I spent the morning writing letters to my parents and to Señora Craig. I preferred not to write to the detective himself out of fear that my letter would be left, unopened and unread, on some desk of the now abandoned Academy. I took several long walks during the day, fighting off the feeling that I was in the wrong place. Craig had sent me to help Arzaky, but the Pole didn’t seem to want any help. I waited, anxiously, for the hours to pass so it would be time to go to the hotel and meet The Twelve Detectives, who were actually eleven, and who would soon be ten.
I went out dressed in a brand-new suit, a wide-brimmed hat, and a vicuña poncho that my mother had insisted I bring. Wearing the hat made me very happy: I had owned it for a while already, but in Buenos Aires I couldn’t use it, because just wearing a hat like that on your head was enough to be taken for a knave and challenged to a knife duel. Since I had taken some fencing classes, it didn’t seem right for me to accept such challenges, and I avoided wearing it so as not to be led into temptation. In Paris the hat had no meaning whatsoever.
As I entered the Numancia Hotel, where the detectives were staying, a tall black man in a blue uniform blocked my way. But all I had to do was say Arzaky’s name and he stepped to one side, almost reverently. I thought that there was no greater glory in life than making your own name a secret password capable of changing minds and opening doors. I went down to the parlor with the pleasure that conspirators must feel with the thought of every secret and symbol that proves they are involved in something beyond the trivial.
The detectives were seated in the center of the underground parlor. Around them were the assistants, some in chairs, others standing. They nodded their heads in greeting, and I responded with the typical nervousness of someone who bursts into a meeting and worries that they’re too early, or late, or inappropriately dressed.
Arzaky stood up and said, “Before we begin, gentlemen, I would like to remind you that my cases are still empty and awaiting your artifacts. This fair is a celebration of your intelligence, not your indifference.”
“We’ll send our brains in formaldehyde,” said a detective whose hands were covered in bright rings with colored stones. From his accent, I guessed that it was Magrelli, the Eye of Rome.
“In my case, I’ll send the brain of my assistant Dandavi, who increasingly does my thinking for me,” said Caleb Lawson. Tall, with a big nose, he looked at the world through the smoke of his meerschaum pipe, which was shaped like a question mark. He was identical to the illustrations that accompanied his adventures.
“What could we display?” asked Zagala, the Portuguese detective. “A magnifying glass? Our work is abstraction, logic. We are the only profession with nothing to show, because our most precious instruments are invisible.”
There was a murmur of agreement, until Arzaky’s voice rose above it.
“I didn’t know I was in a meeting of purists. Magrelli, you have the largest archive of criminal anthropology in Italy, supervised by Cesare Lombroso himself. And that’s not to mention the delicate instruments that you use to measure ears, skulls, and noses. Are they invisible, as Zagala says? And you, Dr. Lawson, you never leave London without your portable microscope. If you only had one I wouldn’t ask you to lend it, but I know that you collect them. You even have microscopes that can be seen only with a microscope! And you’ve been acquiring those optical instruments that let you work in the fog for years.” Arzaky pointed to a tall man, who was winding his watch. “Tobias Hatter, a native of Nuremberg, has given our trade at least forty-seven toys, rumors of which provoke dread in even the worst German criminals. When the killer Maccarius threatened you with a butcher’s knife, didn’t you let an innocent toy soldier open fire? Wasn’t it you who designed a music box whose melody tormented murderers’ sleepless nights and forced them to confess? And Sakawa, where is my invisible friend Sakawa…?”
The Japanese detective appeared out of nowhere. He was white-haired, much shorter than his assistant, Okano, and so thin he couldn’t have weighed more than a boy.
“Don’t you usually contemplate the stones in your Sand Garden, and the Screen of Twelve Figures, to help you think? Aren’t your thoughts led by the demons painted on the screen?”
The Japanese detective bowed his head as an apology and said, “I like the empty cases: they say more about us than all the instruments we could fill them with. But I know that won’t sit well with all the curious souls who come to visit our little exhibition. I devoted many hours of thought to what I should put in the space allotted to me, but I still haven’t decided. I don’t want to come across as eccentric. I’d prefer to show something more…”
“I know. You, from the East, want to show something Western; Lawson, who works with science, would be satisfied with something stripped of all scientific rigor; Tobias Hatter doesn’t want to be taken for a toy maker and instead gives me nothing. You’re all hiding your secrets and I’m stuck with empty cases.”
I edged close to Baldone and, whispering, asked him to identify the detectives. Many I knew from the magazines I read in Buenos Aires, which compiled their exploits with hagiographic devotion. But seeing them in person wasn’t the same as looking at the ink drawings that illustrated The Key to Crime and Suspicion. The artists usually emphasized one feature or expression yet, in the parlor, each face said many things at once.
Up until now they had all been speaking in a playful, slightly exaggerated tone, but now a serious, impatient voice was heard.
“Sirs, you may be on vacation, but this is my city and I still have to work just like any other day.”
The man who had spoken was about sixty years old, with white hair and beard. While all the others had some exotic touch to their attire, as if they wanted to be recognized as exceptional beings, this veteran detective was indistinguishable from any other Parisian gentleman.
“That’s Louis Darbon,” said Baldone into my ear. “Arzaky and Darbon have both claimed the title of Detective of Paris. But since Arzaky is Polish, he faces a lot of resistance. Some time ago, Arzaky proposed they each take one side of the Seine, but Darbon refused.”
“We understand your situation, and your shock at our appetite for leisure, and we’ll forgive your early departure, Mr. Darbon,” said Arzaky with a smile.
Darbon approached Arzaky defiantly. They were almost the same height.
“Before leaving I want to express my displeasure at the way things are being handled. What are all these meetings that you insist on having? Should we bow down before methodology? Are we priests of a new cult? A sect? No, we are detectives and we have to show results.”
“Results aren’t everything, Mr. Darbon. There is a beauty in the enigma that sometimes makes us forget the result…. Also we need a bit of leisure, after-dinner chats. We are professionals, but there is no detective that isn’t also a bit of a dilettante. We are travelers, driven by the winds of coincidence and distraction to the locked room that hides the crime.”
“Travelers? I’m no traveler, no foreigner, God help me. But I am in a hurry, and I am not going to argue with you of all people, Arzaky, over principles or countries of origin.”
Louis Darbon made a general gesture of farewell. Arthur Neska, his assistant, moved to follow him, but Darbon made a spirited gesture that told him to stay.
“Darbon is leaving, but he wants to find out every word Arzaky says,” said Baldone into my ear.
A gentleman dressed in a white suit with bright blue details, more appropriate to a theatrical costume than to a detective’s work clothing, came forward. He clapped with reprehensible affectation; behind me I heard the acolytes’ stifled laughter. I gestured to Baldone, silently asking him who it was.
“That’s Andres Castelvetia.”
“The Dutchman?”
“Yes, Magrelli tried to block his acceptance as a full member, but it didn’t work.”
Arzaky gave Castelvetia the floor.
“If you’ll allow me, gentlemen, I’ll be the first to talk about enigmas. And I will do so, if you’ll forgive me, with a metaphor.”
“Go ahead,” said Arzaky. “Free us from our obsession with invisible clues, cigarette butts, and train schedules. And don’t be embarrassed: during the day we worship syllogisms, but the night belongs to the metaphor.”