The Fall of the House of Cabal

by Jonathan L. Howard

  Leonie was making notes. ‘Off in what way?’

  ‘I could have sworn the crossbow shot before it was supposed to. Not by much—only a second or two—but that might have been enough.’ She shook her head. ‘I’m making something out of nothing. The timing was never quite predictable. You’d think a sand clock would be accurate to a second when it doesn’t have to run very long, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’ Leonie underlined something. ‘Yes, I would. Who’s responsible for the apparatus? The police mentioned an engineer?’

  ‘Engineer … yes, I suppose you could call him that. That’s Max’s son. I haven’t even seen him since this happened. The police seem to be keen on keeping everyone apart.’

  ‘That’s good practise, Miss la Morte. People’s memories are less reliable than you might think. If a couple of witnesses compare notes completely innocently before statements are taken, they can influence one another. Something one of them thought he saw becomes something they both definitely saw.’

  ‘Yes, I can imagine that.’ La Morte gestured at her costume. ‘A lot of a stage illusionist’s job is making people think they saw something that they didn’t.’

  Leonie wasn’t entirely listening. She had noticed Horst’s expression had become uncharacteristically serious. ‘Horst?’

  ‘Miss la Morte,’ he asked. ‘This son of Mr Maleficarus, what is his name?’

  ‘Rufus,’ she replied. ‘His name is Rufus Maleficarus.’

  * * *

  ‘He’s the killer,’ said Horst with certainty as they went to interview the son of the deceased. ‘As sure as night follows day, he’s the killer.’

  ‘This isn’t our world,’ Leonie reminded him. ‘He might be a wonderful and loving son here.’

  ‘No. Rufus Maleficarus is a stinker of the first water. His stink is strong enough to travel across the spheres. Every Rufus Maleficarus in every possible world is an utter stinker, too.’ He nodded with certainty. ‘You’ll see. I bet he’ll be wearing plus fours, the blackguard.’

  * * *

  He was not wearing plus fours, although that didn’t stop Horst from scowling at him. Leonie had never met him in the flesh, and Horst had only seen his corpse, and that a riffle away from this reality. But Horst had heard of the history of Rufus Maleficarus in forensic and unalloyed detail from his brother, and drawn from that the only possible conclusion: Rufus Maleficarus was a stinker. Further, he had seen the result of Maleficarian magic himself in a conflict that had claimed the lives of people he had liked, and who had deserved more than to be snuffed out by this, the most preposterous of magicians. Johannes had explained that Maleficarus was not entirely responsible, at least at a metaphysical level, for these specific deaths. Given that he was, however, also undeniably responsible for scores of deaths in a cack-handed scheme that almost resulted in the global extermination of humanity, that footling mitigation was very small beer indeed.

  This iteration of Rufus Maleficarus wore brown warehouse overalls and suede, soft-soled shoes, the better to travel unheard around the near-stage areas while a performance was in progress. He was red-haired and clean shaven, a man barely into his twenties. He was not nearly as ursine as the version Horst was more familiar with, but his frame was large, and it seemed likely he would grow thus in the next few years. He was also surly, which was unendearing.

  ‘I’ve already spoken to the police. I didn’t see anything, and I wasn’t anywhere near the stage when it happened. Why can’t I go?’

  ‘You don’t seem very heartbroken about your father’s death,’ said Horst. Leonie gave him a warning look, but he was at pains to ignore it. ‘In fact, you just seem irritated by it.’

  ‘We all die sometime. Magicians get killed doing their acts sometimes. It happens. Not often, but it happens. Bullet catches, water escapes, even a guillotine illusion once, I heard.’ He smiled, a twisted cynical line across his face. ‘Audience certainly got their money’s worth that night. My dad was very good, but he risked his life every time he sat on that throne. We all knew it. It’s the life.’ He cast his hand around the understage area where he apparently held domain. It seemed to have been at least partially converted into use as a workshop, judging from the workbench, the pots of paint, tools, spools of wire, board, and even welding gear propped up in the corner.

