Too Many Magicians

by Randall Garrett

  “Criminal? Do you mean Black Magic or …” she hesitated, “the actual murder of Sir James?”

  “I don’t know. It might be either or both—or something completely different. But I am not so much interested in what Sir Thomas suspects as I am in what the girl was and is actually doing that may be connected with the murder. At the same time, I do not want her to know that she is suspected in any way. Therefore, I would rather not question her myself. She has already undergone the routine questioning by a plainclothes Sergeant-at-Arms; to subject her to any further questioning would indicate that we have singled her out for special treatment. So far, she does not know that she was seen leaving Sir James’ room, and I am not ready for her to know yet.”

  “You want me to question her, then?” asked the Duchess, her eyes almost sparkling with animation.

  “Precisely. I know you, Mary; you are going to snoop anyway, and I would prefer that all the snoopers in this case have their activities co-ordinated as much as possible. So your job will be the Damoselle Tia. Question her—but not directly. Use indirectness and subtlety. Get to know her; gain her confidence if you can. Certainly there would be nothing suspicious about the two of you discussing the murder. I dare say everyone in the hotel is discussing it.”

  She laughed. “Discussing it? Haven’t you felt the psychic tension in this place?”

  “To a certain extent, but not, obviously, to the degree that you can sense it.”

  “Well, it’s there, all right. There have been enough protective spells cast, enough amulets charged, enough charms and countercharms worked in the past twenty-four hours to ward off a full phalanx of the Legions of Hell.” Her smile faded. “They’re not only talking about it, my dear; they’re doing something about it. The Guild is a damn sight more disturbed than it would appear upon the surface. There is a Black Sorcerer around with enough power to kill Master Sir James Zwinge. That’s enough to make a Master edgy; what do you think it’s doing to us journeymen? We’ve got to find him—and yet the counterspells in this hotel have obfuscated any trace of the kind of evil malignancy that should be hanging like swamp fog over the place. It has all of us in a tizzy.”

  “I shouldn’t wonder,” Lord Darcy said. “But at least that will allow you to bring up the subject at any time without arousing suspicion.”

  “True. But there’s another factor we’ll have to consider. It will soon be all over the place, if it isn’t already, that you are working on this case, and it is certainly no secret that you and I are friends. If the Damoselle Tia knows that, she may try to pump me for information.”

  “Let her try, my dear. Find out what kind of information she’s looking for. If she just asks questions that would be normal under the circumstances, that tells us one thing. If the questions seem a little too urgent or a trifle off-key, that tells us another. But don’t give her any information except what is common knowledge. Tell her that I am reticent, that I am dull, that I am a bore—anything you like, so long as you make it clear to her that I tell you nothing.

  “And try to keep a close watch on the girl, if you can do it without being too conspicuous about it.

  “Will you do that for me, Mary?”

  “I’ll do my best, my lord.”

  “Excellent. Lord Bontriomphe and I will be setting up a temporary headquarters here in the hotel. There will be a Sergeant-at-Arms on duty there at all times. If you have any messages for me, let him know, or leave a sealed envelope with my name on it.”

  “Very well,” said Her Grace, “I’ll take the job. Be on about your snooping, and I shall be on about mine.”

  Lord Bontriomphe was waiting patiently in the hall outside.

  “Where now?” he asked.

  “Down to see the General Manager, Goodman Lewie,” said Lord Darcy. “We may as well make arrangements for our temporary headquarters.” They walked on down the hall. “Do you have three good Sergeants-at-Arms to spare for this duty, so we can have someone there twenty-four hours a day?”

  “Easily,” Lord Bontriomphe said. “Plainclothes or uniformed?”

  “Uniformed, by all means. Everyone will know they are Armsmen anyway, and Armsmen in uniform will draw attention away from any plainclothes operatives we may need to use.”

  “Right. I’ll arrange it with Chief Hennely.”

  Downstairs at the desk, Lord Bontriomphe asked to speak to Goodman Lewie Bolmer. The clerk disappeared and returned a minute later and said: “Goodman Lewie asks if you would be so good as to come back to his office, my lords.”

