by Jordan Reece
The autohorse delivered them to the train station, where Tammie waved enthusiastically from the platform until the autohorse pulled away. The silence in the carriage was not as awkward as it usually was, and Scoth volunteered what information he had about the clockmaker. “Seele is deceased, as of a year ago. Wasn’t married, no children. His shop was passed on to his nephew and niece and they run it still.”
“The man could have made a thousand identical timepieces,” Jesco said. “Are you going to track down each purchaser?”
“Remember, though, Seele did not create for a mass market. He also did custom pieces. This timepiece could have been made for one specific person, and never did he make another like it again. When we get there, don’t say where exactly we found the timepiece save Wattling. We don’t need anyone getting twitchy about Poisoners’ Lane and refusing to examine the piece.”
“Do you have it with you?”
“It’s in my luggage. It isn’t contaminated; I had it checked over thoroughly.”
Being so close to it still made Jesco nervous. “If I never have to return to Poisoners’ Lane, it will be too soon.”
“Quite.”
It was well into the afternoon when they arrived in Vasano. A thin splatter of rain had fallen, wetting the roads. The shops in this city had brightly colored walls and red roofs. Some were downright garish in peacock blues and pumpkin orange, which made the clockmaker’s shop stand out all the more when the autohorse arrived at it. Wedged between a forest green grocery and a butter yellow tailor’s, it was a simple white building with faded green trim and small windows filled with timepieces on display. Over the door was a sign that said SEELE and nothing more.
Something about it made Sfinx come to Jesco’s mind. Today it was a clockmaker’s shop; tomorrow it might be burned to the ground; in a year, it could be an empty field and in a hundred years, a farm. It was a melancholic ability to see the ages, and a beautiful one at the same time. A place could be ruined and remade, ruined and remade again. Nothing was attached to time but change. Getting out after the detective, Jesco followed him into the shop.
It was cluttered yet tidy, every conceivable surface crowded in clocks but everything dusted and arranged neatly. There was a proliferation of ticking and dinging, tapping and cuckoos. A track ran along the ceiling, and from the cars of an upside-down train hung antique timepieces. The clock part was hooked close to the car like each was cargo, and the chains stretched down. They went in a circuit around the shop as the train whistle made merry toots.
A man with a thin mustache and glasses balanced atop his head was working at a counter in the back. He had not heard them over the ruckus, and only took notice of them when they stepped up to the counter. Wiping his fingers upon a rag, he said, “May I help you?” Scoth laid out a succinct explanation while Jesco gazed at the shop. The train had come to a crossing and stopped, its chains waving in the air. He only looked back once the timepiece was handed over the counter.
The man was named Phineus, and he had worked with Wotalden Seele for many years. Jerking his head casually, his glasses tumbled off his crown and landed directly upon the bridge of his nose. He turned over the piece and said, “Oh, yes, Seele designed these for Kyrad Naphates about nineteen, twenty years ago. It was right about the time I began here as his assistant.”
“She wanted more than one?” Scoth asked.
A hint of a blush touched the man’s cheeks. “Quite a few were in that first lot, and she ordered several more lots of them since then. In fact, I just received another order about six months ago, but I had to inform her that Mr. Seele had died. She sent back a bouquet in his memory and a personal note.”
“Do you know what she did with so many timepieces?”
His cheeks stained redder and redder until Jesco feared he might burst. “Mrs. Naphates has many . . . friends. I believe she gives them to those whose company she finds most . . . entertaining.”
“Would this entertainment be of a sexual nature?” Scoth asked. It was the only reason that this man could be so embarrassed.
“Do not misunderstand: it is nothing improper! Her husband died of a heart attack weeks after their marriage long ago. He was very old; she was only in her early twenties then. A person has needs, man or woman, and she never remarried,” Phineus said in a rush. “She just has . . . more needs than most. But I will never believe that she is in any way involved in a murder! She is a lovely woman, very considerate, and she changed Naphates Mines that she inherited from her late husband for the better.”
