Jackaby

by William Ritter

  “Well then,” said Jackaby cynically. “I suppose you’re ready to cart the young man off? Tell me, will it be chains and cement walls, or straight to the firing squad?”

  “Neither,” responded the inspector. His voice was rough and tired. “That’s not why I’m here.”

  “Oh, don’t pretend you’re going to let the man be, Marlowe. We both know that’s not in the cards.”

  There was a pregnant silence as Marlowe took a deep breath. “No,” he said at last. “No, that’s not possible. Too many people saw his . . . transformation, and that’s not something they will quickly forget. Even if I did let Officer Cane stay, his life here is over.”

  Jackaby nodded grimly. “Exile, then? How charitable.”

  “Something like that,” the inspector grunted. “Mayor Spade has asked me to assume the interim position as police commissioner until a proper election can be held. Getting trapped behind a desk is about the last thing I want, but I told him I would accept it . . . for the time being.”

  “This is what you came to talk about? Your promotion?”

  Marlowe continued, ignoring the detective. “It will give me a chance to push for greater communication between neighboring districts. My boys tell me Bragg had been swapping telegrams for weeks, looking into this thing. Pretty sharp detective work, actually, though it’s a sad state of affairs when my people need a journalist to find their criminal. If we had been comparing notes with Crowley and Brahannasburg, Swift’s spree should never have gone on this long. I’ve even got them talking about extending the telephone lines out to the more rural towns.”

  He stepped a little farther into the room. “Speaking of which, I’ve sent a telegram to Commander Bell in Gadston, just this afternoon,” he continued. “Have you ever been to Gadston? It’s small—much smaller than New Fiddleham—but I’m told it’s very pleasant. A lot of open countryside down in Gad’s Valley, too. Excellent for wildlife.” For the first time since his arrival, he made eye contact with Charlie. “One of the benefits of becoming a commissioner, even just ‘acting commissioner,’ is that the job holds a lot of sway. My recommendation for the transfer of an upstanding young officer can hardly be ignored. You will need a new name, of course, but I think the paperwork can be arranged.”

  All of us took a moment to let the comment sink in. “Thank you, sir,” said Charlie softly.

  “I won’t take any more of your time. Gentlemen. Miss.” He nodded a good-bye and put a hand on the door. “Oh, and in case you haven’t heard, the memorial will be this Sunday at noon. All five victims are to be honored in the same ceremony. Mayor Spade felt it would help everyone in town put this whole unpleasant business behind them.”

  “Thank you, Inspector,” said Jackaby.

  “Five?” I asked, before Marlowe could close the door.

  He nodded. “Caught that, did you? This one’s sharp. Yes, young lady, five. Three at the Emerald Arch Apartments, then Officer O’Doyle in the forest last night . . . and finally the tragic loss of the town’s own Commissioner Swift.”

  “What?” I blurted.

  Jackaby scowled darkly at the inspector. “Sounds about right.”

  Marlowe sighed. “People have a hard enough time believing in this sort of thing at all. When Swift was in charge, he forbade our giving credence to anything even remotely supernatural—said it hurt our public image for the official record to look like backwoods superstition. He was just using his position to hide, of course, but he wasn’t entirely wrong, either. One monster in the newspaper is more than enough, and by this point, half the town will swear to you they saw a werewolf—even the ones who didn’t see anything at all. It will be easier for everyone to accept if Swift is simply laid to rest as one more victim.”

  “Yes,” Jackaby said with a sneer. “The truth can be so detrimental to one’s credibility.”

  “Good day, Jackaby.” Marlowe took his leave.

  The weather warmed somewhat over the next few days, though the winter chill still hung about, crouching in shady corners to surprise passersby with the occasion sudden gust. The world had brightened. On the second morning after the incident, Jackaby arranged a carriage to Gad’s Valley. He had wired an old acquaintance with a cottage where Charlie could rest and recover under a new name. Then he could decide if he would resume his efforts to take root and build a life for himself, or return to traveling with his family.