  ‘What do you think went wrong?’ asked Leonie, heading Horst off at the interrogatory pass.

  Rufus turned his mouth down in professional consideration, the sort of expression a plumber displays just before he says the dripping tap means a new boiler is required. ‘He was slowing down. It was obvious. Every year it took him longer to do the same old things. He shouldn’t have been using such risky prestige at his age. Lost his fire. He was all about going off to the Far East a few years ago, learn some new stuff from them. But that looked too much like work, so he didn’t bother. Just carried on with the same old card tricks and nonsense. He’d have been pulling rabbits out of hats at children’s parties in a few years, the way he was going on.’

  He took a long breath and blew it out. ‘This might be the best thing that ever happened to him. Magicians who get killed by their acts get a sort of immortality. The name of Maleficarus will live on, now.’

  Leonie looked up from her notebook. ‘You really don’t sound very fond of your father.’

  ‘Fond?’ Rufus scratched his nose. ‘Not really the kind of man you get fond of. If he’d done what he said he would, gone east, I’d have been proud of him, you know? Do something a bit different. A new direction. But no, that was too much bother.’

  ‘Where exactly were you when the incident occurred?’

  ‘Incident?’ He laughed without humour. ‘I was checking the props for after the interval, staging them to go into the wings.’

  ‘You were in the wings?’

  ‘No, not at that point. I was under the stage. I spend most of my waking hours under the bloody stage.’ He half laughed at his choice of words. ‘I’m used to hearing screams from the audience when the crossbow shoots. Then there’s laughter and applause. Not tonight, though. Not tonight.’

  * * *

  ‘I’ve changed my mind about Rufus Maleficarus,’ Horst said as they walked back to the stage. ‘He’s too obvious. I’ve read detective stories. I know how this works.’

  ‘This isn’t a detective story.’ Though she was loath to admit it, Leonie couldn’t help thinking Rufus was a little too overtly unlikable to be the villain of the piece.

  ‘But it is. This isn’t real life. You’re not really the world’s greatest detective or whatever you’re supposed to be, and I’m not the light relief.’ He pulled a face. ‘Except I am, aren’t I? Obsessed with bacon rolls and the fairer sex all of a sudden, to comic effect.’

  ‘I thought I was going to have to extract you from Miss la Morte’s cleavage with a crowbar.’

  ‘You exaggerate. I made a point of looking at her face once a minute or so. You must admit, though, she’s a very handsome creature.’

  ‘If you like that sort of thing, I suppose she is.’ She chased a half thought that had occurred to her during the questioning. ‘Doesn’t something strike you as a little off about her, though?’

  ‘Off? She seemed very sincere.’

  ‘That’s not what I mean. Maximillian’s act seems very staid in many respects; enough to disgust his son, certainly. Yet he has an assistant whose wardrobe seems to run strongly to black, crimson, and silver, who is stage-named for the goddess of wisdom and prudent warfare in addition to death, and whose role on that stage is to play the villainess as much as anything. None of that strikes you as odd?’

  Horst shrugged. ‘You see all sorts of acts, all sorts of themes in the theatre.’

  ‘What I mean is how it seems to be two halves of different acts glued together. She simply isn’t the sort of assistant I would expect for somebody whose performance is so very much of the old school of gentleman illusionists. She belongs to a more current generation.’

  * * *r />
  They arrived at the stage to find Lament overseeing the work of the police photographer. Overseeing, in this case, comprised mainly of standing to one side and smoking a pipe.

  ‘Done your detectin’, then, Miss Barrow?’ he said with what Leonie recognised with a small tickle of pleasure was a fond irony. She had only just met Lament, but in this world their acquaintance was apparently well formed, and mutually respectful.

  ‘Not nearly, Inspector. The incident has interesting aspects.’

  Lament’s face, already as dour as a bloodhound receiving bad news, fell further. ‘Oh, Lord. It doesn’t, does it? I thought we could just chalk this up to a terrible accident and go home.’

