Chapter 27

Chapter 27: Mondieu

It was almost time. The inspector checked his timepiece: a quarter to one in the afternoon. The inspector turned around and began walking with a swift pace back towards the information tower. Only Turners was present when the inspector arrived.

                “How is everything, Turners?”

                “Looking fine, Inspector Mondieu. I’ll be finished and ready here in a moment,” Turners replied, shoulder-deep in a pile of machinery half-way up the ramp.

                “Very good. I’ll hold off until you arrive,” the inspector replied. The inspector continued the rest of the way up onto the roof of the information tower. The fountain appeared to have been unaffected by the other blasts throughout the city: probably the criminal hadn’t found it as simple placing an explosive in this particular location. Interesting note, indeed.

                The rooftop was fifty paces wide and nearly square, and even with the fountain, there should be more than enough room. The trapdoor opened up behind the inspector, and Seth hopped up onto the roof. The inspector’s brow furrowed and he checked his timepiece again. Seth was more than punctual: still wasn’t even one yet.

                “Seth, a little early, aren’t you?” Mondieu asked, surprised at Seth’s huffing pace.

                “Sir, I have something that maybe you should see,” Seth replied, panting for breath as he hurriedly walked over to where the inspector stood near the edge of the tower roof.  Seth was holding a small notebook, and he proffered it to the inspector.

                “What is this?” the inspector asked, turning it over and opening the notebook to the first page.

                “Last night, I started on a trail realized there might be some information you did not know about the beginning of our city. I described everything I remembered into this notebook. I’m not certain any of it will be helpful, or if you might already know most of it, but just in case.”

                The inspector pored over the notebook while Seth caught his breath, reading the quickly scrawled notes written in nigh illegible handwriting. In a rush, then. It was harder to lie in a hurry like that, unless everything was planned beforehand. However, the inspector would not put it past Seth – especially not now.

                The history was interesting, however, and there were a few facts that the inspector was not aware of up until this point.

                “Why wasn’t I told any of these things before?” the inspector asked Seth with an accusatory glance.

                Seth shrugged, crouching against the rooftop with a stabilizing hand set on the low wall surrounding the rooftop. “I didn’t know it was relevant. I only just thought of it today,” Seth replied.

                “I thought you hadn’t lived here your whole life,” the inspector said. “How old were you to remember this?”

                Seth didn’t answer, but just started out over the city.  Another scrambling noise interrupted them as another figure hopped up onto the roof. Simon Temple: again, another early comer, though not so early. Only a few minutes until one, now.

                “Inspector, Seth.” Simon nodded at each. “Looks like it isn’t just the inspector I’m meeting up here. What are you playing at, Mondieu?”

                Seth gave the inspector searching stare. “Welcome, Simon Temple. All will become clear shortly, I hope, if we are patient.”

                Another head popped through the opening, Evelyn, who reached down to help another climb up the ladder onto the top of the tower. Simon hurried over and helped pull the Doctor onto the roof.

                “There you are, Doctor,” Simon said, steadying the doctor and handing him his cane which he had brought with him today.

                “Ah, thank you lad. I’m none so young as once I was,” the Doctor replied, and winked. “So, Inspector, it seems this is more of a party than I originally realized. Have you, then, stopped the last crime? Or has it already happened?”

                “Doctor Evatt and Evelyn, thank you for coming. I expect that you’ll know soon enough, what everything is about.”

                The Doctor just nodded and leaned on Evelyn for support, who said nothing.

                A few minutes later, five minutes after one, another group arrived. Apparently, the issued notices to meet atop the information tower were not kept secret, and someone had suspected that the inspector was not meeting with them individually. A crowd of twenty or more people poured onto the roof of the information tower, including DuMont and Vespars, who merely nodded at the inspector when they arrived, and Pavloh. After the last of these popped up onto the rooftop, another hasty scrambling came from below, and Marie hopped up onto the rooftop, dragging up a hefty bag and a couple of notebooks, and wearing the inspector’s own cloak.

                She hurried over to the inspector’s side and dropped the bags near his feet, and smiled brightly. “Inspector, apparently this meeting isn’t as private as I suspected. I’d hoped for something a little more… romantic,” she said coquettishly, and beamed.

