Old Tin Sorrows

33

After supper, having finally gotten the doctor and Saucerhead off, Morley and I headed for my suite. As we climbed the stairs, I said, "I guess old Dellwood got tired of waiting." He'd abandoned the coach hours earlier, according to the coachman, who wasn't pleased with his own lot. It hadn't occurred to anyone to ask him in out of the cold.

Morley belched. "That woman tried to poison me. That mess wasn't fit to feed a hog."

I chuckled. He'd made only one oblique negative comment and had gotten invited to cook his own meals.

His presence didn't thrill the natives. His charm, stoked to a white heat, had been wasted on Jennifer. His feelings were hurt. He wasn't used to being looked at like something from the underside of a rock.

They didn't know who and what he was, only that he was somebody who had invaded their weird little world. Me, I'm not such a sensitive guy.

"A lovely bunch, Garrett. Truly lovely. The girl should work at an icehouse. Where do you find these people?"

"They find me. People who aren't troubled don't need me."

He grunted. There was a lot of that going around. "I understand that."

I suspect his clients are weirder than mine. But he doesn't have to deal with them on an extended basis.

I checked the telltales at the door. There'd been no sloppy visitors. We stepped inside. I said, "I'm going to take a nap. I had a hard night last night. Don't turn into a spook again."

He gave me a sour grin. "Not this time." He started unwinding a piece of cord he'd scrounged up while I was helping Cook clear supper dishes.

"What's that for?"

"To measure with. You say somebody's getting in and out without using the door, there's got to be a way." He measured off a foot of cord, tied a knot, folded the cord, tied another knot. Not a perfect ruler but it would do.

"I was going to do that myself. When I got time."

"You never get time for detail work, Garrett. You're too busy bulling around, trying to make things happen. What do you expect tonight?"

I'd hinted that we could expect some excitement. "I figure that one draug will come back. What else, who knows? Getting so I think anything can happen here. While you're fiddling around, think of a way to get Chain to give himself away."

"The fat guy with the garbage mouth?"

"That's him."

"He the baddie?"

"He's the only one I can line up who had opportunity with Hawkes and Bradon and the attempts on me."

"Turn you into bait. Catch him in the act."

"Thanks a bunch. He's screwed it up three times already. Maybe four. How many shots should I give him?"

"Take your nap. You're safe. Morley's here."

"That's not the comfort you think it should be." I went into the bedroom, shucked my clothes and slithered in between the sheets. There was something sinful about being naked in such comfort.

For about thirty seconds I listened to Morley putter, measuring and talking to himself while rain tippy-tapped on the windows. Then the lights went out.

The lights never came on. Not quite.

But there were fires to light the night. Well, there was the threat of fire, anyway.

I woke up no longer alone. My blonde friend was back. Checking my head, touching my face, all that.

This time she didn't move fast enough. But she was leaning way over, off balance, and I didn't think before I grabbed. I got her wrist and gave her a come-hither tug. She fell on top of me.

It was dark. She'd have been invisible if she'd been a brunette wearing dark clothing. Still, from four inches her face was visible. She wore a sort of smile, like she wanted to look kittenish and playful. The rest of her couldn't fake it. She shook like she was terrified.

"Talk to me," I whispered. "Tell me who you are." I put an arm around her, caressed the back of her neck. Her hair felt fine as spider silk, light as down. I did it to keep her from getting away, but it took only about four seconds for me to start having trouble keeping my mind on business.

She kissed me instead of answering me.

Man, oh, man. It had the kick of straight grain alcohol. It got me repeating mantras just to remember who I was.

Shaking like she was running naked through a hailstorm, she turned up the heat. She worked her way under the covers. This was what the old man needed to keep him warm. Boy, could he save on firewood.

Then I lost my mantra and kissed her back. About twenty seconds later she forgot about shivering.

Morley pounded the door. "Hey! Garrett! You going to nap all night?"

I sat up so sudden I made myself dizzy. I felt around. Just Garrett, all by his lonesome. What? I've got a vivid imagination and a rich fantasy life, but...

"Bring a light in here."

"What about your booby trap?"

What about it? "It's not set."

Morley found me on the edge of the bed draped in a sheet, looking croggled and feeling four times as croggled as I looked. "What happened?"

"You're not going to believe it."

He didn't. "I never left the other room. Well, only long enough to use the pot. Nobody could've gotten past. You had a dream."

