The Investigation

4

“Well?” said Sheppard. Gregory handed him the written report.

“This is a complete summary, sir.”

Sheppard opened the folder and began reading:

Sheppard looked up at Gregory.

“Do you know anything about rigor mortis, Lieutenant?”

“Yes, of course, sir. I made a special point of checking all this with the experts. Rigor mortis can be interrupted by the application of force, after which it either does not return or returns in a much weaker form.”

Sheppard put the report down.

“Have you arrived at any conclusions?” he asked.

“You mean about how the crime was committed?”

“What else?”

“The perpetrator must have sneaked into the mortuary even before Atkins went on duty,” said Gregory. “He hid there, either in a corner, behind the coffin, or in among the boards and ropes piled along the wall in the back. Around five o’clock he took the body out of the coffin, moved it to the window, and pushed out the windowpane. Williams heard the noise of the breaking glass, came over to take a look, and drew his pistol when he saw the broken glass and the open window. Meanwhile, the perpetrator had started pushing the corpse through the window. To Williams it looked as if the corpse was moving by itself. He panicked and started running. After Williams disappeared, the perpetrator climbed through the window and started dragging the corpse toward the door; apparently he then heard or saw something which frightened him, so he dropped the body and ran.”

“Which way?”

“It was around five-thirty, give or take a few minutes, just a little before daybreak. He followed the footpath to the edge of the thicket, made his way through the thicket without leaving footprints by stepping from stone to stone and along the Heavier branches, then lowered himself into the stream from an overhanging branch and, keeping to the water and stepping on stones wherever possible, headed in the direction of the railroad station.”

“Is that the whole thing?” Sheppard asked.

“No,” said Gregory. “There’s a variant. The perpetrator arrived on the scene by way of the stream at around four or a little after. Watching from the stream he waited until Williams was on the other side of the mortuary, then climbed up the slope through the thicket. Since the storm didn’t stop for another hour and a half, any footprints were soon covered by fresh snow. The perpetrator followed Williams along the footpath at a safe distance, then unhooked the door of the mortuary, went inside, and closed the door again. From then on he proceeded as in the first variant: took the body out of the coffin, pushed out the pane, attracted Williams’s attention, shoved the corpse through the window, and, when Williams ran away, dragged the corpse to the door, refastened the latch, and returned to the stream. But instead of going to the station, he followed the stream to the point where it passes under the expressway. His car was waiting there and he drove away.”

“Did you find anything on the expressway?”

“A few tire tracks, but nothing definite. Don’t forget that everything I’ve told you is still only conjectural — we can’t be sure of anything until we talk to Williams. If he remembers the door being closed, but without the lath in the latch, we’ll accept the second variant.”

“How is Williams doing?”

“Still unconscious. The doctors say his case will be settled in two or three more days, one way or the other.”

“Yes…” said Sheppard. “You’ll have to come up with a better reconstruction, otherwise we have only one alternative: ‘… and for fear of Him the keepers did shake…’ “

Gregory’s eyes wandered from the Chief Inspector’s face to his hands, which were resting motionlessly on the desk.

“Do you really think so?” he asked slowly.

“Gregory, I really wish you would think of me as your ally rather than your adversary. Try to put yourself in my place for a moment. Is my request really so funny?” Sheppard asked quietly, noticing that the lieutenant had begun to smile.

“No. I just remembered something. I also… anyway, it doesn’t really matter. If I were you, I’d still think the same way I do now. You can’t go through the wall if there’s no door.”

“Good. Let’s go over the first variant. The perpetrator, you said, sneaked into the mortuary sometime before the first constable went on duty at eleven o’clock. Here’s a floor plan of the mortuary. Show me where he could have hidden.”

“Here in the corner behind the big coffin, or in the opposite corner behind the boards.”

“Did you try any of these places yourself?”

“Well, more or less… You can get behind the big coffin, but it wouldn’t be much good as a hiding place if anyone shined a light in from the side. That’s why I say it must have been the boards. None of the guards made a systematic search of the mortuary; at best they only looked in through the door.”

“Good. Now, the corpse was stiff, so to get it through the window the perpetrator had to change its position, right?”

“Yes. And in the dark too. Then he had to break the window and drop the body out.”

“How did he manage to get the corpse’s footprint into the snow next to the wall?”

“I don’t think that would have been too hard for him.”

“You’re wrong, Gregory, it would have been extremely difficult. He had to do it without attracting Williams’s attention, but Williams had already been drawn to the scene by the sound of the breaking glass. From the perpetrator’s point of view, this must have been a damned critical moment. We can be certain that Williams wouldn’t have run away if he’d seen the perpetrator. Someone moving a corpse around wouldn’t have frightened him — after all, he knew very well that he’d been assigned to the mortuary to watch out for just that kind of thing. Maybe he would have used his pistol, maybe he would have tried to apprehend him without weapons, but he certainly wouldn’t have just run away. Do you see what I mean?”

Gregory was looking the Chief Inspector straight in the eye. Finally, with a brief gesture, he nodded his assent.

Sheppard continued.

“Now, if the corpse had fallen into the snow and the perpetrator was nowhere near the body — let’s say he was squatting behind the window and couldn’t be seen from outside — even then Williams wouldn’t have run away. He would have drawn his pistol and waited to see what happened next. He might have decided not to go inside, but he would have kept his eye on the door and the window. Whatever he did, though, he wouldn’t have run away. Do you go along with this also?”

Gregory nodded his head again, staring at the floor plan on the desk.

“We have the same problem with the second variant. None of it is very probable except the part about how the perpetrator got inside, since it doesn’t depend on him hiding behind the boards as suggested in variant one. The snow could certainly have covered his footprints as you said. Let’s continue. From this point on, according to both variants, the incident took the same course. After Williams ran away, the perpetrator left the mortuary, pulled the corpse over to the door, and then escaped by way of the bushes and the stream. But what was the purpose of dragging the body through the snow — and in point of fact he didn’t drag it at all, as we both know very well, but did something quite peculiar: he made it look as if a naked man had been crawling around on his hands and knees. Right?”

