by Chris Braak
“No,” he said. “You go. I’ll find my own way out.”
The Imperial Committee for Public Safety had come in force to the sharpsie shanty-town on the shores of the Stark. Despite the recent violence, the sharpsies appeared unprepared for the attack. The Committee came with a thousand gendarmes, their blue armbands prominent. They’d enlisted another half a hundred pressgangers, and had apparently bought enough greenglass goggles to outfit the entire army, enabling it to see clearly in the poorly-lit neighborhood even after night had fallen.
Panic spread through the community, as frightened youths sprinted down narrow alleyways and crawled into narrow bolt-holes, fleeing the gendarmerie with desperate terror. Though the Committee had caught the sharpsies unprepared, the omphaloskepsis were well-practiced at avoiding authorities. Within an hour, Mudside had been almost completely abandoned, with only a few, scant possessions left behind. Somehow, thousands of sharpsies managed to disappear into the city. The gendarmes brought great barrels of phlogiston, and set the ramshackle wooden homes on fire, in the hope of smoking out any remaining inhabitants.
Roughly a hundred fled the flames and ran into the waiting leg-irons of the Committee’s soldiers and pressgangers. Another hundred burned to death beneath their own homes, but their deaths were not noted. Mudside took approximately six hours to burn to the ground, leaving acres of black ash next to the Stark. The thousands of remaining sharpsies were nowhere to be found.
The Committee for Public Safety suspected that they’d fled into the Arcadium, and advised all citizens without urgent business there to avoid it. It did not suggest what the poor squalid citizens that actually lived there ought to do. The Committee for Public Safety assured all the moderately- and very-wealthy citizens that lived topside that the Sharpsie Threat would soon be contained, and that John Sharpish would no longer terrorize the streets of Trowth, murdering innocent families in their homes.
Twenty-Two: The Coachman’s Son
“The storm’s been clear for hours,” Valentine said that evening, as he peered through the crack between the shutters. From his vantage-point in Raithower House, he could not see the lurid, ruddy glare of Mudside burning. “Do you . . . do you want me to take you home?”
Skinner shook her head. The events of the previous night had upset her immensely, but after a few hours sleep, and without the psychestorm and its traumatic effects on her senses, she was itching to do something. “We should….I don’t know. We need to keep going. The longer we wait, the more steps Wyndham can take to cover his tracks.”
The two coroners were in the parlour-room office on the first floor. Valentine flopped into one of the overstuffed chairs. “I wish we knew where Beckett is.”
“We can’t wait for him. If he was as…,” she paused, as though the word was stuck in her throat. “If he was as sick as you said, it could be days before he’s ready for work again.” If ever. “So. What do we know?”
Groaning and rubbing his eyes, Valentine attempted to recount what they knew about Zindel’s murder. “Zindel is a geometer. He’s at home with his family…we’re assuming that he’s locked his front door, because everyone in North Ferry does.” He raised his head. “Should we be doing that? I mean, if the door was unlocked, then anyone could have gotten in and just done it. It could just be a random murder.”
“Right. In which case, we’ll never find who did it. Let’s assume, for the moment, that the open lock is something important, because it gives us somewhere to look.”
“Okay. So, someone came to the Zindel house, and unlocked the door. He murders them, then maybe gets some sharpsies to cover it up, or maybe he is a sharpsie and does it himself. So, why does Zindel let the sharpsie into his house? It must be because he’s dead, so someone must have hired the sharpsie. But then, why didn’t he just hire the sharpsie to kill Zindel in the first place? If he had access to the house? Maybe he did, but I still don’t understand why a sharpsie would come in and murder someone and then not bother robbing them…”
“All right.” Skinner’s voice was firm. “All right. Let’s skip that bit. Whatever happened in the house, we haven’t got enough information about it. Tell me about the coachman again. He came to Zindel’s house…”
“The coachman saw the cordon and left. Suspiciously. I followed him. After he went to Printer’s Close, someone shot him. That same someone was then killed by a…by a something that I’d rather not think about.”
