Master of Plagues: A Nicolas Lenoir Novel (30 page)

Lenoir did not argue.

“So, that’s odd,” Kody said when the servant had gone.

“What’s odd, Sergeant?”

“Well, Lord Hughley has the plague.”

“So it would appear.”

“And the people treating him don’t seem to know much of anything about the miracle cure.”

“No.”

“The miracle cure that came in on Lord Hughley’s own ship. You don’t think that’s strange?”

Lenoir shrugged. “Not particularly. Most likely, His Lordship is unaware that
Fly By Night
was in the business of importing angel wort.”

“Unaware? How could he be
unaware
of the cargo of his own vessel?”

“It happens all the time. Lord Hughley is a peer and a parliamentarian. He has no need to involve himself in the day-to-day of his business dealings. Why do you think smuggling is so commonplace? It can almost never be traced back to the ship owners. Men like Hughley may or may not suspect what their employees are up to, but so long as the money keeps coming in, many of them prefer not to know. That way, if one of their captains is caught smuggling, they can truthfully deny any knowledge of the cargo.” Lenoir adopted a surprised expression.
“Opium? Why, they told me it was cinnamon!”

Kody shook his head. “Just one more reason to love the high and mighty.”

The door creaked, and a small, nervous-looking man appeared.

“Mr. Garren, I presume?”

“Clive Garren.” The man stuck out his hand.

“Inspector Lenoir, and this is Sergeant Kody.” Lenoir extricated himself from the man’s sweaty grip. “I hope not to take too much of your time. We are trying to track down Captain Elder, or his first mate, Bird.”

Garren’s eyes flicked worriedly between them. “Are they in some kind of trouble?”

“Never mind that,” Kody said. “Do you know where we can find them or not?”

“I have addresses for them, if that helps.”

“Indeed it does,” said Lenoir.

“Can’t promise they’re current. Sailors are creatures of habit, but if their favorite rooming house is full when they get back to shore . . . Anyway, let me just go fetch my files. . . .”

Garren disappeared back inside.

“You still think Captain Elder is dead?” Kody asked.

“I do, but I did not want to give too much away, in case Garren is involved.”

Kody grunted skeptically. “Doesn’t seem like the type.”

“Perhaps not, but I am beginning to suspect our fourth man will not seem like the type. I have a hard time believing that this scheme was concocted by a bunch of sailors.”

“Me too,” Kody said. “Most sailors I’ve known have a hard time managing their money purse, let alone coming up with something as complex as this.”

While they waited for Garren to return, Lenoir glanced up at the sky. Afternoon, and threatening rain. He sensed they had a long day, and possibly a long night, ahead of them.
You should not have left your coat
behind,
he thought. Reeking of smoke seemed the least of his worries now.

Garren reappeared with a ledger. As he was flipping through, Lenoir asked, “What can you tell me about
Fly By Night
’s cargo?”

“I’d have to look. Spices, usually, but every now and then they’d get their hands on some silk.”

“And what about angel wort?”

Garren frowned and looked up. “Pardon?”

Lenoir scrutinized him carefully and decided the blank look was genuine. “Never mind.”

“Here we are. Lionsvale Arms.” Garren held out the ledger. “41 Court Street. Down in the poor district, I think.”

“Provided it still exists.” The fire had taken out half the area. “And what about the purser—do you have an address for him?”

“Marten? Yes, I’ve got it here somewhere. . . .”

Two minutes later they were headed back down the drive, armed with nothing more than a couple of addresses that might or might not have survived the fire. Still, it was something.

“Why the purser?” Kody asked.

“A hunch.”

“Based on what?”

“By definition, a hunch does not need to be based on anything.”

Kody gave him a wry look. “Humor me? I did nearly die of plague.”

“A scheme of this nature and complexity requires a calculating mind, one familiar with money and the basic principles of economics. It also requires someone in a position to convince captain and crew to take on an unfamiliar cargo, instead of what they were sent to purchase. Assuming Captain Elder was not a complete fool, he would not have taken the word of just any deckhand
that there was profit to be made in a plant he had never heard of. Who could have convinced him to do it, at possible risk of his job? His first mate, perhaps. Anyone else?”

“His purser,” Kody said.

“Satisfied?”

