by Pavel Kornev
With a calm demeanor, I took out my fresh private investigator's license and extended it to him.
"First, at present, I represent myself and only myself. Second, if you’ve got someone motivated by results, you’ll have someone working more intelligently."
The banker studied the document, then looked intently at me and reminded:
"Isaac gave you an advance of five hundred francs. That money was from the bank, not his personal funds. May I inquire as to how you earned it?"
I closed my eyes for a moment, gathering my thoughts, then informed the man of my activity. Abraham Witstein heard out my report and asked:
"And what next? Your appearance here cannot have been an accident, right?"
"I would like to take a look at the crime scene."
"You are investigating the bank robbery, not Isaac's murder."
"Don't mock me!" I snorted and waved my hand internally. "These crimes are connected to one another! They must be! First there was an attempted bank robbery, but they didn't steal anything, and now the manager of said bank has been murdered! Those are all links in the same chain!"
"They say it's Procrustes, but Procrustes might as well be a natural disaster. He is uncontrollable."
"Let me inside, and I'll be able to tell you if it was Procrustes or not." I looked at his indifferent countenance, which did not contain even a hint of concern and added: "I'll tell you only as a representative of my employer, you can use this information however you think necessary."
"And what do you care?" The banker wondered. "Beyond my desire to make a name for myself with the huge amount of publicity, you mean?"
"I must be aware of all the factors."
"You must?"
"That's right." I raised my hand and showed my wrist, dappled with scabbed-over abrasions. "It takes you out of yourself, if you must know, when you are handcuffed and accused of a murder you didn't commit."
"So, revenge and vanity, but not a sense of justice?"
"You also forgot to add greed."
"What do you think you'll see in there?"
"Well, I don't suppose it will be anything pleasant."
"Don't say a word to the papers!" The banker then declared. "You must not talk about what you see in there with anyone but me. Not even the police."
"My license allows for that," I confirmed.
"I haven't hired you yet, Viscount," Abraham Witstein shook his head. "Perhaps I'll hire you depending on how your investigation of the house goes. But perhaps I won't. Just hold your tongue. Agreed?"
"Alright. So, do you see fit to allow me into the house?"
"Go on!" The banker gave me his permission, stepping out of the carriage after me, saying something brief in a language I couldn’t recognize.
The big-nosed giant peeled himself from the wall and pointed at the entrance door, but the vigilant constable bluntly refused to allow us in the house and ordered us to wait on the porch. What to expect, he did not say.
A few minutes later, an investigator came up in a uniform, heard out the man escorting me and with an unhappy air, began giving us instructions.
"Do not touch anything. Do not step in the blood," he began enumerating on his fingers, "do not distract people with questions. Do not faint," he then put up his pinkie and added: "But the most important thing is not to puke."
"I'll manage," I answered, but as soon as I crossed the threshold immediately grew happy that I hadn't had time for breakfast, otherwise I might have broken a rule.
It smelled in the house. Even at the door in, I could sense the stink of decay, coagulated blood and all the other aromas that accompanied death. In my time, I had once been in a real slaughterhouse, but it actually smelled worse here.
There was no one in the entry, but there were smears of blood on the floor circled in chalk. Stepping over them, we walked down the corridor, and there came upon the first body. A strong boy, based on his appearance, it was one of the night guards. He was sitting with his back propped up against a wall next to a wide-open door. The deceased's head was hanging to the side like you see in people with a broken lumbar.
There were bloody footsteps coming from the room. The imprints of bare feet could be made out clearly on the beige-painted boards. The investigator allowed us to look inside. In the dark cell with one window, there were another two corpses. One of them had an arm torn out, and had his face terribly mangled by a set of claws; the second's larynx had been ripped out by a powerful bite from the killer. On the walls, which were sporting a blue and gold wallpaper, there were dried blood marks everywhere.
There were two coroner’s assistants handling the corpses. They were used to this kind of thing. The police photographer, though, was green in the face, leaning out an open window taking frequent gulps of fresh air.
"There was no one else on the first floor," the investigator said and led me up.
On the way, I saw that the distance between the bloody footprints on the floor was slightly more than the length of my own pace. I got down on my haunches and, using the widely-set fingers of my right hand, measured the size of the foot. After that, following after my guide, I walked up to the second floor and took a rest on the railing, giving a rest to my banged-up leg.
In one of the rooms, there came the momentary flash of a magnesium spark. I heard the clacking of heels and another photographer jumped past us.
"Running for the bucket," the investigator told us, himself not looking so great.
"Is that where it happened?" I asked, preparing in advance for a ghastly spectacle.
"No, this is the governess's room."
I took a look into the room. There was a naked body lying on a blood-soaked bed. I hurriedly stepped back from the door. The wounds left by the powerful jaws were simply horrifying. The head was hanging by a small strip of skin; the room wasn’t particularly messy, though.
"What happened to the flesh missing from the bite holes?" I asked the investigator.
"We haven't found any," he said and warned: "It gets worse from here."
"Are they all in the same room?" I supposed.
"Indeed. Do you need a quick break first?"
"No."
