Free The Bughouse Affair: A Carpenter and Quincannon Mystery by Marcia Muller, Bill Pronzini

Henry’s memory. It pains me that I’m not able to purchase a decent marker for his grave.”
    “Of course.”
    Sabina took her leave. It would have been cruel to share her grim thoughts with Henry Holbrooke’s widow, but it seemed probable that the infection her husband had died from had been caused by the deep jab of a sharp and unclean hatpin. In which case the woman responsible was not only a pickpocket but a murderess.
    *   *   *
     
    It was just one o’clock when Sabina dismissed the hansom driver near the gates to the Chutes Amusement Park. The place was not quite as crowded as the day before, she found, either because word of the thefts had spread or because the afternoon was cloudy and there was a chill breeze swirling in from the ocean. If the hatpin dip appeared again today, she ought to be relatively easy to spot.
    But she didn’t appear. At least Sabina saw no one who employed the woman’s methods of picking her marks. She may have come early and left early, or come briefly and found no potential victim to her liking during the three hours Sabina roamed the grounds. Or stayed away entirely because of the weather. In any event there was no report of a robbery at the Chutes that day. A brief conversation with Lester Sweeney in his office confirmed it.
    Shortly past four by the small gold watch she kept pinned to the bodice of her shirtwaist, Sabina left the Chutes and hired another hansom to take her downtown. She was tired, and stuffed uncomfortably full of sausage, ice cream, and cotton candy, having overindulged out of frustration during her wanderings. She didn’t relish another long walk along the Cocktail Route, but since the pickpocket had successfully preyed there last night, it seemed likely to be one of her regular haunts.
    Perhaps so, but Sabina saw no sign of the woman anywhere between Sutter Street and the Palace Hotel, or on the crowded Ambrosial Path where last night’s robbery had taken place. There were far more men abroad, and the women among them were noticable, but the pickpocket was adept at costume disguise. Sabina might easily have missed her in the streams of businessmen, gay blades, nymphes du pavé, and adventuresome young ladies who packed the sidewalks.
    At six o’clock, as weary and chilled as she was, Sabina considered going home to Russian Hill. But Stephen had instilled tenacity of purpose in her during her time with the Pinkertons, and the fact that she was after a murderess as well as a pickpocket was an added incentive to continue her search awhile longer. Her quarry, for reasons of her own, might have decided against prowling anywhere today or tonight. But she might also have decided to ply her trade in yet another place that afforded profitable pickings, such as the nightly bazaar on Market Street opposite the Palace Hotel—a place worth investigating.

 
     
    9
     
    SABINA
     
    The open field at dusk was brightly lit by lanterns and torchlights, and packed with gaily colored wagons presided over by an array of pitchmen; phrenology and palmistry booths; the usual hodgepodge of temperance speakers, organ grinders, balloon and pencil sellers, beggars, and ad carriers passing out saloon handbills for free lunches; and a constant flow of gawkers and curiosity seekers, which Sabina joined. Music filled the air from many sources, each competing with the other. The loudest was the Salvation Army band pouring forth its solemn repentance message.
    From the wagons men hawked both well-known and obscure patent remedies: Tiger Balm, Miracle Wort, Burdock’s Blood Bitters, Turkish Pile Ointment, Dr. Sage’s Catarrh Remedy, Lydia Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound for Ladies. Others offered services on the spot: matrimonial advice, spinal realignment, head massages. Sabina, who had attended the bazaar with John after moving to San Francisco—a must, he’d said, for new residents—recognized several of the participants: the Great Ferndon, Herman the Healer, Rodney