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My next victim was shown in by one of the stalwarts from the administration team. I was sat at the desk as he entered, making as if I was writing up something of great import. I closed the notebook and stood up politely, sticking out my hand in the conventional greeting. The newcomer ignored my hand pointedly. "Who are you?" he snarled. I smiled, more to annoy him than for any other reason. "Findo Gask, Private Detective," I answered, "Please have a seat, Mister, uh, Skeath." "A private dick," he growled, "Great. Whatya doin' here?" "Mister Broxden directed me to ask some questions," I said sweetly, "And I'm hoping you'll answer them nice and quickly, so you can get back to work, and I get to go home." He didn't have an answer to that. He just slumped in the chair, scowling darkly. Skeath was a rotund Goblin of ordinary height, although strong-looking around the arms and shoulders, and with exceptionally large and powerful hands. I couldn't help but think of what it would be like to have those hands clamped around one's neck. He was dressed in a shapeless overall and a check shirt, and wore practical-looking heavy boots. I scooted back into the other chair and opened the notebook to a fresh page. "So," I started, "You are Blair Skeath, is that correct?" I scribbled away, to put him at his ease. It didn't seem to be working. Indeed, he looked to me like a Goblin with a lot on his mind. "Yeah, that's right," he answered, sounding shifty. "And your job here is...?" "I'm the Gaffer." I nodded sagely, still scribbling. He was, according to the list that Broxden had provided, the gaffer of the stage crew: the supervisor of the stage hands that I had interviewed earlier as well as the boss of the unfortunate Pow Drumfin, now deceased. "Okay, now this is about..." "Yeah, those cameras," he interrupted, "Me and my lads have been crawling all over this place for weeks now, looking for those blasted bugs. They seem to get everywhere." "How many have you found, do you think?" I ventured. "All together? Dozens, maybe a hundred or so," he answered, "They just keep coming back, re-appearing in places we’ve searched." A hundred cameras, every single one a proscribed item smuggled in from the world of the humans. How could anybody afford that many devices? How could you even get your hands on that number of devices? "That's a lot," I agreed, "What happens to the ones you find?" "They get turned over to Mister Broxden," he said grumpily, "You'll have to ask him what he does with them." Interesting. There weren't more than a handful of cameras in Broxden's desk drawer when I was there, even before somebody broke in and retrieved them - less the one I had accidentally retained, of course. So where were the devices going to? And was it the same place as they were coming from? "And you've no idea who's putting them up?" I asked. "Not at all," he snarled, "But if I find out, he'll be stopping bloody quickly, I can tell you." His huge hands flexed instinctively. If he was on the level, anybody found pulling a stunt like that would likely be beaten to a pulp if Skeath got his hands on them.
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Part 39