Murder in Cormyr - Chet Williamson [45]
Lindavar looked at a spot by Fastred's bony feet, just off the dais. There was a square approximately one foot deep by a foot and a half wide that was free of the dark dampness that clung to the rest of the stone floor. "It was there, I expect. I also expect that whoever killed Grodoveth also helped himself to the treasure."
Captain Flim dubiously eyed the small bare space where a box had sat. "That's all the bigger it was? I thought Fastred's treasure was supposed to be more, somehow."
"Perhaps he had it all changed to precious gems," I suggested. "You can hold a king's ransom in the palm of your hand that way. Besides, Fastred doesn't seem to have been the showy type. I mean, look at this place-a chair, a brief message, and possibly a treasure. The soul of efficiency. Makes sense to boil all the gold and silver down to a box of jewels."
"Maybe the gnome took it," Flim said frowning."Took it and hid it before he came and got us. Maybe he even killed Grodoveth and made up his story when he saw us."
"I doubt if there is a gnome in all of Faerыn," said Lindavar, "capable of beheading a chap the size of Grodoveth. And if you had caught him, why wouldn't he have had the jewel box with him?"
While Lindavar was giving Darvik an alibi, I was examining the floor."There's another thing," I said, straightening up. "I believe Darvik when he says he never went any farther than the stairs. The footprints are messed up, since your two soldiers were blundering around in here first, Captain, but there's enough for me to see no prints of shoes the size of Darvik's. He's got a much smaller foot than any of us, you know."
"Can you see the footprints of the killer? The one who stole the treasure?" Captain Flim asked. I think he seemed more concerned about the missing cash than the murder of the king's envoy.
"Lindavar's and my footprints are the only ones here, but there is another… blurred though…" Then I saw a depression in one of the puddles of loamy clay. It was deep, and though it had retained none of the details of the shoe that had trodden in it, not even the size, I thought it might have marked the man's general weight. But the only way to know for sure was to tread in it myself and see how far down my foot went. I sighed and stepped into it.
It went perhaps only half as deep as the previous foot that had stepped into it. "It was a large man," I said.
"Or woman," Lindavar corrected, and I nodded.
"Or woman. And that's about all."
But that wasn't all. As I looked down at the indentation, I glimpsed a bit of white on the floor nearby. Kneeling, I saw that it was a small amount of chalky powder. Some granules were larger than others, though none were greater than one-sixteenth of an inch. I touched my finger to it, tasted it, and spat it out It was neither sugar nor salt but tasted bitter. I swept it onto a piece of paper I had brought for making notes, folded it tightly, and put it back into my pocket.
"Find something?" Lindavar asked.
"Powder. Benelaius might want to examine it."
We searched the floor of the chamber but found nothing else. Back at the bottom of the stairs, Captain Flim turned to Lindavar. "Is there anything else you want to do, or can we bundle up the body?"
Lindavar glanced at me and I shrugged. "I think we've seen enough, Captain," Lindavar said.
"All right then, we'll take it back to Suzail for burial. Shall we take that axe along too?"
"Please, and lock it up as evidence."
The soldiers wrapped Grodoveth's corpse in a thin but strong canvas. I didn't envy their toting that dead weight back through the swamp to the road. As we went up the stairs, I looked curiously at the trapdoor, wondering about the mechanism of it.
When we investigated it, we found it to be quite simple, really. One dug one's hand down through the moss, and there, two inches below, was a latch. You just lifted it, and the door would open. No lock was necessary, for I (and probably Fastred) could not imagine anyone stumbling upon the place, unless he knew precisely where to go.
And that posed another