  The two investigators followed the clerk back to an office at the rear of the registration desk. Lewie Bolmer stood up as they were shown in.

  The general manager looked haggard. Except for the dark pouches beneath his eyes, his saggy face looked pale and sallow, as though the folds and bags of translucent skin that made up his face were filled with soft suet instead of flesh. His smile seemed genuine, but it was as tired as the rest of him.

  “Good afternoon, your lordships,” he said. “How may I help you?”

  Lord Bontriomphe introduced Lord Darcy, and then explained their need for a temporary headquarters.

  “I think … yes, we have just the thing,” said the manager after a moment’s thought. “I can put you in the night manager’s office. He can double up with the afternoon manager if … uh … when he comes back to work. I’ll clean out his desk and … uh … put his stuff in the other office. It’s a fairly good-sized office—just a little smaller than this one. Will that do?”

  “We’d like to take a look at it, if we may,” said Bontriomphe.

  “Certainly. If your lordships will come this way—”

  He led them to a corridor that ran from the lobby to the rear of the building, just to one side of the registration desk. There were two doors leading off it to the right, just a few yards from the lobby. Further back, more doors led off on either side. Goodman Lewie opened the second of the two doors.

  “The first one is the afternoon manager’s office,” he explained. “This is what I had in mind, your lordships.” He waved his hand in a gesture that took in the fifteen-by-fifteen room.

  “It looks fine to me,” said Lord Bontriomphe. “What do you think, Darcy?”

  “Perfectly satisfactory, I should say.” He looked down the corridor toward the rear of the building. “Where does this corridor lead, Goodman Lewie?”

  “Those are the service rooms back there, your lordship. Lumber rooms, furniture repair workshop, laundry, janitors’ supplies—that sort of thing. The door at the far end is the back entrance. It opens into Potsmoke Alley, which is an extension of Upper Swandham Lane.”

  “Can it be opened from the outside?”

  “Only with a key. It has a night lock on it. Anyone could go out, but one needs a key to get back in.”

  “I have an idea,” said Lord Bontriomphe. “We can station an Armsman back there to make sure no unauthorized person comes in, then we’ll unlock the door. That way, the Armsmen can come and go as necessary without tromping through your lobby and disturbing your guests. Would that be all right?”

  “Of course, your lordship!”

  “Good. I’ll have a Sergeant-at-Arms down here to take charge of the office.”

  “Very well, your lordship. I’ll have the desk cleared out. Will there be anything else?”

  “Yes,” said Lord Darcy. “One other thing. Yesterday, the hotel was closed to all except members of the Healers’ and Sorcerers’ Convention, was it not?”

  “And their guests, yes. Only those who had business here were allowed in. The doormen had explicit orders about that.”

  “I see. Is any record kept?”

  “Oh, yes. There is a register book kept at the door at all times. Not today, of course, since this is Visitor’s Day, but during those times when the Convention is closed.”

  “I should like to see it, if I may,” Lord Darcy said.

  “You certainly may, your lordship. Shall we return to my office? I’ll
fetch the register book for you.”

  A minute or so later, the three men were looking at a clothbound register book which lay open on Bolmer’s desk.

  “That’s the page for Wednesday,” Lewie Bolmer said. “From midnight to midnight.”

  Lord Darcy and Lord Bontriomphe looked down the list. There were four columns, marked Time Arrived, Name, Business, and Time Departed.

  There were not many entries; the first one was for half past six, when a man from the Royal Postal Service had delivered the mail; he had left again at 6:35. At twelve minutes of nine Commander Lord Ashley had arrived, giving as his business “Official message for Master Sorcerer Sean O Lochlainn.” He had left at 9:55. At two minutes after nine, Lord Bontriomphe had come in, on “Personal business of the Marquis de London.” No time of departure was noted. The next entry was for 9:51. It simply said “Chief Master-at-Arms Hennely Grayme, and four Men-at-Arms. On the King’s Business.”

  “No help there,” said Lord Bontriomphe. “But then, I didn’t expect there would be.”

