Part 26 (2/2)
She sighed, seeing her own imperious face reflected in his eyes. Twenty years ago, she had been thought a great beauty. Boys like Forester had been so far beneath her notice that she had not even realized it was possible for them to have feelings. Times change, Abby Irene. ”I am a sorcerer, lad, not a cannibal. You did as well as could be expected.” She turned away.
”Ma'am?”
”Dismissed,” she confirmed. ”Go back to your dispatch for debriefing, Forester. You were right to call me in. This is a matter for the Crown.” She knew perfectly well that the summons had come from the city Guard, and not from the Mayor's Colonial Police, but it was polite to lie.
Sometimes-but only some times-Garrett could almost admit a sympathy for the Mayor and his push for home rule. Her true loyalties, however, lay with the Crown. And the Duke.
Except, she mused, bootheels clicking as she made her way back to her waiting carriage, the Crown was an ocean away on the other side of her self-imposed exile, and in these days of threatened hostilities with the French and Iroquois it seemed to prefer to forget the Colonies existed. And the Duke, loyal Patriot that he was, had problems of his own.
Still, it rankled: in London, she could have counted on a specialist sorcerer and at least one additional DCI for so gruesome a murder. In the entire reach of the Colonies, from the Atlantic to the Iroquois territories West of the Appalachians, Garrett's only colleagues were in Boston and Philadelphia. One doddered through the closing years of a white-bearded wizard's career; the other was a puling idiot who never would have achieved his Th.D. without judiciously applied nepotism.
Yes, unequivocally-and especially since the Iron Queen's death and her eldest son's succession-Garrett was on her own.
Her driver, huddled miserable on the box, touched his cap. The renewed patter of rain on the cobbles told her to hurry. Uniformed officers held the gathering crowd back while Garrett rooted in her blue velvet carpetbag, kept dry in the enclosed coach. Quickly, she found what she needed and returned.
It was nasty work, sketching a circle around the corpse, and the hem of her dress was black with sucking mud and daubed red as well by the time she closed it. Renewed murmurs ran through the onlookers. Garrett shook her head, not troubling herself to look up. They can't have only now figured out who I am.
But deliberate steps clipped along the bloodsoaked walk, and a silken voice close behind her said, ”Crown Investigator.”
Garrett pinched the bridge of her nose, thinking very hard about the silver flask of brandy in her carpetbag. She knotted the circle off so that it would hold during her distraction and turned to face the intruder.
”I see the officers recognized you, Viscount,” she said, briefly distracted by hazel eyes under a fall of brown-black hair. Princely cheekbones, a caballero's n.o.ble nose, and the sensual lip of a Rumanian aristocrat. Garrett bit down on a sigh.
”Please,” said the notorious amateur detective, extending his grey-gloved hand, voice melodious with the interwoven tones of his native language. ”So lovely a lady must by all means call me Sebastien. Besides, your English t.i.tles are so confusing.”
Garrett transferred her wand to her left hand and allowed him to bend over her right. Much as she despised the man, she had to admit to a certain agreeable s.h.i.+ver when his lips brushed her glove. Don Sebastien de Ulloa straightened and smiled, gesturing to the mangled remains of the boy with the tip of his walking stick. ”And so, my dear investigator-what have we here?”
Garrett pursed her lips in frustration, but kept her voice level. ”I'm not certain yet,” she said. ”I've just finished containing the scene. There are a few interesting anomalies ”
”That is candlewax.” Don Sebastien leaned forward, laying a hand on Garrett's arm to steady himself away from the circle.
”It appears to be,” she answered, s.h.i.+fting from the touch. ”Interesting, is it not? Other than the mud and blood, it is obvious that the doorstep and facade were immaculately kept; probably scrubbed daily, if their housekeeper is anything like my Mary. So the wax can be no older than a day.”
Don Sebastien was no sorcerer, and she largely ignored him while she dipped mingled salt and lampblack out of a little pouch and spread those around the circle, pretending she did not notice the cold water dripping down her collar. Don Sebastien seemed untroubled. ”What intrigues me, Crown Investigator, is the swiftness of the attack. Have you eliminated a human agency?”
She tucked the little pouch into her pocket. ”I've ruled out nothing,” she answered, feeling as if he tested her. ”But I must admit, I can see no way around suspicions of sorcery. Unless it was a beast.” She let her voice drop. ”In which case, we can expect further attacks.”
Don Sebastien pursed sensual lips. Rain spattered from the brim of his hat. ”May I call you Lady Abigail? It is so much less unwieldy than 'Crown Investigator.'”
”My name is 'Abigail Irene.' And I would prefer to be addressed by the t.i.tle appropriate to the situation. 'Garrett' will do if you are pressed for time, Don Sebastien.”
”I meant no disrespect. DCI, have you considered some of the more unpleasant possibilities?”
”Such as?”