Skinner leaned back in her chair and started tapping her fingernail on the plate across her eyes. “You know his name? The coachman’s?”
Valentine nodded. “James Crowell. Works for a private livery stable in New Bank. He lives right about where Red Lanes turns into River Village.”
“So, that’s easy. We talk to his boss, find out what jobs he took.”
Valentine shifted uncomfortably. “Ah. I tried that, actually. Right after I found it. The company usually lets cabs out for…hm. Trips to Fleshmarket, things like that. They pride themselves on being discreet.”
“We’ll demand their records…”
“They don’t keep any. I mean, they do. But cabs are all paid for in advance, and anonymously. Drivers are given an address, often not the home address of their passengers. Passengers are never identified by name and the drivers never keep a record of where they’ve gone.”
“So, his boss doesn’t know who hired him, or where he took the coach?”
“Correct.”
Skinner started tapping her eye-plate again, for several seconds. Valentine found it decided creepy, and was about to ask her to stop when she said, “Hnh. Well, I guess we’ll go to his house.”
“Do you think he left notes?”
Skinner shrugged, and got to her feet. “He might have. Right now, it’s the only thing we can check that we haven’t got conclusive answers about. Karine,” she called to the indige secretary, “have Harry get the coach ready.”
The trip to River Village gave the two coroners a much better view of what was happening in nearby Mudside. The shanty-town was burning fiercely: blue phlogiston flames turned to red and orange as they spread to the wooden homes. Men were shouting, dragging struggling, tooth-gnashing sharpsies out into the street, occasionally shackling them and throwing them into the backs of reinforced prison-wagons. More often, the gendarmes, who generally outnumbered their opponents at least five to one, were simply beating the sharpsies bloody, sometimes to death.
One such group dragged a young sharpsie man right into the path of the coach, ignoring Harry’s shouts as he demanded that they clear the street. The men screamed at the sharpsie as their cudgels rose and fell, blood splattering on their faces, days’ worth of fear and anger finding free expression in their violence.
Valentine climbed down from the coach. He fired a few shots into the air and the gendarmes, who rarely could afford comparable firearms, ran off. Valentine examined the body of their victim, but found that he was already dead.
“Leave him.” Skinner’s voice was cold. “We have work to do.”
After a moment’s thought, Valentine decided to at least move the sharpsie to the sidewalk, and attempted to arrange its limbs in a restful position, instead of the tangle of broken arms and legs that the gendarmes had left. Reluctantly, Valentine returned to the coach.
The two coroners found James Crowell’s house without difficulty. They were surprised, however, to discover that it was not empty. Skinner had opened the front door of the small, single-story dwelling. She leaned in close to the lock and there was a tinny, metallic rapping. After a few seconds something clicked and she turned the knob.
There was a young man in the house, sitting in an overstuffed chair next to the woodburning stove. He was thin and pale and lank-haired, and his eyes had the glazed-over look of a habitual fang user.
“Who the hell are you?” Valentine asked, as he entered.
The young man required a moment to regain his focus, but once he had his eyes were suddenly sharp. “This is my house. I t
hink it’s perhaps customary that you should introduce yourselves, first.”
“Coroners.” Valentine showed the brass double-eagle shield. “Also, this is James Crowell’s house.”
Eyeing the badge suspiciously, the young man replied. “We share…shared it. I’m Phillip Crowell. His son.”
“Oh. Ah. Yes.” Valentine put his badge away. “Sorry… well, sorry about that, we didn’t realize that there’d…I mean, that he’d had, or that…you know.”
“We’d like to talk to you about your father,” Skinner said calmly and, if not soothingly, at least dispassionately. Her cane, swiftly swinging back and forth, discovered a second chair, not quite so well-stuffed, which she sat in without invitation.
“You would? The coroners?” He shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “Please sit, by the way. No need to wait on my account.” Phillip fumbled with a small bottle that he’d had set on the floor, finally pouring a measure of amber-colored liquid into a tiny glass and then sipping from it. “My father was a coachman, not a scientist. I can’t see that you’d be interested in him at all.”