And we went into Isaac Levinson's office, but, to be honest, I wasn't able to really look at anything. I just inhaled the thick stink, cast my gaze on the corpses piled one on top of the other, and jumped back like a bullet.
"No barfing!" The investigator reminded me strictly.
In a few endlessly long moments, I calmed my breathing, then asked:
"Are they all there?"
"The whole family. But only the banker was tortured. There are bruises on his wrists from being tied. The ropes were removed later."
The severe atmosphere was affecting the investigator, otherwise he wouldn't have shared such details.
"Is that all?" I clarified, walking away to the stairs.
"The bathroom is also full of blood, but there are no signs of struggle there."
"Outside!"
We walked down to the first floor. I practically ran to the entryway and leaned over a bucket placed in the corner, already half full of vomit. When all my bile had finished coming out, I wiped my lips with my kerchief and, entirely calm, walked back to the Banking House Vice-President's carriage. I got inside and immediately took out my tin of sugar drops, trying to get rid of the vile taste in my mouth; Abraham Witstein suddenly extended his hand:
"May I?"
"Be my guest!" I gave my permission.
"I certainly hope they're kosher," The banker quipped, then nervously laughed at his own joke. He placed a sugar drop in his mouth, wiped his fingers with a fine linen cloth and asked: "Your thoughts?"
"It wasn't Procrustes," I answered confidently.
"And what makes you say that?"
"Procrustes never bit anyone. He used to just beat and tear. Ask about it in the newspaper archives. Send a request to the Newton-Markt."
"If it wasn't him, then who was it?"
"It was so
meone who wanted something directly from Isaac Levinson. Someone fast, smart and cold-blooded. Most likely a werebeast. He came in through the roof. He got undressed first, and only then dealt with the guards. Other than the governess, he drove all residents of this home into Mr. Levinson's office and killed them before his very eyes. Then, he tortured Mr. Levinson. Before it ended, he sated his hunger, washed up and went out the way he came in – through the roof."
"Sated his hunger?"
"He ate a bit of the governess. By that time, he had almost returned to human appearance. The bites there are of obviously smaller size than the jaw marks on the guard's neck."
"Did the killer get what he was after?" the banker asked unexpectedly.
"I doubt it," I shook my head. "Levinson was tortured to death, so they must not have gotten anything useful."
"Perhaps the murderer is just a sadist."
The man's guess hit on something. I unexpectedly remembered another group of people who simply enjoyed torture, murder and eating human flesh. They would become animals and move so blisteringly fast, that a normal person wouldn't even manage to scream before a set of sharp fangs were stuck in their neck. And after that, they wouldn't be able to scream, because they would be choking on blood.
The Werefoxes, a group of Chinese whelps.
Could Mr. Chan have paid the Foxes for the murder of the Judean who had just crossed his path?
The offer Levinson was making, five centimes on the franc for my debt cannot have made the moneylender very happy. He did send his cutthroat for my ear, after all. But then I, incidentally, sent him crawling back with his knee cap shot through...
There were many ways to make a person angry; you could curse them with your last words, spit in their face or take the easy way and just pop your foot up between their legs. But all that was mere child's play when compared to messing with this old skinflint’s money.
The Werefoxes, my stars...
"Leopold!" Abraham Witstein cut off my thinking, his set of portable writing implements at the ready. "You may continue investigating the bank robbery." He made a small note under the old order, then breathed on a stamp and placed it over his signature. "As for Isaac's murder, I cannot hire you for that case. It has taken on too much resonance."
"Will you be announcing a reward?"
The banker frowned peevishly and admitted:
"If I don’t, my partners simply will not understand."
"How much?"
"One thousand for reliable evidence on the murder. Five thousand for the murderer."
"Alive?"
"By all means," the banker confirmed. "Otherwise, we'd go bankrupt from the hearses bringing in fresh bodies just dug up from the graveyard."
I nodded. And he was right. Five thousand francs was quite a significant sum. Passers-by would be standing in line for it.
"But, between you and me," Mr. Witstein told me in confidence, "if you have significant evidence of identity, we could pay you for the body. It would be three times more than just for evidence," and immediately corrected himself: "We are not ordering you to murder him! But we also don't want to be seen as limiting your right to self-defense, and would look on you with understanding if you did have to kill the beast. But only if it is truly necessary!"
I nodded. Catching a werebeast alive was a suicidal mission, doomed to fail from the start.
"If any issues arise, look for me in the Benjamin Franklin," the banker warned.
I got out of the carriage, headed for the nearest steam tram stop and the bitter scent of smog seemed like the aroma of heavenly ambrosia itself; it covered up the vile aftertaste in my mouth better than any sugar drop.
THE FIRST THING I WENT to do was have a talk with Ramon Miro. It was lunch time, so it wasn't so hard to find the constable. It was actually enough to simply have a peek in to Archimedes' Screw.
It should be said that I did not actually go into the bar myself. I instead sent a young boy who'd been spinning circles on the street with a stack of fresh newspapers under his arm in after my friend. For obvious reasons, I didn't want to show my face to my other former colleagues.
