Consulting Detectives

This story is set on Ishveos, on Cambrias' Wall.

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Inwood Tors was a traditional Wall Guard consulting detective in every peculiar.

Oh, it wasn’t that there was an official uniform for consulting detectives— certainly not, the very thought of it was absurd. No, each and every consulting detective had their own, highly particular, fashion.

But… each of their fashions seemed to check items off the exact same list of categories.

Inwood Tors was immediately recognizable for his distinctive coat and hat, as most every consulting detective was recognizable for their own distinctive coats and hats— in his case, a waxed canvas coat so thick and sturdy it could stand upright and unsupported when set on the ground, and a battered old sun visor that rested low over his brow.

Inwood Tors held his own questionable vice, as all consulting detectives had their own particular vices— in his case, a peculiar, sour-smelling type of twig he liked to chew on. It was, according to those few who had tried it, a strong stimulant that sharpened one’s senses quite painfully— and also tasted truly awful to most folks.

Inwood Tors had the usual collection of sensory and cognitive processing boons, forgoing the usual quality of life and combat boons most Saints of his power held. The more powerful and wealthy he grew, the stranger and more alien he became, as he invested more and more prayer into supplementing his brain with godgifts.

Inwood Tors had the usual erratic deduction style and vast store of knowledge of all consulting detectives, of course.

And last, but not least, Inwood Tors had his trusty seldom-present assistant— half clerk, half bodyguard, a much put-upon Saint named Oru, who was quite obviously in love with her charge, who seemed not to have noticed. Not that she was here with him today, an unusual lack for the detective.

To say the least, Inwood Tors was a deeply traditional man, so far as the erratic traditions of the consulting detective went.
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Remmick Sian cut a very different figure than Inwood Tors, but she was just as traditional a figure in every respect. It was, of course, just that she followed a different tradition of consulting detective.

She was a short, plump little woman, one who always wore the finest of pale linen suits and most fashionable of hats— all painstakingly fitted and fastidiously clean.

Like Inwood Tors, she had her own vices— but rather than exotic plants or alchemicals, hers was, for the most part, simply expensive wine and whiskey, in great quantities.

She also bore a vast suite of sensory and cognitive enhancement godgifts, but of a deeply different flavor to Inwood Tors. Where his observation boons were eclectic and wide-ranging, his cognitive boons dedicated to analyzing his physical environment for clues; hers were as focused as any telescope, dedicated to observing and analyzing webs of social interactions, watching for the tiniest facial expressions or the slightest changes in body language. Oh, neither of them neglected other forms of investigation, but certainly they had their specialties.

Her tradition of consulting detective did not come replete with personal assistants, certainly not ones in love with the detective, but it was traditional for them to associate with small numbers of exhausted, frazzled, and overworked Wall Guard liaisons— and to keep them in the dark for dramatic reasons.

There were infrequent hints of some doomed, tragic romance in her past, one that left her uninterested in future romance, content in bachelorhood.

Remmick Sian was as eccentric as Inwood Tors in every way, but her eccentricities were those of the truly rich, for in tastes and style few could get farther from the groundlings than she.
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Sakmar Drunk, on the third hand, was a shabby, tired-looking fellow who had probably looked middle aged since the day he hit twenty. While the other two gestured confidently with their teacups to the risk of slopping tea over the brim, Sakmar clung to his cup like a lifeline, guzzling down tea as though it were the only thing keeping him awake. While the other two were confident, eccentric, even boisterous, Sakmar just looked quietly content to be sitting in a comfortable chair.

His clothes were well-worn, and wouldn’t look particularly out of place on some clerk or other. His affect was calm, friendly, and if it was quirky, only in the sense of a mild love of puns and cheeky wordplay.

Sakmar had no personal assistant, no direct liason, but worked closely with a great number of the Wall Guard. He was, by and large, a well-liked fellow, if not close friends with a great many people.

Sakmar had no particular vices, perhaps beyond too much tea. Despite his name, he rarely consumed alcohol, and then only in pleasant moderation.

