“So you’ve brought us here just to shut us up?” said Jackaby. “You know very well you can’t make this go away by not believing in it.”
Marlowe stared at the corpse on the carpet for several seconds. “Yeah, I know,” he grunted. “I didn’t believe in redcaps or werewolves a month ago—but apparently they didn’t much care what I believed. I think it’s fair to say I’m a little more open to the existence of monsters today.”
“Charlie isn’t a werewolf,” I said defensively. “And he’s not a monster.” Charlie Cane was the junior police officer — the only police officer—willing to listen to us during our last case. He was paranormal, it was true—possessed of the ability to assume the form of a great hound—but he was still every bit a gentleman. Charlie had sacrificed his greatest secret to protect the city—to protect me—and yet he had been rewarded for his courage with exile into the countryside.
“You’re right about that. He’s a sharp officer who knows the value of discretion, which is one of the reasons he kept this strictly confidential.” Marlowe pulled a slim envelope from his pocket. It bore Charlie’s pseudonym, C. Barker, and I recognized his handwriting at once. I reached for the envelope, but Marlowe withdrew it. “Strictly confidential.”
“Understood, sir,” I assured him. “Not a word outside this room.” Jackaby nodded, and Marlowe relinquished the secret report.
“ ‘Madeleine Brisbee’ . . . ,” Jackaby read over my shoulder. “Why is that name familiar?”
“My word! She’s the woman from the article,” I said. “The one who passed away out by the excavation site! But, they said foul play was not suspected. She was ill . . .”
“Don’t believe everything you read in the papers. She was found on the rocks—banged up from a short fall. No broken bones, though, no blood, nothing that should’ve been fatal. Local doc called it overexertion. Local cop disagreed.”
“I take it the local cop was Charlie?” I said.
“Cigar for the lady,” Marlowe said flatly. “Our boy hasn’t lost his edge just because he’s living outside the city limits. He kept his suspicions quiet—but he made a sketch to include in his report. It’s there on the second page.”
Flipping to the next paper, I found a rough pencil sketch of a woman’s head and neck, complete with a shaded oval just beneath her jawline, one dark spot inscribed within it.
“Commander Bell told him it was nothing, just an indentation from the rocks, but Charlie wasn’t convinced. The sketch arrived in yesterday’s post, so you can imagine my surprise when my men brought in an identical report about Mrs. Beaumont this morning.”
I folded the paper and returned it to the commissioner. “People are dying in my city, and I’ve got nothing but children’s stories to tell their families,” Marlowe said. “I need to know exactly what we’re dealing with. I’ve got my men on alert here in New Fiddleham, but even if he had the manpower, Commander Bell has no idea how to handle something like this, and I’m not even sure he would believe us if we involved him.”
“Yes. Nothing more frustrating than a bullheaded lawman.” Jackaby raised his eyebrows meaningfully at Marlowe, but the commissioner ignored him.
“Charlie is lucky enough the press didn’t recognize him the first time they came to the valley. He’s already put his neck out farther than he should. What we need is a thorough, discreet report from somebody accustomed to working outside the usual parameters of the law.”