Jackaby (6 page)

“It is a kindness that you and I cannot hear the banshee’s wail,” he continued. “It is not meant for us. Henderson hears it because it is his lament, and his alone. Our victim in room 301 heard it also, I’d wager, before his untimely demise. Mrs. Morrigan has scarcely been given a moment’s rest from her dutiful dirges.”

We were rounding the last flight of stairs, and the brightness of the lobby spilled into the stairwell.

“Should we do something for him?” asked Charlie, suddenly. “If a murderer is coming for Mr. Henderson, we can’t in good conscience just wait and let him be taken! Could we move him—hide him? Post guards around his room?”

Jackaby stepped into the lobby. By now the sun was high in the late-morning sky. Clouds blanketed a snow-dusted world, and the soft whiteness of it was blinding. “If it eases your conscience to try, then go right ahead. It will make little difference, though. If he hears the banshee’s cry, then Mr. Henderson’s fate is sealed.”

J
ackaby wrapped his scarf up to his chin and pushed open the front door of the Emerald Arch Apartments. Charlie stepped up quickly to hold open the door as I followed him. The crowd of curious onlookers had grown, and the police had acquired a few sawhorses and roped off an official barrier line. At the end of the sidewalk, Chief Inspector Marlowe had come outside and was speaking to a pretty young woman with blond ringlets and tears streaming down her cheeks. She blew her nose into a handkerchief and sobbed. I had been doing so well, keeping the fear and pity and horror stuffed down in my gut, but the woman’s unmasked emotions churned them up and left me uncomfortable and queasy. I willed the feeling to pass. Marlowe was making no effort to comfort her, but listened as he flipped through the pages of a small leather notebook, occasionally nodding and scribbling additions. The chief inspector did not seem like the sort of man who could ever be overwhelmed by empathy. He would fit right in to the crime adventures in my magazines. He held the little pad like a shield, stoically barricading himself from the human tragedy. I wondered why Jackaby didn’t carry a little notebook. It struck me that a detective should have a little notebook.

Charlie Cane was more interested in a shiny black carriage coming down the cobbled street. It had stalled as the driver shooed pedestrians out of the way. New Fiddleham was a growing city, and streets originally designed for the quaint, rural township it must once have been now found themselves easily congested with the traffic of everyday urban life. Gossip and chatter drew a bulky crowd as well, and despite the heavy police presence, onlookers spilled into the streets to watch the drama unfold.

“I appreciate all of your help, sir, but now I really must insist that you go,” said Charlie, gesturing at the carriage. “That’s Commissioner Swift’s personal carriage. If he’s actually coming out to a crime scene, you can bet Inspector Marlowe will be even less . . . cheerful.”

Jackaby scowled. “Curious. The commissioner has taken quite an interest. Surely Marlowe has handled homicides unsupervised before.”

“Not so curious,” answered Charlie, looking more uncomfortable about our continued presence as the carriage pulled nearer. “The mayor appointed Commissioner Swift a few months ago. First thing he did was push up quotas and double street patrols. He’s trying to get into politics, very concerned about numbers and public image. The rumor is that Arthur Bragg was helping get him some publicity in the
Chronicle.
You can see why he’d be a little upset.”

“You say the victim worked for the newspaper?”

“That’s right. He was a reporter, mostly political stuff and local news. Really, sir, you need to get going now!”

Jackaby glanced down the sidewalk as the carriage pulled up to Marlowe. The inspector broke off his conversation with the weepy blonde and stepped toward it, standing at attention by the door. The girl looked lost and unsteady until another officer came to escort her away. I realized I had seen her face before. She was the girl from the photograph upstairs. The swell of emotions returned, and I fought back a lump in my throat.

“Right. Thank you, Detective. You’ve been a great help,” Jackaby was saying. He nodded to the junior detective and hastened to the corner of the building. I waved a quick good-bye to Charlie, and his parting smile sent another surprising rush of warmth up to my cheeks.

I turned and hurried after Jackaby, rounding the corner almost on top of him. He had planted his back to the brickwork and was surveying the scene intently. “What are you doing?” I asked, glancing about and pulling myself into the shadows with him. The alleyway was wide, running between the Emerald Arch and a short brick building that smelled of fish. There were cans of refuse and old crates heaped along the wall opposite us, but nothing large enough to offer concealment, should we find ourselves in need of it. A slim balcony protruded from each floor directly above us.