“Yes.”

“Why would he do something like that?”

“The situation is much worse than after our first conversation…” Gregory said, his tone quite different from what it had been until now, as if he had an unexpected secret to tell. “It was easy enough to get inside the mortuary if all the factors were taken into account. He could easily have followed the constable — it was a dark, windy night and it was snowing — once inside the mortuary he could have waited, let’s say, forty-five minutes or an hour, in order to let the snow cover his footprints. But as for the rest… I couldn’t help thinking for a while that he wanted to produce the very effect you mentioned; in fact, once I accepted the idea of someone trying to set up a situation that would force the police to believe there had been some kind of resurrection, I thought our investigation had come to the end of the line. But now we can’t even consider that theory anymore. The perpetrator moved the corpse but then left it at the scene. Maybe something frightened him away, but why did he leave the corpse in the snow? One look at the corpse is enough to prove that it didn’t come back to life. He must have known that, but even so he moved it, and in a way that made it appear as if it had moved itself. None of it makes any sense — not in criminal terms and not in terms of insanity.”

“Maybe he did get frightened away, as you said just a minute ago. Maybe he heard the approaching car.”

“Yes, he could even have seen it, but—”

“Seen it? How?”

“When you turn off the expressway for Pickering, your headlights — the expressway is on somewhat higher ground, you see — shine into the cemetery and light up the roof of the mortuary. I checked it last night.”

“Gregory, that’s important! If the perpetrator was frightened by the lights of a car, and if that’s what caused him to abandon the corpse, we may have our explanation. Furthermore, it would be his first blunder, his first failure to carry out a well-planned act. He panicked and dropped the corpse. Maybe he thought the police were coming. That should be the basis of your reconstruction… At any rate, it’s an out!”

“Yes, it’s an out,” Gregory admitted, “but… I can’t take a chance on it. We’re dealing with a man who studies weather reports and plans his actions in accordance with a complicated mathematical formula. He would certainly have known that the lights of a car coming around the turn from the expressway would light up the whole area for a moment, including the cemetery.”

“You seem to have a great deal of respect for him.”

“I do. And I absolutely refuse to believe that anything frightened him away. An armed constable standing right there didn’t scare him. Would he have been afraid of a couple of headlights off in the distance?”

“Things like that happen. The straw that breaks the camel’s back… Maybe it took him by surprise. Maybe it confused him. You don’t think it’s possible? You’re smiling again? Gregory, you seem to be absolutely fascinated by this person. If you’re not careful, you’ll end up being… a disciple!”

“I suppose that’s a possibility,” said the lieutenant in a caustic tone of voice. He reached for the report but, discovering that his fingers were trembling, hid his hand under the table. “Maybe you’re right…” he said after a moment’s reflection. “I can’t help feeling that everything I found out there was exactly the way he wanted it to be; I don’t know — maybe I’m beginning to go crazy. Only… Williams wasn’t frightened by the corpse but by what was happening to it. Something happened to that body that made him panic. We may find out what it was, but will we ever know why…”

“There’s still the matter of the cat,” Sheppard mumbled as if talking to himself. Gregory lifted his head.

“Yes. And, to tell the truth, that’s a lucky break for me.”

“How do you mean that?”

“Right from the beginning this case has been characterized by a fantastic consistency — every incident has certain features in common with all the others — incomprehensible, perhaps, but definitely all following the same pattern. In other words, no matter how it looks, this business isn’t chaotic. It has to do with something real, although we haven’t the slightest idea of its purpose. Chief Inspector… I… even though, as you said, I myself…”

Uncertain whether he was making himself clear, Gregory began to feel nervous.

“I realize we can’t do anything except increase the surveillance. That is, we can’t do anything right now, but this case will come to a head once he uses up all his alternatives… He’s been relentlessly consistent so far, and one day we’ll turn that consistency against him. Sciss will help by telling us where to expect the next incident.”

“Sciss?” repeated Sheppard. “I just received a letter from him.”

He opened his drawer.

“He says there won’t be any more incidents.”

“What?” Completely flabbergasted, Gregory stared at Sheppard, who nodded his head quietly.

“According to him, the series is over, either indefinitely or… forever.”

“Sciss said that? On what basis?”

“His letter says he’s working on the documentation now, and would rather not explain anything until he’s finished. That’s all.”

“I see.”

Trying hard to regain his composure, Gregory took a deep breath, straightened his lanky torso, and studied his hands for a moment.

“I suppose he knows more than we do. Did he see the results of my investigation?”

“Yes. I turned them over to him at his own request. We certainly were obligated at least to that extent, since he enabled us to pinpoint the places where the incidents would take place.…”

“Yes, yes. Of course,” Gregory repeated. “This… this changes everything. There’s nothing else we can do, if…”

He stood up.

“Would you like to talk to Sciss?” asked Sheppard.

Gregory made a vague gesture: more than anything, now, he wanted to leave the Yard, to be by himself, to end this conversation as quickly as possible. Sheppard rose from his chair.

