Murder at the Kinnen Hotel

by Brian McClellan

  The arrest would complicate things. But what did the commissioner have on Adamat? He hadn’t done anything wrong. White had barely left his side in the last two days.

  “And what if they had just had their friend put a bullet through your skull from a thousand yards?” White asked. “Or sent him after your wife? These aren’t the kind of people who play by your rules.”

  “My wife,” Adamat said, “is visiting family out of the city for the next few months.” Adamat felt a bead of sweat roll down the center of his back. The former notion was not a pleasant one. It hadn’t even occurred to him. How daft could he be?

  “Well,” he said, licking his lips, “looks like they haven’t.”

  “Yet,” White responded.

  They were taken to the precinct building and immediately up to the second floor, where the commissioner had a spacious office that overlooked the public square. It was easily eight times the size of Captain Hewi’s office and decorated with foreign trophies, maps of the city, and done out with fine ironwood paneling.

  Commissioner Aleksandre sat at his desk. Adamat was surprised to find Captain Hewi standing just over the commissioner’s shoulder, hands clasped behind her back. She looked less than pleased. The constables escorted Adamat inside and immediately withdrew. White entered the room a moment later.

  “I’m assuming you have a good reason for interrupting our investigation,” White said. She matched Hewi’s attentive stance, looking for all the world like she was in charge of what happened within this room.

  Commissioner Aleksandre was not taken in by the performance. “We did, Attaché White,” he said. “We regret to inform you that you’ve been working with this man under false pretences.”

  White raised her eyebrows. Adamat took a step forward. “Excuse me?”

  “Is this,” Aleksandre said, his eyes moving slowly toward Adamat, “your pocketbook?” he asked.

  Adamat looked down to see a brown leather pocketbook resting beneath the commissioner’s thick fingers. SCDA was monogrammed in the upper corner. “It is,” he said. “It was pickpocketed from my jacket sometime yesterday afternoon.”

  “Did you report the theft?”

  “I hadn’t yet had the chance. I’m not certain this is relevant to our investigation?” Adamat’s mind raced, trying to keep up. Where was the commissioner going with this?

  Aleksandre lifted the pocketbook and spread it open with two fingers, holding it forward so that Adamat and White could see the contents. It was fat with what looked like several thousand krana worth of bank notes. Aleksandre plucked a folded piece of paper out from among the bank notes.

  “We took this off a pickpocket who was brought in by routine just this morning,” Aleksandre said. “We were surprised to find this much in cash, for a constable like yourself, but even more surprised by this.” He waved the paper in the air. “Do you mind telling me what it is?”

  Adamat approached the desk warily and took the paper with his manacled hands. His throat went dry. “It appears to be a cheque, made out from Ricard Tumblar to myself.”

  “Found in your wallet,” Aleksandre said. “Hewi admitted to me that you are friends with Ricard. She gave you his case as a favor, thinking you above petty bribery. Thinking it would give you the chance to see your friend cleared and that if he was guilty, you’d either do your duty or recuse yourself”

  Adamat felt his jaw drop. “Excuse me? I have not seen this before. And I’ve never so much as seen that much money, let alone carried it in my pocketbook.”

  “And yet it was there, along with the cheque,” Aleksandre said.

  Hewi spoke up. Her voice was low, full of disappointment. “Ricard Tumblar denies having written it. But it comes from his own cheque book, the one found in his hotel room. And we’ve already checked with the bank. The signature is his.”

  “Forged, likely,” Adamat snapped. “This is preposterous. The cheque book was in custody, here at the precinct building.”

  “Constable Jain says you were alone with Ricard Tumblar for several minutes yesterday morning at the crime scene. He says you sent him away.”

  “I did,” Adamat said, “to get information from the hotel staff.”

  “So you don’t deny it,” Aleksandre said. “And you don’t deny that you’re friends with the accused?”

