by Jordan Reece
“They’re here for mental problems, not othelin issues,” Jesco replied, “and some don’t like to have to share space with those like us.”
“Oh, for the love of angels! Like talking to tiny green fairies that nobody can see is somehow preferable to what you do? Sometimes I marvel at people, and not the good kind of marveling. I marveled a bit at Captain Whennoth this morning, if you catch my drift.”
“Caught it.”
“He told Scoth days ago not to use any of the police carriages since they’re in use for the Shy Sprinkler case. Scoth solved it fine and dandy by using his own personal carriage. Today the captain tried to requisition that as well, but he can’t, of course, since it doesn’t belong to the station. But he needs it, he complained, and pulled the official police business angle on someone who works in the police business! Scoth said no, but at my suggestion he kept the peace by offering to drop me off. That spares a police carriage the errand. The captain had to content himself with that. And how can he work with Scoth for all these years and still mispronounce his name so regular? It’s not Scoth what rhymes with moth; it’s Scoth like both. You’d think the captain had just met him.”
At the far end of the hallway, Scoth’s carriage was waiting in the driveway. The door was open, and Jesco’s chair was already inside. “I’m off to Hooler for a week to work on all the missing cases in that county and the ones surrounding it,” Tammie said. “They want age-progression pictures. An eight-year-old girl snatched twenty years ago doesn’t still look eight years old, does she?”
“How can you guess what a girl will look like after twenty years?” Jesco asked.
“If I’m lucky, I’ll have a photograph of her at eight to work from. Then I’ll get photographs of the siblings and parents, anything they can give me. If I’m unlucky, I’ll just have a drawing at the time of the disappearance to work from and nothing else.” She opened the door for him and they stepped out into the sunshine. Heavy clouds were building at the horizon, a deep gray mass that shifted and stirred with the wind. Scoth nodded from the autohorse, where he was busy at the chest flap rearranging the destination cards.
“That’s going to be a blisterer,” Tammie said about the impending storm. “Kind that rips the carrots right out of the ground if it doesn’t drown them first. How long do you think you’re going to be gone, Jesco?” Forgetting what he was, she attempted to take his suitcase to load it into the compartment. He drew back and so did she, remembering.
He loaded it in beside two much smaller bags and they stood together, waiting for Scoth to finish with the autohorse. “I have to take extra things,” Jesco said. “My own utensils, plates and cups, sheets and a blanket.”
“That’s a pain in the arse.”
On the contrary, he was excited to be taking a trip. “Do you know where I’m headed?” He asked it loudly enough to make a point to Scoth that the message had been absent that information.
“Crikey, don’t you tell your own seer where he’s going?” Tammie asked Scoth blithely. “Don’t hold it against him, Jesco, the station is in a bloody conniption and I could barely hear myself think when I first got in. The usual nonsense going on, and the press got hold of the Shy Sprinkler case, Parliament is yelling their fool heads off and sending representatives daily to ask for updates, and on top of everything, that prat Patrolman Stamax came in all puffed up ’cause wouldn’t you know it? He broke the bicycle theft ring operating in the area. Everyone’s got six things to do with only two hands and there he is wanting accolades for the sorriest trio of red-faced boys you ever saw, thirteen years old, fourteen at most, bawling at the top of their lungs and pleading to not tell their mums and dads or they’ll get the whippings of their lives. But you still don’t know where you’re going, do you?”
“I do not,” Jesco said.
“North to Vasano. The expert gave his opinion on the timepiece. He recognized the insignia as belonging to the late clockmaker Wotalden Seele. The initials were something different since Seele used different names for different lines of his creations. Richest of the rich want something only for themselves, not something lesser folk can buy. This was one of the cheaper lines. Still nice though, and worth a pretty penny. He didn’t make anything too common; his pieces were usually very special.”
“Did you meet the expert? How do you know all this?”
Tammie motioned to Scoth. “He told me on the way over. For a while it was like pulling teeth, but he’s like most quiet folk, if people like me just keep yammering about something stupid, eventually he won’t be able to stand it anymore and he’ll throw in something smart. That gets a conversation going. Did you hear that, Scoth? You didn’t know what you were messing with when it came to me. It was all by design.”
Incredibly, Scoth chuckled at the horse. Tammie grinned. “Take that as a lesson, Jesco. Pick something nice and stupid for your carriage ride. I’ll get you started on the way to the train station. Have you given your autohorse a name, Scoth?”
“Yes,” Scoth said, closing up the flap. “Horse.”
“Horse the Autohorse? It’s like you didn’t even try,” Tammie said as they loaded into the carriage. “Some people get all clever, call their horses Widget or Gears. You know what would be very clever of you since you like to name things what they are? Call it Otto. Sounds just like auto, and you’ve played it. That’s what I would name an autohorse if I had one.”
“Being a detective must pay very well for you to have an autohorse of your own,” Jesco said. He wouldn’t have made such a comment with only the two of them, but Tammie’s ease had embraced all three as the carriage rolled away from the asylum.
“It was an inheritance that paid for it,” Scoth said mildly.
“You had a great-aunt or great-uncle leave you a chest of gold?” Tammie asked, impressed. “My great-aunt Corstina tied herself in knots over which of the nieces and nephews should inherit her sixty-five piece teardrop flatware set that was really just sixty-four pieces because my father swiped a dinner knife while he was playing pirates with the lads and lost it. She held that over his head for forty years. But none of us wanted her flatware so all her worries were for nothing. It just gave her some excitement in her last years to think of the family fighting to the death over her dinged-up, rusty cutlery.”
