Jonathan Howard - Johannes Cabal the Detective

“That won’t be necessary,” replied Cabal, picking up his Gladstone and patting it with his wad of papers. “Government documents. I feel nervous when they’re out of my sight. I’ll find my own way there. S6? Starboard 6?”

The purser’s smile turned yet more honest at his being confronted with someone who didn’t need everything done for him. “Quite right, sir.” He reached into a compartmentalised case that sat open on a low table beside him and took out a key. “Your key.” Cabal took it, they exchanged farewells for the moment, and then both turned at the distinctive sound of military boots walking determinedly up the gangway.

Cabal’s heart sank.

Approaching them was an officer in what, Cabal recognised with a deep sense of foreboding, was the uniform of the Household Guard, the imperial élite. “I’ll be getting on,” said Cabal to the purser, who was looking at the approaching soldier with open astonishment, and set off nonchalantly towards the starboard corridor.

“You!” barked the officer, making everybody — Cabal included — freeze. The officer marched up to the purser, stamped to attention, and saluted. Even at this extreme, the purser returned the salute and even clicked his heels. The guardsman opened his sabretache and produced an official-looking piece of paper. “I’m looking for somebody,” he snapped, holding the piece of paper up to the purser’s eyes for him to read. “Do you have this man aboard?”

It could be anybody, thought Cabal. A country like this, Marechal’s people must be constantly hunting down enemies of the state. There’s no need to worry. Just remain calm and await developments.

The purser read the piece of paper twice before turning and pointing directly at Cabal.

All right, thought Cabal. I may be in trouble after all.

The officer wheeled, the purser being dropped from his attention like a leprous dog, and looked at Cabal with a steady intensity that boded badly. Cabal began to regret not transferring his switchblade to his pocket earlier while he had the chance. He didn’t fancy his chances in another fencing duel against a man in a gleaming metal breastplate. Tactically, sticking four inches of blade in the guardsman’s throat as he approached would have worked much better.

The room seemed much darker with the guardsman standing over him. “Can I help you, Lieutenant?” he asked.

In a single quick motion, the guardsman thrust the piece of paper into his face. “Fourth draft, Herr Meissner!”

“I beg your pardon?”

“The agricultural land-remittance discussion papers, fourth draft. I’m here on the personal orders of Baron Mitracht of the Agricultural Ministry. The papers you are carrying are to be redrafted while you are en route, according to these criteria.” He leaned closer until he was nose to nose with Cabal. “DO YOU UNDERSTAND?” he bellowed.

Cabal took a step back, realised that he wasn’t going to be dragged off in chains, after all, and nodded curtly. “Of course I understand,” he snapped back. “Tell the baron his orders will be carried out to the letter.” He twitched the paper out of the guardsman’s fingers. “You are dismissed.”

The soldier went very white, and Cabal wondered if he’d overstepped the mark there. Then, with a wheel about and a stamp, the officer marched back to the gangway, snarling “Bastard civies!” to the purser, a comrade in uniform. His bootsteps, sharp with fury, echoed down the covered bridge until they were gone.

The purser looked over at Cabal. Cabal waved the piece of paper before putting it away in his breast pocket. “A civil servant’s work is never done,” he commented, picked up his bag, and went to stateroom Starboard 6.

The steamer packet Heimlin had been held up just as she was about to leave the lakeside port, and the passengers and crew made to wait until the Count Marechal and his troops arrived. Lieutenant Hasso had stormed on board, thankfully not on horseback, and made a lot of fuss over a simple job. Finally, three quarters of an hour later, Johannes Cabal, beaten and bleeding, had been dragged across the gangway and dumped on the quayside.

Except, of course, that it wasn’t Johannes Cabal.

“It’s not him, Hasso,” said Marechal, pleased that fate was at least being consistent in its unkindness.

Hasso kicked the groaning man another couple of times before asking, “Are you sure?”

“I’ve spent some time in Cabal’s company. I think I’d recognise him. This man is of about the same age and appearance but, no, it is not him.”

“Oh,” Hasso said, pouting. The man groaned. Hasso kicked him again. “Do shut up. We’ve just had a bit of bad news.”

“I … I’m Duke Aachel’s nephew, you bastards,” moaned the man. “I know … I know you, Marechal. Uncle Günter will … will have your miserable hide nailed to the gatepost for this.”

Marechal, sitting on a mooring bollard, listened and considered. “Rough with the smooth, eh, Hasso?” Hasso grunted noncommittally. “We may have lost Cabal, but at least we located a dangerous spy and saboteur.” He drove his boot under the prone man’s stomach and used his instep to lever him over the edge of the quay. There was a cry, a splash, weak struggling, and silence. “Shame he died whilst attempting to escape.”

Hasso walked over to the edge and looked down. “What about Cabal, sir? Are we giving up on him?”

Marechal looked out across the waters of the Gallaco Sea. “He could be anywhere by now. No, Lieutenant, we have other fish to fry. If he crosses my path again, then that’s different; he will not live to regret it. But life’s too short for vendettas.” He paled slightly as he said this, and even Hasso wasn’t fooled. From the direction of the city square, there was the crackle of gunfire. Marechal stood up and dusted off his seat. “Come on, we’ve got peasants to kill.”

Exactly on schedule, the gyroscopic levitators whirred up to speed and the Princess Hortense began, in a very real sense, to ignore gravity. The huge suspension springs in her landing cradle extended gently as the aeroship started to lift. Deciding that it would be suspicious if he were not on deck for the departure, Cabal checked the forward lounge-cum-dining room and found it too heavily populated for discretion. Instead, he went back to the aft salon and leaned on the starboard rails there, the windows that would seal them in flight having been slid aside for the occasion. The great line-guide assembly was above and off to one side of him, and he watched it with interest as it angled, twisting on its mount slightly, seeking out the magnetic lines that the Hortense would pull herself along like a great spider on an ethereal thread. With a sharp electrical crack that filled that air with ozone and a shower of blue sparks that drew delighted cries from the spectators in the aeroport and on the field apron, it found and latched onto a likely candidate. Almost immediately, the fore starboard nacelle found one, too; Cabal couldn’t quite see it, but the flash of blue light was clearly visible on the grass around the cradle in the dying light of the day. There was an acoustic thudding through the public-announcement speakers in the lounge, and then the captain spoke to the passengers. “Ladies and gentlemen, please brace yourselves. We are about to disengage from the landing cradle and there may be some slight disturbance. Once we are clear, we shall perform one circuit of the field and then begin our journey. Thank you.” The speaker clicked into silence.

For the few people who were in the lounge with Cabal, bracing themselves seemed to consist mainly of gripping their drinks with both hands. As it happened, the disengagement was smooth and untroubled. The Princess Hortense rose in near-silence but for the cheers of the passengers, the answering ones of the ground spectators, the click and crackle of one of the line-guide nacelles abandoning its first setting in favour of a stronger one, and the constant hum of the gyroscopes that sang through the decks and into the inner ear. At three hundred feet, the Hortense slowed her ascent and started to move forwards, swinging her tail out to perform a tight circuit of the field. Below them, the city was starting to light up, with lamps in windows and angry red bonfires of houses burning as the riots spread. I suppose that’s my fault, really, thought Cabal as he watched the fires and the dimly seen crowds amongst the smoke and the flicker of rifle fire. Then he looked up into the sky and tried to make out the early stars. Politics had always bored him.