  Adamat wanted to reach out and put his hands around the commissioner’s thick neck. He was getting close on this investigation, he could taste it. He was going to catch both this powder mage and the people who hired him, and they knew it. He looked at White, who’d remained silent through the entire exchange. She looked back at him, her eyes unreadable.

  “I’m sorry, Attaché White,” Aleksandre said. “But in light of this discovery, we’re going to terminate Special Detective Constable Adamat’s employment with the Adran police.”

  “You can’t,” Adamat said. He stepped forward, jerking at the wrist-irons. Everything was crumbling around him. His job, his reputation. If he didn’t wind up in prison he would be ruined.

  “I can,” Aleksandre said. “You aren’t under arrest. Not yet.” He rolled his eyes. “Captain Hewi has insisted we investigate further before throwing you in Sablethorn. But you’re not to leave the city until we have reached a conclusion. We’ll keep an eye on you.” He removed the banknotes from Adamat’s pocketbook, collecting them with the forged cheque, and tossed the pocketbook on the edge of the desk. “The constables outside will release your wrist-irons. You’re free to go.”

  Adamat took his empty pocketbook. “You believe this?” he asked Hewi.

  “The evidence, as you’ve so often said, is there.”

  He took a deep breath and turned to White. Surely she should see the absurdity of it all? The timing? How fortunate this was for Aleksandre and his silent allies? He’d expected someone to put a knife in his back. Nothing this insidious.

  He’d been a fool.

  White met his gaze. “Well,” she said, “It was good working with you, Adamat. Pity this turned out the way it did.”

  “I didn’t … “ Adamat started.

  White stepped past him to stand in front of Commissioner Aleksandre. “I’ll continue my investigation,” she said. “Without Adamat. My priority is still to find the powder mage.”

  “Of course, Attaché,” Aleksandre said. “Adamat,” he barked, “you’re dismissed!”

  Adamat left the office. Outside, his hat and cane were returned to him, the brim of the former badly bent, and his wrist-irons were removed. He felt as if in a daze, walking through the precinct building, the eyes of dozens of constables on him as he left. He reached the front door when a voice stopped him.

  “Well look at that, lads,” Lieutenant Dorry said. “If it isn’t the captain’s sweet little favorite. Where are you going, Adamat?”

  Adamat put his hand on the door. He could hear Dorry’s footsteps coming up quickly behind him. Dorry grabbed the door handle and pulled it shut, forcing Adamat to turn around and face him.

  Dorry bent over, leering in Adamat’s face. He was taller than Adamat and thicker at the shoulders. Adamat guessed the extent of his exercise tended toward striking unarmed witnesses and walking to and from a carriage.

  “Are you going to answer me, smart man? The Knacked with the memory? Did you remember that I told you you’d get yours.”

  “You never said such a thing,” Adamat said quietly. “You just told me the captain would hear about it.” He raised his voice so the rest of the constables in the recreation room would hear him. “That was right after I implied that you were a sloppy investigator.”

  Dorry glanced over his shoulders. “What is that, meant to hurt my feelings?”

  “I didn’t mention at the time,” Adamat said, “That you were also a bloody imbecile. That you wouldn’t be able to properly solve a murder if it happened right in front of your face. I may be disgraced, but you’re a failure and a fool. And this, all of this bluster, hides that you know exactly what I’m talking about.”


  Something in Dorry’s face—the reddening of his cheeks, the widening of his eyes—told Adamat that he’d struck Dorry right where it hurt the most. Dorry flexed his fingers and took quick, shallow breaths.

  “May I speak to you from one citizen to another?” Adamat asked. He felt numb inside. A little part of him, distant and still in control of his emotions, told him he was digging his own grave. He didn’t care.

  “I don’t know what the pit that means,” Dorry growled.

  “It’s an archaic phrase, but it’s still on the books. Rather silly if you ask me, but if you say it to a police officer in front of at least three neutral witnesses, and give him five seconds to say no, you can then punch him in the face without being arrested for striking an officer of the law.”

  Dorry squinted at him.

