Chapter Twelve
Pluck was determined, this time, to move the investigation forward—he wasn’t so dumb, or deaf, as many of the guests seemed to think, hearing all too well their contemptuous remarks, made in his hearing, that he either wasn’t an inspector at all or was a criminally incompetent one; Pluck absorbed these insults with the learned stoicism on which he prided himself, though he naturally could not restrain the escape of a slight fusillade of slanderous retorts and haphazard threats in corrupt snatches of legalese from his end—and so recalled his co-investigators to the interview room at four-thirty on the dot. Bartoff, as it happened, was in the toilet at that time—number two, if you really want to know—not having been notified of the imminent resumption of his duties, and so was subjected to a stream of pitiless insults from Pluck upon his return. He took it in his stride, did the large, affable fellow; he took it in his stride.
Pluck sat in the seat at the centre of the long table; Bartoff to his right, Enid to his left. Arranged before him, per his earlier barked instructions, were several piles of guests’ passports and staff members’ documents; the hotel register; a map of the premises; a pitcher of water and a group of glasses; a bell for summoning assistance; a fully stocked humidor; a pad of paper, a rubber, several pencils and a sharpener; and a souvenir operatic programme signed by Frau Hühnerbeinstein.
Gleaning Enid’s doings out of the corner of his all-encompassing eye, while he shuffled his paperwork, he noticed her fiddling with some sort of face powder or something equally womanish and inappropriate. He flirted with the idea of shouting at her, but calculated, with his locomotive-like rapidity of thought, that he would need to keep her on his side, so decided to reserve his excoriation for the interviewees.
He stared at the air for several minutes.
“With whom shall we begin?” asked Enid, seeking to break the silence.
Pluck sighed; there were people, he mused, like himself, who had the romantic understanding of life; who could see through the quotidian trifles that make up our daily existence; and then there were people like, alas, her. He sighed again, for effect, then drew the register to him.
“First,” he announced—“Snede, the clerk.”
Silence. Pluck noticed this.
“Why is nobody moving?” he asked, his irritation growing. “Bartoff—call to that bellhop. Have them bring in Snede.”
“Monsieur—”
He struck Bartoff with the register; neither was injured. “Call that idiot bellhop!” he ordered. “I want to see Snede!”
Enid’s hand came onto his arm; he shook it off as he would a tarantula and glared at her.
“I beg to remind you, monsieur,” she said in low tones, “that the gentleman in question is dead.”
“What?!”
She assumed he’d asked his question rhetorically, and so said nothing. After he glared at her, a black nothingness emitting from his eyes, and demanded again, “What?!”, she felt obliged to repeat:
“The gentleman is dead.”
“I heard you the first time!”
“Oh.”
“How did this happen?!”
“That is precisely what we are aiming to find out, monsieur,” put in Bartoff.
“I didn’t ask you!” Pluck snarled at him, then turned back to Enid: “Why didn’t anybody tell me?!”
“Mister Snede is the gentleman who was found murdered,” Enid reminded him.
“Preposterous! Bring him to me!”
“But—”
“Bring him to me, or I shall charge the entirety of the hotel register, and the very building itself, with impeding this investigation! Go!”
Mifkin was sent for, and after much protest from his side and many threats from Pluck’s, two porters were dispatched to bring in Snede from the storeroom, where he’d been placed in a kneeling position in a crate full of ice and straw. This crate was lifted onto a trolley and wheeled into the interview room, then lowered, in accordance with the inspector’s demands, before the table. With a real flair for the dramatic, the lid was removed, disclosing an offensive stench which Pluck immediately blamed on Bartoff, but secretly suspected to have originated from Enid. The porters were then dismissed, so that the interview might proceed in a confidential manner.
“Thank you for attending this interview, Mister Peed,” Pluck began. “In future, if we decide to recall you for any clarification of your remarks, please see to it that you arrive punctually—as any deviation from the stipulated time will only contribute toward a general presumption of guilt. Do we understand each other?”
The corpse said nothing.
“I asked you a question, monsieur; I quite expect an answer.” Pluck eyed him meaningfully.
Snede, in his blood-stained suit, let his head sink.
“Would you kindly have the courtesy to look me in the eye when I speak to you, monsieur!” shouted Pluck.
“Look him in the eye!” repeated Bartoff, getting into the rhythm of the thing, and perhaps beginning to doubt his own understanding of events.