Maybe. But, damn! "I could use more dreams like that. If it was. I don't think so. I've never had one like that."

"Man gets on in years, he starts living his adventures in his head." He grinned a big one full of pointy elf teeth.

"Let's don't start. I'm too flustered to keep up my end. You find anything? What time is it?"

"Yes. Your cloak closet is two thirds as big as it should be. It's about midnight. The witching hour."

"I could probably make it through the night without cracks like that." I got up, dragged the bedclothes with me.

Morley got a funny look, stepped over, picked something up.

It was the red belt my blonde always wore, even in Snake's painting.

He looked at me. I looked at him. I maybe smiled a little. "Not mine," I told him.

"Maybe we ought to get the hell out of here, Garrett."

I pulled my clothes on. I couldn't think what to say. I agreed, mostly. Finally, I just muttered, "You ever back out on a job once you took it?"

He got him another funny look and said, "Yes. Once."

I couldn't picture that. That wasn't Morley Dotes. He delivered. He wouldn't back down from the kingpin or from a nest of vampires. I'd seen that with my own eyes. "I don't believe it. What were you up against? A herd of thunder-lizards?"

"Not exactly."

He didn't like talking about his work. I dropped it. "Let's look at that closet."

The situation had him more spooked than he let on. He said, "A man hired me without telling me anything about the mark, just where he'd be at a certain time. I had the biggest surprise of my life when I got there."

I opened the closet door. "All right. I'll bite."

"You were the mark."

I turned slowly. For about ten seconds I had no idea where I stood. Had we reached a moment I'd prayed would never come?

"Easy. That was six months ago. Forget it. I wasn't going to mention it."

He wouldn't have unless he'd gotten so rattled most bets were off. I tried to recall what I'd been working on back then. Nothing significant. One missing person thing that had smelled from the start, but that had petered out when I found the missing guy dead.

"I owe you one."

"Forget it. I shouldn't have mentioned it."

"You forget it. Let's see where the missing space went." I thought I got it. That missing person thing had smelled because I'd thought there was more to it than the client would admit. She'd seemed vindictive when nothing in her story indicated a reason. Looking for a man she'd claimed was an associate of her late husband.

Pieces toppled into place belatedly. The guy she was looking for could have been blackmailing her over the husband's demise. She hadn't needed me once she knew the guy was dead.

The guy might have hired Morley if he'd heard I was after him.

Hell with it. Water under the bridge. Nothing to do with what we were into now.

But I owed Morley. That more than balanced the stunt with the coffin full of vampire.

"On this side," Morley said.

It was obvious once you knew it was there. On the right the closet was twenty inches smaller than it should be. "Give me the light."

I examined the wall inside. Nothing out of the way. No door, nothing to release one or open one. "Has to be out there somewhere."

I went out, examined the wall, looked for some hidden device, cunningly disguised, like those I'd seen before. I didn't find any such beast.

"I got it," Morley said.

He tipped a two-foot section of wainscotting outward like a kitchen flour bin. Bam. No sign it was there when it was in place. "Clever," he said. "Every secret gizmo I ever saw leaves marks on the floor or something if it's used much." The section didn't quite drop to the floor. A leather strap kept it from falling all the way.

We eyed each other. I said, "Well?"

He grinned. "We can either stand here and stare at it or we can do something. I vote we do something."

"After you, my man."

"Oh, no. I'm just the hired help. I hand the knight his lance when he's ready to charge the Black Baron. When I'm in a real helpful mood, I polish a few rust spots off his armor. But I don't stomp into traps for him."

"I love you too, boy." He was right. It was my game to play.

Didn't hurt to try, though.

I got another lamp, made sure both were full, started to crawl into the opening. "Stay close."

"Right behind you, boss. All the way."

"Wait." I backed out.

"Now what?"

"Equipment." It seemed like a good time to arm up. Just in case.

Morley watched me ferret stuff out, grinned when he saw the colored bottles. "I wondered if you kept those."

"Smart man never throws anything away. Might come in handy someday." Loaded for thunder-lizard, I returned to the passageway. This time I kept going. Morley had less trouble in there, being a foot shorter and a half ton lighter. I kept banging my head. The passage ran straight ahead fifteen feet. It ran under the counter in the dressing room.

