A Night in the Lonesome October Part 17

We turned and began walking back.

"How hard's the body-finding one?" he asked as we climbed the hill.

"They're fairly easy, actually."

"What if you tried it for the police officer we put in the river?"

"Now that could be tricky, since there are a lot of extra variables involved. If you just misplaced a body, though -- or knew that someone had died but didn't know where -- that wouldn't be too hard."

"That does sound like a kind of divination," he said.

"When you talk about being an 'antic.i.p.ator,' of having a pretty good idea of when something's going to happen -- or how, or who will be there -- isn't that a kind of divination?"

"No. I think it's more a kind of subconscious knack for dealing with statistics, against a fairly well-known field of actions."

"Well, some of my calculations would probably be a lot closer to doing overtly what you seem to do subconsciously. You may well be an intuitive calculator."

"That business about finding the body, though. That smacks of divination."

"It only seems that way to an outsider. Besides, you've just seen what can happen to my calculations if I'm missing some key factor. That's hardly divinatory."

"Supposing I told you that I've had a strong feeling all morning that one of the players has died?"

"That's a little beyond me, I'm afraid. I'd need to know who it was, and some of the circ.u.mstances. I really deal more with facts and probabilities than things like that. Are you serious about your feeling?"

"Yes, it's a real antic.i.p.ation."

"Did you feel it when the Count got staked?"

"No, I didn't. But then, I don't believe he'd technically have been considered living, to begin with."

"Quibble, quibble," I said, and he caught the smile and smiled back. It takes one to know one, I guess.

"You want to show me Dog's Nest? You've gotten me curious."

"Come on," I said, and we went and climbed up to it.

At the top, we walked around a bit, and I showed him the stone we had been sucked through. Its inscription had become barely noticeable scratchings again. He couldn't make them out either.

"Nice view from here, though," he said, turning and studying the land about us. "Oh, there's the manse. I wonder whether Mrs. Enderby's cuttings are taking?"

There was my opening. I could have seized it right then, I suppose, and told him the whole story, from Soho to here. But, at least, I realized then what was holding me back. He reminded me of someone I once knew: Rocco. Rocco was a big, floppy-eared hound, always happy -- bouncing about and slavering over life with such high spirits that some found it annoying -- and he was very single-minded. I called to him one day on the street and he just dashed across, not even paying puppy-attention to his surroundings. Got run over by a cart. I rushed to his side, and d.a.m.ned if he still didn't seem happy to see me in those final minutes. If I'd kept my muzzle shut he could have stayed happy a lot longer. Now. . . . Well, Larry wasn't stupid like Rocco, but he had a similar capacity for enthusiasm -- long frustrated by a big problem, in his case. He seemed on the way to working out some means for dealing with the problem now, and the Great Detective in the guise he had a.s.sumed was cheering him up a good deal. Since I didn't really see him as giving much away, I thought of Rocco and said the h.e.l.l with it. Later.

We climbed down then and headed back, and I let him tell me about tropical plants and temperate plants and arctic plants and diurnal-nocturnal plant cycles and herbal medicines from many cultures. When we neared Rastov's place, I saw at first what appeared a piece of rope hanging from a tree limb, blowing in the wind. A moment later I realized it to be Quicklime, signaling for my attention.

I veered to the left hand side of the road, quickening my pace.

"Snuff! I was looking for you!" he called. "He's done it! He's done it!"

"What?" I asked him.

"Did himself in. I found him hanging when I returned from my foraging. I knew he was depressed. I told you -- "

"How long ago was this?"

"About an hour ago," he said. "Then I went to look for you."

"When did you go out?"

"Before dawn."

"He was all right then?"

"Yes. He was sleeping. He'd been drinking last night."

"Are you sure he did it to himself?"

"There was a bottle on a table nearby."

"That doesn't mean anything, the way he'd been drinking."

Larry had halted when he'd seen I was engaged in a conversation. I excused myself from Quicklime to bring him up to date.

"Sounds as if your antic.i.p.ation was right," I said. "But I couldn't have calculated this one."

Then a thought occurred.

"The icon," I said. "Is it still there?"

"It wasn't anywhere in sight," Quicklime replied. "But it usually isn't, unless he takes it out for some reason."

"Did you check where he normally keeps it?"

"I can't. That would take hands. There's a loose board under his bed. It lies flush and looks normal, but comes up easily for someone with fingers. There's a hollow s.p.a.ce beneath it. He keeps it there, wrapped in a red silk bandana."

"I'll get Larry to lift the board," I said. "Is there an unlocked door?"

"I don't know. You'll have to try them. Usually, he keeps them locked. If they are, my window is opened a crack, as usual. You can raise it up and get in that way."

