Johannes Cabal the Detective by Jonathan L. Howard

excise officials would recognise his sword cane for what it was and would hardly care if they did, Mirkarvia being Mirkarvia. He had found his switchblade tucked unmolested into the corner of his Gladstone and had transferred it to the roll of surgical instruments for safety. It and they would barely raise an eyebrow. A revolver, however, might excite comment. Especially one with the Marechal coat of arms inlaid in the butt. There was no easy way he could explain its presence, so he didn’t even intend to try, and the gun ended up under three feet of filthy waste. Besides, it had only one round in it.
    He roused himself and went to the dispatch desk to check on the details of the flight, and also to make sure that his Mirkarvian accent was as convincing as he believed it to be. He was basing it on Marechal’s own aristocratic drawl, the effect he was reaching for being that of a third son to landed gentry having been dumped into civil service after his elder brothers got the plum jobs.
    The woman there checked his ticket and, despite having dealt with Herr Meissner earlier, had managed to expunge the event from her mind in sufficient detail to accept one supercilious, tall, blond man for another. She also seemed entirely at ease with his accent, which was comforting. “The flight takes two days to reach Senza, sir, where there’s a pleasant evening stopover. You will arrive in Katamenia around noon the following day. I can’t be more accurate than that, I’m afraid; the meteorological bureau reports changeable headwinds.”
    “Senza, you say?” Cabal stirred around in his memory for anything relating to the place. He seemed to recall some ugly border squall a few years ago.
    “It’s quite safe, sir. The state of détente remains secure.”
    Did it? Cabal wondered. He remembered something about export controls between Mirkarvia and its allies in Katamenia. He doubted that some “pleasant evening stopover” was their reason for touching down in Senzan territory. More like a fine-tooth-comb search by the local authorities to make sure no military aid was making it through their territory. As if he cared. Still, it was a handsome bit of serendipity; he didn’t really want to end up in the hands of the Katamenian secret police, who would, no doubt, send him straight back to their cousins in Krenz. In Senza, he could disappear into the shadows, sneak across a neutral border, and be home in time for tea, metaphorically speaking. Splendid, things were finally starting to look up.
    He thanked the woman with civility but without warmth and moved on. A step away, he paused and asked, “Is it permissible for me to join the Hortense ? The lounge bores me, and I would prefer to be settling in.”
    She checked the time and the departures board and nodded pleasantly. Cabal almost forgot himself and smiled but managed to turn it into a frown of self-importance, nodded curtly, and headed for the field apron. The further away he was from the police agents that cluttered the concourse, the happier he would be.
    L ieutenant Hasso was Karstetz’s replacement, and was already demonstrating himself to have the charismatic flair of his predecessor. “So, this Cabal wallah beat you? And now he’s loose? Is that it?”
    “He did not beat me,” grated Marechal in a patently dangerous voice that Hasso blithely failed to detect. The Count Marechal was rubbing feeling back into his recently freed hands, the pieces of bellpull rope that had bound him now lying severed on the floor.
    “You are the finest swordsman in all Mirkarvia, aren’t you?” asked Hasso, trying to get his facts straight.
    “Forget about swordsmanship. Cabal cheated.”
    “Ahhh.”
    Marechal looked at him furiously. “What do you mean, ‘Ahhh’?”
    “Oh. You know.” Hasso shrugged. It was obvious he didn’t. “‘Ahh.’ As in … ‘Oho!’ I should think.”
    “‘Oho’?”
    “I should think.”
    “Yes, you should.” Marechal decided there were