Death's Executioner

Chapter Three

Chapter Three

When Konrad and Nanda arrived at Surnin Place some twenty minutes later, they were not immediately granted admittance.

‘I am sorry, sir,’ said an ashen-faced butler, clutching the red-painted front door as though his knees might otherwise melt from under him. ‘There can be no guests admitted today.’

‘We are not guests,’ said Konrad firmly. ‘We are here at Inspector Nuritov’s insistence. Go and ask him, if you please.’

‘I have strict orders, sir—’

‘Go and ask him.’

‘Konrad?’ came Alexander’s voice, and the door swung wider, revealing the inspector himself. ‘Come in, come in. Haven’t moved the head yet; thought you might like a look at it before we do.’

Konrad moved past the butler, receiving a goggle-eyed look of horror as he did so. What did the fool man think, that Konrad was some manner of eccentric with macabre tastes, for some reason pandered to by the police? Nobody derived pleasure, as Tasha put it, from viewing severed heads. Nobody sane, anyway. ‘How long has it been there?’ he asked of Alexander, ignoring the butler. ‘Can you tell?’

‘There’s little blood. Likely that the thing was outside for some time before it was brought in. Half frozen, you know.’

Konrad thought of the red-stained snow around the fallen man’s head. ‘Perhaps it was let lie a while, before being taken.’

Alexander nodded. ‘Killer might even have left it where it fell, for a while, and gone back for it later.’

‘Or,’ said Nanda, ‘somebody else found the body before we did, and took the head.’

‘Good point,’ said Konrad.

‘Thank you.’

The inspector led them through the house as they talked, through several rooms and up a flight of stairs devoid of servants or other inhabitants. ‘Here we go,’ he said as they entered a handsome drawing-room. He gestured in the direction of the fireplace.

Konrad spent only a moment in contemplation of the macabre display. The fire had been permitted to die down; the housemaid, he supposed, had not had courage enough to tend to it after her shocking discovery. The mantel above was of pale marble, set with a pair of tall golden candlesticks and twin porcelain ornaments. In the centre, where there might more rightly stand a clock, was the head. If it was Bogdan Zolin, he’d had dark blonde hair, dark brown eyes, and the smooth complexion of a young man — not yet thirty, Konrad judged. His dead eyes stared uncomprehendingly at Konrad.

Serpents? Konrad called.

Ootapi answered. Yes, Master.

Is there perchance any trace of his spirit, hereabouts? Konrad held only a small hope for a positive response, but he thought it worth the asking. When the head was severed from the rest of the body, which part of its erstwhile physical form might the ghost attach itself to?

None, Master, said Ootapi. He is too long dead.

There was also that. Too many hours had passed since death.

Konrad turned his attention to the rest of the room. Everything in Lady Lysak’s drawing-room spoke of money and taste, not much to his surprise. Marble and fine oak, velvet and silk, a little gilding but not much. The room lacked personality. Elegant, beautiful as it was, it could have graced any of the city’s finer houses. Konrad could have replicated it at Bakar House, and it would not have looked out of place. Nothing in here so much as hinted at the personality of its owner.

‘Have you yet interviewed Lady Lysak?’ Konrad asked.

‘She is not here.’

Konrad’s brows went up at that. ‘Not? Where could she possibly have gone?’

‘The servants say she went out early, in some kind of hurry. They didn’t know whether she had seen the head or not. The first housemaid thought not, or she’d have heard her ladyship walking about up here — she was in the next room, cleaning, for nearly half an hour before she heard the front door open and shut.’

‘Might be true, might not be,’ Konrad mused.

‘Quite.’

‘Has news of the death reached the media yet?’

‘No. Your people removed the body well before dawn, and we won’t be releasing a police report until this afternoon.’

‘So she might not yet know.’

Alexander looked his enquiry.

Konrad filled him in on the contents of Nanda’s gossip paper. ‘If it is Bogdan Zolin, she had a blazing row with him last night, in full view of a houseful of guests. There were some kind of strong feelings between those two, and she might not yet know that he’s dead.’

‘We need someone to identify the head—’ said Alexander.

‘Oh yes, sir, that’s Mr. Zolin,’ said a male voice.

Konrad turned. Nanda, he found, had quietly gone out and summoned the butler, anticipating this requirement. The poor man turned whiter than ever upon beholding Bogdan Zolin’s head and his hopeless, dead stare.

‘You are certain?’ said Alexander.

‘Yes, sir. It’s my duty to admit the guests when they arrive, and everybody knows Mr. Zolin.’

The paper had termed him a “shining light” of Ekamet society, which probably meant that he turned up everywhere. ‘Have you admitted him to this house before last night?’ Konrad asked.

‘Once or twice, sir. He has attended gatherings here before.’

‘Thank you.’