“You feel quite strongly about her,” Scoth said.
He nodded with sincerity. “All the mines were fighting every regulation the government tried to lay on them. People were dying but what did those rich men care? Why should they care as long as they got their money? She broke that wall and accepted the regulations. No little children put to work! Proper ventilation and roof support! Inspections twice a year! If the inspectors find something dangerous, she fixes it up lickity-split. And she pays good wages! A working man, a working woman, they can support their families on what they make and send their children to school. She came up from nothing, a family of miners, so she’s seen it from both sides. My family hails from that area, and people will fight for a chance to work for her. She’s fair as a summer day, and I don’t just mean in her looks.”
“Does she, perchance, have red hair?” Jesco asked.
Phineus beamed. “Yes, the most beautiful red hair. She lives in Rosendrie. I just read a small piece in the papers that she has put herself forth for a position as liaison with the Parliament Committee of Mine Safety.”
Suddenly, Scoth jumped for Jesco and pushed his head down almost all the way to the countertop. Jesco struggled, crying out in surprise, and then realized the train was passing directly overhead. The chains on the timepieces were trailing through Scoth’s hair. Phineus stepped back in alarm as Jesco was released. The train chugged on and whisked the timepieces away.
“Just chains,” Phineus squeaked. “Nothing to worry about.”
“He is a police consultant with special abilities,” Scoth said.
Phineus lost his startled look. “An othelin, eh? Here, then, just a second.” He went to the wall, lifted a teacup hanging there, and flicked a switch. The train on the ceiling halted. “I pushed to remove the chains, but Seele liked how it looked, and his nephew Jon-Jakob doesn’t want me to change anything. But we’ve always fielded complaints from our taller customers swatted in the head over and over with those chains.” He was also tall, and rubbed his head thoughtfully. “Will you be wanting her old order forms? I can give those to you.”
“I would be grateful,” Scoth said as rain hit the windows.
“Thank you,” Jesco muttered to Scoth after the man disappeared into the back. Only the angels and demons knew the history in all of those chains attached to the antique timepieces.
Scoth wrote the woman’s name in his pad of paper, along with Rosendrie. “That’s close to Wattling. Just a few miles south.” He took out the drawings of the red-haired woman, thin man, and nervous blonde, along with a photograph from the coroner’s office of the deceased Hasten Jibb. Putting them in a line on the counter, he looked at the redhead. “I want to confirm with him that this is Kyrad Naphates.”
“And then we’ll go to Rosendrie?”
“Unless you can think of somewhere better.” His eyes flicked to the windows, where raindrops were streaking down the glass. “We won’t make it there today. There’s an inn at Keepsie where I’ve often stayed on investigations, and we can make that in a few hours.”
Phineus returned with the order forms. “Here. You can keep them. Jon-Jakob doesn’t design timepieces. This shop mostly does repairs now, and sells the already existing stock. That timepiece won’t ever be made again.”
“Do you recognize any of these people?” Scoth asked.
Phineus nodded immediately about the redhead. “That’s Kyrad Naphates there. You won’t see me proven wrong abo
ut this: she’s no killer, and she’s not involved in any way with someone who is. She doesn’t have the title, and she does have quite an appetite for entertainments, but she is a lady. Once you meet her, you can’t help but to like her.” He skimmed over the rest of the pictures. “No, I’ve never seen these other people.”
It was raining furiously by the time they left the shop. Jesco got straight into the carriage; Scoth went to Horse to program it for the inn. When he climbed into the carriage himself, the hard strikes of the rain on the roof had turned to raps of hail.
All the traffic on the road faded away at the change in weather, and the autohorse pulled them on at a fast pace. Chunks of ice bounced over the pavement. It was too loud to speak, so Jesco debated with himself about how and why Hasten Jibb had gotten to Poisoners’ Lane, and what the connection was between him and the timepiece.
“We should have something to eat. It’s well past lunch,” Jesco said once the rain and hail abruptly stopped. Scoth made a gesture to indicate he was fine. “What do you and Ravenhill do? Just keep working until you pass out from hunger together?”
