“One more question,” I said.
Ansveld smiled, pleased to show how useful he could be.
“When did the cane appear?” I asked.
“I didn’t see the person who brought it,” said Ansveld Jr. “It wasn’t there the day my father went to see the Lani boy, I’d swear to it, and I closed the shop that night.”
“So someone brought it the following day?” I asked. “The day your father died.”
“Well, that’s the odd thing,” said Ansveld, his face contorted with the effort of remembering. “I’d swear it was already there. I opened the shop before I heard about my father’s death, and I remember seeing it there in the umbrella stand. But that would mean someone put it there overnight, or the previous evening after I had closed up. Whoever it was must have broken in.”
“And left his cane in an umbrella stand?” I said doubtfully. “That doesn’t sound right. Was there sign of forced entry?”
“None.”
“Was there anything else unusual when you opened the shop that morning?”
“Cigar ash,” said Ansveld, staring at nothing and clearly unnerved. “Over there beside that chair. I spoke to the maid about it, but she said my father had told her not to bother cleaning the shop that evening.”
“Was that unusual?”
“Yes.”
“And you did not mention this to the police?”
“I was told my father had died by his own hand. There was no reason to think … But, now…” His face, which had been clouded by doubt, became suddenly focused and intense. “You think he was killed by someone. That’s why you are here asking questions. You think he met with someone here the night before he died, someone who left his cane behind, and that that person typed a suicide note on that infernal machine of his, and then killed him. Murdered him.” He sat down abruptly, face slack as his mind put the pieces together.
“Yes,” I said. “I do. And that person has killed others as well. Billy Jennings was the most recent, but not the youngest. That was the boy called Berrit, who also met your father. There was an old Mahweni as well, though that never made the papers. And me,” I added. “He tried to kill me the night he got Billy, and I am certain that he is going to try again.”
CHAPTER
25
THE DUTY OFFICER TOLD me—somewhat skeptically—that I would find Sergeant Andrews near Szenga Square, where a pair of protests had broken out. One of the protests was largely white and in carnival mood, singing raucous patriotic songs, waving flags, and burning an effigy of the Grappoli king on a bonfire outside their empty embassy. The other was quieter, angrier, a swelling horde of black men and women who chanted antiwar and antigovernment slogans. Mnenga may have been with them, but I couldn’t see him, and as soon as Andrews caught sight of me, he shepherded me around the corner.
I thought of Kalla, wondering how she would weather whatever turmoil was coming to the city, and reminded myself that she would fare no worse for being at Pancaris.
Almost certainly better.
I cared about the child, but I could not care for her. For all the dourness of the orphanage, she was safe there, and I was free to do my job, my duty to my friends and the city. Without her, my mind was clearer, like gazing through clear glass into a blue, empty sky.
I watched the Mahweni demonstrators. You could almost taste their fury and frustration. It was like some great penned beast that had been starved and tormented for years, outrage and injustice heaped on it day after day, till it exploded with lethal, snapping fury. It had just been a matter of when. Mounted dragoons had been called in to Acacia Road, and they waited there, rank upon silent rank, steaming in the heat.
Andrews gave them a long look.
“Will they be sent in?” I asked.
“Let’s hope not,” he answered, avoiding my eyes.
* * *
MACINNES’S FACE FELL THE moment I walked in, and that was before he saw the uniformed policemen and realized who Andrews was. He tried for righteous indignation first, exclaiming on the barbarism of storming into a respectable place of business in ways that might tarnish his reputation, but Andrews blew through that as if it were steam from a kettle.
“I am Detective Sergeant Andrews of the Bar-Selehm police department,” he said. “And you are Elmsly Macinnes, shined-up lowlife.”
“I have always been most cooperative with our fine friends in law enforcement,” said Macinnes. “I see no reason for besmirching my good name.”
“Your good name,” said Andrews, “smells like what comes out the back end of a warthog.”
“I don’t have to stand here and listen to you casting aspersions on—”
“In fact,” said Andrews, “that’s exactly what you have to do. So. Mr. Macinnes, are you aware that trading in stolen luxorite is a crime punishable with a thousand-pound fine and three years in prison?”
“I did, actually,” said Macinnes at his most cherubic, “though I can’t image why you think that might pertain to me. You ought to be protecting the likes of me from looters.”
“Is that right?” said Andrews. His three uniformed officers had eased themselves around the store, and they projected an aura of regimented menace, like dogs ready to break the leash. One of them, truncheon already out, was watching the bullish security guard closely, and though the guard was both imposing and armed, he looked very unsure of his role. “Then perhaps,” Andrews continued, “you would like to explain why the Dowager Lady Hamilton told me not one hour ago that she purchased a luxorite pendant with some very shaky-looking documentation from this very establishment.”
Macinnes must have considered his options earlier. He was the kind of man who kept his ear close to the ground, and news of what happened at the opera house had surely reached him. He had been expecting us.
“I did indeed sell the good lady a piece of fine jewelry,” said Macinnes evenly, “but I am shocked to hear that you think the paperwork not entirely in order. I assure you that when I acquired the piece—”
“Who from?” Andrews cut in.
