A.J. Pendlbolt - Questioning Counselor Hargrove

“Madam Counselor,” A.J. began, leaning forward in his seat with his tea cup still hovering over its saucer, “can you tell us where you were shortly before the night bell two nights prior?”

“Naturally,” the woman answered, taking a long sip of her tea.  Her eyes remained unwaveringly pinned to the gnome with an eagerness that Dede continued to find unsettling.  “I was here in my study, poring over the last of the day’s affairs before taking my evening rest.”

“Can anyone verify that?” Dede asked at once, catching a warning glance from A.J.  Despite generally being the more courteous of the pair, she had little interest in ingratiating herself with the likes of Counselor Hargrove; a woman who made the term ‘noble’ appear anything but.

“Only my manservant, Gerald,” the counselor explained, not batting an eye at the question as she sat her tea on the small octagonal table beside her chair.

“That’s hardly a reliable witness,” Dede said flatly, adding:  “not meaning any offense,” when she saw the look her partner was giving her.  It was a phrase A.J. himself had often used when catching similar glances from her, and with about as much sincerity.

“Of course he isn’t,” the counselor added without missing a beat, “but as an unmarried councilwoman, I’m not in the habit of inviting strangers into my study after the night bell.”  She smiled as she gathered up her saucer for another drink.  “I have a reputation to maintain.”

“About that reputation…” Dede began, cutting herself short when A.J.’s hand went up in a sign of caution.

“Do you know who it is that’s been murdered?” he asked, his tone just as gentle as before.

“Counselor Harrows, of course,” the councilwoman answered, the smile not leaving her face.

“Mind telling us how you know?” Dede asked, her temper clear at the sharp edges of her voice.

“It has to be,” the counselor explained.  “Why else would they cancel session on the day of ratification for one of the most wide-reaching proposals in council history?”  She enjoyed another drink of her tea, shutting her eyes to savor the flavor.  “Even if it was hopelessly misguided.”

Dede swallowed her objection with some effort as A.J. sat forward on the settee, returning his saucer to the serving tray.  “Can you explain?” he asked, continuing with some hesitation as he watched Dede's expression out of the corner of his eye.  “What about the late counselor’s proposal did you find to be...misguided?”

Hargrove laughed, setting her tea aside and tapping the side of her cup with her fingernail.  The porcelain rang into the air like a bell, calling Gerald back to the room in an instant.  The gnome gathered up the tea pot and stepped behind the counselor’s chair to refill her cup.  If it weren’t for the sound of the tea itself, A.J. might not have believed he were still in the room.

“Despite the love lavished upon Counselor Harrows of late,” the counselor began, snaking her fingers around her tea cup, “she retained her critics on the council.”  Her eyes narrowed at the woman just as her wry smile was twisting its way upward into a sickening grin.  “And her enemies.”

“Like yourself?” Dede offered, sipping her tea loudly.

“And others,” the counselor was quick to counter, waving her servant off without taking her hand away from her cup.  The gnome and the tea pot vanished behind the chair again, reappearing only seconds before both exited the room, still bowed.  “For one, the woman had no formal training in market finance.  Her ideals about the myths of foreign trade were only further proof that any such proposal was doomed to fail from its inception.   If it hadn’t been for our dear king-to-be, it would have died on the council floor and been swept up with the morning trash.”

The counselor took another long sip from her tea, watching Dede carefully over the lip of her cup.  The other dwarf maintained her composure, if only just.  “What myths?” A.J. asked, drawing both of their attentions.  “About foreign trade,” he clarified, cleaning his spectacles on a corner of his vest.

The counselor’s smile grew all the more sinister as she sat forward in her seat, leaning over the small table between them.  “Our dear counselor believed that our desert neighbors would rake us dryer than an iron floor,” she explained, eyeing Nathaniel in the corner, “that the humans would fall victim to their bitter urges and continue buying up our precious gemstone stock until the very mines collapsed, and our royal reserves along with them.”

