by Pavel Kornev
I shrugged my shoulders.
"We shouldn't visit Moran at work. We have to figure out where he lives and... have a heart to heart. I'm sure I can manage."
Thomas Smith shot me a sour look in reply and suddenly said:
"I know where he lives."
"Is that so?" I asked in astonishment.
"Yes!" the investigator confessed. "Yeah, I also thought to talk with him eye to eye." He touched the bandage on his neck again. "You know, I don't like having a razor stuck into my neck!"
ON THE WAY, we went to retrieve the Irish killer's case. While Thomas kept watch, I wandered with a torch in the tall grass. I found the case, checked if the suppressor was well attached to the pistol barrel, and dry fired the gun several times. I then chambered a round and stashed the Webley-Scott under my jacket.
The investigator wasn't too inspired by my manipulations but didn't refuse my plan. We simply had no other way to figure out what was happening here.
BASTIAN MORAN lived in a quiet part of town near the Embassy Quarter. There was an unnamed canal between his house and the Old City. Its cloudy waters served as a kind of boundary between the austerity of the historical buildings and the pretentiousness of the modern architecture.
In order not to alert the private guard of this complex of three five-story buildings, Thomas Smith decided to rely on luck and leave the self-propelled carriage in a neighboring alley. He then led me through a small, somewhat gloomy-looking square up against the common fence of the grounds.
"Fifth floor, third and fourth windows from the corner," he said, pointing me to the inspector general's apartment. "He doesn't have a family, and if he does keep a lover, it is somewhere else. His servants all go home for the night, as well. The concierge is armed, so you cannot go through the main door."
"And I wasn't planning to," I snorted, throwing a coil of strong rope from the Model-T over my shoulder.
The investigator gave me a lift onto the wall. I laid down on it and looked around the property from its two-and-a-half-meter height. There were gas lamps near the canal and main entrances, but the depths of the complex were obscured by thick shadows.
"Alright then, I'm off," I exhaled and slid down.
Taking cover behind the neatly trimmed bushes, I walked along them to the building. I carefully glanced around a corner and immediately realized that getting over to the senior inspector's dwelling unnoticed would not merely be quite difficult, but simply impossible, except perhaps for the legendary Japanese Ninjas.
So, I didn't take a risk. I walked over the neatly manicured lawn and took a jump, grabbing the lower rung of the fire escape and easily climbing up onto the roof with its carved stovepipes. Trying not to stomp on the rooftop, I walked to the opposite edge and quietly looked down under my nose: my accurate eye did not let me down. The distance between neighboring buildings was in fact over a meter and a half.
Not short? Sure, but not long either.
I looked quickly down and made sure there was no one in the yard, then crouched and straightened up sharply like a spring after being compressed. That moment of flight, twenty meters off the ground, ended in me slamming into the neighboring roof. My boots gave an echoing strike on the iron sheet, and I had to somersault and lay out flat on my stomach to burn off the inertia.
I spent a few seconds lying like that and listening in agitation to the silence, but no one had raised a shout or blown a whistle. It was quiet, but I could still hear a record spinning in an apartment on one of the upper floors. It was the recent Billy Murray tune Any Little Girl.
Making sure there was no danger, I got to my feet and immediately hissed in pain at my thigh, which was still not healed. Fortunately, I didn’t fall into spasms, and the wound didn't have any effect on my mobility.
Mechanically shaking off my jacket and pants, I walked over to the edge of the roof and froze in the shade of a stovepipe. There was a wonderful view from up here: the dark line of the canal and the austere architecture of the Embassy Quarter beyond it, raised spires with signal lights and dim starlight in the sky with a gray haze stretching up into it.
I had always liked looking at the city at night. Ever since I was a child.
I was reminded of my family manor on the slope of Calvary, and my heart ached in dull sorrow. And I immediately heard a fluttering behind my back.
"Beautiful, bugger!" the Beast declared, coming out from behind the smokestack. "Say, Leo, why don't people live on roofs?"
