“In return for the honor you’ve bestowed upon me,” Artus began, in the words he’d been instructed to use, “I offer this noble society a gift of lasting value, a token by which you may forever gauge my worth as a member and my regard for you all.”

No sooner had the final word been spoken than something rose up slowly from the box. The white sheet clung to it for a moment, cloaking a figure that was clearly human.

“I offer you justice,” Artus said. “I offer you the murderer of Count Leonska.”

The sheet slipped away to reveal Guigenor standing within the pine crate. Startled gasps and cries of outrage echoed through the hail. “Necromancy!” bellowed Sir Hбmnet Hawklin. “This is how you demonstrate your worth to us, you-you-weasel.” There was no more damning word in Hawklin’s vocabulary

“Guigenor did not kill the count!” Artus shouted over the throng. “She was a victim to the same assassin, for the same reason!”

The dead woman stepped from the box. Her unblinking eyes scanned the crowd, searching for her murderer. When she found him, she stiffly raised one arm and pointed him out.

Marrok de Landoine did not attempt to escape. Neither did he utter a single word of protest. He simply stripped off his robe, revealing a finely tailored doublet, expensive custom-made breeches, and dragon-leather boots. As Sergeant Orsini approached, he presented his dagger, handle first, to the nearest Stalwart. “Please see that this is returned to the armory on my estate,” he droned.

“Evidence,” was all Orsini said as he snatched up the dagger and slipped it into his belt. With vindictive glee, the Purple Dragon ordered an immediate and humiliating search of Marrok’s person for hidden weapons or, more dangerous still, any bits of arcane matter he might use for a spell.

A crowd of clubmen had surrounded Artus, demanding the true story behind the murders. He explained it all as best he could.

“Count Leonska sealed his doom when he used his influence, and a significant part of the club’s liquor reserve, to gain his protйgй entrance into the Stalwarts,” Artus began. “Marrok had been away on business at the time, unable to block Guigenor’s ascendance to the rank of full member. Upon his return, he set about to ensure the count would foist no more upstarts upon the membership.”

How Marrok had murdered Leonska remained a mystery to Artus, though no one had to stretch his imagination too far to picture the count drunkenly stumbling onto a blade or downing a snifter of poison. What happened next the explorer could explain with more certainty.

“Marrok raised the count from the dead and put him to the task of incriminating Guigenor,” Artus continued. “The count was sent back to the club, his wineskin filled with his own blood. He made his way to the Treaty Room, already dead, and set about laying clues-stabbing himself with the Zhentish dagger, splashing gore on the walls in the fashion of a Kozakuran assassination… Marrok had already made certain those things tied the crime to Guigenor. He’d even arranged for her to meet her ‘victim’ at the crime scene.”

“There really was a note,” Pontifax said with a nod.

“And Guigenor really did manage to lose it,” Artus offered. “It’ll turn up somewhere in the club one of these days.”

“So what happened to the wineskin?” someone asked from the crowd.

Artus shuddered. “Marrok must have ordered Leonska to get rid of that bit of evidence-so he ate it. His teeth were all shattered from trying to chew up the stopper before swallowing it.”

Pontifax cleared his throat sententiously. “It was a fiendishly clever plan,” he announced. “You see, the undead are not magical, per se, so the Treaty Room had no effect upon the poor creature’s actions. There was also the added benefit of having Leonska’s soul trapped in his corpse, which meant the watch could not raise it for questioning.”

Artus stepped down from the dais. “Marrok really only needed me to uncover all the evidence he’d laid out. He killed Guigenor, too, and had her attack me to sew up the case-and maybe just murder me in the process.” He plucked at his ceremonial robe. “Oghma knows he didn’t really want to let me join his club. I probably would have turned up dead eventually if I hadn’t figured this out.”

Pontifax continued to expound upon the minutiae of their investigation, anchoring the crowd in place as Artus drifted away. He passed the small group of priests who had already begun the task of freeing Guigenor’s soul from her animate corpse. Artus only wished the priests had been able to do the same for Count Leonska, whose body had been burned the previous night. The man had surely been conscious of his fate to the end, staring at the flames of his pyre with the same lifeless expression with which he’d regarded Artus that day in the Treaty Room.

“There’s a dog on Marrok’s estate you’ll want to have exorcised, too,” Artus called to Sergeant Orsini. The soldier was finally leading Marrok away. “The thing’s called Kezef. You’ll find it in the workshop off the study.”

“You’ll do no such thing,” Marrok snapped. He swept the Dragons with an imperious stare. “That hound will be waiting for me when I return home in a day or two, or I’ll see the lot of you scrubbing gull droppings from the king’s yacht.”

The stunned expression on Artus’s face drew a sneer from Marrok de Landoine. “I have influence rabble like you can never counter. Even if the charges are true- note, please, that I said ‘if-I’ll certainly never hang for them. Just look around if you doubt me.”

Artus did just that as Sergeant Orsini hustled Marrok from the room.

For each person who looked upon the newest Stalwart with admiration and approval, there was another who glowered at him. More telling still, the most senior and influential members were the ones who offered Artus their undisguised animosity. A disdain for upstarts had not been a trait of Marrok’s alone.

“You appear glum when you should be celebrating, Master Cimber,” Uther said.

Artus shrugged. “I’m not all that certain I want to belong to this club anymore.”

“Nonsense.” The butler regarded the frowning, sulking Stalwarts with his slitted yellow eyes, then turned back to Artus. “They may not welcome you with open arms, but they will most assuredly offer you respect. You’ve brought down one of their own-whether he swings for his crimes or no.”

“They hate me for it.”

“Perhaps,” Uther said. “But they fear you for it, too. Fear is a useful thing when dealing with powerful men and women. To be honest, it’s the reason I am just a bit pleased they think me capable of murder.”

“And you’re not?” Artus asked. He hesitated before he spoke again, but when he did, he said something to Uther few would have dared. “I thought lawyers-especially FitzKevraid clan barristers-were capable of anything.”

The look that comment engendered on Uther’s horrible features was truly unsettling. A smile spread across his black lips. Then quietly, deeply, the butler began to laugh.