  Marlowe had sent a case with Charlie’s effects, and he looked much more like himself in a clean pair of properly fitting clothes.

  “Are you sure you’ll be able to put New Fiddleham behind you?” Jackaby asked once we’d helped Charlie manage the walk to the cab. “You have an aura of unshakable allegiance. Don’t try to deny it, it’s downright sickening. Marlowe won’t be there for you to tether your loyalties to him . . . nor will I.”

  Charlie smiled. “I guess I am . . . rather devoted,” he told the detective, “but not to you. Nor to the chief inspector, although it was an honor to work with you both.”

  “Then who . . . ?” Jackaby’s eyes darted to me, and I felt my cheeks flush at the notion.

  Charlie looked away shyly. He leaned on Jackaby’s shoulder for support and fumbled in the pocket of his coat. He held up his polished badge, standing up a little straighter as he did. “I took an oath, Detective.”

  Jackaby chuckled. “Ah. Of course. Lady Justice could not ask for a more stalwart watchdog.”

  The men shook hands, and Jackaby held open the carriage door. Charlie gave me a courteous nod. “Miss Rook. It has been a pleasure.”

  “You must write once you’re settled in,” I said.

  His expression clouded. “I don’t know if that would be wise. You have both been exceptionally kind, but not everyone is so understanding. I would hate to bring more trouble to your door because of . . . what I am. After everything that happened—everything the townspeople saw—well, some things are very hard to explain.”

  My heart sank. I stood mute, suddenly aware that this was a last good-bye.

  “How auspicious,” Jackaby chimed from the carriage door. “Unexplained phenomena just happen to be our specialty. No excuses. You know where to reach us.”

  Charlie allowed himself a smile and nodded his assent. I could have kissed them both.

  I spent the remainder of the week mostly in the serenity of the third floor for my own recuperation. Although my chest felt better with each passing day, I would occasionally catch myself painfully on a deep breath or sudden turn. I wondered if the little pink scar would eventually vanish, or if my skin had been branded forever. I’m not entirely sure I would have wanted it gone—it was a private badge of my first real adventure.

  I lay on the soft grass often, watching the reflections of the pond dance across the ceiling and enjoying the good company of Jenny and even Douglas. Jackaby, however, had made himself scarce as we approached the day of the memorial. Once, while I had nodded off on a carpet of wildflowers near the water’s edge, I was awoken by Jenny’s soft voice.

  “She’s doing very well,” she was saying. “She’ll have the scar to remember it by, but it’s healing cleanly. Poor girl. She’s still so young.”

  I kept my eyes closed and breathed evenly as Jackaby responded. “She’s older than her years,” he said.

  “I think that might be sadder, somehow,” Jenny breathed.

  “Anyway, it’s not her chest I’m concerned about—it’s her head.”

  “Still deciding whether she’s fit for the job?” asked the ghost.

  “Oh, she’ll do,” answered Jackaby. “The question is, is this job fit for her?”

  In the evening, I found myself back in the waiting room. The piles of paperwork and books, which had once occupied the desk, were still lying in a heap on the floor, having been shoved aside while the room served as an impromptu medical ward. Otherwise, the chamber looked much as it had on my first visit. I glanced around, remembering not to linger on the terrarium.

  Poking out of a bin in the
far corner, alongside two umbrellas and a croquet mallet, stood a polished iron cane, fitted with what I knew now to be a false grip. Swift’s deadly pike was housed innocuously among the bric-a-brac, but it was a subtle memorial to his victims—and to my own blundering, which had nearly made me one of them.

  Jackaby’s eclectic home began to make a little more sense to me, then. The man had no portraits or photographs, but he had slowly surrounded himself with mementos of a fantastic past. Each little item, by the sheer nature of its being, told a story. Looking around was a little like being back on the dig, or like deciphering an ancient text, and I wondered what stories they would tell me if I only knew how to read them. How many carried fond memories? How many, like the redcap’s polished weapon, were silent reminders of mistakes made or even lives lost?

