Chapter Ten

Jackaby filled me in on the details of his return to room 301 as we walked back down the crooked hallway. He had been able to successfully slip in and out without detection, and had uncovered a few papers of interest.

Arthur Bragg had produced reams of scribbled notes, most kept in his own shorthand. Amid the papers on his desk were details of recent political debates and annotated minutes from city hall meetings. He had notes from interviews with Mayor Spade and with Commissioner Swift. Both men, as best Jackaby could tell from his quick glance at Bragg’s shorthand, were discussing the upcoming mayoral election.

“Sounds like Detective Cane was right,” I said. “Bragg must have been Commissioner Swift’s connection at the newspaper.”

“So it would seem.”

“I see why Swift was so angry about it being right under his nose! It wasn’t just a murder in his city—he let his personal newsman get killed before his free publicity even hit the stands.”

“Yes, well, it seems Mr. Bragg had been looking into something else as well.”

Jackaby reached the end of the hallway and gave the door to his laboratory a shove. It squeaked open, and he pushed past whatever had been blocking it, sending several ripe red apples rolling across the carpet.

“Oh, blast, it’s overflowing again,” he muttered, ducking absently under the skeletal alligator as he plowed in. “Mind your step. Help yourself to an apple if you like.”

I remained in the doorway. A heavy black cauldron sat on the other side of the door, teeming with fresh fruit. I hadn’t had a proper meal since yesterday, but something about the room’s lingering smell of burnt hair and unknown chemicals quashed my appetite.

Jackaby crossed the room and pulled off his coat, draping it casually over the mannequin. From its pockets, he pulled out a few of the vials I had seen earlier and nestled them into waiting slots on the big metal rack. He continued, selectively removing items, like the slim vials I had seen him peering through, and replacing them with new ones. New artifacts found their way into the myriad pockets as he darted about, among them a Chinese coin, a set of rosary beads, and a little vial with something that rattled inside it. I gave up following his movements as he restocked.

Without the coat, the man looked even lankier. He seemed to be built entirely of angles, from his long legs to his hard cheekbones. He wore a simple, clean white shirt with no necktie, and a pair of plain brown suspenders. His wild hair looked coal black in the dim light of the room, and atop his gaunt frame it gave him the figure of a spent match.

“What else was Bragg onto?” I asked.

“I don’t know yet. But I believe the answer may lie in this.” He produced a folded piece of paper and handed it to me. “I found it concealed beneath the leather blotter on his desk. Tell me what you make of it.” I opened it and turned it around.

“It’s a map,” I said.

“Brilliant. Already making yourself an invaluable asset to the organization.”

I went on. “It’s not a proper, printed map. It looks like Bragg traced it, but it’s got a good bit of detail. The coastline looks all squiggly in the right places. There’s us in the center.” I pointed to the spot where Bragg had marked New Fiddleham. “And it looks like it goes out fifty miles or so above and below us. It’s too distant for street details, but he seems to have blocked out the nearby cities and county lines.”

All across the simple chart, the late Arthur Bragg had inscribed a dozen Xs in red ink. They were scattered on all sides of the city, some clustered in twos or threes, others far off on their own. In fine script he had written C.Wd. beside most of them, and N.Wd. beside a few. Each was marked with a date. The dates went back as far as three months prior, and as recently as just one week past. “What do you suppose these notes mean?” I asked.

“That is what I intend to find out.” Jackaby, apparently satisfied with the restocking of his pockets, left the coat on the mannequin and crossed into the hallway. I stepped aside as he passed, and followed him into his office.

He pulled a dusty rag off the chalkboard’s frame and gave an ineffectual couple of swipes across the surface. Having rearranged the chalky film to his satisfaction, he plucked a white stump from the tray and poised to write. “We’ll start with the dates,” he said. “Read them off to me. Start with the earliest.”

I read the earliest date aloud, October twenty-third, and scanned the numbers for the next oldest, and the next. I glanced up after four or five. “What’s that you’re drawing?” I asked.

Jackaby scowled. “Recording the dates. Keep going.”

“Is that an elven language or something?”

He stood back from the chalkboard and stared at it blankly. “No.”

“Are those pictograms? What’s that bit you just finished? The one that looks like a goose tugging at a bit of string?”

“That’s a seven.”

“Oh.” We both looked at the board. I tilted my head. “Oh right—I see. I think.”

Jackaby handed me the chalk and plucked the paper from my hands. We traded positions without further comment and recommenced. Shortly, with Jackaby reading off numbers and locations while I wrote, we had produced a list of twelve dates. On average they were five or six days apart. Beyond that, no discernible pattern existed. Jackaby moved on to the abbreviations.

“C and N,” he thought aloud. “The Wd. is consistent, whatever it means. What could C and N signify?”

“Central and Northern?” I suggested. “It is a map.”

“Possible, but they’re certainly not accurate, if that’s the case. Look, there are two marks around Glanville, south of us, and the southernmost of those is an N. What else could they be?”

“Let’s see, Bragg was covering the election, and he interviewed the current mayor. C for Current, perhaps, and N for what? New? Maybe he was taking a poll?”

“That’s good—only most of these marks are out of our district. In fact, all of them are. Look. We’ve got three up in Brahannasburg, four in Crowley, two each in Glanville and Gadston, with one more out in Gad’s Valley. That’s at least four separate jurisdictions with their own . . .” Jackaby froze. He stared at the map in his hands.

“What?” I asked. “Have you worked something out?”

Jackaby’s eyes were dancing back and forth, chasing thoughts. “What? No, nothing. Maybe nothing. Possibly nothing. Just a hunch. I’ll need to pop out to send a telegram or two. You’re welcome to stay and settle in if you like.”

My eyes flashed to the ceiling as Jackaby folded the map and headed into the hall. “Before you go,” I ventured, “tell me, have you got anyone else staying in the building? Lodgers or tenants of some sort?”

“Oh, ah, hmm.” Jackaby stumbled toward a response. “Yes, yes, I suppose I do, indeed,” he called out from across the hall.

“That’s fine, then. Anything I should know about them?”

“Which one?”

“ ‘Which one’? How many people have you got living here?”

Jackaby popped his head back through the doorway. His mouth opened as if to speak, and shut again, his lips pursed in concentration. “Well,” he managed at last, “that depends on your definition of people . . . and also of living.” He pulled on his baggy, brown coat. “It’s complicated. Fetch you a meat pie while I’m out?”

I gave earnest consideration to my definitions of people, and living, and found the prospect of remaining on the property less and less appealing. “Wouldn’t it really be best if I accompany you on your errands?” I said. “For . . . learning purposes?”

“Suit yourself, Miss Rook.”

My employer was on his way with no further discussion, and I hurried after.