"Devil!" I exhaled. "You scared me!"
"And why's that? Dirty conscience?" the albino grinned, demonstrating a full jaw of fangs as he took out a cigar. "Let's sit and have a smoke, eh?"
"Put that away!" I demanded, although the eyes of my imaginary friend were glowing no less brightly than his cigar cherry.
The Beast obediently stashed the cigar, sat on the roof and suggested:
"Let's just be quiet like in the good old days."
"I haven't got time," I refused.
"Moran isn't home yet. He's wrapped up in business, all awash in concerns. That's what they call a promotion! It's a joke! Let's just have a sit, Leo."
"Another time."
"What will happen?" the albino doubted, walking to the edge of the roof and looking down. "What if you slip right now and get flattened like a pancake, what then? What then, boy?"
"I won't slip!" I looked angrily in reply, tying my rope around a stovepipe, carefully knotting it then running the free end under my armpit.
The Beast watched me with doubt, then held his right hand out in front and thoughtfully waved his clawed fingers.
"Are you sure, boy?"
"Make yourself scarce!" I cursed and walked off the roof, bracing my legs on the wall. The rope stretched, but it held my weight, allowing me to successfully lower down onto the small balcony with a guard rail made of bent metal bars.
I nearly twisted my neck right away, stepping on a chair which Bastian Moran most likely enjoyed sitting in as he admired the view of his neighborhood. My heart was still pulling me back down.
The Beast leaned over the edge of the roof and asked:
"You gonna kill him like Marlini?"
When he mentioned the hypnotist, shivers ran down my spine, but I stayed silent and crouched down by the balcony door with a crowbar in my hand. I didn't evenhave to break the lock–the catch was not down.
Then I armed myself with my silenced pistol and carefully slipped into the small kitchen. I didn't stick around there for long, turned on my torch and headed into the bedroom. But the senior inspector was really not home.
Deciding to prepare for my meeting with Moran, I removed the pillow case from a pillow and hunkered down in a secluded pigeonhole next to the coat cabinet in the entryway. I stood there for ten minutes, but soon my eyes started sagging, pulling me to sleep.
I didn't like that one bit and headed off to search the apartment.
I was most impressed by the collection of porcelain miniatures that completely occupied one of the rooms. All the rest was a wide assortment of gramophone records in the guest room, expensive wine in the bar, pictures on the walls and even a rich library with a stack of unread popular-science magazines, mostly from the medical field. I was left with the impression this was all a simple attempt to fit in with his peer group. I did not manage to look into just the gun safe: it was locked behind several complicated mechanisms.
I sat down at the desk in the senior inspector's office and started pulling each drawer open one after the next but couldn't find keys or any other work-related documents. But at that, I hit upon a pocket Browning with a round in the chamber. I though it fit to pull the magazine from the handle and uncock it.
Just then, I heard the clapping of a powder engine outside, and I quickly returned the magazine to its place, closed the drawer and ran into the entryway with the pillowcase in my hands. Soon, I heard steps on the stairwell, then a key clanked into the lock and the door flew open.
Bastian Moran walked into the entryw
ay, turned on the light and headed for the guest room, but suddenly froze in place and lowered his hand to his belt holster. In an instant, I was at his back, throwing the pillowcase over his head. Without especially holding back, I laid into the back of his head with my pistol butt.
The senior inspector collapsed like he was thrown under a bus, and I barely managed to keep him from hitting the ground. It wasn't a sense of benevolence, I simply didn't want to make any noise and alert his downstairs neighbor.
I disarmed Moran and dragged him into the office, sat him on a chair and laid his chest down on the tabletop. I then left through a side door into the guest room and brought two knives from the kitchen, a silver table knife and a common butcher knife.
I returned just in time: he had already begun to move his arms, but still unconsciously, just barely coming to his senses.
"Don't move a muscle, Bastian!" I warned him, drawing the Webley-Scott I had tucked in my belt with a silencer on the barrel. "Just remove the pillowcase and return your hands to the table."
