Randall Garrett - Too Many Magicians

“Of course, Master Sean, an excellent choice I should say. Now let me see—” He looked across at the body again. “I shan’t disturb the evidence any more than is necessary. Those ceremonial knives are all constructed to the same pattern, are they not?”

“Yes, my lord. Every sorcerer must make his own, with his own hands, but they are built to rigid specifications. That’s one of the things an apprentice has to learn right off, to build his own tools. You can’t use another man’s tools in this business, nor tools made by an ordinary craftsman. It’s the making of them that attunes them to the individual who uses them. They must be generally similar and individually different.”

“So I understand. Would you permit me to examine your own, so that I need not disturb Sir James’?”

“Of course.” He got the knife from his carpetbag and handed it to his lordship. “Mind you don’t cut yourself; that blade is razor sharp.”

Lord Darcy eased the onyx-handled knife from its black couirbouilli sheath. The gleaming blade was a perfect isosceles triangle, five inches from handguard to point and two inches wide at the handguard. Lord Darcy turned it and looked at the base of the pommel. “This is your monogram and symbol. I presume Sir James’ knife is identified in the same way?”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Would you mind looking at that knife and telling me whether you can positively identify it as his?”

“Oh, that’s the first thing I looked at. Many’s the time I’ve seen it, and it’s his knife, all right.”

“Excellent. That accounts for its being here.” He slid the deadly-looking blade back into its sheath and handed it back to the little sorcerer.

“That blade is pure silver, Master Sean?” Lord Bontriomphe asked.

“Pure silver, my lord.”

“Tell me: how do you keep a razor edge on anything that soft?”

Master Sean smiled broadly. “Well, I’ll admit it’s a hard job getting the edge on it in the first place. It has to be finished with jeweler’s rouge and very soft kidskin. But it’s only used as a symbolical knife, d’ye see. We never actually cut anything material with it, so it never needs to be sharpened again if a man’s careful.”

“But if you never cut anything with it,” said Lord Bontriomphe, “then why sharpen it at all? Wouldn’t it work as well if its edges were as dull as, say, a letter opener?”

Master Sean gave the London investigator a rather pained look. “My lord,” he said with infinite patience, “this is a symbol of a sharp knife. I also have a slightly different one with blunt edges; it is a symbol for a dull knife. Your lordship should realize that, for many purposes, the best symbol for a thing is the thing itself.”

Lord Bontriomphe grinned and raised one hand, palm outward. “Sorry, Master Sorcerer; my apologies. But please don’t give me any lectures on advanced symbolic theory. I never could get it through my head.”

“Is there anything else you wanted to look at, Bontriomphe?” Lord Darcy asked briskly. “If not, I suggest we be on our way, and permit Master Sean to go about his work. We will instruct the guards at the door that you are not to be disturbed, Master Sean. When you have finished, notify Chief Master-at-Arms Hennely Grayme that we should like an autopsy performed upon the body immediately. And I should appreciate it very much if you would go to the morgue and personally supervise the chirurgeon’s work.”

“Very well. I’ll see to it. I’ll get the report to My Lord Marquis’ office as soon as possible.”

“Excellent. Come, Bontriomphe; there is work to be done.”

As Lord Bontriomphe gave instructions to the Armsmen outside the late Master Sir James Zwinge’s room, Lord Darcy walked across the hall to the door facing the murder room and rapped briskly on it at a point just above the keyhole.

“Are you decent, Your Grace?”

There was a muffled flurry of movement inside, and the door flew open. “Lord Darcy!” said the Dowager Duchess of Cumberland, flashing him a brilliant smile. “You startled me, my lord.”

Lord Darcy pitched his own voice low enough so that the Armsmen and Lord Bontriomphe could not hear. “There is an old adage to the effect that people who listen at keyholes often hear things that startle them.”

Raising his voice to a normal speaking tone, he went on. “I should like to speak to Your Grace privately for a moment, if I may.”

“Certainly, my lord.” She stepped back to let him in the room, and he closed the door behind him.

“What is it?” she asked.

“A few quick questions, Mary. I need your help.”

“I thought you were going back to Cherbourg as soon as you got Master Sean out of the Tower.”

“Circumstances have changed,” he cut in. “Bontriomphe and I are working together on the case. But never mind that now. When you told me about the Damoselle Tia last night, the one thing you failed to mention was her connection with Sir Thomas Leseaux.”

Her Grace’s blue eyes widened. “But — aside from the fact that he was among those who recommended her for apprenticeship in the Guild, I don’t know of any connection. Why?”

Lord Darcy frowned in thought. “Unless I am very much mistaken, the connection goes a great deal deeper than that. Sir Thomas is in love with the girl — or thinks he is. He is also afraid that she might be mixed up in something illegal, something criminal — and he is afraid to admit the possibility to himself.”

“Criminal? Do you mean Black Magic or…” she hesitated, “the actual murder of Sir James?”

“I don’t know. It might be either or both — or something completely different. But I am not so much interested in what Sir Thomas suspects as I am in what the girl was and is actually doing that may be connected with the murder. At the same time, I do not want her to know that she is suspected in any way. Therefore, I would rather not question her myself. She has already undergone the routine questioning by a plainclothes Sergeant-at-Arms; to subject her to any further questioning would indicate that we have singled her out for special treatment. So far, she does not know that she was seen leaving Sir James’ room, and I am not ready for her to know yet.”

“You want me to question her, then?” asked the Duchess, her eyes almost sparkling with animation.

“Precisely. I know you, Mary; you are going to snoop anyway, and I would prefer that all the snoopers in this case have their activities co-ordinated as much as possible. So your job will be the Damoselle Tia. Question her — but not directly. Use indirectness and subtlety. Get to know her; gain her confidence if you can. Certainly there would be nothing suspicious about the two of you discussing the murder. I dare say everyone in the hotel is discussing it.”

She laughed. “Discussing it? Haven’t you felt the psychic tension in this place?”

“To a certain extent, but not, obviously, to the degree that you can sense it.”

“Well, it’s there, all right. There have been enough protective spells cast, enough amulets charged, enough charms and counter-charms worked in the past twenty-four hours to ward off a full phalanx of the Legions of Hell.” Her smile faded. “They’re not only talking about it, my dear; they’re doing something about it. The Guild is a damn sight more disturbed than it would appear upon the surface. There is a Black Sorcerer around with enough power to kill Master Sir James Zwinge. That’s enough to make a Master edgy; what do you think it’s doing to us journeymen? We’ve got to find him — and yet the counter-spells in this hotel have obfuscated any trace of the kind of evil malignancy that should be hanging like swamp fog over the place. It has all of us in a tizzy.”