Ferguson Calder

Ferguson Calder, waiting for you to finish the sentence

Ferguson is eighty-one, and as an E-grade he appears to be somewhere in his late thirties. He has the sort of face that suggests he has spent several decades discovering exactly how dishonest people can be. His dark hair is thick and unruly, curling at his collar, and his short dark beard is just starting to grey at the chin. His eyes are grey-green and very steady, and he looks at people the way other men look at a column of figures that does not add up. He dresses in black: a heavy hooded cloak over a high-collared leather doublet tooled with dark bronze scrollwork, crossed with worn leather straps fastened by an iron ring, and dark gloves. Nothing about him is meant to make anyone comfortable.

Ferguson does not possess magical lie detection, and he distrusts it, arguing that magic encourages investigators to stop thinking. Instead he watches hands, breathing, word choice, eye movement, timing, and the tiny details people forget to control. He rarely raises his voice, because silence usually makes nervous people talk more. He keeps extensive private casebooks filled with names, connections, favors, debts, and unfinished questions, and he keeps them close.