“I wish you wouldn’t be so impatient,” he said in a low voice. “In any case, please don’t take offense. So far as that goes, please…”

Gregory retreated toward the door. Somewhat disconcerted by the look of expectation on Sheppard’s face, he swallowed and said with some effort:

“I’ll try, Chief Inspector, but I don’t think I’m ready to talk to him yet. I don’t know. I still have to…”

He left without finishing. In the corridor the lights had already been turned on for the evening. The day seemed to be so indescribably long, Gregory thought; he felt as if the incident yesterday had taken place weeks before. He rode down in the elevator; then, surprising himself by his impulsiveness, he got off on the second floor, and headed for the laboratories, his steps muffled by a deep carpet. Here and there old-fashioned brass doorknobs glowed dimly, polished by the touch of thousands of hands. Gregory walked slowly, his mind a blank. Through an open door he saw some spectrographs mounted on stands; near them, a man in a white lab coat doing something with a bunsen burner. A few more steps and he reached another open door. Inside, covered from head to toe with white powder and looking more like a baker than a technician, he found Thomas. The room, jammed with long, even rows of strange-looking twisted blocks of hardened plaster, looked like the studio of an abstract sculptor. Thomas was bending over a long table with a wooden mallet in his hand, apparently about to release his latest creation from its mold. A basin of soft plaster stood on the floor beside him. Gregory leaned against the door and watched him for a few moments.

“Oh, hello,” Thomas said, looking up. “I’m just about finished. Do you want to take it with you?” He began shifting the casts around, eying them with professional satisfaction.

“A nice clean job,” he muttered to himself. Gregory nodded, picked up a white, surprisingly light block of plaster which was standing near the edge of the table, and, glancing at its bottom, saw the impression of a naked foot with big, thin, widely spaced toes. Along the edges the plaster had risen slightly to form a mushroom-like rim.

“No thank you, not now,” said Gregory, putting the cast down and hurriedly walking out of the room. Thomas watched in surprise, then began to remove his splattered rubber apron. Gregory, already in the corridor, stopped and asked over his shoulder:

“Is the doctor in?”

“He was a few minutes ago, but he may have left already. I don’t know.”

Gregory walked to the end of the corridor. Without knocking, he opened the door and went into the medical examiner’s lab. The window was shaded, but a small lamp next to a nearby microscope stand provided some light. Here and there, he could see racks of test tubes, beakers and other instruments, and some glistening bottles of colored liquid. There wasn’t a sign of Sorensen, but Dr. King, his young assistant, was sitting at his desk, writing.

“Good evening. Is Sorensen around?” Gregory asked; without waiting for an answer he began to bombard King with questions.

“Do you know anything about the cat? Did Sorensen examine — “

“Cat? Oh, the cat!”

King stood up.

“I ought to know — I did the autopsy. Sorensen isn’t here. He said he was too busy.” King’s emphasis suggested that he was not especially loyal to his boss. “I still have the cat,” he continued. “Do you want to take a look?”

He opened a small door in the corner of the room and turned on the ceiling light. The only article of furniture in the narrow cubicle was a dirty wooden table; it was splattered with reagents and rust-colored stains. Gregory glanced in at the reddish sliced-up thing pinned to the table and backed away.

“Why should I look?” he said. “You’re the doctor. Tell me what you found.”

“Well, in essence… mind you, I’m not a veterinarian,” King began, straightening up slightly. With a mechanical gesture he touched the row of pens and pencils in the breast pocket of his jacket.

“Yes, yes, I know that, but I wanted the autopsy done right away and there wasn’t time to get a vet. Now how about it, Doctor, what did the cat die of?”

“Starvation, cold, exposure. He was such a pathetic, skinny little creature.”

“How’s that?”

King, without knowing why, was annoyed by Gregory’s astonishment.

“What did you expect? Poison? Believe me, there was none. I made all the usual tests, but it was hardly worth the trouble. There was absolutely nothing in the cat’s intestines. You look disappointed.”

“No, no, you’re right, of course. Nothing else?” Gregory asked, staring at some instruments spread out in the sink. Lying next to a pair of forceps was a scalpel; some scraps of fur still adhered to its blade.

“I’m sorry,” said Gregory. “Uh, thank you for your trouble, Doctor. Good night.”

Gregory turned and walked into the corridor. A few seconds later he was back. Dr. King, busy with his papers again, raised his head.

“Excuse me, Doctor… was the cat very young?”

“No, not at all. In fact, it was rather old. Don’t let the small size fool you — it’s a characteristic of the breed.”

Though he sensed that he wouldn’t get anything more from King, Gregory, resting his hand on the doorknob, continued to ask questions.

“Uh… is there any chance that the cat died from something unusual?”

“What do you mean by ‘something unusual’?”

“Uh, maybe some kind of rare disease… oh, never mind, you already told me the cause of death, I’m just talking nonsense. Excuse me…” Noting the derisive expression on King’s face, Gregory was genuinely relieved to get back to the corridor. He closed the door and stood next to it. Before long he heard the sound of King whistling.

“Well, maybe I put him in a good mood,” he thought, “but I’ve had it.”

Gregory ran down the stairs and into the street. The lights in the building were already on for the night, but outside it was still only early evening. A strong southerly wind was drying the sidewalks. Gregory strolled along whistling, but stopped as soon as he realized he had picked up the tune from King. There was a slender woman walking a few steps in front of him. Gregory noticed a stain of some kind on the back of her coat. No, it was a feather, or maybe a shred of cotton. Catching up with the woman to tell her about it, Gregory opened his mouth and began to raise his hand to his hat in greeting; inexplicably he returned his hand to his pocket and quickened his pace. It was only a little while later, when he had given some thought to the incident, that he realized why he hadn’t said anything. The woman had a pointed nose.

“I shouldn’t worry about such stupid things!” he told himself angrily.

Entering a subway station, Gregory boarded the first northbound train. He leaned against the side of the car, glancing through a newspaper and mechanically peeking over it from time to time to check the names of the stations rushing past outside the windows. He got off at Wooden Hills. The train pulled away noisily and sped into the tunnel. Gregory stepped into an unoccupied telephone booth and opened the directory. Carefully sliding his finger along the column of names, he found what he was looking for: “Sciss, Harvey, Ph.D., M.A. Bridgewater 876-951.” He picked up the receiver and dialed the number carefully, closing the booth door in anticipation. No more than a minute later he heard the even buzz of the ringing signal, then a short clicking and a woman’s voice:

“Hello?”