                Mondieu grumbled to himself something to the effect of, “you’ll see” and Marie laughed.

                “Not even a:  ‘it’s good to see you, Marie?’ or an explanation of what is happening here?”

                Another figure poked through the trapdoor opening onto the roof.

                “How many people are coming up here?” asked Marie. “Will the building hold? Is this the final crime? This building collapsing beneath us?”

                What if it was? Have I set us all up for death? If it was, though, the villain probably would not arrive. And there still were a few people who had not come yet.

                The latest figure, several figures, were The Bear, his wife, and the Librarian. The Bear walked over and clasped hands with the inspector. “I figured this wasn’t a private gathering, and invited my wife as well. I hope that is fine with you, Mondieu.”

                “Very well, Fredrik. Thank you for coming,” Mondieu replied. It was almost ten past the hour when the last two arrived: Robinson and the Postman himself.  Neither said a word to the inspector, but simply merged with the standing crowd, all staring at the inspector expectantly.

                That means that only Turners, of the people I invited, has not come through. Mondieu checked his timepiece for perhaps the hundredth time that hour, and saw it was just past ten after.

                “Welcome, everyone. I’m glad you could all make it. Right now you are wondering why I invited you all here, though there are many here who were not, in fact, invited. The answer is, that we are here to discover our criminal.”

                Mondieu paused as a quiet murmur passed through the crowd.

                “Now, I have reason to believe-” the inspector began, and was interrupted by a loud clanking from the trapdoor and yelling.

                “Inspector! Emergency, Inspector Mondieu!”

                Turners crawled through the trapdoor onto the roof and everyone turned to look at Turners.

                “What is it, Turners? What’s wrong?” the inspector asked, his brow furrowing. Was this the final crime? Was it now?

                “Inspector, sir. All of the computers failed. All of the computers are dead,” Turners, said, falling to a kneel, anguish clear across his face. Here was a tired man. This is not our criminal.

                “What do you mean by ‘dead’, Turners?”

                “I mean dead, caput, finished. They won’t even turn on, and everything is broken, everything is turned off. The city is finished.”

                A loud crack of sound whipped across town like thunder, deafening and continuing into a low, ugly rumble. “What the hell?” the inspector said, hurrying over to the building’s edge.

                Everyone followed the inspector, and it was then that they witnessed the final crime, Garden’s coup de gras, the killing grace. A web of cracks split the arboretum’s glass exterior, networking throughout the structure until the entirety was veined with tiny fractures. A bright glow licked at the bottoms of the glass, and smoke poured from each tiny fissure. Sounds of snapping glass flooded over them, like icy limbs of trees snapping, like ceramic rain smashing over cobblestones. Waves of smoke lifted from the tortured structure, blown east over the tower with the stench of sulfur and ash and decay.

                A loud explosion sounded out behind them, and the inspector turned and saw another cloud of smoke rising from the weather controller, and a number of smaller explosions riddled the town around them, tearing up old buildings and wrecking the marketplace.

                “How many must die for this!” the inspector screamed, but his voice was lost in the destruction.

                The explosions slowed around town until the sounds of cracking glass were the final sound, and yells from those atop the tower, screaming and crying. Was this the end? Was this the fire?

                At least, it seemed the structure could suffer no more, and with an explosive mushroom of a cloud, it the glass shattered in a horrific splash of noise and the tower collapsed, revealing the fires beneath the dome. The trees were ghosts, like naked, charred hands grasping up from the soils of a graveyard, lit only by the ghost-candles of flames, for there was nothing left to burn – except the tree of life. On it blazed, though already its dying moments were seen. It seemed, somehow, to reach higher in its last moments, as though saying, why have you forsaken me?

                Perhaps it was simply air escaping between its voluminous branches, or the whistling of smoke past smoldering leaves, but the tree screamed its final breaths of life and knowledge.

