Chapter 20: The Empty Shelf

The policeman at the apartment door examined Hans’s identification papers, lingering on the seal. His gaze dropped to the Order pin on Hans’s coat.

A clipboard rested against the man’s forearm. He wrote the time beside a line already crowded with neat entries, then glanced at Severin.

Hans said something in Vhaldrik and nodded toward Severin.

The officer looked at him. "Aethermerian?"

"Yeah."

His Aethermerian carried a Vhaldrik accent, but Severin understood him easily. "Did you touch anything on the way up?"

"I touched the stairs."

"That’ll ruin the case," Hans said.

The officer looked between them without smiling, then added another line to the page.

The building stood on a broad street in Valenquart, in the north of Kronvaal. The paving outside had been swept clean despite the morning coal smoke, and every apartment door carried a brass number. Two more uniformed policemen waited downstairs. Nobody shouted, and nobody wandered in to have a look.

Severin kept waiting for somebody to try.

Hans opened his leather case on the landing rather than inside. He pulled on a pair of thin gloves, took out a small glass vial and a folded cloth, then left the rest where it was.

"Stay close to the door," he told Severin. "Pay attention."

The climb had pulled at the healing wound beneath Severin’s shirt, but it eased once he stopped moving.

The apartment’s main room opened onto a narrow kitchen, with the bedroom beyond. Morning light came through a tall window facing the street.

The dead man lay beside a writing desk.

He was on his right side with one arm trapped beneath him. Blood had dried in his hair and darkened the boards near the back of his head. A chair lay on its side a few feet away. His coat still hung by the entrance.

A police inspector stood near the window with a notebook. He glanced at Severin, then began.

"Body found yesterday at seven forty-six. The landlady entered after the tenant failed to answer the door and had not reported for work. Patrol arrived twelve minutes later, the physician at eight twelve. Nobody moved the body. We’ve kept the apartment sealed."

He handed Hans a page. Severin could make out the rows of names and signatures, each with a recorded time beside it, though the writing itself meant nothing to him.

Hans studied it. "What’s the cause of death?"

"Heavy blow to the back of the skull. No weapon recovered."

"Was the door locked when she arrived?"

"Closed, but not locked. No signs of forced entry."

"What about the window?"

"Open when patrol arrived. We left it that way."

"I see. Anything missing?"

"We haven’t fully established that yet."

The inspector pointed toward the desk, apparently the reason the Order had been called.

A narrow wall shelf hung above it. Books stood at one end beside a framed photograph. The center was empty except for a clean rectangular patch where dust had not settled. Beneath the shelf, on the desk and floor, lay more than a dozen dead flies and small moths.

They were concentrated in one place, and Hans stopped short of them.

"Any poison used in the building?" he asked.

"None reported."

"How about fumigation?"

The inspector shook his head.

"Hmm. Powder for insects?"

The inspector pointed toward the kitchen. "There’s a tin under the sink. Ordinary household powder."

Hans looked toward the kitchen. "Anyone else in the building ill?"

"No."

"Any pets?"

"None registered for this residence."

He crouched near the body, careful of the dried blood, and examined the dead man’s hands and exposed skin without disturbing him. After checking the cuffs, he looked at the mouth and floorboards.

"What are you looking for?" Severin asked.

"Anything that says the blow wasn’t the whole story."

Hans checked the wall behind the corpse and the underside of the overturned chair. "Nothing obvious on him. No burns or unusual staining, and I don’t see any punctures I’d worry about."

The inspector said, "The physician found no other injury."

Hans nodded and moved to the kitchen.

He returned with the insect powder tin held in a cloth. The label meant nothing to Severin. Hans opened it and held it away from his face while he smelled it, then tipped a few grains into the glass vial. He stoppered it and slipped it into his coat before putting the tin back beneath the sink.

He asked who had opened the cupboard and whether anyone had swept near the desk. He also wanted to know if the landlady used the same powder downstairs.

Each answer went into the notebook. The inspector either knew it immediately or checked his notes before answering.

Severin watched the room while they worked.