Kody rolled his eyes, apparently considering that his brush with death gave him license for minor insolence. Which, Lenoir supposed grudgingly, it did.

The sergeant led the way down the path, and when he reached the heavy wrought-iron gate, he swung it aside without visible effort, giving no sign of the weakness he must be feeling. That was good. They were getting close, and in Lenoir’s experience, that usually meant one thing:

It was about to get ugly.

K
ody could tell from the stench that there was a corpse behind the door.

If the building hadn’t been practically empty, somebody would certainly have reported it. As it was, Kody and Lenoir hadn’t even been able to find the landlord. “I suppose I’ll have to bust it in,” he said with a sigh. He was pretty sure that would fall afoul of Merden’s rules about exertion, but the Adal wasn’t here to object.

“I doubt that, Sergeant, unless you imagine that Mr. Bird died of natural causes.” Lenoir turned the handle, and the door creaked open just enough to reveal a slash of weak light. Kody started forward, but Lenoir raised a hand. “Get your crossbow ready.”

“You think the killer is still in there? With a rotting corpse?”

“Most likely not, but we are closing in on some dangerous men, and I have a feeling we will be crossing paths very soon. It is better to be cautious.”

Kody couldn’t disagree with that. He swung his crossbow down from his back. “Ready?”

Lenoir cocked the hammer of his pistol and gave a short nod.

Kody burst into the room, crossbow leveled. He covered all the corners himself, not trusting Lenoir to do it properly. Only when he was satisfied that the tiny flat was empty did he allow himself to throw his sleeve over his face. “
Durian’s grave.
I think I’m gonna throw up.”

“That would hardly improve the smell,” Lenoir said from behind his own arm.

It wasn’t hard to find the body. The flat was barely big enough to accommodate a bed, a table, and a washbasin. Lenoir had scarcely crossed the threshold before he said, “Over here.”

The corpse lay facedown near the table. From where Kody stood, he could just make out the awkward angles of the man’s frame, as though he had tumbled out of a chair. Sunlight straining through a grimy window fell upon a stain on the floorboards. The dark spot was already moving with flies, and Kody said a silent prayer that he wouldn’t have to deal with maggots on top of everything. He wasn’t particularly squeamish, but there were limits, and little squirming sacs of goo were on the wrong side of them, especially when he already felt like something a cat retched up.

Lenoir wedged his boot under the corpse and rolled it over. Kody’s stomach heaved at the smell, but he forced himself to get closer. “Throat cut,” he said through his sleeve. “From behind, looks like.”

Lenoir knelt. “A curved blade, I think.”

Kody looked closer. There did seem to be a bit of a flourish at one end of the cut. “Could be.”

“He knew his killer.”

Lenoir’s eyes were on the corpse, but there was no way he could draw that conclusion just from looking at the body, so Kody threw a glance around the room to find what Lenoir had already spotted.

Bed unmade. Pair of boots near the door. No sign of forced entry, but the door wasn’t locked, either. How . . . ?
Then he noticed the jug on the table. “Two cups.” He picked one up and sniffed it. “Mead.”

“No signs of a struggle on the body. Our Mr. Bird was taken by surprise.”

“Someone’s cleaning house,” Kody said. It was practically inevitable with conspiracies, especially when there was money involved.

“So it would seem,” Lenoir said, standing. “Days ago, by the looks of it.”

“And the smell of it.” Kody considered the corpse. Tattoos covered his arms, and his head was close-shaven. “Tough-looking bloke. I’m guessing he wasn’t much of an intellectual.”

“Impossible to be sure, but I am inclined to agree. And our man in the sketch did not strike the witness as particularly educated either. Neither of them is likely to be the brains behind this operation.”

“Maybe our man in the sketch is the one who took out Bird.”

“Perhaps, but I doubt it.”

“Why?”

The inspector’s lips pursed in annoyance. On any other day, Kody knew, Lenoir would have ignored him, or ridiculed him for asking. But almost dying of plague had its advantages. Lenoir pointed at the body and said, “The curved blade. We have already determined that our man in the sketch is Kennian. It’s possible that he has taken a liking to exotic swords, but it is much more likely that our murderer is the Inataari, since their kind are known to favor curved blades.”