Alexander permitted the poor man to leave. He did so at a half-run, probably heading for the nearest conveniences.

‘It seems unlikely,’ said Konrad, ‘that Lady Lysak would put Zolin’s head on her own mantelpiece, and then leave it to be found by the servants.’

‘It would be a foolhardy thing to do,’ agreed Alexander.

‘She might have killed him, though,’ said Nanda. ‘And someone else saw, or knew somehow. That person might have put the head here, to torment her. And to lead the police to her.’

‘It’s plausible,’ Konrad allowed. ‘But it takes great strength to cut a man’s head from his neck, especially in one, clean blow. And I think it was, because look — the neck is cleanly cut. No ragged edges that might suggest several attempts were made.’

‘And women are too weak?’ said Nanda.

Konrad realised he trod upon dangerous ground. ‘When it comes to a question of musculature, women are usually less developed—’

‘Pish posh.’

‘It’s true.’

‘All right, perhaps it is. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that she couldn’t possibly have done it, with the right weapon.’

‘True enough. And that is another pertinent question. We found no weapon of any kind with the body, least of all one that could have performed such a feat. Where is it?’

‘And what is it?’ said Alexander. ‘A sword?’

‘Or an axe. I have difficulty imagining a society hostess hacking her guests’ heads off with an axe, however.’

‘Or a sword, either,’ said Alexander.

Nanda snorted. ‘Remember what I said about scandals? They are people, you know, same as the rest of us.’

Konrad let that pass. ‘Whoever put the head here wanted Lady Lysak to see it,’ he surmised. ‘If it had been designed purely to attract attention, putting it in one of the front windows might have done a better job.’

‘Perhaps so,’ said Alexander. ‘Either way, I want to find out who Bogdan Zolin was to her, and why they were arguing last night.’

‘What I would like to know,’ said Konrad, ‘is where her ladyship was going at the crack of dawn, and why she has yet to return.’

‘I will have the house watched,’ Alexander promised. ‘As soon as she comes home, we’ll know.’

But the day wore away without news of Lady Lysak’s return, and Konrad began to wonder. Various possibilities occurred to his mind. She might have seen the severed head after all, and run away in a fright. She might have heard of Zolin’s death by some other source, with the same result. Or she might have departed on some other errand entirely — either connected, or not — and was still in ignorance of the night’s developments.

Until she returned, or until her whereabouts was discovered, that line of investigation was fruitless to pursue. Instead, he turned himself to the many questions surrounding Mr. Bogdan Zolin.

Nanda returned to her home from Surnin Place, there to raid her collection of newspapers for any mention of Zolin. Konrad questioned his personal acquaintances, with the same aim.

But without success, for while everyone knew of the socially talented Mr. Zolin, nobody knew anything more about him than that he was everyone’s idea of the perfect guest. He was invited everywhere, and he usually accepted; but he never gave parties himself. He was a punctilious morning caller, paying visits all over the city, but no one had ever had occasion to visit him in his own home. No one even knew where his home was. Konrad received multiple different reports as to the probable street in which he lived, or the possible name of his house, none of which agreed.

He also did not appear to have any family.

Cannot discover that there is any next of kin for Zolin, ran a note from Alexander late that day. Nothing turning up in our reports, and no one has contacted us about his death. Mysterious?

Konrad enquired of the Order, too; Zolin’s body now lay in the morgue beneath The Malykt’s Temple, and if Zolin had grieving family in the city he would have expected someone to have claimed his remains by now. No one had.

‘Nan,’ said Konrad when Nanda finally returned, just in time for dinner. ‘Tell me you dredged up something about Zolin.’

Nanda dropped an armful of papers onto a side-table in Konrad’s hallway, melting snow dripping down the sheaf. ‘No,’ she sighed. ‘Not really. He’s mentioned somewhere almost every week, but it’s always the same things. He was among the guests at this or that ball, he was seen shopping at this or that exclusive establishment, etc. There’s no personal information at all.’

‘No family ever mentioned?’

‘None.’

‘No romantic entanglements? Hints at dark secrets?’

‘No. And before you ask, his name and Lady Lysak’s have never been coupled before, either. He appears to have been the perfect man. No mud to throw at him whatsoever.’

Konrad thought. ‘How far back do these reports go?’

Nanda frowned. ‘You mean, when was he first mentioned? Good question. We can check over dinner, but I don’t recall reading anything about him much older than a year or so.’

‘So Bogdan Zolin arrives on the Ekamet social scene a scant year ago, takes the city’s elite by storm, and dies alone in a snowy alley after the first and only scandalous occurrence of his career. Hm.’

‘Strange story, isn’t it?’ Nanda agreed. ‘Lady Lysak has not reappeared, I suppose?’

‘Not yet, no. But it can only be a matter of time.’