The dead man had not lived richly, but there were things worth taking. A watch lay beside the bed, and a small coin dish on the dresser still held silver. The desk drawers were closed, the cupboard untouched. Even the coat by the entrance had a chain hanging from one pocket.

He looked again at the empty place on the shelf, where a faint scrape crossed the wood at its front edge.

"Someone took something from there," Severin said.

Hans turned.

The inspector looked at the shelf. "We know an object may have been there."

"No. I mean that’s what they came for."

Hans straightened. "Why?"

Severin pointed around the room. "Money’s still here, and so is his watch. The drawers aren’t turned out. If you break into a place and don’t know what you’re after, you search. If you kill a man for money, you don’t leave silver sitting on the dresser."

The inspector looked from the coin dish to the coat.

Severin nodded toward the shelf. "One thing gone. Everything else left alone."

Hans looked at the scrape without touching it.

"Could have been removed earlier," the inspector said.

"Could have," Hans replied. "Ask the landlady what sat there. His employer or family too. Anyone who visited often enough to know the room."

The inspector wrote it down.

Hans glanced at Severin. "Anything else?"

"No."

Hans went back to the dead insects. He crouched several feet from the desk and studied the floor rather than the shelf.

Severin followed his gaze to the insects. Most lay at about the same distance from the empty patch, with almost none farther into the room.

Hans pointed at the nearest moth without leaning closer. "Nobody moved these?"

"No," the inspector said.

Hans shifted sideways and looked over the rest. "None of them?"

"None."

The open window let in a little cold air. Somewhere outside, a cart rolled over the cobbles.

A fly came through the gap, bumped once against the glass, circled the window frame, then drifted toward the desk.

Nobody paid attention to it at first. The fly crossed above the chair and dropped without warning, its wings simply stopping.

Hans got up so fast his gloved hand struck his coat. "Back."

The inspector stepped away from the desk without asking why.

Hans pointed at Severin. "Get out."

Severin moved into the hall, his knee protesting when he turned. He caught the doorframe with his left hand rather than his right as the policeman outside looked up from the clipboard.

The inspector joined them a moment later, and Hans backed into the hall behind him without touching anything.

Hans pulled the door nearly shut behind him. "Nobody enters."

The inspector looked through the narrow gap. "Because of that insect?"

"I just watched it fall."

"You think there’s poison in the air?"

"I don’t know yet. The blow to the head still looks like what killed him," Hans said. "But whatever this is, it’s around the shelf."

The inspector nodded and wrote it down.

Hans peeled off his gloves, turning them inward as he went. He wrapped them in the cloth he had brought, tied it closed and set the bundle beside his case.

"Keep the apartment closed," he said. "Nobody goes back in until the containment team gets here. Don’t touch anything around that shelf, and don’t move the body."

The inspector’s pencil had already started moving.

"I’ll send word to the Master and request a containment team," Hans continued. "Your men keep the homicide. We’ll take whatever’s happening around that shelf."

"Agreed."

The inspector gave orders in Vhaldrik. The policeman at the door repeated them back, then wrote the new restriction across the top of his page.

Severin watched him underline it twice as Hans closed his leather case.

The inspector went to the stairwell and called down to one of the men below.

"You said this was supposed to be safe," Severin said quietly.

"Things change."

The inspector came back. "One of my men will go to the Citadel. They can send a wire to Master Fischer from there."

Hans nodded. "One more thing."

He pointed at the closed apartment door.

"Find out exactly what used to sit on that shelf. Don’t rely on a guess. I want someone who saw it properly, and I want to know when they last saw it there."

The inspector wrote that down too, and Severin watched the neat lines fill the page.

In Blackhaven, a poor man found dead could become a rumor before lunch and a forgotten file by winter. Here the police had recorded the time they entered and every person who came through the door, adding Hans’s instructions as he gave them.

He still did not like policemen, but these ones made him nervous for different reasons.

Hans picked up the leather case and the bundle. "Come on."

"Where to?"

"Back to the temple."

Severin looked once at the numbered apartment door. "What happens if they find the thing?"

Hans started down the stairs. "Let’s hope they don’t fucking touch it."