described. Isn’t that enough?”
“We’d like to see for ourselves, sir. The tarpaulin, if you please.”
“I really don’t think I ought.”
“That’s as may be, sir. But if you’ll pardon me …” The sergeant quickly undid the tarpaulin and pulled it away.
The machine was stuck in mid-action. On a moonlit street, an enraged husband chased a police officer down the garden path of a house. In an upstairs window, a woman with an unfeasibly large bosom mimed screaming with dismay. The police officer was notable for his uniform trousers being around his ankles. The machine was called “Cuckolded by a Copper.” The sergeant blushed. The little policeman looked really rather like him, a resemblance that wasn’t lost on his constables. Worse yet, the woman looked a lot like Mrs. Blenheim on Maxtible Street, whose husband worked a lot of night shifts. “Well, that would seem to be that,” he said quickly while attempting to put the tarpaulin back. It kept falling off, almost wilfully. “We’ll be on our way, sir. Thank you for your cooperation. You’ve been very patient.”
“Not at all, sergeant,” Cabal said pleasantly to the officer as he left, shooing his smirking subordinates before him. He watched them go and adjusted his spectacles.
“An interesting place, this carnival of yours, Mr. Cabal,” said Barrow from behind him.
“Thank you, Mr. Barrow,” he replied, turning.
“It wasn’t meant as a compliment. Just a comment: an interesting place. This arcade, for example.”
“Oh?” Cabal raised his eyebrows. “How so?”
“These machines.” Barrow pointed at the tableaux. “Horror and death the whole length. Then we get to the last one — the machine, incidentally, that the police was told was the one with the recipe for poison — and
“People like that sort of thing,” repeated Cabal. “So I’m told. It was put in as an afterthought.”
“An afterthought.” Barrow walked to the door and looked out across the carnival, pondering. “I don’t like this carnival of yours, Mr. Cabal. It’s distasteful.”
“We can’t guarantee to cater to everybody.”
“That’s not what I meant. When I was still in the job, I had hunches the same as everybody else. Sometimes they were right and sometimes they were wrong. But sometimes I would have a feeling that came to me as an actually
“And you got this magical bad taste of yours?”
“In spades. And, yes, he was our killer. But at the time he wasn’t even a suspect. That’s the important thing. I had no reason to suspect him.”
“Sure you got the right man? Not just a case forced through because you forgot to brush your teeth that morning?”
“I don’t think even the most rabid police-conspiracy theorist would believe that we would frame a man by burying four bodies in his back garden and then building a rockery on top of them.”
“A rockery?” Cabal considered. “No, that does stretch credulity a little. You may have a point, in that case. I assume that when you say my carnival’s distasteful you are referring to this uncanny forensic palate?”
“When I get home, I’m going to have a very strong cup of tea in the hope it will wash it away.”
“You do that. Perhaps, one day, criminological epicurean evidence will be admissible in a court of law. In the meantime, I shall bid you a good day. I should like a few hours’ sleep if at all possible.”
“Good day, Mr. Cabal,” said Barrow, and walked back in the direction of the town.
Cabal walked back towards his office sedately until Barrow was out of sight. Then he ran. He entered the car breathless, unlocked his desk drawer, took the topmost contract from the box, and put it in his inside breast pocket.
“So she did it?” said Horst, and Cabal jumped.
“I didn’t see you there,” he said, putting away the box and carefully locking the drawer.
“I didn’t want you to. She killed her baby, then?”
“Yes. Isn’t it marvellous?” He stopped. “Not that she killed her baby, obviously.”
“No. It’s not obvious. It’s not obvious at all. I presume you’re going to go and offer her a way out of her dilemma?”
“That
Horst looked at him for a long moment. He checked his watch. “The sun will be up soon. We creatures of the night should be tucked away by then. Leave the day to creatures of the light.”
“You’re trying to make me feel guilty. It won’t work.”
“My little brother just engineered the murder of a child. There’s nothing I can do to make you feel remorse if that didn’t. I offered you the chance of redemption last night. Sorry, my mistake. Father always said I couldn’t spot a hopeless case.”
“Really?” Cabal pulled on his coat. “How unlike Father to criticise you for anything.”
Horst rose from where he was sitting on the blanket box, and Cabal fought to prevent himself shying away. “Don’t be specious. You can’t keep returning to sibling rivalry as an excuse for everything. ‘Oh, don’t blame me for my crimes against man, God, and nature. It’s my brother’s fault for being so perfect.’ No jury would convict.” He smiled and sat down again. “Would you like to hear something ridiculous? When you came for me a year ago, I was glad to see you. It was my brother who’d come back for me after all. It had taken him a while to get around to it, but better late than never. Yes, you’d sold your soul and I’d become a monster, but, apart from that, it would be just like old times.”
“And now you’re saying you were wrong?”
“Now I’m saying I was half wrong. I was wrong about which of us had become the monster. This whole year, I’ve watched who’s signed those contracts and I’ve said nothing, because, as far as I could see, they were going to Hell whether they signed a piece of paper or no. Some might have been a little borderline, but not by enough to make me concerned. That woman last night, though. She would never have done what she did unless you’d suggested it. She’d have worked it out. Now she’s damned whether she signs that contract or not. That’s your doing. I don’t doubt you’ve got some deal lined up for her if she signs. Do me a favour, would you?” “A favour?”
“Just do what you’re going to do and leave the contract here.” Cabal frowned. “But then it doesn’t count against the hundred.” Horst rested his chin in his hand and looked at his brother. He’d never dreamt that his brother could be so obtuse. “That’s the point,” he explained.
Cabal looked at Horst as if he were mad. “Then there
Horst looked at the door for a very long moment, then glanced over at the hourglass. The time was all but gone: a few grains of inestimably fine sand remained in the top bulb. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly to himself. “I’m more sorry than you will ever know.”
Cabal arrived at the police station and made enquiries. He was sorely distressed that some poor woman — he managed to avoid saying “soul” at the last moment — had done such a terrible, terrible thing while the balance of her mind was disturbed. It seemed that the visit to the carnival had somehow provided, all unwittingly, the impetus for her psychosis, and — while he naturally couldn’t accept any liability — he really wanted to help any way that he could. He had to be quite insistent before he was allowed to see her. He was quite sure that Horst could just have walked straight in and they’d have fallen over themselves to make him a cup of tea. Finally, with heavy hints that he would be paying her legal expenses, he was allowed in alone.
“Well, then,” he said finally, sitting down across a plain, square table from her. “This is a sticky mess you’ve got yourself into.” She looked at him miserably, her eyes red from crying.
“I’m afraid the authorities are going to treat you very harshly for this. You probably already realise that.” She nodded and looked in her lap, where she pulled and worried a handkerchief endlessly.
“They’ll have told you that there is no machine like the one you thought you saw at my carnival, hmmm?” She gave no response. “‘The Mother’s Escape,’ I think it was.”
She stopped fidgeting. She looked sharply at him.
