A City of Wax - Episode 3

-Episode 3-

~The lacing of her bodice slackened under his fingers before he even knew he’d reached for them. The stuttergun, pocket watch and bag of shillings lay on his desk. Each of them warranted its own investigation… but it could wait for now.~

            Wispy tendrils of smoke coiled and wove their way through the thin beams of sunlight streaming in through Wax’s bedroom window. His bedside table candle had burned clean to the holder overnight, and a single diehard ember was all that remained of the wick. Wax ran a hand over his face and rolled his head to the side. He was alone in his bed. He hadn’t expected Eilonia to stay for breakfast, but evidently nor could she be assed to put out the candles and lamps before she left. Wax threw his sheets off and swung his feet over. He tilted his shoulder forward to examine the stitching on his arm. His biceps and parts of his forearms were still streaked red from Eilonia’s fingernails; however it appeared she’d at least had the courtesy not to claw open his needlework. Wax pushed himself up off the mattress and groggily staggered to his bathroom.

            After a hot shower, Wax located a fresh set of clothes and descended the stairs to his office. He collected his waistcoat from his desk chair and slipped it on with his baldric, reaching next for his greatcoat. As he lifted it, he noticed that the tear in the sleeve had been expertly and stylishly mended with neat stitching. Wax couldn’t help but chuckle. She couldn’t have put out the candles, but she’d stop and take the time to mend a coat. He slung the greatcoat around himself and thrust his arms through the sleeves. As he turned to face his desk, however, his face fell. The pocket watch and stuttergun lay where he’d left them, but the bag of shillings he’d collected off the man was gone. In its place was a neatly folded note with his name written on it in a delicate hand. Wax snatched it up and flipped it open.

            “Weston. It was delightful to see you again. Our little visits are all too rare these days. Consider the purse a tip for mending your coat. You know where to find me.

            -Eilonia-”

           

            Wax gave an irritated sigh and tossed the note onto the desk. He would just have to do without. The shillings were evidence, but of the three pieces he had, they were the least important. He pocketed the watch, grabbing a pleap and a hunk of bread from the basket next to his desk. Biting into the pleap, Wax set about examining the weapon. He disconnected the ammunition clip and pulled back the slide, peering into the works of the firing mechanism. The interior of the weapon was nearly pristine. The gun itself was nothing spectacular, but it had definitely been purchased from a manufacturer at one point. Wax rotated the weapon, looking for any sign of a maker’s mark or manufacturer’s tag. Instead, he found a jagged, scuffed smear at the base of the handle. Whatever identifying mark the gun once had, it had been filed off. Wax locked the slide and pressed forward on the barrel, sliding open the casing and revealing the clockwork mechanisms inside. In addition to being well-oiled, each individual cog and flywheel was slathered liberally with a greasy substance. Wax recognized it as anti-corrosion grease meant to prevent the buildup of rust. It was commonly used by most manufacturers, but the sheer amount of grease in this weapon meant it must have been stored someplace where rust was more likely to happen: near the salt air of an ocean.

            Wax quickly reassembled the stuttergun and holstered it in the open sheath of his baldric. He knew of only one firearms dealer that close to the Arterial Ocean and that was in Meluan’s Gate. He hurriedly finished his breakfast and walked out the door, twisting the key in the lock behind him. He stepped around to the narrow alley next to his office building where a filthy old blanket hung surrounded by waste bins. Wax grabbed a corner of the blanket and threw it to the side, revealing an aged but beautifully well-kept Heartland steambike. Wax kept it covered with that old tarp to keep thieves and vandals away from it. He rolled it into the street and opened the fuel hatch. He had roughly forty pounds of coal left in the furnace; enough fuel to get him through about a day and a half of riding. He mounted up, twisted his key into the sparker lock and ignited the furnace, and roared off down the street.

            Meluan’s Gate was fairly quiet when Wax arrived. He maneuvered his steambike carefully down toward the docks and shut it off when he reached the boardwalk. The man at the counter smiled cheerily at him as he approached. “Good morning to you, sir. How may I help you today?” he asked.

            “My name is Wax, I’m a private investigator and I need to ask you a few questions.” Wax replied. The man looked moderately surprised and nodded. “Have you recently had anything stolen from your shop?” Wax asked. The man shook his head.

            “No, we haven’t. We keep the place locked up tight every night. We even have rotating guard shifts at all hours.” The man said.

            “Have any of your recent shipments been incomplete or tampered with?” Wax asked. Again, the man shook his head.

            “We’ve gotten exactly what we’ve paid for every time, nothing out of the ordinary. Why do you ask?” The man said. Wax frowned. He drew the stuttergun from his baldric and placed it on the counter in front of the man.

