Too Many Magicians

CHAPTER 19

Lord Darcy strode across the lobby of the Royal Steward Hotel, closely followed by the Sergeant-at-Arms. He went down the hallway, past the offices, toward the rear door. Sergeant Peter had already told him where the room in question was, but the information proved unnecessary, since there were two Armsmen on guard before it. It led off to the left from the narrow hallway, about halfway between the temporary headquarters office and the rear door. The room was a workshop, set up for furniture repair. There were worktables and tools around the walls, and several pieces of half-finished furniture scattered about. Toward the rear of the room was an open door, beyond which Lord Darcy could see only darkness.

Near the door stood Lord Bontriomphe and Master Sean O Lochlainn. They both looked around as Lord Darcy walked across the room toward them.

“Hullo, Darcy,” said Lord Bontriomphe. “We’ve got another one.” He gestured past the open door which, Lord Darcy now saw, opened into a small closet filled with odds and ends of wood and pieces of broken furniture. Beyond the door, just inside the closet, lay a man’s body.

It was not a pleasant sight. The face was blackened and the tongue protruded. Around the throat, set deep into the flesh, was a knotted cord.

Lord Darcy looked at Lord Bontriomphe. “What happened?”

Lord Bontriomphe did not take his eyes off the corpse. “I think I shall go out and beat my head against a wall. I’ve been looking for this man ever since yesterday afternoon. I’ve combed London for him. I’ve asked every employee in this hotel every question I could think of.” Then he looked up at Lord Darcy. “I had finally arrived at what I thought was the ridiculous conclusion that Goodman Paul Nichols had never left the hotel.” He gave Lord Darcy a rather lopsided smile. “And then, half an hour ago, one of the hotel’s employees, a joiner and carpenter whose job it is to keep the hotel’s furniture in repair, came in here and opened that door.” He gestured toward the closet. “He needed a piece of wood. He found — that. He came running out into the hall in a screaming fit. Fortunately I was in the office. Master Sean had just shown up, so we came back to take a look.”

“He has definitely been identified as Paul Nichols?” Lord Darcy asked.

“Oh, yes, no question of that.”

Lord Darcy looked at Master Sean. “There is no rest for the weary, eh, Master Sean? What do you find?”

Master Sean sighed. “Well, I won’t know for sure until after the chirurgeon has performed the autopsy, but it’s my opinion the man’s been dead for at least forty-eight hours. There’s a bruise on his right temple — hard to see because of the coagulation of the blood in the face, but it’s there all right — which indicates that he was knocked unconscious before he was killed. Someone hit him on the side of the head, and then took that bit of upholsterer’s cord and tightened it around his throat to strangle him.”

“Forty-eight hours,” said Lord Darcy thoughtfully. He looked at his watch. “That would be, give or take an hour or so, at approximately the same time Master Sir James was killed. Interesting.”

“There’s one thing, my lord,” said Master Sean, “which you might find even more interesting.” He knelt down and pointed at some bits of material lying on the corpse’s shirt front. “What does that look like to you?”

Lord Darcy knelt and looked. “Sealing wax,” he said softly. “Bits of blue sealing wax.”

Master Sean nodded. “That’s what they looked like to me, my lord.”

Lord Darcy stood up. “I hate to put you through another session of such grueling work, Sean, but it must be done. I must know the time of his death, and—”

Master Sean took one more look at the dead man’s shirt front, and then stood up himself. “And something more about those bits of blue sealing wax, eh, my lord?”

“Exactly.”

“Well,” said Lord Bontriomphe, “at least this time we know who killed him.”

“Yes, I know who killed him, all right,” Lord Darcy said. “What I don’t understand is why.”

“You mean, the motive?” Lord Bontriomphe asked.

“Oh, I know the motive. What I want to know is the motive behind the motive, if you follow me.”

Lord Bontriomphe didn’t.