“Is Dr. Sciss in?”

“No he isn’t. Who’s calling?”

“Gregory, of Scotland Yard.”

The woman hesitated for a moment, as if uncertain what to do. Gregory could hear the sound of her breathing.

“The Doctor will be back in fifteen minutes,” she said at last, a note of reluctance clearly discernible in her voice.

“In fifteen minutes?” he repeated.

“Probably. Shall I tell him you called?”

“No, thanks anyway. Maybe I…”

Gregory hung up without finishing and stared glumly at his hand, which was pressed against the telephone book. Noticing the flickering lights of an approaching train, he left the booth without further thought, glanced quickly at the illuminated platform sign to find out the destination of the waiting train, and got into the last car.

During the twenty-minute trip to Bridgewater, Gregory kept thinking about the woman who had answered Sciss’s phone. He knew Sciss wasn’t married. Could it have been his mother? No, the voice was too young. Housekeeper? He tried desperately to remember its sound, flat yet melodious at the same time, as if it were a matter of extreme importance, but he was well aware that he was only trying to keep from worrying about what to say to Sciss. Their conversation, he was afraid, might eliminate his only remaining lead.

In Sciss’s neighborhood the subway line ran outdoors on an elevated structure. Gregory descended from the station and, with the noise of passing trains rattling overhead, walked along a broad avenue lined by stores. Sciss lived nearby on a dimly lit, deserted street; a bright green sign advertising a peep show glowed in the ground-floor window of the house next to his.

It was hard to see much of Sciss’s building in the darkness. Gregory noticed some masses of concrete protruding over the sidewalk from the upper stories; they could have been ledges or balconies. The building’s entrance lobby was completely dark, except for some light reflected from a neon sign across the street; the stairway was dark also. Gregory pushed an illuminated button for the self-service elevator and rode upstairs. Sciss would probably use that damned logic of his to make fun of him, he brooded; Sciss never lost a chance to demonstrate his superiority to everyone else, and he’d probably leave Sciss’s apartment feeling defeated and convinced of his own stupidity.

The hallway on Sciss’s floor was almost totally dark, but a thin crack of light revealed that his door was open slightly. “I should ring the doorbell anyway,” Gregory said to himself, gently pressing his finger against the button. The door swung open without a sound. Gregory walked in; the air in the apartment was warm, dusty, and very dry, and there was a peculiar odor, a cool subterranean odor of decay, something like the stench of a tomb, he thought. The odor was so out of place that it startled him. Wrinkling his nose slightly, Gregory stood in the foyer for a few moments to get accustomed to the darkness, then began feeling his way toward a line of light visible some distance in front of him.

Before long he came upon a slightly opened door which led into a larger room. Near the wall, and partly blocked from his view by the open door of a closet, a desk lamp stood on the floor. A huge triangular shadow was moving on the ceiling, looking something like a gigantic bird flapping its wings one at a time.

At the other end of the foyer, behind him, Gregory heard the hissing whistle of a gas burner and the dripping of a water faucet. Except for these two sounds, the apartment was absolutely silent — no, not quite, for he could hear someone breathing laboriously.

The room was large and square. At one end a dark curtain partly covered a window. The walls were lined with books. Gregory stepped inside and spotted Sciss; the scientist was sitting on the floor next to the desk, surrounded by bulging folders which he was apparently trying to put into some kind of order by the light of the desk lamp beside him. The room felt even warmer than the foyer, the air exuded the dryness characteristic of apartments with central heating; the unpleasant musty odor became even more discernible.

The situation was peculiar, and Gregory stood at the door not knowing what to do. While he waited, the minutes dragged on… and on. Sciss, sitting with his back to Gregory, continued to work on his folders, which apparently had been removed from the open drawers of his desk. He carefully brushed the dust off some, blew it off others with a disgusted snort, waving them back and forth. Somewhere behind Gregory, probably in the kitchen, the gas hissed continually. He thought he could hear someone moving around, probably the woman he had spoken to on the phone. Gregory took another step into the room; the floor creaked, but Sciss didn’t notice. Finally, yielding to an admittedly senseless impulse, Gregory knocked loudly on the open door of the closet.

“What’s that?” Sciss said, turning his triangular head with its disheveled hair in the detective’s direction.

“Good evening and… please excuse me,” said Gregory a little too loudly. “I don’t know if you remember me, I’m Gregory of Scotland Yard. We met each other at Headquarters, at Chief Inspector Sheppard’s… Your outer door was open, and—”

“Yes, I remember. What can I do for you?”

Sciss rose to his feet, accidentally kicking over the nearest pile of folders, and sat down on his desk, wiping his fingers with a handkerchief.

“I’m in charge of the investigation in this… case,” Gregory said, finding it difficult to choose the right words. “Chief Inspector Sheppard told me about your letter. You said you don’t foresee the possibility of further… further incidents. That’s what I came over to ask you about…”

“Indeed. But I said in my letter that I can’t provide an explanation right now. I’m working alone and I don’t know if…”

He cut himself off in mid-sentence, revealing an uncertainty that was not at all typical of him. Shoving his hands in his pockets and taking long, stiff steps, Sciss walked across the room, passing in front of the detective, who was still standing in the same spot. Near the window, he swung around, sat down on the radiator with his arms clasping his knees, and stared into the light of the lamp on the floor.

Sciss remained silent for several minutes; then, without any preliminaries, began speaking. “Anyway, maybe even that’s not so important. There’s been a change in my plans… quite a radical change.”

Gregory stood with his coat on, listening, but realizing at the same time that Sciss was thinking out loud, hardly aware of his presence.

