The Investigation

1

Rattling rhythmically at each floor, the old-fashioned elevator moved upward past glass doors decorated with etchings of flowers. It stopped. Four men emerged and walked down the corridor toward a pair of leather-covered doors.

The doors swung open.

“This way, gentlemen,” gestured someone standing just inside.

Gregory was the last one in, right behind the doctor. Compared to the brightly lit corridor, the room was almost dark. Through the window the bare branches of a tree were visible in the fog outside.

The Chief Inspector sat down behind his high, dark desk, which was enclosed by a low ornamental railing. Except for two telephones, an intercom, his pipe, his eyeglasses, and a small piece of chamois cloth, there was nothing on the polished wood surface.

Seating himself in an upholstered armchair on one side of the room, Gregory noticed Queen Victoria eying them from a small portrait on the wall behind the desk. The Chief Inspector looked at each of the men in turn as if counting them or trying to memorize their faces. One of the side walls was covered by a huge map of southern England; on the wall opposite there was a dark shelf lined with books.

“Gentlemen,” the Chief Inspector said at last, “I want you to go over every aspect of this case. Since the official record has been my only source of information, I think we should start with a brief summary. Farquart, perhaps you can begin.”

“Certainly, sir, but I don’t know anything about the beginning of the case except what’s in the reports.”

“There were no reports at the very beginning,” commented Gregory somewhat too loudly. Everyone turned to look at him. With exaggerated casualness he began to rummage energetically in his pocket as if looking for a cigarette.

Farquart straightened up in his chair.

“The affair began around the middle of last November, but there may have been some earlier incidents that were ignored at the time. The first report to the police was made three days before Christmas, but an investigation in January showed that these corpse incidents began much earlier. The report was made in the town of Engender, and it was, strictly speaking, semiofficial in character. Plays, the local undertaker, complained to the commander of the district police station, who happens to be his brother-in-law, that someone was moving the bodies around during the night.”

“What exactly did this moving consist of?” The Chief Inspector was methodically cleaning his glasses.

“The bodies were left in one position in the evening and found in different positions the following morning. Strictly speaking, only one body was involved — apparently a certain drowned man who—”

“Apparently?” the Chief Inspector repeated in the same indifferent tone.

Farquart straightened himself even more in his chair.

“No one thought the incident was important at the time,” he explained, “and when we finally began collecting evidence it was hard to get the exact details. The undertaker isn’t completely sure anymore whether the body involved was actually the drowned man’s. In fact the whole report is somewhat irregular. Gibson, the Engender police commander, decided not to log any of this because he thought—”

“Do we have to go over all this again?” shouted a man who was sprawled in a chair next to the bookshelf. His legs were crossed so high that a line of bare skin was visible above his gold-colored socks.

“I’m sorry, but it’s absolutely necessary,” Farquart answered in a dull voice without looking at him. The Chief Inspector put on his glasses, and his face, until now a total blank, took on a kindly expression.

“We can do without the formal aspects of the investigation for the time being,” he said. “Please go on, Farquart.”

“Whatever you say, Chief Inspector. The second report was made in Planting, eight days after the first. Someone moving corpses at night in the cemetery mortuary again. The dead man was a stevedore named Thicker — he died after a long illness that almost bankrupted his family.”

Farquart glanced out of the corner of his eye at Gregory, who was shifting around impatiently.

“The funeral was scheduled for the morning. When the family showed up at the mortuary they noticed that the body was lying face downward — that is, the back was facing upward — and that its hands were open, which gave them the impression that Thicker… had come back to life. At least that’s what the family believed. Before long, rumors about some kind of trance were circulating in the neighborhood; people said that Thicker had only seemed to be dead, then woke up, found himself in a coffin, and died of fright, this time for good.

“The whole story was nonsense,” Farquart continued. “A local doctor had certified Thicker’s death beyond any shadow of a doubt. But as the rumors spread through the surrounding area, attention was drawn to the fact that people had been talking for some time about so-called moving corpses that changed position during the night.”

“What does ‘for some time’ mean?” asked the Chief Inspector.

“There’s no way of knowing. The rumors referred to incidents in Shaltam and Dipper. At the beginning of January the local forces made a cursory investigation, but they didn’t take the matter too seriously, so they weren’t very systematic. The evidence given by the local people was partly prejudiced, partly inconsistent, and as a result the investigation was worthless. In Shaltam it involved the body of one Samuel Filthey, dead of a heart attack. According to the gravedigger, who happens to be the town drunk, Filthey is supposed to have ‘turned over in the coffin’ on Christmas night. No one can substantiate the story. The incident in Dipper involved the body of an insane woman that was found in the morning on the floor next to the coffin. According to the neighbors, the woman’s stepdaughter, who hated her, slipped into the funeral home during the night and threw her out of her coffin. The truth is, there are so many stories and rumors that it’s impossible to get your bearings. It all boils down to one person giving you the name of an alleged eyewitness, and the ‘witness’ sending you to someone else, and so on…

“The case would have been dropped as a sure ad acta,” Farquart began speaking faster, “but on January sixteenth the corpse of one James Trayle disappeared from the mortuary in Treakhill. Sergeant Peel, on detail from our C.I.D., investigated the incident. The corpse was removed from the mortuary sometime between midnight and five in the morning, when the undertaker discovered that it was missing. The deceased was a male… maybe forty-five years old—”

“You’re not sure?” the Chief Inspector interrupted. He was sitting with his head bent as if peering at himself in a highly polished mirror. Farquart cleared his throat.