The senior inspector obeyed, looked at me with hatred and cursed:
"You stinking bastard!"
His hair was disheveled, his lip was swollen and there was fresh blood on his cheek, but his eyes were looking firmly and sharply, without the slightest bit of fear.
"Let's refrain from insults," I suggested.
"That's a matter of fact! You reek of piss!"
"Would you like me to shoot you in the foot? In light of recent events, that would give me untold satisfaction!"
"Shoot yourself in the head!"
I just snorted, continuing to hold the man in my pistol sights.
"Why did you hire Lynch to kill me?"
Despite my expectations, Bastian Moran seemed neither surprised nor alarmed by my question.
"Why did I hire him?" he arched a steep brow. "You need to be stopped, that's why!"
"And what did I ever do to you?"
"You're not a person, but a bloodthirsty animal. And your death would be doing humanity a huge favor."
"Nonsense!" I snapped "The tests..."
The senior inspector shot forward and bared his teeth.
"I don't know what was wrong with the tests, but you are a werebeast!"
"You're biased!"
"I have enough clues!"
"Clues?" I couldn't hold back. "That damned Irishman stuffed me full of silver, but here I am standing before you. And you still speak of clues?!"
Bastian Moran shot me a sullen look in response and shook his head.
"That cretin must have used the wrong rounds."
"Alright," I smiled. "Are you prepared to believe your own eyes? Are you prepared to hear me out, if I prove that I am not a werebeast?"
"And how are you planning to do that?"
I shifted my pistol to my left hand and picked up the butcher knife from the table.
"You are most likely aware, senior inspector, that the body of a werebeast is defined by fast regeneration. Their wounds heal extremely fast. That is a well-known fact."
"It is," Moran confirmed.
I led the knife over my wrist, and the sharp blade easily split my skin. Blood flowed.
"It isn't healing," I chuckled.
"Some kind of trick..."
I was prepared for the senior inspector's skepticism and replaced the kitchen knife with a silver one.
"Your very own table silver, isn't that right?" I asked, clenching my teeth and cutting my wrist, splitting the skin with the fairly dull knife. It bled again.
"You're ruining my Persian rug!" Bastian Moran noted sullenly.
I returned my pistol to my right hand and extended my left to the senior inspector.
"Steel and silver, see the difference?"
"I can't see anything at all!" Moran answered.
"Then turn on the light!"
The senior inspector followed my advice, looked closer and was forced to admit I was right.
"That means you're not a werebeast after all..." he muttered under his nose. "Strange. I was certain..." He threw himself into the back of his chair, continuing to hold his hands against the tabletop. "So then, Leopold, what do you want from me? Is the criminal investigation bothering you?"
"It is," I confirmed and demanded: "Call off the accusations! Now you know I'm not guilty!"
The senior inspector looked at me with unhidden doubt, then sighed.
"Well, I think that can be arranged. I'll have to sign some papers and remove the evidence again, but it's all solvable. Anything else?"
"Yes," I nodded, lowering my pistol. "Seeing as we've come to a mutual understanding, there's one more aspect of this issue I'd like to discuss with you..."
I got distracted looking out the window for just a moment, but that short instant was enough for Moran to throw open the upper drawer of his desk and point the Browning at me.
"Drop your weapon!" the senior inspector demanded. "At once!"
"Hmm, now what do we have here?" I frowned, not even considering fulfilling his order. "Are you going to accuse me of breaking and entering or attacking a government figure? A bit over the top, don't you think?"
Bastian Moran's face turned to stone. He got up from the table, slightly wobbled and grabbed the pistol in both hands. I suppose it was all the fault of the vertigo after being struck on the back of the head.
"Nothing personal, Leopold," the senior inspector said in a cold tone, "you just had bad luck with your family."
"How do you mean?"
"The problem is your cousin," Bastian Moran explained. "Her Highness Crown Princess Anna, our future Empress. If you think about it, I'm actually doing you a favor..."
"What are you on about?!"
