A quick trip to Sunhampton library didn’t bear much fruit. Chester Hugill said they didn’t really have any books about keys. That was the kind of specialist subject book that someone like Percy Tattersall might stock in his store. The library, given it ran on yearly funds and donations, had to be choosy in the kinds of books they ordered, and thus went for popular ones.

  “Romances, adventures, that kind of thing,” Chester told him. “The State decides how much gold they send our way by our borrowing figures. And people round here don’t want to read about keys.”

  So, Mick headed all the way back across town, to Tattersall’s Books. Percy Tattersall had run his little shop on the corner of Coiner’s Way for decades. He was especially proud of his window displays. Very creative, he was, when he set his mind to it. He and Paisley Porter had a little window display competition going on, in fact. Today, Percy’s display was farm themed. There was a model plow with books balanced on it, as well as a little pumpkin patch with tomes hidden here and there. Stuck on the far left of the glass was a sticker boasting about the ‘Tattersall Three Day guarantee’.

  Inside, Mick waited patiently while Percy served Martha Peters. Martha was getting into blacksmithing as a hobby, and she wanted something that’d help her start out.

  “Ah, how are you today, Mr. Mulroon?” said Percy, when it was his turn. He was always so formal, Percy. Some folks called it stiff, others said it was a sign of good upbringing. To Mick, upbringing showed in a person’s character, not in what fancy words they used.

  “Good, thanks. How are you doin’?” he said.

  “I can’t complain,” Percy said, before launching into a succession of observations that proved his initial statement false. The weather, import taxes, everything he could think of. “…and that’s why I think we shouldn’t pay taxes. Anyhow, what can I do for you?”

  Mick took the black key out of his pocket. “Need a book on keys.”

  “What about them?”

  “I think the making of them. If I can figure out how this particular kind of key is made, if some kind of special technique is used that you can’t find everywhere…”

  “I can check my catalogue and place an order,” said Percy. “Give it a few weeks, and-”

  “Weeks? What happened to the Tattersall Three Day Guarantee?”

  “Ah. Yes, well. Supply issues.”

  “Nothing you can do to speed it up?”

  Percy shook his head. “Not unless they put me in charge of Holson’s Distributors so I can get things running ship-shape. Sorry.”

  Leaving the store, Mick initially felt disappointed. But then he got to thinking that he was looking for a zebra, when the sound of hooves normally meant horses. Someone local had no doubt left this riddle for him, so the key was probably made locally, too. Stood to reason. And who worked with metal here in Sunhampton?

  This line of enquiry took him to Cooper and Cooper - Artificers of Renown. Lewis was in the back workshop, as usual. Mick could hear him singing, ‘The Goblin Wants a Wife’.

  His new store assistant, Casey-Louise, was behind the sales counter. Spread on the counter were a few books. She was always studying, this lady. Mick respected that in a person. Glancing at the book nearest her, he caught sight of a diagram of a lute. It was a cross section of the musical instrument, showing how its various parts fit together.

  “Morning, Mr. Mulroon,” she said, smiling brightly as always.

  “I’ve told you a hundred times; Mr. Mulroon was my father,” he said.

  “Right. Sorry! Lewis hates when I do that. What can I do for you?”

  “Lewis around?”

  Casey called out, “Mr. Cooper! Lewis, I mean! Mick’s here to see you.”

  Lewis was a while in coming. Odds were he’d probably forgotten Casey had even called for him. All crafters were like that, but Lewis and Jack Cooper even more so. Nice fellas, but their minds were always drifting to their projects.

  To pass the time, Casey reached for a lute she kept under the sales counter. Slinging a strap around her neck, she gave it a strum, messed with the tuning pegs, then strummed it again until the strings spoke true.

  She plucked a few exploratory notes, then nodded to herself in appreciation. Turning them into a rhythm, she studied Mick and began to sing.

  “Oh, Mick Mulroon, he’s the town’s head guard. When crime comes calling, he…” She stopped playing abruptly, and muttered, “No, not head guard. Can’t rhyme it.”

