"Edmund," the commissioner acknowledged me – a first.

"Sir"

"You look pale."

"I’m fine, sir," I replied, although I knew something had changed the moment the gun was fired. I pocketed my right hand.

He noticed it but did not say anything.

"That's the problem." he muttered, just loud enough to be heard.

A single window outlined the space, with the tinted glass absorbing most of the light that passed through it. The rest was dark and untidy.

As I recounted the night before in detail, I couldn't help but notice that the man was ordinary. Although a tyrant, he wasn't the monstrous kind I was expecting. He was well fed and held an air of superiority around him, tapping his pen throughout the narration — it was suffocating, and the enclosed room wasn't helping.

"Did you check the proliferator's body?"

I half-opened my mouth, wanting to tell him the truth, but I couldn't bring myself to. "No, sir."

"Why?"

The word hung in the room; with each echo, the mind replayed the terror that I had felt. It wasn't that I didn't have an answer to it; I didn't want to say it out loud.

He continued, talking about civil duty and responsibility, unaware that I myself had doubts about it the other night. At last, when he had stopped, I was free to leave and investigate further.

The victim was identified as the curator of the same museum and didn't have anything of importance on him, other than a pen, a phone book and a pocket knife. The proliferator, on the other hand, to no surprise, was Harold Descartes. In his pocket was a book, which I kept for later.

Knowing this, I set out to Harold’s residence, hoping to find a clue to his motive.