So Miss White was one of the Departed. And a member of the Westler family to boot. That did explain a lot. The secretive nature of Miss White regarding her past and her true name, for starters. Would I have gotten involved if I had known she was one of the Westlers? I would like to think that I would not have turned her away, but brutal honesty made me admit that there was a very good chance that I would have. It was best not to get entangled in the affairs of the Westlers, not if you valued your life or your kneecaps.

That was the reason behind the goons and the heavies that had been watching over here then, members of the family. But the Westlers were not exactly short on money, so why had Miss White - Miss Westler - given the impression that she was not so well off? It could have been that she was independent minded, a young woman seeking to make her own way in the city. It can't have been easy to have been born with the Westler name. And now also dead. Not that the Westlers had a problem with the Departed. There were many who did, but, for all their many faults, that was not one that the Westlers had.

It did also explain Mister White and his not so veiled threats about not digging too deep. Do not disturb the dead he had said. He had all but told me what was going on and I had missed it, thinking it no more than an expression of speech. No doubt he had a secret laugh about that. Of course, it could have been a number of things that he was referring to; that Miss White was a Departed, that she was a member of the Westlers, or that the person responsible for her death had disappeared.

Though if that were the case, why had Nathan Hanes been looking into her murder? I'd have to find him first before I could ask him about it. Unless the Hound was able to enlighten me. It was too late in the day to call upon him though. Night had well and truly fallen by the time that I left the Archive. I was more than due a break after another long day of chasing leads around. The case had been running me ragged, with the lack of sleep and all else that had gone on. I dragged myself home to snatch what sleep I could.

With all the trouble out there looking for me, my nerves were on edge the whole way back home, as I rode the trolley car and especially walking along the snow covered streets. I half expected that someone would spring out of the shadows and mists and make another attack on me. It wasn't like I was short on people wanting to do so it seemed. It never happened but it didn't leave me feeling any better by the time that I got back to my place. After a quick meal and a stiff drink to settle myself down, I retired to bed for the night.

I had to drag myself out of bed the following morning, still bleary eyed and tired. The sleep hadn't worked as well as I would have wished for, but there was no rest for the wicked. Or the mildly tarnished. Too much to do, not enough time to do it in.

Another trolley car followed, yet one more in a long line of them from the previous few days. It seemed at times that I almost lived on them, more than at my place or my office. I almost should have taken out a loan of one of the trolleys, set up my office in it. It would save time.

McAllister lived and worked further uptown, in a better part of Spire. His office was located in a large building that overlooked the main thoroughfare in that district, one he shared with others who also kept offices in it. His was the main draw though. A large sign mounted atop the building advertised his presence, one flooded with lights so that you couldn't miss it. On it was blazoned the name McAllister and beneath it the tag 'Tackling your problems with dogged determination.'

McAllister advertised. I didn't. I prefer not to draw attention to myself. McAllister operates under a different principle. He liked the attention. A glory hound if you like. He wanted people to know who he was. Maybe it brought him more lucrative jobs. I'm fairly certain it did. What it brought, in my experience, was trouble though. I had heard that McAllister had even worked for Them Above on occasions. Crazy move, if you ask me. That's like holding a gun to your head, not knowing if it was loaded or not. You might get lucky. Chances were you wouldn't.

Of course, it did mean that he was better rewarded for his time, and could charge more for his work. As such he was even able to afford a receptionist, out in a small front office, a pretty young blonde sitting behind a desk. A typewriter clattered away as she worked on typing up notes for McAllister. She looked up from it as I entered but did not stop typing. "Good morning. Can I help you?"

"Is he in?" I should have checked before I came up. After all, McAllister is a busy person. Still, I was here now and it was too late to worry about that.

"Mister McAllister is in, yes. Do you have an appointment?"

"He has appointments now? He is doing well for himself. Tell him Mister Stone is here, on professional business."

"One moment sir."

The receptionist stopped typing and rose from behind her desk. She opened the door at the back of the room and disappeared through it. Shortly after returned. "Mister McAllister will see you now, sir."

"Thank you, miss," I replied.

McAllister was standing behind his desk, in front of a wide set of windows when I entered, his back towards me, looking out over the thoroughfare below. The snow there had been turned to mush by the traffic of feet and wheels.

"It is a good thing that I was who I said I was, McAllister," I said. "If not, then you just presented a good target."

"Oh, I knew it was you," McAllister replied, his voice somewhat gruff and throaty in nature, yet clipped and precise at the same time. "I know your scent, don't forget." He turned around, a pipe in hand, and looked me over. "You look terrible, Stone."

"I try."

McAllister was neatly dressed, in suit and tie, of fine cut and make. Beside the door stood a stand which supported a coat and a deerstalker cap. He dressed well and for the part, the very image of a successful investigator. There was no mistaking him though. He was unique, one of those individuals who had been caught up by Spire from elsewhere and dragged in, fitting in however he could. In his case he had done it well.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Many called him the Hound of Justice. That wasn't just because he was a detective, and one good at tracking down those he sought out. He stood tall, but above all he was a dog, a type of bloodhound, if one that stood and walked and talked like a man. His face was long, with heavy jowls and large, floppy ears. His legs had a digitigrade bend to them, which no doubt made the tailoring of his suits that much trickier. Still, the tailors of Spire had a lot of practice with many different shapes and sizes. Most people found it odd to look at him the first time that they met him, but after a while you tended not to notice it anymore. He was just one more person in the bustling city of Spire, simply McAllister and not a humanoid dog.

