Free Jackaby by William Ritter Page B

impeccably tidy room with its polished floors and neatly tucked bed. And something else.
    I shook my head. It wasn’t that I did not believe in ghosts; it was that I believed in them in the same noncommittal way that I believed in giant squids or lucky coins or Belgium. They were things that probably existed, but I had never had any occasion to really care one way or another. I had never given ghosts much thought—except, perhaps, as a frightened child gazing into shadows at bedtime.
    Jackaby, I was rapidly discovering, had a way of opening that corner of my brain. It was a quiet little corner in which I had lived when I was younger. It was a corner in which anything was possible, where magic was not an improbable daydream, but an obvious fact—if still only just out of reach. In those days I had known there must be monsters in the world, but I would happily accept them, knowing that, by the same logic, there must also be wizards and wands and flying carpets. I had never really closed that part of my mind, just slowly stopped visiting it as I grew older. I had left it unlocked like the jumbled treasure room upstairs, waiting for someone to come poking about.
    Where was Jackaby? Surely he should have returned by now. I thought about Swift and all those steps, but even the hobbling commissioner must have reached the room after such a wait. I found the mason jar, which Jackaby—or one of his previous assistants—had indiscreetly labeled BAIL MONEY in bold letters, and pulled it off the shelf. Stuffed in wads and rolls, there must have been over two hundred dollars in the thing! I gawped at the sum. How much should I bring? I had never bailed anyone out of jail before. I wouldn’t feel safe walking down the street with half a year’s wages in my pockets.
    Fortunately, before I had to make a decision, I heard the lobby door bang shut. I tucked the jar back on the shelf and zigzagged quickly down the crooked hallway. Jackaby had just hung his hat beside mine on the rack when I poked my head into the lobby.
    “Oh, hello, Miss Rook. Had a chance to look around a bit?”
    “Just a bit,” I hedged.
    “Good, good.” He hung up the scarf, which dangled nearly to the floor, but kept his bulky coat on for the time being. “While you’ve been relaxing, I have descried invaluable evidentiary information that may prove essential to our investigation.”
    “What?”
    “I found something. Come with me.”

Chapter Ten
    J ackaby filled me in on the details of his return to room 301 as we walked back down the crooked hallway. He had been able to successfully slip in and out without detection, and had uncovered a few papers of interest.
    Arthur Bragg had produced reams of scribbled notes, most kept in his own shorthand. Amid the papers on his desk were details of recent political debates and annotated minutes from city hall meetings. He had notes from interviews with Mayor Spade and with Commissioner Swift. Both men, as best Jackaby could tell from his quick glance at Bragg’s shorthand, were discussing the upcoming mayoral election.
    “Sounds like Detective Cane was right,” I said. “Bragg must have been Commissioner Swift’s connection at the newspaper.”
    “So it would seem.”
    “I see why Swift was so angry about it being right under his nose! It wasn’t just a murder in his city—he let his personal newsman get killed before his free publicity even hit the stands.”
    “Yes, well, it seems Mr. Bragg had been looking into something else as well.”
    Jackaby reached the end of the hallway and gave the door to his laboratory a shove. It squeaked open, and he pushed past whatever had been blocking it, sending several ripe red apples rolling across the carpet.
    “Oh, blast, it’s overflowing again,” he muttered, ducking absently under the skeletal alligator as he plowed in. “Mind your step. Help yourself to an apple if you like.”
    I remained in the doorway. A heavy black cauldron sat on the other side of the