A woman had been killed a few steps away from our favorite pub, the Glutton Bunba. Young, beautiful, though not quite to my taste. A rich brunette with large eyes, generous lips, and broad hips. In Echo, this kind of female beauty is particularly prized. But this woman had had her throat slit—a second horrific grin that reached from ear to ear.
If Juffin is to be believed, this is not how people are killed in Echo, neither women nor men. No one. As a matter of fact, murder of any description is exceedingly rare (unless, of course, one of the banned Orders of Magic is involved—then anything can happen). But this didn’t smell like magic, whether forbidden or permitted. No magic at all.
“To be honest, the thing that surprises me most about this whole mess is the location of the crime,” I said when Juffin and I returned to the office. “It’s common knowledge that the Glutton Bunba is your favorite haunt, Juffin. Not even a crazy paranoiac would get up to no good within a dozen blocks of the place.”
“Well, whoever it was sure did,” the chief said with a sniff.
“Maybe it’s a newcomer?”
“Most likely. In Echo, even in the Troubled Times, damsels weren’t treated like that. How inconvenient! We need Melamori now more than ever. She’d solve it in an hour. But here we sit, dwelling on every little piece of nonsense.”
While we sat, a second murder occurred, this time not far from the Street of Bubbles. The same bloody “smile,” but this time the Mona Lisa was a bit older (three hundred years of age). She was the local wisewoman, old Xrida, whom everyone on the street consulted for toothaches or all manner of bad luck. She was still youthful, energetic, and, in contrast to many of her colleagues, a very sweet lady. The residents of all the neighboring quarters had loved her, and the Echo Hustle and Bustle published letters of gratitude several times a year from people she had healed.
I should add that neither of these murders was carried out with the goal of robbery, since no valuables belonging to the victims had been touched. As for money, the women probably didn’t have any with them. Here in Echo, it is thought that touching coins cools off love. For this reason, no woman will ever take money into her hands, and only the boldest consider gloves to be sufficient protection. Men, too, prefer to take precautions; but ladies are especially superstitious in this regard.
By the way, this is why the inhabitants of the Unified Kingdom gradually introduced the custom of using various kinds of bonds and IOUs. Several days at the end of the year are set aside for clearing these debts. I myself prefer to pay with cash, and have occasionally gotten into awkward situations because of this. You hand your money to the bartender, and he glares at you because, you see, he’s left his gloves in the kitchen and now he has to run hither and thither all on account of you.
Thus, in the space of an hour, we had two corpses on our hands. And very few fresh ideas. The night was generous: we received five more “smiles” that were the spitting image of each other, while the victims differed significantly in age, appearance, and social standing. They even lived in distant regions of the city. The criminal seemed to be mixing work with pleasure—grisly murders cum nocturnal excursion: “Echo by Night.”
Close to morning we had a breathing spell. The murders seemed to have ceased. Most likely the protagonist was exhausted and had decided to take a nap. Juffin turned the matter over to Melifaro and Lonli-Lokli for the time being. Sir Kofa Yox went to gather information about the murders in the pubs, and our Venerable Head ordered me to stay right by his side. So far I had been of no use to him whatsoever. Maybe I provided him with inspiration—his muse, so to speak? In that case, I was a pretty lame muse; Juffin hadn’t been visited by a single interesting notion the entire night.
The seventh murder was bequeathed to us at noon, with the same “signature” and no return address.
Strictly speaking, this was what we knew: the killer was probably a man (the tracks he had left in the dust had all but disappeared, but the size was impressive); he was in all likelihood a newcomer (quite unconventional behavior); he possessed a knife of extraordinary size by local standards; he was indifferent to the property of his victims; and he seemed to have no connection with the rebellious Orders, since he didn’t even practice traditional magic in his own gruesome kitchen.
Moreover, he wasn’t insane, since madness in this World leaves behind a weak but distinct stench. Sir Juffin Hully detected no trace of it at any of the crime scenes.
“Max, you seem to be present at a historic moment,” Juffin said, putting aside his pipe, which he had been turning around and around in his hands for the last five hours. “This time I am absolutely baffled. We have seen seven corpses in the past twenty-four hours, a slew of clues that don’t add up to anything, and no magic to speak of, whether outlawed or permitted. It’s time to give the case back to Boboota’s department and try to live down our shame.”
“But you yourself know that—” I began cautiously.
“I know. But it doesn’t smell like there is any kind of sorcery afoot here. And using True Magic for such bestial murders? Highly unlikely. I can’t even imagine it. Unless he’s mad—but it didn’t reek of any kind of madness.”
“You know best,” I sighed. “Let’s go eat, Juffin. These walls need a rest from us.”
Even the Glutton was gloomy. Madame Zizinda looked like she had been crying. The food exceeded all expectations, as usual, but we weren’t in any mood to appreciate its merits. Juffin ordered a glass of Jubatic Juice, sniffed it critically, and pushed it away.
This was perhaps the most incoherent, senseless night I had experienced in all the time I had been here. Hm. In all the time I had been here. It hadn’t been too long, to be honest. It wasn’t at all hard to imagine that in addition to tourists from neighboring cities, inhabitants of other worlds had made their way to Echo, just as I had done. Sinning Magicians!
“Juffin,” I whispered. “What if it’s a countryman of mine?”
My boss raised his eyebrows and nodded slowly.
“Let’s go to the Ministry. A conversation like this isn’t for strangers’ ears. Tell Madame Zizinda to send kamra and something harder to my office. Only not this stuff,” he added, looking at the liquid distastefully.
In the office the chief stared at me with his penetrating gaze.
“Why?”
“Because it explains everything. No magic, right? In any case, no obvious magic. That’s number one. Number two, if I’m here, why might there not be other guests like me? A door, no matter how well locked, always remains a door while a house is still standing. And Juffin, you yourself say that it’s not customary to kill like that in Echo. Where I was born, back there, treating ladies that way is quite popular among madmen. Some madmen. We call them ‘maniacs.’ That’s my third, and most important, argument. It’s all too familiar. I’ve seen similar things on television.”
“Where did you see it?”
“It doesn’t matter,” I mumbled. I tried to think of a quick and comprehensible way of describing television to a person who had never seen it. “Let’s just say that it gives you the ability to stay home and watch what’s going on in other places. Not everything, of course, but the main things. Things that are surprising or important. And then there are movies. With the help of a special apparatus. No magic. Although who knows what the gauge on your Magic Meter would show?”
“Exactly. Oh, you should have brought that television along with you—what a fascinating little gadget!”
“But what do you think about the murderer?” I asked, trying to steer my chief back to the problem at hand. “Do you think he might be a native of my country?”
“Well, it’s an elegant and logical hypothesis—just something you’d come up with. We’ll have to try it out. I’ll go see Maba Kalox, and you’ll come with me. Maba knows your story, so don’t try to impress him with the legend of your origins.”