  It wasn’t the first time she’d played for him. When Casey-Louise eventually went to bard college to earn her tokens, part of the way she earned experience would be by making up songs, and by improving her skills. Almost everyone in Sunhampton had had an impromptu song made up about them by now.

  “Oh, hey, Mick,” said Lewis, walking into the store front, while wiping black grease off his hands using a handcloth.

  The lad had grown over the last few years, no doubt about that. Mick still remembered the first time he’d seen Lewis. It was a Sunday, not too long after Lewis had arrived in town. He could picture the scene now; standing guard at the town gates, watching Lewis drag his sorry cart filled with screwdrivers and hammers to the market. He’d been a scrawny kid, back then, and his tools looked like they’d probably break after a couple of uses. Nowadays, you could place an order with him and know that whatever he made, it’d last.

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  Mick showed him the key. “Don’t suppose this is your handiwork?”

  “Anyone could have made a key like that. Doesn’t take much. The Simple Craft and Forge skill would do it.”

  Now, Mick knew something about Lewis. The lad had a tough time lying. Whenever he tried, he got this look on his face that amounted to him wearing a sign confessing he’d just told an untruth. That was why you could generally trust whatever he said, and it was why he was earning a reputation around town as a fine crafter.

  But he was a clever kid. You always had to remember that. Seemed to Mick, that rather than outright answer his question with a lie, Lewis had told a truth, while skirting around it. Because yes, anyone could have made a key like that. But they didn’t, and moreover, that didn’t answer Mick’s query.

  “I’m thinking that whoever placed this order with you,” said Mick, “Told you it was a surprise. Stop me if I’m missing the wood for the trees.”

  “There might be such a thing as artificer-client confidentiality”, answered Lewis.

  “Is there?”

  “A good crafter doesn’t talk about his customers’ projects.”

  “Come on, Lewis. We’re both busy people. Who asked you to make the key?”

  “Can’t say.”

  Mick eyed Casey-Louise, wondering if maybe he ought to focus on her. But no, she’d just back up her employer. He considered if perhaps he could seize Lewis’s sales ledger and see who placed orders here recently. As the town guard, he had that right. Only, there was no crime here, and it’d amount to a misuse of power.

  Always know when to stop flogging a dead horse, Granny Wells had told him once, amongst many of her sayings. Mick had never seen her flog one, but he wouldn’t put it past her. Still, the advice was sound.

  “I better be going. I’ll be seeing you later,” he said.

  “Later, Mick,” replied Lewis.

  He didn’t go far. Paisley Porter’s store was right next door. Her window display this week was a perfect arrangement of locally-made jars, vases, candles, and gloves and scarves, amongst other things. It drew the eye here, drew the eye there, and Mick felt an almost irresistible urge to take out his coin pouch. That was one of the abilities in Ms. Porter’s merchant class, he knew. Percy Tattersall had no chance in winning their display window war.

  When he opened the door, he found the proprietor herself sitting there behind the counter. Unlike Lewis Cooper, Paisley loved greeting customers and trying to sell them things. To her, it was a kind of sport. A hunt, perhaps, much in the same way that Lee Hunter enjoyed tracking things and then claiming a trophy.

  “Ah, if it isn’t Mick Mulroon,” she said. “You’re looking dashing today. But do you know what’d really complete your look? Take a look at these coats I just got in. They’re right there. Exquisite tailoring. Made here in Sunhampton. Ought to warn you, though. They’re selling like sweet rolls. If you umm and ahh about this, you’ll be disappointed, because I can’t hold one back for you. Not fair on everyone else. If you’re getting one, it has to be now.”

  The coats were handsome. No denying that. Long, navy blue. Lots of pockets, big collars. They looked like the kind of thing a sleuth might wear, in fact. Only…two hundred gold? Saints alive, he wasn’t going to pay that for a coat.

