Steeplejack (Alternative Detective, #1)(45)

Dahria hesitated, unsure what to ask next, and I, balancing on those absurd heels, gestured quickly toward the clock.

“When was this?” asked Dahria.

“Waterday of last week.”

The day before Ansveld Sr. showed up in the Drowning, looking for Berrit.

She considered this, and her gaze strayed once more to me, hovering unnoticed by the door. I nodded sequentially toward the other luxorite dealers in the street outside, then turned my attention to a silver-topped cane in a stand, so Ansveld wouldn’t see how hard I was listening.

“And did he try to sell the piece to any of your competitors?” Dahria asked, managing to sound merely intrigued.

“Well, that’s the curious thing,” said Ansveld Jr. reflectively. “So far as I know, he did not venture into any shop but ours. I spoke to my neighbors. Several saw him hanging around, but he made no attempt to enter. Most peculiar.”

“Indeed,” said Dahria.

“That’s not for sale,” he said suddenly, addressing me.

“I’m sorry?” I said, half turning toward him but trying to shield my face.

“That cane,” he explained. “The one with the fussy little one-horn emblem on the top. It’s not for sale. Someone left it here. I assume my father was supposed to be setting a stone in it. The handle is quite intricate.”

I nodded, mute, and moved away from the cane.

“So,” said Dahria, carefully steering his attention back to her. “Forgive my gossiping, but has anyone bought anything new lately? I long to know what everyone will be talking about.”

“Well,” he said with a hint of glee. “You didn’t hear it from me, but I’ve heard that Dowager Eileen Hamilton will be unveiling a new necklace this evening at the opera. I hear it is very fine, bought the moment it went on sale at one of my less salubrious competitors over the road. Macinnes,” he said with sour astonishment. “If you can believe that. When times are hard, people don’t always ask too many questions. Anyway, the dowager must have snapped it up in an instant because I never even got a whiff of it. I’m agog to see it.”

He was momentarily transformed, shifting from a rather stuffy little shopkeeper to a delighted enthusiast.

“Assuming I haven’t already,” he added slyly.

“You think it’s the same piece the boy had?” Dahria asked. “That she got it from him?”

“Not directly, I’m sure,” said Ansveld Jr. “But Macinnes may have lied about not dealing with the boy. If not, it’s a remarkable coincidence. Two previously unknown pieces in the Bar-Selehm market!” He clapped his hands together with rapture.

“Sounds delicious,” said Dahria. “I’ll keep my eyes peeled for more. These, I will, I’m afraid, have to think about,” she said, unhooking the earrings. “But you have such a charming emporium that I will not be able to keep away for long.”

She said it with such grace, with such beatific elegance born as much from wealth, beauty, and privilege as from the luxorite glow around her face, that he did not even seem disappointed.

“It’s a lovely thing, luxorite,” he said musingly. “I work with it every day but it never loses its appeal, somehow. My father understood that.” He tried to smile, but some other powerful feeling, a deep sorrow, ambushed it, contorted it into a grimace that was hard to look at. His jaw set and his eyes, which had been laughing only moments before, shone with unshed tears.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” said Dahria, surprised and uncomfortable.

“We did not see eye to eye on many things, my father and I,” said Ansveld Jr. “We argued a great deal. I wish now … But he loved luxorite, and not only because selling it had made him a very wealthy man. It’s funny, isn’t it?” he added thoughtfully. “Everyone knows that if they live long enough, they will see their parents die, but it still comes as a surprise. Turns you into a child again.” He blinked and tried to smile. “I expect the feeling passes.”

“It doesn’t,” I said, the words coming out without anything like deliberation.

He gave me a look that was surprised, even indignant, but he couldn’t keep it up. “No,” he said, managing the saddest smile I had ever seen. “I didn’t really think it would.”





CHAPTER

17

“YOU WERE RIGHT,” GASPED Dahria as soon as we had gotten a safe distance from the shop. “This is fun!”

She fanned herself extravagantly. She had given me a shrewd look at my strange connection with the shopkeeper over his absent father, but said nothing, and if I had seen something like understanding in her face, she had pushed it down and laced it up tight as her corset. Now she was beaming, and I, far from clear about our relationship, let the moment go, turning instead to the mystery at hand.

“So Berrit had a fragment of luxorite,” I mused, “but the Beacon hadn’t been stolen yet, and no one reported any thefts, so where did he get it?”

“The boy must have had connections to dealers or thieves,” said Dahria.

“If so, they were new connections,” I said. “He was nobody in the Westside gang. He said he had friends in high places, but if so, he made those friends recently, right around the time he was traded to Morlak.”