Chapter Eleven: Heroics
Don't push too far, who knows what will
Come out if you do not believe
Carl walked into the sunlight and shivered after the coldness of the vaults.
"Well," said Van Helsing, following after him, "I hate to say it, but you're well out of that, my friend. Usually in cases of this kind its best not to have any kind of recognized connection with the deceased."
Carl stared at him. "How can you say that?"
Van Helsing was rather taken aback by this question, which was not one he would have expected. "Er—"
"You don't believe them, do you?"
This took Van Helsing aback even more. "Um—"
"You do." Carl sighed and threw his hands in the air. "Well, that just about takes the cake. How can you believe them?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that Tamerlaine Gentle is not dead."
Van Helsing swiveled around to look at the building they'd just exited from. It was, indeed, the mortuary, just as he'd thought.
"That poor soul in there," Carl went on, "is not Tamerlaine Gentle."
"But her brother identified her!"
"And for that matter, I don't believe that man is her brother. And that is why I think it was murder."
"Why?" growled Van Helsing, completely off track and not liking it.
"A woman of the same basic age, stature, and composition, with hair and form alike, dies, and somehow her face is unrecognizeable? Entirely too convenient."
"For whom?"
"For Them."
"Them who?"
"I don't know," said Carl aggrieved. He hadn't really thought that far. "Look, do I ask you these questions when you're on the trail of the beast? Just Them."
"Carl—" said Van Helsing, taking the friar's arm and turning him to face him. "Carl, you're in denial."
"No I'm not!"
"Look, if that man wasn't her brother—"
"He isn't," said Carl positively.
"I say if he wasn't— where does he get the audacity to come and identify the body as if he were?"
"Because," said Carl rapidly, "he's counting on one of the basic traits of human nature— the tendency to believe whatever they are told, to trust in everyone. This tendency shows in even the best and brightest and most worthy of men, including, for some odd reason, you, Van Helsing, and more often than not can lead men to their downfall. Humans believe what they want to believe, it's a simple fact. If you can get someone to want to believe what you want them to believe, you've got it absolutely made. This man, this Simon whoever, came in and stated with absolute certainty that he was the brother of Tamerlaine Gentle, and people believed that he was indeed the brother of Tamerlaine Gentle, because he said he was, and because they needed someone to identify the body. For myself, the complete lack of familial resemblance was an immediate warning sign, but no one else there really knows what she looks like. And its my impression, though you may agree or disagree at any time, that for a brother of Tamerlaine Gentle, or indeed for a man who simply may have been living with her for ten years under false pretences, for him not to mention the sudden apparent disappearnce of the scar which the real Tamerlaine Gentle has on her th-throat, seems to me to be either incompetence, idiocy, or sheer unadulterated malice aforethought. Which in turn leads one to surmise that, though there are definite signs of bad taste evident in this man, no idiocy is apparent, and though incompetence is almost certainly a byword of the man's very existence, it doesn't really fit in with this particular scenario; which perforce leads one to that final attribute which I have previously mentioned, ie. malice aforethought. This in turn points me to the final conclusion— I've forgotten what the final conclusion was. Oh yes. I remember. The final conclusion, all matters being heard and attended to, is that this man Simon is A: An imposter, B: Not Tamerlaine's brother, and last but not least C: Guilty of malice aforethought for some ultimate purpose which at the moment remains hidden from me. Furthermore the body in there was murdered, the body is not Tamerlaine Gentle, and Tamerlaine is not, is not, is not, cannot be dead." Carl stopped at long last, breathing hard with the effort of his soliloquy and the force of his emotions. If she's not dead where is she? She's not dead. Where is she?
"Well," said Van Helsing, who was still staring at him as he had been throughout his recitation, "What do you propose to do about it?"
"I don't know," said Carl.
"You don't know? Come on, Carl, you're the plan man."
"Well, you're the action man," said Carl waspishly, "so why don't you rush back in there and arrest Simon Gentle for impersonating a nonexistant being?"
"I can't do that."
"Why not? Why can't you? He's in there now and he knows full well that Tamerlaine never had a brother—"
"Please," begged Van Helsing, "lets not go through the litany again? My ears ache."
