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Post by Biblically Accurate Angel on Apr 10, 2022 9:14:25 GMT -5
Literary Mosaic Tie-In 4
Wish I Had a Time Machine
BY D. V. EYES
FOREWORD The following book, taken from the Literary Mosaic universe, and starring our detective Adolf Gunnarson, was an idea I had a long time ago. Originally I wanted to use it as an actual LM volume, and then I tried to write it with Frank, but neither of these ever ended up coming together. So here I am now, writing it by myself. It’s based on a true crime case from the 1800s which has yet to be solved, and I wanted to take a crack at crafting a story around it. I hope you all enjoy! (And I hope I actually finish writing this thing, too.) ~ EYES
“Time flies over us, but leaves its shadow behind.” ~ NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
“We all have our time machines, don’t we? Those that take us back are memories. Those that carry us forward are dreams.” ~ H. G. WELLS
“Have you ever tried to eat a clock? It’s very time-consuming.” ~ ANONYMOUS
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Post by Biblically Accurate Angel on Apr 10, 2022 9:26:52 GMT -5
CHAPTER I. Adolf Gunnarson in Profile. Adolf Gunnarson stood out among the other guests at the crowded dinner party he was attending. It seemed as though all of London’s high society had been invited to this event. While he didn’t know off-hand the connection between the rest of the group with each other, the Swede did know that he had been given a special invite by the hostess of the affair, Lady Andrea Bonnette herself. An avid reader of the majority of the city’s newspapers, Gunnarson’s frequent mentions within them more than piqued the fine madam’s interests. By the time the now famous author James Hartley had started collecting and publishing the exploits, she had become a rather avid fan. He was not a perfect detective, let the record show that much at least. Somehow he kept stumbling on the wrong leads and lost his way, at times nearly damaging the cases. Yet with some innate force of sheer luck, the fellow always seemed to pull things off by the end. And the passing of time had helped him. By now his successes had far surpassed the faulty Gunnarson of old, and his mental reasoning had been honed and sharpened. He was turning into a regular Sherlock Holmes, a bulldog (if not an English one) always on the case. And yet sleuthing wasn’t the only calling he’d been given in life, it turned out. For Gunnarson had a passion for cooking the recipes of his native Sweden, and at the local restaurant known as the Köket, he set to work crafting the most delicious dishes for the city to feast upon. This was an extraordinary gentleman, for sure, and Lady Bonnette simply had to meet him.
It was actually at the Köket that she got the chance. With the rest of her carriage of fellow socialites, she left the table she was sitting at to “speak to the chef, dear waiter, it’ll be only for a moment”. Gunnarson was surprised to have such a visitor waltzing right into his kitchen with a bouncy flair and a complete control of the room as soon as she had entered. If the man had heard of a “Lady Bonnette”, he’d certainly forgotten her by now. But that didn’t stop the woman from instantly taking control.
“Hullo, Mr. Gunnarson, and a good day to you, sir!” was her opening line. “I am Lady Bonnette and I am most pleased to make your acquaintance.”
Sputtered the detective, “Ah, ursäkta mig, madam, I—”
“Listen, darling,” she interrupted, “I’d love to stay and chat but I’ve got a tight schedule for the afternoon and must be going. But I have been reading all about your detective exploits for years now, years, and I had to invite you to my little get-together on Friday. 1254 Piccadilly, that’s the address. You simply must be there.”
“Well thank you, I—”
“Excellent. Be there five sharp!” And with that she had bounced away, leaving Gunnarson in quite the whirlwind.
He thought back to it now, as he stood in the crowded living room within the Lady’s house. Little get-together, indeed. It was like a swamp. No matter where you went you were trapped, always bumping into someone or something and making a perfect fool of yourself. So Gunnarson elected to stay in the corner, sipping a small glass of champagne, and eyeing the crowd. He wasn’t an overly anxious individual, but a packed room such as this would turn all but the most iron of us to water. Why did he always get himself into these situations? Oh right, he thought, chuckling. There’s no way I can refuse a pretty woman.
It wasn’t that Gunnarson was uninterested in relationships, per se. And certainly he was a man who knew what he liked, and there were a multitude of women (and, on the rare occasion, men) who were just what tickled his fancy. Yet he never was able to bring himself to ask anyone out. Now Gunnarson wasn’t necessarily conventionally attractive—he was plump, with short blonde hair and a handlebar moustache which he kept as orderly as possible, and aging slowly as the days went on. Yet he had a natural way with women, a lot of which was down to his positive attitude and jovial personality. He wasn’t a Santa Claus, but he knew how to make people happy. No, the reason that he stayed out of affairs of the heart was simply for the reason that there was no time in a day to devote to it. Between detective work and his cooking, Gunnarson had his hands full already. So instead he enjoyed the company from time to time but never pushed for something more with his friends.
But women still had a way to weasel him into situations like these, he could tell. What was he supposed to have done, say no? It’s not like it was last Saturday, when he could have pled prior commitments with his friend and fellow detective Marlena Gent, who wanted him to come over and discuss a case with her over a bottle of port. Nor was it Tuesday, the day he always played poker with his friend Anthony Stein until 2 A.M. No, he had an open schedule this Friday night. And you know what? he thought again, I’m curious enough to come here anyway.
There was always something to learn within a sea of people. Everyone had emerged from a different background to collect together here in this very house at this very moment. This was a thought that had always tickled Gunnarson. He was certainly a very different person than, say, the man to his right, who sported a fancy jacket and had the latest ‘do fashioned on his head. Or that young lady on the sofa who was actively holding a discussion with the man, while wearing a crisp new outfit that the detective thought suited her. This lass had a couple of other youthful women surrounding her, with a slightly less auspicious attair but certainly dapper regardless. And next to this miniature posse sat an older man, who Gunnarson placed to be in his early fifties, with a fine mustache, a regal suit, and that prim-and-proper classical Englishman sort of vibe. Folks such as these drove Gunnarson’s thoughts onward to underscore just what he had been thinking about, that despite all being grouped together in this room they were very different. For he himself may have shared a moustache with the older fellow, but his was a well-groomed handlebar compared with the horseshoe on the other man’s face. And his hair was just combed back, not sculpted like his young neighbor next to him. And as for his clothes! Gunnarson kept himself simple and neat. It was clothing for any occasion, not nabbed from the nearest designer store just for the night’s party. He felt as if he didn’t belong here, yet somehow, at the same time, didn’t feel completely off. They all belonged here. They all were just in from somewhere, and would head back out to another somewhere by the end of the night.
