All at once the horror had become much greater, and its dimensions, to coin an expression befitting the situation, now extended into Hell itself. There were now not seven, but hundreds of victims to mourn for. If all this were true, the horrible deeds of the murderer had to go back for many, many years, very likely even back to the closing of the laboratory. Once again, the crazy professor I had in my mind began to babble, reminding me of his various theories concerning the murder motive. But I shut him up. While Jesaja continued to tell me about his divine calling in biblical eloquence, I mentally reviewed all the important facts I had been able to gather up to now:
First of all, the venerable Joker was presumably the only one in the district who could fully remember the insane events of 1980 and their horrifying consequences. The assumption was likely that he himself had been no guinea pig but an outsider who nevertheless could obtain comprehensive information on what had occurred. Since he had spent his life in the catacombs before then, and hence was nothing but a stray, perhaps during a stroll he had been alerted to the existence of the laboratory by his brothers' and sisters' calls for help, had seen the gruesome happenings through a laboratory window, and from then on had minutely observed the entire tragic development as it unfolded. He had witnessed how only a few, maybe even none, of the grown animals had survived, and that only the younger ones had managed to escape death, if narrowly, with grotesque mutilations. One murky point in the whole business remained: what happened during the last days of the laboratory that led to the liberation of the experimental animals? Did they receive outside help, maybe from Joker? Whatever may have happened, afterwards Joker vanished in the underworld again, popping up only at rare intervals, for example to save Jesaja from starvation and to bring him up as his sorcerer's apprentice as well as otherwise devoting himself to living like a hermit.
But then something extremely odd happened. Joker decided to found a religion, the Claudandus cult, a hodgepodge of martyrological mysticism, flagellation rites, and resurrection hocus-pocus. And, that being not enough, he bid farewell to his hermit ways as well, going out into the big wide world to disseminate his doctrine with great fervency so as to convert all his brothers and sisters to Claudandism. Why the switch? There was no doubt that Joker was a religious creature through and through. But what sort of interest did he all of a sudden have in inspiring the entire Felidae world with the Claudandus teachings? In this regard, it was of paramount importance to remember that Joker, unlike Jesaja, had never broken off contact with the aboveground world. Had he become acquainted with someone up there who had persuaded him to take this decisive step? Who was this someone? The Prophet himself?
Second: who was the Prophet? According to the legend Joker passed down, Claudandus, a perfect saint, had called upon God because of his unbearable suffering, had had his prayers answered, and ascended into heaven. Yet, according to Preterius's notes, Claudandus was in reality a pathetic laboratory animal. Nobody knew what his fate was in the end, although it might be supposed from a logical point of view that he died quite miserably as the result of his injuries. (And by the way, what actually happened to Professor Julius Preterius?) If you took Jesaja's account as a starting point, then the Prophet was the murderer, or rather a brother who in the guise of the Prophet bumped off his brothers and sisters for unknown motives. However you looked at it, the only one who really knew about the real, or phony, Prophet was our dearly beloved Father Joker.
Third: I thank a brilliant flash of inspiration for the following:
The murder of Solitaire and the six preceding it did in fact have something in common if you considered Felicity a special case because she must have been a witness whom it was absolutely necessary for the murderer to silence. Both the male victims and the Balinese had been busy doing the same thing, namely, producing offspring. Whether this was also true for the society of skeletons surrounding me I obviously couldn't verify, but I had to assume it for the time being. Accordingly, one possible murder motive was that the killer detested offspring and so killed those of his brothers and sisters who were about to beget or were pregnant with offspring. He might even have murdered—and the idea made me shudder—infants! But which offspring were undesirable? Which race was to be eliminated to its very last member? European Shorthair? Russian Blue? Balinese? Or did the bogeyman have a murderous aversion against Felidae?
Fourth: Mister X had known how to hide his disgraceful deeds splendidly for years by shoving the corpses down into the catacombs. He had even found a sucker to lug them into safe hiding, thus shielding them from all too inquisitive eyes. (A) How had he hit upon this neat solution of getting rid of the corpses? Through Joker? Perhaps. (B) Why had he so abruptly discontinued a practice that he had been fond of and that was so ingeniously practical? Had he come to regard himself of late as so unassailable that he no longer took any precautionary measures? Perhaps.
Fifth: what goal was the Claudandus cult or Claudandus doctrine pursuing? Admittedly, this question sounded somewhat silly at first. Naturally you could just as well have asked why something like religion existed at all, one of the answers to which, surely, was that every thinking being possesses religious sentiments and somehow has to express them.
