The Ninth of Ophus, an Unknown Time past the 25th Hour
Perhaps he is right to think so. Perhaps that may be used against him.
“What I do not know, what I cannot know yet, is if this business of your father-in-law’s is merely a means to a monetary end, or the means to something else. Lucrative, yes, but without knowing motives, we are obliged to remain in the dark.” The Sergeant seems ill at ease with these lines of thought. Ill at ease with such expenditures of thought. It is not for want of wit. The man has that, it is clear. No, it is for want of practice and of temperament. The Sergeant is a huntsman, not a spider, content to sit in its web and trap its prey by slow degrees of careful planning. When the time comes, the man will be an invaluable weapon. Driven, intelligent, tenacious. For the present, he burns too fast and too bright. A waste of heat and light.
“Occurrence reports,” he says at last. “It would look strange were I to request them for the times and dates in question. I have no proper remit to go on a stroll through the Seventen archives.” He has no remit to do even this much. What official powers he now has are fragile things, bits of scattered paper all bound together with vermillion tape. The committee is well enough a cover, but it can only last so long. Something more permanent must be arranged. He looks the Sergeant up and down, takes his measure once again. Give me something, it is the thought that fills his mind, give me something I can bring to the Perpetual Permanent Secretary, a pretext that can be used as leverage. There are powers that might come his way, powers he can put to useful ends. Special Council, Inspector General, half a dozen others. He nearly laughs at the notion. Too much public notoriety. He would be too much in the light. No, something less well understood is required, powers yes, but anonymous.
“The reports can be cross-referenced, dissected, matched up with news reports and official minutes. Something was allowed to slip us by while we were consumed in our rage and our grief at Dorhaven.” For some, they consume us still. “If I can but get my hands upon them, perhaps I might see what we were meant to neglect.” Again the jagged and predatory smile crosses his lips. It is here, among papers and potential papers, that his own weapons lie. How sweet it will be to make use of them at last.
“I have thoughts, Sergeant, but I am reasoning without data. That is a dangerous place to be.” More the shape of thoughts, ghosts and suppositions. The aggregation of raw power seems most likely, but the delay, the incomplete nature of it still confounds.
The Sergeant too is confounded. Good. A confounded policeman will tend toward overwork and long hours of unraveling. Well, any policeman worthy of the title. Most Seventen are unworthy thugs; useless, base things. All muscle and arcane might without any sense of decorum, civic virtue, or proportion. He knows too many of the lower races he would trust as watchmen and officers of the peace before any Seventen chosen at random.
Such a profession is suited to the lower races. It is hard work, dreary, physical, and dangerous. Let them take the role, it will give them dignity, it will give them purpose, utility, and perhaps restore a little dignity to the galdori in kind. They are a squandered resource, and for such neglect, they offer chaos and revolution.
The Sergeant, it seems, is of a similar mind.
“I agree with you entirely, Sergeant. This Resistance, these revolutionaries, are the symptoms of a failing system. A system allowed to run too long and without care or maintenance. A system run by its ends and not by its means. It is a fooling thing, but then the world is full of fools.” Bloody-minded and grasping fools. “Still, their existence is a useful pretext for further foolishness and folly. We made them, Sergeant, and now, it seems, they make us. It cannot be tolerated. It is unsound. The cycle must be broken.” If it is not, then it will end in blood and chaos. Fool. Blood and chaos are here already.
At the mention of his wife, of her associates, the Sergeant withdraws, protective and still a little aghast. “Your wife, Sergeant, she may be a key to the unraveling of at least part of this matter. She knows her father, and I trust she bears him no great love.” That is to be hoped. Still, the ties of blood are strong. They can be perverse. “She has knowledge, even if she does not know it. Her father’s movements, his friends and companions, his virtues and his vices.” Another cold smile. “Well, his vices at least. I cannot pretend to understand the matrimonial bond, but it is clear to me you are fond of your wife. That is proper. Use that, Sergeant, let her help you defend her better. And what she may reveal may defend us all.”
Somehow, some way, he must speak to the Sergeant’s wife. A social interrogation. It will require care. It will require knowing the Sergeant better. From the man, he can learn a little of the wife. Or so it is said.
“Further meetings will indeed be likely. And your preference for circumspection is admirable.” A meeting place, and one where there will be no suspicions, one he at least can trust. There is but one such establishment. “I may be found on almost any day at the Elephant Coffee House on Gadwine Street. Midday, and also in the afternoons and evenings. The proprietress is an old acquaintance of mine.” Were Sebele not human he might properly account her a friend. The gap of status prevents it. Still, he trusts her more than most, and not just on account of her excellent coffee. “Sebele is very discreet. Messages left in her care will find their way to me without issue. I trust you have no issue with using a human intermediary?”