            “This gun came from your store. A man attacked me with it the other night as I walked home, and I’m trying to figure out why. He had no identification on him.” Wax explained. The man behind the counter picked the gun up and examined it closely.

            “I’m afraid the serial number on this stuttergun has been filed off… Without it I’m afraid I can’t even confirm that it was sold here. Not only that, but this particular model is one of our most popular weapons. People buy them all the time. They’re especially popular among goblins, which might explain the lack of serial number. They do all kinds of strange things to them, I’m afraid.” The man explained. Wax sighed and re-holstered the weapon.

            “Thank you anyway.” He said. The stuttergun was a dead lead, at least for now. Wax climbed back onto his steambike and sped off to follow the only other clue he had.

            The Gardenworks were a place Wax made a point not to visit frequently. The somewhat scenic mixture of barely-contained overgrowth and ancient gearworks frozen in place gave the area a sort of eery serenity and charm, but Wax never did like it. He preferred streets and alleys that didn’t require picking his way around roots and displaced cobblestone. However, regardless of his dislike for the area, it was where he now found himself. He chained his steambike carefully to a fence of iron bars surrounding a large tree and turned up his collar against the frigid cold. Another reason to hate the Gardenworks in the winter months was the noticeable temperature drop due to the nearly constant damp conditions there. Why the most reliable watchmakers in Nexus had chosen to set up shop here was beyond him. Their workshop lie just far enough in that he’d need a mechanic as well had he tried to ride in, so parting with his steambike was his only feasible option.

            He pushed open the door of the workshop and was immediately greeted by a wave of heat from the furnace. The lone watchmaker on duty looked up as he entered, and then went back to his work. “If you’re here to pick up an order, I’ll need to see the order number and the receipt. If you need repairs, it may take a while. Otherwise you’re free to browse.” He said. Wax placed the broken watch on the countertop.

            “I need to know who purchased this watch.” He said. The watchmaker sighed and put down his tools, making his way over to the counter. “A hand is loose and the glass is cracked.” Wax explained.

            “Let’s see that…” He said, picking the watch up. He opened the latch and examined the watch with scrutiny. “Well, it didn’t come out of this workshop, that’s for sure… We leave our maker’s mark here, on the inside of the clasp, just by the hinges.” The watchmaker held the piece out in his palm. “It’s a bit heavy for a watch of this size, actually…” He held it to his ear and gave it a light tap.

            “Something wrong?” Wax asked.

            “I’m not sure… I’ll need to get the face open.” The watchmaker said. He patted his pockets and fished a small key-like tool from one of them. Carefully inserting it into a small slot on the watch’s edge, he twisted it gently. A faint click came from within the watch, and the face popped open like a latch. Inside the timepiece, however, in place of a mesh of gears, cogs and springs, sat a single golden aurum. The watchmaker blinked. “I’m not certain,” he said, staring at the 100-shilling piece, “but I’d wager that’s why your watch was stopped.” He plucked the coin from the watch’s interior and placed it on the counter.

            “That’s peculiar…” Wax said.

            “More peculiar than you think, I’m afraid” the watchmaker said, peering at the gold piece through his magnifying lens, “this coin is counterfeit.”

           

“How can you tell?” asked Wax, eying the coin and growing more confused by the moment.

            “Firstly, the weight is wrong. Close, but wrong. Secondly, this isn’t gold. It appears to be some sort of alloy designed to mimic the appearance of gold almost perfectly- but I’ve been working in fine metals my entire life, and I can tell you. That is not gold. Here, I’ll show you.” He said, motioning Wax to follow him. He led the way over to a glass container of a yellow-tinted liquid. “This,” he explained, “is a special acid we use in the polishing process of gold faceplates we use in the production of our watches. It will dissolve most metals, impurities and substances, but refuses to touch gold. That’s how we make sure we use only the purest materials.” He said. The watchmaker firmly clasped the counterfeit coin between a pair of tweezers and lowered it partway into the acid bath. A cascade of bubbles violently erupted from the surface of the coin. When he removed it, all that remained was a dull metallic surface.

            “It’s nothing but scrap metal…” Wax observed. The watchmaker nodded as he cleaned off the coin and handed it back to Wax. He rolled it over in his hand and frowned. “In your professional opinion, how easy would this be to identify by an average shopkeeper?” he asked. The watchmaker shrugged.

            “Very few, I would say. I work with gold as a material every day, scrutinizing it, weighing it, purifying it. It would take an expert of fair caliber to recognize this for a fake.” He said. Wax snatched up the watch and stuffed it into his pocket with the counterfeit coin, hurriedly thanking the man before dashing back outside. He hastily unchained his bike and fired it up, tearing out of the area. There was a very good chance that five thousand counterfeit shillings were now in the hands of Eilonia, and he needed to find her before someone else did.