Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders(American Gods #1.1)(9)

He knelt and inspected the body, examining the cuts and gashes. Then he pulled out his magnifying glass, and walked over to the wall, examining the gouts of drying ichor.

“We’ve already done that,” said Inspector Lestrade.

“Indeed?” said my friend. “What did you make of this, then? I do believe it is a word.”

Lestrade walked to the place my friend was standing, and looked up. There was a word, written in capitals, in green blood, on the faded yellow wallpaper, some little way above Lestrade’s head. “R-A-C-H-E…?” said Lestrade, spelling it out. “Obviously he was going to write ‘Rachel,’ but he was interrupted. So—we must look for a woman….”

My friend said nothing. He walked back to the corpse and picked up its hands, one after the other. The fingertips were clean of ichor. “I think we have established that the word was not written by His Royal Highness—”

“What the Devil makes you say—?”

“My dear Lestrade. Please give me some credit for having a brain. The corpse is obviously not that of a man—the color of his blood, the number of limbs, the eyes, the position of the face, all these things bespeak the blood royal. While I cannot say which royal line, I would hazard that he is an heir, perhaps…no, second in line to the throne…in one of the German principalities.”

“That is amazing.” Lestrade hesitated, then he said, “This is Prince Franz Drago of Bohemia. He was here in Albion as a guest of Her Majesty Victoria. Here for a holiday and a change of air….”

“For the theaters, the whores, and the gaming tables, you mean.”

“If you say so.” Lestrade looked put out. “Anyway, you’ve given us a fine lead with this Rachel woman. Although I don’t doubt we would have found her on our own.”

“Doubtless,” said my friend.

He inspected the room further, commenting acidly several times that the police, with their boots, had obscured footprints and moved things that might have been of use to anyone attempting to reconstruct the events of the previous night.

Still, he seemed interested in a small patch of mud he found behind the door.

Beside the fireplace he found what appeared to be some ash or dirt.

“Did you see this?” he asked Lestrade.

“Her Majesty’s police,” replied Lestrade, “tend not to be excited by ash in a fireplace. It’s where ash tends to be found.” And he chuckled at that.

My friend took a pinch of the ash and rubbed it between his fingers, then sniffed the remains. Finally, he scooped up what was left of the material and tipped it into a glass vial, which he stoppered and placed in an inner pocket of his coat.

He stood up. “And the body?”

Lestrade said, “The palace will send their own people.”

My friend nodded at me, and together we walked to the door. My friend sighed. “Inspector. Your quest for Miss Rachel may prove fruitless. Among other things, Rache is a German word. It means “revenge.” Check your dictionary. There are other meanings.”

We reached the bottom of the stair and walked out onto the street. “You have never seen royalty before this morning, have you?” he asked. I shook my head. “Well, the sight can be unnerving, if you’re unprepared. Why my good fellow—you are trembling!”

“Forgive me. I shall be fine in moments.”

“Would it do you good to walk?” he asked, and I assented, certain that if I did not walk then I would begin to scream.

“West, then,” said my friend, pointing to the dark tower of the palace. And we commenced to walk.

“So,” said my friend, after some time. “You have never had any personal encounters with any of the crowned heads of Europe?”

“No,” I said.

“I believe I can confidently state that you shall,” he told me. “And not with a corpse this time. Very soon.”

“My dear fellow, whatever makes you believe—?”

In reply he pointed to a carriage, black-painted, that had pulled up fifty yards ahead of us. A man in a black top hat and a greatcoat stood by the door, holding it open, waiting, silently. A coat of arms familiar to every child in Albion was painted in gold upon the carriage door.

“There are invitations one does not refuse,” said my friend. He doffed his own hat to the footman, and I do believe that he was smiling as he climbed into the boxlike space and relaxed back into the soft, leathery cushions.

When I attempted to speak with him during the journey to the palace, he placed his finger over his lips. Then he closed his eyes and seemed sunk deep in thought. I, for my part, tried to remember what I knew of German royalty, but, apart from the Queen’s consort, Prince Albert, being German, I knew little enough.

I put a hand in my pocket, pulled out a handful of coins—brown and silver, black and copper-green. I stared at the portrait stamped on each of them of our Queen, and felt both patriotic pride and stark dread. I told myself I had once been a military man and a stranger to fear, and I could remember when this had been the plain truth. For a moment I remembered a time when I had been a crack-shot—even, I liked to think, something of a marksman—but my right hand shook as if it were palsied, and the coins jingled and chinked, and I felt only regret.

3. The Palace