These were the thoughts that filled Gunnarson’s head as his eyes wandered around the room. As they moved away from the inhabitants, they began to gaze and marvel at the decor of the setting. The room was large and painted in white, like much of the house seemed to be. Ornamental vases sat on tables by walls. A sparkling chandelier swung overhead. A staircase on the left provided a way to the second floor. And in the corner stood an ancient grandfather clock, with its pendulum swinging slowly back and forth, counting the minutes away. No, thought Gunnarson, this isn’t a place you can set up cheaply. It almost unnerved the young child hidden within him. His family had always struggled to get by, and it was for better opportunities that he had moved to England when he was 25, after a short stint in the army and several failed jobs. He was working in a small restaurant when he began to discover a knack for detective work, and got his big break via his friend Chief Gent. He was now at a comfortable position in life, but never had become a heft spender, mostly buying only what he really needed. Seeing the exuberance of the Bonnette estate would have thrown him off his pace back in the day; now, after years of being hired by rich people to sleuth out the truth, it was merely a pinging thought that popped up every so often.
“Pardon me, sir, more champagne?” Gunnarson’s thoughts had been interrupted by a passing servant holding up an open bottle. The detective looked at his glass and realized it was empty.
“Ah, thank you,” he replied. As the servant left, Gunnarson slowly tuned in to the conversation that had been going on amongst the three people he’d noticed earlier.
“It seems to me that it belongs firmly within the realm of that science fiction nonsense,” said the young lady.
“Well as far as we know at the moment,” replied the young man, “time travel may be impossible today, but who knows what will happen as time goes on? Scientists are already looking into whether or not we can make it work, at least going forward into the future, and potentially reversing time and re-entering the past.”
“Well,” said one of the two women surrounding the first young woman, “in that case I feel as though it begs the moral question of whether or not it’s worth considering in the first place.”
“Consider the possibilities, though,” he shot back. “We could create empires in the past with our modern technology, or figure out what the end of man looks like so we can change course before it’s too late.”
“But who knows what we might also mess up if we meddle in with destiny. What if in, say, saving the life of a Ripper victim, we accidentally alter the future. Every connection and decision we make has a consequence. Who knows what might happen if the sequence is interrupted. We may end up erasing a piece of our ancestors’ lives and fading from existence.”
“Good God, you two,” said the first girl, clearly weary of the conversation, “what boring things you all talk about. Isn’t there something more interesting to discuss?”
Now the older man chimed in. “I think it’s an interesting train of thought, personally, but at the same time I wonder if all this thinking about past and future isn’t being put to waste when there’s much more we could do to fix the present itself. Why I just read in the news today that there’s been an invasion in the Suez. It seems that even after the end of the Second World War we’re still going to be saddled with more bloodshed and more deaths.”
“But it isn’t happening to us, so why should we worry?” retorted the first girl again. The older man just shook his head and sighed.
“Sir Bonnette has a point,” said the young man to his defence. “Six years of slaughter and nothing has changed. It may not be a widespread plague of destruction like it was fifteen years ago, but blood is still being spilled on the daily. I worry that something new may happen any time and I’ll be pulled away and not get to marry you after all, Margaret.”
“You and father worry too much,” she said, brushing off the comments. “Just enjoy yourselves more. It’s a much more fun way to live.” So this was Lady Bonnette’s family, thought Gunnarson. Her husband, her daughter, and the latter’s fiance and friends. An interesting group. And yet he hadn’t seen the lady of the house herself yet. Wonder what’s holding her up, he mused.
The answer was soon presented to him, as she came triumphantly down the stairs decked out in quite the spectacle. All eyes turned towards her as she beamed in the radiant way that rich women seem to live for. After polite “Good evening”-s and “How are we doing”-s and “No, Bertha, you have got to try the cheese dip”-s, she made a beeline in the direction of her family. But this was a façade. Gunnarson was her real target.
“Mr. Adolf Gunnarson!” she greeted him warmly. “So nice of you to come! I was so looking forward to meeting you and discussing your work. You know I am a simply massive fan of yours. I have been reading about your exploits in the papers for years, darling, and I have all the books your biographer has published. It is such an honor to have you here. Please won’t you sit down?”
“Well thank you, and I—”
And Lady Bonnette pulled him right into a chair next to the sofa, where she now sat next to her husband in an interrogative pose. Gunnarson felt for the first time as though he was staring directly at a policeman ready to break him down.
At this point the young man sat down next to Gunnarson and shook his hand. “My name is Emmett Bailey. A pleasure, Herr Gunnarson.”
It had been a while since a stranger had greeted the detective with his native Swedish title, and he nearly slipped right into his mother tongue again. “Nöjet är på— I mean, the pleasure is all mine.”
“So this is the Mr. Gunnarson my wife keeps talking about,” uttered Sir Bonnette as he slunk forward, looking at the detective with suspicious and beady eyes, yet with a sparkle that seemed to say that he was just as ready for a lark as for a confession. “I’ve always been wanting to ask why you go around with a murderer’s name hanging on to you.”
His wife whipped around crossly, but Gunnarson held up his hand. “Ja, a lot of people ask me this. In England, an Adolf is a rarity. But in Sweden it has been a common name for many many years. We even had a king named Adolf who practically built the Swedish empire. I was just born in the wrong time and living in England as a foreigner doesn’t help some people’s assumptions of me.”
“Have you ever thought of changing it?” inquired Emmett.
“Yes, many times,” replied Gunnarson. “I’ve thought about taking on a more English name like Arnold or Albert, or perhaps a different Swedish name like Adel, or even just changing the spelling to a -ph instead of an -f. But I am also attached to this name, I feel. I feel that it pushes me to do better, and be better. Like I can never stop bettering myself, to be the best man I can be, to prove myself. I don’t want to rest on my laurels, I want to continue to grow as a människa, as a human being. With a name like Adolf, one must show that it isn’t the name that defines you, what defines you is the person you are.”
Satisfied, Sir Bonnette nodded his head and leaned back again on the sofa, allowing his wife to now continue on with her quest for information.
Her questions may have been sharp, but Gunnarson knew how to spar with the best of them, even when out of his element. In the course of this probing, he ended up regaling the crew with his exploits; and not only them, but the entire party as well. The entire room went silent in anticipation as he discussed, in-depth, all those old adversaries of his: the Irish Mob, the Blade Syndicate, and of course the infamous Dr. Drugg. As one man quipped, “It’s almost as though an entire film has been playing out in the background of our lives, and we’ve barely noticed!”
