The guitar that seemed to dance and play itself—how was that done?"

Quincannon fetched the guitar, brought it back to the table.

Beside it he set the reaching rod from Vargas's sleeve. The rod was only a few inches in length when closed, but when he opened out each of its sections after the fashion of a telescope, it extended the full length of the table and beyond — more than six feet overall. "Vargas extended this rod in his left hand," he said, "inserted it in the hole in the neck of the instrument, raised and slowly turned the guitar this way and that to create the illusion of air-dancing. As for the music . . ."

He reached into the hole under the strings, gave a quick twist. The weird strumming they had heard during the séance began to emanate from within.

Mrs. Cobb: "A music box!"

"A one-tune music box, to be precise, affixed to the wood inside with gum adhesive."

Buckley: "The hand that touched Mrs. Cobb's cheek? The manifestations? The spirit writing on the slate?"

"All part and parcel of the same flummery," Quincannon told him. Again he went to the sideboard, where he pressed the hidden release to raise its top. From inside he took out the two stuffed and wax-coated rubber gloves, held them up for the others to view.

"These are the ghostly fingers that touched Mrs. Cobb and my neck as well. The smoothness of the paraffin gives them the feel of human flesh. One 'hand' has been treated with luminous paint; it was kept covered under this"—he showed them the black cloth—"until the time came to reveal it as a glowing disembodied entity."

He lifted out the silk drapery and theatrical mask. "The mask has been treated in the same way. The combination of these two items was used to create the manifestation alleged to be Philip Cobb."

He raised the fine white netting. "Likewise made phosphorescent and draped over the head to create the manifestation purported to be the Buckleys' daughter."

"But . . . I heard Bernice speak," Margaret Buckley said weakly. "It was her voice, I'm sure it was . . ."

Her husband took her hand in both of his. "No, Margaret, it wasn't. You only imagined it to be."

"An imitation of a child's voice," Quincannon said, "just as the other voice was an imitation of a man's deep articulation."

He picked up the two slates which bore the "spirit message" under his false signatures. " 'I Angkar destroyed the evil one.' Vargas's murderer wrote those words, in sequence on one slate and upside down and backwards on the other to heighten the illusion of spirit writing. Before the murder was done, in anticipation of it."

"Who?" Buckley demanded. "Name the person, Quincannon."

"Professor Vargas's accomplice, of course."

"Accomplice?"

"Certainly. No one individual, no matter how skilled in supernatural fakery, could have arranged and carried out all the tricks we were subjected to, even if he hadn't been roped to his chair. Someone else had to direct the reaching rod to the guitar and then turn the spring on the music box. Someone else had to jangle the tambourine, make the wailing noises, carry the phosphorous bottle to different parts of the room and up onto the love seat there so as to make the light seem to float near the ceiling. Someone else had to manipulate the waxed gloves, don the mask and drapery and netting, imitate the spirit voices."

"Annabelle? Are you saying it was Annabelle?"

"None other."

They all stared at the pale, silent woman at the head of the table. Her expression remained frozen, but her gaze burned with a zealot's fire.

Dr. Cobb said, "But she wasn't in the room with us . . ."

"Ah, but she was, Doctor. At first I believed her to have been in another part of the house
    
not because of the locked door but because of the way in which the lights dimmed and extinguished to begin the séance. It seemed she must have turned the gas off at a prearranged time. Not so. Some type of automatic timing mechanism was used for that purpose. Annabelle, you see, was already present here before the rest of us entered and Vargas locked the door."

"Before, you say?"

"She disappeared from the parlor, you'll recall, as soon as she announced that all was in readiness. While Vargas detained us with his call for 'donations,' Annabelle slipped into this room and hid herself."

"Where? There are no hiding places . . . unless you expect us to believe she crawled up inside the fireplace chimney."

"Not there, no. Nor are there any secret closets or passages or any other such hocus-pocus. She was hidden —"

"— in the same place as her spirit props," Sabina interrupted, "within the sideboard." Her testy glance at Quincannon said he'd hogged center stage long enough; she wasn't above a bit of a flare for the dramatic herself, he thought fondly. "The interior is hollow, and she is both tiny and enough of a contortionist to fold her body into such a short, narrow space. The catch that releases the hinged top can be operated from within as well. Once the room was in total darkness and Vargas began invoking the spirits, she climbed out to commence her preparations. Under her robe, I'll warrant, is an all-black, close-fitting garment. Black gloves and a mask of some sort to cover her white face completed the costume. And her familiarity with the room allowed her to move about in silence."

"All well and good," Buckley said, "but the woman was outside the locked door, pounding on it, less than a minute after Vargas was stabbed. Explain that."

"Simple misdirection, Mr. Buckley. Before the stabbing she replaced all props in the sideboard and closed the top, then unlocked the door, the key made a faint scraping and the bolt clicked, sounds which John and I both heard. Then she crossed the room, plunged her dagger into Vargas, re-crossed the room immediately after the second thrust, let herself out into the darkened hallway, and relocked the door from that side. Not with Vargas's key, which remained on the sideboard, but with a duplicate key of her own."

No one spoke for a cluster of seconds. In hushed tones, then, Grace Cobb asked, "Why did you do it, Annabelle?"

The psychic assistant's mouth twisted. Her voice, when it came, was with passion. "He was an evil unbeliever. He mocked the spirits with his schemes, laughed and derided them and those of us who truly believe. I did his bidding because I loved him, I obeyed him until the spirits came in the night and told me I must obey no longer. They said I must destroy him. Angkar guided my hand tonight. Angkar showed me the path to the truth and light of the After-world . . ."

