8
Juliet got up, heading for the door when she heard someone knocking. She was now fully dressed and prepared for the day, so she was ready to handle another guest, although she already had a feeling about who it might be. She smiled at the older man on the other side, "Hello, Captain."
"Juliet." Captain Haddock gave her a toothy smile. She stepped aside to let him inside, making sure to close the door behind him before going back to where Tintin was sitting. Once he had gotten past her, Snowy came running up, barking happily at the man, who smiled and moved down to pet his head before taking a seat, "So, what's this about?"
"Tintin was just about to explain." Juliet replied as she took a seat on the other side of her two guests. "So, what was this about my friend?"
"You mentioned he was an inventor." Tintin said, pulling out the lipstick stained piece of cloth from his pocket. He held it out to her and she took it, examining it within the plastic container. "Do you think he has a device for intense analysis?"
"I wouldn't be surprised." She said, she looked up at him, "Tintin, what is this?"
"It's from the Kissing Killer's latest victim." He said. "I want to know if it's at all possible for him to identify the lipstick."
One of Juliet's eyebrows rose in doubt. She looked back at the lip stain and handed it back to Tintin, no longer feeling comfortable touching it knowing it came from a dead man. "I don't know. I haven't exactly looked into it. I mean, I could ask. Forensic science isn't exactly his specialty."
"Anything he has to offer would be of great help." Tintin said, "If we can narrow down the lipstick brand, I have a feeling we would be able to have a somewhat large range of suspects, but it would be better than none at all."
Juliet glanced at him, then at the lip stain, then sighed, "I'll go give him a phone call. I'll be a few minutes."
"Thank you." Tintin said as she stood up from her seat, heading out of her apartment to find the building's phone, leaving her door open.
Now that it was just Tintin and the captain, the young journalist turned to him, "I don't suppose you have any update on gathering crew members?"
"Eh? Ah…" The captain rubbed his beard, "What was it I said last time?"
"You said you had seven men."
"Ah, yes, then…" He counted on his fingers for a moment, "We still have seven."
"Haven't you been interviewing other sailors in your downtime?" Tintin asked in surprise.
Captain Haddock shook his head, "Nope. Been trying to help you on your case."
"Oh." Tintin should have expected that, but considering he had near exclusive access to all the evidence, he wasn't sure just what the captain could have been doing to help, "How have you been doing that?"
"By asking questions, a'course!" Haddock said, as if it were obvious. As he spoke, he reached into his jacket to pull out a small flask and take a sip, "I've been askin' all sorts of people about the killer."
"Really? And what have you found out?" Tintin asked excitedly, hoping to get some new evidence, his hands quickly searching his pockets for his notepad.
"Well, now lemme see…" He stroked at his beard as he tried to think, "There was the folk at O'Malley's. They said that the killer used some kind of big gun, they could hear it all the way down the street from where it happened."
Tintin quickly took notes, "Yes, the killer uses an elephant rifle." This wasn't exactly new evidence, but it was something.
"Oh, is that what it was? I thought it was a shotgun." He took another sip from his flask. "And… er, they said they didn't see who, but there was the people over at Jackson's, and they said they were positive it was a woman."
"They saw the killer?" Tintin asked in surprise.
Haddock shook his head, "No, but they heard from someone over at Fink's that says they saw 'er runnin' from the scene. In those heeled shoes, no less."
Tintin nodded, getting it down. As he looked at the names the Captain had mentioned, he couldn't help but find it odd, and then he realized just what these names were, and he looked up at Haddock.
"Captain, are all these places pubs?" He asked.
"Yes." The captain replied with a smile.
"Have you looked anywhere besides pubs?"
"Ah… No." The older man shook his head, his head falling back as he drank what was left in the flask.
Tintin sighed, putting his notepad away. He should have known that the captain's idea of investigating would involve pub-hunting as well. But, at least there was some information he could use.
He heard footsteps coming up the stairs and he looked to see Juliet returning. He smiled at her, hoping for good news, and she returned it. "He said he'd take a look."
"Great!" Tintin said happily, "And when can we meet him?"
"Um, he said to get over there as soon as possible, so… now." Juliet said.
"What— Now now?" Tintin asked.
"He's a bit impatient when it comes to things like this." Juliet said with a small smile. She went in between them and hooked her arm between theirs, "So, gentlemen!" She pulled them out of their seats, and Snowy jumped up from where he had been sitting down, "Off to the university we go!"
The trip to the Johnson University of Nuclear Physics was relatively short with a taxi ride. The campus was surprisingly large, considering that the campus had less than 900 students living there. There were groups of them bustling about, absorbed in their books, or in conversations with their friends. A few them waved in greeting at their motley group, but no one really stopped to say hello.