  Chapter Thirty

  The memorial was a regal affair, and half the town seemed to have come out to mourn or to take in the spectacle. Heartfelt condolences and eager gossip were circulating through the gathering crowd as Jackaby and I arrived. The event was originally to be held within the small church adjacent to Rosemary’s Green, but the sheer number of attendees had moved the service outdoors. A light layer of snow dusted the ground and the air held a chill, but the day itself was cloudless and clear.

  Jenny had convinced Jackaby to forgo his usual bulky, ragged coat in favor of a more respectful black one she had found in the attic. In lieu of his myriad pockets, he insisted on strapping across it a faded brown knapsack. I hefted the thing to hand it to him before we left, and, small though it may have been, it felt like a sack of bricks.

  “It’s a memorial,” I said. “What have you got in there that you could you possibly need at a memorial?”

  “That sort of thinking is why you, young lady, have a scar on your sternum, and why my priceless copy of the Apotropaicon has a broken spine. I prefer preparedness to a last-moment scramble, thank you.”

  We found a position toward the back of the assembly and waited for the ceremony to begin. Still fuming about the decision to cover up the truth about Swift, Jackaby stared daggers at Marlowe and Mayor Spade, seated at the front of the crowd. Because two of the deceased were respected members of the police, at least according to public record, the whole matter was being conducted with great pomp and sobriety. All five coffins were hewn of matching oak, probably far more expensive models than most of the families could have afforded on their own. I wondered what, if anything, they had put inside Swift’s to weigh it down.

  Over the susurrus of the crowd, I noticed the faintest of gentle melodies slowly growing, rising and falling like a building wave. The melancholy tune reminded me of the late Mrs. Morrigan. Focused as I was on the sound, I barely recognized that Jackaby had been speaking.

  “Sorry, what was that?”

  “I said that I have come to a decision, Miss Rook. I have given this a great deal of thought, and I’ve decided not to utilize you in the field any further.”

  “What?”

  “Oh, don’t worry, I’m not giving you the proverbial boot. You will still be tasked with cataloguing old files and tending to the house and accounts. I believe Douglas also had a collection of notes that he had not yet properly filed—I should certainly like you to look into that when you get a chance . . .”

  “You don’t want me along? But why?”

  “Because the last thing I need is another ghost hanging over my head—or worse, another damned duck. I would feel more comfortable knowing you were safe in the house. Although, come to think of it, it really is best if you avoid the Dangerous Documents section of the library . . . and don’t fiddle with any of the containers in the laboratory . . . and generally steer clear of the whole north wing of the second floor.”

  I felt my ears grow hot and my heart dip, but wasn’t entirely certain why. I squared my shoulders to my employer and took a deep breath. “Mr. Jackaby, I am not a child. I can make my own choices, even the bad ones. I have spent my entire life preparing for adventure, and then watching from the front step while it left without me. Since I picked up my first book, I have been reading about amazing discoveries, intrepid explorers, and fantastic creatures, all while scarcely setting foot outside my own house. My father used to tell me I had read more than most of his graduate students. Yet, for all my preparation, the only thing remotely daring I’d ever done before meeting you was running away from university to hunt for dinosaurs—which amounted to nothing more than four months of mud and rocks.” I stopped to breathe.

  “I didn’t know you hunted dinosaurs, Miss Rook.”

  “You never asked.”

  “No, I didn’t. I suppose I don’t tend to focus on that sort of thing. That is what impressed me about you on your first day—your attention to the banal and negligible.”

  “Once again, not the most flattering way to put it, but thanks, I’ll take it all the same. As for your decision, my answer is no.”

  “There wasn’t a question. My decision is still final.”

  I wanted to protest, but the priest had wound his way up to the makeshift podium at the head of the crowd, and the crowd was settling. I bit my tongue as the ceremony began, but I would not be content to let the matter lie.