“I went to the doctor. I haven’t been feeling well for a long time, and there has been a significant drop in my productivity. On the basis of averages determined from the ages of my parents, I calculated that I had thirty-five years more. I forgot to consider the effect of intensive intellectual work on my blood circulation. It seems that I have… a lot less time. It puts a new complexion on things. I still don’t know if—”

Sciss stood up so abruptly and with such decisiveness that it looked as if he intended to terminate the visit by abandoning Gregory and leaving the room. Such behavior from Sciss wouldn’t have surprised Gregory at all. He didn’t doubt the truth of what Sciss had told him, but he hardly knew what to make of it. The peaceful, lifeless composure in Sciss’s voice was completely at odds with his impulsive movements: he jumped to his feet, took a few steps, sat down here and there like an irritated, exhausted insect — there was something poignant about him, and it was reflected in his tired, almost despairing tone of voice. In the end, Sciss didn’t leave the room after all. Instead, he sat down on a couch along the wall opposite the window. Just over his birdlike head, casting a slight shadow on the ragged gray hair around his temples, there hung a picture, a print of Klee’s “The Madwoman.”

“I had made plans for the next twenty years. The ten years after that I was holding in reserve. Now I have to change everything, I have to go over all my plans and drop everything secondary, everything that isn’t original research. What isn’t secondary — when you have to carry a bottle of nitroglycerin around! I don’t want to leave any of my work unfinished.”

Gregory remained silent.

“I don’t know whether I can continue on this case. In the long run the problem is trivial — the hypothesis needs a few minor adjustments, that’s all, but I don’t like that kind of work, it doesn’t interest me. Furthermore, a complete analysis of all the relevant statistical data would take weeks — maybe even months if the right computers aren’t available.”

“Our people —” Gregory began.

“Your people would be useless,” Sciss interrupted. “This isn’t a criminal investigation, it’s a scientific study.” He stood up and continued, “What do you want — an explanation? You’ll get it, don’t worry.”

He glanced at his watch for a moment.

“And I was about to take a rest,” he said. “This case has nothing at all in common with criminology. No offense of any kind was committed, no more than when someone is killed by a meteor.”

“You mean that the operative causes are… forces of nature,” Gregory asked, immediately regretting it because he had resolved to keep his mouth shut and let Sciss do all the talking.

“I don’t have time for discussions, so please don’t interrupt me. Can you define those ‘forces of nature’ you mention so glibly? I can’t. The problem in this case is strictly methodological. Its aspects from the criminal point of view don’t interest me at all, they never did.”

Without interrupting himself, Sciss went over to the wall, turned on the ceiling light, and glanced at the lieutenant. A smile appeared on his thin lips.

“Please look over here.” He pointed toward the open closet. Gregory moved closer. There was a map of England hanging on the door, its surface covered with what looked like a fine red rash, but the blood-red speckling wasn’t uniform in intensity: in some places it was denser; here and there towns were completely encircled; the lightest areas were on the right-hand side of the map, along the Channel coast.

“Since this isn’t really a problem for you or your department, you’ll probably find my explanation useless, but I assure you it’s the only answer,” Sciss said, smiling faintly but coldly. “Do you recognize the lightest area over here?”

“Yes. That’s the area of Norfolk where the bodies were stolen.”

“Wrong. This map shows the distribution of deaths from cancer in England for the past nineteen years. The region with the lowest death rate — that is, less than thirty percent, using an average based on a half-century — falls within the boundaries of the area in which the corpses disappeared. In other words, there is an inverse proportion; I have formulated an equation to express it, but I won’t go into that now because you wouldn’t understand it.” Sciss’s almost imperceptible smile was beginning to take on an abusive quality.

“It is your primary duty to respect the facts,” Sciss continued. “I, my dear sir, went beyond the facts. Some corpses disappeared. How? The evidence suggests they walked away by themselves. Of course, you, as a policeman, want to know if anyone helped them. The answer is yes: they were helped by whatever causes snail shells to be dextrorotatory. But one in every ten million snail shells is sinistrorsal. This is a fact that can be verified statistically. I was assigned to determine the connection between one phenomenon and other phenomena. That’s all that science ever does, and all that it ever will do — until the end. Resurrection? By no means. Don’t be ridiculous. The term is used much too loosely. I’m not claiming that the corpses came back to life, with their hearts beating, their brains thinking, the coagulated blood in their veins flowing again. The changes which take place in a dead body are not reversible in that sense. What other sense is there, you ask — the corpses moved around, changed their positions in space. I agree, but the things you’re talking about are nothing but facts — I have explanations!”

Sciss moved closer to the map and raised his arm. No longer smiling, he spoke quickly and energetically, his high-pitched voice taking on a triumphant note.

“A phenomenon is subject to analysis only if the structure of its events, as in this case, conforms to a regular pattern. Science progresses by discovering the connection between one phenomenon and other phenomena, and this is exactly what I succeeded in doing. If I were to ask why a rock falls when dropped, you would reply that it is due to the action of gravity. Yet if I asked what gravity is, there would be no answer. But even though we don’t know what gravity is, we can determine its regular pattern of action. People become accustomed to rocks always falling. Any phenomenon which continues to exist within everyday comprehension, even if incomprehensible in itself, ends up being commonplace. For example, if human or animal corpses usually got up and walked around, if that was the norm, the police wouldn’t be interested in the incidents in Norfolk. I was assigned to determine the cause of this seemingly abnormal series of phenomena, and, its uniqueness notwithstanding, to connect it with some other series of phenomena that was already familiar, documented, and of such long standing that its occurrences no longer shock the public or arouse the curiosity of the police. Death by cancer is a perfect example of this kind of phenomenon. I examined parish registries from the whole Norfolk region as well as hospital death records for the past fifty years. Of course I encountered a certain amount of difficulty. During the early part of this fifty-year period doctors were not able to differentiate cancer, or to treat it as a separate disease as they do nowadays. However, to the extent that it was possible, I collected the facts regarding the number of cancer-related deaths, translated them into statistics, and transferred them to this map. You can see the results.”

