The door opened an inch. The woman peered out. Rodrigo held up a coin, this one of silver. Her eyes widened. She drew back the door, revealing a broom, which she was clutching in a threatening manner.
“You can put down the weapon, Madame,” said Rodrigo.
Stephano looked past her. A little girl, a baby in her arms, crouched under a table. He didn’t see anyone else.
“Is your good man at home?”
“He’s my man, but there ain’t nothin’ good about him,” said the woman, sniffing. She lowered the broom. “If you want him, you’ll find him in the tavern, drinking with his layabout friends.”
Stephano returned his gun to his pocket.
The woman’s eyes were on the silver coin. “He don’t know nothin’ anyway. I was the one who saw ’em.”
“Saw who?” Rodrigo asked.
“Them as took your friend away.”
“If you could tell me about that night…”
The woman snatched the coin, stuffed it into her bosom, and told her story.
She had been awakened by a loud bang and a splintering crash, sounds of a scuffle, thumps and bumpings, and what she thought was a muffled cry for help. She had tried to wake her husband, but he had been dead drunk and had only grunted and rolled over.
Fearing for the safety of her children, the woman had grabbed up the broom in order to fight off whatever villains she might encounter. She opened the door a crack, and saw two men, clad all in black, descending the stairs at a rapid pace. She heard more thumps and bangs from the apartment, and then two more men emerged. One of the men carried a dark lantern and, by its light, she saw him holding another man by the arm, forcing him down the stairs.
She had waited a moment longer, but, seeing nothing more to alarm her, she had gone back to her bed. Early the next morning, broom in hand, she had ventured down to Alcazar’s apartment “to find out what had become of the poor man.” She had discovered the door open and a scene of destruction.
“Furniture tipped over, books scattered about, clothes strewn all over the floor…”
She was relating all this with relish when a thought suddenly occurred to her. She clamped her mouth shut and started to slam the door. Rodrigo blocked it with his foot.
“You’ve been extremely helpful, Madame,” he said. “I was wondering if I could borrow a sheet of paper, a pen, and some ink.”
“As if I would have the like!” returned the woman, trying unsuccessfully to dislodge Rodrigo’s foot by poking him with the broom handle. “For one, I can’t read nor write. For two, paper and ink is dear-”
“But Pietro Alcazar had such things,” said Rodrigo, keeping his foot in the door. “You were the first in his apartment. I was thinking that perhaps you might have taken his books and his clothes and linens-”
“I never!” cried the woman angrily.
“-for safekeeping,” Rodrigo finished in soothing tones. “So that no unscrupulous person would steal them, perhaps sell them at the pawn shop…”
“They would be worth a lot of money,” said the woman, her eyes on Rigo’s purse.
Rodrigo produced another silver coin and held it just out of her reach. “Paper, pen, and ink. You can keep the rest.”
The woman wavered a moment. Rodrigo removed his foot from the door. She shut it and they heard her walk off.
“We’re not made of silver, you know,” said Stephano testily.
“Something tells me this will be worth it,” said Rodrigo.
The door opened. The woman handed out several pieces of paper, a pen, and a pewter inkwell. Rodrigo gave her the silver coin. She took it and slammed the door shut.
Rodrigo and Stephano returned to Alcazar’s lodgings.
“It does look as if he was snatched,” said Stephano. “By professionals, at that.”
“Let us see what this letter has to tell us,” said Rodrigo. “If you could shut the door-or what’s left of it. And we will shove the table up against it to prevent any intrusion by broom-wielding neighbors.”
Rodrigo sat down cross-legged on the floor. He placed one of the blank pieces of paper the woman had supplied on the floor in front of him. Dipping the pen in the ink, he drew four sigils on the page: one at the top, one on either side, and one at the bottom. He then drew a line connecting each sigil, one to the other.
“What exactly is this going to do?” Stephano asked.
Rodrigo picked up the page and scooted closer to the fireplace. “The partially destroyed letter has two separate components: the ink and the paper on which the ink resides. If this spell works as planned, the magical construct I have crafted on my piece of paper should gently pull the ink from the burnt paper and transfer it to my sheet.”
“Do you think it will work?” Stephano asked.
“I have no idea. Wind coming down the flue broke up the burnt paper, but we might still be able to read something. The one major problem is that the spell will destroy what’s left of the original.”
“So we have only one shot,” Stephano said. “Just out of curiosity, where did you learn to cast a spell like this? I don’t suppose reading burnt letters was part of the University curriculum.”
Rodrigo smiled. “We both have the weapons we need to fight our battles, my friend. In the circles I frequent, information can be more explosive than gunpowder. Now, please be silent and let me concentrate.”
Rodrigo held the page with the construct above the remains of the letter and focused his thoughts on the magic. His eyes closed to slits. His breathing slowed. He touched each of the sigils he had drawn on the paper, tracing them with his finger. After he had gone over all four of them, the constructs began to glow. The black ink shone with a golden light.
Rodrigo placed the glowing paper directly over the burnt paper in the grate. The two merged, the glowing paper seeming to absorb the burnt letter-ashes and all. The glow faded away. His paper rested on the cold stone of the hearth. The burnt letter was gone.
“Let us see what we have.” Rodrigo gingerly picked up the piece of paper and turned it over. “Damn. I was afraid of this.” He sighed in disappointment.
Stephano leaned over his shoulder. Very little had been salvaged. The missive had been brief. He saw a part of a word that began with “au” and another fragment that might have been “eet.” Only two words in the body of the letter were clearly visible: the word “when” and a second word “Westfirth.”
“The letter was signed,” said Rodrigo, holding the paper close to his eyes.
“Can you read it?” Stephano asked.
Rodrigo shook his head. “All that is left are the bottom swoops of the characters. Maybe “ce” or “ca”… I can’t be sure.
“So all we have is ‘when’ and ‘Westfirth,” said Stephano.
“A Rosian city with an unsavory reputation,” said Rodrigo. He struggled unsuccessfully to rise out of his cross-legged position and finally reached out his hand. “Help me, will you? I seem to have lost all the feeling in my right foot.”
Stephano hoisted up his friend, who groaned and hobbled about the room, trying to restore the flow of blood.
“Magic always takes a toll on me,” Rodrigo complained.
“It wasn’t the magic,” said Stephano, unsympathetic. “Your foot went to sleep.”
He stood gazing about the ransacked sitting room, turning things over in his mind.
“Well, that is that,” said Rodrigo. “We’ve learned all we can learn here. Our simple little job is ended. You can report back to your mother, and then we can-”
“No,” said Stephano.
“No, what? You’re not going to report to your mother?”
“Report what?” Stephano said. “That Alcazar was a bad baccarat player? That three men broke into his rooms in the dead of night and took him away? That we found a burnt letter?”
“A letter containing the name of a city known to be a haven for criminals. And you saw someone keeping an eye on this place,” said Rodrigo.
“I saw a man with a slouch hat,” said Stephano. “There are a thousand men with slouch hats in this city, any one of whom might simply have been a drunken gawker who came to view the scene of the crime. I’m sure my mother will be agog with wonder at my investigative skills.”