                Broken limbs surrounding – whose limbs? Each leaf let off a ghost, like a tiny soul, and each fruit dreamed its own death. A host of shadowed figures surrounded the tree, silent, smoky wisps of phantom people whose faces were the eternal void of a night without stars. With their hammers and nails they built, and the tree blossomed, and the city sprung up out of the dust and ashes of the land. The collective mass of ashen ghosts breathed, and the dust of the valley transformed into a city, with the tree its heart, and a tower its soul. Now, it melted, fell back as all things do into dust, into dust once more, and a city without heart is no city at all.

                The black figures disappeared, floating off into the sky like chaff or blackened sparks from a once bright fire.

                The inspector reeled from the vision and saw the tree in the last throes of life. He backed away slowly from the ledge and turned around. Everyone was staring wide eyed at the center still, shock written clearly on their faces, and Garden was quiet.

                Down below, near the city gates, another loud noise screamed into the city as police forces arrived, and the inspector heaved a sigh of relief. It was over, but there was still time for justice.

                “Is it the end,” someone whispered beside him. “Is it the end of paradise?

                Her rash hand in evil hour

Forth reaching to the fruit, she plucked, she eat:

Earth felt the wound, and Nature from her seat,

Sighing through all her works, gave signs of woe

That all was lost.

”

                The inspector turned and saw that the speaker was Robinson, and gave him an inquisitive look.

                “Ladies and gentlemen, this is the end, perhaps, or an end. But not just for this once fair city, but for our criminal as well. Justice will be served for this atrocity, and our villain will not escape it, though our criminal thinks he has won, and wrought his vengeance, or act of destruction for whatever cause.

                “Already, the police have arrived, and no one leaves this tower until the villain is caught.” The inspector glanced around at his audience, in tears and stricken at the loss of their fair city. Was anyone not sad? Were any hearts not broken? Surely the villain’s emotions were merely a farce, unless one can destroy and still love that which he breaks. Could it be?

                “But how do you know the villain is even atop this tower?” Seth asked, glanced around at the crowd surrounding him.

                “There are a lot of things I know, and many will be revealed shortly. First, however, I want to give our criminal a chance, an opportunity to turn himself in.” Mondieu glanced out over the crowd as an awkward stillness and numbness from the sights of the day settled over the group.

                “Very well. I must say, ladies and gentlemen, that this investigation has not been easy for me. How does an investigator, new upon a town, track down a murderer in an entire city without the advanced tools that civilization has gifted us? Once again, we are borne back into a Sherlockian era, though I am certainly no Sherlock.

                “But I do believe that our villain is here, upon this very rooftop. Why, you ask? Well, throughout my investigation, our villain displayed an understanding of the current status of each move that I made. This implied a close proximity, closer perhaps that could be gleaned from simple observation without interacting with the investigation itself.”

                “Is that not a simple supposition, Mondieu?” Vespars piped up. “What if you are mistaken?”

                Whispers ran through the present crowd and Mondieu held up a hand to silence them. “Ah, but I am not wrong. The first murder threw me off the most out of all of the crimes, but it told me a fact that I overlooked for too long. You see, I couldn’t imagine a series of murders where the victims themselves were irrelevant, or nearly irrelevant.

                “In this circumstance, the criminal did not, perhaps, pick out his victims as particular faces, or targets of a vendetta or secret violent inclination. No, it seems that Addam and Lilya were an unlucky couple who managed to fit most conveniently with our criminals diabolical motif: anti-creation. This, too, I missed.” The inspector paced back and forth, and saw that he had nabbed their attention, and only the breeze and smell of ash moved atop the information tower.

                “The second crime, too, baffled me. How could something that seemed so random, so inadvertent, be a murder? How could our villain have masterminded something that would, under any other circumstances, be merely a mistake? I’m not certain whether our villain intended there to be any deaths, on this particular day. Much of our villains motive remains unclear to me, yet this crime was the most confusing of them all, and the most telling, I think, in the end.

                “The third crime was odd, for I was, and I think maybe many of us, were expecting another murder. So completely broadsided were we that the flight of birds and the death of the fish came as complete surprise, and we had not even considered sabotage and terrorism as pieces in the repertoire of our criminal. This is the first crime where the subtleties of our villain started becoming more clear: there was a theme. Also, our villain overplayed his hand, perhaps, in giving a clue with regards to the central thematic element of his grand play: the tree.” The inspector glanced around at his crowd, gauging their reactions so far. Below, the police were rounding up people and barricading the city, preventing anyone from escaping. As yet, they had not approached the tower, though it seemed like they had brought a helicopter.

