“You’d rather have torture than be humble and answer me,” Gottlieb said. “And you still haven’t. Do you know who killed him?”
“Sure I do.”
The dribble of light from the open doorway was stopped as Gustavus entered. He took a place behind the counter and nodded to the woman there to be finished. She seemed glad to be. Though the room was near empty, there were still hundreds of eyes on us: all the tankards on all the shelves, high and low, and all were staring directly at us. If we’d moved, their gaze would have followed.
“Who killed him, then?” Gottlieb said.
“Huldrych.”
“Daniel!” I said. “Don’t mock.”
“Why not? If that old artifact is cleared out of the Physics Chair, someone better could have it. I say it was Huldrych that did Knipper in.”
“You’d accuse him to have him executed?”
“You think I’d kill to get a Chair?” Daniel said. “Maybe I would. I wouldn’t be the first in the family to do it.”
“What do you mean?”
“Or the second, either. What bargain did you make for yours?”
“I wouldn’t bargain,” Gottlieb said.
“You didn’t win it by chance.”
“Prove that I didn’t.”
“Deny that you didn’t.” Daniel leaned into the sudden silence. “Deny it? You don’t.”
But Gottlieb only said, “I never bargained.”
“What happened to the missing Logic Chair? What was his name? Grimm. And now you have his Chair. That was the last Inquiry, wasn’t it, Cousin?”
“Which Chair are you trying for now, Cousin?” Gottlieb replied.
“Perhaps Logic again.”
“It’s taken.”
“The lord giveth,” Daniel said, “and the lord taketh away.”
“Don’t use scripture for malice,” I said, “or the Lord’s name.”
“Not that Lord,” he said, glancing up. It was hard to imagine heaven in any direction from that room. “I mean the one here who has a real say over the Chairs.”
Gottlieb was done with Daniel’s bitter stream. “Was the trunk on the coach from Bern?”
“I don’t count luggage.”
“Where did it come from?”
“I don’t ask it questions, either!”
“Did you see it anywhere?”
“I haven’t seen it at all.”
“What did you see of Knipper?”
“I was too taken with nostalgia at the sight of my dear home to notice coach drivers.”
“Why is there an Inquisitor?” They were Nicolaus’s first words I’d heard that evening, and they were an ox to throw a cart out of its ruts. Gottlieb and Daniel both shot their heads around to look at him.
“Because the Magistrate of Strasbourg demands it,” Daniel said. “And because Brutus finds it useful.”
“No,” Nicolaus said. “Why is there an Inquisitor?”
I understood his meaning. “Because the world has unanswered questions,” I said.
“And why’s that?”
“So that we’ll answer them.”
“Are you an Inquisitor, Leonhard?” Nicolaus asked.
“That kind, I’ll always be,” I said.
“Choose fit questions, then.” Whatever Nicolaus’s purpose had been, he was done with it. Daniel waved away those airy thoughts with his own advice to Gottlieb.
“I’ll tell you where to look, if you’re genuine in solving this,” he said. “There’s one man who has any answers.”
“Who’s that?”
“You know.”
“You think your father is the murderer?” Gottlieb said. “You think he crushed a skull with his books and papers? Knipper was never in the house, and your father never left it. None of us did. It’s our family who’re the only ones I know couldn’t have killed him.”
“But there’s no one outside our family that’s scheming enough,” Daniel said. “I’ll wager you, Cousin, that I solve this before you do.”
“You’ll neither be first.” Nicolaus stood, and looked at me. I stood to follow his lead. “Or even first to bed.” And that ended their joust. But Daniel held back in the hall, and Gustavus was there with him as we left, and Nicolaus stayed also, keeping watch on his brother.
I would often be awake late reading, and it never tired me. But standing in the Barefoot Square, at only about midnight, I was yawning and nodding. “I’ll want you tomorrow,” Cousin Gottlieb said.
“When will you?”
“Come to my door at noon. Have what you’ve heard written by then for me.”