  “Been meaning to talk to you about something,” he said. “Remember the fella I collared who was shoplifting your scarves?”

  Paisley gave a look so dark it would have made a rampaging demon run for safety. “He’s lucky it wasn’t me who caught him.”

  “Well, you said you owe me one. There’s this tavern, the Salted Cod. Lady there could use a bit of help with some merchant stuff. It’s a nice place, but she’s struggling to get customers.”

  “Lots of businesses struggle,” said Paisley. “I can’t help them all.”

  “This is a family-run kind of place. Been there decades.”

  “Where is it?”

  Mick told her. Paisley wasn’t happy.

  She said, “Going all the way there, spending time reviewing her business, then traveling home. That’s a full day’s work! I know I said I owe you one, but this isn’t one, it’s…two.”

  “You just got the journeyman merchant ranking didn’t you?” he said. “Don’t you need to start teaching stuff now if you want to level up quicker?”

  “Don’t need to, but it helps. Fine. I can’t promise when, so don’t you go promising for me, okay? But I’ll go visit when I have time, and when business takes me over that way. Uncle Jace will mind the store, probably.”

  “Good. Now, I have something I wanted to ask you.”

  “There’s more? Again, I said I owe you one. This isn’t one, Mick. It’s not even two. It’s three! I ought to have just let the guy take my scarves, it would have cost me less.”

  “This is just me wondering about something, that’s all. You noticed anything strange about Lewis Cooper?” he said.

  “Apart from the usual?”

  “Anyone visiting his store who doesn’t normally go there, perhaps.”

  “Don’t tell me Lewis is getting stolen from, too?” said Paisley. “Now I’m really angry.”

  According to a book he’d read – Starter Sleuthing by P. J. Blackmore – everyone had a different lever you need to pull to get them talking. Usually, it was whatever lever stirred up some kind of emotion in them, because emotional people let their guards down. Seemed that the idea of her friend getting stolen from was one of Paisley Porter’s levers.

  Then again, there was no suggestion Lewis’s store was being stolen from. And as a sleuth, it wasn’t quite on the moral high side to outright lie. Maybe he could use a leaf from Lewis’s book, though.

  “I’d hate to see a shoplifter hit Coiner’s Way again. So anything you can tell me…”

  Paisley thought about it. “Well, I haven’t seen anyone particularly dodgy. Mr. Leabrook visited his store a couple of days ago, which was strange. He doesn’t like artificery. Doesn’t like anything, in fact. Do you know what he said about the candles I was displaying last week? Said they were too waxy, whatever that means. But maybe he was there to complain about something.”

  Mr. Leabrook, as the manager of Coiner’s Way, loved nothing more than to find some kind of rule or regulation the business owners on the Way were breaking. Mick knew this too well, because many a time Mr. Leabrook had asked him to find them. He didn’t, of course. He upheld the law in town, but didn’t much care for rules otherwise.

  This love of Mr. Leabrook’s for picking at stuff, well, Mick didn’t know where it came from. He hadn’t always been like that. When Mick was a kid, he remembered walking past the tavern after picking up groceries for Ma and Pa, and seeing Mr. Leabrook sitting outside with his friends, laughing and drinking beer. These days, Mr. Leabrook was just as likely to serve the tavern a warning for people enjoying themselves too loudly outside it, than to go enjoy a beer there himself.

  Still, the clues were falling into place, nice and tidy. One: the key was left at Douggie’s supply shed. Not many people would go there other than Douggie, Mick, and Mr. Leabrook. Two, the handwriting was vaguely familiar. He had seen Mr. Leabrook write so many letters of complaint that he could have forged his penmanship himself, if he wanted. Three, Mr. Leabrook had been to Lewis’ Cooper’s store recently. He could easily have gotten Lewis to make a key for him.

  “I better go. Thanks, Paisley.”

  “Wait a second. Try on a coat, Mr. Mulroon.”

  “Sorry, kiddo. My gold pouch can’t take the strain at the minute.”