“Sorry,” he said in a loud stage whisper. “Come on, where’s the you-know?”
Smith hurried down to join them and led the party back to the kitchen, where they descended into the cold cellar. Coppercut was gray and stiff as a board, which put smuggling him upstairs in an empty barrel out of the question. At last, after a certain amount of grisly hilarity and impractical, not to say criminal, suggestions, they settled for draping the corpse in sacking and carrying him out. Smith prayed there wouldn’t be any guests in the lobby, and there weren’t; after Bellows gave them the all clear and waved them through, they took the body up the stairs, tottering under it like a crowd of mismatched ants toting a dead beetle.
Thoroughly unnerved by the time they were back in Lord Ermenwyr’s suite, Smith was relieved to see neither black candles nor dark-fumed incense lit, but only bright lamps arranged around a table that had been tidily covered with oilcloth. On a smaller table close at hand were laid out edged tools of distressingly culinary design.
“Let’s just plop him down over there,” said Lord Ermenwyr, slipping out from under the corpse to shut the door. “Boys, cut his clothes off.”
“Don’t cut them, for gods’ sake,” said Smith. “I’ve still got to hand him over to Crossbrace tomorrow. If he’s naked with a big hole in him, that’ll raise some questions, won’t it?”
“Too true,” Lord Ermenwyr said. “All right; just get the clothes off him somehow, boys.”
The bodyguards set to their task obligingly, and though Coppercut’s body went through some maneuvers that could best be described as terribly undignified, his clothes came off at last.
“It’s like one of those puzzles,” growled Crish happily, holding up Coppercut’s tunic. “You can do it; you just have to think really hard.”
“Good for you,” said Lord Ermenwyr, removing his own jacket and shirt. He stripped a sheet from the bed and tied it around his neck like an immense trailing napkin. Smith paced nervously, watching the proceedings and silently apologizing to Coppercut.
“Now then.” Lord Ermenwyr stepped up to the corpse and studied it. “What have we got? A male Child of the Sun, dead roughly a day and a half. Looks to be in the prime of life. No signs of chronic illness present. Well-healed scar on the right side, between the third and fourth ribs. Someone once took a shot at you with, hm, a pistol bolt? Missed anything vital, though. Otherwise unscarred and well nourished. Some evidence of initial processes of putrefaction.”
Smith groaned. “Get on with it, please!”
“You want me to find out what killed him, don’t you?” Lord Ermenwyr replied. He peered into Coppercut’s eyes and ears, felt gingerly all over his skull. “No evidence of head injury. Nobody sneaked up and coshed him from behind. Signs of asphyxia present. Internal suffocation? I’m betting on poison. Let’s see the stomach contents.”
He selected a small knife from the table at his elbow and made a long incision down Coppercut’s front. Smith, watching, felt himself break out in a cold sweat.
“Let’s see, where does your race keep their stomachs? I remember now… here we go. Come and help me, Smith. Oh, all right! Strangel, hand him the lamp and you come help me. Honestly, Smith, what kind of an assassin were you?”
“A quick one,” Smith panted, averting his face. “Even on the battlefield you have to hack off arms and heads and things, but—but it’s all in the heat of the moment. It’s nothing like this. I guess you learned how from your lord father?”
The bodyguards started to genuflect and narrowly stopped themselves, as lamplight flickered crazily in the room and Crish nearly dropped what Lord Ermenwyr had given him to hold.
“Steady,” warned Lord Ermenwyr. “No … I learned it from Mother, if you want to know the truth. It’s her opinion that if you study the processes of death, you can save other lives. Don’t imagine she trembles over the dissecting table either, Smith. She has nerves of ice. Real Good can be as ruthless as Evil when it wants to accomplish something, let me tell you.”
“I guess so.” Smith wiped his brow and got control of his nerves.
“He didn’t eat much. I’d say his stomach was empty when he got here. Had … wine, had Mrs. Smith’s delightful fried eel… looks like a bit of buttered roll… what’s this stuff?”
“He ate his appetizer,” Smith stated. “I think it was fish.”
“Fish, yes. Those dreadful little raw fish petits fours Salesh is so proud of? That’s what these are, then. I can’t imagine how you people manage to eat them, especially with all those incendiary sauces … oh.”
“Oh?”
“I think I’ve found what did for him, Smith,” said Lord Ermenwyr in an odd voice. He reached for a pair of tweezers and picked something out of the depths of Coppercut, and held it out into the lamplight, turning it this way and that. Smith peered at it. It was a small gray lump of matter.
“What the hell is that?”
“Unless I’m much mistaken—” Lord Ermenwyr took up a finely ground lens in a frame and screwed it into his eye. He studied the object closely. “And I’m not, this is a bloatfish liver.”
“And that would be?”
Lord Ermenwyr removed the lens and regarded him. “You were a weapons man, weren’t you? Not a poisons man. I’d bet you’ve never sold fish, either.”
“No, I never did. Bloatfish liver is poisonous?”
“Deadly poisonous.” Lord Ermenwyr spoke with an unaccustomed gravity. “The rest of the fish is safe to eat, but the liver is so full of toxin most cities have an ordinance requiring that it be removed before the fish can be sold. Perhaps Salesh isn’t as safety-conscious. In any case, this got into his fish appetizer. He had three minutes to live from the moment he swallowed it down.”
Smith groaned. “So it was his dinner. Not Scourbrass’s Foaming Wonder.”
“Yes, but I don’t think you have to worry about losing your catering license,” said Lord Ermenwyr, setting aside the liver and beginning to replace Coppercut’s organs. “This wasn’t negligence. It was deliberate murder. The liver was incised laterally to make sure the poison was released. Anyway, you don’t just stick a whole bloatfish liver inside a Salesh Roll by mistake!”
Smith bowed his head and swore quietly.
Coppercut had been sutured up and was having his garments wrestled back on when there came a sharp knock at the door.
“What?” demanded Lord Ermenwyr, removing his makeshift apron and reaching for his shirt.
“It’s me,” said Lord Eyrdway from the hallway.
“Bathroom,” hissed Lord Ermenwyr to his bodyguards, gesturing at the corpse. They grabbed it up and carried it off. “He tends to get overexcited if he sees cadavers,” he explained to Smith in an undertone, then raised his voice. “You’re back early. What’s the matter? Wasn’t Salesh impressed with your beauty?” he inquired, buttoning up his shirt.
“Oh, I made a big splash.” Lord Eyrdway’s voice was gleeful. “And I stayed sober, too, nyah nyah! But the most amazing thing happened. Are you going to let me in? I’ve brought you a present.”
Lord Ermenwyr’s eyes narrowed to slits as he shrugged into his jacket.
“Really,” he said noncommittally. In an undertone, he added; “Smith, would you be so kind as to open the door? But do it quickly, and stand well back. He’s up to some ghastly practical joke.”
Smith, who was sitting on the floor having a stiff drink, struggled to his feet and went to the door. He opened it and stood back. There on the threshold was Lord Eyrdway, his formal appearance a little disheveled. Behind him in the hall stood another gentleman, whose evening dress was still perfectly creased and immaculate.
“Hello, Smith,” Lord Eyrdway said. “Look who I met in the Front Street Ballroom, brother!”