“I was led to understand the counselor had a fondness for the people of Nijhum,” A.J. interjected, keeping his tone soft and even.  Dede shot him a curious look, knowing her partner had never taken the slightest interest in politics.  Gnomes were so woefully underprivileged in Stenwahl that it would have merely served to upset him with little hope of anything changing; a sentiment A.J. himself had voiced to her more than once, which led her to realize that his statement to the counselor was based solely on the evidence gathered on their brief visit to the late councilwoman’s lower terrace residence.  “Was that not the case?”

“Oh, she most certainly did,” Hargrove lilted, letting the innuendo linger on the pointed tip of her words, “but that isn’t to say she was ignorant of their tendencies.”  Her eyes darting to the corner again, searching for a reaction, but the guardsman merely nodded in acknowledgement.  She was delighted in part at the stiffness of the bow and the way in which the man never took his eyes off her in the course of it.  “I think it only added to her ‘fondness’ for them.”

Snippet: A.J. Pendlebolt - The Signmaker

“We’re investigating a murder,” Dede explained, giving the stacked planks only a passing glance to ensure none of them were ready to topple over before following her partner up to the counter.  “Constable Thaddock said that you found a singed bit of dyed parchment outside your stop yesterday morning, is that right?”

“That’s right,” the signmaker replied, a bright smile shining through his mottle gray beard.  “Spotted ‘em out in the street, all circled about.  Knew something was amiss, so I gave one of her boys the parchment.  Only,” he added, the smile fading from his face, “the constable didn’t seem to think it was related…”

“The constable was wrong,” A.J. told him, stooping to inspect one of the signs jutting out from the bottom of a nearby pile.  He could barely make out the letters H-A-M-O-N before he realized that it was meant to hang over a portion of Hammond’s Walk.  The absent ‘m’ remained a mystery, as did the missing apostrophe near the end of ‘Hammond’s.’  “Where did you find the menu?”

“The parchment?” the signmaker asked, lifting up a portion of the counter to slip out into the shop, wiping his large hands on a stained rag that already bore several different shades of paint, as did his hands and much of the arms to which they were attached.  “It was in the street just there,” he said, gesturing towards the door, “right by the curb.  I spotted it when I went to sweep the stoop.”

“Was it already singed when you found it?” Dede asked, ignoring the click of disapproval from A.J.  What she didn’t realize was that the gnome’s disappointment was actual in finding another typo in a sign at the top of a shorter stack on the opposite side of the narrow corridor:  “Legal Liaisons” spelled without the second ‘i,’ a mistake he might have been willing to ignore were it not for the superfluous apostrophe at the end of ‘liaisons,’ clearing an immigrant from the miswritten Hammond’s Walk sign.

“Oh, very much so,” the signmaker answered, “though the fire had gone out of it by then.  There was just the one little trail of smoke coming off the corner, and I stomped that out but good when I found it.”

“Were there any other pages with it?” Dede pressed him, hoping for a clue to the whereabouts of the proposal at last.  The menu and even the murder itself were largely supplemental to the greater issue of a law that might never come to pass.  Even if they managed to catch the murderers, if the proposal bearing the late councilwoman’s last signature were to be destroyed, the proposal might never see its way into law.

The signmaker paused to consider the question, running over the previous morning in his mind.  He started to pace in the office a bit, trying to retrace his steps before finally shaking his head to the woman.  “No, mum,” he explained, staring at the floor with his palms open.  “Least, not as far as I can remember.”

“Unconscionable,” A.J. muttered, shaking his head in disapproval.

“I am sorry, gov,” the signmaker said dejectedly.

“As well you should be,” the gnome intoned, largely speaking to himself.

“Oh, come now, A.J.,” Dede objected.  “It isn’t his fault the proposal wasn’t there.  The thieves would have been much more invested in its destruction than some dinner menu.”

“Hm?” A.J. said, looking up from his latest discovery:  a smithy’s sign that bore little resemblance to proper language at all.  “Oh, that,” he added a moment later, realizing at last what she had meant.  He pointed to the sign at his feet.  “I was talking about the ‘Blokesmith’s Sloppe,’” he explained, “which really does bring to mind all manner of terrible imagery.  A man who fashions blokes is one thing, but to sell the slop was wares?”  He shook his head at the thought, returning his attention to the sign.  “It positively boggles the mind.”