“Do you ever think about hanging the whole thing up?” asked Leigh, the friend of Margaret Bonnette who had been discussing time travel with Emmett earlier. “About putting the detective business behind you and settling down to a quiet life?”
“Väl,” replied Gunnarson thoughtfully, “it has indeed crossed my mind. Of course I have the Köket, and I suppose I could give up the investigating and focus solely on my cooking, but at the same time, life has taken me on so many twists and turns that I really never know what to expect each and every day. I think I’ll keep doing detective work so long as there are cases for me to solve. If they ever run out, then I’ll quietly stick to the Köket and carry on my life in just a little less exciting fashion.”
Throughout the conversation, Gunnarson noticed that the only person who didn’t join in was Margaret Bonnette’s other friend. She simply sat there and took in everything that the rest were talking about. She seemed to be a shy person, he thought. She had shorter black hair arranged in a tasteful style, with a beret atop her head that suited her. Gunnarson was curious to know what it was that she was pondering.
Gradually, without any more stories to relate, the party seemed to flow away from the center of the room and back outward, as the guests began to talk amongst themselves again, and dinner was served. Scarcely had Gunnarson seen such a spread. Roasted goose was the centerpiece, but all sorts of other dishes aligned the table as well. Somehow the detective found he wasn’t all that hungry, and really just stuck to the dessert of pudding that followed the main courses. Tonight when he went home, he would make his beloved köttbullar, Swedish meatballs, which would lead to his usual cup of hot chocolate, chokladdryck. This would be sipped as he finished reading the latest book he was working through, a historical thriller that was among the most interesting and exciting novels he’d ever read. Truly, the man enjoyed the quieter life, perhaps to offset everything that he’d been through while on the hunt for killers. The Bonnettes were all right in their way, but the lifestyle wasn’t for him.
Presently the evening began to wind down, and around nine o’clock he bid his farewells to everyone and — after Lady Bonnette’s begs of “What? So soon? Well you simply must come again, darling, I’ll be expecting you” — he left the party.
Gunnarson stepped out into the cool night air. He inhaled and a feeling of calm seemed to enter through his body. He was glad he’d decided to walk, because the return journey would do wonders for his spirits, and he would be able to clear his mind and maybe even focus on some new dishes for the Köket. He was just waltzing down the steps when a voice stopped him.
“Mr. Gunnarson?”
He turned around. It was Margaret Bonnette’s silent friend. She seemed to have an air of slight worry about her. Perhaps that was why she’s been quiet all night.
“Ja, my dear?” he replied, in what he hoped was a soothing manner.
“Um, I was wondering… do you think… would it be possible… could I bring a case up to you? For you to solve it, I mean? Would that be all right?”
Gunnarson smiled. “Of course, mademoiselle, I’d be happy to help you out.”
“All right. Cool. Could I swing by tomorrow and discuss it with you?”
“Certainly,” replied the sleuth, “I have an open schedule tomorrow. You can stop by at any time from 6 to 9. Here’s my business card, so you’ll have my address.”
She held the card in her hands and read it over.
“Okay,” she said at last, “I’ll be there tomorrow definitely. Thank you so much.”
“It’s no problem,” said Gunnarson, and she walked back inside as he turned again and headed in the direction of his apartment. Now his mind was filled with wonder. What was it that had been preying on her mind? What kind of a case would she bring to his attention? Would this be a relaxing vacation or a terrifying ordeal he was getting himself into? He didn’t know, but he was incredibly interested to find out.
And it was just as he was crawling into bed that he remembered he had a prior engagement with his friend Davis Gent tomorrow at three. “Oh well,” he said to himself, just as he drifted off to sleep, “so long as she appears earlier all should be fine...”
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Post by Biblically Accurate Angel on Apr 21, 2022 21:07:57 GMT -5
CHAPTER II. The Antimony Enigma. (And Gunnarson’s Breakfast.)
The sound of his front door being knocked on made Gunnarson jump. He tore off his sleep mask and glanced at his watch. 5:59 A.M. Who the devil could be at his door at this hour? Half asleep, Gunnarson leapt from his bed and marched to the door, which he threw open, ready to lay flat the idiot making a racket this early in the morning. But there, to his surprise, standing on his balcony, was the girl from the party last night who had asked if she could consult him on a case of hers. Now everything clicked for Gunnarson. Internally he cursed himself for always telling people that they could come over at six when realistically he wouldn’t naturally wake up until eight, but it was a habit hard to break. At this moment he noticed that the expression on her face was one of confusion, and he realized, looking down, that he was still dressed in his pajamas. Gunnarson turned a bright shade of crimson.
“Ah-ha, my dear,” he said quickly, with a slightly wonky smile, “I did not expect you so early this morning, and am therefore not exactly dressed for the occasion.”
“I’m sorry,” she responded earnestly. “I never know when people give me a time if they’ll want me as early as possible or later, so I strive for the former.”
“It is all right, do not worry,” he responded. “Won’t you come in and have a seat? Just allow me a minute to get changed into something proper.” And he led her into the living room where she sat down in a chair as he went into his bedroom to put on some actual clothes.
As she awaited his return, the young woman took in the detective’s living quarters. Gunnarson lived in a building that had two apartments within it, and his flat was on the top half, with a staircase on the outside leading up to his front door. This was a single-story arrangement, but it was neatly divided into four different rooms. These jutted into each other at the corner to her left. There was a kitchen, a bathroom, and the bedroom, and all of these were arranged so as to leave the impression of getting the absolute most space out of each with the small layout allotted to the man.
In the living room itself, she felt a sense of comfort which must have attracted Gunnarson to the apartment in the first place. He had things arranged neatly in a homely manner. Her eyes were drawn immediately to a large bookshelf along the right wall filled with a collection that ranged from detective fiction to historical writings and even a battered Swedish Bible that she assumed (correctly) to have been passed down through the Gunnarson lineage for ages. There was a small couch and next to it a large armchair; these surrounded a coffee table with a book and several newspapers on top of it. To her left was a smaller bookshelf and a writing desk with a radio on it, and to the right a cozy little fireplace. Pictures, letters, and postcards stood atop the mantle. Clearly this was a man devoted to his friends, and his friends were never far away from him in his memory.
