“What’s that, another verse?” asked Marquis Sherrinford, who had been watching Lord Darcy’s inspection of the body.
Lord Darcy passed it to Marquis Sherrinford, who read it quickly and handed it to His Majesty.
Eight little wizards praying to heaven
One’s prayers were answered—and now there are seven.
“Damn!” said His Majesty. “Is there no way to stop this madman?”
“I sincerely hope so, Your, ah, my lord,” Lord Darcy said.
The King turned to Lord Darcy. “You have some prospect of finding this killer?”
“Yes, Your Majesty. I only hope that I can do so before he has a chance to write another of these little verses.”
Lord Peter walked over and nodded to Lord Darcy. “You have a mystery on your hands,” he said. “They weren’t lying.”
“Who?” the King asked.
“The guards, my lord,” Lord Peter said. “According to the guards at all three outer doors, nobody entered this room or left it for the last three hours. And, as Their Majesties and Marquis Sherrinford have the only keys to this back door, we have a real locked-room mystery on our hands.”
“Could this lock have been circumvented magically?” the King-cum-Duke asked.
“Your Sorcerer Laureate thinks not, my lord,” Marquis Sherrinford said.
“I will have Master Sean make sure, my lord,” Lord Darcy said. “It would have to have left signs, even if it could have been done.”
The King shook his head. “Do something, Lord Darcy,” he said emphatically. “This is not how I pictured my son’s coronation to be.” He turned to Marquis Sherrinford. “We are going up to Our apartment. Keep Us informed.”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” Marquis Sherrinford said, noting His Majesty’s switch to the first person plural—or regal—which showed that the Duke of Navarre was no longer present. “One second.” He went to the great doors and called, “Guard!”
“What’s this, my lord marquis?” the King asked. “You think We need an escort?”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” Marquis Sherrinford said firmly.
His Majesty glared at Marquis Sherrinford for a second, and then looked over at the corpse and relaxed. “Well,” he said, “you’re probably right. The Empire needs Us more than We need to prove—whatever We were trying to prove.”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” Marquis Sherrinford agreed. He called in a corporal of the guard and two privates, and instructed them to escort His Majesty to the door of his apartment.
The King went to the rear door and unlocked it, then paused while the guards preceded him into the hall. “Remember,” he said, turning back to the room, “keep Us informed. We are depending on you. Lord Peter, Lord Darcy, Our prayers go with you. Marquis Sherrinford, We shall see you first thing in the morning.”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” Marquis Sherrinford replied. The three of them knelt as their sovereign left the room.
Master Sean O Lochlainn and Sir Moses Benander came in together from the King’s Gallery and, looking curiously at the group by the throne, walked over to join it.
“What have we here?” Sir Moses said. An old man with intense dark eyes and a straggly white beard, Sir Moses Benander was the Royal Chirurgeon. A very positive man, who had no use for fools or foolishness, he was acknowledged to be the finest chirurgeon in the Empire. His evenings he spent at aristocratic dinner parties, enjoying the status of being the Royal Chirurgeon. His days he spent at a free private hospital he had founded in London to aid the poor.
“A dead man, Sir Moses,” Lord Darcy told him.
“Remember, young man, he isn’t dead until I say he’s dead,” Sir Moses said. He pushed Lord Darcy aside and stepped over to the throne. He stared down at Master Sorcerer Dandro Bittman.
“This man is dead,” Sir Moses said.
“Indeed he is, Sir Moses,” Master Sean said, coming up behind him. “And that’s something that neither you with your bone cutting nor I with my spells, nor the finest healer with the most sensitive hands in the kingdom, can do aught about.”
“That’s so, Master Sean,” Sir Moses said, staring down at the grotesque figure of a man pinned to the royal throne by a twelve-foot pike like a moth on a card. A very bloody moth. “And I can do even less than you. All I can do is verify that he is dead, which any fool could see. You can catch the bastard that did the deed.”