"So, is your friend a student here?" Tintin asked as they approached a building with a sign naming it 'Theodore Hall.'
"Nope." Juliet shook her head, "He's a teacher."
"What does he teach?"
"Well… he teaches two lecture classes. One on nuclear physics, and another on planetary astronomy."
Tintin's eyes widened, "Those are incredibly advanced subjects! He must be a genius."
"If he's not, I'd love to meet one." Juliet replied as she pulled open the building door, "This is where he does most of his lecturing, so I'm sure we'll find him here somewhere." Tintin and Haddock followed her down the hallway, watching her peek into the windows on the doors to see if she had the right room. Snowy stopped in the halls, taking in the unusual scents of the sterile building, but he didn't fall too far behind the little group.
Juliet soon found the place she had been looking for, and she pushed open the door to a lecture hall. Now, here the term 'lecture hall' is used in the sense that the room had clear architectural clues that, if someone were to stand in front of a group of students, they would be able to hear everything they said without the need for a microphone. What Tintin didn't expect to see was a huge amount of machinery hanging off the ceiling on thick coils, or off to the side of the wall. All placed with surprising care, given their haphazard positions. There were rows that were obviously meant to hold desks, but he didn't see anything beyond the desk at the front. All the others were empty chairs.
"Uncle Cal! Are you here?!" Juliet called out, her voice incredibly loud.
"Yes? What?" Tintin saw an older man with a pair of spectacles and a dark-haired moustache and goatee poke his balding head out from behind one of the machines. He had laugh lines poking out from the side of the beard, and though his glasses hid them somewhat, he could see the crinkles at the corner of his eyes. This man was clearly older than Juliet's father. He was dressed in a clean lab coat, and seemed very professional in appearance. He smiled when he saw Juliet, "Ah! Juliet! Sweetheart!"
"Hello Uncle Cal!" Juliet greeted warmly and she went over, embracing him. "I hope you don't mind, but I brought some guests."
"Eh? What's that?" Her uncle asked, "You fought off some pests? Well, good for you!"
"No, no, Uncle!" Juliet said, she cupped her hands over her mouth and moved to his shoulder to speak into his ears, "I brought you some guests!"
"Oh, guests!" Her uncle said, realizing what she had said, "That's nice." Juliet brought him over to Tintin and Haddock.
"Uncle Cal, these are my friends Tintin and Captain Haddock. Gentlemen, this is my uncle Professor Cuthbert Calculus."
"It's a pleasure to meet you, sir." Tintin said, reaching out to shake his hand.
"Hm? Oh, no I've never eaten goo." He said, looking at Tintin in confusion, "Why would you ask such a question?"
"What? No, that's not what I said, I—"
"How dare you! I have a perfectly normal-sized head!" Professor Calculus huffed angrily.
"Uncle!" Juliet put her hand on his arm, "He was just saying it's nice to meet you."
"Oh." He nodded at Tintin with a smile. "It's nice to meet you as well." He turned to Haddock, "And what's your name again?"
"Captain Haddock." He said, reaching out and shaking his hand.
"Eh? 'Most emphatic'? Well yes, you should be." Professor Calculus said, "You see, I'm a bit hard of hearing in one ear." He gestured to the ear in one question.
"No! I said Captain Haddock!" He repeated, practically shouting.
"Oh. It's a pleasure to meet you then." He said, shaking the disgruntled sailor's hand. Snowy barked up at the man, and he smiled down at the little dog. "Well, hello there!" He bent down and affectionately pet him, "Nice doggie."
"Uncle." Juliet got his attention, "You remember what we talked about over the phone?"
"Hm? No, I haven't made any drones yet. Why do you ask?"
Juliet sighed, "No, Uncle— Tintin, do you have it?" She gave up on talking to him and turned to Tintin.
"Oh, yes." He reached into his pocket and pulled out the plastic bag that held the lipstick stain.
Upon seeing it, the professor smiled, "Ah! Yes, is this what we talked about on the phone?" He turned to Juliet, "The thing you wanted me to analyze?"
Juliet nodded, "Do you have anything that could do that?"
"I don't think I've invented something for that, heaven knows who would, but I made a chemical analysis machine just a week ago! It won't take me but a moment to start it up." He kept the plastic bag in hand as he walked over to one of the machines. He pulled on a lever, and Tintin heard it hum to life. The professor pressed a few buttons and a small compartment opened up and the professor carefully removed the piece of stained cloth with a pair of tweezers, saying how the machine would analyze it more accurately if he didn't touch it. "It analyzes and breaks everything down to the microscopic level! Marvelous, don't you think?" He smiled at them for a moment before sealing the compartment up. "Soon, we'll know the exact chemical makeup of that cloth and the lipstick! Once we figure out the ingredients, it shouldn't be too difficult to find just what brand it is, the maker, the buyers, etcetera, etcetera."