A moment later, Gunnarson emerged wearing an outfit not dissimilar from the one he’d been wearing last night. “Please, mademoiselle, would you join me in the kitchen? I’m going to put on a pot of coffee and make some breakfast for the both of us… that is, if you haven’t eaten already?”
“I haven’t, but I don’t want to inconvenience you…” she replied, shyly.
“No inconvenience on my end,” he said, “I want you to feel comfortable and I know I need to eat something myself. How does an omelette and some sausages sound?”
She followed him into the kitchen, where she sat at the table as the detective set a pot of water on the stove to boil, and cracked a trio of eggs into his pan. The kitchen was another densely-packed room, with the table at the back center, a refrigerator and range along the right side, and a sink and small pantry to the left. A phone was attached to the front wall. Gunnarson was humming to himself as he cooked.
“This is a nice apartment,” said the woman.
“Tack!” responded the detective. “I moved in here roughly four years ago. My old apartment was bigger but, åh! there was a destructive episode within my line of duty that left me searching for a new flat. This one was much more budgetable anyway and suited all my basic needs, and I’ve been quite attached to it ever since.”
Gunnarson had now removed the finished omelettes and thrown some sausages into the pan. As they sizzled, with an aroma that reminded the young lady how hungry she really was, he took out a loaf of bread and cut four slices, which he proceeded to lay in the pan next to the sausages.
“They will take in the juices of the sausages as they toast up and once ready, mmmm! a slice of butter and, ah, läcker!” Gunnarson closed his eyes and took in the smell. “I find it’s always much better to work with a full stomach,” he explained. “When the rest of your body has been taken care of, then can the brain focus more easily and sharply on the actual puzzles at hand.”
The young lady smiled at this extravagant fellow. He was very unlike anyone else she’d ever met.
Then Gunnarson opened his eyes, and realized: “Ah, but I am not holding you up, am I? If you have other places to be, I can…”
“No, no, it’s fine,” she responded quickly. “I would have had to go and find myself a breakfast somewhere after our meeting anyway. This merely kills two birds with one stone. I have no place I need to be until the afternoon.”
In the next instant, the sausages and toast were ready, and Gunnarson took out a supply of exotic jams, marmite, honey, and two sorts of butter, one salted and one unsalted. Then he set out some salt, pepper, chives, and a tomato-based condiment which she had never seen before.
“My own personal creation,” he explained. “I believe it pairs well with the omelette. Now, help yourself!”
That omelette was the best she’d had in her life. What started out as a mere egg had been magicked into the most incredible dish, and the flavor was only heightened with Gunnarson’s ‘secret sauce’. And the sausages! And the toast! She helped herself to an orange marmalade and had to hold herself back from ravenously devouring the plate. She wished she could start every day with a meal this good.
Gunnarson, on his part, was digging in with gusto. Scarcely was the food on his fork than he’d already swallowed and started heading to the next bite. She chuckled at his exaggerated actions.
“It’s no wonder you work in a restaurant,” she complimented him. “This is quite simply divine.”
“Ah! you butter me up!” he retorted. “Ah well—a bit of practice, that’s all. And a passion for the craft. Beyond that I am just the same as anyone else.”
Inwardly chuckled she at his weirdly humble nature. But as he’d already mentioned last night, he was a man who wanted nothing but to push himself as best he could, never sit back and take in the praise. She admired that quite a bit.
The breakfast was eaten and, after throwing the dishes in the sink (“Later, later!” said Gunnarson, “business first!”), she followed the detective back into the living room, where she sat opposing him in the chair by the fire, but while he sat back in the large armchair that acted as the room’s centerpiece.
“Now then,” he said, clasping his hands together, “feel free to tell me everything. And pardon my rudeness, for I never even asked you what your name is!”
“It’s alright,” she replied. “My name is Claire, Claire Alpha.”
“Then Miss Alpha, please proceed with your trouble.”
“Well to tell you the truth, Mr. Gunnarson, I think the first thing to bring up is that my birth name isn’t actually Alpha. Alpha is my adoptive parents’ name. My birth name is Armstrong.”
“Armstrong?” said Gunnarson, querically. “That name seems to ring a bell.”
“With your line of work, I’m not surprised,” replied Claire. “Armstrong was the name of the man at the center of one of the most baffling deaths in the country.”
“Then please, spare no detail. Tell me about the case.”
So she began. “Mr. Charles Armstrong was a fairly popular young lawyer who had made a bit of a name for himself as a prosecutor. In 1930, he represented a middle-aged noblewoman named Lucy Manwell. She was accusing her husband at the time of domestic assault, and Mr. Armstrong helped her win that case. However, her husband ended up dying of alcohol poisoning shortly thereafter and thus no divorce papers needed to be filed. Mr. Armstrong cultured an intimate relationship with Ms. Manwell, and she ended up pregnant. The two of them married in January of 1930.
“It should be noted that during her first marriage, Ms. Manwell had been seeing a physician… extracurricurally, if you know what I mean. His name was Joseph Paul Galloy, and she had ended the relationship with him when she initially started seeing Mr. Armstrong. However, in the four months that they were together, her new husband began treating her like a golden goose who was only existing for him to hold as an asset monetarily. He was controlling and conniving; what he lacked in overt aggressiveness, in contrast to her previous spouse, he made up for in cold-hearted tactics that drove her towards deep depression. Dr. Galloy was her physician and as her pregnancy continued and her mental health spiraled, he stayed by her side at all times, to the anger of Mr. Armstrong. The final member of this extraordinary household was a Miss Olivia Falwell, a young woman who lived in the spare room as a housekeeper. Unfortunately, she attracted the attention of the gluttenous Mr. Armstrong, who—against her will, I should state—began to try to work whatever magic he believed he had with her.
“So now we come to the date in question. On the morning of April 13, 1931, Mr. Armstrong had started the day berating his wife in her bedroom before Dr. Galloy marched in and, lifting the lawyer by the scruff of the neck, sent out an infamous threat: should Mr. Armstrong attack Ms. Armstrong again in such a manner, the doctor himself would fling him out of the window to whatever doom awaited him below. Mr. Armstrong’s pride being damaged, he set to work attacking the next victim of his—Miss Falwell. I daren’t say the things he did to her, but she explained everything in detail at the trial. She locked herself in her room for the rest of the day and no one saw her until the central trouble began.