Sciss turned off the light and went back to his desk, and as he did so Gregory finally discovered the source of the unpleasant odor: it was emanating from the corner just beyond the closet, where he could see some long, low boxes crammed with moldy, stained, old books.

“To make a long story short, Mr. Gregory, mortality due to cancer follows a regular cycle and is in turn governed by it. Around the end of the nineteenth century we begin to see an irregular but steady increase in incidences of cancer, and nowadays, as a result, more people than ever contract cancer and die from cancer. Norfolk and its surrounding region, however, constitutes an enclave with a relatively low cancer mortality. In other words, the rate of death from cancer has remained more or less the same for the past thirty years, although it has continued to increase in adjacent regions. When the difference between the mortality rates of this enclave and the adjacent localities exceeded a certain level, corpses began to disappear. The center, that is, the place where the first disappearance occurred, is not the geometric, spatial center of the enclave, but the place in which cancer mortality reached the lowest level. The phenomenon spread from that point in a definite pattern: it moved rapidly because of such factors as temperature, etc. As you should remember, I’ve already explained that. In the last incident, the phenomenon reached the boundaries of the enclave. The formula which I have derived from the statistics on cancer deaths excludes the possibility of any corpse disappearances outside the enclave. It was on this basis that I wrote to Sheppard.”

Sciss fell silent, turned around, and picked up the lamp. He held it in his hand for a moment, as if uncertain what to do with it, then placed it on his desk.

“You made up your mind on the basis of this?” Gregory whispered, warning himself to proceed cautiously.

“No. There was more.”

Sciss folded his arms across his chest.

“In the earlier incidents, the corpses disappeared, so to speak, ‘permanently’; that is, they were moved for an unknown distance in an unknown direction. In the last incident, however, there was comparatively little displacement of the corpse. Why? Because the last incident occurred very close to the boundary of the enclave. This helped me to define the coefficient of my formula with great precision, inasmuch as the rate of cancer mortality increases by an arithmetic rather than a geometric progression as we trace its passage from the enclave into the adjacent regions.”

The room was silent. Gregory could hear the far-off hissing of the gas burner.

“All right,” he said at last. “In your opinion, then, what caused the disappearances? The movements, if you prefer.”

Sciss smiled faintly, looking at the detective with an amused expression.

“I beg your pardon,” he said, “but I’ve already answered your questions. You’re acting like a child who is shown Maxwell’s theorem and a diagram of a radio receiver and then asks, ‘How does this box talk?’ It has never occurred to you or your Chief to institute an investigation against whatever causes people to contract cancer, has it? Similarly, at least as far as I know, you’ve never made inquiries about the perpetrator of Asiatic flu.”

Gregory clenched his teeth, warning himself not to respond to Sciss’s sarcasm.

“All right,” he said. “The way you see things you’re right. Since it’s only a simple case of resurrection, rather than a matter of corpses moving, standing, and walking after death, you consider everything to be perfectly clear-cut and understandable and therefore not worth any further investigation.”

“Do you think I’m an idiot?” Sciss said, sitting down on the radiator again. His voice was suprisingly gentle. “Obviously there’s a good deal here for biochemists, physiologists, and biologists to look into, but there’s nothing for the police. Futhermore, the study of something like this could go on and on without any definitive results, even after fifty years — just like the study of cancer. Only my field — statistics — can give immediate results. The same applies in the study of cancer. So far as this case is concerned, there will probably be quite a few conflicting theories in time, and I imagine that the ones the public finds most appealing will help to build up the circulation of the more sensational newspapers. The phenomenon will be connected with flying saucers, with astrology, with God only knows what. But all that is none of my business.”

“What about the dead animals we found at the scene of the disappearances?” Gregory asked, pretending not to have heard the note of anger that was beginning to appear in Sciss’s voice.

“That interests you? Yes, of course…” Sciss said. Suddenly calm again, he clasped his knees with his thin, twisted arms.

“I didn’t analyze that particular point mathematically, but the simplest and most fundamental explanation would be to regard the animal as a vehiculum, that is to say, as the carrier or medium which conveys the movement factor to the corpse. This factor is specific to a particular biological agens; it is similar in nature to whatever causes cancer, and in certain circumstances, we must assume, the ‘something’ that produces cancer is transmuted into our factor; that is, it employs small domestic animals as a means of moving from one place to another. Rats, to cite a well-known example, played the same role in bubonic plague.”

“Is it some kind of bacteria?” Gregory asked. He was leaning against the open door of the closet, studying Sciss’s shadow on the floor in front of him but listening carefully.

“I didn’t say that. I don’t know. I don’t know a thing. The theory is full of holes. Hypotheses non fingo. I won’t stand for it. It isn’t my job to formulate hypotheses. I can’t afford to worry about the problem, I haven’t got the time.”

“If it’s not a bacteria, but, as you say, a biological factor, maybe it’s a microbe,” Gregory said. “An intelligent microbe, in fact a very intelligent microbe, a microbe with the ability to think ahead the way a human being does.”

“I get the impression that you’re looking for a way to make a profit on this story — what are you planning, a magazine article about intelligent microbes?” Sciss’s voice shook with anger. Gregory, as if he hadn’t heard, walked slowly toward Sciss, very slowly, speaking more and more distinctly, yet faster and faster, as if he were being consumed by the fire of a brilliant idea.

“This factor,” Gregory said, “suddenly turns up in the middle of the area that has the low death rate. It carries out all its activities with as much foresight as a conscious being, except that at the beginning it’s still inexperienced. It doesn’t know, for instance, that most people would consider a naked corpse a little — let’s say — peculiar, and that carrying one around can get a bit complicated. Then the factor learns that nudity is considered improper dress, even on dead people. The next time he moves a body he makes a point of providing suitable clothing — and how does he do it? — by tearing down a curtain with his bare teeth! Later on he learns to read; how else is he going to study the weather forecasts? Then this brilliant intelligence of his fogs up when he gets too close to the boundary of the low cancer mortality region. He can only manage to set some stiffened limbs in motion — poorly coordinated motion at that — and run them through some graveyard gymnastics: standing the body up, making it peer through the window of the mortuary, and so forth.”