Carl subsided, against his will.
"Look, I'm sorry about the whole situation, honestly I am," said Van Helsing placatingly. "But you can't just attack the character and reputation of someone you've never met. You said yourself you haven't seen this woman since you were young. How are you to know what changes have taken place in her life since then?"
"But the scar—"
"Scars fade," said Van Helsing with finality.
"Yours don't," said Carl, more harshly than he'd intended. At the look Van Helsing gave him, he hurried on, "And anyway, they do not fade in two night's time."
Van helsing was shaking his head and turning away. "I'm going to find something to eat. There are restaurants in Shropshire, aren't there? I'm going to find one."
Carl seated himself on one of the stone benches and clasped his hands in his lap.
"Aren't you coming?"
"No."
"Carl— don't sulk. A grown man shouldn't sulk."
"I'm not sulking," said Carl shrilly. "I am merely going to sit here and rest a while before I go home."
Van Helsing sighed deeply. "Would you like me to stay with you?"
"Good lord, no!"
"Fine. Be that way. I'll see you later." Van Helsing marched off, obviously irritated. Carl watched him and reflected. I probably shouldn't have mentioned his scars.
Once Van Helsing was out of sight, Carl leapt to his feet and hurriedly concealed himself behind the hedge that lined the board pathway leading to the main doors of the morgue.
Too late, he remembered that they were meant to be collecting the axitonne and other materials that afternoon, for Van Helsing's weapon. Well, he was sorry to disappoint Van Helsing, but he had more urgent business to attend to.
Crouched behind the hedge, he watched the entrance to the tall building. He reflected for a while on how roles seemed to be switched— Van Helsing was urging him to think things through and not rush into something, and here Carl was— well— about to rush into something. Soon his thoughts turned to Tamerlaine Gentle and his breathing quickened.
The door opened and Simon Gentle emerged. Carl felt himself go tense.
He came out from the hedge several hundred feet behind Simon and began the difficult work of following him. Passers-by stared at the spectacle of a young man in brown friar's robes following another young man in a top hat— thankfully none of them bothered to comment on it.
Simon Gentle trailed around London for nearly an hour— at the end of it Carl's nerves were worn dangerously thin and he felt ready to give up. Only the thought of Tamerlaine, out there somewhere waiting for him, kept him going. Eventually, however, all tortures must come to an end, and Simon hopped in a hansom cab.
Carl uttered a barely-audible squeak of alarm, rushed forward and sat on the ledge at the back of the coach. His legs swung free of the ground and he was extremely uncomfortable as there wasn't really anything he could decently get a grip on. But, he thought with some satisfaction, at least Simon couldn't get away from him now.
Passers-by stared at the spectacle of a smallish friar hitching a free ride on an unsuspecing hansom.
The cab drove on and Carl tried to take detailed note of his surroundings. His head was beginning to swim when it pulled up in front of a very large house, three storeys high, with a faux turret and a Gothic look. Carl leapt off and raced at high speed to hide behind a tree before Simon or the driver realized he was there.
From behind the tree, Carl watched as Simon went into the house, being enthusiastically greeted by the butler as though he had not been seen for some time. Aha, thought Carl, not his house, then.
He darted forward and trotted around the back of the house, looking for a window he could climb in, and not finding one. They were all latched on the inside. Finally he stood back and stared at the house, and a mad surety became clear in his mind— if she's anywhere, he thought, she'll be in the turret.
He approached the jutting stone wall and began to climb.
There were no passers-by to gape at the spectacle of a smallish friar advancing slowly up a stone turret, emitting a series of nervous squeaks, at intervals punctuated by ineffectual, unpracticed cursing.
Carl achieved the window high on the turret wall and pulled himself up, holding onto the broad sill, gasping at the pain in his arms. This, he thought, was not covered in the Vatican's sparse training. Sitting on the sill he paused and caught his breath, surveying the room below him before he jumped down, looking, he thought, before he leapt. Looking—
For once, being right wasn't much of a comfort. The body of Tamerlaine Gentle lay in a corner, and was very still.