“Mr. Armstrong had lunch around 12:45, and was just getting up when he leaned over, clutched his stomach, and began crying for help. Instantly Dr. Galloy came to see what the matter was. He helped Mr. Armstrong to the latter’s bedroom, and that is where the man stayed until two days later when he finally died. In that time, Mr. Armstrong remained rational but never said a word as to what was wrong. He just kept yelling about ‘the pain’. Other doctors came to see him and all agreed that antimony poisoning seemed to be the issue, but they were unable to save him.
“At the trial, all three suspects testified in court, and the now famous Sir Rodger Carllisle cross-examined them with precision. Yet no solution was ever agreed upon. When it was over, Ms. Armstrong delivered her child and went insane, dying a year later. Dr. Galloy retired and was killed in a motorcar crash. And Miss Falwell disappeared; whether alive or dead I have no more information on her. And here am I, Mr. Gunnarson, Claire Armstrong, that child born under unfortunate circumstances, the last remaining thread of my family. I want to know what really happened to them. I pray that you can give me that closure.”
When she finished speaking, Gunnarson sat still for a few moments, holding his hands together, appearing to be in deep thought. Finally he said, “This is quite a puzzle, Miss Alpha. Not only am I working on a case that the police have been unable to solve, but I am also working twenty-five years in the past. It is not exactly the easiest thing in the world to do, but for your sake I will do my best to solve it. I give no promises, only that I will do the utmost in my power to find the solution for you.”
“Thank you, Mr. Gunnarson,” said Claire with relief. “This means a lot to me.”
“Well,” said the detective, “I suppose I should find witnesses. Perhaps doctors who were there. Neighbors. Even Miss Falwell, if I can somehow track her down.”
“I do hope that you’ll stay with my boyfriend and I, Mr. Gunnarson,” Claire proffered. “We live in the same building as the death took place in. An inheritance from my mother.”
“That would be most delightful,” replied Gunnarson with interest. “I could really visualize the whole scope of the affair within it.” Then he remembered his appointment with Gent that afternoon. “Mademoiselle,” he asked, “would you mind my bringing this case up with a friend of mine this afternoon? He was once police commissioner of Scotland Yard. I’d like to see if he might have anything on this case he could fill me in on.”
“Of course,” she replied fervently. “Anything to help solve this case.”
Claire gave Gunnarson her address and house number. “Be sure to call and let me know when you’re coming,” she told him.
“Certainly,” he replied. “I need to pack of course, and I may have some small businesses to attend to, but I should be able to start within the next two days.”
“Excellent,” she said. “I will be waiting for you with great anticipation.”
Gunnarson saw her to the door, and shutting it after her, finally breathed a hefty sigh. “What a case I’ve got on my hands now,” he said to himself.
The detective was reminded now of the discussion at the party last night. Time travel. How pertinent with a case set so far in the past. His eyes caught the Bible on his shelf. He slumped back on the door, and, turning his face to the heavens, said, quite reverently:
“Min herre, I wish I had a time machine.”
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Post by Biblically Accurate Angel on Jul 27, 2022 16:55:29 GMT -5
CHAPTER III. Enter Davis Gent, formerly Police Commissioner of Scotland Yard.
The retired police commissioner’s job is never truly finished—should you consider his job to be, as Davis Gent did, actually taking a damn rest. So many years had he been in the police service, constantly working, pushing himself past his limits in order to uncover and weed out the malefactors within society. And the higher-ups had certainly taken notice of his talent and his knack for never sitting down, never giving up, never straying from the hunt, from the chase, from the task at hand. Yes, they had taken notice of his ceaseless determination, his desire for justice, his bulldoggedly stubborn tackling of any case that was thrown his way. They noticed, and they set him up as police commissioner of Scotland Yard. Well, if his heart was a weak one, it never let on about that. His heart never seemed to stop beating at a higher-than-average pulse; and after the final promotion of his career, it only continued to increase in intensity. Gent could never sit down and have a sip of his favorite drink, port (a taste for which, it needs be mentioned, he had passed on to his daughter Marlena). There was just never enough time in the day to rest. Every waking second was filled with a preoccupation with the cases at hand and the daily itinerary constantly needing to be done. His nights were restless, his mornings were tiring, his evenings were exhausting. He never felt rested and he never felt like his work was complete. And yet his approach to his work had endeared him to his underlings, most of whom considering him the best boss one could work with. In a world in which the police could become tyrannical without checks and balances, he worked tirelessly to make sure that their jobs were first and foremost ones intending to benefit the human beings they had been sworn to protect. There were many failures and blunders they still made, and there came a certain point where Gent realized two things—firstly, that corruption had become firmly interwoven within the department and there was nothing he could do to fix it without being destroyed by the very higher-ups who had instated him in his role; and secondly, that even he was too flawed a person to live up to his ideals and effectively be the example he firmly believed he needed to be. When that point was reached, he quit.
Now he was in his retirement, still well regarded as Scotland Yard’s greatest commissioner, but the shadows of the past were not fading from his mind. At a time when he should have been resting, working on the hobbies he never got a chance to during his career, and spending more time with his friends and family, the silhouette of disappointment consistently rose again and again within his dreams, within his waking hours, and stood just outside every happy moment he’d experienced. He felt that he had let himself down. Everything he stood for meant nothing if he couldn’t live up to it. And the police force he had left behind was slipping further and further into the darkness he had desperately attempted to wrest the controls from while he was at the healm. The leaks had been sprung a long time ago, and you can only bail out water for so long before you succumb to the flood. Gent felt like he had fallen too deep to ever raise his head up again out of the river.
So he wore a mask of calm contentedness around everyone else, while in actuality his mind was constantly beleaguered by the clouds that were trying to bring him down. There were also the flashes of smoke and gunfire that radiated pictures of despair every night during his dreams—remnants of his years during the Great War, where his childhood friends had all been reduced to pools of blood and empty husks of flesh, where his whole team had once been subtracted one by one by steady gunfire, where every day was a near death experience; and somehow, he had made it out alive. It was his time in the War that he made Gent determined to fight for humanity, and so he declared a new war on every villain within the streets of his own country, every detractor that threatened the very idea of life. During his career as a policeman, Gent had too much occupying his mind to think about the War on a regular basis. Now, broken again in dissatisfaction with his service to the country, all the demons of destruction were in full reign again in his mind. Every night, Gent would awaken from his sleep and sit down at his desk. Pulling open the drawer, he would take out an old service revolver and look inside to see where the single bullet was. He would give the barrel a spin. Then he would just sit there until at last he forced himself to break from this pose, put the gun away, and return to bed again. His wife would be there, sleeping soundly, and he would just close his eyes and hope to god that he could fall asleep again.
