“Like I thaid, I’ve got a tape recorder right here.” Daffy patted the pile of papers concealing the tape recorder, then thought better of it and hastily shuffled the papers aside to reveal it, then patted it again and repeated confidently, “I’ve got a tape recorder right here. You haven’t had a chanthe to lithten to them, maybe I could…help you out there. After all, I know Granny’th thythtem…thuch ath it ith…and I know what thortth of thingth are important and what aren’t.”
“You think her murder might be on one of them?”
Daffy wondered, but he tried to be dismissive. “What kind of thtupid killer would leave a tape behind if they thought they were on it?”
“Someone who didn’t realize it was recording. Or maybe someone who tossed it in a box with the others and shook it up. I had a poke through of them the other day, but most of them are unlabeled, and the ones that do have labels aren’t particularly helpful.” Basira studied Daffy thoughtfully. “It’s not like in cartoons where you see the one that’s…animated slightly differently or whatever.”
“Yeah, I know. Thith ithn’t a cartoon.” Daffy sighed. “I’ve been hearing that for almotht eighteen monthth now, and I’m thtarting to believe it. But the point ith, I can thtill help you and…Daithy, wath it? I’m not athking to thtart a partnerthhip or anything. Jutht offering to give them a lithten and tell you what might be on them.”
Basira stared at him a moment longer, glanced at the reel to reel recorder, and finally nodded. “Okay. Sure. I can’t promise I’ll be able to get you very many, or that they’ll be of any use, but…I’ll see what I can do. Bring them to you when I can. Worst case scenario, they turn out to not be useful and we try again with the next one. But don’t let anyone else know I’m bringing these to you, yeah? It’s technically police evidence. I could get in a load of trouble.”
“I would never get you in trouble,” Daffy assured her. “I thwear on your grandfather’th grave. And no Toon would break an oath on a Valiant.”
Inside, he was exultant. He meant what he said, he would never break the oath, so that wasn’t the secret joy. It was that he was going to get some of the tapes. Maybe he would help the police, maybe he wouldn’t, but at the very least he would be able to learn more about Granny’s time as Archivist, and what she’d been like, maybe some of what she’d been up to.
Her murder might not be on the tapes. But the reason she had been murdered almost certainly was.
———
“Are—are you the Archivist?”
Daffy looked up and saw himself.
Not literally, of course. He wasn’t staring at his doppelganger or a stunt double or the result of a glitch in a film reel. The figure before him wasn’t even a duck, but a vaguely doglike individual with slightly bucked teeth. But that was just…physical trappings. The drawing, if you would. What he saw was someone clinging to the thin edge of reality, someone questioning everything they’d ever known and begging to be seen. Someone who was being haunted and tortured and just wanted one person to understand what he was going through.
“Yeth, I’m the Head Archivitht,” Daffy said, getting to his feet. There was something familiar about—oh, of course. “You’re a Goof, right?”
“I’m—yes,” the figure said uncertainly, then gathered himself together and said, more strongly, “Goof. Yes. Max Goof. That’s me. I am Max Goof, I’m—”
“The Goofy’th thon.” Daffy remembered him now. He’d only met him once, when he’d still been teaching at Acme Looniversity and they’d got up a skateboarding team that had competed against a couple of different universities in an X-Games event, including State College. Max had offered to give Plucky some tips after his first disastrous run, and Daffy had spent almost fifteen minutes patiently—and, in the end, vainly—attempting to convince Plucky that it wasn’t condescending and that being good at something right away wasn’t the only way to become the best. In the end, Max had come in first, Buster Bunny had been the only Loon to medal with a silver, and Plucky had been dead last in the rankings. “I didn’t know you were in London. Have a theat. Did you come to make a thtatement?”
Hope flared briefly in Max’s eyes, but he nodded as he took a seat. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s—that’s why I’m here. They said I could talk to you and…they said if anyone could make what happened make sense, it would be you.”
“I’ll do my betht,” Daffy said. He was surprised—and a little suspicious—that anyone would put him in the role of “making things make sense”, but he was willing to give it a go if that was what Max needed. “Hold on, let me get the recorder thet up. Do you want thome coffee or tea or thomething?”
“No. No…I’m fine.” Max slowly reached for a piece of paper.
Daffy got out the reel to reel recorder and began threading it. It was…becoming less and less convenient to do it this way, and honesty, he probably ought to go with just using the regular shoebox recorder all the time, but it was useful to him if Porky and the others didn’t know he had it, so he persevered. As he did so, he became aware of a scratching sound and, looking back over towards Max, he saw that he was attempting to draw some kind of map on the back of a statement form.