Jackaby Page 8

  “You did, though, didn’t you? Who was he?”

  Jackaby did not speak for several paces.

  “She,” he said at last, quietly. “I prefer not to discuss the matter.” There was a dark finality to his tone, so I swallowed my curiosity for the time being, letting another block of cobblestones pass beneath our feet before I spoke again. “Do you think you could teach me? To see past the illusions?”

  “No,” said Jackaby, almost before I had finished speaking. “Probably no. Almost certainly no. It is, as I just explained, an ability unique to me. The sight resides within a single host at any given time.”

  “Have you ever tried?” I asked. “Maybe I can’t learn to do it exactly like you do . . . but we could see how much I am able to pick up.”

  Jackaby scowled, but I could see the scientist in him was intrigued by the idea. “I suppose we could establish experimental parameters, measure sensitivity under consistent conditions and changing variables, introduce external stimuli . . .” He was beginning to regard me with the same focused attention he directed at his peculiar artifacts and vials of curious chemicals. It was both promising and deeply unsettling. “I shall give the prospect my consideration,” he concluded. “If I decide to keep you on at all, of course.” He turned his eyes back to the sidewalk.

  “It can’t be easy,” I said, “tracking this stuff down, all on your own. Not much help to be found if no one else can even see what you’re looking for.”

  “Quite so,” said Jackaby. And then he stopped short. “No. Not entirely alone.”

  “Well, I’m glad to be along,” I replied modestly.

  “Not you, Miss Rook. But since you mention it, there is someone who sees things—not precisely the same way I see them, but in a similar fashion . . . sometimes. She’s called Hatun. It might very well prove enlightening to know what sort of things she’s seen lately.” We had been winding back toward the office, but Jackaby now turned, taking a side street in the opposite direction.

  “Another seer? You just said . . .”

  “Not exactly a seer, no. She . . . oscillates. There are basically three ways she sees the world, and she sort of bounces among them. At times she perceives the world just as any simpleton does—just as you do.”

  “Thanks for that.”

  “Other times, though, she sees things almost as I do, the world behind the glamour. It isn’t always as clear for her, I think. It’s just a feeling she gets, a hunch or premonition, and she lets her imagination fill in the blanks. Good imagination, though. She’s often right on track, even if she doesn’t know what track she’s on.”

  “What’s the third?”

  “Third?”

  “The third way she sees the world?”

  “Oh, right. How shall I put it? The first way is the predictable way, and the second way is how the world really is. The third is . . . the unpredictable way, and how the world really isn’t. All sorts of nonsense and madness in that one. Decidedly less helpful. It can be a bit tricky, determining which version she’s in—and, of course, they do overlap a bit.”

  “Sounds complicated.”

  “She is that. But Hatun is a good woman. Once, in the middle of the night, someone slipped in and pried up every last cobblestone from one of the alleyways off Mason Street. An entire alley, secreted away in one night. Scarcely two blocks from the police station, no less!”

  “And she helped catch the criminals?”

  “Hah! Better! She was discovered, a few days later, carting a bulging burlap sack full of the stones off to some special place in the woods. A police officer was sent out to ask her about it, and she smiled and patted his arm and told him it was all right, that there wouldn’t be any more bad luck. She had been warning people for weeks beforehand that the hexagonal-cut stones were emanating hexes. Genuine concern and consideration for her fellow citizens, mind you. She pulled them up herself, stone by stone, and stashed six bags of them in plain sight behind the masons’ building until she could lug them off to a safe place. No one thought twice about spare stonework on a masons’ lot. Clever planning and selfless efforts. Must’ve worked herself ragged.”

  “And the stones were causing bad luck?” I asked.

  Jackaby shook his head with a wry smile. “Only for the unfortunate city grunts who had to lay them twice. Octagons, the second go-round, by special request of Mayor Spade. I certainly took an interest and investigated the matter, but I can assure you, there wasn’t a hint of anything malevolent about the original batch. They were stones. She’s always doing that sort of thing. Protecting the city from the demons in her head. She once cautioned me that the weathercocks were in league with one another. Just felt I ought to know.”

