by Pavel Kornev
With unhidden doubt, the poet looked at me, but the drinking had lowered his critical thinking abilities, and Albert just waved his hand.
"A devilishly perfect coincidence!" He laughed uncontrollably after a brief period of consideration. "To be perfectly honest, Leopold, her company was beginning to bear down on me."
"And mine?" I asked.
"Never!"
"Then I need a tenner from you."
Just then, Albert looked at me with unhidden doubt.
"You, I remember, borrowed money from me recently, right?" He squinted, stroking his sand-colored beard.
"This is on top of that," I announced matter-of-factly, taking the bank note and sticking it in my wallet. After that, I gave the poet a notepad and a pencil. "Be so kind," I asked my acquaintance, "write something for me..."
"You want an autograph? Are you serious?"
"Write: 'I, Albert Brandt, do charge Leopold Orso with finding my lost property, namely a ring from a Munich University student fraternity and, in accordance with the law on private investigative activity, I accept all responsibility...'"
At that point, the poet faltered, but I reassured him:
"Albert, these are normal formalities, nothing more," I said, hardly stretching the truth at all, simply forgetting to mention the two fresh corpses.
But that could never be considered deception, right?
Part Three
Reynard
Fears and Fears
1
THE BEST DEFENSE is to attack. It wasn't me who thought that up, but it bears repeating. Although, if you really get it all the way, there is no real "best defense."
Simply avoid the attention of law enforcement, and you will have no need for expensive lawyers, false alibis and money to buy non-compliant witnesses. But if you're already being followed, the last thing you should be doing is putting your hope in chance and letting the situation run its course. Attack, or you won't even have time to blink before you wake up behind bars.
I knew better than anyone how hard it was to stay outside the field of view of the supposedly clumsy mechanisms of justice. That was why, after my conversation with Albert Brandt, I didn't go home to heal my spent nerves with tea and a biscuit, I headed directly for the Newton-Markt. And I went there with a crime report form already filled out. I gave the thin stack of paper to the constable on duty, took a seat at the rough stall farthest from a lowlife handcuffed to the railing and prepared for a long wait.
I wasn't worried in the slightest.
If I'd had to zap some normal robbers, even if they were constant recidivists on the most-wanted list, I would have been beset with issues. My suffering would have been flowing like from a cornucopia. Murder is murder; the crown does not approve of its subjects depriving others of their lives. But infernal creatures on the other hand, came under a special article. Citizens did not merely have the right, but were, in fact, required to take all necessary measures to kill them. And, though the phrase "all necessary measures" was usually taken to mean an immediate call to the police, vigilante hunts for the spawn of the underworld were by no means forbidden.
The important thing was not to make a mistake. Stuff a succubus with aluminum or titanium and you're good, but if you shoot a random street person, you're going to end up behind bars. The laws of the Empire were wise and just.
The investigators on duty tonight brought me back to their desk-bound colleague with understanding, and even treated me to a mug of coffee. After getting a clear story from me, they sent out a team of constables to the scene and left me to rest on the very same bench in the vestibule. And I was unreservedly thankful to them for that. In the lockup chambers, the conditions were nowhere near as comfortable, which was to say nothing of their fairly specific aroma.
THE ON-DUTY CONSTABLE elbowed me awake just before morning.
"A self-propelled carriage is waiting for you by the garage," he said as soon as I'd cracked my eyes open. "You should hurry, detective constable."
"Yeah, yeah," I yawned and went to the back door, where there was a police armored car waiting at the gates. It had an ungainly appearance, reminiscent of an iron box on wheels. Next to its flung-wide doors, a driver was smoking in a leather pea-coat, service cap and police-issue trousers.
"Detective constable Orso?" He stuttered at my appearance.
"The very same."
"Senior Inspector LeBrun would like to see you," the freckled boy then told me. He tossed his butt under his foot and unceremoniously put it out with a turn of his high boot. "Are you ready to go?"
"Yes."
"Then let's go!" The driver took the wheel, opened the passenger door from inside, and pulled down on his leather cuffs. He left his goggles to wobble on his chest. After all, we had the wind glass to keep us the fast-moving air out, even with our armored top thrown back.
I went inside and the boy cranked the start lever for the powder engine. A muffled clap rang out and the seat under me started shaking. With a jerk, the armored car started moving, but stopped immediately. The driver had to do the whole lever procedure over again.
"Come on!" the boy grimaced. "Alright you damned old Nobel, don't fail me now!"
Just then the engine started giving measured sneezes, devouring the granules of compressed TNT. And, as the products of the Nobel Powder Engine Company enjoyed an uncanny infamy for their fickle mechanisms among those in the know, I tensed up nervously and warned him:
"There's no need to rush it..."
"Come off it! It just seized up!" The driver waved it off and gave the steering-wheel a hard turn, aiming the self-propelled vehicle at the carriageway. "And no horses!"
"Horses don't blow up," I reminded him.
"Yeah, but they do bite and kick!" the boy objected. "It's totally safe!"
"Tell that to Santos-Dumont."
But I couldn't bring the boy to reason.
"That's experimental stuff!" He retorted glibly. "I know a thing or two. I’ve worked on these engines. It's just kicking back."
