Posted by Pierson's Porter on August 03, 2000 at 15:22:58:
Improbably Not: The story of Mr. Anderson Pollock
Chapter Two: An All-Around Bad Night for Our Heroes
“What I want to know is, how long did he know we were being watched? He must have known the entire time. Why allow it to go on? Doesn’t sound quite right, if you ask me!”
It was the day after Hastings Vernal had prematurely ended a meeting of The League of Improbable Gentlemen, revealing that he knew that some clandestine voyeur was observing them.
It had caused quite a bit of controversy, and Colonel Blanchford Bertram was especially upset.
“Oh, come on, there Blanchy,” Dr. Hakenfakir began. “We’ve known that HV has his own agenda from the start. He hasn’t been a member of the League as long as you, but he has the most experience in these matters of any of us.”
“Ah-hem,” Knifey, Bertram’s sentient blade, called up from the Colonel’s belt. “It just so happens that I have more experience than all of you combined! Why, I should be leading your club!”
“At least Hastings isn’t as boastful as the talking knife. Or as cryptic,” the Doctor joked.
“Whoa!” the driver called.
“It seems that we have arrived,” Dr. Hakenfakir observed. “I’m really not looking forward to this.”
They exited the carriage and paid the driver.
Then they began the long (but all too short) walk from the gate to the front door of the Witz Farm.
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Sir Mumphrey Wilton arrived to find the mansion uncharacteristically quiet.
“Jakes! Where is everyone? I thought we would be eating a late supper together, as is our custom.”
“Sir, the Doctor and the Colonel went to interview the widower. Mr. Quimby announced that is was a ‘really huge’ shipment day and that he would be at his home reading the latest fiction until 3 AM. Mr. Vernal left without giving his destination (as is his habit). And Miss Darkness is preparing to go to her medical appointment.”
“Correction: Gone to her medical appointment… if one could call it that…”
Hagatha Darkness called as she descended the stairs towards the doorway.
“Why Miss Darkness, I sincerely hope that you weren’t about to go out without an escort!” Mumph teased.
“Really, I would rather do this by myself… don’t give me that look…! Fine! Go call us a cab.”
“On my way Madam!”
“Really, you are such a little boy!”
##################################
“Driver! Stop here!” Hagatha shouted unexpectedly.
“I thought you were going to—“ Mumph began.
“Yes, I am. You, however, Mr. Wilton should go to the morgue to your left and see Mr. Waltz. We really did mistreat him last night.”
“I… suppose you’re right… Watch yourself, Miss Darkness.”
“That I will Mr. Wilton.”
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“Debbie…loved the animals. She loved the whole farm life. She was so happy here…” David Witz fought tears. He stroked his pencil thin moustache, unconsciencly calling attention to his thin, oily face.
“Mr. Witz, you wife was very different from the other victims. What we need to do is find the similarities to help us profile her killer—“
“And catch the bounder! And make sure he pays for what he’s done!” Colonel Bertram interjected.
“—Yes, all that. So Mr. Witz we need you to walk us through your wife’s routines as best you can… if you can’t recall, or find it hard to discuss, I can hypnotize you and—“
“No, Doctor. I remember fine.”
“Okay, then. Why don’t we start.”
“Debbie loved the animals. She got out to feed them before the sun came up every day. I’m hardly a late-sleeper, but I never get out before dawn. In fact, the sun wasn’t even completely over the horizon when I found her. She had only made it thirty feet to the feed shed… when she…”
“Alright, Mr. Witz. That’s enough. We’d like to look around now, if that’s okay.”
“Er… Look… You can see the feed… the outside of the feed shed… but I really must insist that look nowhere else.”
“…”
The two investigators made their way to the feed shed.
As they looked at the corner where the late Debbie Witz was found, her widower watched them closely through the window, stroking his mustache.
“He obviously is hiding something. Could he be the killer?” Dr. Harkenfakir supposed. “I’ll hypnotize him and find out.”
“’Witz’. He must be a German. Of course we can’t trust him…” Colonel Bertram said. “But I say we find out what he’s hiding the old-fashioned way! Bust down the Barn door!”
“Hey guys? I know what’s in the barn… and it isn’t what you’re thinking,” Knifey announced.
“Oh really? Care to fill us in?”
“Okay. It’s monster cows.”
“What tha ‘ell do ya mean?” Blanchford demanded a moment before they were attacked by the monster cows.
###################################
“I’m glad you came!” Christopher Waltz had slept and regained his composure overnight. “I wasn’t in any condition to report last night… I left out a most important part. I… All the victims were filled with… maggots. Unpleasant to hear, I know, but believe me, it is much more unpleasant to find…and remove.”
“Yea gods! Were they decomposing already?” Wilton was understandably horrified.
“No! Well, the human body is in a constant state of decomposure… but none of the victims had been dead more than a few days. There were very few other signs of decomposure… and, what’s more, I pulled out one the prior victims from last week… and there were thousands of new maggots! In my sterile lab! It was like they were being created in the body… but that’s impossible!
“Mr. Wilton, I have gone from glad that you were willing to take this case to quite sure that your group is the only one in the world that could!”
#######################################
Hagatha Darkness went into the restaurant she told the driver to take her to and waited. When the carriage was gone and she had told the restaurant’s greeter to leave her alone three times (and had resisted the strong urge to turn him into something even less attractive), she began the two-and-a-half block walk to her true destination, the library.
She was running late, so she decided to take the sinister looking dark alley.
She regretted that almost instantly.
What little light there was disappeared.
This made it very hard to see the Killer who had come for her…