  “So she’s just a mad woman?”

  Jackaby hesitated, and when he spoke, his answer had a soft earnestness to it. “Hatun sees a different world than you or I, a far more frightening one, full of far more terrible dangers, and still she chooses to be the hero whom that world needs. She has saved this town and its people from countless monsters countless times. That the battles are usually in her head does not lessen the bravery of it. The hardest battles always are.”

  We had come to the edge of town, where architecture ended and a swath of grasses and shrubs separated the city from the forest. Not far from the road, a little bridge hopped over a winding creek, and a thin footpath snaked into the trees. As we left the road and drew closer, the first thing I noticed was that the creek had frozen over. Snow dusted its solid surface, along with a few leaves and windblown branches. The second thing I noticed was a slumped figure by the base of the bridge. She was fishing in the frozen creek . . . or at least, holding a pole and letting the hook scrape lazy lines in the frosted surface. The metal sinker bounced along the impurities in the ice, tinkling like a wind chime. “Good evening, Hatun,” Jackaby called out amiably as we approached. “Are they biting?”

  Chapter Twelve

  Hatun looked up and smiled at the detective. “You know good and well the fish aren’t biting. I made a promise to try, though, at least once a week. Token gesture, but better a cold backside than an angry you-know-who. Even if he is just a little fellow.” She tapped her nose with her finger in a conspiratorial gesture.

  “And you’re good to remember,” Jackaby told her. Then, to me: “She made a promise to a troll . . . Calls the thing Hammett, if I recall. When she does catch the occasional little something, she leaves it under the bridge for him. She’s been at it since early fall.”

  “Another one of her imaginary dangers?” I whispered.

  “Oh no. Quite real. This is his bridge. He’s a diminutive thing, but all the more nasty and ill-tempered for his size. He has brought an untimely end to more than a few lost house pets and unfortunate local fauna. He seems to have a fondness for cats, though—rides a stray orange tabby when he needs to get about.”

  “A troll?” I said. “Seriously?”

  “Scoff if you like, but if you’re keen on keeping all of your digits and extremities, you would be well advised to steer clear or pay him an offering.”

  “All right.” I suppressed my skepticism again—an exercise I was finding necessary more often than not while working for Jackaby. “Well, trolls . . . eat people, don’t they? Could Hammett be our killer?”

  “Interesting thought. I can’t see a full-grown troll leaving a body without at least gnawing the bones a bit first. It’d be as if you or I ate an orange peel and left the fruit in the center. As for Hammett, he’s not exactly a menacing figure, for all his pugnacity. He would be happy to crunch the lot of us between his teeth, but I’ve seen him lose in a fair fight with a particularly robust badger. So . . . doubtful.” He turned his attention back to Hatun, who had tucked the fishing pole under the little bridge and come across to meet us.

  She stood a foot shorter than I, with curly gray hair tied back in a sloppy bun, and the wrinkled face of someone who had weathered many years outdoors. She was dressed in bulky layers of shirts, petticoats, and w
raps, all tattered and faded into complementary shades of soft pastels and subtle grays. She stood with a proud, erect gait, and an expression of benevolent confidence, looking almost stately in spite of her rags.

  “Hatun, I would like you to meet my new associate, Miss Abigail Rook. Miss Rook will be working closely with me on cases for the foreseeable future. Feel free to speak openly before her.”

  Hatun looked squarely and a little suspiciously at me, and then shuffled a half step to one side and then the other. She watched my eyes intently during the exercise. “Hmm,” she said. “Well, then. Nice to meet you, missy. I expect you two are looking into that business at the Emerald?”

  I glanced to Jackaby, who seemed unperturbed by her behavior or her accurate guess. “Yes, in fact,” he answered.

  “How did you know?” I meant it as a proper detective’s question, but I’m afraid it came out as an awed whisper, instead.

