The Fall of the House of Cabal (17 page)

‘Yes, we must. Indeed we must.' He shook his head. ‘I have no idea what you mean by that.'

‘For the moment, we have more potential witnesses to interview. Firstly, the closest witness.'

‘And who is that?'

‘Maleficarus's assistant, one Athena la Morte.'

‘L'amour?' Horst asked, sensitive to the possibilities of love.

‘La Morte,' Leonie corrected him, sensitive to the ubiquity of death.

*   *   *

Athena la Morte—born Pansy Kett—was discovered in her changing room, where the police had put her until such time as they decided what to do next. Horst knocked and entered first, and so discovered Miss la Morte in the process of repairing her make-up. Leonie noted that her eyes were puffy, and when Athena blew into the handkerchief Horst offered her, there was little evidence that the sniffling was histrionic.

Even in such a dismayed state, she was clearly a very attractive woman in her mid-twenties, dark hair still clipped back as it had been when she had worn it beneath a wig and headpiece that evening as a concubine of the wicked mandarin. Beneath her candlewick dressing gown in an unflattering shade of pale terracotta could be seen the historically inaccurate but still very fetching
cheongsam
she had worn as her costume.

‘Trick?' she said to Horst's inquiry. ‘There was no trick. That was an honest piece of escapology. Every evening, every matinee Max had to crack a padlock he hadn't seen before. And he did it. Max is a genius.' She faltered. ‘Was.'

‘Why the paper screen, then?' asked Miss Barrow, sitting by la Morte. Horst had made a beeline to take that chair, but a warning glance from the Great Detective had stopped him in his tracks, and now he was standing, forced to be sympathetic from a safe distance. Safe for Miss la Morte, that was. Since discovering that in this curious city that never was and probably never would be, he was fully human and prey to human wonts and desires, Horst had recalled which of those wonts and desires were his personal favourites and was looking to exercise them before the presumably inevitable return to vampirism. So far he had successfully sated his desire for bacon by dint of it being reasonably simple to address. Higher on his list was another desire that Miss Barrow seemed intent on thwarting at every turn.

Athena smiled ruefully. ‘What's honest escapology to a performer isn't really the same to the punters. They think you should be able to pick a lock without tools. Course, no one can do that. So, Max has … had … lock picks concealed. The screen was so the audience couldn't see they were hidden in the arms of the throne, or how he used them.' She looked hopelessly from face to face. ‘I can't understand it. The lock was a bog-standard Schumann. Whoever brings in the lock has to give written assurance that the lock is new and hasn't been tampered with in any way. It's closed and unlocked a few times in Max's sight so he's satisfied nobody's trying to be clever by altering the mechanism. His life depends on it being an honest feat of skill. He could do a Schumann in his sleep. I just don't understand what went wrong. Except…' She frowned. ‘I'm not sure. I'm onstage, obviously, and half of my job is to distract the audience. Nothing is unrehearsed. I always know what I'm supposed to be doing, but … maybe my timing was off.'

Leonie was making notes. ‘Off in what way?'

‘I could have sworn the crossbow shot before it was supposed to. Not by much—only a second or two—but that might have been enough.' She shook her head. ‘I'm making something out of nothing. The timing was
never
quite predictable. You'd think a sand clock would be accurate to a second when it doesn't have to run very long, wouldn't you?'

‘Yes.' Leonie underlined something. ‘Yes, I would. Who's responsible for the apparatus? The police mentioned an engineer?'

‘Engineer … yes, I suppose you could call him that. That's Max's son. I haven't even seen him since this happened. The police seem to be keen on keeping everyone apart.'

‘That's good practise, Miss la Morte. People's memories are less reliable than you might think. If a couple of witnesses compare notes completely innocently before statements are taken, they can influence one another. Something one of them thought he saw becomes something they both definitely saw.'

‘Yes, I can imagine that.' La Morte gestured at her costume. ‘A lot of a stage illusionist's job is making people think they saw something that they didn't.'

Leonie wasn't entirely listening. She had noticed Horst's expression had become uncharacteristically serious. ‘Horst?'

