Alois and Claude Continued: Trancy Murder Arc Part 3

"It's absolutely filthy!" Alois crowed as the pair stood outside a dilapidated funeral parlour, "I love how rotten it looks! What do you think Claude? Uglier than that cow Uncle Arnold calls his wife, right?"

"There is most definitely a sense of despair surrounding the establishment, Highness. Are you quite sure you wish to pursue this particular avenue of inquiry?" The demon asked, displaying little interest in any part of the investigation that encouraged his master. Alois was unbowed.

"I want to know who killed Cantwell and framed me. You said occult and you said here. So we're here. Hoheo Taralna, Rondero Tarel right?" The boy said invoking his dominion over the butler in the most casual of manners. Claude seemed to take it in the same spirit.

"Of course, Highness. Allow me…"

Opening the door led them into what appeared to be a coffin workshop. Cheap pine boxes were stacked ten high in some places, less than four in others, but every corner of the room shared the same lack of light. Alois wrinkled his nose.

"Smells like shit in here."

"It is somewhat pungent here. I do hope the proprietor keeps better care of himself than his workspace."

"No such luck, I'm afraid." A voice said from behind the counter to their front. Alois immediately bounded over to the countertop and peered over the edge. A gray, long-haired man with a scarred face and bent black top hat sat crouched in the dirt. He appeared to be sucking on a bone. The boy was astonished by his level of squalor.

"You're more disgusting than the corpse I found in the woods! Are you the undertaker?"

"I'm a sort of undertaker I suppose." The man said rising up from behind the counter to an impressive height. He turned his head from Alois to Claude and then back again twice in quick succession. "You're not the usual master and servant combination I get in here. Who might you be?"

"I'm Alois Trancy and that's my Claude. We're here about a murder." Alois said hopping up on the countertop. His ribs stung him for it, but excitement helped blunt the pain. Their host offered a manic grin in reply.

"And what's this murder to you, boy?"

"I'm being framed for it. Got anything worth telling?" The boy said leaning back in an effort to peer under the strange undertaker's hat. He was rewarded when the man stooped down to meet him, showcasing unusually bright eyes.

"Depends on who was murdered and what with, doesn't it?"

"Some nobody called Daniel Cantwell. Someone slit his throat after gouging out his eyes and then left him to rot on my estate. We found this at his house." Alois said holding out the dragon pendant for scrutiny. The undertaker's strangely coloured eyes widened to keep pace with his grin.

"A summoning charm? Ooh, very pretty thing it is too. Roman memento is it?"

"What do you know about the demons they summon?" The boy said, yanking the pendant away when fingers were threatening to close around it. He jumped down from the countertop to hear the answer. His body did not like that either, enough to make him grit his teeth in discomfort.

"I'm afraid that information will cost you."

"How much? I'm one of the richest people in England so…"

"Oh, I don't take monetary payment for my knowledge, little one. If you want my lips to part, the toll is to make me laugh."

"That's so stupid! You must be a complete idiot when it comes to finance!"

"Maybe I am, but my toll isn't going to change anytime soon. If you don't know any dirty jokes…"

"Dirty jokes? Is that all you want me to tell you?" Alois said flashing their host a devilish grin. "Let's start with A…"

The blonde had only just finished his list of arse jokes when the undertaker, paralysed on the floor in uncontrollable laughter, thrust up a hand to tell him to stop. Alois was bitterly disappointed at not getting the chance to air his archbishop collection, but supposed he really ought to solve this murder before it became dangerous. The boy glanced over his shoulder at Claude, who had stood motionless by the door throughout his master's recital. There had not even been a flicker of emotion. Maybe the demon had heard them all before. He turned back to their host, now peeling himself off the floor.

"An hour of arse jokes?" The undertaker managed to say breathlessly, "Not even I could manage that. Normally I'd have to go swimming in the sewers to discover as much filth as you just told me." The man wiped away a final tear and nodded. "A deal is a deal, my young friend…"

Only a few moments of exposition from their host told Alois that they had come to the right place for information. The demons in question granted wishes to their summoners. However, they only granted one and it always came at the price of another's life. Once the wish had been granted, the demon returned to the pendant and could not be summoned again by the same person. Since the pendant's eye was open, the demon had been summoned, but had yet to grant its keeper's wish. Alois did not understand this at all.

"So, this idiot is sitting on any wish in the world and hasn't taken it?" Alois said in a mixture of loathing and contempt for what he considered a missed opportunity.

