Strike at Midnight(29)

“And it would mean one big coincidence?”

“That’s what I’m starting to think. But this is your field of expertise. Not mine.”

She sat back in her chair. “I’m inclined to agree with you. I don’t think it is anyone who would have held the position of servant, waiter, or footman. They may have been hired or planted to gain information once the lookalikes were discovered, but not to plan it directly.”

“This seems so off,” I said, not liking the coincidence of two people, looking exactly alike, resulting in the case of stolen identity. Coincidences didn’t exist in my book, but then a lot of the time I didn’t really give a shit about the crime—only the fact that I needed to hunt the culprit down. But this time, it was different. An innocent man’s life was at stake. “I don’t like this.”

“Me neither,” she said with a frown on her face. “But we still need to follow the Billy angle. If he has worked elsewhere, then that confirms the suspicion that he was hired to also spy on the duke, and he’s in this deep.”

“I have some contacts I can speak to in Lower City. This Billy may still be around, or they may have come across him at some point. It’s another angle.”

“Okay,” she said, and she leaned on her desk to start copying down the names on the list. I waited patiently for her to finish and tried not to fidget.

“Almost done,” she said, dipping her quill into the ink. “We can split up and share the questioning of those on the list on who host a lot of balls. We can hopefully question the staff with no—”

“The Crickets!” I shouted, and Rapunzel nearly jumped out of her seat.

“What?” she snapped as she grabbed a rag from her desk to wipe up the ink I made her spill. Oops. That desk was getting a lot of ink abuse through me.

“Sorry,” I said, then I moved on quickly. “The Crickets were the other people on the list. I can take them and the Camemberts. I’ll leave you with the Darlings and the Collinses.”

“Fine,” she said, trying to wipe some ink off her hand. “I’ll get their addresses and head down there tomorrow.”

“You can come to me tomorrow before you get grounded again,” I said. “Taking those stairs twice in a matter of days is taking its toll.”

“So are you,” she muttered under her breath. But I’d caught it.

“All the more reason to come to me. I’ll make sure I’m at Melodies by the afternoon, and we can go from there.”

“I’ll get on it first thing,” she said, finishing off on the list and standing up to give me my cue to leave. I stood up with her and she handed me my copy of the parchment. “Time is running out for the duke. If he is still alive, of course.”

“I’ll head down to The Pirate Ship tonight and see if Pinocchio is around. He’s a snitch who owes me a favor.”

“And I’ll dedicate all the time I can on this until the man is found,” she said with a grim look on her face. “Either way.”

Whether he was dead or alive is what she meant, and I felt a shiver run through me. It was time to leave.

“I’m off,” I said, putting a hand on her arm in brief comfort. She nodded and I left her to her candlelight.

It was time for me to make a flying visit to the lowlives and vagabonds in the dregs of the city.

I should fit right in.





CHAPTER TEN

Hey, ho, it's Pinocchio!





The Pirate Ship wasn’t too far away from Melodies, even though it was situated down by the docks. But the docks may as well have been classed as a different kingdom with how isolated they appeared to be from where I lived. Many decent and indecent people avoided them if they could. Especially since the only roads going down to them were dark and spooky no matter the time of day. It was worse than the Nightmare Woods.

It wasn’t a place you wanted to end up in if you weren’t familiar with the clientele. Even I felt uncomfortable when I went down there, and I avoided it when I had a choice. Only tonight I didn’t have one and I needed to see if Pinocchio was around, which he would be. The guy didn’t have any better place to be—unless, he was sniffing around somewhere he shouldn’t.

Pinocchio was a guy who would give up his own mother if it meant a bit of silver. He was a crook, and you couldn’t believe a word that came out of his mouth. Unless you knew him like I did.

I knew when the little bastard was lying to me and he knew when I knew. So we had a silent agreement that he would tell the truth, I would pay him, and I wouldn’t break his arm. He already knew that I was capable of it.

A few years ago he had been suspected of breaking and entering into a few homes in Central City. A client had come to me to try and find the culprit and that path had led me to Pinocchio’s door.

He had tried to resist in me taking him down to the jailhouse when I had caught up with him, but being the brittle little thing he was, I had accidentally broken his arm in the process. He thought I had done it on purpose and I had let him think that ever since.

I wished I could say he was just misunderstood, but that was a lie. However, he was also just a puppet who would listen to anything anyone told him, which meant he made a great patsy for people who wanted him to take the fall on the job—like the breaking-and-entering one.