‘Miss la Morte,' he asked. ‘This son of Mr Maleficarus, what is his name?'

‘Rufus,' she replied. ‘His name is Rufus Maleficarus.'

*   *   *

‘He's the killer,' said Horst with certainty as they went to interview the son of the deceased. ‘As sure as night follows day, he's the killer.'

‘This isn't our world,' Leonie reminded him. ‘He might be a wonderful and loving son here.'

‘No. Rufus Maleficarus is a stinker of the first water. His stink is strong enough to travel across the spheres. Every Rufus Maleficarus in every possible world is an utter stinker, too.' He nodded with certainty. ‘You'll see. I bet he'll be wearing plus fours, the blackguard.'

*   *   *

He was not wearing plus fours, although that didn't stop Horst from scowling at him. Leonie had never met him in the flesh, and Horst had only seen his corpse, and that a riffle away from this reality. But Horst had heard of the history of Rufus Maleficarus in forensic and unalloyed detail from his brother, and drawn from that the only possible conclusion: Rufus Maleficarus was a stinker. Further, he had seen the result of Maleficarian magic himself in a conflict that had claimed the lives of people he had liked, and who had deserved more than to be snuffed out by this, the most preposterous of magicians. Johannes had explained that Maleficarus was not entirely responsible, at least at a metaphysical level, for these specific deaths. Given that he was, however, also undeniably responsible for scores of deaths in a cack-handed scheme that almost resulted in the global extermination of humanity, that footling mitigation was very small beer indeed.

This iteration of Rufus Maleficarus wore brown warehouse overalls and suede, soft-soled shoes, the better to travel unheard around the near-stage areas while a performance was in progress. He was red-haired and clean shaven, a man barely into his twenties. He was not nearly as ursine as the version Horst was more familiar with, but his frame was large, and it seemed likely he would grow thus in the next few years. He was also surly, which was unendearing.

‘I've already spoken to the police. I didn't see anything, and I wasn't anywhere near the stage when it happened. Why can't I go?'

‘You don't seem very heartbroken about your father's death,' said Horst. Leonie gave him a warning look, but he was at pains to ignore it. ‘In fact, you just seem irritated by it.'

‘We all die sometime. Magicians get killed doing their acts sometimes. It happens. Not often, but it happens. Bullet catches, water escapes, even a guillotine illusion once, I heard.' He smiled, a twisted cynical line across his face. ‘Audience certainly got their money's worth that night. My dad was very good, but he risked his life every time he sat on that throne. We all knew it. It's the life.' He cast his hand around the understage area where he apparently held domain. It seemed to have been at least partially converted into use as a workshop, judging from the workbench, the pots of paint, tools, spools of wire, board, and even welding gear propped up in the corner.

‘What do you think went wrong?' asked Leonie, heading Horst off at the interrogatory pass.

Rufus turned his mouth down in professional consideration, the sort of expression a plumber displays just before he says the dripping tap means a new boiler is required. ‘He was slowing down. It was obvious. Every year it took him longer to do the same old things. He shouldn't have been using such risky
prestige
at his age. Lost his fire. He was all about going off to the Far East a few years ago, learn some new stuff from them. But that looked too much like work, so he didn't bother. Just carried on with the same old card tricks and nonsense. He'd have been pulling rabbits out of hats at children's parties in a few years, the way he was going on.'

He took a long breath and blew it out. ‘This might be the best thing that ever happened to him. Magicians who get killed by their acts get a sort of immortality. The name of Maleficarus will live on, now.'

Leonie looked up from her notebook. ‘You really don't sound very fond of your father.'

‘Fond?' Rufus scratched his nose. ‘Not really the kind of man you get fond of. If he'd done what he said he would, gone east, I'd have been proud of him, you know? Do something a bit different. A new direction. But no, that was too much bother.'

‘Where exactly were you when the incident occurred?'

‘Incident?' He laughed without humour. ‘I was checking the props for after the interval, staging them to go into the wings.'

‘You were in the wings?'