At first, our motion was accompanied by noticeable kicks, but as we increased our speed, the ride grew more smooth and even. The armored car turned onto a bustling street and the driver became less talkative; the carts and coaches there were in no rush to let us through. There were also pedestrians everywhere, blocking the carriageway. Even the lazily-moving steam tram had to honk, stubbornly demanding to be let out. The engine started kicking much more frequently. The seat under me started shaking again, but soon the armored car passed the jam and began confidently picking up speed once again.
Ten minutes later, the self-propelled carriage was stopped at the intersection outside the manor; I flung open the carriage door and walked up to the police administrators, who had already managed to arrive at the crime scene.
Bastian Moran was smoking near the wide-open gate. Maurice LeBrun was trying to explain something to him in annoyance, but Moran suddenly got distracted and roared out to me:
"Constable! What do you think you're doing? You were dismissed from service, yet you went and got yourself into a firefight! Two people are dead! Do you want to end up behind bars?"
In his snazzy checkered suit, he looked like a business man on his way out for a morning stroll. But his heavy face with its powerful jaw and cold eyes helped me recognize him and not have too patronizing an opinion of his displeasure.
I listened to the reproach in silence, then said with as much respect as possible:
"Mr. LeBrun, I was conducting an investigation for a private client, but I am prepared to accept any punishment..." I handed him Albert Brandt's work order.
"For a private client?" the head of Criminal Investigation Department frowned, grabbing the sheet of paper from me. He placed a monocle in his right eye, ran his gaze over the uneven hand-written text and frowned disdainfully: "A student's ring? You were being paid to look for a student's ring, and it ended in a double murder?"
"The situation is not as straightforward as it looks at first glanc
e," I objected. "The deaths were in self-defense!"
LeBrun frowned indignantly and handed the note to Bastian Moran; he read the work order with unhidden skepticism and shook his head.
"What was the purpose of your putting on this whole presentation, constable? No one saw you here. You could have simply left and not told a thing to anyone."
"It’s my duty!" I answered, slightly overdoing the panache.
"Duty?"
"My duty as a policeman."
"Ah, that's right!" Bastian Moran smiled, not able to hold back a smile: "Or maybe you just left something here that would point back to you."
I went silent, then the senior inspector threw away his cigarette butt on the road and carelessly readjusted the white muffler he had wrapped over his short coat, preparing for a look around the crime scene.
"Let's begin, constable!" He commanded, pointing to the gate.
I walked past the sentries at the entrance and walked into the house first, copying my path from the day before. In the room with the rocking chair, it turned out to be so crowded with investigators that I couldn't get through; they were conducting an investigation and scrupulously composing descriptions of the things they found in the manor. The shell that rolled away to the baseboard had been circled in chalk. The deceased was lying on the floor, covered with a sheet.
The only people I could see were from Department Three. It was unclear why the head of the Criminal Investigations Department had come here.
"Don't stand in the doorway, constable!" Maurice LeBrun hurried me along. "Tell me what occurred here!"
"Just a minute!" Bastian Moran exclaimed, asking for the sheet to be pulled back from the dead man. "Why did you shoot him through a pillow?" He asked in surprise when one of the investigators had pulled it back. "What was your reason?"
"I was wearing a new suit. I didn't want to get blood on it," I admitted.
"Original," snorted Senior Inspector Moran. He then demanded: "Take it off."
The investigator carefully pulled the pitted and charred pillow from the dead man's face and I shuddered involuntarily. Maurice LeBrun, though, couldn't hold back from some strong language.
"What the devil, constable?" He objected. "There's no way this guy's been dead less than a year!"
Overnight, the corpse had somehow turned into a real mummy; strips of skin were pulled tight over his exposed skull. His eyes were deeply sunken in, and his sparse teeth were yellowing under the thin strips of his gray lips.
"Not just a year, much longer," Bastian Moran decided. "That was the servant. The living dead."
"Have you had the misfortune of coming up against such things before?" The head of the Criminal Investigation Department asked in confusion.
"I have," confirmed the senior inspector. "Maurice, I believe that there is no need for your continued presence here. We have it under control."
"Drop it, Bastian!" LeBrun answered unexpectedly sharply. "I will not make a claim on this investigation, but I must be informed on what occurred. At the end of the day, a subordinate of mine is mixed up in this!"
Senior Inspector Moran could only shrug his shoulders.
"As you say, Maurice," he smiled and turned to me. "Tell me, constable."
"The shadow..." I began, but Bastian Moran interrupted me just then.
"From the very beginning!" He demanded.
I had to tell them in all detail about the lost class ring, my suspicions about the poet's girlfriend, following her, and our scrap in the guest room.
As surprising as it may seem, they didn't interrupt me even once.
"You're sure you saw a shadow?" Bastian Moran asked when the report was over.
"As clear as I see you now," I affirmed.
Then the senior inspector allowed the deceased to be covered with the sheet again and ordered me to hand over my police-issue weapon. I pulled my Roth-Steyr from its holster. I could hear pieces of the trigger mechanism jostling around inside it. I extended it to an investigator.