“I am sure, but that’s the way it was told to me… Anyway, the cause of death was poisoning by illuminating gas. It was an unfortunate accident.”

“Autopsy?” said the Chief Inspector, raising his eyebrows. He leaned over to the side and pulled a handle which opened the casement windows. A whiff of damp air flowed into the warm, heavy atmosphere of the room.

“There was no autopsy, but we’re convinced it was an accident. Six days later, on January twenty-third, there was another incident, this time in Spittoon. The missing body belonged to one John Stevens, a twenty-eight-year-old laborer in a distillery. He died the day before, after inhaling poisonous fumes while cleaning one of the vats. The body was taken to the mortuary around three in the afternoon. The caretaker saw it for the last time around nine in the evening. In the morning it wasn’t there. Sergeant Peel looked into this incident also, but nothing came of this investigation either, mainly because at the time we still hadn’t thought of linking these two incidents with the earlier ones…”

“Please keep your comments to yourself for the time being. Right now I want to concentrate on the facts,” the Chief Inspector said, smiling pleasantly at Farquart. He placed his shriveled hand on the desk. Gregory couldn’t help staring: the hand seemed to be completely bloodless, not a vein was visible.

“The third incident took place within the limits of Greater London in Lovering, where the Medical School has its new dissecting laboratory,” Farquart continued in a dull voice, as if he had lost all interest in going on with his lengthy story. “The body of one Stewart Aloney disappeared; he was fifty years old, dead of a chronic tropical disease contracted while he was a sailor on the Bangkok run. This incident took place nine days after the other disappearances, on February second — strictly speaking, the night of the second going on the third. After this one the Yard took over. The investigation was conducted by Lieutenant Gregory, who later took command of one more case: the disappearance of a corpse from the mortuary of a suburban cemetery in Bromley on February twelfth — the incident involved the body of a woman who died after a cancer operation.”

“Thank you,” said the Chief Inspector. “Why isn’t Sergeant Peel here?”

“He’s sick, Chief Inspector, he’s in the hospital,” Gregory answered.

“Is that so? What’s wrong with him?”

The lieutenant hesitated.

“I’m not sure, but I think it has something to do with his kidneys.”

“Lieutenant, tell us about your investigation.”

Gregory cleared his throat, took a deep breath, and, flicking an ash into the ashtray, spoke in an unexpectedly quiet voice.

“I don’t have much to brag about. All the corpses disappeared at night, there was no evidence on the scene, no signs of forcible entry. Besides, forcible entry wouldn’t have been necessary since mortuaries aren’t usually locked, and those that are could probably be opened with a bent nail by a child…”

“The dissecting lab was locked,” said Sorensen, the medical examiner, speaking for the first time. He was sitting with his head bent backward as if to avoid drawing attention to its unpleasant angular shape, and with one finger he was massaging the swollen skin under his eyes.

It suddenly occurred to Gregory that Sorensen had done well in choosing a profession in which he associated mainly with the dead. He nodded to him with almost courtly courtesy.

“You took the words right out of my mouth, Doctor. There was an unlocked window in the room from which the corpse disappeared — in fact, it was open, as if someone had gone out through it.”

“He had to get in first,” Sorensen interrupted impatiently.

“A brilliant observation,” Gregory replied, then regretted his words and peeked at the Chief, who remained silent, unmoving, as if he hadn’t heard anything.

“The laboratory is on the first floor,” the lieutenant continued after an awkward silence. “According to the janitor, the window was locked along with all the others. He swears that all the windows were locked that night — says he’s absolutely certain because he checked them himself. The frost was setting in and he was afraid the radiators would freeze if the windows were open. Like most dissecting labs, they hardly give enough heat as it is. I talked to Professor Harvey — he’s in charge of the place. He thinks very highly of the janitor, says he takes his work a little too seriously but that he’s honest and we can believe anything he tells us.”

“Are there any possible hiding places in the laboratory?” the Chief Inspector asked. He looked around at the group as if he had suddenly become aware of their presence again.

“Well, that… would be out of the question, Chief Inspector. No one would be able to hide without the janitor’s help. There’s no furniture except for the dissecting tables, no dark corners or alcoves… in fact, nothing at all except a few closets for the students’ coats and equipment, and even a child couldn’t fit into any of them.”

“Do you mean that literally?”

“Sir?”

“That they’re too small for a child,” the Chief Inspector said quietly.

“Well…” The lieutenant wrinkled his brow. “A child might manage to squeeze into one, but at best only a seven-or eight-year-old.”

“Did you measure the closets?”

