As the trio reached the ground floor, the magistrate halted by the rear door. He smiled for a moment, looked directly at Gord, and then said. "What is your opinion, Hone?"
"The murder of Basil was done by the same person or persons who have been responsible for five unsolved killings in the last seven weeks, sir."
Gord was stunned by this — would he now be accused of multiple murders? — and repeated his earlier suggestion. "If resurrection fails, it is a small matter to have a cleric converse with the corpse. The last impressions before death remain."
"Have you heard of Vatman before?" the magistrate inquired, still smiling blandly at Gord.
"Who hasn't heard of him? That ferret has laid more crimes and plots before the oligarchs than . . . You're Vatman?"
"Magistrate Vatman, now, and about to lose repute and office unless this string of murders is solved. Fortunately, we now have you."
Hone frowned, and Gord was stunned. "Me? This is insane! I demand a clerical reading. In fact, I shall even pay for the spell"
"Tough luck, youngster," the grizzled inspector said solemnly. "Whatever else is done in killing the victims, some dweomer is used as well. Nothing — and I do mean nothing — remains in the body for detection through raising from the dead or speaking with the essential memory that lingers. The bodies have all been as empty as if drained by all the Lords of the Hells together."
"So I am the patsy. I take the fall, and you save your job."
Vatman shrugged. "If we hold you a long time before trial and conviction, there'll be no more killings for some time."
Hone smiled, and Gord looked confused. The inspector clucked at the young thief. Tsk. tsk, my boy! Do you take the magistrate — or me, for that matter — to be fools? The intelligence so fortuitously received that enabled us to catch you at the scene of the crime is far too timely to be coincidence. You might well be guilty of many things for which we could arrest and convict you. Of murdering Basil, though, or the other five, you are as blameless as I."
"Then set me free now!"
"Not so fast, thief," Magistrate Vatman said coldly. "I intend to solve this affair one way or the other. One way is to arrest and convict you, allowing the guilty party or parties to think I actually have been duped, and watch for them to grow careless in the future."
"But I’ll be dead then!"
"What's wrong with having one less thief in Greyhawk?" Hone asked earnestly.
"My assistant is right, of course," Vatman said with his everpresent smile, "but I have a second reason for handling the matter thusly. Don't relax. It falls squarely onto your shoulders. I'm going to allow you to slip away in a moment. You will have exactly three days— "
"Three days!"
"—to find out who set you up for the little game where you finally slew Xestrazy — yes, we know about that. I think whoever was behind that scam had a larger motive than getting rich from your efforts, Gord. Find the one who set you up there, and we'll have the one who has been committing these murders!"
Gord nodded. "Ill find the one, all right. But I'll need more time. Do you really expect me to solve a crime in three days that you have failed to solve in seven weeks?"
The magistrate ignored the insult. "Don't do anything else," said Vatman. "Don't try to leave Greyhawk. Don't get involved in anything else. You have three days, and three days only. After that, we'll arrest you and annihilate you after trial. This is no threat."
"This is as crazy as the murder charge," Gord shot back. "I'm no policeman. What can I do?"
Vatman had stopped smiling. "You had better do something. By way of encouragement, allow me to point out that you were evidently doing enough to follow the trail of the perpetrator as far as this place—"
"I wasn't following any trail. I intended to try to get information out of Basil because he was involved— "
"Even if you were later than the killer thought you'd be. Just between us, Hone here has watched the back for an hour prior to your arrival. The tip came too soon."
"Yes," said the inspector. "His Worship knows you're not guilty, as do I. But you have only a short time to prove it to the world, or you must be sacrificed in the name of justice."
That last ironic statement by Hone, the inspector of the Praefecture, still lingered in his brain as Gord prowled through the midnight alleys of the Garden Quarter. He was not followed now. He had been this afternoon, though, picked up from one of the places he kept as a safe hide-away. Prior to recent events, Gord would have wagered all he possessed that none but he knew about these hidey-holes, which Gord continued to change on a regular basis. Now he had less confidence but felt wiser.
Upon investigation of the matter, Gord discovered that the young man whom Basil kept as a lover was gone from the apartment the fence had provided him. Many of his personal belongings were still there, but Gord thought that the fellow, named Kesterin, had either managed to flee or had been kidnapped. It was hard to tell what might have happened, for the young thief found marks of entry indicating someone else had been to the apartment for the same reason Gord had come. Whoever it was, Gord estimated that he was about two hours behind in the chase.
"If I were this fellow, where would I go?" he said to himself as he neared the Processional. Traffic was only moderate, and nobody seemed to notice as he slipped into the stream of men and animals. "Would I attempt to leave the city? Not at dusk with a killer after me. Then I would hide . . . but where?" Kesterin was a comely and well-bred person, one used to easy living. Old City and most of the rest of Greyhawk would be unappealing and downright dangerous for one such as he. The Strip had its share of homosexuals, but the killer would expect Kesterin to go there, and he would probably know that. Where then?
Unless the fellow had some special friend in the High Quarter, there was only one place Kesterin could hide and realistically expect to remain undiscovered. Gord snapped his fingers and strode across the broad main thoroughfare of Greyhawk, slipping into the darkness of the trade area which paralleled the Processional to Green Commons and the Newmarket, taking great care that no one followed him as he moved purposefully to the south end of the city. Basil's frightened lover would have hidden in only one place — The University District, where there were many males his age. Effete manners and dress were as common as whores in the River Quarter, and Kesterin would blend in amongst the students and hangers-on there.
The University District was large by itself, and students lodged in an area that extended from the Craftsmen's Ward on the east all the way to The Halls northward and within the belt of trade that followed the lower Processional from the River Quarter to the Citadel. The greatest concentration of colleges and students, however, was along the wall of Greyhawk itself, the very southernmost part of the University sector. Many eating houses and taverns catered to the student trade in this area. It was to this part of the district that Gord went. Although it had been years since he dwelled here, the young thief still had many contacts. He had to take one chance, for it wouldn't do for anyone to recognize him as Gord as he walked the streets of the district. It was too big a risk to go to the little flat he had nearby, but his old friend Calzo the Trader was probably safe to visit.
Dressed in gaudier fashion now, a floppy cap of purple and olive-green velvet hiding his hair and shading his eyes, Gord left the darkened shop of Calzo to begin his search in earnest. He hated to do it, but he had left his shortsword behind in his friend's safekeeping. Even his dagger was hidden at his back, kept from view by the pleated cape which was in fashion now with students. At his Waist in plain view was an ordinary blade also typical of those affected by the young men who attended the colleges here.