  With the congregation quieted, I found the source of the lilting music. Four women with long, silvery hair and pale gowns stood just to the left of the podium. As various speakers took the stand to deliver sentimental eulogies, the gray women quietly wept and hummed, their cries carrying tender chords across the assembly. As the proceedings drew to a close, the women began to sing the most beautiful, mournful dirge. It was unmistakably akin to Mrs. Morrigan’s final song, but magnified in intensity and complexity. Their voices harmonized, elegant melodies and countermelodies weaving a tapestry of sound that drew tears from every listener, but with it grew an overwhelming sense of peace as well.

  When they had finished, the ladies knelt before Mrs. Morrigan’s coffin before stepping away to the churchyard gates. I caught sight of Mona O’Connor, who embraced each tenderly as they passed. The last of them brushed Mona’s curls of red hair back behind her ear, and kissed her on the forehead, like a kindly aunt. Mona held her hand a moment longer, and then the woman stepped out of the churchyard gates, vanishing into the bright daylight.

  All through the crowd handkerchiefs appeared, and tears were wiped away as the people began to disperse. Before withdrawing, the young woman with blond ringlets I had seen outside the Emerald Arch stepped timidly forward and set a white carnation on Arthur Bragg’s coffin. A few more came up to offer similar tokens: flowers, silver coins, and even a box of cigars on the late Mr. Henderson’s casket. Only one coffin remained bare.

  “Shall we resume our discussion over lunch?” I suggested to my employer, but Jackaby’s gaze was fixed on the front of the crowd. “I’d like to swing by Chandler’s Market on the way if you don’t mind,” I persisted. “I do still owe a troll a fish.” My employer made no indication he had heard me, instead taking sudden, deliberate strides toward the head of the assembly. I followed, squeezing past the exodus of mourners like a trout swimming upstream.

  As I reached the front, Jackaby stood before Swift’s coffin. “Let’s not have a scene, Jackaby,” Marlowe was saying. “Just let it go.”

  “It’s an insult,” Jackaby said. He gestured to the coffin. “It’s a dishonor to the dead!”

  “Jackaby . . .” Marlowe growled. His muscles tensed, and I could see he didn’t want to have to forcibly remove the detective from a quiet memorial service. “These nice families just want to say their good-byes in peace.”

  “But it isn’t right,” continued my employer, opening his little brown satchel, “that our dear, honorable commissioner should be the only friendless corpse without so much as a lily at his head. Let me see, I’m sure I have some appropriate token in here.”

  Marlowe looked dubious, but he stood down as Jackaby made a show of rummaging. “Ah, here we are. He was so fond of these.” It took a swing of his arms to get them
up onto the box, but the echoing clank of the redcap’s impossibly heavy iron shoes as they crunched into the wood was satisfying. A bent and charred piece of the leg brace still clung to one, fastened by a rivet at the ankle. Jackaby left the explaining to Marlowe and marched away.

  I caught up just outside the gates. “I know, I know . . . ,” he said before I could comment. “I don’t need to make things difficult for Marlowe.”

  “You don’t need to make them easy, either,” I said. My employer raised an eyebrow at me as we walked. “Swift tries to kill me and gets to be a public hero. Charlie saves my life, and now he’s a public enemy. You don’t owe me any explanations.”

  Jackaby nodded contentedly as we headed back to 926 Augur Lane.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  The following morning, I planted myself at the front desk and began sorting the mound of bills, case notes, and receipts that lay before me. Jackaby had conveniently disappeared before we could return to discussing my future duties, so I resolved to just make the best of the task. After several hours of stacking and shuffling, I was finally drawn out from behind the mess by my employer’s return. He hung his scarf and hat on the hook without apparently noticing me.

  “Good morning, sir. I didn’t know you had gone out.”

  “The postman’s come,” he said, riffling through a handful of mail. He paused on a small brown parcel, pursing his lips.

  “What’s that, then? Something you ordered?”

  “No.” He tucked it hastily beneath the rest of the mail. “Or yes, actually, but I’m not sure I should . . .” He trailed off. “This one’s addressed to you. Here.” Still without making eye contact, he dropped an envelope into the empty space I had cleared on the desk, and continued on his way down the crooked hallway.