City of Wolves
Page 6
“A combination of traumas from the wounds and the fall,” he replied.
“Yes, that sounds about right. Just to be sure, let’s check the official report. Now, I’m certain it is yet to be properly filed, and getting civilian review could take weeks. But again, to our good fortune, I served as the Inspector’s forensic assistant and had the foresight to transcribe a facsimile of the report.” I produced a few sheaves of filmy copy paper from my pocket, designed to catch the imprints of anything written on a sheet above them.
“Your exact prognosis, Inspector, was as follows: ‘Forensic analysis suggests that trauma and shock from fall, combined with blood loss, resulted in nervous failure for the deceased. Circumstances of the fall and wounds merit further investigation.’ What did you mean by that last remark, Inspector?”
“Only that by determining the cause of the fall or of the subsequent attack, we would find the killer.”
“As that avenue of inquiry has thus far been fruitless, let me suggest an alternate means of investigation: the wounds themselves. My hypothesis is that the wounds were not potent enough to kill a man; the wounds were small and shallow, and his Lordship seems to have fared surprisingly well from the fall, all things considered.” I read the list of broken bones. “The Inspector’s own diagnosis states that ‘no major arterial damage seems to have been afflicted.’ Thus, since the fall and wounds ‘merit further investigation,’ as the Inspector suggests, we press on. Behold this next exhibit.”
I produced two pouches and poured them into separate piles on one of the parlor tables.
“This first pile is a sample of the glass found outside, remnants of his Lordship’s fall. It has been cleaned. If you would like to examine it, please pay attention to both its thickness and its smoky tint, designed to enhance the view of the evening sky. But observe this next sample, taken from inside his Lordship’s study. We see several shards of the same glass, but also many thinner, clearer ones with a noticeable curvature to them, quite unlike a windowpane. As it happens, I chanced to notice that his Lordship was a Fellow of the Royal Academy. Mr. Colin Abergreen, are you able to identify your father’s area of scientific study?”
“Chemistry,” he replied.
“Indeed. This morning, Mr. Colin Abergreen let me into Lord Abergreen’s chemical laboratory, where I found traces of powdered silver nitrate, and these”—I poured several small gems from another pouch onto the table—“the remnants of his Lordship’s signet ring, melted down to provide one of the necessary reagents for the reaction, the other being nitric acid, which was found in significant quantities.”
“Do you suggest he was poisoned?” inquired Corth Abergreen.
“I do indeed. And for my final piece of evidence, I have to warn you all that you may find it quite shocking. The ladies may wish to avert their eyes, for I present to you the stomach of the late Lord Thomas Abergreen!”
And with that, I took the final bag in my hand, moving the folds of cloth aside to reveal the late Lord’s stomach, to a chorus of howls, yells, sobs, shrieks, and rather unsavory allegations that I will not repeat here. Both Miss Elizabeth and the widow Abergreen fainted. One of the Inspector’s officers turned and vomited onto a houseplant. Corth Abergreen drew his fencing saber and challenged me to a duel.
“Brothers, sisters,” shouted Colin, interposing himself between me and his brother, “he speaks the truth! I helped him uncover this evidence. Corth, look at the burns!”
Corth sheathed his blade and cautiously approached, eyeing both me and the exhibit of the corpse’s stomach.
“Those burns are extensive,” he admitted.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I submit the following to you: Lord Thomas Abergreen was not murdered. He chose to end his life and quaffed a poison of his own creation. While silver nitrate has several beneficial properties, it is fatal in an excessive dose. In his final moments, he chose to leap from his window. The hounds, frenzied by the smell of blood and the influence of the High Moon, gnawed on him and then fought one another to the death. As for his state of undress, I can only speculate. Perhaps he wanted to leave the world as he entered it. In any case, the Lord Abergreen is the victim of no murder, only suicide.”
Corth Abergreen slumped into his chair, head in his hands. There was a solemn moment of silence, then the hushed but exuberant conversation that occurs whenever a controversy is revealed to polite company. I approached Loxley-Birmingham.
“Inspector, if I might have a moment of your time?”
“Concerning?”
“A few loose ends.”
Chapter 19
THE INSPECTOR AND I relocated to the privacy of the late Lord’s office, much as it was when I first entered it but tidied and with a large sheet of heavy cloth draped over the gaping window. I waited, letting the Inspector break the silence.