One night his wife found him in the grip of his despair, sitting by the desk with the revolver in hand. She could not rouse him from the pose until he at last broke from the catatonic state he was in. With her guiding him, he returned to bed and fell asleep much faster than he had in a long time. When she asked him the following morning about the incident, he said nothing about it and changed the topic. Not wanting to press the issue, she instead decided to confide about her fears and experience with Gent’s most treasured friend, Adolf Gunnarson.
Gunnarson could be entirely sympathetic and even empathetic to Gent’s turmoil. Like the former commissioner, Gunnarson had been in the army, although he had missed any conflicts during his time there. Nonetheless, he still kept his old service revolver on hand for self-defense. Also like Gent, he had had an unceasing career as a public servant (although an unofficial one), chasing down criminals who sought to besmirch the country’s citizenship… and yet his own failings as a human being led to his downfall, just as it did Gent’s. There was no time machine either man could take to retrace their footsteps and start over fresh. There was only moving forward.
So as Gent retired and struggled to cast aside the darkness besieging him, Gunnarson returned to his first love—cooking. It was in the Köket that Mrs. Gent came to him to discussed her husband’s mental state. Gunnarson had never been trained in psychology, so he did the only thing he knew he could do—cook and converse. Every week he would visit Gent, cook a hearty meal for his friend, and talk about life. Now it needs be said that while Gent was very much a meat-and-potatoes kind of Englishman, Gunnarson transformed the man’s palette with his incredible culinary skills. And as he was commanding his sense of smell and taste, Gunnarson was also breaking a door in to Gent’s psyche. The ex-commissioner began to open up about his traumas and his problems, and Gunnarson taught himself how to move forward with Gent in therapeutic fashion. The two men became closer than they ever had. Gent began to sleep better at night. His relationship with his wife improved. And he attempted to repair the bridges he had burned between himself and his daughter. Marlena had also inherited the love for justice that her father had, and was now making her way through the ranks of Scotland Yard. Gent had to learn that he would not be able to protect from the world he was being destroyed by and needed to let go. His daughter was just too similar to her father for him to stand in her way. He just hoped it wasn’t too late for her to forgive him.
But for all the progress that he’d made, there was one thing that still eluded him—the need for redeeming himself as a person and as a detective. In his retirement, cases were no longer coming to him. They were going to his former colleagues in Scotland Yard, and those friends of his like Gunnarson whom the public still had some form of faith in. There was no market for cases for a retired police commissioner to take up. If there was one regret he had, it was the fact that he could no longer do the work he loved most in the world, helping his fellow man in the face of an injustice.
And so it was that Gent was sitting in his library reading the newspaper on that afternoon as the clock struck three. His wife was out with some friends, and he was home alone, awaiting Gunnarson’s scheduled arrival. No sooner had he heard the chimes than a rat-a-tat-tat was heard on his front door. Rising from the armchair, he went to the door and let in the detective.
As the two took up their seats in the library, Gent took out an unopened bottle of port. “A vintage year,” he said. “You’re sure to love this one, Gunnarson.”
He uncorked the bottle and poured two glasses. They drank in silence first, and then smiled as the taste washed over their tongues.
“Very right, min vän,” said Gunnarson. “That may be the best you’ve gotten yet.”
Gent smiled. It was the shared love of a good port that had first bonded the two all those years ago. Now, years later, as their hairs had grown white, it retained all the joys that they had once had with it. The red elixir stimulated every tastebud in Gent’s mouth and brought him back to that special night when he turned 18 and his father invited him into the study to have a chat, man to man, and share a bottle together. It was the first drink that the young Gent had had, and that night was one of the last he’d share with his father—he would be killed by a fellow police officer a month later.
Gent inherited much from his father the same way that he passed on much of himself to Marlena. The worst of which was simply the fact that neither man had had much of a presence in their child’s lives. Now the port fell from mind as Gent’s face became grimmer, and he stared at the bookshelf in despondency. This was the very same house he’d grown up in, inherited by families of Gents centuries past, and many of the titles he saw along the walls were ones his father had once cherished. The one that stood out to him now was a novel first published in 1895 that his father had gotten one of the very first publications of. Nights when the two generations of men had time together, the father would read the son the tale of magnificence, wonder, and awe that they both marveled over. A tale of transcendence beyond the mortal coils of age and passing moments. A tale they bonded over, and a tale that now gave the former commissioner pings of regret. He let out a deep sigh.
“God, I wish I had a time machine.”
Gunnarson turned. He could tell his friend was stewing in the thoughts again. He would have spoken but the policeman broke suddenly from the trance and turned back to Gunnarson. “As I said, very fine port.”
“Ja,” confirmed the Swede. “You know how to pick them.”
“It reminds me of my father…” began Gent, and now he opened up to Gunnarson about what he was feeling. “You know, it’s been many years since I’ve spoken about my father to anyone except my mother, and she’s been gone for three years as well. But then, you know, you were at her funeral.”
Gunnarson nodded.
Gent continued, “He was often busy throughout my childhood. Then, just before he was set to retire, his once best fired killed him in a fit of rage. So many more years we could have shared, rebuilding the fortresses time weakened, gone in an instant. And I’m worried that I’ll die alone and Marlena will never forgive me for the things I’ve said to her. I wish I could just travel back through time with H. G. Wells and do some things over again.”
Gunnarson realized that this was as good a time as any to segue into the topic he most wanted to discuss with Gent. “It’s funny that you should mention time travel, min vӓn, because I wanted to talk to you about a case that has been flung my way, set twenty-five years in the past.”
The moment he heard the word “case”, Gent was all business. “A case, is it? Twenty-five years in the past, you say? I was just a chief inspector then.”
“And I was a mere cook,” Gunnarson shot back. “But I was hoping that you would be of help to me in solving it, given your knowledge of criminal cases in this country.”
“Why of course, old chap,” responded Gent. “What was the case?”
Gunnarson consulted his notebook. “It was the death of a Mr. Charles Armstrong on the 13th of April 1931. The cause of death was antimony…”
Gent’s mouth went wide. “And the wife, doctor, and housekeeper were all suspects?” He leaned closer. “Gunnarson, that was my case!”
“Indeed?”