Ramon came out of the bar five minutes later. On seeking me, he screwed his face up into a look of disgust and walked silently past me down the sidewalk. I followed after and started walking next to him.
"Are you going far?" I asked, matching his pace.
"I'm going to drink!" The constable grumbled.
"Is your shift already over or something?" I grew surprised.
Ramon Miro was going out to drink in his uniform. What was more, instead of his normal peaked cap, he had a helmet on his head. His belt was weighed down by a baton, and there were hand cuffs swinging next to it.
"I don't give a damn!" the brawny man waved it off.
"What do you mean?" I asked in surprise.
"I’ve been let go!" the constable chuckled bitterly, turning down an imperceptible alley. "They gave me a kick in the ass! Tomorrow is my last shift. I'll be getting my severance pay, and then I'll be free as the wind!"
"They fired you?" I couldn't believe my own ears. "But why?"
"Look at who's asking!" Ramon snorted. "Because of that funny business with you and the inspector. That's why!"
"There was no funny business."
"We should have told them about the tunnels under the bank right away."
"We had an order from the inspector," I reminded him.
"Excellent! But now the inspector is dead, I'm out of work and, they say, you are too."
"Right you are."
"Right you are!" the constable aped me. "But I, meanwhile, have a family to feed!"
He stopped before a dilapidated drinking establishment, but before he was able to fling the door open, I grabbed his hand.
"Ramon! When was it that you managed to get married?"
"I'll never get married if I don't find a new job!" my friend grumbled. "Do you know hard it was for me to get this one? No one wanted to hire a half-blood like me!"
I could have joked that it would be even harder for a half-blood to get married, but decided not to go asking for trouble and pushed the constable into the bar.
"Go in already!" And when Ramon had received his mug of light-colored beer and was standing at a dirty, scratched-up table in the corner, I noted pointedly: "So, it's work you're looking for?"
"Are you suggesting we rob a bank?"
"No," I shook my head. "And I'm not even suggesting we go looking for the robbers."
"What are you suggesting then?"
"I know about a job opening for a night guard at a coalhouse."
The constable looked at me with unhidden doubt, but nodded all the same:
"First shift would work."
I dictated him the address and advised:
"Go there in your uniform. The manager is looking for a reliable man."
"I'll take a look," Ramon decided, finishing his beer, atop which was hovering a moist foam. He then squinted and continued: "Somehow, I don't think that's why you came looking for me, though."
"What do you know about Werefoxes?" I asked, my mind made up not to waste time on long and cautious inquiries.
I didn't know my way around the Chinese Quarter that well, so attempting to inquire among the locals, when considering recent events, could end in my disappearing without a trace down some dark alleyway. Mr. Chan had a certain weight among the bandits who lived there.
Ramon Miro looked at me with interest, then shook his head.
"Tell me!" He demanded. "Tell me everything from the very beginning or stop interrupting my drinking and get out of here!"
I turned to a clouded window under the ceiling, gathered my thoughts and chuckled.
"I mean, there's nothing in particular to say, Ramon. I just want to know where I could find these scumbags."
The Werefoxes were a legend of the Chinese Quarter; its very own scary story.
When yet another disfigured body turned up in the gutter, or another stubborn man
who got on the wrong side of the local triads disappeared without a trace, or when some sad sack got his ears and fingers taken off, but wouldn't talk about who did it, everyone knew the Foxes were behind it. And, like any legend, the Foxes were impossible to catch. That said, they never stuck their necks out too far either, working only inside the Chinese Quarter.
And that was precisely what Ramon countered with when he heard my story about the murder of Isaac Levinson.
"They're writing about Procrustes in all the newspapers," he added.
"It's not Procrustes!" I grew angry. "Did you even hear me? Procrustes never ate his victims!"
"But the Werefoxes have never left the Chinese Quarter," the constable parried. "They know damn well what would happen to them if they drew the ire of Department Three."
"Everyone's only been talking about Procrustes for the last couple of days. The Foxes could have figured the crime would be ascribed to him!"
"Leo!" Ramon sighed. "Admit it, you just want to pin the murder on your moneylender, in order not to have to pay back your debts."
I decided not to repudiate that potential motive. My hands were practically scratching from my desire to be rid of Mr. Chan once and for all.
"How much do you owe him?" Ramon suddenly asked.
"With interest?" I started thinking. "Around ten thousand francs."
"Holy hell!" the constable exploded. "I could see murdering for that kind of money."
"So, you see."
"I meant I could see you committing murder, not him," Miro corrected me. "You're up to your ears in this stuff, old friend, but you do have a motive. I, though, am not going to even go near him!"
In my friend's words there was a clear hint, so I took out my wallet and placed the last hundred-franc bill from my advance on the table.
"I need information."
Ramon covered my money with his palm and asked:
"Information and that's it?"
I hesitated. Digging around in the Chinese Quarter alone was extremely dangerous. No talent could stop you from getting stabbed in the back, after all. Ramon would be extremely helpful in that situation, and also he had the right connections.
"The reward for information on the murderer of Levinson is one thousand francs," I stated slowly. "For the murderer, dead, with evidence of guilt, they'll pay three thousand. And alive, they'll pay five."