Maelstrom (3 page)

“I say, what a fine machine,” Iskander said
of the automobile.

“Thank you.” Griffin looked as pleased as if
he’d built the thing himself. “It has a two-speed transmission,
chain drive, and side crank.”

“How modern.” Christine also seemed unduly
impressed. “How fast does it go?”

“According to the salesmen, it can reach up
to twenty miles per hour. I haven’t tried to go that fast yet, of
course, but I hope to put it to the test soon.”

I cringed, and Iskander look alarmed.
Christine, however, brightened. “Oh, excellent. I don’t suppose
you’d mind taking us for a turn some time?”

Griffin beamed. “I’d be happy to. I know the
wedding has you occupied at the moment, but once it’s over, we’ll
take a drive up the coast. Will that suit?”

“Quite well.” Christine stepped back onto
the curb.

“I’ll see you tonight, Whyborne.” Griffin
waved at us cheerfully, then sent the motor car back out into
traffic, barely missing the director’s carriage as he did so.

“Dear lord,” I said, turning my back on
whatever mayhem he caused next. “I’ll be a widower by sundown.”

Griffin

I spent the remainder of my morning at home,
first attending to the bookkeeping, then sorting through newspaper
reports and generally tidying up my office. I’d obtained a cabinet
a few months ago, where I locked away anything I didn’t wish to
simply leave about, including the more confidential information
entrusted to me by various clients. As I added some of my notes to
one of the files I kept within, I paused to let my hand rest on the
oddly cut gem, which sat on a small brass stand.

Last December, I’d agreed to let the Mother
of Shadows alter me so we might escape the ancient city buried deep
beneath an Alaskan glacier. She’d given me what I’d come to think
of as shadowsight—the ability to perceive magic. And she’d sent
with me an Occultum Lapidem—a gemstone originally created to allow
the umbrae to communicate over distance.

The gems could be perverted to other
sorcerous uses as well, even turned against the umbrae. But she’d
seen the deepest part of my mind and given me a trust that still
humbled me.

I heard a distant whispering when I touched
the stone. A soft murmur of voices, as though someone spoke in
another room. If I chose to concentrate, the words would gradually
become clear. I’d done so a few times, worried about how the umbrae
might fare now they were free from their ancient prison. So far,
they had both thrived and remained hidden from humanity.

I withdrew my hand, and the whispers ceased.
But even as I relocked the cabinet, I felt oddly comforted by the
gem’s presence.

The bell rang at precisely the time I’d
scheduled my new client. I opened the door to find a smallish man
with auburn hair and mustache, dressed in a conservative suit. He
seemed utterly unremarkable.

I allowed my focus to shift slightly.
Thankfully our house wasn’t on one of the lines of arcane energy,
and I was able to use my shadowsight without being blinded by
magical glare. The man looked just as ordinary as he had through my
normal vision. He was neither a sorcerer, nor one of Widdershins’s
inhabitants who could claim an inhuman lineage.

“Mr. Dewey Lambert?” I asked, holding out my
hand. “Griffin Flaherty. Please, come inside. Can I offer you
coffee?”

He followed me into my office and took the
seat I indicated. “No, thank you. I’ve given it up. Bad for the
nerves. I follow the Graham Diet.”

“Of course,” I said. “Quite sensible.” I
forewent coffee of my own and took my seat across from him. “Why
don’t you tell me why you’re here.”

He perched on the very edge of his chair,
looking as if he might flee at any moment. “Mr. Flaherty, I came to
you because...I heard you sometimes handle...odd cases?”

The last words were practically whispered.
Mr. Lambert struck me as the sort of fellow who would go to any
length to avoid being considered “odd.” Or even interesting. “Some
of my cases have had unusual aspects,” I agreed carefully. “You
know I’ve done work for the old families.”

Lambert made a face of distaste. “I’m from
Boston,” he said. “If I’d known what this town was like, I’d never
have taken a job here. Sin and depravity everywhere, and nowhere as
common as amidst its leading citizens.”

I managed to keep my expression neutral,
although it took some effort. Having been accused of perversion and
depravity myself, my sympathy for Mr. Lambert rapidly slipped away.
“Your story,” I prompted.

