Jackaby (Jackaby #1)(26)
“Well.” She glanced quickly around and lowered her voice. “It was getting late in the evening. The sun had gone, and the lamps near that corner were dark. They need new wicks, that whole block, they’re always going out—but the moon was near full, and it brightened up the street pretty well. I was only out to see if I could scrounge something for Hammett. He does threaten to turn me to stew, but it gets cold out here and I worry about him. Poor thing’s had a cough for weeks. So, I was just across the street behind Chandler’s Market—Ray just throws out the bones and fish heads—and I hear a sound coming from that Emerald Arch building. I look way up and see a dark shape at the window—not the top one, but at almost-the-top window. The window creaks up and someone sticks his head out and looks up and down the street.”
“Did you get a good look at his face?” Jackaby pressed.
“Oh yes. I’ll never have that face out of my mind. So, his head comes out and he’s got evil, evil eyes, and terrible, sharp teeth. He looks up and down the street, but I have my shawl on, see, and he doesn’t see me. That awful head ducks back inside for a second, and then out comes his leg and he starts to step out onto the balcony. Well, about then, I backed up to stay as far from that creature as possible, and I backed right into a crate of old scrap shingles some fool left in the alleyway. The things clatter to the street, and the beast just leaps back into the window and pulls it shut.”
“You’re quite certain that what you saw was a creature of some sort, and not a man?” asked Jackaby.
“He was a beast, all right. Nothing human about that face. Strange, though, he dressed like a man. It was dark, and he was good and high up there, but I could see his trousers and a suit jacket. Normal kind of clothes, I think, except his shoes. His shoes were shiny metal. Coming out of the window, their soles looked like the hot side of an iron, and they clanked as he stepped onto the balcony. I stuck around in the alley for a long time, to see if he’d come back, but he never did. Must’ve gone out the front, instead.”
Jackaby’s face was clouded with thought. “He did indeed, Hatun. His trail resumed on the interior stairwell. Was there anything else?”
Hatun informed us that she had returned home after that, and hadn’t seen the creature since, nor anything else out of the ordinary. “Do be careful though,” she added. “The chimneys and stovepipes have not been singing as often lately. That’s never a good sign for the city. They know something’s wrong.”
Jackaby thanked her for her time and counsel, and offered her an apple, plucked from somewhere up his sleeve. With a few mumbled cordialities, we left the woman to her frosty bridge and returned to the streets of New Fiddleham.
We had walked several blocks before I interrupted Jackaby’s intense concentration. “You were right,” I said. “About the shoes, I mean. Even if she doesn’t get it all right, she saw just what you predicted. So, they are metal. And this is good, right? We’ve narrowed things down—eliminated more possibilities?”
“Yes, indeed. Except that it isn’t good at all.”
“No?”
“She said he wore a suit jacket.”
“And that’s bad?”
“Monsters are easy, Miss Rook. They’re monsters. But a monster in a suit? That’s basically just a wicked man, and a wicked man is a more dangerous thing by far.”
Chapter Thirteen
By request of my employer, the contents of chapter thirteen have been omitted.
~ Abigail Rook
Chapter Fourteen
Back in his home on Augur Lane, we passed through the quiet lobby—my eyes still willfully avoiding the frog—and down the crooked, green hallway. Instead of continuing to his office, Jackaby pushed open the door to the library. Soft light played in through the alcove windows at the far end, and the detective didn’t bother with the lamps. He began plucking books from the shelves. Some were massive, impressive-looking, leather-bound volumes, and others seemed little more than pamphlets.
“May I help?” I asked.
He set down an armload on the table next to me and glanced up. “What? Oh. Yes, of course, of course, that’s why I hired you. Let’s see, there should be a few useful titles down that aisle. Look for the Almanac Arcanum, and anything by Mendel.”
He bustled off around the corner, and I perused the spines nearest me. Neither the authors’ names nor the titles of the books seemed to have been taken into consideration in Jackaby’s shelving method. “Is there a system to these? How do you find anything?” I called.
The detective’s voice came from the next row over. “I have a simple and utilitarian method of arrangement. They’re sorted by supernatural potency and color of aura. You’re in beige, just now.”
“You know, I could get these all catalogued and sorted properly for you if you like. I used to spend a lot of time in libraries, back in school. I bet it wouldn’t take more than a week or two.”
His head appeared suddenly at the end of my row. “Good heavens, no! No no no, I have them precisely where I want them. Just—just see to it you don’t move things around much. And don’t lose any of my bookmarks. Oh, and don’t go into the Dangerous Documents section.” He gestured toward an area blocked from sight by a corridor of bookshelves, from which the shadows seemed to fall a little darker than was absolutely natural. “And don’t—”