Den of the Red Wolf

Major Gorkla Strongthighs did not like waiting.  Waiting only came second to paperwork.  No, paperwork came second.  At least filling out paperwork was doing something.

Gorkla had sent out a dozen constables to find Hertann Opermin.  One of them could be hurrying back to Central Station right now to let her know where to find him.  Or, it could take them all day.  Opermin might not even still be in the city.  ‘Hertann Opermin’ might not be his real name.  They might not even be spelling it right.  Fernwyn had not seen the name written down.  She had described it as an impression of a name, whatever that meant.

Gorkla and Alething had lunch in the station canteen.  Alething had frowned at the soggy fish and chips and the extra-greasy toad in the hole that were staples of a Guard’s diet.  He finally settled on the steak and kidney pie.  Gorkla had a double helping of the fish and chips, with an order of black pudding on the side.

“I thought the zlobra did not eat meat.”  Alething was watching her dip the last of her chips in gravy.

“When available.  Ogakwa is mostly mountains and swamps.  Some pasture on the mountain slopes.  Good hunting in the swamps.  More fruit from there, though.  Eat a lot of fish, too.”  She thrust a chip at Alething.  “Gwenish potatoes almost as good as swamp flrsi.  Make them too mushy here.”

A constable walked up to their table.  He was almost succeeding in keeping himself from trembling.  Whether from excitement or from dread, Gorkla could not tell.  Perhaps he was new.    She did not recognize him, and perhaps he had not learned that his zlobra commander would not tear his head off at the first opportunity.

She sighed when he just stood there, shifting his weight from foot to foot.  “What is it, Constable?” she asked calmly.

“Ma’am, Major, ma’am, sergeant told me to report to you directly, ma’am.”

“Just ‘Major’, constable.  Now, take a deep breath.  What name and what tell me?”

“Yes, ma…Major.  Constable Junior Grade Markis FitzWiggins, Major.  My brother’s a merchant, see. He sells cloth over in Castleside.  Does pretty well.  Our father and mother were merchants, too.  I don’t have a head for bargaining, so that’s why I joined the Guard.”

“Focus, FitzWiggins, focus.”  Gorkla interrupted the constable’s stream of thought.

“Right, Major, right.  See, I’m from a merchant family.  That’s why sergeant sent me over to the Merchant’s Guild to see about the suspect, Hermann Opermin.”  FitzWiggins was regaining his composure.  He had straightened up and now stood at attention.

“And…” Perhaps the Guard was not the place for FitzWiggins either, if he could not make a simple report without continual prompting.  Either that, or his sergeant needed a reminder about how to train new constables.

“Found him, Major!”  FitzWiggins beamed.  “He’s in the guild books.  Deals in antiques, mostly.  Lots of imports, from Auriland, especially.  He has a showroom in Castleside, the other end from my brother’s.  He also has a warehouse in Ten Bears.  A lot cheaper to store stuff there than in Castleside.  Anyway, the showroom isn’t for walk-ins.  Appointment only.  He mostly does business personally with those that can afford his goods.  You know, Lady Bluenose needs a new dresser.  If he doesn’t have anything she wants, he finds it for her.”

“Good job, constable.  Get some lunch.  Tell Horgath, on me.”  Gorkla looked over at Alething.  “Ready to wrap this up?”

“I think this is still too easy,” he said as he climbed down from his chair.  “Someone has spent a lot of time and effort to misdirect us.  We have found the murderer, or someone who knows who it is, within a day and a half?  Either the architect of this affair is incompetent, or this is going to turn out to be another dead end.

“We have to follow up on it anyway,” he conceded.  “It is not like we have any other leads.”

The showroom was midway along a row of well-kept brick buildings, sandwiched between an accountancy firm and a bespoke tailor shop popular with the lesser nobility.  Its only identification was a small, brass plaque next to the door reading “Hermann Opermin, Stately Wares.”

“Positive this is a good idea?” asked Gorkla.

“If he is still here, he is not expecting us.  You should be able to arrest him without much difficulty.  I doubt he had turned his place of business into a fortified stronghold.  If he does resist, you have been wanting to bash someone since this case started.  Just, don’t kill him.”

“Wasn’t planning on it.  Not worth the paperwork.”

Gorkla knocked briskly on the door.  The pair waited for a couple of minutes.  The Major knocked again.

“Not here or hiding,” said Gorkla after a couple of more minutes.  She pushed on the door.  “Not a great door.  Can break it.”

“Wait a moment before you alarm the whole street.  There, the door was not locked.”

“Not a good sign.  Not happy about what is inside.”