  ‘That might yet be the true state of affairs. I’m just curious about some details.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Well, to whom Miss la Morte is betrothed. That would be a beginning.’

  Horst almost jumped. ‘What? What makes you—’

  Leonie touched her bare ring finger. ‘She clearly and habitually wears a ring; the mark on her finger is obvious. Equally obviously, she doesn’t wear it for performances. It makes her more interesting and therefore more distracting for male members of the audience if she appears unattached, and a ring is all too apparent when caught in the limelight. I glanced over her dressing table and saw it there, an engagement rather than a wedding ring. I didn’t feel it was the right time to enquire directly of her, so I left it until now. Who is her fiancé, Inspector?’

  Lament didn’t even need to resort to his notebook, but simply nodded at the throne. ‘The deceased.’

  Leonie cocked her head. ‘Really?’

  ‘You seem surprised.’

  ‘A little. Presumably becoming his assistant is how they met in the first place?’

  ‘I would think so, miss.’

  She bit her lip and looked up into the shadows above the stage beyond the grid. ‘One would think so. Indeed one would.’ She slapped Horst in the chest with the back of her hand. ‘Come on, faithful sidekick. I need to ask more questions of Miss la Morte.’

  Horst’s shoulders sagged at the suggestion. ‘Do you need me to come along? Her changing room’s not that close to the stage.’

  She looked him in the eye as she moved a step to present her back to Lament and, when she was sure she had his undivided attention, said, ‘Cleavage’ in an undertone.

  ‘Lead on, my captain. I shall follow you to the ends of the earth,’ he said, suddenly motivated.

  * * *

  He was to be a little disappointed, however, as—by the time they returned—Miss la Morte had changed out of her stage clothes and was wearing an altogether soberer ensemble suitable for returning to her digs.

  ‘Engaged? Why, yes. To Max. But how is that relevant?’

  Leonie Barrow was candid. ‘I have no idea. I am simply trying to form a full image of everybody and how they relate to one another. How did you meet Max Maleficarus?’

  ‘Rufus introduced us. His father was encouraging Rufus to spread his wings, to go out and put his own act together. Rufus is a very capable magician himself, you know.’

  ‘That was my understanding,’ said Leonie, with a modicum of irony. ‘What happened to those plans?’

  La Morte looked uncomfortable. ‘Max did. I did. We … we just got on very well, and all of a sudden Rufus’s act didn’t seem so pressing. Max needed a new assistant, and … it just seemed the obvious thing to do.’

  ‘And how did Rufus take this?’

  ‘He was confused about what was happening at first. Then he was angry. My God, he was angry. But he took a little time off, cooled down, and came back. He said perhaps it was as well he didn’t go solo just yet. He wanted to work on his act a little more first, in any case.’

  ‘I see. Purely as a matter of curiosity, what sort of act was Rufus working towards? Something a little more dramatic than his father?’

  ‘Dramatic?’ La Morte laughed uncertainly. ‘Max’s act was dramatic enough. You should have seen him when the time was almost up and he struggled madly on the throne just to gee the audience up. Always made it out. Always.’ She looked bleakly into nowhere.

  ‘Of course. I meant in tone. Something a little darker, perhaps?’

  Miss la Morte smiled awkwardly. ‘Oh. I see. This is to do with my stage name?’

  Leonie shrugged and smiled. Horst noticed it wasn’t the warmest of smiles. There was something of frozen mercury and razor blades about it.

  ‘Roofy … Rufus thinks that stage magic has to keep moving on if it isn’t to stagnate. People want sensation. Why not give it to them?’

  ‘What was Max’s view of that?’

  ‘That change is inevitable, but that reaching for it too soon looks desperate, not challenging. The audience can smell desperation. He thought that Rufus was onto something, but its time had not quite come yet.’ She looked from Leonie to Horst and back, her need to emphasise her sincerity palpable. ‘Max was entirely supportive of Rufus. Always has been. He loved his son.’