  Adamat balled up his fist and planted it between Dorry’s eyes. The lieutenant went down in a spray of blood and curses, crimson streaming from between his fingers as he clutched at his face.

  “Bloody pit!” he yelled in a nasally tone, “He just broke my nose!”

  Adamat rubbed his fist. The brief moment of satisfaction he felt left him almost immediately. There would be reprisal for this, regardless of any archaic law. He was just as big a fool as Dorry. Best to leave the scene immediately and go somewhere he could figure out how to put his life back together.

  He pushed open the door, vaguely conscious of the constables rushing to help Dorry. The lieutenant called out after him. “You’re not just a failure, Adamat! You’re a disgrace! Everyone’s always going to know it, from me down to that stupid cook Genetrie that you tried to convince me didn’t kill her master! You’re a bloody disgrace, and that’s something I’ll never be.”

  Adamat kept walking, trudging through the snow. He still had his spare pocketbook on him, but he had the feeling he should save his krana for when he needed to pay the fines that would no doubt be levied when they convicted him for bribery. He’d walk home instead of taking a cab tonight.

  He was three blocks from the precinct building when something clicked in his mind.

  The cook. Dorry had said her name. Genetrie. Adamat had read that name recently, and not just in the newspapers. He ran through his memories until he found it.

  By Kresimir, Dorry was right about the cook. She did murder her master. But not for the reason Dorry thought.

  Adamat set off at a run.

  Adamat caught up to White as she left by the front door of the precinct building about forty minutes later. He was out of breath and panting as he reached her, a large book from the Public Archives stuffed under his arm. She did not stop, forcing him to walk at a quick pace beside her.

  “I’ve nothing to say to you,” White said.

  “I wasn’t bribed,” Adamat said. “I swear this to you. And even if I was, would it matter to our investigation? I can still help you!”

  “I don’t need your help.”

  “Yes,” Adamat said, “you do. Otherwise you wouldn’t have come to me in the first place.”

  White’s brisk pace increased. “It’s not about being bribed. It’s that you have vested interest in steering my attention back to the murder at the Kinnen Hotel, something I’ve expressed to you in no uncertain terms I will not become involved with.”

  “But I don’t have vested interest, I wasn’t … “ Adamat stifled a shout. As White said, she didn’t care whether or not he had been bribed. Out of the corner of his eye he could see that they were growing near to White’s cab. He had the feeling that if he tried to get inside with her he would get himself gutted.

  “Look,” he said, “whether or not you believe Aleksandre’s accusations—which, I might add, are all too damn convenient coming after I visited his cousin—our search does have to do with the murder at the Kinnen Hotel. It began there, it will end there. There is something far bigger at work that includes Ricard Tumblar’s attempts at unionization. If we only catch the powder mage and do nothing about the root of the problem, Walis Kemptin and his family will continue to make a mockery of our laws, of the king, of the cabal!”

  White stopped walking and slowly turned toward Adamat. “You still have no first-hand evidence that connects the Kemptin family to any of this. Perhaps it aligns with their interests, but that does not prove anything.”

  Adamat said, “Listen to me for just another minute. Let me show you something intriguing and if it doesn’t catch your interest I will walk away immediately.” He hefted the book in his arms.

  “Where did you get that?”

  “I stole it from the Public Archives about twenty minutes ago.”

  White’s eyes were cold and calculating. She produced a pocket watch and sprang the lid with her thumb. “You have fifty-five seconds left.”

  Adamat opened the book, flipping through the pages as fast as he could. He found the right one and then drew a finger down it, searching for a name. “Genetrie Kemptin,” he said, “is the name of a cousin of the Kemptin family, four times removed from the main branch. Her name doesn’t appear in the official family tree, but it does show up in the Family Codex, which is right here in my hand. Her father was a disgrace, all but disowned by the main family.”

  He showed White the entry in the Family Codex, then closed the book and shifted it to one arm, removing several newspapers from his pocket. “If you’ll look here, on the very last page, in very small letters, it announces tomorrow’s execution of Genetrie Kemptin, a distant relative of the Kemptin family, for the murder of her master the Viscount Brezé.”