‘No, not at that point. I was under the stage. I spend most of my waking hours under the bloody stage.' He half laughed at his choice of words. ‘I'm used to hearing screams from the audience when the crossbow shoots. Then there's laughter and applause. Not tonight, though. Not tonight.'

*   *   *

‘I've changed my mind about Rufus Maleficarus,' Horst said as they walked back to the stage. ‘He's
too
obvious. I've read detective stories. I know how this works.'

‘This isn't a detective story.' Though she was loath to admit it, Leonie couldn't help thinking Rufus was a little too overtly unlikable to be the villain of the piece.

‘But it
is
. This isn't real life. You're not really the world's greatest detective or whatever you're supposed to be, and I'm not the light relief.' He pulled a face. ‘Except I am, aren't I? Obsessed with bacon rolls and the fairer sex all of a sudden, to comic effect.'

‘I thought I was going to have to extract you from Miss la Morte's cleavage with a crowbar.'

‘You exaggerate. I made a point of looking at her face once a minute or so. You must admit, though, she's a very handsome creature.'

‘If you like that sort of thing, I suppose she is.' She chased a half thought that had occurred to her during the questioning. ‘Doesn't something strike you as a little
off
about her, though?'

‘Off? She seemed very sincere.'

‘That's not what I mean. Maximillian's act seems very staid in many respects; enough to disgust his son, certainly. Yet he has an assistant whose wardrobe seems to run strongly to black, crimson, and silver, who is stage-named for the goddess of wisdom and prudent warfare in addition to death, and whose role on that stage is to play the villainess as much as anything. None of that strikes you as odd?'

Horst shrugged. ‘You see all sorts of acts, all sorts of themes in the theatre.'

‘What I mean is how it seems to be two halves of different acts glued together. She simply isn't the sort of assistant I would expect for somebody whose performance is so very much of the old school of gentleman illusionists. She belongs to a more current generation.'

*   *   *

They arrived at the stage to find Lament overseeing the work of the police photographer. Overseeing, in this case, comprised mainly of standing to one side and smoking a pipe.

‘Done your detectin', then, Miss Barrow?' he said with what Leonie recognised with a small tickle of pleasure was a fond irony. She had only just met Lament, but in this world their acquaintance was apparently well formed, and mutually respectful.

‘Not nearly, Inspector. The incident has interesting aspects.'

Lament's face, already as dour as a bloodhound receiving bad news, fell further. ‘Oh, Lord. It doesn't, does it? I thought we could just chalk this up to a terrible accident and go home.'

‘That might yet be the true state of affairs. I'm just curious about some details.'

‘Such as?'

‘Well, to whom Miss la Morte is betrothed. That would be a beginning.'

Horst almost jumped. ‘What? What makes you—'

Leonie touched her bare ring finger. ‘She clearly and habitually wears a ring; the mark on her finger is obvious. Equally obviously, she doesn't wear it for performances. It makes her more interesting and therefore more distracting for male members of the audience if she appears unattached, and a ring is all too apparent when caught in the limelight. I glanced over her dressing table and saw it there, an engagement rather than a wedding ring. I didn't feel it was the right time to enquire directly of her, so I left it until now. Who is her fiancé, Inspector?'

Lament didn't even need to resort to his notebook, but simply nodded at the throne. ‘The deceased.'

Leonie cocked her head. ‘Really?'

‘You seem surprised.'

‘A little. Presumably becoming his assistant is how they met in the first place?'

‘I would think so, miss.'

She bit her lip and looked up into the shadows above the stage beyond the grid. ‘One would think so. Indeed one would.' She slapped Horst in the chest with the back of her hand. ‘Come on, faithful sidekick. I need to ask more questions of Miss la Morte.'

Horst's shoulders sagged at the suggestion. ‘Do you need me to come along? Her changing room's not
that
close to the stage.'

She looked him in the eye as she moved a step to present her back to Lament and, when she was sure she had his undivided attention, said, ‘Cleavage' in an undertone.

‘Lead on, my captain. I shall follow you to the ends of the earth,' he said, suddenly motivated.