Chapter Eighty-Three
A new note was discovered, in the same handwriting as the last, and it read like so:
I killed Snede, Pluck, Feosalma, Sanns, and Brotherus. I had no help.
I had no reason, save the confidence that these acts would serve to illustrate the randomness of the universe. I confess all.
Do with me what you will.
Warm regards,
(Poor) Larry
But Brotherus was not dead; he was at that minute shrieking with delight whilst Annette used his penis for a pincushion. Voot went round first to Enid, who would not open the door to the room she shared with her partners—Voot heard only giggling and mocking remarks from inside—then to Gangakanta, who at least maintained sufficient civility to open the door, but then looked up at him with such sad, hopeless eyes that the manager couldn’t bear to ask him for assistance. So it was that Voot alone visited Poor Larry’s little cell, doubting very much that the shy lad possessed either the mindset or the competence for murder.
Larry was not there. He was on duty, and Voot eventually found him in a corner of the dining room, staring at the wall.
“Larry! Whatever are you doing?”
Larry turned about. “Pardon, Herr Manager?”
“What are you doing, standing in the corner, staring at the wall?”
“I. . .I don’t rightly know, sir. I just sort of found myself here, doing it.”
“Well, never mind that, just now. I have something I want to show you.”
“Is it a pornographic drawing, sir?”
“It’s most certainly not! Why do you ask that?!”
Larry shrugged. “Lousy guess, I guess.”
Shaking his head at the stupidity of youth, Voot handed him the note ostensibly signed by the dumb bellhop. Larry took a quick glance, then returned it unread.
“Well?” asked Voot.
“Did you wish me to read it, sir?”
“I did, yes!”
Larry took the note again, and this time read it.
“Did you write this note, sir?”
“No I did not.”
“Why not?”
“What do you mean?”
“Pardon?”
“Why do you ask whether I wrote the note?”
As if to acknowledge the limits of his own intelligence, Larry smiled sadly and said, “I’m afraid I don’t really know what I’m saying, sir.”
“Are you drunk, boy?!”
“I never drink, sir.”
“Then have you any idea why your name is signed at the bottom of this note?”
“What note, sir?”
“Don’t be an idiot! You know perfectly well what note.”
“I’m afraid I’m feeling a bit unwell, sir. May I be excused?”
“You may not! I ask you to explain this note.”
“It’s a crude drawing of a penis, sir—nothing more.”
“It most certainly is not. It’s a note claiming to confess to the murders, signed ‘Larry’. You can read, can’t you, boy?”
“Oh yes, sir. I like a good novel.”
“Very good. Then—”
“Particularly gothic literature.” He smiled, remembering. “Anything that gives a little fright; a little shiver up my spine!”
“Yes, yes, very good—”
“Which makes the downy hair on my thighs bristle—”
“All right, all right, enough of that! Just tell me if you wrote this note or not—”
“I would never so disgrace myself as to commit the image of a penis to paper, sir; much less to circulate it where it might fall under the untarnished gaze of a lady.”
“Don’t be absurd. I’m asking about this note here.” He shook it before Larry’s eyes, lest the lad find some further excuse for misunderstanding.
“That’s the note I mean, sir.”
“Look, you idiot! This note—” And here he held the note between them, where both could look upon it: and sure enough, where a moment before there had been a list of victims, now were no words at all, but an infantile sketch of, yes, a penis.
“What have you done?!” the manager cried.
“Not I,” Larry insisted. “I might have sketched a breast or two in my day, but never that.”
“How did this happen?!” Voot exclaimed.
“I’d tell a lie if I claimed never to have drawn a hairless vulva,” Larry admitted, pondering, “but a cock? No.”
“What happened to the other note?!” Voot persisted, searching about the floor and vicinity.
“That’s the only note I’ve seen today, sir. And, I fear, an image I’ll never be able to banish from my head.”
Unable to find the note, on the floor, in his pockets, in Larry’s pockets, Voot retreated, convinced that someone—perhaps the killer himself—was playing games with him.