“What? Well, I’m not sure I can remember. It was so long ago—”
“No,” I interjected. “It wasn’t. The stone was new, but judging by what you have in this case, the setting wasn’t. You mounted it yourself, yes?”
“I’m sorry,” he said, stiffening. “I don’t believe I’ve seen your badge.”
“Miss Sutonga is a consultant,” said Andrews, daring him to argue. “She is assisting the police with their inquiries.”
“Sutonga?” he echoed. “You’re the one what did for young Billy Jennings!”
“Miss Sutonga has been cleared of those charges,” said Andrews.
“Did you get the stone from a Lani boy?” I pressed.
“A Lani boy?” he repeated, still hostile.
It was the first time since we had come in that he seemed off script. He looked surprised, confused even, as if he might have misheard.
“Did you get the luxorite from a Lani boy?” I pressed.
“No,” he said.
“Then who?” Andrews demanded.
“I have many associates—” Macinnes began, acting again.
“Three years in prison,” said Andrews, “and a thousand-pound fine. Both of which I can make go away if you are as cooperative as you say you are.”
The color drained from Macinnes’s cheeks. He opened his mouth to protest, but Andrews just stared him down. No one else in the shop made a sound.
“How do I know you’ll be as good as your word?” he ventured. “If I had, indeed, anything less than strictly legal to report, which I’m not saying I have.”
“You don’t,” said Andrews. “But I’ll tell you this. I don’t actually care about tracking stolen goods. This is a murder inquiry.”
Macinnes looked taken aback, but before he could say anything, a door into the rear of the shop opened and a woman came in.
It was Bessie.
She had been about to speak to Macinnes, bu
t hesitated when she took in the sight of the police. Then she noticed me.
Her face flushed, her eyes—already red rimmed from crying—shone, and she took two decisive steps toward me before anyone could stop her. She slapped me hard across the face, and though I turned fractionally, I did not try to evade the blow.
One of the officers seized her from behind before she could strike me again, and for a moment she struggled before sagging into their arms, face averted, sobbing.
Macinnes looked embarrassed, and Andrews merely turned his eyes down. Through my confused horror I felt an urge to go to her, to whisper my apologies, but this was not the time. It probably never would be.
“Perhaps we should step outside,” said Andrews, motioning Macinnes toward the door.
We moved into the street, and the terrible sound of Bessie’s furious grieving was lost to us. It felt like an evasion, and for what felt like a very long time I stared off down the road, seeing nothing.
“I got it from this black fella,” Macinnes said. “The dowager’s pendant. I’d never seen him before. Hand to god. He just came in and showed me what he had.”
“He wanted you to sell it for him?” asked Andrews.
“Kind of,” said Macinnes.
“What does that mean?”
“He wanted to know what it was worth, how much I could get for it, how much I thought I could sell if he brought more.”
“He said he had more?”
Macinnes nodded. “Showed me another piece about the same size and shape,” he said, “but said he could get more.”
“Did he say where he had gotten it from?”
“I asked, but he wouldn’t tell me. Said he would bring me more and we would talk then. Was supposed to be here three nights ago with more merchandise. I waited up, but he never showed. That’s all I know. Certainly nothing about no murder.”
“This black man,” Andrews said. “Young or old? Local or Unassimilated?”
“Old,” said Macinnes, relieved to be able to answer something definitively. “And not local. Tribal herder type, by the look of him. Didn’t speak Feldish too good either.”
“Name?” asked Andrews.
“Didn’t give one. Said he’d find me.”
“And he said nothing about where he had come from?” asked the detective.
“Nothing. And, to be honest, he seemed a bit, well, not entirely right in the head. Looked like he’d been out in the sun too long. Even his hands were burned up.”
“Wait,” I said, speaking for the first time since we had fled from Bessie’s awful sorrow. “His hands were burned when he came to see you?”
“On the insides, yes. Blistered and pink. None too steady on his feet either.”
“Did he visit any of your neighbors?” Andrews asked.
“He got thrown out of a couple places,” said Macinnes. “Saw it myself. Not all my competitors have my eye for a bargain.”
“Or your flexible ethics,” said Andrews.
Macinnes scowled but said nothing.
“Did he go in there?” I asked, nodding across the street.
“To Ansveld’s?” said Macinnes. “That he did.”
“And was thrown out?”
“Not so far as I saw,” said Macinnes, grinning now. “Was in there at least a half hour, then came out and wandered off down the street. I wouldn’t be surprised to find that the high-and-mighty Mr. Ansveld, who thought he was too good to walk on the same cobbles as the likes of yours truly, made a little purchase that day.”
* * *
“LET ME GO IN by myself,” I said to Andrews.
“This is a police matter, Miss Sutonga,” said the detective. “I’m letting you tag along. That’s all.”
“I was talking to him earlier,” I said. “We don’t want to alarm him.”
