Victor Hart Volume #2

Victor Hart: Case#7 Chapter 11

Victor and Lenora took a mainspring taxi to Alice Caughlin's house. Victor hadn't taken note of the street name so he had to describe it to the driver based on its proximity to the water tower. This had caused some confusion as the driver didn't know what a water tower was, but in the end they found the road with the diagonal gardens.

The taxi pulled up in a parking space almost directly outside the building and they got out and walked up the path. Victor had half expected to see Alice in the garden again, but it was now empty. There were no steps before the front door, just a small alcove around it.

Victor pulled the chain that rang a bell inside the grey-bricked building. Soon after the noise sounded Victor heard a distant thud of footsteps on a landing muffled behind the door. Whilst they waited for it to be answered Victor pondered what he would say to Alice,what means he would use to get the truth out of her. Several Patterns shuffled through his mind's eye from the deck of possibilities, however when the door was opened a man with a short white beard looked out at them.

"Yes?" he blinked at the unexpected visitors.

The surprise of seeing this man caused Victor to falter.

"Is Alice there?" Victor asked.

"Alice?" the man looked confused. "Do you mean Gladys?"

"Alice Caughlin?" Lenora clarified.

The old man scratched his head, "I don't know any Alice..."

"A black woman, pretty," Victor pointed in the direction of where he had first seen Alice kneeling in the garden, "was doing your garden the day before yesterday..."

"There is a girl who comes to do my garden sometimes," the man pondered, "but she's white and her name isn't Alice."

Victor had another realisation. There was no Alice Caughlin, she was an actress, that's why she hadn't wanted to go inside the house, it wasn't her house – she probably didn't even own a key. Someone had hired her to fool him, but who and why?

Lenora gasped; she must have made the same realisation.

"We must have the wrong address," Victor smiled, "thank you for your time."

The man closed the door and for a few moments Victor and Lenora stood on the path in stunned silence.

"Well," Lenora pointed out, "that was unexpected."

They turned and walked back towards the gate, Victor was looking down at the floor with a thoughtful frown on his face.

Victor decided he needed some time to think about what was going on. He needed to get back to his room at the King's Arms and have a lie down, let the thoughts percolate.

Whatever or whoever had been messing with him had revealed information about themselves and their motives through their actions, but it wasn't clear as yet what it all meant. He needed some thought space to collect his ideas.

He managed to get rid of Lenora by the combination of feigning a headache and promising to contact her if anything about Caughlin, Geppetto or something associated should come up.

Victor got back to his room at the King's Arms and poured himself a glass of water. After taking a sip, thoughts of his earlier Lycergic Tryptamine poisoning flashed through his mind so he poured the water down the sink and let the tap run to flush the system through.

He laid down on the bed and let the trickle of water clear away any physical distractions so his mind could fully focus on the problem.

They had been leading him somewhere, but where? What was their endgame? Even if Victor had accepted that Caughlin was Geppetto as the fake clues seemed to be suggesting what purpose would that serve? In and of itself it was pretty useless; the trail to find Caughlin was cold as the trail to find the real Geppetto, it only led to a dead end. As it seemed somewhat impractical, perhaps the reasoning wasn't rational, maybe it was emotional... but why?