Her words trailed off; she sat staring fixedly. Looking at no one there with her blazing eyes, Quincannon thought, but at whatever she believed waited for her beyond the pale.

It was after midnight before the bumbling constabulary (Quincannon considered all city policemen to be bumbling) finished with their questions, took Annabelle away, and permitted the others to depart. On the mist-wet walk in front, while they waited for hansoms, Cyrus Buckley drew Quincannon aside.

"You and Mrs. Carpenter are competent detectives, sir, I'll grant you that even though I don't wholly approve of your methods. You'll have my check for the balance of our arrangement tomorrow morning."

Quincannon bowed and accepted the financier's hand. "If you should find yourself in need of our services again . . ."

"I trust I won't." Buckley paused to unwrap a long-nine seegar. "One question before we part. As I told you in your offices, the first séance Mrs. Buckley and I attended here was concluded by Vargas's claim that Angkar had untied him. We heard the rope flung through the air, and when the gas was turned up we saw it lying unknotted on the floor. He couldn't have untied all those knots himself, with only one free hand."

"Hardly. Annabelle assisted in that trick, too."

"I don't quite see how it was worked. Can you make a guess?"

"I can. The unknotted rope, which he himself hurled across the room, was not the same one with which he was tied. Annabelle slipped up behind him and cut the knotted rope into pieces with her dagger, then hid the pieces in the sideboard. The second rope was concealed there with the props and given to Vargas after she'd severed the first."

"His planned finale for tonight's séance too, I fancy."

"No doubt. Instead, Annabelle improvised a far more shocking finish."

"Made him pay dearly for mocking the spirits, eh?"

"If you like, Mr. Buckley. If you like."

Quincannon had time to smoke a bowlful of shag tobacco before a hansom arrived for him and Sabina. Settled in the darkened coach on the way to Russian Hill, he said, "All's well that ends well. But I must say I'm glad this case is closed. Psychic phenomena, theocratic unity . . . bah. The lot of it is —"

"— horsefeathers," Sabina said. "Yes, I know. But are you quite sure there's no truth in it?"

"Spiritualism? None whatsoever."

"Not spiritualism. The existence of a spirit afterlife."

"Don't tell me you give a whit of credence to such folly?"

"I have an open mind."

"So do I, my dear, on most matters."

"But not the paranormal."

"Not a bit of it."

For a time they sat in companionable stillness broken only by the jangle of the horses' bit chains, the clatter of the iron wheels on rough cobblestones. Then there was a faint stirring in the heavy darkness, and to Quincannon's utter amazement, a pair of soft, sweet lips brushed his, clung passionately for an instant, then withdrew.

He sat stunned for several beats. At which point his lusty natural instincts took over; he twisted on the seat, reached out to Sabina with eager hands and mouth. Both found yielding flesh. He kissed her soundly.

In the next second he found himself embracing a struggling, squirming spitfire. She pulled free, and the crack of her hand on his cheek was twice as hard as the slap in Vargas's spirit room. "What makes you think you can take such liberties, John Quincannon!" she demanded indignantly.

"But . . . I was only returning your affection . . . ."

"My affection?"

"You kissed me first. Why, if you didn't care to have it reciprocated?"

"What are you gabbling about? I didn't kiss you."

"Of course you did. A few moments ago."

"Faugh! I did no such thing and you know it." Her dress rustled as she slid farther away from him. "Now I'll thank you to keep your distance and behave yourself."

He sat and behaved, not happily. Had he imagined the kiss? No, he wasn't that moonstruck. She had kissed him, for a fact; he could still feel her lips against his. Some sort of woman's game to devil him. He imagined her smiling secretly in the dark—but then the hack passed close to a streetlamp and he saw that she was leaning against the far door with her arms folded, unsmiling and wearing an injured look.

The only other explanation for the kiss . . . but that was sheer lunacy, not worth a moment's consideration. It must have been Sabina. Of course it was Sabina. And yet . . .

The hansom clattered on into the cold, damp night.

L
a Croix had not changed much in the three years since I had last seen him. He still had a nervous twitch, still wore the same ingratiating smile. We sat together in a booth in the Seaman's Bar, on Singapore River's South Quay. It was eleven-thirty in the morning.

He brushed at an imaginary speck on the sleeve of his white tropical suit. "You will do it,
mon ami
?"

"No," I said.

His smile went away. "But I have offered you a great deal of money."

"That has nothing to do with it."

"I do not understand."

"I'm not in the business anymore."

The smile came back. "You are joking, of course."

"Do you see me laughing?"

Again, the smile vanished. "But you
must
help me. Perhaps if I were to tell you the reason—"

"I don't want to hear about it. There are plenty of others in Singapore. Why don't you hunt up one of them?"

"You and I, we have done much business together," La Croix said. "You are the only one I would trust. I will double my offer. Triple it."

"I told you, the money has nothing to do with it. I'm not the same man I was before you went away to Manila or Kuala Lumpur or wherever the hell you've been."

"
Mon ami
, I
beg of you!" Sweat had broken out on his forehead.

"No." I stood abruptly. "I can't do anything for you, La Croix. Find somebody else."

I walked away from him, through the beaded curtains into the bar proper. La Croix hurried after me, pushed in next to me as I ordered another iced beer. When the bartender moved away La Croix said urgently, "I beg of you to reconsider,
M'sieu
Connell. I . . . as long as I remain in Singapore my life is in grave danger . . ."

"La Croix, how many times do I have to say it? I'm not in the business anymore. There's nothing I can do."

"But I have already—" He broke off, his eyes staring into mine, and then he swung around and was gone.