“No, not a good sign.  Even in Castleside, no would leave the entrance to a private showroom unlocked.  Well, let us see what has been left for us to find.  After you, my dear Major.”

Gorkla pushed open the door.  Inside was a small foyer that led to a set of stairs leading up.  To the left was a large opening into a room full of furniture covered with dust cloths.  Gorkla gestured for Alething to stay put.

She stalked into the room.  She moved through it quickly but quietly.  Then, she returned to the foyer.

“No one there,” she murmured to Alething.  “Large door in the back.  Probably for moving this stuff in and out.  Locked from inside.”

“I guess we go up,” Alething whispered back.

They crept up the stairs.  Their attempt at silence was only foiled by a single tread creaking under Gorkla’s weight.  She stifled a curse.

The stairs led up to a landing and a door with a frosted glass panel bearing the painted label “Office”.  Gorkla glanced with raised eyebrows back at Alething.  He nodded.  She tried the door.

It, too, was unlocked.  It swung inwards silently at Gorkla’s push.  Most of the room’s contents would be expected in the office of a merchant catering to a wealthy clientele - an ornate, mahogany desk, a pair of leather wingback chairs for clients, a fine Turgilian rug, and some filing cabinets.  Few such rooms would also contain the body of a man slumped over onto the desk.

“Sometimes,” said Alething, “I wish that the inevitable would not be quite so obvious.”

“Need to make sure,” said Gorkla.  She crossed to the desk.  She leant over it and put a pair of fingers to the man’s neck.  “No pulse.  Maybe just in a deep coma.  Round up a doctor to check.”

The commander of the Carenburh Guard opened a window facing the street.  She blew three sharp blasts on a whistle she drew from a trouser pocket.  She repeated the signal a couple of minutes later.  Just after that, a constable hurried around the corner two blocks over.  She was peering around as if searching for something she knew was there but could not see.

Gorkla gave one more blast on her whistle.  The constable looked up, letting out a large breath.  Her look of relief was immediately replaced by one of astonishment, with raised eyebrows and a gaping mouth.  She broke into a trot.

“Hammersmith, go find a doctor,” Gorkla called out to the constable as she got close to Hermann Opermin, Stately Wares.  The zlobra glanced back over her shoulder.  “Don’t think it’s urgent, but don’t dawdle.  After that, go to the nearest station house and get some constables over here to secure the scene.  No, change that.  Go to the station house first.  Will know where to get a doctor.  Have someone go to Central for an evidence team.  Got all that?”

“Yes, Major!” Constable Hammersmith saluted and trotted back the way she came.

Gorkla turned back to Alething.  He was standing on one of the wingback chairs, chin in hand.

“No sign of a wound,” he said.  “At least, none that can be seen without moving him.  His lips are blue, so he potentially died of suffocation.  There are no ligature marks on his neck or any other signs of how that might happen.  The cup next to him is half full of what smells like and looks like coffee with milk.  I held my hand over the cup.  If it is coffee, it is no longer hot.  The paper under him looks like a shipping manifest for the Immeressen.”

Now, Alething was someone who knew how to give a report, Gorkla thought.

“Suicide?  Knew Guards were coming.  Nowhere to run.  Left doors unlocked so body would be found.”

“Perhaps.  If this were a Pierre deGros novel, the shipping manifest would be a clue left by a repetent stooge who could no longer bear the weight of his guilt.  No, I think that our mastermind wants us to believe that this is our murderer, who killed himself to avoid going to prison.  He could be our murderer.  He could be a stooge.  I am inclined to believe both.  That is about all I am willing to believe about this scene.

“He will turn out to have been poisoned.  The poison was probably administered in the coffee.  The bitterness of the coffee would help mask the taste of any poison.  You need to find out how the coffee got here.  Did he buy it himself?  If so, from where?  When?  Did someone bring it to him?

“That manifest is going to turn out to be one of two things.  It could be a normal part of the Stately Wares business.  If so, he was going about his normal routine when he died.  That does not speak to a surfeit of guilt over two murders.  Or it could be another attempt at misdirection.  In that case, someone else has been here since he died.”

“Agree with you.  Murder, not suicide.  Someone covering tracks.  Keeping Guards two steps behind.  Need to start controlling this case, not just reacting.”

Gorkla heard the clomping of what could only have been regulation Guard boots climbing the stairs.  She went out onto the landing to instruct her men.  When she returned, the constables had retreated to post sentry outside the building.

Alething sighed.  “I need a drink and not from the Mermaid’s Daughter.  The Silver Crescent is not far.  Once your evidence team gets here, let us escape to a nice brandy to consider our next steps.  My treat.”