“What about the silver bullets?” I asked, just in case. “Why’s the gun loaded with silver bullets?”
“Come on,” Hinkus explained condescendingly. “Lead bullets aren’t any good against werewolves. Champ made some up beforehand, just in case. He showed them to Beelzebub and said, ‘Rock the boat, and here’s how you’ll die. Remember that.’”
“But then why did they stay in the inn?” I said. “They tied you up and then stuck around…”
“That I don’t know,” Hinkus admitted. “That I don’t understand myself. When I saw Barnstoker this morning, I was flabbergasted. I thought they’d have taken off a long time ago, vanished without a trace… Huh, it wasn’t Barnstoker, of course, but at the time I thought it was Barnstoker… Yeah, Beelzebub is here, but why he stayed, I don’t know. Maybe he couldn’t get through the avalanche either? He may be a wizard, but he’s not God. For example, he can’t fly, everyone knows that. Can’t walk through walls either… However, that woman with him—or whatever it is—could clear up any obstruction in a second. Instead of hands, he could’ve attached scoops to her, like a dump truck’s, and that would’ve been it…”
I turned to Simone.
“Well,” I said. “What does science have to say about all this?”
The look on Simone’s face surprised me. The physicist was taking it seriously.
“Mr. Hinkus’s arguments contain at least one very interesting detail,” he said. “Beelzebub is not omnipotent. You see that, Inspector? A very important point. And very strange. One would think there would be no laws or limits to the fantasies of such ignorant people, but there are… But then how was Olaf killed?”
“That I don’t know,” Hinkus said firmly. “I don’t know anything about Olaf, Chief. I swear it.” He put his hand over his heart. “All I can say is that Olaf was not one of ours, and if Beelzebub really did finish him off, for a reason I don’t understand… Then Olaf isn’t a person, but some kind of creature, like Beelzebub himself. I told you already, Beelzebub isn’t allowed to kill people. He’s not his own worst enemy—you understand me?”
“Well, well,” Simone said. “So how was Olaf killed, Inspector?”
I briefly laid out the facts for him: the door locked from the inside, the twisted neck, the spots on the face, the pharmaceutical smell. I watched Hinkus the whole time I was talking: he twitched, shivered, his eyes darting all over the place, and finally, asked desperately for another sip. It was clear that all this was new information to him, and that he was so scared he was practically shuddering. Simone frowned deeply. His eyes had grown vacant, and his yellowish, shovel-shaped teeth were barred. When I was finished, he swore softly. He didn’t say anything else.
I took a sip of cognac and treated Hinkus to one too—we were both feeling under the weather. I don’t know how I looked, but Hinkus was quite green; from time to time he touched his head carefully. I left the physicist to his thoughts and started in on Hinkus again.
“All right, Finch—but how did you manage to track him down? You didn’t know beforehand what form he’d taken…”
Hinkus smiled, looking smug despite his greenish tinge.
“You aren’t the only ones who can track people down, Inspector,” he said. “First of all, Beelzebub may be a wizard, but he’s also a fool. He drags that trunk around with him wherever he goes. It’s the only one like it in the world. So all I had to do was ask around until I found out where the trunk had gone. Second, he’s got money to burn… Whatever he pulled out of his pocket, that’s what he paid. People like that are rare, as you yourself know. Wherever he’d been, they only talked about him. There’s no trick to it. Generally speaking, I find who I’m looking for… That Barnstoker turned out to be a mistake—I can’t deny it: the old man pulled the wool over my eyes. Those damned lollipops of his… And then, I go out into the lobby, he’s sitting there alone, thinking that no one was watching him, holding some kind of wooden doll in his hands. You guys should have seen what he was doing with it!… Yup, I messed up with that one, of course…”
“Not to mention that he was always with that woman…” I said thoughtfully.
“No,” said Hinkus. “The woman isn’t necessarily always with him, Chief. When there’s a job to be done, he gets her from somewhere… And anyway, she’s not a woman, she’s some sort of werewolf like him… No one knows where he stows her when she’s not around.”
And then I caught myself: there I was, a respectable, experienced police officer, no longer a young man, sitting discussing werewolves, wizards and sorcerers completely seriously with a partially insane criminal… I looked at Simone guiltily, but found that the physicist had disappeared, and that in his place, leaning against the doorway, stood the owner with his Winchester under his arm, and I remembered all the hints, all the little conversations about zombies, and his fat index finger wagging meaningfully in front of my face. I felt even more humiliated; I lit a cigarette and with deliberate severity turned to Hinkus.
“Enough. Have you ever seen the one-armed man before?”
“What one-armed man?”
“You were sitting next to him at the table.”
“Oh—the one wolfing down a lemon… No, that’s the first time I saw him. Why?”
“Nothing,” I said. “When was Champ supposed to arrive?”
“That evening. He didn’t come. Now I understand: it must have been the avalanche.”
“Then what were you thinking when you attacked me, you idiot?”
“What was I supposed to do?” Hinkus said wistfully. “Put yourself in my shoes, Chief. The police weren’t going to give me any breaks. I’m a wanted man, I’ve earned a life sentence. So I decided: grab the gun, break some heads if I have to, and make my way to the blockage… then I’d either find my own way through, or Champ would pick me up. Don’t think Champ’s sleeping on all this either. The police aren’t the only ones who have airplanes.”
“How many people is Champ bringing with him?”
“I don’t know. No less than three. But of course, they’re the best…”
“All right, get up,” I said, hauling myself to my feet with no small difficulty. “Let’s go, I’m locking you up.”
Hinkus got up, moaning and groaning. We went with the owner down the back stairs, so as not to meet anyone on the way. Nevertheless, we ran into Kaisa in the kitchen. Seeing me, she screamed and hid behind a plate.
“Don’t scream, you idiot,” the owner said strictly. “Get some hot water ready, bandages, iodine… This way, Peter, put him in the storage room.”
I inspected the storage room: it looked fine. The strong, reliable door locked from the outside with a padlock. There were no other ways out—not even a window.
“You’re going to sit here until the police arrive,” I told Hinkus as I left. “And don’t try to do anything, or I’ll shoot you on the spot.”
“There you go,” Hinkus whined. “The Finch is under lock and key, meanwhile that one walks around free, nothing sticks to him… It’s no good, chief. No justice… And I’m wounded, my head hurts…”
I didn’t get into it with him, I just locked the door and put the key in my pocket. I had accumulated quite a number of keys so far. A few more hours of this, I thought, and I’ll have to carry all the keys in the inn.
Afterwards we went to the office. Kaisa brought the water and bandages, and the owner began to straighten me out.