by Jon Evans
That age old hiding place found in all bedrooms, the bedding itself, was covered in blood and the viscera Dr Gardener hadn't been able to gather up when they took the body. Some of it was still moist, and the less drenched areas were already drying into rusty brown stains. Turning over the mattress didn't appeal, but he decided he'd have to do it to be thorough, and he couldn't ask Gurnt to help, she'd already had her turn getting messy today.
If he did it last, at least he'd be clean while he did the rest of the room. Fortunately, it didn't match the expensive but old frame. Loft guessed it was a cheap replacement in case the shopkeeper was here overnight, with any luck it was as thin and light as it looked.
Loft crouched down by the chest of drawers and got his head low to the floor, reaching out he carefully slid out the sword Gurnt had spotted. He saw nothing else other than dust and rat droppings under there. The only thing under the bed frame was yet more dust, which seemed unsurprising given that no-one lived here. He stood up and walked to the window to get a better look at the weapon, avoiding the sticky patches of blood on the floor as he did so.
There wasn't anything remarkable about it. He was no expert on swords, but this looked like a perfectly normal weapon you could find anywhere in The Shattered Empire. There weren't any regimental markings or ornamentations.
He glanced down at his Watch issue short sword, the insignia of the Order of the City Watch of Kalider was embossed on the pommel. Only officers and sergeants were even expected to wear a sword in most commands, though Loft had noted that most of his constables either carried a sword or a dagger so large as to be almost indistinguishable from one.
What Loft did find that interested him was that the blade was sharp, well oiled, rust free and well maintained. The leather of the grip had been replaced and showed signs of wear. There was also a smear of blood along the tip of the sword, so perhaps the murderer had been injured. Loft tried to visualise how the sword could have got under the dresser anyway.
He had only one scenario for that, the victim was disarmed, and the attacker kicked it behind him to put it out of reach. The dresser was to the left of the door as you came in, so it wasn't near the bed. He would hardly have thrown away his sword and if he'd dropped it after being stabbed it would be in the middle of the floor, probably covered in the victim's blood. If he was right, that meant they might find a cut on the murderer when they caught him, probably one that would require stitching.
He put the sword on top of the drawers and then went through them all, pulling them out, checking for false compartments or items secreted at the back, but he found nothing. Just spare clothing and a wooden hair brush. There were a plain mirror and a small washing bowl on top of the drawers but no secret message stuck to the back of the mirror or keys were hidden under the bowl.
Loft even checked the floorboards, hoping to find a compartment the merchant might use to hide his correspondence. Maybe even a diary containing entries about how the Councillor Mohran had threatened his life over a simple business transaction. No such luck though. The main downside of these failures was that it left only one hiding place, the mattress.
He gritted his teeth, took a deep breath and hauled it up to flip it off the bed toward the window, holding it by the least unpleasant parts he could find. It was without any sense of surprise that he discovered nothing at all. No diary, no letters, no locket from the councillor's wife. It was as if the victim didn't want his murderer caught, Loft thought to himself, chuckling briefly before he admonished himself for the inappropriate humour.
Moments later he heard Gurnt calling him. "Sir, you might want to see this. It could be relevant," she shouted up the stairs.
He took one last look at the room then picked up the sword and headed downstairs. Gurnt saw him coming and headed back toward the kitchen area. She was right; he did want to see what she'd found. The stairs he'd come down were parallel to the corridor leading from the front to the back of the house, you turned a corner at the bottom to go up and exited right onto the hallway at the top.
That meant they headed toward the kitchen, where Gurnt stood, pointing to the space behind the door. Loft entered the kitchen, turned to his right and Gurnt shut the door.
There was another open door behind it, and it led down toward what could only be a cellar. Loft was positive he hadn't seen it last time he'd been here.
"It was concealed, Sir. Expert job too, no lock to see, no handle. You have to push the panel, and it just pops open. I did think it was a bit strange that a house like this wouldn't have a cellar, they almost all do," Gurnt explained, demonstrating how the concealed door worked as she did so.
"Have you seen one like this before then?" Loft asked.
"No, at least, not in a house like this. I don't think this was here when they built it. It's a good job too," she said.
"Been down yet?" Loft asked.
"Not yet, Sir," Gurnt said as she unhooked two Watch lanterns from her belt and set them on the kitchen table to light them. "I spent most of my time searching the rest of the kitchen, but there's barely enough in here to cook a meal with, let alone anything interesting. I only started tapping at walls on a whim."
She passed one of the lanterns to Loft and stepped toward the doorway, but he blocked her.
"I'll go first, Sergeant," he said.
She shook her head, "Oh no, Sir. Wouldn't dream of it, this is not a job for an officer. That's what your constables and sergeants are for," she said as she pushed past him.
