David Chandler - Den of thieves

“There,” Cutbill said. “As you see-I am wholly innocent.”

“I’m half of a mind to string you up anyway, just on principle. It might not get the crown back but it would make the city a better place.”

Cutbill sighed and turned to the next page of his ledger. “That would be a foolish thing to do. I have long held a special arrangement with-”

“With the Burgrave. Not with me!”

“With the Burgrave,” Cutbill agreed. “Who always saw me as a necessary evil. I am allowed to operate for the most part unmolested. In exchange I keep a tight rein on the crime in this city. The wealthier citizens are under my protection and the better districts safe at night. If you remove me and my influence, you’ll have a hundred fat merchants to answer to.”

Malden stifled a gasp. To think that the mastermind of crime was in league with the very authorities he flouted! Not for the first time, his admiration for Cutbill’s genius was enlarged.

Cutbill entered a figure in his ledger. “The commonest kind of thief will run wild in the streets, and while you’ll catch them soon enough, there will always be more to take their place. The system works. You can’t afford to kill me.”

Anselm Vry grabbed the quill out of Cutbill’s hand and snapped it in two. “You’ll pay attention when I speak to you. I will find the thief who took the crown. And when I trace him back to you, Cutbill, I will be well justified in turning this place into a charnel pit. If your organization is needed, you can still be replaced!”

“Of course,” Cutbill said. He closed his ledger, though he kept one finger between the pages as a way to mark his place. “No man is truly indispensable. Yet it would take time to find someone with my particular gifts, and more time to place him properly where he could be effective. And at this very moment you require my services. In fact, without them all hope is lost.”

“How so?” Anselm Vry demanded.

“You need to find the crown. And soon. For the nonce you can say the Burgrave is ill, and that he cannot be seen in public. Yet in seven days he must appear. It will be Ladymas then, and he must lead the procession. His position as head of the church demands it. He must also be wearing his crown when he does so.”

“A replica can be made. No one will know the difference.”

Exactly, Malden thought. That was what Bikker had suggested.

“Without being plain, which would be unwise just now as we are not alone,” Cutbill said, referring to the watchmen still in the room, “you and I both know that would not work.”

Vry scowled but said nothing.

In the spy hole, Malden pursed his lips. He wondered what that could possibly mean. A replica crown seemed a perfect solution-yet Cutbill and Vry both seemed to think it would not do. But why?

“I’m sure you have your watch scouring the city already, searching for the crown high and low. But I guarantee they will not find it. Whoever committed this crime is clearly intelligent enough to keep it out of sight.”

“They’ll go house-to-house then, looking for it.”

“You don’t have enough watchmen to carry out even a cursory search in that time. Whereas I-”

“Yes?” Vry demanded.

“-have a network of informants and observers who see everything that happens in this city. If I investigate with the fullness of my powers, I can find the crown, and return it, safely, to the Burgrave.”

The bailiff glared at Cutbill with pensive rage.

Cutbill opened his ledger to the place he’d left off.

Then he stood up from his lectern, crossed over to his desk and took up a fresh quill.

With a sharp knife he trimmed the nib. Then he stirred it in his inkwell.

He sat back down at his lectern.

And began to make entries.

Anselm Vry was still staring at him.

Cutbill doesn’t make an offer unless he knows what the answer will be, Malden remembered.

“No,” Vry said.

Malden had not been expecting that.

The guildmaster of thieves did not react visibly.

“No. Too long, Cutbill, you have clutched this city like a hawk clutching a mouse in its talons. You have the temerity to think you are invulnerable. Well, I will show you better. I will find the crown myself, before Ladymas. I will find whoever is holding it, and I will torture them until they give me your name. And then I will return here, and I will finish you, and all your works. I will eradicate you.”

Cutbill made another notation in his ledger.

“Did you hear me, you glorified cutpurse?” Vry demanded. A vein stuck out from his forehead. Even in the dim light streaming through the spy hole, Malden could see it pulsing.

“Quite clearly. It sounds as if our business is complete. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get this place cleaned up before the day’s receipts start coming in.” Cutbill bent over his ledger as if the bailiff had already gone.

Vry fumed a while longer, but then signaled his men and they all trooped out of the office, out through the door to the common room.

And then Cutbill was alone. For quite a while he continued to make his notations. Then he sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Malden,” he said in a clear voice, “the main problem with skulduggery and subterfuge is that all the involved parties must actually know how it is done. For instance, they should know when it is safe to emerge from hiding without being told. Will you come out of there now? I have something to say to you.”

Malden’s heart fell inside his chest and crashed into his vitals. He opened the spy closet door and stepped out. Cutbill gestured for him to approach.

“I imagine you heard all that,” Cutbill said, when Malden stood contrite and fidgety before him. “I imagine you followed most of it. Surely you grasped in just what desperate straits our esteemed bailiff finds himself. And you must have drawn the naturally following conclusion-that he will not be swept under the current alone. You understand, then, how much trouble has found its way to my doorstep.”

“Yes,” Malden confirmed.

“Someone, it seems, did a very rash thing. They stole the Burgrave’s crown out of his tower. I can, of course, understand how a thief would covet it. It must be one of the most valuable things in the city. Yet it has never been stolen before, not in the eight hundred years since it was made. Do you have any idea why?”

“The… consequences that would follow from its theft.”

“Indeed!” Cutbill said. He scratched another entry in his ledger. “It was my belief that you were a clever sort, and here I have proof. You follow me precisely. May I be certain, then, that you would never do something so foolish, so irretrievably stupid, as to bring down my entire organization? I’m afraid I can’t be certain of that at all. I think you’ve done just such a thing, Malden. I think you’ve made a very bad blunder.”

“I thought-”

“Here,” Cutbill said, and tapped at an entry in his ledger, “is receipt of your dues payment. One and a hundred gold royals, paid in full. And here,” he said, flipping forward a page, “is an expenditure of one groat.” Cutbill dug a halfpenny out of his tunic and handed it to Malden.

“What’s this for?” Malden asked in a small voice. He stared at the coin in his hand.

“It is the traditional severance fee. When a thief leaves my operation he receives that price.”

“I see.”

Cutbill made another entry. “It is to be placed in the thief’s mouth. After his tongue has been cut out to make room. Then his throat is slit. Normally, Bellard does the honors, but he isn’t… available today. Would you be so kind as to perform the necessary operations yourself, with that rather silly dagger you carry?”