“’Tis Lord Darcy who does the catching,” Master Sean said. “I supply him with my findings, and he talks to the parish priest and the innkeeper and the woodchopper, and then he runs his finger along the side of his nose three times and says ‘arrest the seneschal,’ and later on he explains to me how he knew. And it’s all painfully obvious—after he explains it.”
“Let us hope that it is so this time, Master Sean,” Lord Darcy said. “But, as I’m faced with an impossible crime, I’m afraid I’m going to have to come up with an impossible solution.”
“Impossible?” Master Sean stared at the corpse. “The man was skewered with a pike. Nothing impossible about it. It took a strong hand—”
“And a little practice, I’d say,” Sir Moses interrupted. “A hand—arm, actually—that was only moderately strong could do it, but it would take practice to get the motion down.”
“It’s the question of ingress that turns this into an impossible crime,” Lord Darcy explained. “There are four entrances to this room. One of them, the rear entrance, has three keys, all attuned to the holders, who are the King, the Queen, and Marquis Sherrinford here. Unless Master Sean tells me that the lock has been tampered with, which I’m sure he won’t, then neither the killer nor the victim could have gotten in that way. The other three doors are under constant guard, and the guards swear that nobody has entered or left this room for the past four hours, since eight o’clock. And Lord Peter assures me they’re telling the truth.”
“But this man has been dead for less than an hour!” Sir Moses said.
“Lord Peter,” Marquis Sherrinford said suddenly, “ask me whether I brought anyone in here over the past four hours before I entered with His Majesty.”
“What’s that, Your Lordship?” Lord Peter said. “I don’t understand.”
“Ask me,” Marquis Sherrinford said, “so that I can say no.”
“Ah,” Lord Peter said. “Now I understand. My lord marquis, did you bring the victim, or anyone else aside from His Majesty, in here at any time over the past four hours?”
“No, Lord Peter, I did not,” Marquis Sherrinford said firmly.
Lord Peter looked at Lord Darcy. “His lordship is telling the truth,” he said. “Not that I doubted it for an instant, you understand.” He paused thoughtfully. “But how do you know I’m telling the truth?” he asked Lord Darcy.
“It would be stretching the bounds of probability to assume that these killings are a conspiracy between Your Lordship and my lord marquis,” Lord Darcy said. “Particularly these particular crimes, done in this particular manner.”
“You don’t think we’d commit so grotesque a crime?” Marquis Sherrinford asked.
“It’s not that,” Lord Darcy said. “Lord Peter, if you wanted to kill a man, how would you do it?”
“Well...” Lord Peter thought for a minute. “I’ve never wanted to kill a man,” he said. “I have killed a few men in the course of my, ah, profession, but never with advance planning. Always in defense of my own life. The Most Secret Service does not condone assassinations, you know.”
“But if you had to,” Lord Darcy persisted. “If you were convinced that, for the good of the Empire, one man had to be removed, how would you do it?”
“I don’t know,” Lord Peter said. “Something clean and quick, I expect. Most likely I’d take him out to the woods and we’d have a hunting accident.”
“That’s what I mean,” Lord Darcy said. “Even if your mind, or Marquis Sherrinford’s mind, ran to murder, they wouldn’t run to this type of murder. This is advertised, prominent, thrust at us like a great d
are—and totally insane.”
“We are greatly complimented, my lord,” Marquis Sherrinford said dryly. “You don’t think we’re gibbering madmen.”
“This killer may be mad,” Lord Darcy said, “but he most assuredly doesn’t gibber. He has now killed three men—perhaps more—and left behind taunting verses, but precious few clues to his identity.”
“Will you help me, Master Sean?” Sir Moses asked. “I’ll disimpale this poor chap and conduct the superficial examination of the body, and then turn it all over to you for the magical forensics.”
“My pleasure, Sir Moses,” Master Sean said.
The chirurgeon and the magician worked together, carefully working the pike loose from first the back of the throne and then the body. They lay the pike aside and gently moved the corpse to the tile floor. Lord Darcy went over to examine the pike while they worked on the body. Sir Moses undid the blue robe and looked the dead man over carefully, poking, probing, and muttering as he went. “No bruises or lacerations visible,” he said finally. “But several other puncture marks. Small ones, in several places around the chest and stomach area. I’d say the victim was prodded with that pike a bit before the final thrust. The external examination is completely consistent with the appearance—this poor man was killed by having a twelve-foot, steel-tipped spike rammed through his gut while he was sitting on the royal throne.”