“You seem to know exactly what happened. Were you there?” Sciss asked, not showing his face.

“No, I wasn’t there, but I know what can frighten an English constable. Dancing corpses. Evidently just as he was losing consciousness he remembered Holbein and the pranks skeletons used to play in the Middle Ages.”

“Who?”

The scientist’s voice was almost unrecognizable.

“What did you say?” Gregory asked in surprise. “What’s this ‘who?’ We’re talking about a statistically documented biological factor. I’m just repeating what you told me.”

Gregory drew so close to Sciss that he was almost able to touch his knee. The scientist stood up, thrusting his pale, motionless face directly in front of the detective’s. Gregory could see his pupils contracting. The two men stood that way for a few moments, then Gregory stepped backward and began laughing. The laugh was feigned, but it sounded almost spontaneous and its naturalness would have fooled anyone. Sciss stared at him for a moment, then his face began to quiver spasmodically and he started to laugh also. An instant later the room fell into silence. Sciss returned to his desk, sat down in the armchair behind it and, leaning backward, drummed his fingers on his leg for a moment.

“You think I did it, don’t you?” he said. Gregory had not expected such directness. Uncertain how to reply, he stood quietly, tall and clumsy, desperately trying to decide how to handle things now that their encounter had taken this new course.

“A few moments ago,” Sciss continued, “I thought you considered me an idiot. I can see now, though, that you think I’m insane. And so… I am threatened with arrest or with detention for psychiatric observation. Considering my state of health, I must say that both eventualities come at a bad moment; in addition I really can’t afford to waste the time. I was wrong to let Sheppard talk me into cooperating, but it’s too late now. What can I do to convince you that your theory is wrong?”

“Did you go to the doctor today?” Gregory asked in a quiet voice, drawing closer to the desk.

“Yes. I saw Dr. Vaugham. His office hours are from four to six. I made an appointment with him by telephone last week.”

“The results of his examination… are they medically confidential?”

“I’ll phone him and ask him to tell you everything he told me. Is there anything else?”

“Is that your car parked in the courtyard downstairs?”

“There are always several cars in the courtyard so I don’t know which one you’re talking about. I have a gray Chrysler.”

“I’d like —” Gregory began. He was interrupted by the telephone. Sciss bent over and picked up the receiver.

“Sciss speaking,” he said. The drone of a loud voice could be heard in response.

“What?” said Sciss. Then, a little louder: “Where? Where?”

For the next few moments he listened without saying a word. Gregory moved closer to the desk. He looked at his watch. It was almost nine.

“Good. Yes…” Sciss said at last. Just before hanging up he added: “Yes, yes, Gregory is here, yes, I’ll tell him.” He slammed the receiver into its cradle, stood up, and walked over to the map inside the open closet door. Gregory followed him.

“One of the missing bodies has been found,” Sciss said, his voice so low that he appeared to be thinking about something else. He peered nearsightedly at the map and, taking a pen from his pocket, made a small mark near the edge of the enclave.

“In Beverly Court, at the bottom of a water tank. It was discovered when the tank was drained. The body of a male.”

“Who telephoned?” asked Gregory.

“What? Uh, I don’t know. I didn’t ask. He told me his name but I wasn’t paying attention. It was someone from Scotland Yard. Sergeant something-or-other. Yes, it fits. They’ll all start turning up now… in sequence, like shells fired from a gun, although…”

He became silent. Standing slightly to Sciss’s side, Gregory watched him through slitted eyes, listening intently to the rhythm of his breathing.

“You think they’ll come back… all of them?” he said at last. Sciss raised his eyes to Gregory and quickly straightened up. His face was flushed, his breathing even louder than before.

“I don’t know. It’s possible, it’s even probable. If they do, the whole series will be concluded… and everything else with it! Maybe I figured it out too late. Suitable camera equipment with infrared film would have provided photographs explicit enough to protect me from this… this fooling around.”

“Does Beverly Court fit into your pattern? What I mean is, does its location go along with your theory?” Gregory asked somewhat perfunctorily.

“The question is poorly phrased,” Sciss replied. “I have no way of determining where the bodies will be found; that is, where they will ultimately stop moving. The only thing I can calculate is the amount of time that elapses between a disappearance and the cessation of the phenomenon, and this I can do only approximately. In my estimate, the bodies which disappeared first will be found last. You should be able to understand why. At the beginning, for some reason, the factor conveyed the greatest amount of motor energy to the corpses; by the time it reached the boundary of the region it was only able to transmit a minimal charge, barely sufficient for a series of uncoordinated body movements. You probably think I’m raving. Or lying, perhaps. It’s all the same thing in the end. Now leave me alone, will you? I still have a lot to do.” Sciss pointed to one of the boxes of moldy books. Gregory nodded his head.

“I’m going. Just one question first. Did you go to the doctor by car?”

“No. I went by subway and I came home the same way. I have a question too: what do you intend to do with me? I only ask because I want to be able to work as long as possible without interference. Is that understood?”

Gregory buttoned his coat, which was beginning to hang on his shoulders like a lead weight. Taking a deep breath, and again inhaling the faint musty odor, he answered:

“What do I intend to do? Nothing, for the time being. Let me remind you that I haven’t expressed any suspicions or made any charges — not even one word!”

