“Brandt’s an idiot and a coward,” Arjuna muttered.
“Yes, he is, and that idiot will be your supervisor if the Chancellor is given a compelling reason to remove me from this office,” the Minister said. “The sudden escape of my own brother from our most secure prison might be just the excuse he needs. And frankly, Brandt might just be stupid enough to clean house and replace half the Ministry staff with his idiot friends and relations.”
Bettina nodded. “Minister, you know you can rely on us for discretion in this case, but surely the prison will inform the newspapers that there’s been an escape, and that the escapee was Ranulf?”
“No, they won’t. I’ve made it quite clear to Warden Meier that if I go, he goes with me. So he is making every effort to conceal the escape, even from his own staff and guards. For the time being, we’re claiming that Ranulf has been moved to a secret location for further questioning before his release. If you can have him back in custody quickly enough, then we can return him to the prison without anyone suspecting what has really happened.”
“And if we can’t, then the entire Ministry of Justice will belong to the steel barons.” Arjuna shook his head. “I hate creatures like Brandt.”
Bettina frowned at him.
“My sentiments, precisely,” the Minister said.
Bettina cleared her throat. “Will we be able to examine the prison grounds?”
“No, not without raising suspicions. I can’t have two of my people poking around Ranulf’s cell. We can’t risk giving the press a reason to pay any attention to this matter.”
“Do we have any idea how Ranulf escaped?” Arjuna asked.
“Very quietly. Apparently, he transacted a series of complicated bribes with the other inmates, arranging for each person to unlock a door or leave an article of civilian clothing lying about. By the time he reached the end of this labyrinth of exchanges, he was wearing a very nice wool suit, tailored, apparently, and he simply walked out of the prison’s visitor entrance. And we should all be thankful for that. If he had tunneled out with a spoon or started a riot, my resignation would already be on the Chancellor’s desk.” Kaiser held out a dark brown leather folder. “This is everything we have on my brother. Criminal history, known contacts, addresses. The autocarriage that brought you here tonight will be at your disposal for the duration of this investigation. Just remember, Ranulf has a four-hour head start, and he’s no fool. Whatever he’s doing, he will have a plan. The clock is ticking, detectives. And all of our careers depend on your success.”
Bettina stood and took the folder. “You can rely on us, Madam Minister. We’ll use every resource to see Ranulf returned to his cell as soon as possible. And we will be the very souls of discretion.”
“See that you are,” the Minister said. “You wouldn’t like working for Brandt. He’s a spineless little bureaucrat with no respect for the law. The syndicates would own him before the end of his first day in office.”
Bettina and Arjuna nodded, turned, and left. When they were back in the hallway with the door closed behind them, Bettina patted her husband’s arm and said, “Now Arry, dear, you are going to be discreet during this case, aren’t you?”
“I’m as professional as you are, Betty.”
“Of course you are, but sometimes you can be rather passionate, and I suspect this assignment will require a gentler touch than your usual flair.”
“Don’t worry. I don’t want to work for Brandt any more than you do.”
“Good,” she said. “Because if you ruin my professional life, darling, I will make your home life very uncomfortable. Remember, I know where you sleep.”
Chapter 2. A Thief’s Pride
Bettina felt her ankle aching as they rode the elevator downstairs and began the long walk back to the autocarriage. When they were finally sitting inside the vehicle once more, she leaned down and pulled her little black bag from under her seat, produced a small bottle of pills, and swallowed one.
Arjuna sat down across from her, tossed the thick file folder onto the seat, gently scooped up her foot into his lap, and began massaging her calf and her heel.
“Thank you, dear,” she said. “But we’ll have time for that later. We have a thief to catch, and as the Minister pointed out, Ranulf has a four-hour head start on us. Can you read the file, please?”