“Yes.” The answer was uttered without hesitation. “I measured all of them because I thought one might be bigger than the others. They all turned out to be the same size. Aside from the closets, there are some toilets, washrooms, and classrooms; a refrigerator and a storeroom in the basement; the professor’s office and some teachers’ rooms upstairs. Harvey says that the janitor checks each of the rooms every night, sometimes more than once — in my opinion, he tends to overdo it. Anyway, no one could have managed to hide there.”

“What about a child?” the Chief Inspector asked in a quiet voice. He took off his eyeglasses as if to soften the sharpness of his gaze. Gregory shook his head violently.

“No, it would have been impossible. A child couldn’t have opened the windows. They have locks at the top and bottom, released by levers set in the window frames. Just like here.” Gregory pointed to the window, from which a cold draft was entering the room. “The levers are very tight and it’s hard to move them. Even the janitor complained about it. Besides, I tried them myself.”

“Did he call your attention to the fact that the levers are tight?” Sorensen asked, smiling inscrutably in a way that irritated Gregory. He would have preferred to let the question pass without an answer, but the Chief Inspector was looking at him expectantly, so he replied without much enthusiasm.

“The janitor didn’t mention it until he saw me opening and closing them. He’s worse than an old maid. A terrible pain in the neck,” Gregory added emphatically, looking, as if by chance, at Sorensen. “He was very pleased with himself too. Of course that’s natural enough for someone his age,” he added in a conciliatory manner. “He’s about sixty years old, sclero —” Gregory stopped abruptly, embarrassed. The Chief Inspector wasn’t any younger than that. He searched desperately for a way to get around the obvious meaning of his concluding words but couldn’t think of anything. The other men remained absolutely still, their silence arousing Gregory’s resentment. The Chief Inspector put on his glasses.

“Are you finished?”

“Yes sir,” Gregory faltered, “yes. At least as far as these three incidents are concerned. In the last case, though, I looked over the surrounding area very carefully — I was particularly interested in any unusual activity near the lab that night. The constables on duty in the neighborhood hadn’t noticed anything suspicious. Also, when I took over the case I tried to find out as much as I could about the earlier incidents; I talked to Sergeant Peel and I went to all the other places but I didn’t find a thing, not one piece of evidence of any kind. Nothing, absolutely nothing. The woman who died of cancer and the laborer both disappeared in similar circumstances. In the morning, when someone from the family arrived at the mortuary, the coffin was empty.”

“Yes,” said the Chief Inspector. “That will be all for now. Mr. Farquart, will you continue?”

“Of course, sir. Do you want to hear about the more recent cases, sir? Right, whatever you say, sir.”

“He should be in the Navy,” Gregory thought, sighing to himself. “He always acts like he’s at the morning flag raising, and he’ll never change.”

“The next disappearance took place in Lewes seven days later, on February nineteenth. It involved a young stevedore who was run over by a car — ruptured liver with internal bleeding. The operation was a success, as the doctors say, but the patient didn’t survive. Anyway, the body disappeared before dawn. We were able to pinpoint the time because around three o’clock that morning a certain Burton died. His sister — he lived with a sister — was so afraid to stay alone with the deceased in the same apartment that she woke up the local undertaker. The body was delivered to the funeral home at exactly three in the morning. Two employees put it next to the stevedore’s body…”

“You were going to say something?” asked the Chief Inspector.

Farquart bit his mustache.

“No…” he said after a moment.

The steady drone of airplane engines could be heard outside the building. Overhead, an unseen airplane flew past on its way southward. The windowpanes rattled in quiet unison.

“That is,” Farquart added with an air of decision, “in arranging the newly delivered body, one of the employees moved the stevedore’s body because it was in his way. Well… he claims it wasn’t cold.”

“Hmm,” the Chief Inspector murmured, as if commenting on the most ordinary thing in the world. “It wasn’t cold? And how did he explain it? What were his exact words?”

“He said it wasn’t cold,” Farquart spoke reluctantly, pausing between words. “I know it sounds idiotic… ridiculous, but he insists on it. He claims he mentioned it at the time, but the other employee doesn’t remember a thing. Gregory questioned both of them separately, twice…”

The Chief Inspector, without saying a word, turned to the lieutenant.

“Well… uh… he talks too much. Not reliable at all,” Gregory explained quickly. “At least that’s my impression. He’s one of those clowns who will do anything to get some attention, ready to give you his version of the history of the world at the drop of a hat. He insisted it was a trance or ‘something worse’ — those are his words. Frankly, he surprised me. People who work professionally with corpses usually don’t believe in trances — it goes against their experience.”

“What do the doctors say?”

Gregory was silent, yielding the floor to Farquart. Apparently unhappy that such a minor matter was receiving so much attention, Farquart shrugged his shoulders.

“The stevedore died the day before. Signs of rigor mortis were clearly evident… He was as dead as a doornail.”

“Anything else?”

“Yes. Like all the other missing bodies, he was dressed for burial. The only body that wasn’t dressed was Trayle’s — the one that disappeared in Treakhill. The undertaker was supposed to dress him the following day because the family didn’t want to give him any clothing at first. That is, they took the clothing away after the body was brought in. When they came back with different clothing the body wasn’t there anymore…”

“What about the other incidents?”

