Glen Cook Garrett 11 Whispering Nickel Idols

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cannot endure it.
I m sorry. I should ve thought of that. Mr. Tharpe. Would you stay with
Singe? In case some moron gets obnoxious?
Tharpe grunted. He and Singe went back outside. Morley turned on the charm
spigot. I headed for Buy Claxton s suite. And got there without seeing another
human being.
I wasn t surprised. This was the Bledsoe, warehouse for the sickest of the
poorest of the poor and craziest of the crazies. Their dying place.
Some crazies were venting madness right now.
Buy Claxton was awake. She was knitting by candlelight. A dead flower in a
clay pot stood on a stand with the candle. She remembered me. She didn t seem
surprised to see me. See what the lady sent me? She indicated the flower,
uncommon for the season.
The lady?
Miss Contague. She s quite thoughtful for a woman of her position.
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She has her moments.
Did she send you to see how I m doing?
A small fib wouldn t be entirely misplaced. And to see if we can t find out
what happened, now that you re feeling better.
Mrs. Claxton put her knitting aside, teary-eyed. She controlled herself. I m
no widow, you know. And I have two sons and three daughters. My Ethan died in
the Cantard. He d be your age. He s the only one with a good reason for not
visiting.
I m sorry to hear that. Some people are thoughtless. Especially family.
I ll bet you re good to your mother.
My mother is gone. I did try when she was still with us. But I ve been a
louse since then. I haven t visited her grave in years. But let s not be
sadder than we need to be. Not here.
That would be sound thinking, young man. How can I help?
It s the fire. I m supposed to find out what happened.
I don t know. It just happened. It hurt! Bad. She smiled weakly.
I can tell you this, Mrs. Claxton&
Call me Buy.
Yes, ma am. You might not have noticed because you weren t looking for it,
but that didn t just happen. There must ve been something leading up. So I
want to go over the whole evening with you. Why were you there in the first
place? You didn t work for the caterer.
No. For Mr. Hartwell.
Is that the Mr. Hartwell who manages the Contague estate? A man I d never
trusted. A slimy type. But I couldn t imagine him stealing from the Contagues.
His son. Armondy. He asked me to help set up, do kitchen work, and clean up
afterward.
So it wasn t odd that you were there?
No. I don t think.
Interesting. When did you get there? Did anything unusual happen when you
did?
A little after noon. There wasn t anything to do then. The unusual thing was
that I caught on fire and almost burned to death. She ranted about her
husband and children. I let her vent the anger.
Who did you report to when you arrived?
When they finally showed up, them fancy boys. I just hung out till they got
there.
I met them. They were in charge?
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They wanted to think. They were decorators. They were there to arrange the
tables and chairs. I only paid attention if what they said made sense. No. I
took my orders from Mr. Temisk. I knew him from years back.
Harvester Temisk?
That s the one.
So Mr. Temisk was there. Early. In the back. I hadn t known that. Nobody
had mentioned seeing Temisk.
Where I first run into him was in the pantries. I don t know why he was back
there. Looking for lamp oil, he said. Since I seen some in the kitchen, brung
by the fancy boys, I showed him where I seen it.
What about Miss Contague? When did she show?
Mrs. Claxton confirmed my suspicions. She was already there when I got
there. With her bodyguards. Checking for trouble, I guess.
Mr. Temisk wanted lamp oil? Why?
Well, he took out this little wood box and shook this green, flaky stuff in
the oil and shook the jars. He said it was incense. He had me fill the lamps
to go on the tables.
This didn t look good for Harvester Temisk. Then what?
I don t know. Then he went away. I didn t see him again. I worked around the
kitchen. Oh. And Mr.Temisk gave me this little jade pin. For being so helpful,
he said.
Didn t look good for Temisk at all. This flake stuff. Did any get spilled?
Or miss getting into the lamp oil? If it was what I suspected, it got tracked
around by an unwitting rat.
Mrs. Claxton considered. Come to think, he did fumble the lid of the box
when he started to spice up the first oil jar. He cussed something awful.
Because the spice was so expensive, he said.
Yes. No doubt. We talked a while, mainly about her sad family. I didn t learn
anything useful. Did anyone else see Mr. Temisk?
I don t know. I never seen no one else around.
Did you see the lady s father? Chodo Contague?
Well, no. But he musta been there somewhere, eh?
Temisk s timing had been amazing if he d been missed by my pixies and rats.
Although there hadn t been any reason for them to watch for him and no reason
for them to recognize him if they did see him. A guy named Garrett was the
only one who needed to miss him. Plus Chodo s beloved only child and a few
underbosses, the latter of whom had no reason to visit the kitchens.
This was beginning to look like a huge, ugly Harvester Temisk murder scheme [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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