"Her Highness is ill. She has a congenital heart disease. She doesn't have long to live. But there are stubborn rumors about a heart transplant, and the greatest chances for a successful operation, if the donor is a close relative. The only close relative of the Princess is you."
I chuckled due to the unexpected sensation of déjà vu creeping up on me.
"You'd put me under the knife for the sake of the Empire?"
Bastian Moran cringed.
"Not at all! For the sake of the Empire, you must die!"
"What?!"
"The Empire needs a strong hand!" the senior inspector declared. "The constantly ailing girl, hovering between life and death, is not capable of running a government. If we leave everything how it is, it won't be three years before the country collapses to different provinces and a war of everyone against everyone begins. Millions will die! And they will die entirely in vain, just for that wretched blood, poisoned by the curse of the fallen!"
"Sedition!"
"Truth! I have never hidden my reductionist inclinations! You and those like you are just a vestige of a bygone era. You're halting progress, perverting its entire essence! The Second Empire is one of normal people, and the illustrious have no place in it!"
I nodded, but not in a sign of agreement, just to show that I understood his motives.
"So the accusation of murdering the Hindoos was just a pretext?"
"Naturally! Everything was spoiled by von Nalz. That senior dolt rejected all the clues I gathered!"
"So, a conspiracy?" I couldn't hold back the contemptuous smirk. "Now I see how you got your new rank. You just had to close your eyes to some ritual murders. Who cares about whores cut up by Aztecs? All the more so given they were tainted with illustrious blood. You mean to say the illustrious have no place in the Empire, isn't that right?"
Bastian Moran squinted, and immediately cracked the firing pin of the Browning drily.
I was expecting this outcome from the very beginning of the conversation, and still turned to stone for an instant in surprise. And that fleeting moment decided everything. The senior inspector didn't try to cock it or load another round, but instead made a blistering jump through the side door.
And I was too late. The silencer-dulled shot clapped out on his heels and slammed
into an empty doorframe. A moment later, the Browning thundered out boomingly and I dashed off on my heels. I ran out through the second door into the dark corridor, raced into the kitchen and jumped out onto the little balcony. There I stuck the pistol handle into the side pocket of my jacket, grabbed the rope and, bracing my legs on the wall, started up onto the roof. As soon as I came over its edge, a belated shot came after me.
"Choked again!" the Beast chuckled offensively as he sat next to a stovepipe. He’d also managed to pilfer a bottle of expensive cognac from God knows where.
Without answering, I ran like hell and hopped onto the neighboring building. I raced to the fire escape, went down it and jumped onto the lawn. In the courtyard, I heard a loud blast of the doorman’s whistle, but no one managed to guess my escape route, and I got over the wall before the night guards ran up to the corner.
I fell into a thorny bush and immediately jumped to my feet then dashed across the square to the self-propelled carriage that had just flickered on its headlights. The Model-T started off and I jumped into the moving vehicle through an open door, then we raced away.
"What happened?" Thomas Smith demanded explanations, turning the wheel in agitation.
"Moran is with the conspirators!"
"Did you kill him?"
"No. I didn't manage."
The investigator cursed in vexation, but I didn't try and justify myself.
I had an excellent opportunity to shoot Bastian Moran, because I knew for certain that his pistol was not loaded. I could have, but I didn't.
Moran was supposed to cock the gun! He was supposed to cock the gun and die! Then I would have shot him without the slightest hesitation or moral anguish.
But the clever fox sniffed out my game, and it turned out how it turned out.
I uttered a silent curse. Then, the silence of the city at night was broken by a peal of deafening thunder. A blasting wind bent the trees, and I heard the clink of breaking glass.
"What the devil?" Thomas cursed, slamming on the breaks.
The Model-T started skidding and nearly turned over, but I didn't even notice. All my attention was wrapped up in a ghostly glow over the Old City. The low clouds there were devoured by a hellish flame, and that was no illusion. Dirigibles were going up in flame and collapsing on the roofs of buildings one after the next.