“From my parents,” Scoth said. “They died within weeks of one another and I sold their properties.”
“That was a lot of properties or a couple of quite fine ones. Well, don’t keep Jesco in the dark. Tell him the update on the case just like you told me,” Tammie prompted. “He went to visit that rich and crazy lord.”
“Shooster Ennings?” Jesco asked.
“The very same,” Scoth replied. “He gave me a list of the jewelry that Jibb was told to take to the bank. Then I went to the bank and cross-checked-”
“How can you skip the best part?” Tammie exclaimed. “Jesco, that old coot has a mansion packed with junk from floor to rafters! All the windows are blocked and some of the doors as well, and there are only narrow passageways for a person to walk. Part of it collapsed behind them as they were going through it and the lord said off-handedly to never mind, he has a tunnel to get back that way. Millions of dollars, this man has, and there he is bending down to crawl through a freakish tunnel surrounded on all sides by the mess, and there’s Scoth crawling along behind him and afraid the whole thing is going to collapse and squash them both to death.”
Scoth raised his eyebrows to indicate that Tammie was telling the truth of it. “What constituted the mess?” Jesco asked.
“Everything under the sun and moon,” Tammie said. “Tell him!”
“Paintings, stacks of books, musical instruments, and whirly-gigs he means to repair,” Scoth said. “Tools, molding furniture, chewed heaps of suits and gowns, children’s toys, it was a graveyard of fineries and home to no small amount of mice and their droppings.”
“But Scoth assured me that he has had a bath since yesterday,” Tammie said, wrinkling he
r nose. “Sickening. And every room in that mansion is that same way, and the lord’s got a bunch of other mansions and I’m sure they’re in that condition as well. He pays Ragano & Wemill to shuffle it all around as takes his fancy. This month he might want the paintings all together in this house; next month the whirly-gigs in his place that has a workshop. But Hasten Jibb didn’t steal any of those jewels.”
“Lord Ennings gave him a small, decorated box containing three necklaces of pearl, ruby, and sapphire, two emerald rings, and an intricate wooden bracelet,” Scoth said. “I showed him the photograph of the timepiece and he did not recognize it as his.”
“But he asked to have it should no one ever claim it,” Tammie said, “to contribute to his collection.”
“At the bank, I was admitted to inspect the goods in his name,” Scoth said. “It was all there: the box, the necklaces and rings and bracelet. Jibb delivered it intact. The senior bank clerk who oversaw him said that he was in good spirits. They had a laugh about the delivery, the clerk joking that the lord was just going to send Jibb back in a few weeks to collect the jewelry and move it somewhere else.”
“It doesn’t sound like Lord Ennings has anything to do with this,” Jesco said.
“I never had the sense that he was hiding anything. He was sorrowful about Jibb, and agitated at the inconvenience it presents him in finding a new courier that he trusts. The relationship between the lord and Jibb was strictly professional and quite amiable; he had nothing to gain by killing someone who always did as the lord wished and without complaint.”
“He’s not all there in his head, not even by half, but he’s no murderer,” Tammie said. “And then Jibb had the Silver job in Melekei, and Scoth went to see that old woman, too. Jibb delivered her whirly-gigs in the afternoon and she was happy to see him. It’s been a couple of years since he’s come by her place since moving up to Golden Circle. She gave him a glass of lemonade and five dollars. Makes me think I’m in the wrong profession. Nobody tips me for a drawing.”
“Was Jibb still in good spirits by that time?” Jesco asked.
“He was,” Scoth said. “Mrs. Daphna Cussling said they had a drink and a chat about the whirly-gigs she’d purchased, and he helped her get down her box of tissue paper and ribbons so she could wrap them up as gifts. She called him the boy who never grew up. She didn’t know about his fever, but she could tell that he was immature. Yet it was a harmless immaturity, he was polite and responsible with his work, and she liked him very much. After their visit, he rode away on his bicycle. It was late afternoon. She showed no signs of deception and had no reason to harm him, nor is she physically capable of doing so herself. She is frail from age and has heart trouble.”
“Husband thinking that the courier was flirting with his wife?” Tammie guessed.
“Widowed,” Scoth said. “Her cook confirmed Jibb’s visit, and brought in the lemonades for them. All was well.”
Something had happened between that late afternoon in Melekei and the evening when Jibb arrived at home in Chussup. “Did Mrs. Cussling see which way he rode off?” Jesco asked.
“She didn’t, but the cook did as she went out to pick herbs from the garden for dinner. He turned left down the road, which was the normal route he would take to either get home or return to the office. Nothing was amiss at that point.”
“But something was soon after.”
“Mrs. Cussling lives at the farthest edge of Melekei. He would have passed through the whole of the city and a few miles of farm country before he pulled into Chussup. I tried to retrace the most likely route he would have taken. It leads through many streets of fine homes and shops, no dangerous territory, and there were plenty of couriers about on bicycle and horse. I stopped at the east gatehouse that he would have had to pass through to leave Melekei. The guards took no special notice of a man in a green jacket that day in their logbook. They tend to wave couriers on.”
“Then what is the point of having guards?” Tammie said.
“Melekei is a home for the financially comfortable. It isn’t couriers they want to watch for but beggars and troublemakers. Anyone who looks a little suspicious has his or her particulars noted, and passed on to the other gatehouses and the police force. They’ve had a real problem with people coming in to beg and steal. Hasten Jibb drew no attention to himself going in or out that day.”
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.