“Just give me a minute.” Arjuna gave her foot back, opened the dossier, and began quickly flipping through each page of the file. It took him less than a minute to read the entire history of Ranulf Kaiser, all hundred or so pages of it, and then the detective tossed the dossier aside again. “All right, well, the good news is that Kaiser doesn’t have many friends, and most of his assets were seized or frozen when he was arrested. He can’t arrange another major fraud scam without the help of at least a few people, like a forger or an accountant, and he can’t set up a major art heist without tools and resources. So it looks like he’s in no position to do anything right away.”
“You’re assuming that he wants to do something that he’s done before. Remember, this man has just escaped from Torghast when he only had three weeks left to serve before he’d be free again,” Bettina said. “Clearly, something has motivated him to take a very serious risk.”
“But what?”
“Something he couldn’t wait for. Something he had to move on quickly. Maybe we should check the papers and see if there’s some sort of new art exhibit in town this week. It has to be something significant, something that Kaiser could have learned about while in prison.”
Arjuna shrugged. “Research will take time. I say we start checking his known haunts. There aren’t many of them. I mean, he walked out of Torghast as quietly as you please, and then the Minister told the warden to keep it quiet. And if there’s no city-wide manhunt for Kaiser, then he’s probably not rushing around, hiding in sewers.”
“Check his home, you mean? You really think he might have gone back there?” Bettina asked.
“There are only five addresses in the file.” Arjuna jerked his head at the dossier beside him. “I think it makes sense to check them out tonight, just to be sure he hasn’t been back there yet. Due diligence, and all that.”
Bettina nodded and thumped her cane on the floorboards. “Mister Oster, we’re ready to go. Arry, give him Ranulf’s home address, please.”
Arjuna told the driver where to go and the steam carriage huffed away into the night, chugging and clacking and rattling over the cobblestone streets of Eisenstadt with flashes of streetlights racing by the dark windows. Bettina felt her painkillers working their way down her back and into her foot, releasing the pinched nerves and relaxing her muscles. She sighed and closed her eyes for a moment.
When the carriage squealed to a halt, Bettina opened the door and climbed down by herself. She stood on the curb and considered the dark row house before her. It was two stories tall and looked exactly like the row houses on either side of it. Brick construction painted white, plain rectangular windows, black slate roof, and a heavy wooden door at the top of a short flight of stone steps.
A soft flap of feathers caught her ear and she looked over her shoulder to see a familiar looking raven sitting on the lamppost across the street.
“Are you following me?” she whispered to herself. “What do you know that I don’t?” She frowned and turned her attention back to the house.
Arjuna told the driver to park around the block and then he hopped down beside her, and tugged at his cuffs. He reached into his jacket to produce his sidearm. The coilgun’s brass and steel fittings gleamed in the moonlight.
“Tranquilizers only,” Bettina reminded him.
Arjuna slipped out the magazine of needles, glanced at the green markings, and then slipped it back into the gun. “All set.”
“Good. Now wait here.” Bettina climbed the steps to the door, her cane clicking sharply on the stone stairs, and at the top she hooked the head of her cane on her arm and opened her black bag. Inside she found her powder and brush
and quickly checked the brass door knob for prints.
“Anything?” Arjuna asked.
“Nothing. Nothing at all.” Bettina frowned as she put her tools away. “Only old smudges. No prints.”
“Really?” Arjuna switched off the safety on his coilgun and the capacitor whined softly as it charged itself to fire. “Well, that doesn’t prove anything. If Kaiser did come back here, he could have used the back door.”
“Indeed.” Bettina produced a pair of steel needles with hooked ends and began picking the lock on the front door. As she worked, the lock and the handle jerked with hard metallic clicks.
Arjuna sighed loudly. “Sweetheart? If there is someone in there, aren’t they going to hear you doing that? They could be waiting on the other side to kill us, or they might be running out the back right now.”
“Maybe. But I’ll only be a moment.” Bettina lifted the last of the lock’s tumblers into place and the door swung inward. “There we are.”
Arjuna jogged up the steps and slipped by her into the open doorway. “Very nice. Wait here while I check the house.”