“Your wild theory may have satisfied the family, but it doesn’t convince me,” he said.
“Oh? What was wrong with it?”
“Silver nitrate is not fatally poisonous.”
“Not to humans. I imagine it’d be quite effective against a werewolf.”
Loxley-Birmingham coldly regarded me for the greater portion of a minute.
“Do you seriously expect me to believe that Lord Abergreen was a werewolf?”
“Given that you, Sir Inspector, are yourself a werewolf, you should have little difficulty believing it.”
“Preposterous.”
“My first clue was the large footprint at the death site—an obvious sign of werewolf involvement—as well as the massive damage to the Lord’s hounds. However, the damage to the Lord’s own body seemed troublesomely minor.”
“An odd choice of words for fatal wounds, Mr. Drake.”
“Bear with me,” I said. “The broken bones should have been much more severe, and the bites were unusually small, not at all appropriate for a mauling by a Walder hound, and even less so had he been attacked by a werewolf. But if one assumes the Lord himself was the werewolf, the smaller wounds make sense. They were inflicted on his larger, bestial body by the hounds, and then shrank to proportional size as he reverted to his human form upon death. In this context, the removal of his clothing makes more sense: he simply did not want them destroyed in his bestial transformation.”
“A fascinating theory.”
“As for you, I have been suspicious of you since the autopsy. I’m sure you drew the same conclusions I did. However, due to the potential scandal, you could not express them. You brought me along and asked my opinions as a test to see if I was aware of the nature of werewolves, since we had just been attacked. You assumed that the attacker had been sent for me; at the time, I had no basis on which to understand this assumption, but in the context of werewolves, it makes perfect sense. The assassin did not have silver bullets, which he would have needed to harm you; thus, he intended to kill me. Therefore, you gambled on trusting me but found I knew less than you thought—but enough to be dangerous, which you decided made me a liability. On my way back to Lupenwald, I was accosted by a werewolf intent on ending my life. That was you, Inspector, wasn’t it?”
“A fanciful allegation and a dangerous one.”
“But true. When I first met you two days ago, I noted how immaculate were your personal hygiene and appearance. Today, you look almost as disheveled as I do. It would be quite impossible for a normal man to grow that much stubble in such a short time. And I think I detect a tenderness of the skin on your left cheek, where you have a slowly healing wound from where I shot you with an improvised silver projectile. But fear not, good Inspector. I have no intent to reveal this secret to the world, and I will forgive your indiscretions if you forgive mine.”
Throughout my monologue, the Inspector’s hand clenched the hilt of his sword, and his knuckles blanched white. If my estimation of the man’s character had been off, he could have easily cut me down then and there. However, I judged him aptly as a man of honor. His grip on his sword relaxed, then released. He extended his open
hand to mine, and I shook it.
The chamber door opened and Colin Abergreen entered.
“Of what did you want to speak to me, Drake?” he asked in a rather annoyed tone.
“Simply to finish our business. I trust you find my conclusion to your case satisfactory?”
“I cannot fault your logic. You have earned your pay.” He handed me a coin purse hefty with gold.
“I do hope you don’t consider it too gauche of me to examine these,” I said, opening the pouch. I raised one of the coins to my eye and gave it a hearty bite for good measure. “Oh, Colin, you might be interested to know who was trying to kill you.”
He hesitated. “It seems I am further indebted to you.”
“Indeed you are. The gunman who took a shot at the Inspector here and the dagger-wielding bravo who tried to perforate you were hired by the same person, for the same purpose. Colin, if you would roll up your sleeves, please,” I said, doing the same myself.
“I—what?”
“Do as he says,” commanded the Inspector.
I held out my arms, nicked and cut from slashing wounds inflicted in the previous evening’s fight. Colin’s arms were pure and untouched.
“Amazingly few wounds for a man who was in a knife fight. Unless you did suffer wounds which have already healed by virtue of being a werewolf like your father.”
Colin Abergreen took several steps back, but his brow furrowed into anger. He flashed a glance at Loxley-Birmingham, who only nodded in confirmation.
“That was the real purpose of this case, wasn’t it? I saw a copy of A Critique of Systems of Wealth in your town house.”
“It’s not a crime to own a book,” he said. He began to stutter, spittle flying from those giant lips.
