Johannes Cabal the Detective

Out on the street again, with his new purchases wrapped in a neat brown-paper bundle under his arm, he checked his watch. The timing was slightly off, he realised; the tailor had been more efficient than planned for, and Cabal found himself slightly ahead of schedule. In an unexpected show of pleasantry, which he didn’t even attempt to rationalise, he bought a red carnation from a woman on a street corner who had a basket full of them. Furthermore, he suffered her to place it upon his jacket’s lapel, and for this he could offer no rationalization either. With the uncharacteristic splash of colour illuminating him, he strolled onwards.

As he entered the square whose northern side was dominated by the railway station’s facade, he heard the happy shrieks of children, and the sound curdled his enjoyment of the day somewhat. He had once been forced by circumstances to be vaguely polite to children for a whole year when he ran the carnival, and the experience had scarred him. When he saw that the source of their amusement was a puppet show, the day darkened still further. A detour was impossible, as the show had been mounted close by the pedestrian approach to the station’s entrance. Most of the commuters passing by smiled and tossed coins into the collection buckets, apparently unconcerned by the bottleneck created by the show’s audience.

Cabal started to edge around the crowd, but paused, distracted by the nature of the show. It was not a simple tall booth with a stage in the upper third, beneath which lurked a glove puppeteer, like the “professors” of the English Punch and Judy show. This was an altogether more massive construction of wood and canvas, the best part of two and a half metres along the front and deep enough to hold a floored stage and sufficient “backstage” and space behind the proscenium to give the puppeteers room to stand and operate the marionettes that pranced upon the stage. The play currently being performed seemed to be an old story, albeit lent a satirical edge for the adults present by passing references to local gossip and national politics. The tale’s root was something like that of “Hansel and Gretel,” but instead of a witch’s cottage the pair had stumbled upon a secret military camp in the woods, run by grotesquely caricatured Mirkarvian soldiers. The Mirkarvians — led by an idiotic captain who reminded Cabal strongly of Lieutenant Karstetz — were at a loss to know how to deal with the children, the captain having inadvisably used his orders as toilet paper in an earlier scene. Now they found themselves “in a pickle,” which led to a running joke about how the captain loved pickles, and what an extraordinarily wide variety of things the Mirkarvians enjoy pickled.

Cabal watched the soldiers whirling and dancing around, their wooden feet clacking across the boards of the little stage. He had to admire the skill of the puppeteers, even if the script played a little too strongly to the Senzan appetite for scatological humour. Still, it was easy enough to ignore the words and just watch the varnished arms wave and the varnished boots stamp.

The realisation came upon him suddenly and violently, not as a light of revelation but as a dreadful hollowing. For a moment, it seemed as if nothing existed within his chest but cold vacuum, freezing the inside of his rib cage.

It was so clear. It was all so clear. And it had always been so clear, right from the beginning, if he had only opened his eyes and ears, if he had not only looked but also seen, not only heard but listened.

It meant Leonie Barrow was in terrible danger. No phantasm of peril but true, real, and immediate danger. It also meant that it was none of his concern. He could just walk away.

So he did.

* * *

Miss Leonie Barrow had not expected Johannes Cabal to see the Princess Hortense off on her final leg, so she had no grounds for feeling disappointed when she was proved right. Being right, however, is not always the recipe for good humour, and she felt hers deteriorate as the aeroship cleared the landing cradle, realigned the etheric guides, and set course for Katamenia. Part of the reason was simple annoyance with herself. She felt somehow gulled, as if he had made a fool of her. Cabal had been entirely in her power right from the moment she’d laid eyes on him that first evening, and — despite great provocation — she had never used it. It had seemed that there was a greater or at least a more immediate evil to contend with, and she had let him keep his liberty and his life. Yet when she needed his coldly analytical mind he had turned his back at the first sign of trouble. Well, the second sign of trouble. Being shoved out of the ship while in flight could reasonably be regarded as the first.