                “Our next crimes were strange, because though we tried to prevent our criminal, at each juncture he was one step ahead: the information tower virus, the weather controller, the explosions, and finally now: the destruction of the tree. However, these hours were not spent idly. Quickly, several of us caught onto the villain’s symbolic reversal of creation, an anti-creation, and endeavored to anticipate his next movements.

                “Last night, with the destruction of the city nigh, I discovered a couple more interesting pieces of information, previously unknown to me, but first I must return to a previous date as explanation. Nearly forty years ago, this town was construction on the bones of an empty hillside, as a new city to herald in an Edenic Garden, a perfect paradise of weather and living things in harmony.

                “The tree was its heart, the centerpiece of an idyllic monumental city. However, not everyone was pleased with the introduction of the tree into the city. It was justified as a scientific achievement that surpassed all previous accomplishments: the tree of life, they called it, though its antagonists named it the tree of knowledge, for it would bring about the fall of the city, the end of paradise.”

                Several members of the crowd shuffled impatiently. Time to get to the point, then. Justice can be patient, though, and what is our criminal thinking just now? The longer this dragged in, the most tense he hoped the villain would get, until something slipped. Don’t play your hand too quickly, Mondieu, justice must be served in time.

                “But not everyone was against the tree, and it brings about longevity, making ages difficult to discern in Garden. If you first started eating the fruit at fifty, you might continue appearing as age fifty for many more years, and certainly would look no older than sixty even now. Seth, how old are you?”

                “Fifty-five, sir,” Seth replied quietly.

                “And you, the post boy?”

                “Forty-seven, sir.” Quite a bit older than I suspected.

                “You see? It is difficult to tell, for if I didn’t know better, I might have guessed that Seth here was in his mid-twenties, not yet twenty and five, and he is already fifty years of age. And our humble doctor, how old was he when this town began? And Robinson? What I realized is that an element of time had crept in, and it grew increasingly important.

                “Yesterday, when discussing the history of this city, I asked how I might know who had eaten of the tree, and who had not. The answer was, ‘you shall know them by their fruits’. What was meant, I think, is that age is a telling factor. How old is the person, and how long have they lived in Garden? Suddenly, the entire investigation shifted from a stalking of a murderer, into an analysis of time.

                “How had our villain had enough time to write a virus for the computers, build bombs for the weather controller, destroy the entire arboretum, understand enough about the systems to poison the water, and devise the mechanisms for murders, and murders that symbolized a very particular series of anti-creative actions, leading towards the fall of Garden? How, and when?

                “It became clear to me that our villain could not be altogether new in town, however criminal some of these newer personas seemed. Either they were new in town, and innocent, or they had somehow been in town longer than they said, and kept hidden. So a couple of our esteemed party suddenly seemed less guilty of a sudden. DuMont and Simon, by their own admission, were new in town.  Unless, of course, they were lying.

                “But then comes the motive. What reason could our villain possibly have for committing such atrocities? Especially if he was from outside of this city? You see, having lived outside of this city myself, I don’t know of anyone who possesses an opinion one way or the other about Garden. In fact, knowledge of the city is incredibly limited, and I suspect hidden in some way from the general public. So if DuMont and Simon Temple are indeed from outside of this city, what reason could they have for such specific targeting and the destruction of the city, and what time could they have for the planning of such an event? How could they gain such an understanding of the city having visited here so briefly?

                “We set traps, and the first night, the Doctor and Evelyn stepped blindly into our waiting arms. Only this morning, I discovered that Evelyn and the Doctor were vehemently against the tree in its younger days. Could they still be so? Evelyn spoke a mighty speech against the introduction of the tree, and probably each has refused to consume the trees fruits since that fateful day, have you not, Evatt and Evelyn?”

                Evelyn shifted in her stance, looking uncomfortable, but defiant, and Evatt looked a little glum, and tired.