“Well, Miss Rook, it’s time for you to go,” Jackaby said simply, glancing about the alley without bothering to look me in the eye.

I faltered. “So, it’s a
‘no’
on the job, then?”

“What? No, where did you get that idea?” He crossed to the pile of old boxes and picked one out with a sturdy wooden frame and a big, red fish emblem painted across the side. He set the box down beneath the balcony and picked up two more. He stacked these in a simple pyramid, then looked up. “If you’re still in for it after this morning’s business, then the job is yours . . . at least provisionally. We can call it a trial period.”

After the small disappointment, the excitement of what he was saying began to percolate. “Oh, I’m in for it, Mr. Jackaby,” I said. And then, after a pause, “What, exactly, am I in for?”

“Excellent, asking the right questions already.” He stacked three or four more crates in unsteady tiers as he spoke. “You’ll come with me on some cases, like today, and spot little details that might be helpful. I will dictate findings for you to type up and compile into proper case files, and when I’m connecting the pieces, you will be my sounding board. I think better aloud, and I prefer not to talk to myself too much. Gives me headaches. Otherwise, you’ll just run small errands for me, write up bills and receipts, manage the accounts, that sort of thing. Any further questions?”

“Why did you change your mind?” It just slipped out.

“Change my mind about what?”

“You said I wasn’t the girl for the job, at first. What made you change your mind?”

Jackaby stopped arranging old boxes and looked me in the eye before answering. “Marlowe is a good man and a competent detective, but he notices what anyone would notice: the extraordinary. He spots bloodstains and mad men in red pajamas. I see the things more extraordinary still, the things no one else sees. But you—you notice mailboxes and wastebaskets and . . . and people. One who can see the ordinary is extraordinary indeed, Abigail Rook. Any other questions?”

I had just one more. “Why don’t you have a little notebook?” I asked.

“What? A notebook?”

“Yes, for jotting down clues and leads and things. Terribly handy for a detective, I should think. Marlowe’s got one. It has a leather cover and flips up top-wise. I wouldn’t mind a notebook like that, myself. We should each have one. We’d look more like proper detectives, then.”

“Firstly,” Jackaby said with a sigh, “a ‘proper detective’ is about the last thing a
good
detective wants to look like, most of the time. Secondly, it isn’t a bad idea on the whole, but I’ve used notebooks and I found them entirely useless. I’d give them to my assistants to type up, and none of them could ever decipher my handwriting. One of them rather rudely suggested it looked like the scribblings of a chimp.”

“Well then, you could always read it out for me to copy—or not copy it at all, just use it for your own reference.”

“Well, that’s no good.”

“Why not?”

“Because ‘chimp’ was generous. I can scarcely read a word I’ve written. I find it’s far simpler to skip the exercise entirely. I can dictate my findings to you at the end of the day in the comfort of the office.”

“Well, I should still like one myself, someday. I think I would look quite sharp with a leather notebook. Oh, and a magnifying glass. I would feel much more like a detective with a magnifying glass.”

“I do have several of those, but why should you need to feel like a detective? I’m hiring you as an investigative assistant, not a detective. Would a magnifying glass help you to feel like an investigative assistant? If so, I would be happy to lend you one as you get adjusted to the role.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, sir, but you have a way of taking the joy out of an occasion, do you know that?” I buttoned my coat against the cold wind. “Shall we be off, then?”

“Not we, I have something I need to attend to here.” The detective glanced up and down the alley once more. “Meet me back at my offices. I expect the smell should have become tolerable by now. Make yourself familiar with the place—just mind you don’t slip in the pond. The mud is surprisingly slick.”

“I didn’t notice a pond . . . Is it around back?”

“No. Third floor. You can’t miss it.” Jackaby planted a foot on the wobbling pyramid, and quickly mounted the makeshift staircase.

“Wait, what are you doing?” I grabbed the top box with both arms, bracing it as the whole lot threatened to tumble.

Jackaby grabbed hold of a metal railing and swung himself up onto the narrow balcony. “I need to revisit room 301. If Arthur Bragg was a reporter in the middle of a story, and he wound up with a hole in his chest and short several pints of blood . . .” He let the sentence hang in the air.

“Of course,” I called up, “He was probably killed for something he was writing about. But . . . why don’t you want me with you?”

“Because”—Jackaby had planted one foot atop the thin, metal railing and was pulling himself up to the next balcony, his shoes scraping gawkily at the brickwork as he ascended—“you have—
oof
—been with me all morning and have not fainted, struck me with anything, or metamorphosed into an aquatic bird. I should very much like this to remain the state of things, at least for your first day.”