"Officer go first into a dark, secret cellar, owned by a villainous merchant. I can just imagine the bollocking now. 'And exactly why did you let your young, naive officer go first into a potentially dangerous situation, Sergeant? Were you hoping he'd get killed?'" Gurnt muttered with a laugh, apparently not concerned at all that said officer could hear her perfectly.
"'Oh, well, Sir.' says I, 'I didn't realise he was so young and naive that he wouldn't think to look for trip wires. If only I'd know he'd
spend hours and hours and hours screaming and crying as the doctor explained to him that a crossbow bolt to the guts is a painful way to die and he's all out of things to take the pain away.'" she continued.
It seemed a bit much to Loft, but inwardly he admitted he hadn't even thought about the possibility of booby traps.
"Fine, Sergeant, I get the point, no need to hammer it home. Just you be careful too because after that little snideness I will be equally unsympathetic should my venerable Sergeant with failing eyesight fall victim to a bear trap or some such," he said with as much sarcasm as he could muster.
"Watch who you're calling venerable there Captain. I'll have you know I'm a very clean girl, and I've never had to go to the doctor with a venerable disease," she responded as she carefully shone her lantern's tightly focused beam around the ceiling and staircase, looking for anything amiss. Loft was keeping his lantern on a wide angle to provide a general throw of light around them.
They managed to make it into the basement safely, and Gurnt even seemed put out by the lack of security measures, muttering to herself about people not making an effort to be interesting.
It seemed that the sergeant rarely enjoyed her life when it wasn't challenging in some way or other, thought Loft. For his part, he rather enjoyed it when something went easily for a change. There was more than enough work to do without welcoming additional difficulty.
There was a large lantern hanging from the centre of the ceiling, and Gurnt got it light, illuminating the sizeable brick cellar quite nicely. There were shelves against two walls and a stack of boxes against another. Loft had been expecting the crates and sacks of what would appear to be various spices, what he had not expected, was the series of workbenches against the far wall and the racks mounted above them.
The racks were positively festooned with weapons. There were five swords, half a dozen crossbows and any number of daggers. Loft and Gurnt walked over to the benches straight away, and the sergeant whistled softly.
"That is mu
ch more like it. Now I'm interested. Look at this stuff, not exactly what you'd expect from someone selling dried plants, is it?" Gurnt said, pointing at the tools on the bench. It was everything you'd need to maintain these weapons, repair them and replace grips or make new bowstrings.
"No it isn't and look at those," Loft replied, pointing at the swords, "They're all the same pattern as the one you found upstairs, which has blood on it by the way," Loft replied.
"You think the shopkeeper got a stick in then? Good for him, though I'm less inclined to be respectful of the deceased, now I've seen this," Gurnt said.
"It's not looking very legitimate, is it? There's a sharpening wheel that's well used and dozens of daggers and knives. Look at this; this bench has an apothecaries equipment on it, perhaps where he ground his spices?" Loft pondered, reaching out to touch a pestle and mortar. Gurnt's hand flashed out and clamped around his wrist, and he practically jumped out of his skin.
"I wouldn't, Sir. Bad spices," she said, pointing to a corner of the room where several dead rats lay.
"Look at this as well," she said as she let go of his hand and backed off from the table, "he's got these waxed gloves on the table. Have you ever seen a cook wear them? I've only seen apothecaries use 'em for the nastier stuff they have to deal with."
"You think he was making rat poison?" Loft asked.
"Well, probably, yeah. Stands to reason Perl would want to keep them out of his stock. If it were just the bench I'd think exactly that but there are all these weapons, and about the only thing I did find in the kitchen was a bunch of equipment for grinding up spices. Proper modern machines too to grind it into a fine powder, plus all the funnels and sieves and such you might imagine he'd need. The only reason to have this down here, instead of upstairs, is if it were dangerous, which probably explains the gloves," Gurnt said.
"Seems like a good explanation. So whatever Perl was making down here on that bench, was poisonous to rats and dangerous enough that you have to wear gloves while preparing it. I don't know enough about the art of the apothecary art to tell what he was doing just by looking at it, but my cynicism side tells me he was making poison to go with the weapons," Loft said.
Gurnt had started to look at the crates, "Yeah, I think he had a side business selling to some dodgy people who don't want to go to the local armourer for their stuff. The type of people who want to be discrete about their purchases. Apart from the bench though there's nothing that's strange down here. It's not as if swords or crossbows are illegal as such."
"True but I think you're right. Not everyone wants people to know they've bought one. If we found the local gangs visiting an armourer for crossbows, we could stop it, find them and confiscate them. Maybe. We've no hope of doing anything about a flow of weapons coming into the city that we don't know about though. He could have been doing this for years. Maybe he's sold dozens of bows and knives and hundreds of daggers," Loft said.
"I'll tell you one thing, Sir. He was smuggling them alright," Gurnt said.
Loft turned to look, and she reached into a sack in one of the crates and pulled out a long dagger, little black balls cascading off her hand she withdrew it.
