Book 04 - Old Tin Sorrows by Glen Cook Page A

all belongs.”
    “Don’t seem worth the trouble. Unless you could find out about something that could be traced.” Little on the list fit that description. The thief had shown restraint.
    Even so, he’d gotten enough so the bottom line made my eyes bug. “Twenty-two thousand marks?”
    “Based on my best guess at the intrinsic value of metal and gems. I assume there’d be a big knockdown at a fence.”
    “There would be, partly offset by artistic value. A lot of this don’t look like the junk that gets melted down.”
    “Maybe.”
    “Are we committed to finding the thief?” I was, that being the commission I’d accepted from the General. I was fishing for Black Pete’s feelings.
    “Yes. The old man may not have long. I don’t want him going off burdened by knowing somebody got away with betraying him.”
    “Right. Then what I’ll do is subcontract a search for the fence. Sometimes it helps to come back at a thief from the other end. Work me up a description of four or five outstanding items and I’ll have somebody try to find them.”
    “You’ll have to pay for that?”
    “Yes. You going to squeeze the General’s coppers?”
    He smiled. “I shouldn’t. But I’m not used to not having to watch every one. Anything you need?”
    “I need to know more about the people here.” I looked at my list. “Counting three guys I haven’t met and not counting my ghost lady, I come up with eleven names. Cook tells me eighteen. Where’re the the other seven?”
    “I told you she has some loose threads. She’s been here since they built the first place—literally—and she never quite knows what year it is. When we first came here from the Cantard there were eighteen people, counting her and Jennifer. More before the old man finished dismissing the old staff. Now eleven is right.”
    “Where did the others go?”
    “Sam and Tark just up and died on us. Wollack got on the wrong end of a bull when we were breeding cows and got himself gored and trampled. The others just drifted away. They got fed up, I guess, hung around less and less, then just didn’t come back.”
    I leaned forward, got a fresh sheet of paper, divided five million by two and gave two and a half mil to Jennifer, then divided two and a half by sixteen and came up with a hundred fifty-six thousand marks and change.
    Not bad. And I never knew anybody who would walk on a hundred fifty thousand, gold or silver.
    I did some more math. Nine into two and a half million came out two hundred seventy-seven thousand and change. Damned near double your money.
    Was there something else going on here?
    I didn’t mention it. It was something to keep in mind, though.
    “You onto something?” Peters asked.
    “I doubt it.”
    Time for some footwork. “Having a little trouble making sense of things. There any way we can find out where those four men are now? Also, I’m going to need to know more about the General’s bequeathal arrangements.”
    He frowned. “Why?”
    “It’s a large estate. You said he used his bequests as a hammer. Maybe he ran those guys off. Maybe one of them might be trying to get even, either by doing the stealing or slipping him poison.”
    “You’ve got me there.” He looked it.
    “Two things, then. A copy of the will. And find out if there was a clash between the General and any of those four.”
    “You don’t really think they’d be sneaking back?”
    I didn’t, no. I thought they were dead. With my confidence in human decency aroused, I was sure somebody was playing a game of last one left—and doing such a damned good job, nobody else was suspicious. But . . . If somebody was, then that somebody was innocent of trying to murder the old man. That somebody would want to keep the General healthy while the field was narrowed. That somebody might even bring in an outside specialist . . . presuming he had a genuine cause for concern.
    “Anyone have a spare key or master key for my room?”
    That caught him from the blind side. “Dellwood. Why?”
    “Somebody picked the lock and got in