"Perhaps the man it is waiting to grant a wish to is Daniel Cantwell, Highness." Claude suggested from close to his ear. Alois turned to find the demon crouched at his side, examining something he had retrieved from the floor. It appeared to be a finger bone.

"Well if that's the case, where the hell is it? Surely it's not invisible." Alois said before rolling his eyes and offering the Undertaker a sour look, "Is it invisible, Undertaker?" The decrepit shopkeeper grinned and nodded.

"Oh yes. It could've been in the room with you when you took the pendant and you'd have been none the wiser. It is only visible to its master."

"What if its master is dead? Isn't there some sort of clause or something to let it go back into the pendant for another master to summon it?" Alois said having accepted that Claude's theory will likely be the correct one. Undertaker seemed to take pleasure in nodding his head again.

"Human sacrifice."

"Oh sod off!" The blond almost yelled. "How can you sacrifice to something you can't see?"

"You have the pendant, young Sir. A few drops of a sacrifice's fresh post-mortem blood directly on the eye will draw the demon back to the pendant without trouble." Undertaker said, narrating his own pantomime actions of doing the deed. The boy sighed.

"So, I'm being framed for murder and perhaps the only way to clear my name is to murder someone else instead?"

"No-one said doing this would exonerate you, Earl Trancy. I merely thought you wished to know about the pendant. And you could always use your wish to make this nasty business with Scotland Yard disappear…or Lord Randall if you dislike him as much as some of my other regulars. You might even use your wish to conquer the world and have it kiss your feet as you walked." Undertaker said. Alois scoffed at the idea.

"I don't need a wish to help me conquer the world. All I need is Claude. If I ask, he'll bring the world to its knees for me before breakfast." The youth said looking over his shoulder at the demon who was still passively scrutinising the bone, turning it delicately towards the light. Alois fancied Claude would make a fine marble statue, such was the elegance of his movements.

"But asking him to find the perpetrator of this crime is beyond his powers?" Undertaker asked. The boy did not like the underlying hint of sarcasm in their host's voice. Nothing was beyond Claude. Nothing. Alois knew that much to be true in this world.

"We've gotten this far, haven't we? A corpse, a pendant and a demon. Yesterday morning we only had a corpse. By tomorrow night, we'll probably have the murderer." Alois snapped back whilst resisting the urge to bare his teeth. That life was behind him. Undertaker shrugged dismissively.

"Perhaps. If you knew if Mr Cantwell was victim or sacrifice, you might. Of course, before all that you'd need to know up from down. Tell me, where has my counsel led you precisely? You ask all the wrong questions, in the wrong order and with the wrong tone. I have told you almost nothing of use, yet you're content to traipse off with your demon in tow for a treasure hunt around London while Scotland Yard breathes down your neck and shadows you in the dark? Believe me when I say, you are no detective. You're not even close to the calibre of my usual clientele…and they're all dead." That stung him. Alois could feel it driving deep into his chest. He was silent for a moment, contemplating whether adventure was worth the security of his gilded cage. He turned to Claude who was now stood examining the bone.

"Is he right, Claude?" Alois asked his butler, "Am I just a stupid boy running after my own tail?" Claude did not even look at him to reply.

"No, your Highness: you were right to come here and to investigate as we are doing." The demon said without any hint of emotion. He offered the bone for his master to take. Alois frowned in taking the yellowed and fragile-looking item. He did not understand its relevance to their inquiries.

"Is it a clue, Claude? A good one, I mean." It did not have anything remarkable to divulge. As far as the boy could tell, it was just someone's finger.

"Yes Master. This bone belongs to Mr Cantwell."

"How can it? The rest of him was on the estate: why just leave a finger bone?"

"It is a test, Highness. To see if we were sincere in our intentions to pursue this investigation. I noted the bone from Mr Cantwell's right middle finger was absent during my brief examination of his corpse. This bone corresponds perfectly with that which is missing. Ergo…"

"You had his body." Alois said in irritation more than disgust as he looked back at the Undertaker. "You had Cantwell's body in this shop. Did you move it to my estate as well?" Their host's eyes shone in the dark.

"Hmm. You two aren't as blunt as butter knives then. You do have some intelligence between you. Yes, Mr Cantwell was here shortly after his passing. Yes, I shifted him onto your estate. And yes, Mr Butler, this was a little test. I didn't kill the gentleman though. Far too messy a job for me. No, but I have an idea who did…"