The wizard wandered to the far end of the room where a small table held a number of papers and a few personal items on a tray, like a comb and a bottle of men's hair pomade. Gustin picked up the latter, pulling out the glass stopper to confirm that it was the thick, inky liquid sold in numerous Waterdeep shops with assurances that it would give even the oldest and grayest of gentlemen the luxurious locks of a young man. With a very slight smile at this evidence of Stunk's vanity, Gustin replaced the bottle on the silver tray.
Beneath the inlaid table, he spotted a slip of paper crumbled upon the floor, as if somebody had hurled it there in anger. He glanced back at Marplate. The valet was still fussing with the covers of Stunk's bed, making sure the corners were absolutely straight. Gustin snatched up the note, glanced quickly at the signature, and tucked it in his tunic. He would read it later, someplace where nobody was watching.
"Are you done, saer?" asked Marplate, twitching slightly when he saw Gustin so close to his master's table.
"Almost, almost," Gustin said, circling the room once more. He noticed every time he crossed near the heavily draped windows, the valet flinched. He put one hand upon the crimson velvet curtains to draw them open.
"Oh, there's nothing out there," Marplate said with a nervous start.
"Perhaps I should look for myself." Gustin twitched the curtains open to reveal long glass windows that opened onto a small wrought iron balcony with a planter filled with dead plants. Other than that, there was, as the other man had said, nothing there.
Behind him, Gustin heard the valet give a relieved sigh.
Ah, thought Gustin, this is where the ghosts must appear each night. Throwing his hands into the air and letting his head fall backward until he was staring at the brightly painted ceiling, Gustin cried, "I sense the presence of the dead!"
Marplate let out a startled shriek at Gustin's antics and then clapped both his hands to his mouth.
Gustin slowly rolled his head forward until he was staring at his boots. "Each night, they come here, testing the fortifications of this house. Here they gather, looking in, attempting to reach the master of this place."
The valet let out a strangled whimper.
"They rattle the windows, they shake the handle." Gustin lowered his arms bit by bit and then tested the latch of the windows, rattling it slightly.
Marplate moaned behind him, "Every night, it gets worse. And he won't move out of this room. He always has me open the curtains so he can state at them. He glowers at the dead and then mutters about how he's going to kill whoever is doing this. And he makes me stay in the room so they all know what I look like too!"
Gustin turned until he faced the man, raising one arm gradually to point at him. The valet quivered. Gustin tried not to smile. The deliberate gesture, the deepening of the voice, it worked every time, he thought. Everyone always thought that the worst magic came on the end of a grand gesture.
He drew in a deep breath and stated, "You are also cursed." Then added in a lighter tone, "But if you give me the key for this window's lock, I may be able to save you."
With trembling hands, Marplate withdrew a ring of keys from his tunic. He handed them quickly to Gustin.
"It's the littlest key," the valet said. "He makes me go out there every morning and see if they have left anything behind."
"Do they?" Gustin thrust the key into the lock and turned it. With a distinct click, the window swung open. Gustin walked out on the balcony. It was completely bare as he had seen through the glass, except for the one pottery planter and the dead plants on their withered brown stalks.
"The plants are always dead," answered Marplate, staying well inside the bedroom. "I had the gardener replace them each morning. But today, the master said to just leave it."
"Nothing else?" Gustin asked.
"Well, the first day"-the plump man squirmed a litde and pulled out a handkerchief to dab at his bald head-"I found a shoe."
Gustin whirled around to look at him. "A gold dancing slipper, brocade and fashioned in antique style?"
Marplate nodded. "It looked exactly as you described, saer."
"Fantastic! What did you do with it?"
The startled valet pointed at the oblong planter sitting on the balcony. "I had the gardener bury it there. I did not think it would be lucky to bring it into the house."
Gustin rushed back to the planter, grabbing the plants by their woody stems and pulling them up. Dirt and dead leaves went flying as he flipped the plants out of his way.
"Did Stunk know you buried a shoe here?" Gustin plunged his hands into the wet earth. He dug like a frantic dog into the dirt.
"No," Marplate's voice sunk to a frightened whisper. "He would have wanted it displayed, like the painting in the hall. He keeps saying that he is not afraid of this curse. But I know a fetish when I see one."
"Really?" Under his questing fingers, Gustin finally felt the rough texture of the brocade slipper. He pulled it out from the planter. Sained with dirt, the little shoe looked ghastly, a proper grave good. "How did you know that there was a curse tied to this?"
Marplate straightened himself with a sniff of superiority. "I was born in Waterdeep. Such things are not unknown here."
"Yes, I'm beginning to see that." Gustin stuffed the shoe into his belt. "Interesting city, interesting citizens, I must say. But why didn't you have one of the other wizards marching through here earlier remove it?"
The valet blinked in surprise. "None of them ever came upstairs. None of them ever spoke to me. They just stayed downstairs and cast spells of protection around the doors and gates."
"Which must have helped," Gustin said, as much to himself as to Marplate, "as the dead never got this past the threshold. Or maybe it needed someone living to carry it into the house."
The valet gave a worried glance at the shoe now dangling from the wizard's belt.
"Not to worry," Gustin said with an airy toss of Marplate's keys back to the man. "I'm taking this to where it belongs and that should end this curse."
"I certainly hope so," said the valet, carefully stepping onto the balcony to replace the dead plants in the pottery planter.
Gustin hurried out of the room and headed down the main staircase to find Sophraea. A crackle of paper around the middle of his chest reminded him that he still had the note lodged in his tunic. A turn of the stair revealed a niche with an antique statue. At least Gustin hoped it was antique and Stunk did not prefer his statues of naked women to be missing an arm and a head. Ducking behind the headless woman put Gustin out of sight of the guards at the top of the staircase.
He withdrew the note from his tunic and read: "Saer: If you had any honor, which I have good leave to doubt, you would meet me as a man should, in an appointed hour and place. But send your bully boys against me one more time or threaten my home by any word or gesture, and I will horsewhip you as a. cur should be chastised."
As he had noticed in Stunk's bedchamber, the note bore the seal and the slashing signature of Lord Dorgar Adarbrent.
Hurrying down the stairs, Gustin met Sophraea as she was hurrying up. As usual, she looked intent, as if the worries of Waterdeep settled on her slim shoulders. In Gustin's opinion, she worried far too much these days. Things had a way of working out. After all, they'd gotten into Stunk's house, the illusion spell was still holding (a bit to his surprise but he didn't intend to tell her that), and they may very well be able to settle the dead by sunset.
"I (bund the shoe," Gustin told Sophraea as soon as she'd reached the landing halfway up the main staircase. "And I know who set the dead after Stunk."
"It's Lord Adarbrent," Sophraea said as Gustin pronounced the same conclusion at the same time.