Bastian Moran dismissed his subordinate and asked:
"What happened after that?"
"After that, I checked the basement."
"Show me."
I walked to the stairs and stopped short, not sure I had the resolve to go down the creaky steps in total darkness. Also, the thought of going into the basement still made my skin crawl. But then, one of the constables walked up with a weighty electric torch and I had no choice but to crawl into the hole.
The candles in the basement had long since burned out, and the yellowed puddles of wax were reflecting back in the light of the torch; the beam slid over the dirt floor and lit up the dead body, which looked disturbing and scary.
What was left couldn't be called a body as such; her dried out skin looked like it was stuck to the bone and skull, still topped off with a tuft of black hair. White fragments of her ribcage were poking out of her skin; they must have been damaged when the bullet hit them.
"You shot her with a Cerberus?" The senior inspector asked. "Our forensics team discovered three ten caliber bullets with aluminum jackets."
"It was a Cerberus, yes," I affirmed. "Shall I surrender it?"
"Why?" Maurice LeBrun frowned. "It doesn’t have any rifling."
"My first shot was from the Roth-Steyr," I reminded him, "but she just laughed it off and pulled the bullet from the wound. It must be around here somewhere."
"Invulnerability to copper," Bastian Moran thoughtfully hung on his words and suddenly turned around: "What do you see here, constable? What kind of place is this?"
I took a look around.
"What do I see?" I repeated, looking at the molten-wax-coated vanity. "I see hunting trophies. Many trophies. She had been collecting them for many years."
"Quite the imagination you've got there," Maurice LeBrun grumbled and asked: "Bastian, what kind of creature is that?"
The senior inspector stayed silent, so I answered:
"She considered herself a muse."
"A real muse?" The head of the CID was taken aback. "Was she Greek?"
"That's right."
"She was a nasty little vixen," LeBrun gave a shiver.
But then Bastian Moran did nothing to rush to conclusions. I suppose he knew perfectly well that malefics could die the same as any normal person. They would never be able to remove a bullet from their own shot-through chest, daring you to your face, as she had.
"What attracted her to these people?" Senior Inspector Moran asked, trying to lift the conductor's baton from the edge of the table, but finding it encased in the wax. "What did they all have in common, constable? What do you think?"
"They were all talented," I supposed, going silent, then adding: "And also illustrious..."
Bastian Moran looked at me and his lips distorted into an incomprehensible smirk.
"Illustrious!" He stated acridly. "Alright then. I should have been expecting something like that. The curse of the blood of the fallen is the scourge of our time!"
"Forgive me, Bastian, what did you say?" Maurice LeBrun was astounded.
I was no less dumbfounded at the head of the CID; such utterances were easily stretching into treasonous territory. It was doubly surprising to hear it from the mouth of someone who's duty it was to eradicate sedition.
The senior inspector, it seemed, didn't notice our surprise, though.
"The blood of the fallen is foreign to people," he declared instructively. "It's like pouring acid into the mechanisms of a clock. How many illustrious have died from the Diabolic Plague? How many permanently disabled, or made infertile? Even her Imperial Highness was only able to have one grandchild!"
"Less successors meant less squabbling for the throne," LeBrun objected, his neckerchief soaking through with sweat.
"That is true," Bastian Moran agreed, "but blood is not water. Her Imperial Highness has a heart disease. And even though doctors have made great strides in recent years with organ transplanting, any transplant still requires a suitable donor. Not just a
n illustrious, but a close relative. Otherwise, her body would reject the tissue."
"Reject? You're talking about organ transplants, now?!" The head of the CID was taken aback. "Unthinkable! Giving up the throne to the heir under the knife of these skinflints! Just imagine! How can you cut a living heart out of a person? How can you even think of it?!"
"Science must constantly push forward," Bastian Moran shrugged his shoulders and added oil to the fire. "The human body is not just some gift from the heavens, after all. It's just a tool."
LeBrun wiped his reddened cheeks with his kerchief and said with gusto:
"You know, Bastian, I never took you for a dyed-in-the-wool reductionist!"
The senior inspector noticed a careless smile sliding over my lips, and suddenly demanded explanations:
"Constable, what has got you going? Do you know the meaning of the word 'reductionist?'"
"I do, senior inspector," I answered respectfully. "But you are more likely a provocateur than a reductionist."
The head of the CID couldn't hold back an outraged snort, but Moran didn't air his grievances to me, instead clapping his colleague on the shoulder.
"I apologize, Maurice, but it's not for nothing that they say that habit is second nature. I got carried away. Don't take it personally."
"I wasn't even thinking of it," LeBrun answered and headed for the stairs. "Bastian, I hope we aren't already finished here?" he turned around half way.
"Will that be all, constable?" The senior inspector asked.
"I have nothing more to say to you," I answered and went after the head of the CID.
"Well, then, let's leave it at that."
We came up from the basement, and there already I reminded him:
"Isaac Levinson is still waiting on materials from the bank robbery."
"The robbers' armored vehicle is scheduled to be raised at four," LeBrun informed me. He then made a begrudging promise: "I'll make sure copies of the forms are provided for him by that time."
"If you would be so kind," I nodded and turned to Bastian Moran.