Being a hound did give him advantages in the field. He had an amazing sense of scent, as he had alluded to, and he could move faster, and much more quietly at the same time, than most other people could. He was also much stronger than most first thought. Plus, while he had cultivated the look and demeanour of a well to do gentleman, he was dangerous in a fight. You really didn't want him to latch his jaws onto you. He had a bite that could almost crush bars. It was almost unfair, really, the advantages he had.

Not that I didn't like McAllister. Sure, he was a rival in some regards, but he was a pleasant fellow to know, loyal, kindly and generous to boot. I guess that was the hound in him.

He indicated towards a chair with his pipe. "Please sit, Stone." As I took the seat, he began to fill his pipe with tobacco. "What exactly can I do to help you? My secretary mentioned that this was a professional call."

"I believe that some of our cases may have managed to cross paths," I told him. "Do the names Nathan Hanes or Miss White mean anything to you?"

McAllister paused in the filling of his pipe and looked up at me, his eyes narrowing as he did. After a moment he finished filling it. He struck a match, lighting the pipe. I waited quietly in my chair as McAllister raised the pipe to his mouth and took a puff from it. He returned to his desk from the window and took his seat on the other side from me. "What interest do you have with them?" he asked finally.

"Miss White employed me to try and find Mister Hanes. He has gone missing."

McAllister removed the pipe from his mouth and gestured at me with the stem of it. "Missing you say?"

I nodded. "He has been gone for over a week now. No one has seen him, not even at work. Miss White was troubled by that as it is out of character for him and so she came to me."

"That is out of character for him, yes," McAllister replied, confirming that he did indeed know Hanes.

"I do not know why she came to me and not to you if you were already involved in the case."

McAllister puffed at the pipe again. "I never met the young lady," he told me. "It was only Hanes that came to me. He had mentioned her briefly, but only in passing."

"He had you investigating a murder, didn't he, one from about twenty years ago, of a young woman named Brione Westler."

"No."

"No?" His answer confused me some. I was so sure that was what he had been looking into. "You have been to the Herald's Archive to look up the case."

"I did look it up for him, yes, but that wasn't what he was interested in. At least not his main interest."

"What was it then?"

McAllister frowned as he considered matters for a few moments, and he had a lot of face to frown with. Then he gave me a long look. "As one professional to another, I trust that you will not share information about this case with anyone else. Hanes was adamant about that."

"You have my word on it."

Mcallister nodded. "He was having me search for an heirloom that belonged to the young lady in question, lost when she was murdered. He wanted to find it so that he could return it to her."

An uneasy feeling struck me. I felt without a doubt that I knew what it was that Hanes wanted McAllister to find. Everything was coming together, just as the Rag Lady had said they would, all connected together. I had to ask though, to be certain of it.

"Was this heirloom a jewellery box?" I asked. "About this big?" I made the rough dimensions of it with my hands. "Of brass and redwood, carved with the image of a forest grove?"

McAllister's jowls shook as he breathed in and then exhaled. "How did you know?"

I grimaced. "That was also another case of mine. At first I had thought them separate but the two have become completely enmeshed with each other, so much so they might as well be the one case now. Everyone seems to be after it. There is some matter of confusion as to the origins of this box as well. One group involved in the search for it claimed that it came into Spire only recently, brought in with a group that wandered in through the mists by accident. How, then, could it be an heirloom of Brione Westler?”

"I can not help you there, old boy."

"The more that I discover about this case, the less that I understand of it." I sighed and slumped back in the chair. Weariness was not making my thoughts run as sharp as they could. "How did Hanes come to know about the box?"

"From his young lady, I gather. She was somehow related to the murdered woman I understand."

"A bit more than that," I told him.

"A bit more?"

"The young lady in question, Miss White, she is actually Brione Westler."

McAllister removed the pipe from his mouth and gave me an incredulous stare. "Come again, old boy?"

It is not often that I got one up on McAllister. If I had not been so tired perhaps I would have enjoyed it more. "Miss White is Miss Westler. Yes, she was murdered, but she recovered and is now one of the Departed."

McAllister puffed on his pipe once more, shaking his head as he did so. "That puts rather a different complexion on the matter. Do you suppose that Hanes knows that it is the case?"

"I believe that he does, yes."

"Well, well." McAllister tilted his head to one side for a moment, thinking over some matter.

"The fact that you are investigating a case that involves the Westlers doesn't bother you?" I asked.

"Can't have mere reputation bar me from taking cases, else I'd never get any work done," he responded. "Besides which, I am too well known and connected to tangle with."

"A bullet in the dark doesn't worry about reputations or connections," I told him. "It is the Westler connection I worry about. I just hope that they aren't behind Hanes' disappearance."

"That would be troubling if it was," McAllister said in way of agreement, "But I do not think that it is the case. It would make more sense if they came for me, rather than him."

"Yeah, possibly. Which means someone else is responsible." Like the worm creature. I was not about to tell McAllister about them. He was too nice a bloke to do that to. He would insist on helping out and I did not want to endanger him in that way. Some people insist that it is best to share trouble with friends. In principle I agree with that. Except when it would get your friends killed in an unpleasant manner.

"It would seem so." McAllister leaned back in his chair, tapping at his pipe. "And it would likewise seem to me that given how enmeshed our cases have become that we should be assisting each other in solving them."

At times I hate being right about a person's character. "Perhaps." I had to figure out a way to let him get involved without putting him in danger.

"I won't even charge you," McAllister added, giving a barking laugh as he did.

"Most kind of you." I even managed a smile. "Our best bet would to be to pool our information and continue on with our current cases. I will continue my search for Hanes. You try to find that jewellery box for him. If either of us discovers anything new that can help the other out, we pass it on."

"Fair enough, old boy." McAllister stood up and offered a hand to me. "Just like old days. It has been awhile, hasn't it?"

I took his hand and shook it. "It has."