Another half hour of meticulous investigation revealed nothing of further interest. The murder of Paul Nichols appeared to be as simple as that of Sir James had been complex. There was no locked door, no indication of Black Magic, no question as to the method of death. By the time he was finished looking the area over, Lord Darcy was convinced that his mental reconstruction of the murder was reasonably accurate. Paul Nichols had been enticed into the workshop, knocked unconscious, strangled with a handy piece of upholsterer’s cord, and dumped into the small lumber room. Exactly what had happened after that was not quite as clear, but Lord Darcy felt that subsequent data would not drastically change his hypothesis.

Satisfied, Lord Darcy left the remainder of the investigation to Lord Bontriomphe and Master Sean. Now, he thought to himself, what to do next? Go to the Palace du Marquis first and pick up a gun, he decided. He had mentioned to Lord Bontriomphe that he had lost his own weapon in the Thames, and Bontriomphe had said, “I have another in my desk, a Heron .36. You can use that if you want; it’s a good weapon.” Lord Darcy decided that one good stiff drink would probably stand him in good stead before he took a cab to the Palace du Marquis. He went to the Sword Room and ordered a brandy and soda.

There was still a state of tension in the hotel, and the Convention seemed to have been held in abeyance. Of all the sorcerers he had seen that morning, with the exception of Master Sean himself, not one had been wearing the silver slashes of a Master. Lord Darcy saw a familiar face further down the bar, a young man who was giving his full attention to a pint of good English beer. With a slight frown, Lord Darcy picked up his glass and walked down to where the other man was sitting.

“Good morning, my lord,” he said. “I should have thought you would be out on the chase.”

Journeyman Sorcerer Lord John Quetzal looked up, a little startled. “Lord Darcy! I’ve been wanting to talk to you,” he said. The smile on his face looked a little sad. “They didn’t ask me to help find Master Ewen,” he said. “They’re afraid a journeyman couldn’t hold his own against a Master.”

“And you think you could?” Lord Darcy asked.

“No!” Lord John Quetzal said excitedly. “That’s not the point, don’t you see? Master Ewen may be a more powerful sorcerer than I am, I don’t argue with that. But I don’t have to face him down. If he uses magic when he’s cornered, another, more powerful sorcerer can take care of him then. The point is that I can find Master Ewen. I can find out where he is. But nobody listens to a journeyman sorcerer.”

Lord Darcy looked at him. “Now let me understand you,” he said carefully. “You think you can find where Master Ewen is hiding now?”

“Not just think; I know! I am positive I can find him. When you brought the Damoselle Tia in last night, she stank to high Heaven of Black Magic.” He looked apologetic. “I don’t mean a real smell, you understand, not the way you’d smell tobacco smoke or” — he gestured toward Lord Darcy’s glass — “brandy, or something like that.”

“I understand,” said Lord Darcy. “It is merely a psychic analogy to the physical sense which it most nearly resembles. That is why people with your particular kind of Talent are called witch-smellers.”

“Yes, my lord; exactly. And any given act of black sorcery has its characteristic ‘aroma’ — a stink that identifies the sorcerer who performed it. You asked me Wednesday night if I suspected anyone, and I refused to tell you. But it was Master Ewen. I could detect the taint on him even then. But now, with an example of his work to go on, I could smell him out anywhere in London.”

He smiled rather sheepishly. “I was just sitting here trying to make up my mind whether I should go out on my own or not.”

“You could detect the stink of Black Magic on the Damoselle Tia,” Lord Darcy said. “How did you know that it was not she who was practicing the Black Art?”

“My lord,” said Lord John Quetzal, “there is a great deal of difference between a dirty finger and a dirty finger-mark.”

Lord Darcy contemplated his drink in silence for a full minute. Then he picked it up and finished it in two swallows.

“My Lord John Quetzal,” he said briskly. “Lord Bontriomphe and his Armsmen are searching for Master Ewen. So are Sir Lyon and the Masters of the Guild. So are Commander Lord Ashley and the Naval Intelligence Corps. And do you know what?”

“No, my lord,” said Lord John Quetzal, putting down his empty beer mug, “what?”

“You and I are going to make them all look foolish. Come with me. We must fetch a cab. First to the Palace du Marquis, and then, my lord — wherever your nose leads us.”