"You don't need to hide a dagger in a sack of pepper like that if you want to trade legitimately," she said, "Those idiots at Southgate can't be trusted to inspect half the shipments that come in. I'd bet you any money this wasn't even made in Denetheria, and came in on a caravan all the way from the City States."
"It probably did, the baker said he had lots of contacts from his trading days," Loft said. "I'll tell you something, Sergeant. I'm far less inclined to believe that the Councillor murdered a man over missing spice than that the merchant is dead because of something to do with this."
"Yeah but maybe the Mohran was involved? He could have been waiting for a shipment of crossbows and felt he got cheated. Maybe the bribes he takes come from the gangs, he wouldn't be the first," Gurnt offered.
"We certainly need to ask; he could be up to his neck in this. Let's close this place up and then arrange to come back and get all this stuff out of here, I don't want to leave it here where any of the people he sold to could come and steal it," Loft said.
"Sounds like a plan, Sir. I don't much fancy seeing this lot on the streets, the more weapons, the more likely my lads and lasses will get hurt. I keep telling 'em, wound first and empathise later, but they will keep taking unnecessary risks," she said bitterly.
Loft wasn't quite sure what to say about that, the law wasn't very forgiving of criminals confronting the Watch, but he was definitely in favour of arresting people uninjured if possible. Then again he hadn't spent years pursuing the most hardened criminals Kalider had to offer through the dangerous back alleys of the Thieftakers Westgate patch. Perhaps the sergeant's cautious maxim was more reasonable than it sounded.
After they'd looked through a few more crates and sacks and inspected the shelves, they decided that not everything was hiding a weapon. Still, Loft thought, they would have to take it all and inspect it properly.
He'd have to check his books on confiscated goods and what the legal process was. He was fairly sure most of it would be turned over to the city's customs and excise team. The Regent was quite keen on proper taxation. It wasn't safe to leave here though.
A small bureau in one corner yielded another thin ledger. It looked similar to the one they'd found upstairs in the shop, only this was written in a language neither of them recognised though.
The columns of figures implied incoming and outgoing sales, but nothing suggested names of buyers or sellers. He suspected even if they could translate it, it wouldn't yield much useful information.
Loft decided to take both ledgers, some contracts and the few other scraps of paperwork they'd found back to the Thieftakers watch house, as well as the bloodied sword. The rest would have to wait until they got a cart back here and his whole team to load it.
They closed the cellar door behind them and made to leave the premises before Loft realised he'd forgotten to check the back door. It was locked, but they'd found the keys already, and once they'd located the right one, they went outside into the small courtyard.
There was a back gate which was locked, much newer than the wall and quite sturdy, you wouldn't break in easily through that, he thought. There were vicious looking spikes capping the high wall, so that didn't look too appealing to climb over either.
It was quite a large space and Loft had to remind himself again that this area had once been well to do, the buildings a reminder of a more affluent past. The garden probably looked splendid in its heyday, but now it was given over to rows of herbs.
The only strange thing they found was that against one, well-shaded wall a patch earth had recently been dug over. Whatever had been planted there, had been pulled up by the roots and burned on one end of the bed. A grey ash stain and a few stalks, brittle and charred, were all that remained.
"No idea, Sir. Before you ask. I don't know anything about herbology. Could be anything, it could be mint or cinnamon for all I know," Gurnt offered.
Loft nodded glumly. He hadn't the faintest idea either. Some of the remaining plants were familiar, thyme and a large lavender bush he could identify, but there wasn't enough left of the burned crop to recognise.
"I doubt it matters, whatever it was, it's gone now," Loft said.
Chapter Eight
"I demand an explanation for this outrageous treatment!" Councillor Mohran yelled at Loft as he entered the questioner's room Constable Knave had only just finished setting up. The irate politician sat in a heavy wooden chair, his back to the door.
While he gave him looked the Councillor over, Loft bit into the pasty he'd been having for lunch, eating the last few bites before licking his fingers clean. Gurnt was eating another apple, noisily and without any sense of decorum.
Mohran was turning his head from left to train, craning his neck to see who had entered. He couldn't turn further than that, as he was securely held to the heavy
chair with thick leather straps. Loft hadn't actually asked for Knave to restrain him, but it appeared he'd just used an old chair that had originally belonged in this room.
It hailed from a time when the Watch hadn't been so dainty about interrogating a prisoner and certainly hadn't been sporting enough to let them move out of the way of a beating.
Judging by the purple tinge to his face, it might be a good thing he was firmly strapped down; he looked just about ready to either explode or hurl himself across the table in front of him to strangle whichever officer had dared this effrontery.
He was about to open his mouth to berate Loft, but then he fell strangely silent. Sergeant Gurnt had come into his line of sight, and he visibly flinched, shrinking back into his chair. Loft had to suppress the urge to laugh, one day he would get the full story and maybe find out exactly why the Councillor was so utterly terrified of his sergeant. Not today though.
