R.F. McCaughey
"Bishop, stop pacing. You are distracting me. Please go chase a mouse!" Maggenreathe nearly hissed in frustration from the other side of the room. The black kit she spoke to, tail tip writing invisible trails in the air, showed no sign of having heard his seated female companion and made another turn along the window seat. Beyond the panes of the window, dark rain spilled down from the sky. Passerbys scrambled to and fro and a black carriage crossed in front of Bishop's own reflection in the window glass.
Maggenreathe pulled her eyes back to the desktop and the scribbles and notes she had there, determined to give no quarter to the feline. It was annoying that she hadn't solved this mystery. More than just annoying. Over the last three days, she hadn't come up with a single new clue or resolved the ones she did have. She wanted this business solved and smoothed over before BhangBadea got back from the Federated Colonies. That gave her another two days, but she had a sinking feeling she was stumped. The neighborhood milkman was dead, murdered on their own back stoop, and she desperately wanted to know why and how. She felt BhangBadea might pack them all up and leave this Shadow if an event like this proved something disturbing were after them again.
Bishop landed silently on the desktop without disturbing her notes. She looked up at him and spoke more harshly than she intended, "I almost have this figured out, please leave me be. "
The light limbed black furred feline strolled around to the side of her notes and glanced at them. He sat down on the dark wood. After tilting his head and finishing his scan of her pages, he looked up, "You're still writing down the same things you were yesterday, but in different orders. What do you think you're doing?" His voice had lost much of the strange accent that he had possessed when Maggie first had met him last year.
Maggenreathe sighed, "I thought I was puzzling this out. BhangBadea says that it helps to write things down and physically move them into incidence with each other until a pattern shows itself."
"And?" his amber eyes watched her.
She leaned back, "And nothing yet. A dead milkman on our back steps. The police feel it was an accident. Stone steps in a downpour, new leather shoes. Terrible shame. Yet, my spells tell me he was killed by violence. While the police can afford to drop the matter, we," and she pointedly looked at the kit, "cannot afford to be caught out by something untoward." She shivered, and spoke from her memories of the last 'home' they had quit, "Such as curse wights."
Bishop sniffed.
She clamped her teeth on suddenly crackling temper. She was right about what her teacher's reaction to all this would be. Bishop knew that despite all their powers, BhangBadea always desired to move with the flow of a local culture, learn it, share in it without disturbing it too much. . . this kind of incident might omen something more threatening stalking them. She opened her mouth to snap a retort at the little creature. . .
"I want this matter settled, too." he surprised her and she bit off her comment. She waited. Bishop sighed, a little sound that wouldn't carry much further than his whiskers.
"Explain what parts of this scribble you don't know yet." He gestured with a paw at the papers. She though a second about how she might refuse his request. She and Bishop both got along mostly because they both would not leave BhangBadea and her esoteric instruction. While that had led to few outright clashes, she had to admit that she had put a low priority on working to make Bishop a friend. He was too different. She had already considered that a friend of her teacher's was likely to be a worthy friend for herself. She just hadn't found much to like in the little arrogant feline.
She took her time with her words, "I know he was pushed down the steps by violence." Bishop nodded. "And that it was a man's touch. Great emotion was present and his only injury was to the head, instantly fatal."
"Anything else?"
"Well, I questioned the staff after the police left. Mrs. Hornbostel was in the kitchen all morning working on breakfast preparations. But she didn't see him arrive. She was in the pantry when he yelled and the milk bottles crashed on the paving out back. She ran back into the kitchen. Our milkman was sprawled on the rear steps."
"Ishitito was late to wake and was still in the shower when it happened. She came down right away, still dripping in fact."
"Carla was asleep. The crash woke her up and she was the last one downstairs."
Bishop looked at her, "Anything else?" he repeated.
"Well, since no one here is male, except you, and I don't think you attacked the milkman," she admitted, "I talked to the neighbors on either side of us. First to see if there was someone in the backyard, second to find out if someone had a grudge with the milkman."
"And they don't or won't admit to such." murmured Bishop.
"Right as rain." So he had been paying attention as she had gathered her information. That was interesting.
Bishop winced at Maggenreathe's metaphor. "Well, then you are wrong about the facts or the police are right." He twitched his tail through a lazy oval.
She bristled. "I am not wrong. I can't be. Each of these results was a positive piece of arcane information. I thought about questioning the milkman himself, but I . . . "
Bishop drew back his lips and hissed, "Necromancy!"