With his head bent, Gregory walked into the foyer. In the dimness he caught a glimpse of a woman’s face, a pale blot which disappeared almost instantly; he heard the sound of a door slamming. He found his way out of the apartment, checked the time again on the luminous face of his watch, and went downstairs. In the lobby, instead of heading for the street, he turned in the opposite direction and went into the courtyard toward a long, gray automobile. He circled it slowly but couldn’t see very much in the faint light from the windows of the surrounding buildings. The car was locked, completely dark, except where reflections of the apartment house lights danced rhythmically on its shiny fender in time with Gregory’s movements. He touched the hood: it was cool. That didn’t mean anything, though. It was a little harder to reach the radiator. He had to bend down and stretch his hand through a wide chrome-enclosed gap that looked like the thicklipped mouth of a sea monster. Hearing a slight noise, Gregory winced and straightened up. He saw Sciss at the second-floor window. Now he wouldn’t have to continue his examination of the car, Gregory thought; Sciss’s behavior confirmed his suspicions. At the same time, though, he felt a bit uncomfortable, as if he had been caught doing something underhanded, and this feeling became stronger when, observing Sciss more closely, he realized that the scientist wasn’t watching him at all. After standing next to the open window for a few moments, Sciss sat down awkwardly on the window sill, drawing his knees up and wearily resting his head in his hands. This gesture was so incompatible with Gregory’s image of Sciss that he stepped back to get a better look, and as he did so he stumbled over a piece of metal, crushing it underfoot with a piercing noise. Sciss looked down into the courtyard. Gregory stood absolutely still, flushed with embarrassment and anger, uncertain what to do next. He didn’t know for sure if he’d been seen, but Sciss continued looking downward, and although Gregory couldn’t make out his eyes or face, he could feel his disdainful gaze.

Completely crestfallen and not daring to continue with his examination of the car, Gregory walked away, his head lowered and his back hunched.

Before he reached the subway he had regained his composure, at least to the extent that he was able to go over the ridiculous incident in the courtyard — ridiculous, he thought, to have allowed it to upset him. Gregory was almost certain he had seen Sciss’s car in downtown London that afternoon. He hadn’t noticed the driver, but it was the same car all right — there was a distinctive dent in the rear bumper. At the time Gregory hadn’t paid much attention to the car. The chance incident did not begin to take on significance until later, when Sciss claimed to have gone to the doctor by subway rather than by car. The discovery that Sciss was lying wasn’t too important in itself, but, Gregory felt, if he had known earlier in the evening he would have been somewhat less scrupulous and cautious in his behavior toward the scientist; furthermore, it would have counteracted the feeling of compassion which had overcome him during the unfortunate visit. Gregory still didn’t know anything definite, however, and whatever certainty he could derive from his afternoon observation of the car was based on a wretched “maybe” and thus didn’t count for much. His only satisfaction came from knowing he had discovered an inconsistency in what Sciss had told him. Sciss had gotten rid of him by claiming he had work to do, but instead of working he had done nothing but lounge around the window. Gregory remembered Sciss’s state during the visit: his listless body, the inclination of his head, his exhausted leaning against the window frame. But if Sciss’s fatigue was the ultimate cause of their disagreement, Gregory had not taken advantage of it, ultimately, because of a stupid gallantry which prevented him from exploiting his opponent’s moment of weakness and made him leave the apartment perhaps no more than a minute before the decisive words were uttered.

Drawn into a labyrinth of possibilities by these thoughts, Gregory, impotently angry, wanted only to return home and study the facts in his thick notebook.

It was almost eleven o’clock when he got off the subway. Just before turning the corner to the Fenshawe house, he passed a blind beggar stilting in a niche in the wall of a building, a bald, ugly mongrel at his feet. The beggar had a harmonica, but blew into it only when someone was approaching, using it as a signal without any pretence of making music. It was impossible to determine his age, his clothing providing more clues than his face, which was hidden by a nondescript beard. Returning home late at night or leaving before daybreak, Gregory always met the same beggar in the same place, like an inescapable pang of conscience. The Beggar was as much a part of the neighborhood landscape as the big bay windows of the house in front of which he sat, and although Gregory was a policeman and the police regulations prohibited begging, it never occurred to him that he was tacitly consenting to his presence and thus was a party to a misdemeanor.

Gregory never gave much thought to the beggar — in fact, the old man’s clothing was so filthy that the very sight of him aroused disgust — but the beggar, nonetheless, must have stirred something in his memory; indeed, awakened feelings deep in his subconscious, for Gregory always quickened his pace almost involuntarily when passing him. Gregory never gave anything to beggars: it had nothing to do with his profession, nor was he an unkind person; perhaps the cause was some indefinable shame. This evening, though, having already passed the old man’s post, spotting the dog crouching at his side (sometimes he felt sorry for the dog), Gregory surprised himself by turning and walking over to the dark wall, taking some money out of his pocket as he did so. There followed one of those insignificant little incidents that one never mentions to others and remembers ever afterward with an indescribable feeling of distress. Assuming the beggar would reach out to accept it, Gregory extended the hand with the money into the vague darkness of the niche. When he did, however, his fingers brushed against those disgusting, filthy rags. The same thing happened again and again; the beggar grotesquely lifted his harmonica to his lips and began blowing. Overcome by a feeling of revulsion, and unable to find a pocket in the torn material covering the huddled body, Gregory blindly threw the money down and backed away. Something clattered at his feet — in the weak light of the street lamp he saw that it was his own coin rolling after him. Gregory picked it up and impulsively pressed it into the darkened indentation in the wall. He was answered by a hoarse, stifled groan. Desperate now, Gregory rushed home, taking such long strides that he seemed to be running. He didn’t recover from his agitation until he had reached the front of his house. Then, seeing a light in the window of his room, he ran upstairs without any of his usual caution, reaching the door slightly out of breath. He stood in front of the door for a moment, listening carefully. Not a sound. Glancing at his watch again — it was 11:15 — he opened the door. Sitting and reading at Gregory’s desk, just in front of the glass doors opening on the terrace, was Sheppard. He raised his head from the book:

“Good evening, Lieutenant,” said the Chief Inspector. “It’s about time you got here.”