Gertriss knocked once and then came bustling in, balancing a tea tray carefully in one hand. On it, a silver teapot gleamed, and I wondered just where Mama kept her good china.
“Lady Werewilk was just telling me about her House, Gertriss. She has reason to believe someone might want to remove it from her control.”
Gertriss, bless her, just nodded and set about pouring tea.
“Go on, Lady Werewilk,” I said. “So you have thirty-five artists, Singh the butler and your brother Milton. Who else?”
“A staff of ten, not counting Singh.” She took a dainty sip of her tea, her grey eyes intent on Gertriss, who blushed. “Forgive me,” said Lady Werewilk, to Gertriss. “But you, young lady, have a unique look. I believe some of my artists would be fascinated by you, those skin-tones…that face. Would you be interested in posing at Werewilk, dear? There would be no pay, of course, but I believe some of our works are destined to be masterpieces.”
Gertriss wrinkled her brow. “Me, my Lady? Pose for a picture painter? Why, I wouldn’t even know what to wear.”
“You’d wear nothing, of course. We are interested in the nude human form, not any passing fad of fashion.”
“Gertriss, I need more sugar,” I said quickly. “I’m sure Mama has some, will you see?”
I was relieved that Gertriss didn’t slam the door on her way out.
Lady Werewilk laughed. “Oh dear,” she said. “I’ve ruffled some feathers, have I not?”
I nodded and made a rueful face. “This is her first day in Rannit,” I said. “And I’m sure it’s also the first time she’s ever been asked to be painted in the nude. It may even be the first time she’s ever heard the word nude spoken aloud.”
Lady Werewilk stubbed out the remains of her smoke stick on the saucer left by my fleeing Gertriss. “Pity,” she said. “Most of the models I get are stick-thin rich men’s daughters who starve themselves because they think it looks Elvish. She has a certain earthy appeal, your Miss Gertriss. Tell her the offer still stands, should she change her mind.”
“I’ll do that, Lady Werewilk.” I leaned back in my chair and did my best to appear studious. “Now, tell me about your staff. All of them. Start with the most recent ones hired and work backwards.”
Lady Werewilk nodded, lit another smokestick with one of those newfangled red-tipped matches, and set about describing her household while smoke-wraiths swirled and danced.
Gertriss knocked.
“Come on in, Gertriss,” I said. “Lady Werewilk is gone.”
Gertriss, still blushing, stomped in.
“I’m sorry ’bout that,” said Gertriss. “I reckon I’ve got to get used to city folk and their ways, and turnin’ red and puffin’ up ain’t the way to handle it.”
I nodded, though I could almost hear Mama’s voice coaching Gertriss to say just that.
“You did fine. Lady Werewilk was unusual even by my standards.” I picked up the long thin birchwood stick that was lying on my desk and handed it to Gertriss. “Do you know what this is?”
She took it, eyed it gravely. “Looks like a surveyor’s marker,” she said.
I beamed. “That’s what it is. It doesn’t have a maker’s mark on it, so I don’t know who it belongs to, but it’s a surveyor’s stick. Lady Werewilk has been finding them all over her property for the last several weeks.” I motioned Gertriss into the client’s chair. “Nobody admits to planting them, or to knowing anything about them. What does that suggest to you, Gertriss?”
She wrinkled her brow. “Somebody wants her House or her land. Or at least part of it.”
“One thing a finder should never do is jump to conclusions.” Her big blue eyes fell, so I spoke again quickly. “But that’s what I’m going to assume too, at least until we find otherwise.”
She smiled and put the stick down. “She got brothers, sisters, cousins?”
“One brother,” I replied. “He came back from the War broken. She doesn’t believe he is capable of dressing or feeding himself, much less snatching the House out from under her. We’ll assume that’s true too, at least until we meet him in person.”
She brightened at that. “I’ll be goin’ with you, Mister Markhat?”
I nodded. “You won’t be much use to me sitting here. But I have conditions, Miss. First, you stay quiet as much as possible, but you listen.”
She bit her bottom lip and nodded.
“Next, while you listen to what people say, watch what they do. Watch where they go. Watch who they talk to or don’t talk to. Sometimes that tells you more than their words ever do.”
Again, a nod. I chuckled inwardly.
“Oh, and Miss Gertriss. No posing nude while you’re on my payroll.”
Finally, she laughed, and her eyes twinkled.
“I weren’t plannin’ on no naked shenanigans. On your pay or off it.”
“Good girl,” I replied. “Now here’s the plan. We head south tomorrow, first light. We’ll be staying at the House until we find our mystery surveyor or until Lady Werewilk gets tired of paying us, whichever comes first. As junior member of the firm Finder Markhat you get one of every five crowns we’re paid. Do good, and the next case might get you one and a half. Is that a deal?”
She went wide-eyed. I guess by backwoods standards a crown was a small fortune. In Rannit, she’d learn soon enough, it was somewhat less than that.
I held out my hand. She took it, shook it, and the Finder Markhat agency officially doubled its staff.
I let her take a breath.
“All that means we’ve got some things to do today,” I said. “We want to blend in, Gertriss. We want people to forget who we are and where we are, as much and as often as possible. And that means we’ve got to get you into some city clothes, before we go.”
She blushed again, and her right hand instinctively caught at the rough unsewn hem of her coarse handmade blouse.
I raised a hand before she could protest.
“I have a lady friend who will handle all the personal attention,” I said. “And don’t worry about the cost. One thing Darla has is plenty of clothes and a soft spot for young ladies dressed in burlap.”
“But, Mister Markhat, Mama said I could borrow some of her old…”
I had a flash, saw Gertriss arrayed in moth-eaten rags four feet too short for her that trailed owl feathers when she walked.
I stood up. “I am the boss, am I not, Gertriss?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then here’s another condition. No wearing anything Mama gives you. Ever. Got that?”
“Yes, sir.”
I smiled, rose, nodded for her to do the same.
“Glad that’s settled,” I said. “Let’s go meet Darla. I’ll tell you about House Werewilk on the way.”
Gertriss rose. I guessed she was still none too sure about dressing in lewd, lascivious city garb but determined to hang onto her pay even at the cost of burlap-enforced modesty.
“Will we be walking or taking a cab, Mister Markhat?” she asked.
I thought about those Army-issue doggers she was wearing and the long hike to Darla’s and added the cost of a cab to my loss of every fifth crown and forced a big wide city fella smile.
“Why, a cab, of course,” I said, snatching my good grey hat off its peg and offering my arm to Gertriss. “We city folk never walk when we can ride in style.”
Gertriss looked at my proffered elbow in sincere puzzlement. “Somethin’ wrong with your arm, Mister Markhat?” she asked.
I laughed, and we made for the street.
It was a day of firsts for Gertriss. Her first ride in a cab, her first sight of ogres walking shoulder to shoulder with human folks, her first sight of red-clad street preachers and the bridge clowns on Cyrus and the short skirts and open solicitations of the whores that line the streets between Camus and Drade. And everywhere, of course, the ragged Broken, the nimble beggars, the ever-present cries of the whammy men and the clanging of distant foundry machines in the factories that line the south bank of the River.
I tried to fill Gertriss in on the Curfew and the dead wagons on the way. I explained about the Big Bell banging out Curfew every night, and how the halfdead were legally entitled to snack on anyone who wasn’t Watch or a marked city employee after Curfew. I explained about the dead wagons that stalked the streets each morning, and what caused that smoke that wafted from the tall crematorium chimneys along the Brown.