And, of course, he had his own suite of sensory and cognitive boons— for the most part, quite generalized, but not entirely. Sakmar Drunk had enhanced his memory to absurd levels, even among consulting detectives, and he had also enhanced his mental stamina to unusual degrees. Sakmar Drunk was not the most cunning nor brilliant consulting detective, but he was often described as a bloodhound, one who would never stop hunting as long as he had a scent to follow.

The final exception to the generality of his boons, for a consulting detective, was the fact that he had rather more physical enhancement boons than most consulting detectives— most of whom had none at all. But then, he frequented rather more dangerous neighborhoods than the other two.

Perhaps it could be said that Sakmar Drunk fit another archetype of consulting detective, for there were more than a few like him among their number— but it would be more accurate to say that they were individuals who had seen too many horrible things, and were unable to retreat into performance to cope.
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“Of course they blamed the butler,” Remmick Sian said with a laugh. “They always blame the butler.”

“It was hardly the most unjust frame-job,” Inwood Tors continued his story. “In truth, the butler had been stealing jewelery from the family for years, and was also the reason scullery maids seldom lasted long on the job before leaving— but he was unquestionably innocent of the murder.”

“So you cleared his name?” Sakmar Drunk asked.

Inwood scowled. “There was the issue. Doing so without another convenient scapegoat would have been… politically challenging, given that Darriwil’s fathers were both Pillars, and the boy never left their territory. And, given the relative poverty of the girl…”

The other two scowled along with him, both well familiar with nepotism atop the Wall.

“So I was forced to let the butler be prosecuted— and he was hardly undeserving of some comeuppance,” Inwood continued. “But it was only a matter of time until Darriwil lost his sense of caution, began partaking of recreational godgifts again— and once that happened, his violence against the girls he liked to hire would surely recur soon after.”

“You found a place to stand for leverage, didn’t you?” Remmick asked, tipping a flask of brandy into her tea.

“With a little footwork,” Inwood Tors acknowledged. “Even for one as wealthy as he, Darriwil had expensive tastes, on top of a propensity for gambling only equaled by his lack of skill with cards. When you added in his preferred godgifts… well, there wasn’t enough prayer from the congregation to explain the miracle, if you follow my drift.”

“He was stealing from his fathers?” Sakmar asked.

Remmick shook her head. “No, petty theft wouldn’t have been enough leverage against someone like this. Theft will bring a slap on the wrist for someone that wealthy, but little more— his fathers would have forgiven him eventually.”

“Precisely,” Inwood agreed. “No, it was worse than theft— he was forging trade passes in the name of his father who ran a Shipping Compliance department, and selling them to a prominent trade concern. The scandal would have done immense damage to both his fathers and the company, if it had come out.”

“So you found the best path for everyone involved,” Remmick continued. “You made sure that there wouldn’t be any more murdered working girls, that the butler wouldn’t keep up his own bad habits, and that the Pillars and company wouldn’t be embroiled in scandal.”

“Everyone wins,” Inwood Tors agreed. “Isn’t that right, Oru?”

Then he blinked, and shook his head wryly as he remembered that Oru was on one of her rare absences for family business.

“You get so used to having assistants around,” he commented.

“It’s why I avoid having a permanent assistant,” Remmick said. “You get reliant.”

“Not Darriwil,” Sakmar said. “Nor the butler, nor the girl’s family.”

“Beg pardon?” Inwood said.

“You said everyone wins, but that’s manifestly not the case,” Sakmar pointed out.

“We hardly want villains to win, do we?” Remmick said, lounging back in her comfortable chair. “Everyone else wins.”

“The girl’s family were villains?” Sakmar asked.

“Well, they certainly did her no favors in her upbringing, or she wouldn’t have been selling herself,” the dapper woman said.

“And the origin of the word villain does come from an old word for peasant,” Inwood pointed out.