Perhaps he heard the coolness of my tone.
“Er, yes. It happened two days ago. I had left work to take my
lunch time walk.”

“And your work is...?”

“I’m employed at Dryden and Sons, Tailors,
on River Street. I fit men’s suits. Many of my clients ask for me
by name,” he added with an air of pride.

“Very respectable,” I agreed. I was familiar
with the business, although I’d never used their services myself.
Most of their clientele were well-to-do—not rich, certainly not
members of the old families, but men of means nonetheless. “What
happened on your walk?”

“I set off for the park, as I do every day
the weather permits,” he said. “I take my lunch and eat it in the
fresh air.”

I made a note on the paper on my desk. “You
bring your lunch from home?” I guessed.

He sniffed. “It’s the only way to be sure.
The last time I ate at a restaurant, the waiter forgot to mention
there was pepper in a dish. Pepper!” His eyes bulged in outrage. “I
refuse to run the risk of nervous excitement and all the ills which
come from it.”

I began to regret my decision to hear Mr.
Lambert’s case. “Naturally. Please, go on—you left the shop, you
say?”

“Yes. I hadn’t gotten far—perhaps halfway to
the park—when I began to feel distinctly odd.” He shifted in his
chair uncomfortably. “I wondered if I’d taken ill, and cast about
for somewhere to sit down, and then...”

He chewed uncertainly on the ends of his
mustache. “And then?” I asked.

“Your discretion is assured?”

“Of course,” I replied. “You and I might not
hail from Widdershins, but I’m certain you appreciate a private
detective couldn’t remain in business here without a policy of
absolute discretion.”

He seemed only slightly reassured. “When I
told the police, they thought I was drunk. Drunk! If word got back
to the store, I’d surely lose my position.”

“They won’t hear it from me,” I said. Dear
God, would the man ever get to the point? “Just tell me what
happened.”

Lambert took a deep breath, as if steeling
himself. “I was somewhere else,” he said. Fear crept around the
edges of his voice. “I’d been whisked in an instant from the sunlit
street, to darkness. I couldn’t move, couldn’t see, couldn’t do
anything.”

I frowned. “You’d been abducted?”

“Yes!” Lambert leaned forward. “I don’t know
how they did it. They must have hit me over the head or—or I don’t
know! I tried to move, to cry for help, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t
even see my surroundings.”

At a guess, the man had been heavily
drugged. “Did you hear anything?”

His eyes widened. “You believe me?”

“Of course.” This was far from the strangest
thing I’d encountered in my time in Widdershins. “Did you hear
anything? Smell anything? Notice any detail that might shed some
light on what happened?”

“No.” He shook his head, slumping back in
his chair. “Nothing. Only darkness. It was...terrifying, not even
being able to scream. I don’t know how long I lay—stood?—there,
wondering what was happening. Then, all of a sudden, I was on the
steps of city hall with a clerk yelling at me, accusing me of
theft!”

This wasn’t the turn I’d expected his story
to take. “Let me make certain I understand you aright. You said you
were kidnapped, secured somehow in a dark place unable to move or
cry out—and then with no transition found yourself outside of city
hall?”

“Yes!” His eyes bulged. “I had no idea what
was going on, or why some clerk would be shouting at me. I asked
him if he’d seen who had left me there, and he looked at me as
though I were mad. Then the police came. They heard out the clerk
first.”

“And what did he say?”

“He claimed I came into the hall of records
and asked to see a map of the area from the 1600s.” Lambert’s
expression became incredulous. “As though I’d do such a thing! Why
would I care about an old map from before there was even a town
here? He said he brought out the map and I examined it. Then I
left, and when he turned to put the map away, it was gone.”

“Was it found on your person?”

“Of course not!” Lambert scowled at me for
daring to make the suggestion. “When the police found nothing, the
clerk accused me of passing it out the open window to an
accomplice. The police asked for my version of events.”

My heart sank. Lambert would have been far
better off lying, but I doubted it would have occurred to him to do
so. “And you told the truth.”

“Of course I did.” His mustache bristled
with righteous indignation. “I wanted them to investigate my
abduction and bring my kidnappers to justice. But the police said I
was either mad or drunk, and the clerk was as well. I tried to tell
them he must be in league with the kidnappers, but they dismissed
me.”