“Thank you, Sir Moses,” Lord Darcy said, laying the bloody pike down on the floor. “Sorry to have gotten you out of bed at this hour, but this couldn’t wait, and I always like to have a chirurgeon look at the body as early as possible.”
“No problem, Lord Darcy,” Sir Moses said. “I was playing cards. Expect the game’s still going on, so I’d best get back to it. Unless you need me, Master Sean?”
“No, thank you, Sir Moses,” Master Sean said. “But I’d better get busy. The fresher the, ah, event, the better the results, you know.”
“We’ll leave you alone, Master Sean,” Lord Darcy said. “Let me know when you’re done.”
“Aye, my lord,” Master Sean agreed, pulling his symbol-decorated carpetbag over to the corpse and snapping open the lid. “I’ll be a while. Say half an hour.”
“Fine,” Lord Darcy agreed.
“Will you need me anymore?” Marquis Sherrinford asked.
“I think not, my lord,” Lord Darcy said. “Oh, before you go, there is one thing...”
“Yes?”
“I do need to go over the area around the back door, and since the key is attuned to you, I’ll need your help.”
“Of course, my lord,” Marquis Sherrinford said. “Shall we do that now?”
Marquis Sherrinford drew back the curtains and preceded Lord Darcy to the rear door. Taking a key ring from his belt pouch, he isolated the appropriate key and turned it in the lock. Lord Darcy heard the slight click as the bolt withdrew.
“It’s self-locking,” Marquis Sherrinford said, pulling the door open. “Part of the spell. There’s no way to leave it unlocked once it shuts.”
Lord Darcy had the Marquis open and close the door several times, in several different ways. He noted that even if released gently when almost closed, the door still finished closing, and locked itself with a soft click. “It’s an efficient spell,” he commented.
“Nothing but the best,” Marquis Sherrinford said. “What now, my lord?”
“Hold the door open for me, my lord marquis,” Lord Darcy requested. “I want to look around in the corridor.”
Lord Darcy went into the corridor and knelt down to examine the floor and walls on both sides with a small magnifying glass. For about ten minutes he worked his way around the corridor, occasionally pausing to pick up some small object, before straightening up and putting the magnifying glass back in his belt pouch.
“What did you find, my lord?” Marquis Sherrinford asked. He had been trying hard not to show his impatience at this investigative ritual.
Lord Darcy opened his hand and showed the Marquis the three items he had picked up. “Two scraps of fabric, one white and the other multicolored, even in this small sample, and a somewhat larger block of wood, wedge-shaped, about three inches long.”
“And what does that tell you?”
“It’s too early to know yet,” Lord Darcy said, “but the possibilities are there. I don’t hold out much hope for the fabric, you understand, but I fancy this scrap of wood can tell an interesting story. The only question is how to get it to talk.”
Marquis Sherrinford took the fragment of wood in his hand and examined it. “A hard wood,” he said, “a bit over three inches long, perhaps half an inch thick at one end, tapering to an edge at the other. A little over an inch wide. What sort of story do you expect to get from this?”
“A tale of murder, my lord marquis,” Lord Darcy said. He gave a half bow and, taking back the piece of wood, returned to the throne room.
“You will keep me informed,” Marquis Sherrinford said, “if you discover anything about this horrible crime—or about the threat to His Majesty.”
“I shall, my lord,” Lord Darcy assured him.
“Good. Then I will go to sleep. It’s almost one in the morning, and I must be at my desk by seven.”
Marquis Sherrinford departed and Lord Darcy occupied himself with a detailed search of the throne room, doing his best to ignore Master Sean and the clouds of green smoke he was raising with his forensic sorcery in front of the throne. Lord Peter remained behind so that he could watch these two experts at work, but he stayed out of the way, sitting at Marquis Sherrinford’s ornate desk, which fortunately was on the side of the throne away from Master Sean’s incantations.
