“Hold on, Quincannon,” Dooley said. “You telling us Jared Meeker knew Crabb was one of the bandits?”
“He did — because he was the other one, Crabb’s accomplice.”
Meeker emitted a wounded sound, puffed up, and stabbed the sand with his blackthorn stick. “That can’t be true!”
“But I’m afraid it is,” Quincannon said. “You told me yourself just now that the only job Jared held in his young life was that of a clerk in a shoe emporium on Kearney Street downtown — the same street and the very same block on which the Wells Fargo Express office is located, and a perfect position to observe the days and times large sums of cash were delivered. He fell in somehow with Crabb, and together they planned and executed the robbery. Afterward they separated, Crabb evidently keeping the loot with him. The plan then called for Crabb to take up residence here in Carville, a place known to have been used before as a temporary hideout by criminals, until the hunt for the stolen money grew cold.
“My guess is that Jared grew impatient for his share of the spoils and Crabb refused to give it to him or to reveal where he’d hidden it. His first action would have been to search Crabb’s car when Crabb was away on one of his infrequent outings. When he didn’t find the loot, he embarked on a more devious — and foolish — course.”
Dooley asked, “Why didn’t he just throw down on Crabb and demand his share?”
“The lad wasn’t made that way. He was a sly schemer and likely something of a coward, afraid of a direct confrontation with his partner in crime. I’m sorry, Mr. Meeker, but the evidence supports this conclusion.”
Meeker said nothing. He appeared to be slowly deflating.
Quincannon went on, “At some point during their relationship, Crabb revealed to Jared his fear of the supernatural. This was the core of the lad’s too-clever plan. He would frighten Crabb enough to force him to leave Carville after first digging up and dividing the loot. But he was careless enough to say or do something to alert Crabb to the game he was playing. That, and the probable fact that Crabb wanted the entire booty for himself, cost Jared his life.”
“So he was responsible for the spook business,” Dooley said.
“More than just responsible. He was the Carville ghost.”
“And just how did he manage that?”
“A remark Mrs. Meeker made yesterday alerted me to the method. She said that he was ‘a kiting youngster.’ At the time I took that to mean flighty, the runabout sort, but she meant it literally. His passion as a boy, as Mr. Meeker confirmed to me a few minutes ago, was flying kites.”
“What does that have to do with—”
Dooley abruptly stopped speaking. For just then Quincannon had removed from beneath his coat the wreckage he’d found earlier on the beach.
“This is the Carville ghost, or what’s left of it,” he said. “A simple kite made of heavy canvas tacked onto a wooden frame, roughly fashioned in the shape of a man and coated with an oil-based paint mixed with phosphorous — all the tools for the making of which you’ll find in Jared’s steamer trunk. His game went like this: First he told Crabb that he’d seen spook lights among the abandoned cars and to watch for them himself. Then, past midnight, he slipped out, went to one of the cars, flashed the kite about to create the illusion of an otherworldly glow, used a tool made of a piece of wood and several nails — which you’ll also find in his trunk — to make clawlike scratches on the walls and floors, and then fled with the kite before Crabb or anyone else could catch him.”
Meeker asked dully, “How could he run across the tops of the dunes without leaving tracks?”
“He didn’t run across the tops, he ran along below and behind the dunes with the string played out just far enough to lift the kite above the crests. To hold it at that height, he used these—” Quincannon held out one of the lead sinkers he’d found — “to weight it down so he could control it in the wind. On dark, foggy nights, seen from a distance and manipulated by an expert kite flier, the kite gave every appearance of a ghostly figure bounding across the sand hills. And when he wanted it to disappear, he merely yanked it down out of sight, drew it in, and hid it under his coat. That was what he was about to do when Crabb shot him. When the bullet struck him, the string loosed from his hand and the kite was carried off by the wind. I saw flashes of phosphorescence, higher up, before it disappeared altogether. This morning I found the remains on the beach.”
Dooley said grudgingly, “By godfrey, it all makes sense. You, Crabb, what do you have to say for yourself now?”
“Just this.” And before anyone could move, Crabb’s hand snaked under his coat and came out holding the large-bore Bisley Colt. “I didn’t let that featherbrain kid get his hands on this money and I ain’t about to let you do it either. The lot of you, move on over to that car of mine.”
Nobody moved except Crabb. He backed up a step. “I mean it,” he said. “Be locked up until I’m clear or take a bullet where you stand. One killing or several, it don’t make any difference to me.”
He backed up another step. Unfortunately for him, the direction he took brought him just close enough for Quincannon to swat him with the wrecked kite. The blow pitched him off-balance; before he could bring his weapon to bear again, Quincannon thumped him once on the temple and once on the point of the jaw. Crabb obligingly dropped the revolver and lay down quiet in the sand.
Quincannon massaged his bruised knuckles. “And what do you think of flycops now, laddybuck?” he asked Dooley. “Do you mark John Quincannon higher in that book of yours than before?”
Dooley, bending down to Crabb with a pair of handcuffs, muttered something that Quincannon — perhaps fortunately — failed to catch.
Artemus Crabb, with a certain amount of persuasion from Dooley and the bluecoat, confessed to the robbery and the murder of Jared Meeker — the details of both being for the most part as Quincannon had surmised. The Wells Fargo money turned out to be buried beneath one of the abandoned cars; the full amount was there, not a penny having been spent.
Crabb and the loot were carted away in the police hack, and young Jared’s remains in the morgue wagon. The Meekers followed the coroner in their buggy. Neither had anything to say to Quincannon, though Mrs. Meeker fixed him with a baleful glare as they pulled out. He supposed that the one thousand dollars Barnaby Meeker had promised him would not be paid; but even if it was offered, he would be hard-pressed to accept it under the circumstances. He felt sympathy for the Meekers. The loss of a wastrel son was no less painful than the loss of a saintly one.
Besides, he thought as he clattered the rented buggy after the others, he would be well recompensed for his twenty-four hours in Carville-by-the-Sea and his usual brilliant detective work. The reward offered by Wells Fargo for the return of the stolen funds was ten percent of the total — the not inconsiderable sum of $2,500 to fatten the coffers of Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional Detective Services.
A smile creased his whiskers. A reward of that magnitude might well induce Sabina to change her mind about having dinner with him at Marchand’s French Restaurant. It might even induce her to change her mind about another type of celebratory entertainment. Women were mutable creatures, after all, and John Quincannon was nothing if not persistent. One of these evenings he might yet be gifted with the only reward he coveted more than the financial...