As Tobianus picked his way back to the post office, he tried to slip free of his conviction that for Spectralia, all was about to be forever altered. But his Queen would surely say that change was the eternal nature of things. Change, chance, and choice. This was the very essence of the matter addressed by Concatenation.
He had a shiversome moment when he felt sure he spied a shadow skulking in the lane beyond the post office, then a flare of light from the front door of the inn picked out the silhouette of a man just entering. Recognizing the figure of Floss the innkeeper, his worries eased somewhat.
Madame Eglentine pleaded with him fruitlessly for favors as he passed her paddock and went in through the rear of the post office. He lit a lamp and stoked a very small fire in the very small stove, just enough to take off the chill. Then, settling down with a cup of cold, watery tea, he sat on the end of his rather lumpy bed, reached between his feet, and fished about until his fingers found a small box on the floor. From this he took a tattered notebook, its pages filled with columns of numbers and corresponding text. Beneath the book of tables lay a rattling half-dozen multifaceted dice. From the end of the bed, he could lean forward onto a wobbly secretary, bracing it with his elbows. He pulled the lantern closer and rolled two dice clattering across the deal surface, warped and ringed with the pale ghosts of wet saucer bottoms.
Totaled up, the pips amounted to 21.
Tobianus opened the book of correspondences, leafed to the section that looked most fitting to his situation (“Friend or Foe: When Faced With a Stranger, Some Affinities”), and ran a finger down to 21:
Bold and yet invisible, the ghosts that guard Spectralia urge substantiation. Be thou therefore like a ghost, aflit by day, and yet substantial in full dark.
Toby planted his elbows more firmly on the desk that he might hold his head in place. From the Courier, for much of the remaining night, there issued a series of low, perplexed moans.
Hewell was roused by roosters, having slept only fitfully, his dreams riddled with the weird scenes he had witnessed. His boots were still wet and he was grateful he had brought a spare coat, easy to find by touch in the dim gray light as it was one of his few remaining dry garments. Downstairs, he found Floss and his wife already about. She scowled at his muddy footwear, then muttered something about parties that thought so little of their responsibility that they felt at liberty to “run about at all hours,” speaking as if for her husband’s benefit but clearly concerned with the habits of their lodger. Hewell paid a perhaps unconvincing amount of attention to his breakfast of stout and cheese, then, with boots still damp, fled into the puddled street, escaping just as the inevitable quarrel broke out behind him.
Toby looked wan with exhaustion, but Hewell refrained from inquiring as to how he had slept. The lad spent some time sorting the mail, brewing tea, readying the morning’s deliveries, and sleepily answering Hewell’s questions, although queries and responses sounded similarly stilted. As it happened, they both awaited the arrival of a dispatch whose eventual discovery proved something of an anticlimax. Mr. Merricott announced the official start of business, discovering as he opened the door that an envelope had been shoved under it. “Unstamped and unaddressed. What are we to make of this?”
Toby plucked the letter from Merricott’s fingers and secured it in his courier’s pouch. “I’ll bring it along, sir, and see if anyone recognizes it. Mr. Hewell, if you’re ready, we can look to borrow an extra mount, but often I go on foot if there’s no great urgency.”
“The day being fairer than the night, I have no objection to a leisurely tour.”
They embarked on a route that somewhat recalled Hewell’s dank trek of the night before, except that they stopped at almost every door. The citizens of Binderwood appeared to be great correspondents, in keeping with current trends that Hewell was used to hearing pronounced “worrisome.” People no longer went visiting; so ran the complaints. They sat in their homes, both consuming and composing endless floods of correspondence. The art of conversation was a thing of the past! It was letters people wanted now and nothing else would do. They poured their meager monies into paper, ink, and postage. The post office, as Merricott had noted, benefitted thereby; stationers were in Heaven; but still somehow it was a curse on society. Nor was it only youth who were afflicted. Grown women—even men!—devoted themselves to the frivolous pastime. The fact that Victoria’s royal visage bedizened the humble Penny Black confirmed all conspiratorial fears that the monarchy was behind this epistolary threat to civilization.
“What can be done about it?” the worried critics of postal trends demanded of Hewell.
“Probably nothing,” was his usual response, and he was content with that. Still, in pursuit of his employment, nothing was not an official option. And he was quite busy after all, keeping up with a certain long-legged fly named Toby.
Near noon, they walked the drive to Pellapon Hall, and Hewell noted Toby darting nervous, expectant glances at a certain curtained window of the upper floor. Above the second-story windows were several widely spaced portals, each matched to a roof peak.
“Perfect for concealing madwomen,” Hewell quipped.
“Why ever would you say that, sir?” asked a suddenly pale Toby.
“Never mind, lad. Novels are the staid diversion of an older generation that I fear will find no grip among your excitable peers.”
As they mounted the lichen-colored steps, the front door opened. The Pellapon twins stood there, hands outstretched for Toby’s delivery, but a tall and almost skeletal form rushed from the dimness, took Hewell by the shoulder, and compelled him deep into the house. Other than the two investigators the parlor was empty, and the detective shut the door behind them to ensure it remained that way.
“Hewell, we have much to discuss,” said Deakins with grim authority, speaking in a hoarse whisper. “I have made several discoveries and am on the verge of greater. I looked for you at the inn last night, but you were—”
“Out, yes, I often cannot sleep in unfamiliar quarters, and so I walk about to exhaust myself. Had I known you sought me, I would have come to visit.”
“I was hardly here myself. Strange goings-on. Furtive meetings. And much of it centered on this very house.” He clenched Hewell’s elbow and drew him in closer. “Tell me, sir—what have you discovered? If we put our clues together, the truth cannot elude us both.”
“Nothing has come my way, I’m afraid,” said Hewell. “With careful study of the postal procedures I have found a few discrepancies, easily corrected. Of course, my investigation is not complete, but—”
“I on the other hand have found what I believe to be a forger’s den,” said Deakins urgently, and stabbed a bony finger at the threadbare carpet beneath their feet. “In the cellar, sir. A small press suitable for printing currency. The plates are hidden away, but they cannot hide the stains of colored ink.”
“Perhaps there is a more innocent explanation. A small press may also be used to print festive broadsides for childish amusement.”
“This is no game, Hewell. In the woods, I have seen figures consorting. Figures of a decidedly weird aspect.”
“Surely you do not believe there is some… supernatural explanation?”
“The diabolic specter that attacked our carriage—”
“Mr. Deakins, I took you for a man of methodical detection. I would be disappointed to learn that you look to intangible—”
Deakins stopped him with a hand to his chest. “I am a man of tremendous imagination—that is my chief instrument, sir! However, my evidence is most substantial. Look here.”