Independent by Means of Magic

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Metropolitan Police Inspector Rob McDuff stood in the middle of a crowded, overly-decorated teenaged girl’s room, far larger than his own humble home and half that of his family’s house far to the north in Scotland. Not familiar space or circumstances to him at all.

That was a good thing, though.

If he had to look at everything, he would miss nothing.

The late afternoon sun flooded the space with light, giving him a perfect opportunity to examine every curio, overstuffed pillow, and overly expensive painting on the walls.

McDuff had rather impolitely closed the door on Mr. and Mrs. Mallory several minutes ago. He could hear them stalking up and down the obscenely expensive carpet in the hall outside, no doubt wringing their hands and debating whether they should knock or not.

No doubt horribly distressed at his cheap black jacket, vest, and trousers, built for durability and easy cleaning rather than the excesses of fashion. Nothing but sackcloth compared to the Mallorys’ perfectly tailored and generously decorated attire, soon to be discarded for even more fussy and elaborate dinner clothing.

Besides needing a break from the trappings of wealth, self-righteous chatter, and amateur theorizing, McDuff had to remove himself before he backhanded one or both of them.

Mr. Mallory with his reeking pipe and aggressive mustache was full of suggestions about how to punish a man for a crime he had not yet been convicted of. Even if the case could be proven, McDuff thought charging someone with destroying the virtue of a willing participant was the height of absurdity.

Real crimes, serious crimes, happened every minute of every day all around them, and he was stuck wasting time with this.

Mrs. Mallory, on the other hand, seemed to believe her daughter may as well have been a victim of one of those serious crimes. She’d stopped just short of saying that would definitely be less scandalous and far less disappointing for the entire Mallory family.

McDuff grimaced at a stab of memory: his younger brother lying bleeding and beaten in a jail cell.

That was what real trouble looked like. The damage of too many bad choices.

He was sure this girl’s mother—with her bejeweled fingers and elaborately arranged hair that towered over everyone else—would honestly prefer to see her daughter half-dead from a beating rather than in such disgrace. Half-dead in hospital, poisoned by unknown means, didn’t satisfy the woman’s need for revenge.

That way Mrs. Mallory would never have to accept that the girl might have enjoyed herself before everything went wrong.

McDuff walked along the edges of the room, gathering his initial impressions. She had more books than he did, not that such a feat was terribly hard to accomplish. He lived the life of a monk when he wasn’t working, though monks likely had better accommodations.

Cheryl didn’t have childish story books, though. She had weighty volumes about philosophy, religion, history, even natural science.

This young woman was too smart and too well-educated to have fallen for old Mr. Abernathy and his dubious charms. The prospect of marriage wasn’t even certain, with him engaged to another young girl.

McDuff made a mental note to interview the fiancé as soon as he could.

A dainty wooden desk sat in front of the window, with a pink skirt that matched the pink pillow embroidered with yellow flowers on the chair. He didn’t hesitate to open the drawers and look around. In the back of the smallest waited a forever half-finished correspondence with Mr. Abernathy. McDuff slipped it into his case, but he didn’t bother reading it. His assistant could wade through the lovesick ramblings of a seventeen-year-old.

His brother had been fifteen when he went down the first time, nineteen the last. Excuses of the age hadn’t changed in the years since.

He stopped in the center of the room and turned in a slow circle, eyes half closed. A meticulous catalog of the whole space, what some of his colleagues who’d been formally trained for police work would have wanted, was just as much a waste of time here as in every other crime scene.

McDuff had been at this long enough to know it was what you overlooked, what you assumed didn’t matter, that proved essential. He hadn’t needed years of expensive training to understand that.

The investigative engine between his ears understood without being told.

He stopped, scowling at the desk again. This girl had several expensive trinkets scattered about the room, but what sat in front of a little blue box didn’t fit in with all the others. Frills and hearts did not naturally lead to a tiny clockwork penguin, even one with a skirt.

That had to have come from somewhere else.

McDuff turned the box over, but found only the address of the house he was standing in. He nearly missed the blue card, small enough to be dwarfed by the palm of his hand. A generic London and name, J. Smith, in oddly made but textbook-neat handwriting. That could lead anywhere, or more likely nowhere.

He slipped the note into his case, not sure why, but not about to ignore that familiar flutter of warmth in his gut. He had no doubt the box would be in his care within moments.

He slowly walked across the room and opened the door.

“What have you found?” Mrs. Mallory said in a whispery voice, nearly drowned out by her husband’s bluff and bluster about closing a door against him in his own home as he charged through.

“Either of you know where your daughter might have got that clockwork penguin?” McDuff said, his eyes and attention on the notes he was writing.

“I… No, never saw it until just this second,” Mr. Mallory said, hands on his hips and chest thrust out. “Where did you find it?”

McDuff waved his hand toward the desk.

“Where it sits.”

He didn’t have the time to waste on coddling or discussion. He had to get to Cheryl Mallory’s hospital before night fell and she slept. If he left right now, he had a good chance of being able to visit Mr. Abernathy, her disgraced former lover, along the way.

Mrs. Mallory sank down onto the narrow bed, one hand covering her eyes. Her husband followed close on McDuff’s heels, the blue box clutched in his hand.

“I trust you’re going to trace this thing back to where it came from?” he said, plump cheeks glowing. “And take it out of here if it came from that murdering bastard. I’m not paying you bloody good money above and beyond whatever the city pays to leave evidence scattered around my house.”

“It most likely came from a factory in London,” McDuff said, lifting his coat from a hook by the door. He took the box and dropped it into his case. “Just like hundreds of them do every day. The question may be who sent it to her. And why. If you have any information about that, get in touch right away. Good day.”

He closed the door and stood for a second, half hoping the man would charge into the evening after him. The only thing he despised more than cases like this—with promise of an off-the-books bounty far too rich to pass up—was the man rich enough to offer it.

When no such pleasures pursued him, Rob McDuff walked away.