Black cloak, cellar and some hydraulics

When they got to the crime scene, dr. Mureani and the crime scene investigation squad were already packing up their kits and one by one disappeared towards the police station.

`What have you found,` asked Wheele the doctor.

`In general, the same modus operandi as the last one,` he answered. `The cat’s throat was cut to let it bleed as fast as possible. There is anything elseI’ll tell you after the autopsy,` he added and left after the last forensics group.

On a spot where the cat lied was a puddle of blood. There was blood splatter, that indicated the manner, in which the perp threw the cat when he got interrupted by the vagrant.

`Come here, Cog,` called Gloria. The detective was so immersed in his thoughts he didn't notice she ventured a little further from him. Now she was huddled about ten meters from the detective investigating something on the ground.

`What do you have there?` he asked.

`Another fragment of black fabric. The boys must have missed it.`

`Pack it up,` said Wheele and handed her a paper bag they used for collecting evidence. Gloria, not noticing it, fished out a baggie of her own with a pair of tweezers, with care bagged the piece of cloth and after labelling it put it back into her purse.

`I guess you are a copper through and through,` smiled Cog.

`I’m a modern girl,` she answered. `We need to be ready for everything.`

`I guess that’s it,` said the detective after another five minutes of combing the alley. `Let’s head back,` he added, offered her his arm and they went back to the station.

When they got there Gloria went straight to the lab and started analysing the evidence. The detective went up the stairs to his office. There he sat behind his desk, sorted the new findings and added them on the blackboard and to the CIS terminal. He had a nagging feeling he forgot something important.

After about a half a picture formed in his mind. It had the shape of an interview room. He jumped up at once and darted straight to the ground floor. As he entered the reception room he stopped for a bit to get his breath back. When he did he straighten his vest and jacket and entered the interview room.

It was a classic soundproofed room with a giant mirror set in one of the walls behind which was a dark room for other people to watch the suspects. Professor Dredger about a year ago also figured out a little acoustic contraption made from a brass tubing with a funnel on the observer's side, a mica membrane in the interview room and a valvular conduit in the middle, so spectators could hear what was going on while their comments were completely inaudible for people inside the interview room.

Gregory Higgins was snoring a little sitting slumped in a chair head on a table. The detective shuffled the other chair in u room making a deliberate noise. Result of that move was that the vagrant jumped up a meter high after which he was suddenly fully awake.

`That was uncalled for, guv,` he said sadly when he sorted out his bearings.

`Hello, Higgins,` sad Wheele. `They told me you saw the whole thing.`

`I sure did.`

`Spill it,` said the detective as he sat down.

`Well, I am slumpin’ in an alley and suddenly there is some kind of rumble. I wake up and see a bugger in a black robe holding a screaming cat by the scruff of its neck. In the next second, he fishes out a knife and cuts its throat.`

`Have you noticed what kind of knife it was?`

`Not sure, guv. But it looked silver and thin. It seemed to be polished like a mirror.`

`OK. What happened next?`

`That bugger grabs the cat by its tail and holds it upside down. The blood is running down like a beer out of a tin. After a moment he notices I’m there, he throws down the cat and skedaddles.’

`Have you seen what way he ran?`

`Towards the factories, I reckon.`

`I guess you haven’t seen his face?` asked Wheele with a doubt in his voice.

`No, guv. The bugger had a hood over his eyes,` said Higgins. `But the cloak was sort of rugged. And I think he hobbled a bit. Sort of lame on his left leg.`

`Thank you, Higgins. That’s all for now,` said Wheele. `You were actually helpful today. Do you want me to set you loose, or do you want to go into the drunk tank for a bit?` he asked just before he left.

As mentioned before, SA district wasn’t a nice place. So the detective's offer of time at the drunk tank wasn’t a threat but a treat.

`Shove me in the drunk tank, if it’s all the same, guv,` answered Higgins. `I was freezing my bollocks off outside.`

Wheele nodded and got out of the interview room. At the main reception area, he gestured towards a constable.

`Throw Higgins into the drunk tank,` he said. `Leave him there until tomorrow and then chuck him back out.`

`As ordered,` saluted the constable and disappeared towards the interview room.

As it was getting late, Cog Wheele decided it was time to call it a night. Doctor Mureani wouldn’t give him anything new until the morning anyway.

In the morning the detective stopped at his office only to discard his coat and hat on a coat hanger and headed straight to the autopsy room. Dr Mureani was just washing his hands. The cat on the autopsy table bore signs of the pathologist’s work, but it was already sewn up and prepared to be stored in an icebox.

`What did you find?` asked the detective.

`Nothing much,` said the doctor closing the water tap. `It’s the same situation as the Brixton cat. I’ve sent everything interesting to Gloria. She will tell you more.`

`Thanks,` said Wheele and trough the next door entered the lab.

Gloria sat in her comfy chair and listening to lively ragtime was writing to her notebook. When the detective entered she raised her eyes and smiled.

`Oh, hi Cog,` she said enthusiastically.

`Hi Glory,` he answered in a similar manner. `Do you have anything new for me?`

`You bet,` she said and snapped close her notebook. `I found slivers of Argentum in the wound.` As she said it she shook her head and corrected herself. `I meant silver.`

`That would be probably the blade. Higgins said it was done with something thin and silvery.`

`That would be my guess as well. The wound looks like being made by something of that description. Next, there is the fabric, we found,` she continued. `I didn't notice it at first glance, but this one is covered with a mixture of industrial lubricants and swarf.`

`What’s swarf?`

`That’s the fine metal dust you get when two metal things are rubbing together. Like gears in a machine.`

`Any idea what can I make from it?`

`Well you could mix it with glue to make a stronger bond,` she said smiling and continued in a serious tone. `But this mixture tells us the fabric was present around heavy machinery. Analysing the lubricants it was most definitely from some kind of hydraulic device.`

`That sure helps us. Hydraulics are made only in IN1 but they fit and test them in Southeastern labs of IN4. And that is right behind the wall of our district on the level of the Factory Street I,` said the detective.

`And that means the perp is often present around the last block of the eastern side of Factory Street I,` summarised Gloria.

`That would be the case,` answered Cog. `And that’s the way Higgins said the perp run after he scared him.`

`I can narrow it down even more,` Gloria raised her index finger. `Taking to account the concentration of said debris on the fabric it must have been somewhere really close to the wall. When I found the swarf I tested the first cloth fragment just in case and found it there as well.`

`So they were from the same piece?` asked the detective.

`No, it was undeniably two different pieces of the garment,` said Gloria. `But they were running about the same area.`

`That means multiple perps.` deduced Wheele.

`But I also found traces of some mycelia.`

`A what?`

`Sorry, Cog,` she blushed. `There were some fungus spores.`

`And that will tell us what?`

`I was getting to that,` she said with satyrical angriness in her voice. `That means you need to look for a cellar type of place. This kind of fungus is usually found in dark and very damp places.`

`Wonderfull,` he said with a huge grin on his face. `There are only two cellars in that area. Thanks, Glory,` he added, grabbed Gloria around her waist, dipped her in a beat of the still playing background ragtime music, kissed her on a mouth and run out of the lab.