“‘We’?” said Andrews, lowering his voice and turning his shoulder so that the uniforms wouldn’t be able to see his face. “There is no ‘we.’ I represent the police. You—”
“Have helped.”
“That may be true,” said Andrews. “But you have also been, shall we say, an instigator. Trouble follows you like weancats after a wounded gazelle.”
“Just give me a minute alone with him,” I said. “If he doesn’t tell me what we need to know, you can question him.”
“And if he lies?”
“I’ll know,” I said.
“Really! And how does that work exactly?” said Andrews, his eyes starting to bulge.
“I’m a good judge of people. Of their moods,” I said.
“Are you getting anything right now?” said Andrews.
I gave him a wan smile.
“Fine,” he said. “One minute, then we come in.”
I turned, but he stopped me, and there was something different in his eyes that was almost compassionate. “Are you all right?” he asked. He was talking about Bessie.
“Fine,” I said.
“It wasn’t your fault, you know,” he said. “Billy Jennings, I mean.”
“I know,” I said, only half believing it. “Make sure she gets this, will you?” I said, handing him Billy’s two purses.
* * *
ANSVELD JR.’S EYES LIT up as I stepped in. “I see the police paid a visit to the honorable Mr. Macinnes,” he said, not bothering to contain his glee. “What has the little scamp been up to this time?”
“They are coming here next,” I said.
His smile stalled, as much at my manner as at my words. “Here? Why?”
“Macinnes had dealings with an elderly black man,” I said, “an Unassimilated herder who came offering undocumented luxorite for sale. Macinnes sold one of his pieces to Dowager Hamilton. But the man also came here and had another stone.”
“You already asked me about this, and I told you I didn’t know what you were talking about.”
“I know,” I said, “and I believe you. But it seems certain that the Mahweni herder did come here and spoke to your father.”
“My father would not have bought from him. An undocumented piece is a stolen piece. Simple as that.” He thought for a moment. “You think the boy got the piece from the herder?”
“Not directly,” I said, “but yes. When you first mentioned the boy, you said his fingers were burned. Is that right?”
He blinked, casting his mind back, then nodded. “A little, yes,” he said. “Why? Is that important?”
“I’m not sure,” I said honestly. “Luxorite can be broken up, right? Cut like diamonds?”
“Of course.”
“So one way to disguise stolen stones would be to recut them into new shapes?”
“Yes.”
“And does that process change the quality of the light that the stone produces?”
“It can,” said Ansveld Jr. “At the microscopic level, the stone is made up of crystals which are at their brightest when they are first cut. Over time, they dim. Nothing you do to the stone can reverse that process, but recutting the stone will rejuvenate it, though—of course—at the expense of its size.”
“Might it alter the color of the core light?” I asked. “From blue to green, say?”
Ansveld Jr. shook his head.
“Nothing can change the essential nature of the mineral,” he said.
I nodded, feeling disappointed, conscious of Andrews waiting outside. “And your father didn’t speak to you about his meeting with the old man?” I asked.
“I was away on business in Thremsburg until two days before he died,” said Ansveld. “We barely talked.”
“Who might he have spoken to?” I asked. “If he thought there was something strange going on involving the illegal trade of luxorite.”
“The police, I suppose.” He shrugged. “My father was not what you would call the talkative type.”
“And if it was a delicate matter? One that had larger implications for the industry?”
Ansveld was shaking his head, but then his features brightened. “He might talk to Archie,” he sa
id. “If it was a matter of trade interests or something. They have known each other for years.”
“Archie?”
“Sorry”—he grinned—“Archibald Mandel. Secretary for Trade and Industry. All very respectable. Used to be a colonel in the army. Technically, I believe he was still in charge of the Red Fort until a few months ago.”
I stared at him. Another tumbler of the lock turned over.
CHAPTER
26
I DID NOT TELL Andrews or Willinghouse about the link between Ansveld, Mandel, and the Glorious Third. I probably should have done, but I didn’t, because I didn’t know who I could trust. Mandel was a powerful man.
And I wanted to act.
I didn’t want instincts and possibilities, but facts. If there was a hard link between Mandel and the dead Mahweni herder, I planned to find it and hand it to Willinghouse, confident that it was watertight.
That night I did not go to the Drowning or to the temple grounds, though I guessed that Mnenga would be there, waiting for me. Instead I curled up in my blankets above the Martel Court clock, trying to keep my mind from turning over the questions in my head or from noticing the slightly sour odor of spilled milk.
* * *
THE NEXT MORNING, I bought spiced meat and vegetable pasties with Alawi juice for Sarah and me, and we sat in Ruetta Park, watching doves and gray ibis squabble over crumbs.
“Where can I find out about the Glorious Third?” I asked.
Sarah gave me a cautious look. “What do you want to know?” she asked.
“Personnel,” I said. “Current and recently discharged.”
“Some of that would make the papers,” said Sarah. “Officers, war heroes, men who go on to become politicians or public servants. But the list would be incomplete. You might be better in the regimental museum.”
I raised a quizzical eyebrow.
“There’s always a regimental museum,” she said. “Usually in a castle or training facility.”
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