“The body of the woman with the cancer operation was dressed also.”

“How?”

“Well… in a dress.”

“What about shoes?” the Chief Inspector asked, his voice so soft that Gregory had to lean forward to hear him.

“Yes, shoes also.”

“And the last one?”

“The last one… Well, it wasn’t dressed, but a black cloth disappeared from the mortuary at the same time, or so it seems. The cloth was used to close off a small alcove. It was attached to a curtain rod by some small metal rings. There were still a few shreds of material on the rings.”

“Was it torn?”

“No, the rod is so thin that it would have snapped if anyone had given it a good pull. The shreds—”

“Did you try to break the rod?”

“No.”

“Then how do you know it would have snapped?”

“Well, by sight…”

The Chief Inspector asked these questions quietly, staring at the reflection of the window in the glass door of a cabinet; he acted as if distracted by something else, but he shot out his questions so rapidly that Farquart could hardly keep up with him.

“Good,” the Chief Inspector concluded. “Were the shreds examined?”

“Yes. Dr. Sorensen…”

The medical examiner stopped massaging his pointed chin. “The cloth was torn off the rod. To be exact, it had been frayed to the breaking point but it was definitely not cut. That’s certain. It looked… as if someone had bitten it off. I conducted several tests. Under the microscope it looks the same way.”

In the momentary silence that followed, a distant airplane engine was heard, its sound muffled by the fog.

“Was anything else missing besides the curtain?” the Chief Inspector asked at last.

The doctor glanced at Farquart, who nodded his head.

“Yes, a roll of adhesive tape, a very big roll that had been lying on a table near the door.”

“Adhesive tape?” The Chief Inspector raised an eyebrow.

“They use it to hold up the chins… to keep the mouth from opening,” Sorensen explained. “Postmortem beauty treatment,” he added with a sardonic smile.

“That’s all?”

“Yes.”

“What about the corpse in the dissecting laboratory? Was it dressed?”

“No. But in this case… oh, Gregory’s already told you the whole story, hasn’t he?”

“I forgot to mention it before…” the lieutenant cut in quickly, experiencing an unpleasant sensation because his memory lapse had been discovered. “The body wasn’t dressed, but the janitor claims he was short one doctor’s coat and two pairs of white pants — the kind the students wear in the summertime. A few pairs of disposable slippers may have been missing also, but the janitor says he never manages to keep an accurate count on them — he says the cleaning woman steals a few every once in a while.”

The Chief Inspector took a deep breath and tapped on the desk with his eyeglasses.

“Thank you. Doctor Sciss, may I trouble you now?”

Without stirring from his casual position, Sciss muttered incoherently and finished writing something in an open notebook which he was supporting on his sharp, protruding knee.

Then, bending his balding, somewhat birdlike head, Sciss slammed the book closed and slipped it under his chair, pursed his thin lips as if he wanted to whistle, and stood up, rubbing his fingers against his twisted, arthritic joints.

“I consider your invitation to be a useful novum,” he said in a high, almost falsetto voice. “It so happens that I generally tend to sound like a lecturer. I hope none of you mind; in any event it’s quite unavoidable. Now then, I have made a thorough study of this series of incidents. As we have seen, the classical methods of investigation — the collection of evidence and the search for motives — have failed completely. Consequently, I have utilized the statistical method of investigation. It offers obvious advantages. We can often define a crime at the scene of its occurrence by the kinds of facts that are connected with it and the kinds that are not. For example, the shape of the bloodstains found near a murdered body may have a connection with the crime, and if so they can say a good deal about the way it was committed. Certain other facts, however — for example, that a cumulus or cirrostratus cloud floated over the scene of the crime on the day of a particular homicide, or that the telephone wires in front of the house where the crime took place are made of aluminum or copper — can be classified as nonessential. As far as our series of incidents is concerned, it is altogether impossible to decide in advance which of the facts accompanying the incidents were connected with the crime and which were not.

“If it were only a matter of one incident,” Sciss continued, “we would be at an impasse. Fortunately, however, there were several incidents. Now it stands to reason that a virtually unlimited number of objects and phenomena could have been found or observed in the vicinity of the incidents during the critical period. Therefore, to prepare a useful statistical series, we must rely only on those facts that are common to all the incidents, or at any rate, to a substantial majority of the incidents. Thus, we proceed by preparing a statistical breakdown of all the phenomena. Until now this method has almost never been used in a criminal investigation, and I am very pleased that I now have an opportunity to introduce it to you gentlemen, together with my preliminary findings…”

Dr. Sciss, who until now had been standing behind his armchair as if it were a lecturn, took a few steps in the direction of the door, turned unexpectedly, inclined his head, and continued, looking into the room at the seated men.

“Now, let us begin. First, you will recall that before any of these phenomena occurred there was a temporary phase which we can label conventionally as the ‘forerunner stage.’ During this stage bodies changed positions. Some turned upside down. Others were found on their sides. Still others were found on the floor next to their coffins.

