Chapter 21
Summary of the Passengers' Evidence … and a Weapon
"A smallish man with a high voice." Dr. Suric repeated. They had dismissed the crew back to their posts and the Princess's lady's maid was sent back to her lady's side.
"I don't understand it!" Douqh exclaimed. "The man Parisi spoke of to Zraevetsol – he was on the ship after all? But how did he get off? If he had accomplices help him escape to another ship, how would they have made the rendez-vous with the Orion Express in all this phal? Sensors are blocked in the stuff! And we found the escape pod empty! So where is he now? How can he have vanished into the void? Did the vacuum of space blow him into particulate matter?! Why are you silent, Hilus?! Say something! I must be going mad – tell me how any of this makes sense!"
Mr. Douqh had worked himself up into a frenzy of questions, fueled partly by the long day and Miss Toloe's revelation, and partly by Hilus Plormot's silence.
"The impossible cannot have happened, Izu," Plormot reasoned. "A man cannot evaporate on a vessel without a trace – this ship has no functioning transporter, no high particle beam, no negative-space-chamber with which to dispel a person's existence under these conditions. These options are impossible, and by definition cannot have happened, in spite of appearances."
"Stop it with your imitation of vulcan logic! Use your intuition you talk of so much, and explain what actually happened last night."
"I don't have access to the secrets of the cosmos, dear Mr. Douqh. I, like everyone, am confused. This case has taken a very strange turn."
"Strange is an understatement." Douqh had deflated into a sullen mood. "We've gotten nowhere."
Plormot shook his head.
"Incorrect. We have come quite some way. There are some things we know. We've collected the accounts from all of the passengers."
"And yet it seems we need to start with the crew," Dr. Suric put in. "Given the killer had access to a crew uniform, or is a part of it." At the doctor's words, Izu Douqh seemed to slump even further.
"Don't despair quite yet, my friend," Plormot patted the stack of passports. "Let us review the case as it stands. The victim, Evered – excuse me – Parisi, was stabbed twelve times and died from those injuries last night. That is one fact we know.
"Next, there is the issue of the time when the crime took place."
"Well, that's another singular fact we know." Dr. Suric put in. "It was committed at a quarter past one this morning. Everything points to that."
"Incorrect. Not everything." Plormot countered, then relented. "Certainly, a good amount of evidence supports this view.
"We have three possibilities:
"The first, is that the murder was indeed committed at a quarter past one. This is supported by the betazoid maid to Princess Nehn, Miss Tehf Toloe. It also agrees with Dr. Suric's estimations.
"The second possibility is that the crime was committed later and the evidence of the watch was deliberately faked.
"Finally, the third possibility is that the crime took place earlier, and the watch was also deliberately altered." He paused. Everyone gave a nod to prompt him. He continued:
"Accepting possibility one, that the murder took place at 1.15 in the morning, means we accept not only its supporting evidence, but also other details that arise from it. If the crime took place at 1.15, the murderer cannot have left the Orion Express, which therefore gives rise to the question: Where did he go? And who is he?
"We must delve deeper still into the evidence. We first hear of the existence of this man, the small man with a womanish voice, from the Orion man Zraevetsol. He says Parisi told him of this person and employed him to watch out for the assassin. There is no evidence to support this. No corroborating documents, contract of service or the like. We have only Zraevetsol's word for it. And to question Zraevetsol himself – is he who he pretends to be? In the employ of a New York-based detective agency?
"It is astounding, this case!" Plormot took a moment to grandly gesture to his companions. "In this case, we have none of the resources of investigators. We cannot verify the identities, employers and histories of any of these people. We have," he tossed a dismissive hand at the documents before them. "Pitiful cards with pictures and names and other things written in them.
"We must therefore rely solely on deduction, on reason. That, to me, makes the matter so fascinating. There is to be no routine work in this case. No footwork. No, this case has been stripped down to a matter of intellect. I ask the question of whether we can accept Zraevetsol's account of himself. I have determined that, yes, we can accept his word."
"You are relying on intuition?" Dr. Suric asked.
Plormot nodded.
