Chapter 58

Three things to be wary of: A bargain too good to be true – the offerer is expecting to get wealthy on what you give him while giving you nothing of great value in exchange. A smooth tongue that says it has the answers to your most vexing problems. See item number one. The business partner who says ‘If you just break this little rule…’ See item number one, and also find a good legal expert.

Aphorisms for a Quiet Life by Ruddtha Redstone, Chairman of Toolets Manufacturing, Sunderland

It was the largest house in Goblin Market, with a large carved wood entryway that imitated the entrance to the Allynswood manor, but on a smaller scale, with delicately carved vining plants reaching up to the center point. In front of it was an elegantly laid out garden with groomed shrubs and small stands of spring flowers.

It didn’t exactly match the rest of the building, which was a ramshackle building that had evidently grown in a rather organic fashion, new rooms and wings being added over the years. The effect in some ways reminded Thornfield of a small girl playing dress up in her mother’s finery – one could never mistake the real thing from the pretend.

“Still, it’s where I get my best gold,” he muttered.

Ignoring the front entrance, he walked a graveled path to the side of the building, walking past storage buildings and sheds where people were working on the supplies that went to the general store for sale – crates and barrels of goods coming in from out of town, and one of the reasons Turbot and he had such a good working relationship.

Most of the workers ignored him after a first glance, like he was a known person with a right to be there, the same way he ignored them. One person, though, was leaning against the wall of the building. He was dressed like the other male workers in rough work clothes, wearing a tunic of grey linen with the sleeves halfway rolled up. His shock of dirty blond hair was covered by a brown wool hat with a large brim. Tugging at the brim, he nodded to Thornfield.

“Master Turbot is waiting for you, Master Witstone. He’s in the back office.”

“Thanks, Hobber. He alone?” Thornfield said, tossing the man a gold piece.

Hobber shook his head. “Whinzer is there. And a new man, never seen before. He’s wearing some weird robe...even covered his face. Turbot seemed mighty excited to meet with him.” Hobber scratched the back of his neck. “I got a kind of bad feeling about this. I think this is one of Whinzer’s wild ideas, something he cooked up on his last trip to Brightwater, but nobody listens to me. You take care.”

He slipped off and walked to the warehouses at the back of the property.

Thornfield, not bothered in the least by Hobber’s opinion of Whinzer, hurried around to the back of the building. There, protected by a wide awning, was a red door with a heavy brass knocker. He knocked.

The door opened wide, and the jovial face of Mayor Turbot greeted him. “Come in, come in, friend! This looks to be a great day!”

The two of them walked out of the foyer and into a larger space, set with tables and chairs. Two men were seated, one dressed in gray robes with a cowl pulled down, hiding his features, and a man in bright red clothing, wearing a black hat with a jaunty large blue feather.

“Greetings, Whinzer. A good meeting in Brightwater?” Thornfield asked the man in red. Turbot handed him a glass of wine, which he accepted, and took a big sip, savoring the taste.

“Quite good,” Whinzer said, nodding. “I think we’ve solved our problem with the miserly, miserable Redbeard, always throttling the amount of goods we can trade, and taking such a big cut of the profits. Our new friend Tibart here has our solution around that problem. And once we work out the fine points, the money will flow!”

“How well this will work depends a lot on you,” Turbot said. “Please listen to Master Tibart, and decide if you think it’s a good a deal as we do.”

>>>>>>>>>>>>>> <<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Umber walked into the office with Asper and Balston right behind him.

“I can make some tea if you’d like,” he said as the three of them entered.

“Please,” Balston said. “You know the old saying, the DIC runs on tea.”

“That’s what they tell me.” Umber went over to the tea service and pressed the touchstone that started the process. A carafe filled with water and immediately began heating. “We don’t have quite the set up they have at DIC headquarters, but it’ll do.”

Asper looked around the room. Thornfield’s desk had a stack of papers in his inbox, and a large white book, and little else, and a bookcase behind it. Umber’s desk had the last of his morning paperwork and some filing left on it. There were two other chairs for guests to sit in. The effect was a bit cramped.