“Of course.” Bettina dropped her lock picks into her bag, and then pulled out her own coilgun and waved him inside. “Be quick, and be safe. But mostly quick.”
Arjuna raised his gun, slipped around the half-open door, and darted into the dark hallway beyond. There was a small table beside the door with a little empty dish for keys, and above it a mirror, and beside it an umbrella bin, and a row of naked coat hooks on the wall. He moved farther in and glanced around the shadowy sitting room of empty chairs and tables with small lamps, and then he circled through the back of the house, finding only an empty dining room with a table for four and an empty kitchen with counters swept bare.
He returned to the main hallway, found a door to a closet, but no door to the cellar, if there was one, and then he moved back to the front of the house and headed upstairs. At the top, Arjuna found two small bedrooms, both with sloping ceilings and narrow doors and shallow closets. Both beds were made and covered in dust, and the night stands and lamps wore a light lacework of spider webs around their shades.
“There’s nothing here,” he called out as he headed back downstairs.
Bettina entered the house, closed the front door, and went to inspect the sitting room. “Ranulf Kaiser was suspected in dozens of art and jewel thefts, wasn’t he?” she asked.
Arjuna nodded. “Why?”
She gestured to the room. “Does this look like the home of someone who had a fortune in stolen objects? Tell me, did the dossier say why Ranulf was suspected in those thefts? I mean, he was never brought to trial for them, was he?”
“No.” Arjuna frowned and looked down at the floor, and Bettina knew her husband was mentally scrolling through all the pages of the file that he had scanned in the carriage. He looked at her. “Hm. There was never any evidence against him. There were only anonymous tips, calls, and notes to the police saying that they should look at Kaiser for the thefts.”
“Is that all?” Bettina brought a silver lighter out of her black bag and flicked it on. The wobbling yellow flame did little to illuminate the room, but what it did reveal was simply more dust and old furniture.
“Not quite.” Arjuna paced around the room, squinting at the poorly painted landscapes hanging over the ugly striped wallpaper. “The person who kept the police following up on those anonymous tips was one Police Commissioner Gisele Kaiser.”
Bettina smiled. “So she knew her little brother was guilty, but couldn’t prove it. No wonder she hates him so much. He got away with everything, and she knew it. He probably bragged about it at the annual family reunions. But that still doesn’t explain this house. Unless this is just a decoy address, and his real home is somewhere else. By the waterfront, perhaps?”
“I don’t think so.” Arjuna picked at the doorframe and a long splinter of dusty wood cracked off. “By day, he worked as an attorney right out of this house. This was his office. He was always here. There are witness statements in the file.”
“Strange. Anything upstairs?”
“Two dusty bedrooms.”
“And downstairs?”
He shook his head. “There is no downstairs.”
Bettina gave him a queer look. “Mister Rana, you know as well as I do that these row houses all have basements. How many times have we raided a house exactly like this one because of what was going on downstairs?”
He grinned. “Too many. But I’m telling you, this one has no basement. Go look.”
Bettina swept past him, her cane clipping daintily on the dusty floor, and she stood in front of the wall behind the upper staircase and frowned at the ugly wallpaper.
“There should be a door here. Arry, darling, if you please.” She stepped back.
Arjuna gave her a tired look as he shrugged off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves. There was a small iron stove in the corner of the kitchen and two rotting pieces of firewood beside it. Arjuna picked up the larger of the two logs and swung it at the wallpaper that his wife had been examining.
The wall crunched inward, and it only took a few more swings of the log to punch a rather large hole in the wall, revealing the cold darkness beyond. Bettina stepped forward and thrust her lighter into the hole. “Ah, there’s the door.” She reached inside, turned the handle, and the basement door swung inward, tearing the wallpaper off the door frame. Leaning down, she examined the edge of the door and said, “Oh look, here’s the seam. It was a sort of door-within-a-door. See?”
She unhooked the smaller inner door, which swung freely inside the original door without tearing what remained of the wallpaper.