“Yes! I was in charge of the investigation. I went over the testimonies hundreds of times, and my notes thousands more, but my team could not figure out who the culprit was. A shame, too, because our failure to uncover the truth left a black mark upon the three accused. Our failure to uncover the truth…”
Gent trailed off. Gunnarson could see the shadows in front of his eyes once more. Then he snapped-to and turned to his friend.
“Gunnarson, let me have another shot at this case. I want to prove to myself that I still have value, even if it’s just as your policeman-know-it-all assistant.”
“But my friend,” protested the Swede, “your retirement—”
Gent threw his hands in the air. “To hell with retiring! It’s been nothing but a cycle of boredom and depression since I retired. I want something I can sink my teeth into, something that can push me back to being the old me. And this time I won’t have the damned badge weighing me down.”
“You want to stretch,” inquired Gunnarson, “as one may say, the ‘little gray cells’?”
“Yes,” said Gent firmly, “I want something that can root me, something that can tell me I’m right where I belong again.” Gunnarson took a moment to respond. “Well,” he said slowly, “I see no issues with this, personally. But the young lady tasking me with the case, Claire Alpha, the daughter of the murdered man, has asked me to stay with her as I investigate the case.”
“In the very same house of death?”
“The one indeed.”
“Well, just tell her I’m your assistant and you never go anywhere without me. If she protests, I’ll find a hostel or something.”
Gunnarson laughed. “You are very stubborn, min vän; it is no wonder your fellow officers called you a bulldog. Very well, I shall take you along on this case with me. We shall work together, you and I, and not rest until we have exhausted every thread we can find.”
“Thank you, Gunnarson,” said Gent, gripping the detective’s hand. “And I’ll do you a solid as well. I’m going to call up my colleague Walton and see if he can deliver me the old files from the case. Surely that and my recollections will give us a jumpstart into this quandary.”
“That would be most kind of you,” smiled the Swede. “I shall call on you tomorrow morning then?”
“Certainly. I’ll even pay for the train tickets,” insisted Gent.
And with a deliberate flurry, he downed the last of the port.
“Damn is it good!”
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Post by Biblically Accurate Angel on Aug 2, 2022 17:10:07 GMT -5
CHAPTER IV. Gunnarson and Gent Take a Train Ride and Discuss the Case.
Should you have been in London in the year 1956, on a cold and blustery morning like it was today—for what reason it was cold, may I remark, none knew, for this was supposed to have been bright spring weather marching towards the warmth of summer; and yet, the country bemoaned, the lion was back in a bit of a late season flurry, with heavy gusts picking up objects left on the ground, once forgotten, and now animated anew; and sprinklings of rain came down in short streams that were also set upon by the wind and shaken up over unlucky passersby who had unfortunately left their umbrellas at home, as had Gunnarson—and should you then have been needing to take a journey by rail on this wet and dreary morning (where the locomotive drivers and firemen were taking stock of their sand supply in case of getting stuck during the journey, as rain has the unfortunate issue of hurting the grip of metal wheels on metal rails), then your options for choosing which station to depart from are uncharacteristically broad and, to people who had never been in London before, or people who had rolled out of bed later than intended, like Gent had, confusing as all hell. It was fifteen minutes past 8, and Gunnarson had been waiting at London Waterloo for a quarter of an hour already for his friend. Yesterday morning he had telephoned the former commissioner and they had made plans to meet ten minutes before 8 (since Gunnarson knew that, as punctual as Gent was during his time in the force, retirement had softened that incredibly). The train wasn’t due to leave until 9.05, but the two had wanted to breakfast in the terminal together. Now as Gunnarson tried to shake the remaining wetness from his jacket, he was starting to become worried that something had happened to his friend. Late he may have been sometimes, sure, but not this late, generally.
“Deeply sorry, old chap,” said an out-of-breath voice behind him. Gunnarson turned around to see an even soggier Gent walking at a furious pace towards him. “My clock didn’t ring this morning and halfway to the station I realized that I was driving in the direction of Euston. Bloody mess of a delay, hope you haven’t been waiting too long.”
Gunnarson would have chuckled, but didn’t want to agitate his friend further. “No, it is all right, min vän, these things happen sometimes. Come, let us get ourselves a sandwich from the shop.”
Now that he’d had time to take in Gent’s attire for this trip, Gunnarson was even more on the edge of chuckling. Gent had always worn prim-and-proper police attire while on the job, and decent English suits while off the clock. Now here he was, as the Swede had never seen the man before, wearing a gray pea coat and a fedora on his head. He looked like something out of an American detective film. As they walked to the deli, Gunnarson brought it up to his friend. “Are you embarking on a… changing of the wardrobe?” he asked innocently.
“I’ve been wearing the same outfits for thirty-odd years now,” replied Gent, matter-of-factly. “I thought it was high time I tried out a new look. I’m no longer an officer, Gunnarson; as of this moment, I am a private detective just as you are.” “And therefore you are trying out the look of such a privatdetektiv?”
“Well,” said Gent, with a defensive bit of loftiness, “I just thought that it rather suited me.”
“Indeed, indeed,” Gunnarson responded innocently, “it suits you quite well indeed, Humphrey Bogart.”
Gent just rolled his eyes as the Swede flashed an impish grin at his friend.
Having made the purchase of two sandwiches (“You pick whichever you like, min vӓn,” says Mr. Gunnarson, “and I shall take one as well.” “Fat chance,” retorts Mr. Gent, “any time I order something for you, I have to hear your entire critic’s resume as you eat it. Your culinary work makes you overly analytical of anything you eat that you didn’t also make yourself.” “Now, now,” insists Mr. Gunnarson, “I will make no such comments. That is a promise.” With an air of acceptance, Mr. Gent concedes. “Alright, fine then. But I don’t want to hear a word about how the lettuce isn’t crisp enough, or the cheese hasn’t been toasted enough.—Good morning, madam, I would like to purchase two of your salami and cheese sandwiches…” “Oh, not salami,” cuts in Mr. Gunnarson, “that doesn’t go over well with min mage.” Mr. Gent sighs. “What meat would you like, then?” “Ham would be fine.” “Fine, two ham and cheese sandwiches.” “Toasted, please.” “Right, toasted.” “Toasted?”—says the attendant. “And anything else?”) —again, having made the purchase of two sandwiches, and two cups of coffee, Gunnarson and Gent now sat down in a bench on the station in view of the trains and eat at first in silence. Gunnarson nearly made a comment about how he’d have preferred some cheese or other in place of what he’d gotten, but he shoved that down. Instead, he looked over at his friend, who had finished the sandwich and was know staring at some engine that had just arrived with his coffee cup in his hand. His old, gray mustache swayed uncaringly in the breeze. It was the one thing Gunnarson would never expect to see removed from Gent’s face. The only time he had seen his friend without it was in old pictures from when he was young. But someone else in the pictures had had that same mustache adorned on his face—Gent’s father. And Gent’s own ‘stache had made its debut shortly after his father’s death. Now, weathered by time, it reflected and memorialized the sadnesses and sorrows of all those years past.