“Mighty small DIC office,” he said. He leaned up against one of the file cabinets that took up a lot of the wall by Umber’s desk. “Barely enough room to interrogate anybody.”

Umber shrugged. “It’s a small Dragon Web station,” he said, shoving the last of the shipment papers on his desk into one of the drawers. “Outside of the people who work here, not many Dragonkin here. It’s a quiet place. Not many calls for DIC services.”

“You don’t even have an interview room?” Balston asked, looking around himself. He sat down in one of the two spare chairs.

The tea was done, and Umber poured cups for the two men. “Thornfield says we have an arrangement to take over the break room if we need to,” Umber said. “Don’t think we’ve used it since I came here this year. About the only thing we do is check in and outgoing freight.”

“That is an important aspect of the DIC,” Asper said, nodding. “Fees from shipping keeps the DIC going.”

“Maybe they should warn people at the Academy about how that works for first years,” Umber grumbled, pouring his own cup of tea.

“What, and chase off all the students?” Balston asked.

Asper laughed at that. “We’ve all had to pay our time. Lots of small stations out there. Somebody has to man them.”

“Anyway, so why did you two come here to talk to me?”

“Well, we actually want to talk with two of the local Aos Si, two women.” Asper looked at his notes once again to be sure he got their names right. “Elaine Allyns and Gan Thistleberry. Byrony thought you’d be better to handle it than Thornfield.”

“Those two women? Whatever for?” Umber said, surprised. “Of all the people around here the DIC to want to question! There are some people I wonder about doing questionable things locally, but not those two. And why ask me about them?”

“One of their schoolmates went missing. She works for B&F, so we got dragged in to the investigation, in case they know anything that can help us figure out where to look, or maybe even why she might have gone missing,” Asper explained.

“You do know that Elaine Allyns is the local Daoine Si noble in this area, and owns most of the land here?” Umber asked.

“We understand that,” Balston said, nodding. Something caught his eye on Thornfield’s desk. He got up and wandered over to it, and picked up the large white volume that was sitting there. “I haven’t seen this edition of the DIC manual since I got out of the academy.” He looked up at Umber. “This is almost an antique.”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Umber closed his eyes, shook his head, and took a sip of his tea. “I can assure you we keep it up to date. Every week or so, Thornfield dumps a packet of papers for me to add in.” He pointed to the one stack in his in box. “Haven’t gotten around to doing this week’s. It’s been a little busy.”

Balston opened the book. “This brings back some old memories,” he said, thumbing through the various sections. “`Never take your investigee’s intelligence for granted,’” he read. “`Nor their stupidity.’” He chuckled a little. “They just don’t write them like that any more.”

“As I was saying,” Asper said, giving his workmate a dark look, “We’re not accusing Lady Elaine or Mistress Gan of anything. We merely want to ask them what they know about the missing Violetta Greenleaf. Maybe they’ve heard from her, about her plans, her friends.”

“She’s not in trouble, is she?” Umber asked. “I mean, she’s not suspected of running off with secret plans or anything, is she? That might make a difference to how Lady Elaine or Mistress Gan might react.”

“As far as we know, she went on vacation, and never showed back up.” Asper picked up his tea cup. “There’s some worry that her disappearance might be linked to some other cases, but we don’t know.”

Umber thought about this for a minute. “Like Master Gwaher of Comrie?” he asked.

“Gwaher? You know about his case?” Balston looked up from the manual he was thumbing through, rather surprised.

Umber shrugged. “One day, Mistress Gan and I had a talk over lunch. She told me a little about it, and how the DIC people at Comrie gave her a rough time.”

“I’d heard about that,” Asper said. “Byrony said we’d have to be careful how we approached her. But you’ve met her?”

“Yes, although I haven’t spent a lot of time with her. First met her when she moved here to live on one of Lady Elaine’s farmsteads. We bumped into each other when she came to town and had lunch. She’s a very sensible, kind woman. I got the impression she’d been through more than she wanted to let on about. She also lives with a colony of Pixies, which I suspect shows a lot about her temperament.”

