Martyn
[Day 13 - evening - Warrenlady's office]

/snip from James' post)
"Any idea who hired him?" asked Tina.

"No, and not even who the target was."

"OK what do you plan to do next?" asked Rhia.

"Well a confession would be nice, but I don't think that there is much chance 
of that."

"Can't we beat one out of him?" asked Tina.
/end snip/

     Martyn sat back in his chair, steepling his fingers in front of him as 
he considered the suggestion.  Slowly, a smile spread across his face.  "My 
dear queenrider, I wish it were so simple," Martyn said.  "But if it were, 
the Lords would surely have broken the Assassin's Guild long ago simply by 
capturing one member, making him talk, and then arresting all those he 
implicated...and so on and so on.  Assuming, of course, that my estimation of 
him as a professional killer is accurate.  I believe it is."

     Warrenlady Rhia sighed in frustration.  "There *must* be some way to 
link him to the killings, whether he talks or not!" she said.  "Haven't you 
found anything yet?"

     "As a matter of fact...I have," Martyn replied.  "Let me tell you how I 
spent my day after I left here earlier.  The first thing I did, even before 
going to see our man in the dungeon, was to go to where the catapult was 
stored.  As you may recall, as soon as it was located, I asked that everyone 
be kept away from it to avoid contaminating the evidence.  Then, I examined 
it closely."

    "And what did you find out?" Tina asked.  "Whoever built it didn't seem 
too professional."

     "No, it was crudely built," Martyn agreed.  "But only because it was 
assembled quickly, probably in no more than an hour from the moment the 
assassin's ax made it's first chop at a tree.  But a catapult will not work 
without *some* metal parts to secure some of the pieces together.  Those were 
what I looked for...and they were there, as they had to be."

     "So?" Rhia asked impatiently.

     "To make a long story short, by examining these smooth metal pieces, I 
found three different fingermarks - the imprint left when a person touches a 
smooth, hard surface with their fingers.  No two people have the same 
fingermark, mind you, so if you compare a fingermark to the finger who made 
it, you *know* that that person touched the object in question."

     "You're saying that the killer left these...fingermarks?" Tina asked, 
her eyes widening.

     "No, at most only one of them," Martyn said.  "The first thing I did 
after lifting the impressions was to check them against the fingermarks of 
every person whom I know to have been near the machine when it was discovered 
or when it was being carried off to be put in safe storage.  Two of the three 
marks belonged to Xylian riders.  But the third..."

     "The third?" Rhia and Tina asked together.

     "The third remains unidentified," Martyn told them.  "It may belong to 
the man in the dungeon, and if it does, we can prove beyond a doubt that he 
was in physical contact with the machine *before* I first reached it - which 
was, if you'll recall, only minutes after it was fired.  Warrenlady, would 
that resolve any doubt on your part that this man is our murderer?"

     "It would tie him to the deaths of J'ken and Nova, certainly," said 
Rhiannon.

     "And as to the avalanche - we have both my testimony and that of Mr'dith 
that he had the means to have done the deed, and was the only person present 
who was in the necessary spot to have done it.  Right now, he could use the 
defense that it was accidental - that someone else might have performed the 
necessary setup, and he just kicked a loose stone at the wrong time or 
somesuch..."

     "But if we tie him to the first killings, then that defense pretty much 
evaporates, doesn't it?" Tina asked.

     "Which still leaves the murder of Hogarth with that damnable bomb!" Rhia 
reminded him.  "Not to mention the fire in the coal bins, and the murder of 
the guards."

     "Crimes to which we have no direct evidence - yet - to link him with," 
Martyn admitted.  "I will keep checking, of course...but if we can 
convincingly tie him to the first murders and the landslide, it may be 
enough.  He can only be sentenced to death once."

    "How do we do that?" Rhia asked.

    "Afterward, I visited him in his cell and tried to hand him a cup from 
which - once I'd retrieved it - I could have lifted his fingermarks and 
compared them to those I took from the machine.  He didn't take the cup, 
unfortunately.  I don't know if he's aware of the value of fingermarks in 
criminology - it's a relatively new thing, and even most professional 
criminals haven't yet caught on to the method.  But he was clearly suspicious 
of me, and anything I said or did.  Perhaps he's heard of me, perhaps not, 
but I think he knew me for a professional, just as I know him for one.  What 
we need is someone more...innocuous," he concluded.  "Someone whom this man 
will not suspect is trying to delude him somehow."

     "I'm sure someone can be found," Rhia said.  "But even if we can link 
him with those murders, I still want to know who sent him here!  Can you 
determine that for us?"

     "Only if he reveals it," Martyn said gravely, looking back and forth 
from Rhia to Tina and back.  "And there may be only one way to get 
it...however distasteful it may be."

     "And what is that?" Rhia asked guardedly.

     "A trade," Martyn told her.  "Spare his life, by reducing his sentence 
to imprisonment or banishment - in return for the name of the person who 
hired him."

(Tag James or Jill - will Rhia go for this idea?  And, who will be sent to 
get Banks' fingerprint?)

Submitted by:

John

Martyn & Havelok
Marrid/Xylian Warrens

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