“Second, with only one exception, each corpse belonged to someone who had died in his prime.

“Third, in each incident, again with one exception, some kind of covering was provided for the body. Twice this was ordinary clothing. Once it was most likely a doctor’s coat and white trousers, and once — a black cloth curtain.

“Fourth, none of the corpses involved had been autopsied; all were undamaged; all were well preserved. Furthermore, every incident took place within thirty hours of the time of death, a fact particularly worthy of your attention.

“Finally, all the incidents, again with one exception, took place in small town mortuaries to which entrance is usually quite easy. The only disappearance that doesn’t fit this pattern is the one at the Medical School.”

Sciss turned to the Chief Inspector.

“I need a powerful spotlight. Can you get something for me?”

The Chief Inspector said a few quiet words into the intercom. During the ensuing silence, Sciss opened his spacious, bellowslike leather briefcase and slowly drew out a sheet of tracing paper, folded several times and covered with colored markings. Gregory looked at it with a mixture of aversion and curiosity. The scientist’s patronizing attitude irritated him. Stubbing out his cigarette, he tried unsuccessfully to guess what was written on the paper rustling in Sciss’s awkward hands.

Meanwhile, tearing one side of the paper slightly as he worked, Sciss unfolded it and spread it out on the desk in front of the Chief Inspector, whom he hardly seemed to notice, then walked over to the window and looked out at the street, holding one wrist with the fingers of the other hand as if checking his own pulse rate.

The door opened; a policeman came in with an aluminum spotlight on a high tripod and connected it to an outlet. Sciss switched it on. Waiting until the door had closed behind the policeman, he focused a bright circle of light on the huge wall map of England, then placed the sheet of tracing paper over it. Unfortunately, it was impossible to see the map through the translucent paper, so he moved the spotlight away, took the map down from the wall (swaying precariously on a chair to do so), and clumsily hung it on a stand which he pulled from a corner to the middle of the room. The spotlight was set up again where it could shine through the map from behind, while Sciss, with his arms spread wide to hold the sheet of tracing paper open, moved in front of it. This position — with outstretched, raised arms — was obviously uncomfortable beyond description.

Sciss finally managed to steady the stand with his leg. Holding the tracing paper from the top, he turned his head sideways.

“Please direct your attention to the area in which our incidents have occurred,” he said.

Sciss’s voice was more high-pitched than before, possibly because he was trying not to show how much he was exerting himself.

“The first disappearance took place in Treakhill on January sixteenth. Please remember the places and dates. The second — January twenty-third, in Spittoon. The third — February second, in Levering. The fourth, February twelfth, in Bromley. The most recent incident took place on March eighth in Lewes. If we treat the location of the first incident as the starting point, and enclose it in a circle with an expanding radius, the results are as shown by the notations on my tracing paper.”

A section of southern England along the Channel coast was clearly demarcated by the powerful beam of light. Five concentric circles encompassed five towns, each marked by a red cross. The first cross appeared in the center, the others were much closer to the perimeter of the largest circle.

Watching for signs of fatigue in Sciss, whose arms, still outstretched to hold the tracing paper, were not even trembling, Gregory began to feel tired.

“If you want me to,” Sciss said in a shrill voice, “I will explain my calculations later on. Right now I shall only give you the results. The incidents occurred in a particular sequence: the more recently each incident took place, the farther it is located from the center — that is, from the site of the first disappearance. In addition, there is another significant item: the time between the respective incidents, counting from the first one, gets longer and longer, although not as if they were in proportion to each other in some specific ratio. But if temperature is also taken into account, it becomes evident that there is a certain regularity. More specifically, the product obtained by multiplying the time elapsed between any two incidents, and the distance separating any two consecutive disappearing-body sites from the center, when multiplied by the differential between the prevailing temperatures at both sites…

“This gives us,” Sciss continued after a moment, “a constant of five to nine centimeters per second and degree. I say five to nine because the exact time of disappearance was not ascertained in any of the incidents. Therefore, in each case we have to deal with a broad, multi-houred time block during the night, or, more precisely, during the latter half of the night. If we take a mean of seven centimeters as the true quantity of the constant, and then do certain calculations, which I have already completed, we get a rather curious result. The causal factor of these phenomena, which have been moving steadily from the center toward the perimeter, does not lie in Treakhill at all, but has shifted westward to the towns of Tunbridge Wells, Engender, and Dipper… that is, the very places where there were rumors circulating about moving corpses. If, on the other hand, we attempt an experiment based on a completely accurate location point to determine the geometric center of the phenomena, we find that it is not located in any of the mortuaries, but about eighteen miles southwest of Shaltam — in the moors and wastelands of Chinchess…”

Inspector Farquart, whose neck had been turning progressively more red as he listened to all this, was finally unable to contain himself.

“Are you trying to tell us,” he exploded, “that an invisible spirit of some kind came up out of those damned moors, flew through the air, and snatched the bodies?”

Sciss began to roll up his paper. Standing in the glow of the hidden spotlight, thin and dark against the bright greenish map behind him, he resembled a bird more than ever (a swamp bird, Gregory thought to himself). Sciss carefully hid the tracing paper in his battered old briefcase and straightened up. He looked coldly at Farquart, his face covered with red blotches.

