Detective Strongoak and the Case of the Dead Elf. Terry Newman

about me. I’m always left foot forward when I dance.’

      She laughed down the horn. ‘I meant keep him on the boil, as it were. And no, I don’t think I’ve got the wrong idea about you at all, Master Strongoak.’

      ‘Fine – sounds interesting then. What did you have in mind?’

      ‘A friend of mine has two tickets for a big Charity Ball; all the White and Wise will be there. Unfortunately my friend has been taken ill and I wondered how you would feel about accompanying me tonight. I have it on good authority that a certain other party will be there.’

      ‘And me without a thing to wear.’

      ‘I am sure you will think of something, Master Strongoak. You strike me as pretty resourceful.’ She rang off before I had a chance to ask how she had found my home number. I am not listed in the books and I do not print it on my business cards. Interesting.

      I finished my coffee and went to the closet to see what outfit I could get ruined today. I chose a suit in tan buck leather, so light you wouldn’t raise a sweat at a troll’s barbecue, but suitably restrained for a visit to Citadel Central Archive.

      The Citadel Central Archive entrance is on the Second Level, but the vaults themselves, dark labyrinths, delve deep into the mountainside. When I first came to the Citadel I would visit the archive if I felt homesick. Leaning on the revolving door, I entered and passed through the entrance hall into what has become known as the Widergard Gallery. This large round room is the hub from which the various tunnels that contain the Citadel records radiate. The Widergard Gallery – now only containing the information stall – still has on its walls the famous friezes. The whole history of Widergard carved in stone. Or rather the official history, with dwarfs featuring far too infrequently for my liking and the pix never getting a look-in. I do not blame the mason, though, as it is expertly hewn. You’ve got to love rock!

      Unlike many of the Citadel buildings, the lighting here is excellent. Sconces line the tunnels and downlights mark the intersections. The whole effect is subdued, but studious. I am sure they must have had dwarf help. I found a tome on famous gems. I looked up the Hardwood Emerald and was surprised at the paucity of the entry. The ring was very old, that much was certain; made by men in some time lost in antiquity, when all such rings were said to be ‘magic’. The story went that it was given to the Ancestral Hardwood at the time of the Old Wars, for some forgotten act of valour. Strangely, there was not a single picture, so I went searching for the stacks concerned with the Great Citadel Families.

      The entries chronicling the Hardwoods and the current Alderman Hardwood were not that much more extensive than those concerning the emerald of that name. Much was alluded to but little documented. I was surprised at his range of interests, and not just in the business world – not simply a financial wizard, it appeared. More fingers in more pies than a blind man in a bakehouse.

      I carried on searching and found an interesting article in a low-circulation, once well-respected, but now defunct periodical called The Green Book. The scribe, one Renfield Crew, implied that Hardwood was the backer of more than one slightly suspect political figure, with ideas not exactly contrary to the interests of big business. No big surprise there, but these politicos were also often a few gods short of the full wolf pack. Some of their views made the Great Despot of Dangenheim look like an expert in man management.

      Interestingly, The Green Book had ceased printing the month after this article was written. Coincidence, or something else?

      I scribbled the scribe’s name down and kept searching.

      There were no recent pictures of Mr Hardwood; he had made privacy into an art form. The one picture I could find, taken many, many years ago, showed a young man in sporting attire who obviously could not wait for middle age. From his youth Hardwood looked like he was longing for the air of wisdom and sagacity that only advancing years can give. The long Hardwood face was crying out for the first whiskers of a beard and the hairline was already waving its goodbyes. Even his knees looked uncomfortable without the comfort of a cover of good tailoring. How he had ended up with a woman as incendiary as his current wife was anybody’s guess.