Chapter 25

Chapter 25: Mondieu

Half a league, half a league,

 Half a league onward,

All in the valley of Death

 Rode the six hundred.

"Forward, the Light Brigade!

"Charge for the guns!" he said:

Into the valley of Death

 Rode the six hundred.

~ Alfred, Lord Tennyson – The Charge of the Light Brigade

The final morning dawned with pink cirrus clouds like crushed, melted marbles on the horizon, and a peach-pie sky greeted the inspector that morning. He had not slept, perhaps could not have. All night, he’d plotted a web of details, graphing them into a creative loom following the anti-creation and before: the life of Garden.

                Marie’s comment had revealed one of the last pieces of this puzzle, save the motivation. Why? Why had the villain committed the crime, and why now? Originally, he’d wondered why here, but that was obvious, now.

                The inspector rifled through his things and found a razor, and trimmed the stubble lining his cheeks. He washed his face and cleaned up, toweling himself off and putting on a light eau de cologne. He wrapped his cloak about his shoulders and snatched up his notebook. The crime could happen at any time, so I’ll have to be quick.

Mondieu checked his timepiece. Just after sunrise, so I should have a few hours before the crime. The last clue was not helpful in determining the last of the crimes. The inspector pulled out the Bible in the drawer of his nightstand.

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

                The beginning, the creation of everything: was this a destruction of the city? Or a darkness of some sort? It was tricky, since a good number of things were created here: heavens, earth, day, night, light, darkness, the universe itself. Any one of these could be symbolically construed a number of different ways. But something had to be done.

                The inspector finished cleaning up and tucked his notebook into his coat pocket. He hurried down the stairs, grabbed a quit bite of bread and some coffee, and charged out into the light. His first stop was the post office. Last evening, he’d pulled out a map and marked the location according to The Bear. The post office was a small residential estate in the southwestern region of town, transformed from a large home into a workshop for receiving and sending mail. It didn’t seem like they did much business, as most of the mail was internal and the city was not large enough to warrant sending mail most of the time. But they had boy manning the desk when Mondieu entered, and it was not the postman that had delivered the inspector his mail each day. So there are at least two employees who work here.

                The boy glanced up as the inspector approached. He wore the same outfit as the other postman, though he was, if anything, even younger – perhaps not even twenty. His cheeks were bright and red, and his hair so bleached-blond it was almost white.

                “Good day, sir,” the boy said cheerily as the inspector entered. “What can I do for you today?”

                “Is the other postman not here?” the inspector asked.

                “He’s out delivering the mail, sir. He generally does that while I sit here and organize. Do you have any mail you want delivered?” the boy replied.

                So maybe there were only two workers then. “Actually, I have a much more important task, and I cannot trust anyone else to perform it for me. It is a matter of utmost urgency, and it must be done with all haste.”

                The boy’s eyes widened with each word the inspector said.

                “I need you to run to the nearest town – you should write this down,” the inspector said, pulling over a piece of paper and a pen for the boy, whose surprise was ever mounting. “I need you to run to the nearest town, and find the police station, which you will probably need to ask someone about, and ask the police inspector there to send as many men as he can spare to this city – and to do so immediately. If possible, I want men here within five hours. Are you with me so far?”

                The boy nodded almost imperceptibly, but had written everything down faithfully.

                “And tell them to bring me a communication device of some sort: a phone device, a walkie-talkie – hell, a helicopter, whatever he can spare. Got that?”

                The boy nodded once more.

                “And tell him to bring medics as well. I’m not certain if we’ll have injured, but better to be safe than dead. Do you know how to reach the nearest city?”

                No response.

                “It’s east of here, about an hour by horse. Hopefully you can ride a horse, otherwise this might be a miserable day for you. Find a horse as fast as possible, or just take one, I don’t care. Do you understand how urgent this is?”

                The boy nodded sharply.

                “I don’t believe you do, because if you did, you would be gone.” The inspector darkly chuckled as the young man tossed a knapsack over his shoulder, threw his notepad in, and hurried out of the building. Mondieu soon followed the boy out of the post office building, out east towards the information tower.

                Still no sign of any crime, but if previous crimes were any indication, this one would occur before midday. More people roamed the streets this morning than some of the mornings previous. Maybe they were realizing they could not surrender completely to the cold; the fight to survive began now. Turners was, as always, in the information tower.

                “Good morning, Mondieu,” Turners said cheerfully.

                Mondieu was almost surprised by the brightness of this response. “The day where the city may, according to our criminal, be destroyed – and you say ‘good morning’ so blithely?”

                Turners merely smiled at this. “Someone has to keep cheerful, with people like you around, Mondieu. But there is good news.”

                “What sort of good news?” Mondieu asked warily.

                “The water is all fixed up, and we called in some scientists who are excited to interact with the weather control device, and hopefully bring it back to life. A group is working on storing food so we can last a while on what we have, and get word out to neighboring cities for help.”

                The inspector’s eyes widened in surprise. They were fighting better than he thought. He realized he kept imagining this as a war zone. Was it not? And now, ordered back into a valley of death he charged. Was victory possible? “That’s great news. How is the information tower holding up?”

                “Shabby and she’s seen better days, but she’s still purty, if you squint a little,” Turners replied with a broad grin.

                “You mean if you shut your eyes entirely,” the inspector replied wryly, staring around at the soggy floor and broken machinery covering the central area of the tower’s floor level. “What about the water? How did you fix the pipes?”