The other part of the reason she didn’t like to think about. Cabal had been very emphatic in his warning to her, that she was risking her life by rejoining the ship. She had to acknowledge that his was a career path littered with greater hazards than redundancy and insufficient pension contributions. Cabal had lived as long as he had by having a very keen sense of danger and a very simple strategy for dealing with it; turning a full 180 degrees and running. It was not a very valorous lifestyle, but he liked the way that it kept him off ducking stools, clear of bonfires, and safely away from nooses. Thus, it seemed likely that if Cabal said there was terrible danger before performing one of those turns and running, then there was very likely to be danger.

She had little idea how she would deal with danger. Her father had taught her the bare essentials of self- defence — when in real, unalloyed fear for your life, fight to maim and kill, because you will get no second chance — but the assumption there was of an unplanned attack in the street. A calculating killer or, worse yet, killers, was not something she or her father had ever considered. Cabal must certainly have performed his 180-degree manoeuvre in the past and found himself facing a wall but survived somehow. That was what he was, a survivor. Though she hated even to think it, a survivor was what she needed on her side right now. Somebody who could spot the dagger before it was drawn or the pistol before it was aimed, and find a way out.

But then, wasn’t that exactly what he had done? Worse still, wasn’t that exactly what he’d told her to do, too?

So, between feeling like a fool because her kindness had gone unrewarded and feeling like a fool for not running while she had the chance, it is unsurprising that Leonie Barrow watched the new day dawn with all the enthusiasm of a prisoner on the morning of execution.

“Ah, you poor dear. Left all alone, my poor sweet.”

The voice at her shoulder did not lighten her mood. In the normal run of things, Lady Ninuka would merely have been irritating. If Cabal’s suspicions had any grounds, however, Ninuka was perfectly capable of walking up to somebody, sticking a dagger into their vitals, and looking them in the face the whole time as she twisted the steel. So Miss Barrow found herself in the unfamiliar territory that lies between peevishness and fear, an uncomfortable place filled, figuratively, with disease-carrying flies whose whining wings put one’s teeth on edge.

Unaware of her companion’s inner conflict, Lady Ninuka continued, “I heard that Herr Meissner was called away on urgent business at the embassy in Parila. He’ll just have to catch up with his luggage in Katamenia, I suppose.”

“You heard that?” replied Miss Barrow in a neutral tone. It didn’t surprise her. Cabal wouldn’t have jumped ship without some sort of story to prevent awkward questions.

“Yes. And dear Herr Cacon apparently has family in Parila, so he’s gone, too. I suppose he’ll just have to make his own way onwards after he’s said hello.”

Miss Barrow turned sharply and looked at Lady Ninuka. Apart from being slightly startled by the sudden movement, she looked very much as a monied and landed simpleton dispensing gossip might. Or, just possibly, a monied and landed stone-cold killer passing herself off as an ingenue might.

“I thought the Senzans were going to spend a long time searching the ship? They waved it through very quickly, didn’t they?”

Lady Ninuka shrugged. “You should have seen them, my dear. The ship was absolutely heaving with Senzan soldiers. I think the captain was just expecting a few grubby little customs men. Instead, we must have had a whole regiment tramping around the place!” Her animation suggested that she was very enamoured of large numbers of young men in uniform marching back and forth in front of her. She frowned unhappily. “They were finished so quickly.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Searching the ship. Military efficiency, I suppose.”

“Didn’t the deaths aboard concern them?”

“Not as far as I know,” said Lady Ninuka a little tartly. “I’m sure they were only too glad to leave poor Gabriel alone. The captain told us at the same time as he did the Senzan captain. Gabriel was Mirkarvian, aboard a Mirkarvian ship, who died within Mirkarvian borders. Poor Gabriel.” She dabbed quickly and delicately at her eyes with a lace handkerchief as if drying soap bubbles. “Poor, stupid boy. Please, forgive me. I must — ” And she