Dark Fire

The two clerks in his outer office were agitated. One was anxiously explaining a case where Marchamount was due to appear that morning to another serjeant. The other clerk was leafing frantically through a pile of papers; he gave a groan and sped across to Marchamount's room, the door of which was open. We followed him in. He glanced up from searching through another pile of papers and gave us a harassed look.

'This room is private. If you're here about one of Serjeant Marchamount's cases, please wait. We have to find the papers for this morning.'

'We're here on Lord Cromwell's orders.' I said. 'To investigate his disappearance. And make a search.' Barak produced his seal. The man looked at it, hesitated, then shook his head in despair. 'The serjeant will be angry, he has private things in here.' The clerk found the paper he was looking for, grasped it and hurried out. Barak shut the door behind him.

'What are we looking for?' he asked.

'I don't know. Anything. We'll search his living quarters after.'

'If he's gone of his own will, he won't have left anything incriminating behind.'

'If he has. Look in those drawers, I'll search the desk.'

It felt strange to be rifling through Marchamount's possessions. A locked drawer roused our hopes but when Barak prised it open we found nothing inside but a genealogical chart. It traced Marchamount's family back two hundred years. Occupations were scribbled under the names; fishmonger, bell-founder, and worst of all 'villein'. Under one name from a hundred years back Marchamount had scrawled 'This man was of Norman descent!'

Barak laughed. 'How he lusted after that title.'

'Ay. He was always a vain man. Come, let's try his living quarters.'

But there was nothing there either, only clothes, more legal papers and some money, which we left. We quizzed the clerks but all they could tell us was that they had come in to work the day before to find Marchamount gone, with no message and a hundred jobs waiting. Defeated, we left and crossed the courtyard to my chambers.

'I'd hoped there would be something,' Barak said.

I shook my head. 'The people involved in this wouldn't leave evidence of Greek Fire in their homes. Even the Gristwoods kept that apparatus out at Lothbury.'

'They kept the formula at home.'

'And look what happened to them. No, everything's hidden away somewhere.'

'But where, if not in a house?'

I stopped dead. 'What about a warehouse?'

'That's possible. But there are dozens along the river bank.'

'There was a warehouse conveyancing among the cases I lost. Near Salt Wharf. It struck me at the time that the transaction was conducted in the name of people who looked like nominees and I wondered who would want to keep ownership of a warehouse secret.'

'But it was Rich who took those cases away from you.'

I paused a moment, then hastened into chambers. Skelly was sharpening a quill into a nib; he squinted up at me.

'John,' I asked. 'Is Master Godfrey in?'

'No, sir.' He shook his head sadly. 'He has another hearing before the committee.'

'Will you do something for me? You know a number of cases have been taken away from me recently – half a dozen or so. Would you make a list for me now? The names, what they were about and the parties.'

'Yes, sir.'

'Wait.' I looked into his red eyes. 'I have wondered, John, if you see as well as you might.' And then I was filled with guilt, for he looked mortally afraid.

'Perhaps not, sir,' he murmured, shifting from foot to foot.

I made my voice cheerful. 'I have an apothecary friend who is experimenting with spectacles. He is looking for subjects. If you would go to him he may be able to help your sight, and as you would be aiding his work there would be no fee.'

I saw hope in his face. 'I'll be glad to see him, sir.'

'Good. I'll arrange it. Now, go and make the list.'

He scurried away.

'Do you think that warehouse could really be where they are storing the Dark Fire and the apparatus?' Barak asked.

'It seems a long shot, I know. But it's a possibility; we have to follow it up.' I looked into his sceptical face. 'Unless you have a better suggestion.'

Barak nodded. 'All right, then.'

'I've never heard of a warehouse bought through a nominee before. It stayed in my mind, it was so unusual. Could that be the explanation? It was the last of my cases to go – just after I took Cromwell's assignment.'

'Anything's worth a try.' Barak had crossed to the open window. 'What's going on out there?' he asked suddenly.

I joined him. A small crowd of people, servants and barristers and clerks, had gathered round one of the students, a stocky young fellow with fair hair. He stood gesticulating wildly in the middle of the crowd, his eyes wide with shock. 'It's murder,' I heard him say.

Exchanging a look, Barak and I hurried outside. We shouldered our way through the crowd and I grasped the young fellow by the arm. 'What's going on?' I asked. 'Who's murdered?'