It was a bit of a stretch, but I didn’t say
that out loud. “Do you have any idea why someone would kidnap you?
Or why they’d return you to the steps of city hall?”

“No.” He shook his head. “I have no enemies,
but I suppose one of them might be a dissatisfied customer seeking
to discredit me.”

“I see.” I made another note. “Do you recall
the clerk’s name?”

“Patrick Tubbs.”

The case was indeed odd, as Mr. Lambert had
put it. I didn’t doubt he told the truth, or at least what he
believed to be the truth. I tore off a corner of the paper and
wrote a sum on it. “Your case sounds of interest, Mr. Lambert. This
is my daily fee. Should I require additional expenses, I’ll speak
to you about them beforehand.”

Lambert frowned at the paper. “This seems a
bit high, Mr. Flaherty.”

Of course he was the sort to haggle with me.
“Then by all means, you may hire another detective to clear your
good name.”

The suggestion made him look no happier. “I
assume the fee is only to be paid should you in fact succeed?”

“That would make it a reward, not a fee.” I
pasted on a false smile. “I operate under much the same rules as
the Pinkertons who trained me, Mr. Lambert. I understand not all do
so, but it is how I conduct my business.”

In other words, he was free to depart,
assuming he could find anyone else who would believe him.

No doubt he had the same thought. He didn’t
stop frowning, but he did nod reluctantly. Even so, I made certain
to have a check for the first day of investigation in my hand
before seeing him out.

Griffin

I still had a few hours before city hall
closed for the day, so I made my way to the department of records.
I entered to find the clerk seated behind a desk; he rose rather
hastily to his feet when I came in. No doubt he felt the sting of
the map’s loss from under his nose.

“Mr. Tubbs?” I asked, extending my hand.
“Permit me to introduce myself. I’m Griffin Flaherty.”

I’d come to the hall of records in the
course of my work before, but the deputy clerks changed at the whim
of the City Clerk, and I’d not met this one yet. Mr. Tubbs was
rather handsome, his young face not yet sculpted by lines, his
blond hair thick. As we shook hands, his eyes swept over me in a
not unappreciative fashion.

“What can I do for you, Mr. Flaherty?” he
asked.

I gave him my most charming smile. “I hoped
you might answer some questions about the map that disappeared the
other day.”

His smile wilted. “I already told the police
everything.”

“I’m not with the police. I’m a private
detective, representing a client whose identity is confidential.” I
looked him straight in the eye. “And I don’t think the loss of the
map was your fault.” Not that I had a clear notion of what was
going on, but it seemed doubtful the explanation would be so
prosaic as carelessness on Mr. Tubbs’s part.

His expression perked up at my assurance.
“You don’t? You must not be working for Mr. Lambert, then.”

No reason to correct his flawed assumption.
“As I said, my client requires confidentiality. May I ask you a few
questions?”

“Yes, of course. Can I offer you some
coffee?”

Not an admirer of the Graham Diet, then.
“Thank you; that would be most kind.” While he fetched the coffee,
I wandered about the room, studying numerous bookshelves stuffed
with bound records and a large number of cabinets built for the
storage of maps. I knew from experience that most of the maps were
surveys of property boundaries. An electric fan turned slowly
overhead, and the open windows let in a refreshing breeze. I peered
out; certainly it would have been possible for Lambert to have
passed the map to an accomplice, but only if Tubbs hadn’t noticed
him walk over to the window with it. There was also a disturbingly
large rat hole in one corner of the room, but it seemed rather
unlikely that anyone had trained rats to steal maps.

Tubbs returned with the coffee and saw me
looking at the hole. “Awful, isn’t it? I put out poison and asked
for a carpenter to come seal it. At least there hasn’t been any
damage to the records.”

We sat and sipped our coffee. I had the
feeling Mr. Tubbs didn’t get many visitors in the ordinary course
of a day. We chatted a bit about the ghastly heat, before I drew
the conversation around to my investigation. “Do you recall what
map Mr. Lambert asked to see?”

“Oh yes.” Tubbs nodded. “I should have known
something was strange, because the map he asked for dated from
1685, almost a decade prior to Widdershins’s founding. It was a
large survey of the entire Cranch Valley area.”