“I have nothing to add beyond the results of my statistical analysis,” he declared. “A close relationship can easily be demonstrated between eggs, bacon, and the stomach, to name only one example, or a distant relationship, with somewhat more difficulty, between, for example, a country’s political system and its average marital age. But regardless of the degree of difficulty, there is always a definite correlation, a valid basis for a discussion of causes and effects.”

With a big, carefully folded handkerchief, Sciss wiped several droplets of sweat from his upper lip. Replacing it in his pocket, he continued.

“This series of incidents is hard enough to explain, and preconceived notions of any kind must be avoided. If you insist on displaying your prejudices to make things difficult for me, I will be forced to give up the case, as well as my cooperation with the Yard.”

Sciss waited a minute, as if hoping someone would pick up the challenge, then walked over to the wall and turned off the portable spotlight. The room became almost completely dark. Searching for the light switch, Sciss momentarily moved his hand along the wall.

In the brightness of the ceiling light the room’s appearance changed. It seemed to become smaller, and for a second the Chief Inspector, with his dazed, blinking eyes, reminded Gregory of his old uncle.

Sciss returned to the map.

“When I began my study,” he continued, “so much time had already elapsed since the first two incidents, or rather, to be completely accurate, so little attention had been given to the incidents in the local police blotters and so few facts recorded, that it was impossible to reconstruct a detailed, hour-by-hour record of what happened. Because of this I limited myself to the remaining three incidents. In all three cases, I discovered, it was foggy — thick fog in two instances, extremely thick fog in the other. Moreover, several vehicles are known to have passed within a radius of several hundred yards of the site of each incident. Granted, none of the reports mentioned any ‘suspicious’ vehicles, but it’s hard to say what the criteria for suspiciousness could possibly have been. Certainly no one would have driven to the scene of the crime in a truck marked ‘Body Snatchers Ltd.,’ but a vehicle could have been parked not too far from the scene, if necessary. Finally, I learned that around twilight of the evening preceding the night of each of the disappearances…” Sciss paused, then went on in a quiet but distinct voice, “some kind of domestic animal was observed close to the scene — and was reported either as a type of animal not usually found in a mortuary, or as one which my informants didn’t recognize or had never seen before. In two cases it was a cat and once it was a dog.”

A short laugh, transformed immediately into a poor imitation of a cough, resounded through the room. It came from Sorensen. Farquart sat absolutely still, not responding even to Sciss’s rather questionable joke about “suspicious” vehicles.

Gregory noticed the Chief Inspector glaring in Sorensen’s direction and immediately understood its significance: not a reprimand, not even anger, but a clear-cut and inescapable expression of authority.

The doctor coughed again to save face. Complete silence followed. Sciss stared through the window over their heads at the increasing darkness outside.

“To all appearances, the statistical significance of the last fact is not very great,” he finally continued, lapsing more and more frequently into a falsetto. “I ascertained, however, that stray dogs and cats are almost never found roaming around the mortuaries in which the incidents took place. Furthermore, one of the reported animals — the dog, to be specific — was found dead four days after one of the disappearances. Taking all this into account, I decided to offer a reward for anyone uncovering the corpse of the cat that was seen in connection with the last incident. This morning I received some news which cost me fifteen shillings. Some schoolchildren found the cat buried in the snow near a clump of bushes less than two hundred paces from the mortuary.”

With his back to the others, Sciss walked over to the window as if he wanted to go outside. It was already too dark to see anything except for the street lights wobbling in the wind and glimmering in the swaying shadow of an overhanging branch.

He stood silently, stroking the lapel of his baggy gray jacket with the tips of his fingers.

“Are you finished, Doctor?”

Sciss turned around at the sound of Chief Inspector Sheppard’s voice. A slight, almost boyish smile unexpectedly changed his small face, in which all the features were completely out of proportion, with its gray eyes, somewhat puffy cheeks, and a jaw so recessive that he was practically chinless.

Why he’s only a boy at heart… a perpetual adolescent, really quite pleasant in his way, Gregory thought in amazement.

“I’d like to say a few more words, but not until the end of the meeting,” Sciss replied, returning to his seat.

The Chief Inspector removed his eyeglasses. His eyes were tired.

“Good. Farquart, please, if you have anything else to say.”

Farquart answered without much enthusiasm.

“Truthfully, not very much. I’ve gone over this whole ‘series,’ as Dr. Sciss calls it, in the usual way, and I think at least some of the rumors must have been true. It seems to me that the case is fairly simple — the perpetrator wanted to steal a corpse but was frightened away in Shaltam and the other places. He finally succeeded in Treakhill, but since he was still an amateur he took a naked body. It looks like he didn’t realize how hard it would be to transport a body in that condition, as opposed to a fully clothed body, which is much less conspicuous. He must finally have realized this because he changed his tactics, making a definite effort to get clothing for the bodies. Also, the bodies he took the first few times weren’t exactly the best available — I’m thinking about what Dr. Sciss called the search for bodies ‘in good condition.’ For example, there was another body in the mortuary at Treakhill — a young man’s body — in much better condition than the one that disappeared. That’s about all…

“Of course there’s still the question of motive,” Farquart continued after a moment. “I see the following possibilities: necrophilia, some other kind of insanity, or some kind of… scientist. I think we should find out what Dr. Sorensen has to say about it.”