We emerged in a two-foot-wide dead space behind the bedroom and dressing room. It was claustrophobic in there. It was dusty and cobwebby, too, and there was nothing to be seen but studs, lathing, and plaster. The wall at my back was identical. It was the wall of the suite next to mine.

There were peepholes. Of course. A couple for the dressing room and three for the bedroom. The thought that I might have been watched left me real uncomfortable.

Morley said, "Here's how you get out."

At the end of the dead space, against the wall of the hallway, there was a two-by-two hole in the floor. Wooden rungs were nailed to the studs.

I sneezed ferociously. The dust and my cold were ganging up.

My head hurt from being banged. My skin burns gave me no respite. I had no reason to be amused. I chuckled anyway.

"What?"

"No way I'm going to get past you. You have to go first."

"Think so?" He ducked into the passageway from my sitting room. "After you, my man."

"You're so slick, you'll slide out of your casket." I tested the rungs. They were solid.

Ever go down a vertical ladder carrying a live fire? Lucky I'm a paragon of coordination.

The third floor was identical to the fourth except for the cover over the hole opening on the second. "There's a big open storage loft below here," I told Morley. And sneezed so hard, I almost killed my lamp. I listened for movement below. Nothing. I lifted the cover. It swung to the side on hinges.

How would we get down? I'd seen no ladders when I'd explored the storage area.

Crafty builders. Right under the hatch was the end of a rack. The shelf supports made neat rungs.

I dropped to the floor. Knowing what to look for, I spotted trapdoors that would take me to every room in the wing.

"Pretty simple," Morley said. "Think it's set up for spying or for escapes?"

"I think it's probably for whatever's to the advantage of the Stantnors. I wonder how it works in the east wing. That layout is different."

"You've already checked this wing, right?"

"Except for the cellar."

"You didn't find any place your girlfriend could be hiding?"

"No."

"You ask the cook about food shortages?"

"No." I should have. She'd have to eat. I thought of her portrait. I'd better get the paintings into the house tonight.

"Let's do this systematically. The cellar first, then the other wing. Seems probable the passages there start in the cellar."

"Yeah." As I recalled the layout, the walls all sat atop one another from the first floor upward.

We descended to the pantry quietly, listened. Nothing. On to the cellar.

It was your typical earthen floor cellar, deeper than my own, where I have to stoop, but vasty, dark and dusty, a wilderness of stone pillars supporting beams that supported joists. At first it seemed mostly empty and dusty and dry—though dry wasn't a surprise. The house sat atop a hill. The builders would have arranged good drainage.

As we moved toward the east end we encountered evidence that an earlier regime had maintained a large wine cellar. Only the racks remained.

"Great place to get rid of bodies," Morley remarked.

"They have their own graveyard for that."

"Somebody sank a couple, three guys in that swamp."

He had a point.

We completed a circuit of the east end finding little but the wine racks, broken furniture, and, near the foot of the steps, sausages and stores hanging so mice couldn't reach them. I sneezed almost continuously.

"That's the easy half," Morley said. We started our circuit of the western end.

That end had less to recommend it or make it interesting, except for the supports and plumbing beneath the fountain. Those would have been of interest mainly to a plumber or engineer. There were no entries to hidden passages.

I said, "We just wasted three quarters of an hour." And sneezed.

"Never a waste when you find something out. Even if it's negative."

"That's my line. You're supposed to grumble about wasted time."

He chuckled. "Must be infecting each other. Let's get out before the spiders gang up."

I grunted, sneezed. Interesting. The cellar was almost vermin-free. Other than spiders there was very little wildlife. I'd have expected a sizable herd of mice.

I recalled the cats. "Can you smell anything? I'm deaf in the nose here."

"What am I supposed to smell?"

"Cat shit."

"What?"

"No mice. If there aren't any, the cats must be on the job. The only cats I've seen are out in the barns. If they're getting in here, there's a way into the basement from the outside."

"Oh." His eyes got a little bigger. He started watching the edges of the light more closely. There was still a draug around somewhere.

He said, "We're not going to find anything here. Let's do the west wing." He was uncomfortable. Usually he's cool as a rock. That creepy house really worked on you.

I was about halfway up to the first floor when I caught the end of a cry. "Oh, damn! What now?"

Don't ever try to run through unfamiliar territory in the dark, even with a lamp. Between us we nearly killed ourselves a half dozen times each before we made it to the great hall.