                “It is true, what you say, Mondieu,” the Doctor replied. “We both were, and are still, against the introduction of the tree to the city of Garden, and have avoided eating any of its fruit. That’s why we grow old and frail, though our friends may seem young.”

                “But we are not your murderers!” Evelyn burst out, and then turned red, and the Doctor put his arm around her shoulder comfortingly.

                “As you say, of course, Evelyn. We’ve already seen that Seth has partaken of the fruit, and by his age, I can see that Robinson has as well, though not, perhaps, consistently. And Pavloh, you have avoided the fruit as well, I see? Yes, of course you have. And then there is the innkeeper, a young boy at the creation of this city, but now an older, revered innkeeper. I take it that you have not eaten much of the fruit yourself, have you?”

                The pulled his wife nearer him and said, “It’s an atrocity, it is, a Babel as Evelyn once said. The ego of man is too great sometimes, and it will spell our doom. Hell, it already has.”

                Mondieu nodded before turning to the next victim of interrogation. “And Marie? How long have you been in town? Clearly you have partaken of the fruit as well, yes?”

                Marie blushed. “Actually, I’ve only eaten the fruit for testing, and I’ve lived in this city less than five years, certainly. I honestly have no political position on the tree or in adverse, to be honest. I’m only here to study.”

                “As you say,” the inspector sad, nodding, and Marie frowned. “And Vespars? What of you? You say that you’ve only lived here a few years, and no one has corrected you – even Seth who’s clearly been here his whole live. What say you about the tree?”

                “It is a tree to me, no more no less,” replied Vespars with a shrug. “I’ve eaten the fruit now and again, but claim no partisanship regarding its existence.”

                “Very well. But there are other variables, you see. Our villain had to have technological expertise, and experience creating bombs, and impeccable timing. In addition, I suspect out villain had to be known around town, such that his being in unusual areas would not cause any notice - like a mechanic or a doctor, perhaps.

                “Who gets around to everywhere without anyone noticing? That was a question that riddled my brain for quite some time. Someone with the expertise necessary to accomplish each of these crimes, the motive, whatever that may be, the time to prepare, and the ability to be inconspicuous in a number of places.”

                It was almost time to lay down some of his trump cards. Was the crowd ready? Was the villain primed?

                “But everything came back to the second crime: the murder of Horten. Why this crime, you ask? Well, this crime didn’t quite fit. On the sixth day of creation, both man and animals are created, out of dust he created man and woman. But it almost seems like Horten and his wife were killed inadvertently. What if our mysterious villain had no intention of killing anyone in this particular incident? What if he, or she, simply wished to symbolize the animals death? And how did the villain exact this, whether or not  the murders were intended?

                “Was there a signal that the animals were trained to? A high pitched whistle, perhaps, or a motion from the crowd? But there is something even stranger. When we examined the specimens initially, the Doctor claimed there was no poison, which bothered me. That meant that someone had to sneak into the pens at night and train the wolves, no mean task for anyone, or the wolves had gone feral on their own. Unfortunately, for our villain’s mastermind plot to have any merit, there must have been a trigger, or a crime, and not just a random happenstance. It was no accident, then, that the wolves attacked, whether or not Horten was the intended target. “

                Mondieu snuck a quick peak around: nothing yet. The finale was upon them.

                “But then I learned the last piece of information, the piece that brought everything together for me. I discussed with Marie what she was actually doing in this city, and she said experimenting on the tree itself. Of course, this is no crime, as anyone is free to investigate or interact with the tree however they like, but Marie did so in a secretive fashion. Why? Because she wanted to know if another could be made.

                “When the tree was first constructed in the outside world, they tried making duplicates, or cloning the tree, or even getting it to reproduce, to no avail. For whatever reason, any new copies of the tree simply would not grow: it was sterile and a miracle. Marie came thinking likewise. Our villain, worried that the ego of man might return again to the world at large, and more atrocities might occur, realized that the time had come to destroy everything, to end the tree because it could wreak its terrible knowledge and evils upon the rest of man.