Snede’s head creaked forward, over the rim of the crate; water dripped off his brow, and eyelashes, to plop audibly onto the carpet, then sink into the weave.
“Eh! Look at him perspire,” smiled Pluck, nudging Bartoff. “He knows we’ve got him.”
“We’ve got you!” screamed Bartoff at Snede.
His skin was entirely white, and the shavings of ice that had been stuffed on all sides of him were beginning to melt.
Enid cut in with a suggestion: “Perhaps we should lower the fire, gentlemen.”
“Whatever for?!” Pluck demanded. “It’s cold in this room already! It’s winter—or were you not aware of that fact, mademoiselle?!”
“I am aware—”
“No—in truth, you were not, were you, mademoiselle?!”
“You didn’t know it was winter!” boomed Bartoff. “Ha!”
Enid looked at the table, pursed her lips, waited for silence, then continued. “I assure you, gentlemen, that I am aware it is winter—”
“Then prove it!” demanded Pluck.
“I think—”
“Prove it!” echoed Bartoff, who’d somehow fallen a bit behind.
“I think,” persisted Enid, “that what is happening to Mister Snede—”
“Prove it!” screamed Pluck, “Prove it! Prove it!”—now Bartoff took up the chanting—“Prove it! Prove it! Prove it!”
“Well, it’s snowing outside, isn’t it?!” Enid had lost her self-control, and shouted that last remark. Pluck and Bartoff, momentarily cowed by her uncharacteristic vehemence, shrank from her and looked her up and down.
“A formidable woman!” Bartoff admired, aloud.
“Perhaps,” mused Pluck, “perhaps; but in any event, I concede, mademoiselle, that you have proved your point. Shall we break for lunch?”
Building on her victory, Enid went on: “I insist that we abandon this farce and return this poor gentleman to the storeroom whence he came.”
“Don’t be absurd,” scoffed Pluck.
“Irritating woman!” sneered Bartoff.
“Are you gentlemen quite through?” asked Enid. “I’d been under the impression that this was a serious matter we were investigating.”
“Not through, mademoiselle, not through,” answered Pluck, rising from his seat, “and I could not agree with you more that it is most certainly a quite serious matter.” He extended his finger at the corpse and pronounced, dramatically: “Charles Snede—I accuse you of the murder of Charles Snede!”
A hush fell over the room; Pluck stopped, and shook his head. Something wasn’t right here—his legendary powers of deduction told him that. He whispered to Enid: “What did I just say?”
“You accused Charles Snede of murdering Charles Snede.”
Pluck thought. “Quiet, while I think!” he screamed, although nobody had made a sound. “Two men. . .one a murderer, and one the victim. . .with the same name!” he marvelled aloud. “The odds are astronomical—and yet, there is no other explanation.”
“Perhaps one Charles Snede has murdered the other in an attempt to steal the latter’s identity,” suggested Bartoff.
Pluck nodded. “Perhaps, my friend, perhaps. Or—equally likely, speaking statistically—perhaps one Charles Snede caught the other stealing his identity, and so killed him in revenge.”
“Revenge!” Bartoff began to salivate, just thinking of it.
“Or as a practical means of retaining his own sense of self; for which I must say I cannot blame him.”
“Nor I,” Bartoff agreed.
“Or!” Pluck clapped his hands, once, loudly. “I’ve got it!” He leapt up onto the table, to explain, but slipped and hit his head on the edge, then collapsed onto the floor. Bartoff and Enid helped him up, and dusted him off, then, by Pluck’s request, Bartoff gripped one palm in the other to afford the detective a foothold, into which Pluck, obviously, placed his foot, to be heaved up onto the table, Enid acting as spotter in case he might tumble once more. But, with his fabled agility, Pluck alighted on the table-top, as instinctively as a bird, and proceeded to propound his hypothesis: “Or!” he continued, “Charles Snede number one was framed for the murder of Charles Snede number two by an interloper—an unforeseen Charles Snede number three!”
“That’s it!” screamed Bartoff.
“Help me down! Now!” Pluck demanded. When he’d been carried back to the earth by his co-investigators, he pored over the hotel register. “I find no guest who willingly volunteered the name ‘Charles Snede Number Three’,” he sighed, “which admittedly throws a bit of a spanner into my theory. . .”