  “Of course she knew.” Jackaby gestured impatiently back toward city. “There are at least a dozen uniformed men and scores of pedestrians making a noisy scene not three blocks from where we stand. If that mill weren’t in the way, you could probably see them from here.”

  “Oh, think you know so much?” Hatun shook a finger at the detective. “Well, I’ll have you know I saw a lot more than boys with badges and a lot of silly rope. I was by there last night, and I looked the devil in the eyes, I surely did. I’m guessing you saw it, too, eh? Can’t ignore what you see with your own eyes, can you? Not you.”

  “You saw him?” Jackaby’s eyes widened. “Hatun, you mean to say you actually saw the murderer last night?”

  “Murderer?” Now it was Hatun’s turn to look surprised. “Oh dear. I guess must have, at that. I hadn’t realized. Who did he get?”

  “Bragg,” I answered. “Arthur Bragg. A newspaperman. Did you know him?”

  She shook her head. “No. Poor soul. But I’ll say a few words tonight.”

  “I don’t suppose you’ve spoken to Marlowe or any of his officers yet?” asked Jackaby.

  “Oh no. Been keeping to myself. Kept my shawl on all tight all night, didn’t want anyone finding me after what I saw.”

  “You were hiding in your shawl?” I asked.

  Hatun gave the pale blue knit shawl around her shoulders an affectionate tug. “Only street folk can see me in this, beggars and homeless, like. Never had much cause to watch out for them—they’re good souls, the most of ’em. For everyone else—well, it doesn’t make me invisible or nothing, just impossible to notice.” She smiled proudly.

  Jackaby and I exchanged glances.

  “Erm, I found you,” said my colleague.

  Hatun gave him a knowing wink. “You don’t exactly follow the rules when it comes to finding things, though, now do you, Detective?”

  Jackaby looked to me again. “Miss Rook? Are you able to . . . ?”

  “Yes, of course I can see her.”

  Jackaby turned back to Hatun. “I’m afraid it may not be working properly,” he said with a pitying look. “Now, what is it you saw at the Emerald Arch last night, precisely?”

  “Oh, stuff it with the snooty faces.” Hatun closed the gap between us and looked me up and down. “Young lady, that’s a lovely dress.”

  “Thank you, I—”

  “Where do you live?”

  “Well . . .” I hadn’t yet found proper lodgings, and having only had gainful employment for a matter of hours, hadn’t yet felt up to asking Jackaby for a week’s advance. “I’m working on that.”

  The woman stuck out her tongue at Jackaby. “See? Homeless. It’s working fine.”

  Jackaby raised an eyebrow in my direction, but persisted with the matter at hand. “The Emerald Arch, Hatun? What did you see? Be specific.”

  “Well.” She glanced quickly around and lowered her voice. “It was getting late in the evening. The sun had gone, and the lamps near that corner were dark. They need new wicks, that whole block, they’re always going out—but the moon was near full, and it brightened up the street pretty well. I was only out to see if I could scrounge something for Hammett. He does threaten to turn me to stew, but it gets cold out here and I worry about him. Poor thing’s had a cough for weeks. So, I was just across the street behind Chandler’s Market—Ray just throws out the bones and fish heads—and I hear a sound coming from that Emerald Arch building. I look way up and see a dark shape at the window—not the top one, but at almost-the-top window. The window creaks up and someone sticks his head out and looks up and down the street.”

  “Did you get a good look at his face?” Jackaby pressed.

  “Oh yes. I’ll never have that face out of my mind. So, his head comes out and he’s got evil, evil eyes, and terrible, sharp teeth. He looks up and down the street, but I have my shawl on, see, and he doesn’t see me. That awful head ducks back inside for a second, and then out comes his leg and he starts to step out onto the balcony. Well, about then, I backed up to stay as far from that creature as possible, and I backed right into a crate of old scrap shingles some fool left in the alleyway. The things clatter to the street, and the beast just leaps back into the window and pulls it shut.”

  “You’re quite certain that what you saw was a creature of some sort, and not a man?” asked Jackaby.

