Two hours later we managed to get permission to enter the morgue, leaving behind the journalists and onlookers, who were crowded together behind the railing, waiting for some extraordinary revelation. Arzaky knew the building well. I would have gotten lost in the labyrinthine series of hallways which always turned to the left and stairs which always went down, but the Pole moved forward with broad steps, exuding that crazy joy of a detective on a case. It was as if, with each step, he was taking the world by force. But when he entered the room he lowered his head, as though he were in a cathedral. His face reflected both humility and defiance, like a saint who finds dissipation in temperance, overindulgence in moderation, ecstasy in renunciation.
There were nine empty gurneys and one that was occupied lined up beneath the greenish light of the lamps swinging from the very high ceilings. A strong smell of bleach and maybe camphor hung in the air. Darbon’s body, already undressed, had a lunar whiteness to it that was marred by the lacerations and bruises caused by his fall. Of his numerous authoritative features (his imposing voice; the seriousness that never deigned to smile, unless it was ironic; the gaze that dissolved any obstacle) the only surviving one was his white beard.
The forensic doctor was a tiny man named Godal. He greeted Arzaky with a familiarity that was not returned. The Detective of Paris (now without any rival to dispute the title) halfheartedly introduced his colleagues who were also there: Hatter, Castelvetia, and Magrelli. I was the only assistant in the room.
“It is an honor for me to have members of The Twelve Detectives here,” said Dr. Godal, looking at everyone except me.
“I imagine that this case is something new for you, as it is for us. No one has ever fallen from so high,” said Hatter with the air of an expert.
“What are you saying, Hatter?” said Arzaky in a very rude tone. “Do you think there are no bodies in the crevices of the Alps?”
“There must be…but no one has ever seen them.”
“I have.”
Godal began to point out the marks from the fall.
“Observe the destroyed legs; this proves he was conscious when he fell. His feet plunged into the earth. Halfway down he hit some kind of protrusion, which tore his skin at the height of the thorax, but that didn’t kill him.”
Castelvetia was ashen and looked around as if searching for a window.
“Come closer. When I was young, we practiced autopsies outdoors. We had to rush to make use of the sunlight, before night fell and erased all the details.”
“Do bodies come in every week?” asked Hatter.
“Every week? Every day. A thousand a year: suicides, accident fatalities, murder victims. Lately there has been an increase in poisonings: we’ve done about a hundred and forty autopsies already this year. We have to be very careful with poison: they used to use only arsenic, which we can easily identify, but they come up with new poisons every day.”
Arzaky picked up the dead man’s hand. He pointed to one of the fingernails. There was something black underneath it.
“Louis Darbon was fastidious about his appearance. Why are his nails dirty?”
“I’m sorry, his hands were black with oil, and it took us a lot of work to clean them. But there’s always a trace left behind!”
“A trace left behind? Everything is supposed to be left behind. How can we work if you clean up the evidence?”
“I didn’t think it was important. It was oil. He fell from the tower, and I imagine that that horrible tower is full of machine oil.”
Arzaky was going to say something, but he held himself back. When he left the room, furious, I followed him. He banged his head against the wall several times.
“Incompetent! That damn Dr. Godal was always on Darbon’s side. He’s a forensic doctor who should have been an undertaker. What do you think we should do?”
I was surprised that he asked for my opinion. What value could my thoughts on forensic practices have?
“I think we should go to the tower, to the place where Darbon fell. And see where that oil came from.”
“No, no. You are supposed to be an assistant. You should embody common sense. For example, you should say: the oil isn’t important. At the tower everything is oil-stained.”
“But I don’t think that’s the case.”
Arzaky hit his head against the wall one more time, but lightly.
“Tanner was always spot-on with his comments. Craig failed in his school for assistants. Wasn’t there a professor of common sense?”
“I know I’m not as good as the other assistants, but I’ll try my best to keep up.”
“The others? Don’t worry about emulating your colleagues. The black man is a thief; the Andalusian, a liar; Linker, an imbecile; the Sioux Indian never says anything. I don’t even think he’s real, I think he’s a wax figure from Madame Tussaud’s.”
“And Castelvetia’s acolyte? I still haven’t seen him.”
“You have just mentioned an awkward mystery. No one has seen him. I would leave it at that, but it’s inevitable that someone will bring him up at our meetings. And between you and me, I don’t think that fop Castelvetia has an assistant. If he does…he must not be the same kind of assistant the others are. You know what I mean. That’s a mystery you could solve.”
His anger vented, Arzaky went back into the room. Dr. Godal had turned the corpse over and was pointing to a wound on his back. Castelvetia, passed out on a metal chair, was being tended to by one of Godal’s assistants, who was trying to bring him around with smelling salts.
“I swear, gentlemen, this is the first time this has ever happened to me,” he declared as soon as he came to.
Arzaky looked at me.
“I miss Craig,” he said.