After his circuit of the room, Lord Darcy approached Lord Peter and sat down next to him. “I think I’ve got all there is to get out of this room,” he said. “Now it only remains to hear what Master Sean has to say.”
“Have you found anything?” Lord Peter asked.
“Detail—only detail,” Lord Darcy replied. “But it will tie together. There’s no way to tell beforehand exactly how—but it will. There, for example”—he pointed to an ornamental group of medieval weapons on the far wall—“is where our murderer got the pike that let the life out of Master Dandro.”
“That would seem to imply that the killing was a spur-of-the-moment thing, wouldn’t it?” Lord Peter asked. “Surely if the murderer had intended to kill when he lured Master Dandro in here, he would have supplied his own weapon.”
“Your logic is faultless,” Lord Darcy replied. “But in this case there are three facts that mitigate against it being a sudden decision to kill. The first is the rhyme.”
“Oh, yes,” Lord Peter said. “I forgot about that.”
“The second is the ingenuity with which the killer got himself—and his victim—into the throne room. Surely that was not accomplished merely to chat.”
“And the third?” Lord Peter asked.
“If, after Master Sean is done with it, you will examine the edge of the iron head on the pike so lately removed from Master Dandro,” Lord Darcy said, “you will find that it has been sharpened. Carefully and methodically sharpened, both edge and point, with some sort of stone or file—which is not in here. If it was as dull to begin with as the remainder of the weapons, I don’t see it taking less than ten minutes to put that edge and point on it.”
“That,” said Lord Peter, “presents a very uncomfortable image. One would have to imagine Master Dandro sitting there waiting patiently while his assailant methodically sharpens the weapon with which he’s going to murder him.”
“It would take a certain measure of diabolical self-assurance, wouldn’t it?” Lord Darcy said. “Nonetheless that, or something like that, is what happened. Poor Master Dandro thought he was coming in here for an interview with His Majesty. I imagine he was asked to wait, that His Majesty would be along in a minute.”
“On the throne?” Lord Peter asked.
“No,” Lord Darcy said. “I can picture the scen
e. Master Dandro is waiting in front of the throne for His Majesty to show up. The killer is sharpening the edge of the pike head and talking to Master Dandro. Telling him how His Majesty is looking forward to this meeting. Master Dandro’s thoughts are wandering. Will he accept the royal appointment—or whatever he’s been told is going to happen. Something wonderful and exciting, no doubt. Then Master Dandro feels a pricking through his cloak. He turns around. There stands the killer, pike in hand, prodding at Master Dandro. ‘Sit down,’ the killer tells him. ‘On the throne?’ ‘Yes, on the throne.’ Terrified, Master Dandro backs up until his calves are touching the bottom of the throne. The killer prods. Master Dandro goes backward onto the throne. Screaming for mercy, possibly—the room, as you have assured me, is soundproof. And then—”
“Yes,” Lord Peter said, nodding at the horrifying image Lord Darcy had created. “And then indeed!”
“The man we are looking for is not nice,” Lord Darcy said. “He has a cruel and vengeful mind.”
“Vengeful?”
“Yes, I think so. He has been badly hurt, or thinks he has, by either sorcerers in general or these victims in particular.”
The smoke from Master Sean’s crucible and thurible had turned a deep blue and was getting thicker. “I think our forensic sorcerer is just about done,” Lord Darcy commented. “I have noticed, in these matters, that it is always darkest before the dawn.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“It wasn’t magic, my lord, that I’ll swear to you.” Master Sean closed his carpet bag, carefully fastening the elaborate double strap, and picked it up. “I’m all finished now, and I know scarcely more than when I began.”
“What do you know, Master Sean?” Lord Darcy asked, stalking over to where Master Sean was standing and joining him in staring down at the pitiful object that had so recently been a Master Sorcerer.
“I know that magic is not involved in this killing in any way. There is a miasma of evil about the act, but it is a secular evil, if you see what I mean. It is the evil of intent translated into physical action, not translated into psychical or magical action.”
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