The Plague of Thieves Affair by Marcia Muller Page A

accounting of last evening’s contact with his cousin, even though it cast her in a poor light. She’d spent a restless night, berating herself time and again over the way she had mishandled Charles the Third. She should have been more circumspect, elicited his promise to return to the gallery tonight and then tried again to arrange a private meeting. More subtle in broaching the subject of his heritage, too. She should have known he would react as he did when suddenly confronted. While he suffered from an addled self-delusion, he hadn’t completely lost awareness of who he really was. He might have refused to admit it no matter where or how she braced him, but in different, quieter circumstances she’d have had a better chance of reasoning with him.
    As it was, she feared that she had provoked him into fleeing the city or hiding himself so well in its darker recesses that no one could find him. In either case, she might never lay eyes on him again—a bitter prospect because it meant she’d failed in her responsibility. The one slim hope she had was his passion for the cat-and-mouse detective game, particularly a case in which he had personally involved himself. The allegedly planned attempt to steal the Marie Antoinette bag might, just might be enough to lure him back to the Rayburn Gallery, if not tonight, then on one of the subsequent evenings.
    No matter what happened, she owed it to herself as well as her client to own up to her mistake and, if possible, make amends for it.
    From an obsequious clerk at the desk in the Baldwin’s ornate lobby she learned that Mr. and Mrs. Roland W. Fairchild occupied room 311. The absence of a key in their room box indicated that they were in residence. She waited while a bellhop took her card upstairs, and when he returned he conducted her into a hydraulic elevator similar to the ones at the Palace and left her outside the door marked 311.
    Her discreet knock was immediately answered. The large-boned woman who opened the door was approximately Sabina’s age, raven-haired, attractive in a severe and rather haughty way. No welcoming smile, merely a long appraising look out of cool gray eyes. She wore a pinch-bodice shirtwaist that accented an overlarge bosom, and a trumpet-shaped skirt that fit closely over broad hips and flared just above the knee. The hourglass figure she presented, Sabina thought, was considerably aided by a tightly laced corset.
    â€œMrs. Fairchild?”
    â€œI am Octavia Fairchild, yes.” Her voice was as cool as her gaze. “I must say, you’re not quite what I expected, Mrs. Carpenter.”
    â€œNo? And why is that?”
    â€œI always thought lady detectives were a middle-aged and masculine lot. My husband didn’t tell me his was young and rather comely.”
    The remark was not in any way a compliment. In fact, the reference to her being “his” lady detective was mildly insulting.
    â€œIs Mr. Fairchild here?”
    â€œNot at the moment, but I expect him back shortly. You may as well come in and wait.”
    The sitting room was small by Baldwin standards, its windows overlooking the Powell Street cable car tracks. This coupled with the fact that it was on a lower floor and thus lacked the panoramic views of the larger rooms and suites on the upper floors, caused Sabina to revise her opinion of the Fairchilds’ financial situation. Not wealthy, just moderately well-to-do. Putting up at the Baldwin, like the expensive clothing each wore, was more a façade calculated to make their station seem loftier than an expression of good taste.
    Not very graciously, Octavia Fairchild invited her to sit on a tufted red plush settee. “Have you come because you’ve located my husband’s cousin?” she asked as she lowered her corseted hips onto a matching chair.
    Sabina said, “I’ve learned that he is still in San Francisco, yes. Or was last night.”
    â€œWhat does that