“You don’t think it’s possible,” Skinner asked, “that he might have been involved with some people in whom we might take an interest?”
Phillip shrugged. “My father didn’t talk about his work. He believed in being discreet.”
Valentine snorted, but said nothing, choosing instead to prowl around the room. It was dark, and small, with only a few pieces of mismatched furniture. There were no pictures, but there were many books, piled in corners, stacked up on bookcases, standing in place for one of the chair legs.
Skinner ignored the other coroner. “So, you’ve no idea at all why someone might want to kill him?”
Philip smiled cruelly over his little glass. “I have a number of ideas. A hundred ideas. I am full to the brim with ideas.” He downed the remainder of the amber liquid, and winced slightly. “That is not the same as knowing something.”
“You don’t seem very upset,” Valentine put in. “About your father being murdered, and all.”
Philip shrugged. “I’m not.” After a moment, he added, “My father and I . . . did not get along very well. I suspect he imagined more affection from me than really existed. I didn’t hate him, but I didn’t especially care for him.”
The two coroners were silent for a long time. “That is...shockingly cold, Mr. Crowell.” Valentine said. Philip only shrugged a second time.
“What was your father doing in Printer’s Close?” Skinner had begun to tap her eye-plate again.
Philip Crowell seemed suddenly uncomfortable. “He was. . .dropping something off. For me.”
“That was nice of him.” Valentine was practically sneering. “Suppose it was because of all that imagined affection.”
“My relationship with my father is none of your damn business,” Philip spat at the coroner. He seemed angry but petulant; mad enough to shout, but not mad enough to get to his feet.
“What was he dropping off?” Skinner interjected.
“Pages from my book,” Crowell said, offhandedly. “The Tower of Brass. It’s about a hallucination I had while on veneine. I find the visions are fantastically consistent. Of course, I had to rework them somewhat to make an interesting story out of it all…”
“Phillip Crowell…” Valentine pursed his lips. “Your name’s familiar…”
“I usually write under Philip Crowe. You might have read one of my earlier works. I’ve had stories published in a few of the papers, the Observer and the White Star and that. My most popular story was obviously ‘The Doom of Michael Lightman.’ It’s…”
“The Ice House,” Valentine interrupted. “You wrote The Ice House.”
Philip Crowell seemed suddenly, unaccountably shy about his work. “That…was also one of mine.”
“Heh. I read that one. It’s good.” Valentine turned to his partner. “You should read . . . er. I guess, I mean if you had someone read it to you…” he trailed off.
Skinner ignored him. “So. James Crowell had taken the first pages of your next book to the Close, and was murdered shortly afterwards. And you have no idea why, because he never talked about his work anyway, and it doesn’t especially bother you, because you never really liked him anyway. Is that right?”
“Yes,” the young man said. “That’s about it.”
“And you don’t think his murder had anything to do with the trip to Printer’s Close?”
Philip paused. “N-no. No. Why should it? He often went to the close for me. My lungs are weak, so travel is often….what are you suggesting?”
“I am suggesting nothing, Mr. Crowell.” Skinner smiled. “Excuse me. Mr. Crowe. I just find it a strange coincidence that your father’s assailants should have such certain knowledge of where to find him.”
“Are you suggesting that I had something to do with this?” Outrage filled Crowell’s voice, but something else, as well: the sharp bite of hysteria. Skinner said nothing, perhaps in the hopes that Crowell’s uncertainty might force him to reveal something pertinent. She was disappointed. After a moment, he appeared to compose himself, and once again began to glower over narrowed eyes and grin slyly. “You don’t know anything. You have no idea who killed my father, or why. You’re fishing.” He poured himself another drink and down it immediately. “I think, my dear Mr. and Mrs. Coroner, that if you’ve nothing else to ask, perhaps you ought to leave.”