Sakmar sighed. “I don’t mean to be difficult, I’ve just… seen too many stories like this.”

“Haven’t we all,” Remmick said, patting him on the shoulder.

Inwood nodded, then sipped his tea.

“So how did you do it?” Sakmar said.

“Do what?” Inwood said, setting his tea down once more.

“Take care of Darriwil.”

“Oh, that. No, he… took care of himself, after I had laid down the facts of the matter.”

“Threw himself off the Wall?” Sakmar said.

Inwood and Remmick both winced at the crudity of his statement.

“No, he… availed himself of a singularly large dose of poppy tincture,” Inwood said. “Far from the cruelest way to go.”

“Oh, was he a fan of the poppy, then, along with recreational godgifts?” Sakmar asked. “Just happened to have some on hand?”

Remmick sighed irritably. “Sakmar, I don’t know how much time you have spent among other consulting detectives, but it is considered rude to treat one another like suspects.”

Sakmar smiled faintly. “I have, I suppose, something of a lower-class aversion to dancing around blunt truths.”

Inwood set down his tea. “Very well, then yes. I provided him with the poppy. It was a clean, elegant solution, for all involved.”

“Who hasn’t done something similar, at times?” Remmick asked. “Reminds me of a case I had a few months back that ended the same way. Angel of death case, where every single healing priest in a charitable hospitable had an alibi. Turned out that there were two different priests murdering patients— and, unfortunately, one of them was related to the biggest donor to the hospital. Had to pin all the deaths on the other, while the prominent family made their wayward scion sever all his healing boons and retire from medicine rather… forcefully. They doubled their donations to the hospital, as thanks for saving their reputation.”

“I haven’t,” Sakmar said.

“Beg pardon?” Inwood said.

“I haven’t done something similar,” Sakmar said. “I’ve never abetted the suicide of a suspect before their trial in a court of law.”

Remmick set down her tea with a forceful click. “How much longer until the Guard representative gets here, did the letter say? I begin to find this company less thrilling than expected.”

“Just that it would be sometime before eclipse,” Inwood said blandly. “No hint of what sort of case could possibly require three consulting detectives.”

A suspicion seemed to dawn upon both Inwood and Remmick at once. They exchanged glances, then both turned to Sakmar.

“Yes, I obviously forged the letters,” Sakmar said. “They’re quite good forgeries too, though there are some revealing tells if one were motivated enough to consult with a god of paper or palimpsests. Not the most common tells, that an average criminal would give away, but more obscure ones. I chose them quite carefully”

“Well, now,” Remmick said. “I find my interest in conversation rising again.”

“How many suicides of suspects would you say you’ve encouraged, for political reasons or expediency?” Sakmar asked. “Likewise, how many of your cases have you pinned on those technically innocent of the crime, even if deserving of punishment for other acts?”

“Come to think of it, it is a bit odd, the way Oru was summoned away,” Inwood said.

“Yes, yes, I forged her letter too,” Sakmar said. “Must we really analyze every detail in regards to how I tricked you two here?”

“We are consulting detectives, my dear Sakmar,” Remmick said, much friendlier now that she had a problem before her. “It’s a peril of the trade.”

Sakmar tilted his head in acknowledgment.

“It sounds as though you have some issue with our methods, Sakmar,” Inwood said. “Perhaps it’s why you brought us here today?”

“No perhaps about it,” Sakmar said. “It’s the exact reason I brought you here. I find your rampant disdain for the rule of law abhorrent.”

“What an interesting sentiment, coming from you,” Remmick said. “You, who work closer to the seedy underbelly of the Wall than any of us, where the rule of law is weaker than anywhere else.”

Sakmar shook his head. “No, it isn’t the rule of law that is weak there. It’s not about the strength of law, but of the selectivity of its enforcement. And, in truth, both the rule of law and the strength of enforcement among the poor are far greater than among the mighty— yet neither is enough to bring order, when desperation is so high and opportunity so low. Do not mistake disorder for weak rule of law, for the rule of law weighs heavier on the poor than anyone else. Your own stories are cardinal evidence of this, relentless incidents of you subverting the rule of law for your own sense of morality— and always, always for the wealthy.”