Kody did a quick tour of the flat, but found nothing of interest. A single canvas bag seemed to contain everything Bird owned in the world, which consisted of some well-used clothing, a well-used bones set, and a very well-used knife. “Guess Bird didn’t earn that much,” Kody said.

“Either that, or he did not manage his earnings well.” Lenoir held up the money purse he’d found on the body and gave it a shake.

“Not much jingle there,” Kody agreed.

“It would appear that Mr. Bird had not yet received his cut of the profits. My guess is that whoever did this was never planning to share.”

“Might be more bodies in store for us today.”

“Almost certainly. As for Mr. Bird here, he has told us all he can.” Lenoir rose.

“So what next—the purser?”

“Indeed.”

They made their way south, skirting the edges of the still-smoldering ruin that had once been the busier half of the poor district. The place was all but unrecognizable. Here and there, a familiar landmark—a church spire or a fountain—offered some sense of geography, but it was hard to believe this was the same neighborhood Kody and Lenoir had walked through so many times before. People had started to trickle back in, but most of them didn’t seem to know what to do with themselves, wandering around with dazed looks, or picking aimlessly through the rubble in search of something left behind.
They started out with nothing,
Kody thought,
and now this.
Less than nothing. Was there even a word for that?
Destitute
seemed like an understatement. It was a potent reminder that whatever he had suffered, it couldn’t compare to what many people in this city were going through.

According to Hughley’s secretary, the purser of
Fly By Night
rented a flat in a three-story tenement on Hammond Street. The building was still standing, but Kody and Lenoir did not find a soul inside, and when they knocked on Marten’s door, no one answered. Kody tried the knob, but it was locked. His shoulder seemed to give a subtle pang, like a plea for mercy, but there was no
getting around it this time. Kody readied his crossbow, braced himself, and lunged.

The doorframe blasted into kindling on the second try, and Kody tumbled into a two-room flat with a generous window, curtains rolling in the ash-scented breeze. He paused to collect himself, just long enough to be annoyed that it was necessary, and gave the main room a quick once-over. Satisfied it was empty, he moved on to the bedroom. “Inspector,” he called. “You’d better come here.”

Kody kept his crossbow trained on the body just in case, but the man was lying facedown on the bed, and judging from the amount of blood on the bedclothes, he was almost certainly dead. Kody reached for his neck. “No pulse, but still warm. The blood too.”

Lenoir cursed from the doorway. “We only just missed him.”

“But how can that be? The door was locked. . . .”

Curtains rolling in the breeze.

Kody shoved past Lenoir and back into the main room. Sure enough, the window was open; he ran over and stuck his head out. A ladder leaned against the wall, reaching easily to the second-floor window from the lane below.

“Damn!”

If only they’d started with the purser, they might have caught the killer in the act. Still swearing, Kody went back to the bedroom. “He came in through the window.”

“So I had surmised.”

“A ladder.” And why not? With no one around to report it, subtlety was superfluous.

“It would appear that Marten was expecting trouble,” Lenoir said, gesturing at the clothes spread all over the bed. From the looks of things, the purser had been loading up a trunk when he’d been taken.

“Looking to skip town,” Kody said. “Maybe he heard what happened to Bird.”

“Or that the hounds were getting closer. Either way, he was aware of his situation.”

He even had a knife strapped to his waist, for all the good it had done him. “Whoever got him must have been real quiet.”

Lenoir rolled the body over. Kody looked first at the man’s neck; sure enough, the throat was cut, that same little flourish on one side of the gash. Then he looked at the dead man’s face. “Well I’ll be buggered.”

Lenoir looked over his shoulder, one eyebrow arched.

Kody pointed. “That’s the bloke I was chasing on the pier yesterday.”

He had the rare satisfaction of seeing Nicolas Lenoir look stunned. “Are you certain?”

“Well, he did kick me in the head, but yeah—I’m certain.”

Lenoir looked back at the body. He was silent for a long moment. Then he swore softly in Arrènais. “Of course.”

This time, Kody didn’t bother to ask.

“A diversion,” Lenoir said, and he actually sounded impressed. “That’s all it was. There was no crime in progress, no sailor’s squabble. That gunshot was designed to distract us from what we were doing.”

Kody thought back to yesterday afternoon, though it seemed a lifetime ago. “We were going through the list of names from
Serendipity
.”

