Garden
Friday
The Doctor woke with a start.
He had been sleeping, which by itself was a miracle, and once again he had been woken up by a strange sound. He had been woken up a number of times by such occurrances but each time they had proven themselves a figment of his imagination.
This time he was sure it was something his sleeping mind had heard in the waking world.
He glanced around him. His room was still spartan and unoccupied except for himself.
He wondered if it was Robinson, in the next room, doing whatever he did at this hour.
What a strange man. He thought to himself propping himself up and sliding out from under his sheets.
He checked his timepiece as his first action and found that he had plenty of time still to meet Evelyn in the Market at seven thirty or so.
He dressed slowly, his mind did not seem to be focusing this morning on the matter at hand; instead, it seemed to be focusing on Garden's recent happenings. When he was finished, he grabbed his coat and walked out of the room into the vestibule. There was no Robinson there.
The Doctor grabbed his coat, cane and hat and left.
"I was walking home from the Market when I heard it: sound like I never heard it before Evatt!" Evelyn was seated across from the Doctor at a little cafe. They both had a mug of something and Evelyn was nibbling on a scone.
"I heard it as well outside; I was walking to my lab when I heard the birds. I first feared some sort of structural collapse with a sound like that....and then I looked up." He took a sip of his tea.
"Well, we should have expected something like this. We had a clue given to us beforehand." Evelyn said in a resigned sort of way.
"Why would we Eve? All the others have been the art of murder. This was something entirely different. Mondieu did not expect this, I know I did not. Why should you?" He steepled his fingers together.
"Perhaps you are the greatest detective of us all now? You should now be held to a different account than us?" His eyes twinkled as she looked up, her eyes flashing.
"Evatt...Doctor, what I am trying to say is that we have to think ahead of this deranged murderer, or else there will be nothing of Garden left by the end of his reign of terror." She ended quietly ad if she didn't want to hear her own words.
The Doctor's face grew more serious as she spoke.
"I am sorry Evelyn, I should not have made a joke out of all of this. It is just that...I am a doctor, usually I have a ready-made cure at hand. This is something different; I haven't been able to help Garden yet."
"Evatt, that's why we need to work harder now more than ever. This Inspector is not up to speed yet, and we need to take up the slack." She put down her mug and pulled her chair a little closer to their table.
"Let's get started, shall we?" She didn't wait for an affirmative, but continued.
"We know that this person has struck three times, in different ways, and with different results. What is the common theme? What is la connexion française?"
"I was thinking about that you know. Do you mind if I smoke?" He asked pulling out his pipe and pouch.
Evelyn merely nodded that she didn't while the Doctor continued.
"I was wondering if this was something with revenge? Perhaps this has to do with Garden itself and not any of the people involved?" He puffed comfortably and continued.
"I mean, this last incident concerned solely our fish and fowl. Mayhaps this person is trying to scare everyone away from Garden?"
"Why? The motive usually has to do the crimes, or at least give reason for them. I was wondering if this all could be covering for the real incident, which was to murder Addam and Lilya? What if that was the true crime while all the rest were red herrings to throw everyone off the scent?" She leaned back after this and started again.
"Horten could have seen something and they had to silence his testimony. Then they wanted to cover all this over in a fog so thick no investigator would solve it." She smiled.
"Evelyn, I think...I don't think that holds water at all." He smiled.
"Well the problem is Doctor, we don't know anything yet. Let us solve that problem first then." She held up her fingers.
"We know that this person is intentionally leaving clues behind for reasons unknown at this time. We know that the crimes have not been crimes of passion. This last crime in fact, we know had to take a lot of planning." She stopped, uncertainty on her face.
The Doctor continued her train of thought. "You're right. What if this crime would explain a lot more about its author?" He stopped to think for a moment. "It would take a lot to plan and execute this. The birds would have to be given reason to leave as well as the water would to be poisened in some way.
I have not done any analysis yet, but I expect Mondieu to ask me to look at the some samples today. When I do, we both will know more about what happened to water and birds."
"Oh, Evatt....Do you think something is in this water? In our drinking water?" She was holding her mug of coffee as if it was something about to burn her.
"I don't know. It does not seem so yet, but we will not know for certain until I run tests."
"Well, what are we waiting for?" She stood up and motioned the Doctor to do the same. "I would be prepared to wager that you have samples to test and a very impatient Investigator waiting at your lab as we speak." She smiled as the Doctor stood up to join her.
"Perhaps you are right, but I would also be prepared to wager that Mondieu is not there. He is not someone that waits for anyone." He smiled back and they departed, Evelyn holding her mug of coffee, while the Doctor held his little black doctor's bag.