Maggenreathe stood abruptly and spoke to him from her growing anger, "Which is perfectly legal if done in such a way so as not to bind the entity. But I wasn't going to steal into the morgue and question the body and by now it is too late."
The black kit studied her papers, seemingly undisturbed by her edgy voice. "Doyle's Law." He finally said.
She looked at the papers, and then at him, "Beg pardon?"
His amber eyes held hers, "Doyle. The forensic metaphysic. He stated that when you have eliminated everything but the impossible, then you might find that the impossible is true. . . or at least must be considered."
She thought for a moment, "Which means what exactly?"
He stretched and shrugged, "Could mean many things. Basically, it means that you haven't got enough information. Or you must consider me as the killer, since I am male." He chose that moment to study his pointedly unsheathed claws on his right paw.
Maggenreathe started to giggle. The stress of puzzle solving for the last three days broke apart suddenly inside her and something lifted. Her vision of Bishop dueling the milkman for an extra quart of cream came suddenly to her in response to his words, and she could not shake it. The giggle became a lilting laugh. Bishop eyed her with shock. That added to her escalating mirth and she dissolved into full blown laughter and plopped down in the desk chair to let it run its course.
The study door opened and a very small woman in tweed jacket and skirt walked into the room. She took off her hat and took in the scene. Walking across to the desk, she stopped and set a pair of magnifying spectacles on the desk with her long small hands.
Bishop lifted his ears and regarded her.
Maggenreathe broke into a broad smile. "BhangBadea! You're back early."
The red head returned the smile pound for pound, "What is the occasion of all this merrymaking?"
Bishop, for what reason Maggenreathe could little fathom, and even less approve, said plainly, "We were discussing the murder." No reaction.
BhangBadea unbuttoned her jacket and pulled it off, revealing the tailored silk blouse that she typically favored in this Shadow. "Who's?"
Maggenreathe plunged ahead, committed by the outspoken kit, "Our milkman." And quickly she recounted everything that she had learned or feared about the matter to her teacher.
By the time Maggie had finished, BhangBadea sat the edge of the desk, swinging her legs. The mystic's small size made everything in the room seem strangely out of proportion to Maggenreathe, rather than the other way around. As if, by coming into the room, Maggie expected the room to change its dimensions to accommodate the red headed magician. Just one of her teacher's unsettling, but quite marvelous qualities.
Finally BhangBadea spoke, directed to Bishop, "Holding back any clues, dear?"
Maggenreathe swung her eyes to target the kit. "No." he admitted, and Maggie breathed a tiny relieved sigh. Something to remember. She had not really asked her fellow student for his opinions. What a shortsighted way to investigate.
"Well, you've both done well in my absence. I don't think the matter is something that we need to worry about yet. For now, we can call it an accident, I believe." BhangBadea gazed at the bookshelves as if they spoke to her, but she took her eyes away and returned them to the two apprentices. She smiled at them as if everything were now settled.
Maggenreathe looked uncomfortable with the idea of dropping the investigation. Bishop's tail went straight up like an exclamation point at Bhang's words. Maggie opened her mouth before she had a moment to think, "Since my spells could not be wrong, and yet you are apparently unconcerned, you must have a strong idea of what happened. Is this something you can share?" she finished eagerly.
"Perhaps," said the sorceress, "but not today. I have things to unpack and some notes to make about my trip. I'll see you both at dinner tonight." And she slid off of the desk edge, and walked out of the room, leaving behind a mystified pair.
Maggenreathe could not keep the exasperated look off of her face once BhangBadea had left the room. Bishop noticed right away, but he wasn't deliberately contentious, and let it pass. Maggie eased back in the chair, then belatedly studied the kit. "You've been studying with her longer than I have, Bishop. She wouldn't mind if we tried to solve the puzzle anyhow, would she?"
Bishop considered. His tail swung high and low and settled into a shape like a question mark. He recognized the opportunity for he and Maggenreathe to find ways to aid each other in their ongoing studies. She did have abilities that he lacked. "No. I don't think she would mind." he answered. He began to consider the devious ways of mystic teachers.
* * *
Out in the narrow entry hall, Carla, the chauffeur, was bringing travel bags in from the vestibule. "Put these into the extra room, Professor Dea?" the hard dark eyed woman asked.
"Thank you Carla." BhangBadea turned and went up the stairs. Halfway up, without altering her progress overmuch she reached down to each foot and removed, first the left, and then a step later, the right high heeled pump.