Juliet smiled, "My uncle the genius." She said proudly.
Professor Calculus looked at her in shock, "How can you say something like that about your uncle?!" He sounded very much offended.
"No, I said you're a genius!" Juliet almost shouted to him. She was raising her voice so much that her throat was starting to feel scratchy, and her voice was starting to crack. She cleared her throat to try and get a little more comfortable.
"Oh." The professor then returned to his task of inputting information into the machine, typing away on a keypad. Well, as fast as away could be with only two fingers.
Tintin gestured for Juliet to come over to him, and she did. He leaned in and whispered, "Is there… something wrong with your uncle?"
"He has some kind of a hearing problem. Clearly it's more than just being 'hard of hearing' in one ear." Juliet whispered back, "We've talked to him about it, but he always ends up interpreting it as something else. We're not sure what the problem is."
"And you haven't gotten him anything to help?" Tintin asked.
"Believe me, everyone in my family has tried." She replied, "We've suggested getting a hearing aid for him, but he won't hear of it." She paused when she realized what she had just said, "Oh! Um, no pun intended."
"There!" Professor Calculus stepped back from the machine with a smile, "I've entered all the necessary data so the machine should only break down the lipstick and not the cloth all the way down to its microscopic level!"
"What's microscopic?" Haddock asked, not really remembering that particular definition.
Professor Calculus, seeming to have a moment of clarity in his hearing, said, "Microscopic is the level just underneath macroscopic. Macroscopic objects are things that are large enough for us to see with the naked eye, such as that desk, or you and I. Microscopic is when something is so small that you can't see it without some kind of special scope." He turned to Juliet, "You know, I only recently made this? The machines this campus offers can only go as far as macroscopic because there's more to work with!" He scoffed, "The very idea. The school board as no idea of what it means to progress!"
Juliet nodded, "Yes, yes. Do you know when the machine will be finished analyzing?"
"Oh, no it can't ever do that, but by my estimation the machine should be finished analyzing the lipstick in twelve hours."
"Twelve hours?" Haddock repeated incredulously, "What are we supposed to do? We can't just sit and wait for twelve hours!"
"I know that seems like a long time," Professor Calculus began, "But I think you could spend this time by going out and make a list of ingredients for different lipstick brands to compare it to."
"It's a start." Tintin agreed.
"So, what? Do we just get every brand in the country?" Haddock asked.
"In the country! No, of course not!" Juliet said, "Do you know how long that list would be?"
"Why? Aren't they all the same?" Haddock asked.
Juliet gave him a dry look, "You know nothing about cosmetics, Captain. No two lipsticks are the same. No, I think we should just start with local places. It's convenient, and there are plenty of women who shop local. I doubt this killer has enough money to ship something from out of town, much less out of country. I've never known rich folks to go out of their way to kill people themselves. Unless they're deranged or something."
"Still, even locally there are a countless amount of places that sell cosmetics." Tintin said, "We couldn't find them all in twelve hours. That kind of information hunting could take days."
"You know," Professor Calculus piped up, "Now that I think about it, there are a lot of places that sell lipstick around here. I shouldn't really ask you to get it. I'm sure you all have plenty on your plates as it is." He acted as if they hadn't just been talking about it, "I'll look into it, and you can just find out what brands your suspects use."
"That's a near non-existent list…" Tintin muttered, his voice too low for Calculus to hear, but loud enough for Juliet and Haddock.
"Why don't we just start with the blonde woman from the Scarlet Letter?" Juliet asked, "I'm sure we'll find her there tonight. And I can ask around, too. Talk to some of the girls that work there, get a basic idea."
Tintin nodded, "It's a better start than before. When does the bar open?"
"Not until eight, but I can get you inside to do some of your own research. I'm sure you're eager to take a closer look at it in the daylight." Juliet said.
Tintin couldn't deny that he had wanted to do some research on the place without being interrupted by any bar goers or employees. Now would be a great time to do just that. He nodded to her, "That would be helpful, thank you."
"My pleasure." Juliet replied.
With that, the group made their way out of the building. Juliet bid her uncle goodbye, although he confused her words with a lunch order, but he waved nonetheless. They headed out to the street to call for a cab that could get them to the Scarlet Letter. Hopefully they would get there before the sun went down. Having natural sunlight in the place would certainly be helpful. And it would definitely help bring Tintin closer to finding out just who was responsible for all of this.
Yeah, I know, it's a bit short, but it's all I had to work with this time. I'll try to make the next chapter longer than this. I hope you all enjoyed it!