"Well, you were partially right Evelyn, look." He pointed towards the small stoop where a collection of brown bag packages were waiting.
"I think someone has left me samples to test."
They reached the door which he unlocked and they walked in.
The lab was small and like the Doctor's house, sparsely furnished. There was a small waiting room off to one side with room enough for one chair and the rest was his lab.
"Sit down Evelyn, sit down. This is going to take a while." He started to bustle around, lighting a burner, unpacking the samples gingerly and getting out jars of chemicals.
Evelyn sat down in the one chair to watch. He worked at one table, fussing with a beaker, then another table where he messed up his tiltratioin.
"Blast!" He said after this happened.
"Is there anything I can do Evatt?" She asked gently.
"Can you what? No, I am sorry Eve, I don't think there's anything you can help me with right now." He hadn't looked up, but had continued working while answering.
"All right, I might go to the library then while you work." She stood up.
He didn't make any reply after a moment so she left.
"I will be back in a couple hours Evatt." She called as she left.
The library was not far away and it was still midmorning when she arrived. It appeared empty from the outside, but she knew it was open. Mrs. Gilead never closed the library except during the observed times. She was very strict on this.
She walked in, the glass doors not making any sound as they opened. The library looked and sounded completely empty.
She wondered how she should begin her search.
She walked up to the desk.
"Hello Mrs. Gilead."
The librarian inclined her head. "How may I help you Evelyn?"
"I am looking for something along the lines of.....true crime?"
Mrs. Gilead thought for a moment, then led her over to a small section nearby.
"This is all we have I'm afraid." She waited for a moment to see if Evelyn needed anything else, then went back to her desk as Evelyn started to browse among the section that had been suggested.
She had grabbed a couple books and an autobiography and was heading for a table and chair to read at, when she saw Mondieu.
He was seated at a table with a stranger: a beautiful woman dressed strikingly in a silver blouse and dark fedora. They had not seen her yet, and she decided to keep it that way.
She backed up, put the books away and walked back to the reference desk.
"What is that Inspector doing here?" She asked Mrs. Gilead who was back to sitting at her desk reading Dante.
She looked up from her book and replied. "He came in looking for the Bible. I don't know why."
Not hesitating in the least, she asked her next question. "Who is the woman seated next to him?"
Not bothering to look up to this question, she replied, "I don't know who that is. She has come in many times in the past couple weeks, exploring almost every section and reading who knows what. She hasn't asked for my help at all."
"Do you remember any of the books that she has read?"
"She puts them all away when she's done, I have seen one up close."
"Well thank you Mrs. Gilead," Evelyn struggled to not let her disappointment sound in her voice.
She walked away from the desk, unsure, and then she decided where to go.
She walked out of the library quickly and with purpose driven steps.
She arrived at the lab a couple of hours later, clutching a small bag and a much bigger bag. She knocked once and let herself in.
The Doctor was still essentially in the same position as when she had left, but there was a little more smoke and chemical smells in the room than before.
"Evelyn, you're back." The Doctor sounded completely distracted while he did probed a fish carcass on his small desk. "What did you find?"
"I didn't find any information in the books, but I found something else out." Her tone as he finished speaking made him look up in surprise.
"Well, what did you find out?" He asked quickly.
"I saw Mondieu there poring over some texts. I asked Mrs. Gilead what he was studying. She said he had come in for some information on the Bible."
"What does that mean? Maybe he is just a realigious man?" The Doctor went back to his work.
"Perhaps, but I saw something else." Again, her tone made him look up from his work.
"I saw a woman there, seated with him, and they were studying something together." She paused for effect.
"Who was she?" The Doctor's tone was curious as he again resumed his study of the small creature in front of him.
"I am not sure; I asked Mrs. Gilead, but she didn't know either. She also didn't know what the woman was studying. She said she has been in to the library many times in the past couple weeks. She hasn't had to ask Mrs. Gilead any questions and she puts her books away when she is done."
"That's fairly interesting, but I am afraid I'm at a loss to explain what it all means."
"So am I."
She dropped her bags gently.
"I brought lunch. And I bought a Bible."
"Oh, thank you." He resumed working again and once again seemed lost to the world .
"Evatt, if you do not eat your lunch now, it will get cold pretty quickly." She frowned at him.
"I will in a moment."
She sat down herself and started to take things out of the bigger bag. After she had seated herself comfortably, she took out the book in the second smaller bag and started to eat.