  “He was a beast, all right. Nothing human about that face. Strange, though, he dressed like a man. It was dark, and he was good and high up there, but I could see his trousers and a suit jacket. Normal kind of clothes, I think, except his shoes. His shoes were shiny metal. Coming out of the window, their soles looked like the hot side of an iron, and they clanked as he stepped onto the balcony. I stuck around in the alley for a long time, to see if he’d come back, but he never did. Must’ve gone out the front, instead.”

  Jackaby’s face was clouded with thought. “He did indeed, Hatun. His trail resumed on the interior stairwell. Was there anything else?”

  Hatun informed us that she had returned home after that, and hadn’t seen the creature since, nor anything else out of the ordinary. “Do be careful though,” she added. “The chimneys and stovepipes have not been singing as often lately. That’s never a good sign for the city. They know something’s wrong.”

  Jackaby thanked her for her time and counsel, and offered her an apple, plucked from somewhere up his sleeve. With a few mumbled cordialities, we left the woman to her frosty bridge and returned to the streets of New Fiddleham.

  We had walked several blocks before I interrupted Jackaby’s intense concentration. “You were right,” I said. “About the shoes, I mean. Even if she doesn’t get it all right, she saw just what you predicted. So, they are metal. And this is good, right? We’ve narrowed things down—eliminated more possibilities?”

  “Yes, indeed. Except that it isn’t good at all.”

  “No?”

  “She said he wore a suit jacket.”

  “And that’s bad?”

  “Monsters are easy, Miss Rook. They’re monsters. But a monster in a suit? That’s basically just a wicked man, and a wicked man is a more dangerous thing by far.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  By request of my employer, the contents of chapter thirteen have been omitted.

  ~ Abigail Rook

  Chapter Fourteen

  Back in his home on Augur Lane, we passed through the quiet lobby—my eyes still willfully avoiding the frog—and down the crooked, green hallway. Instead of continuing to his office, Jackaby pushed open the door to the library. Soft light played in through the alcove windows at the far end, and the detective didn’t bother with the lamps. He began plucking books from the shelves. Some were massive, impressive-looking, leather-bound volumes, and others seemed little more than pamphlets.

  “May I help?” I asked.

  He set down an armload on the table next to me and glanced up. “What? Oh. Yes, of course, of course, that’s why I hired you. Let’s see, there should be a few useful titles down that aisle. Look for the Almanac Arcanum, and anything by Mendel.”
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br />   He bustled off around the corner, and I perused the spines nearest me. Neither the authors’ names nor the titles of the books seemed to have been taken into consideration in Jackaby’s shelving method. “Is there a system to these? How do you find anything?” I called.

  The detective’s voice came from the next row over. “I have a simple and utilitarian method of arrangement. They’re sorted by supernatural potency and color of aura. You’re in beige, just now.”

  “You know, I could get these all catalogued and sorted properly for you if you like. I used to spend a lot of time in libraries, back in school. I bet it wouldn’t take more than a week or two.”

  His head appeared suddenly at the end of my row. “Good heavens, no! No no no, I have them precisely where I want them. Just—just see to it you don’t move things around much. And don’t lose any of my bookmarks. Oh, and don’t go into the Dangerous Documents section.” He gestured toward an area blocked from sight by a corridor of bookshelves, from which the shadows seemed to fall a little darker than was absolutely natural. “And don’t—”

  “Perhaps I should just carry these to your office,” I offered, patting the stack of books Jackaby had already selected, “where you can conduct your research more comfortably?”

  “That sounds like a marvelous idea. Thank you, Miss Rook.”

  In all, we brought a stack of eleven or twelve volumes and three large charts into the office before Jackaby seemed satisfied that he could suitably bury himself in his work. He ducked into the jumbled laboratory across the hall and brewed a pot of exceptionally strong black tea before diving in. The tea service he returned with did not suit the detective. It was a delicate set, painted in soft pastels with understated floral patterns and curling, feminine accents.

  “I hope you don’t take milk. I appear to be out,” he said, pushing a few papers aside to make space for the tray on the corner of his desk.