A Death in the Study - Krimi + Brief fürs Team

[failte-aoife.livejournal.com]

Titel: A Death in the Study

Team: Mond

Genre/Challenge: Krimi + Brief

Fandom: Julian Lynes and Ned Mathey*

Zusammenfassung: Hatton hat eine  neuen Fall für Ned

Wörter: ~900

Rating: PG 12

Charaktere: Ned Mathey, Julian Lynes, Inspector Hatton

Anmerkungen: Ich entschuldige mich bei R. Austen Freeman, von dessen Geschichte The Aluminium Dagger ich geklaut habe. Ein bisschen. Nicht das man davon in diesem Teil schon viel merkt.

Und ja ich brauche einen neuen tag

Ned had tried “Show me your past”, “Reveal your secrets”, “Tell what was done” and any other combination of the words he could think of. Some of those in a grammar that would have make his Oxford lecturers cringe. Nothing happened. Eventually, he gave up.

“The lock hasn’t been tampered with. And neither has the door as a whole.”

Hatton paused for a moment.

“Hasn’t? Or could it just be well-hidden?”

Ned had already considered this question. “If somebody is that good at hiding his magical traces, one dead body would be the least of our worries.”

Hatton’s stare suggested that he would have preferred a simple yes or no as answer. Ned sighed.

“I can never completely exclude the possibility but magic leaves traces. Even if I couldn’t tell you exactly how that spell worked, I should still be able to detect some traces. But this door shows no traces of magic at all and I never heard of anybody who could hide magic so completely.”

“So, this door was locked from the inside by hand. Very likely the hand of the man who lies dead on the floor inside?”

Before Ned could answer, Julian appeared. His disheveled look suggested that he had still been asleep when he had received Hatton’s summons. The inspector noticed that as well and threw him a judgemental glance but didn’t say anything.

“So somebody is dead?” Julian enquired.

Hatton motioned him inside where the body still lay on the floor.

“The valet found him like this in the morning after he had realised that his bed hadn’t been slept in. The door was locked from the inside and…well.” He motioned around the room. It was fairly small. One bookcase on the wall opposite the door it covered one half of it, the other half was empty, without even a picture. A writing desk stood on the other side of the room and opposite it a window. The body lay on its back, a dagger in his chest.

Julian knelt down to have a closer look. When he saw the dagger he made a surprised noise and murmured something incomprehensible.

“What?” asked Hatton who had just wanted to resume his narration.

“The writing on the hilt.”

“Yes. We saw that as well,” Hatton murmured sourly, “It’s Russian or something like that. But we haven’t found anybody who…”

“Revenge.” Julian stopped him. “Mshhenije means revenge.”

“You speak Russian?” There were more pressing matters at the moment but Julian’s wealth of hidden talents never failed to surprise Ned.

“A bit.”

“And we found this.” Hatton again. He handed Julian a letter. Ned had already read it and knew what it said. For thing you did you pay. Not belive I forget. You past is not forgot. It come haunt you. We find you and you regret.

“Well, whoever wrote this probably wasn’t Russian. Or foreign at all.”

“What makes you say that?”

“I have a Russian…” Julian paused, “Acquaintance. He doesn’t sound at all like this.”

If Ned had to bet he would assume that ‘acquaintance’ meant Julian had slept with him or had had shady dealings with him. Most likely both.

Hatton huffed. “That just means you acquaintance hasn’t written this letter, doesn’t it?”

Julian very obviously suppressed a sigh but either the inspector didn’t notice or he didn’t care. “This letter sounds like something out of a penny dreadful. One written by someone who has never met a person who didn’t grow up speaking English. It makes a difference what the person’s mother tongue is. A German who speaks English will make different mistakes than a Frenchman. Or a Russian. This sounds like none of them. We are supposed to believe that the person who wrote this doesn’t know the difference between you and your but knows regret and haunt.”

It made sense but Hatton didn’t look fully convinced, yet. But Julian wasn’t finished. “Besides I’ve had some experience with…threatening letters. They rarely spell out what exactly the writer wants revenge for but I’ve never seen one that was that vague. No name, no place or year. Nothing that would give the recipient a clue what the writer is talking about.”

The common sense explanation seemed to convince Hatton more than the linguistic one. “So that dagger is just a red herring?”

Julian shrugged. “Everybody can go and get whatever they want engraved on a dagger. In whatever language they want.”

The inspector sighed. “Well, it would have been too good if we’d had one clue in this whole mess. We still don’t even know how they got in…or more importantly out.”

Julian’s glance went to the window. It was closed. The room was on the fourth floor and nothing in sight that would have helped anybody climb up. Ned still tried the same spells he had tried on the door. Nothing.

“The window wasn’t tampered with, either.”

“That’s impossible,” protested Hatton.

“So,” Julian summed up, “a man was stabbed in a locked room and no magic was used to lock the door or the window afterwards.” He looked around the room. “Nobody could have hidden anywhere in here and slipped out once the door was opened.”

“Unless he was invisible. The valet called for a footman to call for the police and stayed here.” He looked at Ned again. “Could he…?”

“Invisibility isn’t impossible. But he would have needed to start casting the spell just after the valet discovered the locked door and finish it before it was opened since the spell would only last for a few minutes. And we should have found some leftover materials here since it’s impossible without.”

Hatton sighed. “But if no magic was involved in all this, I am the new metaphysical consultant of the Yard. And you better figure out how it was done Mathey.”

Ned sighed. “I assumed as much.”

tbc

Comments

[der_jemand]

If Ned had to bet he would assume that ‘acquaintance’ meant Julian had slept with him or had had shady dealings with him. Most likely both.
Oh ja, ich sollte das dringend lesen. :)


Überhaupt ist diese Fic sehr überzeugende Werbung, ich mag wie du neben eins-a-KrimiExposition ihnen allen drei ihre eigene Stimme gegeben hast und... entschuldige mich, ich muss zum nächsten Teil, locked-room-mysteries machen mich fertig. =D

[failte-aoife.livejournal.com]

*g* (nicht das Ned unbedingt auf einem hohen Roß sitzt was solche Beschwerden angeht :P)

Awwwwww danke <3 Jetzt bin ich gleich viel motivierter weiter zu schreiben. Sobald ich rausgefunden habe in welchen Prompt ich das verpacke XD