  “You have ten seconds,” White said.

  Adamat shifted to the second paper. “Four days ago, in the Adran Herald, which is not owned by any of the Kemptin family’s allies, the Viscount Brezé announced his intention to support Ricard Tumblar’s bid for the legalization of unions in the House of Nobles. That,” Adamat slapping the paper with the back of his hand, “cannot be a coincidence!”

  “Your time is up,” White said, closing her pocket watch with a click.

  “If the Kemptin family is willing to order one of their own cousins to murder a viscount in cold blood, they would be willing to hire a powder mage to frame a competing businessman. They will go to any lengths to protect their interests and that has to catch the interest of the royal cabal!” Adamat could hear the desperation in his own voice as he finished talking. White’s eyes remained cold, her demeanor unconvinced.

  Slowly, as if with great regret, she took the paper from his hands. Her eyes scanned the article announcing Viscount Brezé’s intentions.

  “Why,” she asked, “would a distant cousin of the Kemptin family commit a crime that sends her to the guillotine?”

  “Her execution isn’t until tomorrow,” Adamat said. “Let’s go ask her.”

  White handed the paper back to Adamat. “Return the codex to the Public Archives,” she said.

  “Of course.”

  “You have my attention, Adamat. Let us pray you keep it.”

  “I have nothing more to say to the police.”

  Genetrie Kemptin was a stout woman in her mid-twenties. She had a round face and thick, powerful arms, and she still wore the soiled uniform of a Brezé family servant. Her cell in Sablethorn was tiny, hardly bigger than an outdoor privy. Adamat and White had to stand in the hallway, talking to her through the cell bars.

  “I think you do,” Adamat said gently.

  Genetrie sat in the dirty straw on the floor, shoulder toward them, staring straight ahead at the wall. There were bruises on her faces and arms, likely from Lieutenant Dorry’s “interrogation.”

  “I do not.”

  “We can help you,” Adamat said.

  “If you please,” she said, “I will face my sentence with some dignity.”

  Adamat could see no hope in her eyes. No interest in talking or begging for a stay of execution. This, he realized, was a woman who already considered herself dead. He put his back to the wall of the prison hallway and sank down to sit in the filth on the floor. What
were his options? Was he going to open the cell and beat the woman until she confessed to, what? Brezé’s murder? She’d already done that.

  “It’s interesting,” he said, “that your execution was scheduled so swiftly. These things normally take months of sitting around in prison, even after the sentence has been passed. What has it been, three days since you bludgeoned the viscount to death?”

  “He was a vile man and got what he deserved.”

  “Perhaps he did,” Adamat said. “But even nobles often have to wait weeks to see a judge and weeks after that for their sentence to be handed out. You must have powerful friends indeed to receive such swift treatment.” He looked over at White, who stood against the opposite wall, watching Genetrie through the bars. She didn’t look to be in a patient mood.

  Genetrie stiffened. “I don’t have any friends. If I did, do you think I would be facing the guillotine tomorrow?”

  “Family, then.”

  “My family doesn’t care about me.”

  Adamat looked up at the prison ceiling. Black stone, cut in immense slabs, weighty and oppressive for anyone unlucky enough to be put in these lower cells. Genetrie’s swift execution was no doubt phrased as some sort of a gift, so that she wouldn’t have to rot in the cells, when in fact it was convenience for the Kemptin family to get her out of the way so much sooner.

  “I’m a policeman, you know,” Adamat said.

  “Yes, you told me that when you came in.”

  Adamat climbed to his feet. “I do have some powerful friends,” he lied. “Your situation intrigues me. I believe I can have your execution put off for at least six months.”

  There was a sound inside the cell as Genetrie scrambled to the bars. “No,” she said, pressing her face against them. “I cannot live like that. Please don’t do it.”

  “It’s for your own good,” Adamat said. “It’ll give you another chance at life and give you more opportunity to think about what else you have to tell us.”