“Byrony said you had a lot of potential as an investigator,” Asper said, nodding. “The fact you already have established a relationship with her may help us a lot.”

“Well, at least I know what she thinks of rude and pushy investigators who won’t listen to her,” Umber said.

“Noted,” Asper said, looking at his co-worker.

“What?” Balston said, suddenly dropping the DIC manual on the floor in reaction. It fell down and splayed open. “See what you made me do?” he said, bending over to pick it up. Several slips of paper slid out, including one in an envelope.

“Well, well, look what I found,” Balston said, putting the DIC manual back on the desk. “It was just tucked into the manual.”

He walked over and handed the envelope to Umber. “Seems your senior was holding out on you. Doesn’t look like he opened it though. Looks like he was just being a jerk.”

“That’s Thornfield ever since I got here,” Umber said, taking the letter from the investigator. He ran a finger over the address. “Never thought he’d take to stealing someone else’s mail, though.”

“He’ll probably deny stealing it...he’d say he just put it away for safekeeping since you were on your day off, and then he conveniently forgot about it,” Balston said, . He frowned as he spoke, crossing his arms.

“Sounds like you’ve had some experience,” Asper said.

“Indeed. Long-timers at smaller Dragon Web stations tend to be all alike. In it for the black market trade grift and terrified of some real DIC work, and who all make their first year juniors miserable.” Balston shook his head. “My first year senior pulled stunts like this. With letters from my father! And when he complained, that’s exactly what he was told.”

“Is he still terrorizing first years?” Umber asked.

Balston shook his head. “He went out to Harani on vacation. I heard he went on an expedition with others to visit some of the mines and maybe do a little prospecting a few years ago. His gryphon turned on him and mauled him to death. Takes a lot to get one of those mounts to do that, especially the ones that are selected for hire. I heard he was a bloody pulp by the time they got the animal off him. Not the way I want to go.”

Asper shuddered. “Me, either.”

All three of them fell silent for a moment, lost in their thoughts.

“So, are you going to read what Commander Byrony said?” Balston asked, breaking the silence.

Umber shook off the dark image that Balston’s story brought to mind. In his case, the face of the dragonkin he pictured suspiciously looked like Thornfield, and he didn’t like the fact his mind could do that, even as rotten a mentor his senior was.

“Uh, yeah.” He unsealed the letter and smoothed it flat on his desk and began to read the clean precise handwriting. “I guess I should.” After scanning it, he began to read it outloud to the two Dragonkin:

I have not forgotten what a useful aide you were to have during our recent special operation, and was pleased to inform your uncle of what an excellent young candidate for the DIC you are turning into. He sends his best regards, and was quite pleased I took up his suggestion to have you aid me during the operation. I suspect he’ll write you all about it.

Let me say again that was a pleasure to work with you, and I am hoping after your first year, we will get the pleasure again. If there was some way to pull you out now, I would do it, but the DIC wants all of us to go through the first year madness, so just know you have my backing.

As for me, as soon as I returned, Master Investigator put me into another, larger special investigation as investigator manager. It’s a very large and complex situation. And that is one of the reasons I am writing to you. I might not be able to come swoop you out to be my aide at this time, but you can still help.

One aspect of this investigation are the disappearance of several people. I will be sending two of my operatives to question the Lady Elaine Allyns and Mistress Gan Thistleblossom about one of the missing persons, who was a schoolmate of theirs. I don’t know if you’ve had much interaction with either woman, but we really need their cooperation. They are in no way suspects, but they’ve had a long-standing relationship with the missing woman, and we can use their insight. Unfortunately for Mistress Thistleblossom, she was also known to someone who went missing in Comrie, and had a quite bad experience with the DIC agent there. I have briefed my two agents about the situation and how I think they ought to handle Mistress Thistleblossom. And let me just say, I don’t trust that your senior is the man to handle this situation. If possible, please help them arrange to interview the two women, and keep Thornfield out of this.

“It kind of amazes me how the Commander can remember so many of us and our strengths and weaknesses,” Asper said, when Umber finished.