“I grab something here and there. We could wait until we get to the inn.” Scoth gazed out the window. Then he heaved a sigh and lifted one of the panel additions along the back window. Jesco stared in amazement at the array of buttons. Pressing one, Scoth said loudly and clearly, “Food.” He put back the panel and sank into his seat. “We’ll see if that works.”
“What were all those?” Jesco asked.
“Some additions I made to the carriage and autohorse. If it goes well, the autohorse will stop at the next inn or restaurant it comes across.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
“We’ll go off the road and stomp through someone’s field, or land in a river somewhere.”
When the autohorse pulled over, it was at a grocery. Scoth got out, the rain restarting as soon as he was on the sidewalk, and returned with a random assortment of food. There was jerky and bread, cheese and fruit, two bottles of fizzy drinks, and candy. They ate well as the carriage moved along, reset for the inn in Keepsie. A piece of jerky pinched in his fingers, Scoth went through the order forms. “This Naphates woman has ordered close to a hundred of these over the last two decades.”
“He’s so certain that she has nothing to do with it.”
“They’re always certain,” Scoth said gruffly. “If I had a nickel for every person that was certain someone they liked had nothing to do with it, I could buy a second autohorse.”
“What would you name that one? Otto the Autohorse?”
It was almost a smile, but the detective bit it back fast. “Horse Two.”
The storm came and went in spurts, but it was building. Jesco could feel it in the air, a heavy anticipation that something stronger was brewing. It was going to last for days, according to the forecast. The sky was a sweep of dark gray from one end to the other, and as evening got underway, it became even darker. “I remember storms like these from when I was a boy,” Jesco said. “I lived on a farm. They smashed the crops flat.”
Scoth didn’t say anything. Jesco asked, “Where did you grow up?”
“Why do you want to know?”
It was hard to imagine somber Laeric Scoth as a boy. “So that I can know you.”
After a moment of silence, Scoth said, “Korval. You’ve never heard of it. No one has. It’s an out-of-the-way town along an eastern branch of the Razille River.”
“How did you get all the way to Cantercaster?”
“A lot of the towns and villages farther out have no official police force. It’s a passel of mayor’s sons and rich merchants’ daughters strutting about in uniforms to maintain order, and creating as much mayhem as they profess to restrain. They don’t know the first thing about an investigation. I wanted to gain a true education of crime and justice, so I applied to every university with a program for law enforcement in Ainscote.”
“How many did you get into?”
“One, but the best one, in my opinion. Nuiten. That was how I got to Cantercaster, and I stayed.”
When the autohorse reached the inn, Jesco stepped out into torrents of rain and was soaked in the time it took him to reclaim his suitcase and run to the front door. Scoth was a step in front of him, his lighter bag thrown over his shoulder, and he opened the door for Jesco in a hurry. They entered a warm foyer with cushioned chairs beside a fire, and a high ceiling with carved wooden beams.
Sheets had been laid down inside for wet travelers, and they walked atop them all the way to the counter. The innkeeper sent out a girl to board the autohorse in the barn and gave them a cheeky grin. “One room then?”
Startled, Scoth said, “Two, please.”
They had dinner in the side room, the waiter giving Jesco a curious look when he used his personal utensils, and then went upstairs to locate their rooms. They were directly across from one another. After unlocking his door, Jesco hesitated in the doorway and called out, “Did you go to Shining Water the day that you visited the lord and the woman with the whirly-gigs?”
Scoth was in his room and closing his door. Cracking it wider, he said, “No.”
“Jibb went there every morning, his mother told us.”
“It didn’t sound like he did anything there but eat.”
“The staff would know for sure, though. Perhaps he made a connection there. A bad one. If Rosendrie turns out to be nothing . . .”
“I’ll add it to the list,” Scoth said. “Will you be all right in there? I won’t come in tomorrow morning and find you in thrall from the sink?”
“I can take care of myself, thank you,” Jesco said.
“Better than you did in the alley, at any rate.”