“I’m not a psychologist or a psychiatrist,” the doctor sputtered in a gruff voice, “but you can absolutely rule out the possibility of necrophilia. Necrophiliacs are always feebleminded, retarded cretins who couldn’t possibly plan anything as complicated as this. In my opinion you can also rule out any other kind of insanity. Nothing was left to chance in any of these incidents. There’s too much precision, not a single slipup of any kind. Madmen don’t operate so methodically.”

“Paranoia?” Gregory suggested in a low voice. The doctor glanced at him indifferently. For a moment he seemed to be trying the feel of the word on his tongue, then he pursed his thin, froglike lips.

“No! At least,” he added, weakening the categorical character of his objection, “I don’t think it’s very likely. Insanity, gentlemen, is not a catchall for every human action that involves motives we don’t understand. Insanity has its own structure, its own internal logic. Of course in the final analysis it’s possible that the culprit could be a psychopath — yes, it’s possible, I suppose — but it’s only one of many possibilities.”

“A psychopath with a talent for mathematics,” Sciss commented almost involuntarily.

“How do you meant that?”

Sorensen turned to Sciss with a foolish but distinctly offensive sneer.

“I mean a psychopath who decided to have his fun by making sure that the product of the distance and the time between consecutive incidents, multiplied by the temperature differential, would be a constant.”

Sorensen stroked his knee nervously, then began drumming on it with his fingers.

“Yes, yes I know… you can multiply and divide almost anything by something else — the length of canes by the width of hats — and come up with all kinds of constants and variables.”

“Are you trying to make fun of mathematics?” Sciss began. It was clear that he was about to say something nasty.

“Excuse me, Doctor, but I would very much like to hear your opinion about the third possible motive.” Sheppard was glaring at Sorensen again.

“That the culprit is a scientist who steals bodies? No, absolutely not! Never in the world! The whole idea is ridiculous. The only scientists who steal cadavers for their experiments are in third-rate movies. Why steal a cadaver when it’s easy enough to get one from any morgue, or even to buy one from the next of kin. Besides, scientists don’t work alone anymore, and even if one had stolen a cadaver, although God alone knows why he would, he wouldn’t be able to hide it from his colleagues and co-workers. You can safely eliminate that as a motive.”

“In your opinion then,” Sheppard said, “do we have anything to go on?” The Chief Inspector’s ascetic face was expressionless. Gregory caught himself staring almost impertinently at his superior, as if studying a painting. Is he really like that, he wondered, is all this no more than a dull routine for him?

Gregory mused in this vein during the oppressive, unpleasant silence that followed the Chief Inspector’s question. Again a far-off engine resounded in the darkness beyond the window: the deep rumble moved upward, then grew silent. The panes shook.

“A psychopath or nothing,” said Dr. Sciss all of a sudden. He smiled and, indeed, seemed to be in a good mood. “As Dr. Sorensen so intelligently pointed out, psychopathic behavior is usually very distinctive — it is characterized by impulsiveness, stupidity, and errors due to an attention span limited by emotional disorder. Thus, we are left with nothing. Ergo, gentlemen, it is quite obvious that these incidents couldn’t possibly have taken place.”

“You’re joking, I suppose,” Sorensen growled.

“Gentlemen,” Sheppard interrupted. “The amazing thing is that the press has been very easy on us so far, probably because of the war in the Near East. For the time being we haven’t had to worry about public opinion, but we’re going to hear plenty of criticism of the Yard before long. And so, at least as far as its formal aspects are concerned, the investigation must be expedited. I want to know exactly what has been done already and, in particular, what steps have been taken to recover the bodies.”

“That’s all the lieutenant’s responsibility,” said Farquart. “We gave him full powers two weeks ago, and since then he’s been completely on his own.”

Gregory nodded his assent, pretending not to have heard the criticism implicit in Farquart’s words.

“Starting with the third incident,” he said, “we began to take extreme measures. Immediately after a missing body was reported, we closed off the whole area within a radius of fifty miles, using all the local forces, highway and airport patrols, plus two squads of radio cars from the London tactical headquarters at Chichester. We set up roadblocks at every intersection, railroad grade crossing, tollgate, highway exit, and dead-end street… but nothing came of it. By coincidence we happened to pick up five people who were wanted on various other charges, but as far as our own problem is concerned we didn’t accomplish anything. Of course it’s not easy to close off an area that big, and from the practical standpoint you can never set up a net that’s one hundred percent tight — it’s always possible for someone to slip through. After the second and third incidents the perpetrator probably left the area before our roadblocks were even set up, since he had six hours the first time and about five hours the next. I’m assuming, of course, that he also managed to dispose of his car. In the most recent incident, however, the disappearance took place between 3:00 and 4:50 in the morning, so he didn’t have more than an hour and three quarters for his escape. It was a typical March night… gale winds and snow after an evening of thick fog, and all the roads were impassable until noon of the next day. Of course the perpetrator might have used a tractor or a snowplow to make his getaway, but it would have been hard, and I know this from my own experience because we had an awful time getting our patrol cars out of the snow, both the ones from the local stations and the ones from the Greater London C.I.D. reserve that responded to our alert.”