  Lord Darcy grinned. “What kind of entry were you expecting? ‘9:20 a.m.; Master Sorcerer Lucifer S. Beelzebub. Business: To murder Master Sir James Zwinge. Exit time: 9:31’ I suppose?”

  “That would have been helpful,” admitted Lord Bontriomphe.

  “I notice there’s no exit time down for you or for the Armsmen.” He looked up at Goodman Lewie. “Why is that?”

  The hotel manager was stifling a yawn. “Eh? What, your lordship? The time of leaving? Well, there were so many Armsmen in and out that I simply gave the doormen orders to allow any Officer of the King’s Peace to come and go as he pleased.” He stifled another yawn. “Pardon me. Lack of sleep. My night manager, who has the midnight-to-nine shift, didn’t show up for work last night, so I had to take over.”

  “Perfectly all right,” said Lord Darcy, still looking at the register book. There were more entries in the afternoon, mostly merchants and manufacturers who used sorcery or employed sorcerers in the course of their business. One entry caught his eye.

  “What’s this?” he said, tapping it with his finger.

  Lord Bontriomphe read it aloud: “ ‘2:54; Commander Lord Ashley; official business with Manager Bolmer.’ No exit time marked.”

  “Wuh … well, your lordships, there were several Navy men in and out. Official business, you know.”

  “Official business? Why did they want to talk to you?” Darcy asked.

  “Not to me. To … to Paul Nichols, my night manager.”

  “About what?”

  “I … I’m not at liberty to say, your lordship. Strict instructions from the Admiralty. In the King’s Name.”

  “I see,” said Lord Darcy in a hard voice. “Thank you, Goodman Lewie. There will be a Sergeant-at-Arms around later to take over that office. Come on, Bontriomphe.” He turned and strode out of the office, with Lord Bontriomphe at his heels.

  They were halfway across the lobby, threading their way through the crowded exhibits, before Lord Bontriomphe spoke. “Do I detect blood in your eye?”

  “Damn right you do,” snapped Darcy. “How far is the Admiralty Office from here?”

  “Ten minutes if we walk, or we can take the coach and get there in three.”

  “The coach, by all means,” said Lord Darcy.

  Barney, the footman, was standing near the coach, which was drawn up alongside the curb a few yards from the front door of the Royal Steward.

  “Barney,” Lord Bontriomphe shouted. “Where’s Denys?”

  “Still in the pub, my lord,” the footman called back.

  “Get ready to go, I’ll fetch him.” He ran across the street to the pub and was out again thirty seconds later with the coachman running alongside him.

  “To the Admiralty Office!” Lord Bontriomphe ordered as Denys climbed into his seat. “As fast as you can.” He climbed inside with Lord Darcy.

  “So Smollett is holding out on us,” he said, as the coach started forward with a jerk.

  “He knows something we don’t, that’s for certain,” said Lord Darcy.

  “Keep in mind that those orders to keep quiet were given to Bolmer yesterday, before the King ordered us to work together.”

  “True,” said Lord Darcy, “but considering the fact that the Navy is all in a pother about a man who has suddenly turned up missing, and that Goodman Lewie Bolmer shows by his behavior that he is convinced that his night manager will not return, doesn’t it seem odd to you that neither Smollett nor Ashley mentioned it to us this morning?”

  “More than odd,” Lord Bontriomphe agreed. “That’s what I said: Smollett is holding out on us. You want to hold him while I poke him in the eye, or the other way around?”

  “Neither,” said Lord Darcy. “We’ll each take an arm and twist.”

  Part Three

  12

  Lord Bontriomphe had not misjudged the time very much; it was less than four minutes later when Darcy and Bontriomphe climbed out of the coach in front of the big, bulky, old building that housed the Admiralty offices of the Imperial Navy. They went up the steps and through the wide doors into a large anteroom that was almost the size of a hotel lobby. They were heading towards a desk marked Information when Lord Darcy suddenly spotted a familiar figure.

  “There’s our pigeon,” he murmured to Lord Bontriomphe, then raised his voice:

  “Ah, Commander Ashley.”