“He could have used a false name,” Bartoff shrugged.
“That’s it! My friend, you’re a deductive genius!” Pluck exclaimed, and went to kiss Bartoff on the lips and reach gratefully for his groin, but realised what he was doing and stopped himself before he could make so ineradicable a blunder. Collecting himself, he proceeded: “He could have used any name—any name at all!”
“‘Minette’!” Bartoff read off the register.
“‘Stoupes’!” Pluck read.
“‘Feosalma’!”
“‘Johnson’!”
“‘Bergamaschi’!”
“‘Bruneau’!”
“‘Gridenko’!”
“‘O’Herlihy’!”
“‘Bartoff’!” shouted Bartoff, then froze, seeing what he had done. But it was too late: Pluck stuck his face within an inch of his friend’s and scrutinised him, minutely, relentlessly.
“Yes. . .yes, yes, it might just be,” he nodded. “Is that a confession you’ve just made, Monsieur Bartoff? Tell me—is it?”
“No, no, of course not!” Bartoff laughed, uneasily.
Pluck stared into his eye—an eye that had seen a gamut of sights, over the course of his life, from the miraculous to the horrific—and whispered: “My old friend—what have you done?”
Bartoff gulped, feeling the fingernails of an immense guilt carving down his back, though a guilt for a crime of which he was utterly unaware.
Pluck stared at him, eye to eye—his eye a hair’s breadth from Bartoff’s—their lashes brushed, somewhat sensually, like a bird’s tail feather brushing against a potential mate’s beak—then, by dint of the sticky, mucous tears Bartoff’s fears had secreted, their lashes stuck; and held. Pluck tried to pull away, but only succeeded in yanking Bartoff’s head along with him, which head proceeded to butt the inspector’s, unintentionally yet painfully, and the two friends collapsed onto the floor, locked eyeball-to-eyeball, thrashing about with an unceasing spouting of Oof!’s, Ow!’s, Unhand me!’s, Fucking idiot!’s and the like.
“Help! Help! Snede, help me!” begged Pluck.
“He’s dead, you silly man!” shouted Enid, chasing after them as they rolled about the floor. “Stay still so I can help you!”
“Inspector! I’m sorry!” bawled Bartoff. “This is all my fault!”
“So you admit the murder of Charles Snede, the second?”
“No, no! I meant—”
“Hold still so I can burn your lashes!” yelled Enid, taking in hand a candle.
“Help! Help!” screamed Pluck. “She wants to castrate me!”
“I said nothing of the kind!” shouted Enid, chasing after.
The two great friends, heedless of where they rolled, wheeled into the fireplace.
“Help! Snede!”
The dead man knelt, head hung, his soul a million miles from there. The corpse remained at rest; it made no move to help.
“Why are you just kneeling there?!” screamed Pluck in disbelief. “Why won’t you help me?!”
Aflame, the two men wrenched away from each other, Bartoff’s lashes—being the stronger—deracinating Pluck’s. (If it had been a game of wishbone, Bartoff, decidedly, would have won.)
Pluck emerged from the fireplace, grasping his eyelid (an awkward thing to do), screaming in pain and on fire. Enid made a motion to throw the contents of the water pitcher onto the both of them, but forgot to hold onto the pitcher’s handle, with the result that the glass vessel flew through the air and smashed against the side of Pluck’s head, gifting him an unsightly gash.
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” shouted Enid, for that was one infraction she could not very well deny.
Pluck screamed a barrage of unbecoming curses at Enid, Bartoff, Snede, and, essentially, the universe as a whole. Enid, meanwhile, patted the flames off Bartoff with a napkin; that done, Bartoff took the remaining shreds of the napkin, saw it was insufficient for the task of smothering the flames off Pluck, so reached down to pull up a rug with which to save his friend; he did not check, first, alas, to see if any of the party happened to be standing on the rug at the time, so that when he whipped it up, Pluck was hurtled off of his feet and back into the fireplace. This time, when he was tugged out by Enid and Bartoff, his hair was on fire.