“So you maintain that no car could have left the Lewes vicinity until noon of the next day?”

“Right.”

“What about sledges?”

“Technically it would have been possible, but not in the amount of time he had to work with. After all, a sledge can’t travel at more than a mile or two an hour, especially in a storm like the one they had that night. Even with the best horses he wouldn’t have been able to get out of the closed-off area by noon.”

“If you say so, Lieutenant, but a moment ago you told us that this kind of net isn’t completely secure,” Sheppard said gently. “In fact, an absolutely secure cordon is only an ideal we aspire to.”

“Besides,” Farquart commented, “he could have put the corpse in a bag and carried it through the fields on foot.”

“Impossible,” said Gregory. He wanted to remain silent but his cheeks were burning. He could hardly keep himself from jumping to his feet.

“No vehicles left the closed-off zone after six in the morning. I can vouch for that,” he declared. “Maybe an infantryman could have gotten through the snow but not with a load as heavy as an adult body. He would have dumped it…”

“Maybe he did dump it,” Sorensen observed.

“I thought of that, but we combed the whole area — there was a thaw the next day which made the job easier — and we didn’t find a thing.”

“Your reasoning is hardly as faultless as you think,” Sciss unexpectedly broke into the conversation. “First of all, you didn’t find the dead cat, but if you had really conducted a careful search you would have—”

“Excuse me,” said Gregory, “but we were looking for a human corpse, not for a dead cat.”

“Exactly! But there are so many places to hide a corpse in such a large area that you might just as well conclude that it isn’t there.”

“The perpetrator could have buried the body,” Farquart added.

“He snatched it just to bury it?” Gregory asked with an innocent air. Farquart snorted.

“Maybe he buried it when he saw he couldn’t get away.”

“But how did he know he couldn’t get away? After all, we weren’t announcing the roadblocks on the radio,” Gregory retorted. “That is… unless he has a contact in the department, or unless he’s a police officer…”

“That’s not a bad thought,” Sciss smiled. “But in any case, gentlemen, you haven’t exhausted all the possibilities. What about a helicopter?”

“What nonsense!” said Dr. Sorensen contemptuously.

“Why? There aren’t any helicopters in England?”

“The doctor apparently believes that it’s easier to suspect a psychopath than a helicopter,” said Gregory, smiling complacently.

“What about all the carcasses?” Sorensen added.

There wasn’t a sound from Sciss, who seemed to be absorbed in his lecture notes.

“The search for the bodies must be continued,” Sheppard went on. “We have to plan a much more comprehensive operation, including ports and dockyards. Some kind of surveillance of ships and cargoes. Do any of you have anything else to say? Any new ideas? Any theories? Anything at all? Please don’t be afraid to be outspoken, even too outspoken.”

“In my opinion, it’s not possible —” Gregory and Farquart began at the same time. They looked at each other and stopped.

“I’m listening.”

No one spoke. The telephone jangled. The Chief Inspector disconnected it and watched the men seated before him. A cloud of bluish tobacco smoke rose around the lamp. For a moment, silence reigned.

“In that case, I…” Sciss said. He was meticulously folding his manuscript and putting it into the briefcase. “… I have applied the constant which I explained to you earlier in order to determine the sequence and location of these phenomena in advance.”

He stood up, moved over to the map, and, using a red pencil, marked off an area encompassing part of the counties of Sussex and Kent.

“If the next incident takes place between tomorrow morning and the end of next week, it will occur in this sector, which is bounded on the north by the suburbs of East Wickham, Croydon, and Surbiton, on the west by Horsham, on the south by a strip of the Channel coast, and on the east by Ashford.”

“A pretty big area,” Farquart said dubiously.

“Not really, since we can exclude an interior sector in which incidents have already taken place. The phenomenon is characterized by its movement outward, so the only area actually involved is a circular strip no more than twenty-one miles wide. It includes eighteen hospitals and about one hundred sixty small cemeteries. That’s all.”

“And you… you’re sure there will be an incident in this area?” asked Sorensen.

“No,” Sciss replied, after hesitating for a rather long moment, “I’m not sure. But supposing it doesn’t take place… or, rather, that if it doesn’t take place…”

Something curious was happening to the scientist. Everyone watched in amazement as he began shaking and his voice started to crack like an adolescent boy’s. Suddenly Sciss burst out laughing. He roared with laughter as if delighted by some private thought, totally oblivious to the deadly silence with which his uncontrollable hilarity was greeted.

Sciss picked up his briefcase from under the armchair, nodded his head in a slight bow, and, his shoulders still heaving spasmodically, walked out of the office, taking quick, inordinately long steps.