Dr. Suric hastened a warning:
"Intuition is a biochemically driven process which creates looping sets of parameters which our brains use to heuristically, erroneously, produce decisions and answers that feel good and grounded. They are biologically, scientifically driven, but not scientifically sound."
"Not at all, I do not rely on intuition." Plormot jumped to clarify. "It is a matter of probabilities. Zraevetsol is traveling with false identification and false credentials – this would immediately make him a person to be suspected. The first thing the police will do when they arrive onboard would be to detain Zraevetsol, send comms to Federation space and discover Zraevetsol's deception. He is large, he is male, he is a large orion male, considered criminal by default in may parts of this quadrant.
"In the case of many of the passengers, the reality of our situation is that establishing their bona fides will not even be attempted, particularly due to a lack of evidence tying them to the crime, and their high stations of power in the quadrant. What local detective will want to risk the ire of Andoria, of Antar, of Earth and the United Federation of Planets when they try to detain and question their ambassadors, their royalty, their war heroes and those associated with the head prosecutor of Federate courts?
"But in Zraevetsol's case, it is simple. He is either who he says he is or he isn't. He is lowly enough that an investigator would detain him, would question him and go through the basic work of checking through his credentials. Zraevetsol is aware of his station, he is aware of automatic suspicion and would therefore be a fool to assume such a bold lie would last even a minute. And I do not take him to be a fool. Therefore, I have determined he tells the truth of who he is."
"You have struck him from suspicion?" Dr. Suric cocked his head. Douqh looked slightly disappointed.
"Not at all. You misunderstand me. For all I know, any Pinkerton detective might have his own private reasons to kill Parisi. No, I am saying we can most probably accept Zraevetsol's account of himself. And though there is nothing concrete to prove it, I am currently inclined also to believe he tells the truth of Parisi employing him. In fact," here, Plormot shifted into a more excitable mood.
"In fact, there is a form of corroboration for Zraevetsol's story, from an unlikely place. Miss Toloe. Her description of the man she saw in the Orion Express's crew uniform fits exactly. Is there more? Yes." Plormot took on a crowing tone.
"You may not have noticed it, but another corroborating statement supports Zraevetsol's story."
"What?"
"Both Lieutenant Keller and Wroe'bex Qozz mention that the purser passed their carriage. But my friends, Bael Kehrno said he did not leave his seat except on those specified occasions, to answer calls of attendance. Why is this important? None of his trips would have taken him down to the far end of the hall. The far end, past Qozz's compartment door, where they were sitting and talking."
A pause while Plormot's companions digested the implication.
"Therefore, this story of the small man with a womanish voice, now dressed in a crew uniform, rests on the testimony, whether direct or indirect, of no less than four separate witnesses."
"If this small man was roaming the ship in a crew uniform, surely the purser, Kehrno, would have run into him? Seen him, and realized he was not a member of the crew?" Dr. Suric was rewarded with a smile from the egg-shaped detective.
"I believe it fits. When Bael arrived to Mrs. Valy'r's room, the lady spoke with him at the door and was seen by the maid. Miss Toloe went to the princess while Mrs. Valy'r insisted he enter and check the room for an intruder. During that time, Miss Toloe, was with the princess. When she returned to her own compartment, the purser was inside with Mrs. Valy'r."
Mr. Douqh looked ready to bubble over while Plormot and Dr. Suric discussed the movements of the prior night.
"Yes, yes, my friend," he broke in impatiently, patting Plormot. "I admire your caution and your meticulous process to advance a single step at a time. But, time is passing, and I think you have yet to touch upon this: We are all agreed that this person exists. Don't give me a reproving look, Hilus! The point remains – where did he go?"
"You are wrong, my friend. You rush headlong without thinking. We cannot ask ourselves where he went until we have asked whether such a man really exists. If this man were to be an invention, a story, then he would be easy to make him disappear. So we must first establish that there truly is such a present person."
Mr. Douqh had nodded along and gestured to speed up Plormot's glacial pace.
"Good. Great. And having arrived at the fact that there is – excellent – where is he now?"
Plormot relented.
