The Grand Opening was four days away, and Viktor Arzaky had already filled the glass cases of the parlor with a variety of objects lent by the detectives. Louis Darbon’s widow had donated a microscope with a slide containing a shiny drop of blood. Hatter was displaying some of his toys, including a windup soldier that counted meters while it walked. The best Novarius could come up with was the Remington revolver he had used to kill Wilbur Kanis, the train robber, on the Mexican border. At first Arzaky had opposed the idea of showing such a common weapon, it seemed to be the exact opposite of what a detective represented. But since there was so little time left, he gave in.
“Don’t you have something to display that reflects your thinking?” I said to Novarius, and he replied: “That is how I think.”
Magrelli had filled several shelves with his portable criminal anthropology office, which didn’t look particularly portable at all. It was comprised of endless comparative charts, a photographic archive, and several instruments made of German steel that were designed to measure the length of a nose, the circumference of one’s head, or the distance between one’s eyes. Some of the objects needed an explanatory card, such as the one Madorakis displayed from the Case of the Spartan Code, which was a short cane on which you could attach a strip of fabric containing a message. Only someone with a similar cane could decipher it. Castelvetia had chosen a set of five Dutch magnifying glasses, with different gradations.
Benito interrupted my tour through the cases.
“Did you read the news from Buenos Aires?”
“No.”
“Caleb Lawson has been spreading it around everywhere. In Buenos Aires they’re accusing Craig of murder.”
I was shocked for selfish reasons. Even though I was now working for Arzaky, I was Craig’s envoy. Anything that stained Craig’s reputation would stain mine. Mario Baldone had a newspaper. I took it out of his hands.
“Relax, Salvatrio. There was an accusation, but Craig will take care of disproving it.”
The news was written up in vague terms: the police had stopped searching for the magician’s killer in the gambling arena. They then began to look for an avenger in the victim’s circle. Alarcón’s family hadn’t hesitated in pointing a finger at Craig. The newspaper said that there was no proof that implicated the detective but that he, due to his convalescence for an unspecified illness, had refused to defend himself.
“You look pale,” said Baldone. “Here comes Arzaky. The Pole will take care of putting a stop to Caleb Lawson’s attack on Craig.”
I was looking at the cases, but my mind was elsewhere. There was the large chest of disguises belonging to Rojo, the detective from Toledo, which was chock-full of makeup and wigs and fake beards; Caleb Lawson’s anti-fog specs that he used to work at night in London; and Zagala’s wardrobe and nautical instruments that he carried with him when he boarded ships with their flags at half-mast or boats abandoned in the ocean. Arzaky had contributed only a series of black notebooks filled with his tiny handwriting, which were displayed open. An empty case awaited Craig’s cane.
“I’m leaving it for the last minute,” Arzaky had told me. “I want to use my friend’s cane for a few days. As if he were here with me.”
It made me nervous to see the impulsive Arzaky handling Craig’s cane, loaded and ready. I feared an accident.
The Japanese detective had chosen to show a wooden square filled with sand, accompanied by black and white stones. He called it the Garden of Questions, and he used it to study the relationships between circumstances and events. When anyone asked him what it was, he responded, “I sit on the floor and contemplate it, and I move the stones as my thoughts move inside me. Then I take away the stones and I see the shape traced by their movements. That drawing sometimes tells me more than all the evidence and eyewitness accounts and clues, and all those other annoying details we detectives have to deal with.”
All the detectives were now in the center of the room, seated in armchairs. And we stood around them, their satellites, with one exception: Castelvetia’s acolyte.
“Hey, Baldone,” I said. “That guy over there, who can’t seem to make up his mind about coming in, isn’t that Arthur Neska?”
I pointed to a man dressed in black who stood behind a column. Baldone wasn’t surprised to see him.
“He keeps hanging around the hotel. They say he was sent by Darbon’s widow to see how the investigation is going. But I don’t think that’s true. If it were, he would try to make conversation, try to get us talking. And he hasn’t said a word. He just stands around staring at the detectives, especially at Arzaky. As if the acolytes didn’t exist for him.”
Neska’s situation perplexed me. And at the same time, in spite of the fact that I didn’t like him at all, it made me sad.
“If his detective dies, can an acolyte still keep coming to meetings?”
“No one has relieved him of his post. He’s like a ghost Darbon left behind. Besides, in these chaotic times, who would dare to throw anyone out? I would assume that the events here in Paris will lead to new rules.”
“Or perhaps he hopes to be named as Darbon’s successor,” I dared to say.
Baldone shook his head.
“No, nobody ever really liked Neska. He has the kind of negative charisma that causes people to dislike him before he’s even opened his mouth. Wherever he goes, women stop laughing and birds stop singing.”
Neska had now approached the cases and was looking at Darbon’s microscope as if it were a religious relic. Arzaky was asking everyone to be quiet, so Baldone had to whisper in my ear.
“I used to hate him, but now I feel sorry for him. He wants to cling to his old job; he wants to believe that he still has a mission. When the symposium ends, and everyone returns to their own countries, or to some city that murder leads us to, he won’t have anything to do, except tearfully put his mentor’s archive in order.”