“Bah,” Balston said. He perched himself on the edge of Thornfield’s desk and picked up his tea mug. “They probably keep a list of hard to live with DIC agents at these small stations. With files. All the most promising young people do their first year at places like that.”

“Then why did I get sent to the Harani Town station?” Asper asked. “My senior was an excellent person. We still stay in touch.”

Balston shrugged. “Maybe you were a late bloomer. Or there were so many people in that cohort there weren’t enough troublesome seniors to go around. Or just the luck of the draw.” He turned to Umber. “More impressive was what the Commander said about you. Byrony has always been one to stick by his people. And you are now one of his people.”

“This is true,” Asper said. “And you were fortunate that he didn’t open the message, as well. No telling how he would have reacted to hearing the Commander tell you keep him away. He probably would have had the local constable to drag her here to interrogate her, just out of spite. And that would have been the end of us trying to learn anything useful about Mistress Violetta Greenleaf, wherever she is.”

“So you will help us with Allyns and Thistleberry?” Balston asked.

“Of course I’ll do what I can. Mistress Gan is too nice to need Thornfield’s touch,” Umber said, nodding his head. “But I’m just a First Year. I only have so much influence.”

“Don’t underestimate yourself,” Asper said, clapping Umber on the arm. “You already have Byrony’s eye, and you’ve made a connection with Thistleberry that’s way beyond doing the start of an investigation contact.”

“Remember what the third Master Investigator put into the DIC manual -`When it comes to information gathering, one good relationship can reveal more than a thousand threats during questioning.’” Balston said. “And you have already made some progress there.”

Umber rubbed the bottom of his chin. “I don’t have any real connection to Lady Elaine, although I have with her sister. But Lady Arriane is on the White Isle right now, so I don’t think I have an in there right now.”

Asper nodded. “That is all right. She’s a high noble lady. There are procedures to get an audience with her. I’ve already sent a message to her steward to set up an audience time.”

Umber nodded, looking slightly relieved. “She’s very kind and willing to help people, but she has a lot of things to take care of.”

“That’s to be expected,” Asper said.

“But if she knows it’s about an old friend of hers, it would be her style to want to help.” Umber sighed. “That would have been just as true with Mistress Gan, maybe even more so, if those fools in Comrie hadn’t decided that she was the most likely suspect for her headmaster’s disappearance too early in the investigation.”

“Gut hunches turn out to be indigestion more often than reality,” Balston said, once more quoting from the DIC manual. “They need to carve that into some investigators’ foreheads.”

“She doesn’t come to town very often.” Umber picked up his teacup. “I could send her a message, maybe, or go visit her?”

“One of us needs to be there, too,” Asper said. “How would she deal with that?”

“I could take you to her place tomorrow, maybe? She’d like that a whole lot better than coming here to the station. How are you around Pixies? No Ixip, please. Thistleberry is quite fond of her Pixie companions.”

Asper sighed. “Pixie dust makes me sneeze. I’ll take some medicine first.”

“Perhaps we should talk with Lady Elaine first?” Balston suggested.

“She is her close friend,” Umber said, nodding. “She’d understand the good way to approach her.”

“That sounds like a plan.” Asper said nodding. He stood up. “We’re taking rooms over at Goblin Inn. If you can, come see us after work.”

“Now, what do I tell Thornfield?” Umber asked as the two men headed for the door.

“Ah,” Balston said. He handed Umber a large envelope. “We’re coming to audit last year’s books. I’m sure he leave all that to you.”

Umber looked down at the papers he was given. “I bet. And I bet he’ll find plenty of reasons to lay low, while you’re at it.”

“No doubt. But the audit is real. We’ve got a co-worker coming up from Meridae to do the auditing while we’re dealing with questioning. Byrony has his eye on Thornhill, I believe.” Asper opened the door. “We’ll see you this evening.”

Umber sank down into his chair, contemplating the turn of events. Just then the alarm sounded, announcing the afternoon’s freight shipment.

“No rest, I guess.” Placing the envelope carefully on his desk, he headed back to the freight area.