A man with no shadow came into our office and accused his sister.
I asked him to stand still. Sunlight lay across the floorboards. The hat in his hand cast no shape beside him, either.
“Your name?” Vanna asked.
“Jere. You may have seen me sing.”
“I haven’t,” she said.
I had. His voice was good. His habit of bowing before the applause began was less good. Tonight he was appearing in a comedy show I wanted to see, assuming our agency earned anything before the ticket office closed.
“My sister took it,” he said. “We argued this morning. Now look.”
“Did you see her take it?” I asked.
He glanced at Vanna. People do that when a ghost asks them a question. They hope the living partner will supply a nicer one.
“Did you?” she repeated.
“No. But who else?”
Vanna wrote down the fee. Half now, half when we found his shadow. He paid without bargaining.
I had once arranged flowers for a living. Now I investigated mysteries with Vanna. Death had given me the ability to pass through walls, but had failed to provide an income or the power to move a chair. Vanna could become a cat from dusk until dawn. She could also ask a question and wait for the answer, which was usually more useful.
Jere said he’d slept alone in his dressing room. He had woken shadowless. He gave us permission to inspect the room, then led us across town with his hat pulled low.
“People will notice,” he said.
“Most people look at faces,” Vanna said.
I watched a boy stop to study Jere’s feet. Vanna wasn’t always right.
The dressing room smelled of powder and warm cloth. Three fresh shoe scuffs curved around a circle drawn on the floor. A stage lamp stood beside it.
I pointed. My finger went through the lamp, which spoiled the effect.
“Someone has been turning here.”
“Actors turn,” Jere said.
“In a lamp circle?”
He rubbed the ring finger of his left hand. It bent outward at the last joint. An old break, he told Vanna, though she had asked about the floor.
A knock interrupted us. His sister came in carrying a rolled painted backdrop. Duni was shorter than him and looked as if she had already moved three backdrops that day.
“You said you’d pay me this morning.”
“I have a difficulty.”
“So have I. It’s your unpaid bill.”
Jere told her what he’d told us.
Duni stared at him. “You think I stole your shadow because I want my wages?”
“I said perhaps.”
He had said no such thing.
Vanna asked where Duni had worked that morning. At the hall across town, with four stagehands who could confirm it. She named them without thinking, then told Jere she would return for her money before the show.
She carried the backdrop out. He did not offer to help.
Vanna waited until the door closed.
“You paid our advance quite easily,” she said.
“Not all my money.”
“Where did it come from?”
“The same place money generally comes from.”
I looked at the circle again. In this town, a person could loosen a shadow by standing under a bright lamp and turning three times inside a drawn ring. It was a trick used for stage work. The shadow could be held on cloth stretched over a frame. Under another lamp it would still follow its owner’s movements. It could not choose to go for a walk or belong to somebody else.
“You rented it,” I said.
Jere pulled the hat tight between his hands.
“Only until sunset.”
“To whom?”
“Hal. The costume seller. He paid me for one afternoon. I was going to get it back and settle with Duni before the show.”
“Then why hire us?”
“He sent word that I couldn’t collect until after midnight.”
Hal had control of the return time, the frame, and a customer who did not want his sister to know he’d made a secret bargain. Jere had tried turning that last problem into a crime committed by Duni.
“You can leave,” he said quietly.
Vanna closed her notebook. “We’ve taken the case. We’ll find it. But don’t give us another invented thief.”
Hal’s shop had a narrow window full of bright collars. Inside, customers tried on paper crowns under lamps. Their own shadows, held on rented frames, moved when they lifted their hands. Hal explained the effect to a woman buying one for a scene in a play.
We entered while he was explaining. He smiled at Jere and stopped smiling at Vanna.
“Your frame is being prepared.”
“For midnight?” she asked.
“For collection.”
Behind a pale screen hung a tall shape with a torn hat brim. Jere’s hat had the same tear. When he lifted his hand, the shape lifted its hand too. Its bent finger pointed sideways.
“That one,” Jere said.
Hal drew a black cover over the frame.
I could pass through that cloth, but I would still be blind inside it. Being dead does not let me see through everything.
“We can wait,” Vanna said.
“Shop closes soon.”
A man with a travel bag was consulting a bill by the counter.
“I’m collecting at six,” he said. “I’ve paid the deposit.”
Hal told him his order would be ready. The man introduced himself as Yurin, a comedian. For his new act, he needed a false shadow that could imitate his own long fingers. He showed us, spreading them like a fan.
“I make the shape, it makes the shape. That’s the whole joke.”
“Hal makes those?” Vanna asked.
“Apparently.”
Jere made a little sound. Hal heard it.
“Come back at six,” the seller told all of us. “I have work to finish.”
Outside, Jere asked whether I could go through the wall and watch. I said I could. If Hal kept the black cover on, I would spend the afternoon looking at darkness. I could not pick up his work or open a lock.
Vanna bought bread from the corner stall and tore it in half. She was hungry. Jere walked up and down beside her.
At six we returned through the public shop door.
The frame stood under a lamp. Yurin put his bag down, spread his fingers, and waited.
The shadow did nothing.
“It’s not warm yet,” Hal said.
Jere stood beside the lamp and bent his crooked finger. The shadow bent its finger.
Yurin looked from one hand to the other.
“It follows him.”
“Only for the demonstration,” Hal said. “It has to learn.”
“It can’t learn,” Jere said.
Hal turned on him. “You agreed to rent it.”
“Yes. Until sunset.”
Yurin took a step backward. He had a show in another town tomorrow. He had not bought a lesson in another man’s gestures.
“I paid for a replica that follows me.”
Hal drew Jere toward the collars. Vanna moved closer, making clear she would hear what followed.
“Half the full hiring fee,” Hal murmured. “Let me finish this sale. You can get it back tomorrow.”
Jere looked at the door. I wondered whether he’d take the money and miss his own show. He could still pretend that he and Hal had arranged everything and keep some part of his dignity.
Instead he faced Yurin.
“I took money for an afternoon’s rental. I should have said so before. It’s mine. It won’t follow you. It has never been able to.”
“And your sister?” Vanna asked.
“I accused her because I’d kept the money from her.”
He said that with the shop door open. Two customers had stopped trying on crowns.
Yurin asked for his deposit. Hal tried offering a discount, then a second frame. Yurin wanted neither. He wanted to leave while there was still time to change his act.
At last Hal opened the till. He counted the refund onto the counter and unhooked Jere’s frame.
“Take it. Don’t come back.”
Vanna held it with the cloth close to Jere’s shoes. He stood beneath the lamp and said he wanted his shadow home. Its dark edge joined his heel. The whole shape spread across the floor.
He moved his crooked finger. It moved with him.
Only then did he let go of his hat.
Before the show, Duni came to our office. Jere had left our balance and her wages with Vanna, asking us to give her the money.
“Very generous of him,” I said, badly.
“No,” she said. “On time would have been generous.”
She counted it, thanked Vanna, and went to paint a door for someone who had paid in advance.
By then Vanna was a small gray cat sitting beside her notebook. She had bought my ticket before dusk, from my share of the fee. Her own share would keep our office for another week.
“You could float into the show for nothing,” she had said.
“I want a seat.”
“You can’t sit.”
“I can stay in a sitting position. It looks much the same.”
At the hall, the usher had my name on his list. Vanna had left the ticket at the desk; an ordinary pin would have fallen straight through my coat. I went to my numbered seat.
Onstage, Jere made a grand bow. His hat fell off. His shadow repeated every part of it, including his attempt to catch the hat with his knee.
The audience laughed. He glanced at the dark shape by his feet, then tried the same bow again.
This time I laughed with them.
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