“Ah,” I replied. I was beginning to find it was easier to merely accept what the detective told me than to ask for explanations. “See you back at your office, then?”

Jackaby had planted his feet firmly on the third-floor balcony and begun to lift open the window. He stopped, eying the windowsill intently and mumbling something. “What is it?” I called up.

“Nothing. This is the window at the end of the hallway, I can see Mr. Henderson’s door just there.” He pulled the window open the rest of the way and slid a leg inside.

“Don’t get nicked!” I cautioned in my loudest urgent whisper.

“That reminds me,” he said, pausing. “There’s a jar in my office marked ‘Bail.’ If you don’t hear from me by tonight, just bring it down to the Mason Street station, would you? I’m usually in the first or second cell. There’s a good girl. See you in a bit!”

The rest of Jackaby disappeared through the window, and an old, familiar sensation tickled its way up my spine. Until that moment, the events of the day had all been new and remarkable, but being left behind was one area in which I had countless hours of experience.

My father was highly respected in certain scientific circles, and his notoriety kept him perpetually away on business. I had my mother, of course, but her wildest ambitions involved parasols and cucumber sandwiches. Most little girls would probably have preferred playing dress-up with mommy to learning about their father’s work—but most little girls did not have the intrepid Daniel Rook for a father. For him, “work” meant dashing off to exotic locales with groups of daring, khaki-clad adventurers. I could not count the times I begged him to let me see a real dig site, but to no avail. While he explored lost civilizations and unearthed the bones of monstrous beasts, I explored the garden and pulled weeds for a two-penny allowance.

I was not in my mother’s garden, now. I was standing beneath a balcony in an alley that smelled faintly of old wash-water and dead fish, feeling my mind spinning from the day’s events and teetering like an unbalanced top. This was different. I had in the span of the past hour experienced more genuine adventure than in all my time at home or my travels abroad. Inspector Marlowe had sounded just like my father. “This business is not for the female temperament,” he had said—but Jackaby had not hesitated to point me toward the worst of it and ask for my opinions. It made me inexplicably excited that I would be working with this mad detective again. Looking back, I suppose I ought to have been less afraid of being left safely behind, and more afraid of the looming precipice ahead.

I walked back to the street and tried to get my bearings. The straightest path back to the odd little building on Augur Lane, I realized, would take me past the police barricade again. I decided that Marlowe would hardly notice or mind my muddling my way through the onlookers, so I chanced it, keeping close enough to the front of the crowd to watch the windows for any sign of my strange, new employer.

I caught no sight of him, but I did hope he would move quickly. Chief Inspector Marlowe was already walking back toward the front door, his cuffs beating their metronomic clink against his leg. He kept pace with a new figure, who must have been the commissioner. The man wore an expensive-looking suit, which demanded attention. It was just a bit old-fashioned, with notes of formal uniform to the fitted cut. The long coat was charcoal black and decorated with military epaulettes and red trim. On his head sat a velvety red derby with a slightly wide brim and a gaudy feather tucked in the dark sash. He carried a polished metal cane and walked with his chest puffed out and his chin propped up. The overall affect of the man was just a shade subtler than a sandwich board with the words
BETTER THAN YOU
written out in big block letters.

He was classically pompous . . . except, I realized, for his gait. The long coat and dense crowd blocked his legs from view at first, but as I moved in for a closer look, I could see there was something strange about the manner in which he walked. He leaned a bit too heavily on the cane for it to be merely a showpiece, for starters, but there was also a rigidity to the swing of his legs. I was nearly at the police rope before he passed, and I saw them at last. They had been painted black to blend nearly perfectly with his trousers, but the commissioner wore a pair of leg braces, which caught a faint hint of sunlight as he marched by.

I had seen a similar pair before, on a German boy during my time abroad. Although the disease was still fairly rare here in the States, the polio epidemic was already wreaking havoc across Europe. Whether out of strength or pride, the man refused to show any weakness, maintaining a rapid pace in spite of his impediment. Marlowe had to double-step occasionally to keep up.

“Don’t think you do realize, Inspector,” Commissioner Swift was barking. His voice was deep and angry. “In my town, right under my nose! Do you have any idea what Spade’s campaign boys will do if I try to put my hat in the ring in the middle of this? I want suspects in cells, and I want them there yesterday . . .”