She wasn't sure what she read; it seemed that the Bible was not one book, but comprised of many smaller ones.
She flipped through sections, reading an excerpt everyone once in a while.
"Well I don't know why Mondieu was reading this, but I don't think it had anything to do with the investigation." She took another bite of her lunch and continued.
"You know, I wonder if he was curious about the fish and the birds? Perhaps he was thinking about a Biblical calamity? I am going to look that up." She flipped to the index at the end.
"There's a reference to birds and the fish of the sea in the book Genesis, chapter twenty." She flipped there.
"This is Creation. Where God creates the fish and the fowls. The next day he creates Man and the animals. This doesn't really have anything to do with the crimes."
She took another bite. Then she stopped.
"Man and animals? That could be Horten and the wolves actually." Her voice started to rise in timbre. "The day before that was the creation of the birds and the fish. That is almost the exact opposite of what happened here, in reverse order as well."
The Doctor had looked up by this point and started to pay attention.
When she finished, he walked over and took his lunch from the bag, continuing her line of reasoning.
"And the first murder could be the opposite of the seventh day was well! Evelyn, what have you discovered?" They bothed gazed at one another and did not speak.
"What...is day before?" He finally asked.
"It is the seperation of day from night, the creation of the sun and moon." She answered, whispering the answer as if to hide the sound from prying ears.
"I don't know...*what that means.*" He eventually said, looking at her. "That would be a tall order to destroy the sun and moon."
"I think that just by making them disappear would be enough Doctor." She shivered after saying this as if the sun had already gone.
"Why do this though? What would be the purpose of the de-creation of Garden?" She asked as if throwing a simple question out to be answered by anyone.
"Perhaps it is not the de-creation that is important. What has happened because of these crimes?" He answered thinking hard.
"What if this whole thing were a charade to hide something else, hide some ulterior motives or actions?" He mused aloud.
"Pure conjecture Doctor. Let's back up for a moment. How would he make the constellations disappear?"
They both just looked at each other again and then the answer seemed blindingly obvious to both of them.
"I'm going to the Technology Tower. I want to see how easy it would be to get in, as well as talk to whoever is there about some of the security around there." Evelyn got up while she was talking and grabbed the rest of her lunch.
The Doctor made to do the same, but Eve forestalled him. "Evatt, you must finish these samples. I am only going to take a look. It will be all right." She smiled at him and then left.
The Technology Tower had never interested her in the slightest. She had always mostly ignored its existence as she walked past.
It was late afternoon by the time she made it to the Tower; the sun at about the thirty degree mark and slightly hidden behind the Tower making it glow orange.
She stopped well short of the parameter and just looked at it as she had never looked at it before.
A noise broke her thoughtful reverie.
Someone was coming out of the Tower's door. Through the fading light, she could just make out who it was.
The figure was Robinson.
He scanned the parameter before disappearing into the gloom himself.
*What was he doing in there?* She wondered to herself. She was about to leave her position on the outskirts of the Tower, when it occured to her, she might be able see more by waiting here and observing the comings and goings of the Tower.
She settled down to wait.
She had been waiting a couple of hours, when a hand brushed her shoulder.
She willed herself not to scream and darted a glance over.
It was Evatt.
"Sorry for startling you," He said quietly. "I figured when you didn't come back, that you had stayed for something like this."
She nodded and spoke from her sitting position.
"I have seen Robinson and Turners around here. Robinson left about the time I got here. Turners just left. Did you send Robinson to investigate?" She sounded a little tired, but her eyes still betrayed the same brightness as before.
"I did not. I will ask Robinson what he was doing here, though doubtless he will have a good excuse. I have never the like of the man for providing a reason for anything."
"Nevermind that now, we might have a chance to have private access now that Turners is gone. What do you think?"
"I think that we might get caught as fast as anything. Look!" He pointed towards the tower.
DuMont had just arrived. He stood in front of the Tower for a little while, gazing about, then he went inside.
"What is he doing now?" Wondered Eve aloud.
"My guess is: he is here on Mondieu's orders. If we want out own chance, we might just have to wait for a while." The Doctor sat down next to Eve and they started to wait.
After some time, DuMont came out, looked around for a moment and then went back inside and they had to wait.
"Do you still think we should wait?" Asked the Doctor, massaging one of his knees.
"I think so, yes. We might not get another chance and our murderer might show his face as well, at least DuMont thinks so."
The Doctor nodded his agreement and so they waited.
It was quite late when something happened.
"What do you think you're doing!?" A rough voice asked out of the darkness as hands grabbed at the both of them.
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