“Resentment, then,” Inwood said. “You have come to empathize with those you investigate, come to weigh the unfairness of their lives over the good fortunes of the wealthy. You seethe at the mercies we offer some of the wealthy, even though we only do so in recognition and compromise with the truths of power.”

“In great part, yes,” Sakmar said. “Though my empathies lie less with those I investigate, and more with those I live among. I do seethe at the mercies you offer the wealthy, and I seethe even moreso at the way you simply bow without struggle to the powers that be. And, of course… I do not believe that it is, nor should be, our role to be not only investigators, but also prosecutors, defenders, and judges. I do not believe that any of us should play so free with the moral right of justice as you two.”

“A not entirely incomprehensible stance, but one of useless idealism,” Remmick said, rising with her tea, and walking to one of the windows overlooking the city sprawling from horizon to horizon. “No matter what we might hope for justice, we cannot escape the truths of power. By compromising as we do, by letting the rich save face for the crimes of their loved ones, we can do more good in the world. It is a strict utilitarian calculus with little ambiguity— if I had revealed the crimes of both healers, the family of the wealthier one would surely have withdrawn their funding for the hospital, depriving thousands of care.”

“Would they?” Sakmar asked. “Or would they have redoubled their funding to save face? Would some other rich family have replaced them, to prove their superiority? Neither of can know— no consulting detective may predict the future, no matter how enhanced. This is a question of tertiary importance, however. Secondarily, there is the question of whether your actions are stabilizing unjust systems, whether your acceptance of existing power structures, of saving their reputations by defying the law, is doing more harm in utilitarian calculus.”

“You offer compelling speculation, but just speculation, in the end,” Inwood rebutted, lounging back comfortably in his chair. “Whereas the existing power structures are as real as the stones of the Wall. We can dream about better worlds, but we must live on the moon as it is. Your primary objection, though?”

“Utilitarianism is seldom more than an apologetics for suffering, to choose who suffers,” Sakmar said. “An excuse best to be avoided whenever possible by the just.”

“Time for philosophical feuds, is it?” Remmick interjected, but Sakmar plowed ahead with his words.

“As for compromising with those systems of power… you are right in that we all must, to some degree, but you are wrong in proposing its inevitability.”

“More idealism, then,” Inwood said.

“Not in the slightest,” Sakmar said. “Reality. I have, across my career, made those unjust compromises a fraction so often as you, and never to the degree of framing an innocent, nor driving a culprit to suicide without trial as you both have— and all, what, for greed? To maintain your lavish lifestyles? I am, simply speaking… better than you.”

Inwood’s eyes tightened just a hair, a gesture no one but a consulting detective, a diplomat, or a spy was likely to notice. But to Sakmar, it was as clear an indication of offense, even rage, as a shout.

Sakmar was quite sure Remmick had made some equally subtle gesture, facing out the window.

“Well, Remmick,” Inwood said. “It seems we have the motive first— but what the crime is, I’m still not sure.”

“Is he blackmailing us, perhaps?” Remmick asked, turning to face the two of them. “Trying to force our retirement?”

“You both know better than that,” Sakmar said.

“You aim to murder us both,” Remmick said. “Given your own godgifts, it is a distinct possibility you might succeed.”

Remmick started to speak, and then an abrupt suspicion came over her. “Or perhaps he already has.”

She began sniffing her tea cautiously.

Inwood shook his head. “With our godgifts, one of us would have noticed poison— those few, that is, that we haven’t rendered ourselves immune to with exposure yet.”

“Few consulting detectives fail to be accomplished Archadatists, and even fewer poisons can escape our sensory boons,” Sakmar said. “But few does not mean none— and this poison is brand new on Ishveos, never used before.”

