Authors: Stanislaw Lem
Gregory’s gaze moved from the Chief Inspector’s face to the open newspaper.
“That’s him,” he said.
“The madness must have increased steadily,” Sheppard answered slowly. “The memory of deeds committed, anxiety that he would be exposed, growing distrust of his friends and co-workers, sick interpretations of innocent things other people said to him—everything must have combined to make his condition worse, to increase the tension in which he was living. You can see that it must have been getting harder and harder for him to come back to his senses; his condition was deteriorating steadily, his attention span was decreasing, he was less able to concentrate and more likely to become a victim of circumstances. For example—this guy—”
Gregory suddenly walked away from the desk and sat down on a chair near the bookshelf, drawing his hand over his face.
“So that’s how it happened,” he said. “An imitation of a miracle … ha, ha … is all this true?”
“No,” Sheppard replied serenely, “but it might be. Or, strictly speaking, it can become the truth.”
“What are you trying to say? Come on, Chief Inspector, I’ve had enough fooling around.”
“This isn’t my theory, Gregory. Calm down. Out of six incidents—are you paying attention?—out of six incidents, this truck driver,”—he tapped the newspaper—“was definitely on the road near the place in question three times. In other words, three of the times, during the hours just before dawn, he drove past the places where the corpses disappeared.”
“What about the other times?” Gregory asked. Something strange was happening inside him. An unexpected feeling of relief, of hope, was expanding his chest; it seemed to him that he was breathing more easily.
“The other times? Well … about one incident… Lewes … we don’t know anything. For the second, the dead truck driver had … an alibi.”
“An alibi?”
“Yes. Not only did he have the night off but he was in Scotland for three days. We checked—there’s no doubt about it.”
“Then it wasn’t him!” Gregory stood up, he had to get on his feet; the jolt resulting from this movement knocked the newspaper off the edge of the desk.
“No, it wasn’t him. To be sure it wasn’t him, unless we classify that incident separately.”
The Chief Inspector took a quick look at Gregory, whose face was contorted in anger. “But if we don’t do that, if it wasn’t Mailer—the Mailer driver—there are still plenty of other vehicles circulating in the region at night: post office trucks, ambulances, emergency vehicles, buses … we have an endless quantity of phenomena that can be fitted into the theory.”
“Are you making fun of me?” Gregory asked.
“Of course not, I’m trying to help you,” answered the Chief Inspector.
“Thank you.”
Gregory bent down and picked up the paper.
“So this truck driver was, that is, allegedly was,” he corrected himself, “a paranoiac; in other words, sick according to all normal standards: fog times frost times insanity…” He glanced at Sheppard with a strange smile.
“And what if, by chance, purely by chance, he took a different route the other times—I mean a route that didn’t go anywhere near the mortuaries—would he still be a suspect … still a sacrificial lamb…”
Gregory sneered; he was walking around the room.
“I must know,” he said. “I have to know … right now!”
He grabbed the newspaper again and flattened it out.
“The first page is missing,” Sheppard noted, “but I can give you the details. It’s yesterday’s paper.”
“Oh!”
“No, I didn’t invent any of this. Everything I told you was verified yesterday. We worked on it all day, both the local police, and Farquart, who flew up to Scotland to check out the driver’s alibi, if you’re interested.”
“No, no, but… I want to know why you did all this.”
“Well, in the final analysis … well, because I work at Scotland Yard also,” said Sheppard.
Gregory appeared not to have heard the answer; in a state of obvious agitation he walked around the room, stopping to stare at the photograph.
“You don’t understand what I mean… This is really convenient, very, very convenient … exactly what we needed. There is a perpetrator after all, but he’s dead so we can’t question him or continue the investigation … a very humane solution—no miscarriage of justice possible, no one suffers… Did you really suspect him? Did you also … or did you only want something to match the facts that we were stuck with, the facts that forced us to take action in the first place, so you could give a semblance of order to this disorder and mark an open case closed with a nice sense of orderliness. Is that what it’s all about?”
“I don’t see any alternative,” said Sheppard indifferently. He seemed to have had enough of the conversation and was no longer looking at Gregory, who had stopped walking, occupied with a new thought.
“Of course it’s possible to interpret it your way too,” he said. “Of course! You know, I believe it when you say you want to help me. At first we couldn’t do anything with this case—not a thing—and now we can. Maybe we can shake that alibi. Or if we eliminate that one exceptional incident from the series, and maybe the other exceptions with it, the investigation moves out of the dead end. The odds are it’s an illness! You can use illness to explain the most peculiar things, even visions and stigmata, even … even miracles! You know the works of Guggenheimer, Hopley, and Wintershield, don’t you? They’re not in our library, but you must have read them.”
“The psychiatrists? Which of their books did you have in mind—they wrote quite a few.”
“The ones in which they analyze the Gospels to prove that Jesus was crazy. They created quite a stir in their time. A psychiatric analysis of Scripture leading to a diagnosis of paranoia…”
“Let me give you some advice,” said Sheppard. “These biblical analogies won’t get you anywhere. Maybe you could afford that kind of thing at the beginning of the case when you wanted to make the problem more interesting, but the investigation is over now, except for a few technicalities…”
“Do you really mean that?” Gregory asked quietly.
“Yes. Because I hope, I feel sure, that you don’t want to be left crying in the wilderness…”
“Then what am I supposed to do?” Gregory asked in a slightly deferential tone of voice, straightening up and watching the old man, who was rising from his armchair.
“We have to set up clearly defined guidelines for the future. For the foreseeable future. I’ll be waiting for you tomorrow morning at the Yard.”
“Like the last time, around ten o’clock?” There was a note of hidden amusement in Gregory’s voice.
“Yes. Will you be there?” he added casually. They looked at each other, both standing up. Gregory’s lips quivered, but he didn’t say anything. He backed up toward the door, then turned his back to Sheppard and placed his hand on the knob, constantly aware of Sheppard’s calm and steadfast gaze.
Finally opening the door, he turned and tossed the words over his shoulder.
“I’ll be there.”