“Abelard, there is a Detective Sanschagrin coming in to see us.”
“Sanschagrin, again?” Abelard muttered.
“You know this man?”
“I have seen him a couple of times. He was the detective on the case the time I was mugged, something that happened just before I began working here. And, quite by coincidence, he was also there to investigate the death of Mr. Hecht, who you may….,” Abelard here ran up against Milly’s impatience.
“Yes, Abelard, I recall quite clearly the timely demise of Mr. Hecht. Now this Sanschagrin must think you a very suspicious character, what with violence your constant companion. Is there anything you want to tell me before Sanschagrin gets here?”
“I have no new information since the incident and, as I told the police, I had never seen those men before. They were probably trying to rob us or,” and here he lowered his voice as though to thwart a conspiracy afoot, “perhaps worse; take us hostage to hold for ransom.”
But Milly was having none of that. “Abelard, you may not have ever seen those men before,” he pushed on relentlessly, “but they did have your photograph and they were looking for you and, most distressing of all, the man you so efficiently dispatched with my thirteenth century knife, very clearly believed you had something to do with the death of people he knew. There is something you are not telling me,” he ended, with an uncharacteristic plea.
Abelard shrugged and tried to reassure Milly with, “Sanschagrin will hear the same story I gave at the lodge. There is absolutely nothing that can connect me to those criminals we killed in self defense.”
“We, Abelard, we did not kill those men. A remarkably industrious and, I daresay, very skilled fighter killed those men. As far as I could tell, they never had a chance. And, I also had the very strong feeling that you made sure they would never talk.”
“Milly, those men were very dangerous and I could not risk any more deaths. Had I tried only to incapacitate the last man, he may have begun to fire wildly and you may have been killed, just like those poor devils that caught the bullets meant for me.” All this was said without any perceptible compassion. An uninformed visitor may have concluded he was talking about accidentally squashing unwelcome insects.
“Thank you Abelard, I will call if Sanschagrin needs to speak with you,” he said, dismissively and imperiously, turning his back as though to gaze out the window.
*
The Perfect Human: An Abelard Chronicles Book Page 47