”Were-thing. Wampyr. Summoned demon, improperly bound.”
”What would you consider the more pleasant possibilities, Don Sebastien? A deranged lunatic with the strength to peel a man's spine out of his back?”
”Ah. I take your point, Investigator. Although I admit, I am still exceedingly curious about the candlewax.”
Garrett chuckled. ”So am I, Don Sebastien. So am I. And curious as well, where the other residents have gotten off to. Shall we proceed?”
Once the coroner had moved the body, Don Sebastien wrapped the bra.s.s door-pull-which had already been examined-carefully in his handkerchief and tugged it open, stepping aside so that Garrett could precede him. ”Crown Investigator, may I join you?”
”Thank you, Don Sebastien. If you must, you may.” She shook her gore-daubed skirts and knocked the worst of the mire from her boots before she crossed the threshold; it didn't help. Wet cloth still clung to her knees when she crouched. ”Well.”
Don Sebastien reached up and pulled a taper from the sconce upon the wall, keeping the drip s.h.i.+eld at its base. He set it alight with a silver lighter, drawn from his coat pocket, and dropped to one knee facing Garrett, tilting the candle to give her light. Shadows scrolled about them. ”More candle-spatters,” she said. ”Beeswax, and a good quant.i.ty of it, too.”
”Do you maintain your good opinion of the housekeeper?”
She lifted her chin and glanced around, hair moving against the nape of her neck. Don Sebastien's eyes were on the scrollworked secretary beside the door. Garrett reached out and ran a kid-gloved fingertip along its edges. She examined the results in the glow of the taper, which was of good enough quality not to drip even when he angled it. ”Even the back is clean,” she said. ”And a family of some means, if they were spending so on candles. And that candle does not drip like this.” She drew out a penknife and flaked a few dribs of wax into a gla.s.sine envelope.
”Your reputation does not do you justice,” Don Sebastien said, and stood, offering Garrett his a.s.sistance. ”The intruder's light, do you think?”
”If there was an intruder.” His flesh was cool even through her glove. ”Don Sebastien, you were too long in the rain.”
”I am always cold,” he answered, and released her lightly once her balance was sure. ”The trail appears to lead this way. Shall we have a look upstairs, Crown Investigator?”
”By all means. Lead on, Lucifer.” Light-bearer.
He laughed and held the candle high. ”I have been called worse. You have noticed the angle of the drippings?”
”Of course,” she answered. ”They fell from the candle of someone leaving the house.”
”Indeed.” They entered the front room. He stood aside again, to allow her to precede him up the sweeping stair.
Very pretty. For a hobbyist. Does he think because a Crown Investigator is also a woman, she needs an expatriate Spaniard as her shadow to solve a murder? And then, since he was only looking at the back of her rain-wet head, she allowed herself a little, mocking smile. Perhaps he's just hoping to catch a glimpse of your ankles. ”There is more wax up the stair runner.”
”And on the banister.”
”And across the landing-interesting. The droplets crisscross the hall.” She bent again, gesturing for the light. Don Sebastien was beside her as silently as a cat in his patent-leather boots, dabs of mud marring their mirror s.h.i.+ne. ”The intruder spent a fair amount of time here.”
”Do you suppose he came in through an upstairs window? Two were open; strange on a stormy night.”
”Do you suppose he was a he?” Garrett answered mildly, moving to the closest of the bedrooms, from which a cold draft flowed. The door stood open; mud on the threshold told her the officers had been through it, and she wished she knew if the door had been closed or open when they arrived.
She paused in the frame of the doorway, letting her eyes take in the room. A young man's, by the schoolbooks and fencing gear, and the bed had been slept in-disconsolately, judging by the crumpled and thrown-back covers and the disarray of the pillows. Unlike the downstairs entryway, there was light enough in this room to see the spatters of wax on the floor, although there was no candle in the holder by the bed.
A chill lifted the hair on Garrett's neck. She moved to the window, aware of Don Sebastien behind her, although the wide wooden boards scarcely seemed to flex under his weight. ”Are you a swordsman, Don Sebastien?”
”A notorious one, in my youth,” he answered, giving it the slight inflection of a double entendre. Her lips twitched. She did not look, instead leaning down beside the windowframe and tilting her head to examine it against the slanted light. The floor beneath was damaged, the wood already swollen from rain falling inside. That rain had washed away any traces that might have been on the windowsill; Garrett stared until her eyes crossed and found nothing. Still her skin crawled.
”He is restless,” Garrett said, straightening and stepping away from the cas.e.m.e.nt. She whirled, noticing Don Sebastien's sudden stillness, as if he set himself for an attack. Garrett pulled her eyes from the Spaniard and paced quickly to the bed. ”He rises. He-”
”-kindles a light,” Sebastien interrupted. ”There is a burnt match in the candle holder, and the box in the nightstand cubbyhole.”
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