"You think that the fair creature I met and her fellow kind are the product of natural selection?"
"That seems plausible, although I can't refute your theory because I lack supporting evidence for my own. But then I have good old probability on my side."
The old fart was a genius—I had to admit it, no ifs, ands, or buts. For while I was concocting ingenious hypotheses and devising abstruse reasons and justifications for them, Pascal, putting the horse in front of the cart and not the other way around, had started out first from probability and natural causes. I made the mistake of erecting speculative castles, all the time ignoring that things like chance and peculiar coincidences also existed in the world. In other words, Pascal had a logical but simple way of thinking; although also logical, mine was complicated.
"When will you ever be wrong, Pascal?" I sighed in resignation. "If you don't mind, I'd like to postpone our next exchange of views until tomorrow so that I can keep at least a few shreds of self-respect."
Darkness had fallen in the course of our conversation, and through the glass wall behind my dark-haired teacher I saw that an eerie gloom had now descended upon the snow-covered gardens, robbing even the romantically downward lilting snowflakes of their brightness. Suddenly, I had the whimsical notion that the landscape in which I found myself, dominated as it was by the color black, was a sort of negative film of my last dream.
Pascal noticed my dreamy look and shook his head, smiling in amusement.
"Oh, no, my friend, you are the real know-it-all. Only you can contribute the decisive flash of insight that will solve this mystery. I, perhaps, possess a good grasp of the facts and the gift of sober ratiocination, but I lack inspiration. And without that, any genius will get stuck. The very worst scourge of our time is its many half-formed talents who so grossly overestimate themselves. But I know where I stand."
I wanted to protest, except he was looking right past me and got up from his cushion with a haughty expression as if he had seen something behind my back that displeased him. I turned around quickly and saw a heavily panting Bluebeard, transformed into a shapeless snowball, come hobbling in through the doorway. On the fur of his coat icicles of considerable size hung, and his nose glowed like a ripe tomato. I thought I perceived a mixture of annoyance and despair in Pascal's face that only the coarse and inconsiderate behavior of the intruder could have caused.
Our crippled Eskimo left behind himself great tracks of slush and little pools of water on the freshly waxed parquet floor. But he carried thoughtlessness to an extreme when he stopped just before us and shook himself powerfully to get the snow out of his fur, showering not only the floor but us in the process as well. Pascal moaned softly and shook his head almost unnoticeably. But thanks to his elephantine sensitivities, Bluebeard noticed nothing. Our host made no reference to Bluebeard's scandalous entrance and kept his customary silence.
"Where's Joker?" I finally asked him; the tension was getting unbearable.
"Not there. Vanished."
"What does 'vanished' mean?"
He squatted down on his sopping wet rear and shook himself once again.
"I got into the house through a basement window and searched the joint from top to bottom for the Reverend. I even got as far as this frigging stock room in the attic, which was pretty creepy because the shelves there are bursting with statues of us, life-size. Tigers, jaguars, and leopards too, all piled up on top of one another. Everything porcelain and real as life. But no trace of Joker. Anyway, then I went around calling and calling him and almost ruined my voice in the process. When that didn't do any good, I asked around in the neighborhood. Everybody says they haven't seen him since our last big get-together."
"Murdered!" I screeched.
"No, vanished," said Pascal coolly. "He knew that you were very close to nailing him, and blew town as fast as he could. That would be just like good old Joker."
"Damn. That's just like that jerk!" agreed Bluebeard.
"Now just wait a minute!" A cold anger overcame me. "I refuse to accept a solution as cheap as that."
"You don't have to accept it," said Pascal to pacify me. "It's only one possibility. But at present, and given the circumstances, it seems the most probable one. In any case, at least we now know that Joker was up to his neck in this mysterious affair."
"He's gotta be!" parroted Bluebeard self-importantly. "That self-righteous mug he walked around with all the time is proof enough. Though I was always dumb enough to go along with that Claudandus hocus-pocus, I never did trust that phony goody-two-shoes. Guilty, I say!"
Pascal could no longer bear the sight of my disappointment. He got down from the cushion and came up to within a few inches of me.
"Why are you refusing to accept this outcome? Why fight inalterable facts that are irrevocable and that do not admit any other conclusion, at least for the moment?"
"Because they don't ring true and they don't add up. The information I have gathered—as incomplete as it may be—does not necessarily indicate that Joker comes into question as the murderer. The whole affair is like a painting that has been put on display for sale whose authenticity every specialist will attest to, but which in reality is a counterfeit."
After we had exchanged opinions, Pascal and I decided to use the computer in the coming days to narrow down how many victims had been
