“You did,” Tom said impatiently. “I am really wondering why you visited if you intend to sleep between every couple of words you utter.”
“Can’t ever sleep at home,” he said. “Kids and their mother, not to mention the leaking faucet that drips out of tempo.”
“I can send you my plumber, if that will help,” Tom said. “Now if you don’t have something useful to tell me, could you please just leave?”
“No,” the Inspector said, standing up, and pulling his sleeves down. “You’re the only one who can help me.”
“Help you?” Tom walked back to his desk and sat. “What are you talking about?”
“I have important information that no one thinks is important, not even Margaret Kent.”
“Then maybe it’s not important.”
“Of course it is.” Inspector Dormouse yawned. “You will be interested, I’m sure.”
“Why so sure?”
“My information concerns Carter Pillar.”
Tom wasn’t interested yet. Though he wanted to know more about The Pillar, he sometimes preferred not to. The professor had been a headache when he was in the asylum, and Tom still had nightmares about The Pillar escaping his cell without anyone seeing him. How did he do it?
“What exactly do you know about The Pillar?” He asked the Inspector.
“I know why he killed the twelve people.”
“Come on,” Tom puffed. “Don’t tell me the professor had a meticulously calculated reason to do this.”
“It’s stranger than you’d ever think.” Inspector Dormouse sounded awake and alert. “Did you know that the twelve men had something in common?”
Tom tilted his neck, interested.
“The twelve men The Pillar killed were using fake names.” Inspector Dormouse said.
Tom didn’t see how that played out. It seemed strange, but not something that would interest him. “Fake names, you say?”
“All of them,” the Inspector said. “They’ve changed their names sometime around the last five years.”
“Are you saying they did it at the same time?”
“In the same year.”
Tom itched his neck. The thought of popping down another pill occurred to him, but he didn’t. This seemed to go somewhere. “Is that all?”
“I wouldn’t be here if it was,” the Inspector pulled out a long list of names and shoved it toward Tom. “This is a list with their names before they changed them.”
Tom put on his glasses and began reading. Most of the names were foreign, not English, but that was all. “If there is a catch about this list, I’m not catching it.” He told the Inspector.
“Of course, you wouldn’t,” the Inspector said. “Neither did I in the beginning.”
Tom grimaced, his face knotting, waiting for the Inspector’s punchline, which didn’t come. Instead, he watched the Inspector yawn and fall asleep while standing.
“Inspector!” Tom rapped upon his desk, thinking about those pills again.
“Ah,” the Inspector woke, stretching like he’d been napping for an hour. “So where were we?”
“You said there is something special about the twelve men’s names before they changed it. What is it?”
“All those foreign names on the list are a translation to one name in English.” The Inspector said.
“One name?” Tom grimaced. “Are you saying the twelve people The Pillar killed shared one certain name — in different languages — then changed it to a fake one in the same year?”
The Inspector nodded proudly.
“That’s odd,” Tom said. “Definitely interesting. But I don’t see how this exposes The Pillar’s reason for killing them.”
“Not when you know of the name they all shared in the past.”
“Is that relevant?”
“Most definitely.”
“What is that name?” Tom asked curiously, not expecting the Inspector’s answer.
It was such a strange answer, so much he had the Inspector repeat it to make sure he heard it right the first time.
“Carter Pillar,” the Inspector said. “The twelve men shared the name of Carter Pillar.”
Chapter 49
Close to Kalmykia region, Russia
“What are you doing?” I ask The Pillar, as our balloon floats into more visible grounds.
He looks up from his phone, which he has been using to play chess for some time. “I’m playing chess against the computer.”
“I see that,” I say. “You’ve been clicking buttons like a child for half an hour now.”
“I have the strongest thumbs.” He grins, still staring at the screen of his phone.
“The weakest mind, too.”
“Love you when you’re nasty like that.” he clicks a side button and plays a song, which has the lyrics saying ‘I’m feeling kinda mean… blah, blah, blah.’ “It’s a song by Double Vision.”
“So?”
“I need to feel mean and practice chess in case we’re playing against the Chessmaster with Carroll’s pieces.”
“And a couple of computer games will make you good at it?”
“I am playing against the commercialized version of IBM’s Deep Blue.” He still grins like a child, making a move against the machine.