Tough, thought Hawk.
I’ve
got my own problems.
“Doesn’t look like anything’s been moved,” said Fisher.
“Yeah, but we’d better check anyway,” said Hawk. “It shouldn’t take long.”
They checked the wardrobe and the dressing-table drawers and under the bed, and drew a blank every time. No trace of a murder weapon, or any bloodstained clothing.
“It was worth a try,” said Hawk as he and Fisher stepped out onto the landing again.
“Yeah,” said Fisher, pulling the door to behind her. “We’re not doing very well, though, are we?”
“Not very,” said Hawk. “But then, this isn’t really our normal line of business. Locked-room murder mysteries are usually reserved for the experts. But ...”
“Yeah,” said Fisher. “But. We have to cope because we’re all there is. Who does the next room belong to?”
“Bowman,” said Hawk.
The room was clean and tidy, and the bed hadn’t been slept in. Bowman’s sword was still in its scabbard, hanging from the bedpost. Hawk drew the sword, checked the blade was clean, and then tried the balance. He nodded slowly. It was a good blade, long and thin and light.
“Duelling sword,” said Fisher. “Apparently Bowman had something of a reputation as a duellist.”
“Didn’t help him at the end,” said Hawk. “In fact, come to think of it, why wasn’t he wearing his sword? After all, he was trapped in a strange house with a murderer on the loose....”
“Yeah, but you don’t wear a sword on a lover’s tryst, do you?”
“If that was where he was going.”
“Seems likely. Doesn’t it?”
Hawk shrugged. “I suppose so.” He sheathed Bowman’s sword and dropped it onto the bed. He and Fisher moved quickly round the room, checking in all the usual places, and once again ended up with nothing to show for their pains.
“This is a waste of time,” said Fisher. “We’re never going to find anything.”
“Probably not, but we have to check. How would it seem if we missed some important piece of evidence, just because we couldn’t be bothered to look for it?”
“Yeah, I know. Where next?”
“Across the hall,” said Hawk. “Stalker’s room.”
Fisher looked at him uncomfortably. “Are you serious about this, Hawk? I mean, can we really treat Adam Stalker as a suspect? He’s a hero, a genuine hero. One of the greatest men this city ever produced. They were making up songs and legends about his exploits when I was still a child.”
“I don’t trust songs or legends,” said Hawk. “We check his room.”
“Why? Just because he wasn’t wearing a shirt?”
“Partly. And also because he was one of the last people to arrive on the scene.”
Stalker’s room looked lived in. His clothes lay scattered across the floor, as though he’d just dropped them wherever he happened to have taken them off. A broadsword in a battered leather scabbard lay across the foot of the bed. Hawk picked it up, and grunted in surprise at the weight of it. He drew the sword out, with some difficulty, and checked the blade. It was clean. Hawk took a firm grip on the hilt and hefted the sword awkwardly.
“How he swings this, even with both hands, is beyond me,” he said finally.
“It probably helps if you’re built like a brick outhouse,” said Fisher.
“Probably.” Hawk slipped the sword back into its scabbard and dropped it onto the bed. He took a long look at the rumpled bed with its thrown-back sheets, and smiled sourly. “At least someone got some sleep tonight.”
“The joys of an undisturbed conscience,” said Fisher, rummaging through the dressing-table drawers.
“Found anything?” said Hawk.
“No. You?”
“No. I’m beginning to think I wouldn’t recognise a clue if it walked up to me and pissed up my leg.”
They checked all the usual places; no murder weapon, no bloodstained clothes.
“Let’s try the next room,” said Hawk. “That’s Dorimant’s, isn’t it?”
“Yeah.”
The room was neat and tidy, and the bed hadn’t been slept in. They looked everywhere and found nothing.
“I could do this in my sleep,” said Fisher disgustedly. “And if I was just a little more tired, I would.”
“Only two more rooms, and we can call it a day,” said Hawk.
“You mean a night.”
“Whatever. The next room is the Hightowers’.”
“Good. Let’s make a mess.”
Hawk chuckled. “You’re getting vindictive, you.”