Gent took a sip of coffee and leaned back in the bench. “Well, how was the sandwich?”
“Oh, very on point,” lied Gunnarson.
“Well that’s wonderful to hear,” Gent replied with a chuckle. “And the coffee? Have you drowned it with enough milk and sugar for it to be satisfactory to you?”
“Oh, yes. The ratio must always be perfected: 47% coffee, 47% milk, and 6% sugar.”
“At that point it isn’t even coffee,” Gent retorted. “I would never stoop so low as to mar good English coffee with milk and sugar. No, black is the only proper way to go.”
“Why is it that whenever we drink coffee, we have this same discussion?” Gunnarson smiled. “We are as broken records, stubbornly repeating the same lines over and over again.”
“Probably because you keep drinking coffee wrong,” Gent said, and winked at his friend.
The two resigned themselves once more to silence, and observed the locomotives bustling to-and-fro, preparing for their next trains in a systemic sense of ease that made them feel calm, as though all was right with the world and all would remain right forever. The shadows of death they were journeying to confront were no longer hanging above them; and yet, in cruel irony, all the engines they were watching now would themselves be culled in just a few years, scrapped under the advancing rise of diesel monopolies.
Not long thereafter, the two boarded the train heading towards Southampton. Claire Alpha had left Gunnarson her address and phone number before she left. She lived in a town he had never heard of before: Moorworth Lake. “About a fifteen minute drive from Southampton,” she had told him. Now, as the train was pulling out of the station, Gunnarson decided it would be a good time to get Gent to open up about his recollections of the case, starting with the location.
“Moorworth Lake?” Gent pondered for a moment. “My first impressions where that it was a quaint little town, as though untouched by the hands of time. But quiet. Not many people bustled around; you could see the occasional person going for a stroll, but beyond that, everyone seemed to keep to themselves. Certainly during the investigation, we only had one or two neighbors who were being nosy. The town is so named for the lake in its center that it was built around, and the moors—not very big, but certainly distinct—that surround it. The place feels very spherical.”
Gunnarson continued, “Tell me about your investigation all those years ago.”
“Well,” said Gent, thinking back, “at the time all I could think about was just how concise the suspect list was. You had a deeply emotional woman—the victim’s wife—who was constantly either on the edge of, or in, tears. Trying to question her was hard as hell. I did the best that I could, but I could barely get any information out of her. The housemaid didn’t do much talking either. She always seemed to try to avoid our questioning. Nothing she said was incriminating, nothing was overtly suspicious, but it was her manner of responding to the questions that I found particularly uncanny. You asked her what she was doing before the man died, and she would stutter and try to blow it off. One thing she was explicitly clear on, however—the nightmare she had suffered under the victim… to this day her testimony is ingrained in my memory. It was… unspeakable.
“Now, the doctor was a lot more helpful to the investigation and even covered for both women. He explained to me the situation with a wide range of details that were incredibly convincing, yet in the back of my head I felt as though it could be a cover. Man-to-man, he could rope me in with his story and have me feeding out of the palm of his hand. I didn’t want to be duped, but to me he seemed the least suspicious of the three on face value. We looked over the whole house, and yet it seemed like the case would have to hinge solely on testimony.”
Gunnarson made a note in his notebook. “And your conclusions by the end?”
“Well, the Yard was trying to get me to hurry up with the case, and we were reaching dead ends everywhere we turned. We decided it was inconclusive and left it at that. The trial cleared nothing else up, so I didn’t think anything more of it until I heard about the tragedies that followed… I still wonder if there was more I could have done… they might still be here today if I had found… something…”
“And, min vän,” Gunnarson said, reassuringly, “that is why we are here today—to uncover the truth hidden in the past.”
Gent smiled and looked out the window. While the morning had started out drearily, the rain had fully cleared up by the time they had reached top speed. Now the sun was out, and its warm rays streamed down upon the world below, acting as a spotlight on the countryside that the train was passing through. Houses and trees flew by from sight as though running away from the mechanical beast that the two men were riding on. The trip took about two hours, and Gunnarson and Gent became so engrossed in the scenery, pointing out the icons that were flashing before their eyes like little children seeing the world for the first time, that they spoke no more of the case at hand. The railway always had such a spell on them. It was magical.
When at last they arrived at Southampton Central, they immediately set their sights on a cab. This acquired, they gave the cabbie the destination they wanted, and he set off for Moorworth Lake.
The automobile sped along the road, departing from the city’s tentative grasp and into the country. The road began to climb a ways, and Gunnarson could tell that they were now in the grasp of the titular moor—then they descended again, and a quaint little village quickly came into view. Gunnarson understood what Gent meant about the place feeling spherical. You could see the shimmers of the water from the top of the moor, and houses were clustered all throughout around the lake. Once inside the town itself, that lake became like a compass, guiding your path with its enticing presence. Now as they were finally on the road to the house itself, Gunnarson spoke once more to Gent. “I’m sure you’re wondering why I’ve asked so little of your memory thus far, min vän.”
“Only a little,” Gent replied. “I know your brain works in mysterious ways sometimes.”
“Indeed,” said Gunnarson. “I’m saving the weighty parts of the tale for when we are inside the house itself. Then can I visualize the drama that I will need to learn about in order to solve even better than by simply hearing the actual words.”
“Makes sense.”
Silence returned, but only for a moment.
“Look, Gunnarson—” and Gent pointed ahead, out the window of the cab. “There it is!”
As the car slowed to a stop and the two men exited (after paying the fare, of course), Gunnarson took in the building before him. It was smaller than he expected, but he could tell that money had lain behind it. Two stories, a lovely yard well-groomed, and a little path laid out like a carpet for their arrival—this was the sight that the Swedish detective now saw before him. The sign at the front proved they were at the right place.
This, at last, was the infamous house he’d heard so much about. This was the Armstrong Estate.
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