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There would be too many eyes on me if I were to return to the Stalactite Saloon just at the moment. Pickston would make sure of that. I'd want to come back later - much later - when I could be more certain that I was not being watched, to undertake a more thorough exploration. So, in the interim, I came to; the conclusion that it was time to explore the domestic arrangements of Miss Machany Fordun in a little more detail. This activity is of course entirely standard stuff from the PI Basics 201 class and is based on the most natural of instincts: people like to see what other people are doing. Even if they don't realise they're doing it, people tend to keep track of others, to observe their everyday rituals and to comment - maybe only to themselves - when something unusual happens. All this is a rich seam of information for the dedicated Private Eye, but it needs to be tapped carefully. You can't just ask directly, naturally enough - people inevitably get suspicious if you start buttonholing them with pointed queries out of the blue. So pretexts need to be deployed to get into conversation. A favourite of mine is sharing a convivial smoke - more common here in the Lower Realms than on the surface, I understand - and then get chatting. The building in which Miss Fordun had her domicile was a moderately tall block in the human style, with its roof a long way short of the cavern ceiling. By the way, buildings in the Lower Realms do have roofs, just as they do on the surface, and for much the same reasons. Partially, just to keep in the warmth but more importantly to deflect things dropping from the sky, from flying creatures or from the clouds that occasionally form in the upper parts of of most caverns. This block was a splendid example of the type. It had a stylised formal entrance at the front, opening onto a wide boulevard, with an attentive doorman who recognised those who belonged with a deferential nod and held open the door politely. As I watched, a young female Goblin emerged, very sharply-dressed in skirt and jacket of the kind intended to communicate "serious business person" in large letters. The clothes were probably lying: surely a serious business person would have been in their office hours ago. The retail spaces either side of the entrance were populated with the kind of shops the residents might want to use. I checked them out briefly: a newsagent with a wide selection of glossy magazines on the shelves, including several of the type which include an exclamation mark in the title; a fashionable coffee bar with a good line in takeout breakfasts; a wine merchant which was clearly doing everything they could to avoid being labelled a liquour store; and so on. Around the back, of course, everything was different. The usual narrow alleys separated the block from its neighbours, partially blocked by the usual collection of garbage cans and dumpsters. There were a few narrow vents and barred windows, but the important feature I was looking for, and found, was the rear entrance used by the cleaning and laundry staff, where deliveries were made and the refuse removed. Any building has its regular denizens - even the most private of properties - and an up-market block like this one would have many observant eyes and, I need hardly add, gossipy mouths. I took most of the day, but I learned a great deal about the occupants of the block in general, and the activities of Machany Fordun specifically. The one thing I didn't do was to let myself into her apartment and have a look around. I could have done. The lockpicks were right here in my pockets. It would have been illegal, of course, but that doesn't always prohibit me from having a little look-see in the course of an investigation. As it turned out, it was probably just as well that I resisted the temptation, although I have to say that the course of the investigation would have been very different if I had discovered earlier what she had hidden in her closet.
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Part 49