Lenoir didn’t answer. He sat on the bed, eyes closed, silent. Then he said, “
Duchess of the Deep.
”

Kody nodded. “I remember now. There must have been something on the
Duchess
they didn’t want us to find.”

“Something, or some
one
. We were just about to show them the sketch.”

Kody lit up at the memory. “That’s right! Whoever
we’d gone to see wasn’t there, so I grabbed the sketch, and that’s when the gun went off.”

Lenoir swore again. “The list. I left it in my coat, back at the station. Do you remember which name went with which ship?”

“Sorry, Inspector. Too many names, and too much has happened since then.”

“For me as well. But perhaps it doesn’t matter. Something tells me our man in the sketch is connected to
Duchess of the Deep
. Since we have nothing else to go on, we might as well find out.”

Kody trailed Lenoir out into the hallway. “Back to the docks, then?”

“So it would seem.”

“What about the killer? Shouldn’t we be focusing on him?”

“How do you propose we find him, Sergeant? Shall we walk around the poor district asking random passersby if they’ve seen an Inataari?”

“Why not? Someone must have seen him.”

“And so?”

That caught Kody off guard. “Well, at least—”

“No, Sergeant, not
at least.
At most
. At most
someone might have seen him on the street. Where does that get you? Or do you imagine we can deduce his location simply because a witness placed him heading westbound on Hammond ten minutes ago? Unless you’re feeling especially clairvoyant today, that is not a going to be a fruitful line of enquiry.”

Kody scowled. “So I guess almost dying of plague doesn’t buy much indulgence after all.”

Lenoir’s boots scraped to a halt. He turned. “Is that what you want, Sergeant? Indulgence?”

Just like that, Kody felt foolish and exposed, like a rebellious child facing a stern father.

“Perhaps you would prefer if I did not bother to point out when your impulses are illogical or
counterproductive? That I did not expect you to think for yourself? Is that why you asked to serve under me? So you could carry on without learning a thing?”

Heat flashed over Kody’s skin. He could almost have wished it were fever. “Of course not. I don’t mind being told I’m wrong. I mind being talked to as if I’m thick as a stump.”

Lenoir made a face, as if he’d swallowed something faintly sour. “I will admit that my tongue is occasionally more barbed than it needs to be. A bad habit acquired long ago, one I find difficult to break.”

Kody stared. He could hardly believe what he was hearing. Nicolas Lenoir admitting fault? To
him
?

Maybe I’m in a coma again,
he thought,
and this is all a dream.

Lenoir sighed. “Let us make a pact, Sergeant. I will reflect a little more before I speak, if you promise to do the same. You have a perfectly serviceable mind, but you are lazy with it. You ask questions instead of seeking the answers for yourself. You follow your instincts blindly, without pausing to question them. You will never sharpen your critical faculties that way, and as for me, I will never have a moment’s peace. For our mutual sanity, let us both agree to take an extra heartbeat to
think
.”

Bran Kody had been called a lot of things in his life, but
lazy
wasn’t one of them. Then again, nobody had ever critiqued his intellect before. The flush returned, whether with anger or embarrassment, he couldn’t tell. Maybe a little of both. He opened his mouth to reply, but a shout from up the street cut him off.

“Let go!”

It was a woman’s voice, shrill with fear.

“Leave me alone!
Help!
”

Kody spotted the woman just before she disappeared around a corner, dragged by an unseen assailant. “Hey!” He took three long strides, stopped. “You there!”

No answer.

Kody bolted, reaching for his crossbow as he ran. He could hear Lenoir shouting after him. Probably something about getting his heart rate up, but what was he supposed to do, just stand there and let a woman be attacked?

No, some things you didn’t have to think about. Some things you just did. Kody wasn’t going to apologize for following his instincts.

He was going to prove them right.

*   *   *

Lenoir watched Kody round the corner at the far end of the street, debating whether to follow. He could not keep up with the sergeant, not even now, and would not be much help in a physical altercation in any case. More to the point, he had a mass murderer to catch, and he was running out of time. In seizing the cargo of the
Fly By Night
, Lenoir had exposed his hand, giving the killer a chance to flee. He could not afford to be distracted by a purse snatching, or a lovers’ quarrel, or whatever it was. The rational choice was clear: focus on the task at hand, and let the sergeant handle whatever little scuffle was occurring round the bend.