She entered her own upstairs bedroom in her stocking feet and set the shoes on the sideboard. Ishitito padded softly in from the hall. The raven haired asian beauty quietly picked up the tailored jacket from the back of a high back chair, and smoothed it. Then quickly restored it to a hanger in the wardrobe and next gathered the shoes from the mahogany dresser top. It really seemed that BhangBadea made more noise in stocking feet, than did Ishitito in plain leather flats.
BhangBadea noticed the servant's usual efficient work and paused from emptying her purse onto the vanity.
While BhangBadea had a great care for order, she did not shape her personal habits into a civilized box of ritual and appearance. She was what she was, and she made concessions grudgingly. In this country, at this time, it was proper for a Chair of Esoteric Languages at Whytecliffe Oxfordtowne College to have a lady's servant to maintain appearance, a cook to keep house, a chauffeur for the long trips to remote locations, and a foreign student living with her. By arranging these things, she had created the right look. So Bhang was happily ensconced here in this place and time, and her work was rapidly blooming with things that she had sought to find.
Stranger things than a dead milkman had dogged her steps in the past. Still, murder or accident? She changed her mind about the issue and spoke aloud.
"Ishitito?"
"Yes, Professor?" the Professor's shoes went quickly into the bottom of the closet.
"It was an accident, wasn't it?" BhangBadea studied her maid.
Ishitito's pale face was always in repose, but a flicker of disquiet rippled from the left eye across the placid pond of that flawless complexion. Nothing else happened and no answer came.
BhangBadea measured the moments, stepped across the room to Ishitito, who was still as a statue. The red head's words dropped to a secretive volume. "The milkman's death was an accident, wasn't it? You didn't mean to kill him?"
A single tear spilled from the corner of the maid's eye and reluctantly moved down the cheek.
"Hai, Professor Dea. I did not mean to hurt him at all. He surprised me."
BhangBadea was satisfied, for it was the truth she could feel in her fingertips. Joyous were the things that were very clear for her in a universe of mysteries. She accepted them when they happened that way, just as she tried to accept obstacles that would persist in thwarting her, when she thought they were solved. One of her past moments of insight was Ishitito's hiring. Finding that a penniless, small man might pose as a woman to get a maid's job, that her own unique point of view would somehow know the difference, when no one else had ever noticed. That she would evaluate the candidate and hire "her" on the merits of the ability and enthusiasm just the same. And never say a word to anyone.
So she took Ishitito's arm gently, and together they sat on the edge of the bed coverlet and talked. The Professor guided the miserable maid through the dreaded morning in question's activities, the arrival in the kitchen, the smiled greeting of the milkman, through the moment of sudden unexpected physical contact between the milkman's amorous hand, and the maid's nether telltale. Past immediate icy fear of discovery, the shocked look on the milkman's face as the shape under the skirt did not conform to his expectations, Ishitito's panicked shove and the man's stunned limp response as he stumbled backwards through the kitchen doorframe and mismanaged the back steps.
The maid's dash of horror after him trying to catch a hand, his pinwheeling free descent to the slate pathway, the crunch of his head against the stones, the rain pouring down on both of them, the sound of someone in the kitchen coming in response to his cry, the frantic scramble up onto the carriage shed and then through to the upstairs window, stripping off the soaked clothes so as to reappear again downstairs, where Mrs. Hornbostel had discovered the body.
The relief when the police determined that the matter was closed, an accident. The guilt. The questions from Maggenreathe. The sleepless nights and the return of fear. The guilt again when the Professor had returned from her travels. The relief to have it all said. Everything in the open.
"I will resign my position, Professor. I hope you will let me do this without explanation." Ishitito wiped at the corners of his eyes.
Her response was quick, "I would have decked him myself, my dear. Do you really have to leave on account of this? I might suggest that the police are satisfied, and so am I, so the matter is really closed now."
"And I do need a maid." she finished. Nor did she add that suspicion would follow after Ishitito if this course was taken.
Hesitation was the only answer. Ishitito's face tried to gather dignity and settled for wonder, "How can you allow my deception to continue, now that you know? You will be shamed."
BhangBadea tossed her falling tresses over one shoulder and decided to be honest, "I have known from the first day. You have the scent of a man, no offense meant, though in all other respects, you are an excellent maid. If you are shamed by my knowledge, so be it, then you may leave. I will be sorry that you thought you could take service with me when you believed I was ignorant, but cannot continue now that you know me to be aware of the truth. Truth does not shame me."
Ishitito stood up and wiped the last traces of tears away. A small bow was executed in BhangBadea's direction. "I will stay then. For the honor of serving one who always seeks the truth."
And this pleased them both.
END