“Hmm,” Inwood said, setting his own cup down, and pulled out one of his sour-smelling twigs, and beginning to chew it. “So you will wait for us to die, and then take care of the evidence? How do you intend to shelter yourself from suspicion?”

“Oh, that is easy enough,” Sakmar said. “I poisoned myself too. If I measured the concentrations right, my physical godgifts should let me just barely survive. Oru should discover us when she realizes that the message was fake, when no one meets her at the appointed time and she returns, and she should be able to restrain her grief long enough to summon aid. There will, of course, be an inquest, one inconclusive enough that other consulting detectives will be summoned.”

“And you’ll kill them too?” Remmick asked, more curiosity present in her voice than resentment.

“Of course not,” Sakmar said.

Inwood abruptly sat upright. “I do believe I’m beginning to feel the effects of your poison, Sakmar. Trembling in the fingers, shortness of breath?”

Sakmar blinked. “That sounds about right, though it’s a little ahead of schedule.”

“It must be my pepperbark habit,” Inwood said, indicating the twig in his mouth. “It’s a stronger stimulant than tea, which can speed some poisons.”

“A likely conjecture,” Sakmar said.

“The other consulting detectives are working with you!” Remmick guessed excitedly. “Even if we managed to leave a note, or any clues, they would clean it up!”

Sakmar smiled delightedly and clapped, finally caught up in the mood of the moment. “Precisely! Though I should remain active long enough to clean up anything obvious before Oru’s arrival.”

“Which leaves no chance of others leaving clues— unwanted scents, or fallen hairs,” Inwood said, visibly trembling. “Well planned.”

Sakmar snapped his fingers and pointed at Inwood in approval. “Oh, and I will, of course, take good care of Oru in her grief, let her aid in the hunt for your killers.”

“Much appreciated,” Inwood said. “I cannot imagine how she would take care of herself in her grief, otherwise. She craves purpose almost as much as we crave mystery and excitement.”

“So this is a purge of the ranks of consulting detectives, based on philosophy?” Remmick asked, getting them back on topic.

“Oh, on the money again!” Sakmar exclaimed. “We’ve already developed a false criminal, a mad genius hunting consulting detectives.”

“Marvelous,” Inwood said, his voice unsteady. “Our brethren will be unable to resist attempting to match wits with such a figure. You’ve created the perfect honeypot for consulting detectives.”

“We’ve spent years perfecting Mynsoudep’s backstory— an entire edifice of red herrings and dead end trails,” Sakmar said.

“Mynsoudep? An anagram of Pseudonym?” Remmick asked. “Our compatriots will be infuriated and intrigued by such obvious mockery, far more than by any less obvious name.”

“Marvelous,” whispered Inwood, before the twig fell out of his mouth. He slumped a bit in his chair, but his stiff canvas coat helped keep him from falling out.

“I believe I’ve begun to feel the symptoms as well,” Remmick said, holding up a shaking hand. “Would you like me to stand or sit anywhere in particular?”

“No, no, anywhere you please will be fine,” Sakmar said. “I must say, you’re being an awfully good sport about this.”

“But of course!” Remmick said cheerfully. “I cannot thing of a more fitting death for a consulting detective, to become a mystery wrapped in a mystery myself! And I cannot help but admire the craftsmanship of your plan.”

“It is not mine alone,” Sakmar said. “I must share the credit with my co-conspirators.”

“No false humility, now,” Remmick said. “You have the most difficult and dangerous job, after all.”

“I suppose so,” Sakmar acknowledged, “though righteous fury can act as a quite addictive replacement for courage.”

Remmick laughed. “Oh, I well know. If I had more time, I have a great story about righteous fury— one with a heist, a triple murder, and an impossibly precise arson.”

“I find myself genuinely pitying the fact that I shall not hear it from your lips,” Sakmar said.

“Yes, well… here’s to a mystery well-crafted,” Remmick said, lifting her trembling cup.

“To a mystery well crafted!” Sakmar agreed.

The two detectives smiled, then drank deep of their poisoned cups.