It stung, but it was a fair dart for the detective to throw. “It can be hard at times to work with people who can’t stand me for being a seer, Scoth. You were talking to the others like I wasn’t even there, and I lost my temper.”
Scoth cocked his head like he couldn’t quite remember the particulars of the incident. Then he grimaced. “It was being there. Trying to direct an investigation in that poisoned place, remembering every minute or so that that kolymbium was sinking into us. My mind was in twists. It wasn’t anything to do with you.” He nudged the door back and forth. “I can’t speak for the rest, but I stand you just fine.”
The door clicked shut and his shadow vanished from the crack beneath it. Jesco went into his room, wishing that he had been more professional in the alley. To be in Poisoners’ Lane had put them all on edge. He was looking into a tidy, snug room at the inn but seeing that mat of trash and low-hanging, nail-studded beams superimposed upon it. And the body, naked and punctured . . .
Though his mind was with Hasten Jibb, he fixed up the room for himself. His sheets, his pillow, and his blanket went on the bed; his spare towels covered the sides of the sink and the top of the nightstand. It was not until the room was made as safe as it could be that he dressed for bed. Once within it, he doused the lamp with his hand covered, and rested in the darkness.
It was not truly rest when the corpse appeared every time he closed his eyes. Reaching down to his bag, he searched through the contents and pulled out his star. He leaned it against the lamp and stared at its twinkling.
Scoth was such a handsome man. The thought crowded in with the star and Jesco let it stay. Peace overcame him and he fell asleep.
Chapter Six
It should have taken one day to reach Rosendrie, but the storm made it two. Roads were washed out, invisible beneath roaring rivers that could not be safely forded. Scoth was forced to reconfigure the destination cards to a route on higher land. It took them miles out of their way, yet travel was swifter there.
The autohorse clopped on indefatigably through rain and hail and lightning alike, yet still came to a sudden stop on the high road. Cursing under his breath, Scoth went out to see what was wrong now. A tree had fallen, blocking their way, and an hour was spent in taking turns with a small axe to chop it
apart and push it down a ravine.
Otherwise, the trip was surprisingly pleasant. Jesco took a page from Tammie’s book, modified it, and just talked like he didn’t expect Scoth to reply. The asylum gave him a wide variety of stories, from little Nelle and her collar to the ruined rucaline patients, the nurses and attendants and their lives, the out of control foliage always threatening to drown the building and its grounds in flowers. There had been the day when Jesco was fourteen that an aviator fought a battle with the wind and lost, bringing down her balloon in the garden. And then there was the night when a mental patient tried to burn down the asylum and sent them all out into the streets, coughing from the smoke and in their pajamas, and some in less than that. Jesco had been confined to bed at the time and too weak to even climb into his wheelchair, let alone steer himself out. He’d been deeply touched at how ten people from nurses to patients came hurtling into his room to help. His asylum family was good to him. Not one person had perished in the fire, everyone making sure that everyone else got out.
It was that story which provoked more than a nod from Scoth, who said, “I didn’t believe you boarded with the criminally insane.”
“We don’t,” Jesco said. “That patient had no record until that point, and he was removed at once to a more secure setting.”
“They go to Linvus Institute in Glensporra, the dangerous ones. I’ve caught a few who ended up there: a woman who murdered both her mother and her daughter; a man who liked to catch old folks, tie them up, and set them on fire. There was some debate over Mantis Man, if that was where he should have gone instead of Crofthollow Prison.”
“What do you think?”
“Four walls and a locked door was as much as I cared what happened to him.”
“But if you were the judge?”
Scoth considered it. “If I were the judge, I would have called it for Crofthollow just like how it went. There aren’t any medications to make him better. There isn’t a head doctor alive with a cure. At Linvus, they would try. It’s a waste of time and energy. His mental disorder is severe and unfixable, and he will always present a grave threat to those around him. At least locked up in Crofthollow, he’s surrounded by men who pose just as grave a threat to him. But you’ve seen into them, haven’t you?”