Part 6 (2/2)

”I am Saint Just,” Saint Just said, giving his name its French inflection-Saint Juste-then brus.h.i.+ng past the man and into the good doctor's elaborate inner sanctum, which was decorated, in his opinion, in consequence fausse.

Dr. Chalfont closed the door. ”Are you now?” he asked in an annoyingly professional tone, walking across the deep burgundy carpet and lowering his bulk into a large leather chair. ”Margaret's Saint Just?” he asked, using the American inflection. ”Indeed.”

”Yes. Indeed,” Saint Just drawled, leisurely strolling about the office, employing the tip of his cane to align the top magazine with the others in a rather tall stack on one of the tables. ”I thought it was time we two met.” He turned, struck a pose of the sort he would hold himself to when gracing his hostess's Regency drawing room, and rather looked down his nose at the psychiatrist. ”Met, sir, and had ourselves a small chat. To be perfectly honest, if descending into amazingly applicable cant, I've come to pick your brain if I might.”

”Indeed?” Chalfont repeated. ”Cant? Is that the same as slang, Saint Just? English for slang? That is, you're actually Alexander Blakely, Margaret's distant English cousin, correct? Not really Saint Just.”

”Is that what you think?” Saint Just countered silkily, his smile deliberately nonthreatening. He had been aware of Dr. Chalfont during the time he'd resided solely in Maggie's head, but he hadn't actually been out in the world until he'd poofed, as Maggie called it, out of her head and into that world. Curiosity had prompted him to read rather extensively on this thing called psychoa.n.a.lysis, and answering a question with a question had been a part of what he'd learned. And how nice to turn the tables on the good doctor. ”Please, tell me about that, how you came to that conclusion, that is. Take your time.”

”You're an amusing man.” Dr. Chalfont adjusted his gla.s.ses on his nose. ”I think, Mr. Blakely, that you may possibly have allowed yourself to rather, well, merge your personality with that of Maggie's famous Viscount Saint Just, yes? Interesting. Really. And not as uncommon as you might think.” He swiveled to face his desk and began paging through his appointment book. ”I happen to have an opening as of this morning-a full hour free every Thursday afternoon. That should work nicely for us, Mr. Saint Just. Let me just pencil you in?”

”I don't believe it will be necessary for us to meet again, thank you,” Saint Just said, seating himself in the chair beside the large desk and placing his cane against the corner. ”I am here on a hypothetical.”

Dr. Chalfont smiled knowingly, and then quickly covered his mouth as he faked a cough. ”I see. You're here for a friend?”

”If that makes you more comfortable, certainly-I'm here on behalf of a friend,” Saint Just said, fingering a bra.s.s paperweight in the shape of a fat goldfish. ”This hypothetical, if you please? Would you consider, for instance, a person who sends a vaguely threatening letter to be a real danger to, as you say, my friend?”

Dr. Chalfont punched at the bridge of his gla.s.ses once more. ”What sort of threatening letter? You'll have to elaborate.”

”Certainly. A badly composed poem containing a vague threat, tucked up with the badly decomposing body of a rat. Would you consider that to be a warning of worse to come, or the onetime communication from, shall we say, a disgruntled admirer, so that this friend should not overreact to the incident, as some might unfortunately do? In your educated opinion.”

”Margaret? Someone's sent something like that to Margaret?”

”Tut-tut. Doctor, please, we're dealing in a hypothetical, remember?”

The good doctor leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers beneath his chin. ”If you insist. Very well, Alex-may I call you Alex, or do you insist on Saint Just?”

”I am amenable either way. Now, please, come, come-should my hypothetical be concerned, or be comforted with the notion that barking dogs rarely bite?”

”That's difficult to say. Nearly impossible, I'm afraid. Think of recent history. John Lennon, for example. There, it was the silent dog that barked, wasn't it? But there are other stalkers, other aberrations, most obviously the sort that targets an estranged spouse or girlfriend-for the sake of argument, we'll a.s.sume this person is male. Then we can see escalating violence, increased threats or avowals of undying love and, finally, the intent to actually kill. But that's not limited to spurned admirers, or to those who might feel betrayed or angered by the person they're stalking. There are many variations of what is basically the same theme-you did me wrong, and now you're going to pay for it. If I could-is it perhaps possible for you to show me a copy of this poem?”

”There's no need, as I have committed it to memory.” Saint Just recited the few lines, then inclined his head to the doctor, indicating that it was once again his turn to speak, hopefully constructively.

Dr. Chalfont scribbled the lines on a yellow tablet. ”You're right, that is fairly terrible. Perhaps to call special attention to the veiled threat at the end? And the rat? Perhaps a sort of ... visual aid? Something disgusting enough to bring the point home, that point being that Mar-that is, that your hypothetical is on a par with a rat. Hmmm, rat. There are so many connotations, you know.”

”Yes, I've delved into that myself,” Saint Just said. ”To rat one out-to inform on someone, betray someone's trust, or desert someone. Rats carry disease, there's that, and the a.s.sociation with plague, destruction, death. There is something else. The note was signed, but I can't make head nor tails of the why of calling oneself Nevus.”

”A mole? This person calls himself a mole?”