“I’ll kill you all!” he screamed, but it was really the intense pain and sense of imminent incineration talking, not he. His two friends smothered out the flames over his hair and body, and Enid took a new napkin to hold to the cut on his face. The debonair inspector had some singed hair, ripped and burnt clothes, an eyelashless eye and blood from his ear down to his shoulder, but he had won the day, and demonstrated as much by rising from the floor and ringing the bell for Poor Larry the bellhop to appear. Larry having appeared, and looking in bewilderment at the scene before him, Pluck ordered:
“Boy, bring in the other two Charles Snedes—numbers two and three—together! So that we might let the three of them confront each other; and all we need do, lady and gentleman,” here turning to Enid and Bartoff, “is sit back, fold our arms and watch, while the riddle of this mystery unravels itself.”
“I’m sorry, monsieur?” asked Larry.
Pluck accorded him a withering gaze and asked, “Shall I repeat myself?”
“If you please, sir.”
Pluck slapped himself on the side of the head, as a gesture intended to indicate his impatience with the congenital stupidity of the serving class, but chose his right side, thereby slapping his gash, resulting in a bestial squeal of pain (his own).
“Are you all right, sir?” asked Larry, secretly pleased.
“Damn you!” Pluck screamed.
“Damn you!” Bartoff seconded.
Shaking his fists, barely restraining himself from assaulting the boy, Pluck repeated, slowly: “Bring in the other two Snedes. . .numbers two and three. . .together. So that,” now turning first to Bartoff, then to Enid, “we might let the three of them confront each other—”
“But there are no other Snedes, sir,” Larry interrupted, with unbelievable impertinence.
“Fool!” screamed Pluck.
“Fool!” shouted Bartoff.
“Go and find them!” Pluck commanded.
“Find them!” Bartoff repeated, in case Larry should have missed what Pluck had just said.
Larry duly withdrew, to go and have his tea break. Pluck, meanwhile, took out his magnifying glass and proceeded to examine the dead man, muttering the odd forensic comment here and there while so doing.
“You do realise that he is dead, monsieur?” Enid felt it necessary to say.
“Hush,” muttered Pluck, not in the mood for a woman’s raving.
“Hush!” screamed Bartoff. “The inspector is inspecting!” Bartoff watched, fascinated, as his friend stuck his little finger in the ear of the corpse, pulled it out, sniffed it, and shrugged at the lack of information thus produced. Now Pluck turned to Enid:
“Miss Trojczakowski,” he began.
“Yes?”
“. . .Enid. . .” He was looking a mite embarrassed.
“Yes?”
He could not look her in the eye. “I have a request. . .of a most delicate nature. . .to make of you.”
“What is it?”
“Pardon?”
“What is it?”
Pluck sighed. “I was afraid you might ask that.” He thought, but, strategically, did not say aloud, that it would be so much easier if she’d simply known her place and acceded to his demands without protest or understanding. He continued—out loud, now—“I have a request. . .of a most delicate nature.”
“You’ve already—”
“To make of you.”
“Yes. You’ve already said that.”
Pluck looked at her, and sighed. “I suppose you’ll be wanting to know what the request is?”
“That’s right.”
He looked at her, and sighed again. And looked at her. “I thought as much.” He sighed. “I thought you would.” He sighed. Cleared his throat. Looked at her. Sighed. He then proceeded to sigh, look at her, and clear his throat.
“What is it?” she asked.
“I’m coming to that!” he barked.
“He’s coming to that!” Bartoff shouted.
Pluck looked at her, sighed—slowly—and said, “I require you to remove the suspect’s trousers and undergarments.”
“I will not,” she answered promptly.
“As the investigator in charge, I must needs make a thorough examination of his private areas.”
“You may do it yourself, or ask Mister Bartoff, or, for all I care, ask Mister Snede to undress himself,” she answered, suddenly and inexplicably all moral-like.
He nodded, in surprise at the relatively lucid workings of her mind. “Indeed! An excellent idea, Miss Trojczakowski.”
“Excellent idea!” boomed Bartoff.
Pluck looked at her, as for the first time. “I might have misjudged you, Enid.”
“Thank you, Curtis.”
He smiled, then, reassuming an official tone, turned to Snede and demanded: “Sir—undress yourself, and produce your male member, at once!”
“Show us your cock!” Bartoff shouted.
In a more mild manner, Pluck turned to Enid, who had been looking at Bartoff with some slight distaste, and offered, “You might wish to face the wall during this phase of our investigation, for the preservation of the suspect’s dignity, and of your own innocence.”
“That is very thoughtful of you,” she returned, and, indeed, took hold of a chair, turned it to face the wall, and sat down into it.
At this display of f