Footprints, a piece of cloth and a large number of missing cats

When Cog Wheele returned to his office he already knew what he needed to do. Using the internal tube communication system he called one of the constables from the open space across the hall. After a short while, a knock sounded on his door.

`Enter,` he called and a constable entered his office.

`What can I do for you, sir?` the constable asked when he assumed an Attention position.

`Here is a list of people,` said Wheele and handed said document to the constable. `Take two other boys and go around the houses.`

`What should we ask them?` inquired the constable scanning through the list.

`We need everything they can tell us about their missing cat,` said the detective. `And also if they know about anyone else who is missing a cat. If they tell you a name add it to the list and question them as well,` he added.

`Yes, sir,` saluted the constable. `Me and the guys will go right away,` he put his hat on and left the office. Cog Wheele got up as well, left his office and went downstairs to the forensics lab.

Behind her lab bench stood Dr Gloria White. She was dressed in her white lab shirt, heavy leather apron and to her glasses on a sophisticated hinge was attached a powerful magnifying glass. Her haircut was, as always, slightly ruffled. When detective entered the lab she was bent over something in a petri dish. When she noticed him she raised her head, smiled and moved the magnifying glass away from her eye.

`Oh, hi Cog. How are you?` she asked in a jolly voice and tried to stick a lock of her hair behind one ear, which she failed as it sprung straight back in front of her right eye.

`Hi, Glory,` smiled the detective. `I’m very well. And how about you?`

`Good, good.`

`Do you have anything for me?`

`Nothing much,` she said as she circumnavigated the bench and waved the detective to join her. `The boys found a number of calcea vestigiae, which won’t be any use, five fumus relicta and one amitus praesegmen. Otherwise, it's all a various type of inluvies,` she said in a speed of a machine gun.

`OK, Glory, you are doing it again,` laughed the detective. `Please once more, slowly and, if you can, leave out the old language.`

`Oh,` said Dr White her face suddenly a shade pinker. `So,` she started again noticeably slower. `There is a number of shoe prints, five cigarette ends and a piece of cloth. Everything else is just muck,` she translated and continued. `Those shoe prints could have been left by anyone. The dog ends were stumped into the ground and were there for some time, so, most definitely, useless as well. But the piece of fabric is much more interesting,` she said as she produced a small tray with said cloth on it. `It wasn't there a long time. I think it could have been from the perps clothing. I’ve been testing it against our uniforms and Mr Brixton's clothing, but it’s a completely different type of fabric.`

`Any idea what it could be from?`

`Who do you think I am?` she asked with a hint of comedic irony in her voice.

`Sorry,` said Wheele with his hands raised open palms front. `I forgot you are a genius non plus ultra,` he added with a smirk.

`And don’t forget it next time, mister!` Gloria returned the smirk. `It’s a black cotton-based fabric used because of its high light absorbency mainly for drapes in projection rooms, for its fine consistency as a particle filter in vacuum cleaners and also for long black cloaks. Expensive ones. The last one is the most probable of those. If it was from a vacuum it would have a large concentration of particles in the middle and I reckon there are not many projection rooms around that alley, let alone in the whole district.`

`Well that’s something,` said Wheele rubbing his chin. `If I bring it to you, would you be able to identify the object from which it came?`

`No problem there.`

`Great,` said the detective with a smile. `Need to go. If you find anything else, let me know or tell it to CIS and I’ll pull it out from it,` he added and left through another door to the autopsy room.

CIS is an analytical engine that is so large that it surpasses means of the usual computational mechanics. This machine is built into the basic structure of the city itself. When it’s creator prof. Dredger built the first processing unit with its memory banks and turned it on, he to his great surprise found out that it has developed consciousness.

Its terminals are just input/output consoles placed all around the city. They are mechanical stations that look like a classically designed bureau with a keyboard and a daisy wheel printer. Everyone can use these terminals to store or retrieve information after passing an identity confirmation and users right to access the requested data. And because CIS is highly intelligent, this check is almost impossible to cheat.

`Hello again,` said Dr Mureani when the detective entered the autopsy room.