“What do you mean, getting?”
The Hightowers’ room was neat and tidy, and the bed had been slept in. Hawk and Fisher turned the place upside down, and didn’t find anything. They conscientiously cleared up the mess they’d made, and moved on to the last room, feeling pleasantly virtuous. They felt even better when the usual search turned up a small wooden casket tucked under Visage’s pillow. Hawk removed the casket carefully and placed it in the middle of the rumpled bed. It was about a foot square, and four inches deep, made from a dark yellow wood neither of them recognised. The lid was carved with enigmatic runes and glyphs that spilled over the edges and down the sides. Hawk reached out to open it, and Fisher grabbed his arm.
“I wouldn’t. If that is a witch’s casket, it could be booby-trapped with all kinds of spells.”
Hawk nodded soberly. Fisher drew a dagger from the top of her boot, and cautiously slipped the tip of the blade into the narrow crack between the casket and its lid. She took a deep breath, flipped the lid open, and stepped quickly back. Nothing happened. Hawk and Fisher moved forward to look inside the casket. There were half a dozen bone amulets, two locks of dark hair, each tied with a green ribbon, and a few bundles of what appeared to be dried herbs. Fisher picked up one of the bundles and sniffed at it gingerly. It smelled a little like new-mown hay. Fisher dropped it back into the casket.
“You recognise any of this?” she asked quietly.
Hawk nodded slowly. “Those amulets are similar to the one Blackstone was wearing. I think we could be on to something here, Isobel. What if these are real protective amulets, and the one Blackstone was wearing was a fake? That way, everyone would think Blackstone was protected against magic, when actually he wasn’t.”
“If he could be attacked by magic,” said Fisher patiently, “why bother to stab him? Besides, we know the amulet was magical. Gaunt detected it, remember?”
“Oh. Yeah. Damn.”
He closed the casket, and put it back under the pillow again. He and Fisher took one last look round the room, and then went back out onto the landing, shutting the door behind them. They stood together a while, thinking.
“Well,” said Hawk, “that was pretty much a waste of time.”
“I told you that,” said Fisher.
“It just doesn’t make sense,” said Hawk doggedly. “How could someone kill two men in a matter of hours, and then disappear without a trace?”
“Beats me,” said Fisher. “Maybe there’s an old secret passage, or something.”
They looked at each other sharply.
“Now that is an idea,” said Hawk. “A secret passage would explain a lot of things.... I think we’d better have a word with Gaunt.”
“Worth a try,” said Fisher, “but if he knew of any, he’d have told us by now. Unless he’s the murderer, in which case he’d only lie anyway.”
“This is true,” said Hawk. “Let’s check Blackstone’s room anyway, just for the hell of it.”
Fisher groaned wearily, and followed him down the hall and back into Blackstone’s room. They moved slowly round the walls, tapping every-foot or so and listening for a hollow sound. They didn’t find one. They tried the floor, in case there was a trapdoor, and even had a good look at the ceiling, but to no avail. They stood together by the door and glared about them. Hawk shook his head irritably.
“If there is a secret passage here, it must be bloody well hidden.”
“Secret passages usually are,” said Fisher dryly. “If they weren’t, they wouldn’t be secret, would they?”
“You’re so sharp you’ll cut yourself one of these days,” said Hawk. He took one last look round the room, and then frowned suddenly. “Wait a minute.... Something’s wrong.”
Fisher looked round the room, but couldn’t see anything out of place. “What do you mean, wrong?”
“I don’t know. Something here isn’t quite the way I remember it.” He glared about him, trying to work out what had changed. And then he looked down at Blackstone’s body, and the answer came to him. “The wineglass! It’s gone!”
He got down on his knees beside Blackstone’s body. The wine stain on the carpet was still there, but the glass Blackstone had been drinking from was gone. Hawk peered under the bed in case the glass had rolled away, but there was no sign of it.
“Was it there the first time we checked this room?” asked Fisher.
“I don’t know. I didn’t look. Did you see it?”
“No. I didn’t look either. I wouldn’t have noticed it was gone now if you hadn’t spotted it.”