"Then there are only two answers to that. Either he is still hidden on the ship in an ingenious place, or else he is two people – I mean to say, that he is disguised as a passenger on the ship. In order for this to be true, he would need to be so well disguised that Evered would not recognize him."
Mr. Douqh had grown ever hopeful with Plormot's options, but his face fell again when he realized no one answered to that description.
"We must not forget about the mystery woman in the red robe, whom I saw myself," Plormot added. "So, we have two strangers traipsing around the ship with multiple witnesses, potentially two murderers."
Mr. Douqh looked ready to weep.
"This entire affair is incredible!" Douqh burst out. "As in, not credible. It cannot be!" He slumped. "And on the esteemed Orion Express, no less."
"Who is this woman?" Plormot pondered. "The description we have does not exclude everyone from possibility, since many on this ship may don a towel and robe and the pass for a woman from behind. Perhaps she is the very same person as our small man, having changed?
"But that begs the questions: Where is the crew uniform now? The other crew have accounted for theirs. And where is the red robe?"
"Aha!" Douqh sprang up, eager again. "We must search the passengers' luggage. We have something definite to use!"
Plormot also stood.
"I will make a prediction, in part to temper what we may find," Plormot said.
"You know where they are?"
"I have some suspicion."
"Where?"
"You will find the red robe in the possession of one of the men. You will find the uniform of the Orion Express crew in the possession of one of the women. I am thinking, Miss Tehf Toloe, specifically."
"Tehf Toloe? But surely-"
"Calm, my friend. It is not what you think. I believe finding the uniform and robe will not be an indication of guilt, but of convenience. If she is guilty, it may be there. If she is innocent, however, I believe it certainly will be."
They were interrupted by an excited chief engineer.
"I have found the murder weapon!"
It seemed the room was so breathless as to be explained by a loss of cabin pressure. Then, in a flurry, the three men followed the chief engineer from the dining mess, along the passenger quarters corridor, through several causeways and down a hatch.
In the ventral docking bay, sat the escape pod. Thus far, knowledge of it's recovery remained sequestered only to those in the docking bay at present.
The chief engineer rolled a cart laden with tools aside, where he had been taking stock of phal blockage. He had had sense not to enter the pod.
Initially, it had only been opened to verify no one was inside, but otherwise left alone while Plormot conducted his investigation. Plormot, for his part, was kicking himself for not examining it sooner. But instead of leading them inside,the engineer instead brought them to the pod's bow porthole. There, when they looked directly down, sat a knife, splotched with patches of rust.
"How can we be sure this is the weapon? What's wrong with it?" Douqh asked while peering at the rusty patches.
Dr. Suric briefly explained that the blood of humans feed their cells with red blood cells, aptly named, which turn red due to the iron in heme, the functional component of hemoglobin that binds oxygen. It's contrary to most sentient species, who use a variety of other compounds to bind and deliver necessary components to their cells. Iron is such an unusual…
He petered off when he realized the others in the docking bay had resumed peering at the knife through the porthole.
"Does this knife fit with the wounds exhibited in Parisi?" Plormot asked. The doctor swiped at some of the remaining particles of phal at the glass with his sleeve and squinted. He nodded.
"I would need to take a couple of measurements to give a more definitive response, but from it's dimensions and the blood that oxidizes red, I estimate it is consistent with this crime."
"Well, now." Plormot paced the docking bay. He needed to move a bit to warm himself from the docking bay's cool temperature. He stopped in his tracks and stood. The others waited. He straightened.
"Well, now." He repeated. "Shall we?" He lead the group back to the dining mess room.
"What have you deduced, Hilus?" Douqh finally demanded. "Have you gleaned anything new to shed light on this matter?"
The chief engineer, who had been about to leave, paused near the door to listen for the famed detective's genius.
"Not at all," Plormot responded jovially. "It seems a sensible thing to do, no? Once the crime is committed, toss the knife into the escape pod so it cannot point to anyone aboard the vessel. Although…" It was his turn to trail off. "Launching it poses new questions, new problems…" He shook himself. "Regardless, we have been waylaid. To the passengers' luggage."