  * * *

  They found a quiet corner in which to compare notes. Horst’s were mainly pictures of goats. ‘They’re the only animal I can draw,’ he said. ‘But, really, there’s little to detect here, isn’t there? We still don’t have the faintest hint that this isn’t what it looks like—a terrible accident. I agree the ménage between father, son, and beautiful assistant is a tad … unusual, but that doesn’t mean the old man simply didn’t have some wretched luck.’

  ‘There are five possible explanations for what happened on the stage tonight,’ said Leonie Barrow. ‘Firstly, it is just as you say. Max Maleficarus simply didn’t manage to undo the padlock in time for whatever reason. His concentration was off, he fumbled the lock pick, the apparatus malfunctioned and shot too soon, or a dozen other possibilities.

  ‘Secondly, that it was suicide. That he deliberately sat there and waited for the sand to tip the balance.

  ‘Thirdly, that Miss la Morte engineered his death.

  ‘Fourthly, that Rufus did. I’m considering that they were in cahoots as part and parcel of those possibilities.’

  ‘Cahoots,’ said Horst for no other reason than the word felt nice in his mouth.

  ‘And finally, that Max Maleficarus was done to death by person or persons unknown to us at present.’

  ‘That sounds thorough. Which do you favour?’

  ‘I don’t know. If we’re not sure of motive, or even if there ever was a motive, it’s hard to bring anything to the perpetrator’s door. Method, perhaps. If it was murder and a method is detectable, then that might give us an idea as to the killer’s identity.’

  ‘You’re frightfully good at this,’ said Horst. ‘You sound just like a real detective.’

  ‘While we’re here, I am a real detective. Try to remember that, Horst.’

  ‘And I’m the slightly dim sidekick. I know, I know. I didn’t mean it as an insult. More, you know … a compliment. You are good at this, Leonie.’

  ‘If I find out what happened on that stage tonight, then I’ll agree. Until then, this is all playacting. Come on, let’s do what I should have done right at the beginning and study the crime scene properly. Sherlock Holmes would be furious with me. I cannot theorise without data, and I’m a fool to try.’

  * * *

  The photographer had finished his work, and the police were on the point of removing the body by the time Leonie and Horst returned.

  ‘Might I crave your indulgence for just a few minutes, Inspector?’ Leonie applied the hapless expression and joined hands suggestive yet not precisely analogous to an attitude of prayer, a combination that worked well on older men in her experience. Her father, any rate. As a ploy it seemed to have definite puissance, for paternal relays almost audibly clicked home in Inspector Lament’s head, and he nodded indulgently.

  ‘Ten minutes and no more, Miss Barrow. We’re all keen to wrap this one up for the evening.’

  Leonie thanked him and went straight to business.
She examined the body, the quarrel still thrust through the dead man’s heart, the chains and padlock, the lock pick grasped in the cold fingers. Then she briefly looked over the paper screen pierced by the bolt and the marks on its reverse side that showed it had been repaired after the previous few times it had been penetrated.

  Lament consulted his notebook. ‘They replace it after about eight performances on average.’

  ‘Eight? Why eight?’

  ‘That’s a week’s worth. One evening performance a day, matinees on Wednesday and Saturday. No performances on a Sunday, obviously.’

  ‘Eight a week.’ She checked her pocket diary and found that it was full of notes she had no memory of making; entries made by the historical version of her that this playhouse of a reality had made for the real her, referring to other people, places, cases. It seemed she was quite busy and quite successful. It made her feel both a fraud and anxious not to let herself down, in several manners of speaking. She swiftly counted the repaired tears and counted seven. This tallied with her diary; it was Saturday evening. Somewhere in that fake city, fake newspapermen were writing up a fake story for fake people to read in the morning.

  Faithfully followed by Horst, who was developing craning curiously to one side and rising on the balls of his feet to a minor art form, Miss Barrow next went to inspect the actual engine of death.