                “Marie came with her own equipment, equipment vastly more intricate than any found here in Garden. So it was no surprise that the Doctor’s investigation missed what Marie’s quickly discerned: poison. It was not some secret training, or some signal set in the crowd: the wolves were poisoned, and set to go feral. Whether or not Horten had arrived, the wolves were going to tear each other apart, reverted to an animalistic rabidity, a violent, primal rage.

                “But who would have the motive? Who would have the experience? Someone who wanted the tree destroyed, and who always wanted it destroyed, and knew that the time had finally come. Our criminal started storing up supplies and building bombs in a secret place; he or she started planning, intricately, everything necessary, using knowledge of the tree and creation to prepare a devilish plot. Who, and why, you ask? Because this had to stop, it just couldn’t continue any longer could it?”

                The inspector paused, glancing around at his silent audience, enraptured in the tension of the story and moment. There was a fire in their glance, having just seen the destruction of their city. He might have to tame that crowd, or they might lynch whoever he pointed at first, whether or not they had actually committed any crime, or simply throw them from the building.

                “But justice is coming, and the police are, even now, ready to bring this person to justice. They will serve their time as due punishment for their crimes. When we are done here today, our criminal will be safely behind bars, and together, we can work to rebuild the homes of those who lost.”

                It wasn’t great, but it would have to do. The fire was still there, but it was tempered, as if they were frightened of impeding the law, even though if they worked as a mob, there was nothing the law could really do to all of them. It would be a justice served, of a sort.

                “So, putting it all together, who is it? Our is our grand villain, the destroyer of towns and peoples? Feeling pretty good, right now, are they? Someone with a secret place to construct bombs, a motive, the allotted time”

                “It was you, wasn’t it?” a voice screamed. “Why?”

                “Why indeed, Doctor Evatt?” Mondieu asked, his voice dark, wolfish in tone.

                A low roar filled the top of the information tower, as everyone was shocked into discussion.

                “The Doctor?”

                “Impossible! Doctor Evatt would never!”

                “Why? The Doctor has been nothing but kind for everyone!”

                The inspector watched as the Doctor took off his thick-rimmed glasses and rubbed at them tiredly.

                “But you did do it, didn’t you Doctor?” The inspector said in a low tone, and the crowd hushed. “You were the only one seeing all of your friends die, getting sick every day because they didn’t eat of the tree. In fact, almost all of the house visits that you made to help sick patients consisted of those whom you loved. Garden was perfect for everyone else but you.” Evelyn’s stare was the angriest the inspector had ever seen. She was perhaps the most shocked – too shocked?

                “And you were always against the tree, weren’t you, Doctor? Ever since the beginning. Never quite as outspoken about your beliefs as Eve, here, but of the same opinion. And you used to be a chemist, didn’t you? That’s what Seth here says. More than enough experience with chemistry to create your own explosive devices, and you knew, somehow, that the computers would fail at this time, didn’t you? Everything was intricately planned, was it not?”

                The Doctor sighed. “I never intended to get away with it. I didn’t intend for Addam and Lilya to die, in all actuality. The blood drained too fast – I’d only hoped that they be found comatose beneath the trees, as a sign. And Horten’s, too, was an accident. The wolves might have just torn each other apart without him, but he loved those wolves, and saw them acting strangely.

                “You think that justice is awaiting me? No, justice has already come for me. But I could not let such an atrocity leave this city, and its time was finished. It is finished. For you see, though you have caught me, Mondieu, I have won.”

                “Why, Evatt! Why!” Evelyn shouted, punched her fists against the Doctor’s chest, and collapsing against him. “Why?”

                The Doctor pressed her to him, holding her lightly, and using her to hold himself up. A couple of policemen that the inspector had not seen arrive detached themselves from the rear of the crowd and came up behind the Doctor, lightly holding onto his arms and nodding at the inspector.

                “I had to, Evelyn. And you had to see what sort of man I am, and that I had to do this myself,” the Doctor replied.

                The policemen escorted the Doctor off, leaving Eve standing on the edge of the roof, tears pouring down her face.

                “Well, inspector. You caught the villain. Do you feel victorious?” Marie asked, sidling up near the inspector.

                “I don’t know, Marie. I feel tired.”