We headed for the house. Quicklime slithered down and followed us.

The front door was unlocked. We entered and waited till Quicklime was beside us.

"Which way?" I asked him.

"Straight ahead, through the door," he said.

We did that, entering a room I had viewed from outside on an earlier inspection. And Rastov hung there, from a rope tied to a rafter, wild black hair and beard framing his pale face, dark eyes bugged, a trickle of blood having run from the left corner of his mouth into his beard, dried now into a dark, scarlike ridge. His face was purple and swollen. A light chair lay on its side nearby.

We studied his remains for only a moment, and I found myself recalling the old cat's remarks from yesterday. Was this the blood he had referred to?

"Where's the bedroom?" I asked.

"Through the door to the rear," Quicklime replied.

"Come on, Larry," I said. "We need you to raise a board."

The bedroom was a mess, with heaps of empty bottles all about. And the bed was disheveled, its linen smelling of stale human sweat.

"There's a loose board under the bed," I said to Larry. To Quicklime, then, "Which board is it?"

Quicklime slipped beneath and halted atop the third one in.

"This one," he said.

"The one Quicklime's showing us," I told Larry. "Raise it, please."

Larry knelt and reached, catching an edge with his fingernails. He found purchase almost immediately and drew it gently upward.

Quicklime looked in. I looked in. Larry looked in. The red bandana was still there, but no three-by-nine-inch piece of wood with an eerie painting on it.

"Gone," Quicklime commented. "It must be somewhere back in the room, with him. We must have missed it."

Larry replaced the board and we returned to the room where Rastov hung. We searched thoroughly, but it did not seem to be present.

"I don't think he killed himself," I said finally. "Somebody overpowered him while he was drunk or hung over, then did that to him. They wanted it to look as if he did it to himself."

"He was pretty strong," Quicklime responded. "But if he'd started in drinking again this morning, he might not have been able to defend himself well."

I relayed our conjectures to Larry, who nodded.

"And the place is so messy you can't really tell whether there was a struggle," he said. "Though, for that matter, the killer could have straightened some furniture afterwards. I'll have to go to the constable. I'll tell him I dropped by, found the door open and walked in. At least, I'd visited here before. It's not as if we'd never met. He won't know we weren't that well acquainted."

"I guess that's best," I told him. Returning my gaze to the corpse, I said, "Can't tell from his clothes either. Looks as if he'd slept in them, more than once."

We moved back to the front room.

"What are you going to do now, Quicklime?" I asked. "You want to move in with Jack and me? That might be simplest, us closers sticking together."

"I think not," he hissed. "I think I'm done with the Game. He was a good man. He took good care of me. He cared about people, about the whole world.

What's that human notion -- compa.s.sion. He had a lot of that. It's one of the reasons he drank a lot, I think. He felt everybody else's pain too much. No. I'm done with the Game. I'll slip back to the woods now. I still know a few burrows, a few places where the mice make their runs. Leave me alone here for a while now. I'll see you around, Snuff."

"Whatever you think is best, Quicklime," I said. "And if the winter gets too rough, you know where we live."

"I do. Good-bye."

"Good luck."

Larry let me out and we walked back to the road.

"I'll be going this way, then," he said, turning right.

"And I'll be going this way."

I turned left.

"See you soon for the follow-up on this," he said.

"Yes."

I headed home. "And you will lose a friend" -- the old cat had said that, too. It had slipped my mind till now.

Jack was not in, and I did the rounds quickly, leaving everything in good order. Stepping outside then, I located his spoor and tracked him to Crazy Jill's.

Graymalk watched me from atop the wall.

"h.e.l.lo, Snuff," she said.

"h.e.l.lo, Gray. Jack is here?"

"Yes, he is in having a meal with the mistress. He ran low on supplies and she decided to feed him before their trip."

"Trip?" I asked. "What trip?"

"A shopping trip, into town."

"He did say something about being low on necessaries, and needing to visit the market soon. . . ."

"Yes. So he's sent for a coach. It should be here in an hour or so. It will be exciting to see the town again."

"You're going, too?"

"We're all going. The mistress also needs some things."

"Shouldn't we we stay behind to guard the places?" stay behind to guard the places?"

"The mistress has a very good daylong warding spell, which she will share. It will also capture likenesses of attempted trespa.s.sers. I understand that a part of the reason we are going this way is to see whether anyone tries such a thing. Everyone will see our coach go by. On our return, we may learn who are our most important enemies."

"This was decided recently, I take it?"

"Just this morning, while you were out."

"This may be a good time for it," I acknowledged, "with the big event only a week from tomorrow -- and in light of the way things have been going."