                “I closed off all of the valves leading toward fountains, and that seemed to fix our problem. Our criminal targeted only those for his explosive purposes, for whatever reason. There is also a heating system in the water mechanism that should encourage our plants to grow again, and prevent the pipes from freezing if the weather ever drops too low.”

                There is always hope. “Perfect. I’ll leave you to your work. Very good, Turners. I may have need of you shortly.”

                Turners gave a cheeky salute and turned back to his work, and Mondieu left the information tower, heading just east to the police station. Seth was gone, but both Vespars and DuMont were in the station at the time.

                “Gentlemen,” Mondieu nodded to each as he entered. He sat down on Seth’s desk and faced them. “So, what did you discover about the menagerie? Was there anyone present there that morning? Vespars?”

                Vespars shifted in his stance, leaning against the wall beside the door and grinding his teeth. “Nothing that I could find, inspector. Seems like nights at the menagerie are pretty silent. Even the feeders don’t come until the morning, which is why the crowd was gathered there in the first place: watching the feeding of the wolves. It’s not uncommon. I’ve done it myself a few times.”

                “So you found nothing?” the inspector asked with an accusatory stare.

                “Nothing, inspector,” Vespars replied, unmoved.

                “And you, DuMont? Did you also find nothing?” moving his glance over to DuMont, who was sitting down with his legs wide spread, looking as if he owned the room, fearing nothing.

                “Actually, I may have. I talked with someone who says that the Doctor and Robinson met with someone that very morning, perhaps even Horten. They didn’t say what their topic of conversation was, but it could be important. The night before, some people thought they heard the wolves howling, but none investigated.”

                “That’s it?” asked the inspector. “Who did you find this out from?”

                “A source who wishes to remain anonymous,” DuMont replied blankly.

                DuMont was impossible to read. What sort of person was this? Why was he here? Escaping from something? “You know I could have you arrested for simply withholding information?”

                “And who would arrest me? Vespars? I don’t think so,” DuMont replied.

                He was doubly thankful he was calling in those police now, in case things got… interesting. “Very good, gentlemen. You’ll both likely be needed fairly soon. Do you know where Seth is at this time?”

                Both of them shrugged.

                “Very well. I’ll be seeing both of you gentlemen fairly soon. Good day.” The inspector passed out of the building and back into the midmorning sunlight. Should he try and see Pavloh, and see if he could glean any more information? Or Marie? He hadn’t seen Marie since last night, when he had left rather abruptly. He’d be seeing her pretty soon anyway he suspected.

                Mondieu headed towards the center of town, staring at the arboretum as he approached. Magnificent, wasn’t it? It still never ceased to amaze him, this glass dome in a city of crystal and life. The plants and trees growing up against the buildings looked the worse for wear, but a primal majesty still hung over town, an edenic magnificence. It was good, he felt.

                A dark figure approached him, and the inspector frowned, not recognizing him at first, until the figure drew within a few paces and stopped.

                “Robinson?” the inspector asked, seeing the man up close for the first time.

                “The very same, Mondieu. I needed to speak with you.”

                “About what?” Now his curiosity was piqued. Why would Robinson need to speak with him? Right now he was suspect number one.

                “About the past, actually. I suspect by now you know that the city once housed two factions: those who gratefully accepted the tree, the weather controller, and all of the blessings that each brought; and those who despised this all as an egotistical folly, a second babel. It was only a matter of time, they said, before this city would get what it deserved.”

                “Yes, I’d heard that-” the inspector began, until Robinson glared at him with a dark stare.

                “Don’t interrupt me, Mondieu. Well, those factions are still alive, though not in the same capacity as they once were. The feelings are numbed, distant, rubbed into a medium throughout the long years. But there are those still who yearn for the tree’s destruction.” Robinson paused here, as though he was waiting for the inspector to acknowledge what he had said.

                “Yes, I had heard as much. I was looking for someone along those lines of motivation.”

                “But what you didn’t know, inspector, was that this presentiment exists outside of these walls as well. There are some scientists, some political people in the know who still remember the beginning of this city. Mainly scientists, politicians, and activists – all the same, they exist. And their opinions are no less fiery for their distance from this city. You would do well to keep that in mind. Be that as it may, the danger in the city is great, from within.”

                “But how do I find the person who wants this all destroyed? How do I know who is against the tree, and who isn’t?”

                “You shall know them by their fruits,” Robinson replied, and pulled his cowl over his face. “I’ll be seeing you, Mondieu. God speed.”

                Robinson disappeared as quickly as he’d arrived.

                You shall know them by their fruits? What did that mean? The inspector walked around the arboretum, digesting Robinson’s strange words. Was it? Could it be? The final pieces of the mirror were all situating, and he realized he might have arranged them incorrectly after all. The problem with such puzzles is they have no sense of direction until they are finished – a mirror reflects just the same whether the mirror is held upside-down or not. But slowly, through a great and magnificent struggle, the problems were becoming clear.

                The inspector checked his timepiece. It was already almost noon, and still no sign of the crime? When would it come? What if there was no final crime? The criminal may consider the city destroyed enough as it was. What had that last clue meant, after all?

                Mondieu patted his cloak for his pack of cigarettes, and pulled out the pack. The light was shining against the sloped edge of the arboretum, a beautiful day, full of creative energy and life.  He tossed his cigarettes into the grass. I don’t need those anymore. It is time to solve this crime.