“Let me go first.” Arjuna turned sideways to pass her, taking the opportunity to slip his hands around her waist and kiss the side of her neck. Then he took the lighter from her hand and proceeded down the steps into the basement with his coilgun held low. He paused at the bottom, and said, “You’re going to want to see this.”
Bettina sighed and slowly descended the steps, using the handrail to keep her balance and holding her other hand over her nose so that the dust wouldn’t make her sneeze. When she reached the bottom, she turned and stared.
The entire basement had been remodeled to resemble a museum, with huge marble tiles on the floor and massive stained oak panels on the walls, and little marble plinths with glass-domed cases, and short velvet ropes to keep onlookers from venturing too close to the walls. And on those walls hung oil portraits that Bettina had only ever seen in history books, and under those glass cases sat ancient jewels and rare cut gems sparkling with the flame of her lighter as Arjuna passed his hand over them.
“Well, isn’t that something,” she said. “He kept them all for himself.”
“But what for?” Arjuna squinted at a painting of a very large woman dressed in furs. “I guess he really wasn’t in it for the money. Or even to show off, since no one knew he did it.”
“He did it just to do it,” Bettina said softly. “For the challenge. For the excitement. To prove that it could be done, to prove that he could do it. Maybe even to prove to his big sister Gisele that he could do it. Whatever his reason, it ran much deeper than mere greed.”
They both stood in the tiny gallery for a moment in silence, staring at each famous painting and diamond and scepter in turn.
“Nothing’s missing,” Arjuna said.
“Hm?”
“No empty cases. I mean, if he came here after getting out of Torghast, I would think he might have taken something here to sell for some petty cash, but I don’t see any empty spots. I don’t think he’s been here, at least not yet.”
“You’re right.” Bettina nodded. “We’ll come back for this little treasure trove later. For right now, I’ll simply break the lock on the front door to keep him from coming in later, just in case he does come back.”
They went back upstairs and Bettina turned the corner to see two men standing in the open doorway.
“Oh my.” She reached
for her coilgun. “Can I help you gentlemen?”
Both of the strangers glared at her as they shoved their hands inside their jacket pockets. The metallic edges of their weapons glinted in the pale light of the lampposts outside.
“Betty!” Arjuna wrapped his arm around her waist and lifted her, spinning her around to put her behind him. Then he grabbed up the piece of firewood he had used to batter down the wall and he hurled at the men. The block of wood smashed one man in the chest, and he stumbled back, throwing out both hands to catch himself on the banister. The second man ducked into the sitting room for cover, and then leaned back into the hallway with a coilgun raised.
Bettina was waiting for him with her own gun resting on Arjuna’s shoulder. When the second man leaned out, she fired. The gun’s capacitor released its charge, magnifying the coil and accelerating its needle down the barrel in absolute silence. She pulled her hand back and heard the tell-tale whine of her gun automatically recharging the capacitor and she also heard the tell-tale hiss of pain and surprise as the man at the end of the hall felt the needle bite into his hand, making him drop his gun.
Arjuna sprinted down the hall just as the first man was struggling back up to his feet. The detective tackled him back to the floor, grabbed the rotting log, and tossed it back at the second man, but the second man, still clutching his hand, ran back through the sitting room toward the kitchen.
“Betty! He’s coming your way!”
Bettina snatched up her cane and stalked into the kitchen just as the gunman charged in at her. She slammed the handle of her cane into his throat, and the man froze in place, gasping. But before she could hit him again, he lumbered forward, shoved her aside, and crashed out the back door into the dark alley.
“Darling! He’s getting away!” Bettina pushed herself up, straightened her blouse and jacket, and picked her cane up off the floor.
The dull thumps of fists landing on thinly clothed flesh rumbled in the next room. Suddenly Arjuna lurched into the kitchen, catching himself on the door frame, his face shining with sweat and his hair hanging in his eyes. “What was that you said?”
The Kaiser Affair (The Drifting Isle Chronicles) Page 2