Valentine stepped up behind Crowell’s chair, and loomed over the young man. “I think that we’ll decide when we ought to leave. How about that?”
“Valentine.” Skinner got to her feet. “It’s all right. We’re done here.”
The knocker and her companion left Philip Crowell to sit in his hovel and drink. They climbed back into the coach, and Skinner had them head back to Raithower.
“That was unproductive,” Valentine said. “And a little creepy. I mean, he’s a creepy writer. He writes creepy things. But I didn’t think that he’d be creepy.”
“It wasn’t completely unproductive,” Skinner mused. “He knows something. And it’s something to do with Printers’ Close.”
“How do you . . . oh. No. Are you serious? You can hear when someone’s lying?”
“Not always. But there are clues, if you know what to listen for. Changes in pitch, in rhythm. Unfortunately, it’s not enough for me to figure out what the truth is.”
“Oh.” Valentine was silent for a moment. “Hah. That . . . that was pretty funny, when he called us Mr. and Mrs. Coroner, right?”
“What about it?”
“Well, nothing. Just. What about that, right? Hahah.”
Skinner cocked her head to the side. “You are so strange.”
They rode without speaking for a while, the only sounds the creaking and rattling of the coach, and the distant shouts and screams from Mudside. Valentine often shifted his position in his seat, crossing and uncrossing his legs, leaning against the window, thrusting his chin into his hand. He wanted to do something, to get up and shout that the sharpsies weren’t responsible, that they were after the real criminal already. He wanted to catch someone, to chase someone, to find someone, to do something to forestall the ominous threat to his city that was building.
“Harry!” Valentine shouted abruptly, shifting in his seat and pounding on the ceiling of the coach. “Harry, stop here!”
“What is it?” Skinner asked as the carriage creaked to a halt.
“Bookshop,” he said, climbing out. “Wait here, I’ll be right back.”
Twenty-Three: Questions. Answers.
Valentine and Skinner returned to Raithower to find Beckett already there. There was something, Valentine thought, that was appropriate about that. Beckett had been gone for days, he’d been sick and out of his mind when Valentine had seen him last. And now he was back in Raithower, sitting in the parlour-office in his charcoal gray suit with his red scarf wrapped around his nose and mouth and glaring at Karine.
It was exactly what he did eve
ry day. Right down to the sullen cast of his eyebrows, the way he gingerly crossed his legs to avoid the pain in his knees. Beckett sat in the parlor in Raithower House as though nothing had happened.
“Where the hell have you been?” Beckett snapped.
Really, exactly the same as every other day. “Around,” Valentine replied. “Uhm…”
“Valentine found us a lead,” Skinner put in. “He followed a coachman away from Zindel’s house.” She went on to explain the coachman’s murder, and the murder of his assailant, the incident during the psychestorm, and the interview with Philip Crowe.
Beckett was silent for a long moment while he took this in. Valentine knew the old man, and he knew what was going through his head: Beckett was methodically going over each and every word that Skinner had said, tying every event to every other and working it over again and again, so that he could ask exactly the right question.
“And you think this is connected to Zindel’s murder?” He asked, finally.
Well, thought Valentine. They can’t all be winners. “Maybe.” He held up the parcel that he’d bought on the drive over. “This is Crowe’s last book. I read it before but…” A sheepish expression skittered across the man’s face. “I don’t really remember it. I’m going to go over it again, look for…you know…”
“Clues?” Beckett asked, eyebrow raised.
“I was going to say ‘anything of value,’ but I guess ‘clues’ works just as well.”
Beckett nodded curtly, and Valentine adjourned to the adjacent office to read. Beckett turned to Skinner. “Does the name ‘Lightman’ mean anything to you?”
“In what context? Is it a person?”
“I think so. Harris Lightman, maybe? Harcourt? I met a sharpsie in Mudside who claimed that someone with a name like that hired her to…to mutilate the Zindel bodies.”
“Is it Horace Lightman?” Karine piped up suddenly from where she’d been hovering in the room behind Beckett.