“It is for this book, from what I’ve heard. You didn’t care about the particulars of your father’s murder; you saw it as an opportunity to overthrow the existing social order. So you hired a private detective, one you suspected of having revolutionary tendencies. The coins were a trap, to shift blame onto me if necessary. You hired me to investigate a possible murder, knowing it would lead me to incontrovertible evidence of werewolves. I would make my findings known to society at large, and a wolf hunt would result, likely throwing the country into another war. But you’ve misjudged me, Mr. Abergreen. I may despise the King, but in war, it is the common people who suffer the most. And it is them that I serve.”
“You have no evidence,” he said.
“Yes, I do. The first assassin struck while I was with the Royal Inspector, shortly after you left the scene. He fired several times but was a poor shot. The Inspector silenced him, assuming he was hired to kill a werewolf and would reveal this plan to me, an outsider. He later decided I was the true target. But he was mistaken. You intended me to see Sir Loxley-Birmingham take a bullet, didn’t you?”
“Nonsense,” he managed to stammer out.
“When I returned from Lupenwald,” I continued, “you readily joined me in my grave-robbing, another chance for exposure. But before you arrived, you arranged for your hired man to menace the two of us, but when I had him beaten and he was about to talk, you disposed of him yourself. I understand the Inspector’s motive in silencing an informant; he was protecting a secret he sees of national security. But you supposedly had an interest in uncovering the truth.”
“This is all slander. Speculation! I take dire offense.”
“What do you think, Inspector?” I asked.
“It’s a fair line of reasoning,” he said, “but largely circumstantial evidence.”
“I have an offer for you, Mr. Abergreen.” I withdrew an envelope from my jacket. “I have a copy of the will your father wrote and later destroyed.”
“How?”
“I did not return to Abergreen Manor alone but rather with a wizard. The remaining ashes were reconstituted into the will. It does not favor you. I understand it is custom in such a case for the heir to inherit a full sixty percent of the estate, and you and your siblings will each receive assets worth one tenth the estate’s value. By this will, you’d get almost nothing. It seems you were out of favor with your father.”
He reached for the envelope, and I pulled it away, tucking it back into my jacket.
“Let us come to an amicable arrangement. I hold on to this for safekeeping. Your father destroyed the will; who am I to countermand his wishes? In exchange, you double my fee to compensate for the trauma incurred. And we can all rest well knowing the reputation of House Abergreen remains as sterling as ever.”
“Blackmail, that’s your game, is it?”
The Inspector put a hand on his shoulder.
“It’s more than a fair deal, Colin. I suggest you take it.”
“I’ll have the money delivered to your home. I trust our business is concluded.” He shot me an angry glance and left the room.
“Well played, Mr. Drake,” said the Inspector. “Especially that bluff about the will.”
“Thank you, Inspector.” For he was correct: the envelope tucked close to my breast held not a secret will but a blank sheaf of paper. It had been hard enough to convince Patch to heal my shoulder and aid me with the scentless oil; a house call to the country would have been impossible even in the best of times.
“There’s something you should know, now that you’re involved,” he said.
“About werewolves.”
“Yes.”
“I suspect they’re fairly widespread amongst the nobility, then.”
“You have no idea.”
“Tell me,” I said.
“Every one of us.”
I was taken aback. That couldn’t possibly be true. “Someone would find out. People would know.”
“People do find out, catching pieces of the truth here or there. They keep their silence out of prudence or fear. A public panic would throw the country into another war, one that would make the War of the Wolves look like a petty squabble.”
“This will have to get out sooner or later.”
“For all our sakes, Mr. Drake, I hope that you are wrong.”
About the Author
Photograph by Tim Jensen
WILLOW PALECEK is the writer of the role-playing games Awesome Adventures, Escape from Tentacle City, and The Arm. City of Wolves is her first published novella. Willow resides in Madison, Wisconsin, with her husband and their two cats.
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
About the Author
Copyright Page
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novella are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
CITY OF WOLVES
Copyright © 2016 by Willow Palecek
Cover art by Cliff Nielsen
C
over design by Christine Foltzer
Edited by Carl Engle-Laird
All rights reserved.
A Tor.com Book
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ISBN 978-0-7653-8735-6 (ebook)
ISBN 978-0-7653-8975-6 (trade paperback)
First Edition: July 2016
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