you make an arrest. We won’t be done until we know who Exton was working with, and where he hid the bodies … er, where he is keeping the children.”
Joel’s mother paled at that last comment.
“Inspector,” Joel said, “can I talk to you alone for a moment?”
Harding nodded, walking with Joel a short distance.
“Are you sure you have the right man, Inspector?” Joel asked.
“I don’t arrest a man unless I’m sure, son.”
“Exton saved me last night.”
“No, lad,” Fitch said. “He saved himself. Do you know why he got expelled from the Rithmatic program thirty years ago?”
Joel shook his head.
“Because he couldn’t control his chalklings,” Harding said. “He was too much of a danger to send to Nebrask. You saw how wiggly those chalklings were. They didn’t have form or shape because they were drawn so poorly. Exton set them against you, but he couldn’t really control them, and so when you led them back against him, he had no choice but to lock them out.”
“I don’t believe it,” Joel said. “Harding, this is wrong. I know he didn’t like Rithmatists, but that’s not enough of a reason to arrest a man! Half of the people in the Isles seem to hate them these days.”
“Did Exton come to your aid immediately?” Harding asked. “Last night?”
“No,” Joel said, remembering his fall and Exton screaming. “He was just scared, and he did help eventually. Inspector, I know Exton. He wouldn’t do something like this.”
“The minds of killers are strange things, Joel,” Harding said. “Often, people are shocked or surprised that people they know could turn out to be such monsters. This is confidential information, but we found items belonging to the three missing students in Exton’s desk.”
“You did?” Joel asked.
“Yes,” Harding said. “And pages and pages of ranting anger about Rithmatists in his room. Hatred, talk of … well, unpleasant things. I’ve seen it before in the obsessed. It’s always the ones you don’t expect. Fitch tipped me off about the clerk a few days back; something reminded him that Exton had once attended Armedius.”
“The census records,” Joel said. “I was there when Fitch remembered.”
“Ah yes,” Harding said. “Well, I now wish I’d been more quick to listen to the professor! I began investigating Exton quietly, but I didn’t move quickly enough. I only put the pieces together when you were attacked last night.”
“Because of the wiggly lines?” Joel asked.
“No, actually,” Harding said. “Because of what happened yesterday afternoon in the office. You were there, talking to Fitch, and he praised how much of a help you’d been to the process of finding the Scribbler. Well, when I heard you’d been attacked, my mind started working. Who would have a motive to kill you? Only someone who knew how valuable you were to Fitch’s work.
“Exton overhead that, son. He must have been afraid that you’d connect him to the new Rithmatic line. He probably saw the line when your father was working on it—your father approached the principal for funding to help him discover how the line worked. It wasn’t until some of my men searched his quarters and his desk that we found the truly disturbing evidence, though.”
Joel shook his head. Exton. Could it actually have been him? The realization that it could have been someone so close, someone he knew and understood, was almost as troubling as the attack.
Things belonging to the three students, in his desk, Joel thought, cold. “The objects … maybe he had them for … I don’t know, reasons relating to the case? Had he gathered them from the students’ dorms to send to the families?”
“York says he ordered nothing of the sort,” Harding said. “No questions remain except for the locations of the children. I won’t lie to you, lad. I think they’re probably dead, buried somewhere. We’ll have to interrogate Exton to find the answers.
“This is disgraceful business, all of it. I feel terrible that it happened on my watch. I don’t know what the ramifications will be, either. The son of a knight-senator dead, a man Principal York hired responsible…”
Joel nodded numbly. He didn’t buy it, not completely. Something was off. But he needed time to think about it.
“Exton,” he said. “When will he be tried?”
“Cases like these take months,” Harding said. “It won’t be for a while, but we’ll need you as a witness.”
“You’re going to keep the campus on lockdown?”
Harding nodded. “For at least another week, with a careful eye on all of the Rithmatist students. Like I said. An arrest is