`Hello, doctor,` answered Wheele. `What do you have for me?`

`Not much more than before,` said the pathologist. `As I said in the alley, the cat’s throat was cut in a way that made her bleed out as fast as possible. I guess she already spent all of her nine lives,` he smirked. `Otherwise, there is nothing of interest on the outside. But I found some black fibres in its lungs. I think it’s cotton, but let Gloria confirm that. I was just about to send it to her.`

`Great!` said Wheele. `It should help. Do you want me to take it to her?`

`Yes, detective. At least you will save me the long thirty meters trip to the lab,` smirked the doctor.

`No problem,` answered the detective with an overdone bow. `Anything else?`

`That’s all for now. If I have anything else I’ll give it to CIS,` said the pathologist and after the leaving detective added: `Hope you’ll catch that felicidal maniac soon.

When Cog Wheele reentered the lab, Gloria was just changing a cylinder in her phonograph.

`Have a present from the doctor, Glory,` he said.

`Just a minute,` she replied over her shoulder as she finished her battle with the cylinder. She placed a needle above the first groove and a fast neo-dixie song filled the room.

`Show me,` she said when the detective joined her at her bench.

He handed her the package with fibres from the pathologist.

`Can you tell me if these are from the same fabric as the fragment you found?`

`I can do even more,` she smiled. `I can tell you if they are from the same item.`

She took the package, tipped it’s content to a petri dish, selected one fibre and put it on a glass slide. While she was looking into the microscope fiddling with the focus knob she said: `By the way, the cloth fragment is most definitely from some sort of long cloak. I found some particles of dust and mud like it had been dragged repeatedly over the ground.`

`That's quite an important piece of information,` said the detective.

`And this sample is definitely from the same cloth. Can you see the particles?` she showed the detective the eyepiece of the microscope.

`I’ll take your word for it,` he answered not being sure he could distinguish a dirt particle from a dust mite.

`They are the same as on the fragment. And it’s not the dirt from the crime scene.`

`Even better,` said Wheele. `That means the cloak is most probably killers.`

`You see?` said Gloria making a coquettish pose. `I’m a genius!`

Cog Wheele was just about to leave when he had a thought.

`Oh, Glory, please don’t put the last info into the CIS. I wouldn’t like for this piece of information to get to the wrong hands. Just to be sure: don’t tell it to anyone.`

`No problem,` she winked. `Your secret is safe with me.`

The detective winked, with a two-finger salute left the lab and returned to his office, where he started sorting his thoughts. He populated his blackboard with diagrams, clues and ideas and connected them with a web of lines. From time to time he crossed the room and added some data to the CIS terminal. When he was done he sat down and kept staring at the blackboard.

After about twenty minutes someone knocked on the door.

`Enter,` said the detective.

`Have some news for you,` said the constable who entered the office.

`Give me,` ordered Wheele.

`After questioning all the people on your list the three of us compared notes and found out we had fifteen extra people. So we divided them as well and questioned them as well.`

`That’s a lot of cats.`

`But that’s not all,` continued the constable. `When we met again, we had another thirty names between us and those pointed us towards another ten. All of them told more or less the same story. They saw the cat, the cat went outside and then there was no more cat.`

`That gives us in total sixty-five missing cats,` counted detective Wheele.

`That sounds like we have a serial felicidal maniac,` smirked the constable.

`Where the hell did you hear that expression?`

`Met dr. Mureani in the corridor,` he answered.

`I thought so,` smiled the detective. `Anything else?`

`That’s all.`

`Thanks,` said Wheele. `Dismissed.`

When the constable left, Cog Wheele went straight to the inspector’s office. He gave the usual wave towards Mrs Hargate, who waved back and continued her work.

`What do you want,` asked inspector Nollan when he saw the detective.

`That case you gave me looks more interesting than it appeared,` he said. `It started with one dead cat.`

`A bloody cat?` inspector asked. `It’s not worth the resources.`

`Well we do have the time,` answered Wheele. `Anyway, I found more people were missing their cats, so I sent few boys to ask around and so far we discovered sixty-five missing cats.`

`Bollocs!` said the inspector. `That’s a lot of mislaid felines.`

`That it is.`

`Well, get on with it. It should be a case for the property squad, but as you already started, you can try to finish it as well.`

`Naturally,` said the detective as he left the office.