The Body Snatchers Affair by Marcia Muller

concealed a sharp-witted, no-nonsense interior. Sabina had availed of her services on three previous occasions, and found her to be competent, fearless, and completely trustworthy.
    Once the situation with Andrea Scarlett was explained to her, Elizabeth eagerly agreed to act as the woman’s protector for as long as necessary. She would leave immediately for Delilah Brown’s Pine Street rooming house, taking a loaded pistol with her, and bring Mrs. Scarlett back here to her home for safekeeping. The fact that she was a quilter and the client a former seamstress provided a common ground that should also help to ease Mrs. Scarlett’s fright.
    From Hyde, Sabina proceeded downtown to the newsstand presided over by a “blind” vendor known as Slewfoot, who, in addition to dispensing newspapers and magazines, gathered information on various illegal and extralegal activities throughout the city and served as one of her and John’s most reliable informants. Armed with two recent back issues of the Morning Call, she then returned to the agency offices.
    John was not there, nor had he been, evidently, since this morning. Still trekking about in Chinatown, no doubt—without his customary recklessness, she hoped. As much as she chided him for his interest in her personal life, she couldn’t help feeling a concern for his well-being that went beyond their business arrangement. Sometimes, she admitted to herself, it approached fondness. If only he weren’t such a determined lecher. Well, perhaps “lecher” was too strong a word. Seduction was not all that was on his mind in his constant efforts to woo her affection; she knew his feelings for her went deeper than that. Which was the primary reason she took such pains to hold him at bay. Business and pleasure simply did not mix, particularly with two strong-willed and differently oriented individuals.
    She concentrated on the back issues of the Call . The first, four days old, carried the announcement of Ruben Blanchford’s death by heart failure after a lengthy illness, at the age of sixty-four. The obituary was accompanied by a photograph that matched Sabina’s memory of the man at their single meeting: slight of build with iron-gray hair thinning on top, gray muttonchop whiskers, and large ears set at an angle to his head. He had been quite short, too, she recalled, less than five and a half feet tall. The only information the obit supplied that she didn’t already know was the family’s estimated net worth—ten million, a figure that would put an avaricious gleam in John’s eye when he learned of it—and Bertram Blanchford’s profession, obliquely stated as “promoter.” He was also described as being “well-known among the sporting set.”
    The issue dated two days later carried a story about the Blanchford funeral, which seemed to have been less elaborately staged than the reporter expected. The account provided the identity of the mortuary where it had taken place—Joshua Trilby’s Evergreen Chapel, with an address on Mission Street—and the names of the prominent citizens who had attended and those who had acted as pallbearers. Three of the pallbearers were familiar, all wealthy businessmen in Ruben Blanchford’s class. One of the unfamiliar names, Thomas Moody, was listed as managing director of the Blanchford Investment Foundation.
    The foundation’s address was given as 512 Pine Street, which would put it in the heart of the financial district—only a few blocks’ walk from the agency offices. Sabina examined herself in her compact mirror, repinned a few stray wisps of hair that had come loose, added a touch of rouge to her cheeks, and decided she looked presentable enough. A brief message for John, in the event he returned before she did, and she was on her way to the center of San Francisco’s commerce.
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    The offices of the