”A congenital pigmented area of the skin, yes. A birthmark. It is puzzling. But the primary question remains-how real is the potential for danger, for an escalation of, shall we say-violence?”

”Truthfully? I'd be concerned,” Dr. Chalfont told him, folding his hands on top of the yellow pad. ”Mostly, I'd be concerned that a gentleman who has been known to be rather flamboyant-several recent incidents come to mind, all of them recorded for television news, as I recall-might think to take it upon himself to handle something like this on his own, without calling in the authorities. I'd be concerned that a man who seems to a.s.sociate himself rather closely with a fictional hero might begin to believe himself a hero. That wouldn't be the case, would it? For Margaret's sake, I sincerely hope not.”

Saint Just smiled and got to his feet. ”Doctor, it has been a pleasure, and I thank you. But now I must be going, as I have another visit to make yet this afternoon. Good day.”

”Wait!” The doctor got quickly to his feet. ”Does she know?”

Saint Just picked up his cane, tucked it under his arm. ”She will, I can promise you that. I was already fairly confident of my own conclusions, but do appreciate your professional input. Again, sir, good day.”

”And Thursday?”

”Completely unnecessary. I know who I am, Doctor. That's never been the problem. It is who or what we may become that often is outside our control. The trick, I believe, is to know that, and even to embrace that uncertainty.”

”Yes, but-”

Saint Just closed the door behind him and headed for the street once more, using his cane to hail a cab, as he was anxious to move on to his second stop, the apartment of one recently deceased Francis Oakes.

It was a long cab ride to Oakes's place of residence on West 133rd Street, a depressingly brown building that housed the man's attic-level apartment. The total lack of a doorman or any sort of security, however, made it a simple matter for Saint Just to climb the several flights and employ a credit card to pop the flimsy lock, and within moments he was inside the apartment.

He checked the door once he was inside, and saw that Francis Oakes had not one but four different security locks on the inside of the door. Once inside, with the bolts turned, the man would have been totally secure, right up until the moment he was convinced to open the door to the person who might, possibly, have been his killer.

At least Saint Just's search wouldn't take too long, as the apartment consisted of one reasonably sized room, with a most pitiful excuse for a bathroom tucked in under the eaves. Either Oakes had not been a very tall man, or he had showered on his knees.

There wasn't much in the way of furniture, but there were many, many books; stacked on the floor, piled up on the windowsill, shelved in makes.h.i.+ft bookcases. With his latex gloves in place and using the tip of his cane as he poked and probed, Saint Just was careful to protect himself from the fingerprint dust that seemed to be on every surface. At least someone had thought to make some sort of an investigation of the man's demise-and that might prove helpful at some point.

He found Oakes's four t.i.tles, all in paperbacks with particularly lurid covers, sitting by themselves on one shelf: An Axman Cometh, Killing All The Way, Twice Upon A Crime, and King Konked. Saint Just was not impressed. He did, however, remove the books from the shelf, planning to take them with him, for what reason he did not yet know.

It was only after he'd finished with the rest of the room that Saint Just stood at the scarred oak table in the very center of it and looked up at the open beamed, peaked ceiling. And there it was, what was left of the thick rope Oakes had used to hang himself; the medical examiner must have simply sliced through the rope to cut down the body, then left the remainder knotted to the thick beam.

Saint Just mentally reviewed Oakes's actions. Sc.r.a.pe marks on the bare wood floor, and a small rug caught and out of place as it fairly hugged one of the four legs, told him that Oakes had moved the table from its usual place in front of the window in order to use it to climb up and secure the rope.

After that, it would be a simple matter of fastening the noose about his neck and then stepping off the edge of the desk. Crude, but effective.

And all because someone had sent the man a dead rat and some bad poetry?

At least that's what Wendell had told him had been the conclusion of the investigators sent to survey the scene.

The reaction had seemed overly dramatic to something so distasteful but basically no more than malicious. However, now, looking at the man's life as it was represented by this apartment, perhaps the nudge had been all that had been needed to send the man over the edge ... literally.

In any case, Oakes's death would not in itself ring any alarm bells in the heads of the detectives of the NYPD, of that Saint Just was certain. There was nothing Saint Just could see that would make even him suspect murder rather than suicide.

It was the coincidence of it, that Maggie had also received a dead rat in the mail, which still worried him.

”Who are you? What are you doing here?”

Saint Just turned about to see an unprepossessing young man who looked in need of both a good meal and a good night's sleep-and most definitely a good tailor-standing just inside the room, his hand still on the doork.n.o.b. ”My goodness, people actually say things like that? You sound very much like some poor soul straight out of an inferior script, my friend. But, to answer your questions, I am a totally harmless fellow, here only to satisfy my curiosity. And you?”

”Jeremy Bickel. Your curiosity about what? Did you know Francis, Mr.-?”

Once again, Saint Just danced around giving the young man his name. ”Alas, Jeremy, I'm sorry to say that I was denied that pleasure. I am, however, a friend of one of his acquaintances, a fellow author.”

”So?”

Saint Just smiled. ”This friend was upset to hear of Mr. Oakes's untimely demise, leaving me with the sad ch.o.r.e of clarifying a few things, a few questions this friend had about the man.” He employed a flourish of his cane to indicate his surroundings. ”Mr. Oakes was not having an easy time of it, was he?”

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