Hawk straightened up slowly. “Well, at least that tells us something.”
“Like what?” said Fisher.
“It tells us the wineglass was important,” said Hawk. “If it wasn’t, why bother to remove it? In some way, that wineglass must have played an important part in Blackstone’s death.”
“The wine wasn’t poisoned,” said Fisher. “Gaunt told us that.”
“Yeah,” said Hawk. “He also said he was going to take a sample of the wine so that he could run some tests on it. We’d better check that he did.”
“If he didn’t, we’re in bother.”
“Right.” Hawk scowled fiercely. “Why should the wine be important? I’m missing something, Isobel, I can feel it. It’s important, and I’m missing it.”
Fisher waited patiently as Hawk concentrated, trying to grasp the elusive thought, but in the end he just shook his head.
“No. Whatever it is, I can’t see it. Not yet, anyway. Let’s go downstairs. I want to check the lower rooms as well, before I talk to Gaunt about the wine sample.”
“And if he didn’t take one?”
“Burn that bridge when we come to it.” Hawk looked down at the two bodies lying side by side on the floor. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this, Isobel. I don’t think our murderer is finished with us yet.”
Hawk thought furiously as he and Fisher made their way down the stairs and into the hall. He’d gone about as far as he could on his own. If he was going to get any further, he had to have more information from Gaunt and his guests, and that meant more cooperation on their part. Some would cooperate, some might, and some wouldn’t. In theory, he could order them to do anything and they were legally obliged to obey him, but in reality he had to be very careful about what orders he gave. Most of his suspects were important people in Haven. They had a great deal of clout, if they chose to use it. Hawk worried his lower lip between his teeth. If and when he felt able to accuse someone, he’d better have overwhelming evidence to back him up. Nothing else would do.
Unfortunately, evidence was in very short supply at the moment. All he had were endless theories, none of which seemed to lead anywhere. He couldn’t be sure of anything anymore. He stopped suddenly at the foot of the stairs, and looked down the hall at the closed front door. Fisher stopped beside him and looked at him curiously.
“Hawk, what is it?”
“I just had an intriguing thought,” said Hawk. “We’ve been assuming that no one could get in or out of this house because of the isolation spell. Right?”
“Right.”
“How do we know there is an isolation spell?”
“Gaunt said so. And besides, we felt the effects when he cast it.”
Hawk shook his head. “Gaunt has said a lot of things. We felt a spell being cast, all right, but how do we know it was an isolation spell? Could have been anything. You go into the parlour and talk to Gaunt a minute. Keep him occupied. I’m going to open that front door and see if we really are isolated from the outside world.”
Fisher nodded reluctantly. “All right. But you be careful, Hawk.”
Hawk grinned, and set off down the hall as Fisher went into the parlour. The hall was large and gloomy, and the shadows seemed very dark. His footsteps echoed loudly on the quiet. He finally came to a halt before the closed front door, and looked it over carefully. It looked normal enough. He reached out his left hand and gently pressed his fingers to the wood. It felt strangely cold to the touch, and seemed almost to pulse under his fingertips. Hawk snatched his hand away and rubbed his fingers together. They were still cold. Hawk braced himself, and took a firm hold of the door handle. It seemed to stir in his hand, and he tightened his grip. He turned the handle all the way round, and then eased the door open a crack. The hall was suddenly very cold. Hawk opened the door a little wider and looked out. And outside the door there was nothing; nothing at all.
Hawk clung desperately to the door. It was like standing on a narrow ledge and looking out over a bottomless drop. No matter where he looked there was only the dark, as though the house were falling on and on into an endless night. A cold wind blew from nowhere, searing his bare face and hands. Hawk swallowed sickly, and with a great effort tore his eyes away from the dark. He stepped back, and slammed the door shut. He moved quickly away from the door and leaned against the nearest wall while he got his breath back. His hands and face were numb from the cold, but feeling quickly returned as the summer heat inside the house drove the cold out of him. He smiled slightly. If nothing else, he had established that the house was very definitely isolated from the outside world. He wondered how Fisher was getting on.