“It is still where you put it?”
“Yes.”
Lord Darcy measured the distance between the key and the door with his eye. “Four and a half feet,” he murmured. He stood up. “Give me Sir James’ key. Thank you. An experiment is in order.”
“An experiment, my lord?” Master Sean repeated. His face brightened.
“Not of the thaumaturgical variety, my good Sean. That will come in good time.” He walked over to the door and opened it, ignoring the two Armsmen who stood at attention outside. He looked down at his feet. “Master Sean, would you be so good as to remove this brazier?”
The tubby little Irish sorcerer bent over and put his hand near the brazen bowl. “It’s still a little hot. I’ll put it on the table.” He picked up the tripod by one leg and carried it into the room.
“I don’t see what you’re getting at,” said Lord Bontriomphe.
“Surely you have noticed the clearance between the bottom of the door and the floor?” Lord Darcy said. “Is it possible that the murderer simply stabbed Sir James, came out, locked the door behind him, and slid the key back under the door?”
Master Sean blinked. “With me standing outside the door all the time?” he said in surprise. “Why, that’s impossible, me lord!”
“Once we have eliminated the impossible,” Lord Darcy said calmly, “we shall be able to concentrate on the merely improbable.”
He knelt down and looked at the floor beneath the door. “As you see, the space is somewhat wider than it appears to be from the inside. The carpeting does not extend under the door. Close the door, if you will, Master Sean.”
The sorcerer pushed the door shut and waited patiently on the other side. Lord Darcy put the heavy brass key on the floor and attempted to push it under the door. “I thought not,” he said, almost to himself. “The key is much too large and thick. It can be forced under—” He pushed hard at the key. “But it wedges tight. And the thickness of the carpet would stop it on the other side.” He pulled the key out. “Open the door again, Master Sean.”
The door swung inward. “Observe,” Lord Darcy continued, “how the attempt to push it under has scored the wood at that point. It would be impossible even to make the attempt without leaving traces, much less—” He paused, cutting off his own words abruptly. “What is this?” he said, leaning over to peer more closely at a spot on the carpet inside the room.
“What’s what?” asked Lord Bontriomphe.
Lord Darcy ignored him. He was looking at a spot on the carpet near the right-hand doorpost, on the side away from the hinges, and approximately eight inches in from the edge of the carpet itself.
“May I borrow your magnifying glass, Master Sean?” Lord Darcy said without looking up.
“Certainly.” Master Sean went over to the table, opened his symbol-decorated carpetbag, took out a large bone-handled lens, and handed it to his lordship.
“What is it?” he asked, echoing Lord Bontriomphe’s question. He knelt down to look, as Lord Darcy continued to study a small spot on the carpet without answering.
The mark, Master Sean saw, was a dark stain in the shape of a half circle, with the straight side running parallel to the door and the arc curving in toward the interior of the room. It was small, about half the size of a man’s thumbnail.
“Is it blood?” asked Master Sean.
“It is difficult to tell on this dark green carpet,” said Lord Darcy. “It might be blood; it might be some other dark substance. Whatever it is, it has soaked into the fibers of the pile, although not down to the backing. Interesting.” He stood up.
“May I?” said Lord Bontriomphe, holding out his hand for the glass.
“Certainly.” He handed over the lens, and while the London investigator knelt to look at the stain, Lord Darcy said to Master Sean: “I would be much obliged, my dear Sean, if you would make a similarity test on that stain. I should like to know if it is blood, and, if so, whether it is Sir James’ blood.” He narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. “And while you’re at it, do a thorough check of the bloodstain around the body. I should like to be certain that all of the blood is actually Sir James Zwinge’s.”
“Very good, my lord. Would you want any other tests besides the usual ones?”
“Yes. First: Was there, in fact, anyone at all in this room when Sir James Zwinge died? Second: If there was any black magical effect directed at this room, of what sort was it?”
“I shall endeavor to give satisfaction, my lord,” Master Sean said doubtfully, “but it won’t be easy.”
Lord Bontriomphe rose to his feet and handed Master Sean the magnifying glass. “What would be difficult about it?” he asked. “I know those tests aren’t exactly routine, but I’ve seen journeyman sorcerers perform them.”
“My dear Bontriomphe,” said Lord Darcy, “consider the circumstances. If, as we assume, this act of murder was committed by a magician, then he was most certainly a master magician. Knowing, as he must have, that this hotel abounds in master magicians, he would have taken every precaution to cover his tracks and hide his identity — precautions that no ordinary criminal would ever think of and could not take even if he had thought of them. Since Master Sir James was killed rather early yesterday morning, it is likely that the murderer had all of the preceding night for the casting of his spells. Can we, then, expect Master Sean to unravel in a few moments what another master may have taken all night to accomplish?”
He put his hand into an inside jacket pocket and took out the envelope which de London had handed him earlier. “Besides, I have further evidence that the killer or killers are quite capable of covering their tracks. This morning’s communication from Sir Eliot Meredith, my Chief Assistant, is a report of what he has thus far discovered in regard to the murder of the double agent Georges Barbour in Cherbourg. It contains two apparently conflicting pieces of information.” He looked at Master Sean.
“My good Sean. Would you give me your professional opinion of the journeyman who is the forensic sorcerer for Chief Master-at-Arms Henri Vert in Cherbourg?”
“Goodman Juseppy?” Master Sean pursed his lips, then said: “Competent, I should say; quite competent. He’s not a Master, of course, but—”
“Would you consider him capable of bungling the two tests which I have just asked you to perform?”
“We are all capable of error, my lord. But… no. In an ordinary case, I should say that Goodman Juseppy’s testimony as to his results would be quite reliable.”
“In an ordinary case. Just so. But what if he were pitted against the machinations of a Master Sorcerer?”
Master Sean shrugged. “Then it’s certainly possible that his results might be in error. Goodman Juseppy simply isn’t of that caliber.”
“Then that may account for the conflicting evidence,” Lord Darcy said. “I hesitate to say definitely that it does, but it may.”
“All right,” said Lord Bontriomphe impatiently, “just what is this conflicting evidence?”
“According to Goodman Juseppy’s official report, there was no one in Barbour’s room at the time he was killed. Furthermore, there had not been anyone but himself in the room for several hours before.”
“Very well,” said Lord Bontriomphe, “but where is the conflict?”
“The second test,” said Lord Darcy calmly. “Goodman Juseppy could detect no trace whatever of black magic — or, indeed, of any kind of sorcery at all.”
In the silence that followed, Lord Darcy returned the envelope to his jacket pocket.
Master Sean O Lochlainn sighed. “Well, my lords, I’ll perform the tests. However, I should like to call in another sorcerer to help. That way—”