  Lord Ashley turned, recognized them, and gave them an affable smile. “Good afternoon, my lords. Can I do anything for you?”

  “I certainly hope so,” said Lord Darcy.

  Lord Ashley’s smile disappeared. “What’s the trouble? Has anything happened?”

  “I don’t know. That’s what I want you to tell me. Why is the Navy so interested in a certain Paul Nichols, the night manager at the Royal Steward?”

  Lord Ashley blinked. “Didn’t Captain Smollett tell you?”

  “Sure he did,” said Lord Bontriomphe. “He told us all about it. But we forgot. That’s why we’re here asking questions.”

  Commander Lord Ashley ignored the London investigator’s sarcasm. There was a vaguely troubled look in his seaman’s eyes. Abruptly he came to a decision. “That information will have to come from Captain Smollett. I’ll take you to his office. May I tell him that you have come to get the information directly from him?”

  “So,” said Lord Darcy with a dry smile, “Captain Smollett prefers that his subordinates keep silent, eh?”

  Lord Ashley grinned lopsidedly. “I have my orders. And there are good reasons for them. The Naval Intelligence Corps, after all, does not make a habit of broadcasting its information to the four winds.”

  “I’m aware of that,” said Lord Darcy, “and I am not suggesting that the corps acquire such habits. Nonetheless, His Majesty’s instructions were, I think, explicit.”

  “I’m certain it was merely an oversight on the captain’s part. This affair has the whole Intelligence Corps in an uproar, and Captain Smollett and his staff, as I told you this morning, do not have any high hopes that the killers will be found.”

  “And frankly don’t much care, I presume,” said Lord Darcy.

  “I wouldn’t go so far as to say that, my lord; it is simply that we don’t feel that the tracking down of hired Polish assassins is our job. We’re not equipped for it. Our job is the impossible one of finding out everything that King Casimir’s Navy is up to and keeping him from finding out anything at all about ours. You people are equipped and trained to catch murderers, and we—very rightly, I think—leave the job in your hands.”

  “We can’t do it without the pertinent information,” said Lord Darcy, “and that’s what we’re here to get.”

  “Well, I don’t know whether the information is pertinent or not, but come along; I’ll take you to Captain Smollett.”

  The two investigators followed the commander down a corridor, up a flight of stairs, and down another corridor toward the rear of the building.

  There was
a middle-aged petty officer sitting behind a desk in the outer office who looked up from his work as the three men entered. He did not even bother to look at the two civilians.

  “Yes, My Lord Commander?” he said.

  “Would you tell Captain Smollett that Lord Darcy and Lord Bontriomphe are here to see him. He will know what their business is.”

  “Aye, my lord.” The petty officer got up from behind the desk, went into an inner office, and came out again a minute or so later.

  “Compliments of the captain, my lords. He would like to see all three of you in his office immediately.”

  There are three ways of doing things, Lord Darcy thought to himself, the right way, the wrong way, and the Navy way.

  Captain Smollett was standing behind his desk when they went into the room, a pipe clenched firmly between his teeth, his gray-fringed bald head gleaming in the afternoon sunlight that streamed through the windows at his back.

  “Good afternoon, m’luds,” he said briskly. “Didn’t expect to see you again so soon. Trust you have some information for me.”

  “I was rather hoping you had some information for us, Captain,” Lord Darcy said.

  Smollett’s eyebrows lifted. “Eh? Not much, I’m afraid,” he said, speaking through his teeth and around his pipestem. “Nothing new has happened since this morning. That’s why I was hoping that you had some information.”

  “It is not new information I want, Captain Smollett. By now, indeed, it may be rather stale.

  “Yesterday afternoon at 2:54 your agent, Commander Lord Ashley, returned to the Royal Steward Hotel. After that, several other of your agents came and went. The General Manager, Goodman Lewie Bolmer, has informed us that he is under strict instructions from the Navy, in the King’s Name, to give information to no one, including, presumably, duly authorized Officers of the King’s Peace, operating under a special warrant which also permits them to act and speak in the King’s Name.